One of the less documented aspects of travel is the weather! The grandeur of ancient building, the glamour of nightlife, the aroma of food and the diversity of local culture for obvious reasons take a precedence over the oh so boring weather for most travel bloggers (me included...and I know I am shamelessly giving too much respect to my silly posts by categorizing myself :)). But isn't experiencing 115◦F heat just as memorable as seeing Taj Mahal for an Alaskan?? :) Or Snow for a South East Asian.
This was beautiful!!! In this day and age of $18 IMAX experience....thankfully the best visuals still are free and not animated!
I have had better starts to a new year than this!! Just got back from warm and sunny Kerala to a wet and cold NYC and to add to my misery ...it sucks at work right now. But I aint bothering my accidental reader with all that. Let me think up something else to write about.
They call it ‘God's Own country’ …my little native state of Kerala, India. Its green, fertile, beautiful and was named as one of the "ten paradises of the world" and "50 places of a lifetime" by the National Geographic Traveler magazine. It’s also has one of the highest standards of living in India, highest literacy rates, high life expectancy, low infant mortality, highest per capita consumption of alcohol (YAY!!), etc etc. I can go on but honestly I got no right to brag considering how little time I have spent there (having grown up all over India). And besides it’s easier to look it up on wiki or something. That will give you the bad side as well coz I conveniently will forget to mention that bit :)
One of the more fascinating aspects of the state though is its economy. Well it’ essentially was an agricultural society and that should come as no surprise considering the amount of rain it gets (touchwood!) but it has now moved towards the Service sector. But as any Malu (short form for Malayali {native Keralites}…fondly {hopefully!} used in urban India) will tell you, as will countless articles on the web, one of the significant contributors to the Kerala economy is what they call the Non Resident Keralite (NRK) styled after the Non Resident Indian. He / she (very likely a she…and very likely a nurse!) sends a mind boggling amount of foreign remittance back home (Social scientists on the web call it the ‘Money Order’ economy) and build fancy houses that their old parents struggle to maintain (since maids are not as common a phenomenon as some other parts of India…I think it’s the prohibitive labour costs), buys land and of course gold. Nothing wrong with it. After all that’s the reason they went abroad in the first place. Financial security for themselves and their loved ones.
But I saw something quite remarkable this time I was back home. No our neighbors’ did not add a third floor to their 4000 square feet house!! A fine Indian American doctor by the name of Dr. Jose C Mantil sponsored a new state of the art school building for the village which I was told must have cost him over half a million dollars. Apparently Dr.Mantil’s father was the first principal of the school and he himself a student. Half a million dollars is a lot of money in any country and at any stage of your life. Even if there is an emotional attachment (like Dr. Mantil clearly has) rarely do Non Resident Keralites, Non Resident Indians or Non Resident Anywheres part with such large sums of money. I am not judging them but think about it. Dr.Mantil could have easily bought his kids a Cadillac each. Or done something else most of us would do. But he did not and that calls for a Thank you even though I never studied in the school and barely know anybody in the village except immediate family.
What was also interesting was that the school organized a Cultural parade around the village. Now it wasn’t exactly like the one in Rio or Macy’s but it was interesting to watch :) The school is run by some Catholic priests but the parade included traditional attire from all religions. I thought that was pretty cool. My mom woke me up from my afternoon nap and made me run half a mile just to make sure I get the event on camera :) I though it was good enough to post it in Youtube. I skipped the whole opening ceremony bit as soon as the local politicians started rambling but was told later that some old village football stars were also honored. Apparently football used to be pretty big in the village at one time. OK…that explains something!!!!
Google induced after thought fact: Per the World Bank, India has retained its position as the highest recipient of global remittance flow at $52 billion in 2008. China, Mexico and Philippines are 2,3 and 4. Kerala accounts for almost a fifth of all NRI remittances.
So I am watching more cricket today. Test match (5 day!) cricket that does NOT involve India. USA vs. Mexico! OK I am kidding :) It’s the Aussies vs. West Indies (a.k.a Caribbean for all my American friends). I don’t follow cricket as closely (I mean every game :)) as I used to before I started traveling. I didn’t realize that until just now. I just saw something on TV that I have always wanted to see in cricket. Actually for all sports. Decision Review System!
Here’s what happened. Windies are chasing 359 runs in the second innings. 5 wickets down. Probably down to the last two batsmen that can make a match of it. Ramdin is given leg before wicket on a ball that clearly is going down the leg side!! Back in the day he would have walked away grudgingly shaking his head and the Aussies would go on the wrap the tail within the next hour (they still might!). But wait a second! He appeals against the decision and the third umpire rightly overrules the original decision of asking the batsman to walk. Isn’t that great?? I have always thought the argument against technology in sport (holds the game up, takes out the human element, blah, blah, blah) is a truckload of bullshit! What really matters is ensuring that the best team / player wins fair and square. American football (from whatever I understand of it!) uses television replay. Among the more globally watched sports, tennis was an early adopter and I think it’s become a whole lot fairer!
The one sport that really needs to do more is football or soccer. It my favorite sport and honestly FIFA’s attitude towards technology and any form of experimentation leaves much to be desired. Why am I being nice to them?? Stepp Blatter and Co. are a bigger ‘bunch of jokers’ than the much maligned (right so, may I add) Indian cricket team selectors. Of course I am going to use the Thierry Henry incident as a case in point (very original huh?? :)). It’s as good an example as there is to show how a little bit of technology (that already was in place!) would have made sure the deserving team went through to the World Cup. There are hundreds of other instances, minor in comparison to the incident I just described but significant in the context of the game, where existing technology would have ensured fans who pay to watch the game are not going back home with a bitter taste in their mouth (I am not referring to the stale lager!). Think about it. If you follow soccer how many times have you seen a faked dive in the penalty box, a ball that crossed the goal line but was allegedly ‘cleared’, a punch in the face without provocation when the ball was not in play or a howler of an offside decision. Hundreds of thousands of time. It can be argued that the cameras don’t cover all angles and the ‘TV umpire’ may not be in a position to decide. Fair enough. Then let the original decision made by the umpire on the pitch stay. All I am trying to say is that if technology makes it fairer than what it is today I don’t mind waiting a couple of minutes extra while the game is held up. I don’t think most people do (I won’t vouch for the French:)). Here’s hoping for a fairer and cleaner World Cup winner.
I am back home for Christmas...doing what most honorable Indians do when they have time to kill…watch batsmen number 5 & 6 try and resurrect the innings after an all too familiar top order collapse. Actually I shouldn’t say that. They have become more consistent over they last couple of years except maybe Shewag but then that’s a given. We just have to live with the way he is!!
But I’ll tell you what I can’t live with. Men’s fairness cream advertisement. No it’s not about the fact that these tend to be aired mostly between two perfectly entertaining overs. It’s the whole fricking concept of fairness cream. Which other country in the world sell this rubbish??? And that too for Men!! No I didn’t just discover them. They have existed for years. But what really pisses me off, now more that ever, is that I see Bollywood stars endorsing it. The last one hour has been as much a battle of John Abraham vs Shahrukh Khan endorsing their preferred brand of Men’s fairness cream as bat vs ball.
Shahrukh Khan!!! This articulate and well read (apparently!) Bollywood star expects a white American immigration officer (who probably hasn’t watched a Hollywood movie in years!) to recognize him and not apply the unfortunate but very real ‘racial profiling’ standards applied to hundreds of thousands of Muslims who dare travel internationally. “Racism” screamed the Indian media. Even India’s home minister pitched in! I am certainly not condoning the detention at Newark airport but to expect a US immigration office to recognize Shahrukh Khan is weirder than to expect an Indian immigration officer to recognize Matt Damon! Angelina might pass though :)
Coming back to the point I was trying to make. It’s absurd to see Shahrukh Khan in these ads. Why? Because it’s a product that originates from an underlying racist mentality. And for someone of his influence over young minds to endorse a product that quite blatantly implies that there is something wrong with being born dark skinned is shocking!! It shows how self serving his tirade against racial profiling in the US was. And that no amount of fairness cream will make him white enough to get through immigration.
Yankees are the finest, bravest and winning-est team in baseball history said a T-shirt. I wouldn’t know coz I obviously don’t follow baseball. Not much at least. I’ll watch if you buy me beer. Maybe. But its impossible not to get sucked into the excitement of it all in NYC when Yankees are playing the Phillies (its like India vs Pakistan or Utd vs City…we are neighbors…how can we possibly get along?? :):)) for the World Series. Yes the World Series!! This one I will never get. How can you call it the World Series when it’s just American teams playing in Major League Baseball?? We should do this back home. The year Kolkata Knight Riders win IPL…we should just call them World Champions. F@#$ the Aussies :):)
Anyway we were talking about the Yankees. They won their 27th World Series and boy do New Yorkers know how to celebrate!!! It incredible. Two days after the win was the victory parade on what is called the ‘Canyon of Heroes’. Basically the stretch from Battery Park to City Hall through Broadway. Right through Financial District…in between all those offices…during a weekday!!! Wow. We need more of this stuff. I missed three subway trains on Grand Central just coz I could not get onto one!! It was 8 something in the morning and it looked like the whole of New York was heading downtown. I was the only one not wearing a Yankees jersey or a cap in my coach! When I walked out at Wall St. station the crown was overwhelming. And the parade wasn’t even gonna start till 11 AM. Crazy. I had to walk two blocks towards Battery Park before the cops let me cross Broadway.
Of course I got a little bit of work done (Yes I am implying that I did work…despite the hoopla and excitement...) but stepped out around 11. I didn’t get to see much from where I was standing but I must confess I felt part of the crowd. Victory parades are the same everywhere I guess. They don’t care if you follow the sport. Or the team. Or if you watched every pitch. It’s all about celebrating a special moment. And hope that you can do again. Next season :):)
She posed for me, not once but four times! New York City Halloweeen Parade
Hola Halloween! Last time I was out on Halloween night was in Austin, Texas two years ago. Fair number of UT students in costumes and an equal number of onlookers walking up and down 6th street doing shots. There was no Halloween parade like here in NY. Or maybe there was and I probably missed it. Anyway revelry of such kind is unheard (‘unseen’ maybe the right word) of back in India. Oh…how exciting it would have been, back in college (still is!), to watch pretty ladies 'walk' out your fantasies. Nurses, Robo cops or Vampires. Whatever you are into!! :):) Or even candies from the most stuck up neighbors when you are kids. But seriously it’s incredible to see adults dress down and have such fun. Hola Halloween!
