Future past. Impressions of an exile. India 2.

Posted on November 21, 2010 by drsapna

One of the books I am reading now is Santosh Desai’s MOTHER PIOUS LADY, a compilation of columns he has written over the years observing the quirks and idiosyncrasies of middle class India. It is funny, full of sharp observations and often nostalgic about Gen X growing up in a pre-globalised India. One reviewer likened it to RK Laxman’s Common Man cartoons. Those who grew up in India and still live there know what I am talking about. The hardships, the ‘can-do-must-do’ attitude, the emphasis on dignity, the little treats once-in-a-while, the first time a family bought a television/scooter/refrigerator/electronics/even a Prestige cooker, arranged marriages, native villages as origin and end etc. Most of all the chalta-hai, we-are-like-this-only demeanour.

Now that has changed. Liberalised, aspirational middle-class India does not know that eating ice-cream happened only at wedding receptions (Cassata anyone?) and on rare occasions otherwise. Or that trunk calls used to be made from post offices and generally meant bad news; otherwise people sent telegrams. We used to get post cards for 25 paise-I am not sure they are around any more. Still, this is not an exercise in nostalgia. Economic liberalisation, free-trade market, globalisation and related states were inevitable. Young Indians look into the future with positivity. The mobility, entrepreneurship, consumption, independence and individuality-to some extent. They seem to have it all. Yet the chalta-hai, we-are-like-this-only demeanour.

Grounded in complacency and denial. Perhaps I have a ‘Western’ outlook to discourse and democratic responsibility and I want analysis. Every time I argued about civic process, populism and the relationship of the polity with the populace I was told ‘You have stayed away too long’, ‘We are an emotional people, we don’t like change’, ‘New Zealand is a small country so run differently’, ‘We should give the people what they want’ etc. No doubt India is a tough country to govern and Indians are complex. The culture does not make it easy either. Isn’t that precisely why Indians should be more self-aware? Shouldn’t the easier access to knowledge, information (not government process-but that is another story) and communication make us argumentative for the better?

In one of his articles Desai observes that Indians change at a pace that is comfortable with small, almost invisible steps which do not seem to disturb the status quo but actually is. Fine. But the pace at which ambition, aspiration, consumption and social behaviour is zooming such small steps create a massive disparity and inability to deal with the situation. Thomas Friedman, the great propagator of free market and author of THE WORLD IS FLAT praised India’s liberalisation and could only foresee a bright future (=money+material). There was no analysis of the social and cultural impact on Indians so deeply rooted in their traditions and structures. Here is what I thought.

Young India cannot deal with the material glut because there is no precedence. Then it turns to the past. There it is safe, there is reassurance, solidness and warmth like a mother’s bosom. Then we can chalta-hai, be like-this-only complacent because there is no need to examine the disparity between what we have, how it affects us and how we react. Because apparently everything will be alright!

Square Peg. Impressions of an exile. India. 1.

Posted on November 15, 2010 by drsapna

I see that I meant to write this on 17 October, soon after arriving back in Aotearoa but got occupied otherwise. So many times I ran the text of this intended blog through my head and edited it such that I could write short, sharp stuff rather than ramble on-which I tend to do.

Many times, in the weeks after I came back to Auckland, I caught myself just standing in my living room, in the silence that surrounds my house, staring at the little artefacts scattered, nah strategically placed all over. The shells from various Auckland beaches, the mini papier mache Eiffel Towers and Arc De Triomphe from Paris, the Ganeshas from Bombay and Banares, clapper board from Berlin, the books, Tibetan paintings from McLeodganj, the $30 couch from Salvation Army, the ‘donated’ television set on which I cannot watch TV One or TV2…I still do not have a proper coffee table and I dine Indian style crossed-legged on the floor. They all spoke to me. About my journey so far in life. That I am finally at a place where I can be comfortable with myself.

It took me a long time to figure out that I was/am a misfit. I was a curious child, always asking questions and not very happy with the answers. Consequently angry and disobedient. Hence bad. Not in a ‘black sheep’ way but someone who apparently needed to be firmly on a leash and kept within the patriarchy. Life was meant to be an education (a formal, school type education-for which I am very grateful), a job, a career making money, then marriage and kids. Until the day you die. No wonder I was a misfit. Going back home I am still a square peg in the round, all-sucking, Indian hole.

It took me a long time to figure out that it does not have to be like that. To get over the guilt of not thinking like everyone else, to reach this space and place that no one, not even me, thought could be a reality. Now I have to justify living this space; the unshackling and the so-called lack of responsibility in my life. I try to be blase and so does everyone else back in Bombay but the sub-text is too obvious to ignore. Then I just meditate to keep me calm.

Come back, they say. India has changed. You can be as free as you want. Be single, do live-in, shag around, whatever. As if this is what matters. What about the enquiry of existence? Or challenging the existing? Blackberry in one hand, vodka in another, designer mini dress and preparations for karwa chauth. How is that a change? In a parallel universe I live this life. With straightened, bottle-blonde hair.

Not that I am not a misfit in New Zealand. Here I am a dark-skinned ‘ethnic’. Always classified as Indian-not that I mind it because I do not have to justify this or anything else. Such as being single, living on my own, working in mainstream media. No one tells me I ask too many questions or why can’t I be like everyone else. That is the difference. Palpable freedom with inherent responsibility and respect for choices. Of course it is not without problems, this society. It is still conservative and closed and racist and not as egalitarian as it makes out to be. But I am not judged by the money I make, the car I drive, the clothes I wear or the caste and religion I belong to. I can fully participate in the civic, democratic process without affiliating myself one way or the other.

It is true that I don’t do structure very well. Not structure imposed on me anyway. Because I work with the structure of the universe. Because nothing really is unstructured. That is where I fit in, in the bigger picture. For all my square peg-ness. New Zealand lets me be and I will go back to India only on my own terms. In conjunction with the universe.

Backpacking 201-Berlin 2

Posted on November 22, 2009 by drsapna

Berlin still carries the burden of the wars and the wall. There is something ancient, sad and yet vibrant about this city. As if it hesitant to come to terms with the past and yet the future is calling. However, to my eye, this future is different for the politicians and different for the artists and other inhabitants.

A German born near Stuttgart, former West Germany, said to me that Berlin is a poor city but it has culture that is enriching. Yet he prefers to live in Auckland because in Berlin everything is laden with layers of history and meaning which can be an encumbrance. New Zealand is not so ancient.

It has been sometime since I’v been back in Auckland and back to work. Berlin seems far away yet I can’t help thinking about the city and all that I saw and learnt. Particularly with the anniversary of the fall of the Berliner Mauer, the wall. Obviously people in the West attach a greater significance to it than those of use born and brought up in the developing world. Where was I when the wall fell? In medical school away from Bombay, where television was a luxury…but I vaguely remember watching pictures of the wall coming down and all the hoo-haa about it on a programme called ‘The World This Week’. The wall did not mean anything to us, I bet not one person of my generation in India thought it would change the world. We were more interested in finishing studies and getting on with life-which was not supposed to change at all. We would get our degrees, get work, get married, have children…ho hum, now that I think of it. So I am intrigued when I listen to stories about people who were affected by the divisions in post war Germany. Quite, quite rivetting.

When in Berlin I went through the entire exhibition of the Friedliche Revolution just outside Alexander Platz, goose pimples on my skin, marvelling at the power of the non-violence of people. I thought about North Korea, Burma and other regimes, even our democratic India and her tribals being ousted for bauxite mountains…I formed a hypothesis. The Germans were able to resist in a peaceful way because they knew what democracy and freedom meant-they knew how to use the tools within this concept because they were educated, literate people…all the other examples I mentioned are of poor, illiterate people who I believe are deliberately kept so. Those helpless and hungry are unable to fight any battle. Others have to fight their battles and those others come with their own agenda and beliefs…sometimes it is mere PC-ism. One more thing I realised, going through the exhibition, was that the church played an important role in the peoples’ resistance in DDR. Not a religious role but a support role where the people were offered space to have meetings and run underground papers. I can’t imagine any Hindu priest or temple offering similar support to any resistance movement unless there is the overt and covert Hindutva agenda attached to it.

The Germans I met and made friends with, the Germans I have conversations with, are all wonderfully over analytical and break their history, the wars, the genocide, the wall, communism and everything else to bits before creating a deeply complex picture of who they are. They want you to think of them as stiff upper lipped emotionless sorts who are also humourless. Not true. What I felt and feel instead is that after affecting the world in so many ‘negative’ ways, the Germans are afraid of their own power and thinking and what they can be capable of. They are warm, loving, funny, crazy, creative people. (Ok so call me a Deutsch-o-phile! :-)) The world will not let them forget what happened, what Germany did, which is interesting because maybe the U.S. and the U.K. and France might want to be reminded about their colonialism and arrogance too. And the Dresden bombings.

So, getting back to my favourite city, it was the first time I ever that I encountered the Roma gypsies. A bizarre experience. I could have been staring at me or another Indian! The first time I saw these dark, skinny women wearing long skirts and pushing prams I thought they were Turks. Germany has a large population of Turkish people. Then I came to know they were gypsy women beggars. Of course, I thought, now I know why they looked so… Indian. The Roma people came out of South Asia…it was fascinating though that a Western country, an economic powerhouse, would have beggars. 🙂 A friend informed me that they belonged to a begging syndicate and the police were helpless to do anything about it. Hmm. One day at Alexander Platz I heard a gypsy man play the accordion. It was a familiar tune, something I had heard before-many times. Something that was deep in my unconscious…reminding of home or a place I belonged to. Nostalgia stirred and my heart fluttered. How would I know of a tune played by a gypsy man? It haunted me for days, the tune. I’d recorded it while doing a story for my radio show and every time I sat down to edit I found myself listening to the tune. Perhaps it was from a film? Hindi film songs are notorious for appropriating and sampling. The image of Raj Kapoor playing the accordion in one of his films came out of the recesses of my brains…I listened to and watch Raj Kapoor’s songs from his old films onYoutube…it was the refrain from Mera Naam Joker! (listen in at 1.20m)

I do not want to think about the pathways by which this tune could have travelled from the Roma gypsies to an Indian film or even the other way round. Just marvel at it, at how stories, music, food, fashions and traditions might migrate from one part of the globe. At first belong somewhere, then nowhere and then again somewhere.

A trip to Berlin would not complete without a visit to the Stasi Musuem. The dreaded secret police of the DDR. I took the U-Bahn from Frankfurter Allee to Magdalenestrasse. The Stasi museum was in the building where the Stasi originally existed. A structure typical to the Soviet era. It was frightening to see how far political dogma could go into controlling people. The kind of spying that was done, the indoctrination of young people and the attempt at shutting out the world. It brought out for me the other extreme of the spectrum that is America and the media there, the capitalists, the neo-conservatives and fundamentalists doing it in the name of freedom and god.

I have so many memories of Berlin and there is so much more to do and see that I want to go back. Buy me a ticket, get me some work and I’ll pack my bags. Honestly! When I expressed my love for the stadt to a rickshaw driver as she cycled from Potsdamer Platz to Brandenburg Gate she asked, ‘Haff you been here in the vinter?’ 🙂

But seriously, it is a dream. To work and live in Berlin, to collaborate with the Germans because they make such great cinema, music and art and because my chaotic Indian attitude could fit in very well with German precision. Now I only need to figure out how and when, without actually saying good-bye to New Zealand.

Backpacking 201-Berlin. Part 1

Posted on October 13, 2009 by drsapna

Pardon me while I gush. ‘Coz that is what one does of someone you love and love is blind and I fell in love with Berlin before I visited the stadt. Like an image that I built in my head, a fantasy and a dream. I’d always heard only good things about Berlin. So knew the place but it turned out even better.

I felt it the moment I landed at Schonefeld Airport. At home. Like I had been here before; like my soul had wandered through and lingered a bit, a lot. This has happened to me once before when I was in Sikkim. A strong sense of deja vu and recognition; an intense feeling of belonging.

Ya so I am weird. I was a monk in my previous life who lived in the Himalayas but have come back to do some unfinished work before I attain nirvana.

To a touristy type or to many Indians Berlin is not on the map of places to visit. Why would anyone want to go to Germany!? For the arty types, fans of Western classical music (not me, I just about know the names of some composers but I do listen and have gone for concerts), for those on their Europe OE, Germany is a must-visit. And Berlin has this reputation of being a place for the creatives. I was not disappointed.

Schlafmeile is owned and run by Kiwi bloke Glenn Stevenson. It came highly recommended by German writer Ingo Petz who has written about Germans in New Zealand and also by a work colleague whose daughter stayed at the hostel. The Aotearoa New Zealand Cafe does the most amazing breakfast and burgers. The staff (or those that work there-they are my friends now) are warm and helpful. And Glenn is an absolute hardcore Kiwi bloke from Masterton. Loveable. I stayed in a five bed mixed dorm with room mates ranging from a Swiss girl to two Aussie teachers who worked in London to a Dutch girl and three Dutch guys who wanted to explore the night life in Berlin. Conversations with fellow travellers is an integral part of any backpacking trip and so it was with my room mates as well as those whom I encountered in the kitchen. Americans, Italians, Swiss, English and also Kiwis. The Dutch dudes asked me if the Flight Of The Conchords was really the fourth most famous group in New Zealand. They loved Jemaine and Brett. It was funny to see two Dutch guys grooving to Inner City Pressure on their i-pod and trying to do a Brett McKenzie. 🙂

So, Berlin. The first day I reached there was the Long Night Of The Museum. An extended evening that went into the next day 5am, a single ticket and free transport between as many museums as possible. And Berlin is full of them. I catch a bus full of kindred museum nutters near the Berliner Dom and go the the Museum Of Kommunication and hang out there checking out the Deutsch postal system, the history, the changes and the meaning of communication. To me, post offices and related places are very attractive. The mere act of writing a letter and posting it signifies more than just a system. It is about human engagement and emotion. But more about that in another blog. That long night at the museums I revel in history, tradition and a simple night out.

The DDR museum comes highly recommended by Costa at the hostel. There is a long queue to get in. Songs from the old communist country play on the PA system and the couple in front of me start dancing. They obviously grew up with that music. Inside is the story of the German Democratic Republic. The lifestyle, the food, the living, television, holidays, school, indoctrination…parents show their kids how they lived under a communist regime. One thing I learnt (among many) is that nudity was sanctioned by The Party, the DDR regime-because there was no money to manufacture swimwear. So summer time at the beach meant going naked. It was and is normal. If you ever see old Germans in skimpy swimwear then it is not ‘fashion’ or a ‘Western’ thing. Highly likely they are Ossies and forcing themselves to be ‘modest’ for the sake of others.

That was my introduction to be Berlin. I spent eight days in Berlin and everyday was an experience to savour. Not enough I can write in one blog. Except to end this one by saying that I got hit upon the most in Berlin. Men stopping me and talking to me, asking for my number, for my email and ‘get to know me’ 😉 I liked. Ich leibe diese stadt even more for that.

Backpacking 201-Paris

Posted on September 24, 2009 by drsapna

The first thing I see in Paris at Du Nord station is a woman begging. I do not have the energy to notice if she could be East European or a generic looking French woman. I had boarded a train at 5.30am at King’s Cross Station and was too sleepy still. The second thing is what seems like a quarrel or argument between a passenger and those organising taxis for the new arrivals. This tall French African man, who was on my train and in the queue for taxis, suddenly gets out of the line and starts shouting Monsieur, Monsieur as he rushes towards the front of the queue. What followed was beyond my comprehension. Loud voices talking in French. Maybe it was just a normal conversation. I mean we Indians and the Chinese gesture and talk loudly. Does that entail an argument? The third thing is the taxi ride through the streets of Paris. The shops are not yet open and it looks like Mahim the day after Novena at St Michael’s Church. My taxi driver changes lanes nonchalantly almost banging into a man on a scooter who then confronts him at the lights. C’est le Paree.

YHA offers a special package in Paris. Two nights, three nights or four; free entry to various museums and a single ticket across all public transport. I have booked three nights at the Cite Des Sciences hostel. I reach the hostel at 9.30 the first morning and am told I cannot take my bag to my dormitory because the cleaners are in. I can only go there after 2pm. Yup in France the cleaning process goes on between 10am-2pm. So I go to the Louvre with two thailis – bags and leave my suitcase at reception.

I cannot add anything to what has already been said about the magnificence of the Louvre. The Mona Lisa is mysterious and myth adds to the mystery. She is just a tad too pale. The sculptures, the paintings, Napoleon’s apartment…it can all get crazy. I did not see it all and I would not recommend seeing it all in one day either.

When in Paris visit the Eiffel Tower. That is taken for granted. One evening I stand in a long line forced to listen to two yakkety American women go on and on about Parisienne women and their elegance. I thought the women in London dressed better than those in Paris. Quirky, individualistic fashion rather than enslaved to haute couture. It is always fascinating to listen to other people talk and on my way down from the top I try to understand what the Italian women are gossiping about. The view from the top of the Eiffel Tower is priceless (or 12 Euro). My YHA package gives me free entry to Arc de Triomphe and a ride on the Seine.

My hostel is in a suburb called Hoche. It could be a busy suburb in Egypt/Morocco/any North African/Middle Eastern country instead of Paris. Very multicultural and full of different hues of brown skin. This is not the Paris sold to the world. This is the Paris that France has ignored. It is like these people live in France but are not French and the French do not want to acknowledge anything that is ‘not French’, whatever that means. The world is sold the myth of old Paree but that is a lie. On my first evening in Paris I travel to ‘China Town’ of which a Chinese student on the subway has told me about. There is none of buzz of Chintown in London or Melbourne and actually not even on the Paris map. The few ‘Chinese’ restaurants are run by Vietnamese. It takes me a while to figure out why Vietnamese. Because Vietnam was a French colony! D-uh! Back in town a bunch of French-African krumpers and poppers pump up the jam on the street. We never get to see these cultural titbits as ‘French’ do we?

But then I am in Paris because it a romantic city so I am not disappointed when I visit Montmartre. It is quintessential France. Just out of Abbesses station are cobbled streets, beautiful houses, cafes and old American gentlemen playing jazz music. I have a chat with one of the jazz players. Richard Miller plays the cornet and does the vocals for his band. He is a well travelled man and ‘too old to ask you out’, he says to me. Up the hill is the Basilica, the permanent Dali exhibition and streets to wander in. As I finally feel ‘paisa vasool‘ (got my money’s worth) I hear snatches of an old Hindi film song. It is surreal. ‘Itni Shakti Hume Dena Data‘ from the film Ankush (1986) playing in a French Cafe. Curious, I hang around and have dinner. The French owner/manager downloaded it on his i-pod because he liked the song. We have a conversation about Hindi films and I recommend a few. If there is a place in Paris I want to live then it is Montmartre. I am snobbish that way. No ghettoes for me, thank you.

The Paris subways are different from the London Underground. The trains bounce, creak and squeak as they turn around bends as if they could derail anytime. The stations are quite beautiful though and have artwork all over them. From the tiles to the paintings…Abbesses station has stunning paintings all round the stairwell. These subways are the place to see the people of Paris, I reckon. All colours except white. There are many Bangladeshis around. The first one I talk to is selling roses to commuters. I ask in English ‘Are you from South Asia?’. He does not understand. So I ask in Hindi, ‘India se hai?‘ He says ‘Haan’, yes. Kidhar se, I ask. Where from? Bangal se, he says. From Bengal. Something about his accent makes me suspicious. Bangladeshi, I ask. Yes, he says. Imagine a Bangladeshi going bonjour…bonsoir to passers-by. I can’t help but ask the man, legal hai ki illegal? The man glowers indignantly. Legal, he says. (Yeah right, I think.)

I cannot fathom how France considers itself a world power or anything of import on the world or even the European stage. If there is one thing to learn from the French then it is how not to deal with migrants, particularly coloured people. And of course Muslims. Just how Sarkozy is dealing with the hijab/burkha is to be noted. Then the other thing is the work force and labour. I go to the post office one day to get a stamp so I can send a postcard to my father. It takes more than an hour to get one and would have taken longer if I had not done the Indian thing of just breaking the queue. France was almost annihilated in the world wars (if my history is correct), stupidly tried to sink the Rainbow Warrior…Napolean was so long ago…sure there is the storming of the Bastille and concepts like liberty etc. There were Foucault, Lefebvre and other thinkers…but what about the world now? France is a permanent member of the U.N Security Council but cannot deal with its own people who are ‘not French’. It does not gel. I mean no country has got it completely right and democracy comes with problems but they cannot be hidden under the garb of sophisticated ‘Frenchness’ ya? Maybe I am plain stupid and don’t understand complex world issues. Still, I would love to visit France again. Maybe I will see something new?

The Algerian, who runs the internet cafe down the road, and I have interesting conversations in my broken French whenever I go down there. He wants to know where I am from. Je suis Indian, je ne parle pas francais je parle l’anglais. But I am from New Zealand. People get confused. So far on my entire trip, I have been mistaken for a generic South American to Mexican and Maori-only because I said I am from New Zealand. Never Indian. I don’t mind at all. It reiterates my deepest thoughts to me-that I can live anywhere in the world and do anything I want. People are people and you are bound to find like-minded souls in this universe. So it will be in Berlin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbesses

Backpacking 201-London

Posted on September 3, 2009 by drsapna

My flight from Shanghai to London was via Frankfurt. Michael Field, journalist and very-travelled man advised me that the route went over the Gobi Desert so I should ask for a window seat. And sure enough it was a spectacular sight from many miles high in the air. Lots of red land rolling on endlessly. The rest of the journey was quiet. There was no in-flight entertainment and the red haired, unshaven Chinese girl next to me refused to talk either in English or in Chinese. She kept drinking the black, sweetened, aerated water available in red cans and then complained of a headache. It was okay though. Pudong airport had been a bit of an ordeal. I thought Indians were bad with standing in line, talking loudly and trying to get to the front. Wrong. There were these hep looking Chinese dames with lots of stuff constantly manoeuvring to get in front of me and I kept blocking them. Then of course my new suitcase was overweight so I had to transfer stuff into my new dotted handbag bought in anticipation of exactly this. After all that, when the bag went through the x-ray machine the women behind them summoned me and a whole lot of other passengers to figure out what the suspicious looking bottles were. Of course one will pack large toiletries in a suitcase ya? Talk about being overzealous! So I preferred the quiet time.

London has a contagious buzz and energy about it. Non-stop motion and a lot happening at the same time with potential for more. I can see why for some people it is the centre of the universe. Culture and heritage confront you at every corner. Whether it was obtained from colonial plunders or from before is immaterial. It is the preservation of it all that is worthy of respect. The museums and the art galleries are proud institutions that allow much interaction with their customers, the public. It is impossible to see everything even in fifteen days and that was not my plan anyway. An important aspect of this journey/holiday is to figure out my place and space in this world. That of course did not stop me from doing the most touristy thing of visiting Madame Tussauds. It is a glitzy, kitschy artificial atmosphere not to be taken seriously at all.

I stayed with friends in the City. Marylebone Road. Went running ever so often at Regent´s Park which was just behind the house. Baker Street was the Underground station I prefered to commute from. The same Baker Street where Sherlock Holmes resided. The first day I walked down the street it took me time to realise it was the Baker Street. The eureka moment passed and my cerebrum started eliminating numbers…where did Sherlock live? 55? 66? How could there not be any memorial or a statue…? Then I discovered it. 221B Baker Street that is now home to the Sherlock Holmes museum. Du-h!

So apart from the energy and the unbearable heat in the Underground, the next thing about London that hits you is the multiculturalism. It is everywhere and it is beautiful. It is more than a melting pot or `salad´. It is individuality and collective expression of something new. I guess I cannot express it in a more articulate fashion but for New Zealand to be anywhere at that level it needs to get out of the PC mediocre rut. (But more on that in another blog.) Of course this multiculturalism is not without problems. When you see black kids cycling late at night in Hounslow you can sense something is wrong. Or the amount of discussion on domestic violence means that there is a lot of it hidden too. There are ethnic gangs and other forms of dissatisfaction and disenfrachisement expressed by minorities that one would not want to see in New Zealand. Yet the creative explosion is quite something else. Something New Zealand ´ethnic sector´ bureaucrats need to take note of and understand.

One day I visited Whitechapel to meet my friend who works at the Royal London Hospital. It was like being on the streets of Crawford Market/Bhendi Bazaar/Masjid in Bombay/Mumbai with the stalls and Bangladeshi readymade dress shops selling salwar kurtas, sarees and prayer clothes. I spotted the Imraan Travel Company And Money Transporter, there were restaurants selling ´Indian´ food and women in full black burkhas wandering around with kids in tow. Yet somewhere in the mix was a biergarten and people of all cultures and ethnicities comfortably hanging out. Brick Lane is very much part of the suburb although I did not visit. There is a famous art gallery in there too. Once upon a time Whitechapel was a Jewish suburb. There still are quite a few Jewish families living there. A Kiwi friend, who is actually a Briton of Indian origin, suggested I visit Southall too if only to see how waves of migrants move in and move out and leave remnants of their existence. These remnants are not destroyed but built upon and preserved to tell the story of that place. Apparently there aren´t that many Indians living in Southall anymore but more Africans and people from the middle east. I could not visit Southall.

London Chinatown is bang in the middle of the city. Gerrard St. Of course I passed through. It is a very commercial area and I was pleasantly surpised that it smelled like….well….China. And there was so many Chinese of course. Restaurants that look straight out of Kowloon and typical shops selling Chinese looking things. I discovered a Sikh behind a shop counter. Intigued, I went into the shop to ask him if owned the shop. He did! But I think he was embarrassed by my directness and curiousity and said no more. A Sikh selling little cheong-sams and other Chinese trinkets? It amused me and amazed me for the rest of the day. Imagine that! A business opportunity knows no ethnicity and colour eh? My brother-in-law had Chinese student waiters working in his Indian restaurant in Auckland and that was as far as I saw cross-cultural employment in niche ´culture´ business sectors. I like. I suppose next I could be selling sauerkraut in Berlin ya?

London can get addicting. Particularly the shopping. All Londoners are so well dressed-not fancy designer stuff but just putting together an ensemble that looks attractive and quirky that I am inspired. I am going to make an effort. And all the shopping helped. Perhaps I helped the economy along Oxford St. Topshop is quite the tops too.

I loved London. I shall visit again-for work, to shop and to just be at the centre of the universe.

Backpacking 201. Shanghai addendum

Posted on August 22, 2009 by drsapna

My backpack tore when I reached the hostel. I knew it would give way considering I had filled it to the gills with everything from my hair serum to a dhinchak frock just in case I went clubbing. So my dorm mate helped me buy a bag. In the back alleys of East Nanjing Road, inside a room in a house and a room in that room lies the seller-of-fakes. Or cheaper-than-departmental store fare. They hustle for customers on the street and then you have to follow them furtively-as if the local police don’t know these establishments exist. Thus I bought a new suitcase. Too big and a trifle expensive-I did not bargain hard enough.

Now the backpacking title of this blog is no longer applicable but I’ll continue with it. For the sake of continuity.

Backpacking 201. First stop-Shanghai.

Posted on August 22, 2009 by drsapna

I boarded an Air New Zealand flight on 7/08/09 from Auckland to Shanghai. Exhausted, tired, working until 8pm that night to finish all my tasks and make sure the cash flows in while I am away. My backpack was packed to the gills. Having graduated backpacking 101 on the YHA circuit and on my own in New Zealand it was time to try it overseas in mixed dorms. Shanghai was not originally in the plan but Auckland-London entailed a stopover in Shanghai so on the behest of my dear friend Rebecca ( “You must stay there!”) I re-budgetted and scrimped and saved some more to include it in the itinerary. Although Professor Paul Spoonley did warn me that ‘Shanghai is not China’.

The Captain Hostel is on the Bund. A long way from Pudong International Airport. The instructions on the website were to take Bus 3 to Longyang Metro station and Line 2 to East Nanjing Road. Easy peezy except for the heat and humidity. I should be used to it. Grew up in Bombay! But. There is much transalation and sign language when I catch and get off the bus. Ni shuo ying wen ma? (Can you speak English?) and shie shie (thank you) are going to be the two most common sentences I use during my time in Shanghai. And duo shao qian? (How much?). You can bargain at departmental stores in Shanghai-at least on East Nanjing Road. I almost bought a frock for 150 yuan (cheap as!) until my dorm mate, a South African who teaches English in South Korea haggled with the saleswoman. So I bought the frock for 50 yuan. It took a black man to teach an Indian woman how to bargain :-), as my dorm mate told me.

Asia is Asia, bloody Asia. It is home-anywhere in bloody Asia. You see the people, you see what they are doing and it is reassuring. An old woman selling mogra by the underground Metro, loads and bundles balanced precariously on bicycles and lots of cycles, people crossing the road arbitrarily, utter disregard for traffic rules, streetside vendors near railway bridges, pot holes, diversions, half destroyed abodes, labourers, construction everywhere, piles of rubble…dust, rain, heat. Chaos, confusion, humanity. Fast and slow all at once. Ancient and new all at once.

So is Shanghai except that I could not access Facebook or Twitter. And there are police everywhere. Police and what look like private security guards. The Chinese government must be spending tons of money on regimenting the country. There are no beggars in sight-although I caught a homeless man or two on camera. It is glitzy, glittering, wannabe sleek. All kinds of architectural styles sit by each other. Classical, neo-classical, art deco, modern and even the crazy looking Oriental Pearl Tower. At night the Bund is like out of a scene from a film in Las Vegas with the deliberate spectacle of lights. During the day the structures look a bit more real. Yet. My camera could not capture the bizzare, surreal character of the Bund in Shanghai. A whole lot of Chinese gawp at the edifices too. A kind of reassurance about the enormity/greatness of China and her growing power. I see that at an exhibition at the Oriental Pearl Tower. The story of Shanghai told through waxworks and other life size models. Not much to say about the curating but the sub-text sure was overtly nationalistic. Great China, the sufferings of the past and how-we-overcame-the foreigner etc. Still, for a two-minute tourist like me it was worth the 35 yuan. And the trip to the other, Pudong side of the Huangpu river, the walk to the tower, lunch at the streetside stalls…wu bo chi niu rou hi zhu rou (I do not eat beef or pork) I said to the stallkeeper, my accent not quite right. This time I saved myself from Hindu hell 🙂

For once I did not plan what I will do in which city through my travels. There was no fixed itinerary, no things-to-see…I just wanted to float around and do what I can. So I missed out on the Shanghai museum, the Dali exhibition and the French Quarter. Instead I simply wandered around observing the people and the buildings, the insatiable aspiration for all things consumer, the middle-class prosperity and the carefully hidden poverty. The Pudong side of the Bund is like another film set, like, I don’t know, Dick Tracy perhaps. Or it could be like Nariman Point/Cuffe Parade in Bombay without the slums or the fishing boats. Of course there is horrible traffic and the masses and even a Hooters in the multinational outlet mix with foreigners (white people) cycling along in the middle of all that. A man, what looked like a Muslim minority (a Uigher?) person, was selling kebabs made on a portable coal barbeque, would not let me take a photo 😦

Public transport in Shanghai is so good that travelling everywhere is easy. The underground Metro is just superb and the Magnet train takes you from Longyang station to Pudong International Airport in 10 minutes.

I can see why the world is wary of China and her increasing power. The government can mobilise people ‘for the country’ very easily. The Shanghai Expo in 2010 is the next thing to showcase China and Haibao the mascot is everywhere. Even the roadside vendors sell little models every few metres on East Nanjing Road. There is a mass recruitment to speak English, from what I gather. How this model of ‘capitalism within communism’ works and whether it will implode, whether the people of China will know anything better vis-a-vis freedom of expression and human rights, equality, making decisions for the self and the country without any pressure from the government or whether this kind of governance becomes the norm and acceptable to other countries on the anti-Western bandwagon is the subject of another blog. Whatever it is, I shall definetely visit China again. The people are warm and lovely and there is so much more to see. A road or rail trip through rural China is on my wish list now.