Delhi, 6th May
I opened my emails to some news today that made me feel tainted, disgusted. It was the news that this Swine Flu Epidemic malarkey has been found, not unsurprisingly, to hail from the usual sorts of corruption and oppression. A huge pig factory farm in Veracruz Mexico, owned by the Smithfield Corporation (the largest corporation in their field) looks to be the epicentre of the growing disease. Not only are the pigs sprayed with a multitude of drugs, but the outrageous conditions in which they live are increasing the likelihood of these diseases and viruses emerging. So to look a at things logically, these factories are harmful to animals and humans. This, in my opinion, is a classic example of a corporation living above and beyond the practice of international law and morality. Not only has the Smithfield Corporation spawned a disease that is reaching across the breadth of the world (vegetarian Tibetans in Kathmandu are be issued with free precautionary medicines) but it has also frozen imports and exports in and out of Mexico. And thanks to these sorts of corporations, there are more and more of these factories cropping up all over the world, and if you're supporting the meat industry, you're supporting these factories. Big claim perhaps? One could argue that by supporting free range meat that one was actually helping bring about the end of factory born meat. This is to a certain extent is true, but it's also contentious, and here is when we get down to a acute differences in moral lines. Instead of just arguing my case, and since I'm here, I thought I'd tell you about vegetarianism in India.
First of all, animals are everywhere in India, and quite a few of them are dead. In the bazaars of Old Delhi goats heads are lined up and sold. I have seen chickens carried by their legs as if they were a plastic bag. There is a meat industry here, but not as we know it. A lot of fish is eaten on the coast. But scenes like this are minimal in proportion to the size of a country in Hinduism is widespread, and furthermore, to say that vegetarianism in India is simply a practice of religious doctrines is just not the truth. Many of the Indians I've befriended have told me that if there is one thing that India is not lacking in, it is food. Along with many of the strictly vegetarian holy towns such as Rishikesh, meat just isn't really needed. India has some of the best recipes in the world, made out of relatively cheap ingredients. Why double the cost of the dish just to put some meat in?
The amount of animals and fertile land in which they could graze is abundant. Instead, animals really coexist. Ask any cow in the middle of a Delhi street where she gets the better end of her food from, she'll point to the same restaurant you've just eaten in. And for an encore, she'll lie down in the middle of a traffic jam and kindly ask if there's any more roti about. Children here know how to treat and respect animals because they've been living next to them for the entirety of their lives. I won't pretend I haven't seen an overzealous Hindu boy run after a dog with a stick and attempt to hit it, but I can tell you for sure that the last thing he'll do is draw blood. Vegetarianism works in India, that's it. I'm afraid I reckon that the UK is to far gone to ever achieve this, but there is always hope. For a start, let's bankrupt the Smithfield Corporation. There's supposed to be an economic crisis, isn't there, and there's nothing like kicking a bastard company while it's down.
Anyway. Delhi votes tomorrow. The Times of India boasts the headline, and reads:
COME 7th MAY...
There's a threat to Delhi polls - Delhi's Pappu has many reasons not to vote this time. If you're making excuses, or if friends or family are, tell 'em that it's vote-on-sight in Delhi tomorrow!
I Will Vote Because...
-The new Government might not give you any holidays - tax or otherwise - if the wrong one gets into power!
- We'll never have the kind of placements (and even the Bollywood family drama-style weddings that we have) if the wrong Government gets in!
. . .
It continues in this vein for a while longer.
I feel incensed already!
I'm moving onto Kolkata tomorrow, I want to play some cricket.
Wednesday 6 May 2009
Tuesday 5 May 2009
Golden Triangle (Parts IV, V and VI)
Delhi, 5th May
How to explain such a long, wordless stay in Nepal?
So many of the small, sparkling details have escaped my memory, and an entire country seems now like a photo album of events and thoughts. I say an entire country, but this is highly inaccurate because we rarely strayed from the tourist circuit of Kathmandu, Pokhara and Chitwan. However, three and a half long weeks in Nepal haven been given the Delhi treatment: it all feels behind me.
Nevertheless, here I rant:
The four hour long bus journey to Pokhara took 12 hours. A strike held in a small village on the Pokhara root stopped us, stranded, with only 60km left of the journey. A road block had been made by the locals because (from what I could gather) a local had killed another, run away, and had yet to be found. Everyone in the town was determined to hunt down the killer, and I suspect to try attract the police's wandering eye, had stopped all traffic. So, at 11am I stepped off the bus to young men running down the road with large, wooden instruments of pain and fast faces. At 5pm I stepped back on the bus reflecting on what a nice bunch of people I'd met, and how cheerful the cafe owners were. 12 whole tourists buses stranded! If I were honest, I's say it was the best day of business they'd ever had. If I were cynical, I'd say no murder had ever taken place.
Now Pokhara is a very clean and beautiful city. It is also, if I'm talking of Lakeside, exceedingly expensive and stereotypical. The tourist end of Pokhara, named Lakeside, is one of those places which is made to include "everything a tourist needs". Like all of these places, it doesn't really convince. A bit like going to Atlantis and finding a shop full of swimming trunks. Perhaps Lakeside's translucency was due to brash lights, mini supermarkets, the various "blues bars" or the fact that there are Tibetan refugees selling craft outside Pashmina emporiums, cafe owners shooing children away from their white customers, or drug dealers pitching to women on package holidays. I think the main reason Lakeside was the area equivalent of a credit card (plastic, destructive to your bank balance) was because it was next to a just perfect lake.
Hari and I took quite a few rowing trips on the lake, and on one of these we rowed to the bottom of a of the steep walk up to the giant Buddhist Stipa. The walk, I confess, was grim. Not only had we chosen midday to 1 o'clock to climb, but I was wearing jeans, again. Sweat factor infinity. Also, halfway up we acquired half a dozen boys, whiskeyed up and crude all over. The top was worth it though, boasting a gorgeous monument and the best view of the lake and city in Pokhara. On the way down, I think when me and Hari were having some sort of pseudo argument about English language, I got far too cocky about the steep decline and fell over, spraining my ankle. Moaning all the way down like a pissy footballer, I limped my way back to our room. The next two days were quiet, as we pottered and waited for my ankle to heal.
When it was pretty much better we hired bikes and road around the surrounding countryside, which was my favourite thing we did there. It was easy to forget you were in Nepal, west coast Ireland felt more like it, if not for the odd reminder thanks to a bus with as many passengers on the roof as inside, or the odd flurry of children chasing a chicken. Oh yes, and I went paragliding. All I have to say that was it was surreal, and that my Bulgarian tandom pilot a very funny man. I don't really remember the views if I'm honest, I think I was wrapped up with how unnatural flying felt.
So Pokhara to Chitwan - more road diversions, more demonstrations, more Nepali citizens evicted from tourist buses. Chitwan, now that is a very hot place, ridiculous at points. We stayed in one of those hotels where you know the staff love your wallets, hate the sight of you and are uncomfortably attentive and inquisitive. We spent our time avoiding the heights of the heat and looking out for animals. I am now very used to the sight of elephants and rhinos. The highlight was the elephant breeding centre, home of month old twin-baby elephants, the only twins born in captivity. I can't recall much more, maybe it was the heat.
After completing the last line of the triangle we arrived back in Kathmandu to familiar surroundings. We stayed there for what seemed like a long time. The day before yesterday there were massive strikes in Kathmandu, marches bigger thank I've ever seen before. The Chief General of the Army has been ousted, the coalition government is collapsing. Indian newspapers told me this morning that Nepal are blaming India. Delhi's leg of the national elections is in two days. Hari is in Nepal and I am in India. I miss her very, very dearly.
I'm back in India.
How to explain such a long, wordless stay in Nepal?
So many of the small, sparkling details have escaped my memory, and an entire country seems now like a photo album of events and thoughts. I say an entire country, but this is highly inaccurate because we rarely strayed from the tourist circuit of Kathmandu, Pokhara and Chitwan. However, three and a half long weeks in Nepal haven been given the Delhi treatment: it all feels behind me.
Nevertheless, here I rant:
The four hour long bus journey to Pokhara took 12 hours. A strike held in a small village on the Pokhara root stopped us, stranded, with only 60km left of the journey. A road block had been made by the locals because (from what I could gather) a local had killed another, run away, and had yet to be found. Everyone in the town was determined to hunt down the killer, and I suspect to try attract the police's wandering eye, had stopped all traffic. So, at 11am I stepped off the bus to young men running down the road with large, wooden instruments of pain and fast faces. At 5pm I stepped back on the bus reflecting on what a nice bunch of people I'd met, and how cheerful the cafe owners were. 12 whole tourists buses stranded! If I were honest, I's say it was the best day of business they'd ever had. If I were cynical, I'd say no murder had ever taken place.
Now Pokhara is a very clean and beautiful city. It is also, if I'm talking of Lakeside, exceedingly expensive and stereotypical. The tourist end of Pokhara, named Lakeside, is one of those places which is made to include "everything a tourist needs". Like all of these places, it doesn't really convince. A bit like going to Atlantis and finding a shop full of swimming trunks. Perhaps Lakeside's translucency was due to brash lights, mini supermarkets, the various "blues bars" or the fact that there are Tibetan refugees selling craft outside Pashmina emporiums, cafe owners shooing children away from their white customers, or drug dealers pitching to women on package holidays. I think the main reason Lakeside was the area equivalent of a credit card (plastic, destructive to your bank balance) was because it was next to a just perfect lake.
Hari and I took quite a few rowing trips on the lake, and on one of these we rowed to the bottom of a of the steep walk up to the giant Buddhist Stipa. The walk, I confess, was grim. Not only had we chosen midday to 1 o'clock to climb, but I was wearing jeans, again. Sweat factor infinity. Also, halfway up we acquired half a dozen boys, whiskeyed up and crude all over. The top was worth it though, boasting a gorgeous monument and the best view of the lake and city in Pokhara. On the way down, I think when me and Hari were having some sort of pseudo argument about English language, I got far too cocky about the steep decline and fell over, spraining my ankle. Moaning all the way down like a pissy footballer, I limped my way back to our room. The next two days were quiet, as we pottered and waited for my ankle to heal.
When it was pretty much better we hired bikes and road around the surrounding countryside, which was my favourite thing we did there. It was easy to forget you were in Nepal, west coast Ireland felt more like it, if not for the odd reminder thanks to a bus with as many passengers on the roof as inside, or the odd flurry of children chasing a chicken. Oh yes, and I went paragliding. All I have to say that was it was surreal, and that my Bulgarian tandom pilot a very funny man. I don't really remember the views if I'm honest, I think I was wrapped up with how unnatural flying felt.
So Pokhara to Chitwan - more road diversions, more demonstrations, more Nepali citizens evicted from tourist buses. Chitwan, now that is a very hot place, ridiculous at points. We stayed in one of those hotels where you know the staff love your wallets, hate the sight of you and are uncomfortably attentive and inquisitive. We spent our time avoiding the heights of the heat and looking out for animals. I am now very used to the sight of elephants and rhinos. The highlight was the elephant breeding centre, home of month old twin-baby elephants, the only twins born in captivity. I can't recall much more, maybe it was the heat.
After completing the last line of the triangle we arrived back in Kathmandu to familiar surroundings. We stayed there for what seemed like a long time. The day before yesterday there were massive strikes in Kathmandu, marches bigger thank I've ever seen before. The Chief General of the Army has been ousted, the coalition government is collapsing. Indian newspapers told me this morning that Nepal are blaming India. Delhi's leg of the national elections is in two days. Hari is in Nepal and I am in India. I miss her very, very dearly.
I'm back in India.
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