Two Interviews, Lunch with Firdaus and Concluding My Study of the Shivaji Museum

Tues, March 12, 2019

Bombay

Two Interviews, Lunch with Firdaus and Concluding My Study of the Shivaji Museum

Namaste from Bombay!

The Show Must Go On...Laptop or No Laptop! So although I still feel sick inside and heartbroken in a way that is hard to describe, I am trying hard to quell my low spirits and keep my momentum going. I am barely responding to email as the use of my little keyboard on my Ipad (which serves me well to draft blog posts when I am traveling—and now at thus time), is not my preferred mode for corresponding with people. Still, I can only hope I will get my laptop back and be able to start afresh. There will be much lost...I have reconciled myself to that. But, hopefully, I can still go on with my life.

     Awaking at 5.30 am on what was going to be a busy day, I blogged, made my muesli and coffee breakfast, showered, dressed and hastened off to Dad’s to be present when Valerian got to Russel for his physiotherapy session. He ended by insisting that we consider knee replacement surgery as he is convinced that Russel would be a good candidate for it and that he can take over his post-surgery physiotherapy to  ensure that Russel walks well again. He is worried about his current lack of stability that does not make it possible for him to walk independently. He feels that only through knee replacement will he be able to come back to normal again. I felt greatly disturbed by this diagnosis, to be frank, and feel that I need to pray very earnestly on this issue so that we might have the right discernment.

I had to leave at 9.30 am, however, as I had an interview meeting at 11.00 am in the city for which I needed to take a bus and a train to get there.

An Interview with Jehangir Patel:

Jehangir Patel brings out a bi-weekly magazine called Parsiana that has documented the lives of the Indian Parsi community for decades. I thought it would be worth chatting with him as he would be able to throw some light for me on the Parsis as audience and consumers of Western performing arts. But I think he was more interested in focusing on the Parsi contribution to Medicine, Law, industry, philanthropy, etc. than the questions I was directing at him. Still, overall, I got some really valuable statistical data from him—he was able to rattle off facts and figures on Parsis and their (dwindling) presence and numbers in India—all of which is steadily impacting their patronage of the performing Arts and their contribution to it.

  We also realized that we have many friends in common. He has invited me to lunch with him next Monday at the Rippon Club when my Oxford friend Firdaus (whom I affectionately refer to as “Dr. G”) will be present too. I did not realize, until Jehangir told me so, that Firdaus reviews books (mainly non-fiction) for his magazine almost every fortnight (and I brilliant job I am sure he does of it too as I have yet to find someone better read that Dr. G). 

Lunch with Dr. G:

As  it happens, I was scheduled to have lunch with Dr. G at 1.30 pm at the Yacht Club, but since I finished early with Jehangir, I texted to find out if Firdaus could be there earlier! And he could! So, by 12.30 pm, we were seated at a table and sipping something cold to drink—a Diet Coke for me (as I am still watching carb intake) and a coconut water for him. I told him my computer woes and he was so relieved to find out that I had kept all my Fulbright Interview notes! He too soothed me and told me that at the most, I would have to repeat about six months worth of work, but that it would be a good way for me to refresh and review what I had gathered over the past few months.  Yes, I suppose that was a very positive way of looking at it and I would do so.

We had such a wonderful chinwag! Over Fish Arabiata and grilled beans and peas for me and Mulligatawny Soup and Cousous Salad for Firdaus, we talked about everything. And I mean everything.  There is never ever a dull second as we catch up on so many things. 

At the end of our long chat. Firdaus and I walked behind the Taj Hotel to his apartment so that I could finally see it.  He had moved into this gorgeous sprawling 2-bedroom apartment a few years ago but I had never had a chance to visit him there as there were always guests staying with him. Firdaus has a really cozy arrangement with a number of friends in Europe which allows  him to offer them accommodation when they come to India and to stay with them when he is in the varied European cities that he adores such as London and Berlin—as an opera buff, he travels to these cities to catch particular performances. 

And what a beautiful apartment it is—and in such an enviable location too! Indeed he is fortunate...but he also deserves every bit of that good fortune. For a nicer chap would be hard to find. Before I left, he presented me with a book that he thought I would love—-Belonging by his friend Urmi Sinha who received a lot of very positive notice for it. I feel sorry that my heavy work schedule makes it almost impossible for me to devote any time to reading...but I did accept the gift graciously and will read it sometime...

Finishing my Survey of the Shivaji Museum:

As I was at Colaba and it was still only 3.00 pm, it made sense for me to return to the Museum to finish off those galleries on the ground floor that I had still to peruse. I was not sure how long they would take, but this is what I saw today:

 1. The Sculpture Gallery: Filled with wonderful sandstone and granite sculpture, it features deities from three Indian religions—Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. Some of them were gigantic monoliths (I would suspect from rock cut cave-temples). Done in stone, there was basalt, slate and other media used to carve seated, standing and reclining bas-reliefs and free-standing figures from as close by as Elephanta Caves and as far away as Peshawar. Really striking.

2. Gandhara Sculpture: These wonderful sandstone works, featuring the Buddha and Bodhisatavas, are executed in the Greco-Roman tradition in the Indo-Gangetic plain and came to be called Gandhara Sculpture. I am familiar with the tradition through the Standing Gupta Buddha that I show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York on my Highlights tour—so I really enjoyed taking in the minute details of these pieces. There was also a Jain altar in here that was very special.

 3. The Assyrian Palace Reliefs: Who would ever know that Bombay has a fabulous collection of Assyrian bas-reliefs in alabaster derived from the Palace of Ashurnisirpal II of the 9th to 8th centuries BC? There have a gallery dedicated exclusively to them and are beautifully lit to emphasize their features. Given that one of the highlights of the British Museum and the Metropolitan Museum’s Near Eastern sections are similar reliefs from the Palace of Ashurbanipal, these are treasures that I was simply astounded to find in Bombay. The British Museum’s series of bas-relief sculptures called The Hunt is one of its great collections upon which I have lavished many an idle hour in contemplation. So to see these here in Bombay—albeit in a much smaller size but no less detailed and superbly executed—was a singular treat.

4. The Indus Valley Civilization: Wonderful collections of jewelry, pottery, sculpture, etc. in this section take us back to the 5th or 6th century and the discovery of a thriving civilization in the Indus Valley that reaches its culmination in the excavations at Mohenjo-Daro (now in Pakistan), Harappa and Lothal.  They have a wonderful clay replica of the Great Bath at Mohenjo-Daro and a lot of other artifacts (many of which are plaster replicas). I believe the bulk of these treasures as in the National Museum of Pakistan. 

This is the section that every Indian school girl and school boy ought to visit—so I am saddened to see that despite having made so many trips to the Shivaji Museum over the past few months as I have studied the collection, I have never come across a school group on a field trip to this place. It is a dreadful waste of a top-rate resource in the city.

5. The Natural History section: I cannot walk through the corridors of the Natural History section of this museum without being taken back sharply and with a pang to my childhood when my super-enlightened parents took us on weekend visits to this space and introduced us to the joys of museum-visiting when we were so young. I have little doubt that my passion for museums was nurtured through these wonderful Saturday evening visits and I have vivid memories of my mother pointing out and explaining things to us as kids.  How very blessed we were in our parents! Truly! 

That said, the Natural History section was always our favorite when we were little and I can remember being mesmerized by the dioramas that house Indian fauna—they could easily rival anything found in the Natural History Museum at Kensington in London—but then it was the same Victorians who built that wonderful temple to Natural History who built this sterling place here in their colony that they considered the jewel in their crown. So the same vision and the same mindset is responsible for this terrific taxidermied collection that is beautifully labeled and displayed. I adored my time in this space as a child and I adored it this afternoon. I went through it rapidly, however, taking in the vignettes that featured tigers at a waterhole, a splendid Kashmiri stag in the mountains, a rhino in  the wetlands...that sort of thing. Just brilliant!

So with that I have finished my study of the former Prince of Wales Museum in Bombay (now called the Shivaji Museum). It was on my Bombay To-Do List and now it has been ticked off.  I have enjoyed my solitary forays into this space where I have learned so much about Indian art and craftsmanship. But my favorite part of this museum is the top floor featuring the collection of European paintings and decorative arts by Dorab Tata. Someday it would be nice to see the museum offering highlights tours in English and Hindi to the public. I understand, from Firdaus, that the current Director of the Museum, Sabyasachi Mukherjee, is a really wonderful person and I can only hope that after having spent so much money refurbishing the building—interior and exterior—they will now pour in some more resources to make it a living educational institution. So many visitors come in, day after day, but I would like to see them really take something way in the same way that visitors to the British Museum or the Metropolitan Museum go away awed—because indeed there is a lot to feel awed about in this space. I am exceeding proud of my Indian heritage when I am in this place.

Brief Rest and then Another Interview:

I then took a bus that brought me to Churchgate Station from where I hopped into a train and then another bus to get home within an hour. I relaxed with a hot lemony cuppa and a quarter guava and then got ready for my next official appointment of the day—yet another interview: yes, I did two in one day!

  This time I was interviewing Naresh Fernandes, a journalist who has published a historical book on Jazz in Bombay called Taj Mahal Fox Trot. I have started reading the book in the library of the NCPA and am about half way through it. It is incredible to me how rich is the material he has gathered and how beautifully he has collated it chronologically to create a thorough work for which posterity will be grateful.

Naresh lives on quiet St. Cyril’s Road in Bandra in a building lyrically named Chez Nous. He arrived about five minutes after I got to his home and had thoughtfully purchased ribbon sandwiches and sponge cup cakes for me—of course, I ate nothing as I am trying to curb my food intake for the moment. 

When we got down to talking, I found the breath of his knowledge amazing although he does not agree with my thesis that the mainstreaming of Western Performing Arts in Bombay in a fairly new phenomenon. He kept insisting (and offered examples to substantiate his claim) that it has been going on for at least 150 years. I, on the other hand, cling on to the belief that the examples he provides, while valid, are far too isolated to be able to claim that it was always a cosmopolitan world. We shall see as I continue with my research exactly to what conclusions I shall come. What stand I can take as I turn my research into chapters will determine everything. Naresh is also extremely personable and made a very interesting subject to interview—not merely because he has a true grip on the subject and has conducted detailed research himself into the matter but because he is able to seize on facts and bring them into the argument quite effectively indeed. 

     I was done with Naresh at about 9.00 pm at which point, I strolled back home on a beautiful late winter’s evening, and got down to my dinner—mince, dal and ground spinach with corn. I watched snatches of Comic Relief’s special skits on The Vicar of Dibley on You Tube and loved them. But soon my eyes were closing and I was ready to drop off.

No news yet on the fate of my laptop—Himanshu tells me that the second (deeper) scan (using his software, Deep Drill)  is still going on and will only be done tomorrow afternoon. I hope to hear something tomorrow evening. 

     Until tomorrow.