Veen'around

Check out my article about a sculpture exhibition: http://roverarts.com/2010/11/head-turning-sculptures/

Did you go to a cottage this summer? Hiking? Camping? Did you try to escape the heat, if you live in India? Perhaps you just enjoyed urban nature? Maybe you live in the country? Use that keyboard (!) to write a few words about your particular experience in the comment box below. Or send me photos.

What better time to recall summer getaways as Fall deepens outside the window. The leaves seemed to turn yellow overnight, last week, and that beautiful, muted, slanting light, that evokes all manner of nuanced feeling, and a certain tremulousness, permeated everything.

Among the pleasures of immigration to Canada from the tropics, are the all-too-short weekends I get to spend in Canadian Cottage Country.

This year I had the chance to revisit my friend Gillian, on Black Rock, a lovely, little island in the Peterborough area in Ontario. In the vast stretches that typify Canada, owning an island is less spectacular than it would be in other parts of the world, say for example in space-strapped Japan, though no less fortunate.

There were the usual delights of canoeing, dipping in the lake, leisurely meals enjoyed in tranquil, green, watery surroundings, and rambles around the island with Gill’s wonderful children – Ursula and Allias. We also witnessed spectacular meteor showers. Lying back in the open, under blankets, the four us watched in awe as shooting stars bloomed all over the star-spangled, night sky. The kids screamed in glee!

Later I read on the net: “The Perseids take place each August as the Earth passes through the debris of the comet Swift-Tuttle. The dust particles light up as they pass through the Earth’s atmosphere, burning up along the way.”

It was love at first sight for me. Way back in September 2001, I wrote this “ode” to Black Rock:

Jewel
in the palm
of Stoney Lake

Encased in lush,
swirling waters
- a dazzling
turquoise tumescence

Ripening every summer
A fruit, we
have learnt to partake

Leaving you, in the wake
of a lazy weekend
abundant nectar
dribbling down our chins
made dour by city living

Satiated

with the promise
of another summer’s seduction
ahead

Sealed
Amid the pines
- an autumn-tipped seed
mellowing
under the Junipers

Here are some photos of Black Rock from that time.

This year I also visited Petroglyphs Provincial Park. The main attraction here is a massive rock, covered with drawings reminiscent of cave paintings. It is thrilling to see the petroglyphs of turtles, snakes, birds, humans and symbolic shapes. Probably carved by Algonquian-speaking people, the drawings are thought to range in age from 600 to 1100 years. Known as The Teaching Rocks (Kinomagewapong), the site is sacred to First Nation’s people. It is a place where they journeyed to conduct ceremonies, pray, meditate and fast, over millennia. The Park is collaboratively managed with the Curve Lake First Nations People who live nearby. There’s a nice museum on-site called “The Learning Place,” which explains Native traditions.

Highly recommended.

Thanks Gillian for making it all possible.

Lac Village, Mai Chau district, North West Vietnam
Tuesday, May 10, 2010

http://picasaweb.google.ca/veenago/MaiChauOnline#

We are in a tranquil, green, watery, pastoral paradise in North West Vietnam. The Mai Chau district is home to the White Thai, one of Vietnam’s 54 minority groups, though the population here now is more ethnically mixed than it used to be.

I am sitting on a platform under the floor of a high, wooden, stilt house. Traditionally the poles on which these homes rested were wooden; now they tend to be concrete. The house has many windows that let in a much desired breeze, and a balcony on one side. The floor is covered in plastic mats and we sleep on narrow mattress, under spacious mosquito nets. There’s nothing else in the room but for too much of our city stuff.

The platform, which looks out on small, fish-breeding ponds, has bamboo tables and chairs. Cattle used to be kept here in the past, but they now build sheds for them. Beyond this are rice fields, and then mountains. There’s a profusion of plants and trees; the breeze brushing against leaves is a constant, soothing shimmer, at times punctuated by low voices, a dog barking, or a cock crowing.

In Hanoi we were besieged by motorcycle horns and all kinds of grating city noises. The Ancient Quarter, which housed our hotel, was an atmospheric warren of shops selling everything imaginable under the sun. The tiny shops took up the house fronts of incredibly long and narrow buildings – a traditional architectural style. Business and life spilled onto pavements, which also provided parking for the inevitable mo-bikes. Everywhere, small eateries spread out their tentacles, particularly at dawn and dusk.

The goods sold were cheap local or made in China, with the usual coke and cosmetics made by regional offices of multinationals. The more touristic parts of the Quarter sold t-shirts, crafts, jewellery, clothing, paintings and supposedly safe water in plastic bottles. The Quarter’s life breath is the bustle and hustle of commerce.

Now, as I look upon emerald fields stretching to the base of hills, close enough for a giant to reach out and touch, I feel a burden fall off. The same feeling had engulfed me when I got to the beachfront in Cape Town, to a narrow strip of sand, rock, the ebb and flow of waves and the sea stretching to the horizon.
This morning there were women in conical, Vietnamese hats working the fields. A narrow concrete road cuts through them, allowing passage for a loaded up bicycle or motorcycle, and a very occasional mini-van.

There are no cars.

Stilt houses line the small streets, and sell lovely, ethnic goods; pieces of elegantly patterned cloth made on looms, and purses and other small items made with these fabrics.

There is minimal electric gadgetry.

With daily power cuts, the homes run generators frugally. This rather cramps our city lifestyle and computer dependency. (By the way, we are here for a work retreat!)

The students find an internet cafe that was not there last year.

(Two cute little French-speaking girls, children of a Vietnamese colleague and her French hubby, and a Hanoi-based caterer who’s organizing our meals, come by and invite me to a balloon blowing fest. Even though I demur, they sportingly serve me French food fashioned from twigs, seeds and leaves.)

This quintessential, agrarian, tropical landscape happens to be among my favourites and I am drinking it in with all my senses, and especially my spirit.

The simple rurality (this is English, you can make words up on the spot!) strikes me with the force of a wooden gong hitting a heavy, brass bell (a common feature in Vietnamese pagodas). What a contrast to our whirlwind tour, our attempt to comprehend urbanity and its ills (mostly), with glimmerings of hope – those valiant efforts to bring equity and environmental sustainability to bulging, crackling, electrifying, terrifying, thrilling cities.

Why do we pour into them? Why do we keep growing them?

City slickers like you could tick off myriad reasons right away, but the main is that life in the cities is an improvement for migrants who come from the towns and villages, even if the middle-class may only see the gaps in their existence, what’s not there instead of what is.

Cities are enterprise, and Hanoi is a prime example of people’s ability to make, or grow or buy something and then sell it for a small mark-up, eking out a living for themselves and their families in the city, while living in sub standard housing if they can afford rent, or building shacks, and sending money back home to degraded and impoverished “rural idylls”.

Vietnam’s rural to urban migrants are increasingly young and female and a quarter of the economy, excluding agriculture, is informal. Policy makers however are slow to acknowledge migration and informality, certainly in Vietnam, even as some interesting efforts to work with this flow, not against it, are emerging worldwide.

And yet, and yet, villages like Lac, which continue to grow food and drum and dance in the evenings, and not just for visitors, while making money from cultural tourism, may suggest another way – of skimming off from the urban traveller and city economy, while continuing a way of life, with adaptations and accommodations, which is more satisfying, at least for this generation and may be for some of the next?

The old man who spoke to us about village customs was happy to be a farmer, and proud of the fact that the village had filled government crop quotas to feed the soldiers, during the wars, despite its poverty. He liked cultural tourism as it kept people better fed. His main concern was for some of the young in Mai Chau who had fallen prey to drugs. The road brought new desperations along with prosperity.

During our journey, we encountered examples of the country in the city – community and roof top gardens, farmers markets and local food systems – existing thanks to a push from state, market or NGO forces, and a drive to create green zones and expand green space. We also saw community-based recycling programs and conservation projects.

There were examples from elsewhere about how former rivers have been reclaimed from under urban concrete and allowed to flow freely (otherwise they would add to annual flooding anyhow), giving nature a chance in thrive in the city. River rejuvenation brings a whole range of flora and fauna to life; the effects of such changes tend to ripple out; they are rarely linear.

In the Brazilian eco-city of Curitiba, former quarries and wastelands have been converted into a range of parks with educational, cultural, historic or recreational functions. This city can pride itself on providing more than the UN recommended per capita green space while most cities are woefully short of the target.

I am not even talking about some kind of a comprehensive, green plan; that would be paradise and we are unlikely to get there anytime soon, if ever, but merely creating an environment that supports local efforts to promote local health, in all kinds of ways.

Instead of allowing developers to go on a wild, spending spree on farmland at the edge of cities to create grandiose housing complexes and gated communities, which even the wealthy can barely afford and seem to mainly benefit speculators, which is clearly happening in Hanoi, if governments worked to protect and include the country in the city, we would be able to feed ourselves – rich and poor – better and longer.

Once City of the Soaring or Rising Dragon now City in the Bend of the
River. I took loads of pix over roughly 3 weeks under a uniform grey
sky.

Journey from the Ancient Quarter to a Hanoi Noodle village, from the
tourist-infested but nevertheless sublime Halong Bay to a cockfight
glimpsed in a park, to the impressive Temple of Literature, dedicated
to Confucius, which began its life as an elite university in 1076.

Enjoy!
Veena

http://picasaweb.google.ca/veenago/SimplyHanoi#

http://picasaweb.google.ca/veenago/HalongBayOnline#

http://picasaweb.google.ca/veenago/HanoiCockfight#

http://picasaweb.google.ca/veenago/HanoiTempleOfLiterature#

http://picasaweb.google.ca/veenago/TableMountain1#

http://picasaweb.google.ca/veenago/KhalyelitshaOnline#

http://picasaweb.google.ca/veenago/CapePtPenguinsOnline#

Everyone agrees that Cape Town has one of the most beautiful natural settings in the world, with the iconic Table Mountain as backdrop, flanked by two other mountains – Devils Peak and Lions Head. Driving around the city you see spectacular views of mist shrouded peaks, vast blue skies, azure waters, sandy beaches and a city lying, seemingly peaceably, around its natural harbour. As if this were not enough, the area is bestowed with one of the world’s richest floral kingdoms, containing more than a 1000 species of plants, many unique to the region.

Fringed by comely vineyards, with bird sanctuaries and safari parks nearby, with a world class botanical garden, the city is built to human scale, with few skyscrapers, a patchwork of relatively uncluttered streets and many pleasing, colonial style buildings. Nice looking, modern structures are also not foreign here.

Cape Town’s rich cultural landscape showcases puppetry, film and jazz festivals; a carnival and outdoor music; art galleries and museums, cafes and restaurants featuring sophisticated, affordable cuisine, convivial bars and fun dance clubs.

This is a sporty city. It recently ran an international cycling race and the World Cup is a coming soon. (A state-of-the art, 68,000 capacity stadium with a pricey tag was built for the event.) There are adventure sports that land, sea and sky can offer.

Creativity is in the air; as well as impressive scholarship and intelligent political analysis and debate; while media freedom and social change work are on display.

People are frank and friendly. The weather is mostly balmy, and the howling, South Easterly wind that sweeps through dramatically every so often only serves to brush the place with further romance.

An urban paradise? Sadly no.

Apartheid’s legacy is alive and well here, separating the city into distinct black, coloureds and white neighbourhoods. We, IHP profs, lived initially in a nice B&B in the white, upper-middle class area of Oranjezicht. (NB – most Afrikaans words are unpronounceable). Here, you are greeted by high walls, barking dogs and “armed response” signs. (No one walks save foreigners and non-white domestic workers.)

South Africa is a “middle-income” country, yet 38% of the people are classified as poor (2005 statistics). That figure for 1995 was 25 per cent. The recent financial crisis has made things worse. Twenty two per cent live in informal housing, 58% of which is in slums; 41.8 per cent live in “backyard dwellings,” which are typically shacks built behind regular houses. The government has delivered on low cost housing; and electricity, water and sewage connections, but has fallen way short of the need.

Twenty nine per cent of Cape Townians are unemployed. The city needs skilled workers for its dominant and expanding service sector, but the majority of the black population has access only to sub standard government schools. A lot of blacks also boycotted education, as a political statement, under apartheid. As much as a generation and a half is said to be affected by this.

Here’s a revealing statistic: Only 50% of the coloured and black students will finish high school; of these 20% will go to university; of these 40% will finish that degree; of these only 10% will get a technical degree.

It’s clear who has the financial clout. The political power rests with the blacks, making for increasing socio-political tensions. Corruption is rife.

Some of the results of all of the above: high crime rates, including for rape and domestic violence, and a perception that the city is very unsafe, news reports of people rioting for more service delivery, confrontation tactics and overt expression of bias between and among all the above mentioned racial groups; oppositional feelings towards Africans from other countries who come to take advantage of the economy. (Neo-liberal, the economy reflects all the typical features of a Global City.) The categories white, black, coloured and Indian, established by the apartheid state, linger on.

All this inevitably affects the ‘hapless’ visitor, particularly one who is here to teach and learn about urban issues. While her intellectual life is enviably rich, she finds her emotions ping-ponging as she is ferried from a disturbing film about apartheid to a feel-good NGO project in a township; when a lecture on biodiversity is followed by one on white supremacy; when the enjoyment of brightly painted houses in the Cape Malay neighbourhood of Bo Kaap is marred by the realization that she has lost her wallet.

From Oranjezicht to Langa, the second oldest township in the country, is also a sea change. It is a 20-minute drive from downtown – stark, dusty, flat and park less (though there are a few tall trees here and there). Small houses, and smaller shops selling the basics, dominate. Table Mountain still looms majestic in a distance. Here and there is a crèche or bakery, school or bar. The B&B where we land is managed by Neo (a former primary school teacher) and her mother, simply called Ma Neo (a former nurse).

I find that I have moved into the bosom of a joint family, with people from three generations coming and going all day long. I am happy and at home doing yoga with Neo, visiting the lively local shebeen (bar), cooking and sharing spices. I play with the children and chat with the teens. I commiserate with Ma Neo re her asthma, hear about her informal but important work with AIDS patients and attend a rousing, Baptist service at a nearby church on Sunday morning.

Strong, resonant singing and rhythmic clapping merges with tears, heads are bowed in private prayer, eyes closed in intense concentration. Recurring Hallelujahs, Thank you Jesus’, and Amen’s punctuate the discourse; passionate sermonising from pastors and members of the congregation (it’s not clear who’s who), inflates the space, while a collage of projected texts and photos unroll on a screen.

The church is a large, concrete structure with a solid-looking tin roof. The parking lot outside is full.

I ponder how the minimal of expressiveness on part of the students in class contrasts with the deeply held and moving faith so freely expressed in this church.

We have run into adverse group dynamics in Cape Town and are trying to get past them. It’s tough, but part of the teaching game that I am trying to learn.

I also visit Boulder Beach – a colony of utterly adorable jackass penguins. The trip is organized by one of the student’s and we are happy together as we ooh and aah over the singular creatures, going on to enjoy the earthly delights of the Cape of Good Hope.

I have many good wishes and hope, hope for a peaceful and productive future – for this intense, exciting, contradictory, beautiful and beastly country. And for the vibrant civil society organizations and the citizens who are trying hard to make a difference. And ditto for the final leg of our program in Vietnam.

The Brazilian Landless Workers’ Movement or the MST – Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra

View pictures

Enroute from Sao Paulo to Curitiba, 15-17 February 2010

Fields replete with tall corn stalks nodding in the gentle breeze, goats looking rather sulky in a small pen, while the pigs seemed more content in their larger shed. Fruit trees planted amid food crops, demonstrating the eco-friendly practice of agro forestry. An untidy herbal plants garden that provides the basis for the small-scale production of soaps and home remedies.

At first glance, an agro villa of the MST, the largest and arguably the most successful land rights movement in the world – looks like any medium-sized farming operation in any tropical country. But this estate belonged once to a wealthy, Brazilian landowner, was occupied by MST members after careful planning some 8 years ago, was taken over in stages, settled and cultivated, and now feeds the residents and brings in an income.

“According to the Brazilian Census Bureau, 1% of the landowners control 45% of the nation’s land and close to 37% hold only 1%,” writes academic Miguel Carter. Rooted in the colonial era and worsened by subsequent policies or lack thereof (no land reform for example), these figures point to one of the most unequal land distribution patterns in the world.

The MST strategically uses a clause in the Brazilian Constitution, which says that land must be socially productive, as a quasi-legal basis for its occupations, and its thriving land rights activism. They research and take over (for the most part) estates that are not in good standing. Interestingly, once they settle and start cultivating the land, a process that usually takes many years, and can include being set upon by militia, and resulting violence and bloodshed, the government actually buys the land from the owner and gives it to the MST on a 90-year, renewable lease. It also provides some agricultural subsidies.

The process is long, arduous, complex and very political, in every sense of the term, as a MST documentary film demonstrates. The people who join the movement are typically landless labourers or former peasants who are forced to migrate and populate the spreading favelas in cities like Sao Paulo. (The Roofless Movement is a parallel squatters movement in the cities, but is not as well organized, unified and successful as MST.)

The fact that the government buys these estates and leases them to the MST, shows, in my opinion, the collective clout of civil society and social movements in Brazil, the amazing organizing, bargaining, communication and movement building strategies of the MST, and the essentially democratic nature of the Brazilian state. Don’t you feel that in many other countries this just would not happen? The landowners would mow the settlers down using a kind of private army (while the state looked the other way) or the state itself may take the initiative to imprison them, or more shrewdly, just tie everything up in endless legal suits.

It’s true that this state is denying them comprehensive and legitimate land reform. (A wealthy landowners lobby and other factors sees to that.) But it is allowing a sort of grudging land redistribution to take place through the back door. Consider that 350,000 families have been settled on 1300 settlements and the government has bought some seven million hectares of land on their behalf. (MST has been around for around 25 years.)

Fascinating stuff which makes me applaud the movement, Brazilian civil society and Brazilian democracy. By the way, Brazilian agricultural as a whole is industrialized and modern. Sao Paulo is a competitive, global city (with decrepit parts). Brazil embraced scientific research in all fields decades ago and has for its motto – Order and Progress. It is also one of the emerging economies under the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) rubric.

Middle-class Brazilians and mainstream media are very critical of the MST accusing it of being too radical, corrupt, anti-state, and god knows what else. Since it is made up of humans, it must certainly be very imperfect and far from ideal!

Our 2-day visit to the agro villas in the peaceful, green countryside brought up a host of issues and debates among the students around absolute vs. relative rights to private property, the correct way to address historic wrongs and inequity issues, ideas about civil disobedience, socialism/communism vs. capitalism, cooperative vs. competitive values, and many others.

Each MST settlement organizes itself along different lines. Some are cooperative farms, others not. Some members of the agro villas we visited spoke of social transformation and living by alternative values, including ecological ones. They are likely representative of the MST and this is perhaps what disturbs citizens of neo-liberal and even liberal persuasions?

I adored the politics, ideals and activism of the MST and openly supported them, causing some students to look at me strangely! (That is not the only reason why I receive those looks either!) Since I live to be oppositional, this did not bother me. In fact I loved it! It provided a glimpse of what radical academics must face on a daily basis. Professors must be “rational,” non-committal, dignified and reasonable at all times, don’t you think?!

The MST visit, one of the highpoints of our Brazilian exploration, was certainly very inspirational for me, despite the minimal living conditions that it entailed for a couple of days.

Here are my pix from this vivacious megacity:
(Click on link to view)
http://picasaweb.google.ca/veenago/SaoPauloOnline#

http://picasaweb.google.ca/veenago/SPStreetArt#

I startle out of plane-sleep as we are flying over THE AMAZON, so indicated on the monitors. It is 4 am on the 30th of January.

Travel, though it pleases me, does not make my blood sing anymore. Nevertheless I feel the leap of excitement. Just as we have built a myth around the Amazon, we have raised the idea of travel to great heights, on the ladder of our collective yearnings for … transformation?

Both the Amazon and travel can be astonishing, but what about their underbelly?

The reality of travel is also discomforting, jarring, even gut wrenching. Tropical rain buckets down on you while the sun tries to suck in all your strength. Vegetarian food is unheard of, the tea is weak, spices taboo and sickly sweet cakes are standard breakfast fare.

At the hotel you make for your bed at the earliest opportunity. As you lie down, music from god knows where rushes in to welcome you. You close the open window and put on the AC. (The need for survival trumps environmental ethics.) You wake up after too few hours of sleep with a sore throat, the dozen things that must be done tick-tocking in your tired brain. After all you are in this exotic, foreign land for work, where things that were easy to accomplish in the familiarity of the office environment loom Herculean.

All this is not so hard. These circumstances are “normal” and can be dealt with. The difficult thing is the pressure the traveller feels to maintain and ideally embroider that well-entrenched, collective fantasy of travel and work travel (same thing is it not?!)
Travel as adventure, revelation, pleasure, fun, escape. It is something truly extraordinary and quite distinct from doing laundry in the sink.

Wave upon wave of travel writer, informal or official, has stoked that fire. (There have been a few dissenters.)

So what should I tell you now?

Should I talk about divine coconut water and delicious coconut flesh? Of coconut ice-cream and coconut desserts? The charm of the caipirinha – Brazil’s signature cocktail abroad which tastes pretty darn good at home as well? The creativity of Brazilian design? The colour of its weekend craft fairs where you can buy an amazing array of high-quality goods? The vigour of Brazilian democracy? Describe the amazing helpfulness of the people? The soulfulness of its street carnivals and the totally over the top quality of its garish official parades? Tell you that there are amazingly tall, beautiful, healthy trees amidst the endless skyscrapers? Remind you of the heady aroma of earth blasted by rain?

That the people I meet are mostly light skinned?

That I skipped my survival Portuguese classes but am getting around OK by acting, drawing, pointing, making up words, seeking out English speakers?

That Brazil is a country where I felt at home soon after arrival and that feeling has stayed with me?

That I may be making it all up and if I didn’t, you would make it up for me?

The City as a classroom

Coming to New York I moved backwards in time, dropping the white blanket of Canadian Winter for the russet-brown wrap of late Fall, grass still on ground, dark yellow leaves clinging, here and there to trees, an absence of conifers; the barometer above 0.

My 8th floor window at International House looks out on a small park; the majestic profile of Riverside church; the colossal dome of General Grant’s mausoleum – a silent sentinel – looking down on a stream of cars on Riverside Drive, and the river; the river that opens up the possibility of life and connects it to the infinite sky. Not my idea of Manhattan of the wall-to-wall high rise buildings, and a certain, peculiarly urban ugliness. (Yah, yah, there are many stunning buildings.)

The view makes up somewhat for the pocket handkerchief sized room. Rooms are kept deliberately tiny to tease students out of them, into orchestrated social and cultural activities, I am informed. Sigh!

The program, Cities in the 21st Century, is a whirlwind of activities, both studious and social, comprising of many planning meetings (a necessary evil), tedious “house-keeping” and inspiring guest lectures and site visits; a perfect storm of faces, places, ideas, images, concepts, theories, activism and actualisations. It is an intense experience, both exciting and draining.

The students, all 33 of them, are a wonderful surprise, each with a distinct personality that emerges slowly, in some cases. They are intelligent, thoughtful, articulate, nice, friendly, enthusiastic and energetic. And most importantly, though they seem pragmatic overall, have not yet had all idealism drained out of them! Nevertheless, I go to my first ever undergraduate “session” teaching Urban Politics and Development feeling hyper and apprehensive, but it comes off OK.

On the NY subway (a student describes it as the World’s Fair), which seems to take forever to get to Brooklyn, one encounter all manner of eccentrics and buskers and panhandlers who range in their claims from war vets to fundraisers for the homeless! I dish out a few coins noticing that most of my fellow passengers do not. The American flag is painted on the subway cars. “Because we are at war,” a student explains. I don’t get it and add this one to my list of incomprehensions.

We are exposed to a range of civil society and municipal actors, including briefly the UN. What comes through for me is the knowledge, conviction and dedication of the people who work here (Americans tell it like it is more than Canadians – which is just great!) and the understanding that it is very challenging to run a functional mega city.

I am also delighted to have free courses in urban planning and urban anthropology. (The disciplines my two colleagues teach.) What’s more, I don’t have any homework. Who said the world was fair?

My last images are of two Latin American men systematically sifting through garbage bags, piled high around I-House, in this city of immigrants. And anxiously admiring row upon row of beautifully lit up trees en route to the airport – how much would these contribute to climate change?!

On the plane to Sao Paulo I read all about the iconic J.D. Salinger in the New York Times. He has just passed away. I too fell under the spell of “Catcher in the rye” as a young woman. Did you?

Madrid magic
—————

Pictures

For years now I have nursed within me a great fantasy about the Mediterranean region encompassing Spain, South of France, Italy, Greece, Turkey – the so-called gateway between “East and West” and North Africa – specifically Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt.

Like most fantasies this one is fuelled by incorrigible romanticism, fed by fragmented, rose-tinted images descending thick and fast from travel brochures and magazines, books, movies and travelers tales. Visions of olive groves; orange scented, well laid out gardens, in European or Arabic style; beautiful white washed villas with over flowering window boxes; miles of sandy beaches; fast cars being driven smartly along picturesque, verdant mountain roads by Sophia Loren in those oversized sunglasses and that undersized dress; gorgeous old churches and mosques, beautiful palaces, museums and theatres surfeit with “history and culture,” good food, luscious fruit, great wines, and most of all, a balmy climate. And the amazing quality of light in these countries! That mellow, magical luminescence that the Impressionists strove to capture and indeed, succeeded.

I once briefly met a Turkish man who told me that the temperature range in his country was 10-25˚ C. Heaven, I sighed! I who have lived mostly through dripping, sweaty Mumbai summers, or that other variety of Indian summer – the blazing, hot and dry, continental killers. (In Mumbai, when it rains it pours.) I who now live in a city where minus 10˚C is the average winter temperature, and where these windy horrors last nearly half the year.

When I was in the Mediterranean, I would walk down the pebble stone path of an ancient city, my skin caressed by just that right amount of sunlight, a pleasing breeze teasing my hair, ever so lightly, while my eyes feasted on an architectural wonder. No gloves, no scarf, no layer upon layer of clothing, nor the constant effort to find shade, wipe a sweaty brow, quench a withering throat – would mar my triumphant journey of discovery, of what is surely one of the most live-able regions on the planet.

A dreary dawn
—————-

Eight a.m., Madrid. It is pitch dark and misty. The streetlights are on. The sun is still fast asleep. Like me, it seems to be on holiday. I have flown in the night before from Ottawa and installed myself in the hotel from where the conducted tour I have booked myself on is to begin, a day later. Madrid lies before my eyes, pale and limp.

I swoon like a rejected heroine in an old Bollywood film, say like Madhubala in Mughal-E -Azam, after she is dumped into a dank prison, her love affair with the crown Prince having been exposed.

I had planned to start my Madrid tour with a picnic at the famous Retiro Park, described by the Lonely Planet guide as a one-time “preserve of kings, queens and their intimates.” But now I must change my plan and head directly for the even more famous Prado Museum.

Experienced Canadian friends have warned me that it would be cold and damp in Spain. It is December after all. But the meaning of their words failed to reach me; my head was firmly in the clouds. A romantic is essentially a delusional creature, spurning facts and mundane reality, s/he must cling to illusions at all cost, and rapidly build new ones as the old ones splinter and crash.

Some people I will later meet on my conducted tour of Spain, Portugal and Morocco, pronounced that Madrid is unremarkable. I for one don’t know what they are talking about. Here is a perfectly lively city, choc-a-bloc with old buildings, some stately, some beautiful and some just old; museums, bustling boulevards, cafes and nightlife. People stop and chat with each other right in the middle of a pavement. And besides, it houses the incomparable Prado. What more could one ask for?

Madrid has the reassuring familiarity of a Great City – a Mumbai, or a New York or a Toronto. A Paris. An Amsterdam, a Mexico City. I know how to get around these places; how to make the most of them. Yes, people in such cities don’t give a damn about you. And why should they? Big cities are not made for sentimentalists or shrinking violets. They are almost without exception brash, loud and uncaring. But also fun loving, party animals. Luckily I have a similar personality!

The Prado – an enchanted garden of art
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The Prado is a huge 18th century building, set a little back from the main road. It was built to house a natural history museum but ended up instead as Napoleon’s cavalry barracks for a while! Since 1819 it has been the repository of Spain’s considerable artistic wealth with a collection of 7000 European paintings. Less than half are actually on view at any given time. That still makes for a heck of a lot of paintings. No wonder I spent eight ecstatic hours here, gaping and at times gasping at the works of renowned Spanish artists like Velazquez, Goya, El Greco, Murillo, Zurbaran, Cano and Ribera as well as the mind blowing work of Flemish artist Bosch (the Garden of Delight among others), Rubens, Van Dyck, besides Italian, German, French, British and Dutch artists.

I have been looking at paintings for many years now and reading up on art history a bit. I find it extremely rewarding and pleasurous to let my eye roam over a complex work of art and then, having taken in much of the detail, to look upon it as a whole. Or sometimes, the other way around.

Why is this rewarding? There are many reasons. Visual art allows for escape, as well as a sense of freedom and mystery that few other art forms seem to allow. Literature, theatre, film uses words, hence are inherently less mysterious and tantalizing, as compared to painting. The lack of words also makes escapism possible. As a writer I essentially deal in words and painting liberates me from this marketplace of language. Suddenly the mind is freed up to speculate, to puzzle, to admire and to immerse itself in the sensuous act of looking, wordlessly.
What about dance you may ask? Isn’t it another wordless wonder? Dance is fleeting, at least on stage, but the static quality of paintings and photographs means you can visit them again and again, to add newer levels of meaning and insight, which simply cannot be fully captured in words.

When I view old paintings, whether inside an ancient cave temple or in a modern museum, I feel I am directly in contact with another era of human existence, almost transported into it.

This is how some of our ancestors saw the world, I think. The world not just in the tangible, but in the exciting, harder to grasp realm of metaphor, symbol, myth, belief, legend. The paintings in the Prado are definitely not “realistic.” Even the landscapes are tying to create a world that is not ordinary, but mythical. They are trying to convey a point of view, a vision.

Themes recur. There are many variations on the birth of Christ, Madonna and Child, the Adoration of the Magi, the Crucifixion, the Holy Family and the Annunciation. (This is the Biblical incident of the Archangel Gabriel appearing before the Virgin Mary to tell her that, oops; she was going to be the unwed mom of Jesus!) There are of course the monarchs – the heavily bedecked kings, queens, their progeny, their courtiers, their servants, their pets, their horses, their over decorated mansions, their possessions, etc. The layperson also makes an occasional appearance, often engaged in a trade. Christ as a child is sometimes shown in humble surroundings with his parents.

There are also the various stories of the various Saints, some of whom seem to have visions, with angels for example, appearing before them, floating in the sky. Others are involved, one way or another, with “miracles.” There are splendid nudes, their flesh sparkling and spreading – obviously not on any kind of a diet, nor even contemplating one! Some of these ladies symbolize Faith or Justice or Mercy and others are muses, etc. One intriguing painting had a stream of milk coming from the Madonna’s exposed breast and falling into the mouth of a kneeling priest!
Whoa! I wondered what Freud and his followers would make of that? This is the kind of painting that makes one realize that indeed these works of art were made in a time very different from ours. This painting is not trying to titillate. It is perhaps a depiction of Mary as the universal mother? Only an art historian would know. This is yet another image one tucks away into the subconscious. It ferments there and will someday inform a deeper appreciation of some other painting.

The backdrops of these paintings are endlessly complex – whether the scenes they depict occur indoors or out. There is drapery, often lush and elaborate, all manner of flora and fauna, shafts of light, rivers and plateaus, windows, doors, richly furnished interiors, tools of a trade. These paintings are often populated by at least 3-5 figures and sometimes by vast numbers of people.

Here are paintings commissioned by Kings to mark important events, paintings glorifying themselves and their reign. Here are family portraits and battle scenes, victory marches along with visions straight out of hell.

Just a couple of hours into this stuff and I feel as if I am on LSD. Not that I have ever taken LSD but friends have kindly described the experience to me, not to mention countless authors who have also been obliging. At this point I enter the Bosch room. Man oh man, that guy was definitely on something pretty potent when he painted his ultimately weird and fascinating images!

On to Goya: Francisco Jose Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828), described by the guide as the “most extensively represented of the Spanish masters at the Prado.” Goya was a Spanish court painter whose best work was done outside of his official duties. He is known for depicting scenes of violence, especially those prompted by the French invasion of Spain (1810-14). What is hard to believe is how modern Goya’s works look! No wonder he has been called “the first of the moderns.”

The Prado collection includes large paintings depicting surprisingly cheerful pastoral scenes also done by him, etchings of that eternally Spanish subject – the bull fight, famous works done during the French invasion and the most intriguing of all – the Black Paintings, executed on the walls of Goya’s house, done in his old age after he went deaf. These paintings convey his darkest visions like Saturn devouring his son – where a wild haired, demented looking giant holds a small, headless, body just below his gaping mouth, as he looks, unseeingly, at the viewer.

Used as I am to thinking of Spain and other Western European countries as conquering nations – the colonizers – the paintings done during the French invasion are a reminder that these countries also invaded each other. The history of these invasions, particularly the incursions Spain made into North Africa and vice versa, reverberate in the art and architecture of this region. The marriage of the two cultures has led to the Moorish
Style.

I leave the Prado marveling at the European imagination, wondering how and why they had managed to go from a vision of life, rife with symbolism, to their present efficiency driven, computerized reality, and find myself pitying them for their “hyper rationality.”

Dressed for X-mas…
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From the heights of the Prado I plunge into the depths of downtown Madrid – the Plaza Mayor. Oh how delightful is city planning in most European cities, which abound in beautiful and bustling “squares.” First I visit a Chocolateria in the vicinity, recommended by the Lonely Planet – certainly a very popular family hangout, where I dip strips of fried batter into a rather thin, and less than inspiring, chocolate sauce. Alas, my culinary experiences in Spain leave a lot to be desired. For my first meal out I order fried mushrooms dripping in oil and blasted with garlic (seemingly the only vegetarian item on the menu, save for a potato omelet which in hindsight would have been a better bet) and a chorizo (spicy sausage) sandwiched between two slices of dry bread. Not a good diet for a jet lagged stomach. Food here in general seems under spiced, and meaty, though I often eat hotel buffet dinners and breakfasts served up as part of my packaged tour, so it seems unfair to judge. However, I do recall a strong physical pang of regret the day we leave Morocco, arrive back in Spain, and line up for a sandwich in a small eatery. And though I heartily disapprove of Indian package tour companies who serve pure Indian vegetarian fare made with shuddh ghee, while traveling through whatever part of the world, I did long for an Indian food fix, that day. The other problem with the very lively eateries one encounters all over Spain is the volume of cigarette smoke they contain. Quite a shock after the smoke restricted pubs of Ottawa. All this brings home the fact that I have become, alas, a fussy, middle-aged, goody-two-shoes!

The chocolate does give me an energy boost, somewhat depleted after 6 hours at the Prado. I prowl the streets dazzled by the elaborate no holds barred X-mas lighting. I have seen nothing remotely like it in North America, which still has its puritan steak, despite its attempt at excess.

Suddenly, I am among a huge crowd of people – adults and children – some dressed up in masks and costumes, others handing out party hats, with a balloon seller or two thrown in. The crowd is facing what looks like a huge, toy store with a cutie-pie façade, comprising of cuckoo clocks in the shape of mini and merry toy houses. They are waiting for something to happen: some X-mas entertainment is to unfold. I can find no one who speaks English.

I duck into the toy store. Turns out to be a department store. I enter another shop. Downstairs they are mostly selling colourful Flamenco dresses in many sizes; upstairs there are costumes in a Halloween-like display. I notice one can dress up like Harry Potter or one of the characters in the series. When I come out the crowd is growing but no one has come on stage. So I decide to move on to a modern art museum called Reina Sophia.

This museum was open late and the entrance free. Here I see some great, modern works including mobiles made by Miro and Picasso’s Guernica. I also take in an exhibition titled Universo Gaudi. Antonio Gaudi is the brilliant Spanish architect (1852-1926) whose fantastic works I will be missing as the tour is not going to Barcelona – a city where the majority of the buildings he designed, stand. He is said to have freed “architecture from the laws of physics and defying gravity itself; his style is often described as a blend of neo-Gothic and Art Nouveau, but it also has surrealist and cubist elements.” I end my second day in Madrid with a hearty salad at a youthful pizzeria in the same square as the museum.

The Alhambra – a perfect vision of beauty
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Spain is an ancient battleground. The Romans have swept through it and left behind distinct landmarks – bridges, half ruined monuments. Many conquerors have come after, including the Arabs. The blend of Arab and Spanish styles gives rise to Moorish architecture.

In the ancient, walled city of Toledo, which I view through a grey misty haze, are narrow cobblestone lanes, lined with brick and stone houses, roofed with tiny wrought iron balconies, with openings, here and there, that present views of a swiftly flowing river.

(I never completed this travelogue, which, if I had, would have wound its way from Toledo, through the incomparable Alhambra, going from Spain into Morocco, re-crossing the sea to Portugal, entering Spain once again, to pass through the enchanting city of Salamanca. Perhaps another time…)