The Indian Road Romeo

Sinnar-Ghoti Bypass

2012-01-17T22:42:00.000-08:00

Rotten Fresh Tomatoes?

I was surprised by the number of packaged amino acids, minerals and natural chemicals that come in packets that help to grow and protect the tomatoes we get in the market. In fact, you do not get the tomatoes from this farm in our markets, they are exported. But this is apparently how tomatoes are grown. I will go eat some chicken and pigs grown in badly ventilated, anti-biotics pumped enclosed places, I think.

These were the packets that were thrown around. Most of them were locally made in Nasik District.

Shirdi

2012-01-13T01:32:00.000-08:00

Holy Cap! Street Fashion of Shirdi long-distance walkers.

Thousands do the walk from Mumbai (and other places) to Shirdi every year. Mumbai is filled with Padayatra mandals. They walk all the way to Shirdi over a few days. Most groups have a hired van with cooking utensils and blankets that go ahead of them and wait at strategic locations, where they camp and prepare the food for the devotees. The poorer padayatra mandals make do with restaurants along the road.

Malegaon

2012-01-04T06:05:00.000-08:00

Mohammed Zahid's home. Extra Shots from How do you keep the faith?
The story of 7 Muslims of Malegaon who spent 5 unjust years in jail In Tehelka by Sai Manish.

This is where Mohammed Zahid's family lives. Zahid was one of the originally accused in the Malegaon Blast case and then let off. This is how his family lives. This is most of us live. When we open a tap there is no water. When we toggle a switch, nothing lights up.

In Malegaon, almost all homes have these recycled chemical barrels to store water. The rich have space to store it indoors, 99% of them have it crowing their door steps.

Also look at the storage space in the home. Recycled lockers.

We get along with things we stand in queues and collect. Lock up whatever we get hoping that it will be useful. We allow nothing to go waste.

Today, the queues are not as bad it was 20 or 25 years back, for some, but the majority have no option but to stand in queues. The politicians continue to come with new ideas to make us stand in queues with their meager handouts and a fat commission for the middlemen-hoarding-herders. They hope that we will also queue up and vote for them one day for giving people the privilege to stand in queues. They, led by Rahul Gandhi, talk of two Indias. But the two Indias are probably the ones who don't and they who get to stand in queues. If they can get us to stand in queues they can control us. If you refuse to stand in queues...

It's also funny to see how other politicians mock Rahul Gandhi. To make himself worthy of being a Prime Minister in their eyes, he should probably engineer a riot or two like his seasoned friends. Order a few killings that do not lead back to him. Find a nice province for himself where he can collect more money than regional leaders to fund elections. How will he lead a war against Pakistan or control our atomic bombs if he can't do these simple things that even petty politicians do every day?

Politicians can order killings and tie-up with the most wanted Indian who lives in Pakistan and build towers. But if you are an ordinary man, stand in that queue and thank generations of politicians who dole out subsidized FCI grain, don't make friends or talk to people who have SIMI or any suspect links like Zahid did. Even if you haven't killed anyone or thought of making a bomb that will kill someone, you could be in jail just because you spoke to someone suspicious. Zahid's dad (picture below) warned him to be careful of the friend he makes, but he never guessed that it would take away the prime years of his life.

The Life and Times of Michael K.

There's a 1983 book by the South African writer JM Coetzee called The Life and Times of Michael K. It's about a slow man with a cleft lip who grows up and lives in "war-time" South Africa. It's cleverly written. It doesn't mention the colour of anybody's skin or who is fighting whom. That also makes it easy to draw parallels with any conflict in the world, India, and the plight of an individual caught in it. Michael K is defined by a man on the opposite side of the conflict, in one of the pages, like this:

" With Michaels it always seemed me that someone had scuffled together a handful of dust, spat on it, and patted it into the shape of a rudimentary man, making one or two mistakes (the mouth and without a doubt the contents of the head), omitting one or two details (the sex), but coming up nevertheless in the end with a genuine little man of the earth..."

The book is the journey of the little man of the earth trying to escape the system. There are probably many Michael Ks in India. There are episodes in the book that will remind you of the innocents who are picked up and branded as enemies of the system. In Malegaon, Mumbai, the heart of India and the borderlands.

Mumbai Se Puri

2011-12-29T00:22:00.000-08:00

Announcing the Inaugural India Surf Festival.
At Puri, Odisha. From 7th to 9th February 2012.

Surfing is an alien sport in Indian sub continent. Surfing Yogis with a passion for surfing and yogic practices, helped by the mystical waves of Indian ocean are the using it as an inspirations to unite surfers from around the globe in the 1st Indian Surf festival.

Official travel partner-
info@grassroutesjourneys.com
+91 9437029698
skype: grassroutesjourneys

Nearest airport: Bhubaneswar- 70 Kms.
Nearest railway station: 15 Kms.
There are plenty of hotels and guest houses in town of Puri & Konark to suit every kind of budget. Limited camping facility available in Surfers Island.
Nearest International airport: Kolkatta: 375 Kms.
Temperature : warm/moderate around 20-25 degree

For more information contact
( Orissa )
Sanjay - 91-09437003284
surfingyogis@gmail.com

( Mumbai )
Spandan - 91-09819639336
banerjee.spandan@gmail.com

( Mumbai )
Kedar - 91-09702569316
sonigra.kedar@gmail.com

(Mumbai)
Sachin Salian 91-08655505506
sachinssalian@gmail.com

(USA)
Kaelean Sizemore 949-275-7786 (pri)\ 949-498-3554 (sec)
alisokaelan@yahoo.com

Also check

http://surfingyogis.com/

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.233796133347936.57987.100001526545253&type=1&l=0691c59a17

Follow us on

http://facebook.com/surfingyogis

http://www.youtube.com/surfingyogis

Malegaon, Nashik

2011-12-26T03:09:00.000-08:00

Abrar's home. Extra Shots from How do you keep the faith?
The story of 7 Muslims of Malegaon who spent 5 unjust years in jail In Tehelka by Sai Manish.

Of the innocents who were accused in the Malegaon Blast case, Abrar is from a relatively well-off family. Or was from a well-off family. This is what Sai Manish observed:

"But then, cruel coincidences shadow the lives of every single man who was picked up after the 2006 blasts. Abrar Ahmed is on the other end of the spectrum of this group of seven usual suspects. The richest of the lot, he belongs to a family of freedom fighters. In fact, his grandfather fought alongside Mahatma Gandhi in the Civil Disobedience movement of 1931.

After their powerloom godown was burnt down in the 1993 riots in Mumbai, the family shifted base to Malegaon and was prospering, thanks to a scaled-down powerloom business. But things went haywire in 2006 when Abrar, the youngest of the five sons, was picked up. He had got married just days before his arrest.

“Traders from all over India used to buy powerlooms from us,” says Ahmed Sayeed, Abrar’s father. “After the constant police harassment, they started having doubts about our integrity. They sympathised with us but were reluctant to do business.”"

These are images from his home. The worried father, the family who missed an important member of the family, the law books that they hope will set him free and not just out on bail. the street they live on.

Malegaon, Nashik

2011-12-23T21:46:00.000-08:00

Inside the office of Jamiat Muslim Fund, Malegaon.

I had gone to the office of the Jamiat Muslim Fund in Malegaon along with the young Sai Manish of Tehelka to meet Noor-ul-huda. Noor, a labourer, was one of the accused who has been proved innocent by the court in the Malegaob Blasts case and is now out on bail. You can read his experiences in jail here.

Here are a few images from the Jamiat Office.

An old campaign from the 1950s.

A more recent campaign: Multi-nationals rule and Bush is their emperor. Also, note the change in language and script.

The library:
Local issues - powerlooms, politics, rights, etc.

A map of Maharashtra in Urdu.

Recently, Javed Akthar noted that Urdu books were not being allowed into a jail because the men at the gates did not know how to read the script and looked at anything in that script as suspect. That actually sums up a lot of things about India. The country with the largest population of illiterates and functional illiterates in the world. That's not a super-power trait.

Malegaon, Nashik

2011-11-30T23:27:00.000-08:00

Malegaon Ka Cool Drink.

Malegaon Ka Super Heroes.

Malegaon Ka Ice Cream.

Malegaon Ka Generation next

Malegaon Ka Rozi Roti

Malegaon Ka Overload Auto

Malegaon Ka Boring Channel - PTV Home

Malegaon Ka Bar Man.

Malegaon Ka Now Running.

Malegaon Ka...

Malegaon is nothing like the city, media has created in the minds of Arnab's angry people. It's a city full of hard working people. It's a bustling city with Mumbai's energy but set in a far laid back part of the country. So it's no wonder that a whole city has been painted as a villain.

Like all places, it has its share of mischief mongers but it's a shame that this city where you will find a spirit that you will probably find only in Mumbai has been tainted. Like the mandatory villain in the skull cap that you find on most Marathi film posters, Malegaon has been painted as the villain but the truth is that these people are our silent, hard working heroes.

India. Aapko Malegaon ka Salaam.

MHB Colony, Malegaon

2011-11-29T01:40:00.001-08:00

Dr Salman Farsi. The Unani Doctor from Govandi who was picked up by the police after the Malegaon blasts.

Blasts in Malegaon, damage in Govandi.

We still don't know who planted the bombs that went off a few months back in the Khau Gallis of South Mumbai. Mumbai Police has not been able to crack the case yet. And unlike in earlier blasts, no one has been blamed and arrested for the bombings yet.

They have not arrested anybody because 7 people like Dr Salman Farsi were arrested following the Malegaon blast and had to be released on bail (and will most probably be legally free in a few months) because the court found them innocent.

This time, the cops will have to work hard for a change and find real culprits.

You can read the stories of the men and their families here: How do you keep the faith? By Sai Manish. Tehelka Impact story about 7 Muslims from Malegaon who spent 5 unjust years in jail including our own Arthur Road jail.

These images, the extra shots are from the home of Dr Salman Farsi in Malegaon.

Dr Salman Farsi and his wife, who is also a physician ran a clinic is Govandi when he was picked up after the blasts. While he was away in jail, his wife moved to Malegaon, Dr Salman's hometown. For days after he was picked up, cops would visit the frightened family and ask where Dr Salman was hidden while everyone knew that he was jailed. She then moved to Malegaon and in a quiet MHB colony, started life afresh with her three children.

Dr Salman came back home to a pleasant surprise. A nice neighbourhood clinic and the cosmetics he saw she was also selling made him smile. That's not a traditional Unani label. But he had missed 5 of the most important years of his children's lives.

Their library:

Abdassa, Kutch

2011-11-24T02:33:00.000-08:00

Barefoot Geologists of Kutch Series

Indhoni. The Halo of the Kutch Women
and an Essential Fashion Accessory.

Thanks to the Barefoot geologists, the women in Abdassa Taluk do not have to travel miles for drinking water. Most wells are within 5 minutes from their homes. But they still have to be carried home.

And since this is Kutch, they do it in style. Here are their Indhoni.

And here are the barefoot Geologists at a well they built.

Budiya, Abdasa Taluk, Kutch

2011-11-22T06:54:00.000-08:00

Barefoot Geologists 4

Village 1: Budiya. The windswept village.

The Kutch coast is windy. The mostly fishing village of Budiya sits right on the coast. Whatever little rain falls here is evaporated by the harsh sun and whatever remains by the wind. The silver linings are the Pavan-chakkis or the Wind turbines that convert the wind to electricity.

The ceaseless wind also give the beautiful children of this village, this windswept hairstyle that I had blogged about earlier and the images are worth repeating.

All that the barefoot geologists had to do here was divert the rainwater to an appropriate spot with the right soil formation to sponge the water underground.

That was the easy part.

The tough part of the job is maintaining the well and that is managed by the locals themselves. The well is treated like a temple. Or since the village is a Mohammedan one, let's call it a mosque or a dargah. The approach and the surroundings are swept clean. No littering is allowed. Footwear is banned near the well and do and don't board that maintain cleanliness are everywhere. Violators are fined.

The same care goes to the channels that direct the water.

After living for ages without access to sweet fresh water, they know the true value of clean drinking water.

Bhuj

2011-11-04T03:17:00.000-07:00

The 16th Century Barefoot Geologists of Kutch.

Before the colonial powers, electricity, dams and other technology came along, it seems like our ancestors were pretty clever when it came to using whatever little knowledge they had to make use of the most important scarce resource of them all - water.

There are several that can be listed but one good selection of those stories can be found in a book by Nitya Jacob called Jal Yatra.

One story that is missing in that book is the story of Hamirsar. The artificial lake that forms the heart of Bhuj and reason for its existence.

Hamirsar. A 100 years back.

The return of Common Sense.

Hamirsar must be the only clean lake found in the heart of an Indian city at the moment. The water is actually clean. You cannot smell it and that can be shocking for any city bred Indian who sees the lake. These Kachchis must be a different breed from the rest of us, except for this. 'Pooja Items'.

However, a decade back, this lake was just like any other lake in an Indian city. A relative of Hussainsagar or Ulsoor lake. The poor Hamirsar was dead until the earthquake shook the people of Bhuj. The lake was cleaned up and revitalised after that.

How Hamirsar was built.

To feed rain water into the Hamirsar lake must have involved an army of people following the instruction of some brilliant mind or minds. It is named after the founder of Bhuj, Rao Hamir. It is his son and his successors who actually built the lake and extended its catchment area. This is a rough map of the system that brings in the water from the surrounding hills. It's a system of small reservoirs, channels, and tunnels. Care is taken to avoid saline rocks that can contaminate the water. This worked for nearly 450 years.

The system fell into disuse in the second half of the last century. Wells, water pumps and other modern methods reduced the water inflow into the lake. This coupled with our legendary love for cleanliness ensured that the lake was almost killed when the earthquake struck Bhuj 10 years back.

What followed was one of the most interesting rebuilding exercise any region of India has seen. Kutchis stopped and listened to the ground beneath their feet. They realised that there was common sense and sustainability in the system that helped create the city of Bhuj in the first place. They revived the Hamirsar Lake System.

The Barefoot Geologists of Kutch are only following the same example set by their forefathers, 450 years back.

Bhuj + Naliya. Kutch

2011-10-23T23:59:00.000-07:00

Barefoot Geologists 2:
The world beneath their feet.

Geologically, Kutch is one of the newest regions of the Indian Subcontinent.It shook its way up from the seabed rather recently. It continues to shake often and rises up inch by inch and the memory of that is all too recent.

To see how new it is, take a look at Kutch on one of the satellite photos or Google Earth. A large section of Kutch is beautiful white and salty, or there are a nice patterns of white created by flowing water and there are the rectangles of man-made salt pans in the Little Rann.

This also means that the most of rocks and soil here have salt in them. The rainwater that flows over and into them become saline and adds to the difficulty of obtaining useful water .

This is a Geological map of Kutch made by ONGC, The Oil and Natural Gas Commission. Many decades back they went prospecting for liquid gold - the black one in this case. I'm not sure if they found anything useful for themselves but the same mapping can be pretty useful if you are looking for the real liquid gold of the arid lands - water.

If you know the nature of the rocks and soil, you can pin point where you are likely to find sweet water. And if you know where to find them, you can collect rain water or channelise rain water to them and if possible store them for the dry days.

Imagine, taking that valuable data down to the individual village level. You pinpoint the right place, channelise rain water, store them and dig a well.

That's exactly what the Barefoot Geologists do. Armed with detailed maps of each village in the driest taluk of Kutch, they have made them drought proof.

The Barefoot Geologists call their project: Pani Thiye Panjo or Water Becomes You.

And if there are contaminants and salts, they can destroy you.

The Bible, Gita and Quran.

This book contains the hydro-geological maps of every single village in Abdasa Taluk. It also has the topography that allows the villagers, led by Barefoot geologists to build water channels to places where sweet water can be stores and wells can be dug, making the village drought proof.

But maps are useless without tried and tested methods to measure the reality on the ground and underneath it. The Barefoot Geologists are trained to use tools, instruments and tests to what lies beneath.

"Our job is to understand the janamkindli (birth charts) of the local rock formations" says, Velji, one of the Barefoot Geologists.

Who trains them? Who funds them? And what is the effect of their work?

Over the next few posts, I will take you to four villages from different regions of the taluk where the wells have been dug.

Pingleswar, Abdassa Tq., Kutch

2011-10-23T07:20:00.000-07:00

Jayanti, Sulaiman, Velji, Jitendra, Md. Rafiq, Chandrasinh

The Barefoot Geologists of Kutch.

In the driest taluk, in the driest district of Gujarat, this small group of ordinary people have come together to make all the villages drought-proof.

Armed with geological maps including some that were made by ONGC in the 60s and 70s to hunt for oil, these Barefoot Geologists of Kutch studied the geological ground reality of each and every village. Then, they divert the little rain water that falls, in this forgotten corner of the country, to rocks and soils that are capable of storing water.

Using basic geology skills, these ordinary heroes have made it possible to give themselves precious drinking water even if the rains fail for over a year.

Who trained them? How do they fund their work? Over the next few posts, Indian Road Romeo will be showing you their work and yes, salute the people of Kutch who truly understand the value of water.

Their motto: Water becomes you.

Meet the Barefoot Geologists.

Naliya, Kutch

2011-09-28T03:33:00.000-07:00

Drums, noise and hunting the tigers the Royal way. This is how we killed almost all our tigers. And I guess, Velu Pillai Prabhakaran and his cubs.

Royals. The tiger hunt firecracker.

"Dumara Dumara Dum
The tiger has come
Take a little gun/gum
And stick it on his bum"

Old Ahmedabad

2011-09-27T04:15:00.000-07:00

Auto Art.

Varanapally Temple, Puthupally. Kayankulam

2011-09-24T00:50:00.000-07:00

Village Temple Vs Urban Gods
Stories from behind the ornate locks of Varanapalli Temple.

This is the lady who sweeps the courtyard around the Varanapalli Temple. She and her family is in charge of keeping a quarter of the courtyard clean. She also helps with the many daily needs of the temple. For example, while we were there she was also making the preparations for lunch the next day to the village committee members who were having a meeting the next day. The menu was a nice spread. A semi-sadhya and it required quite a bit of preparation.

The story of the woman and the others like her are that they were distributed what was originally the temple land on which they live and cultivate.

Over the decades, almost all of the useful land that belonged to the temple has been distributed to the people who worked on it.

But look at the fields around the temple and you will notice that there is very little paddy cultivation anymore. The entire region which was a network of waterways that supported paddy cultivation has been filled in and used to build homes, plant less-labour intensive coconut and breed new strains of mosquitoes.

The water network of this region built over centuries is actually a marvel. However, it is dying and almost dead. No wonder, Kerala imports most of the food it consumes.

The rituals, that were dedicated to farming remain during festivals and temple festivals. But how relevant are these rituals in a non-farming landscape that this rural temple now occupies?

That would also explain the changing religious practices of the Hindus. The gods who are gaining popularity are not linked to the soil or the local economy. It's faraway Ayyappa, Mookambika, even Shani. There's the growing popularity of Ganesha and Saturn/Shani , who are more apt for the present economic needs. Greed and luck. I wonder if the Village Goddesses are losing their shine.

Kayankulam

2011-09-23T06:34:00.000-07:00

Kerala beauty extracting coconut oil.

Varanapally Temple, Puthupally. Kayankulam

2011-09-09T06:07:00.000-07:00

Kayankulam Kochunni leaves his mark
Stories from behind the ornate locks of Varanapalli Temple.

In the earlier post, I wrote about the the influential student of the school at Varanapalli, Sri Narayana Guru. Nearly a century before Sri Narayana Guru, another interesting person, Kayankulam Kochunni, the Robinhood of Kerala, happened to come to the same place. No, he was not a student, but a friend of one of the main members of the Varanapalli family.

One day, Kochunni visited his friend at Varanapalli. As they stood chatting, the Panikar asked Kochunni, who was already famous as a master thief, if he had the courage to steal from the Varanapalli family. Kochunni just smiled. The next day when the Panikkar woke up, he discovered that a vessel that was kept inside the house, where he slept behind a locked door, was kept in the courtyard of the house. Kayankulam Kochunni has broken in and left his mark.

The white box in the above picture shows the place where a hidden lock was placed. Apparently, Kochunni, who was chewing paan, had marked the spot even as the Panikar was challenging him and came back at night to break in.

Kochunni himself was an interesting character. He stole from the rich and gave it to the poor. But at the same time, he was friends with the richest family in this part of Kerala. He only broke into Varanapalli once, but he didn't steal a thing from the richest and most powerful house in theis part of the world, then.

Selective Robinhood.

Here's a picture of the house (on the right) and the temple

And I love the marks left on this thorth (the cotton towel of Kerala)

Varanapally Temple, Puthupally. Kayankulam

2011-08-26T04:08:00.000-07:00

Manichtratazhu.

Stories behind the Ornate Locks of Varanapally Temple. Part 1

Most people go to places of worship to pray. But a good number of them, come to listen to stories. Try this the next time if you haven't already. Ask the priests, mullah or even one of the friendly looking locals about the temple and out come tumbling stories, real and imagined that will make your day.

The Varanapally temple, near Kayankulam, Alleppey District, is no different. The temple's name comes from the family that erected this temple - the Varanapally Thravadu. The Panikars of this family were chieftains of the local Maharaja who lived in Krishnapuram, a few kilometers away.

The residents of what remains of the original house next to the temple are more than willing to tell you the history of the place. Speak to the woman who is sweeping the temple's sandy courtyard and she will give you her version of the temple's recent history, the current politics of the governing council and the menu of the lunch she's preparing the next day when the members meet to elect a new person to a post that recently became vacant.

The ground opposite the temple and the house is one of the rare open space in these parts because it is a densely green region, close to the backwaters. Most of the land around has been filled in to grow coconut palms and build concrete gulf houses, but once upon a time, boats could come close to the North gate of the temple during peak summer. The well in the temple, would stay sweet even in the worst of summers and people from shores far away could fill boats with sweet water. (Note: Kerala backwaters are brackish)

The Panikars of Varanapally are different from the other chieftains of Kerala. They belonged to the Ezhava caste, a caste that is not traditionally associated with warfare. They were very good warriors and leaders to have earned the title. However, it was not just for their bravery, hard-earned titles, or land they owned and distributed among the poor that they were famous for, it was also for a school that was attached to their military school.

One of the students who studied in his Sanskrit school went on to become much more important than the school and the family that ran it. The student was the reformer now known as Sri Narayana Guru.

Sri Narayana Guru

The School Story.

When Narayana came to the Sanskrit school at Varanapalli to study, he discovered that students were seated in class according to their castes. From special mats to the highest caste, flat wooden stools for some and the bare floor for the lowest castes. The legend is that the boy Narayana when showed his seat, asked, which air should he breathe in class?

I'm surprised that they were all in one class, breathing the same air. In how many places in India was that possible in the 1860s?

In India today, people from different class and castes don't even breathe the same air. The poor breathe the air from toilet-less, blackboard-less, teacher-less classrooms. The state will move mountains for nuclear bombs but we are too poor to educate our children.

Going back to Narayana Guru, Varanapally was where he came after his elementary education and spent his formative years here. The years where he grew acutely aware of the social structure of Kerala and started thinking of a solution.

Today, a photograph of Sri Narayana Guru sits alongside the galaxy of Hindu gods in his former school. This photograph is in the main house next to the temple where the head of the family lived in a veranda facing the cowshed. The cowshed looks like a work of art and not one of the usual cowsheds that was common across Central Travancore until a decade or two back.

Why the cows of Varanapally got a beautiful home.

The Panikars of Varanapally were powerful in this part of Travancore state. They were the court of appeal for local cases. They were respected. And yes, they ruled in style. But when one of the Panikars went to a friend's house, who belonged to a higher caste, a Nair, he was treated as a friend, except that when he went to the cow-shed during a puja, he was denied entry or was asked to stay out.

He came back and ensured that he would build the most elaborate and beautiful cowshed in his courtyard. It's built right outside the family head's door so that it is the first thing he sees when he wakes up in the morning.

The caste system may not be as suffocating in Kerala anymore but it was for many centuries. Across India, Swami Vivekananda's is famous for his Chicago speech but in Kerala he is most popular for calling Travancore a madhouse. It was the caste system that existed in the state that made his say that.

But it was not just the caste system that Sri Narayana Guru was trying to bust, it was all kinds of divisions. Especially religion. And he distilled his thoughts down to one single line.

"One Caste. One Religion. One God - Human"

The colour of his belief is yellow.

The only problem, in India, the followers of any such statement will be painted with a new colour and classified under a new caste, of a new religion and under a new god or godman. Buddha, Basavanna, Sri Narayana Guru... and more to come.

The main deity here is Bhadrakali, the Grama Devata. The there is Shiva and his family, shrines for the bravest of the Panikars sharing space with inscriptions from the Quran, Bible, Guru Granth Sahib and quote by the atheist Buddha. Overall, the main inspiration seems to be mix of Shivite and Buddhist thoughts.

It's a pleasure to visit a temple which makes you reflect and think and not watch fat elephants gifted by Chief Ministers who hate to pay tax but will gladly open their purses in front of a Hundi.

Nabi

KP Road, Kayankulam

2011-08-19T04:50:00.000-07:00

Old Toddy In New Bottles.

While the whole world and his Rajnikanth is trying to look younger, the Mammooty-Mohanlal film industry wants to look older. All the new DVDs of the old movies starring Mammooty, Mohanlal and Srinivasan have their older, fat, dyed and wrinkled latest photos on the covers.

Biju Ebenezer of Oldmalayalamcinema, who showed me this trend is yet to find the reason for this trend. But I guess, we didn't have to look far for the reason. They were probably designed by "Someone Cuckoo!"

Kayankulam

2011-08-18T03:56:00.000-07:00

Life is Plastic
Kerala - 1980s

Kerala

2011-08-08T00:34:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Gods' own country.

The Railway Station that caters to a Christian faith healing centre. The train that I took, the Netravati from Mumbai to Trivandrum Central stops here and the people who got off here were all from Goa. This place is very popular among Goans.

Not too far away from Divine Nagar, outside the International Arrival in Cochin International Airport where trolley loads of goods from the air conditioned souks of the Gulf arrive, Sri. Sri-Sri -Sri welcomes you with some divine blessings.

In Kerala newspapers are also targetted according to one's religion and ideology. Here's a man advertising the one that is allegedly read mostly by muslims. This is also at the International arrival.

The martyr Jesus of the communists. Kerala is the only place where only the communists use his face. The others will never be caught dead wearing a t-shirt with his face.

Across all beliefs, the most worshiped god of Kerala is Gold.

Lord of the black army on the windshield.

The hugging godwoman of Kerala welcomes you at the Kayankulam Station, the one closest to her ashram.

Kerala temples are popular among politicians who believe that stuffing the hundi and donating an elephant is acceptable tax for the money they steal from the people. This is a temple elephant in Guruvayur.

Chiplun

2011-08-05T03:59:00.000-07:00

Konkan Green. Monsoon 2011

Southern Railway. Palghat Section

2011-08-03T03:35:00.000-07:00

Calicut / Kozhikode Station

Cannanore / Kannur Station

People of Kerala series: The death of "weekilies"

I'm an occasional visitor to Kerala and one thing that is missing these days is seeing people read. They do read newspapers but if I remember correctly, in the earlier days, you would've seen

more people reading something on the railway platform than this on a normal day. You will see magazines and newspapers neatly folded and tucked under or arms if you are male and around the umbrella if you are a woman.

Not as much, anymore.

But it's the disappearance of the weeklies with their serialised stories that's missing completely. Killed by the "serials" on television.

There was a time when women and men would catch up their weekly dose of Mangalam and Manorama on their way back to work or wherever. Now they just listen to music or sleep or grab a "Vanitha". The men continue to read newspapers and news magazines. The vendors selling books on trains have reduced too. They carry the local "flash" newspapers now and drawing and colouring books for kids.

The youngsters play with their mobile phones and exchange music and videos.

Yes, newspapers, tabloids and news magazines are read but while it has increased in other parts of India, in Kerala it seems to have come down. They have become addicted to passive FM and the visual medium.

Bhuj

2011-07-27T02:15:00.000-07:00

Most autorikshaws in Bhuj town have this heart shaped rear window.

Abdasa Taluk, Kachch

2011-07-19T02:59:00.000-07:00

Hair style of Kutch: Windswept.

The Kutch coast is windy. Right now, the monsoon winds sweep across the dry desert land. Without stopping. Taking away with it the rain clouds... scattering only a few drops that are not enough to quench the thirst of this parched earth. But it's good enough to generate power, many megawatts of it and to give the little girls this hairstyle.

And if you haven't noticed it. The Kutchis have the most wonderful smiles in the whole wide world.

MIDC Miraj. Sangli - Miraj Road

2011-07-05T01:39:00.000-07:00

Rangoli

Typical Day in a Wedding Hall 5: Decorations

Flowers

Dining hall - backdrop

Stage backdrop

Jeep

Disposable dining table cover

MIDC Miraj. Sangli - Miraj Road

2011-07-02T21:53:00.000-07:00

What's a wedding without naughty cousins?

While everybody throws grains of rice to bless the couple during the main ceremony, they showered noise, confetti and currency notes from the Kids Bank of India.

The ideal couple.

Typical Day in a Wedding Hall 4: A task for naughty cousins

Read the full series here. Typical Indian Wedding.

MIDC Miraj. Sangli - Miraj Road

2011-06-30T20:38:00.000-07:00

Running hot water

Typical Day in a Wedding Hall 3: Bath Time

After a short rest with mosquitoes dancing around you, there's only one way for the army of relatives to look their best for the wedding. It's to have a nice hot bath.

The smart ones are up earlier than the rest and this one place where the Sangli-Mirajkars are faster than the Mumbaikars.

Mumbaikars are quick in Mumbai. But the minute we are out of our inverted beehive shaped city, we are slow. So we watched the locals decked up and ready, the energetic old aunties plastering turmeric on the groom and his family.

The symbolic crushing of turmeric.

Wonder what's the secret of her energy. Silk or gold?

Another aunty was singing aloud, the old songs hand written for the occassion.

Given the fact that nowadays, there are now 5 times more people above 60 in most families in South Western India than people below 20, the groom was napalmed with hands full of turmeric paste and neem leaves and 100% sanitized through traditional methods.

Read the full series here. Typical Indian Wedding.

MIDC Miraj. Sangli - Miraj Road

2011-06-29T03:16:00.000-07:00

Typical Day in a Wedding Hall 2

Actually it must be a typical night in a wedding hall. Or the morning after. No one really sleeps on the night before a wedding and it's not just because of the mosquitoes singing naughty tunes, or cold breeze. It's just that it's Hum Apke Hain Kaun? time.

The extended families of the bride and the groom were staying under the same roof. They broke ice like a nuclear powered russian ice breaker in no time, playing Dumb Charade, Men and boys Vs. Women and girls. By dawn, they were all relatives. The bridegroom was running around all night doing little errands and making sure guests who keep trickling in at odd times found a corner to sleep or joined the game in progress. No one noticed or ignored the group of youngsters who quietly finished a few bottles of whiskey in the corner. One of whom you can see snoring away as the Turmeric Ceremony happens in the other side of the hall.

The bride had her own little room. Locked up with a few relatives and I assume, the jewelry.

Read the full series here. Typical Indian Wedding.

MIDC Miraj. Sangli - Miraj Road

2011-06-28T06:07:00.000-07:00

Typical Day in a Wedding Hall 1

Air Instruments

There's no Indian Hindu wedding without an air instrument. It's break time for the band at a typical wedding hall, on the road that connects the industrial twin towns of Miraj-Sangli. The trumpet player took time off to try some complicated tunes that his clumsy instrument with as many tones as an elephants trunk would allow.

No one was listening.

We are deaf, we love jet engine background decibels and brass bands, shehnai and nadaswaram, however loud they are, is elevator music.

That hat is an original Indian design.

North or South. Shehnai or Nadaswaram. You find Bollywood playing Brass Bands everywhere.

And before the band takes over, the master himself on the PA speakers. Breathtaking, if you pause to listen.

Mangwana, Kutch

2011-06-26T21:24:00.000-07:00

Style Bhais of Kutch Part 4:
Cement Worker.

You can take a Kutch man off grazing and farming but you can't take the style gene out of him. Even when he wears Dabbang Ready Wanted clothes or rubber finger protection for the rough day at work, he does it with his own Tashan.

Kutch is full of limestone deposits, dotted with ports and is close to oil and gas rich middle-east. It's also dotted with huge cement plants and it's taking the young ones off the land and making them do hard labour. Animal raising and farming is a 24/7 job. Working as a casual labourer in a cement or any other factories pays you a little less but it's a job with fewer responsibilities and risk.

See the full series here.

Pingleswar, Abdassa Tq., Kutch

2011-06-24T02:21:00.000-07:00

Monsoon 2011.

The monsoon hits the Kutch coast. There's no rain. The few drops that did fall, fell on me and the clouds just flew away. But there was electricity. And it probably lit up many homes.

This stretch of the Kutch coast, is Suzlon territory. Tall windmills line the coast, high above the salty sand and thorny shrubs. And yes, it is very windy at this time of the year. The monsoon here looks fiery but there's time before the clouds actually cause some rain.

This place also saw a Tsunami in 1945, the Great Earthquake of Kutch in 2001, and is close to the border where Pakistan started the war in 1965.

Luckily, this is a sparsely populated area, just a few kilometers south of the Sindh border.

And finally, this taluk is called Abdassa Taluk and you are not likely to find a town by that name on any map. That's because the taluk is named after a very interesting character from history. More about him, later.

NH4. South Of Pune

2011-06-18T09:02:00.000-07:00

Current star of the Mumbai-Bangalore route. But surprisingly nothing beats the Airavat or white elephant Volvos of the KSRTC.

Raipur Bazaar Street, Ahmedabad

2011-06-09T21:32:00.001-07:00

On the same street. Where else but in Old Ahmedabad!

University Road, Ahmedabad

2011-06-08T01:54:00.000-07:00

Eyes.

After looking at the tired, city eyes in the mirror and everywhere I go, it's refreshing to see eyes that reveal the soul.

Dholavira, Kachch

2011-06-04T04:21:00.000-07:00

Archeo Postman

It’s all in a day’s work for postmen to stamp and deliver letters from all over the world, but what would you call a postman who delivered messages from a different millennium?

The ArcheoPostman?

That’s exactly what the retired postmaster of Dholavira post office, PIN Code 370165, did. And he won the Indian Postal Service Award for his work. Not for delivering messages to the residents and soldiers of the Border Security Forces in this remote village sitting on top of a raised ground, an Island name Kadir in the middle of the dry Rann Of Kutch, but for his work in archaeology.

The remains of Dholavira, a city that thrived as a trading centre during the good days of the Indus valley civilisation was first discovered in 1967-68 by JP Joshi but the excavations have been going off and on since then and earnestly only since 1989. The locals say because of the constant reminders of the postman who kept digging up interesting messages from the past.

The archaeologists came and left, but one person was a constant fixture as the wonderful city that we now call Dholavira slowly revealed itself to the world – the postmaster. He took a keen interest in the things that have been excavated here and like Ekalvya, he observed and learnt the science of archaeology from the ASI officials.

Today, this retired postmaster is a daily visitor in this ghost city that is left in the hands of a couple of temporary casual workers who once assisted the archaeology teams. And if you happen to go to Dholavira, you now know who could be your best guide.

Ask for the Postmaster Kaka.

The most unique aspect of Dholavira city are the reservoirs. The city is surrounded by massive reservoirs that stored rain water from a seasonal stream. Built in the precision Indus Valley Civilisation fashion, the water supported a trading city that was connected to the rest of the world when what is now the Great Rann of Kutch had easy access to the sea.

Read about Dholavira’s unique water harvesting reservoirs here.

Special thanks to Srinath Perur and Vinayak Varma of Brainwave Magazine. These pictures were clicked for a story in Brainwave, the science magazine for children from Amar Chitra Katha Publications, Vinayak edits. You will find it at select bookstores across India.

Read Brainwave magazine.

Ghatkopar (E), Mumbai

2011-06-03T05:15:00.000-07:00

Don't make me a hero.

That's what Shailesh Pandey asked me to when I asked him to pose for a photograph. Eventually, he didn't pose, he was busy with phone calls and I was forced to click pictures of him as he kept speaking to people in different parts of the country as they kept calling him.

Shailesh Pandey is on a Royal Enfield Bullet right now, going across the country. While most Indians go around visiting temples, or relatives, Shailesh is visiting places associated with heroes from Indian History, especially heroes from the Independence struggle who are not known beyond the immediate geographical surroundings.

So why did he ask me to not make him a hero?

5,000kms since he started off from his hometown, Varanasi, Shailesh has met many travellers, many of them who have travelled more than him and met people who made his journey feel smaller than theirs.

I think, each journey has its own merit and is a very personal journey. Comparisons are not right. But Shailesh feels that his journey is attracting a lot of attention online, especially from a section that like to prefix and suffix Vande Mataram to each of Shailesh's tweets. Shailesh feels that he has been meeting real heroes enroute and he hardly compares.

So fair enough. Let's not make him a hero.

Let Shailesh go around discovering India that are absent from our textbooks. He feels that it only talks about the Congress part of the Independence struggle. But what else can we expect, it's the victors tale.

Shailesh has been discovering stories that are covered in the local state textbooks. Example: Rani Chennamma or Kittur, Kattabomman, etc. but these are stories people elsewhere have no clue about. Shailesh is discovering their stories on his bike and is using a blog and twitter to convey the stories to a large audience.

But the bigger question is about our sense of History. It's a subject in school that is given step motherly treatment. For many generations, it was the Amar Chitra Katha that gave us the better lessons in history not our textbooks. The present generation, gets a twisted form on television, if any. Maybe, that's the reason Shailesh's around the country trip is popular with a whole new generation. Like the school kids in Mumbai who welcomed him with a video put together with photographs Shailesh clicked on his road trip.

To those kids, who have never heard of a man go around on a bike just to dig out interesting stories is worthy of hero worship. They made you a hero, Shailesh.

Follow Shailesh Pandey's journey here:

Alakh 2011 Blog.

Twitter: Shailesh K Pandey

Khadiya/Raipur. Ahmedabad Old City

2011-05-24T01:00:00.000-07:00

Night life in Ahmedabad Old City

Bodrani, Kutch

2011-05-01T22:38:00.000-07:00

The Door That Faces Pakistan.

This is an old door in a lonely village bordering the salty desert called as Rann of Kutch. Across the road for many kilometers is a desert and your nearest neighbour in that direction is across the border in Sindh, Pakistan.

What makes this door special is that it still stands after the great Bhuj Earthquake. The villages here were almost completely destroyed and new homes have been built. However, the new homes are all concrete and tin boxes that served their purpose soon after the destruction.

However, the old and the new coexist in this little village. The post-earthquake ones have pointed tops. Now, Back to the doors

Looks like they ran out of paint here.

The most important commodity in this harsh landscape - water.

Apparently, the monsoons have been good ever since the Great Kutch earthquake. And now, the Narmada Canal is also set to reach Kutch. But it's not likely to reach this village which is on the edge of the Rann.

And finally, the residents of this village that is on the frontline every time India and Pakistan decide to fight a war using an excuse called Kashmir but mainly to fund the Swiss Bank accounts of their rulers.

Panchgani

2011-04-29T23:32:00.000-07:00

Horses of the table land of Panchgani.

If it was not for the mighty Himalayas, the Shayadri/ Western Ghat range would have been the most celebrated stretch of upward folds in India. Except for the snow, it's got its own endless list of wonders. And somewhere in the middle would be the rock called Laterite.

From the Konkan to the Cardamom Hills down south, those living along the Western Ghats will know this red rock that's commonly cut into bricks and used to build homes. They are usually cut out to create large pits close to the place a home is built.

The table land of Panchgani, like the name suggests is an extremely large plateau, entirely made up of Laterite. It's one of the largest such formation in the world. It's filled with a fine, red dust kicked up by the horses that provide rides to tourists who come to see the formation and the majestic view of the Krishna Valley from the edge made famous in hundreds of Mumbai movies.

During the monsoon, it turns the brilliant Sahayadri green.

Tired horses rule the tableland, all year round. Like horses all over India, they look like retired racehorses, they have names like Don, Raja, Rangeela and Saddam. They seem to have all gorwn up receiving whiplashes as an excuse for training and taming. It's written in their eyes that they see humans the same way we Indians see them, animals. If horses had wishes, I'm sure they would like to exchange places with their masters.

The owners of these horses look and talk like extras from B Grade Hindi movies. It works like a charm with the tourists who like to be shown where a scene from a certain film was shot sitting on a horse or in a creaky horse drawn cart.

More than the poor food and beatings, it must be listening to the guides and tourists that must have sucked the soul out of these tired horses of Panchgani table land.

Trust Indians to turn any beautiful place into Mumbai's Chowpatti. A beach aptly named after the four drains that empty into the sea here.

Tembhli (Sahada), Nandurbar Dist. MH

2011-04-27T08:27:00.000-07:00

Ranjana. India's first Unique ID holder.

It looks like she's holding a darbar in the veranda of her modest 2 room home. Ranjana. She's not the first woman to do something in India, she's the first Indian to get the Aadhar UID. I'm not going into the politics of how she was picked from among a billion people but the selection changed her, her family, village, community and more. This photograph is a reflection of one such change.

Off NH 49. Pamban Village, TN

2011-04-23T05:05:00.000-07:00

Spit Image.

Why do we spit all the time? This little fellow who had come to the beach for a swim with a friend and who enjoyed posing for the camera kept spitting. It seemed like almost involuntary habit like breathing.

Even Zaheer Khan, the cricketer who features in the poster used by the Maharashtra Health Department for the anti-spitting campaign (Spitting Spreads TB) is seen spitting all the time on the field. I guess it's because the mouth becomes very dry out there in the field.

When I used to live in Bangalore, I used to use the sound 'Thoo' as a word, as an exclamation. My wife used to hate it when I did that. It's an accepted and often used Bangalorean word.

Kutch

2011-04-20T20:11:00.000-07:00

Style Bhais of Kutch Part 3.

There are colours and style in the traditional everyday dressing in the Northern Part of Kutch around the Rann that will make the most colourful birds of the region feel inadequate.

See Full Series.

Rapar, Kutch

2011-04-19T20:50:00.000-07:00

Style Bhais of Kutch Part 2.

See Full Series.

Raipur, Ahmedabad

2011-04-18T07:16:00.000-07:00

Indian women know how to dress.

Wai ( वाई), Dist. Satara

2011-04-13T20:21:00.000-07:00

In the foreground: Beds of the homeless.

Wai ( वाई), Dist. Satara

2011-04-12T01:10:00.000-07:00

The older temples of Wai, on the River Krishna.

The older and beautiful stone temples of this town in the Krishna Valley are in various stages of neglect. It's the new concrete temples that the people prefer to visit.

However, they make perfect backdrop for small town India, by the river. That's the reason this town is the favourite haunt of film makers.

Mapro Village, Panchgani - Mahabaleshwar Road

2011-04-09T23:43:00.001-07:00

Strawberries: How a fruit colonised a Hill-Station and why no one is complaining. Pictures and story in BonVivant.in.

Wai ( वाई), District Satara

2011-04-04T07:57:00.000-07:00

River Krishna, at Wai, Maharashtra.

A man prepares a bamboo pole to make the Gudi ( Gudi Padwa - Maharashtrian New year) near the Ganapathi temple on the banks of the River Krishna

The main ghat at Wai.

Shiva Shambo! A "Very Happy" New Year this Gudi Padwa.

Happy Gudi Padwa!

But my story is about a group of friends who meet every morning at a Shiva temple a couple of hundred meters downstream on the steps of an other old Shiva Temple.

Ganapati and Shani are the more favoured gods these days and Wai is no exception. There are many new concrete temples with heavy hundis celebrating their prosperity. Good old Shiva is slowly being associated with the warrior king Shivaji in Maharashtra. My prediction is that in 20 years, an average kid in Maharashtra will believe that Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj is an incarnation of Lord Shiva, the Destroyer. But that's a different story.

3 friends meet at the Shiva temple, the first thing, every morning. They are Bade, Rajendra and Ghatge. They meet to smoke ganja and the morning on the banks of the River Krishna that gives life to so much of Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra is a lively river here. The river is dead where it meets the sea. We have collectively sucked all life from it by then.

Bade is usually the first to arrive. Rajendra then comes with his arsenal. And finally Ghatge arrives with his grandson to complete the trinity.

This is what they do.

Shiva Shambo!

Stoned.

The preparation.

And finally, Ghatge's grandson wondering what's so interesting.

Rameshwaram Fishing Harbour

2011-03-31T06:58:00.000-07:00

A fishermen who works on a trawler is paid Rs. 1,000 per trip and this net bag of fish picked from the catch.

Cantonment, Bangalore.

2011-03-27T20:06:00.000-07:00

In Bon Vivant, the online food magazine, I will be tracking down and writing about Unsung Chefs of India.

Here's a second story where I profile Richard, the mechanic chef who used to cook yummy masala spare parts at the iconic Dewar's Bar in Bangalore. Spare parts? Mechanic? Food. Read his story here.

Khanpur, Ahmedabad

2011-03-26T12:20:00.000-07:00

In Bon Vivant, the online food magazine, I will be tracking down and writing about Unsung Chefs of India.

Here's a story featuring Mary Lobo who runs the La Bella Goan Restaurant in the Khanpur locality of Old Ahmedabad: Maryben Lobo.

University Road, Ahmedabad

2011-03-22T03:02:00.000-07:00

If Gujarat (and India) is the happening place in the world, why is our future planning to leave?

NH 49, Rameshwaram Island

2011-03-15T21:08:00.000-07:00

Rameshawaram. Battle for your soul.

Rameshwaram is one of the places many Hindus go to perform the last rites of the dead. Ashes are immersed in the shallow bone-strewn sand near the Ramnathaswamy Shiva Temple where Rama along with the rescued Sita are believed to have performed an offering (puja) after their victory in the war against the super-intelligent Ravana.

I'm not sure how and when Rameshwaram became a popular place for immersing ashes but there's an industry built around it which involve a lot of rituals, and it's often a few days after some one near or dear has died and the loss is usually fresh. As the person drives back from the temple towards the mainland, on the left side of the roads are a where you find the above messages on the walls.

If you are a Hindu, not sure that your rituals have saved the souls of the newly departed, the above messages are for you in your language.

There's something disturbing in this message that I cannot nail. There's something disturbing that you see more BJP flags than anywhere else in Tamil Nadu fluttering here (LK Advani should love this place, perfect dirt for his lotus to bloom into a blooming nuisance). There's something disturbing that the church does not have a steeple but concrete scaffolding that's designed to place the idol higher than the famous temple nearby. And close by is a mosque with the longest stick you can imagine instead of a minaret and a head above the idol on the church, with the largest speakers one can imagine.

Religions are testosterone driven males showing off who has the biggest dick. Thankfully, the rest of us have Pastafarian.

Trivia: Cane and Abel (Known here as Habeel and Qabeel and not a cheap paperback you find in Wheelers and Higginbothams) are believed to be buried here at a Dargah.

Jegathaipatanam Harbour, Pudukottai

2011-03-12T20:03:00.000-08:00

Naam Thamilar (We are Tamil)

The danger about us not having a political will to support sustainable fishing methods in the Palk Strait is the rise of hate-mongers. Firstly, the only reason we are reporting the incidents is because of the assembly elections in Tamil Nadu and the fisher-folks are a big vote bank.

Secondly, the debate is all about Sri Lankan Navy shooting and torturing Indian Fishermen and not about why Indian Fishermen are forced to go fish in dangerous waters in the first place.

But an alternative sustainable method of fishing is not easy to float. Any change in the current fishing methods would mean that a lot of fishermen are going to lose their livelihood. But if they don't...

Feeling angry is easy.

See the full series: Fishermen of Tamil Nadu.

The full pictures: Rohini Mohan for Tehelka.

Jegathaipattanam Harbour, Pudukottai

2011-03-05T20:29:00.000-08:00

Attack of the Indian Armada.

Human greed, spearheaded by us Indians is waging a successful battle to kill all life in the waters of the Palk Strait that separates India and Sri Lanka. But it's a war our soldiers, the fishermen, are going to lose.

We have already succeeded in converting the Indian side of the Strait into a lifeless desert with destructive trawling methods. Now our trawlers head out every day to destroy what still survives on the Sri Lankan side.

A civil war and a trawling ban has helped the fish on the other side survive, but only just. Three days a week, Indian trawlers are allowed to go for the kill thanks to an agreement with the Sri Lankans. But we are Indians and our greed is a Billion strong. We use destructive trawling methods, we fish on days when we are not allowed to, we use larger nets than what is allowed, we also use illegal high power boats that trawl at a higher speed than regular trawlers, to name a few methods of assured destruction. All thanks to the common god that all Indians believe in - corruption. In this case, it's the local fisheries department that allows us to bypass every rule for a price. And yes, we cannot ban trawling. It rakes in crores now but will make millions of fishermen starve in a few years time because the fishermen who are dredging their own watery graves are a large vote bank.

Yes, the fishermen know that they are killing all the fish for generations to come but it's the now that matters, not tomorrow. There are loans that allowed them to buy their powerful boats and nets to pay.

But why blame our fishermen? Isn't that exactly how we Indians treat everything we have. Make money now, let someone else worry about the future.

Who will save us from our greed? Who will protect us from our appetite for destruction?

To get the full story, read Rohini Mohan's report on Tehelka here.

Pamban Village.

2011-03-01T04:28:00.000-08:00

Pamban Village: Walls of a fisherman's hut.

That's the photograph of Sebastian, named after one of the favourite saints of fishermen in this part of the Indian coast. He was shot dead in 1994 by the Sri Lankan Navy. Those were the days of the civil war in Sri Lanka and most fishermen killed were listed under smugglers or weapon-traffickers. But Sebastian was a fisherman and is survived by his wife Ravina Rani who is now a tailor, working from home. You can see her foot-pedal sewing machine in the picture above.

The belongings of this home are all strung up from the poles that hold the thatch together. The clothes Ravina Rani stitches, the clothes the family wears, hay mats, everything.

The reason why everything is hung, is because the floor is pure East Coast Sand.

To know more about the story of Fishermen of South Eastern Tamil Nadu, read Rohini Mohan's report called The Bold Men and The Sea in Tehelka.

Rameshwaram Fishing Harbour

2011-02-26T23:06:00.000-08:00

Navigation system on an Indian trawler.

Rameshwaram Fishing Harbour

Palk Straits (India-Sri Lanka)

2011-02-19T21:13:00.000-08:00

Jegathaipattanam Fishing Harbour, India. Wives see their husbands off as they go to fish in the Palk Straits.

In Tehelka, Rohini Mohan investigates why 72 Tamil Nadu fishermen have been shot by the Sri Lankan Navy in the past six months fishing in these waters. Yet they keep going back to the same strip of sea. The full story:
http://tehelka.com/story_main48.asp?filename=Ne260211THE_BOLD.asp

This poster of the fisherman who was killed by SL Navy fishing in their waters remind the fishermen and their family of the dangers of fishing in troubled waters. A job that they are forced to do because excessive trawling has converted the Indian waters into a desert.

Palk Straits (India-Sri Lanka)

2011-02-16T19:08:00.000-08:00

Sri Lankan fishermen have tattoos. Indians have wounds.

In Tehelka, Rohini Mohan investigates why 72 Tamil Nadu fishermen have been shot by the Sri Lankan Navy in the past six months. Yet they keep going back to the same strip of sea.

These are a few images of the fishermen from both sides of the shallow sea but that's only half the story. For the full story, you will have to read the Tehelka story.

http://tehelka.com/story_main48.asp?filename=Ne260211THE_BOLD.asp

Mandapam, Ramnad District, TN

2011-02-11T04:42:00.000-08:00

Palk Strait Diary. A Communist Party Worker's Wall.

I happened to be in Mandapam, the Calais on the Palk Strait, on the Indian side, when me and the reporter I was with, were invited home for lunch by a local member of the CPI (M).

I guess that it's a common thing for a communist party member's wife to have a meal ready at any time of the day for the unexpected guests the man of the house will bring home. A complete lunch with rice, brinjal curry, rasam, scrambled eggs, home-made fryums, along with a packet of packaged curd (no longer an metro feature) and 1 Re sachet of pickles was ready even before we could exchange 'Vanakkam'. If there's a speed cooking competition, here's the sure winner.

Meanwhile, there was no questions about the political leanings of the owner of the house.

He works among fishermen on this corner of India bordering Sri Lanka. It's a very restless place. The civil war across the Palk Strait that lasted almost 3 decades, the current tension caused by Sri Lankan Navy shooting Indian fishermen, the politics of the Sethu Samudram project and the expected trade, when ferry service resume with Talaimannar keeps this place constantly on the boil.

For example, I asked who the man in the framed photograph (above) was, he said that it was his brother-in-law. When I asked him is he was important member of the Communist Party, he told me - no, he was a smuggler who was shot down in the straits. I had no words left to say.

The Communists had a strong National footprint in the last century and it continues to be remembered in this humble house with concrete flooring in the veranda and living room and just fine sand like in a fisherman's hut for the kitchen and inside room floors.

More on what he does and why I was here, soon. With pictures.

Raipur Gate, Ahmedabad

2011-02-09T23:32:00.000-08:00

Patang Mise-en-scène: Last minute drying of the starched thread.

Khadiya, Ahmedabad

2011-02-08T06:44:00.000-08:00

Patang Mise-en-scène: How cool is this spool.

Mandakini Ben told us that she's the "priest" of the temple. And while the city was busy flying kites, she was busy untangling this mess for the kids.

The gentle, slow way, she worked around the knots reminded me of Seema Biswas in the movie Patang. There's a scene where she is... No. I'm not telling you what she does. For that you will have to wait for the movie.

Ahmedabad, Gujarat

2011-02-04T21:52:00.000-08:00

Patang. The poster is finally ready.

World Premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival.

Screening times:

Feb. 12 at 16:30
CineStar 8

Feb. 13 at 20:00
Cubix 9

Feb. 14 at 15:30
Cinemax X6 (Press)

Feb. 15 at 22:30
Arsenal

Feb. 17 at 13:45
CineStar 8

Raipur, Ahmedabad

2011-02-03T09:29:00.000-08:00

Patang Mise-en-scène Series:

The movie Patang celebrates the joy of flying with your feet firmly on the ground. When the breeze changes direction and the kites zig zag high above the city sky, the threads that connect relationships between the different characters stretch, strain, and break free.

Raipur, Ahmedabad

2011-02-01T07:52:00.001-08:00

Patang Mise-en-scène: Veteran Warriors of many kite battles 1

Note: Winding the Dori around the fingers as shown in the first picture is called "Latcha"

Khadiya, Ahmedabad

2011-01-28T08:29:00.000-08:00

Mise-en-scène Patnag.

No escape from McKite. Yes, they need to give away kites because who in his or her right mind would eat McCardboard in Ahmedabad? The food in this city rocks!

Raipur, Ahmedabad

2011-01-24T21:36:00.000-08:00

Raipur Kite Market on Uttarayan eve.

Mise-en-scène Patang: Market.

Kites are big business in Ahmedabad. The preparation happens all year round and reaches the climax on the night before Uttarayan. That night, the main kite markets are open all night long.

It takes the whole of India to send the kites up in the sky in Ahmedabad. The special bamboo that holds the kite together is grown in Bengal and Assam, the paper is made in Kerala, the thread is made in Tamil Nadu, the people who treat the best thread with starch and make the best kites come from Lucknow and Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh. After Ahmedabad, they move on to other cities with festivals, like Jaipur and come back the next year.

And within Ahmedabad, it takes people from different parts of the city to put a kite together. There's one community to cut the paper, another to paste it all together and one can't function without the other.

The ace kite fliers have their kites ordered from the master kite makers while the rest buy it off the street by the dozens. Buying the kite is also an event. Every one here is an expert, armed with skills and techniques passed down from an earlier generation and honed on the rooftops, each year.

Mission Accomplished.

But why do they buy so many kites?

It's because the average time a kite is up in the air can be a few minutes only. The sheer number of people flying and cutting your kites, the sudden gusts of wind take their toll. An average kite flier on an Ahmedabad roof runs through a few dozen kites that day.

Khadiya, Ahmedabad

2011-01-21T07:25:00.000-08:00

Mise-en-scène Patang: Here, everybody is equal. Rooftop Ahmedabad.

Can there be a better stage than the rooftops of Ahmedabad to make a movie set in Ahmedabad? The cool breeze that blows over the city brings the entire city on to the roof tops. The rich and the poor, the young and the old, the Hindus and the Muslims, they all come together to share a buzz that will make hives full of bees jealous. The walled city, opens up to the sky.

Raipur, Ahmedabad

2011-01-20T00:55:00.000-08:00

Mise-en-scène Patang: All dressed up and ready to go to Berlin!

Patang is premiering at the Berlin International Film Festival in the 41st Berlinale Forum. Screening times: Feb. 12 at 16:30 CineStar 8. Feb. 13 at 20:00. Cubix 9. Feb. 15 at 22:30. Arsenal. Feb. 17 at 13:45 CineStar 8.

Meanwhile, here on Indian Road Romeo, the trip to the market continues as people select the best cowboy hats to battle the sun.

Face de guerre. When you cut someone's kite, it sometimes helps to be anonymous.

And finally Radha has a gift for all the cowboys on the roof and for the movie Patang, in Berlin! All the best.

Raipur, Ahmedabad

2011-01-18T01:07:00.000-08:00

Aakash, who stars in Prashant Bhargava's Patang (to be screened at Berlin Film Festival 2011)

Mise-en-scène Patang: The Shades

Prashant Bhargava's Patang is set around the Uttarayan festival. The characters and most of the actors are from this part of Ahmedabad. All of them are veterans of the intense battles in the sky, during the festival.

The battles in the skies of Ahmedabad between kite fliers can become as intense as the dog fights of fighter pilots. Staring at the sky, looking for killer strings and kites against the sun throughout the day can strain even an hawk-eye. That's one reason you need shades and the other reason is style. Because the whole city is going to be on the roof top and if you are the killer kite flier of the day, you better look like a hero. Like Aakash (above) who stars in the movie and like these boys shopping for the perfect pair of goggles.

Everyone here is a hero and the Ahmedabad man looks his best on his rooftop slashing the twine left, right and centre.

Khadiya, Ahmedabad

2011-01-17T03:44:00.000-08:00

Mise-en-scène Patang

Prashant Bhargava's first feature film Patang (to be screened at Berlin Film Festival 2011), is set in Ahmedabad old city during the course of Uttarayan Kite Flying Festival. The streets and rooftops of Old Ahmedabad's Khadiya and Raipur provides the Mise-en-scène, the elements of visual style, that define the movie and will probably define how the world will see Ahmedabad once the movie hits the screen later this year.

PATANG - Preview Trailer from Khushi Films on Vimeo.

The film was shot a couple of years back but the colours, the magic and frenzy of the kite flying remains the same. Over the next few days, I will be posting images of the gallis, rooftops and people of the locality where the film was shot and also of the cast and crew of the film.

Shahpur, Ahmedabad

2011-01-10T05:36:00.000-08:00

On The India Tube, the travel magazine from W+K, Delhi, a photo story from Shahpur, Ahmedabad about the Dori or Thread being prepared on the footpath, ahead of the Kite Festival or Uttarayan during Makar Sankranti. See the slide show here.

Rapar, Kutch

2011-01-09T04:38:00.000-08:00

Style Bhais Of Kutch. Part 1

Indians are the best dressed in the world. That is, if you come from interior Kutch and yet to adopt the boring, uniform, western pant-shirt or the 20th Century Saree Wrap or Salwar Kameez. However, it's only a matter of time before they start dressing like you and me. Progress, a canal carrying Narmada water is already here. Four lane National Highways are already here. The nomads will soon be farming all year round and Star Plus will be dictating what they will be wearing, soon. It's probably convenient and easier for people to fit in once they shed your local identity.

NH8A + Rann of Kutch

2011-01-04T06:26:00.000-08:00

Horny Gujarat. The signature, elegantly curved and impressive horns of the bulls in this part of India are even found on the seals used in the Harappan age.

Ashram Road, Ahmedabad

2010-12-30T01:29:00.000-08:00

Sabarmati Ashram

2010-12-19T01:02:00.000-08:00

A violent life.

Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Bangalore

2010-12-16T05:14:00.000-08:00

Ahmedabad

Mumbai

Bangalore

The tale of three cities.

I never imagined that I would say this but, the Brihan Mumbai and Bruhat Benglure Palika sweepers of Mumbai and Bangalore do a better job than the ones in Ahmedabad.

It's not because they work harder but it'sl because Mumbai's Clean-Up! and Bangalore's system seem to be more efficient. The roads are cleaned on time and the collected leaves, paper and plastic taken away in a well-planned manner.

Meanwhile in Ahmedabad, they were seen making little fires of trash at street corners.

And finally, garbage collectors all over the world do this:

Sabarmati Ashram, Ahmedabad

2010-12-15T05:07:00.000-08:00

Selective Gandhi Series No 3: Padayatra.

"For bringing awareness and awakening..."

Maybe, like us today, most people those days must have been only worried about the ordinary things. The freedom struggle was something you heard about on the news and you couldn't afford tea leaves to Jago Re out of your charpoy. How do you awaken a population that's mostly illiterate and has an average life expectancy of about 25 years (1921/31 census) to follow you?

Ask the Mahatma.

Sacred cause and effect.

See the full Selective Gandhi Series.

Sabarmati Ashram, Ahmedabad

2010-12-13T21:59:00.000-08:00

Selective Gandhi Series No 2

So it's nothing new, Congress and corruption. And here it is listed as one of his worries by Gandhi himself.

See the full Selective Gandhi Series.

Sabarmati Ashram, Ahmedabad

2010-12-12T22:18:00.000-08:00

Selective Gandhi Series NO 1: Kasturba

Kasturba Gandhi's corner in the museum at Mahatma Gandhi's Sabarmati Ashram.

Stubborn.

Kasturba's grandchildren.

The domestic life of the Father of the Nation must have been very interesting.

See the full Selective Gandhi Series.

Sabarmati River, Ahmedabad

2010-12-11T22:14:00.000-08:00

Ahmedabad skyline from Mahatma Gandhi Bridge. And the still water smells like the collective waste of an Indian city. But that shouldn't affect a person from Mumbai, used to much stronger scents.

Ahmedabad

2010-12-09T21:45:00.000-08:00

Iron Man on an Ahmedabad Wall.

NH8A, Bagodra. Gujarat

2010-12-06T20:56:00.000-08:00

Chhakda.

Rapar, Kutch

2010-12-03T21:38:00.000-08:00

Kutch main nahi khaya, toh kuch nahi khaya: Fafda Jilebi Breakfast.

Thankfully Idli - Dosa - Poha - Sandwich hasn't reached Rapar, the dusty, dry and now blessed with faraway Narmada water, once in 2-3 days for half-an-hour, town. Rapar has Pav and the Vada but they don't put the two together and serve. That's because the food here in a town where a pot of saline water used to cost Rs 3 before the great Bhuj Earthquake is bloody awesome. And once you've had it, you will never like the ones served in Mumbai, ever.

For the record, Rapar is a taluk HQ that is booming and will become a large town over the next few years. The turning point was the Earthquake in Bhuj, 5 hours away. They say that the monsoons have been good ever since and Rapar being the biggest town in this part of the rugged Kutch, has grown as a trading post. The crop that's making people here rich is the Jeera. It's called the 'Jugaar' crop and a lucky farmer goes on to make lakhs. And a lakh goes a very long way in this part of the country.

Post Earthquake, there's a New Rapar with roads at right angles that's come up. The town that serves hundreds of villages is just a short drive from the Hema Malini's-Cheek smooth National Highway that connects Mundra and Kandla Ports to North-Western India making it a fantastic trading post.

And there's one thing all traders, farmers and shepherds who come to dusty Rapar will enjoy. The good food.

Ahmedabad, Gujarat

2010-12-03T02:39:00.000-08:00

India's Idea Man: Mahatma Gandhi.

Off NH17. Kolad

2010-11-18T22:31:00.000-08:00

Rational Fear: Head-on collision caused by rash overtaking.

The story about yesterday's accident, not too far away from where this signboard was ignored, here.

Chennai

2010-11-13T07:58:00.000-08:00

‘Thalapakatti Naidu Ananda Vilas Biryani Hotel’V/s Thalapakattu Biryani and Fast Food' Case.

Biryani, India's most popular dish is actually an Iranian import. And since we Indians never agree on anything and each of us love to do it our own way, there are a thousand varieties of Biryani available across India.

Down South, people take their Biryani very, very seriously; be it Hyderabad, Bangalore, and especially in Chennai which contrary to what people in the vegetarian North and West think, love fish, chicken and meat.

There are many types of Biryani available in Chennai. From the Tamil lands, there's the Dindigul (thalapakattu) Biryani, Ambur Biryani (from Arcot and similar to Hyderabadi), Chettinad and Buhari (after a family-run restaurant). There could be more varieties but I have tasted just these.

When it comes to popularity and marketing, the Thalapakattu (turban) Biryani is Chennai's current battleground. The legend is that the man who started the restaurant wore a turban and people referred to the Biryani place by that name. And two groups claim that they are the original Thalapakattu Biryani.

The founder of the Dindigul-based 'Thalapakatti Naidu Ananda Vilas Biryani Hotel' definitely wore a turban and they have planted enough evidence in their restaurants dotting Chennai. However, this story is from a period when most Indians wore head-dresses, not just the Sikhs. The turban wearing Rawthers of Chennai were also selling a Thalapakattu Biryani in their restaurant.

The two fought it out in courts. The Madras High Court settled the case and directed the Chennai-based restaurant to brand its Biryani as ‘Chennai Rawther Thalapakattu Biryani’.

The turbans stayed on both heads. It seems that all Biryani makers wore turbans whatever their religion or caste and now it's time for their grandchildren with modern catering skills to cash in on the taste.

Today, the story is that many Thalapakattu and Thalapakatti biryani houses dot Chennai and it's become a generic name.

Muttukadu. East Coast Road (TN-SH49)

2010-11-13T01:44:00.000-08:00

The New Chennai spreads and rises.

Thiruvalluvar Rd., Nessapakkam. Chennai

2010-11-12T00:24:00.001-08:00

The many faces of Kamal Hasan.

Cathedral Rd., Chennai

2010-11-10T18:46:00.000-08:00

Marina Beach, Chennai

2010-11-09T20:38:00.000-08:00

Beach closed because of Cyclone Jal.

Sarangkheda, Nandurbar Dist. (MH)

2010-11-08T21:47:00.000-08:00

"For Ladies" MSH 1.
A rare luxury for women on an Indian highway.

Singor. NH3

2010-11-04T23:14:00.000-07:00

Singor. Your typical Indian Highway Stop.

Singor is a highway pitstop on the Dhule - Indore stretch of NH3. From here, one can exit towards Nandurbar town and district and on to Surat and South Gujarat on the 2- lane Maharashtra Major State Highway No 1. These are the things you will see if you stop here.

First Stop: Toilet For Men.
As for the women, Indian women should have developed enormous bladders by now.

Yum! Dhabba food. This restaurant was all vegetarian and the portion size, enormous. But that's by Mumbai standards where portions are like the flats and not like the average Mumbaikar's big fat ass.

The Chefs.

A drink for those who need it to add to the drunk driving statistics. It was closed on the day I was there because of Gandhi Jayanti.

Condoms Anytime. Why needs a slow death when you can drink and drive to death.

Mobile phone recharge.

Music and now videos for the road.

Recharged and ready for the next leg of the journey.

NH3 Nashik

2010-11-04T01:34:00.000-07:00

Pit stop and good luck baby chappal

NH3, Nashik - Dhule

2010-11-01T00:13:00.000-07:00

Yezdi, Rajdoot, Hero Honda

Shirdi, Ahmednagar Dist.

2010-10-09T07:25:00.000-07:00

"Let's go to see Shirdi Sai in his court/assembly"

The queue to see Shirdi Sai's idol

The faithful can wait for hours in the dust and heat.

Lining up for the generous devotees.

Footwear.

Mobile phone chargers have now become an essential service like drinking water taps or clean toilets.

And finally an advertisement on a bus that uses the drawing on Chetan Bhagat's latest best seller - Two States. Promoting interstate marriages on an inter-state MSRTC Bus.

NH3, Nashik

2010-10-05T21:34:00.000-07:00

NH3, Mumbai - Agra Road, Dhule (Dhulia)

2010-10-04T21:33:00.000-07:00

CD Motor Powered Chai Making Stove.

Meet Sri Bapuji (whom I met on Gandhi Jayanti) who runs a chai tapri next to the toll gate at Dhule (locals call it Dhulia) on the Bombay-Agra highway (NH3). His home-made charcoal stove, fanned by a tiny blacksmith's blower, is powered by a PC CD Drive motor and powered by a Rs.10 battery that lasts a whole day. Bapuji constructed this stove himself.

Earlier, people used the tape recorder/player motors. But the CD Drive motor is more energy efficient.