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.”

Cheese

My driver Leo has very broad taste in music. He particularly seems to like Oz rock and drum + bass. So it was a surprise today when I asked him what his all time favourite song was - and he said Glen Medeiros - Nothing's Going to Change My Love for You. I've downloaded it for his benefit - my itunes cred is forever in tatters.

If you should so wish to revisit the work of Seniore Medeiros, please click here

Random Sunday morning Delhi

The Sunday stupour in my street was shattered by this - ghetto blaster meets ancient hindi scripture (I'm guessing).

I live in a quiet street - the type of street Mr Whippy vans might visit on hot Sunday afternoons to taunt the neighbourhood children. Today, as I digested the sunday morning papers, a full brass band strolled past my house accompanied by women dancing and a man dressed as a hindu god riding atop a truck. They stopped across the road from my house and blasted my neighbour with hindi songs for 10 minutes. The man dressed as a god made a speech and then they all turned around and walked back down the street. So random!!!!! Anyone with tips on what it all means, please let me know.

On the N5

We were driving down the main highway through Orissa (which connects to Kolkata in the north and Chennai in the South) late one evening recently. Rounding a corner we came across the mother of all jams. More than two thousand trucks (and I'm not exaggerating) were lined up on the road - and judging by the card games underway between drivers they'd been there a while! We cheekily drove on the wrong side of the road for about 2km passing truck after truck - nothing coming the other way. In a small village we asked why the trucks were all stopped. A policeman told us a child had been hit by a truck that afternoon while walking home from school. The villagers, enraged, had blocked all traffic on the highway. They were unwilling to move until the District Collector (sort of a chief town bureaucrat) came down to negotiate compensation. It seemed the going price for a child's road death was Rs20,000. But the Collector was busy, and no subordinates were authorised to approve such an expenditure (about AUD600) so the trucks stood still, their loads sweltering in the heat. Eventually when the Collector rocked up, a compromise was agreed - Rs10,000 and a promise that the Government would erect speedhumps on the highway through the village. Leaving we passed another thousand trucks backed up in the other direction. All sat there patiently, filling the 5 hours of boredom with comradery and endless stares down the line of trucks.

Dalit village holy man - Orissa

Hard work in pink

Not to suggest this has national applicability, but in villages I visited recently it was hard to miss the amount of hard menial work being done by the women of the village. Here a woman is sorting the rice husks from the chaff. In the fields women were bending over to prepare the ground for the growing season ahead - waiting for the rains. Nearby other women were washing, caring for infants and cooking. All the while wearing spectacular hot pink saris. I suspect the men were mostly undertaking work further afield, but those present were doing quite a bit of 'important man' business.