In case I haven’t mentioned it, I’m relocating to Bangalore, India to take a full-time job with a media startup. Moving to India means uprooting my life and literally restarting halfway across the planet. Such is the life of a TechTrotter.

Although I spent much of the summer months in Brazil it’s nice to know that India was never as far away as it seemed. In particular, a soap opera on the Brazil’s most watched network, Globo, helped to create a common link between the two continents. While I wait for my connecting flight to Mumbai in the Brussels International Airport, allow me to tell you about one of my favorite Brazilian TV shows, Caminho das Indias. (The following contains excerpts from a post original intended for publication on SAJA Forum.)

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India’s impact on the world is felt in myriad ways, but the form it takes can often come as a bit of a surprise. Members of the Indian diaspora are found throughout Africa, Oceania and the Caribbean, but there is one place few would expect; Brazil.

One of Brazil’s most popular television shows is soap opera is called ‘Caminho das Indias‘ or, ‘Way of the Indies.’ The show airs nightly after the 8PM news broadcast on Globo, the largest television network in Brazil. The show has three inter-linked plots that unfold simultaneously in Mumbai, Rio de Janeiro and Dubai and the cast features more than a dozen Portuguese-speaking, Brazilian-born Desis.

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In my last post about imitiation vs. innovation in Brazil and I used rock music to parallel what goes on in technology. Today I want to talk exclusively about innovation in music, because Brazil is one of those places that has a reputation for producing hits. In my opinion, few countries besides Jamaica and The U.S. are known for their breadth and depth of musical styles and hit-making abilities.

Rather than go into the history of Brazilian music (which I don’t know), I thought I would share with you the BBC’s take, which have conveniently been sliced into digestible episodes posted below. My classmate Luis first brought the series to my attention.

• Section One deals with Brazil’s most famous form of traditional music, the Samba and its spread into the U.S. and beyond.

• Section Two is about Tropicalia music and the creative resistance of Brazilian musicians to two decades of military rule.

• Section Three starts around the time I was born and deals with contemporary music such as Hip Hop and Baile Funky.

I hadn’t watched any of the episodes from Section Three before today and I fully intended to post them sight unseen and go to sleep. My highest praise is due for the BBC production team that put this masterpiece together. In a  matter of hours I have learned a tremendous amount about Brazilian history and culture, though from a 30,000 foot view.

The reality on the ground is much different and cannot be fit into vignettes, but I hope you will take as long as is required to view this amazing documentary series. If you’re short on time, you might skip ahead to Section Three.

I’m sure my non-Brazilian friends will find the following series enlightening. The production value and storytelling are unparalleled as documentaries go. Although it’s in English, I would be delighted to find out from a Brazilian if he or she has learned anything new about their history or music from these clips.

And now for your enjoyment and edification:

Brasil, Brasil – Samba to Bossa Nova -BBC 1

Part II Part III Part IV Part V Part VI

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One of the best things about traveling is the ability to reinvent oneself on the fly. In New York, I’ve become somewhat of a curmudgeon. After four years in town I’m not as filled with wide-eyed wonderment, or as willing to experiment. One consequence has been my declining intake of live music, a significant departure from the days when I would trek to the Bronx or Brooklyn to see African Hip Hop or grime rappers at a moment’s notice. Expensive drinks, snobby fans and long, late commutes home were just some of the reasons that come to mind.

Not so in Brazil. Last night I attended my third concert in two weekends; a pretty good streak. Last weekend I saw Seu Chico, a group from the city of Pernambuco who cover songs by Brazilian legend, Chico Buarqe.  The venue, Studio SP,  which bills itself as an urban art space and performance hall on Rua Augusta, had a nice blend of grit and posh, with an upbeat crowd.  Even better were the cheap drinks, such as the “busca vida,” which was a mix of cachaça, extra cane sugar and lemon juice.

Of course, the highlight was the band itself. In spite of the fact they played covers, or perhaps because of it, they had the crowd enraptured, singing along loudly with every tune. While the lead singer looked a bit bereft, the group’s 19-year-old pianist, Vitor Araújo, stole the show.

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This picture is a few days old, but it shows Brazilian President Lula embracing the Pirate Bay co-founder, Peter Sunde. The “boys” at Pirate Bay made headlines with their new product, The Video Bay, that will function like YouTube, without displaying notices that copyrighted material has been removed. However, the release of Video Bay comes shortly after the founders were convicted of copyright violation by a Swedish judge and sentenced to one year in prison and $3.8 million in fines.

The accompanying entry by Brazilian scholar and cyberfreedom fighter, Sergio Amadeu, said that Lula defended freedom on the net and spoke to the importance of collaboration at conference in Porto Alegre attended by notable hackers and free software activists. He also posed for pictures with a convicted criminal, which is not something every elected leader would be willing to do. Granted, I have no sympathy for the record labels whose complaint led to Sunde’s conviction (which he and his co-defendants will appeal), but still.

When I was growing up, Richard Pang,  fled to Brazil after the fire he set in his parents’ Seattle warehouse killed four firefighters. He was eventually arrested on Ipanema Beach, by undercover agents, who said he confessed that he fled to Brazil because he knew he would could not be extradited on charges of murder. Nine months after his arrest by Federal agents, the Brazilian high court rules that he could be extradited to stand trial for the murder charges, though this was not part of the original extradition treaty between the U.S. and Brazil.

I just checked to see if Sweden and Brazil have an extradition treaty. They don’t. Perhaps Sunde is already thinking about hanging out with his new best pal, Lula,  and his Brazilian hacker buddies if his subsequent appeal is denied. Just a thought.

Thanks for the tip, Fabricio.

[Photo via: The 3oo]

The girls in Rio De Janeiro don’t wear makeup and the mountains slide straight into the waiting ocean. As if by magic, I had a 30-hour Rio adventure that stirred my soul and restored a sense of childlike wonderment that had been flagging.

Sao Paulo is gargantuan, overwhelming and nondescript. Its packed subway cars, high prices and air pollution have lately been causing me to wonder aloud if I left New York at all. Rio de Janeiro is one of the world’s few special places; passionate and delectable, known for it’s raucous Carnival, iconic beaches and gorgeous people. It is simply unique, a gem in Brazil’s crown.

The hostel where I was staying threw a delightful dance party and afterwards, I went to Lapa with an Australian named Dave. Lapa is a strip of bars just outside downtown Rio bisected by a Roman aqueduct that acts as a bridge for the overhead trolley tracks. By the time we arrived, at half past 4 in the morning, the Lapa crowd, which was in the upper hundreds, or even thousands, was disintegrating into a drunken melee. At home, in the States, these bars would be closing in a matter of minutes, but it’s quite possible patrons here continued to samba and sing on the street until the sun came up after 6.

The long bus into town and the subsequent week of late nights left me content heading home as 5 approached. There’s something about Rio though, with it’s sticky climate, soaring hills and the energy of 6 million souls that could have made me push through the exhaustion to find another thrill.

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I have been told that Rio de Janeiro and Cape Town, South Africa were once joined when Africa and South America were a single land mass. The geology of the two areas, Cape Town’s Table Mountain, besides Pao de Açucar in Rio, makes me think that this could be true. But while Rio is unlike any city I’ve visited, it somehow conjures the best: The lawlessness and hedonism of New Orleans, the architecture of Buenos Aires, as well as New York’s addictive cocktail of grit, hustle and filth that one only has to smell to understand.

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I arrived at the gorgeous Casa Carioka hostel in Copacabana 90 minutes ago and now I’m unwinding with a beer. Rio is warm, humid and lush with tropical foliage. Just a few blocks down a steep hill is the ocean. A party is already underway and after some tense negotiations, the Canadian DJ’s are playing traditional samba music. Although I was exhausted when I woke up, the escape from Sao Paulo has already been worth it.

The Sao Paulo bus terminal was a very civilized and efficient affair, especially when compared with many of the Greyhound Bus terminals of American cities. Most telling was the cornucopia of cash machines from local, national and international financial institutions, such as HSBC, who bills itself as “the world’s local bank.”

After boarding the bus, our escape from Sao Paulo was a blur. I fell asleep instantly and awoke at intervals when our driver would stop on the roadside to pick up stragglers. As the road unfolded before us, I wondered if the entire journey between Sao Paulo and Rio would be one continuous urban expanse. However, at one hour and 35 minutes, almost to the second, the bus passed through a shelf of incandescent red clay and the megalopolis of Sao Paulo came to an abrupt halt. Where there had been factories and house upon house, crammed right up to the highway, only grass remained with cows to munch it, and termite mounds that  pocked the landscape like acne. The first “lanchonete” we passed had two emus in a fenced enclosure.

Sign: "The flavor of America"

Gradually even the frenetic picaçao that covers every vertical surface in Sao Paulo melted away to thick, unfazed stands of bamboo, dark green pines and row upon row of eucalyptus. The smooth blacktop cutting through rolling hills reminded me of the ride through Northern California as you approach Mt. Shasta on Interstate 5. Here and there we zipped by clusters of bicyclists clad in lycra and at random intervals I saw solitary homeless men walking barefoot. With jeans, a sweater and sometimes a baseball cap, it was remarkable how closely they resembled one another, though in all likeliness, they did not no of each other’s presence just a few miles down the road. Halfway between Brazil’s throbbing industrial heart and its most storied city, these lonely urchins seemed as though they were one million miles from either.

Cruising through hamlets of rust-colored brick hovels, with boys flying handmade kites on the spanish-tiled roofs, I was beginning forget about Sao Paulo behind and, Rio, which awaited, as I focused on soaking up everything outside the windows.

As our bus climbed higher, we skirted a nuclear reservation as the clouds grew thick and low overhead. The road began to twist and the hard top deteriorated, causing our carriage to bounce on its springs. Soon I feel asleep again and when I awoke night had already fallen. We were on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro and every car that passed us seemed to be headed somewhere important and fun. From the Novo Rio terminal, I boarded a city bus that took me near the center of town for $1 and then a taxi took me the rest of the way.

I’m sleeping alone in a room with four beds and for the first time in Brazil, I intend to get a good night’s rest. I’m not sure how likely that is to happen, but at least the possibility exists. And now, my night begins!