Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Berlin


We brought the rain in from India, I think. Berlin was raining and cold. The Germans told us it had been bright and sunny the week before. Still, you can feel a certain something about this most controversial of German cities. There's an energy as well as a sense of lassitude here that is almost palpable. Obviously the continental weather did not succeed in dampening my spirit.

The AEDES Network Campus is in Pfefferberg in Prenzlauerberg, what was once in the east, behind the Wall before the unification, rather the re-unification. Pfefferberg was once a brewery. Today it is a gentrified place, still being renovated and reconstructed, full of art galleries, cafes, a comedy club, a hostel, and a restaurant - Das Pfeffer - reputed for its nouvelle cuisine. I'm staying in a nice bright room overlooking a little garden with apple trees.
The AEDES gallery where the exhibition “What Makes India Urban?” will be on view for the remaining weeks of October and all of November, is buzzing with activity for tomorrow's inauguration. TV monitors and cables are being tested, printed vinyl and flex hangings are already hanging like washing at a dhobi ghat, and Sudarshan Shetty's art work installation is outside in the courtyard on thin iron rods placed in two rows. The cafe that adjoins it serves much needed hot coffee and we sit in the occasional sun feeling important but not quite knowing why.

Why are the Germans so taken up by India? There's a synergy between the two peoples and there's a hard attempt to ameliorate. Is there some primal bonding which anthropolgists and social scientists might better explain? I discard conjecture to simply soak in everything.

Germans have a serious sense of history which is reflected in their museums, and public spaces and places. The burden of recent history seems to envelope them in a wishful state: we wish it had been...might have been.. That's an initial impression. A strenuous attempt to recreate from ruins runs strong in their blood. Yet, the old it seems, must share equal presence with the new.


The strong and contemporary underground culture though is what everyone talks about. Mainstream happenings seem almost pale in comparison. To wit: an afternoon concert held on Tuesdays in the foyer of the magnificent Berliner Philharmoniker. An initiative of it's new director, Sir Simon Rattle, to bring in new audiences, the small group of 6 musicians played to a free audience of at least a 1000 people. I heard tell they would be performing from Ravel's Bolero. Instead, they began with Duke Ellington's Caravan, moved on to a Django Rheinhardt piece and played about 20 minutes more of trad jazz! One thing about classical musicians - they have the skill and mastery of their musical learning to play jazz...but they ain't got no soul!


Nevertheless, an enjoyable afternoon was had by all. But that same evening we went to a club in Mitte which had a DJ playing retro funk and soul music and the place was vibrant and throbbing, all cares thrown to the wind as people danced and a bright glow of energy suffused the place, positively lacking earlier in the day.

So it is the underground/alternative culture that drives it all. I begin to understand what “cutting edge” and “edgy” defines. Christopher Dell tells me a story of how he bought a second hand guitar off the streets, and then played a gig of contemporary music with others, without tuning the guitar. An old and what looked like an abandoned building complex somewhere near Mitte has been taken over by artist squatters. The place has multiple exhibits of art and sculpture, artists working real-time on their creations as you watch, small bars and music everywhere. The authorities turn a blind eye to such squats which are immensely popular with the young as they are for tourists.

Art, film making, theatre, sculpture, and music are all creating and recreating forms, breaking norms and established traditions not in a big-bang, communist-revolution kind of way, but in the small and regular and mostly unpublicised events and exhibitions, installations and innovations which keep happening all over this city, depending solely on individual largesse to sustain their art.

The city itself is in a state of constant change. Here change is the only constant. Topography and typology is in flux at any given time. Berliners themselves express mild astonishment at the sudden changes they see around them; the weight of history has resulted in this, Facades are maintained, though infrastructure is renovated, rebuilt, improved and expanded. The legendary lack of money in the city's coffers is not noticeable when I look at things with a Calcutta perspective. Yet, the citizens have the right to complain, to reject, and to ask for review in urban development policy matters and projects. My lack of the German tongue did not allow me to read newspapers or watch TV, but talking to people brought many things to light. One obvious fact is that big business and corporate spending is minimal, usually absent.


Oh, there's corruption and incompetence, but there's also civic pride and consciousness. Comparisons with Calcutta and Berlin would not be unfair, but useless. I'm not wanting to point fingers; simply making an attempt to understand. To forget history they have to relive it in a way that will prevent guilt and shame. The understated and the spectacular and everything in between vies for attention. Middle paths are found and crossed and always wind up where they started. It is the now cliched 'out-of-the-box', the 'progressive', the 'alternate' which make noise, stand apart, demand notice. The cosmopolitan nature of the city is what is not globalisation. This European crossroads of art and culture defies criticism, rejects labelling and generalisation, and mostly with glee. I often see that the doing is more important than what is being done. Crossovers in art and music are seen as quite traditional. Fusion is classical. Typecasting is shunned, and individualism is the flavour of choice. Freedom is self.

There are of course, the nay-sayers. You can listen to them and form your own opinion.

And there is the urbanity. Calcutta is positively rural if you must needs comparisons. The architecture and utilisation of urban spaces in Berlin are predominant as visual metaphors. (This is why India's urbanity is also examined and discussed in Berlin, the reason for my being there in the first place). Is progressive the word to use? I don't know. Shops don't require you to deposit your belongings when you enter them. Parks and statuary are open on all sides and open to all. Restaurants and bars really have no formal opening or closing hours, though Sundays are generally acknowledged as the day of rest. You can take your pet dog on to all public transport, into restaurants, bars and cafes and other public spaces, into airports and onto aircraft. Bicycles are allowed onto all trains and road space is designed so that 50% is for pedestrians and bicycles and the rest for motor cars. Cyclists have special lanes marked out exclusively for them on most streets and even have separate traffic signals! DB, Deutsche Bahn, the now private company which owns and operates the rail system, rents out bicycles at big U-bahn and S-bahn stations. Vandalism does occur but there's some control somewhere. You are not subjected to body-checks, metal detectors, x-ray machines, or other alert and useless security measures at such places. Three and a half million populate the city and that's no mean number for the capital city of Germany. It is also a city of immense significance for tourism, and yet state control is not freakish, at least not apparently, not in the 19 days or so I spent there. Though... police vehicle sirens often broke the silence of the streets at all hours of the day and night!


People are friendly. English is quite widely understood and spoken by the Germans. It is the other nationalities who speak their mother tongue and the working German they need to live there. Trust is a very strong principle and really a moral that nearly everyone lives by. You buy your ticket voluntarily from a vending machine for the public transport system but I have never been checked even once. I never did chance being a ticketless traveller though. The traffic lights are obeyed religiously. I have often waited at pedestrian crossings with locals with the light red on and no vehicle in sight till the light turned green and we all crossed the road, everyone nodding slightly at each other, acknowledging the wonderful civic sense we shared. When alone, I admit I did jaywalk a fair bit!

Berlin is for those who enjoy what its citizens usually call a bohemian life. You can stay on the fringes as an observer or a tourist, or you could just immerse yourself in whatever catches your fancy. I don't know how easy it might be to do that but the openness and curiosity which people show makes me think it shouldn't be too difficult. And there are young people everywhere. Youth is certainly in the majority. I'm told many of them are a pampered lot, provided with means of survival by indulgent parents as their wards live in this cheapest of all German, possibly European cities, exploring their interests and trying to make something of it. Academia is considered important and the state-run universities offer many courses, some quite esoteric in nature, and they attract students from all over.

I walked an average of 15 kilometres a day and I know this because my mobile phone has a built-in pedometer. It is a city that is friendly to the pedestrian. On my first day I looked around, wondering where all the people were. The next day onwards I was glad that the streets seemed so empty, even though there were occasional twinges of loneliness. But I did catch myself wanting to return to the more populated areas of Alexanderplatz, Mitte and Kreuzberg. I'm told it is the ideal city for a manic depressive. The weather helps in maintaining this state of mind, and the fact that most cafes offer breakfast till 5pm bears out this fact. Food choices are a delight and I ate of the cuisine of Germany, Bavaria, Vietnam, Spain, Turkey, Japan, France, Italy, and even Indian food. And I might add, beer as well from all these countries!

Dr Reimar Volker, the director of the Goethe-Institut Max Mueller Bhavan in Calcutta, gave me a collection of short stories by the well-known Bengali author Syed Mujtaba Ali by before I left for Berlin. Mujtaba Ali had been to Berlin in the 20s, years before WWII, the Wall and the reunification and I thought it interesting to perhaps follow in the man's steps 80-plus years later and see what sort of changes had taken place.
The first story introduced me to 'Hindustan Haus', located close to where Kurfutsendamm meets Uhlandstrasse and I thought it a good place to see what Ali was talking about. During Ali's visit, trhat area must have been a very multi-cultural and middle-class place, full of life and happenings. My visit revealed it to be what is termed an “upmarket' area today, lined with shops stocking big international brands and designer names. Boring and useless, especially when you're converting some 70 Indian Rupees into one Euro! Not that I indulge in such “high class” products at home, but still....

Of course while Mujtaba Ali's stories were immensely readable, it was hardly about Berlin as a city. Rather it was peopled with characters who made up Berlin then and I assume similar characters make it up again these days. Nevertheless, it gave me a sense of purpose and I saw an area of Berlin which the average locals seemed to be wary of.


Checkpoint Charlie was a personal disappointment for me. Having teenage recollections of the place as read about in countless cold war thriller fiction like John Le Carre's, it was like a Hollywood set. In fact the US and East German soldiers who stood at this tourist site were out-of-work actors, mostly amateurs from almost all walks of life. For a small fee, they pose with tourists who want their photos taken at this historic monument to political craziness. Remnants of the Wall are scattered all over the city. In one place in Kreuzberg, the Wall has been deliberately maintained as the East Side Gallery. This part was where some of the famous graffiti had decorated it when it first came down in 1989. The original artists were all contacted and asked to refresh their work which now stands not just as a fine example of modern art but also as a reminder of what the Wall means to the Germans. Unfortunately, my camera battery died on me the day I visited this place so I have no pictorial remembrances to share.

Berlin is a huge city. It is vast and wears its history like a shroud. Besides, there were many places I could not see for lack of time and often, inclination. Yet, that is good, because it gives me the sense of being able to return and see more. The next time I plan to spend at least one day in the Tiergarten, the huge rambling wooded parkland in the middle of the city, and take a nice boat ride down the lazy river Spree.

What did I come away with after 19 days in Berlin? Quite a few things really. Primarily, even if a superficial image of modern urbanity, the cosmopolitan nature of the city which was thankfully, not the American version of globalisation. Advertising on billboards was completely absent so you get clear views of all buildings and the skyline. Comparisons with Calcutta were just as superficial though there was similitude in feel and intensity, something intangible but quite real to me, as it was to Germans who have spent time in Calcutta. The youth are leading the “inner” development of Berlin. While politicians work on what they work at, it is the young people who are experimenting, reaffirming, rejuvenating, and re-establishing whatever comes their way. Cultural exchanges, coupled with random and brilliant ideas are inspiring intellectual development and recreating Berlin every day. Joined with new technology and distinctive scientific approaches, Berlin is defining a future for cities of the world which I find heartening and hopeful. While I have never been to London or New York, or other cities also held up as distinguished urban centres of change, I can understand Berlin is right up there with them all and in all probability will soon be leading the pack.


Berlin, for me, is a place which is offering an alternate version of future history and that might actually be worth living in.

The history, that is. Calcutta is quite fine with me as a place to live. I trust I shall live to see it.

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Postscript: Hamburg

Berlin was my "official" visit while Hamburg was a "personal" one. An evening there was well spent with some friends I made last year when they came to shoot a documentary in Calcutta. I was astonished and honoured when Stephan, Max, Olli, Till and Torben were all there to receive us at the station. We ate and drank Italian, caught up with the latest developments in all our lives, and had a merry time of it all. Olli generously offered us his home to sleep in as we were returning to Berlin the next evening. He left early the next morning for a short and sweet break on the north coast and my daughter, Antara and I walked about Hamburg city, took the pleasant harbour boat trip and ate some Portugese food the next day.

A short and sweet trip, Hamburg I realised has a throbbing energy and life to it that is different to Berlin's. It is certainly a rich city, more compact, and its busy port plays an important part in Germany's economy. I need to go back there some day for a longer visit.




More pictures: Hamburg, Berlin

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Darjeeling



Twenty years later, and the charm remains. Darjeeling really is the queen of the hills.

Journalists, I realise, need to create controversy to keep their presses rolling, their satellites humming. They have intentionally maligned not just the place, but the people who live there by making us who live in the plains paranoid about unrest and agitation. They have quite blatantly gone about making Gorkhaland the issue. Gorkhaland is not an issue. It is political machination at its worst. Small conversations with local people and this truth is quite apparent.

Let's be quite clear about one thing: Darjeeling is first and foremost a place for tourists. The tea industry comes next in terms of importance. But I seem to be guilty of the very thing that I am bemoaning. So I will correct myself: Darjeeling is first and foremost about its people and its vibrant admixture of cultures. This is the second reason for its once bustling tourism. The first reason is because of its climate. In one or two words: wonderful, glorious, rejuvenating, enthralling, ecstatic, inspiring... So its more than two words. You could find even more to describe it when you visit.

The British used India to experiment with. To experiment with politics and military, with wile and guile. Yet they also experimented with their adventurous spirit, their skills, their learning and their determination to forge ahead with new developments and pioneering ways. It is this second experiment which has left us a legacy worth wanting and keeping. The first has merely multiplied the disastrous methods independent India has worked out for itself which is reflected in our governance and policy making.

Darjeeling is a consequence of one of those second legacies. And it will soon become a ruined victim, a result of the first legacy of political wile and guile, if it hasn't already. British engineers and other skilled types made the road up from the plains to this once presumably forlorn village belonging to the Sikkim royals. They made the fantastic metre-gauge railway hug the curves of the verdant mountains and turned it into what I feel is a mobile work of art. They set up tea plantations to give us our morning/afternoon/evening and in-between cuppas. And to maintain it all, they did the next obvious thing of wile and guile

Obviously, it all came at tremendous cost, but I don't have any figures for it, so I can only guess. The original inhabitants would have been the prime sufferers. Ousted and deprived of land and property, they would have joined the ranks of labourers building British edifices on the very land they may have been removed from, and perhaps hustled into serving the ruling class as domestics and guards. Finally these folk would have had to stand by and see people from other parts come in, settle down, and make more money from their labours than they ever would or did. A very plausible scenario since it was more or less the same in other parts of British ruled India.

But to return to the present day and pleasurable aspects of this hill station, Darjeeling, I like to believe has a healing air to it. It was recommended by our family doctor when I was 8 or 9 years old and an extremely sickly child, to be removed to Darjeeling for school. The doctor was confident that the fine climate up here near the Himalayas would cure me of various illnesses which were otherwise surely leading me to an early death. He was right. I'm still around to write of it!

Every day of the five days we were there, I walked and walked and walked. At night when I slept, it was from a healthy exhaustion, and not the kind of burned-out unconsciousness that one calls sleep in the city. I ate much more than I normally do in Calcutta, and was able to digest it all without problem. Like all mountainous regions I have ever visited, I want to live here.

Life happens at its own pace here. You can't come to Darjeeling from urban despair and hope to change it around to what you're used to. I bump into Karma near the Mall, a young Nepali I know from work we did together in Calcutta. His parents live here and he's taking a break as well. He tells me he cannot ever come back to make a life in Darjeeling. Then there's Uttam, another Nepali with a well-located restaurant on the Chowrasta, who after having tried to study law, decided to return, “as there's no place better than Darjeeling”. Karma is young and has got a lot of life to go through before he gets to Uttam's way of thinking. Me? I'm with Uttam.

Just one hazy glimpse of the majesty of the Kanchendzonga peak and the eastern Himalyan ranges is enough to make me absolutely reluctant to return to the plains. I got just one day of “snow view” as they call it, but that was greater than anything I might have wanted here. I watched a lazy plume of what looked like smoke blowing off the peak of the world's 3rd highest peak. It of course was not smoke, but a snowstorm, whcih eventually affected the climate for the next 3 days of my stay in Darjeeling. I never saw the peaks again after that, but we did get the other kind of fanciful weather. Mist-shrouded walks down roads edged with pine trees, a light but persistent rain resulting in a 5 degree drop in temperature in under 2 hours, and the stray sunshine that warmed the cockles of my heart.

I will return to Darjeeling of course. Soon and very soon. There are ideas i have discussed with Uttam and others and perhaps one can work out a way of living that will give one urban convenience and the mountain plenty.
*******

For more of my pictures of Darjeeling, go here.


Darjeeling, Dylan, Dalrymple

The last week or so has me indulging in these three. Darjeeling, the queen of the hill stations, I returned to after 20 years, but that's another blog. This blog is about Anjan Dutt's film, Chowrasta – Crossroads of Love, based in Darjeeling but... Dylan I listen to often and then I saw the film I'm Not There last evening. William Dalrymple's first book, In Xanadu, is what I'm reading now.

All three are stories of travels. Travels through life. Observation, imagination, fascination.

By saying that, I'm being kind to Anjan Dutt's film Chowrasta. First of all, the story, or the small stories which he recounts in his movie, could have been based anywhere else but Darjeeling. It has nothing specific to do with the place other than lending itself as a picturesque location. The town's centre point, the Mall or Chowrasta, is used as a metaphor for the interconnection of the small stories. A very forced metaphor, adolescent and immature in its approach. Quite putrid in fact. The film being dedicated to the people of Darjeeling then makes two of the main characters who are presumably Nepali and hence Darjeeling wallahs, into bumbling villains. The Bengalis in the film are the good guys of course: one who is supposed to be an eccentric tea planter but is really quite insane; the other who's a Bengali language teacher in a prestigious English medium school; the third who is a fading actress; and the last two who you keep forgetting about until they reappear or are interjected many frames later ever so randomly.

My only question here is: Why is this man – Anjan Dutt - being allowed to make film after film?

*****

Then I saw I'm Not There. Directed by Todd Haynes, it is a film inspired by the life and words of Bob Dylan whose name is never mentioned and does not feature at all in the film except as a recognisable face in the end, and the occasional and original voice of the songs that are used to link the stories. The film is about five of the many personas Dylan showed himself to be, and the way his music reflected the changes in each personality. A wonderful film overall, it also unnecessarily mythologizes the man, Bob Dylan. And it really helps if you're a Dylan fan and have followed his music from the 60s till now. For someone who didn't know much about the man (like my daughter who watched the film with me) it didn't make too much sense. Her only comment was that Cate Blanchett did a good job!

*****

In Xanadu by William Dalrymple is an account of an attempt to retrace the route that Marco Polo took to get to China, specifically Shangdu, (aka Xanadu by Samuel Taylor Coleridge), from Jerusalem. An amusing travelogue, it is full of neat observations and historical references to satisfy any armchair traveller.

We're all searching for our Xanadu. I try to find it in the mountains and the things I prefer to do. The idyllic, beautiful place remains ever out of our grasp. Perhaps that is how it should be. This vision of Xanadu that we have in our heads is probably what inspires us, motivates us to go on living and making the best of our lives. Trying to make sense of the insensible.

Monday, January 12, 2009

Baul-Fakir Utsav 2009: An Appreciation

Saturday and Sunday the Bauls and Fakirs were in town. In Jadavpur town, which just happens to fall slightly outside Calcutta city's municipal limits, although the post office codes it in greater Calcutta.

Never mind the geography, here's my appreciation...

This is the fourth year that a dedicated bunch of people have organised this unique celebration of Bengal's folk music. They make no profits from this show, voluntarily work very hard to make it a success, and somehow keep it going every year through donations and measly sponsorships.

When I first went for this show two years ago, my initial reaction was to think of an alternative venue. Now, I appreciate the underlying thinking of the organisers at keeping it where they have been holding it for these 4 years, depending on the largesse of music lovers to sustain their annual event. Were it to go out of the area, it will either become too big to handle, or it will die a slow death.

Why could it become too big to handle? Because big sponsors are self-centred and think only of the mileage they can get from the money they spend. They will want slick publicity, large air-conditioned venues, high-priced entry tickets, maximised advertising opportunities, saturation media coverage especially by television, and celebrity attendees among other demands. When this happens, mediocrity steps in. Mediocrity has to be sold through hype since there's no other attraction. Mediocrity will make itself felt through the ruling parties' interference in due course. Suddenly there will be security checks, shallow glamour and cunning artifice, and authentic folk music will be forced into the realm, and worse still, the control of the glitterati.

That's when the slow death thing will begin.

Right now, the musicians themselves have begun to accord this event the importance and significance it deserves despite the much older and more prestigious events at Santiniketan's Pous Mela and the Joydeb Mela at Kenduli. This is probably one of the only events where Bauls and Fakirs share the same stage. While their music has common ground and roots, there is a distinct philosophical difference in their way of thinking. In social and economic terms, both groups of musicians again have similarities. They live on the fringes of accepted/acceptable social circumstances, almost outcasts, many of them subsisting on less than what we might spend on cigarettes or movies at the mall in a month. Yet, their commitment to their art and lifestyle, and the conviction of their philosophy keeps them going when perhaps many greater 'secular' artists from the city, faced with this way of life, would have committed suicide out of depression, or at the very least, looked for alternative means of livelihood. For all intents and purposes, sold out.

I cannot claim to even begin to understand the philosophy behind the music and art of the Bauls and Fakirs even as I appreciate it. Their music moves me to levels of conscious and subconscious awareness that few other genres of music can do for me; blues and jazz being the notable exceptions. And I consider the similarities between baul-fakir, blues and jazz to be eerie but significant. The roots of all three genres are poverty, disadvantaged circumstances.

I think of it simplistically. These musicians keep going at their art, constantly honing their skills, widening their knowledge base, never too sure of where and when their next meal will come from, how tomorrow will fare for them. I wish I had the guts to do the same. So I do the next best thing. I help them in small ways, encourage their earnings through their art alone.

And the Shaktigarh Baul-Fakir Utsav must continue where it began. How refreshing to not have to tolerate ignorant bag and body searches, walk through metal-detector gates, stand in line for tickets, buy only pre-packaged food and drink of some American corporation, and be separated from the musicians by a high proscenium and bored police that effectively walls you off from enjoying the music utterly. The walls and roof of the “auditorium” are of sack cloth and tarpaulin, the structure of bamboo.

The floor is covered with dry rushes and hay strewn here and there with large cotton mats for you to sit on. A handful of chairs are provided for senior citizens or those with arthritis and rheumatism. As you are about to enter, a small counter with a box for donations is visible for you to give what you can. Another stall sells CDs of past concerts at ridiculous prices.

The open field where this event takes place is bang in the centre of a middle-class residential locality. On other days, youngsters use it as a playing field. Residents of the area, their friends, relatives and well-wishers, all chip in with whatever assistance they can offer. The local club and residents offer space to accommodate the musicians and their families for three or four days at no cost. The food you can buy is home-made and tastes as good - simple, cheap and nutritious. If you are inclined to partake of alcohol and marijuana to heighten your listening pleasure, you can do so quite openly with no one making a fuss, as long as you don't. The first night, some random party cadre tried to object to the open drinking and smoking going on. He was picked up by the scruff of his neck and pitched out of the place. That was it. Peace and calm after that. As it was before. And of course, the great music continued.
Children were all over the place, as were the elderly, all sharing the same space to indulge themselves in music that touches your soul, tugs at your heartstrings, melts your self into a nothing that is not more important than the music.

For the musicians, this place offers a return to an enthusiastic, unbiased audience. People come here for the music alone, and the music provides a rare opportunity for personal, social interaction which is warm, friendly and inspiring. Basically: a lovely atmosphere, great ambience. Going by the crowd this time, as well as the various other nationalities present, this Utsav cannot be allowed to become some corporate hegemony. The organisers of this event have so far managed to strike a precarious, and I might add, a precious balance between art and commerce, more in favour of the art thankfully. They have come together from all walks of life with a shared vision and the enthusiastic spirit to genuinely promote art and creativity without overt concern for profit or personal gain.

We need more such people in this world.

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You can see some more photos of the musicians here.