India - musings

When I first came to India in the late 80’s, I stayed in Bombay and environs for a couple of months. I’d thought to go further but so enjoyed the city and people there that I stayed and vowed to come back.  Here I am returned 30 plus years later and loving India even more. I’m more mature now and appreciate the breadth and depth of culture here. I remember being so impressed by the old and new then. I wrote about the juxtapositions and contrasts coming together back then. My favourite image was an old kabab shop which had used the wall of the Holiday Inn as part of it’s structure. Old and new. Adaptations.  

This time I see so much industry.  Everything is in motion. So much development.  It’s easy to see the lousy roads and poor sidewalks that make one think of Mexico but what jumps out at me is all the great corporate offices. In Delhi the contrast was Old Delhi and New Delhi. The hundreds of year old market place of Old Delhi was a world away from the grand government buildings of New Delhi.  

It’s such an inclusive world with an old bicyclist hauling bags of material on his ancient machine vying for road beside the latest commercial trucks and vans.  Everything imaginable is here.  Temple, church, mosque all in a row.  Restaurants serving vegetarian and non vegetarian foods, western foods and eastern foods.  

My brother who lived in Hong Kong and loved what I saw as chaos in the stores would love it here. A single store sells autoparts, canned vegetables and plumbing plungers.  I can’t imagine how this happens.  We have our stores separated and even our city blocks are specialized but not here to any great extent.  I imagine a diaper sales man coming into a lamp store and the deal is just too good for an Indian merchant to resist.  My brother had an MBA. He understood business better than me and appreciated the deal. I’m a doctor and see a foot categorized in the cranium.  I want my stores to be organized like the Hudson’s Bay of my childhood. I’m most comfortable in Harrods. There’s method in the madness here but it’s too obvious a different form of organizations is going on.

I love the ladies in colourful saris without helmuts riding side saddle on the backs of modern motorcycles.  The men wear helmets because it’s the law.  

The streets are a cacophony of sound with horns honking like a metallica symphony. In the holy places there’s quiet.

On the street there’s often disrepair but when I pass through the doors of shops, hotels and office buildings I find myself back in the 21’s century.  There’s so much corporate wealth and so much old wealth. I think when I was in Bombay I was more impressed by relative poverty.  The country was poorer then  An economic revolution has occured.  I walked all over Bombay, and there were crowds walking in the streets with lots of bicycles, occasional cars and a few scooters.  The material wealth today is so apparent in vehicles and smart phones.

I loved seeing the Harley Davidson dealership here in Kochi. It was near to the Mercedes and Porche dealerships.  

I read a book about the last Jews of Keralla.  Jewish merchants had been here for the spice trade since long before BC.  St. Thomas, the disciple of Jesus had walked here from Israel and seeded 11 churches in India.  In general the disciples followed the already established jewish trading communities. Here the backwaters make this whole area extraordinary, the rivers being an amazing protected highway system.

The Indian Navy has a port here on the Arabian Ocean.  The Portuguese were the first Europeans to come here but were soon pushed up to Goa where they remained.  The area of Keralla has a mix of Hindu, Moslem, Christian and communists.  I laughed reading a novel set in the region where a wise man accuses the Communist Party leader of worshipping the trinity of Marx, Engels and Lenin, the trinitarian god of the godless. Communism or rather socialism are working well here, the area being one of the most prosperous in India.

The hotel offers ayurvedic medicine and massages . I’ve been considering an ayurvedic massage. Laura hasn’t any interest in the spa. She’s so enjoyed the Crown Plaza rooms. Room service has been excellent. I’ve just enjoyed sweet lassies , a plate of cheese and crackers and cappuccino. The cappucino in India is the best I’ve ever had.  

I love that people speak English. There’s still a lot of misunderstanding both ways with nodding and smiling but it overall makes things a whole lot easier.  There’s so much kindness here and people really do want to help. This Crown Plaza hotel has been extraordinary for that.  I stop to think and someone asks if they can help.  It’s unnerving at times but mostly its rather pleasing.

10% is the standard tip but everyone seems pleased with 50 or 100 rupees for most other things.  100 ruppees is a couple of dollars. it’s a bit like New York but there that sense that everything revolves around money is hit or miss here.  Here it’s muted. Paris, in my limitted experience of the city, it was always in your face.  This morning the waitress commented on Laura wearing the Kochi Harley Davidson tshirt the day before.  She was positively interested in Laura as one human to another. I dont’ get the sense of entitlement with ‘tips’ that I’ve experienced in other big cities. Here it’s appreciated obviously but it’s not demanded.

In my day to day life at home tips don’t really enter into it much. I don’t get tipped and generally only tip at meals or with hair dressers for me or my dog. I remember my political science professor friend saying that in Indian ’there’s individual baksheesh, while in Canada the backsheesh is institutionalized.’ 

The most valuable experience is the sights and sounds and being apart of the culture and history of the place.

I’m loving taking pictures and enjoying reflecting on what I’m seeing. I’m enjoying writing about my experiences and pleased that friends appreciate this and thank me.  Photography and writing are what I really enjoy especially when I have so much new and interesting to photograph and see. My friend Anil paints and draws so we so enjoyed when he posted his pictures ,as he did them in Venice.  

I like to draw and have when I’ve had more time.  I imagine I’ll get back to it one day, when a whole day lays before me like a blank canvass.Even now I’m wondering about going outside for a walk down the street. We’ve been enjoying being in the room and hanging out today, the trip a bit of a whirlwind, so a down day has been appreciated.  

I think of Somerset Maugham writing of his travels and describing the meal as the important  event in the slow steamship journey.  We’ve certainly enjoyed our meals here, such flavours and variety.  We also get a peak at the other guests. This morning there were three very peculiar old birds I imagined were spinstered friends who’d all offed their husbands in some Agatha Christie manner.  

Time moves so fast now. I believe it was slower back then.  Maybe that was just for the elite and priviledged, the characters in then Bronte Sisters novels.  Here you get some sense of the 19th century days of sophistication. The princes held this land and the Moghuls and the British at different times. Now India is the world’s largest democracy despite Nehru’s interest in central government and control.  Their beurocrats and government services were always important. The city is a hub for that.  

When I was driven out to the Elephant Training Camp I drove by small farms and beautiful large homes. They were vaguely reminiscent of southern plantations.   If I’d gone further I’d have ended up eventually in some of the primitive villages which were described in the public health presentations at the conference I attended.  Here I’m in the bustle.  I’m pre retirement but as we hear of friends becoming sick and others dying the sense of time takes on a new meaning.  

This is an ancient land of many empires.  Canada is such a young land.  There are 1.3 billion people here and 37 million people in Canada.  

Right now I’m a tourist in paradise. I’m here with a beautiful lady and am so thankful I’ve come. 

  

India, land of Scooters and Motorcycles

Here in India I’ve been amazed at the number and variety of motorcycles. The most common seem to be Honda, Suzuki and Yamaha. The Royal Enfield is also very popular.  It’s a more substantial machine but from my own recollections a rougher ride.  Still it’s a great little machine. 

Honda Hero, a 125 cc bike was the most common motorcycle we saw in Delhi. The traffic is so bizarre with constant horn honking and jumping from lane to lane when not playing chicken with buses that most bikes are in the under 200 cc variety. There simply were no stretches of road where one could get up to 60 or 80 cc. Even on the country road to Agra, in the car, we travelled at most at 90 km an hour. 

Most of the limitation is the road maintenance.  India is not Germany. If I think of American roads as first world and Canadian roads as second world, India is definitely barely third world.  I’d not ride my Harley in Delli but thought in day time I’d do well on my on road off road KTM enduro. At night the roads become a kind of nightmare of lights and horns, the kind of place Nicholas Cage, as hell biker, would fit right into.  The Indian drivers seem quite at home here. They’re definitely as crazy as the motorcyclists of Rome.  

Here in Keralla the roads are way more peaceful and I’ve actually seen several 1200 cc motorcyles. There are Triumphs and Harleys that seem to manage quite well. Lots of KTM Dukes too.  

There seems to be a local manufacturer of scooters, all of which are in the 75 to 250 cc range. Lots of Suzukis but I didn’t recognise the makes of most. 

When I stopped at Harley Davidson to buy a tshirt I learned that there are indeed tens of thousands of Harley drivers in India and thousands show up for an annual Sturges type event they have here. The Harley is definitely a luxury motorcycle here. The terrific store is in the neighbourhood of the Porsche and Mercedes car dealerships 

In Cambodia I saw a family of 5 riding on a motorcycle but so far here I’ve only seen a family of four.  The driver is often wearing a helmut but rarely are the passengers. When I had my Russian Ural Side Car Motorcycle I brought home a futon mattress in the side car. Here I’ve seen a fellow carrying a mattress on the back of his motorcycle. Just like in Cambodia they use the motorcycle to carry everything so there’s stacks of wood, large water bottles, microwaves and tvs.  Some are strapped on but usually it’s the job of the guy on the back to hold onto some awkward huge thing while the guy on the front tries to drive in the maniac traffic.  

The girls sit side saddle. Not all for modesty. Laura figures it's the sari’s. In Italy the women rode themselves in high heels and opera dresses but here the girls that are driving themselves, a common phenomena,  are more practically dressed with sensible shoes. In Cambodia the standard footwear was flip flops and that’s just what everyone wore.

Personally I’m a full set of leathers, helmut and boots biker.  In the heat this would be impractical. 

(I loved my first bicycle and my Dad running along beside me till I could master two wheels on my own. My brother, Ron bought a Yamaha 125 cc motorcycle and took me for my first motorcycle ride on the back as a teen. I bicycled across Europe on a Raleigh beside the beautiful and adventurous Baiba. Then with intrepid Maureen I rented motorscooters in Hawai and began the love affair with powered two wheels. After crashing a Norton 750 I stopped motorcycling for a decade till older, more mature and sober I fell in love with again with scooters, the Aprillia 50 cc. and the incredible 50 cc Honda Ruckus.

My friend Laura had ridden motorcycles as a teen and helped me get my motorcycle license, riding behind me as I drove my first Buell Blast 600 cc bike which I eventually passed my motorcycle license with.  I loved that motorcycle and rode all over British Columbia on it.  Sometimes Laura rode on the back and I decided I really did need a bigger bike. I graduated to the Harley Davidson 1200 cc Roadster.  It was great for the city and now with Laura on the back we did the most amazing camping trips around the province.  

Planning to ride to Sturges, a 5000 KM round trip journey, from the Pacific Coast to South Dakota,  I graduated to the motorcycle I have and love, the Harley Davidson 1600 cc Electroglide, Harley greatest American freeway machine.  I did the ride of a life time  to Sturges South Dakota seeing the Doobie Brothers, Kid Rock and Zee Top along with thousands of other HOGs.  I still love and ride that bike but have now another enduro, the KTM 690. It was preceded for off road use with the amazing Honda 230 and the on road off road, Honda 250.  I ride the enduro’s year round while putting my big Harley to rest for winter months when the sleet and snow make the Canadians roads too trecherous.  )

The lovely girl at the Harley shop told me that they’ve launched the Electric Harley in India and that the Harley Street 750 is very popular. 

I love motorcycling. My friend Dave who rides a red Harley Heritage Classic calls motorcycling “wind therapy’.  It certainly clears my mind riding in the country on the highway. Here I expect driving motorized two wheel bikes raises the IQ with all the quick life saving decisions the drivers make constantly. When I return from a ride I always feel that God loves me since I’ve survived the fools on the road. The drivers here like in Rome are all generally better drivers than we have in Vancouver where traffick simply doesn’t flow either because of the drugs or the insurance fraud, or the number of elderly drivers with alzheimers or the young drivers overdosing on fentanyl.  What’s amazing is the distracted drivers riding their motorcycle with one hand while answering their cell phones. Given the need to clutch and brake this is not an easy task.  

There are cows that lie down in the middle of the road.Monkeys run across the street or hang from signs.   Dogs walk right through the traffic with uncanny skill.  I’ve crossed the roads a couple of times, realizing that if I stop moving I’m squished.  Traffic is an amazing world of it’s own here.  Given the difficulty I had walking across the road I’ve resisted renting a motorcycle or scooter. This alone is evidence maturity is possible for anyone, even old Harley drivers.

Kodanad Elephant Training Camp, Kerala, India

I had wanted to ride an elephant. I’d not on my own come to the idea of climbing on top of a moving skyscraper and bashing about the juggle holding on for dear life.  War elephants had scared the bejessus out of Alexander the great and his warriors.
It was just at Ankor Was in Cambodia an elephant was taking people for rides. it was suggested, as locals and businessmen suggest impetuously, that I’d like to ride the elephant.  I said yes and got behind a young girl before me whose parents thought she’d like a ride on an elephant. She looked more dubious.  She had a marvellous time taking a turn on the beast and riding eventually back to the clearing where I waited.  I heard her wax poetically about her novel experience.
I think the elephant took one look at me, overweight and foreign, and told the trainer he was on strike.  The trainer with broken English conveyed the elephant was tired and it was too hot to carry me. I’m sure a lot is lost in translation  What the elephant said was,  ‘elephant can’t carry fatso’ .  The trainer being Thai and buddhist translated for the elephant,  ‘the elephant is too tired.’  The seed though was planted in my mind.

Here in Kochi in Southern India at the fabulous Crown Plaza, I asked the marvellous concierge if I could ride an elephant.
“Yes, sir, in Munnad.  150 km from here."
“No locally, somewhere close.” I counted.
“Kodanad Elephant Training Camp is 45 minutes away by the airport.  You can’t ride an elephant but you can feed them and wash them if you go before 10 am."
“I’d just like a selfie of me sitting an elephant. “ I said, admitting vanity. Girls look good taking selfies in toilets but for some reasons  fat old guys  feel the need of an elephant or ferrari to accessorize.
“ They don’t let people ride the elephants at Kodanad any more. There were security concerns at Kodanad last year.”  Again I presume something is lost in translation. I expect if he wasn’t polite he’d  fill in the details.  Something like, a fat old guy who was a western lawyer rode an elephant in Kadanad  His weight or attitude pissed off the elephant. The elephant then stampeded through the jungle to rid himself of the lawyer.  He then came back and stomped all over the lawyer, his family and a dozen innocent bystander locals before he was brought under control.  Hence the expression ‘security concerns’.
‘There’s a temple elephant, very old, very serene, very tame. The Kodanad elephants are still in training. Some very wild, they’re rescue and still learning to be with people. A temple elephant would let you climb up on her and have a picture.  The priests wouldn’t let you walk about, but just sit  for photo..”  Hearing him say it that way I kind of felt like a kid wanting to be in the lap of India’s equivalent of Santa Klaus.  The concierge phoned the temple
“There’s  a festival this week. All of the elephants at the temple are being leant out to other temples today for the festival.  They will come back this evening. You could go to the temple this evening when the elephants return."
“What time."
“9 pm'
‘That’s past my bed time” I said, “ Can I  go to Kadonad now."
“I’ll get you a car sir.” he said, happy for me.
That’s how I was again in an air conditioned  car watching countless motorcyclists and  other vehicles dart about while I video of roadside passings..
 I’d read up on the Trip Advisor reviews.  I saw comments saying don’t go because the elephants are slaves.
“The elephants are slaves"
‘They’re chained."
I had some misgivings as a consequence  but as often as not the reviews are a mix, wildly off or sometimes right on.  The positive ones tend to be more often accurate than the negative ones overall.  Negative people are more likely to broadcast their negativity whereas positive people often don’t even comment.
The Kodanad Elephant Training Camp was well kept and well organized.  I was impressed overall by the staff and camp and lay out.  It was all very professionally maintained.  Here in a wilderness jungle area at the end of a really bad road there were office buildings and paths with signs in English giving directions and information.  My driver came along with me as obviously interested in seeing elephants as I. Indians in general love their elephants.
I paid an extra $150 rupees to take my cameras. It was 100 rupee for camera and 250 for video   Somehow despite having my Iphone 11, my Nikon Coolpix 1000 and my GoPro 7 Black I was only charged $150.  Indian logic or math. I often can’t tell. It sometimes serves me and sometimes serves them.
I loved the quiet.  Bird songs and butterflies. The elephants were eating in the woods along side the road. Each was well fed and appeared rather contented. They had a chain attached to the leg to a tree. I thought of my very pampered cockapoo, Gilbert, and how I leash him everywhere I go. Without the leash he’d wander off and it wouldn’t be safe for him.  Unless there’s a female dog in heat he’s content to wait with the extra reassurance of the leash for me.  There are so many dangers for an animal in a modern world.  Cars especially are bad. People also complain and dogs are stolen or shot. I imagine the problem for elephants is much worse.  There’s not the wilderness we have in Canada where we can take bears that are bothering children in the city and relocate them. That’s a horrendously expensive process and I don’t think India has the resources for relocation of elephants but instead have these training camps. Elephants have been domesticated like our horses for thousands of years.
The Kodanad Elephant Training Camp takes rescue elephants and wild elephants and trains them much as we do with horses. I remembered as a child of 5 being put up on my grandad’s Clydesdale Horses. They had been trained  to pull the logging wagons. The height of those great horses would have been the same in comparison for me with an adult elephant today.   Elephants that are trained to be safe around people commonly are employed in street religious festivals where they go for a walk about in the crowds, something I suspect elephants rather enjoy.
I was impressed the elephants were healthy and well attended.  They were well fed and in no distress. I felt at peace with them.  I believe they’re telepathic like dolphins and highly empathic.  I’m definitely the latter and have been blessed with that sensitivity in my work.  In my personal life it’s a different matter. I’m more often seeking solace of aloneness to counter the sheer rawness of the daily encounters in work with disappointment, anger, fear,  pain and insanity.  Anxiety can be like nails on glass.   We are taught that personality disorders get under everyone else’s skin the way neurotics get under their own.
I learned long ago to join and share a nervous system as it was explained to me in training.  The psychotherapists empathic joining so different from sympathetic detachment. Prescribing medications or doing things like surgery to a person is different.  But always personal  touch is so much more revealing.
I closed my eyes and listened to the elephant and immediately she turned to me and acknowledged my presence. Then she  returned to eating.  Of course this synchronistic moment to me could be called  coincidence to another.  I prefer the sacredness of the contact rather than the sterility of the other.   In that moment I felt the elephant was satisfied.
To be romantically happy she’d need to be many years younger, with her family in the mountains untouched by man, safe from predators. I sometimes think I was born in the wrong century. I don’t want the wild tribesman superstitious existence but sometimes romanticize  the wild west of a hundred or two hundred years ago when a horse, a burro, a dog, a bed roll and a rifle were all that were needed.   The elephant seemed as  content  in her own way as I’m content in mine.  We’ve each got a pretty good existence waiting for the Messiah to come or just passing through lives.
I did love seeing the happy Indian trainer ride by on the proud elephant. The two were having a good time. Friends. The elephant was doing something which excited her. I think tame lives in general can be somewhat boring so that changes are better appreciated.  My favourite moment was watching the elephant lift it’s leg,  like my dog Gilbert does.  Gilbert anticipates I want to shake his paw. The elephant lifted his leg to assist his trainer to get down. A touching moment.
I love elephants.  In my perfect world now I’ve a dog and cat companion, a horse, a burro , a cow, a dolphin, some geese and an elephant.  We journey together.  My entourage.  It’s not particularly practical but in some reality it’s possible.  Since Laura loves animals, she can come a long too but she’d need to ride the dolphin perhaps who’d swim in air as other dolphins swim in the sea.  
After watching the elephants for a while we walked over to the deer park where there were so many beautiful deer hanging out like they did on the castle grounds in England. Deer parks are common there.  Here there was a smaller spotted type of deer similar to our Canadian white tail and a larger robust deer similar to our Canadian mule deer.  They all appeared well fed and happy as deer can be happy.  Deer are mostly afraid in the wilds, constantly on guard, always fearful of hunters and predators.  Here they were just socializing, which deer love to do.  A kind of deer tea party. I doubt they’d have anything negative to say about Kodanad.
Kodanad is a lovely place.   I was so glad to see the elephants.  I didn’t even want a selfie on top of an elephant after visiting these majestic creatures   I certainly wouldn’t want to offend one. I figure I’d better lose 20 to 50 lbs before I look for an elephant ride, just to be courteous.
There’s actual elephant safari’s  for days here in Kerala.  Munnar advertises them,  for instance. My friend John took his sons on a horseback round up ride in the west camping out for nights after days of riding. I imagine an elephant safari would be such  an adventure. John’s kids still talk of their round up ride and they’re married adults today.
I loved the walking  along the river path where the elephants come to be bathed.  It was so scenic and peaceful.
Kodanad Elephant Training Camp was a great experience. I suspect the negative comments were from urbanites who have no real knowledge of anything outside of the sterile elite world of parking lots and sky scrapers.  I’m so thankful my grandparents had a ranch and logging company. Spending time as a child and youth there with my rural nephews helped so much with laying a more grounded foundation for me.  It certainly helped me well in medicine which is far more hands on than the aloof sterility of  the worst of intellectualism and  academia.  Elephant rescue, elephant training camps and elephant orphanages are best depicted by the movingly beautiful movie we saw with Rob Lowe and Kristin Davis, Holiday in the Wild. It just came out this year on Netflix.
I wanted to bring an elephant home with me. But the driver, the hotel and the airlines might object.
I loved learning at the National Museum of India that the animal headed gods of the Indian Pantheon reflect the desire for enlightenment. The elephant headed Ganesh, so much loved in India, represents a person who has the quiet peaceful mind of an elephant with a human body. The elephant has a heart rate of 30 beats per minute.  That’s calmer than marathon runners.   Certainly a lot slower than panic attacks.