Protests and cooking

Been offline this past week because k and i got out of town to avoid the farmers' protest in reaction to the high court's decision to give tamil nadu more water from the Cauvery river which would require Karnaaka to release a siginficant amount of the water it currenty receives from Cauvery to Tamil Nadu. The Cauvery water dispute is an issue that, according to one news source( NDTV or CNN-IBN), is over 200 years old. With the erection of the KSR dam in Karnataka many arid regions flourished agriculturally. One of those areas is a large town between Bangalore and Mysore called Mandya, where most of the protests are occurring. For the week bus and train service to tamil nadu and between Bangalore and Mysore had stoppped. Many schools in both Bangalore and Mysore and in between closed as did many businesses. Tomorrow, Monday, in Mysore, the protesters have called for a bandh which means that the city will shut down for the day. I seem to follow the protests, although in the nOrtheast everyday strife occrs as some folks fight for independence.

Anyway, today was a cooking day. Usually i enjoy cooking, but i don't like cooking in other people's kitchens. So i was slightly stressed out as i made a simple meal of dahl, rice, and chicken curry. the pots and pans are even different, all the spices i would've used weren't to be found. So i sucked it up and worked with what was on the shelf. I felt a sense of relief as i put the finishing touches on the dahl ( the chicken and rice were ready to go). then i had to transport the rice from the kitchen to the table. The vessel that the rice was in has to be picked up with tongs. As i carried it, the tongs slipped and the rice fell on the floor. I just groaned and stared at the helter skelter mess of beautifully cooked white rice laying on the floor. i picked up what was salvageable and laid the table. Now i just want to shower and sleep. hmm, t eat or not to eat...

trip news

In jaipur i learned some quirky things about maharajas past:
one was very short, weighed 250 kg ( x2.2=lbs), had 108 wives and never had any children with any of his wives
another maharaja only drank water from the Ganga (Ganges) River. On a trip to England he carried with him two huge silver pots each wieghing 345 kgs and the capacity to hold 9,000 litres of water. these pots hold the world record for being the largest single pieces of silver according to Guiness.
A third maharaja spoke 17 languages fluently and in the 1700s built sun dials with an error of two seconds, and large astronomical intruments in which one can find out the position of any star in the jaipur sky--all the star were labeled in tniy, tiny sanskrit the plate was crowded with stars positions and their names. to this day many of the instruments are used by students of astronomy and astrologists who use the accuracy of stars' positions to create horoscopes.
one reason why each maharaja had multiple wives was to form alliances with neighbouring smaller kingdoms. leaders of small villages near a kingdom would offer the reigning maharaja a daughter in order to keep him in good esteem and ensure a peaceful alliance.
pics to be loaded next time.

tourism has been jaipur's strongest industy for about 40 years. they have the mechanics of tourism down to a science. the tour guides invest in learning languages such as french, korean, japanese, russian, dutch, and german. and who arrives when i very seasonal- singaporeans, japanese, and koreans arrive in lae january, the last batch of tourists for the season are the franch who arrive in march. tourist season is from october to march ( when the weather is most agreeable). in the off-season tour guides work in factories which produce cultural goods for the tourists.
our tour guide through the palaces and fort has been trained as a lawyer, but he is a tour guide who works at his uncle's furniture factory in the off-season because he said law is too saturated. An assertion k and i saw evidence of when we went to a legislative office in mumbai once. About 50 men in black robes descended on us like a flock of crows around a fresh body and pecked us with intrusive questions about our business there and then bartered with us relentlessly to pay them to complete our simple task.
He also says that the french and russians are the most generous tippers. after a ten-day tour with a group of french tourists he will get a tip of Rs 41,000 ( $ 911 when USD1=Rs45)). Rs41,000 per month is considered a middle/upper-middle class salary.

amritsar was serene. i loved the golden temple and i plan to go back. in 1984 indira gandhi ferreted out terrorists who were hiding in the golden temple by force. In turn she was assassinated by a sikh body guard for attacking sikhism's most holy place. The mandir has memorials to the attack and markerr of the event ( bullet holes).

i think i am really tired as this sunday has been a particularly lazy one-- lots of sleep, movies, and a huge decadent lunch. :)

tata-- another nap is in the cards for the day.

back at yoga centre

we're back from our trip to delhi-amritsar-jaipur. unfortunately security was very tight at the republic day parade- no cameras, food, water, bags of any kind- so no pics of the parade and the political glitterati. also no pics from some palaces in jaipur for reasons of artifact preservation. will post more latah.