Mexico City – A metropolis full of surprises

Our recent visit, and of course, a little bit on India-Mexico relations.

This trip had been in the making for quite some time, we had planned to go some years ago and had to abort after COVID restrictions forced us to cancel it. But we made it last month and it was no doubt, a fascinating week in a teeming, colorful city, steeped in history. So much different from the seaside resort of Los Cabos that we had been to, some years ago!

What strikes you first is the strange fact that it was a city that grew over time, atop a lake, and that you can trace its development since then, from the city center outwards. As the story goes, Aztecs moved south in search of their god, Huitzilopochtli, and finally spotting the sign - an eagle with a snake on its beak, perched on a cactus, went on to settle down on a small island in the middle of Lake Texcoco. Its history started with a settlement called Tenochtitlan and grew over many artificial islands on the lake.  The population grew and grew and the city was built, into a great urban city, with the Templo mayor at its center. Today, it is a bustling city with over 20 million or more living on it! But well, the underground water sources have not fully dried up and so, buildings tend to sink here and there! While Venice is most noted for sinking, having sunk over 9-10 inches, Mexico City has parts that have sunk as much as 26 feet! But the sinking is not uniform, and well, is proving to be an expensive nuisance to the populace living over the depleted aquifer!

Anyway, all this becomes evident as you do a walking tour over the city center, and the guide drones on about the avarice of human beings, who have scant disregard for nature and do such idiotic things, while he stops to point out marvels of architecture, the original ruins and monuments. Automobiles and thousands of people pass by and you pause to wonder about the 700 or so years of the city’s history. You look around and see the two distant types of people, the slick urban, meticulously dressed, perhaps showing his Spanish lineage, and the native Indian population, plus of course hordes of gawking tourists. But I can tell you, the city is safe, the people are nice and tourist-friendly, and there is so much to see and learn, and well, the food is fabulous! Compared to the ‘Tex-Mex’ food you get in the US, the stuff you get in Mexico City is on a different level altogether. There are great eating places, good fusion food, and of course, many a ‘cantina’ doling out authentic cuisine. And there are patisseries which one should not miss, the cakes, pastries and scones mouthwatering!

But what strikes you most is the amount of history. though not meticulously preserved, quite a bit is still available for perusal, for the avid enthusiast. As you walk around the Zocalo or the main plaza in the Centro, you can see the layers from the pre-Hispanic ancient Aztec city of Tenochtitlan at the center, to the 16^th century Hispanic and the present. It will take weeks to cover all of the monuments and buildings on offer, but the Templo Mayor site showing the ancient excavated remains of a grand pyramid, and the Cathedral will start things off.  The streets branching off from the centro are meant for the intrepid explorer. The loveliest among the buildings are the Bellas Artes Museum and the incredible post office building. The older buildings are great examples of architecture. As we were staying at the Reforma, transport to all these places was not too difficult, though the morning and evening hour trips get delayed by traffic jams.

If you recall, I mentioned that Mexico City (known by theacronym CDMEX) was built on several artificial islands resulting in many canals. Most of them vanished, but there is one canal, which is popular for tourists, called Xochimilcan,   where they have hundreds of brightly colored boats that take you along the ancient waterway, the boatman using long poles to move the boat along, while hawkers on shop boats crowd around you selling food, alcohol and what not! Moving on, we got to the Aztec stadium, which had been home and witnessed soccer world cups, football giants like Maradona (his ‘infamous’ hand-of-God goal was shot there), many concerts by Michael Jackson, U2 and Paul McCartney, and of course Olympic ceremonies. Standing on the turf of the football pitch, you wonder about the boots that thundered across the same grass and ended up with incredible shots into the net and the 100,000-odd people screaming Goooooooaaaaaal in unison. Phew! Must have been a great experience!

No one would miss the pyramids at Teotihuacan, a short ride away, the Tlatelolco area, with its Aztec ruins and the square that witnessed the political unrest, and of course, the Guadalupe shrine. The pyramids of the sun and moon rival those in Egypt, they are great though not majestic, are flat-topped, and have steps, though these days nobody is allowed to climb them! I won’t go into the history of the Aztecs, or the Spanish arrival in Mexico, these are vast topics and I have only a minuscule idea about them. But a visit to CDMEX can help you get a proper perspective, which is required for future study. The Guadalupe Shrine, the holiest of places in Mexico, is dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Millions throng the church during December, and what struck me was the little walking belt in front of the shrine, which ensures that you don’t hang around in front of the Virgin Mary image for too long. It will be a good idea to have something like this in Guruvayur where a traffic jam in front of the idol, is a norm.

Along the way, we did a bit of heady tequila tasting and heard of the difference between Mezcal, Tequila, and the Agave toddy called Pulque. Interestingly, Mezcal is made from different types of Agaves, but the real Tequila is made from a specific blue agave. Mezcal is usually sold with a worm in the bottle (to show its authenticity, and origin at Oaxaca) and these worms are roasted and powdered with the chili salts, licked with lime, while sipping the liquor!

Off we went next to see the home of Leon Trotsky, the Russian revolutionary, who was ousted by Stalin and fled from Russia, to settle down in Mexico City, only to be assassinated by an NKVD agent, in 1940. That reminded me of the Indian connection to the Mexican working class - MN Roy’s sojourn in Mexico, if you recall Roy is considered the person who introduced communism to Mexico, after jumping bail in San Francisco and fleeing across the border to Mexico, with his wife Evelyn, to help found the Mexican Communist Party in 1917. In M.N. Roy’s Memoirs, he wrote, “Mexico was the land of my rebirth”. His former home has been converted into the exclusive MN Roy nightclub serving music and liquor (but not food), and is considered an architectural jewel. I did not know about it and missed a chance to see it!

Now let me digress a bit and link Indian Mexican relations, which not many are aware of, even though these days many Indians travel to or via Mexico.

It is said that Roy met an aging Mexican socialist Adolfo Santibanez at a Chinese restaurant and came up with the idea of creating a party, the first outside of Russia. This was after an aborted attempt in Germany and Japan, to bolster support for Indian independence, a subject I will cover in more detail separately. Sreenivasa Rao who has covered it in a detailed 5-part blog states - It was Mexico and Evelyn that intellectually liberated Roy; broadened his attitude and outlook towards life; and, transformed him into a truly cosmopolitan person with a new cultural sensitivity. He developed a more open approach and a new outlook to life. Much credit must be given to Evelyn in transforming Roy’s sensibility while in Mexico. That formative period in Mexico was a very important phase in his life. It molded him as a person and as an intellectual with a perceptive understanding of life.

This brings me to a few other connections between India and Mexico, since ancient times. Though there are some fanciful mentions of a ship full of Nairs sailing from Kerala to Mexico and creating a home in the Nayarit state in Mexico, it is clear that many an Indian did get transported to various countries in South America during the 16^th -18^th century, as slaves, on slave runs coordinated by Spanish and Portuguese runners. Many have assimilated into the populace, and it is hardly possible to trace their origins, though history books spit out rare mentions, here and there.

In the case of Mexico, the very first slave mentioned is a Malabar cook employed by a Spanish pastor, in the early part of the 16^th century. He was the forerunner to the so-called Indeos Chinos batch of Indian slaves. Juan Nunez from Calicut was the slave/cook of the first Bishop of Mexico (1533-1548), Juan de Zumárraga, he was later manumitted in June 1548 when the padre expired. Some culinary experts state that the famous Mole curry could in theory be attributed to this cook from India!

Once the Portuguese established control over Malacca and Manila, the latter location became the holding point for large numbers of young Indian slaves, both men and women. They were held in captivity in Manila together with many Filipinos and sold off to the highest Iberian bidder taking them to new Spanish colonies in the Americas, i.e., primarily to Mexico. Galleons (termed the Manilla Galleons) of increasing tonnage carrying these hapless Indians and Filipinos sailed the rough seas between the Philippines and Acapulco in New Spain during the 17th century. These slaves were, on the social ladder, placed on par with the lowest category, the indigenous – Indians of South America. Thus, the term stuck, Indeos Chinos. They traveled for months on the Spanish ships and were carted off to small industries existing then, such as textile units. Interestingly, indigenous peoples had greater freedom and some of these Indeos Chinos tried to pass off as local Indians to claim manumission, while others spent considerable effort to maintain their original identities. In any case, over time, this resulted in the intermixing of the two communities, i.e., the Indians from India and the local South American Indians. Out in the Philippines, for this reason, the slave traders resorted to the horrible practice of branding these Indian slaves on their faces to ensure that their origin was clear. I will write more about them soon.

The story of Meera Poblana (Catarina de San Juan) is one I touched upon many years ago when a lady up north was kidnapped, brought to Cochin, converted to Catholic Christianity, transported to the Philippines, and eventually ended up in Mexico. With the passing years, this pious lady, built up a cult following after he visions of Mary and Jesus and was worshipped, till the Vatican banned it. Today her (so they say) colorful Rajput-style skirts and blouses are, quite popular. Sadly, I could not find time enough to go to Puebla and check out more details.

This was all forgotten, and not many Indians came to this part of the world until the 20^th century. However, the communities met in California! Punjabis working mainly in Canada and California, in the agricultural and lumber sector, were not allowed to bring their families. Interracial marriage bans in California prevented them from marrying Black or White women but were allowed to marry Mexican women. There was something in common between them, in those days, Mexicans and Indians shared a lower-class status in American society. Many Punjabi men ended up marrying Mexican women and formed a Punjabi Mexican community, settling in Yuba city, Sacramento in North California, Imperial Valley in South California, and a few other border states, including Texas and Nevada.

As Patrick Collins explains - The wives became adept at cooking delightful fusion dishes like curried tamales, and the men learned to speak Spanish, which helped them communicate with the farm workers who were often hired to help cultivate their land. The children inherited the religion of their mothers and grew up Catholic. One common story puts an interesting twist on the tradition of following mass with a family meal. The men would wait in the church parking lot, speaking Punjabi with one another, and when their families were done worshipping, everyone would pile into their pickup trucks and go out to eat together. The tradition held until Punjabi religious institutions started to form along the lines of the three major religions of Punjab: Sikhism, Hinduism, and Islam. Similarity in food helped – the Mexican tortilla and the Indian chapati are virtually interchangeable, and the chili pepper looms equally large in both cuisines. Jordan Villegas adds that – The Punjabi-Mexican generation became known locally as “half and halves” and many members recall facing prejudice from both Anglo and Mexican schoolmates.

After India became Independent, Mexico became the first Latin American nation to recognize the independence of India, and in 1961, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru became the first Indian head-of-state to pay a visit to Mexico. Since then, intercourse between the nations has been sporadic and only in occasional world forums, but the next was during the so-called Indian Green Revolution of the 60’s.

It is a vast topic, and I have touched upon it in the grain for books and a few other articles, but suffice to mention that Mexican wheat found its way to India. The story involves the visit of MS Swaminathan to the Netherlands, the meeting with Norman Borlaug, and some years later, Swaminathan now back with the IARI in India, deciding to try out the semidwarf wheat developed by Borlaug, to combat food shortages in India. With funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, Borlaug visited India in March 1963 and organized the dispatch of Mexican red dwarf & semi-dwarf seeds to India and Pakistan. These together with local varieties, some 18000 tons of it from Mexico, (though later in 1965-66) created the golden-colored wheat (DS Athwal pioneered the modification of the red variety to the amber yield, to create the Kalyan Sona in 1967) now grown and exported from India.

Strangely, Mexico is still a corn-eating country, just like India is a rice-eating country and I still recall the ration shops where wheat was doled out and food classes were held, demonstrating what to do with wheat, in South India, where housewives were aghast seeing this new grain. Eventually, we got used to chappatis and puris, though they are still held second to rice. Nevertheless, we continue to blame Mexico for sending us the Parthenium weed (naughtily called the congress grass), its pollen a reason for the many asthma complaints in India.

Let’s get back to Mexico and our trip. Having spent an exhausting day at the Pyramids, we spent the next checking out the lovely museums dotting CDMEX. The Anthropologie Museum is a grand structure, with a giant upside-down fountain, home to much of the country’s history, tastefully displayed, though our trip was interrupted when the security sirens started blaring and all visitors were herded to the center. We thought it was a fire alarm, but it turned out to be some other security scare, which nobody bothered to explain and was soon forgotten. I was fascinated by the sunstone Aztec calendar, and so much more, but with no base in Aztec history, all this was more informational than educative.

The Chapultepec castle, (adjoining the Gandhi statue and Gandhi Road) is on the same grounds as the Anthropologie Museum, and is an uphill walk, though not so bad. It is a window to the Spanish administration, a one-time summer home for the Spanish governor. No doubt, an important place to visit, it is home to many exhibits and provides a great view of the city from up above. The Soumaya museum was fun, just like the building itself is.  A uniquely constructed building, and named after the owner’s wife, you can only marvel at the fabulous collection of art and other items, collected by the late Carlos Slim, a billionaire. You can spend hours and hours, and if art does not interest you, you can see a fascinating collection of telephones and phonographs, from the first to the present. Sculptures, paintings, and whatnot fill this multi-story structure. Along the Reforma boulevard, are so many great monuments, and an easy walk from the Centro.  We could not find the water pipe which ended up 25’ above the road level, a result of the city’s sinking in places!

If food interests you, you are in the right city. Tasteful restaurants, fancy eating joints, quick eats, cantinas, and roadside eateries are aplenty, and fusion food as well as ‘what your grandma would make’ places dot the city. From experience, I can say that the ‘Al Pastor’ taco was a revelation, the Lebanese (brought in by Christian Lebanese) shawarma-inspired taco. Let me warn you, it does not taste like Middle Eastern Shawarma at all, has vinegar, cinnamon, spices, and pineapple in it, and is made of pork. Good stuff though. Though we tried a few places, the letdown was an Indian Mexican fusion restaurant, leaving much to be desired.

We did not miss the place that everybody visits, a house that will leave a fond memory in your heart – the home and resting place of the lovely Frida Khalo. Her story is inspiring, that of a painter who produced painting marvels even though afflicted with polio and living through wracking pain and other health issues which she had to endure all her life, following a horrific bus accident. Married to another famous painter Diego Rivera, and wearing corsets to help stabilize her back, she produced marvelous Mexican folk themes and self-portraits. I am not too familiar with art, but I understand that these years, her life and work have triggered a ‘Fridamania’, and her works have been declared to be Mexican cultural heritage works. Her blue house, the La Caza Azul is one of the most visited museums in Mexico City, and her unibrow and dress sense are much talked about.

The lovely Nayantara Sehgal and her sister Rita Dar visited her in the 40s and got her to wear a Sari, pictured here. Nayantara replied to Manu Bhagavan when he questioned her about the picture. “I had just graduated from Wellesley College in the summer of 1947,” Sahgal writes when she went to Mexico for a visit. “We visited Frida whom our host in Mexico knew.” The Pandit sisters visited Kahlo at her home. “We put her in one of our saris and she loved it,” Sahgal recalled. “Frida gave me two beautiful photos of herself, inscribed by her.”

So much more, to see and experience in Mexico, but it was time to get back, but I will remember those pleasant days, the great ambiance, the simple people, the colonial architecture, the museums, and the food and drinks…well worth a visit…