Rajasthan to Tibet: Pt 1 Dehli
Baha'i Lotus Temple
One evening in early April I take a train from Rajasthan to Delhi. Already, the spring heat is uncomfortable and I am looking forward to travelling north to Nepal and Tibet and returning to Lijiang in southwest China. There are passengers riding on the roof of another train pulling out of the station and I assume my train also carries its quota.
My carriage is full of Indians going to Ajmer or Jaipur. One passenger is 23 and though his clothes are rough his face shines with intelligence. He is a teacher in the middle school in his village south of Udaipur and is on his way to Jaipur to seek the post of headmaster at his school.
"When I was at university in Bihar," he says, "I spent one month in Kathmandu. My classmates went home but I wanted to see another country, another way of life. Now I teach English Literature; it is special. My favourite author is John Milton. I love Samson Agonistes, have you read it? Sometimes the other teachers ask me to give a talk at school and I give a discourse on Milton. Then none of the other teachers can argue because it is above their heads, they don't understand great literature."
 Train Passengers |  Train Roof Riders |
Being the only son and having inherited the family acres he is also a farmer. "Teaching is not a well paid job," he says, "and I must also do farming if I am to support my mother and sisters. If I get the post of headmaster, then in a few years I can think of marrying."
Outside, the parched earth slides past the window.
The Tibetan colony of Majnu Ka Tila lies somewhere in the north of Delhi. The Tibetan and Nepalese residents aren't sure of its age nor where it is exactly in relation to Delhi and I suspect that few ever leave the settlement. Many were born here thirty years ago, some were refugees fleeing Tibet. The colony, with groups of Tibetan Buddhist monks in red and yellow and women in Tibetan attire, struggle to maintain traditional Tibetan culture but the western clothes and haircuts worn by the younger ones and the proliferation of Internet cafes everywhere give a decidedly modern image.
 Majnu Ka Tila Street |  Tibetans, Majnu Ka Tila |
Given my dislike for big cities, I too, would probably never leave Majnu Ka Tila to venture out into Delhi. True, Delhi is green and clean but it's also very large, takes forever to get to where you're going and quite expensive even without shopping. The city, among the first in the world, is struggling for a clean image by converting the buses, taxis and motorcycle rickshaws to CNG fuel. But because of the expense of the conversion from regular gas and the insufficient number of gas stations that sell CNG gas, many long distance bus companies are protesting by not sending out their buses and pressing for a general strike. It is impossible to get a bus to Kathmandu or even to the Nepalese border.
 Delhi Rickshaws | Riding in a cycle rickshaw in Delhi traffic is a heart-pounding experience. The rickshaws are stripped down to bare essentials like racing machines and I feel the finger of death when we're squeezed between juggernaut trucks and buses in a congested street. Technically speaking, the black and yellow auto rickshaws provide more protection with their cabins but the close shaves as they zip in and out of gaps in the traffic are still terrifying. More comfortable are the cream Ambassador Nova taxis, which, like London taxis, look pre-Independence. The taxis and rickshaws that have converted to CNG look clean 'n green painted in the new yellow and green |
I thought that Delhi, the capital of India and third largest city, would be ultra modern and fashionable. This was one of the two capitals (the other being Agra) of the Mughal Empire whose emperors built palaces, forts and tombs on a grand scale. Indira Gandhi International Airport comes close; if not flying, one must pay 50 rupees just to enter the building. But, downtown New Delhi, Connaught Place, organized into concentric circles with wide streets and massive buildings, is hardly ritz. Like Bombay or Jaipur, there is the sense of fading grandeur, like an ageing rani now living off her jewels. The embassy area, Chanakyapuri, looks like California with quiet streets, huge offices, wide lawns and greenery. Oddly, though they want the foreign dollars, every embassy nowadays gives visitors the impression, "Why are you bothering us?" It reminds me that there is a difference between ritz and rich; one can have class even without money; rich simply means having money, often without class. There is history in Delhi though.
| Red Fort (Lal Qila) is the palace complex begun in 1639 by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan who built the Taj Mahal at the time when the capital shifted between Agra and Delhi. It is a large compound with palaces, museums, fountains, the harem and perimeter walls 2 km in length and walls that rise 33 m high which shows how impudent the Brits were in thinking they could subdue the sub-continent. There is a silly light and sound show at night that is best avoided. Like the Taj Mahal, or even Beijing's Forbidden City, the Red Fort could perhaps be considered beautiful were it not for the prevailing atmosphere that surrounds most tourist sites: "We don't want you, just your money, all of it." My foreigner's ticket cost 235 rupees; a local's ticket costs 5 rupees. |  Red Fort |
Even this costly ticket would be almost worth it if most of the Red Fort were not closed off to the public. To visit the Taj Mahal would cost a foreigner 920 rupees; a local, 20 rupees. On Fridays, however, if you like dense crowds, entry is free. Even dhaba habitués, like myself, like to eat something fancy once in a while. Karim's, next to Jamma Masjid, next to Red Fort, is wonderfully informal and the unpretentious, excellent and reasonably priced food comes recommended by food columns in newspapers around the world which are framed and hung on the walls. The owners are said to be descended from palace chefs of the Mughal era and the food is so good they may very well be.
Moti Mahal Restaurant is best described as grubby chic. The high-ceilinged dining rooms are lit by chandeliers but the table cloths, like the waiters' uniforms, are stained and mismatched. The curries are good and a meal costs about 300 rupees per person, three times the cost of an average meal in an ordinary café, six times that of a good meal in a dhaba. Of course, one doesn't find tandoori or chandeliers in most dhabas. At Moti Mahal the waiters demand their tips, pointing out that there is no service charge on the bill and are disgruntled with 10% of the total.
 Paharganj street | Paharganj in Old Delhi, next to the New Delhi Railway Station, is a busy bazaar area, a microcosm of Asia, crammed with shops selling tourist kitsch, guest houses, hotels, cafes, money changers, jewelers, bookshops, internet cafes, fruit stalls, vegetable markets, cows, rickshaws, carts, taxis, people and touts willing to show you to a guest house for a commission. Here also can be found India's first wireless or satellite Internet café at one sixth the standard rate per hour. I expected the usual five or six terminals and am astounded to enter a large office with seventy-five terminals all in use with a further fifteen or twenty waiting customers. As I enter the New Delhi Railway Station to book a ticket I am met by an "official" who tells me that the ticket office has been moved to a nearby building and offers to take me there. |
I follow him to an office that is being painted and the counters still covered in sawdust. The door carries a sign "Official Tourist Office" and the staff worker is busy putting books in order. I find his train fare to Agra to be very expensive and when he offers to book a taxi and hotel I ask to see a Government Railway receipt or rubber stamp, neither of which he can produce. I leave the office and return to the Railway Station where I am met by another "official" on the stairway who gives me a similar story. I brush past him and continue to the second floor where I find the Foreigners Booking Office open. While I am booking my ticket to Agra, I tell the staff worker about the con men but he remains unconcerned.
The Baha'i Temple in South Delhi was built in the form of a lotus flower from white marble. Simple and elegant, it is a marvel of modern architecture against the evening sky. There are no services and no sermons. Inside are rows of benches where I sit, on my last evening in Delhi, and meditate in the silence, gazing up 34 m to the apex of the arching roof.
Udaipur
Udaipur, the City of Lakes and Palaces, the City of Sunrise, the most romantic city in Rajasthan is also the most southern city in Rajasthan, western India. The narrow winding lanes lined with temples, bazaars, quaint buildings with curious windows and choked with auto-rickshaws, scooters, cows, barrows and tourists are picturesque indeed. The tourists love Udaipur and there is a glut of rooftop restaurants and guesthouses, Internet cafes and tiny souvenir shops, scooter rentals and money-changers catering to their foreign needs.
I open all the windows of my room which gives me a panoramic view of an impossibly beautiful Lake Pichhola and the Lake Palace in the dawn. Below my windows are thirteen temples and.the ghats where Hindus worship, bathe and wash their clothes. My windows are at treetop level and I can look straight into the faces of several monkeys chattering and racing about. "This," think I, "is the real India! The India that exists only in films like Siddhartha, Kama Sutra and James Bond's Octopussy. This is what India ought to look like in real life." And it does.
Like a painting, the silhouetted Monsoon Palace clings to the hilltop at sunset. The City Palace, the largest palace in Rajasthan, is as large as, well, a city. The many gardens were designed to rival Nirvana. Even ordinary houses have intricate stone fretwork for balconies. Better, the Rajasthani villagers wear traditional white kurta dhotis and scarlet turbans and colourful salwar kameez. Even better, the hilly lanes are littered with cow dung and the houses are painted slapdash prettily in white, blue and green. How much better can it get? Plenty.
I arrive in late winter, early spring, perfect weather when the days are warm and the nights cool. Summer sometimes reaches a searing 43 0Celsius though in this climate on the edge of the Thar Desert it is a dry heat. If spring is the best time of year to be in Udaipur, then sunset is the best time of day. Rajasthani sunsets aren't as spectacular as, say, the flaming reds of the Caribbean. But these are certainly more idyllic when the temples and palaces are limned against a horizon in hues of pinks and blues. The view overlooking Lake Pichhola is addictive but the one from the hill at, the aptly named, Sunset Point with all the lakes and the city spread out below, is sublime.
 Wedding ceremony |  Bride's attendants |
This is the month for marriages. I hear the drums, brass instruments and singing of wedding processions three or four times a day. The groom rides by dressed resplendently in rich gold tunic and turban with a sword thrust in his sash, his horse decked in beads, fringe and glitter and accompanied by several boys bearing lamps to illuminate the way. The elaborately dressed bride rides in a carriage drawn by a horse equal to the groom's escorted by her procession of gaily dressed women carrying pots of water and singing songs of happiness and good fortune. Late in the night, the festivities continue with food and the sounds of merriment and music drifting over the lakes.
Jagdish Temple
Down below in the congested bazaars are the streets of jewellers, minature painters, shoemakers, tin and coppersmiths, spice merchants, garment vendors, sari specialists, rope and twine sellers, vegetable and fruit stalls and basket weavers who squat working on jute bags. In front of Jagdish Temple is a collection point for victims of the Gujarat earthquake and all over town are bags of ghulal powder in red, yellow, blue, green and pink as the city prepares for Holi, the most jubilant festival on the Udaipur calendar. Due to the equal amounts of Muslims and Hindus, cows and pigs roam the streets fearlessly.
Rajasthani history is replete with stories of wars between the Rajput rulers and later, against the Mughals. Legends abound also of women and children of the defeated warriors choosing immolation over surrender. In 1568 Maharaja Udai Singh II founded Udaipur among the Aravalli Hills and built his colossal City Palace and city walls against the invading Mughals. Though he was successful in keeping out the Mughals, over the next century their influence penetrated the city to merge with the arts particularly in the realms of minature painting and their desert music, both hybrids of Hindu and Muslim/Persian forms.
 Rajasthani men |  Udaipur women |
I envy the Udaipurians that they, unlike the tourists, can live in this fairytale paradise forever except that, having lived here all their lives, they no longer appreciate the beauty of Udaipur. The other big difference is that the tourists are here to have a good time and spend dollars while the Udaipurians try to catch those falling dollars if they can. Unfortunately the tourist season isn't booming as it should due to the recent earthquake in nearby Gujarat which frightened many into other destinations and the tourist season is as dry as the lakes.
It hasn't rained properly here for the past five years and the lakes are now only quarter full. Grass grows on the lake beds, cracked and drying in the sun. The farmers pray to the goddess Indra Dev for rain so that they may live. For them, watching their brown fields is like watching their blood drain away.Sanjay, 15, is bright, good-looking and resourceful. "I'm a Meena caste," he says. "It is a good caste which means my chances for a good job are not bad."
The Hindustan Times 8 page Matrimonial Classifieds is divided into "Grooms Wanted" and "Brides Wanted" which are further subdivided into castes: Agarwal, Brahmin, Jain/ Vaish, SC/ ST, Manglik, NRI, Khatri and Sikh. A typical ad runs: "Manglik alliance invited from extremely beautiful, fair, educated, slim girl belonging to high status respectable family for business class family boy 28/ 180 handsome, fair, educated, having his own business. Correspond with full details and photograph (returnable)."
"Can you worship in a Jain temple?" I ask Sanjay.
"No, Jain temples are only for Jains," he replies.
"Do you believe in karma, that what you do in this life will affect your later lives?"
"No."
"Do you believe in reincarnation?"
"No."
On Maha Shivaratri, a Hindu festival celebrating Shiva's birth, hundreds of Hindu Udaipurians make a pilgrimage to Eklingi, the nearby temple complex dedicated to Shiva. Udaipur is dressed up in glitter and finery for the occasion. At every shrine we are given prasad (consecrated food) and a dollop of lassi (yoghurt). Sanjay becomes light headed after one offering of lassi mixed with bhang (marijuana)."In the shrine," he says, "the black stone of Shiva is often covered with bhil leaves to make him happy. The other gods are his wife Parvati, his son Ganesh and the snake, coiled around his neck, is Sheshnaag."
Dinners at Sanjay's home are usually a vegetable or potato curry and chapatis with a sweet rice or halva (carrot and milk) and water pumped from the well. Despite the terrible admonition in my guide book about not using the left hand to eat, Sanjay eats with both hands, or sometimes spoon, and is not bothered by my doing the same. My first time, as the guest, I was served first and allowed to eat first but seeing that I was uncomfortable with this, Sanjay joined me in the meal. The men always ate before the women and though Sanjay and I eat at a table with chairs, the family prefers sitting on a carpet.
In Trinidad the Hindu festival Holi is called Phagwa (Phalgun is the month corresponding to February / March) but in India Holi extends over two days. "The first day is dedicated to Prahalad, the young son of a king," says Sanjay. "Prahalad worshipped Vishnu who gave him immortal life. The boy's father, thinking himself a god, ordered that Prahalad worship him, the king, instead. The boy refused and the king instructed a soldier to throw the boy over the cliff into the sea. This was done but the boy, saved from drowning by the god Vishnu, returned to the palace. The king's sister, certain that she was immortal and the boy was not, suggested that both she and the boy be burnt alive. She was killed in the flames and the boy was saved once again. This time Vishnu came to the palace in the form of a human with a lion's head and claws and killed the king by ripping open his stomach with his claws. Prahalad inherited the throne and the people celebrate his devotion to Vishnu by burning bonfires on the first night of Holi."
In the night, to the cries of, "Holi hai!" and prayers, tall bonfires are lit scorching the electrical wires above.The following day is the day of colour when everyone covers the town and everyone in it with red, blue, yellow, green and pink powder or ghulal. Trinidadians say "abeer" which is an Urdu word meaning the same as ghulal. It is a festive time when all businesses are closed and people are free to relax and be merry. "Holi ki shubhkaamna," people greet one another. I say to you Happy Holi.
Udaipur Villages
As a boy in Trinidad I spent weekends in Carapichaima, a town with a population of predominantly East Indian descendants. Close by were the villages of Bamboo Settlement, Waterloo, Freeport, Felicity and the town of Chaguanas (where Vidia Naipaul was born), all on the Caroni plain, a very East Indian community. The older East Indian Hindus of Trinidad still wore their traditional clothes of saris and kurta dhotis. They spoke several Indian dialects, attended the mandir and sang bhajans or more recently, chutney. They carried Indian names: Sookram, Vishnu, Ganesh, Indra and Asha. They celebrated Divali and Phagwa.
The younger ones knew of the caste system but generally disregarded it. Their main foods were rice and vegetable curry and the popular roti loved by all Trinidadians. These villages were very different to other Trinidadian villages like Lopinot or Paramin, both very Panyol (Espanol or Spanish). In Chaguanas, there is the crowded market where almost everyone is of East Indian descent, the air carries the scent of curry and spices and the blaring music from the shops are in Hindi and probably by Lata Mangeshkar. It seemed very Indian.
Yet, walking in a village in Rajasthan is not the same. Unexplicably, a Rajasthani village (which has perhaps a total of three television sets) feels less alien than Freeport. Perhaps back in Trinidad I had no context in which to place our TrIndian culture. When I told a Bombay shop manager that almost half of our ountry was East Indian she replied, "Yes, but if they left 150 years ago they will be a pocket of an Indian culture from a bygone time." Ironically, Bombay was the only place in India where I suffered intense culture shock.
Somewhere along the line, the two lines of the same family diverged. The East Indians in Trinidad came from as early as 1845 bringing with them a culture that existed 100 years before the Independence of India and the birth of Pakistan. The Trinidadian line subtly merged with Trinidadian cultures as evidenced by chutney-soca music and the not-so-few mixed marriages. The Indian line went on to win a bloody Independence from an oppressive Britain and struggle on with an overwhelming population toward modernisation.
Interestingly, the Trinidadian Chinese have a similar history but whereas we have been totally assimilated into western culture my ancestral village in China has remained in a time capsule.
The city of Udaipur in Rajasthan, western India, is surrounded by several villages built around temples or historic sites. The roads out to these villages pass through dry, almost desert, land, with a few goats and low stone walls to betray human habitation. From time to time the bus stops in small villages of untidy shops and small ragged children with lovely eyes and outstretched hands. Beside the traditional clothes of saris and kurta dhotis with turbans, the men also wear earrings and the women noserings. Several villagers are dressed as though they have been to the city for a visit. A few carry large bags and packages, an electric fan, a bag heavy as with grain, a plastic clothes closet, a small suitcase.
Ranakpur
The Chaturmukha Jain Temple of Rishabhadeva at Ranakpur lies in the secluded valley of Mount Madri. It is a major Jain architectural achievement and an exquisite work of art equal to, but less famous than, the Taj Mahal. It was begun in 1446 of the Vikram Era (1390 CE) and took more than 50 years to complete. The walls, ceilings, domes, pillars and doorways are finely and elaborately sculpted - the sculptors were said to be paid according to the amount of marble they chiseled away – and the finished temple in natural marble looks like an ornate carving from a single piece of stone. Every sculptor says: "Sculpting is merely chipping away the stone to reveal what was always waiting there inside."The eyes of the 84 statues of past tirthankaras ("those who have crossed the ocean of becoming") are fixed and unrealistically striking. The Jains know that an idol is not a god but it is believed that a god's energy can flow through the eyes of the idol to the believer which is why the third eye is always anointed.
Sitting on the temple's wide balcony seats in the afternoon sun I can feel a rightness to the temple, like pi or the Golden Ratio of geometry. A Jain monk in cream and white anoints the statue of Shiva with yellow sandalwood paste. A temple monkey swings up from the ground to sit beside me on the low wall, oblivious of the many tourists wandering through.
Sanjay and I eat a simple vegetarian meal at the Temple's dharamshala: dal soup, naan, vegetable curry, rice and water. Like fellow devotees, birds fly in to peck at the crumbs on the tables.
Jainism is a radical religion founded 2500 years ago by Prince Vardhamana. Like the Buddhists, they believe in the liberation of the soul and revere their great teachers including the Buddha and the gate at Ranakpur resembles those of Tibetan Buddhist temples with the deer on either side of the wheel of life. The most orthodox monks and nuns take the basic precept (all life is considered sacred) to an extreme by wearing a net over their noses and mouths to avoid inhaling any insects by accident and sweep the path in front of them while walking so as not to step on an insect. The Shvetambara sect wear white while the Digambara sect go unclothed. But not all Jains are this colourful. At Ranakpur, most of the Jains look like Hindus except that the women wear white, usually a sign of widowhood in Indian culture.Descended from the same line of Persian Zoroastrians like the Parsees who also reject the caste system, all Jains take vows not to lie, steal, nor own more than they need. Due to their respect for life they are forbidden to hunt, fish, farm or fight. They thus become, paradoxically, very charitable bankers, businessmen and moneylenders. There are only 2 million Jains in India today.
Eklingji and Nagda
The Shiva Temple is the main attraction of the jumbled village of Eklingji especially during the Maha Shivaratri Festival when hundreds of Hindus walk the 22 km from Udaipur on pilgrimage. The week after the festival the pilgrims have gone and life has returned to its leisurely pace. We buy two Pepsi Colas from a shop where the local men sit playing draughts and a mala (rosary) from one of the many puja stalls outside the Temple. I walk through the compound of small incense-burning temples and find even the solid silver bull uninspiring. The nearby Nagda is, however, a wonderful surprise.
Two kilometers away along a winding dirt road we pass a shepherd with his goats and a lake where a flock of pelicans casually float peering for fish and where women wash clothes on the ghats.One thousand years ago, Nagda was the capital of the Mewar region of southern Rajasthan. Today, Nagda is a forgotten village of few buildings, pretty fields and Saas Bahu. Saas Bahu, the Hindu temple complex now being restored, is as stunning as the Jain temples at Ranakpur in its architectural simplicity and intricate carvings. Unused for decades and devoid of statues in its shrines, it looks like a desolate ruin and even the village people do not pass this way. Other Hindu temples outside the village of Nagda also lie derelict and abandoned. Like ghost houses of the holy, their shells radiate an aura of spirituality impregnated in the stones.
'Hindu' is a term coined by Alexander the Great for the peoples on the other side of the Indus River. These people call their country Bharath and their religion Sanatan Dharma or Eternal Faith. The ancient civilisations of Harrapa and Mohenjo Daro passed away around 1800 BC and were succeeded 300 years later by the Aryan race from Central Asia who brought with them their Sanskrit language, their Vedic religion and their class system which later became the caste system. Their holy books the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata are still studied today, as the basis of Hinduism, in the original Sanskrit. Toward the end of their cycle 1200 years later, there was a general reaction to their Brahminical religion resulting in the birth of Jainism and Buddhism. The neo-Nazi Aryans worldwide can note that the present day Hindus are closer to the ancient Aryans than any other race.
The Aryans were succeeded by a series of rulers from within India: the Mauryas, the Shakas and Kushanas, the Guptas and the Cholas. The Rajputs were a small group of warriors from outside India who settled in small kingdoms in Rajasthan and adopted the Indian caste system and culture.
Haldighati
Waiting for any kind of transportation on a hot dusty road on a hot spring day 17 kilometers from Haldigathi, we are beckoned over by an old man in an old house. He takes my right hand and looks quickly at what lies in the lines."You will live to be eighty-five," he says. "You will have good health until then."
I try to give him a couple rupees for his kind words but he staunchly refuses them. I leave the coins on a stone bench just as a truck stops for us in a cloud of dust.
Haldigathi was the scene of a heroic battle fought in 1576 CE between the Rajput Maharana Pratap of Mewar and the Mughal Emperor Akbar in the valley and the mountain passes. The only surviving monument today is a shrine to Maharana Pratap's horse Chetak which, despite fatal wounds, took the Maharana to safety before succumbing. A brand new fort is being erected on the hilltop from where we can see the battlefield of the whole valley and the surrounding hills.
Three brightly decorated dromedaries with their drivers await tourist passengers to Balicha, the village of the semi-nomadic Rabaris, and Molela, the village famous for its terracotta craft. Three women and one man carrying massive stacks of grass on their heads walk by in the midday sun.
Bombay
Coming from a Turkish winter to an Indian summer is wonderful. Still, it takes a while to adjust to Bombay.
Bombay pounds at my senses. The squalor, the overwhelming crowds, the pungent smells, the dazzling colours, the vendors demanding my attention, the beggars tapping at my elbow, the traffic, horns blaring, swerving all around me. The women clad in bright saris and men in lungi and vest make a brilliant, moving splash of colour against the drab fading buildings. One night, returning home along Mereweather Rd in central Bombay, I am knocked aside by an elephant as big and silent as a house. This is the city of Salman Rushdie and Rohinton Mistry. The city where V S Naipaul was stricken with panic. A city on overload.
There is a sense of vast sprawling decay and chaos. Each of the 16 million plus inhabitants struggles against every one else for space and a living. The vendors spread their wares across the pavements and along the road's edge so that a casual stroll becomes a perilous walk through a minefield. Everyone, it seems, clamours to know,
"Sir, what is your name? From which country? How long you are being in India? Can I show you something special? What are you looking? You want hotel, very cheap? You want girl? You want boy? You want hashish, very good quality? Grass? One rupee? One pen? Foreign money for my collection?"
 Victoria Station |  Taj Mahal Hotel |
The food assails me. Every dish sears my tongue, only the lassi yoghurt is kind. My brain screams at me, "What are you doing here? Leave while you still can." I read of a writer's mantra in India: "Today's goal is not to die".
I arrive in Mumbai (Bombay) at four in the morning, quite possibly the worst time to arrive anywhere. The taxi ride from the airport into Colaba, central Bombay, goes through silent, dusty, depressing neighbourhoods with sleeping people everywhere and leaves me in the seedy alley of Bombay's best budget hotel. I take courage and wake the doorman asleep on the floor. He allows me to carry my two heavy pieces of luggage four floors up a decrepit staircase only to be told at the top that there are no vacancies.
I walk the six blocks to the Salvation Army arriving at dawn and wait for a bed to be vacated. Walking among the big noisy crows and the fading grandeur of a slowly waking Bombay, I fight the urge to flee this madhouse for a plane going anywhere. By chance, I walk along Best Marg to the harbour and the Arabian Sea in time to witness a breathtakingly beautiful gentle pink dawn and the Gateway to India. The Portuguese named Bombay "Bom bahia" – "beautiful harbour" – but though it was renamed Mumbai in 1995 it is still popularly called Bombay.
There are more foreign guests than locals at the Salvation Army. The staff are helpful but this does not offset the bedlam of the huge institutional dorms with guests camping out and cooking in the passageways. The ongoing renovations and paint smells are bearable but the bedbugs are not. After three nights I move to a guesthouse, a few blocks away, five doors down from the only gay bar in Bombay.
 Durries |  Hand tattoo (mehendi) |
Amazingly, on only my second day there Bombay suddenly feels comfortable. Day one blues must have been due to jet lag or culture shock. I tune out the vendors, beggars and traffic horns. I can cope with the mass of people living and dying on the streets. At the Kala Ghoda Fair there are stalls with dhurries, sky-lanterns, food. A small acrobatic troupe performs balancing stunts. Two women expertly paint intricate patterns (mehendi) on the hands of female customers. Someone plays raga cassettes; later in the evening several groups sing bhajans or devotional songs. The banyan trees lining the streets filter out the strong sunlight and provide leafy shade.
 Puja stall |  Shrine at Mahalaxmi Temple |
Mr Raju, an accountant, apologetically interrupts my letter writing to ask about my country. Well informed on Indian culture, he suggests several top raga musicians whose CDs I am looking for. The Kumbh Mela, the largest human gathering in the world, is held every twelve years in faraway Allahabad where over 20 million Hindus are congregating to wash away their sins in the Sangam River. I politely murmur something to Mr Raju but I cannot face the thought of mingling with that many people. And today, Amedabad is celebrating Makara Sankranthi, the world's biggest kite festival. They also celebrate it in Bombay, in a smaller way, on Chowpatty Beach.
 Kite flying on Chowpatty Beach |  Sky lanterns (akash dewa) |
On Chowpatty Beach there are perhaps thirty or forty kites in the sky. In Trinidad, our kites were supposedly brought from India when the first indentured labourers came 170 years ago. Though similar, there are marked differences. The Indian kites are purely fighting kites with fins and no tail. But, as in Trinidad, the real art of kite fighting lies with the older generation.
 Across the peninsula from the Gateway to India is the Mahalaxmi Temple. I buy a handful of flowers and bits of coconut for five rupees and go down to the sea where dozens of Hindus are floating their offerings. Anil is diving among the flowers and gathering the coconuts for his family."I cannot get that boy to go to school," says his father. "He goes swimming everyday. He lives in the water like a fish. How old do you think he is?" "Um." He looks like five, maybe six, but his father insists that he is eleven. |
At the top of Malabar Hill is the Hanging Gardens, a quiet spot for families and young lovers. Two park guards interrupt my thoughts to ask about my country.
"Ah, Brian Lara!" they exclaim.
"Do you see those big birds over there?"
I ask, pointing one kilometer due north where several vultures are circling.
"Why do they fly only there?"
"That is where the Towers of Silence are."
I feign ignorance.
"The Parsees put their dead for the birds," they explain.
"That sounds interesting. Can I see it?" I ask.
In 1975, Paul Theroux couldn't get in. Would 25 years make any difference for me?
"No, no-one except Parsees are allowed," they say.
"Oh, how disappointing," I make a sad face.
"If you walk two hundred meters down the road, maybe you can see the towers," they suggest.
As soon as I can, I leave and walk to the area but try as I might, the Towers of Silence remain hidden. Parsees, Zoroastrians who fled Persia in the 10th century, believe that burial and cremation will pollute the pure elements of earth and fire and prefer the sky burial also practised by Tibetans for other reasons. Numbering only 95,000 today, they await the Parsee messiah, Saoshyant, to institute their god's, Ahura Mazda, reign of goodness in the world.
That night, walking back to my guesthouse, I hear the chant "Ram, Ram! Satya hai!" and loud explosions like firecrackers and rounding the corner I am almost knocked down by a funeral procession bearing a corpse on a stretcher of bamboo. What is death? What is life? We are born and we die and it is those few short moments in between that seem so important to us.
Zubair from my guesthouse asks me, "Do you want to work in a movie?"
"What kind of work? What kind of movie?"
"An extra in a Bollywood film," he says.
And then comes the deciding factor,
"They will pay you five hundred rupees for one day."
"Okay. What do I have to do?"
"It's a disco scene. You just have to dance."
"I cannot dance," I say. "I would rather starve."
"Tomorrow morning at eight. I will wake you."
 Film set, Bollywood |  Film set, Bollywood |
They are shooting in widescreen format using a single Arriflex 35 mm camera. The male star is called Vivek, his real name. He's young, fair, good looking, muscular, cool. The female star is called Roshni, her character's name. She's beautiful in a fragile way. Neither of them has seen a script. The director makes up the lines as he goes along and acts out the scene he wants them to perform. The actors have trouble being melodramatic and he rehearses them aggressively. Each scene is rehearsed and shot twice. In seven hours they have shot about 12 minutes of film. This film, a crew member tells me, will take about six months for filming and post-production work before release. A short time.
Chris, an extra, chats nervously. He calls himself an Inglo (Indian –Anglo) as his mother is Indian, his father Italian. Young, good looking and well groomed, he wants to be an actor. Luckily for him he is also a good dancer and is asked to dance with one of the stars on camera – his big break.
In Bombay, as in other countries, I eat from restaurants as well as street stalls. "Beware of Delhi Belly," warned my friends in vain. I eat samosas, dosas, naan and vegetable curries and chicken biryani, chapatis and paratha, dal and rice, papad, pakoras, palak and aloo. And thallis with all of the above. I drink lassi, tea, coconuts, mango juice, sugar cane juice, cherry drink, Limca and Tums Up, mineral and well water. I eat spaghetti, Chinese fried rice, Hakka
Jazz Blows Hot, Cool at Smalls Club in New York City
From the mid-1930s until the early 1960s, jazz was one of the nation's most popular styles of music. Rock 'n' roll and other genres ultimately eclipsed jazz's mainstream appeal. But there is a place in New York City where one can still experience the spirit, the inventiveness and the community that was jazz in its heyday.
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| An unknown musician plays outside Smalls in Greenwich Village |
"…You come down here and see that these guys are sincerely living on that creative energy, that spark," said Smalls co-founder and guiding bohemian Mitchell Borden, while nodding in time to the music. "That spark is what keeps them going. When they dig deep and pull up something that is so beyond them, that's jazz."
Forging musical, magical connections
Nearby, Harry Whitaker, a jazz piano veteran, was sitting in his accustomed chair and taking in the music with half-shut eyes. He wistfully recalls when he came to New York from Detroit. The year was 1961, and New York was America's jazz mecca.
"I was in [the] Birdland [jazz club] every single night. I nearly killed myself," he recalled with a laugh. "But there was music all over… and the music was so intelligent!"
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| Master jazz musician Hank Jones |
"We learned from the masters!" he said.
Whitaker is a strong advocate for the "give and take" between musicians that he says live jazz requires.
"A lot of groups - and a lot of people - don't listen to each other. They are just listening to what they're doing."
In contrast, he added, when band members are "in sync," they are "in the zone."
"If you are really connected to the other musicians, that's what makes the music cohesive. That's what creates this thing."
Music that makes you think
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| Jazz master Harry Whitaker with his quartet's bass player, Renee Marie Cruz, and drummer, Brandon Lee Lewis |
"This music is celestial," says Lewis. "It's eternal. It's like you just grab it in the air. It's like you 're breathing it. That's what's so beautiful about it, and that's why it's so fun."
Lewis, who is 28 years old, acknowledged that most people his age overwhelmingly prefer hip-hop, rock 'n' roll and country music to jazz, but that he is "OK with that."
"Smalls is one of the few places in New York where it encourages people to get in touch with that part of their soul that causes them to think about things. And society in this day and age do not want anybody to think," Lewis says.
To him, jazz improvisation is like a shared code.
"We're actually talking. And this is a community place where somebody can get in touch with the community, for real!"
A community committed to authenticity
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| Japanese jazz composer and pianist Kyoko Oyobe often practices on Smalls piano during off hours |
"It's a special place for me. Everybody gathers like a family. That makes me feel warm," said Oyobe, who lives in a tiny apartment upstairs and had just finished practicing on the club's piano.
Oyobe especially like the huge variety of musicians - from the famous to the unsung, from the foreign-born to local - who come to Smalls to play, to hang out, and to create music, both for audiences and for each other.
"That makes [a] special vibe, a New York vibe, an American vibe and [a] human vibe!" added Oyobe happily.
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| Smalls is a rare New York City gathering spot where the warmth of family meets world-class jazz. Shown here are jazz composer and pianist Kyoko Oyobe and club founder Mitchell Borden |
"And it's not going to happen on my watch!"
Kostrinsky says there can be a certain coldness to New York, and that jazz that "brings things to life."
"It's blue and it's black and it's white and it's green. It's all these colors, but it's still under the gray fog rolling over the Brooklyn Bridge up to Harlem and back," he says, adding, perhaps unnecessarily, "and I love it!"
Heartfelt notes
Jazz fans love it, too.
"This is the place to come," said 19-year-old Brian, who had come with to the club with his wife Lisa to celebrate their first wedding anniversary.
"Jazz all night," swooned Lisa. "Oh, it's perfect!"
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| Joe Lovano and Hank Jones play together at Smalls |
"We listen to jazz all the time - at work and in the car…" said Lisa. "To us, it's just music in its most natural form."
Natural, free flowing, urbane and democratic, jazz often has been called America's classical music.
"In fact," said Smalls founder Mitchell Borden, "jazz lies under everyone's fingers. The piano has all the notes, true. But jazz comes from the heart. Go for it with all your glory! It has to be that way each and every time. Jazz symbolizes that attitude."
Lionel Richie Updates Classic Sound on New Release, 'Just Go'
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Lionel Richie is best known for such 1980s pop classics as "Truly," "Hello" and "Say You, Say Me."
Three years ago, he turned to some popular hip-hop producers to update his sound for his "Coming Home" album. They included Jermaine Dupree and Dallas Austin. The collection gave Lionel his first Top 10 debut on the Billboard 200 chart.
While making on his new album "Just Go," Lionel once again worked with innovative songwriters and producers. He talked about the collaborations on U.S. television.
"On this album, you know, Ne-Yo and Tricky and The-Dream and Kuk and The Movement and Akon, I'm telling you this album is amazing," said Richie. "And the joke with me was I walked in the room and said, 'OK, you're now Lionel Richie. Tell me what I sound like in 2009 and '10.' And, they nailed it."
Lionel got his first taste of success back in the 1970s as a member of The Commodores. His multi-million-selling debut solo album was released in 1982. Since then, the five-time Grammy Award winner has recorded nine more albums. Lionel explains that he doesn't take career longevity for granted.
"Very few times in life does any entertainer, anyone … you don't have this luxury where you stay around this long," he said. "Normally you have three hit records, four hit records, two movies, three movies and bye-bye."
Lionel recently wrapped up a two-month European tour. He returned to the U.S. in time to perform on the recent "American Idol" finale. In July, he'll appear at the Essence Music Festival in New Orleans, Louisiana, and more North American concerts are scheduled for later in the year. Lionel has also mentioned the possibility of reuniting later this year to begin work on a new Commodores album.
Colbie Caillat Gains Star Status with Debut Album
Singer-songwriter Colbie Caillat credits a popular Web site with breaking her hit song "Bubbly" and launching her career. |
| Singer-songwriter Colbie Caillat gained a following on the popular Web site MySpace, which eventually led to a record deal |
That record deal lead to Caillat's debut CD Coco. The title came from her nickname. Caillat talks about her musical influences.
"When I wrote my first song, it was just me and my guitar, and I had learned four chords. So the song was kind of like acoustic folk," she says. "But once I got into more writing and with my producer and recording, it just kind of added [my abilities grew].
"I like soul. I like R&B. I like reggae. I like classic rock. So I kind of added everything. It is kind of 'poppy' [popular music] because it is played on radio. So it is just a little mix of everything, and it is exactly my style."
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| Caillat says her father, a recording engineer and producer, encouraged her to write her own songs |
"He did [produce] Rumors and Tusk [albums recorded by Fleetwood Mac], and he engineered many different albums," she explains. "He worked with Bob Marley, Joni Mitchell, Pink Floyd, Elvis Presley. He did a bunch of stuff, but Fleetwood Mac … he co-produced those albums, so that is what everyone talks about."
Caillat credits her father for the best career advice she has received.
"To become a songwriter, because I always wanted to be a singer. I would always quit my piano lessons, and I was not really into being a musician. I did not even think about being a songwriter," she says. "It is really important for your career for being able to sing your own songs. Everything about it. It is just really important to do that [perform one's one compositions]. So once I learned how to do that, it is the best. I am so glad that he talked me into it [songwriting]."
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| Caillat's debut CD, Coco, was marked by a feeling of optimism that the singer says will carry over into her next album |
"He is one of my best friends since high school. He is an actor/model, and when I had to choose the guy to be in my video I was like, 'Well, why have some random guy when this guy is gorgeous, and we are really good friends?' The chemistry would be good, and I wanted to help his career out as well."
Success often brings pressure upon an artist to deliver a second CD that exceeds the success of the first. Caillat is excited about the new songs she has been writing, and brings the same optimism that was a trademark of Coco.
"I am really excited about it [her second album]. I think it is going to be great," she says. "I think we are, me and my band and my crew and everyone who is involved with me, we are going to make it the best, and the next tour will be amazing. I am really looking forward to it all."
