Old New Delhi

I took a long walk around Connaught Place a few weeks back. Weaving between newspaper-wallahs and touts, I stumbled across this old gem - the Madras Coffee House. The austere space has long been superseded by shinier coffee shops with flat screen tvs and young waiters who serve with verve. It is a relic of the state owned coffee houses of the 1930s and 40s. It was apparently the first coffee shop in Connaught Place when CP opened as the shopping heart of New Delhi in 1935. The day I visited, this Sikh gentleman and I were the only customers. The click of my camera reverberated across the silent room, muffled only by the whir of the ceiling fans overhead. The coffee was ..... unpretentious, but effective.

Lake: Mountains - Pretty

Mountains rising steeply from Dal Lake: Despite the warmth of Srinagar, a glacier could be seen at the top of the valley. The boats on the water are clearing weed from the lake.

Dal Lake

Kashmir

This week I visited Srinagar in Kashmir which is just as beautiful as the odes suggest. The Dal Lake does shimmer peacefully in reflected sunset, and the mountains do stand by as guardians. It reminded me more of east asia than the parts of India I have seen so far. Pitched rooftops point to snowy winters, but at the height of summer the air was beautiful, warm and still. I heard the non-sound of silence for the first time in months.

I was fortunate to meet many interesting people who spoke passionately about their respective causes. One friend told me that people had fought over Kashmir for centuries only because it was so beautiful - beauty as a mixed blessing. He hoped his son might see a peaceful Kashmir. Another lamented that some young Kashmiris were despairing, leaving formal education for more militant approaches.

All through town, heavily armed police manned checkpoints and patrolled the streets. Fighter jets flew high over the valley (just as falcons soared on thermals rising from the forested slopes). The infrastructure of watch towers and barbed wire reminded me of the left-over shell of apartheid South Africa. But that gave me hope - that where conflict and confrontation were once the norm, a more sustainable peace was eventually achieved. Watch towers were abandoned, and barbed wire was rolled back from township checkpoints.

The Kashmiris I spoke to shared a strong sense of identity as Kashmiris, and a longing for self determination, however that might be shaped. A number said they were seeking 'freedom' in lieu of independence. Most were realistic about the challenge of bringing such an aspiration to fruition. They were frustrated that their wellbeing was part of a larger game.

I came across a few culinary delights - and look away those who are skeptical about my vegetarian credentials. We were given beautifully spiced lamb kebabs in one meeting - hints of cardamon and mint. This was washed down by 'Kava', a mixture of saffron, cardamon pods, chopped almonds and sugar - delicious and worth emulating. And to top this, our hotel had fresh Kashmiri trout cooked in the tandoor - I had this for dinner on successive nights. Be assured that I am returning to a strict diet of lentils, chappattis and vegetarianism now that I'm back in Delhi!

In preparing for the trip, I googled the lyrics to 'Kashmir' by Led Zeppelin. Putting aside the stirring arrangement, the lyrics rang true. "My shangri-la beneath the summer moon, I will return again; Sure as the dust that floats high and true, when movin through kashmir." And so, I hope, will I, perhaps in the winter to try out the ski slopes.

Further to....

A friendly soul sent me this in response to my rant a few days back

“I understand how it feels to be called a racist, when you know that you are anything but that. Our cricketers were subjected to the same humiliation in Australia sometime back and we didn't take that very lightly either. So your anger is justified. But I can't stop myself from saying this - By getting 'pissed off' with India, aren't you doing the same mistake as the Indian media is - blaming an entire country for the foolishness of a few people? Something to ponder about...”

I take that on the chin… sloppy writing on my part. I’ve re-framed the issue for myself and feel a little less like getting on the plane. In branding ‘Australia’ racist, the media are not specifically aiming at me – though that is how it felt in the face of a broken fire-hydrant of cable television opinion. National stereotypes are universally unhelpful, and it’s never wise to judge a people by their delinquent youth or their media, (or their governments for that matter). That said, if ‘Australia’ was an individual, not a country, she’d have fairly strong grounds for a defamation case.

I remain sad that has not been space for more measured Indians to say their bit – particularly those who know Australia and Australians to be on the whole a welcoming, multicultural place and people. My country has a lot of work to do to change perceptions here, and it needs its friends in India to speak up – I see a few are doing so. I wish more of those who spent the last week re-branding my country as racist (a word that sticks like mud) could visit Australia and get some context for their comments.

Meanwhile, the whole episode has baptised me into the ways of public debate in India, and some of the sensitivities here about perceived racism. A learning experience……

The issue of the week is...

So I’m sitting here watching a panel discussion on the highest rating Indian television channel. The topic is ‘Is Australia stuck in a white’s only mindset.’ It has now been 5 days and 5 nights of CONSTANT fever-pitch coverage of the three horrid attacks on Indian students in Melbourne and Sydney. Words cannot describe how damaging it has been for my country’s reputation here.

Last Wednesday I was so sad that these visitors to my country had been treated so shabbily. I wished the numbskull 17 year old schmucks, who wander Melbourne’s train system making nuisances of themselves, would understand that robbing and beating people is unacceptable. I felt for the families in India who had sent their children so far away in pursuit of education - and their worries. I felt for the students who arrived in a foreign country and found the adjustment hard. I was glad that my people were appalled, that governments were promising action, and that Indian students were making their voices heard. That was 5 days ago.

The media here seized on the racism angle – and with reason, after all three Indian kids lay in hospital, hit by separate attacks in separate parts of Melbourne and Sydney. But since then, Wednesday last week, there has barely been a new fact to discuss. Instead the media has wallowed in the racism story. The pursuit of fact has been abandoned for the endless recitation of opinion. I have never seen such a self-indulgent display of group-think in my life. There are NO dissenting voices.

The presenter asks “Is Australia, a country of convicts, trying to overcompensate for its geography by being whiter than white.” A pompous man responds with “yes” and starts rabitting on like an encyclopaedia about a policy scrapped three years before my birth 32 years ago. This is trash journalism. I wish I could call up and tell them how much the accusation of racism hurts. “Racist” is not a word to be thrown around lightly.

So, tonight I’ve had enough – India is pissing me off. I want to go home to my city, Melbourne, and be reassured that it remains one of the most multicultural places on earth, richer for it, challenged by it, but a snapshot of our global future. I pray that tomorrow the sun will rise and India’s media will find something more important to talk to itself about.

One-liners

- A man walks down the street with a white parrot on his linen-shirted shoulder and a poodle-on-a-leash in his right hand.
- A woman steps up to the counter of a bagel shop and says - as though rapping - "I'll take a plain toasted bagel with bacon, egg, tomaytoe and scallion."
- A west African musician raises a room to fever pitch with his kora while west African ladies shake their ample behinds in a duel with the drummer.
- In the same room people dance towards the stage and throw dollar bills at the musicians.
- A man walks down the subway platform in a pink and rainbow lycra jump suit sporting a small tutu and mangy pig tails.
- The daily tabloid runs with the price of beer at baseball games and a global stocktake of vacuous bad-girls inspired by Paris Hilton.
- At a false alarm, firemen stand still on street corners and lean laconically against their truck as if they were an art installation.
- This is New York and it is fabulous.

Roll up, roll up

It would be remiss of me not to mention the “spectacular spectacular” that is national elections in the world’s largest democracy. The feverish campaigning is giving airtime to so many voices and so many parties that I, for one, am a trifle lost. Ninety per cent of my morning papers are devoted to a
kaleidoscope of regional parties and leaders, ex-cricketers and film stars, sons and daughters of the sons and daughters of famous people, and even a few comedians thrown in for good measure. The use of acronyms is totally OOC, out-of-control. And as with elections everywhere, rhetoric, high indignation, one-liners and counter-oneliners rule the debate. Party manifestos were duly released and ignored. In the latest bout, a BJP leader called the Congress Party "an old woman who burdens the nation". Young congress princess, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra responded that she was not so old (36). Congress demanded an apology from the BJP on behalf of the old women of India - and so on and so forth.

So the big questions: Will Congress (or ‘Cong’ as the papers keep calling the 90-pound gorilla of a party) manage to win enough seats to form the core of a new coalition government, or will the BJP succeed with the same. Or will an out-of-the-box third option coalesce around ‘Dalit’ leader Mayawati – whose new house in Delhi, resplendent with a life-size stone elephant in the driveway, belies her humbler roots? With such weighty questions the talk of the town, and few Delhiwallahs able to channel 'the mind of the masses', the race has taken on all the predictability of a Melbourne Cup. So place your trifecta, swill some champas and hold on for the ride.

I’m running a prize for the best caption to this photo – 81 year old BJP leader Advani getting down. Is it just me or is he dancing? There’s even a hint of some ‘air’ vinyl scratching... perhaps he had the beastie boys on while the photographer was snapping.... thoughts?

My new favourite cab driver

I've gotten to know a tall Punjabi taxi driver called Amarjit who drives a van more suited to a very short paneer-munching taxi driver than a man raised on the flesh of lambs and chickens. He crouches in the front and hugs the steering wheel as he weaves through traffic. His life story is unusual. Growing up in Punjab he lusted for adventure and ran away to Europe. For 15 years he was a baker in Amsterdam, learnt dutch and got married to a glamorous Moroccan woman. He talks wistfully about the happy times. Then it all went pear shaped - her family had issues with his religion (three years into the marriage), he refused to convert, the Dutch authorities cottoned-on to his long holiday in the Netherlands and he was sent home. Finding himself alone in a city that preferred naan to sour dough, he reverted to driving taxis. Now he's in the hunt for a nice Indian girl to marry - but not too young. She should be 30-35 - he'd prefer "good nature" to "good looking." Keep your eyes out. In the meantime, I'm trying to pursuade him there are breadeaters aplenty in this city who'd happily drive across town for his sour dour.

Art in a basement

Living in new city is an exersize in continual discovery. Outside of my flat-bubble is a massive metropolis through whose veins pumps 22 million different stories. Occasionally I feel smugly comfortable in my new city, content in new habits and repeatedly-trodden paths. I recognise the same beggars at the lights, and they recognise me. I know a few arterials and nod knowingly as the traffic crawls to a halt around 6 each night. I come across the same cab drivers, and waiters, and guards in my neighbourhood. And then occasionally, I step off my path and am reminded that it's a BIG city and I barely know it. Today was one of those days. I discovered some magic things. In the basement of a house near the zoo (which is something I had no idea Delhi had), I met a charming old man who had collected Indian art since the early 1960s, specialising in Indian minatures. He told me the tales behind the many pictures of Krishna and Radha, lovers of irresistable beauty, as interested in imparting his knowledge as selling art. We sipped tea, he showed me the brushes used by the artists in Jaipur. On his wall was a sign - "abstract art is a product of the untalented, sold by the unprincipled to the utterly bewildered." Not sure I agree, but there was no abstract art to be seen. Another sign read "Indian minatures are a magical world where all men are heroic, all women are beautiful and passionate and shy, beasts both wild and tame are the friends of men, and trees and flowers are conscious of the footsteps of the bridegroom as he passes by. This magic world is not unreal or fanciful, but a world of imagination and eternity, visible to all who do not refuse to see with the transfiguring eye of love." Pursuaded, I bought one... Radha and Krishna dancing in the rain. And I suspect this lovely gentleman will coax me back before long for more. Here is a segment of another beautiful picture hanging on his wall. There is so much beauty produced in this tough land.

Delhi from a minaret

Delhi is a difficult city to get your head around. It's flat, generally low rise and covers a vaste space. So it was quite exciting to climb the minaret of the Old city's spectacular mosque (Jama Masjid) and see Delhi laid out before us. In the foreground was the rabbit warren of Old Delhi, beyond that Connaught Place and the central commercial district, and then further still the power station and a glimpse of the new metropolis' of Gurgaon and Noida. At times in this city it's possible to wonder where the 22 million people of greater Delhi are hiding... This view helped.

Absailing the Taj

This has to be one of the more precarious jobs around - cleaning the dome of the Taj Mahal, a hundred yards up in the air with nothing but flat marble to break your fall. At least that's what I assume they were doing - either that or the Agra scout troop getting a little ahead of themselves.

Louis Kahn - IIM

Louis Khan - IIM

Louis Kahn in India

The monumental architecture of Louis Kahn serves as the campus of the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad. Kahn is known for such grand buildings - and for having three seperate families with three women at the same time.... interesting chap. I saw a doco on him a few years back so it was a treat to visit one of his most notable creations. The campus was built in 1962.

Ahmedabad

After weaving through the crowds of old Ahmedabad, we came to this beautiful mosque (Jami Masjid), built in 1424. I'm always struck how peaceful such open air mosques are, particularly by contrast with their surrounds.

Ahmedabad

This beautiful window was carved from a single piece of stone in Ahmedabad's Sidi Saiyyed Mosque, built in 1573 and now a virtual traffic island between four busy streets.

Ahmedabad

This is the old town of Ahmedabad on market day. We walked through the sea of humanity and onward to the arches at the far end of the street. In that 200 metre stretch, my energy and affection for India was recharged - this place is just phenomenal.

Slumdog furore

A twist to the Slumdog story. Hot off the Oscar red carpet, the fabulous theme song to the Slumdog movie - "Jai Ho" - has been purchased by India's Congress Party as its campaign theme for the upcoming National elections. The exclusive rights allegedly cost them millions. A BJP politician, Narendra Modi, used the song at a recent rally in Gujerat. His political opponents in Congress have threatened to sue him for copywrite infringement. Only in India.

Gandhi going once, twice

James Otis is a collector. He is selling some items once owned by Mahatma Gandhi including his iconic glasses and sandals. Gandhi had given them to people he met during his international travels. The items were to go to auction today in New York. Hysteria has hit India at the prospect that items that once belonged to the ‘Father of the Nation’ might not reside in India for perpetuity. The Indian Government has been galvanised into action by the public outcry and is pushing for Otis to donate them, or sell them cheaply to the Government. Two hours from the auction Otis undertook to donate the items to India on condition that the Indian Government increase the proportion of GDP spent on health care for the poor. Indian cable channels are aghast that he could attach such sovereignty-challenging conditions to the gift. The Government is refusing to sign a contract to that effect. I can’t help but wonder what Mahatma Gandhi might make of all this – a possession shedding man’s possessions are fought over in a global tug of war, live on TV. All await the outcome of “THE GANDHI AUCTION.”