So another Indian trip, now done and dusted! This time, last month, our point of entry into the country was Delhi. The new airport terminal is impressive indeed - sleek corridors, escalators, walk-ways, wall and ceiling murals etc, and above all the thick cushioned carpets lining the large open spaces and arrivals lounge. Thick carpets? Why? Surely they are not suitable for the climate, except during the short winter months? What will happen during the rest of the year or when they wear out?
In Delhi we had a hair-raising cycle rickshaw ride from the Red Fort to the Jamia Mosque - went up and down and round the most crowded narrow lanes where vehicles of all kinds, animals and people jostled for space. The way our young rickshaw cyclist navigated the traffic was just amazing. He had complete mastery of his contraption and went through the narrowest gaps adeptly. We could feel the pollution; for the first time in many years I actually had to use a hanky as a mask. This was reminiscent of our `cyclo` ride in similar fashion through the streets of Hanoi in 2001. And yet, one felt completely safe. Our driver was strong and agile and confident. He put in a lot of physical energy into the whole exercise and deserved an extra tip.
Early next morning to the Delhi Railway Station for the 5+ hour journey to Amritsar by the Shatadbi Express. On arrival at Amristsar, our group of 28 was met by a posse of 7 vehicles which was to be our transport for the next 9 days. Checked into the 5* Ista Hotel, then on to the Wagah Border for the Changing of the Guard tamasha - well choreographed and executed, but quite frankly it all looks much better and exciting in all the documentaries and video-clips that most of have seen, maybe because on the screen every move is captured in minute detail and the whole colourful performance looks larger than life.
Next morning, the Golden Temple - a truly fascinating place, which to the Sikh pilgrims represented a spiritual homecoming. Outsiders and tourists like us were welcomed warmly. We mingled with the moving congregation at their gentle pace. They exuded humility and an inner sense of calm and mission. Later, we visited the Jalianwallah Bagh, and tried to imagine what it must have been like when the massacre occurred.
Then came our gruelling road journey to Dharamsala, along a hilly, winding road with many hair-pin bends, over a distance of some 300 km. Our rather modest hotel, the Surya Resort, was at the Mcleod Ganj upper end of Dharmsala. The next morning we visited the Dalai Lama`s monastery. We saw where his seat was located, where he addressed his followers and where he received visitors. The surrounding mountain scenery was simply spectacular. We also visited a very British, English, corner of Dharamsala, the Church of St John in the Wilderness, one of the oldest cathedrals in North India, built in 1852, whose grounds include a memorial to Lord Elgin, Viceroy, who died there in 1863, as well as the graves of other British bureaucrats. Barely a mile from the centre of Dharamsala, it is a large area of natural beauty, with a variety of wild life including, we were told, leopards.
That day was Diwali and at night we walked through the narrow streets of McleodGanj dodging the fireworks, which went on into the early hours of the morning. Next day, we did another long drive of some 300 km again over rough and hilly terrain, along winding and narrow roads, to Shimla. We had to admire the skill and stamina of our young driver - and indeed all the drivers. Shimla is a big city on hills, with scarcely anything on flat land. It was up and down, and round the bends everywhere, with buildings perched on elevated terraces at different levels. Here we had a 3 night stay at the Raddison Jass, in magnificent setting. We had a busy next day, with a visit to the historic Vice Regal Lodge, which has been the home of the Institute of Advanced Study for over 4 decades. Its imposing structure and extensive gardens are a national tourist attraction. There were many visiting school parties and other groups, like ours. We had a short tour of the inside, and a glimpse of the library (from outside the closed glass door panels). This is where M G Vassanji spends a lot of time reading, researching and writing. Then we spent a leisurely afternoon in the Mall. It was full of local tourists and visitors from other parts of India, dressed in woollies and warm headgear. For them it was cold, for us it was just mild. Here at least they seemed to fall in line with the general ethos of the place; there was little litter about!
The next day 3 of us - a lone and determined young Englishman and my wife and I - decided to visit Chandigarh. This involved another long and arduous road journey, and a whole day out, but we did not want to miss the opportunity to see Chandigarh, because of the city`s legendary architectural history, wide boulevards and its famous Rock Garden. On the way back, we stopped by at the little known Mughal Gardens at Pinjore, laid out and beautifully maintained on literally thousands of acres in lush countryside.
Then on Tuesday, we had a very long day of travel. First, by the toy train from Shimla to Solan for about 3 hours through beautiful mountain countryside, with lovely views of holiday homes, villages and towns scattered all along the route. Then a rough drive to Kalka Station, stopping en route for lunch. This is where we parted company with our drivers and convoy of vehicles and got on to the Shatdabi Express to Delhi - another long journey of 4 and a half hours. Once again, we had excellent service, with drinks, snacks and a tasty hot meal. We arrived at Delhi Railway Station at about 10 pm. Although by this time we had become used to our baggage being loaded up into and off from the trains, here it was that we saw in minute detail how the porters handled the entire process - how each of the gang of 6 or 7 was allocated two or three pieces, how they put them up on their heads, one on top of the other and a third being pulled on wheels, how they then pushed through the crowds in procession along the very long platform, up the treacherous steps, over the elevated passageway, down the steps and then on rough ground to the spot where our transport was waiting. One could not but admire the sheer efficiency of the whole operation. This was our experience throughout: not a single piece of luggage was damaged or went missing. Everything looked from a bygone age as far as westerners were concerned, but things worked and the job was done.
On the flip side, my wife fell flat face down on the platform at Delhi Railway Station on our very first rail journey, to Amritsar, because of the unevenness of the surface, over a protruding slab of concrete. But because she instinctively used her yoga technique of stretching her arms right out and taking the weight on them, she suffered only a minor graze on a leg and her glasses were slightly bent - a miraculous escape but a frightening experience nevertheless, as she has had both her knees `replaced`. This was a learning exercise, because it taught us that walking in public places in India is full of hazards of all kinds - from street furniture, people, animals, pavements, buildings, vehicles and everything else, whether stationary or moving. I also had a slight fall, which could have been much more serious, because of a sudden and unexpected hole in the road on a hilly part of Shimla, where I could have plunged hundreds of feet below.
After an overnight stay back in Delhi, we flew down to Kerala, to a resort on Poovar Island which we thought would be just ideal for unwinding, but it turned out to be full of `Gujus`: in large family groups, noisy, boisterous, uncouth. This was, as we were to learn, because of school holidays. These people fitted every bit of the proverbial image of the brash and socially inadequate that we associate with the nouveau riche! We were told that Gujaratis and Maharwadis are the powerhouse of the Indian economy now. They certainly had all the crude confidence that money and spending it can give them. We saw them, the men, having mobile phone conversations - loudly making decisions, giving orders or advice, discussing deals - even while having a meal with their wives and children and other members of their groups. As grown up men, fathers, however, they were unused to swimming in the swimming pools; they used armbands! Very few of the children knew how to swim either. (Note: by `Gujus`, I mean of course the native Gujaratis, domiciled in India, not diasporans or `returnees` with an EA or other foreign background!).
The staff in this Keralan resort however maintained a degree of decorum and smiling friendliness that was in marked contrast to the demands placed on them by these Guju upstarts. Unlike in other parts of India, here the majority of staff were female - smart, cultured, petite, polite and dressed attractively in both western and Indian attire - who must have seemed like out of this world to these visitors from the outer spaces of India!
After our exhausting tour of the north, we were looking forward to having a quiet, relaxing time. Well, we did and we didn`t. Fortunately we had secured a lovely detached cottage, away from the hustle and bustle of this crowd, but we were scarcely able to do what we had hoped to in the public spaces: like having a drink sitting at a table on the terrace facing the lagoon, because when we did manage to do that, it seemed like a novelty to the locals! There were only one or two other solitary western couples who too felt out of place there. Oh, and here I had been eagerly looking forward to having a coconut drink - a madafu - but that alas proved impossible, in Kerala of all places! Why? The palms were full of coconuts, but we were told there is a scarcity of people willing to do the job of climbing up the trees to get them down or that the crop was used for extracting cooking oil etc. We only managed to have a drink by the roadside on our way back to Trivandrum Airport for our flight to Mumbai.
After all the last few days, we were looking forward to being in Mumbai. This time our plan was not to do any sight-seeing but just to savour the life and ambience of the city. Some 42 years previously, on our very first grand tour of India, as part of a belated honeymoon, we had enjoyed the hustle and bustle of the fort area of South Bombay so much that we thought we would try and replicate it. On that visit, we had been in and out of two or three different hotels - the Ambassador, the Airlines, the Nutraj - but had then settled in for a prolonged stay at the Sea Green Hotel on Marine Drive. On our last visit to Mumbai, in 2004-05, we had stayed at the much posher Marine Plaza Hotel just two blocks down, and noted that the Sea Green was not only still there but seemed to be thriving. So on this occasion, I had asked our travel agents to book us into that, to relive the experience. You might expect us to have been disappointed, because nothing in life remains the same, especially after 4 decades. But we were in for a pleasant surprise. The Sea Green hadn`t changed much in its basic ethos. Its structure and facilities had actually been modernised and the place had been recently refurbished. So there was material improvement all round. But more than that, the hotel`s culture - of friendliness, unfussiness, simplicity, cleanliness, personal service - hadn`t changed at all. Even its basic breakfast of hot tea and toast, with butter and jam, and green bananas, with additions as desired, had remained the same. It was served in one`s room. And we had a fabulous room on the fifth floor, overlooking the sea, with a clear view of the entire curve of the Drive. And of course, as on our previous visit, so this time walking up and down the wide embankment, at all times, even very late at night, was sheer bliss. This was one spot in our travels where we could walk freely at our own pace, without bumping into anyone or having to watch for unexpected obstacles or pitfalls. It is surprising that this part of Mumbai is rarely highlighted as an attactive feature in the tourist and travel literature.
So we arrive late on Sunday night, check in, and take a walk along the Drive. The next morning, my first priority was to acquire an Indian sim-card. Up in the north and in Kerala, I had had to use my UK mobile at exorbitant `roaming` charges a couple of times. A local phone however was very necessary in Mumbai for our purposes. Contrary to all the stories one hears, it wasn`t difficult to get one, but that I think was because in a city like Mumbai or Delhi or Bangalore etc, this is easier. So then we slowly made our way to our favourite spot, the Jehangir Art Gallery and spent a whole afternoon there. Met and talked to some interesting people - among them a bright young lawyer and a British-Asian young Muslim woman who works in Kabul, Afghanistan as a high level consultant. In the evening, we were treated to a meal at one of the restaurants at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel by our agents. We were picked up at our hotel in a limo for the short ride to the hotel and went through a dedicated circuitous route into the front of the hotel - all properly patrolled. As we disembarked, we were gently taken through security and into the foyer. There had been talk of increased surveillance because of the impending 26/11 anniversary but security, while visible, was definitely not unduly intrusive or oppressive anywhere in the whole area - of the hotel, the Gateway of India or in the general vicinity. When we finished our meal, I called our driver on the mobile and we were escorted out by the manager of the restaurant.
On Tuesday, we took a taxi to the Malabar Hill, to visit a well-known fellow British-Kenya-Asian businessman and philanthropist for lunch at his vast 12th floor apartment overlooking the Arabian sea. The view of the gardens and the sea below from his lounge was superb, but he said that the only drawback was the sight of locals defecating around there first thing in the morning! He therefore took his constitutional walk later in the day when all that lot had gone! On the way back, his personal assistant got the driver to stop by Jinnah`s old residence nearby at my request. A year ago I had thought of visiting it as part of my research for the paper on Gandhi and Jinnah but that in retrospect seemed unnecessary. It is in a dilapidated state - being the subject of civil litigation between Jinnah`s descendants and the Indian government - and behind the locked gates all one can see is a jungle of a garden shrouding what must at one time have been an imposing mansion. The notice on the gates reads: "NO PARKING : Proposed site of SOUTH ASIA CENTRE FOR ART AND CULTURE". In the evening we had a meal at a well known corner Pizza Place almost next to our hotel
Wednesday was Bakra-Idd, and so a national public holiday. It was celebrated in what appeared to us to be a very civilized fashion everywhere. We had been in Dharamsala, the home of the Dalai Lama, on Diwali, where there was a fair amount of fireworks. But here in Mumbai, what was astonishing was that this Idd too was being celebrated with fireworks - maybe not on the same scale but with gusto even so! The festive spirit was all too evident and stretched right into Friday. It seemed as if the `globalisation` of cultures had been internalised in India - but then this has always been the visible face of India, where people intermingle with no self-consciousness of attire or expressions of religious symbolism - it was refreshing nevertheless to see it action, complete with cross-cultural influences.
On this day we had arranged to travel a long way into the northern suburb of Boriveli West, to visit a cousin and his family whom we hadn`t seen for several decades. I had booked a Meru Cab. This is an efficient organisation. They had instantly confirmed the booking by text. Half an hour before the appointed hour, they sent me another text message, with details of the driver. He then arrived and notified me by text that he had done so. His name was Allaudin. So when we got into the cab, I wished him Idd-Mubarak and asked how come he was working that day, to which his reply was "Saab, I have to work for a living, even today"! The traffic was light. Somehow we got to our destination - asking several people along the way, nearer to where we were headed, even though I did have some directions and tried to give them to the driver, in India postal addresses are not the same as physical of course. At the end of the journey, he gave me a printed receipt, with full details of the start and end times and the distance covered, which was 42.4 kms over 1 hr 22 mins. The fare came to Rs 647 plus the 50 Rs I had paid for the express sealink toll - so the total came to just under Rs 700 (say £10), not bad! At Boriveli West we had a glimpse of the way real people live in the vast metropolis of Mumbai - how they raise families, do business and generally exist in, by our standards, overcrowded conditions, even though theirs was, again by Indian standards, a fairly well middle-class kind of neighbourhood. As in the rest of India, the schools were still on a 3 week holiday, now nearing the end, and so the children were at home or playing outside. On our way back, our hosts put us on the reverse commuter train from Boriveli West to Churchgate which ordinarily would have been just as crowded as on the way into the suburbs but because it was a holiday we managed the journey very comfortably in First Class, which cost Rs 100 each.
Thursday, we took it easy - shopping in Kolaba, again an afternoon snack at the Jehangir Art Gallery etc. In the evening we went to a concert at the Tata Theatre, part of the National Centre for Performing Arts, at Nariman Point, where they were having a Fesitival of Sufi Music. In India, they do not do telephone bookings, so on Tuesday evening we had walked down there to get our tickets in advance for today. This concert was in two parts: the first was a performance by the Hadra Sidi Mansour ensemble from Tunisia, of religious poetry and music, coupled with intense body movements leading the principal dancer in to a state of trance. I found it too male oriented and ritualistic. The second part was a totally home-grown Indian affair, with a performance of the Chishtiya Qawwali by the popular Aslam Sabri and his Troupe. His showmanship was obviously of a high calibre and very well received by the audience, with the Qawwali`s mystical text recited in Farsi, Hindi and Urdu. Although my wife enjoyed it, I am afraid I did not - but that was no reflection on the quality of the performance. What was fascinating for us, for me, was to watch the social nuances of the audience - the most sophisticated, cultured class of Mumbai-ites. As we climbed up the long stairs of the theatre, what we saw were a whole lot of them, in elegant dresses and attire, milling about with cups of tea, with a studied glance outwards to see who was coming up and in. During the interval too they seemed to make a bee-line for the tea counter, where cheese sandwiches were served also - this appeared to be a standard routine there - again with eyeingr the other members of the audience without making eye-contact however! Inside the auditorium, the audience was polite but showed appreciation with applause and repartees when the performance so warranted. On our previous visit in 2004/05, too we had managed to catch a live performance at the NCPA, of a play, at one of the other theatres in the complex. So this was our glimpse of the cultural life of Mumbai!
On Friday, we arranged to meet the lady from Kabul for lunch at the Leopold Cafe - the one that had been blown up two years ago on 26/11, in Kolaba. It was a thriving place, full of tourists, with a few locals as well. It is an open and inviting place, where people can have good food and conversation. There were no obvious signs of the aftermath of the attack here - nor, incidentally, were there at the Taj, where the manager of the restaurant had taken us for a stroll down the inner parts on the ground level by the swimming pool and residents` lounge. We had a lovely, long lunch and then spent the rest of the day tidying up.
Our flight back to London was in the early hours of Saturday, and so we were picked up and taken to the airport in good time. Here we were pleasantly surprised. The whole departure experience - the entry-point, check-in, security, exit passport control, the terminal lounge and facilities - was a model of 21st century efficiency and easy navigation. So it was a good point of farewell. But what of our impressions of India?
Every time we passed along the route, the drivers pointed out the Ambani residence, the many shopping malls and other places. At night, Mumbai really has the appearance of a modern, prosperous, mega-city - with neon advertising, street and shopping lights, sleek cars and often especially decorated hotels or other venues where weddings may be taking place. In daylight hours however the grubbiness and the ramshackle buildings, the overcrowded streets, the heat and dust and smell and the overwhelming chaos of the roads and other public places are only too evident. But as I had observed during our last visit, abject poverty is a thing of the past, and beggars have more or less disappeared. Indians however are our distant cousins, people with whom we cannot relate.
Everywhere, even in metropolitan Mumbai, the women were definitely regarded as second class citizens They meekly seemed to accept their inferior role and status. Wherever we went, even as an obviously foreign couple, everyone addressed me as the man first. Local people told us that when women get married, they are not `allowed` to go out to work, irrespective of their qualifications or previous jobs. Their own families advise them to get `settled` in first, and then negotiate with the in-laws about seeking work outside.
Although the locals were able to switch from one Indian language or dialect to another with ease in the areas that we visited, this was more in terms of functionality than proper conversational ability. As far as English was concerned, their lack of a grasp of subtlety and nuance made it impossible to have meaningful exchanges, except with a few professionals or intellectuals.
Queue jumping was a constant irritant. We saw some blatant examples of that and other forms of selfish behaviour in the public sphere. A couple of times I had to assert my presence so as not to be sidelined and once, on the flight from Delhi to Kerala, had to confront the male passenger sitting in front of my wife for refusing to pull up his seat that he had pushed as far as back as he could even at meal serving time. In India, the VIP culture is deeply embedded in the psyche of the people. Social hierarchy governs all behaviour. There is just too much obsequiousness and deference shown to people who are perceived to belong to the higher classes. This made us feel uncomfortable. Indians seem to be blithely unaware or unconcerned that there is a fundamental contradiction between this kind of social inequality and their assertion of democracy as the basis for an all- encompassing national identity. It undermines their international credentials in this regard.
These misgivings apart, it would be remiss of me not to mention that despite all the problems and pitfalls of living in India, we did meet several young men who were proud to be Indian and said that even though they had an opportunity to migrate or settle abroad they chose either to stay or come back to India. Among them was Nizar who, with his brothers Amir and Nooru, ran the business of Al Noor Jewellers in the Metro Plaza Shopping Centre opposite the Delhi Durbar Restaurant in Kolaba. They turned out to be Ismailis with a slight EA connection, but Nizar said he had turned down the offer of a US Green Card to return to India because he loved his country! Then there was another local Gujarati young man who said he definitely wanted to come back to India after his studies in the US. So yes, there is definitely a growing sense of pride in the country. That still does not mean that we as second, third or fourth generation diasporans can feel at home there. Yes, it is the land of our ancestors, with which one is bound by ethnicity and cultural heritage, but in other respects we do not belong there - we have moved on. We came away determined that this was going to be our last visit. We have seen enough - been there, done it. "No full stops in India"? Yes, this is it.
RAMNIK SHAH
Copyright
Surrey England
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