Music at Mount Hermon Flats

There is a large flat area above Oakville on the Mount Hermon property. On Thursday afternoon we were treated to some musical performances in the open air. The hope was that sunset on the mountain ranges to the north would be visible, but there were clouds. It was quite cold, but there were some contained fires in the back that people could use to warm up a bit.

The opening performer was David Wagner ’63, who was to be a presenter the next day. He played music on his recorder that was reminiscent of the sounds heard back in the hills when he did a lot of hiking nearly 50 years ago. A hauntingly beautiful start to the evening.

Paro Anand’s mother-in-law is a lifelong singer who favored us with a selection of songs in Hindi, Kashmiri, and Dogri. This interview with her is from the Chandigarh Tribune.

The audience enjoyed Harshi’s singing tremendously. At the end of each song, she smiled shyly and cocked her head to the right.

Note: IPTA was the Indian People’s Theatre Association, the cultural wing of the Communist Party in India in the 1940s.

After Harshi finished singing, Pete Wildman of the Development/Alumni Office sang a few Beatles numbers. He was joined for a number by Eric Templeton, CNI pastor of St. Paul's, Christ and Hindustani Churches here in Mussoorie. Then Abe and Bethany Okie, new staff in the music department sang a number of rousing songs. They ended with "Mountaineers are Always Free," based on the West Virginia state motto. By the time they sang, it was too dark for my little camera to get a good shot.

Wilderness Not Wasteland

The first session on Thursday afternoon focused especially on conservation of wild areas, particularly in the Himalaya.

Vance Martin of The Wild Foundation, talked about how we must work with nature, not against it. What we see is not as important as how we look at it and how we feel about it.

The Wild Foundation’s theme is “Nature needs half” – their global vision is to protect and interconnect at least half of the planet, land and water, to support life on earth. The wilderness is more important today than it was yesterday, and not as important today as it will be tomorrow.

Bittu Sehgal, editor of Sanctuary Asia, said that urbanites have “nature-deficit disorder,” echoing Sheela Jaywant’s poetic essay from earlier in the day. "Sanctuary believes that the survival of humanity and the natural world are intertwined, and depends significantly on the reversal of global climate change." Bittu has been instrumental in Project Tiger since its inception in 1973, and is an ardent conservationist.

Kate Harris is a young adventurer with an amazing story. Her presentation focused on her recent trip across the Norwegian Plateau by skis in January: “Fram Means Forward: Exploring the Contours of Cold.” She and her companion were looking for the edge of the world, with fantastic descriptions of the snow and the cold. Readers of adventure and travel will be hearing more of her in the coming years, I am sure.

Advanced Music Student Recital

On Friday evening we were treated to a recital of advanced music students. Woodstock offers private tuition in most instruments and has bands, orchestras and choirs. This recital was interesting – it had a wide range of performers who hailed from many countries and performed on a wide variety of instruments.

The students came from India, U.S., Korea, Nepal, and Thailand. Instruments included piano, a string quartet, clarinet, Indian guitar and santoor (similar to a hammered dulcimer), French horn, saxophone, violina, viola, cello, xylophone, flute, and vocal solos. Quite an eclectic mix!

It was quite dark in the hall so my pictures didn’t turn out very well. But here are a few of the performers – the string quartet, a baritone soloist, and a viola player. The viola player performed Schubert’s Arpeggione, a standard of the repertoire. I had a recording of our daughter Anjali performing it, and Dan was able to provide a copy for him to study from.

Fiction Readings

Sue Swanson of the Woodstock School Library introduced the speakers in the fiction section. She spoke very well and mentioned one of her favorite books by Steve Alter, The Phantom Isles, which is about banning books, a subject dear to every librarian’s heart.

Anuradha Roy is the author of the well-reviewed 2008 novel The Atlas of Impossible Longing. She read selections from her latest book, due to be published next April, Folded Earth. Her first book got excellent reviews and this one is intriguing – it features a young woman named Maya who lives in Ranikhet, a hill-station in Kumaon.

Stephen Alter is well-known to Woodstock, having just completed two years as Director of Development. He has written more than a dozen books, fiction and non-fiction. He is also the organizer of the Writers’ Festivals. He read from his “stalled novel,” The Fern Collector. The passage was a very moving description of a young man who gets involved in intrigue when he finds a grave robbed in the cemetery above the Chukker, thinly disguised as located in an unnamed hill-station.

Paro Anand returned to read from her first novel for adults, Pure Sequence. She defined it as “old chick-lit,” as it is about four older women who have been friends since their school days. She read both humorous and poignant selections about the women; it should be published in the next few months.

This view is of Paro being interviewed by one of the many journalists covering the Festival. At times the eager photographers had to be asked to keep off the stage. The festival got some wonderful coverage in the Garhwal Post, a Dehra Dun daily.

Up to the Hills - Book Festival cont'd.

The Wednesday sessions were all held at the main school – morning in the Lower School Auditorium, afternoon in Parker Hall, and of course the poetry reading outside in the Tea Garden. On Thursday we all moved out to the Hanifl Centre, a wonderful facility that was built on the site of the old Ashton Court (Mennonite missionary residence). Hanifl is about a 15-minute walk east of the school right on Tehri Road. As the Festival presenters were staying in many locations on the hillside, car and bus transportation was provided for them.

The first presenter was Sudhir Thapliyal -- his new book Mansuri, Macabre was released at the Festival. It is a murder mystery based on an unsolved murder that took place here in Mussoorie. His plan was to create something like Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, but there were no witnesses and no killer to interview, so he wrote fiction, from which he read a few passages. According to him, someone unnamed may have made a hasty departure from the area just before publication. An interesting note – Sudhir participated in Sir Edmund Hillary’s expedition From the Ocean to the Sky in 1977. I have that book at home and must now pull it out and read it again. And I will buy the new book as soon as it comes into the local bookstore.

Sheela Jaywant’s talk was titled “Yearning for the Outdoors – a City Dweller’s Plight.” Sheela works in an office in Mumbai but loves the outdoors. She made her presentation as an essay in verse – “I Sold My Soul to a Corporate Goal.” It was very enjoyable, and anyone who has worked in a corporate environment could readily relate. Her website with some of her writing is here.

Garry Weare -- “A Summer Ramble in the Himalayas” Garry has trekked more than 25,000 miles in his adventurous life. He has written multiple editions of the Lonely Plant guidebook, “Trekking in the Himalayas.” He also wrote Gaumukh to Kashmir: A long Walk in the Himalaya.

During the festival, the Cambridge Book Depot had a booth set up throughout. They sold many books. Someone got a photo of Dan and me shopping on Wednesday near the Quad. I was good – I planned to buy three books and only bought five! The second photo is when the booth was set up at the Hanifl Centre. There were people browsing (and buying) most of the time.

Food Break

For those who are tiring of posts about the Writers' Festival (I hope you're not!), I decided to insert a short post about our Wednesday evening dinner. The post below this tells about the poetry session during the festival.

Wednesday evening we did our usual trek into the bazaar for supper (are we too predictable?).

The direction is mainly toward the west, and I got this beautiful shot from the hill between Landour and Picture Palace.

This time we went to the Tavern, a favorite of staff and students since the 1970s when it first opened. It is located on the second floor (first floor in British and Indian terminology) above some shops. It is a nice place, with an extensive Indian, Chinese, and Continental menu.

My usual restaurant drink is a fresh lime soda, made with fresh-squeezed lime juice (usually fresh, occasionally bottled) and soda. The majority of people choose a sweet drink, but it is also available with salt. Recently I’ve been having a mixture of the two, but they put too much sugar and salt for my taste. So now I am having it with neither. Very refreshing!

One of the specialties at the Tavern is a Sizzler. This involves a central portion of meat (usually) with French fries on one side and sautéed vegetables on the other, served on a sizzling platter. I’ve had the vegetarian one (potato/cheese patty) and last night I had the minced chicken one. It’s also available in a stuffed chicken breast or mutton (goat) version. Many years ago we used to get a similar dish in Delhi made with a water buffalo filet.

Dan had chicken biriani with yogurt on the side, always a delicious combination. I meant to take pictures of the food, but when it arrived, we both had ours half-eaten before I remembered to use the camera! Maybe next time.

Poetry Under the Lyre Tree

Wednesday afternoon following the tea break, we heard four presenters. They spoke in the Woodstock Tea Garden, an outside area where the Lyre Tree, symbol of Woodstock, stands.

Victor Banerjee is a well-known actor who has a home here in Landour. He is not a poet, but chose to read several poems by Gary Snyder. They all dealt with the trials of the Native Americans in the U.S. The shirt he chose to wear was a picture of Mount Rushmore with photos of Native Americans superimposed. Of the several poems he read, I was most affected by “Call to Four Sacred Winds.”

H. D. Bhatt, known as “Shailesh,” has written more than 40 books of poetry. He read in Hindi. Unfortunately, my Hindi is not nearly good enough to understand poetry. But he was very expressive and all of us could get a sense of what he was saying about nature.

The third presenter was Andre Bernard, who read haiku from the well-known Japanese poet of the 17^th century, Basho. I especially liked this one:

Don’t worry, spiders; I keep house casually.

The most famous one is:

An ancient pond / a frog jumps in / the splash of water [1686]

The fourth reader of the afternoon was Arvind Mehrotra, who has written four books of poems. He read poems from the second century BC, short dramatic poems with a sexual nature, told from the woman’s point of view.

After the last reader finished, Victor Banerjee reappeared to remind us all that Himalaya is a collective noun and “Himalayas” is incorrect. There appeared to be some friendly disagreement among the various presenters about this statement, and some presentations in the following days continued to say Himalayas. By the way, especially for US readers, the pronunciation is not Him-a-lay'-a, but Him-all' -ya, with accent on the second syllable and no long a sound, whether pluralized or not.

Because It's There

After Dr. Schaller’s talk, we were treated to three authors who talked about their work.

Jim Curran’s talk was titled “Why Did I Climb When I Got So Frightened?” This intriguing title led to some humorous tales (being stuck in a rock chimney – only humorous after the fact). Jim talked about how fright and beauty go together – sometimes you can’t have one without the other.

Following Jim, Bernadette McDonald spoke on “Writing a Life: Himalayan Heroes.” Bernadette is from Banff, Canada, and was an excellent speaker. She highlighted her biographies of three mountain heroes – Elizabeth Hawley, who, as an adventurous young woman from America, moved to Kathmandu and never left. She also talked about her books on Charles Houston and Tomaz Humar, well-known Himalayan climbers.

I was intrigued by her description of her interview technique – she prepared questions labeled green, yellow, and red. Green questions were the early, easy ones. The red questions were saved for the very end, after she got to know the interviewee more thoroughly – questions that were difficult personally or professionally.

The third presenter was Harish Kapadia, editor of the Himalayan Journal. His talk was “Mountaineers Are Like That Only.” He said that mountaineering is a way of life, not a sport. His presentation was very humorous. In 2002 he was part of a joint Indian-Pakistani expedition in the Alps. His recent book Siachen Glacier: The Battle of Roses, was introduced and released by Bill Aitken.

Harish Kapadia

Bill Aitken

Wonderful mailbox somewhere in the wilds of Tibet

Writers' Festival Keynote

Nearly every presentation went somewhat over its scheduled time. However, we are in India, and everyone went with the flow. After a busy Wednesday lunch (it was also the return of students following Quarter Break, with parent-teacher conferences at full steam in the Quad), we began the afternoon session.

The keynote speaker was the eminent George Schaller, whose credentials range from a National Book Award to being a senior conservationist at the Bronx Zoo. His talk focused on conservation, with special attention to the Pamirs, an area that crosses Pakistan, Afghanistan, China, and Tajikistan, an area where plans are being made for a trans-boundary peace park. He talked a lot about the endangered Marco Polo Sheep, which have the longest horns of any sheep.

George also showed slides of the high Tibetan Plateau. He told us that China has been at the forefront of some conservation efforts – they have put huge areas under protection. They have also built underpasses beneath railroads and motor roads to facilitate migration. The wild Tibetan Antelopes are highly endangered for their wool, which is woven into a material called shatoosh. Because the animals have not been domesticated, they must be killed to obtain the wool. Trade in shatoosh is illegal, but of course there are poachers anyway. He showed a photo of a shawl for sale in the UK priced at over £ 11,000.

His final message: conservation is a process. There are goals, but it is never finished.

Dr. George Schaller

Photo of his slide of a snow leopard in the Pamirs

Photo of his slide of wild yaks in Tibet

Wednesday Morning at the Festival

First, I need to mention that the credentials of all the presenters were awe-inspiring. From climbers of the highest mountains to writers whose words readily evoked visual and emotional sensations, every single one was amazing. It was interesting to see how many of them already knew each other – several were honorary (or regular) members of the Himalayan Club of India. The club was one of the co-sponsors of the festival. I’m including links to as many of the presenters’ websites as I can. The basic biographies of all are linked from the festival webpage.

Wednesday the festival began with sessions especially for the elementary school students. Paro Anand is a prolific writer for children and young adults. She is also an accomplished story teller. She works with children all over India and several European countries. She told the story from her book “Pabloo Bear’s Adventure,” a tale of how the Himalayan bear got its white throat patch when his mother found him injured and sewed him up with a moonbeam. Paro has visited Woodstock several times before.

Prerna Bindra works with many publications writing on nature and wildlife. She told a story of tigers and had many beautiful slides of them. She has dedicated her life to saving endangered species, especially by writing about them.

Following a tea break (of course, we’re in India!), Toby Sinclair showed his film “Ganges,” the first of a trilogy made by the BBC. This one focused on the sources of the river in the mountains and had stunning footage of the area, including snow leopards and other wildlife. The second and third parts cover the plains and the delta. The film is available on Netflix and Amazon. He called the river “Daughter of the Mountains,” a beautiful image. One-tenth of all humankind live in the region of the Ganga (Indian name). The film was awe-inspiring, with its scenes of glaciers and flowing mountain streams.

Mussoorie Writers' Festival Opening

This past week was the 3rd writers' festival held in Mussoorie. When Steve Alter coordinated the first two of these in 2007 and 2008, I badly wanted to come, but neither coincided with our times in India. I was very happy that this one did. And, even better, I bagged the assignment of attending all the sessions to take notes for our Communications Department. Over a period of four days, we heard approximately 32 presentations. Every one was fascinating. I took copious notes and some photos. There is so much information that I will need to divide it into quite a few posts. Steve did a terrific job of organizing the entire program. The Festival was supported by the Winterline Foundation and other groups. You can see full biographies of all the presenters and the program here.

The opening of the exhibition was held on Tuesday afternoon at the Hanifl Centre, with tea served on the veranda.

The theme of this Festival was “Mountain Literature.” Two visual exhibitions were included: photographs by Coni Horler, a Swiss living in Bangalore, and ink drawings by David Wagner WS ’63, a botanist from Eugene, Oregon.

Coni’s photographs of mountain scenes were nearly 36” square, mounted on the walls of the hallway at the Hanifl Center. They are incredibly evocative of the high Himalaya. His website has many beautiful pictures to see. Click on the mountain scene at the right end of the second row to see several other mountain scenes similar to the ones exhibited. You can also read more about him and his work here.

David’s drawings of plants, insects, and small animals are meticulous and beautiful. He produces a calendar that includes his drawings and natural history notes for the Willamette Valley area. You can see many of his drawings (and order the calendar) here.

The late afternoon view of the Winterline to the west was beautiful.

After high tea for all the participants and Woodstock staff, we walked (or rode) back to the school for the official gala opening ceremony in Parker Hall. A string quintet of staff and students played the Indian national anthem "Jana Gana Mana" while we all stood (and some sang) at both the beginning and the end of the event.

The chief speaker was Her Excellency Margaret Alva, Governor of Uttarakhand. Unlike the U.S., the state governership is a centrally-appointed position. The Chief Minister of the state is the highest state political office. Mrs. Alva gave the official book release for “Mussoorie Writers’ Anthology,” edited by Surendra Pundeer. The book contains short pieces by 18 Mussoorie authors, 6 in English and the rest in Hindi. She and David Laurenson, Woodstock Principal, presented a copy of the book to each of the authors.

Following the book release, Mussoorie’s most famous author, Ruskin Bond, read his story, “Road to Badrinath.” I have enjoyed his writing for many years and own at least 20 of his 75+ books. More about him: Ruskin Bond

Mrs. Alva then addressed the packed house, focusing on the beauty of our area and how important it is to keep it unspoiled. We need to explore, study and preserve the environment of Uttarakhand, which is mostly mountainous. She said that writers open our eyes to see better and this is a special need of politicians. She has had a remarkable career. You can read more about her here.

And that was just the beginning. More to come.

Tuesday in the Bazaar

Tuesday we went into the bazaar to have lunch and to pick up my new glasses. I brought my prescription along and got a very nice pair for about a quarter of the cost in the US. My old ones were pretty scratched up and it is nice to have a clear view again!

We stopped at the Delhi Sweet Shop, one of Dan's favorite places from years ago, to have some tea and samosas. This is located just below the Tilak Library I wrote about last week.

The menu and price list is on the wall. The US dollar is worth about 46 rupees now; I'll let you do the math. Here are the first few items:

Chai - 7

Samosa - 6

Matti - 6

Bundi Luddhu - 5

Besan Luddhu - 5

Gulab Jamun (2) - 16

The higher numbers in the second column are for larger quantities, packed in a box to go.

We had lunch at the Old South Indian Restaurant in Landour. Dan and I both had Masala Dosas, the old favorite.

These colorfully dressed women were standing across the street while we ate.

On the way home I couldn't resist another shot of a vegetable/fruit vendor. They stack their wares so beautifully.

The pushta (retaining wall) below the Landour Hospital road is still being worked on. More debris came down during the monsoon. It looks like they are building it further out so the road can be widened. The new part at the bottom center looks like it will add 6-10 feet to the road above.

Just below Woodstock Villa is Cozy Corner, a tea and snack shop that is a favorite of the students.

Tuesday evening the 3rd Mussoorie Writers' Festival opened. There are sessions all day Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday morning. Many eminent writers and artists are here. The theme is Mountain Writing. I'll be writing much more in detail over the next few days -- I'm taking lots of notes and pictures.

Sunday in Rajpur and Dehra Dun

Sunday morning we took another walk, this time heading up the road (toward Mussoorie) rather than down toward Rajpur. The Christian Retreat and Study Center is across the road from the Moravian Institute, both of which we have visited before. We turned off onto a small road at that point, still heading up. We wondered if it was the old walking road to Mussoorie, and did find out that it was. On the way back, we stopped for some tea at a shop along the road.

Property is prime here; many places had signs like this.

A nice house on the path.

And nearby, some less-than-nice places.

Looking in through the gate of the Christian Retreat Center.

A cow checking out the tea shop tables.

Eucalyptus grove where the chai shop is.

We spent Sunday afternoon in Dehra Dun. We went into Paltan Bazaar, the major shopping area for the city. The bazaar seems much as it was when we spent the winter of 1968-69 in language school there. However, the population has exploded, and it is much more crowded. It appears that Sunday afternoon is a popular shopping time.

I wanted to buy some yarn, so we went to the same yarn shop that has been there for 50 years or more.

After visiting the bazaar, we headed back to Astley Hall to have tea with our friend Ajit. He took us to a new restaurant above the Standard Bakery. The owner is a former cruise ship assistant maitre’d and was quite chatty. It is a nice quite place, above the chaos of Astley Hall with its Macdonald’s and Nirula’s fast food shops.

Looking into Paltan Bazaar from the entrance.

A coconut vendor.

Vardhman Yarn Shop.

Clothing for sale.

I liked this shop!

Near the exit to the bazaar, there was a long line at the ATM.

Flower vendor in Astley Hall.

Dan and Ajit in the restaurant.

Yak Service Center on the Rajpur Road; this opened in the 1970s when we lived here and seemed very modern at the time.

Dan had a flat tire the week before and needed to have the spare fixed and replaced.