TND West

Any time that one gets to travel in India, it’s a cause for celebration.  It’s an amazing place, and many people hope to visit it during their lifetime and never get the opportunity.  There are many fantastic places to see here, and everyone here will have a thousand recommendations, and the diaspora is very large and so everywhere you go in the world, there will be more recommendations.  If you can listen to all of them, it’s a great idea, because word of mouth can reveal many things that might have gone unnoticed otherwise.  Mumbai, of course, is one of the most exciting cities in the country, and in the entire world.

There is always something exciting and interesting happening in Mumbai, and there’s truly no other place on earth like it.  It has an unusual, and very intense, energy, and it’s been like that for centuries.  Some of the greatest minds and talents in the world are drawn here, looking to meet similar sensibilities.  It’s a very accessible place for tourists, as there are many fantastic hotels.  Mumbai, India offers something spectacular for everyone, and this is particularly evident in the art.  While there are some amazing museums where one can find classical works, there is also very edgy new work, like that of ChitraKarKhana.

This is an ongoing project by local Mumbai artist Shaina Anand, who is an enormously prolific filmmaker and media critic.  Her form is usually documentary, and she’s made and been involved in a stunning number of projects, and seems to be showing no signs at all of slowing down.  Part of her aesthetic is the DIY, Do-It-Yourself, school of filmmaking, often doing projects with low or no budget.  It’s extraordinary work, and shows a great deal of compassion for the human race, which is something we are always finding in short supply.  She is also the winner of a Charles Waller Indian Trust award, and has shown work all over the world, including the amazing Ars Electronica in Linz.  This is a cutting edge facility, with extremely far-sighted technicians and artists working on science and the future in art, and her work falls splendidly into their rhizomatic notions of what is possible right now.

“Are you ready for a museum?” I asked Deb after we ordered our chapati, bhelpuri and a couple of gin and tonics. We had been to cathedrals, temples and markets and I thought the slower pace of a museum visit was in the offing. “Um, sure,” she said, “What’s it called?” “Hmm, the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya Museum. That’s a mouthful.” We were sitting on the terrace of one of the hotels in Mumbai, needing a restful dinner from our whirlwind day. “So we will go tomorrow, then,” I said. The bhelpuri arrived, fried and savory with peanuts and potatoes fried with a puffed rice thing, served with a mango chutney. We did not realize how hungry we were, and almost wolfed them down. They were delicious, and so were the drinks. We had some nice vegetarian curries and of coursebasmati rice, we were so hungry. The next day we had some excellent coffee and something that looked like a croissant with an apple jam that was spicy, so I guess it was a chutney, and off we went to the museum. It is a big sprawling affair, I like the displays of armaments, the swords and shields. The people back then must have been small, the weapons looked like they were for shorter people. This rather bored Deb and we went of to look at the animals, stuffed in their displays, in a kind of old school museum setting. They looked slightly tattered but a big assortment and it was fun. The sculpture was cool too and all the old art work. It was different from museum in the West, but it was an enjoyable visit. Later, we got hungry again and this time braved the crowds and the traffic and had samosa from a street vendor. Delicious.

Anyone traveling in Bangalore, India last week was able to witness a rare event, to participate in a first for the the city, and that was a public wine tasting festival, out in the open in the middle of a park.  Usually this is an activity that is reserved for the plush restaurants and hotels.  Bangalore, India’s families of the middle class strata were able to grab cups made of plastic and make their choice of white or red.  The event was held at the Lalbagh Botanic Gardens, and those in attendance were enthusiastic about this newly started tradition.  Local wineries and makers had predicted that they may sell a couple of cases, however more than twelve hundred cases were sold before the event was even half way over.

Many of the tables and stalls had sold out of their stock, and for the first time, some of the people of the city were actually drinking the wine in public, as the lines for the cups wound through the gardens at the stalls that still had some to sell.  This had been a taboo, an ago old no-no, but as the drinking of wine becomes touted as healthy, the citizens are definitely lining up.  Many who had never had a drink before in their lives came to try this new ‘healthy’ activity.  Some very traditional ideas still remained with some of the spectators not partaking in the tasting, however many were happy at the idea of the social restrictions being lifted.

As more westerners are moving to Bangalore, the society is seeing the trends change as far as the consumption of beer and wine are concerned.  Some of the bars are still required to close down by midnight, however other restrictions are changing such as the lowering of the cost of licensing for wine bars.  Western countries revel in their wine festivals, and the government had promoted this festival in the garden and modelled it after some of those.  Even the wine board was surprised at the number of people that came out to participate, and this could become a new tourist activity in future days in the country.