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BANGALORE and MYSORE November 10th – 19th
Shortly after our return to England, an article in The Guardian caught my eye: "Boom time in Electronic City" was the headline and running below was "At Infosys, even the canteen manager is a rupee millionaire. Welcome to India's e-revolution". We had no direct dealings with the software services company Infosys but we could not avoid reading of its own 25-strong fleet of buses, about its customers (Visa and Sainsbury’s among them as well as Amazon and CBS Sports on-line) and of its programmers whose starting salary of £300 per month is ten times the average Indian's income. Perhaps we were close to the company, or the effect of it and many such others in Bangalore, when, in an inter-net “shop”, we were paying a mere Rp40 (60p) to be on-line for an hour. We were certainly aware of the current enormous building programmes, not just the plants and factories on this new Silicon plateau but the luxurious condominiums being constructed behind large guarded gateways. The basketball courts and Domino's Pizza outlets, paid for by Infosys, added to the globalization of the environment although Americanization might be the more accurate term. It was, after all, Bill Gates who decided, on the evidence of the home-grown computer talent he met in India, to award the first Microsoft professorship outside the USA to Delhi's Institute of Technology. And yet little of this new wealth seemed to have reached Bangalore's city council. The pavements around our hotel were just about the worst we encountered anywhere. To avoid dicing with death on the roads, the alternative was "clambering" along the broken paving stones and slabs of concrete that constituted the pavements in the city. Often strewn with rubbish, the sidewalks had been constructed over some sort of sewage outlet or perhaps the natural "stream" beneath our feet was just polluted. In either event, the smell was awful.
We had been met at the airport by Sister Christine, the new and therefore rather nervous TCL representative, and her shadow, Sister Mary John. The latter, as full-figured and rounded as the former was slight, was a piano teacher (Sr. Christine was not a musician) and came from Mysore where she used to run a Trinity Centre. Her expertise was therefore seen as useful for the new incumbent of the post here in Bangalore. The St. Marks Hotel was a joy after the Anandha at Pondycherry. It had a quiet, relaxed feel and was surrounded by many large trees and flowering shrubs. Being next door to the extensive campus of Bishop Cotton’s Boys Secondary School, also helped the feeling of space: our room at the back looked over the trees to the city centre. The receptionists, bell-boys and housekeeping staff were uniformly courteous – friendly, chatty, helpful and solicitous compared to their peers at the Anandha – with a confidence which suggested that they were used to dealing with overseas visitors. There were, indeed, quite a few Caucasians to be seen (and heard on their mobile phones), in the foyer and the restaurant, and this, we presumed, reflected the links with American and European firms via the software industry. Likewise, the menus offered a pleasant mix of Indian and Western cuisine (including “Good Ole Fish ‘n Chips”). There seemed to be an inordinate number of taxes added to the restaurant bills – dishes were often labelled "Rpx plus plus". When I asked what was "Cess Tax", the waiter could only reply "Just another tax" but we later gathered that one, at least, was to help build roads – but obviously not used for pavements.
I was picked up each examining day by the very handsome young man who had met us, with the sisters, at the airport. He was driving the school's Tata Sumo, the middle-class Indian's Range Rover. In truth, I could probably have walked to the Good Shepherd Convent School but, with the heat and the poor pavements, I was probably well advised to settle for the lift to and from the hotel at lunch and back again at the end of the session. The standard of exam work here was the best yet, edging Pondicherry out of prime position. Some candidates even made a more than passable shot at the Sight Reading. The violin work was of the same commendable standard of preparation as the pianists, although their teacher, a "mature" gentleman, sat his ATCL with disastrous results. He presented himself the following day as a candidate for ATCL Guitar and in this he was considerably more able such that he gathered together enough marks to pass. On some days the electricity was off for parts of the day and this mattered less in terms of the heat (no fans) than in terms of the light. The windows in my spacious exam room had the normal blinds (to deflect the fierce rays during the day) but as the sun faded on the end of a day, the electric lights were essential if I was to see what I was writing.
My steward each day was Sister Mary John and I think she looked forward to my morning and afternoon tea breaks as much as I. This was less to do with the tasty sandwiches and cakes which were provided and more with the fact that we could chat about times past in Bangalore and, particularly, Mysore. The Sisters of the Good Shepherd came to Bangalore in 1854 and to Mysore in 1878. The nuns were from Germany and Ireland and amongst them were several talented piano teachers. They began using Trinity College exams almost as soon as they were available (1877) and one of the Mysore teachers, Sister Maurice, became attached to the palace and taught Sri Jayachamaraja Wadijar, at that time next in line of the Wadijar dynasty. He took all of the exams up to and including Licentiate. In 1942, on the death of his uncle, Sri KrishnarajaWadijar, Jayachama inherited the title and became responsible for the palace and its affairs. One of his first actions was to set up a band, with its own rehearsal room, as well as a symphony orchestra that grew to a strength of one hundred players. From time to time, the Maharajah would take three- and four-month trips to Europe where he became known to many leading pianists of the day. Nicholas Mendtner was a particular friend and the composer/pianist dedicated his Piano Concerto to the young Indian prince. He was also a friend of Rachmaninoff and would always return to Mysore with dozens of recordings of such leading piano virtuosi.
But these overseas excursions meant that his band and orchestra were temporarily without their leader and champion. In 1944, Wadijar had a great stroke of fortune. The examiner from Trinity College for that year was a Polish musician called Alfred Mistowski. Because of the war in Europe and the difficulties of travel, Mistowski found that he was stranded in Mysore. The Maharajah invited him to stay and help train his orchestra and band. Thus my Trinity colleague of sixty years ago moved in to the fabulous Mysore Palace as resident conductor and the fame of the orchestra spread far beyond the boundaries of the state of Karnataka. The Maharajah, who was also a prolific composer of Indian as well as Western music, later became an Honorary Vice President of Trinity College of Music. Wadijar died in 1974 but his sister, Princess Deis, herself a notable (Trinity trained) pianist, is still alive. Sadly, the present Maharajah, Sri KantaNarasimharaja, did not continue the strong musical tradition and the orchestra has been disbanded.
Sister Mary John told me these stories over the course of several tea breaks – she herself had been taught by Sister Maurice. Mary John's claim to fame was being the first Indian musician to play ragas on the piano and, in 1993, she had been invited to demonstrate her skill to a conference of the European Piano Teachers' Association. Knowing that ragas are lengthy, monodic and, when played on the sitar, accompanied by the rhythmic drumming of the tabla, I was curious to discover how this feat could be achieved. Sister Mary John was equally keen to show me – but not, fortunately, in my tea breaks.
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It was a particular pleasure in Bangalore to have been put in touch, through mutual friends in England, with Arjuna Sunderlal. In one of my first teaching appointments, I had met Soma Slaymark who was in the English department. Her sari brought life and colour to a drab staffroom. But it was not just her warmth and immediate friendship that brought us together. I discovered that her husband Victor was, and still is, an exceptionally fine clarinettist. Over a period of many years, Victor and I played chamber music together as a duo and in a trio and he also gave me my first entrees to the world of the theatre music industry. Victor has "fixed" musicians for many years and, at that time in the late 60s, he was putting musicians into a variety of jobs. The Royal Shakespeare Company has benefited from his managerial and playing skills now for over thirty years. On hearing that Pat and I were to visit her home city of Madras (Chennai means nothing to Soma) and later Bangalore, we promised we would get in touch with her great friend Arjuna. (We learned to ignore the "j" in pronunciation.)
Our first meeting was when she came to the hotel to take us out to dinner at "The Club". An elegant lady, one with bearing and presence, I was not surprised that she had initially made a niche for herself as a vocalist, singing lieder and operatic roles first in Calcutta and later in Bangalore. We were a little amused by the somewhat Sloanish "Oh yaa"s that peppered her speech but they were delivered in an unaffected way and became rather endearing. Arjuna had first met Soma in her student days when the latter was a 23-yea-old lecturer – "Always very bright was Soma". Bi-annually, Arjuna organizes the Bangalore Festival of Western Music and she told us that "for years I have been trying to get Victor out here to play". Her present headache was to find sponsorship for the seven members of New York's Metropolitan Opera who had agreed to take part "for a mere $5,000". The services of these singers had been secured through a friend who was on the ambassadorial staff in New York. This seemed a perfect opportunity for Infosys to contribute to the cultural life of Bangalore – basketball courts, pizzas and why not opera?
"The Club" was, of course, the old British Bangalore Club. Built in 1868 therefore a little younger than the Madras Club, it shared many of the same features in both architecture (the white colonnaded frontage) and ethos. We had hardly settled ourselves into huge armchairs in one of the lounges when a steward opened the door and, without saying a word, drew Arjuna's attention to a sign that read "Dress Restriction after 7.30pm". Yet again I had transgressed for, although I had a shirt with a collar and was wearing a tie, I would need to wear a jacket to remain in that particular lounge. Compared with the Madras Club, the furnishings were a little more plush with fewer rattan chairs and settees and more fully upholstered sofas which easily swallowed us up in their deep comfort. Various hunting trophies (antlers, tiger heads, horns) were reflected in large mirrors and the blades of many swords and scimitars caught the lights from the sparkling chandeliers. In a small smoking room were presents from a former Maharajah as well as some of his turbans on an Edwardian wooden hat-stand, and several portraits of said gentleman were on the walls.
The grounds, where former members such as Winston Churchill would have strolled, were extensive. We chose to eat outdoors and wandered over to where a tented kitchen had been set up. We chatted to the smiling chefs who seemingly were ready to produce anything we wanted. Pat was fascinated to watch at close quarters the finger-spinning roti-maker who, for us, filled the paper-thin bread with paneer and vegetables. It was most relaxing, sitting in the twilight, eating the freshest of food – the roti were delicious – and sipping cold beer or, in Pat's case, the whisky we had been drinking in the lounge. We heard about Arjuna's main occupation, which is the organization of the Bangalore School of Music with its staff of nineteen part-time teachers. Her son, she told us, lived in Calcutta "in tea, the same as his father" while her daughter lived with her in Bangalore working for a charity known as CRY. Child Relief and Youth is concerned with children's rights, child labour, remuneration and associated problems. The four main aims of the organization, a sort of children's charter, are the right to survival, the right to protection, the right to development and the right to participation. Arjuna was possibly the first, and last, Indian we heard who said "It is hard to tell a beggar with one leg or one arm to earn his own living – I always give them something". Sister Judith's words at the salt lakes came back to me. The problem is so immense, who knows what the answer is unless, like the man on the coach trip, you can answer "Auroville is".
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As throughout our tour, we were very ready to take local advice. Almost the first words the Sisters had said to us at the airport, and a sentiment echoed by Arjuna when I had first phoned her, were "You must go to Mysore at the weekend". After Sister Mary John's stories of the musical maharajah, I very much wanted to see the home of my former Trinity colleague Alfred Mistowski. Thus it was that on Saturday morning, our car arrived (at 7.50 for an 8.30 pick up) and, with weekend bag and a large bottle of water, we jumped in the Ambassador and moved off through the dense traffic. I had fixed up the taxi plus overnight stay through the hotel, having compared prices with a contact of Sister Christine's. Pat had been scouring Lonely Planet for all the relevant information and the travel agent had been able to assure us that there would be time to see all the places she had underlined. Our driver, Jagadish was young, good-looking with a friendly smile and, according to Pat, "Jeremy Iron eyes".
Once we reached the rural areas, we made good progress through pitiful villages, past paddy fields, coconut groves and fields of sugar cane much of it with large pampas-like fronds. The bullock carts, wandering cows, flocks of sprightly goats and floppy-eared sheep made for an erratic drive. How all of these creatures managed to get out of the way of the psychopaths hired to drive the coaches was beyond me. We had been warned that the buses would be a terrifying aspect of the journey. Mysore is such a strong tourist draw, even for Bangaloreans, that the bus companies vie with each other to keep to timetables. Drivers have been known to face the sack for being late! Hence, they claim the right of way and, at the sound of their air-horns blasting from behind, Jagadish often pulled off the road rather than have a coach remove the back bumper of the car. The road surfaces were some of the most appalling we came across presumably reflecting the high usage. In some towns there was hardly any surface to speak of, although the piles of hard-core, sand and gravel and the forlorn groups of men and women attending to them seemed to suggest a road-building programme of some description. We saw very few machines of any size – a couple of road rollers perhaps and a tar-laying machine – but in the main it was obviously a case of road repairs by hand. We drove through small towns – Chennaptma, Maddur and Mandya were all bustling, frenetic places. Huge lorries filled with cut sugar cane swung violently along, competing with the buses in a sort of Indian roulette. Around Ramanagaram there were large rocky outcrops on the horizon looking as though they had been piled up in some legendary manner. But Jagadish, through his poor English or lack of knowledge could not enlighten us – sadly, LP could not satisfy our curiosity either.
On several occasions, Jagadish had to stop quite abruptly for a cow to wander aimlessly across the road – "Brake inspectors!" he laughed. Cows were seen at other times standing in the water, hopefully downstream of where dobhi women were doing their washing. Elsewhere there were monkeys to watch as they scampered across the road into the nearest trees moving as quickly as the doleful bullocks plodded slowly, almost elegantly, along.
Our first stop had been at Channapatna where Jagadish had imagined we would want to look in the rather tatty and evil-smelling handicraft shop. We did not but we were glad to stretch our legs. Likewise, the stop for elevenses at Maddur was welcome for the same reason. Our first sightseeing stop was at Srirangapatnam, the seat of power for the Hindu Wadijars who established their rule over a large part of southern India in the seventeenth century. Srirangapatnam remained their capital until they were deposed by one of their own generals, the muslim Hyder Ali. Both he and his son, Tipu Ali, were helped by the French in return for support in fighting the British. The Wadijar dynasty (among whose twentieth century descendants numbered Mysore’s musical maharajah) was returned to the throne only after Tipu Ali had been defeated in 1799. Inside the area that had been Tipu Ali’s fort (the British left not a great deal of the latter standing) was Srirangapatnam’s temple and this became the first of many superb sights of the weekend. Alongside the impressive gopuram was the by-now-familiar highly decorated “cart” in which, at festivals, the deity would be paraded around the town. Surrounding the gate was the usual plethora of hawkers, their stalls laden with sandalwood ornaments, carved elephants – plain black or patterned – as well as the coconuts, bananas, flowers, powders etc. for the faithful to offer in their puja. The interior of the temple was very much plainer than those at Kanchipuram and was packed with people intent on making darshan, a sighting of the god. Somehow or other we found ourselves mixed up with this "queue" which boisterously and noisily pushed forward with little sign of what we would know as "reverence". Over the predominantly short-statured worshippers, we were sticking out (and up) like sore thumbs and, being in such close proximity, it was only a matter of time before someone called out "And where are you coming from, sir?" Mention of England was enough to turn their minds to cricket. "Do you know SachinTendulkar?" was from a smartly dressed young man beside me. "Do you know Geoffrey Boycott?" was my reply, at which the whole temple erupted in the same manner as had the Post Office Rotunda in Calcutta. None seemed to care that it was nearly their turn to offer presents to the loin-clothed brahmin presiding over a large black marble god (which reclined on a massive coiled cobra). This was Sri RanganathaSwamy bedecked with marigolds and smudged with powders of various hues.
Once we had disentangled ourselves from the crowd of cricket- and Swamy-loving worshippers, our whistle-stop tour began. We drove out through the ancient gates of Hyder Ali's and Tipu Sultan's fort, to DariaDaulatBagh. This had been Tipu Sultan's summer palace. It was built in 1784 and, leaving our shoes at the gate, we strolled around a quiet garden, remarking on the symmetry of the neatly laid out paths, flowerbeds and trees in relation to the foursquare palace. There was more than a hint of Capability Brown here. The interior of the building is now a museum and the walls were decorated by very detailed paintings divided by horizontal and vertical lines that gave the effect of tiles. These frescos depicted Tipu's victories over the British East India Company's army and I wondered what Colonel Arthur Wellesley (later the Duke of Wellington) made of these paintings when, having defeated Tipu in 1799, he took over the palace as his own. I could not resist taking a few photos when the coast was clear – the “No Photography” signs were too much in evidence for me to plead ignorance. Visitors here were numerous and included quite a few caucasians.
We moved on to the Gumtaz, an impressive mausoleum, with its typical onion-shaped chattri, which housed draped plinths commemorating Tipu Sultan, his mother and his father, Hyder Ali. A guide explained that the tiger-striped room housing the catafalques had never been repainted since its construction although chemical cleaning processes had been carried out. Despite the heat and the visitors, we found this a very relaxing, comfortable and calming place to visit.
Although it was well after 2 pm, neither of us was hungry and we were quite happy for Jagadish to take us on a small diversion alongside the Cauvery River to the Ranganathitoo Bird Sanctuary. As with many sites, foreign visitors were charged a premium here (about £3) and the man at the gate was concerned that we would only be seeing two different birds at this time of year, white egrets and black cormorants. Not being "twitchers", we were content to enjoy the walk through the tree-shaded areas we could see in front of us so, with much shrugging of shoulders and conversation between Jagadish and the inevitable crowd of onlookers which had gathered at the gate, we proceeded to the car park. Jagadish was feeling more relaxed with us by now and he accompanied us some of the way, pointing out a couple of crocodiles masquerading as rocks and showing us where the egrets and cormorants were roosting. We decided to miss out on the boat trip round the islands of the lake, not least because of the enormous number of people, mostly Muslim families we noted, gleefully cramming themselves into the 12 foot rowing boat which was already rocking with the antics of the younger element. Apart from not wanting to finish up in the water with the crocodiles nearby, we were now on a tight schedule so, after a welcome Limca at the drinks stall, we headed back to the car.
The subsequent hour or so was spent at gentle, later more frustrating, cross-purposes with Jagadish. The next stop on the itinerary was to be the Brindavan Gardens but for some reason this bothered our driver to the point where, as we approached Mysore, he began stopping at various hotels and disappearing into Reception. I had given him our booking form for the Ramanashree Hotel and we could only conclude that he did not know where to find the place and was, quite sensibly, asking the way. But each time he came back to the car he would shake his head and say "No room". I kept insisting that we could only stay at the Ramanashree since we had already booked, to which, with the usual slow wag of the Indian head which can mean anything or nothing, he would mumble something about "No time". We wondered if he was advising us against our booked choice and was trying to find a better alternative – the hotels he parked outside had all been quite swish. Eventually, at about 5pm, we drew up outside of our appointed hotel. It was the reception clerk who explained to us that, because the Ramanashree was an hour's drive from Brindavan and we wanted to go that evening "for the lights", we would have no time to shower or eat and that we should check in and be ready to leave with Jagadish as soon as possible. We had obviously spent too long at Tipu Sultan's palace and/or the bird sanctuary and he had been trying to save our time by finding us another hotel nearer the gardens. He beamed with relief when he could see that, at last, we understood what had been going on. I had become more and more irritated as he had driven us around and perhaps he could see the eventual baksheesh diminishing before his eyes.
By 5.30 we were on the road again and were outside the Brindavan gardens entrance 45 minutes later. I am not sure what I expecting as Pat had done all the research for this weekend and, as usual, had planned expertly so that we could see all the sights LP recommended. All I knew was that the gardens were on the sacred Cauvery River alongside the immense KrishnarajaSagar dam. This had been built, post-independence, by the Nehru government but since it tapped water from a river that also flows on through neighbouring Tamil Nadu, there have always been wranglings about water rights. It was not a surprise, therefore, to see notices banning “explosives and suspectable items”. We were confronted with car parks and separate coach parks the size of football pitches and, with these parks crammed with vehicles, we shared the Brindavon experience with literally thousands of people. It was along the wall of the KrishnarajaSagar dam that we eventually began our walk. The pathway was, naturally, limited by the width of the wall (some twelve feet at a guess) and I can only liken the experience to that of leaving Highbury or White Hart Lane at 4.45pm on a Saturday except that, though dark, it was of course still warm. It was impossible to do more than be taken along with the flow, mostly with our heads down to determine what was underfoot. The dam wall itself was floodlit and the views of the Cauvery 150 feet below us would probably have been spectacular during daylight. The evening air was full with clouds of insects (thankfully they were only moths) flooding around the lights that were spaced at irregular intervals along the route. The crowd was good-naturedly noisy and the pushing and shoving was gentle and patient. People were obviously very excited at the prospect of what awaited them (and us) but when we reached the steps for the descent into the gardens we were more concerned about the poor lighting and non-existent handrails than whether we were going to get value for our meagre entrance fee. The ornamental gardens and lakes, viewed from the top of the steps, were quite attractively lit but from ground level it was difficult to see anything because of the hordes and, in the dark, we had no chance to appreciate any of the botanical features. The advertised "Musical Fountains" meant relatively small flood-lit fountains in the lake with music blaring from an enormous screen on to which laser beams were playing – cartoon figures, advertisements and Indian pop idols. The food outlets were teeming, people shrieking (with enjoyment, I hope) and this total cacophony, combined with the possibility of broken ankles, forced us to make a relatively early departure. As we ploughed our way back up the steps through the sea of people, we heard a Midlands voice. "Bloody naff, I call it!" We concurred and discovered that the Indian lady concerned was from Derby and was on holiday visiting her family.
By this time, our heads were throbbing and I found Pat (who suffers from vertigo in darkness) clinging so tightly to my arm I felt as though I was dragging her along. Amazingly, we found the appointed meeting place with the patient Jagadish and were soon on our way back to Mysore. Being borne along on that tide of humankind had been, as Pat put it, an amazing "sociological outing" but our advice to any tourist would be to visitBrindavan in the light and see what there is to see before the lasers and "musical" experience attract the 30,000 sightseeing locals and tourists.
Back at the hotel, we were able to take stock of our over-night accommodation. Mr. Mahesh, from the travel desk at St. Mark's, had assured us that the Ramanashree was "the same as this hotel". It was not – by a long shot. The bed linen was dirty, likewise the shower curtain. Outside our window roared a generator and the mattress was more than firm – it was reminiscent of a park bench. After showering, we discovered that, to find the restaurant, we had to go outside and negotiate some steps to the basement. Altogether, we decided that this was not what we had been led to expect and that Mr. Mahesh would be facing the wrath of Wiltshire upon our return. The restaurant meal was tolerable and at least the local history notes on the menu provided us with a moment's humour. Goethe has had attributed to him the axiom "Nothing shows a man's character more than what he laughs at". If so, I am not sure what that says about ourselves as we creased up on reading about "a ruler who lost his wan (sic) and sought shelter in an old woman's tattered but"!
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When Jagadish picked us up the next morning, he was accompanied by his "brother" and his "niece", the latter a very pretty seven-year-old in a yellow silk dress. He explained that they would be coming back to Mysore with us to visit his family. For the remainder of our tour we got used to the fact that our drivers would be filling up the spare seats in the car so that someone or other in the family would have a free lift. There is not much one can do about this situation. Refusing to allow the extra passengers would seem a rather mean action especially from "rich" tourists like us. It could also mean that we would therefore lose the cooperation (and caution) of the driver. So we accepted our extra passengers happily enough. The little girl could not before have been in such close proximity to caucasians and spent a good deal of the time looking over the bench seat from her position between her father and J. She smiled a little but presumably had been told not to bother us, as indeed had her silent father.
We zoomed out of Mysore and quickly climbed in to the Chamundi Hills. At the summit, some 1,000 metres, we found our objective – the Sri Chamundeswari temple. The goddess Chamundi was the family deity of the local maharajahs. Even at 9.30 am, the place was teeming with vehicles, people, stalls, hawkers and beggars. The semi-naked priests wore elaborate necklaces, their faces were painted and, in the case of the older men, pot bellies hung over orange, black or white lunghis. The seven-storey gopuram towered 40 metres above us. Underneath it, we wandered amongst cows and goats and watched the women sitting cross-legged selling fruit and powders for pujah. Even so early, crowds were forming at the entrance to the temple. As we strolled along, a happy group of women came up alongside and started making "conversation". Like most Indians, they knew the phrase "Where are you coming from?" and seemed delighted by the answer. When we reciprocated, we had a great deal of laughter amongst which I thought I caught the word "Gujerat", the western state bordering Pakistan. If so, they were some way from home and, we deduced, were on a pilgrimage tour to temples in south India. One of the women caught hold of Pat's hand and they both walked along swinging hands using the international language of the broad smile. Before they left us, the woman kissed Pat's hand and indicated a blessing namaste style. Like us, the party were making for the queues for the temple but somehow in the press we lost them. Possible they were to join the Rp5 crocodile that was already 50 metres long while we made for the "Quick" queue that had the premium price of Rp10. Somehow, we managed to miss the shoe stable but the man on the gate allowed us to de-shoe with him. Inside, the small temple was packed and, with the jostling and general excitement of the pilgrims, we could not really appreciate any architectural treasures so before long the heat was driving us out into the fresh air. We took photos of the ubiquitous "cart", of groups of young priests dressed in brown whose bodies were as lithe and supple as the older men had looked debauched. One of Chamundi’s victims was the demon Mahishasura (from whom the name Mysore is derived) and there was a splendid fifteen-foot high statue of him wielding an enormous sabre, his scowling countenance suitably frightening befitting his demonic status. The statue was either relatively new or recently re-painted so bright were the reds and yellows of his clothes set against his black face.
Jagadish suggested that he should drive back down the hill and meet us at the bottom so that we could enjoy the view of the Mysore plain as we descended the 1,000 plus steps cut into the hillside. These steps are used by pilgrims who climb the hill as part of their penance before making darshan. With many twists to provide a gentle descent, the wide, tree-flanked path offered some shade from the by now fierce sun. We were stopped by many (mostly young) people as they overtook us or, occasionally, as they sweated up the steps, these "breathers" involving a good deal of hand-shaking and enquiries as to our birth-place. Two thirds of the way down, we were confronted by a massive statue of Shiva's favourite black bull, Nandi. Five metres high, this was carved out of solid rock in 1659 and is one of the largest in India. Naturally, the statue attracts an enormous number of devotees and the surrounding fenced area, presumably because it was quite small, was strictly “Hindu’s only”.
At the foot of the hill, we were re-united with our driver and his family and he drove us back into the city and the Mysore Palace. Jagadish suggested that we would need half an hour for our visit. In fact, having entered through the south gate (the Varaha Gate) we spent three times as long admiring this beautiful Indo-Sarcenic walled palace. Set in acres of immaculately laid out gardens, the feeling of space, despite the many visitors, was welcome and we enjoyed wandering past neat flowerbeds, statues of more-than-life-size black jaguars with snarling features and past the gopurams of the seven temples which were spaced throughout the site. These pre-date the palace itself since the original early nineteenth century building, constructed to mark the return to power of the Wadijars, was destroyed by fire in 1897. Despite the large signs near the entrance forbidding photography, every other person was snapping merrily away and so I was glad that I had only deposited Pat’s camera at the entrance (as requested) and therefore was able to retrieve mine from our knapsack to take advantage of the photogenic surroundings. The shape of the arched gates, the temples, statues, flowers and the white palace itself, all set against a brilliant blue sky, made photography easy. Indeed, the khaki-clad soldiers purportedly on “sentry duty”, positively encouraged snapshots of themselves with visitors, standing smartly on either side of first Pat and then myself. I would imagine that the baksheesh/fees thus earned amounted to far more than their weekly wages.
We were now ready to enjoy the shade and the cool marble floors of the interior of the palace. Also known as the Amber Vilas Palace, the present building was completed in 1912. The three-storeys of the main building (which was built around an open courtyard or throtti) and the dignified arches of the facade were dominated by a five storeyed, 145 feet high tower covered by a gilded dome. Within was a kaleidoscope of gilt, stained glass, mirrors, carvings and mosaics. We wandered bare-foot around, guide book in hand (there being no organized sight-seeing parties) and rubber-necked our way through various “state” rooms and pavilions, past portraits of generations of Wadijars. The marriage pavilion on the ground floor had a beautiful stained-glass ceiling, designed by Mysore artists and executed by the Walter Macfarlane Foundry of Glasgow, a reminder of the influence of Edwardian Britain on the princes of India. The most impressive of the rooms was the vast, open-fronted Durbar Hall. Measuring 155 x 42 feet, this would have been the hall from which the maharajahs would watch the enormous durbah processions. And it was the paintings of these ceremonial meetings that especially interested me. On twenty-six canvas panels, local artists, commissioned by Wadjar IV, had immortalised the famous MysoreDasara (or Festival of Ten Nights), an event celebrated since the time of Vijajanagar and which culminates in the procession of the king in a Golden Howdah. Judging by the clothes of the bystanders (many holding brownie box cameras) and the absence of caucasian faces, I guessed that the scenes were painted post-independence, in the 40s or 50s. The brilliant uniforms of the mounted soldiers and the elaborately decorated howdahs on the backs of equally handsomely adorned elephants caught the eye of course. But providing the no doubt triumphal music were the bands and orchestras that my Trinity colleague Alfred Mistowski would have trained. What he would have made of violinists required to march and play in the heat of a Mysore summer I cannot imagine but I was fascinated by these paintings as much as by any other of the treasures the palace had to offer.
Stepping back out into the blazing sunshine, we took in the sheer beauty of the scene for the last time. According to our guidebook, during the Dasara festival, the palace is spectacularly illuminated by 97,000 light bulbs and we could not help wishing we could witness such a sight. But, as with so many other staggering places we visited, we stopped and considered how fortunate we were to be there at all.
From the relative calm of the palace gardens, we were soon embroiled in the swarming masses surrounding the stalls outside of the gates. Pat emptied her purse of coins to various limblessbeggars, we bought some drinks and then met up again with Jagadish. Our final visit in Mysore itself was to one of the largest churches in India, the neo-Gothic St. Philomena’s Cathedral, a somewhat austere, grey edifice that was built in the 1930s. We sat quietly witnessing a wedding ceremony, enjoying again those rare Indian commodities, peace and tranquillity. Soon we were moving off to the outskirts and when we reached the SayajiRao Rd., we asked Jagadish to stop at the Devaraja market. This stretched alongside the road covering an area the size of a football pitch and was one of the most colourful fruit and vegetable markets we encountered in our trip. This was a photographer’s dream, the beaming faces of the stall-holders and their many children providing human interest beside the reds, oranges, greens, yellows, the exotic seeds and powders, often piled high on plastic sheets or simply on the ground. The hues were as variegated as the number of differing types of fruit, many of which, as with the vegetables, we could not identify.
Had we been of that persuasion, St. Philomena’s Cathedral would have been the ideal setting to offer prayers for our safety during the impending trial by road that was to be our return to Bangalore. However, Jagadish was most careful, eschewing the usual overtaking on corners which is the normal Indian driving style, keeping to a reasonable speed so that we were not too uncomfortably thrown about in the slightly cramped Ambassadorial back seat and stopping a couple of times for us to stretch our legs and refresh ourselves with a Limca. It was after one of these comfort stops that the little girl, having eaten some idli, demonstrated her prowess at projectile vomiting. Luckily for those in front, her father was very quick to stick her head out of the window although this meant that the (fortunately closed) rear window on Pat’s side was somewhat disfigured. Once the child was settled, father leaned out of the window and with some tissues cleaned the worst off at the same time offering embarrassed “Sorry sir” apologies. All of this occurred without interruption to our journey, Jagadish continuing to motor as if oblivious of the unfortunate domestic trauma. Or possibly he had remembered that we had asked to be back in Bangalore before nightfall.
Meanwhile, I continued to be fascinated by a matter that Pat regarded as being of mind-numbing mundaneness. I could not understand why the majority of roadside advertising hoardings were dominated by the names of cement companies. Occasionally, one saw an advertisement for Coco Cola or ice cream or bicycles. But the vast majority were for cement: Zuari, Coromandel Superfine King 53/55 and Priya seemed the most popular. What market was aimed at here by Diamond Super, L & T, Birla Super, Raasi or Snowcem (the only name I recognised)? Is it imagined that every other person on the road is a building contractor? Were Ramco, Vishnu, Sankar, Dalmia and Chettincid after some sort of DIY market, if such a thing exists in India? Any subsequent enquiries I made on the subject were met with vacant expressions and glazed eyes such that I decided I was the only person who had seen the hoardings. Thus the enigma remains.
Before parting at our hotel, we took pictures of a smiling Jagadish and his family and offered him genuine thanks (and a generous tip) for our safe delivery. It was so good to be back in the pleasant surrounding of St. Mark’s – when the travel agent’s deputy rang later in the evening to ask if we were going to pay the Rp2,200 balance that evening, the response was a resounding “No!” as I had decided to re-negotiate with Mr. Mahesh bearing in mind the inferior standard of the Mysore hotel – this I subsequently did.
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Arjuna Sunderlal kept in touch with us throughout our week in Bangalore. We met for lunch on one of my examining days – when I had to rush off back to my candidates, she and Pat were able to sit and chat over a relaxed coffee. She invited us to her home for dinner later in the week and furnished us with a map and instructions on how to find the address. She had suggested we took an auto rickshaw and on the appointed evening, with the driver assuring us that he knew the address, we sat back as comfortably as one can in such a contraption and took in the brightly-lit shopfronts whizzing by in MG Road and noticed the floodlit entrance to Cubbon Park. Before long it became painfully (and, because of the state of the roads, I use the word advisedly) obvious that the man had not a clue where he was going. He stopped at various points to ask directions, cut through some rather unsavoury areas, pulled in to a garage for yet more advice, while I shouted to him the names of roads from Arjuna’s map. When we found ourselves at a point where the road was temporarily blocked off, I took charge by sitting alongside him and, using my sense of direction and the map, guided him to Netaji Rd. Aruna’s house was down a lane and while Pat was ascertaining exactly where we had to walk, I was negotiating with the driver. We had agreed Rp50 when we set off but now he was asking for Rp200 – “It has taken a long time, sir!” he cried. I gave him Rp70 and later discovered the journey should have cost only Rp20.
We were greeted at the door by Paulette, one of Arjuna’s teachers (the Bangalore School of Music is on the same premises) and shown into the large, high-ceilinged rooms of Arjuna’s home. Our hostess introduced us to her sister, Anita, and her six-year-old grandson (“Say hello to uncle and aunty”) whose parents (Arjuna’s daughter and son-in-law) live in an extension to the already sizeable property. We were later joined by Louise Pinto, Bangalore’s leading piano teacher and by two more of the music school staff – Victor Abraham and NarayanSwamy. A splendid buffet meal had been prepared by one of the three servants or, as Arjuna prefers to call them, “house helpers” and, aided by the fine whisky, conversation flowed. Paulette, who is Dutch, had been in India for twenty-two years and taught recorder – she was proud to show us her latest acquisition, a bass recorder. Anita had been at the same school as her sister and our mutual friend Soma Slaymark. She remembered Soma as being “very beautiful and very clever” and how distinguished was Soma’s father. Louise Pinto, as well as being a successful piano teacher, was the conductor of a 30-strong SATB choir which she was soon to take to Israel – she was looking forward eagerly to the experience of singing in Jerusalem on Christmas Day.
Apart from Louise, we formed the impression that most members of the staff we met (all part-time) were keen amateur musicians. Victor Abraham, for example, worked in advertising but was passionately fond of Western music generally and choral music (his main involvement at the school) in particular. His main problem was availability of music and I promised to send him some part-songs on my return. For his school band, Narayan had composed a piece in honour of the victims of the recent Kargil engagement on the disputed Indo-Pakistan border. He was able to play us a recording as the work had been included on a cassette tape of other such tributes (from Indian rock and fusion bands) and, bearing in mind that he proclaimed himself entirely self-taught, the piece (based on a raga) was creditable. Both he and Victor became more voluble about their music making as we later toured the school, and we had a photo session in the main recital room where I strummed away, briefly and whisky-ly, on a variety of keyboards.
Before we took our leave, Arjuna again talked about Soma’s husband coming to Bangalore to give a recital and I promised to discuss this with him on our return. Victor was to be our chauffeur back to the hotel and, together with Narayan wrapped up in a scarf and baseball cap, we made our farewells before getting in to Victor’s 1982 Pal – a make and model I remembered from my visit to India in the early 80s. Arjuna had given Victor strict instructions to drive “slowly, not the mad way you usually do!” although she need not have bothered. As we swung through unlit side streets, Narayan, in a high-pitched, excitable voice, kept up a stream of commands, complete with hand signals, to his friend – “Watch that lorry!” “Pothole, Victor!” “Oh my God!” – this last oath being repeated after every injunction to his friend. He explained that he had even stopped driving a two-wheeler in Bangalore so frightened was he of the traffic. “I am on heart pills for stress … Victor what are you doing?” Our driver had suddenly swerved into a side road crying, “They must see the statue of their Queen Elizabeth – she is very fat!” It was no surprise to find a statue on MG Rd. of an elderly Queen Victoria. Again, it was with some relief that we found ourselves in the safety of St. Mark’s foyer.
The next day was our final full day in Bangalore and Pat had been invited to join me at The Good Shepherd Convent for the afternoon. While I conducted my last session of examining, Sr. Christine took her on a tour of the extensive campus. She was introduced to a plethora of teachers and Heads of Departments, some Sisters, others wearing saris and others in western dress. One such was Queenie, a “retired” teacher in knee-length dirndle skirt, pebble glasses and unruly grey hair who, said Christine was “very good with the little ones and at music theory – she is over 80 but if she did not have the school work she would just curl up and die”. Pat listened to the cute kindergarten children, in their pink checked dresses, singing Christmas carols – “Away in a manger” complete with actions and accompanied by Queenie impersonating the pianistic skills of Les Dawson. The boys’ and girls’ schools were separate and the tour covered what seemed to Pat like every inch of the latter – the boys were intent on examinations that day. She was introduced to the children as “Aunty” thus each group would chant “Good afternoon Sister, good afternoon Aunty” as she had heard in Darjeeling and Calcutta. She was taken round the hostel and watched more senior girls attempting quite elaborate needlework that had been introduced to the school by a Bavarian nun. The “poor girls’ school” was a separate establishment and the children here were, as Sr. Christine pointed out, more poorly clothed but they wore the same uniform as the other pupils “so that they do not feel different.” These pupils learned just the local Karnatakan language and the national Hindi – no English. Sr. Christine obviously cared a great deal for these girls, describing their deprived home backgrounds but adding that, after their schooling they would be able to support themselves and probably their parents too, helping to break the poverty cycle. This, of course, depended on whether their parents decided to marry them off at thirteen or fourteen in which case their schooling would stop in favour of population increase.
At 3pm, Christine went off to organize my tea break, depositing Pat at the Sisters’ refectory. Here, while being plied with cheese sandwiches, fruitcake and tea, she met a variety of the sisters, all with a tale to tell. Like Sr. Christine (who had been in Kenya for sixteen years) many had served overseas. Sister Bertha, from Goa, had worked for five years in Rome. Sister Rita, gentle, round-faced and wearing a saffron-coloured sari, had completed an Open University M.Phil in Oxford. Her subject had been “Prostitution in India” particularly in relation to the selling of children into that profession. Pat was fascinated by the tales of her underworld contacts and of her visits to Soho (often in “civilian” clothes). She spoke of the interest of the World Health Organization in her work, of the three books she had published and of her gratitude to the church for supporting her in her work. She debated with Pat the dichotomy of men’s treatment of their wives and their veneration of their mothers, of their justification of prostitution in a patriarchal society, all of which Pat found very enlightened and honest from a woman whose calling restricted her knowledge of sexual experience. By the time I had finished my work and had joined her, Pat had been introduced to “Sister Dolores who was imprisoned during the war and has bad feet, poor thing”. The conversation did not get off to a good start as Sr. Dolores, who was Scottish, was having trouble with her loose false teeth – she also had a cough. But when the mechanicals had been corrected, she regaled us both with the story of her arrest as a seventeen-year-old novice by the Nazis in Paris, of subsequent rail journeys on which she and her seven colleagues nearly died of thirst, and of their imprisonment in a small room with one food bowl between them. They risked death when they refused to shower naked in front of their captors in the public square but a priest interceded… One felt that this tale had been told many times – most of the other sisters, we noticed, had busied themselves elsewhere. Nonetheless, her bright, shining eyes, clear skin and beatific countenance gave her “performance” a quality of its own and both Pat and I were fascinated. At the Good Shepherd, Sr. Dolores had been responsible for the destitute girls and their hostel but now she was fully retired.
The conversation was brought to an end when Sr. Christine re-appeared to escort me back to the music room where a large gathering of teachers was waiting for me to address them. Before the meeting began, there were solo piano performances from two young ladies who had gained the highest marks at Grade 6 and Performer’s Certificate respectively during the previous exam session. I then presented them with special certificates and prizes paid for by a local benefactor. The meeting went especially well and I spent some time enlarging on the subject of the use of the sustaining pedal with illustrations via some Mozart, Beethoven, Bartok, Chopin and Khachaturian, conveniently stopping my extracts just before my memory failed. During the discussion, Louise Pinto asked some particularly relevant questions and it was she who provided the vote of thanks to close the proceedings. It is often at the end of such meetings when those who have not had the courage to ask questions in front of their peers come forward informally and put their queries to the examiner. On this occasion, these souls did not have the opportunity to do so as Sister Mary John had decided this was the moment to demonstrate to me her prowess at playing ragas on the piano. The performance was short (for a raga!) but during its six or seven minutes my audience had evaporated. Despite the inappropriate timing, I was genuinely interested in the concept and discovered that the right hand figurations certainly reminded me of sitar and veena performances I had heard, with the left hand imitating the tabla or, in this part of the country, the mirudhangam. Just occasionally, the “drumming” left hand joined the right hand melody in octaves.
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That evening at dinner, Pat and I reflected on the week in Bangalore and agreed that, because we had spent the weekend in Mysore, we had not got to “know” the city as well as we would have liked – there had been no time to wander around its parks, museums, temples or markets. However, we were going to take away happy memories of our meetings with ArjunaSunderlal at the Bangalore Club, in her home and at the School of Music. We would not forget diving down some dark steps into the cyber “shack” – no frills here, just a PC, friendly advice and mosquitos – where we sent e-mails to friends and family. Pat will re-live the nightmare of trying to cross the roads and of one ill-chosen moment when she found herself in the middle of a busy junction with buses, lorries, motorbikes and autos whizzing round her in all directions. Again, the dedication of the sisters at the Good Shepherd School and their warmth and friendship would, we felt, stay with us. When I discovered later that the special prizewinner I had nominated from the higher-grade candidates was a pupil of Sr. Mary John, I was delighted and hoped that she forgave me for putting off the raga performance until the last moments of my visit.
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