Temple Bazaar in Tiruvannamalai

Destination: Southern India

Book: The Writerly Life by R.K.Narayan, ed. by S. Krishnan

A GUEST POST BY MS. KIRAN KESWANI

If you would like a glimpse into India and its people, reading the writings of R.K.Narayan is a wonderful way to do it. He is a writer who wrote as if he were enveloped in quietitude, situated in an Indian setting which could have been everything but quiet! He seemed to have read deep into the minds of people in his family, in his street, in his town and in his country. He did this in a way that made every moment and the happening that belonged to it seem like it had a meaning and a purpose.

The Writerly Life is a collection of several essays and R.K.Narayan’s travelogue, My Dateless Diary, which uncovers an Indian mind as it discovers uncharted territories in America.The collection represents his non-fiction writing from the 1930s to the 1990s.

R.K.Narayan is one of my favourite Indian writers writing about India. With his acute sense of observation, he must have seen also the darker sides of India, but he did not write about that. He chose instead to dwell on simple people and their simple ways. In ‘The Crowd’, he writes, “Any crowd interests me: I always feel that it is a thing that deserves precedence over any other engagement. I always tell myself that an engagement can wait, but not the crowd.”

Kapaleeswarar Temple in Chennai

It is true that Narayan’s writings are based mainly in South India but it is a large part of the Indian sub-continent. For me, this was a great way to learn and love a part of India that I had known little about till I moved there with my husband, who belonged there and found it best to initiate his North-Indian wife into his culture through Narayan’s beautiful depiction of it.

Eventually, I became addicted to the South Indian coffee, because in a South Indian household, the day starts with the aroma of coffee wafting through the whole house.

I  read R. K. Narayan’s essay on ‘Coffee’  many times over the years and found it delightful every single time!  He says he never tired of writing about coffee. He was planning a noble work on coffee running to two hundred thousand words, that would be called a Study of Coffee. The first part would describe the philosophy of Bababuden, a Muslim saint who brought coffee to India and prove that the origin of coffee was saintly.

He writes, “A few observations will be necessary on the question of coffee temperature. This section will be called Thermodynamics of Coffee. In this section we shall strive to decide the right temperature at which coffee may be sipped. It must be understood that the temperature has to vary according to the occasion; the hot cup you may demand at home may not be suitable when you have to gulp down a mouthful and run back to your seat in a train whose engine has just whistled and just started moving.”

The Writerly Life also includes essays such as “Noise,” “Of Trains and Travellers,”  “Toasted English,”  “Bridegroom Bargains,” and “Reluctant Guru”. Narayan always said that he wrote all these essays only because he had to meet a deadline every Thursday in order to fill half a column for the Sunday issue of The Hindu and he somehow managed to do that for nearly twenty years without a break.

R. K. Narayan (1906-2001) was born in Madras and studied at Maharajah`s College in Mysore. His work includes numerous novels, five collections of short stories, two travel books,and other writing. He is well-known for his novels, Malgudi Days and The Guide, which was also made into a film. In 1980, he was awarded the A. C. Benson medal by the Royal Society of Literature. Narayan was also made Honorary Member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.

My deepest gratitude to Ms.Kiran Keswani ,who is an architect based in Bangalore, India, for writing this guest post AND providing the pictures. Kiran is currently researching the traditional bazaars of India. I met her through the Lonely Planet Blog Sherpa program. Her photo-filled, colorful blog  has been featured on Lonely Planet.com.

Please do not use the photos without the consent of Ms. Keswani. Thanks.

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A Hindu holy man

Book: Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India by William Dalrymple

William Dalrymple is still trying to explain India.   He is well equipped to do that because in addition to accolades as a travel writer, he is praised for his scholarship and has lived part of each year in India for a couple of decades now. His highly acclaimed White Mughals and the best selling City of Djinns made him one of the must-read names mentioned when outstanding contemporary travel literature is discussed.

In Nine Lives, he follows up his amazement at the many forms of devotion that he encounters in India with meticulous research and interviews that sometimes rolled on for days, so that his experiences become the experiences of the readers.

As he explains in the Introduction, he does not attempt to discuss all of the religions practiced in India. He portrays nine people whose beliefs differ significantly from the beliefs generally practiced in the Western world. From practices that seem understandable, if rigorous, to those that seem downright bizarre, we learn about religious minorities that even regular travelers to India may not have heard of before.

In order to get the stories, he travels from the Himalayans in the north to the oceans in the South and sits through hours-long rituals, walks alongside believers, and respectfully questions the practitioners.It is travel with a purpose, but the kind of mindful travel that we all would do well to consider.

He avoids judging the people he interacts with, even when he is faced with issues like assisted suicide and coerced child prostitution.The Jain nun, brushes the earth before her with a feather so as to avoid killing even a small being, but believes that the greatest act is to commit suicide by slowly starving. A Buddhist monk struggles with the issue of monks going to war. A mother who resented being turned into a religious prostitute as a child, nevertheless does the same with her daughters. But there are more heart-warming stories as well.

For the most part the stories read like stories and are clear and dramatic. A glossary in the back helps with unfamiliar terms. At times, however, the writing becomes as complex as the system of Hindu gods and goddesses.

Shiva

Many scholars believe that just as the Sufi fakirs of Sehwan Sharif model their dreadlocks, red robes and dust-smeared bodies on those of Shaivite sadhus, so the dhammal derives from the damaru drum of Shiva, by which, in his form of Nataraja, or Lord of the Dance, the Destroyer drums the world back into existence after dancing it into extinction.

I still am not sure what that passage is all about.

More understandable to a person reading today’s headlines is the struggle between the Sufis, who traditionally shared a place of worship with Muslims and the strict Wahhabis who are banning access of Hindus to Muslim mosques. An illiterate woman accuses them of hypocrisy, and quotes an ancient poet:

Why call yourself a scholar, o mullah? You are lost in words.

You keep on speaking nonsense, Then you worship yourself.

Despite seeing God with your own eyes, you dive into the dirt.

We Sufis have taken the flesh from the holy Quran, While you dogs are fighting with each other.

Always tearing each other apart, For the privilege of gnawing at the bones.

It is difficult to see a single thread that ties these nine lives together, and indeed, Dalrymple does not try. If they have anything in common, it is poverty in material possessions but richness in spirit. Seldom does one encounter cynicism or doubt.

Although I have never had any interest in traveling to India, I definitely enjoyed this book, and consider it worthwhile both as sociology and as a travel book for those interested in learning more about the complex and varied country. A definite plus for the travel library.

I wrote earlier about an essay Dalrymple wrote about travel writing; and guest Sue Dickman wrote about City of Djinns. The photos above come from Flickr and are used under a Creative Commons license. Please click on the photos to learn more and to meet the photographers. A pre-publication review copy of the book, Nine Lives, was provided to me by the publisher, Alfred A Knopf.

Do you like to delve into the religious customs of a country that you are visiting? Does such a book count as travel literature?

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©2010 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

Author: Tahir Shah

A GUEST POST by Travel Writer JUDITH FEIN

Travel Literature that Inspires Me

When I sit down to read a good travel yarn, I want to be swept away by an author who is a mystic, humorist, analyst, adventurer, stylist, fabulist and information nerd. I want to get caught up in someone’s crazy quest to find the ancient gold mines of King Solomon in Ethiopia, the secrets of Indian magicians, the way jinns can take over a person’s life in north Africa. I like to finish a book and burn with desire to hit the road again so I can experience the deep brilliance, fascination and craziness of cultures that are not my own.

That’s where Tahir Shah comes in. He’s that once-in-a-generation writer who makes it impossible not to travel, not to dive in where others fear to swim. He actually did go to Ethiopia, running through an obstacle course of hyenas, deceit and physical misery, to find the source of the gold that the Queen of Sheba supposedly brought King Solomon. That book is called In Search of King Solomon’s Mines.

And he really did become the apprentice of a sadistic magician in India, who initiated him into a hyper-intense world of sleights of hand and sleights of heart. That book is Sorcerer’s Apprentice (out of print, but available used).

Casablanca Great Mosque

More recently, he bought a dilapidated house in Morocco,  The Caliph’s House, peopled with jinns, wacko workmen and more mysticism than a book can contain, so the rich content spilled over into a second book, In Arabian Nights , where Shah set off the find the story in his heart. It’s a kind of Sufi Wizard of Oz, with adventures that are puzzling, intriguing, funny, wild, and eventually bring him home to himself.

When I read Shah’s books, I want him to actually find King Solomon’s mines and the story in his heart. But, most of all, I get caught up in the adventure, in the process, and I’m not attached to the outcome. For me, that’s what great travel reading and great travel is about.

Judith Fein

Judith Fein is an award-winning travel journalist who has contributed to more than 85 magazines, newspapers and internet sites. She is the co-founder and editor of Your Life Is a Trip and her website is Global Adventure.    Her book, LIFE IS A TRIP, will be coming out soon. It takes the reader along on l5 trips into other worlds and other cultures where a different way of dealing with life can enrich any reader’s existence.

I first met Judie Fein on a press trip in non-exotic, but very interesting Richmond Virginia. Ever since then, I have been in awe of her fine writing and her accomplishments, and am pleased to be a contributor to My Life is a Trip. I can’t thank Judie enough for sharing this author with us. Believe me, his books are being added to my wish list post haste. (Photo is used courtesy of Creative Commons license. To learn more about the photographer, click on the photo.)

Judie focused on her go-to author for travel inspiration.  Do you have an author that you trust–that you find yourself returning to again and again? I will read anything written by Patrick Leigh Fermor or Norman Lewis

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©2010 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

Viceregal Lodge, Shimla, India

Destination: Shimla, India

Book:  Shimla – A British Himalayan Town, by Sumit Vashisht

A Guest post by Dr. Jessie Voigts

So often the cultural aspects of a place can get lost in the shuffle of modernization. I’ve got a treasure to share with you today – a new book, written by the astounding Himalayas Editor for Wandering Educators, Sumit Vashisht. Sumit has shared so much of the Himalayas with us – from architecture to trekking to ice skating. It’s a window into another world, for me – a world I can’t wait to explore. Sumit’s book, Shimla – A British Himalayan Town, is an extraordinary glimpse into the town of Shimla, India - in the Himalayas. It’s a place that is an amalgamation of styles, cultures, architecture…and  Sumit explores all of these in this book.

We were lucky enough to sit down and talk with Sumit about his book, Shimla, architecture, history, culture, and more. Here’s what he had to say…

Wandering Educators: Please tell us about your book,  Shimla – A British Himalayan Town…

Sumit Vashisht: This is the story of origin and settlement– of the growth of a small village called Shyamala to Shimla. It changed many names such as Shumla, Semlah, Simla and now Shimla. There used to be a small village with 10 – 15 houses at this place. [The village] and the Northern Hills suffered a lot of disturbance from Gurkha[alt. spelling: Ghurka] attacks from Nepal.

[Sumit says that the Gurkhas were as cruel as today's terrorists.Note: After the defeat of the Gurkhas, the British Army used them as brave mercenaries. Gurkhas figure in the movie The Man Who Would be King, based on the Rudyard Kipling book.]

The book tells you the story of defeat of Gurkhas by the British Army in 1815 as the local dynasties asked [the British] for help. The British liked the place so much that they decided to[build] some army posts here, then it became a famous holiday resort. In 1860 it was strongly recommended by Sir John Lawrence, the then Viceroy, to be used as Summer Capital of the British Government in India. The book gives you the details of the settlement of the town.

WE: What inspired you to write this book?

SV: My love for this lovely town. Its own beauty, its architecture, its fascinating buildings, lanes, streets, roads, flora & fauna, people and after my birth and initial 14 years of my life in this town my separation from it, my childhood memories.

WE: How did the British occupation of Shimla change the town?

SV: Shimla remained a summer retreat, a holiday resort and a summer capital for the British Government from 1822 to 1947. They brought everything here. They built everything here. They prepared everything that was necessarily required to lead a smooth life. Although here in the hills, life is very simple, the British made it stylish, and the present generation still follows the British lifestyle.

The British constructed roads to Shimla and also got it connected to the plains through railways. They introduced the best schools of India for both genders; brought medical facilities for locals and European population of the town; gave us the club culture – and those clubs are still in use. To control the entire subcontinent from here, they built the Viceregal Lodge. Now, this building, still the most beautiful in the North India, is being used as an Institute of Advanced Study.

To read more of the interview, please see Wandering Educators Book Review.

Dr. Jessie Vogts

Dr. Jessie Voigts is the Publisher of  WanderingEducators.com and contributes each month to A Traveler’s Library. She has a doctorate in International Education, and is passionate about intercultural learning. She and her husband are Worldschooling their daughter, and enjoying every minute of it. She is also a nature photographer and lives on a lake.

Our thanks to Jesse for drawing our attention to this hill town developed as a British outpost in northern India. Note: If you are looking to buy the book, you will need to contact the author,  who also guides tours in Shimla. I could not find the book available for sale from any American companies, including Amazon.

If you want to read more at A Traveler’s Library about India, see this guide book, a historic novel set in the time of the Raj; Shelley Seale’s favorites ; a book about Delhi; Mumbai (Parts One and Two) by Monica Bhide;  and Slumdog Millionaire.

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©2010 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

Book: Wanderlust and Lipstick: For Women Traveling to India by Beth Whitman

Let me start right off by saying that I think Beth Whitman is a gift to women who want adventurous travel in all those places that good little girls are not supposed to go–particularly by themselves, or with only the protection of (gasp!) other women.

Her books (for women traveling Solo, for women traveling with kids, for women traveling to India) and her web site give inspiration and travel tips to women who travel.

So I was delighted when she joined the cabal of people (they are not really organized, and they don’t know they are a cabal, that’s just the way I think of them) trying to persuade me to go to India. Her persuasion came in the form of a copy of her book, Wanderlust and Lipstick for Women Traveling to India.. This link leads to the Kindle edition, for the print edition, see Beth’s web site. You can read some glowing reviews and one totally ridiculous one that obviously didn’t get the book at all.

If I were to decide to go to India, this is the book I would pack. Beth does not pull any punches in describing the problems that women may encounter, but she shares solutions for every problem you had questions about and some that you had not yet thought of.  The help comes in the form of inspiring anecdotes from her own extensive travels in India and from other women who have made that journey.

Many of the helpful hints here would help inexperienced travelers in any country. Other discussions aim straight at unique characteristics of India. And by the way, most of the tips in this book would apply to men as well as women. (except maybe page 153 in the first edition.)

Am I persuaded to travel to India? Well perhaps it has made it on to the list, but it still occupies the bottom rung of that list.  Well, dear reader, whose side are you on here? Do you think I’m ridiculous, or are you another one of those who has forever delayed going to India?

Other articles about India: See Articles by Country. My discussion of the movie Slumdog Millionaire elicited more comment than any other post, and Monica Bhide’s responses–Mumbai I and Mumbai II are very popular.

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©2010 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

East of the Sun book cover

Destination: India

Book: East of the Sun by Julia Gregson

Looking for a good beach read?  The kind of book that takes you to another world? East of the Sun by Julia Gregson makes for a great read for travel to the beach or mountains. I could not put it down.  Read it in the car on the way to the mountains. Read it in a cabin by a blazing fireplace. And each time I opened the book, I traveled to India in the 1930′s–the beginning of the end of the British Empire.

Before I started this book, which was released a month ago, I was doubtful because it sounded too much like a romance novel–not my favorite. But as it turns out, the book, which I read as a review copy, really is a well-researched, riveting historical novel.  While we get plenty of the war between the sexes, the author does not pretty up the story. She is merciless in presenting the lives of three women as they would really have been, as passengers to India on the “Fishing Fleet.”

That was a new term to me, but makes perfect sense. During the time that Britain ruled India thousands of soldiers and civil service men were stationed there–many more than women. So women in Britain, hoping for a good match, shipped out to India.  If they did not succeed, their English friends called them “returned empties.”

How did Gregson know so much about India when she never lived there? (She did visit several times and returned to explore places described in the novel). Her description of the genesis of the book from a publisher’s Q & A:

“When I was a child, our family rented the top floor apartment of a large and freezing country house in Hampshire that belonged to a woman called Mrs. Smith-Pearse.  She’d gone to India, aged eighteen, as a member of the Fishing Fleet, married there, stayed for close to thirty years, and had only recently returned to England”  and “Four years ago, I was lucky enough to get my hands on a box of tape recordings she’d made when she was very old.  It was then I realized how hard her life had been in India, too.”

Gregson, a journalist, approached the novel like an article, and interviewed other women, including her mother-in-law, who had experienced the Fishing Fleet.

The book held my attention because I cared about the characters from the get go: Rose, the beautiful, tactful one; Tor, the impulsive one who worries about her weight; and Viva, trying to live independently and keep her feelings locked up.  Gregson presents these three women so skillfully that we think of them as our own long-time girlfriends.

Here’s what the author has to say about the women upon whom they were based:

“…I try to imagine the terror and the thrill young girls would feel being sent half way across the world, often unchaperoned, to find a husband; to imagine the madcap speed with which some of them married; to think about the humiliation of failing and being shipped back home a ‘Returned Empty.’..East of the Sun is my raised glass to these women: to their friendships, their naiveté, to the men they loved, to the work they did, and for the price they paid in loving India.”

Because it focuses so strongly on women characters, I imagine that the audience for this book will be 98% female. My only complaint is that, while avoiding the gauzy curtain of romantic dreams throughout, the book seemed to me to come to a rather pat conclusion. But after finding so much enjoyment and learning so much about India, that does not deter me from recommending this riveting read to traveler’s to India, armchair or actual.

Photographs courtesy of the publisher.

Another new book and a new movie coming up this week. Don’t miss anything. Sign up for e-mail and I’ll deliver each article to your mailbox. Just click on the e-mail link under the Welcome message at the top of the left-hand sidebar.

Meanwhile–had you ever heard of the Fishing Fleet? To my male readers–would you read this book? Why or why not?

Related Reads:

• Six Favorites from Shelley Seale
• The Weight of Silence
• City of Djinns
• Seeing Mumbai (Part One of Two)
• Slumdog Millionaire

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©2010 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

Shelly Seale

Destination: India

Shelley: I loved Three Cups of Tea! I read it toward the end of finishing my book. Very inspirational.

For nonfiction books to help a person prepare for traveling to India, there are two totally different ones I would recommend. The first is called Wanderlust and Lipstick, by my writer friend Beth Whitman in Seattle. She’s an India travel fanatic and very talented writer, and her book is an exceptional guide for women traveling to India.

The second is called Holy Cow by Sarah MacDonald. This was passed around during my first trip to India, and it’s a memoir of an Australian woman who visits India once as a college student, vowing never to return (the classical tourist hate reaction) – only to move there with her boyfriend some years later. It’s a really hilarious account of how the country takes non-Indians and makes them Indian. It has a way of making you fall in love with it.

As far as fiction goes, I want to read Shantaram although I haven’t yet. On this last trip there I read The Splendor of Silence, set during World War II, and it was beautiful. But my all-time favorite novel set in India is The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy. Set in Kerala, perhaps my favorite place in India, and tells the story of a brother and sister growing up, and the family secrets that won’t let them go. Lyrical, spellbinding, haunting and simply amazing.

Note: Holy Cow stirred up quite a bit of controversy, particularly among Parsis, but also some other Indians who felt it was insensitive. I like the review written by a Lehigh professor. If you visit there, be sure to read the comments.

Do you have comments on any of these five books? I hope you will join the conversation, but at least be sure to add a sixth book– Shelley Seale’s The Weight of Silence, to your traveler’s reading list.

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©2010 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

Shelley Seale and friends in India

Destination: India

Readers of A Traveler’s Library have continued to turn to the articles about Slumdog Millionaire, and the response posts from Monica Bhide. So when Shelley Seale‘s book, The Weight of Silence, Invisible Children of India, arrived on the scene this month, I was eager to talk to her.

Today, I am going to give you part of the e-mail inteview I did with Shelley, and in two weeks, I will return with more about her book and her reading recommendations for travelers to India. Shelley supported the charity, Miracle Foundation, and her first trip to India was as a volunteer for that group. I asked her how that made her experience different than that of an ordinary tourist.

I think it probably did  create quite a different experience than I would have had otherwise. Caroline Boudreaux of The Miracle Foundation did an excellent job of preparing us for the culture shock of India, as well as for the children and the volunteer work. Of course, it can never be fully described and you can never be fully prepared for it – I remember how overwhelmed I was at first, both by the country and the sea of children who surrounded me the first night I arrived.

India was the most alive place I had ever been – it wrapped me up immediately and refused to let go. It still hasn’t.

In India everything is on full view, nothing is hidden – both the incredible, magical beauty and the frantic poverty that does not let you rest.

Its rawness of life strips away the unnecessary – distractions, superficial attachments, trivial worries. … life becomes fundamental, only the essentials of being, and causes you to be fully present in your own existence.

Shelley says that people who are trapped in their own preconceptions find it

— far too easy to be shuttled from place to place, safely cocooned in cars and five-star hotels from which they gaze out at the spectacle passing before them. They dutifully traipse around the Taj Mahal and Varanasi with their video cameras before returning home, perhaps with the feeling that they’ve missed something essential. But they never really saw India.

I myself went on such a tour in 2007, with Deepa Krishnan of Mumbai Magic tour company. Deepa had introduced me to the nonprofit Akanksha, which I profile in the book. They provide schooling for kids living in slum communities, and Deepa donates a third of her company’s profits to the organization. Deepa took me to Dharavi, the slum where much of Slumdog Millionaire was filmed and widely regarded as the largest slum in Asia. It was an incredible, eye-opening experience. She introduced me to women making pappadam bread while their toddlers hopped around them, and men making clay pottery by the hundreds. Dharavi gave me a resounding rebuttal to the myth that poverty is the result of laziness. I have never seen people work so hard in all my life. The place abounded with an industry and entrepreneurship such as I have not ever witnessed anywhere else. It was an amazing experience, and I believe that things like this can do a lot to eradicate cultural bias and misunderstandings, and also the images of poverty that many of us have.

Deepa herself said it best when she explained it to me. “This is the Mumbai of the aspiring migrant, with his fierce drive for survival, for self-improvement,” she said. “The Mumbai of small enterprise. The Mumbai of poor yet strong women, running entire households on the strength of their income from making papads. Every morning, these women put food on the table, braid their daughters’ hair, and send them to schools. Dharavi is one place where this third Mumbai is visible. They have hope for the future, you see? This is the Mumbai of dreams.”

I loved the movie (Slumdog Millionaire). … But what most people don’t know is that there are 25 million kids living in India under circumstances like those portrayed in the movie. For these kids, this is their everyday reality – without the fairytale ending.

Thank you Shelley, for allowing A Traveler’s Library to be part of the launch of  The Weight of Silence. I look forward to reading your book and sharing more of our conversation with readers. Readers: Will you be reading The Weight of Silence? Do you think westerners can do more to help?

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©2010 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

Tomb Window, by Sue Dickman

Note: This is guest post day amongst the Every-Day-in-May Bloggers. I was fortunate to swap with Sue Dickman and you kind find me over at A Life Divided, talking about Greece and a cookbook.

Destination: Delhi, India

Book: City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi by William Dalrymple

I’m usually to be found over at A Life Divided, where I write mostly about food and gardening and travel to India.  But I’m delighted to be here today, thinking about books and travel (two of my favorite things).  There are many books about India I can recommend, but when I was thinking about books and place, I automatically thought of William Dalrymple’s City of Djinns (1993), the book I tell everyone spending any time at all in Delhi to read.

Delhi is not an easy city to love.  It’s huge and sprawling, crowded, polluted, intense.  Most travelers to India get out of Delhi as quickly as possible.  I didn’t, though. The first time I was in India in 1989-90, I stayed on and off for six months, and when I returned a few years later on a Fulbright, Delhi was my base.  Even then, when I was settled into an apartment in a residential neighborhood of south Delhi, I still couldn’t say I liked it.  I was worn down by the crowds, the haggling, the leers, the crazy traffic, the dirt.  By the time I left, though, the city had grown on me, and now whenever I return, I’m happy to be there.  It’s partly that my knowledge of the city is hard earned—I still remember the triumph I felt the day I realized that I’d forgotten my map, and it was okay—and partly that the city’s charms have revealed themselves to me over the years.

Lodi Gardens, India by Sue Dickman

Delhi is a layered city, if nothing else, and these layers—of history, of people, of empires—are ever present.  There are the obvious tourist monuments—the Red Fort in Old Delhi, Humayun’s Tomb in Nizamuddin, Lodi Gardens, which, in addition to being the site of a number of the tombs of the Lodi dynasty’s rulers, is one of Delhi’s premier picnic spots.  (I wrote more about that in an article for the Christian Science Monitor. But  there are also many less obvious monuments to be stumbled across, signs that the city has a long history and that each new wave of occupants has left things behind.  Delhi remains the only place I’ve lived where I’ve found myself at a historical monument while getting lost en route to the dry cleaners.

William Dalrymple knows this better than many, and writes about it better than almost anyone else.  Dalrymple has lived in Delhi on and off for years, working as a correspondent for various British newspapers and researching his numerous books.   (He’s written six in all, the first published when he was 22, with a seventh out this year.)  City of Djinns, Dalrymple’s second book, emerged from his stay in Delhi in the late 1980s, and it’s a combined travelogue and history, with  memoir binding it all together.

Dalrymple is a fluid and funny writer, and what I love about this book is that the Delhi that was familiar to me—his conversations with his landlord, the everyday of getting around—was woven in with a Delhi that was unfamiliar.  The book circles back to the city and its people over hundreds of years, starting with recent history—the massacres of Sikhs after Indira Gandhi’s assassination in 1984—and moving back in time—to partition in 1947, to the height of the British Raj, and back even further to the Mughal era and beyond.  He unpacks the past in such a way that the city’s history becomes alive and tangible.  With Dalrymple’s guidance, Delhi becomes a city you don’t want to leave quickly anymore, one where you want to stay and learn what else might be revealed.  On his first visit, Dalrymple describes Delhi as “full of riches and horrors: it was a labyrinth, a city of palaces, an open gutter, filtered light through a filigree lattice, a landscape of domes, an anarchy, a press of people, a choke of fumes, a whiff of spices.”  By the end of his book, it is all that and much, much more, a city of living history, rebuilt over and over, a city ever evolving while still holding on to its past.

Humayun's Tomb, Delhi India by Sue Dickman

On behalf of the readers of A Traveler’s Library, I thank Sue Dickman for this lovely piece about Delhi India and her beautiful photographs.   Sue will check back in and answer any questions you may have about India, and particularly about Delhi and Dalyrmple’s tempting book.

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Today Monica Bhide tells us about her own experience in the slums of Mumbai.

Americans find some familiar sights in Mumbai--McDonald's.

I went to Dharavi once, it is said to be the largest slum in Asia and it is located in Mumbai.  I went there because I was told I could buy a leather jacket for a good price. I stepped out of my car and saw kids playing in absolute filth. I was holding my young baby in my arms. I could not stop staring. They stared back, smiled and waved at the baby and kept on playing. I stood there, unable to move, unable to react, I just stared. Such horrid poverty, I had never seen anything so bad in all my life. And yet the kids played, oblivious to me and my thoughts. I went to the closest vendor and bought a jacket. I paid full price, although bargaining is the name of the game here.  I couldn’t bring myself to ask them to reduce the price. My family and I walked back to the car. The kids were still there, still laughing and my brother in law remarked – they are poor but laughter is free, right?  Before I got in the car, I cried so hard, I threw up several times. It was  gut-wrenching as a mother,  to see these little ones in this filth. I wanted to give money but was told not to – “A  hundred others will come and we cant help them all.” So we left, as I quietly dropped a few hundred rupees on the ground before sitting in the car.

Regarding Slum tours, I am not sure what value they provide. People want to go and see other people’s misery? If people want to help the slums, find an organization that does good work and work with them.  But if you just want to go and visit, on your own, guess what … poverty isn’t contagious. You can visit it, if you have the stomach to see how hard life can be for some people. I was on the periphery of the slums for my visit and I still cry when I think of some of the things I saw that day. But trust me, that will never, ever stop me from visiting Mumbai.

You see, the city compels me return, to learn from it,  to write about it. It has stolen my heart.

Monica Bhide

Photograph by Monica Bhide

Thanks, Monica for sharing your love of Mumbai. And how about you, readers?  Do you have questions for Monica? Do you see Mumbai differently now? Please leave a comment. And if you want to share what you have read, click on one of the social networking buttons below.

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