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shine on you crazy diamond
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| The Balkans |
[Sep. 26th, 2009|07:54 pm] |
What is your greatest takeaway from this learning journey?
The most striking thing for me about this short trip is not the frustrating Cyrillic street signs of Belgrade or the loud, gruff manner of speaking. Nor was it the rocky beaches, sandwiched between the imposing rocky mountains and the clear and serene Adriatic. Nor was it the edginess of Belgrade or the contrasts of Sarajevo. Nor was it the food, from the mussels cooked in white wine and freshly grilled sea bream in Budva, to Sarajevo cevapi, little balls of rolled meat grilled and covered in pita bread, with a dollop of kajmak, probably the best condiment ever created for a kebab. Nor was it the bitter taste of Turkish coffee pretending to be Serbian and Bosnian. Nor was it our futile 20 minute, 10 pound cab ride to Lukavica Autobus Stanica in East New Sarajevo, nestled in Republic Sprska, in a bid to find a bus that goes to Budva, only to find that all buses had stopped after summer. Nor was it making an unplanned overnight stop in touristy Dubrovnik, a massive theme park not unlike Venice, featuring hordes of Australian, European, British and American tourists. Nor was it the walk through the cemetery for Bosnian war dead in Sarajevo, all deceased before they were fifty, skirting around clean white marble tombstones, most featuring the star and crescent, and all, the fleur de lis.
Instead, it is the cigarette. If there is one thing that unites the peoples of the former Yugoslavia, it is the cigarette in hand. The Balkans means smokey cafes and bars, smokey restaurants, smokey bus stops, smokey city squares. Being in the Balkans makes one feel like lighting up all the time - indeed the people do, be they Serbs, Bosnians, Croats or Montenegrins. |
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| Work |
[Aug. 25th, 2009|10:14 pm] |
If Singapore had an equivalent of All Souls, and if there was an all purpose entrance exam, I can think of a question that I would like to set:
"Lee Kuan Yew is to Singapore as Cristiano Ronaldo is to Man United." Discuss.
Work has been pretty good. I google lots, read lots of Stuff, and learn things that intrigue, reassure and startle. I will be leaving again soon, and I will eventually have to go through the pre-departure phase where i Sort My Life Out and arrange hurried goodbye meetings. In between, I will go to a dentist to work out why my teeth are so screwed up. . I'm not particularly excited about the course i'm going to do, but then I wasn't either the last time round.
Meanwhile, I will need to see a dentist. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 30th, 2008|08:53 am] |
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Singapore has changed physically but many of the recent additions: a ferris wheel, high powered lights for the F1, legal and illegal commercial development and expansion in beyond-Geylang. But a lot of these things, like plastic surgery, are largely cosmetic. |
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| Warangal and Banjara Hills |
[Jul. 13th, 2008|01:03 pm] |
Saturday saw a day trip to Warangal, the cultural capital of Telangana. The place itself was fairly unremarkable - small town full of cows and goats, some early medieval ruins, a temple on a rock in a high place, hot weather and lots of people playing tennis ball cricket. The train ride to and from was slightly more interesting. We went by the air-conditioned class, cheap by any standards at less than 3 pounds, but the people we travelled with were the Indian middle classes and upper middle classes. On the ride there Qin Zhen befriended a man who was surely one of the richest in Warangal. The grandson of a politician, he invited us to his bungalow where he lives with his parents and grandparents. He has relatives all over the world, his family donated an entire dorm to the local medical college, and drives a Toyota tank in a land where people are lucky if they can afford a domestically produced car to keep out the exhaust fumes that lesser beings on two and three wheels are forced to imbibe.
On the ride back, there was a person who had been to China and another who was going to go there; a regional manager for a Telco who regretted not waiting longer to snag a job abroad, unlike his two cousins in New York and Boston; a minister thumbing a Telugu bible who had been all over the world (and to Singapore) for Baptist conferences, with banknotes in Singapore and American dollars to proudly show us. We met Indians that having spent 2 weeks on the dusty and hot streets of Hyderabad fending off beggars (at least 2 a day), I had forgot even existed. But I think what testifies most to the horrible inequities in this country is the fact that ordinary people couldn't even afford the 3 pounds needed to buy a seat in air-conditioned comfort, and had to settle for what was quite literally cattle class, fenced in by the sorry blue grills of an Indian chair class cabin.
At the cafe in supposedly posh Banjara Hills we spoke to a fresh engineering graduate who's a film producer, a Rich Kid who had just been to Singapore on a holiday paid for by Dad as a graduation present - the sort who advised that taking the train and bus was unadvisable for foreigners and that we should top up 1000 rupees for a flight. I found him far easier to talk to than any other Indian that I've met, perhaps because, as Nettie put, he was as un-Indian as they come. Rich Kid had heard of SMU, knew that Mas Selamat escaped, and that Singapore had a Chikaguniya problem. He was certainly far easier to talk to than the Small Town Scion, a young man of 30 with a wife from a similarly acceptable background (probably). I had assumed he was the Hyderabad IT Yuppie sort, so it was surprising that they had an arranged marriage, yet his family isn't wholly traditional, given that a cousin living in America got away with marrying a Vietnamese wife. He goes back to his boring small town to be with his father, who looks like a Dravidian movie villain. India is a country that continues to confound and surprise, and has an ability to evade attempts at pigeonholing and typecasting. |
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| Golconda |
[Jul. 11th, 2008|01:27 pm] |
I went to the Golconda fort two days ago, the seat of an early modern sultanate and a testimony to Muslim ingenuity in design. There are these little features that reflect clever design. Such as this stone wall in front of the entrance to stop battering rams and elephants from having a clear run at door, and this remarkable feat of acoustic engineering, where if one claps at the entrance the clapping sound can be heard by the Sultan sitting at the top of the hill. But that's just the touristy bits the guides can show.
What I really found intruiging, even exciting, about the place was how much the fort itself was like a giant playground, with nice gardens and steep ramparts that one can walk up (in defiance of the no entry sign), and enjoy a most spectacular of the surrounding settlement, a Muslim town walled in by a 10km outer wall. It was a bit of a cross between the Old City of Jerusalem and the Crac des Chevaliers, but less spectacular, well kept and significant than either, and less obviously touristy.
Halfway up the top of the fort is a small 400 year old mosque that sat just in front of a Hindu temple. The contrast between the two is striking. The mosque was an solemn, even austere structure, with clean lines and with intricate but not extravagant cornices. The Hindu temple, freshy painted for some sort of festival that's happening next week, was a tiny little cranny bored out of a huge boulder, which was itself garishly painted in bright, vivid colours on a base of Manchester City blue.
Just outside the outer walls were the Qutb Shahi tombs, a series of tombs all in largely the same shape where Muslim royalty were interred. It seems to be some sort of pilgrimmage site for Muslims, because there were two fairly young looking men dressed in orangeceremonial garb belting out a wailing, off-key prayer in the tomb of Ibrahim Quli Qutb Shah. But what was more remarkable about a place where the dead were laid to rest was how it was also a place where the living go to get laid. In broad (fucking sweltering) daylight lovers were scattered throughout the complex, most choosing the smaller tombs which were not only spared from tourist attention (not that there were many), but were also shaped like a pavillion, offering shade. What was even more striking, particularly in this ridiculously conservative city, was how almost all the couples were Muslims. And they weren't just the naughty sort, but ordinarily burka-clad ones with their headscarves and veils down, lying in the arms of their lovers. Which I suppose is proof that, expanding on Keynes, that it is more than just businessmen who are guided by 'animal spirits'.
My camera's battery died on the very day I decided to go (probably) Hyderabad's biggest attraction. Which I think for a tourist, is a good thing, because it forces one to observe and reflect, rather than snap.
Then yesterday, I headed out to Nagarjuna Sagar, but failed to make the last boat out to Nagarjuna Konda. I had to content myself with sampling some deep fried whole chilli snack, and the most disappointing waterfall I've ever seen. There was however a Hindu temple nearby, which made for an intersting visit because children mobbed me, or more precisely, my camera. Not only were they content with having their pictures taken, they also wanted to take pictures themselves. This loud and slightly irritating kid (who reminded me of this Nepalese kid in sec 1), who appeared to the a bully/ringleader sort, told me to put it back in its pouch and keep it safely from the reach of the other children, the timing of which was quite disingenuous, coming right after he's had his go at it. The temple and falls were located in quite a beautiful place, and from the auto and bus one could catch a great view of the arid, and harsh Deccan plateau, broken up only by the clear Nagajuna Sagar lake and damn. Which made me wonder why anyone would even want to settle in such a hot, dusty and inhospitable place. THe temple itself was located half a kilometre down from the falls and the river was that flowed from the falls was some sort of pilgrimage site. What I find thoroughly incomprehensible is why Hindus have this penchant for making pilgrimages to the filthiest bits of water they can find. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 3rd, 2008|11:46 pm] |
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my dear nettie was sick and had to be hospitalised at a catholic hospital, where they play catholic hymns, sermons by the least eloquent person in the hospital, alongside soothing indian music. staying in hospital was actually cheaper than getting a hotel (500 rp a night), and tibetan-looking nurses will come at 7am in the morning to move your bags away from the bedside table. bangalore was cool, but like hyderabad, dirty, dusty and smelly. the smell of india is not that of herbs or jasmine or whatever spice but of spit, exhaust, rubbish and urine. but the people in hyderabad, particularly in the old city, reminded me a lot of syrians. when post-national service young israelis compared indians to arabs, it was because they thought that their shekels could buy for a pittance the labour of a race they saw as inferior. but i see instead warmth and curiosity. even touts react well to a smile, and a few kind words. the baksheesh-seeking is alright and not something i didn't not expect, but it is the beggars that i find more harder to deal with. |
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| choosing life |
[Jul. 3rd, 2007|09:39 pm] |
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i chose life but i'm terrible at it. i'm better off choosing not to choose life. |
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