From Galicia to Tamil Nadu...

Cows on the street are cliche in India, but it is still magic to encounter them in special conditions. Last friday, I was riding back home by nite as I saw five dark profiles of buffalos roaming on the street. No reaction as the bike passed by. They were just standing as if they had always been there. How they came here? Were would they disappear at dawn?

That's the picture of my production team that organized a wonderfull so called "Team pic-nic" during the july 14th week-end. I am yet to collect all the names of the magic places we have been to.
With the Rs. 1000 given by the company, we spent 3 great days at the border of Kerala and Tamil-Nadu, starting from Erode (reached by night train), moving to Perambikulam natural park where we saw elephants moving fallen tree trunks from the road, then to a dam where so many movies where supposed to have been shot, then some waterfalls to refresh ("tigerfalls") and at last a kind of small Niagara falls, whose name I forgot. As you can see the guideline of that trip was water : lakes, falls, dams. Indians are crazy about it. Look at their eyes when they hear about a waterfall!!! From on stop to the next the week-end was rich in movies (of course the buses were fully equiped with DVD and powerfull sound system...) : we started with "Gilli" (starring Vijay, playing a champion of Kabodi, a violent indian game where each player has to cross a line defended by 5 opponents. Songs excellent!), then "Sandakozhi" (also a good guy fighting against bad guys in longi and big knives), "Gemini" (starring Vikram with rickshaw falling on the side everytime he sees his lover), "Captain Prabakaran" (starring Vijaykant, fighting a sandal wood smuggler and the corrupted system behind him, shot close to the last falls we visited). I simply doubled my tamil movies culture in within 3 days...

By the way last thursday I "met" Shreya. Not long, one minute of talk between two doors in the lobby of a big hotel of the city. Yes, Shreya, the main female role of last Rajinikant's hit movie (see last post). Only a few seconds to get the confirmation "Are you ...?", express my admiration for her last movie performance and go. So happy I was able to recognize her whereas an indian friend was denying she was it. But was it worth starting this spot conversation, meant to be without continuation, between so distant worlds? I am still wondering...

Le nom du film est "Sivaji"...

Premiere scene/clip : Decors de lacs et montagnes. Soleil eblouissant, couleurs vives. Scene de danses (en groupe) traditionelles, rustiques. Des danseurs ventripotents ont successivement une tete de lion, puis une jarre, puis la tete de Sivaji-Rajini peinte sur le ventre qui oscille en accompagnant les mouvements de danse.

Deuxieme scene : La grande salle ovale d'un palais il y a quelques siecles. Plusieurs etages de blacons a colonnades autour d'un bassin borde de portiques. Musique lente, sensuelle, elaboree. Tons emeraude et or. Sivaji habille en roi, longs cheveux. Shreya, l'aimee, en danseuse richement paree, maquillee a la perfection et a la grace inegalable.

Troisieme scene : Magasin de musique dans lequel travaille Shreya. Un groupe de bad-boys provoquent Sivaji et son ami venus pour courtiser la belle. Il s'en suit une rixe dans laquelle tous les instruments de musique du magasin y passent. Guitares, contrebasses, timballes, un carnage musical. Sivaji gave le chef de bande de grelots. Celui ci se convertit instantanement en instrument de musique vivant.

Quatrieme scene : Il etait temps de quitter le sol indien, une certaine lassitude commencait a s'installer. Direction l'Espagne. Bilbao, musee Guggenheim en alternance avec la toute nouvelle cite des sciences de Valencia. Structures de verre et d'acier. Ambiance hip-hop - western fashion. Sivaji alterne les perruques blondes, chatain, decollorees et rajeuni d'une vingtaine d'annees. Shreya aussi en blonde, coupe carre, couleurs fluo. Armee de danseurs europeens, africains, indiens. La modernite, le style pur.

Cinquieme scene : Un reve. La nuit. Verriere dans la brume. Population d'anges blancs ailes. Le couple vedette s'y ballade, echangeant leurs etats d'ame en esquissant des mouvements de danse. Un peu d'eau de rose...

Sixieme scene : Decors de studio carton pate en plein air, style venitien. Dans une ambience de bal masque "pop", Sivaji dejoue l'une apres l'autre des tentatives d'assassinat sur sa personne formentees par des tueurs masques. Beaucoup d'effets speciaux a la "Matrix".

L'histoire du film est banale et importe peu. Rajinikant : Voila un nom magique qui rend folle la moitie Sud de l'Inde.

Faites un tour sur www.sivajitheboss.com...

At last I found today the encence sticks that smell very similar to some nice flavour I noticed already in some hindu temples. It is called "flora bathi" and I received it from a company bus driver who was burning some in his driver cabin as I was passing by. The end of a long quest...

Two days before, I had been delivered a wooden box, covered with jute cloth, coming from Darjeeling. The only suspens was to know which of the tibetan items it was containing. I was the lucky one, only 2 parts were inside : book covers (top and bottom plate) finely ciseled in brass and silver showing some buddhist saints, together with animals and flower patterns. Un coup de coeur. My sister's parts will follow...Agnes and me had been there a week before to get a taste of places in India that would provide a strong contrast to the Chennai standards. Some unplanned short stop in Calcutta had made us familiar with the famous metallic structure of the Howrah bridge, the dynamic driving style of the taxi drivers and the bloody rituals of the Kali temple, where the flowers used for offers are exclusively (red) hibiscus and where many black goats were sacrifized every day to the feared three-eyed goddess. To reach Darjeeling, you land in Bagdogra airport, 80km in the south and you take a taxi from there where they are not on strike. It was a strike day. We heared days later that this strike may have been linked with the autonomy movement of the Gurkas who want to creat a Gurkaland distinct from West-Bengal where they belong to nowadays. Many adverse(-turned-nice) events followed, in spite of which the memory print of the city was charming and absolutely relaxing :
1. heavy cloudy, so Kanchenjunga was not visible (we woke up once at 3.30am to go to the view point but gave up as we heared the continuous rainfall from the comfortable bed...)
2. the Happy Valley Tea Estate was closed "for maintenance" that day. Inspite of that a guide succeeded in making us visit it from outside and a 66-year old lady made us enjoy the uniqueness of the "Super Fine Tippy Golden Flowry Orange Pekoe 1" made in that estate. 5 seconds enough and the leaves can be re-used 3 times! Her second passion after tea business was football. She (born in Nepal, married in Darjeeling) was just about to retire from her team where she was goalkeeper and she was fan of...Diego Maradona. Later we heared in a shop that the factory had been closed 2 years before...but what about the people in the tea garden all around. A ghost factory?
3. it was a thursday, so the main market, Chowk Bazar was closed, what didn't prevented many small shops to be open and a massive and heterogeneous crowd to walking on the streets, including many jung students in various uniforms. Massively Gurka type, so "sun-burned chinese", with endless variations, a wonderfull show. Food was simple but good : "momos", the local version of the ravioli-pirogi-korean pirogi, and "tukpa", a delicious noodle-beans soup.
Hardly time to conduct an last barganing, and it was already to late to catch the Delhi flight. Luckily an unexpected short-cut through the tea plantations saved us, until the driver, considering that the toughest part was behind, stopped the car in front of a small hotel and looked at me : "lunch time, sir!". No need to say anything about my reaction...

Delhi. The only of the 4 major indian metropoles (including Bombay, Calcutta and Madras) having more than 500 years history (and not beeing a harbour...). The histrorical city of the Kauravas in the Mahabharata. Tuglukabad, that hosted Ibn-Battuta during years after his long trip through the islamic world. Sher Shah and Humayun's magic Purana Qila (=fort). Shajahanabad and his Lal Qila (Red Fort) and Jama Masjid (main mosk). Later Lutyen's visionary New Delhi : Arriving from the airport, you drive through large avenues (am I in India) leading to minister offices, minister residences, ambassador offices, ambassador residences. Designed early 20th and looks very spacious in the 21st century. And from times to times, the shape of an elegant mughal ruin showing up. I mentionned already Lodi garden, probably one of the best places to have a rest in a well maintained garden with majestuous mausoleums facing each other and incredible variety of birds. Purana Qila, build by an afghan invader but further modified by Humayun (2nd great mughal) is also place you would like to stay forever. Massive and elegant gates with huge bee nests hanging, octogonal building transformed by Humayun in a bibliotheque (in these stairs he slipped and died...) and a modest in size but amazing mosk, the most beautifull seen so far in India. This fort was at a walking distance from our hotel in Sunder Nagar so we dropped here first on the second day, thinking it would be a question of minutes to check out what was there. The whole day agenda suffered from that first visit...This blog should not become a touristic guide, so I stop about Delhi, but it is more than the admistrative capitable, as frequently described. Go there a experience yourself.

BREAKING NEWS from here :

*Many protest here after Aishwarya Ray (you can't ignore her) and Abishek Bachchan enjoyed during their wedding a 45min exclusive worshipping cession in the richest temple in India, Tirupati. Scandale! The temple management had to present excuses to the public on the next day. The common man after queueing many hours is allowed to see the God during only a few seconds!!!

*Amithab Bachchan, Bollywood number one superstar (and Abishek's father), has to give evidences that he is a farmer (sic!) if he wants to keep some agricultural land he acquired in Puna area.

*After the poor performance of the Indian team during the world cup in West Indies, some districs even officially banned cricket!

*Gurukant at the end of the movie called "Guru", speaking to a massive indian crowd : "Shall we (Indians) tell the world that we are coming?"

*Huging is a dangerous game in India and Pakistan : the well known Gere and Shilpa event, and a Pakistan female minister who was so happy to make her first parachute jump in the french sky, that she hugged her instructor after landing. A fatwa was waiting for her in her home country and she had to quit since.

Good bye Rostro!

Read an enjoyed recently :
Naom Chomski : Propaganda and the public mind
William Dalrymple : The City of Djinns (best inspiration guide for Delhi)

Current :
Mc Cullough : "1776, America and Britain at war". Starting Boston's siege by Washington, don't know the end yet...

And you?

I am no more used to see time going so quickly. Slow down! Will the landing be soft next year?

Noel was a good time with lots of chats with friends in unexpected places : St Jacques place in Metz, an old Prieure in the Champagne countryside, Quai Branly museum freshly inaugurated in Paris, Brie-Comte-Robert (ils ont ose! meme qu'ils etaient a quatre la ou j'en attendais que trois!), la "Marine" along the St Martin canal in the middle of many tents of homeless people,etc.

Back to India, I had to get quicky ready for the Sports Day. Saint-Gobain had hired the Jawaharlal Nehru cricket stadium and some event organisation company to make it a big family party for all Saint-Gobain Chennai members. I won the 1500m, but almost got my nose cut by a tamil wizzard who chose ME as victim among hundreds, had me sit on a chair on the stage, put a giant horseradish in my mouth and went in my back to prepare something dreadful...I saw him only at the last second coming back with a big and sharp knife, let it be, but also with a scarf on the eyes. My fate would decide what was to happen. Smile, you are surrounded by collegues, members of you department, etc. The blinded man stepped forward, touched my nose (as a you teach a robot in order to get some reference in space, that made me rather feel confident about the next seconds), and all at once started to cut slices a high speed. Good that the knife stopped a few millimeters from my poor (but dear) nose. Good show!

Now A pearl. To understand more the current atmosphere in India, have a check at this unique speech delivered on Republic Day (jan 26th) by Abdul Kalam, president of India. I was lucky to catch it on the radio on my my back home. I was kind of fascinated. Impossible to switch to another chanel.

http://presidentofindia.nic.in/scripts/republicdetail.jsp?id=5

(to appreciate more, you have to know that A. Kalam is a great indian areospace scientist, he contributed a lot in developping indian rocket programs (including nuclear ones). His fascination is still alive! And what about the the formula : "may God bless you" sayed by a muslim to an 80% hindu nation? I find it beautiful.

On the next day, Pondichery (renamed Puduchery now) was organizing a small music festival for the Rep' Day, starring...Merzhin, a band from french Britany (by the way check "Britany" on Wilkipedia, you will learn that 72% of the Breton live in the administrative region of Bretagne, the 28% balance living in Loire-Atlantique including Nantes - the Bretons will appreciate...). Merzhin performed well, with a great "bombarde" player (magic sound). During one hour I felt like in a mini interceltic festival, under the tropics..., so good! I had gone to Pondy by motorbike, for the first time, in fact the real purpose why I bought it 2 years back.
Early wake up, streets full of activities, sounds from temples, fragrances and smells, horizontal sunbeams, good time to catch genuine indian life. Toll-gate of ECR (East Coast Road) at 8.15am, free for two-wheeler -yes!-, then straight road on a dune, between the ocean and coconut trees. Surprisingly coulds, but also well of light making gold flakes on the water surface. The day is already won. Non-stop along Mahabalipuram, then stop along the road to sip a tender coconut, and I enter already the State of Pondichery.

I am not the one who threw the idea to bring the bullet back by road through Pakistan, Iran, Turkey,... (thanks for the idea Max) but am the one who dreams of it now. Who wants to join?

Et puis...some new from Paris made me rush for a visa. I was illegal immigrant since jan 17th since the last 3 months extention had expired and Chennai Immigration Office refused to extend it further at the local level. Not that illegal. If you applied (I did it 6 months earlier) your application duplicate has the value of a visa. As long as nobody sayed you "no", you can stay. Stay but not go. So I had to rush to the MHA (Ministry of Home Affairs) in Delhi.
Wednesday jan 31st. Man Singh road. Jaisalmer House, MHA. 9.40am. Take a token, number 86, and wait for a pass in a room full of fellow foreigners. I look around and breathe, enjoy the moment : So beautifull and diverse faces, old mountain guys with turbans and white beard, probably from different regions of Pakistan, maybe Afghanistan, tibetan monks, burmese refugees, that's the India that makes me dream (have you read "Kim" from Kipling?), that I can't find in the uniform South. The next scene is out of a Kafka book, a low efficient, corrupt, shameless and undisciplined administration. Endless piles of applications, unsorted, old wooden windows, open, papers flying moved by the permanent draft, and more that I prefer not to write! No wonder that my application has not come back after 6 months. It has simply got lost in this ocean of paper. It is terrible, but I am happy to witness that!
Luckyly the newly filled application will take some time to be processed. So I go with Manish, my facilitator, a local Saint-Gobain sales manager, to the Lodi gardens, where we have lunch under a big tree. After that, we go for a digestive walk through the gardens paved with old great mausoleums still showing some turquoise tiles, Samarcande is not faraway,... but Chennai, yes.
...
Then 3 days in Paris and beautifull ethiopian songs.
...
On the way back to Chennai, I appreciate the brand new Boeing 777 from Emirates, with an unlimited bibliotheque of movies, songs,... and operas. All Mozart is there with Popp, Terfel, Solti, Te Kanawa, Flemming. "Le Noce..." or "Don Giovanni" ? Impossible choice.
...
To Ben
...

Il est temps de faire le point sur quelques livres recommendables pris dans la litterature indienne contemporaine. En vrac, six auteurs : Sen, Ghosh, Mistry, Roy, Naipaul et Seth (Rushdee pas encore aborde...).

Ma connaissance en est variee et progresse chaque jour, puisque j'ai lu 3 d'entre eux, et 3 sont en chantier, dont l'un Naipaul stagne depuis...2 ans ("India, a million mutinies now") et un autre, Rohinton Mistry, est la revelation de cette fin d'annee. A peine lu la moitie de "L'equilibre du monde" ("A fine balance") et c'est deja une lecture qui restera. Le troisieme en cours, c'est Amartya Sen (Nobel d'economie), dense comme une polenta mais regorgeant de savoir et etablissant des passerelles, tentant des syntheses encore inedites (comme : l'idee de democratie est elle foncierement nouvelle en Inde ou bien beaucoup d'elements etaient ils deja la avant 1947?). Lisez "The argumentative Indian".

Le "Palais des miroirs" ("Glass palace") de Amitav Ghosh, une fresque etalee sur trois generations de la vie d'une famille indo-birmane, a une valeur non seulement litteraire sed etiam sociale, historique, economique, scientifique. L'anthrax des elephants, l'economie du teck et les gisements naturels de petrole en Birmanie, les plantations de caoutchouc en Malaisie, la fin du dernier roi birman sur la cote ouest de l'Inde (Ratnagiri), l'utilisation de la main d'oeuvre indienne par les britaniques tout autour de l'ocean indien, la creation de l'armee nationale indienne au sein des troupes coloniales britaniques en Malaisie et son ralliement aux troupes japonaises en 1945,...que du bonheur!

Rohinton Mistry. Pas de doute, a lire. Le roman cle d'un auteur cle, pas besoin de beaucoup plus d'indications. Pas encore fini mais deja de nombreux passages inoubliables dans cet equilibre permanent entre espoir et desespoir qui montre la cruaute (poids des castes dans le monde rural, meurtres consecutifs aux transgressions ou tentatives de revolte) et le cynisme de la societe indienne des annees 70 (bus envoyes dans les bidonvilles pour ramasser de force une audience pour les discours du premier ministre en rase campagne). Sonne toujours tres actuel pour un lecteur de la presse quotidienne...L'auteur ne prend pas parti, ils nous donne tous les elements autobiographiques des personnages principaux tour a tour subissant les souffrances ou les infligeant. Pas de bons, pas de mechants, tous victimes?

Arundati Roy : l'intarissable activiste, propulsee sur la scene mediatique par le "Dieu des petites choses". Sombre histoire de disparitions d'enfants sur fond de lutte des castes dans le cadre idyllique du Kerala.

Naipaul (aussi Nobel, cette fois de litterature) est un indien des caraibes (West Indies), assez prolifique, acerbe, plus sous la forme de reportages journalistique, mettant en scene des personnages reels dans "India,...". Il a ecrit plein d'autres choses dont "La moitie d'une vie", histoire d'un brahmane qui fait un "sacrifice de caste" en se mariant a une intouchable.

Tout le monde dit du bien de Vikram Seth, mais "Un garcon convenable" ("A suitable boy") est un pave de 1000 pages et ca m'effraie un peu. D'aucuns disent que ses autres livres ne sont pas a la hauteur...