A Long Post, if Only I Have Time
This morning I got up at 8, Skyped until perhaps 10:30 or so, and then at 11 set off on my grand adventure. Today, the 4th of July, the goal was to go see the National Museum. According to tourist reviews, this museum is one of the largest museums in Asia, and among the exhibits listed, there were whale skeletons and giant tortoise shells. Also, I could get some money out of an ATM at the Deutsche Bank that was in the area, because it's free for me. So, I hopped a cab and off I went. In no time I arrived, paid my foreigner ticket price of 150 Rs, and went in. I intended to be there for a very, very long time. With no other plans, it would be great if I could be there from 11:30 until 4 or 5. So having entered the museum, I took a right into the...um...fossil room? Not good. It was a big room, musty, filled with drawers and glass cases. Inside the glass cases you could hardly even see the specimens because they were covered with a thick layer of gray dust. Nor was it terribly exciting. Ancient horse tooth. Ancient critter leg bone. There was a giant prehistoric elephant skull with tusks 10 feet long. That was surprising. And the one thing that really struck me (Karen! Bad!) was this shell that made me think, "Oh, those annoying characters from Ice Age 2 really were like that." It was the turtle-like thing. The shell is about 4 feet high and four or five feet wide and has lots of little bumps on it. Then I walked out and around the inside track of the museum. As you'll be able to see from the picture I'll post, you walk not from room to room but into one room, back out, walk a bit to the next one...The next room was the anthropology room. At one end is this section on pre-historic man.
Prehistoric man is very hairy. And in a way, I don't understand at all: there was a picture of a more developed neanderthal fighting a less developed ape-man. So, basically all different kinds of apemen were developing, just as we have different kinds of monkeys today. But where did they go? Why don't we still have neanderthals and cromagnons and stuff? I think the cro-magnons killed all the others off. That's my current theory. He just killed all the slightly less developed versions of man like a hick cousin. But if that's true, then why did he leave gorillas? I don't really understand it at all, sort of like how I don't understand why we don't find more of these skulls, or why my computer refuses to charge and runs down the battery so quickly. The next section was the best in the museum though. It detailed all the tribals in India. "Tribals" means those aboriginal groups that are still distinguishable from the "normal" Indians, whatever that means. So the Kasis, about which tribe Matt Rich is writing his dissertation at UChicago, were mentioned, and other groups. It's very strange-some groups are from the Australian racial stock, and speak a language related to the Australian language group. I wonder how that happened. Most of these tribals do small-scale agriculture but rely primarily upon hunting and gathering for their means of survival. Interestingly, one (maaaaybe two) were matriarchical. Quite a few were matrilineal. Only one was polygamous. Many were exogamous, and traded women between groups, obviously to diversity genetic stock.
Their style of dress differs widely, from a skirt and top (like a modified sari) to...variations on that. The weirdest involves the 150 inhabitants of a small island off of India. They obviously originally came from Africa, because their skin is black, they have short curly hair, and their noses are broad. In the 1960s, when these anthropologic surveys were done, they wore no clothing at all, but little bundles of fiber at their...below the belt. They found glass bottles on the beach, refuse from the mainland, that they began to use to shave their hair (men and women) and beards. It was very primitive. They did no agriculture at all and lived entirely by hunting and gathering. Then I looked at some of the statues that were outside, and moved into the statue room. Well, I don't know what it's official name was. Frankly, after two summers in Bangladesh, I never need to see another statue of Shiva. There were other gods here too though. A few of Ganesha, many of other gods who I will never know. Photography is, of course, prohibited I imagine, though I saw no signs. But the guys guarding the area were so bad that I tried to take a few shots with my flash off. Somehow, this resulted in blurry images. I'm sorry. I don't know whether to post blurry Buddhas or not. Actually, some of the statues were quite cool. I'm always amazed at the artistry that is achieved with a crude chisel and some stone. One single mistake and it's like, "Well oops." There was one room that had the stoneworkings from outside a Buddhist temple. It was gorgeous. Breathtaking. And literally, because the room smelled Godawful. I have inhaled SO many things here I shouldn't have in my time here.
Then I went to the second floor. First I went into the paintings room, which was so negligible that I cannot even say anything about it. It is a mystery to me. Then I went to the ancient sea protozoa room, where everything was brilliantly ancient and utterly boring. Just shells and plankton. Once again, this was another room of glass and wooden drawers. Nothing labeled in the glass cases, but everything covered with dust anyway. The only thing of interest in that room-and interesting they were- were right at the entrance-a giant deer 9 feet tall with horns 9 feet in width. It was a huge thing, from Ireland. I imagine that it was pre-historic, because nothing has horns like those heavy suckers now. It was like an elk. Behind it was a giant turtle shell. It was six or seven feet long and five feet wide. It must have been a giant turtle, and nothing could eat it because it could just pop back into its shell.
There was also a dinosaur skull. It was the rajasaurus. I'm not even making that up. It is funny because "raja" means king, so it was the kingsaurus. But though it looked like the T-rex it was shorter. Which reminds me about the ginormous megaphant from downstairs--how did it mount the female if its tusks were 10 feet long? Awkward. Then was the zoology room, also known as the dead animal room. I have to hand it to the Indians-they know how to stuff things. Unlike the Jordanians, who don't quite know where the pieces go. They stuffed everything. There was one huge, huge waterbuffalo head, and every animal you could think of. The stuffed tiger was huge. Really, really, ridiculously huge looking. It must have weighed 900 pounds. The lion was tiny. Scrawny. The deermice or whatever they were called were the cutest things I've ever seen. I want to take one home. Imagine a deer the size of a guinea pig and that's what they were. The rhino was quite large. The elephant skeletons were massive. The hippo is big and it's skull, when a skeleton, is fierce. But some things were sad. They had baby tigers, and a baby liger. I've never even seen one, but there was a baby liger. Or I guess this one was a tion, come to think of it. Emphasis on was. And the dead monkeys! They're sort of human-like. I can't imagine someone being heartless enough to kill them.
Next was the birds and fish room. I looked at everything without reading the names, because I didn't really care. Then came the finishing touch: the tiny Egypt room. Complete with...one Egyptian mummy. Everything else was photocopies and replicas. I don't understand that room at all. A random Egypt room without anything from Egypt. Then I sat for a moment and decided to walk to Shakespeare Sarani, where the Deutsche Bank was. I had seen a map and knew that it was sort of close, so I figured that since it was only about 2:30 I had time to burn. I started walking and had made it just past Park Street (sound familiar?) when who should I run into but Ben, out by himself? Ben says, "Imagine meeting you here. What are the chances? 15 million people..." I said, "Ben, we're white. We stick out. We're white and we go to the same places. It's not that weird." So he walked with me to Deutsche Bank, then he taught me to take the subway and we were going to go to the intersection of Rosh Bihari and Goriahat and part ways there, but he really wanted to find a cafe to hang out at in the future, so we got off early and...
stay tuned for part 2
I think my computer's battery is not charging, but the computer is at least running while plugged in. This is not good.
Prehistoric man is very hairy. And in a way, I don't understand at all: there was a picture of a more developed neanderthal fighting a less developed ape-man. So, basically all different kinds of apemen were developing, just as we have different kinds of monkeys today. But where did they go? Why don't we still have neanderthals and cromagnons and stuff? I think the cro-magnons killed all the others off. That's my current theory. He just killed all the slightly less developed versions of man like a hick cousin. But if that's true, then why did he leave gorillas? I don't really understand it at all, sort of like how I don't understand why we don't find more of these skulls, or why my computer refuses to charge and runs down the battery so quickly. The next section was the best in the museum though. It detailed all the tribals in India. "Tribals" means those aboriginal groups that are still distinguishable from the "normal" Indians, whatever that means. So the Kasis, about which tribe Matt Rich is writing his dissertation at UChicago, were mentioned, and other groups. It's very strange-some groups are from the Australian racial stock, and speak a language related to the Australian language group. I wonder how that happened. Most of these tribals do small-scale agriculture but rely primarily upon hunting and gathering for their means of survival. Interestingly, one (maaaaybe two) were matriarchical. Quite a few were matrilineal. Only one was polygamous. Many were exogamous, and traded women between groups, obviously to diversity genetic stock.
Their style of dress differs widely, from a skirt and top (like a modified sari) to...variations on that. The weirdest involves the 150 inhabitants of a small island off of India. They obviously originally came from Africa, because their skin is black, they have short curly hair, and their noses are broad. In the 1960s, when these anthropologic surveys were done, they wore no clothing at all, but little bundles of fiber at their...below the belt. They found glass bottles on the beach, refuse from the mainland, that they began to use to shave their hair (men and women) and beards. It was very primitive. They did no agriculture at all and lived entirely by hunting and gathering. Then I looked at some of the statues that were outside, and moved into the statue room. Well, I don't know what it's official name was. Frankly, after two summers in Bangladesh, I never need to see another statue of Shiva. There were other gods here too though. A few of Ganesha, many of other gods who I will never know. Photography is, of course, prohibited I imagine, though I saw no signs. But the guys guarding the area were so bad that I tried to take a few shots with my flash off. Somehow, this resulted in blurry images. I'm sorry. I don't know whether to post blurry Buddhas or not. Actually, some of the statues were quite cool. I'm always amazed at the artistry that is achieved with a crude chisel and some stone. One single mistake and it's like, "Well oops." There was one room that had the stoneworkings from outside a Buddhist temple. It was gorgeous. Breathtaking. And literally, because the room smelled Godawful. I have inhaled SO many things here I shouldn't have in my time here.
Then I went to the second floor. First I went into the paintings room, which was so negligible that I cannot even say anything about it. It is a mystery to me. Then I went to the ancient sea protozoa room, where everything was brilliantly ancient and utterly boring. Just shells and plankton. Once again, this was another room of glass and wooden drawers. Nothing labeled in the glass cases, but everything covered with dust anyway. The only thing of interest in that room-and interesting they were- were right at the entrance-a giant deer 9 feet tall with horns 9 feet in width. It was a huge thing, from Ireland. I imagine that it was pre-historic, because nothing has horns like those heavy suckers now. It was like an elk. Behind it was a giant turtle shell. It was six or seven feet long and five feet wide. It must have been a giant turtle, and nothing could eat it because it could just pop back into its shell.
There was also a dinosaur skull. It was the rajasaurus. I'm not even making that up. It is funny because "raja" means king, so it was the kingsaurus. But though it looked like the T-rex it was shorter. Which reminds me about the ginormous megaphant from downstairs--how did it mount the female if its tusks were 10 feet long? Awkward. Then was the zoology room, also known as the dead animal room. I have to hand it to the Indians-they know how to stuff things. Unlike the Jordanians, who don't quite know where the pieces go. They stuffed everything. There was one huge, huge waterbuffalo head, and every animal you could think of. The stuffed tiger was huge. Really, really, ridiculously huge looking. It must have weighed 900 pounds. The lion was tiny. Scrawny. The deermice or whatever they were called were the cutest things I've ever seen. I want to take one home. Imagine a deer the size of a guinea pig and that's what they were. The rhino was quite large. The elephant skeletons were massive. The hippo is big and it's skull, when a skeleton, is fierce. But some things were sad. They had baby tigers, and a baby liger. I've never even seen one, but there was a baby liger. Or I guess this one was a tion, come to think of it. Emphasis on was. And the dead monkeys! They're sort of human-like. I can't imagine someone being heartless enough to kill them.
Next was the birds and fish room. I looked at everything without reading the names, because I didn't really care. Then came the finishing touch: the tiny Egypt room. Complete with...one Egyptian mummy. Everything else was photocopies and replicas. I don't understand that room at all. A random Egypt room without anything from Egypt. Then I sat for a moment and decided to walk to Shakespeare Sarani, where the Deutsche Bank was. I had seen a map and knew that it was sort of close, so I figured that since it was only about 2:30 I had time to burn. I started walking and had made it just past Park Street (sound familiar?) when who should I run into but Ben, out by himself? Ben says, "Imagine meeting you here. What are the chances? 15 million people..." I said, "Ben, we're white. We stick out. We're white and we go to the same places. It's not that weird." So he walked with me to Deutsche Bank, then he taught me to take the subway and we were going to go to the intersection of Rosh Bihari and Goriahat and part ways there, but he really wanted to find a cafe to hang out at in the future, so we got off early and...
stay tuned for part 2
I think my computer's battery is not charging, but the computer is at least running while plugged in. This is not good.