Zen and the Art of Driving from Mumbai to Goa

Planning a trip from Mumbai to Goa? Drive. It’s more satisfying than flying.

Our family drove from Mumbai to Goa and back last week. It’s a long drive - about twelve hours each way. It was worth the effort because Goa looked so much more beautiful on this trip than on the many earlier trips when I’d just taken a flight into Dabolim.

Why?

Robert Pirsig explained this effect in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance:

“To arrive in the Rocky Mountains by plane would be to see them in one kind of context, as pretty scenery. But to arrive after days of hard travel across the prairies would be to see them in another way, as a promised land.”

Similarly, to get off a flight, pick up stuff from the baggage carousel, find the coach sent by the beach resort, and then notice the pretty sunset while sipping a welcome drink is one kind of experience.

To leave home early in the morning, drive on to the Eastern Freeway overlooking Mazgaon docks, across the Vashi bridge from Bombay island to the Indian mainland, through the concrete jungle of Navi Mumbai, and then to zigzag up Bhor ghat to Lonavla, spot Duke’s Nose across the range in Khandala, trundle through the anonymous urban sprawl of Pune and then past acres of sugarcane fields in Satara, the railway bridges across the Krishna and Koyna rivers, the brick kilns at Karad, the movie studio signs in Kolhapur, and to then cross the border into Karnataka, zigzag back down to the plains through the waterfalls of Amboli ghat, drive through the buffer zone of the Radhanagari National Park while troops of monkeys bound across the road, get lost on a kuccha road, meet young water buffalos who won’t give way to a car, discover an unexpectedly lovely temple tank at Sawantwadi, reconnect with National Highway system and discover that NH66 is still a kuccha road because of construction work, get off the highway to drive through banyan tree canyons to get to our villa just before dark, and to then notice the sunset on the water while swigging a welcome drink; that is a totally different kind of experience. Goa does objectively look so much more beautiful, more unique, after that experience.

Here are some pictures we took along the way:

Up Bhor Ghat towards Lonavla

On the Mumbai - Pune Expressway

Across the Koyna River

Service Road along NH48

Highway pitstop (desi-jugaad style)

Ghat roads

Ghat roads - will be a tough drive after dark

School @ Ajara

Vista @ Amboli Ghat

Down Amboli Ghat

Monkey Troop @ Amboli

Entering Sawantwadi

Sawantwadi Talao

Sawantwadi Talao

Kalash @ Sawantwadi Talao in the evening light

Next time, maybe we’ll do the scenic route through Harihareshwar and Ganpatipule. Maybe we’ll do that route on a motorcycle that we actually know how to look after, like Pirsig did in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

Thankyou London Underground

The Tube is on strike today. Everybody's cursing (including me). Meaning, it's not a bad day to remember one of my favourite poems, an ode to the London Underground, which I discovered on the London Underground:

Here's to the gaps, the maps
And the elapse of a hundred and fifty years since that first
Steaming monster hurled
Through its Metropolitan Minotaur world.
To all the billiard ball-bottomed straps onto which I've hung.
And here's to the police office, who, when I was illegally
    busking outside Westminster Station, approached me and said,
'Do you know any Neil Young?'

The difference between the United States of America and the States of a United Europe, explained on a taxi ride

NYC taxi

I was flying from New York to Frankfurt. I got a taxi in New York. My cabbie was a brown skinned guy with an accent.

"Where are you from?", I asked him.

"I'm from Queens" he replied.

"Really? From the Queens?"

"Yeah, man. I live in Queens." He didn't sound like a Queens native.

"How long have you lived there?" 

"Six months. But I'm from the Queens. I live in the Queens" he insisted. 

"And before the Queens?"

"Gautemala" he replied. "But all that was a long time ago, man. Now I'm from Queens."

I reached Frankfurt and got a taxi. Again, my cabbie was a brown skinned guy with an accent.

Frankfurt skyline

"Where are you from?", I asked him.

"I'm from Turkey", he replied.

"How long have you lived in Frankfurt", I asked.

"My grandfather came here in 1952. But I am from Turkey."

I heard this story years ago, at a business conference in Budapest, as an explanation for why the states of a united Europe will never morph into the United States of Europe. This was back in 2005, when the European project felt secure and looked like a stunning success.

It comes back to mind frequently because the future of Europe is so much in the news. For instance, the latest Economist has this story about Jose Manuel Barosso, the president of the European Commission, speaking of a the EU becoming a "federation of nation-states". I guess he didn't vet the idea with his cabbie.

Beautiful Ashes: Sally Mann introduces her exhibition at the Fotografiska, Stockholm

In Samuel Beckett's "Endgame", the madman Hamm stands at the asylum window staring at the beautiful seaside vista, and can only see ashes. His friend begs him to look again, but he turns away. He can only see the dark side.

We need to be able to see both the beauty and the dark side of things, the cornfields and the full sails but the ashes as well. I see them both at the same time, at once ecstatic at the beauty of things and saddened by that ecstasy. The Japanese have a word for this dual perception, mono no aware, it means beauty tinged with sadness, for is there any real beauty without the whiff of decay?

For me, living is the same thing as dying, and loving is the same thing as losing, and this does not make me a madman like Hamm. It makes me better at living, better at loving, and better at seeing.

- Sally Mann. 

I came across these words at the Fotografiska Museet, Sodermalm, Stockholm, which is showing an exhibition by the American photographer Sally Mann titled A Matter of Time. Sally Mann's edginess, her mono no aware perspective, was especially welcome after a couple of days of relentlessly positive tourist commentary. Thanks to my wife for taking the kids to watch the changing of the guard at the palace, while I explored the outstanding Fotografiska.

At the Fotografiska, in Stockholm

Candy cigarette, by Sally Mann

At warm springs, by Sally Mann

The Palio di Siena: an alternative to Olympic nationalism

Palio di Siena at the Piazza di Campo

There is a general perception that a great sporting event that harks back to antiquity and delivers a profound political message has just concluded. This perception is understandable. I thoroughly enjoyed the London Olympics, which ended last Sunday.

However, arguably, an even greater sporting event that harks back to antiquity and delivers a more profound political message has not yet kicked off. It happens tomorrow, on August 16. It won't take two weeks, it lasts for less than three minutes. I'm speaking of the Palio di Siena, the bareback horse-race between rival contrade, administrative divisions of Siena, that has been run around the Piazza di Campo, the central town square, since 1581.

The Palio is preceded by a magnificent pageant in which the rival contrade present their standards to a cheering populace. The honour of leading this pageant is given not to one of the contrade, or to Siena itself, but to Montalcino, a hill town about twenty five miles south of Siena, to honour the heroism of the Republic of Siena at Montalcino.

The standard of Montalcino

The story is that the Republic of Siena, which had existed since the eleventh century, was defeated and occupied by Florence in 1555. However, a hardy group of seven hundred Sienese families retreated to the hilltop fortress of Montalcino. They established the Republic of Siena in Montalcino, and continued to resist the might of the Medicis for four years, finally surrendering in 1559. All of Siena, including Montalcino, was now absorbed into the Duchy of Florence, but the Sienese people were allowed to keep their customs and identity. A generation later, the Sienese people chose to remember the Republic of Siena at Montalcino, and gave Montalcino pride of place in their Palio. Hundreds of years later, the conquering Grand Duchy of Florence has also ceased to exist, but the grit and the guts shown by the Sienese at Montalcino will be honoured again tomorrow.

What I love about this story is that it emphasizes that nations are mortal. Sovereign entities - kingdoms, duchies, empires, republics, whatever - die as inevitably as you and me. There is no shame in death, per se. The Republic of Siena at Montalcino seems to have died honourably and continues to be revered, unlike, say, the Soviet Union. This simple fact, that no sovereign nation will live forever, is surprisingly hard to perceive, partly because nation states are generally longer lived than human beings, partly because of the layers of sanctification wrapped around nation states.

The Olympics contribute to this sanctification of nations. In our times, when identities and institutions are increasingly constructed across global, national and local layers, there was something strangely anachronistic about watching national flags being raised and anthems being sung at medal ceremonies through the games. So I'm looking forward to tomorrow's global webcast of this ancient and intensely local rivalry (on Siena TV, there are also excellent clips on You Tube). A glass of Montalcino's legendary Brunello wine might add to the excitement.

Contrade flags at the Palio

Much Ado About Nothing, set in contemporary Delhi, playing at the RSC in Stratford-upon-Avon

Watched the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of Much Ado About Nothing last weekend, and loved it. The magic ingredient? It's set in contemporary Delhi.

This production isn't really about finding new psychological depth in Shakespeare. It is about relocating Shakespeare to India, and enjoying the play of images, sounds and textures that that creates, and it does this beautifully.

At times, the decision to set Much Ado About Nothing in India feels obvious rather than inspired. Shakespeare's story-line is exactly the same as hundreds of Bollywood potboilers. It features two couples, one soppily besotted, the other constantly duelling, daggers drawn. It features elaborately staged situations and misunderstandings that shift these couples in and out of love. It is excessively interested in a woman's maidenly honour. It features loyal servants, a buffoon of a policeman, a wise priest...it is as desi as butter chicken and scotch whiskey.

Beatrice and Benedick
On a jhula

What made the show for me was not the Indian setting per se, but the rich detail in which this was recreated. The ambient sound in the foyer, before the show, was the soundscape of an Indian street: an autorickshaw's tuk-tuk, dogs barking, a street vendor's call, snatches of music. The ropes defining the line to the box office were marigold garlands. Beatrice and Benedick discover their love for each other when seated together on a swing, a jhula. The guards of the Prince's Watch are armed with hurricane lanterns and lathis. The detailing is spot-on, not just authentic but exuberantly so.

This touched a set of feel-good buttons for me, and I'd assume for a lot of my friends and family, because it mirrors how we think and feel about India. Sure, India has problems. Serious problems. But we are not defined by our problems. We are defined by our zest for life, which shows up in our culture - in colour, in music, in flavours, in texture - and it's that zest for life that was showcased at the Courtyard Theatre in Stratford upon Avon. Thank you RSC. And in case I don't get around to posting again tomorrow - Happy Independence Day. Jai Hind!

Ithaka is to some what Tatooine is to others

Luke Skywalker strides towards the twin sunset on Tatooine

I'd posted yesterday about the poem "Keep Ithaka always in the mind", in which Ithaka is a metaphor for home, for integrity. Other classical traditions have their own Ithakas, their own sacred places that stand for integrity. For instance, Star Wars fans might think of Tatooine - the desert planet in a galaxy far, far away where Luke Skywalker was raised - as their Ithaka.

The mythic, metaphorical Ithaka has a physical analogue: the island of Ithaki in western Greece. It turns out that Tatooine also has a physical analogue: Tataouine, in southern Tunisia.

George Lucas filmed the desert landscapes of Tatooine on location in Tunisia, the Breber architecture in Tataouine is recognizably the inspiration behind Luke Skywalker's childhood home. Apparently, he borrowed the name of a local town as well. Adherents of the Jedi faith are now making pilgrimages to Tataouine. The World's latest Technology podcast has a story about a Jedi knight, Mark from Norwich, who got married at Tataouine.

If only the people in power would uphold Britain's traditions of tolerance and include the Jedi religion on the census questionnaire, conversion to the Jedi faith would hit a tipping point...pilgrim traffic to the Tunisian Sahara would take off...the Tunisian economy would improve...the Arab Spring would be reinforced...inexpensive and effective nation-building in the Arab world!

Berber granaries in Tataouine, Tunisia

Chorus from Hellas, by Percy Bysshe Shelley, on the London Underground

Spent fifteen minutes or so staring at these words on the London Underground:

The world`s great age begins anew,
The golden years return,
The earth doth like a snake renew
Her winter weeds outworn:
Heaven smiles, and faith and empires gleam,
Like wrecks of a dissolving dream.

A brighter Hellas rears its mountains
From waves serener far;
A new Peneus rolls his fountains
Against the morning star.
Where fairer Tempes bloom, there sleep
Young Cyclads on a sunnier deep.

A loftier Argo cleaves the main,
Fraught with a later prize;
Another Orpheus sings again,
And loves, and weeps, and dies.
A new Ulysses leaves once more
Calypso for his native shore... 

This poem is Chorus from Hellas, by Percy Bysshe Shelley, an explicitly political piece. At the time it was written, Greece had been an Ottoman colony for over three hundred years, and was fighting for independence. The English romantic poets were deeply exercised by the Greek cause.

Shelley wrote these words while raising money for Greek partisans, showing a strong pan-European sensibility; it's possible to read this poem as a creation hymn for the European Union, written one hundred and thirty years before the Treaty of Rome. Unfortunately, now, "wreaks of a dissolving dream" also bring to mind the financial havoc in Greece, and the dissolving dream of Europe.   

Thank you to Transport For London for making room for Shelley on the tube. It would have been so easy to fill this space with yet another advert. 

The Mystery of the Pisa Airport Hippos

Pisa's Galileo Galilei airport is the largest in Tuscany. Hundreds of thousands of tourists will pass through this summer, on their way to pay homage to some of Western civilization's greatest works of art, like Michelangelo's David.

En route, these tourist-pilgrims (like me, on holiday last week) will also encounter other more contemporary Western works of art, like this statue of two hippos baring their teeth at each other. In fact, these hippos will probably be the first work of art a visitor to Tuscany encounters: they are located just outside the airport's arrivals lounge.

Hippos @ Galileo Galilei airport

What spark lit the artist's imagination, inspiring these airport hippos? 

Is it a critique of the contemporary human condition, a lament that we now are just a bunch of corpulent beasts, submerged in mud, snarling at each other? Is it advertising, meant to promote sales of the candy brand Happy Hippos?. Did the bureaucrat responsible for decorating Pisa airport go on a safari along the Limpopo River? Is it a joke?

Unfortunately, even Google is not able to answer this question. If you do find out, dear reader, please post a comment to let me know. As clues, consider that the hippos are not alone. They are accompanied by crocodiles and dolphins.

Dolphins @ Galileo Galilei airport

Crocodile @ Galileo Galilei airport

Things can get messy for hippos in Tuscany. Like when rainwater fills up in a hippo's nostrils...

"Oh, my sinuses!"

Why do Dervishes Whirl?

Jalaluddin Rumi was wandering the streets of Konya, overcome with grief at the death of a dear friend, when he was captured by the rhythmic beat of a goldsmith's hammer. He started whirling, found consolation, and inspired a tradition that has continued for seven hundred years.

Sufi whirling has always been laced with lamentation. Though, arguably, the whirling in the cartoon above, whirling to lament a moment which is about to die, is even more poignant than traditional Sufi whirling. I found this cartoon at xkcd.com.

Incidentally, I did get to see a dervish sema ceremony on my last trip to Istanbul, at the Hodja Pasha Cultural Centre. Real dervishes do whirl counter-clockwise.

Hindi: Turkish :: Turkey : English?

I had been in Istanbul for a couple of days, gamely drinking Turkish coffee to keep my clients company. Now, my soul craved the familiar comfort of a Tall Skinny Hazelnut Latte. I spotted a Starbucks - on Istiklal Caddessi, in the Beyoglu district - and homed in.

The Starbucks had a mix of wooden chairs and cushy sofas, posters promising schools in coffee growing areas, a display of coffee beans in various stages of roasting, chocolate muffins, cinnamon swirls, an easy listening jazz sound, the Beyoglu Starbucks had it all. If a brand manager had dropped in as a mystery shopper, she would have glowed with pride. This Starbucks could have been in London, Los Angeles, Stockholm, Vienna, Athens, or at the Sainsbury’s next to my office. With one exception: they had something on the counter labelled “hindi sandwiches”.

I asked my Turkish colleague what hindi sandwiches were. He explained that the Turkish word for turkey is hindi, so hindi sandwiches are turkey sandwiches. I may have looked a little quizzical, so he continued, “Turkeys are oriental birds. They come from the East. So in English they are called Turkey, because Turkey is to the east of England, and in Turkish they are called Hindi, because India is to the east of Turkey, and Hindi means Indian in Turkish”. I checked with a couple of other Turkish friends, and they confirmed that this turkeys/ hindis-come-from-the-east theory has widespread currency among young Turks. It makes some sense.

I couldn’t buy this theory, because I just happen to know that turkeys don’t come from India. They are not called “chini” in India, either, in the belief that they come from China. There is no native Indian word for turkey. Even after decades of globalization, turkey is still almost unknown in India.

A more plausible explanation is that hindi came to mean turkey in Turkish for the same reason that native Americans were called Red Indians.

Turkeys are American birds. They were first domesticated by the Aztecs. The conquistadors introduced them to Spain, from where they came to Europe through Turkish merchants in Ottoman North Africa. The Turkish merchants called the birds hindi because they thought Columbus had discovered a route to India. Europeans called the bird turkey, because of the Turkish merchants who sold them.

Incidentally, the Portuguese word for turkey is "peru", which may be more accurate than either hindi or turkey.

Yorkshire Souls experiencing the Brahman

"And then a scholar said, Speak of Talking. And he answered, saying...
In much of your talking, thinking is half-murdered. For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings, but cannot fly."

From The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran.

The words were on my mind because my family and I were at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park last weekend. We encountered these Yorkshire Souls: these alphabet-lattice figures sitting under a tree hugging their knees. From certain angles, or in certain light, they were hardly apparent, they melted into the background. From other angles, they looked solid.

We walked through the Yorkshire Souls, and their big brother The House of Knowledge, and looked out at the world through their alphabet lattices. The view from inside the Yorkshire Souls was sort of like my view of the world itself. I perceive the world through words, symbols, which automatically distances and separates me from the world I am perceiving.

The way Paul Simon put it:

"...From the shelter of my mind,
Through the window of my eyes..."

The world seen through words and alphabets is maya, only an illusion. I have to step out of the beautiful alphabet-lattice of maya, step out of the Yorkshire Soul, to experience truth, to experience the Brahman. Many spiritual practices are about escaping this illusion of maya and directly experiencing reality: Vipassana Yoga, or the Trappist practice of silence, or the Japanese tea ceremony, or perhaps even the Mevlevi dervishes, dancing themselves into a trance to escape the boundaries of the self. Today, I could taste a little of that sense of liberation, just by looking through the alphabet-lattice of the Yorkshire Souls and stepping back into the sunlight. Wow.

Were other people who came across the Yorkshire Souls similarly reminded of maya and the Brahman?

I wasn't sure. So I asked my daughters what they made of the Yorkshire Souls. My nine-year old said "They must be chatterboxes. They have so much to say." My six-year old was reminded of a trick the children play on Mam'zelle in Malory Towers. Mam'zelle sat on a stool and came away with a bright pink "OI" on her black-skirted behind. Maybe the children played a similar trick on the Yorkshire Souls' beds, so they were completely covered with alphabets. Which makes sense, because the Brahman can be experienced by a chatterbox, or in children's pranks, just as much as it can be experienced in the sanctum sanctorum of St Peter's Basilica, or in an ice-cave at Gangotri.

More pictures of the Yorkshire Souls and The House of Knowledge are here. The Jaume Plensa exhibit that these Yorkshire Souls are a part of is still on, and is totally worth a visit.

Lover's Bridge, Sofia, Bulgaria

I spread my map out across the reception desk, pointed to a scribble on a chit of paper, and asked the concierge, "How do I get to this restaurant?"

"No problem, sir." the concierge gesticulated broadly towards the Hilton Hotel's glass frontage. "Just walk across the Lover's Bridge, through to the end of the park, and the restaurant is just two streets away." He bent down to ink the restaurant on the map.

"Lover's Bridge?" I asked, remembering the Bridge of Sighs in Venice and Pont Neuf in Paris. "It is right here, near the hotel?"

"Yes sir", said the concierge. "Very famous in Sofia. Loving couples always come there. It is very nice, sir. You will see on the way to the restaurant." So I joined my colleagues in the hotel lobby and set off for dinner at the restaurant, half imagining a scenic, pastoral walk over tinkling streams.

It turned out that Sofia's Lover's Bridge is a concrete pedestrian walkway, across an enormous eight lane motorway. It is topped by a McDonald's golden arches logo, advertising a restaurant located in the traffic island between the traffic lanes. It is flanked on either side by government issued informational posters about Bulgaria's cultural and archaeological heritage. There were plenty of business people in suits walking over the bridge on that sunny summer evening; there were also a noticeably large number of young couples holding hands.

I asked my Bulgarian colleagues about this Lover's Bridge at dinner, about how young Bulgarian couples feel about romantic rendezvous a few meters above roaring traffic. They explained that at one time this bridge passed over a stream. During the Soviet era, it was found that the path of the stream was ideal for a motorway through the city. So, Soviet engineers built a motorway over the stream. The stream now emerges from under the motorway a few kilometers away from the city. Despite this, the bridge remains an favourite romantic spot. Nobody really minds cars instead of water. Above all, Bulgarians are a pragmatic people.

It was after dark when we walked back from the restaurant to the hotel. The atmosphere on the bridge was now distinctly steamy. My colleagues and I could not help but observe that love was now blooming on the concrete walkway, while the molten yellow stream of traffic flowed underneath the young lovers. A busker started to play as we approached the end of the bridge. He was playing Californication, by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, in English.





More pictures of my walk across this bridge are visible here.