Category Archives: Travel Vignettes

One smart cookie

Few weeks ago I was having dinner with few of my sketching pals when a friend pulled out some fortune cookies from his bag and passed them around. Now I am a very ‘if you want something you gotta work for it’ kind of person and do not wait for the stars to be in right allignment to act upon what needs to be acted upon but once in a while I do amuse myself with a light read of the horoscope in the daily newspaper.

The problem is, once the knowledge of how my day is going to pan out has been acquired, I use that intel to corroborate everything that happens from then on. For example, my inclination to take up a new language the other day was obviously because cafeastrology predicted that ‘..with the moon in your communications sector, dear Virgo, you tend to want to be ‘on the go’, making connections, learning ( and there’s our key word!) and sharing. Today the same column predicts that my ‘boredom threshold level’ is supposed to be very low which must explain my pillaging the larder and finishing a bag of garlic breads while watching Gilmore Girls. See, how this works?

This extends to fortune cookies as well. And this is what the first fortune cookie I ever opened in my life said –

How could I have ignored such a potential life altering edict from a smart cookie like that? I couldn’t. So this happened a week ago –

Rarely do I get a chance to recycle an old illustration. I made the original last August when we visited Seoul as tourists. Little did we know that seven months later we’d move here.

Yes, we moved! And we are settling quite well, better than I imagined. Well, all that practice from before is coming in handy. Our first move was from Delhi to Munich and then from Munich to Singapore and now after seven years of expat life in the tropical city state, we’re here in the capital of South Korea, living in a nifty service apartment for now from the window of which I can smell spring which is just round the corner and can see the dome of the National Assembly building if I really crane my neck.

Aboard Singapore Airlines, flying to Seoul. The final goodbye was very painful but also looking forward to new beginnings.

The first week as expected of settling in at a new place has been predictably eventful. We got our tuberculosis tests done (required to apply for a residence permit) at a public health clinic where not a single soul spoke English.

Everything went remarkably well, considering we managed to fill out forms that were in Korean except for a little confusion towards the end when our names got swapped and my husband was asked to take the test again when they actually meant to ask me. But we handled it with all the charm we could muster. Never underestimate the power of miming. Grocery shopping happened on Tuesday and I was bummed because I couldn’t find most of the vegetables I was used to buying but loved the fact that supermarkets don’t hand out plastic bags.

From 23 degrees C in Singapore to -3 degrees C in Seoul. But spring is coming!

Also, basmati rice costs more than 3 times of what we paid in Singapore. On Friday, President Park was impeached, on Saturday we went apartment hunting with a property agent named Elvis who looked 30 years old but was actually pushing 50 and thought that it was inappropriate to celebrate the impeachment of a country’s president even though the desired outcome had been achieved. On Sunday we sniffed out a cafe by Gontran Cherrier (his Kouign Amanns were to die for even in Singapore) and on Monday we applied for our residence permits at the Immigration office. Phew!

At Incheon Airport. We had so much luggage that it wouldn’t be fit into a regular taxi, so we had to hire a ‘van’.

There are still a million things to be done like finding an apartment, opening a bank account, getting a local phone number, applying for internet, finding an Indian grocery store that sells all the spices I use in my cooking and so much more which cumulatively may feel overwhelming but every time I sense my patience fraying I remind myself that we are doing exactly what we always wanted to do, which was to travel.

This fantastic service apartment is our home for this entire month until we find our own apartment. We have a kitchenette and the first meal I made after buying groceries was pasta Agilo e oilo!

To travel to a new place and make it home for a while. To explore and discover our new home. To experience all over again the full gamut of emotions from being surprised, shocked, disgusted, livid, bemused to being excited, joyful, exhilarated, inspired, happy and possibly a lot humbler than we were before (not necessarily in that order) as a result of those discoveries and explorations. It is akin to suddenly being apprised of the fact that you have a beating heart, although you had it all your life and never cared and feeling how marvellous that is! It is akin to feeling alive!

Oh! there will be stories to tell. And I know it’ll all be fun, just as my cookie predicted.

To whoever’s Bangkok bound

Leave a reply

and time crunched ( or not) but wants to make the most of his/her visit to this incredible city, I give you 24 Hours in Bangkok , written and illustrated by me and published in Selamta Magazine, the magazine of Ethiopian Airlines.

Hand drawn illustrated map of Bangkok

This above is the map illustration accompanying the article. I drew it with a dip pen and sepia ink and coloured it using watercolours. By creating a compilation of little watercolour sketches of the sights, I wanted my map to convey that ‘sense of place’ to the traveler; take him/her on a visual (and at times, sensory) tour of the city even before the flight lands at Suvarnabhumi airport.

For the armchair traveler and if you are one, this map should work equally well. As you trace your eyes across the sights on the map, following the paths marked out, I hope you can taste the sweetness of the ripe mango served with fragrant rice at Baan Khanitha or sense the calmness of your surroundings while resting on the wrought iron bench at Jim Thompson’s House, be awestruck by the sheer size and beauty of Wat Suthat as you follow the orange robed monks there and finally at the end of a long day, feel your aching muscles spring back to life at the healing hands of your masseuse at Ruen Nuad Massage Studio.

Whether you travel actually or virtually, I hope my write-up and hand drawn map takes you places. And since we’re talking about maps, here’s another one I drew of Mumbai for the same magazine. Check out : For the love of maps

Discombobulated

10 Replies

is how I’ve been feeling over the last 72 hours. It is hard to describe but suffice it to say that my body and mind are at two different places, miles apart from one another and I, for the life of me cannot reconcile them. Tricky state to be in really, but if you knew how I got here, you may want to try it too. And I hope you do.

Well, three weeks ago this is how it all started –

This is the first page of my concertina travel journal that I took along on the journey.

Traveling to the land of Chinggis Khan, passing through the same vast Steppes of Central Asia where he and his mighty army lived in and trampled across to conquer nearly half the world had been one of those dreams which you birth quietly while turning the pages of a history book but keep bottled up inside thinking it might be too lofty to see the light of day.

My husband’s minion flip-flops were such a joy to draw!

But ours just clambered up into reality after years of planning. And on the way to Mongolia, we spent a week in Seoul in South Korea by hanging out at ancient palaces, sipping persimmon tea inside traditional tea houses, whizzing through local markets in search of mung bean pancakes and shopping on neon lit streets of Myeongdong.

Two destinations clubbed together on the same trip couldn’t have been more different, not just in terms of landscape and the lifestyle of people who live there but also to the degree they transformed us as travellers when we set foot on their terrain. While it was fascinating to explore the mix of quaint and cutting-edge cohabiting in Seoul, the city never pushed our boundaries or threw us out of our comfort zones as traveling in Mongolia did at certain times, especially when we were in the countryside and yet it left the most incredible and also indelible taste in our mouth.

Now that I’m back home in Singapore, there are stories to tell and sketches to share from this epic journey of ours but not until I can steer my mind away from where it is comfortably dwelling, which is here –

View of Ulaanbataar city from our room in the hotel (Tip – Request for a room on a high floor with mountainside view if you stay at Shangri-la, UB)

and (mostly) here –

The ubiquitous Steppes of Mongolia

here –

A lone Ger on the Steppes

…and here –

Horses running wild in the vast Steppes

From our apartment window in Singapore I can only ever see a sliver of sky squished in between two Goliath high rises. Sigh! But then again I have access to running water, privacy, ensuite bathroom and high speed wi-fi. It may not be very long until you hear from me again, after all.

Trip to the Antipodes series : New Zealand (part II)

Leave a reply

7th January 2015 : The Southern Scenic Route – There were several detractors of the ‘Southern Scenic Route’ that starts from the heritage town of Dunedin following the southern coast to Invercargill via the Catlins and continuing west to our final destination – Te Anau. ‘There’s nothing much to see on this route’; ‘it’s a waste of time’; ‘you should rather opt for a 3 hrs non stop drive to Queenstown’ and so on, is what we heard all along.

Truth be told, only because we had driven on the Inland Scenic Route with fabulous views of the Canterbury Plains and the surreal Southern Alps , this part of the journey paled in comparison. But not without a few surprises.

7th Jan / Southern Scenic Route – After accounting for the places we wanted to stop along this route : Dunedin – Milton – Kaka Point- Nugget Point – Owaka – Purakanui Falls – Papatowai – Curio Bay – Invercargill – Colac Bay – Lake Manapouri – Te Anau, it was clear that we were in for a long drive, about 8 to 10 hours long.

Like Nugget Point, with its solitary lighthouse dominating a jagged peak on the Catlins coast. It feels like a place you may see in your dreams and have a lingering memory of when you wake up. As you climb up the steep headland with a 200 feet drop on the left, the wind howls in your ears, shuffling through your hair and clothes. The brooding grey sky hangs above. And the ocean, somnolent at a distance is broken into indignant froth by the nugget like rocky islets scattered below. Fur seals and sea lions laze on the rocks, undisturbed.

7th Jan / Southern Scenic Route – The three tiered Purakaunui Falls was tucked in a soft mossy green aura ; Curio Bay showed us three hector dolphins and Invercargill was only good for a cup of coffee and döner kebab. Note the signage near the Llama farm in Manapouri!

It was near the spectacular Lake Manapouri that we stopped by a llama farm and I sketched the one remaining llama that didn’t flee as I approached the barbed wire fencing. At Te Anau, we checked into a refurbished cathedral working as a B&B and after a freezing stroll along the lake, we ended the day in Mother Superior’s room.

January 2015 : Day trip to Milford Sound – If there’s something in this world that holds the power to transform and transcend, it is nature. I’ve felt that numerous times while driving through New Zealand, across varied landscapes but never did I feel it so strongly as I did on that ferry sailing through the fiord, past lush rainforest covered sheer rock faces, rising from the water like giant mythical creatures, their peaks hidden behind a thick veil of mist.

We were on the 2.5 hours Milford Sound nature cruise with Real Journeys that started at 1:30pm. As per the brochure, a million people visit what Rudyard Kipling called the 8th wonder of the world. The anticipation was high.

As the 2.5 hours MIlford Sound cruise ended, I became a sad, bumbling mush. called it the Milford Hangover. It was hard for my husband to drag me away to the car. I kept walking back.

8th Jan / MIlford Sound – As the end of the Milford Sound cruise, I became a sad, mumbling mush. I called it the Milford Hangover – a mixture of awe and humility. It was hard for my husband to drag me away because I kept looking back for ‘one last view’. In the evening we checked into Dusky Ridges, a working farm in Te Anau, amid rolling fields, distant mountains and pine trees. Next morning, Win, the kiwi owner let us feed goats, chicken, deer and alpacas!

The deeper we trudged into the fiord, more windy and mystical it became, with the boat bobbing with the waves and spraying water on the deck. We were soaking wet, fighting the howling gale, holding on to the mast, stupefied with the outlandish beauty. Just as we were sailing back to shore, Mitre Peak dusted itself off the clouds and appeared in full regalia. The captain killed the engine and said, “This isn’t something we see every day. You’re very lucky”. He wasn’t talking about the snow capped peak. A school of dolphins were joyously swimming past the boat, some jumping in the water in perfect arches.

9th January 2015 : Te Anau to Queenstown – The sight of the mighty Remarkables signalled the arrival of Queenstown which was living up to its hype of the adventure capital of New Zealand. A casual stroll through the streets took us past a string of shops retailing bungee jumping, jetboating, rafting, sky diving offers plus a host of another selling appropriate gears for engaging in these high adrenaline sports.

The mighty Remarkables in the evening light had be awestruck for a very long time. While I was sketching the mountain range, a lady few hundred metres away from me was perched on a projecting rock and was reciting a verse out loud with conviction and tempo.

9th Jan / Queenstown – While I was sketching the Remarkables, a lady few hundred metres away from me, perched on a projecting rock, was reciting a verse in English, out loud with intense conviction and in a quick tempo. It was very powerful, especially during that time of the evening. I had goosebumps.

High end hotels, mid range apartments, low range hostels, backpacker joints, all kinds eateries and their purveyors were crammed in every corner of Queensland, strolling, driving, sunbathing, swimming, photographing, souvenir shopping, hiking, clubbing and what not. It was the most touristy spot I’d come across in the entire South Island.

Forty five minutes drive to Glenorchy with spectacular views of Lake Wakatipu against sheer mountains and an electric blue sky, was the perfect antidote to boisterous Queenstown. We spent the evening at Glenorchy Cafe listening to live music in its backyard and watched the sun set behind the mountains.

10th January 2015 : Day Trip to Arrowtown – Arrowtown looks like a film set for a period drama, too quaint to be real at times. The tree lined 19th century cottages and historic wooden buildings have played their part in the 1850s Gold Rush, and now pull their weight by housing museums, restaurants, real estate agency, cafes, bars and shops selling sheep skin carpets, sweaters, vintage decorative items, souvenirs and so on.

There’s a meditative silence interrupted by bird cries and the constant drone of visitors who are here to collectively travel back in time. To savour this anachronism some more, we have coffee at Postmasters – a historic cottage which was once the home of the postmaster.

10th Jan / Arrowtown – I tried Gold Panning at Dudley Cottage for 10 dollars and got a certificate and vial containing my find! ‘Success was guaranteed” though!

On the way back to Queenstown, we stop at Lake Hayes. The 100th annual Lake Hayes agricultural and pastoral show was wrapping up for the day – the horses, sheep were led to the cattle trucks, the organisers resting their legs on chairs, drinking beer, the makeshift structures being dismantled, the dust from the festivities finally settling. From a private nook along the lake we watch the purple sunset. The melancholy of the the last night in New Zealand was fast approaching.

11th January 2015 : Queenstown to Melbourne – Thank God for an extra day in Melbourne, because QVM was fantastic! It was in the deli section where my pulse quickened. Extensive range of cheese, marinated olives, cured sausages, dips, pates dazzled in their marble counters. Bakeries, patisseries, spice shops, wine sellers, chocolatiers, coffee and tea merchants got me absolutely berserk. You can gauge my excitement from the shopping I did there in the short amount of time. Everything got sketched, of course!

11th Jan / Melbourne – Gewürzhaus (the top right sketch) was my favourite shop in QVM. I bought a pack of French Lavender salt from them. Also, their salted caramel candy is finger-licking good!

12th January 2015 : Melbourne to Singapore – The last day was spent in revisiting some favourite spots like Cumulus Inc – pigging out on yet another plate of roasted cauliflower and buying more spices from Gewürzhaus. We sealed the trip on a victorian note, sipping ‘snow white’ from dainty white cups in HopeToun Tea Rooms, a 19th century tea parlour in Block Arcade.

12th Jan / Melbourne – The Two Korean guys who bought our Myki Card were students from Brisbane. They asked me if we were on our honeymoon!

Above is the 49th as well as the last page of my journal that records a fabulous 18 day trip to the Antipodes. Sketching a journey so extensively has been a revelation! Apart from the sense of joy in putting pen to paper everyday and creating something from nothing, it became a practice in self-discipline and mindfulness. When I started the first page, listing the items packed in my backpack, I did not expect it to evolve into what it is now – a tactile treasure trove of memories.

Trip to the Antipodes series : New Zealand (part I)

Leave a reply

1st January 2015 : Sydney to Christchurch – As you can see from my sketch I started the year with a tall glass of promising ‘Green and Lean’ juice at Lumiere Cafe on Bourke Street. Five seconds later, a massive portion of Egg Benedict followed. New Year resolutions be damned.

To work that off we voted for a walk from City Hall to Sydney Opera House and see the iconic building one last time. What seemed like a great idea, gradually lost its appeal as the day became hotter. Most shops were closed and there were understandably few people on the streets after last night’s revelries, making our stroll even less fun. The chilled passion fruit smoothie at Starbucks saved me from passing out before the flight.

Sydney to Christchurch / 1st Jan : Highlight of the day was picking up Charlie from the airport.

Sydney to Christchurch / 1st Jan : Picking up Charlie from Christchurch airport was the only highlight of the day.

And then – Kia Ora New Zealand! We picked up Charlie, our rental car from Christchurch airport around midnight. John Steinbeck may have something to do with my naming our red Toyota Corolla. Charlie’s Odometer Reading showed : 43300Km at the time of pick up. I kept a record of the readings on my sketchbook to gauge how much we drove each day.

2nd January 2015 : Hanging out in Christchurch – The scars of the 2011 earthquake, were prominent on Christchurch. Vast spaces lay bare in between buildings. We walked past piles of rubble, damaged structures, collapsed, stripped to the core with iron rods sticking out of them. It was heartbreaking especially the plight of the 100 plus years old Christchurch Cathedral. Outside these cordoned off areas containing the wreckage, the story was one of resilience and hope.

The Re:start mall seemed such a beacon. Everything from food, carpets, sweaters, shoes, clothes, souvenirs and kiwi knick knacks were sold from inside of colourful shipping containers! We shared a bench with a family from Wellington and sipped lemonade right in front of a bright red metal box that had become the home for Scorpio books.

Christchurch / 2nd Jan : We had dinner at Indian Sumner, an Indian restaurant at Sumner. After surviving on Egg Benedict, Fish and Chips, sandwiches, wraps and burgers for days, a slice of home felt heavenly.

If there’s one place I’d like to return to in Christchurch, it would be the Risingholme garden, inside the Botanical garden. The serenity of nature, the meditative silence and the feeling of being minuscule, inconsequential amid the giant oaks, cedars, beeches and Spanish chestnut will remain special. I flitted from one tree to another, hugging, smelling, caressing their massive trunks, finally settling under the shade of Cedrus Atlantica, from where this sketch was done.

In the evening, Charlie drove us to Sumner – a pretty seaside suburb of Christchurch, about 12 km away. We watched a dramatic sunset and walked on the long beach in the golden light, listening to waves violently crash against the jagged rocks. It was cold, so we huddled up close to each other and held hands. For a little while, the poignant reminders of a brutal calamity writ large upon Christchurch was forgotten.

3rd January 2015 : Onwards to Lake Tekapo – Black Betty, a stone’s throw from Southwark Apartments, was open for business, post new year. We were among the firsts to show up. The gothic accents were interesting but thankfully not overpowering for detractors. The hot chocolate and blueberry muffins lived up to the great reviews.

But we didn’t want to fill up because our next stop was Lyttelton Farmers Market, in the port town of Lyttelton, about 12 Km away. I was so enamoured with Sue’s marinated olives that we spent an inordinate amount of time at her stall. It was very hard to turn away from the rest of her wares – semi-dried tomatoes, dolmades, marinated artichokes, several kinds of dips and hummus – everything fresh, fragrant, glistening and ready to eat! “I used to own a cafe there (apparently the legendary Volcano Cafe)“, she said pointing to her right. Then added “..but after the earthquake destroyed it, I do this.” Sue has developed the volcano brand of delicatessen food that she sells at various farmers markets. After she helped me pick out 4 different kinds of olives, I sketched her little set up. She graciously signed her name under it, at my request.

Christchurch to Lake Tekapo / 3rd Jan : We were lucky to be able to experience something as local as a farmer's market at Lyttelton. Meeting the people, chatting with them, hearing their stories and, watching them go about their business trumps any tourist attraction. And sketching is the fastest way to make friends!

Christchurch to Lake Tekapo / 3rd Jan : We were lucky to be able to experience something as local as a farmer’s market at Lyttelton. There were times when I wished I was a local just to be a part of their spirited community. Meeting the residents, chatting with them, hearing their stories and, watching them go about their business trumps any commercial tourist attraction. It felt real and authentic. And sketching seemed like a great way to start conversations and make friends out of strangers!

Walking through the market felt like gatecrashing a private party. ‘How’s your mother doing?’, “You looked great in that bikini the other day”, “Were you out of town?”, “Happy New Year!” were some of the snippets of conversation I heard been exchanged between the bread, mince pie, cheese, sausage, herbs, fruit and vegetable stall owners and their customers.

A band played slow music beside a cafe and the harbour across the street looked beautifully blue. Armed with a gigantic ( about 20cm in diameter) Focaccia bread that took us 5 days to finish, 100 gm each of herb and garlic cheese and my treasured olives, we forged ahead towards our destination.

The first sight of Lake Tekapo had us swooning over its terrific blueness. It was bluer than the bluest blue I had seen. Up at St. John’s Observatory, the air was so clean and transparent that the farthest mountains in the backdrop became visible, forming a soft undulating dark green outline in contrast to the stark and edgy blue foreground. For urban dwellers heavy-handed with photoshop and Instagram filters, this sight would be a revelation.

4th January 2015: Mount Cook bound – The owner of Glacier Rock B&B – our fantastic lodging (the view from the patio alone makes it worth the stay) in Lake Tekapo said to us at breakfast, ” I have a feeling that you’ll have a clear view of Mt. Cook today“. Apparently, it isn’t uncommon for the weather to turn without warning and for us that could mean losing our only chance to view the highest peak of New Zealand. Already the radio was abuzz with the news of the three missing mountaineers attempting to scale Mt Cook after the weather deteriorated. I hoped Mrs. MacLaren was right.

Lake Tekapo – Mount Cook – Omarama / 4th Jan : Peak of the day was dipping my feet in glacial water at the end of Hooker Valley Walk. And the bland under seasoned pea soup at Shawtys in Twizel has to be the slump of the day. Yes, it was worse than the 120$ speeding ticket.

After a short stopover at Lake Pukaki, the plan was to drive non stop to Hermitage Hotel, take in the famed view of the mountain from there, then start on the 4hours tiring yet spectacular Hookers Valley Walk that ended at the Hooker glacial lake. But the closer we got to the mountain, more compelled were we to make random roadside stops just to adjust our senses to the beauty unfolding. Unsullied nature at such a grand scale was a lot to take in. It was humbling to stand on that listless road snaking feverishly though a sweeping landscape of massive forbidding mountains surrounding us, rising from the ground like mighty waves.

The day ended at Omarama – the starting point of our ‘gold heritage trail’.

5th January 2015 : A long winded route to Dunedin – There is of course a straightforward and quicker route to Dunedin which we did not take. Relaxing is something we forget to do on holidays. Instead we carved out a day long plan to drive through the preserved goldrush towns of Cromwell, Clyde, Alexandra, St. Bathans, Naseby, Ranfurly, Middlemarch and finally to Dunedin, that claim their origins to the discovery of gold in 1861.

Otago's Gold Heritage Trail/ 5th Jan : I got myself four souvenirs from this trail - a 'Lavender, Lime and Spice' soap bar from Cromwell, a maori dolphin tail locket made out of bone from Clyde, a tacky fridge magnet from Alexandra, a sticker for my diary from St. Bathans. I cannot bring myself to use the soap. For now it perfumes my study table.

Otago’s Gold Heritage Trail/ 5th Jan : I got myself four souvenirs from this trail and none of them was gold. I picked a ‘Lavender, Lime and Spice’ soap bar from Cromwell, a maori dolphin tail locket made out of bone from Clyde, a tacky fridge magnet from Alexandra and a sticker for my diary from St. Bathans. I cannot bring myself to use the soap. For now it perfumes my study table.

The historic precincts in each of these towns being pedestrian, it’s easy to slip back in time just by walking past the retro architecture. Art galleries, restaurants and cafes are housed in some of these establishments. Some act as museums, some sell handcrafted soaps. But together they exude a cute picture postcard beauty and nostalgic charm that made the detour every bit worthwhile.

6th January 2015 : Touring Dunedin – Except Omarama, where our lodging didn’t turn out as expected, I did a pretty good job in finding unique accommodations on this tour, the creme de la creme being Lisburn House in Dunedin – a stunning 19th century Victorian property turned into B&B that will feed your fantasy of living as a member of 19th century English nobility.

I spent a ridiculous amount of time at the Otago Settlers Museum. Not because it was hot outside and I needed the shelter, but because it was of the best curated museums I had visited – one of those educational establishments that believes in telling a compelling story through its exhibits, encouraging its viewers to join the dots instead of spoon feeding them.

Dunedin / 6th Jan: We woke up in a Victorian dream home, toured a chocolate factory and climbed the world’s steepest street, all in one day. Pretty productive, I’d say!

After romping about the city some more, we drove 70 Km to see an unique geological sight that had intrigued us ever since we saw its pictures. Moeraki Boulders seemed like gigantic concrete cannonballs randomly lying on the beach, some in clusters, some solitary. There were deep cracks all over their surface, like some sort of design. Some boulders were intact, whole – people climbed over them and took pictures, while others lay cracked open like an egg shell, with fragments scattered all over the sand.

At sunset, the tip of the boulders became golden tinged. The waves crashed against their smooth bodies, trying to pull them in, but failing and sliding off the sand around them instead. It was hard to make sense of their existence, but that was a good thing because it’s better to be curious than blasè. Isn’t it why we travel?

Trip to the Antipodes series : Sydney

Leave a reply

30th December 2014 : Melbourne to Sydney – George’s apartment in Surrey Hills that we found through an intense search on Airbnb, was close to the CBD. Trust me, that is all one needs – an affordable (100 – 150$ over budget is called affordable during this time of the year) place to crash after New Year fireworks. A place that doesn’t wring your pockets dry and is not in the back of beyond taking 5 hours to reach*.

Dumping our luggage in the room, we venture out for sightseeing. Serendipity strikes. Spotting a woman wearing a neon green ‘I’m Free’ lettered T-shirt ( That was Justine, co-founder of I’m free walking tours) circled by about thirty people, right out side QVB, near the talking dog statue, we join her. And what follows is a peek into the city’s history and a walk past Sydney’s major sights described in a fun, extremely informative narrative.

30th December / Sydney: I decided to sketch the opera house today because we didn't know where we would be watching the fireworks from the next day and if I would even get this view or not.

30th December 2014/ Sydney: I decided to sketch the opera house today because we didn’t know where we would be watching the fireworks from the next day and if I would even get this view or not. After the free walking tour of “The Rocks”, we bought a picnic mat and nibbles for the next day and had Fish and Chips dinner on our way back to George’s apartment.

We pass by Martin Place and stop a while to look at the flowers and read the heartwarming messages at the makeshift memorial. The tour ends with a view of the opera house and then the Harbour bridge. Justine dispenses tips on the ‘most ideal free spots to watch the fireworks’ to anyone interested. “Do not go to Circular Quay” she warns. Then adds, ” To find a good spot there, you’ve to reach there at 10 in the morning and wait the entire day in this heat. It’s suicide.”

31st December 2014 : The Big Day – We were at Circular Quay at 10 in the morning. The Sydney New Year Eve official website listed several vantage points for watching the fireworks along with their maximum capacities. This place could hold 26,000 people. Of that, twenty six were already here, lying down on their picnic mats, rubbing sunblock. No alcohol or glass was permitted on the premises. Upon finding a great spot** (after active debating), which meant unobstructed view of the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House, we settled down with our stash of nibbles under the hot sun to spend what was left of that year.

31st December 2014 / Sydney – After a hearty breakfast at Pieno Cafe on Crown Street, we walked to Circular Quay at around 10am to see if there’s empty space. There was. So we parked ourselves here till midnight. This was my view for the entire day.

That’s when we saw our neighbours – Megan from Wales and her Portuguese husband Becas. They were back from New Zealand and ending their 25th anniversary celebratory tour with the Sydney fireworks. “How romantic”, we gushed and got talking. There’s only one way to describe the short haired, chubby cheeked Megan. She’s a veritable force of nature that overpowers anybody in her vicinity with love, vivacity, humour and charm.

31st Dec 2014, Sydney – This is Megan. Of course, I had to draw her. I also got her to sign my sketch. Notice her surname – ‘Jesus’!

She has a big personality and a bigger heart that constantly expanded to accommodate more people. Megan took us under her wings and every other person who came over to sit near or around her – the Iraqi family from New York, the two pimply German guys who sang – ‘Deutschland über alles’ at every cue, the young Brit couple and the 20-something giggly selfie addicted Belgian girls. She would take turns to chat with each of us and every once in a while, call out a name and ask, “Are you okay?”.

This is Circular Quay at about 4pm. People were taking up the spaces in front of us and were ready with their cameras and tripods for an event that was still 8 hours away.

This is Circular Quay at about 4pm. People were pouring in from all directions and taking up any empty space available. All around, you could see bright ‘2015’ hats wiggling on heads, huge cameras and unwieldy tripods on standby for an event that was still 8 hours away.

As Circular Quay started filling in, the member’s of the Megan club, huddled closer to each other, with its hawk eyed matron at the helm, guarding and protecting our space and precious view. No one could sneak in and block it, although many tried. The picnic mat became her ‘home’ and we were its members who were bound by its rules. Like chanting a Welsh rugby cheer every time Megan felt there was a slump in our energy levels. “Group hug, everyone”, she’d shout and make us stand. We’d feel silly but get up like obedient pupils. Thousands of revellers at Circular Quay would witness us huddled in a circle with arms around each other shouting at the top of our voices, following Megan’s lead.

Megan : Oggy Oggy Oggy!

Us: Oi Oi Oi!

Megan : Oggy Oggy Oggy!

Us : Oi Oi Oi!

Megan : Oggy! ; Us : Oi!

Megan : Oggy Oggy Oggy!

Us :Oi Oi Oi!

31st December / Sydney - This is how Circular Quay looked like at 8:30pm - sea of revellers. It took my husband 45 mins to go through this crowd to the toilet stalls about 500 meters away and come back. The place had reached its maximum capacity i.e 26000 people.

31st December / Sydney – This is how Circular Quay looked like at 8:30pm – sea of revellers from every country imaginable. It took my husband 45 mins to go through this crowd to the toilet stalls about 500 meters away and come back. “This place has reached its maximum capacity” was being continuously announced. 26000 people had gathered here to welcome the new year and I was one of them.

And just like that, it was midnight. We watched the sky light up our faces in a million ways. This event was in our bucket list for years, at the centre of our itinerary, planned months in advance. It delivered what we’d hoped for, probably more and yet looking back it isn’t the spectacular fireworks that I remember from that day. It’s Megan, and her chants and her made up ‘home’ and ‘family’ that lasted for 14 blissful hours under a punishing sun. Such are the perks of travel.

*Tips for finding an accommodation during Sydney NY fireworks – Unless you’ve booked your accommodation an year ahead to watch the inimitable Sydney fireworks, choices become very limited towards the end of the year. In such cases, book a budget friendly accommodation as close as you can get from the CBD, that offers free cancellation and check back again for better options say two weeks before the new year – you’ll most likely find a decent place. E.g – We used booking.com to block a cancellable hotel in Chatswood, 15 kms from CBD in October and Airbnb to find our accommodation in Surrey Hills, a 15 mins walk from CBD, in the last week of December.

It is highly preferable that you stay within walking distance from CBD – you’ll thank yourself for this prudence when you look at the sea of revellers standing still outside train stations after the fireworks. Though I didn’t find a free spot, but university stays (http://www.universitystays.com.au/) could be an inexpensive and interesting lodging option in Sydney, specially during this time. Lastly, most places mandate a minimum stay of 3 nights – 30th Dec, to 1st Jan. So for easy availability, plan your stay accordingly.

**Tips on finding a good spot to watch Sydney fireworks – Check the New Year’s Eve official website and scout some of the vantage points in person, a day before. Find a place with a good view of both the Opera House and Harbour Bridge. Bring food, drinks, picnic mat, umbrella, sunscreen and anything that will keep you occupied. There are spots that do not allow alcohol and glass – take note of that when choosing. Come early by 10, latest by afternoon. Take it easy, be prepared to spend the whole day. Lastly find Megan. She will get you through the wait.

Absconding with a reason!

1 Reply

Hatching the plan

Having tackled the drudgery of life for an entire year (also known as living!) we decided to get our lungs some antipodean air and come back ably renewed and refreshed to pick up the yoke of 2015. By the way, Happy New Year folks!

Seeing it through

That innocent decision birthed in a moment of romantic wanderlust was followed by endless reading, preparing, planning, discussing, arguing, booking, packing and apprehending. The process was tedious and grossly unromantic. But we didn’t give up. Not because the smell of adventure kindled our vigour. The flight tickets were non-refundable.

Front cover of my trusty Moleskine Japanese Album. I gave it a facelift!

Making a decision (at least trying to)

When things started falling in place, this is what the itinerary looked like : We’d spend 25th Dec to 31st Dec in Melbourne and Sydney, Australia and from 1st Jan to 10th Jan we will hire a car and drive around scenic routes in the South Island of New Zealand. So naturally, even before deciding what to wear, my one track mind was thinking of ways to capture the experience in pages. It made lofty promises of filling sketchbooks and loose sheets with astounding art and demanded I buy suitable art supplies to be able to achieve that. We debated day and night, weighed pros and cons, charged each other with a salvo of arguments, defended with smart retorts. It wasn’t easy. ( Yes, I have a fertile imagination and a very active inner dialogue). But we came to a decision.

Justifying that decision

Back cover of my Japanese Album decorated with stickers I collected from various locations – some bought, some handed for free by museums, souvenir shops, tourist info centres who thought it was ‘such a neat idea’!

It would have to be Moleskine’s Japanese Album with 50 pages, 165gsm.

It ticked almost all the boxes. The idea was to carry something handy that fits in the bag easily, isn’t heavy and definitely not intimidating for my subjects. A smaller page would also mean lesser time investment when filling it. But most of all, I was hunting for something, where I could illustrate the entire trip, the whole 19 days in one continuous sheet of paper, where daily events can merge into one another and the observer can see everything without having to turn the page! Wouldn’t that be fun! As you can see from the picture below, the Japanese Album fits the bill! The only quibble is that the paper isn’t great for watercolours, but accepts light washes. I took that in my stride coz, the aim was not to produce elaborate frame worthy paintings, but to document the journey by illustrating my thoughts, misgivings, explorations, observations.

This is how the sketchbook looks when I open it

I unfolded the sketchbook and laid it on the floor of my study.

Going for it

I documented every single day on the trip starting 25th December 2014 and ending on 12th January 2015. It took a bit of getting used to initially both for me and my husband until with a bit of discipline it became second nature. Every single morning I’d sense the potent urge to record my observations for that day and my travel partner would learn to give me time and space, sometimes patiently lingering in the background or finding things to do on his own. In that sense, the 50 pages worth of memories that I hold in my hand is a collaboration.

In the first two pages I drew every single item that went inside my blue Herschel daypack that I carried on the trip, for sketching on the go. It weighed slightly less than 5Kgs, although I learnt to downsize based on what I wanted to carry on a particular day.

This is what I packed in my backpack for sketching on the trip

I’ll share the rest of my sketches from the trip on this blog, accompanied by little stories. Should be fun! Regurgitating and reminiscing begins.

Zufrieden

1 Reply

Impression 1 : Lebuh Katz looked sleepy and quiet even at 9 in the morning. Ocassionally a moped or a trishaw would linger past leaving some trail of life. This row of shophouses seemed like the only ornate fixture in this working class neighbourhood with worn down houses that look utilitarian and lived in. Interesting trivia : As I suspected, the street has a German connection. It was named after the German born Katz brothers who established an import business in George Town in 1864.

When I learnt this word in my German class, I remember being instantly enamoured, repeating it several times in class, on the tram, in shower, enunciating it, rolling it around in my mouth to acquaint myself with its nuances, volleying it with my tongue, exploring its soft corners and rough edges and then carefully putting it back in my vocab chest, like a vintage fountain pen with gold nib and sterling silver filigree overlay, something valuable that you take out only on special occasions.

And when you do, you put on a show. You bask in the smug glory of the wonder ricocheted off others’ faces. Then you put it back in your armour again. Such is the word ‘zufrieden‘, which may mean satisfaction in English, but doesn’t feel or sound as hackneyed.

The owner of the shop whose corridor I had blocked came out to survey soon after I had set up. Instead of shooing me away, he moved his bike aside so I could have more elbow room and then he showed me the tap from which I could draw water for painting. A lot gesturing happenned as he didn't speak English and I don't speak Hokkien.

Impression 2 :The owner of the shop whose corridor I had blocked came out to survey soon after I had set up. Instead of shooing me away, he moved his bike aside so I could have more elbow room and then he showed me the tap from which I could draw water for painting. This was accomplished with a lot of gesturing as he didn’t speak English and I don’t speak Hokkien.

Impression 3 :Row of Shophouses on Lorong Stewart. Everyday after workshop ended at 6, I would rush back on the road to utilize the 1.5 hours of leftover sunlight in sketching whatever caught my eye. This time, I was plonked on the floor of another 5-foot way, lined with several fancy restaurants. People sauntered past me, wearing shiny clothes and expensive perfumes. I remember making the ushers really uncomfortable.

Sometimes a foreign tongue can elevate the meaning of a word you’ve heard all your life and transform its ethos into something grand just because it sounds luxurious in your mouth and tantalizing to your ears and also because you didn’t have enough time and occasion to wear it out. What I mean is, I may use ‘satisfied’ to indicate my experience in using the newly opened restroom at the airport, but use ‘zufrieden‘ while reminiscing about a sketching trip to George Town in Penang, that I returned from. To explain why, I have to reiterate that it was my first overseas trip where sketching was the actor in leading role and travelling was the supporting sidekick, not the other way round, like always. The priorities were flipped and the result was glorious.

This epiphany doesn’t mean travelling takes a backseat. I am the parent that’s trying to advocate equal love for each child.

Impression 4 : When I saw this Red Trishaw parked on Armenian Street, I was compelled to sketch it, simply because of this composition. I found a shady spot beside an Ice Kachang lady who initially tried to sell me her ware but later took the responsibility of shooing people away from my line of vision, including tourists. Halfway through the sketch, the red trishaw left, only to be replaced by another in few minutes but this was parked the opposite way. In an attempt to get it done, I was trying to laterally invert the vehicle in my mind and then draw it. When the trishaw driver, quietly lunching beside me got a whiff of my frustration, (I may have been muttering to myself), he got up and to my utter disbelief turned the heavy vehicle around just so I could finish my doodle and declined to take tourists for rides till I finished. When I thanked him, he just nodded. And the Ice Kachang lady dragged her son out of the house to show him my sketch. She seemed proud.

This partially dilapidated shophouse caught my eye on Love Lane.

Impression 5 : I was sketching this aged beauty from a ruined torn down shophouse, right opposite when my husband said, there’s nothing indicative of ‘Love’ on Love Lane. Well, 19th century sailers and soldiers who made a beeline for the brothels lined up here would’ve differed. The amorous frolics of yesteryears have been replaced. Love Lane looked quiet, desolate and monochromatic that evening, except for a gaggle of tourists gathering around cafes chit-chatting about guesthouses, wi-fi, backpacking and travel. Perhaps somebody will talk about Love.

Travelling

For me, travelling isn’t just fun, it is also an yearning. The fact that I feel more happy, and alive on the move is established and I don’t second guess it.

What is travel’s worth in one’s life can be gauged from the motivation to travel. Is it to break away from the mundane seeking ‘change of scenery’, or to relax and recoup before you go back on the hamster wheel, is it to check off places from Lonely Planet’s 1000 places to visit before you die , is it to reclaim your twenties because you’re about to step into your 30s? Or is it that unsettling lifelong ‘need’, not a want but a need, right out of Maslow’s heirarchy, that thrusts you into the unknown from time to time?

Impression 6: China House, a beautiful shop house turned cafe has tables that are covered in white paper. A small bucket of crayons is set on the table for you to scribble while you wait for your meal. This sketch is colored using the same crayons. For dinner, I had spaghetti with grilled chicken and sadly, it was a let down. The pasta was overcooked and flavours were all over place. The lime soda with mint and mango slices was a disaster – I have never tasted anything so incongruous. But DO NOT leave this place without trying the ginormous slice of out-of-this-world Tiramisu. I have a feeling desserts are their strong suit.

My motivation to travel, my ‘need’ to travel, comes from my insatiable inquisitiveness to see, explore, thus discover and know. I believe, we are all inquisitive, differing in the intensity, perhaps. I mean, don’t we all like to take a peek, a swift glance into other’s living rooms through their open windows at night or others’ plates in a restaurant or try to read the label on a bag hanging from a stranger’s shoulder, try to peel off the discounted price sticker on a garment to reveal the actual price or take a peek at the answers behind the Math book?

The apogee of my German learning classes in Munich, was the day I could understand overheard conversations on the tram. It was as if a stubborn blocked nose had cleared and I could smell the roses again. Untill then it was unfathomable background noise instead of funny jokes, twee endearments, silly fights or crass comments. If you are inquisitive to such a degree, then travelling is one pursuit that requires each of your five senses to be in a constant state of high-alert. You are a walking sponge, absorbing an overwhelming amount of information sent by your five, foot soldiers who are working in a frenzy.

Impression 7 : I sketched this row of Shophouses on Jalan Penang – an important thoroughfare during the colonial era – from the Komtar pedestrian bridge. Shophouses in different stages of restoration like in this sketch is such a common sight in Penang. One crumbling and abandoned shophouse shares a wall with its fully restored neighbour, housing a bustling guesthouse or a cafe or a bistro in full regalia, which in turn shares its wall with another that is being mended and prettied up for better prospects. The famous Teochew Chendol sold at the junction of Keng Kwee Street is only a few minutes away. The Assam Laksa sold there is fresh and flavourful.

Sketching

Now let me add another dimention to this self-absorbing pursuit called travel. Suppose you’ve been quietly nurturing the habit of documenting your life, the sights and sounds around you on a regular basis in a sketchbook and have been taking immense pleasure out of it. Yes, it’s been two years. Darn, you’ve even gotten good at it. It has brought you joy, won you friends across the world and admirers who say how much they love your ‘style’ (to which, you have chuckled more than once muttering smugly and questioning at the same time – “I have a style? I have a style!”).

Impression 8 : Any visitor to Penang will be awed by the potpourri of architectural styles – Early Penang Style (1790s – 1850s), Southern Chinese Eclectic Style(1840s – 1900s), Art Decco style (1920s), Anglo Indian Style (3rd quarter of 19th century) to name a few – representing various periods of the city’s history. It’s like a rainbow cake, each layer unique and different. It’s interesting to view two buildings standing side by side that may have been built in different centuries! I sketched this house on Lebuh MacNair because its architectural style seemed different from the two storied pre world war shop houses peppered across the city. It is probably an Indo-Malay bungalow but I can’t be sure.

You’ve showed your work at exhibitions, and sold. Yes, somebody actually paid money to hang your creation on their living room wall. You’ve counted the money gleefully, but you’ve also felt the pang of loss. It’s complicated.

The Conundrum

Nevertheless the burning question is what do you do with this situation of yours, when you travel? Do you accomodate it because it’s becoming second nature or do you abandon it lest it comes in the way?

Impression 9: In the darkness of the night, this Wan Tan Mee pushcart twinkled like a firefly on Lebuh Chulia. In the pale bulb light I could make out a stooped figure handing out steaming bowls of springy noodles with soft wantans floating in an irriesistible dark sauce. The whole shebang was in the open, with pots and pans, buckets, gas cylinders strewn all around. Business was hot. From the enormous queue snaking around the stall, anybody could gauge its popularity.

Impression 10 : Shophouses make such great subjects for sketching. Even across similar architectural style, each house seemed unique and full of character. Swatow Lodging house at no. 16, had all its windows closed. The worn out facade had pockmarks of mildew, faded and peeled paint. The ground was covered in weed. A whole lot of trash – dust covered broken and discarded furniture, toys, cardboard boxes was strewn right across its doorstep. But nobody seemed to care. It was even atmospheric, perhaps exhibited as such deliberately to recall vestiges of the past. After all ‘heritage’ is a fast seller among tourists. For a shophouse sketch fanatic, which I am, Armenian Street has plenty to offer. I picked this one to spend my time on because it stood like a little punctuation mark after a long sentence of shophouses.

If you are inquisitive, you probably have been badgered by the ‘let’s see what happens’ shtick. That’s what I caved in to. I carried my sketchbook everywhere I travelled to see how it felt. And surprise surprise! Sketching did come in the way I travelled, the way we – I and my husband were used to traveling all this time. Aching shoulders from lugging around A4 size sketchbooks and watercolours, making more and longer stops at sights than usual, leaving my partner to fend for himself while I doodled, battling the desire to sketch but moving on instead because, well..tick tock..tick tock, fighting the guilt of cutting on the ‘us’ time – looking into each others eyes, holding hands et al and feeding the ‘me’ time was what happened.

Sketching on the grounds of the colonian Eastern and Oriental Hotel

Impression 11 : Spending even one night at the 1885 built colonial style Eastern and Oriental Hotel( called E&O) could be the highlight of Penang trip, especially if you find out that your favourite authors Rudyard Kipling, Somerset Maugham, Herman Hesse were fellow boarders. Every room faces the sea and the black and white floor of the opulent bathrooms will steal your heart. Do request for a heritage tour at the concierge – this will be your chance to view some of the original fixtures and furishings in the Heritage Wing rooms.

The Decision Making

But if something feels remotely right you hang in there, right? You see it through. Let the unsure wobbly wheels roll, in the hope of finding balance. Truth be told, I haven’t found balance yet, I still falter and fumble trying this third wheel to roll with us in tandem, on our travels, in our lives but guess what, it is getting easier by the day, week, month and year. And what more! I am reaping the benefits. Already.

Impression 12 : While sketching Cafe 55 housed in a shophouse on Lebuh Pantai, we realized how narrow the roads in the historic district of George Town were. Soon we were betting if the next car could turn without grazing the parked car. There were few hits, but mostly misses. Too bad the rickshaws have been replaced.

The Consequence

If you are a mercenary, do not read further. Disenchantment follows. Because the benefits which I am reaping, which many others before me have reaped and those who are yet to follow this path will reap in future is hopelessly Zen. When I am sketching, specially on my travels, I connect with my subject and my environment much more deeply than I would have if I was merely visiting or passing by, because sketching involves intense observation.

Impression 13 : If you’re sketching on the road, keep your privacy tucked away in the backpocket because you’ll attract people like flies to a candy. And your work of course is open to unsolicited criticism. On this single occasion of sketching shophouses along Jalan Penang, I had an Indian migrant worker at my elbow the entire time, three families and a group of girls lingered and quietly took overhead shots. An elderly gentleman stopped by and said, ‘If this was up for judging , I would give you first prize”. I took off my oversized sunglasses and gave him a genuine smile. The smile was wiped off by the Korean tourist who requested for a photo of me with my sketch and kept me hanging while she fixed her lens and cleaned it before the shot.

It invokes mindfulness, devoid of distraction, to such a degree that you participate in the scenery you are capturing on paper. Your fingers trace the eaves of the ancient temple roof, you knock on the louvered windows, ride the creaking bicycle, you flutter the laundry, skip the puddle on the fractured road and is caught up hopelessly in the nasty bunch of gnarly wires crisscrossing the facade of a shophouse. You become the pigeon sitting on the pole.

Impression 14 :The Plantation Lounge at E&O has these luxurious chairs that will engulf you when you sit on them. In combination with retro reading lamps, a small library, choice of board games, free flowing coffee and tea, this place is a perfect hideout any time of the day. The constant sound of waves washing up the shore takes the experience up a notch. If you are staying here, don’t miss the elaborate breakfast options at Sarkies. For the first time in my life, I ditched toast and omelette for lamb curry and coconut rice for breakfast. Try a spoonful of roasted peanuts and fried anchiovies with it.

Impression 15 : Dinner at Muntri Cafe, on Muntri Street was rewarding after a day of sketching in Penang’s heat and humidity. We ditched the relaxing alfresco seating outlined by exhuberant green boughs for air-conditioning. Wiser choice perhaps, till it became dark, temperature dropped and those tiny tea candles on the tables outside were lit up. It was romantic, but we weren’t there. Then came the food. It wasn’t just warm and comforting but also delivered on taste and presentation. We snapped right back into the zone.

“The courage- to-be, right here and now and nowhere else, is precisicely what Zen, at least, demands : Eat when you eat, sleep when you sleep!'” says Peter Mattheissen, in his book ‘Snow Leopard. Sketching lets you practice exactly that without even making an effort.

When you travel through a destination, sketching slows you down, so you don’t just eat, but taste, not just look but see, not just hear but listen. And do you know what comes out of this beautiful partnership ? You are zufrieden, truly.

Impression 16 : The owner of this coffee mill on sleepy Lebuh Katz hadn’t opened shop yet. But that didn’t stop him from keeping us company and conjure a ‘thumps up’ from time to time as the sketch progressed and muttering in Hokkien – ‘beautiful, beautiful’.

Impression 17: Right before our flight, we had dinner at Kaffa, which is at Penang Airport. The nifty decor and the ambience does not match food quality (we had Salmon and pasta) or the portion size. The drinks were pale and watered down with plenty of ice. The trip advisor sticker on the door has to really work its charm!

This sketch of my face on the identity card, was the first one on this event

Impression 18 : I am terrible at drawing myself! Anyway, this was the first sketch done at the event.

The Happily Ever After

I have come back with 20 sketches from a 3 day trip to the UNESCO world heritage site of George Town in Penang, Malaysia. And since I slowed down on these 20 ocassions ( and almost all of these were off the tourist map) , I have 20 deep and distinct impressions of the city (see below each sketch) relating to it’s architecture, history, food, people, culture, ambience, temperament that someway or the other has characterized and demystified the place for me. I had first hand experiences which are real and personal.

And I am sure, the 170 odd skechers from the entire South East Asia plus UK and New Zealend, who assembled here to participate in the USk SGT II (Urban Sketchers Sketching Georgetown II) event, experienced the same.

Tale of two cities

1 Reply

Once every year, I and my husband are India bound. Only this year, in addition to our self-prescribed vacation in Kolkata- our hometown, we squeezed in two days of Mumbai, to make the aquaintance of the prima donna of India’s west.

Mumbai

Marine Drive

Even if you’re new to Mumbai, just like me, chances are Mumbai isn’t new to you. You may still have a fair idea of what to expect and experience, thanks to the innumerable books ( Elephanta Suites by Paul Theroux, Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra ; Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts, Maximum City by Suketu Mehta, Narcopolis by Jeet Thayil) and movies ( Salaam Bombay, Slumdog Millionnaire, Metro, Bombay and plenty others) that have expressed the ethos of the city through narratives and plots based in the dusty folds of this audacious, over populated, rambunctious metropolis.

If Mumbai were to impress you, the first time visitor, she’d spew her impressive credentials upfront, like being the financial and commercial capital of the country, the mecca of Hindi film industry, the melting pot of communities, cultures and so on. But she doesn’t because she’s isn’t pretentious. She is industrious, sharp witted, resilient and hopeful, qualities I saw mirrored in the people I met on my short visit. The driver of our car that we hired (for 8 hours worth Rs.1500 or S$30 from Savaari Car Rentals) for the day, was an immigrant from Bihar, rather a country bumpkin who arrived in the 80s with nothing on his back, worked his way up, learnt English, married a local and now drives tourists around and guides them through the very city he was once foreign to. Mumbai is rife with stories like this.

Leopold Cafe & Bar

After a lazy walk and sketch along Marine Drive – a picturesque promanade, our first stop was Leopold Cafe and Bar for breakfast. One of the most popular haunts in the city (especially with the backpackers), has been around since 1871. I don’t know how much the interior has changed since the old days, but even today, this ensemble – of dark wood furnitures, chequered table cloth, dated wall paintings and old fashioned ceiling fans seem right out of musty sepia toned photographs. What is new however are the bullet holes, from the heinous 2008 terrorist attacks.

We order omelettes with toasts, a plate of über-delicious melt-in your-mouth keema and bread to be washed down with orange, lime and watermelon juice as illustrated in my sketch. I request the geriatric guy manning the cash counter to put the cafe’s seal on my sketches to officially validate my visit. He approaches this gargantuan task with dopey eyes and few vapid sigh. Perhaps, I should’ve asked for a tissue instead. His social ineptitude is quickly compensated by the cafe manager, flips through my sketchbook and hands me two postcards in return.

“You didn’t sketch the bullet holes? he said. I was surprised he asked. It didn’t feel right to record the horrific reminder of an incident that shook the country and carry that with me as a trip souvenir. If that was so, I could’ve bought those kitschy Leopold branded coffee mugs with an image of bullet shots. Yes, the cafe hasn’t shied away from cashing in on the sentimentality. Nevertheless it’s a survivor- Leopold opened for business, three days after the incident – and survivors don’t need to hide their scars.

Breakfast at Leopold cafe

We turn the corner, walk a few hundred meters and meet the shimmering Arabian sea, the towering Gateway of India at it’s bank and the proud, historic, magnificent Taj Hotel. I have watched this scenery and read about it so many times in my life that my first impression wasn’t of wide-eyed wonder, but that of disorientation – I was recalculating the perspective, size, distance anomalies my mind’s eye had made while visualizing this scene. ‘I imagined The Taj to be aligned with the Gateway” ; ‘The space in front of the Gateway isn’t as expansive as I had thought’ was what I was muttering.

Taj Mahal Palace Hotel

The gate way is barricaded by a voracious slew of photographers (mostly natives of Bihar) dangling chunky DSLRs from their shoulders and thrusting sample photos of people posing with these iconic monuments, into you face. Being Indians, we aren’t accosted by them as much as the foreign tourists. But still a ‘ Sir/Madam, please take a pikkchur..berry nice foto I taking..you like..see this one..or that one..only 20 rupees’ sneaks in now and then. My husband waves his DSLR and asks, if he could take ‘their’ picture instead. All at once they are shy and recede a few steps.

It’s only 10 in the morning and the heat is punishing. I stand in the shade of the towering Gateway and sketch the Taj hotel. The details of the facade are mindboggling, so I try to simplify while little streams of sweat trickle down my lower back. Right on my left, locals and tourists are making a beeline for the ferry leaving for Elephanta caves, ‘only a 50 minutes boat ride away’ – reported our driver later in a tone that hinted our misjudgement in skipping the site. We squint our eyes at the shimmering jetty and at the fatigued tourists fidgeting in the sun, waiting in a queue that is snaking around one arm of the gateway and walk away.

Gateway of India

I try to squeeze in a quick sketch of the Gateway before we step inside the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel to cool down. The interiors are as regal as I had imagined with sparkly chandeliers, nifty flower arrangements and luxurious upholstery. Waiters flitted around obsequiously ushering, chaperoning, and in some cases placating indignant guests. One side of the lobby was lined with premium stores, mostly vacant and the other side was fitted with glass cases flaunting Taj’s flamboyant past. Photographs of notable guests from Jac Kennedy, Mick Jagger, Oprah Winfrey, Duke of Edinburgh to Beatles adorn the walls. A smart uniformed staff in a saree and well coiffed hair was manning the ladies room and proffered a rehearsed smile when we entered. Each time a guest left the stall, she promptly flushed the toilet ‘again’ and wiped clean the wash basin. When we left, she smiled again.

Cooling off Inside Taj

Very slowly, we drive past the Bombay High Court, admiring the impressive neo-Gothic building from 1848 and made a short stop in front of the Victoria Terminus Railway Station ( officially called Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus or CST ) because I couldn’t, rather wouldn’t leave Mumbai without pinning this massive, 1888 built, palatial world heritage site down on paper. Perhaps, more than the Taj or Gateway, it was VT’s cocktail architecture – Victorian, Italian, Gothic, Mughal – and sheer size that made it an absolutely delightful ( albeit challenging!) subject to gawk at and sketch. Once again pressed for time, I simplified – my pen obliterating the numerous arches, windows, turrets, grotesques friezes, bas reliefs and other embellishments so painfully put together by the architect – to capture the essence of the place in simple urgent strokes.

VT Station

Tearing away from VT, we insisted on visiting Dhobi Ghat – which in our driver’s opinion was suited ‘for foreigners’. Not entirely, though. Our senses might be numbed to sights of men and women washing laundry in the open, along ponds and streams, but this was something else. This was large-scale, to the stature of ‘Central Laundry Station of India – the headquater of all laundry units across the country’, if something like that existed.

Dhobi Ghat

Amid a grungy shantytown bordered by railway tracks, all we could see far and wide were clothesline hanging spotlessly white sheets that were fluttering in the breeze. Down below, it was all business – network of concrete troughs fitted with floggng stones, were filled with water, where the clothes would be soaked, scrubbed, washed, starched and dried by taut swarthy men and their families. This 1890s establishment now has a website http://www.dhobikalyan.org, where you can register for a tour.

The Shoe House

One of the most famous public beaches in Mumbai – Girgaum chowpatty, looked practically abandoned and therefore unrecognisable in the swelter of the afternoon whereas during Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations, hundreds of people gathered here to immerse the idol, jostle for an inch of space. The white toasty sand reflected the sun right into our eyes, sending us scampering for shade. Post a ‘gola’ (ice shavings) in kala-khatta flavour from one of the venders, we settled for a drive around adjoining Malabar Hill – the dwelling grounds of the rich and famous. Our driver insisted we stop at Hanging Gardens, built on top of a water reservoir and admire it’s greenery and the sweeping view of Chowpatty and Marine Drive from it’s vantage point.

The cynosure of all eyes however, was this giant shoe house, which was infested with giggly school kids, who just couldn’t wait their turn to climb it.

Having about two hours to spare, we headed towards Dharavi– one of the largest slums of the world- that popularly wears the ‘genuine leather goods at great bargains’ tag. There are thousands of leather factories in the district that churns out handbags, jackets, wallets, belts and what not. And in the absence of middlemen, the shopowners offer wholesale prices, which is quite low, while making decent profit at the same time. The catch however (isn’t there always!) is – if you have refined tastes, it will be hard to find something you like from the scores of knock-off designs that the shopowners proudly exhibit and the parsimonious yet fashion conscious college crowd readily laps up. Just keep looking till you find ‘the one’ and haggle when you find it.

Kolkata

People, to be specific cousins and close relatives are curious, if the sanitised and systematic Singapore lifestyle muddles our visit to India; if we find it disconcerting to brace the heat, noise, dust, crowd, traffic, chaos; if we tire of the hackneyed idiosyncracies and the constant impedimets to get through each day.

‘Nothing has changed here’, they’d say plaintively.

To this, I’d say, ‘What, another shopping mall on VIP Road?’, gaping at the newbie. Mango and Marks and Spencer have stores in Kolkata? When I asked my sister in law, what does she substitute Mascarpone with when making Tiramisu, she said, “Why, I get all ‘foreign’ ingredients from Spencer’s ( food retailer) these days”. Sifting through The Telegraph’s glossy lifestyle section, one evening , I found hand purses of premium global brands advertised along with local ones. A walk through Park Street, led me to an Apple store sharing a wall with a RayBan, Prada, Gucci, Chanel sunglasses retailer sharing a wall with Pizza Hut; cafes of international design and standard and bakeries with fancy French names like Au Bon Pain, riddled with white tourists clad in hot pink salwar kameezes and Indian women in short skirts and body hugging blouses.

Gone are the, reserved, reticent and nervous school kids, specially girls burdened with moralities, chaperoned by their parents to and from schools or tuitions, lest they befriend the opposite sex and malign their family’s reputation. Such species have been replaced with fluent English speaking teenagers, confidently strutting along their male compatriots, texting on phones, cracking jokes, giggling – basically being young. They looked confident, equal and in control. They also look well groomed. The Indian comfort attire – the traditional Salwar Kameez – that was the default garb for majority of women, has undergone a ‘workplace appropriate’ transformation, making it smart and chic.

Lunching at Flurys – the legendary tearoom on Park Street from 1927

The ubiquitus salwar-kameez has also been replaced with western attire, most common being denims. Dresses that remained the domain of the Anglo-Indians or the liberal bengali women are being picked up by more eager consumers that work in global companies offering a multicultural work environment. How can one not see this transformation?

Fashion is changing, so is the attitude. From where I see, looking good matters in this Indian city as much as it matters in any other city of the world. Top-end beauty salons like Jawed Habibs, which wwere populated by the well heeled, have cropped up like weed in my neighbourhood, with a one hour collagen facial setting you back by over Rs.3000 (or S$60). As the prices of commodities and services have increased, so has the disposable income and people have become conscious on what to spend their money on, which is not just on the basics anymore.

Annoyed with the traffic I was, but the city is on it’s way to build yet another flyover that promises to clear many terminal road blockages in future. Proposed metro lines, half dug shopping malls, gigantic residential complexes with cranes, exposed iron rods and metal sheets and men breaking their brown sun burned backs, make grey appearances all over the city, making it look like a perpetual work-in-progress. Nearly seven hotels are due to be operational in the city in the coming years, 3 new ones including JW Marriot, just on EM Byepass, which already has ITC Sonar Bangla and Hyatt. A year after the liquidity crunch in 2008, the works on the projects have picked up after the economy and the stock market has rebounded.

Random guy having tea with a woman at Flurys

There was a time not too long ago when internet connection at home was a far fetched thought. There was this one cyber cafe in the vicinity where I had to queue up during weekends to get access my mails. My hapless parents have been struggling with the prehistoric dial-up connection for as long as I can remember. Two whole minutes of uninterrupted Skype call was divine. Then came broadband, offered by BSNL, which was an upgrade but not a smooth ride either.

On our way from the airport this year, I saw the city flooded with hoardings, posters, marquees advertising a Wi-Fi internet dongle with built in hotspot that can be fixed into any plug point and is capable of serving five Wi-Fi devices at a time. “Go Live, Go unlimited” says the tag line. What more – minimum paperwork, online bill payment and house visitation for servicing, if anything goes awry! A media report from last year states Kolkata has 4.4 million internet user now with 47% y-o-y growth which is the highest growth of internet users among top cities in India. If this isn’t change, what is?

While the city’s trials and tribulations which are in multitude, render an unchanged image to it’s residents, once-a-year visitors like us, who bring in fresh pairs of eyes, see movement. My send-off was from the swanking new state of the art airport terminal ( a magnificent glass and steel structure sprawled over 1,89,815 square meters that cost Rs. 2,325 crores) – a testament to the fact that things are changing. But sometimes the change isn’t so apparent because this city is like a goliath centipede with thousands of years of baggage, making slow but sure progress.

Sketching Moscow – Part III

Leave a reply

Making travel itineraries for the last five years have led me to a displeasing yet profound axiom. It states that the number of sites and activities that you want to visit or experience in a place will inevitably exceed the number of days that you stipulate for them. Be it 3 days or 3 months, you can never fit in everything you want to see and do. After hours of handwork, persistence and deliberation, you may pat your back on birthing a befitting itinerary, customized to your very needs, but there in it’s shadow will always lurk a nasty ‘waiting list’, of sites that were your second and third choices – those that couldn’t make it to the list but are dangerously sneaky. While you pet and fawn over your prized itinerary, they’ll plot and scheme to wriggle their way in. Most of the times you surrender. Is it worth it? Sometimes it is.

Like in the case of the historic Novodevichy Convent , that wasn’t in our itinerary simply because we didn’t have enough time to fit it in plus it was a bit far off from the cluster of sites we were hanging about. But we squeezed it in, on an early morning even before the ticket counter opened, when the men were still cleaning with huge water hoses, mopping and dusting the place, the gardener was still trimming the bushes and nuns were hurriedly moving in and out of the many churches in the expansive compound, prepping for morning prayer, when people were still walking their dogs along the river outside its red and white fortified walls, and when the air was cool and there was dew on the grass and every tree, when you could still hear the song of the birds piercing the meditative silence, that only such an hour of the day can claim.

Hands down this is the perfect time to visit because, you have the place to yourself. In an hour or two, the tour buses and tour groups will appear with their guides speaking all at a time and over each other. The transient magic will be lost. While you are allowed to roam inside the fortified compound amid greenery and beautiful golden domed churches free of cost, a ticket worth 250 roubles will gain you entry inside some of these churches, like the breathtaking Smolensky Cathedral (dating back to 1524) and the Assumption Church.

Behind the Cathedral, within ten minutes walking distance is the Novodevichy Cemetery, the resting place for Russia’s many stalwarts from different walks of life – poets, playwrights, political leaders, academicians and many more. Admission is free and the absolute lack of English signs turn the grave hunting for Russia’s who’s who into a guessing game bordering on frustration, if you are running on a schedule. After combing through rows upon rows of fascinating stone sculptures decorating the graves – a life size dog resting at his master’s feet, a sensuous ballerina holding a precarious pose, a swan taking flight – we hunt down the glass covered grave of Tchaikovsky. It’s unpretentious, unseemly modest in comparison to its neighbours. Seeking help from the resident gardener on the grounds, we further hunt down the resting place of Chekov, Bulgakov and Gogol – all impressive in their austere simplicity. Tour guides make hurried stops and even before their patrons can absorb the solemnity of their surroundings, they leave. I take my time and sketch in peace.

What is fascinating and peaceful to one may seem depressing to others. “Excuse me, how do I exit from here?” ask two women. The frown lines on their face give away their distaste for the necropolis. “We don’t like graveyards. Which way is the convent?” We show them the way out, but linger around. The sun has climbed, but the cool serenity of the manicured garden, keeps us comfortable. A forlorn woman dressed in a flowing gown is poised on a gravestone, her head slightly tilted, eyes downcast and with a delicate hand she’s touching her heart.

The sun shines a side of her face, but casts a melancholy shadow on the other. The flowers at her feet have dried and there’s gut-wrenching sadness in her eyes. If she weren’t in stone, I would beseech her with questions. The Cyrillic alphabets at her feet mean nothing to us. I wonder who she was, what was her sorrow and how she passed. Did she leave somebody behind? But, sometimes, knowing less, is feeling a great deal more. Such is the beauty and majesty of the stone sculptures here, that they bring the deceased as close to life as possible to strangers who can’t even read their names. The language of hammers, chisels, rasps and rifflers on these stones transcend the need for anything more comprehensible and for now this seems enough.

Lunching at the exquisite “Pavillion” on wooden chaise set up on a summer patio, overlooking a tree-fringed lake at Patriarshy Prudy (Patriarch’s Ponds) was a fantastic idea. The food is good and a bit expensive, but you’ll lose your heart to the still unchanged 19th century locale – where Michael Bugalov’s The Master and Margarita is also set. The author himself lived nearby and so did many prominent Russian poets, singers, painters, scientists and authors. No wonder the area has been stamped as the cultural heritage of Russia and is protected by the government. While noshing on bread and chicken Kiev, you’d almost feel like floating on water. And if you hint the ducks and the two majestic white swans that you might have something for them to nibble at, they’ll happily glide right to you seat, clacking all the way. Walk around the pond lazily or spend hours sitting on one of the benches beside the ornate lamps, under the cool shade of trees. Feel the breeze on your face, unwind and think nothing.

I arrive at the Tolstoy Estate Museum with barely an hour to spare before it’s closed for the day. A handsome yellow ochre house of mediocre size with green windows and a small patio ensconced by ivy, sits amid a small garden with large shady trees. A bottle green picket fence goes round the estate. My mobile phone and hand bag is stowed away before I start touring Tolstoy family’s winter home since 1882.

How does it feel to step inside someone’s private domain? Well, I paid 200 roubles for the privilege and am wearing protective cover over my shoes, but the feeling is that of uneasiness and repressed excitement as if I am about to trespass into private property. But that is a good thing in this context because the 6000 original exhibits of the family has been curated so well that together they lend the house a character that was once its own and get it to tell its story. Short descriptions in English tell you about the display, what the room was used for and stories of their domestic life. The visual imagery is strong and your imagination runs wild. This is how museums should be – not just educational and academic but engaging and inspirational too.

The dishes laid on the dining table where the author had meals with his family, the recreation room where his children played games, the wooden bed where the author and his wife Sofie slept, her desk where she transcribed the author’s manuscripts, the children’s toys splayed on the floor of the nursery, the portraits painted by his eldest daughter adorning the wall, their gowns hanging in their closet with matching shoes, a huge piano standing upon a bear skin in the drawing room and Tolstoy’s study table with his writing paraphernalia and his chair that he trimmed to be closer to the desk (being short-sighted), his clothes, boots, dumbbells, bicycle and such inanimate yet intimate details will get you many folds closer to the author as a man. Later, I sit on one of the benches in the garden and sketch the house. One by one all the visitors leave and I am left with a fidgeting guard with a padlock in his hand, lingering near the gate and staring in my direction. I collect my things and put him out of his misery.

For dinner, we pick Georgian and “Khachapuri” at Bolshoy Gnezdnikovsky per 10, is perhaps the most cheerful place to deliver that in a warm, unassuming, homely atmosphere. The strong aroma of fresh coriander wafts out from the spicy yet heartwarming Chicken Chakhokhbili (although later I learn that it has parsley, tarragon, basil and dill as well) – unexpectedly reminiscent of my mother’s Indian curry – and the rack of lamb seems quite contemporary but what surprises us is the addictive Khachapuri – freshly baked cheesy bread or “pizza of the 21st century” as per the cafe’s website! We order lemon tea, munch on the sheep-shaped cookies and head back to the hotel around midnight under a semi-dark summer sky.