Odds and Ends

Berlin 1961-Frederick Kempe

2012-01-08T06:31:00.000-08:00

While much is said about the autocratic tyranny of the communist regimes, its equally interesting to note that the capitalist systems led by the US throughout the cold war had an inherent flaw that its leaders were significantly at odds and one sign of weakness had significant ramifications on the balance between the two sides. This book brings to light an important passage in the story of the cold war and it definitely was game set and match to the communist world.
The stage is set with the election of Kennedy to the all important role of the leader of the west in the cold war and Khruschev in his role welcomes this as a much improved alternative to Nixon who lost the vote by a whisker. Kennedy in a short span reveals a weak mind, lacking the courage to make critical judgements. The Bay of Pigs which was a legacy of the Eisenhower planning team was ill executed and left the US shamefaced in its dealings, with Kennedy's fingerprints writ all over the disaster. Khruschev who gingerly sought to placate a US president backed it up with upping the ante on Berlin and also sending in the first man into space. Round 1 Khruschev. Following this was the Vienna summit (the choice of which was an ill-advised one as compared to Stockholm) where Kennedy bore the brunt of a rather belligerent Khruschev, Round 2 Khruschev. The setback proved a bit too much for Kennedy who spent much of 1961 licking his wounds while the East Germany leveraged this to the fullest and erected the Berlin wall which came to represent the repression and tyranny of the communist system.
The book is packed with details and remarkable characters and seems to be a product of enormous research. But the story is narrated in a manner which makes the book fairly unputdownable. While Kennedy pretty much steamrolls his allies and displays considerable mistrust towards Konrad Adenauer who helmed the affairs for the West Germans, Khrisuchev pretty much hid the internal badgering that he was subjected to from his allies like the Chinese and the Romanians who believed he had sold out to the West. The villain of the piece (if we permit such characterizations) is quite clearly Walter Ulbricht who headed the East German Requblic, he quietly nagged and cheered Khruschev, egging him on to stem the rush of refugees from the East to the West and finally single handedly manipulating the creation of the Berlin Wall.
While the Cuban missile crisis and the Berlin speech by Kennedy do much to redeem his presidency's handling of the communist threat, the reader still is left with little sympathy for him. While he may have been one of the most popular presidents in US history, his handling of the Berlin crisis sentenced a few millions to a 28 year jail sentence into a system they hated. There are no clear heroes in history

Earthquake in Shangri-La and other harrowing tales

2011-11-06T09:27:00.000-08:00

If the latent poignancy of the post title has enticed you into the post, there is much here to keep the reader riveted to this thrilling tale of couch-potato daredevilry. Couch-potato because the action struck while watching TV lazing on a bed, the daredevilry a knee jerk reaction to an earthquake. But more on that later.

I spend every day planning a block buster trip which would take me into a destination which I couldn't afford in the past (monetarily) and am pretty sure won't be able to in the future (age). The North east had been on the list, but was advised against it as the trip was planned in late September and we could expect some of the main sanctuaries in the area closed till November. A brief head banging session produced an odd itinerary which included a 5 day visit to the kingdom of Bhutan followed by a trek in the hills around Darjeeling, we had discarded a trip in to Sikkim in the bargain (fortuitous in retrospect). The plan lent a sense of immediacy of purpose to shopping all sorts of trekking equipment, and the purchases would have been adequate to have equipped both Tenzing and Hilary on their first climb. Nevertheless an amateur mountaineer is entitled to his foibles. After all the Ts had been crossed and the Is dotted, the day of travel dawned. Bhutan was about to be invaded

Chapter 1 - Bhutan

Bhutan lies curiously wedged between Sikkim to the west, Arunachal to the East and our point of entry was to be from the town of Phuentsholing which lay on its southern border with West Bengal. A flight from Bangalore had deposited me at Bagdogara airport after a soporific stopover at Calcutta and we had to take a road journey from Bagdogara to Phuentsholing. Bagdogara seamlessly melts into the town of Siliguri which is a rather large city of reasonable significance in West Bengal. By virtue of its location on the chicken neck and its proximity to 3 international borders, Bagdogara has a heavily manned air force base and little else distinguishes it. Lush green fields (we were still in the midst of a retreating monsoon) and a noticeable increase in the population density were all I noticed while we breezed through Siliguri. Phuentsholing was to be reached in 4 hours if all went well. The landscape duly became forested and we had tea estates pock marking the surroundings. A train chugged right by. rolling hills appeared while we skirted along the borders of Bhutan. The roads were bad and we finally made it to the cacophony of Jaigaon which is the last Indian town before the border crossing and I dwell on this trivia simply because of the contrasts. Seldom have I seen such a drastic difference between 2 towns. Jaigaon had potholed streets, chaotic traffic and garbage strewn all over, Phuentsholing was quiet, gentile with an air of prosperity. Apart from an ominous sign on cigarette smoking, this could have been an ideal Indian town.

The weather though had been unrelenting, the clouds were all over the place and a gentle drizzle with a rare downpour characterized most of the journey. We met our guide Mr Lodey waiting at the hotel. Dinner , beer was followed by an attempt to get the permits made for the rest of the tour.

Bhutan has a checkered history of influences from Tibet largely dominating its existence and it got a sense of being a nation only in the early 17th century. Spread over a large area it hosts a remarkably low population density and has insulated its Vajrayana Buddhist identity rather well. The current Wangchuk dynasty was credited with creating a strong monarchy and their leadership is currently revered across the country. King Jigme Singye Wangchuk had introduced a constitutional monarchy in 2007 which says much about the mutual trust between the king and his subjects.

The morning was a rather wet one and we were due to embark on our onward journey to Thimpu which was abut 190 kms away. Lodey much to our surprise had turned up stockinged and dressed in the national dress(mandated while driving a car). The journey was to be through the hills and though spectacular in its majesty the road was treacherous. Landslides had gouged out parts of the road and large tracts of hillsides looked amputated. The roads were maintained by the Indian Border roads organization under project DANTAK and it was midway between Phuentsholing and Thimpu that I was remarkably able to obtain a Dosa from an Indian army maintained canteen. We reached Thimpu in the evening and were dutifully checked into Hotel Destiny which afforded a hot water bath.

Thimpu has a city center a few blocks long and is remarkably open. We walked around town enquiring about watering holes of repute and we finally found one called Rumors pretty close to where we were staying. As the eyelids started drooping , all I snatched as memories was a local whisky which was issued in the year of coronation which seemed to be prized intently by the bar owner.We returned to the hotel to find the gates locked, and it was early morning before we finally managed to crash.

Dorje was a new driver who was assigned to us and he dutifully took us around the city and surroundings. A Rio styled Buddha which towered over Thimpu was being constructed, a local monastery which was very picturesque and the local zoo where I managed to get a glimpse of the Thakin which is the national animal of Bhutan (for lovers of gruesome tales, the Bhutanese version of the origins of the Thakin is a collectors item). The afternoon saw us at the the Thimpu Dzong which reflected its status as a fortress rather than a monastery. It was huge and there were slits visible in the wall which were used by the archers to fire at the enemy outside. We were in for a treat as there was a rehearsal on for a festival. Monks danced away in the rain to a slow beat, while a character with a dragons head went around regaling the audience with jokes. Post that we headed to a trade fair in the middle of the city and I found most of the goods on sale were Indian and on the expensive side.We had meanwhile bumped across brochures for a youth art movement and after significant difficulty managed to find the studio. Some of the artwork was good though the entire place was undergoing a renovation.

The shopping was limited and the city had been a slightly underwhelming experience, and we dutifully headed off to the hotel to catch some rest before heading for dinner. It was around 6:30 in the evening when the earthquake struck and it found us at our most vulnerable. The building shook a few inches and was a very unnerving experience. The first 2 seconds were spent determining exactly what was happening and then a mad rush for the stairs. Have heard that when you near death , your entire life flashes past you , but all I could think about was lugging my weight out of Hotel Destiny (could there be a more infuriating name). We were in the streets in the next 5 seconds and looked rather undressed for the occasion - the entire street was looking up at the building swaying. I looked back to see the hotel owner looking down at us from the building and I wondered whether earthquakes were commonplace in Bhutan. Slowly realization dawned from and I could hear loud Hindi music from the trade fair. We gingerly headed back up and the news started pouring in. Sikkim had been the epicenter of the earthquake and this pretty much had the potential of ruining the second half of the trip.

Mornings always put things in perspective and while we headed out to our next leg we pretty much had figured that it would be a while before news from Darjeeling would make any sense. We moved on to Punakha. Punakha was the summer capital of Bhutan for a while and even now hosts one of the most important fortresses (dzong) in Bhutan. Most towns in Bhutan are in valleys and connected by roads which cut across the hills. Punakha lay 72 kms east of Thimpu and again was reachable through an extremely scenic patch through a national forest. Tashi was our driver this time and he seemed to be a rather mischievous sort, screaming away at passerby's . We crossed the Dochu la pass which boasts of 108 chortens dedicated to the armed forces who lost their lives battling the ULFA. A heavy mist hung around the surrounding mountains as we descended towards Punakha. We were headed to Wangdi town where our resort was located. We checked in to the hotel which boasted of a remarkably well stocked bar (again with the coronation whisky taking pride of place). After a quick lunch we were off to the monastery. The monastery is spectacularly nestled between 2 rivers with a backdrop of mountains. The king was supposed to marry this fiancé here in a month and there were preparations afoot. Thankas abounded as did murals which conveyed tantric symbolism. A sense of calm and peace pervaded the area. It was nightfall by the time we reached our hotel. Tashi took us up to a village monastery the next day and we walked past a village which seemed poor , but the people looked rather cheerful. The monastery had a bunch of young students learning english and offered a remarkable view of the entire valley. We then headed to the Wandi monastery which was in poor shape and was in a state of restoration our next stop was to be Paro.

Paro easily is one of the most important cities in Bhutan for two good reasons - it hosts the only international airport in Bhutan and it boasts of the Tigers nest monastery. We skirted Thimpu before getting on the road to Paro which we reached rather late in the evening. Confusion prevailed in the morning as we were left driverless and only some frantic calls brought our schedule back on track. We were to climb to the Tigers nest monastery and then head back to Phuentsholing. To the unfit and the unprepared (count me in both categories) the Taktsang or the Tigers nest monastery is nothing less than torture. The myth is that Guru Rimpoche flew here on the back of a tiger and the spot on which he meditated is marked by the monster. One look at the monastery from a distance and you realize why he needed to fly. Nestled on a craggy looking outcrop off a sheer cliff the monastery was a pretty but daunting sight. 3 grueling hours later when we were level with the monastery , we were shocked to see stairs going down a good 300 metres before rising up again to the monastery. It was drizzling and we were soaked but more by sweat than by rain. Monks passed by us rather daintily and by the time we reached the taxi , the legs had lost sensation. Tashi was a in a foul mood as he had the onerous task of dropping us back to Phuentsholing and he drove like the devil. Landslides had ravaged the mountains, triggered by the earthquake and I was positively squirming with every twist and turn of the road. Thoughts like having no will or the lack of insurance coverage were put to rest only when we were safely offloaded in Phuentsholing where I duly hugged Tashi more out of relief than any goodwill. This was to be our last night in Bhutan

Chapter 2 - Darjeeling et al

The trip from Phuenstsholing to Darjeeling is pretty much retracing the trip back to Siliguri before which we were handed over to the driver of the Darjeeling leg of the tour- Raju. Raju happened to be a budding bird-watcher and knew a bit of the flora and fauna around which made the 3 hour trip into Darjeeling from the coronation bridge a delight. What a contrast to Bhutan this was even though this had the same shroud of mist on the mountains. People abounded everywhere , the roads were extremely poor and we were lucky to get in to the hotel before nightfall. I had a signal for the first time on my phone and switched over to the weather app only to be dismayed by a prediction of rain and showers for the next few days. Nandu our guide stopped by to meet us and he appraised us of the trek that we were to undergo over the next few days- little did we know what was in store.
Raju drove us up to the village of Dothere the next day and we hired a porter (shamelessly for me- the rest carried their own luggage) and Nandu, Sange (the porter) , us were trekking up the Singalila ridge. We had 4 days of trekking and our first day's target was the village of Thumling. Before we headed out we were fed with fried Momos and fortified with a drink of Chingping (herb whisky) and suddenly love was in the air (someone call me up, I can't write sentimental mush). Thumling took us 3 hours of walking through clouds and the visibility was extremely poor. The temperature dropped suddenly and we huddled around a fire swigging the local brew. After a decent dinner we headed off to sleep.

The weather next morning was even worse, the visibility had dropped significantly and it was raining now, after a few hours walk we stopped for lunch at a village house. I managed to pretty much upset my stomach and the rest of the walk was tortuous to say the least. Kalpokhri was the destination and the reason it is so named is because of the pond in the village which is black. Though our hostess had laid out the works (there was chhang served in a bamboo container with straws) the weather and the stomach pretty much had me way low.

Day 3 it rained hard and by now I was well past any misery, I just plodded through enjoying myself. We were to reach Sandakphu, which was the highest point in West Bengal and the walk had some excruciating climbs and it was a totally drenched group which trundled up into Sandakphu. Sandakphu offered wide views of the entire himalayan range from the distant Everest to the rather overpowering presence of Kanchenjunga. It wasn't to be though. The clouds weren't yielding and the sun played hide and seek. But for one brief moment the clouds parted and the peaks of the mountains revealed themselves in a golden hue - that was by far the moment of the trip, suddenly there seemed a god above.

If I were to believe that was a sign of better weather the next day, it wasn't to be, it was pouring cats and dogs and we proceeded to Rimbik. We descended through slippery rivulets , bamboo forests , mountain shrubbery , you name it every bit of inclemency was thrown at us. 25 Kms of purring rain , a river in spate (Sirikhola) a few remnants of landslides and then it stopped as we touched Rimbik, and the weather cleared. Someone seemed to be having a good laugh at our expense. It had been four days in and around Darjeeeling and we hadn't yet got to see the Kanchenjunga in all its glory.

Rimbik was a sleepy little town and with some beer to help we actually slept through it. Raju came by in the morning to take us back to Darjeeling, but not before we took a brief stop over at Dothere. The Chingping gushed in torrents into us and we were right royally drunk on the way back (more love and mush but what the hell). We deposited ourselves into a rather soft bed and another cloudy day came by.

We had chosen to sight-see around Darjeeling and a trip to the Japanese temple was followed by a wishful attempt to ride the toy train to Ghum station from Darjeeling (a princely distance of 5 kms). Someone mentioned that the waiting list on these trains was about 90 days and my hopes had sunk. But thanks to a rather benevolent railway official we were granted quota seats and we got an hours ride in a world heritage train (I could have as well walked all along the train). Raju took us to by a tea garden in the evening and plied us with more Chingping and Momos (I am hereby forsaking Momos) and this would have been the 6th day in succession that we had gone asleep stone drunk.

As a last Hurrah we had chosen to take a trip to Kalimpong which was about 70-80 kms from Darjeeling and. I hardly knew what was in store and Kalimpong didn't seem to offer much- a cactus collection which was remarkable, another monastery and an old orphans school (currently a rich mans school) and a viewpoint where we chose to grab a few bottles of beer again. I managed to get a few samples of chilies that were much hotter than the varieties on offer in Bangalore. A parting night of merry abandon was organized for in Raju and Nandu's honor and we proceeded into our last sleep in Darjeeling.

A sombre mood hung over the return trip to Bagdogara. We had survived an earthquake , walked through pouring rain in the Himalayas and somehow time had cruelly sealed all of them into a vault of memories. The moments had clearly passed while I took the car back from the airport home, but as I sit down to write this down, it all comes tumbling out, my tryst with the Himalayas is far from over- I had seen the Kanchenjunga after all.

India: A History - John Keay

2011-10-19T19:51:00.000-07:00

When it comes to history books on India there are a multitude to choose from and depending on the inclination of the authors, most of the books deal with a light thrown on a particular aspect and hence miss the broader point. Also given that there are still archaelogical finds that oddly turn up, its an evolving subject. This book by far is a refreshing read in the area.
Indian history though ancient and to a great degree continuous, lacks any documentary sources of significance and its all the more to the credit of scholars like William Jones, Mortimer and Kosambi to have made stellar contributions to the subject. And here I believe the book scores over others in the same space. While meandering through history, the author takes the time to recognize what finds contributed to the recording of the event in the annals of history. Ashoka's narrative is linked to finds across India corroborated by Greek records of the time, a lot of the history in the Maharashtra region was largely due to tireless field work by Prof. Kosambi. Its a difficult terrain to plod through and there are still unexplained facts about the distant past like the Harrapan culture, but its to the credit to the author that he leaves the facts bared and to an extent its left to the readers to make a judgement on the authenticity.
History lends itself to propaganda which in turn tends to lead to distortion of the thread of history. There are multiple hagiographies that circulate in the Indian political milieu and it takes a determined effort to break past this shroud and the book serves as a great tool to this purpose. The author takes pause at key events to analyze legacies and the impact of key events to give a balanced perspective. Ashoka rightfully has his place as a great ruler, but was the cost too much? The Cholas had a huge cultural impact, but this was largely at the cost of debilitating raids on the neighboring kingdoms, so in the grander scheme was it worth it? Was the British rule truly a modernizing influence that it is touted to be?
There are gems that surface in terms of details. The Aihole 500 as a trade guild that existed in South India which guided much of the Chola expansion, the path that the Kohinoor diamond followed - from a southern mine to a ruler in Gwalior to Humayun then Persians, Afghans , the Sikhs and then to the British,the influence of the indentured labour in seeding ideas into the country. You are bound to find surprising links and unknown facts due to the depth of the research.
Though titled the History of India - this could have been more aptly titled the History of the subcontinent- as Pakistan and India are fairly well covered (even post-Independence). Reading through gives you the backdrop in which you get to appreciate the colossal impact of personalities like Gandhi, and the unprecedented and improbable nature of the current entity called India.
The book is a must read and should be the standard text book on the subject

Shibumi-Trevanian

2011-10-09T04:33:00.000-07:00

The urban dictionary defines Shibumi as "

A term from the Edo period in Japan refering to places, persons, or things of effortless perfection. Anything that is Shibumi is noble and fulfilling in a manner that is not shaped exclusively by analytical thought. Simply put, a state of great refinement underlying commonplace appearances."

There are seldom books which so remarkably stick to the credo laid out by the title. Even remarkably its worthwhile to read a brief bio of the author in Wikipedia after you have read the book. This by far is not a usual thriller and could well be staged in a 3 act play.

Act 1- The present which though could well have been a Ludlum novel in setting up a corrupt system against an individual. With current world events it still resonates well

Act 2- The development of Nicholai Hel the protagonist of the novel. Half german , Half Russian raised in China and Japan , his warrior psyche is largely an oriental mindset put through a crucible of post-war Allied torture

Act 3- An Arab vs Israeli conflict set in the backdrop of the Munich Olympics massacre, wherein the Israelis are the underdogs and finally team up with Hel followed by a bloody clash

The prose is spare and lends itself to the aura of the character, but the build ups are exceptionally long and the denouement exceptionally quick (and sometimes disappointingly so). There are some passages which are inordinately long with little bearing on the plot. The author lets vent to his anti-American inclinations, but all said and done Nicholai Hel would stand out as the best in the league of sleuths.

Interestingly reading a bio of the author reflects a striving for Shibumi. Rodney William Whitaker wrote under the pen name Trevanian and you largely wish he'd done a few more books in this series

Mahabalipuram weekend

2011-10-07T22:51:00.001-07:00

Mahabalipuram weekend, a set on Flickr.

One hot muggy weekend trip to Mahabalipuram. The rocks and the temples are still impressive

Time Passages - Meanderings around Banavasi

2011-08-19T19:53:00.000-07:00

Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow;Nought may endure but Mutability.~Percy Bysshe Shelley, "Mutability"

Monsoons can be a treacherous time to travel and the reputation is well earned. For a usually lazy couch potato , reading a book on the verandah with a cup of tea is largely more enticing than stomping around greenery abound with leeches. But a long weekend lazing on the verandah seems a stretch and the Independence day weekend offered an opportunity to step out. The trip that we finally took wasn't quite planned , rather it came through via Meera's contacts. Sketchily described to me as a trip into rural Karnataka with a strong historical backdrop. Chose not to read up much and keep expectations to a minimum.

We boarded a minivan close to Cubbon park and dutifully set off at the proposed 5 pm time. Our progress to Banavasi was slow and steady and we reached Banavasi @ 2:30 AM. We were put up at a rest house , with limited but apt facilities and the sound of a drizzle on the roof is all I could register before I dozed off.

We had an early start in the morning , and the weather was overcast lending a stupendous lush hue to the surroundings. I barely registered where we were supposed to head to, but the first surprise of the day was where we were supposed to have breakfast. We were driven to a villager's house - a Khanavadi, where the food was delicious - fresh fly fried Padoos and Idly along with chutney and an onion dip. We headed to the first temple, which was the Dakshina Kedareshwara temple at Balligavi. The route was through villages and there were school children being packed off from their homes, some schools had a practice parade on in the grounds , paddy fields had farmers sowing the crop, dilapidated local buses trundled past the narrow streets and suddenly the destination was on us. The Dakshina Kedareshwara temple was a substitute for southerners to the trip to Kashi. Kashi for a person in these parts would take a year of travel on foot with no guarantee of a safe return. The temple was built by the Western Chalukyas with modifications done by the Hoysalas and their style is quite clearly visible. The temple is dedicated to Siva and has a large Nandi baring its teeth.

Balligavi was a notable town in the Chalukya kingdom and boasted of a university and multiple monasteries in its heyday around the 10th and 11th century. We were running a bit off schedule and managed to cover another temple which unfortunately had closed the inner shrine - again a reflection of Hoysala embellishment. Lunch was at a home stay which was run by a pleasant family. The home stay boasted a plantation of 40 acres covered with areca nut trees. The land seemed to sprout vegetation at ease, flowers and fruit bearing trees offered a shock of color. Lunch boasted some delicious mango curries and absolutely delectable banana chips. Time seemed to have stopped (or rather the soporific influence of a full belly). We were close to the outskirts of a bird sanctuary and barely managed to scrape in before it closed down. The bird sanctuary is rather small and boasts an area less than a square kilometer and contains the Gudavi Lake , but just for the sheer density of birds this is a spectacular place to visit. Thankfully we weren't greeted by the sight of plastic wrappers thrown all over and the place did offer some reasonable conveniences to the avid birdwatcher.

The lake was ring fenced and there was a walkway which led into the lake virtually bringing us close up with the birds. The lake stank, but the sight of soaring Ibises, Spoonbills, Darters left me in awe. I hadn't even heard about this place till date and I was staring at a gadzillion birds in command of their environment. Dusk and we headed back to the villagers house to grab dinner(Thin rotis with some cooked gram and beetroot - great stuff) before we crashed for the day

Banavasi was the centre of the Kadamba dynasty - purportedly established by a Brahmin , it is one of the oldest towns in Karnataka. The Kadambas established the town between the fourth and the sixth century and had Banavasi as their capital. Myths prevail about the founding and the origin, but the emphasis on Kannada as the official language and the presence of the poet Pampa during the Chalukya era, places Banavasi at the epicenter of Kannada culture. The river Varadha meanders through the town and being located deep in the Western ghats, the agricultural produce is profuse.

I walked across to the main road from the rest house to the watch the splendid verdant paddy fields next door. Gudavi had accentuated the appreciation of birds and I noticed some Egrets and Kingfishers in the field, the pace was appreciably slow.Breakfast was delivered this time to the rest house, which was welcome because the group (including me) had disintegrated into a bunch of shutterbugs eager to capture the atmosphere into the camera. Frogs, stick insects, grass hoppers all had their minutes of fame and we headed out to the Madhukeshwara temple at the pace of the Varadha.

The Madhukeshwara temple is the center piece of the town and it was remarkably close to the rest house. The temple itself is ancient and reflects multiple architectural styles predominantly Chalukyan and Hoysala, but the presiding deity was a remnant of the Kadamba era.

A walk around the temple revealed smaller shrines to minor deities like Varuna and Indra. The town had been built around the temple and had a curious set of homes. The Architectural Society of India virtually dictates development in these areas as every home is potentially a treasure trove of hidden artifacts. We walked down to the Varadha which was muddy and unfortunately the approach to the river was filthy. The local shops offered a delightful snack of sliced pineapples with chilly powder, we packed off again.

We were now heading to Magod falls which lay further West. The drive was beautiful, again forests and fields flanked the road, and we had a brief diversion en-route.

The Sahsralinga is a major pilgrimage spot and is so named because of the thousand lingas that are carved onto the river banks. Created by a local chieftain to propitiate the gods for the birth of an heir, it offered a sight to behold. The river Shalmali was in spate and though the river had overrun most of the idols, the river itself was amazing. Magod itself lay an hour further away and we were greeted with a sight of mist surrounding the area. The falls are created by the Bedti river and has a spectacular setting largely because of the surrounding evergreen forests. The din of the falling water was deafening and the falls were largely invisible for a long while due to the surrounding mist. A walk in the pathway along the rim of the hill we were on revealed a beautiful landscape. Thankfully heading back to the van the mist lifted and the falls were revealed in full splendor. It was late in the afternoon and we had one more destination to cover- a Tibetan Monastery.

Karnataka remarkably has settlements dotting the countryside populated by Tibetan's who escaped the Chinese repression. Having seen the one at Bylakuppe near Mysore I had a fair measure of what to expect. The Mundgod settlement has about 20,000 Tibetans settled into 11 camps , 2 of which are exclusively reserved for the Lamas. The sight of the red robed lamas was in stark contrast to the surroundings. The light was fading by the time we reached the Drepung Loseling monastery. The scale of the monastery left one in awe, the prayer hall being capable of handling 5000 monks in one go. I chatted with a few monks and some of them had come down from the Nubra region of Ladakh. It was dark by the time we left the monastery.

We were homeward bound now, the drudgery of the highway descended and it was 4:30 AM in the morning by when we landed in Bangalore. Independence day had dawned and aptly we had returned with a glimpse of the splendor that this nation offered.

A garden of the world - a morning walk at Lalbagh

2011-07-24T22:05:00.000-07:00

Globalization is mistaken to be a current trend and being from an Industry which attains its very meaning via globalization, my perspective on it has been coloured by the pre and post liberalization of the Indian economy. But take a step way back into the past and there are vivid examples of India being a driving force rather than a meek participant in globalization. Not a stellar example, but definitely a by product of global influences is our very own Lalbagh.

I have visited the garden a few times in the past and have noted with a passing concern the furore caused when authorities repeatedly try to infringe into this precious lung space, but the garden for all its size and majesty failed to create much of an impression, large sections of it looked unkempt, kitsch prevailed where the plants could easily have created a better impression, but all of that changed when I was recently cajoled into taking up a morning walk at.

The walk is conducted by Vijay Thiruvady and lasts a good part of 3 hours, but its 3 hours of an awe inspiring barrage of details about the history of the garden, layers of history lie exposed and each tree we stop over at has a tale to reveal. The walk began at 7 AM at the base of the geological rock formation that is pretty much a landmark by itself. Part of the Gondwana land mass , it is half as old as the earth itself. Crowning it was a monument marking the southern extreme of the city as demarcated by Kempe Gowda. The garden was commissioned by Hyder Ali in 1760 and vastly enhanced by his son Tipu Sultan. Gardens were the closest representation of paradise on earth and the Mughal gardens were an inspiration to the southern rulers. Tipu Sultan encouraged his subjects to bring in seeds and saplings from across the world and we looked back to observe the Tabebuia which adorns the streets in riotous yellow in spring , a rain tree and the bougainvillea. The frangipani revealed a Carribean source and we moved to observe the Peepal (Ficus religiosa) tree. This tree may count as one of the most revered of tree species, having deep religious significance to both the Hindus and Buddhists. The fig varieties have a deep interdependence with a species of wasp which chooses to breed in the fruits of the fig and in turn pollinating them. The glass house lay a few metres down the path which was the next stop.

This has largely been modelled on the Crystal Palace at London by James Cameron (a park superintendent) , we side stepped a bit in history to a work of dedication from a certain Robert Gill who spent 18 years sketching the Ajantha cave paintings, all the sketches were burnt down in the fire at the London crystal palace. We passed a ficus variety which had virtually consumed a palm. My head reeled with the barrage of facts and I found myself capturing panoramas of the majestic trees and some snaps of the flowers which adorned the garden.

I grasped a little of what followed, a banana species from which most of the current species have derived, a large gum tree from Australia , an elephant apple tree whose serrated leaves lend itself well to ivory polishing. The walk culminates with a fantastic specimen of a Silk Cotton tree which is over 200 years old, the girth seemed to be about 15 feet and the branches provided a beautiful symmetry.

The walk culminates with a breakfast at MTR, which frankly isn't tops in my rating for a hearty breakfast. The history trivia continued much to my delight. The Rava idly is an outcome of a shortage of rice in World War 2 and was an innovation at MTR. We were lucky to have Vijay at the table and another gem came through- a part of the Star spangled has a reference to rockets. These were the rockets captured by Lord Wellesley from Tipu Sultan and used by the British to attack Baltimore.

I headed back to the car park and the route took me back through the garden. I followed a trail through a Japanese garden. The garden stayed unkempt and pure kitschy sculptures adorned a shaded grove within it. But the plants had got a voice and Lalbagh had my respect.

Check out the walk here

Battleground Telangana : Chronicle Of An Agitation - Kingshuk Nag

2011-07-24T19:29:00.000-07:00

Unity in diversity is a much bandied term when used to describe the mosaic of the Indian nation. Boasting of over 20 major languages and innumerable dialects , a multitude of castes a communal melting pot and an unenviable economic divide, it is but natural that any Indian, by a series of permutations may find himself a minority and hence a wonder that we as a nation stay together.

Telangana is a tale of a one such vivisection of society, to some it may seem to question an accepted theory that a language transcends all other differences as a unifying factor. The book does give a very timely update on the issues at hand and in some sense is a must read on the topic, though at times I did sense a bias.

To understand the issue we have to take a step behind the veil that Indian Independence shrouds much of our formative years with. British India had effectively broad brushed the division of India by administrative conveniences, states were either controlled by the crown or by rulers who swore allegiance to it. The Nizam of Hyderabad was of one such ruler and Madras state formed a large part of British ruled India. Adminstrative initiative and energy differed between British and Nizam governed territory as a result of which the Andhra region which covers the coastal districts of the current state (and which was under the erstwhile Madras state) largely benefited by the irrigation projects bestowed upon the region by the British, administration was largely rendered by a meritocratic bureaucracy. In contrast the Nizam's territory bore all the symptoms of the ills of misrule by a despot- bureaucracy was imported , little entrepreneurship prevailed and the area withered. Though the ruler thrived (as the author points out, at times the Nizam of Hyderabad had funded the Saudi rulers in times of duress), the subjects did not.

Indian Independence offered a clean break from the past and to some chafing under a lack of opportunities in the Madras state this offered an opportunity to seek a linguistic basis for creating a state. The quandary was as to which town could offer a good base for a capital. Madras was bound to be disputed and a good compromise seemed to be Hyderabad and by extension the Telugu majority in these regions extended to a larger Andhra Pradesh. 1956 marked the beginning a a linguistic basis of demarcation of Indian states post the lead taken by Andhra. A lot of assumptions proved to be amiss by 1969, and the state erupted into violence. Telengana had started off as laggards when they were included in the larger state and the Andhra dominance continued, little benefit trickled down. Police brutality nurtured a nascent communist movement and this further fueled calls for a separate state. Political power stayed with the Andhra region , with the Congress party dominated by Reddy's from the Rayalseema and the Andhra region, followed by the TDP led by the enigmatic NT Rama Rao who benignly imposed an Andhra culture throughout the state. Though much lay below the surface for a long while, simmering discontent burst out with the glare of modernity. Chandrababu Naidu faced with the stark reality of political oblivion took up the development plank and placed a global Hyderabad at the centre of his vision, though this largely succeeded it threw into stark scrutiny the differences between the haves and the have nots. The better educated and the more enterprising Andhraites were able to garner a lions share of the development. The TRS was largely formed as an offshoot by the mercurial K Chandrasekhara Rao and Telangana now had a political voice. Political alliances of convenience and the associated upheavals and reverses have lent color to an unfurling story. A constant media scrutiny has thrown up improbable equations with power hungry castes in Andhra seeing political opportunities being thrown up by the bifurcation of a upper caste dominated ruling political class.

A centrally commissioned report by the Srikrishna committee largely leaned towards a unified state, but with provisions for better economic and political representation for the Telangana area, though strangely it chose to debunk theories that the Telangana area was backward. This has largely left most of the Telangana activists unsurprisingly dissatisfied and the saga continues.

What happens post this promises to lay further challenges at the doorstep of the Indian social fabric. Previous experiences of smaller states have not thrown up path breaking results and those weren't even challenging the linguistic basis. Andhra on the other hand will throw a spotlight onto many other regions which lie in a shadow of underdevelopment in a seemingly prosperous state. Is fragmentation the future? If so to what degree?

Cats

2011-07-15T23:38:00.001-07:00

Cats, a set on Flickr.

Just got two kittens over , Sam a girl (misnomer as the exuberance of the kitten was taken as an indicator of gender) and Po a boy. Harks back to early years when the house was full of cats

Australia

2011-07-03T01:39:00.001-07:00

Australia, a set on Flickr.

Pictures of the trip

Awe and wonder, down under or How I crossed the equator and slept right through it

2011-06-17T22:46:00.000-07:00

I imagine myself as a discerning traveller , whatever places I visit is touched by a divine finger which renders unto it a sheen of artistic or natural brilliance and my visiting it sort of sets t

he cosmic equations to achieve some sort of an equilibrium. As a precursor to any trip, I am consumed by a furious desire to immerse myself in the history and culture of the destination and I gather tomes and links to research exactly which longitude and latitude to lay foot on. Much procrastination and a skim through 2 pages of this collection and I am all set. Australia was different- a curious desire to experience this rather than prepare was how I chose to embark on this adventure.

Before we dive in curiously the general attitude towards Australia could be summarized by this conversation that my cousin had with an old gentleman after I had returned from the trip. My cousin was based in Melbourne and had accompanied me to a distant acquaintances house in Bangalore.

On declaring himself , based in Australia , our host immediately acquired a knowledgeable air and stated "So do Indians still get bashed up there" , my cousins vehement protests that these attacks were an accident of statistics and the general populace was peaceful was relegated to the dust bin. Shortly afterwards the host proclaimed his grand unified theory -"Son, you cant help it - its a country of convicts".The above statement sort of describes all the stereotypes that I had in mind of Australia. Ultra conservative , sporty , rude, tough, quite "convict" like.

So to cut a long story short, it was with a strong willed strike against inertia that I finally got around to applying for my Australian tourist visa. The list of documentation seemed endless and at with some extreme degrees of brinksmanship, we finally had the visa and tickets in place. My brother swore that I had overspent on the Visa and I was swearing away that my itinerary could not include a stop at Singapore as I had earlier envisioned.

I had booked on Malaysian airlines which meant a reasonable stop over at Kuala Lampur, post which we were to land at Melbourne Tullamarine airport(now get used to names like that). I dutifully felt air sick between Bangalore and Kuala Lampur (was it the pre-flight beer/the Rajni movie/the food on the flight I may never know), but Melbourne welcomed me with an upset stomach and pretty much sleep deprived.

Rest and recuperation was expected to be acquired over a packed schedule, backed by the word Jaragandi used like a whiplash to get us moving. We drove down to the Yarra river wine county in the morning. The countryside was spectacular, rolling grass covered hills and cows dotted a textbook idyllic countryside. Wine tasting and some purchases followed and we headed out to the Dandenong ranges.

The climb up was remarkable and the change in vegetation stark , with the shrubbery changing to ferns and the sunlight almost shrouded out by tall gum trees. We visited the rhododendron park which as a concept is fantastic and some of the flora was downright breath taking, but a complete tour was ruined, by our getting lost while admiring a tree with fall colors.
Cairns
Now we entered the highlight of the trip. We had cheap tickets to Cairns followed by a visit to Sydney and the next day saw us bundling ourselves into a Tiger airways flight. 7 adults , 2 kids and a toddler make for a droll sight especially during a high rush scanning process at airports and we didn't disappoint. Much chaos in an extremely turbulent flight and by the time we were regurgitated into the Cairns airport, we were a very tired bunch seeking a warm bed to rest on. The weather was like Chennai in winter, pleasantly warm and not too muggy. 20 minutes of driving got us to the resort which was located right off Trinity beach(swim at your risk, crocodiles and poisonous jellyfish abound). Sweet , delightful sleep!!!
Cairns is one of the places in Australia within reasonable distance of the Great Barrier Reef and it takes an hour from the harbor to get to this natural wonder. To give credit to this majestic "life form" , its the largest structure made by living organisms and the only one visible from outer space, hosts tons of species and if you stray off this creation of corals you risk getting eaten by sharks or Salt water crocodiles (Salties which I shall refer to in great detail later) depending on which direction you stray. We headed off to the reef from Cairns harbor and the weather was overcast, but nevertheless feeling the spray off the slightly choppy sea was a million dollar experience. An overcast sky meant that the colors of the reef were muted and we could observe just some shades of the turquoise shallows. An embarrassing change into the snorkeling gear and we were wading away sighting coral. The coral was plentiful and painful, schools of beautiful fish scooted past us and an hour later we headed back bruised and battered. The ride back offered a beautiful view of the Cairns harbor in sunset.

Cairns lies in Queensland and bound by the Coral sea on one side and the Great Dividing range on the other, its remarkably green with a series of streams emptying themselves into the sea all along the coast. Sugarcane plantations dot the rather picturesque landscape and except for the odd Salty chewing off your leg or swallowing you whole , it seems to be a rather sanguine place to waste away.
We headed to Cape Tribulation the next day. Cape Tribulation lies 110 kms to the north of Cairns and as with most of my travel experiences, its sometimes the journey which matters more than the final destination. We passed the rather spectacular Captain Cook Highway which winded along the coastline. As with much of Australia , a lot of the place looked depopulated. We stopped by for a swim in the Mossman gorge, which had a beautiful clear and rather chilly stream passing through it. A refreshing swim later we headed out again and reached the Daintree village in a few hours. We lost our way dutifully and finally found our way to a crocodile sighting tour on the Daintree river. The Estuarine salt water crocodile (a slight misnomer as the crocodile typically haunts the freshwater estuaries and rarely ventures into open ocean) is one of the most dangerous predators known to mankind and is endemic to coastal Australia and right upto India (I have childhood memories of seeing one in the Chennai crocodile park). The Daintree river happens to be one of its favorite haunts of the Salties. The river was green and opaque and as we headed down the river we had just sighted one female "Fangs" , the male who haunted these parts - "Big Al" hid himself well. The vegetation was tropical and this could well have been a ride down the Cauvery. We drove on into thick forests with some viewpoints offering spectacular views of where the Daintree river drained into the sea.

Cape Tribulation oddly has one of the best ice cream joints I have seen , with local freshly grown fruit flavors. There's a local tea variety available too. I glimpsed a Cassowary in the forest, though brilliantly colored, its know to be remarkably ill tempered and dumb. Finally we reached Cape Tribulation which has a remarkable strip of coastline. Jelly fish swarm the ocean and the area also is famous for Dugongs which were revered by the local Aboriginal population. Night cloaked us rather quickly as we headed back to the resort.
We had slightly more than half a day and this time we headed into the hills adjoining the town. The Atherton tableland is a fertile plateau in the Great Dividing Range, and we had chosen to visit Kuranda which was settled as a timber industry. The town had a decent art circuit and a nice little butterfly park with ample specimens of the beautiful Ulysses butterfly, there was an adjoining zoo where I sighted my first Koala, Kangaroo, Wallabee and Wombat. We headed down to the spectacular Barrons falls which was also afforded us a nice walk through the rainforest. The evening saw us catching the flight to Sydney.

Sydney
Every new year, everyone in the world is inevitably treated to the fabulous sight of fireworks over the Opera house and Harbor bridge at Sydney and that plus images of the Sydney Cricket Ground are all that I could recollect of the city before I finally glimpsed it. Sydney happens to be one of the oldest , the most populous and the largest city in Australia, having urban roots as far back as the 1820s. Captain Cook the great explorer having had his first interaction with the local Aboriginal community here way back in 1770. Circa 2011 found us waiting for a Taxi van, heading out to the YMCA where we had our stay reserved. By now Australia seemed bloody expensive and Sydney even more so and the Y offered really cramped accommodation and we weren't complaining. By daybreak and a rudimentary breakfast at the hotel we headed out to the Darling harbor to get a sight of the Sydney aquarium. The aquarium is huge and getting through it takes a few hours at the very least.

Huge tanks filled with monstrous sting rays, sharks and dugongs chewing away on lettuce , replication of the coral reef and beautiful penguins sort of compensate for the rather hefty entrance fees. Darling harbor was hosting a bunch of public events and we landed up getting lost which meant a good few hours wasted. Post lunch we took a boat to the Opera house. The Opera house is beautiful to behold and is a testimony to a lone man's pursuit to achieve architectural perfection with very little support and a lot of criticism. The Harbor bridge provided a fantastic foreground to a brilliant sunset.
It poured the next day , which in any case was a boon in disguise, it got us to focus on the museum. The museum hosts some splendid collection of bird species and minerals. Another interesting display was a series of Aboriginal experiences in Australia which is downright poignant. Lunch was at a food court which afforded a choice of a bunch of international cuisines. I rooted for Turkish which turned out to be a bit bland for my taste. Sydney had much more to offer, but the two days were a good preamble to a possible future trip
Back to Melbourne
Melbourne was a huge contrast as compared to the hustle and bustle of Sydney. We were in the suburbs and the weather was glorious. Melbourne offers a lot to the tourist and we started with a drive to Wilson Prom which is the southernmost tip of the Australian mainland. Wilson Prom is a good 3 hour drive and by virtue of a GPS malfunction we drove through spectacular terrain, rolling hills with pristine greenery and sheep grazing away - a rustic idyll rather close to the city. Wilson prom had suffered a series of floods and most of the beaches had been closed out, but one long stretch stayed open and took up much of the afternoon. We ventured into some marshland and were rewarded with a group of Kangaroos escorting us up a path , and a wombat busy in the bushes.
Two places seize the imagination of the cricket playing community , Lords for its propriety and the MCG for the toughness of the cricket played. The MCG has been a favorite largely because of the images that I remember of an Indian team winning the World series cup in a final over Pakistan. White balls, colored clothing backed by amazing innovations in broadcasting made sure that the Melbourne cricket ground always has something to offer even in the drabbest of matches. I found it fortunate to visit the stadium though rather unfortunately I wasn't going to do it for cricket. Footy happens to be a rather intense game resembling rugby but immensely more picturesque. Remarkably though the rules are the same primeval ones of hitting it across the goalpost, what takes you back by surprise is the ardent following the game generates.

The game we were about to witness was between Geelong cats

(a small town just off Melbourne) and a suburb of Melbourne and the game boasted a turnout of 90,000 spectators. The beer flowed as did cussing and swearing. A few turned around to stare at us, could have sworn we were the only brown skinned folks in a sea awash with whites. Cheers, Hic!!

Have been privileged to have driven on some of the best highways- Highway 1 in California, Kulu to Leh, Chennai-Pondicherry, Konark-Puri but the Great Ocean drive would quite easily be right up there at the top. Its a long stretch, just off Melbourne, almost heading into Adelaide. A narrow 2 lane stretch that spectacularly winds through cliffs and beaches, every alternate curve providing a breathtaking view point. We started early and headed out of Melbourne and were overcome by fog, the temperature outside and it was 8 by the time the sun broke through, brilliantly exposing a deep blue sea thrashing against the rocks. We wound on to stop at a temperate rain forest (rare occurrences across the world) with tall ferns and trees which dated hundreds of thousands of years. We sought a lighthouse and found an isolated beach in the process, not a soul for miles. Green moss covered the rocks adjoining the shore, tonnes of clams hung onto the rocks, an hour went by in a jiffy- the lighthouse though apart from the view was a fraud. The drive though stretches out to Warnambool which is popular for whale watching, though our point of interest were the twelve apostles .

These originally were a set of 9 rocks standing in the ocean of which 8 are left (there never were 12) and they provide a nice subject to avid photographers. The apostles have a park named after them and the ecosystem is rather fragile with fires breaking out in the dry season. Loads of Japanese clicked away from every angle and I managed to elbow my way to a few snaps. Nothing captures the smells and the sounds unfortunately

Two days remained and we hadn't done justice to the Melbourne CBD, there remained loads to see- the botanical gardens, the Victoria museum, Victoria market for its rather cheap deals. So off we went and were blessed with a beautiful sunny day. The botanical garden (preceded by a brief stopover at the Shrine of remembrance) was huge and had a lake populated by a black swan who for some reason realized his/her worth (Naseem Taleb should visit). Japanese gardens, rose gardens, rhododendrons in bloom , but most importantly a sandwich made in heaven from fresh garden produce at the garden cafe. We walked by the Yarra and visited the art gallery next. The collection is not as vast as the ones that I had experienced in NY , but being small I had the satisfaction that I had done justice to collections. We headed to Victoria Market next, but unfortunately found it closed (I wasn't complaining, though the wife was beside herself with misery)

All good things must come to an end, and this trip had worked out to a T thanks to my brother's planning, but nevertheless as a last reinvigorating effort to imbibe the spirit of this country we decided to take a swim. It did wonders to the return trip. The trip back was tedious but didn't leave me in any worse shape.

India remains dear to the heart , but Australia had won my respect

Potternama

2011-05-22T10:58:00.000-07:00

With the rage around the world that Harry Potter generated an outcome is that the readers community is split in half with one half having read the series and the other half either put off or just plain lazy. The last of the categorizations fitted me aptly and with every new release of a Harry Potter movie leaving me increasingly clueless , I decided to "slay the beast" once and for all. A newly purchased kindle ensured that I didnt have to lug around tomes and dutifully settled down to the Philosophers Stone

What intrigued me is the space where the character fits in. Having been nurtured on a rich diet of Enid Blyton in my early years and enthralled by the Lord of the Rings (and its associated movies), Harry Potter seemed to be a curious go-between, with Harry soft enough for the mantle of a Blyton boy wonder and Voldermot diabolical enough for the Rings. The beauty of the series is the coming of age, and the pace brilliantly matches the waxing of the powers of good and evil leading to the climax. Every part has Harry gaining a piece of his magical past and Voldermot adding a formidable set of allies.

The story by itself is very well written if taken part by part. Hogwarts would rate as one of the best magical settings ever (the magic faraway tree would edge this out by a whisker) and the characters are a fairly cosmopolitan mix which gives it a contemporary setting (which addresses a global audience) - there is a Chinese and an Indian thrown into the mix (which may be a reflection of English society too in a post-colonial world). Quidditch is a delightful invention as a sport and the descriptions are enthralling.

So reading through the series was a breeze, and in fact I confess to sitting up late to get through this and also regretted when it came to an abrupt close, but somehow when it ended the flaws seemed to surface. A lot of situations were difficult to understand- a rather dispassionate Harry (especially when dealing with the betrayer of his parents secrets), curious additions and drops of power (going back in time to save a Hippogrith) and sometimes dumbfounding additions of red herrings (I strongly believe the Deathly Hallows, had no reason to be in the plot at all, Horcruxes had a marginal bearing too). The ending does set it up beautifully for another seven part series to follow (I wouldn't mind)

In summary I still rate Tolkien and Blyton higher as the commercial instincts were much less pronounced, but Harry has set the worldwide benchmark of adolescent literature and got created a contemporary role model. Nevertheless 7 books down I'm glad that I'm in the right half of the world

Pakistan and the Mumbai Attacks- Sebastian Rotella

2011-02-12T01:43:00.000-08:00

For a short report this does pack a lot of punch and understandably this sticks to facts and very little in terms of either any significant historical backdrop as well as any inferences. The report retraces the planning and execution of the audacious Mumbai attacks on 26/11/2008 by a Lashkar e Tayyiba unit. Thanks to the arrest of David Headley who was a part of the planning team as well as the capture of an attacker, a lot of characters step out of the shadows. The kingpin behind all of this was Sajid Mir who planned and executed the entire mission with dollops of help from the Pakistani Intelligence. Ten gunmen attacked and held hostage the city of Mumbai for 3 days with the world attention riveted on a shocked Indian governments response. The attack largely put paid to years of rapprochement between the Indian and Pakistani government. The report covers the duplicity that the ISI engages in while dealing with the US government, modalities of training that the gunmen used and sketches of the personalities that were key to the planning. Its a sobering tale of an ideology shaped by hate that has the potential of triggering a nuclear war in the near future

Tinderbox - M.J. Akbar

2011-02-12T01:00:00.000-08:00

Recommended reading for sure, the title belies the scope of the research. This is gripping stuff capturing a strain of history about the rise of Islam in the Indian subcontinent culminating in the recent past with a bleak outlook of the future of Pakistan. Whats remarkable is the length of the book is remarkably short for the scale of events captured.

The book begins by capturing the roots of Muslim discontent and oddly its traced back to the sack of Delhi by Nadir Shah ( a Shia). Shah Waliullah and his more notable disciples instilled the seeds of a jihadist movement which flickered on and off (and is currently a raging inferno). The British drove the last nail on the Mughal coffin and earned the wrath of the jihadist movement. Typically they responded by playing the Hindus (who were in a majority) against the Muslims right unto 1857 when the last Mughal emperor was forced into exile and hence feeding into a vicious cycle of suspicion between the two communities. The script changed when the British went along with a modernist thread of Muslim led by Syed Ahmed Khan and this thread carried to culmination the idea of a Pakistani nation. The narrative captures the Indian Freedom struggle from the viewpoint of the key Muslim players and there are moments when you are awestruck at how close the history of South Asia may have been radically different from the nuclear precipice whose edge we teeter on. Gandhi's letting go of the Khilafat movement , the Congress rejection of overtures from the Muslim league, Jinnah's outsized ego (though remarkably during the earlier part of the freedom struggle he outshone much of the Congress in his sagacity and vision of a united India) drove a permanent wedge between the two communities. Partition was inevitable by the late 1930s much to the dismay of Gandhi.

The only criticism that you can place on the book is that it allocates much less space to post independence Pakistan (though to the author's credit its the right proportion on a historical timescale). The statement that captures the fall of Pakistan aptly is that for the opponents of Partition Jinnah died too late and for the proponents of a secular Pakistan he died too early. With Jinnah's death it is the rise of Maulana Maududi and his radical islamist vision of Pakistan manifesting in the Jamaat-e-Islami party that takes over much of the historical narrative. Weak and opportunistic civilian rule gave way to arrogant military rulers who took the country into ill advised wars which led to their downfall. Bhutto instead of seizing the moment handed over in a platter indulged in petty deals with the Islamists and carrying out medieval policies (declaring the Ahmaddiya sect as non-Muslims). Zia's rise and the damage (seemingly permanent) to the fabric of Pakistani society is aptly captured.

The tale is narrated at a breathtaking pace and though the author switches at times between multiple narratives - its a class act of ensuring that this book is a page turner throughout. The present is sobering with Pakistan arming itself to the teeth with nuclear warheads. The book is as pacy as a novel in the Bourne series , but alas it isn't fiction and even worse, it's too close for comfort

Operation Mincemeat- Ben Macintyre

2011-01-16T22:10:00.000-08:00

World war 2 is a novelists delight- there are a treasure trove of tales that are dug out of the archives and are well worth the re-telling. This book takes on one astounding piece of an intelligence victory (Allied of course) and covers the planning and the aftermath of the project. The premise is simple - use a ruse to convince the Germans that the target of attacks is Greece and Serbia, rather than Sicily as was widely expected and being prepared for. The implementation was innovative- use a corpse loaded with false papers with conversations between key leaders to show that the planning was directed towards Serbia and Greece. The author quite convincingly brings about the difficulties in planning as well as the attention to detail that the British had to bring in, a classic example was the difficulty in procuring the right corpse for the occasion - one which hadn't decayed too much as well as conveyed the impression of a British officer. The build up of the cast of characters also is well done, with a rather eclectic and charismatic individuals thrown up in the process. The German side also has its share of diabolical and pompous villains built up. There are a few delightful sojourns into double agents as well as the Soviet influence among the British spies.But this is where the story begins to peter out dragged down by the core premise being too simple to hold out for an entire novel of this size. Some of the aspects around the planning are covered a bit too much in detail and could have done with some cutting down. The build up on the German spies doesn't lead to much and there isn't great conviction in the assertion that this was one intelligence victory which was the turning point of the war. There's a nagging feeling this book could have been so much more - waiting for the movie version though

A Rajasthan Royal

2010-10-23T23:25:00.000-07:00

Open the odd picture book selling "Incredible India" and you inevitably will be accosted with images in saffron hues set in sandstone buildings (the others will include Elephants and backwaters of Kerala and the odd Ganges/Himalayan shots). Rajasthan oddly has an out sized reputation on the tourist circuit and for an Indian not sold on the exotica it takes some appreciation to catch the bug.

What did entice me to Rajasthan was the aura of royalty packaged into a train journey across the state and it somehow snaked its rather expensive way into my imagination and it reached the top of the list choice for an early winter vacation. The website proffered a shortened itinerary from the whole hog royalty tour (which obviously would have cost the earth) and discreet enquiries much to my disappointment revealed that this itinerary wasn't available. So Royal Rajasthan by the luxury train was dutifully dropped and we settled for a humbler and rather more hands on itinerary.

Rajasthan is the largest state in India by area and that compounds the difficulty of creating a satisfactory itinerary. While Jaipur lies close to Delhi , Jaisalmer is tucked away deep into the Thar kissing the Pakistani border. The most logical approach seemed to be arching across the state starting from Jaipur and leaving from Udaipur which was nestled in the Arravallis. So a lot of web surfing and advice from other experienced travelers and we managed to cobble together a very odd itinerary. We were to skim around the state's periphery over 2 weeks

We started early Oct and our first stop was Jaipur. The low cost airline service was efficient and we stopped over at Hyderabad before landing at Jaipur a bit too late for dinner. Contrary to our expectations the weather was warm and the day temperatures were expected to be in the 40s. Thankfully the home-stay was comfortable...

Jaipur is a pleasant city for the un-initiated - the roads seem wide and the city seems to be divided into neat little grids, so an early morning start saw us getting to the Albert Hall which is a beautiful building outside the old city located in a large square and plays the role of the city museum thanks to the benevolence of Maharaja Ram Singh who seems to have been a rather forward thinking individual in the royal family. The museum itself is a fantastic exemplar of the architecture of its time, and doesn't disappoint with a rather remarkable collection of artifacts.

There are textile, miniature, sculptures, armory and a display of the costumes of the time. Its heartening to see that we have audio guides in India, though we could do with more in depth information. As with all Museums you are left with a feeling that you haven't done justice, but time was precious and we proceeded towards the old city. The old city was established by Maharaja Jai Singh in the 18th century and would have been a marvel of its time till the Prince of Wales came visiting and one of the founders descendants painted the old city PINK. Thankfully a lot of the old city seems to have lost a lot of the original colors. The city was architected by a Bengali architect per the Hindu Vaastu tradition(which obviously needs a version update to handle modern traffic).

Our first destination in the city was the City Palace which also is the home of the current Maharaja of Jaipur. Jaipur is ruled by the Shekhawati Rajputs who due to their bravery earned the tile of Sawai from the Mughals. The City Palace retains the opulent splendor of yore- the flag of the royal family proudly fluttering over the tallest terrace. The palace is expansive and has some interesting artifacts including some of the royal costumes and armory. Indulgences were all over- one of the displays has 2 large silver vessels (stated to have been created by melting down 4000 silver coins) which were used by the Maharajas to store water from the Ganga for a long trip to England. There is also a live handicraft gallery in the palace to encourage artists.

We wound our way through to the Jantar Mantar which was adjacent to the city palace and was one of the most advanced observatories of its time. The temperatures had soared and a quick lunch was followed by visits to some rather odd places - the Kanak Vrindavan which was a garden on the foothills of the Aravallis and offered a pleasant sojourn for the hot afternoon, followed by a walk along the adjoining lake from where we could get a view of Jal Mahal. Late evening saw us heading to the Chokhi Daani which is a village fair hosted on the outskirts of Jaipur. It was packed with tourists, but remarkably it thrived largely on the pandemonium created by the crowds and it seemed to be wonderfully at ease with the throngs. A magic show here, a fire dance there, camel and elephant rides and rich food to top it all. Closed the day out well.

We were supposed to visit the Aamer fort in the morning, but were somehow talked out of the idea by the taxi driver(bad decision), and instead proceeded to the next stop in our itinerary-Alwar. Alwar wasn't a logical next stop given that it was somehow off the ring tour that we had planned and its not significant enough to merit a full fledged stop, nevertheless we had a strong recommendation for an experience of an old restored fort in Kesroli, which adjoins the town of Alwar . Sandwiched between Delhi and Jaipur, Alwar didn't stand much of a chance but there were some remnants of fiefdoms one of which had left behind a fort to which we were headed. The Hill Fort Kesroli is a dilapidated old fort which has been taken over by the Neemrana group of hotels and and could easily be missed as a ruin.

While the exterior walls do look they are well beyond repair, the fort seems to have a mighty heart and when we walked in (up steep cobblestones). Sunshine beamed through a lazy garden decked with chairs dotting different parts of the forts ramparts. We seemed to have hit a jackpot and had the fort all to ourselves. Our room was right on the wall of the fort with the window being a slit in the 3 feet thick walls. Though very oddly shaped and narrow, the room was very comfortable and we pretty much had a run of the entire fort. Tea was had on an open terrace,lunch which usually is a buffet turned out to be a royal affair with the menu being suggested in the morning. Fields adjoined the fort and the view was expansive.

The day saw us taking a walk in the fields largely aimlessly digesting the heavy breakfast after I had waited out to catch a sunrise from the eastern side. Kesroli was a small village with, largely dependent on agriculture and the business that came in from the tourists visiting the fort. We had virtually lost sense of the time by the time we had to get packing off to Jaisalmer.

The Delhi Jaisalmer express stops at Alwar for exactly 2 minutes and its a looong train as it splits into 2 routes, one serving Barmer and the other one Jaisalmer. So after frantically trying to determine which part of the platform would be closest to the relevant coach, we jumped into the nearest coach in about 110 seconds and felt the train chugging out of the platform as we continued the quest for the elusive bogey. Two side berths and the other a top berth ensured a sleepless night, Jaisalmer arrived though well in time.

Jaisalmer is extreme Rajasthan and has been so since times immemorial. The founding myth involves a nobleman in search of water seeing a goat climbing a mount, intrigued he pursued and was rewarded with an aquifer. The nobleman Jaisal also met a holy man on the hills who foresaw the formation of a kingdom around the hill and Jaisalmer was born (the other half of the name is borrowed from Mount Meru). Jaisalmer is striking for its remoteness being just 100 odd kilometres of Thar desert from Pakistan. The other remarkable feature is the sandstone monotony of the buildings lending it a golden hue(preferable to pink thank you). The desert though has been banished from the city view, the city is a collection of sandstone buildings that are separated by narrow lanes with open gutters. Cows roam freely and autos toss their passengers around as they move at breakneck (they look ominous at low speeds in the narrow lanes) speeds. We settled into a barely adequate room though with a view of one of the best Havelis in town. The lodge didn't have much of a restaurant though the meal was adequate and we headed off to admire the Patwa haveli which was a stones through away.

Jaisalmer lay along one of the most profitable trade routes of its time and the rulers could command a hefty taxation amount on the traders and hence the town was rich. The Patwas were the local bankers and from the powerful Oswal Jain community and the Havelis reflect years of work by craftsmen. The Havelis though simplistic in design are extremely practical to provide shade in the interiors. This was a rich family and there are rooms displaying the vessels used, the accounting room and the room for recreation. In a queer twist of fate the building was declared a monument of national interest by Indira Gandhi which prevented the owners from either renting or selling the premises, though one of the wings is still occupied by the family. We took a walk to the lake in the evening which had an adjoining Shiv temple. The art gallery nearby hosted a puppet show which wasnt remarkable, but some of the puppets were on sale. Back to the room and the terrace of the hotel commanded a view of the fort which was lit in the dusk, sleep enveloped.

It was a blazing sun the next day and even an early October date didnt spare us, the walk to the fort was thankfully short and the gullies are rather quaint(reminds me of my college days in Benaras). The fort is called the Golden fort - a name that stuck after a Satyajit Ray movie called Sonar Killa (he is revered here as the one who put Jaisalmer on the Indian Tourist map). This is one of the oldest living forts in the world with a lot of tenements being passed on from one generation to the next. The city just seem to be one long continuum though on a different plane. The Rawals (as the Jaisalmer ruling clan were called) weren't in the best of shape as compared to their much richer cousins in Jaipur and their decline had occurred early in the 19th century when they allied with the British. The fort meanwhile has taken on the character of a hippie town with pizzerias and art houses. Notably there are a few Jain temples which again boast of some exquisite stone work. Lunch beckoned and I caught up on the news about the India-Australia match at Bangalore (India seemed to be in safe hands with Vijay and Pujara). We headed on to the Salem Singh Haveli next where we were taken on a guided tour of the Haveli by one of the descendants . The building was designed like a ship and earned the wrath of the ruling Rawal when Salem Singh raised the height above the palace height.

Water was precious in Jaisalmer and before the construction of the Indira Gandhi canal, the sources of water were scarce. One more Haveli completed the city tour-Nathmal Haveli. This is currently lived in by a rather extensive joint family and needs special permission to tour, which gauging by the looks we got from the owner , we were not going to get. The Haveli had an interesting facade with the apparent symmetry hiding the individual touches of two competing sculptors. The last stop and most anticipated was the trip to the desert. Sam is a village which is probably is one of the last stops before the border and is a good 40 kilometers from Jaisalmer, we took a package from one yuppie entrepreneur who ran a tacky lodge to which a swimming pool was going to be added. The trip to the desert took an hour and it was interesting to note that there were some traces of farming taking place. The rains had been way above expectations for the year and there were wheat farms. We got a camel ride that we had signed up for and for a few extra bucks we were taken a bit deeper into the desert. Our camel owner was Akram Khan and the camel with the outlandish name of Rocket. Rocket was all of 4 years old and complained loudly about my weight and both of us were relieved when we dismounted to watch the sun go down in the sunset. The sand was fine and cool and the walk back to the car park was well worth the effort. The tented accommodations that we had rented for the night boasted of an entertainment program which had a couple of local women gyrating to a few local and finally the ever popular Bollywood hits. The night was still and without any breeze it was remarkable that I did manage to get any sleep at all. The afternoon train was to take us to the next stop on the itinerary -Jodhpur

Jaisalmer to Jodhpur is a 8 hour journey and this time it was way better than trip coming in, though strangely there were absolutely no refreshments served. We reached Jodhpur at around 9:30 and found the lodge pretty easily. The lodge was magnificent and was a pretty large mansion converted into a series of rooms rented out. We moved around the lodge early in the morning and it was replete with trees, a lotus pond and a swimming pool. The restaurant served up a pretty good breakfast. Jodhpur is the land of the Rathore clan and they have been a reasonably successful princely state, as was obvious from the palaces and the size of the city. Jodhpur looked fairly well planned and had wide roads to boot. Our first stop was the Mehrangarh fort which is located on a hill towering over the city and by far this was the best experience of Rajasthan that I was about to get.

The fort stood out magnificently towering above the rest of the city. Jodhpur was founded in the mid 15th century by Rao Jodha and the area of Jodhpur is officially known as Marwar which is eponymous of the business community that comes from this region. Jodhpur lay on a key trade route and all its rulers did well to cultivate the Oswal Jains who hail from the town of Osian which lies very close to Jodhpur. Mehrangarh meanwhile though established with the city has been an evolving fort throughout. Delightfully this fort is by far one of the best maintained one that I have seen. A lot of the rooms and courtyards look like they could still be functional and the amenities for the tourists are excellent. We picked up a very knowledgeable tour guide who took us via an elevator which has been dug out in one of the towers of the fort. The city view is breathtaking from the top. The Brahmins usually paint their houses blue and a lot of the neighborhood around the fort was swathed in a pale blue. There was a display of houdah's, artwork- an entire dancing room swathed with glass and gold foil. This was a rich kingdom. The fort was cursed as it evicted a holy man from the hill. To placate the gods the king buried a man alive in the foundations.

The tour culminated at a very well stocked museum store with some great t-shirts and books. The current Rajah had also organized a few shops which sold local handicrafts. Post the tour we had lunch at the cafe in the fort where we were offered a seat by a historian from London studying the armory of the fort. The conversation led to the inevitable question as to whether the British rule had been beneficial and Pax Brittanica. Interestingly the callousness of the Indian government to history was appalling - swords from the Jodhpur armory were used for railway bridges as is. Hindsight permits judgements on a cafe table. The fort is currently held by a trust and which is one of the reasons the maintenance has been stellar by standards of other museums in India. The royalty meanwhile have moved to the much more extravagant Umaid Bhavan which towers over the city. The palace is remarkable for the style of architecture used, modern yet with a lot of its Indian inspirations showing through. Architected by a notable Englishman, this was projected as the Jodhpur New Deal - it provided employment to an army of workers during a famine. Though its grandeur holds a lot of promise, a majority of the palace is now a hotel leased to the Taj group and all tourists get is a peek to a small wing of the hotel.

The next morning we took a tour of the Bishnoi village area just on the outskirts of the town- a potter first , followed by a farmer (who offered a traditional welcome of Opium diluted in water), a weaver who had met Prince Charles and George Soros. A stopover at a outlet for textiles and I hit upon a camel bone chess set which became an obsession for the next few days (landed up buying everything except that). The evening caught us heading back to the Mehrangarh fort for a dinner in the garden terrace. The setting was beautiful with the blue city lit in the foreground and the fort providing a golden backdrop. Pitifully the food didn't quite live up to the setting. The next morning we had to move on to Kumbalgarh

Kumbalgarh is a 4-5 hour drive from Jodhpur and heading south breaks a lot of cliches about the terrain. South East Rajasthan is quite different from the dusty flat monotony of the landscape, the Arravallis providing for some relief. We had barely entered the Arravallis and we had a stop at the remarkable Ranakpur Jain temples.

Though high on the Jain pilgrimage circuit, and very well maintained, the place isn't very tourist friendly and it could do with a few guides who can provide a tour of the place. We headed on to the resort which took another hour. Kumbalgarh is located at the peak of the Arravallis and the climate makes it a resort town of sorts. This is the land of the Mewar region of Rajasthan. Mewar is one of the proudest regions of Rajasthan and has largely been the bulwark against Muslim occupation of much of the region, though even they couldn't fend off the British. Kumbalgarh is not too large a fort but has one of the longest boundary walls (its a distant second , but still the second largest man made wall after the Great wall of China). The fortress towers over the valleys below which contain a natural reserve park. A late evening walk and I gazed down at the sunset from the peak watching swarms of birds swooping down into the valley below, the Mewar kings must have had inspirations of freedom watching the same sight. Late evening and we caught up with the light and sound show which was fairly well orchestrated. The resort was luxurious but somehow lacked any connect with the surroundings. We chose to cut the Kumbalgarh sojourn early and head out to Udaipur which was the last stop in our circuit

Udaipur is again an accidental choice for a capital for a Kingdom. After the Mughals had captured Chittor, Maharaja Udai Singh established this on the directions of a hermit who met him on the location. Ringed by mountains , it was blessed with a natural fortification from the Mughals and has since been ruled by the Sisodia clan , albeit with a lot of help from the British.

The drive to Udaipur took about 3 hours and while we entered the old city it seemed way different from whatever we had seen till date at Rajasthan. Tourism had changed the place drastically and this is the hub of the coffee table books on Rajasthan royalty. Two man made lakes provide Udaipur with prime real estate to establish some World class hotels and Lake Pichola is the host for some of the most opulent hotels in the world, the Lake Palace in the middle, the City palace which is an extension of the royal residence and the Oberoi Udaivilas which is built on the royal hunting grounds.

The lake offers some remarkable viewpoints. We wandered the streets looking through some of the boutique stores, though expectedly this is comparatively way more expensive than either Jodhpur or Jaisalmer. The palace tour was interesting though given the crowds it wasnt as enjoyable an experience as Jodhpur by far. The state of Rajasthan owes its existence to the rulers of Udaipur largely because they were one of the first to accede to the Indian union and additionally managed to convince the remaining princes including the Jodhpur royalty to accede to India. Lake Pichola is one of the side benefits, though the land belongs to the Indian government and the waters largely monopolized by the royalty (no boating allowed by private operators). The evening boating offers spectacular views of the buildings lining the shore. The lake was the lifeline for the city. The next day we took a dekko of the crystal room which is a collection of crystal objects ordered by Maharaja Sajjan Singh.

Sajjan Singh died before the collection was delivered and the current Maharajah opened it. The collection is spectacular and while the jury is out on whether the 30 minute tour justifies the 1500 Rs entrance fee (per head) , well you may never see opulence on this scale. There are sofa sets and beds made of crystal, beautiful glasses and perfume casks, humongous chandeliers adorn the ceilings. To soften the blow we were served a cup of tea served on royal cutlery.

We were at the fag end of the trip and I had wanted to end the trip on a high, hence the last stop on the tour was the village of Devigarh.

Devigarh lies along the route between Udaipur and Jaipur and is known for its proximity to the Eklingji temples that is the chief deity of the Mewar rulers. The village lies ringed by the Arravallis and except for the fort-hotel there's not much to attract tourists. The hotel itself is a spectacular act of reconstruction and is delightfully done. The rooms were spacious and the weather was fantastic.

Looking at the restoration pictures, we seem to have been put up in the erstwhile soldiers quarters, but nevertheless the rooms were one of the most luxurious that I have lived in. A couple getting married from South Africa provided for some good background music. We stopped by the Eklingji temple before heading for the Udaipur airport to catch our flight home.

Rajasthan had been thrilling, tiring, dusty and uplifting. I had just had a peek into a land which was pivotal to the history of the country , a buffer zone that had dissipated the energies of invaders and a land which thrived on the trade routes of yore. As the royalty declined and the princes and nobles wore a more accessible avatar much like the shifting sands in the Thar, somewhere in Sam village Akram Khan was grazing his camel Rocket for the next wave of tourists oblivious to the march of history.

There and Back again (another business trip to NY)

2010-09-26T05:30:00.000-07:00

3 long years since I had left the country shores which translates to 3 years of more silt in this rather muddy river of life and hence considerable inertia in taking up a new trip. But New York being New York is worth rising from the dead. So set off again in the middle of July to partake of the pleasures of an official shopping trip

Business class on British Airways was remarkable for its lack of anything spectacular and for all the much vaunted space provided to stretch your legs, I did have to clear my neighboring passenger to make my oft trips to the toilet. The movie choice was boring and the screen fairly faded. Heathrow airport on the other hand was much better than the poor expectation set of lost baggage etc. Got the courage to splurge on the airline for a duty free purchase and landed up buying a Swiss watch which I took a fancy to. Wine to celebrate and sweet dreams ensued

Landed at the Newark airport and was promptly whisked away to the hotel in a limo. Was much more surer of my bearings this time given that the last trip was pretty much etched in memory. Rather than stay at a friends place as I had done the last time, this time had chosen to stay in a hotel near the riverside in Jersey City. New York by its own standards and by Bangalore's standards was blistering in a heat wave and thankfully had landed there in the evening. The hotel was remarkably easy to adjust to with the staff being used to an Indian populace. The jet lag was non-existent. I had a Sunday to myself and the visiting list was huge. First stop of the day was supposed to be MOMA.

My self-image of being a New Yorker were dashed when I totally goofed up on the directions to MOMA. Directions of the subway and the associated walk to the museum was goofed when I actually headed up the wrong direction on the street and landed up at Clinton Park which was at least 5-6 avenues from the museum. I cursed

my way back till I was rewarded with the sight of the logo and its reflection on a gray glass building. The receptionist was nice and was actually impressed that someone from India had come all the way to see the museum (though I was a bit down when

I realised that I stood out from the rest of the crowd). My past experience of the Met came in handy and I immediately headed off to grab one of the self help devices which would help me understand the exhibits better. I was adequately warned by the guards to carry my bag in front (I still didnt understand the reason why), I duly flouted the rule and was warned again in a not so polite tone to comply.

MOMA thankfully is a much more accessible museum than the Met and is much easier to cover (size may be the key difference) and its just about a series of levels, with each level dedicated to a them like Architecture , Sculpture and paintings of course. The first level offers the rather quaint sculpture garden to revel on. Its a rather small collection of exhibits, but remarkably arranged and its the neighbouring buildings that add to the backdrop of the sculpture garden. I traversed the various levels, experiencing wonder, puzzlement and in some cases a fair bit of disgust at some of the exhibits. There was Picasso ,Matisse seemed to be the theme of the month and the one exhibit that I was looking out for was Rothko which was discovered without much fuss even though didnt realise that there were so many exhibits around

in the same style as his. Whats remarkable about the museums in the US are not just whats available in the exhibit sections, but also the layout of the sections themselves. The glass panes which offered glimpses of the city outside , the stairwells with its own set of curios. Maybe it was the shutterbug in me noticing this as I managed to take pictures pretty much undisturbed.

I decided to give a try with street food and duly found a Felafel streetcart vendor right outside the museum. The Falafel was duly loaded with rice and chicken and with all the spice should have just burnt its way through me. I was loaded with stuff that I had purchased from the museum and was finding it extremely cumbersome to move around and somehow managed to trudge along to the subway station for my next stop. The NY Botanical Gardens

The Botanical Gardens is located in God-forsaken Bronx and though you hear a lot about the place the experience of walking out of the subway station into Bronx is a shock by itself. The gardens were nowhere in sight and after asking around furtively I discovered that the place was a long way off from the subway station and required catching a bus to get to the place. Entering the bus was an embarrassment as I realised that I had misplaced my metro card which was what the bus was accepting as the sole mode of payment. 5 embarrassing moments of rummaging my pockets with 30 angry pair of eyes boring a hole through me did not have the desired effect of the card being produced and I pretty much found myself back on the sweltering street side again. Decided to lug my way to the gardens and regretted the decision in the next 5 minutes when I looked around at the neighborhood. Asking around for directions wasn't helping as the directions varied from a few miles to a few blocks. The last gentleman I spoke to gently guided me to take a cab as he thought I was well and truly off my rocker looking for the gardens in the vicinity when I finally spotted the board of the gardens.

The gardens by themselves are a delight and are in stark contrast to the surrounding environment. It had begun to drizzle by now and there was a cart which took the tourists on a tour of the gardens and I hitched a ride on one of them. Though much of the tour was delightful , I realized that it was a race against time getting to see all that there was to be seen. I was dead tired with all the walking and without any clear idea of what the park had to offer, it looked like a lost cause. So a brief visit to the garden store and some unhelpful directions on getting back to downtown saw me retracing the long walk back to the subway station, and just to compound the misery the drizzle was now a certified downpour. The rest of the evening was fairly eventful and I finally made my way back to the safe confines of the hotel room. The first weekend had been a worthy attempt

The week passed by eventfully but more on a professional footing. The Hudson lay next to office and the view from some of the floors were breathtaking to say the least. Barges floated by, along giant cruise liners and Liberty stood majestically surrounded by the bright blue expanse of the Atlantic. Its remarkable what this city has to offer. A few drinking binges here and the usual foraging for lunch across Exchange place dotted a torrid work environment when mercifully I received a phone call from a bunch of colleagues who wanted a weekend binge. Now all said and done this was good because I had guidance which as evident from my last weekend , I was in dire need of, but on the other hand it put paid to all plans of contemplating Renaissance art in the Met which I missed out in the previous trip. A few more connections were made and we were a bunch of four on a Friday evening when we ventured into the Village. To rewind a bit before the rather eager dipsomaniac lot landed, me and a rather practical companion had steeled ourselves with a

dinner binge at a local Saravana Bhavan (where I could swear the Pongal was more authentic than the best in Bangalore). So the Village experience was a drinking binge in a rather shady underground bar where we craned our necks out to catch a glimpse of a rather decent band belting out semi-recognisable numbers while simultaneously being smothered by rude waitresses till 4 AM in the morning. All of us emerged convinced that this was an experience of a lifetime (in different degrees), though watching young women puke away in the Path station didn't quite round it off well. Oh wait wait - the bathrooms in the pub were lined with posters of girlie magazine from the 40s/50s. Saturday was already nigh and we headed back to Jersey and were back in NY by 10 AM and the rendezvous point was a dream spot.

The Strand bookstall has an aura like none other. Reared on a belief that the best second hand book stall in the world was Blossoms in downtown Bangalore, its important to get a sense of perspective from a store whose claim to fame is 18 miles of books. Disappointingly the store didn't have 2 titles that I had dreamt I would find myself asking a Strand bookkeeper and even more disappointingly none of them seemed to have a clue about the authors and what was earth shatteringly humiliating was the underlying suspicion that the lady at the counter thought I was a fraud showing off (which I was and so what!!!). A T shirt , DVDs and an unnecessary bag load of books were purchased for an atrocious amount and I was soon feeling like a beast of burden (which isn't a common sight among the summer affected half naked populace of NY). Eating was a much appreciated experience at a remarkable oriental restaurant followed by another round of shopping at Times Square. Attempts were made to get a dekko of the latest craze in town - Inception which we duly sacrificed for a meeting with an old friend (the sacrifice was aided by the fact that we didn't get

tickets). Evening found us aimless in Hoboken looking for another place to get drunk, and we found ourselves in a downright uptight joint. Hoboken was a washout.

Inception was the highlight of the day, the movie was deeply puzzling and needed a helluva lot of concentration, but the pace was right royal lightning and we were in a daze at the end. Another friend joined us in the evening and we downed 3 margaritas at a Mexican joint and reminisced of halcyon days that had passed.

Week 2 at work was a continuation of the grind from week 1, but largely passed without any remarkable incident. My flight out of Newark was on the Saturday evening and I had a few hours to kill. A colleague had invited me for lunch which accounted for a half day, but there was one more visit to NY I could squeeze in , for which we trudged down to the Hard rock cafe at Times Square.

Touchdown in Bangalore was at 4 in the morning and as I tumbled out of the airport, the last 2 weeks seemed to be etched in an archive of experiences to be savoured

Intellectuals - Paul Johnson

2010-06-19T23:04:00.000-07:00

This is an insidious book and there's nothing in the book cover to suggest a message that's fairly radical. Contrary to the expectation of a series of hagiographies that typically populate encyclopedic entries, this book picks on a seemingly random series of intellectuals (some of whom have had profound impact on history and the so called progress of civilization). Towards the end the choice seems to be suspiciously selective and deliberate, leading to a conclusion of the need for a freedom from the tyranny of ideas.

The book starts with Rousseau and his influence on 18th century France. Four pages into the book and the facade of a revolutionary intellectual lifts and we can visualise a petty, selfish, ungrateful monster. There are disagreements with Voltaire , a betrayal of Diderot who was one of his earliest supporters and while the ideas shine through, the lighthouse seems to be lowered in stature. There is Shelley next , again brilliant but brash - sexually exploitative , stubborn and proud , turning on his parents and largely sponging off friends and relatives. Karl Marx is revealed to be a bookish grafter of ideas with no realistic idea of the working class which he is historically credited with championing , in fact even Engels fed him with fairly inaccurate portrayals of the working class which further fuelled a rather dodgy basis for communism. Ibsen has your sympathy and admiration for about halfway through his biography before he is dragged down into the pits of humanity with his heartlessness writ all over his miserable existence. Tolstoy could be forgiven his megalomania given his aristocratic upbringing in an extremely unequal society like pre-communist Russia. But the frank diaries and the breaking away from society seems of have its influence on Gandhi. Hemingway follows and while there is no denying a remarkable writing style that he left behind, its a wrecked lifestyle that rushed headlong towards his doom. There is Bertolt Brecht, Bertrand Russell whom we cant help but detest for their slimy manipulations. The leftists viz. Sartre, Victor Gollanz, Lillian Hellman(open of the few ladies to grace or rather disgrace this collection) are relegated to the garbage bins of historical repute.

Therein lies the beauty of the book, towards the end there seems to be a logical strain that ties all of these intellectuals together. And while Karl Marx and Cyrill Connolly may be as distant as you can possibly imagine in their intellectual positions, they had similar distorted personalities that are hidden behind the overarching power of their ideas. While the power of the idea in hindsight seems awesome, it has to be balanced with the impact on society (some have led to massive social engineering which called for the lives of millions). As the author points out, some of Hitler's handpicked mass murderers were intellectuals, so beware of the cruelty of ideas that seeks to bend humanity around it. To the naive non-intellectuals, the character assassinations itself provide for great entertainment

The History of the World in Six glasses - Tom Standage

2010-04-11T09:49:00.000-07:00

This is a delightful book from start to finish and for anyone seeking respectability while downing the coarsest of spirits , here's a book that provides an incredible amount of trivia for the accompanying conversations. To do complete justice to the book , there are 3 non-alcoholic drinks included, which by themselves have interesting histories to back them.

The book begins with a chapter on beer and its discovery. Its role as a drink which attained a centrality largely due to its uplifting effect, but also no less because the fermentation made the drink safer than what the water sources could afford. We move on to wine and its superiority over beer being established largely in the Mesopotamian civilization. Wine took on primacy in the Roman civilization and wine connoisseurs can take pride in tracing their art way back into history. The quality of wine was known to have been the cause of the demise of at least one Roman monarch directly. Wine marks the end of the age of discovery and we move on to the age of invention. The Arabs , their invasions and trades were the source of distillation which brought to fore a bunch of spirits like Rum , whisky and brandy. Rum was and brandy were key players in the slave trade, but an interesting anecdote was the first crude cocktail (grog) was a mixture of Rum, lemon juice , water and sugar and it provided a protection against scurvy for the British sailors which was in turn an advantage against the French navy which had Brandy as its official drink. Whisky took on a significant fan following with the invention of bourbon in the American south.

The chapters on coffee and tea also offer considerable nuggets of information. Coffee with its rather humble beginnings in Yemeni Sufi society soon took over Europe, esp England by storm and coffee houses were witnesses to scientific and political debates of the highest order. Tea on the other hand though innocuous in appearance had a hand in the ruin of the Chinese civilization, with the British seeking to compensate for their huge trading deficits with the illicit Opium trade. Both coffee and tea were healthy drinks because they needed the water to be boiled before the brew was consumed.

The last chapter is reserved for Coke which coincides with the ascendancy of American civilization. There are remarkable predecessors to the carbonated drink , with Joseph Priestley being one of the first to document a carbonated drink which soon took on the nomenclature of soda. Coca cola came about from the extract of cola leaves and the Koka nut (as simple as it gets). As with other invention stories, its largely a few iterations later that the drink became the rage of the nation. The World war established a world market for Coke and there was no looking back ever since.

This is pop history at its best. The erudition is all around , and its a breeze to read. I'd raise a toast to this one

Of Paradise in a penal colony

2010-02-15T05:59:00.001-08:00

“I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move.”

Robert Louis Stevenson

Travelling in India is always a learning experience, a simple outing outside the day to day grind of Bangalore is enough to expose yourself to an abrupt change in rhythm. Its remarkable that you find yourself with the time to stop and smell the roses (if you don't perpetually have the running nose). While seeking a destination, the last few years have been seeing me increasingly intrepid in terms of choices- rather emboldened with stories of remarkable locales encountered by colleagues or friends who lay a lesser claim to the title of the eternal couch-potato. Having recently ventured into a life changing (with days passing by I am increasingly convincing myself that it was a near death experience) trip to Ladakh, I sought the fringes of the country again. The advantages are rather obvious- even though we may celebrate our diversity on paper , its actually quite another situation trying to manage to relate to individuals

who live so far away from the homogeneity of urban India. Scanning the Atlas I settled down for the distant Andamans which forever has a curse of being the penal colony of choice for the colonial government of India. Images that you are forced to conjure are of hardships which virtually closed out the chapter on a lot of rather brave individuals who stood up against an increasingly repressive British government.

Getting to the Andamans was rather easy (and as I learn - the trick is to book tickets well in advance) - you can either choose to travel by ship or take a flight from Chennai or Calcutta. I seriously considered the option of a ship journey, but after a rather futile search and a not so encouraging response from the travel agents (especially when you are with family), the option was dropped and I found a rather early morning flight from Chennai to Port Blair. The hotel bookings followed and since I had signed up for a rather leisurely duration of 10 days it was surprising to see the costs of the trip spiralling.

Bleary eyed, we clambered onto a flight which took off from Chennai at 4:20 AM in the morning, and given the timing , it was remarkable to see a full flight (a lot of my co-passengers seemed to be honey moon travellers). The flight dutifully landed on time 2 hours later and at 7:00 AM the sun was up and bright. Port Blair is over a 1000 kms to the east of Chennai and given the slavery of a single Indian standard time, the days in the Andamans begin rather early and sunset is ushered in well before you are ready for dinner. The first impression of Port Blair is that it seems mostly harmless. The airport seems to be just another small town airport except for the immigration counters that exist at the disembarkation point. Plain clothes policemen

with lethargic sniffer dogs throng the place (never got a good reason why). The baggage spewed out onto the appropriate belts and after the usual struggles of getting your cart next to the belts we managed to get a taxi rather easily. And this is where the place begins to surprise you. Our driver turned out to be a 3rd generation Malayalee who had spent his lifetime in Port Blair and seemed to be rather well connected enough to promise a choice from his fleet of cars for the rest of the itinerary. Adarsh (the aforementioned driver) could quite easily converse in Tamil (as good if not better than mine),Bengali (did not test), Malayalam, passable English and of course Hindi which is the lingua-franca of the Andamans (though pitiably less widespread in mainland India). Our hotel was at Corbyn Cove and was a 30 minute drive out of town. Two topics trigger of endless anecdotes anywhere in the Andamans and quite rightfully so- firstly the social fabric which is incredibly mixed and the second would be the Tsunami and its impact on these islands. The evidence of both is felt all across. The reason why Hindi is so successful as a link language is because its just that - a link. Th

e folks come in all hues , the middle and north Andamans has settlements of Bengali and natives of Jharkand, Tamilians form one of the largest single communities across the Andamans, but its quite easy to see a common bonhomie creeping into day to day dealings. Regarding the Tsunami, the impact is all pervasive- as we drove past Marine Drive , Adarsh pointed to an island just off the harbour which saved the main island from a rather severe impact, but as we progressed , the presence of a nascent dyke reminded us of the disaster which struck.

Corbyn cove was supposedly much more scenic- we were informed. The crescent shaped cove boasts of the Peerless Resort which is the only one which has an adjoining beach in Port Blair. The rooms were from a bygone era with wood panelling and the AC definitely creaked under the strain. The restaurant was brilliantly lit and had a very pleasant decor and we headed out after a short period of settling in.

The aquarium was the first point to visit and was remarkable for the lack of anything living in its premises. Most of the display items were formalin dipped specimens which seemed picked from some bountiful catch from the harbour near by. Next we headed out to the eponymous Cellular Jail. T

he jail to a large extent is the raison-d-etre for the islands to be a part of India. 1857 and the associated bloodbath gave the British cause to establish a penal colony which offered little scope for revolutionaries to even dream of resuming activities which were inimical to the cause of the colonial government. Viper island was one of the first to host a prison and a rather eerie gallow. The cellular jail is by design a monstrosity. Wings of cells flanked by workshops which were meant to drain the very life-blood of the jails inmates and to top it all a gallows which reminded the prisoners of a rather bleak fate to seal the misery. The prison itself was built with prison labour and in its current avatar as a museum with an adjoining hospital still provides for a view of Ross island , North Bay and the adjoining sea. Prison escape meant death by hunger or being killed by the tribals who resided in the adjoining islands. The guide filled us in on the details and knowing we were Tamil, explained that he was a 2nd generation resident of the island although he quickly slipped back into Hindi as the choice of language. Snippets in between the historical tour explained the source of frustration amongst the youth - no great sources of education in the islands and of course a fairly limited set of options for employment outside the tourism industry.

We moved on to the Chatham mills which is one of the largest saw mills in Asia and actually occupies an entire island. The saw mills by itself wouldn't rank very high on a tourist route, but we had time to kill and the saw mill boasted of an anthropological museum. The saw mill is still active, though the equipment seems to be a legacy of the past. The local wood is of extremely high quality and Patauk is the local wood which apparently boasts of a quality better than teak. The Patauk tree is the state tree of the Andamans and seems to grow to prodigious heights. After a tour of the sawing and cutting we managed to check out the "museum" which also had some samples of the handicraft of the region. Lunch had just preceded the tour of the mill and the heat and the torpor was getting to me, given that we had headed out pretty much on the day of arrival. Adarsh seemed hell bent on showing us each and every nook and corner of Port Blair and we visited a naval museum called Samudrika next, which had some interesting pictures and a fantastic collection of shells and corals.I was drooping off in the car , while Adarsh rather determinedly drove off towards a sunset point that he swore by. We drove on for an hour past villages and I could barely snatch the name of the place as I kept drooping off. Chidiyatapoo as the name suggests is a birdwatchers paradise and is also to be the location of the new zoo which is to be hosted on much larger premises. But we were to be treated to something special as we ducked and wove between rather tall trees and headed to a rather secluded beach. The impact of the Tsunami was visible - tall trees had been felled and lay on the shore providing a spectacular set of frames for a fantastic sunset. The silence was awesome and as the yellows changed to red morphing into inky blue a sign by the beach warned about crocodiles!!! The rest of the day was a blur

Port Blair is a part of the largest islands in the Andamans, belonging to the South Andamans. Divided by a small strait form the Middle Andamans, Port Blair to the northernmost tip on the North Andamans is about 350 kms , with Diglipur being one of the northernmost towns in the island. The Lower Andamans is about 3 hours by boat and the Nicobar islands are much farther south. Settlements exist in most of the major islands with some of them earmarked as protected for tribes like the Sentinelese.

We decided on a day long tour for day two and found ourselves on a barge of sorts with 200 other folks with 3 spots on the itinerary. Ross island was the first and its about 15 minutes across a narrow channel which divides Ross from Port Blair. Ross has an out-sized historical reputation as compared to its size and it could be easily covered in a days leisurely walk. We had about 2 hours to spare and found ourselves looking through the old buildings which still pockmarked the island. The naval authorities restrict the usage of plastics on the island and its maintained in a rather reasonable state. A dilapidated church, an officers mess an old bakery bear witness to better days gone by where Ross was the focal point of the administration of the islands. The beach on Ross island is just over the hill which the church is built on and is nothing short of being spectacular. Coconut palms line the white sands, and in the early afternoon against the blue backdrop, the effect was simply spectacular. Ross was a delight and we next headed to Viper island , which took a good hours travel by the ferry. Viper is a disappointment as it neither is as spectacular as Ross in terms of old buildings, but it doesn't have much to boast of from a perspective of beaches. Viper is known for its notorious history of being the site for the first set of gallows in the penal colony. Lord Mayo's assassin who was a Wahhabi radical called Sher Ali. The guide went into a diatribe invoking a sense of patriotism which successfully landed him with money.

It was getting hot and we had North Bay island on the agenda next. This sounded promising as it boasted of a glass bottom boat ride followed by a session of snorkeling. The ferry parked a good distance away from North Bay and we had to wait an hour before we got our turn on the glass bottom boat which revealed the corals below for a sum total of 5 minutes. Though the dip in the water and the sights of the coral were refreshing, 200 desperate folks milling in the shallow waters partly ruined the experience. Sunset saw us getting back to Port Blair. The day had been exhausting and the experience was decidedly mixed.

Day 3 was Wandoor which lies to the South West of Port Blair and is hardly 45 kms away from Port Blair. Wandoor boasts of the Rajiv Gandhi marine sanctuary from where boat rides go on to the Jolly Buoy island which is an hour by boat from the Wandoor jetty. Adarsh had arranged for the permits earlier and we managed to thankfully get a less crowded, though equally unruly company as the previous day. The marine park has a series of uninhabited islands covered by a green canopy of tall trees and fringed by shallow beaches. Though I couldn't spot any - the marine park boasts of a reasonable salt water crocodile population. Jolly Buoy was reached in the promised time and did not disappoint. The beach was remarkably clean and the waters revealed a million shades of blue. What shook me up was a rather stupid attempts at taking my son out for a swim and we were assailed by a rather strong current which took some effort to overcome. Shaken, I spent the rest of the afternoon on the beach chastising myself for my stupidity. The corals though were tackled by a separate trip in a glass bottomed boat, which revealed them in all their splendour. Orange sea anemones , blue clams interspersed by schools of vividly colored fish , in a turquoise backdrop. A brief squall , had us scurry for cover and by 1:00 we were heading back to Wandoor. We stayed at the Sea Princess hotel at Wandoor which is located just off the beach- and what a spectacular beach it was. The beach is expansive and offers complete solitude if the rather sparse tourist population is discounted for. Wandoor offers a day long boat ride to other beaches which boast of beautiful coral reefs. We chose a sunset ride and headed back to the hotel. We had to check out by 10:30 in the morning and though the hotel was beautifully decorated and landscaped, the rooms were a bit poorly maintained with rather dim lighting, though the hotel staff more than compensated with a very helpful attitude. We took an early morning boat ride before heading back to Port Blair and this is where the planning had started to unravel a bit - we had planned too many layovers at Port Blair and we had a day to while at Port Blair.

We chose to make a trip to Mount Harriet which can be accessed by a ferry ride from Chatham island. Though the ferry was jam packed and it was quite a hurry getting on board the ferry, Mount Harriet though is well worth the drive up. You pass by a monument which bears testimony the spot where Sher Ali managed to stab Lord Mayo and then the road ascends rather steeply up.

Mount Harriet is the second highest point in the Andamans and is a good 3-4 degrees cooler than the surrounding islands. The view of North Bay island is panoramic and Mount Harriet boasts of a decent trekking trail to the lighthouse, though that would be a day long affair. The ride back was tiresome with the smoke from the ferry and the glaring sunlight causing a headache. We experimented for lunch by going to a South Indian mess run by a Tamil resident with roots in Chettinad. Though the surroundings could make one queasy, the food was delicious. Again the afternoon left some time to spare. We went for the a sound and light show at the Cellular jail in the evening and and the surprisingly the show was very well orchestrated, giving a sense of the pathos of the jail inmates, though for all the cruelty that the British displayed in their stint in the Andamans, the Japanese in their brief stay managed to outdo the British with their summary executions of the local populace. The jail duly fell into disrepair after the war and never assumed its ominous bearing again. Three wings and the central tower survive. The museum had a gem of a clipping from a newspaper dated 15th Aug 1947 - The Telegraph. The gushing of pride of the birth of an Independent India interspersed with advertisements of soaps which congratulated Indians was quite astonishing. The Andamans bears witness to the heavy cost at which the Independence was earned.

Baratang lies about 85 kms to the north of Port Blair and is notable for its mangroves and the limestone caves which dot the area. Baratang lies in the middle Andamans and is separated from the South Andamans by a rather narrow channel.Getting to Baratang requires one to drive through the Jarawa forest reserve which has specified times for the crossing. Though the Jarawas are not any more known to be hostile, interactions have not always had desirable results and though the encounters have not been violent , per Adarsh , some of the tribals have been known to have stopped cars with demands for food and clothing. Cars have to be at a designated point at specific times and are lumped together in a posse which is flanked by security personnel and the caravan hurtles through the forest area. We managed to spot several of the tribals and most of them looked to be in a rather jolly state interacting with the road workers who were conducting repairs. Though the ride was bumpy and a bit nauseating, the forest itself was fairly beautiful with tall trees providing a dense canopy. The forest is bereft of any large predator species though snakes abound. An hour and a half later we were at the jetty which had the ferry for Baratang. Baratang by itself was rather un-spectacular.

The roads were very basic and the route to the Mud Volcano, which was our first destination was riven with potholes. We stopped at a point and trekked up a hill till we reached the rather anti-climactic mud volcano. Mud Volcanos are actually quite a contrast to a lava burst that gushes out of the earth. Its a rather slow trickle of cold mud that could be easily missed except for the slight spurt of bubble and the rather ugly mess that they create around the trickle. Even though the emissions seem to be of a fine clay, the chemical composition is inimical to plat life. The resort was a short distance away and a lunch order took over an hour and we were soon headed off to Parrot island for the sunset. Parrot island is a god forsaken island in the middle of nowhere and is actually a mangrove clump which has been mowed into shape by thousands of parrots which congregate here at sunset. We got a motorboat at the Baratang jetty and cruised out into the deep backwaters that was lined with mangrove islands. Our boatman was a 3rd generation settler from Andhra and had never been able to visit his village in the mainland. We drove on for a good 20 minutes and parked by a rather non-descript mangrove island. An hours wait in the quiet waters pockmarked by arrivals of other tourist boats and a conversation of native crocodiles and the never ending journey to the mainland (trips in bad weather have been known to take 5-6 days). As the sun set, schools of parrots descended on the island. Sadly the island has been seeing a depletion in numbers over the years because of tourists disturbing the peace by throwing stones at the island to cause a flight of the parrots. The day ended with a beautiful sunset and as with many other destinations, it was the journey rather than the destination which had been notable.

Morning saw us rushing through breakfast (the rush being totally one sided , with the hotel staff taking their own sweet time). We were headed to the limestone caves which was one of the high points of the area. The journey again was by boat and we were packed like sardines into a boat which was much slower than the one which took us to the parrot island. About 45 minutes got us into an inlet which was the point from where we trekked to the caves. The island had a few fields and a small village with a few homes. Plastics and cigarettes were strictly verboten. The walk was for about 3 kms both ways and we walked through thick vegetation and reached the caves which were dark and with some of the guides shining a torch, the stalagmites and stalactites were visible. The area boasts a series of limestone caves , but this was the only one opened up to tourists (thank god for small mercies). A bunch of local residents had set up a shack offering a rather refreshing lemonade. A few glasses were downed with gusto and we were on the way back to the jetty and heading back to Port Blair. While returning we noticed the government trucks throwing out sachets at the Jarawas and Adarsh clarified that it included beetle leaves and a few other goodies that the Jarawas looked forward to. Baratang had been tiresome on the whole and another day was whiled away on the hotel lobby. Havelock was next

If the sole purpose of your trip to the Andamans is escapist with beautiful beaches and tourist shacks, Havelock should by far be able to leave the toughest of converts speechless. We had booked the itinerary from Bangalore and the ferry was paid for, but we had chosen the government ferry. With a lot of urging from Adarsh we found ourselves upgrading ourselves to the Macruzz which is a much more modern ferry than the rather traditional govt. ship. Per Adarsh, untold luxury awaited us on the ship with a restaurant and a much faster journey to Havelock. The boat was impressive and seemed to be well laid out, big glass windows opened up into the wide ocean. The boat picked up speed and within an hour the gentle sway of the ocean ensured that there was a huge queue of blue faced passengers outside the toilets. Havelock was reached in 2 hours as promised and the disembarking was largely eventless. We proceeded to the Wild Orchid where we were to stay and it was a quaint little hotel with cottages. A cosy restaurant was adjoining the rooms. But the killer was the beach. A coconut tree frame marked the edge of the hotel which opened up into the beach. It was afternoon and the tide was high and so was the sun. The water looked blue and perfect for a swim. I waded in with Chetan and the shallow went on for a good 500 meters into the sea.

The water was crystal clear and fishes darted about the feet, though after a while Chetan chose to ride on my back and fatherhood became a bit weary. The beach stretched for miles on either side and the shutter-bug in me felt a thrill go down my spine. Havelock boasted about 40 km of a coastline and had 3 beaches that were highly recommended. Radhanagar beach lay on the west , and Vijaynagar and Kala-patthar beach lay on the eastern side. The island was very different in character from the rest of the Andamans, and resembled a tourist haven like Goa. Vijaynagar beach had a series of shacks along the beach as it offered the best access to the beach. We headed to the Radhanagar beach for the first evening. Radhanagar beach had been voted as one of the best beaches in Asia by one of the noted travel magazines and the rating had played its role in getting the beach a reasonable share of tourists. The beach is outstanding though and offers a fantastic blending of the adjoining woods and the beach. Its like looking at nature with a wide angle lens. A stream trickled down from the adjoining woods, and for a change this beach boasted of waves of a respectable size (there were no adjoining islands which stemmed the waves). A normal sunset and we ushered back to the resort for a rest. We woke early in the morning and headed out to the beach for a view of the sunrise and the beach was virtually bereft of water. The tide was low and the shore had moved out by a good distance. Afternoon saw us heading out to try the diving session that was on offer. The sum was hefty (about 3000 per person) though there seemed to be a lot of equipment to handle. We clad body suits and headed out on a dingy to the diving spot, which took a good 45 minutes by boat. The diving instructor gave us a 15 minute 101 course on diving and with a leaded belt and a cylinders of oxygen on my back I was away. The sea bed had a few corals and the instructor led me towards it , within a few meters of depth I could feel a severe pain in the ears, headed back up and back again into the water.

The coral had fishes darting through them and the instructor carried an underwater camera to record my sojourn in all its splendor. A christmas dinner was being hosted at the resort and boasted atrocious prices per plate, so we headed out to a nearby German bakery to sample the tourist fare. On offer was a dazzling array of Indian, Italian, Israeli and Middle eastern cuisine, all served at remarkable prices. The cook and the waiter were woken up and we placed the order which took a good hour to prepare. The fare was reasonable , with the hummus actually quite excellent. Elephant bay was our next destination and it offers one of the best locations for snorkeling in the Andamans. We headed back to the Havelock harbor and piled into a noisy boat which was to take us to Elephant bay. Elephant bay was a good hour round the southern tip of Havelock and I could swear my eardrums were perforated by the sound from the boat by the time we reached Elephant bay. The beach was streaked with felled trees which lent it a rather picturesque aura. We headed into the waters and were guided through the coral reef in a snorkeling session. Though the corals weren't spectacular, inky blue clams pock marked the ocean floor with fish teeming in the waters. The return journey included a trip into the adjoining mangroves next to the jetty and thankfully for a brief 5 minutes the motor was switched off to unveil a welcome silence. It had been 3 days since we had landed in Havelock and it had been well worth the trip. One last beach beckoned. The Kala-patthar beach lies to the south of Vijaynagar beach and we hired a scooter to visit it. The resorts peter off after a while and the rather empty roads skirt the thick woods on one side and the beach on the other. The beach is rocky as per the name and was empty, the sea changing to shades of darker blue with a tinge of orange as the sun headed down. The next two days would be a rush of bag packing cars and a final flight back to Chennai, but for the moment camera in hand with shell crabs offering an infinite variety of subjects, skirting waves and racing Chetan down the beach the tyranny of the clock had ended.

The redness of the sky at seven

Or seeing the milky way at eleven

With a little stretch of faith and belief

A golden mount or a coral reef

Are but portals to heaven

Shooing the monsoon in - Book in hand

2009-10-02T20:51:00.000-07:00

Bangalore had been through a rather odd dry spell and it did look like the climate doomsayers had been right all the while, damn it I was feeling guilty about leaving the fan on after passing out on the drawing room floor after binge drinking. What to do, the mosquitoes at home were remarkably persistent scaling apartment floors with remarkable alacrity. A long weekend was due and a trip out of town very much on the cards. Remarkably after 35 years I still had been able to retain a rather limited range of entertainment- books (or rather the presence of them), movies (this is genetic, my father regaled me with tales of how he watched "Dil Deke Dekho" 35 times), music . travel and photography- period. Could never quite break into the Haiku writing intelligentsia. Nevertheless 5 sources can be permuted in a random order and unique experiences generated. So this cookbook of a unique experience includes 2 ingredients, a trip to Masinagudi in the monsoons and a book - the Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears, dark gloominess is a common theme.The book is set in England sometime in the 17th century, this is a rather unfamiliar England- extremely prejudiced, dull, dark and dirty. The book begins with the memoirs of an Italian nobleman, who visits the town of Oxford, apparently in the pursuit of Science and is admitted into an eclectic group of intellectuals. Friendships and acquaintances follow which after a chain of events (including early experiments with blood transfusion) leads to a murder and the conviction of a certain Sarah Blundy. Sarah belongs to a family of revolutionaries who fought against royalists , and in the era of a king is an easy scapegoat, being already relegated to the status of a pariah. The nobleman's account ends with Sarah slinging.

Masinagudi is a good 250+ kilometres away from Bangalore and Mysore happens to be the point from which a good 3 hours on the Ooty road gets you to the destinat

ion. Good bright sunshine (what else) when we started reasonably early , the usual customary stop for breakfast at Chennapatna (the range keeps increasing every trip I have made). Mysore was arrived at without much ado and we swung onto the Ooty highway to be pretty much immediately get jammed in a tree cutting exercise which held up traffic both ways. A good 30 minutes of wait by the roadside meant that it was bound to be a late lunch. The road got interesting as we cleared the towns that hugged the road for the next hour, and pretty soon the first hints of the monsoon clouds were visible and then the landscape turned lush. Masinagudi is a small town wedged deep in the Mudumalai sanctuary and the approach from Karnataka involves crossing the Bandipur reserve. The Mysore-Ooty road is a rather busy road which cuts across a rather deep forest area. 2 hours from Mysore and we could now see the clouds looming over the hills of Ooty in the distance. We passed Masinagudi and a few kilometres later pulled into the village of Bokapuram and our destination resort.

The Instance of the Fingerpost has a remarkable construct of multiple narratives each one introducing a set of red herrings but at the same time revealing additional aspects that shed a new light on the series of events that lead to Sarah's hanging. The second in the narrative is by a young man Prestcott slowly degenerating into lunacy. Obsessed with the single minded goal of clearing his father's name of treachery, his quest lifts the lid on a can of worms viz. court intrigues and nefarious schemes hatched. The second part is like lack ink permeating the narrative. Prestcott quite deliberately gets Sarah implicated.

The resort was damp from overnight rain and the rooms we got had a chill in the air. After a rather late lunch I set out exploring.

A stream was running right next to our cottage and thankfully the fallen vegetation prevented slush all over the area. The website for the resort had advertised a bunch of trekking options which I was rather keen on using. But much to my disappointment the trekking routes had been marked off limits, as a few weeks back a French lady trekking to a nearby temple had been chased down and killed by a bull elephant. So the next item on the agenda was a visit to the elephant feeding point on the edge of the forest. It was drizzling by the time we reached and the ticket point was a brief walk away from the feeding point. We rather grudgingly trekked in the rain to the counter and headed back to the feeding points. A shed hosted mounds of rice , ragi and jaggery with placards clearly marking the elephant which was to be the benefac

tor of the meal. Slowly one by one each of the elephants trudged to the feeding shed.

Bells around the neck, they swayed away imploring the mahouts to deliver the goods quickly. The local forest officer was due to visit and the feeding was held up slightly for the VIP visit. Tus

kers and females had crowded around and soon we were outnumbered by these benign giants. Some of them scratched their hind quarters against a wooden stake while the tourists were grinning away. Suddenly with great gusto the mahouts started mixing the rice, jaggery and ragi into a huge pile and carried this mountain of food and stuffed it into the elephants wide open mouth. The procedure was repeated over and over till all the elephants were fed. I noticed a wild boar in the distance watching this rather curious sight. Darkness fell rather quicky and we headed back to the resort. The next section of the book beckoned.

The third section of the book turns even darker. The narrative is now helmed by a Dr Wallis who plays the part of a spy of sorts. He nurtures a rather visceral hatred for the Italian nobleman who has visited the town of Oxford and all his efforts are out to trap him. We are introduced to the political intrigues of the court, the rise and fall of the Spanish influence. The mystery builds up well from here- what's the crux of the book? Its no longer just a whodunit - there are much more powerful forces at work.

A late night reading session meant I wasnt going to get to sunrise anyway. After breakfast we walked to a nearby temple which was a kilometer away . The road was lined with resorts all along and finally yielded to thick vegetation above which the Nilgiris rose majestically. A dirt road seemingly led to nowhere. Since the treks were limited we earmarked a trip to the village next. The village was inhabited by the Irullas - one of the Nilgiri tribes, and remarkably spoke neither Tamil or Kannada . A route from the village led to a temple on the hill, and we had been forewarned that this was the route that the tourist had been killed. Post tea we had signed up for a night safari pretty much along the same highway that we had come by. As the sun set and we embarked, the driver pointed us toa bull elephant blissfully grazing away near the road. I have seldom seen a murderer move about with as much disdain as this bull elephant did. The forests were pitch dark by the time we entered and the jeep lights were pretty much what we had to see. A rustle of leaves would mean the driver quickly performing a series of awkward maneuvers post which we would pretty much find a pair of eyes reflecting the headlights. A herd of elephants , a Gaur (huge and remarkably muscular) , a bear , wild rabbits were what we got to see. Remarkably except for the rabbits, each of these species were known to have killed and the miserable jeep was all that separated us from peril.

Its the last section of the book that lifts the veils that shroud the mysteries of the book. The narrator this time is a historian in the town of Oxford. A person of ridicule in every other narrative, we discover that appearances can be deceptive. Meticulously he managed to get to the root of what Sarah is all about, in turn falling hopelessly in love with her. Sarah's hanging has more than what meets the eye , but what's more intriguing is the revelation of the true purpose of the Italian nobleman. Religion does strange things to people. The book was brilliant to say the least, weaving in fact and fiction beautifully, Iain Pears enters my list of favorites.

We left the resort early and were seeking to get back home as early as possible in the evening.

We had earmarked two additional stop over points - one at Gopalswamy bettah , which was on the way and Somnathapur which boasted of a temple with Hoysala architecture (Belur and Halebeedu are stellar examples). Gopalswamy bettah is embedded within the Bandipur sanctuary and is remarkably beautiful , the temple of Krishna lies on a mountain top which was covered by clouds.The deity was covered by white butter and decorated with flower petals , and the temperature was low enough to prevent the butter from melting. But even more remarkable is the surrounding view of the grasslands dissolving into the mist on the Nilgiris side. The other side of the mountain unveiled the monsoons over clouds over the plains (none of my pics have been able to capture the awe inspiring view that this entails). The monsoons were here.

The delightful Mysore Dussehra train lay parked near the Kabini river on the way back. After lunch we headed to Somnathpur. We lost our way and it took us a good hour to get to the temple which was supposed to be 30 kms. The approach to the temple had been through some of the lushest fields that I had seen till date - sugarcane , rice fields, coconut groves - Mandya seemed rich. The journey was becoming tiresome and though the temple was delightful I wasn't particularly concerned when the driver got us home almost killing a few other drivers on the way.

While the book and the monsoon clouds over the plains are etched in my memory , the remarkable memory of the trip, were the placards bearing the names of the elephants over their feed- Raamu , Rehman and Robert (and a bunch of more motley groups). While these elephants of an uncommon faith munched blissfully on their treats , I seemed to have found the last refuge of innocence.

Four Gamas in the land of Lamas

2009-09-20T01:20:00.000-07:00

Pot-holes to Shangri-La

“Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things - air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky - all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.” - Cesare Pavese

It was quite he anti-thesis of a journey that we had set out to have- stuck in traffic with a road choked with traffic fumes, dilapidated trucks wheezing, our driver had surrendered to fate. This was Rohtang and the scene was what all of us were supposed to have left behind in our respective home towns. The journey looked imperiled at the very start.

The trip was about 6 months in "planning" or rather 5 months of dreaming and about a month of getting an itinerary done and realizing that we were actually going to do it. After a motley mix of trekking, monastery visits and some time off to meditate , we four college mates with no more convincing reason than a self-endowed mid-life crisis were about to

set off on a trip to Ladakh. The start date crept on me suddenly and deep inside there was a fear that something was bound to go wrong and I'd be booking a return flight from Delhi (which was the rendezvous point) the moment I landed. I was the last of the threesome to meet at the airport. I dutifully lost the fare token for the taxi that we hired and we coughed up double the fare with the rest of the gang muttering at me under their breaths. Sushobhan Panda was hosting us for the night before we winged off early in the morning and expectedly we didn't sleep through the night, binged on food. Bleary eyed we made our way to the rather unheard off MDLR airlines counter for the flight to Manali.

The traffic was inching its way to the top, the snow was blackened by the fumes. The drops seemed to be precipitous

. I had a splitting head ache by now and was gasping for breath. We had been doing this for the last 5 hours now and no end was in sight.

Someone from the airlines ground staff had given us a good look and felt that 2 of us could be upgraded to fist class which meant that gave us some bragging rights for the rest of the trip. The plane soared over ice capped mountains and through the bright sunshine and the trance induced by the lack of sleep the sights were downright majestic. Bhuntar airport in Manali would rank by far as one of the most scenic airports ever experienced. The plane wings squeezes itself into a valley and houses on hilltops seem to be in touching distance. For a good five minutes you are in suspended disbelief, under the impression that you are landing in a river, and the aircraft barely skirts the rather lively Beas before it touches down in Bhuntar. I could have burst into applause

We were inching upwards now , but it seemed hopeless , the line of trucks seemed endless, the message had been relayed down that a truck had broken down and the army was helping fixing it, we were fated for a long crawl

We made short shrift of the baggage check out and we found our car without any further ado. The driver dutifully informed us that we would have to hurry a bit to get to Sarchu , which was our stop-over for the night. We grabbed a rather hurried

breakfast on the way at a dhaba, a board indicated that Rohtang was a measly 52 kms away. The landscape was remarkable. Trees lined hills all around us and there were a bunch of iced capped mountains to provide a rather magical backdrop to the otherwise humble setting of a roadside dhaba. We were climbing soon and in an hour hi our first roadblock. The driver tried to get ahead of a line of parked cars , but we were blocked by a posse of determined Sardars who refused to let us pass. We got down and walked at times and in brief spurts we finally reached the final climb into Rohtang pass.

We were moving a bit more rapidly now, after a good 8 hours on the road, were speeding on a moonscape of a road towards the pass itself. There were trucks parked on the side of the road deferring the descent into Manali for the next day, but there was a sense of elation , we were free at last.

If I were to rank the top moments of the trip, crossing Rohtang would be one of the most exhilarating. It’s a moment of reckoning when you leave a wounded civilization behind and enter a pristine landscape of iced peaks flanked by grasslands. The road became increasingly miserable, but by now our cares were blowing in the wind. Sheep grazed, streams fell on the road and deep down in the valley , the river Chandrabagha was busy chiseling away at the grandeur of a glorious valley.

With sights and scenes that brook no equals

Enough to raise the hair on the epidermal

Take a pause

There's enough cause

Before u get there , please pack your thermals

Our schedule by now was hay-wire. It was five in the evening and Sarchu was a good 100 kms away. We fancied our chances but Raju our driver cautioned us that we needed fuel, and the only depot was at Keylong which lay on the way. Raju dropped broad hints about changing the schedule and stopping over at Keylong rather than p

ressing on to Sarchu. We resisted thinking that it was a ploy to grab some rest, but we had wearied a lot and by the time we had reached the fuel depot (which rather gloomily stated that it was the last one before we got to Leh) we had surrendered to a nights halt at Keylong. Keylong is encircled by hills and is located in a deep valley. Winters cut this town off from the rest of the world completely, with supplies and transport only possible via a helicopter service. We managed to get a decent nights stay at a lodge owned by the gent who was to put us up at Sarchu. 2 pegs of rum and a hot dinner ushered us into a good nights sleep. The morning found all of us in excellent spirits; the chimes of the clock seemed to lose its significance. We had surrendered to the sights and sounds around us. Every hairpin bend offered us a startling vista of river valleys that seemed to merge into a mountain in the distance. We

chugged along, Leh seemed to be do-able by late evening but then "the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray".

We crossed a rather scenic Devtal, which was a pond in the middle of nowhere. Someone had lugged a paddleboat to this place. We came to a grinding halt at Patsio. What lay ahead of us was the Baralancha-La, which seemed to have been blocked out because of another truck accident (needless to say truck drivers weren't very popular with us). The army camp at Patsio had blocked the onward traffic to Baralancha till the accident got cleared. Nobody seemed to know exactly how long the procedure was going to take and we just wandered off from the camp.

The scenery was breathtaking; a river ran through the back of the camp. A glacier clung onto the hill nearby. A few hours were easily dealt with. Somewhere on the climb into Rohtang, we had tucked in a bottle of Vodka and for some reason P

atsio seemed to be just the spot to partake of some moonshine. Mixed with

some bottles of bitter lemon soda, suddenly the landscape seemed surreal. Woodstock should have been at Patsio. There were a bunch of bikers - a class for whom by now our admiration had turned into reverence. The army canteen was able to dish out some measly Maggi and some cakes, which were past their use-by dates.

Four hours had passed by and finally a grudging army opened the gates to pass the camp. The next few hours could be described as a slow torture. The oxygen levels started declining with the ascent, the Vodka started kicking in and with every stop over to negotiate the onward traffic from Leh, the petrol fumes conspired to give me the migraine of a lifetime. But tantalizingly Baralancha-La is a one of its kind spectacular beauty. The snow was abundant and we were in a circle of mountains and the surroundings rather bright white. It was already late in the afternoon and we had pulled back on our plans to get to Leh by the evening.

We were targeting Pang, which lay a

few hours past Sarchu. The landscape by now was bereft of any greenery; a few mosses here and there were defying the harsh weather. An hour before sunrise saw us in Sarchu. Sarchu is a remarkable plateau which is the last point in Himachal Pradesh. We wanted to move on but were again held back at the check-post. Pang is not recommended as a stop over point as the oxygen levels drop to dangerously low levels in the night. We had to camp at Sarchu. The stay at Sarchu would rank as one of the worst ever. It was freezing cold, the Molotov cocktail (Vodka and Petrol) were rather well shaken and stirred in me and I couldn't gather myself enough to even trudge down to the tent. Two of us were down and out; the remaining two were hopping about in gay abandon (no prizes for guessing which of the two had partaken of hooch on the way). The wind was whistling away outside the tent and even 4 layers of warm blankets couldn't keep out the cold. Dinner was swallowed and an extremely fitful sleep followed. I shook myself out of my misery at 4:30 and stood outside the tent screaming at the remaining two who were snoring away in a shapeless mound of mattresses in the neighboring tent. Reluctantly we all managed to rouse the driver and a hot cup of tea later we were passing the arches which welcomed us into the state of Jammu and Kashmir. I was feeling like hell, but somehow the end seemed near

Pang boasts of the highest army outpost in the world and the heart goes out to the Indian army, the roads are maintained by the engineering corps called Himank. Between Sarchu and Pang we had crossed rather steep ascents and the spotted green plateau of Sarchu was replaced by steep dirt and ice mountains. We had seen some native goats on the way and wearily I could feel some warmth returning to he bones with the rising sun. Breakfast at Pang brought back all the misery. Rotis hemmed in a half cooked omelet which sort of set off a revolt in the stomach. Misery was here to stay - bad food. Pang is followed up by a remarkable experience. A flat 50 km long, lonely as can be, dust desert as flat as a pancake. We were hurtling towards Tanlang-la, the second highest motorable pass in the world. Poor sleep, and a bad breakfast had made everyone in the car rather irritable and there were intermittent acts of sheer meanness (not forsaking the window seat etc.). Tanlang-la was the epitome of misery. I fell out of the car to take a few pictures and found each step a venture in compounded misery. Encouragingly there were reports of a death a day before of a child who had died of oxygen deprivation in these terrible heights. Tanlang-la seemed to be the turning point. The mood visibly changed as we descended into the foothills. Raju was visibly cheerful now and as we crossed a meadow full of Yaks grazing by a stream the trip was glorious again (oh! how brave of us to cross the high passes).

We were approaching Upshi now and we had the first glimpse of the Indus. It was as abrupt as that, no fancy announcements, just this rather ordinary looking stream (emerald green) daintily flowing away, which over the ages had cradled the identity of our nation. We stepped down to the river to soak in the moment. Varanasi was the common thread for the four of us and we were once again bonded by a stop by a river.

The cell phone signals crept back into one of the phones and we had lost a day in the schedule. Raju was due to drop us and head back. We headed straight to the hotel which hadn’t written us off. We shook hands with the driver and bid him goodbye (he was due to head back home on the same route- god bless him). The sky above was a sparkling blue and there was bright sunshine around. We had the afternoon to ourselves and as the day wound down each of us had been through the drive of a lifetime. Ladakh held a lot of promise...

I see skies of blue

And Clouds of white

The bright blessed day

And the dark sacred night

And I think to myself

What a wonderful world

Louis Armstrong

An Exit off the silk route

“When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable.” - Clifton Fadiman

Leh is a small town, small enough area wise to cover the main market in a matter of a few hours. Typical of any tourist town, it’s got the hip spirit about the main market with Kashmiri fabric stalls jostling with the Ladakhi populace to vie for attention. German bakeries flank Tibetan Momo stalls and there are bargains galore. I had been nurturing a desire for a Thangka for a while now (coming to think of it I couldn't remember why).

Intricate gold paint on a canvas backdrop with dark blue and green shades, made the funkiest of wall hangings. Thangkas are much more than just that as I was about to learn (am still learning).

Leh 101 would constitute a walk up to the Leh palace which is modeled after the Potala palace albeit on a much smaller scale. You snake your way up a warren of lanes which adjoin the market and arrows drawn in chalk guide you through a short cut which essentially means it’s a lot steeper. The palace itself is in ruins and the board at the ticket counter dates the building to the 16th century AD. The views that the palace offered of the town were breathtaking. The architecture is typical of all major monasteries that we were about to visit, stories of building built on isolated high cliffs with mud bricks, mud plaster, wooden rafters and poplar wood. Built by the Namgyal dynasty (whose line continues with the current set of rulers installed at Stok palace), the palace was abandoned when a Dogra general defeated the native Ladakhi army. Ladakh we read was more than half Buddhist, with Muslims constituting a major chunk of the other half. But except for the mosque in Leh, we hardly came across any prominent prayer houses for any other faith apart from Buddhist. Buddhism was brought to Ladakh from Kashmir as early as the second century AD and replaced the local Bon religion (which still has influences on local practices). As with every religious synthesis, local customs prevailed on the large scale diffusion and Ladakh practices a form of Mahayana Buddhism called Vajrayana which is a more orthodox version than what came through from Tibet. Though complex in terms of rituals, the Tantric influence comes across strongly in practices and motifs that adorn most of the monasteries.

The first day in Ladakh we were fortunate to be invited to a dinner at the army mess hosted by a Colonel Vyas who gave us a rather quick validation of the tour that we were about to undertake. We started the monastery routine the next day with a trip to Lamayuru which lay 4 hours away by road to the west of Ladakh. We stopped first at the Phyang monastery which was established as long back as 1515 AD. Prayer stones lay all around though the monastery itself was fairly empty. We peeped into a few rooms to discover prayer scrolls lay out in fairly bare rooms. The monks passed us without any fuss. The terrace offered a fantastic view of the adjoining mountains and fields which typically adjoin a monastery. We headed on down the highway and stopped by the Patthar Sahib, which was a shrine revering Guru Gobind Singh's victory over a local demon during his missionary travels across India. We hit upon a local wonder called Magnetic hill. The hill as the name suggests is manifested with magnetic properties. Tourists park their vehicles in a neutral gear and are "pulled" towards the hill. We stopped a biker and much to our delight the experiment seemed to work with the biker coasting uphill. We left the biker to experience tariff free levitation and moved on. Somewhere over a cliff on the way, one can see the calm and turquoise blue little Indus merge with the raging, muddy Zanskar river post which the river seems take on a rather Zanskarish character. Seems tad unfair the river retains the name Indus. The implications strike that India would be called Zanskar and the world seems to be fine again. We crossed Uleytopko (which is where we were to camp for the night) and broke for lunch at a rather delightful spot next to a field. The packed lunch was insidious and the cause of much suffering by the time we reached Lamayuru. The approach to Lamayuru holds one more "attraction" for the tourist and it’s the moonscape on the hills that precede the monastery. The hills are covered by a loose golden soil formation that is pock-marked to resemble a moonscape. Lamayuru itself is one of the oldest and largest monasteries in Ladakh and offers a sight for sore eyes. Perched on a scraggy cliff, the one similarity to Phyang (Alchi being a notable exception) and all the other monasteries that we would see was the sense of aloofness. The valley below was green and lush. The shrine has a number of Thangkas , pictures of the Dalai Lama abound. Remarkably one of the rooms was lined with a number of cash offerings but strangely there was no one watching over. One of the walls revealed a cave where there was a sculpture representing Mahasiddhacharya Naropa, a 11th century Indian Buddhist scholar. Legend has it that the meditation led to crack in the mountain walls which freed up a lake in the valley. Prayer flags and prayer wheels lent a lot of color in the bright sunshine. An old lady walked around tantalizingly looking out for opportunities to be photographed and was mobbed by a group of foreigners who had just been through a monastery tour. We returned to Uleytopko where we were supposed to camp for the evening. The camp was on the banks of the Indus albeit not approachable since we were perched at a significant height. The tents were remarkably comfortable as compared to the one at Sarchu (an unfair comparison given the remote location of Sarchu).

We were to head back to Leh in the morning via a few more monasteries and we had Alchi ,Likir and Bazgo on the agenda. We headed to Alchi first. Alchi Gompa dates back to the year 1000 AD and was built by the Translator, Rinchen Zangpo, there are a few relics of the translator still available on site. Alchi is one of the few monasteries which aren’t as aloof as the rest. It’s a non-descript little monastery , resembling more a temple complex rather than a Buddhist sanctuary. Alchi remains special for its Indian influences as compared to the Tibetan influences on the rest of the monasteries. The main shrine had huge images of Buddha with a courtyard demonstrating a Rangoli. Genial monks ambled up to us while we were resting and offered us piping hot cups of milk tea. We ventured into the neighboring fields of wheat and mustard, vibrant in colors against the bright blue sky. The village seemed relatively prosperous with a school complex close by. We headed back towards Leh with the next scheduled stop at Bazgo. Bazgo is a world heritage site situated on a precipitous cliff with most of the site in ruins. It’s a photographer’s delight, colored prayer flags offering stark contrasts to the mud brick environs. The accompanying lush green fields and the windows opening up into wide blue skies.

Lunch break and we chatted up with our driver Untso who had been putting up with our ad-hoc requests (one trip to Da-Hanu was not accommodated). Leh could be terrible in winters with hardly any form of economic sustenance. Some of the folks migrated to the warmer climes to get jobs in other tourist destinations, but for most of the folks the months from April to September were the only months when there was any earning potential.

Likir was next on the route, and it’s slightly off the Leh-Kargil highway, again situated high up above a rather spectacular landscape. The monastery was framed against an ice clad mountain with a rather large Buddha adding to the typical monastery tiers. The name Likir means "The Naga - Encircled". The reason behind this naming of Likir Gompa of Ladakh is that it stands surrounded by the bodies of the two great serpent spirits, the Naga-rajas, Nanda and Taksako. A few monks stopped by to chat, sharing notes on their experiences back in the Indian plains. Likir boasts of a museum where one could buy a few charms (which were patterns of colorful thread around a piece of cardboard). The museum hosted a bunch of intricate Thangka’s from ancient times. Scrolls in the quaint native Ladakhi script were on display, - one a fund raising pamphlet from the Dalai Lama. Likir has a large role to play as an administering monastery , with a large number of subscribing monasteries being governed by Likir (including Alchi). We returned to Leh and did the rounds of the Thangka shops. Some of the Kashmiri owned shops proffered antique Thangkas and claimed that the age of the ownership was critical. The Ladakhi shop that we visited claimed that it was illegal to buy these antiques, nevertheless the Buddhist Thangka shop that we visited, displayed a bunch which was classified based on the skill of the artist. The Thangkas were typically made by Lamas who picked on some key themes like the wheel of life, ,Mandalas or the life of Buddha. Deciding on the one I was going to buy was left to the last day of the trip.

The next monastery we visited was Thiksey, on the way back from Pangong. Thiksey lies very close to Leh and boasts of a semi-official restaurant which lies at the foot of the monastery hill. The lunch was notable for the rather deliciously cold bottles of apple juice which we had along with the regular dal-roti. Experiments with a special vegetable Biryani resulted in a piping hot stew of rice in mixed veg and pineapples. Thiksey Gompa of Ladakh is situated at a distance of approximately 18 km from the town of Leh. One of the most beautiful monasteries of Ladakh, it belongs to the Gelukpa Order of Buddhism. Sherab Zangpo of Stod got the Thikse Monastery built for the first time, at Stakmo. However, later Spon Paldan Sherab, the nephew of Sherab Zangpo, reconstructed the monastery in the year 1430 AD. The new monastery was sited on a hilltop, to the north of Indus River. Thikse Monastery of Leh Ladakh houses a temple, known as Lakhang Nyerma. This temple, built by Rinchen Zangpo, the Translator, is dedicated to Goddess Dorje Chenmo. A huge temple in its time, today it stands mostly in ruins. Apart from this temple, there are a number of other sacred shrines inside the monastery complex. The monastery also has a rich collection of numerous valuable artifacts and ancient relics which are housed in a museum adjoining the temple. We were dog tired by now and we dragged ourselves to the Kargil martyrs museum which is surprisingly well presented and gives very detailed accounts of the numerous battles that have been fought at these heights.

Inevitably we were way too short on time to do justice to the entire set of displays, but some of the notable ones that stuck, were the display of the supplies that were used by the soldiers at Siachen. Imported cold suits , food items , climbing equipments give a sense of the terrifying conditions under which the soldiers operate. Back in Leh the hotel had organized a folk dance program which I rather reluctantly went to attend and it was a treat. Teams of men and womenfolk donned various attires and danced to the beats of a trumpet and a drum. There were at least 4-5 dances depicting the various different regions of Ladakh. The dance of the Chang-pa nomads, the beer dance depicting a riotous revelry which was performed with vessels of water balanced precariously on the dancers head (the original was supposedly done with beer which reduced the chances of any spillage), the dance of the brides which was performed with a headgear of turquoise and my favorite being the bird dance which was accompanied with a shrill melody from the ladies performing the dance. The steps were simple and remarkably elegant, this was quite clearly a highlight of the tour. For dinner, we savored a Kashmiri meal and a rather oily fare was produced by the staff of the Dreamland restaurant.

The last few monasteries that we visited were in Nubra. We had driven past the Khardung-la pass and had taken about 5 hours to reach Nubra from Leh (stopping over for a rather unpalatable lunch at a village on the way). The first stop that we made was at the Samsthanling Gompa , which looked rather modern in terms of its construction, as compared to the ancient monasteries that we had visited in the tour. The premise was virtually deserted and the main shrine had a series of murals and a host of large Thangkas which were hung up on the roof. A tad disappointed with our first spot in Nubra, we headed on to the Diskit Gompa which can be spied upon from a fair distance, given the height of its perch. The Diskit Gompa of Leh Ladakh dates back to the 14th century and owes its inception to Changzem Tserab Zangpo, a disciple of Tsong-kha-pa. At the heart of Diskit Monastery is an elevated cupola, which stands adorned with a beautiful fresco that illustrates the Tashilhunpo Gompa of Tibet.

There are a number of shrines inside the monastery's complex, like Kangyu-lang, Tsangyu-lang, etc. Also, hundreds of Mongolian and Tibetan texts have found their storehouse inside these temples. Diskit Gompa has quite an interesting legend attached to it. It is believed that a Mongol demon once lived here and was considered to be a sworn enemy of Buddhism. He was annihilated near the monastery.

However, even after his death, his body kept coming back to the monastery again and again. It is said that even today the wrinkled head and hand of the demon lie inside a temple of the monastery, which is filled with fierce Gods and Goddesses. One of the monks at Nubra had spent a considerable time at the Varanasi Sanskrit college and regaled us with some of the inter-monastery rivalry. A lot of the monks hitch a ride on the army provide airplanes at the onset of winter and head out to other Buddhist centers of learning in India , a large majority of which are concentrated in Karnataka. I stepped out to take a few pictures and uttered Jhuley to one of the monks who was mighty thrilled at a local greeting from an obvious tourist, some words in Kannada were garbled back, both of us grinning away at the sense of bonhomie.

Back from Nubra and I had to finally get around to the customary shopping that we needed to do before we headed back. T-shirts were easily procured, we had been recommended a store for jewelry and after a lot of scouting we had located one in the by-lanes where garnets and turquoise were obtained albeit after being jostled around by the rather aggressive army wives. Had saved the most for the Thangka purchase and finally after much ado , picked on a large 9 Mandala motif and a smaller one with scriptures on a black background both of which were rather on the expensive side. I was strutting around the marketplace with my prized possession. The trip was a success!!!!!

We had our fill of monasteries, but a major miss was the Hemis Gompa which is one of the major monasteries in the area. Another destination that we did make an honest attempt towards was Da-Hanu, which is a village populated by descendants from early Aryan nomads who accompanied a Mongol raid. The village was off bounds unless we had a permit. Ladakh had been a revelation, it could have been another world- so little had we in common with the community here. We felt proud to be Indians

“Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.” - Maya Angelou

On a Lake and a Valley

As the last rays of sunrise, faint

Lit the icy mountain tops quaint

To a traveller in these lonely parts

Surged a feeling from the heart

In a canvas that held the world

with green, brown and streaks of gold

This is where God began to paint

Tswang Dorje reported at 7:00 in the morning at the hotel and we were now seasoned by the Ladakhi climes. So after a heavy breakfast (pretty much a feature of the entire trip) we piled into the Qualis and headed off to Pangong lake. We had

just finished a few monasteries and had returned the day before from Ulyetopko.

Pangong was one of the highly recommended sights to soak in and was something we were looking forward to. As with all the other trips that we had been through as well as what we were about to experience, the road trip was half the experience and as we headed into the hills, the camera lenses popped out of the vehicle. Pangong Tso lies past the Chang La pass which was the 3rd highest motorable pass in the world (it somehow didn't seem to matter now) and some amazing meadows with streams running through them. An army set up on Chang La pass offered hot tea and it’s a welcome stop in the tour. Pangong Tso was as close to China as we would possibly get and it’s been a site of strife in the last Indo-China showdown.

It took us about 5 hours of a reasonably pleasant journey to get to the lake (notwithstanding a burning smell from the vehicle or a washed away bridge) and a mountain pass opened up to give us a brief glimpse of the lake. We gaped and did a double take. A thin sliver of blue cut the brown and ice mountains that set a fantastic backdrop to the lake. A few birds and a babble of tourists broke the otherwise perfect silence that shrouded us. We were booked into a shack a few miles down the lake shore and we stopped for a packed lunch. We got an additional passenger to the village that we were supposed to camp at. Jane (name obfuscated due to an early onset of Alzheimer’s) was 22 from Florida ,was on her fourth or fifth wild world trip and wearing her Jewishness on her sleeve. She had traveled into town from Pondicherry and was on her last leg of trip in India, had been staying up in the villages nearby meditating. Gawd, were we old!!!! somehow we seemed to have sprouted pot-bellies. The blues lasted exactly 15 minutes before we were again in a state of awe. We were put up right next to the lake in a tenement where the facilities were basic at best but seemed to be of five star quality just because of the location we were at. There was no running water in the toilets, and the water was freezing cold. We took the afternoon to walk beside the lake , each of us hiding away to listen to a personalized musical of the waves striking the pebbles on the shore. Harmony prevailed and the evening merged into a pitch black night. Ridiculous enthusiasm saw us walking towards the shore in the cold night and in the distance we could see a jeep heading towards the lake (seemed to be an army patrol trying to control incursions). Dinner was a simple affair , but quite apt.

A million shades of blue awaited. We woke up early trying to catch the first rays of sunshine and were rather disappointed that it was far from spectacular. Nevertheless as the sun ascended the lake changed from a dark deep blue to a shining gem like color. Sinha knew some folks in the army and we managed to get a ride on the lake which got us a glimpse of a rare pair of golden geese. Next to the lake we stared at a mound marked as Garnet Hill. We clambered out and stocked ourselves up with stones , most of us managed to get a garnet or two before we headed off. Jane stopped off at a village on the way and we headed back to Leh.

Tswang was to be our driver to Nubra Valley too and by now we had got a good handle of his musical taste courtesy the trip to Pangong. Since none of us had stocked up on CDs, we got around to humming the Ladakhi tunes that were fairly melodious. Tswang was an orphan brought up by his brother and hadn't got to good enough chance at a decent education, but he proved to be a remarkable guide. We had confided in him fairly late about a desire to savor a local brew and he promised us fulfillment at Nubra. Nubra valley is flanked by the Shyok and the Nubra river and is about the northernmost point in India that one can aspire to get to. Close to both the Chinese and the Pakistani line of control, the army museum at Leh has numerous stories of heroism where men barely past their teens defended the valley against an onslaught of the Pakistanis. The drive is through Khardung-La pass and it claims to be the highest motorable pass in the world. Seasoned by the 2nd , 3rd highest motorable passes in the world , this one seemed remarkably easy.

Nubra valley took another 3 hours and after 2 monasteries we were headed to the sands which boasted of camel rides on Bactrian camels.

The queues were long and the idea was disposed off and we headed to our resort which featured a series of tents set in a garden of flowers and vegetables. We ventured out in the evening to the Shyok river via a village where muddy haired children waved and shouted the customary Jhuley. We finally caught a sunset scene and while heading back Tswang ha 2 bottles of Chhang, a local brew (a rice beer which tasted like whey).

We eagerly quaffed the drink and lo and behold it got me feeling light for the rest of the evening. The drink put paid to any plans of going back to the river for sunrise and we were pretty much on our way back to Leh the next morning. Sometime the previous evening when we had gathered around the lazy river watching the sun go down, the realization crept in that we were over the hill now, most of the talk was about days gone by , marginally sprinkled with a few wisps of dreams that were still to be achieved. The chances of getting together, same crowd ?- snowball's chance in hell.

I landed in Bangalore with a large tube covering the Thangka I had purchased. As I taxied back home , the hoardings were familiar - one of them prominently conveying the benefits of door delivery of groceries- back to the machine.

“Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.” - Jack Kerouac

Sister Pelagia and the Black Monk- Boris Akunin

2009-08-04T07:51:00.000-07:00

Compared to the stellar standard set in the previous novel in the series this one was a let down. The characters tend to be difficult to relate to, the plot moves in fits and starts and some of the occurences seem downright contrived. The beginning is intriguing, dovetailing into the previous tale very well. The intriguing end of Sister Pelagia and the white bulldog is the beginning of the current part with a dishevled monk bringing in frightening tidings from the hermitage , which is an island off the town of New Ararat. There have been sightings of the ghost of the saint Basilisk seeming to place a curse on the hermitage. Our beloved reverend Mitrofanii seeks to intervene and appoints the rather mischievous Alexei Stepanovich to look into the matter. Stepanovich as we learn is the equivalent of an Ivy League drop out who has rather reluctantly turned to religion and dutifully lands up in an asylum at New Ararat post which the reverend is forced to send another trusted henchman to the task who in turn lands up murdered. Sister Pelagia contrives to work herself into the scheme of things. The asylum at New Ararat contributes a series of interesting individuals to the cast, and is run by a philanthrophist. Needless to say the ending does stitch together these rather confusing set of events, but it leaves a lot of unanswered questions too. Nevertheless there is a good twist to the tale for fans of the series.

Sister Pelagia and the White Bulldog- Boris Akunin

2009-08-04T07:46:00.000-07:00

Switching from the rather addictive series with a character like Erast Fandorin at the helm is difficult as a reader, I could just imaginge that the act of creating a lady protagonist in a remote Russian setting would have been much more challenging to the writer. In summary its an act that has been pulled off with a load of panache. Sister Pelagia clicks and the tale is engrossing to the core with its share of thrills along the way.
The setting is poles opposite to the Fandorin series , located in Zavolshk which is a small town in rural Russia and opens with a rather lovable character of the reverend Mitrofanii who plays a rather active role in the entire story. The Reverend is bothered by the news from a beloved widowed aunt concerning the death of one of her bulldogs and he feels compelled to act on assuaging the widow's concerns. He presses into action a nun - Sister Pelagia who seems to be a rather unremarkable choice for the role through much of the book. She stumbles onto clues which make no sense for a while, and seems to fade into the backdrop till some of the key moments of the story. The tale soon takes on dark shades with the discovery of two headless bodies and the entry of the rather diabolical state representative Bubenstov and his assistant. The tale soon transforms into a struggle for the town's conscience with a liberal reverend pitched against the strait-jacketed state representative. Murders ensue (human and bulldogs) and the pace picks up rapidly. At stake is the widows rather large legacy with a set of dubious heirs and an English governess as suspects.Also at stake is the very character of the town. The two parallel tales come to a common conclusion in a rather electrifying courtroom climax where Sister Pelagia delivers the coup de grace. The reverend Mitrofanii provides an excellent counterfoil to Sister Pelagia - a rather dominant but bumbling patron to a meek but brilliant protege. As with the Fandorin series there is a good view of the Russian social setting which provides a decent atmosphere, except for the rather confusing series of names which suddenly crop up and it gets rather tedious keeping track of the bevy of characters that are introduced rather abruptly. All in all a great read

The Queen of the Shevaroys

2009-04-18T05:33:00.001-07:00

When it comes to accessibility Yercaud would rank as one of the easiest of hill stations to get to. Lording over the plains over Salem, its a 5 hour drive from Bangalore with an excellent road connection.

Though driving is not my cup of tea,

taking a taxi didn't seem worthwhile and I settled for a compromise of hiring a driver for my c

ar. We were off without much fuss and somewhere near Krishnagiri stopped for a late breakfast. Surprisingly the restaurant was neat and is located on an "exit" into a petrol station, with clean toilets. 4 hours got us to Salem, and for the next 45 minutes we were winding up the hair-pin bends that lie along the ascent into the hills. The road throughout was through rocky terrain and hot to say the least, so you least expect that the weather to change the way it does during the ascent.

Yercaud was pleasantly surprising.

Yercaud isn't the first choice for a 3 day weekend and for

good reason. Ooty, Kodai and Munnar are reasonably within driving distance , much larger in area as well as more spectacular, the trick lies in low expectations and a good book. Driving in, you get to see a bunch of coffee estates lining the road and you break into level ground somewhere around Yercaud lake which is pretty much the only remarkable feature of the town.

We had booked into the Lake Forest resort which is a stones throw away from the lake. Built on and around a British plantation house, its a remarkable setting, tas

tefully furnished with antique furniture and lit up with stained glass on the windows.

The resort isn't very big and can be covered in a short walk, but has a fair variety of cottages in terms of design which makes it a bit eclectic. The restaurant has some antique cinematography equipment along with the associated interesting stories around it. The first meal was a disappointment though. Disaster struck soon enough when I realized that I hadn't packed up books for the trip, so that forced the issue. We set out in the evening towards a place quaintly called

Ladies seat. Yercaud is a cocktail of rural Tamil Nadu with a heavy Christian influence in the town. The prayer hymns were faint but audible almost from every point that we approached.

Ladies seat offers a spectacular view of the plains around Salem except for the fact that someone from the tourist department chose to add on some rather ugly structures in and around the point. There were monkeys galore, begging for food, grooming each other, picking fights with a dog in the vicinity. Appreciating the view takes some skill as you are constantly being shoved around by newly married couples and large joint families. We chose to escape an

d moved towards the Gents seat (some imagination) . The walk up was refreshing , with a remark

able breeze that had the tall eucalyptus trees bending to the gusts. The Rajah's seat is a shade better in terms of the view and thankfully was remarkably empty . After a glorious sunset view we headed back to the resort and thankfully the food was much better (or was it the all forgiving after effects of a bottle of beer).

Day 2 offered a challenge. We weren't game to hit the view points and there's not much of interesting buildings that you come across in this town (the only interesting church in the town we were informed was used as an examination centre on weekends). The resort team came to the rescue. Prince (our guardian angel's name) suggested a plantation loop drive which stretched for around 30 km and would have us occupied for the rest of the day. The drive take you through a bunch of villages around Yercaud, narrow roads through lush green plantations - Yercaud was growing on me. We stopped by a rather verdant patch on the road by a pond in an estate. A dilapidated board displayed a name - Moganad estate. A request for taking a few pictures was not granted, but we were re-directed to the estate office. We were halfway through the drive now and impulse led us to follow the directions to the estate office and we were rewarded with some local produce that we could purchase- estate honey, nutmeg and coffee.

About 150 Rs per head bought us a plantation tour of Moganad esate with Haribabu the caretaker serving as our guide. We gingerly followed Haribabu driving through the estate on his bike on a wretched path which resembled train tracks with a sheer drop on one side. Bump!! a stone hit my car's underbelly and suddenly this didn't seem like a good idea any more.

A pause and Haribabu took us to the crowning glory of Moganad estate- the Anthurium garden. Anthuriums never were my favorites and they typically adorn the receptions of the offices and I vaguely remember mental debates about them being artificial plastic flowers before a discreet inspection revealed otherwise. Anthuriums stand out because of their shelf life after being cut. They last for weeks without losing color as well as texture and each flower costs a pretty penny(thank god I don't like Anthuriums). The garden was actually a series of greenhouses, each one light controlled with sprinklers all around. Anthuriums are grown on specialized mediums and are extremely prone to disease. There were pink, red, orange, white, green anthuriums. These plants were imports from Holland which controls the Anthurium market. India seems to have variants (tissue culture exists in Pune) which

are half the size and lack the robustness of the Dutch variety. Haribabu displayed a grudging respect towards patents and cranked out the economics of the Anthurium industry from the sapling stage(it did seem an interesting proposition). We took leave of Haribabu and another guide led us to a private viewpoint which had a terrible access. The viewpoint was remarkable, though by now the sun was nigh and hunger pangs struck (and coffee berries do not a meal make). We headed back on the rest of the loop

and reached Yercaud for a rather late lunch. A short rest and we headed to the lake for a session of boat paddling which was unrearkable.

The Servarayan temple is located at the highest point of the town and has a rather picturesque approach. We decided to take up an early morning trip to the temple followed by Kiliyur falls, before we headed back to Bangalore. The temple is dedicated to the tribal God Servarayan, which seems to have been absorbed into the Hindu pantheon of Gods as one of Vishnu's forms. You could easily miss the temple as its a very ramshackle, no fuss structure. We were early and the priests home rooster just about began to crow when we reached the temple. We waited for a half hour before someone finally opened up the temple. The deity is located in a cave along with the Goddess Kaveri and in one of the rare instances that I have seen , the rites were performed by a priestess. The view around was breathtaking around , with the rest of the Shevaroy (Servarayan anglicized) range visible across the clouds. We headed back to the resort and after a quick breakfast we proceeded towards Kiliyur falls. A drunken guide informed us that the falls were dry, we ignored the advice and still proceeded towards the path. People returning reiterated that there was absoultely no water and the walk was fraught with risks -the mission was duly abandoned.

The ride back to Bangalore was distinctly boring punctuated by a flat tyre and an adrenalin boost when we almost ran over an auto that crossed our path. Yercaud had done its bit - the mind had peace.

Pundits from Pakistan- Rahul Bhattacharya

2009-03-27T21:11:00.001-07:00

Strangely as a book on sports, this book is a poignant read- more so because of the circumstances of the present rather than the happenings in the book. The book is about, a really good attempt at friendship, an act of faith. While I write the review Mumbai has been attacked, Pakistan is on the brink of disaster and the bickering doesn't seem to stop. This book should be mandatory reading.

The book is set in 2004 with India coming off a high of sorts recording a test win in Australia. The Indian team was set to visit Pakistan for a historic series as a sign of thawing of relationships. Pakistan had an awesome record against India and the series promised to be enthralling. The book - part travelogue, part history and for the most part sports captures every moment in lyrical prose.

The book begins with the unveiling of the preparations for the tour, furious debates on security, high handedness and showdowns galore before the party kicks off. Endless queues to get visas and finally the author sets foot in Pakistan and here's where the poetry starts. Quaint characters populate the book, there is loads of hospitality showered and the author uses his connections to reach out to the powers that matter behind Pakistani cricket. The matches - each of them epics by themselves is the stuff of DVD memorabilia by itself(there are classics from Inzamam, VVS, Dravid and Sehwag with the bat, Balaji , Shoaib and Irfan with the ball), but what clicks with the reader is the descriptions of life on the street, the remarkable richness of the culture described. Some of the interviews are downright hilarious- Abdul Quadir at his bombastic best, Shoaib Akhtar shooting his mouth off, but incredibly interesting is the visits to a Sufi Urs, the Wagah border face off.

The book is a gem- an intricate weave, and would rank as one of the best works of sports writing. I wonder if the gates ever open again as wide as it did during this series, but am thankful that this book got smuggled through. If everyone reads it wounds may heal again

The Looming Tower - Lawrence Wright

2009-03-11T07:43:00.000-07:00

“Know your enemy and know yourself and you can fight a hundred battles without disaster.” - Sun Tzu .The quote would quite appropriately capture the spirit of the book as an excellent attempt at knowing the enemy. I write the review a good 3 months after another heinous terrorist attack on another large metropolis , Mumbai 26/11, which is largely touted as an Indian version of 9/11. Its quite apparent we neither seem to know the enemy nor do we know ourselves.
The book is extremely well laid out and researched, and even if this were an act of fiction, the tale was gripping enough to easily clamber up any bestseller list. Where the book succeeds is to choose a start line which is relevant. Rather than dive back into the crusades as the genesis of civilization-al conflict, it very clearly identifies the role of personalities in the process. The book starts off with the remarkable Syed Qutb who is enigmatic to the core. An academic who developed a strong anti-western ideology while studying in the west. He is the pivot around whom the entire anti-western tirade takes a modern outlook. While the role of personalities form a critical driving force of this book, there is a good amount of emphasis on the historical events of the period with Palestine and Israel generating disproportional amount of hatred in the region. The book moves on to Ayman Zawahiri and his obsession with bringing about revolutionary change in Egypt and you get the feeling that he could well be the most dangerous largely because of the frustrations of his dreams facing repeated setbacks. The book then moves on to Bin Laden and his development into a Afghan war hero - rather uncharacteristically. Rather than appear as an overnight phenomenon, the struggle that Al Qaeda had to face to get to where they finally did is well captured in the book. Frusrating years in Pakistan where the in-fighting among rival militant groups seemed to drag the ideology into a mire, severe setbacks in Sudan which brought exile from Saudi Arabia and almost complete financial ruin. 9/11 comes against the grain of events, a sort of jolt that got the world to wake up.
The book also captures the pre-9/11 American investigations, the rather late dawning of the presence of an enemy who was slowly building a formidable network of dissent. The battle was almost single handedly fought by a dedicated and extremely complex FBI agent. We follow John's investigations through the bombing of the USS Cole, the arrest of Ramzi Yousef and his eventual tragic demise in the fall of the WTC. The American counter intelligence looked hopelessly out of sync with the degree of preparation that Al Qaeda displayed.
It is a great book by all standards and as I mentioned earlier the true genius behind the book is to narrow down the scope of the book to an extent that there exists a coherent narrative- and what a tale emerges. But therein seems to lie the flaw, the book seems to have missed significant aspects of the American contribution to the root of the disintegration of a liberal society in Pakistan and hence creating a sustainable fount of anti-American dissent. The book lets you know the enemy, but misses the self-diagnosis.

The Winter Queen - Boris Akunin

2009-01-31T05:48:00.000-08:00

This was my fourth novel in the Fandorin series and I realized that the lack of an order in reading the series has its own advantages. This one is one of the earlier ones in the series and deals with the formative years of Fandorin- his introduction to deduction.

The plot is fantastic, hidden behind a remarkably innocuous suicide are a secret society seeking to redo the world order. Fandorin, young and brash chooses to pursue the leads from the crime across Europe and in the process almost meets a watery grave, the enemies seem to be everywhere (this could have been the 19th century version of Jason Bourne - trust no-one). He flits back to Russia and manages to get to the bottom of the society. The sleuth is impressionable, gullible but with a sixth sense for danger and course well packed up with luck. The book starts of very slowly and picks up pace rapidly (almost a bit too fast for my liking) with an unexpected murder revealing a secret hand much against the grain of the proceedings till then. There's love and betrayal thrown into the mix and for a rabid follower , its remarkable to see the maturing of Fandorin over the novels in the series.

But what truly makes the series and this book special is the attention to the details of the goings-on in society. There is the trademark glance at the newspaper headlines which is a window into Russia under a monarchy; obsessed by anarchists, conscious of rising anti-semitism and guardedly watching news from the rest of Europe. You could well be watching a movie. This wouldn't be the best Fandorin novel I have read, but for sure this will not be my last. Hats off

India after Gandhi- Ramachandra Guha

2009-01-31T05:46:00.000-08:00

I rarely have had to wait for a book, for the most part its about catching up with reviews that come up in magazine or chaining recommendations from websites to get to a book that sounds promising. This book is an exception, I eagerly awaited this one simply because it fills in a huge gap.

In short the book captures the 50+ years past independence and runs the risk of getting re-interpreted rather rapidly given that a lot of the incidents covered in the book are of a rather recent nature and clearly borders between history and current affairs. What makes this book special is that its a heart and soul effort, no holds barred in laying down how events panned out over the years - an act of love if I may.

Its a large book by any standards and quite like the history it covers -even though the author attempts to infuse order its extremely chaotic. India was a conglomeration of states at the beginning of Independence and the history quite clearly has to thread together multiple parallel stories into a not so coherent pattern. The personalities at the dawn of Independence were stellar - Gandhi, Nehru, Patel, Jinnah and the its remarkable how much impact the clash of these personalities had over the course of future events. As Pakistan embarked on its theological dream, India had Nehru take over the commanding heights and Patel put the jigsaw puzzle together - integrating princely states into the Indian Union. The story is about the decline of India's political morals over the years and the emancipation of its citizenry.

What makes this book important for everyone Indian or concerned with India. Firstly it highlights the stories that created the history - The integration of the union (Hyderabad, Junagarh, Kashmir), the formation of the states on a linguistic basis (was Andhra a good precedent), a change in the economic mindset, exported ideals (Nehru's non-alignment, Bangaladesh and Sri Lanka), abject failures (a worn down secular fabric, the China war) and the silver linings (the technology boom, the green revolution)

Secondly the book is unbiased - it would be remarkably difficult to contort these innumerable happenings into a theme for a bias. The author is honest about the shortcomings of the fact that we are watching a series of events that still unfold . Make your own opinion

Lastly its a beacon of hope for Indians like me. India has been through a million mutinies and has survived, and in a way come out stronger. Its a sermon that in all the conflicts that were resolved, the lasting resolutions have come through open debate and the ballot box. It's mind-boggling to fathom what this "experiment" has achieved in its rather short existence - a thumbs-down t0 all those nay-sayers.

For all its failures in the lack of a dramatic narrative, this book is a success in one sense- it helps you make an opinion. For me - It made me proud to be an Indian

Forever in Blue Jeans

2008-12-31T06:18:00.001-08:00

Way back the British TV launched a series called the "Up" series which captures the lives of individuals across a spectrum at specific stages. The episodes were Seven Up , Fourteen Up , Twenty One Up with the latest one 56Up expected in 2012. We aren't yet there but we did get to have a 12 up of sorts. Though limited in attendance compared to the class strength the bonds were there for sure though the exuberance of 96 was replaced by the anxieties of mid life crises.

Arbit is the only way you can describe the planning, with a tipsy call leading to a chain of events which saw six of us land up in Panchgani, this Christmas weekend. Kudos to Patkar, Kejri in getting this organized. In full attendance were Kejri, Patkar, Rao, Gonda, Pinky, Golu. We stayed at a Bungalow entirely to ourselves in a secluded by lane of the Panchgani Mahabaleshwar road. Who's where (not in order of roll numbers)

Kejri - Currently a high flying architect at IBM, hasn't changed companies , though the company has changed around him. Jet-setting around the globe (with the next trip to Australia). 2 kids down but remarkably identical to how we was in college
Patkar - Has the same unruffled, down-to-earth aura around him that characterized him in campus. Currently with a Japanese start-up dealing in enterprise knowledge management.
Rao - Infosys for a year and half, someone else's startup, own startup sold to SAP, currently in SAP. Unmarried - google to get his matrimonial ad. Currently in Bangalore and a good neighbor
Gonda- Ironically he was professionally the odd man out in spite of being the only guy in the group to have taken up a mech-engg job. A planning manager at TELCO, specializes in the Indica and Indigo engines. Married with 2 kids. To those of you who missed the headlines last year , Gonda went through a serious accident and has recovered well from the same
Pinky - The career dynamo. Zensar which is his current job is his 6th one and had seen enough to put us to shame. Married, with a beautiful daughter. Folks in London may see him soon
Golu - Been with Infosys for 12 years now (stifle the yawns please). Married with one son

I can't fill in for the organization of the trip , but nevertheless in short it was seamless and superb. Me and Rao landed at Pune in the morning with Pinky and Kejri as the reception committee. We proceeded to catch up with Patkar and Gonda (this is the last time I'll remind you that he was officially christened Narendra). The drive to Panchgani was effectively 3 hours with stops for cups of fabulous tea. We drove up a hill of sorts to get into a cute little Bungalow which would hold our historical conference. Cricket was next, with the usual improvised stumps and tennis ball. All of use were ridiculously unfit (except Patkar and Kejri) and it showed in the game with Rao displaying unusual bravado whacking full tosses out of the house. Lunch and a rather merry session of boating followed at the Mahabaleshwar lake with yours truly doing the bulk of the paddling. Slowly the college yarns began pouring out and it set the evening up well.Sometime early in the day we had to get over the disappointment of Chawla ditching us, but thats what the booze was for. We huddled together on the bungalow's terrace for the first booze session with a ton of local produce as flavor (Blue Curaco is a speciality mix at Panchgani apart from the claimed excellence of the Pina Colada mix). Everyone discussed, with specific gaps in current knowledge appropriately filled. But there are some unsolved mysteries pending. Where the hell are the following
1. Aditya Ayyagari
2. B. Sunil Prabhu
3. Bharat Bhushan
4. Srini
5. Ramendra Singh
6. Ranchi
7. Khare
8. Santoo
Patkar doesnt drink and chose to be insane enough to record the conversations. Needless to say there's a hell of a lot of incriminating stuff that he managed to capture.
Pankaj left early the following morning (client visit) and we were down to 5. All five of us cosily meshing into each other in a Santro headed off for Pratapgarh fort which is about 30 km from where we stayed. Patkar regaled us all with stories from Maratha history - he can easily be a lecturer on the topic in BHU. Kejri ranted away at the MNS, Rao baby talked and Golu pained everyone by stopping at each flower to take a pic. Pratapgarh offers an amzing view of the surrounding landscape, Kejri and Gonda also managed to get a view of Mahima Chaudhary and their enthusiasm confirmed that they are a bunch of straight guys. We had a late lunch and headed to Sherbaug (Golu vehement about getting some good pics) which apart from a very decent exotic collection, has a dinosaur experience theater (no we did not check it out) and also some ridiculous quotes on matrimony in general. Next was an attempt at Rao's life changing moment. We headed off to try our hand at para sailing on the hills. We missed the trainer altogether and landed up instead at the Tabletop which is one flat piece of land on top of Panchgani. Post some pics we were back to what we do best - booze and bakwaas. The theme had mellowed , the whiskey more effective than the rum of the day before and we soon got down to discussing the present. It was remarkable to see how each of us had changed , how 12 years have done enough to push back 4 years in college into a memory archive. There were stories of college I had never heard that came tumbling out, there were facets of these remarkable individuals I had never witnessed before (I would confess that I hardly knew Gonda in college and in a way regret the fact that we didn't find a common ground in college). Patkar recorded again and what exactly transpired word by word is now an mp3 file in Patkars collection (he also has a diary of Maneesh Prakash that has a synopsis of all the movies he saw - YUMM). All of us agreed on one thing - Himani you were heroic
Time to get back and we got back to Pune by lunch time where we sought to rendezvous with Dandu. Dandu has moved out of IT recently( kyaa Java-Vavaa) to Risk management at UBS (no he isnt responsible for the Lehman mess). Dandu looks pretty much well preserved (gray hair notwithstanding) and was down in Pune for a short visit. Inexplicably he needed detailed directions from Patkar to a joint 2 streets away from his home. The rest of the afternoon was a blur and while me and Rao haggled over the window/middle seat of the return flight.
The 'Up' series is all about the vicissitudes of life and while this goes to press Neeraj was blessed with a baby on the 25th. With each passing day somewhere in the world there's one new chapter being added into the history book of Shames 96. Hopefully the get-togethers will be many and more frequent and at least I would wish to be a part of all of them. You were a great bunch in college and for those who couldn't make it., here's to you..
More pics here

Where Leopards have the right of way

2008-12-29T06:51:00.001-08:00

A trip to Agra was mixed at best with the grime and dust barely eased away from memory by the sublime effect of the view of the Taj from the banks of the Yamuna. Delhi offered an interesting mix of history, but held so much promise that I was rueful for not having planned an additional day of stay. The regret hadn't yet sunk in when we awaited the train to Kathgodam at Old Delhi railway station, what I was looking forward to was the trip to have a glimpse of the Himalayas and if lucky, glimpse a Tiger in the land of Corbett (after 3-4 trips in sanctuaries like Nagarhole and Kanha, I delude myself with the belief that the Tiger is mortally afraid of an encounter with me)
Our first stop in the itinerary was the Corbett National park. The ideal route is to take the Corbett express from Delhi and land up at Ramnagar which is adjacent to the park, but for some inexplicable reason we had chosen Kathgodam , which is about 50-60 km from Corbett. We arrived at an early hour to a chilly reception and were greeted by our driver who would escort us throughout the Kumaon trip. The journey was through fields of mustard and quaint villages with the roads in remarkably good condition. Dried up storm fed stream beds broke through the green cover of the forest trees, and finally we were at Dhikuli which is where our resort was located. The Corbett national park was formed in 1957 post an amalgamation of the Ramganga national park and the Hailey National park and is named in memory of the legendary Jim Corbett. The park's claim to fame is it has the largest population of tigers in the wild apart from teeming in other forms of wildlife like leopards , deer and crocodiles. The resort that we checked in to was ideally located on the banks of the Kosi and the room was fairly picturesque (though a tad cramped). Safely ensconced in the rooms and having disposed of the encumbrances of 2 weeks of luggage that we were lugging around, I gingerly ventured towards the river. The river flowed through a valley and the water was cold and crystal clear- you could see the fishes swimming in the emerald green pools.
Corbett has many gates to visit the forest and also has the facility to host guests overnight in the parks core though this needs advance planning and guidance(both of which were sorely absent in our trip). Folks who have a 4 wheel drive (with an open top) are at a distinct advantage in enjoying the park facilities. The longest of the trips involved and reputedly the best of the experiences is a trip to Dhikala which is about 30 km into the park. We chose to opt for a trip to Dhikala first in a Canter. The canter is a fairly unique vehicle and resembles an amphitheater on wheels. Though the fee for the trip appeared steep , on completion its well worth the experience. We rumbled through the forest roads which are basically dirt tracks pock marked with craters which careen the vehicle at vicious angles. Get the point - it takes a strong stomach. The forest was dense and we spotted the customary deer and stopped at a point from which we could view the Ramganga river which meanders through the park. Down below were a bunch of crocs basking in the sun along with their distant cousins - the gharials. The gharials are relatively harmless and are a feature of the park - they largely survive off the fish in the river as compared to their not so picky cousins who seemed to stay away from the gharials as if in condescension. We reached Dhikala which boasts of the Ramganga reservoir which is an outcome of the damning of the river (which in turn cut off migratory routes for the elephants) . The reservoir is flanked by a huge grassland which is one of the best places to spot the tiger. Folks who stay over can avail of an elephant ride through the grassland , but we got a half hour stop over to walk down to the lake border and view the fairly wide variety of birds which flock these parts. On the trip back we managed to view a few jackals which scampered off as soon as they spotted the canter burgeoning down on them. Day 1 and no tiger.
Day 2 was overcast and we were facing the possibility of the entire day indoors as there was a light drizzle all over the place. The skies let up in a few hours and we were able to scamper out to a new gate. This time we leveraged our hired vehicle (a rather sturdy Mahindra Bolero) and we chose the Jhirna gate to enter the park. A 300 buck fee got us a guide who seemed to have a good knowledge of the park. The park was beautiful and green after the overnight rain, though the roads were increasingly treacherous, what with the wheels skidding over the mud. There was a hush in the air and the birds chirped away gloriously. The park is full of bulbuls which have a pleasant chirrup. We travelled on and on over more dried streams , through thick forest and grassland , till we hit a mud patch where the jeep stuck into the mud. A few worrisome moments later after some quick thinking by the driver, we were able to get back on track. Day 2 and no tiger, to top it all we had folks back at the resort regale the other families on exciting chases by the tiger in the grasslands at Dhikala.We chose an early morning drive and this time at the Bijrani gate which is a fair drive off and this time we chose to drive out in an open top gypsy. Unfortunately Bijrani is one of the shortest routes in the forests and the chances of spotting a tiger is fairly remote as compared to the rest of the gates , but we did get a birds eye view of the park from a machaan located on the route. November is a good time to visit the park for admiring the beauty, but its not the best of times to catch a glimpse of the carnivores. The grass is long and dense and provides ideal cover for tigers and leopards to hide. The tiger habits the grassland more than the jungles and due to access to the prey and water-holes that abound around the grassland. We got back to the resort and chose to take a walk along the Kosi. The river is fairly shallow and its refreshing to dip your legs , but the pebbles around can be quite painful. We spotted an old bridge which took us across into the mountains. We were accompanied by a herd of goats and sheep which were paranoid of strangers. We walked along the cliff till we reached a temple. The deities here are largely uncommon ones across India, and represent a pantheon which may have been absorbed into mainstream Hinduism at some point.Corbett had been refreshing. I hadn't seen the tiger , but there is a purity and timelessness about the forest which can rarely be had in any other part. Delhi seemed distant and a different civilization altogether. We now moved on to the next stop - Binsar. Binsar is located about 90 km from Ramnagar (in mountain road time , that's about 3 hours) , but we chose a longer route to the resort via the hill station of Naini Tal. Naini Tal is another cliche in the Indian honeymoon circuit and its with a bit of nervousness that we chose to take up our driver on the offer of driving to Naini Tal. But half way through the ride the sights of steep mountains laden with pine greeted us and we threw caution to the winds. Naini Tal the town is named after the beautiful lake that lies at the center of the town and is another example of an intrepid British man establishing a town in the hills for the East India company. The architecture of most buildings hark back to the colonial era but with generous smatterings of ugly post Independence sprawl. We took a boat ride in the surprisingly clean lake, which the boatman explained was an outcome of the formation of the Uttarakhand state (the boatman had the choicest words for the politicians of UP). The lake has submerged oxygen generation devices which are laid out at specific intervals on the lake bed. We chose to take a ride in the cable car which takes you further up to a perch from where you can get a good view of the Himalayan range. As the crow flies we were about 30 km away from the Nanda Devi. The range looked glorious and clear in the bright sunshine. We stopped by the Tibetan market after an eminently forgettable lunch after which we again set off towards Binsar.
Binsar is located about 20 km past Almora and the drive is one of the best that I have had for a long while. Though the roads are narrow and the hills ominous, its remarkably scenic with deep valleys and rivers flowing on gleaming white pebbles. The drive was long , but just as we were approaching Almora we had a magical sight which broke through the mountains. Above the pine clad peaks of green rose majestically - the Himalayan range in the slowly fading sunlight. One of the many magical moments that I experienced on the trip. Past Almora , the peaks turned a glowing pink and then back to a deep white as the sun set. We reached the resort late in the evening and tasted an excellent concoction made of rhododendron flowers as a welcome drink at the resort. The room was freezing cold and the heater hardly helped, but we braved through the night. It was a glorious morning to wake up to. The resort is beautifully located in a valley and the sun rays came down on a fabulous collection of flowers. Birds basked in the sun and the insects hopped between the chrysanthemums and marigold. We chose to go up to the zero point to catch a glimpse of the range. The drive up to zero point is via an extremely narrow stretch of road that halts at the Binsar wildlife sanctuary. The vegetation here is distinctly different and the rarefied air here supports a great number of moss, lichen, ferns and the ubiquitous pine. We hired a guide who regaled us with the history of the Nepali kings and the usual suspects - the British who had these parts under their sway. We huffed our way up to the top and were rewarded with a fabulous sight of the Himalayan range spread right across the horizon. Binsar is one of the best spots to gaze upon the range. On the way back we chose to stop by a roadside and watch the sun go down on the mountains. These parts are full of tales of leopards and their exploits. The guide had earlier narrated an incident of a leopard attack on his village and our driver could swear by a bunch of sightings in these parts. The mountains changed color rapidly as the day quickly surrendered to dusk.
Jageshwar is a group of temples about 3 hours drive from Binsar and is quaint as the temples are almost a Bonsai version of temples that occur in eastern India. The town of Jageshwar is centered around these temples and lies in a valley flanked by majestic Deodhar trees. We arrived here on the 2ND day of our leg at Binsar at around early noon and walked down to the temple premise. The floor of the temple premise was ice cold as the mist freezes on the ground and only melts late in the morning. I hopped around with a wailing Chetan in our arms offering obeisance to Shiva, Hanuman and a host of other gods. Adjacent to the temple complex, up a hill lies a temple dedicated to Kubera, the god of wealth. These parts abound in natural formations that resemble deities of the Hindu pantheon. The drive back commanded breath-taking scenery of terrace farms and villages perched on the hills.
We now had to take up the last leg of the trip - Ranikhet, but before we got there, our driver had a brainwave of taking us on a circuitous route to cover a broader swathe of Kumaon. First stop was at a quaint little temple a Chitai which has a temple dedicated to Golu Maharaj (- temple where folks seek justice. There are thousands of bells hung all around and these bells have letters pinned on which basically are petitions to god to grant a boon, a love lorn lady seeking a particular groom or a property dispute seeking mitigation by virtue of the stamp paper hung near the deity .Next stop - Bageshwar, which is situated in the confluence of the Gomati and the Saryu, unfortunately the confluence points was a cremation point and I didn't dare venture beyond a point. Bageshwar is a key stop for trekkers who seek out the trekkable glaciers that lie to the north. We then moved on to Baijnath which is located on the banks of the Gomati and is fairly similar in architecture to the Jageshwar temples. We were en-route to Kausani, largely because of the Gandhi Ashram located there and the fabled view of the mountains. The Ashram is a simple and elegant structure which faces the mountains and the doorway opens up onto the mountains. Gandhi preached the Anasakti Yoga in Kausani and the Ashram has a series of interesting photographs and artifacts that showcase the life of the Mahatma. The road to Ranikhet from Kausani was through fabulously decked up fields and as we climbed up a hill, we reached the last stop of the journey - Ranikhet
Ranikhet lies in the Almora district and is largely a cantonment town, housing the Kumaon regiment. The town boasts of a golf course and unfortunately the fabled green grass wore the dull yellow color of dried grass when we entered the town. We were staying with relatives in a delightful house with a view of the snow capped hills. I braved the dawn to have a glimpse of the sun rising over the mountain range, though I'm still fuzzy over being miserable in the cold or being awestruck by the view. We took a drive into town and visited the Rosemont hotel which is an old British home converted into a remarkable hotel. I had volunteered to learn a chicken recipe much to the chagrin of family and have spiritually adapted to a finger licking recipe of chicken marinated in yogurt and spices (I recently experimented with a coriander and spice marinated version with not so disappointing results- but more on that at a later stage). The highlight of the food though was a simple recipe called Aloo ke guthke which is made of potatoes sauteed in red chillies, coriander seeds and turmeric. It was a while since we had caught up with television and a match between India and England kept us occupied through the evening. The next morning brought the horror of terrorist attacks into our midst and easily dampened the rest of the day though we did manage a visit to a delightful hotel called Holm Farm which was built in 1870 and the porch of which commands by far the best view that I had seen on the trip.
All good things must come to an end, but these memories will stay etched. As we winged our way in to a flooded Chennai, towards the anarchy of deadlines, and cell phones a certain part of me was at peace. I had seen a land of the gods and have lived to tell a tale. I shall return - Picture abhi baaki hai mere dost

Delhi and Agra - A winter sojourn

2008-12-20T02:20:00.000-08:00

At long last managed a vacation and I set off with family with a strong sense of guilt and with a ton of expectations. Delhi and Agra to be followed by a stint in the mountains in Uttarakhand. The latter half of November is when the season winds down and you get a view of the snow clad peaks up north. So with markets melting all over the world I decided to cocoon myself and we hopped on a flight to Delhi.Delhi by far captures more of your imagination than Mumbai does, what with all the historical trappings, the best infrastructure in India and also the food in and around the place. The plane taxied around the runaway post landing for close to an hour, nevertheless the expectations of catching up on a list of places that I had prepared looked enticing. This was my 4th visit to Delhi, and the first time I had any money to exercise any choice of what I wanted to see. We booked ourselves in to a rather paisa vasool joint - The Ginger hotel at the New Delhi Railway station. Remarkably congested, but strategically close to areas like Connaught Place which helped in any last minute shopping. So after a quick refresh at the hotel we set off to the first destination day 1 - India Gate. The visibility was fast fading, nevertheless the structure is well lit up and is a glorious monument commemorating the participation of Indian soldiers in wars under a British crown and in the Indo-Pak war of 1971. The area is surrounded by lawns where there were all sorts of activities on , balloon sellers , a band practicing , a birthday party with foam being sprayed all over the guests, the peanut and ice cream sellers as a result the lawns were strewn with debris. Still gazing at the structure at sunset takes you back to days which were way simpler. Down the road (The Kings Drive or Rajpath) takes you up to Raisina hill which houses India's most important government buildings. We chose to drive past admiring the gloriously lit up buildings. Connaught place was the next. Beautifully designed (and named Rajiv Chowk), its ideally laid out for a great evening stroll. Lined with fancy garment stores, restaurants and up-market eateries, I'd rank this as one of the highlights of the tour. We grabbed a quick dinner at a reasonably priced Chinese restaurant and after a quick check of Palika Bazaar we retired early.We started early for Agra and its a drive which cuts across the industrial belt of Faridabad , into Mathura and then finally into the rather drab and dusty city of Agra. Agra is a shock compared to the well planned mayhem of Delhi and narrow lanes and unruly traffic (largely bicycles and 2 wheelers). We drove past Akbar's tomb en-route and moved to the hotel (I chose to book this through the online travel agency and it turned out to be disastrous). The hotel - Ganga Ratan , was seedy, cramped and overpriced and we chose to deposit our luggage and decamp to the Agra fort. Built by Akbar between 1565 and 1573 , the trademark sandstone edifice greets you as you pass the Yamuna on one side of the road. Its an imposing structure and a bit of haggling got us a guide to take us through the complex. The deep moat and the barricades give a sense of impregnability, but sometime into the reign of Bahadur Shah Zafar, the fort walls were breached and deprived it quite a bit of its treasures. An hours walk takes you through the beautiful pavilions designed by Shah Jahan for his daughters and the place where Shah Jahan himself was imprisoned with a view of the Taj in the distance. The fort houses the famous Sheesh Mahal (the inspiration for the sets of Mughal-e-Aazam) , we passed through the Diwan-e-Aam (the setting for the peacock throne) into the streets hurrying to get a glimpse of the Taj before Sunset. The Taj by far is the biggest cliche of Indian architecture and almost every day you can come across a reference to the Taj in hoardings, tea bags , hotels which has an effect of de-sensitizing appreciation of the structure. Walk into the premises and the effect is electrifying. The structure perfect in symmetry and beautifully flanked by mosques and sprawling gardens is an oases in the chaos that is Agra city. But I'm getting ahead of myself. You need to park well ahead of the Taj premises (it has apparently had slowed down the degradation of the Taj due to pollution) and you are bombarded with all sorts of nonsense from hacks who offer a ride to the Taj from the parking lot. We took a camel cart and the queue was alarmingly large. With the clock ticking over 4:00 PM we had only an hour of daylight to look forward to and we had a stroke of luck by getting a guide who took us in through a side entrance(used by workers when the building was constructed). The Taj is not for the faint hearted , its packed with people , a virtual ocean of them taking up every corner available to get photographed certain that the photograph would seal alliances and matrimony into immortality. The Taj is a symbol of love (yawn), taking up over 500 kg of gold, 22000 workers sweating it out for 22 years (inevitably there would have been deaths, the architect from Persia was rumored to have been killed so that he would not replicate the structure elsewhere). Its a brutal symbol of love, but it bears it with grace. Could my camera cut through the crowds ....The guide is virtually useless in the Taj, you are jostled around and gazing in wonder at the sheer majesty, too distracted to observe anything. The inlay work is brilliant and the symmetry awe inspiring. I gazed across the Yamuna and saw a ragged bunch of folks gazing across the Yamuna, and it offered interesting possibilities. Dusk came in quick and we walked back on a pitch dark street to the parking lot seeking dinner. Trust your taxi driver in these parts and it pays of well. I asked for a recommendation and he took us to a quirky place called Maya which is adorned by the Star of David prominently displayed all over the place with a series of terraces where the meals were served. Beer!!!! Morning and post a haggle with the hotel staff over whether the breakfast was included in the package, we again speedily decamped to search for the spot across the Yamuna to view the Taj. Its remarkably surprising that the spot is not frequented at all (or maybe I was just plain lucky). Its surprisingly difficult to get across to (there's a maze of lanes which are largely unmarked). The garden itself is a fairly recent discovery and was apparently used by the Mughals to view a reflection of the Taj in pools that were created here. We reached there at around 8:30 in the morning and an intrepid Tea stall was the only sign of any settlement around. We took a quick tour of the garden and looking through the fence I noticed a path that led down to the river which I rather excitedly took (and dutifully dragging Chetan along for a lifetime opportunity that I sensed this would be). The place was remarkably free of debris that normally greets a tourist spot in India. In the distance across the river through a thick mist I stared at the Taj, the structure looked ghostly almost spiritual in the mist. Silence all around and birds went around their livelihood chasing fish in the Yamuna. This was a moment in time that will remain etched. Fatehpur Sikri was the next destination, and its way off Agra , the 40 km distance magnified in time because of the extremely poor maintenance of the roads that lead to the place. This is a walled city situated en-route to Jaipur and was built by Akbar in 1571. Blessed by a saint that he would have a son, Akbar built a tomb for the saint- Salim Chisti. The relevance of the tomb cuts across religions and tying a thread in the tomb supposedly fulfils a wish made. It was hot dusty and I had engaged an extremely irritating guide to boot, to top it all we totally passed over the town of Sikri which houses a majestic set of houses for the Navratnas (who represented the creme-de-la-creme of Mughal nobility). Abandoned by the Mughals apparently due to the lack of water in the parts, its still stands out as one of the best examples of Mughal Architecture. We drove back to Delhi after a quick lunch at a dhaba.We had a day more to do in Delhi and its extremely difficult to pick and choose what to pack into a days routine and inevitably a last minute argument on what to see resulted in an extremely eclectic list. We visited Akshardham first - excessive, garish expansive and remarkably soulless with all the security checks - frankly a colossal waste of money. I regretted visiting as we had wasted a few hours in the process. I chose the Gandhi Samadhi next , the complex of which hosts a bunch of other notable Indian luminaries commemorated. Though largely a token visit this was a pilgrimage which had to be done. What next? , we hit upon the Lodhi Gardens and surprisingly this was one of the choices which paid off well. Its a remarkably well kept garden with some of the ruins still retaining the colors of old hence still remarkably beautiful. The restaurant adjoining the garden is fabuolous in terms of the setting and with daylight streaming through the tall trees, its quite a treat to be in middle of a bustling city and have such a leisurely lunch, Akshardham was now distant memory. The National Museum is a must see for any visitor to Delhi , it hosts an extremely impressive collection of historicsl artifacts and is remarkably well laid out with every section well marked out and the associate labels detailing the artifact well. I was thrilled on seeing the Dancing girl of the Harappan civilization which took on a larger than life reputation in spite of her small size. The collection of Indian miniatures is fantastic and this by itself should take up more than an hour. There's a great collection of Buddhist Thankas and some really fancy armoury. Particularly impressive was Aurangazeb'd sword which has quotations from the Quran inscribed. Proud to have a museum of this quality in India, though the conveniences around the museum can do with some refurbishment to match world standards. One last place to go and we chose Delhi Haat which charges a ticket to shop, though whats delightful about the place is it has eateries from across India and at really cool prices to boot. Again we let the driver decide on where to eat and he took us to a set of joints adjoining Pandara Road. We chose one called Gulatis and a rather heavy meal followed. We had a train to catch soon and the taxi driver dutifully took us to the Old Delhi Railway station for our journey up into Kumaon. Its difficult to fondly reminisce on Delhi when awaiting a train at the Old Delhi Railway station, especially when you have a messed up numbering of platforms and a sea of folks sharing a few square feet of space(have strictly sworn to keep away from trains heading to Calcutta)A lot left in Delhi to still see , the Jama Masjid, the Red fort , Qutub Minar, the old Baolis. But as I head off to Kumaon , and leave this remarkable historical city behind, there's a smug feeling about making the trip - Ab Dilli door nahin

The Duel (Pakistan on the flight path of American Power) - Tariq Ali

2008-11-09T19:16:00.000-08:00

In the backdrop of the events that take place in and around the ever volatile Kashmir-Pakistan-Afghanistan region, this is a book which provides a refreshing insight into the context through which we can seek to understand the pitiable state of affairs. The author is an unabashed leftist (with a truly remarkable career) and his views do come across strongly in a few pages, but for all the criticism that can be poured over the inclinations, the historical narrative is a masterpiece.

Its a sad tale by all standards, its a tale of how a lust for power and downright megalomania have ruined a cause, a tale of deluded sense of destiny wasting opportunities, in summary its a tale of why South Asia largely is in the situation of near despair as it is currently. The tale beings with the machinations of the Muslim League in the pre-Independence era , followed by the rather vacuous implementation of governance once the state of Pakistan was established. Spineless and confused leadership led to the entry of the army into governance, a decision which largely has left Pakistani democracy crippled. One megalomaniac (Yahya Khan) followed another (Ayub Khan) and meaningless wars were fought. Downright oppression of a legitimate victory by the citizens of East Pakistan led to the formation of Bangladesh. Bhutto brought in a glimmer of hope , but was quick to deceive and was shockingly replaced by Zia ul Haq, the rebirth of Democracy post Zia was largely marred by extreme corruption. Benazir and Nawaz Sharif frittered away a golden opportunity only to be followed by a dictatorship again.

Switchover to the present and Pakistan faces the ignominy of US troops operating on its soil. Here's where the author brings in a unique perspective, wherein the much feared vision of the Jihadists controlling the nuclear button may be a myth largely and sadly because the army is now all pervasive. From a readers perspective the shift between the historical narrative and the commentary on the current situation is apparent and it feels like 2 books spliced together. The historical narrative is extremely engrossing while the summary and interpretations of the present sometimes gives way to a rant. Nevertheless a priceless book for anyone seeking a honest appraisal of the history of Pakistan

In an Antique Land

2008-10-05T04:47:00.000-07:00

I've been a Bangalorean for over 12 years now and the reputation of Hampi had that mysterious aura that was irresistible. I recall conversations in my college mess wherein travel enthusiasts who really mattered swayed more towards the ruins of Vijaynagara over the watering holes in Bangalore. Over 12 years not visiting Hampi was building on me. So off we went on a trip to Hampi in late August (not recommended per the pundits) and I came back starry eyed and intrigued enough about how a dynasty of relatively muted political strength could have such a gigantic footprint on the cultural space.
Hampi is 8 hours north west of Bangalore by the usually reliable railway service and we booked our-selves onto Hampi express which chugs out of Bangalore late in the night and rather conveniently deposits you in Hospet junction at a reasonable hour of 8:00 AM. Contrary to war stories about relatively poor accomodation and transport, we managed to be put up in a fairly comfortable set of rooms in a new wing of the Hotel Mallige (though by no means is that inexpensive). The hotel seems to be an outcome of the mining boom in nearby Bellary which more or less overshadows the tourism industry in these parts. Nevertheless Hospet being about 15 KM away from Hampi is an extremely convenient base for taking a shot at exploring the ruins.
So off we went on early morning and dutifully took up the services of a guide the first day near the Hemakunte tank. This is where the sense of tragedy mixed with awe begins to dawn upon you. Hampi has layers of history built into the ruins that lie in display, as a consequence these are spread over a few miles of area and except for one temple that exists in its former glory, none of the other structures offer more than a hint at how glorious this civilization could have been. Such is the nature of the destruction that has been wrought.
We started with the main temple of Virupaksha which resembles any of the significant temples in the south with the massive Gopuram leading into a pretty little temple in the centre. We slowly walked down the streets of Hampi Bazaar (which reputedly hosted a market for valuable gemstones, but sadly has been relegated to cheap tourist-ware) into the temple for Krishna of which the underlying brick structure stands exposed. A short drive away , brought us to the statue of Narasimha built by Krishnadeva Raya , followed by a trip to the Lotus Mahal which seems to be a late structure as it combines elements of Islamic and Hindu architecture (synthesis is the sign of an open, confident kingdom). Adjacent is the Kings palace which hosts the aqueduct which fed into the grand bath. We listened in awe to the guide regaling us with the scenes of Navratri which would have been played out in full royal splendour. Mere stones today, speak of a golden period.
Here I must stop , we passed structure on structure of immense beauty. There was the Hazara Rama temple , the Elephant stables , but if I were to pick my Hampi moment (and it was magical) , it would be the first glimpse of the Vithala temple. The approach to the temple is via a long deserted stretch (we chose a week day to visit) and what beckons is a temple , magnificent in conception, execution and if there is one wish I carried back , it would be to see this structure brought back to life. It lies on the banks of the Tungabhadra and hosts one of the few chariot structures in Indian temples (the other one being the temple at Konark). Walk down to the river and braving the onslaught of the gushing river is a quiet little stone structure which is a dedication to the composer Purandara Das. We took a ride in the coracle boats that is on offer here , and in the distance, the guide pointed us to the remains of Anegundi which was the nucleus of the Vijayanagara kingdom.
We chose a hillock of note - the Malayar Raghunatha temple to view the sunset , flanked on one side by the boon of the Tungabhadra (green rolling fields) and on the other by majestic rocks. The landscape commands respect
Day 2 we looked outwards. For the history buff this area is a treasure trove of sites. 3 hours away, Badami can be approached by roads flanked by Sunflower fields and the occasional windmills (setting foot on any of the peaks will convince you about the potential for wind energy). Badami resembles the site of Petra in Jordan , the almond colored rock cliffs from which the caves have been carved out stand out from the surrounding mess of a slum. Badami (erstwhile Vatapi) was built by the Rashtrakutas and is a testimony of religious tolerance. There are about 4-5 caves and each of these hosts an affiliation of the ruler of the times. To begin with is the Shiva temple followed by a superb Vishnu cave temple (look carefully and you may notice remnants of paintings which remarkably still are perceptible). The last of the cave temples is a Jain temple, with carvings of Bahubali and Mahavira. The cave complex is beset by monkies which can be a nuisance. Yours truly had one monkey curious enough to clamber up my leg to inspect my camera. In the distance a clamour revealed a monkey nestled on a high rock dropping valuables from a ladies purse much to the owners despair.
Drive on and we got to the site of Pattadakal. We were now at the crucible of Indian temple architecture. Pattadakal as a site was a coronation centre for the kings of the Chalukya dynasty. Each temple is an example of styles prevalent across the country. The orissa style is visible, the shore temple of Mahabalipuram is on display. Its a commendable example of preservation.
The last stop on the day tour was Aihole and compared to the previous sites this one was a huge let down. Aihole is a warren of temples in various stages of decrepitude. The site was understaffed with knowledgeable guides and most of the temples though extremely intriguing in shape lacked the adequate description which had been so well done in Pattadakal. In essence this place was the skunk works of the Chalukyan temple architects. Some of the shapes are downright odd and some are remarkable for what has been wrought in stone. A humbling experience throughout the day was the squalor in the centres (the parts are populated by a largely agrarian community at the mercy of the vagaries of the monsoon).
Day 3 , Hampi again. To all the would be Hampi travellers , I would strongly suggest a trip to the ASI museum. Apart from being treated to an amazing display of coins , pamphlets , armoury and other artifacts from the golden era , what truly takes your breath away is how much has been done in terms of preserving the site. There are pictures from the British period of marshy land surrounding some of the temples, the aqueduct with the supporting structure missing and other sites which have verdant lawns surrounding them were barely unearthed. Also on display is a model of the entire town.
Lunch time found us walking down the riverside to a quaint little restaurant called the Mango Tree. Stocked well with used books and foreign cigarettes this seemed to be the ultimate chillout joint. The food itself was above average at best though. We strolled on down the river side taking in sights of smaller temples built by the river. A few more hours were left to kill and we decided to clamber up Mathanga peak which is about a kilometre from the Virupaksha temple. Every excruciating step of this trek was well worth the act of surveying the surrounding environs. I chickened out a few metres away from the peak itself as the drop looked extremely sheer.
Between gulps of air in a perch where I risked being blown off because of the wind, I beheld 250 short years of an extremely creative burst in Indian history. An extremely vital buffer civilization which followed up on dying mega kingdoms (Cholas, Cheras, Pandyas) in the south. A civilization that sustained much of the early Portuguese trade in India (it can be argued that the downfall of the Vijayanagra kingdom brought about the end of the Potuguese trade in India). Watching the ruins , Ozymandias was apt

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

(Ozymandias by PB Shelley)

More pics at http://photo.net/photodb/slideshow?folder_id=860380

Cabal-Michael Dibdin

2008-08-02T23:40:00.000-07:00

In the crowded space of super sleuths solving heinous crimes, its quite a feat to build up recall and Aurelio Zen stands out tall among peers. Zen though rooted in Italy could be transplanted anywhere for the pragmatism of the character. This book is one of the later one in the series of Aurelio Zen's career.
The book itself has a great plot. The death of a prince in the Vatican, leaves the superstructure shaken up and a series of murders leaving a bloody trail of witnesses. The prince is attributed membership of the shadoy group called the Cabal which boasts of key connections and information vital to the Catholic church.Zen is the choice of the Vatican authorities more from a politically expedient perspective rather than a intrinsic belief in his capabilities. Zen largely follows procedures of detection which would be frowned on by authorities, but ends up delivering the goods. Interlaced into the complex tale of detection is Zen's own romance and the politics of the office space which could lead to the death of his reputation. The plot meanders giving ample pace for characterization and the twists come in rapid succession when you least expect them. Though dated in terms of the means used, this is by far a great series, well worth the read.

Among the Believers - VS Naipaul

2008-07-24T06:56:00.001-07:00

This book is remarkable in the relevance of the authors experiences in the early 80s to the present day context. The author visits a cross section of countries in the Islamic world , moving from revolution in Iran to foment in South East Asia. Its a great book to get a fair understanding of Islam in a political context as envisioned by citizens in the countries that he visits. The author starts of with Iran and comes across a cross section of individuals who are hopeful and disillusioned by what the revolution has delivered. The most remarkable is his visit to the city of Qom (the Oxford of Persia), in the month of Ramadan. His meetings with leading theologians, one of whom personally shot the Shah's prime minister lends a touch of the macabre. The setting shifts to Pakistan which after three decades of independence is still struggling to deliver on its promise of being the land of the pure. The shariat has been imposed by Zia, but there's very little which seems to have been changed for the lay citizens. With the setting moving to South East Asia, the book loses its edge, compared to the surprisingly diverse perspectives of Islam that the author manages to extricate in Iran and Pakistan, both Indonesia and Malaysia offer a unidimensional perspective.

Its remarkable that the author manages to get access to the people that he finally interviews for the book given that he is a non-Muslim. Though a lot of the discussions are laced with his perspective, there seems to be minimal prejudice. A good book to get a broad perspective of the implementation of Islam in a political context

Kowsalya Parthasarathy - Notes on my Grandmother

2008-06-15T09:06:00.000-07:00

It would be impossible for me to capture what Patti (Mummy to my mother Radha, simply Patti to me and now Kolla Patti to my son) is in a few words. To do so is to describe an inspiration, a spirit, a force and it would be better off in verse. Nevertheless in the eyes of an awe inspired grandson reared for quite a while in her iron-willed command, she is a lady far ahead of her times.
Kowsalya was the fourth child of Venuswamy Iyengar and Rukmani (Babu atthai) . Free spirited and strong willed I could imagine her being a force to reckon in the sphere of her choice. An early incident when she donated her bangles to Gandhi in a freedom march showed that her heart was in the right place. Married at the age of 16 to Mr. T N Parthasarathy (a thorough gentleman) working in the North East Frontier Railway she traveled across the vast expanse pre-Independence India . In a leisurely post lunch session in her home in Kottivakam, places like Chittagong , Calcutta, Gonda, Muzaffarpur, Gorakhpur, Bombay, Secunderabad and Madras provide great backdrops for remarkable anecdotes. Most notable was her experience of braving through East Pakistan (Bangladesh) during the time of partition. Taught to drive the car by her father in Gorakhpur, you can still see her stubborn resolve in driving her old Fiat at the age of 85 (much to the chagrin of the other motorists on the road). She picked up computers at the age of 83, and she could win the world solitaire championship if there were one. She has been blessed with four children Lakshmi (Juju) , Vasantha (Thangachi) , Radha (Chin Chin) , Raghunath (Thambi). A true Kodiyalam to the core, in these age and times you get the feeling that they don't come like that anymore.

The Poe Shadow - Mathew Pearl

2008-06-07T22:43:00.001-07:00

Its amazing how long a wafer thin plot can be sustainable without getting drab. Here's a book that stretches a great piece of true historical investigation into a grand tale of international intrigue and style. It almost pulls it off, but then again almost.....

Quentin Clark, the protagonist of the tale is sucked into an emotional whirlpool when he witnesses the burial of the great author Edgar Allen Poe in a non-descript grave in a Baltimore cemetery. Being a Poe fan, he suspects foul play at work and as one thing leading to another, he is obsessed by a desire to get Poe justice in death. After a number of futile attempts which slowly lead him perilously close to ruin, he accidentally comes across a news article which points to the role-model for the fictional detective of Poe's novels - Auguste Dupin. Ensconed in Paris with the name Auguste Duponte Quentin seeks him out to solve the "murder". While in pursuit of Duponte in Paris, Quentin is accosted by an "imposter" by the name Baron Auguste Dupin. Its now a race between the two Dupins to get to the root of Poe's death. The setting shifts back to Baltimore and the pace picks up from a snails jog to a horse trot. A heady cocktail is thrown in including French aristocracy and a murder. Quentin finds himself a murder accused while his raison-d-etre still lies unsolved.

As a concept the novel is brilliant for a number of reasons- A great description of Baltimore and its society in the mid 19th century, an incisive view into Poe and his work, a brilliant piece of historical detective work using material never before published. But what works as a dampener is the ridiculous fiction that surrounds the core tale, the Dupins get tiring, the international intrigue is bizarre and totally distracting. Patience is rewarding though and the final denouement is definitely worth the wait.

Special Assignments - Boris Akunin

2008-05-21T11:51:00.000-07:00

Rather than being a single novel this book is actually a collection of 2 stories, just the appropriate length to take a break between two sittings. The style and the nature of the stories are fairly different though and at times except for the composure of the detective Erast Fandorin, you could have been forgiven for believing that the two stories were written by different authors.

The first story is about the ace con man notorious as the Jack of Spades. Some of the acts of swindling are extremely audacious and one of them also includes a daring con job in Fandorin's household. The cat and moue game resembles a sparring match between two adversaries who admire each other in their own right. Though beaten early at the game Fandorin finds himself lucky the second time and the story has a reasonably satisfying ending, though overall there's not much to challenge Fandorin and there are a fair degree of cliches including the conclusion of the story.

The second story on the other hand belongs to an altogether different genre. Bordering more on the macabre, Fandorin is up against Jack the Ripper who seems to have shifted base from London and there are a series of brutal murders which seem to have a pattern in the choice of the victims as well as the way the murders are committed; especially the method of the murders leads to the serial killer being nicknamed the Decorator. As the dragnet closes in the murders start coming closer home and the final showdown is thrilling to the core, both in terms of the build up and the denouement of the identity of the murderer. In typical fashion the chapters flit between Fandorin's pursuit and the mental machinations of the serial killer. Extremely entertaining .

In short a fairly mixed bag , but well worth the buy

On Golden Pond

2008-04-14T07:36:00.000-07:00

Finding a retreat for a short weekend without leaving a hole in the pocket is easier said than done, the balance between a long tiring drive and a rather dull destination much closer is a balance difficult to achieve. Surprisingly one option did pique interest and we were on the way driving down the rather busy Bannerghatta road to the Jungle Lodges with the Bannerghatta sanctuary. If you have been a Bangalore resident for a while, this road post IIM Bangalore was a pot-holed drive into a fairly verdant area (8-9 years back), fast forward and you have a concrete mess right up-to the zoo. Nevertheless leaving my Luddite instincts aside, the resort is a few km behind the zoo, and you have to park your car by the wayside as only the resort vehicles are supposed to ply beyond the zoo.

The resort itself is a rather motley collection of a bunch of tents and 2 log huts. Given that the program is just day long and definitely not indoors, its quite an easy choice unless air conditioning is an absolute must (the log huts offer this). The cottages have an adjoining hammock, providing for rather blissful afternoon naps.

The lodge is a fairly large enclosure (with electrified fences) and a walk through will

provide for an introduction for some of

the resident antlers. There are 3 rescued deers which saunter through, 2 spotted deer and 1 rowdy sambhar named Minchu (more on that later). After a fairly unremarkable lunch, we were bundled into a safari bus which drove us through the tiger and bear sanctuary. The safari offers a fair number of animal sightings with lion, deer, bear lounging slothfully in the afternoon heat. The drive then passes an observation point which offers a panoramic view of the park. The vegetation largely shrubs and small trees rather than thick jungle. The drive ends with a visit to the zoo, which unfortunately had people visiting in droves. The zoo is thankfully maintained to reasonable standards , and I was dragged around by my son for the rest of the hour till I was praying for respite- the hammock

beckoned. Beer and a reasonable spread were a good preamble to a deep slumber.

The highlight of the trip by far was the trek through the jungle in the morning , for which the wake up call is at 6:30 am. Thankfully none of the other resort members chose to avail of this

and it was a personalized tour. The tour spans about 2 km and runs through the herbivore safari area.

After a brief lesson on the difference between antelopes and antlers and trying to guess animals from their dung (we sampled the jungle hare),

we were off. Much to our delight

the first sight was of the last 3 surviving black buck in the sanctuary. The sanctuary boasted of 25 to start with

, but with innumerable leopard attacks the number has final

ly dwindled to 3. Further down we were able to sight a herd of bisons chewing away at fodder placed at designated points. Birds of many a feather flew by, followed by a brief lecture on habits and habitats. The safari numbers have been augmented

significantly by circus animals (including carnivores). Regaled by stories of wild elephants, most notably the infamous Rowdy Ranga, we kept trudging through the forest area. When we probed about the deer in the lodge, the guide revealed that they were rescued in different circumstances. Minchu the sambhar deer was tortured by college girls when she lived in the college premises, as a result she is prone to attack women attired in green. The spotted deer is a survivor of a crocodile attack. We finally spotted a majestic chameleon hiding in the trees and got quite close enough much to the lizards consternation.

A final bend on the trail brought the camp in sight and we passed a muddy pond, which was the haunt of the crocodile that attacked the deer. The walking tour was a great way to cap the trip

Though the program was complete, what strikes you is the thin membrane that separates the beautiful reserve forest from the din of civilization right outside. Refreshed , we drove out with a new chapter in the family album

The career and legend of Vasco Da Gama - Sanjay Subrahmanyam

2008-04-05T22:57:00.000-07:00

In times wherein we debate kinks and spikes in a flat world, the relevance of the great explorers of the 15th century in contributing to this phase is a moot point. What could lend a boost to any of these debates is this great book on one of the explorers viz. Vasco Da Gama by Sanjay Subrahmanyam. The book is infinitely detailed, sometimes tiresomely so but to a patient reader the facts form a coherent pattern in a tapestry checkered by messianic zeal and greed.

Vasco Da Gama came from a reasonably humble beginning, born to a family of noblemen of an average standing. Though current history and the significance of events have allowed poets and artists to use broad strokes to paint him as an intrepid adventurer, this can only be a partial truth. Vasco Da Gama was a creation of the times albeit a smart and brave one.

15th century Portugal displays an enormous amount of politicking. The power of the royalty is undermined or augmented based on the support of military orders which are leftovers of the crusades, notably one of them viz. The Order of Christ largely being a makeover of the Templars who may have found refuge in Portugal. The king Dom Joao 2 , under severe competitive pressure from neighboring Spain which could boast of greater maritime success (both financially and nominally), discovers an excellent device for his ambitions in Vasco Da Gama who is entrusted with the voyage to India. The purpose being twofold - undermine the power of the Moors who till now have dominated the spice trade, and sound the death knell on Islam by allying with the mythical Prestor John who controls an large army of willing Christians.

May 1498 sees Vasco Da Gama sighting land in Kerala, and the first Portuguese land in India. The spice trade is portrayed to be fairly open controlled largely by the Samudri Zamorin of Calicut. What follows is a tale of greed and power-play with the Portuguese based on their sheer might on the seas being able to control a large share of the spice trade. Religious zeal takes a back-seat to sheer greed and though the spice trade is largely won its at a fairly large cost to the locals. Vasco goes back to a sinecure under a new king Dom Manuel and over a period of time with political upheaval taking a toll on his image and standing, he is "convinced" to become the viceroy of India where he finally is put to rest.

So the questions linger, was the discovery of the sea route to India an enabler for a more global society? From a western perspective, maybe yes, but for the largely peaceful trade routes that existed in the Indian ocean the dark ages had just begun

The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

2008-02-24T08:57:00.000-08:00

Afghanistan, in its current state would rarely evoke an image of peace wherein people had joie de vivre, where Fridays was a time for families to congregate on lake-sides for a picnic. Believe that and the tragedy of the precipitous fall of a society from a reasonable semblance of culture, to pure hell is enough to shake you to the core. This is largely the backdrop of this beautiful tale of an author leaving war torn Afghanistan only to return to see it at its worst, but redeeming himself in the process.

The Kite Runner is the story of Amir and Hassan, the story of a delightful childhood gone wrong , scarred by guilt. Amir in a wretched state is the cause of Hassan and his father leaving their home, in the process breaking a bond that lasts decades. Much like the bumpy truck journey which ferries Amir and his father out of war torn Afghanistan, their lives are subject to ups and downs. Amir continues to be troubled by his betrayal, while Hassan ekes out a low key existence. A cataclysmic set of events leads Amir back into an Afghanistan for an act that could possibly redeem him. The Kabul of his middle age is a city of orphans populated with beggars, where unimaginable cruelty is meted out for entertainment. There is a touch of vengeance, and ample tragedy before an incredibly touching climax.

The novel is nowhere close to perfect. Its a migrants story filled with cliches (some quite similar to the Hindi films that the author ridicules). But where the novel succeeds immensely is to nurture hope and continuity in adverse conditions. The climactic image of the half smile of a child watching the author chasing a falling kite could well signify a sign of change in Afghanistan. Read this to restore your belief that there is a God above

From a humble perch

2008-02-22T20:05:00.000-08:00

Boxed into an aging apartment block with surroundings resounding with the noise of stones being hammered into shape isn't the best of locales for letting your creative instincts loose. I'd rather be parked on my bean bag watching a movie, but for some uncanny reason, being the only interface with the outside world, the changing light offers a redeeming grace from the usual drudgery. Not that existence is Kafkaesque by any stretch of imagination, but definitely the energy levels generated by spending a short 5 minutes in my balcony is in stark contrast to the my soporific meanderings for the rest of the day.
The apartment overlooks a fairly new colony (8-9 years) sprawling over a vast area formed by draining a bunch of low-lying lakes, with the expected outcome of the area being completely flooded in the rainy season. Its an ever changing view, pockets of dust and green are rapidly being replaced by spanking white new houses, some pleasant , some a complete eyesore. Flanking the right side at a good distance is a rather busy flyover de-congesting the ever busy Hosur Road. If that doesn't give a sense of the energy, we have visitors too. The cramped excuse for a balcony doubles up as a aviary in the mornings with pigeons and sparrows chirping away for their share of rice grains. You are rewarded in the evenings watching a fleet of pigeons soar away to soak in the last dredges of sunlight. To add to the mix, I've also been force fitting the scenery by using this as my studio of sorts for photographing all the stuff that my son plays with. I wouldn't be surprised if the general feeling is that most of the photographs are drab, but I treasure them for what they stand for - There is beauty hidden away in the oddest of places, you can find it if you reach out.

Through the Looking Glass

2008-02-12T05:04:00.000-08:00

Cant stop gushing over my Macro lens and since there's not much else of note in the past few weeks , decided that would post the last most significant activity. I still am amazed with the results of the Macro lens that I purchased recently. Have done innumerable test runs in my Mothers and Grandmothers garden space and the results have been downright amazing. Though I still haven't got used to the sensitivity of the lens to a handshake/ a gentle wind wafting across, some of the results are well worth the effort. The most innocuous subjects seem to take on a new life under scrutiny. Consequently a small garden patch which normally doesn't merit a second look throws up a fairly large array of subjects. So there may be that odd ant scurrying across the canna leaf or a beetle settling in on a weed , but whats breathtaking is the flush of the color and the amazing contrasts that come to the fore. Leaves have distinct patterns , the veins stand out against a low back light. You can see the pollen stand out from the rest of the flower. Its equally frustrating to get the right moment, insects are extremely fickle and it takes multiple exposures to get anything even close to satisfactory, it took me about a 100 mosquito bites and 10 exposures to capture a spider in its web and the sad part was that what looked good in the camera's preview mode was far from perfect. Nevertheless playing the pics back on my 20 inch Mac monitor is well worth the occasional failures. Mother nature should take a bow

The Amber Spyglass - Philip Pullman

2007-12-30T04:04:00.000-08:00

It is a tough act to follow the Subtle Knife, and being the last book in the trilogy , the Amber Spyglass almost fails to deliver , but if a book can be redeemed in a few pages, this book is a fine example of the genre. The Subtle Knife was about explanations a convergence of the threads that were frayed in the first part and the Amber Spyglass almost gives it away by starting parallel tracks which drone on and on without any logical explanation of where the story is headed. Lyra and Will enter the land of the dead, Mary Fulton follows an open window into a land with diamond structured beasts riding wheels which are actually seeds of a tree (life is a delicate web of inter dependencies). The cataclysmic war between the Almighty and Lord Asriel takes place which is rather short and somehow doesn't capture the imagination, though it does shatter the concept of a supreme being who/which is all powerful/moral.In an instant as God's regent falls, the clouds part and the message shine through and what a message it is. So while the author, in a rush goes around closing threads towards the end of the book, just as Will closed windows that he has left open across worlds the message holds you in a rapture. The body is a celebratration, cherish the moment, for there is no heaven to look forward to apart from the one we build for ourselves on Earth.

Venturing into Orissa

2007-12-25T09:25:00.000-08:00

The Sun Temple

The wheel of Konark is one of those motifs of Indian art, which has been burned into the psyche, by being an omnipresent reminder of the glories of Indian history. Subtly depicted in the 20 Rs note, you just can’t miss the cue if you happen to be had the good fortune of being within touching distance of the browsing through an in flight magazine and run across the ads on Orissa. Having found myself in Bhubaneshwar, I temple, and with a day to spare, I set off on a visit to Konark and Puri.
I had the noble intentions of catching sunrise at the Sun temple, and hence started at an infernal hour from Bhubaneshwar (4:30 am to be precise) and could hear the driver muttering to himself. The city was covered in a dense fog and it was wise to maintain a slow pace to avoid any untoward incident. We passed villages rousing themselves out of a slumber and much to my disappointment by the time we reached Konark the fog hadn't lifted at all. We headed towards Chandrabagha beach, which is a kilometer from the temple. The beach is notorious for its undercurrents and I had some well-meaning advice to avoid taking a dip. The beach was packed with people trying to catch the first rays of the sun and it didn't take me long to figure that waiting at the beach was a lost cause. With a quick glass of tea and 2 hot samosas to warm my heart, I headed straight for the temple. The closest car park is a good 200 m away from the temple premise and I trudged along with pre-conceived images playing away in my mind. A sign indicated that this was one of the last gasps of the Oriyan style of architecture, built by a king of the Ganga dynasty in the 13th century. I headed on and came across some loose stones which had some intricate carvings which showed promise, but where in the world was the temple complex? Noticed a beautiful garden and a fairly huge stone ziggurat like structure, but the dense fog prevented me from fathoming anything more. With directions from a well-meaning gentleman I managed to get across to a ticket counter and managed to get into the temple premise. Being rather early I managed to get a guide at a good rate and the tour was on. The temple is dedicated to the sun god, and has 4 structures, which appear in a sequence, with the 3rd one being the main structure. The temple is flanked by wheels, which signify the progression of the sun god, in his horse driven chariot. The first structure has corridors, which channel the light into the main temple, which is followed by the audience hall.
Folklore (guide-speak) has it that the main deity was suspended by a magnetic field created by a magnet located at the top of the temple, which was powerful enough to distort compass readings of Portuguese ships plying the coast. The Portuguese then raided the temple and removed the magnets, which caused a significant shift in the balance and the main structure collapsed. Interestingly the temple never had any religious significance in spite of the breathtaking detail in the sculpture, and on probing further out popped a story. The king envisaging that delays in the building would significantly drain the state funds threatened that all the workers would be executed if there were even a day's delay or an extra persons effort beyond the stipulated 12 years of building and 1200 workers. As work on the temple came to a close, the head mason's son who hadn't seen his father since birth headed to the worksite to find that the workers were in a bind and his father unable to solve the problem of fixing the final stone on top. The dutiful son fixed the stone, not realizing that he had imperiled the entire workforce, as his extra effort was a violation of the king’s condition. The son drowned himself to save the workers and his death put an end to any formal worship that could be conducted in the temple.
The complex is massive and the stone had to be ferried across via a nearby river from nearby Khandagiri, this is a much softer stone and has a yellowish brown color, contrasting significantly with the blue granite used sparing to depict the sun god in the main structure. Raiders on the kingdom have defaced most of the deities. The temple has layers each for a phase of life, the lowest layer depicting animals meant for the younger crowd, the next layer has erotica catering to the youth and above all of them is the depiction of god symbolizing the final attainment that an individual can aspire for. The carvings are extremely intricate and there are innumerable stories depicted in the carvings, the guide randomly picked on some carvings of Krishna lifting the Govardhana mountain and Menaka disrupting sage Vishwamitra's meditation. I walked around the premise clicking away at the stonework.
The audience hall was packed with stones and sand to preserve the structure from caving in and hence you cannot enter the hall per se. The good news now is that a team has recommended that the structure can be buttressed to stand by itself and the audience hall may be opened up for the general public. What that may reveal is subject to conjecture, but just walk around and you cannot help but agree with Tagore- "here the language of stone surpasses the language of man."

Konark to Puri
Talk of Murphy's law, the sun shone through the dreadful fog just as I moved out of the Sun Temple, I was in half a mind to go right back in, but the crowds were now pouring in by the droves. So hopped into the taxi and headed to Puri. I realized what I may have missed in the morning when the car hit the road which ran adjacent to the seashore. with the waves roaring, we passed through a few forested areas, but then stopped at a delightful little temple called RamchandiThe beaches were empty which was about 7Kms from Konark. Ramchandi is the presiding deity of the Konark region. I skipped getting into the temple and instead ventured down to the backwaters adjacent to the temple. Was accosted by a fisherman who offered to ferry me across to a sand bank across the backwater and I jumped at the offer. The backwaters look sedate but , the undercurrents are strong. The sand bank had a kilometre long beach strip which was totally isolated, with one deep water fishing boat looking marooned on the beach. Walked along fooling around with the camera trying some rather silly shots, and chasing some rather large looking crabs. Gave up and walked back to a rather bemused boatman who hiked his fee for keeping him waiting long. Found that he had stashed away a rather decent catch of fish in the boat. I was walking back to the car wistfully with feet soaking wet and weighed down by a ton of sand, and the rest of the Puri journey to complete. The rest of the journey was a breeze and was soon bracing myself for the daunting task of getting a darshan of the Lord
Puri
Getting into the outer by-lanes of Puri, the perception of the town is daunting. Puri has contributed the word juggernaut to the English lexicon. The word takes shape from the yearly festival wherein thousands pull a chariot of the lord Jagannath across the town. Puri has a special significance, being one of the four Mathas as established by Sri Adi Shankaracharya. Even though I wasn't a stranger to crammed gullies and ultra religious downtowns, having studied in Benaras, Puri conjures a vastly different scale of crowding.
So was pleasantly surprised when the car drove into a fairly vast open space, and we took a short time to get to the parking spot near the temple. Soon realised that the temple doesn't permit photography within the premises, hence just wandered around clicking snaps of the surroundings. Was soon accosted by a bike riding Panda (a priest) who imposed himself on being the official guide to the temple.
The temple is an experience well worth the time, the jostling and the pestering to get special poojas done. It rises majestically with a shape of an umbrella about to be opened. Etched into the temple are fine carvings, but not in the same scale as in Konark.There's a perpetual huge rush of eager devotees to get a darshan, and I soon found myself squeezed against the outer gates of the audience hall, a rather crowded 20 minutes later when the gates opened I found myself sprinting to the next obstacle, which gives a view of the inner sanctum , but only just, 5 more minutes and I slithered my way (with all the coconut water on the floor) within touching distance of the lord. There's something very unique about the depiction here, firstly the large eyes, the doll like faces of the deities is remarkable and secondly , I haven't seen many temples which depict Krishna with Balarama and Subhadra. After a quick prayer, we were shooed away to make way for the next mob and there are some priests armed with bamboo twigs who literally smack you to make you move faster. I walked around the temple premise and admired the wondrous rise of the main structure, etching it into the mind, wondering if I would get a chance to see it again. Took the slow walk back to the car letting the sights and sounds sink in (this was so like Benaras, absolute mayhem). After a diversion via Puri beach (which was even more crowded than the temple) , we headed back to Bhubaneswar.

Seldom have I managed so much in a day without feeling rushed, and the it slowly sank in during the flight back to Bangalore that in all the mad morning rush and evening traffic, there's a boatman at Ramchandi watching the backwaters rise and fall and life is a flow in time rather than a series of mindless ticks divided into weekends and weekdays.

The Subtle Knife - Phillip Pullman

2007-12-25T06:20:00.000-08:00

Dark as the first one in the series of His Dark Materials was, this part closes out a lot of loose ends that were introduced in the first part and quite easily sets up a fantastic atmosphere for the climactic episode. We get a hint about the broader purpose of Lyra's mission, we get to know a bit more about Dust, there's a whole new dimension to the enigmatic Mr Grumman whose head was instrumental in funding Lord Asriel's discovery of the pathway to the new world. But the book belongs to Will Parry.

Will is a plucky youngster who realises that his mother is plagued by demons of the mind and ends up accidentally murdering a person who is after a prized possession that his mother treasures. One thing leads to another and Will finds himself using a window into another world wherein he meets Lyra who has followed Lord Asriel into the new world. The new world is haunted by horrific beings called Specters which have an interest in sucking the life out of adults. Will and Lyra succeed in shuttling between the two worlds (Will's and the new one that they are in) and they encounter a slimy adversary in Charles Latham (who is Lord Boreal in Lyra's world). Charles Latham unknowingly helps Will in acquiring a powerful knife which enables him to cut windows between worlds. Needless to say this "subtle knife" is extremely powerful and will play a much more significant part in the climax. Mrs Coulter makes a much smaller but an equally deadly role in this episode and if specters weren't enough we seem to have the introduction of Angels in this part.

In all this is a much better read than the first part and provides an awesome amount of momentum to the reader. Can't wait to get ahead with the Amber Spyglass

The Golden Compass - Phillip Pullman

2007-12-22T23:37:00.000-08:00

If there's one word to summarize the atmosphere around the book , it would be Dark. From start to end there's hardly a sliver of light that seeps through, understandable as there is an apocalyptic outcome that everyone is expecting. The book is peopled with humans who have associated daemons who acquire a fixed animal form which reflects their personality post maturity, there are warrior bears, witches a small share of frightening evil creatures. The stage is set for a roller coaster fairy tale , except for the concept of Dust.
The protagonist is a young lady (supposedly an orphan till we get to know better) called Lyra who lives in Oxford (same name but in a different world) , and is set on a course destined to change the world due to her witnessing a conversation between Lord Asriel and scholars of the university about Dust. The word Dust instills fear in a world controlled by the Church and a rather nasty outcrop of it, called the General Oblation Board. Lyra soon gets sucked into a series of events which gets her on a journey northbound (I'm afraid to say Arctic, as I'm not sure what its called in the book) with a bunch of gypsies to free children kidnapped by the General Oblation Board (Gobblers for short). She is up against the guiles of the diabolical Mrs Coulter whose idea the General Oblation Board is. There are many battles played out and the climax has a twist (there are a few on route too , esp. Lyra's identity), and on the whole a good entertainer.
The crux of the book though is the rather blasphemous idea of what this strange particle called Dust does to an individual and that's what snaps your attention back to something deeper than just flying witches and fighting bears. The book only serves to illuminate the characteristics of Dust and not what it actually is which I hope the rest of the parts should do. There are a number of half answered questions at the end and if it weren't for the comfort of having the remaining two parts of the trilogy handy, I would have been a disenchanted reader. In a nutshell the book by itself is good at best , and should keep you sufficiently interested
for the rest of the trilogy

The Murder on the Leviathan - Boris Akunin

2007-11-20T05:53:00.000-08:00

Having read "The Death of Achilles" before this one , there was a sense let down with the final denouement, but keeping in perspective that this is one of the earlier books in the series of the rather curious detective Erast Fandorin, its well worth a read.
The tale is a gripping detective thriller with a French detective pursuing the perpetrator of a gruesome murder in Paris. The stage for the unraveling of the plot is on board the sumptuous Leviathan , a luxury ship that's way ahead of times. This book is much more in the genre of Christie thrillers wherein the tale plays out over meal time conversations, moving from one shocking revelation to the next. Where it differs is the variety of the characters involved viz. a shamed Samurai , a deranged army-man. As the plot progresses the grand prize which the murderer is after is revealed to be a massive treasure chest belonging to an erstwhile Maharaja. In trademark style one of the villains is a larger than life serial criminal. The ending is a bit over the top, but its well worth the read purely for the quaint characterizations in an equally unique timeframe.

The Power of Art - Simon Schama

2007-11-04T05:29:00.000-08:00

Being a dilletante in the field of, this series of programs had the effect of shaking me to the roots. Not quite the "change your life" category, but clearly enough to move you to appreciate that there's much more to art than dishing out pretty pictures.
The construct of each of the programs is interesting . The author picks out 1 piece of art that defines the artist/changed the artists life e.g. Caravaggio has the slaying of Goliath, Picasso has Guernica. Schama then weaves the story of artists and his period setting skillfully around the artwork. You realize heroism of a Turner in creating the "Slave Ship", you cheer for Bernini's comeback in creating "The Ecstacy of St Teresa". Thankfully the choice of these seminal pieces of art doesn't read like the top 10 rated in the art world (there's no Mona Lisa) , but Schama clearly convinces you that his selection merits notice.
To add on , the camera work and the reproduction of the settings are no less pieces of art themselves. Watch the low shots of the beach in the Turner episode, the bleak shots of rain dripping from thick glass in the Picasso episode. This set is a masterpiece in art appreciation

The Death of Achilles - Boris Akunin

2007-10-31T11:26:00.000-07:00

A remarkable series to say the least , with an incredible backdrop of Russia towards the end of the period of the Tsars. The one thought which crossed my mind when I put down the novel was , just where was Boris Akunin all this while. Erast Fandorin , a 24 carat hero, is one of the best sleuths that you will encounter in literature.
The setting is 19th century Russia flirting with enlightenment , with significant tension simmering with imperial neighbors. The nation is rocked with the death of its favorite general in rather suspicious circumstances, conveniently in the same hotel where Erast Fandorin is lodged. What follows is a remarkable story of unraveling layers of intrigue .Every murder seems to indicate an acceptable closure to the mystery , but a never say die pursuit by the detective takes you deeper into the darker forces involved. Fandorin has a remarkable Japanese man friday which tends to deviate from the usual diet of dumb counterfoils to brilliant detectives. Fandorin is Holmes with Zen nay a Bond with restraint. There's much more than just Fandorin to savor here. The rather brutal rural Russian setting gives rise to a diabolical assassin who almost proves too much for out hero.
Its a great commentary on Russian society during the 19th century, much as the pipe smoking Holmes characterizes Britain. Never a dull moment , this is a book to savor.

Microcosmos - or my first experience with a macro lens

2007-10-20T00:24:00.000-07:00

Nothing recharges photography than the addition of equipment to the fold, and true to form I've been tooling around with a macro lens added to the fold. It has a disorienting effect when you look a lizard in the eye , but the results quite make up for the dizziness that you experience in the process. Yet to pick up on a theme to work with , but still have some stuff to show with the initial "spin". Flowers seem to have an amazing amount of detail , faces reveal so much more. There's a whole new world suddenly revealed. More to come soon

The Flanders Panel - Arturo Perez Reverte

2007-09-04T08:52:00.000-07:00

To say the book is clever is an understatement nay brilliant would be more appropriate, but going by the author's reputation and other work (notably The Dumas Club), this book falls way short of the benchmark. The story is a heady cocktail of art and chess, kicked off by the discovery of a hidden inscription within a rare painting by a Dutch Master. What follows is a pursuit to solve the riddle of the inscription - a clue to a medieval murder mystery which is unraveled by a series of chess moves which soon begins to play out in real life. The unraveling of the plot involves playing out a chess game that is depicted in the painting, though the protagonist soon discovers that the players are real people and the falling pieces are brought about by gruesome murders. It takes a mind of a genius to conceptualize and bring to life a plot of this nature. The book is an amazing exhibition of the authors erudition, with the book being laden with layers of art history and philosophical dialogues.
And therein lies the failure of the story - somewhere along the way the plot gets bogged down by the weight of the erudition. Pages on pages of discussions on what would have been in the painters mind, the psychology of the killer which have very little bearing on the plot tire the reader . The final denouement and the associated explanations are a drag, and somehow you cant help sighing on the last page that this could have been a masterpiece

Vapourware

2007-08-22T08:25:00.001-07:00

I wonder just how many flights I may have alarmed co-passenger out of their wits , by suddenly pulling out a camera mid flight just after they have woken up from a "nights" sleep. Inevitably I tend to glue myself to the window pane and try to catch the first rays on sunrise, but have rarely found a position which was gratifying. Nevertheless with a recent set of flights in business class , the process has been much easier , with a slightly lesser number of concerned co-passengers.

Some of my attempts have been satisfying , though most of them in a serendipitous way-its impossible to predict cloud formations and the tilt of the airplane, but it has been worthwhile keeping my camera in hand waiting for a rewarding tilt by the pilot revealing a grand landscape below or for that matter an interesting cloud shadow.

I seek a picture of a perfect sunrise or a sunset and am sure that it would most probably be through a window pane of an airline, here are some feebler attempts till I capture the perfect picture.