Long time no chat, so sorry I haven’t been able to write up some new blogs. I suppose you could call it writers block. Still working, wrapping up everything for next week when I finish. But the good news is that I’m coming back after april for another year! So looking forward to it though I am going to have no savings to back this trip up. So first off, congrads to Slumdog Millionaire on its seven Oscars. I think it deserves the ones it won, and a special shout out to Danny Boyle, first for jumping around the stage when he won and second for being very smart about the way he’s paying the slum kids. They are all getting a trust fund set up for themselves as well as an apartment I believe. Also a big section of the profits from Slumdog are going to go towards helping those in the slums here. Of course there are all theses stories in the news of family members trying to get money and long lost parents coming back to see their children etc. etc.
So what other news is there. Well a very good friend of mine, Daniel Callanan is coming on the 4th to spend 3 weeks in India with me, and then coming back with me to Ireland. I’m looking forward to this so much like nothing else. My only regret is that not everyone I know is coming. I think at one point or another I’ve thought how much each one of my friends and family would love this sight/sound/experience in India. The plan is to take Dan to Goa and Thakur Sai, a small village where Gayle’s uncle has a holiday home (one of the coolest places you can ever go see, more on that when I come back from the visit). I’m also planning on taking him to Mahabaleshwar, a beautiful hill station 400 miles south of Mumbai (around a 6hour highway drive). Mahabaleshwar is frickin’ cool. They are places where the British used to go to escape the Summer heat in India, often ruling from there for months at a time. It’s a huge plateau, not sure of the size, maybe the size of Cork city. To get up there you literally have to drive up the side of a mountain. For those that know it think the pass between Castlegregory and Dingle town only bigger and badder….and with Indian drivers. Our driver, though a very good driver zoomed up it like I don’t know what, cutting a large bus on the outside of a sheer cliff turn….not for the faint hearted. The reason we were going was work related, KN ARCON are restoring this beautiful old bungalow up there called Reay Villa. Unfortunately it’s privately owned so I can’t say come and visit, but there is a whole lot more to see there. The restoration process has taken 4 years to complete, with only the landscaping left to do, and it certainly shows the work and skill the guys at KN ARCON have put into it. The inside is beautiful, with a fully resorted decorated Tin ceiling (see the pic attached) in the main room. Mahabaleshwar is famous for a couple of things, the bungalows, the view, the climate but it also has some really nice treats for the visitor to indulge in. Strawberries grow here aplenty so all the shops stock lot sof strawberry-based treats. We had strawberries, ice cream and cream. Sinful but something that still haunts my hungry dreams! Also available was some of the nicest Chikki I’ve had, look back and you;ll find a post on them. I call them Tooth Suicides! But the coolest thing I found there was the juice syrup, the original dilutable. The juices in Mahabaleshwar are something else, being made of a syrupy liquid with mushed fruit stuffed in. The two I bought, Kiwi and Strawberry are just amazing, we still have them and it’s my daily treat to myself. The strawberry one has whole strawberries floating in it! If you don’t have a sweet tooth I wouldn’t recommend them however, the leftover at the bottom of the glass is liquid sugar. MMmmmm After Mahabaeshwar we drove to North of Bombay, to the town of Bhiwandi, a satellite town of the Metropolis. It has a big muslim population there, and a deep history, possibly older than Bombays as it lies a small bit inland, past an impressive wall of mountains that have temples dotted on their sides. The reason we were going to this town was to see a new project, another Juma Masjid, which the Juma Trust who run the Juma Masjid in Bombay town also have an interest in. It’s quite a nice Mosque, similar in style and layout to Juma though not half as elaborate and big. It seems that repairs made a while back are now damaging the walls and pulling a section down, causing major cracks to appear all along the west, south and north wall.
Okay I must go, boss is back so I need to look busy. I will talk to you all later. And again, sorry for the delay in blogging this month.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Monday, February 16, 2009
short note
Hello all, wow I haven’t blogged in ages! Just thought I’d make sure you all know I’m still alive and well. Living here is a quite an experience, from the busy trains to the super clubs. It has the madness of India infused with the glamour of Hollywood and the street-cred of London. Being here is like being at the centre of a large, unorganized wheel that’s constantly moving, albeit jerkily and with a backwards slide or stall every now and then. I can’t tell you how often you will come up against both open-minded hospitality and narrow-minded ideas and politics. Saturday was Valentines day, a day which is a big too commercial for its own good. While many of us rise above this and use the day to share our love with one another in India Valentines day has become a hugely controversial event, centered around western corruption and modern influences. (it ended up with gangs going around beating or marrying people caught cuddling in public in some parts of India!) I like living here, though I have to admit it’s mainly because I get to live with Gayle!
Monday, February 2, 2009
Drinking and dancing in India
Drinking in India is a dangerous thing, not because of the drunks, or the bouncers or even the quality of the bars; it’s the sober people outside waiting to beat you for partying that you need to look out for. Well, it’s not that bad, but recently in mangalore, a bunch of radicals beat the crap out of revellers at a club just simply because they were ‘going against Indian culture’.
http://www.breakingnewsonline.net/2009/01/shri-ram-sena-activists-assault-5-girls.html
This is just the most violent episode in the whole ‘party culture’ that is blossoming in India at the moment. With the rise of the middle class and their children, pub culture has boomed in India, especially in the Big cities like Bombay. However, this new culture is seen by many as yet another corruption from the West, and as many traditionalists and politicians are against this new fad. This goes as far as strict closing hour times (1.30 in most places at the most) and in some parts of India there are extreme cases like in Bangalore, where dancing is banned! It sounds like a bad joke but it’s true, originally the ban was to curb the rise of dance-bars. Dance bars are a very interesting aspect of Indian culure, a microcosm of the strange conservative sexuality that is popular here. Basically a dance bar is a bar where women dance around for men, like a lapdance club. However, and this is where the two establishments veer away drastically in theme because in dance bars, the women are fully dressed. They wear beautiful Saris and all they do is dance to popular Bollywood songs. This is hugely popular here and men go crazy for it supposedly, a better account of them is in the book Maximum City, can’t remember the author’s name but he does a very good job at describing Bombay.
Anyway, the law (remember the ban I was talking about) was trying to curb on this but a mixture of over-zealous cops and conservative pressure meant that any dancing became an offence.
After the attacks I talked about earlier many politicians distanced themselves away from the group involved, however what was most frustrating was that they were then quoted as saying that while the attacks were not good it was important that they have raised the issue of ‘drink culture’ in India. They call it un-Indian to party in pubs and though the attackers have been arrested they will more than likely get off without too-serious charges. I think it’s a sad state of affairs when people can’t go out and part without being attacked. I mean in Ireland our drink culture can often be a sorry affair, it is at least accepted as something that people enjoy doing. However, it is different in India, the people who party are a minority to those that don’t and many feel it just another force threatening India’s society. Does it? Are you less Indian if you party, or are you becoming ‘westernised’ when you have a drink in a pub. For me India is in no danger of becoming ‘westernised’ ( a term I dislike anyway) as it, to me, has it’s own vision of modernity, much more so than Ireland, whose culture I do feel is being eroded by a lack of interest in out own background and customs. I think Ireland has a lot to learn from India, especially in regard to preserving it’s identity in a world becoming more homogenised every day. Take traditional music in Ireland for example, it has a foundation and structure, but very little in the way of a modern feel. We learn old songs and use old themes in our music, in India music is becoming modern while staying true to it’s form and styles. Take Punjabi hiphop for example, a genre that has melded two quite different genres historically into a new and vibrant style that is huge in India, even the world (we all know Panjabi MC, no?).
http://www.breakingnewsonline.net/2009/01/shri-ram-sena-activists-assault-5-girls.html
This is just the most violent episode in the whole ‘party culture’ that is blossoming in India at the moment. With the rise of the middle class and their children, pub culture has boomed in India, especially in the Big cities like Bombay. However, this new culture is seen by many as yet another corruption from the West, and as many traditionalists and politicians are against this new fad. This goes as far as strict closing hour times (1.30 in most places at the most) and in some parts of India there are extreme cases like in Bangalore, where dancing is banned! It sounds like a bad joke but it’s true, originally the ban was to curb the rise of dance-bars. Dance bars are a very interesting aspect of Indian culure, a microcosm of the strange conservative sexuality that is popular here. Basically a dance bar is a bar where women dance around for men, like a lapdance club. However, and this is where the two establishments veer away drastically in theme because in dance bars, the women are fully dressed. They wear beautiful Saris and all they do is dance to popular Bollywood songs. This is hugely popular here and men go crazy for it supposedly, a better account of them is in the book Maximum City, can’t remember the author’s name but he does a very good job at describing Bombay.
Anyway, the law (remember the ban I was talking about) was trying to curb on this but a mixture of over-zealous cops and conservative pressure meant that any dancing became an offence. After the attacks I talked about earlier many politicians distanced themselves away from the group involved, however what was most frustrating was that they were then quoted as saying that while the attacks were not good it was important that they have raised the issue of ‘drink culture’ in India. They call it un-Indian to party in pubs and though the attackers have been arrested they will more than likely get off without too-serious charges. I think it’s a sad state of affairs when people can’t go out and part without being attacked. I mean in Ireland our drink culture can often be a sorry affair, it is at least accepted as something that people enjoy doing. However, it is different in India, the people who party are a minority to those that don’t and many feel it just another force threatening India’s society. Does it? Are you less Indian if you party, or are you becoming ‘westernised’ when you have a drink in a pub. For me India is in no danger of becoming ‘westernised’ ( a term I dislike anyway) as it, to me, has it’s own vision of modernity, much more so than Ireland, whose culture I do feel is being eroded by a lack of interest in out own background and customs. I think Ireland has a lot to learn from India, especially in regard to preserving it’s identity in a world becoming more homogenised every day. Take traditional music in Ireland for example, it has a foundation and structure, but very little in the way of a modern feel. We learn old songs and use old themes in our music, in India music is becoming modern while staying true to it’s form and styles. Take Punjabi hiphop for example, a genre that has melded two quite different genres historically into a new and vibrant style that is huge in India, even the world (we all know Panjabi MC, no?).
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