A Siren In Ceylon

Kandy - 10-Apr-05
Once I 1-got out of the city and 2-stopped expecting Sri Lanka to be India and appreciated it for what it is, the island began to open to me. Sri Lanka is not India, obviously (the food is a lot worse, for one thing), though there are lots of the cultural similarities, and some unfortunate standard features found in this area of the world(touts, overcharging, heat, air pollution, lack of information). However, some things are blessedly missing -

-like, crowds. Sri Lanka, even when crowded, like on a market day, is far less so than India. They don't seem tohave the population issues, (literally, using "issues" inthe Indian sense!) for whatever reason. This takes a lot of that Indian desperation out of the atmosphere. I read an interview last summer with a famous Indian cricket player who made the observation, "In India, we are a mob, with a mob mentality lurking just below the surface." There is a lot less tension in Sri Lanka in general.

-the gender thing. I can walk through a crowded market orbusy street in downtown Kandy wearing a t-shirt, no bra and baggy pants and not worry about being grabbed or groped. There is no need to swathe myself in fabric the same way women must in India. Also, on a bus I can sit between 3 or4 guys and relax - because they are NOT trying to use every bend in the road as an excuse to leaaaaaaann into me or talk to me ("you are from?") or anything. Because of this, the ladies themselves are more relaxed inboth dress and behavior. I think there are a lot more genuine smiles. My sources say that marriages are arranged here and it's very much like the Indian system, but something must be different. For one thing, at the Royal Palace Park in themiddle of town, every single bench (EVERY bench) was taken up by courting young couples. Not even one bench was just friends hanging out! That, you would not see in India. -In other words, it is more relaxed in general. Other than the touts/rickshaw hawkers, which are about like India, the general atmosphere is more that of a laid-back island.

-Sri Lankans ask fewer personal questions. -They - sorry, Indian defenders - are MORE POLITE. Whatever you want to call the trademark Indian attitude (proud, arrogant, haughty, officious), it's not there generally.

-Traffic is much more quiet and less insane. That is, drivers do not incessantly honk their horns, and they drive more slowly.

-The men do not usually wear the compulsory moustache. Afew older ones do. In fact, you can often spot Indians by looking for the moustache.

-There IS Sri Lankan pop music (Sinhalese), though itsounds like a sort of generic island-music you might call International Tropical Island Pop. Part calypso, part German oom-pahbassline (really), part bouncy African highlife, VERY bouncy, upbeat and mostly silly sounding. You would expect to hear these types of tunes in Trinidad, Mauritius, and soon, at least to my ears. Sinhalese pop music is best appreciated while riding (comfortably, not guardedly, seated between gents) on the back window seat of a public bus through tea-plantation hill country, passing banana stands, farmers, day laborers, Tamil Mariamman and Buddhist shrines amid garden-of-eden vegetation as you spiral downthe winding, bumpy road. As you breathe the cool upcountry breezes, the relentless bounciness of the music seems cheerful and fun, as it was meant to be...not obnoxious and frivolous as it feels while breathing in city exhaust fumes and sweating downtown.

They DO have fetish for very dated, schmaltzy US pop music, unfathomable...I mean, "Never Gonna Change my Love ForYou," "You Left Me, just when I needed you most," KennyRogers" Through the Years..." AGGGGH. Now THAT makes me homicidal. A Carnatic classical music program on the radio made me misty eyed.

There is even some good Sri Lankan food - but it's all adopted from Kerala. "Hoppers" and 'string hoppers' are actually appam and idiyappam. "Sambol" is a kind of better sambar and 'pittu' is puttu. Also, the fact that the economy is not so developed makes for some inconveniences, but it also leaves more gorgeous scenery untouched. The Tamil presence here is pretty strong; official figures say 20 percent but I think it may be more. In town, they run many 'hotels' (restaurants), shops, and many are rickshaw drivers. In the country they do the majority ofthe farm labor, in fact that's why they originally came here 100s of years ago, to work on Brit tea plantations. still, up in the Nillambe hills where the Buddhist center is, when you see any tea-planatation woman worker and say"Vannakam, eppady sugam?" to her immediately she will answer in Tamil. (The fact that I can't understand themmakes no difference. It brings a big smile to theirfaces.)

No, it's not India - there is nothing like India!

That 70's Country

Sri Lanka, Kandy - 28-Mar-05
Sorry if most of my complaints boil down to, simply, "This isn't India." India is home now....I could leave Sri Lanka tomorrow. I came to do my visa and now don't even think I want to do that here; plus the rumours are that you can get a better Indian visa (more time) in Bangkok. I think I'll give it a week, see if I can hook up with some of the many Brit/German tourists floating about and join their treks to Adam's Peak, Sigiriya, whatever. I am too freaked out to organize it on my own, and hanging with other foreigners will decrease my alienation.... I think.

The Koffee Pot is the state of the art cyber cafe here in Kandy, my new refuge/oasis/hangou. They are well AC'd, have 17 in ch monitors and serve drinks and pastries right to your computer table, which is pretty much my idea of, well, Ideal. This little hideout is keeping me relatively sane....

My friend Gary says, "Try to get something out of Sri Lanka, often good art emerges from misery."Here's hoping. The Temple of the Tooth is very nice, a sort of elegant austere haven, albeit a heavily guarded one, in the middle of this messy steamy town. Since a bombing here in the 90s, which killed 10 people, you must now pass three or four checkpoints....strangely half-hearted ones, where the guards lackadaiscally pass a metal-detecting wand over your abdomen (looking for IUDs maybe? ) and completely ignore your bag. The female guards seem to enjoy doing this, then playfully swatting me on the behind with the metal detector. (!)

So far the best words I have to describe SL all start with De - degenerate, depressed, a bit decadent, decrepit, dilapidated. As of yet I haven't even been really inspired to take photos, and THAT is really saying something for me. (something negative) Oh and don't forget Drab (de-rab). Trying to articulate what's missing in Sri Lanka - there is definitely less emphasis on aesthetics. In India, every billboard and store display and rickshaw seems to be burbling with irrespressible frippery, animation and colour. India has more creativity and energy. Even the beggars are more creative in India. The prevalence here of 1-polyester, 2- denim skirts (yes, long, full length skirts made of jeans, haven't seen one since high school) 3-old 70s cars, like the Contessas which look like mini versions of the Starsky and Hutch car; I would not be surprised to see a Gremlin, and 4- bad western pop music --you know, that quasi-reggaefied-pop cross between Boney M and UB40 that I call "international pop" --- all conspire to give a kind of run-down 70s feeling to the place (no, not a cool, retro 70s feeling...more like, everything that didn't sell from every Dollar General Store in the 70s got dumped here and is still filling the store shelves). The Sunday paper carried a full page pinup photo of Bryan Adams, who, for some reason, is a GOD both here and in India! "Summer of 69" is inescapable....

Nothing here looks like it should work....though surprisingly it often does. I was shocked to find a digital photo place that stays open till 10 at night. This morning the Tamil family who keep the bungalow where I'm staying were watching a TV show of Tamil film classics (incl. Shivaji Ganeshan, MGR etc) and it made me HOMESICK. (Even that silly song with Ganeshan singing "caw, caw" to the crow seemed like sheer genius.) Last night at the Kandyan dance performance, the woodwind player, in the midst of blaring otherwise unfamiliar Sri Lankan sounds, started trumpeting the melody to "Raghupati Raga Ravan, patita pavana Sitaram" and I nearly burst into tears. I MISS INDIA.

Vande Mataram, Maharashtra

3 October, 2004
MG Road, Pune, Maharashtra

Dear Mom and Dad:

Sorry for the delay in replying. I was in transit for a full 2.5 days from central Kerala to Pune (pronounced POO-nuh - the official slogan is "City of Festivals," but they should consider "The nice city with the silly name") in Maharashtra state. Normally there is a 24 hour express train, but since an accident in May, the Konkan line is closed for repair (that's a good sign in India, if they actually stop to repair something). So I had to take the looooonnnnng - that is, more than 40 hours! - train trip in order to retrieve the correct documents, aka No Objection to Leave India Letter ("N.O.L." they call it), so that I can go to Sri Lanka, so that I can come back with a fresh Visa. I expect the whole procedure will take at least 2 more weeks.

The first 7 hours of the train ride were lovely; we passed through the lush, verdant coconut-tree forests of Kerala and then through the foothills of the Western Ghat mountains. They look alarmingly like those of Tennessee - gentle, green and sloping, except that the valleys hold fresh spring-green rice paddies, banana trees and tapioca farms, not fields of tobacco and cotton, or shopping malls and parking lots.

Then there's a section on the Kerala/Tamil Nadu border where we reach the Ghats proper, and it's so dramatic - the mountains become wildly misshapen hills that look just like those in Chinese watercolors, warped green gumdrops welling up out of the steamy earth.

It's a magical stretch that's all too brief; after Ettimadai, the terrain alters drastically; there are 2/3 fewer trees and the suddently encroaching presence of The Sun - we're now in Tamil Nadu. Lettering on the sign-boards changes abruptly from the fat, squoonchy, playful curlicues of Malayalam (if a kid invented an alphabet solely for the purpose of being fun to draw, it would look like Malayalam) to the more upright, rigid cuneiform of Tamil (Malayalam's ancient ancestor and the grandaddy language of south India). Vannakam (welcome!)

As the sun sets behind the technicolor wedding-cake forms of Tamil temple spires, you fall asleep to the vendors' calls of "choy, choy...cap-eeee, cap-eee" - and awaken, 12 hours later, in the harsh, red, arid landscape of Andhra Pradesh. It's a seemingly endless state that knows no winter (and very little water)....even through the solar-guarded darkened train windows you can feel the oppressive glare of the sun. With the rocky hills in the distance and yucca-type vegetation, it really resembles the setting of a Western. The Andhra language (Telegu) is as musical and flowing as the landscape is dry and hard; the script itself looks like words on a psychedelic poster and seemingly every word ends in a vowel (usually OO), which has led to TeleGOO being dubbed "the Italian of the East."

Here the ubiquitous angry buzzing of motor-scooters, burly Tata trucks and mini cars falls away, to be replaced by bullock-drawn (Brahma Bulls, we call them in the west) produce carts with wooden wheels, piloted by ebony men with drooping moustaches and sweaty heads in turbans...scenes literally unchanged for centuries, if not a couple millenia. It became a surprise to even see the occasional scrawny telephone wire strung across the dusty plains.

Maharashtra: another state, another landscape, another culture, another cuisine, another language, another alphabet. The diversity of India is almost attention-deficit in quality and quantity; you get the impression of constantly flipping channels (even if I were to master Hindi, which I can read but not fully understand, the locals can always switch to Marathi or Urdu, both commonly spoken). Though Maharashtra (literally "great state") is technically part of the South, the influence of North India is more evident here in style of dress, cuisine, and number of Hindi speakers.



Today is Mahatma Gandhi's Birthday. "Vande mataram" (hail to the Motherland), the national anthem, blares from many a streetcorner.

Till Monday,
your faithful south Asian correspondent

The 7 Habits of Highly Indian People

India-Are You Experienced?

As many of you know, I am in the process of applying for an Indian Residential Permit. In the good old days, it was just a matter of the right baksheesh to the right peon at the right time, but when I arrived at the Embassy I was asked to take the following multiple choice quiz:
______________________
I. Sensitivity Training
1. Someone wanders into your place of business asking directions to the nearest internet facility. After staring at them a suitable period of time, just to show them who’s in charge here, you respond:
a-"Just across the street, three doors down, can't miss it."
b-"Opposite, eenternet you will get it."
c-"You-Are-From!” (no question mark)

2. The correct plural of "footwear" is
a-Trick question; "footwear" is already plural
b-"footware"
c-"footwears"

3. You answer the telephone by exclaiming:
a-“Hello?”
b-“May I help you?”
c-“TELL me!”
d-all of the above in rapid succession

4. The phrase “No problem” means:
a-"There’s a problem"
b-"I don’t speak English"
c-"I do speak English, but I’m not listening to a word you say"
d-"You are going to be overcharged"
e-Quite possibly, all of the above

5. Match the communication with the vocalization.
a."You disgust and/or exasperate me".................................
b."I am listening and I understand" (North India)..................
c."I'm just clearing my throat"........................
d. "I am listening and I understand" (South India).................
e. "I really enjoyed my meal"..............................
-----Match with:
1. "chere, chere"..............................
2. Impatient clucking sound..............................
3. Excoriating round of throat-clearing, hacking, and nose-blowing,
which in Western countries would solicit the Heimlich maneuver from bystanders..............................
4. "Accha, accha"..............................
5. A wide-open resounding belch...................

II. Cultural Diversity
6. As a foreigner, you know not to drink local water. However, you attend a puja at a temple and are offered holy water. The correct response is to:
a-ask with a straight face, “Is this mineral water, or filtered?”
b-Pretend to sip it, then smear it on top of your hair while mumbling a mantra
c-Slurp it down with gusto – how can holy water possibly hurt you?

7. In India, it is traditional to sit with legs folded, concealing one’s feet.
The little-known reason behind this custom is:
a-It awakens your Kundalini
b-It is considered disrespectful to sit with feet pointed towards others
c-Otherwise, the mosquitoes will bite the hell out of them

8. One advantage of Pondicherry's hot, tropical climate is:
a-It's spiritually purifying
b-It opens your pores
c-It forces even the French to shower daily

III. Way To
9. You are "residing in" a third-floor flat.How many flights of stairs must you walk up to reach your flat?
a-two
b-three
c-You use the lift even to go down one flight; only servants take the stairs.

10. Your third-floor flat (above) is located at Second Main, Third Cross, "Old Number 52." This means it must be "New Number":

a- #17
b-#62
c-#149OldNo522ndMainRd3rdCrSt5thExt1stRightTurnAskthePCO onthecornerwhereisBrindavanNagar2ndStage...... is the "KARREKTA" address

11. You are strolling the city streets and feel the call of nature. You instinctively:
a-Wait till you get home
b-Find a shady corner
c-Head for the nearest hotel with "Park" in the name

IV. Home & Garden – One and the Same?
12. You switch on the bathroom light, step inside and are greeted by a scurrying grey-green lizard. Your response is to:
a-Scream and run for high ground
b-Call the “boy” to get rid of it
c-Greet it by name, thank it for eating the mosquitoes and ask it politely not to doo-doo on your toothbrush (like it did last week)

13. The ideal material for window drapery is:
a-Pure cotton with an ethnic block-print pattern, made by a village women’s co-operative
b-Whatever shade matches your grey-green lizard
c- Poly-plastic with lurid floral design, also suitable for use as a picnic tablecloth

14. The primary ingredient in a “green salad” is:
a-Romaine lettuce
b-Dehydrated carrot slices resembling poker chips
c-Sliced red onions the size of drink coasters

15. The ingredients for a cup of masala chai, in order of predominance, are:
a-Water, milk, tea, spices, sugar
b-Milk, water, sugar, tea, spices
c-Sugar, sugar, sugar, milk, sugar, water, spices, tea, and sugar

V. History and Current Affairs
16. Ratan Tata, Salman Khan and MGR are, respectively:
a-The sound made by a backfiring autorickshaw, a Moghul emperor, and an Indian news network
b-A small wicker ottoman, a seafood entrйe and a British sportscar
c-A steel tycoon, a Bollywood hero and a film star who rules Tamil Nadu from beyond the grave

17. While campaigning for election as Prime Minister, Sonia Gandhi was often greeted with cries of:
a- "Gandhi-ji Ki Jai!"
b- "Sonia Rocks!"
c-"Auslander Raus!!"

18. When vacationing in the Bandipur National Forest, it’s most essential to bring along:
a-Mosquito repellent
b-A letter from Delhi stating that you are not Veerappan
c-A ransom note thoughtfully written in Tamil

19. Railways minister Laloo Prasad recently created a stir with his radical proposal that:
a-Fares be lowered
b-All Railways tea be served in earthenware cups, rather than the current plastic ones
c-Perhaps the tracks could, conceivably, smell of something other than sun-baked urine.



ANSWERS:.......................................................................
section I:Question 1: A = 0 points, B = 3 pts, C = 4 pts - add 1 if you manage to ask “Your-Good-Name??”Question 2: A = 0 pts - what are you, an English teacher?, B = 2 pts, C = 3 pts and leave them at the door!!Question 3: A= 2 pts, B =1 pt - far too polite; C=3 ptsQuestion 4: A = 2 pts B = 3 pts C = 4 pts D = 5 pts

Section II, Cultural: Question 5: A = 0 pts, B = 1 pt C = 3 pts plus 1 extra point for not hesitating, 2 extra if you use only your right handQuestion 6: A = 0 pts, get your head out of Yoga Journal; B = 2 pts, C = 3 ptsQuestion 7: A=1; B=2; C=5; D=1; E=4; 2 pts for each “karrekta”

Section III: Way To: Question 8: A = 0, B = 2 pts, add one extra point for walking as slowly as possible, in the dead center of the stairs so no one can pass you; C = 4 pts and please adjust your pallu properly!Question 9: A = 3 pts, B = 3 pts, C = 3 pts; all have an equal chance at being “karrekta”

Section IV: Home & Garden: Question 10: A = 0 pts, B=1 pt, veddy good Memsahib; C=3 ptsQuestion 11: A=0 pts; B=2 pts, but you must live in Auroville; C=3 ptsQuestion 12: A=0 pts; everyone knows lettuce is only a garnish; B=2 pts; C=3 pts and add 1 extra point for serving it with a bottle of ketchup

Section V: Current Affairs
Question 13: A=0 pts, B=0 pts, C=3 pts; add 1 point if you can tell Salman Khan from Shahrukh KhanQuestion 14: A=0 pt; wrong Gandhi; B=0 pts; C=3 pts, but only if you also, in broken English, criticize her ability to speak Hindi Question 15: A=1 pt B=2 pts C=3 pts; include a ransom note written in Tamil

SCORING: 15 pts or less: Go to America. Go directly back to America. Do not pass "Go," do not collect 200 Rupees!
16-35 points: Where have you been living, in the cantonment? Your knowledge of India comes primarily from Merchant-Ivory films. Get out of the five-star resorts and take a local bus instead of a taxi once in a while.
35 points and above: Felicitations! We now pronounce you “Foreigner for life!” Well, you didn’t actually think…? I mean, you can live here for 25 years, marry the Prime Minister, raise two Indian children and speak fluent Hindi, but you’ll always be… a “foreigner.”

All the best!

Calcutta: The Great Unwashed

Cal Calling
India has a genius for complicating things, and I'm not exactly straightforward and clutter-free myself to begin with.

Your faithful correspondent came North to see the Kali Pujas (Oct 25-28), decided to stay a few days to volunteer at Mother Therese's homes, and, as though in reward for this altruistic decision, promptly got deathly ill - a very nasty 6-day bout with diarrhea, cramps, indigestion, nausea etc and had to resort to a short round of antibiotics.

To further complicate things, when I became well enough to stagger past the ever-present gauntlet of Calcutta's professional beggars down to the local net joint, I found there is a SNAFU with my usually trusty email account.

Mother Therese's home for mentally handicapped kids was pretty amazing and unexpectedly fun, if you can ignore the smell of antiseptic floor wash (barely masking that of urine and feces). You should see the way these kids, many of whom are autistic or worse, light up when you just strum a few chords on a beat up old guitar and sing "Old MacDonald."

Calcutta - (India's second largest city, which in terms of sheer numbers, is quite a statement) is simultaneously the most medieval and most modern place I've yet visited here. Where else in the world can you take a *foot* rickshaw (yes, with huge wooden spoke wheels and a snowy-bearded barefoot man trundling you along the street) - a foot rickshaw, past limbless beggars and snarling street dogs, to the gleaming, punctual, immaculate, safe, uncrowded, *air-conditioned*(!) Metro station?!

In the Indian tradition of religious assimilation, Mother Therese has been added to the local pantheon of street-corner saints and deities. The ferocious Kali Ma leers at you from nearly every streetcorner shrine, alternating with Durga, who smiles benignly while spearing a demon. Amidst what must have seemed pagan idolatry to her, Therese's walnut face has earned an enduring place of honour. The city has been awash with activity honoring her recent beatification; everything from a film festival (mostly documentaries and one docudrama starring Geraldine Chaplin), a ceremony for the first official veneration of her relics (including a few drops of blood - don't even want to know how they acquired that), and various cultural ceremonies, mostly featuring acoustic guitar renditions of "Amazing Grace" sung in Bengali.

Park Street - the hip, happening yuppie street with all the bars, trendy shops and nightclubs - has officially been dubbed Mother Therese Avenue. Calcutta municipal corporation seems to have a real sense of humour in this area; in the midst of a somewhat perverse PC renaming orgy, they also rechristened Calcutta's most commercial thoroughfare "Lenin Street." The US and British consulates both reside on what's now called "Ho Chi Minh Avenue." (I'm not sure what significance, if any, to read into the fact that these names appear only on maps and signs, but never in the local parlance.)

The post-colonial purport behind this nomme-nouveau frenzy (which seems to have primarily benefited the sign-painters and map printers) strangely didn't stop several streets from being renamed with, of all things, *British* names. Thus the former Theatre Road, rather than being named after a worthy Bengali playwright, of which there are many, became "Shakespeare Sarani." Another street, albeit a small one, swapped the decidedly British "Middleton Row" for the equally Limey "Sir William Jones Sarani." And one can only wonder what nationalist purpose was served by giving the name "James Hickey Sarani" to the former Dacres Lane.

I've found it surprisingly difficult to leave Calcutta, described by...well, some old writer whose name escapes me as being composed of "new mud, old mud and more mud." repetitive but accurate. Weather here, which was monsoon marsh and dripping humidity upon my arrival, has greatly improved, as has my health. Give Calcutta a chance to first entrap you with its bewildering network of former cowpaths impersonating as actual streets, or prevent your plane from departing due to poor visibility, amd you'll find it eventually ensnares you with its unique charm - a sort of "creme de la grime." It ranks with Rome as an eternal, infernal city.