You know Harry?

You know Harry, Sagar and the others?  Of course his actual name might not be Harry but it’s what they call him.  I did too.  Anyway, they were the ones I knew before I knew that I knew them.  It was only after we met, actually, that they were able to explain and I was able to understand that we’d known each other already for a couple of years.

I don’t know, maybe such circumstances are common in Rajasthan, and it’s not a bad thing to discover at a first meeting.  It’s kind of an unexpected head start.  Anyway, it happened in the small desert town of Phalodi where tourists rarely tread.

If I think of the beginning it’s likely a bit tragic, you see, because it is so too often for me that at the beginning comes tea.  Well, I exaggerate.  The tea came in the middle of the start, and the start of the start was more the hired white Ambassador stopping.  It was not due to mechanical fault but rather an idea that brought the vehicle to a halt: the desire to stop somewhere random, away from the tourist towns, to see if we couldn’t find the real, unadulterated Rajasthan.  Phalodi was a fair choice.

Now, I know there’s more to the town than that singular dusty road leading up from the highway, with the usual assortment of desert homes, small shops and light bustle.   But I didn’t know it then so it seemed the only way to proceed.  And not too far along that road, on the left side, was a primary school gate.  It was as we were passing, and my Australian friend Lachlan was there then, that the school kids started calling out to us, making a bit of a fuss.  They were excited to see foreigners and I don’t remember what words they used, but it likely included ‘One pen, one pen?’, the phrase that seemed ubiquitous in Rajasthan.

Of course one of the teachers, Madan, came to the gate to see what the students were getting excited about and I can say now that his curiosity was likely not less than theirs, though he didn’t show it.  He did however ask where we were from and told us to wait, at the gate, while he consulted with the headmaster.  He wished to invite us into the staff room cum headmaster’s office for tea.

Approval came forthwith and we sat in the staff room cum headmaster’s office with the headmaster behind his desk and several teachers finding places to stand or sit about the room.  Well I don’t recall exactly but the conversation must’ve mentioned cricket and there may have been a song or two, while we waited for tea.  Madan struggled with his English but through simple words and understanding communication found its way.

It’s a simple thing, tea, and although it took a while to arrive it came in cups with saucers in much the usual way.  It was only when the drinking commenced that the trouble started.

Well, we couldn’t have anticipated the slurping.  The first one or two loud, unashamed slurps might’ve been overlooked as unfortunate: in Australia slurping tea is not the thing to do.  But when it progressed into a kind of random chorus of slurps from all corners of the room a smile started to work its way onto my face.  I wondered if those slurps could be heard back at the white Ambassador down the street.

I sat there looking down, thinking of Lachlan.  ‘Please don’t slurp, please don’t slurp!’ I was thinking, knowing that if he did I would no longer be able to contain my laughter at the strangeness of things.  Besides, I wanted to compose myself enough to take a loud, unashamed slurp of my own that would set him off instead.

‘Don’t look at him! Don’t look at him!’ I told myself; but sure enough, when I felt composed and strong I made the mistake of giving him a small glance and he was ahead of me, as it were, just then taking the boldest, most unrepentant slurp of his tea.  It sent me into fits of uncontrollable laughter, and it spread to Lachlan too.  And there was nothing to say, you know, when the slurping for them was a way of complimenting the tea, when they asked why we were laughing.  I think we made something up about the white Ambassador but it was embarrassing.

Well Madan, as it were, didn’t quite write us off as mad.  Instead, he introduced us to his class and I saw they used slates to write on, with chalk.  And he took us to his home, a little further up the street, where he showed some nice pictures of traditional Rajasthani puppets and introduced us to his family.  And that was that: we were soon on our way towards Jodhpur as planned.

He’d walked with us back to the highway though, and we’d stopped for a second, farewell tea at a stall there.  Strangely that tea too was remarkable.  It had various spices in it and stood out as the finest cup of tea we found in the whole three months of that Indian adventure.

Months later I wrote to him and I couldn’t help but mention the tastiest tea in India.  Indeed I asked for the recipe; I was missing chai by then.

About a month later I came home to a letter, from Phalodi.  The envelope was large and oddly fattened at the bottom.  Inside was a plastic bag with a greyish, brownish powder in it.  Madan didn’t only send the recipe, but a sample of the spices used in the tastiest tea in India!

To be honest I felt slightly uneasy about getting a strange powdery substance through the post.  I can only be grateful that the sniffer dogs at Sydney Airport would not appear to be trained to detect Rajasthani tea spices in the midst of mail bags.  Anyway, there was nothing to do but boil the milk and try it out.  And I read the letter, thinking his written English was surprisingly good.

It was two years before I reached India again, and in that time Madan and I had exchanged several letters.  From that small first encounter it had become essential to revisit Phalodi.  With a train and bus from Delhi I arrived once more in the small desert town.  Madan didn’t know what day I’d come exactly, because neither did I.  So I wandered up the street wondering if I could recognise his house again.  It was just as well to ask: Phalodi is a small enough town for that.

Whoever it was led me through new alleyways until I was sure I was hopelessly lost and would never find Madan, when eventually we stopped at a small telephone shop.  It was Madan’s family’s business and he was there.

It was just a few days, the second visit; but of course he introduced me to Harry and Sagar and the others.  We rode motorbikes through the surrounding desert countryside visiting various picturesque village temples of older and newer construction.  There were parties, a staged drama featuring the school students, Harry climbed a tree and Sagar was apologising for only being able to take part of the time I was there as leave from his job.  I wondered why he’d think to do that for a complete stranger.

Madan had started losing his hair by then; but the more interesting development was in his spoken English.  It was dramatically improved and I was able to explain about the cultural difference in the tea slurping.  ‘How did you do that?’  I asked, about his English.

‘If you really wish to learn something,’ he said, ‘the best way is to teach it.’ 

He’d become the school’s English teacher.  And he took me back there one day, where I gave the very first English class of my own, only it was cheating since the lesson I taught, his class had learnt the day before.  They knew all the answers to the foreigner’s questions and they gained confidence from that.

It was strange, meanwhile, how much Harry, Sagar and the others seemed to know about me.  Madan must have said a lot, I thought.  It wasn’t long before I left that it made sense, when they thought to explain, a little sheepishly, that every time I’d sent a letter they’d all sat together to read it, discuss it, definitely in Hindi, and gradually draft the English reply!   

‘That’s why Madan’s written script was so good,’ I thought.  Each Phalodi letter might’ve been signed with his name but it was a team effort.  I’d been writing to all of them and through those letters, it wasn’t only Madan I’d come to know, but the entirety of one little social circle in a small desert town.  It was really rather good that the white Ambassador had stopped there, at the start.

India elsewhere? 

              Bangladesh?

                               Iran?







This article also published in Star Magazine, here: You Know Harry?

A Little Candombe

A oil painting of Pedro Figari depicting Candombe dancers (oil on canvas 75 X 105 cms.) Costantini Collection. Wikipedia sourced image, here.

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Not realising the rolling hills of farmland, the cattle towns and forgotten villages could consume six hours when coming by bus from Montevideo, the capital, I arrived later than expected.  For much of the way it’d been drizzling; perhaps the bus was behind schedule.  It was already Saturday evening when I hiked into Salto, over the railway lines past the shanties where curious eyes watched me and my backpack walk by.  Towards the centre of the town the buildings took on that dilapidated Spanish style that seemed characteristic of Uruguay.

In a side street I found a paint-peeling mansion that had become a hotel staffed by friendly pensioners and with hardly any Spanish I managed to take a room there.  It was large with a high ceiling; the water was cold and the sheets not unequivocally clean.  But I was pleased to have somewhere to store the luggage.

It was in Salto I found gratitude for the South American habit of eating at ungodly hours.  The world over dinner times are a facet of human existence that seems to have defied the forces of global homogenisation.  Norwegians favour a 4.30 p.m. start to their dinners, Australians dine anywhere from 6 – 8 p.m. and when I asked my friend Marina in Ukraine about their custom, I was told that Ukrainians are a strange people who like to eat at anytime they feel hungry.  Bangladeshis eat slightly latish at around 10.30 p.m. but in Argentina and Uruguay dinners can start as late as midnight.  The restaurant was yet to be crowded when I arrived.

The restaurateur was keen to teach Spanish and tried to chat: there had been foreigners in the night before, I understood.  He directed me to a table where I sat alone until another foreigner entered and was shown to my table.  I’m not sure if the restaurateur fancied himself to be a matchmaker; or if he imagined we might have shared, foreign things to speak of; but what harm did it do if she accidentally had dinner with me?

She was a sociology student from Minnesota or Milwaukee or somewhere in the American middle north that started with an ‘M’.  She was at the end of a six-month educational placement in Uruguay.  ‘It’ll prolong my degree and cost more,’ she said, ‘but I wanted to do something different.’

In Uruguay dinner means beef and beef means an enormous slab of steak that overflows the dinner plate on both sides, tender and juicy beyond comprehension, with the potential to clog a human artery in a single sitting.  It’s divine.  It’s nutritional madness.  It’s national cuisine.  And the king of the beef steaks need share his plate with no one: sidelines of salad or fries are ordered separately.

My companion from the American place starting with ‘M’ asked what I thought of Uruguay.  I could tell by the way she asked that she’d grown fond of the country, which I respected since it was much as I would have done, had I stayed there for six months.  I said Uruguay was great but, honestly, seemed a little sad also.  ‘Is it because of the poverty?’ she proposed.  ‘Not really,’ I said, ‘I’ve seen poorer countries that are downright optimistic.  It’s as though Uruguay should be richer; like it’s stuck.’  I added the disclaimer that as my idea was based on less than a week in the country it was most probably incorrect.  ‘No,’ she said, ‘I think what you said is insightful.’  But people from that ‘M’ place aren’t always right either.

Before the meal was done we became three: Benson, another Australian, was joined to us and the meal came to last an additional hour while he ate.  He was travelling around the world and thought to stay in China once he reached there; and it’s interesting that he inevitably did just that.

He was surprised I was going to Bolivia, which I then was.  There’d been political instability with protests, some rock throwing and national shut-downs, what in Bangladesh are called hartals.  ‘All the tourists are leaving,’ he told me, ‘and you are going in?’  ‘Should be no trouble finding a bus seat,’ I joked.  But the situation in Bolivia didn’t worry me much.  There had been no deaths and having been in Bangladesh many times during hartals I knew the worst for the traveller was likely to be the inconvenience of being stranded somewhere and nothing beyond that.  As it turned out the road to La Paz was open and my English teaching job was waiting.  As it turned out Bolivianos are quite considerate when they protest, which is often.  But that’s a later part of it.

It was on the Sunday evening that I got to know Benson slightly more.  Salto was a town where a main street meeting following an afternoon swimming at the hot springs didn’t need to be pre-arranged.  He said he wanted to attend the candombe and not really knowing what that was, I couldn’t argue.  I followed him to the plaza down beside the river port and saw people were gathered there.  It was beyond dusk but not yet Uruguayan dinner time.

Candombe isn’t exactly music, dance or theatre; it’s rather a cultural genre that’s a mix of the three which originated with the arrival of Bantu African slaves in Uruguay.  In its fullest form a candombe performance may feature difficult choreographed dance steps as well as wild improvisation; there can be costumed characters known to the genre such as an old mother, a herb doctor and a sweeper who juggles and performs balancing tricks with his broom; there can be the singing of Spanish or archaic African lyrics; and there is always a troop of drummers.[1] 

We adopted Pablo and his friend who for reasons unclear was called ‘The Duck.’  There was time for chatting as people gradually arrived.  There was a bit of drum tuning, singular beating at first which slowly grew into a low-key rhythm, stopping and re-starting, the talk and the drums. 

Pablo was planning to start a clothing company, he said, and his t-shirt featured an illustration of a giant fork on it.  The Duck was famous among his friends for his trip to Miami, where he’d imprudently arrived on the first anniversary of September 11.  I don’t know if Uruguayan Spanish sounds a little too Middle Eastern but The Duck, he was turned away; and after the solid week of farewell parties that had been in Salto, to the great amusement of his friends within days The Duck was back!

The drums gathered pace, musicians showed considerable skill and soon the crowd was dancing along the street, drums following.  ‘The rhythms are African,’ Pablo said, ‘but there are few Africans left in Uruguay.’ 

With Benson, Pablo and The Duck, I self-consciously and really quite dreadfully danced towards the front, in steps that would’ve shamed any candombe enthusiast.  But I took amusement from being less than a week in South America before finding myself unexpectedly dancing in the street.

It was pleasing to see local residents leaning out windows and clapping in time as the crowd passed; to see the cars and buses waving and jiggling a little from behind their steering wheels as they waited patiently to use the street.  I imagined Sydney: council approval, safety impact statements, noise complaints, insurance issues and ultimately banned.  An event that was so informal and worse, driven by young people, would not last there.  The Duck shared his unoriginal but succinct life philosophy: ‘live for now’ and with that in mind, what could be better than a little candombe? 

It was on the Monday I arrived by small passenger ferry, across the river, back in Argentina.

---

[1]Wikipedia sourced information, here.

Candombe by Pedro Figari (Uruguayan painter, 1861-1938) Image from wikipedia. Here.

Continue your journey, towards  

Bohemian Argentina, 

to Mariachi Nica or, 

on the other side of the world, discover

The Song of Chittagong. Travel safe!

This article also published in Star Magazine, here: A Little Candombe





The Deep South: Article Index for articles about Argentina, Chile or Uruguay

There Shall Have Been Jaisalmer

There could even be future predictions in those books.  Who’s to say there isn’t?  Who’s to say what wisdom is there, in the rare manuscripts and ancient tomes of the libraries of Jaisalmer, where the dry desert air is favourable to conservation?  Yet here, I embark upon a far humbler task: of predicting the past.

As once there came tribesmen into the arid territories of the Thar, as once there came herdsmen driving cattle and flocks of goats to forage among the thorny, scrubby bushes and desert grasses of that marginal country; as once there came wayfarers and traders from east and west, with textile, gemstone and treasure chest; so it shall come to pass that western backpackers, two, shall arrive in a white Ambassador that shall have been hired from Something-or-Other Tours & Travels in Delhi.

Over the centuries, in places where wells and tanks have been dug and there is water to drink, settlements shall have emerged and, gradually, a small but dignified desert kingdom shall have been established.  There shall be palaces and forts built for the Bhati Rajput royalty and the capital shall have taken the name of its founder, Maharawal Jaisal Singh.  At a time long after the camel caravans from Central Asia, Africa and Egypt have ceased to come; long after the several neighbouring kingdoms have been combined into Rajasthan, the land of the kings; and many years after the Pakistani border has been etched across the map, the backpackers shall have reached Jaisalmer to see all that has gone before them.

And they shall have with them a driver, who in his previous life was a bear.  That very driver shall have steered the Ambassador in safety across the nearer Rajasthani plains, dodging camel cart and swerving around cattle herd; and he shall have stopped to undertake urgent on-road mechanical tinkering as they navigated the ribbons of tar of the Thar.  In Jaisalmer, so shall it have been that they took rest.

Let it be said that they shall have stayed in a hotel near the large tank to the city’s south, the tank that’s embellished with minor temples around its edges.  They shall have heard the rumour that the main gate to the tank was presented to the Maharawal by a well-to-do lady-of-the-night, and when he disagreed to its construction due to considerations of propriety, she did it anyway, while he was away, incorporating a Krishna Temple in its uppermost storey so that he could not object to passing beneath it.

Let it be written here that they shall have enjoyed one sunset at the tank and have found the following sunrise while eating breakfast on the hotel rooftop, with views to the fort and the old city within its walls.  Let it be known how they visited that city of laneways, with its Jain temples and its haveli mansions in filigree design, of delicate craftsmanship, that shall have been constructed long before by the once wealthy families of trade.  By the time of the Ambassador’s arrival, the city in all its history shall be there, perched upon its hilltop in the Thar, Jaisalmer: the golden city.

So too shall they have visited the shops of souvenirs and desert jewellery in turquoise gemstone, silver and lapis lazuli.  They shall have known the carpet stores where dozens of carpets are to be unfurled upon arrival, as potential customers sip tea.  They shall have met the Singaporean ladies, three, down from Kashmir; and they shall have heard the Singaporean critique that westerners usually prefer carpets in bold, contrasting colours.  And it shall have amused them as the Singaporeans chose their own carpets in not less predictable pastel shades of aqua and rose.  To each group shall be their own traditions.  But it shall not have mattered in any substantial way, because the carpet stores are stocked for all comers, from the east and from the west.

Verily I say that on the third day they shall have organised a tour, by jeep and by camel, to the sand dunes of Sam.  As His Royal Highness the Maharawal could tell you, winter nights in the desert are cool and the locality of Sam follows that pattern.  But kindling for the campfire shall have been brought from afar, due to the lack of trees, and the locals shall have donned military type jackets and factory knitted shawls.  The foreigners, meanwhile, shall have unrolled their technologically designed sleeping bags that come with guarantees of withstanding a specified number of minus degrees, the sleeping bags which their mothers shall have made them bring.  They shall have slept in the open, with Australian pillows, under the Indian stars. 

And those foreigners shall know nothing, not how to survive in the desert nor even how to speak the Rajasthani tongue; but they shall have eaten well, the dinner prescribed by the tour agreement.  Meanwhile the locals shall have busied themselves in poaching: cooking and eating a small desert deer.  The locals shall have imbibed from desert wells while the foreigners had bottled water from a distant alpine spring.

On the following day there shall have been camels, two, for the ride back into town, a ride of several hours, and I tell you they are tall beasts such that when the camel one is sat upon is elderly, with arthritic knees causing it to sometimes stumble on rocky ground, when there is the sound of leg bones creaking as it walks, it’s not an altogether calming experience.  ‘Does he ever actually fall over?’ shall have been asked in sign language, as best it could be done.  ‘Sometimes,’ the camel driver shall have made him to understand by way of reply.

And the he-camel shall have passed beside she-camels and there shall have been bellowing, camel lips inverted with bubbling froth welling up from a camel mouth.  Camels live for about twenty years, they shall have heard, with a working life from two to sixteen.

So let it be recorded as it shall have been done.  It is my past prediction.  They shall have seen Jaisalmer.

 

But being a patriot, I suppose 6th century art critic Xie He might have preferred the mountains of his China.  Fruit adorers might like instead the mango tree gardens of Malda Town, or after the desert wanderings of Jaisalmer, it might be time to get lost in the rain.

It's up to you. Nobody's telling you what to do. It's your choice.




This article is also published in Star Magazine, here: They Shall Have Seen Jaisalmer








India Will Decide: Article Index for articles about India

16 December

The Bangladeshi flag hangs in the living room, in what has become a December tradition.  It’s about Victory Day but nor does the red and green go astray in the Christmas season.  I’ve never thought to write about 1971.  I wasn’t here and there are people far more qualified to do it.  But strange as it may be on 16 December I feel gratitude for a victory that is not mine, for the independent Bangladesh I admire.  And it is of modern Bangladesh that I wish to write.

To do so I rely on what must be the sole advantage, and it isn’t much of one: being born elsewhere there are differences to observe and many aspects of Bangladesh would seem to have been shaped by the events of that fateful year.  Bangladesh was born in blood.  Australia was born with an Act of British Parliament.

In Bangladesh I see a belief in justice and more specifically, standing against injustice.  It’s to be found in many places: on the street when petty disputes draw in bystanders to actively partake in finding a solution, hopefully via discussion and considering the merits of each side of the argument; in the newspapers which skilfully represent the underdog, the hard done by, even when vested interests might not like it; in the courts who are rather good at pursuing their own motions and through such judicial activism demonstrate significant potential to contribute to improving society.  In Australia these things don’t happen or not to the same extent.

Australia is a developed country, wealthy in mineral resources, two and half times larger than India.  Bangladesh has few earthy resources and a small territory by comparison.

In Bangladesh there is independent thinking, from the rickshaw driver painstakingly putting his case to the policeman for some infringement to the government’s refusal to simply cave in to the whims of larger powers like India or America.  It’s refreshing because in Australia debate usually centres on how much to please America.  The recent vote on Palestine at the UN is a case in point.  Australia abstained which was considered by its government to be a strong symbol of independent views, which is sad because it was such a singular, minor thing, important symbolically but still just one vote that would not change the outcome, and it was compromise because most who voted for the ruling Labor Party in Australia would likely prefer a vote in favour of Palestine.  Australia is for America a very poor ally, as a yes-nodder inevitably is.  Meanwhile in Bangladesh the UN vote was a non-issue: there are longstanding principles.

Bangladesh will be 42 in March.  Australia turns 112 in January.

In Bangladesh there is dissent and no fear to challenge the powerful.  The negative is when it takes on the form of hartals and violence, but consider how important basic dissent is, to democracy.  Bangladeshis are not afraid to own their country and if only protests were peaceful and well-targeted they could not but be considered an asset; because the alternative is a conformist society where dissent is actively discouraged.  In Australia when Muslims protested against that movie, the Immigration Minister thought to threaten to review their immigration status if they were violent, if they were non-citizens.  In Australia after Indian students raised their voice against racial attacks on the streets the government amended citizenship laws to make it more difficult for students, post-studies, to stay.  There are many ways to control voices and it’s mostly only the new communities that still use them.

In Bangladesh like a phoenix from the ashes arose a vibrant academic and artistic community, to build upon the legacy of the martyred intellectuals.   Bangladeshis fought for and died for their language; and culture holds the place of dignity and celebration that it should.  In Australia meanwhile funding for the arts remains woeful compared to financial support for sport.  It’s reminiscent of Soviet policy that favoured sport and ballet, because spectacles of that nature are wholly apolitical and do not encourage a populace to think.  And if each Tiger was given over a million dollars, which is what was Australia spent on each Olympic gold medal, what do you imagine they could achieve?  But in the case of the Tigers it’s looking as though it’s not required.

Australia has a population of 2.2 crores.  In Bangladesh there are 16.

If we look to the cleverly drafted Constitution, there are protections there: human rights, freedom of expression.  It’s a people-centred document.  In Australia there is no protection for freedom of expression and little for human rights which are at best contained in ordinary legislation that can be and is changed by the government-of-the-day at whim.  It’s how the provisions of the Racial Discrimination Act were suspended in order to intervene in remote aboriginal communities.  The government told aboriginal people how to spend their income.  And the valid point that protection of human rights is not always achieved in Bangladesh does not lessen the wisdom of the Constitution; it makes it more remarkable since human rights as a national value become the starting point of discussion.  Australia debates meanwhile whether there is need for national values, whether formal protections are at all necessary and what such values could be.  Ultimately it’s a simple matter of valuing human liberty.

And then there was the tragedy at Tazreen Fashions, which shouldn’t have happened but did.  Even with such a horrible event with Australian eyes I see, am impressed by the outpouring of grief, concern and self-reflection.  Because as you may know, the Australian government operates camps in Papua New Guinea and Nauru for boat arriving asylum-seekers where inmates can expect to wait for years, where they currently live in tents, where there are suicide attempts and hunger strikes.  As you may know, the Australian government holds fifty plus human beings in indefinite detention because although refugees they have been determined by secret security assessment to be threats to the community.  Those inmates are not allowed to know the charge against them.  For the most part they are Sri Lankan Tamils who would seem unlikely threats to the Australian community, and they cannot defend themselves.  These are official policies that operate every day and can have no less cruelty to them than any potential act of negligence that led to the Tazreen fire but there is little outcry.

And of bravery and boldness I see abundance, not only in the history books but now, in all of the above aspects of Bangladesh and of course, you know it, in the very difficult struggle for daily life that too many Bangladeshis still face.  And they smile.

As a westerner on 16 December I remember Senator Edward Kennedy and George Harrison were not afraid to stand up and be counted.

I know and you know how easily this country’s challenges, shortcomings and failures can be spoken of; how many there are to choose from – free speech, it is there to a very significant degree – people can talk; journalists inform and with a degree of daring and bravery too.  But save that talk please for December 17, since Victory Day is for remembering the struggle and sacrifice that created this young nation where people live cheek by jowl in relative peace.  Victory Day is to recall that along with the many other things, good and bad, that modern Bangladesh is, it remains not less than a minor miracle.

People value the things they have to fight for.  Bangladesh was born in blood. 

There are more Bangladesh articles, mostly about culture and travel to choose from, or try something different like the end of the world in Rapa Nui or a visit to the Latvian National Academy of Science, but if you go there, mind the heavy doors on the way in.

This article also published in Star Magazine, here: 16 December






Bangladesh Dreaming: Article Index for articles about Bangladesh