Fishin Blues (that's a hint)

Okay, I know everyone wants to hear about the Taj Mahal. Right? For those of you unfamiliar with Taj Mahal, he’s a blues musician who’s been around since about the 60s, and while he’s certainly rooted in the country blues tradition, he has never been one to stick to the well-beaten traditional blues path. Oh, and there’s also this palace thing with the same name. It’s in India somewhere I think. No, Indiana. Actually, it’s in Agra. It takes about three hours to get to Agra from Delhi. We got up at five. And woke up at the Taj Mahal.
It’s pretty much the best gravestone I’ve ever seen. See, Shah Jahan (with a little help from thousands of his friends) built it for his wife after she died. That’s right, AFTER she died- she never even got to see this thing. And yeah, people say it’s over-rated, and yeah it’s a tourist trap. But when you walk out of the ticket building and into the courtyard it still manages to take your breath away. But it’s been described a thousand times before, so go ahead and google “wordy Taj Mahal descriptions”. I’ll just tell you that it’s overwhelmingly majestic but simply beautiful at the same time. That’s from a distance. Up close the detail would make any mason cry. Picture a small floral design, designed in a pattern where the stems meet to form heart-shapes (love), and pull away to represent loss. Picture it about twelve inches high and twelve inches wide and carved into the translucent marble. Picture different types of coloured stone inlaid into the carving- lapis lazuli for blue, onyx for black, etc- shaped to fit the delicately weaving carving. Picture camels bringing sacks of these various stones from as far away as Turkey and South Africa. (It helps if you picture magical, flying camels. They’re pretty cool to picture. Especially spitting on people from great heights. I digress..). Now picture this little 12x12 design, and multiply it by about 400, so that it can adorn the walls around the entire inner circumference of the mausoleum. This should give you an idea of just one small piece of detail on this ornate corpse-box. (Is this the first time the Taj Mahal has ever been called an ornate corpse-box?)
We hung around the corpse-box for a while. Lots of pictures. Then we went and argued with our driver to take us half an hour out of Agra to Fatehpur Sikri. His boss tried to tell us on the phone that this place was in another state- Rajasthan- so he’d have to charge us out-of-state fees. We were like, We’re looking at two different maps, buddy, and Fatehpur Sikri is not in Rajasthan. It was a bold attempt by the honest car-company man, but a failed one. Our driver took us there, and we spent the rest of the afternoon checking out the illiterate emperor Akbar’s hilltop palace abode, complete with a judgment courtyard (where elephants would literally stomp convicted criminals brains out), a frolicking nymph pool with a musician’s island in the middle (because it’s hard for nymphs to frolic without tunes),and denominational temples for each of Akbar’s three wives (Catholic, Muslim and Hindu).
We ate some dal on a rooftop overlooking the village and got back in the car. Tablas are good for falling asleep to.

Delhimarketing

Turned a corner today. Dusk fell on the bazaars around the Jama Masjid and I sauntered off beneath the bright bulbs strung between buildings and I breathed in.
I breathed in. I took my time. It can be hard to take your time with so many eyes on you, but I ignored the stares and took in the market around me. Fresh-baked smells and every shopkeeper a photograph in himself, every doorway a story. Stacks of goat’s heads in the meat market and the beggars seated outside a market café, waiting patiently for fresh naan. The call to prayer coasts in on the encroaching darkness, and white caps and long robes are rushing past me, hurrying into tiny streetside mosques, flitting through the narrow doorways into tiny oases of peace and prayer.
I felt at ease, and I felt joyful to be surrounded by this vibrancy, this life. Just people living, and me waltzing among them, observing.

ADRIAN'S LONG AND ARDUOUS JOURNEY TO THE FLOWER SHOP DOWN THE STREET

16:30 Hrs; Left the hotel. As per directions from the staff went Right out of the hotel, and then Right again. Got lost. Walked two blocks, then stopped a passerby to ask for help. Turns out I am on the right street (Janpath), but going in the wrong direction.

16:40 Hrs: Walk back the way i came, past my hotel, and reach the large, frantic roundabout (Delhi is full of these). Waiting to cross the heavy stream of traffic, a man beside me strikes up a conversation. He's friendly, well-dressed- middle-aged professional. Asks where am i from? Where am i going? (Regular Gaugin, this guy). -I'm trying to get to Connaught place. -Why? -Looking for a flower shop. -Oh, well there's one right near here, they have everything you need.
Okay, great. Friendly Guy even walks me over there himself. I go inside, and it's an over-priced, over-air-conditioned, multi-level Indian craft store. Not a flower in sight. Kinda saw this one coming.

16:55 Hrs: Leave the Emporium. Back to the road. Accosted by numerous autorickshaw drivers who demand that I not walk to my destination. I ignore them, and head back to the roundabout. This thing is confusing, and has about ten different crosswalks. I don't know where to start fording this stream. I know that Connaught Place is only five minutes and fifteen rupees away from where i am by rickshaw because I've done the trip in the other direction, so I cave in and hail one of the green-and-yellow whiplash machines. -Connaught Place, please.
. We're off, but I notice that so is the meter. -Could you turn the meter on please? -No, no meter. Thirty rupees, thirty rupees. -No, meter. Meter. -Just thirty rupees, baas. (He's pulled to the side now). - Meter, or I get out. -Thirty rupees only. -I'm getting out.
I get out. Another rickshaw pulls up behind. I walk over. -Connaught Place, but put the meter on. -No meter. Only forty rupees. -No! Meter. METER, or I'm not getting in. -Meter broken. Broken, baas. Forty rupees, only. -YOU GUYS ARE FUCKING WITH ME,
and I storm off. We'd been warned that Delhi is scam central.

17:05 Hrs: I walk halfway around the roundabout, and then into the swanky Shangri-La Hotel, which I'd been told was near my flower shop. They're very helpful, give me a map, point me in the right direction.

17:15 Hrs: Okay, this damn roundabout is still really confusing, so I bust out the map to make sure I go up the right avenue. A Friendly Guy stops to help me. I'm wary of friendliness now, but I'm also Canadian, and find it hard to be an outright asshole to a guy that's "just trying to help". -Where are you trying to go, sir? -So-and-so Flower Shop. -Oh no no. They are closed now. All Janpath market close now.
He points to my map. -You go this market, it's open. Have everything you need.
This market is a mile from where I want to go. I decide I better just start walking away. -Thank you. He keeps telling me the directions as i retreat, and then, -But you take rickshaw, sir. No walk. Many beggars. Take rickshaw!
I just keep walking.

17:45 Hrs: And walking. But as it turns out, he pointed me up the right street. I find my flower-shop, and it is not even close to closing, and all of Janpath is abuzz with activity as well. I buy my roses, and return to the hotel unscathed by further friendliness. And it all took only two hours...

Anyway. Delhi is big. And flat. And wide. The streets feel like the Amazon after the traffic-swollen little rivulets of Bombay. Wide avenues, government buildings. Very British. This is Central Delhi, of course.
It's summer weather. No monsoon moodiness. But the men here stare at Katya with abandon, as in their eyes abandon their fucking heads, like they're all cartoon wolves or something. I don't think she'll be wearing many sleeveless tops here...

BOLLYWOOD SWINGIN

I saw my first Bollywood film last night.
“Heyy Babyy”.
Miral took us. He’s Katya’s co-instructor for the classes, and one of Shiamak’s dancers.
It was a multiplex-type place called Inox. Regular movie stuff at the candy counters, popcorn and pop. Then weird Indian things too, like mini-buckets of curry-dusted corn. Stadium seating inside the theatre, like anywhere else. Some ads. Some previews.
Then suddenly a CGI Indian flag waving in a CGI breeze appears onscreen, and everyone stands while a Casio-synthesized version of the Indian national anthem blares. Katya and I stand shaking, trying not to giggle at how absurd it all seems, but then it’s certainly no more absurd than saluting your country before overpaid baton-wielders pound each other half to death over a hunk of frozen rubber. Go Canucks. Go Bollywood!!
The film begins. And it begins with a glorified music video, (a lot of Bollywood is glorified music videos). And it is LOUD. They crank it. The story’s not a very tough nut to crack, even in Hindi. Although we do have Miral to point out the finer subtleties of the humour. It’s loosely based on Three Men and a Baby. Three Indian dudes- swingin Hindu bachelors-live together in a swingin bachelor pad in Sydney, and they go out and swing most nights. Then a baby appears on the doorstep. Three men and a baby, they can’t handle it, diapers in faces, etc, and they finally leave it outside a church, until they think better of it, go to retrieve it, it’s dead from pneumonia, but the hospital miraculously revives it, and now they’re the 3 best daddies ever and they do a 3-daddy song and dance. Till mommy shows up. INTERMISSION!!
Yes, they have intermissions. Which I think is great. Any movie over two hours should have an intermission, (and this movie’s almost 3 hours). Anyway, after the intermission/pee break/popcorn refill there are more trailers (strange), and then it’s back to music-video land, our heroes trying to win babyy back from Once-Spurned Lover Mother, and with the help of much singing and dancing our number one dude (He Who Spurned) does finally win her (and babyy) back.
If you’re a fan of subtlety in film-making, then Bollywood is probably not for you. When it’s comedy (in Heyy Babyy anyway), it’s over-the-top slapstick with a PeeWee Herman kids-show soundtrack. But then when there’s drama, there is DRAMA. I have never seen so many shots of grown men crying. In my entire life. Put together. And oh! the slo-motions! Babyy’s hand leaving daddy’s in close-up (music swells); tear-stricken men r-u-n-n-i-n-g toward babyy after her first word, (Dada).. (music swells); a light that can only be God breaks through yonder hospital ward window after babyy’s life is spared (music is swollen).
Oh, the dizzying highs and terrifying lows. The masks of comedy and tragedy in a rainbow of brilliant colours. But what of the songs, you ask? Never fear, there was no shortage here. I counted at least five full-on music numbers complete with convincing lip-synching, dangerous dance-moves (often done by 50+ people at a time), and slick music-video smash cuts. (You will often see these videos, extracted straight from the movies, on Indian MTV).
Finally the last video-montage ends, the credits roll, I look at the time and it’s 1:30. AM. We got here at 10:30. That’s a long roller-coaster ride.
Anyway, I’m glad I went. It’s interesting to watch when other cultures attempt to emulate Hollywood, (and I’m not saying Bollywood is an Indian version of Hollywood- it’s obviously unique, but there are still many elements that try to do what Hollywood does). Witnessing this, you start to realize how contrived Hollywood really is, and how we’re all so blind to it. Pretty people with their world-sized problems, lots of tears and Good Acting and a score that deftly guides your emotions through the crescendos and diminuendos of the story. You realize how stupid it must look to someone who didn’t grow up on it when you see an Indian trailer that could easily be for the next Michael Bay classic, and yet somehow not. Something is missing; something is hard to believe. But come on, Tom Cruise is believable? We’re just used to him, that’s all. Star power. The next “role”. Anyway, I didn’t come all the way to India to write about Tom Cruise…

THE ASHRAM

We visited a popular ashram in the middle of Pondicherry, (what used to be a French colonial town, 4 hours south of Chennai). Remove the shoes, walk in silence, a mural of flower petals laid over the graves of the two founding gurus there, and you line up to kneel and pray. And I must tell you I am searching these days. My liberal education and Western values have taught me cynicism and skepticism in the face of religion since I was a teenager. That said, I have felt in the glory of the peaceful mountain-shadow or the sweat and aftershock of the loversbed the greater connection- the Spiritual. I am not aspiritual. Just disillusioned.
I knelt to pray in silence with the others. To pray. I haven’t really tried to pray in years. It felt clumsy, like I was reading Shakespeare for the first time, but it also felt somewhat freeing as I tried to humble myself. I gave thanks for the many things I have to give thanks for, and I reflected quietly with everyone else. It was peaceful. And then each person slowly stands when they have finished, and files silently and single file out of the courtyard and into the adjacent building.

Which is a gift shop.

My short-lived spiritual journey-of-the-day finds its fizzled end in a gift shop where the ashram patrons remain silent, but the buzzes and beeps and clicks of the cash machine are louder than ever. My head is screaming- How Can I Not Be Cynical?? I feel betrayed and annoyed. And granted, many of the books in the shop are cheaper than cheap, and any institution needs to support itself. It’s not like they’re turning over Starbuck-sized profits in here. But it certainly doesn’t leave one feeling spiritually fulfilled, that much I can tell you.

Religion is still in the zoo for me. Not that I was expecting a couple weeks in India to change this.
There are Hindu temples here crammed between the fabric shops and grocery stands in the dirty crowded streets. There are afternoon prayers. Flocks of parades and celebrations and fireworks bursting over a city until past midnight two Sundays in a row. A beautiful thing?
Or is it sheep-herding? Tradition. And a fear of change. and The Way Things Are Done. Are the temples and churches the boxes it takes courage to think outside of? Or am I out in the cold and wilderness, peering through the thick glass at the library; at the hearthfire..