After 28 days I have left India. I am now back home in California.
In the background of this photo is the Gate of India--all a blur to me now. I think what I will remember best is the people of India.
[Amy, do you like my use of forced flash here. The people walking by are in crisp focus while the standing structure behind them is blurred. Pretty spiffy huh?]
On my last day in India I took a ferry to Elephanta Island just of the coast of Mumbai to visit the famed Elephanta Caves. Unfortunately, my guide and I found out after we got to the island that the caves were closed on Mondays. So I didn't get to see the caves but I did get these niffy photos and a guide book about the caves. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephanta_Caves
While in Mumbai I stayed at the National Sports Club. It is one of a number of private clubs the British vacated when they left India in 1947. Today connected Indian families belong to these clubs.
A little more than a year ago the Taj Mahal Hotel picture here was took the main brunt of a series of synchronized terrorist attacks throughout Mumbai. About 200 people were killed and more than 300 injured. The hotel was bombed and severely damaged. The hotel is again up and running but parts of it are still under construction and new security measures have been added--such as the barriers you see here.
Next door to the Tao Gallery main space is an exhibition space in the lobby of a commercial high rise. I saw an exhibition there by the artist Sanjay Kumar.
My first stop in Mumbai was the Tao Gallery. I was told that Tao is the best gallery in Mumbai; it is an impressive space. I got to see a group exhibition in the main gallery space. The painting being held above is by Kalpana Shah. She is a self-taught artist and owner and founder of the Tao Gallery and the Tao Foundation.
Before I left for Mumbai I visited Chandana Bhattacharjee's studio and home. Her and her husband Bhubed were very gracious hosts. She is a painter and she has been moving back and forth from figurative to abstract work.
Traffic in Delhi is terrible. It can take you a half hour or more just to drive a few kilometers. Drivers in Delhi are contently honking thier horns. But it is different from the U.S. In the U.S. when someone honks their horn it means, "screw you," or "how could you do that to me" or in New York: "Hey, I'm drive'n here'h." But in Delhi it more like, "I am here 'brother', let us us work together to avoid an accident."
Here we are having dinner at the Tiapan restaurant. There are a lot of Chinese restaurants in India but Tiapan is generally considered the best places to get Chinese food in New Delhi. Indian Chinese food has a bit more spice in it then the kind of Indian food you find in China or the U.S.
Picture to Ram Jethmalani's left is Jalabala Vaidya and to my right is Gopal Sharman. He is a play write and she is an actress. They own Akshara Theatre in New Delhi. They are generally credited with the revival of English speaking theatre in India. The also do documentary films and they are planning to do a documentary on Jethmalani. http://www.pranaygupte.com/article.php?index=137
I visited the Devi Foundation. It is in Gurgaon a suburb of New Delhi. Gurgaon is a new planned city. A lot of multinational corporations have opened large high rise facilities there. There is little residential or non-corporate life there. But there are big residential complexes planned. The Devi Foundation was started by Anupam Poddar and his mother Lekha. They have been collecting and supporting contemporary art in India for decades. The foundation is supported by funding from their company Devi Resorts. The exhibition I saw there was an exhibition of contemporary Pakistani artists. This was by far the most contemporary space I saw in India. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/26/arts/design/26collect.html?pagewanted=1
A few days after our exhibition opened, on Republic Day ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_Day_(India), Ram Jethmalani invited me and a few other people to his house and to dinner. Pictured here is Arnab with Lataa Krishnamurthi, a lawyer and rights advocate at Jethmalani's house.
We all met a Jethmalani's house before going to dinner. There was a film crew at the house and before we went to dinner. Jethmalani did a half hour interview--one of those four talking heads from remote locations news segments--for X News ( http://newsx.com/index.php ) the primary new station in India. The topic was: Does the annual Republic Day military parade set an appropriate tone or India at this point in time?
Recently retired from Parliament, Jethmalani had supposedly also retired from practicing law: in fact, he had a sign in front of his home/office in New Delhi that stated he was no longer taking cases. But he was drawn out of retirement by what is currently India's most infamous and controversial case: the Manu Sharma murder trial ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manu_Sharma . Sharma is the son of a wealth and politically very connected family in India. He has a reputation as a bully, party boy, and not so nice guy. A few years ago he went on trial for killing Jessica Lall an actor and model ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Jessica_Lall ). The charge was that he took out a pistol at a party and shot her point blank in front of a crowd because she wouldn't get him a drink. At the first trial a lot of the witnesses suddenly and seemly mysteriously changed their testimony at the last minute and he was acquitted.
Subsequently, Indian news outlets began investigating the case and set-up a sting operation to catch Sharma and his pals attempting to bribe witnesses. After all the bad press the case was retried and he was convicted. Jethmalani is representing Sharma in the appeal of the conviction. At this point Sharma is probably the most despised person in India: it probably doesn't help that Jessica Lall was beautiful and Sharma looks like a spoiled, smart aleck, man child.
A lot of pundits accuse Jethmalani of betraying his conviction by representing Sharma and the other controversial cases he has taken on. Indeed, one could make the case that Sharma is the poster child for the very kind of corruption and injustice that Jethmalani has railed against his whole life. But I don't think this is a contradiction for him. He is a man who believes in the justice system and in the right of the disenfranchised to have legal representation--even if they happen to be wealthy and privileged.
Pijush is an artist who has been taking me around the city and helping me prepare and install the exhibition. He has a studio in Saipur just a few kilometers from Noida where I am staying. Arnab took me to Pijush's studio to see his paintings.
The poster pictured here at the entrance to the cultural center is a memorial image for Jyoti Basu, Chief Minister of West Bengal and one of the most influencial leaders of the Indian Communist Party. The cultural center where the U.S.-India Arts & Culture Exchange exhibition was mounted, Muktodhara, Banga Sanskriti Bhavan, in New Delhi was founded by a group of West Bengal community activists--in fact, much of the money for the center came from the West Bengal government. Basu died while I was in India. His death inspired memorials and sparked civil unrest in parts of India.
The chief guest for the opening of the exhibition was Ram Jethmalani (pictured here in the center). He is a well-known and controversial figure in India. He is an attorney (or advocate in India legal parlance); he is infamous for defending high profile, publicly despised--and often publicly convicted before trial--clients. He has also been a member of Parliament for forty years (now 87 years old he just stepped down a few months ago). He is known as a man who doesn't mince words. An outspoken advocate for democracy, freedom, and justice, especially for the poor and otherwise disenfranchised, he has made many inflammatory accusations and disquieting characterizations. He's the kind of person from whom the press relish getting quotes. In other words, he's the kind of person I very much looked forward to meeting. Getting to spend some time with him has been the highlight of my trip.
Today the exhibition I came to India to present opened at the Muktodhara, Banga Sanskriti Bhavan cultural center in New Delhi. Before the exhibition opened I gave a presentation about the exhibition design/ museum studies and gallery program at Cal State Fullerton, the CSUF Grand Central Art Center, and the artists in the exhibition. There was also a program of traditional Bengali and Indian dance presented.
Although Noida is only about 15 miles from downtown New Delhi, technically, it is in another state. Hired cars must pay a tax when they cross this line. The guy at the window collects the money from the driver and then pays the man in the booth.
You see these plastic cups all over India--more often than not on the ground. I am told that India had a long history of street vendors serving tea in little clay cups. When people finished their tea they would simply throw the cups on the street. The cups would soon be dissolved by the rain. For some reason--I'm sure they have some logical explanation for it--the World Trade Organization dictated that India should use plastic cup instead of the traditional disposable cups they had used. The plastic cups don't dissolve as well as the ceramic cups.
Noida is located about 15 mile from central New Delhi. In the 1960s the government converted farmland into a planned community. Each residential sector is gated, has parks, and designated areas for markets. The guesthouse I am staying in is located in Section 41 a middle class residential neighborhood.
At the end of my trip I flew to Mumbai for a three day visist. Along the ocean front there is walkway and concrete barrier just like they have in Miami. In fact, Mumbai very much reminded me of Miami. You have to cross a bridge to get there and it is a long strip of a city set against the sea. Unlike Dehli there are lots of expensive and exotic cars in Mumbai, and while most of the women in Delhi wear tradition Hindu clothing, in Mumbai most of the women dress in Western contemporary clothing.
Noida is located about 15 mile from central New Delhi. In the 1960s the government converted farmland into a planned community. Each residential sector is gated, has parks, and designated areas for markets. The guesthouse I am staying in is located in Section 41 a middle class residential neighborhood.
On my last night in Delhi. Arnab and his friends and family put together a dinner for me at Arnab's home.
