Deccan A Box

I quickly tired of wandering about the northern edge of the Deccan, so I decided to travel south and get all up in its guts. Its miserable, dessicated guts.

I crossed the state border into the northeastern Karnataka and immediately discovered why not that many people come around here: it is unrelentingly and unforgivingly hot and dry. This is the sort of place where daily average temperatures should be expressed in scientific notation but are typically expressed in expletives. Here's another unnatractive quality of the place: the food is terrible. Thus far I can't say I care for South Indian food. It consists entirely of unflavored rice cooked to order in the following variety of ways: dosa, fried and battered rice dough in the shape of a giant triangle and served with sambar and chatni; idli, a patty-shaped lump of mushed rice served with sambar and chatni; uttapam, a lightly-toasted mushed rice pancake served with sambar and chatni; vadar, a deep-fried rice dough donut served with sambar and chatni; and rice, a pile of rice served with sambar and chatni. Though made of a highly nutritious grain (rice), these dishes are usually so airy and puffy that they cease to quell hunger after a distressingly short time. How they even grow rice around here is a mystery to me. Presumably they need plenty of water, but the land is incredibly dry and the hue and texture of the soil suggest it should be about as fertile as a golem's womb. If you need further evidence that the people of this region could use a cooler climate and heartier meals, consider that the half-sleep of a typical bus here is about 5 kilometers, the "half-sleep" being a measure of human decay describing the travel distance after which half of a vehicle's occupants will be sleeping, unconscious, or dead.

I stopped first in the city of Bijapur, which like the rest of northeast Karnataka is decidedly provincial in character. It was for a couple centuries the capital of the Adil Shahi dynasty, a family you need know nothing about except that they were one of several Muslim dynasties ruling parts of the central Deccan around the 16th and 17th centuries before falling to the Mughals, and they built a bunch of shit. It was this shit they built which enticed me thence. Bijapur is one of those cities that has decayed in a good way: it hasn't grown much bigger than it was in its prime, and it's so unimportant and sleepy now that you can walk down most streets without being hassled with postcards or being hit by a bus.

And the Adil Shahis' shit was certainly impressive. The town is most known for the enormous tomb of Muhammad Adil Shah, a structure known as the Golgumbaz, an Urdu word which translates roughly to "Big-ass Dome". It is topped in fact by the world's second largest dome, only slightly smaller than the one on St. Peter's Cathedral in Rome, a detail nobody in Bijapur will let you forget. The people of Bijapur possess that charmingly provincial quality of assuming that since people from all over the world come to see it, the Golgumbaz must be "world-famous." Show of hands: who here has actually heard of it? I promise not to tell the Bijapuris. They're too nice for me to break their hearts. When you go inside this tomb, you first notice how plain it is, and that it earns all its grandeur from its size. You look up and say "yup, that's a big dome" and you're about ready to leave. Then you notice amongst the clamor of echoing shouts and wails that nobody around you actually has their mouths open, and you see people milling about the base of the dome high above. You climb up about eight floors through one of the buttressing towers, and then re-enter the building at the terribly misnamed "Whispering Gallery". Perhaps in more refined times, when the lowly commoners knew their place or at least basic manners, the Whispering Gallery was used for its intended purpose: having incredible acoustics that whip even low whispers audibly around the circular base of the dome to the opposite side of the gaping hole above the massive cenotaph chamber. It also affords an incredible perspective of just how incredibly large the dome is, and how far one would tumble over the low bannister. Nowadays of course it is the "Fucking Loud As Shit Gallery" because people have discovered that it is even more fun to make your shouts three times as loud than it is to make your whispers reasonably audible. I don't really mind the noise in and of itself (this is India after all), but I find it slightly sad that every single person testing this remarkable feature uses it to shout "CAN YOU HEAR ME?!?!" when we could have fucking heard you already, you bloody twit.

The other relatively well-known monument in Bijapur is the Ibrahim Rauza (which was a gorgeous tomb-mosque pair in a tranquil garden), exactly on the opposite side of town. The majority of visitors who even bother with two (most stop by the Golgumabaz and get back on the tour bus) take rickshaws or horse-drawn tongas across the city. But I said "No! I shall walk, dammit!" It was a rewarding decision. I first headed to the Jumma Masjid, the Sultans' greatest mosque, which was graceful and pleasant to the eye. From there though I resolved to keep walking in a straight line until I crossed the city. I couldn't walk very far at a time, because every few minutes I would stumble across another little unremarked domed tomb or mosque, tucked away through alleys or in random people's back yards. I would approach through the enclosure's gate, threaten to kick the various barking dogs, and say hello to whoever of the family was home, relaxing with a cup of tea and admiring the nobleman's tomb they were using to store spare buckets and attach the far side of their laundry line to. I later had tea with a journalist from the Deccan Herald, and he told me that there are no less than 94 nationally protected monuments in Bijapur, which he claims is the most of any town in India. He entreated me to highlight in my writings that many of them are suffering due to encroachment. That is to say, basically because tourists haven't heard about them nobody gives a shit to watch over them, and people turn them into houses and barns and the like and damage the structures by drilling holes and adding beams to tie up their buffaloes or whatever. In one case this casual coexistence may be charming like I described, but in many other cases it can cross the line into endangering historical treasures.

Aside from generally bitching about the Deccan, this area has some appeal otherwise I wouldn't be here. One of my favorite things about Karnataka, and South Indian states in general, is that the writing is awesome. Kannada, the language of these parts, isn't even my favorite but there is no denying that the script kicks ass. It looks like this:

(This is a list of actual Karnatakan place names in Kannada but not a real sentence)
ಕರ್ನಾಟಕ  ಬಿಜಾಪುರ್  ಬಾದಾಮಿ  ಪಟ್ಟದಕಲ್  ಬೆಂಗಳೂರು
Like I said, awesome.

Now, on a completely unrelated subject, you may think Google is the ultimate search engine for all purposes, but this is not true. In my line of work I get to learn that there is a certain pleasure in loading up AskJeeves.com (now the sadly Jeeves-less ask.com, but imagine he's there) and inquiring of the affable chap "Which testicle did Lance Armstrong have amputated?" and "Do whales have vaginas?" My employers demand the strictest accuracy from my reporting. Also, if you accidentally enter "ghostfacebuddha.blogspot.com" into a Bing search bar instead of the address bar, this humble blog turns up on the page for entries 81-90 of the query ""i am" + stupid".

Back to India. From Bijapur I moved on to Badami, an even more provincial town that was also a grand capital back in the day. In this case it was the seat of the Chalukyas, a Hindu dynasty whose empire was around from the 6th to 8th centuries and at one point ruled most of southern and central India. There were of course temples and fortifications up on the cliffs above town, and the by-now wearying sight of cave temples, but the true appeal of Badami is in its setting. It lies beneath a horseshoe of bright red stone bluffs with a shimmering lake in the middle. Wandering about the edges of town and up above the cliffs, I noticed that the geology here has a distinctly wild-west flavor, with dramatic outcroppings of rock glowing in the sunset, and even a showdown-worthy road called Main Street. I was seized immediately with the desire to film a Bollywood Western, with Indians as the cowboys, Indians in makeup as the Indians, and myself as the anti-hero. This is how I envisioned one of the key scenes:

"Stop! Are you not Deadeye Dravid?"
"I suppose I am."
"Are you the rapscallious villein who has stolen my cows!?"
"Well, that's a-dependin' on if it was your cattle I was a-rustlin'"
"Return them to me at once, you foe of dharma, you treacherous dacoit!"
"I'm afraid I can't do that."
"You don't mean..."
"I do."
"No."
"Yes. It's too late for your precious steers."
"You....you..."
"I bitch-slapped your cattle, pardner"
"REVOLVERS AT NOON, VILE FIEND!"

I climbed up to the aforementioned cave temples past a sign that proclaimed, in three languages "BEWARE OF MONKEY MENACE". I was unimpressed. They seemed more concerned with sitting on rocks and drinking from discarded bottles of orange Slice and they hardly seemed menacing to me. Then, as I descended, a school group was coming the other way and a screeching rhesus monkey assaulted a girl, pulling violently at her dress until she shrieked and tossed away her package of creme-filled biscuits which it gnawed at through its half-open packaging with relish.

I felt like walking around the rim of the lake. Little did I know this would begin one of the weirdest mornings of my time in India, a superlative I do not grant lightly. I approached the edge of the lake, only to find that the bottom of the ghats were completely flooded. I was just about to walk in the opposite direction when the example of two Indians showed me what to do. For a moment my life ceased to be a movie and became a videogame. I found myself compelled to climb with some difficulty onto a chest-high ledge sticking about five inches out of a decorated waterside wall. I then had to shimmy sideways on this precariously narrow ledge above a body of vile green slush, pressing my body against the wall and gripping onto small ornamental outcroppings with my hand. The distance was some 30 feet, but progress was slow, not least because at some points I had to make dramatic duck-and-swoop movements along stretches of the wall where the tiny handholds were covered in monkey poop.

From here, already a bit exasperated at the travails required for a simple circuit of the lake, I pressed on through an overgrown, boulder-strewn path lined with sharp thorns. Through the thornbushes I caught a glimpse o what was unquestionably a painted concrete statue of grooming chimpanzees. Why the fuck this town needed to be reminded of monkeys, why the statue was of African monkeys, and why it was over here in random, hard to reach bushes were all questions that racked my brain. I pushed onwards, and soon discovered to my indescribable pleasure and confusion that just ahead were some rather over-the-top statues of cavemen. I shielded myself from the thorns as I went further ahead and found that this entire unvisited side of the lake was dotted with dozens of statues that chronicled, in hilarious fashion, the evolutionary and technological development of pre-historic man from ape to the dawn of war and religion. Here there would be agroup of terrified cavemen approached by a tiger. There there would be hairy-ass people launching the first canoe. As the figures grew more and more modern, and more and more Indian in appearance, they started wearing clothes, domesticating oxen, and falling in battle after being speared by an elephant-riding warrior whose weapon was nowhere to be seen.

As I delicately passed through this wild garden of delights, I found my path completely blocked by a trio of buffalo. There was no way around their leader, and up close one becomes acutely aware of how damn big they are and you reflect that their 16-inch horns aren't for nothing. However, I remained calm and found icy resolve in my training as a buffalo-herding warrior. Mere inches from the beast's horns, I raised my hand the High-Claw Tiger Pimp position. I then shouted "AAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!" and began the Flying Swan Slap, halting my attack in Hooker Cowered pose as the buffalo retreated before I was forced to administer the actual blow.

The remainder of my explorations of Badami were not quite as intense. Aside from some trivial bribery for trespassing, the most memorable moment came when I attempted to wipe perspiration from my brow. I swept my hand across my forehead, only to find not sticky, wet sweat but a flat, dry surface covered in small mineral grains, like a tabletop where a toddler has tried to salt his french fries but missed the plate. It is too goddamn hot.

I day-tripped to Pattadakal. Don't bother. It's another Chalukya capital, widely hailed as one of the cradles of Indian architecture. I was interested because it was said to have a number of "test-temples", some of which became prototypes for all Indian temples thereafter, and others which were supposedly unique because they tried innovations that nobody ever took up. I was excited for a little variety, but when I arrived only a few of the temples could even elicit from me a reaction beyond "My, my, that is a little curious." Here are the sort of innovations I am talking about. I had to take a photo to get the content of this sign right but it reads: (and just imagine I put [sic] everywhere)

GALAGANTH TEMPLE. This temple facing east built around a.d. 750 was originally a large one, probably having on plan garbha grima with pradakshina patha antarala entered by eastern door way. Sabha mantapa and mukha mantapa but last two are completely missing. The most striking feature of this temple is its majestic shikhar demonstrated an evolved state of rekha nagar prasad raising in four stages surmounted by amalka and kalasha. The easterned side of the shikhara had sokamasa projection evident by existing side walls. The deva koshta on the other wall of ghana dwara on the wall of the pradakshina patha flanked on either side by windows are empty except the southern ghana dwara accomodating a beautifully carved sculpture of eight-handed Shiva as Andakagurumardana. A testimony of the achievmen in sculptural art. Another note worthy of antarala having bas reliefs of Ganga and Jamuna on their respective vehicals at the bottom and elaborately carved Nataraj accompanied by musicians on the lintel. The close sytlistic resemblance betwee the Galaganath Temple and those at Alampur sugests that it was constructed by the craftsmen brought from Alampur in Andhra Pradesh.

I actually understand half this shit and I still don't care. The prototypes were even less interesting, because like all prototypes they were fairly small, old, and basic. They were faded from 1200 or more years of weather, had no active temple life, and offered no interesting new themes. Of course not. The rest of India adopted the same ideas, then built them bigger and better.

On the way back to Badami I had the pleasure of sitting at a bus stand next to a man who was curled up in a corner and laughing at nothing in particular. I was called onto a private minibus, a rattletrap no doubt, but the fastest way back. Then I noticed the bus driver was blind in one eye. And there are people say private enterprises don't need to be regulated. Of course some smug dickwad libertarian will come up to me and say "The market will regulate itself. Rational actors in the marketplace will of neccessity require that bus drivers possess proper depth perception." Then I will say to them "Counterpoint: India". Even so, douchebag will respond that that might be the way things are in India, but not how they are in a properly rational country like those in the West. You see, India may be fucking insane, but you could hardly call the West full of reasonable people either. I point this out. Then I call him a racist. Game, set, and match.