Hello, Pilgrim

There’s a lingering lump in my throat as we sit in traffic trying to make our way to the Indira Gandhi International Airport. I’m hot from the haste of over-packing my over-flowing bags, tracking plane ticket, passport, tips—all somewhat hazy in the hot humid car and a celebratory martini before I left. (Martini seems to be the drink of India with G&T at a close second).

The martini was a mistake—I needed all guard and wit about me for the wave of humanity at the Delhi airport. Only ticket holders are allowed inside the building. I haven’t really talked about the deluge of enforcement I have seen in this city for fear of sending more worry my parents way, but I’m pretty sure the threats are very high in India after the incident in Pakistan. I don’t read the headlines and just choose to think of the hundreds of soldiers I see with double barrel shotguns as the Indian version of the Texas Rangers. I pray for India in this terrible situation and fear they are high alert for very serious reasons. I make my way-trying to sweet talk the stone-faced Air Emirates agent for an upgrade…this exercise is one long hot line after another. I try to be deft about the lines and of course this backfires twice. Security is a mess. I encountered the poorest customer service here and noted the second poorest was when we arrived at the immigration desk. These guys could use a little diversity, sensitivity, Dallas Convention and Visitors’ Bureau-style training. I consider writing a letter, but hey, Svaha. This is India. I try to gather up my scanned items (now in spread across three scanner lanes). The extremely rude gentlemen won’t give me back my bag, my cowboy boots (Texas is always with me) or my laptop. I got a little feisty (martini) after I got pushed out of the line for as third time and sat through a full inspection of my jewelry. Sigh. There’s just no order in this. It will happen again at the gate—every zone is called but “F”. I am F. I ask the guys why it wasn’t called. They have no idea and tell me just to get on the plane. I know I need to stop trying to be right, to surrender in the moment and know that India can’t the beautiful place that is is:  full of possibility and magic if rational order comes into the equation. This is India.

Finally I have the time to unpack this journey. I’ve come to the land of my imagination for forty-three years. I’ve seen a puppet show under a shower of fireworks in a Mughal 17^th century haveli (palace). I’ve walked past men and women without limbs begging for food. (Praying all the while “blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth”). I’ve walked the haunting and luminous halls of the Taj Mahal, I’ve tried on the pearl of India.

On the last afternoon we encountered great, classical works of art at the National Gallery. It could use a paint job and some serious didactic improvements, but all of this matters not. The art holds all the power of this aged government hall. I walk with my teacher, Caron Smith, my Guru-ji. She smiles warmly when I call on a work with some accuracy, and lovingly she responds and teaches me more. (Note to self, start teaching people more). In one of my favorite practices, we wonder and wander and allow our wide eyes to lead us into the lost halls of very bizarre system with a total lack of a system. 

We find ourselves in a room with Chinese and Tibetan works of Buddhist art. One reliquary at the end of the room holds relics of the Buddha. It was gifted to the government of India by the government of Japan many years ago. A group of Chinese Buddhists (including several robed nuns) is on a guided tour of this gallery. As they are guided from one bodhisattva to the next I see their tour transition from lively interaction to gentle pilgrimage. They begin a series of prostrations to each figure. At the Reliquary the room grows quiet. Their faith was palpable. They begin chanting and prostrating 1, 2, 3, up to 108 times. They sang a beautiful Buddhist song as they encircle the work and walk around it for several minutes. This is the power of Asian art. I am transfixed by the work’s ability to draw viewer, believer, devotee in and hold them tightly in this experience. I have never seen anything like it. I choke back tears and I feel the lump coming on. The lump in my throat that hasn’t left.

There is art with meaning and then, today on this last day in India, there is art with meaning. I’ve often said: in works from Asia, instead of the trite expression "we bring works of art to life" we actually must experience this work by "bringing works of life to art". In India, regardless of your god, being with art is living a daily practice of loving-kindness. It is the mendhi on the hands of the very new bride and groom I sat with on the flight to Dubai (they are headed to Paris). It is the handmade broom sweeping the impossibly dirty streets of Delhi (but dear sweeper keeps on sweeping). It is the continuing work of the Jaipur weavers: the most beautiful saree worn on the most ordinary day. It is sky and fog and atmosphere. It is scarcity. It is truth. Art is Nature and Death. 

Art (barely a separate concept as it’s so a part of life) is here for anyone to practice. 

Art is having a teacher. 

And Love makes it so. 

Thank you, India. Namaste.

Post Script:

This has been a little book about a big country. I’ve yet to experience a multitude of sides to this multifaceted diamond: I know there is so much more. As I sit on the plane knowing an ever-loyal sunrise is chasing us across the northern hemisphere, trade winds pushing me home to my beloved family, my heart is full. I can’t wait to bring some of these joys of India to you. I’m grateful to you, dear readers, for your supportive comments, “likes” and “shares”. I knew the magic of this journey: a force field of energy and ideas would best be captured by a daily journal practice. Thank you for being with me in India. We will return.

The Transit of Mrinalini Mukerjee: Nature and Death in India

I am just up from a long winter’s nap sprawling across my thankfully empty row on the Great Airbus in the Sky brought to us by Air Emirates. Now, in this Book of India, is it time to assimilate what I have seen and bring it forward to you, dear readers in a new way.

The last three days of our journey were comprised of a long Sunday visit to the Art Fair, Dinner with the Ambassador mentioned in the last post, Meetings with the Alkazi Foundation, the Chairman of the Lalit-Kala Academi of Art, the Director General of the National Gallery of Modern Art, a local architect to discuss the expansion project in the museum, dinner with the family of a very important late artist Birsewar Sen, the Peter Nagy Gallery, my dear friend, artist and conservator of textiles Rahul Jain and a long afternoon visit to the National Gallery. 

Yes, it was quickly paced, but out of great ambition comes great outcomes. From the bureaucratic and very structured and very formal meeting with Lalit-Kala to thirty minutes with the eponymous Prof. Rajeev Lochan a meeting filled with as much laughter and play as seriousness, I can now say I have experienced the vastest contrast in leadership style one can imagine. 

Both organizations, however, are government owned and operated, so the red tape runs thick. Despite these challenges, every single person I met with is on board and very interested in developing projects in Texas. India is ready. Following our very exciting meeting with the National Gallery we walked into the closed gallery presenting the work of Mrinlina Mukherjee. Curated by Peter Nagy (we will meet with him the following morning) it is a force of nature, spirit, color and form. The woven hemp textiles astonish, some hauntingly lit in dark rooms, their mineral pigments glowing through animal-like shapes. The later bronzes, some natural forms others bleeding into abstract beacons of reflected light and texture are luscious—it’s hard to remember not to touch. We heard earlier in the week that she had so poured her heart and energy in this very large installation she’d fallen ill on the day of the opening. While we stood here in her garden of earthly delights she was in a hospital in Delhi, her breath supported by a ventilator. Of course, with our American optimism and reliable healthcare, we all assumed she would be fine. I even decide I will write her a “get well and I really love your work” letter At breakfast the following morning I will read in the paper that just the night before, a few hours after we were in her last space, she was making her way into another plane: Mukherjee’s transit eerily coincided with the day I fell in love with her and with her work. This news was heart wrenching.

Following our inspiring experience with her work, and before, of course we knew she was gone, we joined Prtihvi and Kalika Sen, the grandson of an important modern miniaturist Birsewar Sen. Other that one display in the Delhi Art Gallery for the India Art Fair, I have never seen this man’s work in person. Imagine a folio that opens –like a large greeting card but blank white paper. On the outside, in Mr. Sen’s architectural handwriting is a one-line poem: a title for the exquisite work within. Inside there is a little painting oriented on the top half of the right side of the folio. The tiny paper canvas is roughly 2 inches by 4 inches. The works are all landscapes and he worked very intentionally with the following three essential elements: God (sky), Man and Nature (Landscape). God and Nature are eminent and ever present but yours will be the joy of finding Man (or Woman) nestled in hill and forest and expertly painted mountainside. Prithvi, the grandson, talks of his Grandfather’s daily practice. At about ten-thirty in the morning he would go and sit in his upstairs studio—it was his preferred moment for the best light. He would sit at a drafting table of sorts, his watercolor board at an angle. He would start first with a wash—an ephemeral and dramatic stage to the painstaking layers to come. The work is so detailed and so tight in some areas, we use magnifying lenses to explore this uncharted territory. They are lovely little beauties of landscapes some seen and some unseen. Birsewar Sen traveled in his youth to Tibet, Nepal and other parts far from his native India. We pour over folio after folio—there must have been at least 120 and muse over his equally painted imagery in the titles. We consider many ideas but mostly we just sit and take these tiny but majestic walks with Birsewar Sen through each little atmospheric window. It feels like sitting alone in a safety deposit box and opening one jewel after another. Full eyes, clear hearts, can’t lose. It was another perfect day in India.

The next morning and the last day of my pilgrimage we start at Peter Nagy’s gallery. There is some sensitivity here as he has worked with Mrinalini Mukherjee for years and the gallery represents her work. The exhibition has been open only a few days, and now she is gone. We offer to just say hello—the newspapers and art media from across the globe are calling to talk to Peter, the man who knows her best. I think he’s happy to escape this new powerful responsibility if just for thirty minutes. He’s needs a cappuccino and a diversion. We talk Texas and projects and two artists are presented to us for consideration in addition to a large traveling exhibition. In twenty years, this curious French man raised in the United States has powered Delhi’s acceleration into an international conversation about contemporary art. This man knows. I enjoy his brilliant mind, his supportive nature, and we leave him to the harder work of his day. The name of his gallery is Nature Morte. I haven’t made this connection until just now but we certainly were at the center of nature and death.

Lunch in the Khan Market is blissful. I get to watch two people with very similar passions get to know each other (they’re now fast friends). We met with Rahul Jain, an expert in the textiles and designs of the Mughal Courts. Rahul supports guilds that continue to work in the hyper-traditional methods (and patterns) of the 16^th century forward. With a huge Delhi-heart and like so many of our other friends he has driven likely over an hour to meet us. We talk about his new project: an exhibition of contemporary textiles from an up-and coming generation in Gurgaon. In Dallas, I would have gotten in the car to see it before my evening flight to Dubai. In Delhi, that’s just a wish to miss a flight.

The young fashion designer Devanshi Agarwal also joins us. Devanshi has recently completed her studies in London and is back in Delhi (she attended boarding school here) making every effort to break into this burgeoning contemporary art world. She was the assistant for the Texas! exhibition—a project offering a young novice near-insurmountable challenges. She met them with a passionate audacity and I have to say, with a lot of pride in my big Texas heart, she and the installation team did a marvelous job. (See note above on bureaucratic museum). SO! Devanshi happily accompanied us through our four days of navigating the India Art Fair, meetings and art encounters. She just wants to learn. We are very grateful for her efficient, capable work and I am very happy to write The Crow Collection now has a bright, enterprising Delhi correspondent!

We close our whirling Delhi-Dervish with a grassy martini (the Depeche mode of drinks these days in India) in the Lodhi Café at the jungle-like Lodhi gardens. We toast our ambitious work; we pledge to return. I feel the growing lump in my throat and brace myself for the long transition home. I know it’s time to go back to the place and to the person I was before I met this India and tried her on for the first time. But I also know I will never be the same.

New Friends Colony

A world away there is talk of Superbowl, ball inflation and an Always ad. Here in the hotel it is quiet, although I am sure many were up early to watch The Game this morning.

I’m still laughing about our dinner on Sunday night in the home of a former Indian Ambassador. Caron has known him for several years and we were delighted to spend some time in his home among his beautiful collections. We were given an address (in English) and I did my best to read it out loud to our driver (who was quite dashingly clad in a gold-buttoned uniform from the hotel). He was friendly enough and assured us he knew exactly the address of our destination. Once we are in the New Friends Colony neighborhood we lurked through alley after alley looking for our gentleman’s name on the wall. We sought the wisdom of strangers who offer conflicting lefts and rights. Eventually we found the address back across the highway in another section of this master planned community. A gentleman walks through the gate ahead of us and I imagine (important word) that he is also arriving for this beautiful fete just a few minutes past 8. We follow him—no one stops us. We walk through the half-open door and I catch quickly a stunning contemporary painting. “Can I borrow that for Dallas?” I think to myself. However, my first clue something was amiss was the stroller sitting in the corner. A very kind woman walks toward us as we have basically walked into the fourth room of her house.  She greets us warmly and tells us we are in the wrong house but only one house off (even though the numbers matched). She offers a “boy” to walk us over “Because it’s not safe to walk on the streets”. I panic slightly realizing the driver left to go “take his dinner” and we were without his number, he without our correct destination.

Much to my relief this knight in a white suit with gold buttons had not left but waited at the gate to make sure we were where we needed to be. We walk down the lane to the next compound and thrillingly see the name of our kind host on the wall. Success! There are now three gentlemen accompanying this little entourage. We walk through three doors and a kind woman greets us INSIDE her home and explains that we are still in the wrong house. As was happening in the first house, she was cooking up a fabulous meal and my stomach grumbles. The names are the same because of course these two families are related. We get back in the car and drive to a new street. Finally we arrive, dupattas flowing, heels clicking on the pavement.  We make our way into his museum-like home. He is happy we are there and humored by our thrice-made effort.

This gentleman loves to cook. We are greeted with a dry martini and six different canapés—each one totally marvelous: an Indian version of guacamole (charmingly served with fiesta Doritos apparently a delicacy), spiced cashews, stuffed zucchini, fried lotus stems, stuffed gooseberries and pickled radishes. We get to know each other—the additional guest is on the board of a local museum. I pepper her with questions about the health and future of museums in India. We talk about partnerships and opportunities. My favorite conversation however was one on the aesthetics of sari collections. Unbeknownced to me, the acquisition of a sari is an art in it’s own aesthetic realm. True collectors of saris (and most are) consider color theory, compositional design and pattern parings –this is not something the tailors do. Choices for the silk combinations of sari and blouse are for the recipient to select. In a shop filled with thousands of options the experience is quite daunting. And of course in this sea of choice everyone is in a hurry. My new friend, clad in a gorgeous gold block printed sari gave me a tutorial I will always cherish. I look forward to setting my next compositional stage upon purchase of my next sari. Could I start wearing saris full-time in Dallas? It would be like Georgia O’Keeffe’s iconic taste for black dresses. I’ll have to think about that one. They are so totally beautiful, so practical and so comfortable.

We linger long into the evening. Indian dinners start late and end later. I loved every moment, candle lit table, beautiful heavily starched linens—there was an elegance in this home brought I’m sure by this gentleman’s wife who was off traveling. Her presence was palpable. He was a perfect host, even in her absence. Caron and I laughed all the way home (I am now referring to the Taj Hotel as home.) over our naïve trespassing past all of the security, the cameras, the watchmen with double-barreled shotguns in this “gated” community. I love the name though: New Friends Colony—so British yet still working its magic almost a century later. And for these New Friends: those expecting us and those not expecting us, grateful I am.

Traffic Shanti

Traffic. Delhi has a traffic problem. On several commutes to meetings and events we’ve sat in the car for almost two hours. It’s not like Dallas traffic where you can opt out, take a back road or at least plan to be stuck on 75. This is serious congestion all the time. We just sit. Horns honking around us. Horns are an important tool for drivers in India—on highways any time you pass a vehicle you honk your horn—all of the beautifully painted trucks have signs on the back that read “Blow Horn”. In traffic you use them to get the huddle moving.

All this traffic, all this patience and in 8 days I have seen not one expression of road rage. Can you imagine? No one is late because everyone knows that when you get there you get there. No one is stressed—at least seemingly so. In this land of Shanti, it just is. I keep hearing people say “the traffic has been really bad today.” But hasn’t the traffic been bad everyday?

Yesterday I met a wonderful thinker, curator, inventor and socially conscious gentleman Anubhav Nath. He runs OJAS Art a beautiful garden-side gallery in New Delhi. From his website:

“Ojas” embodies the creative energy of the universe and is also described as the nectar of the third eye. It is our endeavour to bring to you the newest and freshest ideas in the contemporary art space.

Anubhav met us at the hotel where we talked about art, India and Texas and many things. He interned several years ago with Christine Starkman at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston. He also assisted the Asia Society Texas Center with a recent exhibition of devotional paintings from his family’s collection. Now, in addition to the gallery space, he runs a foundation offering safe harbor to the children of the streets of Delhi. They are housed, clothed, educated. And most importantly: loved. I’m hoping to volunteer there on my next visit.

After a lovely Assam tea at the hotel he takes us in his car some distance to his gallery. Note that he’s already made this trip in traffic to meet us. We step out of the car just off the very busy street and walk through a metal gate. Suddenly wonderland greets us—I told him it looked like a golf course. The property belonged to his grandparents and he designed the space for exhibition, office, shop and garden. The history of the land is told only through a massive tree on the complex with hundreds of roots encircling its majestic trunk. The garden is appointed with graceful sculptures—just the right balance of old and new. We sit in his office, dappled in natural light and I enjoy a hot masala chai as we pour over the catalogs and projects of late. I like him. His is tall, expressive and his energy fills the room. He understands the power of art. I know in some way we will work together. We talk about the Crow projects and muse on many possibilities. We explore the installation—Anubhav only represents four artists—a demonstration of his focus and vision. This gallery is not about profit or gain—in fact he winces when I call it a gallery. This is a place for connections and dialogue. This is an art space for the future.

We visit some more, and I pick up a few lovelies in his museum-store for the Lotus Shop. He has a great eye. Our window of time together narrows, and he very kindly offers us his car and driver to take us to our next meeting at the Imperial Hotel. It takes 45 minutes to get there—in Dallas it would have taken about ten. We sit in traffic, horns bleating and the inside of the car warms up. I shudder to think what this is like in June. I think about Anubhav and how he is stirring up so much goodness in the world in a great cauldron of art.

A late lunch at the Imperial Hotel is the perfect send off for Stacie and Jill, our Amazing Team from the Crow. Caron and I will stay on for follow-up meetings a few more days. We sit inside the restaurant of legend: The Spice Route. We are educated on the interior design based entirely on the properties of Feng Shui. The food is delicious and elegantly served by gentlemen with white gloves. We walk the grounds of the hotel—built in 1936 at the height of the British reign in India. If the walls could speak!

Before Stacie and Jill fly away we make one more stop at the Craft Museum very close to our hotel. It is (another) garden-like complex where artisans from diverse regions of India sell their handmade crafts. It’s closing time and the sun dims across the roofs of each stall—the last shoppers linger a little longer. We purchase a few more lovelies for the Lotus Shop mastering the artful practice of the barter and walk toward the exit. Much to our surprise we cannot exit. As it is the end of the Republic Day Celebration and the ceremonial Beating of the Retreat, the streets are momentarily closed for Prime Minister Modi’s arrival at the nearby India Gate. We peer excitedly through the heavy gates. The street police motion to the museum guards to close the gates fully. Somehow in all of that commotion I am able to catch a tiny glimpse of the cars. The air is tinged with anticipation. We wait a few more minutes and are “released” back into the street. There is not a human in sight. The miracle of India happens again: magically the police system is so organized it can clear streets on a moments notice. No one seems to mind—it’s just another mystical expression of patience and acceptance of organization amid chaos. I am amazed.

The next hour is a flurry of events. In thirty minutes we:

1.   Retrieved 6 bags delivered to the front desk; 2 were temporarily lost and then found (yes, the ones from the jewelry shop)

2.     Bought and packed a very large suitcase for our Lotus Shop Treasures. We are redefining the term “trunk show”!

3.     Greeted two different tailors, tried on their works of art for sizing both in the lobby and in my hotel room

4.     Scavenged for money to pay the tailors

5.     Very swiftly I moved from 415 to 720 for the extension of our stay. Apparently I was supposed to check out of 415 by noon.

6.     Spoke with the lost and found about a lost shirt that was found yesterday, never delivered and is lost today (maybe we should call it found and lost)

As I called down to the desks for various needs to accomplish #1-6 I realize that every employee of this hotel knows exactly who I am. They know I am missing bags, shirt, needing money, changing rooms. They know I didn’t check out. It’s so amusing. I imagine their conversations behind the desk (“Do you see those silly Americans changing clothes in the lobby?” “Why is she wearing cowboy boots with a saree?” “Is she ever coming back? She hasn’t checked out!” “She never tips enough!”, “She actually thought she could wire money to the hotel!”)

Confusion aside I have since secured a little cash. I have not found my shirt in the lost and found. Stacie and Jill and The Trunk made their flight and most of the clothes fit them. I still need to tip the “floor boy” on the fourth floor and the hopefully the person who finds the Eileen Fisher Tank top again and brings it up to me.

Caron and I enjoyed a lovely dinner of snacks in the hospitality lounge (hence the reason for the room change) and walked the gardens (with an armed escort—it wasn’t that fun) before what we thought was a motion to retire for the evening. As we crossed the lobby we ran into three famed brothers in the Indian art world who insisted on buying us “a” drink in the bar. Three hours later we are dancing to Madonna and Prince and I learn more than I want to know about the treacherous underbelly of the Indian Art Market. What an education. These gents tell us sad stories of gain and loss, suicide, jail and ruin. I know it’s just a perspective, but wow. I will remain very happy and content in my world of socially conscious exhibitions, noble change, art and love.

I fall into my pillow just before 1 am hoping it was all just a dream. And in some ways it is.