In Mumbia’s ship breaking yard, men take boats apart by hand and recycle the components. Often, boats only sit around for a few months until they are patched up or taken apart completely. There is no large scale equipment besides one crane. All the work is done by the hands of the yard’s men. The community of the ship breakers lives next to the harbor in correlated metal homes.
There is no sound more infuriating than the sound of mosquito wings buzzing in your ear. Especially when the noise wakes you multiple times a night. Especially more when you’ve been forewarned to watch out for malaria and even deadly mosquito-borne illnesses like Japanese Encephalitis. Especially most when you’ve mummified yourself in four blankets wrapped and rolled tightly around every inch of your body and they still make their way to your ear canal of all places. I even have small ears!
Since the defenses are being battered down by the winged attackers, I went with a new tactic tonight: offense.
I pranced around the room like a panther, clapping the bugs between my hands, poking them against windows and walls, and rat tailing them with a wet towel. I’m glad no one else is up because they would have thought I was an Irish step dancer as well as a painter.
My death count puts me on the level of mosquito serial killer; carcasses are strewn across my floor. I’m worried that the few that got a way are going to get busy tonight making babies and build an army to infect me.
My hands were splotched with blood afterwards. I’m really hoping that it was my blood.
I’ve stopped taking malaria meds because it’s not currently malaria season, but the quitos are surprisingly present. The meds also made me feel drowsy and heavy. They gave my wild dreams which I liked but the costs otherwise were too great.
Up early tomorrow morning for a walk along the Ganga with Petra.
Some fun before bed.
Close up in koala vision:
Id like your advice if you have an opinion: are these better as they are or flipped upside down so that the rendered half, the reflection, is right side up?
Not quite done. Going to add the reflection of the bank along the top rim.
Sat and watched cremations along the Ganges for about an hour today. Sometimes a family can’t afford to buy enough wood to completely burn the body.
Close up
Side project to paint diagrams of what I’ve learned about the cities. Not sure where to go exactly.
Print I made with tape and old ledger paper.
Goodnight kisses
Acrylic, watercolor, and ink on paper. 2.5’x4′
The Ganges River takes a 190 degree turn in Varanasi and starts to flow towards its source in the Himalayas. It is the holiest Hindu city in the world, older than Jerusalem, Zion, and Ancient Rome.
Hindus believe that if they die here, they are able to free themselves from the endless cycle of rebirth and achieve salvation. Religion declares that the city was founded by the God Shiva, who is both the one and only god, but at the same time hundreds of thousands of gods. Shiva represents complete opposite ideas, which is totally cool in of itself. Archeologists believe that the city has been around since the 10th or 11th century BC so it is the oldest continually inhabited city in the world.
As a fellow artist-in-residence at Kriti said this morning, “it’s how I’d imagine it would be like if I were to visit modern day ancient Rome.” There are thousands of temples, giant-stepped stone ghats with magnificent castle-like buildings.
You can see how high the river gets during the monsoon season. The opposite bank of the Ganga is completely undeveloped because it represents the ‘other-side’ where you pass into after death. It has huge sand flats that represent a much wider flow of the river. Walking along the bank on the Varanasi side, one can look up and see plastic bags, debris, and a water stain 20ft above.
Down by the river, you see men and women plunging themselves into the holy water in ritual, bodies being cremated, men doing laundry, pilgrims traveling by boat. It’s an astonishing place.
The cattle here roam the streets with absolute power. Among the chaos of the city, the cows walk into traffic unfazed, keeping a steady, slow, and tranquil pace. They remind me of the Aurochs in ‘Beasts of the Southern Wild.’
I’m staying on a campus at an artist residency. It’s very pleasant having my own apartment with a bedroom and studio space after 6 months of hostel life. I’ve picked up a case of Kingfisher, paint, and paper, so I am a very happy camper.
I know it’s lazy, but right now I’m going to rely on photographs to tell the story of my past few days. Besides exploring, I got down to work on some paintings. I’ll post stuff as I think it’s closing in on done. Check out my previous post below for today’s work.
Watercolor on paper and marker drawing
Spanish Teacher:
Walking to the train station yesterday. Someone taps me on the shoulder. This is like a weird, shoulder double tap to quietly get my attention like tweety bird. Who does that?
“Hablas español?” he asked.
Why yes I speak a little, I thought. And started chatting with him in Spanish. He teaches spanish at a local middle school and wanted to get together to practice.
This was an old 50 year old guy, who was short, chubby and especially giddy and awkward. He wore lame sandals and had a terrible combover. He just emailed me:
Definitely not junk!
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Indian Barber Shop:
This morning, I was writing and hanging out at a coffee shop. I starting chatting with an Indian guy my age who is currently in law school. Really bright, outgoing guy. After coffee, he gave me a tour of the neighborhood and took me to an Indian barber shop. I really loved seeing my Dad’s cringing reaction as he saw my face with a bigger and bigger beard. But I figured I couldn’t miss out on the unique barber shop experience here.
Barbers are everywhere in the city. There are all different sorts of classes of barber shop too. There are street barbers, stall barbers, real barbers, and Maserati-class barbers. Straight razor shaving is extremely popular. Indian men tend to groom (or get groomed) often. I first thought it was a sort of vanity. I now understand why. It’s incredible!
My new friend, Karan, took me to a guy who cut my hair for three bucks. Therefore, this was a pretty high end place. I got a cut and a beard trim (they rest your head on a flap that extends out of the barber shop chair and start getting all up in your neck hairs with knives and scissors while your neck is complete exposed to their blades. You just have to trust them.
After your cut, the barber offered me a massage. It’s traditional to get a head rub with eucalyptus oil, and a rub down massage throughout your head, neck and shoulders. After the massage, he straps a vibrating machine to his hand and goes to town on your scull. At one point, he stuck one of his fingers completely into my ears with his vibrator on. It sounds completely off-putting, I know. But it felt strangely great. It completely clears out your ear channels. The eucalyptus makes your whole head buzz hot and cold and the massage just rejuvenated my brain with blood flow.
All around it was a top notch experience. I might have to get my haircut every week.
There are lots of modeling agencies around Bandra. Bollywood is based here and there are a whole lot of modeling companies and international models around. I’m waiting for one of the companies, or the models, to pick me up.
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Flying Air India
I got to the Kochi airport after an hour tuk-tuk ride. The airport was very far away from where I was staying so I’m glad that I was overly cautious and asked the tuk-tuk driver to come at 5:15 for an 8 o’clock flight. I’m glad the driver was even there at all. I just met a driver randomly the day before. He spoke decent english, better than any cabby in Mumbai, but about average for those in Kerala (the region has a strikingly high literacy rate 98%). During a ride the day before, I bargained him down for a price for the airport. We agreed on a reasonable sum and he said he’d show up the next morning. I had no back-up plan so it was just blind faith. I doubted he’d be there because it was so early, but he showed up as promised.
I got to the airport, weighed my bag. It was 3kg overweight. I had to exit the airport go to the Air India office outside and pay the overweight baggage fee. I wasn’t allowed to look at the scale so I had no idea whether or not I was getting hustled. I felt like I was getting hustled.
Proceeded through security. Which is very tight. They found a leatherman utility knife in my backpack. I completely forgot it was there. It was in a deep corner of my backpack. I think I would have gotten in a lot more trouble had I not packed all of my watercolors and art sketchbooks in my carry-on. The lady gave me a good stare-down. I got her best mean mug. I think it could have ended up much worse than it did. She confiscated the knife and then let me carry on, but I could see it in her eyes that she was thinking about giving me a tougher time. That’s the second knife I’ve had confiscated so far.
The flight was nice and peaceful. Modern plane. You can get the sense that everyone flying was an upperclass citizen. Otherwise there is no reason not to take the 24 hour express train back to Mumbai. The most amazing thing about the whole flying experience was what happened after we landed and the seatbelt sign was turned off. Immediately after, it was a vicious battle to retrieve personal belongings from the overhead and get in line to exit. I looked out the window and the people hadn’t even begun to put the exit plank in position yet, but everyone had lined up pushing and shoving in line. This country is all about the hustle.
This past weekend, I got to hang out with my Bowdoin friend, Kurt. I’ll get at that next!
Cities@Sea 