The Streets of Mumbai

I'm always overwhelmed again and again at how beautiful Mumbai is, what a wonderful walking city with its victorian gothic stone arched buildings, victorian cottage carved wooden balconies and details, wide shady sidewalks shaded by enormous trees and arcaded shady sidewalks lined with booksellers and sellers of all sorts of things. I've had several amazing interviews with artists in these last three days and if my Fulbright research ended her it would probably enough, but I have many months to go. On one totally serindipitious encounter I found out that the "Picasso of Sri Lanka" was having a show nearby and he was in the gallery. Part of my project is to research contemporary art in Sri Lanka so this was a great head start. I made a short interview with him in the gallery and then we arranged to meet in Colombo when I'm there in a few weeks. Today is my last day here then I head to Kerala, another part of India I love and have visited before, to interview the sculptor Rimzon, visit the college he is principle of, and to visit a new artist residency in Kochin.

Kolams in Mylapore

Mylapore is my favorite neighborhood in Chennai with the magnificent Kapaleeswara temple and all of the little shops around the temple selling all sorts of interesting things, I mainly pick up my favorite insence there. Today there was a festival and a kolam context. I parked myself in the middle of the action and made quite a lot of videos. The beautiful white diagrams contrasted nicely with the colorful sari's of the woman making them.
Tomorrow I move on to Mumbai for 4 days and 4 interviews. Two of the artists live pretty far out of the center of town so I'll gain some experience in using local trains.
My ride home today from downtown Chennai out to Cholamandal gave me the best view of things, standing on the first step of the open bus door,but being squeezed in tightly enough that I never feared being ejected from the bus if it stopped short. There is something about India that makes being squeezed like a sardine very comforting, not like any other place I've been.

Pictures at an Exhibition

My show with Shailesh Bo opened last night, really nice attendance, the community at Cholamandal, many local artists, fellow Fulbrighters in Chennai, the head of USEIF in Chennai and the public affairs director at the US Consulate. I'm enjoying early morning walks in the village on both sides of the road in, its about 72 degrees in the morning.

Charming Cholamandal

Arrived here yesterday after many hours in the Foreigners registration office in Ahmedabad, where as my friend Sharmila noted, you wait for hours not knowing why you are waiting, what the "system" is and being helpless to do anything about it. The "foreigners" were eventually lined up and take to a room to sit around a desk with the head police commissioner who never looked up at any of us but signed our papers. Then we were hearded back upstairs to wait a bit more to get the papers signed by someone else and handed to us. Then I was told that before leaving for Sri Lanka, Nepal and the US, I would need to come back to Ahmedabad 5 days before to fill out a permission to leave form! This I was told would take 5 minuites, but as anyone who has been to India knows all too well, nothing in India takes 5 minuites, I'll likely need to spend at least 2 days plus then the 5 days between. If the Fulbright people can't do anything about this and likely they can't it will take time off of my time in Sri Lanka and Nepal.

But enough complaining, I'm in paradise now. I'm staying in a breezy house in Cholamandal artist village, with a nice shady front porch belonging to my friend and host Shaiesh Bo and his wife Jyoti. They are living in another place nearby where I have dinner, breakfast and can use the kitchen when I need to to make coffee. I need the coffee as I'd forgotten that temples in South India tend to blare music over the loud speakers starting about 4am. Once I get used to it I don't mind, its makes me go in and out of an interesting dream like place. I've included some photos. There is a door in the back wall that surrounds the artist village that goes through some very small lanes with a combination of thatched huts, brightly painted concrete buildings, a combination of both and then some large compounds that look like some serious money. Kids play cricket on the streets and women sell fish in front of their huts and the road then leads to a very wide beach with a lot of fishing boats. I gets pretty hot by 10am so when the sun sets I'll take long walks, I'm eating way to well in Ahmedabad with Sharmla and Rajesh and now with Shailesh and Jyoti.

This is the narrowest and hardest bed I've ever slept on.

Christmas in Ahmedabad, Strung Up Santa

Christmas in Ahmedabad


The only signs of Christmas were these Santas "strung up" on the Gandhi Bridge that connects the new city of Ahmedabad with the old. I spent Christmas day and the next wandering around the old city, two main east west roads, Relief and Gandhi Roads lined with shops and an often disjunctured sense of architecture. Inside the "pols" or micro-neighborhoods are a combination of beautifully carved facades of Havelis, one of which I was able to tour and also see the equally magnificent inside in these airy courtyard buildings, there are also victorian and of course the characterless concrete block. Like other Indian cities, art deco had an impact on design. It's totally enchanting to wander these areas for hours getting lost, coming up upon, particularly on a relatively quiet Sunday, chauks, or central areas where people gather on benches, women sitting in doorsteps. Some people are curious about what I'm doing and ask, but most of the time I feel like I'm in a curious bubble in a world of my own.
Some of the photos show different aspects of the pols, and one, a "cow parking lot" I came upon in an area where several buildings look to have been torn down and another by the river where the slum that has been there since I started coming here in 1999, is in an interesting contrast with the billboard above it.
Carved facades on wooden havelis
Cow parking lot
interesting combination of architectural "style"?
The "Pol" entrances would have had a guard sitting in them watching the comings and goings into the area, many are more elaborate than this
This was a curious row of buildings with one "cut off "from the other
I like this house of doors

The Vessel I arrived on?

Fortunately the day I spent at the Foreigners Registration office was one where I was still so jet-lagged there is nothing more I could have done than sat numbingly on a hard metal chair in a dingy government office for what seemed most of the day. There are many things I love about India, but government offices are not one of them. There seemed to be no order to who would be served when and the only info I got was from a sullen woman at a desk who ordered me into a waiting room saying that I would be called when it was time. An hour later I inquired again and was then given a number hand written by another sullen person at another desk. A kind man who had a lot of passports looked after me and I was eventually "interviewed" by a kind and not sullen young man who could not get over that I was not married. The form I filled out was so old, that it asked "what vessel did you arrive on?" in my case the vessel was Continental Airlines. The copious forms, 7 copies hand written, were hand punched and tied with red string, to be filed, I have no idea, but that my spirit will probably live on and on in some dusty government file in Ahmedabad.

The next day, finally sleeping well I enjoyed touring the old city where so many of my paintings come from, with my friend Rajesh Sagara who had made a series of site specific sculptures highlighting various significant parts of the old city. I shot videos for my artist series, most of which need to be re-shot, but had access to parts of the winding alleyways and magical courtyards of the cities "pols" or neighborhoods for which Ahmedabad is famous, along with its amazing carved wooden architecture, most of which unfortunately is in various states of decay but also some good renovations being carried on.


Rajesh on Relief Road, Ahmedadabad Old City

Some nice renovations
Some buildings that have seen better days

Auspicious beginnings in Ahmedabad

I started my Fulbright in Delhi, arriving on Sunday December 13, but it really feels like I've really "arrived" when I came here as I have such fondness for this city, as it was the first city in India I ever came to on my first trip in 1999 to be at the Kanoria Center artist residency. Delhi is a bit chilly this time of year but Ahmedabad is just lovely, warm days and "light sweater" nights.
I made good progress on my few Delhi days as galleries I visited, Vedhara and Nature Morte, have been exceedingly helpful in helping me connect with artists for this series of interviews. My main times in Delhi will be a week here and there in March and April.

Ahmedabad started auspiciously because I plan to interview just three artists in my 10 days here, my friend Rajesh Sagara, their very good friend, the internationally known installation artist Sudarshan Shetty, and a painter whose work I love, Ahmedabad native, Amit Ambalal who I hoped I could possibly meet. The first evening I came we attended an outdoor lecture at CEPT University and by chance one of the first people we ran into was Amit Ambalal who Sharmila introduced me to and I will interview next week. That was a very nice way to start!
This morning started early on my balcony where I lit a piece of my favorite incense, my coffee was made on this kitchen burner you see, a staple of Indian cooking that always terrifies me, so it was good to conquer it this morning. Under the counter is the red propane tank, switching it on creates a sinister hissing and smell, then one lights the burner with a tiny tiny match and uses metal tongs to put the pot of water on, for the instant Nescafe that although pretty wretched tasting, always very fondly reminds me of India.
The kitchen has its little cooking balcony as well as this nice one overlooking a common garden. The flat I'm "borrowing" belongs to my friend Ela Shah from Montclair NJ who will come here after I leave on Dec 26th, she happens to live next door to my friends Sharmila and Rajesh Sagara (talk about a very small world!,) Ahmedabad is a huge (mega-city as it is called) and the chances that two people I know might live next door to each other is a pretty amazing coincidence. Sharmila teaches at CEPT University, which is the "host" institution for my Fulbright.
CEPT University (Center For Environmental Planning and Technology) is a large campus, this is just one of many interesting modern buildings designed by B.V Doshi, that have a sense of flow between inside and outside, good for this mostly hot sunny climate, the Kanoria Center for arts and several museums are also part of the campus
a class being held outdoors
the library, the inside is decorated by MF Husain
My friend Rajesh inside his studio