Home: A Place Where Birds Nest

As someone who has spent more than half his adult life living away from home, every piece of news and information about it is valuable and precious. I make it a point to read all the latest political, economic and sports news about India very regularly. I incessantly e-mail friends to find out what is happening back home. Even the most seemingly trivial piece of information is most welcome.

Which is why I was thrilled to learn that a family of songbirds has made a nest in our little terrace garden back in Pune, India. There is nothing grand or magnificent about our Pune home. It is a spacious, bright two-bedroom apartment in one of the nicer parts of the city, surrounded by lots of trees. There is plenty of natural light that streams through the house. The main attraction of the place is the little terrace garden we have, which is being looked after (quite well, it seems) by our maid. One of the distinguishing features of the place is the continuous sound of birdsong, in part due to the little lawn we have. Birds of many varieties come by, looking for worms on the lawn. I have spent many a lazy afternoon, watching them as they visited the lawn. Once they figured out that this unemployed guy wasn’t a threat, they became completely unafraid of me.

Apparently, a family of songbirds have taken a fancy to one of the bamboo trees we have in the garden, and built a nest there. I like to grandly call it the “bamboo grove”, but in fact, it is just four bamboo trees, that we planted last year and which have now grown to over seven feet tall.

We spent a lot of time last year looking for a nice home. I have a marked tendency to over-analyze, and would probably still be searching for the appropriate home if it hadn’t been for Deepali. She took one look at the open space that eventually became the terrace garden and decided that this was the place she wanted to live in.

It was a great decision in hindsight. Both of us love the place. We have made some good friends in the neighbourhood. When we do live there (which is not very often lately), we often have friends over. People we know seem to love the place as well. I flatter myself, but I do believe that the place gives off a relaxed, positive, cheerful vibe that attracts visitors (including feathered ones).

It is great to know that a family of songbirds has found our home a fit enough place to raise a family. Home after all, is where birds come to nest, isn’t it?

Travel: Old Is Nothing

Deepali and I just returned from what is billed as the most spectacular train ride in the world; the Whistler Mountaineer from the city of Vancouver, Canada to Whistler, a ski resort in British Columbia. I haven’t been on all the train rides in the world, but I can well believe this claim. No other railway in the world takes you up through the spectacular British Columbia coast, with the sea on one side and evergreen forests, gushing white-water rivers and snow-capped mountains on the other. These areas are prime breeding grounds for killer whales, bears (grizzlies and black bears), salmon and bald eagles. We rode past Howe Sound, which is the southernmost fjord (glacier-carved sea inlet) in North America, through the hamlet of Squamish, considered the recreation and outdoors capital of Canada and up into the ski resort of Whistler.

I will be posting photos soon. Photos of course do not do justice to the awe-inspiring beauty of this train ride. I now have to admit that in my book, British Columbia is right up there with the Himalayas as the most beautiful place in the world. While the mountains here are lower, one also gets a view of the ocean and fjords at the same time.

We had a memorable ride on the Whistler Mountaineer. The train had a “Glacier Dome” compartment, one that was completely encased in glass and offered a 360 degree view of the natural beauty on offer. Since we paid an arm and leg for the trip, we were pampered with local Okanagan Valley wine, smoked salmon sandwiches, Glenfiddich scotch whiskey and lemon tarts. I must say it was a dining experience like no other.

What astonished me was the number of senior citizens on board the train. At least 80% of the travellers on the train were aged 65 and above. Many of them were in their 70s and a few of them were in their 80s. Older people in the West are so active and still have so much zest for life. I find that admirable. Here in Vancouver, the number of older runners and joggers outnumber their younger counterparts. I consider myself quite fit, but some of these elderly athletes put me to shame.

It is heartening to see so many senior citizens going mobile. But it is not surprising, considering the facilities that are always available for them, right from wheelchairs, clean and easily accessible toilets and medical staff. It is a pity that such facilities are not easily available in most places in India. Senior citizens often have worked a lifetime and have cash to spend, and would be an ideal market segment for tourism. Unfortunately, despite the so-called “Incredible India” tourism campaign mounted by the Indian government in the last few years, very little has changed on the ground as far as travel is concerned. Buildings are not easy to access for those who are disabled or elderly, medical care in smaller cities is not good and public toilets in India are few and far between (and indescribably filthy when you do find them).

India, along with the United States of America, has the most diverse natural attractions on offer – right from snow-capped mountains to beaches to deserts. We also have some of the most historic tourist sites in the world, from the Taj Mahal to the ruins of Hampi and so many forts, palaces and castles. We have an ancient civilization that rivals Rome, Greece, China and Persia. But we get so few international tourists, and even fewer elderly tourists.

We need those tourist dollars. The money could be spent to provide livelihoods to millions of people and give a major boost to the rural economy that would be a godsend in places where employment options are few. A carefully crafted and delivered tourism strategy would lift millions out of poverty. But is anyone in the government listening?

Coming back to those senior tourists I saw on the train, I salute them and their enthusiasm for life. Getting old doesn’t mean that one is waiting to die. The whole world is out there, waiting to be explored. And what better time to do it than when one is retired, the kids are independent and one has both time as well as money to spare? To paraphrase the punch-line from a running shoe commercial; “Old is nothing”

Up On Crank’s Ridge: Where It’s Always 1969

Memory is a funny thing. There are some places one has visited that bring back fond memories. Then there are a few places one has visited that one would rather forget. Lastly, there is a special category of places where one feels like one has somehow gone back in time. This blog is about a place that is as much a geographical location as it is a state of mind. I blogged about it in passing a couple of years ago, but this particular blog is fondly dedicated to Crank’s Ridge, the old hippie hangout tucked away in the foothills of the Indian Himalayas, where it always feels like 1969.

Every time I go back there (and I try and go back every year), the old hippie song “Something In the Air” starts playing in my head. Crank’s Ridge, six kilometres above the Himalayan town of Almora in the Indian state of Uttarakhand, is known by several names; Kasar Devi (the traditional name), Crank’s Ridge (a tribute to the assortment of famous eccentrics from across the world who have lived there) and Hippie Hill (from the time in the 1970s when it became a haven for hippies and mystics).

There is something special about Crank’s Ridge. Apart from some of the best Himalayan views anywhere in the world, there is something about the quality of the air here – a sort of golden, hazy sepia-tinted glow that I have never seen anywhere else in the world. Standing by the side of the single lane tarred road that passes through the ridge, one can see the Himalayalan foothills roll away into the distance, and beyond them, three hundred kilometres of the mightiest mountain range in the world, with the summit of the 25,600 foot Nanda Devi Peak front and center. The view is breathtaking, and I guarantee that no matter how jaded a traveller you are, it will leave you speechless. The great Himalayas shimmering in the distance, sunlight glinting on a butterfly's wing, rolling meadows and tall, evergreen trees. As a nature lover, you could not ask for anything more.

Yet Crank’s Ridge is not just about astonishing natural beauty. It has a reputation for being a spiritual “power centre” and has played host to a number of famous (and occasionally eccentric visitors). This is as good a place as any to mention some of them. The first was Indian mystic Swami Vivekananda who lived and meditated at the Kasar Devi temple up on the ridge back in the 1890s. In the 1920s, it became a haven for Buddhist mystics, famous artists and poets. D.H. Lawrence spent two summers living here as did artist Earl Brewster, Buddhist scholars Alfred Sorensen (a.k.a Sunyata Baba) and Lama Govinda (a.k.a. Ernst Hoffman). Lama Govinda was the world’s foremost authority on Tibetan Buddhism. Indian Nobel Prize poet laureate Rabindranath Tagore, Uday Shankar, dancer Zohra Sehgal and sitarist Ravi Shankar also lived here in the 1930s and 1940s.

In the 1950s and early 1960s, this remarkable and remote place became a haven for beat poets such as Allen Ginsberg and future hippie guru Timothy Leary. Timothy Leary lived here for several years in the 1950s and wrote part of the book “The Psychedelic Experience” here. But the true boom in Western visitors came in the 1960s and 1970s. Crank’s Ridge is supposed to be a deeply spiritual place. The marijuana plant also grows rather liberally on the lower slopes of the ridge, which is also a big draw for many. The 1970s saw many celebrity visitors – including Cat Stevens, Bob Dylan and George Harrison. There are unconfirmed rumours that all of the Beatles may have made it here back in 1968 or 1969. This is very possible, since they spent substantial amounts of time in Rishikesh, on the other side of the mountains. Also, the Beatles were very good friends with Timothy Leary, who lived on Crank’s Ridge.

Western tourists came in droves in the 1970s, as many people (not all hippies) came up to Crank’s Ridge as part of their spiritual search. Apart from the hippies, there were many distinguished visitors as well. Dr. Robert Thurman, noted Buddhist scholar, professor of Buddhist Studies at Columbia University and father of actress Uma Thurman came and spent a summer on Crank’s Ridge in 1971 to write his thesis and study with his guru Lama Govinda. Thurman brought his family with him, so the infant Uma Thurman also probably lived here!

Another distinguished visitor was Dena Kaye, the daughter of Hollywood actor and star Danny Kaye. She opened a state-of-the-art hospital in this beautiful rural part of India, named the Dena Hospital. The Dena Hospital is still very much in existence, and is staffed by doctors from Mumbai and Delhi. The last time my parents visited the area a few years ago, they were astonished to find that some of the doctors at the hospital were their students from the G.S. Medical College in Mumbai (Bombay).

Much has changed in the last thirty years I have been visiting Crank’s Ridge. In the 1970s, there was only a dirt track that wound its way up through forests of oak and pine, from the town of Almora a thousand feet below. There were very few houses, no electricity and almost no tourists, except for the visiting hippies who had “freak-outs” and dances on summer nights.

Today, there is a tarred road, several expensive hotels and a four-star resort that have come up there, offering everything from local treks to exotic Indian Ayurvedic massages and power yoga. There also is a settlement of Tibetans who live here and a serene Buddhist monastery. The tiny local restaurants now offer pizza and burgers as part of their menu. There are several Internet cafes, and the locals rent out their village homes to visiting Western tourists in search of nirvana. There are a couple of hundred aging Western tourists who came here in the 1970s and decided to live here permanently. There is also a settlement of Israeli kids, who come here to relax and unwind after serving their time in the military back home.

But the aura of the place remains unchanged. The Himalayas still watch over the little town, silent yet awe-inspiring sentinels. And every time I visit, I still walk up to the top of the windswept ridge, where Swami Vivekananda meditated a hundred and twenty years ago, where one can still hear the eloquent roar of the blessed mountain silences.

For me, Crank’s Ridge still conjures up visions of flaxen-haired hippies in tie-dyed clothes dancing joyously in the meadows to the strains of “Something in the Air”. To quote the lyrics of the song:

“Call out the instigators
Because there's something in the air
We've got to get together sooner or later
Because the revolution's here, and you know it's right
We have got to get it together now”

I was never a hippie. The whole hippie thing always seemed too naïve and well-intentioned to work. The promised revolution came and went and very little in the world changed. But somehow, up on Crank’s Ridge, everybody pitches in and everyone seems happy. So call out the instigators, because the revolution is here and I am going back up to Crank’s Ridge where it still feels like 1969.

Care to join me?

Adaptability

“You can’t always get what you want
But if you try sometimes,
You just might find
You get what you need”
- Mick Jagger and Keith Richards (1969)

I often ask myself the question: Why is it that all things being equal, some people succeed and others fail? There are of course, many unknowns that contribute to individual success and happiness – luck, determination and ambition are a few that come to mind. Also, some people are naturally gifted or more intelligent than the rest of us. But the operative words in the question posed above are “all things being equal”.

By success and happiness, I do not necessarily mean economic wealth, though that is important. I mean contentment, a sense of modest achievement, a few friends, basic levels of comfort. In the course of a moderately interesting life, I have travelled extensively and met many different types of people. I have met reasonably intelligent and talented people who are happy. I have also met exceptionally intelligent and talented people who are miserable. I have come to the conclusion that true happiness is fleeting and momentary, and not a permanent state of being. There is no “happily ever after”, only the present. And the present keeps changing, often in unpleasant ways. Those who stuck in the past or dreaming about the future are doomed to remain unhappy.

Happiness is based on the ability to adapt to an uncertain and rapidly changing world around us. Like an American friend once said to me: “Never get too comfortable with any particular situation, because life will throw you a curve-ball when you least expect it”. The one thing about life that is certain is its uncertainty and fragility. The moment you start taking any particular situation or person for granted, the rug suddenly gets pulled out from under your feet, and you are right back to Square One.

Darwin’s “survival of the fittest” principle is as applicable to individuals as it is to entire species. The happiest people I know are the ones that are able to rapidly adapt themselves to changing situations. This means realizing that life and people can never be perfect. To expect a given situation or person to be perfect is setting yourself up for disaster. When I was younger, I was frequently disappointed when things did not work out like I had envisioned them. I spent considerable periods of time trying to figure out why things didn’t work out exactly as I had planned and hoped for, and was frequently unhappy.

Nowadays, I realize that while planning, hard work and sincerity are a good start, it is important to be able to land on your feet when things don’t work out like you want them to. That is the secret to true happiness. Because very often, you can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need. And smart people learn to be happy by adapting to changing circumstances, while realizing that getting what you want just doesn’t happen sometimes. There will always be the enviable few, the beautiful people, who possess a rare combination of luck, good looks, intelligence and ability. I do not belong to that select group of individuals, and chances are that you don’t either.

So if I ever have grandchildren, I will give them this advice; “Learn to roll with the punches, if you ever want to be happy”. This may be contrary to many of the things we are taught as children, but it is true.

Music: Remembering Jimi

September 18th, 2009 will mark thirty-nine years since Jimi Hendrix died in a London hotel room in 1970 at the age of twenty-seven. Nearly forty years after his death, his albums still sell more than a million copies a year. Many books have been written about the life and death of Hendrix by people far more knowledgeable than me. Movies have been made about him. As I write this blog, there is a big-budget Hollywood movie in the works with the singer of the rap-rock band Outkast in the lead role as Hendrix. I am a fan and have been one for the last twenty-five odd years. This blog is my own little tribute to the greatest popular musician of the twentieth century. He wasn’t the most popular musician of all time, though he was and remains very popular. But he definitely was the most innovative and phenomenally talented musician of the last century.

After many months, I took out my copy of Hendrix’s 1968 double album “Electric Ladyland” today and listened to it in its entirety. Forty-one years after the album was released, many of the songs still sound so fresh, so new, so innovative. The album is only one of the great albums Hendrix released between 1967 and 1970. He released three albums in 1968 alone, and each was a sonic landmark. The songs on “Electric Ladyland” range from the dreamy Beatlesque “Little Miss Strange” to the soaring cover of Bob Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower” and the impossibly heavy “Voodoo Chile – Slight Return”. And who can forget the effortless guitar solo at the bridge of “Come On (Let the Good Times Roll)”. That solo feels like a warm ray of sunshine on a bitterly cold, wintry day. In contrast, his peers such as Clapton, Townshend and Jimmy Page sound forced and laboured.

But for me, the brief, blinding guitar solo at the end of “All Along the Watchtower” is the best piece of music I have ever heard. I remember the first time I heard it twenty-six years ago on a beat-up old bootlegged cassette. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. It still does. Hendrix pours his entire soul into that solo. Listening to it is a spiritual experience and for me, it is the closest I have ever felt to being in the presence of God (except for trekking up above the tree-line in the Himalayas possibly). How can something sound so sublime, so perfect, so heartbreaking?

Jimi Hendrix invented heavy metal. Just listen to “Voodoo Chile – Slight Return” or “I Hear My Train A-Comin” to know what I am talking about. This is cosmic blues; B.B. King raised to the power N; intergalactic stuff, music for the Star Trek generation. Esteemed musicians such as Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin and David Gilmour of Pink Floyd sound like pale imitations of the real thing, once you have heard Hendrix. And what is “Crosstown Traffic” if not the first rap song ever written and performed? But Hendrix was not all about blood and thunder. He also had a deft light touch and he wrote and played some of the most delicate ballads you will ever hear. Listen to “If 6 were 9” or “Little Wing” and you will know what I am talking about. And who can forget that bittersweet instrumental romp at the end of his epic two hour set at Woodstock?

The 1960s were a very turbulent decade. By 1968, Jimi Hendrix was being pulled in many different directions by activist groups who wanted him to be their spokesman for their causes. Anti-war activists wanted him to be more outspoken in his opposition to the Vietnam War. African-American activists, demanding civil rights, wanted Hendrix to be their spokesman, since he was the most famous black man alive at the time. Hippies wanted Hendrix to continue to make spaced-out psychedelic music that represented the aspirations of a new generation. The mild-mannered Hendrix could never say no to anyone, and tried very hard to be all things to all people. The pressure on him as a performer was enormous.

Offstage, Hendrix was a shy, retiring man of few words, with a keen intelligence, great sense of humour and an almost child-like sense of innocence. Watch his old interviews with Dick Cavett on YouTube to find out more. He was an unwilling celebrity; and all the adulation made him look like a deer caught in the headlights of an onrushing car. He was ill equipped to deal with fame. When he was alive, he was exploited by groupies, hangers-on, managers and record companies. After his death, nothing changed, as many “recordings” were put out in his name. Most of them were poor in quality, and incomplete studio jams at best.

Onstage, Hendrix had a different persona. He was probably the most charismatic performer of his generation, and this was a generation that gave us live acts like the Rolling Stones and the Who. Hendrix had a sinewy lithe grace onstage, which combined his own onstage charisma with Keith Richards’ swagger and Pete Townshend’s acrobatic ability. He had audience members eating out of the palm of his hand, and women clamouring to gain his attention.

Other musicians often felt completely inadequate in his presence, though Hendrix himself was an extremely reticent individual. The great American guitarist Michael Bloomfield said that after he saw Hendrix perform for the first time, he was so intimidated that he “gave up playing the guitar for a year”. In London, Pete Townshend of the Who and Eric Clapton were so stunned when they saw Hendrix play for the first time in early 1967, that they left the club he was playing at and went and saw a movie together. “Neither of us said a word” Pete Townshend recalled many years later; “since words could not express how overwhelmed we felt”.

Clearly, Hendrix made an unforgettable impact on those whose lives he touched. Recently in Vancouver, I saw a televised concert by Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood. Half the songs they played were Jimi Hendrix songs. The Who still play a version of Hendrix’s “Purple Haze” at most of their live concerts as a tribute. Pete Townshend says he still thinks of his friend Jimi Hendrix every day. So does Bob Dylan. A few years ago, I watched an interview with Kathy Etchingham, one of Hendrix’s old girlfriends. She moved on, got married to a member of the English nobility and started a family. But she never forgot Hendrix. Thirty years after she saw him for the last time in 1970, she broke down and cried as she described the kind of person Jimi Hendrix was.

Hendrix lives on through his influence on other guitar players. John Frusciante of the Red Hot Chili Peppers often sounds a lot like Hendrix, as did Stevie Ray Vaughan (especially his live concerts). Pretty much every modern guitarist owes a debt to Hendrix, who expanded the guitar’s vocabulary so greatly that post-Hendrix, the electric guitar became an entirely different instrument. Hendrix greatly influenced jazz as well – especially people like Miles Davis, John McLaughlin and Herbie Hancock. Apart from inventing heavy metal and taking electric blues music to an entirely new level, Hendrix also invented jazz rock. The great guitar player Carlos Santana thought Hendrix was God Incarnate. Ironically, Hendrix himself was a humble, quiet man who thought of himself as only an average guitar player. His guitar playing skills were so prodigious that his considerable song-writing skills are often overlooked. He was a brilliant songwriter as well.

You can’t help but ask – what would Jimi Hendrix have accomplished if he hadn’t died at the age of twenty-seven? What would this quiet musical genius have done if he had lived through the 1970s and 1980s? The mind boggles, but the question is a moot one anyway. Jimi Hendrix was a force of nature, a comet that blazed across the dark night sky, leaving everybody mesmerized and everything else far behind in its wake.

Some things in life will always remain a mystery and can never be understood, only appreciated. So I am going to play all the Jimi Hendrix albums I have back-to-back on his death anniversary of September 18th, as my personal tribute. Join in – play a couple of his songs off YouTube if you don’t own any of his albums. There are plenty of them available, last time I checked. Join me in remembering the greatest popular musician of the twentieth century on his death anniversary on September 18th.