Mr Wolf taught me Latin, taught me Life

 I recall as a fresh primary school leaver visiting King David High School on a Sunday, Mr Wolf got up to the lectern and began speaking glowingly of Latin.  He told us that should we choose Latin we would be considered elite. What he didn’t tell us was the abuse we’d be subjected to, the ridicule and the insults.
I chose art.
But soon enough yearning to be like my brother I chucked the charcoal, punched a hole in the palette and joined the Latin class. Being elite trumped abuse.
There in that class, I made sure I sat front centre, conjugating, doing declensions and sipping the suds of Mr Wolf's far-from lugubrious Latin lessons. I didn’t care much for any other subject but for this most archaic of languages. I went on to do Latin for matric and I got a ‘B’ for Blah!

But more than letter’s, Mr Wolf, through his passion as a teacher, through his caring demeanor and love for the language of Latin he helped to open my eyes to a new, different type of world beyond the walls of suburbia. His teachings exposed me to architecture through learning about the Coliseum, Roman baths and ova’s; personalities, through his translations of Caesar; poetry through Homer’s Iliad; endurance, stamina and hard work, through Hannibal’s marches; and political structure through the senate, and the people of Rome.

I managed to pass school after Mr Wolf bludgeoned me with fierce words, jolting me into ‘picking up my socks’. Since then, I hadn’t seen Mr Wolf.

Until some twenty years later…Scouring through the dairy section of the local Pick n Pay, trying to find myself the densest thickest fullest creamiest cream I could find, suffering chilblains from everything I touched and seeing my extremities turn blue from the icy coolness of the refrigeration, my attention now diverted, I caught glimpse of ay Mr Wolf. With a bright luminescent light reflecting off the linoleum, skewing my vision, I couldn’t make out whether it was Jeffrey or Elliot. But I didn’t care, cos I ‘knew’ it was my Mr Wolf. Like two gunslingers, he, at the bottom of the aisle in the yoghurt section, and me, at the top end in the cream section, we stood stuck.

Gaining composure, my excitement grew like a fat boy’s seeing a sticky sausage. Dragging my tongue across the store, racing towards him, I caught the Wolf’s attention. ‘Mr Wolf, Mr Wolf’, I yoddled.  Stopping me dead like a harpooned whale, he responded, “It’s Jeffrey’, you’re looking for Elliot’.

I needn’t have seen my Mr Wolf in the 20 odd years I’ve left school, but his impact on me and the memories I harbor are branded onto my cerebellum, never to be erased.  I recall him as though it was just yesterday that I sat in that science lab conjugating verbs.

His lankiness and his length, he towered physically, he towered emotionally. What a giant of a man.

My Theatre Story

Way back when, when my long grey socks touched my knees and my stiff grey shorts had a seam down the front, my straight-jacket like black Bata shoes were tougher than the skin on Willie Nelson's neck never softening to allow my feet to bend, and I bawled my eyes out every time my dad dropped me at the creaking gates of school, i was chosen, albeit as part of a desk top study, to be in the foreground of the primary school play.

During this period of my life my hobbies included gardening, alone; playing mechano, alone; baking crumpets, alone, and gaming 'single player' tv games, ofcourse, alone.

With a gaping hole where my 2 front teeth used to park, and long helmet-like shaggy-rug hair akin to David Bowie in Starman, I was no 'looker', and to add injury to insult, I had the confidence of a deflated whoopee cushion, but for some strange reason, there i was row 1 column A on the teacher's Excel spreadsheet. 

Rehearsal took place in the school hall, on stage, beneath a giant spot light. 

We were geared in blue jeans and red tee's, and our hair was greased up in hair gel stiffening it like a debutant rodeo rider. 

I was part of the scene where about eight of us did a dance to Bananarama's, 'I'm your Venus'.  In this scene, we'd have a comb in our sock and we'd brush our hair like Elvis. We'd be the glistening stars of the show. But for the life of me I couldn't co-ordinate the actions with the lyrics.

Seeing as i was co-ordinated as Daniel Day Lewis in My Left Foot, i was gently slowly replaced moved towards the blurry edges of the background into deep dark deserted theatre anonymity. My star receded, dissolving like a dunked disprin, eventually becoming an inanimate extra in a scene from an Italian restaurant, never to step foot on a stage ever, ever again, ever. 

206 and Dave Matthews 28.06.2021

 The first time i ever saw a credit card being used for an alternative purpose other than paying for Woollies veggies was one late Tuesday eve while sucking hard on a Black Label brown-bottled beer. I was settled in the more relaxed room where sat a pool table and billows of smoke bubbled around bobbing heads. The background beats being spun by the disc jockey were sweet, slow and seamless. I scoured the room to find a seat, pulled the stool, sat down and let the bar lean on me. With my hands clutching the ale, I watched all that played out before me. There, sat a bit away, was a long-haired kid. With his chequered Vans, ripped Diesel jeans and parachute material track top, he fit right in like cream stains at a strip joint. As a mad scientist, he meticulously, cut up a heavy heap of powdery blow into short sharp lines readying it to be sniffed deep into his cerebellum.

206 was a bar club perched on the snaking Louis Botha avenue in Johannesburg in the mid to late 90’s. Louis Botha was no desirous place to hang out yet it harboured this contrarian locale far away from the polished hoods of BMW’s, ice cold Absolute and 3 tiered collars.

206 spawned a counter culture giving air and space to alternative sounds, hipster attire and a left-of-centre crowd seeking paths, thoughts and substances less beaten. 

Garth, his handle bar ‘stouche bent just right for ding dong donuts on a two stroke, his plaid shirts fitted right for lumber jacking in south Dakota and his gravelly voice suited to scaring the bejesus out of under-age drinkers, sat bouncer, opened the front door to usher me in. I waded through the densely packed bar clustered in tables and chairs set haphazard like lily pads in Paris. A band plays, and her howling sends me scuttling through the rabbits warren of rooms and themes eventually spitting me out into the open air courtyard where a sweet scent lingered like a zeppelin in the air as the corduroy-clad crew puffed the magic dragon. Set in the corner, a haphazard hole in the wall, sat the bar. And there at the bar sat Dave Matthews.

In ‘95 or so, my older brother introduced me to music. From that year, I’d spend hours listening to cd’s he’d suggested, hours working tables in an Italian restaurant to buy cd’s he’d suggested, and hours scouring CD Warehouse for new cd’s he would suggest and then one fine day he came to my room spinning a cd on his index finger like Michael Jordan would a leathery basket ball. Leaning on the door post, he said, ‘Listen to this, boet.’ It was his copy of the Dave Matthews Band’s debut album, ‘Under the Table and Dreaming’.

I went over to the pc, double clicked on Solitaire, de-pressed the eject button, dropped the disc on the opened tray, pushed gently to close the tray like a tech beast would, and then hit play on Microsoft’s media player. As I flipped the first card, a 3 of spades, popped the black ear buds into my ear, I became inebriated.

The following Tuesday, I threw on my newly acquired surplus army pants and a general’s jacket, grooved my hair to the side, grabbed the well worn Under the Table and Dreaming album, a fat koki pen and revved that Mazda hard till I arrived at 206. This, all in the hope that i’d bump Dave.

Greeting Garth, he rubber stamped me and I bee-lined it for the outside courtyard. 

Ploughing through the dense sticky smoke like Indiana, slashing my hands, pushing aside the detritus, there was a clearing, and there in the clearing sat Dave. I stood still.

Naive as Tusser’s cheese, I approached him, I greeted him. 

Bumbling, he was liquidated but I didn’t care. ‘Please, Dave, sign my album’.

Clutching at my cd cover, he grabbed hold of the fat tip and scrawled, ‘Dan’. Then he drew a peace symbol, and continued with ‘Dave Matthews’.

As a fat kid licking an ice cream sundae with a dipped flake I reclaimed the album, tucked it deep into my jacket pocket and haven’t let it out of my sight since. 

Big City Dreamin'-28.08.2019

It’s August and the city sweats, poring from the street’s manholes. The sun’s rays cut swathes down the deep corridors of Manhatten. The trees burst with green foliage. Shorts are tight and skirts are high. The soft hand-cropped grass tickles the feet of picnickers and Frisbee tossers on the rolling greens of Central Park.  The ice cubes of an iced coffee clang against the plastic cup, rustling, jingling our thoughts to dipping our toes in the city’s lakes. The cooling clouds swirled above, bashing into one another like go carts releasing rapid relieving rains.

Dry cover comes from the tropical Trader Joe’s, a supermarket brimful with busty buxom oranges beaming sunshine and happiness, tomatoes red ripe and chocolate bars stacked like Lego. The staff adorned in the colours of Hawaii operate like sunflowers tracking the sun as patrons paddle their hands. The background music the mix tape of my life turns our lips to beam apple wedges. With a packed paper bag, we rise up the escalator to be cast back onto Amsterdam Avenue.

Flicking lights, and bleating cabs, they stop and start, collect and deliver. A card swipe and a hailed uber. The driver pulls in, and pulls out shuttling cardboard cutouts. 

The cyclists and their leather shoulder bags slung tightly across chests. They’re coming and going, they’re zipping by, cutting swathes through parks, peddling single speeds flicking the ringer as a walker steps the curb.  

As the time struck 1900. We descend the stairs, the rushing sound of a tinny train heaves bellows of heated air gushing past us, sending skirts to bellow and hair to flail. We swipe our metro card, flik past the turnstiles and await our time on the platform, toes curled over the edge, anticipating. 

Airpods in and the Rolling Stones roll, soft cover novels thumbed and bent, ready for the metro ride back here and back there. It’s a game of pong. The underground snakes and shuttles, burrowing its way beneath the earth. Activity happens above and activity happens below. This night, above ground and many storeys up, it was at Madison Square Gardens. We got out. 

Out of the top pocket of my plaid shirt sat two tickets. Rising storeys high at the mercurial MSG, we sat in the nose bleeds for a desirous date with the effervescent Billy Joel. He and his ebony and his Ivory. From the records sitting on the platter in Johannesburg, to the live sounds in Manhatten. What a journey. 

The neon lights glow, beating the dark away. The wet sidewalk casts a glare of what’s going on anyway. The side walk cafe sees emptied pints and limp fags. The pool of vomit is a story of a debauched night past. The reflection in the rear view mirror flips past like an ipod shuffle. Memories. 

Dropping the dented coin into the slot, the lights bleat activity.

Pulling back on the spring loaded handle, the weighted metallic goon rolls back passively waiting to be propelled lifewards. 

Creak creak. The spring is squeezed. The spring is coiled.The hand is released. 

The spring unfurls, rapidly flinging the mirrored sphere into the playing field. Game on New York City.

3 Peaks Challenge-Johannesburg-26.07.2020

Me and Sherman run cos we were born to run.

Post lockdown regs, having maintained strength doing leg presses under the weight of the leadwood table, and chopping trees, we were chiselled like Michaelangelo’s David and ready for the At-Altitude-3-Peaks Challenge. 

Sherman had this idea to run the 3 highest peaks in Johannesburg. We hadn’t surveyed the peaks, but having trained hill repeats up Linksfield Ridge, the hard-o-meter determined it high, and having run the Easter 48, determined Northcliff Ridge as blood curdling high and having trudged the stairs with a backpack full of tuna cans, our glutes determined Westcliff, preparing-for-life high.

We ran them in no order of height, but in sequence of completion. 

We launched our journey from the ‘centre’ of the northern suburbs heading west rising up to Oxford road, before plummeting towards the base of the Northcliff Ridge. From there we scaled the ridge. 

At the pinnacle seeing the Sherman as the polkadot-jersey wearer we headed towards Westcliff Ridge but in the while we would integrate the Melville Koppies for some urban trail, great views and a shared Gu.

Making our way back to the ‘centre’, we then made an assault up the Westcliff Ridge as it was wrapped in skeletal jacaranda’s and careening seed pods. Here we took another opportunity to document our feat by asking a passerby for a photo. Click.click.Clickety click.

Once we’d regained our steel, like tumble weeds, bounced and bobbed through Forest Town, Saxonwold, Killarney and ofcourse doffed our hats, said ‘good morning and asked for ‘centre’ please sir’, as we rose up the back side of Munroe Drive past KES and St Johns. Racing to the bottom of Munroe, the sheltered tree-lined streets were grand relief from the heat of the mid morning winter sun.

No doubt tired, but amped to fulfil the dream, we beat our spurs to get us going, running eastwards towards the mighty and steep Alp ‘d huez of Jo’burg, Linksfield Ridge. I can’t give you a percentage for this climb since I wasn’t great at trig, but this ridge slow punctured me. 

We hadn’t calculated route nor distance, we simply threw on our treads and blazed a trail, and with it, establishing an FKT for an At-Altitude-3-Peaks assault...we think 

45km. 4hours 34 minutes. What an adventure, and what a way to say 'cheers' to a great mate.

Golf Balls, Entrepreneurship, Failure

We lived in an area called Birnam in a street called Sunnyside Road.  Birnam ain’t what it used to be having  been obliterated by new age neighbourhoods and hideous car showrooms.

Then, we lived like it was an 80’s Spielberg movie. I rocked corduroys, and shirts with coloured edge-trim. Days were longer and my hair too. I moonwalked through life in north stars with Velcro straps and/or a pair of pocked pumas. I had a skateboard with gummy wheels and an all-legit hand-me-down bmx. We set up Centre court between house 16 and 18, and we skate boarded like tony hawk. We trawled the burbs waving at store owners and friendly neighbours like jayzee in harlem. We were proper neighbourhood kids. Life was good.

Birnam was a suburb of maybe two streets and we knew everyone in that duo. If we didn’t see other kids on the grassy pavements we’d see them at one of the many stores that offered coin op arcade games. And if a new kid moved into the area, or grew up to be old enough to walk the streets on his own, we’d be sure to meet their acquaintance at those same arcade-offering venues.
A 20 cent coin would get you one game. 20 cent coins were a major trading commodity. Back in those days, if you had a roll of twenties you were down-right minted. Any spare cash after the 20’s made neat piles five coins high was spent on hot chips or spicey samoosas at the local burger joint. It wasn’t always so easy coming about hard glinting currency. Birthdays were always a year away. We didn’t get much for channuka other than latkes, begging from your folks wasn’t so glamorous, and your bar mitzvah stash was probably locked up in futures or bonds.  so we needed to go about getting tom in our own very way like washing cars or ‘keep the change’ when you’ve just bought rolls at the Bakehouse for Sunday lunch.

So we had to find other means.
Our drifting radius extended as far as Wanderers Cricket Stadium to the west and to the Waverley squash courts to the east across Corlett drive.
Our primary school, Fairways Primary was well positioned for one of our many adventures.

The school sat hard up against the Wanderers golf course. By a combination of proximity and terrible golfing, stray balls would often come missiling onto our sports field like badly aimed rockets from Gaza. ‘fooooore’ would echo from the links vibrating off of the ‘protective’ eucalyptus trees forcing kids to drop hard up against the ground in that airplane brace manoeuvre. Me, I was just thinking, ‘that ball is mine’, and there i’d be running like some under-attack soldier, hands on head along the beaches of Normandy as the Germans pelted the allies.
During cricket matches while posted on the fence, or while playing gainers during break time i’d too come across these mini meteors. And so I began hoovering them up.
 I began to understand on what particular days playing was most popular by the volume of balls that went astray. Saturdays and Sundays were helluva buoyant.

And so on weekends I’d trek up Corlett Drive, sneak into the primary school and head into the no-go-zone, the Kashmir, between the school and the golf course. I used to spend hours combing the area, scouring the long grass for balls. On a good day I could come home with ten or so goons. I became familiar with the branding- which balls garnered a hefty price, and which ball’s were termed ‘water balls’-those balls that you weren’t precious about and so were happy to see them fly out of bounds .  

I endeavoured to keep my golf ball spelunking  to myself, to keep it as much of a secret as possible. I did though let my boet in on my Indiana Jonesian escapades. Once he knew, the game changed. We needed now to increase the bounty.
And with that we became brazen. At the end of a weekend’s days play we would leopard crawl into ‘Kashmir’, hack our way to the giant sluice running along the edge of the fairway of hole 11, climb into the sluice and out the sluice via steel rungs embedded in the concrete walls, mount the diamond meshed fence, flinging ourselves over to land softly on the fresh cut grass of the Wanderers golf course. Using the giant eucalyptus as cover, we skitted from one to the next, eventually scuttling across the fairway like crabs across a deserted shoreline to land at the par three water hole. We had arrived, undetected. Welcome to the pay load.

Wearing my tightest speedo which would be my ball carrier, I slipped into the water. The floor of the pond, algae slimy slippery. Walking slowly, covering ground, my feet my eyes, i’d eventually stand on one. ‘Ooh, got one’, i’d shout, the adrenalin rushing harder than the high of a raver tripping on lsd. Curling my dextrous toes around the dimpled goon, like ball and claw, I’d clench hard raising the ball up to my knees so my hands could snatch it. ‘what is it, what is it?’, i’d hear from the side lines. Titleist, Pinnacle, Ping or some scuffed up drek.

With the sun close to dipped, the water turning dark and the pond mined, i’d heave myself out the oily water, jump into dry clothes and together we’d walk our way back home, excited by our haul. Back home we’d jump into the warm bath with our new pay load, cleaning each ball till it shined. In jammies we’d inspect each ball, evaluate it, set it aside, count them and recount them. The golden jewel, the balatas, the softest ball of the day was the king pin.

My parents owned a clothing factory, my mom designed and my dad did the sales. Their factory was in Corlett Drive just a flight of stairs up from the Mi Vami take out. Frequenting the area a lot, we came to befriend the big fat dudes who managed the store. One day we walked past the store on our way to my parents with a brimful bag of our day’s catch.

‘boys, let me see what you got’. Showing him our balls (no innuendo intended), he asked if we had more. Sure we did, numbering in the 200’s.

Doing one of the worst deals of our lives, we sold our supply of balls to this guy for a paltry R40. That deal subsequently left me gutted. And i’ve never forgotten.
Had we been taken for a ride, was it bad business?.
The new owners were going to pelt those hard earned balls into the sea on their summer vacation. The balls and our start-up. Lost forever.

Namibian Border 17.08.2018

Scratching days off of my calendar from February, I’d finally put the last scrawl through August. It was hike time.
Bundled tight as a pack mule, and trained hard as a mountain goat, I was ever ready to beat a path through 5 days of the Fish River Canyon.
Buckled tight in the S3, the red brake callipers released, the needle flicking close to illegal, we crossed country, riding west into a setting sun.
The journey to Namibia was broke up in two with day one bookended in gravely icey Upington.

Gins and tonics, billies, beer and bbq. My neck, shoulder and back muscles released their hold. We began to ease.
Sun down. Sun Up. I arose like a lion. Goooood mooorning, Upppington.
Saddled in, we returned to tar, leaving behind some civility the ‘scape turned lunar.
The swath cut by the liquorice rope long drag heading towards the Namibian border became rockier, craggier and drier as we drove towards wilder west.
The flat-lined landscape broken by the alien like solar tower a beacon in the landscape.

2 hours and we were stopped parked at the South African border. Jumping out of the car we entered the buck teeth ugly orange face brick border buildings. The heavily treaded darker than death parquet floors lead me to the immigration officer.

Handing over my heavily thumbed passport,the immigration officer handled it deftly manipulating the pages as a card dealer in a kasbah avoiding the paper cut.

'You have a problem', he served.

Pivoting my neck to the left and to the right, then jabbing my index finger into my sternum, I returned serve straight at him, 'Who, me’?

Behind the riot-protection glass barrier, the officer smashed my shot with a flat forehand cross court, 'your passport expires tomorrow'.

Whipping it back with top spin, my eyes bulging in disbelief, and my mouth shifted far left, grinning, 'no, no, that can't be'.

Running to net for the volley placing the passport spatchcock-open against the glass he responded, 'but it is', pointing with his inked index digit at the next day’s expiry date, 'see'.

Running, lunging to retrieve the volley, I slid across the clay, coming up just short as the ball double bounced. First Set to the South African Immigration Officer.
Head in hands in disbelief , I ‘believed’ it’d all blow over.
'Please, please just stamp it', I pleaded.
Reluctantly, the South African officer stamped it. *bam bam*, 'I must warn you-the Namibians will not allow you through'.

5km later, shaking as an aging Muhammed Ali, I stood before a stern Namibian immigration officer.
Noticing I was an architect, he flashed me a tooth-filled smile. His bored demeanour turned to excitement. ‘so you can draw’?
‘i Sure can’. The guy while scanning the passport barcode was levitating with a marijuana filled joy. and then......
Then as dark clouds move vociferously to blank out a bright sun, the officer’s mood plummeted to deep anger on seeing the South Africans had led me this far.

Needing to document me, his eyes turned to rocket propelled grenades piercing skewering me stuck to the back wall, a camera firing me, my signature paving my way back to South Africa. With that all in place, I raised the question, ‘howsaaat?’ Responding, he raised his right arm parallel to the ground, looked left, then right, then finally dead at me, extending his index finger in my direction, he shouted, ‘youuuure out!!!!!'.

Game Set and Match

Deflated as a limp lung, I stepped out of the immigration building.
Yossi flagged down a pecan boer. Throwing my bag in the back, I jumped into his bakkie, his toebroodjies separating us on the long front seat. For two hours I lamented.

I hated life.
I booked a R3100 flight from upington to Johannesburg
Paid another R1000 for a 2 night stay at the BnB
and my rowing machine fund flew straight out the window.

The next day while all the okes were in the Canyon viewing the sequened Milkyway, or sipping handfuls of crystal clear stream water, and breathing fresh Namibain air, The Russian Bear Hunter was in aisle 6 of Pick ‘n Pay feeling the firmness of avocadoes.

blah 

Rishikesh, India 31.12.2017

On arrival on the last day of December, the hillside retreat burst at the seams as a vein-ey overly ripe grenadilla. I thought, ‘grief this must be a bankie of tree-hugging hippies readying themselves for a New Years do’. but as the sun set, *poof* the crowds dissipated. Lonely Planet informed me it was the fire lantern ceremony that attracted attention. And I missed it. Meh.

Sifting through the

deck of directional signage boards, following the red arrow to the Swiss Hill Top hotel, I arrived at my elevated residence. My room sat perched high with a scintillating view of the Ganga River and its cavernous banks. The night sky sparkled as the figure- hugging sequinned cocktail dress of the striking Liz Hurley. The icey biting cold of northern hemisphere December draped the town, pinching my cheeks red, and scouring my hands dry. The moment was surely sublime.
Familiarising myself with the town I walked a small distance, treated myself to fruity juicey naartjies and bent bananas, went back to my room, sat on the swing on the wooded deck, and with a twist of the bottle cap, sucked on my bev, and stared outwards as New Year’s eve tolled.

With the weather stiffening my toes, I headed inside. There a shaggy furry duvet lay. Having seen a lot in my short time, I knew that duvet had too. Fearing an STD if I touched its stiff hairs, I lay down on the bed’s edge as a cadaver in riga mortis with my beach towel covering me, barely. Keeping my hands close to my body and my eyes fixated on the glowing filament above, the long hour sent me to sleep.
If hotel duvets could talk.

The morning shed a bright light on all I couldn’t see the previous night. I wanted to see the Ganga.
The Ganga flows a deep dipped cerulean blue, cutting wide the ascendant Rishikesh in two halves, knotted together by two rickety swaying suspension bridges, their steel ropes tied taut as an angel’s harp strumming the hum of a gentle breeze. The organic grain of the river runs rapidly wide whispering its tranquil riverine composition.
The fine edge of the wandering sprawling river are hemmed in by the terraced ghats activated by the pious, the contemplater’s, the utilitarian, by the drifting cows, the westerner love birds.

Rishikesh is a hive of ashrams. The Beatles came, I think the Stones too. There they called The Maharishi their guru, practiced transcendental meditation and wrote albums, became their best thems.
I’m no Beatle, no song writer, but some seven years ago I practiced TM. I’m still trying to be my best me.

Chandigarh, India 28.12.2017

I’ve never forgotten what Chris Leung said to me one day in 2006 in YRM’s office in Kings Cross in London. “be aware dan, that the architecture of Italy, of Rome will  highlight your inadequacies. The greatness of the buildings will demonstrate to you the many years you have before you come in to your own.’ I had no idea what his ramblings meant. So I hitched on my backpack, slipped into my stove pipe jeans, popped my collar, and flew for 18 quid to Rome. Veni Vidi Vici. That year, I came I, saw, got drunk in a hostel on cheap Italian beer, and chowed gelato.

Fast forward 12 years.I arrived in Chandigarh, the modern-ist, and one of a select example of pre planned cities in all of India, if not the world. Chandigarh designed by Le Corbusier the French master architect  was constructed at the time of partition between India and Pakistan in the 1950’s. The then Capital city of the Punjab, Lahore was incorporated into Pakistan. The Punjab required now a new city in India. Chandigarh was to be their new home. The city was to be a modern Indian city Barry Peppered with works by the hands of Le Corb, and his assistants, Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew.
It was for this reason I was in India.

Dropping into 5^th gear, the engine roared as we began leaving the mountainous region of Dharamshala. We’d begun our descent. With the altitudic plummet, the air sloshing around my lungs began to thicken up like whisked egg yolk. Cells sucked on life giving oxygen staving off cerebral aedema and my brain activity reverted to some sense of functionality. Staring into the rear view mirror the mountains shrunk behind me and all of a sudden I thought, ‘wow, I could climb those’.

We arrived in this northern city and on first greeting, its grided-ness offered some sense of orderly-ness.  Its orthogonal structure read as a balanced balance sheet.  The one two tree lined boulevards were meticulous, turning circles were round , and the traffic lights communicated red means stop, green means go and yellow means slow.

The hotel I unpacked in, sat inside a night club. That night, the clocked tolled 10, as I lay my head peacefully upon the white firm pillow eager for renewal, the heaving bass of the downstairs night club slowly began seeping, percolating through the concrete walls of my room getting louder and louder as the dj turned the dial from off to high. As the night darkened the thick heavy grooves and grinds got louder. The clinks of vodka-filled glasses and the rockin rollin of whiskey tumblers penetrated the feathered buffer of my cushion. The Indian Banghra was banging on inside my room. With my pillow crushed tightly against my head and cotton wool jammed stuck in my ears, serving no purpose, I tried to cry. Sleep was a distance away. As 7am struck, the sun came hurtling crashing through my hotel window like a fiery space shuttle breaching earth’s atmosphere, I could finally sleep…..and then my alarm clock kicked in, doo doo do doo doodo.

Wakey wakey.

I didn’t come to India to seek self, or to dig deep into bunny chow. I didn’t come to meet the love guru or lose myself. I didn’t come to drop the suspension on my car, or install a LED halo beneath my car’s chassis. Flicking the furry dice hanging from the rear view mirror, I shouted, ‘let’s do this. I didn’t travel this far to ride shot gun’, amping myself, this pilgrimage had begun.

The only way to view Le Corb’s Government Complex, is via a two hour guided tour.
Ready Player One.

Beginning the walk through the tightly tree lined path way towards the access gates into the complex, our tour group  burst through the brush into the open piazza on which 4 iconic edifices  rest. With the sun bouncing off the concrete plaza my eyes squinted. Disorientated, stumbling as a pummelled heavy weight brawler, catching myself, righting myself, i came to stood stiff in front of a most recognisable of Le Corbusier’s buildings, the High Court. Stood before this I’ve-seen-this-before-in-countless-books building, my eyes came crashed closed sending a tsunamic ripple across the pool of tears harboured in an indent of my skull, causing a wake of salty swell to gather heavily, gathering enough weight to come hurtling down my face.
Here i was before the greatest. I cried and I cried and I cried.

The High Court and the Legislative Assembly building are set upon a vast table cloth of concrete a very far distance apart. Facing each other.  She at one end and he at the other.  When you’re an architectural god, and space isn’t a constraint, you have the opportunity to write your own Genesis. With concrete the DNA of his magnus opus, Le Corb in his round black rimmed glasses makes the heavy material that is concrete moulding melding in to what is now iconic.
The High Court is presented as a large portal, a gate way. It sits in isolation, on a pedestal.  It’s the way the architecture god wishes us all to see and experience it. It’s presented as one dimensional.
The building with its definitive trio of powerful giant coloured walls jumps forth towards you forcing necks to crane, asserting authority. Their monolith is played in contrast to the adjacent human-scaled egg crate brise soleil pocked in De Stijl red, yellow and blue softening the brutal concrete, keeping the eyes flicking, dancing, breaking the suns harsh light.

Herded border-collie-like to The Open Hand Monument, we ran up and down stairs into the sunken amphitheatre shooting the giant Hand wind vane silhouetted against the bottle-water blue sky. Shooting, sketching, running. With time short it was a feeding frenzy. Piranha’s tearing at hunks of meat.
Moonwalking along the super flat surface we arrived at The Legislative Assembly. Heavy set, a point of authority. It dwarfs us humans, only the front door, designed and painted by Le Corbusier softens its handshake. It’s giant heavy roof sitting on narrow ‘columns’. A gargantuan cone bursts from the roof, a definitive beacon on the landscape-a skylight experienced only from within the legislative chamber.

As the day set to end I took in my first breath. My emotions spilled, shattered on the floor. Humbled. 12 years after Chris’ comments, I ‘got him’.

Dharmsala, India 27.12.2017

It was special to leave city smog behind and head into the spearmint fresh mountains. The telling traverse towards the mountainous north was in itself an eye opener. Snaking up to altitude, narrow roads hug the contours of ascending mountains. As a fly fisherman launches his gutted rod, tempting the lurking fish, the roads flick flack back and forth opening vistas across valleys or closing views through dense forest.  As dispersed beads on a necklace, small villages pop up, clearing forest. Their tightly clustered stores hug the rapidly rushing roads edge clamouring for passer-by-attention falling over themselves like frenzied fans at a Michael Jackson concert. As large rivers cut through the landscape, tight-rope lean bridges straddle the plummet. 

I stayed about 13km from Dharamshala in a wee town called Kangar. Outside the back door rose the steep, giant charcoal-black Himalayas. At their feet terraced landscaping lapped at my motel door. The oxygen-thin altitude and the snow-dusted peaks chilled the blue-gray air.  A cold bite gnawed at my body sending a gooseberry-bump harvest racing across my exposed skin. My legs weary from inaction, needed to be walked. Throwing on my stove pipe stiff jeans and a red-riding hoodie, we tumbled down the steepness to come to a stop in a teeny tiny town. Jingle jangle, i dug into my pants, offloaded some Indian rupees for a beer, hiked back up the incline, saw the sun got sank by the eight ball, cracked open a Kingfisher ale, controlled remotely the telly, lay heavily on the bouncy bed and soon drifted as a golden yellow falling New England autumnal leaf into a deep dooz.

Mcleaod Ghanj with its curio-shop lined streets, harbours the Dalai Lama who escaped the Chinese demolition of Tibet. I didn’t get to meet the Cheshire-cat toothy pint-sized wine-red robed spiritual leader but I got to see his influence in the Tibetan Indian village. His and the Tibetan influence clings to the town like the fresh lavender scent of a just laundered jumper. It’s peaceful and it is respite-ful.
The wee little hillside city hugs the mountains edge, holding  baby-bear tightly fearing letting go, for the ravine below is not a way away. A multitude of macaroon-pastel coloured buildings anchor themselves on the valley-facing aspect of the conifer-tree spotted mountain. Roads and narrow slope-y shop-lined streets that don’t follow contour rise and fall clawing their way up and down the mountain like a cats scratch. The Tibetan complex, the temple, the prayer spaces and the Mani Prayer Wheel withdrew thoughts of the past from my memory bank-those sunny Sunday mornings, a sweat towel, and us kids sitting backseat on an adventure to yoga practice. Hari Ohm, Ohm Tatsat. Spiritual upliftment and a marshmallow-soft coffee sweet for the road home.

Walking to the video store on a Sunday afternoon with my sibling. There we’d hover like drifting ghosts through the labyrinthine white towering shelves filled high with video cassettes. We’d drag our hands across the face of the movie covers as if our hands decided on the movie the day demanded. On this day I chose Bud Spence &Terence Hill, and my older brother who was already reading and understanding Time magazine, chose Brad Pitt’s 7 Years in Tibet. Only one movie we were allowed. Ching chong cha wouldnt resolve it. Only age, maturity and a mightier fist would do.  
Since that day of being glued stuck to the tube watching Brad Pitt clamouring through Tibet, i’ve held hostage a desire to glimpse the mighty Himalayas. What a blessing to have seen this gargantuan hulk pulled from the earth like whisked eggs whites stiff. To have travelled so darn far, to have beaten death while traversing the country’s roads, there they stood lurking high before me.

Amritsar, India 27.12.2017

Leaving behind the tourist riddled Golden Triangle, I caught a jet plane for Amritsar.

Amritsar is a siiick city, it so happens to be a Sikh city too.

Amritsar punched a few divisions above its weight. It offered the extra-ordinary.
With the sun managing, just, to clear its way through the dusted air, a new morning was able

to reveal itself. 

We parked in a brutalist concrete parkade along a tarred and dirtied road.

Walking a few steps beyond the parkade a riverine red-paved boulevard gushed pacily past us heaving with tens and tens of tourists and touts. With a bout of trepidation, I gingerly dipped a toe into the raging turmoil. Cringing, I pulled back rapidly. Attempting the double dip, my body acclimatised. ‘On your marks, get set, go’. Diving in, head first, I caught current to be swept along like spawning salmon. In the fast flowing deluge, there i was, being tossed about, helter skelter. Disorientated, necks craning for a gasp of air, managing to gleen a glimpse of a beautifully dynamic bronze sculpture, low rise polished buildings and trinket shops that hugged the ‘rivers’ edge. As the boulevard hurtled to a curve, nearing the bend, there in the distance above the heads of many, I caught sight of the starch white temple complex. Slowly, surely the frenetic flow of people began to retreat, the people power began to wane gently lapping against the short rise to the temple plaza, the pre amble to the Temple Complex. There we jumped aside for some serenity and a sigh of safety and a free cup of warm Sikh milk for driver Gajendar.

Gajendar, having ‘got milk’, licking his lips, pointed to a scale that sat upon the floor.
Stepping on it, weighing in the early 70’s, he raised a guiding hand encouraging me to do same. Expecting an exchange of rupees I said , ‘no thanks’, to which Gajendar replied, ‘no worry, I’ll pay’. With nerve, stepping on the scale, and expecting feather-weight lightness given my stapled diet, my blister burst. With the needle flicking back and forth around the 85kg mark, the blood in my amigdala began to drain. Stunned, muted, ashamed, limp, and light headed, I zeroed in on Gajendar. “Don’t worry Mr Dan, you have a nice personality”. Sucking on my cheek, I stepped off that scale, bruised, and hurried scurried us towards the Golden Temple.

Barefoot is how you enter the temple.  Handing  over my boots and socks, I received an identity token and a bout of a dreaded foot disease.

The cold yet smooth of the white marble, the cold water moat surrounding the temple for cleaning ones feet, the soft red carpet soaked by the hundreds of wetted feet , standing knee deep in the halloed water surrounding the temple, the circular circuit we followed circumventing the Temple all engaged my tactile sense.
The morning sun glinting off the rippling water, the reflective shine of the white marble, the golden jewel sparkle of the Temple, the full colour-wheel of garb and the sheer awesomeness of the sight engaged my visual sense.

Like a Liquorice All Sort, the Temple is layered. A third, its base, is of stone, and the upper  two thirds are golden yellow. The surrounding buildings are stark white-a pristine backdrop to its shimmery shine. The Golden Temple sits in the middle of a man-made lake. The water is given holiness and worshippers arrive to take a dip in the spirited waters.  With worshippers circling the temple in a clockwise direction a vortex of spirituality is created. Coming full circle we headed for the exit.
 
Slipping socks back on and tying boots back up, we drove towards the extremities of the city to the border gate between Pakistan and India.
Both India and Pakistan have a change of guard. It happens every day, and every day some 20000 people turn up to view this spectacle.  The Indian Freddie Mercury-like jester riles his compatriots encouraging them to cry war. The one legged clown on the Pakistan side pirouettes  to have his countrymen, more placid, cheer and jeer.  Football-field sized flags flutter on either side of the border. Indian pop music beats through its speakers, Pakistani music leaps through its speakers. Patriotism is vigorous. Entertaining are the guards goose stepping, jousting. It is fierce, and it is determined.  No cricket team scored more runs than the other, no hockey team scored more goals than the other, we screamed at them and they screamed at us. We left after the two hour ‘spectacle’ having achieved very little. What an oddity.

Jaipur 22.12.2017

Arriving in the city of Jaipur, the dusk of the day enhances the branded neon signs of Western aspirational labels and brings the onset of stop -start after-work traffic. The little-bit-bigger-than-small buildings and the control and order that a green, yellow,and red traffic light has on the people hints at a developing city. Driving, driving, driving, seemingly to the outskirts, I eventually arrive at the hotel. The oversized, detailed, metal door creaking open, the emerald green marble and golden edge trim, the paintings of the British in hunter hats atop elephants , or on bended knee aside the pelt and head of a punctured tiger signal my arrival ,seemingly, on the set of a Wes Anderson movie. The bell boys in mandarin collars appearing Beetle-like clutching golden baggage trolleys are at my service. Dropping my bags on my bed, I head out for a night time stroll to grab a look and cop a feel of this city, returning soon after with dust-caked nostrils, sweaty pit stains and unnecessary clutter within my memory bank.

As morning unzips itself to reveal the rising sun, I awake.

Fueled by bananas, boiled eggs and americanos, i do a day of frustration walking and viewing Jaipur as a controlled, experimental rat.
The Wind Palace is the fluted facade of a palace building. It has intrigue for its concave convex face is unique giving the ladies of the palace of times gone by a daily view of the bustling happenings of the streets below.  It’s impenetrable. It’s an ants nest of tourists. I don’t engage it. I can’t. I simply fire off a few rounds and leave bound for the Amber Fort according to the day’s programming.
The road to the Fort snakes beyond the modern city’s boundaries into the rural. As we swoop through the crevice in the mountain that’s given way to the road, I ask to jump out, to picture the Fort with perspective. As it happens I’m stood next to turbin-clad guy. At his knees there is a basket and inside that basket is the black-scaled liquorice-rope of a snake, a cobra. I like snakes, but to see this machine like creation coiled in captivity, it pulverised my emotion. ‘Take a photo’, he said. ‘No’, I said. ‘Take a photo’, he said. Defiant, I said, ‘not a chance’, lurched back into the car, threw my arm back,then flung it forward as a trout fisher man casting his hook, indicating the driver to drive.
On arrival at the Amber, I walked the rampart while others mount placid, beastless elephants in their ascent. The amber-coloured Fort presented some interesting architecture, and glaring photo opportunities. But never raised my pulse.

The next cell on the excel spreadsheet of my itinerary was the Jantar Mantar an Astronomical Observatory. With its giant sundials interesting me, the blip on the are-you-dead-or-alive machine showed there was still life in me. With the checklist complete, I had driver guy drop me in the Pink City to walk and stare and experience. Here I was exposed to the humdrum of an experience-packed, labyrinthine old city where ones needs and desires are fulfilled in a concentrated square kilometre. The plethora of goods and services offered from the medical ‘suites’ and surgeries clustered alongside the bike repair drag which was not far from the jewellery and fabric area which was tucked alongside the crockery and cutlery node which rubbed shoulders with fried foods is the epitome of a people-centric, green city.

It was, though time to get out.
Jaipur was my journeys struggle for it identified me as a tourist. Jaipur managed to extinguish much of the fire of my journey up till now. When my alarm clock rung for my wake up call I pulled the rip chord open, to release me from the confines of a dreaded city.

The Road to Jaipur 21.12.2017

Journeying between cities was an exhaustive process. The needle on the speedometer constantly flips through the half round 50 60 70, back down 50 60 70 an hour, as we negotiate ebbing and flowing traffic, squeezing between cars, screeching to slow behind John Deeres, or halting in the slow lane as my driver licks his lips at a Punjabi fest offering free chai and an oil-drowned roti.

When the road opens, the Indian landscape, its fields of rice and plantations of corn, orchards of trees, baths of water, clusters of cattle, cradles of kids and lazing old timers brush-stroke past as I stare sponge-like out the window of the Suzuki. The green hues of the wet soaked land and the crayola crayon coloured garb of the Indian woman punch a vibrancy through my blackened pupil. All scuttle past me hinting at a snapshot in the day of a life of one person of a billion.

Time in India follows no defined increment. On this cheese wedge of a continent, one hour takes two hours, ‘nearly there’ takes 3 hours and ‘close’ is the duration of a Led Zeppelin album.
We regularly pull over for a quick chai taking 45 minutes. But the warm, milky, sugary, cinamony, gingery beverage tastes so good as it cloaks your teeth in sweet and your gullet in white, that time dissolves effervescently. The chai is so good, it’s probably bad for you, Tim.

After a couple of hours drive, the landscape seems to pass much more slowly, I hear the indicator click clickity clicking. Where once our tracks were incognito, now onto dirt roads where our tracks are a story teller our car swoops. The tyres crunch the dirt leaving a dragon-puff of dust in our wake as we detour for the wonder-like Chand Baori, an ancient step-well.

Blase about the Baori, i flop out the back door dragging my knuckles gorilla-like along the red earth.  Rising a step, I pierce the stone cold entrance.  A glassless portal frames a view of a colonnade across the way. The sight hooks my eyes pulling me in its direction. Being only a visual connection my symmetrical stroll comes to a halt and I’m forced into a perpendicular bend where i’m led to the stepwell’s entrance door. Down steps I find myself in a vast square open space, surrounded by the stone colonnade. Gazing across the open courtyard it’s the gaping, yawning opening of the pit before me that now consumes my attention. Gingerly stepping towards the pit’s edge, i bend my yogic body from the hips, dropping my head, my brain draining to the bottom of my skull, squishing my marshmallow eyeballs against their sockets. The earth plunges rapidly downwards in concentric squares towards the bowels of the earth, leaving a telescopic wake of perfect geometry. Settled still at the bottom of this is the luminous green standing water, the informant to water collection of days gone by. The staircases lining the terraces snakering and laddering their ways down, their ways up and their ways side to the watery pit are the aesthetic , the beautiful architecture of this upside down inside out creation.
Now it’s a set for Blockbuster Bats.
For an architect accustomed to gazing upwards at edifices, this upside down ziggurat flipped the inside of the box outside spawning special.

Leaving behind the stepped geometry of the well behind, heading back towards the car, i see my driver chatting a tall lanky, ankle-length pants-and-moccasin-wearing bloke, greasier than John Travolta. My driver introduces me to the guy and says he wants to show me his weaved wares. I’m thinking ‘this can’t actually be happening to me’. Happy at my recent architectural experience, I go with the flow. I follow the gent.
He introduces his wife who is sat bent over a weaving machine and his three daughters labouring over ropes of jute. I can’t help but wonder if they’re all props in this guy’s production. Having a discussion with myself, I agree that I won’t be making any purchases.
As he starts unshelving Lego-coloured rug after rug, i question my other self and one of me decides he likes what he’s seeing. I enquire at the amount and the bidding begins. Its aggressive, and the blood is bubbling.
With no agreement between seller and buyer, the stubborn bull in me drags the other me by the nose ring to exit. Small moments go by. Puffing and panting, the sounds of a desperate seller come arunning.
A triple word score with all seven letters plus the use of the ‘x’ see me in the pound seats.
I bag a rug and 3 tote bags. One of me’s is The greatest Buyer in the World.
Bleeting our way out, we follow the signs to Jaipur.