How do birds engage with mirrors? Do they see in their own reflection, a rival, an encroacher who needs to be driven out, or a playmate?
Last week, in the little town of Dewathang in south-eastern Bhutan, I found myself in a small roadside lodge. As soon as I entered my room I saw something moving behind the curtains - it was this small bird with its brilliant blue plumage glinting in the evening sun.
The last time I had seen such a bird was through a pair of binoculars. This time I was just a couple of inches away, looking through a glass-pane with a reflective film on it. The bird kept fluttering against the pane, stopping every now and then, to look intently at itself until darkness set in after sunset.
Do these birds get excited / agitated only when they are looking at reflections on the vertical plane? Are they tuned to ignore reflections on a horizontal surface such as a puddle or pool or water?
The road to Trashi Yangste is not an easy one. Unlike most roads we saw in Eastern Bhutan, the one that branched-off north from Trashigang was particularly bad.
As we drove on a mud-path cut into steep slopes and dense forests, past recent landslides and rock-falls, I imagined our final destination to be some sort of one-horse town; one in which there would be a few houses along the roadside; a town where we would have to wake up somebody to cook dinner and find a bed for the night..
It was late evening by the time our Pajero stopped and the driver announced, "We've reached!". What stood below us was not a tiny settlement but a lovely little town built alongside a river. There were broad roads, numerous buildings, shops, lodges, snooker parlours, and, the biggest surprise of all - a beautifully lit up Choeten sitting like a jewel at the head of the valley.
This was the Chorten Kora, a shrine modelled on the Boudhanath stupa in Kathmandu, and revered by people across the eastern Himalayas, from Nepal to Arunachal Pradesh, and maybe beyond.
I visited this shrine early next morning. What struck me the most was the deep sense of order, symmetry and rhythm within the complex.
Each side was divided into two parts with four sections each. Niches within each of these four sections had exactly six prayer wheels. So as you walked along each side of the Chorten you could swing with your fingers 48 prayer-wheels or 192 prayers with each circumambulation!
As if to keep time for each step and each breath you took, there were also two large water-driven prayer wheels by the river-side, gently tinkling their bells.
What is the significance of these numbers? Why are prayer-wheels and stupas by the roadside always built in units of 1, 2, 6 or 8?
There is no doubt deep symbolism in each of these elements.
It appeared on on ThePlate, an interesting publication I had not come across earlier; the style of writing was chatty and engaging and I learnt a whole lot of things about farmer-producer companies that are setting new benchmarks for the production and export of fruits and vegetables.
I was particularly surprised to learn about the barriers faced by Indian exporters in getting their products cleared, especially in the European markets. While some of these barriers, such as limits to pesticide residue, seem quite sensible from the point of view of health and wellbeing of the consumers, some others seem completely whimsical, bordering on Euromyths. The EU, it seems, sets standards on the curvature of bananas and limits the sweetness of fruits imported into their common market.
What exactly are these standards? Why were they adopted?
Curvature of Bananas: European Commission regulation 2257/94 decrees that bananas in general should be “free from malformation or abnormal curvature”. Those sold as “extra class” must be perfect, “class 1” can have “slight defects of shape” and “class 2” can have full-scale “defects of shape.” This standard applies to bananas of the varieties (cultivars) of Musa (AAA) spp., Cavendish and Gros Michel subgroups.
Far from being a whimsical, curvature of a banana seems to be a good indicator healthy growth - the amount and sunlight the plant was exposed to during its growth phase, and the resulting distribution of hormones.
Sweetness of Fruits: The Brix scale is used to measure the sweetness of fruits such as grapes. Article 50(2)(a) of Regulation (EU) No 1151/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council on quality schemes for agricultural products and foodstuffs.
According to the Plate article, "..the Brix content for grapes to Europe must range from 16 to 20 degrees, whereas the Indian palate prefers sugar content 24 degrees or higher". The relevant EU regulations however seems to set only minimum limits for sweetness, ranging from 12-14 degrees on the Brix scale.
There have been reports of export consignments getting rejected for exceeding limits on pesticide content in the fruits, but have there been cases where a rejection has happened due to excessive curvature or sweetness?
This must be one of the most beautiful sculptures I have seen of Anantha-shayana - Vishnu reclining on the 'endless' serpent, Anantha.
One of the largest of these Ananthashayana sculptures is at the Padmanabha-Swami temple in Thiruvananthapuram, a city which itself is named after the deity. At the sanctum of this temple, the reclining Vishnu is so large that he needs to viewed through three separate doors that open into a dark, mysterious looking chamber lit by oil lamps.
This particular sculpture is much smaller and it is carved on the outer walls of the Dashavatara Temple temple located, surprisingly, in Deogarh, Uttar Pradesh. Surprising because - thanks to the ravages of the Islamic period - it is difficult to find any sculptures with their noses and limbs intact in all of North India.
Built on the banks of the Betwa river, bordering Madhya Pradesh, this lovely little temple built by the Gupta dynasty around 500 CE, is now in ruins. For some reason, this particular panel is mostly intact.
On the foreground are six standing figures. Three to the left are armed male warriors displaying their heavy swords - heavy, broad-tipped battle swords drawn for action. However the remaining three are unarmed, an look completely relaxed. The lone woman on the extreme right has an elaborate hair-do and seems to to be striking a pose, waving to the onlooker.
Above them is Vishnu reclining on the Anantha serpent, looking serious and meditative on his lotus-bed. His consort is gently holding up his ankle while she delicately tweeks his toe. Behind her is Shiva with a cobra wrapped around his neck like a muffler. A lady with a scar on her left breast, stands next to him with a mace (or is it a musical instrument?). On the top-most panel are six smaller figures, all seated on something or the other - a bird (swan or peacock), an elephant, a lotus bloom, a bull (seats two) and an unknown guy trailing along.
Who are these gods? Why is Brahmna depicted here in deep meditation on a lotus, with what seems like the carcass of a cow on his shoulder and chest??
* Thornton Wilder and The Angel That Troubled the Waters: A Plea for Physician Healing - "...Without your wound where would your power be? It is your very remorse that makes your low voice tremble into the hearts of men..."
* Michael Gerson on Depression - https://unitedbrainassociation.org/2019/03/28/the-importance-of-coming-out-bringing-mental-illness-into-the-light/
Last week marked the political re-inauguration and 'consecration' of the Sri Rama temple at Ayodhya.
While I am still trying to understand the complex ways in which this event was built ground-up from the community-level across most of north India - the house-to-house campaign with the "akshath", the all-day langar (community kitchen) that was set up across housing societies with live broadcast of the events taking place in Ayodhya that day, bright orange flags fluttering everywhere...it did bring back memories.
At school Sanskrit had been a compulsory subject for a few years. I hated it - especially because it brought down my (already pathetic) grades. We had to learn by rote a table with the various usages of the name, "Rama":
It was drilled into our heads so well that we could recite it anywhere, anytime! The only thing I never understood was why we were learning this.
A few months ago, while trying to understand my mother's fascination for Sanskrit shlokas, as well as the ease with which she memorised poetry in complicated meters (eg., Shyamala Dandakam of Kalidasa), I stumbled on this YT series from the Chinmaya Foundation - Sanskrit for Shastra Study by Ved Chaitanya.
This turned out to be fascinating. For the first time I began to understand why I had learnt Rama-Ramou-Ramah decades ago!
I have not even reached half-way through this 53-session series but each session is nicely paced out. While in 7th grade perhaps my Sanskrit teacher did tell us that the Rama-series represents 'nominative cases for masculine nouns'. Even if she did I would not have understood. Thanks to this series and to CIF, a new, exciting world is opening up now!
The yummiest Kachori's are sold in the back lanes of Khari Baoli. A small eatery in Khajuraho served the the best dry-mango pickle I have tasted, and some of the nicest meals I have had were served in tiny, family-run eateries in Kyoto...
Good food is often underrated, and very often served far from the world of frenzied reviews, tik-tok videos and reels. It often reminds me of Joshua Bell, one of the finest musicians in the world of western classical music, who once went busking as an experiment. At the busy entrance of a metro station in Washington, he played his violin for nearly an hour - six classical pieces from Bach, Massenet, Schubert and Ponce. Hardly anybody noticed, and even fewer stopped by to listen. From the people who did not recognise him he got about $20 in change. The very next night, he played at a fancy music concert where each ticket cost about $100!
Food and music was on my mind when I read this nice piece on Chef Thomas Zacharias. A chef for over 15 years, after training abroad and serving in leading restaurants, decided to travel the forgotten corners of the world to seek out ingredients, techniques, food traditions, folklores, stories and food recipes, from farmers and indigenous communities.
What are some of the perspective-shifting foods he's discovered? Young sweet-potato leaves in Meghalaya, Atam (sour-fruit) from Goa, Thaavu (wild fern) from Chalakudy river basin in Kerala, and fire-ant chutney in Jharkhand!
Thankfully for us, this chef's discoveries are being presented online: The Locavore - a platform for spotting sustainable food practices around India!
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REFERENCES & LINKS
* Seth, Udbhav (2024): 'My trips taught me more than cookbooks ever did', Indian Express Eye, 7 Jan., 2024, URL - https://indianexpress.com/article/express-sunday-eye/chef-thomas-zacharias-indigenous-ingredients-9098402/
A carpet from Balkh adorns our living room. It is a constant reminder old assignments with the UN in Afghanistan, of traveling long dusty roads lined with the relics of various wars, of bustling markets and lovely lilt of Dari language.
Dari is a variant of Persian widely spoken in the country. I had always imagined that the Persian influence on Afghanistan dated back to the reign of kings ranging from Cyrus to Nadir Shah. Today, while communing back home on the metro listening to an episode of the Empire podcast, I realised the extent of my naivety.
There was a time when the Persians ruled most of the territory that extends from today's Punjab to Turkey and North Africa. The mighty Achaemenid kings - Cyrus, Darius, Xerxes - ruled from Persepolis (559 - 330 BC), until the empire was destroyed by Alexander. Then came the Seleucids (312 - 62 BC) who were contemporaries of Chandragupta of the Maurya empire in India; the Parthians (247 - 224 BC) and the Sasanians (224 - 651 CE).
Then came a time when the conquerors got conquered. The endless wars between two great empires, the Romans and the Persians, exhausted both and enabled a new kid on the block, the Arabs driven by the zeal of a brand new religion, to colonise Persia. Over the next 200 years, Arabic took over as the official language, Persian language, culture and religion got subsumed. Amazingly some of the most prominent Vezirs appointed by the Arabs were the Barmakids, a clan of hereditary Buddhist priests ("Pramukh") from the Nawbahar monastry in Balkh who had converted to Islam!
One of the few holdouts was Khorasan, an area which is mostly the provinces o Herat and present-day Afghanistan.
It is under the patronage of the Saffarid kings of Khorasan that Persian language survived. The poet, Ferdowsi started writing the epic Shahname under their patronage. However, by the time he finished his magnum opus, the Saffarids had been defeated by the Ghaznavids, and the new king Mohammad of Ghazni was too busy plundering India and did not think much of Persian poetry.
It is Persia that owes much to Afghanistan - not the other day around!
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BUT-SHIKAN बुत-शिकनبت شکن
This word, meaning "iconoclast", is an honorific adopted by many Islamic rulers in India. Sikandar Shah Miri, a ruler of Kashmir was called Sikandar Butshikan for the zeal with which he destroyed many monasteries and temples.
So the question is - does 'but' refer to icons of the Buddha?
A friend who loves Urdu poetry insists that the word comes from Persian. So did the ancient Iranians also take delight in destroying temples? Turns out that they did - hundreds of years before Persia was overrun by conquering armies from Arabia under the banner of Islam, it was Zoroastrian rulers who destroyed buddhist monasteries and temples in the Khorasan region!
How much of rage and resentment can one fit into the smallest possible space?
Since the so-called 'Al-Aqsa Flood' of 7 October, 2023, I have been trying to understand why a few hundred young men would barge into homes, kill, rape and kidnap children, women and the elderly, and then brace themselves for the bloody retribution that would inevitably follow.
Seen from this part of the world, the disputed land, which each side accuses the other of being an 'occupier', is amazingly small. Israel is half the size of Kerala, one of the smallest states in India, while the Gaza strip, a thin sliver of coastal land within Israel, is just about 6km wide and 41km long! - less than a marathon run, a land area 0.6% the size of Delhi NCR.
While Israel may seem like a Goliath compared to tiny Gaza, the comparison flips when you see how the jewish country is placed within a sea of Islamic nations. Whichever way you look at the historical events that led up to the latest carnage it is fact that this region has a disproportionate influence on global geo-politics. Life and death in this part of the world matters much more than in, say, East Asia, Africa or LatAm.
Today is day-611 of Russia-Ukraine war and day-22 of the Israel-Gaza war. Two weeks ago an article was published in the Atlantic titled, Israel is Walking into A Trap. Sure enough this seems to be playing out as predicted. Gaza is being reduced to rubble, hundreds are getting killed every day and a right-wing Israeli government is unable to draw back from its own rhetoric, to think beyond its own self-image of an uncompromising, muscular Zion.
Having once exchanged Gilad Shalit, a PoW for 1027 Palestinian prisoners, will it release 6000 more to get back its ~200 kidnapped citizens?
One of the most balance interviews I have come across on this topic is one with Dominique De Villepin, former Prime Minister of France on RMC. Thanks to @RnaudBertrand we have the English translation which is worth reading in full :
"Hamas has set a trap for us, and this trap is one of maximum horror, of maximum cruelty. And so there's a risk of an escalation in militarism, of more military interventions, as if we could with armies solve a problem as serious as the Palestinian question.
There's also a second major trap, which is that of Occidentalism. We find ourselves trapped, with Israel, in this western bloc which today is being challenged by most of the international community.
[Presenter: What is Occidentalism?]
Occidentalism is the idea that the West, which for 5 centuries managed the world's affairs, will be able to quietly continue to do so. And we can clearly see, even in the debates of the French political class, that there is the idea that, faced with what is currently happening in the Middle East, we must continue the fight even more, towards what might resemble a religious or a civilizational war. That is to say, to isolate ourselves even more on the international stage.
This is not the way, especially since there's a third trap, which is that of moralism. And here we have in a way the proof, through what is happening in Ukraine and what is happening in the Middle East, of this double standard that is denounced everywhere in the world, including in recent weeks when I travel to Africa, the Middle East, or Latin America. The criticism is always the same: look at how civilian populations are treated in Gaza, you denounce what happened in Ukraine, and you are very timid in the face of the tragedy unfolding in Gaza.
Consider international law, the second criticism that is made by the global south. We sanction Russia when it aggresses Ukraine, we sanction Russia when it doesn't respect the resolutions of the United Nations, and it's been 70 years that the resolutions of the United Nations have been voted in vain and that Israel doesn't respect them.
[Presenter: Do you believe that the Westerners are currently guilty of hubris?]
Westerners must open their eyes to the extent of the historical drama unfolding before us to find the right answers.
[Presenter: What is the historical drama? I mean, we're talking about the tragedy of October 7th first and foremost, right?]
Of course, there are these horrors happening, but the way to respond to them is crucial. Are we going to kill the future by finding the wrong answers...
[Presenter: Kill the future?]
Kill the future, yes! Why?
[Presenter: But who is killing whom?]
You are in a game of causes and effects. Faced with the tragedy of history, one cannot take this 'chain of causality' analytical grid, simply because if you do you can't escape from it. Once we understand that there is a trap, once we realize that behind this trap there has also been a change in the Middle East regarding the Palestinian issue... The situation today is profoundly different [from what it was in the past]. The Palestinian cause was a political and secular cause. Today we are faced with an Islamist cause, led by Hamas. Obviously, this kind of cause is absolute and allows no form of negotiation. On the Israeli side, there has also been a development. Zionism was secular and political, championed by Theodor Herzl in the late 19th century. It has largely become messianic, biblical today. This means that they too do not want to compromise, and everything that the far-right Israeli government does, continuing to encourage colonization, obviously makes things worse, including since October 7th. So in this context, understand that we are already in this region facing a problem that seems profoundly insoluble.
Added to this is the hardening of states. Diplomatically, look at the statements of the King of Jordan, they are not the same as six months ago. Look at the statements of Erdogan in Turkey.
[Presenter: Precisely, these are extremely harsh statements...]
Extremely worrying. Why? Because if the Palestinian cause, the Palestinian issue, hasn't been brought to the forefront, hasn't been put on stage [for a while], and if most of the youth today in Europe have often never even heard of it, it remains for the Arab peoples the mother of all battles. All the progress made towards an attempt to stabilize the Middle East, where one could believe...
[Presenter: Yes, but whose fault is it? I have a hard time following you, is it Hamas's fault?]
But Ms. Malherbe, I am trained as a diplomat. The question of fault will be addressed by historians and philosophers.
[Presenter: But you can't remain neutral, it's difficult, it's complicated, isn't it?]
I am not neutral, I am in action. I am simply telling you that every day that passes, we can ensure that this horrific cycle stops... that's why I speak of a trap and that's why it's so important to know what response we are going to give. We stand alone before history today. And we do not treat this new world the way we currently do, knowing that today we are no longer in a position of strength, we are not able to manage on our own, as the world's policemen.
[Presenter: So what do we do?]
Exactly, what should we do? This is where it is essential not to cut off anyone on the international stage.
[Presenter: Including the Russians?]
Everyone.
[Presenter: Everyone? Should we ask the Russians for help?]
I'm not saying we should ask the Russians for help. I'm saying: if the Russians can contribute by calming some factions in this region, then it will be a step in the right direction.
[Presenter: How can we proportionally respond to barbarism? It's no longer army against army.]
But listen, Appolline de Malherbe, the civilian populations that are dying in Gaza, don't they exist? So because horror was committed on one side, horror must be committed on the other?
[Presenter: Do we indeed need to equate the two?]
No, it's you who are doing that. I'm not saying I equate the faults. I try to take into account what a large part of humanity thinks. There is certainly a realistic objective to pursue, which is to eradicate the Hamas leaders who committed this horror. And not to confuse the Palestinians with Hamas, that's a realistic goal.
The second thing is a targeted response. Let's define realistic political objectives. And the third thing is a combined response. Because there is no effective use of force without a political strategy. We are not in 1973 or in 1967. There are things no army in the world knows how to do, which is to win in an asymmetrical battle against terrorists. The war on terror has never been won anywhere. And it instead triggers extremely dramatic misdeeds, cycles, and escalations. If America lost in Afghanistan, if America lost in Iraq, if we lost in the Sahel, it's because it's a battle that can't be won simply, it's not like you have a hammer that strikes a nail and the problem is solved. So we need to mobilize the international community, get out of this Western entrapment in which we are.
[Presenter: But when Emmanuel Macron talks about an international coalition…]
Yes, and what was the response?
[Presenter: None.]
Exactly. We need a political perspective, and this is challenging because the two-state solution has been removed from the Israeli political and diplomatic program. Israel needs to understand that for a country with a territory of 20,000 square kilometers, a population of 9 million inhabitants, facing 1.5 billion people... Peoples have never forgotten that the Palestinian cause and the injustice done to the Palestinians was a significant source of mobilization. We must consider this situation, and I believe it is essential to help Israel, to guide... some say impose, but I think it's better to convince, to move in this direction. The challenge is that there is no interlocutor today, neither on the Israeli side nor the Palestinian side. We need to bring out interlocutors.
[Presenter: It's not for us to choose who will be the leaders of Palestine.]
The Israeli policy over recent years did not necessarily want to cultivate a Palestinian leadership... Many are in prison, and Israel's interest - because I repeat: it was not in their program or in Israel's interest at the time, or so they thought - was instead to divide the Palestinians and ensure that the Palestinian question fades. This Palestinian question will not fade. And so we must address it and find an answer. This is where we need courage. The use of force is a dead end. The moral condemnation of what Hamas did - and there's no "but" in my words regarding the moral condemnation of this horror - must not prevent us from moving forward politically and diplomatically in an enlightened manner. The law of retaliation is a never-ending cycle.
[Presenter: The "eye for an eye, tooth for tooth".]
Yes. That's why the political response must be defended by us. Israel has a right to self-defense, but this right cannot be indiscriminate vengeance. And there cannot be collective responsibility of the Palestinian people for the actions of a terrorist minority from Hamas.
When you get into this cycle of finding faults, one side's memories clash with the other's. Some will juxtapose Israel's memories with the memories of the Nakba, the 1948 catastrophe, which is a disaster that the Palestinians still experience every day. So you can't break these cycles. We must have the strength, of course, to understand and denounce what happened, and from this standpoint, there's no doubt about our position. But we must also have the courage, and that's what diplomacy is... diplomacy is about being able to believe that there is light at the end of the tunnel. And that's the cunning of history; when you're at the bottom, something can happen that gives hope. After the 1973 war, who would have thought that before the end of the decade, Egypt would sign a peace treaty with Israel?
The debate shouldn't be about rhetoric or word choice. The debate today is about action; we must act. And when you think about action, there are two options. Either it's war, war, war. Or it's about trying to move towards peace, and I'll say it again, it's in Israel's interest. It's in Israel's interest!"
One of the most remarkable things I learnt this week is about an organic compound called Indole.
The topic came up randomly on X through a Business Insider video titled, "Why is Jasmine Oil so Expensive?". A firm in Tamil Nadu was being featured for being one of the largest exporters of Jasmine oil in the world.
While it is interesting to know the kind of effort that goes into the extraction process (about 5000 hand-plucked jasmine buds in 1kg; and 1000kg of buds to extract 1kg of jasmine oil costing over $5000!), what struck me is a somewhat quirky fact - you get the amazing fragrance of Jasmine only when the oil is around 2% concentration. Once you exceed this concentration the same oil first smells like rotten leaves, and then like shit!
This is because of one key ingredient in Jasmine oil - Indole - which is found in faeces in higher concentrations.
So the trick is to capture the fragrance at the right moment, which is soon after the Jasmine sambac flowers bloom, and then to blend and dilute it in such a way that you get perfumes such as Doir's J'Adore fragrance.
Last week i found myself in Chennai after a long-long time.
The city had, of course, changed over the years - it now had a much better airport; the long awaited metro connection was now up and running; bigger, brighter lit buildings had come up along the Anna Salai, and all the hotels seemed fully booked by the hundreds of delegates who had come to participate in the the G-20 ministerial summits.
My work had brought me to the Guindy area. Unlike some of my earlier, hurried visits, this time I had some breathing space - time to catch up with old friends, and to explore the city a bit.
Getting around the city is a lot easier now - thanks to the new Chennai Metro lines. For a confirmed metro junkie like me nothing could be better - a fast, cheap way of getting around, a place to observe and learn about the ebb and flow of a metropolis in motion.
The first thing that struck me is that this Mass Rapid Transport system was that it had not yet been embraced by the masses. It is a lot less crowded than Delhi Metro. Perhaps for this very reason the trains are shorter (4-5 coaches) and space inside the stations has not yet opened up for commercial activity - no snack shops, no kiosks for mobiles, or accessories. The coaches are also narrower compared to the Delhi Metro Phase-I lines because they run on standard gauge (1435 mm) and not broad-gauge (1520mm).
Built at the cost of about $3 billion this MRT system started its operations only in 2015 - more than a decade after Delhi. So it is not surprising to know that it carries only ~200,000 passengers a day - far below the 2.5 million using Delhi metro every day.
I found the station layouts rather odd. Passengers need to go through the security checks before buying tickets. While this by itself is OK, the absence of barricades puts the onus on the security staff to keep calling out the those who head directly to the ticket counter. There are no automatic ticket vending machines either. This leaves the person at the ticketing window (usually only one) to deal with a whole range of issues - printing tickets as well as coping with complaints related to the access cards.
As with most cities, the names of metro stations gives you a glimpse into its history. One of the stations on Singapore MRT is called Dhobi Ghaut, but for some reason Chennai prefers to use English names for areas that served the same purpose long ago. You have a station called Washerman-pet and yet another one called New Washerman-pet!
One downtown station is called Chinna Malai in Tamil and Little Mound in English. Further down the blue line you also have Government Estate, Toll Gate and Thousand Lights! It took me about an hour to travel from Chinna Malai / Little Mound to the last station on the blue line - Wimco Nagar Depot. One thing I loved about this line is that it has a nice view of the sea from the time it emerges from the tunnel to take an elevated track in the suburbs.
On my way back from Wimco Nagar I had decided to seek out one of the oldest sweet shops in the city. 'Basha Halwawala' was supposed to be about 100 years old, and unlike its more glamorous, upmarket cousins like 'Sri Krishna Sweets' and 'Adayar Ananda Bhavan', preferred to stay as a tiny 'we-have-no-branches' shop in the back lanes of Triplicane.
The nearest metro station was Government Estate. True to its name, the station stands next to a decidedly ugly, 'modern' building on Wallajah Road. Using online maps, I crossed over to Ellis Road and found myself in a camera enthusiasts paradise - a long street lined up with scores of shops selling photography equipment. Also surprisingly for Chennai, Hindi is widely spoken in this area.
Being a predominantly muslim locality running parallel to the sea, this street has numerous shops selling non-veg food. One of these shops had set up a big vessel outside in which something called 'Nombu-Kanji' was being prepared. From the bing crowd patiently waiting outside this seemed like a popular dish - especially during Ramadan.
Basha Halwawala was at the far end of Ellis Road. As expected, this shop belonged to a bygone pre-plastics era - it still wrapped halwa in paper sheets, and put them in cardboard boxes that had fastening string built-in. I picked up 500g of 'Dum ka Roat' - and it was delicious!
A few shops down this road I also chanced upon "Karaikudi Murukku Kadai", another traditional 'savoury shop' staffed with super enthusiastic ladies who persuaded you to taste - and buy - as much as possible. From Triplicane I walked past Zam Bazar and Roypettah to the Thousand Lights metro station which, in turn, took me back to Guindy.
One takeaway from this visit - apart from the metro system and sweetshops - is that if you want to get around, do not depend on Uber. Either the cab drivers are not interested or the app does not work the way it usually does. I waited for about 30 minutes for cabs that were supposed to 'arrive in 7 minutes' but never turned up. It is far easier to flag down an auto-rickshaw and it is likely to take you through the rush hour traffic a lot faster than any taxi.
Every year a a bunch of 'independent research bodies' publish 'global rankings'. More often than not, in India, these rankings become a subject of newspaper headlines, op-eds, TV debates and opinion pieces that dominate the public discourse for a while. At times rankings are also raised in the parliament, steering not only public policy one way or the other.
It was only last year that I caught a glimpse of the sleight of hand practiced those who prepare these rankings. The Global Hunger Index released last year ranked India at 107 (of 121 countries). Having witnessed first-hand the tremendous effort that went into ensuring the distribution of food stockpiles during the Covid years, these rankings seemed odd. It took only a bit of digging into the GHI charts to realise that the core issue was nutrition - not the availability or access to food. But, hey, 'hunger' sounds sexier.
Democracy is another bugbear. The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) claims that Indian democracy has been in decline ever since Mr. Modi first took office in 2014, with its international ranking falling from number 27 in the world (just below Belgium) to number 46 (two spots below South Africa). The EIU now labels India a “flawed democracy” characterised by “serious deterioration in the quality of democracy under leader Narendra Modi”. Then there is the American government-funded think tank Freedom House which finds India to be only “partially free”, with an overall freedom rank of tied-85th in the world.
These rankings were taken to be the gospel truth until people started asking a simple question - on what basis where these rankings created? How does one compare a complex multi-enthnic, multi-lingual, multi-everything country like India, with, say, Luxembourg?
This year, Prof. Salvatore Babones, from the University of Sydney published a paper that examined how India fared on rankings related to democracy and human rights. A quantitative, comparative sociologist, Babones noticed that the rankings presented by agencies such as Freedom House, Sweden's V-Dem and the RSF Press Freedom Index, stood on rather shaky ground.
The paper published by Babones has its focus on Sweden’s university-based Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-DEM) which ranks India at 108 in the world for electoral democracy (two places above Myanmar) and 97th in the world for liberal democracy (one place above Papua New Guinea). It claims that India is no longer a liberal democracy at all, but is now an “electoral autocracy” on a par with Russia!
On what basis are these rankings created? Turns out that behind the facade of 'higher mathematics' lies ideologically coloured opinions of carefully selected 'experts':
(1) Freedom House "index of freedom" is based on a survey with a series of questions aimed at 'experts on India' (not necessarily Indians) . It has questions like - is the media free? are the elections fair? is the election commission unbiased? - all qualitative impressions summed up into a number
(2) Swedish V-Dem ranks India is an electoral autocracy alongside Russia and Turkey . This institute sends questionnaire to social science professors (the list is secret and it leans to the Left). This survey contains 5 parts - 2 objective parts: one about universal suffrage and whether officials are elected. All countries including Vietnam and Hong Kong get perfect scores here but not India. Why? Because 2 of 550+ Members of Parliament were selected from the Anglo-Indian community until 2019! The second set is a rating on technical criteria - is the electoral roll complete? was there any violence at polls? has any party been prohibited? Below a certain score countries are ranked as autocracies! Nothing in the survey looks at the obvious questions - are elections competitive? can the opposition realistically win?
(3) RSF Press Freedom Index - again a survey - 'safety of journalists' -- has the govt ever jailed a journalist? -- 'they search of reasons to justify a score'.
It is great to see independent minded academics calling the bluff of these self-styled surveyors and purveyors of the "Charisma of Numbers".
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REFERENCES & LINKS
* YT Interview - The India Forum - https://youtu.be/AqSuXuWQyPg
If there is any place that completely defies expectations it must be Ajanta.
We grow up reading about this place in our school textbooks, it figures in superlative terms when people discuss art and architecture, and it is even the name adopted by a popular brand of wall-clocks...and yet we know so little about the people who built this amazing complex of excavated temples - Chaitya's and Viharas - over a span of eight centuries, from 200 BCE to 600 CE!
Our journey started last month with a de-hypenation. Rarely is this site mentioned by itself - it is always paired as Ajanta-Ellora. So I had always thought that this was some kind of twin-site like Hyderabad-Secundrabad or Kochi-Ernakulam. It is only when I started looking up the logistics of our week-long visit to Aurangabad that I discovered the length of this particular hyphen - 103 km!
This is not a place for folks in a hurry. There are indeed tourists who fly into Aurangabad (the nearest airport) and do a day trip covering Ajanta, Ellora and even the fort at Devgiri (Daulatabad) but these trips can only be shallow and superficial. All the more so if you land up at Ajanta without a good guide.
Also, there are no good hotels close to Ajanta so like most tourists, we had to stay at Aurangabad and start out early morning for a two-hour road journey to the site. We were however very fortunate to get an excellent driver (Madhukar Kohli), who in his own quiet, gentle way, gave us the option of going to the regular entry point directly, or to approach it from the 'view-point' (an 15 km extra). He also suggested we take a guide from Balapur, the point where the road diverges to the view-point.
This guide was a youngster, a 12th-pass-aspiring-licensed-guide. He led us to this sweeping panorama -
Looking down from the undulating plains is the famous horseshoe-shaped valley created by the Waghora river. This was the view seen by an East India Company soldier who came here on a hunt in 1819, and saw a tiger disappear into a cave in the thick forest below. The cliff-turned out to be a vast complex of excavated Buddhist shrines and monasteries that had been forgotten since the time it was abandoned some time in 700 CE.
The stone is mostly hard volcanic basalt and layered like a cake. At one end of the valley, the river cuts through these layers in a cascade of seven waterfalls, and curves away further down the plateau. It is here that generations of Buddhist monks chipped away at the rocks, generation after generation, a space where they could congregate and meditate. The acoustics of the temple halls is quite amazing.
It is one thing to cut through solid stone to create and build a quiet place for prayers, and quite another to embellish it with sculptures and intricate paintings!
According to our guide the oldest caves - 9, 10, 12 and 13 - have paintings that use only five vegetable colours. The later ones have the additional distinct blue hue of lapiz lazuli which presumably was brought in from distance places in Central Asia. This may also explain why some caves have depictions of people who are distinctly mongoloid, as well as brown-bearded and trousered Persians.
The intensity of activity you see in the paintings leaves you with so many questions - what was the purpose of recreating a world in such exquisite detail by monks who came here to renounce all attachments? How did the monks sustain themselves? As in the case of Sanchi, which is at a safe distance from the ancient city of Vidisha, which is the nearest city where the monks went to beg of alms? Were they completely dependent on the generosity of kings or did they grow their own food?
There is nothing on the site that offers more information. As is the case in most sites under the control of the ASI, here too you have a bunch of shabby shops selling kitsch and cool drinks, the vendors go about trying to sell mediocre guidebooks and informal guides do their bit to make a muddle of site that certainly deserves the attention drawn by sites like the Humanyun's tomb in New Delhi.
Is there anything that compares to the sheer immensity and magnificence of the Himalayas?
Each year we spend about a week away from 'civilisation' pondering over this question. A week away from internet / mobile connections, roads, toilets and home comforts. This summer it was a trek to Laam Dal and Baleni Pass in the Dhauladhar Mountains of Himachal Pradesh.
On the maps it did not seem like a difficult trail - the pass was at a height of less than 4000m, the terrain seemed quite all right, and Google Earth told us that in this season we would encounter some snow, mainly on the ridges and mountain peaks. However unseasonal, heavy rains - and snowfall in the mountains - turned this 'easy' trek into a tough one. We had planned to cross from the Bharmour-Chamba region, across the Dhauladhar Range, to the Kangra Valley. Ultimately we had to turn back from Baleni Pass and retrace our steps because the snow-covered, steep valleys of Kangra were deemed to be too dangerous.
It has been raining all over North India for the past two weeks, and by the time we assembled at Chamba the chances of the trek getting called off seemed like a distinct possibility. Somehow the weather cleared up a bit when we reached our staging point off highway 154A - Brehi Village.
A few hour of trudging through forests and clambering over boulders and streams brought us to a Forest Rest House in Drakund. Here it was bright and sunny - a wide range of birds could be seen: the stunning blue Asian Fairy Bluebirds (Irena puella), golden orioles, yellow-billed blue magpies and parakeets. In the evening it was windy but the sound of distant thunder did not disturb us in our tents.
The next day too was sunny but thanks to the heavy snowfall over the past week we started seeing snow much earlier than expected. We had to cross about seven small glaciers to reach our next camping site at Dugga Goth, a rocky valley studded with massive boulders and ringing with the sound of streams emerging from under one vast glacier that spread from the camping site all the way to the snow-capped mountain peaks that surrounded us.
This area was well above 2500m and home to the strikingly beautiful Monal pheasants. They have the habit of singing while flying so it was quite easy to spot them flying past in the valleys below, singly or in pairs. There were lots of smaller birds too - redstarts that hopped boldly from one boulder to another, bushchats and flocks of numerous other unidentified birds. The ground here was riddled with holes which turned out to be a vast network of condos belonging to the cute, shy, and elusive Himalayan Marmots!
With our camp at Dugga Goth as the base, we set off the next way to see the lakes. About four hours of climbing through snow brought us to a vast bowl shaped valley at 3395m. There was no sign of any lakes here - just a vast expanse of undulating snow that turned into a sea of blinding white under the afternoon sun. High on the horizon, beautiful cumulus clouds emerged from the far side of the Dhauladhar snow-peaks and drifted past the cobalt blue skies. On the opposite side dark rain-clouds could be seen coming in from the Pir Panjal range.
Mercifully we faced only a small hailstorm on our way back to camp. Tiny pearl-shaped beads bounced off our raincoats as we slid down the snow slopes. While walking on the glacier the snow had loosened up and the guides kept cautioning us to be extra careful - large cracks could be seen in some areas and the areas near boulders and underground streams were particularly vulnerable to collapsing under your weight.
The next day we started early, hoping to cross Baleni Pass before the sun got too hot -- up at 04:00, a quick breakfast by the campfire and tents packed and ready to move by 05:30. The same snow that had buckled to your ankles (and, at times, knees) yesterday evening, was now hard as rock. As the climb got steeper kept urging us to dig our toes to get a better grip. An outcrop of rocks at Chid-Point provided a resting point where scores of crag-martins circled overhead.
It was 09:55 by the time we zig-zagged our way to the Baleni Pass ridge. What a different vista lay in front of us here! - unlike the snow-covered slopes we had just crossed on the Chamba side, a vast brown Kangra valley lay below us, with a river winding through it and disappearing into the haze. We were struggled to stand in the face of strong winds when the head-guide delivered his verdict - it was too dangerous to climb down the slopes leading to Kangra at this time. We had to turn back.
Climbing up had been a struggle and the very thought of having to go down the same route, at a time when the snow had softened under the sun, was rather disheartening. On the way down the guides urged us to follow their foot prints, digging in our heels first ("hill maro!"). Once the steep gradient had eased we all slid down the snow-slopes and soon we were back on the main glacier with not only our shoes soaking wet but wet bums as well!
It was a long trek back to Kathaid Valley, our last camping site below the snow-line, on the banks of Ravi river. It was 18:30 when we reached here - a welcome end a day of trekking for nearly 12 hours. Over here, our daily ritual of drying our shoes and clothes next to a bonfire, with a hot mug of chai in hand, was cut short by heavy rains. All of us slept well that night - cocooned in our warm, dry sleeping bags while incessant rains slapped the tent all night.
The downpour continued next morning so we had to pack out tents and move out in full rain-gear. Three hours of careful walking down slippery trails brought us back to Brehi. It was bright and sunny now but the guys at the tea-shop refused to believe (until pics were shown), that we had gone all the way up to Baleni Pass in this weather.
Coming to think of it, climbing up those steep slopes without snow-shoes and crampons, would have been quite impossible if not for the skill and confidence of our amazing guides!
While the English word for the snake has its origins in the Greek word Puthōn, the name of a huge serpent killed by Apollo, the Sanskrit word, Ajagar is a combination of "Aja" (goat) and "Gara" (swallow). So any snake that can swallow a goat could be called a python. The word can also be used for a boa constrictor or an anaconda.
In Sanskrit, the verb is the most important thing and the noun, or proper-noun is secondary and is derived or surmised from the meaning of the word used in a specific context. So, depending on the context you can have at least 12 different options for the word, "Friend"!
To be sure, these are things many of us learnt in our school lessons. Unfortunately, during those years, learning Sanskrit was was anything but fascinating - memorising Shlokas and the meaning of words by rote, the terror of being told to read out a lesson loudly in class, and the pain of clearing tests and exams. It is only now that I turn to look at the language with a fresh pair of eyes - thanks largely to videos like this one where the eminent economist, Bibek Debroy describes his efforts at translating the unabridged versions of Sanskrit classics.
Bibek started learning Sanskrit in his 40s and then amazingly, went on to translate tome after tome of the 18 Mahapuranas, a body of work that has more than 400,000 shlokas in over 12 million words! I have less than a passing acquaintance with most of these Mahapuranas - Bhagavata-purana, Markendeya-purana, Bramha-purana, Vishnu-purana, Shiva-purana, Brahmanada-purana, Matsya-purana, and so on. Even the one I am familiar with - the Mahabharata - has 10 volumes, 100,000 shlokas in about 2.25 million words!
I also learnt from Bibek that rhyming in Sanskrit poetry is of very recent vintage - from the 8th to 10th centuries through poets such as Jayadeva (eg., Dashavatara Stotram). Until then the emphasis was on the metres such as the Anushthup (4 verses of 8 syllables each). It seems word "Shloka" (verse) itself originates from its use by the poet Valmiki to describe "Shoka" (sorrow) at the sight of a mating crane getting killed by a hunter's arrow -
(You will find no rest for the long years of Eternity
For you killed a bird in love and unsuspecting)
Other commonly known shlokas using the Anushthup meter include -
The Ganesha Mantra
श्री वक्रतुण्ड महाकाय सूर्य कोटी समप्रभा।
निर्विघ्नं कुरु मे देव सर्व-कार्येशु सर्वदा॥
Shree Vakratunda Mahakaya Suryakoti Samaprabha।
Nirvighnam Kuru Me Deva Sarva-Kaaryeshu Sarvada॥
Tantroktam Devi Suktam (15 shlokas following a common pattern - "Yaa devi sarva bhuteshu.."):
या देवी सर्वभूतेषु शक्ति-रूपेण संस्थिता।
नमस्तस्यै नमस्तस्यै नमस्तस्यै नमो नमः॥
One big surprise was that even a very recent 'patriotic' Bengali song is structured on the same Anushthup metre -
ধনধান্য পুষ্প ভরা আমাদের এই বসুন্ধরা
তাহার মাঝে আছে দেশ এক সকল দেশের সেরা
Dhono dhanno pushpe bhora, amader ei boshundhora
Tahar majhe ache desh ek shokol desher shera
Thanks to Bibek Debroy, these familiar verses open the doors to world that I always thought to be intimidating, like trying to swim in the open oceans. I hope the kids who are now learning Sanskrit in the schools also realise that beyond those boring textbooks there are far better resources available for free the web!
