Driving through Utah made me even more aware of the environmental impact of paved roads on national forests and public lands – and the increasing ‘recreational use’ of ATV’s/ORV’s. We saw ugly black tracks criss-crossing rounded mounds of white sandstone east of Capitol Reef, a clear misuse of natural habitat by ORV’s. The ATV dune buggies at Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park were no better, jarring the stillnes of the desert afternoon with the piercing sound of their motors as they drove up and down the dunes, in all possibility scaring wildlife, destroying the ground and plant life underfoot, not to mention noise and air pollution. How can burning gas to tramp aimlessly through pristine forests and desert possibly be good for the environment?

Leaving behind the meadows and alpine forests of the Kaibab Plateau (after two splendid days at the Grand Canyon’s North Rim), US-89 snakes its way into the hot dry plains below. For a major portion eastward to Lake Powell, it skirts the foothills of the Vermillion Cliffs and we pass Lees Ferry, Marble Canyon, the newly constructed Navajo Bridge and the striking formations of the Paria Rimrocks. The temperature is rising slowly upward of a dry 95F, but we spend some time at the confluence of the Paria and Colorado rivers. I feel like I am at a gallery showing of rock art formations in this area. The lizard population here looks happy.

A night’s stopover in Page en route to Monument Valley. So this was the the controversial project I had read so much about. (India has it’s own – the Narmada Valley Project, its hundreds of dams created by flooding forest areas and displacing millions of poor, tribal people). In the late 60′s, the Colorado River was flooded into an enormous dam that was originally Glen Canyon, to meet the expanding thirst of California, Arizona and Nevada. It was met with regret later by politicians and conservationists, and immortalized in author Edward Abbey’s The Monkeywrench Gang (in which the dam gets blown up). There were several tour buses and a sprinkling of cars perched above the dam. Closer by the edge of the lake itself, with the marina in view, the blue-green water looked a little surreal the late morning sun.

The clouds were threathening to unfold since morning, and it was raining hard when we reached Monument Valley. During the drive, we saw several low lying areas already flooded with water in no time, and the repeated warnings of flash floods on highway signs and presence of road repair crew were making me a bit nervous. The mist and rain, were blessings in disguise as the storms provided us with a postlude of views in exquisite light & colour, gift-wrapped in a rainbow.

The expansive Canyonlands National Park with its mind-boggling vastness, really needs weeks to explore as do the other parks here. The Needles Overlook, (20 miles after the left off US 91N, the turn-off is a few miles before Moab) offered an amazing view of the canyons carved by the Colorado and Green Rivers. One late morning, we drove to the main entrance to Canyonlands from where we hiked to the beautiful Mesa Arch, and the Grand View Overlook Trail at The Island In The Sky with views of the White Rim (whitish salt deposits on the rim), Monument Basin, and the Maze.

Across the entrance to Canyonlands stretches Arches National Park – delightful at sunset, with red sandstone shaped into sheets of towering fins, hoodoo, arch and window formations that rise from slickrock and petrified sand dunes. The Manti La Sal mountains frill the horizon beyond.

Capitol Reef is the park that most impacted my soul – rugged and spectacular, a construction/destruction zone of an extremely busy celestial power, the earth left pitted by cataclysmic retchings and impacted by virulent effects of water, wind and fire. The park has several whitish Navajo sandstone domes that look like the US Capitol dome, the ‘Reef’ alludes to the tall 100 mile ridge running north-south along the fold – you can see it from the airplane – looks not unlike a thick bony fish spine compressed upward.

Some of the colors and carved textures in the sandstone were quite unbelievable, the quiet in the narrow gorge enveloped your eardrums, and the fall of a pebble would sound like a mini-explosion. Kangaroo squirrels hopped delicately across stones and ledges, always foraging for pine nuts, always skittish and alert.

The Escalante – National Staircase really needs to be visited again, the brief visit has left me wanting more. The “amphitheatres” within the Bryce National Park are really photogenic – brushing up on my chemistry – the brown, pink and red colors are due the hematite content (iron oxide), the yellows from limonite and the purples thanks to pyrolusite (manganese oxide).

So what music was I listening to during this trip? Er… nothing … I hadn’t anything in my travel collection that would come close to the music that was being offered by the soaring cliffs, undulating slickrock, sand, grand tectonic layers, piercing blue skies, swathes of rabbitbrush and sage, meadows of pine, dry gullies and lonesome creeks, spires, monoliths, balanced rocks, echoeing canyonsand badlands, all melting sotto voce into the gentle arc of the horizon beyond. On the other hand, if I had to choose something on my next trip, it would be music that would have no traditional harmony, jazz or otherwise. Instead it would have the qualities of atonalism & dissonance, with some predetermined structure over which spacious improvisation takes place. I think it’d pair nicely with the wilderness, destruction and re-construction that surrounds you!

Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA)
Great Old Broads for Wilderness
High Uintas Preservation Council

My trip reads: Desert Solitaire (Edward Abbey), Utah’s Wilderness Areas (Lynna Howard), Scenic Driving, Utah (Christy Karras).

People miss planes frequently and car accidents are a dime a dozen. Plausible explanation for accidents such as these. Yet, the common response to this couple’s tragic story, is that the woman somehow cheated death the first time, but was meant to die the second time. (Remember the movie ‘Final Destination?’) Cruel as it may sound – it was her destiny, fate. But why would her life be saved the first time, and not be spared the second time? How does one explain the ten extra days she was granted as a bonus on this earth – did she have a purpose or mission to accomplish during that time? A better understanding of probability might explain why these train of events are more likely to be remarkable coincidences, rather than mystic or supernatural phenomena . Not entirely by chance, I came across this video:

A passion is however hard to kill – Nicolitta is now a seasoned dirt bike rider, having come to terms with high altitude sickness, bike breakdowns and the fact that she can be regarded as somewhat of an unusual spectacle in rural male-dominated India. She has undertaken extensive trips to remote places and has shot some breathtaking stills on the way. Her latest adventure released on DVD with four other fellow bikers of the motorcyle club ’60kph’ was filmed by Gaurav Jain of Dirt Track Productions – a solo effort with no tech crew or support across a route that no GPS or map has recorded. I recently watched this award winning documentary - a beautiful film with geographical chapters unfolding a spectacular journey, sometimes raw, but always real. This is not your typical ‘bike tour’ with luggage being towed by an alternate form of transport and a Comfort Inn at day’s end. I can’t help but be proud of Nicolitta for chasing the dream against all odds to realize her passion. Here’s a trailer from the DVD:

The DVD was shipped to me in excellent tamper-proof wrapping and can be purchased here.

What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national.
Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance.

In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp — praise song for walking forward in that light.

[excerpt from the Inaugural Poem by Elizabeth Alexander]

A few days later, we were enjoying an exquisite Indian buffet spread at a restaurant in another 5-star hotel a few kilometres away at an area popularly know as the Juhu beach. There was an outdoor wedding reception taking place on the beachfront. We saw headlines flash by on the restaurants big screen TV - there had been shootings at the main railway station in Mumbai, then at the Metro cinema in South Bombay. Within minutes, the channel was showing raw footage of the aftermath of gun attacks at Leopold’s Cafe. We thought it might be gang-related, but Leopold’s was hardly the kind of venue for assassinations of this sort. It was essentially a tourist hangout, and its clients didn’t didn’t seem to be sort who might be involved in trouble of this nature. Within few minutes we heard that the Taj was under attack, and there were gunshots in the Oberoi hotel lobby. My brother, who was dining with us, and who also manages a luxury hotel property in Bombay was on his Blackberry pretty much the rest of the night asking his staff to secure the hotel gates, and to screen ID’s of all guests. It was difficult to swallow further morsels of food after this. Then the bomb explosions in North Bombay.  We knew at this point the police were on the street, and curfew had been imposed. Our hotel had closed its gates, but the restaurant staff were still on duty, serving guests and going about their duties, making sure we did not rush through our meal. However, we decided that it would be in our best interest to head homeward as soon as possible.

As we all know, Bombay was shaken by some of the most horrific terrorist attacks that night. The Golden Dragon restaurant we visited a few days earlier at the Taj was one of the venues targeted by the killers, the hotel as we all know, a major portion of it destroyed by fire. A couple from NYC (who incidentally had table reservations at the Golden Dragon) detailed their harrowing experience in a Forbes interview and in an interview with Charlie Rose, commended the Taj hotel staff, most of them who put their lives at risk and some who died in turn.

A saga that lasted nearly three days, it was a disaster in crisis management. The city is not used to guns and automatic weapons. It takes two years or more to get a license to own a gun, so most security guards do not carry one. The most common form of a weapon is a lathi or a wooden cane, still popular with the police force, mainly used as a crowd control measure. And if they do carry guns, they haven’t been fired in years. It was nerve wracking to to see a lone firefighter perch on a wall across the second floor window of the Taj trying to douse the raging flames with no bullet proof vest or armour, with no policeman or agent covering him, a sitting duck for the terrorists. Most Bombayites wanted to hear from Ratan Tata, chairman of the Tata Group that owns the hotel, and heads the vast Tata empire. Ratan, like his predecessors in the Tata family is known for his patronage of art and culture. The Taj had a treasure of irreplaceable paintings, old maps, artefacts and several modern works. Many were lost in the fire. Fareed Zakaria interviewed him soon after, and it was no surprise that he was frustrated by the slow response to this catastrophe.

And so, in some twisted way I admit was glad to have been there when this happened. At least, if nothing, an expression of solidarity with my city folk. Life is tough for most of the population here on just a normal day. Water shortages, traffic jams, dust and pollution, failures of the power grid, poverty. Now bring into this equation, a recession and terrorism – amounting to an incredibly challenging time that is going to test the city to its gills, and one that I hope the city manages to survive with grace and determination.

I’d mostly seen this ancient pipe being used by people in Indian villages, but it appears that it is a trend gaining popularity among college students in urban areas today. Hookahs are widely being offered in cafes and restaurants in Indian cities, with the tobacco offered in an assortment of flavors. Students come in groups and sit for hours peacefully gurgling communal pipes in casual surroundings. Here’s a hookah menu hanging at a popular ‘dhaba’ restaurant on the outskirts of Bombay. (This place also served served ‘emu tikka’ btw).

Incidentally, one of my upcoming performances (20th November) will be at a restaurant in Pune called the Shisha Jazz Cafe, ‘shisha’ being a common term for the hookah in the Middle East. For reservations call 20-65200390.

Well, I wouldn’t wish it to happen, but after the results of the last US election there’s always a nagging fear of history repeating itself. So if McCain wins, at least we know that Obama can always head over to Parliament Hill in Ottawa So to those among my friends who I know are thinking of re-locating to Barcelona, Amsterdam or Auckland if the Republicans win, perhaps you may not have to move that far after all!