India – Sneha Dharwadkar

“Is this a class or a fish market?”

On 27th December 2014, a pleasant Sunday morning in Mumbai, I decided to join a friend for his field work. This is a little unusual. When I say field, I and many of the people I know, usually imagine it as some kind of forest-studying animals. This friend counts the number of boats arriving at Sasoon Dock, which will enable him to determine the fish stock coming in the fishing boats. So I joined him at Sasoon Dock. I must warn you that there aren’t going to be any pictures on this post as photographing is not allowed on the dock. To say that the fishing dock is a chaos is an understatement. Sasoon Dock is one of the busiest docks of the city and was built in 1875 (quite old, huh!) by a gentleman named Albert Abdullah David Sasoon (and hence the name).

“Sassoon Dock
What a place!
So many fishes!
So crowded!”

It was 7 AM in the morning and the fisher folk were already up and about, making sure their stock got sold fastest and in maximum price. There was just so much diversity of fishes in their baskets. Fishes, crabs, prawns, stingrays. I was lucky enough to see a hammer-headed shark (unlucky for the shark because it was dead). Walking around the dock seems like a challenge to your whole existence (No, this is not an exaggeration. Try walking on the edge of the dock with hardly 6 inches space to place your foot while a super pissed fisher woman pushes you because you aren’t walking fast enough while balancing yourself and trying not to fall off in the water).

While I tried walking in a place where it seemed impossible to accommodate a fly, the local fisher people gave me passing looks of anger, amusement, pity, ridicule and disbelief. The entire one hour at Sasoon dock seemed like a second just passed. I was so numb by so much chaos but was enjoying every second of it. Not to mention, the smell was mind numbing as well. Especially for me as I have never eaten fish in my life, except once when a well-meaning aunty in Kerala fed me fish trying to convince me that it was a vegetable. (I smelled of fishes for good two hours after I had said good-bye to the place. I like to believe that I stopped smelling of fish after that).

Having never ever been to any fishing market, I never quite understood the feeling when the teachers in the class used to yell at us naughty students in the class, the statement “Is this a class or a fish market?”. Teachers, take a bow. Sasoon dock felt like I was an ant in this giant world. With all this, the friend, walking ahead of me (totally comfortable with chaos and adept at walking amidst busy and angry fisher folk) explaining different types of fishing techniques, fishing nets, fishing boats, etc. while I tried keeping up with his pace, understanding what all he said, asking him too many questions (some inappropriate for the place, i.e. “Isn’t it illegal to fish XYZ fishes?”).

While walking, we kept talking, my mind struggling to concentrate between staying alive and grasping all the knowledge that my friend had to offer. Once I almost bumped into an 8-9 ft long and narrow lorry carrying fishes that an old man was pushing amidst the crowd, but an attentive young fisherman held my hand, fairly amused at my inattentiveness, his friends laughing at my expense. The floor of the dock was all wet (obviously) and the water was pushing its way through my sandals and my socks; wetting my feet.

The walk lead to a beautiful open place where we could stand peacefully, watching the open sea that gives us bounty of fishes to eat and livelihoods to so many people who brave the storms to go out in the waters to bring us food.

We stumbled upon a chai-wallah (Tea seller) and stood sipping the tea watching Gulls and Terns foraging in the open seas along with the men in boats, both communities aiming at the same goal: catch the most. The morning scene was beautiful. On one side, there was a busy chaotic fish market selling fishes and a part of the dock which was comparatively new, was relatively empty, fishermen standing in small groups, chatting, discussing their day to day lives and enjoying the morning sunlight. Mumbai had a pleasant weather compared to cold Ahmedabad. Mornings gave a feeling of chill but failed to trap us in sweaters (thankfully!) Eventually said goodbye to the dock, carrying with me lot of memories and fish smell.

Exploring Sanchi: Its History and Wildlife

I happened to visit Sanchi unexpectedly. While travelling to Bhopal which is a capital of Madhya Pradesh, a state in Central India,on 5th of June, I had a spare day in hand and since I had nothing better to do, I decided to pay Sanchi a visit. Sanchi is roughly 43 km from the city of Bhopal and is well-connected by frequent buses and trains. An hour’s journey and you reach Sanchi.

Sanchi has the oldest and most well preserves stupas in India. Not only stupas but there are temples, pillars and other monuments which record the origin, rise and the fall of Buddhist art and architecture in India from the period of third century BC to twelfth century AD, spanning the period of thirteen hundred years.

Sanchi is supposedly the birth place of Buddhism in India. The first stupa at Sanchi was built by the Maurya emperor Ashoka during his reign in 3^rd Century BC. It was a simple structure at first, later in First century BC four ornamental torans (gateways) were added to it.

Stupa 1: The main stupa. It has 4 torans (gateways)

Backside of one of the torans (gateways)

Stupa 1 and 3 have staircases to climb up for circumabulation (pradakshina)

carvings on one of the entrance of stupa 1

Over the period of time, many more structures were added. Today at Sanchi, we can see 27 monuments which include stupas, temples, pillars, begging bowl, monasteries, shrines, etc.

Sanchi is nested on a hill top of Raisen district of Madhya Pradesh. Being protected by the Archaeological Survey of India, wildlife flourishes here. I saw a variety of insects, birds, amphibians, reptiles and mammals during my visit to Sanchi. In birds, most notable sighting was of Crested bunting male and female feeding on the lawn in front of the Stupa 1, Brown rock chats on the stone structures, woodpeckers pecking on the grounds, sunbirds, tailor birds, Brahminy myna, Black drongo and Indian and Oriental Magpie robins. Common garden lizards were strutting in the lawns, on trees and on sheltered rocks. Butterflies like lemon pansy, blue pansy, yellows, blues, tailed jays were fluttering around and were a delight to watch. But my most cherished sighting was so unexpected that I almost squealed in delight enough to startle the animal.

A terrible picture of Crested bunting as a record shot

Chilled out Brown rock chats who let me come so close to them that I could take good picture even with my mobile!

While walking from the stupa 1 to Stupa 2, one has to climb down to a lower altitude. The stairs are made of stones surrounded by huge rocks and shrubbery. At the stupa 2, there is an artificial pond from where the pipelines carry the water to stupa 1. One of the pipelines was leaking a little and water was dripping out where many birds had come to drink water which had accumulated on the ground. I, being severely dehydrated from the hot summer of central India and temperatures flaring to 43 degrees and giving the feel of 47 degrees, went to this water and gave myself a good splash on face. Here is when I saw a movement and saw something like a mongoose hiding and watching me, equally surprised at my presence. I almost passed it thinking it was a common mongoose, but had to almost jump in excitement after putting back my spectacles on seeing that it was a ruddy mongoose! I had read a lot about ruddy mongoose and seen it in pictures and always wanted to see one myself, but this encounter took me by a complete surprise. I saw the mongoose a lot of times during my climb down to the stupa 2, but unfortunately, I wasn’t carrying my camera with me and mobile camera’s zoom wasn’t enough for the mongoose. But the sight of that beautiful mongoose with its tail tip pointing to sky as if an antenna will remain etched in my memory forever.

The habitat where I spotted Ruddy mongoose

A view from stupa 2 showing the path that leads to it and the greenery nearby

After climbing down to stupa 2, I dipped my feet in the pond, sat there observing many damselflies, dragonflies and skittering frogs that inhabited the pond and the lush green vegetation around it provided the much need cool air. That was the last monument to be seen at the place and after having a nice hot and strong coffee, I said good bye to Sanchi.

A stray dog cooling himself in the pond water

Enjoying the activity of dragonflies near the pond

Buddhism speaks a lot about non-violence, conserving environment and wildlife and about not harming the animals. The unplanned visit brought much-needed peace to my mind and the sightings of wildlife made one of the best ‘World Environment Day’s I had!

Mango trees are done fruiting by now. New leaves are budding as monsoon is on the horizon. There is a story of magical mango tree in buddhism. I saw this one in what looked like a mango orchard outside the stupa campus. — Mango trees are done fruiting by now. New leaves are budding as monsoon is on the horizon.
There is a story of magical mango tree in buddhism. I saw this one in what looked like a mango orchard outside the stupa campus.

Udaipur in Photographs: Day 1

Enjoy the Udaipur in many photos of its various delightful locales it has to offer. Drenched in history, culture and andcient traditions, Udaipur is one of the most favoured tourist destinations in India.

I was to bid Adieu to Ahmedabad, the city of Gujarat where I spent my past three and half years. Ahmedabad has many tourist destinations close by and Udaipur is one of them. Since I had never been there, I decided to travel to Udaipur before I leave Ahmedabad with two other friends. Just 261 km from Ahmedabad, it hardly takes 5 hours, an overnight journey by a sleeper bus and you are almost there. I left for Udaipur by a sleeper bus on the night of 1st April 2015.

The view from the inside of the bus that took me to Udaipur

I reached the next morning on 2nd of April 2015 and joined two of my friends who had already reached the previous day. We stayed at Lalghat Guest House, a comfortable hotel. You get a range of staying options, from a small single room with shared toilets (which are super clean) to lake-view room with a huge balcony all at a very affordable price.

2_1 — A view from the terrace of the Lalghat guest house

On the first day, we visited the Jagdish temple, dipped our feet and spent a lazy morning at Gangour ghat, had breakfast at Café Edelweiss and lunch at Lotus Café. Café Edelweiss is a nice cozy place to eat. The German Bakery in the café serves nice pastries, baked goodies and sweets.

The first place we visited in Udaipur. The Jagdish temple.

Jagdish temple was constructed by Maharaja Jagat Singh the first in 1651.

The temple is carved out from sandstones

The carvings at the temple show life of many Gods and Goddesses

Women going about their business while the tourists flock at Gangour ghat at Pichola lake

This platform at Gangour ghat is used for performances during Gangour festival. Everyday morning, people come and feed the pigeons. Parrots and cows join them too occasionally.

After having lunch, we visited monsoon palace in the afternoon. The monsoon palace is also known as Sajjangarh palace and was named after Maharaja Sajjan Singh of Mewar dynasty who built the palace in 1884. It is situated high in the Aravalli hills at the height of 932.6 MSL. Here you will come across a neglected board which informs us of the amazing architectural skill of the architects of those days in conservation of water.

As we entered the palace, we were greeted by a pleasant sight of a young kitten suckling on an old Labrador mother.

The cat baby and dog mother. The cat though believed that he was dog and refused to clean himself as cats usually do. Seen at Monsoon palace.

The monsoon palace at Sajjangadh once housed the Royals. Now it houses the nature. Swallow and wasp nests and beehive.

Sprawling city of Udaipur seen from the monsoon palace

A view from the balcony of the monsoon palace

Enjoying the serenity of the place. It was super windy!

We then hogged at an old sweet mart in the town. People travelling to Udaipur, do not miss moong dal kachori, pyaaz kachori, mirchi pakora and sweets at JMB (Jagdish Mishtan Bhandar) sweet shop.

Evening was spent watching a traditional dance and music performance at Bagore ki Haveli, located next to Gangour ghat. Everyday skilled artists perform from 7 PM onwards. The show is open to all after paying a minimal fee.

Very cool puppetry performance! Brought back lot of childhood memories.

Women performing dance which women of the earlier days performed doing their day-to-day chores. Quite talented women of those days!

This 68 year old lady performed a dying form of dance. Earlier, women had to fetch water from very faraway places. They kept themselves entertained by various dances and songs. — This 68-year-old lady performed a form of dance which is not performed by local ladies anymore. Earlier, women had to fetch water from very faraway places. They kept themselves entertained by various dances and songs.

After dipping our feet in the cool waters of Gangaur ghat and relaxing for a while, we had dinner at hotel Lake View, which true to its name, has a beautiful lake view. One can watch the serene lake waters and have dinner. We retired to bed after a busy yet interesting first day at Udaipur.

I shall share the interesting events of the second day in the upcoming post. Stay tuned!

Update: Udaipur in Photographs: Day 2 can be viewed here.