During my travels in Europe, I found that people eat "digestives" which are mildly sweet cookies that are supposedly good for you despite their white flour and invert sugar syrup content. Anyhow, I've started buying them in this part of the world for my sugar and white flour fix. I prefer McVittie's Whole Meal Digestives. They cost 15 rupees ($.30) per lil pack, taste like graham crackers, and are quite nice.
Anyhow, my second day in Jaipur consisted of a trying to rest my tweaky foot (before realizing later in the day that ibuprofen is a fantastic pain reliever) so I went to the Raj Mandir movie house where they play one Bollywood flick at a time. The joint is elaborately decorated inside and out with chandeliers and unlimited whimsy! The way it works is you buy a ticket beforehand ($2 for good seats) in one of 3 differently priced sections, Emerald, Ruby, or Diamond (I think) and you get an assigned seat. Then you go have some lunch and come back for the flick where you hang out in the lobby and local kids have their friends take camera phone pics of them with you, the westerner, then you go in, find your seat, watch the pigeon that lives in the theater fly around and try to roost semi-successfully on the screen, watch a bunch of adverts about the dangers of smoking and tobacco use and then finally the movie begins. And the crowd goes wild.
Dabangg 2 is, I assume, the second installment in the Dabangg eries about a macho cop who is a total badass who kills and beats the shit out of bad guys whithout breaking a sweat. His badassness is indicated by his deep voice, a little mustache, fair skin, shaved armpits, and a cute fair-skinned girlfriend who he tries make happy, but peeves every once in a while, only to win back her affection by song and dance number involving the entire town. I was pleased to see that his love interest was a "full figured" woman, one who would be assigned to ranks of "love interest's sorta chubby (by Hollywood standards) bff" in a Hollywood film. When our hero did anything macho, badass, or sexual in nature, the young men in the row behind me (and throughout the theater) would whoop, scream, and yell their approval at the screen, getting their kicks vicariously through #1 Indian man who I've since seen in lots of undershit and cologne ads.
In one scene at the beginning of the film, a bad guy was enjoying a cigarette. In each shot of smoke or smoking there was a bit of text at the bottom of the screen saying, "smoking is injurious to your health". Strange to see such government oversight in this instance where there is seemingly none in other areas where it would be of great use, such as...sanitation! After about an hour the intermission commenced and I, weighing the pros and cons of staying and watching the thrilling conclusion (badass cop effortlessly defeats bad guys who want to do bad things to innocent people and gets the girl then does a nice song and dance number) decided to leave and go to the Hawa Mahal palace in the old city where I hoped there would be less screaming. On the way, I saw my pal Ram chilling, seemingly waiting for a bus or something. In true Portland fashion, I avoided eye contact with him.
Hawa Mahal is a palace from the 1700s that's old, neat, beautiful, decrepit, and gives a great view of the chaos down below in the streets and back alleys of downtown Jaipur. I obligingly posed for a couple pics with kids and their friends. I also checked out some giant astronomical observatory right next door called Jantar Mantar that was built by some king to make sure he knew what time it was and when the next big eclipse would take place. Lots of sundials.
Then I wandered the streets jam packed with shops of all different sorts, but arranged by district, i.e. the cooking utensil district, the bicycle districts, etc. where every shop sells the exact same thing. Each bike shop sold the exact same crappy English single speeds and travesty MTBs. I don't know how they all stay in business being right next to each other selling the exact same thing. Maybe they each provide a different level of customer service that changes the price and customers can choose how they want to be treated and pay accordingly. Just a theory.
I walked back to my hood and ate one of the best meals of my life of dal and aloo gobi with chipatti for about $3 and went to bed happy only to wake up in the middle of the night not feeling quite right. I spent the first half of the next day chilling on the roof of my hotel, reading and getting a tan and felt like normal soon enough. It was worth it. I think.
Put that in your emerald, ruby, and diamond SkullBong and smoke it.
Anyhow, my second day in Jaipur consisted of a trying to rest my tweaky foot (before realizing later in the day that ibuprofen is a fantastic pain reliever) so I went to the Raj Mandir movie house where they play one Bollywood flick at a time. The joint is elaborately decorated inside and out with chandeliers and unlimited whimsy! The way it works is you buy a ticket beforehand ($2 for good seats) in one of 3 differently priced sections, Emerald, Ruby, or Diamond (I think) and you get an assigned seat. Then you go have some lunch and come back for the flick where you hang out in the lobby and local kids have their friends take camera phone pics of them with you, the westerner, then you go in, find your seat, watch the pigeon that lives in the theater fly around and try to roost semi-successfully on the screen, watch a bunch of adverts about the dangers of smoking and tobacco use and then finally the movie begins. And the crowd goes wild.
Dabangg 2 is, I assume, the second installment in the Dabangg eries about a macho cop who is a total badass who kills and beats the shit out of bad guys whithout breaking a sweat. His badassness is indicated by his deep voice, a little mustache, fair skin, shaved armpits, and a cute fair-skinned girlfriend who he tries make happy, but peeves every once in a while, only to win back her affection by song and dance number involving the entire town. I was pleased to see that his love interest was a "full figured" woman, one who would be assigned to ranks of "love interest's sorta chubby (by Hollywood standards) bff" in a Hollywood film. When our hero did anything macho, badass, or sexual in nature, the young men in the row behind me (and throughout the theater) would whoop, scream, and yell their approval at the screen, getting their kicks vicariously through #1 Indian man who I've since seen in lots of undershit and cologne ads.
In one scene at the beginning of the film, a bad guy was enjoying a cigarette. In each shot of smoke or smoking there was a bit of text at the bottom of the screen saying, "smoking is injurious to your health". Strange to see such government oversight in this instance where there is seemingly none in other areas where it would be of great use, such as...sanitation! After about an hour the intermission commenced and I, weighing the pros and cons of staying and watching the thrilling conclusion (badass cop effortlessly defeats bad guys who want to do bad things to innocent people and gets the girl then does a nice song and dance number) decided to leave and go to the Hawa Mahal palace in the old city where I hoped there would be less screaming. On the way, I saw my pal Ram chilling, seemingly waiting for a bus or something. In true Portland fashion, I avoided eye contact with him.
Hawa Mahal is a palace from the 1700s that's old, neat, beautiful, decrepit, and gives a great view of the chaos down below in the streets and back alleys of downtown Jaipur. I obligingly posed for a couple pics with kids and their friends. I also checked out some giant astronomical observatory right next door called Jantar Mantar that was built by some king to make sure he knew what time it was and when the next big eclipse would take place. Lots of sundials.
Then I wandered the streets jam packed with shops of all different sorts, but arranged by district, i.e. the cooking utensil district, the bicycle districts, etc. where every shop sells the exact same thing. Each bike shop sold the exact same crappy English single speeds and travesty MTBs. I don't know how they all stay in business being right next to each other selling the exact same thing. Maybe they each provide a different level of customer service that changes the price and customers can choose how they want to be treated and pay accordingly. Just a theory.
I walked back to my hood and ate one of the best meals of my life of dal and aloo gobi with chipatti for about $3 and went to bed happy only to wake up in the middle of the night not feeling quite right. I spent the first half of the next day chilling on the roof of my hotel, reading and getting a tan and felt like normal soon enough. It was worth it. I think.
Put that in your emerald, ruby, and diamond SkullBong and smoke it.
1 comment:
Looks like a pretty spectacular place. We just watched 'The Fall', looks like a few of the scenes were shot in Jaipur.
Nice nod to the Intronaut
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