 |
|
Another proud member of the reality-based community |
 |
|
‘Just one little drink’ was the last thing he remembered before waking up naked on a Goan beach |
Category Archives: Photos
Holy hai
The Beeb is running some absolutely gorgeous photos of a major Jain festival which only comes around every 12 years. Jains from all over India and the diaspora gathered in Shravanabelagola, Karnataka for the Mahamastakabhisheka festival. They washed and anointed a 58-foot-high, 1,000-year-old statue of Bahubali with haldi, kumkum and rice flour.
[Bahubali] is considered to be the originator of the concept of ahimsa or non-violence by the Jains, the basic tenet of their religion… he was the first to have attained salvation…
One thousand and eight small metal vessels containing water are placed neatly in the courtyard below the gigantic sculpture, considered divine. At day break, a select group of priests, chanting hymns, arrange the pots in a traditional geometrical pattern. Devotees then lift these vessels and climb up the 600 stairs to the top of the enormous statue… The statue is bathed with unending quantities of milk, sugarcane juice, pastes of saffron, sandal wood, and therapeutic herbal lotions. Powders of coconut, turmeric, saffron, vermilion and sandal wood are then sprayed on the statue. Precious stones, gold, silver, petals and coins are offered in reverence. The spectacular finale to this 10-hour ceremony is a shower of flowers from a helicopter. [Link]
The digambara (nude) form of Bahubali represents the complete victory over earthly desires… [Link]
Perhaps it was to prevent these charismatic scenes of religious ecstasy that the Puritans to the west took a rocket launcher to the Bamiyan Buddhas.
Incredible advert!sing
As I tried to catch some shut-eye at Chicago O’Hare yesterday, I kept hearing Indian music playing in the background and finally tracked down the source. This very slick ad for Indian tourism is running endlessly on CNN’s airport network. It’s part of the Incredible !ndia campaign, which used to be Incredibly L^me.
I agree with this critique:
Not bad but they need to do a few more urban-themed things… they all seem to focus on rural women spinning around with pots on their heads… There’s nothing wrong with pushing our history (indeed it is a big tourist draw), but by dropping in some stuff from modern India we can really change people’s perceptions. Remember, this is a bit like what Japan did with its Shinkanshens… India must be marketed as a nation where futurism runs alongside tradition. [Link]
The Turkey Welcomes You campaign shows off a modern subway system (watch clip), though it uses a lot of cheesy, Daler Mehndi-esque, gratuitous greenscreen.
Enter Sandman
Sudarshan Patnaik, an Indian artist who notably recreated the Taj as an “ultimate sand castle”, is cocky about his next endeavor (via the BBC):
(Patnaik) has built a huge sand sculpture of a rooster on a beach in Puri city, a resort in Orissa state, to create awareness of bird flu…
It took him five hours and eight tons of sand to create the sand rooster.
As Abhi already posted, the deadly H5N1 avian flu virus was discovered in Maharashtra a few days ago. I’m curious as to how well this sandy approach will actually work:
“This sand sculpture is basically to create awareness about bird flu because a lot of people don’t even know about this disease. And a beach is a place where a lot of domestic and international tourists come,” Mr Patnaik told the Reuters news agency.
Patnaik, who made a similar artistic statement after the tsunami, isn’t stopping with just a rooster– hens and eggs are planned, as well. Continue reading
A mass grave of a different feather
I’m really busy today but I still want to put a topic out there that is worth discussing. This means that I’m going to have to resort to some lazy blogging. Please forgive my complacence. Every blogger knows that a good picture is worth a thousand words and can bail you out from time to time:
 |
|
A good poster for vegetarianism |
A veterinarian doctor puts chickens into a pit for burial at Navapur, in the western Indian state of Maharashtra, Monday, Feb. 20, 2006. Farmers burned their dead chickens and health officials went door-to-door Monday in western India for signs of people infected with the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus as a massive poultry slaughtering operation entered its second day. (AP Photo/Rajesh Kumar Singh)… [Link]
The slaughter seems pretty bad already and may get a lot worse:
Continue readingThe bird flu is taking grip of the world slowly and steadily. Because of massive population density in India and to some extent china/South East Asia, these countries may plunge into a deep deflationery depression cycle. According to some experts, in India, people and poultry live close to each other. In the country side most families keep poultry for eggs. With a serious break out of bird flue, India can lose 18% of its population within the first year. If the outbreak is not controlled, 38% of the population can be affected.
According to media reports, a poultry farmer has died of suspected bird flu in western India, where the country’s first outbreak of the H5N1 avian flu virus has been confirmed. [Link]
Aiyo’ money, aiyo’ problems
Dhaavak and AB tell us that Tamil script is found not just on Indian and Sri Lankan banknotes, but also on those of Singapore and Mauritius:
Anyone know whether other South Asian languages are found on banknotes outside the subcontinent? I would have guessed Trinidad (40% desi), Guyana (44%) and Fiji (38%), but not so.
Trinidad: According to the 1990 census, Indo-Trinidadians make up 40.3% of the population, Afro-Trinidadians 39.5%, Mixed-race people 18.4%, Whites 0.6% and Chinese and others 1.2%. [Link]
Guyana: … the three largest groups are the Indians or Indo-Guyanese (43.5% in 2002) who have remained predominantly rural, the Africans or Afro-Guyanese (30.2%) who constitute the majority urban population, and those of mixed origin (16.7%). [Link]
Fiji: The population of Fiji is mostly made up of native Fijians, a people of mixed Polynesian and Melanesian ancestory (54.3%), and Indo-Fijians (38.1%), descendants of Indian contract labourers brought to the islands by the British in the 19th century… A 1990 constitution guaranteed ethnic Fijian control of Fiji, but led to heavy Indian emigration; the population loss resulted in economic difficulties, but ensured that Melanesians became the majority. [Link]
Guyanese notes carry the signature of Bharrat Jagdeo, former finance minister and current president:
-donatedsb_f.jpg)
Bharrat Jagdeo (born January 23, 1964) is the socialist president of Guyana (since August 11, 1999). He had previously been a member of Janet Jagan’s cabinet, and became president after Jagan resigned for health reasons. He is the youngest head of state of the Caricom countries…
After obtaining a Master’s in Economics in Moscow in 1990, Jagdeo returned to Guyana and worked as an Economist… In March 2001, Bharrat Jagdeo won a second term in elections that underscored Guyana’s bitter racial tensions. The reelection of Jagdeo, a member of the Indo-Guyanese majority, caused rioting among the minority Afro-Guyanese, who claimed widespread election fraud. [Link]
Fun, Frolic and Heavy Lifting
Yesterday was Thai Pusam – the most important festival for the Indian community in Malaysia. The festival is celebrated in honor of the Hindu God Karthikeya – the younger son of Shiva and falls around the full moon day in the Tamil month of Thai. There is some dispute about what Thai Pusam actually commemorates – several versions exist, but the most popular one is that it is the birthday of Karthikeya.
Thai Pusam is a giant carnival – an long stretch of road leading to the local Karthikeya temple is cordoned off, and a large number of people – wearing equally large quantities of jewellery – congregate for a few hours of fun tinted with devotion. In Penang, in spite of the constant drizzle, this year’s celebration was apparently one of the best attended – at least a hundred thousand people showed up. The street leading to the Waterfall Temple was lined with makeshift “water tents” – most sponsored by multinationals – that provided colorful liquids for free to anyone that showed up.
Among the visitors that passed on the refreshments were the Western tourists armed with Sony Handycams and increasingly incredulous expressions – because Thaipusam has another side to it. Belief has it that Karthikeya would grant the wishes of people who visit His temple on Thaipusam bearing burdens (called Kavadis) and over the years people have interpreted the belief as meaning that the more pain you inflict on yourself – increasing the burden – the more the odds are of your wish being granted.
At its simplest [the kavadi] may entail carrying a pot of milk, but mortification of the flesh by piercing the skin, tongue or cheeks with vel skewers is also common. The most spectacular practice is the vel kavadi, essentially a portable altar up to two meters tall, decorated with peacock feathers and attached to the devotee through 108 vels pierced into the skin on the chest and back. Fire walking and flagellation may also be practiced. It is claimed that devotees are able to enter a trance, feel no pain, do not bleed from their wounds and have no scars left behind. However, some of the more extreme masochistic practices have been criticized as dangerous and contrary to the spirit and intention of Hinduism.
The largest Thaipusam celebrations take place in Malaysia and Singapore. The temple at the Batu Caves, near Kuala Lumpur, often attracts over one million devotees and tens of thousands of tourists. The procession to the caves starts at the MahaMariamman Temple in the heart of the city and proceeds for 15 kilometers to the caves, an 8-hour journey culminating in a flight of 272 steps to the top. In Malaysia, although rare, scenes of people from different ethnic groups and faiths bearing “kavadi” can also be seen. Interestingly, Thaipusam is also increasingly being celebrated by the ethnic Chinese in Malaysia. [Link]
 |
|
An elaborate refreshment tent; there must’ve been several hundreds of these along the street. |
RTFT-shirt
I am a very patient man. Still, even I sometimes get tired of explaining to people who I am, what I am, where I come from, and what I am not. I found this on flickr, and think it would be perfect for those days when I just don’t want to go through the song and dance. It would make a great t-shirt:
The merchant of vices
I’m going to let you in on a terrible vice of mine. It’s a habit that just may turn me into a pauper: photo surfing. Give me pretty women, aerial photography or Friendster, and I can blow hours just clicking through.
If you too are gluttinous in your vision, stay away from the photos of mutineer Preston Merchant. A documentary photog, Merchant apparently goes to every desi event and destination you’ve ever wanted to see:
- Artwallah
- Kiran Desai reading
- Vikram Seth reading
- SAJA convention
- Trinidad
- Guyana
- Miss India Georgia
- Desilicious party
- Azim Premji ringing the NYSE closing bell
Some of the photos that caught my eye:
Look, buddy, I’ve got Desai photos too… from, uh, outside the Rubin Museum (it was sold out 
).
The Danish cartoon controversy: A contrast in protests
Here at SM headquarters we have quite an intricate system for vetting which stories make it to our website. Most of our stories are unearthed by the army of ex test-monkeys (retired from military, space, and medical research) that we house in our basement. They are the ones who scour the internet all day and feed important stories to our bloggers, while we spend most of our time at our full-time jobs. We also have the tipline, by which dedicated readers send in tips. Later, in our conference room, we ask ourselves three main questions about a prospective post:
- Can I do this story justice/am I knowledgeable and interested enough to write about it without sounding ignorant?
- Does the story have an angle highlighting South Asians?
- Does the story have an angle of interest to North Americans?
The reason you haven’t seen us post on this topic before is because not all of us were convinced that we could answer yes to all three questions. After attending the SAAN Conference this past weekend (which will be summarized in my next post), I have become convinced that we have missed the relevance this issue has to our community, and that the answer to all three questions is yes. I am speaking of course of the controversy surrounding a Danish newspaper’s decision to publish a picture of the Prophet Muhammad with a bomb as his turban.
Arab foreign ministers have condemned the Danish government for failing to act against a newspaper that published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.
At the Arab League conference in Cairo, they said they were “surprised and discontented at the response”.
Islam forbids any depiction of Muhammad or of Allah.
The Jyllands-Posten newspaper published a series of 12 cartoons showing Muhammad, in one of which he appeared to have a bomb in his turban. [Link]
I see great irony in this situation that doesn’t seem to have registered in the press (as far as I know). Muslims around the world are protesting this cartoon (often violently) because it is forbidden in Islam to depict the Prophet, especially in such a vulgar manner as this. Muhammad, in his boundless wisdom, wanted to make sure that his image would never be used or treated as an idol, and that men would never worship him as one. In Christianity for example, many most sects now worship Christ as God, instead of seeing him as only a mortal prophet. It was the message of Islam, and not Muhammad the man, that was to better the world. By violently protesting this cartoon, it could be argued that Muslims around the world are acting as if an idol has been desecrated. Using violence to protest this “desecration” legitimizes that which the Prophet cautioned against in the first place. He has become an idol to be defended and avenged in the eyes of many.
Continue reading