Back from Ecuador

I am back from Ecuador.

 

The image of the country lingering in my mind is that of beautiful high mountains, roads snaking around them, in the middle of round lakes that looked like old mouths of spent  volcanoes. The guidebook does say that the road going down from Quito to Cuenca is lined with old spent volcanoes.

 

Another lingering image is that of so many child workers, cleaning shoes, in workshops, selling by roadside.

And yet another image is of Amerindian persons wearing traditional dresses. I wanted to be photographed with them and discovered to my pleasure that they thought I was kind of exotic and they also wanted a picture with me. So when I took out my camera, they also took out their cameras!

 

Unfortunately, guys pretending to be interested in asking about me, robbed my camera. Without my digital camera, I felt as if I was missing a limb. Fortunately, I had downloaded the pictures on my computer before they robbed it so I have my pictures of Quito, and, my friend Federico had two cameras and he loaned one of those to me in Cuenca.  

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Have I bitten more than I could chew?

 

I mean managing three blogs and writing regularly on all of them, can I really do that? I guess, people will just stop going to a blog once they find that it not updated frequently so it is not a tragedy or something!

 

Any way, I am concentrating mainly on my Hindi blog these days. Rediscovering Hindi is such a pleasure. Perhaps another reason is that people seem to be reading it and occasionally commenting. I tell myself, this may only mean that there are not that many Hindi blogs to choose from and not necessarily that what I write is too interesting. If you are interested in the world of Hindi blogs, take a look at the Chitha Vishwa website that brings together many of them.

My nephew Riju is here in Bologna with us.

Day before yesterday I accompanied him to Venice. I love going to Venice but it was so hot!

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Bomb-Blasts in London - July 2005

Yesterday, when the news of bomb blasts in London came, it suddenly brought back the anguish of 11 september 2001. Except this time, I was safely at home since I had the good fortune of coming back from London a day earlier.

Just twenty four hours earlier, on the 6th July morning, around the timing of the bombings, I had travelled on Hammersmith and city line for going to Liverpool street station, passing through Edgeware road and King's cross. The picture of the geese was clicked a few days ago.

This time, I had also met my nephew Riju, who is studying in London. I hope that he is all right.

 
To see those familiar names of the metro-stations on the BBC's website and the pictures of persons walking in the tunnels after the bomb blasts in the trains was terrible. Actually I have never been too keen on travelling by underground, especially when you have to go one or two levels under ground, because I am claustrophobic, but there is not much choice since it is fastest way to get around in London. However, next time in London, I will be a little afraid of travelling by underground.

11 September 2001 was worse since that day I was supposed to travel to Lebanon while my mother was traveling to Washington.

 

My flights were first diverted to Milan and later I was sent back to Bologna while mummy had been diverted to Canada and for days we had no news about her. 

 

The global village brings with it new forms of terror and anguish.

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Bent Nail Syndrome Among Randy Men

The story first appeared about a week ago in an Italian magazine called "Venerdi" that comes out as Friday supplement of a newspaper. It was quickly picked up by the radio shows and forums in Italy. It is about a disease and it is rare for news about illnesses to get such wide publicity. So much so that people in bars, sipping the morning cappuccinos and caffes, have been reported to smile snidely as they ask each other if they have got the chiodo piegato, or "Bent nail syndrome".

It seems that the northern province of Treviso, close to Venice has the distinction of being the Italian capital of persons affected with this disease. It is also well known among orthopaedic surgeons in USA where it is also called Texas syndrome since it seems to affect the Texans more than any one else.

 

I wonder if it is known in India and what do Indians call it? 

The disease affects middle aged men, between 40 to 60 years old, especially those who are away from home, staying in a hotel for the weekend and especially those who use viagra tablets. The Italian doctor with largest experience about the disease says that it does happens mostly with men who have younger girl friends, who try to impress them that they still have the vigour of younger men and want to try more exciting of kamasutra positions. It usually does not happen with wives since there one tends go for sex by habbit, in the usual positions.

You must have guessed by now, what is this disease! A fracture of the penis. The doctor the news-story said the men affected by this disease, often ask that their wives should not be informed, though it is difficult to hide this condition since the plaster cast on their dicks is not easy to hide!

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Sounds and Lunatics - Jim Grace

".. any way, no wild land is entirely still and silent. It has its own discords and detonations. Earth collapses with the engineering of the ants; lizards smack the pebbles with their tails; the sun fires seeds in salvos from their pods; pigeons misconnect with dry branches; and stones left loosely to their own devices, can find the muscle to descend the hill."

Wonderful language. Makes me think of flat pebbles bouncing on the surface of the water so lightly that they hardly makes a splash. I am reading Quarantine by Jim Grace. I like to read aloud the parts that strike me particularly.

Opening my mouth wide and articulating each word, trying to see it take form and spread its wings before flying away. What is the speed of the sound? In a few seconds, the sound viberations, rising from my vocal cords trembling like a diapson, spread out in the world, like children suddenly grown up and wishing to be independent, travelling kilometers in that unseen dimension, colliding with sound waves of that couple fighting, that boy whistling, the girl gasping... and finally coming to stop near that blade of grass, making it tremble exactly like the diapson of my vocal cords.

I read on.

"This was the season of the lunatics: the first new moon of spring was summoning those men - lunatics are mostly men. They have the time and opportunity - to exorcize that part of them which sent them mad. Mad with grief, that is. Or shame. Or love.Or illnesses and visions. Mad enough to think that every thing they did, no matter how vain or trivial, was of interest to their god. Mad enough to think that forty days of discomfort could put their world in order."

Lunatic. Touched by Luna, the moon. I think of my head line going up from the mound of Mars, going over the mound of Mercury, stopping just short of the mound of the moon. The words reminded me of something else from my past.

 

"You are emotional, but are balanced by the rational pull towards the Jupiter. This cross here, this is the island of death. It means the death of the persons, who will love you." That was the Pandit ji in Mohan Nagar, ages ago in another life. What did he mean?

No one has died. Does that mean that people in my life don't really love me? Or does it mean that gods does not have the time to sit down and mark lines properly on our hands? Or may be, the Pandit ji didn't see the lines on my hands properly?

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West African dances

Last night I went to see the west African dance show in the Villa Angeletti garden in Bologna. It was supposed to start at 9.30 PM but at 9.40, when I reached there, it was not yet started. They had set up two bars on two sides, one of which was blaring out loud music and had a hyperactive DJ.

In another corner of the park they were showing the old classic film "Casablanca", but its sound was drowned in the loud music.

University students from the near by Galaxy hostel thronged the place, drinking beer, chatting, smoking. At 10.30 PM, they had still not started the show. I told myself that I will wait for another 15 minutes and if they don't start, I will go away. They started just before it was time for me to leave. Some drums, they were not bad but not that great as well.

Then there was a group of Italian girls doing the dance with their west african teacher from Guinea Konkry. It was nothing like the lovely west African dances done by Footprints international from Ghana that I had seen in January.

I am gearing up for more travel in the next weeks - Rome, London, Quito-Cuenca-Gauyaquil (all in Ecuador), all in July. I am sure to get good pictures for the blogs.

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Seaside Holidays are almost over

The days have passed quickly in Bibione. Tomorrow we shall go back to Bologna, even if I don't start working till Wednesday 29th June.

 

Updating my three blogs (in English, Hindi and Italian) has been impossible in these days, because I was feeling lazy, so I decided to give precedence to the blog in Hindi because that gives me an opportunity to practice writing in Hindi on my computer. I have written it in unicode on Takhti even if because of the Italian keyboard, I am unable to write 'e' and some other signs.

 

Long walks along the sea, a lot of sun, some swimming in the sea and some book-reading - my holidays can be summarised in these few activities. I have turned darker and hopefully leaner in these days, though I am afraid to go and check my weight on the weighing machine!

Fortunately it is still not very hot but Bologna would be hotter and more humid.

 

In the June issue of Hindi magazine Hans, I have read Mini didi's (Archana Varma) poems and one very powerful self-story or atam-katha by a professor of journalism in Delhi, Mr. Shauraj Singh Bechain. 

 

The Bechain story, is really well written, it is the story of his life as a child labourer and his journey from being "Ganghi chamar's grandson" to the school. The contrast between the situations in the story and the holiday life here with the seaside tourists is so extreme. Probably because of it, words from his story keep on resounding in my head for days.

Here are some pictures from these holidays in Bibione. You can click on them for a bigger view.

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Finally Holidays in Bibione

Finally the holidays in Bibione.

In my opinion, this is the saddest part of the holidays when they actually begin, since it means that soon they will be over!

I have a long list of things to do during these holidays. I want to start with the second draft of my fiction book, write something in Hindi, make some interactive animations with the help of flash and a graphic tablet... For my birthday, I had asked Miriam for a graphic tablet and it is wonderful to design with a pen on it and see the designs on the computer.

I am sitting on the terrace in Bibione and it is raining and there is a cold wind. I am back in Bibione after two years. Last time I had come for a couple of days with Meghna in July 2003. Nadia and Marco have gone to the supermarket.

 

In the afternoon when we had arrived, it was sunny and warm. Marco had fixed the long beach chair and I had plonked myself on it with the newspaper, saying that after half an hour I will go the beach for my first swim. I think that I fell asleep after ten minutes. Two hours later, when I woke, the sky was already covered with clouds.

On the way to Bibione, near Portogruaro we had left the main road to go to Brussa, a small village lost among a vast area of green fields, small canals and lovely house, to an old restaurant called Mazorak, where they serve wonderful fried fish. You can also go there by boat and there is a Mazorak boat stop. I must have gone there for the first time with Miriam and Lino, probably in 1982 or 1983, before Marco was born. It was a simple place, eating there didn't cost much and food was superb even if their menu was limited. The menu is still the same, the food is as good, but the place is not so simple or cheap any more. It is now really famous with people travelling 50-80 kms to come and eat there.

The owner of Mazorak, once he knew us all. He would greet us like long lost friends. Marco, a small baby at that time, played with the puppies in their house behind the restaurant, while his wife cooked polenta with corn flour. Now his children are all grown up and his grandchildren work in the restaurant. Today, his wife was no where to be seen and the owner, he looked old and sick, while a line of cooks worked like an assembly line production in a factory to produce roasted polenta for the thronging crowds. I am glad for their success but it made me feel a little sad.

Then, Nadia said, "One day we will come here with Marco's wife." I said,

 

"May be we will come one day with Marco's children! While they will eat, we will take out the children for a walk."

 

"You remember that time in Connaught Place, when Marco was crying so much, that you had to take him out and we had to eat by turns?" Nadia asked.

 

Marco rolled up his eyes, he has heard this story hundreds of times!

Suddenly it is wonderful to be on holidays.

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