Last night after the LSMS conference there was a big dinner. Since it was in Beirut and was going late I opted to stay with a cousin in Beirut rather than try to come back after midnight. So this morning I got up and had to make an interesting route back to the village. I had to catch a taxi from my cousin's room to an area called Cola. The cabbie didn't speak english so I had to attempt only arabic. I'm getting reasonably skilled at faking understanding arabic. I say very limited phrases and point and say yes and no a lot and then thanks when I understand where to go. So I ask for Cola (so named for an old soda bottling factory before the war) and then the 16 bus. It turns out the 16 bus is not actually a bus, but a run down van. So I jumped in with a couple soldiers and some workers and a disgruntled "bus" driver. I was able to read the signs in arabic and determine the route we were going and how much I was supposed to pay. Since I recognize the area around the village I got out a few miles away. I was instructed to call back to the village, but I found a taxi and miraculously managed to negotiate with him for a couple bucks to take me back to the village.
When I got here, my cousins all told me how worried they'd been since I left beirut. I chided them mildly saying I have traveled around Sri Lanka and India on my own and I didn't know where I was going. I made it back, it was a fun adventure I must say, and now I know a little bit about Lebanon's "public transit." I think getting from an apartment in Beirut to my little village in the mountains for something like $10. In Indian money that's a lot, but considering the distance and the idea that I had to take 2 taxis I can't say I minded. The "bus" driver drove like a madman as should be expected from any bus driver anywhere, so I got back in a timely fashion.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
LSMS first annual meeting
Ostensibly I'm in Lebanon for the first annual meeting of the Lebanese Society of the Mathematical Sciences. I gave a talk on the first day (friday evening at 5 so no one showed up) but at least I went. It is nice for me to see Lebanon gaining some momentum in scientific research. At least it signals to me a relatively long period of peace. For too long the people have been concerned with protection and industry and all the other things that sort of lessen the effect or desire of scientific research. Moreover in times of war (at least in Lebanon) all the money has to go to immediately productive means, and science and scientific research just don't fit that bill.
Even with the momentum being gained for math(s) the majority is still applied mathematics. There were 35 talks and 20 of them were directly applied mathematics. Several others were in fields related to computer science and only about 1/4 were truly pure math. I guess I'm ok with that, but it was terribly boring for me to sit through nearly 20 talks on numerical methods for Partial Differential Equations when I have limited interest in even the most intriguing talk.
I should also mention that mathematics talks are generally boring. In fact, the common man needs no additional comment from this. It just appears to me that the mathematics community world wide is made up of some very clever individuals who have great dedication to an abstract art and have a very hard time communicating their ideas to others.
I think the only thing that I really noticed that was different about Lebanese mathematicians than others is that they dress nicely. Even that aspect of Lebanese culture hasn't escaped its mathematics community. All the Lebanese people dress nicely and that extends to the young generation and its mathematicians. I was told by two of my cousins that I needed to wear a suit to the conference and I said "it's not a business conference" but the entire older generation was wearing suits and the younger generation was wearing dress pants with nicely polished shoes, button down shirts neatly ironed with sweaters adorning them. That was probably the most bizarre thing about it. Otherwise it was another math conference nicely organized and the correct amount of boring.
Even with the momentum being gained for math(s) the majority is still applied mathematics. There were 35 talks and 20 of them were directly applied mathematics. Several others were in fields related to computer science and only about 1/4 were truly pure math. I guess I'm ok with that, but it was terribly boring for me to sit through nearly 20 talks on numerical methods for Partial Differential Equations when I have limited interest in even the most intriguing talk.
I should also mention that mathematics talks are generally boring. In fact, the common man needs no additional comment from this. It just appears to me that the mathematics community world wide is made up of some very clever individuals who have great dedication to an abstract art and have a very hard time communicating their ideas to others.
I think the only thing that I really noticed that was different about Lebanese mathematicians than others is that they dress nicely. Even that aspect of Lebanese culture hasn't escaped its mathematics community. All the Lebanese people dress nicely and that extends to the young generation and its mathematicians. I was told by two of my cousins that I needed to wear a suit to the conference and I said "it's not a business conference" but the entire older generation was wearing suits and the younger generation was wearing dress pants with nicely polished shoes, button down shirts neatly ironed with sweaters adorning them. That was probably the most bizarre thing about it. Otherwise it was another math conference nicely organized and the correct amount of boring.
Friday, January 29, 2010
Tonight's moon in Lebanon
I was walking this evening between my aunts' houses and looked at the big bright full moon. What I noticed was a ring around it. It looked like the clouds had formed a perfect circle with the moon in its center. I don't know what it was, I don't know exactly how to describe and I don't even know how to take a picture of it, but it is quite a beautiful and peculiar sight.
Anyone have any ideas what this phenomenon is called?
Anyone have any ideas what this phenomenon is called?
The Dubai Tower
The Burj Dubai opened a few weeks ago as I suppose most people are now aware. I had flown to Beirut threw Bahrain last time and only seen a glimpse of many tall buildings. Nothing special I suppose having lived in Chicago and seen the Sears Tower (not the willis tower or the big willie or whatever the hell they're calling it now) almost daily.
But flying into Dubai I knew I had to get at least a look at the world's new number 1. I didn't have a good view from the airplane sitting in the dead center seat. Dubai was also foggy and dark at 6:00 AM. But as I was walking to meet my next plane I saw it! The thing even in the darkness, even with the fog, still looms large. It is simply enormous. I can't even begin to describe how big that building is. I'm a little nonplussed with the whole idea of building another ridiculous skyscraper that wastes resources and contributes very little good to humanity, but seeing that building, even in the distance made me forget it all for a moment.I understand the good that this building brings from an intellectual point of view. New Engineering and Architecture techniques had to be developed to stand something up so high. It also has nice aesthetic appeal. But it is so big. (<--- words men generally like to hear...)
This tower dwarfs the Sears tower, doubles the hieght of the empire state building, completely embarrasses the CN tower, the Petronas Towers, the Taipei 101, and even dominates (by several hundred feet!) the TV mast in North Dakota. Bahrain had talked about building a tower just ten meters taller to have the record. THAT, I would object to. But this building is a work of art in many senses. I hope to go to the observation deck at some point in the "near" future just to see the view.
To you crazy Arabs in the gulf states, I know you like big buildings and showing off how much money you have, but DAMN, this time you really outdid yourselves.
But flying into Dubai I knew I had to get at least a look at the world's new number 1. I didn't have a good view from the airplane sitting in the dead center seat. Dubai was also foggy and dark at 6:00 AM. But as I was walking to meet my next plane I saw it! The thing even in the darkness, even with the fog, still looms large. It is simply enormous. I can't even begin to describe how big that building is. I'm a little nonplussed with the whole idea of building another ridiculous skyscraper that wastes resources and contributes very little good to humanity, but seeing that building, even in the distance made me forget it all for a moment.I understand the good that this building brings from an intellectual point of view. New Engineering and Architecture techniques had to be developed to stand something up so high. It also has nice aesthetic appeal. But it is so big. (<--- words men generally like to hear...)
This tower dwarfs the Sears tower, doubles the hieght of the empire state building, completely embarrasses the CN tower, the Petronas Towers, the Taipei 101, and even dominates (by several hundred feet!) the TV mast in North Dakota. Bahrain had talked about building a tower just ten meters taller to have the record. THAT, I would object to. But this building is a work of art in many senses. I hope to go to the observation deck at some point in the "near" future just to see the view.
To you crazy Arabs in the gulf states, I know you like big buildings and showing off how much money you have, but DAMN, this time you really outdid yourselves.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Lebanese-Iranian Friendship Week
I've returned again to Lebanon. The trip in was entirely more fun than usual and it's because I got to sit in Business class from Chennai to Dubai. I was flying on Emirates which has an excellent reputation for service, and then got to sit business class. WOO!
On the flight I was seated next to an Iranian woman who is in fact my age and a medical doctor. I was surprised when she told me she lives in Iran because she wasn't wearing the Hijab. I asked her about covering her hair and she says in Iran she must. However, the moment she leaves Iran, she takes off the cover. Apparently she doesn't believe in Islam, but her family are all muslims and Iran has peculiar restriction about the dress of women and the religion of their people so she decided rather than to get in trouble at home to just put up with covering up. She hates it and made it clear to me. I told her I appreciated her honesty on the matter and it made me re-examine my thoughts on Iran as such. In Lebanon, I don't know if the feeling is wide-spread, but it's non-negligible that people feel Iran and Israel are fighting on Lebanese soil and so the Lebanese people are slightly soured on Iran in a similar way to Israel.
As soon as I was riding through the Hezbollah neighborhood next to Beirut's airport I started seeing signs for Lebanese-Iranian friendship week. I think in my own small way I contributed to this as did my Iranian doctor friend. I can't accept though that Lebanon and Iran are friends per se, but I understand the Lebanese not wanting to piss off Iran. As it turns out, Iran is a slightly scary political entity, because they are extreme and wealthy. I would go so far as to say Iran is more than slightly scary. But traveling changes the way I see things, and talking to a practicing doctor (who'd come to Chennai to look at medical equipment and work in an operating room in Chennai) really softened my stance on Iran. She believes that the majority of Iranians (especially the well educated) don't agree with the current regime and truly want change. I suspect Iran's "democracy" is a version of what Hezbollah (<---- not a fan) wants in Lebanon. A "we select the candidates and those who get to vote" style election.
So while I haven't softened my stance on Iran's political agenda and its consequences in Lebanon, I have been forced to revalue the way I see Iranian people, and indeed people from Muslim countries once again. I estimate that if I were able to sit down with each of them one-on-one for the amount of time I got to sit with this young female doctor from a strongly Islamic state, I'd find most of them as charming and intelligent and truly moderate as this young doctor. I'd be willing to bet a(n) (Indian) month's salary on it. Perhaps while traveling through the middle east I should take more time to speak with Saudis and Pakistanis and Iranians and all those coming from states I tend to deem politically unacceptable.
On the flight I was seated next to an Iranian woman who is in fact my age and a medical doctor. I was surprised when she told me she lives in Iran because she wasn't wearing the Hijab. I asked her about covering her hair and she says in Iran she must. However, the moment she leaves Iran, she takes off the cover. Apparently she doesn't believe in Islam, but her family are all muslims and Iran has peculiar restriction about the dress of women and the religion of their people so she decided rather than to get in trouble at home to just put up with covering up. She hates it and made it clear to me. I told her I appreciated her honesty on the matter and it made me re-examine my thoughts on Iran as such. In Lebanon, I don't know if the feeling is wide-spread, but it's non-negligible that people feel Iran and Israel are fighting on Lebanese soil and so the Lebanese people are slightly soured on Iran in a similar way to Israel.
As soon as I was riding through the Hezbollah neighborhood next to Beirut's airport I started seeing signs for Lebanese-Iranian friendship week. I think in my own small way I contributed to this as did my Iranian doctor friend. I can't accept though that Lebanon and Iran are friends per se, but I understand the Lebanese not wanting to piss off Iran. As it turns out, Iran is a slightly scary political entity, because they are extreme and wealthy. I would go so far as to say Iran is more than slightly scary. But traveling changes the way I see things, and talking to a practicing doctor (who'd come to Chennai to look at medical equipment and work in an operating room in Chennai) really softened my stance on Iran. She believes that the majority of Iranians (especially the well educated) don't agree with the current regime and truly want change. I suspect Iran's "democracy" is a version of what Hezbollah (<---- not a fan) wants in Lebanon. A "we select the candidates and those who get to vote" style election.
So while I haven't softened my stance on Iran's political agenda and its consequences in Lebanon, I have been forced to revalue the way I see Iranian people, and indeed people from Muslim countries once again. I estimate that if I were able to sit down with each of them one-on-one for the amount of time I got to sit with this young female doctor from a strongly Islamic state, I'd find most of them as charming and intelligent and truly moderate as this young doctor. I'd be willing to bet a(n) (Indian) month's salary on it. Perhaps while traveling through the middle east I should take more time to speak with Saudis and Pakistanis and Iranians and all those coming from states I tend to deem politically unacceptable.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
The American International School of Chennai
Wandering around the many, many cultural festivals Chennai has to offer I have sunk to the embarrassing social status of seeking out fluent english speakers. At the Kalakshetra a few weeks back I saw two kids running around and they were speaking a brand of english I know well. It has the English that kids from the eastern half of the united states speak (probably western as well, I just haven't spent enough time there to know) mixed in with plenty of gibberish. These two children were with their American mothers and while stopping for a snack at the Kalakshetra canteen I over heard them speaking. Of course I gravitated to the sound of American english. I began speaking with the two women to find out that they teach at the American International School of Chennai, which in fact, happens to be in the same neighborhood as my institute. Well, swell! We spoke for well over an hour and my Indian friend and I got to act like little kids and run around with the children for a few minutes, all very good fun. So we exchanged numbers and said we hope to see each other again sometime.
Just recently one of the ladies called me to tell me the AISC was having AN AFTER SCHOOL COCKTAIL PARTY FOR THE FACULTY!!!!! Are you kidding me!? This was not a joke. So I set off on my cocktail seeking horse and took my ass right down to the school. I had some trouble getting through security, but luckily had the contact name and number of these two teachers. After getting through security I saw the inner grounds of what I believed to be something like heaven...
What is this place? Well manicured soccer pitch, olympic size swimming pool, big jungle gym for the younger kids, COCKTAILS, skewered meat, fresh PASTA... I had truly left Chennai. Where had this place come from? From whence cometh this oasis of goodness? Oh yes, it came from America. I realized I felt right at home. It should also be mentioned duly that the ratio of men to women was basically 1:1 (as one might expect, but Chennai somehow doesn't have such an even ratio). So I indulged a little and ate a nice big skewer of grilled shrimp, a plate of pasta, and a G&T! Boo ya! After this I began talking to one of the male faculty members, he used to brew beer back in America! Of course, I'm home again.
After the cocktail party (kick ass!) there was a private house party at the house of a couple from the school. I show up, to find a plethora of Americans talking about things like BASKETBALL and PHILADELPHIA and SEATTLE and BOURBON and how much we all dislike Kingfisher! I had a great time to say the least. The only real problem I had was the Rickshaw driver afterward when I tried to go home. The Rickshaw driver smelled alcohol on my breath and decided I was in an unfit state to reason with him.
So here's how the conversation went down.
GCA: I need to go to R.A. Puram
Mosquito: Ok
GCA: How much?
Mosquito: You've been drinking.
GCA: I'll pay you 100
Mosquito: Nighttime sir
GCA: I know it's nighttime. You charge 1.5 at night.
Mosquito: No Sir, nighttime.
GCA: Yeah I know. Turn the meter on and I'll jump in.
Mosquito: Meter no work
GCA: If you turn the meter on it will say Rs 80, I guarantee it, I'll pay you 100.
Mosquito: Nighttime sir
GCA: How much do you want?
Mosquito: How much will you pay?
GCA: If I get a meter, I'll pay 80, if not I'll pay 100.
Mosquito: No sir, very late hour
GCA: How much do you want?
Mosquito: How much will you pay?
GCA: If I get a meter I'll pay 80, I promise you it will say 80. If you just take me 100.
Then the mosquito drove off in his little yellow malaria machine without me.
It wasn't enough to ruin the evening for, just enough to make me rally against the mosquitoes even harder. I hate those guys. But, I love America, and I really love hanging out with well educated, well traveled Americans living abroad (lots of cool travel stories!)
Just recently one of the ladies called me to tell me the AISC was having AN AFTER SCHOOL COCKTAIL PARTY FOR THE FACULTY!!!!! Are you kidding me!? This was not a joke. So I set off on my cocktail seeking horse and took my ass right down to the school. I had some trouble getting through security, but luckily had the contact name and number of these two teachers. After getting through security I saw the inner grounds of what I believed to be something like heaven...
What is this place? Well manicured soccer pitch, olympic size swimming pool, big jungle gym for the younger kids, COCKTAILS, skewered meat, fresh PASTA... I had truly left Chennai. Where had this place come from? From whence cometh this oasis of goodness? Oh yes, it came from America. I realized I felt right at home. It should also be mentioned duly that the ratio of men to women was basically 1:1 (as one might expect, but Chennai somehow doesn't have such an even ratio). So I indulged a little and ate a nice big skewer of grilled shrimp, a plate of pasta, and a G&T! Boo ya! After this I began talking to one of the male faculty members, he used to brew beer back in America! Of course, I'm home again.
After the cocktail party (kick ass!) there was a private house party at the house of a couple from the school. I show up, to find a plethora of Americans talking about things like BASKETBALL and PHILADELPHIA and SEATTLE and BOURBON and how much we all dislike Kingfisher! I had a great time to say the least. The only real problem I had was the Rickshaw driver afterward when I tried to go home. The Rickshaw driver smelled alcohol on my breath and decided I was in an unfit state to reason with him.
So here's how the conversation went down.
GCA: I need to go to R.A. Puram
Mosquito: Ok
GCA: How much?
Mosquito: You've been drinking.
GCA: I'll pay you 100
Mosquito: Nighttime sir
GCA: I know it's nighttime. You charge 1.5 at night.
Mosquito: No Sir, nighttime.
GCA: Yeah I know. Turn the meter on and I'll jump in.
Mosquito: Meter no work
GCA: If you turn the meter on it will say Rs 80, I guarantee it, I'll pay you 100.
Mosquito: Nighttime sir
GCA: How much do you want?
Mosquito: How much will you pay?
GCA: If I get a meter, I'll pay 80, if not I'll pay 100.
Mosquito: No sir, very late hour
GCA: How much do you want?
Mosquito: How much will you pay?
GCA: If I get a meter I'll pay 80, I promise you it will say 80. If you just take me 100.
Then the mosquito drove off in his little yellow malaria machine without me.
It wasn't enough to ruin the evening for, just enough to make me rally against the mosquitoes even harder. I hate those guys. But, I love America, and I really love hanging out with well educated, well traveled Americans living abroad (lots of cool travel stories!)
Monday, January 25, 2010
Happy Republic Day
January 26, 1950: India adopts a constitution after being freed from the British Raj in 1947. Today is like our July 4 in some sense. In fact hear in northeast TN in january it feels like kingsport in northeast TN does on July 4th.
Up in Delhi there is a big parade and all around the streets today people are wearing pinned on India flags selling plastic India flags and the like. Every year since 1976 India has had a "chief guest" on this day and I'm sure he (always a man) is treated to a very nice republic day parade and made to think India is a wonderful and amazing place. Today, India's honored and distinguished guest is the President of South Korea. I hope he enjoys his time in Delhi very much. Funny enough, John Major (former British PM) was the honored guest in 1993. As well, India has had heads of state from Iran, Bhutan, Argentina, Saudi, Russia, and even last year was Kazakhstan's president, but never any honored guest from the states. I guess I'm not terribly surprised. Currently tensions are tight with USA, India, Pakistan attempting trilateral relations. What surprises me though is that India invited John Major... Oh well, I realize once again that I know NOTHING about India. Rather, I understand nothing about India.
As it is, India is a completely amazing and awe inspiring place, with more heartache and heartbreak and poverty than one can ever imagine. I truly wish good things for India's future and I think I'll make sure to go take part in some celebrations this evening. I really hope I get to see a nice fireworks display! I think I missed the big parade in Delhi, but that's ok, at least I can see things exploding and call it celebrating a country.
Up in Delhi there is a big parade and all around the streets today people are wearing pinned on India flags selling plastic India flags and the like. Every year since 1976 India has had a "chief guest" on this day and I'm sure he (always a man) is treated to a very nice republic day parade and made to think India is a wonderful and amazing place. Today, India's honored and distinguished guest is the President of South Korea. I hope he enjoys his time in Delhi very much. Funny enough, John Major (former British PM) was the honored guest in 1993. As well, India has had heads of state from Iran, Bhutan, Argentina, Saudi, Russia, and even last year was Kazakhstan's president, but never any honored guest from the states. I guess I'm not terribly surprised. Currently tensions are tight with USA, India, Pakistan attempting trilateral relations. What surprises me though is that India invited John Major... Oh well, I realize once again that I know NOTHING about India. Rather, I understand nothing about India.
As it is, India is a completely amazing and awe inspiring place, with more heartache and heartbreak and poverty than one can ever imagine. I truly wish good things for India's future and I think I'll make sure to go take part in some celebrations this evening. I really hope I get to see a nice fireworks display! I think I missed the big parade in Delhi, but that's ok, at least I can see things exploding and call it celebrating a country.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
A perplexing difference between India and America
I'm going to come back to my musical roots for a short while. I'd mentioned disliking the Sufi singer a few days back because she had a terrible back up band. I've been noticing in music videos and movies and live performances that generally speaking, the star is by far the best performer and everyone else is just slightly off.
In music videos here, I wonder if it's because they need to film so many to feed the appetite of the indian television audience. India afterall, is the world's largest Television audience, and wow do they love music videos! So I think part of the small errors and bad dancing is allowed to go through, because the music videos won't be on the air long anyway. They will be played thoroughly for a month or two and rarely seen again. I guess it's the same in America, but somehow the quality of the filming seems higher back home. It seems to me (again, no expert in dance) that the backup dancers in America have a much better sense of rhythm, or maybe the choreographers are just hard asses. I can't tell. What I can say though is that it's distracting to ME to watch music videos in which all the dancers are slightly off. I have a hard time telling exactly where the beat is if I watch the video. I have to look away and then I can get back on track with the music. Maybe this happens a lot in modern American music videos and I'm just so out of touch I don't know about it, maybe they just hire better back up dancers...
When it comes to music though, this I can tell you for sure. The singer here is the star! There is to be no one on stage as important as that singer.
Now, in my mind the goal in India and America is the same, that is to make the star look like the star. I can understand that and I can certainly get behind it, but the approach is vastly different.
In India, so far as I can tell (and I've now been to close to 20 musical performances) if there is a star singer, the back up band is usually subpar. In essence the singer will be the star because (s)he really IS the best performer on stage. In America, when an artist goes solo, (s)he usually takes along a band of studio musicians on the road. Here's perhaps my most recent example. Last year on July 4 Philadelphia brought Sheryl Crow to perform a big public concert. I'm not the world's biggest sheryl crow fan, but I like her well enough. Her band was ridiculously good. What made them so good was the fact that they supported her almost perfectly. They stood back and provided the rest of the rest nearly without mistake. I've seen this a lot of times in America. But the point is, I can't name ANY of the backup members. Not one. The singer is still the star! The difference to me is this. In big concerts in the states, if the main star messes up (s)he has a band the can catch the mistake and keep playing. In India (as far as I can tell) when the singer messes up and the band can't catch it, it's a miserable listening experience. For example, only two days ago with the sufi singer, she truly did have a lovely voice, but her band was dragging behind her beat and for a few measures they weren't together at all. To me it was miserable. Later in the evening, she came out and sang something solo, with a recorded background playing over the loud speakers, MUCH better!
I'm sure things aren't always this way, but Chennai is supposed to be the hub for Indian classical music, and this phenomenon seems regular. The Singer is the star, and the backup band is a bunch of misfits. In America the singer is the star, but usually the band of studio musicians are much more talented and serve to BACKUP the singer.
I really have no problem with the star being the star, but in my opinion, I really like the idea of have a much stronger supporting cast who takes little credit, but keeps the star looking good.
I'm brought briefly to the thought of bicycle racing... Perhaps a random thought, but in the Tour de France, people always said Lance Armstrong's greatest strength was putting together a team to support him. I can't name any of his team members, but I know they were really good. Perhaps not more talented overall than their leader, but strong enough to make him really look good at the right time.
Just some thoughts...
In music videos here, I wonder if it's because they need to film so many to feed the appetite of the indian television audience. India afterall, is the world's largest Television audience, and wow do they love music videos! So I think part of the small errors and bad dancing is allowed to go through, because the music videos won't be on the air long anyway. They will be played thoroughly for a month or two and rarely seen again. I guess it's the same in America, but somehow the quality of the filming seems higher back home. It seems to me (again, no expert in dance) that the backup dancers in America have a much better sense of rhythm, or maybe the choreographers are just hard asses. I can't tell. What I can say though is that it's distracting to ME to watch music videos in which all the dancers are slightly off. I have a hard time telling exactly where the beat is if I watch the video. I have to look away and then I can get back on track with the music. Maybe this happens a lot in modern American music videos and I'm just so out of touch I don't know about it, maybe they just hire better back up dancers...
When it comes to music though, this I can tell you for sure. The singer here is the star! There is to be no one on stage as important as that singer.
Now, in my mind the goal in India and America is the same, that is to make the star look like the star. I can understand that and I can certainly get behind it, but the approach is vastly different.
In India, so far as I can tell (and I've now been to close to 20 musical performances) if there is a star singer, the back up band is usually subpar. In essence the singer will be the star because (s)he really IS the best performer on stage. In America, when an artist goes solo, (s)he usually takes along a band of studio musicians on the road. Here's perhaps my most recent example. Last year on July 4 Philadelphia brought Sheryl Crow to perform a big public concert. I'm not the world's biggest sheryl crow fan, but I like her well enough. Her band was ridiculously good. What made them so good was the fact that they supported her almost perfectly. They stood back and provided the rest of the rest nearly without mistake. I've seen this a lot of times in America. But the point is, I can't name ANY of the backup members. Not one. The singer is still the star! The difference to me is this. In big concerts in the states, if the main star messes up (s)he has a band the can catch the mistake and keep playing. In India (as far as I can tell) when the singer messes up and the band can't catch it, it's a miserable listening experience. For example, only two days ago with the sufi singer, she truly did have a lovely voice, but her band was dragging behind her beat and for a few measures they weren't together at all. To me it was miserable. Later in the evening, she came out and sang something solo, with a recorded background playing over the loud speakers, MUCH better!
I'm sure things aren't always this way, but Chennai is supposed to be the hub for Indian classical music, and this phenomenon seems regular. The Singer is the star, and the backup band is a bunch of misfits. In America the singer is the star, but usually the band of studio musicians are much more talented and serve to BACKUP the singer.
I really have no problem with the star being the star, but in my opinion, I really like the idea of have a much stronger supporting cast who takes little credit, but keeps the star looking good.
I'm brought briefly to the thought of bicycle racing... Perhaps a random thought, but in the Tour de France, people always said Lance Armstrong's greatest strength was putting together a team to support him. I can't name any of his team members, but I know they were really good. Perhaps not more talented overall than their leader, but strong enough to make him really look good at the right time.
Just some thoughts...
Indians don't know how to have fun
I believe these very words came out of my own mouth yesterday. I misspoke. Indians do know how to have fun, but it's so rare that they can really enjoy life the way we in the west do.
My friend with whom I was enjoying saarang remarked that "the canons of happiness are totally different." He's right. Indians have to work hard just to survive. The living here is not easy. When you have over a billion people and more than half are illiterate and everyone is competing for jobs and placement in school and status things get a little tense. As it is, Indians have this mentality of either working hard all the time, or being lazy all the time. I see a lot of poor people split between these two camps. Some are constantly working. All day they are sweeping the street, washing their clothes and their children's clothes, preparing food, going to barter for food, never stopping, but not getting very far in life, just surviving and barely taking care of a family. I see others who do nothing. They just sit around all day in the shade, waiting for some passerby to give them some rupees so they can eat something. They don't bathe, they don't seem to care, I can't tell whether they care or not, they just seem not to.
But one thing that remains somewhat level is the idea that fun is more of a luxury here than a necessity. "Fun" as far as I can tell is going to the cinema. Now, don't misunderstand this. Many people enjoying going to watch movies at the theater as a form of entertainment, but that's not all. For example, attending sporting events in the west is a big deal. Think about European football leagues... Think about American football and basketball leagues. When I was watching glimpses of the Chennai open (the tennis tournament that is in the first week of january) all those in attendance were europeans (or americans or south americans). I saw very few indians. I don't know who actually attends cricket matches. My guess is only wealthy people.
Wandering around yesterday at IIT Madras and seeing all the college kids acting like american college kids was fun for me, but I noticed some very peculiar things. All the shows and concerts inspired total madness. It was like these things don't happen very often. Then it hit me. All these people are india's privileged. They have the money to attend these things and enjoy them. However, they either haven't seen them very often and act insane when they do because of it, or know that this sort of event is a complete rarity and really want to squeeze every drop of entertainment out of it, because in Chennai, we're about to have a long cultural drought of about 9 months (winter is the only season in which this amount of activity happens).
Other things that count as entertainment here are playing cricket, and watching cricket. Now, I'm an advocate of cricket. In fact I think USA should get their damna ct together and bring back our cricketing heritage! However, cricket is a boring game. It's ALMOST as boring as baseball, not quite, because baseball is the most boring game ever invented. Even more to the point, baseball is not America's national sport, it's America's national PASSTIME! We're totally honest about it too. We watch baseball to PASS THE TIME, not for active entertainment. So it is with cricket. The problem is, cricket is the only game in town. And it's amazingly boring.
Considering everything I've seen and done, I think the main point is that India has much more difficult living conditions, and people really just have to get by. The only ones who can "have fun" and cut loose are the privileged ones. Moreover, most of them go to the west...
My friend with whom I was enjoying saarang remarked that "the canons of happiness are totally different." He's right. Indians have to work hard just to survive. The living here is not easy. When you have over a billion people and more than half are illiterate and everyone is competing for jobs and placement in school and status things get a little tense. As it is, Indians have this mentality of either working hard all the time, or being lazy all the time. I see a lot of poor people split between these two camps. Some are constantly working. All day they are sweeping the street, washing their clothes and their children's clothes, preparing food, going to barter for food, never stopping, but not getting very far in life, just surviving and barely taking care of a family. I see others who do nothing. They just sit around all day in the shade, waiting for some passerby to give them some rupees so they can eat something. They don't bathe, they don't seem to care, I can't tell whether they care or not, they just seem not to.
But one thing that remains somewhat level is the idea that fun is more of a luxury here than a necessity. "Fun" as far as I can tell is going to the cinema. Now, don't misunderstand this. Many people enjoying going to watch movies at the theater as a form of entertainment, but that's not all. For example, attending sporting events in the west is a big deal. Think about European football leagues... Think about American football and basketball leagues. When I was watching glimpses of the Chennai open (the tennis tournament that is in the first week of january) all those in attendance were europeans (or americans or south americans). I saw very few indians. I don't know who actually attends cricket matches. My guess is only wealthy people.
Wandering around yesterday at IIT Madras and seeing all the college kids acting like american college kids was fun for me, but I noticed some very peculiar things. All the shows and concerts inspired total madness. It was like these things don't happen very often. Then it hit me. All these people are india's privileged. They have the money to attend these things and enjoy them. However, they either haven't seen them very often and act insane when they do because of it, or know that this sort of event is a complete rarity and really want to squeeze every drop of entertainment out of it, because in Chennai, we're about to have a long cultural drought of about 9 months (winter is the only season in which this amount of activity happens).
Other things that count as entertainment here are playing cricket, and watching cricket. Now, I'm an advocate of cricket. In fact I think USA should get their damna ct together and bring back our cricketing heritage! However, cricket is a boring game. It's ALMOST as boring as baseball, not quite, because baseball is the most boring game ever invented. Even more to the point, baseball is not America's national sport, it's America's national PASSTIME! We're totally honest about it too. We watch baseball to PASS THE TIME, not for active entertainment. So it is with cricket. The problem is, cricket is the only game in town. And it's amazingly boring.
Considering everything I've seen and done, I think the main point is that India has much more difficult living conditions, and people really just have to get by. The only ones who can "have fun" and cut loose are the privileged ones. Moreover, most of them go to the west...
Saarang 2010
Chennai isn't good for much. However, in defense of Chennai, it does have a lot going on culturally (for december and january only). In December the temple in Mylapore had six or seven music/dance/vocal performances EVERY DAY. I feel so uncultured sometimes when I can't at all appreciate dance. After that, the Park Hotel (home of the Leather Bar) sponsored the "Park Festival" in which H.R. Britton delivered his witty travelogue. After that there was an epic dance performance 6 nights in a row at 3 hours a night of dance. It apparently was an Indian style opera/dance which chronicled the mythologies of several Hindu deities. In January, of course Pongal happens. The Kalakshetra is a school for the fine arts of India. At the Kalakshetra they had a 10 day long Pongal bazaar. I went several nights to that to witness dancing and singing and handcrafts made from all parts of India. Now that the Pongal celebrations are over, saarang 2010 is on.
Saarang is the cultural festival at IIT Madras (Indian Institute of Technology). I'm kind of impressed by the kids at IIT. They've gotten their own sponsors and put on an enormous festival complete with rock band and fusion band competitions, street performances, paint ball, tons of free concerts, sand sculpting contests, a food fair, and lots more.
Yesterday, my friend and I went over there because he wanted to attend an event about Sufi music. I don't care so much about it, but it's good to get off campus on Saturday afternoon, so I went. As we were going I found out that this "event" is a lecture. A LECTURE! I was thinking back to Allen Iverson's first stint in Philadelphia when Larry Brown was coaching....
"Practice. We talkin' 'bout practice. Not a game. Practice." I understand your gripes Allen.
"Lecture. We talkin' 'bout a lecture. Not a performance. A Lecture." I couldn't hardly believe it. Some very famous sufi singer whose name I still can't remember was giving a two hour lecture/demonstration. We got there for the last 40 minutes. I was not into it at all. She did some singing and has a beautiful voice. This I can't deny. However, she is a horrible public speaker. She had made some power point presentation and read the screen with few additional comments...
What perplexed me further was that she was doing some sort of "fusion" music of sufi and rock. It was not very good. I was wondering why I hadn't enjoyed it despite the beautiful singing and then it hit me. Her backup musicians were awful. I'll explain more about that later...
So we went off for a snack and watched college kids making asses of themselves doing silly competitions. We heard some band from France was playing at 5:30. In the meantime there were rock bands made up of Indian kids playing authentic western style rock from the 90's (they are just about 10-12 years behind in rock, but that's ok I got stuck liking that era of music anyway).
The band from France got going and they were ok. They knew how to put on a good stage show. I wasn't totally digging their sound, but they weren't bad. My friend, having no experience with this type of concert despite living 6 years in france was not having it. I think he felt similarly to me listening to a lecture of saturday freakin' afternoon. At 5:30 PM the band was going and the Indian kids were jumping and throwing each other into the air, and genuinely acting like western concert goers, except that their concert was at a time when westerners are just barely recovering from last night's hangover.
We finally went to see the finalists of the music competitions for "decibels" and "tarang." Decibels was heavy metal. I did not know that Indian kids played heavy metal... It figures though, that again, this is the same style of metal I was hearing in high school. The first band was pretty good. They had a decent singer, and the others were basically shit. My friend was even less enthused about heavy metal than the french band so we went for food and came back for tarang.
Tarang is translated as "light music." I had no idea what that meant. I assumed adult comtemporary and soft rock and whatever other mildly insipid musical forms there are. I was wrong, as usual. Light music means fusion of bollywood,kollywood, and indian classical songs with a drum beat and awful synthesizers. In the end it was ok.
In response to my own ideas about gay india, I noticed something EXTREMELY awkward. Every time a woman sang (even if she wasn't good) hoards of men would howl and scream and jump up and down. By the way, the nasally head voice that indian use to sing bollywood songs drives me up a wall! I cannot stand it at all! But these guys, they love it. I think the idea of a woman is just so foreign to them, that hearing one sing in person drives them crazy in the loins. I can't be sure, but it seems a safe bet.
Again, perhaps I'm accustomed to much higher standards coming from america, but I feel awfully cynical about the quality of most performances here. When it comes to dance, I won't make judgments because I'm totally ignorant about it, but when it comes to music... Well, let's just say, only the best of the best of the best are good, the rest are simply not up to snuff to my (and apparently western) standards.
All things being held equal, I am really impressed that the kids at IIT have put together such a big time festival. I don't have to enjoy the awful singing, or lectures, but even I found a lot of fun there.
Saarang is the cultural festival at IIT Madras (Indian Institute of Technology). I'm kind of impressed by the kids at IIT. They've gotten their own sponsors and put on an enormous festival complete with rock band and fusion band competitions, street performances, paint ball, tons of free concerts, sand sculpting contests, a food fair, and lots more.
Yesterday, my friend and I went over there because he wanted to attend an event about Sufi music. I don't care so much about it, but it's good to get off campus on Saturday afternoon, so I went. As we were going I found out that this "event" is a lecture. A LECTURE! I was thinking back to Allen Iverson's first stint in Philadelphia when Larry Brown was coaching....
"Practice. We talkin' 'bout practice. Not a game. Practice." I understand your gripes Allen.
"Lecture. We talkin' 'bout a lecture. Not a performance. A Lecture." I couldn't hardly believe it. Some very famous sufi singer whose name I still can't remember was giving a two hour lecture/demonstration. We got there for the last 40 minutes. I was not into it at all. She did some singing and has a beautiful voice. This I can't deny. However, she is a horrible public speaker. She had made some power point presentation and read the screen with few additional comments...
What perplexed me further was that she was doing some sort of "fusion" music of sufi and rock. It was not very good. I was wondering why I hadn't enjoyed it despite the beautiful singing and then it hit me. Her backup musicians were awful. I'll explain more about that later...
So we went off for a snack and watched college kids making asses of themselves doing silly competitions. We heard some band from France was playing at 5:30. In the meantime there were rock bands made up of Indian kids playing authentic western style rock from the 90's (they are just about 10-12 years behind in rock, but that's ok I got stuck liking that era of music anyway).
The band from France got going and they were ok. They knew how to put on a good stage show. I wasn't totally digging their sound, but they weren't bad. My friend, having no experience with this type of concert despite living 6 years in france was not having it. I think he felt similarly to me listening to a lecture of saturday freakin' afternoon. At 5:30 PM the band was going and the Indian kids were jumping and throwing each other into the air, and genuinely acting like western concert goers, except that their concert was at a time when westerners are just barely recovering from last night's hangover.
We finally went to see the finalists of the music competitions for "decibels" and "tarang." Decibels was heavy metal. I did not know that Indian kids played heavy metal... It figures though, that again, this is the same style of metal I was hearing in high school. The first band was pretty good. They had a decent singer, and the others were basically shit. My friend was even less enthused about heavy metal than the french band so we went for food and came back for tarang.
Tarang is translated as "light music." I had no idea what that meant. I assumed adult comtemporary and soft rock and whatever other mildly insipid musical forms there are. I was wrong, as usual. Light music means fusion of bollywood,kollywood, and indian classical songs with a drum beat and awful synthesizers. In the end it was ok.
In response to my own ideas about gay india, I noticed something EXTREMELY awkward. Every time a woman sang (even if she wasn't good) hoards of men would howl and scream and jump up and down. By the way, the nasally head voice that indian use to sing bollywood songs drives me up a wall! I cannot stand it at all! But these guys, they love it. I think the idea of a woman is just so foreign to them, that hearing one sing in person drives them crazy in the loins. I can't be sure, but it seems a safe bet.
Again, perhaps I'm accustomed to much higher standards coming from america, but I feel awfully cynical about the quality of most performances here. When it comes to dance, I won't make judgments because I'm totally ignorant about it, but when it comes to music... Well, let's just say, only the best of the best of the best are good, the rest are simply not up to snuff to my (and apparently western) standards.
All things being held equal, I am really impressed that the kids at IIT have put together such a big time festival. I don't have to enjoy the awful singing, or lectures, but even I found a lot of fun there.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Gay India
I think I'm about to burst. I've been watching this bizarre separation of men and women with a careful eye since I got to India, but now I think I've seen enough.
Perhaps it is a replacement for actual intimacy, or perhaps it is actual homosexuality, but the men here are doing all sorts of acts that in the west would point to nothing other than being homosexual.
Exhibit A:
What you're seeing here is a single seat on the train heading toward Pondicherry. It should be noted that this train was a Wednesday morning train express to Pondicherry so there were plenty of seats available. The guy sitting in front pushed open his buddy's legs and sat down between them. Now, again, I'm American and I couldn't really care less if he's gay or not. But in India being gay is simply not acceptable. I don't know what this is if it's not gay.
Other examples include:
B) A guy lying across the laps of three of his friends on the train. Two of them were sort of hugging his legs and chest.
C) Men hold hands here a lot, but not in the way of shaking hands. They hold pinky fingers. In Delhi I saw men holding hands in exactly the same way I see couples holding hands in America.
D) The real kicker here. I got a picture of this, but then lost my damn camera! At a bazaar I saw two men seated on a single chair, a lawn chair. One was on the chair, the other was sitting on his lap facing the first. The guy on top had his arms holding the back of the chair.
I have been assured many times that these men are not gay, but give me a break! I don't believe it for a second. All the single men here are restricted from women. Furthermore, being gay is simply not acceptable. Put these two together though and you'll arrive at some problems. The fact of the matter is that homosexuality has been around a long time. Also, in any large group of people (say 7.5 million for a city like Chennai) is bound to have a significant group of gay men. What irritates me is that they try to pass this off as something else. Perhaps in some cases it is simply a substitute for physical affection which is somewhat disallowed with members of the opposite sex. But I think that's only part of it. I think there really are a lot of gay men here. I am yet undecided as to whether they have an easier plight or a more difficult one than the "standard" straight men in India. In some sense, physical contact, even to me what seems far to intimate to be "friendly," is completely acceptable, but being gay is not.
If the two guys on the chair aren't gay, and all the male only dance clubs don't have a fair share of gay men, then I'll really believe being gay is a "choice." As it is, I don't believe that. What makes matters even worse, is that most of these men will be married off as it were. It reminds me of the Mormon culture where there are so incredibly many gay men, but they are disallowed from being so.
Side thoughts on mormons and sexuality:
I have gay friends who have dated mormon men, in fact several of them. I even know one guy who converted to Mormonism because of his boyfriend. It was a sad sight, because his boyfriend had to marry a woman and keep a boyfriend on the side. I am assured by many gay men this is a commonplace occurance in the mormon church. It seems terribly wrong to allow this and turn a blind eye to it.
Back to the news:
I don't know South Indian culture too well, but my earnest guess is that this same sort of phenomenon is occurring all the time in south india as in utah. Both have strong religious beliefs rallying against it, but yet it is inevitable that it will happen, and in India certainly it will be allowed to continue...
Perhaps it is a replacement for actual intimacy, or perhaps it is actual homosexuality, but the men here are doing all sorts of acts that in the west would point to nothing other than being homosexual.
Exhibit A:
What you're seeing here is a single seat on the train heading toward Pondicherry. It should be noted that this train was a Wednesday morning train express to Pondicherry so there were plenty of seats available. The guy sitting in front pushed open his buddy's legs and sat down between them. Now, again, I'm American and I couldn't really care less if he's gay or not. But in India being gay is simply not acceptable. I don't know what this is if it's not gay.
Other examples include:
B) A guy lying across the laps of three of his friends on the train. Two of them were sort of hugging his legs and chest.
C) Men hold hands here a lot, but not in the way of shaking hands. They hold pinky fingers. In Delhi I saw men holding hands in exactly the same way I see couples holding hands in America.
D) The real kicker here. I got a picture of this, but then lost my damn camera! At a bazaar I saw two men seated on a single chair, a lawn chair. One was on the chair, the other was sitting on his lap facing the first. The guy on top had his arms holding the back of the chair.
I have been assured many times that these men are not gay, but give me a break! I don't believe it for a second. All the single men here are restricted from women. Furthermore, being gay is simply not acceptable. Put these two together though and you'll arrive at some problems. The fact of the matter is that homosexuality has been around a long time. Also, in any large group of people (say 7.5 million for a city like Chennai) is bound to have a significant group of gay men. What irritates me is that they try to pass this off as something else. Perhaps in some cases it is simply a substitute for physical affection which is somewhat disallowed with members of the opposite sex. But I think that's only part of it. I think there really are a lot of gay men here. I am yet undecided as to whether they have an easier plight or a more difficult one than the "standard" straight men in India. In some sense, physical contact, even to me what seems far to intimate to be "friendly," is completely acceptable, but being gay is not.
If the two guys on the chair aren't gay, and all the male only dance clubs don't have a fair share of gay men, then I'll really believe being gay is a "choice." As it is, I don't believe that. What makes matters even worse, is that most of these men will be married off as it were. It reminds me of the Mormon culture where there are so incredibly many gay men, but they are disallowed from being so.
Side thoughts on mormons and sexuality:
I have gay friends who have dated mormon men, in fact several of them. I even know one guy who converted to Mormonism because of his boyfriend. It was a sad sight, because his boyfriend had to marry a woman and keep a boyfriend on the side. I am assured by many gay men this is a commonplace occurance in the mormon church. It seems terribly wrong to allow this and turn a blind eye to it.
Back to the news:
I don't know South Indian culture too well, but my earnest guess is that this same sort of phenomenon is occurring all the time in south india as in utah. Both have strong religious beliefs rallying against it, but yet it is inevitable that it will happen, and in India certainly it will be allowed to continue...
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Sri Lanka is Dsitilled India
I haven't done so much compare and contrast of Sri Lanka and India, but it only seems natural. In some sense India is Sri Lanka's only neighbor. I believe the two countries are only separated by 10km of water, perhaps not even that much.
When I was in Colombo, I noticed mainly that Sri Lanka is better organized. In fact it is well organized, and India is completely disorganized. I believe there is exactly one issue that separates the two.
India is overcrowded. Sri Lanka is not. Sri Lanka has nice wide clean streets, with street cleaners actively working often. There are even trashcans near the streets! What I think is that Sri Lanka is essentially distilled India.
Sri Lanka is less crowded, has fewer languages, fewer distinct cultures, cleaner, more organized, has mountains and flat land, etc.
Basically, the idea of distillation is taking out MOST of the bad stuff and leaving MOST of the good stuff. I think that description fits.
When I was in Colombo, I noticed mainly that Sri Lanka is better organized. In fact it is well organized, and India is completely disorganized. I believe there is exactly one issue that separates the two.
India is overcrowded. Sri Lanka is not. Sri Lanka has nice wide clean streets, with street cleaners actively working often. There are even trashcans near the streets! What I think is that Sri Lanka is essentially distilled India.
Sri Lanka is less crowded, has fewer languages, fewer distinct cultures, cleaner, more organized, has mountains and flat land, etc.
Basically, the idea of distillation is taking out MOST of the bad stuff and leaving MOST of the good stuff. I think that description fits.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Food Adventures of Sri Lanka
My recent travels have been less about buying anything and more about seeing STUFF. Weird stuff, authentic stuff, unique stuff. Included in that is local food and beverage. Every culture has their own subset of unique things that are only available (generally) in their home. So it is with Sri Lanka, the little distilled Indian-like island in the bay of Bengal.
I went in search of several things, found them, and found a few more to boot.
1) Arrack: This is basically coconut brandy. Sri Lanka is one of the world's leading producers of coconuts (5th I believe by raw output) and it isn't such a huge population. What then should they do with all these coconuts? Of course, my answers would be, find new ways to cook with them and find ways to turn them into alcohol. South India has done both, but Sri Lanka has taken a slightly different approach to both. Coconut chutney is widely popular in South India, but I didn't come across it much in Sri Lanka. Perhaps it exists there, I just didn't see it. The alcoholic beverages are Toddy (palm wine or coconut wine) and Arrack. I actually found toddy, but when I went to a local bar in Kandy I was derided as drinking the poor man's drink. They told me that whisky is 1st class, beer 2nd class, etc... and Toddy is 5th class.
Hell, it wasn't THAT bad. It has a sort of unusual flavor, but I'd drink it often if given the chance. It's not highly alcoholic because they only let the yeast work a few days before drinking it. Given that, there is yeast in it and that small amount of yeast is actually good for your stomach and your digestion if taken in reasonable quantities. If your drink too much, you'll have the runs...
So it was, I moved onto Arrack. I had several varieties. Old Arrack, probably my least favorite, but an island wide favorite. I had some 12 yr old thing, whose name I can't remember, but was really delicious served on the rocks. I also had two "white" arracks served with club soda. They, not shockingly, had the feel of vodka, but a wonderful wisp of a coconut aftertaste. Especially with the soda to cut down the burn of the alcohol. All in all, I'd drink Arrack again in a flash if served correctly.
2) Kothu Rotty: This is a Sri Lankan favorite. You see little shops everywhere with guys in the front chopping away. They take Roti, Paratha (types of breads), chiles, some veg, sometimes meat, and an egg, and cook it all on a flat grill and chop it up like mad. They use two long metal plates and chop directly onto the grill. The whole experience really involves a lot of noise, but adds to the pleasure of it. You have to go through a small annoyance at first to get good food, but the food makes you forget all that commotion. Served with sweet and sour sauce (surprisingly a good combo) and some "gravy" which has a strong flavor of black pepper makes it really great. Usually you can buy it at a little hole in the wall for around $2-$3 per plate. I wish it were widely available in Chennai!
3) Hoppers: This is something I'd not really heard of, but saw a few times. I actually had my only hopper experience at a hotel brunch. I don't usually go for such things, but the hotel included a fantastic brunch in the room price. The room was $81 and without the room the brunch was $15, so I figured I'd go for it. It was a good call, with all the fresh papaya I could eat (and some smoked duck!). Anyway, hoppers are very similar to dosas. If I haven't made it abundantly clear how much I love dosas (the south indian staple) let me do so now. I LOVE DOSAS! Hoppers are a slightly different take in that they don't make crepes out of rice flour and lentils (which are slightly fermented). They use rice flour, a little milk, salt, and a pinch of sugar. Pour the thin batter into a semispherical bowl and cook it into a bowl shaped crepe-like delicious breakfast item. MOREOVER, for breakfast sometimes they crack an egg into the center of the bowl. That concoction is called, you guessed it, egg-hopper. They serve it with spicy chiles or sweet and spicy sambal. I highly recommend the sambal. I loves me some spicy food, but the sambal just has a better flavor (if done well) than the chopped chiles. All in all, a good find.
4) Black Curry, elusive, as I mentioned. I haven't had it yet, but I expect to cook up some black curried potatoes, and perhaps jackfruit... or maybe I'll stay simple and cook chicken and rice, and add in the curry as per usual.
5) Fresh Jackfruit: Jackfruit is known for a few things. It is the largest tree grown fruit in the world (jackfruits are often found to be over 100 lbs when ripe), and also often mistaken for it's cousins the durian. I sadly didn't find any durian, but I saw lots and lots and lots of jackfruit trees growing everywhere. If you haven't had it, I suggest you go get some. It's like durian, except that it has a much stronger pineapple flavor, and is not malodorous. It really doesn't smell that bad.
6) Beef: I hadn't realized Sri Lanka is so strongly buddhist, so I broke my no beef streak by eating a "swiss burger" at the hotel suisse in kandy. I'm not sure I can classify it as a food adventure, but I've been very cautious to not eat beef while in India. In any case, it was a small burger with a fried egg on top. Oh man, I love fried eggs on top of things.
7) Tea: Everyone knows, Sri Lanka is world famous for tea. Actually, ceylon tea is everywhere you go, so I drank it a few times. The black tea is really rich. Richer than I'd expected. But in the end it was tea and nice to have Sri Lanka's tea in Sri Lanka.
All told, Sri Lanka fed my culinary appetite very well. Good place to visit, great place to eat.
I went in search of several things, found them, and found a few more to boot.
1) Arrack: This is basically coconut brandy. Sri Lanka is one of the world's leading producers of coconuts (5th I believe by raw output) and it isn't such a huge population. What then should they do with all these coconuts? Of course, my answers would be, find new ways to cook with them and find ways to turn them into alcohol. South India has done both, but Sri Lanka has taken a slightly different approach to both. Coconut chutney is widely popular in South India, but I didn't come across it much in Sri Lanka. Perhaps it exists there, I just didn't see it. The alcoholic beverages are Toddy (palm wine or coconut wine) and Arrack. I actually found toddy, but when I went to a local bar in Kandy I was derided as drinking the poor man's drink. They told me that whisky is 1st class, beer 2nd class, etc... and Toddy is 5th class.
Hell, it wasn't THAT bad. It has a sort of unusual flavor, but I'd drink it often if given the chance. It's not highly alcoholic because they only let the yeast work a few days before drinking it. Given that, there is yeast in it and that small amount of yeast is actually good for your stomach and your digestion if taken in reasonable quantities. If your drink too much, you'll have the runs...
So it was, I moved onto Arrack. I had several varieties. Old Arrack, probably my least favorite, but an island wide favorite. I had some 12 yr old thing, whose name I can't remember, but was really delicious served on the rocks. I also had two "white" arracks served with club soda. They, not shockingly, had the feel of vodka, but a wonderful wisp of a coconut aftertaste. Especially with the soda to cut down the burn of the alcohol. All in all, I'd drink Arrack again in a flash if served correctly.
2) Kothu Rotty: This is a Sri Lankan favorite. You see little shops everywhere with guys in the front chopping away. They take Roti, Paratha (types of breads), chiles, some veg, sometimes meat, and an egg, and cook it all on a flat grill and chop it up like mad. They use two long metal plates and chop directly onto the grill. The whole experience really involves a lot of noise, but adds to the pleasure of it. You have to go through a small annoyance at first to get good food, but the food makes you forget all that commotion. Served with sweet and sour sauce (surprisingly a good combo) and some "gravy" which has a strong flavor of black pepper makes it really great. Usually you can buy it at a little hole in the wall for around $2-$3 per plate. I wish it were widely available in Chennai!
3) Hoppers: This is something I'd not really heard of, but saw a few times. I actually had my only hopper experience at a hotel brunch. I don't usually go for such things, but the hotel included a fantastic brunch in the room price. The room was $81 and without the room the brunch was $15, so I figured I'd go for it. It was a good call, with all the fresh papaya I could eat (and some smoked duck!). Anyway, hoppers are very similar to dosas. If I haven't made it abundantly clear how much I love dosas (the south indian staple) let me do so now. I LOVE DOSAS! Hoppers are a slightly different take in that they don't make crepes out of rice flour and lentils (which are slightly fermented). They use rice flour, a little milk, salt, and a pinch of sugar. Pour the thin batter into a semispherical bowl and cook it into a bowl shaped crepe-like delicious breakfast item. MOREOVER, for breakfast sometimes they crack an egg into the center of the bowl. That concoction is called, you guessed it, egg-hopper. They serve it with spicy chiles or sweet and spicy sambal. I highly recommend the sambal. I loves me some spicy food, but the sambal just has a better flavor (if done well) than the chopped chiles. All in all, a good find.
4) Black Curry, elusive, as I mentioned. I haven't had it yet, but I expect to cook up some black curried potatoes, and perhaps jackfruit... or maybe I'll stay simple and cook chicken and rice, and add in the curry as per usual.
5) Fresh Jackfruit: Jackfruit is known for a few things. It is the largest tree grown fruit in the world (jackfruits are often found to be over 100 lbs when ripe), and also often mistaken for it's cousins the durian. I sadly didn't find any durian, but I saw lots and lots and lots of jackfruit trees growing everywhere. If you haven't had it, I suggest you go get some. It's like durian, except that it has a much stronger pineapple flavor, and is not malodorous. It really doesn't smell that bad.
6) Beef: I hadn't realized Sri Lanka is so strongly buddhist, so I broke my no beef streak by eating a "swiss burger" at the hotel suisse in kandy. I'm not sure I can classify it as a food adventure, but I've been very cautious to not eat beef while in India. In any case, it was a small burger with a fried egg on top. Oh man, I love fried eggs on top of things.
7) Tea: Everyone knows, Sri Lanka is world famous for tea. Actually, ceylon tea is everywhere you go, so I drank it a few times. The black tea is really rich. Richer than I'd expected. But in the end it was tea and nice to have Sri Lanka's tea in Sri Lanka.
All told, Sri Lanka fed my culinary appetite very well. Good place to visit, great place to eat.
Finding the Elusive Black Curry
I went to Sri Lanka for a few reasons, but among them was to find the elusive black curry. Not terribly many people had heard about it, but I don't think the Sinhala people think about it is unusual or unique, since most of them have never left their island home. Nonetheless, there is no menu item in any restaurant that I saw called "black curry." I only knew about it because Tony Bourdain was traveling around Sri Lanka with some Sri Lankan culinary expert and he claimed that black curry was unique to Sri Lanka. As far as I can tell it doesn't exist in South India, and that's about as close as you can get to Sri Lanka. I also know (believe through the miracle of television) that is exists because I watched everyone's favorite straight-talking jet-setting ex-chef eating it.
So off I go to find it, and Colombo offers no solutions. I can't find it in Colombo, so I figure I'll keep looking and I'll look when I get to Kandy. Again, I ask plenty of people where to find it and none seems to know. So on sunday evening I set out on foot to look for whatever might come my way. A few minutes down the road a man catches up to me and says he works at the Hotel Suisse where I was staying. Everyone was talking about me because of my height and my facial hair. He then asks me if I'd been drinking. Lame! I told him I'd had some Arrack and he smiles, I ask him if he has a favorite type and he says "I don't drink, I'm a Muslim." Somehow, just like in India it is important to announce one's religion early and often. Oh well, now he thinks I'm a horrible person and I'm easily duped because my judgment is unsound. But I decide to let him talk for a few minutes. He tries to sell me on "Sri Lankan branded" clothing, which is to say original Ralph Laurens and Tommy Hilfigers, etc which are made in Sri Lanka. But since they are made locally, they retail for $12 instead of $75. I tried to tell him I wasn't interested in brand name clothing, but in finding this curry instead. He insists he can show me this curry and that I should also see the brand-name clothing as well.
He takes me to the locals-only market. This is not the place for tourists. I was the only non-Sinhalese, non-Tamil present. Well, I see at this spice shop a bunch of premixed curries. One small rack of them happens to be black. So I ask about that one, and say I'd been looking for it. The guy tells me something like $3.50 and I gladly fork it over. I think I definitely over-paid for it because the muslim guy knew where he was going to take me next. At that time, however, I noticed a tatoo on his hand. Coupled with his exceptionally horrific oral hygiene I decided this man was not to be trusted. It's not that I'm against Muslims, or tatooed persons, or people with bad hygiene (well maybe a little against bad hygiene), but as they say, "People who live in Glass Houses shouldn't throw stones." I didn't tell him that I know tatoos are forbidden at least as much as drinking and he'd mildly scolded me for said activity. So he takes me to a shop and his buddy starts showing me a bunch of shirts which of course I have no interest in. I make myself a difficult customer and leave the shop having not bought anything. Hey, I got what I came for, black curry. Sadly, I had to buy it in powdered form and haven't been able to cook with it, but I'll find out how to do so soon enough.
So off I go to find it, and Colombo offers no solutions. I can't find it in Colombo, so I figure I'll keep looking and I'll look when I get to Kandy. Again, I ask plenty of people where to find it and none seems to know. So on sunday evening I set out on foot to look for whatever might come my way. A few minutes down the road a man catches up to me and says he works at the Hotel Suisse where I was staying. Everyone was talking about me because of my height and my facial hair. He then asks me if I'd been drinking. Lame! I told him I'd had some Arrack and he smiles, I ask him if he has a favorite type and he says "I don't drink, I'm a Muslim." Somehow, just like in India it is important to announce one's religion early and often. Oh well, now he thinks I'm a horrible person and I'm easily duped because my judgment is unsound. But I decide to let him talk for a few minutes. He tries to sell me on "Sri Lankan branded" clothing, which is to say original Ralph Laurens and Tommy Hilfigers, etc which are made in Sri Lanka. But since they are made locally, they retail for $12 instead of $75. I tried to tell him I wasn't interested in brand name clothing, but in finding this curry instead. He insists he can show me this curry and that I should also see the brand-name clothing as well.
He takes me to the locals-only market. This is not the place for tourists. I was the only non-Sinhalese, non-Tamil present. Well, I see at this spice shop a bunch of premixed curries. One small rack of them happens to be black. So I ask about that one, and say I'd been looking for it. The guy tells me something like $3.50 and I gladly fork it over. I think I definitely over-paid for it because the muslim guy knew where he was going to take me next. At that time, however, I noticed a tatoo on his hand. Coupled with his exceptionally horrific oral hygiene I decided this man was not to be trusted. It's not that I'm against Muslims, or tatooed persons, or people with bad hygiene (well maybe a little against bad hygiene), but as they say, "People who live in Glass Houses shouldn't throw stones." I didn't tell him that I know tatoos are forbidden at least as much as drinking and he'd mildly scolded me for said activity. So he takes me to a shop and his buddy starts showing me a bunch of shirts which of course I have no interest in. I make myself a difficult customer and leave the shop having not bought anything. Hey, I got what I came for, black curry. Sadly, I had to buy it in powdered form and haven't been able to cook with it, but I'll find out how to do so soon enough.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
The train from Colombo to Kandy
Second day in Sri Lanka, and I'd decided to try and see more than just the capital city. I knew it would be a little bit of a tight squeeze, but it was completely worth it. I went to the main railway station (Colombo Fort) and bought a second class tickets (no reservations) for Rs190 (= $1.76) and walked around the market area in Colombo eyeing all sorts of goodies. Colombo's market area (as well as Kandy's) is amazing. The streets are nice and wide and remarkably clean especially in comparison with those I've seen in India. I walked away from the station for nearly a mile, and turned right. I was in search of an internet cafe, but found none. I did, however, make a fortunate turn down main street and then off a little side street where locals buy their produce. I saw big fresh jackfruits for sale. I didn't buy any because I can't eat that much jackfruit, and I wasn't willing to try and take it on the train for a four hour journey. I was really tempted though. The array of fresh fruits and vegetables was simply astonishing. It was similar to India as one might expect, but the market area was somehow nicer. I passed by a lot of little stalls that gave a very pungent aroma of fish. It turns out, they sell only dried fish, and LOTS of it. Kinda stinky...
I make my way back to a restaurant near the train station and order some more Chicken Kothu Rotty. Delicious! I get some stares, but mostly smiles and waves. I found in Sri Lanka, more people are willing to say hello instead of simply staring. I don't yet know if the staring thing is restricted to the Tamils or not, but so far the stares are the worst from the Tamils. Finally I make it to the train station with about half an hour to go before departure. I see two people with overloaded hiking packs, and decide to talk to them. It turns out they are from Spain, Catalonia in particular. The man spoke some English, and the woman spoke Spanish, Catalan, and French, but not a word of English. I'm not kidding you, she is conversational in French, and fluent in two other romance languages, and yet knows no english. I resorted to communicating with her in a mixture of broken french and spanish. They were taking the same train to Kandy and even staying in my same hotel. So I boarded with them and off we went.
The train ride itself was interesting. The first few stops had the train so crowded we could barely move. I made what I considered a very clever move by standing in the lavatory. It didn't smell bad, because no one used it. It was just an open room with a toilet and a sink and a window. As soon as we start moving a man whips out a wooden flute and begins playing something. My newly made Catalonian friend and I are talking about something and the flutist looks at my friend to signal, "shut the hell up while I play." That was mildly awkward. It turns out he was playing for money. Any donations were accepted. I was annoyed by him more than pleased with his music, so he got no money from me. After a few stops in which the locals were existing to go home, the crowding waned a little. For a long time there was nothing but jungle and little huts and kids playing cricket in any available field. However, after about two hours we started into the mountains. WOW! That's the only expression I heard from most foreigners on the train. We sat in awe just quickly pointing to each other to come see something amazing on this side or that side of the train. Really great scenery.
After our initial shock of "I can't believe how gorgeous this place is" the snacks started coming through the train! I bought a bunch of oranges and distributed them to several people around me. That won me some quick allies. The cameras came out and lots of fun pictures were taken. I'm hoping to get in touch with my spanish friends to get emailed copies of their pictures, since I now have none of my own.
Across some of the mountain passes, the peaks were getting higher and higher, and the valleys deeper and deeper. It seemed everytime we found a higher mountain, there was an even BIGGER Buddha statue at the top almost surely accompanied by a host of temples.
After rounds and rounds of pictures, stopping for snacking and conversation, and pausing to read the guide book, we made it to Kandy. Kandy was the capital city of the kingdom before the british took over. It is marked as a world heritage site and has lots of cool things to see. Mostly, Kandy is famous for its main buddhist temple and being the jumping off point for exploring Sri Lanka's hill country. I sadly didn't make it down to the Tea region this time, but perhaps next go around. Nuwara Eliya is on my list!
I make my way back to a restaurant near the train station and order some more Chicken Kothu Rotty. Delicious! I get some stares, but mostly smiles and waves. I found in Sri Lanka, more people are willing to say hello instead of simply staring. I don't yet know if the staring thing is restricted to the Tamils or not, but so far the stares are the worst from the Tamils. Finally I make it to the train station with about half an hour to go before departure. I see two people with overloaded hiking packs, and decide to talk to them. It turns out they are from Spain, Catalonia in particular. The man spoke some English, and the woman spoke Spanish, Catalan, and French, but not a word of English. I'm not kidding you, she is conversational in French, and fluent in two other romance languages, and yet knows no english. I resorted to communicating with her in a mixture of broken french and spanish. They were taking the same train to Kandy and even staying in my same hotel. So I boarded with them and off we went.
The train ride itself was interesting. The first few stops had the train so crowded we could barely move. I made what I considered a very clever move by standing in the lavatory. It didn't smell bad, because no one used it. It was just an open room with a toilet and a sink and a window. As soon as we start moving a man whips out a wooden flute and begins playing something. My newly made Catalonian friend and I are talking about something and the flutist looks at my friend to signal, "shut the hell up while I play." That was mildly awkward. It turns out he was playing for money. Any donations were accepted. I was annoyed by him more than pleased with his music, so he got no money from me. After a few stops in which the locals were existing to go home, the crowding waned a little. For a long time there was nothing but jungle and little huts and kids playing cricket in any available field. However, after about two hours we started into the mountains. WOW! That's the only expression I heard from most foreigners on the train. We sat in awe just quickly pointing to each other to come see something amazing on this side or that side of the train. Really great scenery.
After our initial shock of "I can't believe how gorgeous this place is" the snacks started coming through the train! I bought a bunch of oranges and distributed them to several people around me. That won me some quick allies. The cameras came out and lots of fun pictures were taken. I'm hoping to get in touch with my spanish friends to get emailed copies of their pictures, since I now have none of my own.
Across some of the mountain passes, the peaks were getting higher and higher, and the valleys deeper and deeper. It seemed everytime we found a higher mountain, there was an even BIGGER Buddha statue at the top almost surely accompanied by a host of temples.
After rounds and rounds of pictures, stopping for snacking and conversation, and pausing to read the guide book, we made it to Kandy. Kandy was the capital city of the kingdom before the british took over. It is marked as a world heritage site and has lots of cool things to see. Mostly, Kandy is famous for its main buddhist temple and being the jumping off point for exploring Sri Lanka's hill country. I sadly didn't make it down to the Tea region this time, but perhaps next go around. Nuwara Eliya is on my list!
Visiting Colombo's Temples
Sri Lanka, unbeknownst to me before visiting is a heavily buddhist country. I was under the impression that it had many more Hindus. Again, well, I just don't know anything about anything.
As I'd mentioned I was going around with a man named Kamal. He's a Buddhist who basically believes in everything and took me around to see some temples while he prayed enough for Sri Lanka to sin the weekend away and still be clean.
I generally don't care to go visit temples. To me they are pretty and I know there is something spiritual happening, but I don't believe in much of it and generally find that I'm really missing the actual beauty of the place. Well, Kamal wanted to show them to me, and it's unusual to get that kind of opportunity, so I went.
Our adventure started with a hindu temple very close to his "apartment." Inside it was noisy as could be. They had an automatic drummer banging the hell out of a big drum rapidly with clangy cymbals crashing away and irritating me to wits end. However, despite the noise, this was an incredible temple. It is probably close to the size of chennai's huge temple in Mylapore. There are shrines to many gods and goddesses inside and smells of sweet incense, fresh flowers, fruits, and oils all being offered to the deities. I walk around with Kamal reading some of the Tamil names to him, and he is impressed, because although he speaks Tamil, he doesn't read it. He is sinhalese, and therefore reads sinhala and english, NOT tamil. We walk outside I wish the temple watchers happy pongal and they are very gracious for this offering.
The next temple up is a buddhist temple. WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!? Is that... A LIVE ELEPHANT!? INSIDE THE TEMPLE!? Why yes, yes it is, and it seems to be eating very well these days. I got some pictures of him up close, but it was dark and I didn't want to use the flash, so they didn't come out very well. After getting over the shock of seeing in person, a live elephant (not a small one either, a 12 ft tall one, who could completely crush me with one step) I went inside. WHAT THE HELL IS THIS? My God, that's a big buddha statue. And another, and another! These buddha statues were close to 30 ft tall. I had a picture of myself standing infront of one of the standing buddhas and I'm barely above its ankles. Pretty impressive stuff. I walk through some more and see an enormous tree on which many people are pouring water slowly and walking around in circles. Some children come and touch the tree, light incense and say prayers at the tree. Kamal sits, and says another prayer for about 10 minutes at the tree, then the big buddhas, then more and more and more prayers. Whew, I'm getting worn out just watching him go. We leave that temple, and I'm completely in awe. I've just seen two amazing temples.
We continue on. At this point I'm thinking we'll get food. Hold your horses tanto, kamal's got more praying to do. He walks me to another buddhist temple, which he says is kept up by the same people and therefore is the same temple. However, this one is a few hundred meters removed from the first and is basically sitting in the middle of a lake. Again, another amazing temple with enormous buddhas, but no elephant. This time there were live pelicans swimming around. With the city lights reflecting onto the lake and lighting up the temple from behind it was an impressive scene.
We continue on. We're ALMOST done, except Kamal spots a catholic church. He's explained to me, that his wife is catholic and so he's big on jesus. He prays to every saint in this church and goes to the sanctuary, the lady chapel, etc etc etc. This man prays like an 11 year old plays. (Perhaps that could be a funny mistranslation if spoken with the chinese accent...)
That was my religious adventure with a very religious man. He told me at the end of all this to help him come to the United States. His Uncle lives there and wants to get a visa. He wants me to write him a recommendation letter. I'd be happy to do it, because I think he won't cause anyone harm. He just might irritate them with all his religious interests. In any case, he told me that army help couldn't get him a visa, so I don't think I can help him much. Perhaps his prayers will work their charm with one of the many many many many deities he admonishes.
As I'd mentioned I was going around with a man named Kamal. He's a Buddhist who basically believes in everything and took me around to see some temples while he prayed enough for Sri Lanka to sin the weekend away and still be clean.
I generally don't care to go visit temples. To me they are pretty and I know there is something spiritual happening, but I don't believe in much of it and generally find that I'm really missing the actual beauty of the place. Well, Kamal wanted to show them to me, and it's unusual to get that kind of opportunity, so I went.
Our adventure started with a hindu temple very close to his "apartment." Inside it was noisy as could be. They had an automatic drummer banging the hell out of a big drum rapidly with clangy cymbals crashing away and irritating me to wits end. However, despite the noise, this was an incredible temple. It is probably close to the size of chennai's huge temple in Mylapore. There are shrines to many gods and goddesses inside and smells of sweet incense, fresh flowers, fruits, and oils all being offered to the deities. I walk around with Kamal reading some of the Tamil names to him, and he is impressed, because although he speaks Tamil, he doesn't read it. He is sinhalese, and therefore reads sinhala and english, NOT tamil. We walk outside I wish the temple watchers happy pongal and they are very gracious for this offering.
The next temple up is a buddhist temple. WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!? Is that... A LIVE ELEPHANT!? INSIDE THE TEMPLE!? Why yes, yes it is, and it seems to be eating very well these days. I got some pictures of him up close, but it was dark and I didn't want to use the flash, so they didn't come out very well. After getting over the shock of seeing in person, a live elephant (not a small one either, a 12 ft tall one, who could completely crush me with one step) I went inside. WHAT THE HELL IS THIS? My God, that's a big buddha statue. And another, and another! These buddha statues were close to 30 ft tall. I had a picture of myself standing infront of one of the standing buddhas and I'm barely above its ankles. Pretty impressive stuff. I walk through some more and see an enormous tree on which many people are pouring water slowly and walking around in circles. Some children come and touch the tree, light incense and say prayers at the tree. Kamal sits, and says another prayer for about 10 minutes at the tree, then the big buddhas, then more and more and more prayers. Whew, I'm getting worn out just watching him go. We leave that temple, and I'm completely in awe. I've just seen two amazing temples.
We continue on. At this point I'm thinking we'll get food. Hold your horses tanto, kamal's got more praying to do. He walks me to another buddhist temple, which he says is kept up by the same people and therefore is the same temple. However, this one is a few hundred meters removed from the first and is basically sitting in the middle of a lake. Again, another amazing temple with enormous buddhas, but no elephant. This time there were live pelicans swimming around. With the city lights reflecting onto the lake and lighting up the temple from behind it was an impressive scene.
We continue on. We're ALMOST done, except Kamal spots a catholic church. He's explained to me, that his wife is catholic and so he's big on jesus. He prays to every saint in this church and goes to the sanctuary, the lady chapel, etc etc etc. This man prays like an 11 year old plays. (Perhaps that could be a funny mistranslation if spoken with the chinese accent...)
That was my religious adventure with a very religious man. He told me at the end of all this to help him come to the United States. His Uncle lives there and wants to get a visa. He wants me to write him a recommendation letter. I'd be happy to do it, because I think he won't cause anyone harm. He just might irritate them with all his religious interests. In any case, he told me that army help couldn't get him a visa, so I don't think I can help him much. Perhaps his prayers will work their charm with one of the many many many many deities he admonishes.
Sri Lankan adventure number 1
The first and foremost bad news is that I am minus one camera and the only pictures I have of sri lanka in my possession are tourists' dribble. I do however have some fantastic stories to tell, and without further ado I will now inculcate you with them.
On the way to Colombo, nothing remarkable really happened except that I was able to hire a taxi driver who was willing to pull over to a grocery store by the side of the road so that I could make my first purchase, Arrack. Arrack, in case you're wondering, is the same word as Arak from Arabic, but translated and transliterated a few too many times, so that the arabs say "AH ruk" and the Sinhalese say "Erick." It is basically distilled coconut wine aged in the casks for some time. I bought a bottle of the "Old Arrack" at 35% and a whopping $6.85. It has a most peculiar flavor and I'm not really sure I like it. But I made my way around Sri Lanka and tried several different varieties and there is better stuff, I'm just still not sure if I like it aside from its novelty.
So I get to the hotel, one bottle of booze richer, and wide eyed at this new found paradise. I check into my room at the Colombo City Hotels directly next to Sri Lanka's tallest buildings, the world trade towers. Sri Lanka's trade towers by the way stand at a modest 40 stories, but for south asia that's enormous. I talk to the clerks and front desk guys and tell them I'd like to see some authentic colombo. They tell me that the Hilton has some tourist package with a guided bus tour for $30 or something. I wave that off immediately and tell them specifically what I'm looking for. I want to see what locals do on saturday night, and eat at some dingy sort of restaurant serving up the Kothu Rotty (as they spell it). Well, I was in LUCK. The guy on duty who has some sort of hospitality relations position and had spoken to me in Tamil on the way to the room, says that he's leaving in 20 minutes and he'll take me around. I ask the clerks if this is a good decision after he leaves. They assure me he is a good person and knows colombo very well. If they'd said anything with the slightest hesitation, I'd have bolted then and there and gone to seek out Colombo on my own. But I decide to go see what he wants to show me.
We start off walking along the beach south toward another hotel called the Galle Face Hotel, which is perhaps Colombo's most premiere hotel (with a price tag of $81/ night). It has several bars, restuarants, and famous salt water pool, as well as it's own very small private beach on which westerns may wear bikinis and actually swim! WOO! I'm not so interested in this place, but he wanted to go to talk to someone. Apparently he had worked there before and wanted to see about getting his job back. As he tells me, he went to work "for" the US army in saudi and UAE for a few years, something having to do with mess hall preparations. I didn't totally understand, but after he returned from the gulf, he got a job at the other hotel. He asks about my religion and I tell him Anglican, which to my shock he knew about. Even though India was a british colony until not so long ago (as was Sri Lanka) Indians generally don't know what I'm saying when I say "I'm Anglican." So he walks me to the nearest Anglican church which happens to be really close. It also happens that a huge and beautiful wedding is happening. It was a Sinhala slash anglican wedding. We stopped and watched the ceremony for a few minutes. It was interesting to see the other customs taking place in "my" church. I was happy to see it.
We keep walking and soon we're in the poor part of town. No more tourist frills, no shit, just people doing their thing trying to get by and make a living. He tells me we're in a muslim part of town, and I'm suspecting he lives there. He tells me he's buddhist, and asks me what I think about other religions. I tell him I don't have problems with any individual person based on religion. He tells me he believes in Jesus too. I could care less really, but it seemed important to him.
As I had suspected I get drawn to his house. He lives up an extremely narrow flight of stairs and in a cramped little tin can of an apartment. It's dark and dirty and I sort of feel bad for him. He then tells me he just keeps the apartment in Colombo for working and goes to visit his wife and children on the weekends (30 km away). I wonder why he only goes on the weekends....
He tells me "Mr. Alex come." And asks me to sit, and I wait for him. He brings out his wedding photos and shows he some family pictures. Then he says to wait 5 minutes, he needs to do some prayers. So I watch him, sprinkle saffron water on his floor, light incense, pray to Buddha, the other buddha statue, a couple hindu icons, and several pictures of Jesus, as well as St. Anthony. Then he instructs me to remove my shoes and put on flip flops. I do, and he says "come." So I go with him again and he takes me on an incredible tour of Hindu Temples, Mosques, Buddhist temples, and a couple churches. I'll describe those later, but let's just say, the man got his prayer on. Damn! He made sure to pray at every temple and church at every god, goddess, and saint. I think he's covered. It really would be a shame if it's all false and he's wasted a hell of a lot of time just trying to cover his bases...
Well, after all the temple seeing, we go for some food. FINALLY! Kothu Rotty. That is some tasty goodness my friends! Take some roti and chicken and lots of spices and one egg. Chop them all up while on a flat grill and serve with "gravy" and of all things "sauce" which is sweet and sour sauce. Delicious. Having lost my camera I've lost my two or three pictures of the guy chopping that all up and making a commotion.
Finally I get my shoes back, and we take the bus to the train station so that I can buy a ticket for the next day's adventure to Kandy and back to the hotel. The bus, I should mention was a death trap! Oh MY GOD! He was going like 60mph and I was standing and falling, and people falling on me and TRYING to stand up. The only reason I could hold on is because my arms are strong and my stance is wide.
I make it back to the hotel finally and go to the rooftop bar. I sit with a lovely english couple from cornwall and have a good beer. FINALLY! Oh thank you sweet jesus for answering my prayers, maybe Kamal had a point with all that praying. I got to drink an imperial stout brewed by Lion in Sri Lanka. Not actually a great stout, but when you're as desparate as I was, you'd understand.
This English couple told me they are rescue volunteers and have traveled the world bringing emergency relief to people. When they're not saving people in need, they run a beautiful little campsite in Cornwall, England. They invited me to come, and I think I will.
Lower Polladras. Look them up, it seems they've got a good summer thing going.
Night one, over and out.
On the way to Colombo, nothing remarkable really happened except that I was able to hire a taxi driver who was willing to pull over to a grocery store by the side of the road so that I could make my first purchase, Arrack. Arrack, in case you're wondering, is the same word as Arak from Arabic, but translated and transliterated a few too many times, so that the arabs say "AH ruk" and the Sinhalese say "Erick." It is basically distilled coconut wine aged in the casks for some time. I bought a bottle of the "Old Arrack" at 35% and a whopping $6.85. It has a most peculiar flavor and I'm not really sure I like it. But I made my way around Sri Lanka and tried several different varieties and there is better stuff, I'm just still not sure if I like it aside from its novelty.
So I get to the hotel, one bottle of booze richer, and wide eyed at this new found paradise. I check into my room at the Colombo City Hotels directly next to Sri Lanka's tallest buildings, the world trade towers. Sri Lanka's trade towers by the way stand at a modest 40 stories, but for south asia that's enormous. I talk to the clerks and front desk guys and tell them I'd like to see some authentic colombo. They tell me that the Hilton has some tourist package with a guided bus tour for $30 or something. I wave that off immediately and tell them specifically what I'm looking for. I want to see what locals do on saturday night, and eat at some dingy sort of restaurant serving up the Kothu Rotty (as they spell it). Well, I was in LUCK. The guy on duty who has some sort of hospitality relations position and had spoken to me in Tamil on the way to the room, says that he's leaving in 20 minutes and he'll take me around. I ask the clerks if this is a good decision after he leaves. They assure me he is a good person and knows colombo very well. If they'd said anything with the slightest hesitation, I'd have bolted then and there and gone to seek out Colombo on my own. But I decide to go see what he wants to show me.
We start off walking along the beach south toward another hotel called the Galle Face Hotel, which is perhaps Colombo's most premiere hotel (with a price tag of $81/ night). It has several bars, restuarants, and famous salt water pool, as well as it's own very small private beach on which westerns may wear bikinis and actually swim! WOO! I'm not so interested in this place, but he wanted to go to talk to someone. Apparently he had worked there before and wanted to see about getting his job back. As he tells me, he went to work "for" the US army in saudi and UAE for a few years, something having to do with mess hall preparations. I didn't totally understand, but after he returned from the gulf, he got a job at the other hotel. He asks about my religion and I tell him Anglican, which to my shock he knew about. Even though India was a british colony until not so long ago (as was Sri Lanka) Indians generally don't know what I'm saying when I say "I'm Anglican." So he walks me to the nearest Anglican church which happens to be really close. It also happens that a huge and beautiful wedding is happening. It was a Sinhala slash anglican wedding. We stopped and watched the ceremony for a few minutes. It was interesting to see the other customs taking place in "my" church. I was happy to see it.
We keep walking and soon we're in the poor part of town. No more tourist frills, no shit, just people doing their thing trying to get by and make a living. He tells me we're in a muslim part of town, and I'm suspecting he lives there. He tells me he's buddhist, and asks me what I think about other religions. I tell him I don't have problems with any individual person based on religion. He tells me he believes in Jesus too. I could care less really, but it seemed important to him.
As I had suspected I get drawn to his house. He lives up an extremely narrow flight of stairs and in a cramped little tin can of an apartment. It's dark and dirty and I sort of feel bad for him. He then tells me he just keeps the apartment in Colombo for working and goes to visit his wife and children on the weekends (30 km away). I wonder why he only goes on the weekends....
He tells me "Mr. Alex come." And asks me to sit, and I wait for him. He brings out his wedding photos and shows he some family pictures. Then he says to wait 5 minutes, he needs to do some prayers. So I watch him, sprinkle saffron water on his floor, light incense, pray to Buddha, the other buddha statue, a couple hindu icons, and several pictures of Jesus, as well as St. Anthony. Then he instructs me to remove my shoes and put on flip flops. I do, and he says "come." So I go with him again and he takes me on an incredible tour of Hindu Temples, Mosques, Buddhist temples, and a couple churches. I'll describe those later, but let's just say, the man got his prayer on. Damn! He made sure to pray at every temple and church at every god, goddess, and saint. I think he's covered. It really would be a shame if it's all false and he's wasted a hell of a lot of time just trying to cover his bases...
Well, after all the temple seeing, we go for some food. FINALLY! Kothu Rotty. That is some tasty goodness my friends! Take some roti and chicken and lots of spices and one egg. Chop them all up while on a flat grill and serve with "gravy" and of all things "sauce" which is sweet and sour sauce. Delicious. Having lost my camera I've lost my two or three pictures of the guy chopping that all up and making a commotion.
Finally I get my shoes back, and we take the bus to the train station so that I can buy a ticket for the next day's adventure to Kandy and back to the hotel. The bus, I should mention was a death trap! Oh MY GOD! He was going like 60mph and I was standing and falling, and people falling on me and TRYING to stand up. The only reason I could hold on is because my arms are strong and my stance is wide.
I make it back to the hotel finally and go to the rooftop bar. I sit with a lovely english couple from cornwall and have a good beer. FINALLY! Oh thank you sweet jesus for answering my prayers, maybe Kamal had a point with all that praying. I got to drink an imperial stout brewed by Lion in Sri Lanka. Not actually a great stout, but when you're as desparate as I was, you'd understand.
This English couple told me they are rescue volunteers and have traveled the world bringing emergency relief to people. When they're not saving people in need, they run a beautiful little campsite in Cornwall, England. They invited me to come, and I think I will.
Lower Polladras. Look them up, it seems they've got a good summer thing going.
Night one, over and out.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Biking Chennai
It's 11:00 AM and I set away from my apartment toward the department. Ah, the usual stares come. This time the stares are more frequent. How odd must I look now? Well, let's recount the current situation. An extremely tall (relatively speaking) foreigner with funny facial hair (relatively speaking) and sunglasses (somehow the oddest thing about me) riding an indian bicycle with a backpack. I don't think anyone knows what to make of me. The journey continues. I need to cross the Thiravika bridge, but auto traffic can't turn right. Oh yes, I'm on a bicycle, traffic rules don't apply. I just go the wrong way! Of course, I go the wrong way actually on the sidewalk on the bridge. It doesn't make very smooth riding either.
SCHEW, dodged another cow pie! I get down from the bridge onto the street, but this time there is a barrier for a few hundred meters preventing me from going to correct way. No problem, a couple rickshaw, motorcycles, and even a van have noticed this same situation. What to do? I just follow everyone else going to wrong way. Finally, I find a way to cross to the "correct" (left) side of the street to go WITH traffic. This is interesting. I'm dodging lots of people and animals. Motorcycles and cars come from behind way too fast to slow down in case of an accident. A group of young men are waiting for a bus and standing right in my path. I veer away a little so as to avoid hitting them. They are really staring at me. One of them pushes another into my path. Ha! I saw that coming a mile away. Those jackasses have no idea that I biked through Strawberry Mansion in Philadelphia. People jumping out at me isn't scary anymore.
I make it past the people and some cars and some motorcycles. Now it's time to cross the freeway. Again, I cease being in auto traffic for a moment and cross with the pedestrians. I'll allow them to get hit by an overloaded bus that leans a bit too far for my taste. Made it!
Did I mention it feels like playing frogger, but the consequence if I lose is drastically different? It's sort of like that. I have to dodge a lot of things (I can't avoid the stares though) and be dodged by even more. The Indian mentality of might is right applies during transit more than anywhere, and bicyclists just aren't very important. I should also mention, for the time being I'm borrowing a friend's bicycle and he is 5'6" so the bicycle is fitted to his height. I feel a little like riding a tricycle. The bike is also really heavy, with a huge kickstand, a heavy carrier on the back, and extra features all weighing the bike down. All this taken into consideration means I'm not moving very fast. Every once in a while a little kid pedaling (no pun intended) with all his might catches up to me just to give a good long stare at the person who pedals a bicycles from the balls of his feet rather than from his heels (I still find that idea completely bizarre! Why pedal with your heels?).
The commute back to the apartment is somewhat easier at 1 or 2 or 3 in the morning. There isn't much traffic as Chennai sleeps early. I only see about a dozen cars during the entire trip, and it's about 5 or 6 km. The biggest obstacle is getting across the Thiravika bridge since it smells horrible. It sits atop the Adyar river which has essentially become a sewage drain instead of a river in which people can bathe and wash their clothing and cooking utensils. I make it back, time for bed, and I'm ready for the mosquitoes this time.
SCHEW, dodged another cow pie! I get down from the bridge onto the street, but this time there is a barrier for a few hundred meters preventing me from going to correct way. No problem, a couple rickshaw, motorcycles, and even a van have noticed this same situation. What to do? I just follow everyone else going to wrong way. Finally, I find a way to cross to the "correct" (left) side of the street to go WITH traffic. This is interesting. I'm dodging lots of people and animals. Motorcycles and cars come from behind way too fast to slow down in case of an accident. A group of young men are waiting for a bus and standing right in my path. I veer away a little so as to avoid hitting them. They are really staring at me. One of them pushes another into my path. Ha! I saw that coming a mile away. Those jackasses have no idea that I biked through Strawberry Mansion in Philadelphia. People jumping out at me isn't scary anymore.
I make it past the people and some cars and some motorcycles. Now it's time to cross the freeway. Again, I cease being in auto traffic for a moment and cross with the pedestrians. I'll allow them to get hit by an overloaded bus that leans a bit too far for my taste. Made it!
Did I mention it feels like playing frogger, but the consequence if I lose is drastically different? It's sort of like that. I have to dodge a lot of things (I can't avoid the stares though) and be dodged by even more. The Indian mentality of might is right applies during transit more than anywhere, and bicyclists just aren't very important. I should also mention, for the time being I'm borrowing a friend's bicycle and he is 5'6" so the bicycle is fitted to his height. I feel a little like riding a tricycle. The bike is also really heavy, with a huge kickstand, a heavy carrier on the back, and extra features all weighing the bike down. All this taken into consideration means I'm not moving very fast. Every once in a while a little kid pedaling (no pun intended) with all his might catches up to me just to give a good long stare at the person who pedals a bicycles from the balls of his feet rather than from his heels (I still find that idea completely bizarre! Why pedal with your heels?).
The commute back to the apartment is somewhat easier at 1 or 2 or 3 in the morning. There isn't much traffic as Chennai sleeps early. I only see about a dozen cars during the entire trip, and it's about 5 or 6 km. The biggest obstacle is getting across the Thiravika bridge since it smells horrible. It sits atop the Adyar river which has essentially become a sewage drain instead of a river in which people can bathe and wash their clothing and cooking utensils. I make it back, time for bed, and I'm ready for the mosquitoes this time.
Tibetan Refugee Colony
One of the biggest surprises I had during my visit to Delhi was visiting this refugee colony. My friend's younger brother is involved with a rugby team whose members live close by to the colony, and that's how he heard of it. There was some suggestion of taking me to see some museums and fanciful things. Those would be nice to see too, but somehow when the suggestion that I could visit such a place as this arose, there was absolutely no way I could turn it down.
We drove up a major road in Delhi and seemingly nothing special was on either side. We drive by what looks to be another nondescript small neighborhood and he friend's brother says, "there it is." The only designation marker is a cheaply printed wooden sign saying "Tibetan Refugee Colony" We had to drive around another couple miles to turn around and get on the correct side of the road and we made it. We stepped out onto a dirt road and walked into a shady little alley. When I say little I usually mean "little" in the American sense, that is a narrow alley barely big enough for a small car to drive through. This was not that kind of narrow, this was indian narrow. Three men walking cannot go through it shoulder to shoulder. The three of us make it through the alley and into a nice open space.
What's this? There are no Indians here except my two friends. What's that language? Is that... Tibetan they are speaking? Yes, yes it is. I don't know a single word in tibetan. I only know a couple words in Chinese, and I think they won't be very helpful or welcome here. What is that funny script? Oh, that's tibetan too.
We continue our walking tour and pass by many small shops and restaurants and guest houses. Apparently you can rent a room in a guest house there. It seems they really like visitors. We came to what seemed an abrupt end to our tour when we ran into another little alley way. It looked like only "houses" and "apartments" were there. Then I saw a man walk down that way, and some westerners come out. I decided to duck down into that alley and see what was going on. We walk into another open space with a nice tibetan temple, more shops and a people playing badminton out in the open. There are a few westerners who must have gotten a tip off about this place as well. Then I saw the most repulsive sight in the world... Two western hippies with free tibet hats and shirts and dreadlocks with camping gear. I shouldn't begrudge them their political ideals, but somehow kids from america wearing free tibet stuff in a refugee camp didn't sit well with me. It somehow seems to me like they're saying, "we understand your plight, and we're with you." F-ing idiots!
I think Americans who have enough freedom to visit Delhi and find out about this camp have no idea of what it's like to have their country taken over by less than friendly invaders, they're religion squashed, their religious leader sent into exile, and their people moved to a neighboring country that gives them a little neighborhood in a place with completely different georgraphy... I was incensed at that. That, however, is not the point of this post. While I also have strong feelings about the way Tibetans have been treated at the hands of China, I don't want to rub in their faces that I'm an American with all the world's freedoms and more money than most people, that seems insulting, and I don't want to insult refugees!
It was an eye-opening and intense experience. We stopped for some tea and coffee and "apple beer" and walked around. I at one point got into the action by getting a shuttlecock for badminton down from an awning too tall for the children playing to reach it. We watched some men playing Carrom (similar to pool, but on a board and without sticks) and took in the scenery. Here is a random assortment of photos from my visit.
We drove up a major road in Delhi and seemingly nothing special was on either side. We drive by what looks to be another nondescript small neighborhood and he friend's brother says, "there it is." The only designation marker is a cheaply printed wooden sign saying "Tibetan Refugee Colony" We had to drive around another couple miles to turn around and get on the correct side of the road and we made it. We stepped out onto a dirt road and walked into a shady little alley. When I say little I usually mean "little" in the American sense, that is a narrow alley barely big enough for a small car to drive through. This was not that kind of narrow, this was indian narrow. Three men walking cannot go through it shoulder to shoulder. The three of us make it through the alley and into a nice open space.
What's this? There are no Indians here except my two friends. What's that language? Is that... Tibetan they are speaking? Yes, yes it is. I don't know a single word in tibetan. I only know a couple words in Chinese, and I think they won't be very helpful or welcome here. What is that funny script? Oh, that's tibetan too.
We continue our walking tour and pass by many small shops and restaurants and guest houses. Apparently you can rent a room in a guest house there. It seems they really like visitors. We came to what seemed an abrupt end to our tour when we ran into another little alley way. It looked like only "houses" and "apartments" were there. Then I saw a man walk down that way, and some westerners come out. I decided to duck down into that alley and see what was going on. We walk into another open space with a nice tibetan temple, more shops and a people playing badminton out in the open. There are a few westerners who must have gotten a tip off about this place as well. Then I saw the most repulsive sight in the world... Two western hippies with free tibet hats and shirts and dreadlocks with camping gear. I shouldn't begrudge them their political ideals, but somehow kids from america wearing free tibet stuff in a refugee camp didn't sit well with me. It somehow seems to me like they're saying, "we understand your plight, and we're with you." F-ing idiots!
I think Americans who have enough freedom to visit Delhi and find out about this camp have no idea of what it's like to have their country taken over by less than friendly invaders, they're religion squashed, their religious leader sent into exile, and their people moved to a neighboring country that gives them a little neighborhood in a place with completely different georgraphy... I was incensed at that. That, however, is not the point of this post. While I also have strong feelings about the way Tibetans have been treated at the hands of China, I don't want to rub in their faces that I'm an American with all the world's freedoms and more money than most people, that seems insulting, and I don't want to insult refugees!
It was an eye-opening and intense experience. We stopped for some tea and coffee and "apple beer" and walked around. I at one point got into the action by getting a shuttlecock for badminton down from an awning too tall for the children playing to reach it. We watched some men playing Carrom (similar to pool, but on a board and without sticks) and took in the scenery. Here is a random assortment of photos from my visit.
Relearning the Alphabet from A to Zed
It was hard for me to realize the difficulties I am having in communicating before I got here. I heard every manner of things, but I took it upon myself to learn to read and write the Tamil script which was a good idea to be sure. What I've found is that those who say "You won't need to learn any Tamil because everyone speaks English" clearly had a different than I am having. Asking for things in English is more of a task than I'd like to admit. People speak English "konjungonjum" which means "very little." In fact their English and my Tamil are approximately on equal footing as far as I can tell.
Those who speak conversational english speak a funny mixture of british and indian english. This is so difficult, but some funny things have come up in English such as
"today evening," "today morning," and "today afternoon" instead of "this morning," "this afternoon," and "this evening". The idioms are all screwy, and that's not to say they are incorrect, just indianized british idioms that don't make too much sense to me. A third thing that bothers me being the strong american english speaker that I am is using "zed" for "zee". This comes up in mathematics a lot as 'z' as a popular variable name.
To make matters worse I have found out some devastating Tamil news. Apparently the tamil dictionary that I'd been using to learn many words doesn't have all of the words correct. I was saying a few words in Tamil the other night to a couple native Tamil speakers and they had no idea what a couple of the words were. I said them in english only to get confused looks and actual head shakes of "no." These were not the tamil head bobbles which can mean anything necessary, these were definite "no, you are incorrect and this problem is non negotiable" type of head shakes...
I've found this Tamil-English-German online dictionary which apparently now has more correct words, but I don't know how willing I am to go through relearning my several hundred word vocabulary to correct all the mistakes in it... I need a better way to feed Tamil words into my brain!
For now, the only things I know about Tamil are how to read and write the script and random greeting words which people say all the time.
Those who speak conversational english speak a funny mixture of british and indian english. This is so difficult, but some funny things have come up in English such as
"today evening," "today morning," and "today afternoon" instead of "this morning," "this afternoon," and "this evening". The idioms are all screwy, and that's not to say they are incorrect, just indianized british idioms that don't make too much sense to me. A third thing that bothers me being the strong american english speaker that I am is using "zed" for "zee". This comes up in mathematics a lot as 'z' as a popular variable name.
To make matters worse I have found out some devastating Tamil news. Apparently the tamil dictionary that I'd been using to learn many words doesn't have all of the words correct. I was saying a few words in Tamil the other night to a couple native Tamil speakers and they had no idea what a couple of the words were. I said them in english only to get confused looks and actual head shakes of "no." These were not the tamil head bobbles which can mean anything necessary, these were definite "no, you are incorrect and this problem is non negotiable" type of head shakes...
I've found this Tamil-English-German online dictionary which apparently now has more correct words, but I don't know how willing I am to go through relearning my several hundred word vocabulary to correct all the mistakes in it... I need a better way to feed Tamil words into my brain!
For now, the only things I know about Tamil are how to read and write the script and random greeting words which people say all the time.
Lodi Gardens in Delhi
After arriving in Delhi, the first thing my friend took me to see was Lodi Gardens (or Lodhi Gardens). This is a huge park, somewhat akin to Central Park in New York in size and importance, but a world away in content. This park was the seat of the Lodi Sultans who came to power in AD 1207. The actual buildings however, I believe, are from the 1400s. It was a really foggy day as the pictures indicate, but I have to say just walking around was quite enjoyable. The buildings are impressive, and the park is a nice place in central Delhi to hang out.
What I was informed of during the visit was that many of the governmental ministers live close by and therefore one can get a picture of the "who's who" of Delhi just walking around and keeping an eye out. We passed by several dignitaries in just a short half hour visit.
In addition to all the fuss about the important people walking around there were lots of families playing recreational games such as badminton and soccer as well as a beautiful jogging track about 2 miles in length.
It was a pleasant start for Delhi, and I didn't realize precisely how different the rest of the city could be from first sight.
Lodi Gardens Wiki
What I was informed of during the visit was that many of the governmental ministers live close by and therefore one can get a picture of the "who's who" of Delhi just walking around and keeping an eye out. We passed by several dignitaries in just a short half hour visit.
In addition to all the fuss about the important people walking around there were lots of families playing recreational games such as badminton and soccer as well as a beautiful jogging track about 2 miles in length.
It was a pleasant start for Delhi, and I didn't realize precisely how different the rest of the city could be from first sight.
Lodi Gardens Wiki
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Happy Pongal
Happy Pongal! Pongal, if you're wondering (since I didn't properly know about it until recently) is the Tamil New Year. It's also the only holiday celebrated on the solar calendar within Hinduism. It is the also the celebration of the harvest. I figured it would be a good day to brew! Perhaps I'll go looking for some materials and supplies today. Afterall the harvest has just finished.
However, I've been interested for some time in these blessing markers that people draw on the ground (called Kolam). Pongal brings out a lot of these. Yesterday afternoon the women who work at the institute were drawing some fancy ones in front of the main building so I took the liberty of photographing the process. I hope you find it as interesting as I did! This whole process by the way is intriguing and artistic and only took the women about 30 minutes from start to finish.
However, I've been interested for some time in these blessing markers that people draw on the ground (called Kolam). Pongal brings out a lot of these. Yesterday afternoon the women who work at the institute were drawing some fancy ones in front of the main building so I took the liberty of photographing the process. I hope you find it as interesting as I did! This whole process by the way is intriguing and artistic and only took the women about 30 minutes from start to finish.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Food adventures in Delhi
Making Naan in a TandoorThat big hole in the ground is a tandoor. This picture is at Karim's restaurant near Jama Masjid. They do make some seriously good food for ridiculously cheap, but I'm still going to guess that there is something better in Asia than this.
"Apple Beer" = carbonated apple juiceThis was a little shop called Duke Restaurant in a Tibetan Refugee Camp. It was a nice little sit down and sip on a cold-ish day. The Refugee Colony was amazing, more on that later.
PaanThis is a purely Indian concoction as far as I can tell. It is some sort of leaf wrapped around all sorts of flavorings. Generally it turns your mouth red and you chew on it like gum for a long time. This guy unfortunately loaded up my paan so much that I couldn't put it all in my mouth. Also he put way too many crazy and non-mutually friendly flavors together. I didn't enjoy this one too much, but I'm assured that better varieties exist. Funny enough, if you go to the right paan guy, you can get chewing tobacco put in there. I'm sure if you go to the REALLY right guy you can get marijuana ("marriage you wanna" in the Indian accent) put in there. I'll have to give it another try soon.
Masala Soda??This is meant to be a digestive aid. I can only say it was quite bizarre. If you have been so unfortunate to try chicken suckers then you'll have an idea of how this tasted. See this for more frightening information; Chicken Suckers
I didn't know bees had feathers.Seriously man! Come on, it's Beef Eater's Gin. I wonder if they messed this up intentionally because they find beef eating offensive... Of course Delhi has an enormous muslim population, so it's not beef eating that's offensive, it's drinking gin...
"Shawarma"Having just come from Lebanon I'd eaten a lot of great shawarma recently, so I was excited to see this. To be fair, it was delicious! It was just a little awkward for me to call it shawarma. It was more like a chicken wrap with naan instead of pita and "garlic sauce" in the tray and not in the wrap itself. That, however, did not stop me from enjoying this greatly.
Enjoying "shawarma"MMM "shawarma"
Give me a break, that is NOT chicago pizza!I'll admit, I got very excited to see this sign. It even says "big slices." That certainly goes along with my concept of Chicago Pizza. I walked around to see what was happening. It was "thin" pizza with doughy crust not cooked in a big pan, just a pizza tray. I wouldn't try to pass that off as anyone's particular pizza. I also wouldn't try to pass that off as "big slices" especially if you're willing to invoke the holy name of chicago when it comes to pizza.
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