Good and Bad Luck

Today, I saw the Bara Imambara from the outside. It cost 300 rupees to get in and I have never heard of it before this week. I also saw the Chota Imambara, but went inside (for 10 rupees). Both are tombs. The inside of the smaller one (chota) was ornamented in colorful pictures and scale-down models.

Last night I walked through the richer part of town. The main street in Lucknow is called MG Road after Gandhi. It's ironic that the poshest street in every Indian city is named after the minimalist Mahatma. To speak of "Two India's" is too simplistic, but the difference between the old city and the new part of town in many cities is striking. There are sidewalks, wide avenues, fancy stores, bright lights, and beggars in the newer part of Lucknow. What makes that area really nice are the numerous lit statues and (what I think are) government buildings, which are pleasing to the eye.

I've had some trouble with the hotel. The power kept going out one day (localized only to my room and then only my floor), the cable goes out at night, and today I found a lizard in my room. I told the hotel staff about it and they didn't understand the word lizard. So I said animal. They asked (in a curt dismissive tone) like a monkey? The name is Hotel Mayur, come for the lizards and power outages, stay for the rude guys at the reception desk.

As I've hinted at, there a fine line between standing up for yourself and drawing yourself into a cultural or linguistic misunderstanding. It is a line that I have been on both sides of. One of the points I've been trying to make is that India is not the stereotypical "spiritual place" that Westerners view it as. It is a country that is really probably several in one. Those places have problems like anywhere else. Many people spend each day trying to make it to the next. There's poverty. There's pollution. There's garbage. But perhaps I have gone too far sometimes in trying to disprove this stereotype of the West, which is so far from reality. This is a special place. There are tiny rewarding moments every time you walk out of the door. The key is to catch them through everything else being thrown around. India is a place that doesn't apologize for what it is. Nor should it.