Matheran Hill Station

On my last weekend in Bombay, I went with my friend Swarup to the Matheran hill station, some 100 km from the city. Seeing that it was a Sunday, and overlooking the fact that it was the May Day long weekend, we foolishly decided that the Suburban Lines commuter train from the 7th Circle of Hell, would be our chosen means of transport. As it would happen, although we got confused and lost some time in transfers, we made it there unscathed in just a few hours.

I was already getting down on Bombay. Don't get me wrong. It is a fantastic city. But it is always mobbed and getting anywhere is an inevitable ordeal. What’s more, all the fun and temptations have their price. In fact, I reckon that Bombay is not too much cheaper than Tel Aviv.

So how welcome a trip to a cool hill station sounded. Indeed, it turned out to be splendid. Set in the hills, full of verdant vegetation, not too many people, nature all around, it was literally a breath of badly needed fresh air. Above all, there was a well-worn footpath through the tropical forest that brought me back to Grandpa’s cottage on Lake Sunapee. The walk was a classic holy moment.

We had walked quite a few kilometers and were getting tired. We decided to hire horses to take us back the remaining four or five clicks. Upon finally reaching the hill station’s entrance, we were offered a taxi all the way back to Bombay for Rs 1300. Although the trip up had gone more or less smoothly, we should have quit while we were ahead and coughed up the dough. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in India, and especially in Bombay, it’s that transport is not the thing to be thrifty with. Every rupee saved is a tear shed. But we made our way back to the Suburban Lines, as we had bought return tickets.

It was about 4:30 PM, and I sat down on a bench in the train station, listening to music and wading through the hefty tome on Mao. Filthy from the trek and the profuse sweating it engendered, it was an hour or so before the right train came. I wasn’t minding the stifling, breezeless late afternoon heat so much, since I mistakenly thought I would be enjoying a cool shower, spicy veg thali and the air conditioned comfort of my tiny room, all within about two hours.

Alas, once in the train, sitting at least, some six or seven kilometers into the trip, the we stopped. Mao still had me engrossed up to this point. But the densely packed passenger car, with no movement and nary a whiff of incoming fresh air, after some time, began to produce a multitude of inconsolable infants, accompanied by much sweating and a splitting headache on my part. We sat patiently for what seemed like hours. At long last, Swarup suggested that we get out and find a taxi.

There were none.

We were totally out in the sticks, nearly 90 km from the city, and the few remaining rickshaw drivers wouldn’t go anywhere for reasonable sums. We walked all the way to the nearest station in our weakened state, where we found a rickshaw driver to take us to the next major station, whence we could find a taxi. At this point however, I was ready to fork over the price of a first class air ticket with perhaps just a sigh and a pang of minor loss.

In the event, we got stuck in traffic. When we did move, the heavy bumping combined with my fearless horseback adventure synergistically conspired to produce aching welts on my buttocks, and for all the wrong reasons. It literally took hours of fits and starts, as well as the non-stop breathing in of thick, black diesel fumes belched out by the trucks and buses that were inevitably ahead of us.

By the time we reached the station, I was a filthy and exhausted wreck. The Rs 600 taxi ride took 90 minutes and went unhindered, seeing that it was already 11:30 PM by the time we departed on the final leg of the journey.

Everything was closed in Colaba, save the Barista, where I had an expensive and particularly disappointing snack. Then, nearly falling over myself, I had a no-matter-what scrubbing shower to get off the worst of the grime.

In seclusion of my room, I fell into a long, deep sleep, in fetal position. I didn’t emerge till the next evening.

Legally Eating and Reading

I got my passport and visa reissued and once again I’m legally in India for a year. Treated myself to a bhang lassi, had a shave and a head massage and played all the happiest music I had on the MP3 player. And I realized just what it is like not to have a care in the world.

Eating out in Bombay is almost invariably a pleasant experience. It certainly helps that I really enjoy Indian food. The down-home places are often hidden treasures. Even in the high-end establishments, prices are still quite reasonable and the food can be simply exquisite.

A common activity is to take my books and sit in a café letting a good part of the day pass, immersing myself in the contents of my Bag of Culture. I started a rather harrowing biography of Mao Tse-tung by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday – a most unflattering portrait.

In one recent restaurant experience, I was intrigued to find stuffed chili peppers on the menu. The waiter assured me that it wasn’t killer spicy. Curiosity got the best of me. Fiery it was, but once I was over the initial shock and the endorphins began coursing through my brain, it turned out to be quite delicious.

It didn’t fill me though, so I ordered another portion of shrimps in spicy tomato sauce. Obviously I couldn’t finish it, but for $5, what the heck. A wee bit of neo-colonial gluttony should be permissible sometimes. Perhaps I’ll go down in the history books as the only Western tourist in India ever to gain weight on the journey.

A subsequent visit to the same establishment landed me a plate of grilled tiger prawns, with which I sipped an excellent French chardonnay. The only downside was that I was accosted by a hoard of beggars on my way out. Such experiences only serve as a reminder that if 80% of the world’s population is poor, I must make it my business to be in the other 20%.

Elephanta Island

A week had passed since I had applied for a new passport, so I went to the US Consulate to pick it up. Unfortunately, it wasn’t ready. I had also been thinking about moving to a better hotel, but Bentley’s didn’t have any rooms available. Although I bumped into Gabriela on the street, which did cause me to smile, the heat and the crowded city streets, together with the aforementioned bureaucratic setbacks, had conspired to put me in a foul mood. So I went down to the Gateway of India and got on one of the ferry boats, thinking I would snap some pictures of the harbor.

There were mostly Indian tourists on the boat. One couple was obviously on their honeymoon. I asked them as much in Hindi. They were. This prompted a flurry of questions from other passengers, which I answered briefly, and resumed my MP3 listening, on general shuffle of the entire collection. Earphones are a great do-no-disturb sign.

The water, the motion and the cool breeze in due course improved my mood immeasurably. After about an hour, we arrived at Elephanta Island. I immediately bought a hat for to shade against the blazing sun on my bare head, and laughed at myself in this ridiculous tourist regalia.

After shaking off the usual tourist hustlers, I hit one of the first restaurants, where I proceeded to wolf down a thali, which for the most part was pretty standard (rice, two chapattis, a single papad, dal, chick peas) but also featured a delicious chutney and a fiery-hot potato curry. Sated, I walked up the stone stairs before me. The area was lined with relatively quiet hawkers, pushing the usual trinkets. In the heat, so far, I figured that Elephanta Island was just the stairs, which at this point seemed interminable. But when I got to the top, there were cute little monkeys, a few of which I took the time to photograph, and more interestingly, temples with Shiva-related deities hewn into caves. I immediately thought of Petra, in Jordan.

Wikipedia offers the following synopsis:

Elephanta Island (also called Gharapuri Island or place of caves) is one of a number of islands in Mumbai Harbour, east of Mumbai, India. This island is a popular tourist destination for a day trip because of the island's cave temples, the Elephanta Caves, that have been carved out of rock.

Known in ancient times as Gharapuri, the present name Elephanta, was given by 17th century Portuguese explorers, after seeing a monolithic sculpture of an elephant head found here near the entrance. This culpture has since been moved to the Victoria and Albert Museum
(aka Dr Bhau Daji lad Museum) in Mumbai.

The island has an area of 16 km² (6 sq miles). It is located at approximately 18.95° N 72.93° E. The area comes under the jurisdiction of the Raigad district in Maharashtra State.

The island is thickly wooded with palm, mango and tamarind trees. The island has a population of about 1,200 involved in growing rice, fishing, and repairing boats. It was once the capital of a powerful local kingdom.

On the boat ride over, I had wasted some of my thinking time pointlessly worrying about the future. How foolish of me. Life is today. When an answer isn’t apparent, the advice I always give to others, and would do well to heed myself, is to just be patient. The answer comes on its own at the right time.

On the way back down the stone stairs, I noticed a T shirt at one of the hawker stalls: There is Life Beyond the Dot Com. How eminently fitting.

The Bag of Culture

Somewhat settled, I could now turn my attention to more practical issues. For starters, I had almost nothing to wear. What’s more, I wanted to replace that gym bag with my Bag of Culture, carrying my books, music and scribbling pads.

I bought a gorgeous knee-length light cotton blue kurta with beige pants to go with. I also got baggy burgundy pants with a striped orange shirt. Certainly the piece de resistance was the burgundy, orange and green striped cloth bag with inside pockets to carry around all my stuff: the Bag of Culture. I was set to go with the Backpacker Uniform.

I had previously organized all my music files onto a new MP3 player purchased for the occasion of this trip. Traveling without music is awful. Does anyone remember lugging cassette tapes and walkmans? CDs were only slightly friendlier. Of course I always insisted on taking them in their original cases, which inevitably were crushed. Before packing all my things, I was faced with the better parts of my CD collection being housed in crushed cases, as well as a veritable thigh-high pile of empty CD cases, many in pristine condition, minus their media. They all ended up in the trash before I left.

I got some 500 or so songs on this tiny MP3 contraption. Ever the technical writer, I organized all the files into an intuitive folder structure, but as it turns out, the player ignored it and relied instead on file metadata to categorize the tracks. In plain language, that means that for all intents and purposes, it randomly shuffled all those songs into no meaningful order. At first, this was actually quite neat. It was like listening to the radio where every song was a favorite. But very soon I wanted to play full albums that I had previously enjoyed listening to in the car, the former abode of most of my musical over the last several years. Genres would also be nice, like Trance, Techno, Bollywood Soundtracks, Latin, Arabic pop, and my other pedestrian tastes.

Predictably, Josh-bhai had come to the rescue once again, teaching me how to add metadata to the files through Windows. The player didn’t always pick it up the first time for some reason, but eventually I got it down and even processed files in batches so that now, I can get to the genre, artist, album and even song that I desire within a few seconds. It’s a new paradigm for music enjoyment. And this is only with a tiny 4 GB player. Imagine an iPod where you can put 30,000 tracks. A whole new world! Isn’t technology wonderful?

******

I have also been to a number of art galleries: the National Gallery of Modern Art, Jehangir Art Gallery, and yesterday, near the Israeli consulate, a showing of note in the National Center for Performing Arts. The exhibit was called Mosaic is not Prosaic and I had the pleasure of meeting Deepti, the young woman showing it. Two artists caught my attention in particular.

The first was George.K, who had commissioned a series of fiberglass statues of Aravanis, or hijras (transgender males). They were realistic, striking, beautiful, and presented in a very human way. And I quote:

The Aravanis trace their lineage to the Mahabharata. According to the legend, Lord Krishna took a female form to marry Prince Aravan for a single night before Aravan was sacrificed. Every year this event is celebrated as the Koovagam festival, on a full moon night of the Chait month. Thousands of Aravanis dress as brides and marry the deity, Lord Aravan, and consummate the marriage through sex work. The next day they enact the process of widowhood, don white saris and return to their villages, only to shed wearing white after a month of
mourning.

The other was Avishek Sen, who had five markedly sexual nonfigurative paintings. I found them to be an abstract expression of objects of desire; fantasies given form. Many of the themes were drawn from Hindu tradition, such as Lord Krishna dancing on a phallus in the form of a snake, emanating from a male figure with a well developed physique. Krishna had killed a snake demon named Kalia, after which he danced on his head. Perhaps this was an attempt to devulgarize sexual themes. And these themes abounded: snapping vaginas, a multitude of direct phallic symbols and imagery, handsome young men appearing as the apple in languid eyes, partially open mouths. The conclusions were not difficult to draw.

A propos the Israeli consulate, I went there yesterday to cancel my lost passport, of blessed memory. While getting in was rather more vigorous than in the American counterpart, once inside, I was well received by Orna, who helped me fill out the forms to move things along.

Upon finishing, a very distressed youth came in. I recognized him from Colaba. Up until that moment, I hadn’t met any Israelis, and really wanted to speak Hebrew. His name was Itai, from Arad. He had also lost his passport and had gotten it into his head that he had to go home right away.

Instinctively, I went into parental mode and did my best to calm him down. While I had other commitments for the day (more galleries) I got the address of his guest house and made him promise to meet me at Leopold Café at 8PM.

I made it back to Colaba before then and went to look for him. He apparently had looked for me earlier as well. Orna had straightened everything out for him and he even had got permission from Immigration to depart the next day.

He was staying at the guest house where I had met Israelis from the previous movie shoot I had been on five years ago. Up until now, I hadn’t made any progress in finding film work, and not for lack of trying. I inquired with the receptionist for contacts. He produced three. Itai and I had a great conversation, telling each other the whys and wherefores of our trips to India. We went out for a walk and to eat something. And boom! Casting director in front of Leopold Café, finally! I stepped up to the plate. I used my entire Hindi vocabulary on him. I told him I could act and dance and spew back any Hindi lines given. I rattled off all the actors, songs and films I loved. He was suitably impressed. I am not going to be just another extra. I’m going to get speaking parts!

I thanked Itai profusely for the good luck he had brought. I wished him a safe trip home.

If I could characterize my life as a movie any more poignantly than this, I would have broken into song at this point. Tonight there is an all-night shoot. I think I’m going to be a soldier. The real journey begins now. Stay tuned.

God Bless America

After three Attunity farewell parties and a succession of constant and often painful goodbyes, including an all-night open house that rather negated the benefits of a morning flight, Josh-bhai my dearest took me to the airport and wished me good luck and Godspeed. I thought it was a particularly good omen that the exchange desk had rupees so I could avoid the line up in Bombay.

The plane was packed with smiling youngsters off on their gap year. Some were obviously India veterans and I spotted at least two that were bringing parents to share the experience. The El Al flight attendants were especially cheerful and all in all, it was a most pleasant event.

Arrival went smoothly as well, and in no time I was in a (natural gas-powered!) air conditioned taxi that, this being India, stopped for refueling and repairs along the way. I had worn a beige fabric jacket with nice inside pockets, where I had placed my US and Israeli passports. In any case, I had secured a most coveted one-year visa in the US passport. Of course there was my well-worn great big traveler’s backpack, with the shoulder straps conveniently enclosed behind canvas and zipper. Then there was my gym bag, which I took as my carry on luggage; my first mission would be to ditch it and replace it with my Bag of Culture.

We arrived in Colaba, in swanky, touristy south Bombay. I got out of the cab and slung the jacket over the gym bag. I walked about 20 meters and realized that I should release the shoulder straps from the backpack. I put everything down. By the time my backpack was actually on my back, the jacket, with both passports was gone. Without a trace. I walked in a few circles, like a poisoned rat.

I should have felt panic. The loss of the US passport would present administrative problems, since my visa was in it, and more ominously, I had not brought any documentation definitively proving my status as an American citizen. And silly me, rather uncharacteristically, I hadn’t photocopied it, or even written down the number.

The loss of the Israeli passport in fact was the more tragic occurrence. All my life I had dreamed of having a passport with stamps on almost every page as a miniature monument to my perambulations around the globe. In that little booklet were testaments to my voyages to India, Thailand, Mexico, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Italy, Jordan and something along the order of twelve trips to Sinai. I wanted it as a keepsake. And in a moment it was gone.

Yet, in a way, it was something of a liberating experience. A clean slate. A new beginning, rather fitting for my departure from Israel.

A police car pulled up. I explained to the constables what had just happened. They took me to the station. I was treated with utmost respect as they filed the complaint and issued me with a certificate to take to my consulates.

Exhausted after two consecutive sleepless nights and the foregoing ordeal, I just found any old guest house, where I continue to lodge. The room is tiny. The bathrooms are common. But it is clean, inexpensive, in an excellent location and the staff is most helpful. So I think I’ll hang around for a while longer.

The next morning, I had a mission: the US Consulate. I made it there around 10:30. The visa line up was daunting. But I knew there was a special door for me. I found it and made my way to the consular section. I was promptly attended to by Christy.

On the strength of my Israeli driver’s license, this heroic woman invalidated the old passport and accepted my application for a new one on the spot. She brought the photographer into the room to take the requisite pictures. She was understanding and cheerful. She also provided all the information I need to sort out my visa situation at Immigration.

I hereby announce that Christy is the 2007 recipient of Skye Frontier’s Excellence in Service Award. I would also like to recommend her for the best possible promotion I can imagine: current US policy notwithstanding, as soon as I assume my role as El Presidente, Christy should be appointed forthwith as Ambassador to Cuba.

God Bless America. Long Live the Empire.