dil chahta hai - review of sorts

I started watching movies from India to get ready for my October trip, and while I can't understand a word of Hindi (OK, I understand 3 or 4 now), with legible English subtitles I can get by well enough to enjoy, or understand enough to experience a portion of what Indians get. I'm continuing to watch DVDs through Netflix, or Instant Watch, that were in my queue, or that my friends have suggested/insisted I watch. The SCNotties awards have given me yet another list of films I never heard of before.

The most recent one I finished is "Dil Chahta Hai" (from the song of the same title I figured out I should pronounce "Hai" as "Hey" not "Hah" or "Hi" as I probably have done). My friends wanted a review, or my comments about the movie, so here goes.

It seems to be a almost mandatory requirement of Bollywood movies to have musical numbers, and while I can and have fast forward through many of them, I listen and watch enough to get the general idea. The primary influence seems to be music videos as originally popularized by MTV years ago, by the likes of Michael Jackson, Madonna, and their pop descendents like Brittany Spears, Spice Girls, etc. Dil Chahta Hai had its share, but they were not too much over the top, and I could tolerate them well enough. I'd be interested to know how faithfully the lyrics are translated in the subtitles.

The script was above the stock Peyton Place-like soap operas I have seen in other romantic comedy/dramas from India, with the characters having good depth, and the performances deeper than shallow. One well-written and acted scene was the "art critic" analysis of one of the main character's painting, where she pointed out the symbolism he displayed indicating he had secrets others would not be shown. She took a risk sharing this with him, per the plot, and he reacted as if someone had opened a door on him.

I thought the character Pooja was quite the catch, and while you could likely predict who she would end up with, the twists and turns were not too cliched. The scenes in Sydney took me back to a visit there earlier this year, and included a real opera (though I only saw the outside of the Opera House). The flashbacks during the "close your eyes" sequence were technically excellent, and the hesitation in the resolution was not quite what I expected (though for a 3 hour movie, the finale can't happen until the last reel). I could swear I heard a didgeridoo playing during some of the Australian scenes. I checked out the back story of Troilus and Cressida (the opera within the movie) and it's not just a somewhat obscure yet insightful and intelligent Shakespeare plays, it's a fairly modern production. Funny that Wikipedia doesn't reference the movie.

The last comment I have is on the younger man/older woman romance, if one could call it that. I'm not completely aware of the traditions in India about divorced or widowed women, but it seems there is more of a stigma than we know "in the West." In the movie, that status difference was a bigger deal than the age, with both the male's friends and his relatives being appalled by his desires, not to mention the woman herself. I was left puzzled by the resolution of this in the plot, with their final scene together being interwoven throughout the movie, and a subsequent scene just before the credits apparently bowing to convention (and perhaps the censors).

I sent the DVD back to Netflix, and the US Postal Service replaced it in my mailbox with the 3 Idiots. How they stuffed all 3 in that small receptacle I have no idea.

Another Innocent Abroad

Downloaded Mark Twain's Innocents Abroad to read on the way home from India. I thought I had read it before, and probably did, but I've forgotten much of the humor. Twain's dry wit is impeccable once again, skewering his fellow travelers, himself, and with special glee, the tour guide industry.

I have taken small tours of places like San Franscico with a several hour guided tour, which included narration, stops at points of interest, and detours to shops not advertised on the primary itinerary advertisements. Twain's experience is dead-on mirroring of the modern guides I met in my just-concluding trip to India, including non-stop prattle, steerage into French textile shops, and the kind of whoopers they grow in Calveras County. I can't possibly match his razor-sharp insights into the alleged innocents, and for this trip I had the advantage of being solo and not needing to succumb to the whims of the majority. But I was subject to the preplanned routes and rigamarole, and was only able to escape at my peril.

One advantage I had over Twain's experience was an occasional 5 or 10 minute respite from the package deal, by most of my guides. They would say, Ok, you go explore this space and meet me back here, or I can't climb all those stairs again, I will wait here.

So far, I am about 25% into Twain's book, where they've reached Italy. I know the "Holy Land" is ahead, and can't wait for the comparative religion discusiion the irascible steamboat pilot will surely get into to.

I should be boarding the flight to Detroit soon... More later!

Jodhpur, last tourist stop in India

All good things come to an end, and this day was my last of the package tour of India, except for delivering me back to the airport for the long, long flight home. The itinerary called for the tour to be on Saturday, but with an 8-hour drive from Udaipur, it was almost sunset when we arrived so no point in trying to see much.

On the way, Parveen stopped so I could get an action photo of a water pump. The boys drawing water came right over to the car when we slowed down, so I'm happy the camera worked before that. I think the dog stayed where he was.

The tour included the Mehrangarh Fort, with an initial stop at the Jaswant Thada, or crematorium, which includes memorials to deceased rulers and their kin, plus a building not quite a temple, and not quite not a temple. After nearly a week of hearing versions of Hindu history capsules, I had gotten to the point of nodding my head while thinking about something else. No offense to my friends here, but you can understand a tour guide's monologue can be intrusive, rather than instructive, if carried to extremes.

Given it was Sunday, a holiday after Dewali festivities, many people were visiting the historic sites and monuments. I seemed to have gotten farther from the central tourist routes to the Taj Mahal and sites neared to Delhi, so my American/European presence was noted and commented upon. Some people said hello, struck up conversations, asking how I liked India (here's where my practiced Hindi fell out of mind), and were happy to meet me. One guy turned out to be from Northern California (and later in the airport I met two people from Maryland - the SAP hat and bag were a tell-tale). Teenagers, on the other hand, may have said hello, but typically commented to each other about my presence.

When the tour was complete, we went into the city for a market walk. I'm not sure how the tour guide business operates here, whether the word about my likes and dislikes filtered around the network, but I was somehow steered into a textile building with floor after floor and pile after pile of fabrics like blankets, scarves, bedding and tablecloths. My pack is already overweight, and my budget is way over the limit, and after being shown sample after sample I tried to inch my way out the door. The salesperson, while very nice, persisted in asking me if I would buy gifts for families (and the non S.O.) before I could get a card and exit the premises. Everything was beautiful, intricate, seemed reasonably priced, but I was just not interested. I was not even looking, but apparently said "sure" when I should have said "no, not really." I captured a few seconds of his pitch on video, below.




After this shot, these tykes came over asking for money. Can't say I blame them.



Fort on a hill. Apparently Jodhpur and Jaipur duked it out, and the former won. So to speak.



I was struck by how obsolete and useless a grave site is, with a microwave tower for contrast.



City Palace in Jodhpur. Big cheese still lives here.



Makeshift shade. And it's much cooler now in October.



Carrying the laundry; not sure if this is before or after washing?


Good sense of color in the store decorator staffs.



These looked like melons for sale, but I'm fairly certain it is pottery.



Cab stand. "Follow that two-stroke!"



Store, power pole, trash fire. And some ubiquitous two wheel locomotion.



My tour guide said these were jute rope, but I think some may be synthetic.



Jodhpur market



I suspect these chilies are pretty spicy.



Fresh vegetables in the Jodhpur market, near the clock tower.

PREVIEWS OF COMING ATTRACTIONS

Pictures from Udaipur and environs

I'm in a hotel in Jodhpur, with a band playing Indian folk music by the pool outside, and as much bandwidth as I can muster for four hours. A few images from the past two days, as the hotel in Udaipur had no wireless, and I wasn't interested in sitting in an internet cafe when there were other things to do.

Food

Breakfast on the 26th




Dinner on the 25th




An elephant



Another elephant





Fire dance(r)(s)





Udaipur near sunset




More Udaipur street view

Udaipur tour 28 Oct 2011

India 28-Oct-2011


Traffic getting into the center of Udaipur was at a standstill Thursday night when we arrived; portions of the old city were closed to cars. After driving around, and not driving for portions of time, Praveen left the car on a street and we walked the remaining half-mile or so to the hotel. The streets in the center are twisted, hilly, and narrow.
Once we reached the hotel, I found the room to be elegant yet sparse. The electrical service is controlled by an outside switch (no leaving the iron on, of there was an iron, and enough power to run one). The bathroom has a hot water heater for the shower, which you must switch on ahead of time to get it ready.

Temple
In the morning, I met my guide, who was going to be Farooq, but instead was another gentleman, whose name was, um, I forgot to write down. I've now heard multiple variations on the Hindu deity naming schemes. His monologue varied from describing the panoply of supreme beings to the origin of the marble and other building material to a little about current conditions.
The center dome was barely visible behind a large wire mesh, and due to angles, not much was evident outside. The exterior of the building had an unbelievable number of carved figures, and each layer seemed to relate to some power or unit.


City palace museum
The Palace is no doubt a great building, with wonderful courtyards, terffici vistas, and an ancient art collection, as well as more recent historic artifacts like photos and mementos of the ruling family. Sadly, we did not see or enjoy much of this due to the crowds from Diwali holiday visiting at the same time. It was an experience to be in lines that channeled into a single small doorway, that led down to narrow winding steps. Generally everyone was patient, except for one person who decided waiting was not for him, pushing through the crowd to reach the bottleneck.
People were extra friendly to me, saying hello, with one gentleman asking me about my travel to India.

No boat ride
I told my guide I was not interested in a boat ride to any of the lake palaces, given the likelihood of long waits, crowded sites, and my general dislike pf boats. He seemed hesitant to change the plan, since it was paid for and he appeared to be ready with more monologues. After a week of seeing 500 year old buildings, I wanted to visit something more topical. Heritage is great, but what about the world we will live in tomorrow?

Water garden
We skipped the boat ride, driving to the water garden (the name escapes me, but one photo geo-location says N 24d 35m 14s, E 73d 41m 50s ). This was less crowded, cool with fountains, and had pleasant greenery, as well as few if any pushy potential guides, trinket sellers or mendicants.







Lunch - Aroma restaurant

For lunch, we stopped at an outdoor restaurant. While the food was good, I felt a bit off for some reason. Maybe the waiter didn't think much of me, or the feeling of eating on a card table under a mildewed tarpaulin, or the lack of other patrons save one gave me a strange feeling. But the food was spicy and filling, and I won't need to return soon.

City market walk
After being dropped off near the city center, my guide directed me through blocks of outdoor and indoor markets, explaining which areas sold which goods, how the businesses were handed down throughout the families, and a bit about how the city architecture has evolved from mud and brick huts to cement and steel structures. I took a few photographs, but with no hotel wireless and limited bandwidth to upload through my phone, the images will need to wait. I sent one through to Facebook, and one to Twitter, I think, so check one of those.
One area I skipped through lack of interest was the gem and stone market. This area is a world exporter apparently, and there seems to be plenty of consumers for those goods. I was able to get a replacement watchband, installed, for what could be considered a bargain. Again, photos later.


Dinner - Ambrai restaurant
Nice place, not too far a walk from the hotel (with a guide, as I don't think a map would suffice). Outdoor setting, live music playing, and more spicy food (mutton sagwala this time). But seeing a rat scampering among tables was a big let down (oh, look, it's Scampers!). The lakes look nice, very reflective views of the surrounding buildings, but the amount of trash I saw on the swales below the locks was enormous, and included at least one live big rooting through it. I hesitate to think what the water quality of such a contained reservoir would be. Probably worse than Baltimore's Inner Harbor?

Concepts and continuations - in Udaipur India

26-Oct-2011

* water

The first thing, and often second, third, fourth, and fifth things a traveler is told is "don't drink the water" when visiting a foreign land. I had generally hear that phrase in the context of Mexico, though it was said to me a few times about India. Certainly one does not want to risk being ill when far away from home, but how would I reconcile my convictions against drinking bottled water with avoiding stomach illness? People compromise when faced with such decisions, and I admit I have added to the waste stream with more non-returnable bottles. In most of the hotels, I found tea kettles, which let me boil the water and sterilize it, at least as far as pathogens. No ill effect from this procedure. The taste has varied according to my location, as the water is definitely more salty (with who knows what other minerals) in Agra. In the hotel in Jaipur, no kettle, since this is a "heritage" hotel that possesses wonderful architecture, interesting door knobs, great water pressure (and heat), but I would not stress the electrical circuits much.

My driver, Praveen, said recent monsoons have been lower than historic amounts. We visited one city that had been abandoned hundreds of years ago due to drought, and though the site is a historic monument, it is surrounded by development that appears to have sufficient water. During my road travels, we passed rice paddies, which definitely require adequate irrigation; Praveen said once we pass Jaipur we will see agriculture with less water, or maybe desert.

Another aspect is the danger of disease spread by insects requiring water, such as malaria via mosquitoes. Guide books and medical advice was to minimize contact with repellent, and staying indoors. I saw more mosquitoes in the first few days, around Kolkata, then in the last fee days south of Delhi. I know it is important to narrow the risk factors, and while I am not living dangerously, I am less obsessed about seeing bugs that I was initially.

Yesterday we saw cattle being washed in a waterway by the roadside ( and I am sure I have s picture and/or a movie clip). I tired to find out if this is a daily occurrence, and I think the answer is yes, but I was uncertain whether all cattle have such immersion chances. In a lake near the Amber Fort, as well as at other waterways during this trip I've seen people bathing, not to mention the ubiquitous roadside urination everywhere from countryside to high tech office park.

Wastewater treatment plants might be easier to find from the sir than on the ground, unless one can follow the odors. So far, the closest I have been to one was an office building in Bangalore with a sign saying Karnataka Pollution Control Administration.


* electricity and petroleum

India is definitely electrified, at least in the areas I have seen. In some cases, this is limited to a fluorescent light bulb illuminating a shop. In the small village outside Dagrapur, Abesh noted a line tapped from a power main, directed straight into the back of a building. I did not verify electric service was provided to every house, but the fact that circuits were in the vicinity at least suggested it was available.

Dipankar lent me a 220 volt "dongle" to power my US devices while here. It's been absolutely necessary to keep my various cameras and comms from turning into bricks. Abesh said the spark that jumped out when plugging in circuitry was perfectly normal, though I am not sure I can get used to that flash and sound easily. With the dozens of pictures I have taken each day, the rechargeable AAs have worked out great for the camera; I don't think I have come close to needing to switch them during the day.

I think one of my guides said India had no remaining coal reserves, and used petroleum for electricity generation, as well as a small amount of hydroelectric and I guess nuclear. We have passed numerous smoke stack belching visible plumes, not to mention the emissions from the two-stroke "auto-rickshaws", like multi-passenger lawn mowers.

In Old Delhi, my tour guide pointed out the maze of overhead wiring passing overhead, commenting on the availability of power and the lack of regulation or control with such chaos. Maybe it just looks random to an outsider, as do the streets without signs, and the traffic paying no attention to lane dividers, or to the center divider for that matter.


* beggars

I mentioned street beggars on one of the SDN blogs, and received several comments, but did not get a chance to reply during one of my wireless paid-hotel windows of opportunity. The guide books (once again, holy scripture for the mundane tourist) said don't encourage them, don't pay attention to them , keep moving, nothing to see here. Easy for you to say. When a live woman holding a baby steps in front of you, you have to be pretty inhuman not to react. It's one thing to say no, or to ignore, a " hawker" holding sets of jewelry that has no attraction, it's another to deal with someone tapping on your arm, after having eaten large amounts of calories in a restaurant.

The right answer for me is to channel energy and money to charitable organizations that can can help people find ways out of poverty, or improve their health conditions, or otherwise assist them out of the cycle. Can I tell an "honest beggar" from a con artist? Maybe, maybe not. I tried not to take pictures of the snake charmers, monkey handlers, acrobats or other street people, with the idea that I can remember the situation, I don't need to memorialize it.


* design - dome

The evening last week on Design Thinking, which passively participated in, reminded me of the type of brain storming with intense direction I experienced when I heard Buckminster Fuller speak in the mid-1970s. Coming together to solve problems, using technology at hand, and examining the ratios of power use resounded among the teams. So it was a pleasant feeling to see a geodesic dome within a traffic circle in Jaipur. However, pasting the image in the blog post will need to wait until I fire up the PC somewhere on the net as I have not learned the trick of grabbing image URLs on the iPad.

This dome is child-sized, intended for a playground next to a school or in a park. I am puzzled by its placement in a traffic circle, given the difficulty of access, the environmental conditions (road dust and hydrocarbon emissions), and the tight placement. Maybe there is more to that dome than I could see at the time.




* chaos + destruction

Beyond the apogee of my trip, heading for the inevitable splashdown and hopefully a recovery. Several of my guides have attempted to explain Hindu mythology to me, with a triumvirate of birth, life and death being one concept. Knowing the impending destruction of anything can be an impediment to creative thinking and positive energy, so whatever I can get out of this trip, I hope it leads to less chaos.

Everywhere that I saw a street sweeper, a pile of trash on the side of the road, or waste being generated, I tried to compartmentalize and systematize what was occurring. Road side burning of trash that happens in India I have rarely seen in at least 40 years in the U.S., other than maybe leaf burning.

In the end, these are just small thoughts from a small person somewhere in a big world, trying my best.

Agra to Jaipur

25-Oct-2011, "dateline Jaipur, Rajasthan, India"

My tour of India is going well, seeing lots of sights, learning a lot of culture, and only being slightly penned in by the constraints of tour guide routine that has me running into the same Eurolanders in different transports or restaurants. Hotel wireless is un-cheap, and to make sure this post gets out before the clock runs down to zero, I'm hitting "publish" before I am actually done. If the text stops before the "woman in yellow" paragraph, refresh again later.

Spent the evening in Agra, after another hotel dinner, and then a breakfast. But on the road early, Agra fort is close to the lodgings, and spotted lots of monkeys around the outside of the fort. This is not something we see often in the U.S.

The third shot of the fort below silhouettes a visitor near the mosque, I believe, though I was turned around a few times due to the enormity of the structure. Rais, my guide, said most of the grounds are off limits as they are occupied by the military. Apparently, the buildings are in good enough condition to serve hundreds of years after being constructed.

The next shot is just one of the many street vendors who were selling flowers for Dewali. It's a big holiday here, meaning traffic Wednesday could be even busier, if that is believable.

After the flowers is a shot of me on the bus. The gentleman next to me wanted to get up, but I said he need not bother to move. I know I take up a lot of room, and this angle confirms it.

Inside Fatehpur Sikri, a World Heritage site, I explored the palaces, harem rooms (read: youth hostels of the 16th century), courtyards, balconies, and other palatial digs, or what is left of them after multiple successive ownership. It's amazing what remains today.

Rias kept wanting to take my picture with big buildings in the background, and I'm glad he obliged my desire to get the drinking water and local visitors with me in the same shot. It means more to me than a palace or castle!

Lunch was more Euro-Indian food (Indian dishes, served mainly to European tourists). I did get to see cows afterward in the place next door.

On the road to Jaipur, we started seeing hills after an hour or two, and I spotted castles or forts on a few of them. The shot below juxtaposes an ancient fortress with a more modern communication tower.

As we entered Jaipur, the road became steeper, and then more crowded. The last shot, of the woman in yellow, is one of my favorites from the trip. The car was moving, she was moving, and I took it with a cell phone camera. The new term for this hobby, I learned on this trip, is "phonography" (you could look it up in your Funk & Wagnall's).

Stills

14.03.00 ?






14.39.57




15.23.58





16.28.45

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