Linda M. on Rwanda

Last night Linda M. spoke to WfWI Ldn JLC about her experience reporting the Rwanda civil war (1994) in which approximately one million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed. Since the genocide she has worked tirelessly to reveal the responsible parties. WfWI provides vocational skills training in Kigali, and Linda M. was kind enough to recognise our work in the region. It is through this kindness, she said, as well as clean water, fertile land, and employment opportunities that Rwanda was able to recover as remarkably as it has (48% of lawmakers in Rwanda are women which also indicates that perhaps the western world could learn a thing or two from Rwanda). I was personally intrigued by Linda M.’s talk about rape used as a weapon of war and its ability to spread like a “contagion” which she argues is behind the widespread rape pandemic in the DRC. I was also struck by her ability to feel great empathy not only towards the victims of the genocide but also the perpetrators when she described both groups were “victims of vicious and vile propaganda”.

Sakti B. at Aicon Gallery London

It was interesting meeting and speaking with contemporary Indian artist Sakti B. at the Aicon Gallery London during a private viewing of his work. He’s energetic, friendly and disarmingly honest. I was stunned when he told me that he was inspired by the French Impressionists whose style he began to emulate in his art back in the late ’50s while living in Paris. As an Indian American living in London, I’m always amazed at see how long established and well developed the South-Asian culture scene is here in contrast to New York.

“The Tournament”

A lot is happening in London this week. Saturday afternoon we visited the grounds and toured the Marlborough House, headquarters of the Commonwealth, as a part of “Open House London”, an annual event which provides the opportunity to visit and view buildings that are normally restricted to the public. The House’s interior reminded me of our castle tour in the Loire Valley. The rooms are styled in a similar fashion with gold wall fixtures, dusty tapestries depicting countryside hunts, urns sitting on fireplaces, and portraits of royalty wearing powdered wigs and fur stoles.

This afternoon we visited the centrepiece of “The London Design Festival”, Jaime H.’s “The Tournament”, an impressively larger-than-life chess board in Trafalgar Square. Needless to say, this experiment in design is more my style than the Marlborough House whose emphasis on maintaining tradition is philosophically antithetical to the design festival’s emphasis on experimentation. Members of the public have the opportunity to play chess against each other, moving the kings, queens, knights and pawns in one of the world’s most popular public spaces. In many ways, “The Tournament” turns the monarchical ideal on its head by allowing people with not necessarily any name, pedigree, connections, etc. to control a chess board of royalty in perhaps the most accessible public space in central London.

Old City

In the Old City we visited La Placa de la Reina where Valencia’s cathedral sits. The cathedral was once a mosque; in fact, Valencia used to be the capital of the Arab kingdom, and it shows in the city’s architecture and city planning.

La Lonja, the Silk Exchange, is a World Heritage UNESCO site. Its Gothic design is stunning; inside are columns and a courtyard filled with orange trees. Outside, however, is what interested me the most about La Lonja. The main entrance, or Puerta de los Pescades (Gate of Sins), is carved with animals that represent the seven deadly sins. In some ways, the gate reminded me of visiting Edinburg’s Roslyn Chapel with all its symbolism and story-telling via its sculptures and design. On the roof are scary-looking gargoyles which overlook central Valencia’s Old City. And, of course, one can’t visit Valencia without trying its signature drink, horchata. I enjoyed a cold cup of the sweet drink made from crushed tiger nuts; it tasted like flavoured soya milk and hit the spot on a hot day sightseeing in Spain.

La Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias

You know you’ve arrived in Spain when the first building you see emerging from the metro is El Corte Ingles, the Spanish equivalent to New York’s Saks Fifth Avenue. As is always the aim when visiting Spain, we immediately made our way to a tapas bar, Casa Vella, where we dined on champinones, a tuna and mozzarella cheese salad, anchovies bathed in olive oil, and bread – simple, fresh and delicious.

Tapas aside, my interest in visiting Valencia stems from a “New Yorker” profile of local architect Santiago C. (Sept. ’08 issue) whose La Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias did for the city what Frank G.’s Guggenheim did for Bilbao. Although Bilbao’s Guggenheim is my favourite museum in the world for its modernist style, manageable collection, and design that resembles the physiology of a human heart, I was prepared to be swept away by La Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias. What I quickly realised upon arriving at the museum was that comparing the two was intellectually irresponsible. Although they are both museums that have done much to reinvigorate the cities in which they reside, that is the extent of their similarities. As the proverbial saying goes, “It would be like comparing apples to oranges.” The Guggenheim is for “grown-ups”; the CAC is clearly designed to accommodate and attract young families. The Guggenheim is compact and the CAC is a sprawling campus which includes a science museum, planetarium, arts venues and an aquarium. The Guggenheim is metallic in hue whereas the CAC is an egg-shell white surrounded by serene pools of water. Whereas one walks through the industrial streets of Bilbao, much has been done to beautify the grounds surrounding the CAC. We took a stroll through the Jardines de Turia, what used to be a river and is now a green park filled with flowers and playgrounds, bicyclists and roller-bladers. The buildings that comprise the CAC are breathtaking and, misleadingly, simple in design. Santiago C. is known for finding his inspiration in the natural world which is obvious when looking at his work. The CAC’s buildings are either simply round or bone-like, all white, and surrounded by pools of green and blue water which add a sense of serenity.

Apart from exploring the complex, we spent much of our time in the Oceanografic, the 2^nd-largest aquarium in the world and the largest in Europe. I surprised myself by which animals I most enjoyed. I love sea life; the oceans are teeming with species we have yet to discover, animals which predate humans and are living records of evolution. Schools of tropical fish in colours that would spur envy from a rainbow swam by, peacefully co-existing with sharks and stingrays. The main attractions were the penguins who stood painfully still with their backs to us as if we were undeserving of their attention; M suggested they were “waiting for Godot”. The beluga whales had mammalian faces and intelligent eyes which threatened to wipe out my literary memory of Moby-Dick. The sharks with their pointed snouts were quiet and stealth, the Mafia of the under-water world.

These animals were beautiful, but the ones I loved watching included the sea horses whose tiny size and shape were unreal; it’s hard to believe they exist in the sea rather than as figments of the imagination, fantastic creatures out of a fairytale. It was lovely spying the sea lions as they slept lazily under the sun like exhausted pre-schoolers at nap time. And, finally, the walruses. Despite their large size (perhaps an average of 6 feet tall) they were the noisiest and most playful creatures in the aquarium. Walruses are ugly. They are large brown creatures that have faces which resemble our country’s Founding Fathers: husky with long whiskers, beady eyes and large jowls. Yet, despite their size, the walruses wrestled with one another for what felt like our benefit, yelped to catch our attention, and swam quickly from one end of the pool to another, behaving as intelligent and playful (and dare I say happy) mammals do.

Hanif K.’s “The Black Album”

Last night we visited the National Theatre to see the stage adaptation of Hanif K.’s novel “The Black Album” (1996) whose title refers to the 1989 Prince album with which the main character, Shahid Hasan, is obsessed. Co-produced by Tara Arts, a long-established South Asian theatre organisation in England which “champions creative diversity through the production, promotion and development of world class, cross-cultural theatre,” the play’s themes are still relevant today despite the book’s original publication more than ten years ago. Shahid, a first-year university student, is a music-loving Pakistani Muslim raised in Kent, England. He moves to London to attend university; there, he has an affair with his professor of “Post-Colonial Literature,” and falls in with the “wrong crowd”: a group of radical Muslim students who tout that all “whites are racist” and wield violence in Allah’s name. K attempts to dramatize the events of 1989: the fall of the Berlin Wall, the impending doom of Communist Russia, the fatwa against Salman Rushdie for his book “The Satanic Verses” (1988) and the popularity of rock music by heretics such as Prince whose ambiguous sexuality and mixed race symbolize the secularism that threatens to distract young Muslims away from Allah.

Alas, the play’s context and the players producing it promise much but deliver very little. Word must have spread because although I expected a big showing of support by South Asians, M and I were two of only a dozen South Asians in the audience. The play is a mess of sexual tensions, racial epithets, allusions to historical events, and philosophical discussions of political discourse, a twister of confusion which threatens to envelope Shahid from his love for music and family who pray for him in Kent.

The scene I enjoyed the most was when Shahid is practicing yoga. One of his new radical Islamist friends implores Shahid to stop his practice because that “Hindu sh-t will fuck your mind” and turn him “into George Harrison.”  As a long-time yoga practioner, I could appreciate how people unfamiliar to yoga might feel threatened by the ancient Hindu practice.

Nina P.’s “Sita Sings the Blues”

I love Nina’s animated film “Sita Sings the Blues.” It’s an entertaining, informative and musical interpretation of the ancient Hindu myth “The Ramayana.”A few days ago I spoke with Nina P. whose movie is a hit on YouTube (where you can see it for free!) and among Indian Americans. I asked her why she’s posted her creative content for free to which she responded that she believes in the free exchange of ideas and information and that consumers should instead pay for the packaging rather than for the content itself. I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the concept of “free” – whether it’s free information, free entertainment, free access to ideas, etc. TED does a fabulous job of providing access to the world’s greatest thinkers for free, a service from which I have enormously benefited. Check out Nina’s movie on YouTube and visit her on her website: http://blog.ninapaley.com/