Well, I’ve done something odd. I went back and tagged my old India blog posts. I guess I’d intended to let them sidle out of sight, since this blog has continued to change so much. But after the events of this past week, it suddenly seemed disloyal to be hiding my wonderful trip to Mumbai under a basket… So, you will notice links to pix from the trip and the cloud tag now also contains tags from the trip… I can’t imagine Mumbai will be a huge topic going forward, but reading this OP ED in the NYTimes from Sonny Mehta, I suddenly want go back and reclaim the Mumbai I remember. I read Mehta’s Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found in preparation for my trip. It’s an amazing read–all the disparate elements that make up this character that is Mumbai. I even had a bibliography for my trip that at one time was attached to this blog, but has disappeared. And I have to stop looking for it right now because the Third Year Review (TYR) is due tomorrow. I need to (sigh) read it one more time.

I’ve been making connections in my frazzled brain about why Graphic Novels are a natural next step for me. One is my (occassionally hidden or obscured) passion for all things Sci Fi and Heroic. Like all latch-key children of the eighties, I absorbed the cartoon ethic. I would watch anything from Godzilla to She-ra to GI Joe with equal fervor. It was what we did. As I grew older, I hid my love of cartoons until I fell in with computer scientists and anime fanatics in Boston. I saw all of Cowboy Beebop on “Anime” night with Fletch and Kathie and Will, along with several things I’d love to forget. I’ve watched every episode of Farscape, Stargate, Babylon 5, Deep Space 9, Star Trek Voyager, and on and on. I adore almost anything the SciFi channel is willing to serialize, though I generally can’t stand any full-length movies they air. Must be the attention span issue.

I also love mysteries. I didn’t grow up reading comics or graphic novels, I grew up reading Agatha Christie and Trixie Belden. My first job was in editorial at a mass market publisher working with mystery novels. I have a deep appreciation (along with an occasional loathing) for the formulaic. I am a House addict.

I see every animated movie that comes out. Luckily my roommate shares my passion, so I’m not alone with the tots and the parents in the theater. Or even worse, with the teenagers. So, combining my passion for the literary, the formulaic, the mystery, the cartoonish, the weird, the sci fi, the bizarre, and you can see that Graphic Novels have no doubt been standing in my path for some time now.

As an aside…I cannot bear most grown-up movies–I really only like the emotionally disconnected ones. Like Lost in Translation or anything by Wes Anderson—LOVED The Darjeeling Limited. But, thanks to my stepmother, it has become apparent that I am turning thirty-six on the eleventh of this month. So I’ve done this piece of analysis in part to redeem my childish nature, and to justify my love of all things graphic with my well-earned literature degree. (I was really excited about turning thirty-five–I’d even considered having a party.)

In the process of writing the TYR, I have finished Watchmen and read Dark Knight. Loved both of them. Analysis will have to wait until I don’t feel like I should be editing the TYR (which I do…right now…so I have to stop…).

I leave tonight for Hyderabad. It’s a 15+ hour train trip, so it might be a while before I can write again after I get settled there. So don’t worry.

I got up early this morning to get out and take pictures of everything I’ve been seeing–everything I want pictures of anyway. I think it’s easier to be a picture-taking tourist early in the morning. While I was out I had two more offers to be an extra in a Bollywood movie from respectable sorts. I’m starting to think this is how they get their extras–drive/walk around early in the a.m. Still, I don’t have time or patience for that sort of thing. In Mehta’s book, it’s clear they don’t treat their extras very well anyway.

I’ve got some great pictures, but I still haven’t figured out how to upload. Maybe in Hyderabad/Cyberbad!

I had Akira eggs for breakfast–a Bombay special–really spicy scrambled eggs on toast. Delicious. Plus coffee, which is hard to find. And it was very good. Then I took a cab out to Chowpatty beach and walked back along the causeway. I got splashed a bit, which is too bad since I’ll be in these clothes for the next 24 hours. It was another big walk through Mumbai. Or along the edge of it anyway. Lots of families at the beach–women in saris wading out into the water with toddlers. So many beautiful saris.

Then I came back and went to my favorite Leopold Cafe for a light lunch and another huge bottle of water. I met another traveller who is headed to the Himalayas, and we had a nice chat over our meals. It was great to sit and talk with someone else on an adventure.

Afterwards, I tried to get through a Bollywood movie, but I had to walk out. Somehow I found the one sad and depressing movie that was made in this town. Too much to take sitting down for today. Maybe it was the coffee!

More when I get to the next city. My ticket is for 9:55pm tonight, and I’m pretty excited about travelling across India on a train. There will be six+ hours in the daylight tomorrow to see the countryside, so that’s going to be great. The whole E.M. Forester thing. Definitely one of the reasons I’m in India.

Onwards and upwards!

Amanda

I’ve made it to the final stretch. Now all I have to do is get on the plane. That and seven million other things. So my India prep consists of surmounting my technological challenges (digital camera, blog, uploading pictures from India–which will be possible thanks largely to our student Bill), shopping and packing, and more and more research. I’ve added another title to my bibliography, Understanding Contemporary India. BK sent it through AP, and it turns out to be very worthwhile.

So, last night (no sleep, no A/C) I read an overview of the historical and modern religious contexts of modern India. It’s always a good idea to read a survey after you’ve been reading deeply in a few areas, I think. Pull back a bit. I keep planning to see India through Rushdie’s eyes, but someone keeps reminding me I’ll likely see it through the eyes of a Western (female) Tourist. I feel that I’ve prepared myself through reading Mehta’s book, but I probably won’t run into any gangsters or assassins, so I’m not sure what I’m prepared for, really.

It seems as though Budddhist and Muslim and Christian influences have largely washed off the face of Hinduism. Unlike African animistic religions that adapted to Catholicism, Hinduism doesn’t seem to lend itself to conversion. Despite the money for hospitals and schools and orphanages and printing presses, British and American churches won few hearts (though commerce may have trumped religion in this effort as this was moderated entirely by the capitalistic wants of the British East India Company). Even as Muslims ruled India as Sultans, Islam only managed to win converts on the fringes of the country. Obvious to some, I’m sure. But it’s always good to pull things together–I like unifying theories. I’m all about synthesis.

She was like some ancient palimpsest on which layer of thought and reverie had been inscribed….All these existed in our conscious or subconscious self … and they have gone to build up the complex and mysterious personality of India. [Her] essential unity had been so powerful that no political division, no disaster or catastrophe, had been able to overcome it. (Jawaharal Nehru, The Discovery of India. 1956)

So, I’ll keep reading–tonight, the economy! Then HD and I are headed to REI this weekend for the last minute shopping. Headlamps!

ACP