Sublimity…

Before I begin, a little intro to this entry. I planned it out in my head this afternoon as I wandered around the bazars near the clock tower in the old city of Jodhpur this afternoon, but later – as I was sitting at the rooftop resturant of my hotel watching the sunset against Mehengar Fort and drinking a sweet safron lassi (Indian miracle yougurt drink) – I realized that my chosen title (above) fit perfectly with some other things I wanted to say about today. Therefore, this entry is in two seperate parts, tied together by location and a common title. Enough explaining, on to the story.

Reason 1: To put all the things I want to buy

Everyone says that India is a shoppers paradise, and in many ways it certainly is, but at the same time, it can be shopping hell – both for the reasons you’d expect (which in India means the reasons you wouldn’t expect) and reasons you wouldn’t expect. The reasons you’d expect are simple enough to list (but impossible to understand without being here, and even then difficult), and include things like: air pollution, crowds, omnipresent garbage, inflated prices, bargining, persistant annoying shopkeepers, touts, tiny crowded shops, heat, noise, odours etc. However, it is one other reason in particular that is relavant now. Let me explain…

Here in India, everything and anything is available, and unlike other places where we use this motto as an expression knowing it to be untrue, in this case it is. There is the little qualification that you need to know where to look (which can be difficult/frustrating) but we’ll leave that aside for now. In some ways this is a blessing, but at the same time it is also a serious problem. When you go off into the bazars here, you never know what you’ll find, sometimes it’s the thing you’ve always wanted (and always known you wanted), sometimes something you just stumble apon and ask yourself how you’ve survived without this until now, while other times it’s things that are so silly/hideous that you would never dream of buying them. Here in India, the good stuff is GOOD, but by the same token, the bad stuff is TERRIBLE, and my experience so far is that the junk outweighs the treasure by at least 10:1. This means that any time I go into the bazar, the chance of finding something cool is quite diluted by all the junk, and makes the experience frustrating as I have to wander through all the crap in hopes of finding “gold”. In addition, the extra time wandering without finding treasure means I’m more likely to be influenced/annoyed by the regular hellish aspects of Indian shopping (listed above). However, the chance of finding gold is worth it, and even if I don’t, it’s quite an amazing experience just wandering around the bazars. You can quickly learn a lot about the place you’re in from it’s bazars, and especially when traveling, wandering through the typical Indian bazars is a bizzarely (hehe) refreshing experience after being subjected to all the hastles associated with the touristy parts of the city, people only give you funny (startled) looks but don’t bother you, they don’t expect and don’t often see foreign tourists in these places, and so they don’t really know what to do – which defaults to basically leaving you alone. So, as strange as it may seem, if you want to escape the hastle of India, all you have to do is dive right into the heart of it.

Tangent done, back to the story… This all relates to my current adventure becuase I’ve had the chance/time to explore a few different bazars in the last few days, partly just to explore, but also partly to find souviners. I’m in India – a place where there are so many wonderful things available for super cheap prices – and there’s a lot of friends back home I would love to get something for, especially with Christmas season upon us. However, I’ve had surprisingly little luck finding stuff so far.

Immedately, 25% of the stuff for sale here is food ingrediants, either fresh veggies, milk, eggs, bulk dry goods etc and so of little use to me (now). From the remainder, 75% is junk (plastic washing buckets, fake leather belts, ugly pre-made shirts etc). That gone, another 80% is useful things that I don’t currently have a need for, or don’t have space/weight allowance for (bike tires, engine blocks, electronics, hardware, amazing metal dishes/cutlery – I’d almost consider bring some home at the end, beautiful pottery, anything metal or large). After this is all set aside, there’s only 3.75% left that I would consider buying as souviners.

I’ve also realized just how hard it is to find meaningful souviners that are worth buying. As in most places, the majority of stuff for sale is basically “toursit trash”, trinkets and other gadgets that locals would never dream of buying, and when the tourists do buy it, it just ends of sitting on a shelf somewhere, forgotten. That aside, the two general categories left are art and clothing. Clothing at first seems so promising, every street here has several clothes shops on it, and there are whole bazars devoted only to clothes, but again, there’s a catch. While Indian womens’ clothing is beautiful, colourful, diverse and widely available, Indian mens’ clothing is the opposite. Basically, current Indian men dress in dull, drab trousers and collared shirts, most of which are now bought premade and are likely seconds from abroad. It’s a sea of plain blue, white, brown, black and grey, though simple plaid patterns can be found without too much trouble. Some of the shirts are nice, but they’re nothing I couldn’t get back home in Canada, and so while I have gotten a few (I didn’t bring many clothes, and they’re so cheap here!), they’re not worth sending as presets, or keeping as memories of India. As for the women in my life, I wish you were all here with me so you coud see this stuff for yourself and pick out something that you would like. The problem is that the style of dress here is very different, and while it looks gorgeous, it doesn’t really seem like it would be practical/possible back home (as Jesse so elegantly put it, “No one who actually knows what a saree is would actually want to have one in Canada”). Plus, I have no idea what to look for in women’s clothes, and don’t understand the purpose of some of them. Everyone tells me to buy some shawls for people, but I personally hate having stuff around my neck, and I’ve never really seen people wear shawls, so I’ve resisted. Then there’s the whole question of style, with clothing you can find some amazing things, but if your tastes and the receipiants tastes don’t match, it’s trouble, and it’s even harder here since it’s not just patterns/colours you’ve got to think about, but actual types of clothing as well.

Associated with clothing is jewerly, but again, men don’t wear jewerly, and the thought of me trying to pick out women’s jewerly for others just gives me the shudders. So, in essance, it all boils down to the fact that clothing isn’t a viable option for me at this point. So sorry ladies, you won’t be getting any of the amazing Indian clothing/jewerly from me becuase I just don’t have the foggiest idea of where to start (though if you’ve got your heart set on something from either category I’m willing to give it a shot – as long as you outline what you’d like, or give me free reign – otherwise I’m playing it safe, and will be looking for other things). It really is a shame becuase there is some amazing stuff here, but I’m just out of my element and electing to play it safe.

So clothing gone, only art is left, but even here there are problems. Fundamentally, art lies close to the “trinket” category, it’s purpose is purely visual asthetics and the chance of it getting put somewhere and forgotten is significant. Plus, art tends to either be large or fragile, characteristics that make sending it half way around the world difficult and expensive, and even here in India the items themselves can be pretty hard on the bank account. Of everything I’ve seen so far, the majority of stuff I’ve considered is either a painting or the most wonderful of all artistic inventions – the bedspread. The painting here is gorgeous and distinctive, and small paintings can simply be put in an envelope and sent with little fear of being destroyed. I have done this a few times so far – and I think they should work out well, but I’m starting to want to diversify a bit, and people only have so much free wall space. This brings us, finally, to the whole point of this post – Indian bedspreads.

Bedspreads are amazing, they’re just plain cloth and so aren’t breakable, extremely bulky or heavy (though not exactly tiny and light either), but they provide a large surface for displaying the best of Indian weaving/painting/dying/printing and are useful in the home and constantly in view and thus can be appreciated in the long term. In my travels so far – and even some in Mussoorie/Dehradun – I’ve seen thousands of amazing bedspreads in every colour/design you can imagine. Here in Rajasthan, the bedspread is one of the specialties, mostly done in an intricate block printed style with patterns of vines/plants intertwined with elephants and/or camels – they are simply stunning and so characteristicly Indian. Here in Jodhpur at least they are available everywhere, and everytime I go into a bazar, I pass at least two shops selling bedspreads. I’ve stopped to look at and admire many, but I already bought two bedspreads back in Dehradun at the Virasat festival, and the fact is, I only have one bed. Even if I only bought one out of every ten bedspreads I’ve liked so far, I’d have a collection that numbered well over twenty! Plus, some of my favorite patterns seem to only be available in double bed sizes and putting them on my one single would just look strange.

So to bring it all back to the title of this post, I need an Indian palace so I can fill it full of beds, and thus justify buying all the wonderful bedspreads I want! And while I’m at it, I’d also use it to buy some of the amazing crockery (that would break if transported) as well as some of the simple metal dishes/cups/cutlery that I’ve come to love here, and associate with India, but can’t really justify bringing back to Canada.

Reason 2: Because they’re so amazing

This entry was posted on Friday, December 9th, 2005 at 7:30 pm and is filed under India. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.