A Rainy Day in Jaipur

Turban Covered by Shower Cap

Waheeda Rehman (in Center)

Our Palace at Night

Patio Open to Sky

Peanut Masala

Butter Chicken Jerra Rice

John is doing much better. He is deep in planning his travel itinerary home. He will probably leave Mumbai on Monday for SF. If you want to send an email to John, his email is: johnNsf@gmail.com.

When we awoke it was raining here in the Rajasthan desert. We kept checking the Internet to see if they were cancelling the day’s activities. The greatest Literary event in Asia decided: the show must go on. We grabbed our umbrellas and headed out to shop. We live by the motto “I was always regret the things I didn’t buy”. There was a vest Cathy had tried on a few days earlier and she wanted to return to the store to buy it. The first hour choice of sessions at the literary festival didn’t appeal to us, so while the rain was at its worse we skipped that first hour and went back to the store to get the vest. It was then on to the literary festival.

The venues had to be changed because some of the tents had flat roofs and were unsafe. It was a mad scramble to figure out where and when panels would be held. We managed to secure seats in the tent that had the speakers we wished to hear.

The first panel was with Ashwin Sanghi, he wrote a detective novel, Private India, both Cathy and I had read it. It was written in conjunction with James Patterson. It actually isn’t in our opinion, very good, I can’t recommend it. He is however a very funny speaker. He speaks with a lot of aphorisms. My favorite being: Politics comes from two Greek words: “Poly” meaning many and “ticks” meaning blood suckers. It was a light and fun session, more entertaining than elucidating.

The next session we wanted to hear was in the same tent, so we kept our dry seats for a session entitled: “Pakistan on the Brink”. What a session it was! The panelists were fabulous: Anatol Lieven a professor specializing in Pakistan, Khurshid Kasuri the former Pakistan foreign minister, Ahmed Rashid, author of 5 highly acclaimed books on Pakistan and G. Parthasarthy, the former Indian diplomat and High Commissioner for Pakistan. The moderator was excellent. I can’t possibly do justice to the discussion, but there was a general feeling that: The US leaving Iraq and Afghanistan is a good thing; it will force those countries to sort things out on their own. The Taliban must be accommodated to some extent into the political process. The bombing of the school that killed 150 students, many of them children of the military families, has united the non-Taliban parts of Pakistan to take on the militant parts of the Taliban. India and Pakistan have fought 3 wars. Currently they are not talking. The majority of the panel thought they should be, a minority stated you can’t talk while bullets are flying (as they are now in Kashmir and along the Pakistan – Indian border). Remember these are two nuclear-armed countries – the issues must be solved. It was a great stimulating panel.

The next panel that interested us was to be held in the same venue. But unfortunately for us, an interview with an author we never heard of preceded the panel. We decided, however, to remain in our seats, for we knew if we gave them up, we would never find seats for the following session. What a wise decision it turned out to be! One of the joys of the Jaipur Literary Festival is to serendipitously stumble onto an author who you would never have experienced and to have a new world open up.

Alberto Manguel is an Argentinean born intellectual and literary icon. He comes from a literary family. He collects books and lives in Southern France with a private library of over 40,000 books. As a child he was selected to be a reader to the blind writer and poet: Jorge Luis Borges. What a fantastic experience reading to and listening to the great Borges. His latest book is: A History of Reading. He is a marvelous, humorous raconteur.

He starts with the proposition that an author writes what he can, a reader reads what he wants. He humorously stated that: he does not like to lend books from his library, he feels it encourages theft. He discussed that transition of media from clay tablets, to written scrolls, to books and e-readers. Although Amazon is a sponsor of the Literary Festival he encouraged people to buy from independent books stores. It was a great session. I will buy his book.

The next session was with Waheeda Rehman, a much loved Bollywood icon who, although in her 70's is still radiant. The audience went wild with appreciation. She worked with many of the greatest directors of Indian Cinema and told stories about her career. We have only seen a few of her movies, but the audience knew them all. As she entered the tent they played to great audience cheering one of the famous songs from her movies. Quite a grand entrance.

The rain was subsiding, but we were getting cold and tired and we decided to go back to the Raj Palace for lunch then return later to the Festival for the final panel that interested us.

This turned out to be a crackerjack event. We loved it. This year a Hindi movie, Haider captivated us – we saw it twice. It is an adaption of Shakespeare’s  Hamlet set in 1980 in war torn Kashmir. Commonly thought of as the most beautiful part of all India, the state has been torn asunder  by Kashmiri independence movements and disputes between the Pakistani and India armies. The director Vishal Bhardwaj and the writer Basharat Peer have taken the main elements of Hamlet and tried to do justice to both Shakespeare and Kashmir. Tim Supple is theater director who specializes in Shakespeare and stages his plays all over the world. He emphatically does not believe in adaptation of Shakespeare. He believes it can be reinterpreted but must be true to its original words. The final panelist was Jerry Brotton a professor from London specializing in Shakespeare. The discussion was extremely lively. The session was a joy. See the movie Haider the and decide for your self.

The sky had cleared the rain had ceased and we returned to our hotel for drinks and dinner.

Festival Day 1

Naseeruddin Shah (on the right)

Elephant walking down Jaipur Street

Our new Suite at the Raj Palace

Where are the other dinners?

Tandoori Chicken, Vegetable Biriyani, Dal

John is doing better. The hospital doctors feel they can release him this weekend. He has been advised that it would be best for him to return home to the States rather than try to join us. He is a wizard of trying to figure out best fares and is keeping himself busy trying to figure out the best business class fare from Bombay to SF. He needs to fly with lie flat seats. Interestingly, Haparin, the blood thinner injection, given to people at risk for Deep Vein Thrombosis, only lasts for 12 hours (not sufficient for a 24 hour or so flight home). Apparently there is a pill form that you can take, which he will be given. This brings up the question: why does anyone get a shot if they can take a pill? Maybe we will find out the answer. If you want to send an email to John, his email is: johnNsf@gmail.com.

The Jaipur Literary Festival kicked off today, with drums and horns, singing and speeches. Finally after all the opening ceremonies ended the actual panels began. Each hour there are 5 different panels going on simultaneously. You pick the one you are interested and go find a seat. If you get bored or it turns out the entire discussion is in Hindi or Urdu, you get up and join another panel mid-session. Over the next 5 days they expect over 250,000 people to attend! Being that it is a literary festival, it really doesn’t lend itself to pictures. Diggi Palace has spacious grounds. Huge tents are erected providing different venues. A few of the events are held in conference rooms that open to the lawns. The entire venue is under security with lots of police standing around looking quite bored. Most of the venues have large screen video monitors so you can see the speakers all the way from the back. The sound system is excellent. There are many sponsors of this event, one of the big ones in Amazon. They are pushing Kindles and have an actual bookstore onsite.

3 poets split up the convocation this year. One spoke for 20 minutes or so all in Hindi. The other two spoke in English. Gist of the two that I listened to: Poetry is essential and gets to human truths. Vijay Seshadari, of Indian origin who immigrated to the US as a child, won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 2014. The previous night we talked to him at the party at the Rambaug Palace. He said he had to go back to his hotel to write what ever he was going to say at the convocation. Boy must he be a fast and good writer. I could listen to him for hours. As he spoke about the poetic imagination, I realized his speech was like poetry. He wasn’t reading a poem as such, but rather explaining the poet; yet his cadence, thoughtful word choice and delivery were mesmerizing.

The next session we attended was an author Scott Anderson discussing his book: Lawrence in Arabia. A wonderful moderator asked excellent questions of Scott. This allowed the author to explore the implications of his own writing. By happenstance, Cathy and I had both read this exceptional book last year. We highly recommend it. In World War 1, the Ottoman Empire sided with Germany against England, France and America. Ottoman rule of the Middle East was very decentralized, preventing conflicts between the various tribes, religious sects and communities that inhabited the region.   When the Arabs rebelled against the Ottoman Empire, Lawrence was working as a British military intelligence officer based in Cairo. Viewing the Arab rebellion as a tool to weaken the Empire, the British supported Lawrence when he promised the Arabs control of their own lands if they joined the British to defeat their common enemy. Secretly, however, Britain and France had decided to divide the lands among themselves carving out the states where there had never been states: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, etc. When Lawrence, who identified with the Arab cause, learned of this  plan,he divulged it to the Arabs, essentially committing treason against Great Britain. Following the end of the war, Lawrence tried to uphold his promise to the Arabs, but he was marginalized at the Paris peace conference.  The Arab Spring is essentially a repudiation of these artificial boundaries set be the British and France. We both enjoyed the session.

The next session that we attended continued the examination of the Middle East. It was entitled: The First Crusade. We have not read the book, but we were very intrigued by the Oxford Don author: Peter Frankopan a scholar of Byzantium. The story of Pope Urban II's call in 1095 to retake the holy sites of Christianity set off the Crusades; at least this is the common perception. In his book Frankopan argues that the real reason for the Crusades had much more to do with the schism of the church at the time between the Eastern and Western branches and the plight of the great walled city of Antioch. Ultimately, of course, the crusades failed, leaving Christianity as the  only major religion not in control of its Holy Sites. This book is a potential future read for us.

We next experienced a very sad event. We walked in near the end of  session devoted to Nobel Prize Laureate VS Napaul’s book: “A House for Mr. Bizwas”. At the end of the session they announced to the delighted audience that VS Napaul who was in attendance would address the assembly. He is wheelchair bound and was wheeled to the stage to great applause. He attempted to speak and was only able to utter a few words. We don’t know if he was overwhelmed by emotion or physically incapable of speech, but it was a sad spectacle as the organizer’s of the event brought it to a hasty conclusion. He is supposed to be interviewed for a session later in the week. I don’t see how it can happen.

After lunch, we attended a session where Naseeruddin Shah was interviewed about his new memoir: And Then One Day. Naseeruddin is a distinguished Indian actor  who performs in films, plays and also directs and teaches. The audience was delighted as he recounted his journey as an aspiring actor who lacked matinee idol looks and a Muslim trying to break into the Hindu dominated film industry to becoming a recognized and respected actor. It was a fun session.

Cathy and I attended different sessions to end our day. She attended a session about Rajasthan singing storytellers. I attended a session with Paul Theroux, who has written over 50 books in his career. He writes both books about his travels and fiction. He was interviewed about the process of writing in two different forms. It was a glorious session. He has a marvelous sense of humor and fantastic tales to tell. He has that very rare gift of both being an excellent writer and extemporaneous speaker.

Exhausted and happy, we returned to The Raj Palace for dinner, drinks and bed. I had a problem with wifi in our room, so they moved us to an upgraded suite with better connectivity. Tomorrow is a another day at the Jaipur Literary Festival.

Four Palaces in One Day

Gem Palace

Typical Jaipur Street 

Bullock Cart

Raj Palace

Pool at Raj Palace

The all important Raj Palace Bar

Outdoor Literary Party at Rambaug Palace

Fireworks Announcing Dinner is Served

We talked to John in the hospital several times today. He is feeling a little better. The doctors don’t seem to know exactly what the infection is; but the medicine he is getting seems to be working. If you want to email him: johnNsf@gmail.com.

When we got up we decided that we really wanted to move from the Samode Haveli. We have stayed there many times during our trips to Jaipur and but alas things had changed. They reconfigured the Haveli moving the restaurant to a distant building and basically making the area where we were staying a waste land. The wifi, which I require to write the blog, was still the one thing that had not changed – slow, unreliable and you had to be outdoors to use it. It still sucked. It was time to move on. Searching for hotels, we found the Raj Palace would more than meet our needs. We had Vijay drive us over to the hotel we looked at the room and grounds and decided this was the Palace for us. It was a real palace. It apparently was built of marble by the Raj (King) to last. It had wifi. I practiced my bargaining skills in negotiating a room rate.

After moving our luggage from the Samode to the Raj Palace we went to our second palace of the day: The Diggi Palace. This is the site of the Jaipur Literary Festival. We needed to pick-up our passes for the event. We walked through the venue and like a typical Indian Wedding, it looked like it would never be ready. Workers were scampering everywhere trying to complete the construction. However, I am sure they will pull it together and be ready for the hoards of people tomorrow.

After picking up our credentials we went to our third palace of the day. Gem Palace is world famous for it jewelry. Doesn’t Cathy look smashing? After a bit more shopping, it was back to the Raj Palace. We explored our marble clad palace beautiful grounds, fabulous swimming pool, great bar, and then prepared for dinner.

We were to attend an outdoor dinner party for the authors and delegates (that be us – fancy name for the fact we paid for tickets to this free event). This was held at our fourth palace of the day: The Rambaug Palace. This Palace is where the Maharaja of Jaipur lived. Suffice to say he lived very well.

It was cold, but no one seemed to care. It was an amazing night, exactly as I hoped it would be. I don’t like large parties, and always find it difficult to just start up a conversation with strangers. This was a party of strangers and everyone sort of simultaneously knew the trick was to walk up to anyone and say: Hi, why are you here?

That was to be our plan, so we grabbed a glass of wine, and sat down. So much for our plan, we just sat alone. As soon as we did, a big man walked over to us looked at us and said: Hi, why are you here? We replied we like books, why are you here? I am speaking at the conference about war - he told us. We asked him what if anything he had written. He replied he is the author of: The Orphan Master’s Son. This book about North Korean prison camps, won Adam Johnson the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2013. Both Cathy and I had read the book and loved it. It is amazingly emotional, and how this jovial author could be the writer amazes me. We asked this big white dude from San Francisco how he happened to write a story in the voice of a North Korean Prisoner. He told us at length about his writing journey. Another Pulitzer prize winner, Gilbert King winner for the book: Devil in the Grove: “Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America” walked over and joined us. Eventually Adam Johnson drifted away and the three of us remained. So I asked Gilbert, how he came to write about this obscure period of Thurgood Marshall’s life. He told us how he was a photographer and had many books published, at one point the person that was writing the words for his book of photography dropped out and he stepped in and wrote his own text. He had become a writer. He then proceeded to tell us how he discovered the story of the corrupt southern Sherriff, and how Thurgood Marshall was able to assist a wrongly accused black man. This was the start of Thurgood’s career trajectory that led him to the Supreme Court. The Sherriff was such a bad guy, and yet so colorful, he will be the subject of his next book.

We were getting the hang of it. Just walk up to someone and start a conversation. At one point we sat down and VS Naipaul, a Nobel Prize winner, was sitting in a wheel chair across from us. We didn’t start a conversation with him, but I am sure we could have.

All of a sudden the sky above us was illuminated with fireworks. One after another they loudly exploded above our heads. We knew they had just announced in their not so subtle way: Dinner was served. There were huge buffets of both Indian and Western Food. After selecting our food we sat down at a round table, and asked the man next to us: Hi, why are you here? He was from the happiest place on earth: Bhutan, where 700,000 Bhutanese live sandwiched between the billion plus Indians and the billion plus Chinese. He talked at length of how their Buddhist Culture has kept them free and independent. We look forward to hearing him at the Festival.

We were getting cold, we had said enough: Hi, why are you here, and felt it was time to leave. Our driver, Vijay, picked us up and returned us to our Palace, where we had night caps in their bar and went to sleep, ready for the festival to begin.

From Mumbai to Jaipur

Breakfast at the Taj

The confusion at Mumbai Airport

Dinner at the Samode

I awoke before sunrise and decided to use my iPhones ability to make a time-lapse movies, and I created one of the sunrise over the Arabian Sea. The black birds flying around are the local crows.

Click to play the movie

We spoke to John who is still in the hospital. It turns out he does NOT have a Deep Vein Thrombosis, but instead has Cellulitus, which is an infection of the skin and the tissue under it. Bottom line: he stays in the hospital till he recovers. They are treating him with appropriate antibiotics. He has no idea when he will be released from the hospital. He repeated to us that he is impressed by the care he is getting at the Breach Candy Hospital. If you required hospitalization wouldn’t you like to be a hospital named: Breach Candy? Just the name makes you smile. Since John is stuck in a hospital in Mumbai, with no local friends, feel free, if you are so inclined to send him an email - he has wifi in his room. His email address is: johnNsf@gmail.com. If you know John you can also FaceTime him. Don’t forget the Time Difference is 13-1/2 hours from the PST to Indian Time. Where and why they got that extra ½ hour is a mystery to me. For example right now it is 7:39 on Tuesday morning in all of India (they only have 1 time zone for the entire country) and it is 6:10pm on Monday night in Los Angeles.

I almost wouldn’t mind trading places with him. At least he has wifi in his hospital room. We are now in Jaipur and our hotel does not have wifi in the room. It is cold here at night and the heating in this hotel runs from non-existent in the dining room to an electric radiator contraption in our room. There is a certain feel of loss, of lowered expectations, of being nuts staying at the Samode Haveli in the old part of Jaipur. This is the 5^th time that we have stayed here. It is quite a shock to go from one of the top hotels in the world; where your every need is anticipated and taken care of, to then stay in any other hotel especially the Samode. The Samode Haveli is old, charming in its way, the food is excellent we had Butter Chicken, Rice, Naan, Dal Makhani, Tandoori Roasted Mustard flavored potatoes a bottle of Jacobs Creek Chardonnay, followed by a wonderful, date-coconut ice cream and after dinner drinks. The dinner was tempered by the fact that I had to wear a tee-shirt, a sweater and keep my down filled coat on during dinner because the dining room - which has been moved far away the room we always stay in, isn’t heated. We ran into an old friend while we ate dinner. She always stays at the Samode. When we asked why we were all staying she said: Why of course you are staying here, why not? Last year she was coming from staying in a hotel in Pakistan where she required an armed bodyguard and there was the constant threat of Islamic Terrorism – she was afraid the whole time she was in Pakistan – think Kerry in Homeland. Coming from that perspective, I am sure the Samode is an improvement. Coming from the Taj, not so much. To change hotels or remain at the Samode: That is the question.

Prior to our flight northeast to Jaipur, we enjoyed our last partial day in Mumbai. Breakfast by the pool followed by another long walk in the Coloba and Fort neighborhoods. We packed our suitcases and finally used the dining room in our suite, reheating the leftover Indian Food from our fabulous dinner at Masala Kraft, as our lunch. Our extremely resourceful butler help me top off my cell phone minutes - you buy a certain amount of money on your Indian Cell phone and as you talk or use data the money goes down. You can then top it off by adding more money. When the hotel’s normal facilities couldn’t get our card topped off, the Butler called his wife, who was able to do it. He told me about an iPhone app that will allow you to directly top off a SIM card it is called: PAYNT. I downloaded it late last night but it hasn’t worked correctly yet. Good, I am faced with an IT challenge.

Our driver drove us to the Domestic Terminal in Mumbai. The scene there is like a movie of the hoards of Indians. They just opened a new Mumbai International Terminal. We love it: orderly, clean, organized - as good as it gets. Directly next to it is the chaos of the Domestic Terminal. Jammed, disorganized, lines snaking everywhere, people pushing in front of you, others sitting on the floor. If we hadn’t been to India so many times and this was our first airport, we would have been freaked. Being old India hands by now, we observed it, knowing it would sort itself out. The God of transportation would make everything ok. He did, we got to our plane and flew north. Upon arrival at the new and modern Jaipur International Terminal, our driver Vijay met us and we caught up on our respective lives as we drove to old Jaipur and the Samode Haveli. Vijay is like family to us and we were happy to be with him. Tomorrow we do some shopping at Gem Palace, pick up our delegate material for the Jaipur Literary Festival and then attend a banquet at the Rambagh Palace, the most luxurious hotel in Jaipur, owned by the Taj and the place where we should be staying.

A Suite and a Spare

Foot Soak in our Hotel Room

Street Coconut Vendor

If its good enough for the Duke, its good enough for me

Can you put the beard hair on my scalp? 

Street Barbers - much cheaper

Nimbu Pani at the Taj

John with Sea View and Cathy with wine

Lobster, Fried Rice, Crab

After a good nights sleep (was it the cognac or the sleeping pill or both)? We awoke to a day of relative relaxation for us -tempered by concern for John in the Breach Candy Hospital. When we finally reached John by phone, he was very tired and in pain. Because there was a Mumbai Marathon run, the normal very bad traffic was going to be even worse. We told John we would visit him in the late afternoon after traffic had returned to its normal insane flow.

After breakfast by the pool, we walked to a bookstore to buy the book Shantaram for John to read in the hospital. If you haven’t read it, we highly recommend it, you won’t want to put it down.  We walked on to Truefitt & Hill. I had always noticed the men’s barbershop, but had never availed myself of it. They are the official barber of the Royal Family in London and this is their Bombay branch. Why not give it a go? I decided to just have my beard trimmed and soon the artist went to work. I have never had a professional barber, who specializes in beards, cut my beard. Suffice to say, he was meticulous. He did one side first, then asked me how I liked it and then preceded to cut the other side to match. There is an art to everything.

We left the barbershop and continued our walk around the Fort area of Bombay. We passed several street barbers. You just walk up to them squat down and they shave you. I never have used them fearing the cleanliness of their straight razor. I am sure they are very cheap.

Upon returning to the Taj we had our traditional Nimbu Pani (a lemonade like drink) outdoors by the pool. We had scheduled a massage for me and hairdresser appointment for Cathy - then it would be off to see John. The massage was excellent (lots of oil) and Cathy’s hair looks beautiful.

The manager of the hotel called to let us know there was a party at the hotel and the sound might travel to our room affecting our sleep (little does he know the sound would be the least of my sleep depravations – Jetlag was the major concern). He said they had arranged another room for us. We would keep our suite, not move anything, but sleep in the other room – away from the party). Most considerate of him. We had a suite and a spare. We agreed that just before we went to our room to retire for the night, we would get the keys for the other room and make sure we were happy with it.

How many hotels would offer you a spare hotel accommodation? The Taj is amazing!

We had a left over half bottle of Italian wine, so we decided to pack up the wine, some glasses and cashews to make our visit to John more pleasant. We retrieved his Passport and Visa and his luggage and hired a taxi to take us to the Hospital. On the way, I asked the driver he would wait about an hour for us to visit John, and then return us to the Taj. He was more than willing.

We got to John’s room and he was dozing, but figuring we had come this far, we woke him up. He was more comfortable and in less pain. Apparently the treatment he had commenced was working. He is very satisfied with the quality of health care at the hospital. We spread out our little party of wine, glasses and cashews and had a spirited time visiting.  We didn’t let John have any of our wine or nuts, no doctor had said he couldn’t have wine or nuts (not that anyone asked) but we decided to enforce our own rules. I spent time trying to John connected to the Internet, we think we did it, we will know tomorrow if he has the correct hospital password. I also had to contact Air India to cancel his flight to Jaipur. He won’t be leaving the hospital for a few days I am sure.

We returned to the Taj through the incredible Bombay traffic just in time to change for dinner and have a Gin and Tonic (how Raj of me), and wine for Cathy before dinner in the Club Room. We had dinner in the Taj’s Chinese Restaurant. Dim Sum, Ribs, Lobster, Crab, Fried Rice. The food was all good, but I liked the first Indian Dinner at Masala Kraft better. Oh Well!

The hotel surprised us by placing 2 foot soaking tubs in our living room. They were filled with roses and they supplied various ointments and salves to add to the water to comfort our feet after all of our walking. Another of example of how they just do things for us, unasked, anticipating our needs.

We then returned to the Club Room for a couple of after dinner cognacs and chocolates. We were then ready to inspect our spare hotel room. They escorted us to the room for our inspection and acceptance. It was quite nice. I took the keys from them and explained we would return to our room and attempt to sleep, only if we were disturbed would we bother to use our spare hotel room. The sound didn’t bother us - could it have been all the wine and cognac? We never used the room. It was amazing to have it proactively put at our disposal. The Taj never disappoints. Tomorrow we leave on a 6:30pm fight to Jaipur. 

Mumbai 911

Thumbs Up Break Time

Bengali Sari Exhibition

Tuna Can in Elephanta Suite

Incense Burning Inside Taxi

Shrimp Kaliwalla

Hyderabadi Pomfret and Jera Rice

Crab with Garlic Butter Sauce

Wine Time on our private Balcony Overlooking Gateway of India

My plan to avoid Jet lag didn’t work. I slept very poorly. Sleeping pills didn’t work, unfortunately. Our friend John, from San Francisco, is meeting us in Mumbai and travelling with us. He is staying at a hotel near the Taj. When I awoke there was an email from him saying he was in great pain, his leg had swelled up, he didn’t know what to do and asking for our immediate help.

We contacted his hotel and they couldn’t reach him by house phone or by pounding on his door. I said I would be right over to determine what was happening. When we arrived John was in the lobby and said his leg had swollen up and was extremely painful. We suggested he come to the Taj with us where we had breakfast by the pool. 

After breakfast, John took a nap in our suite while Cathy and I took a long walk through the Coloba neighborhood where the Taj is located. We visited an Art gallery and then a museum where we saw an excellent exhibit of extremely rare Bengali Sari's.

At a Western style grocery store, we bought a can of Tuna Fish to commemorate Paul Theroux’s novel about an American staying at the Elephanta Suite who is so afraid of Indian culture and food that he brings cases of canned tuna fish to his room, refusing to eat anything but the canned tuna while stays in the room, looking out the window. He does eventually leave the room and becomes a Jain Monk, completely  leaving his Western identity behind. Because we are staying in the Elephanta Suite, I wanted  to capture that aspect of the book by taking a photo of the canned of tuna fish in our room . I am also thinking of taking the can to Paul Theroux and getting him to autograph it.

When we returned to the room, it was apparent that John was not improving, his leg had swollen up and he was in great pain. He also was having difficulty taking appropriate steps to resolve his medical problem. We insisted we call the Taj in-house doctor who quickly diagnosed that John was having a deep vein thrombosis in his leg – this is a common ailment caused by long flights. This is a potentially very serious condition and requires immediate hospitalization – it is not to played with. The doctor was very surprised that John wasn’t advised to get a shot of Heparin before flying a long distance. Luckily John had the foresight to purchase Medical Travel Insurance. We were able to call the company in America from my Indian cell phone and they appeared to be quite competent, reassuring and helpful. 

People our age when travelling abroad should ALWAYS get this type of Insurance. Indian Hospitals do NOT accept American Insurance. You need to pay cash or you don’t get treated. The costs are less than in America (the most expensive medicine in the world). The Taj doctor recommended the Breach Candy Hospital, which is one of the top hospitals in Mumbai and extensively used by American Expatriates. All of the hospital workers speak English. The Taj doctor arranged in advance for John to be admitted and requested a wheel chair to take John down stairs (he couldn’t walk). Shortly a young hotel worker brought an office chair with wheels. Woops, small mis-communication, he left with that chair and quickly returned with a real wheel chair. We were taken to the front where they hailed an air-conditioned taxi to take us to the Breach-Candy Hospital. This would be John’s one Mumbai sight seeing event and the driver showed us landmarks along the way. He was born in Bombay and said it will always be Bombay to him and not Mumbai. He said about 80 percent of the residents say Bombay in daily usage.

Breach Candy hospital was wonderful. They were expecting John's arrival, and immediately took him to a private room with a magnificent view of the Arabian Sea. The place could be converted into a high-end hotel with a view like that. John has wifi in the room. The service is immaculate, offering all kinds of teas and cookies for us. I filled out all of the paper work to get John admitted. They requested 100,000 rupee charge to get him admitted on John’s Credit Card which I signed for.

John had a Xerox of his US Passport with him, but did not have a Xerox of his Indian Visa. I always travel with a copy of my passport put never realized the importance of also copying your Visa if the country requires one. I will in the future make a copy! To complete the paperwork they needed the real Passport and Visa. I promised I would go to John’s hotel and retrieve his Passport and Visa, I would also need to   pack the items in his room into the suitcase that he left behind. I was afraid the hotel wouldn’t release John’s passport to a stranger, so John used my cell phone to call to the hotel and request they do so.

The doctors removed John’s sock and we saw the swollen leg and the attendant redness from a probable infection. 

They wheeled John off for some tests and we knew our tasks were almost complete. We said goodbye to the staff and had the staff hail a taxi for the return trip to the Taj.

The cab driver was a caricature of a Bombay taxi driver. He swore, he farted, he burped, he kept lighting incense in the car which thankfully covered his smells and maybe brought a little of pleasure of the Gods as he swerved through the endless cars, people, trucks, busses and occasional Cow on the return trip to the Taj. When arrived we immediately walked to John’s hotel where we retrieved his Passport, and luggage. Ever intrepid, there was one more store Cathy wanted to shop at, so trailing the luggage behind me we walked to the store. There was nothing of interest so we retreated back to the Taj.

It was time for us to have some wine and relax on our deck overlooking the Gateway of India towards Elephanta Island. For dinner there was no doubt: Trishna our favorite restaurant in Bombay. Shrimp Kaliwali (very Spicy), Crab with Butter, garlic sauce (out of the shell), Pomfret Hyderabadi Style (fillets covered in black pepper), Jera Rice, Garlic Butter Naan, a bottle of Sula White Wine. It was a perfect meal (well the wine could have been better). No leftovers! We took a Taxi back to the Taj and went to the Club Room for a final night cap of cognac and chocolate. We returned to our room - I was exhausted and took a stronger sleeping pill (we have them in all strengths) and slept like a baby for a full nights sleep. I am writing this blog in the morning. Jet Lag 0, Cliff 1.

We plan to rest today here at the Taj, and then visit John later at the Hospital.

Elephanta Suite

Singapore Air Huge Seats

Bedroom in The Elephanta Suite

View of Gateway to India Monument from our Room

Shugaat Khan and Cathy at Joy's Shoes

Dining Room in our Suite 

Our Living Room

We left Los Angeles for Mumbai on Singapore Air. We were flying on an Airbus A380. Which thankfully is our favorite airplane. The seats on Singapore are enormous and fold into a very large flat bed for sleeping. We spent almost 30 hours flying to Mumbai by way of Tokyo and Singapore. I tried something different for me, I ate almost no food on the flight and drank only two glasses of wine. I took sleeping pills on two of the legs of the flight and did manage to sleep. It will be interesting to see if my Spartan travel plans help reduce Jet Lag.

We arrived in Mumbai and were met at the airport by our driver who drove us through Mumbai to the Taj Mahal Hotel where we are staying. The Taj always upgrades us to fabulous suites and this trip was no exception. We were taken to the Elephanta Suite our home for the next 3 nights. It is very large with a living room, dining room, sitting room, pantry and outdoor balcony overlooking the Gateway to India Monument. This suite is especially auspicious for us. Years ago we read the travel novel “The Elephanta Suite” by Paul Theroux. It is composed of the three stories. The title story is: “The Elephanta Suite” about a couple staying in this very suite. The irony is that after we leave the Taj we are going to The Jaipur Literary Festival, which this year is featuring Paul Theroux among other authors. If we run into him, we can relate our experience staying in the suite. Last year in India by coincidently we stayed at Ananda in The Himalayas, which we quickly recognized as a setting for another of the stories in “The Elphanta Suite”. For those of you that haven’t been to Mumbai, Elephanta Island is a short ferry ride from The Gateway of India. It has ancient cave temples that have been carved into the islands rocks.

After cleaning up we headed out to shop. Shopping for shoes at Joy’s Shoes in the Taj is another tradition for us. I was looking at some shoes and noticed a man standing next to me. I immediately recognized him as one of India’s greatest Sitar players: Shujaat Khan.  We had been to dinner with him at our friend Mira’s and have seen him perform several times in Los Angeles. Who would think we would run into him in a shoe store at the Taj? Small world. Our butler brought us a gift wrapped in Bollywood movie newspaper adds. It was waiting for us on arrival as a gift. We had no idea what it was, but it turned out to be a book of the screen play of the Indian movie Haider. Haider, is an Indian version of Hamlet, set in current days in Kashmir. It is very contemporary yet true to Shakespeare. It was generously left for us by Anil, a Bollywood fanatic, who we met on our previous visit to India. It was very nice of him and very generous.

After drinks in the Taj Club room, we had a fabulous meal of crab followed by a lamb shank that was flamed at the table. It was a perfect first day in India.