THE ETERNAL CITY AND THE HEEL OF ITALY

The first chapter in my history book in Standard IV was on Rome. I vividly  remember the picture of a bronze statue of she- wolf suckling the brothers Romulus and Remus , and the first date I learnt in history was 753 BC, the year the city was founded on the Seven Hills by the river Tiber. In the same chapter, there were accounts of the gallant  Horatius repulsing an Etruscan attack under Larspor Sena  ( a name I found funny enough never to forget ) with  just two more comrade in arms across the narrow entrance of the Pons Sublicius ,  the bridge across Tiber, allowing enough time to his army to cut down the bridge after which the three dived into the Tiber to scamper back.

There were a large number of reasons to know more about Rome later on,  not just on account of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar in ICSE or Roman history being  part of syllabi of my Intermediate and Graduation studies , but also in no small measure to the comics of Goscinny. Rome comes back to us in the English language :When in Rome, do as the Romans do; All roads lead to Rome,; Rome was not in built in a day. The inimitable Lalu Yadav also popularized the Eternal city in Bihar with his slogan “ Rome hai Pope ka, Saharsa hai Gope ka”.  But even if these later encounters with Rome had not taken place, the picture of that bronze statue and Horatius’s  saga of courage had left an indelible imprint of Rome on me, and it remained ever since on my bucket list.

The chance came, in continuation of a New York visit,  when I got to spend a weekend in the Holy City before I took up training  for a week at Brindisi. I flew into Rome from Casablanca on a Friday evening, and settled without much hassle in the budget hotel Silla after passing through three remotely controlled access gates/ doors ( such an arrangement seems to be quite common in the old gated structures in the area). Not to waste time,  I went out for a walk in and was soon hit by a sweaty Bangladeshi draught. There were shops on the pavement run by Bangladeshis, actually just too many of them, selling cheap shawls, scarves, hats, coats, overcoats , mufflers , and what not. What also struck me  the first evening, after being used to a relatively disciplined crossing of roads and lanes in New York with a near complete submission to traffic signs was the stark difference here. Here you crossed the roads , though not the main arterials , but quite often there as well, by a mixture of judgement, persuasion and luck-  and not necessarily the traffic signs!

It can take up to 50 euros for a guided trip to the Vatican museums, though there are provisions for internet booking for single tickets with microphone as well for 37 euros. I had booked one, but soon ran into a pretty Romanian agent ( she said her community was the largest foreign community in Italy) and was coaxed into paying twenty more to join a group. The guide Marco  did a good job, even though it was a most basic tour. One can spend weeks, going through the wonderful museums, but it was one of hell of an experience, as you come out of the wonderful spiral staircase to start the tour, though most of the time, people were taking snaps of the art de objects or selfies, and not many were listening to the guide or reading from the descriptive tablets.

The sheer splendour,  the size of the canvas, the sublimity of creativity leaves you spellbound- Raphael’s The Transfiguration in the Vatican Pinacoteca done with the chiarascuro or” light on dark” technique which probably inspired Michelangelo’s  Sistine Chapel paintings; the Loacoon sculpture group and the Apollo Belvedere Greek sculpture as you move around, breathing in the crisp air in the octagonal courtyard of the Pio- Clementine museum; the Sala Rotonda which is amazing right from the oculus in the ceiling to the royal purple porphyry basin and amazing mosaic floors;  the three dimensional effects of the ceiling paintings which wow you as you enter the Tapestry Hall but before you recover, the amazing Belgian tapestries, especially the Resurrection of Christ with done a “moving perspective”;  the Map Room whose ceiling paintings are as amazing as cartographic frescoes inspired by drawings of Dominican Monk Ignazio Dantis ; or the utterly amazing  Raphael’s The School of Athens in the Raphael Rooms of The Papal Apartments.

The last of the museums is the Sistine Chapel, as famous for being the venue for the papal election as for Michelangelo's path breaking paintings on the ceiling between 1508 and 1512 his painting The Last judgement after 1535 ( which  unfortunately obscure the magnificent Cosmatesque floor) . Apart from the sheer sublimity of the work,  which I was able to appreciate a bit more after the briefing in the Pinecone Courtyard outside the museums ( one is not allowed to take photographs or even speak inside the Sistine chapel) , I was amazed at the sheer scale of labour and discomfort it involved. Here was I, uncomfortable at staring at the ceiling for 15 minutes, and this maestro painted it just looking up, hours after hour, days, after days! That he created a piece of art which was not his original forte ( he was more comfortable with sculpture), adds to the wonder of it,  and I  realized that rivalry  ( in this case with Raphael?) is the mother of creativity !

After the museums, I went inside the second largest Church in the world, probably the holiest in the Catholic world as well,  one of the four to have been given the rank of a Major Basilica, and considered by many to be the finest piece of Renaissance architecture. I am usually amazed at the opulence that is to be seen in the leading religious edifices of most major religions of the world, and it was no different here. In front of the Church stands an iconic Egyptian obelisk ( Romans were fascinated by them, pulled down quite a few and transported them to Rome ( only about eight I guess survive in Rome) and even built many locally. As a stand alone, it is marvellous, but placed in front of the Church, it kind of obstructs the view when you take a picture of the church from behind the Obelsik Vaticano. How would a minaret look in front of the Taj Mahal?

The following day, a Sunday, the only  place where I spent some time was the Flavian Amphitheater, known famously as the Colosseum and one of Rome’s most iconic structures. It is indeed very colossal in size, but that was not the reason for its name as known today, but derived from a colossal statue of Nero built around that time. Just like a large part of the grandeur of St Peter’s basilica was funded by wealth created from the infamous sale of indulgences, the construction of the Colosseum was also funded from the opulent spoils taken Jewish Temple after the pillage of Jerusalem in 70 AD and the over 1,00,000 prisoners which provided the labour.Fires, earthquakes, pillaging and scavenging of its basic construction material, the travertine ,  are the tell-  tale signs at the magnificent ruins, famous for  gladiatorial fights, hunts, even sea battles and debatably the death of Christians, witnessed by a hugely excited crowd, inebriated on food, amphoras of wine and the spectacles. .

After encountering a very unhelpful booking lady at the Fiumicino airport  in Rome who insisted on charging for the second piece of booked luggage, despite my international haulage, I landed at Brindisi for a Civilian Deployment training. There were some interesting moments in the course, not the least the staged kidnaping and illegal hostage taking of UN officials, to prepare for hazardous missions. The United Nations Logistics Base in Brindisi, situated on the Adriatic Coast, accommodates  the Strategic Deployment Stocks of vehicles, containers, generators to be deployed in the numerous UN peacekeeping and peacebuilding Missions, the base for Information and Communication Technology deploying critical telecommunications equipment and designing applications and systems for the UN Missions, an Integrated Training Centre , the Strategic Air Operations Centre, GIS Centre, and also the Standing Police Capacity of the Police Division of UNDPKO.

But what gave a totally different dimension to my stay was Sanjeev Joshi, an Indian Economic Service officer working in the Standing Police Capacity . Of  friendly disposition, he just overtook the responsibility of my comfort, taking me around to places of tourist and culinary interests.  So Monday evening we travelled about 40 kms to Lecce whose burst of baroque leaves you spellbound, even though it was late evening. LIke most towns in this area having traditional affinity with Greek culture, Lecce is also known as the Florence of South, its local soft malleable limestone stone admitting to heavily ornate work after being immersed in milk. The old Roman remains of an amphitheatre mingle with baroque effusion as I travelled in the emptiness of the deserted cobbled streets  in the diffused yellow glow , glimpsing the Piazza Del duomo, the Lecce Cathedral with its imposing Bell tower,  a host of other buildings before finishing at Porta Napoli or Triumphal Arch . We got hopelessly lost while tracing our way to the car, and celebrated the success in re tracing it by having a lovely dinner in a warm restaurant with local red wine, bruschetta and cavatappi in cialda or fusili shaped pasta with pork, red chilli pepper and parmesan cheese.

The following day we went to Ostuni, about 45 kms north west,  and as he parked the car, Sanjeev took some pictures of adjoining shops and landmarks to help us recollect the parking slot.  We started from the Ostuni square with the Saint Oronzo’s column and started our circumambulation, around small shops and cafes ( stopped for a coffee at one of them) and then went towards the old citadel . This is the White Town or La Citta Bianca ,  with white walls and architecture , through a maze of lanes and bylanes , houses with small baroque designs  around plain entrances and arches, spotting restaurants at unexpected and impossible nooks and corners, sometimes opening up to a burst of Adriatic shimmer afar, sometimes in cul de sacs.  From the Church of Santa Maria, we descended down to retrace our steps to the car , scanned all over for the shops and landmarks whose pictures we had taken as a matter of abundant caution, but failed hopelessly. Finally, a strapping,  just under seven footer, with a hooded cape came walking, and offered to take us back to the piazza . But he asked for money , not much , just enough for a cup of coffee. I was totally surprised.

This is the dark side of Italy- its unemployment rate is almost 12 % which is almost half of Greece but double of Bangladesh and Romania whose people have come to populate the country in large numbers. In the region of Brindisi, the rate goes up as high as 17%.Italy’s politics have been quite colourfully Berlusconi-esque, the trade unions quite hawkish and the mafia quite in command- the one in Brindisi I came to learn was Sacra Corona Unita though one colleague warned that while Lecce and Brindisi were quite safe, it could be unwise to wander away from the town centre in Bari, a port city about 100 kms away.

I have always tried to reach out to the culinary offerings places I visit, but i was spoilt for a choice in Italy. There is this nice restaurant in Brindisi called Don Angus where we went twice after walking down the seafront, through a yellow lane of graffitied walls. The beef and pork cuts are on display, you order and take your seat to be looked after for the evening by a young and attractive waitress whose smile and efficiency were not her only assets on display.  But if I had thought that I had eaten my best Italian food yet at Don Angus, I was wrong. It was to be at a restaurant on the outskirts of Brindisi, with a kind of rough village house ambience, run by the same people who ran the cafeteria at the UN Logistics Base. The antipasti bouquets are  created by every restaurant and probably by every connoisseur of food differently in different regions. The one here, after suggestions from the owner and a few from Sanjeev and Benigno, and accompanied with a lovely glass of spritz, I was in a different world. However, what took everything away from what I  had ever eaten before in Italy was the Ocean Beef steak.

Finally it was time to bid farewell to Brindisi. Sanjeev saw me off, vowing to have only vegetables for the next fortnight at least, blaming me for  all the red meats he had to eat as a price for keeping me company , wasting his waist management resolutions. The lady at the Alitalia counter was more helpful than her colleague at Rome a week ago, she didn’t  charge me for extra for the second piece of booked luggage. I finally returned to Bissau, after almost twenty days of tour abroad, to  political stasis which has been was the only activity in this country.

FROM DECO BY THE BEACH TO DECO ON THE OVAL

The evening of Saturday, the 12th of November, 2016 at Fort Lauderdale was an occasion for a Patna get- together, yet another round of election- result talk, a couple of  bottles of fantastic IPAs or Indian Pale Ale, and Trinidadian cuisine ( courtesy my Trinidadian sister-in-law). Trinidadian Indian food- mutton curry,  thin rotis of maida stuffed lightly with lentils, a few vegetarian dishes and huge parathas   rolled up and smashed parathas ( also called Bussup Shirt because a paratha can be rolled to sizes of a shirt) is very mildly spicy.  Sharat Bhaiya guessed that people who went there from India were average peasants from Bihar and UP  could have ill- afforded the spices found in the kitchens of Rajas or Nawabs- after all, the relocation of the Indian indentured labour to many parts of the Caribbean's was not quite like that of Wajid Ali Shah's to  Metiaburz or even Tipu’s children to  Kolkata when the chefs of royal kitchen accompanied.

Sunday we started at 830 am  for Miami. We went past the Biscayne Bay, marvelling at the downtown Miami skyline and then the huge line of cruise ships.  I was told that  Miami is the cruise capital of the world- cities on the move they looked, and like most things American, are developed on a huge canvas - and sometimes , by converting a couple of floors exclusively for Indian tourists, a few cruises are even touted as Maharaja Cruises ( it will be interesting to see how many Maharaja cruises ply post- demonetization of the two big bucks !). We were in a bit of a rush as the guided tour conducted by the Miami Design Preservation League of its famous Art Deco district was to begin at 1030 hours.

After the over hour and a half walk with a group led by Sandy, a passionate and knowledgeable guide, it was time for Cuban lunch at Versailles whose menu jacket claimed it as  The World’s Most Famous Cuban Restaurant. The service was fairly quick for such a rush hour time and plenty of Trump supporters, and very quickly we finished a sumptuous meal of fried pork chunks, ¼ roasted chicken, shrimp “al ajillo” black beans, boiled cassava “yuca” with cuban mojo, garlic bread, plenty of rice and  fried plantains , washing them down with St Pauli Girl, a Bremen- brewed beer.

The week following this Sunday, which was largely in New York, I had occasions to further try different cuisines- with Bunu Di the Korean at Wonjo not very far from Penn Station, with my nephew Yash a sushi debut, yet another culinary first time on the 2nd Avenue  of the Turkish at Ali Baba with my colleague Robert Haslinger and finally the Shrimp Fajita at a Spanish joint not far from the UN HQ. The only disappointment was in inability to savour Ethiopian food. The culinary juggernaut  is continuing in Rome, and will till I reach Bissau on 27th instant, but more on it some other time.

We hurried back from Versailles for a Swamp Ride in Fort Lauderdale, the Everglades Airboat ride. Not many know that Fort Lauderdale, in south eastern part of Florida, is also known as Venice of America. The town is famous for the sawgrass marshes with a complex system of interdependent ecosystems that include cypress swamps, estuarine mangrove forests, tropical hardwood hammocks, etc.The one hour ride is on airboats fitted with airplane turbines at the rear as shallow water with thick undergrowth would jam the rudder and motor of the conventional motorboats we see in the usual touristy marine sites. The siting of a large number of iguanas, red crested vultures and a lone alligator made the trip worthwhile.

Now I must return to the Art Deco walk, which is the main reason for this  account.Miami’s Beach Art Deco district is the first 20th century Historic District, consisting of over 500 houses around the Miami Ocean Beach front, thanks to the untiring effort of a Communist Jewish widow Barbara Capitman, who teamed up with a gay doorman Leonard Horowitz in the passion to save the buildings built between 1920s to 1940s to the condomania of behemothic realtors from around 1970s.

The fanciful pastel buildings with maritime elements (  porthole windows , ship deck style railings, waves and sleek curves), glass blocks, geometric patterns ( saucer like turrets, zigzags), rounded balconies , obsession with symmetry, and terrazo floors  that characterize these buildings are a treat to watch - see the basic schematic guide captured from the Art Deco Welcome Centre at Miami.

Even though the term Art Deco came from the 1925 Exposition International des arts decoratifs industriels et moderne held in Paris, and was an architectural style influenced by Egyptian artefacts, cubism and futurism, its famous signatures on cityscapes were grand edifices like the Chrysler and Empire State building or the Metro theatres of Kolkata and Mumbai, Art Deco was profusely borrowed for building a large number of cinema halls in many cities, hotels and most important, the private houses of hundred of self employed professionals and businessmen between the third and fifth decades of the last century. And this is primarily the reason  that most of us can identify with them, having seen them in different places in our childhood. When I saw the Congress Hotel in Miami, I was left dumbstruck. I thought I must have seen this kind of building in many Indian cities,  including one Hotel Everest in Dhanbad which is now converted into a Nursing Home.

I was first drawn to  the term “art deco” when I read a string of columns by writer Amit Choudhary and a few others , making an impassioned plea to save the buildings constructed by middle class Bengali professionals in Bhowanipore, Sarat Bose Road, Lake Road, Southern Avenue, Hindustan Park, Paddapukkur in which a few confirmed to the Art Deco style, though most were were a typically Bengali modernist evolution combining the Victorian with Bengali zamindari kothi styles ( red oxide floors , sleepy green-shuttered windows, spacious porches , intricate cornices , elaborate wrought-iron grills, etc). Actually, Mumbai has the second largest concentration of Art Deco houses after Miami, the majority designed by a Hungarian architect Laszlo Hudec and a walk along the Marine Drive, Oval Maidan, Churchgate, Malabar Hills, Peddar Road will help illustrate this claim.

But to me , the most important call from within was because I hail from a locality called New Kadamkuan in Patna, an area developed post 1934 earthquake, the first instance of town planning in Patna in the British era, carved out of  mouza Muharrampur that had changed hands from the Mughal Empire to the Company to opium growers, and leased to a large number of lawyers, a few doctors and some career politicians like Anugrah Narayan Sinha, later on the Deputy CM of Bihar.

It was in this Kadamkuan Mohalla of  rows of 8/6/5/2 cottahs plots, separated by broad metalled roads( the Bihari cottah is almost double the Bengali),  that huge houses came up, about a hundred, built by masons from Midnapur and Murshidabad, probably introduced  or recommended by a large number of Bengali professionals who held high positions in Patna’s society those days, in yes, you guessed it, the Art Deco style. Of course, I did not know the name of that style, nor for sure many of the owners of these Kadamkuan houses, as the term itself was popularized as broadly applied stylistic label only in the 1960s when historian Bevis Hiller published the first major academic book on the style : Art Deco of the 20s and 30s.

What makes the Art Deco buildings of Bombay, Patna, Kolkata or the Bengali- European houses of Calcutta so unique is that the era represents these towns’ first expression of “modernity and modernism” - in Calcutta they were neither the British created space nor the “aristocratic Bengali mansions of North Kolkata, in Patna the new professional classes, buoyant from  creation of Bihar Province came out of its Patna City, Naya Tola closet as it were, while in Bombay the emerging Parsis, film personalities spearheaded the construction of these houses.

Art Deco could well have been one of the first major thing Indians borrowed from America, probably as a political message as well since these were also the years of  popular nationalism in India and America was an example of successful independence from Britain. It was also India’s first expression of cosmopolitanism in that various Art Deco features were seen not only in exterior design but also the grand interiors of the cinema halls , the new form and places of public gathering - Roxy, Metro, Elite, in Calcutta, Hind and Pearl in Patna, Relief Ahmedabad, Mayfair in Lucknow and of course a whole lot in Bombay.

But I doubt Amit Choudhari’s team can hope for much success. He rues the fact that well -heeled Bengali NRI could invest millions to buy a heritage house in London or Marakech but not in Kolkata where he would like a new flat instead. The concept of heritage is itself  quite unique in this country. For a young country like America, probably 1920s and 1930s is old enough to attach the label of antiquity, in India with over five thousand years of history, the same period is not so back in history to justify the honour and consideration we give to age. Besides, a house not lived in by a great personality is not considered sufficiently heritage-ed, there is no quarter given to a style of architecture of anonymous professionals and the only architectural effort which is gaining traction in Kolkata is the dichromic painting of government buildings, housing estates !  I also doubt very much Amit and his team can muster the razzle dazzle support of fashion designers, gay activists  and artists to the cause of Art Deco preservation as successfully as  Barbara Capitman was able to- afer all Versace bought a house in this Art Deco district,  the Casa Casaurina, where he was later on murdered.

A large number of Kadamkuan Art Deco buildings have survived, but only because of the statutory provision of leased out Khas Mahal plots prohibited any changes to the original structures. But I wonder for how long , my own grandfather’s house wears an ugly look with the covering of open verandahs, while in several plots  in this mohalla, new houses have come up in the vast front lawns and driveways. One after the other, old cinema halls are being converted to shopping malls, and a similar fate awaits a large number of Art Deco private houses.

The Bombay enthusiasts have probably the best chance. They have, around the Oval Maidan, a ground that separates two contrasting styles of architecture separated by almost 50 years, have applied for UNESCO World Heritage site for an ensemle of Art Deco buildings on its western side and the Victorian Gothic structures on its eastern. But then "Bombay is Bombay, rest is India".

TRUMPED IN UN POLICE WEEK

Arrived in New York last Sunday, and found the days expectedly very short , shorter than what the 630 pm snap from the plane window suggested - a layer of light up above the horizon when actually  it was dark down below on the roads .

Friends in India were thinking that  US Elections would be a big Tamasha in the streets , it wasn't actually so.  While there may have been a lot of hype generated , the visibility of Indian election props - police patrols , festoons , banners , miking, graffiti were all missing. On the 1st Avenue between 42nd to 46th Street ( the Trump Tower is probably on 46th, diagonally opposite the UN HQ where I had come to attend the 11th Heads Of UN Police Components Conference) I couldn't see any booth .

It was only during my post- office walk to Macy that I saw the sign of a booth on the 2nd Avenue . But the Election Day must have been celebratory - the Empire State was bathed in National Colours . The iconic building has a large number of programmed lightings which is put to use on special occasions like the UN Day General Assembly Meeting , Olympics , etc , and whenever it is India's, the hoax media kicks it up a unique , first time to happen - only- because- of- Modi chain of messages !

Trump's victory it seems has been met with incredible incredulity and despair, and even a snigger by many in the establishment and elsewhere- I wonder whether this was the cocktail of emotions amongst the Establishment when the Left came to power in 1977 . I am told that in Brown University , classes were suspended, counselling centres set up and comfort food offered to help people cope with the shock.  But what was very different this time was the series of protests on the streets- the NYPD whose Control Room we visited on Thursday is massively engaged covering them . The day following the result , it was dark and dreary , with a persistent drizzle . Back home in our country, it could have been taken as sign of divine dissonance with the result .

The week in UN was tight , and also included a session at the Security Council  and the first thing that strikes you is the mural painted by the Norwegian Per Krogh of a phoenix rising from its  ashes. It was very rewarding to see four Heads of UN Police Components address the Security Council , and many of the member states actively participated in the proceedings . The translators make it all happen for one to follow the proceedings conducted in the six UN languages.  Protection of civilians, attacks on peacekeepers and the spectre of terrorism were discussed in the weeklong sessions as was the way forward to have better set of skills with peacekeepers before induction and also a Strategic Guidance Framework being developed by the Police Division . I wish India , one of the bigger police and troop contributing countries has a more improved peacekeeping induction assistance policy .

Monday was great start , lovely dinner at Naya Mezza with my niece Richa - a Lebanese restaurant. The UN cafeteria , at least the one adjacent to Conference Room Number 9 where most of our meetings were conducted was also very good . But I have a huge problem , I am supremely diffident and actually intimidated in ordering a dish . First is the accent . Then the different methods of collecting your trays and making your salad - take so many percentage of greens , so of yellow and so if green. I avoided . Then the sushi bar . Everyone uses chopsticks . So I didn't try . A large number of drinks and food have fancy and different names . I ignored . The corner Italian Pizza shop by my hotel was my refuge , even on the days of dinner receptions by Permanent Missions. People talk softly , don't get drunk , and leave the place by 730 pm. Thursday dinner was at Ping Restaurant in Chinatown ( Ping probably means peace in Chinese ) - I very much liked it , and it was not as bland as some China- visited friends had told me . But I still prefer my Calcutta Chinese, and I was most happy to see a Bangkok Food shop nearby - going to pick up Thai ingredients next Thursday for sure .

Had come to US twice before , but never seen the trees during the Fall which has truly set in . Yellow , red , burgundy, crimson - the colours the trees wear . Snapped a view in the morning from a window in Prashant and Raju's house in Bethesda, a DC suburb where I had come over for an evening of warmth, drinks and good company.  . Now off to  Fort Lauderdale before another week in New York . The Vamoose Bus which took me to DC had a wash room which had  a very helpful sign inside it . Saw it for the first time , and under no illusion about my shooting skills in a moving vehicle , promptly obeyed it.

KERE- A TREAT OF A RETREAT

As promised, I come back to you with my account of the visit to Kere island. I doubt many of you would have visited an island which is just about 300 meters by 300 meters  and yet houses a proper tourist resort with almost twenty huts, an entertainment “box”, a dining hall with a bar, and a host of activities ranging from swimming or just a jal samadhi with chilled Cristal for company, lolling on the white- sand beach to kayaking and fishing. Kere, a wisp of an island in the Bijagos archipelago in Guinea Bissau,  was uninhabited till the turn of the millennium till one Laurent came and set up a resort around 2000. Actually when I was talking to Laurent , he told me that it was the news that the island had very few mosquito that drove him to pitch his tent for the first time when he was doing some biodiversity study in the archipelago.

The occasion of my visit was to participate in a Retreat being organized by a super efficient colleague Samanntha for  an important division of the UN  mIssion in Guinea Bissau  called the ROLSI or Rule of Law and Security Institutions.  Frankly,  as per the usually understood meaning of retreat as  a kind of military withdrawal , you would be surprised but then the English language is wonderfully polysemic. Retreats can also mean, , in line with long drawn Hindu, Buddhist, Sufi,  and the Christian spiritual traditions ( the Christian one being actually established by Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus whose priests ran a school named after an Italian Missionary in India by the name of Roberto de Nobili in the coalfield town of Dhanbad where I studied) actually aggressive ways of deepening powers of concentration and insight. They can be held in solitude or in a conversation, kind of a “loitering with intent “ in the words of Evelyn Underhill.Well, the fellows in ROLSI are not exactly priests and nuns, but then the diversion to explain just puts things in a perspective. Carrying your thoughts into a quiet sunset is indeed very invigorating.

About 24 of us, mostly from Portuguese speaking countries on either side of the Atlantic, left early morning from Bissau and debussed at a point beyond Quinhamel  after a long drive on unpaved roads where three country boats , powered with ubiquitous Japanese  engines, met us . We started to weave our ways through the delta formed by the Canal do Geba and Rio Mansoa   into the Bijagos Archipelago - typical mangrove, a scale much smaller than the Sunderbans but fairly reminiscent of it. The archipelago was declared by UNESCO in 1996 a Biosphere reserve - the Boloma Bijagos Biosphere Reserve to be precise, known also for animals including marine turtles and even sea water hippopotamus. The Bijagos, also known as Bissagos, Bojagos, Anaki, Bidjogo and Bujagos are an ethnic group  ( and probably gave the name to the country )  and also the name of the only deltiac archipelago in Western coast of Africa,  covering an area of over 10,000 sq km off the  coast of Guinea Bissau.

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Amidst banter, slips in the deltaic slush, selfies and usies, the journey was wonderful though without an event.  We were  lucky with the weather as it didn't rain during the two and a half hour  south western journey , most of it in the green blue waters of the Atlantic, and while the last forty five minutes I spent to catch a series of catnaps, the journey was spiced up with Portuguese and Brazilians making fun of each other’s Portuguese - so the transatlantic divide is sharp not just in English.

On the horizon we left the islands of Maio , Ponta and Formosa, three of the over 80 islands that make up the Bijagos  Archipelago . Kere is really small, and doesn’t find a mention in the tourist maps of Guinea Bissau available in the shops.  When I first spotted Kere, I thought it could be just be a segment of its northern sea face, but Samanntha remarked that was the full face.  It was way too small I thought, but my heart cheered up as soon as we , the last of the three boatloads, got down a soft landing. In most of the smaller islands, like in Rubane off Bubaque I had spent three wonderful days or Kere do not have any jetty, nor can dry landing be facilitated by the improvisation of long, narrow wooden planks which one can see in Sunderbans , so all of us were in our flip flops or hawai chappals, in shorts or rolled up trousers .

The moment I stepped on the white sand , I fell in love with the place. You step out of the boat , go past a thin grove of cabaceria tree and a few others, a few joined by hammocks, some canopying over beach chairs lying about, and you are next to the Dining Hall cum Bar which is a half gazebo, half hall.  When Sonia took me to show in my Cabin No 10 , she threw off her sand- filled sandals just at the entrance, dipped her feet in a small rectangular water filled bucket ( the kind you see around some swimming pools placed as hygiene assists with a solution of potassium permanganate) and I followed her wet footprints on a red rough cemented floor, absolutely clean. The verandah had four huge lounging chairs, a heavy circular table, the usual wall trophies of horns and animal skulls, and its floor was ringed around with a carpet of clam shells . A dim lit room, an attached bathroom, it was oozing with the warmth. I only wish Laurent and Sonia had installed ceiling or stand fans. I couldn’t sleep well the first two nights, even though on night two, I had started my sleep on one of the beach deck chairs . It was  only when I had shifted to room no 3 which had a more upfront exposure to the sea, I got good sleep.

Frankly, the Retreat was a serious business. Breakaway groups, presentations, plenary, wrap-ups - it kept the rapporteurs very busy, and I thought it quite useful to wind up 2016, spell out priorities for 2017 and set up a strategy to achieve them. It was hot and humid, the promised cool breeze playing truant, and meeting hall which was a Entertainment box with exposed beams and a pool table, had the roots of a silk cotton for one of its walls, opening into a wild grove. I think in an island of Bijagos archipelago where the silk cotton tree or polom as it is called in Guinea Bissau Kriol is also supposed to be a repository of wisdom of elders, the choice of the Meeting Hall was apt.

Laurent also probably developed the area around the roots of the silk cotton tree as they were said to be the refuge of some iras or spirits , were centres of most ceremonies and served as sort of as central to life of Bijagos people as the temples were to the communities in many parts of medieval South India. He could set himself up here only after almost two years of hanging around, and his chance advantage of saving the life of a very sick pregnant girl who was the daughter of a local chieftain was taken as a calling for the spirits to have accepted him as one of their own. His baptism was by Bijago animistic custom and various initiation rites ( fanado) . Later when he married Sonia, it was as per the Bijagos custom, which is a half way way matrilineal society!

In my view, the silk cotton tree should serve as a kind of insignia or heraldry for any task force set up to secure the maritime security of Guinea Bissau, threatened as this poor country is by rapacious trawlers froas far China and Korea, drug and human traffickers and even terrorists. Actually, the maritime security architecture is intended to stand on sensitization of and support from local people for proactive interdiction , and what better than to suggest the silk cotton tree, where in the past, the Bijagos tribes planned counter attacks against Fula, Muslim and later on Portuguese invaders .

The dining hall was indeed the centre of activities, as all would have to eat the  pre arranged menu. I wish they added some variety to the breakfast, it was the usual crepes, a few cakes, fruits , juice, coffee and tea. Most of the times, breakfast was the time one had to be most vigilant as bees clung on to your jam and honey spreads . Food during lunch and dinner was excellent.  Fish, caught locally would dominate. The entrees included very thinly cuts fish fillets marinated in lime , sometimes soup of pumpkin, and on one occasion platefuls of clams, while most of the main dishes would include fish boiled, fried, grilled , roasted or even steamed, served with bread or rice or even potato fritters. The dinner on Saturday evening had huge pieces of pumpkin, caramelised and roasted which I quite relished. Dessert was either fruit salad or  caramel custard , the latter having more body than the ones which we normally have in India. Antero, Chief ROLSI , introduced me one evening to the Brazilian Cachaça which is also known as Brazilian rum, but is different from the usual rum we know for unlike the latter which is made from from molasses, Cachaça  is made from fresh sugarcane juice that is just fermented and distilled. 

The Retreat was officially over on Friday, and then was the time for fun. Saturday morning I went for fishing. Actually, the USP of the place is that it is a fishing resort- it is called M’îles Vagues de Découvertes fishing lodge and Laurent represents Guinea Bissau in International Game Fishing Association. The archipelago, with their islands and shallow waters , do not allow the trawlers to come inside and scrounge, as a result of which the waters are abundant with various varieties of trevally, barracuda, cobia, tarpon, etc and I saw a framed picture of a world record being broken in respect of probably Red Snapper.

So with my  two colleagues Salomoa and Kitane, both from Mozambique , and the knowledgeable Kere hand Brato, I spent a good two- three hours on a warm morning . We caught four barracudas, the largest one was about 6-7 kilos which fought and won the battle against my angling rod, but lost the war to Brato’s iron hook - but enough for a been -there -done -that  picture for me.  The catch received a lot of shabashi when we returned, but then when I saw the size of catches in the pictures in the dining hall, I could really appreciate , with a great sense of humility, what international level game fishing was all about.

The afternoon the same day the Brazilian gang egged me to for kayaking. The strong and silent Kitane was my partner, the two had never kayaked , and it was only misplaced enthusiasm and fear of toppling over that kept us going. Our coordination, or lack of it, almost capsized the others due to laughing fits, and we covered, in the first leg, at least three times the distance as others over the same stretch - our glorious mismatch of paddling resulting in almost ox bow slaloms and on a couple of occasions even figures of eight !Well, on the return journey, Fernando advised me to sit in the rear and guide, and the result was a much straighter path.

The following day, Antero exhorted me for another kayaking expedition with Salomao to the Carache Island . Salomao gave up after two three tries and hopeless topsy- turvy , very wet results, so it was once again Kitane. The two of us, and Antero and Christina in another , set out for the more distant, and larger island. For a good two hundred meters before the beach, we hit a sand bank and we didnt know whether to keep rowing or step out and drag the kayak.  Anyways, the four of us reached, met a guy in Jesus Loves You T shirt, who was there for a visit to the local village or tabanka, I found a lovely turtle shell, but out under the bright sun, it was hot. Laurent has helped dig several freshwater wells for the population, one for M’incha health clinic and a few for his vegetable gardens as well.

On return, the tides joined us, and for  the last fifteen minutes , the waters became menacingly choppy, and for a non swimmer like me, a heart in the mouth experience, for about ten, interminably long minutes. Kitane, the Corrections Officer was quiet, I was quiet, this deafening quietude was our anxiety- loaded friendship bond. Meanwhile, in the other kayak, Christina did a big favour by opting out of any activity  which made it easier for Antero to plan his journey uncomplicatedly , and I think confidently - after all, he had his Iberian sea- faring genes on his side.

The return journey on a Sunday afternoon after lunch was evidently quieter, the journey slowed by intermittent engine snags in the other boat, but it felt good to be back, as I noted for my future references a few places Antero pointed out which operated local handlooms.