A sterile world?

Growing up in India, you automatically learn that you are a small part of a large world, where all beings have a place.

Jain munis with clothe on their mouths, women giving food to the ants, Nandi bull sitting in front of the temple and the cows sitting in the middle of the road, all give you that same message. Perhaps that is why, I get disturbed when I see publicity that seems to imply that if you really want your home to be clean or if you really care about your child, buy this detergent powder or this floor cleaning liquid, because these will kill the bacteria.

I can't understand, why do we need to kill bacteria? Don't bacteria live inside our own bodies and are necessary for life since they produce important vitamins? Don't bacteria surround us every where and can they be actually killed just by washing your clothes or cleaning the kitchen floor with antiseptic lotions? Perhaps, I should not worry since these are only publicity gimmicks?

I think that this kind of publicity gives a wrong message. Improper use of antibiotics, has given rise to resistent bacteria, and there are some that can't be killed by any thing. But worse than that, this kind of publicity gives the message that it is all right to manipulate the nature because somehow we would be better off in an artificial world, controlled temperatures, controlled environment, artificial every thing.

I would say that we need to boicott these - not to buy products that say they kill bacteria. Sales and profits is the only language companies and marketing experts understand.

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Four years ago

Yesterday, I didn't even remember that it was 11 September, anniversary of the New York attacks. I had a board meeting yesterday morning and I was thinking about that. It was also a friend's birthday, so I was reminding myself to send her greetings. And I was thinking about the peace march that covers 28 kms from the city of Perugia to Assisi.

It was only after the meeting, after lunch and after the afternnon nap, that Nadia told me that they were showing a Chinese film on the TV. I love Chinese films. She said that it was about children lving near a brick kiln.

I had immediately hoped that it was the film where Gong Li plays the mother of a deaf child. I had seen it on TV in China but since it was in Chinese, I hadn't followed it properly. But the film on the TV was about a teacher wearing a chador, trying to explain to nursery kids about bombings in New York and when children could not understand the meaning of "tower", she took them out to look at the chimney of the brick kiln.

It was that film where different directors have made short films on the theme of 11 September. The Isreali film was about a suicide bomber and a journalist who wants her story.

Mira Nair's film is about Salim, an American born in Pakistan, and the film was called "Terrorist".

"The exiled man" from Chile, was bitter about the American double standards.

The director from Lebanon has made his film about a dead American marine, his lebanese girl friend and a Palestinian suicide bomber.

The dream of boys in the film from Burkina Faso is to catch Osama Bin Laden and get 24 million dollars' award.

But my favorite film was about the deaf French girl, who has a fight with her boyfriend in New York, and is hoping for a miracle.

My own memories of that 11 September 4 years ago, seem an episode from the same film. The waiting at Milan airport, shopkeepers suddenly closing their shops and running away, the unbelievable images on the TV in the bar, my cancelled flight to Beirut, the journey back to Bologna and all the while, thinking about my mother who was travelling to Washington DC that morning. Her flight was diverted to somewhere in Canada and for few days, no body could tell where she was.

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John Grisham in Bologna

The well known american writer, known mainly for his legal thrillers, John Grisham was in Bologna yesterday, to receive a special award from the mayor of the city. The function was organised in Santa Lucia hall of the Bologna university. The thousand years old hall, that looks like the dining hall from the Harry Potter films, was an ex-old church.

It must have been a rare experience for Grisham to be surrounded by accademics, including the dean of university and a professor of American literature, talking about his "writings". Even if his books have sold 200 million copies around the world, including 10 million books in Italy, no one pretends that he writes "literature". I don't think often people take his name next to Mark Twain or Charles Dickens like it happened in Bologna!

His new book, "The Broker" is based in Bologna. It is the first time Grisham has come out of the American counties, placing his book outside America. He explained that he needed a small, not too touristy town, where his spy hero could hide and the decision to make him come to Bologna was just by chance. He came here for the first time in July 2004 to look for places where his novel will be based, and fell in love with the city, its people and the food.

It must be admitted though that Grisham was suitably modest and ironical in a self-deprecating manner. "I was the best selling author in the world", he said, "till Harry Potter came along." He was asked if the fact that most of his books are turned into films, has affected the way he writes his novels now, he answered, "My writing was always simple, straight forward, one scene leading to next, no complexity, that is very similar to films. I haven't changed that. When I start writing, I already know what is going to happen in my book, from beginning to the end."

About the movies based on his books he said that not all the movies are good and he can't have the control over those movies, at least not as much as he would like. He also mentioned about the screenplay he had written about a minor league of basball (he is passionate about baseball) and when he did not find any producer, he produced it himself. "This film was never released properly in USA nor in the world, no body ever saw it", he said, "it came out in DVD and no body is buying the DVDs. It was a foolish decision."

He did not seem very enthusiastic about Mr. Bush and lamented the increasingly shrinking space for freedom of expression in America. While he was speaking, thunder broke out and he gave a start and then laughed saying that ever since Katerina in New Orleans, he is worried about thunderstorms.

In the pictures below, you can also see the Mayor of Bologna, Mr. Cofferati, giving the special recognition award to John Grishem for basing his new book, "The Broker" in Bologna.

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Street artists

I like buskers, the street artists. While sitting in the train or in the metro and having someone play music, I love it, and sometimes they do play wonderfully.

Growing up in India with the strong class mentality does not help us to relate with persons easily and I think that, to appreciate street artists, we need to get over our classist way of looking down at persons. I don't like it when people are rude to them or when they treat them as beggers.

My favorite town for the way buskers are treated, as almost "official musicians", is London that has areas marked for them at some underground stations, (though with the bombs and terrorists, perhaps that won't last very long!).

Last night we went to buskers festival. This annual festival is held in Ferrara, about 50 km from Bologna, and it brings street artists from all over Europe and sometimes from beyond, to be treated as artists and not just as persons trying to earn a living. Ferrara is a beautiful city and the Estense castle in the city centre is a jewel. The whole central part of Ferrara has been declared a world heritage site by UNESCO.

For four hours we went around the city centre. Every ten meters, there was a different artist playing music and the city was teeming with tourists. A mother and daughter duo from France, a group of Spanish girls singing and dancing flammenco, magicians and clowns, dancers from Brazil, trios playing classical music, jazz artists, tarroc card readers, and even a girl who claimed to tell your future by looking in your eyes and had a long queue of persons waiting for her to look in their eyes - there were so many street artists. It was impossible to see all of them, there were so many!

The pictures below are from Ferrara visit yesterday.

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Another Rakhi

Two days ago, it was rakhi. Like every thing else, only emails and e-cards remind of things that are no longer alive. Rakhi is just another memory with a vague sense of what it is supposed to mean.

Marco wants to send a rakhi to his girl friend. I explained to him that it wouldn't be right. No, he said, it won't be a normal rakhi that a boy gets from his sister, it will be something else, something very special.

Shweta telephoned and said that I will get my rakhi next time we meet. Perhaps, this is good, not just celebrating a festival but accepting the spirit behind it, and it does not really matter when we actually do it.

In our Indian association of Bologna, we are already used to this. Holi and Deewali are celebrated according to the availability of the hall, possibly around the actual dates that these festivals are being celebrated in India, but if that is not possible, we are not unduly bothered!

Manish, Sonia's husband, will be coming here on 24 September. Cynthia and Aniket (Mithoo) say that they might plan a holiday in Italy. Recently Riju had come to visit us and I had taken him to Venice.

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A cold rainy morning

It is cold rainy morning in Bologna. Sky is covered with dark clouds, crossed by thunder and lightening. I wonder if Delhi's sky is full of colourful kites! When I was young, 15 August was the day of kite flying in Delhi but perhaps, now children are not so interested in kites?

It is already two weeks since Riju came. From his computer, I took some pictures of Vidhu dada, Preeta bhabhi and Srishti. I have never met Preeta bhabhi and Srishti and this is the first time I saw them in pictures properly.

There is another news. Bukul, who is now living in Australia, is planning to get married to Toni in March 2006 and settle down in Bangalore.

This has been a long weekend for me since 15 August is a national holiday in Italy (it is some religious festivity linked to Madonna).

On Saturday, I was in Rimini with my friend Mariangela. Yesterday, our friends in Bologna, Rajesh and Shweta, came for lunch.

Finally today I am alone. It should be a day of complete relaxation and I am going to watch "Parineeta". I am alone at home, and there is no need even to cook since there is enough food leftover from yesterday for today's lunch and dinner.

Tomorrow, Marco and Nadia will be back. They had gone to Bibione for a week.

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Cortona - Little monkey with the mother

Cortona is a small medieval town about 100 km north of Rome. Europe is dotted with such towns, with forts on the the top of hills, made for defending the citties from attacks. Unfortunately many of such citties are ghost towns since living there is difficult.

In Italy, the road from Rome to Florence has a number of such cities placed on the top of hills, the most famous of which, is Orvieto, with a wonderful cathedral.

Watching Cortona from the base of the 700 meters high hill is like looking at a little monkey holding on tightly to mother's tummy, afraid of falling down. The houses look as if they are going to come crashing down on your head any time. Walking around in the town gives a strange feeling as if I am a monkey moving around at the top of trees. In between the houses, I can see the empty space and the far away valley below.

I was there only for one day, for a meeting. We arrived late at night and slept in a monastery. Early in the morning, I woke up and decided to take a look at the city before the meeting started. In the main square of the city, a flock of English tourists was waiting for their bus. In the square in front of the municipality, there was a big card-board piece of water melon for some festival, later in the day. In fact, all Italian cities seem to be busy with summer festivals. The thing that I liked most about Cortona was looking at the stairs going up and down, ending in small dead-ends or finishing at the edge of the hill into nothingness.

Once the meeting started, there was no break till very late in the night and then we started back our journey to be back in Bologna.

Riju went back on last Sunday but it seems a long time ago. Time seems to rush past so quickly. I did manage to complete a Hindi story recently - Tumhara Patra. It is influenced by American writer Pat Conroy, who writes about tyrannical fathers and children who carry the scars of their childhood in their souls, never really coming to terms with them.

Here are some pictures from the Cortona visit:

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Of biting and chewing!

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.

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 I feel are spent openings of old 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 wanted a picture with me. So when I took out my camera, they also took out their cameras!

Riju is here.

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

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Bombs in London

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 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.

To see those names on the BBC's website and the pictures of persons walking in the tunnels 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, but there is not much choice since it is fastest way to get around in London. However, next time in London, there will be a little fear on travelling by underground.

11 September 2001 was worse since that day I was supposed to travel to Lebanon while mummy 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

The story first appeared about a week ago in an Italian magazine called "Venerdi" that comes out as Friday supplement of a newspaper and is the talk of 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.

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 does not happen with wives since there one tends go by habbit, in the usual positions.

You must have guessed by now, what is this disease! A fracture of the penis. The doctor goes on, the men are often asking 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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