Colossal wreck, boundless and bare

Qutub Minar is a brick tower that was built around 1200 AD by the first Muslim ruler of Delhi to commemorate a military victory. Probably because it is so easily accessible, it is the most visited historical site in India.

This iron pillar which commemorates a military victory by a Hindu king around 300 AD was uprooted from its original location and installed here in the Qutb complex. There was originally a Garuda (a mythological bird that the Hindu god Vishnu rides) on top of the iron pillar, but the Muslim kings presumably destroyed that idol.

Uprooted, headless and a convenient roosting spot for pigeons, the iron pillar serves as an ironic counterpoint to the stone victory tower built by Muslim kings. Reminded me of Shelley's Ozymandias.

In Peru, we saw lots of churches that were built on top of Inca foundations. So much so that there are few pure Inca buildings left (this is what makes Machu Picchu so unique: it was hidden in the jungle and the Spaniards never found it). The Muslim invaders of India couldn't destroy and build over all the Hindu temples of course -- there were too many of them -- but they seem have to given it their best shot. This hallway around the Qutub complex consists of pillars ransacked from Hindu and Jain temples.

Interestingly, the Afghani Muslim invaders of the 1200s seem to have been zealous enough to ransack Hindu temples, but not fundamentalist enough (or barbaric enough) to destroy the art in them. Thus, they seem to have had no problem having this dancing girl gracing their mosque. Sadly, today's Afghani Taliban are not merely a throwback to the 1200s; they are worse.

Chennai from the air

Most international flights from Chennai (Madras) leave after midnight so this trip (with all the within-India hopping that I'm doing) was the first time that I got to see the city from the air.

Marina beach looks clean, wide and gorgeous. That blue-striped building in the foreground is a metro station. There must be a new metro line that runs alongside the beach (the metro line didn't serve the beach when I was in college). The cluster of dots near the ocean are fishermens' boats -- the boats provide one of the few places to snatch a bit of privacy in a crowded city and were (still are?) a primary hangout place for young couples with no money.

The IIT Madras campus is still an oasis of green in the middle of city, although it seems more built-up than what I remember:

The bridge over the Adyar (river) is picturesque with lots of greenery still preserved -- that must be an awful lot of real estate bribes that some unheralded bureaucrat turned down:

Madras is so pretty that I might want to live here!

A tale of three generations

Two generations of farmers sit waiting for a plane. The father is wearing a traditional, shockingly pink turban while the son sports a "safari" suit of the sort favored by upwardly mobile rural Indians.

Meanwhile, just a couple of feet away, the granddaughter was experimenting with an interactive billboard. Advertisements were projected onto the floor from the ceiling and if the light-beam got intercepted, the image on the floor would show a reaction. For example, one ad about conserving water would show ripples around the place where the girl was standing and the ripples would follow her as she twirled on the floor. Another ad, for checking accounts, had coins that magically rearranged themselves as she walked around. She was curious about how it worked and was trying out different positions so as to understand the pattern.

The story of India in microcosm.

Don't they have weather radars at Heathrow?

8 hops to go from Norman to my parents': Home - OKC - DFW - BOS - LHR - BOM - MAA - IXM - Home.  It could be worse of course.   I remember talking to an Indian American when I was in graduate school; he'd never been to India and when I asked him why, he got really miffed and proceeded to fill me in on the economics of running a gas station.  His parents simply could not afford it.  Besides two of those stops were not strictly necessary.

But all those stops got me to experience air traffic control in England and in India.  London and Bombay both had rains and in both places, there was a general halt to takeoffs and landings. Here's the thing though: looking for storms out the window of my stranded airplane, I could see none.  Just general rain; the kind of rain that no self-respecting US airport would be closed over.  Sure enough, when we finally did take off, there was not even minor turbulence.

The thresholds to close down an airport for weather-related reasons must be much lower in London and in Bombay.  Either that, or they don't have terminal weather radar.

Boston's 7th most secret place

The Boston Globe named this place that I'm climbing into the seventh secret place in Boston. Where is it?

Hint: It is in this museum on the Charles River:

The place features indoor lightning (yes, that's me in the cage)

And, most impressive, a solid state "singing" sparkplug:

So, where is this secret place?

Give up? This is the seventh secret place in Boston -- it's the interior of the terminal dome of the Van de Graaf generator. How did I get to go in? Because I knew the right people.

All caught up

I'll take my feeling of accomplishment where I can ... my empty email inbox:

This state is about as rare as a solar eclipse, but not as predictable.

Thin skinned outrage

I haven't read Time in ages, so I completely missed Joel Stein's humorous essay on growing up in Edison, NJ, a town that has transformed into Little India. As he points out, surface impressions to the contrary, kids in Edison assimilate into America, oil-slicked hair and all.

The essay seems to have provoked indignation (for example: see here). For what it's worth, I found the essay funny and poignant. We all have romantic views about where we grow up, and when we go back as adults, we find it all changed and quite a bit more coarse. In poor Stein's case, the change was in the place's racial makeup. Pointing this out in a wistful way doesn't make him racist.