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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Sounds and lunatics

".. 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. "Emotional, but 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 does it mean?

No one has died. Does it 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?

***

West African dances

Last night I went to see the west African dance show in the Villa Angeletti garden. 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 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. 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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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.

Writing three blogs (in English, Hindi and Italian) has been impossible and I decided to give precedence to the blog in Hindi. I have written it in unicode even if because of the Italian keyboard, I am unable to write 'e' and some other signs.

Long walks along the sea, lot of sun, some swimming in the sea and some reading, that can be the summary of these holidays. 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 poems and one very powerful self-story or atam-katha by a professor of journalism in Delhi, Mr. Shauraj Singh Bechain. It is really well written 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.

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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 book, write something in Hindi, make some interactive animations with the help of flash and a graphic tablet... For my birthday, I 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 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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Pictures from Bologna Per Tot festival

Came back from London last night.

My cold was getting worse and I had a board meeting, yet I found time to run to park of Villa Angeletti to watch preparations for Bologna Per tot parade. In the local Bologna dialect, "per tot" means "for every one". It is the festival for welcoming the summer, organized by students from Bologna University and local associations.

This year though summer seems to be hesitating if it should come or not. The Par Tot parade was a riot of colours. There were mainly students and young persons, a few smoking pot, almost everyone drinking wine and having fun. There was even an Anand Marg group in the parade with Acharya Kamleshwar Nanda from India.

I clicked a lot of pictures. Even after deleting many of them because they were blurred, still there are so many nice ones. Here is just a sample of those pictures.

If you like these images and want to see more pictures of the Bologna Par Tot parade from different years, check them on the photo-archives on Kalpana.

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Buskers in London underground

I am developing a cold. And I am back in London.

The underground train to Liverpool station stops every five minutes. "We are sorry for the delays caused by lack of sufficient staff in East London", they announce. Every day they make the same announcements. It sounds as if staff shortage is kind of disease or tsunami, a natural disaster. Perhaps, they are all ill with cold and fever? This is London, the capital of one of the most powerful and rich countries in the world!

I love the buskers in the London underground. They have their regular spaces authorized properly. Wonder if they have to pay for it. My favourite is at Piccadilly. It is always wonderful though I remember with nostalgia, once hearing a busker on saxophone playing Bolero. It gives me goose pimples, just to think of it. As escalators go deep down into bowels of earth, the acoustics are great.

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Hyde park and colourful India

Today after the meeting, together with Gio and Davide, we all went to Hyde park. Gio said that he wanted to see the speaker's corner where some body can go up on a podium and speak his or her views. We went around the rose garden and walked along the serpentine lake. I took lot of pictures of ducks. But we didn't find the speaker's corner.

It is in that direction, a guy told us, pointing vaguely in the opposite side. Walking through the park, there were some really nice trees with trunks swollen like pregnant tummies over centuries. Any way, we gave up before reaching the speakers corner. It was too far away and after two hours of walking I was tired.

I also saw initial parts of Bunty & Bubli up to the Kajrare song. This film has very nice colours. It is also nice to see Rameshwari and Kiran Juneja after so many years. However, the film seems kind of synthetic.

After reading Mukul's blog, I could appreciate the subtext of the background song from Umrao Jaan and dialogues when AB Sr meets AB Jr.

The part about selling Taj Mahal with Mayawati-kind of person is really good. Kajrare song is also good but didn't like Ash in it. Her vigorous heaving of bosoms makes her look like a transvestite. Watching her reminded me of Praveen Babi when she was forced to wear bhartiya nari kind of clothes. Her jhatkas are good but on the whole it looks like she is trying too hard.

Later, I watched Bride and Prejudice. It was not that bad and Ash was ok. I wish though they had reduced the " colourful Bharat" a bit. Made me wish I was kind of colour-blind.

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Ballet in Trafalgar square

I am in London. After the meeting, I went to Piccadilly circus, walked down the Reagent street to Waterloo place, where they have statues of Lord Lawrence, governor of Punjab in 1857, and of the better known Viceroy of India, Lord Curzon. There is an intriguing house there with a golden statue of Athena.

At Trafalgar square I found a big crowd, sitting on the stairs watching a giant screen showing a live broadcast of Royal British Ballet company. It reminded me of going to watch films in Ravindra Rangshala in Delhi. Only my bum has got softer or perhaps it is the age, after a while, my bones seemed to press on the hard stairs, making it difficult to sit. So finally I left it and resumed my walk.

British modern art gallery behind Trafalgar square has lovely red colured boards announcing some exhibition, wonderful as a background to take pictures. Seeing a couple of British policemen (actually policepersons since one of them was a woman), I quickly clicked. I Love taking pictures of uniformed persons.

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Black memories

I suddenly thought of the man and his daughter. I was writing about the daily "Sofie's choice" that you make as father or mother, when you don't know if you are going to eat that day, when you decide which of your children is going to eat and how much, if you can take your child to the doctor... and I thought of them.

He was from Rajasthan, he had said. His thin sun-burnt face was creased with lines. He had come to Delhi to break stones on the roads because there was nothing to eat in their village. His wife and two children were dead. Only that girl was left. 8-9 years old, thin with wise eyes. She was sick, swaying slightly. She had diarrhea and vomiting. And she was dehydrated.

It was Sunday afternoon and I had promised Nadia that we would go out. I gave him some medicines for his daughter and told him to come back next morning. There was no other way.

I saw him after a few months. How is your daughter, I had asked. She died that night when we had come to see you, he had said simply. Without any hint of resentment or anger in his voice.

Every now and then I think of that woman, the mother of five daughters, whose husband wanted a son. In the servant quarters. Blood was soaking her sari. I was sitting there with blood on my hands, unable to do any thing.

She still comes in my nightmares, making me wake up with my heart pounding in my chest. Her daughters must be grown up and married. Wonder what kind of lives they had? And did her husband remarry?

***

Springsteen in Bologna

Last night Bruce Springsteen was here in Bologna. It was his first concert in Italy. When I heard about it, it was already too late. There were no tickets left.

Fortunately our local TV channel transmitted parts of it.

Silence please, he had asked for it and got it, to sing about the invisible world, the world of war, peace and loneliness of emigrants. Plain simple words, accompanied by his guitar or harmonica. There was no orchestra. Wonderful.

Made me think of Gulzaar. "Hamne dekhi ha un ankhon ki mehkati khusboo.., sirf ahsaas hai yeh ruh se mehsoos karo..".

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Development of sexuality

Suddenly I thought about the differences in the male and female bodies. Why are males full of force and muscular strength but have lower life expectancy while women have less muscle force, are apparently weaker and have longer life expectancy? It is because they have to carry babies in their wombs, I thought, so they could not have participated in hunting and gradually over time, we ended with men developing muscle power and women developing other powers.

May be that is true for humans but is a tigress or a lioness, as strong as a lion or a tiger? I don't think that it is males who go for hunting while females wait at home, so both have to hunt and find food. So then why did nature create males and females? Wouldn't it have been better to have hermafrodites, both males and females in the same bodies? It would have been more practical and reproduction (continuation of the species as the most important primordial impulse) much easier? It has to be something to do with mixing of genes so that if there are any defects in genes, they can be overcome. Confused? I don't know where this kind of thinking is supposed to lead but I am still thinking!

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I like the way they use old buildings in Italy to put them together with new things and the result is wonderful. Bologna has a wonderful university auditorium that was a 2000 year old ruin and they have kept part of old walls and added glass and steel to make a remarkable structure. Or the way, they use old fountains and stairs, like the Spanish square in Rome that is used for fashion shows. In India too we do it, like the Khujaraho festival, but we use old buildings for classical dances and similar things so it is beautiful but not contrasting.

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Hindi Webring

Today morning I was looking for new Hindi fonts. I like Susha, it is really easy to use but there are some signs like the "half R" that I can't seem to get. So I was looking for new fonts and discovered a group called webrings, where they have list of blogs in Hindi. Really great. Result, I have started even a Hindi blog on Kalpana - Jo Na Keh Saka.

I am still without a good Hindi font. Perhaps the problem is with my Italian keyboard and probably people working on Hindi fonts make them for English keyboards. Since keyboards don't cost much and next week I am going to be in London, so I will see if I can find a new keyboard to bring home and then try it for writing in Hindi.

Took some pictures of Marco and Brando today. They have come out really nice.

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My brother Nikhil & Jia

We watched Jia today, with Angeline Jolie in the role of famous American super-model Jia Maria Carungi, who died of drug addiction and AIDS at the age of 26 years in the eighties.

Very obviously My Brother Nikhil is inspired from Jia (in the way it is structured). Compared to MBN, Jia is much more layered film and characters are more gray. Jia perhaps loves Tom Junior and he probably loves her. But the real love of Jis's life is Linda, the make-up woman. In terms of sexuality, the film tackles it head-on with a long scenes of love-making between Jia and Linda. MBN also copies the way story unfolds in the film through a series of flashbacks of people involved in Jia's life, so that some scenes are seen through different persons' point of views. Thus while some of the men in Jia's life see her as a sex kitten, almost nymphomaniac, women are more understanding about it, they see it as craving for affection and stable relationships.

Film has long sequences of Angeline Jolie in the nude and some scenes are very explicit. Watching them, I was thinking about all the big ho-ha Indian actors and actresses make about nudity and kissing. Why are we so shy about our bodies? and about sex? Perhaps it is not so much about being shy as about our image of being a good boy or a good girl? And if you expose, you are not respected any more. But perhaps even in India, times are changing. Persons like Pooja Bhatt could get away with it 15 years ago and persons like Mallika Sherawat are extending the boundaries today.

It is a national holiday today in Italy, the republic day. People just needed one day leave tomorrow, Friday 3 June, to make a four days long weekend and it seems 75% of the country has decided to do that. Bologna seems empty as happens usually in August when every body goes on summer vacation. So roads have very little traffic, buses are empty, finding a parking place is not a problem.

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Perceived insults to religions

It is so depressing to look at Indian news and every other week find some news about a group of Indians who feel that their religion has been insulted by this or that film or that song or that dress.

Hindus in USA seem to be particularly sensitive persons, getting offended very easily because some body has used a Gita shlok inappropriately or has dared to put a Ganesh picture on a pair of jeans. Remove it or else .. they threaten. This is their assertiveness, they say, we need to protect our religion. I think that it is only a sign of their own insecurity. Ganesh ji or Gita don't need protection of these fundoos.

I had thought that Christians were above it but the Catholic protests over the film "Sins" or the Sikh protests against "Jo Bole So Nihaal", all seem equally pointless. Bengalis protest against someone daring to show their Subhash babu as married and want the film to be withdrawn from cinemas. Shiv Sena persons are already well known for their attack at attempts to "corrupt the Bhartiya sanskriti". The saddest thing is that Government seems to cave in every time, in front of any such protest. I wish someone would tell all these moral police to go to hell and if they don't listen, put them in jail.

***

In the park, I was eating some shahtoots when Brando pulled me away. The branch in my hand slipped and went up, showering a rain of dark shatoots on my head, leaving purple marks on my shirt. It reminded me of eating jamuns at Badri Vishal pitti's house in Hyderabad. Thinking of Hydrabad made me think of Mr. Rock and his wife, our neighbours in N.Rajendra Nagar. Their twin sons, Jeremy and Stephan. Mrs. Rock's nephew had come from Secundrabad. In the evening we would sit together on the wall in front of our home and chat for hours. He was working at a car workshop in Sindhi house. After the Rocks left for Australia, he too went away. Can't remember his name or his face!

***

Tourist in Rome

Being in Rome is like being in the middle of a set of Benhur or Ten Commandments. Where ever you look, you can see ruins of old buildings, magnificent horsemen, giant statues, the domes of imposing churches rising against the skyline. There is so much of every thing that after a while it stops registering in your mind. With the kind of archeological and artistic treasures that are there in Rome, it is like one big open air museum.

Only in Rome you can have so many wonderful artistic treasures that are completely ignored by tourists. In any other city of Europe, such treasures would be inside the museums. In Rome, you hear all the time, "this is two thousand years old, or 2500 years old.. In the end, it gets so common that you stop thinking about it and valuing it.

For such a long time, I had stopped looking at Rome through the eyes of a tourist. I looked at it as any other city where I had to go to work. So going to Rome meant rushing around in the underground, cursing for the traffic jams and hardly ever raising up the eyes to look around. And yet, it is enough to stop for a moment and look around, it is so incredibly beautiful.

Look at the pictures and tell me if you don't agree.

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