24 Hours in Chicago

“Having seen it,” Rudyard Kipling wrote, “I desire never to see it again. It is inhabited by savages.”

This writer of Indian lore and builder of Naulakha, his home in the milky state of Vermont, would be pleasantly surprised by present day Chicago, as we were to discover on a recent visit.

The day before we memorialize our veterans, the four of us found ourselves at the intersection of Monroe and Michigan Avenue.

In the big hours of the morning, it was dark as the sun had become timid, thunderstorms sounded off the rage of the almighty as lightning streaks slashed the face of a sky that was about to pour its sorrow upon pedestrians praying for a summer day.

We looked across and saw the Art Institute of Chicago, which never fails to shelter us—rain or snow, albeit due to the yearly pass we carry. As we crossed, I looked for the designated section of Michigan Avenue marked “Swami Vivekananda Way.”

Few notice it or know it, that a cherished crossroad in the middle of America is named after the turbaned sage who came to the city at about the time Kipling ridiculed it.

The Art Institute has been a desirable destination for me to shed the toxins that build up in the drill that is life’s routine. In its paintings, shapes that defy gravity, ancient artifacts and contemporary photographs one finds a mental spa that is a better idyll than the Louvre or the Smithsonian, for its midwestern simplicity.

Although people come to Chicago for the Field Museum, I have failed to grasp its allure. Skeleton of a dinosaur and visuals of Totems struggle to arouse my senses.

The Art Institute is different. The lions outside amuse both man and child. The section on the orient, especially Japanese art, contradicts the city’s imposing structures—in that, so much can be done with so little.

Outside, Anish Kapoor’s “The Bean” mystifies all. In its contoured images of skyline buildings, run children and grandparents in fast pursuit—the drama of morphing sizes and shapes of people imagery adds its own masala to urban America.

There, at the epicenter of Americana soar the long spoken chants of an Indian sage and the emerging creations of a British sculptor with an Indian name.

At the Institute, housing some of ancient India’s most rare artifacts, one can get lost in the detail and imagination of a millennium [or more] bygone. There is even a large Buddha sculptor with its detail of feet amazingly flat on the ground as they wrap over each other and his hands in a shape tough to imitate.

But the most recent addition has a somber message of contemporary times. Close to the entrance, going up the stairs spreads Jitish Kallat’s creation.

Public Notice 3, is Kallat’s depiction of Vivekananda’s speech—literally, on the steps that lead up to the exhibits upstairs. In colors of the increasing levels of homeland security alerts, the cleavage of each step spells out his words…..

“I am proud to belong to a nation which has sheltered the persecuted….sectarianism, bigotry and its horrible descendant fanaticism have long possessed this beautiful earth….I fervently hope that the bell that tolled this morning in honor of this convention may be the death knell of all fanaticsm…”

Swami Vivekananda gave this speech at the Art Institute of Chicago on September 11, 1893. On September 11, 2001, in another city, lesser men felled long and big structures down to dust.

A step at a time, reading Vivekananda’s speech on the steps, one attains higher ground in spirit and in poise. From the top, the world feels slightly more hopeful as brightly lit words once spoken glitter back.

The tour behind us, that evening, we found ourselves stuck in a cab heading to a restaurant called Veerasay. It had recently received attention from food critics. A similarly spelled namesake in London holds some family memories and we went seeking a correlation.

The servings at the restaurant provided a perfect follow on to the mental feast of the day. We had cocktails named Bengal Tiger and Mumtaz Maharita, while the little people with us sipped on freshly made Ginger ale. Spring mutter paneer and rogan josh followed to satisfy our appetites with aromas and spices from the olde country.

Late in the night we lied in bed, staring at the brightly lit skyline outside the window, as we listened to the childly groans of the two boys amongst us as they slept. The images from the institute and the tastes of the restaurant mixed in sleepy stupor.

The night struggled to eclipse itself as the first rays of the morning shot up across the mist of Lake Michigan.

It is then that a thought came to mind, that with the last day’s proceedings, who could argue that we were less savages and more aspiring humans after all.

Goodmorning Chicago!
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This column will be first published in India Abroad.