cusco

Cusco is a wonderful city. I loved the old cobbled streets. it is an old city and u can see alot of spanish architecture happening near the main square (again a very spanish concept). i was pleasantly surprised to find mud houses within the city too. Although it is extremely touristy, it was still not as crowded as it can get. Plus u need to know the right places to go to in order to escape the crowd. And this I learnt from Brett (a friend who happened to be at the jam too). he is particularly good at smelling out places to eat that serve great local food. He introduced me to the local market, where u can get anything u want. Under one (huge) roof u find fresh veggies, llama woolen clothes, fresh fruit juices, grains, herbs, all sorts of corn and potatoes, gift items, meat, cheese (yummy), incense and stuff for the traditional ceremonies and a huge variety of freshly cooked food. As u go deeper into the market, all your senses are tingled one by one, row by row. At the food area, you can choose between a hot, delicious soup or rice and vegetable (and meat) soup, or a traditional dish with fish. The list is endless and everyone sits on the benches facing the counter where your meal is cooked. As u walk into the food section, u r lovingly invited by numerous cooks to their stalls. Every stall has something different cooking, so u can choose and sit wherever and no offense is taken by the other stalls. And so cheap!

I was reminded of our kisan mandi, only difference being that this place had a lot more, and the wonderful smell of dust was missing.

Another place I liked was not so local but had amazing smoothies; jack’s café! Touristy to the core, it had nice sandwiches and as I said smoothies and a very cute waiter! I also fell in love with their strawberry and banana fresh juice. Just opposite jack’s was a place I can’t remember the name of. What I do remember is the live music; some Latin concoction with traces of jazz and a very flirty guitarist.

There were a lot of bakeries too, which looked great from outside, but that’s all I can say. I never managed to go into any of them.

On my first day in Cusco, while walking around the market, we walked into a small street with small touristy shops. The kinds u find in Macleodganj. So while we were just looking around (and I was admiring myself for being able to resist the temptation to buy everything from each shop), a Quechua woman came out of her shop and invited us in. she was quite persistent so we went. She pressed crystals in our hands and told us to keep it in our hands whenever we felt low in energy. She was a round, old woman with a very serene face. We asked her about the music she was playing in the shop. Suddenly she got very excited and started dancing to it and invited my friend (who had been talking to her in Spanish) to dance with her. Slowly all of us shed our inhibitions and joined them in their circle of dance. It was great! Such was the spirit of Cusco.

peru: part 2

At the jam, I met Elaina. She works with what is called cultural affirmation. I also met some young kids who had accompanied her from a village where in their school, they were reviving their culture, traditional songs, dances, dresses and farming methods. The organisation which Elaina works with is the well known, PRATEK.

So when she told us about a particularly bad experience that some quechua people had at Machu Pichu, I decided not to visit the very famous touristy spot of Peru (plus it was appallingly expensive). But everyone else from the jam still wanted to go. That was still my second week in a strange country where people speak a language I never considered seriously and of trip that was about to get a little adventurous. I found no one to stay back with me at Cusco. So I ended up going. By the way, one of the many things I learnt on this trip was to expect the unexpected and never say no to doing something, coz u may just end up doing it.

Well, I of course had prejudices about the place, so I didn’t enjoy it too much. But I still don’t think that is it. All the talk about it being a very ‘spiritual place’, din work for me. I just couldn’t connect to it. It was extremely beautiful specially because we left early morning and found it covered with mist. I somehow felt more connected to the earth at Chinchero, the village where we were hosted for the jam than at this once sacred site for the quechuas. It probably still is, but tourism tore it apart. I shouldn’t whine, I was a tourist there too, and I think I carried that guilt mostly through Peru and Bolivia.

There were good times too, of course. I had fun with my newly made friends from the jam, whom I had accompanied to Machu Pichu. And I guess I had to see the place to decide I wouldn’t go again. So it was all for the good.

started here: the jam (part 1)

the jam is a gathering of young leaders from different nations of the world, who are taking small steps to bring about change in their own communities. we spent a week together, sharing our lives, ideas, music and dances. this year's gathering was in Peru. it is organised by YES! (youth for environmental sanity)

The first few days at the jam, it was difficult for me to understand the whole thing about being indigenous’ and the white racism. I thought “surely the white aren’t so shameless”. But as I got deeper into conversations and tried to keep myself open to other views, I realized that, that in fact, is true. It is really amazing how all our countries are still colonized, even with the colonizers sent away. And their long distant colonizing tools were their language (for example English in India and Portuguese in brasil) and colour of the skin.

And then in India we don’t have white ruling us anymore but colour is still an issue. I guess I could not understand what Lorna, an aboriginal young girl from Australia, was saying because I don’t always connect oppression with only whites. In my country, there is racism within the same colour. It’s either between people from one state and the other or between the north and the south. But we don’t try to finish each other (except for the tribal of course). So I couldn’t see the fact, which I later understood, that the white governments in such countries have had a systematic plan in their policies to finish people of another colour. And I don’t think finish here is a wrong word.

When Lorna spoke about being aboriginal, she seemed to blame everything her people were going through on the white government. I agreed with her for only some extent. For example she was talking about violence within her people. She said the whites were making that happen. But somewhere in this process her people have made their own choices. So I wonder if blaming has also become a comfort zone for some people? But then I think of all the indigenous movements. Such people also made choices.

And it was these choices that had brought some of us together for a week in Peru. It seemed to me that we were celebrating these tough, but powerful choices that we had made in our lives.

Along with these questions, I was also discovering a lot of things about myself. I was receiving a lot of hugs and care from everyone. And with all this coming my way, I found confidence in myself and did not feel I needed to justify myself. I was calm and rational. When I spoke, I knew what I was saying and I chose just the right kind of words. I was a different person. Everybody around me appreciated that and many commented that I brought tranquility. But now when I’m at home I’m restless and anxious about something I can’t put my finger on.

And this is what I liked about the jam: there was no differentiation between work and personal life. So there weren’t too many discussions about world issues. We all are well aware about them. Rather, there were people sharing about themselves, about their lives. And through that we got to know about each other’s work and struggles.

People, for a change were actually listening to each other and not reacting or just talking. And for activists, that is commendable!

kush and koyal on a tree at santiniketan. the s"shanti" at the deer park kinda stayed...