Sixteen months later and I am writing about how I traveled in Mumbai.  Do I remember this as it were yesterday though!  I highly recommend that you see this YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqSrqcBZfTo

The hosts are not only candid but I found it to be very truthful with whom I spoke to while I was there.  Did I ride a rickshaw, go on the train, or on the bus?  No.  I hired my own driver.

What?  How rich are you?  It is not that.

1.  I am a woman, and at the time I thought I was perceived as a white American (more on that later.)
2. I was carrying around about $5000 (USD) worth of equipment and a pocketbook (more on that later) with a passport, credit cards, and US and India currency.
3. Good luck navigating Mumbai if you do not know what building used to be where.  Street signs are pretty much either non-existent or very new thanks to the exploding middle class.   (What’s a middle class again?  Wow, I actually got to see one in person again.)
4. Traffic sucks and 20 miles can take 2 hours (or more)!
5. Like I have said before, the only language that could be understood was English and thanks to Harry Potter and my British Chick Lit(erature) obsession, I could speak British English pretty well and could emulate their accent.  (Remember that Britain occupied India for quite a while.)  American English was almost like a foreign language to some of the people and I speak without any American regional accent. (i.e. a “broadcast” American accent.)  Asking for directions in the slums was not an option for me.  See #3 if language was not a barrier.
6. Did I forget to mention about renting a car?  Hell No!  Where would I stick it in Mumbai anyway?  Parking during New Year’s Eve in Times Square nets you better options.

You get the picture.  I hired the drivers from my US hotel (Westin) in Northern Mumbai.  (I would have much preferred Southern Mumbai but my husband wanted the short journey to work and Taj hotel lost.  Yes, all out of my own pocket and which added up to $3500 USD after tips.  I would tip $50-$100 USD per day depending on how many hours we spent and I did not use the car everyday (thanks Delhi Belly and a couple of days that I did not have anything planned.)

The concierge said something to me about the tipping on day.   Madame: Did you know that you are tipping them a month’s wage for each ride out?  They fight over you.  You are the number one customer.  (There were billionaires staying at the hotel too.)  Me: I had no idea but I have yet to have had bad service and have no regrets.

Was it worth it?  Every penny!  My drivers were either bilingual or trilingual.  They guarded my stuff in the car when I had downtime and went shopping in-between meetings and appointments.  (I always took my clarinet on person unless I was not gone long and instructed them to run the car with the A/C.)  They were dressed in hot polyester uniforms and sometimes the days were 12 hours long.  I would offer to buy them drinks and food on top of it but they said it was against company policy.  The drivers were always men (to protect the women.)  Plus, they knew where or knew how to ask where my appointments were.  Google maps is useless in Mumbai, especially if you need to get to a certain place on time.  Better yet, my husband told me not to bring food, adaptable chargers, or feminine products from the US.  Too much luggage.  Bull!  You can’t get these things at your hotel.  I told my driver and he took me to a regular non-English speaking pharmacy to get my products.  Feminine products which is a taboo subject in that culture but I guess with US $$$, nothing is taboo.  If you want tampons, you have a better chance of finding a unicorn!  Maxi pads it is.  Tampons are considered sexual.

Was I out of the ordinary for hiring my own driver?  Not in the least.  If you made about $35,000 USD per year, you too could hire your own personal chauffeur for around $2400 USD per year.  Labor is cheap.  Huge population.  I fit in perfectly.  No regrets.

If I was not doing research, I would have taken public transit as I am a huge advocate for it living in NYC with no car and no having driven one since May 2014 and not planning to drive one for the rest of my life.

My body has impeccable timing.  I was diagnosed with Dehli Belly this morning.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delhi_Belly

The name does not do it justice in reference to the pain and frequent 10 minute trips to the bathroom last night.  But the Bollywood movie surely captures the horridness of this disease (although the movie does not center itself around it.)

So today I was supposed to give to presentations on the clarinet to two different schools.  I was excited about it.  At 4:00 am (IST), I woke up to wretched stomach pain.  I thought a couple of trips to the bathroom would clear it.  I was so wrong.  Every 5 – 10 minutes and I will not go into detail.  Read the Wikipedia link above.  It is pretty accurate.

The interesting thing was that I was in loads of pain and mad that I had to cancel my presentations at the same time.  The madness took my mind off of the pain.

Finally, at 6:00 am (IST), I woke my husband.  We talked about it for a half hour and then he went down to the front desk (no way I would make it) and had the hotel doctor summoned to my room.

It was not until 8:00 am (IST) that she arrived.  At this point, even seeing food made me want to get rid of anything I had left in my system which was not much (by the way, I am not pregnant if that is what you were wondering.)

She inspected me and gave me a prescription.  It was a good thing that I brought Zantac with me and used it because that is what she would have tried first.  I took it at 4 am (IST).  Total cost: $60 USD for an in-house visit.  She was professional and knowledgable too and her English was impeccable.  She gave me a list of what I could not eat and told me to sleep all day.  She knew it was Dehli Belly and not something worse because I had no fever or any other symptom.  She pushed down on my belly with her stethoscope and though it as tender, I did not feel pain.

I had to wait until 11 am (IST) to get my meds delivered to the hotel.  They are approved in the US but boy do they work.  When the hotel worker told me that I had to eat first in order to take the meds, I looked at him like he was crazy.  Eat?  I do not want to see food again for the rest of my life.  Please feed me through an IV.

I had a quarter of a small bowl of Rice Krispies and a liter and a half of water.  The pills were huge and I had to cut them in half for a total of four.  The nastiest things in the world and I threw one up.

The side effects are interesting.  My mind was clear (I wish that was blurred too to take my mind off the pain) but it blurred my vision making me extremely tired.  I only really woke up now at 3:28 pm (IST).  I am thinking I can go to Goa but do not want to push it.

So what does Dehli Belly really feel like?  Dung in all senses of the word.  I had a kidney stone once and it was on the same level as this.  I felt like someone was taking a razor and chipping off bits of my GI track and stomach little by little.  The pain would go in waves and I would have a fever due to my heart racing from the pain only but from nothing else.  I got loads of exercise to my frequent trips to the bathroom and walking around in circles (which helped.)

So how can I help you with your next visit to a developing country?

1.  Use the water pen that I bought from the US to zap impurities in the water, even if it is bottled and from a US 5 star hotel.

2.  Do not eat salad (just don’t), ice (don’t trust anyone), raw veggies and fruits, basically the healthy stuff.  It must all be cooked to a point it is unrecognizable.  My body was craving this too.  I wonder if I can survive on a diet of Rice Krispies and water next week.  However, if you need to lose a few pounds for some event, go against my advice.  It is painful but I dropped 10 pounds in one go.  NO I DID NOT PURPOSELY DO THIS TO LOSE WEIGHT!

3.  Do bring vitamins with you.  I have been taking chewy pre-natal pills for a while and after a couple of hours of taking the meds, I felt much better.  Men: you will not get pregnant from these and they taste good.

4.  Bring foods from the US that you are accustomed to that do not tear apart your stomach.  I want my Saltines now!

5.  Do not assume your hotel has anything that can help you.  There is no little pharmacy store here and it is in the middle of nowhere!  GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!  (That goes for plug conversions too.  That was a total nightmare!  Another story for another time.)

6.  India is a hot country (as in temperature).  If you mis-trust how something was stored, do not eat it.

7.  Also, do not feel pressured to eat what the locals eat.  You have a US stomach.  Even when the Indians go on tour in the US and come back after a few months, they do not each much of their own food either and follow the guidelines, especially the street food (stay away.)

8.  Stay away from the sugar cane water.  Even the locals, unless they have iron for stomachs, do not drink it.  If you want it that bad, ask a 5 star hotel to make it for you and even then, second guess that decision.

I am not being a snot about 5 star hotels are the best but they do follow US standards and guidelines (lawsuit central.)  Even the best of them can make you sick.  I stopped eating a lot three days before I got the Dehli Belly.  I am a light weight though but I can’t believe i lasted this long.  I would have been dog sick in NYC way before this.

Oh, and I got this wonderful bacteria on a day where it was over cast and cooler where I would be fully dressed performing in non-airconditioned places.  Not fair!

There are probably other bits of advice but I will leave you with this for now, shower, and pack for Goa.

I hope my presentations can be rescheduled next week.  I HATE FOOD RIGHT NOW!

I was wondering why the choir teacher at The Cathedral & John Connon School wanted me to bring my clarinet today.  With Founders’ Day coming up this weekend for him and his choir singing 4 pieces, I knew it would be difficult to try my lesson plan on 50+ kids.

I videoed the rehearsal and then he had me get up and introduce the clarinet.  I gave myself 10 minutes or less to do this because time was ticking and the parents are good at keeping it for you.

This was not videoed because some of the choir kids did not have their permissions to be videotaped for whatever reason and they sat behind my camera for the entire rehearsal.  I had them sit with their friends while I did the presentation.

I played the “Rhapsody in Blue” excerpt, the range of the clarinet, a little bit of Mozart “Clarinet Concerto” from memory.  Then the questions came.  Questions I would never expect from about 7-10 year olds.

1.  Do your lips buzz when you play?  I had them experiment with their thumbs as mouthpieces.  Then I explained to them that the reed buzzes which buzzes your lips.  I had them do the lip buzzes that brass players do.

2.  What is your ligature made out of?  (It is a real gold plated reverse Bonade…great for “Rhapsody in Blue”)

3.  How fast can you play?  (This is standard from all people.)

4.  Where does the air go when you blow into the horn?  I turned a quarter turn for a facial profile and played.  I showed the the slit between the reed and the mouthpiece and it seriously blew their minds.  How can so little air produce a big sound?  So we experimented singing.  It is not a little air, it is just controlled.

5.  Based on the question above, what is your loudest note?  We explored high pitches and low pitches with the human voice (this was done on the side).

There were other questions but I was surprised about the scientific inquiry.  These are not the normal questions I used to get years ago when I did things like this.

That was my practice run.  Wish me luck tomorrow.

Tomorrow I have to present the clarinet at two schools where I do not know much about the schools at all.  I only was given the go ahead yesterday while I was about to go out and do more filming in South Mumbai (another 5 hours roundtrip in a car.)  Tired, I racked my brain last night to create a lesson.

I just have to assume the following and was given the following parameters:

1.  No electric sources: there goes my piece for electronic tape and clarinet (“Soundets” by Scott Wyatt)

2.  The clarinet pieces I prepared are too difficult for an accompanist to handle, especially at the last minute

3.  I do not have much time to practice and prepare other things.  I practice in my hotel room until I think my neighbors are about to complain.  All other offices and rooms are full in this hotel.

4.  At least 100 + students in each school, if not more

5.  Not sure about the students’ musical backgrounds of any sort

6.  Must be interactive with 100 + students with no knowledge of their musical background

7.  Not sure of the age ranges

8.  Must be 40 minutes: no more, no less

9.  I must moderate my English speaking skills and vocabulary

Well, I had to dust off my music lesson planning skills.  Bleh.

About an hour or two after searching online for ideas and finding nothing that fit all of this criteria and listening to Lorde’s “Royals,” Sia’s “Chandelier,” that frilly popular bass and treble song from the US, and an awful rendition of Les Miserables (I think the new one stinks, give me original Broadway anytime), I thought to myself, what does every kid want to try at least once?  AND, it has to tie in the clarinet and the orchestra.

Conducting!  Farkle McBride has a point.  It is a great job.  But how to get that many kids to do it?

Work on steady beat with everyone.  Then show them a steady 4/4 pattern.  Split the group in half (down the middle so there is a left and right side).  Have one half keep a steady beat at a moderately slow tempo and the other half conduct to it and vice versa.

Next, have the kids conduct me.  I chose the cat from “Peter and the Wolf,” simple, easy to change tempos at a whim, and pleasing to the ear.

You see, I know that this is not reality where someone is tapping a beat for the real conductor but when you have this many kids, it is the best you are going to get.

I will be watching the arm flappers as they listen to the beat people.  I will tell them that they can speak up and slow down and I will have to follow.  Then I will have the groups reverse roles.

This will be videotaped.  See my next post about the practice session at the Cathedral school.

I know I am getting ahead of myself and I apologize for that but the last two days had a tremendous impact.

I went from the slums to the ritz in less than 24 hours.  There is a beauty to both.

Muktangan schools are located in the slums.  They are the equivalent of charter schools in America.  The model is genius.  The founders, Liz and Sunil Mehta, highly experience educators, decided that one can not only education children from the slums in a quality manner, but also lift their parents out of poverty at the same time on a shoe string budget.  How?  Have the kids go to school where they live.  That is not as easy as it sounds since real estate in Mumbai is sky rocketing.  (It is the NYC of India.)  But OK, they accomplished this feat.  Next.  Attract the children to attend the school.  Check.  Teachers….

Well, they could hire teachers educated at the teacher training programs from universities or they could look at the school’s doorstep, educate the child’s mother where the mother begins work teaching kindergarten and learning 1st grade work at the same time going all the way through 12th grade.  This also accomplishes something else: the children tend to have more respect for their teachers because they are their friend’s mother who may happen to live next door or down the street.  No room to show off here unless it is something positive because she is good friends with your parents.

The teachers are trained in English and in Hindi.  Whoa!  Bilingual teachers?  Every single one?  In reading, writing, speaking, and comprehension?  There is a dream education for me come true.  (There are so magnet schools in the US that have this by the way.)

Children’s and teachers’ artwork dot the school walls.  Toys are everywhere.  It reminds me of Reggio Emilia that I studied back in 2002 at The University of Tampa.  It is very child oriented and I got to observe the small ones learning about life through self-directed play (playing house for example.)

It so happens that the first class to take the 10th standard exams did exceedingly well.  However, college is costly.  There are not studies as of now as to who will finish their degree or what will become of the students of Muktangan.  There can’t be.  They are not of age yet.  The jury is still out but I have great hope for them after what I have seen and I can’t wait to post the videos for you to decide.

However, the program’s real “pat on the back” is taking women out of poverty (and a few men) and educating them.  Hopefully, they will be able to climb the caste ladder.

Oh, and last thing, before I go on about the other school, music is a compulsory subject for every teacher to master, not just the 8 music teachers!  They can really sing and use song quite a bit for classroom management and teaching.

The guaranteed leaders of India, if they so choose to stay, is relatively close to the Muktangan schools in milage but as far away as Mars in terms of the possibilities that lay before them.  These are the children of The Cathedral & John Connon School.  This school is the alma mater of Andre de Quadros (my former professor of music research techniques at Boston University.)  If these students are anything like him, India is going to boom like the Industrial Revolution of the west!

I was very impressed at what I saw.  With no air-conditioning and sometimes 40:1 teacher/student ratios (or at least what I observed today), these students were learning.  They are from the upper to extreme upper classes of Mumbai, perhaps middle class if a parent is willing to mortgage everything.  Already, they have the advantage just for being born to the right person at the right time at the right place.  Mumbai has a booming economy and if kept on the right path, could exceed China in the next 10 – 20 years.

I bet you are thinking Harvard bound, throat slicing, anti-social children?  Far from it.  They were tweens and teenagers who were trying to express themselves through accessories away from the school uniforms (the average school uniform in a hot climate.)  The girls were gossipy and the boys were talking of cricket.

Recess, yes recess, aloud the kids to socialize and eat and organize games of all sorts in the outdoor courtyard in 100+ heat.  Some read books in the shade.  They were all left to their devices.

I am not going to go on about what i observed in the classrooms as I will save that for later.  But, as I looked around and the large chocolate eyes met mine, all I could think was: “I am surrounded by India’s future.  They have no idea what impact they will make on Mumbai, India, and the world.”  I was humbled by this presence.  I hope that these students will meet the students of Muktangan and make great changes for the better.  What will they be?  Only time will tell.

The headmistress, Mrs. Isaacs, is one of the most brilliant school administrators I have ever met.  She is well-spoken and dressed immaculately in a saree.  Her insights were amazing and I am kicking myself for having to work and miss tonight’s play about women’s rights in India.  I did ask for a copy of the video.  She was very passionate about this subject.  She is also passionate about a child’s life/work balance.  To be successful, it is not enough to be good at maths and sciences, you must also be able to communicate.

Off to create a presentation about the clarinet to 500+ students who have never seen or heard one.  My limitations or immense and this is much more difficult than other presentations I have made.

Not necessarily in the order that it happened….

Today: I trained 10 music teachers and a dog on how to play the recorder, napped on the couch at the Hard Rock Cafe (best burgers), filmed 4 hours of classes, peed in an Indian toilet for the first time, and paid for my husband’s suit on a full bladder in rush hour traffic with Mosquitos and a giant lizard in the store that I gave a heart attack to by screaming (it was large and fast…natural mosquito repellent). 2 plus hours in rush hour an counting. Total day: 14 hours and counting. All volunteer work from me.  (This was yesterday by the way.)

Each day is new and different and things change like the wind.

The title is my thesis for this blog post.  Trends are emerging in my research and this is one of them that is pretty major: how Bollywood effects the music education of children in Mumbai, especially the music education of underprivileged children.  (A couple of months from now, I will post the video and audio interviews of the people who talk about this subject.)

(A side note: I asked if the songs were performed and recorded by an orchestra for the movies and I was told that it was done up until a few years ago.)

We can talk about style and content of the songs as being part of the negative effect it has on children but I am not going to go down that road for now.  As I have said before, this research is not to qualify anything.  I am just reporting the facts.

The general consensus from the the people I have interviewed is that Bollywood music is:

1.  Excessively loud (volume)

2.  (The singers are) auto tuned.

3.  The actors are dubbed with people who can actually sing, or somewhat sing.  (I was disappointed to learn that Audrey Hepburn was dubbed in “My Fair Lady”.)

4.  The students will sing loud and have nasal tones in the choir.  This is for two reasons.  One is that the audience in the back can not hear them.  (Could it be that they have lost their hearing from the Bollywood films?)  Two, Indian Classical music and most Bollywood songs have a nasal tone.  I have noticed the “Bollywood Effect” as I will not call it when I observed this in a children’s choir where the director was taking giant leaps to combat these issues.  It is difficult to fight mainstream media and these kids were well to-do.

7.  It must be noted that

6.  No, I must not talk about the content of the songs.  You will hear that in the interviews once I am permitted to post the videos.

As a researcher, one must not take things on face or word value.  Last night, I attended a Bollywood film that was in Hindi with not English subtitles called: “The Shaukeens.”  It was a rowdy comedy with a lot of overacting and does not have a good rating from the critics.  However, the general Indian public likes it and gives it high ratings.  We chose this film for another reason as well.  When watching a film in a language with no subtitles where you only know three words of that language, you should watch a comedy or something with a lot of overacting in it.  It makes things easy to understand.

Well, I was blasted by the sound by the commercials before the film.  I thought that they were the commercials and like You Tube, will blast you away and the regular content will be of normal volume.

Here is the real surprise of the night for me: the national anthem of India was played.  I wish I would have recorded it and the people’s responses.  I may get a chance to this.  The theater was crowded.  A screen that said: “Please stand for the national anthem” displayed itself after a commercial.  I stood up and so did 300 of my closest friends.  The audience’s face few somber as we watched many different Indian women on the screen each sing a verse of the national anthem.  Their tones were nasal but had a beauty that could be appreciated by a classical musician.  (I do like Indian Classical music.)

I enjoyed it but could see where the people I was researching were coming from.  This is the national anthem.  If you were a child that was never exposed to western classical music, you would think that this is what singing is like in all cultures.  This is where I will steer from their opinion that there is only one way to sing and that is the western classical way.  However, trying to get a student to sing in a way that they are not used to and do not get much exposure to is very difficult.  Just think of the people the US children are exposed to that cannot sing to save their lives and the music teachers have to work extra hard to train their ears to western classical singing. I do not even know what to call that singing now, especially when the technology does the singing for most artists.   Surely, it is not the classical singing of America.  Well, Bombay children get a double dose: exposure to Indian classical music (some, not all) and the Bollywood singing (most children of all economic statuses are exposed to this.)  It is a double whammy if you will if you are trying to teach a child in Bombay how to sing in a western classical manner.

The movie is shown and I see what my interviewees were talking about.  The dialogue is loud but when the music comes on, it literally rattles your bowels!  The seats shake.  I walk out of bars and restaurants and clothing stores in NYC when the music is loud.  I cursed myself for not taking my custom ear plus which would have reduced the sound to 25 decibels.  There were a lot of people and carpeting to absorb the sound and I still had my insides rattling during intermission (yes, they have intermission because Bollywood movies are very long) where I went to the bathroom.

On my way back, I noticed that they movie started.  I took my phone out and recorded the sound coming from the open door.  It was loud and clear and the lobby was crowded with people talking.  I walked in and recorded the sound during a music scene.  This will be posted soon.  You can hear what I am talking about if you have never experienced it.  It is a very short clip.

Based on my experience, I can confirm the claims from my interviewees that Bollywood has a negative effect on children learning western classical music.  What is missing is whether or not Bollywood is affordable to underprivileged children. (I NEED TO ADD THIS).  The underprivileged children do have free access to festivals with the same loud music as in the films though.  And, I was told that the youngest of children could recite every last lyric.

So yes, the US and Bombay have a lot in common in terms of fighting pop culture in favor of classical music education in classroom.

In my opinion, I think there is room to appreciate all types of music.  I like rap, country, hip hop, Christian, classical, world musics, etc.  The challenge is to educate the children about all kinds of music and how they relate to one another and where the genesis of the genres that they listen to on their own time comes from.  I am a little liberal.  Feel free to disagree.

I stepped back from writing this post and let my mind wander.  I wonder when I teach the teachers and students this week how to play a recorder if they will play loud and have a nasal tone or will be able to copy my performance on the recorder right away….

One last thought…instead of telling the students that such and such style is incorrect, tell them that you are teaching them a new style.  It is more inviting to the student and they think that they are learning another method.  Unfortunately, the pop culture style can be emulated and can be done “correctly” and “Incorrectly.”  Singing classical music should be another tool in their box, not saying to the kid that singing in a pop culture style is wrong.

I say this because if you tell a child of Indian decent that singing loud and in a nasal voice is wrong because it is done in Indian classical music, than what is the child going to think?  Only western classical music is acceptable?

Food for though.

The administrators at Mehli Mehta made me the most delicious traditional Indian dishes (and I really can’t eat spicy foods.)  One took a long time to make and was served in a traditional Indian wedding bowl made out of copper.  I had goat meat which I have had before in the US.  I am so spoiled.  The hotel food and the restaurants in the mall across the street are getting tiring.  Two more weeks to go.

I LOVE HOME COOKING!

This time I got locked in the bathroom in Mehli Mehta which is located on a partial part of an old Victorian mansion in South Bombay.  They heard me struggling with the door and had to come with the skeleton keys to fish me out with comments and laughter in Hindi.  So embarrassing.  Researchers: beware of bathrooms in old Victorian mansions!