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Assi Ghat, Varanasi, India

18 Mar

Assi Ghat is the largest and Southern-most ghat along the main artery in Varanasi. It is also the most touristy, since many hotels and guesthouses are located in this area. But it doesn’t feel deprived of culture, there is still a daily puja ceremony in the evening, chai wallahs, men hanging out together, cultural drama productions in Hindi, and a few dhobis washing clothes. I went there this one evening with a friend from the academy, and sketched casually as we swatted away  mosquitoes and moths. The sun was descending behind the city, and the Ganga was in shadow. I later painted my sketch, remembering a certain dusty rose hue that the city adorned at sunset, and a drab gray blue shade along the river bank.

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Rickshaw Stand, Varanasi

17 Mar

At the Ralco cycle rickshaw stand, I watch the rickshaw wallahs come and go. When they have some spare minutes they stop to drink chai, or get their tires pumped. The older rickshaw drivers are incredible, with legs that are literally the size of my forearm, they routinely pedal whole families of four – and I think my arms are skinny. Most don’t fit their cycle very well, barely reaching the pedals with their stick legs, and straining so hard you think the chain will surely snap. But in India anything is possible, “Bharat me, sab kuch milega“.  It is definitely only a viable industry in flat cities, something I thought about a lot, being from hilly Seattle. Despite the hardship on the drivers, it really is an efficient eco-friendly way to cart multiple people around. Not that we don’t have ‘pedicabs’ in the States, but they are pretty restricted to tourist areas. All I know is that if Seattle were flat, I would have a rickshaw. I bet they could become trendy in Portland.

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Sunset at Ganga Bank, Varanasi

16 Mar

View from Ganga Bank Guesthouse, Varanasi © Erin Lau 2010

It was Holi, the Hindu festival of colors, known for its raucous misadventures in covering people in liquid and powder color, but I had been spared. I had pretty much stayed in my room all day, because the people at the academy warned of such horrid misbehavior by drunk or drugged men (its mostly men out there) so it was pretty easy to avoid the color snipers on the roof and the ground color grenade throwers. At the same time, I kind of feel like I missed out on a really potentially fun festival. Nevertheless, I decided to go to the roof of the nearby Ganga Bank Guesthouse to soak up the colors of the evening sunset, and watch the city, sleepy from the daytime celebration, fall into shadow as the sun sank behind the temples and mosques.

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Pat & Matt, Varanasi

16 Mar

My friends at the academy, Pat and Matt often both practiced on the roof. They were both studying sitar, but Matt also plays guitar, so they were playing around with a Raag they had learned. Interestingly, they are both from the Pacific Northwest, where I call home, and they were taking off from college to study in India. When they return they will be studying jazz, Pat on saxophone and Matt on guitar.

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Sangeetkar (Musicians), Varanasi

16 Mar

Another performance by the Mishra family at the academy. Debu (Deobrat) often sings when he plays, especially folk songs. His family is known for their vocalists, yet his father was the first to play sitar, and he has infused a singing style in his sitar playing. Debu blends the two styles with great agility, one of few musicians to do both at the same time.

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Deobrat Mishra, Varanasi

16 Mar

Deobrat Mishra is the director of the Academy of Indian Classical Music in Varanasi, the school I attended. He is a sitar virtuoso and often plays alongside his father, Pandit Shivnath Mishra, who is one of the top sitar players in India. This concert was given at the academy, and Deobratji was playing next to his father, along with Bitu, their nephew who is an amazing tabla player. I tried to draw both Guruji (Shivnath) and Deobratji but Guruji’s head was hidden behind his sitar, so it was not a good composition. In any case, the concert was entrancing, and we were able to witness the musical chemistry between the father and son duo.

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Indian Woman

13 Mar

I based this sketch on a young woman I had seen in Varanasi, a mixture of two different women actually. Since I wasn’t able to do a proper portrait with her sitting still, I just went from memory. I had been trying to draw faces that were recognizably Indian for a while, and this woman seems to be the most convincing. In fact, when I showed my sketchbook to some Indian guys they separately said “ooh beautiful, who is she?” as if they wanted to be introduced to her. Sorry guys, she only exists on paper.

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Shaadi-Shuda India

12 Mar

Anatomy of an Indian Married Woman

Shaadi-shuda means “married” in Hindi, and this is a sketch I did to illustrate the various markers of married women, particularly in Varanasi (and Uttar Pradesh). It seemed as though the ultimate indicator was the sindoor, the vermillon mark painted onto the forehead where the hair is parted. The bindi dots, located more in the center of the forehead, were not necessarily worn to indicate marraige, but seemed more to be indicative of one’s devotion to Hinduism. In addition there were the nose pin,  toe rings and anklets, which were also meaningful in Rajasthan. However, because of various family customs, its hard to say for sure if any one of these signified marriage or not, but they seemed to be worn by almost all women. Finally the sari was worn daily by married women, while the salwar kameez suit was reserved for young unmarried girls.

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Varanasi, India Feb 2010

12 Mar

I arrived in Varanasi (aka Benares or Kashi) in February, after one month of traveling in Rajasthan and Uttarkhand. Unfortunately I’m skipping ahead over my time in Uttarkhand because I failed to make any drawings while I was there. But I had stayed at an amazing school and ashram in the mountains surrounded by happy, tiny children, and briefly passed through Rishikesh and Haridwar on my way to Varanasi. I drew this particular sketch just after sunrise.

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