Meet the Artist - Sunita Wadhawan

At the tail end of last week, I was feeling a little cultural and decided to make my first (and solo) visit to the Jehangir Art Gallery in the arty district of Kala Ghoda (near Fort and adjacent to the Prince of Wales Museum which I have previously written about).

The Jehangir is not really like any other art gallery you will find in most metropolitan cities - because the works of all the artists are actually for sale. There are four large exhibition spaces at The Jehangir plus another smaller one on the roof.  I understand that there is a long waiting list to exhibit one's works at the gallery, it being the most prestigious and famous in the city.

 

Image that attracted me to The Jehangir Art Gallery
(Courtesy of Sunita Wadhawan's website)

 

Within the first few minutes of getting there I could already tell that there wasn't much to interest me in Exhibition rooms 1 to 3 (nothing really to my taste) but when I went upstairs and entered the Hirji Jehangir space, I was immediately drawn to the style and colours of the paintings that I saw there.

 

 

The vibrant art that was being displayed in this room was by Mumbai based artist Sunita Wadhawan - a young and rather professional looking lady with a Bachelor of Arts degree attained from the Sir JJ School of Art in 2009.  A self pronounced 'enthusiatic and exuberant personality', Sunita personally took me through a video about herself and her art, explaining her inspirations and influences.

 

 

 

Sunita is a person who is definitely very much at peace with herself and this is reflected in her paintings.  Butterflies are a common motif in her work which is also very feminine - you will find women depicted in a majority of her art. She is also influenced by the yoga of which she is a practitioner and teacher. Sunita is definitely one creative and multi-talented lady!

What personally attracted me within her display were the cute, colourful and cartoonish paintings of Ganesha.  I had been seeking a Ganesha model or painting for some time, so that I could erect a do-it-yourself shrine in the apartment.  When I saw this little fella, I fell in love immediately!  He now sits on a cabinet in the flat, looking down at me while I work.

 

Our new visitor

 

Unfortunately I was a bit late posting this blog about Sunita as she was only displaying at the The Jehangir until 8th January.  However, you can catch her online at http://www.sunitawadhawan.com where you will find samples of her work and information about future exhibitions.  Sunita also conducts painting classes at her home in Chembur several mornings a week - she tried to tempt me in but I don't think I'd know where to begin!

A selection of her very feminine paintings

Some more of those wonderful Ganesha 'cartoons'.

The artist herself with one of the centrepieces of the exhibition. 

Sunita Wadhawan's website can be found here: http://sunitawadhawan.com/

 

The Jehangir Art Gallery

161 KALAGHODA, MUMBAI,
MAHARASHTRA 400001 : INDIA

 

Check out their rather hard to read website for information about current exhibitions and activities.  Entry is free.

 

Welcome to Mumbai Mrs C! (A Day of Firsts)

Today was a great day for me.  I got to meet a reader of my blog and fellow expat wife!  The lovely Mrs C from Wiltshire in the UK who arrived here with her family and 17 suitcases just before Christmas.

 

Mumbai welcomes you and your family Mrs C!

 

Mrs C had initially contacted me when she found out she was going to be relocated to Mumbai through her husband's work.  She had been following BombayJules for a while and felt that I would be able to give her some guidance about life in Mumbai.  I was so flattered that she asked me and I was more than happy to help!  And luckily, through one of my own contacts, I was able to put her in touch with the mother of a child at a school where her children would be attending.  Bringing young children to a place like Mumbai must be a very daunting prospect but I understand they have already settled in well after their first day at school last Monday.

 

After three months since our initial contact and many emails in between it was just great to finally meet today. What was even better, as we were walking along to a coffee shop in Powai, another friend (and NGO colleague) saw me out of her car window and stopped the car to leap out and say hello. Mrs C and I ended up back at Mrs PJ's house where we had a freshly brewed cup of coffee whilst helping to make a batch of nutrition bars for our NGO community. There were some other lovely ladies there whom new Mrs C was able to hook up with, including a fellow blogger who I'd heard of but never met! 

 



Mrs C and Mrs PJ getting busy in the kitchen

 

 

Due to the rental of a flat falling through at the last minute before Christmas (a typical occurrence in Mumbai), Mrs C and her family had been living out their 17 suitcases in a hotel suite ever since.  Despite admittedly enjoying the hotel breakfasts, they are grateful to be finally moving into another newly agreed apartment at the weekend - so we wish her the best of luck with that.  Oh and Mrs C, if you need help shopping for crockery and towels and bedlinen...well you know where to come!

 

For my final 'First'...BombayJules has joined Facebook!  Please like my page here (or by following the link on the sidebar). I will post links to my blog and make comments there from now on. 

Will be blogging again soon!

 

 

 

Boat Ride to Elephanta Island

Elephanta Island is located about seven miles out to sea from the Gateway of India, right in the middle of Mumbai harbour.  It is one of Mumbai's main historical and tourist attractions but Mr Jules and I only just got around to visiting it yesterday.  This was partly because we had been waiting for the climate to cool down a bit - the temperature in Mumbai is just sooooo nice at the moment!

 



Pulling away from the pier - The Gateway of India and the Taj Palace Hotel in the distance.

 

We paid our 150 Rs each for a deluxe ticket (which is not much more than a regular ticket costing 120 Rs) and found our boat at pier 4 behind the Gateway monument itself.  When we got there, the vessel was already almost full, so we paid another 10 rupees each to go up on to the top deck (they never miss a trick eh?). From what I can tell 'deluxe' means you are assured a seat on one of these double-decker boats instead of cramming on to the floor or standing on one of the single-decker boats.  From afar this looked a bit more fun to me, perhaps we should have tried it.  Oh, and there is also a chap that comes around selling crisps and cold drinks in deluxe class.

 



'Economy' boat



After a pleasant one hour journey on calm seas and sailing past the huge oil tankers that stop to offload at the oil refineries on Butcher Island, we arrived at the end of the Elephant Island pier.  From there, we opted to take the toy train to near the foot of the hills, and then we walked up the market stall-lined incline to the caves.  There was also the option of being carried in a sedan chair for the final kilometre but there was no way I could have inflicted my weight on those skinny sedan chair carriers!

 



Four men to take this little girl up to the top.  Glad I didn't ask them for a lift!



 

There did in fact used to be an elephant on Elephanta Island...but only a stone one.  Previously, the island was known as Gharapuri (fortress of the Shaivite priests) but Portugese explorers renamed the Island after discovering a massive stone elephant on the shore.  Unlike most of the "unheathen" stone statues on Elephanta, which were used for target practice by the Portuguese, this stone elephant managed to survive until 1814, when it finally succumbed to erosion.  It was later rescued by British archaeologists (yaaay!) who reassembled the pieces next to the Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum in Byculla.

 



The ex-Elephanta Island Elephant now in Byculla (picture courtesy of Anuracha Shankar)



After paying the various entry fees, we spent a couple of hours having a look at the carvings and stupas, strolling around the caves, taking a cup of chai and enjoying the views from the various vantage points. 

 

The main temple at Elephanta is an impressive complex of shrines, caverns, open courtyards and prayer halls created by the Maurya civilisation in the 6th century. Further up the hill from the main temple are another three smaller caves with unfinished or defaced carvings.  Actually, Mr Jules and I were both of the view that the Buddhist caves at Kanheri in Sanjay National Park were not only more plentiful and varied, but also  more entertaining to look at than these caves (due to the defacing of many of the Shivaite figures at Elephanta by those naughty Portuguese).  However, you can tell that these sculptures must have been, at one time, absolutely stunning.  And I loved the cute little Ganesha carvings at the top of many of the columns.

 



A selection of images including ones showing several entrances to the caves.  Bottom left is a cute, if somewhat defaced Ganesha carving at the top of one of the columns.



Apparently if you hike up the hill just before the main entrance to the complex, you will find several unadorned cave temples hidden away in the forest.  However, we didn't take the walk as the boat ride back to get lunch at the newly opened Pizza Express in Colaba was beckoning!

 

Here are the photos from Elephanta:

 

The centrepiece of the temple and as tall as a double-decker bus is the statue of Mahesh Murti,depicting Shiva as creator, preserver and destroyer of the universe.  The statue has three faces: in the middle is Shiva the Creator with a look of serene contemplation, to the right is Vamdeo - the feminine preserving incarnation of Shiva and to the left, is the severe looking Rudra - the destroyer of the universe. Scary!

 

Shake those hips! This is Gangadhara Shiva - or Shiva carrying the River Ganges. I thought this was actually another one of the sculptures (not photographed) called Nataraja - The King of the Dances..looks more apt!

 

 



Kalayansundar Murti - depicting the marriage of Shiva to Parvati

 

A colourful line of sedan chairs





A couple of slightly ironic Maharashtra Tourism signs



 

This annoys us...but nothing you can do about it



The toy train which takes you to the end of the very long pier and a bit further

 

Yoga Monkey.
Looks so sad :(

We got to the Gateway of India at 10am and were back in Colaba by 3pm, making it a nice half day out if you are on a schedule.  If you are going to visit on a weekend, as we did, it is advisable to get on a boat as early as possible  as it gets very crowded on the Island. The first boat is at 9am.  The first boat back from Elephanta is at noon and the last one 5pm.  It is currently 150 Rs return for deluxe or 120 Rs economy.  Expect to pay another 10 Rs each to enter the village (panchayat), 10 Rs each return for the train - which is a bit of fun if you've got kids - and a further 250 Rs each entry into the cave complex (10 Rs for Indian Nationals).



Construction - Indian Style!

There is a building going up within about 50 yards of our own apartment block.  Every morning, I look out of the window of the back bedroom to monitor progress.  Progress which is incredibly slow and I wonder if it will ever be finished.

It is absolutely fascinating watching how untrained men with no nuance of health and safety try to put up this building.  Six months ago when I arrived, there were nine storeys of concrete framework.  Now they are working on the tenth.  You can't really blame them for being slow, as there only ever seems to be about six to eight men on the job.  Most of them are so skinny, they don't look like they could lift a single brick. Actually there are no bricks involved in this construction (just as well), only pilings on top of pilings into which concrete is poured.

I have no idea what these guys are trying to do - but the shoeless one balancing on the steel rods is not wearing a safety harness.  No one is wearing a helmet or a high-viz jacket. And look how the guy on the left is crouching on the edge! Does the guy on the right really think that his flat cap is going to protect his head?

 

Now look how far down it is if he falls! (the above group is at the top of the building)
The vertical structure is the winch for heaving materials up and down.  There is some sort of net to the bottom left of the picture for catching stray building materials/bodies...but I don't fancy their chances with that, do you?

Looking around at the other buildings in Bandra and thinking about our own apartment block, I wonder if the same construction method has been used. It makes me a bit nervous. All I can say is that I hope an earthquake - anything over 0.2 on the Richter scale - never hits Mumbai.

Going back to the construction workers. You won't see any steel toe-capped boots on them. You won't see any helmets. And you won't see any high-viz jackets. You won't see any scaffolding up the sides of building upon which safety barriers are attached (to stop people falling) and most of the time you won't even see steel scaffolding holding up the floors. Bamboo is the scaffolding material of choice! There is no site office, there is no Health & Safety Officer and from what I can tell, there are not even any visible project managers. These guys work at their own pace, spend half their time sitting around enjoying the view and a lot of their time hanging off the sides peering downwards - making my stomach lurch. As to whether these guys truly know what they're doing? I haven't a clue!

Just sitting around...admiring the view...in flip flops

Spying from my balcony, I can not see any proper tools, concrete mixers (surely there must be?) or lifting equipment. There is a total lack of building equipment and everything seems to be done by hand! There is no elevator to lower materials up and down from the ground - just a winch on to which wooden planks, lumps of concrete ad basic materials are attached, and then pulled up and down by the men.

Some of the workers even live on the construction site together with their families. But this doesn't necessarily make them early for work. I will often see their little offspring squeezing themselves through the gap in the gate to beg sweets from the owner of the nearby corner shop. Can you imagine your five year old roaming freely on a building site?? Let's try and welcome India to the 21st Century eh?

I will keep you up to date with progress - who knows, by the time I leave Bombay, construction may have progressed to the 11th floor!

 

Hastily erected scaffolding holding the next floor up - it's not even straight! 
But at least this is steel scaffolding - mostly it's made out of bamboo.

These guys are preparing to winch down some materials



In the background...a quite nice building that has just been completed. 
Fingers crossed that the builders were a little more professional than these lot!

Rubbish and debris everywhere on site.  Call the Fire, Health and Safety Officer!

It's not good to joke really as sadly, Health and Safety on Indian construction sites is generally ludicrously ignored and even worse, the workers themselves are totally ignorant about their rights and rights to welfare in the event of an accident.  According to the Times of India, there were 40 labourer deaths in the latter six months of 2011.  But the government to date seems to be completely in the dark about actual numbers.  You can read an article about it here.

 

24 Hours in Chennai

For the last day of our Pondicherry Christmas vacation, we visited the Tamil city of Chennai (formerly know as Madras), a three hour drive from the French enclave. Quite a few people had told me not to bother visiting Chennai (apparently nothing to do there)...but I am glad that we did as it is definitely one of the nicest and most fascinating cities I have been to in India so far.

Shivaite worshippers at Kapaleeswarar Temple (Sumo Style!)

For the first 12 hours of our stay, we were confined to our hotel due to very heavy rain.  Thankfully the ITC Grand Chola is a self-contained city in itself, so we whiled away some hours having a long lunch and I also got my hair cut at the in-house salon.  We also managed to waste time fiddling with the Ipad that operated our room - a (somewhat useless) novelty giving you the ability to switch the lights on and off, order room service directly from the menu, change TV channels and even open the door without having to leave one's bed. I did remark to the reception staff upon check-out that traditional light switches have always worked well for me!



Fantastic bathroom in our room at the ITC Grand Chola
 

Thankfully the next day was clear of rain, giving us enough time to do a whirlwind tour of the city before leaving for our evening flight.

Here are the photos/commentary:

The Museum building at Fort St George. (now the site of state government). 

Fort St George was the original seat of the British Raj (in 1762).  The Museum showcases a rather dowdy but interesting selection of relics from the Raj era - uniforms, dinner sets, photographs and canvas portraits (see below)

A portrait of the famous Clive of India in the Fort Museum

At the Fort site is the fascinating St Mary's Church.  This is where Governor Elihu Yale (of University fame) and Clive of India were both married.  I love the colonial style pews!

A memorial to Malcolm McNeill, a colonel of the Madras Light Cavalry who died in Rangoon in 1852 neither from war wounds or disease - but from 'Coup De Soleil' - a case of sunstroke.  From reading some of the other plaques, many Raj-era British soldiers seem to have shared the same fate.

Marina Beach (just seen in the distance) is one of the longest urban beaches in the world. 
Certainly it did seem to go on for ever and from afar, looked relatively clean.  But as with all urban beaches in India, it is not for sunbathing (for both religious and sanitary reasons!)

  

The 40m high gateway (gopuram) to the 16th century Siva Kapaleeswarar Temple,
sacred to Tamil Shaivites

An auto rickshaw waiting outside the Basilica of San Thomas in the Mylapore district.
Amazingly, the apostle St Thomas Didymus (Doubting Thomas) is believed to have come to India in AD52, living and preaching in Mylapore (City of Peacocks).  The church is built over his tomb, which apparently contains relics consisting of a few bones, a lance head and some bloodstained earth. But I doubt it ;-)



A photo through some wire mesh of turtles looking up at me at the Snake Park in the Guindy National Park. Hilarious!

Crocodiles in the Snake Park.  Not impressed by their surroundings or the large number of crocs in this small enclosure.

Nature loving Mr Jules was most excited by these Gharial crocodiles

Chennai Eating & Shopping

Due to time constraints and it being a Sunday the day we visited, I was not able to check out the shopping scene too thoroughly (sigh of relief from Mr Jules), however we did find Amethyst - a wonderful boutique store in a garden setting which also has its own terrace restaurant.  I checked out the clothes and jewellery and there were some absolutely beautiful designs - all Indian influenced but unusual and designer-ish (and a bit pricey).

The food on the terrace restaurant was a good standard - I had a very tasty burger. I would say this is the place to come at weekends for the great and good of Chennai...the place was buzzing. And the setting is both calm and relaxing.




Amethyst
Entrance, Next to Corporation Bank,
Whites Road, Royapettah, Chennai-600 014

We thought that Chennai was really quite an impressively clean and organised city with leafy suburbs, few signs of any slums and better traffic conditions than Mumbai.  What is does not have going in its favour is the climate - even in winter it was incredibly hot and humid on the day we visited. We could only imagine what it must be like in the summer months! Mr Jules and I still intend to go back and investigate the national parks and bird sanctuaries that are dotted around the city - now that we have been, we have realised that Chennai still has a lot more to offer visitors.

 Thanks for reading.

Auroville - The Town That Never Was

On our last day in Pondicherry we took the 30 minute drive to Auroville, a new age township and vision of 'The Mother', who was the closest collaborator of Sri Aurobindo (mentioned in my last post).

In the mid-1960s The Mother (real name Mirra Richard) guided the founding of Auroville, an international, but experimental township endorsed by UNESCO to "further human unity" near Pondicherry.  This was to be a place "where men and women of all countries are able to live in peace and progressive harmony above all creeds, all politics and all nationalities." Nice thought.

The 4 point charter that governs the vision - which in my narrow minded view is a load of Utopian and idealistic hippy nonsense - is as follows :

1. Auroville belongs to nobody in particular. Auroville belongs to humanity as a whole. But to live in Auroville, one must be the willing servitor of the Divine Consciousness.
2. Auroville will be the place of an unending education, of constant progress, and a youth that never ages.
3. Auroville wants to be the bridge between the past and the future. Taking advantage of all discoveries from without and from within, Auroville will boldly spring towards future realisations.
4. Auroville will be a site of material and spiritual researches for a living embodiment of an actual Human Unity.

Twaddle!

Auroville (the "City of Dawn") was inaugurated in 1968 in a ceremony in which representatives of 121 nations and all the states of India placed a handful of their soil in an urn near the center of the city. Auroville, which is supposedly still developing, currently has around 2,100 members (1,600 adults and 500 children) from 43 countries, though the majority consists of Indians (around 850), French, and Germans. 

In actual fact this number is only a small fraction of the 50,000 inhabitants that The Mother envisioned for the township. And when you compare images from Google Earth with the the original plans, you can see that most of the construction has not been realised either.

Above: Google earth shows how Auroville looks now
Below:  The model at the Visitor's Centre depicts the original vision

Probably the biggest draw to the town for 'outsiders' such as ourselves (I say this as to get a proper look inside the complex you need to prove a genuine interest in order to be provided with a pass) is the Matrimandir.  The Matrimandir is a giant golden globe at the centre of the town, surrounded by beautifully manicured lawns and trees.  It is a pleasant 1km walk from the visitor's centre, along wooded paths and past an astonishing banyan tree.

Amazing huge banyan tree near the centre of Auroville...those trunks are 'prop roots'
which have grown down from the original branches.

Again, conceived by The Mother, the globe is "a symbol of the Divine's answer to man's inspiration for perfection". To most of us, it is just an architecturally pleasing and rather fantastic futuristic golden ball. It would have made a marvellous backdrop to all those 60s space-age films. Ashram disciples and Sri Aurobindo followers practise their yoga within the spherical walls of the globe...which apparently contains 56kg of gold sandwiched between thin sheets to reflect the sunlight. I can't imagine how much this 37 year project (started in 1971, completed in 2008) must have cost the Sri Aurobindo foundation (or perhaps the Indian Government?) and I have no clue as to how it was financed.

The Matrimandir (or The Mother Ship as we called it!)

Entry to Auroville to the day visitor is free.  The way Auroville makes their money out of tourists is from the shopping complex and restaurant at the visitor's centre.  Here you will find things crafted by the inhabitants of the township such as clothing, candles, incense, pottery, home textiles etc.  I have to say that the quality is very high and some of the clothing is really beautiful.  I quite liked some of the ethnic tops and dresses with western and stylish French influences.  The shops are a bit pricey though and the sizes on the small side (these yoga types don't eat much).

One of the shops at the visitor's centre. I didn't buy anything..can you believe it?

We had a quick lunch in the restaurant - to which I believe ingredients are farmed and supplied from the township itself - Auroville is particularly famous for its cheeses and I had a beautifully fresh carrot and beetroot salad with feta crumbled over the top (this is how yoga types fit into small clothing).

 

My very healthy lunch at the Auroville visitor's centre

 

We did find Auroville a bit weird....in an occultish sort of way.  There are even gates all around the place with golden symbols leading to I don't know where...



One of the mysterious and occultish gates bearing the golden Auroville symbol.

Worth a visit though.

yeah...whatever

Visit Auroville's website here