rumblings.org

thanks,

-john

A graphic on where I went in India, what means of transportation I used, and how long I was in each place (area of circle based on number of days spent).

I write you now from both the inside of a near-comically bouncy bus traveling at terrifying speeds through the foothills of the Himalayas and from within the safe and cozy confines of room I grew up in and the country I call home.

I went to India to try to get a feel for as much of India and Indian culture as I could, and along way challenge myself a bit and get into a bit of trouble. But beyond this, my larger goal was to gain a better understanding of where I was. I hiked through the greatest mountain range in the world and I bathed in three oceans at once. I ate food that still makes my mouth water thinking of it. I rowed a canoe through the famous backwaters of the south and played Holi in India’s City of the Dead. I went to two spectacular Indian weddings. I slept in places that would make you cringe and places fit for royalty. I stayed in some of India’s smallest villages and it’s biggest cities. I meditated with some of the few Tibetans left in the world.

But, when its all said and done, I still haven’t the foggiest idea of what India is. I could try to logic it out; use words like “extreme,” “diverse,” and “love,” but I wouldn’t be doing it justice. I could talk of the poverty and pain in the country, or tell about the raw unadulterated beauty and warmth of it and it’s people, but I still wouldn’t be getting it. I could write a book and leave nothing out, and it still would not be complete. In a way, I have to give up trying to explain it. I have to give up trying to understand it. I have to give up because India is more, is greater, than the sum of it’s parts. It’s larger than life, somehow beyond it’s own identity. India simply is. That’s it. Its all I can say while still being accurate.

Thanks for listening for the last six months. And now back to the usual programming.

This has been DJ AP on the ones and twos, coming to you live from H-bad.

Bombay now joins a very small list of places that I can truly call home. It was the heart of my travels through India, both logistically and emotionally. It was the context for some of the greatest nights, most intense experiences, and late-night conversations throughout my trip. And it is the place I miss the most.

The city, like India itself, is impossible to sum up. The more you get into it, the more you realize how vast and beautiful of a place it is. The scale is on par with New York, the neighborhoods rival Boston’s, and buildings recall London’s colonial past and Beijing’s supermodern future. The people range from the poorest men and women on the planet to the richest CEO’s and movie stars. You can get dinner for 50 cents or 50 dollars. And the equal parts of grunge and class make it totally irresistible to people like me; people who are in it for the fun and the experiences at their very rawest state.

But beyond the city is a group of friends who defined Bombay for me. To see a city is one thing, but to live in it is quite another. I got to drive to work every day, work long hours, meet up with friends, hang out for hours, then get home exhausted and ready to do it again tomorrow. To me, that is living in a city, and being able to live in Bombay, even if only for a very short time, was amazing. Thank you.

And see you soon.

Cold. Sweatshirts. Mountains. Blankets. Hot tea. Pine trees. Clouds. Heaven. The bus ride from Chandigarh to Shimla was a stunning ascent from the hot plains I had spent the past five months in to the foothills of the Himalayan mountain range. And I can tell you, everything is different at 7,000 feet. People dress differently, with nearly all men in Kullu caps and super dorky sweater vests. Tibetan momo stands outnumber the samosa wallas on the streets. Buildings have pitched roofs and shutters on their windows. And there are mountains. I was in heaven.

I took my time exploring Shimla, which is an old British hill-station that clings to the south-facing mountainside. Vehicles are banned from the heart of town (not that they could get around anyways), so exploring the chaotic maze of streets and alleyways was a pleasure. From Shimla, I set off on one of the typical bone-shaking and death-defying local buses that would serve as my means of transport for the next few weeks. I arrived in Rewalsar the same evening and spent the next day exploring the tiny peaceful Buddhist town that surrounds the Rewalsar Lake. The lake is sacred to Hindus, Sikhs, and Buddhists, and it was beautiful to see all three religions practicing in quiet harmony.

From Rewalsar I headed up to Manali, an old hippie town set at the end of the Kullu Valley, and it just kept getting better. The valleys we went through were like nothing I have ever seen – it was like something out of the Lord of the Rings. Roads clinging to canyon walls following the river at hair-raising speeds on your bus, the whole time wondering which highway official forgot to install barriers on the edge of the cliffs you are a few inches from. Every place I went was more beautiful, with snow-capped peaks getting taller, forests getting greener, and nights getting colder. I can’t tell you how good it all felt after missing my own winter back home and spending the last five months in the blistering heat. Manali itself was amazing, set in the mountains with little shops, parks, and restaurants dotting the hills. I made a bunch of friends there, and got to do a few short hikes around town.

Once I was ready to go, I headed back down the valley and up another one to Dharamsala and McLeod Ganj, the home of the Dalai Lama, the Tibet Government in Exile, and the one place in India I was most excited to visit. It didn’t disappoint. I hiked 22 miles and 5,100 vertical feet into the Greater Himalayas, where I got snow in my shoes met Gangada, a old man who has lived alone in his tent for over 16 years, selling water and bags of food to trekkers. I meditated with monks in the Namgyal Monastery and talked about the situation in Tibet afterwards. I wore sweaters and made friends. I wrote poems, read articles on Tibet. And I spent nearly a week truly inspired.

Chandigarh, an architect’s mecca, and me, a kid who likes to think of himself as a bit of an architect, met under uncertain circumstances. I had just run out of money, and of course, it was Friday afternoon, just after the banks closed for the weekend in the states. So I was limited to just 400rs a day for the weekend until I could get money out Monday evening. But I was not going to let a little thing like that affect my pilgrimage  to one of the world’s most architecturally famous cities. I was like a kid in a candy store.

Chandigarh, designed from scratch and built on an area of dust and dirt next to a small river over 50 years ago, was a symbol for India’s independence and progress at a time when the country was still a fledgling on the international scene. Championed by Nehru, the city’s architect was Le Corbusier, one of the greatest architects and architectural theorists of our time. Its masterplan, urban systems, infrastructure, and many of this buildings were designed by Corbusier and his team, and the result is amazing. It has as many flaws as it has successes, but to experience a city that was designed by one of architecture’s great modern thinkers, to walk down his streets, to see his thoughts and methods in action, and to physically experience, frankly, a theory, is incredible.

If I am going to get into it, and I don’t think I’ll be able to restrain myself, we first need to look at the problems. First in my mind is the way the city’s growth has been handled over the past fifty years. I don’t think Corbu left quite enough of a guideline or system for growth for the city’s government to go by, or if he did, the government does not quite get it. There is so much potential for modern redevelopment on both a commercial and residential scale within just the city center – large areas right downtown are just sitting, unused except by the dogs and mice who call the scrubby grasses home – but for some reason, the city feels the need to expand out instead of in, which is really a massive loss of potential. There could be so much more life and activity downtown if the blocks were filled in and kept up. And, if I can complain directly to Corbusier for a second – Corbu, your blocks are too big. I know why you did it, and the logic is valid, but at 800m by 1200m, you gota break it up a bit.

But man oh man, the successes! Its so green! There are trees everywhere, grass lining sidewalks, and an amazing system of parks and corridors. It is a beautiful city just for that. But then the transportation systems are great and easy to use. Its internal block fabric is another success, although I would have to live in it for a while to really get a feel for it. And his buildings! Beautiful on the outside and breathtaking on the inside; it is spectacular to see so much of his work in just a few days. The High Court building was simply awesome (after wading through an insane amount of governmental procedures and paperwork), I must have taken 200 photos alone in the Government Museum (and none of that of the art itself), but the Assembly building left me speechless. Simply speechless.

In the end (yes Jeff, “in the end”), if I may make a few bold claims made on my brief impressions of only a few days time, I think that Chandigarh is a city with a lot of underutilized potential. And only a few changes in the city’s approach – namely re-development instead of development – would truly make Chandigarh a city of the world instead of a city of India. But that being said, to see it in action, to see Corbusier’s theories manifested and his buildings standing to the test of time, is really a beautiful thing. I only wish I could spend a few more months here and really get to see how well the city works – how good its concrete buildings are in the heat and the rains, how comprehensive its public transportation systems are, how the residential systems work, and to see if my first impressions have any weight.