Daman

Indian Tourister: Devadas in Daman.

Where some Gujarati men come to cry over their long-lost love.
 
The most bizarre group of Indian tourists you will ever meet are the men from the dry state of Gujarat who visit the Union Territory of Daman. They drive down to the resorts by the beach in Daman to drink, on weekends, and usually in groups.

Middle aged men form a sizable percentage of the tourists or visitors who come to drink in the hotels along the beach. The younger lot prefer the beach and other attractions. The music these older men prefer are sung by live bands and they take requests.

Every resort or hotel in Daman has a live band playing on weekends. They begin the show with a couple of bhajan as the men pour their drinks. The bhajan is usually dedicated to Sai Baba Bhajan. You can smell the strong beer, adulterated IMFL or Indian Made Foreign Liquor as the men audibly gulp drinks to the slow Bhajan to get a quick high. As the bhajans start, the tables quickly fill up with groups of men in their 30s and 40s. Judging from the registration plates of the cars parked at the hotel’s they are mostly from Surat and other parts of South Gujarat. There are a few groups of families too but they are from Vapi, the industrial town next door that is part of Gujarat. Unlike the visitors, they leave early.

After the initial song dedicated to devotion and good luck, the songs that the men come to listen to, start. An unsuspecting visitor will expect the latest Bollywood item songs to start anytime. But I have already killed the suspense for you. The only songs that fly here are sad love songs from the 80s and 70s. Kishore Kumar, Kumar Sanu and a few Mohammed Rafis.

‘My destination is my first love’

As the songs come one after the other, the men with drinks in hand try to outdo each other by requesting songs that are even more heart breaking or sadder than the one before. This goes on endlessly for the whole evening until everyone is piss drunk and has remembered and relived every single moment of their failed love in the younger days. By this time, the families from Vapi who have come for a dinner and drink have collected their children and left.

 This is a typical Devadas weekend night in Daman.

Daman

Ahmedabad

Football in Ahmedabad

Dadra and Nagar Haveli

Monsoon 2013

Talkeshwar

Early 21st century temple wall art 

Bamangal

There's a little known beach and a rock face with this spouting water place at Bamangal. 20 kms from Guhagar. Near Hedavi Temple. 

Shirdi

A temple town. Perfect place to catch people who are worried about things in the future and want to hear good things.

Anjanwel, Ratnagiri Dist

शाळा School 

When you first look at thewalls a typical school in India you are stunned by how bright it is. The badly drawn maps, faces of leader, local heroes, lectures on cleanliness, national birds, animals and flags of the country and sometime state. The girl and the boy riding on the rocket like pencil with the world Sarva Siksha Abhyaan written in different languages, the expression of the children in various hues of joy. Then you see the list of toppers and other such marks of time. Look closer and then you see the names, scratches and incomplete stories of the children who went away to the far corners of the country or even planet and will come back someday to see how small the school that grew larger and larger in their memories actually looked.

Shirdi

Imagine the history of India told from the point of view of the millions of horses that stormed in from the steppes up north, the horses that died in the ashwamed yagnas of hopeful invaders, the ones who galloped through the bone dry expanse of Persia, shipped by the millions into the ports on the west coast, Panipat, Talikota, Haldighati, the ones who kicked dust in the brigade grounds and the passes of the Khyber. Through the eyes of racehorses and the white horse named Don who thrills us tourists. 

Shirdi

Resting after pulling pilgrim tourists.


Suranga Date, a friend who saw this photograph on Facebook, had these words to add:


They represent
the feet of some
wishing to pray to
the Powerful Benevolent One,
waiting to receive 
some benefits
in their own lifetime.

But unlike 
some representatives,
they are abandoned once
the work is done;
they have 
no subsidized canteens,
so pensions, 
not even free hooves
for self and family,
free water
or even clean lounges.

There's is just
to remain tied
amidst the dirt
while all the yojanas
go full blast
like the AC 
exhausting 
on the other side...

Svargate, Pune

In Pune, this is the favourite signage image for chicken shops