A micro-post this time – just to mention I have a guest post on “Guncotton”, the new blog on that superb poetry website “Cordite”. They’re doing a series on poetry and place, and in my post, I think out loud about my time in Chennai.
Click on this link. Go on…
I had every intention that I’d write this post before I left India, or perhaps in Bangkok on the way home. But as those last few days sped by, they felt precious. Faced with a choice between soaking up the last sights of Panjim and Chennai, and staring at a monitor in an internet cafe, well, what would you do?
Most of my last week in India was spent in Goa, a place I really knew very little of, apart from its reputation as being crammed with ageing hippies and beach resorts, with a segment of the local population desperately fighting to protect its natural resources. After my very short visit to the capital, I can say it’s not entirely untrue, but there is of course worlds more. When I think of Panjim now, I remember the old buildings’ flaking paint, dozens of dim little bars the size of walk-in-robes, small hills blanketed with palm-trees, floating casinos (yes, boats on the river), and the overall sense that while tourism has its impact, the city and its people persist.
Old Portuguese quarter, Panjim, Goa
Mandovi River, Panjim, Goa
I came here to attend the Goa Arts and Literary Festival, at Dona Paula, just south of Panjim. While the attendance left a little to be desired (due mostly to the festival co-inciding with a plethora of other events celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Indian army entering Goa to claim it back from the Portuguese), the talks, readings and discussions were an absolute feast. A sample of some of the events can be found on You Tube here. We saw and heard Amitav Ghosh on Goa’s resilence, Jerry Pinto on Indian cinema, powerful poetry from Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih & Robin Ngangom, a wonderful philosophical short story from Anjum Hasan, and of course, and a whole lot more. I was scheduled to read my poems alongside Manohar Shetty. A long story, but I read alone – to a small but appreciative audience.
Interestingly, it was here that a nagging doubt about this project (writing poems about medical tourism in India) started to untangle itself. For a long time, I’d felt uncomfortable about what I was writing – was it too much focussed on the spectacular, the poverty, the visible disparities between India and the rest of the world? How could I be true to the complexities I was encountering, which included scenes and scenarios that stir up anger, grief, confusion as well as admiration? Were my poems too much concerned with the Otherness of India? Will there be a difference between how they are received by Indian people and non-Indians?
"Unselfishness is God", Mylapore, Chennai
Unanswerable questions really. But I couldn’t stop asking myself. To the point where, over the course of the residency, at times I’ve felt a bit constrained by my own self-critique. And somehow the Goa Lit Fest helped me relax. Himanshu Suri (Heems from US hip-hop act Das Racist) said he often worried that he was at risk of “self-exotifying” or “performing his race” in front of their predominantly white audience, while also trying to remember that there may only be a few people at their gigs he really relates to – and it’s they who he is “winking at”. I am also always encouraged and challenged when I hear resident Indians express a sense of injustice. Novelist Kiran Nagarkar said something so clear and important, inspired by a compassionate anger at the clearing of Mumbai slums, that “architecture is about human dignity”.
It seems to me now that the key to the dilemma of this project is that there is no key – except to continue to question, and to take risks, to explore various dimensions of empathy and affinities, to include the gaps and doubts, to be immersed in the poems not in how I imagine they might be received. I have about 25 or 30 rough drafts of poems to work on. Who knows how many will survive my surgical eye, but for now, it feels like there is a good chance a lot will.
The early poems feel a little chaotic and flailing around trying to capture the initial shock of arrival, with the urgency of a sense of injustice and discomfort. The poems from mid November feel a little fragmented and tangential, finding fascinating stories and grappling to fit them into poems. And the poems from my last few weeks are relatively settled, calm, philosophical, as if I had found some kind of stable poetic ground. I shouldn’t be surprised that the poetry went on a journey parallel to mine.
I have a lot of thankyous – Asialink and the Australia India Council for funding and supporting this project, the staff and students of the English Department at the University of Madras for their enthusiasm and interest, Prakriti Foundation, India Intercontinental Cultural Association, Goa Arts & Literary Festival, Anna University, Wellspring India MediTour, Dr Smilez Dental Clinics, my friends and contacts (especially Syam, Prabalan, Eugenie and Mr Matthew), and everyone where our conversation went further than where I’m from and cricket! It’s been an amazing journey. I’m still on it, and I hope it brings me back to south India soon.
Marina Beach, Chennai
one last sit on Marina Beach...
It’s about time I let you know how I’m going poetically. I’ve been away now for about 7-8 weeks. Which I should say has been a rollercoaster – ie, full of ups and downs, and not something you can just stop halfway because you feel you need a little break. At times, it’s been astounding, sublime or just plain odd (see photos in the previous post!). Other times, mundane, difficult or exasperating. Mostly, India gives you the opposite of what you’re expecting, or at the very least it goes off on its own tangents.
I’d planned to write a suite of poems exploring the personal side of the medical tourism industry. And I think I’m getting there. There’s a lot of roughness to the drafts, but I should end up with 20 to 30 poems. It hasn’t worked out how I expected – making contacts in the industry itself has been hard (with a few exceptions) and sometimes the smallest hurdles have felt like great walls. As many wise people have said, channel it all into the poetry. And I have.
The dilemma has been that I’m very aware that the outsider’s perspective is very clouded by the obvious sensory assault – poverty, rubbish, religious ritual, traffic, etc – and a poetry composed of this risks not only cliche but distortion. India is much more complex. Of course, I also don’t want to succumb to the current demand from (a segment of) middle-class India to “not focus on poverty”. There is an incredible (perhaps understandable) sensitivity within India to how the nation is depicted in the rest of the world, a desire to be seen to be transcending its historical shackles. Which to me is all the more reason to focus on the economic disparities, as well as exploring what might be behind this sensitivity. India is a country that has enough maturity, intelligence, wealth and ingenuity to not only handle criticism but to come up with its own solutions. By the way, I think Australia has its own version of this…
I suspect the other tricky thing will be the redrafting – I’m trying to do the bulk of that here, because I know that a lot of the heart of a poem depends on mood, which is difficult to recreate. Of course, I could always recruit a thousand auto-rickshaws and cars to encircle our house honking their horns, but there’s more to India and poetry than that.
Why “where am I?”?. Because I’m assuming you’ve all been wondering why such a delay between posts. And because the last week or two have seen many answers to that question, all variations of the kaleidoscope India.
I’ve managed to talk to the very helpful and warm manager of Wellspring MediTour India, based in the very suburb of Chennai that I’ve been staying in. It’s a relatively small business at the moment, but (as he kept reiterating) he’s not interested in amassing money, wants to let it grow organically. I surmised Wellspring assists around a dozen patients a year, mostly from the middle east, to travel to India for medical treatment. There’s a poem emerging from this conversation, which I don’t want to pre-empt, but I will say that the main thing I got out of it was the genuineness and sincerity of the man. This, of course, is within the context of a very complex business, which requires constant attentiveness (and I would argue, a kind of blindness or turning away from other situations of need).
Speaking of blindspots, I also made the acquaintance of VS Sunder, who has a fortnightly column in The Times of India (Chennai). He’s a mathematician by profession, but the column delves into issues of accessibility and disability in urban India. As you can imagine, if you have any condition that means you can only get around in a wheelchair or even with a stick, accessibility is a purely hypothetical idea in most cases, a chimera which is legislated for but almost entirely ignored. Sunder’s column wittily and insightfully points this out. His website is here. Oh, and yes, in terms of blindspots, just the other week, opposite his column was another essay extolling the virtues of the Indian political system, which is premised on equality. Hmmm.
Last weekend, I attended the 7th Indian Writers Festival, this year at Wardha, a small town near Sevagram, Maharashtra (where Gandhi had his ashram for about 12 years). The Festival is organised by Indian Writers, and included participants from about a dozen states and six other countries. While the majority of the festival was in Hindi, the gentle passionate avalanche of poetry and abstracts of papers, the interaction between people and just the fact of being present in a group of writers, was a tremendous experience. Much of the weekend was taken up with reflections on peace, Gandhi and translation. It occurred to me, observing the audience response to Hindi poetry, to sung ghazals, and other languages, that language itself is a community with deep roots reaching across states and continents. It has been a revelation for me to realise, too, just how culturally-infused my own poetry is, how my Australian-ness is infused in the language of my poems. For those of you who’ve been to India before, you won’t be surprised when I tell you that on the surface the festival seemed quite shambolic and loose, but also everything worked out fine!
Soon – lots of photos….
In October this year, I’m travelling to India to find out what “medical tourism” is all about. You may now have visions of me in surgical robes, nervously waiting to be anaesthetised, but no, this isn’t a kind of “method acting” in poetry.
Asialink (along with the Australia Council for the Arts and the Australia-India Council) have been generous enough to grant me a 3-month literature residency, based at the University of Madras. This is an opportunity to draw together into poetry two themes that have long fascinated me – the human body and how we experience it, and India – the interplay of ancient tradition and globalised entrepreneurialism, as well as its vigorous energy and sheer complexity.
My plan is to write portrait poems of people who are in some way involved in what is commonly called “medical tourism” – the travel of patients outside their home country to access medical treatment. This treatment ranges from cardiac surgery to dental work, orthopedic surgery to reproductive technology, gender reassignment surgery. They travel for many reasons – personal, legal, technological and/or financial (to obtain treatment that is too expensive at home). There’s a huge and growing amount of literature on the broad social impact of this very complex phenomenon, but very little in terms of personal stories.
I’m interested in talking with doctors, nurses, cleaners, and other ancillary staff, but also with patients and their families – both Indian and non-Indian. I’m also interested in talking with people who may have had experiences with the medical systems of other countries – Thailand, Malaysia, South Africa, for example. How do two cultures interact around one human body? What are the emotions, contingencies, complications, victories, insights and relationships that are brought up?
If you or someone you know is planning to travel to India any time between October 2011 and January 2012, please contact me through this blog. Any comments on my project, suggestions for reading or other contacts are also very welcome.
Before I reminisce and debrief myself, I’ve put up a few photos – go back to the individual pages, and you’ll see photos on most of them…
India leaves me with distinctly Kolkatan memories. Rachael is leaving a day before me, so we take a taxi out to the airport, organised by where we’re staying – the Sunflower Guest House. They load her luggage into the boot, then realise they have a flat tyre, so immediately set to swapping it with their spare. Lungi-ed men stagger up to the car to watch and scratch themselves. Nearby, a hjira propositions a truck-driver. Piles of rubbish burn. On the way back from the airport, 2 am, the taxi stops at a mechanic to get the flat tyre repaired. Ah, India. Maddening and wonderful.
Kolkata International Terminal is hilariously slapdash – it has a strong 1960′s vibe to it, there are very little actual counters and signs, there are I think four shops… The local terminal is much more equipped and welcoming. Even the pre-paid taxi sign is more obvious. Intriguing. Makes you wonder if Kolkata expects any visitors.
After waking up at 6am in Ali and Penny’s loungeroom in Dubai (thankyou so much – it was a superb stopover), I packed myself into a smooth, air-conditioned, conversationless Emirates taxi, then into a smooth, air-conditioned, conversationless Emirates airplane – for around sixteen hours of limbo. The land around Melbourne is yellow from a harsh summer. The light is yellow, somehow more open, broad. As the plane lands, burly airport workers punch each other playfully. At customs, a peroxide-mulleted woman shouts in her best “Kath & Kim” accent to a man filling out his declarations form at the front of a queue, “yous carn’t fill that out thayre, sur!! You’ll haf ta go over thayre!!”.
Walking around Melbourne with India still in my body is strange. Everyone seems slower, fatter, bigger, more cumbersome and clumsy, yet also self-consciously “cool”. I ride a tram and there is only one conversation happening; the others strain to surreptitiously listen in, keen to somehow assuage their boredom and detachment. The streets are impeccably clean. There are footpaths. It’s windy and cold. Lunch at an organic cafe costs as much as a double room at Hotel Derby, Puri.
It was definitely time to come home, and being in India reminded me of how Australian I am, how it is in my bones and muscle. But I don’t feel I’m at home. I feel alienated. It’s as if I slipped into another time entirely, and have slipped back in to Melbourne and nothing’s changed. I go straight back to my RMIT course, our home in Coburg, our bills in Coburg, and because I’m sick (a throat cold from someone on the plane, I think; how ironic!) I’m spending my time indoors and lethargic. Maybe my soul is still lost in transit, circling some lonely baggage carousel somewhere. I’m sure it will catch up with me someday soon…
So, was India what I’d hoped, expected, planned? No. It’s completely confounding and astounding. It has its own agendas and energies, which force you to accommodate to it. I’d wanted to go to the International Poetry Festival in Kolkata, but we got stuck in the West Bengal Hills. I’d wanted to meet some friends of friends in Hyderabad, but they were away when we were there. I’d wanted to go to Varanasi and Bodghaya, but underestimated how huge the country is, how “little” you can fit in in three months. I’d wanted to find qawwali, but even the Andhra Pradesh Tourism Department don’t know anything about the Deccan Festival.
We did somehow, with only a few days notice, manage to meet up with a lovely Bangalore-based writer, Anjum Hasan. Her poetry is evocative, lyrical and restrained, quite beautiful. We had a very civilized dinner at the Jayamahal Palace with her and her partner Zac, talked about the arts and literature scene in India and Australia, cultural nuances and annoyances.
Would I go back? Yes. Not yet, but hopefully soon. Next time, I’ll plan in advance, get some solid contacts, base myself in one place, do less trekking. India reminds me of the luck of birth, how our futures are shaped so much by where we’re born. Being born into my life, I have the mind and sometimes the financial ability to travel. I’ve caught the bug, I think. Who knows what it will do to me!
Rachael and I keep talking, often joking, about “the real India”. The one that isn’t on the tourism advertisements, all brilliant colours, clean air and precocious healthy children. Apart from the mundane, grimy reality, the main gap between imaginary India and real India is cultural. We are outsiders. So, quickly enough, you learn that entering the core of India is pretty much impossible. It’s more a question of getting closer, approaching through suspicions, feelings, assumptions. And you learn the most, I think, from chatting with other people.
We met a fascinating travel agent on our train trip from Kolkata to Siliguri (New Jalpaiguri to be precise). While keeping up a steady stream of salesman-speak, telling us how Australians were his favourite people (hmm…), he seemed to be genuinely taking us under his well-fed, middle-class wing. He reminded us that India’s population is growing at the size of Australia every year! At that rate, and with the extent of corruption and already existing poverty, it’s hard to imagine what this country will look like in the future. The government and the people have a herculean task ahead of them. Anyway, as it turns out, our train companion, as friendly as he seemed, disappeared soon after suggesting we get a taxi together. Oh well. Unpredictability is part of the fabric here. So, Rachael and I wound our way through mercenary taxi touts and train-station homeless children tapping us on the arm, to find our way to the share taxi stop at Siliguri, where we finally start to leave the energy of Kolkata behind.
Ill health has reared its ugly mucus-smeared head. Nothing serious, luckily. I thought it was the leftovers of Kolkata pollution throat, but it was a potent little head cold. I hit the worst of it – my nose becoming a river – in Darjeeling, which took the sheen off the place – and now (here in Sikkim) Rachael’s enduring it. Still, the immense beauty of the hills penetrates pretty much anything.
We stayed at Andy’s Guest House again. A simple place, Andy’s has a library stocked by fellow travellers, a fantastically friendly couple running the place (thanks Genesis for your shawl that morning I got up early to watch Khangchendzonga light up), and one of the best views in town from its rooftop viewing platform. Cold, but worth it.
view from Andy's Guest House, Darjeeling
On our second day, the strikes began again. As I mentioned in an earlier blog, the West Bengal Hills is still in the throes of the Gorkhaland movement, demands for more autonomy (or independance). There had been violence surrounding two opposing marches in a town on the plains, so there was a sudden decision to shut Darjeeling down in solidarity. Feeling sick and vulnerable, I just wanted somewhere to eat. You realise, of course, that this is not your place. Tourism is huge in this area, but really, it is someone else’s home, with all the cultural, political, economic, social complexities and complications. So, we spend the next two days living off oranges and biscuits, but also managed to find two intriguing places to eat and socialise.
We found a hotel near ours that looked like it would have meals. They didn’t but, almost whispering, they said they would ring their caterer and he might make us a meal. While we waited for our order, the young assistant manager of the hotel, who looked late teens or early twenties, told us how he’d been studying marketing, is keen to try to save money so he can go overseas eventually (knowing it may take a decade or so), believes the gods will give you what you dream of if you keep asking.
The night after, we decided to approach the imposing black gates of the Elgin Hotel. A sober, colonial institution, they do “high tea”. Of course, the cakes were a little stale, the sandwiches bland, and it cost a thousand rupees, but the tea was great, and we met the owners of three other Elgin Hotels in India. A wonderfully down-to-earth yet also managerial, somewhat elevated couple, they regaled us with eye-opening tales of the underbelly of the Hills. Violence from police and Gorkhaland supporters was endemic in the 1980s; lax or non-existent building regulations leading to houses sliding down hillsides; corrupt government officials; monks acting in defiantly unenlightened ways… Fascinating to get a glimpse into India we only suspected before. Not being Bengali in background, they both had the insight of outsiders. The impacts of colonialism, the caste system, government ineffectiveness, patriarchy, all seem to converge in India in depressingly potent effect.
While in Darjeeling, we didn’t just wander aimlessly hoping for the strikes (and my running nose) to end. As it was for me when I was here a few weeks ago, one highlight was the breathtaking, expansive walk to the Tibetan Refugee Self-Help Centre on the outskirts of town. This time, apart from browsing their store, we saw inside the carpet weaving workshop. They were on a break, so we strolled around brilliant carpets and the resting tools with the patina of work and attention. Something about it made me want to weep. Beautiful and honest and rich and simple.
I also wanted to visit Observatory Hill again. Strangely, it was pretty much empty – no tour guides, hardly any priests or monks, no beggars on the walk up the hill, not even a single monkey! I’d built it up as being pretty intense (see my earlier blog entry), but as usual, India does what you least expect. A really palpable sense of the passionate devotion of people is here – webs of prayer flags, cave shrines, so much colour and sincerity embedded in the built environment. And, in what’s becoming strangely, almost humourously common, we get asked where we’re from, then immediately offered grass!
The strike broke for a few hours, so we took the opportunity to head to Gangtok, Sikkim. More about that next time – the majestic Teesta River, our smooth driver, the surprises of Gangtok…
I’m typing this in an unnamed intenet cafe in Siliguri, about 575 kilometers from Kolkata. Siliguri and New Jalpaiguri are really one huge trading town for this area – about half a million people. I’ve only been here a few hours but already the atmosphere is very not Kolkata. I haven’t had one “hello, sir!” yet. This is the call you hear as you walk along the street – 9 times out of 10 it’s an invitation to look at their shop, not just a friendly greeting. Siliguri, like most of India, I guess, is still diesel city, but nowhere near as polluted and filthy as Kolkata.
There must be stages to culture shock. First, survival mode – that was my last post. Second, the challenges and little thrills of exploration. Third, the discomfort and criticism. I’m alternating between the 2nd and 3rd. I’ve left Kolkata, partly for some fresher air, but also to take a break from its relentlessness. Lots of beggars, lots of touts, some beautiful people, and some incredible scenes . A few snapshots -
On Tuesday, three schoolgirls (maybe 12 years old) come up to me while I’m taking a drink of water, ask me where I’m from. One says “you have very beautiful eyes!”.
I go to the Indian Museum. Incredible. Huge colonial 2-story building with inner courtyard, it is a museum to museums. Immense rooms filled with dusty display cases – the type-written labels detail every kind of rock, mineral, seed, plant, oil, animal… Life size displays show models of various Indian tribes, moths and butterflies are crucified behind glass, boxfish in formaldehyde, and quite a few watercolours by Tagore.
I am noticed everywhere I go. Mostly, it seems, because I am anglo and wealthy. I retreat to western-style cafes and bookstores (the sort I wouldn’t go to in Melbourne) for solace now and then, but mostly walk the streets, looking (often unsuccessfully) for artistic centres. It makes me wonder about community – it is easier to make connections with the well-off Kolkatans. Class? Language? Both, I think. Class and Language tend to work together; English, the language of the empire.
On my first morning here, I spot a beggar with a heartbreakingly severe spinal curvature. He waddles over to me, his hand out beseechingly. I walk past, a little in shock. I see him the next morning sitting on the footpath (his spot), and give him a few rupees, motioning to my back, nodding. It seems like some kind of connection. The next time I pass the same spot, he is louder and follows me, “hello, friend!”, his hand urging towards me.
I rarely hand out money. I know often the most aggressive are actually just collecting for others. There is a wall of poverty here. I can’t write about it. I’ve seen too many people sleeping on the footpath, men slapping their amputated limb against the road to attract charity, young women holding their baby in their arms while they stare into the restaurant you’re in and make an eating motion with their hand, shoe-shine-wallahs, shave-wallahs, even men with manual typewriters who’ll type for you, barefoot scrawny rickshaw drivers.
Why is it like this? Is it Hinduism? The caste system? Colonialism? Capitalism? Is it in the nature of the mega-city? Is it really inevitable?
A man in his mid-30s approaches me while I’m sipping my espresso in a chain cafe “Barista”. “Good afternoon”, he says, then, “are you a writer?”. We get talking, he introduces me to his wife. He writes novels and “self-management”; she writes poetry and paints. SS Roy and Daisy both also work for Herbalife; SS’s mentor/guru is high up in the company in Sydney. While we sit and chat, SS feeds Daisy cake, in between telling me how lucky he is to have her, how before her he was like the orangutan in the zoo. Daisy asks me about my back, because her daughter’s is starting to curve a little and the doctors want to operate (Daisy wants me to say no). I tell her, maybe not, just keep an eye on her – if it’s not too bad, don’t worry, especially if she’s not in pain. Later, she tells me I am a wonderful human being.
There is so much else I could write, but will leave it at that for now. Just one more thing – Indian bureaucracy is incredible. To get a ticket to New Jalpaiguri, I need to find out the codes and names of the train, fill out a long form, which then gets transferred into a huge ledger, and typed into a very early 90s looking computer by a public servant who manages to seem both friendly and arrogant. There are no 3AC seats left, so I have to cross that out on the form, and write 2AC (more expensive, two tiers of sleeping instead of 3). The 10pm to 8am overnight train from Kolkata was fantastic. In spite of the snoring through the carriage, and albeit curled up in foetal position in my bunk, I got sleep! I woke up to the sight of village farms just outside New JP, and a sense that the next stage of my being among the Indians is ahead of me.
Checked into Hotel Skylark, took a shower, and sat on my little balcony on the 3rd floor overlooking the sportsground and many bookstores! Siliguri for me, I think, will be for regathering strength, a short stop before heading to Kurseong, maybe Mirik, Darjeeling, Kalimpong, who knows…
I miss my partner and my friends. Love to you all. Postcards are coming!
Who’d have thought I’d be writing a blog. I’ve already broken a few of the rules, though, having edited and re-typed my first entry. Will I learn? Who knows?
Two short things – 1) I’ve just handed in my last assignment for the Graduate Diploma in Information Management, aka Aversion Therapy for Apprentice Librarians. I feel like my brain has cramp. Poetry feels a long way away.
2) I am 24 days away from flapping my skinny wings and making my way towards Kolkata, India. This blog will be serve as some kind of pseudo-documentation/virtual postcards/indulgence… At the moment, I’m too busy feeling flat to get very excited, but I know I will be soon.
