Diwali and New Year's at the Half-Year Mark

Last week marked the half-year anniversary of our stay in Mumbai, minus the numerous trips and weekend jaunts. Besides all the travel and cultural experiences documented here, I have also undergone an injection with a smidgeon of patience and a reserve of humor. That is a necessary thing when promised (unpaid) jobs inexplicably dissolve into the ether--where are you, University of Mumbai?-- our ceiling is ridden with frightening-looking cracks after the monsoon, and many phone conversations over the faulty lines result in making a half-minute speech and hearing an exasperated yell of "Hello" from the other end.

Yet, even as I write this, my resolutely patriotic, parable-narrating and hymn-singing Hindi teacher seems to peer over my shoulder, disapproving: "Baba, you don't have phone problems in New York?" and the temporary visitor quiets down, not wanting to sound petty.

The week of Diwali, the several day-long celebration of the New Year here, centered on a battle between good and evil and symbolized by a great variety of lights and lanterns, began for us with a post-Halloween experience. On November 2, Misha glimpsed an uncanny sight when riding back from work past one of the Catholic churches in our neighborhood. When we went for a walk later that night, we discovered the cemetery by the church to be richly decorated with multi-colored flower petals in elaborate shapes, often spelling out words, that families were strewing over graves of their loved ones. This is a most Indian Christian custom to mark All Hallows' Eve (just like the wax figure effigies of sick body parts that Christians here can buy), and a haunting and affecting one at that.

For Diwali weekend itself, we escaped the craziness of firecrackers and street parties at our friends' invitation to visit their country house in Alibaug, a town located 3 hours from Mumbai by road (or a boat ride from the iconic 1920s Gateway of India near the Taj Hotel, pictured here). The atmosphere in this oceanside town is peaceful and sleepy and not much sightseeing interrupts the days of the residents of the "Indian Hamptons." Granted, there was a trip to a semi-ruined fort built by the 17th-century Maratha warrior king Shivaji--this native sun of our state of Maharashtra is a legendary figure who defended his kingdom from the Mughals--and over a hundred of his forts dot the coast.

Yet, the main thing to do, for once, was to relax and enjoy some of the most beautiful sunsets everywhere. For, while Mumbai is one of the most colorful cities anywhere, the party of the senses and craziness of its living conditions--flute-players in the morning? clothing-festooned cows?--does need an injection of sepia every once in a while.

Kathakali in Kerala

One of our most memorable experiences in Kerala was watching a demonstration of Kathakali, the South Indian classical dance-drama art which originated and developed since the 17th century, with its roots in ancient folk arts, and looks like a cross between kabuki theater and silent screen films enacted onstage.

It all begins with the lead actor undergoing an elaborate process of face painting for two hours. This results in a terrifying mask that completely obscures him, and is then completed with a braided wig and full skirts, the latter reminiscent of Japanese theater.

Unlike kabuki or noh, however, the actor is supposed to be completely agile with every part of his face and body--the video uploaded at the bottom demonstrates the eye, lip, eyebrow, finger, hand, etc. motions that each Kathakali performer practices in front of the mirror, every day, since childhood (however, Kathakali can't be done before the age of ten because the eyes can become permanently crossed). This is one of the five components of Kathakali called Expressions.

We were then treated to an eerily overdone demonstration of the Kathakali performer's stylized and outsized pantomime performances of major emotions and states (sad, happy) and more whimsical routines such as "salesman calling people into store" and "bee circling flower."

Finally came the main performance, known as Nithyam--a drama show with an emphasis on hand gestures (the hands, legs and body also move rhythmically but fairly quickly, unlike the bizarre slow motion of kabuki). This was a reenactment of an excerpt of the Mahabharata epic with the performer assuming the roles of both the hero and the demon he was fighting. By the way, all the performances were accompanied by the rhythmic beating of the tabla (drums).

All in all, it was forty-five minutes of the most unusual and slightly scary art form I've ever seen, enhanced by the complete silence by the actors--it's remarkable how this speaking element of the performance has come to be expected in the Western world, while highly stylized, overblown pantomime acting is very much a curiosity.

Kerala: A Cooking Lesson

As easy as it is to get wrapped up in the wonderful tastes--and apparent relative ease--of Keralan cooking, one thing has to be kept in mind: the ingredients better be as fresh and natural as they are here, otherwise it just won't taste the same.

This goes especially for coconut, the uber-crop of the region that everyone grows in their backyards and that can be reaped every 45 days. The coconut is dried in the sun and can then be used to produce coconut oil--delicious-smelling and used for cooking as well as hair conditioning, or shredded coconut, to be used in multiple dishes, such as coconut rice.

Here are the three recipes I was introduced to that produce truly wonderful results:

1) Mezhukku--a potato dish (picture 1 from the top):

-put a pan on high heat; add coconut oil and fresh curry leaves (another ubiquitous ingredient, used everywhere in India and a source of the most wonderful flavoring), 2 teaspoons of fresh pepper and 1 teaspoon of turmeric, and a bit of green chillies, minced

-add salt to taste (a pretty large pinch)

-put 2 small sliced red onions and cook everything on high heat for 1 minute

-put in 250 g. of chopped potatoes

-when the potatoes are soft, add 2 teaspoons of pepper powder and fry for 1 minute more.

It's peppery! It's spicy! And it's very good.

2) Fish Curry (picture 2 from the top)

This dish mostly involves an elaborate mix of spices--the lady in question not only mixed but also ground everything by hand, so there is not much hope for us. Nonetheless...

For 2 small fish sliced as shown (these were mackerels):

-prepare 1 1/2 teaspoons chilli powder

-1 pinch garam masala (a mix sold in any Indian store, though she makes her own...)

-1 teaspoon ginger powder

-1 teaspoon garlic powder

-1 teaspoon pepper powder

-1 pinch turmeric powder

-1 1/2 teaspoons salt

-now mix everything into one and add water to make paste.

-let the fish absorb the spices for 10-15 minutes

-then add coconut oil and fresh curry leaves to a pan on high heat and fry the fish for 5 minutes on each side.

3) Thoran--a vegetable and coconut dish that can be made with beans, cabbage, beetroot or spinach and lentils, as here (picture 3 from the top)

-put 2 tablespoons of coconut oil in a pan set on high heat

-add 1/2 teaspoons of mustard seeds until they start to pop (this is another highly popular ingredient of Indian cooking

-add 3-4 shallots, minced

-and, of course, fresh curry leaves

-when the shallots brown, add some minced green chillis and stir.

-add 1 kilo (2 lbs) of minced spinach--use small leaves

-put on medium heat and cover; stew until soft

-to the spinach, add 100 g. of lentils that have previously been soaked in water (this is dal, one of the most popular Indian dishes) and mix

-add 1 full coconut, grated, 1 teaspoon of turmeric powder and about 1 teaspoon of salt and stew some more

The Keralan diet does appear to be somewhat healthier than its very popular north Indian counterpart--while fresh vegetables are unknown here as well, sadly, there is more emphasis on vegetables and spices, as well as fresh seafood and fish, and less on greasy and heavy dishes. The coconut itself is not its cloyingly sweet American variant, but totally natural and light--now where to find all these ingredients back home?

Kerala--Communism Has Triumphed in Coconut Land

Kerala, the south Indian state where we spent a long weekend, is one of the three states in the country that has an elected Communist government, which has served it splendidly well in the last fifty years. After the Communists came to power here in 1957, there was massive land redistribution from the landlords to the people; in the next decade, there were also conversions to Protestantism by the former lower-caste poor Hindus (effectively, these were former plantation slaves).

While neither measure has worked to really shatter the well-entrenched caste system here, it has produced a more equitable society in comparison to other Indian states. The government here also takes good care of its poorest with abundant state stores where those below the poverty line can buy staples like rice at heavily subsidized prices.

(To my horror, the cutoff for being considered below the poverty line turns out to be a salary of below $12 a month; yet it is true that most households here are self-sufficient, growing their own coconuts--the main fruit and food ingredient in this land--and bananas, and having their little rice paddies). The houses are more prosperous and bigger than in the north, the people look healthier, and everyone appears satisfied to be leading a quiet, peaceful village life in these extremely scenic tropical backwaters.

While most of Kerala is now Hindu, there is a large percentage of the population that is Syrian Catholic (as well as later Portuguese converts), back from the 1st century when St. Thomas the Apostle came here; their Christian temples look nothing like any others you've seen and have their own iconography, such as the cross on top of the lotus flower.

The Hindu temples here have their own style as well, resembling open Balinese ones more than Indian ones... just like the long, boat-shaped and straw-covered houses here kept reminding us of Indonesia--a country that seems to have more in common culturally with this place than the Indian north.

Yet Kerala is also a place that has been marked by its many cultural contacts, from being the hub of the spice trade for centuries. The picture at the bottom, for instance, shows the cantilevered "Chinese fishing nets" (a legacy of 15th-century Chinese traders) put in the water in the morning and evening. The main historic town, Cochin (or Kochi), has a number of Portuguese seventeenth-century houses and also the so-called Jew Town at its center--the Jewish population is believed to have come here back during the destruction of the Second Temple, and just a few of their descendants have survived to our days. There is still a 17th-century synagogue that looks more like a Dutch Protestant church, with Chinese Delft-style white and blue tiles.

Kerala has produced many gentlemen farmers and intellectuals, including the writer Arundhati Roy, who don't seem at all eager to leave these parts--the owner of the idyllic homestay we lived in is a descendant of landlords and priests who looks like a cross between Toulouse-Lautrec and a Marxist intellectual and can converse professorially, for hours, about Keralan history, yet says with pride that he has never left southern India and has no desire to.

It is a nice life here and a nice vacation can be had on the ubiquitous houseboats--made in the shape of traditional rice barges--that ply the backwaters (a recent tourist invention, they have shot up in popularity), going for ayurvedic massages and eating the delicious local food.

Kerala is not exactly undiscovered: everywhere you go in the central parts, there seems to be a blissed-out pink face smiling at you contentedly from a bicycle or the prow of a houseboat. Yet it's still one of the most singular and culturally distinctive of Indian destinations--as I'll talk about more in the next posts

Goa, Gone--My Visit to the Indian Resort Epicenter

Despite the title of this post, I'm very positive about Goa, my recent solo destination and quite a passable working environment while Misha was in much cooler climes on a business trip in Europe.

This former Portuguese colony only reverted to India in 1961 and maintains much higher standards of housing stock (the Latinate villas are not crumbling like they are in Bombay's Bandra, where we live), cleaner roads, and general tourist infrastructure. Speaking of the latter, however, I was lucky to visit its most crowded beaches outside of the tourist season, which meant that 80 percent of all the restaurants, shops, etc. were closed (including one store with the intriguing name Original Fakes, which I was mildly curious about--is it Goa's Chinatown?), and not every face was white.

The state of Goa has lovely beaches that emerge out of the jungle, great Baroque churches from the 16th and 17th centuries--and some elaborate Rococo ones from the 18th--and a Mediterranean, lost-in-time feel to its capitals, Old Goa and Panjim. It also has great seafood, many pork dishes that were brought over from Spain and Portugal, and some unique desserts, such as the delicious bebinca, a 16-layer pudding made of flour, sugar, coconut milk and ghee (the local clarified butter, apparently deadlier than its Western cousin).

If you can rent a moped--the main mode of transportation here--get some wind in your hair to stave off the omnipresent heat and humidity, and escape the New York transport prices and the tourist industry Lotharios offering you anything from a tour of the spice plantation to a date, you're in luck.

The photographs here are of two private mansions (on the right is the private church of a respected and wealthy member of the community in North Goa, called Dr. Monteiros) and the many churches (Church of St. Francis, Se Cathedral and Basilica de Bom Jesus) of Old Goa--a town that was once greater than Lisbon.

Incidentally, I did not see a single local parishioner at any of these although there were people praying at a miraculous cross on the roadside and there is definitely a belief in the curative power of religion, as my landlady told me. Yet most of the local population is now actually Hindu and ethnically Indian because of the post-1961 migration. Those mestizzo ladies in flowery, robe-like Portuguese dresses are there, but outnumbered by saree-wearers.

Goa is definitely more than just a resort and the authenticity is there, but, when the tourist season gets going (late October to March) one has to escape the madding crowds into its less populated regions to get a feel for what the place used to be like before the tourist boom of the 1990s--and the Indianization of 1961.

The City of Floating Elephants

Just as the monsoon finally ended, Mumbai had two weeks of combined festivities between the Muslims (Ramadan, a month of fasting, ended with the feasts of Eid ul-Fitr), the Christians (the birthday of Virgin Mary) and the Hindus (Ganpati or Ganesh Chaturthi, the birthday of the elephant-headed god Ganesh, the patron deity of the city and the god of prosperity, good fortune and new beginnings).

We were most directly affected by the Christian holiday, since we live in a historic Portuguese Catholic neighborhood, Mount Mary, and usually wake up to church singing from the leafy Christian retreat cross the street. How we missed that quiet droning: for a week, our hill became the site of worship, fairgrounds, and plain old trinket (and unfortunately, vuvuzela) selling accompanied by the salespeople's plaintive cries.

The Catholic worship here is its own beast, as you can see in these pictures of a statue of Jesus festooned with a garland of marigolds--the traditional flower used for Indian temple decoration--and, most curiously, the sale of wax candles resembling the body part you want to heal or any other things in your life that you want to go better (seen here: dogs for canine health, houses, hotels).

Yet Ganpati wins hands down both for exuberance and sheer weirdness (a British comedian we went to hear quipped: "It's hot and there are pink elephants everywhere. I must be tripping.") For eleven days, the city was filled with both big and small processions--families and entire communities--lovingly carrying their painted and decorated clay Ganesh statues that they had been keeping and preparing at home all year. Behind the open truck where the god was enthroned would be a whole line of people dancing to stereo music.

The ultimate aim of the Ganesh processions would be to carry the god to the water to cries translating as "O Lord Ganesh, come again speedily next year" (plus deafening firecrackers and more celebration) whence, after a prayer, he would be allowed to float away.

While this happened roughly every three nights, the last day was the biggest celebration, with Ganeshes as tall as five meters being let out to swim.

Unlike the earlier Krishna holiday, this is very much a family celebration and--according to Misha's Australian/Indian colleague--the only time when the lower classes can reclaim the city, barefoot, dancing and holding up traffic.

For me, the most surprising thing, as at any festivals I've seen here, was the sheer exuberance of the crowds and their stamina--dancing the night away for a week and a half--and the surreal sight of pink elephants bobbing up and down in the ocean.