chutney spears - An insult to intelligence

Journey to the east: Japan

2011-10-08T18:38:00.004+05:30

Dazzling bustling Tokyo, where people walk can walk slower than the slowest snails because of the human traffic, where pregnant women are as endangered as the dodo, where old couples throw crumbs of bread on giant lotus leaves to take a snap of the thus attracted sparrow, and where in the sleazy neon districts Kabukicho, the red light area, even ladies will never tire of choices for the boys available range from leafy-haired anime look alikes to lovable mustached fat uncles with puppies. In this end of the world corner, an African man comes up to me asking if I would be keen for a night with “Shilpa”, an Indian actress look alike. An on the other end of this same world, they are the nicest people I have met. There is a gentleness and respectful concern about everything, from the numerous greetings of the restaurant staff, the reading glasses kept in abundance next to immigration forms, posters asking people with backpacks to be careful about those behind them, to the prevailing local practice of almost never using a mobile phone in public places, to the extent that it perhaps erases the utility of the mobile phone as a talking tool; something to be only looked at intensely and swiped with fingers vigorously.
During our stay we always stay at Japanese style places with shared bathrooms, tatami floors, rice pillows and gentle air conditioning. At Tokyo’s Taito Ryokan, the hotel owner Saito, a thirty something man, with an avuncular feel about him; someone who reminds one of childhood when one follows a knows-more-than-me older person for tiny adventures. Saito is a brave man for he has maintained his sanity while listening to noises of love making in all languages that drive away ghosts from the paper-thin hotel walls.
One evening is spent at an unassuming Onsen, or public bath hidden in some dark alley of Asakusa, the old town. A great national obsession in Japan, the sight of naked men in all waist sizes moving over with ant like agility from one water tank to another, is rather peculiar. Most of them have a small towel around the G Spot while the more stingy or gutsy ones, depending on how you look at it, just grab the entire prop in one hand during such tank swaps, all in the name of public decency. The white towel is usually then placed on top of the head when our bodies go under water, making us all feel like a new species of white-back turtles. Famous for their trim bellies and long lives, the Japanese have made up for the small potions in their own diet by feeding their animals with vengeance and the cats and crows of Japan are the fattest I have seen in the course of my revolutions around the sun.
Sights of children and pregnant women are very rare indeed in this mythical land of declining population and as such the occasional marriages at the temples are greeted with much attention by photographers, most unknown to the bride and groom. Shinto religion seems rather practical and worldly wise that instead of stressing a lot on how life evolved and how many days god rested, focuses on factory scale production of charms to ensure good exams, fine health, strong relationship and weakened enemies, the sales pitch delivered gracefully by the resident monk.
Our next stop is climbing Mount fuji on the last day of the official climbing season. The best way to see Mt Fuji is to look at its postcard and so it was during our visit as well as the angels of rain and clouds decide to hug the mountain all the three days we were in its vicinity. None the less, we headed for its peak braving the coming typhoon through an all night rain drenched trek that brought us in touch with several struggling climbers, some pledging that they would never come back in this life and in their next life as well, while some lay down on the rocks to catch a few minutes of wet dreams. The huts at the few base stations on the way to the summit seemed especially cruel as we could only look through inside the glass doors people reveling in a heavenly dry place, free from rain and cold winds, and a wooden bench to rest bums on, a glass of supremely overpriced steaming drink in their hands, Paradiso. As an aside, the owners of these stores are unusually keen to get your money as soon as possible, perhaps concerned that if collected after serving; the money may turn out to be too wet to be of any use. These shop owners have also come with the supreme innovation; they will stamp on your passport with a seal saying you have been on Mt Fuji, all for a mere 200 Yen.
And it makes sense to go to toilets at lower altitudes because as you ascend up the mountain, the rates for toilet go up to an atrocious 300 Yen at the summit. They also have a smart way of dealing with yellow stained toilets with notices announcing, “Don’t be put off, this is a bio-toilet, it is supposed to be like this.”The summit has the feel of a rural bus stop with lots of activity amidst run-down looking shops as hundreds of climbers increase their activity levels while taking puffs of compressed oxygen and menthol vapours, having finally reached the top.
By the way, never believe distance markings in any mountains, for there meters easily seem like kilometers while kilometers convert themselves into miles. And another piece of advice, always look at the faces of those climbing up, while you are climbing down, for it gives you a kick like nothing. On the way down, a bunch of university graduates go out of their way to help us asking us to follow them to make sure that we don’t get lost in the mountain. They offer us their oxygen flasks, their food, and their jackets to make sure we are comfortable. But after they take two wrong turns, rather impossibly, and despite our suggestions to go the correct way, we pretend craving for instant noodles as an excuse to part with these well-wishing if a little confused gentleman. I remained worried for a few days after that if the group did eventually manage to come down.
Back at the foot in the village of Kawaguchiko, the hills around Mt Fuji are lush green, perhaps with envy, at why a barren dormant mountain gets so much celebrity.
Our next stop is Nikko, where the density of temples with their honey voiced priests cum charms salesman would put Starbucks to shame. Nikko is also a giant complex full of wishes, wishes tied to trees, wishes dropped in a drop-box, wishes written in ribbons floating around in the breeze, wishes, wishes, wishes, all yearning to break free. I take particular interest in one temple, the Rinnoji temple, which is divided into sections for heaven, humans and hell, with the human section having a sign-board at its entrance saying “Off-Limits”; I am sure a bird or an ant could cross over. Later at night, while we head back to hotel after dinner, we notice that a Wanted poster has been made rather comical with people drawing horns, moustaches and other funny icons on the faces of the crime suspects.
A final word on lunch boxes, an integral part of life in Japan. There’s something rather magical about these endearing boxes and they give you a feeling that all the meanings of life have been shrink wrapped and presented to you in the form of that box; of course in a daunting range of varieties.
P.S. Pictures of Japan visit at this link

Low season at Krabi

2011-07-28T20:16:00.004+05:30

This is low season in Krabi, with unpredictable rains, choppy seas, and cheaper hotels. None the less, there is enough bargain hunters in this world of 6 billion people, and at monkey bay, the resident monkeys are outnumbered by a huge margin by non-resident hairless Asian and Caucasian tourists. On water, there are more snorkelers floating around in colorful life jackets, with their baby elephant nostrils held high in happiness, than the fish underneath. So we try to bribe the fish with someone’s leftover bread and they oblige in hundreds with their gentle bites.

In order to truly experience low season, we spend a day at the Phanom Bencha Mountain resort, with pictures at the reception of cobras and pythons that had been seen within the resort, a sure shot way of not scaring away any tourists from staying there. If you don’t get fussy about this lack of formal management training of the owner of this resort, this is a lovely and tranquil place with its few bright colored bungalows aesthetically placed along the hill covered with beautiful fruit-laden trees. As we walked along the layered stream, bamboo trees put up an orchestra as they lazily bent to the gutsy wind. Here, the geckos haven’t learnt to keep down their stupid sounding calls. Rows of rubber trees surround the place, one bucket fixed to each to collect their milky pee. A white puppy with baby doll hair can’t contain his happiness at seeing us strangers and lick us extensively like a gourmet ice cream. The lovely lady at the restaurant giggles whenever we order something and we wonder whether we made the best or the worst choice. At night, the Milky Way makes us wonder why the sky was so stingy to shine only a few hundred billion stars. We spend the night playing chess, the white pieces carved in imitation of Caucasian invaders with white old beards and the black ones resembling young American Indians.

Back at town, we resist the temptation to take the bus to some bus stop named Ao Nang Gastropod. At Bamboo Island, it seems like the earth is returning back raindrops to the sky as thousands of grasshoppers jump from their homely grass heads when we tresspass their private property. At Railay Beach, upscale resorts share space with a big cave housing ashrine for many wooden penises, some human like, some that could put a Right Whale to shame. The femaletourists gather around it, praying silently for world peace. Nearby, the trip to a hidden lagoon squeezes out all the adrenalin with its steep rock climbing, offering a beautiful lagoon surrounded by limestone karsts as the reward of persistence. And a few words must be mentioned for these limestone karsts, the main reason why people come to Krabi. Since they can’t match the glory of Everest or Kilimanjaro, these proud karsts avoid the irrelevance of simple hills by coming in coming shapes, some like a chicken’s head, some resembling a melting ice cream cone. While some needlessly jut out from the sea, others form glorious stalactites and stalagmites to get some personality of their own.

At the rather small night food market in Krabi town, a long-haired uncle explains the items on the menu by indicating his own body parts. The oxtail soup is well under understood as he pats his own ass. The ox penises with their scrotums cut into half obviously need no such explanation. At the next stall, the old couple running the show has specialized in different skills after a great battle of ideas. So the uncle makes small rolls filled with yam or coconut jam while the aunty makes small pancakes filled with the same stuffing. They work in delicate movements and probably have a daily contest between themselves about who is more popular. In this war of Pancakes vs Rolls, rolls were winning that day, as far as we know.

Sex

2011-07-04T19:27:00.001+05:30

Things that have sex –
Shoes
Clothes
Watches
Hostels
Sports contests

Things that don’t have sex –
Bandages
Food
Homes
Immigration counters
Graves

Leaked report from an excavation

2011-06-28T16:22:00.000+05:30

From site number 2457
More fossils and tools
From three million years before
The species we named Fimupukhara,
Their brain cavities much smaller than ours
But they are very strange

The females, we knew it from their hip width
Their right arms all bent at the elbow by eighty four degrees
Perhaps from carrying huge bags we found next to these bones;

Lots of plastic bags in beautiful colors
Sent to lab, need to examine them in detail;

We found gold teeth and plastic penises
Signs of a sub-species that was evolving;

But then the species became extinct, almost all of a sudden
We searched for meteor falls and other possible causes,
And the most recent bones were all of older individuals
How could this be possible?
But all analysis points to this
Seems they all just refused to have babies

Our government stopped our research
And placed a gag order on us
Out of fear for our own species

Language

2011-06-21T17:19:00.000+05:30

If I could create
My own language
Speeches would be called lies
Lies, habits
Habits would be called diseases
Diseases would be named after flowers
Flowers, after seasons
Seasons would be named after hours
Hours, after moods
Moods would be named after songs
And songs, after children
And daughters would be named after male gods and holy men

An abandoned slipper

2011-06-16T20:12:00.001+05:30

An abandoned slipper
Once worn by a cold lady
Lies in the busy streets
Pointing somewhere

Where all has it been
Where did it last want to go

It will soon rest in a bin
Order prevails in society

Weekend mornings in Singapore

2011-06-14T19:51:00.000+05:30

Weekend mornings, just when the sun, out of habit, looks at the grey behind the blanket of buildings, are special in Singapore. The manicured lawns become a golden green while the heat is yet to wake up. Much of the city forgets its usual crazy rush to get out of the vast and lonely openness of their small homes to find a place inside the cosy wombs of buses, trains and cars. People shed those business attires designed by designers who failed their geography classes and assumed that the tropics were a part of Europe. There is a gentle breeze of informality in the air, as if suffocated souls have been able to peek from buttoned collars and are enjoying this temporary respite in a dignified manner. As the sound of high heels take rest, people walk gently to the nearest food courts for a leisurely breakfast, giving way to a few perambulators, loaded with babies and grocery bags. Maids are already talking loud and fast on the phone to make most of their precious free moments away from their employer’s homes. They have the most to share about their lives. Only the newspaper stalls, run by old ladies, are busier than usual, for it’s hard to resist the thickness of the weekend newspaper. The cats have already lined up along the walkways at their usual places, waiting for those who come to feed them out of charity. The pet dogs are also out in large numbers, looking for someone from the opposite sex of the same breed, in the hope of firing their imaginations later at night in their pampered yet solitary homes. The wilderness of the city, the pigeons and crows, roam around in pride, as if human civilization was their plan.

Dead people are queuing up

2011-06-07T20:31:00.003+05:30

Dead people are queuing up everywhere.

Some of the famous dead are queuing up in front of public buildings. They are queuing up in front of airports, toll gates, and park entrances. They are queuing up with the hope of these places being named after them.

Some of the not so famous dead are also queuing up. They look the most hassled. They keep shifting from one queue to another. First they join the queue of their ancestors in front of their homes, then they join the queue of their dead colleagues and friends in front of their workplaces, and finally in desperation, they queue up in front of mortgage loan counters. Everywhere they go, they realize that they are fading away from memories of the living as the forces of irrelevance seek to scatter them away in the name of maintaining order in living minds. They are howling.

The other famous and not so famous dead who are sensible are also queuing up. They are queuing up in front of trees far from the places with their traces. They seek a place in these trees free from hope, dejection, and betrayal. And there are not many such trees.

Tales from Bangkok

2011-05-06T06:24:00.004+05:30

Hi, I am the hippie dog at the main pier at Chaopraya River. I believe in free love. Sometimes I pretend to smoke with a cigarette in between my teeth. It’s all about image these days, hyperrealism as Baudrillard said. I am a hit with donors for their small change. But I think these guys who put up that donation box with my pictures don’t spend all the collected money on me.

Sabaidee, we are the pigeon gang at Lumpini Park. It’s a nice place with our favorites, trees, people and tall buildings nearby. Hail Walter Gropius, he made our life easy. We have a small problem though. We are only fed bread crumbs and we are bored. We envy these monitor lizards around here who can eat the fat fish from the lake. We tried talking to this person who sells bread crumbs to the visitors to also offer some meat; but he didn’t understand us. And we have to oblige all visitors who offer us these crumbs for as people say, Good times don’t last. Visitors may think that we are a greedy bunch snatching food from one another. It’s not like that; we just like to put up a show to entertain you all.

Hi, I am a fish near the Damnoen Saduk floating market. Every day, when the market opens, we find it hard to swim with so many small boats around. People who look different from the locals keep taking pictures constantly. I am quite photogenic too, but it’s risky to show up then. But I like the whole atmosphere at those times; the ladies rowing the boats with their colorful clothes; the gentle currents created by the rows that tickle my skin; the cool shade from the sun, and the smell of grilled chicken, fresh fruits, and pancakes.

Hi, I am the blind singer at Chatuchak market, the largest market in the world. My wife carries me around the small alleys in the market and I still get overwhelmed by the smell of goods there. There’s a guy there called Punk who, I heard, dresses up so strangely with lots of jewelry and a fake alligator around his neck. There’s a Johny Depp look alike as well who sells Buddhist trinkets. I don’t know how Johny Depp looks like; apparently his eyes are made up like a girl’s. It gets crazy towards Sunday evening when shoppers hunt for the closing deals like swarms of sharks. No one has time for my songs then.

Hi, I am a fly who lives near one of the little restaurants by the roadside near Ari station. Bangkok streets have been rated as the topmost destination for flies in all our tourist magazines for the tenth year running. There’s such variety that many flies have come here all the way from Norway. Their food is very cheap, but they make sure to decorate well the stuff they serve. I know it for I have also eaten at restaurants run by Michelin starred chefs. I love it when the two tourists come here and ask for spicy food, there’s good chance they can’t finish it. If they see me, they always wave at me, I don’t mind it for it can get quite hot in Bangkok.

Hi, I am the tree whose roots surround the head of the Buddha in Ayutthaya. You must have seen the picture of my roots. Unfortunately, no one takes pictures of my leaves. It’s as if no one would care if one day I died and my leaves fell off. That makes me sad. The other trees smirk at me. They are just jealous. I feel lonely. I want a normal life. This Buddha is such a burden. And he keeps smiling. Go, stay in a proper temple.

P.S. Pictures of Bangkok and its surrounding areas can be found here.

An ode to Mercedes Sosa

2011-05-01T11:43:00.001+05:30

I always wanted to sing out loud
Mercedes Sosa’s cry
Solo le pido de Dios
But how could I plead to Dios

An imagery of anger had been created
For myself
The righteous messiah clone
Was it for my sake or the cherished concepts?
Who was the benefactor?

My journeys to the lands of broken backs
My scornful look at travelers from promised lands
Motherfuckers all, with bazooka cameras
While the broken backs raised their heads like fish
To grab the few dollars thrown at
By me, the only hero in my own world
What peace I was living those days

Why do houses with their windows closed,
Become historical
Sosa died the year before

But sometimes buses stop near ruining towers
Unloading its rogue travelers
One of them took the room where Sosa lived

With more eyes to see,
The windows had to be opened
Pains of all were visible naked
Miseries too individual for Gramsci to ponder
But too immense for Martha’s Neighborhood Clinic

The doves broke off the chains
That were light but one too many
Finally, I could sing Solo le pido de Dios
For my plead was to myself

A night by the sea

2011-04-04T18:35:00.000+05:30

As the lights went off
Their burns began to heal;
In the gentle breeze
The leaves caressed each other;
The water droplet
Vapored, free from its earthly bounds;
The dust particle
Found a home, its tormented journey over;
And you gently held my forsaken hand.

Volcanic escape: Trip to East Java

2011-02-15T21:50:00.002+05:30

It was supposed to be an arduous trip with the promise of daily wake-ups at 3AM to catch the sunrise. For we tourists love sunrise. But I coped well by turning my clocks forward, by a few hours and a good number of years. Every night, I would sleep by 8PM and wake up the next morning by 3; just like any man would do in his 80s. And early next day, I was scaling mountains in the dark, a stupid looking light fitted to my head, and my mind still groggy at the pointlessness of it all.
But once at the viewing point, it seemed worth a L’Oreal wash later. And since the essence of any writing is to explain things in analogies instead of saying it directly, let me tell you that the erupting volcano looked as if the sky was developing cancerous cells by the minute, as if the earth was sputtering out its pus from its giant boil, as if Mount Bromo had a bad stomach after many years of healthy lifestyle. And a few lovestruck tourists took this dust filled opportunity to kiss and renew their vows. A trek around the villages surrounding Bromo promised world’s most amazing views, as the owner at my guesthouse explained in his broken English. But on my way back, I hit the path of the rain of dust. Sand was falling from the sky in thick drops and the entire surrounding was an eerie grey from the ash and sand. It seemed like Independence Day and I was desperately in need for an American President. My Arabic veil-like dress was so covered in sand that CNN would have easily mistaken me for a rescued Chinese miner. “Oh, another mine accident in China, darn the Chinese, the West is the Best.” None the less, the farmers I met on the way, were delighted to see me in my funny suit, and asked me all the details that mattered to them: where I come from and if I was liking it here. Later I came to know that they were having a miserable time, replanting saplings every day, only to see them destroyed by the ash when they woke up next morning.
I left them with their misfortune and headed to Kalau Ijen, another volcano that promised the most spectacular and apocalyptic blue lake in the world (source: tour pamphlets). The long car ride was rather refreshing along the coastal road of North Java, wit lush green rice fields by the side. And my driver made a point to get me photographed along with any idle looking person on the way. His excitement kept the spirits high as he asked me whether anything on sight could be found in India as well and at what price: from bananas, to gasoline, to drivers on hire. At our resting place at the village near Ijen, I spent a few hours in silence stuck with another lovestruck couple in the smallest and cheapest hot spring pool. After dinner, I was attracted to the booming disco beats coming from the market and there I was in front of the village cinema, a small shack where a couple was playing music videos on request and for a small fee. The volume was over the top and a few bearded men at the nearby mosque were struggling to remain somber in response to this all-out assault. The shack was the centre of all attention and happiness in the village that night and after exchanging a few high fives with the local children and sharing all important details about me, I collapsed, old man, style, waiting for the next insane wake-up.
Ijen is indeed a beautiful place, a lovely trek through lush green hills, eventually exposing a devastated landscape with a sulfur mines, geothermal smoke vents and a turquoise lake in between it all. But Ijen is above all, a very poignant pace, where poor miners, young and old, dig through chucks of sulfur, standing right in front of the smoke, and then carry upto 80kgs of the load up the craters rim and then down for a distance of 3km. Some of them moan on the way up, some plead for a cigarette and some just take a break and ask with a smile for their photographs to be taken. Their backs have deep black marks from the load and they seek to keep their spirits high cracking jokes among themselves.
The way back to Surabaya is again entertaining, courtesy my driver who was treating every moment like a rollercoaster ride. I was mostly talking to him in Bahasa Indonesia, but sometimes I was asking the wrong questions. Once I kept on asking him “Why” I should go to Surabaya airport, instead of “When”. But my driver responded in kind, practicing his broken English with me, and when I went to his home to take a short break, he introduced his wife to me as “Your wife”. Equally charming were the names of Indonesian towns like Probollingo, Sitobondo, and Bondowoso that passed by.

P.S. Pictures of East Java can be found in this link

Myanmar Travels: Bagan

2011-01-02T16:34:00.002+05:30

For the last leg of my journey, I headed to Bagan. Bagan is the mesmerizing assortment of temples, and more temples, and some more temples, and just a little bit more temples. It is the result of some crazy architectural vision, an attempt to pierce the sky with thousands of needles, 13,000 at one time, probably around 2000 presently. The temples were built during the 11th and 12th century and the complex was subsequently sacked by the Mongols. While the temples are not spectacular, it is the audacity of numbers that mesmerizes the visitor, especially when viewing from the top. As Stalin said, Quantity has a Quality of its own.
When I reached this sleepy town, the taxi driver having patiently shown me around a few Lonely Planet guesthouses, dropped me at Inn-Wa, a 8$ a night hotel with air-conditioning, towels, hot water and private bathroom. The place, as seems typical of Myanmar, was run by a mama-sita who was in control of everything. As I had arrived at evening, there was not much to do to kill time besides having dinner. I chanced upon a restaurant called “Wonderfully Tasty” along a street called “Restaurant Row” that was lined with about twenty open air restaurants with twinkling lights and candles. Wonderfully Tasty’s sales pitch was that “all our vegetables are washed in mineral water” and who can resist that?
Early next day, I headed to the temple complex with a grandfather bicycle and soon the sandy trails gripped my tires like an Amazon snake. As real snakes slithered by, I realize why 3 falls mean “Game Over” in Need for Speed. As there are many more temples than tourists, visiting the lesser known ones can be delightful as you can soak in the ancient atmosphere. One does feel surprised at the audacity of the builders of the smaller temples. Were they hoping that 1000 years later, the world will be full of Schumpeter clones touting “small is beautiful”?
Each temple has a few hawkers, quietly hoping to sell their wares. The sand painters are the most common. With very lovable smiles, they all try to explain how their style is so much more innovative than the others even though their paintings all look the same. The hawkers are not very numerate and often increase the price by mistake when I bargain for discounts. Some even ask me for my t-shirt instead of any payment. At one temple, a few ladies from all ages grab my bike, insisting that I negotiate for the pajamas they were selling. When I refuse a thousand times, they let me go with sad eyes. After some introspection, I head back to them to buy the pajamas just to lift their spirits and I am greeted with wild applause and genuine relief. It’s their first sale after 3 days, a sum of $3 for a family of five.
After a long day of cycling, I decided to have some deep fried snacks at a dilapidated shack. The matriarch of the shop took me for a famished person as I finished the whole flask of complementary tea to rehydrate and greedily munched down the snacks. She took pity and offered me some boiled peanuts mixed with salt, lemon and a piece of omelet. The lady and her daughter laughed whole heartedly as I gulped down the whole thing. They probably just intended me to taste what was their meal. This probably was my happiest moment in Myanmar as I hoped that I had given some occasion for humor for my desperately poor hosts.
As dusk approaches, the tourists herd towards the few odd temples that have viewing platforms for tourists love sunsets. I headed the other way imagining the dread if I was to cycle through this Dante trail in the dark. The cattle are also heading back and at all crossing points, the right of way belongs to the cattle with their jovial masters. While most tourists travel by horse cart or vans, a few daring ones have opted for the cheap cycle option and whenever we meet, encouraging nods are exchanged with each other. The horse carts have a unique contraption in the form of a bag just behind the tail of the horse to grab all its poo. After hours of cycling, I realize my face has turned into a sand painting as well.
Next day, at the town of Nyang U where I was staying, the morning market is the centre of all activity. Among all the crowded squat shops, suddenly I spot a seven feet tall Caucasian pointing a two feet long camera at a mother holding her baby. I wish Michael Moore was there to capture this. A long row of young monks walk through the middle of the road as the faithful fill their begging bowls with rice in swift assembly line movements. As noon sets in, and tourists having left for the temples, the town yawns and young boys head indoors to watch tele-novellas. At the local book shop, the young girl managing the shop is embarrassed and smiles shyly with her braced teeth when I complain that the 20$ she is charging for three old dilapidated Russian books is atrocious. At sunset, I head for the Ayeyarwaddy River. And I encounter that primeval river scene, ladies bathing, fisherman tugging in their nets, kids splashing, and the sun retreating behind this ancient land, sprinkling the great horizon with dazzling colors, its parting gift to mankind.

P.S. Pictures of Myanmar can be found in this link

Myanmar travels: Inle Lake

2010-12-25T16:07:00.004+05:30

Inle Lake is a luscious cake with many layers of delicious flavours; first the big blue sky, then the olive hills at the background, then a thick layer of soft green floating plantations, and finally the deep blue water nonchalantly reflecting all these as if it has better wonders inside itself. Along the lake, one comes across the Inthein village with the 1054 alligator-snout shaped stupas, bustling weekly markets, jumping cat monasteries, numerous traditional workshops, and fishermen rowing with their legs. The approach to the ancient stupas at Inthein probably houses the largest supermarkets for antiques and handicrafts in the world, but no one seemed to be buying anything. The shopkeepers therefore keep playing cards listening to heavy metal songs. The jumping cat monastery is probably the only place where cats have been domesticated by men. Whenever there are a decent group of tourists, the monks there make fat cats jump through rings. At some workshops, Padaung women with their famous ringed long necks are kept as zoo species, their sad boring eyes seeming to have already said farewell to life. At the week market, what caught my eye were the lady who was selling just a small bag full of salt and another young girl selling a small collection of western medicines, all splayed on the grass. The Myanmar vendors have an interesting way of bargaining with the tourists as they smilingly say “Me no lucky” meaning the price the tourist is suggesting is too low and “Me only lucky” when the deal is sealed meaning she has barely made a profit but it’s OK.

As I took the boat ride, I felt like a king contemplating his kingdom because of the large chair with cushions on which I had to sit that was placed at the very centre of a long boat. Whenever the boat approached any of the stilted houses, kids left everything else they were doing to give me a wave. I suppose foreigners are like pampered toys for Myanmar children who they feel obliged to take note of.

I spend a few days cycling and hiking around the lake. The roads are the bumpies I have encountered and whenever I hit a relatively flat stretch, I understand what paradise means. The guides for hiking take me to PaO villages along the hills surrounding the lake and as we cook a meal in one of the local houses, the awkward silence tells how hard breaking human barriers can be. All the same, my guide was the only person I could have an intelligent conversation with during my stay in Myanmar and he was as much interested in learning about other places and cultures I had visited.

Back in the main town of Nyaungshwe, the restaurants treat their solitary customers like long lost offspring while the street side stalls bustle with the locals. The delights include spicy vegetarian noodles (Shan style), garlic laden tomato salads, spicy deep fried beancurd, omelet curry, minced chicken stuffed pancakes, and sweet milk tea. People at Myanmar love giving receipts, and I received the most intriguing receipt as I paid for my shared taxi booking to the airport. The lady at the shop, who was earlier an English teacher, gave me a receipt saying, “I already paid this much for this, I am from Singapore, and I am staying at this hotel, and I will be waiting at this time tomorrow”, signed by me and her and then stamped. The numerous tea-shops are buzzing with happiness during the day as locals spend hours there talking, watching TV, sipping milk tea and eating deepest fried snacks. The owner lady at one such shop was keeping high everyone’s spirits by screaming the “Yo”s in Burmese rap videos she was playing on TV. The only barber shop is always empty and he spends time listening to loud Buddhist chants on the radio, waiting for those few customers who are yet to fall for the trendy North Asian hairstyles so popular among the locales here.

A few words must be said about the riotous dogs of this friendly and humble place. These shameless horny animals care for no authority. One day I saw a couple of them loudly making love right next to a police station with their customary “May I Help You” signages as another five dogs surrounded them and started barking as if to cheer the male. And one day as I got down from my cycle to explore a pricey lakeside resort, the house dog came up silently and bit my shoe. Marx was right about the evils of private property, and much of its evil character originates from these house dogs.

The town sleeps early and by eight at night, the lights have turned off, while the earth sleeps beneath a bowl full of stars, a lonely crooner playing his guitar by one of the canals, the soft splashing of waters providing the beat.

P.S. Pictures of Myanmar at this link

What reading Neruda makes you do

2010-12-20T18:44:00.006+05:30

Last time I saw you
So few words were said
For the ones that hurt the most
We had tired them to death

Last time I saw you
So few glances were exchanged
For the curtain of hatred
Wrapped the faces we once craved

Last time I saw you
We didn’t stop for each other
For we had already planned our journey
To our next misery

Among trillions of possibilities
Our paths crossed
And what could have been
Is too pure to imagine

But maybe we will meet
When all our pride has bled
When all our hopes have been shred
And all our wants have been dealt
When our bodies are loathsome baggage
And death seems a fortune
When our eyes can’t see
And what remain are just us

Myanmar travels: Yangon

2010-12-18T17:23:00.002+05:30

I was relieved as soon as I passed the security counter at Singapore Airport. After all; for the next few days, no one is going to ask me the onerous, meaningless but obvious question, “Why are you going to Myanmar”? And the short flight was according to the modern convention of “thou shalt treat the person sitting next to thou as inanimate object no 2”. The glistening ultra-modern airport in Yangon was filled with Lonely Planet promises of women wearing Thanaka paste on their face and men wearing sarongs (Longi). Soon after I reached my budget hotel that like any respectable Myanmar hotel claimed out loud that it had its own electricity generator, I headed off to the iconic Shwedagon Pagoda.

The Shwedagon Paya summarizes Myanmar. Out here, you will come across the gaudiest aesthetic sense on the planet, a cancerous proliferation of Buddha idols and the friendliest people you may have ever met. While the giant gilded Stupa looks enormous from the streets, it is less imposing from up close. The spire is encrusted with diamonds in all hues; and is also home to thousands of shitting pigeons. The entire premise is filled with funky Buddha idols, many with psychedelic spinning light-discs behind their heads. Shwedagon is as much a social place as it is a religious one and has its fair share of young couples renewing their vows and kids having an intriguing session of hide and seek in its precincts. Right next to them can be seen worshippers on their knees and praying, their facing expression revealing some intense pain. A group of people have formed a chain and are cleaning the floors and stairs. A few white Buddha statues are being vigorously washed by believers hoping that their wishes would come true. At one corner, people are climbing over one another like ants to collect their portion of the free meal getting distributed. A sprinkling of foreign tourists with enormous bazooka style cameras are moving around like lions in the savanna. In the middle of all this, there is something unusually serene about the whole compound that makes even an atheist like me want to stay on and watch life unfold. As I sit down at one corner to soak in the atmosphere, a monk sitting nearby comes up and starts chatting with me. He is learning English hoping to get a foreign posting to a monastery in Singapore or Thailand. He asks me my salary and when I ask him back, he laughs saying its variable because his only source of income is donations. He also advises me to never fall in love with any girl born on Tuesday and I know I can never sympathize enough with those unfortunate girls. As the sun sets, thousands of candles are lit around the stupa as it soaks in the surrounding lights to reveal its true magnificence.

The next day is spent roaming the streets of Yangon which are teeming with life and its sounds and smells. The city has a New York style grid system with numbered roads intersected by long avenues named after Myanmar highlights. The downtown has many colonial buildings but the highlight is the climax of activities happening around the transportation hub near Sule Paya-another gilded stupa. The streets there are lined with clusters of shops catering to every human need. The outer edges have the hawkers selling meat and fish, and as you move towards the Indian section of the city, you come across the vegetable section, the food section and the clothes section. The cloth section has a small signage calling it the Fashion Boulevard, but the wares on display cater to the prevailing preference for gaudiness with an abundance of two colored shirts with the colors meeting at chest level. Sprinkled among these organized chaos of shops are hawkers selling cheap videos, which are all labeled according to their category: “Classics”, “Spiritual”, “Indian”, and the porn ones being classified as “Western Movie”. The crème de la crème of the market are the numerous sex shops which are nothing more than an Indian or Bangladeshi man selling a collection of all relevant sex products in a table of size no more than four square feet. Whatever is your inclination and belief system, with brands like MaxMan and GoodViagra, conjugal bliss seems safe for the time being in Myanmar. The markets are teeming with thousands of people, all with a seemingly complete understanding of the meaning of life. At the fruits section, aggressive hawkers shout at potential customers and almost drag them in to their shop while groups of shy nuns squeezing through the crowd struggle to make their chants for alms heard. And from time to time you see men adjusting their sarongs (longis) in a gesture not too different from male birds flaunting their feathers.

The small gulleys of the main roads are equally interesting and show some specialization with some being lined with old books while some house only umbrella shops. Only in Yangon, can you find books titled “Questions and Answers on Office Work”, “Letters and Essays of distinction Winners” and old copies of in-flight magazines. And there, all of a sudden, I see the Astrology Research Centre Office. I am not sure what empirical methods of research they deploy, but Myanmar is to Astrology what London is to global finance with astrologers of repute charging 30$ for a session and providing their verdict on recorded tapes. The streets are lined with telephone shops which are little more than a table and chair with a large umbrella and two wireless phones. These call booths, often manned by ladies, are usually without customers. So the owner ladies are the ones who can often be seen making calls using their own phones. And then there are the numerous cybercafés, always full of young girls doing video chat next to young guys watching porn.

One must mention the unique delights of the street food in cosmopolitan Yangon. On the streets you can find traditional Indian sweets which are only made in homes, Chinese desserts, countless varieties of fruits and a range of delightful pancakes. The most intriguing are the satay stalls where the vendor typically sits on a low chair next to a 3’ by 3’ platform at the centre of which is the stove. Surrounding this platform are up to 8 very small and low chairs where the young clients sit, the whole set-up resembling a séance with the satay seller as the medium. And the most innovative are the fruit sellers who deploy plastic bags filled with water to swing like a pendulum over the cut fruits to drive away the flies.

While walking is the best way to conquer these mean streets, one would need to use one of the countless varieties of transport options available if you have to move out of downtown. The most obvious are the taxis which are cheap and fairly priced without much need for bargaining. These taxis are all clunky and you can hear all the parts in motion as they ramble on. Uniquely, while Myanmar has right hand drive, the steering is also to the right of the car. The buses are usually jam packed with many travelers clinging on to the backside. The most colorful are the pedal driven rickshaws which have two low back to back seats attached to the left of the driver giving an impression of colorful tortoises giving the hair a chase. And not to be missed is the Yangon circular line, a slow train that goes through many suburbs. Realizing that I was a foreigner, I was being given special treatment onboard by both the railway officials and fellow passengers to the point of being embarrassed. But it’s intriguing to see on the train a mélange of poor people living simple lives yet being happy and content. Hawkers keep boarding the train selling everything from betel leaves, boiled eggs, tea, cold water and the delightful buns topped with condensed milk. The favorite targets of these hawkers are the males who have young girls accompanying them. The passengers all keep joking and talking to each other and give me a smiling nod every now and then. At the Danyingan station, that has a massive village market; lots of vegetable sellers get down, each helping the other to get their huge load of vegetables off the train. And a few stations letter, a group of kids get on board. They are taking potted flower plants for sale to the city and as they place their loads on the centre of the births, we have a delightful garden inside our train.

P.S. Next post on Inle lake in Myanmar; pictures of Myanmar can be found in this link

The gift of Magi returns

2010-09-08T20:21:00.004+05:30

2 months before Christmas

Frank: I wish I was the first one in office to have an iPad
Stella: I want to go to Fiji; the pics look real nice

1 month before Christmas:
Frank: Dearest, I have a surprise for you; I booked the hotels for Fiji for Christmas, will book the flights tonight
Stella: Realllyyyy; you are so wonderful; I have a surprise of my own for you; I bought an iPad for you
Frank: Thats so awesome; but it's a pity; I will not go for the company offsite because we are going Fiji that time; wish I could have shown it to my peers then. But never mind, let me book the tickets using our credit card points.
Stella: Oh honey, that's so sad; by the way, I used up most of the credit card points to buy the iPad
Frank: Oh well; doesn't matter, I love you
Stella: We are such an wonderful couple; I love you two

Thoughts during a public transport ride

2010-09-08T18:27:00.000+05:30

The capitalist corporate cloud cover insulates us all from the sufferings worse than ours by constantly attacking our self-esteem and ego with milestones and stretch performance standard, thus converting the mundane into a glorified breathtaking spiral race.

Isn’t travelling essentially a constant search for a dipstick experience of the un-spoilt, pristine world, untouched by modern (western) civilization inhabited by simple souls, vetted by colorful travel books; in other words, a search for a zoo on a larger scale?

Is the haloed family as an institution is nothing but a slow moving whirlpool of mediocrity; parenthood is all about succumbing to the urge of evolution to reproduce and then the disgusting outsourcing of personal ambition and human potential to the next generation; suffering supportive parenting is nothing but losing a considerable control of your future to your parent’s misfortune, sloth, and prejudices.

Is charity or social work for the poor just an excuse to feel self-important in an environment where you are surrounded by people in situations worse off than you covering you with the haze of their supposed inferiority, wretchedness and indebtness?

How many times will we discuss property prices and stock indices with our friends? Will friendship exist in mute in a world of perfect information under the efficient market hypothesis?

How many days will I suffer when I become old? Which body part will be the first to develop cancer? Who will hurl at me the most insults? When will I watch my last tooth bid farewell? Which will be the first words from me not making any sense? When will it be the first time I will shit in my bed and cry?

There comes my station

The pond in my town

2010-08-22T20:04:00.000+05:30

There I was, standing in front of the muddy pond, the one in the small town where I was born. Its water looked muddier than the soil around. The palm trees and vines of all sorts circled around it like the court pays audience to the king. The waters looked forbidding; something created a ripple at the centre; a serpent just waded by before I could catch a proper glimpse. It had been like this since I knew it, mysterious, unwelcoming, and unwanted. It is too small to attract young lovers, too ill-placed to attract the property developers. But it has its own fascination; no one knows what lies beneath. From time to time, we dip in a hook from far, and out comes a wriggling evil looking fish with demonic whiskers and strength to match a cat. These dark ugly fish only add to the pond’s mystery. Imagine Loch Ness, every inch of which has been scoured to test the hype; the chances of finding the solitary monster are much higher here. No one dares take a swim in its bubbling fetid waters but for the occasional snake that crosses it in silent respect. At few places, dark lifeless twigs can be seen rising out of the pond surface, a reminder of how unforgiving the pond can be if its boundaries are violated. The sun moves all around it every day in vain attempts to reach its depths. Once every year, the pond rises with the rains to seek out the world from a greater height. And when it goes back to its habit, we see dark slimy remains of unfamiliar weeds and half eaten fish, their eyes in a state of horror. As I stand near the pond and the memories start coming back from the deepest recess of my mind, the pond sends its first line of attack, the mosquitoes, in scores to send me back. It’s getting dark, the smell of rot and death is all around, the mosquitoes are buzzing alarms around, the heavy air is too in thrall to move, and I head back; the pond ever engraved in my mind.

It’s Independence Day and I feel a really some nationalistic

2010-08-15T19:01:00.001+05:30

Heehaw; I got a lump on my throat; Salute to the great heroes of my country; the security guards of my condominium have been lined up master commander and they are raising the flag; Protectors of our borders, help yourself to some spicy snacks afterwards; and Master Commander, chief organizer of community events at our condominium, you rival the legends; myths will soon be created around you; tune to the TV and the movie is on; and the lump in my throat turns into tears from my eyes as we slaughter millions in the enemy state again; one movie later, heroes from my air force are again at work, destroying aliens who threatened our life; and my patriotic songs, I don’t remember fully; but it goes in same lines as we are the best and the Great God put it up the arse of the rest; the parade is on, missiles, tanks, bombs, men with biggest penises, women with largest breasts, this land has got it all; we invented everything, we discovered everything by the time the world discovered us; Heehaw. My culture runs supreme, we inspired American Idol, we wrote the first penthouse; people who left my country and became immigrants became stars; they run the biggest bank; one of them got the Nobel prize; unlike these bedraggled immigrants to my country; throw them away; the sports channel is now showing the match which we won 10 years back; We are the largest, we are the noblest; it’s time for some evening snack. The streets are a full with national flags, the street urchin is selling them, bloody hell, this one is an immigrant; his father is an terrorist; fuck off, don’t touch me with your dirt hands; these are the lice in our great country; they make the slums; they clog the roads; slaughter them all; Heehaw

Reality TV: A tribute

2010-08-14T20:05:00.000+05:30

Come up in slo mo; smile at the host. Bow at the jury and undress for the giant serpent; the ancient serpent; Here I come; I hiss around you and slither; wrap around you with the hiss; keep smiling; you got this only chance; show me what you are made of; tell me your sorrowful past; show me your courage in fighting against odds; the other snakes applaud, enough; the ancient serpent in me; it can’t wait; to swallow you as you are; base and perfect; a human fully skinned; show me how you fight; show me how you hate; I am widening my mouth; my eyes look at you with hunger; your eyes look at my gut with fear; you know death is near; you up the stakes, you hate even more; you amplify further; the basest nature in you; you are a commodity; show me your evil side; fight with the judges; smell the hiss; cry for me; I let you cry in the joy being in my embrace; the slithering moist rope moving slowly around your raw flesh; here I got some leaches from my jungle; I want to see how they suck on your blood; walk on the mud; tell me how you feel; show me how you hate; sing for me, dance for me, say you are honoured to be in my death embrace and do it in slo mo; I am the ultimate judge; the ancient serpent; I drift around to the jury; the host is asking me to swallow the sacrifice; I want the judges to fight first; show me how you hate; let me admire your straight talking thing; happy, but not content, I slither back to you; the host is admiring my wisdom; reach your climax; give it your best, it’s your last chance; beg me to swallow you; enter my gut; get out of it now; filled with my slime, cry for me now; you miserable wreck; show me your courage as you cry; tell me you will never give up, unconvincing; you are shattered; haha; cameras a rolling and the snakes are a smiling with me; I look at your wreck from a distance, my eyes content till the next mill; your aftertaste is null; sink into the depth; the host is happy again; jury rises for the winner in slo mo; sparkles a plenty; the world is at its happiest; the serpent has already moved far by then; my mind bleached of the last night’s bloody feast; I hiss around and slither; on the surface of this ancient land; slither in slo mo.

The streets of New York

2010-07-25T10:13:00.005+05:30

Sharply dressed mannequins and homeless people watch us walk past; the former from the comfort of the air-conditioning inside; the latter from the versatility of store front kerb that can act as both a chair and a bed. At every intersection in the most simple city plan ever, Bangladeshi vendors have taken their rightful place selling fresh fruits and vegetables. Arabs are standing next to them selling pretzels, kebabs and kneesh. Waves of yellow taxis are swarming by, a Sikh inside each one of them. Group of black gays are having a good time, their loud jokes and delicate mannerisms quite in contrast from the porn and MTV fed image of black men. Two Latino women are having a good time as they are digging the streets, their hands waving in dance moves from time to time as they revel in the glances they are able to attract from this split second city. And if you look down, there are these small shabby dogs walking around their lady Elvira with an expression of intensity as if they know what it all means. Stocky Filipino ladies are standing in the middle of the pavements, equal distances separating them, body length billboards hung on both sides. They are all talking on the phone to someone, perhaps to take their mind of the boredom and this exposure. Millions of glances intersect each other. Millions of glances strike each one of us and then skid off to somewhere else. A long queue is forming outside the Diesel storefront because the biggest and baddest sale ever for the season is on. Money is what civilizes us, else we will be scampering for everything like hyenas. And amidst all that, suddenly I see a hand raised up from a tall body, asking this crazy world to stop for a while and consider. No, he is only trying to flag down a cab.

Is there a meaning to it all? The giant swarms of people crossing each other at every zebra; the masses of people menacingly rising from the underground of subway stations; the fingers balancing several plastic bags, French words written over them. There surely is; we are all serving our role in a giant experiment; to find out what would work best when mankind would finally achieve immortality. That’s when everything we do will make perfect sense since it wont be wiped away by death. So God does exist as a concept, just that there is no God now. There will be not one, but many Gods, since God will be a corporation, not an individual; the corporation that invents the elixir. It will not be a God with a carrot-stick plan for everything, but just an entity that finally gave an indisputable meaning to life. Till then, we all have to figure out which mascara works best on us. Believe me, it’s worth it.

The bus stations of San Antonio

2010-07-23T08:00:00.002+05:30

The bus stations of San Antonio in Texas remain the beatest places in the USA with their solemn appearances, grimy walls, hot interiors and its melange of interesting characters. In a society run over by cars, only the very poor assemble here. But these are also the places where every stranger talks to every other stranger, unsheathed from the latex of civilization, and even the quietest introvert finds something to share from deep within her closet. Everyone lights up as snot-nosed Filipino kids jauntily play around their mother like a swarm of ducklings around the queen mother’s super strut. The Hispanic lady sitting next to me talks on length about her good old days when she could walk all the way instead of waiting for the bus till her heart got weaker. The driver of another bus takes his break along with us and claims that my t-shirt is in his honor; as evidence, he shows me his identity document with the name Zapata on it. Noisy mixed race kids take their turns to caress the pregnant belly of a stranger woman whom her husband befriends by offering gum. At one corner, a night rider, dressed like Gene Simmons without the paint, attempts a serious conversation at length with a bank’s customer service on loudspeaker mode, amusing us all around. The only formally dressed person is a young Mormon on duty, smiling at everyone in the name of the lord. We all got time in our hands. Our patient eyes say it all; we are in a different world from the fast cars around us chasing the exits to expressways. The bus may come anytime as it pleases, but we are in the company of friends. Where else can you see the humanity of a big tattooed white arm offering his bucket of roasted nuts to a stranger black lady who looks like the primeval grandmother of all?

Pictures of San Antonio

On the question of marriage

2010-06-20T19:43:00.000+05:30

The institution of marriage or pairing has the potential to be a great progressive force in society. Other than being an avenue to churn the gene pool, it can also even out differences in social rank, economic power, casteist and racial origin. But of course, this is only if such marriages or coupling happens between two people who are rather different in these aspects. In such cases, marriages can result in immediate dissolution of the stigma faced by the lesser privileged of the two. For instance, while affirmative actions have a rather slow effect on removing racial or caste based disparities, inter-racial and inter-caste marriages would work very fast if adopted on a large scale.

However, marriages have played exactly the opposite role. The institution has become the greatest source of conservatism around the world ensuring that socio-economic status, racial makeup, occupational backgrounds, casteist makeup and the resultant disparities, stigmas and attitudes remain as strong as ever. Only 2% of marriages in the UK are inter-racial while the same number for the US stands at 6% (even though it has increased by seven times over the level of 1970s). In India, especially for the middle class, marriages are designed to bring together very similar profiles, ones falling at the intersection of the same caste, religion, linguistic group, economic strata, educational background and skin color. Such has been the effect of such closed group marriages in India that mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosome tests on local population show significant genetic disparities between caste groups, an astounding outcome given that the underlying socio-religious system is only 2500-3000 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 2500-3000 end_of_the_skype_highlighting years old. Such rigidity to seek out similarities while pairing up makes one wonder if incest taboo would have been a reality if not for the obvious biological consequences. While Hindi films of the 80s were typically about a poor person marrying a richer one, social attitudes in India are so hardened that a white-collared worker marrying a domestic help would be first and foremost seen as a scandal. Of course, exceptions exist and I know of a few communists who have married someone from lower economic strata as a matter of both love and principle.

An interesting phenomenon can be seen in the US where the so called most eligible African American males are marrying outside their race which is forcing the African American women to “marry down” with lesser privileged males from their race. Coincidentally, African Americans have witnessed immense improvement in living conditions over the recent years (Significant differences with whites exist and other factors probably played greater role).

So, can one socially engineer marriages between people coming from disparate backgrounds? During most of human history, such marriages or pairings have been a result of oppressive human activities such as enslavement after war or through instinctive decisions of kings to marry commoners. In modern times, some survivors of the Pol Pot regime reported being forced to marry the person sitting next in randomly assorted town hall meetings. On a much smaller scale, members of the Saudi royal family often do marry outside the clan and the group has expanded to 5000 members sharing reportedly 40% of the annual budget of the Saudi government.

Governments have typically forbid inter-racial marriages as in apartheid South Africa or Jim Crow’s America. But few governments have tried benevolent methods of say economic incentives to encourage inter-group pairings. One may argue that such state interventions will take away the emotions underlying the institution of marriage. But aren’t those emotions being already overwhelmed by emotionless considerations such as caste, religion, economic status, race and skin color?

God speaks to us all the time

2010-06-15T19:17:00.000+05:30

While we all wait for the elusive voice of God, God keeps talking to us everyday, craving to be heard. His messages are all around us. And literally, he often beams them from heaven. He speaks the same messages irrespective of what religion the listener belong to you. The prophets were just wiser than the rest of us to truly realize the true nature of these messages. Angels we have heard them on a high. No, all you need is to open your eyes and ears, my fellow human beings. Wake up to the wonderful world around you. God is everywhere and he is talking to you all the time. Don’t you recognize these messages from him?

Elegance is an Attitude (Longines)

Beyond rational (BMW 3)

Think Small (Volkswagen Beetle)

You’re worth it (Loreal)

You've Come a Long Way, Baby (Virginia Slims Cigarettes)

Life is full of surprises (Quaker Oats)

Good food everyday (Heinz)

There are some things that are priceless (Mastercard)

Our right to headsets

2010-05-22T20:01:00.000+05:30

She walked down the aisle with that super strut, a bag in her hands. People from both sides dumped stuff into that bag obligingly. When she came up to me, I was hesitant. I put up a pleading look and a fake accent and begged, “Can i hold on to my headset for a while please?” She looked perturbed at this seeming sign of defiance and walked on after returning me a fake smile. I knew something was wrong, for I had clearly crossed the line. She knew what would work. She started announcing in all languages known to mankind including Java and C++ disrupting my attempt to catch over the “Avataar” without having to pay at the 3D theatre. The brick sized screen was good enough for me to pass time watching this long anime. But the onslaught of her pointless announcements went through my mind like Abu Ghraib electric shocks disrupting the anime. She came back to me asking for the headset now that my destination, Singapore, was just three hours away. I faked a Darfur look and an even stronger accent, pleading for some more time with the headset. She walked away disappointed and I knew something bad would happen soon. Soon appeared her boss, a well dressed gentleman, with some convincing white hair, who asked me to return the headset for safety reasons, a sure winner. It was now a matter of prestige for me; a test for my male ego whose evolutionary instincts had been well stirred. I set about arguing with him, man to man, that the headset was hardly an Atlantis antique, and had no practical use for me back home with its stupid two jack design. All I wanted was to be left in peace for the next ten minutes so that I can finish this greatest anime ever. Disgusted at my cheapness, he said he would let me hold on to it, “a shove it in” look in his face. He went and turned off the entertainment system and started showing the temperature at destination in all metrics of measurement known to man, as if we were all giant pandas, sensitive to even one Fahrenheit change. They all walked past me in their victory march, a proud smile on their face.

So when I touched down and cleared the purgatory gates of immigration, I started a grassroots campaign called “Headsets for longer”. So if you believe that airlines have no reason to treat headsets like their most prized possessions, join me. If you believe airlines should adopt a conventional jack for headsets, so that we can carry our own, join me. If you believe that there is no point announcing the closure of useless duty free shopping over and over during flights, join me. You have heard of your myth-frothed national heroes fighting for freedom speech, now it’s time to fight for freedom to listen.

When the thoughts of some immigrants could be heard:

2010-05-05T16:31:00.001+05:30

We so often hear news about locals protesting against immigration. That is inevitable as “No taxation without representation” was never considered seriously by even the founding fathers of the American Revolution. So the media is flooded with voices of natives screaming and shouting against migrants blaming them from everything from a child looking different from his father to loss of a hair brush. While one usually calls this xenophobia, in essence it’s just a manifestation of HP Lovecraft style hatred of humanity at large, summarized by Sartre in his infamous, “hell is other people”. But then what do the immigrants themselves think? We can only guess what they think as their thoughts hardly get media coverage. Here are a few excerpts:

Raj: Nothing good can happen in my home country as long as they continue with affirmative action policies in favour of these lower castes. All the politicians back home should be shot.

Wilma: How dare he compare me with the maids who come from my country? I am not one of them; I don’t look like one of them. I hate them more than anyone could. They spoiled the image of my country.

Raj: I am getting married to this great girl. She has an MBA and belongs to the same caste as me.

Wilson: I just admitted my son in this international school. I don’t want him to pick up the silly local dialect so prevalent in public schools here.

Wilma: These locals are getting rather vocal against the increasing tide of immigrants here. As if they could make do with by themselves with their silly brains and lazy attitude.

Wilson: They charge a bomb for the television channel for my home country here. It’s looting at primetime. By the way, I and my wife always make a point to talk to our son in English. He speaks English rather well now. You must see his friends. They are all from Europe.

Raj: The girls out here are wonderful. I love the way they dress. Not like those fashion dinosaurs back home.

The thoughts written out here are probably only originating from one particular tribe of immigrants: the middle class ones. But still it’s quite plausible that it’s hard to get rid of prejudices whether you are a native or an immigrant. Too often, immigrants hate more than locals, what would be considered their own kind. And it is possibly true that it’s hard to integrate in your own society, let alone a foreign one. So what do other immigrants think? Those who have to live by the day with a handful of money just enough to buy half decent meal after saving just enough to ensure family back home get to eat their half decent meals? I will attempt that in my next post.

That feeling of insignificance

2010-04-22T18:49:00.000+05:30

That feeling of insignificance when it’s a clear moonless city-less night full of stars. That feeling of insignificance when it’s the great blue ocean splashing out in front of me in a secluded beach. That feeling of insignificance from the top of the highest peak, the surrounding hills rolling over as far as the eyes can see. That feeling of insignificance when I see dead bodies being brought to the cremation grounds every other minute, smoke settling down from the numerous pyres around me. That feeling of insignificance when I am walking in the platform to take a train in a direction opposite to peak time traffic. That feeling of insignificance when I am in a massive mall bookshop and none of the books there have been written by me. That feeling of insignificance when you see a mass of devotees rushing past you to the nearby temple and my voice of condescending rationality chokes out at my throat. That feeling of insignificance when there is that group of begging children surrounding me, my sacrifice in the form of an ice-cream for each far from enough to buy even a day of happiness for them.

The book of city life, 6: 19-24

2010-04-19T19:28:00.001+05:30

No outside food No pets No smoking No usage of mobile phones No left turns No flash photography No camera No loitering No trespassers No credit cards No electronic equipment No shorts No head without headscarf No sneakers No sharp objects No guests allowed No leaning on the rails No children below 12 years old.

Please stand behind the yellow line

A post with no name

2010-03-25T19:43:00.001+05:30

My last few posts have been rather introspective, wherein I have tried to find deeper meanings behind the surges of water during a toilet flush and drew parallels between the sights of a child pushing his own perambulator and a man carrying his own coffin. Drawing extreme parallels and analyzing layer beneath layer of human activities is quite common among writers: professional, amateur or wannabes like me. But after a page load of it, it does appear that perhaps there’s not much of a small step for mankind in comparing the depression of a mind with that of the insides of a refrigerator that had been kept switched off for a while. And perhaps there’s not really much of a point describing the chain of consequences behind the rustle of a dried leaf unless it can be seriously related to global warming or early signs of infidelity from Tiger Woods.

A walk by the beach

2010-03-20T14:23:00.003+05:30

Another wave just hit the shore; the one behind smashed against it as the earlier one was retreating without caring for politeness. A stream of sand particles hurriedly ran after the retreating water to watch this family feud. Watching this set piece over and over again from the cool shade of a forsaken beachside shack, Mad Professor playing in my head, the great blue sea stretching out in front of me and then taking the form of the sky dotted with the white clouds of Monet; the monotonous nature of the whole thing can be distracting enough. From time to time, as I attempt to finish the magazine article, I am tempted to look up at this numbing spectacle that has probably been occurring at this place for millions of years. Later in the day, as I take a walk by the beach, my mind is occupied with the search for unbroken shells. The white smoothness of their shells, or the intricate patterns of Fibonacci, which spot in earth were these creatures playing when they were alive, before being swept by the waves to the shore? The soft sand forces my walking to be slow. Local children are enjoying themselves for hours forcing them upon the waves in different positions, something pleasing to eyes given that the shorelines all over the world are fast becoming private beaches dotted with freckled skeptical sunbathers. I encounter a fallen tree, all signs of life sucked out of it by the beach sun, the brine and the millions of organisms busy at humiliating it at its fall. Pablo Neruda had asked if there is any sight sadder than that of a vacated train standing in the rain. There probably is, in that of a fallen tree by the beach, pockmarked all over, being drenched every now and then. As night falls, the stars take over, and this is when the much abused feeling of being irrelevant in the context of an enormous and timeless universe. While it can be soothing to come to a realization through this belittling sensation, it can also result in a startling conclusion that the grieves of the billions of earth’s poor to don’t really matter in the true scale of the universe. The modern city is the plan of civilization to douse out the stars with urban lighting.

But then didn’t the invisible cyanobacteria bring about the most enduring and enchanting change on earth? If there was a God, she was a cyanobacteria. Monotheism is therefore incorrect while the Hindus counted one too few. And just as tempting it is to fall into a slow existential whirlpool while facing the stars by the beach, it is equally tempting to make a canoe out of the fallen tree and venture recklessly into the ocean that lies in front.

P.S. Pictures of Trikora, Indonesia

Rambling on a weekend

2010-03-06T20:06:00.002+05:30

The compulsion of having a great weekend is imposed by the questions over the following Monday in office that demand you to speak for at least two minutes in response. That is of course unless you can claim to have been working over the weekend which relieves you from the social pressure of having a great weekend and shifts the onus to the disinterested inquirer to sympathise with you as if you have lost all your family members in a tsunami. Little does he know that opening a Russian doll one by one made me feel symbolic for a while. Another massive incident at the Kardashians demanded my attention while channel surfing during the advertisements revealed a tsunami in Chile. Tsunamis and 80’s fashion are the in-thing. Add to that a bit of China bashing.

Bills get opened one by one. They care for me. They have sent several colourful pamphlets along with their bills and envelopes marked “Postage paid by Addressee”. They care for me. What percentage of my life is spent cleaning floors and washing clothes? Only cosmic dust is glorified. And then what percentage of my life is spent in the search for food? How many epic journeys are launched every minute to satisfy the tongue for ten minutes? The spices ensured that the Americas were discovered.

There are probably more magazines on tigers than there are tigers in the world. One would probably have to keep on reading for a year if he decided to read every word in a weekend newspaper. They are handy though as weights for muscle building. The market for books on the economic crisis is surely showing signs of overheating.

With so many news alerts, I am running out of topics for conversation. With every issue too big to be solved in our lifetime, I am running out of topics for conversation. With analysts for everything, I have rid myself of the onus of forming opinions. It will be an abuse to freedom of expression if even topics like stock markets, property prices, and traffic congestion are taken away from us. How long can I just discuss Avatar? The rest of the world is adapting with intelligent status updates on facebook informing their 500 friends, I can’t think of any.

An evening stroll by the park with snake like winding lanes to create kilometres out of a small oasis of greenery in between high rise apartments all named after sea views. The parks are infested with people moving around with children in perambulators; life probably ends after child birth. The male black widow spider need not have been humiliated twice; the species could just have been called black spider. Children in school uniforms are asking for donations for some charity as a part of their school project. The world forces many to be nice. Will these kids ever have a discussion on whether Bukharin was right about Trotsky?

Ornette Coleman’s “Lonely Woman” is gathering dust. What eventually happened to Kate Perry after she kissed a girl and liked it? I am worried; so many musicians have died at the prime of their lives. Cobain, Shannon Hoon, Esbjorn Svensson, Coltrane, Layne Staley, Pastorius, Andrew Wood, Jeff Buckley, Randy Rhoads, D. Boon...... Counting every second is the only to live life to the fullest. That leaves little time for anything else.

Varanasi Boogalooo

2010-02-21T18:07:00.004+05:30

One thing all guide books will mention about Varanasi is the all prevailing chaos and the city lives up to its name right from its arrival point, the airport, where the world’s smallest conveyor belt forces passengers to pounce like piranhas to spot and grab their luggage during its two second ride on the belt. After that, for most part, the taxi ride to the city was like any other Indian road trip, as we went past long stretches of mustard fields with its yellow flowers amidst lush greenery interspersed with quaint mud huts. These views always strike a chord with the farmer deep inside me. After all, my family has a long history of subsistence farming, only broken by my father. But the chord broke as soon as we started approaching the Old City as the traffic started to worsen. And when we reached its crazy pumping heart, Godhulia, chaos presented us in its purest form.

We had to let go of our taxi, hoist our luggage on our heads, and trudge amongst the most densely populated place on earth like fish jumping and swimming in a muddy channel from which most of the water has evaporated. The chaos subsided as we escaped from this melee of chatter, horns and ringing bicycle bells from every angle in the protractor and took a turn towards an alley that led to Meer Ghat, the location of our hotel. But the alley had its own share of tales to share with us. Every alley, and there are lots in Varanasi, have an ecosystem of their own. Within the ten feet of width, they present a potent alchemist’s mix of stench from faeces and urine from several animal species, fragrance from incense sticks, aromas of boiling milk and snacks getting deep fried in large pots of oil. As we trundled along the cobbled alley, balancing the luggage on our heads while skipping the shit strewn across regularly, we come across hordes of bare footed worships on their monarch butterfly journey to the Vishwanath temple, the holiest for Hindus. We also come across the smallest wedding procession with just one drummer accompanying the couple and their parents. Huge cows, usually in a relaxed mood, happy from their recent shitting, ignored us. But suddenly we came across a huge and horny ox chasing an equally large cow, throwing a hapless bicycle rider off balance and other by passers scampering for safety. All the same, these alleys are a real charm of Varanasi where one can suddenly be surprised by an elegantly curved wooden door, a brightly painted wall with old world simplicity, a shop selling the most delightful milk cream, and a sadhu (priest) with a parrot in his hand and hair that would get George Clinton running for his hair stylist.

Another defining aspect of Varanasi is the ghats (river banks) along the Ganges, each with its own character. There is the psychedelic Kedar Ghat with its loud stripes. There is the Dasaswamedh Ghat, the hotbed of activities from hair trimming, holy Ganges bathing, body massaging, boat riding, and begging. The stairs leading down to the river are rather high, providing a sense of personal space to the numerous widows, lepers and handicapped beggars who line the stairs like a human railing. And then there is the Manikarnika Ghat, the most intriguing part of Varanasi, where the cremations of the city happen,. No where else is death so accessible to the living. This macabre spectre of smoke from several burning funeral pyres, next to the calm river, sounds of grim bells from the adjoining temple, wails from grieving family members of the deceased, cheerful chatter of the kids playing in the same premise, guides explain the place to camera bearing tourists, shitting cows leisurely strolling around, all against the backdrop of stacks of dark brown funeral firewood, numb your senses as you pass through. I could imagine myself being carried over the shoulders of sympathizers, my body covered with a colourful blanket, and then gently placed at the centre of the pyre. Someone would then break my bones for easy burning, smear it with oil like a suckling pig readied for the oven, and then put fire on my mouth. All I could wish for then was to be converted into a fossil instead of being rewarded with this insignificant farewell.

Varanasi has probably the highest density of places of worship in the world, but a few like the Vishwanath and Durga temple dominate over the others for devotee attention. The crowd can be quite heavy at the Vishwanath temple if you time your visit wrongly. The winding alley leading to the temple is lined with state security personnel and ramshackle shops, heckling you to buy the necessary offerings. Since the state forbids you from carrying any bag, phone and camera to the temple and the religion forbids you from carrying any footwear inside, these shops make a killing offering storage for these in return for you buying something from their stores. Master upsellers, they will first ask you to buy milk for pouring over the idol for five rupees, then insist that you buy the god’s favourite flowers for another five rupees, and then a lavish food offering packet for another 25 rupees, and then a coconut for another 5 rupees to ensure sure-shot hearing from god. After being groped several times by security personnel on the way to the temple, the actual visit to the shrine is a drive-through fast food experience, where each devotee gets five seconds or less to make a case to God why his son should do better in exams than other’s or why his business should do better than competitors'. As I, an unreformed atheist, observed all these without taking part, the security personnel got irate and pulled me away from the shrine, confused why I was spending time inside while I was not grovelling on the shrine like others. The temples themselves are interesting pieces of architecture and it’s a pity that photography is not allowed within their premises. I have always wondered why Gods across religions are perceived to be reluctant to be photographed. Is it the antique fashion sense of the gods? As for the devotees, they start boasting soon about how their 5 seconds with god were more special than that enjoyed by others at the shrine, because a monkey had seized his offerings or he had managed to seize a few flowers from around the shrine, clear divine signals without any doubt. Judging from my fellow traveller, my mother, they would probably keep boasting about this for the rest of their life.

At this holiest city, god’s blessings are out for sale everywhere. At a nearby Annapurna temple, a priest heckles tourists to give him 20 rupees in return for a few coloured threads. When one person gave him one rupee only, he cursed her for treating him like a beggar. A disabled person approached all claiming he was a Brahmin and any donation to him would result in great rewards for he was a disabled Brahmin. When you are poor, shame is a luxury. The city also probably has the highest density of beggars in the world. Stories abound of sons who have tactfully let go of their old parent’s hands in the crowd to get rid of them. I came across an old lady who had just been given a ten rupee note by a young man. She, used to dealing with small change, kept looking at the note intently without any expression as if she had never seen anything like this in life.

The people in the city are nice on the whole. While most do ask for money at every interaction, typically offering to take you for a boat ride, they are typically helpful and warm whether you oblige or not. Women are always addressed as “mother” and men as “brother”. They would go out of their way to show the direction to your destination or offer suggestions for places to visit. They would also eagerly talk about the history and religious importance of the city revealing their love of the place. As for the tourists, the most abundant are the Bengalis whose large numbers have forced the city to adopt Bengali as its second language. Low in budget, large in their appetite for adventure, they travel in large groups of friends and family, enjoying every moment. There are also the Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, and Caucasians, with a look of feeling special to be at this place. Curiously, the only people to be seen meditating or doing yoga in Varanasi are the Caucasians. There are also loads of migrant labourers, mostly from the dirt poor adjoining province of Jharkhand. Their minds are so simple that they are completely bewildered when offered a tip. Mostly in their early twenties, they are rather distinct in appearance because of their short height and dark skin. Earning only 1200 rupees a month and having a wife, kids and parents to look after back home , these heroes retain their mild unsuspectful nature and simple sense of humour about them.

A word must be also mentioned about the animals of the place. Varanasi has probably the most well behaved stray dogs I have come across, probably content that their shitting is not considered offensive in the city. The cows seem equally content, probably from the same reason and also because by virtue of being considered holy, they have enough to eat. But the rulers of the city are the monkeys, ruling the temple roofs, watching with a look of contempt the hapless devotees compelled to carry food offerings for their holy tryst. Experts at snatching stuff, they have grown fat at the sugary diet of temple offerings. The twice-smitten devotees, in their simple minds, take every such monkey thuggish act as another sign that they are the chosen one in the eyes of god. Panglosses rule in Varanasi.

Overall, Varanasi is an amazing world city, with its unbelievable sights, sounds and smells. Hindus believe that one must visit the city thrice to avoid being born again. For me, just one trip was enough to amaze me through its enormous density of humanity, the bustling alleys, the morbid Manikarnika ghats, the chaotic roads, the amazing range of old shops and their offerings, the delightful desserts, and the long lost respectability the city offers to a budget traveller. One hand there is the astounding achievement of humanity in concretizing almost every square inch of such a large city, covering it with ghats, cobbled alleys, concrete streets, and numerous temples. On the other hand is the full-strength display of another astounding human construct, faith, so fanciful and abstract but with immense real life implications, so simple-minded yet complex, so hopeful in promise yet so hopeless when you see the beggar pleading in the name of God. Three visits, I don't advocate. But one visit is a must.

Pics of Varanasi in this link.

Trips to colonial towns: Malacca and Macau

2010-02-09T20:04:00.003+05:30

My last two weekends were spent cities steel well soaked in their colonial past: Macau and Malacca. Both the cities have been shaped through hundreds of years of European colonialism and had been great maritime centres for centuries, exposed to interest and greed of millions of foreigners from all regions in an age without visas. While both cities still struggle to emerge from the vices of colonialism; read exploited economies, mutilated family histories, and remnants of self-righteous foreign religions, history does apologize in small ways by converting old architecture into money making avenues for rickshaw pullers, python displayers, and ice cream sellers.

Macau, albeit known for its gambling glitz, has a rather quaint side to it in its historic quarters. The Portuguese colony offers the usual colonial architectural haberdashery of pastel colored buildings, large wooden planked windows of bright contrasting colour, cobbled roads, bronze sculptures , numerous churches, and numerous alleyways. While the imposing buildings are in accordance with standard Portuguese design and the street and house names are in Portuguese, the people living in these settings are almost all Chinese. So you have old Chinese ladies lounging around Largo do Senada (Senate square) and cramped Chinese shops selling lanterns, preserved pork and Portuguese egg tarts in the road leading to San Paolo Cathedral. Apart from these, the historic peninsula is mostly in shambles; dirty roads with broken pavements, old noisy cars, filthy grimy looking apartments with small windows, temporary shops, restaurants fully exposed to traffic fumes, loud machine workshops dotted all over the city, and a population that is old well in the need for retirement. The only young faces in this city belong to young Filipino migrants working in the hotels who have moved over to Macau in large numbers. As for the gambling pilgrim sites, they are odes to architectural nightmares in the form of huge golden lions, oddly shaped gilded hotels, monstrous rock cut venues. All this make the Macau experience comparable to being thrown in a giant washing machine with its lid shut, together with clunky metal parts, colorful candies, small cobbles, thousands of fragile and grumpy old living beings, and equal number of young apprehensive aliens, churning in a slow, uncomfortable spin.

As for Malacca, the descriptions are almost the same, except that the weather is much more oppressive owing to its heat and humidity. Pastel colored houses line the smelly river from the days when urban planning was yet to be an academic subject and Bahaus didn’t impose its monoliths. Except for the tourist crammed Jonker Street, the numerous narrow alleyways seem to be under a spell of numbing siesta. At the numerous barbershops, the barbers as well as the customers open their mouths as they take naps together. What might seem as life in slow motion is actually their attempt to fast spend away lifetime for what can kill time best than sleeping with friends. Again, expect for Jonker Street and the main square, the city is largely inhabited by old people who blend in perfectly with the ageing architecture. As for Jonker Street, it is a melee of cramped shops, all selling more or less the same varieties of tourist trinkets, what out of its context becomes exotic. The numerous museums deal with everything from one for “Endearing Beauty” to “Tortura 2”, a Madame Tussaud style kitsch.

Walking through the cobbled streets of these historic cities, whether its Malacca or Ouro Preto, does give an eerie feeling when I consider that my foot steps are falling on the same bricks stepped on by people hundreds of years ago. Like those entities without any mention in history books, there will be no trace of me yet. Unless of course, someone ten thousand years from now, digs up my airline loyalty card, as an elegant window to how humans live now.

Pics of Malacca and Macau

Low spark of high heeled boys

2010-02-04T20:23:00.000+05:30

He sat in the brightly lit chamber decorated with leafy indoor plants, all intended to cheer those who can pay to find peace. The counselor looked at him gently with a smile. She was worried that the fees for this will be coming to her after an arduous claims process. She asked him to think back far, as far as he could. He fidgeted; he thought. Sensing his uneasiness, she asked him to speak out what he thought. He didn’t want to sound crazy. He wanted to come out of this whole exercise as a certified sane person who just needed a pay rise. So he started talking about his job to demonstrate his normality. He was a metal detector holder, behind the gate that said peeeep every time someone miserly enough to carry coins over a thousand mile airplane journey passed through. His job was to run the metal detector over such a character with voodoo motions and then grope the individual at points where his own device said peeeeep. Thus he had become an expert in groping, even though he was a homophobe by heart. This contradiction lay at the problem of his whole brain muddle. Victim of a Pavlovian destiny, he had now started groping any male nearby by instinct, whenever he heard a peeeeeep, be it from a refrigerator door left open for long or the traffic light asking roadrunners to cross fast. And the worst part was that the Pavlovian instinct drove him to grope only males, something he hated to the core but couldn’t fight against. This was especially excruciating when the morning alarms went off when the only person close to him was his wife and his inability to find a male to grope drove him nuts. But he didn’t mention all this to the counselor, for he wanted to come out of the session with an attested certificate of sanity.

So he mentioned his skills at the job and his inquisitive nature that took him beyond the call of duty. For instance he had enough empirical evidence to demonstrate the degree of correlation genital sizes and skin color tone variations, having groped enough groins of all races. He knew the secret world of pockets and had predicted the financial crises long back, for he had observed how wallets had become fatter over time, loaded with thousands of credit cards. Someday, this easy credit will bring us doom, we should ban it in flights along with 50ml and above of liquids, he had long suggested to his fellow female groper. And he remembered the day when his young son had come to visit him outside the purgatory gate, delighted to see his father holding the metal detector, which the kid assumed to be a Han Solo light sabre, turned off. But he knew his game to feign sanity would be caught if he gave an all too rosy view of his life. So he also talked about the finer pains about his job. Like when President Bambama had addressed them and tried to motivate them as the true heroes of society. Fair enough, but which hero in society is measure annually in terms of how many litres of water he had snatched from passengers in a year? He was tired of asking people to take off belts and shoes and desperately wanted a promotion so that he could walk around the airport with a big dog. As a slip of tongue, he also revealed that he wished to learn Kung Fu techniques, so that while groping he could skillfully touch those pressure points and make the bloody immigrant to this country sterile for life. To recover, he said that was a joke and laughed heartedly.

The counselor knew it all. After all, he was her patient number 1788. She prescribed her yoga, vegetarian food and asked him to stay away from metals, and a visit every two weeks for the next twenty years.

Hong Kong, I love Hong Kong

2010-01-31T19:56:00.002+05:30

Hong Kong to me is the New York of the Eastern Hemisphere. Even though Hong Kong lacks the uber cosmopolitanism of New York, it is as a good a match to NY when it comes to bustle, old world charm, and quirk. There are certainly the wiki attractions of the peak, Disneyland, promenade of the stars, shopping malls. But the most unique thing about this city is its Film Noir character. Brass is everywhere inside the buildings, red is the color of the town, with gilded borders of course, set against the grime of old buildings where the polluted Chinese sky is always low and dark during winters. Dark overbridges, miles and miles of grimy subway tunnels, rusty windows intersperse shiny high street shops, their lighting purpose made to highlight the objects of desire in a lake of darkness. The restaurants, blinding in their heavily gilded tapestries and golden dragon centerpieces, are uniformly filled with loud well dressed customers, numbed well dressed waiters and waitresses swimming gently and quietly in between them, serving the next potion of krill. The loud discussions are mostly about Hong Kong style democracy and the resulting quagmires yet pride from the local system’s need for public consultations.

In this city, everyone is always surrounded by a mass of people going the other path he or she has chosen for the time being. Young men with simple enough jobs run within subway corridors wearing crisp three-piece suits, hair gelled like a business tycoon straight out of a 1960s Chinese movie. Elegantly dressed ladies stand all day inside elevators, pressing the buttons with their white gloved hands. This is a place where iPods would be preferred gilded and a profession of acting as a human pillow for the wealthy would make perfect sense. In such a hyper-charged environment, the young try to relish and experience to the full the best part of their life by staying awake all night.

But the same city also has its fair share of characters thrown out of the embrace of its whirlpool. A protester walks around a park several times, protest messages written on card boards around her. She attracts more fleeting attention than any contemplation. Deformed midgets flap their half-formed arms frenetically like bees to attract sympathy that comes in cents. Solitary ornamental fishes, hung in small bags, watch the rest of the world pass by, hoping for a buyer with a tank. Homeless old women prowl the streets quietly carrying out their wealth, a pile of cardboards, the city’s boundless gift to these women. Loneliness comes easily in this most densely populated part of the earth.

Pictures of Hong Kong in this link