PIGS

i thought i should mention to you that people walk pigs on the beach in Mumbai. I have no idea what this is about, but i was walking along the seawall in Bandra, and i saw people out on the rocks below the tideline, with huge black pigs sniffing along beside them. maybe there's some weird form of Indian truffle or something. .

LAST DAY IN CHENNAI

Our last day was an Indian road-trip with friends. We rented a van , and along came Meena (with Pravda), Dipti, and Sajit (Sarge) and Brenton- two young guys that are also instructors for Shiamak’s school. Two and a half hours bumping along the highway to the old French colony Pondicherry, laughing a lot and stopping for photo ops.
We were too late to see the Shore Temple at the beach in Mahabalipuram. We clambered over the seaside rocks and saw its simple beauty from a couple hundred feet. Almost looks like an ornate sand castle. 3000 years old, they said, and it muses quietly beside a filthy Bay of Bengal beach, with a tourist market and fairground distractions.
Driving back into the city after dark we were quiet. It was a blessing to make such good friends at our first stop in India. These people showed us a lot of love. It was hard to leave Chennai. Such a big city and yet it felt friendly and small. I don’t think I will forget the week there when I think back on India.

SOWCARPET

A couple nights back Meena took me into Sowcarpet market, where pigs and rugs are plentiful. Just kidding. Actually, no, they probably are. Well maybe not the pigs. Anyway. You park outside it and hop a bicycle rickshaw into the fray. Now, take all the craziness and stereotypes you’ve heard about India, and cram them into a few narrow, teeming backways, and you’re on the right track. Cattle with painted horns pulling wagons of wood; dusty, barefoot rascals hard at work yanking on your shorts with puppydog eyes; women in splashes of saree colour gossiping, haggling, seated in groups or carrying any manner of household item home with them atop their heads. And as you squeeze your way past, around and through people, while dodging hollering rickshaws or the occasional (potentially rabid) straymutt, you can glimpse every manner of shop and service you could ever need. It’s Wal-Mart with soul. Textiles, sarees, jewellery, produce, footwear, Menswear, hardware, underwear; street vendours hocking hot peanuts (so salty good), flower garlands, frying fish. Meena even got me a Henna tattoo.. story?.. done on my arm, right there in the street. She knows where everything is, too, even though it seemed like a maze of people and tiny shops to me. She says the market is the place to go when you need something specific, and she has her own personal favourite shop for every need.
But apparently Sowcarpet Market is just a junior version of the kind of market you might find in Delhi. I don’t know. I was saturated. And satisfied. This was the India I’d heard about and been dying to see.

RADIO CITY INDIA!

There’s been lots of press here- Katya’s been interviewed by about 7 papers, plus TV shows and magazines. We did a radio interview together on the Chennai rock station 91.1, RadioCity, and then I went back and did another interview with them about songwriting and music, and they played some songs from the EP, and I played a song live as well. It was a trip to sit in my hotel room a few days later and hear “Marianne” over Indian airwaves. (I have some video of this which I will try to post on youtube at some point, and maybe some audio on myspace).

Monsoon

It’s early for monsoons here. The sky grows ominous dark. The black clouds roll in with the thunder overhead, and the juicebar guys on the street start rolling out the canopies. We all cram under them when the rains gun the street down. Thunder and lightning and the rain blows the wind so there’s no staying dry, even under cover. Air thick with moisture like sweat, and a steady sheet of rain hammers the pavement and nearly silences the city. And then suddenly it stops as suddenly as it began, and the traffic accelerates back to a fever pitch again, and the city is showered and ready for work.

CHENNAI

It’s hot. But seaside hot more than urban sprawl hot. Although this is still an urban sprawl. And I’m still sweating. The city is exploding outside. I’m not sure what the festival is called, but it is a Christian one celebrating the Virgin Mary. We saw some processions in the street earlier. Then from the rooftop restaurant at the top of our hotel we sip Sandpiper beer, and the city is laid out all around us like Paris-at-our-feet, and every temple in the city seems to have its own assortment of fireworks to explode at random. Apparently Sundays are always lively in Chennai, but this one’s especially crazy.
Meena and Dipti met us at the airport- Meena’s a manager for the Shiamak organization, and Dipti is a dance instructor- they are both lovely women and immediately gracious. We stop beside the highway for fresh coconut milk; (meaning a sunworn woman holds a coconut aloft and hacks it with a machete, shoves a straw in the opening, and presto- instant refreshment). Immediately the city has a good vibe. Still Indo-crazy, near misses from rickshaws on the highway and PEOPLE EVERYWHERE, but it feels less frantic; more friendly somehow.
Later, Meena, husband Jeetu and 8-year old daughter Pravda take us across town to a popular idli joint. Idlis are rice patties you eat off banana leaves with your hands and dip in chutneys. You clean the leaf first. You eat with your right hand. You don’t get to pay because your hosts won’t let you- Meena and Jeetu tell us they are honoured to have us as their guests. You read about this kind of hospitality…

Bombay, Pt. One

BOMBAY-

This place is a mad-hatter’s New York. Bustle doesn’t even come close. Ratrace. It’s frantic. The rats are rabid. The mad-hatters’ jeering honks and hornblasts rise from the distant streets below like an odour. I don’t think this city will know what sleep is. But this is only my second night here.
It’s eight o’clock on the rooftop and the monsoon rains have cleansed the whole massive metropolis, and the wind has wiped the sky clean of clouds so maybe you can glimpse a star through the light-haze city-fog. It’s warm, but too humid to be comfortable. Or maybe it’s the hotel bar elevator music. A business hotel. Near the airport.

Welcome to Bombay.

The cabbie’s card today said Sayed- he said he’d drive us into South Mumbai, around for the day and back for 1300 rupees. I tried to bargain with half a heart- he said to pay him what we thought he deserved at the end. Tricky.
It’s 45 minutes into town from the hotel. And there’s one person for every square foot along the way. Mainly men though. Wiry old ones, spitting from shanty-shack doorways. Shiny skinny young ones dragging bamboo poles or stubborn cattle down the choked thoroughfares, sharp black eyes and black moustaches The traffic stutters, jumps and flows like a river of over-achieving ants and you know the cabs and rickshaws would climb over each other if they could. They nearly do. And they speak a language of sharp beeps and long HOOOORRRNS- a constant chatter filling the air, like whale-gossip under water.
We were silent for nearly the entire ride. It’s like taking a kid who’s been reading nothing but colouring books and dumping him in front of a 40-foot TV action movie in hyper-colour. We’re not used to it. We were speechless. People. People. People. People. People. Shacks, shanties, holes-in-walls, apartments, office buildings, people, people, people. Everywhere.
We drive into downtown and our driver lets us out near the Gateway of India- a massive archway beside the sea. We walk around the decadent Taj Mahal Hotel Palace and Tower as well. Then down through the Colaba market. Colourful, over-enthusiastic salesmen, wares that start to look the same from one block to the next- fabrics, leather sandals, bangles. We’re not looking to buy anything yet. We just walk. And it’s sticky sticky hot. Our shirts are stuck. Nobody else here seems to notice the heat.
We find our way back to our Cool Cab. It’s called that because of the AC. We sprang for it. Glad we did.
Driving through the mad-hatter maze into Khola Goda, looking for the Mahesh Lunch Home- seafood restaurant. Despite spirited honking, our driver can’t penetrate the clogged backstreets, so he points us in the direction of the restaurant.
It’s clean and cool inside. An aquarium with a lion-fish adorning the wall. About twelve staff standing around for a one-room restaurant with about 10 tables. The waiter upsells us deliciously. Even tells me the cheaper dish I want to order is “bad”- I should get the twice-as-expensive fresh-caught crab. It’s still cheap, so okay.
Spectacular food. I’m still full now. Huge prawns and spices and rices and crab in thick sauce and CRACK and suck the meat and your mouth burns and your stomach is like, What the hell is all this, like it started raining oil-paint in the land of Black and White, but it’s oh-so-good and filling me up, and those tiny little green and red candies wipe away the spice from your mouth after the meal anyway. A good meal.
It’s after 4 and we head back to the hotel. I pay Sayed the 1300. He did a good job.

This place is a madhouse.