viking art

This is a blog about my art students at West Columbus High School in Cerro Gordo, N.C. and about my own artwork and travels throughout the world. - Larry Hewett

My Photo
Name:

I am the Instructional Technology Facilitator for Columbus County Schools.

Saturday, July 7, 2007

On the Streets of Jaipur



Here are two photos of things that we happened to come up on while walking the streets of Jaipur. The first is of course two cows with my friend Lynnette. They are just roaming the city during the day. They do belong to someone who milks them. But the rest of the time they are allowed to go wherever they want whether it's in the streets or on the sidewalks. And yes cows are sacred in India. I asked one of our guides why and he told me it's because the cow's milk is the next best thing to a mother's milk. When a mother can not produce milk for her children they have to turn to the cow to help raise the children of India. It's a lot more involved than that but that's the gist of it! Cows can literally stop traffic in India too! We were in a traffic jam for several minutes because of cows crossing the street. I asked if any cows were ever killed on the streets as a result of a traffic accident. I was told that that never happens, but if it did there would be no penalty for the person who killed the cow. However, if a person were to intentionally kill a cow they could be imprisoned for as much as 12 years. While on our trip we had beef twice. After eating it we were told that it was either the male bull or water buffalo. Whatever it was, it was good! The second photo is a small little temple that we happened upon while visiting a ceramicist in Jaipur. And when I say little I mean little. You would have to actually bend down in order to get through the door. It was about here that a group of little Indian children saw our group walking down the street in front of their houses. We were the first white people that some of them had ever seen. One little boy asked our guide, an Indian herself, which village these light complected Indians had come from!

Larry

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home