Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods

Can happiness be measured

text and images britt-arnhild

A morning at the cloth market.
A  morning in the pure middle of colours.
Happiness is what fills me.

In the news I read this morning that coffee makes you more open for positive words.
Colours work that way for me.

When I was here last time I had two Indian outfits made for me.
I had not planned to have any made this time.
But how could I resist?

And since Vinay would drive Sheri to the taylor anyway, and since Indian fabric is cheaper than coffee, and since both Sheri and Vinay were sure the taylor would make me an outfit in just a few days....

....I ended up with three meters of Indian cotton in red and black.

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Off to the taylor we went.

Can happiness be measured?

I don´t think so.
But if it could,
no measure tape would be long enough for mine.

How do you measure your happiness?

Photos: cloth market in Mysore

All from the beginning

text and images britt-arnhild

It all started 18 years ago.
I had an add in the penpal list of Quilter´s Newsletters Magazine, and got a lot of letters. Mostly from the US, but on thin paper, written with a steady, beautiful handwriting, was a letter from India. I wrote back, and soon Carolyn and I became friends.

10 years ago I got a phone call while I was on work, from a colleague. He was arranging a trip to Rome, there was a last minutes cancelling and he wondered if I would go. He gave me one night to decide.

When I came home from work that day there was a postcard in my mailbox. From Rome.

Dear Britt Arnhild. I am in Roma visiting my daughter. I am to stay longer than planned, and since we now are on the same continent, why don´t you come down and we can meet? 
Carolyn. 

All of a sudden the desicion to go to Rome was very easy to make.

That was our first meeting.
And also my first meeting with Sheri, Carolyn´s daughter, who lives in Roma (and who always has a bed available for me :-))

Since then I have met Sheri in Rome several times.

And in 2008 I met Carolyn again.
I turned 50 that year, and gave myself a very special birthday gift:
three weeks in India, staying with Carolyn and Hossy.

And now I am back again, this time for a week. And with an extra bonus - Sheri is also here together with me (though Terje could not come, he had to fly back to Norway and his job from Hong Kong)

Friends came for lunch a few hours after I arrived. Sheri made vegetarian pizzas. Enough for several soccer teams. The pizzas were baked in the new wood oven out in the garden.

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It feels great to be here again.

Photos from Sheri´s pixxa party.
In her kitchen in Roma she has cooked me an Indian dinner,
here in Carolyn´s Indian kitchen she is making me an Italian lunch. 

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You find all my posts from India though this link. (it is several pages long, so press the arrow at the bottom of each page to go to the next one)

 

 

Flora´s Empire

text and images britt-arnhild

I am reading the most interesting book,
"Flora´s Empire. British Gardens in India"
by Eugenia W.Herbert

A preparation for India in November!

And ideas for the book which lives in my heart,
the one I hope to write some day.

This time I will have only one week in India.
Too short,
I know,

but what can I do.......

Travel litterature, India and Japan

Text and images Britt Arnhild Wigum Lindland

 
During my three weeks in India in 2008, I spent time every day on Carolyn and Hossy's terrace, talking with Carolyn, writing in my diary, painting and reading. Mostly reading. What a pleasure it was to come to this house filled with books, and what a pleasure to find a kindred spirit according female travel litterature.

I digged deep into Carolyn's book shelves, and while staying east of the sun, west of the moon, far from little Norway, in my mind, through Carolyn's books, I kept on travelling, east and west, north and south.

I have collected female travel litterature for the past 9 years, ever since I discovered its heaven in the bookstores of New York when I in October 2002 spent two weeks there as an observer at the UN General Assembly. I could hardly carry my suitcases when I went back home from there, and ever since my collection has been growing.

In Carolyn's collection I found dear old friends and also travel writers new to me. Like Isabella Bird. Carolyn's terrace and Isabella Bird's travels in Japan go perfectly together in my mind. I can't think of one without the other. Carolyn and Hossy have lived in Japan for many years, and now and then I let Bird's books rest in my lap while listening to Carolyn's tales from their years there.

For me it created a dream........to travel to Japan.

 
I was in Oslo yesterday, for a day trip, and sat on the airport train when the devastating news from Japan reached me.

 
Today my thoughts and prayers go to Japan!

My cry is "why God?", and still in the middle of my despair, of the world's despair, I know that God is there, is here, somewhere.......

Photos: Carolyns garden in India

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Let me also take you on a Haiti memory travel today:

In a small corner of our livingroom I have gathered some travel memories. I look at the items and my mind wanders to Eritrea, to Laos, India, The Dominiac Republic, Italy........and today most of all to Haiti.

It was October 1998 and I was asked by Norwegian Church Aid to go to Haiti and The Dominican Republic for two weeks together with a small group. The goal was to bring back information to the churches in Norway in connection with Norwegian Church Aid's annual Lental Campaign.

It was my first travel out of Europe, I left Terje home alone for two weeks with four kids, the youngest one, Marta, only 2 1/2. But the most exciting and kind of frightening part was that we were going to visit a country only days after Hurricane George which killed over 400 people and destroyed 80% of all the crops in the country.

I am sitting here with my travel diary from the two weeks. A diary filled with strong impressions, with memories when I wanted to close my eyes and take the first plane back to Europe, but also memories of a beautiful, strong, fighting, though shy (in my eyes) people.

We divided the two weeks between Haiti and The Dominiac Republic, and most of out time in Haiti were spent in Port au Prince. In a small, charming hotel with a swimmingpool where we could rest between our meetings with people and organisations. There I could pray for the children we met at the orphanage run by The Salvation Army, there I could cry out my "why" to God after seeing the sufferings in the prison we visited downtown, where prisoners lived for years without trials, without hopes. There we could laugh and cry, sleep and eat.......though most of my nights were filled with thoughts and prayers rather than sleep. And there I could linger on sweet memories from a night at Hotel Olafsson, where Graham Greene sat his novel The Comedians.

One day we drove out into the countryside, where the hurricane had done severe damage. We slept overnight at a guesthouse and I spent the whole night listening to the strange noises of a world so completely different from my soft security at home.

I am reading my travel diary tonight, and my thoughts go to the people of Haiti.

Right now they are in need of almost everything, and we can all help. Norwegian readers, you can read more at Norwegian Church Aid's pages, international readers, please find the way your country (through UN, Red Cross, CARE and organisations like them) is giving their support. 

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Later tonight I plan to start rereading Edwidge Danticat's books;

 

Breath, Eyes, Memory

Krik? Krak! (Vintage Contemporaries)

The Farming of Bones

Booktalk on a Sunday 35. Photographing India

During the month of January I read several books on photographing. The more I read, the more I study photos, the more I see how I can make my own photos better.

My dear friend in India, Carolyn, is a daily reader of my blog, and when I some time ago mentioned the Indian photographer, the late T.S.Satyan, which used to be a friend of Carolyn and Hossy, she sent me a list of his books. I did a search on amazon and ordered Satyan's autobiography; Alive and Clicking, and had a wonderful time, filled with vivid memories from my three weeks in Mysore, while reading the book.

The autobiography contains a few of Satyan's black and white photos, but I wanted more. Actually, ever since I saw one of his photos in Carolyn's studio in Mysore, and looking through his photobook In Love With Life which I found on Carolyn and Hossy's coffetable, I have wanted more.

 

Amazon couldn't give me anything though, his photobooks were unable or out of print.

 

Then an email came from Carolyn: I have bought In Love With Life, and will mail it to you.......

 

The book came a few days ago. And I have been looking through it several times since then. Trough T.S.Satyan's photos I've traveled to the old India, and at the same time memories from my three weeks in Mysore has come alive in a new way.

 

Here is a photo of Carolyn in her studio. Carolyn is a master quilter, there are almost more quilts coming from her hands and heart than I am able to count. Many of them are made of hand woven and hand dyed cotton from her daughter's farm. The black and white photo up to the right from Carolyn's head is one she and Hossy were given by T.S.Satyan.

 

I have been looking through all mu hundreds of photos from India today. I feel blessed to have all these memories, blessed to have such dear friends in India. I don't know if I will ever go back there, but the memories will live with me forever.

 

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All photos are from people in and around Mysore.

A year ago.....in India

One year ago today I travelled to India. I have been looking through my India posts this week-end, trying to figure out which one is my favorite. Impossible to choose. The whole travel is my favorite. You can find it all by following this link:

Britt-Arnhild in India

And bellow you find one of the posts, Caroly preparing a party.

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  Carolyn and Hossy have a wide circle of friends, and they love to give parties. Both Sundays I've been here we've had a house full for lunch.

  Lunch guests mean preparations. Carolyn brings out her old Indian cookbooks, from when she first moved here for more than 50 years ago, and the years that followed.

  I follow her steps, with my camera and my notebooks. Asking questions about everything. What is this? How do you cook that? Is it spicy, or sweet, or.......

    When I come home my kitchen will be influenced by my weeks here, with alot of healthy and colourful South Indian vegetable dishes.

 

Images without my camera. From my memory chest.

 

One day I went down to The Maharaja Palace in Mysore. I had seen it from outside during one of my first days, now it was time to walk through the rooms, feel the atmosphere of old times. When I came there I was not allowed to bring my camera, my third eye. "How can I then remember?" I said to myself. Of course I could remember, of course I could "shoot photos". Vinay waited outside, looking after my camera, while I walked through the palace with open eyes, open mind, a moleskin and a pen:

I am inside the Maharaja Palace, while Vinay is waiting outside with my camera. As a matter of fact I find it quite okay that I am not allowed to bring my camera, then I use my eyes better. I am inside the octogon, marble floors in tourquise, orange, blue, green, brown and maroon, an eightpointed star in the middle, peacocks and mandalas. Fantastic pillars painted in tourquise, an amazing candelabre, glass mosaics up in the dome, with among other things eight dominating peacocks in blue, tourquise, green, brown and yellow.

Fantastic to walk barefeet on the marble mosaic floor. Historical murials along the walls.

Massive, dark wooden doors, 16 rose panels in each door, I can't stop my fingers to cherish the wood and the fantastic carvings along the frames. The tourquise pillars give an illusion of somewhere under the sea. Is this Atlantis?

I am in the room of the throne, the roof is made of the most fantastic wooden panels. Between the two throne chairs there is a painting of a maharaja riding a camel. The frame is made by ivories, huge! There must be four of them put together. The painting is standing on a teak chest decorated with carved elephants.

Up and down marbled stairs, windows made of coloured stained glass, remarcable plasters decorate the roof. I am on the first floor, marble floor, flagstones, tourquise is again the dominant colour, paintings in the arcs of women with eight arms, with four arms, maharajas, the most remarcable, intricat wooden panels and frames.Open arcs out to the courtyard. Tribunes. Seven candelabres hanging down from the roof. This must be the most fantastic I have ever seen. Room after room. Now I am in a kind of ballroom where the tourquise pillars have got golden painings. Quite another effect. More candelabres, even more beautiful. Peacock after peacock on the roof. A gallery in gold up under the roof. The windows along the gallery is painted in purple and tourquise, with golden frames with birds, feathers and flowers. Golden angels, or are they birds with human faces?

Again and again people come to look over my shoulder, wondering what this strange white lady is doing with a notebook and a pen. A guard is coming and my heart makes an extra jump, "Am I not allowed to write in here?" "Where are you from?" he asks, and wants to show me around. "Look at these ivory door knobs, ivory is the most expensive wood there is! Have you seen this massive silver door?" After a while he asks about the money in Norway and then he wants me to give him some. I just smile and shake my head: "Sorry, I don't have any Norwegian money here, but thanks for the guiding."

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The writing is translated from my travel notebook where I write in Norwegian. Oh my gosh, it is so difficult to translate. When I write in English, when I speak in English I also think in English. Translation from Norwegian words is quite another thing. I even had to use my dictionary!

From my memory chest

 

The first thing which met me this morning when I turned on my computer, was an email from Carolyn, my dear Indian friend. Still with the exotic taste of ginger in my mouth from my morning tea, my mind wandered down to quite another place on earth, the subcontinent where I left a big part of my heart. (Luckily my heart seems to grow the more pieces of it I leave around)

 

Memories from three weeks in India, where I at once was adopted as part of the family, follows me during my days. I don't know about the future, I don't know if I will ever go back, but Carolyn and Hossy, their household, their house, their city, South India, will forever be a part of me.

   

On my last day in Mysore I invited Carolyn and Hossy out for lunch. We went to Royal Orchid Metropolitan, an old, charming hotel downtown where the breath from the time of The Maharaja's still sits in the walls and in the atmosphere. Known for its tandori food, the tastes tickled my tastebuds in a new way. The soup was too hot and Hossy promptly ordered some other soup for me, but the rest was okay, though at the buffet I searched for the least spicy dishes, and the chefs found me a bit weak I am afraid :-)

 

Hot or less hot, there was enough choices. I have so much to learn about the use of colours in my cooking.

 

Carolyn and Hossy, I miss you so much. Thanks for opening your home and your hearts for me, giving me memories for a lifetime. God bless you both!

Good bye India.

 

Terje, Torgeir, Oystein, Ingrid and Marta - I AM ON MY WAY HOME!

614 rock-cut steps

 

At 6.30 am we started our last adventure together, Vinay and I. With us was Yogi, the young boy who helps in the house. Our goal for the day was Sravanabelagola and Gomateshvara Statue.

 

"The 17,5 m-high statue of the Jain deity Gomateshvara, said to be the world's tallest monolithic statue, is visible long before you reach the pilgrimage of the town of Sravanabelagola. Viewing the statue close up is the main reason for heading to this sedate town, whose name means 'the Monk of the White Pond'. The statue's simplicity and serenity is in complete contrast to the complexity and the energy of the sculptural work at the Belur and Halebid temples", South India, Lonely Planet.

 

" The statue was commissioned by a military commander in the service of the Ganga king Rachamalla and carved out of granite by he sculptor Aristenemi in AD 981. Bahubali's father was the great Emperor Vrishabadhadeva, who became the first Jain tirthankar (revered Jain teachet), Adinath. Bahubali and his brother Bharatha competed fiercely for the right to succed their father but, on the point of victory, Bahubali realised the futility of the struggle and renounced his kingdom. He withdrew from the material world, entered the forest and meditated in complete stillness untill he attained enlightenment. The statue has vines curling around his legs and an ant hill at his feet, signs of his utter detachment. The gallery around his statue has many smaller images of Jain tirthankars" . South India, Lonely Planet.

 

"You must leave your shoes at the foot of the hill......Those who prefere not to tackle the steps can hire a dholi with bearers for Rs 150" South India, Lonely Planet.

  

It would have been fun to be carried, but of course I walked, fit as a fiddle;-) And had alot of fun doing that. Then you can stop, when you need to get your breath back, and there are always someone else who need to catch thier breath also and you can make friends,

 

or you can share a good laugh when a small boy comes running up like a puppie, making delighted noises.

 

India is filled with adventures, and I am filling up my adventure chest.