The Head Wobble and other things to love about India

The perennial Head Wobble.  What does it mean?  It means everything.  ( and i love it)


1.Yes
2.No
3.Maybe
4.Maybe not
5.I understand
6. I do not understand
7.it's another beautiful day in India


I will be attempting to bring this mode of communication to Vermont.............white people will be closer to understanding rhythm.....and this can only be a GOOD THING.


other things to love about India


2. The Fabulously Delicious Food (haven't had a bad meal yet, Dad)  and ridiculously cheap too.  A vegan's heaven.


3.The Spices (sorry, we have Dust at home).....to eat a fresh green cardamom seed off the tree.....bursting with fresh perfume.....the pepper vines.........the cinnamon bark, curry leaves(!)


4. the colorful houses in the country

riding the train in OOty (hill station)

5. the kindness shown

6. THE ELEPHANTS
7.The funny tuk-tuks (and haggling the price to hold on for dear life as one careens down the streets) and Ambassador cars
8.the old  Temple carvings in Mammalpuram (8-16thC)

Charles my Intrepid and irrepressible leader

9. The Masala Chai and tea plantations- spicy and invigorating

tea plantation in Ooty

#10- the beautiful ragas in the morning, the carnatic singing in the afternoon and the instrumental sitar et al in the evening.

Find you own temperament in music......or as my friend Rob will say....."the best way to change  one's emotional mood"
Happy Birthday Rob and Amy!!!!!!
thinking of you both

travelin' woman

Type A Woman Eschews Linear Time and Opts for NOW

No, this Kama-Sutra pose has little to do with NOW....... but it is such a great reminder of all things Indian.

I just walked along the Arabian Sea..... the air blowing gently (always a nice relief) to wander...... into a team of young men playing football (soccer),  the Chinese Nets being hauled in (feat of engineering), families out strolling......all colors, creeds and ages.

Zena on my Shoulder

Last night was an evening of transcendence.  The room in the homestay in which I reside sits catty-corner (?sp) with the Malabar Hotel.  I stay in a very quiet side of town (Fort Cochin) and from the first evening onward I have heard the most languid and spirited (I know this sounds oxymoronic) music wafting through my windows.

My host Tyrone has told me it is the Hotel Malabar and it hosts live music each evening.  Well, I have been busy with cooking classes and social dates and on  Christmas eve they only play Christmas carols (bah-humbug).....therefore last night was the first evening I could sashay over in my gold silk duppata .  The setting is in an open garden, with a reflecting pool and frangipani trees.  They asked if I had a reservation and I sadly replied no........ and they said I'd have to sit inside.  Well, in India a woman of a certain age (who am I kidding....... any female) can cajole and flirt and I received the small table 9 feet from  where the sitar player would shortly take his place.  I ordered Indian produced Grover vineyards,  a perfectly quaffable Viognier (1/2 bottle) and a ridiculously expensive dinner (that was quite mediocre except for the bursting flavor of cloves and cardamom in the Ratatouille) more on Food at a later date.....let it suffice to say that i may be the only person in history to gain weight in india ( i never got ill)

The  3 musicians sat crosslegged on their platform.  Yellow flower petals would sail downward. The five tier oil lights were lit.  Frankinsense was smokily dispersed by a man swinging the incense burner.  The ambiance was carefully prepared.....lovely!
 They tuned up and we exchanged wide smiles.  The sitar, is the Most Magnificent instrument.  So bulbous and baroque.  What sounds of percussive tonality were emitted

from his stroking and plucking.  (Zena took us to see Ravi Shankar's debut in the US at Carnegie Hall......eons ago.......I still can conjure up his handsome face along with his tabla player, Hussein)

The tabla player would rat-tat-tat quickly..... their conversation easy and improvised and then the third musician played on ......what can I say...... it looked like a clay water jug......... you know those sounds as we blow into an empty bottle..... low and hollow and whispery at the same time?    it was ALL bliss....... emotional......... story-telling.... timeless.

Duke Ellington said there is only 2 kinds of music: Good or Bad.

This was GOOD.

I sat bobbing and swaying for the next 3 hours.....with a permanently

beatific smile on my glowing face.

Okay....... Zena.......... now it's your turn to add the adjectives.

Love Love Love

travelin' woman

Cochin-the Malabar Coast

those are little goats running down Bastien Street in Fort Cochin

I like this person's thinking!

91% Literacy ........ yes you read it correctly.  In Kerala, education and welfare of the people are priorities.  The children are all groomed well and excited to attend school.  Nursery schools are common.  Collectives are common (I purchased some cardamom and silk scarves from a women's collective) and the beggars are Definitely fewer than anywhere else in India.
I have been all over the state, but this blog is about Fort Cochin: a very very charming hub bub of a neighborhood.
Cochin is a gaggle of islands (as is Mumbai) connected by
small bridges or ferries.  Fort Cochin remains very small scale; narrow tree lined roads, a labryinth of intersecting mayhem.......perfect for me to get lost in......... which is truly how i travel!

state of Kerala- first  and only elected Communist Gov't in the country

St Francis church- oldest church

Chinese fishing nets

net being lifted by 4 people- traditional fishing

the day's catch- notice blue foot crabs

The Portuguese (and of course later British) came here in search of SPICES for commerce (later, East India Co which was the vehicle for the British Empire to take final control).
Consequently, there are many churches and Christians (+ Christmas), as well as JEWS ,Jains, Muslims and Hindus.
But it is the SPICES that are so wondefully exotic.  I visited 
plantations as well as markets....... more later.

On my second night here I went to see KathaKali dance...... which is actually more like theatre.  The men play all the parts and it is the language of the EYES and mudra (stylized positions) Hands.

make up applied for Kathakali performance

the musicians were powerful and carnatic singing accompanied

this beast wants to seduce another man's wife (the beginning of the troubles in the world!)

She so-does-not-want -him

the husband lays a trap a slays him

Now for a little irony......in the world of travel. The first day in Cochin I took off for walk ,trying to find Dal/Roti a restaurant recommended. It was closed so I just began to wander.  Fort Cochin is like that; it encourages wandering with its goats skirting in and out of alleys and the well groomed school kids laughing, and the endless (harassing) tuk-tuk drivers (ferrari they call themselves) and of course the iconic church steeples rising above the seedy architecture.  (Please Indian architects........ come home and create some beauty!) I nosed myself to another closed cafe and then found an art gallery.  It was so compelling and provocative that i had to walk in and really view these paintings and drawings.  They were drawn in ink, boldly graphic with startling images of violence.

They were beautifully disturbing.  And well drawn. Then I noticed that further inside was a cafe.  I sat down and noticed that the place was filled with ex-pats, Indians and tourists.  There is a place like this in every "hip" place around the world.  A place to meet.  Within 5 minutes I was in a  humorous conversation with expats as well as the American owner Dorrie and her Cochin born husband.  How could I not discuss the art on the walls?!  turns out .....later on l looked in my Lonely Planet, and she is the Queen Bee of Cochin's art scene.  Sitting next to her was a "sadhu" and a westerner.
They were casually listening to our conversation.  All of a sudden, this Indian man,wearing just a dhoti and matted hair and for all intents and purposes looked as though he had just stepped from the ghats of Varanasi spoke to me and said, "I love Vermont and Bennington is my favorite town"
My eyebrows went up......i was speechless.......I hadn't even said what state I was from...... not to mention the exact location.
Meeting people from around the world is like that............... it's a futile exercise to think "labels"-"categories"- or "boxes".
Isn't the reason we travel to "roam, think and behave out of one's box?????????!"

door hardware in my room

travelin' woman

I Can No Longer Refrain- 10 things that drive me crazy in INDIA

1.  THE SLUMS (everpresent)  read, "Shantaram" by Gregory David Roberts for a real understanding of the slums
 
2. The Toilets (yep, even in first class trains,squat hole in the floor,
disgusting dirty STINKING toilets.....try going overnight....(what a nightmare for a woman of a certain age) This has not changed in 40 years

3.The HonkHonkTraffic that never stops 24 hours a day in the cities of India

4. The Hustle/ that never ends.............. even as you politely say "no thank you " over and over 

5.The "bump" and "grab"---- worse in the north but still...... men employ this as they walk ......into You. (female)  in the north they jostle and steal .


6. The poverty.... the poverty...... the poverty


7. The nouveau riche who look the other way (read, "The White Tiger" by Aravind Adiga)  and tell you the poor are lazy.


8.The caste system


9.the pollution/no infrastructure to deal with this/ the overwhelming needs/deeds of 1.2 billion
The Smell everywhere (no matter how much sea, or incense or first world boutique hotels) is Sh*t and Pi*s.  It's really difficult for me.


10. The FU>")**(&KING Toilets  (oh did i mention this?)


yes the top ten delights will follow at some point.
No, i could not ever live in India
but i am enjoying myself immensely 


breathe in deeply (for me) the scents that surround you.








travelin' woman

Chillin'Out in southern Goa- Agonda beach

Sunset on Agonda beach

yes, the brahmin cows roam the beach

what a scene....... they come out for sunset

After 4 days in harrowing Chennai I needed a place that didn't feel "indian"

That place is Goa.  Portuguese Vasco de Gama landed there in the 16th c. and it hasn't been Indian since!  Jesus Christ replaces Ganesha  in all the taxis.....churches abound.....as do names like D'Souza; people even look very differently.

Being a woman of  a certain age, I eschewed party - central - north  - Goa and headed for the south............a Pristine (CLEAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) quiet tropical and calm sea beach called Agonda.  Sunrise walks on the beach, yoga each morning  

(avoiding all coconut trees), endless

swimming and walking......quietude and a relaxation so deep ........that I did something I have never done in over 40 years of solo travel.

Confession:        (even Jewish women do this)

after walking in the little town all afternoon, hot and tired i returned to my little beach hut on the beach and quaffed a kingfisher beer at the open air restaurant.  a few beers later, lots of talking with fellow travelers from denmark, eating nepali thali (yum yum) and perhaps a cocktail or two I ambled the 50 feet or so back to my hut and drifted into an early reverie of good sleep (not so easy for me..... in India)

at 4:45 am I sit straight-up in  bed, push the mosquito net aside and my one thought is, :Did I bring my baggallini (passport,credit cards, money etc) back to my hut???????

the long and winding stretch of clean and calm waters of Agonda Beach (sweet dogs too)

Satosh my nepali hero serving up powerful drinks and honesty

 No, I did not.  I grab my flashlight.....and meet the security guard outside and we look on the beach. no luck.
i will say i am quite calm.
(Note to self: maybe i am too relaxed)  we wake up the nepali sleeping in the bar area and he says that he will look in the safe places. no baggallini.  then we wake up satosh one of the sweet and amiable nepalis who work there and sure enough.......25 minutes after waking up he presents me with my baggallini, Everything is Present and Accounted for!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
UnFu&#$@#?"!@+*************king believable.  After apologizing for waking everyone up so early i take satosh aside and give him 1000rupees (20 dollars/a king's ransom), he looks confused and a bit insulted.  i tell him that I am eternally grateful , that without my passport and credit cards I am in BIG TROUBLE.......REALLY BIG TROUBLE.  He replies," This is my job"  and I reply," Yes, and you did it extremely well and I would like to thank you from the bottom of my heart".  He accepted it (as did the other 3 nepalis who made sure i knew that it was they who had found it)  For me.......... they were so sweet and kind and made the best nepali food.................I was feeling very grateful INDEED.

town with ever present cows and goats

another relaxing evening comes to agonda beach

 Relaxation and making a new friend, Anne from Denmark.....a fellow rabblerouser  and traveler extraordinaire  made Goa just what i needed.   (she'll come to BALI later on)
If I had been in northern India I could have kissed that all away.

travelin' woman

Return Passage to India

cleaning the street in Chennai

I have surrendered.  It was not difficult.  On the plane, (Jet Airlines) from London to Chennai (Madras) there were plenty of first-world Indians and their first world stresses, yet the female flight attendants lovingly attended to the blind, the infirm and old.  Helping them to their seats, consoling them,treating them with dignity and patience.  What's first world about that???????? Note to American Airline business model: how about some SERVICE!!!!!!!???????

My first trip to India in 1976  (solo) I left my hotel in the north and the first image to hit me (India assaults) is a female beggar ,leprosy has taken her nose and most of her jaw, crippled, with her scrawny  and mangled arms outstretched 
begging............ It is an image  that has haunted me to this day.  And that was day#1. After a month roaming the north, the polluted, harassing over crowded over heated north I ended in Varanasi: the sacred Ganges.  Cremations and sadhus and a labrnyth  of tiny alley streets with the constant smell of burning flesh made me flee (Back to Afghanistan).
The assault was too much.  And these are the feelings in which I trepidatiously re-entered India.  I knew in the ensuing 36 years India had entered the developing and even a first world (in IT centers); but that was all intellectual.  
Chennai is now definitely a mixed bag.  Lots of nouveau riche
marble McMansions (next to the ever present  slums), cappuccinos  and masala chai, tuk-tuks next to Mercedes and the all consuming Cell Phones.... and did i mention
HONK-HONK!!!!!!!!
Crossing a street is an exercise in blind faith.  But they Do let you cross........even as you inhale their exhaust.

old palm leaf manuscripts. sanskrit in the Theosophical Society

all the religions are represented

What a delightful stroll through the Theosophical Society, founded by Madame Blavatsky.  Beautiful quiet gardens with parrots,OWLS, bee-eaters and a 250 year old banyon tree to contemplate.  A library contains all the historical facts/books on the religions of the worlds.  A REAL TREAT

roadside eating

Tuk-Tuks (3 wheeled)- in 1976 they were human Powered

Bollywood is alive and Thriving!

Hindu Temple where i had garlands of jasmine in my hair

detail

outside temple

flower vendor who wove the garlands in my hair

mandala

ashes for my forehead (after performing puja) the mouse holds up the God Ganesh (the elephant)

The soup kitchen for the temple (I contributed generously as  this was directly helping as opposed to giving to the multitudes in the streets which are often scams!!!!!! (young girls with babies who pinch them to make them cry.... they have a pimp as in 'rent a baby")  More on my struggles with this later_)

the mandala lends a sacredness and universality ...... even to the ground

Pujas (offerings of fire)

touching the sacred tree (the colors denote puja+ worship)

couples who want babies hang these (little cradles)

what a feeling to spend the day praying with the masses, inside the temple; individually sacred, not all temples allow foreigners inside......but i do really enjoy to be allowed to pray, meditate and observe all the practices  

Zoe Nardone leading me through the markets like a Natural

Zoe and I buying "sweets" for her host family

One of the reasons I landed in Chennai was to visit Zoe Nardone, a lovely local young woman from North Bennington.  I have known her family since they moved to N. Benn perhaps 15 years ago.
Zoe has demonstrated a deep commitment toward global understanding and her family has hosted an international student studying at the local high school.  It was a natural for Zoe to come to India for her gap year...... yet I do not believe that anyone expected her to be living in the Royal Splendor that fate handed her.
Her Chennai family are educated, Hindu and wealthy.  The mother is a charismatic force and a lawyer by profession.  They generously offered hospitality and invited me to come to their home and have a fabulous south indian meal...... on banana leaves and eating with hands. (this is the holy grail of traveling: being invited to a local home!)  Zoe is Thriving in the big city....... but she is definitely living in a first world homestay..........Even with WESTERN TOILETS!
She graciously showed me around her neighborhood in Chennai.
It was delightful to be in her company.-

Indian hair is the finest worldwide for wigs

the cellphone addiction knows No boundaries

Zoe and her loving Chennai family

travelin' woman