Kite Flying at Chowpatty Beach

In January India celebrates Makara Sankranthi, the world's largest kite flying competition. 

The major competition is held in Ahmedabad.

Mumbai celebrates it in a smaller way on Chowpatty Beach.

Chowpatty Beach is on the most northern part of Marine Drive and is Mumbai's most

favourite beaches.

The kite flying competition involves fighting kites. Fighting kites have fins but no tails.

The kites become very dangerous when the lines are embedded with an abrasive. This is usually made of finely crushed glass and glue and turns the kites into attack weapons. Some also have metal knives attached to hook and cut the opponents line.

Prior to the actual festival people congregate on the beach for the simple pleasure of flying kites.

That is where this story starts.

We were in Mumbai on business during January and decided to visit Chowpatty Beach to see the

 kite flying and to take some photographs. When we arrived it was late afternoon and we expected to 

be there for around 30 minutes. We started off from one end of the beach being very discrete with our cameras. The people on Chowpatty Beach were mainly family groups and they had come to picnic, 

have fun and fly their kites. The sky was a colourful patchwork of kites in all shapes and sizes.

Although all castes and layers of Indian society were on the beach there were certainly some 

that were not as equal as others. I caught this balloon seller enviously eyeing off the blue jeans

of a smartly turned out boy. A lack of equal opportunity condemns so many.

We were noticed as we were the only Westerners on the beach but everyone was minding 

their own business. Everyone that is except a small group of boys.

They came up to us and wanted to know where we were from and what our names were.

Diane and Omar both from Melbourne.

At the mention of Melbourne, in cricket mad India, one of the boys said his name was 

Ricky Ponting. The then captain of the Australian Cricket team. And he started giving

us all the details of the MCG, The Melbourne Cricket Ground.

They then asked us to take a photograph of them together. They started

acting up and generally being silly boys for the camera. Some of their friends

rushed over and wanted to get in on the action.

We turned around and there was another group.

And another.

The walk along the beach took on a life of it's own as people jostled to have their portraits taken.

Omar was shooting digital and he could show them the results. I was shooting film so they

got nothing from me. We weren't a film crew. We weren't handing anything out. We weren't

offering to send them or selling them prints. But everyone wanted to get into the picture.

Then it started with families. This gentleman came up to me and asked me to come with him to 

photograph his family. Of course I went. Omar and I separated but if he needed me or I wanted to find him we just had to look along the beach for a crowd. The shot below is of his family.

Every time we turned around there was another family lining up for us.

A fantastic opportunity and a lot of fun for all.

 

This gentleman walked up and said "This my grand daughter. She is beautiful. Take her photograph".

And I did. By now we had been on the beach for 90 minutes.

 Half way along the beach I saw what looked like a normal pile of rubbish.

In India that isn't a surprise but it was odd in the middle of the beach.

I looked a bit closer and it was a pile of hundreds of shoes that looked as if

they had been washed ashore. It was a memorial to those who had lost their 

lives in the 2005 tsunami.

Still the families came.

 

   

Occasionally the crowd would part and I would capture candid moments like this father 

and son and the woman below, caught in their own world.

 

Being new to India we didn't understand certain cultural niceties. 

This woman in her brightly coloured tie-dyed sari and her children stood out to Omar.

He asked could he take her photograph and she agreed. After a short time her mother came 

up demanding money. The daughter had wanted to be part of what was happening on the 

beach and reprimanded her. 

As we walked away one of the children who had been following us

sidled up to Omar and told him that he couldn't use his camera anymore. 

When asked why he said that the camera was now dirty. 

When questioned further he added that Omar had just taken the portrait of 

an untouchable and her family therefore the camera was now dirty. 

Omar, slightly sarcastically, cleaned the lens on his shirt and that was acceptable. 

This was the first time that we had seen the giant rift that is the caste system in India.

We had now been on the beach for two hours and people kept posing.

 

 

 

Finally it got too dark to shoot anymore and I think we had photographed nearly 

everyone on the beach. The day's stroll had turned into a Chowpatty Event.

An event that gave us a wonderful record of the faces and families on the beach.

For more Chowpatty photographs visit

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dianeworland/sets/72157618602081549/

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Bali Part 1

I have been visiting Bali for decades and felt it's time to explain why I keep coming back.

I'll start with a potted history of Bali.

In approximately 2000BC Bali was inhabited by Austronesian people who came via China. 

They bought with them Indian, Chinese and Hindu culture.

In both the 11th and 14th centuries Bali was invaded by the Javanese.

When the Javanese left they had the luxury of 100 or so years of peace.

The Portuguese discovered Bali in 1585 when a ship was wrecked off the Bukit Peninsula.

They couldn't see any tourist potential and forgot to take time to smell the spices.

They went home empty handed and with nowhere to go for Christmas holidays.

In 1597 Cornelis de Houtman, a Dutchman, arrived, hung around, checked the place out 

and in 1602 established the Dutch East India Company.

The Dutch liked Bali so much that they thought they should own part of it.

A small part wasn't really enough so in the 1840's they took colonial control of it.

Europeans couldn't get enough of sugar and spice and all things nice from Bali.

The Balinese had enough of the Netherlands and wanted them gone.

In the early 1900's the Balinese rose up against the Dutch.

The Dutch retaliated in a most unpleasant way by staging a couple of massacres

and killing 1000's of Balinese. A not very funny way to repay their hospitality.

In the 1930's western anthropologists discovered Bali.

They declared it to be "an enchanting land of aesthetes at peace with themselves

and nature". Thus began an invasion by western tourists who were neither

aesthetic, at peace with themselves or at peace with nature.

This ended only twelve years later, as did Dutch rule.

It seems that the Balinese should have been happy.

But no.

The change occurred because the Japanese invaded. They turned out

to be no better that the Dutch, who the Balinese were glad to get rid of.

The Japanese also committed massacres and just generally behaved badly.

The Dutch just wouldn't lie down and go to sleep.

The Japanese surrendered in 1945 and the Dutch promptly returned.

They came back for the sun and surf but mainly the spices.

This time the Balinese had all the old weapons left behind from the Japanese

and rose up again. But the Dutch, who had plenty of practise, just massacred them . 

Those who died were unlucky as only four years later the government of the 

Netherlands acknowledged Indonesia's sovereignty over Bali and left.

Having centuries of invasions and massacres by foreign governments, it

would be great to think that peace had finally come to Bali.

But  now internal politics came into the picture.

During the 1950's and 60's the Indonesian army killed over 80,000

Balinese as part of an Indonesian wide effort to put down a political coup.

This was around 3% of the Balinese population.

Everything finally settled down in 1966 and Bali breathed a sigh of relief.

But they were to be invaded yet again.

By Australia surfers.

In the late 1960's and 70's, Bali became the mecca for hippies, surfers, dopers 

and drop-outs. The generally impoverished student and unemployed traveller. 

They travelled in Combi Vans and dossed on the beach. They stayed with villagers, 

eating their meagre food and generally taking advantage of the generosity and hospitality 

of the Balinese. They felt they were becoming one with nature.

This meant they didn't wash.

The Balinese thought they were scruffy, dirty, lazy spongers.

Their parents back home thought the same and were glad to be rid of them.

The free-loaders who came to Bali in the 60's and 70's now bemoan the loss of

innocence of the Balinese. They are annoyed that the island has been opened up 

with villas and resorts. They are annoyed that wealthy tourists now come to Bali. 

Tourists who are willing to pay their way.

They feel that the west has destroyed the Balinese culture.

This is to underestimate the Balinese.

They have withstood so much that they are very resilient. Their temples don't have

product placement or merchandising. There is a very private side of Bali that will 

never be corrupted. Their festivals are not conducted for Kodak moments.

They are personal and private. They are still part of village life.

But people can now mostly afford to send their kids to school. Education is

not free or a right in Indonesia. Teenagers now have a career path that doesn't include 

working on a rice terrace. Many of them do work in the service industries but a lot

now have ambitions to travel and own their own companies.

The Balinese run a great self-regulated system that simply doesn't need 

western do-gooders. A good example of this is the control of village water. 

The villages are organised along the lines of a hierarchy. The top village is at 

the top of the hill. They are the first to have access to water. Obviously the water 

then flows down to the lowest the village. But it's the village at the bottom who decides 

the water allocation for the entire network of villages all the way back to the top.

Simple and elegant, this was established practise around 300BC.

Westerners came in thinking they could improve the system.

After a drought or two the villages reverted back to their own way.

The Western tourist continues to invade, and the true Balinese culture continues to ignore them.

I was too young to join the hippy trail so I don't know what I may have

missed. But as I bemoan the developments that I have seen in the passed 

20 years I respect the right of the Balinese to modernise and move on.

The following photographs were taken in 1971 by my brother.

Padi fields near Padang Bai

These are still here and still look like this today.

Padang Bai - fishing boats

These are still the boats that are being used by local fishermen.

Boys near Padang Bai

The local kids still look like this although they may wear board shorts.

Out to the east - Bali

Today that would be a 4-wheel drive and there would be ten times the traffic

Denpasar - midday

This has really changed. Motorbikes have replaced bikes and

there would be a snarling, honking traffic jam.

Kuta beach - resort foreshore

Kuta is now the worst aspect of tourism in Bali. It is totally

built out and is a haven for drunks, beggars and touts.

Kuta beach resort foreshore

This does look idyllic compared with now.

School girls - Denpasar

Girls still wear skirts shorter than their mothers would like, although

they would probably wearing jeans and a T-Shirt

 

Pre-motor betjak (a tricycle taxi) - Denpasar

Now you have annoying cab drivers who constantly ask you

"do you have a plan for tomorrow?" 

Denpasar traffic jam 

Maybe it was better back then.

Not sure where - bus depot farewell and welcoming committee.

This looks more like someone begging. 

With the influx of people from Java this has increased. 

The Balinese look after their own and begging from Balinese is incredibly rare.

Night market - Denpasar

Denpasar is still very local, it is not a tourist hangout.

Before the influx of tourists - Singaraja

Singaraja although modernised hasn't changed that much

The tourists never came.

Bus Depot - Singaraja

Bus Depot - Singaraja

Gunung Agung - Padi fields for sure

Little has changed in the countryside as tourism has 

largely stuck to the coastal areas.

Kuta resort - with a genuine touch of Balinese temple decoration.

These are still used today

Denpasar street market

No-one would close the city centre for a street market now.

But you still see this in local villages. Unfortunately the beach markets have

been replaced with tacky sheds stuffed with cheap tourist rubbish.

And there are now big malls selling duty free garbage that you

wouldn't buy at home.

Denpasar street market

So this is my reflection of the past.

Part 2 will bring me into the present.