Keeping the hunger alive!!

At any point of time, when I am not traveling, I have this need of at least planning a trip/trek. I will keep bugging a few close friends till the next trip is confirmed, time-gap between two trips notwithstanding. Once I have booked the tickets for the next travel there is this happiness which gets over me & I start with the research that would go on to make my trip memorable. Also I like to visit places which are not so commercial as a tourist destination, so that the opportunity to interact with locals & seeing the things as they are exist for me. Also another advantage of the strategy is to avoid sharing the place with loads of other travelers, like a Goa trip in Monsoon or a Ladakh trip in winter. And more often than not, they happen to be great on VFM  :)

I am not much into shopping & hence more often than not, I come back empty handed. But what I have carried back from trek/trip are loads of memories which revolves mostly around people or beauty of the place or, on a few occasion, food. At times one does get to experience negative incidents also, I have had a fair share of these. But the impact of positive experiences outweighs that of negative experiences. This post is dedicated to all those positive/funny/quirky incidents which revolve around people & for me these are the real reason behind getting desperate to pick up my backpack & get on the road.

• Srinagar fruit-seller- When we were in Srinagar about 4 years back, on our way to Ladakh via road, it was a bad time for the city. For all those 3-4 days there was full day curfew & our strategy was to start early reach the designated place before the curfew is enforced & stay the day at the place till late evening. On one day we got to know that the market is open & we can go there to buy stuff. Since I wasn't keen on taking anything back I decided to randomly go & chat with some locals while my friends shop to their hearts content. One of the guys who I started interacting with was an elderly local fruit seller, he asked me where I was from & what I did for living. I asked him about his life in Srinagar & the answer wasn't very good to hear. Being in the business of selling perishable goods that too in a place where curfews are part of your regular life doesn't bode well for anyone. Education of the grand-children was an issue amongst other things. I decided to pick some stuff for the road journey which was to start next morning to Kargil. So as soon as I asked him to weigh some quantity of all variants of fruit he had he asked me to go to a close-by shop. I was completely confused & asked him whether its his relative's shop to which he said that the fruits are fresher there though he had nothing to do with the owner of that shop. When I asked him why isn't he keen on selling his stuff & make some money given his condition & given the situation of the city. To this he replied that the biggest thing hurting the city is state of tourism & he wants to ensure that people like me who comes to the city has good experience here so that they can go back & talk about their experiences leading to more tourists coming there. To say that I was amazed by the interaction would be an understatement & it happened to be something by which I remember the city.

• Lukla Lodge lady- About 5 years back on my first ever trek in Nepal, on the way back I got really sick to the extent that people decided to get me carried down while covering the distance worth two days in a single night. There were 6 friends who were part of the troop which went through the ordeal of traveling through the night with the help of torches in not so friendly terrains. After walking throughout the night we reached Lukla early morning at crazy hour (I do not remember what time it was for obvious reason, but I do remember it was still dark). We didn't have any booking or hadn't informed any lodge owner in advance, and after knocking on doors of many lodges for what seemed like an eternity, one lady lodge-owner woke up & opened the doors of her lodge for us. Since many rooms were not empty she advised us to take the common hall so that people can sleep for a bit there & we can have breakfast before catching a flight to Kathmandu. All this while I was crying in pain, as my situation wasn't improving, so at that crazy hour she decided to burn some fire for me plus she also made a potion using local herbs so that I could feel better. When that also didn't help she decided to sit beside me & talk, while pressing my head gently throughout. Others had to get some rest as some of them had been walking for 16 hours without break & some the whole night sharing my weight on their shoulder. That day till 11 am, due to weather the first flight out of Lukla was delayed by quite a bit, the elderly lady did nothing else but sat beside me & tried her best to get me to drink something which I was vomiting out the very next moment. I could not thank her on that trip but got an opportunity to meet her on the next trek in Nepal, we stayed at her lodge on both ways.

• Thailand speed boat with old Englishman- It is one of those incidents which has stayed with me for a long time now. I was traveling in Thailand with friends & one fine day we decided to go to some island (do not remember the name) on a speed boat. Weather wasn't particularly good that day & hence the ride which is normally difficult became even worse. So everyone sitting in the front part of the deck went inside to have a safe journey, to the extent possible. It was just me & a old British man who decided to stay put as it was too much fun, a few bumps on the head notwithstanding. We also started chatting which was difficult due to weather but not impossible. So he started telling me his story, he was an ex-army guy who was retired now. He keeps traveling with his son & they always travel to places where they have currency advantage. India was also high on his list, but he mentioned that he would rate Thailand high on the list above India. I got so offended that I stood up & gave a speech which lasted for decent time on why India is a better place from tourism point of view. Unity in diversity, so much of culture to absorb, mountain, river, ocean, valley, dessert, heritage sites, temples, mosques, shrines, in short almost everything under the sun. He agreed to everything & mentioned that he loved Rajasthan & he has been to Goa which is a great place. I followed up by asking why he didn't find India better, to which he replied in two words "Cheap girlfriends". For about 5 seconds I was watching his face, he sensed what I was thinking. He said "I am over 50, both my hands have broken bones, same with my legs, my back has been fractured more than once, I have issues with my shoulders. In fact there is just one part of my body which works properly & I feel need to keep it in working shape hence I come here often". He also mentioned economics involved & with pension money he has to come to Thailand as rest of the location would be expensive. We discussed the entire thing so openly & then talked about his experience in army & other stuff. To have a conversation like that, in a neutral place, was just the right thing to remember the trip till today.

the small one also happens to be an awesome dancer

• Family at lingshed-  A couple of us were trying to complete "Chadar trek", which is basically walking over a thin sheet of ice formed in winter over Zanskar River. Throughout the trek you keep camping at night in the open near the river, which makes it extremely cold (maximum temperature being -16 degrees, minimum recorded temperature being -38 degrees). One of the stops was Lingshed village where we had a luxury of house stay, where we had a proper heater & proper bed for a change. The family which was hosting us had two little kids with their mother & grand-mother. Men of the family were traveling outside the village for work, while women maintain things at home. We had occupied a better part of their house & they were as graceful as any host can be. They invited us to their house, offered us butter tea (Gurgur chai), apologized, for unfathomable reason, about the condition of their house. But what really took the cake was they arranged a party for us at their home where locals were singing their songs & playing drums & beating empty cans, while we were dancing with them. With some local rice liquor the entire setup was as amazing as it can be @ 4000mts plus height. They even wanted us to shift to a common hall which is used for village functions, where proper instruments were kept, with more people to join us. But we had heard the news that Chadar was deteriorating & had to start early next day morning. We called it a day, but the experience took the meaning of the word hospitality to a different level.

• Pakistani Shop owner at Barcelona- We were pretty impressed by the city of Barcelona, majorly because of the awesome work done by Gaudi. Also we loved the other places we went to in Spain, but what we wanted was a local food experience which would have completed the experience for us. We had tried all kind of road side food, pizzas and all types of comfort food that is available. Went to as many different kind of restaurant as possible, but we were yet to experience the Catalonian cuisine, which made us travel across the city on the eve of our departure. Language is a big barrier & English is not a language which many understand in Barcelona. We were still trying hard to figure out a local restaurant where we would get local flavors in a fine-dine setting.After a point we realized that asking people on street is not helping at all, so new strategy was to enter restaurants and asking them where can we get authentic local food but even this didn't work. Very few people knew English & those who did didn't have an answer for us. In one cafe the person asked us to wait & went to get somebody. We thought he was trying to call someone who knew English and the person who came out was the owner of the shop who we thought was an Indian but he was actually a Pakistani. We had a long discussion on how he landed in Barcelona & how was he finding the experience of living their. He had a few questions about India, which we answered happily. We also discussed cricket, which was the most animated part of the overall discussion. He offered us food at his cafe, which we respectfully declined with the reason. He recommended a restaurant for local cuisine & also offered us to drive there. We responded by telling him he can drop us only if he joins us for dinner. In the end we walked down to the restaurant as cafe owner had work to finish before dinner. Its a really old incident hence I cannot remember most of the conversation but what struck me at that time was that similarity that exist between Indians & Pakistanis, who I always used to think were very different from us. His helpful nature & his manner of speaking put a seed of thought in my head, i.e. visiting Pakistan someday. BTW local food was nothing great, they served us artichoke which was half-burnt. There was a decent dish which was made up of cheese and roasted potato (nothing can go wrong with that combination) which ensured that I came out of the restaurant with on a full stomach.

local food @ Barcelona

Small kid at the back is Jigme & one on right is Nuwang

• Visiting Bhutanese monk's house-The best part of my Bhutan trip was visiting monastery where Nawang, who is a practicing Monk, works & stays. Me & couple of my friend were walking up to Swiss guest house, where we were staying, from the town which was at a 30 mins walk downhill from the guesthouse. We decided to take a new trail & after a while we couldn't find the road going anywhere. Nawang came there just then & we asked him about the way to our guest house, he not only mentioned how to reach but also offered to accompany us till we reach the main path again. On the way we started talking about Bollywood and went on from there to discuss life of a monk. Seeing our interest he offered to take us to his monastery, Khurjey Monastery. After giving us a small tour of the monastery, he casually mentioned about spending some time with his roommates at his room, we jumped at this opportunity. All this while we were discussing life@monastery & life before being a monk. As soon as we reach his room he introduced us to Jigme, who was a reincarnated lama. Such people are identified early on & taken into monastery before they even turn 10 years in age. Jigme was watching a tom cruise movie when we entered their room. They both were forthcoming in answering all our questions regarding Buddhism, sacrificing normal life, aspect of future from a monks perspective, etc and after were we fully satisfied with their answers we asked Nawang to sing. Nawang was a good singer after singing a few lines from various Indian movie songs, on our request he sang a Bhutanese song & translated the same for us. Post this he even took us to the classrooms of the monastery, all the while explaining things or answering question without showing any signs of getting irritated by our badgering. My respect for Bhutan & the King's philosophy of Gross Happiness Index increased manifold after interacting with locals, especially people like Nawang & Jigme.

• Help from Tourism employee of Mizoram- We landed in Aizawl thinking we would interact with the local tourism center & then make our plans. There was no tourism kiosk at Lengpui Airport or Aizawl city & we were left on our own for figuring out our plans for next few days. Our driver was trying his best to take us to a place where we could get some help. At last we reached the administrative head office of tourism department, we asked almost everyone to help us figure things out as some routes were bad, weather was not that friendly, accessibility was another concern which we wanted to clarify before heading off in specific direction. Most of the people couldn't even understand what we were trying to figure out, as the concept of tourist was itself alien to them. After a lot of explaining from our side a bunch of ladies started paying attention to us & one of them was really impressed with what we were trying to do. She mentioned a couple of impressive places where she had been herself. Also she had a discussion with our driver Sangtea, as to how we can best utilize our time in Mizoram & how he can help us reach Reiek Tlang in a day which route to take and all. She also called up the government lodge employee in Reiek Tlang & asked him to prepare room & food for us. We were so happy to get so much of help & thanked Nonni again & again. Then she asked for our cell numbers, which we happily shared. Having received so much of help from an unknown lady was great, she would have at least spend an hour apart from making multiple calls checking routes etc. But this wasn't all she was about to do, for the entire duration of our trip she kept on calling us back asking about our experiences & checking up on us to see if we are not finding anything too difficult. On the way to Muifang from Reiek Tlang she again called & asked if we have made our bookings in Muifang, as there is only one decent resort which was owned by Government. Like this she kept on helping us throughout the trip. Such goodness in people is not visible in most of the places, but Mizoram was full of such examples of good. Our driver Sangtea helped us a lot, he even sacrificed his Sunday mass as we couldnt find a cab back to Aizawl from Hmuifang to catch our flight. Caretakers at all the lodges were more than forthcoming with any kind of support that we asked from them. But Nonni's efforts to ensure that we go back from Mizoram happy & the kind of ownership that she took to ensure that we had a good time was not just unexpected but also unbelievable.

• Interaction with the Soldier at Draupadi Kund-  This is a rather short incident pertaining to a road-trip which was from Srinagar-Kargil-Leh-Manali-Delhi. First half of the journey, i.e. till Leh, it is almost impossible not to interact with Army-men. We used this opportunity to maximum possible effect & interacted with quite a few of them. The fact that they are sacrificing so much for the call of duty to spend time in harsh conditions without complaining much is mind boggling in itself. Plus when they start sharing their anecdotes, it becomes even more overwhelming. On the way we even interacted with a senior officer who was in-charge of managing the Vijay Diwas celebrations. Post which we reached a small tourist attraction called "Draupadi Kund", where we met a Sikh soldier. We chatted for a long time & because the person was responsive we asked too many question, some of them personal. The soldier was more than happy to answer everything, but we started feeling guilty of going overboard with the questions. So I apologized to him for taking so much of time & thanked him for answers. But he told us that there was no need for an apology, given the fact he had to spend majority of his time here away from the base & his fellow army-men he is more than happy to interact with people. He also told us that the biggest issue with soldiers is the boredom due to inaction. He keeps looking for tourists, who visits Draupadi kund, for some company. This made us realize about a completely different reason for us to appreciate the efforts of soldiers, they withstand mundane job, lack of company, no bakar, etc & still continues to fulfill their roles.And they do all this without much bickering & this does stand out in sharp contrast compared to most of us.

Sacrificial goats!!

Have been thinking about starting & finishing this post, but something always stopped me from doing that. Today after having a 2 hrs long discussion with a friend I managed to convince myself on writing this piece. It took me so much of time as the subject matter is not something I want to write about, the only reason behind writing this to get it out of my head. This post revolves around an event which occured in Guwahati, where I had gone with a colleague for an official trip. This was the first visit for my colleague in any of the north-eastern state & even I hadn't explored Guwahati much, so we were both making plans for going around the town before/after work hours. The idea was to see some nice places, but barring temples no other option came from locals. We decided to start off with Kamakhya devi temple by visiting the temple early morning en route to work. Having been twice to temple I wasn't kicked about it, but my colleague had heard a lot about the temple & was excited about finally visiting the temple. It is a different thing altogether that his excitement vaporized as day progressed.

As soon as we reached the temple we were told that there is a special line where post paying 500 bucks you would get to visit the temple fast, given the excitement of my fellow visitor & the work that was pending, we decided to go for the "special darshan". Normally I am not too fond of Tirupati & Siddhi Vinayak for the very same reason of differentiating on account of offering, but here situation demanded the use of "special darshan". Anyhow, after waiting for about an hour, god knows what would have been the waiting time in normal queue, we got a chance to enter the main temple. The temple is spread over a big area & throughout the area one would get to see many goats. They would all be very docile & quiet, while standing near the wall without moving. It was little weird, but knowing that the tradition of sacrifice is still relevant for Guwahati, we could fathom the reason behind this weirdness. We were just discussing about this, when a priest came dragging a baby goat using a rope. It was a depressing scene & I started thinking what I was doing there. Within a few seconds, another goat (slightly bigger & older) came running in midst of all the crowd & commotion, put two of his/her hoof on the baby goat thereby putting its entire weight on the baby. Idea was to stop the man from dragging & taking the baby away, I have never seen anything like this in my life so far. The priest tried pushing the bigger goat, but the bigger goat keep coming back on top of the baby. Kicking was little too much for me and I started shouting on the priest, seeing this another priest joined in & took away the bigger goat nicely. Post this even the baby goat stopped fighting his fate & gave in. We were both completely shaken, different question arising in our heads which we were trying to ignore.

Then the time came for us to enter the temple, having been there in the queue for more than an hour we were slightly happy that now our time in the temple is going to be really short. The line moves really slow, but still we managed to enter the main area. Its really dark inside the main part, barring couple of electric lamps & a few oil lamps there is not much to illuminate the place. After a bit of time we also reached inside the place where both the statues are. As soon as i reached close to the statue, I got a shock of my life. There were severed heads of two young goats, on one side & another head on the other side. Somehow we managed to pay our respect to the goddess & we came out post that. Affect of the scene was strong, knowing that sacrifice as a tradition is part of the temple is something, but seeing the evidence of it is something else.

Thousands  of people visit temple on a daily basis & many, if not most, would be vegetarian. They typically bow in front of the temple, put their hands close to the statue to touch the water & the apply the same water to their forehead, eyes, etc. Not too sure whether people know that the severed heads are kept so damn close to the statue. Many meat eaters also would not take this lightly, I mean killing animals to supposedly please god is as absurd as it gets. The entire episode led me to think about two things, first 'how good/bad our religion system is' & second 'whats the legal standpoint on the entire sacrifice thing'.

Research showed that there are tonnes of temples where sacrifice are a norm. The process of sacrifice at Kamakhya devi temple is simple, a devotee brings a goat for sacrifice. Post beheading the goat, head is kept by the priest who performs the act, rest of the body is cut down to pieces & given back to the devotee who brought it in the first place. Effectively the place act as a butchering house where people can bring their own livestock & get it "Processed" for a small fee. I can understand people eating meat, not much issues there as its an individual choice. But in temples, which I believe is owned & managed by community, the act of killing animals seems wrong. Not too sure if early proponent of the religions got it right when they associated sacrifice with religion. As a country we have been allowing loads of things, many unpleasant & downright wrong, to happen & let people who did them get away with it. This is not to say that religion doesn't have a positive side to it or people do not use religion to do good. I agree those things are also there, but isn't that the first & the foremost objective of following a particular way of living & conforming to a set of beliefs.

As far as law is concerned, 'Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act' does not cover religion based sacrifice & hence is silent as far as such incidents are concerned. Tamil Nadu did pass a law in 1950 'Animal and Bird Sacrifices Prohibition Act', but this act has had many implementation related issues. Since then there are a few states which have taken this act, adapted it to their needs & implemented it, but states like Assam still continue things the way they are. Animal Sacrifice, though reduced over the years, still continue across country on an annual, monthly or even daily basis across many religious institution.

Now to summarize all that I have ranted about, personally I have an issue with people sacrificing animals & birds (people sacrifice pigeons as well in Kamakhya devi temple) in the name of Gods & Goddesses. Ultimately devotee take those meat back home to enjoy it with their near & dear ones. But using a holy place or a religion for the same should be done away with. There was a time when even human sacrifice was allowed in the name of all things holy & religious, but we managed to do away with that. Religion should be used to spread love, happiness, etc & once you see scared animals in a temple you would know that there is something fundamentally wrong with the place.

Bhutan- Randomness!!

Gun wielding mad-man- On the way to Jaigaon border I got the scare of my life, when all of a sudden a guy dressed in police uniform ran in front of the still car & next thing I knew he was taking aim of my head. Before I could have said anything driver started driving, when asked I was told that he is a mad man & keep pulling stunts like this on every possible occasion on that traffic signal. I had a chuckle when the driver told me that, but even with the plastic made fake pistol that mad-man almost made me duck in order to dodge the bullet :)

Games- During the entire road trip 6 of us kept experimenting with some game or the other. 'UNO' was the game which took majority of our time & everyone got super competitive at it. There were three occasion where all the +4 cards were used one after the other, leading to a person picking up 16 cards & on one occasion there was a rally of seven +2 cards, leading to a person picking 14 cards. Sad thing was I was involved in both these records. And as far as competitiveness is concerned we crossed all boundaries, little cheating was not looked down upon but the heights was when 6 adults ganged up on a kid to ensure that he wasn't the first person out of the game. The kid was traveling in the same train during our return journey to Calcutta & by the end of the session he was fully trained. In his last game he was fully aware of the cards held by people sitting beside him, also he almost succeeded in using a 9 as a 6.
We also played 'Buzz', which is a number based game where players keeps saying numbers in numerical order, but in case of multiple of 5 or 7 one is supposed to say buzz. It really doesn't matter that the game is suppose to be for kids for them to learn multiplications better, we had a gala time playing this game. Must try game for all ages. It is even more fun when people revise their multiplication tables & miss then get out in the first round itself :)
Dumb-charade is one game which can't be avoided & to say it turned out to be decent fun would be an understatement.
But the most interesting game turned out to be "20 questions" with personalities like Robert Vadra, Arindam Chaudhari, Himesh Reshammiya, Kamaal Rashid Khan most of the rounds turned out to be fun. And some where made interesting without intention, as OBL was turned into a man of Pakistani origin, an honest mistake which everyone enjoyed.

Discussions with strangers- Swiss guest house, where we stayed in Bumthang, gave us adequate opportunity to interact with new people. It had a bar-cum-dining area-cum-community room, where people would sit till late hours. First night there we started chatting with a local guide, who belongs to one of the family in the race for monarchy in 1907, Jigme & his Austrian contact, who also run his travel company, Peter. We had long discussions about Bhutan, comparisons with India, Nepal, Monarchy, Democracy, changes happening in Bhutan (Since Peter has been traveling to Bhutan for about 15 odd years), Austria, trekking, etc. We also constantly were looking out for expert advice on places to visit & things to do & we were not disappointed. Right from shop owners to walkers on the street, to restaurant owners to strangers who were eating there, from drivers to co-travelers, everyone was more than forthcoming with suggestions. In some cases people inquired if we are tourists & then offered to talk to driver in order to make him take us to relevant places. In short, Bhutan consists of really sweet people who are happy in life & who loves to  help others. 

Progressive Monks & Reincarnated Lamas- There were quite a few instances of myth busting, but the most interesting one has to be our tryst with "Nawang", monk at Khurjey Monastery. We were walking up to to our guest house in Bumthang from the market, when I asked Nawang for directions. After discussing some Bollywood & a bit on Bhutan Nawang invited us to the monastery & we were more than happy to join him. After reaching there, he invited us to his room & we followed him happily there also. He introduced us to his room-mates giving us an opportunity to be on a first name basis with our first ever reincarnated Lama, a cute little guy named Jigme. Interesting bit was they were watching an English movie in their room when we entered, Jigme's favorite actor happens to be Hugh Jackman (I decided to ignore his first preference which was Tom Cruise). There were pictures of Nawang on the walls where he looked like a South Korean hero, with funky hairstyle. They were so nice as hosts, that we didn't mind overstaying our welcome. Having made Nawang sing and explain the meaning of the local song & Jigme answering questions about how he was identified as a reincarnation of one of the Buddha's, we decided to leave, with Nawang giving us company till the point from where he was sure we knew the way. I shot a video where Nawang sang a local song & translated the same for us.

We also met a group of Monks from India who were carrying iPad with them & were more than comfortable using it. One of them even agreed to pose with his device so that I could click a picture of him.

The monk who bought an iPad :)

Things we say- At times people do go through phases were they over-use certain words or phrases. So apparently I was using "Good Stuff Man" as a broken record & Paw was doing the same with "Boss", but this was nothing in comparison with what Brao was doing. Like a patient of "Dissociative identity disorder", he kept on referring to himself in third person as if he was talking about someone else. It was damn funny to hear him say "Brao iss pic me Funk-da-puttar lag raha hai" or "Brao is a stud", modesty personified some would have said .

Ema datshi, with red rice, dal & butter-milk

Ema Datshi- My savior for the entire trip of Bhutan, in terms of food was Ema Datshi (literally meaning Chili & Cheese). I don't think I would have consumed so much chili in such a short duration of time before in my life, but given the amazing taste it was pretty easy to break that record. Datshi became the default order. Others also started flirting with variety of Datshi, like Mushroom Datshi & Kewa Datshi (potato cheese). As Chatak (Jacobin Cuckoo) remains committed to rain water, I remained committed to Ema datshi & consumed crazy amount of Chillies. Its a must have for anyone who is going to Bhutan & wants to try local cuisine.

Most colorful puppy ever

Dogs- Bhutan is full of cute & beautiful dogs, after a point we lost count of the number of dogs that we would have seen on our way or at the places where we stayed. Best part of so many dogs being there is that whenever you plan to go for a walk they would accompany you. At times we went for a walk & some dog started walking with us & they continued along with us till our guest house. Drukpa's love their dogs, hence the relationship between humans & dogs in general is very strong. By the end of the trip we had so many pictures of dogs that we could have dedicated one entire album to them.At one point couple of dogs joined us from the Bumthang town to Swiss Guest House & didn't leave, thankfully the owner was more than keen to add to the already existing count of dogs.

Absolution of Sin- We would have visited umpteen number of monasteries & Dzongs while in Bhutan, but one of the most interesting experience was visiting Tamshing Lhakhang, which is a cave like monastery. In that monastery there was a jacket of about 25 kgs & it is believed that if one picks up that jacket & put it on his/her back & cover three rounds of the monastery, all his/her sins would be washed away. The idea of getting a clean slate was so damn interesting, that I decided to give it a shot. After you put it on your back its not a difficult thing to do & our driver-cum-guide told us that we also need to lift the huge stone kept there. After giving it my best possible efforts I could barely move it only by a few mm's. Brao & Paw followed later, having cleared our sins we decided to celebrate by beating up Jojo for no reason. Thanks to our clean slate, we could afford that luxury :)

Phallus- For the first time in our life, we encountered pictures of phallus put up on public display, that too in decent numbers. And the display was not just restricted to paintings put up outside houses, administrative buildings, shops, etc, they were everywhere. And just when you thought you have had enough, there were models made up of wood, there were t-shirts with the phallic symbol on them (and apparently people were buying it), all the souvenir shops would have different rendition of the same. It does have religious background to it, Lama Drukpa Kinley (also known as "Divine Madman") started using this symbol which is supposed to drive away bad eye & malicious gossip. Even though the symbol is traced back to Lama Drukpa Kinley in Bhutan, it is believed by a few locals that it has been there since ages ago.

Bhutanese Kids- There is something about kids in mountainous terrains, best part being they are both shy & friendly at the same time. And the mongoloid features enhance their cuteness manifolds. So at every possible instance we kept on interacting with families, clicking pictures of their kids, treating them with chocolates & Ice creams, etc. While accepting any kind of gift, Bhutanese kids would put both their hands in front of the perspon giving the gift & then thank the person with both hands folded, all of them were extremely well-mannered, a sign of the quality parenting skill existing in Bhutan. In the end we had considerable amount of pictures where beautiful happy kids, some of which are attached here.

A local guide posing with girls

Go & Kiri- I guess not many places are there where
 men wears dress, that too of shorter length compared to what women wear. Go, the traditional robe-like dress for Bhutanese men, is only knee length, whereas Kiri or the traditional skirt used by women is full length. Bhutanese women have a really nice way of carrying themselves & they carry the Kiri along with silk shirt really gracefully. Go/Kiri is displayed across all museums & all the locals are suppose to follow traditional manner of dressing when they are visiting any monastery or any place with religious relevance.

Royal Family

 
Love for the King & Queen- Every place that we visited had at least one picture of King & the Queen, which is a symbol of the love that exists between king & his people. People talk very fondly of their King & they have only good things to talk about him. King has married just once, that too to a commoner (his father, the previous king married 4 different women, they were all from regal family, and had 10 kids), king is educated & he also supports democracy.



 

The only place where you can put up stuff related

Excitement for Democracy- With 2nd election ever to happen in Bhutan around the corner, everyone was talking about the performance given by the last National Council. Some were supportive & mentioned that they need to be given one more chance as they were new & trying to come to terms with the entire setup, whereas others were not that liberal and felt that they neglected the people who elected them & hence should be replaced. Best part of the elections in Bhutan was that campaigning was highly restricted, there were boards were candidates would put up their manifestation & other stuff which is to be shared with public.

Bhutanese Cowboy- We couldn't have completed our trip of Bhutan without getting a pictures clicked with Bhutanese Cowboy. They wear the traditional robe, i.e. Go, but apart from that they would have a cowboy hat & a very unique set of beard & moustache. The moustache would consist of a thin line protruding on both sides with a gap in middle, a set of hair above the chin & one set just below the chin. Overall they look very different & are fun bunch to interact with.

Another Bhutanese Cowboy

Bhutanese Cowboy with Us

Potential royalty- Our interaction with Jigme, a guide who has been taking Austrian groups for their annual sightseeing for past 15 years on the same route with different stops & different places to visit. Needless to say neither Jigme, nor the Austrians were bored out of this annual rendezvous. Jigme's family was one of the family in contention for monarchy in 1907, he had a palace very close to Bumthang, where his aunt was still living. He wasn't very keen on visiting his palace or discuss about his past, guess he was still thinks about what could have been in case his family was selected as the royal family. With the selection of King Ugyen Wangchuck, his family lost power & kept on losing it. He also mentioned that since then royal family hasn't been very kind with their family & have neglected their needs. Serious things aside, he was a great company post he was 2-3 drinks down. Very funny & witty, he would not only tell us about Bhutan & its heritage, but also add a few colorful facts of his own making the entire discussion very entertaining. He asked us to make a few changes in our style of exploring Bhutan & the results were pretty good as we went to remote part of the town to interact more with villagers & even without a common language we connected well with the villagers.

Etho-Metho (Means rhododendron in Dzongkha)- Throughout our road trip we keep passing millions of Etho-metho trees & they were all beautiful. But even before I knew what it actually means, the name had impressed me. It is one of those words which are fun to say, like Mawlynnong, Nungambakkam, etc. And the sheer variety & quantum that exist there makes it an integral part of Bhutan experience. I clicked so many of them, that in the end at least 20% of my pictures were of Etho-Metho.

a window

Mythology- One thing which no one can avoid in Bhutan is the mythology surrounding Buddhism. Guru Rinpoche & his 8 forms, protectors of 4 directions, Drukpa Kinley, tale of 4 friends, lake of burning fire, phallus, etc are just a small part of things which you cannot avoid if you interact with locals. They are part of Bhutanese life & people love to talk about it & really believe in it strongly. Their are so many monasteries across Bhutan & all of them are full of monks & student who gets their basic education from there. As told to us my many, locals do look up to monk's & lama's.But the fact that it has a strong influence on their houses, hotels, restaurants, official buildings drives the point home nicely. A painting of 4 wise friends here, or a mask of one of the forms of Guru Rinpoche there, a dragon based design on pillar inside the building or Buddhist flag flying on top of houses, signifies the amount of faith the locals have on Buddhism.

Forms of Guru Rinpoche, used during festive dancing

Protectors of 4 directions

National Sport & Khuru- We saw people playing a unique game of darts, with big & heavy darts to be thrown at a small target kept far away, at quite a few places in Bhutan. The game is called Khuru in local parlance. At Swiss Guest House, we even saw one of the driver with Austrian group making a decent amount of money post a game of darts in about less than an hour.
Archery is the national game of Bhutan & is played in a different manner, with longer distances & different & difficult set of rules. Luckily on our last day we managed to watch a competition live & it was fascinating to say the least. First they would all pray, chanting loudly for a bit & then they started playing. Even after concentrating for a bit, we couldn't even see the arrows for some time, as they were shooting them really far. Only after a bit we started following what was happening in a very difficult form of archery. We were all pretty amazed to see a guy actually hitting the short target from the distance of 130 mts, which is way more than the Olympic standards.

Traffic sense- One of the real point of differentiation between India & Bhutan has to be the driving sense. One one side of the border there is so much of chaos, every vehicle is in a hurry, honking is the way of life, no one wants to give an inch to another vehicle, pedestrians are not to be allowed to cross the road, whereas on the other side there is no chaos, everyone is respectful of each other, no honking what so ever, you press the horn once & the vehicle in front will move to one side to let you go ahead, pedestrians are on top of the priority list as cars slow down & stop when they see someone trying to cross the road. Things are so systematic in Bhutan & their is a constant improvement in infrastructure. At one point of time there were about 10-15 vehicle stuck in a scheduled break in middle of a highway for more than an hour, striking bit none of the local people stuck there were worried or concerned. They came out of their cars & buses and took a walk with their kids, some decided to stay inside the car & chat, some went for a tea but none of them complained. A sizable chunk of our time was spent in Bhutan on the road  with Chimmi, our cab driver who was with us for the entire duration. Given the nice people we met on the roads, scenic natural beauty that is on offer & the driving sense of drukpa's, I would say it was worth it :)

Walking through City of Joy- 4

It was to be the best day of our exploration so far, as wherever we went we got more than what we expected. It was also to be the biggest surprise in my experience so far in Calcutta as I got to know the wealth that exists here, as I went to Marble palace or as people call it, Mullick-badi.

Our plans were already set in place as we decided to start with one of the famous Churches in Calcutta, get the permissions & visit both synagogues & follow that up with a visit to Nakhuda Masjid & end with Marble palace or as locals call it, "Mullick Badi".

Christmas decor

Church- It was Christmas holiday and we reached decently post the morning mass, so the church was empty but for the local organ player. And the church had the biggest organ that I had seen so far in my life. Huge instruments, with very old ivory made keys & functionality was also very outdated, giving it that old world aura. But it produced awesome music, as demonstrated by the organ player.


Synagogue- After requesting a lot we got approval through a phone call, as again the approving authority wasn't there at the Nahoum Bakery. Our trump card being the story of Maskey shifting to US in near future & this being his last opportunity to visit both the synagogues. 10 minutes later we were traveling towards the first of the synagogue with one of the regular worker of the bakery. He gave us loads of information about the local Jewish community & the dynamics governing the responsibilities of the social owned stuff of the fraternity, which kept us engaged till we reached the first of the synagogues.

Beth el synagogue-  We knew that  it would be beautiful, having seen the exterior that bit was pretty easy to predict. But since this was the first visit to any synagogue for me, quite a few interesting things emerged out of the experience. Simple things like the skull cap which you need to wear before entering, they were extremely particular about it even though there wasn't a Jew there in sight there, staff was extremely sensitive towards the tradition & customs.

Beth-el Synagogue

It was beautiful at all level, not in your face kind of beauty but serene & calm kind of beauty which soothes your mind. Right from color combination used, white & blue, to old fashioned high ceiling with hanging fans & lights, it was all part of the look. All the windows were made up of different colored glasses, when sunlight passes the glass it takes the color of the glass itself giving it a really nice touch. Chairs & all were in really bad condition, but rest everything was well maintained.



Basic understanding of the structure was very simple, one dedicated area for "Torah Study", where the book would be kept & read, with chairs around it for listeners. 'Torah' would be kept on 'Bimah', a wooden table. Then there would be another area which would be used to keep religious pictures & symbols. This area would be beautifully decorated & full of pictures of symbols which we couldn't understand, but it was nice nonetheless.

Maghen David

Maghen David Synagogue- Though second in the series of Synagogues, it was better than the previous one in terms of beauty. Huge chandeliers hanging on top of the 'Torah study' & the reflection of the windows falling from all directions, make the thing looks fantastic. Beth-el was covered from all direction hence no reflection of colored glasses were visible in side, the same wasn't true in case of Maghen David making it more colorful.

Beautiful looking windows all around, made the place a visual treat. Then the area where the signage/symbols/pictures were kept was much better here. The place also had a different kind of lamp, with a very exotic looking ceiling. It was intriguing for us & without answers to our questions regarding the relevance of all the elements, it remained like that till we came out. The place also had some real designer type stand lamps, which added to the visual appeal. We clicked loads of pictures here, but then we decided to move as there were many more places mentioned on the agenda for the day.

Roads leading to Nakhuda Masjid

Nakhuda Masjid- Like both of the previous public religious place, this was also in middle of nowhere surrounded by shops & restaurants with sea of humanity on all sides. It had a very interesting facade, which stood tall in front of the mosque.
After a while we decided to enter but we were slightly circumspect, blame it on the image created by media or the various news channels or the incidents across the globe or the bias created by our own mind, but we realized later that it was for no reason. It was a different set up inside, the flow of activities were, you enter & proceed towards the well where you clean yourself, feet, face, hands, etc after which you proceed for offering "namaaz".

Clocks with different time

Just behind the facade there was a collection of watches which were showing different time, we guessed that they were attuned to various holy places as per Islam. Overall a very interesting setup with huge open spaces. Loads of people coming & going, at times interacting with known faces for a while. We clicked loads of pictures here also, some came out real nice.

Mullickbadi from outside the official boundary

Mullick-badi or Marble palace- Nothing could have prepared us for the brilliance which we were to encounter here, this was a place which was abode for Raja Rajendra Mullick built by him in 1835, which is still used by his descendants. The place has so many different facets about it that I don't know where to start & where to end.

Beautiful statue inside dirty pond

It is usually not open on weekends, hence visitors have to come on week days in order to enter. There are clearly demarcated public areas which you can enter which has interesting things but other parts are beyond visitors as the royal family still lives there. Daily select number of people are given free food for which there is a queue system (first come first model). And the place is full of beautiful stuff, but camera is not allowed inside. It also has a garden for the kids to play & enjoy themselves.

As soon as one enter, the first sight is the enormous building, in front of which is a beautiful fountain. Now this fountain is the only thing which can be clicked officially, but our greed forced us to take couple of other picture as well of breathtakingly beautiful sculptures. If there were two common observation which has to be mentioned for all pieces of work they would be, first everything is awesomely beautiful & second, none of it is properly maintained. Will come back to maintenance bit later, the place was also home for host of animals & birds of different variety. I don't even know their names apart from the a few like Peacock, Monkey, Orangutan, Langur, Emu, etc. But the sad bit was again they were not kept properly, as in the area was limited for some of the animals, some of them looked as if they were not well, etc. Though I am no expert on these matters, but even then it looked as if the animals were not comfortable.

Also we came across couple of awesome sculpture beautifully made, but completely abandoned. First one would be one of the most amazing piece of work that I have seen in my life & it was kept in a dirty pond which was used for the staff to wash their clothes. I was so sad by seeing this, but statue was changing color, it was dirty but still you can appreciate the effort put it by the unknown artist, at least I was full of respect for him/her.
Second statue was kept somewhere away from the eyes of the regular tourist, it was kept in a low footfall areas of the palace. Condition was not very good & I am pretty sure it was a broken piece of a larger work of art, still it looked pretty nice.

We were already so impressed (and a little sad by the state of affairs), that we could have actually moved out, but better sense prevailed and we decided to enter the main building where there is a part where Raja's collectible are displayed for art lovers to appreciate. After waiting a bit we entered & as soon as we entered we were amazed, not regular amazed but jaw dropping, mouth opening, ass-kicking kind of amazed. The display area was huge part of ground floor & first floor, and every inch of the huge area was covered with some painting made by Reuben or Ravi Verma or some other known artist or it was covered with some sculpture looking extremely expensive or there were visiting cards of great people, politician, etc or vase which looked as if you couldn't buy it with your net worth even after you keep saving for hundreds of years, since we couldn't take any picture hence I am sure I am forgetting many things. But I do remember one thing, we were seriously impressed by the amount of things on display their & the collected net worth that place would have. I mean every single article should be worth at least lacs, if not crores in INR. Their was a select display of birds here also, we were told that Raja Rajendra Mullick was a bird lover.

Palace of Raja Rajendra Mullick

All in all a must visit place for anyone coming to Calcutta for quite a few reasons, one needs to select the personal reason for him/herself.

All in all, a great day with a diverse set of places to explore. Level of satisfaction was rising after every day, we decided this has to continue for at least one more day.

A weekend full of drama (Movies)!!!

I have not had a movie-marathon weekend for a long time now & truth be told I was missing it. So this weekend I decided it would be just movies & books for me, more former than latter. The list of movies to watch always keeps increasing & hence it is critical to have these weekends where a major reduction happens in the list. The weekend started with me & couple of friends watching "Jack the giant slayer" at the theater. Nothing much to write about this ordinary movie, still I would take an ordinary movie to start off the weekend given the kind of movies that are getting released these days.

Was in a mood for drama based movies, so I ended up seeing 6 movies namely "The perks of being a wall flower", "Your sister's sister", "People like us", "Pitch perfect", "Reign over me" & "Vishwaroop". Almost all the movies were good, and some extremely good, especially "The perks of being a wallflower" or TPBW which is an awesome coming of age movie with superlative performances by Emma Watson, Logan Lerman & Ezra miller. Emma Watson has received fair share of appreciation as Hermione in HP movies, but she is a revelation here portraying a range of emotions & doing it perfectly at that. As a mentally scarred young boy who is still struggling to find his place in the school, Logan Lerman does well. Coping with baggage of bad memories from childhood, close friend committing suicide, failing at love, etc he is just trying to find a place where he would actually belong & the pain of all the events shows in his performance. But the real star of the show is Ezra Miller, who first impressed me in "We need to talk about kevin" a movie where he managed his own amongst seasoned actors like Tilda Swindon & John C Reily. His performance in this movie just reaffirms the promise that was visible before. All in all a great movie, one of the better ones from last year & a must watch for all.

"Your sister's sister" has a great ensemble cast, who specializes in this kind of movie, Lynn Shelton is the director of the movie, whereas Mark Duplass, Emily Blunt & Rosemarie DeWitt play the main characters in the movie. Its a movie with a deadly combination of humor & emotions. Primary theme of the movie is various characters dealing with grief, Mark Duplass struggling with death of his brother & his stagnating life, Rosemarie DeWitt dealing with separation with her partner & notion of getting a child in her life & Emily blunt dealing with falling in love with her deceased boyfriend's brother. Even with so much of emotional baggage movie keeps inducing a smile or a laugh every now & then, as the heavy stuff is treated in a light manner. And it all merges into a happy & uplifting climax. One of the must watch for someone keen on a light hearted drama, with a few smiles/laughs here & there.

"People like us" starring Chris pines, Elizabeth banks & Michelle Pieffer in main roles, the movie is a family drama where Chris Pines & Elizabeth Banks play characters who have grown without love/acceptance of their father. Both of them are struggling in their life & are really bad in maintaining relationship because of their childhood based father-related issues. Chris Pines plays a debt ridden sales professional who never got to interact much with his father during his childhood & Elizabeth plays a struggling bartender-cum-single-mother who never got the legitimacy from her father as he leaves them early on in her life. But both come together post the father dies due to the letter left by the father for Chris Pines, making the movie one hell of an emotional ride. It is a good watch with good performances from the entire cast, another movie which is a definite one time watch.

"Pitch Perfect" is a movie based on competition in the sphere of a-capella (music without instruments, only basis the singing & instrument sound made from mouth). Its a really light movie with decent performance from Anna Hendricks, who plays the central character of the movie dealing with lack of understanding of her father in her keen interest in music mixing & creating. She join the the girls a-capella group of the campus in order to convince her father about her serious attempt at college life. And the movie continues with her effort to reinvent the group, leading to the most predictable outcome, i.e. the group winning the competition. Decent performances & a-capella rendition of some nice songs makes this movie a decent watch & Anna Hendricks as usual impresses with her performance here also. All in all a decent one time watch.

"Reign over me", Don Cheadle & Adam Sandler portrays the central characters in this movie, where Adam Sandler plays a bereaved husband & father due to 9/11 events & Don Cheadle plays his friend who trying to help his friend back to normalcy. Adam Sandler bring the role of a grief stricken characters who stays in denial & prefers to forget about the part of his life which has painful turn of events rather than dealing with it. He doesn't have friends & due to a chance encounter his college roommate, Don cheadle, catches hold of him. He is shown to be mentally unstable, portraying anger at any instance where he is made to relive his past & also he doesn't want to stay in touch with people who reminds him of his girls & wife. Don Cheadle while happy to meet an old friend, also realizes the need for his friend to get medical treatment to get over the losses he has suffered. A very restrained performance by Adam Sandler, usual class shown by Don Cheadle, along with decent performances by the support cast makes this movie a good viewing experience. Recommended for those who are not averse to watch tragic-drama.

A very interesting bunch of movies seen over one weekend. As far as "Vishwaroop" is concerned, which I saw because of Kamala Hassan & Rahul Bose acting in the movie, lesser spoken/written about the movie better it is..

Funny people can be serious too!!!

This video is hilariously funny, but what got me going was the advice given  by John C. Reily to both Jack black & Will Ferrell. Reily has always been an actor who has mixed things up, with movies like "Boogie Nights", " We need to talk about Kevin", "Carnage", etc along with most of his hilariously funny movies. But there are some other actors who do more work in a particular genre with very few or no movie in a different genre. This post is dedicated to actors who have done more movies in humor/comedy genre & are known for that. Most of the actors mentioned have come through either stand up comic acts or television performances in comic roles.

I have loved watching Rahul Dravid hit out at 20-20, or seeing Brain Lara try to defend out of a bad situation, or reading a humorless philosophical book by Scott Adams, etc. On the similar lines when actors who are known for their comic timing or slapstick & goofy movies, act in serious movies & kick-ass while they are at it, it just increase the amazing-ness of the viewing experience. Now all those movies may not be completely devoid of humor, but the role which these actor would play would be different from the characters they usually perform & hence much more challenging. And there are quite a few actors who have done this with ease & came out with flying colors as far as the end result is concerned.

One of the examples would Jack Black playing lead role in "Bernie", would not consider his small role in "Enemy of the states" here & would also not talk about the "King-kong" because its a shitty movie (its beyond me that the movie has a 7+ rating on IMDB). Rather his character in the movie 'Bernie' is what I would consider as an example of getting out of comfort zone. Movie revolves around the lead character Bernie, played by Jack Black, who is the Assistant Funeral Director (mortician) & a do-gooder with a multifaceted personality. He is someone who is involved in all the social activities of the town & everyone loves him. The real life based plot revolves around a rich widow who everyone in the town hates but bernie shows her sympathy. This leads to a point where the widow starts to take advantage of goodness shown by bernie & make his life hell. What measure bernie takes to get his life back on track is the main point of the movie around which the plot revolves. Though the movie has plenty of humor, but since it is based on a real life character JB had to give a much restrained performance, compared to his usual quirky roles filled with buffoonery, which I will be honest to accept is fun to watch. Have been a fan since watching "School of Rock" long back but it is movies like "Bernie" which shows viewers a versatile side of Jack black.

Another example would be Adam Sandler & his role in "Funny people". Now adam sandler is someone who strictly follow the rule of doing spoofy, slapstick comedies many of which I have enjoyed but at times his movies are a little too much to take. But once in a while he does a movie like "Funny People", okie I will change that to once in his lifetime he does a movie which makes you realise his potential as an actor. 'Funny People' has adam sandler in lead role supported by Seth rogen, who is another actor with great comic timing. The movie is about a Comic genius, portrayed by Adam Sandler, who comes to know that he is suffering from an acute version of Leukemia, starts to get insecure & realizes what his life lacks. From being a succesful movie actor, he decides to get back to his roots i.e. Stand up comedy & tries to get in touch with his ex-fiancee to apologies for his mistakes in the past. Its a beautiful movie with awesome performances from Seth rogen, Jonah Hill, Leslie Mann & other supporting cast, but Adam sandler takes the cake by giving a amazing performance as a star who knows that he his dying & is insecure about his existence. Another good watch with Adam Sandler in serious role is "Reign over me", where he plays a bereaved father & husband who lost his family in 9/11 twin tower attack. In this movie also Sandler rocks with his portrayal of a guy who does not want to accept the reality & ends up distancing himself from the world, movie also stars Jamie Foxx but Adam Sandler is the one in the limelight throughout.

Steve Carell is another actor who I find to be insanely funny, movies like "Dinner with shmucks" notwithstanding. He keeps trying out different types of roles, but in serious domain the right examples would be movies like "Dan in real life" & "Seeking a friend for the end of the world". Now both the movies are really nice & they work due to honest performance from Steve Carell. Even though "Dan in real life" is a light drama with shade of comedy, SAFFEOTW is more of a serious romantic movie with an apocalyptic plot. I liked later more as the story is better, performance from steve carell is awesome & some help from Keira Knightley in terms of her brilliant acting didn't hurt. Carell portrays a romantic guy who has received a bit of a raw deal when in face of an certain apocalyptic event his wife just leaves him & run away. How he tries & gather his life back & find his 'true love' is what this movie is all about.

Jim Carrey, the god of all over the top comedies & in your face humor, has done some superlative comedy & some movies which are so goofy that you just cannot tolerate them. He is someone who would have covered the entire spectrum in the comedy movies, right from pure-slapstick movies like "Dumb & Dumber" & the ace ventura series to awesomely funny movies like "Liar Liar", "Me, Myself & Irene", etc. But he cracked it with movies like "Truman Show", "Yes man" & "I Love you phillip morris", where he plays a not so goofy character & the movies are really more of drama rather than a full fledged comedy. And the performances are just amazing in all these movies & they would, according to me, amongst some of the best work from Jim Carrey. But the movies which takes away the cake would be "Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind" & "The number 23", it does sound amazing that Jim carrey has done a serious Sci-fi & a thriller in his career. Will not talk much about "Eternal..." because everyone would have seen it. "The number 23" is the movie which is showcases the amount of versatility which this legendary actor has. The movie revolves around the character played by Jim carrey who is gifted a book by his wife, which talks about significance of number 23 & has loads of similarity with his own life. He becomes obsessed with number 23 & tries to find the author. In the process he also comes across a murder mystery which he tries to solve. Now the movie would have been a decent one if not for Jim Carrey giving an excellent performance, making it a great movie to watch. 

Lastly, would like to mention Will Ferrell, who is insanely funny. I have lost count of the movies I have seen of him, but there is one movie which I love the most where Ferrell gives a serious performance in a role which has many shades & undertones, i.e. "Everything must go". He plays an alcoholic sales person, who loses his job & wife on the same day. He tries a lot to not let go of things, but harder he tries quicker they move away from him. He is getting sued by an associate & he is locked outside his house with his stuff thrown on the lawn. Finally the plot takes a turn for good when he decides to let everything go, as he plans a garage sale with the help of a local boy who he teaches the nuances of sales & life. There are couple of other interesting characters who delivers with their performances, making this an extremely enjoyable watch. Will ferrell delivers an amazing performance in a script backed role, where he tries something new & comes out kicking-ass. It is a highly recommended movie for everyone, irrespective of whether or not someone like Will Ferrell.