And another goddess is born

Walking through Matunga, I glanced upwards and spotted this colourful carving. I couldn't figure out who this lady was. So I hunted around, and I found a thousand year-old story - the story of Goddess Kannika Parameswari.

In the 10th Century AD, in Penugonda in the West Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh, a daughter was born to the Vysya chieftain Kusuma Sreshti. She was named Vasavi - and she grew up to be beautiful and talented, an accomplished musician and artiste.

When the girl turned 16, the Hoysala Emperor Vishnu Vardhana visited Penugonda, and became enamoured of her. He was much older, already married, and from a the Kshatriya warrior caste (the girl was from the trader caste). So the alliance was refused. Enraged (and perhaps besotted), Vishnu Vardhana declared war and defeated Kusuma Sreshti.

In the wake of defeat, faced with the plunder and looting of her city, the princess arranged a great immolation pyre on the banks of the Godavari and burnt herself to death. Along with her, 102 other families, who had supported Kusuma Streshti also immolated themselves, in a show of solidarity. The legend is that the princess appeared before them in her true form as an incarnation of the Goddess Parvati, so they followed her into the fires. (Methinks it was political expediency - they had backed the wrong horse, so to speak, and perhaps immolation was preferable to Vishnu Vardhan's tender mercies).

And what of the victorious Vishnu Vardhan? He advanced towards Penugonda to claim his bride - but died mysteriously on the outskirts of the city, vomiting blood. The city was saved from loot and plunder.

And so the princess became Kannika Parameswari, the Virgin Goddess, a saviour of her people. A temple to her was built in Penugonda, and continues to be the most important place of pilgrimage for the Andhra Vysyas.

As for me, I continue to be amazed by the stories and legends that are everywhere around me.

Why I love the Pune highway

It takes me 2 hours and 20 minutes to drive to Pune.

In the monsoon, I love every minute of it.

I went to Pune last week, to make a little film. We left Mumbai at 2:30 in the afternoon. After the first 30 minutes, we got past Vashi, on to the green belt of the Sahyadri mountains. There was so much lush green colour everywhere that I got drunk on it.

Everywhere on the highway, there were little streams of water gushing, pouring, tumbling. The temptation to stop and get drenched, to drink, to play, was irresistible.

There was a price to pay, of course. For the rest of the trip, I sat in an air-conditioned car in a wet salwar.

Andy wanted to film it. The waterfall looked great on camera, especially because Andy traced it right from top of the mountain, to where it fell at the bottom. The other guy is Ramana, our camera assistant. He's a Bollywood technician. That means he has endless patience.

We weren't the only ones interested in the waterfall. A gypsy family stopped their jeep. She wanted to know what we were doing. I wanted to know what they were up to!

'We stopped for water', she said to me. They collected drinking water in a little steel pot. It struck me then, that I too should have tasted it. What a scared fool I was, to stand under the water, but not make that final gesture.

She had two gold teeth (first time I've ever seen golden canine teeth). I asked her, 'Sone ka hai?' - is it really gold? And she grinned and said Yes!

It also struck me that my chunky silver necklace was tribal too...but my wearing it is an urban posturing, whereas her gold necklace was the real McCoy.

I asked her where she was from. A couple of seconds after I asked, I realised it was a silly question to ask a nomadic people. She answered in almost a philosophical way - Hum log idhar Bombay-Poona mein hi rehtey hain. We're people who live right here in Bombay-Poona.

By using two places in her answer, she staked her claim on the highway.

Photos in the Inbox

This morning, I got these two lovely photos by email - they were from a Mumbai Magic bazaar walk last month.

Jennifer, Noa and Courtney - the three Americans in the first photo - were in Mumbai on work, and they came with me on an exploration of Bhuleshwar Bazaar. Jenn mailed me the pics.

In the second photo, that's me in white, and that's my friend Farida in green. Farida is one of the 'Magic ladies' who works with me as a guide. The five of us went walking in Bhuleshwar and Kalbadevi.

It was fun to go on the walk with three interested (and interesting!) young women. We dawdled in some places, walked faster in others, but there was a sense of exploration, of enjoyment. We stopped to examine small shops selling strange things, to photograph and to laugh. Okay, okay, I confess, we giggled a bit as well - but hey - what else do you do when you discover shocking pink bras and electric blue undies in conservative Bhuleshwar?

There are more photos of the walk at Noa's Yo! India blog. Here's her post on beads, jewellery and Indian innerwear. And here's Mirchi Galli, where we discovered mukhwas and masalas.

My favourite piece on Noa's blog, though, is this one - a video of a Mumbai car ride.

Tai Chi and Cats - An Evening at Marine Drive

I was filming for an offbeat travel show on Mumbai, and we wanted some footage of Marine Drive.

A mutual friend introduced me to Rohini, whose family owns one of the buildings along the drive. And Rohini very kindly said, 'Of course you're welcome to use my terrace!'

What's a Mumbai blog without at least one photo of this view?

So we landed up, camera crew and I, and we were greeted by all of Rohini's 20 cats (OK, I may be exaggerating a bit). As the crew went to work, Rohini came up to the terrace, to see if we were doing ok.

We got chatting, and I discovered that Rohini does all sorts of mystic stuff, she works with crystals, does tarot reading, is a mandala therapist...I don't even know enough to list everything she does! But I was fascinated (Hey - all I knew about 'mystic' women was from Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost. I'd never met a honest-to-goodness real-life person before!).

Anyway, she was lovely, relaxed, unassuming and charming. A couple of her friends dropped in as well, so the four of us hung around on the terrace, watching the sun go down over the Arabian Sea.

I had just started learning yoga, and the three of them were practising Tai-Chi, so we traded notes and tried some funny poses.

I totally enjoyed it!

First of all, there was the whole setting. Sunset, breeze in my hair, birds flying, lots of talking and laughing, with a bunch of intriguing women...And then, there was the incongruity of it all. Have you ever tried waving your arms and legs in strange moves on an open terrace in front of complete strangers? It's liberating, to say the least!

Rain, rain, rain

It rained hard last night. When I went to bed, I heard it beating against our large window panes.

This morning, my daughter's friend called at six thirty a.m. "There are no classes today", she said.

"Yippee", said my daughter, "I can sleep some more."

I peered down from my balcony. We are on the 14th floor, and when I looked down, this is what I saw.

The Mumbai monsoon has indeed begun.

The Maker of Keys, and other migrant stories

You move into a new apartment, and you get two sets of keys. You take one, your spouse takes the other. But now there is a problem - you need a third key. It's for the maid, who comes in after the two of you have left for work.

So what do you do?

You go to the key wallah.

He sits under the shade of a tree, or at a little street stall. His only advertisement is the keys, hanging enticingly...you see them and are reassured..ah, this is a man who knows his trade, you think.

So you give him your key, and you say, make one just like this please. Then you wait and watch, while he works away.

The lady in the picture chose to spend the waiting time chatting. I overheard bits and pieces.

'Kahan ke ho, bhaiyya?' she said. Where are you from, brother?

In this city of migrants, this is clearly the starting point of many conversations. A sort of clearing of throats, a verbal clue, heralding the beginning of a friendly chat.

'UP ke hain', he said. I'm from Uttar Pradesh.

I wanted to hang around, eavesdropping, but I walked away, too polite to intrude.

I'm sure the usual questions would have followed: Do you have family here? What do your children do? I have myself asked these questions of taxi drivers, newspaper vendors, milkmen...the answers always tell the story of Bombay like nothing else can.

'My family is in the village', they sometimes say. There are hard economics behind that answer. In Mumbai, it is nearly impossible to find an affordable place to live. Even the slums are expensive. A registered legal hutment is hard to find, and if you did find one, say ten feet by ten feet, you would pay 500,000 rupees for it. That is more money than most migrants will earn in their whole lifetime. And then there are usually old parents in the village, or a bit of agricultural land that needs to be tended, or an ancestral home that no one wants to give up.

Sometimes, though, the answers tell stories of victory.

'My son is a trader in Dadar. He has his own shop near Kabutarkhana.'

'My daughter just got married, her husband works for the municipal corporation.'

'I brought my family to Bombay. We've been here too long for us to consider going back to the village.'

'My grandchildren go to an English-medium school here.'

These are the small success stories of migrants who have carved a place for themselves in their new environment. These are also the stories that bring more and more hopefuls into the city.

So everyday, the city slums swell with new arrivals. Once they arrive in Mumbai, the city works its magic. They lose the lethargy and slow pace of their villages, and they fall into the faster heartbeat of the city. They join the ranks of tradesmen, labourers, tea-sellers, errand boys, waiters, drivers, and car washers, all in a hurry, all rushing about to create their own little success story.

Pavement Parrot

One early morning in Haji Ali, I saw this street dweller with her pet parrot. The lady had barely enough for herself, but the parrot seemed well fed and cared for.


I thought the lady might be a commercial sex worker. I found myself staring, almost as if I was looking for clues to her life. What was I looking for? I don't know...her possessions were pitiful. I felt guilty photographing her poverty, invading her privacy. I wonder if this is how some journalists feel, like trespassers.

A goddess for men. And non-men.

If you peer into the little sanctum of the Mumbadevi Temple, you'll see her - the Goddess Mumba - in all her glory. She is orange in the glow of the shendur. Her mango-shaped nosering, so typical of this region, glistens in the lamplight. There are offerings of flowers and fruits, the air is fragrant with incense. Crowds throng the little temple, pressing for a glimpse of her. On festival days, you can barely set foot inside.

Clearly, the Goddess cult is alive and kicking in Bhuleshwar.

Mumba is of course, only one manifestation of the Goddess. There are many others; you can see them carved on panels in the Mumbadevi temple.

There's Saraswati, the Goddess of Learning, with her customary swan. There's Lakshmi - Goddess of Wealth, on a lotus. There's Durga, the warrior Goddess, riding her tiger. There's dark angry Kali, the fearsome Goddess of Destruction.

But alongside these familiar Goddesses, I saw something I had never seen before - a Goddess on a Rooster.

I pointed it out to my friend Sandhya. She didn't know this Goddess either, so she asked the priest. 'This is Bahuchar Maa', said the priest. Neither of us had heard of Bahuchar Maa, so I came back home and looked her up.

Bahuchar Maa, apparently, is a very popular goddess in Gujarat, with a large temple in Mehsana. Interestingly, the website of the temple says the Goddess "gives virility to men". In addition, I found that Bahuchar Maa is also the Goddess of the hijras, the eunuchs/transsexuals of India.

Obviously, this goddess has something to do with sexuality, so I hunted around for more information, and I found a couple of curious folk tales.

Here's one of them: There was, once upon a time, a man who tried to molest Bahuchar Maa (Go figure. Who would want to mess with a lady carrying a sword and a trident?). Anyway, this man was cursed with impotency. So he gave up his masculinity, dressed in women's clothes and worshipped her. He was finally forgiven and cured of his impotence.

So - Bahuchar Maa is a fertility goddess, and both men and women seek her blessings if they don't have children. Naturally, the hijras, who dress in women's clothing, are dear to her. In fact, in the temple in Mehsana, there is an annual garba dance by the Deviputras, the hijras. I wonder if the Hijras dance in prayer in Mumbai as well...do any of you know?

The other story around this Goddess is that she was once a princess who castrated her husband, because he dressed in women's clothes and refused the pleasures of her bridal bed. Ouch.

And here's a third interesting story - there's a guy from London called Steve Cooper, who now lives in the Bahuchar Maa temple, wears sarees, and offers blessings to anyone who wants it. I'm not surprised. This is India. There's a goddess for everything. And everyone.

Finding Warli where it belongs

It is impossible to miss Warli art in Mumbai. You walk into any gift store, and you'll easily spot the animated white stick-figures on tea coasters, trays, boxes and paintings.

As art forms go, Warli is pretty old. Yashodara Dalmia, in her book The Painted World of the Warlis suggests that Warli represents a continuous art tradition stretching back to 2500 or 3000 BC.

That sounds plausible. If you check out the rock carvings at Bhimbetka, in Madhya Pradesh, you'll see the similarity to Warli. The Bhimbetka caves have had continuous occupation from Paleolithic times, and the art dates from the Mesolithic period (10,000 years ago) to medieval times.

I was shopping recently with an overseas visitor, when we spotted a typical Warli painting, neatly framed. "You mean this is traditional art?", he said. "It looks almost contemporary, very stylish!" And I thought to myself, perhaps that's what folk art is all about, perhaps it is timeless in some sense.

In Bombay's fancy gift stores, Warli art has been transformed into something fashionable. But this week, on my way to Mumbai's Kanheri Caves, I was very pleased to Warli art in its natural setting for the first time - on the walls of a mud house. The house was 'adobe' style, a mud hut, but with a tiled roof. The men of the household were on the roof, repairing it before the monsoon set in.

Here is a closer look at one section of the painting:

The entire village seems to be illustrated in it - dogs, cats, cows, women, men, houses, the village well. Notice how everyone is busy - drawing water, sweeping, tending cattle, cooking, carrying things. In fact, when I saw the painting it was like seeing the sleepy village come alive. My favourite bit though, are the village hens, check them out! I suspect one of them is the rooster, and the rest his harem!

The name JAG is written on the wall in both English and Marathi, obviously it is the name of the painter. I can't tell whether that's a male name or a female one...Warli is traditionally a woman's art though. Warli paintings are typically done before weddings, to seek the blessings of the goddess. So perhaps they had a wedding in the family recently.

If you want to see Warli painting in progress, or the inside of a Warli home, you simply shouldn't miss Dr. Stephen Huyler's wonderful collection of photos on his Painted Prayers website.

Gandhi on women

I always love taking visitors to Mani Bhavan, Gandhi's Mumbai home. It is on a quiet leafy lane near Chowpatty. On the top floor there are a series of tableaus, depicting the story of his life. Several tableaus illustrate his non-violent protest against injustice, and the last few tableaus tell the story of his assassination and funeral.

The violence of Gandhi's death comes as a shock. That this frail saint, this icon of peace, should die so violently, is hard to accept. In today's context, where the news is full of violent global wars, you begin to despair of a solution.

When you walk back downstairs, you notice a set of posters on the wall, each framed like a painting. In one of them, Gandhi talks about non-violence, and the role of women. Here's what he says:

The last sentence made me stop and think. Is it true, that women are somehow, essentially, more non-violent? And that women hold out hope for a non-violent future for all of mankind? Or is Gandhi merely propagating the myth of the long-suffering, all-sacrificing Indian woman?

Speaking to a group of women in Italy, Gandhi apparently said "The beauty of non-violent war is that women can play the same part in it as men. In a violent war women have no such privilege." That was true, of course, in India's struggle for independence. Indian women played a large role in Gandhi's fight for freedom, there were many women in all his campaigns. It was a non-violent movement, that made it easier for women to participate equally, and walk shoulder-to-shoulder with their male counterparts. You had to be brave, to face the lathis and batons, but you did not need the muscles to hit back.

In a meeting in Paris, he said "I have no doubt that (women) can do infinitely more than men against war. Answer for yourselves what your great soldiers and generals would do, if their wives and daughters and mothers refused to countenance their participation in militarism in any shape or form." His statement was based on his observation of his wife Kasturba. It was Kasturba's passive resistance to some of Gandhi's unreasonable demands that made him change himself, from a domineering traditional husband to a more considerate one.

I'm a little confused about this stuff. On the one hand, I believe in equality of opportunity in all spheres, including the armed forces. Today, we have more and more Indian women entering the armed forces and the police. On the other hand, here is Gandhi, asking women to stand up for non-violence.

So what do you think? Do you agree with Gandhi? Is his view of women as essentially peace-loving creatures correct? Is passive resistance the way to go, or is it just an old fashioned idea? If women took a stronger stance against wars, will there be fewer wars?

No matter what your views, Mani Bhavan is worth visiting. It is inspiring, thought-provoking and definitely a must-see place on your itinerary.