Because my time here at
the Institute is precious, I am only making two small trips out of Pune. The first is a weekend to visit the “caves” of Ajanta and
Ellora. Briefly, these are national park-like
settings consisting of temples carved into rock, the former dating from the 2nd
century BC – 600 AD, and the later from 600 to 1000 AD. I was prepared to be in awe – these are, after
all, World Heritage sites.
Here’s what I was NOT
prepared for…how incredibly fascinating and eye-popping the road journey itself
would be. With a few exceptions, I shot the photos from the car.
Between my hotel in
Aurangabad and Ajantha lies 120 km of countryside, peppered with farms and tiny
villages. In the beautiful and fresh early
morning hours of this two-hour journey, I witnessed rural India come to
life. Animals were being hustled along
the road to fields, adding a new dimension to the traffic. People were collecting ground water in stout,
silver containers, then carrying them on their heads home. Women were doing washing on the ground in
front of their cinder block and corrugated metal abodes. Men were opening up
their kiosk-sized shops and restaurants along the road, and already many men
were gathering at the tea stands.
Women
young and old, regardless of whether they were doing their food shopping,
laundry, working in the field or carrying water, were dressed in colorful saris. Each village had at
least one Hindu temple and many had a Muslim place of worship as well, both usually
very colorful.
Adding to the cacophony of
morning activity were the animals – dogs, cows, oxen, pigs, goats, the
occasional chicken...and camels – mingling alongside the villagers in the markets, around the
houses, and just out and about on the road on their own. We shared the two lane road with cattle carts
hauling harvests of sugar cane, the cattle’s horns painted bright colors;
elaborately painted transport trucks or “goods carriers” of all sizes from no
bigger than a rickshaw to a shipping container on wheels; rickshaws jammed with
male and female farm workers and the very occasional bicycle.
Then there is my personal
favorite – the motor bike.
Clearly the most
ubiquitous and economic form of personal transport, the motor bike seems to
morph, like Mary Poppins carpet bag, to handle whatever it needs to hold. The most common sight was a man and woman
together, the woman sitting side-saddle, her silky sari shivering in the
breeze.
Merchants loaded for
market were my next favorite.
My most-excellent driver,
Mahadev, and I made a game of finding the craziest thing on two wheels. Three teen-age guys…boring. A family of four…yawn. Four grown men….that’s a lot of
togetherness. A family of five (one was
a babe in arms)…getting more interesting.
Three guys and a goat…we have a WINNER!
Outside the villages,
which were never more than a ½ km along the road, was the farmland. I saw fields of sugar cane, wheat, and
onions, and stands of fig trees. At
first I thought the roadside was littered with paper, then realized when I
stopped to take a few photos that it was puffs of cotton blown over from the
cotton farms.
 |
| Cotton |
Tomorrow a bit about my
actual destination that day – Ajanta.
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