letter from Soho (Beijing): 3 kinds of smoking

Dear __

what do Chinese do on weekends? Yoga class. At least Baoqing does -- and has invited me to join a noon session. Perhaps I'll go.

My parents are now settled into the nearby Winterless (as it's called) Hotel -- my mother has a mobile phone lent by Baoqing. We installed a new SIM card in it. The phone seemingly can receive calls but not make them. So I'm phoning her from time to time. Experimentally, she seems to have more or less worked out how to send a blank SMS message to me -- which suffices as a cue to phone her. I was playing the notes of Bhairavi on saranghi for some while, and glanced at my phone/watch, noting messages. My mother had (she said) failed to get my call earlier in the morning -- except in fact I didn't phone. So who could have called her? At such point as I have her phone in hand, I can look at missed calls history.

My mother likes to prepare her own meals; my father likes to eat out at restaurants. These patterns are in place whether they are living in their Los Angeles apartment, or staying in a Beijing hotel. My father is happy in the room where there is, right at hand, a computer. For the moment, we're keeping it online all the time (my father is not so versed in doing things like opening a web browser on a PC and calling up URLs) -- the cost for all-day online-ness is not so high. Later, after he gets more used to the computer, we may revert to logging off

I'm in the Purple building of Soho. Soho is the name of a condo complex (and mixed residential/commercial area -- they seem to have appropriated the Soho moniker based on this, in a rather far-fetched linguistic borrowing) in Beijing. XD and BQ live in the Orange building. Each building is the same height and design -- distinguished only by color.

Xiaodong used to work with & hang out in a pu-erh teashop in the Green building, but he seems to have had a parting of ways with those teashop folks (I've not gotten the detailed story); instead, he's using this Purple building office condo for his business development in the sphere of pu-erh tea. He also is connected with the elegant pu'erh teashop that's right off of Tiananmen Square -- near the Forbidden City. We paid a visit there yesterday, and I gave a tin of Dutch cigars as an incidental present to Mr. Gao -- the gentleman more or less in charge of the whole block of buildings (including teashop and fancy restaurant -- as well as the Royal Art Museum where XD is nominally director) adjacent the Forbidden City.

Mr. Gao had joined us for dinner when we dined at the fancy restaurant back in January -- it was there I tried playing the instrument called zheng. But speaking of zheng (a bit like vichitra vina in how it sits horizontally -- but with many more playing strings, one for each note) -- a couple evenings ago, Zhao Tingyang, the philosophy-writer and Kewen (the editor of Life [Shenghou] magazine)'s young daughter played this instrument for us -- she played some 3 or 4 songs. There are interesting forms of meend-like and gamak-like ornamentation in this Chinese classical tradition . . .

Mr. Gao, anyway, has taken to smoking a pipe. XD was smoking a cigarette, and I was smoking a Dutch cigar -- at the teashop. So I told Mr. Gao my theory about smoking. Those who are well settled in life and have a feeling of leisure, may smoke a pipe. Those who are a bit more pressured / busy / anxious, can smoke a cigar. Those who are really harried / on-the-go / nervous, will smoke a cigarette. XD and Mr. Gao laughed. Then Mr. Gao told me his own theory. He said that a pipe is like one's wife. A cigar is like an affair with a lover. A cigarette resembles a prostitute. (It is not uncommon among Chinese to pass around a cigarette from one person to another. A cigar requires a special atmosphere to enjoy it. A pipe can be a constant companion, and is never shared.) He said that he told his wife this analysis. She then bought him a pipe to smoke. So perhaps my gift of Dutch cigars was superfluous.

letter from Bhopal

[exerpted from a reply-eamil addressed to a Bombay friend]

dear X,

delightful to have your note. Sometime I'd like to visit Baroda (simply an idea -- no real plan). Quite hot in Bhopal today as well. I just returned from a delightfully philosophical lecture given (at Bharat Bhavan) by Kumar Shahani. And I'd been absorbed for the past day or two with helping Sangeeta prepare a few audio materials Kumar had requested -- her recitation from brief texts of the Upanishads, and (this morning) CD copies of songs by Sideshwari Devi [all of which he used in his lecture. I also videotaped the lecture -- which occasioned banter regarding copyright and whatnot. But later, amid lecture, he remarked interestingly on the problem of how the represented thing -- sometimes, these days, real-time -- has, in our techno-culture -- started to eclipse in weight the original itself. Which might be a paradoxical remark to flow from a filmmaker -- yet a meaningful one]. Regrettably, I have not as yet seen any of Kumar Shahani's films. Regardless, the lecture was both delightful and, one can say, nutritious.

I seem to be making a bit of progress with the saranghi -- have anyway progressed to practicing a couple of bandishes [songs] and slightly more complex exercises, rather than the bare musical scales. Progress with vocal music [my study of dhrupad] is perhaps a bit slower at the moment -- what with video and painting, my vocal practice time has been a bit minimized.

/ / /

I also have a lot of travel ahead. 1st June I go by train to Bangalore, then plane to Bangkok. I have to leave India (for visa reasons), and this flight was inexpensive -- and Thailand is said to be very easy (no red tape) in terms of the visa for American tourists. At any rate, I'll be over there for a week, and a couple days in Bangalore, then back to Bhopal mid-June.

But early in July, I'll be flying off to China, to meet my parents there. My mother, who has been diagnosed with cancer (though she is not in pain or suffering symptoms) has been taking a lot of acupuncture treatments in Los Angeles. I suggested we go to China, where such treatments are cheaper -- and where there is quite a wealth of traditional herbal medical knowledge for treating such conditions. My good friends in Beijing will be hosting us three -- and arranging contacts with physicians -- and we'll be there till the end of July. Then I fly with them back to LA, and I'll spend from 3-6 weeks (or something) in the United States, before returning to Bhopal.

But even then, my time back here will be truncated -- soon enough (by start of October if not sooner) I'll be spending a few weeks in Calcutta (where there will be an exhibition of Bengali paintings that -- surprisingly and nicely -- I've been asked to write an essay about, and I may make some kind of short video on, too) -- work of current-generation painters there.

Then -- I think I was discussing this with you early on ... -- I've fairly well decided to try spending my winter (at least December & January) in Bombay, where I can attend classical-music concerts at night and pursue oil painting during the day. My notion is to sublet an apartment somewhere perhaps in or near Andheri. I had an enjoyable visit with the film producer Praveen Kumar when I was in Mumbai last -- and he suggested maybe I can sublet his place, or someone else's around there (this is Goregaon). Which is one possibility. I really liked the atmosphere on the sea coast at Andheri West, however, and might see if I can find something over there. At any rate, December seems a long ways away.

My flight for Beijing leaves from Bombay the evening of 5 July. I plan to come a few days earlier, staying again at Cuffe Parade, and I'll spend some time exploring art galleries there. I also hope to videotape an interview with the saranghi maestro, Pandit Ram Narayan. He suggested we can do this after he returns from his current European/Canadian/US tour (which will be by mid- or late-June).

In terms of painting, I've progressed to a larger canvas than I'd been doing here -- one in progress for the past few weeks (perhaps near completion) is 20x40 inches.

Another change, is that I expect to relocate from this Lakeside abode to the countryside Gurukul [music school], sometime after getting back from Thailand. Except this is a kind of hypothetical move, since in fact I'll barely be spending more than a few weeks in Bhopal between now and next February, as things look (per the above).

So, there's the quasi-full report. :-)