Metro ya Local?

-by Aishwarya Pramod

The Mumbai Metro began operations on June 8. Since it was a Sunday, lots of families came to check it out. There was a 500-metre long queue at Versova, with crowds waiting patiently for tickets.

This is just 1/8th of the queue!

Chaos reigned in many stations, but in certain places guards from Reliance assisted and directed people in getting off and on. 

Train arrives at Andheri Station

The Mumbai Metro is nothing like Delhi... Check out the mad rush! People were pushing their way into the train even before those inside could come out. Perhaps in Mumbai, people are used to the crowds and rush of locals, and treat the metro in the same way. 

When the ticket counters ran out of coupons, they started giving people chits of paper instead. Some people took their coupons home instead of returning them :)  

But hopefully in the next few days the hoopla will settle down and people will learn how to board the Metro sensibly.

Photo credits: Trisha Roslin George, on her valiant camera phone.

In which I learn about popular culture

- By Deepa Krishnan

I took this picture of our neighbourhood poster guy, as he set up his pavement stall in the morning:

In one quick glimpse, I could figure out what people want to put up on their walls:
- Sai Baba of Shirdi
- Hindu gods and goddesses
- Bonny babies (including one baby + cell phone combo)
- Chhatrapati Shivaji
- Body builders
- Unrealistic Landscapes
- Bollywood movie stars

My favourite was this poster of Devi, showing the entire universe contained in her. It has such fantastic iconography, I stood there for a couple of minutes just trying to figure out everything that was going on. I wish I could meet the unknown artist, who put together this dazzling imagery of earth and its creatures, all the gods and indeed, the entire universe, contained in one form.

Here's a closer look at the lower half of the picture: what do you see? I see the natural world; elephants, fish, snakes, cows, swans; I see a thousand references to mythology, each one a complete legend in itself. I can't even begin to describe all of them. Amazing, to just find this on the street. This is what popular culture is about - there are no art curators, there is no knowledgeable prattle, and there are no fancy galleries with their rarified atmosphere. The market rewards the artist who best expresses what people want.

Here is a closer look at the upper half: the style tells me this was produced in the south of India, but I don't know where. If you click on it, you can see a larger version. The navagraha (nine planets) are represented in her eight arms and in her crown (the Sun God is in her crown). The entire universe is contained in her.

I looked more closely, and found that there were two names signed at the bottom: Siva and Jothi. I think Siva is the artist, and perhaps Jothi is the company that produced the poster? That spelling of Siva tells me this is likely from Tamil Nadu, where I see this spelling usually. Whoever it is, I hope they know they are appreciated!

Teaching and Learning

- by Deepa Krishnan

These days we're doing a training / sensitization series at my office. It is a summer program for young people who work in the tourism industry in Mumbai.

We're discussing a wide range of topics - caste, gender, education, legal system, history, architecture, and so on. The idea is to help these students speak with some level of depth about these issues. They meet and interact with many tourists each month - so it is very useful for them.

I have myself also been enjoying these discussions on social, economic and political issues. And I'm looking forward to more of them. We have three interns this year, students from St Xavier's College (including my daughter Aishwarya!). They're helping to research topics and they're conducting the sessions. I'm the moderator, sort of.

There is lots of participation. I love the dynamics, and especially I love way learning works when there's discussion and fun, and most importantly, when everyone is sharing their own life experiences. I was glad to see the sort of questions that came up in the discussions on caste and gender. I'm learning lots of new stuff myself.

Taoos Chaman ki Myna

by Aishwarya Pramod

This Sunday, I went to see a children's play at Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan (Chowpatty). The play was called Taoos Chaman ki Myna, meaning "The mynah from the Peacock Garden".

I loved it. It was funny, witty, and extremely well-produced, with a mix of realistic and stylized scenes lending it a fairy-tale feel. And the music was great (my mom is still humming it).

Taoos Chaman ki Myna is based on a short story written by Naiyer Masud, an Urdu writer from Lucknow. The play is set in Lucknow during the mid-1800s. Wajid Ali Shah, the Nawab of Awadh, has a large cage full of beautiful mynahs in his garden in Qaisar Bagh. Kaley Khan is a poor employee in the Nawab's garden. The play follows the story of Kaley Khan and his family, and specifically, what happens when he steals one of the mynahs for his daughter, who has long been asking for one.

Lucknow in the background. Death of Kaley Khan's wife, with his daughter sorrowing.

The acting incorporated a lot of graceful dance-like movements and postures (Kathak, according to my mother), and the play almost became like a dance-drama.

Kaley Khan's first glimpse of Taoos Chaman's peacocks.
Outstanding choreography and imagination.

Newly arrived hill mynas are about to be released into the cage in the Nawab's garden.
Nawab Wajid Ali Shah comes to inspect, along with the British Resident

I loved the glimpse I got into Lucknow's culture - the story was peppered with references to the city of Lucknow - from major landmarks and historical figures to street foods and bird markets, havelis and Nawabi eccentricities. 

It was presented by Gillo Theatre Repertory, which works exclusively in theatre for young audiences. I like the fact that Gillo focuses on showcasing Indian content. They have established a talented repertory of adult performers who perform exclusively for children.

The talented team at Gillo.
Dolly Thakore was there in the audience, she came up on stage and praised the group
... wah re celeb dekh liya B)

The hall was filled with children, most of whom had come with their parents. There was also a large group of schoolchildren with their teachers. I think the play definitely succeeded in delighting the kids :) The adults in the audience loved it too, going by their expressions and applause.

Now I'm looking for more of Naiyer Masud's stories, in Hindi.

Photo credit: Deepa Krishnan

Mariaai, the Goddess of the people (also called Renuka, Yellamma, Mariamman, Ekvira)

- By Deepa Krishnan

I was walking along Dadar Kabootarkhana yesterday, and I spotted someone going from stall to stall, with the Goddess balanced on the head. 

It is summer now, and this is the time of rashes and other skin ailments. Mari-aai, also called Mariamman, Renuka, Ekvira or Yellamma, is a major folk goddess in the Deccan/South India. She is very powerful - her wrath can bring disease, but she is equally capable of blessing people. She cures all ailments, especially the pox, she blesses the infertile with children, and brings prosperity to the village.

There are several temples to this powerful goddess in Maharashtra - but if you cannot make the journey to the temple, then "no problem" !! You can get the blessings of the goddess right where you are, because she comes a-visiting, assisted by nomadic intermediaries.

The person carrying the goddess was a hijra, a third gender person. In exchange for a few coins, many stall-owners at Kabootarkhana were receiving benedictions. Some were offering food products from their stall (fruits, lemonade, etc) instead of coins.

The Mariamman/ Renuka/ Yellama legend has particular relevance to the hijra community.  The story begins with a Brahmin sage called Jamdagni. He ordered his sons to kill their mother Renuka, who he suspected of infidelity. Four of his five sons refused, and were burnt to ash. The fifth, the legendary hero Parasurama, agreed and beheaded his mother, but accidentally also beheaded another low-caste woman in the process. After the beheading, Jamdagni offered Parasurama a boon, and Parasurama asked for everyone to come back to life. His five brothers came back to life from the ashes, but they emerged as hijras. For the two women who were beheaded, Parasurama wrongly mixed up the heads and bodies, thus creating Brahmin-Untouchable hybrids. This is the origin of the Renuka-Mariamman entity. While Renuka in her changed form went back to her husband, Mariamman or Yellama remained behind to be worshipped by all. The hijra brothers also began to worship this goddes; so even today there are hijra priests in some Mariamman temples. 

The photo below is from the temple at Sion-Koliwada, which I visited one evening. In this temple, the officiating priestess is a hijra, and several hijras live here. They speak Tamil, so I enjoyed my evening here, chatting and photographing.

To me, Mariamman is extremely powerful because she allows for social norms to be subverted and taboos to be broken. She also provides a place in society for those not strictly adhering to traditional gender boundaries. Here is another photo from the Koliwada temple, with a beautiful hijra holding the goddess trident.

The goddess goes by many names, and is worshipped in many forms. Typically there are animal sacrifices, as well as other less bloody offerings. Here is the Ekvira temple at Karla, which I visted a couple of years ago, and their sacrificial altar.

 

On the day we went, there were no sacrifices (we went right after a major festival day), but the remnants of the previous day's worship were still there. Typically chickens and goats are sacrificed to Ekvira.

For those who want to read more, I wrote something about the Mariamman festival that I attended some years ago at Dharavi, along with my mother. In that festival, the Andhra community made offerings of a gruel (kanji) made of ragi (millet), flavoured with neem leaves (for protection from disease). There were also sacrifices of chickens and goats.

Clearly this sort of folk culture is at great variance with the "high brahmin" version of Hinduism. And it makes many upper caste people uncomfortable. But this is what I believe gives Hinduism its diversity and uniqueness; that it amalgamates all these variants and allows you to pick and choose what you wish.

Often, when I spot goddess figurines in the market and I ask people about it, they only say "Devi", the Goddess. Sometimes they say Mata, sometimes Aai (both mean mother). To me it is proof that there is a fundamental sameness that Indian people understand instinctively. Whether Ekvira or Renuka or Mari-aai or Yellamma, whether Mumbadevi or Golphadevi, the message is clear - there is one Mother, and she is the energy source of all living things.

Dharavi Art Room

- by Deepa Krishnan

I went to Bandra yesterday to see an exhibition of photographs clicked by children in Dharavi.

I confess I did not expect much. But I was blown away by what I saw.

The first thing I realised is that this is a very different sort of story-telling: it is an inside and intensely personal viewpoint, rather than an outsider's temporary peek into Dharavi (which is what you usually see in the press). 

The second thing I realised is that the photos themselves set a high aesthetic standard. Meaning, it is not a bleeding heart exhibit where you put up with poor output simply because of the background of the artists. They don't have the slickness of professional photographers, yes, but they are very good.

Third, I couldn't help responding to the sheer emotion in the photos. They go straight to the heart of the subject. Perhaps this kind of directness can only come from children. There is innocence, grace, beauty and the sheer magic of childhood shining through the photos. Collectively, the photos provide a unique insight into daily life and community as seen through young eyes. My phone camera really doesn't do justice to them, so go take a look yourselves and see if you agree with me.

The exhibition also had other things that were produced by the kids, like the charming Meow Book, which has colourful illustrations of cats with lots of stuff about the secret lives of cats :) There was another beautiful book wiith personal stories of women. There were postcards, notebooks, and so on. Those were high quality as well.

The exhibition was organised by Dharavi Art Room, which provides a space for the children of Dharavi to express themselves and explore issues through art. Recently, they've started working with women as well, teaching photography.

I spoke to Himanshu who founded The Dharavi Art Room 8 years ago, and to Akki, who joined a year ago. They're passionate about what they do - and what's more, they bring excellence into it.

Recently, they've run into funding problems,  and lost their permanent space in Dharavi. I've offered to sponsor a new space for The Art Room, and am now actively looking for space in Dharavi.

They need lots of financial assistance as well. If you can help, let me know, I'll send you their budget.

More updates soon on my space hunt in Dharavi.

Meanwhile: how to get to the current exhibition:
The Hive, 50 - A, Huma Mansion, Opposite Ahmed Bakery, Chuim Village Rd, Khar West, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India 400050. They will be there all of this week.

Turichya Shenga - a winter delight

- By Deepa Krishnan

With the winter season gone, it is time to say goodbye to the last of the "turichya shenga" - the green pods of tuar dal. 

The English name for this most basic of Indian dals is pigeonpea. I find the name both prosaic and beautiful :) 

There is archaeological evidence of tuar dal in India from nearly 3500 years ago. Two Neolithic sites from Odisha - Gopalpur on Sea and Golabai Sasan - have shown evidence of tuar dal. In fact, Odisha still has wild strains of tuar growing it forests. Tuar has been found at Sanganakallu (near Bellary, Karnataka), another Neolithic site where extensive excavation work has been going on. Another Chalcolithic site in Maharashtra, Tuljapur Garhi (Vidarbha district) also shows tuar dal. 

There is some dispute around whether tuar dal is native to India, or came here from Africa. However, the more accepted understanding by researchers is that tuar went from India to Malaysia and East Africa, then on to West Africa and finally to the West Indies, where in 1962 it was named pigeonpea. Pigeonpea then went to the New World (America etc) through the slave trade from Africa. 

Today it is grown in more than 25 countries, but India has a giant share: we produce 80% of the world's tuar dal. We import tuar dal from Africa because we cannot meet our domestic consumption needs. 

I went to the Indira Market at Sion last week and bought a quarter kilo of fresh tuar pods. It is an expensive vegetable, typically selling at Rs 100 a kilo. The simplest way to eat it is by cleaning the pods, and steaming them whole in a vessel with salt and turmeric. You can spend some happy "timepass" hours shelling them and eating the sweet pods inside.

I decided to make rava-bhaath with the rest of my fresh tuar. Here's a quick recipe: Take two tablespoons of oil, and temper with mustard seeds, green chillies, curry leaves and asafoetida. Add rava (semolina) and saute some more until it turns a light brown. Add salt. Toss in fresh pigeon peas, then add boiling water, cover and cook for 5 minutes. Turn off the flame, squeeze lemon juice and garnish with fresh coriander leaves before serving. We ate it with yoghurt and amla (gooseberry) pickle. Here is what it looked like:

Tuar is grown primarily in Maharashtra, which accounts for nearly 35% of India's production. The other somewhat big producers are Orissa, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh, which together account for another 40%. It is a kharif crop, so we see fresh tuar coming into the market in the winter season, from December to March. After March, you can't usually get fresh tuar. If you love the taste of fresh tuar, you can shell them like peas, and put them away in the freezer for use later in the year. 

I haven't frozen any fresh tuar, so for the rest of the year, I've got to eat the dried version. 

Here's one of my favourite recipes of dried yellow tuar dal with kasuri methi (fenugreek leaves): 

In a kadai, add a tablespoon of oil. Add jeera (cumin), dried red chillies, finely chopped garlic and half a chopped onion. Saute until you get drunk on the aroma :) :) but don't allow the chillies to blacken (keep the flame low). Add cooked tuar dal, and a little bit of turmeric. Let it boil for 5 minutes on a low flame. Add a handful of kasuri methi (dried fenugreek) and switch off the flame. Stir the fenugreek in, garnish with coriander, and serve piping hot with basmati rice. Enjoy!

Karela chips - Bitter-Batter-Better!

- by Janaki Krishnan

The bitter gourd (karela) is an unpopular vegetable, but I love it. I cook it in many different ways to remove the bitterness and make it tasty. My favourite way of using karela is to make karela chips. I wait for summer, when karelas come to the market in large quantities.

Karela being sold in Matunga Market

I buy three kilos minimum (two daughters + me). Since I have a vegetable vendor at my doorstep, I get them early in the morning, even before breakfast. All through breakfast, the karelas sit on my kitchen counter, dominating the space, calling out for attention!

As soon as breakfast is over, I begin the process of making them. First they have to be washed. Then any ripe ones are to be separated. The seeds of the ripe ones can be planted, and will grow into a beautiful creeper. We have a creeper growing nicely in our verandah.

Karela creeper in my verandah

The first step in making chips is to cut the karelas into round slices.

At the chopping board - the slices don't have to be very thin.

Place the slices in a thick bottomed broad vessel. Add 3 tablespoons of salt to the slices and let it rest. After an hour and a half, you will see that the karelas have released their liquid, and you have a salty liquid at the bottom of the vessel.

Transfer this liquid into a smaller vessel and add tamarind to it. You will need lots of tamarind, around the size of three lemons. After 15 minutes of soaking in the liquid, the tamarind will soften and you can extract the pulp. To this salty-sour mixture, add half a table-spoon of asafoetida and turmeric, and one and half tablespoons of red chilli powder.

Pour this liquid on the karelas in large vessel, and mix the karelas in this liquid thoroughly. Add half a glass of water.

After this, it is time to semi-cook the karela. This is a tricky process, as you need to ensure that all the slices in the vessel get uniformly cooked. You need to either turn over the slices gently with a spatuala, or shake the vessel in a circular upward movement (like you would do with a sieve) to move the slices around. You have to do this repeatedly to ensure all the slices are evenly cooked.

Once the green colour changes (it is semi-cooked), drain the water. Do not throw away the liquid, because it may be necessary to use it later.

Here is how it looks after it is semi-cooked and laid out to dry on a moram (sieve):

Before you put it on the sieve to dry, taste and see if the salt and chilli are adequate. At this stage the chilli taste should be more dominant, since it will become more salty when it dries. Add more chilli or salt if necessary after tasting. If you find the taste bitter then you can do another round of soaking in the tamarind solution.

Place the sieve in a sunny area and dry for 2 days. Taste it at the end of the first day's drying process. If you want to make changes to it, you can again put it in the tamarind solution, and then dry it again.

Once it dries, then it can be fried in oil and made into chips. Perfect with dahi-rice or with rasam-rice! You can also store it for future use, in a dry air-tight container.

The Mumbai Double Decker Bus

- By Deepa Krishnan

Recently I was walking in Churchgate when I saw a beautiful red double-decker go by.

I have so many fond memories of these buses! As children, we loved to ride the top section, especially the two front seats with views. We would clamber up the stairs as fast as we could, hoping to beat everyone else to the prized seats. 

I looked up the history of the double-decker, and found some interesting tidbits. Did you know that the earliest "double decker" buses actually pre-date the combustion engine? They were horse-drawn, with open decks on top :) To access the top deck, you had to use a ladder.  In fact, horse-drawn buses continued in rural areas of the UK until 1932.

Photo source: http://www.doubledecker-bus.com/history/

Motorised double-decker buses came to India in 1937, but not to Mumbai. It was in Trivandrum that they first appeared, because His Highness Sri Chitira Thirunal Balarama Varma, the ruler of Travancore decided to modernize the Travancore State Department of Transport.

He appointed a Superintendent, Mr. E G Salter, who used to work for the London Passenger Transport Board. Engines and chassis were imported; and the bodies built locally under Mr. Salter's supervision. Within a year, there were 34 buses ready.

A grand inauguration was organised. His Highness and the royal family were the first passengers on the inaugural bus service in Trivandrum. Mr. Salter, the Superintendent, drove the bus himself! What a fun spectacle it must have been, buses trundling along with the rajah in the lead!

In 1938, motorised double-decker buses started plying in Mumbai (by the way, BEST claims it is 1937, and the Kerala State Transport insists that Mumbai got its buses only in 1938).  I cannot find photos of these buses, but I think they probably looked like the STL buses built by AEC in the UK. They were first introduced in 1932 in London, and became hugely popular. They were the standard bus in London for nearly a decade. So it stands to reason that Mr. Salter used this bus as the basis for his Indian fleet.

Photo source: http://www.doubledecker-bus.com/models/

By 1947, there were 242 double-decker buses on Bombay roads, and they were considered a good way to deal with the city's growing population. I gotta ask my mom if she remembers these; and whether they had front-boarding or rear-boarding.

In 1954, another popular double-decker bus appeared in London, the Routemaster. It used two types of engines, either an AEC engine or a Leyland engine. It took the double-decker world by storm, and became an instant hit. A variant of the Routemaster began to be manufactured in India by Ashok Leyland with 50% of the components sourced locally. The first Indian version of the Routemaster was called 'Titan' and it made its appearance in Mumbai in 1967.

Photo source: http://www.ashokleyland.com/history

Since then, Ashok Leyland's Titan (and its children and grandchildren) have been plying in Mumbai. There have been model upgrades and improvements over the last 75 years. But their numbers have been decreasing. Today there are only 121 such buses in the city, and they are operated only along long-distance routes (they are economically unviable on shorter routes). Older buses have been relegated to the scrapheap, and dismantled for the metal.

Meanwhile, the original Routemasters were discontinued in London in 1968, and now only a few continue on some heritage routes. I wonder if the Bombay double-decker also will be discontinued soon :( Currently, the BEST is offering a rental scheme, where you can hire an open-deck double-decker for private use.

MTDC runs an open-top bus tour on the weekends in the evenings. It is called Nilambari, and the bus is painted blue (can't say I like the colour). I haven't tried the tour, but it looks like a great alternative to scrapping the buses. I hope that MTDC beefs up this tour with more publicity and creates a permanent place for the double-decker in Mumbai's future.

Speaking of the future, the man who has already created a unique permanent place in Mumbai for the double-decker is artist Sudarshan Shetty. Amidst the steel and glass structure of the Maker Maxity office complex in BKC, Shetty has installed a Flying Bus; a double decker with glittering metallic wings. The bus is the venue for different art installations; in effect, it is an art gallery.

I loved the bus the minute I set my eyes on it. It is simply gorgeous, isn't it? To me Sudarshan Shetty's Flying Bus represents the hidden potential of the everyday objects we take for granted. Go take a look at it if you are ever in BKC. 

Three hours at the Kala Ghoda Festival 2014 (phew)

- By Aishwarya Pramod

General scene at Rampart Row

Queen of Hearts sarees and fabric stall (run by mother and daughter)

Inability of my mother to resist red saree at Queen of Hearts

Self getting suckered by awesome indigo
prints at Mura Collective from Delhi

Cute pig I bought for my window-sill:
Laquercraft from Chennapattana, sold by Varnam

Mother taking artsy photos of me and cousin

Random art plus environmental messages

Random art plus grandparents

KEC Greengames - reviving traditional Indian games to improve children's motor skills and emotional intelligence

One more general public

General public under tree (it was hot today)

Festival Summary: Heat and crowds. Random art. Some nice stalls. Next time I'll try to go for the events.