Buddy Can You Spare a Dime

Around 4 pm the last few days, the internet and the phones have been going down. Odd in the timing.


The IT techies would investigate and found that the dish antennae which connects us here in the countryside with the rest of the world, would need to e repositioned.


Close watch revealed that every afternoon, one of the local primates would climb the tower to have a look around. We've been experiencing some winds and a bit of rain in the afternoons, and so it's possible that a change in the air pressure sent him up the tallest thing around.

I'd rather think he was just trying to make a call and check to see that everything was all right.

Using Their Heads

Somewhere I have a picture of a parade of women carrying rocks on their heads. It seems odd in so many ways, that women do the carrying, and tht they'd carry them on their heads.

Well the first we should calk up to my internal sexism and the second to my poor understanding of chiropracty.


India is the land of culture clash and absorption. That they can exist with 30 or so languages and dialects is but one example of how the cultures adapt.
As the we try to influence the building culture here, we find that many adaptations have already occurred. When required to wear hardhats, hardhats adapted tot he local customs appeared.



The ring doesn't just accomodate rocks, but also the shallow dishes in which dirt, gravel, even concrete is carried.

Puja

Hardly anything happens here in Tamil Nadu (and perhaps the rest of Hindustan) without a puja. It's an asking for blessings from the gods and banishing of evil spirits. Local priests are brought in for house warmings, blessings of new cars, start of new businesses, whatever.

We finished a new canteen at the job site and some priests were brought in and they built a 'homa kuntam' or literally: ritual vessel in which they built a fire INSIDE the building. The fire, made of special wood of course, had herbs and flowers and ghee and even coins thrown into it.

Lots of chanting and smoke followed by sweets and coconuts and buttermilk and then lunch!

The Heart Knows No Distance

The world is still a terribly large place, as small as it might be. Our words and communications and financial transactions can now keep up with our thoughts and our emotions, but the corporeal presence still doesn't move so fast or so easily.
It's usually not a problem. Emails, echats, skype and all remind us that we are in each others heads and hearts. But when a loved one needs a hand held, a hug, a shoulder, the girth of the globe becomes painfully clear.

A brilliant young man by every account, the son of a dear friend of long standing went off to school in Ithaca, NY, a thousand miles from home. He thrived in the environment. A few weeks ago he did not come back from a late party and was found the next day in a pond.

At a loss to describe the relationship, I refer to him as a nephew, his mother being as close as a sister to me. Of course in India every older man of acquaintance is respectfully called Uncle, so perhaps the emotional tie did not cross the cultural divide.

So while the old gang gathered for the memorial, I was on the other side of the globe, at a Hindu temple memorializing a truely gifted light which came and burned so brightly and so so briefly. And I felt very very far away.

The words on the page are important, important like the markings on a map or the footprints on the sand; they lead us to follow, to explore and, if successful, yield a worthy conclusion.
Yet the real power and the true treasure of any written work of imagination or knowledge is the quality that transcends paper and ink, that lifts off the page those words that ring in the heart and souls of the reader. The words that connect memories, that bind people’s lives and create foundation in a life that was previously bereft of such stability; they form a place of creation in the mind of the reader. Such experiences are those that also transcend all price tags or late fees. Such experiences are those that shape our lives.

-Willie Jacobson

New York Satate of Mind

Well it's more than a Greyhound, but tomorrow night I'm taking the Jet Airways' Hudson River Line and coming home for three weeks. There was way too much cntroversy about the leave, and then the tickets didn't end up in my hand until last night, but daily yoga is keeping me calm. I hope Billy Joel isn't playing in my head all during the 14 hour flight.

Of course circumstance being as perverse as it is, a contingent from the client will be in town at the same time! Busman's holiday!

Sarathy the Chariot Driver

A couple of weeks ago (sorry, I've been bad about keeping this up) Kaushik Sarathy, my Turner partner here in Chennai and all around terrific guy, got me up early in the morning to take me to his families' favorite temple.
I hope that he, or anyone else reading this, will forgive any of the inaccuracies reported here. I say this with all reverence and mean no disrespect.

Many of the Temples have 'chariots' or wagons on which the Lord is placed and pulled through the streets by the devout, pulling on long chains. The chariot, which by itself can be enrmous, is decorated for the event

There are, of course, lots of Hindu gods, and they incarnate into many avatars, Krishna being the incarnation most familiar to us in the West 'cause of the saffron robed folks who used to dot the airports. The avatars have lots of adventures and kill demons and create rivers and mountains and many such things. The numerous temples in India celebrate the various avatars and their deeds.

One of the things Krishna did was drive a chariot in one of the major Hindu epics, the Mahabarata. The caste of chariot drivers are called Sarathy, hence Kaushik's family's interest in the temple. BTW you can tell this incarnation of Krishna because he has "moustaches".


So the chariot is constructed without a turning mechanism, and so with a combination of wedges, weighted brakes on the back, and rice flour, the chariot is turned through the streets. The guy in the picture is holding one of the wedges, which doesn't seem so big when you consider the size of the wheel behind him.

Kaushik did get me into the line and I pulled on the chain for a while. It was a really hot morning, despite the early hour. We didn't pull long or far, but I can imagine that it would be a religious experience to pull it all the way around.

I tried to make some comment about the idea that if the chariot driver was riding in the chariot, who would be driving? But the irony didn't make it through the translation.

So it gets hot in India.

The sun passes over Chennai much sooner than it does over New York City in it's procession to the solstice. As a matter of fact they call this period Agni Nakshatra or "Star Fire". There was one night last week that it did, indeed feel like the stars were shooting heat out of the sky.
They say it ends next month. But thay also say it only lasts 14 days, or 24 days, or 30 days - depending on whom you ask.

I wonder why it doesn't happen after the soltice as well. Maybe there's something they're not telling me?