Vintage India - Mysore

Oh, Mysore, such a wonderful city!  I was enrolled at and attended the University of Mysore, in the Manasagangotri campus, and fell in love with the city and the people.  Most days, after classes, I would take the short ride in an auto rickshaw into town.  You can see a black and yellow rickshaw, a three wheeled vehicle with a small and wheezy engine, in this picture:

Bananas where a common purchase and a staple of my diet.  Until then, I had no idea that they came in such a wide variety.  The very small ones were a favorite:

I could get my meals at the University cafeteria, but often ate out, or sometimes bought things to cook on a hot plate in the dorm room, so a trip to the market was often on the agenda.  Farmer’s markets are essentially the same the world over, I think, and I felt at home here among the green beans:

And the tomatoes:

But the piles of powders used for bindi dots, and the sticks of incense, where a colorful and exotic touch:

This street musician was one of a panoply of buskers, sword swallowers, snake charmers, and yogis standing on beds of nails I grew accustomed to.  I was always a soft touch for a bit of baksheesh.

Sometimes I browsed the selections at the Lakshmi Vilas Saree Specialists, but I never quite got the hang of wearing a sari in my daily life.

I settled on a uniform of long skirts and shirts made from hand-woven khadi cloth, very beautiful, breathable, and comfortable.  They were not a ready made item, or something commonly worn by women, but I got away with it because I was obviously foreign and taking the trouble to cover up in a modest fashion.  I had them tailored by this man:

The men on the left and center were part of the family that owned the small textile business, and the man on the right did the tailoring and sewing.  He cut everything freehand after you picked out a fabric and described what you wanted, then stitched it together on his treadle machine. He did an excellent job. Word got around among the foreign students, and I think we contributed significantly to the fortunes of this enterprise that fall.
I did splurge on one magnificent silk sari, embellished with gold threads. I am modeling it here in the family home of the textile business owners.  The invited several of us for dinner to show their appreciation, and treated us fabulously with traditional Indian hospitality.  The women in the family helped me arrange the sari properly and appropriately:

Most of my time in Mysore was  taken up with classes, socializing, and the routines of daily life, but I did get out for some local sightseeing at places like the renowned Brindavan Gardens:

And even every day life was often exotic and sublime.  An Indian friend was studying dance, and stopped by one day on his way to a performance to give us all a treat:

Back at the dorm, under the auspices of a very strict matron, I did my schoolwork, learning history and culture, and attempting to learn the written language of Kannada (the red marks are my errors, but still rather a success, I think):

It was a simple, almost monastic existence, with very few objects and possessions.   A bed with a mosquito net, a small desk and folding chair, and a closet with a few shelves were the extent of it.  Here I am in a happy contemplative moment:

I did have sheets and blankets, of course, but when this snapshot was taken they were being attended to by the laundry ladies in the courtyard:

The school year at the University was punctuated by a month long break in the fall, which I took advantage  of by setting off to travel by second class train and explore the country.  Here I am, all bright and shiny and eager:

I hope you’ve enjoyed my wandering recaps of my escapades in this series of posts.  Stay tuned as I venture out again, every bit as eager, and almost as bright and shiny, for another grand adventure in India.
Here are the rest of the posts in this series: Calcutta and Goa, Rameswaram, Bodh Gaya, Benares, Khajuraho, Kerala, Chennakeshava and Hoysaleswara, Tamil Nadu, Bombay, and Taj Mahal and Agra.

Vintage India - Calcutta (Kolkata) and Goa

I’m making some big leaps with today’s vintage India post, in terms of both geography and ambience.  I’m starting with Calcutta, now known as Kolkata, in the state of Bengal.   I experienced it as a sprawling and chaotic city, and while I had a good experience, as witnessed by my smiling self in a rickshaw, above, I paused there only briefly. 

Heavy rains during my visit caused widespread flooding in the streets, and it seemed unwise to hang around in the increasingly unsanitary conditions, so thanks to another rickshaw driver, seen above heroically pulling me to the train station, I proceeded on my peripatetic way.

Several weeks and many, many miles later, I found myself in the former Portuguese colony of Goa, on the opposite coast,by the Arabian Sea. 

I was road-weary from my long meanderings, and found a beach cottage to sojourn in.

The beaches were lovely, the lifestyle was very laid-back, and the food was incredibly hot, even by Indian standards. 

It was a popular spot for foreign tourist of all stripes, as well as Indians on holiday.  My holiday was ending, I was running very low on money, and I had no wish to join the ranks of hippie burn-outs who seemed to have landed there and fallen prey to inertia, so I enjoyed a few sunsets and set my course homeward to University of Mysore to resume my studies.

Vintage India - Rameswaram

Continuing my tour through India, circa 1974, we come to the city of Rameswaram, at the tip of the Indian peninsula on the sea coast. It had a lot to recommend it, with a stunning temple complex and the picturesque views of the shoreline.  I‘m glad I was able to visit, but it was the one place in my travels where I was at times distinctly uneasy.  The attitude of many of the inhabitants of the town at that time towards foreigners could be summed up by this image:

Although, to be fair, there was also this crowd, anxious to have their picture taken:

Also, to be fair, one of my travelling companions at that time was not, as they  say, a very chilled out dude, and that doubtlessly affected my experience.  At any rate, the temple complex was wonderful:

And here I am posing with some hesitancy:

One of the shrines:

And a spectacular view from the top of the gopuram:

Some fishing boats:

And my hotel boasted a peacock in the garden:

Vintage India - Bodh Gaya

Today we travel in the wayback machine to Bodh Gaya in Bihar, the site of the Bodhi tree where the Gautama Buddha is said to have achieved enlightenment.

The tree growing there now is not the original one, of course, but is thought to be a direct descendant of the one that the Buddha meditated under.  

Apart from its spiritual significance, it is also an impressive specimen of a ficus religiosa, and spills out over its enclosure.

Nearby is the Mahabodhi temple, above, and the stupas in the courtyard, below.  It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site:

I feel privileged to have visited, however briefly, such a calm and reverent place.

Art Quilts made with Indian Silks

Since I’ve been posting a series of my mid-70’s vintage India photos, in preparation for a return trip to have adventures and procure textiles, I wanted to share more of the impetus for the trip--the beautiful textile works made possible by the exquisite silks of India.  I have a particular fondness for silks manufactured in the Mysore region of Karnataka, India.  The were my first introduction to silk--not a fabric common in my childhood--and remain my favorite because of their luminescence and “hand”, the way they feel and drape.  I posted previously about the silks, and a factory in Bangalore that produces them, here.  Today I am featuring just a few of the works I have made using them.  All of the pictures enlarge when you click on them, and the links take you to my website where there are detail views.

Poke Salad was the first quilt I made using the cyanotype process that I have come to love and rely upon for much of my imagery. The center panel is very complex, with a variety of leaves depicted and enhanced by hand embroidery.  I wanted to enhance the panel with simple shapes and a wealth of color, and the Mysore silks worked out perfectly.  Because of their luster and intensity, all the colors play nicely together without losing their separate identity.

Sweetgum in Autumn is another of my earlier works, again using a cyanotype image that I hand embroidered.  Sweetgum trees are unique in that their autumn foliage can vary on any individual tree from yellows and reds, through to oranges and even purple tones. I used those colors of silks to construct informal log-cabin style blocks that bring the deep sparkle of the oblique autumn sunlight into the piece.

In Royal Paulownia, I again used a log cabin format to construct blocks, this time mixing the silks with handspun and hand-woven Indian cottons to provide a wonderful contrast of tones and textures.

For Reed Run, I kept the construction uncomplicated, and let the silks and the hand-woven cotton, along with a deep, rich woolen, reflect the serenity of a walk in the deep woods along a sparkling stream. 

Silks add depth and character to the random patchwork that forms part of the construction of my huge Plume Poppy.

Purple and green silks , along with hand-wovens and fabrics that I hand painted, are an integral part of one of my newest works, Columbine.

I hope you have enjoyed this mini tour of my art quilts, and invite you to visit my website for many more examples of how high quality textiles like Mysore silks form an integral part of my body of work.

Vintage India - Benares (Varanasi)

This set of pictures from India in the mid - 70’s is from the holy city of Benares, now know as Varanasi.  It is a very ancient and cultured city situated along the banks of the Ganges River.

I had a very quick visit there, perhaps a day or two, en route circuitously to Nepal, and can’t pretend to have grasped the ethos of this complicated place. The older part of the city, where I lodged, was like a labyrinth and a bit overwhelming to a casual tourist such as myself.

But at that point I was several months into my Indian adventure, and had learned that the most important response to an overwhelming experience in India was to just go with the flow.

A boat trip down the Ganges, near sunset, served as a nice parable for the state of being I found myself in.

All along the shore, the Ghats, or steps, are visible.  The Ghats are used for religious rituals, including ritual spiritual cleansing through immersion, and funeral pyres.

All of my pictures from this journey, preserved as prints, have taken on a very vintage feel--I find it amusing that there are many photo apps that attempt to emulate this look, while I have been busy photo editing to clean mine up--but the Benares pictures in particular have a very dreamlike quality to them, matching the tone of that surreal drift down the river.

Above is the boatman who took me on that journey.  He seems lost in reflection as well…

Vintage India - Khajuraho

 This set of vintage India photos from the mid-70's is from the Hindu and Jain temple complex of Khajuraho, in the state of Madhya Pradesh.  It's an impressive set of monuments in a beautiful setting, and is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  The picture of me posed along the side of one of the temples, above, gives a sense of the scale of the buildings, as does the view looking up, below:

 Here I am posed in the lawn of the grounds-I love this shot:

 Here was our self-appointed guide, happy to point out salient features in exchange for a few rupees:

 The temples are famous for their erotic sculptures, or yantras, which are plentiful and explicit; however their intent is spiritual, not prurient.

 A few more views of the temples and the complex--great lines and proportions.  It is deservedly one of the most popular tourist destinations in India. Luckily, the day I visited it was not crowded, and these pictures have an intimate feel to them, enhanced by the way the colors of the prints aged:

If you are new here, I am posting pictures from my time spent as a University student in India in 1974, as preparation for a return trip later this summer where I will be looking for textiles and inspiration.  All pictures enlarge if you click on them.  For more vintage goodies see my posts on Kerala, Chennakeshava and Hoysaleswara Temples, Tamil Nadu, Bombay, and the Taj Mahal and Agra.