Navratri, has theliteral meaning nine nights (alliterative!).Celebration takes place for nine consecutive nights. The very mention of the word brings poignant memories… The lights dancing along the heavily brocaded Ghaghra cholis. The mirror work beautifully formulated by some unsung artists. A million sparkle-spangled, vividly-hued, intricately embroidered full skirts swishing. Softly tinkling silver bracelets, anklets moving to the exotic rhythms. Hordes of smiling women with foreheads intensely beaded with perspiration. They pant while dancing but have ecstasy writ on their countenance.
The staccato rhythm never pauses while they pirouette. They carry decorated foot-long sticks and clack…There’s the unfailing beat….
Myriad hues…reds, yellows, greens, blues. Gyrating fast and slow. There’s the sweetmeats they gorge on to keep their pep. Icecreams, Aam ras, chats. The nights go by…They dance till the wee hours of the dawn. Special provisions are made. There is a troupe playing music in every nook of the Gujarati cities…Some women catch up on the gossip swinging their limbs and also overworking their tongues. They chat about how their festive farsaans have come out this year. There’s usually an aarti. The ritualistic worship of the various statues of gods and goddesses.
The mandatory, ever-present milk sweets ( pedhas ) are distributed, mixing the beats with sweets
Karnataka- the painted sign proclaims (in three languages).The train grinds to a halt. The smell of metal is in the air. It’s been a grimy journey. But eagerness and anticipation fills Josh Hartlett as he has reached Bangalore (Bengalooru)-all cosmopolitan. The itinerary says it was known as the pensioner’s paradise a few years ago. However urbanity has hit it and made it more urban than most other cities. It is inhabited by a few foreigners. It was easy for Josh to see why. Its temperature was more pleasant than other cities.
It is also known as the garden city. It has plenty of greenery. But it was sad as he realized that pollutants are taking their toll. There were the green, cool gardens- Lal Bagh, Cubbon Park-to name a few. He found decent food in Bangalore- Pizzerias, McDonalds, and KFC… Quaint British villas hobnobbed with huge skyscrapers.
He found most people speaking good English, Hindi and Kannada.
This is known as the Silicon Valley. He found colossal IT parks with delegates from all over the world. Every other corner had call centers- with a/c and huge glass windows. The word “Bangalore” strikes fear in most Americans’ hearts. It is a word that has found its way into the dictionary meaning…the land of outsourcing. ’You’ve been Bangalored’ means-you are being replaced by an Indian, faraway in India.
There is this folklore that explains why “Bengalooru”-the name of the city came into being…
Apparently, a rich landlord, called Kempegowda, saw an old lady cooking some beans here. She offered him some. Delighted by her hospitality, he named the place “Bendakaluooru” (lit. meaning the land of cooked beans).It was then clipped crisply by the British to Bangalore and then recently renamed as ‘Bengalooru’…
As Josh moved in to the interiors of Karnataka, he saw Shravanabelagola (the giant statue of Mahavira Jain, Bahubali)
He saw cataracts like the Jog falls. (A feast for the eyes).He saw the lush dales of coffee plantations at Mangalore and Coorg.
He traversed through to Mysore-city of palaces. There is the Tipu Sultan palace maintained as it was-with swords, gilded mirrors, furniture and paintings.
There are the BrindavanGardens. With its dancing, scintillating, iridescent fountains. It was breathtaking. KRS dams. Mysore. Ancient. Contemporary.
He visited the Chamundi hills, Hampi, Belur, Halebidu (temples of
unequalled, peerless beauty).
This land is that of Udupi and MTR (Mavalli Tiffin Room).This land is celebrated for Rava Idlis(Semolina flour, steamed cakes) and Mysorepak(sweets made of sugar and lentil flour)…
The rurals eat something known as Ragi balls with a generous spattering of ghee (clarified butter) and coconut gravy with vegetables/meat and a kind of legumes. This was the land that bore PurandaraDasa, KanakaDasa and Kuvempu (noted saints and classical musicians)
South was simply superb. Josh had reached God’s own country-Kerala. The profusely viridiscent landscapes glided past in slow motion as he ferried the lakes. There was the immensely variegated boat race festival known as Onam. Long boats were oared by brown, sinewy men-each one vying to win the race. The women dressed in white and gold slowly swayed carrying small mud lamps around colorful patterns drawn on the ground with powders in every imaginable color called Kolams (rangolis in the north).
Huge elephants were indispensable during Onam. The pachyderms were scrubbed by the proud, smiling Mahouts in lakes and then adorned with red and gold brocade and paraded with howdahs (saddles).This was the land of Kathakali (the indescribably
complex, holy and radiant dance)-danced by an all male cast. They sat for hours together and painted their faces predominantly with greens, reds, black and yellow and emoted subtly yet articulately displaying a plethora of histrionics-pomp, pain, piety and purity…
Not to be outdone was the Mohiniattam -a dance form that was followed by the womenfolk. (Lit. meaning-alluring dance)
Kerala was the only matriarchal society in India (probably with the exception of certain remote tribes found in the Himalayas).Now, Kerala is a state with a literacy rate of 100%.Kerala had a potpourri of religions-Christians, Muslims and Hindus.
It was the birthplace of the eminent, Indian classical singer-Jesudas. There was the Guruvayoor temple and there were the beaches…
Important cities were Kochi, Thiruvanathapuram (Trivandrum, as nomenclatured by the British) and Kozhikode. Kerala had Malayalam speakers. Malayalam was an extremely accented language. Natives often spoke other languages with a heavy Malayali accent…The word Malayalam, (the natives pointed out) is a palindrome.
Food was a luscious fare. Coconuts were used in profusion. There was the avial (mixed vegetables and coconut stew) served with appams (pancakes).Rice with Fish curry was common. Banana chips originated here. Tourists seldom left India without thronging into Kerala. It was where Ayurvedic medicines and therapeutic massages were
practised .It was the ultimate resort for the foreigners seeking rest, relaxation, recuperation…
Josh watched as the luxuriant, emerald paddy fields melted into the distance. Excitement mounted as Josh neared-Karnataka…
South India promised to be intriguing. Chennai was first on his agenda. Never had he seen opulence and poverty contiguous, any where except in the Metro cities of India (The chilly Delhi, the jostling crowds in Kolkata, the equally populated Mumbai and now-Chennai).Slums encompassed these cities. The other important cities being the Hyderabad and the cosmopolitan Bangalore. What he absolutely adored was the food in the south. The people here served a three course meal on banana leaves. The staple food was rice. They usually served mounds of rice to be mixed(with your right hand) with Sambar (lentil soup),rasam(named by the English as Mulligatawny)-a thin soup made of tomatoes/tamarind, garlic and a liberal sprinkling of pepper and cumin seeds. Appalam( papad, in the north),vegetable curries.It was followed by rice with yoghurt served usually with pickles. All of the southern states followed the same norms while serving meals. The states were Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh.
Chennai was not much of a tourist spot. But there was the eternally-spoken-about towns of Ooty (Ootachamund) and Coonoor with spattering of spectacular waterfalls, lush green vegetation and valleys and dales. Pondicherry (a Union territory) had French influences.Kancheepuram was celebrated for a range of temples with amazingly architectured Gopurams (intricately carved towering structures and gargoyles made of stone and metal)
It was also distinguished for its silk saris with heavy gold and silver embroidery made in looms. It was known as the temple town as every nook and cranny had these huge temple usually bustling with people and a couple of elephants.
Hyderabad, though, had Nawabi influences and was famous for the spicy Hyderabadi Biriyanis (spiced rice with mutton /chicken), Banjara hills, the imposing Charminar, and the tortuous Golconda Fort.
People spoke Urdu, Hindi and Telugu. Hyderabad was located in Andhra Pradesh. The
other important town was Vishakhapatnam(a port) . Andhra curries, chutneys, pickles were consumed humongously by the locals. They served a specialty known as Gonkura
Josh journeyed through India beginning at the northern most tip of Jammu and Kashmir. Kashmiri women radiantly dressed with jewelry and kaftans picked the most succulent apples and other fruit. He spent the night in a beautifully lit, flower bedecked shikara( house boat).The freezing lakes and snowy, dewy mountainous backdrops. They were still, serene and surreal. Punjab was where the world famous Punjabi cuisine took birth.
It was where the stereotyped Pugree clad Indian was found. Most of these gourmets were large, bearded and mustached. and had insatiable appetites for cheeses ,meat, onions, green chillies and tandoor bread .
In the east,(overlooking the scenic valleys)were resorts
like Shimla and Darjeeling. Josh traversed through Nagaland, (their official language being English ), Sikkim, Mizoram, Manipur, Meghalaya, Tripura (all hilly and snowy)-where there was the bamboo dance, a monotonous yet thrilling dance, where the women dressed in bright colors leapt nimbly in between bamboo poles rhythmically, when one misstep could almost always mean injury. There were snow clad Himachal Pradesh mountains bordering Nepal, Tibet and China. Arunachal Pradesh, being the eastern most state, saw the first sights of sunrise. The Assamese women plucked tea leaves of lush, mountainous tea gardens. Bengal, where people had withstood the beginnings of English colonists, was named British East India. It was the home of Sunderbans, the home of the royal Bengal Tiger and the home of the HooghlyRiver and of the animal rights activist-Jim Corbett. Uttar Pradesh,(lit. meaning: Northern Province) largest in terms of population, with Lucknow - famous for Mughal Influences and cloth embroidery chikan work. UP was also noted for the Ganges(the holy Indian river),the holy Kashi and Benaras that was famous for temples, sarees ,Paan and Bhang(an intoxicating brew). Uttarakhand, known for handlooms and handicrafts He crossed Chhattisgarh with the murmuring Mahanadi river, meandering and sallying across the land. Madhya Pradesh, (lit. meaning: central province) largest state in terms of area, was well known for its National parks .Bihar was the domicile of the Buddha and Asoka the great. Orissa was the homeland of the beautiful Odissi (classical dance form).The highly industrious land of Haryana (manufacturer of nearly half of Indian vehicles) and Jharkhand - Jamshedpur Tata’s pet project .Gujarat and Rajasthan were beautiful, with women clad in shiny, bright hued Ghaghara cholis, catching light on the floodlit roads dancing garba .People were thronging on the streets consuming large quantities of chaat and ice cream during the sweltering summer nights.Then he moved to Mumbai, the big, bad capital of Maharashtra, and the hub of the Indian (and even foreign) film industry. The Indian version of Hollywood was also known as the tinsel town of Bollywood.
As Josh moved south, he reached the land of fantasies: Goa. He sampled the Goan fish curry. All the coastal regions had their own versions of fish curries. Sometimes wrapped in leaves and served. Goa had heavy Portuguese influences. There was the colorful Goan carnival and the warm, tepid beaches were spotted with bikini-clad foreigners lapping up the sun. One of their official languages was English. The variegated and much talked about South India was on his itinerary now. As the train inched slowly from
Mumbai suburbs, he eagerly awaited his next station-Chennai.
Indian food was at first unpalatable. He tried the Northern food that was available in every little shanty called Dhabas. It was mainly from a place called Punjab (lit. the land of five rivers). He grew to relish it. They offered bread made in a tandoor (a pot like oven).Fresh, hot and delicious. He tried tandoori murg (spicy chicken cooked in the tandoor), and kofta curries (vegetables/cheese, meat balls smothered in thick spicy gravies), kebabs (skewered edibles), Biriyanis (spiced rice) along with a generous supply of raw onions, curd, green chillies and lime wedges. The spices they used were mainly was garlic, onions, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, peppers, cashews….
Kashmiri food boasted of fruit-both dry and fresh .He began to enjoy Kashmiri pilaf (rice cooked with pieces of fresh and dry fruit) and naans and kulchas (pancake bread sprinkled with fruit as well) and ghosht (meat mainly mutton).Gujarati and Rajasthani food was succulent even in its blandness. He loved the juicy Khaman Dhokla( a savory, steamed seasoned cake made oflentil flour and yoghurt) ,dalwadas, jalebis (sweet-sour delicacy fried in copious amounts of oil),undyu(mixed vegetable curry ,aamras (thick juice made of mangoes ,shrikhand ( a sweet-sour dessert akin to ice cream slightly sour but creamy, nonetheless) Handvi, bhakris, theplas, rotis(bread again), a variety of farsan and chavana (fried crisp snacks).Mumbai was not far behind. He loved the snacks-wada pav, pav- bhaji(buns with curry and a blob of sizzling butter), samosas, kachoris (pastries with potato and peas filling deep fried in oil),the absolutely lip smacking gol gappas( potato-peas filling in small pooris doused with a thick-tangy-pungent-sweet-salty
Sauce with a delightful sprinkling of onions, cucumbers and sev).Chaat consisted mainly
Of the amazing golgappas, dahi poori(filled with yoghurt, sauce), raj kachori, bhel poori
Oooh! The choice was unlimited… and he had to tour the south as yet….
He learnt the history of India piecing together the events that were narrated by a slew of people including the sants (the beggar monks that claimed to be in a state of renunciation), the merchants (vending all and sundry), the “guides” (who told scarcely credible stories of how, when, where and why the tourist spots existed), the palm readers and astrologers, the eager bystanders who nodded (the very oriental nod) and elatedly spoke gibberish.
He moved through the (high class) discotheques and through sleepy villages that had never seen power supply. There was rubbish strewn on roadsides some places and there were touching tales told of how people worshiped the Gods that took forms of trees, animals, human beings (yes, pantheism was rampant in India).He found it disconcerting that people, who were that sagacious and sane, worshiped snakes (often offering milk to the hooded asps called cobras) and the bloodthirsty Kali (mother Goddess).They had
deities and demigods that ruled over money and material wealth, the written word, rain, fire, wind and all other natural(and manmade) phenomena…
He found himself flabbergasted with all this information. Until a wise, well-traveled sadhurevealed that most of the illiterate, rural, agrarian Indians that dwelt in the darkness of ignorance would not submit to reason as much as to the word of the Lord. For example (he explained) ecological balance was not something that appealed to their rationality as much as the innate fear of the unknown. The Rishis (sages) of the bygone eras thought of credible stories to feed the villagers. They pretended that the karmic cycle would punish them if they did undesirable things. But, the other side of the coin was: the not-so-gullible countryside citizens would make up false beliefs and superstitions that they found convenient to hoodwink the natives into doing what they believed was correct.
Hence, Indian history took an ugly turn as certain societies demanded malicious acts like
the dowry, sati and child marriage. These acts were a consequence of irrationality (the biggest evil) that is almost dead after certain intellectuals put an end to them.
He had visited most tourist spots that India boasted of, including the pearl Mosque city of Agra (at its bewitching best on a moonlit night) he snapped copiously away at it. The scented night made deep lasting impressions in his memory. He visited Chandni Chowk with its myriad hued hawkers. The festive iridescence casting a spell in its native chaos…
Spell bound at the peddlers and their wares. He then inferred something. There would never be that merry gaiety and pomp contiguous with the rich, splendid culture that this
New world had offered him. Behind the garrulity and (seemingly) rude conduct of these
Simple hearted, almost bucolic mannered people, there lay a warmhearted concern and solicitude that no one in his “developed” continent could ever hope to match. He saw these curios, antiques and artifacts that were tremendously well-crafted and painstakingly wrought.
He saw sophistication in the city created by Le Corbusier called Chandigarh.
He saw the vast expanses of jade green jungles-well-foliaged and viridescent .He bravely
experimented with the local people consuming everything imaginable including an assortment of fruits, nuts, berries, sweets, roots…It was a rich, rare mixture of heritage and urbanism. It was the land of polyglots: speaking various dialects-both the colloquial
and the refined….capturing fantasies and leaving people intoxicated and devastated by the multifariousness…
What was that again? Josh squinted in the merciless sunlight. A sign that said in a variety of scrawls…”Ramanand Rao-(“A cuer for the incueribals-homeopathethic doktor with hypnatics and reversel of blake maggic”). He was riding an “auto” -a kind of a modified tricycle that honked and blared with a hideous cacophonic noise. Yes, he had passed by the same “market” at least twice before. He had no clue about the viciousness (literally akin to the “vicious cycle”) of these swindlers… The man was crazy. He kept ranting on in a language that he called “Inglees” The “auto man” was gleeful alright (at leading the lamb to the slaughter) through the narrow alleys. Josh wildly gesticulated at the blithering idiot and put on his most authoritative voice and ended up yelling at the smirking, smug Autowallah. They had reached a nook .It was a dilapidated building. Ah! There was the lodge That said (in the by now familiar variety of scrawls)”Shanthi Niketan” He jumped out and was immediately accosted by a motley crew consisting of an amply endowed lady dressed in a saree and a huge pattern on her forehead. She smiled obsequiously and greeted him with folded palms. ”Mrs.Chawla” she said in a lilting, heavily accented tone. Nearby was a man that was obviously the male equivalent of an Indian Ayah. He bowed low and grinned. He wore a dhoti and had a towel over his hagridden shoulders. He closed his eyes and simpered again. There was a pooch juxtapositioned which seemed to be the only silver lining in the proverbial cloud. It woofed and wagged its tail.. He bent down and patted the mutt and was rewarded with a wet, sloppy lick. He had reached home. To be continued…
The imagined series…did not really fall into place.
It was surreal. He remembered each and everything. Well almost…
The strange shops with quaint, curious lettering in strange shapes. The same misspelt in English…“Ramnarayan Gola vendar”-the ice candy with exotic colors (set his stomach growling but he knew better…They had warned him” Don’t eat anything that looks strange in India),”Gopichand PaawnShop” with a fat Seth nodding and welcoming someone with folded palms, smiling a vicious, oily smile…
The phalanx moved on. People with a full gamut of appearances. Some of them stopping by (if only for a fraction of a second) to look at a gora…
“Soni, the silver ornoments shop” How creative these guys could get in misspelling the few English words they knew…”Ruchi Sweats”….
He turned away sickened by the mounds of sweets and flies interestedly buzzing over
them. He mentally turned over pages in his mind in a frenzy trying to match what he had read about India. No signs of tigers , snakes and elephants..
Or Rajahs spewing golden litter on his juggernaut processions…
No dusky hued Indian nymphets dancing to merry Indian drums and trumpets…
