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April 27, 2004
Full moon practice runTwo or three days ago Old Manali started to fill up with travellers, signalling the start of the full on party season. With Indian tourists beginning to flood the main market and pushing room prices up, westerners are heading up to the village in droves, supplemented by those arriving from Kasol and Dharamsala. The roar of enfields has replaced the peace of a month ago as the area around Dragon guest house transforms itself into the busiest junction in the Himalaya, and restaurants dust off their trance CDs in anticipation of the influx of party heads.
The sleazy backstabbing that goes on between cafe owners jealous of other places custom has started too, and with some especially low class rhetoric. One new cafe has a German partner, and another cafe owner has been running around telling Israelis not to use it "because its run by a Nazi", surely one of the greasier misuses of the holocaust legacy - and especially puerile as Rainer, the German in question, is about as far from right wing as it is possible to get, and well respected and liked locally. The slur in any case seems to have had the reverse effect, and Glamlang restaurant (close to Dragon guest house) is doing a brisk business.
The first outdoor party of the year was held above Old Manali two nights ago, on the small plateau past Rasta cafe at the end of a short and vicious path - especially nasty in the dark. Plenty of people got lost in the dark, and one cafe owner said he had a steady stream of space cadets coming in the next morning with limbs battered after falling hard on the rocky path down.
The party was apparently a great success, and the spectacular view toward the Rohtang pass as the sun came up was "fucking outrageous", according to one party goer.
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Bizarre theftGiven that Manali and the Kullu valley is heading into the height of the tourist season, when the local crooks should be making money out of stealing cameras or walkmen or just palming off boot polish as hash to the unwary, there was news of an odd theft last week. Somtime in the middle of the night last Wednesday, someone stole the toilet from the Shiva Ashram guest house in Old Manali; pan, cistern, seat, washbasins, pipes - in fact everything except the concrete building itself. The irony is that Shiva Ashram is far better known these days as a subject of police attention than a victim of crime.
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Tourist deathThis article from keralanext.com gives details of the sad death of 63 year old Lorna Wright, a tourist from the UK, who collapsed and died of a heart attack in Manali last Saturday.
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April 20, 2004
View from the topIn spite of living among the hills and peaks, I rarely suffer from any compelling desire to expend calories ascending them unless there is a serious possibility of getting there by mechanical means. They are all very nice to look at (and have nice views from the top no doubt) but that is where my interest ends usually, the whole idea of slogging up a hill being somewhat anathema to the concept of an easy life, and any trekking being entirely limited to a pleasant walk through the easily accessible villages, or more often a visit to a restaurant. As a German tourist said to me years ago "dont just do something - sit there".
So when a friend from Kullu - not known for a love of strenuous activity - suggested we try a walk to the Bijli Mahadev temple above Kullu, it seemed like a safe bet. We called in a favour with a friend who has a car and had never seen the temple and headed off down the left bank road toward Kullu.
Just under the new road bridge on the North side of Kullu, a road winds upward for about 12 km, passing through extremely peaceful villages and occasionally offering an excellent birds eye view of Kullu town. The road finishes in the village of Jansari, and from then on its Shank's Pony all the way to the top. Before heading up we stopped for a couple of chai to stiffen the nerves, and were unsurprised to find that Kullu chai making techniques extend to villages 800 metres above the bazaar; in short, thin watery chai.
My landlord is an expert on many arcane local matters, and a lover of good chai, and knows the relative chai making merits of most of the major towns and villages in the valley. His verdict on Kullu towns chai is not good; "too much water and sugar, little milk, less tea" he says, usually followed by the plausible suggestion that they are trying to save money. He has the pedigree to make such judgements. By guest house chai standards, his chai - which I am drinking as I write this - is excellent, and surpassed only by his daughter who uses even more milk and has less of a sweet tooth. We were skeptical at first, but having stayed a full 3 weeks in Kullu over the last 2 years Dussehras, he is absolutely right; except for a few brave pockets of resistance that obviously haven't yet been indoctrinated by the goondas of the Kullu chai mafia, Kullu chai is universally bad. This is especially true at the bus stand, which at most places in India will yield some of the best tasting chai known to man.
From the chai shop, the climb up to Bijli Mahadev looked depressingly far and quite at odds with my outlook on walking, but we were assured it was only 2.5 km. The whole walk is on concrete steps of varying heights, that must be a recent innovation. The path winds first through the village of Jansari, full of picturesque local stone and wood houses, most with intact slate roof, then into the forest that stretches to the peak of the hill.
Although there was only one vehicle there when we arrived at Jansari, by the time we started the walk the bus must have delivered a load, because the path suddenly seemed to be full with groups of people, one bunch of lads from Manali, but mostly families who looked like they were here on holiday. One group was from Kangra, and seemed to be with us most of the way up, they would pass us when we had a break, then we would pass them. Its a reminder of your age and fitness level when everybody else passes you on the track, but doubly worrying when an old woman with a stick and a dreadful wheeze (from the Kangra bunch) passes you and you have trouble overtaking her again. Had she been local, there would have been less disgrace; the sight of a 60 odd year old woman carrying 40 kilos of wood or grass on her back is hardly uncommon in Manali, I think they really get a kick out of passing you on a steep hill while you puff and pant.
In some ways (mostly important ones) India is the worlds most civilised country, and you know when you are halfway to the top of Bijli Mahadev when a) you feel half dead and regret your lifestyle (if you are me), and b) you come across half a dozen shacks selling, lunch, soft drinks - and of course chai. The chai wallah hadn't been nobbled by the Kullu chai fascists yet, as the chai was top class. Mind you the way I felt at the halfway mark he could have sold me warm horse piss and I would have said thank you, more please. That all the softdrinks milk etc have to be brought up by some poor sod with a strong back and a lot of stamina entirely justifies the price inflation.
Bijli Mahadev roughly translates into english as "big thunder God" or "big lightning God", and close to the top you can see why the place (and God) got its name. A very large number of the trees had been hit by lightning at some point, some with only a little blackening on the trunk, others must have taken the full force of a large bolt and were hollowed out and burnt to cinders at the base.
Arriving at the top is extremely weird; it struck me as an odd cross between Eastbourne sea front and a badly kept golf course, smooth terrain largely covered in grass cropped short by the horses, sheep and cows that are brought to graze here. The golf course effect was enhanced by depressions in the ground that looked a little like bunkers without the sand.
On a further rise is a complex of buildings of various ages, including the traditionally built temple, that contains a Shiva lingam that, although made of black stone, appears yellow as it is covered in ghee. The story goes that the lingam is occasionally hit by a bolt of lightning and splits, after which it is stuck back together by the priests using a mixture of flour and ghee.
The Dussehra festival is always a time to feel sorry for villagers who have to bring their god and paraphenalia down from a village high on the hills, but next time I shall especially spare a thought for those who carry the statue of the God Bijli Mahadev back to the temple 1300 metres up the hill above Kullu. we're told that (at least in the case of Hadimba) the weight of the palki (palanquin) depends entirely on the mood of the God - a good mood and it can feel light as a feather, a bad mood and the bearers will be quickly exhausted. In secular terms, the weight of the wood, cloth and metal faces comes to around 40 Kg, split between two bearers. The Bijli Mahadev statue has a unique position on the first day of the Dussehra festival, and sits on a special spot in Sultanpur, next to the Palace and Ragunath temple, while the other gods to and fro paying respects at the temple and to the Raja and Hadimba at the palace.
The hill has an amazing view on all sides, and on a clear day would make the walk worthwhile; down the long drop to Kullu town, far up and down the Kulu valley and into the beginning of the Parvati valley, with the airport at Bhuntar looking more like a scale model. Peaks of which only the tips can be seen from the valley floor, stand high above the foothills on all sides. Unfortunately a clear day is not what we got, and so most of the aspects of the view are hearsay. Due to the lack of rain and tinder dry undergrowth, a large forest fire had started in Shimla, and the smoke had blown in to cover the Kullu valley with an odd floating blue grey haze that obscured anything distant. The haze diminished with altitude, giving a surreal look to peaks, seemingly disembodied pinnacles of rock floating on a sea of mist. There is something about a view from a hill that cannot be bettered. The haze lent an mystical air to the view, and it was pleasant to sit and gaze at the towns and villages seemingly stuck like toys onto the landscape far below. Given the lightning that surrounds the peak during storms and the seemingly endless vista, it was inevitable that this place would become sacred.
By the time we left, the weather had cooled down, and the walk down was far more pleasant and certainly less exhausting. While I enjoy driving up hills with Indian drivers at the wheel, I enjoy it far less when the forces of gravity lend a hand to the internal combustion engine, and on the way home our friend did his best to prove that India will one day have a motor racing champion, although in the Le Mans 24 hour race I think the lights are generally switched on before its totally dark.
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Rohtang pass open?News on the status of the passes here is often contradictory, but it seems Rohtang pass may well now be open. HRTC (Himachal Pradesh road transport corporation) are now running bus services from Manali to Keylong, logically meaning the pass is open. There have been odds and ends of light snow on the mountains around the pass, so this may change on a day to day basis. Oddly, taxis and tourist buses are only going as far as Marhi at the moment, 15km before the pass.
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Metro to the airportIn a move that will be popular with travellers, the Delhi metro is going to be extended as far as Indira Gandhi airport, according to an article in todays Hindustan Times. The second phase of the metro will include an extension to the airport via Vasant Kunj, on a branch of the Secretariat - Gurgoan section of the railway. A cheap, clean and comfortable ride on the air con metro will be a welcome alternative to the lousy bus service or 45 minutes of tedious "you want cheap hotel/your hotel full/blown up by terrorists" type earbending invariably delivered by Delhi's vulpine Taxi drivers. The bad news is that the building of this extension will be several years away, so the touts have a few more years to fleece the unwary.
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April 17, 2004
Miss Manali was framedI was speaking to a friend the other day who used to have a copy of the infamous "Miss Manali" porn VCD (which he has now mislaid) that caused such a storm last December when the police were trying to catch those responsible for making it. I had always wondered how on earth they had persuaded local girls, usually very shy, to feature in the movie and the others in the series. The answer should, I suppose, have been obvious. My friend reckons it wasn't consensual at all, and that the girls were probably unaware of the filming. In one of the movies, the camera apparently never moves from one position, and might well have been concealed in a cupboard or box. The male "star" is the only one who looks at the camera, manouevering the girl around to face the camera.
The footage was probably then sold on to those who finally made it into the distributed VCD, some of whom were arrested last year. If my friends guess is true, it must have been a major shock to the system of the girls on discovering that half their school class had probably seen them in action, and a more profound jolt to be featured (in spirit if not in name) on a police wanted list, even though they were, in reality, victims of deception.
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April 16, 2004
The anger of the GodsWe headed off to the Vashist village mela yesterday for a fix of festival pakora and religious fervour. Although Vashist is massively popular with foreign tourists, it is a bit cramped for a festival due to the new buildings that box in the temple area where the road ends. The street leading up to the temple and baths was packed with stalls, most offering gambling with dice; for 10 rs, you get a chance to triple your money. Get one face of one dice and you break even, two faces and you get double, with triple money for 3 faces. Vashists kids are obviously avid gamblers as most of the customers for the stalls seemed to be early teens. The pakora was a bit of a disappointment; the lack of rain has meant there is a lot of dust in the air, and as a result both the usually excellent pakora and the dust magnet jalebis were rather more crunchy than normal, although nowhere near as bad as those from the near sandstorm of Kullu Dussehra in mid week.
One of the Gods, Karthik Swami of Simsa village, seemed to be upset about something. For an hour after his arrival his palki (palanquin) lurched menacingly around the small area in front of the temple baths, occasionally scattering local people and unwary tourists in front of it as he made his anger plain to all, occasionally stopping in front of the Vashist Rishi's Gur (holy man / interpreter) for a hasty - and often loud - consultation. The Gur also seemed to be shielding another man behind him who Karthik Swami seemed anxious to get at, for reasons unknown. At one point, having calmed down a bit, the deity went into another rage when a tourist took advantage of the lull to get a little too close and take a snapshot. Karthik Swami went off again and lunged for the tourist, pursuing him into the crowd for a few seconds. After much consultation and running around, the whole thing calmed down, and Karthik Swami and the other Gods took their places of honour in the middle of the square.
We only found out the reason for all the fuss today, and inevitably, in the way of issues affecting Gods, it is long and fairly convoluted. The short version is that Karthik Swami was apparently getting angry on behalf of Vashist Rishi, in whose honour the festival is held. As with local people when angry, the Gods are given to asking someone else to make their displeasure clear, and it was Karthik Swami's task to make representations to the villagers. Apparently a Baba (Sadhu, wandering holy man) had been appointed by the Vashist Rishi's statue to sit at the entrance to the newly built temple in the square and make prayers. The temple houses a Lingam, and the instruction was that the sadhu should sit there and no one else should enter the temple. The problem was that the Sadhu, in the way of wandering holy men had, well, gone wandering, and hadn't been seen for some time, hence Vashsist Rishi was a bit miffed and wanted the villagers to know. The whole thing was settled when the Gods agreed that the Baba was on his way back and normal worship would be restored at the small temple.
Hadimba, incarnation of Kali was also due to arrive at the festival about 11 am, but eventually turned up at 3 odd after being engaged in another bit of work for the Vashist Rishi. Two years ago the Vashist Rishi had come to Old Manali to mark out a piece of land in the village which he owned from time immemorial - a fact which had been forgotten by the villagers, who had built houses on it. After the marking of the territory took place, the houses (mostly used as storage as opposed to dwellings) were torn down by the villagers, leaving a large open space in the middle of the village. However, not all of the structures had been removed, and at the pre - departure puja at Manu temple, Hadimba's Gur Tula Ram informed the villagers that Kali was going to mark the land again on behalf of the Vashist Rishi, a process that took a couple of hours. The buildings still within the space will now be pulled down.
More spectacular displays of Godly anger can be expected at next months Hadimba festival, held at the pagoda temple in Dhungri. The temple is surrounded by forest on which the Forest department have erected metal fences - much to the displeasure of all of the Gods attending the last couple of festivals. The anger takes the form of much frenzied running through the crowds, and groups of Gods gather at the fences for discussion, shaking violently and demanding - as interpreted by the Gurs - the removal of the fencing. Unfortunately the festival comes five days after the election results are in, otherwise potential votes would be a great (and frequently used) lever to get the powers that be to remove the fencing. If it comes to a popularity contest between politicians and Deities around here, the Gods will win every time.
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A small stepDelhi Airports arrivals section has apparently taken a small step forward. (previous blogs here here and here.) According to a friend who recently collected her sister arriving at the airport, (admittedly during the quiet of the early part of the night) the arrivals area was considerably less full of touts than in recent times, and the Delhi Police prepaid taxi booth has now been moved to a more logical place outside the terminal next to the taxi rank itself. The rank area is now also comparatively tout free, and a cop stops the cab as it exits the area and takes down the passengers name, plus the cab plate number and the drivers name. In spite of the improvement, the arriving passenger, on a first visit to India, said the experience would still have been unnerving had she not had someone meeting her, especially in the wake of the recent murder of tourist Dawn Griggs.
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April 12, 2004
Game of the godsNothing to do with India, this, but in a country obsessed by cricket, I'm sure the talk tomorrow across India will be of the piece of test cricket history played out half a world away in the Carribean today. West Indies batsman Brian Lara broke the record for the highest individual batting performance with an unbeaten 400 runs against England, before the West Indies declared their innings on 751-5. All the more remarkable is that this is Lara's second stint as holder of crickets most coveted batting record. The first time, at the same ground and also against England in 1994, scoring 375 to take the record from Gary Sobers. The only other batsman to hit two triple centuries in his test career was the legendary Sir Donald Bradman.
It must be galling forAustralia's Matthew Haydon, who held the record for only six months after scoring 380 against the minnows of test cricket, Zimbabwe. The fact that Lara's latest was against a side that are currently 3 up in the series gives it all a bit more teeth. The 400 came off 582 deliveries, including 43 fours and 4 sixes, equalling Haydons mark with a six into the crowd, and passing it with a four.
India's passion for cricket is lost on so many foreign tourists who visit the country. I regularly hear conversations during matches in which Indians are patiently trying to explain a simple-but-complex game to bewildered Germans, French or Israelis. I think it is one of those games that you are born with, or you will just never really see the point of a game that in its best form lasts five days. The subcontinent has been making its own cricketing history recently, with India touring in Pakistan for a one day series - which India won - and a test series currently balanced at 1 each. India's test batting record was also broken during the series, with Virendhra Sehwag making 309 off 379 balls.
The Indian appreciation for the game itself, not just the winning or losing, is what makes this a special place to see matches - at the ground or on TV. A game becomes a national event, and TV sets are public property during matches, where groups of 50 or more people will swamp the doorway of a chai shop or TV showroom with no complaint from the owner. The current India Pakistan series has done more to promote goodwill between the countries than action by politicians could ever have done. The game is in the blood on both sides.
Congratulations again, Brian Charles Lara.
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April 11, 2004
Choreographed aggression at WagahThe Wagah border crossing must be one of the few border posts in the world with a built in auditorium on both sides for the crowds attending the daily display of ritual aggression that accompanies the lowering of Indian and Pakistani flags at sunset.
This display, it seems, is to be a thing of the past, with both sides toning down the choreographed parade ground rhetoric in the wake of improving relations, and with the prospect of realistic talks on the fate of Kashmir. India's BSF (Border Security Force) have already adopted a more low key routine, and Pakistans Rangers are expected to follow by the end of this month.
We visited the Wagah border crossing recently on a visit to Amritsar, travelling the 27 km from the city by rickshaw. It was a Saturday, on the eve of the fifth cricket one day between India and Pakistan, the series in the balance, and judging by the jeeps, cars and buses that overtook us on the way, half of Amritsar was also heading for a day out and a bit of friendly ritual Pakistan bashing ahead of the final.
The approach to the border area is lined with chai stalls and car parks, all of which were packed. The going rate for Indian flags at this unlikely tourist spot was somewhat inflated; a small plastic tricolour costing 10rs as opposed to the four for 10 rs at the republic day parade in Delhi. There were few takers in any case, and flags were surprisingly thin on the ground except for those giant ones brought from home by spectators.
The atmosphere of the crowds walking up the approach road was very good natured, boisterous and almost festive, more like a sporting event than a border crossing. At the gate that leads to the two sides of the tiered auditorium, a BSF trooper was having a hard time persuading spectators to go to the banks of seating either side of the road, instead of the clear patch of roadway that looked so much more inviting. The left hand tier was packed by the time we arrived, so we were directed to the right, where the view of the border gates is unfortunately slightly obscured by a tree.
We watched as the seating filled up, a few more BSF on the road way directing the odd person who got onto the road back to their seat. At the back of the far tier of seating, a couple of the large tricolours were gently waving in time to the piped - and rather martial - music blaring through large speakers. Occasionally someone would run onto the roadway with an Indian flag and walk up and down waving it to the audience, drawing huge cheers from the crowd. Indian Police at any event such as this are rarely polite or smiling, but perhaps as the crowd in some way plays such a large part in the Wagah ritual, they were much more tolerant, and the flag wavers on the road were given their few minutes as cheerleaders before being directed back to the seating. The largest cheer of all was reserved for a chubby woman in a sari with an especially good line in hip wiggling who held the stage for five minutes or so. For once the people and bureaucracy, represented by the BSF, were presenting the proud and united face of India to the Pakistanis opposite.
About 200 metres away we could see the tiers of seating on the Pakistan side also filling up, and a few large green flags at the back. Even from this distance, the differences between the Indian and Pakistani crowds was obvious. Where the Indian crowd was noisy and boisterous, a riot of colour and movement, with men and women mixed in together, the Pakistani side was far more sober; seating was segregated between men and women, and the only colours visible apart from the green of the flag were either grey or white.
By now the tiers were full and the BSF jawans were doing their best to restrain the eager crowd, which had encroached well onto the road, moving beyond the chain link barrier under the archway. Some older people were allowed by the jawans to sit at the edges of the road, and must have got an excellent view.
Close to sunset, the piped music was turned off and the event started to the sound of bugles and a group of BSF jawans with large regimental dress hats marching smartly down the road toward the border gate with much stamping of feet. What happened after that was difficult to see because of the tree, and in any case the exact progress of events seemed less important than the manner in which it was done. Much of the action by one side would be more or less mirrored by the other, and especially important points such as the lowering of the flags was completed more or less in sync, in moves which are apparently hammered out between the BSF and Pakistan Rangers in regular meetings. For all that, many of the actions differed, presumably to demonstrate indivuality. A soldier walks up to the gates and throws one side open with a violence which causes it to shudder visibly and slam loudly into its stops, before marching back to the group to salute his officer. The marching is probably the most aggressive part of the whole performance; more goose stepping than anything else, and an eccentric form at that, with the soldiers foot often coming up higher than his head in a style very reminiscent of John Cleese famous parody of Hitler in Fawlty Towers. A good deal more marching, gate banging, foot stamping and saluting goes on on before they reach the point of the event; the flag lowering. The two National flags stand at opposite sides of the gate, and from the viewers position the ropes are crossed over as the flags are slowly and reverently lowered, passing each other in the middle in a way that has a confusing symbolism given the fifty odd years of strained relations, war and rhetoric between these most tetchy of neighbours. Once lowered, accompanied by a round of applause from the crowd, the flag is escorted at double quick pace back to the BSF building, and the gate slammed violently shut for the last time. The BSF lower their own regimental flag, and the loudspeakers instruct the crowd for the audience participation piece that ends the ritual; 3 loud and passionate shouts of "Hindustan zindabad", that were presumably echoed on the other side by "Pakistan zindabad".
After another round of applause, the crowd began to head off in jubilant mood, some stopping to have their tourist snaps taken with the BSF jawans on the way out. We headed, like everyone else, for a chai at one of the stalls near the car park. Almost every stall had a TV set and VCD player at the front, offering an instant replay of a past border closing ceremony. A short VCD was on sale for 30 rs, with a longer 12 chapter version for 120.
The ceremony as we witnessed it only two weeks ago is now history, and will remain so as long as India Pakistan relations progress toward peace. The less aggressive version is supposed to reflect an easing of tensions in an atmosphere in which both sides are concentrating on their commonalities rather than their differences. India and Pakistan have been here many times before however, with apparently hopeful peace overtures turning sour, such as the "bus diplomacy" initiative, in which Prime Minister Vajpayee inaugurated a cross border bus service that raised hopes of dialogue, subsequently dashed by the Kargil war only a few months later.
Walking out to the car park past the entrance to the border area, you cannot help being reminded of the seriousness that underlies the apparently posturing but relatively harmless ritual at Wagah. The border fence stretches off in both directions; a major construction of dense mesh fence, set in three rows and tipped with razor wire, marking the edge of the no-mans land between India and Pakistan and serving as a reminder that the two countries have fought 3 bloody wars - excluding the 1999 Kargil war - and came to the brink of a nuclear exchange in June of 2002. Wagah is an extraordinary piece of theatre, but it's performance echoes a far darker, more dangerous and fragile reality.
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Clearing up the Black HoleA brief postscript to this weeks Hindustan Times series reporting on the chaos of Delhi airport, suggests that the central government may finally be considering taking seriously the tout/taxi driver problems. The union Tourism minister, Jagmohan, recently visited the airport on a fact finding mission and was apparently "shocked" that the "tout-taxi-hotel nexus" is thriving in spite of what he optimistically called "elaborate security measures"; which I can only take to be the beedi smoking cop at the exit gate. The Minister has now confirmed that a "reputed private detective agency" will be hired to report secretly to him on the state of affairs, and that further action will be taken, including the possible loss of licences by hotels or taxis involved in the touting game. This sudden flurry of official concern comes in the wake of the murder of Australian tourist Dawn Griggs by the driver of a pre-paid airport taxi.
The users of Delhi airport wait with bated breath.
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April 8, 2004
Delhi's black holeThe Hindustan Times has gone to war (not before time) on Delhi airport, with a daily piece under the heading of "the Black Hole of Delhi", each day highlighting a different failing of one of the worlds worst national airports. I suspect that from the HT point of view, the articles are in reality a sideswipe at deputy PM LK Advani, a politician with whom the paper seems to have a running feud. Advani's department, the Ministry of Home Affairs has responsibility for many of the airport operations, and the articles also take a poke at the BJP governments contraversial election slogan "India Shining". But the series is nevertheless timely in the wake of the murder of tourist Dawn Griggs a few weeks ago, in an airport Taxi she was taking to the city after arriving in Delhi. The sentiments in the article very much reflect my own experience and opinions of Indira Gandhi International airport , a place seemingly designed to leave a lasting bad impression of the country on the visitor; after all it is the first and last thing that most people see of India. Todays article, written by the HTs Vir Sanghvi, began with a paragraph that seemed to sum up the whole sorry mess very nicely;
 The most worrying aspect of the chaos at Delhi airport is that so much of it is avoidable. The solutions are self evident, and yet nobody could be bothered to implement them.
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Rohtang pass open earlyAnother report in the Hindustan Times confirms that snow is thin on the ground this year. Border Roads organisation engineers working to clear Rohtang pass say that the pass will be open for vehicle traffic by 15th April this year - much earlier than in previous years - clearing the way to the Lahaul valley for tourists. Unseasonally warm weather in the late winter has rapidly melted much of the modest amounts of snow that did fall, leaving the ridges around the pass showing large expanses of barren rock, where normally they would remain covered for another month or so.
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April 7, 2004
Stubborn wildlifeSome of the wildlife here seems to have a scant instinct for the lessons of evolution in its behaviour. Some small birds, common across Northern India, yellow beaked and with white flashes under their wings, are frequent year round visitors to the guest house, usually in pairs. They have serious bottle, apparently completely unafraid of humans and will happily peck and poke around the garden however much activity there is. Someone suggested they may be a kind of Mynah bird, often known for inquisitive and bold behaviour. Leave breakfast alone on the table outside for 30 seconds in winter, and they will be on it in a flash; one will keep watch while the other makes the hit.
Our landlord has a dove - he had two, but I think the female got tired of the two-months-early sexual advances of the male and headed for a quieter life elsewhere - and there is a running territorial battle between the Mynahs (if thats what they are) and the dove. The dove doesn't do assertive very well and the Mynahs seem unfazed by any attempts to establish territorial rights. This being mating season, things have got a little more serious.
The dove has a converted apple box attached under the kitchen eaves as a localised impromptu version of a dovecot, and a week or two ago the Mynahs decided this was to be their nest for the year. The dove in any case sleeps on the roof of this box, so their were no major conflicts, and the Mynahs started to bring nest material and started to build. But being in a fruity frame of mind, their calls were louder and more piercing than usual, and my landlord - who sleeps in the kitchen in summer - had second thoughts about the potential racket at 5am every morning, so he put a brick over the entrance to the dovecot. The Mynahs turned up again, armed with yet more pieces of plastic and twig, and tried without success to move the brick. They went away, and I assumed common sense and the odd evolutionary feature would kick in and they would house hunt for another place - there are certainly no shortage of trees. But sadly it seems they are not as canny or survival minded as they appear (and maybe related to the Dodo), and every day since, at least once or twice, they turn up bearing nest material of some kind, which they discard before spending five fruitless minutes or so trying to dislodge the brick, before settling (apparently) dejectedly on the ledge and having a loud avian conference, presumably on the way forward. The racket of these tete a tetes leaves my landlord all the more convinced that he doesn't fancy noisy squatters on the premises, the paying guests that play the techno till 4am are quite enough perhaps.
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TremorsThe earth literally moved last night. At about 3 am the Manali area was hit by a small earth tremor - so small that I actually thought it was the after effects of a bottle of HPMC's deceptively strong apple wine. There wasn't a lot of sensation, just a gentle rocking back and forth, although today a friend complained that his windows rattled loudly for 5 or ten minutes.
A serious quake would be a real fear though. Dharamsala, 60 km away was flattened by an earthquake in 1905, and minor quakes since have flattened a few houses in the Manali area. While most of the older houses, with their traditional wood and stone structures, are fairly 'flexible' and less prone to quake damage, most of the modern buildings - including the hotels and guest houses - are built to somewhat dubious standards in concrete and often built to 3 or 4 stories high, which has little give. In the Turkish earthquake of 3 or 4 years ago, the houses that survived intact or with little loss of life were those of the old Ottoman design, mainly built of wood, while the modern concrete buildings caused most of the casualties, in many cases because contractors because contractors had mixed too much sand in with the cement to save money - a common failing in India.
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April 6, 2004
Two achievements, one day!Todays other momentous (and also rather geeky) achievement, was Neoncarrot obtaining the number one spot on Yahoo for the phrase "india statistics", out of a possible 26,600,000 possible pages. We did mange to get the number two spot on Google for the same phrase until they tweaked something or other a month ago (we're now 100th ish) - or maybe just realised that the Indian Census site and www.indiastats.com might just have been a better bet for those seeking statistical enlightenment.
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Watch out KoppolaWhile I don't think fame and fortune awaits quite yet, I managed my small screen directorial debut on Indian TV today - entirely by accident. When we were up in the Solang valley a few weeks ago, I shot some DV footage of a young local guy doing some ski jumps from a small impromptu ramp. Since he repeated the jump quite a few times for my benefit, I promised him a look at the results. I burned the few minutes onto CD, and we dropped it into his shop last night (being India, only 6 weeks later than promised). Turns out in addition to his many other jobs, he is the local cable TV operator, supplying the villages from Palchan to Kalath with varying levels of picture quality.
One of the nice features of the local cable operators in India is that they will often run a "local channel", sometimes just a movie, but often video of local events. In Manali there is sometimes locally made music videos of Himachali music, live coverage of the Winter Carnival or a rerun of one of the festivals. So he stuck the disk into the VCD player, and only told me after it was running that my not-too-talented four minutes or so of directorial debut was being broadcast to the upper Kullu valley. Cool. Except for the fact that at 9pm in this early to bed town, I doubt I had an audience of more than a few bemused Delhi Tourists and the odd bleary eyed local pisspot. Never mind, broadcast is broadcast, and he's promised that if I manage to edit something decent out of the 30 odd hours of tape from the last 18 months, he'd be happy to run it for me. I wont hold my breath for the oscar nomination.
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April 2, 2004
Another nail in the coffinWe were sitting in a restaurant in Amritsar discussing the murder of Australian tourist Dawn Griggs, when an girl sitting on the next table leaned over and asked for details. She had been travelling alone in India for 4 months and always - till now - felt safe. Like many travellers, she had taken the prepaid taxi from the airport; the safest way, she had assumed, to get to the city centre. The story in the Hindustan Times left her shaken and revising her view of her personal safety.
She will doubtless not be alone in having second thoughts about taking a cab alone to the airport, and such a story splashed across the international press will certainly deter some of those planning a trip to India in the near future. After all, getting from the airport to the city is something most travellers would expect to be safe almost anywhere in the world - especially when the cab is prepaid via a booth run by the local cops; if you are going to have trouble, it usually starts more than an hour after arrival.
The details of the murder are simple enough. Dawn Griggs arrived at Delhi airport on a flight from Brisbane, and caught a prepaid cab from one of the booths just before the airport exit. The driver reportedly noticed her heavy jewellery and decided to rob her, assuming a lone woman would be an easy touch. He drove to a deserted area and tried to strangle her, and when she put up a stiff resistance, stabbed her 3 times with a screwdriver, then stole her money and passport and dumped the body. Police have now arrested taxi drivers Jyotish Prasad and Ashish Kumar for the murder.
In the wake of the Griggs murder, the Delhi authorities have gone for the 'too little too late' approach, and decided to ensure the airport road finally has streetlights. While it is probably a good idea in any case, its difficult to see what problem it actually solves, except perhaps to make those travelling to and from the airport feel a little safer. The problem lies far more in the (total lack of) organisation of the taxi rank at the airport and the supervision and regulation of the drivers than in the streetlighting arrangements.
Currently, the rank is a chaotic and confusing place; badly lit and with no supervision. As most flights arrive at the most ridiculous hours of the night, the tired and disoriented traveller unfamiliar with the layout is at the mercy of the drivers after prepaying the cab and receiving their pink slip. The only clue given by the police prepaid booth is the last 4 numbers of the cab. After exiting the glass doors you are faced with a choice of going left or straight ahead to find your prepaid taxi. The prepaid pool is straight, but there is no sign. Invariably, someone will come up and grab the pink slip and then try to take your bag. Sometimes they will actually lead you to the correct cab, but just as often they will be a cabby not on the prepaid roster trying to 'hijack' the unwary into their cab, taking you to a hotel from which they will get commission, and probably trying to extort the fare as well. On one occasion, tired from the flight, we were almost caught short by this. The guy had our bags in the boot and I only realised what he was up to when the boot closed and I saw the number. To check the number, I had to wrench the slip from the guys hand. The police will keep a record of the cab number and your name, but anyone getting into the wrong cab entirely has effectively disappeared from the radar. The lessons from this are never, EVER to give the pink slip up before the journeys end - its is your only leverage over the driver to get where you want to go. And always to check yourself the number of the cab against the slip.
The benefits of the prepaid cabs was amply demonstrated to me on the solitary occasion I didn't use one. I took a cab from the rank outside, agreeing the rate with the driver. The bullshit started only seconds after the cab started rolling, with the usually number about the hotel I wished to be taken to being 'full', then when that didn't wash 'closed', followed by a suggestion that Connaught place was closed 'due' to a major terrorist bombing. All of this was happening on the dark stretch of road beyond the airport, and as the driver had brought another guy with him, the whole scene was making me extremely nervous. I finally had enough when he ended up more or less refusing to take me to my hotel unless I paid 3 times the agreed fare. I told him to forget it and return to the airport; he refused. When he stopped the car at the side of the road I was seriously freaked and feeling very physically threatened. I am not usually prone to making serious threats of violence, but I finally pulled out my shiny new - and extremely sharp Swiss lock knife, locked his neck with my left arm and held the knife to his throat while making it very clear I wanted to go to Connaught place, now, and in silence. I think I was actually scared enough to use the knife, and the fact my hand was shaking so violently convinced him I was serious. When we finally stopped at the hotel, both of them sat in the seat with the engine running and told me to get out and get my bag from the boot. I was convinced he would just drive off with the bags as soon as I got out, and it took another sharp poke in the neck to get him and his mate out to open the boot. Stupidly, I was so grateful not to be robbed or dead I actually paid him the originally agreed amount, and he drove off before I had the chance to get a note of the cab number - for all the good it would have done me. I have no idea if they really did intend me harm, or were merely trying to put the frighteners on, but I have never felt so threatened in my life. Ever since, I've used the prepaid system and never had a problem beyond the usual "this hotel closed" bullshit. However, I'm not sure I'd feel the same if I was a woman alone, given Delhi's growing reputation as the rape capital of India.
The experience did leave me with a rock bottom opinion of DelhiÕs cabbies, so I was hardly surprised to read the whining rubbish put out by the drivers in the wake of the recent murder in a shallow attempt at PR. Suresh Godh, joint secretary of the airport's Taxi Stand Owners and Operator Union said in a statement "Some of our taxi drivers have had flawless records for the past 20-30 years. Now all because of this one man who had come just a couple of years ago, we have to bear the brunt." and in a strategy all too popular in India ("its not us - its those bad guys") went on to blame the murder on the fact the driver arrested was from Bihar, saying he "was not one of our gang" - perhaps not realising how appropriate "gang" was as a description of Delhi's cabbies in general. Any foreigner who has spent time in the city will have spent a fair of it trying to avoid getting shafted, and is likely to have little sympathy with the notion of Delhi's taxi drivers as upstanding models of probity. One driver, who had found a mobile phone dropped by a customer, handed it to police and seemed to think this was a clear example of "beyond the call of duty" rather than normal behaviour. The cabbies are, in the end, their own worst enemies and need to do a lot of navel gazing before anyone will take seriously the suggestion that its merely a few bad apples and not the entire barrel that is rotten, woodwork and all. Perhaps feeling sorry for the family of Dawn Griggs, rather than themselves, would be appropriate, but as so often with the tourist business in India, its business first, humanity second.
The murder and attendant publicity will cost India tourist business, and more likely at the "high value" end of the scale that it is so desperate to attract. The new airport is at least five years away, but surely a simple and inexpensive revamping of the cab rank and prepaid system would go a long way to removing the nervousness from airport to city travel. Forming the taxis into a proper line at the pavement, with the prepaid booth the head of the line would at least ensure it was easy to get the correct cab. Logging the driver names and cab numbers along with passenger names would make any dodgy drivers think twice about their ability to get off scot free. Vetting the drivers allowed to use the prepaid rank to some extent, and banning them from it should they be reported by passengers for screwing them around. Preventing access to the prepaid rank and terminal exit area to the non approved drivers who poach customers with prepaid slips. None of this seems to me like too great an effort to protect India's foreign currency touting visitors and ultimately its fragile tourist industry. Most countries in the world - many far poorer than India - can manage the basics of getting visitors from the airport to city without a barrage of hassle or a trial of nerves.
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