Sideways Rain

It was yet another intense weather morning in late March. Luckily, I got to stay indoors and just watch, rustle papers and sip tea. There is a small beauty in using a window as a way to show texture, versus as an invisible lense to see through. Here's a 'view from my window' offering. Any other offers?

What's my bag...

While in India, I shopped, it's something to do there. It can be fun, daunting, exotic, all of the above. During this activity in a number of locations, I collected a variety of bags, some purchased, some came with the purchase. Maybe in an alternate life, I should collect bags of the world. Actually, maybe I already do?
It seems my fascination with other cultures is the everyday object: shopping bags, calendars, street life, food (always!) I want to extend that to here, home, NYC (mostly downtown). See home with a different sense of place, a more objective (but not just about objects), more wonder (but not with the ignorance of the tourist).
Let's see how it goes....
I have my bags packed (so to speak)...

India from Afar

After a 15 hour delay, suspension, a few hours of sleep in a posh hotel that could have been anywhere, except for the south Indian breakfast and the smell of sewage from the open emergency exit door on my floor, made it quite clear where I was.....still.

Got home a few hours after my Parisian friend left my apartment, the plan is that we would be able to spend the day together. Oh well....The jet lag is loopy, making me tired at strange times, trying to steer the horse of alertness to times that make sense here.

It's a bit of a blur. I am SO GLAD TO BE HOME! Once again I appreciate the familiar, the luxury of my life in the west in New York. I think I was a bit greedy with this trip, should have quit while I was ahead with the last one in December. A lot of the time this trip, I would ask myself, 'What am I doing here?' 'What am I looking for?' 'What do I expect?' Maybe what I fell in love with before isn't quite what I can love now? Maybe it is easier to love India from afar? Other people who have lived abroad come to the conclusion that they prefer to live where they know, what is culturally familiar. There are many layers of this familiarity, all personal.

Loving India for me is best from afar, I think, fresh from the sub continent. It is a place, entity that I can carry in my heart. Much better than my intestines, at this point. Now that I've landed in the 'new world' they are behaving themselves (fyi). I have my experiences, my photos, sounds, Indian jewelry and shawls, memories, a great collection of friends. Great treasures have been taken from Mother India and I have paid in exacting ways only she could have dreamed.

There has been a sense of obligation with my driven fascination. I have been so influenced by the art, spiritual practice, etc., of India that I felt obliged to go and seek, pay hommage in some form. Do I really need to do that anymore? I can go to yoga practice 5 blocks away, take the train to the Metropolitan Museum or Asia Society or Rubin Museum and see much more Asian art in much better venues than anywhere in India. It seems the export of the art has helped the preservation of it. Yes, these may be fighting words, but I heard them originally uttered by people with Indian passports. The contract of obligation is over. If I want to go back, not completely out of the question, though for now it definitely is. My parameters are quite clear: not alone and one or two places/areas at a time, an organized pre-tested itinerary. Yeah, right....India totally blows that last one up, rolling on the floor laughing at my tears. "oh you like the challenge of India." a friend had said. Do I? Do I really? I'm not so sure.

Maybe what I really have to seek is here. I want to get on with my work–art, not building stuff, that's the 'day job'. Despite all this, I still want to keep making ganeshas, my Ganeshas, multi-armed, with trunks curved to the left, but with sneakers, iPods, handbags, cupcakes and sometimes (gasp) even female breasts. I am an infidel! I am an American! I am an Artist and the best artists steal, at least according to Pablo Picasso.  I say Si! Let's see.....

The love of travel has not left me permanently. It's just that my traveling needs a vacation. Though this blog has been used as a travel blog I may put on another kind of shoes and continue walking on with the blog, writing/picturing some different takes about things more local, or perhaps even more internal. Again, let's see....

Holy Holi

The staff (and family of staff) at Abracadabra Guest House after some 'color sharing'.
Holi is a happy holiday. It is where people walk around with bags of color and rub their friends and family with it. Or spray them with water. I read about the holiday on Wikipedia, but I don't understand exactly where the color comes in. I haven't found any one to explain it to me either, but in any case...it is very 'colorful' and it being India and a holiday, can get quite intense. Deciding against the 'intensity' I watched around the guest house and overlooking a backyard. Other places there are marauding young people, mostly men who douse people that get in their 'cross hairs' with color or water (via giant turkey baster like apparatus) or both (colored water). It's mostly very fun and light. But it being India, it can go over the top. Some people compare it to Halloween, with more emphasis on the trick versus the candy. The sweets are fruit/nut smoothies with bhang (cannabis) which after a few can get you rather wasted. So, it's all a bit of debauched behavior. It seems to be the most fun for kids, because they can dump color or water or both on their parents, or any adults with impunity. What fun! It's one reason I stayed home and watched the kids play, little kids, ones you could say 'no' to.

Dalgit, son of Mini (owner of guest house) after a Holi party.

I took in a little local color.

Will try to post again before I leave tomorrow night. A bit of running around tomorrow, last minute stuff. Delhi has been very nice and a calm part of the roller coaster ride begining and ending the trip. I don't feel like I did before, swearing that I would never come back. Besides my credibility with that is in ruin anyway. Now, I feel ok about being here, good even. But I'm also looking forward to going home, to NYC, cold & snow, Bill, the cats, my life.

Kathakali, Indian Dance & Martial Arts

The program I saw showed a pastiche of Keralan dance styles., as well as martial arts. Above is an  Indian classical dance form.

This is from the martial arts part of the program. These are actually 2 long metal poles.

This is the Kathakali style dance theatre piece. It is very visual kabuki-like performance. Katha means story and Kali means play. The stories are taken from Hindu mythology. This form originated in the early 17th century.

How Shrek gets dressed everyday...

If he lived in Kerala, that is.
This is part of the Kathkalli ritual of dance performance. They perform in elaborate costumes in operatic dramas. It reminds me of Kabuki. This being India, perhaps this is where Kabuki comes from?  OR vice-versa? The performance I saw was a group of different styles of dance with a lot of pre-recorded stuff. It was ok, but the live performance was terrific. I found it all fasicinating, beautiful, highly skilled (sometimes jaw dropping), and just a joy to behold. I understood very little of it, I knew it was different dance systems and a lot was ritualized stuff, but to me it was so good, knowing nothing didn't make me feel I didn't 'get it'. Will post some photos I took during the performance (without flash, so more 'energetic' and 'painterly'). It was a good way to end the Cochin part of the journey, left early the following AM to fly off to Delhi.