Monthly Archives: June 2013

The magic of tussar weaving by old hands amidst the lush green paddy fields of Bhandara, near Nagpur, Maharashtra….

Keep Moving to get a clear Swiss Picture – H.A.Anil Kumar

Nobody should stay at Switzerland or Helvetia-land because the place where one resides can never be a worthy tourist spot, for the dweller. The second reason is that, it no doubt looks spectacular to view this country standing at almost any point,   but the best way to view it, believe me, you will be moved by what I suggest—is to watch Switzerland while being mobile, seated in a train, a bus, trekking or even by jogging. Hence nobody should ‘stay’ in Switzerland. The Swiss stand testimony to what I say, they keep moving and working even at a very ripe age. They are taxed up to 7% of their earnings. It seems the cost of the wheel chair that physically challenged is provided with by this welfare society is costlier than a car. It all depends on whether you hear it right, or (from) the left (politically). One of the costliest countries this also called as CH. Many Swiss are not familiar with its expansion as ‘Confederation of Helvetia’. I wonder whether ‘Helvetica’ font is their contribution, like ‘Italics’ might be an Italian contribution, because they have a ‘leaning’ (like italics) tower of Pisa.

The Swiss do not have a language of their own: they speak French-Swiss, German-Swiss, and French-Swiss, Italian-Swiss or a very minor percentage of a vernacular-Swiss. Hence, if you are an only-English speaking guy (or gal), you are happy because you cannot differentiate between them, when they make announcements in the buses and trains. In such cases, even a change in the schedule, promptly announced in one of those languages reaches you only after the action is over. Even the metro-shop-wallas (an wallis) are not apologetical about them being very familiar with English.

They also have a rule which is as strange as their language (or the lack of one): if a majority of Swiss citizens (or a million votes, whichever is higher) vote for or against any issue, any time, the issue is officially endorsed, immediately! Let us say, one such voting would be about cancelling such a voting right of those very people! Even that might get enacted! That will be heights of contradiction; and Swiss governance stand testimony to it. And perhaps they must have all similarly voted for this notion of ‘mobility’ in Swiss. It is a country, perhaps not bigger than Karnataka, which can be covered in a day by train, owing to the perfect-legendary-timing of their public transport system. A train covers two kilometers per minute. Just within a couple of weeks of my stay at Zurich, I was so corrupted by their sense of timings, that I began to grumble about a couple of minutes delay while waiting for connecting trains, despite hailing from a country in which some (or “most places” as cynics say) places trains arriving at 11am today while it would be scheduled to arrive here yesterday at 11am! The Swiss do not pay to travel but to keep up their legendary status of travelling in-time, to-the-minute.

I decided to be hence mobilized throughout my stay at Zurich for six weeks. Equipped with sufficient funds from Pro Helvetia, a cultural funding agency, I bought a Swiss Pass to travel for a month, which was a roughly 36,000 /- Indian rupee. It was an average salary of an Indian lesser known art school lecturer. With this pass, one could freely travel throughout Switzerland, every day, all the days, throughout the day, from wherever to whenever, in trains, buses, ferries for a period of one month, round the clock. The Swiss trains halt in the night, since they can cover the length and breadth of the country in the day time and spill out beyond the nation’s boundary if the journey continues into the night. There are two reasons for this: the country is too small and trains are too fast. However conditions did apply for the Swiss pass—you could not travel in cable-cars at the most scenic places like Jungfrau, Interlaken, Lucerne, for free. The occasional ticket checking and inspection in public transport system was so frequent that I thought it to be almost a regulation. If caught without a ticket they fine you with 100 euros, with a smile. One of my friend-curator, obviously a Swiss, told me that once she knew that she did recognize one of those deceptively dressed inspector, she had a chance to get out since she hadn’t bought a ticket due to hurry, yet did not care; and ended up paying the fine. That’s the least price you pay for the fatigue-of-perfection-syndrome, a typical Swiss characteristic.

The one thing that captures your attention while travelling across from the eastern Basel to western Engadin (‘the most beautiful Swiss canton is Engadin’, claim a few. And most of them happen to be residents of Ingadin!), from northern Bern to southern Geneva—apart from the fact that even if you close your eyes and shoot the camera, you get a reasonably attractive mindboggling picture—is the confusion between farming and gardening. It seems: the farmers farm on the ground level during summer, go higher up during spring to clear up the ice on the road; and graze animals and dairy products in severe cold season during utmost winter. Thus the farmers have three professions and three houses for three different seasons and three different professions; and hence are politically the most powerful Swiss community.

Once when I was in a bus to the university on top of the mountain from wherein one could view the whole of Zurich. I suddenly smelt something very familiar and almost nostalgic. The huge shed did not visually reveal its content. While returning back, I got down at that very point and saw what was inside. The smell directed me towards it and it was bliss: the typical huge Indian farming houses wherein people and animals lived together seemed to be reinstalled herein. The farmhouses with latest gadgets and oldest tamed animals and farming equipments, alongside what seems to be a park and a latest banking company is a treat to watch in CH-land, provided you get a quick comparative view of them, successively. And this is possible only if you are mobile at Switzerland!

I had to shell out about six thousand Indian rupees for the six kilometer return train journey to the Top of Europe at Jungfrau Mountain. They issued a memento-like train ticket which looked like a fake passport, as a mark of celebrating hundredth years of the tunnel-vision journey (built in 1913)! The train travelled through the mountain like an outdoor submarine. While travelling, the train–carrying the name of a famous Hindi filmmaker–and the people were enveloped with ice, rather literally. Few Asian-looking travellers were wearing shorts and later I ‘realized’ that they had ‘realized’ pretty late that it was the most inappropriate dress to wear in the given situation. After half an hour or so, I could not even remove my shivering right-hand off the glove to shoot Sherlock Holmes, sculpted in ice. It seems this fictious character pays a visit to this mountain in one of Doyle’s story.  Obviously many tourists had misread the severity of the Swiss summer’s cold on Top of Europe stop–Holmes’ analytical mindset would have been very apt, to adopt. I literally had a severe bile headache at the top (of Europe) and it went down as soon as I arrived at the ground level!

While being at the top, I was in the midst of an ice-clad mountain, for the first time in lifetime. I mean my lifetime, not the mountains’. Earlier I had seen Annapurna Himalayan range in Nepal, but never been amidst ice. You can never see an ice mountain while being ‘on’ it, the ranges look like squeezed out white butter, because it is you who stepped upon it at the first place. Humans squeeze out the essence of whatever they step upon. In the Bollywood Café at Jungfrau, with plenty of Indian film posters displayed in it, Indian chai cost four euros, hence the price and the tea both tasted hot! Suddenly I felt very homely in this foreign location and the second reason was that the Indian cafe had dirt all over the floor! This perhaps was the actual reason as to why they had ropes all around a certain limited area of ice outside—otherwise the whole Jungfrau would be begetting the feel of dirt—in a typical Indian tourist mode. Most Indian films have song sequences from here, even when they want the depicted location to indicate the Himalayas!

The ice clad mountain is deceptive and refutes a factual perspective. A particular wide ice road between two mountain ranges, visible from the safety of the café over there, was as big as a football stadium, going from here to nowhere. Two visitors had a heated argument about the solitariness that the mountain range would evoke, “will you be able to stay alone in this tiny cafe room, alone, throughout the night?” The demand was for a sincere answer, which was not to come. The least populated place on earth should be ice-clad areas, not just because it is very slippery. Many haunting stories about Swiss mountains have been turned into films as well. It is the sound of the mountain which we the humans are yet to place into an experiential perspective.

The Swiss are clinically clean. The new migrants earn 7 euros per day, with which they can only buy peanuts. This is only till they pass through several grades of social tests. However, the American Indian maid who cleaned the house I stayed in was paid 50 euros for two hours (roughly 3000 INR). But it was only once in a month.

There is a community of Srilankans—both Sinhalese and Tamilians, which migrated in 1990s and were adored as physically hard working people. Their children, the next generation, are neither here nor there. Being one of the costliest cities in the world, Zurich is compared with the cheaper Berlin in the neighboring Germany. Many drive from Basel to Germany, eat, buy and return on a weekend and save a lot. However, the flea market, where anybody can sell anything and everything (except nothing) offers even Indian objects. They were bought in an excitement of visiting the Oriental country and now sold because of it’s over familiarity. A shop that sells old people’s clothes near Wedicon terminal (like elsewhere) is called as the Ghost’s-company: the clothes they sell belong to the dead old people! You buy and wear one of them; you invoke the spirit of its owner! Often many unwanted, but not discarded household objects kept outside the house premises are chosen by the poor. The best part of this operation is that after choosing what they want, the poor repack the left over. In my place, we display what we have left out, making a statement about our taste as well.

Coming back to my concept as to why one should be mobilized to watch Helvetia-land (CH) is: a small plot of one quarter of an acre will be having a few cows grazing; and the next compound will be an I.T company! Next to it will be a lone jogger at almost any day and any time of the day. The landscapes are all tailor-made, as if they are waiting for the film or crew to arrive for a shoot. Nothing accidental, even the dramatic light, pure air, lush green, lakes and rivers seem to be frozen in time. Yet, the pleasure in watching or documenting them would be spoilt if one stays still and shoots them because one would have seen them already in picture-post(ers)-cards and tourist manuals. One should move and move on to get an unusual comparative imageries like a cattle herd, next to a farm house, a cow dung-dumping ground, a factory, a balcony always filled with plant-flower-pots next to an unusually huge size bridge with very few vehicles on it. Switzerland is always a mobile vision of comparative viewpoints that refute any singular view/definition about itself.

The Swiss are extraordinarily conscious about their figure (more than their health, perhaps). Their physical figures are inversely proportionate to their expenses. The Swiss artist Rahel Hegnaeur–a contemporary artist who was in a residency in Bangalore, several times–used to travel throughout the Indian city on a bicycle. And this was a habit that came to her from her home town of Zurich. Be it places like the restored antiquarian village in lower Engadin canton (eastern end of CH) or even that Jungfrau train track—there are special considerations for walkers and joggers. The Engadin antique village, a few centuries old, carries the tradition of scraping the wall surface to create design. I totally emptied my water bottle in order to collect and drink from the five varieties of natural spring over there. The bicycles are parked next to a metallic ring on the wall which was used to tame horses, a couple of centuries ago. The Noir’s Artist Residency was initially a Jewish place of religious solitude. It is a real insult or need sufficient ignorance to purchase water in Ingadin. The myth about the prosperity of Swiss banks is that many Jews deposited their wealth with these banks and never returned back from the concentration camps and gas chambers, to collect them!

Switzerland is proud to be a politically neutral country which seems like a political utopian. The rumor that a million migrants from Germany, who wanted to escape to elsewhere via Swiss-land, perished by the time the Swiss decided for it, is a long forgotten story. Even a small time residency like that in St.Gallen canton receives government funds, which is sufficient to run a reasonably good university in India. The cost of cleanliness and timing keeps the Swiss on their heels, always.

Scores of Swiss artists had come to Bangalore over the years, from last two decades on residency programs. One of my agenda was to meet all of them in their own den. A tired artist had turned into a curator, a performance artist had undertaken artistic research, some had changed their overall personalities and a few went missing. My only question to them was to how they imagined Swiss-ness, like I did comfortably with Indian-ness. Artists like Sadhyo, Pascale Grau, Michel Omlin, Rahel, Wenzel, Christophe Storz, Nesa, Lilian Hesler had explained Swiss with such variedness, that I ended up with eight versions of Swiss nation, because I had spoken to eight of them. They were never Swiss, but either the Bern-ian Swiss, the Baselian-Swiss, Genevan Swiss, Zurich Swiss or the Interlaken ones. The information about Switzerland is so abundantly colorful and colorfully abundant in the techno-suave web media that I had to search for that which the media had missed out. Otherwise it is very easy to visit CH land without moving out of you room, but with a net-connected personal computer, like that ad about A/C hinted a few years ago. Hailing from Bangalore I expected a typical Swiss-cold weather, which was not to be. Zurich was hot, the more serene Aarau and Bern was colder by a fewer degrees, Engadin was the coldest. Artist friend Wenzel A.Haller, runs an artist residency called ‘the Garage’ and consists of a board that consists of its name written in my language (Kannada)!

Hailing from India, it is difficult to digest Switzerland as a nation–it is that small. Historically its neutral stance is much advertised, though such adoration has been contested time and again. Perhaps those who are jealous about this country’s prosperity have done it, among others. The Swiss keep to themselves, but are helpful. They feed you, let you stay with them and make time for you. Yet they don’t demand you to reciprocate. It is a country for lovers of visuals and sound—a farmer’s delight. Yet they have a whole village dedicated as a museum of farming! Rest of the Europeans visit this country for a holiday, while Swiss move into Europe business. At least that is the mythical cliché I would love to believe.

-Rajani Pothineni

Who wouldn’t want to see a tiger at a range of 10 feet away from us?  The majestic  animal is as gracious in its languorous walk as it is in its growl.

Tadoba, spread over 120 sqKms in Maharashtra is also called the “Jewel of VIdharba”. It is also the oldest National Forest of Maharashtra and comes under the Project Tigerumbrella.The Tadoba National Park and Andhari Wildlife Sanctuary together form the Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve. The park gets its name from “Taru” the local deity and the andheri river which meanders itself through the forest which gives it the name.  The forest is rich in flora and fauna and a delight for wildlife photographers and naturalists.

A trip to Tadoba is worth its while in Summer.  The nearest railway station isChandrapur, 25 kmsaway  or Nagpur is the nearest airport, 120 kms from Tadoba.  The Wildlife sanctuary is open from November to June 15th only.  Then it is closed for the rainy season and opened to the public only after the roads are repaired.

It is also the most non-commercial wildlife sanctuaries we have in India. Tadoba is very well known among the jungle safaris lovers, wildlife photographers and nature lovers. Only 28 safari jeeps are allowed through the TadobaAndhari Tiger Reserve gate in one session.  There are two safaris per day.  One in the morning at 6.00am and the afternoon one is at 3.  Both safaris last 3.30hours.  All the safaris are accompanied by trained local guides who have the unique knack of tracing and pointing out the flora and fauna of the forest.

The demand for the safaris is such that during the peak season, the safaris need to be booked 28 days in advance!!.  The waterholes and the serene jungle are a treasure cove for bird watchers and there are said to be upto 108 varieties of birds here.  One can watch the Black drongo, the night jar, kingfisher, owls, jungle fowl.  The other animals we can watch are the spotted deer, neelgai, sambar, Indian bison, lots of monkeys.If one is lucky, they may get to watch the sloth bear, wild dogs,  leopard, and wild boars.

There is also the elephant safari which will give a majestic view of the serene jungle from a height.

However, the most attractive feature of the safari is the sighting of TIGERS – the majestic animal and also the king of the jungle.   Since the density of the tigers is the highest in India here, the probability of watching one is more.  With the temperatures soaring at 44-45degrees in April to nearly 55 degrees in May, the chances of sighting a tiger near the water holes is doubled.

There is not much of a choice in the terms of hotels.  There are 4-5 resorts which also serve the 3 times meals at extra cost.  The resorts are all within the walking distance of the gate.   Happy summer safari and a place worth a visit!

“Nearer the city, to the West of Sabzi Mandi, the suburb of the vegetable market, is Roshanara Begam’s garden. Visiting the garden would make you feel a part of the mughal history..roshanara the second daughter of the Mughal Emperor, Shah Jahan and his Empress consort  Mumtaz Mahal, lies buried in the middle of the garden

The ramshackle tomb, known as Baradari meaning ‘open pavilion’, has a roofless grave surrounded by intricately carved screens made of marble, and a hall, which had apartments with arched openings. The interior of the hall was beautifully decorated with paintings, some of which can be seen even today on the ceilings of the hall.As per history,.Governorship of Gujarat was taken away from Murad,shah jahan’s youngest son, and offered to the eldest and shah jahan’s favourite son Dara Shikoh, due to Murad’s efficiency to control the province. Shah Shuja, the second son and Aurangzeb, the third son had open intentions of seizing the throne for themselves. During this power struggle, Dara Shikoh received the support of his oldest sister ,Jahanara Begum ,while Roshanara Begum sided with Aurangzeb.

Roshanara became a powerful figure when she successfully foiled a plot by her father and Dara Shikoh(her elder brother)to kill Aurangazeb Shah Jahan sent a letter of invitation to Aurangazeb to visit Delhi, in order to peacefully resolve the embittered rivalry amongst the sons for the peacock throne. Shah jahan’s true intentions were to capture, imprison and kill him.When Roshanara got cue of her father’s plan, she sent a messenger to Aurangazeb, outlining Shah Jahan’s true intentions, and warning Aurangazeb to stay away from Delhi.When the war of succession was resolved in favour of Aurangazeb, she quickly became a powerful figure at court.

Roshanara resorted to untraditional and corrupt methods..owing to her greedy nature she accumulated wealth on a large scale, and had also earned hatred of her brother’s wives and people and. Roshanara, who was obliged to remain single, as was the tradition with Mughal princesses, instead took many lovers, some openly, some secretly. Aurangazeb ,being a very strict Muslim, did not approve of  Roshanara’s lifestyle and her greedy nature. He stripped Roshanara of her powers, banished her from his court, and ordered her to remain in seclusion and live a pious life in her garden palace outside of Delhi.As per few historians Aurangazeb poisoned Roshanara  in 1671 when she was caught with her lover in the garden.

In 1923, a European club known as Roshnara Club was established here and is today one of the most prestigious clubs of the capital.

“Welcome to plastic free Nilgiris” proclaim painted boards dotting the hillsides around Ooty, Coonoor, Kothagiri. The landscape is striped with tea plantations and multi-coloured wooded sections. All this is punctuated with picturesque villages; also resorts and motels waiting to be occupied by tourists arriving in the overflowing vehicles that wind and honk their way along the ribbon-like roads. The Nilgiris or ‘Blue Mountains’ is a name that does not seem to have any recorded history, though it is conjectured that the blueish haze caused by the altitude (situated at an elevation of 900 to 2636 meters above MSL) gave the area its name, or that the name came from the kurunji flower, known to bloom here every twelve years and cover the hillsides with shades of blue.

The very thought of these verdant spaces being sullied with plastic is depressing; the reality of the plastic-free status of the area is apparent in the strict use of either brown paper, or sturdy newspaper bags by the shops, whether curio shops, stores selling the famous ‘home made chocolate’ and eucalyptus oil, or general stores where plastic, if any, is the packaging of some product like chips or biscuits. A chance sighted plastic cover is most certainly brought by a careless tourist, unwilling to follow the rules. ‘When in Rome, do as Romans’ is the saying – the constant reminder that it is a plastic free zone makes an impression on everyone, regardless of the status of their personal environmental-friendliness. It is hats-off to the Tamil Nadu Government, and the local people, for jointly implementing the system, and taking a positive step towards conserving their green spaces and preventing (further) environmental pollution.

The popularity of Ooty, Coonoor and Kothagiri, once belonging entirely to the Kota, Soligas, Irumba and Badaga indigenous tribes, as a holiday resort began early in the nineteenth century. History records the role of East India Company employee John Sullivan in popularizing the Nilgiris as a summer home for the English working in the heat of the plains. He even introduced a variety of plants and trees to the region, brought from Europe and South Africa, and his house and grave can still be visited in Ooty. The late nineteenth century saw the region well connected by road and rail, and with the ownership of vast tracts of land by British officials came the tea and coffee plantations. Existing forest area and a great deal of grasslands and shrub-lands were cleared to make way for cultivation. However, the area continued to grow as a tourist destination in summer months, the plantations at least preventing large-scale building activity and urbanisation. In a bid to support eco-tourism, the TN government also encourages home-stays; these are available the year round and are a good way to enjoy the landscape, particularly if they are set on their own acreage of land. Residential homes with rooms converted into comfortable accommodation for guests are akin to sustainably run cottage industries as opposed to the high consumption and wastage in mechanized hotels and large resorts.

Many of the home-stays, being part of the original architecture of the area, blend in with the scenery and offer different panoramic views of the landscape, hills flowing into each other surrounded by the blue-green haze, living up to the name ‘Nilgiri’. The area is a bird-watcher’s paradise, as even the uninitiated will observe, and it is possible to see bison in herds, lithe horned deer, and even elephants and tigers (for those who are very lucky). Driving through the estates looking for vantage points to capture the best views can be filled with adventure, the roads sometimes narrowing down to rutted paths with perilous drops down the sides of the hill, and often steep climbs at alarming angles. However, every step of the way and every hairpin bend miraculously produce a new picture, and just when one is convinced it cannot get better, there appears an immense breathtaking view, with spectacular skies and undulating land spreading like a fairy-tale scene until they meet at the horizon. Standing in the resonant quiet of the landscape, small and powerless like anonymous characters in a Japanese wash-painting, one cannot but be thankful for the gift of nature’s resources and our opportunity to still enjoy them.

On an everyday basis, youths and others from the region are leaving to the ironically termed ‘greener pastures’ of cities in search of better lives. But urban spaces of this world cannot survive without the parallel existence of a green environment, to regulate temperatures and suck the air of its poisons, and animals and creatures to maintain the life-cycle. Visits to green spaces (also fast being eaten by encroachment) serve to provoke thought and encourage us to meditate on what we have lost, and pledge to do what we can to conserve every aspect of nature –we are jointly and individually responsible for it.

Making an area plastic-free is perhaps a small move, but will go miles in protecting what we have left of the natural world. I sincerely hope to see the signs “welcome to plastic free Karnataka” in and around the nature conserves in Karnataka too. It is imperative that other governments learn from Tamil Nadu’s success, and take these small steps towards a cleaner and happier earth. And remember, every single individual’s efforts count.

Lina Vincent Sunish

India does not boast of world famous museums. Only handfuls are known to people in general. In the capital city Delhi itself ,most people are aware of the National Museum, National Gallery of Modern Art, Rail Museum to name a few. However, there are various museums small and big providing an alternative museum experience. Listed here are six unique museums based in New Delhi which are different from its conventional counterpart. These museums may not boast of huge collections or large visitor followings, but the experience they provide is worthwhile and enriching.

Doll’s Museum
Located in the heart of Delhi on Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, Shankar International Doll’s Museum was established by cartoonist K. Shankar Pillai. The museum has one of its kind collection of dolls from U. K., U.S.A., Australia, New Zealand and many other countries from Asia, Middle East and Africa. The museum was set up in 1965 in the building of Children’s Book Trust.
The inspiration for collecting the dolls came to Shankar Pillai when he received a Hungarian doll. He subsequently collected dolls wherever he went and soon he gathered around 500 dolls which later on became part of the Doll’s Museum. Today, it has a collection of nearly 6,500 dolls from around the world. For children, visiting this museum will prove to be a delightful experience.
The Museum is open from 10 a.m. to 6.00 p.m. every day, except on Monday and on national & festive holidays.

The Sulabh International Museum of toilets
A unique museum on Palam Dabri road in Delhi, The Sulabh International Museum of toilets figures in the quirkiest museums in the world. The ‘Toilet Museum’ as it is popularly known, was established in 1992 by the non-profit organization, Sulabh International Social Service with the aim of spreading the awareness on sanitation in India. The museum showcases toilets used in different places and countries. It explains some of the most interesting facts about the toilet history, tracing its origin to more than 4,000 years back and has on display exhibits as old as 1145 A.D. The museum guide enthusiastically shows around the museum with some interesting stories thrown at the right break. From the simple and practical to the ornate and innovative, the range of toilets, bidets, chamber pots and more tells a story of evolution. However, the focus of the museum remains to spread the message of sanitation management that have plagued the world and continue to challenge India and the Indian culture.
The museum is open from Monday to Sunday except on National holidays from 10.30 am to 5 pm.

Kiran Nadar Museum of Art
Kiran Nadar Museum of Art is an important milestone in the history of contemporary art museums in India. It is the first private museum of Art in the country. Established in 2010 by the eminent art collector Kiran Nadar, the museum exhibits artworks of not just Indian modern and contemporary artists, but also artworks from Pakistan and other countries. While visiting the museum, one can not miss the giant steel installation ‘Line of control’ by artist Subodh Gupta. Apart from the exhibiting master artworks, the museum also brings out publications and conducts various educational programmes on Indian Art on regular basis. The museum focuses on bridging the gap between Indian Art and the general public.
The museum is open from Tuesday to Sunday from 10.30 am to 6.30 pm.

Tribal Museum
Very few people in Delhi know of the Tribal Museum located in the heart of Delhi. The museum was established by Bharatiya Adimjati Sevak Sangh, a national level voluntary organization. The museum has in its collection a wide variety of tribal artifacts and items of their daily life and customs. The exhibits include musical instruments, weapons, medicinal plants, agricultural implements, hunting implements, ornaments, handicrafts and dioramas. It also has a small library having bokks and publications Indian tribes and tribal art.
The Museum is open from 11.00 am to 02.30 pm.Located at Thakkar Baba Smark Sadam,Dr. Ambedkar Road,Jhandewlan

Tibet House
Close to India Habitat Centre on Lodhi Road, the quaint museum at Tibet House is a door to the Tibetan culture having in collection some of the old and rare artworks of Tibetan and Buddhist Art.  The prime collections of the museum includes rare Thangka paintings, figurines, jewellery, costumes, weapons and ritual objects in copper, bronze, sandalwood and stone. The museum plays an important role by providing an important connect to Tibetan refugees in India. Most of the artworks in the collection came from Tibetan refugees. The museum thus emphasizes on the lifestyle and social set up of Tibetan community. The museum also has a library and resource centre with a wide range of rare books and manuscripts on Buddhism and Tibetan culture.
The museum is open Monday to Friday from 9.30 am to 5.30 pm

National Philatelic Museum
Those having the like for collecting stamps and postage tickets would be delighted to visit the National Philatelic Museum housed in the Dak Bhawan in central Delhi. This unique museum was established by Indian Government Postal Services to showcase the rich postal heritage of India and also to generate interest in philately among the general public. It traces the history of stamps started first by Sindh Dak in 1854 and some rare stamps issued by the princely states of pre-independent India. The museum also showcases the stamps from other countries. One can buy the special edition Indian stamps from the museum outlet. The museum is open for the public from Monday to Friday from 10.00 am to 5.00 pm. It also conducts special guided tours on Saturday for school groups.

Sangeeta Kumari

Sometimes following your instinct can result in giving you some of the most fascinating and incredible memories in life. I am glad that for taking one of the best decisions of my life that day.

My experience with Mayong, also known as the land of black magic in India, was a consequence of a small conversation with a native of Assam while I was on a trip to Guwahati. He introduced me to this mystic land which I was imagining with a lot of interest, while he narrated me a couple of stories flying about that place.

Legend has it, that once Raja Ram Singh, a general of the Mughal Empire, was ordered by Aurangzeb to take an army to Assam and subdue the Ahoms in 1667. Singh followed the orders of his master only to get a horrific defeat as the whole army perished in that land of witchcraft and not a trace was left.

It is also believed that Assam was one of the last states to be colonized by the British, as they were petrified of the power of witchcraft prevailing in Mayong.

Witchcraft or the occult sciences is a phenomenon that fascinates many, it definitely did fascinate me. It was that point of time in my life when I felt that I was missing out on a lot that needed to be explored, and I was in the mood for complete adventure. Mayong is a two hours’ drive from Guwahati, so I cashed in the opportunity of going there.I, along with my friend, was about to experience the coveted trip to the land of black-magic.

We encountered a police post while entering the village. They stopped our car just to give us a warning to keep from talking to any of the pedestrians on the way as it could be dangerous. I was beginning to enjoy this.

My eyes felt blessed at the sight of this beautiful land. Mayong lies on the banks of the dynamic Brahmaputra, surrounded by flush green trees and a soothing scenic beauty. But there was much more to it than just that, which I was yet to explore.

I spoke to a few locals while strolling around and was captivated by what I heard. They told me that there have been incidents where humans have been transformed to tigers and some of them have even disappeared mysteriously through black-magic.

I couldn’t help smirking at that statement. One of the persons did not look very happy by my reaction and said with a coarse voice, “There must be a reason why people are scared to come here since ages.” It seemed, as if the characters from a horror book were beginning to come alive.

It was fascinating to know that some of the families had inherited their ancestral relics,which they had either preserved or destroyed out of fear of these falling into wrong hands. The spark in their eyes while talking reflected a strong belief in the art of magic.

It was getting dark and I had started to get an eerie feeling by now, after listening to the tales of the locals, all of which sounded completely absurd to me but were able to impact my mind at large.

After toiling for over five hours, we decided to grab a bite at a small, shanty dhaba. It was time to dig in some mouth-watering smoked pork curry, prepared in mittikihandi. As a hardcore Bengali, I can never resist the taste of shorshediyeilish. Even though, my stomach did not permit me but my taste buds can never give up the charm of ilishmaach.  But the divine experience turned out to be a painful one, as a bone got stuck in my throat and I began to choke.

I was immediately taken to a small hut, which was two minutes from the dhaba.  A petite, old woman, draped in a maekhla chador emerged out of the hut. I assumed her to be a local doctor but, little did I know who she actually was.

She turned out to be a bez or a witch doctor. I did not know how to react at that point of time. I was in no capacity to resist the treatment from the bez. Though, reluctant, I left it to my fate, to see, how the cookie crumbles. By now I was fretting. She held my clammy hands. She mumbled a few lines and what happened left me completely startled. The choking disappeared and everything was back to normal. I still do not know how something so incredible happened.All through my convalescence, my friend was beside me, but even she was caught unawares about the whole incident.

I wished I could have stayed there a little longer but as I was on a shoestring, I could not afford to do so.

The incident changed my perception about things forever. I do not know if what happened to me was an art of magic or an intelligent trick but it left a print on my find. It made me think that there might be some phenomenon in the world which existsbeyond the theories of science, which exist beyond our knowledge or imagination. It made me realize that he world is as mysterious and deep as an ocean, which carries within itself innumerable stories and aspects that are still unknown and unthinkable of, but do exist.

Amrita Ray

Strolling in a market place with or without the intention to shop is an enriching experience. With the arrival of mall culture, the neighbourhood markets and shops are becoming a thing of past. Markets are memory zones, observers Sushma Sabnis taking her experience of visiting markets in India and abroad as a point of departure.

There is the damp sweet smell of a flower market that hits you as soon as you get into the overcrowded, jam packed bustling marketplace in Borivili West, Mumbai. This place probably has been here since eons, as far as public knowledge goes. When one has walked into these complex network of fruits vegetables flowers and all kinds of ware sellers, interspersed with the odd Mangalore store run by a man from Hyderabad who sells, sambar shallots, Kerala acchapam and Tamilian Karuvepalli thokku, along with any and every type of ghatia, sev , bhakarwadi and muruku. This market place resides as much in one’s being as it does in reality.

A smell or an odour brings to mind a plethora of memories which never leave even when  the mind is stressed about the work to be done for tomorrow and day after, somehow suddenly the mind wanders into an old pooja samaan gully, where the heady perfumes, incense sticks, smell of kumkum, haldi and camphor intermingle and all things auspicious including little black stuffed dolls, look at you with some kind of plea, ‘please buy us, we are tired of hanging on this string, we’d rather burn and colour a human forehead or hang off the main door of a hut than sit here and take in any more smells of rotting fruits and flowers.’ A peculiar cry reminds me of the tender coconut vendors who sit in the hot sun with skin glistening with sweat beads like diamonds on Hirst’s skull. They defy the sun by reflecting their attitude of industriousness. There is the exquisitely wrinkled, nine yards clad woman from Vasai who sells pockets of ginger, chillies and garlic, her wrinkles are the  advertising industry’s best kept secret, because everyone runs to help the poor old woman with wrinkles who sells the same products a bit higher priced than the wholesale market two feet away. But she in her ‘sales get-up’ emerges a winner every day.

A market place is in a child’s imagination a beautiful possibility to possess things.   One would remember going to the market with their parents and then alone or with friends as a teenagers. One would want everything on display. The colours, the smells, the tastes, the cute shopkeeper who stares, last time even with a smile, was he just being coquettish or is that his way of getting customers to buy something from the shop? Earrings trinkets and bangles, were the hottest selling commodity in those days.  Then during the working- earning days, it was cosmetics and trinkets, earrings, clothes and bangles.

For today’s generation, it is mostly mobile phone recharges, blasphemous apparels (one cannot qualify them as clothes) and friendship bands. One could see a market place as a place to covet things. If one approached malls with the same kind of perspective, one can get saturated up to one’s twelfth auric layer with the maul-ness of malls! Fake, mostly momentary pleasures can be very misguiding.

If one has had the opportunity to go through many market places in the world, one would notice that a country’s truth surfaces in a market place.

The noises, the voices, the buying culture, the produce of the land, the openness of the country / people to accept trade, hence accepting other non-indigenous products, the selling culture, the way people make a sale, the way they speak to the customer even if they are merely selling 10 peanuts, all this contributes to culture. Then sometimes the quality of a product has no bearing when the sale is being made.

Coming back to market places that flourish, in Thailand, the markets are one of the places  one looks forward to visiting. From fruits, to vegetables to fish,  meats to sweetmeats, from clothes to lingerie, from ornaments to traditional Thai clothes, to fake Prada (Prado) purses, to rambutan and durians sold by the kilo. The beauty of the market place in a country where one doesn’t know the local language, the point of engagement with the seller is highly interesting. In China and in Hong Kong communication between locals and tourists happens with the use of a calculator. Numbers are apparently an ice breaker of language and words and also precise and to the point. In Hong Kong the local markets have people who speak broken English and one could accosted by the incessant ,‘You, you liiikkee?’ question. Sometimes however, signs and hand gestures can be very misleading.

In a village market on a 10 deg C Friday afternoon, in Nairobi, the Swahili speaking masai -mara folks wearing Nike shoes often come across as intimidating, they have disarming smiles and the red of their robes is enough warning of their hunter instincts. But they sell beautiful beaded

ornaments, wooden sculptures and figurines of animals and birds, true to the natural surroundings they come from. But they are very difficult business people. Nature has taught them never to bargain.

The evolution of today’s human kind can be seen in the way the market place has gone from a physical entity of a shop with wares which all the five senses can interact and experience, to a screen presence on a laptop with a shopping cart and a favourites’ list. Online shopping / marketing has revolutionized the whole concept of buying itself.  When it did start, it faced a few glitches, but later security of websites, etc have made online shopping an experience far too simple and less time consuming.

But with the advent of online markets, does the traditional market die out slowly like everything else? There is a purpose of a traditional brick and mortar, odour ridden, colourful market place, the purpose of such a place is to bring humanity together. A market place is the only place where a vegetarian and a non vegetarian can shop side by side without offending each other’s principles, urging human interactions of all strata and status levels at a simple transactional platform..

The online market place is an isolated experience. One sees a product and buys it at discounted prices but what actually gets discounted is human interaction. This in the long run may harm the society as a whole. If people do not interact with each other, the building block of communities will vanish. People may get more depressed with this kind of self imposed isolation. A healthy balance may be able to keep the whole system form toppling over.

Sushma Sabnis

The city of Bombay has always attracted me because of its fast-paced ness, independence and rich colonial history. It is a city to get lost in, to be one with, and yet discover oneself in the process. Bombay’s colonial architecture had a tremendous appeal to me. It is an exciting blend of Gothic, Art Deco, Victorian, Indo-Saracenic and Contemporary styles– tracing the story of the city’s growth from a British trading post to one of the biggest metropolises of the country. And yes, I am going to refer to the city as “Bombay” and not “Mumbai”, as what follows is from the times when the city was called so.

In my quest, I decided to focus on lesser known historical buildings in South Bombay.  I found a Pandora’s box – a store of rich architectural heritage hidden under the chaos of city-life. Against the test of time, these buildings stood by, acting as silent witnesses to the unfolding of the grand story of Bombay.

The above comment is best exemplified by the Watson Hotel located in Kalaghoda District of South Bombay. It is now called the Esplanade Mansion, and is in complete ruins, the rooms being divided and given on rent to shopkeepers, tailors and even families. Built in February 1871 with a “Europeans only” clientele, it was the pride of Bombay. Visiting dignitaries included the likes of Mark Twain and Richard Burton. It is India’s oldest cast iron building, the frame being fabricated in England and put together in Bombay. What remains of the hotel’s grandeur today is only this cast iron frame with the “W” logo peeping out from under the overgrown shrubs and overflowing garbage. The decline was gradual beginning with its sale to another owner and the growing competition from J.N.Tata’s Taj Mahal Hotel in 1903.

I found some other interesting architectural marvels in the same vicinity of Kalaghoda, one of the easiest to spot being the David Sasoon Library. Built in the Venetian Gothic style around 1870, the purpose of the building was to function as a museum and library for the Royal Mint and Government Dockyard. The architectural style combined Gothic arches with Byzantine influences, the desire for lightness and grace in the structure being extremely important. This characteristic is easily visible in the building – being adorned by intricate details and yet not giving the impression of heaviness.
An influential

I found some other interesting architectural marvels in the same vicinity of Kalaghoda, one of the easiest to spot being the David Sasoon Library. Built in the Venetian Gothic style around 1870, the purpose of the building was to function as a museum and library for the Royal Mint and Government Dockyard. The architectural style combined Gothic arches with Byzantine influences, the desire for lightness and grace in the structure being extremely important. This characteristic is easily visible in the building – being adorned by intricate details and yet not giving the impression of heaviness.

An influential banker, Sir David Sassoon, later funded the completion of this building. It is an active library and reading room today.

On the other side of the road is the lane that passes by Rhythm House and leads to another beautiful building contributed by the Jewish Community to the city– The Keneseth Eliyahoo Synagogue. Another such synagogue stands in the area of Byculla, called the Megan David Synagogue. These buildings hint towards the presence of an abundant and rich Jewish population in Bombay, now no longer so. The former of the mentioned synagogues is an aesthetically pleasing building coloured in aquamarine blue, standing two floors tall. The stained glass windows and carved wooden doors give away the colonial influence. Once there, one should not miss the Kalaghoda Café – a quiet, little nook to escape the heat and the city noise.

Bombay’s day-to-day life holds a storehouse of historical buildings – in the form of movie theatres, libraries and coffee houses. The most well-known of these being the Eros Cinema, situated at Churchgate, built around 1935-38. It is in the Art Deco style as is evident from the cylindrical spire with rings around it. It used a range of materials from Red Sandstone from Agra to Black Marble and Gold. Other than Eros, the first of Bombay’s Art Deco cinema theatres was Regal Cinema (Colaba) and the Metro Cinema (Princess Street), built and run originally by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), now transformed into a multiplex.

Another section of south Bombay abounding in Colonial Architecture is Horniman Circle, in the Fountain District. Originally called the Elphinstone Circle, it was renamed to commemorate the Editor of The Bombay Chronicler, Benjamin Horniman. The area houses a large garden originally called the Bombay Greens (now The Horniman Circle Gardens) constructed in the Neo-Classical style, surrounded by commercial buildings. Most interesting are the elegantly curved Neo-Classical buildings built in accordance with the turn of the streets. Some of the buildings today house leading banks, international brands like Hermes and India’s first Starbucks Coffee Shop.

Overlooking the Horniman Circle Gardens is the Asiatic Society of Bombay, located in the Town Hall. The Society has had associations with the Royal Asiatic Society of Britain, and the Literary Society of Bombay, but is today run by the Central Government. The library boasts of a huge collection of rare manuscripts, two original remaining copies of Dante’s “Divine Comedy” being one of the most valuable. The Town Hall that houses the library was built around 1804, around the same time of the formation of the Literary Society of Bombay. Its architecture is heavily influenced by Greco-Roman style evident in the eight Doric columns, a large flight of 30 stairs leading to the loggia, topped by a cornice and frieze at the entablature.

Bombay has been the cultural hot-plate of India since its birth for reasons of inter-continental trade. This cross-cultural germination is as evident in the architecture as much in the lifestyle of its residents. Bombay today is home to a cosmopolitan crowd, ranging from the old “bawa” reminiscing about days gone by, to the French traveller who fell in love with the city at first sight.

Intriguing about Bombay’s history is how its heritage lies hidden amongst our everyday lives – moving along with us, changing with the times, fulfilling their present duties. Today they serve all kinds of purposes – from police headquarters to lavish restaurants for the rich to homes to the poor.

It is only when one stops awhile to ponder, one sees how these buildings mean so much more – like those old Banyan trees which have stood at the same place for years, seen a People grow and die, and when you look up at those strong branches and dropping roots in awe, they look down at you with a knowing smile.

- Shubhasree Purkayastha

It was a Sunday afternoon inside one of the colossal, cool, half-dark room of the Fort St. George museum at Chennai. Perhaps it’s the only place where I felt the existence of soft winter in entire town during my visit. There, in the late afternoon light I was amazed to observe an early colonial map showing Pulicut as a flourished port town, which has reduced to a small fishing town now. The ambiguity of the room must have added to my surprise.  The pale yellow tinted page had definitely sprung up my imagination to create an image of the fort city. How the artist imagined aerial view of the area in 17^th century? I try to look into the city through the eye of the unknown map-maker… How far the image has changed in last three hundred years?

My fellow travel-mates, who came all the way from Japan for tracing the Dutch trade connection between Japan and India, were busy pointing at the fort, churches, and cemetery at Pulicut, the headquarter of Dutch Coromandel in 17^th century. Comprised of a square structure with projection in its four corners, the structure of Fort Geldria is very similar to that of Fort St. George, though the earlier was essentially a Dutch one and the later-English.

When the next day we arrived at the site, no one could say us about the fort there except Mr Benedict. “There, across the moat…the whole fort area is covered under layers of thick bush”, as he explains the history almost comes alive in front of us. The fort was destructed during the Anglo-Mysore war and then by the British. Around the fort area, irregular settlements came up over the ages. Adjacent to the bus stop, appears the “new” Dutch cemetery (which was in use from 17^th century). The gateway, with an arch and intricately carved skeletons in both the sides had certainly shocked me out. Last few months, I was a visitor of temples and forts, where the doorways are guarded either by muscular guardians or sensuous river goddesses. Comprising of seventy seven graves, the cemetery is a land of astonishment! The tomb-stones, each carved with different themes and patterns have stories deep-buried about their time, patronisers and obviously the artists. According to Mr Benedict, some stones might have been carved in this region, which show the ease of dealing with Indian design patterns. One of the tombstones carved out of black granite, has a syncretic image of cherubs with earthen lamps in their hand. I wonder how the communication between two distant countries had resulted in creation of these imageries. While our way back to Chennai, I observed the pot-bellied, fierce-looking guardian sculptures with earthen lamps in their hand, placed over the roof of temples.

AARDE foundation has a small, well-maintained interpretation centre there, few steps ahead the cemetery. A number of objects including pieces of pottery, glass jars, maps, and an intact bed, collected from the neighbourhood. Definite evidences of Dutch trade in Coromandel, lot of these objects were accidental find. The earthen jars were used for storing crops or water, even somewhere as garbage bin. The bed was lying in a household, who were looking for replacing it with a new one. The ultramarine blue glass jars have their ancestry in Middle East. The most interesting for me was a map. Very similar to what I found in Chennai, the map is etched and hand coloured, manufactured in 18^th century, showing a very different Pulicut from what I see today. Local members of the organization do basketry and mat-weaving during the off-time which partially support them financially and also keeping the local craft practice alive.

A short tour through the roads around fort area was full of exploration. Portuguese and Dutch churches and houses share space with their Indian neighbours here. St. Anthony’s church, a white-and-blue structure, in the bright sunny day and middle of a fishermen’s settlement looked altogether an alien. Inside the double folded blue doors, there’s a small hall-cum-store room. A wooden chariot with cylindrical base and pyramidal roof was kept there, possibly for the processional purpose. What a shared culture we belong to! Similar chariots in larger scale are part of almost every Hindu temple in this part of the country, which serve similar purpose.

Finally we entered fort area (though only the name remains) facing the blue Pulicut lake. Reminiscent of the golden era of this port town, an old house remains in the fort area (or perhaps the only house). With simple Doric pillars supporting the slanted tiled roof, the house was once used as a trading post. Now the house is situated in compound of the local health centre. Health of these falling houses and architecture needs to be taken care of. In the night, the cemeteries are dug up for seeking hidden treasure, which, if not anything else, destroying these structures. A navy blue blue board with “protected monument” written over were seen more than one places, I hope the words come true in near future.

Often majestic trade ships are drawn in the maps. In the blue lake before my eyes, I see spindle-shaped boats, made out of tree trunks. The simple engineering of making them are continuing till ages, from long before the trade ships reached this land. While the map-maker was busy documenting the grand ones, the small ones got ignored. Through the passage of history, these modest fishing boats made its way, which the grand ones had failed. I decide making a map based on my experience; is this the way they started thinking? But I shouldn’t forget to draw the bunch of lively boats beside the lost landscape!

Rajarshi Sengupta