Jaipur, Rajasthan
December 2
Story by Maggie
Yeah, there are ups and downs to travel anywhere. Those, for me, are intensified in India.
I hit the biggest trough yesterday. The power had failed in my Bundi room the night before in a rather strange sequence of events which saw the turning on of some lights causing others to turn off, then some switches working and others not, until finally nothing worked except my headlamp and my electronics, which had enough charge to get me through the evening. I reported the outage in the morning. The guesthouse guys set to work to sort out the problem.
I was sitting on the bed, writing or checking email, when a couple of pops came from the set of switches on the wall. Apparently the power was restored. Yes, the various switches operated the corresponding lights. But the electrical socket, which was also switched, didn’t seem to work; no power to my three chargers (laptop, iPad, and camera), all of which had been attached to the wall through a surge protector I’d brought from home.
The young man-of-all-trades around the house came in to help out. This guy was a real sweetie, serving at meals, cleaning the rooms, explaining the difference between the black-faced monkeys (“no problem”) and the red-faced monkeys (“chapati thieves, very bad monkeys”). And he was the spitting image of Prince. Since I was generally the first up for breakfast, we’d become buddies. So here’s young Prince, in his electrical genius mode, poking bare wires into electrical sockets – who need plugs anyhow, they’re just window dressing – connecting odd looking extension devices to the the wall. And I’m thinking, jesus, it’s bad enough not to be able to charge my stuff, but now Prince is trying to electrocute himself in my room! He kept telling my not to worry. Ha!
Finally he smiled triumphantly and pointed at my chargers, saying, "They’re broken." Great good news!
Of course I didn’t believe it. Until I tried plugging in to sockets in Anne and Dave’s room. A power surge had wiped out my surge protector and everything attached to it. (Good thing my devices were not attached, or I might have lost them too.)
Here’s the thing. The days here are hot and long and there’s a certain amount of stress connected with living not just on the road, but on these roads in particular. The mantra to “breathe” through discomfort isn’t especially helpful when each breath is an assault on the senses. I don’t mind, since, as I wrote to a friend, I didn’t come to India for a rose garden, but I’m not too proud to say it takes its toll. By 8 or 8:30 each night, I’m ready to retreat to my room, to my writing, my photos, Facebook, my mindless mini-games, my podcasts. And then in the morning, fresh, I like to talk to John via Messenger. Just seeing his smile sets my day right. As of noon yesterday, I had 40% charge on my laptop, 15% on my iPad, and 20% on my camera. I felt about as lonely as I’ve ever felt.
We spent much of the day walking through the markets of Bundi, drinking chai from Krishna’s famous stall, treading up and down stairs to rooftop restaurants for soda water and lunch. I felt a pit of grieving in my belly all day, uncertain if and how this would resolve, and how I would face another 2 months without a steady dose of connection from home.
Late in the afternoon, I realized that while I had no way to charge my laptop, I could charge my iPad and my camera through a USB port in any charger or other device; I didn’t need specialized charges for them. I would be dependent on Dave’s equipment, but I could work with that. My funk lifted.
This morning early, we took a car to the nearest train station, 40 km away in a town called Kota, and caught the train to Jaipur. Jaipur is a modern city of 3 million, and the plan was to find an electronics store where I could get something that would charge my MacBook. For anyone that doesn’t know India, that might sound easy. You know, find an Apple store, or some big-box electronics giant. Yeah. Most of the “stores” I’ve encountered in India – granted, I’ve been in the old parts of small towns – are nothing more than cubbies, 3 cubic meters of space crammed with dusty merchandise. Think dollar store, but tiny and with no front wall, and visualize a hundred of them, side by side. You don’t go into these shops, you stand on a step at the front and ask for what you want. I don’t believe I have seen so much as an extension cord I would trust in one of these stores, much less a MacBook charger.
Serendipity would have us sharing a booth on the train with an IT worker currently living in Philadelphia, home here to visit family. He told us to find a store in a big mall, not in the market, where stock was unreliable. He said any big electronics store would have something that would work for me. He also said that Apple was not allowed to do business in India at the moment due to the company’s practice of dumping out-of-date stock here. Fortunately, the good part of his story turned out to be true.
When we arrived at our guesthouse in Jaipur, our sweet host, K.P., put in his opinion about how to solve my electronics problem. Oh his map, he indicated an electronics section in the market, which would mean a row of the 3-cubic-meter shops as described above. We asked him about a mall, and he showed us where it was on the map, but said we wouldn’t get what we need there. We decided to go with the American-experienced advice. We took a tuk-tuk to the most space-age-looking shopping mall I have ever seen. It looked as if Dubai had come along and dropped off some architecture. This place was royal blue glass and steel, all curves and arches, rising out of the dusty desert. We were welcomed in by uniformed guards. We entered a world that makes Metrotown look shabby. Dazed, I asked in a clothing store where an electronics store would be. The woman consulted with her co-worker, and said there were no electronics stores. I left the store and noticed a sign pointing up the escalator, saying “electronics”. Up we went. There were four electronics stores, one specifically an Apple store. Remember, Apple is not allowed to do business in India.
I was able to buy a new laptop charger, but not an iPad charger. The charger has Indian plugs, but they slide off and I can replace them with Canadian plugs when I get home. I can charge the iPad and the camera through the USB ports on the laptop. I’m good to go!
We wandered around a bit, through a food court that offered Peri-peri chicken, KFC, Dunkin Donuts. We didn’t eat. We checked out Marks and Spencer. We tried for an ATM, but none of them worked. Finally we left and caught a tuk-tuk back to our guesthouse. I plugged in my laptop and away she charged.
What euphoria when you regain what was lost! I’m back in business. And I plan to be very, very careful with my equipment.
