I brought back a miserable sinus cold from my trip, practically guaranteed if you travel anywhere on public transit these days. Have spent four days going through boxes of tissues and my pack of Dristan, my only absolutely critical medication. It's getting hotter here, not much fun with a bit of a fever, about 32 to 34 C most days now. But my apartmentis still very comfortable.
Will get some photos put up soon.
Think I might have a handle on the banking crisis, sent Ram home with important letters, got my son to send me emergency cash via Western Union. Thanks guys.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Catching up
Feb 6
Lands of fire, Lands of water.
Ram's wedding celebration got back on track early last week. His e-mail came to late for me to get a train reservation so I took the only bus going that direction, the High Tech bus from Puttaparthi to Vijayawada. I wondered at the name. Turns out High Tech means the bus has a TV screen on which to show movies. I would certainly have traded that for a decent suspension.
Thanks to my trip of the previous week I knew that it was just a short local run from there to Tenali, scene of the function. We left at dusk and headed straight north up the centre of India towards Anantapur the state capital. The air was very murky, more smoke and pollution than usual, and I soon found out why. We passed an entire mountainside ablaze, shedding great clouds of black soot into the air. I had always wondered why the Norse called dragons worms. Worms have always suggested more water than fire to me, till I saw this entire mountain infested with crawling fire worms. In the gathering gloom and heat the dry Andhra Pradesh landscape was like something a medieval painter might have used to suggest the environs of hell.
I dozed off and when I woke again, we were climbing and climbing, steep switchback turns on a narrow track where the bus had to slow right down to negotiate a passage with every other goods truck and bus on the road. We were hemmed in on both sides by deep impenetrable forest and from what little I could see by the light of the full moon long forested ridges stretched out as far as I could see. Soon we were over this escarpment and as dawn lightened the sky I could see the land had flattened out. Mile after mile of deep green lush paddy fields interspersed with coconut palms. We are in the wet, rich part of Andrha Pradesh.
I realized later we must have crossed the Eastern Ghats and that these cast a long rain shadow across the centre of India and the western part of Andrha Pradesh in particular. Going east toward Bangalore from Puttaparthi there is a substantial rise in elevation that lowers the temperature by measurable degrees but not these craggy bluffs. I'd like to find a way to get there in daylight sometime, both bus and train go through at night.
Feb 8
Tieing the string.
Ram's wedding was scheduled by the local Pandit who determined that 1:14 AM was the most auspicious moment to begin the ceremony. First there was a short Bride's pooga where the brides family presented Ram with gifts and anointed him with perfume in the grooms preparation chambers. Then the whole company went outside onto the patio and had dinner. Attendants decorated a three sided structure like a large puppet theater stage with strings of blossoms. Ram and Jostnah sat in this structure and people brought them presents.
As the appointed time approached, tables were cleared away and people moved their chairs in front of the stage. The bride and the Pandit and his associate seated themselves in the theater. First the brides relatives came with a big box filled with jewelers cases and hung strand after strand of gold chain, necklaces, rings and golden bangles on the bride. They filled her lap with every agricultural product the region produces and gave her clothing and other presents. Then when she went off. Ram came onto the stage and the brides parents held a loop of string which Ram slipped over his head and arm. Ram's father passed up another silver string and Ram slipped that on too. The bride came back in another magnificent sari and the gift giving and chanting of prayers continued. Both Ram and Jostnah had a thick paste of turmeric pressed down on the top of their heads. Then both left the stage again and after a short while, to a fanfare of trumpets Ram arrived back, looking like a mogul princeling in his gold striped caftan and Jostnah soon afterwards in another amazing sari of white cotton.
The first part of the ceremony appeared to have more to do with the relationships the two families were negotiating with each other. The second part was about the bride and groom. They poured buckets of rice and flower petals over each others heads and then plates of different kinds and colours of foil confetti and light plastic balls until the stage must have been at least an inch deep in all this colorful melange. Wedding guests tossed handfuls of rice on the newly wedded pair. Then they were both adorned with the large traditional bridal garlands. After many photos and prayers a fire was lit in a shallow metal basin and Ram lead his bride in the traditional seven steps around the fire. It was a very moving moment. Space was so tight in that little puppet stage that Ram had to bend far forward to avoid hitting his head on the low ceiling and Jostnah had to keep her sari skirts very tightly gathered to avoid dragging them into the fire in the tight confines of the stage. You could see how tightly they were holding on to each other as the flimsy floor of the structure flexed under their weight. Seemed the very metaphor of the perils of modern marriage to me. Young people do have to hang on very tight to each other in these times. All this took until after four in the morning. I considered it a great privilege and honor to have been invited. I began to sense something of the depth and age of Indian culture. Any one of these rituals could have been "the" ceremony at one time, but like everything in India the present is constantly layered over the past and all exist in the present in complex and subtle interrelationships.
The next day the company met again for another papoose with the grooms parents and the newly wedded pair, breakfast and farewells. Many of the overseas guests who had originally come for Ram's wedding had run out of time off from their jobs when Ram's wedding had been preopted for Grandmothers funeral, so Ram and his family had canceled the formal reception and opted for some simple family time at the family home in Tiruputi, before Ram and Jostnah had to go to Delhi to finalize Jostnah's Canadian immigration application.
Feb 9
Journey home
I contemplated taking the local train to Gunter that evening and seeing if I could catch the high tech bus I came on, on it's run back to Puttaparthi, but I liked my hotel room in Tenali so I decided just to get an early start instead. I asked for a five o'clock morning call so I could catch the 5:30 train to Gunter. Bad call. Seven o'clock I wake up. No wake up call at five. Oh, well, I'd go down to Gunter anyway and hang around. There would be some bus leaving in the evening, to Anantapur if not to Puttaparthi. It would be easy to get local transportation from Anantapur. So down to the station, quick stop for chai at the tea stall I had scoped out the previous evening, and on to the train station. Then things get weird.
I plunk down my seven rupees and ask for a ticket to Gunter. The guy behind the glass says it costs 21 rupees because this one is express. He directs me to track four. The train will be there at 8:00. I wait by track four and sure enough a train comes along. Sardine time, morning rush hour, barely room to breath, but that's ok, this is an express and its a short run. Only, it is stopping at every two bit local railway shack, and there seem to be a lot more of them than I expected. Can't see much, I'm standing and the view from the window doesn't show much more than a bit of gravel. Then the view from the window shows me water through rail trestles. Water for a long, long way. This is not Gunter. This is Krishna Canal just outside of Vijayawada! Asshole ticket seller and his crummy practical jokes. Oh well Vijayawada will work too. Just get a bus to Anantapur from here. So that's what I do, reserve a ticket with one of the independent companies running luxury Volvo buses, because after my trip up here I have a real craving for Air Suspension, hold the movie. I get lunch and hole up in a cheap but seedy hotel room for a couple hours of sleep because I know I won't be able to sleep on the bus. Then back through what I am beginning to think of as the enchanted forest in the cool dark night. At least on this bus the window doesn't rattle open with the vibration. I don't have too jam a folded up magazine between the panes to keep it closed. The air is quite cold out there. By morning we are out of the hills and stop to unload most of the passengers and the several tons of stuff the bus is carrying on it's roof in the only major town between Anantapur and the forest.
As I expected the local bus to Puttaparthi from Anantapur is easy, the guy behind the counter sees my white face and cheerily chirps "Puttaparthi, right?" Right. The bus is leaving in an hour. I'm surprised by how ramshackle all of Anantapur I have been able to see is. State Capital, you would expect some impressive public buildings at least, some paved streets maybe.But not here. This dusty place reminds me of something out of an old western film, a broken down collection of buildings at the end of a long dusty road. Even little Tenali was more impressive than this. I am in the fire lands of Andrah Pradesh again.
The day before I left to go north the first time all the merchants in Puttaparthi had staged a general strike and rolled their steel shutters down for the morning, turning the town into a ghost town. When I asked what was happening I was told that there is a lot of pressure in Andhra Pradesh to split apart. Rich Andhra wants to shed it's responsibility to poor cousins in the rain shadow. I can understand why now. Sai Babba spoke out against partition. Some people were quite incensed at his temerity in involving himself in politics. Putaparthi is an anomaly in this part of India. It is India Disneyland, a frothy pink theme park perched in a semi desert of dry arroyos; an oasis of wealth and plenty in the middle of the poorest part of the most poverty stricken state of India; or perhaps it is quintessentially Indian, an Indian wedding in a ruinous old temple, bright silks against broken stone. Twenty years ago it didn't exist. Baba is eighty two. How long will it last when Babba isn't in residence at the Ashram?
Nevertheless I am very happy to get back to my cool clean bare apartment again, such a relief to just stop vibrating at last.
Lands of fire, Lands of water.
Ram's wedding celebration got back on track early last week. His e-mail came to late for me to get a train reservation so I took the only bus going that direction, the High Tech bus from Puttaparthi to Vijayawada. I wondered at the name. Turns out High Tech means the bus has a TV screen on which to show movies. I would certainly have traded that for a decent suspension.
Thanks to my trip of the previous week I knew that it was just a short local run from there to Tenali, scene of the function. We left at dusk and headed straight north up the centre of India towards Anantapur the state capital. The air was very murky, more smoke and pollution than usual, and I soon found out why. We passed an entire mountainside ablaze, shedding great clouds of black soot into the air. I had always wondered why the Norse called dragons worms. Worms have always suggested more water than fire to me, till I saw this entire mountain infested with crawling fire worms. In the gathering gloom and heat the dry Andhra Pradesh landscape was like something a medieval painter might have used to suggest the environs of hell.
I dozed off and when I woke again, we were climbing and climbing, steep switchback turns on a narrow track where the bus had to slow right down to negotiate a passage with every other goods truck and bus on the road. We were hemmed in on both sides by deep impenetrable forest and from what little I could see by the light of the full moon long forested ridges stretched out as far as I could see. Soon we were over this escarpment and as dawn lightened the sky I could see the land had flattened out. Mile after mile of deep green lush paddy fields interspersed with coconut palms. We are in the wet, rich part of Andrha Pradesh.
I realized later we must have crossed the Eastern Ghats and that these cast a long rain shadow across the centre of India and the western part of Andrha Pradesh in particular. Going east toward Bangalore from Puttaparthi there is a substantial rise in elevation that lowers the temperature by measurable degrees but not these craggy bluffs. I'd like to find a way to get there in daylight sometime, both bus and train go through at night.
Feb 8
Tieing the string.
Ram's wedding was scheduled by the local Pandit who determined that 1:14 AM was the most auspicious moment to begin the ceremony. First there was a short Bride's pooga where the brides family presented Ram with gifts and anointed him with perfume in the grooms preparation chambers. Then the whole company went outside onto the patio and had dinner. Attendants decorated a three sided structure like a large puppet theater stage with strings of blossoms. Ram and Jostnah sat in this structure and people brought them presents.
As the appointed time approached, tables were cleared away and people moved their chairs in front of the stage. The bride and the Pandit and his associate seated themselves in the theater. First the brides relatives came with a big box filled with jewelers cases and hung strand after strand of gold chain, necklaces, rings and golden bangles on the bride. They filled her lap with every agricultural product the region produces and gave her clothing and other presents. Then when she went off. Ram came onto the stage and the brides parents held a loop of string which Ram slipped over his head and arm. Ram's father passed up another silver string and Ram slipped that on too. The bride came back in another magnificent sari and the gift giving and chanting of prayers continued. Both Ram and Jostnah had a thick paste of turmeric pressed down on the top of their heads. Then both left the stage again and after a short while, to a fanfare of trumpets Ram arrived back, looking like a mogul princeling in his gold striped caftan and Jostnah soon afterwards in another amazing sari of white cotton.
The first part of the ceremony appeared to have more to do with the relationships the two families were negotiating with each other. The second part was about the bride and groom. They poured buckets of rice and flower petals over each others heads and then plates of different kinds and colours of foil confetti and light plastic balls until the stage must have been at least an inch deep in all this colorful melange. Wedding guests tossed handfuls of rice on the newly wedded pair. Then they were both adorned with the large traditional bridal garlands. After many photos and prayers a fire was lit in a shallow metal basin and Ram lead his bride in the traditional seven steps around the fire. It was a very moving moment. Space was so tight in that little puppet stage that Ram had to bend far forward to avoid hitting his head on the low ceiling and Jostnah had to keep her sari skirts very tightly gathered to avoid dragging them into the fire in the tight confines of the stage. You could see how tightly they were holding on to each other as the flimsy floor of the structure flexed under their weight. Seemed the very metaphor of the perils of modern marriage to me. Young people do have to hang on very tight to each other in these times. All this took until after four in the morning. I considered it a great privilege and honor to have been invited. I began to sense something of the depth and age of Indian culture. Any one of these rituals could have been "the" ceremony at one time, but like everything in India the present is constantly layered over the past and all exist in the present in complex and subtle interrelationships.
The next day the company met again for another papoose with the grooms parents and the newly wedded pair, breakfast and farewells. Many of the overseas guests who had originally come for Ram's wedding had run out of time off from their jobs when Ram's wedding had been preopted for Grandmothers funeral, so Ram and his family had canceled the formal reception and opted for some simple family time at the family home in Tiruputi, before Ram and Jostnah had to go to Delhi to finalize Jostnah's Canadian immigration application.
Feb 9
Journey home
I contemplated taking the local train to Gunter that evening and seeing if I could catch the high tech bus I came on, on it's run back to Puttaparthi, but I liked my hotel room in Tenali so I decided just to get an early start instead. I asked for a five o'clock morning call so I could catch the 5:30 train to Gunter. Bad call. Seven o'clock I wake up. No wake up call at five. Oh, well, I'd go down to Gunter anyway and hang around. There would be some bus leaving in the evening, to Anantapur if not to Puttaparthi. It would be easy to get local transportation from Anantapur. So down to the station, quick stop for chai at the tea stall I had scoped out the previous evening, and on to the train station. Then things get weird.
I plunk down my seven rupees and ask for a ticket to Gunter. The guy behind the glass says it costs 21 rupees because this one is express. He directs me to track four. The train will be there at 8:00. I wait by track four and sure enough a train comes along. Sardine time, morning rush hour, barely room to breath, but that's ok, this is an express and its a short run. Only, it is stopping at every two bit local railway shack, and there seem to be a lot more of them than I expected. Can't see much, I'm standing and the view from the window doesn't show much more than a bit of gravel. Then the view from the window shows me water through rail trestles. Water for a long, long way. This is not Gunter. This is Krishna Canal just outside of Vijayawada! Asshole ticket seller and his crummy practical jokes. Oh well Vijayawada will work too. Just get a bus to Anantapur from here. So that's what I do, reserve a ticket with one of the independent companies running luxury Volvo buses, because after my trip up here I have a real craving for Air Suspension, hold the movie. I get lunch and hole up in a cheap but seedy hotel room for a couple hours of sleep because I know I won't be able to sleep on the bus. Then back through what I am beginning to think of as the enchanted forest in the cool dark night. At least on this bus the window doesn't rattle open with the vibration. I don't have too jam a folded up magazine between the panes to keep it closed. The air is quite cold out there. By morning we are out of the hills and stop to unload most of the passengers and the several tons of stuff the bus is carrying on it's roof in the only major town between Anantapur and the forest.
As I expected the local bus to Puttaparthi from Anantapur is easy, the guy behind the counter sees my white face and cheerily chirps "Puttaparthi, right?" Right. The bus is leaving in an hour. I'm surprised by how ramshackle all of Anantapur I have been able to see is. State Capital, you would expect some impressive public buildings at least, some paved streets maybe.But not here. This dusty place reminds me of something out of an old western film, a broken down collection of buildings at the end of a long dusty road. Even little Tenali was more impressive than this. I am in the fire lands of Andrah Pradesh again.
The day before I left to go north the first time all the merchants in Puttaparthi had staged a general strike and rolled their steel shutters down for the morning, turning the town into a ghost town. When I asked what was happening I was told that there is a lot of pressure in Andhra Pradesh to split apart. Rich Andhra wants to shed it's responsibility to poor cousins in the rain shadow. I can understand why now. Sai Babba spoke out against partition. Some people were quite incensed at his temerity in involving himself in politics. Putaparthi is an anomaly in this part of India. It is India Disneyland, a frothy pink theme park perched in a semi desert of dry arroyos; an oasis of wealth and plenty in the middle of the poorest part of the most poverty stricken state of India; or perhaps it is quintessentially Indian, an Indian wedding in a ruinous old temple, bright silks against broken stone. Twenty years ago it didn't exist. Baba is eighty two. How long will it last when Babba isn't in residence at the Ashram?
Nevertheless I am very happy to get back to my cool clean bare apartment again, such a relief to just stop vibrating at last.
Saturday, February 3, 2007
When all hell breaks loose
No sooner do I get back to Puttaparthi and get my Internet connection re-established than I find that CIBC bank account has been raided. I don't like doing banking on other peoples machines so I hadn't checked any of my accounts for the time I was away. Very unpleasant surprise.
Anyways, I only had current income in that account, I keep my investment and savings in other banks so they only got one month's income and I've got the necessary processes underway to direct my income to other banks and set up other ways to access funds in India. Amazing what you can do on line these days, both good and bad. Luckily I had sent money to Remi for my trip so they didn't get that. The only real problem other than loosing the money is; that was the only Canadian ATM card I had found worked in any Indian ATM, sometimes, otherwise I would have closed that account long ago, CIBC is the pits when it comes to customer service..
So it's been a busy time slaving over the old Internet and firing off frantic e-mails to my son to go over to my apartment and give the super some cash because the rent cheque was about to bounce. Worst possible time for it to happen. Ram is in India too or I could have had him sort it out. Anyways, done the necessary to cauterize the wound. Now I just have to figure out how to get some cash into India for this month. State Bank is probably going to be slow, India doesn't do Internet banking yet and it takes a long time to get bits of paper across the ocean. Hate to do it but I'll probably have to get my son to send me some money by Western Union. Remi got a little warning that they are going after his account also, his son Mark had some really good suggestions for things that you can do on the Internet. The guy is quite the resource. Remi is a lot more vulnerable than me, he doesn't have very much income even by Indian standards.
So his paranoia has substantial grounds in fact. I still think it's a waste of good energy to grouse about it all the time.
Anyways, despite the money hassle it's been good to get back, hang out with friends, go to the library. Been trying to find venues in my home town where I can sell my stuff for the summer, a couple of music fairs will do, instead of just relying on word of mouth, e-bay and home sales. Want to pick up the pace a bit. Found some lovely soft and warm wool shawls in lovely pastel shades at a reasonable price for my Canadian customers who are not in the least impressed with super thin pashminas, not even if they are very nicely embroidered. Even in summer evenings get cool.
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