We are in Rajasthan, an Indian state known among other things for colorful crafts including hand-stamped woodblock printed fabric (we buy a ton), camel leather shoes (Aunt Coca gets one pair for each girl to go with their saris), and hand-knotted Oriental carpets (the one thing I love but don't buy, since spontaneous $4,000 purchases are not in my current souvenir budget).
Of the crafts, puppets would seem to be one of the more accessible and appropriate for the children. However, the particular show we see, one evening in the garden of our hotel, is not just colorful but off-color, too. One marionette turns out to be a man one direction, and then a woman when flipped upside down. The puppeteer takes full advantage of this configuration and manages to manipulate it in such a way that both puppet heads show at once, as he graphically simulates the making of the beast with two backs, the makin' of bacon, a romp in the hay, bananas and cream, a feather-bed jig, getting Jack in the orchard, having a bit of giblet pie, nugging, quimsticking, some squat jumps in the cucumber patch, trimming the buff, vitamin F, winding the clock. In case you are getting worried about my in-depth knowledge of oddball euphisms, I would like to come clean about my getting dirty and tell you that most of these are taken from the Department of Translation Studies, at the University of Tampere, Finland. In the course of researching this paragraph, I come across this most excellent list of euphamisms for every private part and act both sexual and scatalogical. Sometimes I wonder how I ever made it through college without the internet.
I am relieved to report that my girls have no idea what the puppets are doing, but all the grown-ups are practically crying. My sister's family saw this same puppet show when they were here over Christmas and I am told that my high-school and college-aged nephews nearly peed their pants they were laughing so hard.
But what is really obscene is the amount my father tips at the end of the show. I am trying to get out some money to tip, and am fishing in my bills for a 100 rupee note. My father gets there first, handing the puppeteer a 500 rupee note, which is really far too much for the local economy (at $10). To compare: we have been told to tip 500 rupees per day for our driver/guide whom we adore. Or, we could hire a rickshaw driver in New Delhi to pedal us around for seven hours for that price. My mother gets the girls their own -- fully G-rated -- puppets, bargaining the puppeteer to a fair my-husband-just-drastically-overtipped-you discount.
There are two sides to the raging over-tipping debate: my father's side, which is that $2 per person is nothing to see a show and, besides, the $10 means nothing to us but a lot to the puppeteer. Valid arguments but, on the other side, we are supposed to do our best as responsible travelers not to raise prices egregiously on the local economy, thereby ruining it for the locals. Of course we will always pay more than a local, but if the discrepancy is too great, then the local shopkeepers/rickshaw drivers/restaurant owners/puppeteers will only want to sell to/drive around/feed/perform for tourists. I mean, how guilty will we feel if we read in the papers that the children of Rajasthan are suddenly being deprived of pornographic puppetry?
Of the crafts, puppets would seem to be one of the more accessible and appropriate for the children. However, the particular show we see, one evening in the garden of our hotel, is not just colorful but off-color, too. One marionette turns out to be a man one direction, and then a woman when flipped upside down. The puppeteer takes full advantage of this configuration and manages to manipulate it in such a way that both puppet heads show at once, as he graphically simulates the making of the beast with two backs, the makin' of bacon, a romp in the hay, bananas and cream, a feather-bed jig, getting Jack in the orchard, having a bit of giblet pie, nugging, quimsticking, some squat jumps in the cucumber patch, trimming the buff, vitamin F, winding the clock. In case you are getting worried about my in-depth knowledge of oddball euphisms, I would like to come clean about my getting dirty and tell you that most of these are taken from the Department of Translation Studies, at the University of Tampere, Finland. In the course of researching this paragraph, I come across this most excellent list of euphamisms for every private part and act both sexual and scatalogical. Sometimes I wonder how I ever made it through college without the internet.
I am relieved to report that my girls have no idea what the puppets are doing, but all the grown-ups are practically crying. My sister's family saw this same puppet show when they were here over Christmas and I am told that my high-school and college-aged nephews nearly peed their pants they were laughing so hard.
But what is really obscene is the amount my father tips at the end of the show. I am trying to get out some money to tip, and am fishing in my bills for a 100 rupee note. My father gets there first, handing the puppeteer a 500 rupee note, which is really far too much for the local economy (at $10). To compare: we have been told to tip 500 rupees per day for our driver/guide whom we adore. Or, we could hire a rickshaw driver in New Delhi to pedal us around for seven hours for that price. My mother gets the girls their own -- fully G-rated -- puppets, bargaining the puppeteer to a fair my-husband-just-drastically-overtipped-you discount.
There are two sides to the raging over-tipping debate: my father's side, which is that $2 per person is nothing to see a show and, besides, the $10 means nothing to us but a lot to the puppeteer. Valid arguments but, on the other side, we are supposed to do our best as responsible travelers not to raise prices egregiously on the local economy, thereby ruining it for the locals. Of course we will always pay more than a local, but if the discrepancy is too great, then the local shopkeepers/rickshaw drivers/restaurant owners/puppeteers will only want to sell to/drive around/feed/perform for tourists. I mean, how guilty will we feel if we read in the papers that the children of Rajasthan are suddenly being deprived of pornographic puppetry?
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