Holy holy holy

Holy cows, holy city, holy river.

Optimism

Varanasi warrants the following adjectives: dignified, ancient, holy, captivating.

Adjectives which will never be stuck to the City of Light include: neat, clean, and tidy.

The air is heavy with dust and the ground is stained red with paan juice. Walking along the ghats means dodging piles of goat, cow and dog droppings and keeping your feet out of the toxic water that sluices across the path now and then. Backstreets become open latrines. Kids scavenge anything reusable, street sweepers valiantly mill around with brooms and hoses, goats nibble on whatever they can, but there’s still a vast amount of rubbish and, well, filth lying around. In the face of all this muck, this cheery penguin shaped bin at Dasaswamedh Ghat struck me as a brilliantly, crazily hopeful civic installation.
The next time I walked past it, a mouthful of paan juice had been spattered across the penguin’s plastic belly, making a mockery of this sturdy little receptacle’s function.

Here and there

I missed the biggest barbie day of the year in Sydney without too much regret. Last year on Straya/Invasion Day I traversed the city twice on public transport. The buses and trains were for the most part full of bright-eyed youngsters keeping alive the great Australian tradition of getting tanked and affectionate in public places. They wore Aussie flags and Southern Crosses on their backs and green and gold stripes of zinc on their cheeks; peel-off flag tattoos from the Tele emblazoned many surfaces. The kids seemed to have been pulled from every shelf of the demographic pie shop and I wondered how they had come to accept and express so apparently uncritically the true blue lamington dogma. If the holiday was just a pretext for social interaction, why all the nationalist paraphernalia? Mostly though, I just wished they’d stop singing Waltzing Matilda. Things got a bit uglier later in the day: flags turned into drunken superhero capes; off-key singing turned into shouty aggro incoherence and corpses began to cover the pavements of the Cross. Waterside picnics con vino (chardonnay the tipple for special occasions like Australia Day) aside, I wasn’t devastated to pass it up this year.

The 26th January 2008 began far too early in the morning for me. I rose at 3.30am in order to catch a train from murky, menacing Gaya station. The train was late and I huddled in my blanket feeling very cold and cranky. Eventually the train shunted in and out with me aboard and I arrived in Varanasi, the most ancient city I’ve ever visited. Here in Shiva’s city, I discovered that the 26th January is also India’s Republic Day, this year celebrating the 58th anniversary of the establishment of the Republic of India. More people milled on the streets and ghats of Varanasi than in Sydney but the milling was a little more low-key.
Lots of sari-strolling, marigold wreaths, floating candles, paper flags (none worn as capes) and perhaps a bit more tooting and beeping on the streets.

As far as I know, Varanasi isn’t a dry city but I haven’t come across any booze vendors thus far; perhaps this is why I also didn’t happen upon any marauding clusters of Antipodeans thronging with nationalist fervour. Varanasi may be one of the few cities in the world not under sharia law where you can pass Australia Day under such conditions.

Life is short and art is long

It might be that my longish absence from Sydney is adding a certain lustre to the lily gilding process. Still, it seems like there’s been an explosion of new theatre in Sydney over the last year. My inbox is full of blurbs about shows, shows, shows. Hurrah! To wit, my outrageously talented friend Cait and her collaborators are staging Persephone’s Wolf at the Carriageworks, right now. If the stars, Malaysian Airlines, the real estate agents of the inner East and my immune system are working with me on the night the curtain falls on the show for the last time, I’ll be there, as should you be.

Plumdingers

Momos in soup at the Tibetan Om CafÈ, Bodhgaya, a locale particularly favoured by out-of-town spiritual questers dropping by that holy city. Not only is it a fabulous spot for the sceptical eavesdropper, it is a fine, flea-free, low fee place to eat. The soup was full of garlic, green chilli and some kind of leafy weed, a hearty, nay, pugilistic counter to the chilly, depressing situation outside and, indeed, to the drippy sanctimony of the clientele.

Barely visible in the background is an excellent glass of strong milky filter coffee. The Om crowd stopped comparing meditation stories for a few moments as it was brought to me, the punchy aroma of coffee in the morning briefly obscuring the incense burning in the corner. As their eyebrows fell and their gazes turned from my glass and back to their own, full of chai, hot ginger and lemon, Tibetan tea and lassi (salty, no doubt), I wondered whether the mild stimulus afforded by coffee drinking was viewed with some chagrin in this sacred place. Was mine a paranoid reaction? Hard to say, but in the half second before the puzzled, slightly disapproving glances stopped and the dharma chatter resumed, every demon in my chart urged me to yell out, Dudes, it’s my karma, right?, like some obnoxious precocious adolescent diva in a coming of age film set in Northern California. I kept the noise down and concentrated on broadcasting the vibes via my cosmic ham radio instead.

Hail the Dumpling!

A friend of mine proclaimed 2001 the Year of the Dumpling on the first dawn of that very year. Early in the morning after the year before, steamed dumplings struck the assembly as extraordinary entities: delicious misshapen orbs, miraculous in their very manifestation and the rapidity of their transition from freezer to steamer to plate to belly. As it has turned out, 2001 wasn’t the Year of the Dumpling, rather, its first dawn marked the beginning of the Decade of the Dumpling. It may even happen that we happy beings are living our lives in the Century of the Dumpling.

Anyway. I love dumplings: I can’t remember ever being seriously let down by dumplings. A little bit of stodginess, over-frying, under-steaming, gloopy filling, chewy pastry, none of these misdemeanours ever defeat the goodness of the dumpling experience. The Global Dumpling League admits a broad range of foodstuffs into the category of dumpling: something carbohydrate-y wrapped around something else and steamed, boiled, or fried. Gyoza, ravioli, frozen Chinatown dumplings, pelmeni, gowgees, dumplings homemade with Laura, samosas, dim sum, won ton, Chinese Noodle House and Silk Road fried dumplings, Mavis’ golden syrup dumplings, tortellini…all these take their place in the pantheon of dumplings.

On the streets of Kolkatta, I discovered a new variant: the Tibetan momo. Momo are small dumplings stuffed with spicy, super-garlicky vegetables and served with a chilli sauce. The street stalls in Kolkatta served five dumplings with a dollop of chilli sauce and a little bowl of peppery soup sprinkled with shallots for 10 rupees (about AU$0.30). Momo are ubiquitous in Bodhgaya as there is a huge population of Tibetan refugees here.
These may not look like anything special but they were dynamite: the best momo I’ve yet tasted. They exploded with hot golden curry veges – I love it when garlic is treated as a vegetable! I could hear the salsa in the centre being prepared as I waited – dice, dice, dice – raw onion, garlic, tomato and chilli in equal proportions. I think if I ate salsa like this every day, my immune system would be a stronghold with Death Star defenses. Mutton dumplings are also on offer but I haven’t tried them for several reasons: I’m wafting through a vego phase; I’m convinced that meat is the cause of all food poisoning; Indian mutton is goat.

I’m committed to eating plenty of momo before quitting North India in the hope of figuring out what’s in the filling. Are there any Tibetan restaurants in Sydney?

The Middle Way

Bihar province, in which Bodhgaya is situated, is one of the poorest in India. If I was shocked by the poverty in Kolkatta, I am more so here. I left Kolkatta with warnings ringing in my ears about Bodhhgaya and Gaya, where the train arrives. People will cheat you, I was told. Don’t accept any food and drink, it might be drugged. Watch out for thieves. A friend of mine was drugged and had all her gear stolen in terrible circumstances around here a few years ago so I was a tiny bit nervous about arriving in Gaya at 5 in the morning. The train arrived late so it was light by the time I arrived. Stepping over bodies to exit the station, I got mobbed by taxi and rickshaw drivers wanting to take me to Bodhgaya. I made my decision and got abused by all of them except the one I elected to drive me. It’s been raining here and the whole area is cold and strikes me as a bit sullen.

Bodhgaya is where the Buddha attained enlightenment after sitting under the bodhi tree for six weeks. There’s a descendant of the original bodhi tree still growing here, the Mahabodhi temple, first raised by Ashoka in the 2nd century BC, and temples built by the communities of Buddhist countries. Chinese, Thai, Burmese, Tibetan, Sri Lankan, Vietnamese and Japanese temples sit side by side nearby; there’s also a mosque and a Hindu temple. Bodhgaya is an important Buddhist pilgrimage town and so the foreigner population is slightly different to that in the cities. Sitting at a café drinking tea, I watched a busload of Japanese Zen Buddhists in white pyjamas turn up as Thai monks swished by in saffron and burgundy robes and Westerners wearing prayer beads and windbreakers looked on. Tibetan ladies in bakus and aprons walk past quietly as Indian women hitch up their saris to keep clear of the puddles. You can attend dhamma talks and sit in on Zen instruction and buy tea and Free Tibet t-shirts from the refugee market. A zillion vipassana courses are on offer but as I’m not due for a karmic tune-up just yet, I’m here strictly as a voyeur.

People are watching me too. As a SWF, I’m some kind of target for small grotty children in ragged silks and dirty knickers: they chase me up the street, grabbing my hands and trousers, yelling Money, Madame!, No food!, You buy!, Very hungry!, Nice lady!, Small baby! until one of the street stall holders who wants my custom snarls at them and they move away. I share my coins amongst them and those who miss out start yelling. I realise that I gave the girl with a baby coins earlier in the day and refuse her entreaties, giving them to someone else instead. You have a bad heart, she shouts after me, a very bad heart. It’s a little difficult to maintain equanimity under the circumstances. The kids are more tourist savvy and persistent but they’re by no means the only hungry ones. The quiet hum of chanting around the temples is interrupted by the clanging of beggars’ bowls pushed through the fences as I walk by. Refugees from Tibet who’ve undergone who knows what kind of hell to get here, gaunt locals, hordes of yelping dogs, desperate rickshaw drivers who make you feel like a heel for walking, polite schoolboys hoping you’ll purchase books and cricket bats for them… I can see the benefit of a meditation program here as two-fold: the first, to reckon with the Buddhist concept of life being rooted in suffering; the second, to cloister oneself from the immediate evidence of how wretchedly true this is for the people of Bihar.

Big Little Britain

There are reminders of the British presence in Calcutta everywhere and most of them hark back to Victoria’s England when, give or take a Lucknow style rebellion or two, the imperial shop was in order. The biggest piece of Victoriana is the monumental Victoria Memorial, a huge building in the middle of town raised after the boss lady’s death. Victoria perches on the edge of the dome, leaning out to tend her flocks; she’s figured, it seems, as a voluptuous, modest Grecian mother goddess: a chastely dressed Saraswati meets a mellow and munificent Hera. Outside, drivers wait with horses and carts to take a mainly Indian clientele on rides around the Maidan, the biggest park in the city. It’s very strange.

I’ve walked up Waterloo St and Middleton Row and Shakespeare St through the decaying carapace of the colonial dream. I’m staying in quite a fabulous hotel owned by Brits who’ve been in Calcutta for generations and still call Blighty home. There are faded posters of London tourist attractions on the walls of the dining room; to the collection of family portraits hanging in the stairwells is added a photograph of the Windsor family in the Diana years. Felicity Kendall, staple funny girl of late 70s and early 80s BBC serials, grew up here and her visage adorns the walls of the stairwell too. Yes, very strange indeed.

Traffic report

Spending half an hour outdoors in Delhi induces a coughing fit; an hour in an auto-rickshaw in Chennai traffic left me choked up for the rest of the day. The pollution in Calcutta is different, somewhat less onerous as far as the respiratory system but still the daily harbinger of a thick, unglamorous sheen of cuticular filth. I thought I’d arrived in Calcutta on an overcast day. The sky was silvery grey and, out of the glare of direct sunlight, walking wasn’t uncomfortable. A few days later, I realise that the perpetual gloom is composed of polluting gases and that the heaviness in the air is not that which precedes a storm, but the filtered fallout from those celestial pachyderms.

Vast anarchic columns of vehicles belch out ominously dark fumes: yellow Hindu Ambassador taxis, autorickshaws, rickety old lorries, brightly painted buses, Enfield motorbikes, all swerving and weaving Stravinsky style. There are cooking fires and makeshift waste incinerators on every street and piles of rubbish and building materials throw up dust at the slightest provocation. My feet are sticky with grime from walking around the city for hours today. I managed to dodge the piles of ordure and dubious looking puddles but even so, the air down there clings to my feet more tenaciously than it does to my arms and face and neck. It’s quite amazing. Still, when I arrive back in my hotel room and slough bucketloads of dirt off my exposed skin, I can breathe easily enough.

In spite of the grime, I’m quite taken with Calcutta, quite sorry that I’ll be jumping on the overnight train to Gaya tonight. It’s the first big Indian city I’ve visited which it’s possible to wander around and experience at street level. So for hours these last few days, I’ve been tramping up and down avenues lined with enormous dilapidated colonial buildings.

The pedestrian experience of Calcutta’s architectural record of monumental imperial aspiration, its decline and transformation is tiring, not least because of the effort of figuring out how the hell to respond to the extremely visible grinding poverty. I’ve been confronted by various manifestations of poverty and inequality around the world but I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a concentration of people living dreadfully tough lives on the street. Walking and driving past slums is one thing but walking over and through people’s lives as they sleep and wash and shit on the streets is quite another. Pushed into my path by their parents, children grab my sleeve and sing out ‘Madame, Madame, ten rupee’ again and again as they follow me along the path. Often, my motives in giving them coins have less to do with charity and more to do with irritation and embarrassment. Who knows where the money goes? I’m sure the right-headed would chastise me for responding to persistence rather than need. Each time I give money to a beggar, another equally needy person pops up and stakes their claim.

Anyway, anyway, it’s always enough already with the liberal guilt, n’est-ce pas. Back to the views, back to me. Keeping clear of the traffic, staying out of puddles, declining invitations into shops selling men’s underwear, deciding who to follow across the road, not getting lost, trying to imagine the transformations within and without these extraordinary buildings over the last couple of hundred years, it’s all hungry work. Fortunately, Calcutta street food is delectable and thus far I haven’t been struck with the gutrot.

The ubiquitous snack is the roll, Calcutta’s answer to the felafel, I guess. Fresh flat bread is cooked on a griddle, sometimes with egg, and rolled up with onion, chilli sauce, lime juice, spicy paneer or veges or chicken. They’re fantastic. I’ve made a solid commitment to the roll and the best I’ve found is at Kusum’s. Follow this sign a few metres down a little lane off Park St at the Maidan end, just before Oxford Books. Order a paneer roll and you will encounter happiness. I was by far the most conspicuous customer on my visits and so couldn’t quite bring myself to take a photograph.

Affirmation in Pondicherry

As one of four sisters who were allowed to see the light of day all those years ago, this sign warmed my heart.

Aren't we all. Is it cheap to make mileage out of public health warnings against the real and awful phenomena of female infanticide? Possibly. Oh well. Here’s another dose of le charme de Pondicherry in compensation.

And, oh, why not. Here’s a poor old leukodermic Pondicherruvian temple elephant, a model of miserable stoicity and placid dignity, getting fed a dose of what looked like protein-enriched mashed potato.