Notes from London

Once again in London! What more can be there to tell about it?

I know the feeling. Every thing that could possibly have been said, has already been said!

Yet, I did have some new experiences. Reality is supposed to be subjective, so even if everyone else has already written about London, my reality of it will be different and it will be different from the last time I was there 4 weeks ago, since in 4 weeks, I have changed. So bear with me, even if I will understand that you might decide to skip this one and to spend your time better!

***
Going to British museum in London reminds me of eating a banana split ice cream at Nirula's in Connaught Place in Delhi. In the end, it was difficult to finish that banana split and the sweetness of it gave me nausea. Every time I finished eating one, I would say "For one month, I am not going to touch any ice-cream".

Going to the British museum is like that. So much to see that in the end, it all gets too much. Entry to the museum is free and there is no prohibition on taking pictures. I especially love the Assyrian section.

But even the new dome covering the central space is so beautiful. And, the christmas lights in the shops in the museum were so beautiful. In the end, my head was bursting with things I had seen and my arm had cramps from the constant clicking that I was doing. I don't think that I will be back there any time too soon.

There was a wonderful new exhibition in the museum about the death rites and death linked mythology from around the world. There were masks in this exhibition from Andaman and Nicobar islands (India), some what similar to the Mau Mau figurines I had seen among the Toraja tribe in South Sulwesi (Indonesia).

***
On Saturday afternoon, the meeting finished earlier than the plan. "I want to walk along the bank of Thames", I thought and off I was to the Hammersmith bridge. I had been to a pub around there for a dinner once and it was lovely to sit along the river, sip some beer and chat with friends in the summer. Probably that was not the right kind of memory for deciding about the walking trip in December, but that thought came to me much later!

The Thames path, goes along the river and then at some places, where private buildings block the way, it goes in between houses, waiting for the next point where it can rejoin the river. At one such point, I found myself in Bishop's park with boys/men playing football and American soccer. I like the funny clothes they wear for soccer, with puffed up shoulders and sleeves. I also like the ritual of everyone putting together their heads as the ball is launched. I don't understand the rules of the game but that does not stop me from admiring it!

Then I reached the All Saints church near the river in Fulham. It had lot of old tombs with some interesting tomb stones. Like, "Here lies Susan Parkinson, loving wife of xxx and mother of xxx. xxx, xxx, left for her heavenly abode on 17 August 1759". I like cemetries.

Anyway, I walked and walked and walked. It was lovely. In the end, when my legs were almost giving up, I thought it was prudent to go back.

"I will try to find a short cut for going back to the hotel", I told myself. And, so I walked and walked and walked.

"I won't ask anyone for directions", I had told myself. I often make such rules for myself. However, in the end I had to ask someone for directions, since I seemed to going around in circles. My "short cut" was taking me further away from my hotel, I was told and, it would be better to take a bus or a taxi.

When finally I reached my room, I felt like an old man, in terminal stage of some advanced disease, who seemed to walk like a drunk sailor on a ship in a stormy night.


***
By Sunday evening, I had apparently forgotten about my decision to avoid museums for some time, and I was back at the Trafalgar square to look at National Portrait gallery. Like British museum, it is also free but unlike B.M., here you can't click pictures of old masters like Van Gogh, as I discovered when I tried to do so!

Outside, the sky behind the opera house was darkest shade of grey-black, producing a lovely light over Trafalgar square. The statute of a disabled pregnant woman by Mark Quinn in the square is provocative. With countries and societies often insisting on forced sterlisations for the disabled persons and promoting abortions if you think that your child could be disabled, to put such a statue in the main square makes you question some fundamental beliefs, I hope!

The newspapers on Monday were about the big blast in a petrol depot, some 30 miles from London, that had produced a 75 km wide black mushroom cloud. I wonder if that black cloud visible in Trafalgar square was because of it?

***
Saw this funny ad about condoms in an underground station, with digital ducks wearing condoms on their head-plumes.

Reminded me of an ad I had once seen in Salvador de Bahia in Brazil about noise pollution and loud music in cars. "Show your virility in the bedroom, not on the streets. People who can't do it in the bedroom, tend to make more noise on the street", that ad said.

So here are some images from this eventful London trip!

***
This post was originally written in 2006

A day in Florence

(Originally written in 2006, edited in 2013)

 

As I reached Florence, it was raining and it was cold. I shivered outside the Santa Maria Novella railway station. I had been trapped by my friend Roberto from the "School of health and sustainable development" in Florence. He was organising this big international meeting and one of his speakers had ditched him at the last moment. So I was co-opted.

It had been a long time since I had been in Florence. Perhaps the last time was in 2001, I am not so sure. It had been even longer since I had gone there as a tourist. As I looked around, hurried florentians were rushing off to work, holding on to their umbrellas. I had come an hour earlier, so I could afford to walk slowly, look around and smile at those who showed their irritation 'cause they were getting late for work or some appointment.

It is funny, how you can live next to the most beautiful place in the world and yet, how you stop seeing the beauty because you are too busy running. I guess, that happens to me as well in Bologna!

I love the old buildings on the street leading to the city centre from the railway station. I saw an ancient looking church on the way. The board outside said that it was first built around the end of ninth century. I decided to go inside. It was beautiful with old frescos on the walls that were peeling off. And, it was cold and dark. A young man in his impeccable business suit and briefcase, made the sign of cross hurriedly and rushed out. I like places that are still being used for the normal day to day life, even while the tourist stand around and gape.

The paintings and statues on the wall, gained more depth and life in the dim light. There was a beautiful painting of Joseph with baby Jesus in his hands, looking at the child with fatherly love, while Mary seemed like a self-satisfied mom, looking adoringly at her husband and the baby. Behind them in the painting, there was some high ranking priest speaking in a church with another younger priest kneeling on the ground. I am sure that painting was commissioned by that elderly priest, wishing to show himself off with the holy family to the congregation.

But what caught my attention was a group of statues with crucified Jesus in the middle. The saint like figure on the right, seemed to crush the head of a protrate man with his foot, resembling the Durga-Mahishasur statues.

After this brief stop-over, I proceeded towards the Duomo, the cathedral of Florence. It is one of the most beautiful squares in the world, with its pink, burgundy, cream and dark grey wedding-cake like church, bell tower and the round battistero.

While walking towards the Cathedral, my attention was caught by the plastic chairs under a tent outside a restaurant. The chairs at the outside edge had all been turned inside to save them from the rain. It thought it would make for a nice view of the cathedral, though the final result does not look very artistic!

While I admired the church, a group of tourists arrived, got down from the bus and immediately started clicking. All right, I know, with my own frequent camera clicking, I am no position to comment on the camera clicking of other tourists, but still it did look funny.

They must be Japanese, I thought. But as I came closer and heard them talking, I realised that they were Chinese. It must be a nightmare for these Europeans I guess, seeing all those Chinese, who are shown in the media as illegal immigrants, or as persons exploiting human labour to make cheap things and doing "dishonest" practices to dump their exports, to realise that now their bread and butter depnds upon these "lowly" tourists! Perhaps a day would come when Indian tourists will also descend here like a storm of birds, haggling over the prices with the souvenir shops. Perhaps they already are!

Chuckling to myself about the injustices of life, I walked towards the Piazza della Signoria, or the square of the Lords, with its magnificant old palace and the statues.

The famous statue of David by Michaelangelo, outside the gate of the old palace is a copy, the original is inside the museum. I am surprised that the church and all those self-righteous leaders have not cried to ban or cover those statues. Actually they must have tried. Two smaller statues next to the door, have the genitals covered by fig leaves, though they seem to have an opposite effect, in the sense, from a distance, they look like pubic hair.

Next to the old palace, the loggia has some of the statues for display, including two by Giambologna, the sculptor who did the Neptune statue for Bologna.

I think that this is a sign of civilization and of abundance, that city has decided to put some of good statues outside, so that general public can also admire them without going inside the museums and without buying any tickets.

In fact in Italy, Florence has the reputation of being a civilized and cultured city like Lucknow in India. When Italy was unified, it adopted the language of Florence as the "standard Italian", a bit like Avadhi-Khari boli were adopted as Hindi. My tourist time was almost over, so I rushed to have a quick look at the old bridge over the river Arno.

I almost ran to Piazza Santissima Annunziata to my meeting as I was getting late. But I was not satisfied with my tourist visit of Firenze and I wanted more. At lunch time, I decided to forego the official lunch and spend the hour walking around. The meeting was in Innocenti centre, an old orphanage and also the seat of Unicef in Italy. There is a statue of a boy sitting on the paperboat outside the Innocenti library, that is very nice.

Right outside the Innocenti centre, there are two fountains with science-fiction kind of Martian figures puking water on the back of flying turtles. Amrita Shergill had once lived around here, I had read once. I walked back to the Cathedral to see if I could go inside and have a look. In the morning, it was still closed. Inside, it was surprisingly very empty and quite unadorned. The sight of women lighting candles was beautiful.

Even if the cathedral is unadorned, it has a beautiful dome (the famous Brunelleschi dome, a marvel in the medieval world, when it was built) with wonderful paintings, though you need to have a mirror in your hand to look at them since looking up directly can strain your neck!

After the cathedral, I walked to the gallery outside the Uffizi, supposedly one of the most beautiful renaissance art museums in the world. There was no time to go inside but I could admire from the outside the statues of the great historical personalities of Florence over the past centuries, starting with Macchiavelli and Leonardo da Vinci.

Not just the big churches, or monuments, even simple doorways of some houses, probably belonging to some noble family, can give beautiful glimpses of paintings and statues.

It was time to go back to the meeting so I walked back to centro Innocenti. In the evening as the meeting finished, it was already dark. Before going back to the railway station, I had a quick look at Santa croce church with the statue of Dante, another famous son of Florence, who used to live around there!

It had been nice day, thanks to the time I had taken off to go around for my tourist visit. I had run around a lot, I had missed my lunch, but in the end it was more satisfying then just going to a meeting!

Here are some pictures from the day:

***
This article was originally written in 2006

Off the beaten track in Delhi

(Originally written in 2006, edited in 2013)

 

It was almost a year since I had been in Delhi. Usually, everytime I reached Delhi international airport, I felt cheated that they hadn't improved on the rotting structure that does not go along with the image of "Shining India". However, this time I was coming from Bangalore. Compared to Bangalore's "international" airport (about which I had already written in my last post), Delhi's national airport was reassuringly spacious, nice and clean with working luggage delivery conveyor belts.

The prepaid taxi service from the airport still works well, even if everyone seems to be in a hurry, trying to push forward from all sides. This pushing and hurrying is part of Indian way of living now, everywhere on the roads and queues in public spaces, people seem irritable and hurried, ready to honk, accelrating if anyone tries to cross the road in front of them. Fortunately, this hurry seems to vanish as we go back to our private spaces. As I paid 180 rupees at the prepaid taxi booth, I mentally converted the amount to Euros - it seems that I can think only in Euros and everytime I pay for something, I can't stop myself from converting it into Euros - just little more than 3 euros for almost 20 km of journey, I thought gleefully, remembering the 30 Euros paid in Bologna for the 6 kms to the airport.

****

Travelling on the outer Ring road was relatively smooth with all the flyovers, and with only a few red lights on the way. It is still not the wonderful wide highway of Beijing or Bangkok, but it is a vast improvement on the chaos of a few years ago.

The familiar landmarks on the way are changing so quickly. I was here only one year ago and yet I can see so many changed buildings. Simple plain houses are getting transformed into multistorey posh apartment buildings (mostly without any garages so that all the new cars then spill on the roads) and new malls and shopping centres are mushrooming, while streets have problems in expanding and accomodating all the new cars and SUVs. In fact, as soon as we leave the Ring road, the traffic slows down considerably.

With the metro, travelling in Delhi has been transformed. Reaching Delhi university from C.P. or going to far away places like Tilak Nagar, are now swift and comfortable journeys.

Coming out at Chawri Baazar from the deep metro tunnel is like being in the "Back to the future" film. As you come out, the 21st century meets 17th century with narrow winding streets, running sewers, people spitting paans and other things, rickshaws blowing bhompoo and a spiderwebs of thick naked wires running around the shops and houses like those thick gold chains that Circuit sports in Lage Raho Munnabhai.

The central park in CP is finally reincarnated and is an improvement on its previous birth, with lovely green grass, zen fountains, a gentle flowing water-fall used by pigeons as their private hammam and some vaguely Japanese looking wooden bridges.

I have finally understood the trick of finding autorickshaws in C.P. Roads going in different directions come out like rays from the outer circle of C.P., like spooks of a bicycle wheel and you need to walk to the spook road that leads to your direction. For example, for going to south Delhi, it is useless to try to find an auto on Baba Kharag Singh Marg or Madras Hotel, you must walk to Janpath and then search for the auto. Because I was mentally converting all the fares in Euros all the time, I never needed to bargain with autos about the fare. I am sorry Delhiwallas if I have spoiled so many autowallas by paying whatever fare they were asking, but compared to the Euros, the amounts were so tiny that I felt as if I was exploiting them by paying very little!

****

Travelling always by taxis, autos and air-conditioned cars, I felt that I was missing something. It was kind of antiseptic and unreal. No pushing, no squeezing, no fighting, no sweat, no gaalis, no loud songs ... it was so unreal to be in India and not experience those.

So I got in a DTC bus. The old man sitting next to me smiled at me and started talking to me. "From where are you?" he asked me. When I told him that I lived in Italy, he told me about his journey to Rome some fifty years ago as part of his government service. "I am retired now", he explained sadly, underlining the loss of social standing that retirement seems to bring in India.

I was wearing a khadi kurta and feeling suitably shabby, so curiously I asked him, "How did you understand that I am not local?" "Your smell is nice and different", he smiled again. It was the fault of the deodorant and the Kenzo eau de toilette that had given me away. DTC bus travellers in Delhi, don't put those kinds of things? Or perhaps, it was just my luck that he was more aware compared to average bus travellers?

Persons travelling in the bus in Delhi are different compared to co-travellers in Europe. Apart from the fact that in a bus the space is limited and often you are squeezed with others poking in your ribs and blowing garlic fumes in your face, persons behave differently in India. Even in a metro. Persons look at each other openly and don't remove their gaze if you look at them. Of course there are those that gaze outside the windows lost in their thoughts, but they laugh and talk without worrying about other passengers.

***
Are there any places in Delhi that I have never seen? Answering this question, I found myself in Mehrauli archeological park, close to the Mehrauli flower market, not very far from Qutab Minaar.

If you haven't been there, go and take a look at it. Entry is free. At the more famous monuments, I feel that entry tickets have a reservation system based on the colour of your skin. If you look Indian, you are Indian and you pay about 20 cents for entry. But if you are white or black skinned, you are easily taken for a foreigner and you must pay about 4 euros to enter. It seems like a way of saying that we are a poor country and we can't afford to ask our own citizens to pay so much, but because for us all foreigners are rich so they should pay more. However, you can be someone from Jhumaritalayia or Ambani or Ratan Tata or a NRI and still pay 10 rupees; and you can be a rich tourist from US or a student from Ethiopia or Europe, then you must pay 250 rupees. China had similar system till late nineties. At that time, as a foreigner, an Indian paid more than what a Chinese paid to see the Forbidden City. Then, probably they decided that they were enough developed and scrapped the system, making everyone pay the same amount. Perhaps one day India Shining will also make India a developed country, and everyone can pay the same amount!

Anyway, sorry for the digression and lets go back to Mehrauli archeological park. The whole area has been restored thanks to funds from Agha Khan foundation. Metcalf's chattri (also called Metcalf's follies), the twin graves of Kaamali and Jaamali, the ruins of turkish slave Balban who had become the emperor ... there is a lot to see.

The explanation board at Jaamali Kaamali mosque describes Jaamali as a well known poet while it says that Kaamali was someone unknown. "They were lovers and because they don't want to admit that there were gay relationships in India, so they are glossing about it", someone told me. The twin tombs lying close to each other inside the beautiful building with blue tiles and wonderful mosaics with romantic couplets of Jaamali all around on the walls do seem very romantic.

So if you haven't seen it yet, find time to go and have a look at Jaamali Kaamali mosque and tomb, and other ruins from 13-14 century's Delhi at the Mehrauli archeological park, next time you are in Delhi!

***
Here are some pictures from this visit.

***
This article was originally written in 2006

Par Tot Summer Parade 2007

(Originally written in 2007, edited in 2013)

 

The summer is here. At least according to the calendar. Everyone was saying that this year the summer would be the worst in the last hundred years. And then they were saying the level of water in the rivers had never been so low and soon we shall have the rationing of water. And then, in the beginning of May it started to rain and since then it has continued to rain. Obviusly, they are now talking of water crossing danger levels and risk of floods.

We haven't yet brought up the fans from the basement. Occasionally, early in the morning there is chill in the air so you need a jacket. And in the night, you still need a light blanket.

Rain or sunshine, hot or cold, it is summer time in Bologna (Italy). And I have been so busy, running here and there, hardly pausing to take a breath. Meetings in Geneva, international meetings to be organised in 3 different cities in Italy, a Bollywood film festival complete with Italian subtitles and my sister and her family for her holidays. So there were days of absolute bliss, travelling around, gossiping and talking till my voice was hoarse and then attacks of panic in the middle of the night, when I remembered something urgent that I had forgotten to do.

And lots of photo opportunities and loads and loads of wonderful pictures. And yet, no time to write down my blogs! What proverb can describe this condition? In the sea and feeling thirsty? It does not sound so good, but it will do.

Any way, finally it is all over. Almost. Next week I am off to Africa but in the mean time, I can talk about the summer festival of Bologna.

On Friday, it was the day of the poet Dante. People were reading aloud passages from his Divine Commedy in the city square. It is written in archaic Italian and the language is flowery so I can hardly understand it. Yet, it was wonderful to walk around in Piazza Maggiore in the city centre, stop to listen to words jumping like pebbles on the surface of a lake, without trying to understand them, just letting them enter inside myself. It was so beautiful that it almost made me cry.

***

And then Saturday, 9th June was the Par Tot parade day. "Par tot" in local dialect means "for all". Volunteers, mostly students, coming from as far away as Belgium, Portugal and Brazil, were out in the Villa Angeletti park getting ready for the dances, acrobatics, music etc. The air was thick with hash smoke and going around, breathing the fumes, I felt giddy.

Some students were dressed like ancient Hindu rishi-muni or perhaps they were supposed to be ancient Greeks, and were offering their own concotions of a wine mixture to all.

It was a riot of colours. Colours on the faces, in the hair, in the dresses. I especially loved a group of semi-nude girls and boys covered with purple, their hair dipped in liquid white. It was simply wonderful, to be there, to sway with the music of the drums and to smile around like idiots at the strangers.

So here are the colours of Par tot Summer Festival Parade 2007 of Bologna (Italy) for you, with the wish that this rain can go to Delhi and a bit of summer warmth can come here:

 

 

 

 

 

 

***
This post was originally written in 2007

Bangkok visit - An Eskimo in the desert

I was on my way back from south China and I had a 24 hours stop-over in Bangkok. Tussnai, from Bangkok, who had done her thesis with me more than ten years ago, helped me to find an apartment for my stay and it was one of the nicest place that I had ever stayed at! A penthouse apartment on 29th floor, with Scandinavian furniture, clean linear layout, a huge plasma TV on the wall, a lovely music system and a balcony that jutted out over the skyscrapers, trafic jams and malls, all for 45 Euro a night.

The people in Bangkok are so courteous, from the taxi driver to the person at the tourist desk. So I had collected maps and list of places to see during my brief stay, and then spent hours planning my itinerary for the morning. The only thing I had not counted was the hot humidity of Bangkok. And I was dressed for winter. In Italy when I had left, it was already quite cold. In south China, I had been travelling in the mountains 2,500 to 3000 meters high, so it was nice and cool. Thus, all the clothes in my suitcase were winter clothes.

Bangkok was hot and humid. By the time I reached the Diamond Budha temple I was sweating profusely. And after about two hours I finally gave up, completely exhausted by my ankle high winter shoes, full sleeved thick shirt and caudroy pants. I felt like an Eskimo in a desert. So all my tourist visit plans were forgotten and I spent the afternoon enjoying films in that beautiful apartment. Still I did manage to click some nice pictures in those morning two-three hours. Here is a sample:

***
Note: This post was originally written in 2007