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10 books about India that are better than Shantaram

Mariellen — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 13:44:12 +0000

Shantaram and Eat, Pray, Love are not the only books about India: Here are 10 of my favourites

There are two types of people in the world: those who think Shantaram is a great book; and those who think it is a spew of virulent air, driven by the criminal mind and maniacal ego of its Australian pseudo-writer. I guess you can tell which type of person I am. This post is 10 suggestions for books about India that are better than Shantaram.

I tried to read Shantaram when I was living in Delhi, but ended up literally throwing it across the room. I thought it was poorly written and more about the fevered imagination of its writer than about India. In fact, it offers very little insight into India, if you ask me; and the longer I spend in India getting to know it, the more true this statement becomes.

Since that time, however, I’ve read lots and lots of book about India, by Indians and foreigners, and almost all of them are much, much better. Except Eat, Pray, Love. If you actually want to know something about India — rather than about an ego-driven writer — I suggest the following 10 books, in no particular order.

(If you want to learn more about a book, below, hover your cursor over the image; and to buy it, simply click on the image and you will be whisked to the U.S. Amazon site.)

1. A Search in Secret India by Paul Brunton. A cult classic, this book was published in 1934 and it’s about the author’s sincere, strange and ultimately inspiring search for spiritual truth in India. After many false starts, dead-ends and kooky run-ins, he lands at the feet of Sri Ramana Maharishi. Which in itself a metaphor for the spiritual journey. This is the book that introduced Sri Ramana Maharishi to the west (and he still remains one of the greatest Indian saints of the 20th century).

2. Empire of the Soul by Paul William Roberts. This is the book I hope Shantaram readers graduate to read. It is about two lengthy trips journalist Roberts took to India, separated by many years; and about how he reconciles some of the extraordinary experiences he had there. Roberts is known for hard-boiled books about war-torn countries like Iraq, so when he writes about his spiritual awakening, it rings true.

3. Out of India by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. The introduction to this book of short stories is alone worth the price of the book. It’s hands-down the best piece of writing I have ever read about what it is like to be a foreigner in India. Absolutely priceless. If you recognize her name, it’s because she was the screen-writer for the Merchant-Ivory film productions (including A Passage to India, see #6.)

4. India’s Unending Journey by Mark Tully. Mark Tully was the BBC’s chief correspondent in India for many years. He has the character to overcome his profession’s limitations and admit that the chief thing he learned in India was to be certain only about uncertainty. And he says it’s the most valuable thing he has ever learned.

5. India: A Million Mutinies Now by V.S. Naipul. What can I say? It’s the classic. Personally, I admire this book more than I like it.

6. Passage to India by E.M. Forster. Very recently, the Consul General of India in Toronto — a remarkably cultured woman — told me she thought Forster really captured India in this book. I told her I feel like Fielding. Mutual understanding was firmly established. It was the best book I studied at university, I still remember the discussion about the meaning of the Marabar Caves. The film is good too!

7. Maximum City by Suketu Mehta. This is one of the best books I have read recently. It has an ambitious scope and many small wonderful moments, and seemed Dickensian to me in its attempt to capture the spirit of the times in a big, broiling, magnificent city. This is Bombay (Mumbai): gangsters and hero cops, foot-path poets and down-to-earth movie stars. You will learn a lot more about what Bombay is really about in this book than in Shantaram.

8. Kim by Rudyard Kipling. This is my favourite book of all time. If you’ve never read it, throw out everything you think you know about Kipling, who was the most famous writer of his time. The book follows the story of teenage Kim, son of an Irish immigrant and ‘friend of all the world’, who travels the roads of India with his guru, an elderly Tibetan lama on a spiritual quest for a river of enlightenment. It is unique and uncanny in its ability to absolutely immerse you into the scene and the story. You can feel the oppressive heat of the plains and the crisp air of the mountains. You can imagine Kim’s excitement about rejoining his friend on the road after a stint locked-up at school. You can feel the old man’s pain as his quest seems to elude him, and the love he engenders in Kim, his disciple. And you will be carried away by the transcendent ending.

9. City of Djinns by William Dalrymple. I was torn, not sure which Dalrymple book to put on this list. They are all good, especially Nine Lives. He is a solid as a rock in terms of research, reporting and writing. But this is his first book about India and it’s about Delhi (Dilli), my home-away-from home in India — and in fact, his real home. He lives there now. He has an Indian soul. The book is both a personal narrative about living in India for a year and about the history of Delhi. (And if there’s one thing Delhi has, aside from crowds of people and traffic, it’s history.) It’s by turns informative and funny. I keep intending to find out if International Backside taxi stand really exists. P.S. Dalrymple is the found of the Jaipur Literature Festival.

10. Freedom at Midnight by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre. On the stroke of midnight, August 15, 1947, India became free. This is the classic book about the biggest event in modern Indian history: the freedom struggle, partition and birth of a nation. You cannot begin to know or understand modern India if you don’t have a grip on its struggle for independence and the larger-than-life players who made it happen, especially Gandhi, Nehru, Mountbatten and Jinnah. The film Gandhi, directed by Richard Attenborough, gives you a lot of the same information, but this book fills in all the holes.

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Celebrating Indian writing and writers

Mariellen — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 14:08:14 +0000

Evening performance from Jaipur Literature Festival 2011, Jaipur, India

Indian writing is vibrant at home and abroad

In honour of the Jaipur Literature Festival, which kicks off on January 24 in Jaipur, India, I am publishing an article I wrote for the Maple Tree Literary supplement about my afternoon with four delightful Indo-Canadian writers.

Defining Indo-Canadian writing

Jasmine D’Costa sat solidly in her chair, looked at me with clear, wide-open eyes and talked with a sense of authority in her voice about her past as a banker in Mumbai and her present as a writer and editor in Toronto. Across from her, Mayank Bhatt talked about establishing himself as a writer in Canada, with an amiable mix of gentleness and conviction. Author Farzana Doctor listened more than she talked, but when she added something to the conversation, it was carefully considered and spoken in articulate tones, tinged with the formality of academia. Writer and book reviewer Niranjana Iyer, soft-spoken and well-bred, looked like an Indian Audrey Hepburn, and she drew me in with her huge, expressive eyes and the obvious intelligence in her voice. Each of these people is just that, people – unique in their background, outlook and experience.

Jasmine D'Costa and her mother in Mumbai, 2010

Jasmine D’Costa is a Catholic from south India who had a successful career in banking before immigrating to Toronto, Canada to begin her career as a writer of short stories (Curry is Thicker than Water) and editor of anthologies (Canadian Voices and Indian Voices). Mayank Bhatt, who is a Gujurati Hindu, is the most recent arrival to North America – he was a journalist in Mumbai and then worked in a trade office; he now has a full-time job as the Executive Director of the Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce, publishes a blog called Generally About Books and is also working on a novel.

Farzana Doctor was born to Muslim parents of Indian origin in Africa and grew up in Canada; she is gay, she is a psychotherapist and she is the author of two novels (Stealing Nasreen and Six Metres of Pavement). Niranjana Iyer, who told me to call her Nina, is Tamil, but she doesn’t speak the language. She grew up largely in Delhi, attended the prestigious Indian Institute of Management (IIM) in Ahmedabad and later moved to the U.S.A. to study creative writing at university. She now lives in Canada with her neuroscientist husband and three-year-old son and considers herself a global citizen. She writes for many magazines and publishes a book review blog called Brown Paper.

I gathered these writers together to find out about Indo-Canadian writing – and found out the closer you look, the more difficult it is to define. Like India itself, Indo-Canadian writers in Canada are extremely diverse and there is no set pattern of experience; no underlying theme they are collective exploring; no real commonality between them. Except that they are Indian. And after about two hours of discussing their differences, after several glasses of wine and after a feeling of camaraderie developed, the truth came out. They may have different experiences, backgrounds and viewpoints, but they tend to stick together, support each other and help each other out.

And this perhaps is the essence of their Indianness, this tolerance and helpfulness. In spite of a long history of communal violence back home – and also a long history of tolerant pluralism – Christian, Muslim and Hindu sat together in Toronto and talked with trust and freedom, pledging to help promote each other’s books and other writing efforts.

And here’s another thing, articulated simply, clearly and authoritatively by Jasmine: Their voices are Canadian, and an important part of the mosaic of Canadian multiculturalism. This is Canada, too, a tolerant nation made up of diverse peoples – not unlike India itself – though perhaps more so in Toronto, one of the world’s great multicultural cities. All of the ethnicities in Canada can lay claim to this inclusion, but perhaps Indians have a greater share due to their English language skills, their literary tradition, their large numbers (soon to be the largest “ethnic” group in Canada) and the rapid growth of both India’s economy and its profile on the global stage.

These writers have all found an identity in Canada as writers, and whether they are seen as Indian, Canadian or global depends on the prism you look through. The politics of identity became a central theme of the conversation, and how tricky it is to be an “ethnic” writer in Canada; how white, European culture is still considered the mainstream; and about how granting bodies and other organizations supported by the government are bound by CanCon (Canadian content) rules – in an effort to keep the American cultural tsunami at bay.

But being Indian may make it easier than not – Indian writers certainly are prominent in Canada, and especially in Toronto, home to Michael Ondaatje, M.G. Vassanji and Rohinton Mistry. Jasmine and Farzana passed around their books to show the very Indian-looking treatment the covers were given – women in saris, fonts designed to look like devanagari script. Their publishers told them the books would sell better if they looked Indian. For better or worse, the appeal of the exotic is still a draw, and so is the modern, Indian literary tradition.

Mayank exclaimed that they should all be thankful to Manmohan Singh and Salman Rushdie – for Singh reformed the Indian economy and laid the groundwork for the current boom and Rushdie’s success with Midnight’s Children – a book written in English – changed the way the world looked at Indian creativity.

And though it is not politically correct, perhaps they owe a debt of gratitude to Britain too – for along with plundering the country and denigrating it’s native-born citizens, the British Raj left behind a legacy of educational institutions, political and administrative bureaucracy, the train system and English. If you are among the educated elite of India, who are taught English at school, you stand a much better chance of blending in with the globopolis – the predominantly English-speaking, urban-based, global citizens of the world. English may be one of the reasons for the success of Indians – if not of India. And this was a topic of conversation too – that though they all had different mother tongues back in India, they can all speak with each other, and with me, in English.

But even though they speak English, it does not necessarily mean they have lost their cultural identity. These writers seemed very agile at skating along the surface of all of these contradictions, political considerations and attempts at labeling them; and they seemed energized by the excitement of being Indian in the 21^st century. It has been said before that Britain dominated the 19^thcentury, and America the 20^th, but the 21^st belongs to India. Each of these writers have their own struggles – as all writers these days do, of course – but I felt the excitement and energy of being part of a rising tide. There was a confidence in the room, the confidence born of knowing you have something to say and that you have a good chance of being heard.

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My story, or why I write about travel in India

Mariellen — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 14:06:07 +0000

Elephant blessing in Kancheepuram, Tamil Nadu, India, 2006

Creativity: The missing link

I recently realized that my story doesn’t actually appear anywhere on my blog. By that I mean, a concise telling of why I blog about India. And it’s not like I just started this. I’ve been traveling in India, and blogging about it, for six years. But it feels like it’s time, especially since Sir Ken Robinson helped provide me with some new insight.

In early December of 2011, I marked the six-year anniversary of landing in India for the first time by publishing Six years of travel writing and blogging. A while later, I was on Twitter and saw a Tweet from @SirKenRobinson, which said he was writing about passion. You have probably seen Sir Ken’s video — the most famous TED video ever, about how school kills creativity in kids.

I tweeted my six year blog to Sir Ken, he read it and retweeted it, and the next day his co-author Lou Aronica contacted me and interviewed me for their new book, Finding Your Element — which is a follow-up to their bestseller about passion called The Element. The interview with Lou was cathartic and made me realize why I do a lot of the things I do: it’s because I am a deeply creative person who has never had my creativity supported. Well, certainly not in school.

Alice in Wonderland

So now I see more clearly a thread running through my life, which goes like this. I taught myself to read before starting school. I had a sensitive nervous system and was absent one-third of each school year, but was always at the top of my class. By the age of 10 I was reading Dickens. In short, I was bright, creative and “precocious” (the word my mom used to describe me, along with pensive and sensitive – she often compared me to Alice in Wonderland, and we even looked alike with long blonde hair held back by a hairband.).

But I experienced childhood trauma (too personal to discuss here) and my school didn’t know what to do with me so they had me skip two grades. I was too young when I entered high school, and quit the day I turned 16. It didn’t help that my family felt apart at about that time, and for a while I had no place to live. I was born sensitive, so add childhood trauma, a botched education and sudden lack of family support when I was about 17, and you get a mega-dose of teenage angst. My teenage years were filled with emotional problems. I was even hospitalized for three weeks for depression.

By the time I reached adulthood, I didn’t know who I was, and I was operating in a kind of survival mode.

When I was young, before everything fell apart, I wanted to study comparative religion, English and mythology at university. But instead, I went to college for journalism because it was more practical. My dreams were so deeply buried, I didn’t know they existed. I worked in communications for many years, drifting from one job to another. (And from one boyfriend to another.) Rootless. Passionless.

There were a few highpoints and I did have some fun, though. In my 20s, I was part of the alternative music demi monde scene in Toronto and partied “like it was 1999″ in the early 1980s, with bands like Duran Duran, The The and The Psychedelic Furs. After graduating with a BA in journalism I worked at a leading fashion magazine. Then, I worked in the film industry and attended several films festivals, including Cannes, and met loads of movie stars. (Big deal. Anthony Hopkins stands out, very gentlemanly.) I traveled a lot, through France, to central America, many times to London, New York and once to Paris. When I was about 30, I moved to Tokyo, Japan with my film executive boyfriend, and traveled from there to Australia, Hong Kong and Thailand.

My mom, me and my sister Victoria during my groovy years, circe 1983

There were some low points, too: my best friend killed herself. I had ongoing issues with anxiety and depression and became addicted to anti-anxiety pills. Financial troubles dogged me as I tried to pursue a writing career, and once found myself on welfare, and visiting a food bank.

In my 30s I experienced a crisis and started therapy, and realized I was deeply affected by childhood abuse. I dedicated many years to healing from it, and even gained a certificate in Gestalt Therapy, practising part-time for seven years.

Loss, trauma and my bleakest hour

In my late 30s I was hit by a series of traumas. In a few short years my father declared bankruptcy and we lost our family cottage (which was like losing a family member); my mother died suddenly and unexpectedly and I found her body; my fiance left me, with an expensive wedding dress in the closet; I had a bicycle accident and broke my elbow; and my father died of cancer.

During yoga teacher training. Photo courtesy Christine Lynes.

By the end of it, I was flattened. I was in my 40s, unmarried, no kids, no career, no parents, no money. I was in a deep depression, filled with feelings of grief and irreconcilable loss. None of my early potential had manifested, my dreams were long-lost. It was my bleakest hour.

Slowly, like the ice thaw in early spring. I came out of the depression by doing yoga, and by deciding to go after a dream: to become a yoga teacher. Though I was the oldest and least flexible person in my class, I threw myself into the training program and midway through, had a strange, kundalini-like experience.

A teacher who had lately returned from training in India really impacted me, and somehow I started releasing energy, or channeling energy, and went into a kind of altered state. It happened at the same time as the tsunami in southeast Asia; and for me, it was like a personal tsunami. In three weeks, I lost 15 pounds. And I was gripped with a compulsion to go to India. I had never felt anything like it before, and I had to obey.

I started planning and saving and about 11 months later left for India on December 5, 2005, for a six-month odyssey. I have written probably a half-million words about the affect that trip had on me. How it gave me back my dreams, recharged my life, made me feel I was finally home and provided me with the inspiration to finally start my writing career. I had wanted to be a writer since childhood, but I didn’t have my subject matter until I went to India.

1,001 Tales of the Arabian Nights

When I was a child I was obsessed with the 1,001 Tales of the Arabian Nights and painted huge murals on my walls, of genies coming out of bottles and maharaja palaces. In India, I found the real-life version of my childhood walls; and the inspirational spark to ignite my imagination. India is my soul’s home and my muse.

I’ve found my dreams, and they are traveling (especially in India and Asia), writing and yoga. And I have followed them whole-heartedly for the last few years, because they were buried for so long. Followed them irrationally and without thought to where they would lead. Followed them without knowing how I would support myself financially. I’ve been to India on five lengthy trips and published loads of blogs, articles, a book. I’ve been asked to speak, I’ve been interviewed and I’ve had some fantastic adventures like attending the Kumbh Mela and dancing with Shahrukh Khan. It’s been a magic carpet ride. But I’ve done it with almost no real support, or financial return.

My interview for Lou Aronica and Sir Ken Robinson’s book seemed to bring things full circle for me; it provided a big puzzle piece. I am the same pensive girl, lost in my imagination, dreaming of the “exotic” Orient, making up stories, wishing I could live in my imaginary world, that I was in childhood. A grown-up cross between Alice in Wonderland, having adventures, and Scheherazade, spinning tales. But now I’m trying to make a livelihood from it as a travel writer and blogger who specializes in writing about Asia and meaningful travel.

So, that’s my story. I am now trying to figure out how to bring the “real world” and the world of my imagination together, so I can live a sustainable, creative life. And I’m trying to break the pattern of not having enough support in my life. It’s hard.

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What is Immersive Travel?

Mariellen — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 14:08:02 +0000

Bada Bagh, Jaisalmer: India is my soul culture

Immersive Travel column on Travel+Escape

Last month, I started writing a bi-monthly “column” for the new Travel+Escape website — which complements the new Canadian TV channel — about immersive travel. What is immersive travel? It’s travel that takes you deep into a culture and changes you. Immersive travel can be voluntourism, solo travel or long-term travel. It can be embarking on a spiritual path or a going to a health & wellness retreat. Or it can be simply an attitude. It’s about being open to a new culture, learning from it, and letting it change your ideas, beliefs and assumptions about life and the world. If you go on a trip, and see things differently when you get back home — then, you have probably experienced immersive travel. Here’s a synopsis of my first three columns.

Are you a tourist or a traveler?

If you have men who will only come if they know there is a good road, I don’t want them, I want men who will come if there is no road at all.” ~ David Livingstone

There’s a difference between a traveller and a tourist. Maybe I’m old-fashioned: I prefer reading to television; trains to jets; long sojourns to quick getaways. I love reading stories about travellers who went abroad for months, even years, and became completely transformed. Like Ibn Batutta. He left his homeland, Morocco, to make a hajj (pilgrimage) to Mecca in 1325AD that should have taken 16 months. He didn’t return home for 24 years.

In total, Ibn Battuta traveled for 30 years. He covered most of Africa, Europe, the Middle East, India and Southeast Asia, all the way to China, for a total of 75,000 miles (121,000 km) – a mileage record that held for more than 400 years. Batutta recorded his travels in a book called The Rihla (Journeys) of Ibn Battuta.

I think of the 19th century as the golden age of travel. People packed steamer trunks and ventured out into the world before there was any kind of tourism infrastructure. These people had adventures!

To read more, please visit Are you a tourist or a traveler? on the Travel+Escape website.

Three hotels that off the comfort of luxury with the joy of cultural immersion

When you think of immersive travel, you may think of living in a local’s house, eating home-cooked food and following the family’s daily rhythm. I do like staying in small guesthouses and homestays when I travel, but I also enjoy finding higher-end accommodation that tries to preserve the spirit of cultural authenticity.

The three hotels featured here ― the Bhakti Kutir in Goa, the Windamere Hotel in Darjeeling and the Uma Paro in Bhutan ― each combine the best of both worlds, the comfort of luxury with the joy of cultural immersion.

To read more, please visit Comfort and Joy on the Travel+Escape website.

Have you found your soul culture?

There are many ways to experience “immersive travel.” You can travel somewhere to live for a time, or volunteer. You can study the culture, learn the language or master the arts. But the type of immersive travel I am writing about today cannot be engineered. You cannot make it happen.

I call it finding your “soul culture” and it’s like falling in love. It just happens.

Sometimes, people discover a corner of the world where they feel most at home. It is often in a country and culture far away, and far different, from their own, and it doesn’t make a lot of rational sense.

People who found their soul culture always intrigued me. And, I admit, I was a bit jealous. Though I had traveled to many parts of the world, and lived in Tokyo, I had never felt that special affinity, and didn’t know if I ever would. Then, in late 2004, at about the same time the tsunami struck Southeast Asia, a personal tsunami of sorts hit me.

I was trying to recover from a series of devastating losses that had left me feeling flattened, and was enrolled in a yoga teacher training program. That’s when the idea of going to India for six months grabbed hold of me.

To read more please visit Have you found your soul culture? on the Travel+Escape website.

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Photo of the Week: Jodhpur Blue

Mariellen — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 03:56:45 +0000

The Blue City revealed

I met photographer Jean-Pierre Muller during the Kumbh Mela in India April 2010, and loved his enthusiasm both for India and for photography. This photo is a part of a series, called JODHPUR the Blue, which was shot in the famous Blue City of Jodhpur, Rajasthan, India.

From the series JODHPUR the Blue by photographer Jean-Pierre Muller

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Niagara Falls: The Taj Mahal of Canada

Mariellen — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 05:17:25 +0000

Niagara Falls in winter

People in India are fascinated by Niagara Falls

This weekend I am in Niagara Falls on a Jaunt. Whenever I travel in India, and tell people I’m from Canada, I often hear, “Oh, I would love to go to Niagara Falls!” It’s always been a bit strange to me, as I grew up within driving distance of “the Falls” and never took them all that seriously. When I was in high school, we used to drive to Niagara Falls in the middle of the night for a lark. We thought the place was silly. So to hear people in a far-off country — a country that I always deemed to be the height of “exotic” — say they long to visit Niagara Falls seemed bizarre. But of course perspective is everything.

So, I asked my Twitter followers: Why does almost everyone I meet while traveling in #India want to go to #NiagaraFalls?” And these are some of the responses:

I can’t tell you how happy I was to see this tweet, above, because she validated my theory and headline! Here are a few more, that help explain the fascination.

Bollywood loves Niagara Falls, too

And then I did a search and found that Niagara Falls has made it’s way into several Bollywood Films, going at least as far back as 1967. An Evening in Paris, with Bollywood greats Sharmila Tagore and Shammi Kapoor, “taps into a certain ‘occidentalism,’ an Indian fetishization of the west that is the mirror reflection of the west’s orientalist exoticization and fetishization of the east. It is a whirlwind tour of romantic locales – strolling along the Seine, skiing on the Jungfrau, water-skiing at a posh resort in Beirut, and spinning to a dramatic climax in the swirling rush of Niagara Falls,” according to FilmiGeek, who notes: “Unfortunately, as is often the case with masala thrillers, the film gets bumpier when the plot, such as it is, gets going in the second half – but the dramatic climax at Niagara Falls is worth hanging on for.”

More recent films shot in Niagara Falls include Taal (1999) with Aishwarya Rai and Anil Kapoor; and Thank You (2011) with Sonam Kapoor and Akshay Kumar — who, by the way, is an honourary Canadian. The film Kismat Konnection (2008) with Shahid Kapoor and Vidya Balan was actually based in Toronto, but the location for this song, below, is downtown Niagara Falls.

My Jaunt to Niagara Falls

For more, read My Jaunt to Niagara Falls.

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Happy birthday Delhi

Mariellen — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 23:00:32 +0000

Lodhi Garden, New Delhi

Delhi turns 100 as capital of India

The anniversary in Delhi is greeted with mixed feelings, but not by me

When I was getting ready to travel to India the first time, back in 2005, I had several friends warn me: “You won’t like Delhi. It’s crowded, it’s polluted, the people are aggressive, you will be pestered to distraction.” I’d heard lots of stories about Pahar Ganj, the grubby “traveler’s ghetto;” the challenges of buying tickets and arranging any kind of transportation; the scams and the con artists; the crowds and chaos.

However, my first morning in Delhi, I walked out into the warm, December sunshine, on the big, white marble terrace of my friend’s home in South Delhi and was greeted by the family, who offered me breakfast. Later, a man arrived with a huge bundle of gorgeous shawls and fabrics, and I sat on the terrace drinking tea, with the ladies of the family and shopped. It was all very civilized and I felt I had arrived in heaven, not the hell that I was promised.

That’s when my love affair with Delhi began, and it has never ended — though I have had my moments of frustration and annoyance, like everyone else; and witnessed heart-breaking scenes of poverty at the side of the road.

Pink sunset at Qutab Minar, Delhi

Celebrating the city

On December 12, 1911, during a magnificent durbar on the outskirts of Delhi, King George V proclaimed that the capital of the British Raj would be moved from Kolkata to Delhi. For the next 20 years, the new city of New Delhi was built, under the leadership of visionary architect Sir Edwin Lutyens.

So, while the anniversary of Delhi is greeted with mixed feelings by Indians — who are usually not keen to celebrate anything the British Raj created — I am quietly celebrating my home-away-from home — the city that greeted me so hospitably when I first arrived in Delhi, and continues to be my beloved home base in India. I have written about Delhi several times on Breathedreamgo. This is a blog about enjoying the cultural Delights of Delhi. And this is scenes from my South Delhi neighbourhood.

In an article about New Delhi at the time of the city’s inauguration, in 1931 (New Delhi, The First Impression) the very talented travel writer Robert Byron wrote, “The surprise which awaits the traveler on his first view of the imperial capital will be proportionate to the fixity of his previous ideas about it.” This was certainly true for me; no one told me that New Delhi is also beautiful. And gracious, historical, cultural, green, spacious and a paradise for shoppers and foodies.

To find out how to spend a day in New Delhi — the planned city the British built — read my story in the Toronto Star: Aging Gracefully: New Delhi at 100. And read on to discover my top 10 favourite things to do in Delhi.

Jama Masjid, Old Delhi

My top 10 favourite things about Delhi:

soft mornings and pink sunsets
the inspired and majestic symmetry of the planned city of New Delhi
the profusion of green: leafy enclaves, tree-lined boulevards, gracious gardens, lush parks, verdant historical sites
shopping! at Khan Market, Lajpat Nagar, Hauz Khas, Karol Bagh, South Extension, Janpath, Sunder Nagar, Greater Kailash 1 M- and N-Block markets, Aurobindo Market, etc.
ancient historical treasures, especially Red Fort, Humayun’s Tomb and Qutab Minar
modern historical treasures, especially India Gate, Gandhi Smirti and Raj Ghat
spiritual Delhi, especially Lotus Temple, Sivananda Centre in Kailash Colony, ISKCON temple, and the tiny, ancient Shiv Mandir in Panch Shila Park
food glorious food — from mini-tiffin at Saravana Bhavan in Janpath to dining at one of the world’s most beautiful restaurants, Spice Route at the Imperial Hotel; from chic watering holes like Olive to paneer tikka to go
strolling in Lodhi Garden
having chai with my Indian family on the marble terrace in South Delhi

I could go on, there are many things I love about Delhi. And though the city is actually thousands of years old, and has been the capital of at least seven kingdoms, I will take this moment to wish the city and it’s 14 million inhabitants happy anniversary anyway. I miss you! Please save me some cake.

Join the fun on Twitter and let us all know what you love about Delhi / Dilli: #whatiloveaboutdilli

shopping at Karol Bagh Market, Delhi

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6 years of travel writing and blogging

Mariellen — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 03:21:01 +0000

The moment it hit me I was in India: mosque at Qutab Minar complex, Delhi 2005

Reflections on 6 years of travel writing

On how I became a travel writer and blogger by throwing myself off the cliff of reason.

It was six years ago today, December 6, 2005, that I landed in Delhi, India for the first time. It was Day One of my six-month odyssey; the start of my trip-of-a-lifetime; and the beginning of a new chapter in life, I hoped.

On my first morning in India, I stepped out into the warm December sunshine of my friends’ big, white, marble terrace in South Delhi and felt I had landed in heaven. It was warm, I was surrounded by a loving family and I was finally in India — a place I had dreamed of since childhood, but never thought I would ever see. I felt an immediate affinity with India; it was like going “home.” But I had absolutely no idea where the next six months would lead, what would happen, or what I would get out of the experience.

I wasn’t thinking ahead at all. (Read my first blog ever, dated Dec. 6, 2005, Delhi.) Nevertheless, I’ve gained so much from that one decision, the decision to go to India. Most importantly, I recovered from the entrenched grief depression that sent me to India in the first place. The trip also set me back on the path I believe I was meant to be on — before a life-long series of losses, traumas, distractions and emotional challenges got in my way.

Sunset from the terrace in Delhi, 2005

A travel writing dream is born

It took a few years for that first trip to change my life and career; and for the first blog I wrote — on the Travelblog.org site — to evolve into Breathedreamgo. But when I did decide, about three years ago, to really “go for it,” I threw myself completely into pursuing my dreams of travel and writing, with no thought to whether it was practical or economically feasible. I just knew I had to do it. I had lost both my parents and felt: if not now, when?

I’ve never worked so hard in my life and I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished. I’ve connected with childhood dreams, and manifested them. I’ve learned how to write from the heart. I’ve allowed myself to open up to a completely new culture, and learn from it. I’ve grown, and changed, and expanded my horizons. I’ve built a blog and following; published feature articles and my book, Song of India; traveled for 14 months in India; made lots of friends and connections; co-founded Toronto Travel Massive; and raised awareness and funds for a number of worthwhile projects and organizations, such as UNICEF, World Literacy of Canada, Project Tiger and the Intrepid Foundation / Deepalaya.

The positive comments from readers are perhaps my proudest accomplishment. I don’t write for readers’ approval — I write from the heart — but I am very proud that my writing appeals to both foreigners and Indians; and that I have achieved enough understanding and insight about Indian culture as to write with sensitivity and (I hope) a lack of ethnocentric judgment. The last thing I would want is to engage in any kind of cultural imperialism, and I hope I always avoid this all-too-comon pitfall.

The first photo taken of me in India, Siri Fort, South Delhi, 2005

It’s been a great ride

I had no idea that all of this would happen when I got on that plane at Pearson International Airport in Toronto on December 5, 2005. I knew I had to change my life, and begin to live my dreams or I would regret it forever. But I did not know what I was unleashing. And this is why you have to take action. You have to GO even if you do not know where your dreams are leading you.

Like now. I’m not sure where to go from here. Recently I was interviewed by Desi News, a Toronto-based South Asian publication, about my India journeys over the past six years. The editor asked me “What was the lowest point?” I answered, “Now, today.”

After six years of traveling to India; and about two-three years of working hard to try and change my career from corporate writer / editor to travel writer, blogger and journalist, I feel I am at a crossroads. I’ve accomplished a lot, but have not found this career to be financially sustainable. Freelance writing rates are dropping, blogs are not yet fully recognized — or rewarded — for the value they provide and I haven’t been able to land a book contract or a regular writing job with a media outlet.

The road less traveled

I often encourage people to go after their dreams, and I’m glad I have. I have no regrets. But I’ve discovered that pursuing your dreams is not easy. There’s a reason it’s the road less traveled. I am regularly assailed by self-doubt, and worried about where the next cheque is coming from. Some days, it feels like I’m moving further away from my goals, rather than toward; and I wonder whether I am just repeating some deep-seated negative patterns in my life, rather than actually moving forward.

When I was getting ready to go to India the first time, six years ago, one of my yoga teachers remarked that the journey begins when you come home. I had no idea what she meant back then, but I sure do now.

My dreams have exceeded my grasp. And I’m not sure what to do. This is what I want to do, I want the opportunity to write features like this: Breaking caste. Or books like this: Empire of the Soul. I want to travel in India. And bring my blog up this standard: Uncornered Market. But I feel I have hit a wall. I don’t see any real opportunities, and I’m completely out of resources.

They say it’s darkest before the dawn. I hope that’s what I’m experiencing. I hope I will be able to break out of my negative patterns and fulfill my potential. I guess we all do. But does it require luck or skill? Is it destiny or free will? Why do some people succeed and not others?

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Photo of the Week: Bruce Granofsky’s India

Mariellen — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 01:47:08 +0000

Photo captures the spirit of India

Canadian photographer Bruce Granofsky’s joyous love of India, and playful spirit, shine through in his photographs. Like this one — which expresses so much about both the indomitable human spirit and the colour and joyfulness amidst simple conditions in India.

Photo courtesy Bruce Granofsky

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Deepa Mehta directs Midnight’s Children

Mariellen — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 12:53:07 +0000

Deepa Mehta at the University of Toronto, photo by Katie Billo

Deepa Mehta talks about making the film version of Midnight’s Children

There was a moment during acclaimed Indo-Canadian director Deepa Mehta’s talk recently at the University of Toronto — about the making of her new film Midnight’s Children — when I felt the jolt of inspiration. It came near the end. Someone asked if “it’s easier to break into film today, or when you got started.” Deepa replied very thoughtfully in a deeply felt, lyrical voice: “I think it’s really difficult making films. The challenge has not diminished or increased. Whenever you want to write a book, whenever you want to make a film, whenever you want to make a painting — whenever you do something that isn’t about going to an office, whenever your future is not secured by a paycheque, it’s a risky thing. Whenever you take a risk it’s going to be tough.”

Pause. “But the payoffs are enormous. You get to experience your work many times over. Making films teaches me a lot about myself, my neighbours, my country the world. It’s tough, but it’s fulfilling.” Her courage as a creative person really shone, like a beacon, for the other creative people in the room (myself included), who are trying to do something.

Deepa Mehta (who directed the trilogy Fire, Earth, and Water) was speaking to a packed house of film students and admirers at Innis College Town Hall, University of Toronto, during the editing phase of making Midnight’s Children. She generously answered questions and showed about 11 minutes of Midnight’s Children to us. We were only the second audience to see scenes from the film, based on the Booker Prize-winning novel by author Salman Rushdie. The film, shot in Sri Lanka, looks lush, emotional, character-driven. I was taken by Satya Bhabha, the charismatic actor who plays Saleem as a young man, and I’m looking forward to seeing it when it opens next year.

Scene from the film Water, directed by Deepa Mehta and shot in Sri Lanka

The agony and the ecstasy of creativity

It was interesting to watch Deepa Mehta warm up to the audience during the Q&A, and as she did, the goodwill flowed freely in both directions. She was forthcoming, honest and direct, and though her answers were characterized by brevity, they also showed quick intelligence and considered thoughtfulness. The evening was moderated by Professor Charlie Keil, Director of Innis College’s Cinema Studies Institute.

The evening began with Charlie Keil asking her about the making of the film — and about how the project started when Deepa suggested it to author Salman Rushdie, and he said, “done.”

Director Deepa Mehta and Professor Charlie Kiel

“It was pretty scary,” she said, “because I have the responsibility of turning the Booker of Bookers into a film. But the reason I said yes is because I love the novel. The scope of it is completely cinematic, it’s also Salman’s love letter to India, which is the country of my birth. I understand it, I feel it.”

Deepa insisted that Salman write the screenplay, though it originally came in at three times the length of a typical film script, and talked about the scope of the film, which covers 60 years of Indian history, and the project — by far the biggest she had ever made.

“Two months before shooting, I joined the JCC [fitness centre]. It is like a marathon, you have to prepare physically. It is so important to be in good shape.” About being mentally prepared to shoot she said, “I feel I have to be opened to the unexpected moments, because that’s when the magic in films happen.”

The shoot was arduous — 69 days long, the average temperature was 42 C. and there were 64 locations — but it seemed to be a good experience. “Every day was a small miracle. I never felt so alive. Every day I would wake up and say, thank you JCC!”

On India, audiences and exploration

On her relationship to India she said, “I say very often that the great thing about being a Canadian is that I can be where and who I am, which is an Indian. I was brought up in India, I went to school there, there’s a very strong relationship there. My family is still in India, I love India, it’s home. Just the way Canada is home. We can access two very distinct cultures, the culture that we came from and the culture that we’re part of. It’s cool being Canadian.”

After Professor Keil interviewed Deepa, he opened the floor to questions. I asked whether she makes films with an audience in mind, especially given that her films appeal to both western, Indian and diaspora audiences. “I try not to think too much about who my audience is, though sometimes I do,” she said. “I really just hope they’re intelligent. It isn’t about culture, it isn’t about colour.”

Deepa Mehta. Photo by Kate Billo.

I found her attitude towards film making inspirational. When she was asked about her choice of subjects, and whether she creates films that make political statements, she said: “What attracts me generally to films is … they’re always about a subject I want to know more about. Or a subject that intrigues me. For me, making films is about exploration. Everything is about growth. Films take two to three years. If I’m going to spend that kind of time, and energy, I better do it about something that I’m not only passionate about, but something that I’m learning about in the process. It’s not about ‘let me do this subject because it’s a political victory or it’s going to get my effigy burnt.’ When you make a film, you want people to see it. You don’t think, ‘I’m going to make it controversial.’ It’s not about that, it’s about personal fulfillment.”

I asked her both the first and last questions of the evening, as it turned out. My last question was, what did you learn from making Midnight’s Children. And her answer was both surprising and, ultimately, very profound: “I learned the importance of the gym!” Deepa said, to laughter and applause. “What I learned, in a strange way, was the importance of being fit, being alert and … always be passionate.”

I left the talk feeling very inspired. When someone asked her about the theme of the film she said, “You can be like the phoenix and rise out of the ashes. Change is the only constant.” And about the message she said, “there’s always hope. It’s about how important hope is.” Plus, I liked that afterwards, she told me I ask good questions.

For more on Deepa Mehta and Midnight’s Children, read the interview on the U of T news site.

Midnight’s Children a must-read

Midnight’s Children is a must-read. It not only won the Booker Prize, it won the Booker of the Bookers — the best book ever to win the Booker Prize in the award’s 25 year history. As Deepa Mehta mentioned several times during the talk, it is a book of epic scope, covering 60 years of Indian history including the deeply traumatic partition and the birth of modern India. It is also deeply humorous, marvelously inventive and completely unique.

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