The Freedom Fighter

The photograph on the left occupies pride of place in my parents' neighbor's home. The fellow wearing the white cap is, of course, Jawaharlal Nehru (India's first prime minister).

I asked who the fellow receiving the award from Nehru was.

"My father," replied our 70-year old neighbor proudly, "he was a great freedom fighter in his young days and the first thyagi (someone who sacrificed a lot) in Devakottai." So this must have been in the 1920s around the time that Gandhi was taking over India's freedom movement and orienting it towards a non-violent struggle.

"What did your father do to get jailed?," I asked.

"He burned down a theater," I was told, "he was quite the radical."

So not non-violent then.

The name of our septuagenarian neighbor is Mohan. I'd never made the connection between his name and Gandhi's first name (Mohandas). The young man in the photo was one of those whose radicalism had been channeled by Gandhi into more peaceful means. He'd even named his son after Gandhi.

Ganeshas in Trees

Remember the hullabaloo when a grilled cheese sandwich was found to look like the Virgin Mary? India is chock full of those. This is an example from our village ... an arasa ("king") tree part of whose trunk, people say, has started to resemble the elephant god Ganesha:
It's now become an impromptu temple, as can be seen by the small concrete snake at the base of the Ganesha on the tree.

And continuing my last post about the size of trees in India, that tree trunk is more than 6 feet in diameter. The tree is probably only 50 years old.

The bus in the background? It's a daily bus that goes to Bangalore. I'm taking it tomorrow, to go visit a close friend (and distant relative) from my high school days.

Getting Safely Out of Here

The major worry we had when planning this trip was the kids' health. Would they be able to get through 2 months in India without falling sick? They've been drinking only bottled water, and never get to eat anything that has not been boiled. Not even a soda.

And wouldn't you know it? I'm the one who falls sick. Mainly due to my fondness for jackfruit. I had eaten it safely several times before but this time, the knife the vendor used must have been infected ... I ended up with severe stomach cramps, going to the clinic at 3am and getting an IV infusion. I'm all through it, but the doc put me on a cocktail of antibiotics for the next two weeks.


"To get you safely out of here", the doctor said when I remarked that the amount of medicine seemed to be a bit extreme.

The Indian view of the American election

American liberals were allies to India's independence movement. And John K. Galbraith, the economist, used to be the American ambassador to India; he is still beloved here. So, at one level, it's no surprise that a column titled "McCain vs Obama: Who's better for India" would come down plumb in favor of Obama. But the thing is ... with Indian-Americans being the wealthiest minority in the US, the group tends Republican and that has been seeping into the home country's media as well. Plus, the Bush administration has actually been good for India, not getting in the way of the offshoring boom, proposing a nuclear deal and accepting India's views of Islamic terrorism. So, it should really have been a toss up with good arguments for both candidates.

However, the author is clearly taken with Obama's personal knowledge of the region (as opposed to McCain's knowledge of the subcontinent only through official visits):

But here's a trivial observation that suggests why Obama, because of his eclectic and unusual upbringing, may be different: He's the only American leader who has been heard to pronounce Gandhi and Pakistan correctly — just like it's pronounced in the subcontinent (Gaan-dhi, not Gain-dee; Paak-isthaan, not Pack-is-tan). In other conversations, Obama has also referred to Indian success in technology fields, and drawn comparisons between his father (who came to the US "without money, but with a student visa and a determination to succeed") and the experiences of Indian immigrants.

Such empathy and "connection" to immigrants from the subcontinent is only one part of Obama's plural multi-ethnic background and wide-ranging eclectic education (American, African, even part-Asian) that makes him arguably the most unusual and exciting presidential candidate in US history — more universalist than American.

Meanwhile, the case for McCain is more cerebral and less from the heart:

Conventional wisdom in Indian circles is that a McCain win will result in a broad continuation of Bush administration policies, including a possible revival of the US-India nuclear deal in the event of a favourable political alignment and atmosphere after the general elections.

and in the all-important (to India) issue of Islamic terrorism, McCain would be unreliable, whereas Obama may do the right thing:

Despite his abiding friendship with Pakistanis from his collegiate days, Obama appears to view a military-dominated Pakistan and the fundamentalist monarchy in Saudi Arabia with deep distrust (his Karachi visit happened during the Zia years). McCain, on the other hand, is the author of the long-running Republican coziness with the fundamentalists and militarists in Riyadh and Islamabad respectively, dispensations that India too has reservations about.

Why isn't Tamil Nadu more green?

The photo on the left is of a neem tree at my parents'. My mom planted it as a sapling seven years ago. Oklahoma trees that are comparable (in lifespan and cultural significance -- no one rhapsodizes about the Bradford pear in their yard when they were a child!) would be elms and oaks.

My mom's neem tree is now a foot in diameter and about 25 feet tall. A seven-year old elm in Oklahoma would be lucky to be 6" wide and 12 feet tall. It's not an accident that in American folklore, planting a tree is something you do for the next generation.

If trees here can grow so fast so well, why are there not more trees?

The Barber and Bush's wife

I went for a haircut today.  The kids wanted to tag along because I was going by moped.

Barbers are loquacious everywhere and this one was no exception.

"Where do you live?," he asked as soon as he'd shown me to my chair.

"Chennai," I said shortly, not wanting to get a whole conversation started.

A couple minutes later, he asked, "What language are your kids speaking? Is it Hindi?"

"No," I replied, "it's English".

"If you live in Chennai," he persisted, "why are they talking English?"

Busted.

"We used in live in America," I said, backpedaling furiously.

"Where's your house here?," he asked.  I told him.  "It must be your cousin, then," he said, "who lives in America.  Your uncle comes to this shop. He's kind of short, you know"

"Oh, it's me," I told him, "I'm the one who lives in America."  We were going to have that conversation after all.

"It says in the paper," the barber said brightly, "that Bush's wife didn't get enough votes."

"Clinton's wife," I said, "Clinton's wife didn't get enough votes"

Jello in coconuts

More pictures from rural India ...

A pond for storing water. Most such ponds are walled in, and have underground canals that lead from all over the village to the common pond. This pond still provides the drinking water for the village. The Tamil word for these ponds, oorani, is a play on two meanings of the word "oor". The first meaning is "town" and the second meaning is "to seep". Describes both how the pond is formed and who owns it.

The man is selling "nongu" (fruits of a type of palm tree). The kids thought it was jello (it has that texture and translucent color) and wanted to know how the man got the jello into the coconut. The poor fellow would have been even more bewildered if he had understood the question.
This year, the rains were very good, so normally arid land has become a marsh. I see lots of folks fishing in land I remember dry and caked in mud. The sarong-like thing the guy is wearing is called a lungi and is likely an influence from South-east Asia.
This flower is called a "Nagalingam" flower. Naga means snake and a lingam is a phallus. Not sure why ... it looks neither like a snake nor like a phallus to me.

And to close, a photo that S1 (our six-year-old) took when we were briefly stopped by the side of the road. He wanted to take a picture of the "recycling stuff". I didn't have the heart to correct him.