Travels with Beth, Alli, and Supriya

Under the Surface

By Beth Green

Sliding under the water on a scuba dive is like a vacation within a vacation for me. The rumble of boats’ engines and the slapping of waves against hulls is replaced by the calming, even sound of your own breath. There’s no space for worrying about the land-bound when you’re on a dive. Will your flight leave on time? Did you apply enough sunscreen? Where did you put your credit card after the bar last night? The surface world is only a few yards above your head--but its mundane problems can wait until the end of the dive. The world narrows, focuses, until the only thing of import is what’s in front of your mask. Here, a colony of brightly colored fish circle the crevices of their anemone home, suspicious of the curious scuba diver, who hovers, amazed by the play of sunlight on the surrounding bright green sea grass.

Photo taken by Beth Green at Balicasag Island, Bohol, Philippines. Contact Beth on Twitter @bethverde or via her website bethgreenwrites.com.

Life’s Journeys

By Alli Sinclair

My journey with Novel Adventurers is not unlike the other journeys I’ve taken in life. I did lots of research, set out with a rough plan, and allowed myself to go with the flow and, most importantly, meet and learn from others along the way.

My writing, too, has travelled a few interesting roads since starting this blog. I’ve now signed with a wonderful literary agent and I’m working on a New Adult romantic adventure and an adult series that weaves present-day stories with historical. Luna Tango is my first book in this series and hopefully it won’t be too long before you see it on the shelves! You can find me here: https://www.facebook.com/AlliSinclairAuthor
with the latest updates of the wonderful journey called life!

Thank you all for joining me on my travels, and I look forward to hearing about yours!

The Big Picture

By Supriya Savkoor

Over the past three years of blogging at Novel Adventurers, I’ve had the thrill of circling the world many times over, experiencing vicarious adventures through our fascinating co-bloggers and guest contributors as well as sifting through my own travel memories.

We have covered much ground in this space. Hands down, my favorite topic has been all the overlap in cultures and customs. In particular, I’ve had the opportunity here to follow the many diverse paths that East Indian culture has traveled over the millennia. Through this lens, global communities that I previously knew little about—Cambodia, Fiji, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Iran, Azerbaijan, Indonesia, and Ethiopia, to name just a few—now feel as familiar to me as India itself and taught me how small our world really is.

Case in point: the woman featured prominently in the photo collage at left is Kamla Persad-Bissessar, the first elected female prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago. She is the seventh prime minister of this tiny Caribbean country, and the second, after Basdeo Panday, of ethnic Indian descent. In 1889, her great grandfather left India and became a girmitiya, a term that describes the many Indian slaves taken to former British colonies and eventually settling there after gaining their freedom. Persad-Bissessar  took her oath of office on the Bhagavad Gita, one of Hinduism’s most sacred texts, although she says, “I have no specific church as such. I am of both the Hindu and Baptist faiths.”

 
Stories such as these, however far away in time or distance, are a part of my cultural heritage and travels. I hope they help inspire your own.

The Original Star-Crossed Lovers

By Supriya Savkoor

Long before Romeo and Juliet, there was Laila and Majnu, the ultimate star-crossed lovers who generations of Middle Eastern, Asian, and African cultures celebrated through poetry, plays, art, and later film. 

The original story is based on a real event, about a Bedouin shepherd named Qays (or Qais) ibn al-Mulawwah back in the 7^th century. Qays fell in love with Laila (or Layla) bint Mahdi ibn Sa’d, a young girl from his tribe, and wrote many poems about his undying love for her. However, when Qays asked Laila’s father for her hand in marriage, he was refused, and soon, Laila was married off to another man and moved away. Qays became devastated and left home to wander the wilderness and deserts where he continued to compose poetry but quickly descended into madness. He thus earned the nickname Majnun or Majnu, meaning mad or crazy.

Qays’s poetry and the Arab stories about him and his love were already popular and well known in the region during those times and were told and retold many times over the centuries until the great Persian poet Nizami Ganjavi wrote what became the masterpiece version. Ganjavi, who coincidentally first wrote a famous epic poem about Farhad and Shireen, the star-crossed lovers Heidi wrote about, researched both secular and mystical sources about Laila and Majnun and used techniques from the Persian tradition of poetry to make the tragic love story more vivid, boosting its popularity immensely.

After Ganjavi’s version came out – three centuries before Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet – the story of Laila and Majnun spread like wildfire through Azerbaijan, Turkey, and eventually to India, where it’s still considered the penultimate story of star-crossed lovers. 

Take a look at some of the art this famous couple inspired.

From Mashhad, Iran, Majnun eavesdrops on Layla's camp

 

An Afghani rendering of the young lovers

A Tajik miniature painting shows
Layla and Majnu as young classmates

A tapestry from Mughal India shows
a desolate Majnu out in the wilderness

From a modern Malaysian performance

The story is so entrenched, so much a part of the cultures it spread to, the term Majnun or Majnu is commonly used in the Middle East, Central and South Asia, North Africa, even Somalia to describe anyone who is madly in love, as does the phrase “Laila-Majnu” itself (often describing blushing newlyweds, for example). In Turkey, where Majnun is known as Mecnun, when someone says they “feel like Mecnun,” it means they feel possessed, often by love. 

It could be said that most popular Bollywood movies retell the Laila and Majnu story in one way or another, but India has made at least a dozen or more films specifically about Laila and Majnu in many languages, including, curiously, Persian, Malay, and Pashtun. The Azerbaijani composer Uzeyir Hajibeyov set the story to music and made what is considered to be the Middle East’s first opera, premiering in Baku in 1908. In the 19^th century, Isaac D’Israeli (the father of Benjamin D’Israeli, the future British prime minister) translated the epic poem from the Persian into the English, expanding the audience to the west.

Beyond the Indian films, the story has been referenced in much popular media, including Sufi qawwali poem-songs, bestselling novels by authors Orhan Pamuk and Khaled Hosseini, the famous Layla song by Eric Clapton (which even quotes a line from Qays's poetry), and the kitchy disco song Laila from the Indian film Qurbani. The couple has also been the subject of a Tajik Soviet film-ballet from the 1960s, at least one Iranian film from the 1930s, and a contemporary Yo Yo Ma concert.

Over time, the story has taken on slightly different retellings. In one recounting, Layla and Majnun were classmates, that Majnun wrote poems to Layla instead of paying attention to the teacher, and so received lashings in class. Every time Majnun was beaten, Layla would magically bleed, thus causing her family the consternation that leads to them separating the couple. In another version, Layla’s brother Tabrez protests Majnun’s love for his sister, and in the midst of their quarrel, Majnun accidentally kills Tabrez, which incurs the wrath of Layla’s family.

The graves in Bijnore 

In one rural town in India, many believe that the couple hailed, not from the Arab world, but from the north Indian state of Sindh. And when Laila’s family opposed the union, the pair sought refuge in the tiny Rajasthani desert village of Bijnore in India, where they eventually died. The local government maintains a tomb that purportedly contains the couple’s bodies. Not far from the tomb is a well that the locals say the couple regularly visited together. Each year, the town hosts a two-day fair in June to commemorate the couple, and hundreds of newlyweds and lovers attend.

Whatever actually happened, fact and fiction have blended to create one of legend and literature's most enduring star-crossed couples.

Goldspot's Music Strikes the Right Chord

 By Supriya Savkoor



Siddhartha Khosla of Goldspot at Hard Rock Cafe
in Bangalore, India, in early 2012.
(Photo credit: Sohanmaheshwar)

Death Cab for Cutie meets Kishore Kumar meets the Beatles meets The Smiths meets … 1960s Bollywood nostalgia meets contemporary indie pop-rock.

Yes, there’s an American band that’s all that and more. You may not have heard of Goldspot, but chances are, you’ve heard one, maybe more, of their songs.

They’ve released two albums (are they still called albums?) with another one releasing later this summer. Their music is featured in everything from films, starring the likes of Reese Witherspoon, Vince Vaughn, Aasif Mandvi (of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart fame), and Kate Hudson; commercials for Apple’s iPad, eBay, and Chrysler; and popular television shows such as How I Met Your Mother and The O.C. The group has played in music festivals on both sides of the Atlantic and the Pacific as well as opened for bands such as Arcade Fire, Franz Ferdinand, Bon Jovi, and, of course, Death Cab for Cutie. They’ve won numerous awards, been featured on NPR, and were named “the best band to come out of America in years” by the UK’s Sunday Times.

Borrowing its name after India’s equivalent of a fizzy orange soda pop, Goldspot is fronted by its Indian-American creator and songwriter Siddhartha (Sid) Khosla, who was born and raised in New Jersey and grew up on a steady dose of Hindi film songs from the 1950s and 1960s.

Goldspot's music reminds me of all the diverse types of music I heard and loved growing up, including the sort my parents played when I was a kid, as well as a dash or two of my favorite kind of alternative music. Not indie folk, but that sort of serious indie pop that bundles influences from all my favorites sounds---echoes of the oldies from the British invasion as well as contemporary modern beats.

Following is a sampling of a few of my favorites. Apologies for not embedding the videos for these songs directly into this post, but clicking on the links will get you to the right link.

Here’s one of their catchy songs from the trailer of the U.S. film, How Do You Know?

https://www.youtube.com/embed/IXtOSt2vG80?rel=0

And a Hindi version of the same song from the satirical film, The President is Coming, a parody based on a real visit George W. Bush made to India in 2006. (I haven't seen the movie yet, but doesn't it sound like a hoot?) The movie features Konkana Sen Sharma, a talented and well-known actress who stars in Indian “art films” (that's what non-Bollywood movies are generally known as in India).

http://www.youtube.com/embed/e-ZFkuPIHTs

I can’t not include this one, a cover of one of my favorite songs, Float On (originally by Modest Mouse).

http://www.youtube.com/embed/1J6o4Y9z0hs 

I’ll leave you with this one, a song whose proceeds go entirely to the American Cross for Hurricane Sandy disaster relief. It's also featured on the TV show, The O.C.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/Ne-2HYY3kLo 

Hope you like what you hear! Drop us a line and let us know.

Bleeding Rouge: Lessons from Cambodian History

By Supriya Savkoor

There are novels that take you to a fictional world you feel you’ve been to, with fictional characters whom you feel you know personally, even wondering what happens to them after you close the book. Then there are novels that you have to read—the ones that plunge you in a time and place that open your eyes to realities so large, you are changed by them.

If you read my post from 2 weeks ago, you know that, for me, a stunning example of such a book is In the Shadow of the Banyan, a somewhat fictionalized version of author Vaddey Ratner’s childhood in Pol Pot’s Cambodia. Books like these make you realize that human history is vastly more bizarre, more tragic, and more perplexing than any plot an author could conceive.

This incredible novel made the Cambodian genocide so real for me, in a kind of “no way could this have really happened” way, I gobbled up all of Ratner’s interviews, as many articles about Cambodian history as I could read, and even watched a couple of documentaries about the country. Heck, I even went online, googled “Cambodian people” to see their faces and find out, a generation later, how they’ve been holding up.

Anne Frank’s diary had been required reading in my eighth-grade English class in Texas. That first time I and my classmates learned about the Jewish Holocaust, we all turned to look at each other in utter disbelief, as though the teacher might have made the whole thing up. I learned a little more about the holocaust in high school, but that was the sum of my education about this facet of history. The takeaway for my young self back then was that, however catastrophic and appalling I understood this act of genocide to have been, it was the type of event that couldn’t happen again, definitely not in these modern times when we humans were supposedly smarter and more civilized than generations past. After all, photos from that era were in black and white, the police and SS uniforms looked like something out of a Charlie Chaplin movie, as did the Führer’s goofy mustache and bizarre Nazi salute, which made him seem more like a caricature than a real person.

Of course, we all know  genocide and other mass atrocities occur all too often—anywhere, anytime. Consider Rwanda, Bosnia, Somalia, Sudan, Iraq, Libya, and now Syria. And just as often, we tend to avert our eyes and keep ourselves blissfully uninformed. Educators can and should change this, and making Ms. Ratner’s powerful novel required reading in history classes (not just the specialized ones, but the general ones) would be a great first step. No other novel in recent memory so aptly drives home the tragedy of such large-scale injustice—as well as the need for us to harness our collective responsibility and strength to prevent and end them.

Tevodas, Rakshasas, and Other Cambodian Lore

By Supriya Savkoor

A couple of months ago, my book club chose to read a novel that I hadn’t yet heard of—In the Shadow of the Banyan, by Cambodian-American author Vaddey Ratner. I must have been living under a rock not to have heard of this critically acclaimed first novel, but I’ll admit, I was ambivalent about this choice as I knew it would require some fortitude to read. It's set against the backdrop of Cambodia’s darkest hour—the 1970s, when the Khmer Rouge systematically decimated about half of its own people, through torture, starvation, and, most of all, outright murder. And yet I soon discovered this semi-autographical book is extraordinary, as uplifting and hopeful as it is heartbreaking.

As I’ve told nearly everyone I know, this important book has so many complex facets and layers to it that schools and universities should be adding it to their required reading lists. Which subject? Take your pick—history, psychology, sociology, ethics, religion, spirituality, politics, cultural studies, philosophy, literature, even poetry.

And add one more to that list: mythology, which also happens to be the topic of the week here at Novel Adventurers. (Oh, but how I would really love to expound on all those other topics!)

Ratner’s story led me to a startling discovery—that many aspects of Cambodian civilization were influenced by Hindu myths, legends, and folklore. It’s startling because, while the faith of nearly all Cambodians is Buddhism—a faith that also hails from India, but has morphed into the local cultures and more or less lost its “Indianness”—I could not have conceived of a Southeast Asian culture that's seemingly so different from Indian culture, yet so closely aligned to it. Especially when it comes to ancient Hindu mythology, which is still very much alive in present-day in India and, it seems, in Cambodia as well.

Ratner seamlessly weaves in mythical characters that are often as real as her human ones. She also infuses her story with poetic metaphors such as my favorite, the one about the Reamker. 

A mural that shows a scene from the Reamker at the
Royal Palace in Phnom Pen, Cambodia. (Photo by hanay)

Hopefully, it’s no spoiler to tell you about the beginning of In the Shadow of the Banyan. We enter the privileged world of our protagonist, seven-year-old Raami, a Cambodian blue blood. Surrounded by her loving family, Raami enjoys all the joy and magic of an innocent childhood. While sitting under a banyan tree (an image evoking the Buddha) in the courtyard of her family’s palatial home, Raami begins rereading her favorite book, the Reamker.

“In time immemorial there existed a kingdom called Ayuthiya. It was as perfect a place as one could find in the Middle Realm. But such a paradise was not without envy. In the Underworld, there existed a parallel kingdom called Langka, a flip-mirror image of Ayuthiya. There, darkness prevailed. Its inhabitants, known as the rakshasas, fed on violence and destruction, grew ever more powerful by the evil and suffering they inflicted.”

I include that passage because, on several levels, it fills me with awe.

The story of the Reamker is surprisingly familiar to me, one that I too had read many times as a child of about Raami's age. It’s the Cambodian version of one of India’s best-known epics, the Ramayana, one of Hinduism’s most sacred texts and one of India's most popular mythological legends, comparable to Greek and Roman mythology. Hailing from ancient times, the Ramayana, is filled with a pantheon of gods and goddesses who have inexplicably human desires and weaknesses. It's part of the traditional Hinduism belief system, while for some (even in India), it's a colorful story steeped in philosophical themes combined with the magic of mythology.

A view of Angkor Wat, the world's largest
Vishnu temple, in Angkor, Cambodia.

The story of the Ramayana/Reamker is also a brilliant metaphor for Ratner’s novel. As the title(s) of the former imply, it's the story of Rama (aka Preah Ream), whom Hindus believe to be a human avatar of the Lord Vishnu. As the story goes, Rama led a happy, privileged life as a prince in the benevolent kingdom of Ayodhya (Ayuthiya). As a young man, he’s banished for reasons out of his control. He spends years in exile, far from home and separated from most everyone he loves. Soon, his wife is abducted by a jealous king from Lanka (modern-day Sri Lanka, called Langka in the Cambodian version). Ram eventually returns home but not before a long, bloody war pits all the forces of good and evil against each other and ends in devastating losses for both sides.

Sound familiar? Yes, it sums up Ratner's telling of the Cambodian genocide, with young Raami as a sort of avatar of the noble Ram. Raami is exiled into a world filled with rakshasas, in the form of Pol Pot’s vast army of soldiers, and tevodas, angels who are perhaps counterparts to the mythical devas that fend off the devil’s rakshasa minions. Raami’s father is frequently compared to Indra, the powerful god of thunder and lightning, who also happens to be the king of the devas (the good guys). And, of course, even after it was all over, there
                                                                                 were no winners.

For thousands of years, the story of the Ramayana has been performed in
plays and dance all over Southeast Asia. This photo, a postcard scan, 
shows the Royal Ballet of Cambodia performing the Reamker in the
courtyard of the Silver Pagoda in Phnom Penh sometime between the
1900s and 1920s. This particular postcard depicts a scene from a battle
between Rama and Ravana. Starting in 1900, F. Fleury published
a series of postcards featuring such scenes from the Reamker in China.
The publication year of this postcard is unknown, but it is suspected to

be taken during either King Norodom's reign in Phnom Penh or during
the early years of King Sisowath's reign. Author Vaddey Ratner herself

is a direct descendent of Sisowath royalty.

The rest of Ratner's novel is likewise steeped in the Hindu mythology I grew up on, albeit with a Cambodian flavor.

One other surprise entailed references to the old animal fables known as Jataka Tales, filled with morality lessons. These short stories, which some historians say inspired Aesop’s Fables, had titles such as The Monkey King’s Sacrifice, The Mouse Merchant, and The Demon Outwitted. I'd always presumed the Jataka Tales to be purely Indian, so I was surprised to learn through In the Shadow of the Banyan that the Jataka Tales are equally well-known all over Southeast Asia. Considered to be a recounting of the Buddha’s previous births, in both human and animal form, the stories impart the virtue and wisdom of the Buddha as he appears to us in all his worldy forms (and, of course, teaches that god is within all of us).

 Po Romem, Hindu temple from the Cham era
near present-day Phan Rang, Vietnam.

(photo by Irdyb)

All of this cross-cultural exchange, it turns out, occurred because, for a few thousand years starting in the first century, Hinduism dominated as both a religion and a culture in Cambodia—and to varying degrees, in modern-day Laos, Burma, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia (see my related post here), Java, Bali, Vietnam, and even the Philippines. Hindu kingdoms across this region were later described as “Indianized” kingdoms or states, part of a “Greater India” or “Farther India.” India’s influence, however, was entirely cultural, not connected in any way to politics or government. (Historians have called this India's "cultural expansion" and even "cultural imperialism.")

Much of Southeast Asia's oldest sacred texts, literature, and philosophy were written in the ancient Indian languages of Sanskrit and Pali. Though these languages are now archaic (used only in sacred Hindu and Buddhist texts), modern-day Southeast Asian languages still retain vestiges of them. Southeast Asian names in general also sound a lot like Indian ones. And it's said that the name of the country Singapore, known as the Lion City, is based on the Sanskrit words simhah for lion and puram for city. (Simhah puram sounds a bit like "Singapore," right?)

For thousands of years, Southeast Asian kings stylized themselves after Indian devarajas, or god-kings, a bit like Prince Rama from the Ramayana. These kings took on royal, Indian-sounding names, such as Jayavarman VII (Cambodia) and Wikramawardhana (Java), and consulted Brahmin priests from India before making big decisions, such as going to war or relocating a capital. They performed the Hindu ritual ceremony known as a puja. Some even adopted the infamous caste system.

These kings also erected numerous temples and statues—many of which survive today—in honor of Hindu gods and goddesses. Cambodia has preserved one of the world’s only two temples dedicated to Brahma as well as the world’s largest Vishnu temple, Angkor Wat, located in Angkor.

The Hindu kingdoms of Southeast Asia flourished for about a thousand years, before, bit by bit, they began infusing more Buddhist beliefs in with their Hindu ones until, eventually, Buddhism prevailed. As I learned from Ratner’s amazing novel, remnants of the region’s Hindu past still linger and inspire. And the title of In the Shadow of the Banyan suggests that despite all that young Raami, and Ratner herself, experienced, a higher force had protected them all along.

(A post-script: I'll be writing a follow-up to this post in 2 weeks, when we cover book reviews. In the meantime, I encourage you to visit Vaddey Ratner's web site, www.vaddeyratner.com, or connect with her on FaceBook. Most importantly, read her book! I'd love to hear your impressions.)

Karma Chameleon

 By Supriya Savkoor

As the daughter of immigrants, someone with brown skin and a somewhat eastern upbringing, I should have a lot to say on the topic of fitting in. My co-bloggers think so, anyway. And yet I’ve been stressing over my post for a week now.

Contrary to what some people might expect or believe, I’ve never had much trouble adapting to new environments. We moved a lot when I was a kid, so I changed elementary schools four times that I can remember. Who knows, it may have been more. It was all so routine.

Of course, in those days, I was often the only brown kid in these schools, which tells you how long ago this was. But that was part of the adventure, what made me unique. Maybe just the tiniest bit exceptional. I’m sure I was the only kid who legitimately got to check “other” on all those old school forms, the ones where the only choices were, “black, white, or other.” None of my teachers knew what I should be checking, so at one time or another, I’ve checked off all of them. (Maybe I’m more black than white? Or, maybe I’m more white? I’m from Ohio, so could I be other? That’s right, a perfect chameleon, I chose my answer depending on my color mood.)

And so now, trying to remember the times when I didn’t fit in, I do suddenly recall a little acronym we American children born of Indian parents have heard so often (supposedly not as an insult): ABCD. That stands for American-born confused desi. Desis being anyone of South Asian descent, so Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Nepalis, Sri Lankans, and any others with roots on the subcontinent.

Was I confused? Most certainly. In America, ever the melting pot, even back then, most folks accepted my differences, though perhaps they didn’t always understand them. (True story: “India? Oh yeah, where they’ve got our hostages.”) But why did so many Indians, especially ones living in India, think I was confused?

I don’t mean to poke fun of either side, but I know such stories ring true to many “others” like me. And I saw the genuine confusion in the eyes of relatives back east. I was more other there than I was here. I looked like one of them, but I didn’t speak any of their languages, know their national anthem, or drink their water. So they were the ones confused, right? Er, not me.

I may not have known it then but being other gave me a deeper appreciation for both cultures as well numerous privileges and opportunities in both countries. While I wasn’t always grateful for them back then, I certainly am now. You could say it was my karma.

Have you ever had to walk the line between two cultures? If so, were you successful, and how did you do it?

An Alpine Adventure

By Supriya Savkoor

Francofranco56

Vista from Courmayeur

One early September, about a decade ago, we’d headed to Italy to attend a wedding, flying first into Milan where my brother and sister in-law received us. They had a planned a little pre-wedding weekend excursion for us, since we had only ever visited Italy’s usual hotspots (Florence, Venice, and Rome). We had never heard of the little towns they’d told us we’d be visiting, nor had we done any research beforehand, nor had we discuss it much. A few beautiful places that they wanted us to see, and we were grateful for the pampering.

We rented a van and drove the 220 km (roughly 140 miles ) ride northwest at high speeds through lovely hilly territory, where every few hundred yards a castle was pointed out to us. At first, we ooh-ed and aah-ed at the mere thought of being within walking distance of a real-life Italian castle, but after about a dozen such sightings, we were amused and soon a tad disinterested (only a tad). (Except for the wedding we attended in a beautiful little church in a stunning castle near the famous sparkling wine-region of Asti. (Side note: It’s sparkling wine, not champagne, which is French. The Italians, we learned, and quite possibly the French, are very particular about that distinction.)

When we reached our first destination, Courmayeur, a little dot of a town in the Italian Alps, we were stunned. The breathtaking view outside the balcony of the little studio-condo where we stayed was, excuse the cliché, picture perfect. Like a Swiss postcard, only better. Vast expanses of rugged, snow-capped mountains and valleys that started within a millimeter of our balcony and went on forever. Clean, crisp air that we found ourselves breathing in like a sort of nectar along with an absolute stillness that only deepened our awe.


Franco56

Santuario Notre Dame de la Guérison
in Courmayeur, Italy

 Our first day, we hiked around the quiet little village and took pleasure in the simplest of things: the many colorful flowering plants hanging from window boxes outside many windows. The cool, clean water flowing from spigots that we had to pump, in lieu of the boring old fountains we were accustomed to in the States. The winding narrow roads with the somewhat rustic but gorgeous edifices to one side and a steep drop plunging into the infinity of the Italian Alps on the other side. We drove around quiet, empty roads and byways, from the snowy white peaks to the lush green valleys where we stopped to marvel at a distant steeple atop an 11th century church dedicated to the Virgin Mary. We got a little lost but eventually found our isolated but elegant destination, a restaurant where I got my first taste of raclette, a sort of grilled cheese that to this day astounds me. It was my first introduction to a dish completely dedicated to only glorious, superb cheese, one of my very favorite foods. And with no other seasonings or accompaniments, not even bread, it was the perfect homage.

From there we were on our way, skirting the Swiss Alps, some 4,800 km (or 15,000 feet) high, atop the highest mountain in the Alps. The weather was sharp and crisp, the air a bit foggy and chilly considering the time of year. Soon, we crossed what has to be the most hospitable border into France by way of an 11 km (7 mile) tunnel beneath a mountain and leading us into the penultimate of picturesque towns—Chamonix, France. 

Jonathan M

Chamonix, France

Lite

There, we drank in the old world charms of cobblestone roads lined with wrought-iron lampposts and hanging flower pots; little canals situated between buildings, reminiscent of those camera-ready sights in Amsterdam; lovely boutiques full of pottery and all kind of tantalizing, one-of-a-kind trinkets; patisseries with chocolate fountains and buttery pastries; delicatessens with Italian meats and cheeses; shops dedicated to fondues (sigh); and an idyllic town square straight out of a fairy tale. All this against the backdrop of the most wondrous vistas that, little did we know at the time, are among the world’s oldest and most famous ski resorts. (Case in point: the first Winter Olympics were held in Chamonix back in 1924.)

From our Alpine weekend, we headed to Asti (the sparkling wine capital of Italy), not far from the tiny town (and large castle) where the wedding took place. And then on to Genoa, the beautiful port city in which Christopher Columbus was born. It was a most magical vacation, definitely kickstarted by our own sort of Alpine honeymoon that weekend in paradise.


Yann

Overview of Chamonix, France, nestled at the base of the Alps.

   


addedentry / Owen Massey

Gare de Chamonix




 \\

Upma Gets Uppity

By Supriya Savkoor

Last year, an obscure little word in the Wall Street Journal caught my eye. Not only did it appear in one of the world’s best-known newspapers, but on the front page—in one of its top-of-the-page columns, or what journalists call “above the fold.” And what I read surprised me, made me smile, then had me forwarding the little piece to a dozen people whom I knew would also get a kick out of it. That little word was upma (pronounced OOP-mah), and no one would fault you if you haven’t heard of it. I knew it was but could not have imagined the Wall Street Journal, or the many other major media outlets that carried stories about oopma that day, would ever have reason (or, frankly, the inclination) to mention it at all.

Upma is the simplest of Indian dishes, a savory South Indian “porridge” made from semolina (aka, wheat farina or cream of wheat) and served as either a meal at breakfast or a tea-time snack. It typically includes a minimum of other ingredients—a few vegetables (usually onions, tomatoes, peas, maybe some grated carrot) and a few basic seasonings (ginger, garlic, green chilis, curry leaves, cilantro, with a sprinkling of mustard seeds and split white lentils). Click on this link for a fairly basic recipe. Or click here for a couple dozen other variations. (Hm, macaroni upma?) Here's how to make a sweet dumpling-shaped one, a recipe that hails from India's "deep South."

credit: stu_spivack

Okay, so my list of "minimum" ingredients may sound long and not quite that simple, but just the mere mention of the dish used to (and, okay, until fairly recently) immediately get my eyes rolling. It was a few notches below one of my other least favorites, Raisin Bran. (I abhor raisins.) Given the choice (which happened on occasion), I’d go hungry before digging into a piping hot bowl of fresh-made upma.

Apparently, I was the only one. Upma is generally considered "peasant food," with some foodies comparing it to “fertilizer.” It’s one of the few foods pious Hindus are allowed to eat when they’re fasting (albeit without the onions and garlic, which according to Ayurvedic belief are considered to be “hot” [garam] flavors that induce excessive behaviors). Add to that the old adage about Chinese food—no matter how much upma I ate, I was almost always scrounging for a snack to fill me up soon after.

I did eventually acquire a taste for it a couple years ago when I discovered "Mysore upma," a variation on the aforementioned basic recipe. The trick is to triple the proportion of water to semolina rather than simply doubling it, the the traditional way. The result is a moist, flavorful, and more filling dish than the dry, traditional version that somehow doesn't properly absorb the flavors of all those ingredients.

In any case, I knew few people who'd ever tried upma and even fewer who talked about it. So I had to do a double take when I saw it mentioned on the front page of a major American newspaper. Maybe a triple take.

Not only had upma made the mainstream media but, in order of stunning phrases strung together in the same sentence, 1) a New York chef 2) won $100,000 3) in a cooking contest 4) on Bravo’s Top Chef Masters, 5) a popular American reality show.

Excuse the italics, but it doesn’t get any weirder than that.

I hadn’t forgotten this big news on upma but neither had I registered the name of the prize-winning chef until a year later when he happened to be one of the featured speakers at a Konkani convention I'd attended in New Jersey. It was a bit of a surprise that the famous New York chef who won the Bravo show making, of all things, upma is, yes, Konkani. (Only reconfirming a friend’s assertion that we Konkanis are pretty into ourselves. Except now that “we” won a contest for making upma, I don’t see why we can’t toot our own horn.)

Floyd Cardoz, a Catholic Konkani who grew up in Goa and Mumbai, earned his undergrad degree in biochemistry before studying the culinary arts in Switzerland, working at a world-class restaurant in New York, and eventually opening his own restaurant, Tabla, in 1998. That celebrated venue has since closed, but Cardoz has two new restaurants—North End Grill (a traditional American bar and grill) and El Verano Taquería (a modern-day taco stand, with three locations in the Big Apple). He's also launched a line of gourmet “convenience” foods and written a popular fusion cookbook, generously borrowing flavors from his childhood in both Goa and Mumbai. All of these experiences have resulted in a culinary adventure, his own signature pairings of diverse ingredients such as morels and chilies, figs and cilantro-mint chutney, french fries and mango powder (amchur), scallops and fennel seeds, duck and tamarind. Speaking of which, ever heard of a tamarind margarita? That was one of the recipes he featured on Top Chef Masters.

Fronting his two main courses of rice-crusted snapper in a broth flavored with coriander and fennel and his rendition of a Malaysian beef stew, Cardoz calls his headline-grabbing twist on the old breakfast porridge an “upma polenta,” infused with coconut milk and (gasp) chicken broth, and topped with a melange of exotic wild mushrooms glazed in port wine. The result has been a surprising burst of interest in upma, even all over India, where upma Internet recipe searches have surged, customers at upscale restaurants are requesting the dish, and chefs are creating all kinds of new upma concoctions, including those with such non-traditional ingredients as chicken and seafood.

Following is the three-course meal, with links to the recipes, which won Cardoz the Bravo show’s ultimate prize award of $100,000 (all of which he contributed to charity, by the way):

1st Course—Wild Mushroom Upma Polenta with Kokum & Coconut Milk

2nd Course—Rice Flaked Snapper & Tomato-Fennel Broth with Carrots

3rd Course—Rendang 2 Ways: Oxtail & Short Ribs Tapioca Pilaf with Diced Potato & Peanuts

Fly, Little Bird, Fly!

By Supriya Savkoor
 

Arriving at London's Heathrow (Photo: Jnpet)

I don’t know about my favorite mode of transport, but hands down, my favorite place to be, in any city anywhere in the world, is…odd as it sounds….the airport. 

I know, I’m a freak, but think about it. People of all backgrounds and classes, many of whom may never meet in the outside world or even otherwise be in the same room with any of the people around them, rubbing elbows. All of them hustling and bustling through a little microcosm of the world, coming from who knows where, hopefully going somewhere special, and possibly starting a new life, a new venture, a new family. The anticipation of both departing and arriving, of the infinite opportunities and possibilities, experiences and sights and sounds…it all gives me a heady rush. I’ve had plenty of celebrity sightings at airports all over the world. (I once spent an afternoon watching Huey Lewis sign autographs, as we both waited for a flight out to Chicago during a blizzard.) Even those little blue lights glowing along airport runways give me a tiny thrill, somewhat bittersweet from leaving somewhere, maybe someone, behind, but mostly thrilling because of the delicious anticipation of both the known and the unknown.

There is something extremely magical about the entire experience, even in this day of having to wait out in the main terminal rather than right at the gate when welcoming your visitors, taking your shoes off through painfully long security lines, or throwing out tiny bottles of your favorite perfume because you forgot to leave them behind. arrhow how For me, there’s almost no better place to people watch, dream up stories, imagine distant lands, and live vicariously. Oh, and eavesdrop…but never mind that…

Bus terminals, train stations, cab stands—all of these provide a sliver of what an airport offers in ample supply, but for my money (well, okay, so it’s free to just hang out at any of these places if you’re not going anywhere), nothing beats the excitement of an airport.

Besides, you know that special moment in your life when you feel sort of like a rock star? My 15 minutes of fame, give or take 5 or 10 minutes, occurred at London’s Heathrow Airport in the early ’90s.

A few months out of college, I was still trying to find my way around the adult world. The American public had spent much of the year anxious about an imminent war in the Persian Gulf, which in turn had led to a deep national recession, which meant limited job opportunities for me and many other new grads. By the fall of 1990, I’d quit my first low-paying newspaper job and scraped together my tiny bundle of savings to take a long, relaxing trip to India, where I hoped to figure out my next career move.

I’d caught an Air India flight from New York to Bombay via London’s Heathrow, where I and hundreds of other hapless souls converged at our boarding gate and received some surprising news.

It was mid-October 1990, two months after Iraq had invaded Kuwait. Nearly half a million Kuwaitis and foreigners had fled the country, where Saddam Hussein’s forces were plundering the little nation’s wealth and committing all kinds of human rights violations. The Indian government had just begun an aggressive week-long campaign to airlift 150,000 Indian expats, once an affluent Kuwaiti minority and now left destitute after all their assets, from their property to their life savings, had been confiscated. It was all hands on deck, so to speak, and Air India was among those aiding the rescue effort.

The airline had already begun running emergency missions, diverting a number of its planes to the Middle East. On that particular autumn day, the plane that was to fly me and my few hundred co-passengers to Bombay was instead en route to Kuwait City. We were stuck in London for at least the next 24 hours, with the option to stay at a London hotel, our accommodations paid in full, if—get this—we surrendered our passports for those 24 hours to the attendant at the boarding gate. That meant allowing the airline officials to shuttle us to the hotel, get us checked in, and bring us back the next day, all but guaranteeing that we couldn't leave either the hotel or the airport of our own accord. As soon as he made the offer, as though it were some kind of race, the entire crowd rushed forward, passports extended. All except me.

From the back of the crowd, I asked what would happen if he loses one or more of our passports. What if we couldn't find him to get any information about it. If he would kindly give us his full name and contact information, just in case the new attendant can't find them. Where exactly did they plan to store our passports that night. Who would be accountable and responsible if our precious passports did get lost or stolen. And why, for goodness sakes, we couldn’t just TAKE our passports with us to the hotel since, after all, there was no logical reason for us to surrender them (except the whole visa thing, which seemed a minor technicality given the circumstances). Especially, since we'd be lost, literally, without them.

This, in case you’d forgotten where my little story was headed (ahem), was my rock star moment.

Hundreds of heads turned suddenly in my direction. My co-passengers who were ready to hand over their passports, no questions asked, peered up at me, their arms slowly retracting. (Why were they looking "up"? Was I standing on a chair? I can’t remember, but at that particular moment, I did sort of feel like Moses.) You don’t think it’s a good idea, the good-looking newlyweds, at least a decade older than me, asked in their prim European accents. What should we do instead, queried a rather classy elderly gentleman. As though I were their representative here. As though I had all the answers.

I shrugged. I don’t know what could happen, I told them, but I’m not taking any chances. If that guy loses my passport, it's obviously up to me to figure out how to get a new one, not him. I’d rather stay here at the airport all night, even if I have to sleep on one of these chairs.

All eyes turned back to the attendant, who was no longer smiling. In that case, he said, you’ll just have to wait it out at the airport. I can give you vouchers for two meals at one little restaurant that closes early tonight. Sorry, that’s the best I can do. There won't be any breakfast. Maybe some coffee. Anyone still want to go to the hotel?

Nope, everyone—each and every one of those hundreds of folks waiting at the gate with me—decided to hang back. We spent a safe, quiet, if uncomfortable, night at Heathrow. Instead of Bombay, we ended up in New Delhi, again in waiting mode for some 12 to 15 hours for another flight. All for a good cause, of course. 

I didn’t move any mountains or save any lives that weekend in London, but I did make a couple of new friends and, most of all, feel kind of grown up for the first time ever.

Not bad for being stuck at an airport, no? See what I mean about that sense of adventure?