Land of Kings

I'm in Jaipur, the southwest corner of the "Golden Triangle," and it just might be my favorite corner. Jaipur is in the state of Rajasthan, which is your camel-spitting, elephant-trotting, grand palace bearing home if India. The architecture of the Pink City and beyond is beautiful, and the bazaars are buzzing. I found a lovely and serene place to stay, the Hotel Arya Niwas (www.aryaniwas.com) and definitely recommend it to anyone who passes through Jaipur.

Driving along the road from Agra to Jaipur allowed a broader glimpse into the desert state of Rajastan, which is very impoverished, has one of the lowest literacy rates in India and has been suffering from a long drought. Tiny farming villages of mud huts lined the highway, skeletal cows grazed on brown grass and bare fields, and women in bright saris carry water jugs to their homes. Some of the bigger villages display a clash of poverty and Western modernism as crumbling houses bear billboards advertising cell phone companies and Coke-a-Cola. In one village, about fifteen men were gathered around a television in a grass hut.

I'm constantly pondering the collision of the Western world and traditional Indian culture in this country. It seems as if the rush to modernize by Western standards in India can be likened to building a mansion on quick sand; the foundation is not strong enough and erodes more quickly the more you build. The environmental degradation that has taken place is widespread, and while some of it can be attributed to natural causes (the drought), much of it is caused by the intense strain on local resources. The poverty is engulfing. It's heartbreaking to see the shoeless children asking for food, water and money and the tatterted tents haphazardly set up wherever they will stand for shelter at night.