Read This First :)

Another Dave Barry classic :)

"Congratulations! You have purchased an extremely fine device that would give you thousands of years of trouble-free service, except that you undoubtedly will destroy it via some typical bonehead consumer maneuver.

Which is why we ask you to PLEASE FOR GOD'S SAKE READ THIS OWNER'S MANUAL CAREFULLY BEFORE YOU UNPACK THE DEVICE.

YOU ALREADY UNPACKED IT, DIDN'T YOU? YOU UNPACKED IT AND PLUGGED IT IN AND TURNED IT ON AND FIDDLED WITH THE KNOBS, AND NOW YOUR CHILD, THE SAME CHILD WHO ONCE SHOVED A POLISH SAUSAGE INTO YOUR VIDEOCASSETTE RECORDER AND SET IT TO "FAST FORWARD", THIS CHILD ALSO IS FIDDLING WITH THE KNOBS, RIGHT?

AND YOU'RE JUST STARTING TO READ THE INSTRUCTIONS, RIGHT???

WE MIGHT AS WELL JUST BREAK ALL THESE DEVICES RIGHT AT THE FACTORY BEFORE WE SHIP THEM OUT, YOU KNOW THAT?

We're sorry. We just get a little crazy sometimes, because we're always getting back "defective" merchandise where it turns out that the consumer inadvertently bathed the device in acid for six days. So, in writing these instructions, we naturally tend to assume that your skull is filled with dead insects, but we mean nothing by it. OK?

From 'Dave Barry's Greatest Hits'

Coffee? Tea? Weasel Spit?

From Dave Barry Talks Back, the best I have read so far.

"….So I was getting on a plane in Seattle, and I was feeling a touch nervous because that very morning a plane was forced to make an emergency landing at that very airport after a window blew out at 14,000 feet and a passenger almost got sucked out of the plane headfirst.

This is the kind of thing that the flight attendants never mention during the Preflight Safety Demonstration, although maybe they should. I bet they could put on a very impressive demonstration using an industrial vacuum cleaner and a Barbie doll, and we passengers would NEVER take our seat belts off, even when the plane landed. We'd walk out into the terminal with our seats still strapped to our backs.

Anyway, the good news is that the passenger in Seattle was wearing his seat belt, and the other passengers were able to pull him back inside, and he's expected to make a complete recovery except for no longer having a head. This will definitely limit his ability to enjoy future in-flight meals ("Would you like a dense omelet-like substance, sir? Just nod your stump.")

Ha, ha! I am just joshing of course. The man retained all his major body parts. But just the same I don't like to hear this type of story because I usually take a window seat, because I want to know if a wing falls off. The pilot would never mention this. It is a violation of Federal Aviation Administration regulations for the pilot to ever tell you anything except that you are experiencing “a little turbulence.”

You frequent fliers know what I’m talking about. You’re flying along at 500 miles an hour, 7 miles up, and suddenly there’s an enormous shuddering WHUMP. Obviously the plane has struck something at least the size of a Winnebago motor home-in fact sometimes you can actually see Winnebago parts flashing past your window-but the pilot, trying to sound bored, announces that you have experienced “a little turbulence.” Meanwhile you just know that up in the cockpit they’re hastily deploying their Emergency Inflatable Religious Shrine.

Here’s what bothers me. You know how, during the Preflight Safety Demonstration, they tell you that in the event of an emergency, oxygen masks will pop out of the ceiling? My question is: Who wants oxygen? If I’m going to be in an emergency seven miles up, I want nitrous oxide, followed immediately by Emergency Intravenous Beverage Cart Service, so that I and my fellow passengers can be as relaxed as possible. (“Wow! Those are some beautiful engine flames!”)

in time of daffodils

in time of daffodils(who know
the goal of living is to grow)
forgetting why, remember how

in time of lilacs who proclaim
the aim of waking is to dream,
remember so(forgetting seem)

in time of roses(who amaze
our now and here with paradise)
forgetting if, remember yes

in time of all sweet things beyond
whatever mind may comprehend,
remember seek(forgetting find)

and in a mystery to be
(when time from time shall set us free)
forgetting me,remember me

e.e. cummings

You must see it here, with this girl's beautiful photographs: http://sometimesiwritesometimesiam.blogspot.com/2011/02/in-time-of-roses.html

They say the kyang go there every summer...

A Personal Reconnaissance
by Tensin Tsundue

From Ladakh
Tibet is just a gaze away.

They said:
from that black knoll
at Dumtse it's Tibet.
For the first time, I saw
my country Tibet.

In a hurried hidden trip
I was there at the mound.

I sniffed the soil,
scratched the ground,
listened to the dry wind
and the wild old cranes.

I didn't see the border,
I swear there wasn't anything
different, there.

I didn't know
if I was there or here.
I didn't know
if I was here or there.

They say the kyang
come here every winter.
They say the kyang
go there every summer.

(Kyang-wild ass found in herds in Changthang (northern plains) of Tibet and Ladakh)

from 'Kora' stories and poems. By Tenzin Tsundue ( http://www.friendsoftibet.org/tenzin/)

Breathing/Not Breathing in High Places

On the back-breaking, nerve-wracking 2 day journey in a mini-bus from Manali to Leh in Ladakh (in the Himalaya mountains, on the border with China)(July 2006), we Indians are a minority in a motley crowd of foreigners. After hours of steep climbing up to 14, 000 feet on the first day, you are rapidly succumbing to altitude sickness, but struggling against it, since everyone else seems to be all healthy and fit.

What the hell, how can they all be so happy and cheerful and talking and laughing? How come they all can breathe? Idiots. The heat is killing. Dry desert mountains all around. No human habitation anywhere. The chattering of the Korean girls ahead is driving you mad. You have just had some Maggi noodles and biscuits the whole day, that’s more or less what you get in the few tent stops along the way.

Just when you think you can’t take it anymore, you look at the Israeli woman sitting on your right. She is reading a book from back to front. Yes, from back to front. The back cover of the book is in the front, facing you, and the front page is at the back.

Oh God, you have started hallucinating. Oh God, this can’t be happening.

Island Taxi

Easter lunch at the the F… family reunion, on the beautiful island of Ile d’Orléans, Québec (April 2006). You are the only foreigner in this 40-strong crowd of French Canadians. M himself does not know most of the crowd as they meet very rarely, and this is his rich uncle’s house by the way. Many of them assume that you are M’s Indian girl friend because he’s “the mad guy who set up the music school in an Indian village.”

A doubt that has to be dispelled by introducing M’s very pregnant wife A to other people you have started conversations with. You are slowly getting used to the weirdness of it all. Especially enjoying the high regard people now seem to have for India. No more mention of elephants and kings, like during your visit to France 10years ago.

After lunch, served at a huge table with a vast variety of dishes, many of which you have to ask A to explain, you go Easter egg hunting with the kids in the huge beautiful garden outside.

Si, si, Indio!

On that hot summer day in Strasbourg (Aug 1997), you are unable to walk anymore with the group, your asthma is acting up. Pollution levels are high, the TV had warned the previous night. In front of the ancient Strasbourg cathedral, many things are happening to attract tourists.

Among them a small group of short South American native Indian men are dancing in a circle, in their colorful ponchos and long braided hair. One of them is playing a flute with many reeds. You are captivated by the music, there is something primordial and familiar about it apart from its haunting notes. You sit in the circle of people standing around them. You tell your friends to go ahead, you are staying here the rest of the afternoon.

So people come and go, but you are still sitting, watching the dance, entranced. The dancers have noticed you, and are now smiling at you as they pass you in the circle. Their faces are deep brown, their skin is polished and taut, their smiles are very warm.

Now tell me

"Find yourself a cup of tea; the teapot is behind you. Now tell me about hundreds of things."
Saki

Mongolia on my mind

The nine sets of nine days of the Mongolian winter: http://fellowsblog.kiva.org/2011/01/20/nine-sets-of-nine-days-of-mongolian-winter/ - it says the current temperatures are around minus 41 degree Fahrenheit, and they live in these round ger tents, with minimal heating. Don't forget to click on the ger link.

The First Nine: Milk vodka congeals and freezes
The Second Nine: Vodka congeals and freezes
The Third Nine: Tail of a three-year-old ox freezes
The Fourth Nine: Horns of a four-year-old ox freezes
The Fifth Nine: Boiled rice no longer congeals and freezes
The Sixth Nine: Roads become visible from under the snow and ice
The Seventh Nine: Hilltops appear
The Eighth Nine: Ground becomes damp
The Ninth Nine: Warmer days set in

The fourth one is the worst – and that’s where they are now.

Mongolia has been on my mind the last 2 years, ever since I saw the most beautiful film ever - Mongolian Ping Pong, each frame a painting by a master, a paean to innocence.

And since I read the biography of Genghis Khan by John Man,

And finally own a CD of beautiful Mongolian throat singing, Alash: http://www.alashensemble.com

Communion

In the end, happiness is only perceived and acknowledged in certain moments. And poetry freezes moments like nothing else can.

A Blessing
by Ken Hada

After three days of hard fishing
we lean against the truck
untying boots, removing waders.

We change in silence still feeling
the rhythm of cold water lapping
thankful for that last shoal of rainbows
to sooth the disappointment
of missing a trophy brown.

We'll take with us the communion
of rod and line and bead-head nymphs
sore shoulders and wrinkled feet.

Reading

Stories. In the gaps in the travels too. But then, isn't everything a story to you? Narrated to yourself, for the most part, but a story nevertheless. An entire childhood of silence, living within books, has left its mark, deep down.


Photo by a friend, fellow-traveller.

L’Asie en notes et en motocyclette

http://voyages.liberation.fr/voir-et-lire/l-asie-en-notes-et-en-motocyclette

«Vingt-deux ans d’Asie, en chemin de fer, en chars à buffles, cahotant sur de grosses roues de bois peint, à motocyclette, à dos d’éléphant, en prahu, en catamaran, à cheval, en Rolls Royce - elle ne m’appartenait pas - ou en camion parmi les choux et les sacs d’oignons.» Gabrielle Wittkop n’a ménagé ni sa peine, ni ses différentes montures pour sillonner cette Asie qui exerce sur elle un pouvoir d’attraction irrésistible. Elle y est souvent allée pour des reportages parus dans le Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

Les carnets que publie Verticales ne sont cependant pas une recension d’articles mais bien une sélection des notes qu’elle prenait au jour le jour, au gré de ses vagabondages tropicaux.

Née en France, Gabrielle Ménardeau, lesbienne, mariée à Justus Wittkop en 1946, écrivain déserteur antinazi et homosexuel, s’installe avec son mari à Bad Hombourg, près de Francfort. Elle écrit des romans vénéneux (le Nécrophile, Sérénissime Assassinat ou les Rajah blancs), qui ne seront remarqués qu’avec le travail des Editions Verticales. Elle ne goûte que brièvement le succès littéraire, se donnant la mort à 82 ans, en décembre 2002 après avoir appris qu’elle souffrait d’un cancer. Elle envoie un dernier message à son éditeur : «Je vais mourir comme j’ai vécu : en homme libre.» .......................

Returning

"He would most likely not have embarked on that year-long enterprise had he not had profound assurance that return was possible, even though he himself might not return; that indeed the very nature of the voyage, like a circumnavigation of the globe, implied return.

You shall not go down twice to the same river, nor can you go home again. That he knew; indeed it was the basis of his view of the world.

Yet from that acceptance of transience he evolved his vast theory, wherein what is most changeable is shown to be fullest of eternity, and your relationship to the river, and the river's relationship to you and to itself, turns out to be at once more complex and reassuring than a mere lack of identity.

You can go home again, the General Temporal Theory asserts, so long as you understand that home is a place where you have never been." (p. 55)

- Ursula Le Guin, The Dispossessed

Thanks, K.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Read 'The Thing Around Your Neck', a collection of short stories by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the Nigerian writer, who is right now at the Jaipur Literary Fest.

A fascinating glimpse of Nigeria, a peep into its dreams and trials, as seen through the eyes of its women. Noticed a lot of similarities with India, the same ambitions of a better life in the West, the same discoveries, the same gender issues, almost similar customs.

You've probably heard her on TED, that great talk about the danger of believing in cultural stereotypes, of having only "one story" about a culture, and not bothering to dig further into what they really are: "Show a people as one thing, over and over again, and that is what they become." "It (a single story) emphasises how we are different, not how we are similar."

http://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story.html

Hopefully the internet has reduced such ignorance?

The Thing Around Your Neck

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie burst onto the literary scene with her remarkable debut novel, Purple Hibiscus, which critics hailed as “one of the best novels to come out of Africa in years” (Baltimore Sun ), with “prose as lush as the Nigerian landscape that it powerfully evokes” ( The Boston Globe ); The Washington Post called her “the twenty-first-century daughter of Chinua Achebe.” Her award-winning Half of a Yellow Sun became an instant classic upon its publication three years later, once again putting her tremendous gifts—graceful storytelling, knowing compassion, and fierce insight into her characters’ hearts—on display.

Now, in her most intimate and seamlessly crafted work to date, Adichie turns her penetrating eye on not only Nigeria but America, in twelve dazzling stories that explore the ties that bind men and women, parents and children, Africa and the United States.

More here: http://www.shelfari.com/books/12833751/The-Thing-Around-Your-Neck

Available here:

http://www.flipkart.com/thing-around-your-neck-chimamanda-book-0007326777

Unblinking Grief

the last cigarettes are smoked, the loaves are sliced,
and lest this be taken for wry sorrow,
drown the spider in wine.

you are much more than simply dead:
I am a dish for your ashes,
I am a fist for your vanished air.

the most terrible thing about life
is finding it gone.

Charles Bukowski, 'Sifting through the Madness For The Word, The Line, The Way'