Travelogue: My trip to United States of America

Foreign trips are great learning experience if your eyes, ears and minds are open else it may appear a trip through a stolid country side. United Kingdom was the first foreign country that i visited (in Dec 2007), i was relatively green and impressionable and justifiably impressioned by the neat and clean cities of London, Winchester and Belfast and professionalism of Britons. I made good number of friends out there, i was a private individual working for a British firm so the responsibilities were not significant.

This month (7th to 21st June)  i traveled to USA on an Official Passport of the Government of India and as an Official of the Government of India and this resulted in a different kind of experience both inside and outside of Airport. We found US Immigration Officials very friendly and they did not even take our fingerprints (any unexpected privilege or right raises the level of ego). Our first stop was at Chicago; we (Myself, Aman, Ravi, Arun, Sanjay, Anurag) were joined by Yashasvi, Nidhi and Amrita at breathtaking Millennium Park in the heart of city. WY (We + Yashasvi) then minutely explored the coast of Lake Michigan at a level that can shame even the likes of Holmes. WY found the place where Great Swami Vivekananda gave enthralling speech at World Parliament of religion in 1893. The old building had been renovated many times; without even asking about Vivekananda the old lady official of the museum gave us the document containing that famous speech :)

From Chicago we moved to Riverside where we had 2 weeks of study program organized by University of California with site visits to Federal Reserve - LA, Transit Agency, Hollywood, Getty Museum and the District Attorney Office. WY-1 enjoyed every evening with shopping in different stores (Walmart, Target, Ontario Mills etc) and we became very close to each other. We also skipped one night to see Las Vegas from close quarter :)

There were 5 highlights of the tour:

Re-selection of our comrades in Civil Services of India

The camaraderie of WY-1

National Anthem rendition at District Attorney Office

The Shopping spree 

Chicago exploration

The tour ended on a sad note with the departing of IDAS friends to their Pune Academy. In last 6 months i came very close to IDAS guys and made some very good friends and i will surely miss their company, their discussions and above all their sheer presence in classroom, library, mess and in sports complex. Friends, i will miss you all.

Book Review [71] : In an Antique Land

I never read Amitav Ghosh before but heard about his novels like Sea of Poppies, River of Smoke etc. His genre is mainly historic fiction and travelogue.

In an Antique Land is one of his earliest non-fiction works, mainly records his stay in the hinterland of Egypt in the 1980s and his research on Jewish merchants and their Malabar/Mangalore connections. Throughout this book, Egyptians make fun of his culture, religion and customs by asking silly questions like -- "Does he burn his deads, does he worship cows, does he circumcise?" and Amitav Ghosh finds extremely difficult to explain the peculiarities of his faith and sometimes he becomes too apologetic about his faith to easy going but ignorant, parochial and insular Egyptians. In so many ways Egyptians in this book are similar to the rural Indians. Certainly ancient civilizations have some common genetic disorder.

I never thought that Misri (name of crystalline sugar in north India) is called after Misr (Arabic name for Egypt) in northern India. The two ancient civilizations that were so close 500 years ago are  too distant now. Egyptians are completely unaware of any religion apart from Islam, Judaism and Christianity, and any tradition/culture apart from middle east culture, but on other hand they are very welcoming and friendly. Their ancestors were great traders and agile persons and one single family could have members living in Sicily, Aden, Egypt and Mangalore (as this book informs us).

Recommended (7/10)

Book Review [67] : Where China Meets India

First of all let me make one statement, we Indians are still an insular nationality and in all these past centuries we have learned nothing even from our own mistakes, Al Beruni was spot on when he made that particular accusation on Indians in 11th century AD.

In last decade or so, many business leaders, writers, journalists etc have written a large number of books about the "economic development" of China and India, some writers have exaggerated it while some rare breeds have even crossed the wildest limit of exaggeration, declaring that China and India will dominate the world in next 3-4 decades and hegemony of US and West will end decisively by next 40 years. Truth as always lives very far from the home of exaggeration, both countries are damn poor although China is far ahead of India but there are structural fissures in the economic growth of India and in the political and economic growth of China. It will take atleast half a century for China to reach upto the level of the prosperity of an average American and for India even a century looks too short. The population of these countries gurantees that one day these countries will rule the world (if they remain as two countries) but that day is yet too far. 

 

'Where China Meets India' by M. Thant is a very pragmatic survey of the history, culture, ethnicity and future significance of three major regions of South East Asia - North East India, Yunan and Myanmar. These three regions contain perhaps the greatest diversity of language, ethnicity, religion and wild life, and is the heart of the four great river systems of Asia - Brahmaputra, Mekong, Irrawaddy, and Yangtze, perhaps nature is playing a great game out here and telling India, China and Myanmar in her own way to learn the ways of peaceful co-operation and development.

Myint-U Thant starts his journey from Myanmar, he covers Rangoon, Mandelay and then reaches the trouble spots of Myanmar, the hilly region dominated by the Shan, Kachin tribes. He then moves to Yunan and covers various aspects of its history, culture and development. In the end he travels to NE India and covers the insurgency and military rule prone Manipur. According to him and i wholeheartedly agree, that development of North East India can only happen by co-operation with neighbouring regions of Myanmar, Yunan and also Bangladesh. In 1947 North East India was connected to China, Bangladesh and Myanmar, and its per capita income was higher that of Indian average; After 15th August 1947 this region lost connectivity to Bangladesh and later to Myanmar and China, this region also got engulfed in worse kind of violent insurgencies and this tragic process resulted in its becoming poorer than the rest of India. Yunan was worse than NE India in 1947 now its miles ahead of NE India and Myanmar played a key role in the development of Yunan through its natural resources and trade (and ofcourse the focus of China) . We should take a page from the Chinese book, no harm in learning even from the enemies. Look east is a good start but miles to go before we reach there. 

We need to start reading and learning about this region in a def-con 1 mode.
I have not read a better book on this region.

 

Highly recommended (8/10)

A Pilgrimage

When i read "Rahul Sankrityan" essay on the lack of travel spirit among Indians, it immediately touched my deepest part and since then i have been trying to travel and explore new places by defining and redefining my own priorities. This weekend I made a holy pilgrimage to the sacred town of Trimbakeshwar in Nasik district. This holy town hosts one of the 12 Jyotirlingas spread across the Indian subcontinent (I have prayed at 3 Jyotirlingas so far: Kashi Vishwanath, Rameshwaram and Trimbakeshwar) and i believe by the grace of Gods i will cover all the 12 Jyotirlingas in my life time. The Pundits of this place are expert in conducting Pooja to remove Kalsarpa Dosha, Rahu Shanti, Pitra Dosha etc. I went there mainly to have Kalsarpa Dosha Pooja done for me and Rahu Shanti for my brother. It was a great experience but i have only one guilt that its very difficult to control one's mind in Kalyug, Pooja needs concentration and devoutness, somewhere i lack both in varying intensity. 

According to tradition, Rishi Gautama did penance to get rid of heinous 'Pap' of cow-killing and in that process he pleased the holy trinity, God Shankara agreed to let loose Holy Ganges from his hair knot to Brahmagiri range, thus Godavari started her descent. Because of the same reason Godavari is known as Ganges of the south. The garbhagriha of this temple hosts the holy trinity (Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesha) in the form of lingas. The current temple is in black stone and was built by Peshwa Balaji Baji Rao (1740-1761). Kushawat kund is very close to the temple and it is widely believed that Godawari originates from his holy area. 

Its not very difficult to reach Trimbakeshwar from Bangalore. First you have to reach Kalyan/Manmad from Bangalore by train, then you have to take bus/train from Kalyan/Manman to Nasik, and then a bus from Nasik to this holy town. Go there to see the beauty of your culture, the sacredness of your religion, devoutness of the devotees and the knowledge of the pundits.

 

Book Review [28] : From the Holy Mountain

 From the Holy Mountain written by William Dalrymple is an elaborately written classic on the rise and fall of Christianity and Christian monastic order in the Byzantine, Ottoman and modern world. He follows the trail of famous monk John Moschos who wrote about the status of Christianity in the 6th century Byzantine world. 

Christianity as we all know was founded in the desert of Palestine in the early years of 1st millennium AD. It suffered a lot of persecution by "Pagan Rome" as well by Persian Empire. After being declared a sort of state religion by the Roman Emperor Constantine in early 4th century, this religion never looked back. The western Roman empire (with seat of power at Rome) was decimated by Germans in 476 AD. The eastern Roman Empire (also known as Byzantine empire, with its capital at Constantinople/Istanbul) carried on till 1453 when it was conquered by Ottoman Turks. Christianity in middle east flourished in the Byzantine empire period at the expense of Pagan beliefs and temples. A large number of monasteries were established with a great army of monks and saints. Alexandria, Edessa, Urfa, Constantinople, Asyut etc became great centers of learning. With the arrival of Islam situation changed gradually. 

Earlier Christians considered Islam as a heretic Christian sect but with the coming of Crusades in 11-12 centuries situation turned violent and clashed started to erupt between these two great religions. Ottoman Turks gave a lot of stability to the region but Christianity lost the status of state religion.The situation took dangerous turn when almost 1.5 million Armenian Christians were massacred by the "guiltless" Turks in 1915. The transfer of Greeks and Turks after 1923 declined the population of Christians in Anatolia to less than 1%. Anatolia (Asian part of Turkey) was the heartland of Christianity before the rise of Turks now Christianity in Turkey is as insignificant as a fly in a gallon of water and worse they are caught in the war between Turks and Kurds. The Turks are systematically destroying the ancient churches and monasteries in now an overwhelmingly Muslim land. 

After visiting Turkey, William travels to Syria and here he finds that Syrian Christians are living in quite comfortable situation in the reign of President Asad. The Syrian Orthodox Church is one the oldest Churches of Christianity and this church has no relation with  he Roman Catholic Church, same is true for Greek Orthodox Church. Lebanon is the next place to visit for William. The civil war has just finished and the war has destroyed the power of once powerful Maronites Christians. This war has witnessed one of the most gory display of brutalities and genocides. Still the thirst for blood is far from over. In the course of war about 30% of Maronites Christians emigrated abroad. The situation of Christians in Israel is only minutely better from their Muslims counterparts. The Jews settlers are systematically destroying the ancient churches and monasteries and building buildings for the settles by illegally occupying the land of Christians, by exercising their Biblical right of the promised land. Palestinians after living for roughly 2000 years were being made refugees in their own land. Egypt is the final destination for William. He starts with Alexandria. Gamal Abdel Nasser converted cosmopolitan city of Alexandria (founded by Alexander of Macedon in 4th century BC) from a Mediterranean looking city to an inward desert looking city by expelling its soul from the body. The city once dominated by Greeks now can count them using few sticks. Egypt is witnessing the rise of fundamentalism and once again Christianity is paying price.Their churches are getting attacked at a regular pace by the extremists without any help coming from the state.

The only country that looks promising to Christians is Syria but its only the matter of time for fundamentalism to take roots in this Levantine country. Time is not  too far when this great religion will be devoid from the status of a living religion in the middle east. Overall this book is a class work and should be read to salute the tolerant society of the past and to create one in  present and future. 
Recommended (7/10)