Accidental Blogger

Golconda (Sujatha)

The taxi winds around the narrow maze of roads leading up to the fort. It's a very democratic cross-section of the population that lines up to enter the grounds: at Rs.10 per ticket, this is a poor man's park, not just the haunt of the well-heeled. The lawns near the entrance are surprisingly green, well-watered even as an extended dry spell has been hovering over the city and suburbs. But further inside, the parterres look parched and dusty red.

(The photo above is by A.Gopalratnam)

As we climb the steps, we dip off to the side, under the erstwhile stables/bodyguard barracks. At the far end, a couple of cauldrons are cooking and a largish group of picnickers are seated in a row, partaking of the feast. (Is that the famed Hyderabadi biryani that I smell?)
We pass on, further up the steps to the main fort. A couple are marked with what I suspect to be red and yellow paint- it's too bright to be kumkum and turmeric. I wonder why, until a few steps later we are treated to the unexpected spectacle of a man cutting the head off a white rooster in front of a small make-shift altar at the step. Maybe a sacrifice to the goddess Jagadamba, who has a temple, even in this fort which was last controlled by the Muslim Qutb Shahi dynasty.
My kids and friends are shocked by the blood spilling out onto the step, and walk gingerly around the altar and rooster head, bemoaning the barbarianism. The man carefully washes the blood from the steps, and walks quickly away, clutching the rooster's body, that likely will be cooked as part of the Bonalu festival.
We stop the walk to the top of the hill, and retrace our steps towards another area where a Light and Sound show will be held. This is for the bonafide wealthier tourists, cost Rs.100 for an ordinary ticket and double that for the VIP Executive class ticket, which comes with free soft drinks. The path to the seats is fraught with the perils of Bat-smell and Bat-droppings, echoes from the cliff-swallows swooping around the cavernous ceilings, as we wait in line for the security queue. A uniformed policewoman diligently peeks into our handbags before nodding us in.
As we swelter in the last rays of the setting sun, batting mosquitoes and ticks away in vain, a couple of scrawny cats rush towards the nearby garbage can, disappearing almost entirely inside as they rummage for leftovers.
A squeal from the loudspeakers, and then a booming voice announces the start of the show. It is a well-written and re-enacted history of the occupants of the fort, starting with the Kakatiya kings who built it, to the Qutb Shahi rulers who maintained the longest control over it, tales of kings and singers and lovers and saints, all wiped away in the final blast of war for control of the fabled fort. The Golconda is impregnable to all onslaughts but that of treachery. The lighting is wonderfully synced with the stirring narration and dialogues.
The audience is alternately captivated by the narration, or nodding off when the too-long musical interludes commence.(I'm sure they must have paid the singers handsomely for their efforts, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the whole songs be played in their 6 -or-8-stanza entirety!)
We escape during the final soulful paean to the glories of the Telugu people, just minutes before the remaining mass of the audience tries to ooze through the narrow pathway back, through the Bat-zone.
Walking outside the fort towards the taxi, squeals of horror from the kids punctuate our path: We have just managed to step on masses of teeming cockroaches that are out for the evening's dinner, congregating in the manholes.
The verdict from the kids: Unmitigated disaster of an excursion, since they didn't like the sacrificial rooster, or the bat-smells or the cockroaches.
My verdict: A reminder that beyond all the tourist trappings, there is still an underlying India that is worth seeing in all its glory and squalor.
---------------------------------------------
Cross-posted from Fluff 'n' Stuff

Racing through the Louvre (Sujatha)

From the New York Times a few weeks ago:

"Spending an idle morning watching people look at art is hardly a scientific experiment, but it rekindles a perennial question: What exactly are we looking for when we roam as tourists around museums? As with so many things right in front of us, the answer may be no less useful for being familiar."

Why indeed do we wander around museums? Is it the age-old quest for finding ourselves in our past, the thirst for knowledge? Or the window-shopper and street-gawker's instinct? Is it less about stopping and staring and more about bragging rights as in "I visited the Louvre, when we were last in Paris." Or maybe a combination of 'All of the Above"?
As a kid in Paris, I had been on school field trips to various sections of the Louvre, spending a few hours once in the Egyptian section, and another visit in the Greek section, but remember very little of what are considered to be its main attractions. My recent visit was an all new-experience,  reminding me that it was perhaps at the Louvre that I acquired my taste for museum-hopping no matter where in the world we went.

-----------------------------------------------------

Ah, the Louvre! The perfect place to loiter leisurely, gazing at John the Baptist's all-knowing smile, or perchance the mysterious magnificence of the Mona Lisa.That is, until the hordes of tourists and tour guides waving flags, assorted brochures and even umbrellas to keep their groups together, all trample over you in their eagerness to see the next item on the 'Da Vinci Code' tour.

The Monna Lisa was unreachable. A special line of the devoted faithful had to be stood in and endured, before you were able to partake of her timeless gaze at closer quarters. We settled for the distant view. Even hoisting my daughter onto her father's shoulders and placing a camera in her tiny fingers elicited an indignant "Not allowed" from a museum security official doing due diligence.

Never mind the barely visible main attraction- the huge painting of the Wedding Feast at Cana (Veronese) on the opposite side was quite a show-stopper, though precious few of the crowds milling around the Gioconda paid any attention to it.

With over 35,000 paintings and antiquities, we could have spent an entire month in the museum, but having only a day, we could only spend a paltry few minutes in each section, catching the 'highlighted items' suggested in the museum's brochure.
Then, we decided to linger in certain places, not quite the stuff of tourist lore, but quite fantastic nevertheless. The Persian section was eye-popping, with its huge capitals that took up so much room that one could barely imagine the size of the pillar that supported it.

A small crowd was milling around a rock edict which bore the Code of Hammurabi, with a prominently displayed French translation nearby- 'for X, off with the hand... for Y, off with the leg... for Z, off with the head..."- I provided a quick translation for my son: "...It's the Off-with-his-head school of justice",as an eavesdropping tourist nearby snickered in agreement.

The sculpture courtyard adjoining the Persian section was a relatively quiet place to recuperate from the milling crowds jostling to pose with the Winged Victory. I sat behind a statue of Hercules battling a gigantic snake , though not at a good vantage point (read, treated to a prominent view of the Derriere). I was reduced to sneaking peeks at the red charcoal drawing of the statue, which an art student was working on, right next to me. She had time to spare, tracing every contour with careful concentration, but tiring presently of her drawing, whipped out a cellphone and started a quiet conversation with a friend. So much for the slow version of museum enjoyment in the era of the cellphone.

My daughter wanted a drink of water, and the quest for a water fountain began in earnest. But the Louvre, being a palace more than a few centuries old, didn't have the requisite plumbing to handle the thirst of the trampling hordes, unlike the new-fangled shiny rest-roomed and water-fountained American museums. We waited in line desperately at the entrance to a crowded café in the museum, and 15 minutes after we made it in, a bored-looking waiter finally brought us a tiny cup of cappucino (10 Euros! Eeek!) and a bottle of Evian (3 Euros! Eeek-squared!). Next time we visited a Musée, we resolved to carry our own water, even if it was in a distinctly unfashionable recycled Fanta bottle.

The famed glass Pyramid was but a snatched glimpse through the windows of various wings, as we gaped our way through the luxurious apartments of Napoleon III. Then we redoubled our walk through the section of European painters, catching a few famous Rembrandt self-portraits in the process.

How did we manage to spend the better part of a day in a museum with my children who are notoriously allergic to museums? My teenager didn't complain much, having succumbed quite happily to the touristy notion of 'catching all the highlights' in the brochures. My 8-year old daughter was anointed the official photographer and religiously clicking away at everything in sight. Unfortunately, we only have a handful of usable pictures from her collection, but the camera was worth its price in gold, for the peace of mind and the Prime Whiner's busyness that it brought us.

------

Cross-posted from Fluff-n-Stuff

A minimalistic approach to happiness

In a blog post in the NYT travel writer Pico Iyer describes life in a small apartment in Japan as his route to finding peace and happiness. Says Iyer:

So — as post-1960s cliché decreed — I left my comfortable job and life to live for a year in a temple on the backstreets of Kyoto. My high-minded year lasted all of a week, by which time I’d noticed that the depthless contemplation of the moon and composition of haiku I’d imagined from afar was really more a matter of cleaning, sweeping and then cleaning some more. But today, more than 21 years later, I still live in the vicinity of Kyoto, in a two-room apartment that makes my old monastic cell look almost luxurious by comparison. I have no bicycle, no car, no television I can understand, no media — and the days seem to stretch into eternities, and I can’t think of a single thing I lack.

I’m no Buddhist monk, and I can’t say I’m in love with renunciation in itself, or traveling an hour or more to print out an article I’ve written, or missing out on the N.B.A. Finals. But at some point, I decided that, for me at least, happiness arose out of all I didn’t want or need, not all I did. And it seemed quite useful to take a clear, hard look at what really led to peace of mind or absorption (the closest I’ve come to understanding happiness). Not having a car gives me volumes not to think or worry about, and makes walks around the neighborhood a daily adventure. Lacking a cell phone and high-speed Internet, I have time to play ping-pong every evening, to write long letters to old friends and to go shopping for my sweetheart (or to track down old baubles for two kids who are now out in the world).

I like Pico Iyer's writings. I do not share his views on happiness entirely but some observations struck a chord.

My life is very different from Iyer's. Unlike him, having left the work force long ago I have not felt the urgent need to run away from the stresses of a busy professional life.  But one's personal fantasies about attaining that contented state of peace and happiness are not bound by what we do and where we are. Like Iyer, my day dreams too occasionally take me to Japan.

In my moderate travel experience through world cities, three left magical impressions, each for different reasons - San Francisco, Barcelona and Kyoto. Of these, the only one where I have imagined myself living is Kyoto. The existence I conjure up is very similar to what Iyer is currently living. But add to mine a view of the wavy, crenellated tiled roof of a Buddhist temple from an upstairs window and high speed internet.

I doubt that the Japanese are happier than the rest of the world. But for some reason, I can see myself feeling at peace in Japan, my lack of mastery over the local language notwithstanding. It is one place where I imagine that isolation from the outside chatter will not make me feel left out or lonely. It is of course all a fantasy with no real life experience of an extended stay to back up its veracity, arising solely out of some moments of exceptional calm that I have felt during my travels there even though my Japanese itineraries were always packed and hectic.

I am old enough to know that contentment and peace of mind are hardly ever wholly contingent upon our relationship with a person, possession or place. Like refreshing coastal showers they can come upon us suddenly at the least expected moment and in an unlikely setting. But it is still fun to dwell upon an imaginary escape hatch to serenity.  

I have occasionally written about Japan on A.B. touching upon one experience or the other. My last post on Japan was a pot-pourri of a few such observations. See here. That trip in the autumn of 2006 is nearly three years in the past. It may be time to plan another trip.

(The link to Iyer's article is via Namit Arora. The content of my post here is a modified version of the comment I left on Namit's blog)

A "Pardesi" Life in "Desi" Land

In Hindi / Urdu, pardesi means foreign or foreigner - as opposed to desi which stands for native Indian or south Asian.

Ever since I read Nathan Katz's detailed and interesting account of Indian Jews, I have wanted, whenever the opportunity presents itself during my trips back to India, to seek out the markers that chronicle the history of the once thriving but now drastically dwindling Jewish community of India. Historic evidence of a Jewish presence in the form of people and edifices are few and far between on the vast Indian landscape. A handful of synagogues that once served as centers of religious as well as social lives of Indian Jews are scattered in different corners of India. They remain a scant reminder of the now almost disappeared community which was once a tiny part of India's colorful and diverse social fabric. For details of the ethnicities and dates of arrival of the different diasporic Jewish communities of India, please see the review of Katz's book that I have linked to at the beginning of the post.

During my last trip to India, my sister and I took a short vacation in the city of Cochin in Kerala, on the southwestern coast of the Indian peninsula along the Arabian Sea.  There we visited the oldest standing Indian synagogue built by Sephardic Jews who first arrived on the Kerala coast in the 16th century, fleeing the Spanish Inquisition. Well before their arrival, a small but established Jewish community was already living in peace and prosperity on the Malabar Coast of Kerala, believed to have settled there since the 10th century. The immigrants from Spain expected (correctly) and found safe haven among fellow co-religionists of India. Although the Spanish Jews were warmly welcomed by their Indian hosts, the two Jewish communities, distinguished by the color of their skins, remained socially apart. The original group of Malabari Jews had become racially integrated within the larger Keralite community and were therefore dark complected like others of the region. The new comers from Europe who chose not to intermarry with the Indian Jews retained their relatively light complexions. The synagogue in Cochin built by the newly arrived Sephardic Jews in 1567-68, is called the Pardesi Synagogue - "the synagogue of foreigners."

Located at the end of an alley backing up to a Hindu temple on the compound of the Mattancheri Palace (or the Dutch Palace), the abode of the former kings of Cochin, the Pardesi Synagogue is a quaint little reminder of Kerala's past. It remains a functional synagogue to this day and attracts numerous tourists, many of them from Israel. Arts/ crafts / antique shops and spice markets lining the Synagogue Lane thrive on tourist trade although most of the artifacts sold are not  related to Judaism. The Mattencheri post office located on the same street will post mark your mail, upon request, with the Star of David. The post master claimed that it is the only post office in the world with that unique postal facility. I don't know if that is true.

The Pardesi Synagogue is currently under the supervision of eleven (yes eleven persons, not families) Cochin Jews who must be rather formidable folks because the shopkeepers seemed quite terrified of them.  They took care to speak with us in whispers on the street during the afternoon siesta hours for fear of disturbing the mostly senior Jewish residents who occupy the lovely old homes lining the alley. "Do Not Disturb Between 1-4 PM" signs hang on several front doors. I don't know what will happen to the synagogue after the current proprietors are gone or become enfeebled by old age. I expect the Indian Archaeological Society or the state government of Kerala will take over and maintain it as a historic public monument. The World Heritage Foundation already contributes to its upkeep. As of now, visitors' access to the interior of the synagogue is controlled solely by its crusty custodians. The story of the remaining eleven Cochin Jews has recently been recorded in a book by author Edna Fernandes.

(from left to right : the interior of Pardesi synagogue; the Star of David post mark at Mattancheri post office;Synagogue Lane ending at Pardesi Synagogue;

Water management in Dholavira - 5000 years ago

Namit Arora at Shunya's Notes describes his journey through Dholavira, the remains of a 5000 years old metropolis in the Rann of Kutch, an environmentally inhospitable region in western India. Excavation has uncovered a sophisticated urban development whose inhabitants, it is clear, were very much obsessed with channeling and preserving fresh water within their city. That precious commodity of human survival and civilization is in short supply in the desert region of the Rann of Kutch. Namit found an ancient bangle among the ruins. Did he keep it? He doesn't say. 

The road to Dholavira goes through a dazzling white landscape of salty mudflats. It is close to noon in early April and the mercury is already past 100F. The desert monotones are interrupted only by the striking attire worn by the women of the nomadic and semi-nomadic pastoral tribes that still inhabit this land: Ahir, Rabari, Jat, Meghwal, and others. When I ask the driver of my hired car to stop for a photo, they receive me with curious stares, hoots, and giggles.

This is the Rann of Kutch, an area about the size of Kuwait, almost entirely within Gujarat and along the border with Pakistan. Once an extension of the Arabian Sea, the Rann ("salt marsh") has been closed off by centuries of silting. During the monsoons, parts of the Rann fill up with seasonal brackish water, enough for many locals to even harvest shrimp in it. Some abandon their boats on the drying mudflats, presenting a surreal scene for the dry season visitor. Heat mirages abound. Settlement is limited to a few "island" plateaus, one of which, Khadir, hosts the remains of the ancient city of Dholavira, discovered in 1967 and excavated only since 1989.

Entering Khadir, we pass a village and find the only tourist bungalow in town. It hasn't seen a visitor in three days; I check in and head over to the ruins. I've planned this for months; even the hottest hour of the day cannot temper my excitement for the ruins of this 5,000 year-old metropolis of the Indus Valley Civilization. While hundreds of sites have been identified in Gujarat alone, this is among the five biggest known to us in the entire subcontinent, alongside Harappa, Mohanjo-daro, and Ganeriwala in Pakistan, and Rakhigarhi in India.

A Summer Break in Brixen

My short vacation last week took me to the beautiful little town of Brixen in the south Tyrolean region of northern Italy.  Here are some photos inside and outside the historic Elephant Hotel where I stayed, the hotel's gardens and of the main cathedral in the town square. Although we didn't meet, I learnt that the Pope was vacationing in Brixen at the time we were there. The souvenir shops were resplendent with commemorative papal merchandise. 

(click on thumbnails for enlargement)

 

For more on the history and politics of the area and other photos, please see Abbas Raza's post on 3 Quarks Daily.

Stuffing Your Belly in Delhi

Food personality Andrew Zimmern was recently in Delhi - to eat, eat and eat! He ate a lot, at a lot of different places - glittering dining destinations in posh New Delhi restaurants, traditional eateries in the dingy alley ways of Old Delhi, roadside stalls and confectionery and even sacred temple offerings in a Gurdwara. He tasted everything - the hot, the sweet and the tangy. With able guidance from food aficionados, Zimmern sampled cuisines from many parts of India- from soup to nut to ... tree bark. And he ate and ate and ate. (I sure hope he was packing a generous supply of Pepto-Bismol)

Zimmern has enthusiastically chronicled his experience of eating (pigging?) out in Delhi at his blog Bizarre Foods. Some excerpts:

Delhi is the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world going back at least 2500 years. The ruins of 7 cities have been discovered here, and it is said that Delhi’s food is often descended from that of the mediaeval lashkars garrisoned around the forts of the capital. But today, Shahjahanabad, or Old Delhi is home to an army of office-goers and shopkeepers who trade in everything from spices to bridal trousseaux to electrical fittings. If you venture to untangle the streets that twist and turn from dark alleys into busy boulevards, you are likely to find an inevitable surprise lurking around the corner, at least that’s what my new pal Hemanshu Kumar, a college Economics professor who is also the titular head of Eating Out in Delhi, a local club always in search of the most interesting and most bizarre food in town. Today, The Professor and I went on a search for the nearly extinct and increasingly overlooked traditional foods that can only be found on a dedicated filed trip. We found spiced milk froth, tiny Nihari stands, and anything else that popped up, like fruity sandwiches that reside in a shop behind large iron gates on Chawri Bazaar Road--- made from pomegranate (anaar) or apples and paneer (Indian cottage cheese made from curdled milk) lathered in orange marmalade, then dusted with secret masala and anaar seeds all on white bread.

I am particularly pleased that Zimmern didn't depart Delhi by sampling just the customary north Indian fare of saffron rice, nan bread, creamy gravies and meat kebabs. He wisely checked out the food in a new  Bengali restaurant in Delhi (a must for me next time I am there). I have said here before that Bengali cuisine, the food that was cooked in my parents' home, is a distinct cooking style dominated by fish (including sea food), rice, vegetables and a dazzling array of desserts. It is not served in most Indian restaurants. Bengalis eat meat too but consume it in lesser quantities than fish. (In our home, we ate meat every Sunday and on holidays). The food flavors are varied and subtle and the sauces lighter in body than in north Indian preparations - one size does not fit all.  Along with the ubiquitous Indian spice mixes of onion, garlic, cumin, coriander, cardamom, cinnamon and clove, which are used judiciously, Bengali cooks artfully mix and match ginger roots, bay leaves, hot green chili, fresh coconuts, poppy, mustard and nigella seeds in their culinary creations. Also, alongside the more common vegetables and fruits, Bengalis are known to transform a whole host of unusual roots, leaves and even tree barks into mouthwatering dishes. In his post Zimmern mentions the delightful experience of eating bananas .... or rather, the whole banana tree, at New Delhi's fancy and gastronomically ambitious Bengali restaurant, Oh! Calcutta.

Boulevard of Broken and Burgeoning Dreams

In remembrance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, today's Houston Chronicle has an interesting article on Houston's MLK Blvd - its past and its present.  MLK Blvd in Houston runs from the southeastern part of the city near Hobby Airport , north to the University of Houston.  It is a long, mostly residential street with small businesses lining both sides. I have driven on it near the airport and close to the university but not on the stretch between the two.

Snaking north to south from the University of Houston to its dead end at Almeda-Genoa Road, the street named for Martin Luther King Jr., transects some of the city's poorest neighborhoods. A third of the residents live below the poverty level, and the harshness of their lives is chronicled by the rap lyrics of South Park Mexican, Scarface and Z-Ro.

Look and you'll see a street lined with a shabby procession of barber shops and grocery stores. Look again, and you'll see mom-and-pop businesses, flourishing churches and even headquarters for national companies. The boulevard is a street of dreams; a street of dreams broken.

Such paradoxes seem particularly sharp today, the national holiday honoring King, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for his civil rights work in the turbulent 1960s.

For some who live and work on the boulevard, the possibility that Barack Obama might become the nation's first black president makes King's dream of brotherhood seem brighter than ever. For others, Obama's campaign simply reminds of other black politicians, who, they believe, proved disappointments.

"We are facing things in our lives that we've never faced before," said boulevard real estate agent Dorothy Pruitt-Harris. "Gas prices, oil prices, credit problems. A lot of people don't know where to go."

Speaking of King's assassination 40 years ago this April, Pruitt-Harris' colleague, insurance broker Trazawell Franklin Jr., added, "That was 40 years ago ... and we're still dreaming. Things are still the same. We're still the last hired and the first fired. We're still waiting for the right leadership, the right positions and the right time."....

......"I feel things are really messed up," Pruitt-Harris said, "but if (Obama) does get elected, maybe he can bring things back together."

Franklin seemed unconvinced, arguing that even during the tenure of Mayor Lee Brown and Police Chief Clarence Bradford, both African-Americans, "heads still were beat, we still had profiling."

A short distance away, at the national headquarters of the Harlon's barbecue chain, company president Candace Brooks Clement offered a different view. Her company, founded by her father in 1977, now operates restaurants in Houston, Austin, Nacogdoches and Las Vegas and employs 105 workers.

"The dream is still going for us," she said. "We have aspiration. We still want to go higher in the profession."

And here is Charles Krauthammer whose interpretation of Hillary Clinton's reference to Martin Luther King Jr. and Lyndon B. Johnson echoes my own.

On The Road With Jesus

Sam Fentress is a Jack Kerouac of sorts. He travels the roads of America looking to find not himself but Biblical signs and bill boards - messages to praise and persuade.  In his many sojourns he has found farmhouses, grain silos, restaurants, hair salons, gas stations and even traffic signs bearing Biblical messages. An artist and a photographer, Fentress first started photographing roadside biblical messages when a student in his class brought him a picture of a barn covered in Scriptures. Fentress was stunned.

"It just knocked my socks off as a picture," he said. "The boldness of the farmer in covering the roof, the sides — every square foot of the barn had some sort of Bible quote, Old Testament, New Testament, Gospels, Epistles, Revelation."

Fentress has photographed an urban billboard which rotated its message to read among other things.

• God is like Coke: He's the real thing.
• God is like Pan Am: He makes the going great.
• God is like Tide: He gets the stains out that others leave behind.
• God is like-VO-5 hair spary: He holds through all kinds of weather.
• God is like Alka Seltzer: Try him, you'll like him.

Behind the billboard was a building with a big sign, "Furniture Factory Outlet World." God and mammon jousting for attention.

Now Fentress has a book out of his collection of photographs titled "Bible Road" which he edited for what he hopes is, "interesting both theologically and aesthetically."

Sam Fentress has spent the past 25 years crisscrossing America's highways and byways, stopping along the way to snap shots of religious signs in every state except Hawaii. He found everything from John 3:3 on a farm silo in Ohio to "Obey God or Burn" scratched into a rock in Harlem....

At some point in the late '70s or early '80s, Fentress realized the farmer wasn't alone. Wherever he looked, he saw religious signs along the roadside. He started to methodically photograph thousands of such images over the next two decades. Along the way, he also became a Catholic.

Fentress, 52, has a master of arts from the Art Institute of Chicago and his work is collected by museums, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the St. Louis Art Museum.

The religious roadside signage is particularly American, he said, given the First Amendment's guarantees of freedom of speech and religion and the country's religious diversity.

"Americans are told they can say whatever they want," he said. And people feel free to say it — or perhaps, show it — whether on their front lawn, barn or business.

Fentress said he was intrigued by the juxtaposition of landscape and religious message. Some images capture signs on businesses, which he attributed to a capitalist tendency to co-opt religion into something that can be marketed and sold. But he also recognized the impulse to spread the "good news" wherever possible.

In Las Vegas, he spotted Glorified Bodies Inc., a collision repair shop with the Christian fish symbol on its signpost. He noted the relationship between Jesus' resurrected body, as described in the New Testament, and restoring damaged cars. [Link]

For some samples of Fentress' photos see here.

Sanctioned Foods and Forbidden City

Usha Alexander and Namit Arora recently returned from a trip to China.  Their observations on China's Forbidden City and wide range of gastronomical delights at Shunya's Notes.

Blogging From The Top Of The World!

Eighteen year old Samantha Larson of Long Beach, California has climbed the highest seven mountain summits on all continents.  On May 16th she reached the top of Mount Everest, making her the youngest American to have achieved this feat.  During her Everest climb she packed her oboe along with her climbing gear so as to be ready for a band concert upon her return. And she BLOGGED during this grueling adventure!  How did she do it without internet access in the rarified atmosphere of the Himalayas?  She called her mom in New York via satellite phone and relayed the messages to be posted on her blog. Wow! But then Samantha is an exceptionally motivated and capable young woman. Read more about her adventures and accomplishments here.

(Samantha preparing for the climb)

From Earth's tallest point, the message was understandably breathless.

"We made it to the top!" Samantha Larson told her mother via satellite phone Thursday after reaching the summit of Mount Everest. "Now all we have to do is make it back down."

Larson, 18, of Long Beach, became one of the youngest people to scale the 29,035-foot peak, reaching the summit with a group that included her father, David Larson, 51, an anesthesiologist at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center.

The honors graduate of Long Beach Polytechnic High School put off her arrival as a freshman at Stanford University by a year to scale some of the world's highest mountains.

She began posting reports on her Everest trek last month at www.samanthalarson.blogspot.com, continuing her blogging until she was more than halfway up the mountain. Her mother, Sarah Hanson, and her brother, Ted, added Samantha's triumphant comments.  ....

[W]hen father and daughter "finally started our summit push yesterday, making our way from base camp to camp two," Samantha wrote Sunday. "We don't have Internet access up here, but we were able to relay this information to our correspondents in New York via satellite phone. We're taking a rest day today, and plan to press on tomorrow. If all goes well, we should summit on the 17th."

Tom Sjogren, one of the founders of explorersweb.com, an extreme adventure news portal based in New York, said that as far as they know Larson is the youngest to crest the seven summits. But with such high numbers of climbers, statistics are hard to verify.

A Smoldering Paradise

A lovely piece of travel writing by Usha Alexander here.  Her article has been included in The Best Travel Writing for 2007 by Travelers’ Tales. Alexander recounts her days as a Peace Corps volunteer in the remote region of the archipelago of Vanuatu.

Anandpur Sahib Revisited

Shunya's latest post about the Sikh Gurdwara (temple) Anandpur Sahib took me far down the memory lane. I had visited this beautiful place in my late teens. I don't remember too many of the details now. But I did make a sketch of the lovely structure which amazingly is still in my possession (most of the art work that I had produced in India got inexplicably "lost" during one of our moves). It is a pen and pencil execution in a school note book whose pages are now yellowing. I am posting it here. Please do check out Shunya's much better and vivid photographic depictions of this stunning place.

Tehran - More Than An Islamic Megapolis

Iran is much in the news these days. Most of the US media coverage of Iran is concerned with Islamic extremism, the nascent nuclear program that has the Bush administration on a war footing, Iran's meddling in Iraqi affairs and of course, the theatrics of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But Iran is a large country of more than 70 million people and to define it narrowly in terms of its fundamentalist leaders is foolish and unfair.

My brother in law, Manoj Joshi was in Iran recently as a member of Government of India's press delegation. The purpose of the visit was to report on the current political situation in Iran and the state of Indo-Iranian relations.  Apart from his serious reportage, Manoj also wrote a light hearted piece on his observations of present day life in Tehran. Although he has addressed the article to his Indian readers, I feel the piece is of sufficient general interest to A.B. regulars to warrant posting here.

(Manoj Joshi is the editor of the Indian daily newspaper, The Hindustan Times. He writes on Indian and global politics. His specialty is strategic military and defense issues)

(Northern Tehran. Elburz mountains seen in the background)

There is a sense of unease that comes with travelling to Tehran, ruled by a system dominated by conservative mullahs. But actual experiences are always more pleasurable than clichéd instincts. The capital of Iran is a huge metropolis of 12.3 million people who represent one-fifth of its population and 50 per cent of its industry.

With a backdrop of the snow-brushed Elburz mountains, Tehran could be the most beautiful city in Iran, but it is not. That title goes to Isfahan. Tehran received a fatal blow when, during the rule of Mohammed Reza Shah, parts of the older palaces and buildings were razed to make way for structures that came up later in the 1950s and 1960s. Today, ugly high-rises ruin the view and, as Indian ambassador Manbir Singh realises in his palatial house and grounds, the neighbourhood.

Money counts

The most important street in Tehran is the Vali-e-asr that runs from the Tajrish locality in the north to the main railway station in the south. Tajrish is where the city’s affluent population lives; it is relatively pollution free and perceptibly cooler in the summer.

For this reason, perhaps, it was the site of a palace complex built by the Shah Dynasty, which was deposed by the Islamic revolution in 1979. The Sadabad palace complex has some 18 villas, which were used by the founder of the dynasty, Reza Shah and his son Mohammed Reza and their families. Today it houses museums and government buildings. Imam Khomeini’s place in a neighbouring area comprises a single room divided by a curtain, with a short walk to a mosque.

North of Tajrish is Darband, at the foot of a mountain of the same name. This leads to a popular hiking trail and a ski lift that leads to a set of ski slopes on the northern slopes of the Elburz mountains.

At the place where the hiking trails begin are small shops and hookah lounges that also serve as restaurants called ghavekhane sonnati, where Tehran youth unwind a little, but always too much for the conservative Basij militia personnel. At a restaurant built into the mountain, there are recliners where you can sit picnic-style on rugs and feast on chelo kebabs, grilled fish and khoresht stew served with buttered rice and Iranian naan. For starters there are salads, feta cheese and yoghurt and for accompaniments, doogh (somewhat like our chaanch), non-alcoholic beer and Zam Zam cola. (A friend swears that a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label, delivered at the door costs $42, less than what it costs in New Delhi, but you must be very, very careful.) After the meal and a cup of tea, the hookah is a must and it is not unusual to see hijab-clad beauties puffing away.

The sacred veil

The women’s dress varies from the all enveloping black chador that covers them from head to toe, to a mélange of styles that involve trousers, an over garment or manteaux and a hijab that covers the hair. Just how tight the manteaux are and how much of the hair is actually covered is a matter of discretion. Unlike her Arab counterpart, the Tehran woman is not housebound. Chador, hijab and all, she is visible at the workplace whether as a cleaning lady or a research officer in a think-tank; member of Parliament or Basij (paramilitary) officer.

Despite the monstrously huge metropolis they live in, the Tehranis are unfailingly polite. Not for them the frenetic aggression of the Dilliwala. There’s a sophisticated culture spawned by the scores of universities, theatres, art galleries and cafes manifest in a vibrant art, cinema and literature scene. But though Iran’s secular culture is highly developed, it is under strain.

The Islamic Republic does not officially ban music, cinema or art. But censorship and, worse, self-censorship, is the order of the day.

Step Across the Border

Came across this charming little travel tale (via Amardeep) in the New Yorker.  Polish travel writer Ryszard Kapuscinski reminisces about the first time he stepped out of his homeland and landed in ... India (via a short stop in Rome).  The India he describes is of another era - from the 1950s.  Much has changed since then but a lot remains the same. What some of us can identify with in the essay is the author's keen wander lust, tempered by caution. He just wanted to cross the border from Poland ... and return home the same day! Not for him the distant and the unknown, not even Paris or London.

"I rattled along from village to village, from town to town, in a hay cart or on a rickety bus—private cars were a rarity, and even a bicycle wasn’t easy to come by. My route sometimes took me to a village along the border. But it happened infrequently, for the closer one got to the border the emptier the land became, and the fewer people one encountered. The emptiness only increased the mystery of those regions, a mystery that attracted and fascinated me. I wondered what one might experience upon crossing the border. What would one feel? What would one think? Would it be a moment of great emotion, agitation, tension? What was it like, on the other side? It would, of course, be . . . different. But what did “different” mean? What did the other side look like? Did it resemble anything I knew? Was it inconceivable, unimaginable? My greatest desire, which gave me no peace, which tormented and tantalized me, was actually quite modest: I wanted only one thing—to cross the border. To cross it and then to come right back—that would be entirely sufficient, would satisfy my inexplicable yet acute hunger.

But how to do this? None of my friends from school or university had ever been abroad. Anyone with a contact in another country generally preferred not to advertise it. I was sometimes angry with myself for my bizarre longing; still, it didn’t abate for a moment.

One day, I encountered Irena Tarlowska, my editor-in-chief, in the hallway. She was a strapping, handsome woman with thick blond hair parted on one side. She said something about my recent stories, and then asked about my plans for the near future. I named the various villages I’d be visiting and the issues that awaited me there, and then mustered the courage to add, “One day, I would very much like to go abroad.”

“Abroad?” she said, surprised and slightly frightened. “Where? What for?”

“I was thinking about Czechoslovakia,” I answered. I wouldn’t have dared to say Paris or London, and, frankly, those cities didn’t interest me; I couldn’t even imagine them. This was only about crossing the border—it made no difference which one, because what was important was not the destination but the mystical and transcendent act."

So naturally, it was a bit of a shock to his body and mind when Kapuscinski landed in India for his very first trip abroad. He was entranced and disoriented by the wholly alien sights, sounds and smells of India. Out of his desperation to find an anchor in reality in the unreal (for him) land, he focused on the language - not Hindi but English, as spoken in India. The author had only a rudimentary grasp of English.  His aids in this arduous undertaking was an English to Polish dictionary and Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls.

"Cast into deep water, I didn’t want to drown. I realized that only language could save me. I began cramming words, night and day. I placed a cold towel on my temples, feeling as if my head were bursting. I was never without the Hemingway, but now I skipped the descriptive passages, which I couldn’t understand, and read the dialogue:

I walked around the city, copying down signs, the names of goods in stores, words overheard at bus stops. In movie theatres, I scribbled blindly, in darkness, the words on the screen; I noted the slogans on banners carried by demonstrators in the streets. I approached India not through images, sounds, and smells but through words; and not the words of the indigenous Hindi but those of a foreign, imposed tongue, which by then had so fully taken root there that it was for me an indispensable key to the country."

Kapuscinski's encounter with India, where he traveled quite extensively, was so nerve racking that he considered the journey a failure. Yet, in all his bewilderment, he must have experienced moments of exhilaration and made connections to India at some deep level.  Upon returning to his familiar milieu in Poland, India would come back to him in flashes of "otherness" in which he would find unexpected comfort.

"India was my first encounter with otherness, the discovery of a new world. It was at the same time a great lesson in humility. I returned from that journey embarrassed by my own ignorance. I realized then what seems obvious now: another culture would not reveal its mysteries to me at a mere wave of my hand. One has to prepare oneself thoroughly for such an encounter.

My initial reaction to this lesson was to run home, to return to places I knew, to my own language, to the world of already familiar signs and symbols. I tried to forget India, which signified to me my failure: its enormousness and diversity, its poverty and riches, its incomprehensibility had crushed, stunned, and finally defeated me. Once again, I was glad to travel around Poland, to write about its people, to talk to them, to listen to what they had to say. We understood each other instantly, were united by common experience.

But of course I remembered India. The more bitter the cold of the Polish winter, the more readily I thought of hot Kerala; the quicker darkness fell, the more vividly images of Kashmir’s dazzling sunrises resurfaced. The world was no longer uniformly cold and snowy but had multiplied, become variegated: it was simultaneously cold and hot, snowy white but also green and blooming."

 

Mountainous Envy or Colossal Blunder?

Grass is greener on the other side of the fence. For one Nepalese airline employee, the mountain is more majestic on the other side of the world.

In a baffling (and embarrassing) move, the scenic country of Nepal which is located in the foothills of the spectacular Himalayas, publicly misrepresented its natural environments. In a promotional brochure for tourism, entitled "Have You Seen Nepal?" the Royal Nepal Airlines depicted a photo of Machu Picchu as a must see Nepalese destination. The airlines has apologised and blamed a careless employee for the faux pas. I wonder how the employee made this blunder and why no one else caught the mistake. Was it hard to find suitably impressive photos of the numerous mountain peaks surrounding Nepal? Or was the neighboring Mount Everest not eminent enough for this imaginative employee? 

[Story via Recurring Decimals]

(View of Mount Everest from Nepal)

   

(Machu Picchu in Peru)

LIMA (Reuters) - Royal Nepal Airlines has apologized to Peru after mistakenly using a photo of the Inca ruins of Machu Picchu to promote tourism in Nepal.

Peru's foreign ministry said in a statement on Wednesday the flagship carrier of the Himalayan kingdom, about half way around the world from the Andean country, had put the picture of Peru's tourism icon, Machu Picchu, on a poster under a slogan "Have you seen Nepal?"

Peruvian mountaineer Ernesto Malaga, who was visiting India last month, noticed the blunder on a poster hanging on a wall in the airline's office in New Delhi. Peruvian authorities requested explanations from the airline via the embassy.

"The airline ... offered apologies to Peru for using the picture of the Machu Picchu Sanctuary on a poster to promote their country and assured that the lamentable error has been corrected," the statement said. "As a consequence, the Nepalese airline fired an employee in the rank of a manager ... It is concluded that it was an isolated error," it added.

From a distance, some mountain temples in the Himalayas could be mistaken for Incan ruins, which also cling to steep slopes.

Peru's foreign ministry said in a statement on Wednesday the flagship carrier of the Himalayan kingdom, about half way around the world from the Andean country, had put the picture of Peru's tourism icon, Machu Picchu, on a poster under a slogan "Have you seen Nepal?"

Peruvian mountaineer Ernesto Malaga, who was visiting India last month, noticed the blunder on a poster hanging on a wall in the airline's office in New Delhi. Peruvian authorities requested explanations from the airline via the embassy.

"The airline ... offered apologies to Peru for using the picture of the Machu Picchu Sanctuary on a poster to promote their country and assured that the lamentable error has been corrected," the statement said.

"As a consequence, the Nepalese airline fired an employee in the rank of a manager ... It is concluded that it was an isolated error," it added.

From a distance, some mountain temples in the Himalayas could be mistaken for Incan ruins, which also cling to steep slopes. Nepal is actively promoting tourism in the hope that foreigners will return in big numbers to visit its snow-capped mountains and ancient temples after a long Maoist revolt.

Desolate Desert & Painted People

Iceland, Mongolia, Siberia, Tibet, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Iran, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Morocco, Algiers, Botswana, Bolivia, Paraguay, Antarctica. These are some places that I would love to visit one day but probably never will.  During childhood and youth, certain places and people capture one's imagination for no reason other than a fleeting glimpse into their existence in something as mundane as a geography or history book. And then there is the National Geographic - the magazine and on TV which fortifies and feeds that imagination. As I grow older, I realize with some regret that the odds of my ever taking the plunge and packing my bags for a journey to one of the places I named are getting longer. The spirit is still strong but the flesh is getting ever more flaccid. More and more, I am reconciled to extracting vicarious pleasure of being transported to some incredible, hard to reach corners of the world by books such as this and this.

What I regret even more is that when I lived in India, I never bothered to head down to some of the fascinating travel destinations in and near India. The list is long and I console myself that because I travel to India frequently, at least some of those spots may be possible to fit into a future travel itinerary rather than the dream of ever seeing Tibet. Namit at Shunya's Notes has a report of his travels through the Rann of Kutch in western India, bordering Pakistan and the Arabian Sea. This is one of those god-forsaken places I wish I can one day visit. For me though, it is not so much the desolate salt marshes which hold the main attraction. But rather, I am very curious about the nomadic and semi-nomadic people who call this place home- particularly the Rabaris (see Namit's post for more details).

The title of the post alludes to the Painted People, which is not an entirely accurate description of the Rabaris. But they do tattoo themselves heavily. There are many myths and apocrypha surrounding the origin and customs of the Rabaris, which the insular community neither endorses nor denies. They are semi-nomadic people who have lived in these areas for ages with little changes in their day to day existence. Namit provides a glimpse into the lives of the inhabitants of this area as also the desolate lonely place they call home. He has posted some stunning pictures - be sure to check out all the links.

When I first read about the Rabaris, what struck me most was their artistic attempts at brightening up their barren surroundings. The colorful clothing (although Rabari women dress mostly in black, it is punctuated by colorful accessories), heavy silver jewelery and the tatoos to adorn the person. Also, the women decorate the door and window frames of their mud dwellings with colorful embroidery like designs (this practice is quite common among rural and tribal populations in many parts of India, styles varying from region to region).  Many years later, I tried to recreate the image of a Rabari woman standing before a colorful doorway in a painting. I gave her deep blue clothing because the black of my brush looked too bleak. The resulting picture is not one of my most satisfactory efforts. I paid considerable attention and the doorway and window came out looking as I wished them to, but the woman's figure is wooden and puppet like - not at all the natural, relaxed look I had intended. In another major discrepancy with reality, I forgot to adorn her arms with heavy bracelets - a must for tribal women of the region. Despite my criticism of the painting, I am attaching it to this post for its relevance to the subject at hand.

(view at 50%)

Buddha and Mickey Mouse

My week long trip to Japan is over and it is nice to be home.  Our flight in each direction was delayed by more than three hours. On the way up, a thunderstorm over Osaka prevented the plane from landing and we had to cool our heels on the tarmac in Nagoya until the skies cleared. A thirteen and a half hour journey turned into a toe curling sixteen and a half hour confinement within the belly of the plane. On the way back the delay occured on the ground, at the Dallas Fort Worth airport, due to "technical" problems. So after a 12 hour flight from Japan, the three hour transit time in Dallas dragged on to six and a half. We reached home at midnight - bedraggled and grimy.  But Ali, our lonely cat who was left in the care of a petsitter was delighted to see us.

It was also fun to read the blog from a distance - enjoying the lively articles posted by Sujatha and Joe in my absence. (Dear Sujatha and Joe, thanks a lot.  You don't have to stop just because I am back!)

This was my third trip to Japan in the last eight years.  I have traveled to Japan each time strictly as a tourist, accompanying my husband who visits for professional reasons. The longest trip lasted two weeks. I do not speak the language except for a few common words and phrases. I have only lived in hotels, traveled to interesting places with the help and meticulous guidance of our many longtime Japanese friends, some of whom have accompanied us on our travels.  And although I have had numerous unusual and interesting experiences in Japan, I have never really lived there and faced life on a mundane, day to day basis. It will be somewhat presumptuous therefore to claim any deep philosophical insight into Japanese culture and way of life based only on such limited, fun filled exposure to that country. The only thing I can say for sure is that every time I go there, I am struck by the picture post card beauty of Japan and the unfailing courtesy and friendliness of its people - not just our friends but also total strangers.

Japan, I often like to say, is Disneyland masquerading as a country. It is neat, clean and everything works like clockwork. Smiling people bow to you at every juncture and in a couple of days, you too become adept at bowing deeply at strangers. White gloved workers clean roads, operate elevators and drive tourist taxis. Being a small country with very fast trains, it is possible  to see a lot of Japan in a short time. To date, I have seen Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Nara among the bigger cities and some picturesque little towns and islands in southern Japan - one of them atop an active volcano. Every place is spotless and the people friendly. Wild haired teenagers take the trouble to throw their cigarette butts and beer cans into the nearest trash receptacle. And most impressive, young women walk the streets alone, late at night in big cities without fear. I love the delicious food in Japan. But I can imagine vegetarians having a bit of a hard time there. Almost everything contains fish or meat. Pastries, tea and coffee are very, very good, and TV shows very, very bad. Japan is technologically highly advanced and the technology and modern conveniences are incorporated artistically and unobtrusively within the natural beauty of water, forests, mountains and ancient artefacts. Land is in short supply. Yet the Japanese are very conscious and concerned about maintaining as much of the natural beauty of their countryside as possible when building new structures. Recycling of trash is undertaken methodically and painstakingly by nearly every Japanese citizen (perhaps more about this practice another time). Another example of Japan unselfconsciously blending the ultra modern with the traditional; in most public places, bathrooms have western style commodes as well as Asian squatting toilets. (In a hotel in Tokyo, I once came across a women's bathroom where the taped sound of a waterfall plays in the background when the toilet is in use.)

On my recent trip I visited Osaka, Kyoto, Hiroshima and Nara.  Of these, I had seen Kyoto and Hiroshima before. But this time my sister had joined me from India. It was her first time in Japan. So I had a lot of fun revisiting some of the previously seen places with her. My husband lost the camera towards the end of our stay - he left it on a train. So I will provide web links to some of the more interesting places that I visited. And yes, upon questioning I found out that except for one, all my Japanese friends would like to see a woman emperor occupy the Chrysanthemum throne.

In Kyoto: Nijo Castle,  Ryoanji Zen Temple, Kinkakuji (Golden Pavillion),  Sanjusangendo (Hall of the 1001 Buddhas)

In Hiroshima: The Peace Memorial Park and Museum,  Miyajima Shrine. 

In Nara: Todaiji Temple, Daibutsuden (world's biggest sitting Buddha), Kofuku-ji Temple, Hot Spring Spa (my sister and I had great relaxing fun here).

The Big Buddha in Todaiji Temple, Nara. ( click for enlargement)

The Japanese are devotedly traditional but not overly religious.  Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines dot the landscape. My Japanese friends laughingly declare that they are Shinto at birth, Buddhist when dying and not much of anything in between. They are tolerant and mildly reverential towards the ancient religions but not fanatical or particularly observant. It is a refreshing change from the suffocating religiosity on display  all over the world currently.

I have seen numerous Buddhas in Japan in various moods and poses - even a surprisingly ferocious one (Buddha is the quintessential model of peace and calm) holding up a sword.  And astonishingly enough, the Japanese Buddha is always guarded at the temple gate by the twin pair of Hindu gods representing the wind (Vayu) and thunder (Indra).  In case of the 1001 Buddhas in Kyoto, a pantheon of thirty three major and minor Hindu gods including the all important Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva and Lakshmi among them, guard the Buddhas from evil forces.

So in a reversal of religious hierarchy, the powerful Hindu gods of India become mere guardians of the central figure of Buddha in Japan. For all their love and adoration for the Buddha, the Japanese are not averse to using his image in a casually humorous and crassly commercial way. On the side of a tourist taxi in Nara, I saw the image of a laughing Buddha and Mickey Mouse holding hands in a most congenial fashion!   

Guardian Hindu gods in the front row before the 1001 golden Buddhas (click to enlarge)

Japan etc.

I will be leaving for a short trip to Japan tomorrow - a little more than a week. I am eagerly looking forward to my visit . I have been to Japan before and fondly remember some incredibly enjoyable experiences there.  I will therefore not be blogging for all of next week and perhaps not until the middle of the following one. Unless one or more of the guest bloggers find time to post (they are all busy people), Accidental Blogger will remain frozen for a while. Hopefully, I will have some photos to put up here upon my return. We'll see.

A few months prior to my last visit to Japan, Princess Masako, the wife of the current Crown Prince, Naruhito, had given birth to a daughter after eight years of marriage and all of Japan was agog with the news of a much awaited heir to the ornamental but beloved royal family.  I quizzed my Japanese friends about their feelings in case a female royal were to assume the exalted imperial role.  Most of my friends were open to the possibility that the uninterrupted male royal line, due largely to the co-operation of concubines, might at last be broken. (Except for a handful of "custodian" female monarchs who warmed the throne until a suitable male could be found, Japan has not had an "official" female empress in its history.) Conservative right wing Japanese groups were angry and aghast at the prospect.  The Japanese parliament took note and braced for a possible female accession to the imperial seat. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizume recently called for a parliamentary session to debate the issue of changing the centuries old male dominated tradition.  That debate was interrupted and put on hold (although not yet abandoned) when Princess Kiko, the wife of Naruhioto's younger brother became pregnant, once again raising hopes of a royal male heir.

Just in time for my upcoming visit, Princess Kiko has given birth to a boy and a male emperor on Japan's ancient Chrysanthemum throne is now assured for the foreseeable future. The traditionalists as well as most other Japanese are overjoyed.  Apart from the fact that an old fashioned, ceremonial royal family seems oddly out of place in the shiny modern nation of Japan, the celebration surrounding the birth of the little prince also strikes me as a bit of an anachronism in the 21st century. Particularly because there were already three little princesses waiting in the wings who now have been deemed unfit to wear the Japanese imperial crown. But Japanese society is a curious study in ultra modernity and entrenched tradition, existing in seamless harmony. I am looking forward to more interesting conversations with my Japanese friends in the coming days.

TOKYO - With shouts of “Banzai!,” Japanese celebrated the birth Wednesday of the imperial family’s first male heir since the 1960s, a development that squelched hopes of reform to allow women on the throne.

Princess Kiko, wife of Prince Akishino, gave birth to a boy by Caesarean section at a Tokyo hospital. The boy, who will be named Tuesday, is Emperor Akihito’s first grandson and is third in the line to the throne, behind brothers Crown Prince Naruhito and Akishino.

The news was cheered by many Japanese, who maintain an enduring respect for the imperial family more than 60 years after Emperor Hirohito renounced his status as a divinity at the end of World War II.

“Not only the members of the imperial family, but all the people of Japan must have felt happy,” Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said. “We’re hoping for the boy’s healthy growth.”

Succession crunch ends, for a while
The arrival of a prince — the first since Akishino’s birth in 1965 — ended for now a succession crunch in the coming generation of the royal family, which traces its roots back 1,500 years. Until Wednesday, Akishino and Naruhito had three daughters between them, but no sons.

Royal watchers warned that with only one male heir in the family, the throne could face another crisis if he and his eventual wife don’t produce a son.

“The imperial family has escaped the succession crisis, but only for the moment,” said Koichi Yokota, a professor in constitutional law at Ryutsu Keizai University in Ibaraki. “The family still has only one male successor in the youngest generation, and the system is far from stable.”

Rakhi - An Indian Festival

Today is the festival of "Rakhi" which stands for the more descriptive Raksha Bandhan, translated literally to mean the "Bond of Protection."  Like many other Indian festivals, the event is marked by the phase of the moon, rather than a specific date on the calendar. It is celebrated during the full moon of the monsoon month of Shravan which is usually in the first half of August. The occasion of Rakhi does not point to a firm religious root although there are apocryphal tales of Hindu mythology associated with it. It commemorates the bonds between brothers and sisters and is signified by the sister tying a colorful thread around the brother's wrist with a promise of love. The brother traditionally was required to promise the sister love and protection from harm. In modern times, the protection from harm has been replaced by gifts, usually in the form of money.   

Rakhi is a popular Indian festival, mostly in north India. Also it is not restricted to siblings by birth. Any girl or woman can choose to tie a Rakhi around the wrist of a boy or a man to indicate familial, as opposed to romantic love.  And the male is required to reciprocate in kind. The simple colorful thread in many cases, especially among younger children, has been replaced by more elaborate ornamentations which often follow modern trends popularized by movies, comic books and even action figures. There is a thriving market for Rakhi paraphernalia, including Hall Mark style greeting cards.

Here are some pictorial depictions from a Rakhi image gallery in the following order. 

1.A sister tying a Rakhi on her brother. 2. A plate full of items required to fete the brother (the brother is also offered his favorite foods). 3. A Rakhi with a decorative medallion.

So, this is the coolest thing ever...

...or maybe it's just because I have a thing for books.  And another for Wales.  There's a review up at the New York Times (sorry, free registration required), covering both the travel and the Welsh book festival:

THE tiny town of Hay-on-Wye in southeastern Wales seems like a curious place to hold a major literary festival. Getting there involves a circuitous three-and-a-half-hour drive from London through traffic-snarled highways and back roads crowded with ancient farm vehicles. Big on charm but low on hotels (there is only one), Hay also has the disadvantage of being situated in some kind of freakish precipitation belt that attracts an unusual amount of rain.

Yet the Hay Festival, which began in 1988 as an insane glint in the eye of its organizer, Peter Florence, has expanded and expanded to become one of the world's best-known and most exciting literary events — the "Woodstock of the mind," as former President Clinton, a participant several years ago, put it. (Think of it as a literary Sundance festival, minus the Hollywood swag.)

For 10 days at the end of May, the town is given over to writers, and its population of 1,500 swells to a remarkable 80,000, as visitors troop to see the likes of Dave Eggers, Kazuo Ishiguro, Don DeLillo, John Updike, Clive James, Julian Barnes, Ali Smith, Patrick McGrath, Jeannette Winterson, Doris Lessing and Jaqueline Wilson, to name a few who have appeared recently.

Not only can these writers engage in ordinary literary-festival activities — reading from their works, discussing their inspirations and answering the inevitable pen-or-pencil-preference question — but they can also be found wandering around town, ordering coffee in local cafes, getting drunk in the bars and buying books in the used-book stores for which Hay is renowned. [...]

That Hay has an absurdly high concentration of used-book stores — some three dozen of them — is due in large part to the efforts of Richard Booth, a zealous used-book seller who opened his first shop in 1961 and has actively encouraged others to follow. Which is the best store? Who knows?

There's one devoted to mysteries and thrillers, one to poetry, one to bee-related books, another to books about music, and another to rare children's books. There are huge ones, like the Hay Cinema Bookshop, and modest-size ones, like the delightfully named Sensible Bookshop. [...]

The town is tiny, built around just a few main streets in the shadow of a large ruin of a castle that dates to the 13th century and has survived multiple sackings and multiple fires. It now houses a two-bedroom rental apartment, a bookshop and a 24-hour outdoor display of books that are sold on the "honesty" system — you leave 30 pence for a paperback, 50 pence for a hardback.

The town is relatively quiet in the off-season, but during the festival — which mostly takes place to one side, in an elaborate city of tents that rises, mushroomlike, out of the wet soil each year — it is literally thronging with people. (The invited writers may sometimes feign unhappiness at the zealousness of the fans, but they would be devastated to be left out of the festival.) You will have to fight the crowds in the streets and in the stores. [...]

Hay may be out of the way, but it is surrounded by delicious, London-quality food. With a range of so-called gastro-pubs — pubs selling superior food cooked by talented chefs — in the area, we settled on the Felin Fach Griffin, about 10 miles down the road. The atmosphere was mellow but the food serious. I particularly liked my roast halibut, Robert's bitter chocolate cake with orange sorbet, and the spectacularly crispy French fries.

The fields across Wales were dotted with tiny newborn lambs, the sight of which inspired us to pay a visit the next day to the Small Breeds Farm Park and Owl Center in nearby Kington. There, we met a baby owl that looked like a dust mop; cuddled a 2-week-old pygmy goat; saw our first chinchilla; and were introduced to a small herd of miniature horses and donkeys.

The area around Hay is rich in walking possibilities, if you don't mind a little precipitation. We drove toward the Black Mountains, and suddenly the trees and bushes gave way to moss and thick, wiry grass. The wind howled, the rain beat down, the feeling was desolate, and if the climb up the nearest hill was steeper and harder than it looked, the climb down was much worse. [...]

I have to say, Hay-on-Wye sounds like a great place to visit on vacation--perhaps at any point in the tourist "offseason" rather than for the Hay Festival, although the possibility of running into David Mitchell (or any other author of your choice) is pretty enticing.  Anyhow, I've cut large parts of the article because it's kind of long (2 "pages"), so I recommend reading the whole thing.

Colombia: Or, Why I Don't Entirely Trust CNN

On CNN: Travel today I read a story about how Columbia is rapidly becoming a top tourist destination.

[A]fter decades of being shunned as too dangerous for travelers, the country is riding an unprecedented tourist boom.

Spurred by news of the country's dramatically improved security situation and healthy economy, nearly a million foreigners visited last year, a 21 percent jump over 2004 and the largest influx since 1982, according to Colombia's Commerce, Industry and Tourism Ministry. Their goal for 2006 is to double that again, to 2 million foreign visitors.

"The buzz about Colombia is spreading faster than we ever hoped for or can maybe even handle," said the country's tourism director, Carlos Vives.

Credit goes to the country's popular right-wing president, Alvaro Uribe, whose firm-handed pursuit of the rebels has restored relative safety to once perilous roadways. Kidnappings have dropped 78 percent during Uribe's four years in office, to 371 last year according to the government. That may even be below Haiti and the tourist haven of Mexico, where kidnappings-for-cash have boomed.

I wanted to see if the New York Times had a write-up, because they tend to have the best writers and thus the best stories; so I ran a Google News search for "Colombia."  Here's what I came up with:

Hostage handover fails in Colombia (AP)

The promised release of two hostages held for six months by leftist rebels failed to take place Saturday - with the government blaming jungle rains and relatives saying the state sabotaged the handover by sending troops to the region.

In a surprise gesture, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, said March 15 that it would free a police officer and an 18-year old cadet seized last year.

The rebels gave an exact time and place for their handover - Saturday at noon in the Amazon basin hamlet of Afilador, 340 miles south of the capital.

The handover never occurred.

Colombia's government blamed lashing rains, but relatives of the hostages faulted the government for sending troops to the region.

"It wasn't the weather, it was the government's fault," Alba Patron, mother of captive officer Luis Almanza, told Colombian television, and wept.

The International Red Cross, overseeing the release, said guerrillas and the army had clashed.

Colombia makes $800m cocaine haul (BBC)

The Colombian authorities have seized a shipment of cocaine with a street value of $800m (£455m) on board a ship in the Caribbean port of Cartagena.

They found the cocaine, weighing 2.7 tons (2,700kg), in a disinfectant container during a routine inspection.

Colombian journalist faces terror at home (Mercury News)

How would I sleep at night if I were a well-respected professional, tops in my field -- and living in exile because of death threats my family received for doing my work? Indeed, how would I regard my country when I had to return in a few months?

That's the position [Daniel] Coronell, 41, a senior research fellow at Stanford, finds himself in. And his unease is not exactly soothed by President Alvaro Uribe Vélez of Colombia, who on Wednesday responded to international pressure from the Committee to Protect Journalists by expressing support for the importance of journalists' work.

It's the least a president running for re-election can do in a democracy.

``I live a little sad here,'' said Coronell, an award-winning investigative journalist and founder of an independent television news program. ``From this distance, I see my country in the worst part of its history.''

The affable Coronell was already traveling in armored cars when successive death threats were made last spring. One came in the chilling form of a funeral wreath bearing the name of his 6-year-old daughter.

There's an old colloquialism that goes, "two out of three ain't bad."  Only in this case, the two are bad, so I suppose that means that two out of three ain't good.  And the (nonsequential) third, the drug bust, isn't necessarily promising in any way--perhaps I'm jaded because of the failed "war on drugs" here in the U.S., but I don't see how the authorities grabbing a shipload of cocaine is in any way indicative of less future drug-related violence (the argument can probably be made that this will just increase the violence, in destination countries and probably in Colombia as well--supply goes down, demand goes up?).  Now if they nabbed a kingpin, that might be a different story, but I think a minor detail like that would have been mentioned.

Sorry CNN, but I don't see myself going to Colombia anytime soon.  Maybe I'll start with Panama (and from there a side-trip to Cuba so I can spend my American dollars without getting caught--take that, harmful American policymakers!) and work my way up to Colombia over the years, giving the new administration a bit more time to figure things out.

Incredible India - Natural Ally or Uneasy Partnership?

I have heard India being described variously as 1) a functioning anarchy; 2) a vast country which lives within one time zone and several centuries; 3) many ethnically, linguistically and culturally diverse nations cobbled together to form one political entity; 4) a land of breathtaking contradictions where super rich lotus eaters live cheek by jowl with the abysmally poor .. etc. All true.  Also true is the fact that India has come of age in the twenty first century in a big flashy way although it is still dogged by many new and ancient debilitating problems.

In an impressive article, Fareed Zakaria of Newsweek describes the rapid rise of India as an economic force to reckon with. China the other Asian giant on the rise, is a totalitarian state where progress is driven from the "top down" by government fiat. According to Zakaria, within India's flawed but vibrant democracy, success comes from the "bottom up inspite of the government" and that he argues, makes India a more attractive and stable global presence.

"March 6, 2006 issue - Every year at the World Economic Forum in Davos, there's a star. Not a person but a country. One country impresses the gathering of global leaders because of a particularly smart Finance minister or a compelling tale of reform or even a glamorous gala. This year there was no contest. In the decade that I've been going to Davos, no country has captured the imagination of the conference and dominated the conversation as India in 2006....

And everyone now is in India—most significantly, of course, George W. Bush, who will arrive there on March 1. Jacques Chirac was there two weeks ago. (So was Bill Clinton, who can't stop returning to the country.) Two weeks before that it was Saudi Arabia's newly crowned monarch, King Abdullah. The week after Bush leaves, Australian Prime Minister John Howard arrives. And that's all in six weeks. The world—and particularly the United States—is courting India as it never has before. Fascinated by the new growth story, perhaps wary of Asia's Chinese superpower, searching to hedge some bets, the world has woken up to India's potential. But does it really know this complex, diverse country? Just as important, does India know what it wants of the world?

While China's rise is already here and palpable—it has grown at almost 10 percent since 1980—India's is still more a tale of the future, but a future that is coming into sharp focus. A much-cited 2003 study by Goldman Sachs projects that over the next 50 years, India will be the fastest-growing of the world's major economies (largely because its work force will not age as fast as the others). The report calculates that in 10 years India's economy will be larger than Italy's and in 15 years will have overtaken Britain's. By 2040 it will boast the world's third largest economy. By 2050 it will be five times the size of Japan's and its per capita income will have risen to 35 times its current level. Predictions like these are a treacherous business, though it's worth noting that India's current growth rate is actually higher than the study assumed..."

George Bush is currently in India where he has finalized a historic nuclear deal with India (awaiting approval by US Congress). Bush considers Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh a friend and sees India as a useful democratic friend, ally and fellow sufferer in the war against global terrorism.  With so much in common, shouldn't the bilateral relations between India and the US be smooth sailing? Not necessarily, says Indian political analyst, Amulya Ganguly. India is a new breed of ally, the likes of which the US has not encountered before. All that India was and has become, has little to do with American patronage. It was never an arch enemy nor a bosom buddy. The Indo-US relations have mostly been "normal", with a prickly undertone.  Moreover, is the US comfortable with the notion of a non-European, militarily self sufficient, huge democracy becoming a major economic power?  Thomas Friedman's enthusiasm notwithstanding, many in the US may be secretly troubled by India's rise as a global power.  It has been reported that Cheney, during his fateful trip to the Armstrong ranch, before he shot his friend, is said to have wearily discussed over lunch what to do with the problem of "N. Korea, Iran, China and India!" (No wonder he was jittery during the quail hunt).  Ganguly wonders:

"US President George W Bush's reference to the need for patience in the negotiations with India on the nuclear deal between the two countries suggests that America is waking up to the prerequisites of dealing with a vibrant democracy -- an unusual experience for Washington.Till now, the US has dealt either with adversaries challenging its suspected hegemonic ambitions - the former Soviet Union, Red China and Iran - or with two types of allies.

The first type - or the one Washington may have preferred - comprised virtual client states like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iraq during its war with Iran, and other countries mainly in the Middle East..... Among the other allies of America, which were not as subservient as the Arab countries, were the Europeans nations.

The US also probably sees India as a military counter to China, which may be the reason why it acquiesced in New Delhi's nuclear capability. The US knows, therefore, that it cannot allow its relations with India to languish, let alone deteriorate. On the other hand, India may be in no hurry, as its long experience during the non-aligned period has shown that it could survive and even prosper in semi-isolation..."

After my recent trip to India, I considered recording some observations on how the country of my birth has changed in the last twenty five years since I left. A few readers too asked me to write about my trip. But I think that is unnecessary. There is currently a whole lot of coverage on India to coincide with Bush's first presidential visit. Those who are interested, should read Fareed Zakaria's article (all six pages of it) to which I have linked at the beginning of this post. Better still, please also read other pieces about India in the current issues of most major newspapers and periodicals.  I will however mention a few trivial tid-bits that Zakaria has not covered in his thoroughly researched, fact filled essay.

India's overall mood is upbeat. Pollution on India's crazy, traffic choked streets has been dramatically reduced by the introduction of natural gas fuel (propane, instead of gasoline and diesel) in public transportation like city buses, auto-rickshaws and many taxi cabs. India is not just "stealing" jobs due to outsourcing by US companies. The prosperous Indian middle class buys a whole lot of US products including American cars. With a booming economy, air travel within India has become popular and affordable. Many new and competitive airlines are entering the domestic aviation business. There is a shortage of pilots.  A number of out of work pilots laid off by the ailing airlines industry in the US and Britain now find employment in India. Delhi has a new and impressive subway system which has benefited Delhiites - especially the students of Delhi University. Indian movie stars now dress like "normal" people. What used to be page three gossip about the rich and the famous, is now printed on the front page of major Indian newspapers making them look like frivolous tabloids. Cram schools offering after-school tuition for passing fiercely competitive entrance exams to prestigious colleges and universities is a rapidly proliferating and remunerative business. Competing in national and international beauty contests is a serious vocation of attractive young Indian women. Sports like football (soccer) and field hockey which were popular when I was growing up, languish due to neglect. The name of the game is cricket. Cricket players are as wealthy, glamorous and popular as movie stars. Many American fast food chains operate in Indian cities and the food is often "adjusted" for the local palate. And McDonalds in India makes free home deliveries, employing young drivers on red scooters with red carrier boxes on the pillion seat which read "Mc Delivery".

They All Look The Same - But I Stand Out

A recent issue of Newsweek had an interesting article by Cathie Gandel in the My Turn section. She says that at 5' 10" and as a fair haired foreigner in Japan, she felt as conspicuous as a "nail that stood out". Japanese society is quite homogeneous and conformity with tradition is highly valued. Children are admonished by elders not to be too eccentric or individualistic because as a popular Japanese saying goes - "the nail that stands out gets hammered down." Gandel's analysis of this Japanese trait is mostly correct. But I found some of her other assertions a bit surprising. She says this of her experience at a women's communal steam bath, the ofuro:

I tiptoed into the small inner sanctum of the women's ofuro (communal bath) at the small ryokan (inn) in the Japan Alps. Following custom, I had left my clothes in the outer dressing room, bringing only a small towel with me. The steam rising from the square wooden tub obscured the small window, hiding the tiny garden outside.

Unfortunately, the steam did not hide me, a tall, fair-haired, light-skinned foreign woman. As I sat on the little plastic stool and turned on the wall tap to start the prewash cycle, I became aware of sidelong looks, gasps, muted giggles and a sudden exodus of the Japanese women and children. I must have resembled a gorilla in the mist, or the repulsive creature that was Sigourney Weaver's nemesis in another of her movies. After all, that's what I was to these women: an alien, a gaijin.

Gandel makes much of her size and foreignness among the petite Japanese. I don't want to sound unkind to her because I am sure that she is truthful in her assertions that she felt awkward - like Gulliver among the Lilliputs. She indeed describes her Japanese experience much like that of a bull in a delicate china shop. But I wonder how much of this awkwardness was caused by her own self-consciousness and not so much by the actual "gawking and giggling" of Japanese onlookers.

I simply love traveling in Japan. At five foot nothing, I do not stand out in height but am definitely a "foreign" looking Asian among the Japanese. My own experience in several small and big cities of Japan was nothing like Gandel's. I don't speak any Japanese except the obligatory "Arigato gozai mas" (thank you). Yet I found the Japanese to be unfailingly polite, helpful and patient with my efforts at communication, using English and wild hand gestures. At some restaurants, the owner would stand by the table and guide me and my husband through an exotic meal. The taxi driver who drove us to the top of the volcanic Mount Unzen in Nagasaki, handed me a gift at the end of the trip - during the drive my husband had casually mentioned that it was my birthday. In trains, on the streets and in stores, I found the average Japanese to be very polite and welcoming.  Ms Gandel makes a few sweeping statements in her article. I will take the risk of making one of my own. Speaking as a person who was born in India, my experience is that Indians stare, the Japanese DO NOT. I have been to several of those communal hot spring baths in Japan - no women or children left upon my arrival. Also, unless there is overt hostility, why would we need to feel just like everyone else to enjoy a foreign experience? (Mind you, I am not talking about "living or settling down" in another country but visiting for a short or even a longish period).

It is important to note that all Asians do not look or sound alike - so it is not just a westerner who "stands out" in Japan.  There was a lively discussion under way at Concurring Opinions a couple of days ago regarding the controversy that has erupted by the casting of Chinese actors in the new movie, Memoirs of a Geisha. Many would say, "What's the big deal? I can not tell the difference." But the Japanese are not pleased as indeed they can tell the difference. Whether this should interfere with an enjoyable movie viewing experience, is another matter all together.