Calcutta Chronicles: Part I

We, Malayalis, have an inexplicable love for all things Bengali.

I don't know if it is reciprocated to any extent at all –but boy, do we idolize the Bongs or what! Growing up in communist Kerala that was still hungover from the (excessive) intellectualism of the '70s and '80s, Bengalis, to me, were our khadi-clad, jhola-toting comrades- in- arms; kindred spirits who shared our passion for art, literature, theatre and cinema. We take great pride in our shared love for fish, football and leftist ideologies, we love name-dropping Ray and Tagore and Ghosh in normal day-to-day conversation and Kolkata in the ultimate intellectual capital that tops every Malayali’s list of places to visit.

Needless to say, I went into a complete tizzy at the prospect of a trip to Kolkata. One of the obvious risks of making a trip that you’ve dreamt of for so long, is that the actual thing almost never matches up to your expectations. But Kolkata was all that I’d pictured in my mind, and more!

Granted, Kolkata has got its fair share of bad press (dying city, city without future...), but I would say its all a matter of perspective. At first glance, it is a mouldy, crumbling mass of a city with a distinct air of neglect and disrepair, and as dirty, grimy and polluted as any other big city in India. Old Victorian mansions defaced with with later constructions that have been tastelessly added to battle constraints of space and comfort; erstwhile colonial edifices, now decrepit with missing tiles and broken windows; once-handsome Corinthian columns that support spacious terraces, now unrecognizable with the grandfather banyan tree that has sent gigantic roots and branches all over it – the image that it leaves in your mind is that of old aristocracy that had evidently been part of a glorious past, but has fallen into bad times ever since.

But, then again, the romance of it all! The shameless Anglophile that I am, who thrives on Victorian novels, period dramas and stories of the Raj, Kolkata held irresistible charm, with all its grand English architecture, fountains, parks and pathways ( albeit rundown and dilapidated) teeming with stories of a bygone era. Take, for instance, the Victoria memorial and the maidan –one of the few places in the city which must have changed little over the last hundred years. All it takes is a little imagination (and a studied ignorance of the street vendors and yellow cabs whizzing by!) and for all you know, you could back in colonial Calcutta, with gentlemen in top hats and tailcoats taking a stroll around the lush expanses of the park!

Just around the corner from the Victoria Memorial, is St Paul’s Catheral with its stained glass windows and Gothic spires…


A short drive in one of those yellow monsters and I am at Dalhousie Square, which is another paradise of colonial buildings – The Writers Building that stands resplendent in red…


The giant dome of the General Post Office…


Other colonial structures, now in shambles, stand all around the Lal Dighi...


I spent three glorious weeks in Calcutta, and one blog-post hardly does justice to the wonders of the city....Which means, this blog-yatra through one of the oldest cities is India is far from over- in fact, I’m just warming up!

Come back soon for Calcutta Chronicles- Part II!

The Call of the Wild

No TV, no cell phones and no access to internet, we’d been warned. And when we arrived at Rainforest Retreat, Coorg, we realised that it was no bellboys, no room service and no breath-taking-view-from-the-window either. With more than ten kilometres of almost non-existent road between the plantation and the closest town, we were as good as trapped until we decided to check out. And once inside, the retreat functioned on a routine of its own. You eat when they say, and do what they suggest you do.

Not your regular tourist fare, this one.

Truth be told, we hadn’t known what to expect, because laziness and time constraints apart, we had set out on this journey with little or no research whatsoever hoping that the ignorance would only lend a fresh perspective to our experience. We’d booked a tent for the night. But what with half-baked notions of hill stations, rainforests, resorts and organic farms doing the rounds inside my head, by the time we reached the retreat, my brain had already put together an image of a resort prettily situated in the slope of a mountain overlooking a valley, with the tent giving the make-believe effect of rusticity and charm, when it was, in all actuality, providing the creature comforts of a luxury suite. Needless to say, it was anything but.

Situated in the tropical rainforests of the Western Ghats, Rainforest Retreat evidently took its ‘eco-lodge’ tag very seriously. Grassy hilltops that sloped down to meet densely forested valleys with towering trees, dangling vines and exotic flowers. Expensive varieties of cash crops like vanilla, coffee and cardamom co-existing in perfect harmony under the canopy of the forest. Cottages and tents tucked away within the forest unobtrusive to the eye. Solar lights, bathrooms with firewood stoves to heat water. Meals prepared with locally grown vegetables and spices. All rounded off with a tour of the estate filled with trivia about the crop rotation, effective microorganisms and organic farming. In short, the works.

We dumped our bags and camera in our tent and hurried down to the dining area. Lunch, a quick round of hi-howdy's with the other guests, and we were back in out tent again. We lounged aimlessly around, feeling strangely restless having nothing to do. Prat toyed around with his mobile (which showed zero range), tried swinging in the hammock for a while, and finally decided to go in for a siesta. I sat at the entrance to the tent, taking in the charm of the forest (And it was beautiful, I should admit!) but also idly wondering how much of ‘nature’ and ‘the wild’ can a city-bred urban creature like me take if I wasn’t ensured running hot water, a clean bed and three meals a day as part of the bargain. How much of the ‘eco-friendliness’ of the resort will I really enjoy before a tiny voice at the back of my mind demands mosquito repellents, tissues/toilet paper and breakfast in bed for the couple of thousands that I was shelling out for the night. And why isn’t the fact that I’m off the radar getting me to relax? Why is it that I was periodically checking my mobile, fully knowing that there was no range anywhere within the resort?

Tea, and a short walk later, we were back in our tent, watching the sun go down. We sat gazing as the mosaic bits of sky visible from under the foliage went from orange pink to an electric blue to the inky blackness of night. The sounds seemed to grow louder as darkness engulfed the forest. Water bubbled noisily down the stream. Frogs croaking themselves hoarse, keeping time with the intense and unrelenting chirping of the crickets that rang through the forest. The air, thick with insects that buzz and flutter around us. An occasional swoop and flapping of wings. And then, out of nowhere comes tiny pinpricks of light that rents the blanket of dark that’s enveloped us. Fireflies. From every direction come clicks, hisses, rattling and fluttering until the sounds merge to form a sinister orchestra of sorts, spooky and enthralling all at once. It was as if the forest has suddenly thrown back the veneer of stillness and calm to unleash the monster within, hissing and crackling with life.

I do not know when we ran out of words, or how long we sat in silence, overwhelmed by this absorbing symphony played out by the creatures of the night. We snapped back to reality when a blindingly bright torch beam flashed on us. It was one of our fellow guests, on his way to dinner. As we slowly groped our way through the forest trail to the dining area, the tiny voice in the back of my mind said, “Well worth the couple of grand after all…maybe more.”

The Second Coming

Woohoo! Trumpets and drumroll, please! The Tourist is back!!!!

Eh? Thats it? All I get as welcoming cheer is a muted chorus of Hmmph! ? Whoa?? Hmmmmph again?

Okay, then. I guess play-acting isnt going to help me this time. So, let me try and do it properly again...

I know i've been sort of all MIA and AWOL-ish for quite some time now and even though i could reel off excuses to the dozen ( and very believable ones too, mind you! I'm great at excuses), i'm going to stick to the bare, naked truth this time, admit that i've been lazy. And very lazy at that.In fact, lazy with L,A, Z and Y in bold capitals.

 But hey, enough of finger-pointing now, ok? I'm trying to make a fresh start here!

For those in the dark, the tourist came back from her stint in Mexico last August and has been spending time between bangalore, goa,kerala and kolkata in the last eight months, with frequent trips to touristy destinations near and far. And there is also another trip overseas in the offing, but nothing's happened till now, and I"m still keeping my fingers (and in moments of deperation, even toes) crossed, so mum's the word till it happens! :)

So, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back, and watch this space for more! :)

Ballet Folklorico de Mexico

Photos from a two-hour ballet ensemble that took us through a whirlwind tour of the life, colour and culture of Mexico.

Puebla -Part II

I woke up to a cacophony of bells the next day.

Our hotel room afforded a great view of the city-a skyline studded with steeples, ornamental domes and tall bell towers, flanked by the mountain ranges beyond. I woke up at the crack of dawn, to the collective peel of what must have been fifty-odd bells, clanging from the belfries of all the churches in Puebla. And trudging to my balcony to have a view of the city in its morning glory, I was in for another surprise. Towering behind the tallest bell-towers in the horizon, illuminated by the pink glow of the rising sun, was a majestic snow-capped volcano- the Popocatapetl. One of the most famous (non-dormant) volcanoes in Mexico, there it stood, lazily billowing a thin cloud of smoke from its frozen mouth. It was spectacular, awe-inspiring... Take a look:





Once i managed to wake Prathyooshan (who, btw, had slept through the cacophony of bells, birds AND my oohs n aahs about the view), we went for a lovely walk around the zocalo, watching the city slowly wake up to life as the sun crept up the sky. Visited a few more churches...(i really hvnt dwelt on the churches coz there only so much I know about architecture.. but i can tell you this.. opulent interiors, elaborately painted domes, stained glass windows... it’s as good as it gets!!) and rounded off the morning tour with a breakfast of absolutely scrumptious churros, full to dripping with chocolate sauce.



Next on the agenda, was Puebla’s pretty little neighbour, Cholula, which had a interesting history of its own. The story dates back to pre-Columbian times, when Cholula was one of the most important cities in the Aztec empire, with close to 365 temples dedicated to the Aztec gods. And the most famous temple of all was the large pyramid of Quetzalcoatl, which according to the Guiness Book of records, is the LARGEST pyramid in the world! However, things changed when Hernan Cortez (the Spanish explorer who conquered the Aztec empire) arrived on the scene. Wishing to make a lasting example of Spanish might over the natives, he ordered a mass massacre of natives, destroyed the Aztec centres of worship and vowed to replace each and every temple in the city with a catholic church. And the most important church of all, Iglesias de Virgin de los Remedios, stands ON TOP of the large Aztec pyramid!

The church was magnificent ...



And the view, exhilarating...



And the Aztec pyramid, trapped forever under the burden of the Catholic Church...



A quick tour through the craft market at the foot of the pyramid, and we were on our way back to Puebla. Cholula had much more to offer – its local market, lively zocalo, and all its churches including the famous Royal Chapel with 49 domes- and it wrenched my heart to leave without exploring more of the city, but we had no choice. We were heading back to Mexico City that evening and that left us with just about half a day to go back to Puebla and.... SHOP!

Like I wrote in my last post, Puebla is known for a great many things –food, churches, architecture, et al. But what I didn’t mention then, was that Puebla is most famous, all over the world, for its art of pottery, Talavera. Talavera comes in all shapes and sizes, as tiles, vases, dinnerware and decorative items. In fact, Puebla is even known as The City of Tiles, because of the extensive use of Talavera tiles to decorate buildings, houses and church domes.



So, there we were, shopping for authentic Talavera Poblano! The first couple of shops we visited were rather unimpressive with the shop-keepers trying to sell shoddy designs and chipped china...But then we struck gold... A large shop filled with absolutely gorgeous stuff. We went gaga over everything they showed us and the shopkeeper was so pleased with our enthusiasm that he even took us to his hundred-year old workshop-cum-showroom, which was stacked roof to floor with talavera ware.

Check out the showroom...



And as far as our shopkeeper friend can be trusted, those frescos you see on the wall are original...painted over a hundred years ago!



And he was so kind; he even introduced us to his pets! Ahem!



After the first-class shopping experience, we had just about half-n-hour to kill before we headed back to the bus stop. We decided to visit the Museum of Religious Arts.



Now, this is interesting. This building had been considered a usual private home for many years, until some time back, when a secret passage was discovered, that led to a convent. Another secret path that was discovered from the convent ended up in a neighbouring church. The story goes that even though the convent was closed by the Reform Laws of1857, the nuns continued to run it secretly till they were discovered in 1934. The austere chambers in which they lived, the instruments that they used for self-flagellation... The museum was indeed interesting, but our excitement waned when we realised that there were no explanatory material that gave details of the convent, nor were there tourist guides available who could speak English. We went around on our own trying to tag along with Spanish-speaking tour groups, catching snippets of information here and there, but altogether, it wasn’t a great experience.



We just had about enough time to rush to the hotel, collect our baggage and rush to the bus stop. Both of us fell silent as the bus pulled out of Puebla and across the mountains towards Mexico City-we were reliving what most definitely had been the trip of a lifetime.

wanna see more of Puebla? Click here

Puebla -Part 1

It started with a bowl of soup.

We’d been told great many things about the colonial city of Puebla –that it was flanked by volcanoes on all four sides, that there were no less than 60 churches within the city limits alone, that it was one of the only two places on the world where the adorable VW Beetle is made and so on. But what really clinched our decision to make a weekend trip to the city was...a bowl of soup –a bowl of rich, creamy delicious Crema Poblana, which had Prathyooshan smitten and salivating for more. A quick research told us that ‘Poblana’ literally translated to ‘from the city of Puebla’ and there, off we were, to Puebla, in search of authentic Crema Poblana!!!

It didn’t take us long to realise that Puebla was everything that it had promised to be, and much more. Even though the bus dropped us at the outskirts of the city which was more or less filled with run down match-box apartments, leaving us to wonder where all the lovely buildings and churches were hidden, the first turn our cab took towards the city centre had us gaping in wonder...Straight ahead was a cobbled road going down with absolutely gorgeous colonial mansions lined up on either side. It was as if we had suddenly apparated into an 18^th century European township.

Wonder gave way to amazement as we got out of the taxi and stepped into our hotel. The Holiday Inn where we had booked a room in turned out to be an old Spanish hacienda re-modelled into hotel, complete with carved doors, stained glass windows &roof, and exquisitely furnished with opulent chandeliers, paintings and antique furniture. Not wanting to waste another minute, we quickly dumped our bags in the room, loaded my freshly-recharged batteries into my camera, and set forth to explore the city.

Like you might have realised by now, I’m a shutterbug in the truest sense of the word. I have an obsessive compulsive point-and-shoot disorder. And to be fair to him, Prathyooshan has borne this trait of mine with admirable panache, feigning ignorance when I sudden go prostrate in the sidewalk to get a good shot of a skyscraper, patiently pulling me out of the way when I stop in the dead centre of the road to get a picture the setting sun through the silhouettes of buildings, and even valiantly coming to the rescue when I’ve got into scrapes for clicking away at all the wrong things at the wrong time! (Oh yeah! I’ve been to terrible scrapes, but more on that later... that calls for a separate blog entry altogether!) But it seems like Prathyooshan was as overwhelmed as I were by the sheer beauty of the place. For the first couple of minutes, we just stood and stared all around us, him taking in the magnificence of the place totally ignorant of the fact that I already had my eye glued to the camera viewfinder, clicking away from every angle possible!

One of the oldest cities in Mexico, Puebla was the first city in Mexico to be planned entirely by the Spanish (as opposed to other places like Mexico City, which was built on the ruins of pre-Hispanic settlements). The cobbled roads run straight as arrows and cut each other at right angles, with beautifully turned out churches at almost every junction.

We first made our way to the main cathedral, a majestic structure that overlooked the city square (zocalo).

Much to our delight, a marriage was being solemnised at the church, the very moment we stepped inside. With the entire cathedral decked up with flowers, and the ornate gold-covered interiors glowing in the light of the chandeliers, the effect was decidedly awe-inspiring. We walked around the church in reverent silence, taking in the splendour of all the 14 chapels housed inside the church, as well as the church organ, which is said to be the largest in Mexico. Prathyooshan (who considers himself to be quite an authority on churches because he’s been to the Vatican (hmph!)) fervently pronounced that this was the best church he’d ever been to in his life.

We walked around drinking in the sights and sound of the city...The buildings itself were a treat to the eyes, the quaint charm only made complete by tiny boards in front of each of them giving a brief history of the building or an anecdote about the owner of the building. One in particular caught our fancy- the master of that particular house brought a Hindu slave named Mira from Manila, who was later found to have mystic powers and was considered holy by the time she died. Doesn’t this story bear uncanny similarity to our own Indian Mira, who was believed to have powers to converse with Lord Krishna?

The sun set and night fell.... And it was time for dinner! The primary reason of this trip being food itself, we’d done extensive research as to the best places to wine and dine in Puebla. We headed straight to Fonda de Santa Clara, one of the oldest establishments in Puebla, said to serve authentic Poblana cuisine. Puebla is said to be the birthplace of some of the most delicious delights of Mexican cusine –

One, of course, the soup, Crema Poblana. A thick creamy soup with corn kernels and Poblano cheese. A treat fit for the gods!

Then, the Mole (pronounced mo-ley). A sauce made of more than twenty different ingredients (including different kinds of chillies, nuts, seeds, spices and Mexican chocolate), it is said that it can go awfully wrong if not prepared properly. And there is no Mole like the Mole Poblano! But because we wanted to have everything at once, we ordered for a plate of enchiladas topped with Red Sauce, Green Sauce and the Mole. Slurrrp!

I’d saved the best for the last- the Chiles en Nogada! Poblano chillies (rather like a bigger version of our shimla mirch, less spicy though) are hollowed out and stuffed with sweet mincemeat filling and served bathed in walnut sauce and garnished with blood-red pomegranate. Imagine the pungent taste of the chilli, offset with the sweetness of the mincemeat inside, all rounded off with the lovely nutty flavour of the walnut sauce...Hmmm!!! Manna from heaven!

Happily fed and watered, we trudged our way back to the hotel and passed out the minute we hit the sack. It had been one perfect day.

Hello there! To all my darling readers out there (which I think, amounts to all of TWO people including myself) who have been waiting with bated breath for my next post, you can fix that 100-watt smile back into your lovely faces again! I’m BACK! As for what I’ve been doing all this while, well... nothing much. I re-read Harry Potter 6 in anticipation of the movie, and watched it first show, on the day of release. And like all five of its predecessors, this one is also a disappointment (even though I have quite a crush on Tom Felton, who plays Draco Malfoy, and wouldn’t mind going for the movie a second time, just to watch him in action again! Sssigh!)
And among other things... I also had a haircut. What I wanted was a trim, but undoubtedly, I did a very bad job of explaining that to the hair salon lady in my broken Spanish, because, when she was done with my hair, it was atleast three times shorter than how I wanted it to be- rather like a badly wrecked cuckoo’s nest, with fly-by bits of hair going in every direction. Anyways, what with ironing and a bit of serum, I thought I looked quite chic... like this:-



But now, a couple of hair-wash-days later, I look like this:-



Seems like my hair was just dying to come out in all its unbridled Malayali splendour! 

Now, back to what this travel blog is actually supposed to do... Here goes...

Xochimilco

Yeah. That’s where we went this weekend. The floating gardens of Xochimilco. Popularly known as the Venice of Mexico. It took us about one and half hours to get there (had to change metros lines twice, followed by a half-hour ride on the Tren Ligero which finally dropped us at Xochimilco station) and another 45-mnt walk to one of the boat jetties where we paid through our nose (THREE HUNDRED AND FITY PESOS!) for what we thought would be a nice romantic boat ride through the famed Xochimilco canal. And how wrong could we be!!!
The jetty looked nothing short of breath-taking, with atleast a hundred improvised-canoe-like boats, bobbing up and down merrily, each one a riot of colour in itself, and with absolutely original names like Maria Euginia, Margaret Gomez and so on ( Our boat was called Vive Lolita! – I’m guessing that the owner was either a fan of Nabokov, or of Lolita-esque nymphets! ). I gasped in wonder, thanked my stars for bringing me there, and promptly took out my camera and went clicking madly until Prathyooshan and the boatman threatened to start off without me. And it all went smooth until we pulled out of the jetty- We commented on the weather (Oh! Isn’t it just the purrrfect weather for a nice cruise down a floating garden?), on our expectations of the ride (Aw! This is just going to be like being in a gondola in Venice! Or even better!), and if my memory serves me right, I think we even HELD HANDS!!!!!!! (which is saying something, considering the fact that both of us are extremely anti –PDA).



But the sight that awaited us just at the end of the jetty took the magic out of the moment in no time.

There were at least fifty similar boats vying for space in the narrow canal, either packed with gangs of drunken revellers or with vendors trying to sell everything from corned beef to stuffed toys to halter tops and ponchos. On either sides of the canal were where almost all the vegetables and flowers for Mexico City is grown, but being sandwiched between an Ana Louisa and a Veronica, both of which housed mariachi singing groups each trying to outdo the other, there was little chance of us every getting a closer a look at those botanical wonders. We spent the next hour bumping into the ass of/ scraping the sides of the gondolas around us and nodding our heads negatively to all the overpriced touristy wares that the vendors try to thrust upon us. And, needless to say, the most glorious part of the tour was when we sighted the jetty again on our way back. Of course, there was one silver lining to the trip - Prathyooshan got me flowers, which he doesn’t do very often!! (he was emotionally blackmailed into it, but umm... let’s not dwell on unpleasant details, shall we?).

Totally forgettable experience, nothing to write home about, and so, I’m not wasting any more precious blog space on that episode!

But you can still check out my pictures to get a feel of the place, they are right here!