indiancompass.com: Directing Indians around Europe like no guidebook can

It has been silence on my blog for so long. 

But my life has been noisy, chaotic, busy, exciting and full of challenge. I am no longer jobless, footloose and fancyfree in London. 

No, no. Nobody offered me a job. But I have created one for myself. I am now - Gentlemen and Ladies - the founder and editor of a travel website: indiancompass.com. It’s purpose: To Direct Indians Around Europe Like No Guidebook Can. 

I can say without any doubts that my site - which I started along with a friend and Erasmus-Mundus alumni, Sakshi Ojha ten days ago - is the first site connecting Europe as a holiday destination to Indian tourists in a dedicated way. 

You will roar, Come On! What about Lonely Planet? What about Time Out? What about Conde Nast Traveller? 

And my answer is, what about them? They are not written for Indians. Most guidebooks are written with Australian and American backpackers in mind. Will you ever find a reference to Bollywood, Indian history, vegetarianism, travelling with one’s old parents and most importantly, VISAS in these guidebooks. Nope. Because they don’t “do” Indians in these guidebooks. 

Which leaves us with the LP and CN Traveller magazines. These magazines will help you find destinations to travel to - exotic, far-off, mysterious, seductive, expensive destinations. But they won’t tell you how to deal with the realities of travel: how to get to these destinations, how to book for accommodation smartly, which visas to apply for, how to get the best of Rs--Euro exchange rate, how to get your public transport from the airport to the hotel, where to take taxis and where not, how to make the best of just a day in a new city, how to survive as a vegetarian in meat-dominated countries, and many such details that confuse, harass and worry us through our travels. 

And my experience is that lesser these niggles, the more travel becomes a pleasure. 

So I, along with five experienced Indians who have travelled around Europe, will do the honour.

My venture arises out of my frustration. While publishing in India is growing exponentially, most of it is aspirational, and little of it is arising from within. Yes, it is good to give people aspirations. But you should also give them the necessary tools to achieve those aspirations. My website is that practical, down-to-earth, riddled-in-reality tool. And I am damn proud of it. 

My project has arms, legs and brains. Will it have luck? That will depend on you. 

Visit my site, Indian Compass. Use it, read it, comment on it, criticise it - if you must - and help me make it something useful. 

And if you like it, go to its Facebook Page called Indian Compass, and like it there. 

Site: indiancompass.com

Twitter account: indiancompass

Facebook page: Indian Compass

email address: info@indiancompass.com

A discourse on prejudice: Or why I love coming to Paris.

What I love most about being in Paris is that I can’t understand a word of what anyone is saying. So everyone sounds intelligent and educated to me. Besides, how stupid can they be – they SPEAK French!

In England, I can eavesdrop and am constantly reminded of the general pettiness of human race. Because really, all that people ever do is complain and bitch. Like the two ladies who sat next to Sid & I in the Eurostar to Paris. Three hours! For three hours, all they did was bitch about people, including ironically the girl for whose hen’s party they were visiting Paris.

Worse, in England I can detect accents. And it gives me a sense of people’s background and education – if not of their intelligence. I try, I really try not to judge them on the basis of it. But despite my best efforts, if someone sounds like Katie Price aka Jordan, it is likely to be a short acquaintance. Because I have only limited social time and I would rather spend it with people with whom my wavelengths have at least half-a-chance to match.

In India, the instant judgements go much further because I know the society so much better. Accents aren’t the only giveaway to people’s histories there. In India, I can guess a person’s caste, community and culture by his or her very name. Add an address and occupation to that, and a person’s whole life is reasonably mapped out before me without any effort on my part.

Of course, every now and then I am proved wrong. But it is not pleasing to start an acquaintance under the burden of prejudice.

As a student of media, I know that stereotyping people is wrong. We should not slot people on the basis of their colour, ethnicity, culture, community, caste, accent or education. Because over and above all they are individuals, and their shared cultural experiences will always be modified by their own unique personalities. But how do I train my brain to filter out people’s colour, names, accents and addresses and begin every acquaintance with a clean slate. It just refuses to listen to me.

So instead, I live with guilt: the guilt of a good, Labour-supporting liberal.

And occasionally, I escape to Paris where I can always assume the best of everyone.



***
The Scottish comedia Danny Bhoy on French accents

Wright or Wrong: Or how not to get "Robie-ed" in life

Robie House: modernism or a Vaastu disaster?

I couldn’t have left Chicago without visiting at least one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s buildings -- now could I? So I zeroed in on Robie House: a residential house he built in 1910 in Hyde Park (the neighbourhood that would later house the Obamas). Not only was it considered to be Wright's first house that truly embodied modernism, it is now a museum with guided tours of the property.

It turned out to be beautiful, peaceful, three-storey brick house with an innovative spatial lay-out, gorgeous design details and lots of delightful little aids to the modern life, such as an ice-box, planters with automated water pipes and vacuum cleaners, with reflected the forward-looking sensibilities of the young, fashionable Robie family.

I kept thinking how lovely it must have been to live in the house until our guide started disclosing the sordid fates of all its eventual residents. The house was custom-built for 28-year-old Fredrick C Robie, his socialite wife and two kids, keeping in mind their modern lifestyle, ideals and aesthetic sensibilities. But poor Fredrick Robie, who spent nearly $60,000 on the house (20 times what he had budgeted for it), went bankrupt within a year of moving into the house. He sold the house to repay his debts, but never recovered his fortunes. Soon after, his wife walked out on him with their two kids. The new owners of the house, The Taylors, didn’t have a happy run in the house either. David Taylor died less than a year after moving into it, and the house had to be sold again. The third and last family to live in the house were the Wilburs, who lived there for 13 years. History doesn’t record their fate, but they sold the house to the Chicago Theological Seminary, who bought it with the general idea of demolishing it and rebuilding larger premises on the plot. They attempted to do so thrice, and only gifts of all the adjoining plots to the Seminary by Wright fans to the premises instead finally stopped them. The house was then bought by a real estate firm which handed it over to the University of Chicago in 1963. It ran a rather dull administrative office there till 1997, after which it was converted into a museum. So it was a family home than never quite managed to become one.

How could this amazingly harmonious-looking house bring so much disharmony in the lives of all those who lived in it?

Sid and I could think of only one cheeky explanation: messed-up Vaastu (or the Feng Shui of India). I searched the Internet to find if any of the enthusiastic proponents of Vaastu Shastra might have done a post mortem of this famously controversial house pointing out all the design-disasters led to such headaches in the lives of its residents. Surprisingly, I didn’t find any.

So here’s an idea for a reality show for silly Indian television: Vaastu vs Wright, or should we say, how not be “Robied” of love and luck in life?

Me & the Bean Talk

There are few things that immediately turn me into a child. Sculptures by Anish Kapoor – especially the large, tactile, abstract ones – invariably do.

Which is why I landed up visiting the Millenium Park thrice during my two-week stay in Chicago. Just so that I could stare, touch and fool around with The Bean (or Cloud Gate, as is its official name that nobody uses) – the giant, bean-shaped, silvery sculpture by Anish Kapoor that sits in the park reflecting the amazing towered skyline of downtown Chicago.

After attending a retrospective of his works at the Royal Academy of Arts, I had written in a blogpost: “The material and colours somehow invited you to touch them, stare into their curving holes, pose in front of its shiny surfaces, hop over them, slide under them – and just fool around with them. The museum staff was having a tough time stopping people from doing just that, even though, I wonder if Kapoor would really mind. The works looked too solid to be easily harmed by anyone.”

Well, there was no museum staff to police people here, and boy, were they fooling around with the sculpture? You could see people being attracted to its shiny, curved reflective surface almost against their will. They would stare at it, crawl under it, run their palms on its smooth surface, and then slowly the camera would come out and they would go nuts shooting their own distorted reflections, or in my case, taking post-modern pictures of me taking pictures of Sid, which he has expressly forbidden me from publishing on this blog.

The work did exactly what good public art should do – get people curious, interested, fascinated and, at the end, exhilarated.

According to Wikipedia, the people of Chicago started referring to the sculpture as The Bean even before it was fully unveiled, thanks to its inverted bean shape. Kapoor thought the name "completely stupid", and went on to name it Cloud Gate. Of course, I didn't come across one person in the city who called it that. But then again, looking at his amazingly tactile works, one would imagine that Kapoor made them specifically for people to physically interact with. Yet, as Girish said in a comment to my previous blogpost, he absolutely hates the public touching his works. The fact that the people anyway call his work The Bean and continue to touch it in fascination goes to show how the city has appropriated his sculpture. It is a measure of how this public work of art has truly gone public. Would Kapoor have wanted it any other way?

Kallat in Chicago: Or you just can't escape India anywhere

Step-by-step Kallat conquers the world

I went all the way to Chicago, and guess what – the first article to catch my eye, when I opened the Time Out Chicago website, was one recommending a view of a public installation work by Jitish Kallat entitled Public Notice 3 at the Art Institute of Chicago or ARTIC. (ARTIC, by the way, houses such greats as Nighthawks by Edward Hopper and American Gothic by Grant Wood.) Never one to let a story go to waste, I quickly charged my dictaphone and set out to view the work and interview the curator. The article appeared in this week’s TOI Crest, and you can read an online version of it here.

What is interesting, and which I didn’t get a chance to discuss in the article – word counts are such a bummer! – is how the work actually got made.

So for those not keen on reading the Crest piece, this much should suffice to understand the work: “The installation links two important events in American history. The first is the landmark speech delivered by Swami Vivekananda calling for an end to “bigotry and fanatism” at the opening of the first World’s Parliament of Religions, on September 11, 1893, held at the site of the Chicago museum. The second is, of course, the terrorist attacks on the same day, 108 years later. Kallat has recreated the entire text of Swami Vivekananda’s speech on the risers of the main staircase of the museum using LED lights in the five colors of the US Department of Homeland Security alert system—red, orange, yellow, blue and green.”

However, I imagined Kallat playing a critical role in the creation of the installation. When we hear that the installation is by So-&-So, we still conjure-up visions of the artist painstakingly hammering away at his sculpture / installation. Actually, Kallat’s main role regarding this work pertained to conceptualisation. The museum curator, Madhuvanti Ghose, then found a company that specialises in making art installations, gave them the specifications, and worked with them to bring the installation to life. Kallat was consulted over phones and emails. Throughout the course of the installation’s creation – which was roughly a year – Kallat only made an appearance in Chicago once. That was in August this year, a month before the show’s opening, when the installation was ready for a mock-up.

I wonder if any credit needs to be given to the company that actually produced the installation as per the specifications received. None of the literature accompanying the work mentions them. Ms Ghose in the interview said that it is well-known within the artistic community of Chicago, so I am guessing, they don’t as such need the marketing mention. But do we as the viewers need to know who actually made this work, apart from who conceptualised it?

I am not asserting that the installation not being hand-made by Kallat in any way diminishes it. It does not: the work fully and completely remains his. But does the museum or the artist owe it to their viewers to make the process of the making of the artwork transparent to the viewer?

What was also interesting was that the installation – that is so custom-made for this particular site – can in fact be loaned to other museums. Only, it would have to be built from scratch for the borrowing museum. Ms Ghose said that the site of its display will have be relevant, since much of the artwork’s meaning is derived from the site of its installation: the staircase opposite the Fullerton Hall at ARTIC, the exact spot where Swami Vivekananda made his speech on September 11, 1893. However, I wonder, if the artwork is so site-specific, how can it ever be recreated elsewhere without either losing its meaning or donning a new meaning. Would it not then be a whole new work?

After all, if it weren’t for its site-specificity, wouldn’t the art-work simply be Detergent: a very similar text-and-light installation – with the same speech and colours – on the staircase of the Guangdong Museum of Art in China, that Kallat made last year?

***
I have created a soundslide – my first – of Kallat’s installation. All images except the first one are courtesy the Art Institute of Chicago. (PS: The triumphant Star & Stripes music is meant to be tongue-in-cheek, and yes, I know there are typos in the video text. I didn't realise that I wouldn't be allowed to edit once the video was made. Sorry about that.)

Kallat goes to America on PhotoPeach

Snake Stories: Or which airline does the world's most wanted animal smuggler use?

Boa constrictor in news

I came across this news piece today about a man being sentenced in Malaysia for trying to smuggle  95 boa constrictors from the country to Indonesia.

In itself, the news doesn’t surprise me. If there is a market of exotic, endangered animals, unscrupulous groups will come in with a supply. But I always imagined that it would require some ingenious planning to smuggle those animals – I imagined dark, foggy nights, boats on choppy waters, mysterious lights flashing on, off, on, off, followed by perilous journeys through mountains and jungles with the police on their tail.

This man, who apparently is the one of the world’s most wanted animal smugglers, was taking his 95 boa constrictors from Malaysia to Indonesia in a suitcase on an airplane. But that is not the best part. The best part is that the snakes were not found via X-rays or whatever other sophisticated radiology system the airline presumably used. No, the bag – bursting with 95 snakes and some turtles – simply broke open on the conveyor belt, spilling the loot for all to see. I guess, they had no choice but to arrest him.

If the world’s most wanted animal smuggler was exporting animals by checking them into airplanes, then it must be fairly standard practice. I mean he didn’t even worry with a sturdy suitcase – that is how nonchalant he was.

How is it that airports can catch that one shampoo bottle or one nose-hair scissors that you mistakenly left into your hand luggage, or the coins or the underwire in your bra on yourself, but not boa constrictors, turtles and baby tigers? How is it that any petty traffic law you might have broken turns up in your record, when you go about asking for visas, but others travel around the world with boa constrictors in their bags despite being world's most wanted animal smugglers?

I trolled through many, many news reports - from Malaysia Star to AFP, Time and the Sun - but as usual all of them forgot to find out the most useful bits of information for the readers.


a)    With his criminal record, how did the world's most wanted animal smuggler manage his visa and passport situation?
b)    Which airline was he flying that would allow him to check in boa constrictors?
c)    Which suitcase brand was he using?
d)    And finally, if snakes are not allowed in planes, how does Dick Cheney travel?


***
Did you hear about the other Thai lady who tried to take a baby tiger in her land luggage? At least she had the decency to hide the drugged baby tiger among other stuffed toys.

Did you know there was a music video about snakes in a plane? The things you tube teaches me every day.

A discourse on first impressions: Or how my grubby one-bedroom apartment redeeemed India

A friendly fruit market in Wroclaw

I wrote to Girish that I had been to Wroclaw (pronounced Rotslav for some reason) in Poland over the weekend and had found the Poles the friendliest and most unassuming people I had ever met. He replied that after his Vietnamese friend got beaten up by some racist thugs in Warsaw, he developed an aversion to the place and people and had never felt like visiting it.

That made me think of the danger of parachute travel, where we swoop down on a place, hang around for a day or two, and leave with very decided opinions about it. Often, we only get a first impression of the place, and good or bad, it forever colours our view of the culture and people in question.

Because I had my only racist experience in Greece, the country will be stamped as racist in my mind. And because the Poles in Wroclaw were friendly, I'll always recommend it to others. However, isn't it possible that the friendliness of the people in Wroclaw had more to do with it being a non-touristy, small town than anything necessarily Polish, and our experience in Rhodes was an isolated, freak incident?

Unfortunately, we never really think about all these possibilities, do we? We visit the country once, and our experiences determines what we will think of it for a long time until perhaps other experiences colour them over.

But that makes me think, that by corollary, isn't it also true that as I visit different countries, I am leaving behind a trail of first impressions of Indians in the minds of the people I interact with, especially in countries that Indians do not frequent?

Maybe that is why the Phillipino landlord of the guesthouse in Amsterdam that we stayed at had insisted on telling me about a horrible Indian woman who had stayed with him once. Apparently, she was American-Indian and had refused to enter the establishment on the grounds that it did not have a reception. Having checked into a "proper" hotel next door, she had then insisted on coming over for breakfast every morning at the guest house and brag about her doctor-daughter who apparently owned a six-door car and lived in a mansion in the US. I wasn't exactly sure why he told us the whole story, but I couldn't help but feel that I was somehow responsible for her behaviour.


I tried explaining that perhaps her rudeness had nothing to do with she being Indian. Maybe, she was just a rude, silly woman, and rude, silly women live everywhere. When that didn't help, I added that Sid & I didn't have a car at all - let along a six door one - and lived in a rather grubby one-bedroom place in London. The last seemed to have redeemed Indians in his eyes, but only just.

The things I do for my country.

***
On competitive Indian mothers:

Policing the poll: Or an update on the great Indian passport debate

Courtsey: The American Culture

Two day ago, I wrote a blog about how Sid says that Indian passports should be divided into two categories: Passport A & B – with one having more rights than others.

I put up his very undemocratic sounding idea up for a democratic vote, and much to my surprise – four people actually voted. The result like most things Indian is complicated. We have a tie with two votes in favour and two against.

Now, one vote I know is from Sid – trying to rig the poll in his favour. But I have no idea who the other three are.

Please stand up and identify yourself. The comment floor is yours to say why you think it is a bad or a good idea. I swear you won't have Sid running after you with a stick!

Malaysian Malaise: Or should we have a passport A and passport B for Indians?

I was in throes of misery last week when I found out that Malaysia had scrapped the Visa-on-Arrival facility that it extended to Indian citizens. Not that I blame them. After all, 40,000 Indians had abused the system and disappeared into the netherland of Malaysia. Naturally, the Malay aren’t feeling terribly welcoming towards us.

But what I want to know is this. How many Indians visited Malaysia in the same period and did not flout the visa regulations? I am sure that the figure was much higher than the much-maligned “40,000” figure. But now, all those people who kept to the right side of the law, including myself, will be penalised.

Is that fair? Will I always have to answer for the actions of my lawless compatriots? Does my good behaviour account for nothing?

Sid says he has the perfect solution to the problem. 

The Indian government should have a two-tiered system of passports. Everyone is granted Passport B to begin with, which is like our passports as the moment – with no visa-on-arrival facilities. But if in the next five-to-ten years, they rake up an extensive travel history without flouting any visa regulations, they should be upgraded to a Passport A, which will be allowed visa-on-arrival facility. 

After all, if someone’s objective is to go AWOL in America, they are not going to wait five years, visit the country several times, get their Passport A and then do it. They will probably do it the moment they are granted their very first visa on their Passport B.

Now Leo-with-an-Afro (see followers) says this will amount to grading of citizenship into Class A & Class B, and as much as he would like it, he cannot support the idea. But Sid says it amounts to rewarding good behaviour because everyone has to start at the same level – and then, whether they move up or not will depend on their own actions.  According to him, the problem in India is not just that bad behaviour goes unpunished, it is also that good behaviour goes unrecognised.

As for me, I am undecided. But I so do want that visa-on-arrival…

***
Have your say:

 Should India adopt the two-tiered passport system

• 
  
  yes, it rewards good behavior
• 
  
  what tosh, it is undemocratic and fuedal

view results
Free vote poll

The blue bits are the travel option available to a non-visa holding Indian. For a closer look, go here. (Remember to remove Malaysia out of the blue bits now.)

Ms Rich visits India: Or why we Indians are not achieving spiritual nirvana

There are principally three things that people in the West associate with India. First, of course, is its poverty. There is no running away from that. Second is Indian cuisine, or curry food as it is popularly called here. For all its accomplishments, it is lamb curry and paneer tikka that our great civilisation will be forever remembered for. The third, peculiarly, is spirituality.

I was reminded of the third today when I came across the book Dreaming in Hindi by Katherine Russell Rich, an American journalist. According to its reviews, the book is about how – overwhelmed by her fight with cancer, loss of job, and having her Manolo Blahniks chewed by her cat – Ms Rich decides to move to India in order to master Hindi. What follows is, quite naturally, her spiritual self-discovery in Udaipur (with some divergences into the science behind learning a whole new language). The book has just arrived in England, even though it was launched in America last year, where it quickly (and dare I say, predictably) made it to Oprah’s list of summer reads. And if Eat, Pray, Love is anything to go by, there will be a film to follow in a couple of years.

Ms Rich is not alone. I’ve met several people over the last couple of years for whom India represents some kind of mysterious spiritual awakening waiting to happen. The notion is further aided and abetted by a whole Eastern spiritual industry comprising massage parlours, yoga classes, meditation centres, healing foods, and of course, books about spiritual journeys to India.

I once asked one such spiritually-minded Canadian, what exactly he meant by wanting to visit India to experience its spirituality, in what way did he think that Indians were more spiritual than the rest of the world. What I gathered from his incoherent mumble was Indians are “non-materialistic unlike the west”.

Now, let me get one thing clear. It is rather difficult to be materialistic when there isn’t much “material” to go around. Just because a lot of poor people make do with whatever they can, doesn’t mean that given the opportunity – that is money and access to shiny goods – they won’t give in to material pleasures. They will, and they are in increasingly larger numbers, if my last trip to Inorbit Shopping Mall in Mumbai was anything to go by. I don’t think my Canadian friend would have found much spirituality-in-action there.

Sometimes I wonder if celebrating India’s supposed spirituality is West’s way of dealing with its poverty. Because they can’t understand how people can continue to live, work and thrive in such deprived conditions, they make themselves believe that Indians must have some kind of super-human spiritual armour to keep them going. Indians don’t have money because they simply don’t care for it – they are too busy enjoying spiritual nirvana.

Now I lived for twenty-three years in India, but let me assure you, I wasn’t enjoying any spiritual nirvana. Nor could a single person out of my extensive network of friends and family be strictly described as spiritual. Yes, they pray to God quite diligently, but mostly it is a tit-for-tat arrangement: I’ll pray, and you nust get me that seat in an engineering college/job/pay packet/car and whatever else is the latest at Inorbit Shopping Mall. That is not spiritual, non-materialistic, meditative or other-worldly in my dictionary of self-attainment.

But still women like Ms Rich arrive in India and promptly achieve enough self-fulfilment to write books on it. Perhaps, we Indians are just not trying hard enough!

***
Here is a trailor to my favourite spiritual journey through India, Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited.

Gay Pride Parade: Or going pink on Princengracht

Amterdam has greeted us with the gay pride parade, which will start today at 2pm on Princengracht (the Prince's canal).

No, we didn't plan this. In fact, thanks to the parade we couldn't find any reasonable accomodation and had to rent a small apartment and pay double the price. Oh well, it is lovely and next to the canal and I shouldn't complain.

Think I will leave you guys with the American-Indian comedian Russell Peter's take on Gay Indians and Gay Pride Parades (I am sure that most of you must have seen it already):

Amsterdam: Or the story of a dominatrix, bakery and a dress shop

Red, red, red in Amsterdam

Sid & I are off to Amsterdam for the weekend.

Amsterdam, oh Amsterdam! I lived there for six months, and I know that I will never live in a city more full of quirks than it. What with its canals, bicycles, tilting houses, motor boat travels, coffeeshops, weed smell everywhere, and a university and red light district standing side-by-side in perfect harmony.

Last year, I had written a blog on an artwork on the red-light district in Amsterdam. Now I am tempted to quote out of it - to explain why to live in Amsterdam means rewiring your brain to a new way of life.

"All tourists to Amsterdam religiously take a tour of its notorious red light district. And are dutifully awed by it. No matter how much you have read about it, how world weary you are, how primed you are for the experience: the reality of Amsterdam's canal-lined sex lanes will leave you overwhelmed. It is the shopping arcade of prostitution. Women of all ages, colours, sizes and catering to all kinds of festishes are casually displayed in windows like candies for your pick. Nothing is left to the imagination including the price of the experience: 50 euros for a mere hump, another 5 for moaning, another 10 for a caress, another 15 for her to kiss back, more for some oral... you get the picture. It is in-your-face, unashamed, unsentimental and utterly commercial. And it will leave you awed.

I was awed.

But what is more amazing - and something you learn only if you live in Amsterdam - is how quickly, how unbelievably fast, you stop noticing the sex romp around you. It hit me two months into the city, as I was pedaling my way to the university early one morning. As I glanced around, I noticed a bored sex worker in dominatrix attire sitting in front of her window, perhaps waiting for a customer to walk in for a early morning quickie. Her window was in the basement of what looked like a respectable residential block, and was sandwiched between a bakery and a dress shop. The bakery had just opened and the smell of warm freshly baked bread was in the air. The dress shop had an hour to go before it opened. There was little excitement or sense of the forbidden anywhere - it was just another banal morning in Amsterdam with a sex worker, a baker and a university student (me) going about their lives in an everyday city street. And to me, it was priceless."

You can read the whole blog here.

France, Switzerland & Italy in a day - Or how I learnt to stop worrying and love the pasta

Trapped in translation?

Whatever else I had imagined myself doing in my life, it wasn’t this: having breakfast in one country, lunch in another, and dinner in third. But that is precisely what Sid and I did this Saturday, thanks to the excellent road connectivity of Europe and the marvellous ease of travel afforded by Schengen.

So we started our day with croissants in a village cafe on the French side of the Franco-Swiss border, then drove along the gorgeous winery-lined Geneva Lake in Switzerland and then through (and often under) the snow-capped Alps into Italy to finish the day with dinner in the lively town square of Turin.

I had already been to France and Switzerland (for my views on Indians in Switzerland read here) – but it was my first time in Italy. And less-than-24 hours in the country was enough for me to realise that every stereotype I had ever heard of Italians – was totally and completely true. Yes, they are indeed loud, friendly and colourful. Yes, they drive like maniacs. Yes, they are easy with their honks. Yes, they have the most divine food. And yes, they are not shy about roadside displays of affection – I mean those Italian men were really going for it with their girlfriends in public.

Considering that all other stereotypes had been confirmed, I was completely ready to encounter the ultimate Italian experience: the tourist trap. And when we sat down for dinner at a little taverna in the Latin Quarter of Turin – and the Italian lady started serving us all sorts of yummy things without us having actually ordered any – I thought this is it. I mean, when she asked in her very limited English “Apertifs?” and we nodded, I thought we would get menu cards. Instead, we got a wine for me, a beer for Sid, a plate of cold-cuts and cheese, and a basket of bread.

It didn’t help when Sid recounted a story he had read of a Japanese couple landing up consuming fish worth €2000 in a restaurant in Rome without quite realising it until the bill arrived – the Italian waiter had been just a little too helpful, you see.

The only saving grace was that the two girls sitting next to us had been offered exactly the same food. Taking courage from that, Sid & I decided to just relax and play along. So we took our time with the wine and cheese, and tarried over the pasta and the icecream-in-chocolate sauce that followed. (No, we hadn’t ordered that either.)

Finally, when the meal was over – and the girls next to us had left – we decided to go up to the till, and check out the damage. I was fully expecting to fall back by a good 40-50 euros.

So we could hardly believe our ears when the lady pointed at the till showing €16. “No, no – we had some wine and beer too” – Sid actually protested. The lady just looked quizzical and said “ci! ci!” 

Part elated and part guilt-ridden at having so awfully presumed on her behalf, we paid our paltry bill and left.
You know those stereotypes about Italians – never believe them…



***
- If you do land-up in Turin and are looking for smashing meal for €16, try Rhumeria Vodkeria on Franco Bonelli Street.
- The comedian Eddie Izzard on Italians

In Colchester - Or my hunt for Blyton's England

Retina fatigue waiting for you in Colchester

Sid & I discovered the ugliest garden of England in Colchester a couple of weekends ago. I mean, sure, purple, yellow, blood red, pink, and white are lovely colours individually. But together in close vicinity – under the sharp summer sun – and in strange geometrical combinations...uhhmm.. not such a great idea.

Of course, that leads us to the question, what were Sid and I doing in Colchester – a little townlet (as I call it) in Essex – anyway?

We were in Colchester to in pursuit of Enid Blyton’s England that had me so obsessed as a child. I read my first Blyton in fourth grade – it was one of the Secret Seven series – and was hooked. I polished off secret sevens, famous fives, five find-outers and whatever else that came with Blyton’s name on top and little English boys, girls and dogs inside: cycling, swimming, camping, caravanning, having adventures and eating exotic things like lemon tarts & macaroons.

Now, you have to be a shy 8-year-old in a godforsaken coal town called Dhanbad in India to understand why their macaroon-fed, adventure-filled, nature-soaked lives would have me so overwhelmed. The only adventure my sisters and I ever got in Dhanbad was taking the school bus (which considering the frightening state of the bus, the road, the traffic and the coal dust-filled air should have been enough).

And thus I arrived in England with visions of cream teas, jam tarts, seacoasts, town-squares, butcher shops, constables on their bicycles and lots and lots of little sun-browned English kids running about busily solving mysteries. Imagine my horror to find it filled with Starbucks, kebab shops, Tescos, Arabs at Harrods, Katie Price, and fat English girls stuffing themselves at McDonalds instead.

But I wasn't to be vanquished that easily. In search of Blyton's England, Sid and I started touring around UK in buses, trains and cars - stopping at quaint-sounding towns and villages.

No, I haven’t found my Julian, Dick, Anne, George, Timmy & Kirrin Island yet, but I am glad for my trips. And yes, Tesco and Katie Price-inspired fashion still rules. But hidden in the din, I also did find myself sipping cream tea on a rainy afternoon in Carlisle; or sharing thoughts with a farmer's wife in her B&B in Haltwhistle in Cumbria; or watching ponies peacefull graze by the side of the roads in gorgeous New Forest; or walking along the wind-swept, bleak coastline of the fishing village of Blakeney chomping on the best crayfish sandwich, I ever had; a or lazing about in a hidden sunny seabeach just outside of Swansea; and of course, the coming face-to-face with the ugliest garden of England in Colchester.

Blyton's England or not, the visits were totally worth it.

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Nostalgia trip

Indians in Switzerland

Sid and I just returned from a trip to Switzerland. We biked and hiked for two days in Interlaken, roamed about in the old town of Bern, and then literally walked into a summer party in Zurich. The city was holding a summer festival - which takes place once in every three years - so Sid and I got a firework show, an airshow and lots and lots of good food in the bargain!

 What took me by surprise was how many Indians we bumped into in Interlaken, and almost half of them were honeymooning couples (the gigantic choudas are such a giveaway). Amongst them, I also came across one of the most disturbing sights ever: a newly-married Delhi couple on their honeymoon with the bride's mum-in-law and bro-in-law in tow.

Most of them looked slightly bewildered and bored - like now that they finally were in the much-hyped Switzerland, they really didn't know what to do with it.

I think it is because we Indians don't grow-up vacationing. And thanks to Bollywood, vacations to beautiful places are more of an exotic idea to us rather than a reality. So when we finally go on one, we don't exactly know what to do. (It happened to me as well on my first few trips - thankfully Sid was more practiced at it than me.)

For example, the main beauty of Interlaken is in the mountains and lakes around - and the possibility of adventure. It offers parasailing, gliding, and lots of mountaineering, hiking and biking options ranging from very easy to quite tough ones. But we were the only Indians cycling or hiking, albeit on the easy ones. The rest just seemed to congregate in the tiny Interlaken town square (which by standards of European town sqaures is rather boring) and spend their time browsing through its seriously touristy shops.

Another strange thing was how no Indian ever acknowledged another. Instead, they pretended they hadn't seen you. This was something that a friend - see Leo Mirani among the followers of this blog - had pointed out over beer one evening. When a Spanish meets another, he'll go hola. An American is always happy to meet another. But Indians act as if the other Indians in their direct line of vision are not there.

So I tried smiling at a few Indians. Just as Leo had predicted, I got some deadly glowers back.

My theory is that when Indians land in Switzerland, they are expecting the exotic. But seeing so many other Indians around somehow reduces the specialness of the experience. And in response, they school themselves to not see other Indians.

Being in Interlaken also made me notice how ungainly most Indian women look, and the kurti on jeans with huge Nike shoes - their regulation vacation attire - doesn't help their case. I still am not sure whether it is their figures or the clothes they don - either way, they don't make a pretty sight. Which is bothersome, because it makes me wonder what I look like.

I do know one thing though, I certainly don't wear kurtis on jeans with big Nike shoes anymore ;-)

Mumbai vs Melbourne

Do the cities we grow up in continue to live inside us, long after we have left them?

Sid and I just returned from a trip to our respective homelands: Mumbai and Melbourne. And if the answer to the above question is yes, our unborn children are in trouble. 

Were there ever two cities more differently conceived? It was schizophrenic travelling from Mumbai’s crowds, claustrophobia, chaos, and perpetual panic to Melbourne’s order, antiseptic emptiness and overwhelming leisure. Perhaps, that is why I am so impatient and rushed all the time, and Sid so calm and zen.

I remember the first time I had visited Melbourne, I had kept complaining to Sid that the silence was buzzing in my ears. Wisely, he hadn't revealed to me then that Richmond, where his house is, is one of the busiest neighourhoods of Melbourne. Coming so soon, it would have certainly marked the end of our fledgling relationship.

Perhaps, London marks a happy medium for both of us. It is nice to be home.

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It is also nice to return to a new job– my first in London – with a documentary filmmaker.Let the adventures begin....

Sexscapes from Amsterdam

It is red red red in Amsterdam

On November 18, the venerable National Gallery will unveil its first contemporary art installation in 185 years of existence. This momentous installation will be "The Hoerengracht" or the Whore's Canal: a life-size recreation of Amsterdam's red light district by American artists Ed and Nancy Kienholz. Ed is dead, but Nancy is still living, making her the first living artist to see her work exhibited at the National Gallery. Having lived six summer months in Amsterdam, I can't wait to view it.

All tourists to Amsterdam religiously take a tour of its notorious red light district. And are dutifully awed by it. No matter how much you have read about it, how world weary you are, how primed you are for the experience: the reality of Amsterdam's canal-lined sex lanes will leave you overwhelmed. It is the shopping arcade of prostitution. Women of all ages, colours, sizes and catering to all kinds of festishes are casually displayed in windows like candies for your pick. Nothing is left to the imagination including the price of the experience: 50 euros for a mere hump, another 5 for moaning, another 10 for a caress, another 15 for her to kiss back, more for some oral... you get the picture. It is in-your-face, unashamed, unsentimental and utterly commercial. And it will leave you awed. I was awed.

But what is more amazing - and something you learn only if you live in Amsterdam - is how quickly, how unbelievably fast, you stop noticing the sex romp around you. It hit me two months into the city, as I was pedaling my way to the university early one morning. As I glanced around, I noticed a bored sex worker in dominatrix attire sitting in front of her window, perhaps waiting for a customer to walk in for a early morning quickie. Her window was in the basement of what looked like a respectable residential block, and was sandwiched between a bakery and a dress shop. The bakery had just opened and the smell of warm freshly baked bread was in the air. The dress shop had an hour to go before it opened. There was little excitement or sense of the forbidden anywhere - it was just another banal morning in Amsterdam with a sex worker, a baker and a university student (me) going about their lives in an everyday city street. And to me, it was priceless.

I wonder, if Kienholzes manage to capture the banality of Amsterdam's sexscapes!

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BBC reports on Hoerengracht.