Mumbai traffic

My usual description of India to those who ask me about it is that even a UFO landing next to me in the streets there wouldn't come as much of a surprise!

For instance, when driving in India you should always be on the lookout for an elephant around the corner or a Boeing 737 illegally parked!

"The decommissioned aircraft was being driven through the city at the weekend when the driver got lost and then abandoned the plane." !!

Speaking of which..

Speaking of a violent civilisation.. my aunt Anita Dube's latest exhibition at the gallery Almine Rech, 19 rue de Saintonge, Paris 3, comes right on time for this blog and to give another view of our world - both abstract and yet quite explicit.

The show opened today and will be held until May 15th.

The dual life of Mr Panday

Is this a portrait of my dad.. or one of modern India, caught between contradictory westernization and traditions... ?

Lucknow, India

Black and white

Darjeeling - India

And off he went..

With a last 5 restful and lovely days in Mumbai, i ended my trip in Asia..

As emotionally attached i am to India, i don't know if i could ever live there.. Every trip to India leaves me with an aftertaste of discouragement that nothing will ever change there.. simply because people don't care!
Obviously i don't mean to change the culture, or live more "western style".. certainly not.. but just make it work.. so that kids wouldn't have to sleep on the ground of filthy streets waiting to get malaria..
But as i already mentionned, these issues are so culture related , that the people are just not willing to make it change..

India is a 5000 years old lady, lost in times, who vainly tries to hide her wrikles underneath expensive imported cosmetics... and she can be as wise as she can be dead stubborn!

Amazing things started to happen as i landed in Sydney yesterday.. phenomenons unheard of for months now... the toilet would flush in public restrooms and i wouldn't be scared to touch the seat.. and they'd be soap at the sink!!... even cops wouldn't be halfway as stubborn and accept to handcheck my film.. with a smile!

I know the excuse by heart.. but a dirty environment isn't the result of poverty or overpopulation.. it's the result of mentalities for which the act of cleaning is considered dirty or impure.. but enough of this it gets on my nerves!

In bombay you can...

..eat south indian food on banana leaves..

..salute monkeys in the bolivary national park..

..stay in beautiful colonial houses in the forest of Matheran....buy telephones and... all kinds of things!!

So now i'm back into true civilisation!.. where overweight consumers buy overpriced products!
("damnit this guy is just never happy", i hear you think!)

I landed in Cairns last night.. some people learn from their mistakes and some don't, so i arrived again without a reservation and the first night cost me twice what i expected (which expected price was already 10 times higher than the asian prices i got used to!).. ouch!

Land travel gradually transports you from one culture to anther and gives you some time to think and to adapt.. But flying straight from India to this Coca Cola beach! I feel like i landed in the middle of a commercial for an MTV sponsored summer camp! A land of surfers and blond bimboes where everyone above 25 must have been euthanized!
I must say i feel a bit out of place!.. but i'll find my way!

Amazing Ajanta and Ellora caves!

Travelling south towards Mumbai, i stopped to visit two more of India's most famous sites: the unbelievable cave-temples of Ajanta and Ellora...

2000 years back they dug and carved these humongous caves straight inside the cliffs, thus creating huge monolithic monuments.. it is as hard to explain as it is to comprehend but it's truly mind blowing!

Can you imagine this? 2000 years back!.. armed with nothing but chisels and hammers.. that is with exactly the same kind of equipment Indians are still using today!!

Ajanta caves...

Ellora caves...

I'll finish with these two shots of the "small Taj" of Aurangabad, or Bibi Ki Makbar..

In year something and such, king Aurangzeb decided to move his capital city from up north to a city he called after his name, near mumbai.. and when he meant moving the capital, he really meant moving the whole city!.. so as he couldn't take the Taj with him, he made a copy!... A few years back he changed his mind and moved everything back up north!

(at least that's the story as i got it.. !)

It looks pretty much alike on the photos, but don't get fooled.. there's no comparison to the real thing!

Nudge nudge wink wink say no more!

This visit of Khajurao also reminded me of some funny conversations i had in the trains..

As a single foreigner you are addressed by men painfully trying to hide their excitment and eager to know about sexual practices in "the west"..
Is sex "free" or "open"? is usually how they formulate their question.. (what do you answer to that?!!)

If anything, Khajurao suggests that pre-muslim India was a bit less sex frustrated than what it has become today! And we're lucky enough that they didn't discover this long forgotten site before the English did, or it would certainly have been destroyed like the rest..

Anyway, it's a good opportunity to encourage you to watch again this hilarious skid by the Monthy Pythons:


Man: Evening, squire!
Man with hat: Good evening.
Man: Is your...is your wife a goer? Eh? Know what I mean? Know what I mean? Nudge, nudge! Know what I mean? Say no more!
Man with hat: I-I...I beg your pardon?
Man: Your...your wife. Does she go,eh? Does she go, eh? Eh?
Man with hat: Huh, sometimes she has to go, yes.
Man: I bet she does! I bet she does! Say no more! Say no more! Know what I mean? Nudge, nudge!
Man with hat: I'm afraid I don't quite follow you...
Man: Oh, "follow me, follow me"? That's good, that's very good! A nod's as good as a wink to a blind bat!
Man with hat: Are...are you selling something?
Man: "Selling, selling"...very good indeed! You're wicked, you are, eh? Wicked, eh? Ho-ho-ho! Whoa! Wicked! Say no more!
Man with hat: Huhuh?
Man: Whoa! So your wife's interested in...in sport? Eh?
Man with hat: Ah, she likes sport, yes.
Man: I bet she does! I bet she does!
Man with hat: As a matter of fact, she's very fond of cricket.
Man: She likes "games", eh? Likes "games"? Knew she would, she's been around a bit, eh? She's been around?
Man with hat: Well, she has travelled, yes. She's from Glendale.
Man: Say no more! Glendale, squire? Say no more! Say no more! Say no more! Say no more!
Man with hat: Well...
Man: Whoa! Is your...is your Glendale wife interested in...photography? Eh? Eh? Eh?
Man with hat: Photography?
Man: "Photographs, eh?" he asked him knowingly!
Man with hat: Photography?
Man: Snap, snap, grin, grin, wing, wing, nudge, nudge, say no more!
Man with hat: Sort of...holiday snaps, eh?
Man: They could be, they could be taken on holiday, you know! Swimming costumes, candid...you know, "candid" photography?
Man with hat: No, we don't have a camera!
Man: Ah. Still, whoahaah! Eh? Whoahaah! Eh? Whoahaah! Eh? Whoahaahaha! Huhuh!
Man with hat: Look, are you insinuating something?
Man: Oh, no, no, no... yes!
Man with hat: Well?
Man: Why, I mean, you're a man of the world, squire, you know...you're...you've been around, you know?
Man with hat: What do you mean?
Man: Well, I mean, like, you've...you know, you...like...you've done it, you know...you've slept...with a lady?
Man with hat: Yes.
Man: What's it like?

Khajurao..

So the vacation is over! (and again i'm way late on this blog!)
After a month of chillin with mom and dad, i finally took off.. for the second half of the trip, through the southern hemisphere!

After two more quick family stops, I started off with Khajurao, a 9th century archeological site famous for its temples ornamented with erotic sculptures!
And i have to say the site is fabulous! At least the better preserved western side..

More than the erotic scupltures themselves -unmistakably present!- and even more than the sculptures of deities, the inner and outer walls of these temples are covered with women! Beautiful women reprensented in their everyday moves and activities with infinite charm and sensuality.. (although in these early times women would spend the better part of their everyday moves in contortions to scratch their back or remove the thorns they had planted in their delicate feet!)

If you ask me -who said "we don't!"??- i think this genuinely indian celebration of love and the grace of women should be the symbol of India accross the world, much more than the Taj Mahal, symbol of the Moghol invaders!

OK.. I can't advertise erotic sculptures and not show you any! so here it goes..

They even pushed the concept pretty far!

Vishnu's incarnation as a boar.. symbolizing that man is a sex craving pig! (although that may not be the real meaning!)

Khajurao cuties...

This morning..

.. i found a dead bat on the bed next to mine! Brrrrr...

There's a Dengue epidemic these days..

I wonder where it may come from...




(although honestly, i'm not sure there's that much more of an epidemic that before, but since the prime minister family got infected it suddenly came all over the news!)

Our family trip down south..

'Been having some problems for uploading pics lately, so i got late telling you about my little family excursion, with my mom and dad..

To escape the Lucknow heat for a few days we decided to head down south, to Bangalore.. "the India silicon valley" they call it.. honestly, had it been for that first cow i ever saw stopping at a red light, it wouldn't have felt so much different than Lucknow!..
except for the temperature of course.. that was awesome!..

So from Bangalore we went to spend two days up in Hampi; a beautiful archeological site about 300km north of Bangalore (of which you could already admire the pricing sign in an earlier post!)
Back to Bangalore we headed west to see two old temples, Halebeed and Belur, and then south to Mysore, just in time to take a good "crowd bath" (i'm not sure this expression translates!) for the huge Dussera festival..
Mysore itself (in spite of the crowd) felt like a more pleasant town.. bit more quiet and green..

So here it is in a few pics..

First i'll take the opportunity to introduce my parents..

..and me desperatly trying to find the right angle in all these steps!

the site of Hampi..

a couple of shots caught as we were driving..

cute Hampi kids..
i found the southern cows much different than in the north.. what do you think?!

the only temple still in use in Hampi..

and my mom receiving a blessing from the temple's elephant!

Now i'll have to quote my dad on this one, for i'll always admire his sense of observation and analysis, and if anything, i whish i could inherit that much from him!
"See my son, this is a true symbol of India: individual excellence subordinated to cheap and brainless commanders!.. the whole compound wall is made of crooked stone blocks exactly adjusted to one another without any cement.. imagine how difficult it was to adjust perfectly all these inclined and curved planes one to another.. instead of making square blocks like anyone else.. all this just to use less stones??"

Talking of extremely fine work, the old and never finished temple of Halebeed is unanimously the one we found the most impressive.. every inch of it is beautifully sculpted..

We reached Belur a bit late, so you'll only get these two stupid night shots.. our embassador in front of the main gate..

and a blurred view of the site..

After that we reached Mysore and got lucky enough to find tickets for the Dussera procession..

these last two definitely belong to the "why-the-hell-did-i-shoot-this-digital" series!

Last but not least (although i agree, this expression has had its time!), there was this funny "vehicle festival in Bangalore.. people (and mostly those who make a living out of their vehicle) do prayers for their vehicle and decorate it with banana tree leaves and flowers.. so the whole city ressembles a funny motorized jungle!