Amritsar

    Amritsar has a place which, for a British citizen or perhaps that of any former colonial power, raises unsettling questions. Jallianwala Bagh is a beautiful park situated a stones throw from the Golden Temple. It was bought by public subscription, a monument to a moment as crucial to the Indian national story as Hastings is to the English or the storming of the Bastille to the French.
    The etched signs pull few punches. They describe the abject slaughter of 379 unarmed and nonviolent protesters in the square in which the park is now located by British troops in 1919. The protest was against the Rowlatt Act which allowed arrest without trial of any civilian on the basis of only suspicion. Several agitators for independence had been arrested and moved to Dharmasala.
    Mistaking a crowd movement for a charge, Reginald Dyer ordered the opening of fire on 20,000 civilians. Hundreds were shot dead and many crushed against the walls and in at the bottom of wells that many jumped into a deep well towards the back of the square. Winston Churchill, himself no friend of Indian political rights, described the occurrence as "a monstrous event, an event which stands in singular and sinister isolation".
    This outrage was a spark which solidified the disparate and separated Independence movement behind Ghandi who went on to start the passive resistance and Quit India campaigns which ultimately, alongside post WWII bankruptcy and an anti-colonial Labour government, took Britain out of India 28 years later.
    It is a legitimate question to ask why we should dwell on these moments of history now buried beneath time and . But this is not an issue of self flagellation, just an understanding of what we have inherited from the past. To me at least, the ignorance of our country's previous excesses is alarming as it encourages distortion and a sense of unwarrented superiority..
    Most Britons who I have met moving across India have had the vague notion that the Empire was a benevolent and kindly influence - building railways, urban centres, legal systems and providing economic opportunities. This is certainly true for a relatively tiny Anglicised upper crust which acquired great wealth through trade and access to educational institutions.  Nehru, the first Indian PM, attended both Eton and Cambridge - somewhat ironically if you consider his instrumental role in the independence movement. Yet for the vast undulating majority these opportunities were not offered. At the time of the massacre only 10% of Indians were entitled to vote for a legislature rigged to favour pro British interests and subservient to Westminister. Few public services were offered outside the major cities, and a feudal labour and taxation system that resembled pre Soviet Russia which British textbooks heartily look down upon was in force.
    Perhaps the lack of awareness in travellers is explainable by the UK school curriculum. The story of Britain I was taught in history classes was a broadly glorious one, focusing on World War II, World War I, the Industrial Revolution and the development of the parliamentary system. All justifiable and worthy and should be taught. As a nod to our darker past the carving up of Africa was explored, and the horrendous nature of the slave trade, although guilt is mollified by the emphasis of Britain's outlaw of the slavery well before the US, Spain or Portugal. After being in India it seems utterly astonishing India is neglected entirely - a British Territory that contained a fifth of the world's population. Why? I don't know. Perhaps this has changed more recently? Perhaps it is because of shame?
    It is true that India's current economic position today - where 400m live in poverty - has much to do with appallingly bad policy adopted in the decades since independence, as well as structural issues such as extremely poor infrastructure and unsustainable leaps in population which are hard to attribute blame for. However the role of Britain in both suppressing and neglecting India's people, and its encouragement of the entrenchment of great inequality which has persisted to this day is not to be forgotten.
     There seems to me a perverse nostalgia in some sections of Britain for the days of Victoriana, perhaps built on the image that rises from history books of fighting the good fight for democracy in Europe. Those who pursue this partial history - and that is it all it is to me - would do well to think of the savagery the Empire that funded these advancements was partly built upon.

McCloed Ganj

     Raz swept us off the street promising a folk dance show which would enlighten us of Tibet's cultures core values and traditions. Perhaps we should have questioned this as he was wearing day-glo pink star shaped shades and a big mane of blownback Jimi Hendrix hair at the time, yet ever the earnest tourists we herded upstairs anticipating a a bit of packaged Tibeten culture. In the small rooftop bar Raz told us solemnly that he would now perform an tibetan prayer dance while he donned what looked like a smoking jacket. Playing a CD of suitably reflective chanting he then started to hop around the room and do twirls, all the time reverently looking up the the ceiling. There was nothing wrong with it per se except it was, well, a bit amateur. Indulgently we in the crowd nodded at each other and when he finished clapped in the encouraging way you might reserve for your musically challenged child's stab at their recorder recital.
     Another slower and slightly more surreal dance followed, seemingly influenced by Tai Chi, climaxing on a long awkward moment where Raz curled up on the floor for six or seven minutes while the audience glanced at each other nervously, unsure how to respond
     The third dance Raz ominously presaged with the comment that it would be "more modern". A few eyebrows were raised around the room, which turned to puzzled slightly apprehensive looks as the CD was started. A synth and saxophone soundtrack coiled out of the stereo, the sort of Casio symphony you might find in a bad eighties soft porn movie. Raz had now lost the jacket and was standing in what appeared to be a child's set of pajamas. Detectable shuffling had started to rustle in the audience, and that Raz was performing in front of the only exit was widely noted. We were cornered.
     What happened next is too traumatising to go into exact detail. Suffice it to say at one point I was licked, the fellow three seats in front was lifted by Raz while still in his chair and humped enthusiastically, Raz stuffed dumplings up his nose and blew them onto the ducking audience, a woman of 60 was passionately kissed, and finally we found out that under the pajamas Raz was wearing a thong. And under the thong nothing at all.

     In a weird way this tradition meets kooky modernist madness is an extreme representation of McCloed Ganj. I doubt many others Tibetan exiles here are parading around with thongs under their robes, but the culture is generally very schizophrenic. The Buddhist temple, the presence of the Dalai Lama, the museum and scriptual centre give McCloed its reflective spiritual credibility, drawing monks and dreamy soulful types seeking enlightenment. But around this core a booming liberal humanitarian fantasyland has been built with everything the compassionately inclined want to see for their donations - messages of peace, evidence of real poverty, and the ongoing drama and moral certitude of the injustice of the the plight of the Tibetan population in exile. Upon this a third layer of shopkeepers and humorous t-shirt sellers rests - the attendant decidedly non spiritual cacophony and comforts of free market globalised economics.
     The restaurants serve outstanding international food (I have had Italian here that is better than much I have had in Italy), the streets team with vast numbers of 18 year old gap year students passing on their dubious english to Tibetan monks. Beer is drunk in vast quantities and every second building is an intenret cafe. There a couple of really flashy shoe shops too, I suppose because this is the only part of the outfit the monks are allowed to customize. And some decent socks too as you can see....

Manali

A typically stunning mountain view

  Manali is an odd little town in an extraordinary setting. The Kulli Valley is one of those geological wonders where over thousands of years a tiny river has cut a wide and deep valley between snow topped mountains. You can walk amongst orchards and green pastoral land and into villages which have managed to hold onto their wooden traditional buildings in the face of the steel and concrete onslaught that tourism has encouraged.

A hippy salivating at the awesome
cake gorging opportunities

  Cider is served which is great as the dull thin taste of Kingfisher has been irritating me. And there are dozens of bakeries here selling cake to the multitudes of hungry hippies, stoned out of their mind on Manali Charras (a type of cannabis resin which is world famous). I have been working my way through Apple Pie, and Mud Cake, and Brownies with deep and satisfying relish. Nightfall has seen some predictably strange conversations with dreadlocked folk who possess strong opinions about witchcraft and the effect of wifi microwaves on the human brain.

  Biking has been fun, although brutal - 50km across the valley today and I am totally knackered.  Wondered around in the grasslands yesterday and followed the river up stream with my mouth gawping at the mountains. I was desperate to do some trekking but the passes are closed due to snow - apparently they only open May to September....!

Moody

Shimla

The Viceroy's Residence

    From the building above a fifth of the world's population was ruled up until the 1947. The Baronial style makes it look like it belongs somewhere in Scotland, reminiscent of a ritzy sort of private school or a manor house. In actuality it sits 2000m above sealevel in the hill station of Shimla, way up in North India surrounded by a mountainous landscape. The jurisdiction of the Vice Regal who sat within the building extended from the far edge of modern day Pakistan to the furthest side of Bangladesh, from the Nepali boarder down to the southern tip of Sri Lanka. The partition of India and Pakistan was drafted here, as were the terms of independence. Gandhi visited many times, as did Nehru. In some ways it was more important than Calcutta or Delhi.

A retro fire engine

  Yet for all its exotic history of subcontinent dominance central Shimla comes across as a slightly daft Victorian town suspended in the mountains. Mock gothic private residences, shabby hotels, a little library, a post office, a toy train that winds the five hour trip from the valley, a promenade that traces the back of the mountain where you can imagine the fine ladies wondering along a hundred years ago. It captures that quintessentially awkward and paralyzingly sentimental 19th century Britishness right down to an amateur dramatics society
     I happily watched a performance of this society at the theatre where I was delighted to see that the acting was terrible and the plot totally incomprehensible and bizarre - as everyone hopes from amateur dramatics. Something to do with a robot being stolen by Nazis or something. And the robot did a spot of really bad breakdancing at the end. Magic.

A perplexing part of the play when the robot was
imprisoned in what seemed to be a mosquito net

Chandigarh

The parliament building, a typically modernist building in this new city

     Chandigarh is sort of astounding. An entire city built out of nothing to house hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing from the brutal post partition wars between Pakistan and India of the 1940s and 1950s. It was ambitious, designed from scratch by a team of American architects at the behest of Nehru (India's first PM) to symbolise India's promising future. One of the architects died in the early fifties and Le Carbussier, the famous Swiss-French visionary, took charge from this point and the emergent metropolis took shape. Wide gridlike streets mixed with modernist apartment buildings and vast adminstrative and educational complexes. In many ways it was and is outrageously successful - today it stands as the richest and cleanest city in India. And while the central shopping district is reminiscent of the concrete travesty which makes up Stevenage's town centre (if you don't know Stevenage count yourself lucky - watch the film Boston Kickout) the gardens are magnificent.

The Nev Chand Rock Garden

  The Rock Garden is a bizarre subterranean universe of figurines made by a single man, Nev Chand, from 1957. He started the project in his own time, creating strange little characters out of bulldozed scrap from villages cleared to make way from the city. A civil servant stumbled across his menagerie in the forest and realised its worth, and the city planners gave Chand his own plump piece of real estate and workers to create a dedicated exhibition. It is really quite something.
  There is also a vast rose garden which stretches for a whole city block, and another half dozen parks and green spaces which vary in design, and the air is one of self satisfaction and contentment.
  Yet for all its Gallic modernist majesty the challenges here are large. The well designed and wealthy nature of the city has made it an understandable magnet for economic migrants, and Le Corbussier's target of 500,000 residents has doubled, thousands spilling over into shanty towns and slums on the city's periphery. Dealing with this is one of the great questions for the city's advancement. There is a distinct sense that the city is a pretence well beyond the reality of India, a bubble inflated which shows the sharp relief between those inside and those without this mid twentieth century fantasy. But then it is true without ambition there is no advancement.

This plan shows the grid structure of the city

Delhi - Patriot Games

  The roof garden of the Everest Kitchen lies six stories up above Parhanj, a grubby suburb next to New Dehli railway station. Within the open air restaurant I sat with a rag tag bunch of backpackers, Indian tourists and locals. The air was as thick with static tension as you could find in any tropical storm - India had around a dozen balls to beat Pakistan, their most crucial rival in any sphere of national consciousness sporting or otherwise. All the anxiety and expectation seemed to breathing, seeping and expanding up into the already hot and heavy city atmosphere.
  The thudding of Bangra beats drowned out the commentary so I went to look for the source over the railing down into the square below. Way beneath us a marquee tent had been erected, the sort of semi gazeebo sort you get at village fetes. TVs were scattered liberally around the place, keenly watched by the vast Indian crowd under the night sky. On a small stage troupes of dancers were performing to the music - rotating from traditional, bollywood and hip hop styles. The mood became ever more jubilant as each delivery was dispatched. The exceptional Pakistan bowling attack had not managed to blunt the razor of India's aggressive batting line up, Tendulkar in particular surviving dropped catch after dropped catch and two appeals.
  And now with the roles reversed Pakistan's batters were losing wickets too easily and accruing runs too slowly. The middle order was sliced away well below 200 runs. India is so attached to notions of destiny that it is common practice for new borns to have their futures mapped by astrologists, and the cricket team seemed to be marching towards their's.
  And then down to their last wicket Pakistan stood with Misbah-ul-Huq at the crease and Zaheer Khan steaming in. Huq skied the shot and was caught. India's victory was assured.
  From the balcony way above the scene around the marquee descended to total pandemonium. Almost instantanously from the moment of victory there was an explosion of people as they broke away from the pressing spectator crowd, the demented frenzied running with flags bending, thousands jumping and dancing and beating the air with their fist. And as these people expanded, so others from front rooms and restaurants poured into the square. Motorcycles and scooters with people piled up and honking their horns, running mobs screaming at the top of their lungs, a group of bearded men held a small child in an India cricket shirt above their heads, drummers thrashing out an almost military rhythm. The police arrived swiftly, perhaps anticipating a crush, holding their long cruel looking bamboo canes in their hands.  Yet there were broad smiles on their faces, illuminated as we all were by the sky crackling green and gold and white as it was lit asunder by fireworks.
  Passion is the only word for such scenes. Passion borne of triumph, community and perhaps other deeper things.

Camel College of the Great Thar

Desert is a richly freighted word - one that turns the mind to endless dunes, a relentless beating sun, oasis, turbans and camels - images supplied by Lawrence of Arabia, Disney's Aladdin and a thousand other romantic sand odysseys in film and on page. However the reality in the Great Thar Desert does not meet this dreamscape exactly. There are dunes but they are sporadic, and the unerring flatness of the scorched plain is scattered with scrubs and bushes rather than sand alone. The sun in March is not as savage as it might be, while there are no palms trees crowding the oasis. And the 'ships of the desert' in this neck of the woods are dromedary (one hump), not camels (who have two) - although I will grant you they are as keen on farting and spitting as their more famous brothers.....

One lesson learned is that camel riding is (very) sore. I'm writing this on the train to Delhi lying on my belly as I can't sit down normally. What path of evolution lead camels (and dromedarys) to such a bizarre and almost pneumatic method of walking I cannot comprehend. Yet they are sort of likeable in their non-plussed and slightly vacant way, despite the damage they have done to me.
The guides who took us were interesting. A set of three men (30, 26, 22) and a boy of fifteen. Although not related they did seem to have a strong fraternal bond, and a rich sense of humour. They also referred to their activities out here in the blasted plain as 'Camel College'. They  knew a vast array of languages from the tours - Rajan the 26 year old  - could speak English, Hindin, Rajistani, Mewar, Gujurati, Marahastra and Urdu. And they were also fine cooks, whipping up a rich and spicy thali - a kind of smorgasboard of anything from two to six or seven different curries served with rice, chappati and poppadoms.
We slept under the stars which were unbelievably bright and clear. Two Indian girls we were with were able to point out the reddish tint of dying stars and the vague haze of nebula in the sky - something impossible in the light polluted south east of England. These ladies, like a lot of Indians, were born astrologers so we were able to point out Orion and Taurus and the Great Bear. I even got the hang of it, and it is funny when you recognise these constellations you realise you have been seeing them all of your life. And I was struck how the familiarity of the night sky, the stars of which are roughly the same across the whole north hemisphere, invokes the strangest memories of places and times from my own life. And these past moments - looking up in the sky as boy in Sheffield or amongst lying flat on hay bales in Hertfordshire - were as far from the Indian desert as it is possible for the imagination to travel.  Yet the commonality of those star shapes brought them vividly to bear.

*Respect to Mum who pointed out that I was riding round on dromedarys, not cormorants which are a type of bird fond of water....