Mission Kashmir

Toward the end of a week in Kashmir, as we wound our way downhill from a hike, we paused behind hundreds and hundreds of sheep crossing a bridge to get home. Then, from the other side, a half-dozen soldiers began squeezing past as they, too, tried to reach makeshift homes up in the hills. Picture dark, mustachioed men with rifles sidestepping countless fluffy balls of bleating and defecating mammals. Gives you just a taste of the enchanting, embattled feeling of this place.

Sheep crossing the bridge in the village of Drung near Gulmarg. The Army men had to wait until all of them got across, though you can barely see one attempting to come over from the other side.

A victory for the soldier who made it across the bridge, braving the sheep.

The brochures call it "Paradise on Earth." My social studies books termed it a "disputed territory." In mid-May, itching for a cheap, quick and different kind of holiday, we booked five days in Kashmir. We also wanted coolness factor—both in temperature and in the stories we could impart upon return. The first was attained successfully, degrees ranging in the twenties most days. The latter, well, you be the judge… My husband, younger brother, daughter and I arrived on a Monday afternoon to Butt's Clermont Houseboats in Srinagar. We knew little of the legendary proprietor, Gulam Butt, and were wondering just where we were going when the driver passed the dozens of houseboats anchored to the bottom of the polluted yet picturesque Dal Lake—and kept going. We slowed down near a dome we would later discover houses a single hair of the Prophet Muhammed, and turned into a driveway to an awaiting Mr.
Butt. That's what he called himself as he pumped our hands heartily, saying "Hello ji, welcome welcome welcome" in a style that was part-game show host, part-uncleji, part-authentic, hospitable Kashmiri.

The legendary Mr. Butt welcomes us to Srinagar and his houseboats.

After leading us through a mini-museum of pictures and letters of US ambassadors and a few Beatles, Mr. Butt led us to our houseboat, creaky wood planks for a floor, elaborate carvings as ceiling. The long three-bedroom dwelling boasted Kashmiri carpets, furniture and window treatments, Victorian-style place settings (don't miss the April Cornell cloth napkins), and bedrooms reminiscent of rustic Americana.

Naya on the hand carved porch of our floating dwelling.

Mr. Butt made himself right at home, sinking into his embroidered couch and taking pleasure in our positive reaction. He made a big show of leafing through all the good press he's received. National Geographic. Michael Palin's book on the Himalayas. And then out came two tattered and worn guestbooks that he encouraged us to leaf through (we did and were surprised to see some of our friends' names). He called out for Sultan, the young man who would tend to our every whim. In a flash, a tray appeared—and Mr. Butt disappeared. We dipped almond cookies and cake into our first cups of qahwa, the signature Kashiri tea made milkless but full of flavour from cardamom, cinnamon and almonds. After the cook scrambled to make 2 ½ year-old Naya a lunch of rice-sabji, we washed up and headed onto the lake for a boat ride on a shikara.

The view from the living room of our houseboat.

I wish I could tell you I spent my time gazing into my husband's eyes, but our captain had much nicer ones. He was a computer science student at Gandhi Memorial College and dreamed of coming to Delhi. His father – who would be our guide for the coming days – did not give him money so the son rowed tourists like us to make some. "Ask him," my brother kept saying. "What?" I whispered. "Does he root for India or Pakistan in cricket?" "No, I am not going to ask that!" I fiercely whispered back. "You are such an American nerd." As we rowed back, a collective yell and cry came from the other end of the lake. From one shikara to another, the news eventually came to us: Two villagers had just been swept away by a drain—and drowned. Nearby, a fisherman heard the evening call to prayer from a facing mosque and began going through the motions on his boat, which rocked not at all as he did.

The handsome sexy boatman in the back.

Two fisherman stop for a chat.

An island on Dal Lake.

The mosque in the background holds a hair of the Prophet Mohammed.

On Tuesday, we were awoken by the similar sounds of a morning prayer.
I just listened, while Nitin got up to welcome the sun off our boat's
deck. A few hours later, we gobbled down a breakfast of porridge and
pancakes, omelets and toast, fresh mango and more qahwa. We jumped
into the car by 8:15 am (any later and we'd be tailing the Army
convoy) to make the two-hour journey to Sonamarg, a meadow of gold in
the Sindh Valley.
We arrived early enough for our pick of ponies and sober-looking
handlers. I likened the steep climb toward Thajiwas glacier, over
rushing streams and paths of jagged stone on horseback, to being on a
motorcycle through the mountains of Phuket, Thailand. Scary,
thrilling, experiential—and really the only way to travel.
Sonamarg, I knew as I looked down and around and up, would forever
rank one of my most favorite places on earth.
At the glacier, we sled down a hill and threw snowballs, my brother
and me not having had such a fight in at least a decade. We passed
some of the most breathtaking views of valleys, trees, meadows and
snow peaks I have experienced in India, let alone the world.
"Switzerland," our guide Lassa said.
No need for comparison, I thought silently, it's beautiful enough on
its own.

Saddling up for the ride to the glacier.

The Sonamarg landscape is purdy sweet.

The pass in the background will get you to Ladakh eventually.

Naya and Mitra take a wet shortcut coming back down from Sonamarg.

On Wednesday, we attempted to take in as much of Srinagar as possible.
We stopped at two Mughal gardens and drove through the old city. I
talked to Lassa a bit more about Kashmir, its history and future. He
had plenty of information and factoids on the former, no answers on
the latter.

Naya and Mitra in one of Srinagar's many Mughal gardens.

Flowers up against the wall.

A friendly Kashmiri gardener.

After a lunch of endless barbecue chicken skewers, we headed for
Gulmarg. Its beauty was different from the greener landscape of
Sonamarg. Emporer Jehangir's favourite haunt felt woodsier,
sportier—more popular among city dwellers. For that reason, I grew
annoyed.
We were put up at the Hotel Hilltop, which can best be described as in
transition. As we ate a mediocre lunch and heard Hinglish from nearby
tables, we decided to skip traditional Gulmarg. No golf or gondolas
for us.
Escape, again, came on a horse. Since dusk was falling, most tourists
were emerging from the mountains, not heading into them. And so we
found serenity over running brooks, across a grassy patch known as
Strawberry Valley, and once again sledding down snow banks. We crossed
from one hill to another via a snow bridge, my New Balance sneakers
not living up to their name as I slid all the way.

A detail of the Maharaja's palace in Gulmarg.

The next day, we toured the Maharaja's Palace and BabaReshi, a mosque
and shrine to a Muslim saint. Our fear of tourists landed us in
Drung, a just-opened quiet village in the valley where we hiked up
to ancient temple ruins. This was where the sheep and Army had their
showdown.
On our last night, after purchasing shawls and saris, I stopped at the public call office to phone home when I saw a hotel worker slumped and sobbing. He heaved, punched, paced. "His baby has just died," another man whispered. "She was just 2 ½." Led away by the hotel manager, the grieving father apparently hailed from an area with a 7pm curfew. He wouldn't be able to join his wife until sunrise. "That makes it so much worse," said the man narrating to me. I nodded my head and wiped my eyes. To me, Kashmir really didn't offer escape as much as perspective, not rest as much as reflection. Amid a land and people so conflicted, I was grateful for the sweeping generosity of its beauty to momentarily take us away, offer reverie. The hills, the snow, the streams, the valley, the humanity and humility did feel like paradise—if only fora little while.

Outside Jamia Masjid in Srinagar. On the hill is the Hari Parbat Fort, built in 1808 when Kashmir was under Afghan rule, It was closed after separatists launched an insurgency against New Delhi in 1989. Authorities had feared the strategically located building overlooking Srinagar could be misused by the rebels.

An archway in the marketplace of Jamia Masjid in Srinagar.

An example of the architecture in the old section of Srinagar. Like many things here, this beautiful dwelling is poised with a tension teetering on the edge of collapse.

it's getting hot in here

So uh, yeah, back for an update, four months later, sorry about that. i guess we've been kind of busy. just to give you an example we had close to 10 visitors stay over for anywhere from 3 nights to 3 weeks and that was just May alone. Is it our strategically located flat that makes us so popular (near the airport and good kebabs) or the sheer charisma and international intrigue that we exude? It was nothing like this in D.C,, but then the kebabs aren't as tasty there..

Naya takes in a tomb at Lodhi Gardens

Just so you know I shall be cloistering myself in the studio for at least the rest of the summer to get new painting done for exhibitions coming up in the fall and winter. This is for the best considering how hot Delhi will be during these months. I'm not saying you can't come and visit, we still LOVE company in the right measure. The art scene here is very much alive and kicking I'm happy to say. Strangely, I feel more connected to NYC in Delhi than I did in DC, at least partially because DC lacks any sort of desi art scene. I was working with the Indian version of Sesame Street called Galli Galli Sim Sim heavily until February, but it's lighter now and letting me get new work done and participate in exhibitions here and back in the homeland. There have been a few escapes from the Delhi heat wave which kicked in at the end of March and puts the average day around 100-105 farenheit: so far we made it to Assam twice, Benares, Allahabad for the Kumbh Mela, the high Garwhal Himalayas, and most recently a great family trip to fabled Kashmir.

Naya speaks 3 languages almost fluently now, emphasizing one depending on who she's talking to. She's been on summer vacation from her playschool for almost a month, and I know she misses her friends there as much as her taekwon do and yoga classes. She's been painting in the studio with me frequently and has become quite the multimedia artist, employing charcoal, paint, pencil, and even juice all in the same piece. When not painting we are poking around the shady areas of local Mughal ruins and art galleries. Naya even managed to sit comfortably through a 3 hour Sufi music festival at the Qutub Minar one night, taking in spoken word, a qawwali, and a performance by Abida Parveen. I did not however bring her to the Great Indian Rock festival in February, headlined by a Norwegian bang called Enslaved, fearing for her hearing. More detailed analyses of much of the above to follow.

A day at the zoo

While in Guwahati, we also went to the zoo for a few hours... But I had to make it to a hair and sari-wrapping appointment so we skipped the lion and deer. On the fast walk back to the car:

Naya: Oh the lion is sleeping. So we can just get one at the store.

My daughter, the feminist

We were in Assam for the last four days -- a wonderful trip, probably our best yet as the trio we are. Something we should have done before: We hosted the entire family for one dinner (all 75 of them) and cut out the random trips to every single relatives' home. Here's one snippet of Miss Naya's latest. Excuse me, Ms. Naya.

I am applying red sindoor to my forehead before a wedding.
Naya: Mommy, what is that?
Mommy: It's to show I am married to Papa.
Naya: Why doesn't Papa wear it?

Gloria Steinem, meet your 2-year-old match...

Hot Dogs for Breakfast

Yes, that's what we had. Some funny things Naya said in that meal alone:

"Mommy, you took my plate. Say sorry to the plate."

When the garbage woman came in, Naya looks at her and said, "Balti-walli-auntie!"

That's the bathroom lady and what Naya mistakenly called her literally translates into "Bearer of Bucket Auntie"

We told you, she is a cross between Albert Einstein and Russell Peters.

City of Gins -- and hot dogs

We had hot dogs for dinner tonight so finally the vats of BBQ sauce from Costco came in handy. This meal was thanks to Naya's demand that she wanted "hot dogs and ice cream." So we had the franks, rajma-chavel -- and apples for dessert. All Indian-American, I think...

Also last night we saw an outdoor, experiential, environmental play based on Dalrymple's book "City of Djinns." I generally liked it but was impacted both as a fireng and an Indian, and understanding of what both sides were getting it. Tom ALter, who always plays the British villain in Bollywood, was very good and the band, perched atop the dome of the mahal, was really transcending, in terms of time and place and mood... This is a different Delhi that Dalrymple's circa 1989 but a lot of his displacement and change and hang-ups of the city are the same. Although I jokingly said to Nitin that modern Delhi, circa post-liberalization 2007 in the cliched New India, was more like a City of Gin...















A Sufi mystic from City of Djinns















Tom Alter and Zohra Segal in City of Djinns

Me and Mamu

Here we are...

We're back...

So we launched and that's the only way I can explain our lapse in blogging... Pics to come, Nit promises...

So how odd is it to say I'm lonely in a country of 1 billion? But it's true. Life here seems defined by work and family -- and while I've always valued both, a whole lot more has always kept me busy. Lately on the nights Nitty is out deejaying or drumming or art-show hopping, I find myself home around 9 pm and wondering if I should call someone. But who? New Delhi probably has hundreds of women named Sumathi Reddy but I haven't found my own personal version yet... I think we're definitely still trying to find our groove on that front...

Also Naya has grown into a funny thing and true to her Chinese zodiac of a monkey. She knows the whole alphabet and her numbers (although every now and then she sees 8 and yells out "B!!") and dances and sings and is adept at Hindi and a concoction of English, Assamese and Hindi. Example: Mujhe alopmaan pani chahi ye please. When you ask her who her best friends are, she says very dutifully -- Mitra-Mommy, Nitin-Papa and Felicia. We think she is pure genius and funnier than Jerry Seinfeld and Russell Peters combined.

In addition to asking us to read a whole pile of books -- all the time -- she also has gotten into made-up stories. Tonight she asked for one about "Ata Toko." I felt bad because I think her memory of them -- her maternal grandparents -- is definitely fading; she looks through her newborn album and sees them and also remembers certain gifts they gave but her connections seem more material and rooted in photos than I intended. Through migration, I've inflicted the same pain of separation on her that Nitin and I went through. Inheritance of loss, indeed.

The ORIGINAL INDIAN

livemint.com

The original Indian
By S. Mitra Kalita
mitra.k@livemint.com
The first time we saw her, the hulky curvaceous creature before us, my husband and I looked at each other and grinned.
“Perfect,” I declared.
“Yeah,” Nitin said, quietly, surveying and smoothing her gently with his hand.
We rarely agree, this husband and I, on issues of style or substance. And so for the first time in a long while, probably since our wedding day or the birth of our daughter, we shared a joy and euphoria that only the other understood.
She was a purple Ambassador. And she was about to be all ours.
We stood in a garage in Okhla, an industrial section in Southeast Delhi filled with wandering workers and children, reams of cloth, heaps of garbage and piles of widgets.
Her journey had been a long and complicated one, spanning two months from a factory outside Kolkata to a dealership on Ring Road, to this penultimate step for painting and servicing. And then she’d come home.
Our homecoming, ironically, seemed simpler. We flew non-stop Continental in November, lured by a booming economy and the promise of growth and opportunity. Nitin and I were both born in the US but of Indian origin—he Punjabi, me Assamese—and visited quite often, from hot, sticky summers as children to the new air-conditioned India of late. Through the various incarnations we encountered, the Ambassador remained a constant, as synonymous with India as grandmothers and mustard oil, Thums Up and sandalwood soap. She became almost a caricature of how frozen in time India remained, with cars that looked straight out of 1950s America and the black-and-white sitcoms we watched.
It wasn’t far from the truth. The first Ambassador, as we know it, rolled off the assembly line in 1957, modelled after the UK’s Morris Minor. Under versions as Mark 1, then 2, 3 and 4, it became the first car made in India—and, for much of the nation’s young and socialist history, the only one. Indians, with their propensity to pet name and abbreviate everything, began calling it the “Amby”.
Fifty years later, the Ambassadors manufactured today in the town of Uttarpara on the banks of the Hooghly River, look largely the same as early models. And unlike the car culture that has emerged in the new India, the one that shines and shows and grows in percentages, families kept their Ambassadors for generations, sending it to fetch a new bride, bring home a baby from the hospital, shuttle relatives to the funeral pyre. Loaded down with five, seven, 12 people, Ambassadors have miraculously navigated India’s roads or, more often, the patches of track generously given that name.
“Say the family is travelling by Maruti and they see some friends standing in the rain or hot sun, we would never be able to offer them a lift,” says Dinesh Srivastava, 55, a scientist from Kolkata, explaining his purchase of a second-hand Ambassador Mark 3 in the late 1980s. “With Ambassadors, two families travelled to Chandipore, Murshidabad, Digha, all laughing and sharing food and blankets.”
His version of life in an Ambassador is a bit of what we recall, too. Nitin’s grandfather, the film journalist V.P. Puri, had a grey Ambassador for years. Nobody in my family ever owned one, but I’ve spent countless hours in rentals. Bumpy trips to my father’s birthplace, stops at dhabas along the Brahmaputra river for fried fish and channas on the way to grandparents’, teasing sessions with cousins piled amid the mekhla-chadors, the Assamese two-piece saris, of our mothers as they gossiped over the latest in-law antics.
It all flooded back as R.K. Vohra, a retired colonel of the Indian Army, told me recently, banging his 1968 Ambassador: “There’s a lot of experience in this car. Those were the good old days.” He bought the car (his first car and one that toured with him on duty in Kashmir, Assam and West Bengal) second-hand, as it turned 10 in 1978, for the grand sum of Rs10,000.
He took us for a spin. The gear sits on the side of the steering wheel, the horn a small button on the strikingly simple dashboard, and, even though nearly 40 years old, the maroon Amby runs amazingly well. For decades, it was the only car the family owned—until his 22-year-old daughter insisted on getting a Maruti 800 recently. “You know children these days. She wants a better car,” Vohra says with an air of sadness and pride.
He fits the mould of that certain kind of Indian who still drives an Ambassador, the one who tells you to drop by without calling, who stands at attention for photos and doesn’t smile, who hasn’t rushed to redevelop his two-storey house in posh Defence Colony. Like Srivastava, he seems the kind of man who’d take pity on you in the rain.
Hindustan Motors, the company that makes the Ambassador, says it sells about 13,000 of the cars each year, mostly in the East and South—and that’s stayed at a steady clip for the last five years. Peak sales hit about 30,000 in the 1970s and then plunged through the 1980s as former prime minister Indira Gandhi’s son, Sanjay, inked a deal with Japanese automaker Suzuki to create what would become India’s most popular car, the Maruti. The two made-in-India vehicles formed an odd pair—the slow, behemoth bully and the zippier kid sister traversing roads growing ever crowded and angling off into flyovers.
Spurred by liberalization and reforms in 1991, the Indian market saw a flood of vehicles, symbolizing new-found choice and economic freedom. Yet, it wasn’t just the Ambassador that middle-class Indian consumers shunned, but the very means of transport that had for so long defined India.
“People don’t feel like going in rickshaws these days. They think we’re too slow,” a rickshawalla, with bulging calf muscles and calloused feet, told me in 2001 for a story I wrote on Chennai’s dwindling cycle rickshaws and their turf wars in India’s new Motor City.
Upon moving here, we never intended to buy an Ambassador. By late December, we had found a flat, a maid, a playschool and living-room furniture. Wheels seemed desperately in order.
I have never been much of a car person at all, although a journalist’s life commands you live out of one. My first car, like in the commercials, was my father’s Oldsmobile. Then I graduated to buying my brother’s Honda Accord, followed by a series of Nissans. I stopped caring about the make of my car as long as I got where I needed to go. Nitin, meanwhile, preferred the cool, yet practical, Subaru station wagon.
After our daughter Naya’s birth, we set some ground rules: No Coke, no television, no Toyota Camrys or Honda Accords like all the other Indians in America, no sports utility vehicles or minivans like all the other Americans in America.
Initially in India, the idea of paying so much for so little car infuriated me. Responding to an Internet posting, we went to check out a second-hand 2003 Maruti Alto. We even took cash with us, but a pair of friends—Ravi, the auto writer at Mint, and Rajdeep, a car-loving copy editor—took it for a long spin and urged us to walk away.
They came back to our place that night and helped us devise the wish list. Cheap: Moving to India had left us in debt and sticker shock. Spacious: Nitin is 6-3, I’m 5-6 and Naya has a carseat. Trunk room: We have more guests than some hotels. Coolness wasn’t even a factor.
The next day, Nitin went to a Maruti dealer and came back with a price and model list. We decided on the Esteem and almost bought one. But we kept putting it off. Something just didn’t feel right.
Our car commiserating buddies, Ravi and Rajdeep, ended up in our living room again. Between sips of Old Monk and strains of composer Nitin Sawney, I suggested it almost as a joke: “What about an Ambassador?”
Ravi laughed, but Rajdeep brightened.“An Amby?!” he exclaimed, animated and true to his Bengali roots. “It’s been staring us in the face. Has everything you want. I just didn’t think you would want such a car.”
Until that point, the only “Amby” I knew was Preity Zinta’s hyper portrayal of a radio journalist in Salaam Namaste. Since it ranks among my favourite flicks, I was sold. After asking a few questions on fuel efficiency and safety, so was Nitin.
But to be among the 15% of private citizens who choose to buy an Ambassador, we discovered, is to really, really want the car. The dealer’s first words to us: “We don’t sell too many of these to people like you.”
We brushed that aside and put in an order for the Ambassador Grand, with the petrol and power-steering option, for around Rs5 lakh. We giddily said we’d select the colour later.
Then our car loan was rejected for not having lived in India long enough. Cobbling together the money took another month.
And the order was placed again, via calls and faxes between Delhi and Uttarpara. We contended with people not answering the phone—even during business hours. West Bengal bandhs. Confusion over diesel or petrol. Another month gone.
We hung on, wondering if a New Economy Maruti would have been just fine or if we should have begged our parents for more money to buy a Honda or a Toyota.
Although some friends laughed at our decision during this waiting period, we also discovered a small community of fellow Amby aficionados. Expatriate journalists, it seems, have a particular fondness. The diplomat set in Delhi, too, parks pink, lime or red Ambassadors inside embassy compounds.
So much for our efforts at authenticity, we thought. This choice of car seemed straight off the Not Really Indian (NRI) obstacle course.
Then we learned of Real Indians—besides the uncle-types, there were artists, anti-industrialists, the vertically and horizontally generous—who covet the car for its retro-chic and comfort. Sitarist Ravi Shankar had one until two years ago. Entente Global Info Solutions managing director Randip Singh just bought a white Grand last year. The head of the business processing and software outlet says, “aesthetically, it appeals”.
Fashion designer Manish Arora has a black Ambassador—the first and only car he’s ever owned. For a recent fashion show, he handed out toy Ambassador cars and has been tasked to decorate the inside and outside of an Ambassador for an upcoming segment on the Discovery Channel. “Very Indian and kitsch,” he says, is the plan.
“It’s the only car that is pure Indian and, at the same time, it’s one of the most comfortable cars you can be in,” he said. “It’s rather unfortunate that a lot of Indians don’t appreciate it.”
As we waited, I began spotting every single one on the road, moving it off my mind’s screensaver landscape of India: cows, beggars, stray dogs, the Ambassador. I wondered what else I had been missing and if perhaps the window of our future car might be, rather should be, metaphoric.
When the Ambassador finally arrived in Delhi, it was a Saturday. Since the whole world cautioned us against buying metal on such an inauspicious day, we held back the final payment. Nitin—with Rajdeep in tow, of course—went for a test run. The car was still white, since we had decided to custom-paint in Delhi to save time, but otherwise they said it was just right.
I had wanted a cherry red Ambassador and Nitin, as always, disagreed, citing his artistic expertise. He wanted blue. We compromised on purple and braced ourselves for what that would look like.
When we met her in Okhla, our Amby stripped naked of its seats, engine and windows, we couldn’t take our eyes off the metallic sheen that exuded elegance—and eggplant.
“Do you think anyone in Delhi has this colour?” I asked the manager. He paused. “Madame, I don’t think anyone in India has this colour.”
The next day, a truly auspicious Tuesday, the Amby came home at last. Nitin picked me up from work in it, Naya already asleep on the spacious backseat as if she were on a couch. I surveyed the space on the dashboard for an incense stick, the reading light, the tray table with drink holder, and the multiple mobile phone chargers.
The first car made in India had come a long way, kind of like India. We drove past hundreds of Marutis and Hondas, two McDonald’s and one Pizza Hut, to a mandir to bless the car. After all, some traditions just shouldn’t die.

Chandni Chowk Unlimited part 1

Chandni Chowk is one of the oldest markets in Delhi (about 350 years old), originally a venue meant to be enjoyed by Mughal royalty. It is now a more egalitarian domain, accommodating vendors of all sorts but known especially for its silver market, textiles and electronics. My trips here are always an adventure due to the density of the crowd and constant motion of people on foot and on cycle rickshaws through the narrow lanes. One of my favorite lanes is the one full of accessories for weddings and and other ceremonies. The following 3 images were taken in this lane. Chandni is not as old school as it used to be - but more on this later...