Diary of a laidback Rebel

Tales from Turkey and Switzerland

2011-09-06T08:55:00.020+02:00

An unexpected beginning and an equally startling end marked our recent three week trip to Turkey and Europe. The training group had been preparing for this adventure for at least a year and a half, if not more, so although our departure was scheduled at the unearthly hour of 5 am, sleep was the last thing on our minds. Half past one at night. (Or you could say early in the morning). George and I await the driver Murugan who is supposed to help us get the luggage downstairs and reach us to the airport. Not only does he not appear at the appointed hour but several phone calls only confirm that his mobile phone has been switched off and that he is most unlikely to make an appearance in the next few minutes. We’re already marginally delayed, so George and I call for a cab and dash off. It’s only a couple of days later that we discover the reason for Murugan’s absence. The Enfant Terrible who has been working for us for a bit over a year, and seems like a somewhat older Indianised version of Denis the Menace, had apparently decided to take a sleeping tablet to help him relax a bit. Good thing he didn’t answer the phone, George said when we got the news in Cappadocia. What would have happened, if he had turned up and fallen asleep at the wheel!

Luckily the rest of the journey, in spite of some hiccups at Istanbul airport on account of a few people in our group having decided to get their visas on arrival, unfolded quite smoothly. The eight hour wait at the airport to catch our flight to Nevesehir in Cappadocia, was less harrowing than I expected though by the end of the day I have to confess I was half dead and felt that way most of the next day as well.

Waiting at Istanbul airport

But the magnificent scenery which greeted us on the bus ride from the airport kind of made up for everything and when we landed at our hotel and found ourselves surrounded by our Turkish friends, ready to show us up to our rooms, it felt like a real home coming.

Meditation room at Cappadocia

The workshop was a great bonding experience and there was a sense of two countries, two cultures having merged into one. What we need is a new politics, Bablu and I felt. The politics of friendship and freedom

Dilek, Uma, Ayse, Selva at the barbecue on our last evening at Cappadocia

The meals were splendid and I always looked forward to the breakfasts – hot coffee which Ayse or one of the others would bring up for me, shortly before a tray arrived filled with freshly baked bread, different kinds of cheeses, olives, wedges of tomato and cucumber, and an occasional slice of sausage or piece of omelet. It was so hard to stop eating, and the result is several extra kilos which have made my tummy their home which I am now trying hard to send back where they came from.

The bus journey through Cappadocia was spectacular – the weird natural rock formations in the shape of cones and ridges had all of us gaping most of the time.

The "camel" of Cappadocia

A ten hour bus ride from Nevsehir brought us to Izmir which was our next halt, and where about seven of us crashed Indian style at Aysegul’s two bedroom apartment. The day after we arrived we looked through the colourful market at Izmir, stopped at a roadside eatery for plates heaped with the most mouth watering kababs, shopped around, stopped once again, this time for coffee and ended the evening at a café on the seaside boulevard, where we relaxed with glasses of Raki, a bagful of mussels which Ful had bought at the market which was now passed around, along with an apple flavoured hookah.

Izmir market

Coffee stop with Aysegul, Venky, Sudha

Our last riotous evening in Turkey was spent at an outdoor restaurant which our Turkish friends had especially chosen for us, with Turkish folk music and dancing. Once the evening got underway nobody wanted to leave and maybe we would have stayed there till morning had it not been for the flight we had to catch to Zurich early the next day.

Farewell Izmir and Turkey

Switzerland was more peaceful and meditative in comparison, providing us with enough opportunity to truly chill, surrounded by green fields, gently mooing cows and the tinkle of cow bells. The workshop which we attended is something we wont forget in a hurry, once again serving to bond us with the Swiss and German people who attended it.

Chandran receives his certificate

Last afternoon in Solothurn

Three weeks later we found ourselves on our way back, tired, happy, full of memories but looking forward to the noise and filth of home. At Istanbul airport where we once again had to wait a few hours we lounged around an internet café, assuming that in a few hours time we would be able to crawl into bed and catch up on some sleep.

The THUD with which the Turkish airlines plane landed took us by surprise. Even when I heard it I presumed we had just landed a bit badly though realizing that the plane had come to a complete stop instead of taxiing forward to the gate, made me wonder. It was only three quarters of an hour later that we were officially told that we had made an emergency landing, that the plane had buried a part of itself in a patch of mud on the runway and that we would have to leave the aircraft from the exit at the back via a chute. And no bags allowed please, the airhostess waggled her finger at us.

So saying goodbye to all my precious belongings including an Ipod, an Ipad, my camera (a temporary goodbye as it luckily turned out) I got ready to whoosh down the chute and was mighty relieved at the end of it, to find myself in the arms of a burly, comforting member of the airport staff who saved me from sliding down into a puddle of wet mud and helped me into the bus waiting for us nearby.

Four hours later we were home surrounded by exclamations of relief. It had been fun. A fitting end to our trip, it seemed to me in retrospect.

For more photos: Facebook Pics

Gray Skies Warm The Heart

2011-07-17T08:29:00.011+02:00

In Bombay (or should I say in India) gray skies have a different connotation than in Europe. Just as the sun in London, or in Frankfurt or Paris makes your heart sing after a spell of wet and cloudy weather, in Bombay gray skies in the wake of the sweltering heat bring a huge sense of relief. The whole of the last week it's been raining, hopefully the lakes are filling up (and not only our potholed roads) and we wont find ourselves in the agonising throes of a waterless existence, as the newspapers had been predicting just a couple of weeks back.

Rupert and Brigitte came and went, and the Bodywork workshop we had planned for months also went by in a flash. S was in great spirits throughout and on the last day had the entire group giggling hysterically for no particular reason other than the sound of her maniacal giggle and laughter. I told her maybe it was her mission in life to start a laughter club in Bombay.

The Bodywork Group

The final spiral

Following the workshop, Sid, S, Jyotsna and I landed up in Timbaktu where we caught up with Bablu, Mary, Vaneeta and Venky. Ravi P from Vizag joined us too and together we visited the 7 acres of land which we've jointly bought between us, in order to put up a centre for workshops and which will serve as a retreat.

Luckily it didn't pour during our stay in Timbaktu. It rained or rather drizzled just enough to cool down the place and we were able to go out quite a bit. Got quite a lot of work done, regarding what has now come to be known as the "Neu Anfang" project (in German this means New Beginning).

And one of the highlights was the fact that it was S's first plane ride. She was bursting with excitement throughout and has now concluded that she will travel with me only if I take her by plane.

For more photos of our Timbaktu visit including a very cute kitten we found at the Timbaktu Collective Office check out some of my Facebook pics

Happy Endings Lead To New And Happier Beginnings

2011-04-14T07:29:00.024+02:00

Celebrating Chandran's birthday during the workshop

Last Sunday we concluded our three year training course with a week long stint in Deolali. The atmosphere though festive was unavoidably tinged with sadness at the thought of three years of togetherness seasoned with occasional bouts of verbal sparring, pretty much the way a bunch of older querulous siblings is prone to do, three intense years of learning from and with each other, slowly drew to an end.

Happy George

And even happier Venky

Bablu in the middle of a very IMPORTANT discussion

The centre at Deolali where the workshop was conducted, turned out to be an ideal spot for us. With the mornings and evenings being pleasantly cool we somehow managed to work our way around the rather warm afternoons (mostly with looong afternoon naps).

Mary relaxing on the verandah

The first couple of days of Deepak's culinary efforts (the young cook who had been hired this time round) left us a bit depressed at the thought of having to battle our way for seven days, through food drowned in masala, chilli and oily gravy. Until we could no longer stomach his fare, and protested by more or less by going on a hunger strike. Sudha then diplomatically got him to cook with less oil and spices, though the very thought made him cringe. However the delighted look on our faces and extravagant compliments he received, at what he labelled "tasteless food" seemed to compensate for this sacrilege.

Deepak sharing a joke with Bablu and Sudha

Ma-ji proudly observing her children

Maruti, our Man Friday in charge of the guest house, was his usual warm, calm, helpful self, perpetually bustling around getting things done and tending to our needs.

Maruti - unchanged for decades

Mary in deep contemplation at Temple Hill

Evenings we would pile into the two cars we'd brought along and drive up to Temple Hill where we spent a pleasant hour gazing at the hills and the sky before returning for dinner.

Chandran lost in thought

Temple Hill

Now we're all back home, hopefully geared to transform the world.

Free up blocked avenues, clear the route for self expression and generally help each other to enjoy life

The training group - a happy end leading to a new beginning

Chilling in Pune

2011-03-04T07:11:00.015+01:00

The two most impressive things I found about Pune this time were: the banyan trees and the mosquitoes. The rows of banyans especially in Koregaon Park, with their huge clusters of roots dangling down the sides of the trees are apt to make your jaw drop. The mosquitoes too for that matter. You spray the room, you coat yourself with mosquito repellent and they still come at you in droves, humming and buzzing around your face, nipping you every now and then leaving behind a trail of spots and bumps. Maybe these are the mutant kind, who thrive on Autan, you figure, like a mutant Dracula who loves garlic.

Jyotsna relaxing on her favourite sofa

Apart from the mossies though, Pune was fun. Jyotsna and Ravi's spacious apartment is the right place to unwind in, and with the rows of travel books, novels, and other delectable reading material you're all set to chill for a couple of days, nursing your coffee in the morning or a glass of wine in the evening.

My brother Vishnu was visiting the city after several decades while Peg, his wife, was there for the first time. So we circled the cantonement area the first evening, and all around Koregaon park, landing up at some point on Main street for bread and juicy mutton samosas available on a side street for pre-dinner snacks. Vish and I who had often visited Pune in the old days, spent a lot of time reminiscing on the laidback air of Pune at that time and the many changes which have since then, taken place, including some new, very yucky looking bungalows at Koregaon Park.

The next day I decided to work at home and finish off some editing while Jyotsna, Vish and Peg braved the morning heat in the name of some sight- seeing which included the Aga Khan palace and Raja Kelkars museum - which I had visited over twenty years ago when Raja Kelkar himself, overflowing with enthusiasm,had shown us around, elaborating on the history of almost every object he had showcased.

Jyotsna's daughter Devika who spent an evening with us

Needless to say like all holidays, the food added at least a couple of needless kilos. Jyotsna, gourmet chef that she is, what with her cooking blog and all, turned out an elaborate meal the first night, with chicken, steamed brocoli with anchovy sauce, roast potatoes and a wonderful low calory cheesecake (is there really such a thing?) which she claimed was made not out of cream but yoghurt. Add to that lunch the next day at Ramakrishna's restaurant and dinner at Malaka Spice the usual chicken satay and fish in green thai gravy, it was a wonder that anyone was able to fall asleep that night. (I didn't quite, but then it was the mossies that kept me awake :(

Vish and Peg poring over the menu at Malaka Spice

Vishnu and Peg back in Bombay

Last Of WInter at Timbaktu

2011-02-19T10:05:00.008+01:00

Shiv and Mr. Verma up on the roof with Simhachalam, getting the solar panels fixed

Sharat examining the new solar panels on my roof at Saregama

We just about caught the last few days of "winter" I guess at Timbaktu. It was really cool when we arrived there in the first week of Feb but ten days later, around when it was time to leave, I was already kicking of my blanket at night and even the cotton bedsheet at times, as the weather had heated up considerably.

Angela loves her new attire

The highlights this time round (apart from the workshop) were: getting my solar panels in place with help from cousin Shiv and Mr. Verma the solar expert whom he brought along; Angela being hijacked on her way to Saregama by a gang of ladies who had come for a conference to Timbaktu and being packed into a sari, and the enthusiasm shown by a whole bunch of people for the new project started jointly by some of the members of Timbaktu like Bablu and Mary, and people from Basicindia. "Neu Anfang" (the new beginning) as the land is called is now hot property with several of us wanting a piece of it. Hopefully things will fall in place and in a couple of years we will have shifted base from Timbaktu to the new land, which everyone agreed is a beautiful place.

English lessons at CK Palli led by Meher

Meher, Chandran and Jyotsna meanwhile kicked off the English lessons for members of Timbaktu Collective at CK Palli. Meher was in great form, getting her students to practice speaking, and sing songs in English like the Boogie Woogie song, accompanied by actions which included wiggling the hips, which had everybody almost rolling on the floor with amusement.

For the most part it was a peaceful stay, and as usual we ended our visit with a bang up Barbeque feast at Bablu and Mary's place on the last day: chicken, potatoes and sweet potatoes, spiced with yet more talk about our new project.

My new mini solar panel which can power the light (below), and a mobile among other things

Solar powered LED lamp which runs for up to 16 hours on one charge

For more pics see my facebook page:

Timbaktu Feb 2011

Recapturing Old Times

2011-01-15T05:44:00.009+01:00

Christoph is back in Bombay after more than ten years. To all the newcomers who never met him (or should I say haven't yet met him - Christoph (or Chrissie as I like to call him to tease him) is the guy who helped to get the Basicindia network started way back in the late nineties, at a time when we hadn't even thought of giving it a name. We had met in Switzerland the year I went to study and stay with Samuel, and subsequently he visited India several times, often working with my dad's company, on the issue of conflict clarification (a useful process to learn and apply also in daily life). He held my hand during the many workshops we conducted together, enabling me later to start out on my own.

Over the years that he visited India, a small group of us began to come increasingly together, for sessions and workshops and today the family has really grown to several times its original size. We did workshops based on conflict clarification, on holotropic breathwork, and self awareness based on music and meditation.

Among some of the memories I have of Christoph and his wife Iga are of all of us in Goa, at Bogmalo, eating fish and chips in Agonda, chatting about all kinds of things, and sunning ourselves on the beach, in between workshops.

In Her Grandfather's Footsteps

2011-01-08T07:47:00.006+01:00

Beate, Michael and Mira posing their Fabindia wares

"Winter" in Bombay is a time for guests. Once the fierce heat subsides all over the country, people from north America or Europe tend to flock here to thaw out their chilled bones. Among those who recently visited was Mira, the partner of an old friend, Michael who lives in Switzerland. She and Michael along with a third friend, Beate, were here for a couple of days, looking Bombay, sniffing out its special air, taking the local train from VT to Mira Road (curiosity I suppose to see what a road with one's own name looks and feels like), getting a shave from a roadside barber (that was Michael), and going berserk at Fabindia.

Mira, who has just completed her studies in medicine in Switzerland, was the first to arrive, some time early in November, and she spent the first several weeks following the traces of her grandfather who had lived in India, (in Bombay) from 1910 to 1930. After a few days in Bombay and being shown around Bandra which is one of the areas he lived in, Mira took the train to Delhi and further north to places like Naini Tal and Almora which her grandfather had also visited. While in Bombay she read out snippets to us from the letters her granddad had written to his mother during the years spent here, describing all that he experienced. The effort that Mira's put into transferring his handwritten letters to the computer and compiling them into an informal booklet is quite amazing. For that matter so is the minute detail and attention with which Herr Lieberherr has described the places visited, the country that was his home for twenty years. Everything from the colour and texture of the Goan soil to the taste of the King of mangoes - the Alphonso - supposed to have been imported from Brazil a couple of centuries back.

Mira

Currently the three of them are in Timbaktu and after visiting a few more places expect to be back here towards the end of their trip around the third week of January.

New Years At Timbaktu

2011-01-03T11:14:00.020+01:00

Nelavanka - where Rupert and Brigitte stayed

Another year come and gone. Time rolls on relentlessly, graying our heads a bit more each day, making us a little more forgetful, more deaf, more shaky on our legs but also more carefree, in a way that only "older people" can be :)

It was great catching up with old friends at Timbaktu, making new friends, while desperately shaking our heads, shoulders, hands, legs, bellies and just about every bone in the body during Rupert and Brigitte's bodywork sessions.

Chatting by candle light at night, fetching hot water for a bath from the huge cauldron bubbling outside our house, and generally enjoying the rustic feel of the place. The barbequed chicken which Shyam kept dishing out at our New Years Eve get together at Bablu and Mary's place was out of this world.

Back to civilisation now. The roar of traffic, smoky skies, hectic pace of life. As far as I can tell everybody's missing the wholesome country air we were privileged enough to breathe the last few days.

Rupert and Brigitte who led the body work sessions

Sudha relaxing in the courtyard at Saregama

Vaneeta - naaaty girl

Venky - whose chai bar is the highlight of our lives at Timbaktu

Zulekha and Barbara

Mary, Duhita, Jean Marc, Shyam

Suhail and Bablu - kusti masti

The gals

Zulekha's mother (who reminded me a lot of my grandmother)

Suhail's palm provides a home to a dying butterfly

Jean Marc takes a break

Geraldine and Jean Marc

Roopa earnestly meditating

Vaneeta's knees have personality

Sharat watching life at Saregama with amusment

Arzoo rubbing Shyam's back after breakfast

The New year's eve bonfire at Bablu and Mary's place

What Do You Call A Kid Like This?

2010-12-07T06:39:00.008+01:00

Mansi putting on a serious act

The last three or four weeks have been one muddle of movement from here to there, home to Andheri for treatment for the ageing knees, then for trials for the brace to be fitted on my left leg, interspersed with work and exercising at home.

So Mansi's visit was like a very welcome breeze. In fact she floated in with her parents one afternoon, after paying a visit to the Mahalaxmi temple and promptly asked if I would like her to sing or dance for me. My nod got her going to such an extent - especially on seeing the camera - I figured she wouldn't ever stop. Eventually I had to tell her there was no more space left on the camera to do any recording after which she reluctantly wound down. Here - enjoy the video:

The Dance Within

2010-10-31T12:58:00.011+01:00

After weeks of planning and fumbling around with dates, Sharat finally managed to pick dates which suited most of the people who wanted to attend Vaneeta's 2 day workshop "The Dance Within", centred around movement and awareness. The exercises were both fun and did in fact enhance our awareness of how our bodies move (or fail to oblige, as the case may be!) I guess most of the participants went away with the feeling that they truly deserved their lunch the days they worked out!

Maintaining contact through movement

Chandran exhibiting his skills as a dancer :)

Moving blindfolded

The "Streamer" dance

Improvised movements

Group statue

Group clapping exercise

the pencil dance

Sudha, Sid, Radha chilling after lunch

Goa In October

2010-10-13T18:28:00.021+02:00

The last few weeks have been so packed that it's been impossible to really add anything to the blog. I had barely got back from Germany at the end of September when it was time to rush off to Goa for the training group workshop. Now back home again, I can relax and enjoy sleeping in my own bed after over two months of being constantly on the move, at least until late December when we go to Timbaktu again.

Goa was hot, but then I suppose that's to be expected in October. Though nature's occasional son et lumiere show accompanied by buckets of rain over an extended period, did sort of cool things down off and on. The good part was that this still being the non commercial part of the year, the beach which was almost empty except for a few people and a handful of cows strolling along the sand. No doubt by early December things will start pepping up and all of Goa will begin to look like a giant disco with colourful flashing bulbs and music blaring from every beach shack.

We arrived at Fatima's Guest house in Agonda to find out that the management had been taken over for the next few months by a handsome trio of ("cousin") brothers from Assam, the Sharmas. Though the prices on the menu were simply absurd - which is logical I guess, else how else would the guys make a profit after paying the rent - the smiles, the charm and their friendliness made it pinch less.

Nice though it was being in Goa again, it's a far cry from how it used to be fourteen or fifteen years ago. Hordes of Russians, Israelis and other nationalities cram most of the space on the beaches and even isolated beaches like Agonda used to be, have become garish and loud during the season.

Dinesh Sharma

Ganga tending the bar

George and Ayse

Mary in reflective mood

Bablu equally reflective

Sharat, our chief organiser agonising over some lost detail

Chandran and George relaxing on the terrace

Heinz enjoying a joke

Sudha, probably defending herself against some unfair observation

At John's

Heinz, Ayse and I decided to go down memory lane the last day and went off to Bogmalo where we spent the night at the IEI guest house and dined at John's. The food at John's Seagull was as usual incomparable - garlic cheese naan, garlic squid and prawn, and an unimaginably delicious barbequed fish - a large sea perch which John personally served us. For dessert (we were stuffed by this time) the three of us shared a Crepe Suzette which came flaming to our table. Including a whole lot of drinks, the snacks and main dish our bill for three was a little over Rs. 1600. Where in the world would you get that kind of deal?!

Indian Summer In Lüsslingen

2010-09-20T11:44:00.013+02:00

We`re enjoying the tail end of the summer here and what glorious weather it is! Bright and sunny and warm but not hot. I spent several hours sitting on the front porch yesterday just looking at the trees and the garden, children playing and from time to time, reading one of Samuel`s latest book, dedicated to his teacher Manuel Schock.

It is good to be here again. And somehow amazing to think that I have been visiting the place now for eighteen years! Sometimes memories come back of the early days, when I used to spend the summer with Samuel and Daniele and then the slow movement of people into the area and the evolution of the "Swiss community".

Samuel enjoying the Sunday afternoon

On Sunday several of us met at a fortnightly gathering over coffee and cake. It was a convenient way to catch up with everybody, including Samuel and Daniele, with Anke and Arno, Sabine Negwer and several others. It was a brilliant afternoon and the garden was buzzing with grown ups and children, people lying down in the grass in the sun or chatting. Ulrike and Peter had between them cooked up a wonderful Indian supper of dal, rice and paneer curry which to me tasted quite authentic.

Meanwhile the Bertenghi household is a regular bee hive of activity centred mostly around children. Every afternoon a whole lot of kids, friends of Anina, Laura and Päuli land up here to run around the garden, drink lemonade, and eat ice cream, till it`s time to go home.

Since there is not much time to write more I decided to post some photos instead which should give you an idea of the place.

Irene and Päuli

Bollywood Comes To Prien

2010-09-16T09:50:00.011+02:00

Sonya, the Bollywood fan

One of the first things I learned about Sonya, the cleaning lady who comes in twice a week here, is that she is a great fan of Bollywood. Apparantly she discovered Indian cinema through the weekend TV in Germany and has been watching Hindi films regularly in the last three or four years. She loves Shahrouk and thinks Hrithik Roshan is a great dancer. She generally goes into ecstasies over the Bollywood dance numbers.

Sonya, actually from Croatia, has lived in Prien with her husband for quite a few years and they have a seven or eight year old daughter who goes to the same school as Felix. I love to hear about her trips to Croatia to her home and the way her mother spends an entire month in summer making pickles and jams and all kinds of things to eat over the rest of the year. Last year she brought back a whole string of really hot chillies for me and this time I have been digging into the pepperoni and a red chilli home made sauce. Sonya normally gets in a little after nine thirty in the mornings when I'm having breakfast so we often spend at least half an hour chatting as she tidies up the kitchen and before she goes on to the rest of her chores.

xxx

Günter, who many of you will remember from Timbaktu, was here for a couple of days and it was lovely to catch up with him. Since the weather was unusually good both days we went to the lakeside for lunch. There is quite a nice restaurant right on the lake where, if it is warm one can sit in the garden. This is what we did and spent several hours chatting about everything from tantra to community life and the difficulties of human relationships.

Now with just two days left to go before my departure for Zürich, I am making the most of my time in Prien. This evening we've organised a musical evening after dinner so we're all looking foward to bringing out our guitars and various instruments and belting out all the numbers we know.

Bavarian Sights

2010-09-13T13:56:00.011+02:00

Though a lot of boring standardized houses have erupted everywhere in Germany in the last few decades, (and where in the world don't you find them!) it is always a pleasure to come across the traditional Bavarian houses in smaller towns and villages with their picturesque facades. The day after Bibsi (a friend whom I've known for over twenty years now) arrived in Prien, we went for a spin around the countryside, passing scenic little towns and eventually stopping at a beautiful lakeside restaurant for lunch.

On the way we passed several houses with their balconies overflowing with flower boxes and pretty gardens bursting with flowers. Outside one of the houses there was this ginger cat who could have been Shambhu's twin, except for a white patch on his chest, who insisted on getting on to the top of his owner's car and refusing to budge even when the car started to move down the road. Eventually they had to stop and shove him off.

Cat on a hot tin (car) roof

Bibsi at the restaurant

xxx

I arrived last Tuesday in Prien after quite a hectic evening with my friend Ruth in Munich. She picked me up from the airport and drove me straight to a jam session which she attends every alternate Monday evening, made up mostly of a number of amateur but good musicians, who play every type of instrument from the guitar to the didgeridoo. It was fun improvising with them and I too put in my two cents worth on the extra guitar which Ruth had thoughtfully brought along for me.

The next day we set out for Prien in the afternoon and got in at about half past five. Back in the Bogenberger house it feels like home, only a lot colder, except for the odd day when the sun shines and the temperatures go up a wee bit, like yesterday when Lioba and I sat in the garden downstairs warming ourselves in the afternoon. In fact it got so warm I had to peel off the layers and finally had to go upstairs for a cold drink.

In Prien big changes are afoot. The girls have both more or less moved out, and Lulu is going to be a mother very soon, with the baby to arrive in January. The weekends are normally houseful as this last one was, with Lulu and her boyfriend Alexander staying with us, and Lilly the older girl who had come down from Munich, Lioba (whom those who attended the workshop in Timbaktu last February will remember well) and the rest of us - i.e. Thomas, Ariela, Felix and me. And of course Sammy who continues to constantly whine for food no matter how much he's been fed.

The underfed Sammy

Günter, (who was there early this year at Timbaktu) intends to visit us tomorrow. And by the end of the week I'll be heading for Zürich to meet friends from the Swiss community and to attend the workshop scheduled for the third week of September - the Warrior course.

European Summer

2010-09-10T15:54:00.015+02:00

Basia making pumpkin soup

Summer in Europe - ha! The day I landed in Frankfurt and a couple of days after that, the weather was great. Sunny and warm enough for us to be able to squeeze in a few outdoor lunches in Frankfurt - once with Basia at a streetside pizzeria and again on Sabine's wonderful terrace a couple of days later. But the weekend we arrived in Cologne it started to rain and get cold and we were mostly stuck indoors. Not that it mattered because we were able to catch up with all our loved ones over breakfasts, lunches and dinners.

Dwight at the pizzeria in Frankfurt

Heinz - Sunday breakfast

Heinz, perfect host as usual helped us to weather the cold and rain with the meals he conjured up ranging from an array of exquisite cold cuts, cheeses and wine, to lamb fillets accompanied by roast potatoes to spaghetti in a creamy sauce, with shrimp. And then there was the evening we dined at the neighbour's - Jackie's - who lives across the courtyard and where we got to know her three kids, the oldest of whom, eleven year old Klara, gave us a drawing she had made of the Buddha.

Jackie, an American, is a musician, plays the oboe and has performed in orchestras in Germany. Though she claimed to be out of practice we were treated to some terrrific live music after dinner.

As usual we got to hear a range of music on Heinz's way out stereo system, of which I unfortunately dont have any photos, because it does look like some weird contraption straight out of a sci fi movie. We heard everything from country to classical to rock and a lot of "The Grateful Dead".

Flowers from Heinz for my birthday

Now I'm enjoying the cold and rain in Prien on the Chiemsee (Chiem Lake) though of course horsing around with Felix and chatting with Ariela intermittently through the day and at night after dinner does kind of make up for the lack of sun.

When Life Twists Your Ear

2010-07-30T15:22:00.011+02:00

Sodder (Mother India) and Radha in Pune

Some weeks are bummers. Hopefully it all remains within that short time span! Last week we had hoped to visit Jyotsna in Pune and carry on from there to Khandala for the grand finale of our dialogue group. The Pune trip happened but Khandala went for a sixer on account of my knee which suddenly decided to pack up and had me hobbling all over Jyotsna's apartment hanging on to Sharat for dear life, and sometimes to Sudha as well.

As they say however, every cloud has a silver lining so the lining in this cloud was Radha, who's moved to Pune recently and whom we saw a lot of during the two days we spent at Jyotsna's. We caught up with all the news, enjoyed an evening of music and meditation together with a round of sharing. And one of the evenings my god daughter Devika cooked up a fabulous meal for us, the base of which was Korean chicken supplemented with Khim chi and other delicacies. So got to meet "The Boy" - Dottie's wonderful fiance, Tarun, who periodically slipped off into the kitchen to help the beloved with her task for the evening.

Devika and Tarun

Getting back to Bombay the knee improved but now I've come down with this stomach bug. Ugh. I shouldn't be surprised as this is an annual phenomenon - something which happened exactly at this time last year, which laid me low for over two weeks. Am hoping that having addressed the issue with some potent antibiotics prescribed by the doc, the germs will vacate my stomach soon. Well the silver lining right now is that my old Buddi playmate from Kindergarten, Suman is here for a few days and we are "having a fun", being shamefully silly and slipping back into our KG years without any qualms.

Mayah Balse 11th December 1939 - 9th July 2010. Serenity In Action

2010-07-19T11:28:00.011+02:00

Mayah and Suresh in the early days

I sometimes don’t feel like an Indian at all, because among my many anomalies is the fact that unlike so many people from this country I do not spend a lot of time catering to the whims and fancies of relatives and filling my time with weddings and birthday or tea parties followed by hours of resentment at having to do stuff I didn’t want to do. Luckily for me the people I do count among my relatives are few – but what I can say about those few is that they mean a lot to me.

Mayah belonged to a rather small branch of the family on my mother’s side and with her death a few days back what I am left with is a sense of … what can I call it? Not only sadness at having lost a cousin but well, at having lost a comrade whose view of life somehow resonates with my own. Her last wishes according to her husband Suresh, reflect this in a way. Approaching the end of her three year long battle with cancer, she made the following requests of her family. Not to have to undergo chemotherapy, not to be hospitalized, and not to be allowed to survive in a coma. Also she didn’t want any ceremonies and rituals conducted after her death. Having had these requests agreed to, she then went on to assiduously detail the many tasks which needed to be done after her death, to make lists of where the family would find various things so that nobody would be inconvenienced when she was no longer around to take care of all that she had previously handled.

Her down to earth attitude more or less echoes that of most of the women in our family who lived ordinary lives and yet, who when they passed on, left behind a sense not only of their fierce independence but of deeply caring about others. And so one could say perhaps, of this individual too, who never made much of anything, who was almost defined by a seeming ordinariness that in fact in her low key way of going about her work and life she was rather extraordinary.

“Seeming” is of course the key word. For Mayah’s laidback attitude, belied the inexhaustible energy with which she backed her many talents. TV addicts from the old days will remember the serial “Dekh Bhai Dekh” which she scripted as well as others like “Campus”. That’s not all. Through the years, she kept open house for an assortment of people, and both she and Suresh tended to sick or ailing relatives, including both sets of parents, with supreme aplomb that quite hid the effort that must surely have gone into taking care of them.

Sunaina (Nina), Mayah and Supriya (Pia)

These days, seventy seems like a relatively young age to die, but then Mayah had it lucky in some ways. Her last few months were spent in the company of a totally devoted husband, and her two daughters Pia (with whom she stayed in Bangalore, the last six months) and Nina, as well as their spouses.

At the time of writing this short tribute to a cousin who was an intrinsic part of my childhood, (in fact theirs was the only household where I agreed to spend weekends away from home when I was a child of four!) whom I kept meeting through the years, both when the family was posted outside Bombay as well as in their apartment in Andheri after Suresh’s retirement - while writing about this woman who took the ups and downs of life so serenely, I can hardly believe that Mayah is no longer with us.

But then, in a way she lives on through her writing, through the volumes not only already published but also books yet to be published, a trove of stories and other material which her daughter Pia informed me she now needs to sort her way through. For me though, Mayah mainly lives on through her family – through her husband Suresh who quite on his own reflects the same qualities that his partner did, and the daughters and their families as well, whom I am glad to be able to think of as part of my own.

Rainy Day Ballad

2010-06-25T13:09:00.014+02:00

Apu Moll and Furbie

I didn't really think that anybody would want to get out in the kind of weather we had yesterday, with all the rain and wind, when Aparna and Shivraj (Chokra) turned up. With them came their feline Furball, who had had a bit of an accident a few weeks back and is now hobbling around with his leg stuck in a green plaster cast. We spent the entire day chatting, fooling around with my new mac and with garageband, which is a fun programme to create music using all kinds of different sound effects. The only thing missing were the hot bhajiyas at tea time, as S is on leave till Sunday.

Chokra trying to frighten us

I was actually very nervous about Shambhu turning up while Furball was still around and (like any self respecting tomcat) going ballistic to find a strange male on his turf. Shambhu actually sits on the balcony ledge quite often and tracks down the movements of all the felines in the neighbourhood. Should they even approach his empire, he springs into action and chases them across the garden and over the wall right across the rooftops of the shanties behind the garden wall, to put them in their place.

Shambhu keeping a lazy watch out

Luckily it was Maharaj's day out and he didn't return till about 8 in the evening when we were having drinks out on the balcony. Furball safely ensconced in my bedroom, behind a locked door, seemed to be blissfully unaware of the presence of any other cats and continued to sleep on my pillow. Shambhu meanwhile wolfed down his dinner, strutted around, yowled for a minute and then left again presumably to join his lady love in the garage.

Wedding at Timbaktu

2010-06-08T13:21:00.011+02:00

For those who weren't able to attend it, here is a report from Binu about how the wedding ceremony unfolded.

Binu showing off his "mehndi" hand

It all started from the eve of the marriage where they tried to purify me by applying turmeric all over the body (11 members including Kalpana and Mary). My family too was surprised by this as it was fully Andhra tradition. When the whole stuff was over, I was asked to take a bath using the remaining turmeric.

I dressed up in a dhoti and my khaki shirt (which tempted the Sri Lankan traveler to offer me some coins). They told me I had become pure and that ghosts could occupy me. I was then given a knife enveloped with a yellow cloth and a lemon pierced at the top. The instruction was that I should be carrying the knife whenever I go out of the house and I should not be moving alone. I of course forgot the knife here and there and was given it again and again. My family members by this time started teasing me for this. They too had their part of fun.

Mary applying turmeric

Sashi akka applied henna on my left hand and with an unfinished line on the middle finger which was Bablu's idea.

Morning was interesting. Woke up very early and was the last member of the hut to get ready. My sister helped me to wear the Dhoti properly. I liked the shirt for its correct size and stiffness. Lathika's brother and sister (cousins) came to our palace to put the garland and my bro-in-law (sister's husband - long live English) tied a flag on my forehead (what they called “basingam”).

Bablu was my “sarathi” to take us to Kona. A few of the women folk were in the car including my mother and sister. There was a music band walking in front leading me to the temple courtyard. I was made to sit there for a quite a while. Real Centre of Attraction. I tried cracking jokes with my sister to ease the situation.

Lathika too was then brought with some more music. She and her relatives sat on the other side. They held a towel in between both of us as we were not to see each other. Then its all there in the pics. Lots of colours. Milk, coconut, rice, etc etc. Before tying the mangal sutra they asked me to show it around, three times and then tie it. I also repeated a few Telugu words that the priest told me to say. Done. There were a few more exchanges of clothes and getting elder's blessings.

We were then persuaded to see the clear sky. The priest asked me to show her the sky and ask her if she could see the Arundhati star (under the sun-lit sky!!!). I showed her some branches and electric wires and asked if she could see the star and she said yes. Astrologonomy.

We were then taken to our hut to be received by our sister. “Right leg first” stuff. The stage was slowly emptied. Of course there was a Mayasabha lunch session and then some video photo sessions. A few relatives and friends remained. When most of them left, Lathika slept for a while in “Saregama.” For the evening we had my parents, sister, Kalpana and Pradi my friend. Moonlit Timbaktu.

Lathika slept inside the hut, I put my cot outside, under the wide sky and slept off.

Oops... I can still write more. Hope this gives an idea.

A Wedding In The Family

2010-05-21T11:06:00.005+02:00

We refused to sleep
as we knew well that
we would wake up to a different story.
And when we did sleep
no one could wake us up
as the stories of our dreams
were endless…

Binu

The engagement

The big day is approaching for Binu, also known as Manikandan (or is it the other way around?!). On Sunday 23^rd May, Mani and Latika will formalize their decision to live together. I believe it’s known as marriage.

I had heard of Mani long before I actually met him. First there were all the good things from Mary and Bablu. Then Mani decided to show a bit of himself on the Basicindia forum which he joined soon after coming to Timbaktu, and to zap us all with his poetry. After that we got to know Kalpana, an ex colleague of his from Delhi, who thanks to Mani started reading the Basicindia blog and found out about a workshop we were to have last June in Pune. So that’s when Kalpana and some of us met at Jyotsna’s place and I got to see pics of Mani. It was still to be several months before Mani and I got down to shaking hands and this happened at the December workshop in Timbaktu when Samuel and Co came down from Switzerland.

As Mani put it in a mail which he later wrote to me, it was like old friends meeting for a chat over a cup of tea. It seemed kind of normal, as if we had known each other for years. As for the elusive lady, on my last two trips to Timbaktu I caught a few glimpses of Latika and we got as far as exchanging Hello’s but I am sure the months to come will bring more of an exchange. And Latika perhaps we can persuade you also to join the Basicindia forum and share some of your reflections with the rest of us?

Well here’s wishing both of you all the best and looking forward to being with you again.

***

Was the intensity of our relation
just because we never shared those forbidden words?
And when we talked them out,
it rained in the night
without drenching you and me.

The True Meaning Of Speed

2010-05-17T18:10:00.013+02:00

How can anyone write anything 15,000 pages long? A novel, a text book, a legal document, whatever. And how can anyone be expected to read something 15,000 pages long. In India anything is possible. Or maybe it's today's world?

The IPL commissioner, Lalit Modi's lawyer submitted six cartons of documents to the BCCI Chief Administrative Officer containing altogether 9000 pages while Modi himself has sent a repy to the BCCI which, according to his tweet runs into 15,000 pages. Did he do that because he expected it to take another twenty years for the matter to be processed by which time it would be buried and done with? No, actually Shashank Manohar, president of the BCCI is a lawyer and it is said he will need only a few hours to go through Modi's reply. I guess to all the other meanings and dimensions of speed you can add this one. The ability to fly through mountains of written matter (let's not speak about its quality) in less time than it takes to eat your breakfast, drive to work, have a cup of coffee and work through the files till lunchtime.

And I always thought speed had to do either with jet planes or with amphetamines.

April Is The Cruellest Month

2010-05-09T07:36:00.006+02:00

"April is the cruellest month" ... I can imagine the line from T.S. Eliot going through my sister-in-law Peg's head, even if not in the same spirit as the poem was meant. April is not quite the right time for people from cooler regions to visit Bombay - not this year anyway. So the poor thing suffered her way through the two weeks which she and my brother Vishnu spent with us, with some relief in between (I hope!) in the form of a cool breeze from the sea now and then and of course ... mangoes. The king as I keep referring to our very own "Alphonso".

But April this year does indeed seem to be crueller than most years. Hot, sticky, perfect weather to sleep away the summer. Will May be worse? What about the water shortage? How will the government deal with the problem? No doubt by building new flyovers, extending the sea link, putting up a few more statues (some in the sea, perhaps?) and changing the names of several public parks, roads and other facilities.

Music, Meditation and Volcanic Ash

2010-04-18T08:05:00.006+02:00

Irene and Paul

Paul and Irene who recently came here to help out with our training group workshop , probably never imagined what a great adventure they were about to embark on when they left Switzerland for Bombay on the first of April. Considering it was his first visit to India, just being here must have seemed very exotic to Paul. (Irene is here for the second time - her first trip to India was in the late eighties some time).

Everything was going just fine when this thing happened. The volcano in Iceland began to cough out mountain loads of ash and gases and here we all are biting our fingernails thinking of how P and I will get back to Europe. After much reflection they have decided to fly to Tunis and to take the ferry from there to Genoa. From Genoa they will have to take a train to Berne in whose vicinity they live, with their four children ranging in age from four to eleven years.

The whole incident has started off a serious inquiry in us as to how accustomed we have become to certain luxuries which include air travel and so many other aspects of modern life. Not for the first time, we are all looking at the possibilities of how we will travel in the future when petrol and diesel prices sky rocket due to scarcity. Will it be back to sailing ships? And within India will we be restricted to train travel? Maybe walking and cycling will come back into fashion?

It looks like for many of us, life will be turned inside out - and maybe that wont be such a bad thing in the long run, at least for the planet.

Irene helping A in the kitchen

Music And Meditation In The HIlls

2010-02-23T07:08:00.016+01:00

The guest house at Panchgani might have been more than a bit run down but it did provide us with an ideal break from the city. The weather was pleasant, we could, at all times enjoy a view of the mountain range from our rooms and balconies and there was this wonderful sense of "being together" almost throughout, the bonding taking place equally during our meditations and dialogues, as during lunches, dinners or evening walks. One of the most interesting topics to surface quite spontaneously on the last morning, was that of "money". Without going into details I could say that it made each of us aware of a number or aspects to do with money ranging from how we dealt with it as individuals, to the general scene in the world where we face stark differences in earning and spending capacity.

A and S who came along to help out with the meals also had a ball, traipsing all the way to the Partapgadh fort one morning (they returned exhausted after climbing up 450 steps and all the way down again), running wild in the Panchgani market and generally enjoying the scenery and weather.

Here are some pics which I got from Suhail and Kalpana:

Su at Kamat's, where we stopped for breakfast on the way. (He threatened to kill me if I posted this pic so please dont tell him!)

Kalpana enjoying the evening meditation

Sunset

Vijay, who joined us after a longish break

Cooking with awareness

Another one on cooking which I actually posed for. My contribution consisted largely of watching other people chop, stir or fry the veggies

Basia and Kalpana

Basic nuts (this includes the photographer who doesn't appear in the pic)

And one last shot by Kalpana, of a poster on the back of a van, on our way back home

Life in Timbaktu

2010-02-16T07:02:00.011+01:00

Timbaktu seems to be always buzzing somehow. Away from the activities it's certainly quiet but at all times there seems to be something going on. When I arrived there on the 5th of Feb with Arno, Anke, Leo and two year old Arianne, there was a huge seminar in progress hosted by the Learning Network, an informal group of educators who get together once a year to learn from each other. There were sessions in modern ways to teach algebra, the problems of teaching English in villages, and the role of spirituality in education.

Following the Learning Network seminar Basia and I facilitated a community building workshop with members of the Timbaktu Collective, a group of about 23 not counting the two of us, George and Anke who joined us part of the time. More about the workshop later. Meanwhile here are some pics.

Session on the role of spirituality in education

Al fresco lunch during the learning network seminar

Jayashree who coordinated the Learning Network seminar at Timbaktu

Leo chilling in the courtyard at "Saregama"

Anshul, who visited along with Vishy and their daughter Anvita

One of the seven pups born recently at Timbaktu

And finally, Mani, our chief support in all organisational matters

Two Tired People "Laxing"

2010-02-01T07:15:00.006+01:00

A normal morning in our household, around 11.30.
Shambhu ( hard night's day) and Apu Moll "laxing" as our cook A puts it:

Timbaktu revisited

2010-01-25T12:23:00.012+01:00

A few pics have finally arrived. This lot is from Ozden (from the Turkish contingent) and Gunter, from Germany. Also from Wilco. In barely two weeks I shall be off again with Basia who arrives next week from Frankfurt. Meanwhile ...

Shaan, Vaneeta and Guenter

Wilco (chief bonfire man)

Barbara and Helga wrapping up a lunch-time exchange

Ozden and Uma at Venky's Chai Bar

Sudha, Ashok, Vaneeta and self after breakfast

And finally, our bodywork experts - Brigitte and Rupert

Shine on you crazy diamonds!

Waiting ...

2010-01-10T07:20:00.002+01:00

Now back since Thursday, from Timbaktu, we're all slowly getting grounded again. As usual Timbaktu was an extraordinary experience - the place, the people, the atmosphere. I am still waiting for photos from Sharat and others who took their cameras along. I thought I'd forgotten to take mine but on returning I found it at the bottom of my rucksack. Anyway the result is that I have no photos this time but I think they should be rolling in in a couple of days from various people.

The day after I got back Shambhu was seriously sick. He'd been munching the usual kachra from the garbage bin and it almost looked like a case of poisoning. However, the vet who paid us a couple of visits, set him right with a couple of injections and since last night his appetite has returned, he is eating, mewing and purring and currently curled up on a chair in the kitchen.

Images Of Bombay

2009-12-14T04:26:00.014+01:00

Some pics that capture the essence of Bombay - taken by Sophie who visited us along with Suhail in November.

Roadside salon

The heart of "town"

Baan Ganga

Dhobi Ghat

My favourite - crow conference

To refresh your memory - Sophie and Mansi

***

And meanwhile the deluge soon begins. On Friday the Turks arrive - Ozden and a friend, neither of whom I've met though both of them know Ayse. A day later, come Rupert, Brigitte, Ayse and Geraldine, with whom we will be doing the workshop in bodywork starting Sunday. If hotel bookings dont work out for the next lot we might also have Sabine, Dieter, Joseph and Jutta stretched out on the carpet in the living room - all of whom are actually on their way to Goa and need a place for two nights and a day. And then I am off myself to Bangalore and Timbaktu for the New Year.

In case this turns out to be the last post of the year, Merry Xmas and Happy New Year to y'all.

Rhythm Pharma

2009-12-02T05:14:00.008+01:00

What a surprise to find Greg and Aparna at my doorstep yesterday morning. The surprise element was not so much in the fact of their having turned up, as Vijay had called a couple of hours earlier, to ask if these friends of theirs, from the U.S. could visit me for a brief while. They were really interested, he said, in the work that we were doing at Basicindia. The surprise was more in the feeling of having known each other for ages in spite of the fact that we were meeting for the first time. Aparna incidentally, is the daughter of a former school friend of Nirupa's (Vijay's wife). Anyway, as luck would have it I did have the morning free so they came along with their kids, Anouskha and Uma (my namesake - kind of).

In the hour or so that we chilled out on the balcony, we discovered we had so much in common it wasn't funny. Talk about "coincidence". I told them about our involvement with Timbaktu and Greg a percussionist who has worked with several major bands and also with Bikram Ghosh in India, described his work, which involves creating a space to explore consciousness, through the use of rhythms. Check out the site: Rhythm Pharm

You'll soon find some more info on them and on Greg's work on the basicindia site (Basic Reflections).

Latest Topics Of Discussion

2009-11-21T06:19:00.006+01:00

From our cook A, I have found out that the hottest topic of discussion these days is the price of food. No matter where you go, she says, at bus stops, in the train, in the chawl where she lives, they're talking about the impossibly steep rise in the price of everything from bhindi to potatoes and wondering how they're going to survive. As for the price of dal, says A, it's a joke. It's more than doubled in such a short while. We both talked about how scary it is when such a huge chunk of the population of a city or state is faced with a serious food shortage. Gear up for more violence, I tell her and she nods with a stoic look in her eye. Only, people are so dumb, she adds. Instead of confronting those whom they should, the people in power who are responsible for this state of affairs, they will go and burn some more buses and destroy public property and that will be the end.

The Mahalaxmi temple next door has its own way of dealing with these difficult times we are going through. In the morning we are blasted out by conch shells played over the loudspeaker and our evening meditations on the balcony, over a tot of Feni or rum, are accompanied by a loud, almost aggressive rendition of "Om Jai Jagdish". Well, the rum or feni or whiskey as the case may be does make it easier for us to cope with the ear-splitting pleas for mercy. It reminds me of that bunch of priests in Bombay who, a few months back, immersed themselves in drums of water for ten hours a day over several days, chanting Sanskrit slokas to bring on rain. The rain manager apparently was deaf and didn't hear it, so we still have a water shortage in Bombay and the crops have failed miserably which is also a likely reason for the steep food prices.

***

Ahh... Bombay!

2009-11-07T06:35:00.007+01:00

Mansi and Sophie entertaining each other

Landing at Sahar airport was like a slap in the face. Sudden, unexpected (because when you're abroad you forget how things are in India) and stinging. There was this union strike, see, so everything was slowed down and I thought it would take not just a few hours but a few days before I got home. I most often ask for a wheelchair to circumvent the long queues at immigration and customs and am whizzed through like a rocket. This time the wheelchair took forever to arrive and when I raised an eyebrow, the air hostess told me that it was because seventeen passengers on our aircraft had put in a request for assistance. Seventeen??!! Yikes. Is India the only country where a sizeable fraction of the population is old and/or disabled?!

After a bit I saw that the wheelchairs had arrived but we were still waiting. It turned out that there were only about two assistants to push the whole lot of us because the rest of the workers were on strike. Somehow we managed (I began to regret having asked for a wheelchair and thought I might have gotten out faster on my own this time). As if this weren't enough there were some checks on account of swine flu and we had to fill in forms regarding the state of our health while we were screened for fever or symptoms of flu. The area around immigration was choking with passengers who had not been cleared but of course, there's nothing like patience. I decided to take it all with grace, even if I had to wait there till the next morning.

Finally when we got our bags I decided I'd had enough of the wheelchair and being pushed around together with seventeen others and decided to grab hold of the trolley on which my bags had been piled and made my way out. Here too, milling crowds, a mixture of passengers and those who had come to fetch them. In perpetual fear of being knocked down I made my way out to where I caught side of Tuks who had come to collect me, along with Pawar after which I stuck to his side until the car arrived.

***

My return home was marked with a lot of activity. To begin with, S's sister had come to stay for a few days along with her loquacious three and a half year old daughter Mansi who as long as she's awake, cant keep her mouth shut. Luckily she is at the stage when anything and everything she says is cute and you cant help laughing. Then Suhail arrived around 4 in the afternoon. He had come to meet his friend and colleague from Paris, Sophie, who was to arrive that night, and whom he went to fetch from the airport.

Sophie turned out to be a hit with Mansi who even learned a few words in French including "Bonjour" and "Comment ca va". She was also very popular with Shambhu who sidled past her as she was leaning over the railing facing the garden, raised a leg and sprayed her on the arm. I was aghast to hear about it from Suhail though Sophie just giggled and shrugged and said it was normal, if someone regarded you as his territory.

The first few days I was knocked out and mostly in a bit of a zombie like state but having slept and slept and eaten and slept this last week I am finally back to normal.

Skol!

2009-10-24T12:02:00.019+02:00

In between all the heavy work which we were subjected to in the workshops :) Ayse and I would periodically take off, call up a couple of motorbike taxis and spin off into the village of Japaratinga which is right on the beach. Our first stop was invariably the internet café in the centre of the small town after which we would walk down to “Mama Pereira’s” , a replica of the beachside shacks you find in Goa. Even the waiters in jeans and T-shirts, resembled those in Goa, laidback but friendly.

What I loved was the beer, which everywhere was served chilled. To keep it cold the bottle or beer can itself is stuck into a kind of thermos flask flask which keeps it chilled almost to the end. Mama Pereira’s was good fun to hang out in, it was casual, frequented by dozens of people during the day, yet not overcrowded, and every now and then a vendour or fisherman would walk through, flaunting his wares. You have little boys cycling down the beach side road, flogging everything from ice cream to locally manufactured CD’s, their little tin containers fitted with stereos blaring out samba music.

While Ayse and I were chilling one afternoon with a glass of beer, this peanut seller strolled through the restaurant, little plastic bags of peanuts strung up along a bamboo pole. I stopped him to take a photograph. He nodded but asked me to wait. Then he fished around for a few seconds in his pocket and whipped out a pair of sunglasses which he stuck on his nose with a flourish. Now, he indicated, he was ready to be photographed.

The one big jolt I got in Brazil was that nobody but nobody seems to speak anything but Portuguese. One in a hundred maybe can get by with a smattering of English otherwise it is mostly sign language. The menu at Mama Pereira’s is entirely in Portuguese but by and by we picked up some of the essential terms. Abrigado means thank you. (If a woman says it, it’s Abrigada), Fish is Peixe (pronounced “peshe”), beer (the first thing I learned from Rupert at Mama Pereira’s), is Cerveja, cheese is queijo. Then I saw a word on the menu which I thought couldn’t possibly be what I thought it was – batata. In fact, like it does in Marathi, it means potato!

On the east coast of Brazil the sun rises so early in the morning that we were mostly up and about by five o'clock. By six thirty several of us would have gathered in the garden where we had our meals, waiting desperately for our morning coffee and by seven the multi course breakfast would start to appear in bits and pieces, at Willi’s resort where the group was staying during the workshop.

The sun also sets early in these parts. By three in the afternoon it begins to get cool. This is when, if we were at Mama Pereira’s, we would get onto the beach because it was no longer very hot. It is by and large a clean, quiet and pretty beach. By five the sun starts to set and by six it is pitch dark. During the workshop days dinner would be served by six and by seven it looked like there was nothing to do but go to bed. The first few days I was zapped, just not used to this kind of routine. Then things settled down and by the time Ariela, Thomas and others arrived, we would just hang out, order ourselves a Caipirinha (white rum based drink with sugar and lemon – very nice!) and chat till late. Sometimes Thomas or Paul or someone would get out their guitars and entertain us. At some point I will write about the workshops. (Four in the space of about twelve days!) Maybe when I’ve sorted out the pictures I got from Silvia, the Brazilian woman who attended the sessions. She is an anthropologist and film maker and one of the few people I met who spoke English fluently, mainly because she had spent three and a half years in Winnipeg doing her PhD in social anthropology.

Saturday Evening In Frankfurt

2009-09-28T18:04:00.008+02:00

On Sabine's balcony

It was good catching up with Suhail this weekend. He came over on Friday afternoon and as usual a good bit of our time initially was spent in trading news and getting familiar with each other’s current situation. We were determined to stick to our Saturday evening date with the group which somehow seemed a bit different from back home because in Bombay (or rather India) our timing for the meditation is from half past ten to half past eleven whereas in Europe it is from 7 to 8 in the evening. It was a lovely evening, the sun was in the midst of setting, the sky was a lovely mixture of blue, grey and pink and suffused with a typical twilight atmosphere.

We had had kind of a hard day - most of all Suhail and my friend Sabine with whom I’m staying at the moment, who had done some hard core shopping after breakfast. The shopping was for the evening meal which was originally meant to be a surprise for Su. The surprise was that he was going to have to cook for us. In fact it was more of a shock as Su had been expecting to relax and have someone else take over the kitchen for a change. In spite of some nasty sounding rumblings from deep inside him, we ended up with the most delicious fish concoction, sprinkled with herbs and baked in the oven and an equally mindboggling dessert – ice cream with slices of fried mango.

Suhail had just spent an hour chopping and cleaning and putting things together before we settled down for the meditation. I played a CD which I had burned for him and for an hour we sat back and watched the evening sky. I realised how much this kind of simple ritual helps to bond people, to make space to integrate feelings one has been experiencing during the day, if not the entire week, space for gratitude - for everything, from your own body, (eg to the senses, which are like a window to the world,) to the presence of various friends without whom life would be like a saltless diet. The tiredness of the day miraculously slipped away and at the end of the hour we felt ready to go on with the rest of the evening which we then did, with great gusto, together with Sabine and her friend Rolf who joined us later.

Tomorrow Ayse and I take the flight to Recife in Brazil so I don’t know when I will next be able to mail. Anyway keep well all of you. And sooner or later we’ll catch up with each other.

(Incidentally while shopping Suhail bought a card reader for me which now enables me to transfer my pics to the computer so as to be able to upload them).

Greetings From The Home Of The Frankfurter

2009-09-25T09:43:00.006+02:00

Sachsenhausen - the quarter where Sabine lives

This is really a dumb thing to do but though I remembered to bring my camera along I forgot all the connecting cables - the charger and the USB cable - which means I wont be able to post any pics until I get home. Or unless I manage to find a USB cable which suits the camera. The memory exercise they showed us to do in the acupressure class seems to have had the reverse effect. Think I was doing much better before I started to activate what they call the memory point. Oh well.

It is rather nice to be back in Frankfurt after a gap of three years. This time, since we're flying out of Frankfurt to Brazil I thought I'd spend some time with Sabine who has moved from the busy street she used to earlier live in, to a quiet neighbourhood in the same locality. In some ways the flat is much nicer. It's airy, more cheerful, and has a wonderful terrace adjoining the living room with its floor to ceiling plate glass windows from where you get a view of the sky and of a lot of shady trees through which you see the tops of the nearby buildings. The disadvantage is that it is not as close to the restaurants and shops which the other place was. There you had to just walk down to the street and within a hundred meters on either side you'd find a mix of Mexican, Italian, French or German restaurants. Now all the shopping and the eating out involves a steep climb down the hill and then some amount of walking.

As usual a lot of time has been spent in catching up with the news, and also in sampling the different cheeses spread out on the dining table at meal times, and also the variety of fruit. Talking of food, Suhail is probably already in the train from Paris, on his way to Frankfurt for the weekend, unaware of the plans which Sabine and I have, to get him to produce dinner tomorrow - just giving him an opportunity to exercise his culinary skills.

Brazil, Here I Come! (Take Two)

2009-09-19T12:47:00.008+02:00

Beachnear Recife

The last time I set out for Brazil I ended up spending four and a half months in Germany with a broken leg, recuperating at Ariela's place. And though the experience finally turned out to be wonderful and something I would never want to miss, I hope the trip to Recife on the west coast of Brazil (where I am soon headed) will unfold, without the aid of any such excitement or dramatic incident.

The visa has come through after a lot of haggling by the Brazilian consulate who required a letter of invitation from the owner of the guest house in Brazil on his official letterhead. Willi Graber who runs a modest guest house in Japaratinga mailed back saying that as he was a really small operator he didn't have an official letterhead but that he would see if a hotelier friend of his would send us the invitation. Somehow my travel agent managed to swing a deal and the visa came through without my having to break my neck (or another leg). Now Bablu who is also supposed to be joining the rest of the gang up in Recife is struggling to get his visa, having been asked to furnish a complete itinerary detailing his three week stay in the country. I mean, we're all going to be hanging out in Japaratinga with the local shamans.

You'd think that all Indians were scrambling over each other in their haste to leave their own country in exchange for Brazil!!

The Week Gone By

2009-09-10T08:44:00.010+02:00

As I am sure my goddaughter (God-dottie) will testify, I make a lousy godmother. I am a zero at remembering birthdays, I dont remember to give people gifts (maybe I'm just stingy), I'm not the most sympathetic person on earth for a high energy teenager to turn to (oops I keep forgetting Dottie is no longer in her teens - she is entering her late twenties even if she doesn't quite look it). But one thing I'll say ... I am always happy to see God-dottie when she does bounce into view as she did last week, quite out of the blue.

Devika, studying dance therapy in the U.K. is back home on vacation and landed up here with Jyotsna and Ravi before they returned to Pune. I offered her our group to experiment on so perhaps she will take me seriously and when she is through with her studies, we can occasionally sit at her feet and get some gyan on our pscyhe through dance and movement.

***

Ever since Master Shambhu appeared in our lives last summer, S. my executive assistant, has become as soft brained about cats as I am. She keeps bringing strays home to feed though I insist on her taking them right back where she found them, as Shambhu doesn't like to share his territory with other felines and can get quite mean and grumpy when a visitor does occasionally saunter in. A couple of days back anyway, there was this cute as hell kitten wailing away in our compound so Saru asked the guard downstairs to bring it up, which he obligingly did. We fed it milk and some raw beef which it happily gobbled down, after which it settled down nicely in my arms, purring away so it was rather sad to have to send it on its way after a while. Luckily Master-ji happened to be gallivanting at the time so we managed to avoid high drama.

Training Group Meet

2009-08-21T07:41:00.013+02:00

Cooling off in the afternoon

Mary and Ayse supporting Bablu in the water

The highlight of our training group workshop in Goa in August, was Mary's lessons in the swimming pool, during which she learned to float. As we prepared to go into the pool for the first time her face was a study in fear and misery as she was terrified of water. Though she is from Kerala and is familiar with the rivers there, she apparently never, in all these years, learned to swim or float in spite of several people including her sisters, having offered to teach her.

The first few minutes in the water were filled with squeaks and squeals but within half an hour there was this peaceful apparition floating on the surface of the water and refusing to get out. "Can't be me!" she said incredulously, when she did. "Mary cant float and this person was doing just that. So very simply it cant be me."

During a session

Heinz slicing the fish

Other highlights (apart from the actual work) included excellent barbeque fish prepared by the caretaker of the Goa house which had been offered to us for a week by Bablu and Mary's friend Aparna. The house itself was huge with this huge long old style verandah running down the length of it, overlooking emerald green fields. It was quiet most of the time except in the evenings when the nearby temples often competed with each other to set the neighbourhood ablaze with their loudspeakers spewing out various bhajans. Once they even had karaoke evening so we were subjected to about three hours of loud and utterly tuneless singing. Poor Heinz had a hard time falling asleep because some evenings the racket would continue well past midnight.

Sandeep and his wife Vimal, the caretaker and his wife very soon became part of the family and Sandeep who loves to chat, would entertain us with his opinion on politics, his childhood experiences and generally help out with everything. Their five year old daughter Priyanka loved hanging out with us and practised her English now and then.

Priyanka acting coy

Ayse in Indian garb

Heinz - morning contemplation

It was great having Ayse and Heinz with us and Ayse lead us in some of the water exercises and other stuff during the workshop.

The training group in Goa

Some more photos of our Khandala trip

2009-07-24T14:09:00.011+02:00

Here are Uma L's pics from our stay at Khandala

The approach

Bright n shining

Cheeselings

Tete a tete

Misty Memories

2009-07-23T09:18:00.024+02:00

The house at Khandala

The lasting impression of Khandala this time was of mist floating in and around and through the house and everyone constantly going "Ooooh, there's a CLOUD coming in!" The house turned out to be one of those structures, about a hundred years old with two large bedrooms with beds so high, they almost needed a ladder to get onto, a spacious dining room with an old wooden dining table in the center and a long broad verandah running along the of the house facing the hills. There were enough beds and sofas and chairs strewn around to enable us to comfortably loll around and we were taken good care of by the housekeepers, Narayan and his wife, both of them from Nepal. Every now and then a stringy looking but very sweet and noisy half grown grey and white cat would come running in, begging for food and then disappear again.

Sudha lost in reflection

The verandah, everyone said, was the stuff Bhoothbanglas are made of although nobody felt very scared. Maybe all those rain songs belted out by Sudha and Kalpana purified the atmosphere. Ha ha. Meals were on the whole very saatvik, no chillis, very little masala and oil (good for the system) though we made up for all the health food with chilled beer one afternoon and shots of some out of the world Scotch provided by Sean and Pooja which helped me to win at least three games of UNO.

Thoughtful Pooja

The morning after we arrived Uma L insisted that I accompany her, Sharat and Kalpana to "the ridge" from where it was possible to get a spectacular view of the mountains and valley. I just about made it though we had just reached when it started blowing and in no time we were being spattered by drops of rain. Luckily we made it back to the bungalow before getting completely drenched.

Sean trying to meditate

Uma L and Sudha

And of course there were a couple of deadly
rounds of"Taboo" which had everyone sitting on edge and of "Uno" which was good fun - as indeed games are when you're winning a lot of the time.

Pics: Kalpana, Sharat

"Inner Peace" In Pune

2009-07-20T09:32:00.008+02:00

Time and again, you see that inner peace is quite simple. It's all a matter of letting go of your expectations. The first expectation that crashed regarding our workshop in Pune, was that the cook whom Jyotsna had hired failed to turn up. Somehow that didn't matter at all because cooking just became a part of the curriculum. When the evening meditation was over, the team took over Jyotsna's kitchen and within an hour and a half we had produced quite an impressive meal of bhindi, palak paneer, kala dal, and raita and pulao which we rounded off with some chocolate chikki which Jyotsna had bought in Panchgani when we were there in May.

I have to clarify I suppose that my role in this whole feat was to keep Sharat company at the table while he chopped bhindis. The rest of the time I read "My family and other saints" by Kirin Narayan who it turned out is an ex BIS (Bombay International School) student, whose sister Maya I'd briefly studied with and whose brothers Rahul and Deven I knew slightly, though they were much junior to me.

In between the bai coming and going and trains whistling as they roared past, we did in fact, manage to unwind with the help of some music and plain exercises in listening and had some good dialogues. The surprise element was Kalpana, a new addition to our group who kind of discovered us through the net. She came from Delhi and turned out to be a real good sport, pitching in enthusiastically with everything we did.

On the way back we stopped at Khandala, to visit Uma L who had invited to stay with her at a friend's bungalow about which there will be more in the next post perhaps along with some pictures, yet to be sent by Sharat and Uma.

Century!

2009-06-29T05:53:00.025+02:00

The birthday girl with Ulka

My grandmother Nalini’s expectation that she would live to be a hundred was not quite met. In July 2005, just four years short of her centenary, she decided to pack up and move on to some other part of the universe. But on Saturday 27th June we got to see Manik Lad hit a century at a fabulous lunch organised by her children Girish and Gauri and the rest of the family including Girish’s wife Rekha and their kids, Ahalya and Dnyanesh and their partners.

Arun and Dad with Tipkya

Talk about food. This was one lunch at which I almost passed out with the sheer joy of eating. From the time we arrived to the time we left drinks were flowing and snacks being passed around, whose memory still has me drooling. We finally ended with a whopping lunch rounded off by three desserts one of which was blueberry cheesecake. It was good to catch up with old friends like Jinx and Usha, as well as one of the two surviving feline members of the Lad family - Tipkya - who settled down comfortably for a couple of hours, next to my dad. "It was a fun" as Indians like to put it.

Tipkya

Girish and Arun (Ahalya's husband) put up an excellent slide show on Mrs. Lad's life and how she had got to witness the progress of transport from the bullock cart to the airplane and how these days she can't live without modern amenities. My grandmother also appeared in one of the slides and Girish very accurately described her staple diet - chocolate, ice cream and potato chips which contributed to her health and happiness till her last day.

It left me wishing that more people would turn hundred and decide to celebrate the big day.

Me and Usha

Mum at her party best

Up In The Hills

2009-06-08T05:28:00.011+02:00

View from Wonder Point

We had been told that Panchgani in summer, even though it's at an elevation can be hot. That it may not quite be worthwhile making that long trip up into the hills, that it's generally noisy and crowded and so on. But we decided to take a chance a couple of weeks back and Sudha, Jyotsna and I took off anyway.

Uma and Sudha at Wonder Point

After a three hour drive from Bombay to the outskirts of Pune, we got hopelessly lost finding our way to Jyotsna's place where we had decided to meet for brunch before setting off for Panchgani. So J. had to actually pick us up and lead us home. We set off again around a quarter to two and reached the guest house in P'gani by 4 in the evening. It's a sprawling place and though the architect has done a miserable job and with a lot of effort turned what could have been a brilliant place into quite an ugly structure, with a car park in the front where there ought to have been a patio - facing the hills - even he hasn't quite managed to destroy the effects. Each room has a pretty large balcony where one can hang out in the evenings, which we did, before dinner, watching the sun set behind the misty hills.
Lunch at the "Grapevine" in Mahableshwar

The weather was delightfully cool in the evenings and even the days were fine except if you went wandering in the sun of course. We'd drive into Mahableshwar which is 8 or 10 kilometers away after a leisurely breakfast, poke around the market there and have lunch before getting back for a nap.

Jo's liberation
Evenings we drove down to Wonder Point which is a brilliant walk facing a range of hils. A really breathtaking view and ideal for a sunset meditation. On our way back we stopped once more in Pune to drop Jyotsna off and to have lunch. J has a really brilliant place in Pune, which seems like it's been set up for workshops and which she also instantly offered us for our sessions. So one outcome of this trip is that we're going to be holding a workshop in mid July for two days, based on the usual music and meditation.

What's With Your Middle Finger?

2009-05-01T06:12:00.006+02:00

Today’s paper carries stacks of photos of individuals sticking up their middle finger at the world. As all of us in Mumbai (or rather India) know, this is not to be construed as an obscene gesture, it is just that people are displaying proof of their being responsible citizens and having voted in the general elections. Unlike in previous elections when the forefinger was marked, this time for some mysterious reason the middle finger has been favoured.

I too have a long dark stripe running down my middle finger which startles me every now and then when I notice it, making me think for a second that my finger has turned into a hairy spider. Mum, Dad and I went off early yesterday morning to do our duty, before the queues began to get long and unmanageable. Mother as usual had to spend the first five minutes explaining to the polling officer that she was who she was because the election ID card has transformed her from Ahalya into Alilaya. Attempts to get the name corrected have led to a lot of standing around in queues and frantic endeavours to persuade the authorities concerned that it’s all a mistake but Alilaya it remains on the card and it looks like Mum better get used to her new name.

We got our fingers inked a little before half past seven. Much to my own distress I ended up voting for a party I disliked, only to help keep out a party I hated. I guess we would have actually wanted very much to vote for the independent candidate from our constituency who was the only one who sent out any kind of leaflet containing her views on change and her agenda. None of the others bothered. Unfortunately our main agenda was to keep the faschists at bay – to do which we had to avoid splitting up the vote of the party opposing them.

As Cho Ramaswamy apparently once said, if you have to choose between voting for a murderer, a rapist and a pickpocket, well you want to vote for the pickpocket. Guess that’s what we ultimately ended up doing.

Further proof of good citizenship:

http://epaper.dnaindia.com/bigwin.aspx?url=EpaperImages\01052009\amithabhskjsjsk-large.jpg&eddate=5/1/2009&pageno=1&edition=9&prntid=91158&bxid=97&pgno=1

Birthday At Marve

2009-04-13T06:16:00.003+02:00

Surprise! It was during our short retreat at Marve that Chandran like a magician, produced a birthday cake for us (we were already dying for something sweet and regretting not having remembered to buy anything on the way). Turned out that 8th May was his birthday so after dinner, Sharat took several shots of Chandran trying to cut the cake, which he had managed to buy in Marve itself. The shot is somewhat hazy but I guess we're recognisable.

Other than that it was mostly a peaceful two days. One of the themes which we looked at was freedom and responsibility and how the two are related. Bernd was there too - his second last day before returning to Germany.

The best thing was that it took us under an hour to get to the beach house from Bombay and although our return journey was an hour and a half that didn't seem too bad either. This means we can definitely plan more of such short trips. Though only a day and a half, you do come back refreshed to the city.

What Constitutes A Patriot

2009-04-04T08:36:00.004+02:00

Here's a new take on violence. When Anjali Waghmare the lawyer who agreed to take up the case of Kasab (the terrorist involved in the 26/11 attack in Bombay) she was immediately threatened by a gang of Shiv Sena goons. In spite of the jolt which undid Ms. Waghmare's initial confidence, she finally agreed to take up the case. Meanwhile the lawyers of the men who indulged in violence have attempted to excuse their behaviour by explaining that they did what they did out of "love for their country". Question: is patriotism about love or underneath everything, is it really about violence?

Mumbai Fiasco

2009-03-31T10:54:00.009+02:00

So if you're surprised at the mess that the proposed drainage work on Peddar Road has led to, I'm surprised. After discussing the intricacies of the operation on this major artery for a couple of months, all under wraps - it was hardly a few days before the work was due to begin that we even got to know about it! - the Municipality got cold feet. Barely one day into the project the BMC, due to "unexpected chaos on the streets" caused by the part of the road being blocked (Oh yeah? Unexpected?) decided to stop digging and to continue only in May when the schools are on vacation. Actually school vacs begin mid April so the reason for postponing the drainage work to May, as suggested by today's DNA, appears to be something which is not being spelled out - Lok Sabha elections, which are round the corner. We don't want the public to be inconvenienced.

The fact that the eyes, the ears, the hands, the different organs of this body are not on speaking terms with each other and that the decision was taken in a totally ill coordinated manner, only shows up the reality of Bombay. Errr sorry, Moombai. It shows up the fact that chaos is not only expected once the work gets going but that it is
a mild way of describing what we will have to face here in Bom .... errrr Mooombai for who knows how long.

The problem is there are more cars in Moombai than there is place for them to drive. As the over abundance of vehicles shows there are more people living in the city than the city can really provide for. Those people are here because the jobs are all here and damn all is being done to develop areas besides Bombay and major cities which will encourage people to stay and work where they are rather than to migrate to the shit-holes they eventually end up living in, in the city.

Right. And now it's soon going to be time to get your forefinger dotted with a tiny spot of purple ink very soon. Which moron are you going to pick on, to boost our national and civic pride?

Roasted Aborigines Anyone?

2009-03-24T07:09:00.012+01:00

Interesting Menus in Goa

I clean forgot that I too had some pics of our visit to Goa, on my camera! Here they are. Please note the menu above, from the restaurant called "Agonda Paradise". This too is right on the beach, and they offer some pretty interesting dishes which I would recommend, such as "Melazane Arrosta" which among other things, is made of roasted aborigines. Mum and I ordered a plate and it was good. Now you can call us cannibals.

Our sit out at Chattai

View from our hut at Chattai
The place which serves roasted aborigines

Back From The Beach

2009-03-19T07:37:00.005+01:00

Sitting out at Chattai

Goa was restful when we visited it last week ... but hot! Verry hot. We had hoped for a cooler March but this year seemed to be somewhat warmer than most so afternoons were the time to be baked. The mornings and evenings were pleasant though and as we were by the beach most of the time we not only survived our four days there but enjoyed them.

Finally we got to stay at "Chattai" after several unsuccessful attempts to book ourselves there. That is, Peg, Vishnu and I stayed there and the rest of the party - parents and Shiv were at Menino's, five minutes away, also huts on the beach.

Chattai sadly, didn't turn out to be all that it was cranked up to be. Of course its location is the major plus point and also the restaurant right on the beach. The sit outs adjoining each hut are also extremely pleasant to hang out in but somehow the atmosphere seemed a bit weary and sad. Service, even by Goan standards was a bit too laidback. Most of the day there were chaps hanging around the restaurant with nothing to do but at the time when you wanted tea or something - like tea time - you couldn't get it because the cook had his "off". The odd job guys continued to loiter around, looking at the guests and asking if they could bring you a cold Limca or Coke - which we eventually had to settle for since everyone was too lazy to traipse off elsewhere for a cuppa at that time.

Agonda sunset
One of the best things about Chattai was the pompfret which they served for dinner. Best marinated and grilled with veggies and salad served alongside.

Other places we visited for meals were Tiger Canisha (our favourite haunt), Boom Shankar at Palolem, with its fabulous view and Fatima's which is also a pretty pleasant place to hang out in.

Boom Shankar at Palolem
Pics by Shiv

Once More In Timbaktu

2009-03-09T05:04:00.013+01:00

For those of you who weren't there, here are some pics of our meet in Timbaktu with Rupert and Brigitte who led us into "Body Work" which has to do with developing body awareness or body intelligence. As usual it was fabulous, especially now staying at "Saregama" (my very own room at Timbaktu) and with Venky having set up his chai and coffee bar on the verandah outside his room. Will try and write about the actual workshop in the basicindia blog.

Venky's new chai bar at "Saregama"

Dwight chatting with Petra

Brigitte and Mary

Rupert and Brigitte chatting with Bablu

George hard at work, making coffee for us in the morning

Niko, Rupert and Brigitte

Deolali Weekend

2009-02-08T08:22:00.010+01:00

It is already over two weeks since our little retreat in Deolali and I just haven't managed to get in a new post in all this time. Well here are some pics taken by Sharat. And shortly I will be posting the group's creative efforts on the basicindia blog as well. It was fun, it was quiet, it was a reflective weekend and hopefully more of you all will join us for the next round some time towards the end of March or early April. We are also on the lookout for some good guest houses/places to stay which offer board and lodging at reasonable rates.

Under the chikoo tree outside the house

Sharat's reflective pose

Below:
Visit to the hill at sunset time (Uma L watched it from the top)

Germany visits India

2009-01-19T12:41:00.005+01:00

Brigitte, Saru, Shambhu and Gisela

Finally, after months of planning and email exchanges Gisela and her friend Brigitte turned up in Bombay early on the 14th morning. Gisela being Gisela was up and about shortly after I myself had got going in the morning - no sign of jet lag, no tiredness, even less need to rest than I had (I always need a small nap) and raring to go. We spent a couple of hours on the balcony catching up on news about her daughters Ebba and Tessa and her granddaughters and various other typical family things before lunch. After which she and Brigitte set out on a round of the neighbourhood.

The five days the "girls" were here have gone by in a haze. They would vanish after breakfast in the morning and return in the evening - in fact one day they weren't back till shortly before 10 at night, leaving me wondering whether I should start to worry. But before I could bite my fingernails they pranced back in, laden with shopping bags and faces beaming, all set for a tot of rum (or gin and tonic - Brigitte's favourite drink).
Chocolate mousse at Gaylords

We spent yesterday evening at "Gaylords" which I was visiting after ages, which gave me a chance to remember what a nice place it is to hang out in, and the fact that they serve pretty good food as well. The chocolate mousse was a fitting end to a riotous women's evening out during which we sent Gisela's husband Werner one of those "wish you were here" sms's. Now am considering making a trip back to the restaurant just for another mouthful of that rich and extremely sinful dessert.

Publish Post

2009 is here!

2009-01-07T05:00:00.005+01:00

Hardly a few years ago the twenty first century seemed like a time zone out of science fiction. Well we've not only arrived but we're nine years down the line! 2009? Huh? Who the hell gobbles up all the years?!

It was a real quiet New Years eve here, with S and me watching some show or other on TV. These days all that I watch are either Marathi soaps or Marathi reality shows. There are two of them, one a dance programme to showcase young talent, the other a programme to showcase kids singing talent. The musical show is actually pretty good, because kids as young as eight or nine take part, sounding like grown ups, managing the highs and lows, the intricacies of the melody like professionals. Nothing like when we grew up and at age eight were still singing Old Mac Donalds or something.

The biggest change in our lives is possibly Shambhu's arrival. With his loud raucous mew and his goofy face and behaviour, he has unwittingly turned an apartment into a home. Shambhu is growing up fast and at times disappears for one and a half days. Right now he's been home pretty much, following S (the love of his life), crouching under the gas stove for warmth, or huddled up on the sofa.

This is also the season for guests and the first of the lot this year will be my friend Gisela who introduced me to Germany many years ago - actually in 1987, when I visited her in Bremen and later in Leverkusen (near Cologne). It's been a long and winding road since then but essentially the same road along which I got to know and work with Samuel. Hope that those of you in Bombay will get to meet G. during the six days or so that she is with me.

The Week That Was

2008-12-10T06:53:00.003+01:00

Some events act as clear dividing lines in our lives, almost like the markers BC and AD. The terrorist attack on Bombay on 26th November, has become one of those. You think of life "before 26/11 and you think in terms of life after 26/11. It's changed, not only for those who survived the violence at CST or at the Taj or the Oberoi hotels. And not only for the number of people who lost their friends and relatives in the attack. Life somehow seems different for a whole lot of us living in the vicinity of these places, or those of us who belong to the middle or upper classes who were mainly the target of this revengeful act. It has made us sit up and think in a way that never happened before.

The upside of it is that many individuals are all set to seriously examine what is wrong with society, and with the world we live in. Unfortunately far too many people are engaged in pointing fingers and unwilling to be part of a half way sane dialogue. A piece I recently wrote for Desicritics elicited a barrage of responses mainly from people who dont seem to want to look further than their nose. It depresses you to read them because you see how few people among the educated classes are even half way willing to own up to the fact that if the world is in a mess today it is because we too have contributed to it in our own way by agreeing to be part of a system which is destructive and self defeating.

Those who want to do more than complain and are ready to contribute their time and energy to a long term project to further environmental awareness which also involves awareness of the self) please get in touch. Some of us at Basicindia are organizing a series of sessions for friends and generally anyone interested, to voice their thoughts and feelings and come up with peaceful solutions to the current state of fear, anger and confusion which has gripped the city in recent times.

Hunterwalla

2008-11-19T05:22:00.004+01:00

Shambhu's latest antics have left me with mixed feelings. After being labelled "dumb" and "stupid" by almost everyone, he left us quite zapped by catching a sparrow the other day. We didn't actually see it happen but found the evidence on the carpet in the form of some feathers and spots of blood. I have seen him also frequently pounce on and dismember lizards, which makes me groan because I personally find lizards not only cute but useful to have around as the bigger ones catch the cockroaches.

So on the one hand I find this bloody sport rather difficult to handle but on the other hand when I see Shambhu having such a good time I get confused. It's all in the game I suppose. The lad has now been galivanting like crazy, he is sometimes out for twelve hours in a day. Yesterday he left home at 4 in the afternoon and returned at 3 in the morning, yowling away to tell us he was back again. He is currently stretched out on the sofa, dead to the world. Guess he's had a hard day.

Timbaktu and Goa

2008-11-06T06:50:00.011+01:00

What really got me gaping at the Mumbai airport as I sat waiting for the flight to Bangalore two weeks back, was this spiffy floor cleaning machine which just whizzed past me, leaving behind it a spanking clean surface. The new airport at Bombay really is quite nice I must say and pretty well organized.

Landing in Bangalore we were greeted by heavy rain which followed us most of the way to Timbaktu. Venky and George picked me up from the airport and we set off immediately, reaching Timbaktu by late evening.

We had the meditation at Bablu and Mary's place this time (I am still waiting for photos from Sharat) and it turned out to be also a very good place for us, especially the balcony outside their bedroom overlooking the green valley and surrounding hills.

The workshop brought us all much closer together and we had some fun times lounging around in Bablu and Mary's courtyard, with Bablu mostly reclining in the hammock. It rained throughout though and the solar panels were not able to provide any electricity this time so we were quite dependent on the generator for lights and our music as well. The nice thing about the rains was that the weather was wonderfully cool which is something to be grateful for as October can be rather warm in that area.

View from the first guest house I stayed in

Goa was a dream as usual, and this time in Agonda we found a spectacular place by the sea, quite by accident. Sudha and I had driven down from Bangalore on the 26th with Shiv and Indira and Uma L joined us a day later. At first we all stayed in quite a nice guest house which was a five minute walk from the sea but on the third day we saw this place called "Sunset Point" which was right on the beach and it just so happened that that very day one room had got free. So Sudha and I jumped at it and within an hour, had moved our bags over and just didn't regret it. The unfortunate thing is that a lot of other people know about it so it is quite full till almost the end of March. Or so the owner says.

At sunset time

The other people staying there turned out to be a rather nice bunch. There was a French couple, bodies entirely tattooed over, a handsome Portuguese man who took the front most room by the sea, a guy who seemed to be a French Algerian and an Israeli who was surprisingly friendly, who was in the room next to Sudha's and mine, who even made us a cup of filter coffee one morning on his camping stove.

As soon as I get additional pics from Uma L and Sharat I'll post them.

"Ummery" (Humphrey) the friendly old mongrel at Sunset Point

The trials of Dassehra

2008-10-07T07:35:00.003+02:00

Ratna and Mansi after visiting the Mahalaxmi temple

Dassehra is once again in full swing and the queues at the Mahalaxmi temple wind up the road for at least a couple of kilometres. They all stand in the heat with such an incredibly patient look on their faces, almost as if they enjoy torturing themselves. Among those waiting for a glimpse of the divine power was S’s sister, husband and three year old daughter Mansi.

Where I sit at the computer now I have to put up not only with the usual traffic roar but also with loudspeakers blaring out sangeet and bhajans. The Dassehra festivities in the hall next to where my parents live, which hold up traffic for days, is toned down I believe this year, on account of terrorist threats but it doesn’t seem to make a difference for the thousands of devotees who throng to the temple anyway.

At home S, A and I are planning to celebrate Dassehra with lunch at Swati snacks this afternoon. S has a few days off from the second job as her employer has gone on vacation, which makes it easier for her to go out in the afternoon. Swati snacks, which most people in Bombay and especially around this area are familiar with, is such a popular joint that I hope we don’t end up waiting on the pavement like we will have to, if the place is full. And after lunch there’s a movie to watch – we’ve ordered a Marathi DVD for the afternoon which has been heavily advertised on TV and which S has been dying to see.

Home Again

2008-09-24T08:28:00.013+02:00

Lulu clowning around

We hit Indian soil early yesterday morning. It was my first morning landing, because most of Lufthansa's flights from Germany normally get here after midnight or thereabouts. So now it is a return, from plush surroundings and well fed children and adults to foggy skies and babies abandoned in trains, kids getting run over by buses and shopkeepers and normal citizens getting mugged just by the way (all in today's papers).

Still, I am happy to be back, and put it down to the aging factor. Whereas earlier it used to take me weeks to get over my misery at having to leave all the good things of life, I now find that the "good things" are actually back home. I'm happy to be eating Indian food again, happy to chat with A and S and generally to be back on my balcony after four weeks.

Here are some pics from my last few days in Prien and in Aufkirchen. Aufkirchen is a small hamlet near the airport in Munich, where my parents and I stayed a day or two before flying back. It's a real one horse town or even a half horse town because there is absolutely nothing to do there, at least around our hotel. We were forced to stay in Aufkirchen because all the hotel rooms in the city were booked on account of the Oktober Fest - a mad festival highlighting beer, crowds and drunken revelry. While we were there Walter and Anja visited us because they said it is closer to where they live, than Prien. Anja and Walter conduct workshops in self awareness and specialize in "Water rebalancing" which has to do with therapy in a swimming pool (to simulate the experience of the pre-natal months).

Claudia who
plans to help the training group in 2009

Ayse, as usual in good cheer

"Horse" Petra (because she rides and trains horses)

Walter

Anja

Morning At The Kindergarten

2008-09-20T13:46:00.002+02:00

Two years back when I was in Prien nursing a broken leg, Felix, who was then about four, wanted me desperately to come with him to the kindergarten where he was enrolled. That time Ariela explained to him that I couldn't make it because most likely the wheel chair wouldn't go through the door. His spontaneous suggestion was, well then, why not organise a smaller wheelchair for me? Soon after that he dropped out of KG altogether and this Tuesday was the first time he had been back, in almost two years. This time too, I was able to go with him.

Yesterday morning Ariela dropped us both off there and I spent quite an interesting morning with about twenty kids who seemed to range in age from three to six years. The youngest was a little girl whose mother had dropped her off and gone back home, who spent a good twenty minutes shrieking her heart out. Felix sat there with a grim expression on his face and fingers stuck in his ears and soon the other kids followed suit.

The kids were all curious, not so much about my colour or where I was from but what had happened to my leg. To simplifiy matters I told them that I had broken it some time back. So I heard from various boys and girls how they had broken a finger or some other part of the body, one boy told me his father had burned his hand and another one said he had broken a leg that very morning but that now he was fine.

It was a treat, to see them play, sometimes led by the teacher, sometimes doing their own thing. I saw that in Germany kids are given a lot of freedom to play on their own and do what they feel like doing. One of the joint activities had to do with sculpting a snail out of dough. At this point Thomas arrived to take me to the bank where I needed to change some cheques and we left, with Felix crying and whining a bit that he wanted to come with us. Finally he agreed to stay back with the other kids on the condition that Thomas would come and fetch him soon after we were through with the bank.

Sunshine Again!

2008-09-18T10:48:00.016+02:00

After two days of rain and cold weather, it has turned sunny again. Living here you notice how the sun lifts your spirits - unlike in Bombay where cloudy skies relieve the searing heat of the sun.

These last couple of days have been quite hectic with friends turning up, and some last minute things to do. Ruth, who took great care of me the time I broke my leg, came over on Tuesday and we borrowed Ariela's car and drove around a bit. She helped me with some essential chores, among other things, mailing a heavy packet of jaggery to Bibsi in Kempten. I had taken the stupid parcel all the way to Switzerland, knowing that Thomas would drop me at Bibsi's on the way back, then I forgot to pack it into the backpack which I took with me to Kempten.

Yesterday Sabine, who lives in Frankfurt came over for the day. Her mother has a summer house in a place not far from Prien, which she visits quite frequently. She had driven there on Tuesday and Prien being just about 20 minutes away, she decided to come and meet me.
Was great catching up with her after almost two years and we spent a bit of time recapturing the past with a lot of nostalgia. Sabine has sold the pharmacy which she used to run and now lives a happy retired life, though still very active, what with looking after her daughter's dog, her grandson, travelling, attending workshops and offering cranio sacral sessions herself, a field in which she trained some years ago.

(pic on left shows Lilly with the muffins she's baked.)

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At home meanwhile, all the kids are back in school and Felix has started going to Kindergarten again after almost a two year break. (He said it was "okay" yesterday, and that he enjoyed parts of the day and one boy was very nice to him, though he didn't know his name). (In the topmost pic you see Felix making his scary dinosaur face. Hope you're all suitably terrified). Lilly and Lulu are also back behind the desk and it is peaceful once again at home.

German Titbits

2008-09-14T15:18:00.013+02:00

So last week Marlis took the train down from Berlin and we spent two days together in a nearby pension. Most places here offer bed and breakfast including the hotels. So here too we got a breakfast which was okay, meaning not quite as lavish as the other places but it filled our stomachs. A typical breakfast here consists for example, of coffee or tea, rolls (a little bit like our gutli in India), butter, marmelade and salami and ham or some such thing.

Marlis who had gone to the pension to deposit her bags and collect the key, came to fetch me from Ariela's place, full of apologies because she felt the place was too dingy, seedy, badly kept etc and just looked like a German version of a cheap Indian hotel room. I expected the worst so was pleasantly surprised to see that it really wasn't as bad as she made it sound. It looked quite clean, the windows looked out onto the porch, which was a nice place for breakfast, and it was big enough for the two of us.

We rented a car the next day and explored the countryide around Prien, which is very pretty. Wherever you go you are surrounded by the Bavarian part of the Alps. It is all green, rolling terrain and here and there you find hotels and restaurants. We stopped at one place which looked very exclusive and discovered that it was so exclusive they wouldn't serve us lunch because we were not staying at the hotel. But they deigned to serve us drinks so I had a beer and Marlis had a "Radler" which is a Shandy (half beer half lemonade). The only people around seemed to be elderly (maybe they were the only ones who could afford it).

M and I got deep into a conversation about the workshop we had attended at Samuel's and were somewhat startled when an elderly gentleman approached us and told us in an irritated voice that he wanted us to know he and his wife could hear every word we were speaking. Well several rude retorts came to mind but we were very polite, hastily paid up for our beer and drove down to another cafe along a river which was more congenial.

Back in Prien we continued to have good weather for a few days but the last two days it has been cold and wet. Oh well, can't complain, I think I had my share of sunshine this time and anyway now we are getting into autumn. So I guess I'll be glad to get back to the warmth!

view from an outdoor cafe in prien

Life in Germany

2008-09-07T21:46:00.018+02:00

It's been more than a month since I've been able to blog and even now time is short but I thought that before I lapse into a comatose state altogether I'd put in a word. Well for one thing I'm back from Switzerland, from our workshop there - back in Prien that is, with Ariela. On the way back from Switzerland Thomas dropped me at a friend's place in Kempten (also in Bavaria).
Bibsi

Bibsi happens to be among my "original German contacts", that is, among the first people I met here in Germany, whom I got to know very well in the late eighties and with whom I visited Samuel's first workshop years ago. Bibsi emigrated to Canada some time in the late nineties, where she lived alone on an eighty acre farm, in a trailer, with three cats. Schatzie is the only one of the three who managed to accompany her to Germany. Bibsi suspects that Zotl, the black cat was eaten up by the neighbour's dog when she was away for a few weeks though the neighbour was supposed to have taken care of the cats at the time.

Gisela and Bibsi at the Italian restaurant where we had dinner

Schatzie

Anyway I caught up with Bibsi after seven years, the last time having been in Canada where my parents and I visited her on her farm in British Colombia. She now lives alone in this rather big house, with a splendid view of the mountains, and with a sprawling garden adjoining the patio. We went out one afternoon to get a glimpse of the snow mountains and one of the lakes in the vicinity and on the way back saw this herd of cows being shepherded by a cowboy on a motor bike. That made quite a funny picture.

Back in Prien, Felix and I have been playing and chatting and watching movies. Watched "Mary Poppins" this afternoon after I dont know how many years. Feli was very taken up with the parts where the kids together with Burt and MP walk into a picture he has drawn on the sidewalk as part of his effort to earn some money, and also the part where everyone floats up into the air laughing.

Sammy the greedy cat in Prien

Breakfast With Shambhu

2008-07-21T06:43:00.011+02:00

Can I get away with it?

I suppose most cats think they are either on par with or superior to human beings? Shambhu for example thinks it is his right to join us while we're at the dining table. He might be playing furiously in the living room but as soon as he hears my fork against the plate he comes galloping at top speed and immediately jumps onto a chair so as to watch me eat. Then in slow steps he tries his luck, to see if he can actually get onto the table though mostly I swat him away with a rolled up newspaper.

Incidentally Shambhu's way of digesting the morning news is to first sniff at the paper, then look at it intensely, then scratch it up and try to chew the edges off. Am sure he gets more of what is happening in the world than I do.

Oh, now that's really interesting - let me just get through this paragraph before you knock me off the table

Shambhu's favourite toy with which he can spend ages playing at a stretch, is something that looks like a white bottle cap though Saru told me recently it is not a bottle cap at all but some part of a table fan that he prised loose while pawing the fan. He pushes it around with his paws, chucks it up in the air, leaps up to retrieve it, executes professional looking somersaults over it and scrabbles around madly from one end of the room to the other - for a minimum of two hours, until he drops down exhausted and then proceeds to sleep soundly with one paw over his eyes for the next few hours.

He has been going down to play in the garden as well, though he is very fussy and insists on being escorted into the lobby. Once there, he takes off. For some reason he doesn't like to go out on his own, though once in the garden, he is able to find his way back home alone! Cats are strange!

Now I dare you to shoo me off!

Some Highlights Of Our Marve Retreat

2008-07-15T06:35:00.005+02:00

Clockwise from left: Chandran, Sudha, Suresh V, Suresh D., Sharat and Meher

For those of you not present, here are some highlights of our retreat this weekend, at the guest house in Marve by the sea.

Chandran made the tea! Too bad we don't have photos of this but I believe it was quite an event. I only got to taste it and I must say it was gooooood.

We got an opportunity to shake our bodies and jump around and generally let loose, which is normally difficult to do in the city, during our two hour weekly sessions.

During an afternoon session we discovered a whole lot of hidden talent in the members of our group. In pairs they composed the most philosophical verse I have come across in a while, and I hope to post it on the basicindia blog soon.

After dinner there was a round of story telling with each one contributing a sentence to the main story. We came up with an all time record of a horrendously stupid story involving a right angled cat (contributed by Sharat) a sexy cat, a lightening conductor and Chandran. I forget who actually bolted up the lightening conductor - the sexy cat, the right angled cat or Chandran but one of them did and the story ended on that note. Chandran if it was you up there I presume you are back on earth.

Suresh V was so exhausted with cats and Chandran going up and down the lightening conductor that he retired to bed a couple of hours before actual bedtime. He was followed downstairs by Suresh D, Sharat and Sudha who then sat up chatting up old Hindi movies till well past midnight after which Suresh V really decided to call it a day because he was expecting a visit from a neighbourhood ghost apparently with whom he claimed to have spent the night.

Another highlight: it was quiet in Marve! Even more quiet than it is during the week. We normally avoid going to Marve on weekends because of the cars racing up and down the main road playing their boom boxes at top volume - not to mention loud parties that keep us awake till 4 in the morning, sometimes. But this weekend it was very peaceful, it rained a couple of times and we were quite grateful to whoever organized the peace and quiet in Marve.

Babel

2008-07-06T06:54:00.005+02:00

Finally, after planning it for weeks we got down to seeing the movie "Babel". I think those of us who watched it yesterday evening (including Chandran and Sudha) must have been the last to see it. Almost everyone I had asked seemed to have seen it already and most of them said, "It's a very good movie" and then kind of shuddered. So I, not being a fan of movies based on violence and other depressing topics, have to confess it took me too a while to even decide to see the film.

Well, I must say it's one of the most thought provoking movies I've seen in a while and doesn't allow itself to be easily classified, bringing together as it does, four different stories in four different parts of the world. What was the message? Was there one? I'm not even sure but yes, it makes you think about a whole lot of things. Makes you think about the nature of our world (the human world), about the rich and the poor and how the rich seem to always end up with the attention. It makes you think about fate, about whether or not our life is in our hands and side by side it makes you think about responsibility because of the nature in which we are all linked together in today's world.

Towards the end of the evening, the door of the drawing room (where we were watching the film) opened accidentally and Shambhu wandered in. Knowing his tendency to play with and chew at wires and generally jump onto tables and push things around, and being extremely protective about my DVD player I yelped and got Sudha to catch him and remove him from the scene once again.

More About A Cat

2008-06-16T06:10:00.008+02:00

Saru and Shambhu setting out for a walk in the garden

Simba has undergone umpteen changes in name. Though he is still sometimes called that, we felt a Maharashtrian name would be more suitable so Simba became Simbhaji which then turned into Shambaji which was then converted to Shambhu and finally now to Shambhu Maharaj. So for the time being this is it. (Pankaj recently referred to him as the "mini Maharaj".)

He is one of the most peculiar cats I've come across in that he is not greedy. He likes food and willingly gobbles up stuff you give him, which he likes, like cheese or bits of papad. But he doesn't beg or screech like most of the other cats we've had. He just watches with big eyes. He also loves to join us at the dining table when we're having lunch or dinner. I think it's mainly for the company though. He tries to park himself on the table itself, then seeing that that is definitely not on, he goes and curls up on one of the chairs and goes to sleep while the rest of us eat.

Shambhu likes to watch TV. God knows what exactly his little brain registers but he sits intently before the TV screen at times, following every move with his head. On one occasion he was terribly annoyed when Saru switched off the TV set and jumped up to claw the screen. As soon as she switched it back on, he again settled down to watch the programme (I think it was the late night news in Marathi).

Mornings are the time when he tears around the place like a maniac after which he most often settles down for a snooze. Periods of frantic rushing around are interspersed with long periods of rest (luckily for me!)

New Addition To The Family

2008-05-30T05:25:00.006+02:00

Simhachallam (Simba for short) joined us on Tuesday 27th. Simba is the ginger coloured ball of fluff I saw rushing madly around the Willingdon club verandah when I took Sean and Pervin there for dinner about five or six weeks back. I wanted to take him home straight away but the fond waiter serving us requested me to wait a couple of weeks as the kitten had not yet been weaned. In the meantime I didn't get back to the club and the kitten went out of my mind. Till I was there with my former classmate Nazneen and I suddenly thought of it again. That afternoon we were in a rush so the next day I roped in Sudha and Sharat to help out and we went off with a basket to collect Simba, who was so fast asleep and just gazed at us from the basket like he was stoned, that I thought he might be sick. Nothing of the sort. In the cab he started to yowl like a crazed lion (I knew immediately it was a male!) and now that he's got used to being here he tears around madly, bites Saru's feet and wraps himself constantly around her legs, tries to jump up onto the dining table during meals and does all the things a normal feline ought to do.

He's fussy about food though. Doesn't seem to relish anything other than minced meat. We'll have to try out the regular cat food now. Currently he's sitting on the window sill watching the crows.

Chipko at Haji Ali

2008-05-12T06:19:00.002+02:00

Chipko is a movement that was originally conceived of and followed by women peasants in Uttarakhand, to prevent the felling of trees in the region by the forest department. Launched in 1973, this movement by the end of the seventies, had spread like wildfire throughout the Uttarakhand Himalayas . The good news is that the movement continues to inspire people from all over the country and the latest Chipko slogans I've been reading about have been raised in my own neighbourhood.

A whole lot of residents living around Haji Ali have decided to battle against the municipality which wants to chop down 84 trees as part of a plan to beautify the promenade at Haji Ali. The idea is to get rid of all these trees and replace them with Zodiac signs. Huh? Concrete Zodiac signs as part of a beautification programme?! Are there any sane people left in the municipality or are we dealing with a bunch of complete morons? Neither probably. Somebody somewhere is going to be walking away with a bulging wallet and a fat smile on his face, on account of the so-called beautification programme which according to many of us will result in a seriously hideous promenade.

Anyway the Chipko movement at Haji Ali has been apparently spearheaded by one Jayashree Desai who has also agreed to adopt a tree. Several people have now said they will adopt and look after a tree and that they will stand between the tree and the axe if the municipality comes along to further its idiotic ideas. I feel tempted myself to go join them so I'm going to be finding out more about this protest, very soon.

Juzt simbly

2008-05-04T15:56:00.002+02:00

The sea is getting slowly rougher each day, although there are several weeks left for the monsoon. Dark clouds have also started to pile up in the sky in the evenings and you almost get the feeling that rain is a few days, rather than several weeks away.

This morning I went out onto the balcony and breathed in a fresh draught of the sea air mingled with ... aaaah... fresh piss. From where I couldn't exactly say, I mean there are men relieving themselves over the rocks every day but this smelt like it came from somewhere closer. Maybe someone had peed against the building wall?

+++

Reading Pamuk's "Istanbul", a good three years after my visit to Turkey. It brings back memories of my own trip down the Bosphorous with Ayse and Bablu, and our visits to monuments like the Sofia Haga. In some of the places foreigners have to pay more to enter, than the Turks so while visiting Topkapi our very clever driver Yashar actually persuaded us to pretend we were locals and not tourists from India, while Ayse dinned it into our heads NOT TO SAY A WORD. "You're deaf, both of you, understand?" It worked - inspite of the fact that Bablu made a very strange looking Turk in his dhoti and colourful kurta, but what the hell, we got in almost free of charge.

More on Bablu and Uma's Turkey: Turkey notes

Hallo!!

2008-04-21T06:41:00.008+02:00

Cottages at "Tamarind Tree" in Dahanu

Am shocked to see that I haven't looked in on my blog for almost a month. Well partly its because I'm going through one of those phases when I've cut down on my internet usage quite a bit. It tires me to sit in front of the computer and I prefer to read or listen to music these days. The groups are going quite well and we've been scouting for new places to hold workshops in.

Cheerful looking dorm

Last week, Sharat, Sudha, Chandran and I drove to Dahanu to check out a farm called "The Tamarind Tree". Michelle, who runs the place with her husband Hemant, drove down with us from Bandra, where we picked her up and we spent the morning and part of the afternoon with her on her farm.

Very pleasant though it's starting to hot up a bit and we agreed that May would be too warm for us to have any workshops there. So most probably we'll get started after the monsoon some time.

Cooling off on the porch with some fresh toddy

The farm is alive with all kinds of creatures. There’s a huge frog who sits in a well all day long, (Chandran photographed him but the pic wasn’t too clear) and a cat called Minnie who complained loud and long as we walked into Michelle's house and then ignored us the rest of the day. We saw a cow and a calf grazing on the patch in front of the house and we heard about the ducks – Donald and Daisy – whom Michelle and Hemant bought for Rs. 200 a piece though Daisy went and died (I forget how. I think she swam over to the other bank, was picked up by the Adivasis and eaten up).

Michelle works with an NGO and is keen on hooking up with like minded people involved in doing similar work. We had a long chat, all of us, about the farm, about the adivasis who live in the area, the kind of stuff we could maybe do together. Lunch was simple and delicious – drumsticks boiled with a little haldi, potato bhaji, rajma, red rice, chapattis and pickle, washed down by a glassful of cool lassi.

Mother India spreading good cheer as usual

Mistress Minnie after lunch

Pics by Chandran

Visitor from Sharjah

2008-03-21T06:02:00.001+01:00

Have been really lax about writing. Put it down to a combination of lethargy and guests! Suman (old Buddi- we refer to each other as such) was here from Sharjah and we had a wonderful time together, often joined by her daughter Gitanjali who lives in Bombay and about whom I hope to write a bit more, one of these days.

Here is a pic taken at the Willingdon club where we had lunch last week. My parents, Suman, me.

Terminator T1000

2008-02-29T06:12:00.005+01:00

You guys are going to be wondering what I have to say about Terminator T1000, considering how little I have to do with robots or with weapons of mass destruction. Well, today's DNA has a pageful of interviews with youngsters about the role of gadgets in our lives and how they react to them. One young fellow, Steven Pereira, who sports distinctive criminal tendencies and even looks like a hardened convict, has this to say about robots: "I want a Terminator T1000 robot. I'll use it to threaten to kill mankind." At least the guy's honest and one can't help wondering how many like him are lurking around in today's world, and whether or not they will get access to the kind of power and technology which will make their dream come true, on a large scale!

Why My Morning Coffee Tastes A Bit Different

2008-02-19T07:51:00.002+01:00

A couple of days back I finally decided to junk the "Indian Express" and to go for "DNA" - which I used to anyway subscribe to a couple of years ago. That time I ditched DNA because I found it a trashy newspaper. I don't think I've changed my opinion too much but now I've decided, that DNA is at least colourfully trashy compared to the Express which is just plain drab whichever angle you look at it from.

To date I haven't come across a newspaper I really feel like reading, which I would feel good supporting. All media anyway is biased, everyone has their own agenda and the "news" you get is the world view of a particular set of people. As long as you know that and read what you read with a pinch of salt it's fine I guess. Anyway it's nice to have a newspaper in your hands while you're drinking your morning coffee and to catch up on what is happening in the world, even if it is a one-sided perspective. Mainly habit I guess.

2008-02-15T07:30:00.004+01:00

After months or well, almost a year of discussion about Saru, Asha and me going out to lunch (and slowly losing my credibility as the lunch failed to materialize) we finally got our act together and set out for this veggie thali place in town called Panchratna Gaurav. We had been there a couple of times already in the past couple of years and the two ladies simply love it because the thali you get is unlimited and you can stuff yourself with any amount of goodies for a standard price.

So while nibbling at my own food I watched Asha and Saru devour quantities of chapattis and dal and different kinds of vegetables, snacks like samosas, Khandvi (which every good Guju knows how to make) an array of chutneys, and two sweets which happened to be rasmalai and jelabi. I was careful not to eat too much having learned from past experience that an overstuffed stomach generally leaves me writhing with discomfort for hours! But it was great to see Saru and Asha ingest never ending helpings of kadhi, dal, and other stuff.

Shortly after I learnt from Suresh who was to come over that evening, that the institute where he teaches English was shutting shop due to a spate of violence that had started in the city, spurred by the ranting of our local hero Raj Thackeray. We got back home without incident (the violence was sporadic and mostly in and around Dadar and the suburbs) and sat glued to the TV for the next couple of hours.

Later I asked myself whether the recent upsurge had only to do with the strong arm tactics of a short sighted ambitious politician. Somehow there seems to be so much hatred and resentment in people everywhere that it takes the slightest flame to start a raging fire. One can understand these feelings in a country like India and especially in a city like Bombay which experiences such extremes in wealth. At one end you see folk squandering hundreds of thousands of rupees on lavish five star living and at the other end there are people who don’t get two square meals a day.

The crazy thing is, that often the poor and the middle class are not even conscious about the indecency of all the conspicuous consumption but rather, aspire to the same kind of lifestyle themselves. The violence which transpires naturally, comes out of ignorance and a total lack of awareness. Instead of protesting against corrupt politicians and equally corrupt business people who work hand in glove with the politicians the average man is seduced by politicians into channeling their negativity into violence against those they imagine are “intruders”.

Warmer Days in Bombay

2008-02-13T06:56:00.003+01:00

Can you imagine people in Bombay actually longing for warmer weather? Well it's true, that's the state we've been in this last week. The temperature actually dropped to 8 degrees Centigrade. Not funny in a city which is geared for the heat. Not funny to wake up and go to the loo at night and wash your hands with ice cold water. Ugh.

This week has been somewhat more comfortable. In fact this is the kind of weather I'd settle for permanently. Cool but not unpleasantly cold. If only we could have a say in the decision making which goes on in the cosmos, about our weather! One thing nobody is looking forward to is the summer. "If winter has been this cold it means summer is going to be unbearably hot," says our cook Asha with great conviction. Well time will prove whether she is right or not but even if she is, when we're actually there we'll probably be too weak and enervated to take note of her words of wisdom.

A Wedding Dinner

2008-02-05T09:10:00.000+01:00

At long last Meher and Chandran's wedding dinner which had been indefinitely postponed last year, materialized. The first time we were invited it rained on the big day. In fact it poured to such an extent that the road around where M and C live were flooded waist deep. Around where we live was a bit better but the main reason the dinner was called off was that the caterer was coming with the food all the way from Vashi or thereabouts. So then we decided to have the dinner on Republic day - but the bout of malaria with which I was laid up for a couple of weeks put paid to that idea and we eventually met up last Saturday, the 2nd.

Our entire group turned up including Vijay and Mahendra our "banana artist" as I sometimes think of him (after that brilliant session we had with him in which he made us sketch bananas to meditative music) who are not strictly speaking, part of our group but good friends all the same.

It was a good old Parsi dinner including "pathra ni mach" the chutney covered fish wrapped up in a banana leaf which is almost mandatory at all Parsi weddings, mutton pulao and dhansak, fried chicken, an egg boorji and some vegie dishes which I decided to skip. Followed by the traditional Parsi custard.

I knew I was really back to normal when after downing a glass of Bloody Mary followed by a glass of red wine, nothing "happened" which means I didn't feel sick or liverish or indisposed in any other way. Now this is something to be really happy about!

Bombay In Winter

2008-01-31T07:50:00.000+01:00

It is winter in Bombay. At 10 degrees Centigrade (50 Farenheit) we're freezing. Friends in Europe and the U.S. please don't laugh, but here we are shivering, my knees are giving way, my ankle is stiff, and I am actually enjoying sitting in the sun on the back balcony - something I avoid doing like the plague at any other time. It's so cold in the evenings on the front balcony facing the sea, (windy too) that we have taken to sitting indoors with our drinks. The up side of this is that we now listen to a lot of music, which is something we hadn't done as a family for ages.

The bout of malaria has meanwhile dampened my interest in booze so I've standardized on my own rather eccentric variation of Bloody Mary without the vodka, inspired by my cousin Shiv. It's made with home made tomato juice to which I add Worcestershire sauce, a dash of Jal Jeera, more than a dash of Tabasco sauce, half a lime and soda, topped with ice. I could drink any amount of it but I suspect many people would want to spit it out.

Have also lost a couple of kilos on account of the illness and am trying desperately to maintain my current weight. Wish me luck.

2008 is underway!

2008-01-21T06:46:00.000+01:00

Folk dance by some of the tribal youth from around Timbaktu Collective

We celebrated New Years at Timbatku, first with some dances performed by the youths from some nearby villages, followed up by a fireside gathering outside the hexagon (our workshop space) with various people singing or playing the guitar.

Ingeborg and Andreas (members of the Pleyel Quartet, Cologne) were superb as usual, he on the viola and she on the violin. Without the customary booze we turned in pretty early - also the next day was a "working day" for us.

Gursel and Serap during the wedding ceremony woven into our workshop!

The workshop turned out to be truly spectacular, including our meetings with the village people. It was an eye opener for many of the group from Europe to talk to them and find out the harsh realities of life in India for the poor.
Staff at Timbaktu
We left Timbaktu (some of us) on the 5th to go to Goa which in some ways was a disaster. Several of us fell sick and spent the entire week in bed (at least Dwight and me). Rupert landed up in hospital with falciparum malaria. Yikes! I needn't have felt so sorry for him because my own fever continued unabated and on getting back to Bombay I discovered that I too was down with malaria - most probably vivax though the doc wouldn't rule out falciparum.

The Turks at Timbaktu Gursel, Ayse, Serap and Selva

So it was hospital for four days during which time I was offered holy communion by a senior nun. I was quite puzzled and my doc Girish asked why on earth she thought I might need holy communion considering I was a Hindu. Poor Mother Superior looked nonplussed and blurted out that she thought I was a nun!

This has interesting implications for me and Dwight as I wrote to him. I am a nun, and at the same time considered by many to be Dwight's mother. A virgin birth in other words. So if this makes me Mother Mary (a role I coincidentally played in the Xmas passion play last year in Prien) what does that make Dwight?

Welcome To Eeendiya!

2007-12-23T07:06:00.000+01:00

Selva, Serap, Ayse and Gursel

This is the week of the guest. I have lost count by now of the number of people who have passed through our house in the last few days. Everything that could possibly go wrong has gone wrong but then it's all part of the fun I guess.

The Turks arrived on Thursday. First Gursel and his wife Serap (his "new" wife as everyone keeps referring to her, since he was earlier married to Aysegul who could not make it this year to India) in the morning followed by Selva in the afternoon. Gursel and Serap arrived minus their luggage and it took three days and umpteen phone calls to Emirates Airlines to trace their bags. It was Id so all the offices were closed on Friday and earlier nobody seemed in the mood to work. Finally yesterday the airline office said the bags had come but that Gursel would have to personally collect them from the airport. When he and Serap returned from the long and tiring trip to the airport Serap fell quite sick with the usual vomiting and diarrhoea. Also they came minus their sleeping bags which had been apparently filched from their rucksacks.

As for Selva who arrived on Thursday by cab, it took her two and a half hours to get to our place because the cabbie didn't know where Mahalaxmi temple was - which is one of the landmarks in Bombay so apparently they kept going round in circles till they finally found their way home. For a Bombay cabbie not to know where the Mahalaxmi temple is, is like a cabbie in London saying he doesn't know where Buckingham palace is, or a Parisian taxi driver saying he has never heard of the Louvre. But that's how the modern day taxi driver in Bombay is, and anyway what is important is that she got here in one piece and was glad to see us.

Walter, Dustin, Tara, Anja
Meanwhile the last lot of guests, Walter and Anja who had returned from a five day trip to Benares and were supposed to take the train to Goa along with Anja's daughter Tara and Walter's son Dustin, discovered at the train station that their tickets were not confirmed and they had no seats after all so all four of them landed up here at past one o'clock in the night. I was in bed but the Turks were still chatting on the balcony, so I presume they got some kind of welcome and they slept in the drawing room on the floor. They have now decided to fly to Goa.

Serap is better and everyone is just lazing around while I sit at the laptop. We will soon be ready for lunch. Tomorrow the Turks and I (along with my parents) are headed for Timbaktu so you'll hear from me after the 12th of Jan when we return to Bombay.

Merry Xmas and all the best for the coming year!

A Modern Indian Wedding

2007-12-12T06:21:00.000+01:00

I am not a great fan of large scale gatherings and generally avoid things like weddings and funerals. Not that I have anything against people marrying or dying – it’s got more to do with my increasing unwillingness to compromise on what I wear and what I mostly like to wear, regardless of where I am, is blue jeans or some kind of variation on the theme. You get the picture. It is ages since I shopped for wedding wear, the last time being when I was shanghaied to Bloomington Illinois way back in ’92 to attend my brother’s wedding. Having finally got there of course I was mighty happy to be part of the scene but that’s another story. Since then there have been other occasions but when pressured into attending a wedding or party I find myself increasingly doing it on my own terms. Which means showing up in casuals in the midst of dazzling silver or gold embroidered apparel overlaid with sequins and making up for it with a glittering smile (adequate metal in my mouth makes this quite feasible) and good behavior if necessary.

A few days back I was quite pleased to be able to be part of a wedding without actually having to attend it. The neighbor’s daughter was getting married and the first I heard of it was when I saw the foyer of our building being decked up with roses and multi-colored garlands, and a huge pandal being set up on the lawn. I must say, this speaks volumes, either for my status with the neighbors or my inability to remember functions to which I’ve been invited. My friend Marlis’s excitement was palpable. Her jaw dropped when she discovered that we would be able to watch an entire Hindu wedding ceremony from our balcony upstairs without having to trouble ourselves being sociable to a large number of people who had gathered for the event.

So this was when I discovered what a modern wedding is all about. The bride’s people had gathered in the compound and were milling around the gate to receive the bridegroom whom it took over an hour to get to the venue from about two hundred yards down the road. According to tradition, he was accompanied by a regular brass band belting out wedding standards which perforce included a slightly off key version of “Come September”. The elderly photographer fumbling around with a bulky SLR and a bagful of lenses, seemed almost redundant. Each person in the bride’s entourage happened to be touting a digital camera, some of whom even photographed my friend and me grinning at the spectacle from the balcony.

“You see how hospitable and welcoming India is,” I said to Marlis. “We organized this event especially for you. I mean they could have had the wedding a couple of weeks before you arrived or some weeks later but it is your happiness that counts.”

Finally the bridegroom arrived, perspiring and now and then pushing aside the veil of flowers which was obviously asphyxiating him, but in good form nonetheless and swinging and waving his hands to the tempo of the music. By now it had switched to a kind of Bhangra to which a party of elderly turbaned men, part of the baraat, were kicking their legs and waving their arms with gusto.

The actual wedding ceremony was mercifully short – not more than about an hour and a half long, during which time the bashful couple circled the fire seven times, exchanged rings and took part in umpteen other rituals to cement their union. (“In Germany the whole thing lasts less than twenty minutes” said Marlis). At the end the bride and bridegroom were pronounced man and wife and the guests slowly made their way back to the entrance where a silver horse drawn carriage awaited the newly weds.

In style the young couple clambered in and prepared themselves to journey off into a new life together. I got ready myself, to wipe away a tear when the bride suddenly whipped out a mobile from I don’t know where, maybe from under the folds of her ghagra or from a handbag hidden from sight, and started yakkety yakking with fervor before the coach had got going. I wondered how her newly acquired husband felt about this and whether I should start feeling sorry for him, considering the bride’s first action on getting married was to commune over the mobile. I needn’t have. He pulled out his own mobile from out of the pocket of his jacket and busied himself with it as well as the coach slowly pulled out of the driveway. I played around with my digital camera wishing desperately I could capture this scene for posterity but it was too dark and they were too far away for my flash to have an effect.

”Oh what the heck,” Marlis said later with an indulgent sigh. “You never know. Maybe they were really talking to each other.”

Marlis And India

2007-11-29T17:12:00.000+01:00

Placards on the office door at Timbaktu Collective in C.K. Palli

India was a big hit with Marlis on this occasion. She must like it here I guess, to want to keep coming back, this in fact being her fifth visit since the late nineties. She even started to like Indian food which so far she had avoided (mainly because of the chilli) and on at least two occasions I saw her tucking into chicken - butter chicken and other sorts which were by no means free of chilli and masala. Maybe she was just hungry.

Relaxing outside the house where we stayed in Timbaktu

The round room where Venky has been staying till now

Since Marlis was keen to visit Timbaktu I made another trip with her though our stay there was cut short by a day and a half on account of the fact that the owners of the bunglaow where we normally stay had turned up and we were short on space. Anyhow we landed up a bit later than expected, and M. loved the place and complained that we were not there long enough. This time we even got a fair amount of time with Bablu and on a couple of occasions Mary joined us as well, though as usual she was ferociously busy with her various projects, the latest of which is setting up a dairy in the vicinity.

Mary in her office at Timbaktu Collective

Back in Bangalore we had enough time meanwhile for a leisurely chat with Rajrm who visited us the day after we arrived and also with Georgie Boy who came over the last evening. Vishy and his wife Anshou also managed to drop in for a drink that day.

At Timbaktu I warned Marlis about the snakes and scorpions though I forgot to tell her about the frogs. While lifting the bucket to get some water for my bath, she gave a loud shriek. The reason: three little froggies hiding behind the bucket. We left them in peace and I went on to have a wash. Frogs don't bother me as much as cockroaches and they look really sweet.

Bablu relaxing in "Venky's chai bar"

The nights were cold and although I was warm with my two blankets M. froze and even developed a cold when we got back to Bangalore.

Back in Bombay she was intrigued by the comings and goings in our household, and even got to see a wedding in the bargain. The downstairs neighbour's daughter got married on the lawn, and it was quite a tamasha with the groom turning up on a resplendent horse and a lot of band baja and elderly men dancing the bhangra as the groom was led to the mandap.

Now M. has returned to freezing Germany and I wonder how she likes being back in the cold.

Timbaktu, Here I Come!

2007-11-06T05:59:00.000+01:00

The guest house where we stayed

It is dusk by the time we arrive at Timbaktu and the steaming hot cups of tea with which we’re greeted are very welcome indeed. I’m a little less enthusiastic about the anecdotes regarding snakes and scorpions and warnings not to walk barefoot in the dark. “Shake out your shoes before you slip your feet into them,” says our friend Venky who lives in this faraway development project area. “Scorpion bites are painful.” Venky himself has had a snake crawl into his room on one occasion and been bitten on two occasions by a scorpion and has had to be rushed to a homeopathic practitioner staying close by, for a life saving antidote.

I wonder how I missed registering this vital piece of information during my previous visits to Timbaktu and consider myself lucky that I emerged unscathed in spite of never once having checked my shoes for creepy crawlies that could have had me writhing in agony or even dead in a few minutes. Oh well, if knowing all this is going to make my nights at Timbaktu a little less comfortable from now on, it will also make them a bit safer, I tell myself.

“How did you happen to choose a name like Timbaktu,” I ask Choitresh Kumar Ganguly (Bablu to most of us) as we watch a slide show one evening centered round the NGO project site which lies off the Bangalore Hyderabad highway, just about a three hour drive from Bangalore itself.

“At the time we saw the land and decided to buy it, it seemed to us to be the end of the world,” says Bablu whose family originally comes from Calcutta although Bablu himself has spent most of his growing up years in Bombay. Youthful idealism, flavored with more than a dash of Marxism led him in his early twenties, into an area far removed from the corporate world. For close to two decades now, he and his wife Mary Vattamattam, whom he met while working on the Young India Project in the late eighties, have been nursing a 32 acre plot in Andhra Pradesh, which they purchased together with friends in 1991, back to health. Far from being intimidated by the dry, ravaged unwelcoming territory they had decided to call home, the little group of friends took up the challenge of finding ways to heal the land and transform it into a green agro forest. They named it "Sarihaddu Rekha" in Telugu. The place where the earth meets the sky. Or Timbaktu as it is more commonly known among friends and visitors.

The barren landscape has been turning greener with the years and flocks of birds and a host of insects and animals believed to have disappeared for good, are now being lured back again by forests which have started to cover what was once seen as sterile terrain. Forest regeneration and organic farming are not the only projects on hand. Rejuvenation of traditional water harvesting structures, banking for women and education for the village children are among the activities supported by Timbaktu Collective. There is even a cell for disabled individuals, which enables those with hearing impairment, visual and mobility problems to get appropriate help.

What excites me about this particular visit to Timbaktu is the gradual merging of the work which some of us are doing in the cities, with ongoing projects in rural areas. A handful of us from Bombay and Bangalore, working in the area of self awareness - essentially to do with increasing awareness of one’s potential as well as responsibility as an individual and also awareness of one’s relationship with the environment - have made this trip now to take a first look at the foundations of the small center which will host some of our activities, making way for urbanites to learn from rural folk and the other way around. Something in me is jubilant at the new coming together of friends, based on the recognition that spiritual and material progress go hand in hand, that each part of a complex whole is dependent on the others for its own growth and development.

That most of the housing in Timbaktu has no access to running water, that I have to shake out my shoes every time I need to go to the loo at night, that for most of the day we have to do without electricity are somehow facts which don’t seem to matter - as yet. Of course in the final analysis I’m a realist and the prospect of spending more time in Timbaktu already has me thinking about how I’m going to be able to work on my laptop or have access to a reasonably good connection with the net. But such questions are a part of the game, part of the challenge facing us in the next couple of years and I have no doubt that before long, one way or another, the problem will have been resolved.

This piece has been posted on Desicritics and the basicindia blog as well.