My many Indias. One last Bombay post

On my last day in Bombay, I visited Khotachiwadi, an old neighborhood with Portuguese-style houses in a labyrinth of little lanes. When you are inside this little neighborhood, all the chaos and commotion of Bombay falls away. The lanes are so narrow no car can enter, which keeps it wonderfully quiet here.

This garland maker sat right outside Khotachiwadi on a bustling road. He strung together yellow and orange marigold, blood red chrysanthemum, fragrant jasmine and rose petals to create his garlands.
I was at Khotachiwadi on a very special day: The very last day of the festival of Sankranti, when kites are flown. Kiteflying in India isn’t just about getting a kite high up in the sky. The manja or thread that the kite flies up on is coated with a mixture of rice glue and very finely powdered glass. and adults gather on rooftops, fly kites and cut fight kites in the sky and cut each others kites down. This guy on the balcony didn’t have much luck. He got 2 kites up in succession. Both got cut down, which made him curse out loud.
This sketch has a little boy at the end of the alleyway. There were so many gangs of little boys running around the lanes of Khotachiwadi while I sketched. They watched the sky very carefully and as kites got cut down and tumbled down into alleyways, they ran to rescue them and add them to their collections. I’ve been told my dad was an expert at flying and cutting down kites as a kid. He lived in a wadi right by Khotachiwadi. Maybe he was just like these kids, tearing through alleyways, fighting other ids over the brightest colored kites and amassing huge collections of them as they got cut down by other kites.
Time to say goodbye to Bombay and go to Goa. I love Bombay. I lived here when I was in school, and I miss this city that most reminds me of my other favorite city, New York.

My many Indias. Bombay: Crawford Market, Victoria Terminus and Flora Fountain

Such lovely names: Crawford Market, Victoria Terminus, Flora Fountain, Hornimon Circle. All these places  have new official Indian names now, but there’s something charming about the old British names. They have a lovely ring to them.
Crawford Market was, until very recently, the biggest wholesale market for fruits and vegetable for Bombay. The little break in the tarp overhead lets in a long, vertical strip of light into the alleys of fruit and vegetable sellers, shoppers, men that carry in heavy baskets of produce on their heads, cats and dogs, broom sellers and beggars. I sat by Osmanbhai’s stall ( in the foreground, holding up a Pomegranate) and sketched while a chaiwala brought me piping hot cups of tea, courtesy of Osmanbhai. Nothing like a good cutting chai to keep me sketching.

 

 

This fruit seller spent a good hour lovingly arranging the fruit in his stall. A stand full of fruit is lovely, but it made me wish I were here in the mango season when the air is filled with the heady scent of mangoes ripening in crates of hay.

A mosque at the end of a busy street outside Crawford Market. Someone asked me how I capture the mad chaos and activity of India, and I tried to explain it. This is what I do: I watch the scene for a while. After a bit I start to see a pattern to the madness: what looks like a random moving mass of people has a flow and direction. Then I start to draw, always remembering that even though I’m drawing in the details: the people, the cats, dogs, cars, all of that, there is an underlying pattern. My challenge? To not make the scene look too structured and organized. This means drawing in the people that move against the general flow of the crowd, the handcart that parks itself in the middle of a street and disrupts the traffic…

Victoria Terminus Station. A huge Gothic structure built in 1887. The busiest train station in India with 18 platforms and what looks like a million people on them.
And some people I saw at the station. On a quiet Sunday.

Flora Fountain is a busy circle with street vendors yelling louder than each other as they sell shirts. “Thick material” they say “Export Quality, only Rupees 300.”

Closeby is Hornimon Circle. (mention this to anyone and they will tell you Bombay’s first Starbucks is nearby) I didn’t go to Starbucks. But I did stop at a nearby Frankie stall and have 2 mutton frankies. At Hornimon Circle is St. Thomas Cathedral, an old church built in 1718. Step inside the church and you are transported to another world. The walls on the inside of this church have quaint eulogies to British soldiers who died in battle all over India. 

One more Bombay blogpost coming up soon, and then I’m off to Goa. All my India sketches, including tons I don’t blog, here in this flickr set.

My many Indias. Bombay: Babulnath and Dhobi Ghat

Babulnath is where my grandma, uncles, aunts and cousin live. I’ve visited here since I was a little kid and it was fun to sketch some of the scenes I’ve known for a long time.

This is the tyre-puncture-repair-walla, the guy who can rescue a tyre with a long nail in it, or retread the baldest of tyres. All he used was a spanner, some strong glue and a metal bottle cap to work with.

This is the view from Marine Drive, a promenade also known as the Queen’s Necklace because it looks like one when it is all lit up at night. It is one of the few places where you can go for a stroll, enjoy the ocean breeze, take in a sunset and sit in peace and have some space to yourself. And while you’re at it, you can enjoy some channa chor garam. I ate my share of it while I sketched.

These two sketches were made at Mahalaxmi Dhobi Ghat, an open air laundromat where washermen was clothes from thousands of households all over the city in over 700 little cement cubicles filled with water. It is incredible how they keep tabs of which clothes belong to whom. Clothes are washed by hand and beaten against stone to get the dirt out. They then hang to dry in the sun, and are ironed every evening. After that they are tied up in large cloth bundles that the dhobis carry back to households all over the city.

A close-up of a washing cubicle. A washerman stand knee-deep in water, washing a pile of clothes.

Next up: Crawford Market, Churchgate and Victoria Terminus. And all my India sketches, in this flickr set

 

My many Indias. Bombay: Clocktowers, chappals and the Gateway of India

The difference between my Bombay sketches and the ones before? I had the week to myself, and all I did is sketch. Bombay or Mumbai, everyone asks what it is to me. It’s always been simple. Bombay in English. Mumbai when I speak in Marathi.

Almost all my sketches are of South Bombay. There is just so much to sketch in this corner of the city that I didn’t get any further. These 3 sketches are of the Rajabhai Clocktower at Oval Maidan. I could see this clocktower from my window at home, but it was much more fun to go down to the grounds and sketch. Oval Maidan is a huge ground in front of the clocktower, and at any point in the day there are atleast a hundred games of cricket being played on it. I am amazed at how the players keep tabs of which game they are a part of. And more amazed that I never got hit by a ball!

I sketched this piece at night,when this little stand selling shoes and chappals was lit by a single naked bulb. ‘Lovely Shoe Stall’ with it’s colorful shoes displayed on a pegboard.

This is Cafe Mondegar. The mural on the walls are by Goan artist, Mario Miranda. Mario’s exuberant colors and figures totally overwhelm the crowds of tourists sitting on tables underneath it, sipping their Kingfisher beer and reading their Lonely Planet guides.

This statue of Lord Elphinston is from the Indian Institute of Science, where my dad went to college. I walked along the long stone corridors, and it was easy to imagine that nothing had changed since he went to school there.And finally, two sketches of the Gateway of India. It has been decades since I came here, and more than anything I was surprised to see so much security on site, all a result of the awful 2008 terrorist attacks. Still, it didn’t keep the street food sellers from doing business. This pav bhaji vendor and bhel-walla were kept pretty busy while I was there. See that faint yellow spot to the right of the Gateway? That’s pigeon poop, wiped out as quickly as I could.

Another view of the Gateway, with the boats in the harbor.

This is just the beginning of my Bombay sketches. More coming soon. And a full set here on flickr.

My many Indias. Part 4: Tirunelveli

Deep in southern Tamil Nadu is Tirunelveli, where I visit on every trip to India. It is where my husband Hari grew up and where his parents and grandparents still live. To me, there are two Tirunelvelis. One that exists inside my in-law’s home: a home that to me seems teeming with people: 4 adults who live there (and us when we visit) , household help, various assistants to my father-in-law who works from home and an assortment of relatives ( loosely speaking) who come and go. And then there is the town of Tirunelveli. Dusty, chaotic, crazy, narrow-laned and eminently sketchable.

Here are glimpses of both my Tirunelvelis.

At home with the family. Nishant plays chess with his grandma.

And with his grandpa. Hari watches.
Nishant and Kavya discover the game of pallanguli. Interesting that it is the same as mancala, which is played in Africa. Their great-grandma watches and is itching to join in. She did a little while after I made this sketch. It is fun to see how she and the kids enjoy long games together inspite of their not understanding a word of what the other says.
To draw the street scenes of Tirunelveli I don’t go far: all I do is sit on the stoop in front of the house. Both these sketches are made from there. And, they’re made on a Sunday, the quietest day of the week, when the shops are shuttered and the foot and motorbike traffic is relatively low.

I enjoyed sketching this gopuram at the Tirunelveli temple. It took sneaking in one afternoon when the temple was officially shut to find it quiet enough to settle down to a sketch.
And finally, two sketches from a trip to the river. No trip to Tirunelveli is complete without a swim in a river. A man washes his clothes in the river before he jumps in for a bath.

The locals wash clothes, bathe and enjoy the river. After the dry, dusty landscape of Tirunelveli, the lush green vegetation around rivers and ponds is refreshing.Next up: A week on my own in Bombay. And, all my sketches from my trip, in this flickr set.

My many Indias. Part 3: Chennai

Sadly, we never stepped out of my sister-in-laws home during our 2 days in Chennai, because I ended up with 2 violently sick kids- they forgot what they were told and drank out of the tap in India and you know what that means … So while they recovered from upset tummies, I sketched around the house. Luckily, there’s many beautiful things to sketch around Kala’s home, like these brass figures of Ram, Sita, Laxman and Hanuman flanked by lamps.
I love the dragon-head on this veena. And the intriguing figure on the right a composite of the god Shiva and his wife, Parvati. This half-male, half-female figure is called Ardhanarishvar. I enjoyed sketching these three gas cylinders I found at the back of the house. One day, all gas in India will be ‘on tap’ like it is in the US, and then the iconic red gas cylinder will disappear.

One last sketch of an almost-recovered Kavya, reading Tintin.
Tomorrow, we leave for Tirunelveli. To see all the sketches from my trip so far, go to this flickr set.

My many Indias. Part 2: Mysore

My kids and I took off from Bangalore for a 3-day trip to Mysore. Mention Mysore and you either hear about Mysore Palace or Mysore Bondas. I sketched both.

Mysore Palace is a mad hodgepodge of Hindu, Muslim, Rajput and Gothic styles. Apparently this style has a name (thank you wikipedia!) It’s called the Indo-Saracenic style. I loved that the crazy architecture was echoed by the milling crowds on the palace grounds and the scores of pigeons in the sky. (More abut the trouble with pigeons flying overhead while you sketch- in a later post.)

This lady, who sat next to me on the train to Mysore, recounted her childhood in the city and the excitement over the Dusserah celebrations, when the Maharaja would step out all dressed in his finery and jewels.
This is one of the gopurams, the gateways to the palace grounds. Inside the grounds, we went on camel and elephant rides.
A rare sketch that isn’t brightly colored: a view of the rooftops from our hotel room.

A gorgeous specimen of a train at the Mysore Rail Museum. My favorite feature on these old trains is the cowcatcher. 

 

I just HAD to sketch this lovely old lady, so beautifully dressed in her fiery orange and green Kanjivaram silk sari with it’s gold zari border. She had on thick gold bangles, earrings and a nose ring. As my mother would say, ” In real 22 carat gold, not your American gold.”
And finally, a sketch of the promised Mysore Bonda. At the Dasaprakash Restaurant, Mysore.
Next: a quick stopover at Chennai. And the full set of my sketches from India is being uploaded into this flickr set.