Re-visiting Karnataka’s Capital

Before this hurried sojourn to Bangalore, we hadn’t been there for years, many years. Most of our recent trips to India had been short and we’d never had the chance to drop into Bangalore, where a part of my family lives.

Much had changed since then, including the name of the place. Being the centre of the Indian IT dream, Bangalore had been thrust into cosmopolitanism over the past decade. In some misguided move to stem this tide, they’d renamed themselmes officially to the more traditional Bengaluru. All this translating names of places from one language to another and then considering it renamed is cute, but really must stop in the interest of sanity and the saving of precious resources.

I have visited Bangalore many times over the years. In some distant past, it had earned the title of Garden City, for its green areas, like Lal Bagh, and tree-lined streets, but even in my years of coming here, I had seen the decline of its natural persuations and the growth of a fairly chaotic township, which had too much that was un-city-like for my liking. The Bangalore that I had last seen was stuck in limbo between those two identities. After our visits to natural spots in Mumbai over the previous two weekends, I was not really expecting to equal those experiences in the new Bengaluru. Thankfully, I was mistaken, and we discovered Turhalli.

Kannada Cacophony

One thing I noticed a lot from the moment we landed in Bengaluru was all the signage in Kannada, the local language. What I hadn’t realised is that it had been a while since I had been surrounded by so much text I couldn’t read. I speak Kannada, but never learnt the script. In the other cities I’m familiar with, Bombay and Dubai, all the non-English text, consisting of Hindi, Marathi, or Arabic, I can read (although I don’t actually speak Arabic). With that in mind, I must say it felt quite strange to go though the streets of Bengaluru and see signs everywhere in an alien language, but an alien language that I could speak. A surreal experience to be sure.

Our first morning waking up in Bangalore we were out on the road. A small bus was hired to accomodate our large group and we headed out into the chill morning air on our way to Nandi Hills. Weaving through the relatively quiet city ctreets, we ended up on a street strewn with Ganesha idols along the pavement. We’d arrived in Bangalore just before Ganesh Chaturthi, an annual festival paying homage to the elephant-headed God Ganesha, or Ganapati. It is celebrated the most in the states of Maharashtra and Karnataka, and this was the first time I was in Karnataka during this time of the year.

In Bombay, Ganesh Chaturthi is big, very big, and the statues of the God in all sizes can be seen on every street corner for weeks. It seemed a little smaller here as a celebration, but quite different, because these statues were all made to the local aesthetic. Ganesh statues back in Bombay are colourful, but these in comparison seemed to have borrowed colour from a much gaudier end of the rainbow. The colours were deeper, the motifs were made to suit local tastes and traditions, and the other startling fact was that all the statues were huge. In Bombay people have small homes, and large statues are only reserved for community affairs, but in Bengaluru, even entry-level Ganesh statues seemed to be large and would have towered over the few-inch-high ones that are the norm in Bombay. In part this was due to the generally larger houses in this city, in part it was overcompensation.

Namma Deepika Padukone

Southern India is renowned for its gaudy exuberance. It is a cultural aesthetic you will find often repeated. Of the cultures of the South, I must say the state of Karnataka is the tamest of the lot when it comes to exuberance, but that’s not to say it is completely free of the effect.

I had already seen an example of this with the Ganesha staues on the street earlier, and then during our sojurn I saw another example on the side of the highway. It was two large billboards for BSNL, a telecom provider, featuring Deepika Padukone, the now famous Bollywood actress. The fact of the matter is, Deepika Padukone grew up in Bangalore. She is the daughter of a famous badminton player, another proud son of this soil. She went into modeling, and over the past few years has become one of the young stars of the Hindi film industry. Needless to say this is a source of great pride and joy to the people of Bengaluru. So it should come as no surprise that she appears on so many billboards there.

The interesting thing though, is the photographs on those billboards. I’ll be the fist one to say that Ms. Padukone is not quite the fine thespian (yet), but even by her standards, those are some of the most outrageously over-acted modeling shots I’ve seen in a long time. They’re practically dripping with syruppy goodness, like many of the ideal-housewife ads we saw come out of America in the 50s. And that’s my point about the aesthetic of the place, because like the US in the 50s, in Bangalore, that overdone smile and over-posed awkwardness, seems to be a good thing. The fact that it is Deepika Padukone is just an added source of salivation for the masses.

In case you were wondering, the Namma in the title above is Kannada for our. This inclination for labling things Ours to make them seem more local and authentic, is quite popular in Bengaluru. They have a large metro rail project in progress at the moment which is officially called Namma Metro, i.e. Our Metro. There is a great pride in what is ours, or at least great PR about what belongs, another unfortunate effect of the sudden cosmopolitain invasion of this city. It’s gone from a sleepy little town to a centre of attention, with people from all over the country and the world living there. As a result it obviously suffers from a bit of an identity crisis. Like all people and places suffering from it, they have chosen the wrong route to strengthen their original culture. Cultures are not preserved by dictating or by forcing them on to people, cultures are preserved by making them so irresistable that the others can’t help but embrace them as their own.

Cumulous Clouds Over Bengaluru

After our magic morning at Turhalli, we said our goodbyes and headed out. We had lunch at a friend’s place and then called for taxis to take us to the airport. This was the first time I was sitting in the new shiny green private taxis that are becoming popular in many Indian cities. For one thing, they were using more contemporary cars than the classic Padmini, and they were much more organised with modern technology. A call centre, digital meters, printed, bills, the works. And as I found out on our trip to Bengaluru International Airport, they are also very comfortable.

The wide windows of the Mahindra Logan afforded me a magnificent view of the landscape, and as we left the city behind, the vistas opened up and the sky displayed its full magnificence. Right from the time we had begun our descent into Bangalore on our flight in, I had noticed how absolutely gorgeous the monsoon clouds were here. They were the usual cumulous clouds, but on a scale that is rarely visible near the coast at Bombay. Bombay is often one of the first ports of call for the full force of the south-westerly monsoons making land-fall, so the skies are usually an impenetrable blanket of clouds and a chaos of winds. I am guessing by the time the remanants of these wind systems make it inland, and over the Western Ghats, they’ve had time to calm down and built these beautiful castles in the sky.

That’s what the clouds over Bengaluru reminded me of, architecture. They were tall and wide, and stepped, and complex. They spoke of other worlds where mere humans could only dream of going. I saw these coulds on our trip to Nandi Hills and it was the very same clouds that now marched along the firmament as we made our way out of the city. The afternoon Sun painted them in million tinged greys and blues, and the occasional pink. As we pulled into the airport parking lot and paid our fares, I was almost sorry that the airport had a roof and that I would have to go without the sights above me. So before the swanky glass, concrete, and chrome enveloped us, I bid farewell to the cloud sculptures in the sky, to the now distant rocks in Turhalli, and headed off to catch our flight.

Samir

After our day at Nandi Hills and a bit of driving around Bangalore, we thought we were done. Set to leave the following afternoon, we had little to do on the one Sunday morning that remained, besides relax, spend some time with the family, and say our goodbyes. The evening before, we were sitting around the house talking to our cousin, discussing such important world issues as camera equipment, when he mentioned that he was going rock-climbing in the morning. He said his favourite spot was close by, it was a nice bit of wilderness, a decent place to take some photos, and that there are usually plenty of birds to spot. With our trips to Mahim Nature Park and Borivali National Park on the previous two Sundays, we were now on a hat-trick of Sundays spent in nature. It seemed a shame to break a good streak, so plans were made for everyone to take one last sojourn in Bangalore to a little hill in Turhalli.

We were up before dawn, and by the time the sky began to brighten, we had all poured into our ride and were driving towards Turhalli. It was only a few kilometres away, but it was supposed to be a little island of green in the otherwise urbanised city. Bengaluru is laid out in a very splattered and spread out pattern, very different from the coastal cities and towns I know well, so it’s quite easy to be surprised by distances and changes in scenery. It was a slightly chill morning and a light mist hung around the sides of the roads. We were soon out of the small streets of our area and out on bigger roads where out-station busses were roaring into life and starting off down the highway to their distant destinations.

In one or two places the road turned into a make-shift morning market, with vegetable and flower sellers lining both sides of the street. Men dressed up in whites and grays out of habit from their days at a desk rambled between the hawkers with newspaper in hand, waiting for their accompanying wives to make their purchases for the day, so that they could do their duty as the designated driver of their two-wheelers. And as always, some still had to work on a Sunday. A young man in a crisp white shirt, seemingly on his way to an office job, drove his bike down the street. His father, carrying a vegetable-sellers basket carefully balanced on his head, rode pinion. They were having an animated conversation over the roar of the motorbike as they drove by.

After all the activity, the buildings thinned out suddenly, the trees got taller, and while we were still just a few kilometres from the centre of the city, it seemed like we had left it behind. Near a petrol station, our cousin asked the driver to turn off the highway along a narrow road. A few twists and turns, and we were driving through a village. It was a modern village, with brick houses, and even a one computer internet cafe, but a village nonetheless. This was Turhalli. (Halli is village in Kannada)

Curious children stopped and looked up at the new arrivals as we drove through, and we soon left the little village behind and headed off toward higher ground. A large hill was clearly visible a few hundred metres from the settlement. Except for the dark grey line of the road, everywhere was green, with grass and weeds having over run every available square foot of fertile deccan soil after a few showers. Further down, the road hugged the base of the hill and went around it, so we stopped just before it did and walked off the tar.

A muddy path snaked towards a lush grove of trees at the base of the hill, but before that, to the right, a large banyan tree stood as sentry to this landscape, it’s hanging roots intertwited with its ancient trunk forming a sinewy column a few metres wide. Of course, there were the mandatory iconic declarations of love scratched into the bark, to indicate that even this place was not untouched by human hands. But largely, the landscape looked fresh and pristine. The grove of trees loomed large as we walked closer, and it soon became clear they were all some sort of eucalyptus variant. The shedding white bark was quite unmistakable, and the slender curving leaves rustled in the wind. When we entered the shade of the grove, the ground was invisible because it was carpeted with a thick layer of browning sickle-shaped leaves. With the moisture of the season the carpet of leaves had a rubbery quality, my feet seemed to sink in a little with every step, with the mesh of leaves springing back when I passed.

Other shrubs and trees began to make an appearance as the grove began to thin and the ground climbed upward. Small butterflies and insects flitted around in the morning air, and we were soon scaling the side of the hill on a rough path made of equal parts rock and rusty soil. The path was not graded or prepared in any way, but had slowly formed as frequently passing human feet had hewn a line across the less trecherous inclines of the hillside. There were a few tricky areas, more so because of the slippery grass, but in general it was a fairly easy climb, with shrubs and trees to hold on to, and moist mud to dig into when needed. In my childhood I have climbed much drier and more rocky slopes than this one in Oman. Compared to some of those, this was just a stimulating morning walk up a hill.

Karnataka, and especially the region around Bangalore, has a peculiar geology that lends itself to many such hills strewn with megalithic boulders teetering in precarious positions. It is a magnificent sight. The top of the hill we were climbing was clearly rocky even when seen from the base, which is why it was popular with rock climbers. As we neared the higher reaches of the hill, the boulders loomed large. Out of the mud, stones and shrubbery, towering pieces of rock, smoothened by millennia of weathering, thrust themselves skyward, sometimes standing alone, and sometimes in complex balanced piles. Most of them had smooth corners that made them look like giant pebbles, but as you got closer more detail appeared. Their faces were rough, as if chiseled into an even surface, and many of them were brightly coloured by the yellow lichen growing on them.

Navigating around the various rock arrangements, we made our way to the flatter areas at the top of the hill. We had come up almost at the centre along the length of the hill, and its main spine extended to the right and the left, with higher rocks and trees visible in both directions. We continued towards the left and after a few minutes through mostly even ground we walked past a large towering rock into a clearing. In the clearing was a temple. It was one of those modern temples, with an inelegant box of a structure with a mandatory spire to crown it. The materials used reminded me more of a gaudy private bungalow than of a place of worship, and it’s shiny grilled doorway was closed and quiet at this early hour. In front of the main structure some further statuettes and pedestals had been erected, one with a rough likeness of a what looked like a crow in black stone, facing the temple entrance. This temple was a new addition on what had been an untouched bit of nature, after the requisite person in power had seen the requisite vision to build a temple here. As with all religious issues, this invasion had gone largely unchallenged, and thus it always begins.

As I stood in the clearing, I was wondering how anyone came up to this temple, because if there’s one thing I’ve learnt about the faux-spiritual crowd, it is that they are only as spiritual as it is convenient. You can be sure none of them are going to climb up the way I just described unless you were paying them. I was proved right soo enough. As we walked past the clearing a broader path opened up and then snaked to the side into a wide muddy road. It was now gutted by the rains, but it was just wide enough for a car to crawl up to the summit from the back of the hill. Quite tellingly, it was the first patch of mud I had seen since we got off the road which was completely devoid of all vegetation and life. The price of human religious politics is often too high.

From where the make-shift dirt road mounted the summit, you could see other signs of the inevitable human encroachment. We were told the green ruled as far as the eye could see even a decade or so ago, when my cousin first started coming to this place, but now the concrete sentinels of human development could be seen a mere few hundred metres from the base of the hill, and all beyond was a patchwork of houses and settlements, creeping ever closer.

We turned around and went back the way we had come, to explore the other half of the hill-top. Wild flowers grew everywhere between the rocks and even the grass on the path still held healthy reservoirs of dew from the moist morning air. Eventually we ended up in a dense cluster of rocks at the other end of the hill, and skipped and jumped on and around them to make our way to some flat areas which were perfect for sitting on and looking on to the world. It was more of the same, white specks of buildings growing ever closer, and there was even an entire layout of plots, streets and streetlights that was ready and waiting to be built on at the first flat land available beyond the base of the hill.

For now, it was still a beautiful place. The lichened rocks were welcoming and the green that surrounded us imparted that characteristic electricity to the air that is invigorating at all times of the day, but even more so during the pristine hours of dawn. We sat there for a while and enjoyed the breeze. This was nowhere as high as we had been on the summit of Nandi Hills, but once again that calm I have mentioned before, which permeates the higher reaches of the Earth, was there, and I enjoyed it while it lasted.

In all this exploring we’d forgotten that our cousin had come here to do some rock climbing, so while we enjoyed the view, he went off to the other side of this rock formation with the crash pad he’d been carrying all this time, to to do some climbing. After getting our fill of the sights off the edge of Turhalli Gudda (Gudda/Gudde is hill or mountain in Kannada), we made our way over and through the maze of rocks to where he had headed.

The other side of the hill-top faced eastward, and the Sun was peeking through some dense clouds near the horizon, lighting up the rocks to look even more magnificent. We walked onto a wide table of rock 10 or 15 metres wide that over looked the side of the hill. This is where we had initially come from, our waiting vehicle could be seen on the road far below, and the village shimmered in the distance. On this flat rock, there was balanced a much larger boulder that stood tall, leaning against another that formed a small platform about halfway up it’s height. It was on this platform, a few metres above where we stood, that we found our intrepid rock climber standing casually, looking into the sunrise.

He climbed effortlessly down the sheer rocky incline, from the higher platform to where we stood. The large rock that towered above was called Krishna by the climbers, and one sheer vertical face of it was said to be one of the most difficult climbs on this hill, because to reach the summit you had to put your faith in a small gash in the rock a few metres off the ground that was barely an inch thick. The way he had just come down, however, was supposed to be a great beginners climb to try out and he asked if we wanted to give it a go. Never being the ones to step back from climbing anything that will allows us, we said yes.

There was a large gash that separated the tall standing rock from the shorter one with the platform. This line rose up at a steep angle and was the way to get up to the first level. When it was my turn, I took off my slippers, because I’ve always preffered the tactility of bare feet for things like this, stepped up and tried to get the first foothold. Immediately I slipped back down. The rock was smoother than you thought when it came to supporting your entire weight. I was told to wipe the bottom of my feet on the legs of my pants to get rid of the sand. That would give me more grip. I did and it worked, for the first step anyway. After that, the rock still loomed large and it’s at times like this that your mind goes blank in confusion. But, my left hand was holding on to that gash between the rocks, and old memories kicked in at that point. I pushed myself into the gap with my back against the edge, with my hands and feet holding on to other surfaces as best as they could, and before I knew it I was on the platform. That had been both harder and much easier than I had expected but it was exhilarating to stand there.

There was no point coming this far and not trying for the higher summit. It was supposed to be fairly easy if done carefully. From the platform, the rest of Krishna curved upwards to the top, so after the initial boost off the platform, you were basically spread out, precariously hugging the side of a large pebble. Then it was a matter of keeping your arms and legs moving till you went over the edge to the flat portion on the top.

Even compared to the intermediate platform, the top of the rock was quite high and narrower. After a little huffing and puffing, when I reached the top I remained on my haunches for a few seconds, because the effort makes your muscles tremble and you’re not quite ready to stand errect on what, at that point, seems a precariously small bit of flat rock very high in the air. Eventually I did stand, and I am not exaggerating when I say that it was one of the best feelings I had had in a long time. It had been too long since I’d felt this rush of getting to the top of a challenging climb, and then looking down on the World through new eyes.

The top had a small depression towards the centre of the rock where dew had collected into a small puddle, and a tuft of grass grew along the edges. The photo above is of that puddle on the highest point. In the distance is a tree on some other rocks towards the centre of the hill, which is probably the only other thing as high as where we stood. Four of our group made it to the very top before we left, and the few minutes we spent there made the entire trip to Bangalore worth it.

Eventually we climbed down from our rocky perch on top of the world, and headed back down the hill. We were still climbing down the same hillside but this was a different path that bypassed the grove of trees we had walked through on our way up. This path was more stepped with rocks, and many more detours into interesting fissures and small thickets were there to be explored. After the excitement on the hill-top we were all quite stoked, so our cameras were active and we noticed more than we normally would have, spotting well camouflaged insects and tiny flowers that were hidden in the midst of this natural cornucopia.

Half way down the slope we came to another collection of standing rocks. One in particular was getting a lot of attention from a group of rock climbers who were practicing on it. Well, one of them was trying to make the climb, while the others encouraged her along and gave her pointers about her next move. I always find it fascinating how a sport creates its own jargon, to the point where the enthusiasts can only understand each other, even when what they are actually saying is just as easy to say in the common tongue. I guess we all like to belong, and part of that belonging involves the exclusion of everyone else. It’s a strange phenomenon, and as we studied and peered at the nature around us, I’m sure nature was peering back at us, the silly human specimens.

The slope became more gradual as it started to level off at the base of the hill. Larger trees were now well spaced around us, and as we made a turn towards the road we were back at the sentinel banyan tree where we had started our journey. Our group was quite spread out, some hanging back to take more pictures while others continued forwards. As I was still a little distance away from the banyan tree, I saw one of the others standing below it, looking up, and for the first time I realised just how tall it was. The human figure was completely dwarfed by a tree that must have been at least a few storeys high, and its canopy was probably just as wide. It was a startling reminder of how much of nature is always more complex, intricate, and vast than we can fathom. Or, in our self-absorbtion, we just fail to see it.

The Sun had started to break through the clouds and it lit up the trees along the path. Just a metre or so from the tar, where our vehicle was waiting, we spotted a huge black and red butterfly basking in the warm sunlight on one of the shrubs. It was close enough to touch and as we carefully approached, always clicking and never knowing when it would decide to fly away, it remained in its place. Most us us managed to get our cameras to an arm’s length away from the insect without spooking it. It was around six inches wide, black, with white, red and yellow markings. It was a tailed butterfly, but the entire tail section of its right wing had been ripped off, probably sacrificed during an escape from a predator. It swayed in the dawn light, bruised, unbeaten, and magnificent.

We took one last look at the little island that was Turhalli Gudda, and drove away. Of all the trips I have ever taken to Bangalore, and all the places I have visited, that one place is the one I would most want to return to, and I pray there is still enough of it left when I see it again. My only hope is that nature is a lot more resilient to human stupidity than we give it credit for.

Samir

The day after our quick trip to Lal Bagh was our only full day in Bengaluru, so we decided to explore further afield. That morning we set off for that ubiquitous bastion of Bangalore city tourism, Nandi Hills.

Nandi Hills is a small mountain away from the city which is a popular weekend visit amongst the locals, and a common destination for visiting tourists. It has some temples and historical fortifications at the summit, stairs and paths you can climb through the trees, and wonderfully dangerous hairpin bends you can drive through to the top. What’s not to like?

I had been there on some long forgotten previous trip, but it was all fairly fresh for me. Unfortunately, I had underestimated how much I’d used my camera the previous day and forgotten to charge it, so my battery died on me after a few shots of the mountain as we approached it. The perils of modern, electronics-heavy cameras.

Around two thirds of the way up the hill, there is a small parking area with a store. Above this is the fortified area of the peak, and you go through a large stone archway to enter the upper reaches. Cars can go all the way to the top, but we decided to make it on foot and see what sights were available off the ascending tarred road. But before that, we got ourselves some delicious guavas that were being sold at the parking lot. They were served in a popular Indian style, sliced almost completely in four quarters, leaving a bit attached at one end to hold it together, with a mixture of salt and red chilly powder smeared into the cuts to add that extra zing to it. The salt and the spice often makes the guava a dripping jucy mess, but it’s all the better for it, and these particular specimens were truly excellent fruit. We promised ourselves a second round of them on our way back down.

We followed the road up the hill for some distance and then signs indicated there were alternative routes on foot. Our first detour off the road lead us into a small cleared depression where a traditional Indian bath lay hidden. It was a small pool of fresh water encased in a rectangular frame of black stone stairs descended into it. These are a a common sight outside temples in South India and in many places throughout the country, water being an important purifying part of many Hindu rituals. This particular bath was not in regular use, but not completely abandoned. The water was mossy and the monsoons had made everything around it a lush green, including the stone wall that protected it’s periphery. On the other side of it, a canopied path climbed through the lush forest up the mountain. That’s where we headed, treading the wet rusty earth below our feet.

The forest we walked through up steep stone stairs was, unfortunately, not pristine. Everywhere you looked litter decorated the ground and in some cases even the trees. Every manner of snack food packaging and water bottle was on display, which I was quite surprised to see considering the remoteness of this place, as compared to the natural spots we’d visited in the middle of Bombay before. It was obvious many of the visitors were uncouth and the caretakers were not taking a lot of care. A shame.

In spite of that, the forest we walked through was wild and exquisite. It was made all the more beautiful by the fact that it had been raining in recent days, and while no water stood around on the steep slopes, it’s effect could be seen everywhere. The soil was damp, the leaves were washed clean, and the atmosphere was rich with petrichor. The odd bird or insect flew through the canopy, and on tree trunks and barks everywhere, bright red millipedes grazed slowly like miniature cattle. We soon broke out of the trees and into more civilised looking landscapes. The road crossed our route on its way to the top, and signs of structures and paths started to appear as we made our way towards the rocky slopes that lay ahead.

Then, quite suddenly we were at the top, a plateau of bare rock with small patches of grass growing in the accumulated soil in the depressions. The sky was filled with cottony clouds and the wind rushed pleasantly past at this height, a little shy of a thousand metres above the surrounding lands. Over the edge, the world stretched off into the hazy horizon far below our feet. The patchwork pattern of ploughed fields and cultivated plantations created the illusion of an earthen tiled floor with no end.

There were a few small stone shrines at the summit, and monkeys sat around awaiting the inevitable worshippers carrying the inevitable food offerings to the Gods that they could “aquire”. But mostly, a few groups of people took photographs against the windy abyss over the sides, and many simply sat on the warm stone slopes staring quietly into the distance. There is a calm and a peace on the top of mountains that you can’t explain. Yes there is the separation from civilisation, there is the thinner air, the stronger winds, and the more intimate sky, but what makes it unique is something you can never put your finger on. When you’re on top of a mountain, somehow everything makes sense, and you realise none of it really matters, the warm stone comforts your feet and the sky whispers its secrets in the silence.

We went to the very edge of the mountaintop and there in one corner lay a downed windmill. It was a large thing, probably 10 or 15 metres high with a strange vertically rotating aerofoil design. It had been secured to the rock well with metal struts and support wires, but the fierce winds had ripped apart the metal and it now lay on its side, providing another photo-op for visitors. After a while we headed back to the road, this time chosing the more civilised route towards another clutch of shops near the summit. Some hot beverages were had, along with some ice-cream if I remember right, and we drove back down the mountain.

Samir

After an interesting journey into Bengaluru, we drove homeward. Once reunions were done, and some lunch was had, we made plans to move out. Since we only had a few days to work with, we didn’t want to waste it sitting around. But, we also didn’t want to push ourselves too much, so we chose a safe destination within the heart of city and headed over to Bengaluru’s ubiquitous Lal Bagh botanical gardens.

Stepping out of the snarl of Bangalore traffic on a Friday afternoon, our gang of camera-toting strangers entered the quiet atmosphere of Lal Bagh. The regular walkers, who seemed to ignore the now ancient trees and grounds around them, did not ignore us, a reaction I’ve come to expect when you invade hallowed jogging grounds and dare to look at the scenery rather than hurry along on a mission. The path took us around flower beds at the side of the road and snaked onto the wide expanse of a lake.

Every thing was fenced, and tiled, and organised. There were tottering signs pointing down various paths towards the main attractions in the park, and people sat around on sparse benches or walked by with vigour while birds soared through the air, squirrels scurried across the pathways, and monkeys stared in bored challenge at passersby. This was no untouched natural haven, far from it, but it was certainly a good chage from the traffic out there.

Under the canopy of trees that bordered the lake, I pointed my camera across the water trying to capture the vista as best I could when there was a sudden movement through the air. A large eagle that had been perched on one of the tree-tops, swooped down and banked over the water. I didn’t manage to get a clear shot, but some things are best captured in the mind’s eye.

In the water, formations of ducks and geese floated around like silent ships, going in one direction and then turning to another in effortless synchronisation. Further down, the tiled path split into two, going over a bridge that cut acros the lake on the right, towards groves of tall trees. We had set out late, and the Sun was already getting low in the sky, so we avoided the detour. But not before spending some time on the bridge looking into the water below. There on the stone banks, some duks were splashing around in the shallows and preening themselves at days end. Perhaps they had a busier social calendar that night than we did.

We ventured further along the curving paths, deeper into the parkland. The path we were on was landscaped at a higher level, overlooking lawns and tall tress that stretched out below us to the left. As the Sun drew closer to the horizon, it bathed the lawns in a shimmering golden glow, making dramatic silhouettes of walkers and creatures alike. In the distance, the famous glass house of Lal Bagh became visible through the trees. It is renowned for an annual flower show held there, which we had just missed by a week.

We did, however, get a chance to see the aftermath of the flower show. Elaborate arrangements of flowering plants in cascades and stepped formations stood wilting around the insides of the glass house. In the centre there were the wire shells of dinosaur shapes that still held the remanents of what would have been fresh flowers when the show was still on. Now the dinosaurs stood there dried and sapped of all colour and energy, but somehow I had the feeling they might be looking more interesting in this state than in the state in which they were originally prepared. Either way, it’s not everyday you step into a park expecting to see dried-flower-zombie-dinosaurs, and I’m glad this time I did.

Lal Bagh is a pretty big place, and while our stroll had not covered most of it’s acreage, we were geting a bit tired, and there were the worrying sounds of thunder on the horizon. I must say the clouds in Bangalore were particularly beautiful during our visit When we stepped out of the Glass House, even the dark rolling cloud bank that seemed to be heading our way in the distance was an awesome sight to behold.

We were now quite far from where we had entered. Seeing the clouds as a sign to head back, we cut across the park on new paths to return the quickest way possible. By the time we made it to the gate, it had already started drizzling a steady shower of heavy drops. We protected our cameras as best we could and prepared for the onslaught. Then the onslaught arrived and the ground burst into rainfall.

Unavoidably drenched, we used the one umbrella we had to call ourselves some transport. An autorickshaw pulled up in the downpour, three of us jumped in, and he sped off into the rain. Unlike rickshaws in Bombay, this one didn’t have any temporary enclosure or tarp to close the passenger compartment from the rain, so it beat into the little space from both sides, leaving only a thin sliver of the seat in the centre close to dryness. I was sitting on the left side, and driving through the rivers of mud on the streets, it was a long, invigorating drive home.

Samir

Our trip to India was to last a little over three weeks. Our last two weekends had been fruitful, starting with our visit to Mahim Nature Park. The third weekend was ear-marked for further travelling, but this time it was away from the city, to Bangalore.

The weekend sojourn to Bengaluru, as it is now called, was set to be a very quick one, just three days. We’d booked tickets before hand on a budget airline, SpiceJet, which we had never travelled by before. And some of our photographic cohorts from previous weekend trips were also along for the ride.

Our flight was to leave at around 7:00am on Friday, so we needed to get out early. We were out of the house at some dark, un-Godly hour, just to be safe. A quick walk down the road scored us a taxi waiting out the slow hours of the night. We got in and sped towards the airport. Our driver was a speed demon, nothing dangerous, but he drove like a race-car driver, gunning the engine at all the right places between intersections, and stopping on a dime at all the right places. There was none of that steady pace nonsense with him. It had drizzled a little and some potholes in the road were filled with water. He had an interesting move where he would not so much brake for a puddle, as much as do a quick power-slide in and out of one at what felt like a slight angle. Exciting stuff in the cold morning air for sure.

We got to the Santacruz domestic terminal well in time and waited outside for the rest of our group to join us. I hadn’t been to this terminal in years and it had been transformed. The small white brick building that I remembered since I was a child had disappeared, to be replaced by a fancy pre-fabricated metal and glass structure with an impressive sweeping roof. Outside was a nice seating area with trees and plants, very much like we had seen at the International Terminal on our way in. There were all the usual suspects at the airport at this early hour: businessmen with slim briefcases on their day-trips across the country, a popular model who I recognised from ads and magazines, probably headed somewhere on an assignment, or headed home away from the big city, the requisite stray dogs, who in Bombay always trot around in style, seemingly whistling a tune in their head.

The rest of our party arrived in a green cab, one of those new private taxi companies I had yet to try. We stepped in. The check-in at the SpiceJet counter was fairly painless. The staff was pleasant in their crisp white and dark-red uniforms. One thing all of us noticed was the amount of make-up the women were wearing. It seemed as uniform as their costume and there was lot of it.

We were soon through all the formalities and arrived at the departure lounge. It was a large two-tiered seating area, with one glass-fronted wall holding the gates that led straight out on to the tarmac, and some regular fast-food and coffee outlets along the sides. We parked ourselves near the glass while some of use went off to explore the territory. On the side wall near where we sat, there was a small wooden, wall-mounted cubicle, like an old telephone stand in a hotel, and in it was an announcement microphone and a print out of usage dos-and-donts pasted on the back wall. There was an identical unit on the opposite wall across the lounge, and this, it would seem, was the public announcement system for this lounge, shared by many airlines. Every few minutes, a member of the ground staff in their varying colourful uniforms would step up to the booth, flick the switch and make their announcements of departures and boarding in Hindi and English. Sometimes there was a queue of them waiting for their turn, and sometimes there would be a minor overlap as one of them failed to notice someone else about to begin at the opposite station. All very fascinating to observe.

While that was an interesting system to see in play, what really held my attention was the view out the glass wall. Since we’d entered the airport, the drizzle had turned into a proper downpour. The entire taxiing area of the airport and a clear view of the runway lay spread before us in the torrent. There were at least two dozen aircraft in their brilliant colours, all parked around where we sat. The budget airline explosion in India has led to a cornucopia of brands and with that a cornucopia of colours that are simply beautiful when seen in contrast to some of the more sober colour choices of international carriers. This spectrum lay spread before us outside the glass wall in the early morning light. As the grey grew brighter by the minute, the rain continued, the tarmac was soaking, and in the light every colour reflected off the ground to create an ever moving lake of flowing pigment. It was stunningly beautiful, or maybe I just inherited too much of a fascination with air planes from my Mother.

Eventually one of the extremely made-up ground staff from SpiceJet, those rouge circles were not just my imagination, stepped up to the microphone and announced that we were boarding. Boarding involved first stepping out of the terminal building into a bus, punctuated by a bit of rain. Once we arrived at the aircraft, however, there was more adventure. There was an Indian monsoon in progress out there and we needed to get through the ten metres or so from the door of the bus to the shelter of the stairway that climbed up to the plane. People went in twos and threes as the entry way cleared up. Darted is more like it, but it was quite fruitless. We were all wet within the three seconds we were exposed to the sky anyway. A shockingly refreshing way to start the day, I assure you.

Soon everyone was seated, we taxied to the runway, waited in queue during the busy morning schedule, and then it was our turn to leave. The captain, an American by the sound of him, wished us a pleasant flight over the speakers and we were off. One second we were hurtling through the rain and then we were rising swiftly toward the low rain-clouds, and rising, and rising, we didn’t seem to be slowing down on the rising. I’m pretty sure we covered the vertical 40,000 feet in a record time that morning. We were in the hands of another speed demon, just on a different axis. I was tempted to go up to the pilot and ask him whether he had any relatives in the taxi-driving business in the city.

The flight was good and uneventful, except for a few fairly nasty air-pockets which are routine over India during the monsoons. Thankfully, I’ve been through far worse weather before, and it doesn’t alarm me quite as much any more. Just as quickly as we’d risen into the heavens, we descended through the gorgeous columns of cumulus clouds over Bangalore, on to the runway. After some very dramatic slowing down manoeuvres, I expected nothing less from the race-car driver at the controls, we rolled into Bengaluru International Airport. This, I was very surprised to note, had not just changed in structure, but location too! We were at a completely different airport than the one I had landed in many times before.

The Bangalore Airport I remembered was a barely functional, rudimentary little thing, but the Bengaluru International Airport I found myself in was swanky. That’s really the only word to describe it. It was made to look international and featureless, to the point where I was afraid we’d taken a wrong turn in the clouds and landed at a terminal in Dubai. That was not true, of course, but I couldn’t shake the feeling when we stepped out and noticed the sickeningly organised taxi lines, the special red and white Volvo buses to take passengers to the distant city, and the requisite fast food outlets growing like fungi at every corner.

There was a driver with a vehicle waiting to pick us up. We tracked him down and piled into the hulking SUV. Driving out of the parking lot, the broad roads and concrete spaghetti interchanges still reminded me of Dubai, and then we left the manicured garden bits behind as we headed towards the city. I’ve come to expect a certain madness from drivers for hire, which I think you can count on universally throughout the world. And going by my vehicular experiences thus far that day, I expected nothing less. But this man, while brash, was practically a scholar on the roads, even in the way he cursed aloud when people crossed him. That’s when I was sure I was in South India, and we headed home.

Samir

Sanjay Gandhi National Park is a protected forest area in the Borivali suburb of Mumbai. Commonly referred to as Borivali National Park, it is the only national park in the world that lies inside the confines of a city. Considering Mumbai is one of the most populous and dense urban environments, that’s quite an astonishing thing.

Cow-feeding for pleasure and profit

Borivali is a good distance away from the old part of Mumbai. We decided to meet at the park gates at 8:30am, which meant having to get out from home quite early and take the train to make quick time.

The morning was cool but not cold, and the meagre clouds in the sky didn’t indicate any impending rain. The monsoon dry spell was continuing. Walking to the train station, we passed a temple where the early worshippers were paying their respects. A woman sat on the footpath with a large bundle of grass and a cow tied nearby, a common sight near temples. For a few Rupees, people are given some grass to feed the animal, a fortuitous beginning to the day. For the rest of us walking along the street, the cow is often something to pat along the way, some in reverence, some in friendly greeting, but most with a good amount of respect. Unlike what people outside India think, cows are not really holy in India, or formally worshipped, but they are considered an auspicious symbol along with many other plants and animals. If nothing else, they’re a friendly sight on the road as you go about your work for the day.

Railway repetitions

I’m not a big fan of trains, as I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, but they sometimes make sense on long journeys into the suburbs and when the weekday crowds are safely at home.

When we reached the station we bought our tickets at the counter. The station was a little dishevelled, which is the way train stations in Bombay always look, but you only notice it on weekends. On weekdays the sea of humanity that surrounds you covers up all other visual information.

On the ticketing and reservations building across one of the tracks, the station’s name was displayed in large three dimensional letters, in three different languages: English, Hindi and Marathi. Politics and political correctness are a wonderful thing. It looked like English and the other language repeated twice, because Hindi and Marathi both use the same script and proper nouns and titles are shared, even if they are different languages when spoken.

We got into an extra-fast train that would only stop at the Andheri station along the way before we reached our destination. Very convenient on any day, and today it was a pleasure, since the crowds were thin and the stations only mildly populated.

The compartments had been spruced up since I last travelled by a local Mumbai train. Things were more painted and less beaten up. The bars and hand-holds were shiny and a yellow LED display was placed above the door, indicating the next stop. Through the aluminium grill on the windows, the platform outside seemed to be getting busier as the day progressed. A female voice announced the departure of our train over the public address system, in three languages. We pulled out of the station on time with a characteristic electric hum as the train gathered speed, the hypnotic lattice of gleaming tracks and buildings next to the railway line blurred into a fluid oneness.

Recommended morning reading

Our compartment was not empty. An eclectic collection of Mumbai’s residents had taken their seats along the swaying iron beast. We had company on the hard benches we sat on too. We were four towards the window, which left two empty seats near the aisle facing each other. Two middle-aged gentlemen had separately occupied those seats before the train had left.

They were an interesting pair. The one sitting next to me had greying hair, wore a white shirt with a dark grey pair of trousers, and well-used shoes that had been polished with care. The man sitting opposite him was of a similar age, and quite similarly dressed, right down to some variation of a chunky gold watch on his wrist.

The man next to me had taken out a small booklet from his pocket and was reading it with rapt attention. The little book was very worn down, its tattered edges and frayed margins had seen many days in the man’s pocket. The book opened upward with small text letter-pressed in black into the rough paper. A vine pattern went along its sides, framing the pages in two vertical stripes of repeating foliage. It was in Marathi and it was scripture, one of the many mythological or philosophical works ever in favour, the short passages making their point in quick statements and poetic verse. I couldn’t read enough to tell what it was, but I didn’t want to peer too much and disturb the quiet reader on a Sunday morning.

The man across my seat was stockier than his counterpart. He sported a short beard and a head of deep orange hair, the whites and greys coloured with mehndi (henna). He was reading a broadsheet news paper in Urdu. If I tried, I could decipher some of the headlines, the Urdu script being borrowed from Arabic. But these more calligraphic shapes with the numerous vowel signs above and below the letters made the page swim in a watery pattern that overwhelmed my eyes. I looked out the barred windows and watched the blurring city instead.

Monsoon Clouds

Our train stopped at Dahisar, one stop after our destination, but in the Sunday morning lull, an auto rickshaw had us at the gates of the national park in a speedy ten minutes. The rest of our party was already there and after paying the entrance fee we strolled in.

The Sanjay Gandhi National Park is not very wild looking near its gates. If any thing, the manicured appearance of the tree line, the neat road going through planned gardens and public areas, the anxious morning walkers in their ritualistic garb staring accusingly at the rag-tag bunch of people with cameras who seem to be doing the blasphemy of enjoying themselves, all make you feel the ‘forest’ tag might be misplaced. But first impressions can be deceptive.

A few hundred metres after the gate, as the gardens, parks, and other amenities melted away behind us, the foliage got wilder and less planned. Krishna Giri is now a hill with a temple on it, close to the gate. Before Indian independence, that is what the entire forest was called, literally meaning dark/black mountain (more on that later). Past a left fork that might have led to the temple, the road veered off to the right hugging the contour of the hill and plunging into the wider forest. Some buildings could still be seen through the foliage on the right, the last bastions of human civilisation past the borders of the park, but the canopy was thick and very soon all signs of the outside world were lost.

It had started out as a sunny day when we left home but in this part of town, a strange phrase to be using in the middle of a forest, there were plenty of monsoon clouds to be seen. Not enough to consider it overcast, but enough to give the day the distinct flavour of the monsoon season, with startling views of what can only be described as architecture in the sky. The Sun seared through gaps and windows in the firmament, illuminating vast domes of cloud and massive curved walls of hanging rain.

Two dogs and a goat

Close to Krishna Giri, and on the outskirts of the park, we passed by some huts and small houses beside the road. This was a protected area, but people still lived here in tiny settlements. As we walked by, a stray dog trotted up to our group. Sometimes hanging back in pursuit, and sometimes weaving between us, he had made up his mind to follow. Maybe the weekend picnickers who came here provided him with the occasional feast.

Off to the left, along the base of the hill, we spotted some railway tracks through the trees. They were a simple set of narrow-gauge tracks with nothing else around, and they went off into the green in both directions, serving a tiny train that took people to and from the more popular spots in the park. A bunch of crows had found something of interest near the tracks, and as I walked closer to take some pictures, our canine friend went ahead and make sure everything was ok before he let me pass.

At the next settlement of huts, another dog joined our party. This one was a real brute, with a mangled face and the marks to show he had seen a few fierce fights. But he followed along in silence, looking at the forest on both sides with a casual attention. Somewhere along the way, our first four-legged friend turned off the road and disappeared into the trees. It would seem his jurisdiction ended here, or he had found something more interesting to investigate. The second dog continued along.

Another group of huts with red-tiled roofs appeared. A few people were going about their business for the day, carrying wood through the trees, drying things on mats in the Sun. A few roosters were running around between the houses, and a large white goat came onto the road nibbling at the weeds on the edges. For a while the goat trotted along behind us too, our canine guard ignored it, but after a while it stayed behind for greener pastures.

We came to a bridge where the road went over a flowing stream. Some people had stopped their motor bikes there to take in the view. A young girl sat on one edge of the bridge, which was just a slab of concrete with no railing. She was selling cucumbers, a refreshing snack for the weary travellers along the forest road. We stopped to take some pictures and rest for a while. As we left the sun-drenched piece of bridge, our canine companion stayed behind. He too had come to the end of his designated duties, but we had a lot further to go.

Forest light

The Sun played hide-and-seek through both the clouds and the leaves. As the kilometres went by the forest got denser, the atmosphere quieter, and the light that filtered through the dense groves all the more magical.

Other than the occasional vehicle driving by on the road there was only the silence of bird-song and insects announcing their presence in a regular rhythm. We were taking our time on the journey. I didn’t know at the time that it was a 7km walk to the end of the road. If we had simply marched along it would have been a much shorter walk, but there was less journeying and more browsing with our group. Colourful plants, strange insects and all manner of sights only to be seen in a forest kept us busy as we made our way forward.

We came to a check post where some forest rangers checked our passes. An old rusty road barricade with an ornate lion’s head sign on it that said “stop”, hung in the air above. We rested a few moments on the concrete benches nearby and went off the road into the trees. The terrain sloped upwards, then down, and at the base of the small hill, a lively brook bubbled over a channel of smooth rocks and stones. The water was open to the sky and while standing there in that tiny ravine surrounded by tall grass and wild flowers was beautiful, the Sun was starting to rise and the heat was getting stronger, so we plunged back up the hill towards the shade of the road.

Along the way there were some portions of road where the land flattened on to a plain, and the trees got denser. You could not see the Sun, its rays unable to penetrate the thick canopy overhead. Then suddenly, off the road there would appear a spot of sunlight, shining into a small meadow of green wilderness through a rogue opening amongst the trees. That forest light fills you with a feeling of comfort you just cannot describe in words or capture in photographs.

After a couple of hours on the trek, the trees gave way to open sky. A broad meadow of wild flowers spread out from the road to the left and looming above it all was a mountain of black rock with a slow waterfall trickling down one of its slopes and a squarish cave opening visible near the top. Those were the Kanheri Caves, and that is where we were heading.

Monkey business

The climb up to the caves was not an easy one. The gradient was steep but the dense trees provided some respite from the Sun. Eventually we found ourselves in a make-shift parking lot at the base of a set of stone stairs that rose further upward. Buses, cars and vans were strewn across the dirt lot. Families were everywhere doing that thing they all do on weekends, eat, and they had thrown around enough detritus to prove it. We climbed.

The stairs led to a broad area under towering trees, with a rudimentary cafeteria to serve the ever hungry tourists. An abandoned building stood at the far corner covered in deep green moss from the rains, and to the right a series of stone inclines went upwards towards the caves. We climbed the slopes, carved out into the side of the sheer rock, chisel marks providing just the right amount of grip to walk on.

In the trees, monkeys were making a ruckus, their lithe forms jumping between the branches, the stone slopes, and keeping a sharp eye out for any human slacking off with something edible in their hands. They were a riot of noise and food-snatching to rival any seasoned picnicker around them. Little surprise then, that the picnickers found them very amusing.

On the small plateau that surrounds the main cave shrine, trees were growing along the edge, over looking the sheer cliff that looked over the forest we had just travelled through. In the distance a few tall buildings could be seen through the haze, the only indications of the city that we were still inside.

We sat on the stout stone wall at the edge to catch our breath, and some of the calmer simians seemed to take our lead and perched themselves on a close by tree. While their cousins could be heard screaming in the distance, these few decided to relax for a while, grooming each other and pampering themselves into a lazy slumber. Monkey business comes in many flavours.

The spelunking Buddha

The shrines cut out of the live rock of the mountain side were over 2000 years old. These kind of time-spans are too vast for us to truly grasp, even if we understand them intellectually.

To the right, from where we sat, was a shallow open cave with a stupa. These mounds were originally used as a vault for relics of the Buddha. Over the millennia they grew more elaborate and became revered themselves. To the left was a more recessed cave. A stone pillar marked the opening, and a colonnaded entrance hid the dark chamber behind it.

Nothing prepares you to see a 20-something metre long hall with ornate pillars and a vaulted ceiling all cut from a single chunk of rock, when you step into a dark entrance at the side of a mountain. It is breathtaking. And to think a bunch of monks worked for centuries to achieve this masterpiece makes every one of your meagre achievements stand in stark contrast to the sheer audacity of what these people managed to do so long ago.

The chamber, called a chaitya, served as a meeting and prayer hall in its heyday, the centre of a complex of 109 small caves spread all over this mountain top. When it was complete, Kanheri was a major Buddhist university and a central hub of trade routes that extended through the Konkan coast all the way to Mesopotamia. The deep chamber seemed to suck in the sunlight from the outside, or perhaps it was the fine chisel work on the stone surfaces that reflected back the sparse light with a quiet brilliance. Along the sides, intricate pillars, each with their own unique sculptures, marched into the depths of the mountain, protecting the dark alcove behind them and leading the eyes towards the simple stone stupa at the end of the hall. There someone had lit a single lamp to keep the light in Kanheri burning bright after all these millennia.

Outside the hall, hidden from the sun, two large relief sculptures of the standing Buddha guarded the entrance on two sides, facing inward. And right next to the main door, reliefs of men and women in their sparse classical clothing looked on with smiles and laughter, seeming to celebrate life rather than delve into the depths of spiritual despair as is often the case in monuments such as these. The way they stood made it look like a casual holiday snapshot, rather than a formal portrait, and for a brief moment the millennia between us disappeared and two sets of human beings looked on each other in friendly greeting.

A large stone slab chiselled with the ancient Bhrami script urged tantalisingly to be deciphered, and in side chambers, more exquisite sculptures of the Buddha were on display, all cut from the single rock face, and all intricate to a startling degree. The two thousand year old rock still displayed the fine folds of the garments, the delicate ringlets of hair on that now ubiquitous dome-shaped head, and the gentle smile seemed to have never faltered.

We spent some time out side the great chaitya hall, taking pictures and just soaking in the atmosphere. Hassled week-enders rushed in and out of the darkened chamber, wanting to complete their visit to the fullest while we sat on ancient stone stairs in dark alcoves, with the passing sight-seers giving us curious stares. It is a shame that places such as this are visited by people with no understanding or respect for what the architects were trying to achieve to begin with, a place of calm and contemplation, far removed from the buzz of the marketplace and the politics of the capitals, where the human mind could wander fruitfully.

Americans vs Indians

We did try to climb further into the higher reaches of the complex, but the weekend crowd was dense and it didn’t seem like a good idea to try to tick off every one of the 109 caves and reservoirs on this trip for the sake of completeness. I was sure the caves would not go anywhere soon, so we turned back and headed down the mountain.

Among the crowds, one stand-out feature had been the handful of American families I’d come across. Bombay is visited by many tourists, of course, but they are more often European, or British, or lone American backpackers. Families from the US are a rare sight, but maybe the increased India hype had pushed some to experiment.

Climbing down from the caves to the shaded cafeteria area, there were now more people heading up. It was past mid-day, and the late weekend crowd was now trooping in. An American family with two little kids was heading out down the path, and an Indian family with two small kids of their own were heading in. I don’t whose idea it was but soon the Indian kids were sitting down with the American kids and the parents were taking pictures. Sensing their position as star animal attraction at the caves being usurped, the monkeys stared on in silent disbelief.

Child coloured glasses

We quickly clambered down the mountain to plunge into the cool shaded comfort of the forest road. Heading back to civilisation through the lush canopy I thought back to the wonders atop that mountain and I understood why. Why people had found this place in the middle of a dense forest, why they had chosen to stay here, and why they had decided to set up such a large temple of learning at the top of this isolated mountain so long ago. They saw this place for the wonder it was and that realisation inspired them to pay homage to it with wonders of their own.

Nature has the market on wonders of every scale cornered with no room for competition. From the tiniest creepy crawlies to the tall trees and the massive mountains, the natural world produces things of such startling beauty that human beings can never aspire to equal. But you would have to be very frigid of imagination for all this to not affect you, to not think on being faced by such beauty that there was something greater than you in the universe and that something greater was worth investigating.

Alas, we have all lost that wonder, that sight, that fascination with the world around us, that respect of that which we do not understand. Which is why the hordes of perpetually famished, every noisy weekend time-wasters come to this forest every week, drive through its august paths blaring their horns and discarding their plastic bags, but never once standing still and staring in awe at what lies about them now and what some brave and/or crazy people built here so long ago. They have lost what they will make sure their offspring lose at the earliest, as their child-coloured glasses get crushed underfoot in the unending stampede of aimless progress.

Barefoot in the forest

It was a hot afternoon, but bearable under the blanketing trees. For a brief spell the sky had threatened to send a shower, but there had been none. Since it had rained in the night these past few days, small puddles still stood in the potholes and the depressions along the tarred road.

After an entire morning on my feet, the wet tar seemed like a attractive prospect, so I held my slippers in my hand and continued walking. The ground was rough and smooth, cool and warm in patches, and this made the experience of walking back a different one from our trek in the opposite direction this morning. On some patches of bad terrain the slippers went back on, but they remained off for very long stretches.

Our feet are covered in footwear so often that we forget how much sensation the foot provides of the ground below. Walking there in the green tent of trees in the middle of a forest on an uneven road, just heightened that realisation to new levels.

The traffic going towards the caves was much higher now. Every few minutes, at most, a vehicle would pass by packed to the gills with people in colourful clothes, distinctly over-dressed for visiting a cave. The road was uneven, and it was necessary for us to walk on the edge because that was the only space available, a valid compromise for a place that didn’t get enough traffic and didn’t need the further human invasion of a footpath. But, many of the delicate souls in their big cars deemed it necessary to try to mow us down because they couldn’t be bothered to turn the steering wheel a little, even if they were on the wrong side of the road. After plenty of stopping and starting to wait for them to pass, I decided not to. We continued to walk on the edge of the road, and let the impatient drivers make their own way around us. They still tried to mow us down sometimes, but it takes more than most people have to play chicken with a human being who does not cower, especially when he is swinging slippers in his hands in a mildly threatening manner.

River juice

As always the walk back was quicker, because we knew what to expect and also because we stopped less to take photographs. We made it out the gate as the late afternoon Sun was starting to dip. A drinking water fountain outside provided a welcome relief from the dust and dirt we had collected on our persons with glee along the way, but the forest was behind us and the jungle lay ahead.

The gate to the Sanjay Gandhi National Park lies on the Western Express Highway. We crossed the road and dived into a small restaurant there, the name now escapes me. After a good work-out like that, I’m rarely hungry, not for solid food anyway. Everyone felt the same so a round of fresh juices was ordered. After the inevitable long pauses trying to decide, the order ended up being a watermelon juice and a whole bunch of Ganga-Jamunas.

For the un-initiated the Ganga and the Jamuna are two of India’s major rivers. The Ganga-Jamuna is a mixed juice of equal parts orange and mosambi(sweet lemon), a refreshing mixture and a great pick-me-up after a long day. As we ordered, there was some confusion about what the ingredients were. Some of us were confused between the Ganga-Jamuna and another drink called the Mara-Mari (literally, fisticuffs or violence, in Hindi). One was orange and mosambi, and the other was pineapple and mosambi. Either was fine with us so we just ordered, and let the rivers flow as they might.

Bus blessings

Refreshed, we said our farewells and headed off in our own directions. By now the Sun was lower and the clouds to the west had begun to take on a warmer tinge. The train had been a convenient way to get here, but it was now later in the day, the stations would be more crowded, and we just wanted to relax in a bus and watch the world go by.

The BEST has started a new air-conditioned luxury bus service over the past few years called BRTS, which is a treat to travel by. Since we needed to go a fair distance back home, we decided to track one down. After a few enquiries we were told the closest one left from a bus depot some distance along the highway, so we got on the first regular bus we could find and headed for the Magathane Bus Depot.

When we got there the last BRTS bus for the day had left and we were a bit stranded. We walked back out on to the highway to take our chances at the regular bus stop. A few minutes passed and out of the haze of traffic the distinct purple silhouette of a BRTS bus loomed down the road. As far as we knew it didn’t stop here, but we put our hands out expecting it to pass us by with the surging traffic.

It stopped. This particular bus started somewhere earlier along the highway and it was empty, so the driver and conductor had decided to make the unscheduled stop when we flagged them. It was a lucky break and a comforting way to end our day of journeying. The bus remained fairly empty, and as it went up and down flyovers along the highway, towers of cumulus monsoon clouds stood high at the horizon, dwarfing all the human structures in front of them. As the Sun lowered for the evening, one half of the sky turned a deep pink and the heavy cotton clouds across the firmament shone a brighter white in salute.

The swaying ashoka tree

We were home quite early and settled in for a quiet evening, sharing stories of our day’s adventures with my Grandmother. As dusk turned to that deep evening gloom when even lights seem unable to penetrate the darkness, the cloudy sky finally gave way and it rained a heavy torrent.

It had rained in the middle of the night while I was asleep, the past few days, but this was the first real rain I was witnessing since I got here and it was awesome.

Sitting there in the balcony of my Grandmother’s home with a proper monsoon rain lashing the Earth outside brought back so many childhood memories. Memories of hours spent there stretching my hand out to feel the falling water, memories of my Mother preparing hot drinks and fried foods in the kitchen to ward away the rainy chill, memories of paper boats cast off into the large pool of water that collected down-stairs, before the compound was tiled, all of it under the shade of the tall ashoka tree(Mast Tree) in the corner, swaying with the wind. That ashoka tree was still there, and it was now twice as tall as it had been when I was a kid. It still stood there braving the rains, and it still danced in the wet monsoon breeze.

Samir

We arrived in Mumbai just before the weekend. After the requisite day of lazing, and a mandatory visit to my favourite part of the city, we had our first Sunday there. Since everyone was free, my cousin arranged that we spend the morning at the Mahim Nature Park. She, her husband, and their friends are all photography buffs, and had visited the place before, but I had never even heard of it. Another cousin had just bought a new camera that he wanted to take through its paces, and since Vishal and I are old camera-junkies, we all heartily agreed to the early sojurn on Sunday morning. We were to meet directly at the place, and we were told the nature park was right opposite the Dharavi bus depot.

For a Bombayite, or Mumbaikar if you prefer, especially the more protected ones, Dharavi only means one thing, slums. Most of us grow up hearing stories of the fabled squalor of Dharavi, a large chunk of slum-land smack dab in the middle of the city. Accusations and almost boasts of the fact that it is the largest slum in Asia, possibly even the World, are carefully fed to you as you grow up (it is neither), and most residents of the city don’t know precisely where it is and have probably never passed by it.

Thanks to my adventurous parents I’ve driven by it on many occasions, because there are enough bus routes that serve the area. They must, as more than half a million people live there. There certainly is a slum there, and a big one, so my curiosity was piqued when we were asked to get off opposite the Dharavi bus depot at 8:30 on Sunday morning.

Avoiding my Grandmother’s elaborate breakfast plans, we headed off into the quiet weekend dawn. A BEST bus to Sion and a taxi from there brought us quickly to our destination. Sure enough, a large walled compound sat opposite the bus depot just as we were told, and through the large metal gates an untamed thicket of trees was visible continuing into the distance. Probably because we had the least distance to travel, and owing to our enthusiasm to avoid a heavy breakfast, we were there first. An old guard informed us of the Rs. 5 entrance fee, and we waited around inside for the rest of the group to arrive.

Already, a few meters inside the brick wall that separated a moderately busy road from the park, the noises of the outside were muffled, the bird song was loud, and a chorus of insects provided a soothing music. Almost immediately, three cameras, a compact (my G9), a superzoom (my cousin’s new Lumix FZ28), and a DSLR (Vishal’s K200) were out and stretching their legs in the immediate surroundings of the gate. Another visitor arrived and waited outside. After a while he came over and introduced himself as one of my cousin’s friends who would be joining us today. It would seem three guys with large cameras taking pictures of leaves and rocks accompanied by one gentleman with salt and pepper hair had been enough to identify who we were.

Eventually everyone showed up and the formalities at the gate were completed. The guard signed us in, because this is not just a public park but an officially protected nature reserve, for which I’m glad. The park has a building a short distance from the gate that houses a conference hall, and other facilities that are used for educational presentations and such. Surrounding this circular structure are formal gardens, with tall grass growing right up to the roof of the structure, along slopes landscaped into the side of the building. That’s were we first went, walking around the hedges and flower beds, our eyes always drawn to the much greener and wilder trees clearly visible behind the manicured areas.

The flower beds were teeming with butterflies of various colours, and I spent a good amount of time playing hide-and-seek with the restless insects, waiting for them to stay still on a leaf or a flower for just long enough to get a good shot. Butterflies make excellent photographic subjects, and the detail you can see of the creatures in your photographs are stunning. But, beyond the camera and the lens, really admiring butterflies in the flesh is a calming pastime everyone should try on occasion. I never like taking pictures to the point where I think I’m bothering my subject too much, even insects. How would you like if some genuinely interested people started following you around, shoving giant cameras in your face and never letting you eat in peace? You wouldn’t be thrilled, I’m sure. So I moved on.

We were a company of nine with an arsenal of eight cameras, so we quickly spread out to take in the wild beauty of the place and molest unsuspecting vines and insects at a safe distance with our lenses. To compensate, my Dad picked up a stick he found along the way and then proceeded to climb various trees. He’s a wild child, that one.

Bricks used for construction in India are often made of red clay, baked in large smoking stacks visible off the sides of roads when you go off into the country side, away from the urban sprawl. Mahim Nature Park has red brick paths that twist their way through the foliage, hugging every bump and incline like a natural part of the landscape (Vishal’s post has some great views of the paths amongst other things). We followed one of these paths leading away from the gardens, and found ourselves in an open space with a central flower bed of shocking red canna, where the large sprawling canopy of a single tree blocked out the sky. Yes, it was climbed.

We marched on. Often the brick path disappeared all together under the thick undergrowth, and only a general sense of direction kept us going. Eventually we came to a fence at the back periphery of the park. Paths continued in two directions, hugging the foliage next to the fence, and beyond the fence lay the wet bed of the Mithi river. The Mithi isn’t really a river in the traditional sense, although it has become one over the centuries. It started as the sea-water channel between the island of Mahim to the south and the larger island of Salsette to the north. Back then Bombay was a series of small and medium sized islands on a broad tidal plain. Over the centuries, the gaps were filled forming an almost monolithic landmass, but some signs of the old divisions like the Mithi remain, now serving to drain the land during the torrential monsoons that hit this area every year.

This was the middle of the monsoon season, and while this monsoon had been well below the expected strength, the signs of renewal brought on by the rains were everywhere to be seen. The path to the right, which we went down, had none of the pretensions of order which we had witnessed so far. Other than the fence along the perimeter, and another one keeping people on the path and out of the denser areas of this little eden, the sight was that of an untamed forest. Adventurous vines snaked over every surface, their delicate tendrils grasping at new conquests. The undergrowth was a deep and lush green, made up of a cacophony of grasses, weeds, and many medicinal plants like castor and balsam, which run rampant in this part of the land given a little soil and a hint of water. From above, the canopy of many trees bowed down to touch the Earth, and the hanging roots of some had sprouted fresh tips, fine pink and yellow fingers reaching into the fertile monsoon air.

When we could see it we followed the path. The rest of the time, the wall of green on either side and the occasional length of fence served as adequate marker for where we were not to go. After a lot of tiptoeing through the green to avoid disturbing butterflies, and healthy doses of hunching over to make full use of the macro feature of our cameras, we moved on. Straight ahead, the foliage changed. There were lots of tall grasses but hardly any trees, leaving the sky open, and the path turned back inland to the right. When the shimmering waves of grass subsided, off to the left I spotted electrical pylons not far from where I stood, a sudden reminder of where this wonderland was situated. Some leafless trees grew in the distance, below the pylons, and on them a few herons were perched. There were more of them hidden in the grass, their long white necks appeared and disappear out of the foliage. The little grassy cove appeared to be a nesting ground, and part of the area protected by the nature park. Thankfully it was well away from the public paths and safe from overenthusiastic sight-seers.

Further along the way, stacks of red-clay bricks stood beside the path. Raw material for repair or construction of new paths, I imagine, and behind it was a fenced off pond. Sensing our presence, a few ducks took to the air and flew off into the trees with a noisy flapping of wings. The path continued and the trees grew sparse. Ahead, a few residential buildings loomed behind some tall trees, sentinels of the world outside. We were skirting the edge of the park land. Just before we reached the trees, the path became rough, curved right again, and the plants began to be more organised and planned. A row of tall evergreens lay before us, and when we broke through them we were overlooking a stepped lawn and garden on the opposite side of the circular building we had started from. I was more than delighted by the place already. We stopped to admire more varieties of flowers and more wanton insects, and soon we were off again because there was more to be explored.

A new path hugged the back of the building, and then dived into the canopy of trees behind it. We spotted a mulberry tree, more creepy-crawlies, and soon everyone was paying attention to some obliging insect that refused to move no matter how close you ventured with your lens. While the path by the river had been lush and bright, this one was covered and protected from the sky, its greens deeper and more peaceful. It was probably the calm of this place that reminded us we’d been here for a couple of hours already. Yes, time flies, when you’re having fun, so we shared some biscuits we had got along for sustenance. A breakfast of champions, especially in that setting. Spiders, dragonflies, moss and mushrooms, all kept us looking in wonder and clicking with glee. We were soon separated along the way as some stayed back to explore a particular subject more. The path became bumpy and went into a close grove of trees. Some places held evidence of people trying to build fires and litter, an unfortunate human affliction, but all in all, nature ruled. Suddenly the bright overcast sky broke in over our heads and we were back on one of the paths near the river.

This time we set off in the opposite direction to explore new areas and were not disappointed. The path snaked along, dipping in and out of the woods, and we finally came to a fork where those who had forged ahead were waiting. All of us were now spread out over most of the length of the park so they had thought it best to wait and re-group. We stood around chatting, taking more photographs, and sitting on a fallen tree that partly blocked the way. In time everyone found their way there and we set off again down the path that turned inland under a high canopy.

By this time I had already exhausted my camera battery that had been fully charged a few hours ago. The excessive use of the LCD screen and trying to get hyperactive insects in perfect focus had taken its toll. So I chose to admire everything instead. We passed a few old and gnarled trees, then one of us heard some bird calls and everyone stopped to investigate. This part of the park seemed to have more birds, and the park is said to have a rich variety. Not having a working camera, and not having a zoom lens that could possibly spot little birds on trees, I strolled around and took in the atmosphere.

The snaking path passed by many interesting plants and trees. Fallen logs were teeming with tiny single-leaved saplings, and elsewhere tall shrubs with leaves a foot-wide shot upwards from between the trees. If you haven’t figured it out yet, I am quite the fan of flora. Part of it is the fact that I was exposed to a lot of this as a child, and a substantial part of it I owe to my Mother, the botany major in college, and my Father, who helped her draw all those plant diagrams when she wasn’t interested in doing it back then. We passed a small bamboo grove, the path meandered, the trees got taller and the undergrowth once again began to look more organised. Passing by hedges and flowering shrubs planted in neat, and sometimes not so neat, rows, I could now see the wall that marked the boundary between this world and the one with the honking cars and the striving people out there.

Our exit was delayed by a plant nursery that nuzzled between the trees. The park served as nature reserve and also a nursery for various useful plants. In India, the use of plants and leaves for both cooking and medicine takes on a level of familiarity that a lot of the urban world has lost. In India, at least up to my generation (I can’t be sure of the next), we were brought up being told casually how this leaf is useful for this disease or that seed is great to add to that curry. Even if you’re not interested in it, you do absorb some of it. Some, like me, absorb more than others, but compared to vast treasure of knowledge that exists about these matters, I still feel ignorant.

We were walking through beds of aloe, hibiscus, tulsi and a lot more. All very familiar plants and all having a wide range of uses for those who know. Tulsi is a great example. This plant is so useful that it’s considered holy by Hindus, a great excuse to keep a plant in every household, which you will find quite commonly, not just in India, but wherever in the world Indians have spread. Colds, fevers, flus, infections can all be helped by the proper use of the leaves, stems, or even the roots of this plant. The entire plant can be used in some way, but most settle for just chewing a few leaves everyday. Tulsi is unique to this part of the world, and there are quite of few varieties of it too. In the rest of the world the closest relative is basil. Both are different species within the same family of plants.

After resting in the fragrant air of the nursery, we moved to a small clearing where the park people had installed a circle of old tree stumps to serve as a seating area. We sat down gladly. It was nearly four hours since we arrived here, and during that time most of us had never gotten off our feet. Again, discomfort never rears its head when you’re having fun. We finished our biscuits, drank some water, and then it was time to leave.

We stepped out of the old iron gate, a different one from where we entered. By now the Sun was shining through the clouds and it was getting hot next to the concrete road. It was nearing lunch time so we decided to head off and get something to eat. We walked toward the nearby bus stop and waited. There were a handful of others there, and we stood behind the shelter where it was casting a welcome shadow in the now scorching midday Sun. One of us noticed some graffiti on the back of the bus stop, light feathery stuff scribbled in ball pen, and we were all soon laughing at one particularly cryptic statement. None of us could decide what it meant, but before we could consider it further, a bus arrived and our large throng of tired photographers poured in before the driver sped away. The rushing air through the open windows of the bus was a welcome relief, but I couldn’t help thinking back to the magic wonderland we had just left behind.

In the least, any delusions that I had about Dharavi were corrected, and Mahim Nature park will always be on my list of favourite spots in Mumbai city. You know what’s more astonishing? The spot where the park now stands is not very old. Twenty years ago, the Bombay Municipality started this park as a way to make use of a land-fill which had probably reached its capacity. That’s right, everything I just described is built on a garbage dump. The fact that the horror of urban garbage can be converted into this in a short two decades makes me even happier, maybe there is hope for the world after all. Forget urban renewal, I vote for nature renewal instead.

That’s all there is to my tale, but there is one thing I left out which some of you clever people might have picked up. I will leave you with that cryptic thought scribbled by a wise man or woman on the back of a bus top somewhere in Dharavi. I’m not sure whether it was meant to be a fill-in-the-blank statement because the writer was too shy to put in a word, or whether it was a statement of moderate violence, but I say it from the bottom of my heart.

I dash you

Samir

My Grandmother has a common comment to make when it comes to going out of town or travelling. She says it’s a gargantuan task to leave your home empty. While ever active, she’s always been a bit of a home-bird. She doesn’t like travelling to the point where she can’t come back home at the end of the day. In many ways, she’s right, of course. Leaving your home, for anything more than a few hours, always requires a good amount of planning and preparation.

I experienced this first hand last month. It was time for a break from the summer heat of Dubai, my adopted home, to spend some time in Mumbai, my original home. But before that could happen, much needed to be done. There were all the traditional home-maintenance and cleaning chores to be completed, and there were also newer concerns. We fail to realise how much of our work and lives are now digital and reside as ephemeral bits and bytes on a computer. Being human, we take things for granted, such as the fact that everything on the discs of a computer are there forever and ever. Not true. In fact, there is possibly nothing in the old-world realm of notebooks, parchment, and stone tablets that can compete with the random impermanence of digital media.

Any impending break from normal life is always a great spur to take stock of what needs doing. The prospect of being separated from my ubiquitous digital data was sufficient impetus to remind me that I hadn’t backed-up my digital photos off my hard-drive for several months, and my work files hadn’t had the benefit of a back-up in a few years! I quickly set out to correct that situation and multiple copies of carefully divided sub-folders on many writeable DVDs resulted. And a copy on another back-up hard-disc, of course. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt, it’s to never trust data to hard-discs or optical discs (CDs, DVDs) alone. Either can lose data at the drop of a hat without recourse or warning.

Many other things were accomplished, and many others remained un-finished. An ever growing stash of plastics, cans, and bottles were consigned to the local recycle centre, and a faulty exhaust fan was replaced. On the other hand, the house wasn’t left in pristine condition, a moody washing machine was not brought back on the straight and narrow, in spite of my efforts with a screwdriver, a handful of online projects I had hoped to start off before the trip remained strictly in the planning stage, and plans of world domination remained on the back burner.

I did manage to complete our meagre packing, even if it was in progress until a few minutes before we left, and in a quick afterthought, I left every room and bathroom with a small cup of standing vinegar to deodorise the air while we were away. Small gestures in the larger scheme of things, but I’m glad they came to mind. Finally, with a taxi waiting and with every possible appliance switched off and double-checked, we shut the door to our home, turned the key, and set off for home.

The ride to the airport was uneventful, not counting the extreme driving that is to be expected from taxi drivers everywhere, and Dubai taxi-drivers in particular. The departure entrances were mildly crowded. We stood behind the snaking queue of luggage trolleys and people homing in towards the first set of x-ray machines and inched along. While we waited, watches, belts, phones, keys and spare change were all deposited into the nearest convenient pocket on hand-baggage. This was to avoid doing that clumsy moonwalk back through the metal detector, to discard yet another metal item at the behest of the security, as was happening to so many before us and would happen to so many after. For some reason, people never seem to learn this lesson.

The check-in was trouble free, in no small part because we were carrying very little luggage. Little luggage makes the job of the person at check-in easier — no need to put on their official bad-cop mask and tell you you’re going to have to pay extra weight charges for that dinosaur skeleton you insist on air-freighting on your holidays, no need to deal with your grovelling for the happiness of your dinosaur-loving kids back home and such — so they usually speed you through.

Having relieved ourselves of some burden at check-in, we headed towards the immigration area. Like all large international airports in major cities, Dubai International is a bit, well, large. So this stroll to the immigration from some of the check-in areas is a trip of some length. Random airport paraphernalia littered the way. People waited, looking excited and bored, irate travellers argued with irate staff, tiny airport convenience stores popped out of nowhere at the side of a corridor and people browsed through a sparse stack of tired best sellers, right next to bad chocolate and gaudy post-cards. Then I came upon a line of people waiting with particularly large pieces of luggage. They all appeared to be held up at one of those machines that wrap your luggage in a plastic sheet for a fee. They can be quite popular amongst Indians travelling back home during the monsoons. A wrapping of plastic seems like an almost insultingly inadequate protection against the marvel of meteorology that is the monsoons, but something is better than nothing. As I walked by the machine, I looked at the luggage currently being mummified in polythene and a large round eye stared back at me. A person-sized fluffy toy of a shocking-pink — and I kid you not — FISH was being balanced precariously on the machine’s turn-table, half wrapped in plastic. Still processing the reality of that sight, I walked further and on the opposite side of the lounge I noticed a luggage trolley with a large fluffy toy of a white and pink segmented worm (one of those cute kiddy characters), propped in its top basket. If I was a superstitious person, I would have considered that some sort of modern-day omen, but since I had never heard of a tarot card called the 2 of pink fluffy toys, I ignored it. I saw no more pink fluffy toys on the trip, other than those on sale at the duty free.

We passed quickly through immigration and another security check. Going down an escalator, a far-eastern couple were taking photos of each other. On a small landing before another set of escalators that take you even deeper underground, the woman posed against the grey walls and the grey floor in a featureless corner as the man snapped a few quick shots. Like in all airports, photography is strictly prohibited here, and like in all airports, people will flout that rule to take the most uninteresting shots in the most uninteresting spots. A strange phenomenon.

This descent into the underworld in the Dubai airport leads to a very long corridor with moving-walkways towards the centre, and backlit ads on the outer walls. This corridor runs under the taxing area above, joining the check-in building with the duty free and departure gates. Dubai regulars often refer to this as the The Dubai marathon, vaguely referring to the fact that at some point in the past, all these parts of the airport existed under one roof and travel in an out involved much less journeying on foot. The Dubai marathon was surprisingly unadorned on this occasion. The Dubai boom-town mood has held sway for a long time, with commercial interests spending vast amounts of advertising money in high profile places like the airport. On this trip I found most of the back-lit ads staring blankly and unlit at me and most of the few occupied spaces contained obviously out-dated posters, or posters for the agency that manages the very same ads. A drastic change from times past. Ultimately, there was light at the end of the tunnel. It came from the sky-light high up in the ceiling of the duty free building, shining down into the grey chamber where the escalators rose once again upward to ground level.

For me the old Dubai duty free was an exciting place. It had a well stocked bookshop that held treasures you would not find outside its confines, and a good bookshop is always appreciated. The new duty free is popular, famous, much talked about, but ultimately boring, because it’s basically a Dubai mall that also sells alcohol and has jet planes parked at the sides. The part about the jet planes is still exciting but the contents of the building itself are not. Not for me anyway.

The McDonalds in the Dubai Duty Free food court charges 50% more for everything than they do outside. I know this because we invariably end up eating something there on our trips through the airport. Not that I’m a great proponent of the health and flavour benefits of the company’s fast food , but they are the quickest and most convenient option among those available. We didn’t have a lot of time to spare, so after our quick meal we headed straight for the departure gate which was another reasonable walk away. The crowd at the entrance to the lounge was sparse. After quickly presenting our boarding passes, we were ushered in.

The plane had already begun boarding. Still, there was a fairly long queue waiting to board, so we took a seat to wait till it ebbed a bit. There were other stragglers, some sat around and relaxed like us while some stood near the glass walls staring out on to the tarmac. In one corner, one of the passengers was taking the mandatory random shots with his phone cam: walls, the planes outside, the ceiling, the chandeliers in the next chamber etc. In a span of the next few minutes, as we waited, a virtual horde of camera wielders gravitated towards the railing and began snapping with gay abandon. One even whipped out a video camera, and proceeded to execute the common camera panning move in some of the least interesting spots to survey the surroundings. People don’t quite seem to grasp the concept of something not being allowed or off-limits. I was given further proof of this in a few minutes when we joined the queue and neared the doors of the plane. A woman was stopped before boarding the plane for carrying a Costa’s coffee cup. The security people were telling her to leave it there or finish it, and she was actually saying that she couldn’t enjoy it if she finished it quickly. The human sense of entitlement is astonishing.

The flight was smooth enough. Air India hasn’t been cool for a while, but even they were showing signs of the prevailing times. On the one hand I saw the return of real metal cutlery after years — the first time since 2001. On the other hand, they didn’t serve everyone a fruit drink or even water before take-off as was common before, and the drinks selection was limited to cola, tomato juice and the usual avatars of alcohol which I am never interested in. Since the same number of people still need to be fed, I doubt such reductions in choice lead to any significant savings, but such is the nature of what I can only assume are desperate cost-cutting measures.

We spent the requisite 10-20 minutes circling Mumbai airspace, an expected delay when landing at the busy night shift at Mumbai International Airport. After a few bumpy minutes in the clouds (have I mentioned that the nose camera feed on the new Boeing 777s is both a wondrous and scary thing?) we approached for landing. Cross winds were strong and the aircraft seemed to swing through the air as we descended. It was a bumpy landing, but my compliments to the pilot for decelerating from chaos to a controlled crawl in a few short moments.

Our arrival was announced over the speakers and we were helpfully informed of the local time and external temperature. Then we were all told to remain seated until we taxied to the terminal building and the fasten-seatbelt signs were switched off. Ten seconds later, while still a couple of kilometres from our final parking spot, everyone around us burst on to their feet with a clackety-clack of hastily opened seatbelts and the noisy effort of heavy hand baggage being wrestled down from the overhead lockers. The flight attendants and a few remained seated as the plane barrelled down the side-lanes of the tarmac at a decent clip. The rest of the overenthusiastic fools, who are never in short supply, stood around hefting their baggage and standing triumphantly for the next fifteen minutes until the aircraft was safely attached to the terminal building through the concourse and we were finally able to de-plane.

Stepping off the concourse into the airport building was a bit of a shock. The Mumbai airport has been undergoing a makeover for a while now. A few years ago the major airports in India were privatised in a bid to modernise and update them to current standards and luxuries. The corridor we stepped into was moodily lit, and the walls were lined with wood panelling, granite tiles and brushed-metal embellishments. A far cry from the stark white concrete corridors of old. As we walked along, jostled by the many people in a hurry to get nowhere in particular, I noticed other changes. All the glass separating the corridor from the departure lounges were sparkling and the walls were punctuated with paintings and other artwork at regular intervals. The corridor finally took a turn to the right and in that recess was a large canvas by Anjolie Ela Menon, a well known contemporary Indian artist. The corridor took a left and suddenly I was once again in the old Mumbai airport, white walls, grey floor tiles, simple florescent lighting and all. It was like stepping through the looking glass and reminded me that the change was still in progress.

Immigration was painless as always, other than the make-shift detour to allow for some paperwork to be done to supposedly help check the growing swine-flu problem, and the fact that most of the staff and officers were wearing breathing masks. A necessary precaution for people being exposed to so many different travellers on a daily basis. More jostling ensued to capture prime position on the conveyor belt at luggage collection. We had little checked baggage so we stood back and swooped in when we spotted something.

Considering how little we were carrying for three people, the customs people had no problems letting us through. After a little more displaying of papers, we were out in the open. ‘The open’ was another big change. I had seen them working on this particular out-door arrivals area the last time I was in the city but to see it almost complete was still impressive. A canopy of white material in the form of stacks of concentric funnel shapes blocked the sky. The canopy was lit with white and blue lights. All a little too flashy for my tastes, but impressive, none the less. What really impressed me was what they had done with the ground level. The exit lead into a large empty square area that was fenced off to keep the waiting hordes at bay. Beyond that there were little planting areas, where new trees have been planted, surrounded by a polished-stone skirting for people to sit on. Once the trees grow, it will form one of the most natural seating arrangements you’re likely to see in an airport waiting area — more public park and less airport. A brilliant touch, and a more practical design solution to the very real vastness of crowds in Mumbai.

Our cousin was there to greet us, and reunions completed, we set off for the pre-paid taxi booth. As we were standing in queue there to book a taxi home, three tourists were showing around their taxi booking wondering what to do next. They were Swiss or German, from their accent, the woman amongst them explained that they had headed off in the direction indicated after booking their ride and had found no taxis. We told them to head back that way and that the taxi stand was a fair distance away. “You mean it’s after ALL those people?”, she asked, talking about the fenced off exit door of the arrivals building. We smiled and said yes. The sheer size of crowds in Indian cities like Mumbai is beyond the experience of most people coming from your standard developed western country. Not only is the number of people overwhelming, and the concept of personal space non-existent, but having to navigate through that many people also skews all sense of distance. The woman smiled, exchanged a comment and a laugh with her two male companions, adjusted her shoulder bag and walked back towards the crowd. It takes a certain type of person to truly adjust to India, and I had a feeling they would be ok.

Finally we made the same journey and piled into the old yellow and black Premier Padmini, a Fiat based car manufactured in India until the 90s. The design hadn’t changed since the 60s and 70s, and while the city taxis were slowly switching to to newer cars, the majority were still Padminis. The Premier car company is no more. A shame, because the distinctive retro shape of those yellow and black cabs form such an integral part of this city’s landscape in my mind, and soon they will be gone.

The taxi pulled out from the airport down the not-too-well-lit streets that lead away from it. The sparse monsoon meant that that streets were dry and it felt like any other summer night in the city. The familiar scent of cured tobacco filled the night air as we drove past the nearby cigarette factory. The city was starting to wind down and people strolled towards home and sat around watching the world go by. Eventually we turned on to the Western Express highway, heading towards the older, southern part of town.

The concept of lane discipline is pretty much unheard of on Indian roads, and certainly Mumbai’s roads, so we weaved through the chaotic mix of heavy vehicles, cars, and buzzing auto-rickshaws, all competing for the same road space. The highway did look different from what I remembered, and I realised they had put up new sets of street lights at the edges of the highway, which also illuminated the parallel service roads that served the surrounding communities. It added a new sense of order and clarity to the place, a big improvement over the previous patchy darkness. I could see people out for a late night walk below the cones of yellow light from the street lamps. Perhaps this was not a new phenomenon but it is surprising how much visible signs such as these change the perception of a place. It was a welcome change.

We turned into the Mahim causeway, and off the coast to our right the Bandra-Worli sea link stood bright and shimmering out at sea, like some mystic spider’s web adorning the horizon. The Bandra-Worli Sea Link is a recently completed suspension bridge designed to reduce traffic congestion through some of the older parts of the city. It soon disappeared behind the older structures, as the road narrowed near the popular Mahim church.

Our progress was slowed momentarily by traffic as we drove through Mahim. The locality of Mahim has a healthy Muslim population, along with a popular shrine amongst followers of the faith. Tonight seemed to be one of celebration, police men were controlling traffic and throngs of revellers in crisp kurtas and finely embroidered caps streamed across the road and zig-zagged by on motor bikes and in cars. It was a celebratory mood, possibly looking forward to the coming of the holy month of Ramadan in a fortnight.

We were soon free of the minor snarl and we entered the part of the city most familiar to me. While we were still some way off from home, these streets always feel like home because I have walked them all at some point in my childhood. Familiar structures and buildings streaked by in the light late-night traffic, mere shadows awaiting the light of day to manifest completely.

Eventually we found ourselves at the wide junction in front of Portuguese Church, built and re-build several times since the 1600s. The stout stone wall of the church, probably built in 1800s, is still intact while the building inside was changed and modernised in the 1970s — a fitting symbol of Mumbai, a dynamic flux between old and new. We directed the taxi driver to a small side-lane and asked him to stop near the now dark temple on the side of the road. It’s a small shrine with a single room and a seating area, dedicated to Shiva, the one in charge of the destruction of the universe in the Hindu trinity. Popular myth has it that that temple was not a planned one but came about by chance. Even my Grandmother remembers a time when this little street wasn’t a street at all but a small mud path that speared through groves of trees. As the city developed and work started on building paved roads in these urban backwaters, it is said workers stumbled upon a Shiva-linga as they dug up the earth here and so the make-shift temple was born.

For those who don’t know, a Shiva-linga is a strange and fairly unique symbol in world culture. What is unique about it is not only what it represents, but the fact that it is worshipped by a few hundred million people on a daily basis. A Shiva-linga is is a stout cylinder with a hemispherical/domed top, set on a circular base which often has a piece that radiates outward from the circle. That is the basic form, with a million variations and embellishments to be found. The top half, the cylinder, is the linga, which in classical Sanskrit means the male phallus, and the base on which it sits is the yoni, the female sexual organ. So the Shiva-linga represents sexual union, the act of reproduction, and ultimately creation itself. The fact that such a visceral symbol of creation is used to represent the God of Destruction gives you an indication of how much Hindu philosophy is steeped in a belief of balance. All things in the universe are balanced and all things tend towards a balance — the central basis for the belief in karma, the consequences of past actions, and re-incarnation.

The Shiva-linga at the small road-side temple sits at the bottom of a small circular room. The linga is said to not have been moved from where it was originally discovered, which is why it is a few feet below street-level and you need go down a few stone stairs to enter the sanctum. On festivals and special days much hoopla surrounds the little shrine, devotional music is played, flower sellers block the street with their colour-laden wicker baskets, cows stand around waiting to be fed by passing devotees and the queue to enter the little stone room snakes out of sight down our lane. But even on a daily basis, the bells of the temple ringing to a chorus of crows cawing is a deeply etched childhood memory of waking up at home every morning.

Removing our luggage from the tiny boot of the Premier Padmini, we stepped through an iron gate. The entire old structure was dark, save for the single yellow bulb burning in a first-floor balcony. There I could see the shrunken silhouette of my Grandmother leaning against the parapet and peering into the dark. We were expected and she is never the type to wait nonchalantly indoors. Picking my way through the darkness I climbed the familiar wooden stairs that had been worn down to an aged smoothness with time. Even in the darkness I knew when to stop climbing and turn to take the next flight even without counting. The heavy front door opened with a familiar muted metallic jingle of the safety-chain, light streamed into the dark staircase landing, and I was home.

Samir

It is not all hopeless. If you walk the streets of old Dubai, dive into its fragrant souqs, and get a taste of what this place is like below the surface, what it must have been like before the coming of the glass-fronted buildings and the too numerous sports cars at every street light, you sense a twinge of hope and also feel a sense of loss for a world that is being systematically destroyed by ruthless and thoughtless modernisation. You can sometimes feel the same twinge of greater things in a few of the modern developments, when you look around and realize that you are surrounded by people from a hundred different lands all carefully ignoring the stark but stunning display of lingerie in the latest Calvin Klein store front, but these occurrences are rarer than they should be. While the mass of differences mingle, this city has a way of getting them to average down to a lesser whole rather than rising to a harmonic crescendo.

Such are the perils of existence in the world’s current ‘it’ city, where the sum of the myriad variety of parts is often a luke warm whole, and where the collective hallucination of glamour eclipses all else. That being said, living in Dubai does have its flashes of reality and sometimes even down-to-earth humanity if you catch it when no one is looking. I was at one of the numerous fast-food and juice serving cafeterias a few nights ago. I’ve been going there for years, and being the curious observer that I am, I have always made mental note of some of the interesting people who come there and the exchanges that follow, but yesterday I noticed more. Perhaps it is a side effect of having recently returned from Bombay, and my mind desperately searching for detail, pattern, and interest in this tiny desert of a city, but yesterday I saw the forest and another ray of hope for Dubai living.

The establishment in question is located near Lamcy Plaza on a relatively busy side street of the Oud Maitha area, home to hospitals, schools, social clubs, and all manner of similarly respectable and dangerous places. In the 80s and 90s this was not much of a residential area, in spite of being adjacent to Karama, the most densely populated piece of real estate in the entire region. As the population exploded over the last decade and demand for new housing grew, with new waves of immigrants arriving from Eastern Europe, the Far East, and other foreign shores, this area began to sprout a wide selection of typically featureless, moderately luxurious apartment blocks that were the staple of Dubai living through the 90s. I remember scouting around the place for an apartment myself about 6-7 years ago, before my family moved into our current home. Even back then the place boasted an eclectic mix of people, with a Korean, Russian, and a Japanese food store all within spitting distance of each other, nestled between sprawling coffee houses where the largely local clientèle flocked to get their fix with the latest flavour of shisha (the hookah pipe, or hubbly-bubbly). The advantage of this place is that it lay smack dab in the middle of the economic scale of things. It was not as unapproachable as some of the posher sections of town, nor was it as decrepit as some of the older areas. This encouraged and continues to encourage residence by a healthy mix of inhabitants from many walks of life and many more cultures.

Like the majority of small fast food outlets in the city, our cafeteria in question is also run by a group of enthusiastic Indians. Hailing from the heavily communist influenced southern state of Kerala in India, this community makes up for their constant state of politicking and striking back home, by being one of the most hard working and widespread peoples of the world today. It is a common quip amongst those who know that there is no country or place on this globe where you won’t find at least one small tea shop run by a Keralite. While that is said in jest, I like to think it is also said with a healthy dose of guarded respect for this enterprising bunch.

Parking in busy places such as these is one of the challenges of living in Dubai, and since we generally do not like to take the popular but strenuous route of stopping on the side of the road, we found some readily available space a short walk away and went in on foot. It was getting late and the place was a cauldron of activity. Bright mercury vapor lamps illuminated the three tables on the sidewalk, and inside the few tables were occupied, with the waiters buzzing about carrying plates and packages. Places such as this possibly receive the majority of their revenue from take-away orders and that’s exactly what we had in mind. We stepped into the tiny place to give our order to the man at the counter. Although we now know almost the entire menu by memory, we picked up the cacophony of colour and bad photography that usually serves as the menu in these places and browsed.

The small group of Filipinos on the table behind us exclaimed appreciatively as the waiter brought in their order, which consisted of various wraps and sandwiches, and a selection of phantasmagoric liquid concoctions in tall glasses. We waited at the counter as the man there dealt with another customer. A heavy set man of African descent, wearing a light tee shirt and jeans, was trying to decipher the photographic menu.

“What is this?” he asked, pointing.

“That meal,” said the man at the counter. “Fish Burger Special, with juice.” Special is the local cafeteria lingo to say that it is served with some French fries.

“What juice?” inquired the man in the tee shirt.

“What you want?” was the reply from the counter, more as a statement of fact rather than as a question.

“What you have?”

“Orange, pineapple, kiwi, …” The oratory went on as a decent list of fresh fruit juices were rattled out.

Finally, the big decision having been made, the man stepped aside. We gave our order and stepped out. The place is small, and gets stuffy when there are enough people in there, not to mention the fact that the single room is separated from the live heat of the traditional shawarma oven by only a pane of glass for added atmosphere — another common Dubai sandwich place convention. The night air was cool, considering it was almost May. The sidewalk outside the place is an extra-wide one, leaving enough space for a row of tables, a well positioned row of potted hedge, and enough room for the scant Dubai foot traffic to pass by without being inconvenienced.

A blonde woman in a white outfit walked past and entered the cafeteria. The African gentleman still stood resolutely near the counter, as out of the way as was physically possible in the circumstances. The woman picked up a stray menu from a table and proceeded to study it. From the way she did, I got the feeling she was a regular. She was of medium height, sported a pair of stylishly severe horn-rimmed glasses and white trousers. Her shirt had an even black and white chequered pattern, which in my mind made her look like a character in some modernist revival of Alice in Wonderland. From the look of her she was probably East-European, hailing from one of numerous former Soviet states. She gave her order, signaled with her hands that she would be back in a while, and then she walked briskly out on to the sidewalk. Darting across the street, she disappeared into the silver and red trimmed apartment building that stood there. I was right, she was obviously a regular.

Outside the cafeteria, two of the three tables were occupied. A small man wearing a pristine set of semi-official clothes sat alone at one. His table was laden with a whole roasted chicken, a plate of salad leaves and other raw vegetables, and a stack of Arabic pita bread. This is a common meal in these joints. A standing steel roasting cabinet with a glass front can often be seen out front, whole chickens rotating on their spits within. This image is as iconic of these establishments as is the inverted cone of shawarma meat that roasts there through the entire evening. There was something very French about the man’s face. Perhaps he was Lebanese. He sat there in silence, meticulously devouring the well browned bird on the table in front of him.

The occupants of the second table on the sidewalk were not as unobtrusive. A small group of young South-Asian men wearing bright coloured tee shirts and bell bottomed jeans had staked their claim on one of the tables while we were placing our order inside. They too had ordered a whole chicken with the works, amongst other things, and the waiter continued to add to the already over-taxed real estate of their white plastic table. It turned out they were from Pakistan, because a clearly audible discussion about the political situation back home was proceeding over the fast disappearing chicken and hummus on the table.

“Our politicians are worthless,” said one of the bunch, in Urdu. “They do nothing for the people.”

“But you can’t only blame them,” retorted another. “What have our people ever done to make things better or to deserve anyone better in government?”

Universally wise words indeed, I thought, and the discussion continued.

Many cars stop on the side of the road and honk to get their order taken in places like this — a rudimentary drive-through of sorts. A handful had already done so as we waited there, and now there was another loud honk. The man tending to the chicken shawarma stepped out of his hot cubicle and sprinted across the narrow road to the waiting green and white police SUV. Instructions were given through the lowered window. The man from the cafeteria ran back across the road, rummaged through a cooler inside the place, picked up something else from the counter, and jogged back across the street. The can of Mountain Dew with a bendy straw went into the vehicle, some coins came out, and then the Police drove away.

By this time the Pakistani group were completely lost in their conversation, and the lone man was almost done with his meal. An Arab man wearing a traditional white dishdasha walked up to the third table and sat down. From the cut of his garment, he was probably Egyptian or Syrian. He waved his hand about in the air till he caught the required attention, and went on to interrogate the waiter about the wares on offer. The African man, who was still waiting patiently inside, was finally rewarded with a plastic bag containing a tall sealed paper tumbler of juice, and your standard mystery Styrofoam burger box. He seemed satisfied as he stepped out, crossed the street and ducked into a small grocery store adorned in Coca Cola colours. Another police car stopped by and honked. This time the window rolled down and the driver indicated ‘one’ with his index finger in the general direction of anyone from the cafeteria who might be looking. One of the vigilant waiters went in and promptly returned with a small white Styrofoam cup of steaming chai (milky, brewed tea) which he delivered to the waiting law men.

Our order was almost ready. When we noticed the various white paper bags of sandwiches being assembled on a table inside, we went in to take stock. The bill was cleared, and as we stepped out laden with our dinner for the day, the blonde woman from earlier came out of the foyer of the building across the street and headed towards the cafeteria to pick up her food. While we walked towards the car, the Arab man on the outside table was gesturing impatiently, a pair of Chinese women in noisy boots were walking by at a brisk clip, and in a 3rd story balcony across the street, an Arab women with heavy makeup was having an animated conversation on her mobile phone, punctuated by many utterances of habibi (my dear).

Living in Dubai rarely puts me in a receptive mood, as a result of which I often don’t notice the little details hiding behind the exterior veneer of this dwarf metropolis. But sometimes, ever so often, the veil of chrome is lifted and the city reveals flashes of reality and even humanity. It only requires a second look and a fleeting glance at the creatures that pass you by on the pristine tiled sidewalks of the vacant streets.

Samir

Photograph: In a previous lifetime, I once did a menu design for a shawarma joint. Despite my better judgement, I was ordered by the client to have a large chunk of chicken shawarma meat graphically depicted on the cover, with bread and an oven lurking on the back. Not one of my proudest moments, but I thought it was particularly appropriate for this slice-of-life about shawarma joints and living in Dubai.

Yesterday I got on to a bus with nine members of a brass band. It all started with my favourite pastime in Mumbai, taking a bus towards the south of the city, the older more historical section of this sprawling metropolis. A red BEST (Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport) bus on route #85 is my staple ride. The old-style printed roll of fabric that acts as a changeable destination placard usually reads Hutatma Chowk, the post-independence revisionist title of the busy square in the centre of the old quarter that most people still simply refer to as Fountain.

Mumbai’s busses are one of the most efficiently organised mass transport systems you’re likely to come across anywhere in the world, and to maintain that efficiency the BEST company has set up depots and minor confluence points throughout the city where drivers and bus-conductors can be replaced, routes started, and other planning and routing tasks done. Part of this system involves getting busses that are somewhere across the city to a specific midpoint to keep with the plan. These are those rare occasions when some busses might not go where you expect them to.

When you have a large red metal object bearing down upon you standing at a bus stop, and you know you might need to throw yourself on board in the few seconds it will be stationary, you often take some observational shortcuts. If you know where the #85 bus usually goes, you are unlikely to check the destination sign, and in the scramble to attach yourself to the impatient beast you are also likely to brush past the conductor shouting out a warning that the bus doesn’t go where you think it is going. So there we were, triumphantly standing on a #85 when we finally realised it was only going to travel a few kilometres to the Mumbai headquarters of Doordarshan(Translates simply to television), the government run terrestrial television network. Not being in any particular hurry to get anywhere specific, we stuck to it deciding to find our way further south once we got to our unexpected pit stop.

Mumbai was originally a collection of small islands and tidal channels, all of which were reclaimed to form the old sectors of the city, often collectively referred to as the South. Over the passing decades and centuries suburbs sprouted towards the north leading to the now almost unending sprawl of concrete that is still considered part of the giant city. From pretty much anywhere in the old city and from any coast towards the northern spread, Doordarshan is a visible landmark on the horizon as a towering transmission antenna that extends a few hundred metres into the sky. In the post-independence glory days of scientific and technological development in a fledgling country, I’m sure the lone metal structure was a rousing symbol of the golden years to come for the masses of hopeful dreamers who came to the city to make their fortunes. As a child growing up in Bombay many decades later, I might not have grasped the political symbolism, but I was still in awe of the big Doordarshan antenna. In my slowly expanding world, it was by far the tallest thing I had ever seen. It seemed to truly reach up into the blue unknown. I am happy to say that its effect on my adult self hasn’t diminished much. So, it was with a certain sense of nostalgic pleasure that I alighted from the short-distance #85 bus in the shadow of my old towering friend at the Doordarshan bus stop.

The organised jumble of red and black numbers scrawled on the side of the bus shelter indicated that a large selection of routes were available for the picking. Some we were familiar with as the ones that could carry us further southward, and some were mysterious unknowns. As we waited for a bus and considered our options, a troupe of tired looking gentlemen wearing identical red coats walked up casually and joined us in our vigil. Considering the various shaped drums and the cacophony of wind instruments they cradled in their arms, it was clear they were one of the numerous brass bands in the city and they had just finished a gig. The use of these largely mediocre brass bands is a common spectacle at many weddings and other events in urban India. Spectacle really is the point, because most are of little musical worth other than guaranteeing the chagrined attention of anyone within earshot of their repertoire of popular Hindi movie music played at a more than respectful din.

A #124 bus, which we knew was heading in our direction, albeit using a circuitous route, pulled into the stop. The tired red coats seemed to burst into action and pour upwards into the narrow bus entrance as they brushed past us standing almost in their way. Finally one of them realised that my Dad was using a walking stick and let him climb on ahead. The rest of the colourful brigade continued behind us into the nearly empty bus and soon we were on our way.

That, my dear readers, is how I found myself on a bus with nine members of a brass band. But this is only the beginning of the story of my colorful bus trip through Bombay. In part 2, baubles, dinosaurs, gold thread, and much more.

Samir