Freelance gun for hire, and going slow in Udaipur

Apologies for it being all quiet till now, I’ve finally had to forfeit my life of leisure and get a proper job. The highlight of a brief and inglorious career as a freelance writer was receiving my first offer from a Bangladeshi chap, who wanted some ads written for Black Friday – I was truly through the looking glass when he sent me a sample entitled ‘Best Gun Deals on Black Friday 2016’. $1 dollar an hour in exchange for promoting the sale of guns, DVD players and cheap jewellery to the good people of America? I rated my market value at slightly greater than that. Now I’m in the travel racket, interning at a (legit) travel agency in southeast Delhi, editing and creating web-content on their English-language site. Being the corporate lackey I am now, here’s a link if you’re interested: https://parallelsandmeridians.com/

Jagdish Temple, Udaipur

Life in Delhi has been as entertaining as ever, with the added twists of bird flu, even more abysmal than usual air pollution and demonetisation to deal with. How have I handled these three Indian horsemen of the apocalypse? With my usual grace, flair, élan, sleights of hand etc…In all seriousness, I appreciated getting out of Delhi recently for a weekend trip to Udaipur in Rajasthan. Here’s what I got up to. 

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Despite having lived in Delhi for over a year and a half all told, I have seen precious little of neighbouring Rajasthan, aside from two trips to Jaipur. The first time round I took in the sights of the Pink City from a hospital bed while my family had fun exploring, while the second foray was dedicated to attending Jaipur’s prestigious literature festival, allowing no time to explore the city itself. So I was delighted when a weekend excursion to Udaipur was proposed by friends; I felt I could start to fill a gaping hole in my travel-map of North India.

View from Gangaur Ghat

Following an overnight train – during which I communed with a friendly aunty over a bag of almonds I had brought for the journey – the first two days were spent with my friends seeing the city’s famed array of sights and sampling Rajasthani cuisine. I have found throughout my travels in India that the best and most satisfying food is sometimes that which is neither overly-complicated nor necessarily served in the most salubrious of surroundings. Talking to fellow Indophiles, I know I am not the only one to hold this belief.

And so it was in Udaipur; a lunchtime stroll north of the City Palace took us to one such place, a dhaba (road-side canteen), perhaps slightly worn around the edges but welcoming enough, where we enjoyed a Rajasthani classic: kachori, fried discs with a filling of lentils, potato or onion and, of course, spices, accompanied by a rich tamarind chutney. In the midday heat, a few kachori, washed down with my poison of choice (chai, if you’re interested), were more than enough to sate my appetite until evening. I came back again before I left and, over one final round of kachori, managed to successfully summon up enough of my meagre Hindi to convey my appreciation to the proprietor, a trivial yet still satisfying achievement in my mind; while visiting the Jagdish Temple the day before I had confidently informed a purveyor of Udaipur’s famous miniature paintings that his work was delicious, but sadly not for me.

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On the streets of Udaipur

Eager to take in some of the local culture however, I spent an evening in the elegant eighteenth-century courtyard of Bagore-ki-Haveli, one of the city’s historic mansions, enjoying performances from across the spectrum of traditional Rajasthani culture. The show began with a dance by women from the Gujjar tribe, whose type of dance – used for felicitous occasions – had gained recent viral fame thanks to a video of two Gujjar women singing and dancing buoyantly in the incongruous setting of the Delhi Metro. Despite the familiarity, it was still a wonderful experience seeing it in person. With the Mewari sitting dance, it was difficult to decide what should command one’s full attention: the fluid swaying back and forth of the dancers, or their deftness in playing a pair of small cymbals simultaneously.

Despite the artful guile of each performer, the most enthusiastic applause of the evening was undoubtedly reserved for a woman who slowly yet surely danced while balancing an eventual total of eleven water gourds on her head, and briefly treading delicately on shards of glass. The acclaim of the audience only increased when the master of ceremonies revealed her age afterwards: 70 years!

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Unlike my hard-working friends, I was lucky enough to have an extra day in Udaipur before having to make tracks back to Delhi in the late afternoon. As such, I decided to embrace my inner flâneur and take an unhurried walk through Udaipur’s neighbourhoods, ostensibly to visit Sahelion ki Bari, or the ‘Courtyard of the Maidens’. From what I had heard, its tranquil setting of fountains and gardens seemed a fitting destination for a day of leisure. That day was in fact meant to be a ‘day of rage’, or shutdown, in cities across India as a protest by opposition parties against the recent demonetization measures. In reality, as I stepped out of my hostel mid-morning, Udaipur seemed calm and distinctly unperturbed – calm being a relative concept in India of course!

As I roamed, my eyes guiding me down alleyways, towards well-maintained havelis and into the thrum of markets, I was offered a road-side shave, a massage, a smoke, coconut juice, spices…women adorned in the ubiquitous yet dazzling panoply of Rajasthani colours diligently weaved reed baskets in the heat; tourists pawed the leather bags hanging from shops, as the proprietors – very much in business – looked eagerly on; locals offered a hasty prayer as they walked past road-corner shrines. In wanton oblivion to the lofty words of the politicians in Delhi, life was assuredly carrying on.

Turning around a bend in the road, I saw up ahead a rickshaw clatter into another, a sharp exchange of words follow, and the inevitable audience hastily assemble as motorbikes formed an increasingly lengthy queue of blazing horns. A policeman, sporting a fine black beret, spiritedly yet inconsequentially blew his whistle. An elderly man, his beard luridly streaked with henna, walked insouciantly through the commotion, only briefly glancing sideways before shuffling on.

In the end, I never reached my intended destination; I didn’t really mind. In India, there is so much joy, amusement and profundity to be found in the everyday, the mundane, if only you take a moment to pause and watch. ‘People-watching’ is an inexact, somewhat clumsy term for this method of travelling – as if one were going on a human safari. I’ve yet to think of a better name for this fine art, but I’ll let you know someday.

On the train back, I thought about my wanderings that day, as well as my immediate surroundings. For me, taking the train in India is like entering a library…but that’s a thought for another time.

Getting into the Diwali spirit

The Curious Case of Ae Dil Hai Mushkil

Instead of spending Diwali in Delhi getting slowly asphyxiated and deafened by a constant barrage of fireworks, I was lucky enough to enjoy the festival, for the second time, in the east of the state of Uttar Pradesh with my friend Shiv and his family. Once again, I was treated to a sumptuous array of superb vegetarian food during my time there, much of which, being local to the area I was in, I had never tried before. Above all, it was a pleasure spending time in a traditional Indian household and again meeting various members of the extended family, whose exact relationship to Shiv I have, to my shame, still yet to completely work out! Anyway, here are my thoughts on the controversy surrounding this year's Diwali blockbuster: Ae Dil Hai Mushkil. 

  

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The Diwali blockbuster has become as much a fixture of the festive season as fireworks, smog and sweets. This year’s offering was Ae Dil Hai Mushkil or ‘Difficulties of the Heart’ (Hindi film titles tend not to translate well!). Were it not for the fact that the Pakistani actor Fawad Khan – who had already starred in two Bollywood films without fuss – had been cast in the film, it would be yet another anodyne entry into the Bollywood annals of love and heartbreak. But with the two nations engaged in more grand-standing and skirmishing in Kashmir however, such blasphemy proved too much for some right-wing nationalists; threats of attacks on cinemas in Mumbai choosing to screen the film forced Karan Johar, the film’s director, to give way to the mobocracy (which included several political parties) and issue a statement before its release declaring he would no longer employ actors from ‘the neighbouring country’ in any of his future projects. Aware that this might not be enough to placate the chauvinistic vultures picking apart his film, Johar also saluted the Indian Army and condemned terrorism emanating from across the border.

Bewildered, yet keen to see what all the fuss was about, I watched Ae Dil Hai Mushkil in a shabby, packed-out cinema in the city of Gorakhpur, 800km east of Delhi, two days after Diwali. With the help of friends translating at key moments, I just about managed to navigate my way through the fairly simple plot. As is often the case with ‘controversial’ cultural works, the reality in no way justified the frenzy surrounding Johar’s creation (Salman Rushdie’s ‘The Satanic Verses’ perhaps being another case in point).

Aloo chaat, Uttar Pradesh style - fried onions, chopped tomatoes, fried potato, various spices combined to make some of the best street food I've had in India! 

Much like the film itself, Khan’s character was fairly innocuous, a London DJ who temporarily separates the main protagonists (played by Indian, not Pakistani, actors Ranbir Kapoor and Anushka Sharma) by marrying Sharma’s character, before leaving her, setting the whole romantic tension between Kapoor and Sharma off on another drawn-out tangent. While watching the film, I made sure to scrutinise this heinous individual closely for any signs of anti-India behaviour – eating beef while on set, burning the Indian flag as an encore etc. – but, alas, failed. When his character did appear on screen, there was no reaction from the audience. I’m guessing (or perhaps naively hoping) that most watching didn’t really care that a Pakistani was gracing the big screen; they were there to enjoy some classic Bollywood fare and see their favourite stars. Indeed, the wildest cheers of the night were reserved for the entrance of megastar Shah Rukh Khan who, in a typically effervescent 5-minute cameo, dispensed some worldly wisdom on love to Kapoor’s rather hapless character.

It’s both sad and alarming when dull-minded gnomes, clad in the protective garb of patriotism, can so brazenly manipulate popular culture to suit their cowardly, odious agenda, by attacking ‘soft’, apolitical targets such as actors and directors. It seems clear that it's not just on Indian news channels that the maxim ‘He who shouts loudest wins’ seems pertinent - and when there's nothing but deafening silence (not for the first time) from Prime Minister Narendra Modi on such a clear-cut case of bigotry, it's easy for illiberal, nationalist voices to reverberate without check in the void. But if such people want to deny Indian people the simple pleasures of seeing Bollywood stars caper to camp dance music and chase each other across the world in the pursuit of love, just because one of them was born on the wrong side of a line hastily drawn on a map in 1947, then they’re not only dull-minded. They’re plain dull. 

My Week: Indian parents, 'Sikhing' some peace and quiet, Gandering after Gandhi, and the perks of looking for a flat in Delhi

Hauz Khas complex - the ruins of a 13th century village, just 30 seconds walk from where I'm living 

After over a year away, I’m back in India – the weather is sublime (despite my phone telling me each morning it’s smoke outside) and with the coming of Diwali, Delhi is showing off its finest gladrags, with festive lights adorning neighbourhoods across this vast, beguiling city. I’ve found somewhere to live, and now getting down to the important things in life, namely meeting old friends and reacquainting myself with the myriad cuisines on offer, from simple yet delicious street-fare to the more refined, rich meaty curries of northern India and exquisite vegetarian thalis from the south – fuelled by regular cups of sweet chai! Anyway, here goes a series of random, disconnected vignettes from my first week. Enjoy!

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It’s almost seen as axiomatic that in India there is no such thing as privacy, and that young adults lack control over their lives, with the close scrutiny of the family and Indian society at large quick to thwart any ‘deviant’ behaviour, whether it be in love, recreation or work. A recent feature on BBC News described the efforts of Stay Uncle, a pioneering start-up in Mumbai, to provide some relief for beleaguered unmarried couples by helping them book 10-hour stays at hotels which promise discreet, non-judgemental service. Yet Stay Uncle has struggled to overcome conservative social norms; only three hotels have chosen to participate so far, with others fearing police raids or simply refusing to endorse the concept. For those couples caught committing such ‘indecency’ (which, incidentally, is not illegal under Indian law), they potentially face public humiliation, familial ostracism and the possibility of being forcibly married, under the auspices of ‘moral policing’.

Cartoon in The Times of India

Undoubtedly such beliefs lend themselves to easy exaggeration about Indian society; the parks of Delhi are well known as lovers-hangouts, offering a tacitly accepted sanctuary for those seeking some solitude.The bars a stone’s-throw from where I am living are packed at weekends with well-heeled young adults, suggesting that urban India, at least, has relaxed the straitjacket.

Equally, in many stereotypes lies a kernel of truth.  Reading the venerable Times of India the other day, I spotted a notice taken out by a Mr and Mrs Bisht – nestled amidst the latest news on the interminable India-Pakistan conflict and editorials bemoaning the lamentable state of Delhi’s air quality – informing the general public that they were disowning their son and daughter-in-law, Mr Sharad Bisht and Mrs Anupama Bisht, for ‘their ill behaviour with us.’ Anyone foolhardy to deal with these miscreants ‘will be responsible for every pros and cons at his own cost’. You have been warned.

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Paying my respects to the Mahatma

The last time I was in India, any evidence of the legacy of Mahatma Gandhi residing within the fabric of contemporary India seemed in scant supply (a film released last week called ‘Gandhigiri’, promising to ‘enlighten the audience on forgotten Gandhian values’, has been universally panned by critics – judging by the trailer, I can’t blame them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpnqlNuRWWg). Those friends at Delhi University who I had asked about Gandhi were uniformly scathing, casting him as a misogynist and no longer relevant to today’s India. The closest I had come to the Mahatma had been in the back of a rickshaw careering along the chaotic Mahatma Gandhi ring-road in Delhi, and when handling rupee notes, which bear his portrait. For a man indelibly perceived by many around the world as the anti-materialistic, austere dhoti-clad Mahatma, whose finest moments arguably came when marching on foot against the British Empire and Hindu-Muslim violence, these tributes to Gandhi seemed bafflingly inappropriate.

Getting too excited about Gandhi

With this in mind, and having taken a year-long course on Gandhi and the Indian nationalist movement in my final year at Edinburgh, I decided a visit to Birla House – where Gandhi spent the final 144 days of his life before his assassination – was in order. Lodged in what is now the leafy diplomatic enclave of Delhi, the two-storey house was undoubtedly a comfortable place of residence for an increasingly frail Gandhi, worn down by his valiant efforts to stem the communal violence raging across the sub-continent following Partition in 1947. 

Unsurprisingly, the treatment of Gandhi’s life was hagiographic; one portrait of Gandhi inside the house juxtaposed him alongside Christ hanging on the cross. To walk around the spot where Gandhi was shot the removal of shoes, as with entering a mosque, temple or gurudwara, was mandatory, the ground sanctified by the spilling of the Great Soul’s blood. Troops of schoolchildren walking past the shrine, urged on by their teachers, dutifully cried out Gandhi’s final, divine words: ‘He Ram!’ (Oh God!) In the museum, almost no mention was made of one of the most controversial episodes in his life: his decision to ‘fast unto death’ in 1933 in protest at attempts by the British to give the downtrodden Dalit, or Untouchable, community the right to elect its own political representatives. The (successful) fast was condemned by Dr Ambedkar, the leading Dalit activist of the era and the framer of India’s post-independence constitution, as a ‘foul and filthy act’, and it irrevocably soured Gandhi’s legacy amongst many Dalits.

Despite this, it was undoubtedly still a poignant experience to retrace the final steps of a titan of twentieth-century history, and view his plain room and motley collection of personal effects, including a pair of his iconic round glasses. Outside on the well-manicured lawn, a faithful acolyte weaved on a charka, the spinning wheel which Gandhi hoped all Indians would learn to use. As I left Birla House, having decided not to honour Gandhi’s memory by buying something from the souvenir shop, a street-hawker came towards me, armed with Gandhi figurines.

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The Gurudwara Bangla Sahib

After several days of flat-hunting, I spent a welcome evening at the Gurudwara Bangla Sahib, the largest Sikh temple in Delhi, with a friend from when I was on exchange at Delhi University. I am neither religious nor spiritual, but I admire the egalitarian and charitable streak in Sikhism. Sitting on the spotless marble floor of the langar, or communal mess, rubbing shoulders (almost literally) with hundreds of people, me and Harbajan took a simple, yet delicious meal of rice, dal, sabzi (vegetables) and chapattis, finishing off with kheer, the local equivalent of rice pudding. Anyone, regardless of ethnicity, gender, religion or wealth, can eat without charge at the langar, which is open for up to ten hours a day, every day of the year, serving lunch and dinner and manned solely by volunteers. Afterwards, we walked around the sacred pool adjacent to the gurudwara, as monks would in a cloister, and I soon felt calm and far removed from the hustle of the city, as devotional music from the inner sanctum drifted through the cool evening air.

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Not all experiences in India are memorable or capable of being romanticised. I’m sure flat-hunting in Delhi is no more or less banal a process than anywhere else in the world. The absurd and surreal is never too far away though, and I found it in the tiny office of a property dealer in South Delhi, who regally dispensed advice from the comfort of a well-worn sofa.  For any client also seeking some cosmic wisdom and reassurance, a notice outside her tiny office proclaimed her skills as an astrologer and ability to ‘see through you’ – a somewhat unfortunate choice of phrase, given she had a lazy eye.