Journal - 12/9 - 12/13 in Chennai

12/9 - Chennai Roof Party

On Tuesday night there was a big party at Sai's place - the Chennai Scottish Dancers came over for dinner and dancing on the roof. It had been raining all day off and on and Sai was worried about the weather. If it rained we could dance inside but there was some concern about the food, as Sai's family was vegetarian and there was chicken with dinner which could not come into the house. Luckily, the rain cleared up enough and we were able to meet on the roof terrace.

People started coming around 8, but Sai had already given me some very nice scotch so by the time they arrived my party had already begun. Weena (pronouced "Veena") and her husband Girish came first and their warm smiles are still etched in my mind. I am usually very shy at parties but I never felt that way in India. Everyone was so welcoming, from the moment we stepped off the plane. We felt that we were good friends with everyone we met. More guests arrived and more drinks were served. Nalini was there - she is a petite, cute, powerful ball of energy and looks way too young to have a daughter in her 20s.

Eventually, the dancing began. It turns out that they are going to do some exhibit dances at our concert at the Cricket Club so they were eager to practice. Most of their very experienced dancers are either out of town, (including Sai's wife, Lakshmi), or slightly out of commision (Gopal still healing up from surgery and Sai still not feeling his best), so many of them hadn't been dancing long. So we ran through the dances that they were going to do and we played a couple of others that were taught to the new dancers and everyone had a great time. We took a break for dinner around 10 and then they wanted to have a jam session, which meant that people wanted to sing songs like "Que Sera, Sera" and "Scarborough Fair". Let me tell you that after traveling so far and having such little sleep, sitting on a rooftop in Madras singing Simon and Garfunkle was a bit surreal, to say the least!

Larry and I weren't as up on the pop tunes as we could have been, but luckily one of the dancers, Sushil, brought his guitar and loves to sing, so he did a bunch of songs including "Feelings" and "Feliz Navidad". People stayed until midnight and it was a wonderful party. I'll never forget our first full night in India!

12/10 - Chennai, Race Club

This morning we ate breakfast with Sai's mom and Lakshmi's parents, who had brought breakfast up from their flat. We ate hot cereal, both rice-based and one flavored with curry and spices and the other with jageri, unrefined sugar. We also had some little bananas - so sweet! And of course coffee. The food was delicious and the father kept urging Larry to eat more. We ate with Lakshmi's parents but Sai's mom sat in a chair nearby, as she had the previous morning. And a maid was there, making coffee in the kitchen and chatting with everyone.

After breakfast we rehearsed the music for the wedding while Sai's mom listened. We felt bad, because we were really practicing and starting and stopping a lot and working out chords, but hopefully it didn't sound too bad! Eventually, a car from Media Mix came to collect us and they took us over to the Race Club to settle in.

The city clubs are sort of high-end community centers that require memberships and offer great facilities, like pools, tennis courts, etc depending on the club. Each one had a restaurant and a few guest rooms where members could stay the night. Someone in the Scottish dance community was a member at each club where we played, and each club put us up for the night after our show.

Anyhow, we got to the Race Club and went up to our room - it was really nice but smoky! Apparently, smoking in public places was outlawed in India just two weeks before we got there, so the last guests must have been making up for it in their room. Anyhow, we left our bags there and then the driver took us back to the mall so I could pick up my clothes. Traffic was awful! We got there at last and the driver waited for about 90 minutes while I tried on my things and had them altered. It was too tight at first so they asked me to come back in 30 minutes while it was fixed! Larry and I went to eat lunch in the food court, where we had dosas, and wandered around a bit. I went back and tried on my dress again and it was still too tight. At this point the shop owners yelled at the seamstress, which made me cringe - after all they hadn't even been pinning the dress, so I didn't see how they could possibly nail it the first time. But no one there seemed to find it unusual. They asked me to come back again in 30 minutes and I did and everything fit just fine.




Then, back to the Race Club for a sound check. Our sound man's name is Nelson and he is great! He'll be working with us at all of our shows, and he is so pleasant and quick and has really good ears. We feel really lucky to get to work with him.









This concert was out in a courtyard with a big marble floor set up with tables and chairs. The stage looked great - Lavanya had designed a back drop for us, which was white with shiny things on it and a blue sash. Danha, Nalini's business partner, came up to us during our sound check and told us to play for about an hour and that he would set up the lights. Cool!

We snatched a quick nap and then got ready and went out at about 7:30. "Go rest," Danha said, "Someone will get you when it is time." The concert was supposed to start at 8. When they were finally ready for us Lavanya made an announcement saying that we would play Scottish music and we went on to a smattering of applause.

It was so hard to know if we were going over well! We were up pretty high and felt far away from the audience, and the bright lights made it hard to see their faces. So we had no idea if people were enjoying it or responding to our stories at all. We played for about an hour, doing our usual stuff, then said something about playing a couple more tunes. Just as we were getting ready to launch into our last number Lavanya came up and pulled me aside and asked if we could play some "easy listening" music as we had done at the party the night before! Ack!!

We thought fast and came up with "You Send Me", "Bei Mir bist du Schon" and "Rte 66". The crowd didn't go wild, but when we came off stage we got lots of compliments and a little boy ran up and asked for our autographs, so that made us feel better. Nalini and co were thrilled and so were the sponsors. Whew!

It was 9:30, so we put our stuff in our room and went back out for dinner, which was lovely North Indian food, chicken tikka for us non-vegs and rice and dal and naan. When we first went out Nalini asked us to sit with her and her husband, Radha, and Weena, but then we were taken to meet the sponsors for that show, who invited us to sit with them. We hesitated, but Nalini said, "we'll all sit with you," so we went back to Weena and Radha and asked them to come sit with the sponsors. "Oh, just sit down and they'll forget about us eventually," Weena said, "we want to relax." So we did, and Nalini came back eventually and the sponsors came over and said goodnight and it seemed like we had done the right thing. Funny!

Nalini's husband, Radha, is quite a guy! Apparently, he is acting with a professional company performing "The Importance of Being Ernest" in bangalore. He has also played pro golf here - apparently there is a yearly match between Bangalore and Chennai that has been going on since the 1800s, the oldest in the world, "even older than St. Andrew's" we were told, impressively. We finally said goodnight around 11 and I was so happy to sleep - it was my first night of good sleep since we arrived and I was exhausted.

12/11 - Chennai, MCC

Today we woke up late, around 10, and will soon be picked up and taken to our next club, the Madras Cricket Club (MCC). I just remembered one more funny thing about our show last night. It was a beautiful evening, with a big moon and some stars. Lots of planes were going over low, so we must have been on a flight path near the airport. But the whole time we were playing there was a quiet construction project going on just a few yards to the left of the stage. People were clearning out baskets of earth from an open concrete room that was being built, working by the light of a strong spotlight. It was so bizarre to watch them while I played, and it was a really interesting contrast.

After the car picked us up from the Race Club we went over to Media Mix again. The office is right next door to Nalini's house, where they live with her mother-in-law and Lavanya. They also have several live-in servants, including a cook and a couple of maids and a driver. They also own a house across the street, where Nalini's parents live. Her son manages that property, I think. Anyhow, having servants seems to be the norm for people who are well-off here, and many of them tell us that it is one of the great advantages of moving back to India after living in the US for a long time.

We ate lunch with Nalini's family. They served rice and many vegetable dishes, including green beans with lentils, a curry dish, and a broth with lots of ginger in it that was really yummy. There was also yogurt with rice in it, which is a very traditional way to end meals in South India. The food was served on big plates and the rice was used to sop up the other dishes, because for the most part people eat with their right hands here. It can be tricky to do this without making a mess if you aren't used to it! But by today we were getting fairly comfortable breaking bread with one hand.

After lunch Nalini took us over to the Kalakshetra Dance School, which is one of the most famous dance schools in the world. The grounds are lovely, very peaceful with lots of classrooms nestled in between the trees, and a huge theatre. Students come from all over the world to study traditional music and dance here, the main focus being on Carnatic music, which is South Indian classical music. We watched a dance class for a while, then went to the theatre where a rehearsal was going on for a show coming up on Saturday night. It was so amazing! There were several musicians, including two singers, a drummer, a fiddler, a flute player, and a synthesized drone. When we entered there were two male dancers on the stage, but as the rehearsal progressed we saw several women dancing as well. Every motion was so rhythmic and it seemed that even the smallest gestures were in time and with a purpose. I could have watched for hours, but we were only able to stay for a short time. We went out to meet the car and go back to Nalini's place for a short run-through of the Scottish dances for our evening show. Her house is in the same neighborhood as the Kalakshetra school, so luckily it was a very short drive. The streets near the house are really interesting, lined with shops with open fronts and busy with all kinds of traffic. I love to see the motorcyles go by with women in beautiful sarees...it's such a great contrast of tradition with contemporary living!

The MCC show went really well -the stage was low and much closer to the audience, and the place was packed. On the other hand, the concert room backed right up to the bar, so there was lots of background noise. The Scottish dancers did their demos and they went really well, including the party dances where they invited the audience to participate. But it was a long night - near 11 when we finally packed up. This time we had Indian Chinese food for dinner, which was much better than American Chinese food. Nalini ordered several whisky's for me, as one of our sponsors for all of the shows was Black Dog Whisky, and insisted on getting a beer for Larry, even though he really doesn't drink much at all. So after that and our big day we were really ready for bed...

12/12 - Chennai, Presidency Club

Neither one of us slept well, although the room was really nice and very comfortable. (By the way, it is standard here for the rooms to have two single beds in them rather than one bigger one.) We ordered some coffee and went out to watch the match...because the MCC is part of the big stadium and we were in town for some of the India/England test matches. Very exciting!

We walked across the terrace and into the stands. England was at bat, so we were told that it wasn't as crowded as usual. But there were thousands of people there. It was fun to watch but really confusing as we knew nothing about the game. There were food vendors just outside the stadium, so we bought some biryanis (rice with veggies mixed in) and ate while we watched. After an hour or so some of the hotel attendants came in and found us because the car was ready for us! Clearly, we needed to figure out our timing. Every day we were told that the car would come at a certain time, but no matter how prepared we were to leave on time we were always called much earlier than expected. Hmm...

Dahna met us and took us out for South Indian food. He first suggested that we go to Subway, because he was worried that Indian food might not be good for us, but we insisted that we loved Indian food and that we wanted to try everything we could while we were there. It was great - very similar to what we had for lunch at Nalini's house, and we were getting much better at eating with our hands.

After lunch he dropped us off at the Theosophical Society. We had been wanting to get out and walk ever since we got to Chennai, but whenever we got ready to do so a car would appear for us from Media Mix. I think that if people have cars or drivers here they go by car, so walking just wasn't done unless necessary.

The Theosophical Society is a sort of retreat center for all types of beliefs, and the grounds are lovely. We were amazed at how much the city disappeared inside, just like at Kalakshetra. Chennai is a noisy city, but inside the walls of these grounds one could hardly hear traffic at all, and certainly couldn't see the city at all. I wish that American parks could achieve that somehow - it seems that even in the most lovely city parks the noise and presence of the city is still there.

I love the banyan trees with all of their roots coming up in new places. There is one at the Theosophical Society where 3000 people can sit under it's boughs. Amazing! We wandered all over the place for a couple of hours. At one point we were on a path and we heard a man yelling, "hey" - we looked up right into the eyes of an ox that was pulling a cart around the corner! I've never been ousted from a path by an ox before.

The driver came and picked us up when the park closed and we went over to the Presidency Club for our sound check. I loved the location of this show.

The club is right in the middle of a busy part of Chennai, but it seems very peaceful. Our concert was on a roof terrace overlooking the city, with a lovely breeze and the moon coming up just over the stage. We were on another high stage, though, and the audience was really far away from us again, so that was difficult. We played for about an hour and got a polite response. But after we had unplugged and were packing up Nalini came running up and told us that everyone wanted to hear more and couldn't we play a bit longer. So we took our instruments and went right up to the crowd and played acoustically for a while, and that was really nice. The night's big hit was "Dodi Li" - we were asked to repeat it! Other favorites seemed to be "Dream and Little Dream of Me" and "Rte 66".
In fact, someone at the MCC concert told us that it was the best night he'd ever had at the club in his 30 years of membership. So I guess we were making a hit, even though the audience didn't respond with the same show of enthusiasm that we are used to.

After the show we sat around visiting for a bit but with the drinks they served us and it being so late we were really hungry! So we finally went and got some food from the buffet, even though the plan was supposedly that we would leave with Nalini and go out right after the concert. She wasn't a member of this club and so she couldn't host people there and she had relatives from the US in town that night. We were really tired, so were happy to stay and have dinner at the club and so she went off to be with her family and we visited with some of our new friends from the audience. They were all very concerned about leaving us alone, but of course we were just as happy to sit and have a quiet evening to ourselves...even so, not one of our friends could leave until they were assured that someone else was looking out for us, and we were invited several times to go out for dinner after that. The place was clearing out and we were just getting ready to go back to our room when a man came up and asked if we would join his party. So we went over to sit with them - they were funny and tipsy and very nice. They kept scolding us for not visiting all of the other amazing cities in India while at the same time assuring us that to be in Chennai for several days was by far the best plan. Eshwar, the one who had invited us over, insisted that the next time we come we call him and he'll book a tour for us. After a while another man came over and joined us and it turned out that he was the president of the club! He was really kind and we had a lovely visit with our new friends.

12/13 - Chennai, Boat Club

Today we got up and ordered dosas for breakfast, then the car came and took us over to Media Mix. We are waiting for Nalini's mother-in-law, who is going to go with us to a temple nearby. Meanwhile, we've been reading the paper and checking email. I just read an article about how an air traffic controller here recently told a pilot to "shut up", causing general tension over the airwaves and the industry. His boss said that the air traffic controllers are all under a lot of pressure but that is no excuse for such behavior, and that they are all going to be sent to yoga sessions. If only solutions like that were proposed in the US!

Incidentally, even though traffic here is totally nuts no one seems to stress about it. I have yet to see any sign of road rage, although there is tons of honking, swerving, cutting off, and occasional "taps" between motorcycles. But no one gets mad. It is much less frenetic than China and way less pressurized than in the US or UK.