desiderata

Budapest's Széchenyi Baths

2011-01-03T00:44:00.002+05:30

Trudging through snow while wearing swimmers is one thing; trudging through snow wearing swimmers and no shoes is quite another.

I'd been given slippers at the hotel, along with a towel and soap, along with the warning that they "tend to get slippery in the snow". That turned out to be true, and I'd given up trying to stay upright.

We were at Budapest's famous Széchenyi Baths, the largest complex in the city and located within the City Park. It's a massive complex with a huge outdoor pool. Tourists usually head to the Gellert Baths but the concierge promised that the Széchenyi experience was something special. And he was not wrong: the outside temperature hovered around -5ºC while the water was between 36ºC and 38º. This meant that there were vast plumes of steam rising up from the water, making it hard to see beyond the perimeter.

Lobby area

After changing in one of the dozens of small booths inside, we held our breaths and dived outside, found a small patch of stone bench not covered in snow to dump our towels, and jumped in. It was scalding below neck, and freezing above (and even snowed lightly throughout). It sounds awful but it was fantastic, exhilarating, refreshing and warmed you up from the inside all at once. Plus, you're surrounded by an ornate, neo-Gothic 1920-era building (housing 14 more smaller pools), there is a bunch of men nearby playing chess, there are lovers taking advantage of the steam cloak to get amorous and the occasional screeching tourist to laugh at as they poke their bare feet through the snow or slipped over in their hotel slippers.

Food porn: the Munich issue

2010-12-30T11:03:00.007+05:30

Back in June, wilting under the scorching summer sun, I fantasised about being in snow, somewhere bitingly cold. A few weeks ago, I got my wish, with a short holiday to Munich and Budapest. The main objective was to visit the Christmas markets: I've never had a very Christmassy Christmas and just wanted to know what it would be like to actually, properly celebrate it. Growing up, my family never really celebrated Christmas, just a seafood lunch at home or at a friend's, and as soon as I started working I usually volunteered to work it for the penalties.

Our arrival in Munich was perfectly timed: day one of the city's famous sprawling Christmas markets. Despite an overnight flight we dumped our bags at the hotel (Eurostars), closest train station Hackerbrücke) and went straight into town, where we stopped at the very first wurst stand we saw for two weisswurst in a bun, with a squirt of sweet mustard. That, after the horror congealed mess served up by Emirates, was the gastronomic highlight of the trip. It was chased by the first of what were to be many, many, mugs of steaming glühwein, redolent with cloves and cinnamon.

It didn't take long until we discovered the city food market, Viktualienmarkt, not far from the central Marienplatz area, with its cosy, snow-coated stalls selling fresh meats, vegetables, plants, wines, cheeses, deli items and more, near a cobblestone laneway lined with cute quaint beer halls.

It was here we planted ourselves for roughly the next day and a half, eating roast pork in buns with a dab of sweet mustard, weisswurst in buns with a dab of sweet mustard, gingerbread and more glühwein than you can imagine. In fact, for our last night in Munich we moved to Hotel am Markt, a simple three-star with views out over the snowy market. We'd discovered it on the first night after searching the streets for Bratwurstherzl, which turned out to be opposite.

What a contrast Munich was to Delhi, with its dire infrastructure problems, its questionable cold storage making certain foods no-go zones and lack of pedestrian planning. Munich, possibly the best-planned city I've ever been to, was just such a relief, even in sub-zero snowy temperatures. And the food: it was a smorgasbord of all the things we can't access, or have limited access to, in Delhi (or are priced out of reasonable range, or need good refrigeration). Amazing chocolate, buttery custard-filled pastries, ham, sausage, beef, duck, an array of cheeses, nuts. Crusty bread, cheap and good wine, an array of local beers (without the glycerin additive). Flavoured yoghurt, berries, clementines. One night we went to a beer hall in Haidhausen and there I couldn't choose between the pork knuckle, the roast pork and the roast duck. Luckily, one option was a mixed grill with all three on one plate.

That was the night I got the meat sweats.

Anish Kapoor in India, finally

2010-12-19T23:17:00.008+05:30

I suppose when you're a famous installation artist, second only perhaps to Damien Hirst in terms of popularity but far better in terms of talent, you are allowed to be a bit capricious.

Works by Anish Kapoor, Indian-born, British-based sculpture superstar, are currently on show in Mumbai and Delhi at the Mehboob film studios in Bandra, and the National Gallery of Modern Art respectively.

Now this is a massive, massive deal for India's art world. In fact, organisers first had the idea a decade ago, and only now has it been possible. For starters, there was simply not the exhibition space large enough needed to show his massive works (In Delhi, the NGMA has a capacious new wing where it's showing the sculptures). It is also, as would be expected, an extremely expensive exercise. So to finally be in a position to put on show works by the artist who left India at 18 in his native country, is significant. There are even ads at bus shelters, pasted over the paan stains.

Unfortunately, artists are an unpredictable lot. In the past I've had trouble with artists, in particular one fashion designer who got the shits when I asked him a question about his label's background. He ended the interview after I insisted I needed quotes from him, rather than lifting lines from the briefing notes I'd been given (sample: "Inhouse workshops insure an all-encompassing expression of our vision of beauty"). As the only vaguely usable quote I had from him - "my designs are a synthesis of East and West" - was not going to fill my 450 words, I sent a strongly-worded email to his PR and moved on to profile someone else.

In this case, Kapoor opted to cancel all interviews except for a handful. Now, this is the biggest thing to happen in India this year in arts, so naturally, dozens of journalists were clamouring for access to him. Is he shy? I like to give people the benefit of the doubt and assume that about them, if they're being a little difficult. The British Council, staging the exhibition, said he was concentrating on the preparations for the show beforehand - that is understandable. He would also be leaving Delhi almost immediately after the launch - on November 29 - so wouldn't be speaking to journalists afterwards either.

I was invited to the launch - my best opportunity to "grab Anish for a comment", according to the BC - but didn't go as I was overseas. Today, finally, I went to see the show at the NGMA, at its on sprawling grounds in central Delhi, near India Gate. It costs 150rs for foreigners, 10rs for locals. Inside, there's a string of rooms showing architectural models and sketches of some of Kapoor's large-scale works.

The larger sculptures are in the new wing out the back. The exhibits include the massive red wax quarter-orb that appears slammed against the wall, called Past, Present and Future. It's the most dramatic piece in the room, which also houses a stomach-height perspex cube, with what appears to be a gold stingray and bubbles suspended inside. The name of the work is Laboratory for a New Model. and the exhibition guide tells us that the sculpture "is addressing the weight of human knowledge, from the grand purposes of physics to the more specific concerns of art history." I'm sure it does do that - it must, as the booklet tells us so - but I confess, I couldn't really see how.

I tried taking a photo of the room but as the ratio of security folk to viewers is roughly 1:1, I had little success, just this one:

Close to the mirror you might spot an earnest guard on his way over to berate me.

Outside in the garden is the much-vaunted Sky Mirror, which is mounted a few metres above the ground and tilted at 60 degrees so it reflects the sky on its convex surface.

It would be perfect if there was something going on in the sky, like moving clouds or birds, but all you see is the rather less impressive, tepid blue-grey of Delhi's winter sky. Around the back, however, you realise what it's all about:

There's also a documentary on Kapoor being screened on a loop in the auditorium. In it, the floppy-haired Kapoor is revealed as enthusiastic and likeable, particularly in the bit when they practice firing red wax out of the cannon (Shooting Into The Corner, Mumbai). After the expectoration - leaving bright red splatters reminiscent of paan stains all over the freshly-whitewashed buildings of Connaught Place - he turns around, smiling cheekily at the camera, much like the grown-up boys of Mythbusters. Maybe the cannon ("an active part of the architecture: at once performance, process, painting, installation and sculpture, with the life of the piece being recorded on the walls") is all just a big boy toy with a fancy name.

Durag Niwas & the Sambhali Trust

2010-12-06T01:04:00.005+05:30

Soon after making our spur of the Monday decision to go to Jodphur that weekend, I emailed a childhood friend who married into a Jodhpur family (but lives mostly in Mumbai) for suggestions on where to stay. She came back with Raas (way not an option unless you're an heiress) and the family-run guesthouse Durag Niwas.

Durag Niwas is run by Govind Singh Rathore and his family, and is clean, cheap, has a lovely courtyard and friendly staff. It appears like a thousand other guesthouses throughout Rajasthan: clean, basic, with some kind of local flourish like a carved wooden chest or filmy fuchsia curtains, but has one clear point of difference: it's also home to the family's NGO, the Sambhali Trust.

Govind established Sambhali, as he shyly told it, when his mother and grandmother begged him to do something to help the beleaguered women of Rajasthan, in the wake of family difficulties that had left them with no idea what to do. Rajasthan is an extremely tradition-bound, feudal and patriarchal society, and Govind felt that by giving girls and women access to education, personal development and livelihoods, he could help improve their lot.

So Sambhali, which has been around for about four years now, looks after literacy and livelihood projects in Jodhpur and the outlying village of Setrawa, in the Thar desert. The women learn basic skills like to block-printing techniques, embroidery, English. Information on building confidence and anti-domestic violence and women's rights laws is also supplied through the centres.

It has been hard though, he told me, to convince the men of the family to allow their wives, sisters, daughters, to attend the classes: they sometimes have a vested interest in keeping their women downtrodden and ignorant.

Sambhali products can be available here. My friend is also in the process of setting up an online accessories store stocking products made by Sambhali, called Forty Red Bangles.

Durag Niwas also runs excellent safaris out to the desert. Our Bishnoi village trip that ended up in an outdoor opium den may or may not have been with them, and the guy in the photo drinking the opium water may or may not have been Govind's cousin Bunty.

The Opium Bores

2010-11-30T23:50:00.002+05:30

It had been billed as a half-day Bishnoi village safari, but turned out to be far more than that.

With a half day to spare in Jodhpur between the end of the music festival and the train back to Delhi, a five-hour village tour sounded ideal. Plus, I have more than a passing interest in the Bishnois, a sect of Hindu eco warriors, who famously offer their heads in place of trees earmarked to be cut down.

Of course, being the morning after the night before we were already a little weary, so missed the 8am wakeup call by a half hour, but soon were away from the smog and noise of the city and heading off-road, on soft sands pockmarked by tufts of tundra.

The first stop was a small hut at the end of a barren stretch of road. It was home to a Bishnoi family. Only the children were home and we sat on a scratch camel hair rug and drank tea, but they shrugged when I tried to ask searing questions about their faith and devotion to living things.

The next stop - punctuated by a quick detour to check out at a local watering hole where migrating Siberian ibises had set up camp - was at the home of a master weaver, whose modest home, with blue paint flaking attractively off the timber beamed door, was like something out of a Taschen book.

His recently bereaved wife and her granddaughter showed me their matching silver ankle bracelets, part of the traditional dowry of their community. They are soldered on at their marriage time and thereafter are never removed, even after their husbands pass on. Each anklet weighs half a kilo.

Next up was another village homestead, a cluster of well-maintained rustic huts in the midst of a courtyard, with a couple of open-air shaded shelters. This was home to the extended family of Baba Ram, a farmer of the Choudhury caste. Baba had worked hard to have the means to educate his sons, both now working at one of Jodhpur's best hospitals, a source of immense pride to their father.

Despite the relative modesty of the buildings, the Choudhary family does well: inside the two enclosed built rooms (erected for the benefit of the sons' new wives) was an air cooler, a fridge, a TV, a DVD player and various other modernities.

Baba took us into another section with a roof covering made from bound branches, sat us down on a charpoy and pulled a small lump of opium from deep within his robes. Then he flaked off a bit into a wooden bowl, added water (Bisleri, for our benefit) and started rubbing vigorously to make a paste. This he then added to the top of a wooden contraption, added more water and offered it round, all the time chanting in praise of Shiva.

The opium ceremony, you see, is apparently to legitimise the repeated, ongoing use of opium by farmers to enable them to work the long, hard hours required.

Unfortunately it just tasted like mud to me and had no conceivable effect.

Jodhpur for the music festival

2010-11-25T23:24:00.005+05:30

I've had a few pinch-me-I-must-be-dreaming moments while in India. Barrelling down Marine Drive in a friend's car late at night, watching the lights of the Queen's Necklace twinkle. Watching the sun rise over Kanchenjunga from high on a mountain near Darjeeling. Drifting on the Keralan backwaters at twilight.

Now there's another to add to the list: sitting under the ramparts at a 550-year-old desert fort listening to master percussionist Pete Lockett jam with Rajasthani folk musicians.

It was late October in Jodhpur, at the so-called Rajasthan International Folk Festival (there was folk music, a lot of it, but it wasn't folksy in any way). I'd mentally bookmarked it at the start of the year when I'd seen a poster for it in Jaipur, and then promptly forgot about it till I got a notification on Facebook. Usually travel plans are scuppered by something, whether it be the inability to take a day off work, or train bookings, or hotel rooms, but all the ducks managed to line up and Jason and I got there on an overnight train, our very first trip to Jodhpur.

I do love Rajasthan, it's every cliche come to life but better because it's real.

The festival was on at the Mehrangarh Fort, which is not just large and imposing but extraordinarily well maintained. There's even a lift.

The first must-see on my list was a session called Living Legends, held in the Moti Mahal, a small marble hall just off a courtyard, through a maze of rooms and hallways. I stupidly forgot my batteries, meaning I couldn't take photos nor record any of it. And it was marvellous: it turned out to feature Patashi Bhopi, the wife of a man called Mohan Bhopa who was featured in William Dalrymple's Nine Lives. The chapter on him told of how he and his wife were among just a few to be the custodians of the oral legend of the Rajasthani folk deity Pabuji, told in song that takes a day and a night to recite. Patashi Bhopi - now a widow - recited a few verses while her son played his rawanhatta and marched, duck-like, so the bells on his ankles tinkled in time. (More reading)

Then it was through a decorative arch to another courtyard where a bar was set up. So as the sun went down we looked up at the sky and all around at the intricately carved archways and up at the small windows where courtesans once hung out of, with wonder.

Through another doorway and it was into a the main stage area. With floodlights up the sides of the fort walls and under the light of a full moon, a flamenco troupe from Barcelona danced and played and sung. Then they stood aside while Rajasthani folk musicians came on, with a ghoomer dancer in a wide blue skirt seemingly made almost entirely of mirrors. When she spun around in a circle the skirt flared out around her, like an extremely reflective spinning top, around and around and around. Then the flamencos came back out and while the musicians all jammed together, the dancers had what amounted to a dance-off. And no amount of foot-stamping and arched-back hissing could match the girth of the skirt which almost swallowed the stage. Ghoomer well and truly won that one.

Afterwards, we headed to another area of the fort that was converted into a nightclub, a kind of open-air courtyard with a roof terrace from which you could lean over the shin-height barrier and look at the dancefloor below. Or you could lounge on a mattress, lean back on a bolster, and look up at the fort lit up by the moonlight as you sipped your g&t.

Kingdom of Dreams

2010-11-22T10:45:00.005+05:30

"Come to Kingdom of Dreams," said my friend L. "It'll be fun. They say it's like Dilli Haat on steroids."

Kingdom of Dreams is just that: a glittering dreamscape, a kind of alternate reality, like stepping into a movie set where everything looks like enhanced, hyper-real versions of how they otherwise are.

And then you flick the marble Doric columns and realise they're hollow, and made of Plaster of Paris.

But Kingdom of Dreams represents what the CWG structures could have been, were the games organised by the private sector. It's clean, it's grand, there are no caved-in ceilings or ripped carpet.

So what is it? It's a Bollywood theme park in Gurgaon, only open a couple of months.

Entrance to Kingdom of Dreams

And iIt's enormous. There's a theatre, with plaster elephants flanking the entrance. Lying alongside is perhaps the largest reclining Buddha I've seen. Inside, there's a stage, surrounded by decorative masks and elephant heads and filagree work. That's where the Bollywood musical Zangoora is staged.

But we didn't go to the theatre, instead we headed straight for Culture Gully, the bland name totally belying the experience. First, there's a giant representation of a lotus flower in bloom to walk through.

Outside might be dark but inside you find yourself under a perennially twilight sky, thanks to a ceiling painted like sky and clever natural lighting.

Culture Gully downstairs is made up of a heap of stands representing different states in India, laid out in a rough approximation of the map of India. So when you first walk in, there's Kashmir to the right, and Sikkim to the left, and Kerala right at the other end of the hall.

Kerala stand: a bar on a boat, with a beach

But these are no humble Dilli Haat food stalls, oh no. The Delhi stall is a mockup of the Red Fort , while Kerala is an actual houseboat, with a beach. Bombay is a train carriage, while Rajasthan has a peacock doorway just like the one at Jaipur's City Palace. Each stall is hawking either food, or souvenirs, or both.

Then, at various intervals, music starts up and out marches some kind of procession, such as a troupe of Himalayan dancers, complete with Chinese dragon. Or a clutch of monkey-men: dressed in silvery suits with blackened faces, these things were a menace, as monkeys are. One leapt in front of me and flailed his tongue menacingly, causing me to jump and nearly drop my kheema dosa.

Crazy monkey man

Upstairs is a bit more Palazzo Versace. There's a bar with a fluorescent pink floor, a shop selling incredibly expensive sherwanis and cufflinks and a whole other section with all sorts of fortune tellers. I had my palm read; he told me that good things will happen for me in coming months and I will have two children.

Since then, whenever i'm having a Bad India Day I think back to Kingdom of Dreams: its fake, Venice-in-Vegas sky, its larger-than-life religious statues, its fake twilight, and its liberal scattering of life-sized baby elephants, and think about life in a parallel India universe, and sigh. Clean streets, well-maintained buildings, space to walk, doormen who salute you, street theatre and hygenic street food.

But still, annoying and slathering monkeys when you least expect them.

Delhi's Commonwealth Games opening ceremony

2010-10-04T21:04:00.003+05:30

Suresh Kalmadi must know people hate him, but there's nothing like the sound of 50,000 people jeering you as you're trying to deliver your speech, your moment in the sun, at the start of the event you've engineered, to really drive that message home.

But I doubt he cares, he likely has a house made of gold bricks to go home to, each brick stamped with a little Commonwealth Games logo.

Kalmadi only really has two friends about now: his son, who is the part-owner of a company bringing F1 racing to India (in a deal brokered by his dad), and the owner of Wasabi by Morimoto, the uber-expensive Japanese restaurant at the Taj Palace hotel, where he apparently likes the sushi. A lot.

Still, the opening ceremony was truly spectacular: giant mendhi hands! A yoga demonstration! A colourful and oversized depiction of what it's like to get a train! It celebrated India through and through and I doubt there was a heart in that stadium that wasn't swelling with Jai Hind pride at being a desi.

(Thanks US Embassy in Delhi for the image)

Uncle was a disco dancer

2010-10-03T02:05:00.005+05:30

You know, when that cool cat lead singer of French electro-jazz group Electro Deluxe, during their show at the outdoor amphitheatre at the Garden of Five Senses last weekend, asked people to come up on stage to dance - what he actually meant was:

"Yo hot girl in the purple boob tube with oh-so the swingy hips, come up on stage and dance. Dance I said!"

And not:

"Uncle-ji, head on up and show us how it was done in 1979."

Stlll, to my mind uncleji had the best moves of the lot AND commendably ignored the control freakish commands to "slide to the left... now to the right."

Foodie tour of Old Delhi

2010-09-19T21:19:00.005+05:30

I don't love Old Delhi but when given the chance to traverse Chandni Chowk with a celebrity chef on a culinary tour, even I realise the foolishness in refusing.

More fool me though - I was still recovering and went against the advice of my doctor, who really just doesn't understand what it's like being a freelancer, and the experience of spending four hours in the maelstrom of the old city was enough to push me back inside the dengue pit.

Nevertheless it was a great day. It was a story for a UK magazine on restauranteur Marut Sikka, who owns two of Delhi's most evocative and creative restaurants - Magique and Kainoosh. He also has a cooking show on NDTV Good Times and a couple of cookbooks. The concept of the story was to have him introduce his food neighbourhood; although with Delhi being very spread out he chose Chandni Chowk in Old Delhi rather than his own neighbourhood.

Marut Sikka in the back of a cycle rickshaw

Together with a photographer flown up from Mumbai, we spent four hours pushing and shoving our way through the milk market, the spice market and various street food stalls. Not speaking Hindi, usually the nuances of these experiences escape me, so it was great to have a guide - especially one as enthusiastic and knowledgeable as Sikka.

The best chole batura stand in Old Delhi, according to Sikka

Vendor at the spice market, selling bark used as an old-time toothbrush

It was freaking exhausting, though. I fell asleep in the car on the way back to the restaurant where we still had to take his portrait shot and finish up my interview. I hope I didn't snore.

Thankfully the day ended with dinner at Kainoosh: tandoori lobster, the smoothest galouti kebab I've ever tasted, lamb spare ribs, chicken leg stuffed with apricot-y mince and wrapped in pastry, fig kulfi and a cocktail designed just for me: a jasmine cardamom martini.

Then I woke up the next day with a throbbing head and aching limbs. The fever was back.

But it had been such a stellar day it was kind of worth it.

This is me at the end of the day: slumped and exhausted and awaiting my jasmine-cardamom martini.

Last photo by Chiara Goia

Dengue feverish

2010-09-12T09:50:00.000+05:30

Dengue fever here is pronounced "deng-goo". Against my better nature, I have started saying it that way too, just to be understood.

And I've been saying it a lot this past week, as I have fallen victim to the seasonal scourge that plagues mosquito-ridden Delhi in monsoon time. Deng-goo.

It has not been pretty. There is nothing glamorous about deng-goo. It's all about sleeping endlessly, waking up for a round of projectile vomiting, sleeping some more, swallowing a handful of pills and trying to keep them down, staggering from the bed to the sofa only to pass out from the effort. Repeat for seven days, punctuated by platelet level tests in which some ham-fisted orderly jams what feels like a blunt needle into your arm.

The best bit is that as there is an epidemic - 1,500-odd official cases, far more in all likelihood - there is nary a hospital bed left in town. When I went to Supermax hospital in Saket on Sunday evening, the day I was struck down, they stuck me on the only spare bed in emergency, in the Resuscitation Room, and discussed loudly that they were only admitting the most serious patients. I caught a glimpse into the adjacent ward which looked like something out of WW2 with beds crammed in every which way.

There is also concern that platelet stocks might run low, so instead of admitting patients when their levels fall under 100, they've downgraded to 50.

We're just a few weeks out from the Commonwealth Games. The Games village is built on the banks of the Yamuna River - a major breeding ground for mosquitos. They've now called the army in to drain stagnant pools of water and fog the site before all the foreign athletes descend. For what it's worth, I don't think anyone should bother coming here. It's still raining, mosquitoes are out in force, the city remains a building site.

Pushkar in the monsoon

2010-08-29T23:20:00.007+05:30

Does anyone bother to visit Rajasthan in the monsoon? You should. When it's been raining solidly for six-odd weeks, as it has been, Rajasthan sheds its dusty dry desert skin and grows a dense, lush, green new covering. Rather than choking on dustballs, it's so humid you could chew the air. Last November Pushkar was so dry the famous lake was little more than a few desolate puddles; in August it was full to the brim again.

Just a day and a half after returning to Delhi from Ranikhet a couple of weeks ago, I was back on another overnight train to Ajmer, the town adjoining Pushkar, to review a resort on the outskirts of town. I had planned to sleep, swim, play on the internet while sipping g&ts and go for long walks. Instead, it rained incessantly, the internet was not accessible on my Mac, and the hotel had me on a schedule: a tour of the town, dinner with the owners, an early morning camel ride, an ayurvedic massage. So instead of reading the New York Times online, posting photos of myself by the pool on Facebook and writing bits and pieces, I actually did stuff.

This was my camel. He kept arching his neck back in a scary double-jointed manner to swat away the flies.

The ride went for a good hour and a half: I was well and truly over it halfway through and tempted to get down and walk, but didn't want to appear a wuss. Already, my travelling companions - two hotel workers - had laughed long and loud at me after I screamed when the camel stood up.

Because of my reaction, they'd opted to stick to the gravel rather than head for the off-road sands, because that is where camels can run free and wild.

After the massage there was another run into Pushkar town, mainly because I wanted to revisit this stall near the temple:

It sold nothing but rose petal products: rose water, rose perfume, rose cordial and most of all, rose petal jam, or gulkand, which helps reduce body heat. It is also so sweet it makes your eyes water.

And then, finally, it was g&t time by the pool, listening to the peacocks cry and watching the sun go down behind the hills.

The GreenHouse Resort

Kishanpura Rd, Village Tilora

Pushkar, Rajasthan

ph: +91 (0) 145 2300079

reservation@thegreenhouseresort.com

Back to the hills: Ranikhet

2010-08-23T17:32:00.001+05:30

(I wrote this two weeks ago but am very tardy in posting)

Blue skies are rare in Delhi; usually the sky is glaringly white, or raincloud gray.

Here in Ranikhet, a town in the foothills of the Himalayas, I am sitting on a swing on a balcony overlookinwg manga cartoon-green hills and valleys, under a beautiful blue sky.

It is paradisical. Butterflies keep fluttering past, occasionally joined by a dragonfly or three. There's a gentle breeze. Out in the distance, fluffy low-lying clouds hug the tops of distant mountains. The air is scented with pinecones and deodar. The only sounds are of birdsong and rustling leaves (discounting the tinny Bollywood muzak wafting from the restaurant).

And it's all so, so clean.

I'm here, in this garrison army town in the state of Uttatranchal, on an icebreaker long weekend with a class I'll be teaching. For many of the kids (although they're postgrad, in their early 20s) it's their first trip to the hills. Some have rarely ventured outside Delhi. They keep calling me ma'am, like my maid. I now tell them, "Please don't call me ma'am, call me by my first name." They say, "Yes, of course, ma'am."

It is, without doubt, the loveliest place I've visited in the Himalayas so far, and quite probably the best in India. The hotel we're staying - Woodsvilla Resort - is a bit out of town so is fairly quiet and isolated, although there's a cafe serving filter coffee about a 10-minute walk away.

You have to understand, finding a well-dressed cafe serving half-decent coffee in a small, rather remote place like this is like finding a clean toilet at a dhaba, or an anti-corruption agitator on the Commonwealth Games organising committee.

Transport woes and monsoon lows

2010-08-21T22:46:00.002+05:30

I don't have a car, and get about by autorickshaw most of the time, occasionally in taxis or when kind friends ferry me about. I don't love autos, but I deal with them, somehow. Now, in the midst of a patch of particularly heavy monsoonal rains, it's really quite tiresome. Last week, while holding a pile of heavy textbooks, my laptop and various other accoutrements, I waited for an hour and a half for an available and willing auto to take me home, part of that time in the rain.

Autos in Delhi are difficult. Rickshaw drivers operate on very narrow margins: most pay high vehicle rents (because there are a finite number of auto licenses in the city) and make 300 rupees on a good day ($US6.50). As a result, there is an inevitable haggle over the price: they often ask for two to three times (or more if I'm with a firangi) what the meter will show. Now that might be fun if you're a visitor to India, a prelude to taking a turn at the wheel yourself, but believe me, three times a day is not fun.

Taxis are also difficult. You won't see them out on the street like in Bombay, usually you have to find a taxi stand, haggle a price, and then be prepared to pay an extra 20 percent for air conditioning. They will tell you the meter is not working, or there is an extra charge for "luggage" (your laptop bag).

Meru Cabs (AC, compulsory meters, clean, often English-speaking drivers) are a godsend (as are all the other so-called radio cabs) but you have to call and book, and often, particularly during these rainy days, they are booked out.

We have a driver with his own car on speed dial, whom we use regularly and have always had a great relationship with. He works full-time for an American woman who is often out of town, so he moonlights for us and others. He is great, entertaining and trustworthy, but sometimes his juggling act wears thin.

Like today. Despite having booked him many weeks ago for a Very Important Airport Pickup, he admitted yesterday his employer, who is abroad, had demanded he drive a friend around. Never mind that said friend is on an expat package, has her own car and driver and is perfectly capable of arranging her own transport, this woman blithely disregarded any notion that her charge might have made other arrangements for some extra cash.

It was the second time in a week she'd done it. Earlier he'd had a full day's work that he'd had to turn down because she had him do an airport pickup for a friend.

Later, when Jason saw him, this proud, strapping, Punjabi Sikh was in tears.

Of course, he is on her time, her dime. But if she is out of town, is it not okay for him to make some extra money on the side? She pays him 30,000 rupees per month, or around $US650. Apart from car repayments, he has a wife, a mother, five children, an alcoholic brother and his children to support. Who needs more help - his family, or her spoilt expat friends?

I'll tell you who - almost - lost out in today's equation, me. I convinced him to squeeze in my job, and we went to the airport to pick up my aging parents - my father is not a well man, just a few days out of hospital in London and with a dangerously infected diabetic foot. The rain was pelting down, the roads were swamped, in some places knee high, causing major traffic snarls. Inside the car, the temperature and stress levels were rising: would my driver have time to do my airport run and be on time for Spoilt Expat Friend? He then said, please get another taxi from the airport, I have to leave after we get there.

No amount of pleading, cajoling, even blackmailing from me could get him to change his mind.

At the airport I slammed the door and stomped off, umbrella aloft, and after finding my parents joined the long line for the pre-paid taxi booth. Shortly after, however, my cabbie had a change of heart, and took us home, racing off immediately so he could still make his other appointment.

So while I got what I wanted, the whole incident has just left a bad taste in my mouth. His employer leaves Delhi in a month, after which he is without a regular income, but until then he is beholden to her and her complete and utter lack of understanding and empathy. On the flipside, while I want him to do the best for himself and his family, I feel like my needs were not met. I am quite happy other times to do what it takes to help him out - whether it means hopping out of the car and into another waiting taxi so he can do another job, but there are times when I really need reliability.

I think the answer is to get a car and join the motoring fray.

The Pushkar camel fair

2010-08-18T09:11:00.000+05:30

I visited Pushkar last year for the annual camel fair; by the time my group arrived the camel trading had wound up and all the villagers who'd descended upon the town were intent on just having good clean fun while spending all the money they'd made on the camels.

Then, in early November, Pushkar was dry and dusty, the famous lake nothing more than a few desolate puddles. Nothing at all like the Buddha eye it is famed to represent.

But the light was incredible: a soft pinky sheen that turned the desert sands a rosy colour.

I've just spent the past week travelling: first to the foothills of the Himalayas, then back to Pushkar. All my grand plans to blog from location were scuppered by a lack of a reliable interweb connection. I can't wait for the day when air will be wired.

Monsoon Weeding

2010-08-16T22:30:00.000+05:30

Moonsoon Weeding was the title of a pirate DVD I bought in Sydney. I bought it and kept it, even though it didn't work, tickled by the syntax error in the title, picturing gardeners hard at work in the moonlit rain.

It's monsoon season here in Delhi. We were here for monsoon last year, but it was paltry, just a couple of days of downpour and then all over. This year it's on for young and old - and the weather bureau says rainfall will be roughly seven percent above average and that the monsoon will last longer.

Skies are grey and my hair is going crazy in these days of 97% humidity, but it's great: fresh and clean and damp, and under 30 degrees. Even when it's still relatively hot, it's still a treat to sit inside, tea in hand, listening to the rain thundering on the roof.

(photos: Jason Staines)

How to pack for a train trip in India

2010-08-06T13:50:00.001+05:30

There is a single, salient truth about train travel in India: the further you are from the toilet, the better. That's why I always dance a little jig whenever I find that I am positioned close to the middle of the carriage.

Train travel here is a fine art. Those who've been doing it since childhood have it all figured out and know all the quirks: when a waitlisted ticket will definitely get confirmed, how to get the best seats, which trains are better than others. After perhaps 8 or 10 train journeys I'm slowly getting to know things. First rule of train travel: don't go to the toilet. The trip is far smoother if you don't. That might mean sipping rather than drinking water for the duration of the journey, but trust me on this one.

Another is how to pack. What you don't pack is as important as what you do - particularly as I sleep almost on top of my bag for safety.

I have a few short trips coming up in coming weeks so am doing a master pack now that I will then hone for each trip. I'm a bit loath to do a packing post - particularly after watching one such video post by a blogger I had previously admired, in which her key bit of advice was to pack a toothbrush.

But this may well turn up in Google searches and people probably do want to know - so here goes.

Silk sarong: this is an indispensible travel item regardless, but particularly useful on overnighting Indian trains. The sheets might be fresh and clean but still, I like a barrier. It's a sheet, a pillow, a pillowcase, a towel, a scarf, a shawl. It can also be a skirt, a tablecloth, a napkin, a veil or a blankie if you must. Three months backpacking in Greece when I was 21 introduced me to the many and varied uses of a sarong. I got mine a few years later in Goa, and it's been my travel staple ever since.

Book: the lighter the better. Forget India After Gandhi, you will curse it as you struggle through tight corridors and slender doorways. My ideal train read would be something light-spined but meaty, say a Penguin Classic such as Evelyn Waugh's Scoop. However a review of Frank Gardner's latest is due next week, so that's what's in my bag.

Earplugs: Sod's law means you will always end up in the compartment with a snorer.

Tripod (optional): To combat the above menace, a camera tripod can - and has - been used, with minimal force of course, to gently prod the snoree into remembering to roll over.

Spray fragrance: The carriages might be old and rickety but they're usually clean and, if you're away from the toilet, olefactorily neutral. Nevertheless it is nice to be reminded that nice scents do exist. I usually carry Caudalie's Eau de Beaute, which doubles as a face spray, but it was recently nicked by my evil maid.

iPod/iPhone (optional): If you have one. I don't. I hate anyone who does.

Toilet paper: for if you really must venture that way.

Soap, hand sanitiser, other toiletries: I don't need to tell you this. Surely y'all know to bring a toothbrush.

Art from Cochin, Kerala

2010-08-04T12:33:00.000+05:30

Cochin (or Kochi) is emerging as a bit of an art hub: just like Soho or Wollahra, but without the jaw-dropping prices, stark white walls, carefully tilted lighting, gallerinas and having to pretend you understand the meaning of, say, a sculpture made out of jelly babies. Rather, you'll find art on cafe walls, piles and stacks in the back rooms of shops, and in modest galleries in the back streets of Jewtown.

Last year while in Cochin, we were in a cafe watching the rain bucketing down and drinking tea when we struck up a conversation with the owners. Did we want plantation-fresh vanilla beans? Were we interested in checking out some art? Yes and yes, so upstairs we went. There, we found ourselves in a capacious room flooded with natural light, in amongst hundreds of paintings and drawings.

Immediately I was drawn to this one:

It shows camels at a beauty contest. I liked the bright colours, the expressions on their faces, the scale and the detail. It's by a local artist called Appu Vennikkal, who also painted another canvas of big bright green leaves, a single pink flower and a girl's face in the corner, that I was also drawn to.

Jason hated it.

His choice?

One of a series of moody oils of rickshaw-studded streetscapes. I am such an art novice I didn't even think to write down the name of the artist.

We spent two days working our way through this room and another showroom owned by the same people, but kept coming back to these two paintings.

Now, they're hanging in our flat. Visitors tend to gravitate towards Jason's painting, politely murmuring "yes it's very interesting" when I ask if they like the camels, but I still love it. Even Jason came round, eventually.

Darshan Art Cafe

6/74 Jewtown, Cochin

0091-484-2222544 / 098474 78882

saadameen@gmail.com

Then there's...

Kashi Art Gallery

We stayed at Malabar House (an anniversary blowout)

Another hotel is the Brunton Boatyard, which has a great restaurant with an outdoor section that's right on the water.

Years ago I ate dinner in a gorgeous little cobblestone courtyard restaurant and never forgot it, and this time went around Cochin describing it, hoping to find it again. Naturally, it turned out to be called The Old Courtyard.

In Search of Delhi's last Blue Potter

2010-08-02T22:17:00.008+05:30

It suits to go into Old Delhi with a mission. Why else would one bother to venture into that teeming squalid tangle of tiny lanes? For fun? For the pleasure of eating a deep-fried parantha cooked on the street at Parantha Wali Gali, in the midst of millions of invisible flecks of flying fecal matter? It's really not all that, no matter how the guidebooks might try to romanticise it. It just makes you feel grubby.

But there is one quite decent way to see it: perched four feet off the street in a cycle rickshaw that's winding it's way through off-the-map back alleys. There's lots to see, and your chappals aren't being cakes in goat poo.

And there are goats, lots of them, everywhere. With my feet jammed against the footstop (the cycle rickshaws of Old Delhi have no sides, making a journey in them a precarious folly at times) I spotted countless animals, here in the heart of the city. After a while, when the goats become ho-hum, you suddenly spot a flash of glossy black. There, in an alleyside pen the size of a bathroom, are three water buffaloes.

And then, in amongst the cycle and pedestrian traffic, comes an ox cart.

I was there on a mission: to seek out the last Delhi Blue potter, a practitioner of a style of pottery that's a hangover from the days of the Mughals. You might have spotted faded turquoise tiles on various monuments around the city: that's Delhi Blue.

In fact it's just the local, British-given name for the Persian Blue tiles of the Islamic world: from Samarkhand, to Isfahan, to Kabul. The style wound its way across to India, where potters settled in a village in Uttar Pradesh called Khurja, still known as a pottery hub. Delhi Blue pottery is made from a mixture of crushed minerals, while the lapiz lazuli-like blue colour comes from cobalt oxide that is cast in a mould and then glazed.

Now I am not sure whether it's the common Jaipur blue pottery with the yellow flowers you can get easily at any souvenir shop or Dilli Haat - I think most likely not, but there is only one way to find out. And that's how I found myself perched precariously on the back of a cycle rickshaw in Old Delhi.

The details I had were sketchy. All I knew was that the man called Hazarilal lived somewhere in Hauz Sulaiwan, in one of the alleys behind the southern Turkman Gate entrance.

Turkman Gate is ideally positioned right next to the Delhi Stock Exchange, an image that no doubt will feature in many Delhi: Old and New feature stories in coming months, as the Commonwealth Games approach.

Here, I hopped out of the rickshaw and shuffled my way through the hordes of people through the gates to the left of the arch. Where was Hazarilal? I suddenly realised exactly how daunting this little endeavour was. So I stopped and asked these guys, in one of a number of hole-in-the-wall stalls lining the main road into the old town, if they knew him.

It was a long shot, but it turned out they did and even knew where he lived. They flagged down a cycle rickshaw for me and instructed him where to go - Hazarilal's home/studio was a good kilometre away: and there was little chance I would have been able to find it myself.

Each time I'd been to Old Delhi before I'd been to the area around Chandni Chowk and the Jama Masjid, but this route took me through winding back streets that were well off the tourist map.

It was schools-out time, so every few minutes we passed another cycle rickshaw carrying up to a dozen schoolchildren squeezed into every corner of the vehicle.

Ploughing deeper and deeper into the bowels of the old walled town, I started to get nervous. Would I ever be able to find my way out? Then the cyclist stopped. We were at Hauz Suiwalan, a small 'neighbourhood': really, a collection of maze-like streets. He asked around. I flourished a sign I'd had the foresight to prepare with 'Hazarilal' written clearly. Curious passersby shrugged, not knowing and not bothering to lie.

Then one guy pulled out a cellphone. He knew Hazarilal and his grandson. "Where are they?" I asked excitedly.

He shook his head. "Not here, they've moved,"

Turns out, Hazarilal, the last in a line of blue potters who've lived in Old Delhi since Mughal times, a year ago made the move to suburbia: decidedly less colourful, but far more comfortable.

I'm due to visit sometime in the next week; stay tuned for part two.

Retail therapy: CMYK bookstore

2010-07-24T08:18:00.001+05:30

Out the front of CMYK bookshop, in inner-central Delhi, there's a long ditch where they're digging up the sewer which runs along several shopfronts. In the Delhi summer heat the overwhelming miasma of sweet refuse takes hold.

To get inside the shop you have to gingerly sidestep the lactating street dog and her suckling pups, make sure you don't fall in the ditch, and navigate around it to a small set of steps.

Inside CMYK and it's a whole other world.

With books displayed on shelves and on tables, it's perfect for a lengthy browsing session. CMYK – named for the four colours used in printing (cyan, magenta, yellow and black) – is a modern, grey-toned, downlit and minimalist space. Unlike most cramped bookshops, this one is spacious and high-ceilinged, calm and quiet.

CMYK is an art and design focused shop, unveiled last September mainly as a vehicle to give the books of its parent publishing company, Roli Books, prominent positioning. (Roli Books books are about 30% of the stock; there's also Taschen, Phaidon and other major international houses).

Every time I go to CMYK I stay for around an hour, browsing through the collection of books like I Know How To Cook and Raghu Rai photography tomes. No one stops me, or asks me if I want them to put the book aside, or want it in another colour.

CMYK is ideally positioned in an up-and-coming area: the Mehar Chand Market, very close to Lodi Colony and right behind Delhi's cultural hub, the India Habitat Centre.

Here's a handy map:

Roli Books, which is a small family owned publishing house, has big plans for CMYK: there are plans afoot to take the concept to seven cities. First off will likely be Mumbai, where they are set to open a store-within-a-store at Bungalow 8. Next on the list are Goa, Bangalore, Gurgaon.

But for now, visitors to Delhi should most definitely add it to their must-visit list. I'm sure the sewage works will be done by then.

desiderata book club: In the Valley of Mist

2010-07-21T23:09:00.006+05:30

I spent much of the weekend in Mussoorie with my head stuck inside this book:

It's In The Valley of Mist, by British writer and journalist Justine Hardy.

It's non-fiction, about the trials of a family in Kashmir and how they managed to survive the violence of the past two decades, as a bloody conflict has raged there, mainly between Kashmiri separatists and the Indian military.

But far from being a dry, fact-based account, Hardy takes readers deep inside the insurgency thanks to her deep knowledge gained from years of travelling to the region. The book opens with a vignette of her and her mother in the late 1980s, shopping in central Srinagar wearing shorts and t-shirts. A year and a half later, when she next visits, she does so with her face and head covered, as the conflict had, in that short time, deepened and religious fanatics closed in.

The Valley of Mist doesn't give a comprehensive, blow by blow account of the conflict, but what it does give is a searing, honest depiction of how events have shaped the lives of this one family, how they have affected the lives of others in the region:

"From the top of the meadow the calls to prayer come from every direction, and at all angles across the lake, from the Shi'a mosque to the left side of the local bazaar, and from the two Sunni ones towards the right and rear side. Silence followed.

Up until 1990 the evening call to prayer was accompanied by bells ringing from Shiva temples around the city. As the azaan finished the bells would continue for aarti, evening prayer. The sounds wound together.

Children born in Kashmir since 1989 have not heard that song of symbiosis. Just as the young Pandits (Kashmiri Hindus) in the refugee camps have only their parents' memories to portray the homes they felt forced to leave, so too do young Kashmir Valley Muslims have only stories and old photograph albums as proof of how it used to be before they were born."

I couldn't put it down. In particular I appreciated that Hardy holds back - for the most part - from placing herself front and centre, rather, she depicts herself as a sideline character: observing and digesting, not judging. Only towards the end does her presence become more pronounced, her opinions more sharply outlined.

Given the current conditions in Kashmir, In the Valley of Mist is an ideal way to get inside the conflict without having to wade through something like this, or even this.

Travels in the hills: Mussoorie

2010-07-20T20:13:00.003+05:30

The hill station of Mussoorie, they say, is imbued with history at every turn: it was the place where British soldiers, stationed in India under the Raj, would come to, ahem, play away, often with the wives of their superiors. There's even a Scandal Point lookout.

The guidebooks describe Mussoorie as a fairyland, an ideal honeymoon spot, a peaceful, scenic spot for quiet contemplation.

In reality, visiting Mussoorie is an exercise in tempering expectation with reality.

I'd bought into the myth and had been desperately looking forward to escaping Delhi and its pressures for a long weekend in the cool of the hills. As it turned out, it was cool, it was misty, it was damp - but it was not peaceful, far from it.

Hill station streets weren't built for traffic. They were built for donkeys, carts, foot traffic. You won't be finding no dual carriageways or divided streets or white lines on those narrow hill station roads. Granted - there was a barrier along the side for much of the way of the drive up the hill - reassuring for me, after far too many drives on zigzaggy, landslide prone mountain passes - but there's very little space.

Surprising, then, that town elders haven't thought to ban traffic from the main drag, The Mall. It's about five metres wide, lined with shops and as crowded a marketplace as anywhere else in India, but you can't walk more than a few steps before being forced to lurch steeply to the side into the gutter to make way for a screeching moped or car or 4x4. And the worse thing is the endless horning and beeping, right in your ear. Drivers just do not care. It's law of the jungle, and the bigger the wheels, the louder the horn, the higher up the food chain you are. Much like any Delhi street, but right up close in your ear.

So much for my plans to meander around town in a daze.

After a tipoff from a friend, I had booked into a hotel, the Rink Pavillion. It's a quirky hotel, surprisingly not mentioned in any guidebooks or websites. What makes it unique is that it is built around a 19th century skating rink that was also, back in the day, used for everything from dog shows to Shakespearean plays to balls. Go on, click on the link. Doesn't it look marvellous, atmospheric and not at all rundown? That's not the reality. The reality is, it's a bit of a dump. Yes there's a skating rink and that's quite cool, but it's dark, faded, badly maintained and has an overall air of neglect. The room itself was murky, with a sagging mattress and a dusty bathtub. Not quite the thing for a romantic weekend away in the hills. (Although, under other circumstances I think it would be quite a cool and fun place to stay - so long as you know what you're in for).

We managed to get out of the booking by paying 500 rupees, and moved to the second choice, Karma Vilas, which turned out to be wonderful, with searing views over the valley - once the fog cleared.

After about a day we finally wised up: stay away from The Mall, and head for the hills. Landour, that is, a cantonment area up high which means there can be no rampant building of illegal concrete boxes. There are still vehicles screaming up and down the hill but less so than down below, and there are a handful of fun antique shops where you can easily blow a few thousand rupees on, say, a Burmese incense holder, a Raj-era carriage clock or a print of a famous painting by a famous Bengali artist whose name the shop owner can't quite remember.

Another good spot is Sister Bazaar, for sights like this:

But if you are planning to go to Mussoorie for a weekend, ignore any guidebook that only shows you photos pointing upwards:

Because really, it's what's at ground level you have to worry about.

Random bloggeristic facts

2010-07-12T20:30:00.004+05:30

I got tagged last week by the radiant Ephemerette, who was kind enough to award me the peer-judged Versatile Blogger Award. So now, the Seven Random Things about me that must accompany (plus one extra):

1. This week I was delivered a brilliant facial by a one-legged beautician. She didn't need a crutch, she simply hopped everywhere with relentless efficiency, not to mention balance. I will think of her every time I get tired and irritated when standing in one place for an hour on my two good legs.

2. I have the focus and concentration of a goldfish. I know I should be writing the book but I just can't sit in one place long enough to do it. I have many unfinished blog posts in draft form; I have started three books in the past year: one non-fiction, two fiction. I wish I could just focus.

3. I used to live by the beach in Bondi for four sweet years and it is the place I want to, eventually, raise my children, teach them how to dodge bluebottle jellyfish, how to not drown in wicked surf, where to get the best kugelhopf and let old people on the bus ahead of them.

4. I think about food perhaps 90 percent of the time. I read cookbooks in bed and love buying exotic organic ingredients. However I am chronically incapable of eating breakfast (unless it involves mango) and cook only about twice a week.

5. I love travel to the point that if I haven't been anywhere new for a couple of months, I actually get panic palpitations. India is good for quenching this; Australia is not (imagine a $1000 surcharge on air tickets). At a previous job, whenever things got a bit too stressful I would pull the atlas off the shelf and plan travel routes. Being in a new place - even if it's just the airport - is like oxygen, I feel like I can breathe more easily. I wish someone would give me a job that involved travelling somewhere new once a month.

6. I grew up in a suburb in Melbourne, two streets north of Essendon airport, and a seven-minute drive from the main international airport, which took us past my dad's office. I spent a lot of time staring at the undersides of planes when younger.

7. I am the middle of three girls, the Jan Brady if you will. Jason says we are all textbook cases of eldest, middle and youngest sisters. My friend Steve once bought me a badge that reads: Marcia, Marcia, Marcia.

8. I love National Geographic magazine; it's what inspired me to become a journalist. My husband and I first bonded over the famous Steve McCurry photograph of the Afghan girl. My parents have boxes and boxes and boxes of Nat Geos from the 1970s and 80s. Despite annual cleanouts of the manse, no one will ever throw them away.

Tamil Nadu's very own Shirley Temple, curls and all

2010-06-30T12:05:00.005+05:30

In the dying days of my previous maid's tenure (don't ask) she got into the habit of bringing her pre-tween daughter to work. I loudly protested, refusing to have someone underage working under my roof, so the girl soon settled into a routine of curling up on my sofa, sometimes with a muesli bar in hand, flicking through the Tamil channels on the TataSky. Sometimes I would sit with her, tapping at my laptop, and she would point out people or things of interest that would appear.

And that is how I first became introduced to the wonder that is Kutty Pisasu.

Kutty Pisasu was the big Tamil children's film release of the school holidays which have just ended. Kutty Pisasu was big news for its use of cutting edge graphics and special effects. Not Avatar cutting edge, might I point out, more Roger Rabbit.

One day the girl came running into my bedroom to fetch me. "Kutty Pisasu is on, my favourite," she said excitedly, or at least that's what I figure she said as it was in Tamil. Out I went. There, on the screen, was a music video featuring a pudgy little boy dressed in a bright red cowboy outfit, dancing as if the bus would explode if he didn't. But his moves were strangely feminine, like he'd grown up imitating Madhuri Dixit in Dil To Pagal Hai, occasionally breaking into a round of urgent pelvic thrusting.

Next to him in almost every scene was a giant animated robot imitating his dance moves. Sometimes the boy would ride on the robot's shoulders, sometimes he'd be a passenger in a pumpkin coach driven by the robot. Clearly the robot was the Robin to his Batman, the Donkey to his Shrek, the Hobbes to his Calvin.

Of course, it took a lot of Googling to identify the film, but I got there. Turns out, the boy is in fact a girl: Baby Keerthika, a Tamil child dancing prodigy who literally slipped out of the womb hip-thrusting and arm-waving.

Finally a video's been posted on YouTube. This isn't the original clip that sent me into convulsions of laughter, prompting strange looks from the girl, but is quite close and will give you a thorough appreciation of Kutty Pisasu.

When visitors descend

2010-06-17T14:00:00.004+05:30

Our spare bedroom's seen a lot of action. Not nudge-nudge-wink-wink sort of action - although maybe so, I don't know - but in the year we've been in Delhi there's been a steady stream of traffic through those twin beds. There was lovely Rachel from London, who, despite a masters' degree from LSE was interning with an NGO here as there are no jobs out there, even for LSE masters graduates, and dossed with us for a few weeks between flatshares. Then there was a French homme from Dubai, out for a month visiting his girlfriend and learning Mandarin here (?). He locked us in the house by accident on his first night, and blew up our inverter at least three times by keeping his blower heater on almost 24/7. My mother, my aunts, my cousin, various friends.

This week a Texan travel writer Jason met a on a trip to Cambodia a year or so ago dropped by, along with his wife and three-year-old. They're en route to a tiny village of 20,000, high in the Himalayas where his wife is studying the indigenous and highly endangered local language.

Just how does a three year old cope in a developing country? Remarkably well, as it turns out. Apart from a hankering for peanut butter (easily available), a week into her first trip to India and she was fine. She was more than fine, she was happy and excitable and polite and friendly and just a little clingy.

Hear that, all my friends and relatives who invoke the children excuse to get out of visiting me.

We went to the Lodi Gardens and even though she got excited at the sight of a watering hose pumping out (sewerage) water onto the grass and went and had a play, her parents didn't freak out, just said, "oh look at that bird!" and rinsed her hands with bottled water. Very impressively chilled.

It is a hard time to visit, given the weather. What else is there to do in Delhi in summer with kids in tow? The Select Citywalk mall is worth precisely one visit, even less if you're on a travel writer's salary.

I had a quick surf around the web and these all seem to be popular options:

1. Toilet museum: Open 10-5, Monday - Saturday. Traces the evolution of toileting.

2. Rail museum: 11 acres of railway fun.

3. Lodi Gardens (early in the morning or late afternoon)

4. Garden of Five Senses (ditto for times)

5. Dancing fountains; the sound and light show at the historic Purana Qila

6. India Gate in the evening: full of vendors, jugglers, people. Like the park in front of the Champs Elysees but less infected with cynicism.

The Tao of Family

2010-06-08T13:29:00.004+05:30

Apparently there can't just be a happy family reunion, it must come at a cost. In my case, just two months after my cousin's fun wedding, my uncle, the groom's father, died unexpectedly, most likely of a massive heart attack suffered while he was out on his early morning stroll. I hot-footed it down to Bangalore (Jason followed a couple of days later) for a decidedly less festive reunion.

I think my arrival was a bit of a reprieve from all the mourning. You see, it seems I've gotten dark. All that time waiting for rickshaws under the potent Delhi sun (even though it's overcast much of the time) has left me as dark as a Madrasi*. Nevermind that my father is a southie and this particular branch of the family, while Maharashtrian, live in the south and many have married southies, my prized pallid Maharashtrian complexion has fallen at the sword of the rabid northern sun. (Being pale-skinned, even in a progressive family like mine, meant that as an eligible 20-something I could get away with other sins, like being chubby, and still be considered highly eligible.)

As soon as my mother saw me she held me tight for a minute, then pulled away to examine me. "You've gotten so dark," she said, accusingly. Then followed a living-room wide examination of my complexion. "Don't worry," said my cousin through her tears. "It's easy to fix. Just stay indoors for a few weeks and your skin will improve."

Then my grandmother got in on the act. She halted her Hai Bhagwans when she saw me, then said, in Marathi, "How did you get so dark/ why are you wearing shorts/ where is your mangalsutra?", delivering the triple whammy of undutiful granddaughter criticism. "It's okay grandma," I said, stroking her arm. "I'm in my thirties now, no boys are looking at me anymore like that."

"But you look 25. It's just not nice."

Only family can turn what would normally be a compliment into a thinly-veiled stab at one's izzat.

So I quickly learned that I could manipulate awkward situations with my sartorial selections. Aunties arguing over flower choices? Saunter past in a singlet. Grandmother struggling to breathe through her sobs? Just a mere hint of cleavage and no dupatta would distract her. She pulled me aside at one point to make sure I would be appropriately dressed for the quasi-funeral. I think she would have burned some of my clothes in a pyre if she was more mobile. There were lots of discussions about my attire in Marathi, a language I don't speak and comprehend only snippets, but will forever associate with being told off.

There was a funeral of sorts. The cremation had already taken place, just a few hours after the collapse, although I don't think that's normally the case with Hindus. A section of a temple was booked, an ad placed in a newspaper, and a few days later people turned up to pay their respects. There was silent contemplation, a few Gita verses were read, a short speech, a queue to place flowers next to a photograph and to run our hands over incense smoke and over our hair, and that was it.

There are further religious ceremonies held on the tenth day and the thirteenth day after death - the latter is to mark the end of the mourning period and to officially release the soul into the ether. Priests are called to the house to explain the opaque process to the grieving relatives, and also give a price for conducting the ceremonies. I believe the price varies according to factors such as the size and location of the house, what sort of watches are worn by the grieving relatives, and other signposts of wealth. The initial quote was in the region of 1.2 lakh (approx US$2,400), the latest I heard was that it had come down to 20,000 rupees. One part that caused some degree of consternation involved procuring five Brahmins to feed before anyone else was fed. If this bit was eliminated would the rites still be "right"? No one wanted to accede to the antiquated notions of caste in this case. But then it all descended into Marathi and I couldn't follow.

*Madrasi is a derogatory term north Indians use to describe south Indians. When south Indians want to insult northerners they just call them uneducated. Maharashtrians are neither north nor south, but are haughtier than all put together.

Transport special #2: expert recommendations

2010-05-28T12:37:00.005+05:30

This is the second of my three stories that got spiked by Monocle magazine after being commissioned for its transport special (June issue out now on quality news stands around the world - yes, even here in Delhi at Khan Market). Here, the brief was to find someone involved in the travel/transport industry and have them provide recommendations. I immediately thought of Intrepid Travel, a tour operator based in Melbourne that I profiled for a television story back in my ABC days. It's quite an impressive outfit, famous mostly for running off-the-beaten-track type tours in south east Asia, although now has a portfolio of trips all over the world. They also at one point ran a tour in East Timor, one of the world's great undiscovered and untapped tourism markets, with its pristine and sparkling beaches, excellend snorkelling and diving opportunities and misty, coffee-growing hills, although canned it after a short time because of a lack of interest. Shame, as I really, really wanted to do it.

Geoff Manchester, co-founder, Intrepid Travel

1. Who is leading the way in terms of developing forms of transport that are really taking the world in the right direction?
The travel industry can’t ignore climate change. I admire Rob Fyfe, Air New Zealand CEO, as under his control, the airline operated the first test flight of a commercial airline running on jatropha-based biofuel. It gives hope that an environmentally-friendly alternative to fuel is not far away.
2. Favourite airport?
Singapore has the world's best airport. While most airports just push the same overpriced luxury products and uninspired food, Singapore airport has actually put a lot of thought into the facilities travelers actually need, such as free wifi, massage chairs, a swimming pool and a variety of food options.
3.Favourite rail station/ country in which to travel by rail?
I love Thailand’s sleeper trains, which have bunk bends on either side of a corridor. After drinks and a meal, the train crew convert the seats into a bed with sheets and a pillow. It's really quite comfortable, and you can talk with all the other passengers.

Be careful what you wish for

2010-05-28T10:29:00.003+05:30

For weeks now I've been suffering in the Delhi extreme heat (40°C and higher every day), wishing desperately that something, anything, would propel me out of the dirty, bone-dry city with swirls of dust blowing through the air. Then on Wednesday, news came that my much-beloved uncle had died suddenly and unexpectedly. So now I'm off to Bangalore, along with the rest of my diasporic extended maternal family who are flying in from various corners of India and the world. Of course, even though I've known about my trip for a day and a half I hadn't been able to bring myself to pack, so now, with 20 minutes to go till the cab gets here to take me to the airport, I'm sitting on the bed in my pyjamas staring at a pile of clothes and wondering what to do. The answer? Update my blog.

Transport special: India's first marina

2010-05-25T17:53:00.002+05:30

One of the great joys of my life is that the World's Best Magazine, favoured by cerebral aesthetes (but not wankers) across the globe, sometimes lets me write for it. Less thrillingly, Monocle also spiked all three of the stories I wrote for the transport special that's out in this month's issue, but fear not, I shall turn the negative into a positive and publish them here. Call this a global exclusive, if you will.

Story #1: India's yachting industry sets sail

India is not a country known for its boating culture, but that is soon to change, with the opening of South Asia's first marina in the southern Indian city of Kochi (Cochin).

As the boating market stagnates in the West, players are increasingly looking towards south and southeast Asia. The new marina in Kochi is set to put India firmly on the charts of the international ocean-going community.

Worth around $US3 million, the marina will eventually have 50 slips and a clubhouse and opened in late April.

Ocean Blue, The company building the marina, will also manage it and is hoping to capitalise on knowledge gained during the process to build marinas elsewhere in the country.

"All marinas will have to have some sort of government intervention," says Ocean Blue’s founding director Malav Shroff.

"The first one is the toughest as we don't know the exact government permissions needed. Once we complete it we'll know what regulations exist and what permissions. It's a huge advantage to be doing the first one," says the one-time Olympic sailor.

Ocean Blue is now angling to build 15 more marinas - in Goa, Chennai, near Mumbai, the Andaman Islands and the Lakshadweep islands among others - in the next five years, although no formal agreements have yet been reached.

- India's total coastline is 7,000 kilometres long. Counting inland lakes, there's around 25,000 kilomentre for boats.

- There are approximately 85,000 dollar millionaires in India, according to a 2009 Merrill Lynch/Cap Gemini report. That's a lot of potential boat buyers.

- The boating market is expected to grow to a billion dollars in India over the next five years.

- In some parts, speedboats and jetskis are used as a mode of transport, such as Mumbai-dwellers travelling to holiday homes in Alibaug, a resort town south of the megacity.

Pissing into the wind

2010-05-22T14:11:00.005+05:30

I've had toilets on the mind, of late. First, I somehow stumbled across a wikitrail that led to a write-up of Rose George's fascinating book, The Big Necessity, which delves into the "unmentionable world of human waste, and why it matters". Then, coincidentally, I wrote a short story for Monocle earlier this week as a follow-up to last month's UN study, which revealed that India has more cellphone users than people with access to a proper toilet.

Now anyone who's spent more than a few minutes on a city street in India will be familiar with the unassailable stench of ammonia, and men with their backs to the streets, taking a slash up against a wall. As much as I dislike it - although not quite as much as this guy - I can understand and empathise that really, there's often very little other option to relieve oneself. It's not like builders provide portaloos for their migrant labourers. They don't even provide any form of human-standard shelter, or food, or a living wage, but that's a rant for another day.

According to the UN, roughly half of India's population doesn't have access to toilet facilities. Now at least men have the ability to whip it out anywhere, anytime (and there are actually a number of public urinals dotted across the city). But what about women? They're forced to wait till night time, when they can steal away and do the needful under the cover of darkness.

For my story, I interviewed Anita Jha from Sulabh International, a brave NGO intent on tackling the sanitation issues that others are too squeamish to discuss. She pointed out that while the toilet issue is pressing, it's eminently solveable. To wit, Sulabh has come up with an inexpensive solution for both home toilets and public conveniences that effectively turns the human waste into either organic fertiliser, or biofuel. Sulabh has built half a million toilets across India, and has set up possibly the most effective marketing tool ever: the world's only toilet museum, here in Delhi.

Rose George is another one insisting that human "waste" is actually full of nutrients, and is a rich, valuable and inexhaustible material - but the great sanitation minds of today think it's best to mix it with water and pump out into the ocean. "It's green to burn the brown stuff," she pointed out last month in a NYT op-ed piece.

Of course, for this sort of sanitation innovation to get adopted on a large scale there needs to be groundswell of public support, political will, and oh yeah, lots and lots of rupees. Awareness, understanding and proactivity will help eliminate the scourge of public pissing, not, say, an air rifle.

WTF: Summit edition

2010-05-15T16:03:00.002+05:30

Like anything, there was good and bad about the Advance summit. There were two WTF moments in particular, both coming during the session on Global Citizenship in the 21st century.

Moment #1: A panellist, a young, brightly effusive Indian businesswoman, loudly asserted herself to be a Global Citizen: after all, she was educated in the US. In fact, at a university in a town not known to be terribly enlightened. Here, she witnessed her fair share of KKK marches. But she had to be very clear here: they did not intimidate her, nor bother her in the slightest. Why? Because this brown girl is a Global Citizen, who's seen the world, who simply equates these KKK processions as another way of expressing religious fervour, much like processions marking Ganesh Chaturti, or Dussehra.

Yes, I know. Not quite the same thing.

When one of the other panellists quietly called her on it, she whipped into defensive mode and shot him down in flames. But not with a flaming cross, mind you.

Moment #2: The moderator, a former Australian diplomat to India, raised the question of how Indians could be better Global Citizens. "I'll tell you," said one young blonde attractive woman sitting up the end of the table, a volunteer with an Indian NGO. "Do something about how the men are here." She went on to recount her experiences dealing with the unwanted attention of the North Indian Male: staring, catcalling, sometimes trying to catch a grope, despite dressing modestly and locally.

Now to any woman actually living in (particularly north) India, this is a real issue. It's something I face daily (although granted, I don't really make many concessions towards dressing locally) and have encountered two incidents in my life when I've felt particularly threatened: once when I was 16, once last year. I'm not saying all Indian men are slimy, grope-happy greaseballs, far from it, but there is a real thing with many men up here: aggressive, self-important misogyny is a theme.

Unfortunately, the point was lost amongst those people gathered there in Ballroom B at the Oberoi, many of whom had flown in from Australia the previous day and hadn't really seen much of India other than, ooh, the lobby and the restaurant of Delhi's second most expensive hotel. So the moderator took the easiest route: fingers-in-ears-la-la-la denial. Stammering, he said, "That's a valid point but doesn't really fit into the remit we've been given by Advance," and moved on.

That was crap. Yes, it is a valid point and one well worth discussing further; just one that's too controversial for most Westerners to want to touch.

Advance Emerging Leaders Summit

2010-05-08T10:34:00.004+05:30

For six months I've taken part in monthly skype conference calls as part of the advisory group to the Australian diaspora group Advance, as it prepared to host its first conference in India, and only its second in Asia. The Emerging Leaders summit was held on Tuesday, and I spent a 14-hour day within the scented confines of the Oberoi doing vox pops for Advance's online videos in between ducking in and out of the roundtable sessions.

The purpose of the group is initially hard to grasp: is it about business? Is it a social networking group for overseas Australians? I'd never heard of it before becoming involved; a friend explained it to me as "for Australians living overseas who aren't backpackers." It's quite big in the US, particularly New York, where it holds regular networking evenings, and also the UK, and is now trying to get a solid foothold in Asia. India is an interesting move: someone on the day told me there's just 1,500 Australians in India.

Nevertheless, Advance got together a solid, albeit small, group of people with interests and/or knowledge in or about the other country. The sessions were well thought out: they were comprised of small-ish groups of people, say ten to fifteen, and mostly those with a special interest in the field, and covered topics, generally on how Australia and India can cooperate and share knowledge: the handling of mega events like the Commonwealth Games, water challenges, urban development, and issues surrounding education. The last item was particularly contentious, given the apparent propensity of Indian students to get beaten up by vicious thugs in Australia. The organisers had been keen to avoid that particular topic, but it ended up dominating the day: given that higher education is Australia's biggest export to India and has taken a massive hit in recent months, many were keen to discuss the impact on their particular industries and what could be done to ameliorate it. I did indeed hear one or two particularly interesting perspectives, which I hadn't come across before. And you shall read about that in due time, hopefully.

The Lowy Institute's Rory Medcalf gave the keynote address, and voiced strong support for Australia moving to sell uranium to India. That, again, was another issue that organisers would have preferred to avoid (but knew they couldn't). Later, public affairs group Hawker Britton presented findings of a survey of Australians on attitudes towards India and the relationship, which found three-quarters of those surveyed feel the students issue has negatively affected ties.

I went to the roundtable on water, which was interesting but a bit of a disappointment as there was only one Australian there, so the opportunity to discuss how the two countries could share knowledge and expertise was a bit lost. In the afternoon I joined the session on being a global citizen, where the talk was lively and wide-ranging: how could Australia and India get each other more? How to encourage participation in each other's culture? It was a shame, then, that the two groups who can best bridge the divide were under-represented: the arts, and NGOs. Nevertheless, out of that came ideas, such as how to connect those working in the arts in India, and ideas on how generally to connect Australians across India.

All said, while it was a packed day, it was a great opportunity to meet people doing great things or poised to do great things, in India. I came out with an armful of contacts, a head full of story ideas, and at least one new friend. That, to me, is a day's work well done.

How I came to know that 'tal' means 'lake'

2010-05-05T19:06:00.001+05:30

Nainital, that long-favoured hill station that rated a mentioned in A Suitable Boy, is just as beautiful as they say: a sparkling lake surrounded by the green, gently rolling Kumaon hills. However, serene it is not, with cars, autos and Honda Heroes screeching up and down the upper and lower Mall roads that run alongside the lake. Trying to take a weekend afternoon stroll alongside the lake is like getting stuck in a dodgems pit.

Thankfully, we were only in Nainital proper for a couple of hours, having wisely decided to stay outside town in a little guesthouse, perched on a bluff with valleys stretching out on either side. Called Two Chimneys, I'd stumbled across the place online, fell in love with it and when I rang to book I discovered it was in fact the converted holiday home of renowned Indian writer and journalist Tarun Tejpal. Indeed, his first book, The Alchemy of Desire - which I devoured during the three-day stay - has two predominant themes: the Two Chimneys house, and sex.

The house is everything you'd expect of a writer. There are sprawling lawns, stone steps leading down steep inclines, a library, a dark leather-and-oak style bar, and plenty of spaces in which to read.

I didn't spend the entire weekend reading, there was time spent in or by the pool:

...And a day trip to the surround smaller hill station towns of Sattal, Bhimtal, Naukuchiyatal (try saying that after two Kingfishers), and of course, Nainital.

Bhimtal Lake

The first three are blissfully serene. Each has a lake, dotted with little fishing boats (or paddle boats shaped like either a swan or a dragon), a cluster of shops and jacaranda trees in full purple bloom hanging overhead. Being at around 1200m altitude, there's a cool breeze blowing through and people are strangely placid, there's no one yelling at a rickshaw driver or revving their engines, just standing around staring at the lake while licking ice creams.

Nainital was none of that, it was crowded and hectic. We stopped in a spotlessly clean bakery-cafe for lunch, I ordered a paneer steak sizzler (they're vastly popular, the sense of drama offered by the sizzling plate adds that much-needed dose of drama to the Indian table). Once the thing stopped spitting specks of gravy at me I ventured to eat it; the garnish appeared to be little cherry tomatoes.

Actuallly, they turned out to be maraschino cherries.

Clothing conundrum

2010-04-22T15:07:00.003+05:30

Here's a sartorial challenge: how does one dress fashionably in 44C, dry and dusty weather? Must nod to the conservative mores of the environment: no singlets, nothing too tight nor revealing, nothing transparent, and no clingy polyester.

Trinny and Susannah would run screaming from this one. Hah. Amateurs.

That's the daily conundrum I face here, now summer has hit with a vengeance (and early, which does not auger well for the coming months). I don't have a car, necessitating the conservative bit: try standing on a street corner for 15 minutes trying to hail a rickshaw dressed in shorts and you'll quickly realise why.

It doesn't help that there seems to be this major disconnect with what's available and what the reality is outside: shops are full of thick denim jeans, polyester leggings and puff-sleeved tunic tops, when all I want is a vast choice of long linen shorts and gauzy yet opaque blouses, or sundresses that fall below the knee that can be cinched in with a belt. I should just go and get them made by one of the many ubiquitous tailors, but I'm tailor-shy after a recent bad experience. Plus, the heat is making me lazy and somnolent, like a desert lizard that can't seem to move, and the thought expending all that energy in un-airconditioned surrounds doesn't doesn't fill me with glee.

Compounding the misery is that girls here all seem to be completely oblivious to the weather and get about in tight skinny jeans and black t-shirts. How do they do that?

All senses point to succumbing to the salwar kameez, which would be the sensible option, but I just can't do it, it's an outfit not made for highlighting my best. There are some very nice ones around, and I did spend an hour at Anokhi yesterday working my way through the various styles of cotton harem pants, only to come to the conclusion that they make me look like I'm wearing nappies. Salwar kameezes are great if you have a willowy North Indian silhouette, not so great if you bear the curse of the South Indian rice belly.

Delhi's flower markets

2010-04-19T23:41:00.000+05:30

With daytime temperatures now hovering around the 40 degree mark, I could forgive myself for putting off sightseeing another season. But I dragged myself out of bed at crowbreak on Friday morning for an excursion/recce to check out central Delhi's flower markets.

First stop was Old Delhi's Genda Phool Mandi market. Driving along Netaji Subhash road, I watched the sun rise over the Red Fort:

A left turn took me to Chandni Chowk; inside, Old Delhi was stirring. Men were wandering the empty blocks, brushing their teeth with the chewed ends of neem sticks, while schoolgirls commandeered cycle rickshaws to get to early tuitions. At the flower market, it was unloading hour, with trucks banked up along the length of the street, tossing tightly-tied parcels of marigolds over the sides. Along the street sat a row of men, patiently waiting for the whole thing to be set up so they could get to work. On one side of the road, the entrance to the Fatephuri masjid; I nearly accidentally walked in before I realised what it was.

Soon afterwards the flower rolls were unfurled and brisk trading kicked off, even at that early hour.

Next up was the Phool Mandi, closer to the centre of town at Connaught Place. Here, the market was already in full swing and in a relatively more developed area, meaning a paved surface and parking outside.

There's one more, in the southern suburb of Mehrauli, known for having a lot of Mughal ruins. That's next, hopefully.

The bridging power of art

2010-04-15T00:14:00.001+05:30

Pakistan's just across the border, but is still so far away: considering we all used to be as one, we now know surprisingly little about them. What do they eat? What do they wear? What movies move them? Do they get Top Chef on the cable there?

For the past few months, Delhi's had a rare insight into the minds of Pakistanis, via their modern art. Not-for-profit gallery Devi Art Foundation has been hosting an exhibition of contemporary art and sculpture from across the dotted line, called Resemble, Reassemble.

Ironically, the gallery is in the no-mans land that is Gurgaon: that mini-me Delhi, a borough perhaps, albeit one that's flush with call-centre cash; a place somewhat anathema to your average South Delhi-ite. Getting to Gurgaon is a struggle, there's no train and involves hiring a taxi for an expensive ride. It's what Wimbledon is to North Londoners, the Brooklyn to Manhattanites, the Manly for south-of-the-harbour Sydneysiders.

Last week, however, I had a meeting down there and afterwards, despite the sizzling midday heat and the surly no-English-madam cabbie, I stopped at Devi Arts for a look deep inside the minds of the other side.

What do they think? I'm generally art-illiterate, so couldn't tell you. Modern art should come with Cliffs Notes. But I suppose in this case, that would defeat the purpose.

Perhaps they feel oppressed, particularly the women. That's the impression I got from this series of works, showing seated women with their elaborate hairstyles covering their faces.

Or another exhibit, an installation of a sink with an illuminated plughole. Look down it and you see a tiny little video of a veiled woman, sitting, looking forlornly up at you through the holes, a sink-like prison, then down at her ankles, then up, then down. She's so insignificant she can be flushed down the sink.

Nearby there's a slice of road, like a giant piece of layered cake. Layers of rock, some big rocks and some small, are all slathered in a thick layer of shiny, sticky black bitumen on top, like the icing on the cake. Like layering over rocky bits of history with an unassailable, impenetrable layer. Or something.

I only got two photos before the guard got to me; the first of perhaps my top-rated exhibit, an array of gleaming machine gun parts and surgical tools suspended from the ceiling. Even I got that one.

The exhibition's only on for a few more weeks, so don't wait for a reason to go to Gurgaon to check it out, just go.

Read more about Resemble, Reassemble here.

Single Lady's Corridor

2010-04-08T23:50:00.001+05:30

Bless India and its love of purple prose. When Jason first started his job at a financial news organisation, he was firmly told by his superiors, "News only. Facts. Quarterly results. Announcements. No Shakespeare quotes." A few days in to the job, he realised why.

Then last year, when I did a stint as a sub for a publishing slash events company, one lovely events manager would write these exultant paeans to the grape, in what were meant to be simple press releases about a wine trade show. "I love playing around with language, it's my passion," she confessed to me, making it extremely difficult to slash and burn her prose.

I was reminded of her last week when I received this press release in my inbox from Delhi's most refined, glamorous and possibly its most famous hotel:

"The bygone era of sixteenth century spelled unforgettable names like Queen Elizabeth, acknowledged as a charismatic performer and a dogged survivor. Celebrating the same strength and passion to explore the unknown of today’s women, Hotel X has introduced “ELIZA”, a special program for single lady traveller. The lady guest under the program gets enrolled for the uniquely designed privileges coupled with the unmatched Hotel X experience, the moment she checks in.

Hotel X has taken this value added initiative for our esteemed single lady travellers to provide a distinct “stay experience” associated withcomfort, convenience and care, prioritizing their safety.

The lady guests are allocated rooms in a “Single Lady Corridor” equipped with CCTV cameras and are provided with special In-room check-in facility. Single Lady Corridor consists of twelve rooms on the third floor for Single Lady Travelers and each room has a separate room door camera installed as an additional security feature. To make their stay with Hotel X exemplary, The rooms are provided with Manicure set, Women’s magazine and special flower arrangements.

Only lady staff assistance for round the clock room service and all telephone calls go through a screening process before being connected to the room. Special Linen provides the seamless elegant touch to a perfect stay experience… only at Hotel X.

Beginning from room amenities to bathroom accessories, the rooms have everything one can imagine and provides an unmatched opulence and memorable experience only at Hotel X."

I love how business travellers are equated here to, say, Sir Walter Raleigh, rather than the Clooney-bedding Vera Farmaggias of today. I think the reason for this antiquated language can be traced back to school textbooks; they're positively Victorian. But it's great, too, in many ways. It's a reminder that language can be floridly beautiful, even when used for something so pedestrian as a press release. Or, say, Reliance's end of financial year statement.

Ramayana retold for big kids

2010-04-03T20:26:00.002+05:30

Pretty much my entire knowledge of Hindu mythology has come from comic books. As a child, we would pick up these condensed graphic versions of the Mahabharata at the station to keep us quiet on the overnight train to Bangalore. The pages of the cartoons would be interspersed with ads for Parle biscuits and competition winner announcements: "Master Abhishekh Sengupta of Calcutta has won a packet of coloured pencils!" alongside a spacey-eyed headshot of the said master.

Now, as an adult, my knowledge of another important Hindu epic is again coming via the animated form.

The Ramayana recounts of the life of the god king Rama, his marriage to the goddess Sita, their jungle exile, her kidnapping by the evil demon Ravana. Then Rama meets his loyal servant Hanuman, the monkey god, who later goes to Sri Lanka to retrieve Sita. Then Rama and Ravana's armies go to war. Later, Rama suspects Sita may have cheated on him so to prove herself she jumps into a fire and emerges unharmed, proving her purity. Nevertheless she gets banished to the forest as Rama is concerned his subjects won't take him seriously if he hangs on to her.

There's more to it, more characters and more drama. That was the abridged condensed version. Think the Lord of the Rings trilogy is dense? Try the Ramayana.

Last month I watched a fantastic feature-length cartoon telling the tale from Sita's perspective, Sita Sings the Blues, by Nina Paley. Click through to download the film for free (after reading why it's free). But please, do donate if you have the means. Artists like to be paid.

Then a few weeks ago I did a skype interview with the author and cartoonist behind another modern-day retelling of the story, Sanjay Patel. Sanjay spent up to five years working on the at least 100 illustrations in Ramayana: Divine Loophole.

From what I've seen of it, I already love this book. The illustrations remind me of both classic Mughal art, with its flat 2D style, and Eames, in their angularity and colours. Patel did say that midcentury design is a major influence over his work, and he indeed studied that era while at CalArts (his day job is at Pixar, where he's worked on everything from Monsters Inc. to Cars to Up).

One of his driving motivators was not just to bring style and substance to the epic, but to make it accessible to a younger generation. I don't know that I'd be showing those pictures, with their bows and arrows and demonic faces, to my three year old nephew just yet, but I think he hits his mark.

You can read my story on Patel and his book here.

Attack of the feral expat wife

2010-03-29T13:54:00.002+05:30

(still from the French and Saunders expat wife sketch; sadly unavailable online)

I'm not religious, or even spiritual, in any way, but I do believe there is some kind of universe-wide magnetic force at work. Like, what you put out, you get back. If you emit toxicity into the world, toxicity will come back to you. This belief has been, many times, played out in various corners of my life.

Consequently, while life here certainly isn't easy, I really try not to write about those times here. I don't want to be a whinger, and I don't want certain types of people to read it and take it as further proof that India is less civilised, less intellectually developed, and generally inferior to, say, Australia.

I also only read other expat blogs that have the same bent: that are for the most part positive and embracing of this great experience the authors are lucky enough to have. White Indian Housewife and neo Indian are two of my favourites.

Unfortunately, the other side does exist.

I had the misfortune of stumbling across an expat blog, written by another Australian woman living in Delhi, that was so staggeringly supercilious, superior, badly written and self-aggrandizing that I choked on my yoghurt. I actually feel sick. I'm not going to name and shame or link to it because that's bad net behaviour, and possibly spreading toxicity.

Sample post titles: "god this place is so backward". "Sickening account of Indian ineptitude". And then there's another post in which she spends a good few thousand words dumping on her inept staff at her sprawling farmhouse, paid for by her husband's generous expat package. In it, she repeatedly questions their intelligence, their honesty, and their general ability to function without her ever-watching eye. She also laments that her gardening staff refuse to pick up their dog's poo, and ends the rant with a line that, and I paraphrase, pats herself on the back for being so efficient before logging off to go and get her nails done.

The whole thing smacks of precisely what locals despise in expats: thinking they're better than Indians. Who the fuck are you, lady, to think you are better than anyone else? You can't even spell.

I suggest she, and anyone else prone to criticising others who've not had the good fortune of a Western education and consequently don't quite get the innate superiority of Global knives over local brands, gain a bit of perspective. You might be living a life of privilege, but you are still a guest in your host country, and consequently it is not seemly to dump on it or the people in it.

You are not better than anyone else because you were lucky enough to be born rich, white and blonde; it was simply a trick of fate that assigned you there. (Or perhaps you did something right in a former life.) If you want to remain in your bounteous life of farmhouses, imported cheese, international schools and a household staff of 12, then I suggest you act - and write - with a little more humility and grace, responsibility and positivity. Otherwise, return home. You are not needed here.

Freaking appalling.

Family fun and a wedding: Bangalore

2010-03-23T13:31:00.001+05:30

I spent the past week ensconsed in the bosom of the family in Bangalore. A host of relatives flew in, from interstate and abroad, for my cousin's wedding. Usually family gatherings like this can be somewhat fraught affairs, such is the volatile mix of personalities jostling for attention. We all have great fun for the first few days, then around about day four there's some kind of combustive meltdown followed by loud arguing in the corridors, and everyone can't wait to get away by day six. And then there's the organisation, or lack therof; trips outside the house or hotel, say to go shoe-shopping or for dinner, is an experience best likened to trying to herd cats with ADHD.

Thankfully, this time there were no such dramas. Apart from a bit of tension over my maternal grandmother and her failing short-term memory (like asking when it would be my turn to get married) and her bizarre latent religiosity (like having twice-weekly fast days in which she eats nothing but potato chips, and refuses to take a glass of water from the non-Hindu maid), everyone got along famously. There were even tears as we said goodbye - of sadness, not joy.

On Saturday night there was a cocktail party at the Bangalore Club:

My cousin's mother (seen above to the left in red) is a fabulous Page Three socialite type; her friends arrived early, glittering with jewels and giggling into their mai-tais. "I was Bangalore's first aerobics instructor," one told me, proudly.

Then on Tuesday, there were three events. It kicked off with the baraat: the procession by the groom and his friends and family to meet the bride's side. With both mothers from the Coorg region, the baraat incorporated traditional customs from the region.

This bit was fun: we danced down the street while my cousin strode down, wearing a white robe with a dagger stuck in the belt, under an umbrella. Vis the lack of organisation or timeliness, my aunt found herself wheeling a suitcase filled with the groom's clothing changes down the street.

Then there was the ceremony. Here, a few hundred of the closest friends and family stand around, half-watching but mostly chatting and catching up. This required another clothing change.

Then more people arrived for the reception. Hindu weddings are auspicious occasions; no meat or alcohol are generally served - hence the cocktail party a few nights earlier.

Unlike Australian receptions, which are boozy affairs filled with speeches, dancing, and frivolity, the Indian wedding reception is exceptionally, teeth-grindingly boring. There is no structure: no MC, no bride and groom arrival, no sit-down meal, no speeches, no dance, no cake, no sentimentality. Rather, the bride and groom sit on thrones on the stage, while a long line of guests snakes around the room, clutching gifts. They slowly shuffle forward until it is their turn to greet the couple, hand over their gift and have their photo taken. There are hundreds of chairs set out in the hall facing the stage but no one is sitting; everyone is either in line or in the dining room next door, standing up with a plate of (vegetarian) food trying not to spill the palak paneer on their Kanjeevaram saris. Once they've eaten they go home, change into pyjamas and watch the cricket with a tumbler of Teacher's. The couple and their families must wait till the 700-odd guests have eaten before they get to dine, usually around midnight. Then there are a couple more ceremonies before we're free to go home, change into pyjamas and sink a few G&Ts to get over the day.

(all images thanks to Jason Staines)

Bomb scare on my Bangalore-bound flight

2010-03-13T00:29:00.000+05:30

(Image via Flickr)

Despite the constant, omnipresent threat of terrorist danger faced by India, today's events have left me wondering whether those actually at the coalface have any idea how to deal with such an attack, or even just the potential of one.

My morning flight to Bangalore on the budget airline Indigo left Delhi on time. It was comfortable yet no frills, and it arrived at Bangalore before time. (After too, too many flight delays, I've come to appreciate this punctuality).

Unbeknownst to passengers, however, was that about 20 minutes before we landed, a bomb threat was phoned in to the Delhi airport, specifically naming my flight. After landing, passengers were briskly herded onto buses on the tarmac. And kept there, right next to the plane, for a good 45 minutes, as we watched ground staff scurrying back and forth, towards and away from the plane.

We were only told when we left the bus, at the terminal, where we went through stringent security checks, of the bomb scare. It was then another two-odd hours before they released our bags.

That two hours was enough time for wild rumours to spread throughout the baggage claim area. Some said a second call had been made, claiming there was indeed a bomb on board that had failed to detonate. Others said the call had originated from the cargo area of Delhi airport, indicating an inside job. And everyone looked suspiciously at the poor man who hadn't thought to shave before getting on a plane.

The hapless Indigo employee deployed to inform us the bags would take a while and we weren't allowed to leave the claim area, really earned his money today. People were wild - about missed connections, missed trains, missed meetings, and that guy bore the brunt of it. I think the mob would've burned an effigy if there had been any hay and lighter fluid nearby.

Then the sniffer dogs came through: two of the biggest labradors I've ever seen, almost the size of Great Danes. The toddlers went crazy and went running after the doggies, trying to pat them. Teenagers took photos on their iPhones.

Finally by big shiny red Samsonite arrived; thankfully they'd not busted the lock to get inside. On my way out I passed the Bangalore police commissioner. He looks just like a Bollywood villian, complete with handlebar moustache and aviator sunglasses and was slapping the back of a bald guy who looked a bit like Djimon Hounsou and chortling. It was all very Deewar.

But seriously, the question remains: just why did they keep us on the buses next to the plane for so long? If, as they likely suspected, the bomber was among us, what if he or she had detonated while we waited? What if a bomb on luggage on the plane had gone off? We were locked in a bus that was going nowhere.

I'm reluctant to point fingers at Indigo or Bangalore Airport, but think the incident serves as a timely reminder that Indian security, and moreso the kind of intuitive response needed, just isn't there yet.

Spring has sprung, or basant has begun

2010-03-06T17:47:00.002+05:30

March means spring. It's a short little season, wedged in between the two degree lows of winter and the searing 45 degree Sahara-dry heat of the prolonged summer. And flowers are everywhere. Just look at my balcony:

I bought an armful of flowers today (all these for 180rs, and even then I surely paid over the odds): tuberoses which have already filled the entire house with their scent, roses, these little purple Himalayan mountain flowers that I couldn't comprehend the name of. These were bought partially in in honour of Mama Desiderata's looming visit; the tornado descends tomorrow. She is not usually a fan of cut flowers, being of the opinion that if flowers are not in the ground they've been murdered, but hopefully she will be able to appreciate the beauty of the still life:

And, even better, they may well just deflect attention from the less-scrubbed corners of the flat.

Peering into the lives of the other half

2010-03-05T22:15:00.000+05:30

The Oberoi Delhi is the kind of place rich people build to keep India out. It's modern minimalist, gleaming, has glass walls and shiny marble surfaces, a beige and black colour scheme, and the whole place is subtly scented with tuberose. There are people in there carrying real Birkins, not Berkens or Brrkins, and wearing Tods and linen pants with lemon-coloured cashmere sweaters casually draped around their shoulders, as though they're just passing through Delhi on their way to a sailing regatta in the Hamptons.

I only really go to places like the Oberoi for work, it's certainly not part of my regular life, and while it's fun, I always feel a bit like everyone's looking at me sideways to check I don't steal the silverware.

(Threesixty. Image: Oberoi Hotels)

After nine months in this city, I finally went there for the first time, at the behest of an interior designer I was doing a piece on; we met at Threesixty, which is an open-all-hours cafe-restaurant, although that description does not do it justice one bit. It's a sprawling, designer space, the interiors carrying just the barest hint of a flicker of a nod to the Indian aesthetic through all the minimalist marble and dark wood. I sat by the window in the lounge area overlooking the pool, nearby people were perched at benches and tables, eating sushi and various other delights from the buffet, which was actually an entire separate room.

I didn't eat there, however. I was thoroughly annoyed by the end of the interview: my interviewee was 20 minutes late (even though I came to the hotel because she was already there, in another meeting), she texted throughout and getting usable quotes from her was like extracting teeth. I don't understand why. It's not like she was a politician admitting to adultery, she was a designer getting some free publicity for her work. (This was the second time in less than a month that this has happened; what is up with these people? Do they have any awareness whatsoever that being pleasant and respectful towards a journalist might help push more product?)

As we walked out - she yapping on her phone and ignoring me - I ducked into the Louis Vuitton outlet in the lobby so she wouldn't see me walking down the long driveway to the main road to flag a rickshaw.

And immediately my black mood dissipated: a waiter in white gloves handed me a glass of champagne as soon as I entered, and there was some kind of lolly bar set up on the counter, with chocolate-dipped strawberries and those expensive natural jellies you get at places like Fortnums. I didn't even pretend to have to show interest in the (admittedly, ugly brown) handbags as there were other customers in the shop, just amble around sipping my toasty bubbles, eating lollies and looking at the shoes, in a tuberose-scented wonderland. Bliss.

I'll still never be convinced to buy one of those bags, though. Maybe a keyring, though, to show my appreciation for predicting my dire need for a drink.

Cards and chopsticks

2010-02-26T23:28:00.000+05:30

I've always been partial to getting my tarot cards read. Some people swear by hypnosis, others by pranic chanting,others by runes, but it's tarot for me. I mean, picking cards at random out of a pack and having a stranger deduce your personality and the events of your future by them - what could be more scientifically accurate than that?

Recently I was at a fusion Chinese restaurant at Siri Fort called Chopsticks for dinner. At one end of the restaurant sat a portly middle aged woman, on her own at a table covered in a long red velvet cloth. Occasionally people would wander over to her, sit down, chat for a bit, then hand her some money and return to their tables. I couldn't get my eyes off her. Was she dealing drugs? Was she some kind of footsie prostitute? So I went over to investigate.

She turned out to be a tarot reader. Shovelling mouthfuls of chicken manchurian and noodles into her mouth with one hand, she handed me a note with the other. "You must agree to these before I read your cards."

The note set out the terms for her reading.

* 100 rupees per question

* Special: 6 questions for 500 rs

* Questions must be so they can be answered with a yes or no.

* No long answers will be given.

* No responsibility will be taken if life events don't match reading.

This was the first time I'd ever encountered a closed-answer question only rule at a tarot reader. I sat down. "Two questions please."

She stopped shovelling the food down her mouth for long enough to spread the cards out for me. Tapping the pack with her talons she said, "pick five."

I picked out five.

"Think of your questions," she ordered.

"What will happen for me career-wise?"

She shook her head. "Not specific enough. The cards will not answer that. You must make it tighter. And set out a time frame."

"Umm... how will my career pan out over the next five years?"

She shook her head again, increasingly impatient. "Too long. Make it one year. And you must be more specific."

"Okay. Will my career pan out the way I want over the next year?"

She paused, running her fingers over the cards (no doubt leaving traces of Manchurian sauce on the Queen of Wands.) Then, sighing theatrically, she pronounced, "Yes."

Was that all? I said, I'm sorry but that's not enough. You have to give me more. You can't just say yes.

She said, eyes narrowed, you knew the rules, pointing at the rule card.

I argued a bit more, and she relented and said, "Okay, I will tell you that the cards tell me that your career wishes will be more than well and truly fulfilled over the next year. Next question."

"Will I get value for money from my time here today?"

She shot me a death glare, then turned back to her chicken noodles and resumed the shovelling. My time was up.