Mumbai January 5

The last leg of my India trip was Mumbai. My overnight bus from Hyderabad arrived only at 2:30 pm, hours late. As a result I had to restrict the plans I had for the day to a visit to the ITREB Centre, which I reached only around 4:00 pm. I had come to the Ismaili Tariqa and Religious Education Board Centre, the administrative office for the educational programs in India of the Nizari Ismaili community, the followers of the Aga Khan, to say hello to the people there, as I have done on a number of previous occasions. A number of the participants in a three-week program at the Henry Martyn Institute continue to work there. At the Centre I spent my time writing two recommendation letters for students who had been participants in the 2005 program at the Henry Martyn Institute; over the years I have written a number of recommendation letters for them.

The 2005 students who are still working at the Mumbai ITREB Centre

That evening I went to a restaurant for dinner with one of those students, Khairunnissa and her husband Rahim. Then at 10:00 I headed to the airport for my early morning flight back to Germany. There were delays in getting all of the passengers checked in and through security, so the flight left late.

Hyderabad January 2-4

My train arrived at the Secunderabad station at 9:15 pm on Monday January 1 and after walking around a bit, I took an autorickshaw to Abids in the center of Hyderabad. I checked into the Hotel Anmol International at 10:30. The hotel is just a block away from where I used to live, across from the Public Gardens. My hotel room was disappointingly poor. For some bizarre reason, the builders had left a gap in the floor along one wall directly above the lobby one floor down. As a result all the noise of the lobby came into my room loud and clear.

The next morning, Tuesday January 2, I walked around the Public Gardens and Abids area. I ended up at the Big Bazaar shopping mall, where I bought a suitcase. In one sign of Hyderabad’s economic development, McDonald’s has now arrived in the city. KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) has been around for a few years.

The McDonalds outlet in Abids

At 11:00 I checked out of the hotel and went to Timothy Marthand’s place in Banjara Hills. Timothy Marthand is the world-class concert pianist, with whom I have stayed during my past few trips to Hyderabad. His parents, with whom he lives, run a music school. Also staying in the house was Shanely Niemi, who has been in Hyderabad for a couple of years and is training as a singer. As we chatted, Timothy told me his latest news that the German arts TV channel is making a documentary about him. They had just finished filming for a first brief promo. The three of us went out for lunch and I did some more shopping. That evening they had some dinner guests and Shanely sang some lieder from Robert Schumann’s Frauenliebe cycle to Timothy’s piano accompaniment.

Timothy and Shanely performing

The next day, Wednesday January 3, the three of us went to Barristas, Timothy’s favorite coffee place, where we met a family for conversation. We then went to a newly opened fancy Japanese restaurant, where we were joined by Shanely’s voice instructor from Poland. We returned to Timothy’s place and I sat in on Shanely’s voice lesson for a bit. Later I had a chat with her voice instructor and also listened to Timothy play for a while and chatted with some friends who had stopped by.

The next day, Thursday January 4, I got up early and went to Christy Femila’s near-by apartment to go to the Henry Martyn Institute campus. Christy is one of my former students who received her Masters degree from Luther Seminary. We also picked up Shobha Gosa who had recently finished her Masters program at Oxford University and is now working for HMI again. We arrived at HMI in time for devotions at 9:45, after which I chatted with people, in particular Qadeer Khawaja, the Islamic studies professor at the institute. HMI now has a wireless internet connection throughout the building, so I spent some time browsing the internet. I had lunch in the hostel cafeteria. Diane D’Souza was also around at HMI that day and in the afternoon she gave a presentation about her doctoral thesis.

Diane D’Souza giving her presentation

Shobha at her new desk

At 4:00 I went with Vijay Shastry to his nearby apartment to talk over what to do with the remaining stack of my personal papers that are there. At 5:30 I returned with Christy and Shobha to the city and packed back at Timothy’s house. That evening I took an overnight bus to Mumbai.

Vijayawada December 31-January 1

On the next leg of my travels, my train arrived in Vijayawada at 12:15 pm. I had passed by Vijayawada a few times on a train, but I had never stopped in the city. So after checking into a hotel, I walked around the city for a few hours. The city holds no special appeal. I also hired a car and driver for a trip to the famous early Buddhist site of Amaravathi the next day. I did not do anything special for New Year’s Eve.

New Years greetings on a street in Vijayawada

The next morning January 1, I met my driver at 8:30 am. We first stopped at the Undavalli Buddhist rock-cut caves outside of Vijayawada. Such rock-cut caves are common-place in India and typically have rich sculptures in the interior. That makes them rather more interesting than the famous Nabatean rock-cut tombs in Petra, which have spectacular facades but only bare interiors.

The Undavalli caves

The Buddha carving in the interior

We then proceed to Amaravathi. I first went to the main Hindu temple, and then went to the archaeology museum. and the adjacent Buddhist stupa.

The Amaravathi archaeology museum

Next to the museum is the major Buddhist stupa. Curiously, the stupa was lined with small plastic cups for some sort of ritual observance.

The stupa at Amaravathi

The cups lining the stupa

Back in Vijayawada at 1:15, I walked around the city some more, before returning to the train station, where I took a train to Hyderabad that left at 4:15 pm.

Vishakapatnam December 29-30

My flight arrived in Vishakapatnam at 8:15 am. I was met by a driver, who took me to Rani Sarma’s house. I had gotten to know Rani through our mutual interests in Hyderabad’s heritage and I had helped her with her book about the palaces of Hyderabad, which was published in 2008 under the title, The Deodhis of Hyderabad. Her husband was formerly the principal of the Administrative Staff College in Hyderabad, but they are now living in nominal retirement in Vishakapatnam. Rani is now working on two related studies on the early Buddhist presence along the coast of Andhra Pradesh near Vishakapatnam and on maritime trade, so during my two previous visits, they had taken me to see a few of the many nearby early Buddhist sites.

As we were chatting, Rani remembered that on one of my earlier visits, I had spoken about my family background and how my mother’s family lays claim to having the longest-lasting family round-robin letter, which was started in the late 19th century. Rani decided that the people of Vishakapatnam would want to know about this, so she called up a reporter from The Hindu newspaper. The reporter came right away, and so I soon found myself explaining this bit of family history, all the while wondering whether this was really newsworthy. The article, which gets some things garbled, came out in the January 1 Andhra Pradesh edition of The Hindu. It can easily be found be googling “Schick” and “Hindu”.

In the afternoon we went on an excursion to a site north of Vishakapatnam, where a stream flows into the ocean. It would be a prime spot for a port settlement. I did not see much of anything to point to an ancient site there, although apparently the locals bulldozed two large mounds not too long ago.

Fishermen along the coast

For the next day, Wednesday December 30, Rani had organized another trip to visit a Buddhist site with the district archaeologist, but he had to cancel at the last minute. So Rani and I went on our own to visit Bheemunipatnam, an excavated early Buddhist site north of Vishakapatnam. In the 16th century the Dutch had built a residence on the hill top.

Rani Sarma at one of the early Buddhist stupas at Bheemunipatnam, with the Dutch residence in the background.

Rani with a Buddhist sculpture

On the next morning December 31, I took the 6:00 am train from Vishakapatnam to Vijayawada.

Kolkata December 28

On Monday December 28, I got up at 6:00 to leave early, only to find that the gate to the PCI building was locked. I was unable to climb over the fence, so I had to get the building administrator to open the gate up. I then left at 6:30 and walked to Troop Bazaar and got a private car to take me to the airport in Guwahati.

After about 15 minutes, I realized that between failing to climb the PCI fence and rousing the building administrator, I had gone back to my room and taken my waist pouch off, which I then proceeded to leave behind. So I had to return to the PCI building to pick it up. That meant that I ended up leaving Shillong only at 7:30. But that was not a problem since the trip to Guwahati in a private car was quick and under three hours, so I arrived at the airport at 10:15 with plenty of time to spare.

I was able to use the internet at the airport, before passing through security. The security check was extraordinarily chaotic and crowded and I was so focused on trying to understand why the security person was freaking out about my waist pouch that I got distracted and left behind my laptop computer at the x-ray machine. Fortunately, I realized that after about five minutes, so I was able to retrieve it without any problem.

After that second totally scatter-brained episode of the day, things went better. The flight left a bit late at 12:40 pm and arrived in Kolkata at 2:30. I put my bag in storage and walked around the airport area before taking a taxi at 4:00 to the Howrah train station, which took an hour and 15 minutes due to heavy traffic congestion. I walked around the city center for a while, before returning to the Howrah station later that evening. Rather than check into a hotel, I decided to hang out at the train station. I slept for a few hours stretched out on the floor, like a lot of other people, and kept myself entertained by listened as always to podcasts on my iPhone.

At 4:00 am I took a taxi from the Howrah Station back to the airport, which without traffic took 15 minutes. I got my bag out of storage and checked in for my flight to Vishakapatnam, which took off at 6:35.

Shillong December 26-27

On Saturday December 26 the special Christmas events continued. But first in the morning I went to Troop Bazaar to get some more photo prints made and then went to an internet place near the PCI building, where I bumped into Sony. I went with her to the nearby hostel for women that she is in charge of; the residents, mostly college students, were all away back home in Mizoram over the Christmas holiday, so Sony had moved into a room at the PCI building for a few days. Sony was a classmate of Zovi and Terini, my HMI student, at Aizawl Theological College in Mizoram.

Sony at the entrance to her hostel building

In the afternoon I went to a 1:30 church service, after which there was a fellowship meeting where some community orphans performed.

The orphans

Then came the big annual community dinner at the church. The meal consisted of rice with various chunks of mystery meat and innards that I did not find very appetizing.

The line up for the community dinner

Zovi on the left and Sony on the right with me at the community dinner

After the dinner, Zovi, Sony and I joined Rev. Pachuau’s family for further chatting in his apartment.

The next day December 27 was a Sunday, so there was the usual church service at 10:00. Over the past week, I had been to more than enough church services, all of which were completely in Mizo. But during the fellowship times, I had a number of interesting conversations with church members who spoke English well, and everybody was very welcoming.

The Presbyterian Mizo Church in Shillong

After the service I joined the fellowship for a while before I went to Zovi’s place, where we chatted for a while, later joined by Sony.

The back side of Zovi’s place

After we had lunch, we three went to the PCI building, where I paid my guest room bill, while they went shopping. At 4:00 we went back to Zovi’s place, some 15 minutes walk from the PCI building, where they cooked dinner. At one point the accumulating steam inside the chili peppers caused them to explode, with a couple landing on the floor. The exploding chili peppers released pungent fumes that provoked a bout of coughing and sneezing until the fumes dissipated.

Zovi and Sony cooking the exploding chili peppers

After the dinner, we watched an Indian league football match on TV. It seems that a couple of Mizo players are on one of the teams, so Zovi is a fan. We then said our goodbyes and I returned to the PCI building and packed for my early departure next morning.

Shillong December 24-25

On Thursday December 24, my day started off with relief when Rev. Pachuau was kind enough to go to a nearby taxi station to retrieve my cell phone that had dropped out of my jacket pocket in the van we were in yesterday. After that problem was resolved, I did some sightseeing in the morning. I went with his two sons to the Don Bosco Ethnographic Museum only to find it closed on Christmas Eve. We then went to a butterfly museum, which was open, and then went to the public library, which also was closed.

The Butterfly Museum

After that excursion I walked around the city and went to the main Roman Catholic cathedral. It was recently painted blue and had a nice Stations of the Cross processional way.

The Roman Catholic Cathedral

One of the Stations of the Cross

I also went to an internet place, got some prints made from the photographs of the past two days, and bought some more video CDs at Planet M in Troop Bazaar. That evening I went with Rev. Lalramliana Pachuau’s family to the Mizo church for a service at 7:00, followed by carol singing and a communal meal until 10:45. That evening for me was the highlight of the Christmas holiday.

The next day, Christmas, I joined Rev. Pachuau’s family for breakfast. We then went to a church service at 10:00. After the service ended at 11:15 I picked up the photo prints that I had ordered yesterday and returned to the church in time for the second service at 1:30, which ended at 3:00. After tea I went to Rev. Pachuau’s apartment for dinner, before leaving for a service at another Mizo church in another part of the city at 6:00. The temperatures there were hovering just above freezing. After the service we had tea and then made a social visit. I got another nice shot of Rev. Pachuau and his wife Marovi on that occasion.

Rev. Lalramliana Pachuau and his wife Marovi. Note the charcoal heater at their feet

That evening back at the PCI guest room, I copied onto my laptop computer a number of video CDs of the popular Mizo Gospel singer Lalruotmawi that I had borrowed from Rev. Pachuau. Getting some CDs of her music was one of my objectives in the trip, since my father finds her music particularly attractive. She sings her Gospel songs to American Country-Western-style music; some samples can be found on Youtube. In the Presbyterian Mizo church services I have been to, however, they sing hymns to more traditional Mizo melodies, using the tonic solfa method of notation. The Mizo language is written using the Latin alphabet. One of the few words of Mizo that I have learned is “Lal”, meaning Lord or King, and is used in many personal names.