Coming home

A self-portrait taken at Leopold's in Mumbai, with daughter Kate and Carl Lindquist. I am  in the moment and in the picture.

Schilphol Airport, Netherlands ~

As we flew west, we pushed back against the time zones. Our journey from Mumbai to Memphis, including a seven-hour stopover here, is 25 hours for us. But since we left India at 1 a.m. and expect to arrive in Memphis at 5 p.m. on the same day, the time on the ground -- and on my watch -- is 16 hours. For nine hours, then, we existed only on airplanes.

And if time itself is relative, then what isn’t? As I re-read my first blog post about my existential angst and my frustrations, I find my problems, such as they are, are pretty damn relative, too.  It’s too easy, and a bit facile, to say that I am blessed to be a world-traveling university professor with good friends and a wonderful family and not a polio-paralyzed beggar asking strangers for small change in the Haridawar train station.

What I take away, at least for the moment, is that most of those confusing, vexing existential questions don’t matter, and neither do any answers I can come up with to address them. That’s because the questions are unanswerable and the answers can only be vague attempts to put structure on that which is beyond my understanding. Or anybody else’s for that matter.

What does matter, then, is … just being. For three weeks, I was, mostly, in a state of satori, the Buddhist idea of being “in the moment.” Americans call it going with the flow. I didn’t think too much about bills or my job, about my past or my future. It’s a concept that transcends cultures, In Swahili, they call it “hakuna matata,” or “no worries, and, yes, I know they used it in Disney’s “The Lion King.”

It also underlies the “serenity prayer,” usually attributed to Reinhold Neibuhr: “Give me the strength to change the things I can change, the grace the accept the things I cannot change, and the wisdom to tell the difference between the two.” If you are in a state of satori, you are dealing with the things you can affect. It’s automatic.

One of the central tenets of Buddhism is that life entails suffering, and there is no way to avoid it. Furthermore, Buddhism teaches that most sadness and suffering comes from human desire and the central challenge in human existence is learning to deal with one’s desires.

The idea is consistent with the teachings if Christianity.  Jesus teaches that the first commandments are the most important: putting God first, and loving your neighbor before yourself. If you’re dealing with God and your neighbors, you’re not dwelling on your own desires.

India is a place and a culture that embodies that attitude, since Indian spawned Buddhism, and the Hindu culture on which Buddhism is based later re-absorbed its teachings in a Hindu “reformation” on the middle ages. Modern India is a mess. It’s disorganized, chaotic and corrupt. But it’s also very friendly and weirdly happy. People of different castes, religions, ethnicities and cultures get along, mostly, in a big, messy democracy. The culture accepts its messiness, maybe too much, but it’s also modernizing, growing and finding a balance with its desires and its realities.

Maybe I need to do that, too. As I look back on my first post, the angst I described is about desire, a desire for advancement and to move forward. Like India and the Indian people, I need to accept some of my own chaos, accept that the universe is beyond my control or understanding, and just do a better job just rolling with it all. And if I am doing that, I am indeed moving forward. I don’t think anybody can ask for more.

Namaste.

In the movie and media capitol of the subcontinent

The set of the Bollywood movie tentatively titled "The Dirty Picture" is as busy and complicated as any Hollywood set.

I admit when we signed up for a tour of a Bollywood movie studio, I expected to be with a large group, and when our morning ride failed to appear at the hotel, I worried that we had missed out on the whole thing.

As we looked around the entrance to the hotel furtively, a smiling young Adrian Grenier (The guy who plays Vincent Chase on HBO’s “Entourage’) lookalike walked up to us and asked us if we were the ones looking for the tour.

Sara E. McNeil and Preetam Mhatre, our Bollywood tour guide, check out a train car and some couches from a disco set on the back lot of Balaji studios.

Preetam Mhatre, tour guide, sometimes model and aspiring actor, was in fact our guide for a private tour of some of the facilities.  “Everybody is here to be in the movies and entertainment. This is the media center of India, and there are jobs,” he said. And he repeated what I had heard before: that Mumbai produces more movies than Hollywood.

Film crews frequent many parts of the city and the outskirts, and movie and media facilities are spread around many parts of town, at least the nicer parts.

He first took us to an audio production house, High Octane studios, where audio engineer Rahul Rao demonstrated some commercial production techniques. Rahul is a musician, but he said he got into audio production because it’s steady. He said there is a great deal of production work available for young people in town in commercials, radio, television and live and animated film. After he showed us how he put the soundtrack on a commercial, he had me do a voiceover for another 30-second TV spot. It takes a lot of concentration and I gained a new respect for voiceover actors.

Kate Zibluk explores the main room of a mythical wealthy family's mansion at Balaji studios in Bollywood, Mumbai.

A studio guard and his dog provide security on the set of an opulent soap opera.

We then went to Balaji Studios, which produces television shows and movies. Balaji is hidden in an average-looking commercial block, but after we cleared security, the gate opened to a 10-acre lot with sets, backlots, equipment, actors, crew, and the skeleton of a new high-rise on-site hotel planned to open next year.

Kate Zibluk checks out the spoiled daughter's room, complete with "family pictures" of the actors who play the spoiled brothers on the soap opera set.

The set of the evil drug lord's lair for a popular Indian soap opera filmed at Balaji studios.

We had the run of a big soap opera set about a wealthy family whose daughter marries into the family of a drug lord. It looked as much like a telenovella from Telemundo as anything from Bollywood.

We also visited the set of a theatrical movie, tentatively titled, “The Dirty Picture,” about the real-life struggles of a middle-class Indian family.

Actors rehears some lines on the set of "the Dirty Picture," a movie about a struggling middle-class Indian family.

Later in the afternoon, we visited the School of Broadcasting and Communication, Mumbai’s official, government-sanctioned, baccalaureate-degree-granting communications school. The school’s primary focus in feeding the needs of the communications industry – and there are jobs waiting for just about ever graduate, according to Tushir Choudary, managing director of the school. The program offers broadcasting and communications degrees as well as advertising and public relations degrees, and it also offers also master’s degrees.

Choudary’s heart, however, is in communications development in rural areas. He has spent several years setting up radio stations among tribal populations in central India. “When there is an accident or a storm, these people need to hear the news in their own language,” he said. “We set up three stations and we make a difference, and maybe we save some lives.”

Choudary, and Preetam, too, offered their services for instruction and tours in both the media capitol and into India’s rural areas, if ASU students return with us next year.

It’s nice to have options.

On the Arabian Sea

A young woman's traditional dupatta dress flutters in the sea breeze as she overlooks the high-rises of Mumbai on a ferry boat from the Elephantine Caves. India is struggling to balance the traditional and the modern as it grows into a world leader in the 21st century.

The word “posh” comes from Mumbai, and it still fits.

When British passengers sailed for the former Bombay, the empire’s major port of entry in India, wealthy Britons could specify special tickets -- Port Out, Starboard Home – to keep them on the cool, shady side of the ahip for the entire trip.

The remains of the empire, from the massive India gate in the old harbor landing, to the many Christian churches, to the banks, universities, government centers and insurance companies persist. All that financial, physical and cultural infrastructure provided much the foundation for the high-rises, the commerce, and the financial and entertainment industries that make Mumbai among the most modern cities in India. Along with the high-tech Bangalore, Mumbai is among India’s fastest-growing cities, surpassing Dehli in population, and perhaps cultural influence.

A young girl looks out at the domed roof of the Taj hotel, site of a 2008 terrorist attack, and next to it, the India Gate of the British Empire on the center of the old harbor in Mumbai.

Mumbai is the home of Bollywood, the largest producer of films in the world. The entertainment industry also produces music, television, videos, animation and advertising. It’s also the major media center, home of most of the nation’s media companies and outlets.

Business and communication industries are among the legacies of the “Britishers,” with whom the Indians have a love-hate relationship. “The Britishers gave us three things that pulled different states and regions together into one country: the English language, the railroads, and cricket,” said our friend Sangee Seth, owner of the Velvet Apple hotel, where we stayed in Delhi.

“They also gave you uniform roads and laws,” I added.

Banana salesmen sell their fruit in the shade of the many roots and trunks of a banyan tree in Mumbai. The unique banyan sends out roots from its branches. On tree can cover an acre of land.

Still, the Indians feel a certain resentment to the British, who colonized them, reducing their 5,000-year-old culture to subservience in the 18^th and 19^th centuries. The word “coolie,” though generally used describe low-status Chinese laborers, originated in India.

So the Indians seem to try a little harder to preserve and show off their culture and achievements than other cultures, and they try a little more, it seems, to ignore their problems, such as poverty and corruption.

A golden Hindu temple rises at the edge of a waterfront slum in Mumbai surrounded by new high-rise apartments and businesses.

As the nation grows and modernizes, the entertainment industry of Mumbai and the tech industry of Bangalore are the prime examples of what they can accomplish.

We explored old and new Mumbai with a visit to the old waterfront, and a trip to the Elephantine Caves, a center of worship on an island a few miles off the coast of India in the Arabian sea. Still-unknown Hindu worshippers deepened the caves and carved out giant statues, temples and living quarters in the rock from the second century before the Christian era through the 11^th century afterward. There is no record of who made them or why they chose that spot.

Tourists take pictures in front of a giant likeness of the god Maheshmurti Shiva within the first of the Elephantine Caves.

Carl Lindquist and Kate Zibluk pause at the entrance to one of the Elephantine Caves.

We came and went beside the India Gate, a huge arch erected in 1911, at the height of the British Empire before World War I,  for King George V and Queen Mary.  The gate marked the major port of entry for the British, the East India Company, and the empire.

We sailed on a small ferry boat across the sea, and as usual, we were among the only westerners, we toured the caves, and came back to a tour of the city.

The history, western-style opulence and the values that opulence represents attract envy and anger among some more traditionally oriented groups. The power and size attracts attention, too. In 2008, a group of two dozen terrorists sailed from Pakistan, took over the Taj hotel on the waterfront and they attacked a few other sites  in the city, all but shutting it down for a week. They also killed several Indians and some western tourists.

The maitre' d of Leopold's, a famous Mumbai restaurant popular with ex-patriot westerners, pauses near the entrance of the establishment. The restaurant has preserved bullet holes from a 2008 terrorist attack in the upper part of the poster at left, and above the wall painting at right. Pakistani terrorists attacked the restaurant and killed several customers during their weeklong rampage.

The Indian army caught a great deal of criticism for allowing so small a force to control the hotel, and the attention of the world, for all that time. But many Indians are proud of the way the army handled the situation. Sam Sorami, our tour guide, explained that the army’s main objective was sparing civilians rather than routing the terrorists. He said it would have been easy to obliterate the historic hotel and the terrorists within, but many more innocent bystanders would have been injured or killed. “We did it right, and it took time,” Sorami said.

Security remains tight. Hotels and businesses screen cars and customers, and the navy retains a strong presence in the harbor.  There have been no instances of terror attacks since 2008. Indeed, the Pakistanis and the Indians are engaged in wide-ranging peace talks to secure their borders and solve their 60-year border dispute in Jammu and Kashmir in the far north.

Mumbai is warily moving forward, and quickly upward. Jammed between the high hills in the east and the Arabian Sea in the west, about the only way to grow is up, and apartments and businesses are increasingly housed in high-rises. Apartment living is a fairly recent phenomenon, Sorami said. “Most Indians didn’t live in apartments until about 20 years ago,” he said.

In Mumbai, they are moving into apartments and going to school and getting jobs. Of course, the slums and poverty are still here, but they are fewer than in Delhi or Agra.

And while Mumbai is growing up and cleaning up, the question remains of what culture and what values it's leaving behind. That’s among the major questions facing the largest democracy in the world as it grows into the 21^st century.

Mumbai

Mumbai is big and new, where Delhi is older and dustier. As the film capitol, Hollywood has come calling here, too, speciall since Bollywood's "Slumdog Millionaire" won the Oscar for best picture in 2010.

Mumbai is the new India.

It seems there's a new business, a new high rise, a new apartment, or a new road on almost every block, or at least every district. It's a little bigger than Delhi at nearly 18 million in population, about twice the size of New York City. It's hot and humid and lush, located south of the Tropic of Cancer on the Arabian Sea and flush against tall hills which hold back the rain clouds from getting to the hot, dry interior.

From high rises in the distance to new roads in the foreground, the view from my hotel room tells the story of Mumbai in the 21st century.

Since the Arabian Sea wood flood a subway system, Mumbai is building a monorail mass-transit system instead.

There are jobs in tech in finance, and in entertainment. Mumbai is the home of Bollywood, the center of the India film industry, which makes more movies, title-for-title than Hollywood, USA.

With the breakout Oscar-winning success of Slumdog Millionairre two ears ago, Bollywood is on the map.

"We've been big for a long time, and now we're the best," said  a proud Jagmohan Singh Kundan, general manager of operations at the Whistling Woods Film School, a private film school founded a decade ago as a training ground for cinematographers, editors, producers and actors.

Whistling Woods, located in Filmland, an area of deserts, forests, towns and temples set aside as a back lot to serve as setting for Bollywood movies, offers short, specialized programs for students worldwide, and a two-year post-baccalureate in filmmaking, producing, acting and other specialties. Kundun offered to serve as a host for subsequent student trips for Arkansas State.

Whistling Woods animation students work on an illustration in fine detail.

See more about Whistling Woods at:

http://www.whistlingwoods.net/

Tomorrow, we visit more of the city, and visit the ancient Elephantine Caves, off the coast.

Last days in Delhi

An anchorman rehearses before a news show at NDTV, India's top news network, similar to CNN in the U.S.

In our last days in Delhi, our smaller group got to work to lay the ground work (we hope) for next year.

The day after our students left, we visited the very high-tech and modern NDTV studios, in which were were given to full tour of the facilities, housed in a six-story high-rise. Within the building there are production facilities for news, entertainment and financial programs. The network has channels that broadcast in English, Hindi, Tamil and other languages. And it's growing, according to our tour guide, producer Rachna Nayyar.

And NDTV is truly international and connected to the US, the UK and other markets. Rachna was headed off to San Francisco, New York and London after or tour to help coordinate an international "green" telethon to raise money to help address climate change.

We next went the Times of India, the largest English-language newspaper in the world with more than 7 million readers worldwide, according to Devlin Roy, the principal of the Times' journalism program, a one-year post-baccalaureate degree program which aims to prepare young journalists to work in the multi-media company. The Times company has affiliate companies working in multi-media, financial management, marketing, advertising and a vast array of publications. Roy really rolled out the red carpet, he took to visit with Punit Jain, vice president of development for the company, Vikas Singh, resident or managing editor, and Arindam Sen Gupta, executive editor.

In both media outlets, the executives with who we talked were anxious to work with us to help develop ASU's ties with Indian media, and to support us on future tours.

We barely had time to catch our collective breaths as Sangee Seth, owner of our hotel, the Golden Apple, and his wife, Anu, took us to a private club, the Roshanara Club,  for dinner. The club, a large marble cricket club built by the "Britishers" in the 1920s, had a full array of activities, restaurants, and a men-only bar area, where Sangee was happy to introduce me to his many friends in the business and professional community.

http://roshanaraclub.in/


Indian restaurants often don't open until 7 p.m., and Sangee's club was on the other side of one of the world's major cities, so it was a late night.

Gautama, the Buddha, is said to have sat under a bo tree to meditate before starting his ministry, and the bo leaf is the model of of the shape of  many Buddhist burial sites,  called stupas. It is also similar to arches and doorways throughout India. The style of architecture was used by Buddhists, Hindus, Moslems, the British and modern builders.

The next day, we explored pre-Mughal artifacts and monuments. Sometimes, with the Taj Mahal and other monuments, the Mughals seem to dominate Indian history. But there was more than 3,000 ears of civilization in India before them, We started at Lodi Park, the capitol of the muslim Afghan dynasty that preceded the Moghuls as rulers of north India. Their monuments were hundreds of years older, smaller, but similar, and no less impressive.

One of India's ubiquitous house crows makes its hoarse call as it seeks shade at Emperor Sikander Lodi's tomb at Lodi gardens park.

Sara E. McNeil explores the Bara Gumbad mosque in  Lodi gardens park.

A grounds keeper weeds the garden in the 98-degree midday  heat  front of a Emperor Mohammed Shah's tomb in Lodi garden park , the former capitol of the Afghan Lodi dynasty, in Delhi.

A local man finds shelter from the heat at Emperor Sikander Lodi's tomb in Lodi park.

We then went to the hot and dusty National Museum, which had exhibits dating back to the Indus Valley civilization that was contemporary with the Egyptians, the Sumerians and the Chinese. We also saw a photo exhibit on some Indian tribes which practice unusual traditional lifestyles in which women plug their noses and wear traditional tattoos.

http://www.soulsurvivors.in/

Moghul Emperor Jangahir admires a painting of the Virgin Mary in a painting at a the National Museum of India. The Mughals honored the traditions and practices of the christians and Hindus under their rule as well as the religions and cultures of their visitors. 

On our last day, we stayed close to our hotel, located in an upscale neighborhood, and did some shopping in a local bazaar.

Our next stop is Mumbai, and then home.

The first farewells

Carl Lindquist, driver Balbender Singh, Sara E. McNeil, Kate Zibluk, Jack Zibluk, tour guide and fixer Saurav (Sam) Somani, Kalee Haywood and Shenetta Payne prepare for our last tour of Delhi before Kalee and Shenetta's departure in the evening. Sam and Mr. Balbender also departed our company that day.

Kalee Haywood and Shenetta Payne went home to Arkansas Thursday. The rest of the group will be staying on a few days to do some international recruiting recruiting for Arkansas State, and to prepare for next year's tour. We will be without the services of tour guide and fixer Saurav (Sam) Somani and driver Balbender Singh, who both were excellent companions and helpers.  I will be posting fewer entries in subsequent days.

Hear Kalee Haywood's final thoughts:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fps9Ais9AaA

Hear Shenetta Payne's final thoughts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nePDxSYMdWw

Our last stop on the tour was to a Tibetan Buddhist refugee community. Since the Chinese invaded the Tibetan capital of Lhasa in 1959, many Tibetans have fled to India, including the most famous Tibetain, Tenzing Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, who lives in Dharmsala.

Shenetta Payne observes a temple in the central square of the Tibetan community.

A monk takes a stroll through the square.

Kate Zibluk spins a prayer wheel at a Tibetan temple. As you spin the wheel, it releases its prayers.

If you meet a sadhu on the road...

On our last day in Rishikesh, I took a hike away from the Indian tourists.

A sadhu, or wandering holy man, walked up to me. He said he name is Baba and he was from Mumbai. As  many sadhus, he wanders around the country, asking for donations. I gave him 50 rupees, about a dollar.

Baba asked about me and my life. He said he noticed our party wandering
around town because we were among the only westerners.

Small-time, independent yogis await customers.

A handcraft salesman talks with his daughter.

A student reads at an ashram.




And then we departed down the mountain and went back to Delhi by train.

Indian trains are notoriously crowded.

Exploring the holy city

Shanetta Payne and Kalee Haywood do some shopping in the  Rishikesh bazaar.

Since Rishikesh is a comparatively small city that hugs the banks of the upper Ganges, it's hard to get lost. Most of the sights, businesses and accommodations are within a block or two of the river.

We spent the day exploring mostly as a group, but we made smaller individual or small-group trips to discover the sights and sounds of the city.

Carl Lindqist strides off the ferry across the Ganges at sunset. followed by Kate Zibluk.

A lone monk does some morning reading in his ashram.

A living Buddha observes passersby from his perch inside a pedestrian mall. Twin Buddhas spend all day attracting customers to adjacent restaurants that serve traditional regional food.

See the other Buddha in action:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsdIbOqeMhA

A macaque monkey forages for food beside a busy street. The monkeys can be very

aggressive when they are hungry or when they feel threatened.

Street scene in north Rishikesh.

Street scene from inside a Himalayan handcrafts shop in north Rishikesh.



Children who sell  flower boats help light its candle to prepare to set it in the Ganges at sunset. Hindus set the little boats on the river at sunset  to show reverence to Vishnu, the god of control and balance, and the legendary source of the river.

A meeting with a Holy One

Kate Zibluk participates in the Ganga Aarti, the Hindu fire ceremony, on the banks of the Ganges River in India. Our group was the only group of westerners in the front of the throng of 500 participating in the ceremony.

“When you look at yourself and ask ‘What am I doing here?’, you’ve gone from going on a tour to being on an adventure,” my best Connecticut friend and photographic mentor, Bill Treloar, once said after a grueling canoe trip.

As I looked around the Ganga Aarti, or Ganges fire ceremony in Rishikesh, India, and noticed we were about the only western participants, I think we crossed that line.

Rishikesh, at about 55,000, about the same size of our small city of Jonesboro, is famous for its ashrams where Hindu devotees study and pray, the holy men who study and worship, and its swamis who lead the congregations. It is famous for the Ganges, whose cold and fast waters, it is said, come from Vishnu, the god of balance and control, and it is popular with pilgrims from throughout the world who come to visit, some seeking enlightenment, and some who want to see the spectacle.

Hindu pilgrims, tourists and others come from throughout the world to visit the spiritual center, Rishikesh.

The fire ceremony provides the primary spectacle. It is presided over by the city’s current lead swami, Chidanand Saraswati, head of Parmarth Niketan, who has an international following. A swami is not a formal title. There are no rules or board certification requirements to become one. A swami is a holy man who through spirituality, charisma, and not a little self-promotion, builds a following.

He demonstrated it at the fire ceremony, where he led the chants as devotees danced, swayed and prayed.  At sunsets, acolytes gather around an amphitheater at the river’s edge facing a walkway with a giant statue of Rama, the idealized male form in which Vishnu was reincarnated, according to Hindu practice.

The swinging bridge is the major thoroughfare across the Ganges for residents and visitors to Rishikesh.

See what it's like to cross the swinging bridge:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qltZVhdOhQ

About 500 monks, pilgrims, worshippers, acolytes, devotees and sightseers gather around the swami, following the evening taping of his television show. 

Hindu monks ready themselves for the Ganga Aarti ceremony, held daily at sunset on the Ganges in Rishikesh.

He then leads an hour-long set of hymns and chants. Participants set little boats made of leaves and full of flower petals and a candle into the river and watch them sail by, and then the participants pass candles to one another as they chant a mantra led by the swami or simply sit and pray.

Hindu women enjoy the ceremony.

Participants flot little bots made of paper and leaves,  full of flowers and lit by a candle into the Ganges.

Swami Chidanand Saraswati leads an hour-long session of chanting as the the focal point of the Ganga Aarti.

The ceremony is in two parts, according to Sadhvi Bhagwati Saraswati, who hails from New York and holds a degree from Stanford University, and retains a California-girl style of self-expression. She  has also been one of the swami’s main aides for 15 years, leading seminars worldwide and appearing on the Discovery Channel and other international networks. She said the first part is about reaching out to others and putting your dreams upon the water, and the second part, in which participants share candles, is about cleansing and burning away sadness and unhappiness, and then sharing the experience.

The swami and his chief aide, Sadhvi Baghwati Saraswati, a Stanford University graduate, discuss and explain the ceremony at a special invitation-only reception at the ashram or residence, after the Ganga Aarti.

Saurav "Sam" Somani, our guide, negotiated with the swami’s staff to get us front-row seats. We were the only westerners in our part of the crowd, and the only non-Hindu participants in candle lighting and passing ceremony.

Afterward, we were invited to an audience with the swami in his inner sanctum, or ashram, during which followers asked for his insights and wisdom. Mostly they asked about evangelizing his message. 

We then shared a vegetarian dinner (Rishikesh is totally vegetarian and alcohol-free by law) with several followers, one of whom was from our neighboring state of  Missouri, and who recently edited an encyclopedia of Hinduism. The group asked about our impressions of the country, and we were polite and positive about the friendliness and the willingness to reach across religious and political barriers that is endemic in the culture. Afterward, another Missouri acolyte, a University of St. Louis student, met us and discussed his efforts to protect the river from pollution.

We discussed the commonalities between our faiths, and I talked about my hope to build bridges between Americans and the people of India.

After we thanked the staff for the hospitality, other followers stopped us before we left to fill out a customer satisfaction survey, complete with a request for a tax-deductible donation.

It was a reminder that besides the fact Christians and Hindus share many beliefs and philosophies, we also share an appreciation for showmanship, and understanding of the necessities of the financial bottom line as well. Finding the balance of the sincere and authentic, the spiritual, the practical, the financial and the promotional is the key for success in any culture.