Images, and story, of the day

Don't these two images by themselves tell some fantastic stories about India?

The sadhu on the left is one hysterical combination: all the paraphernalia of a holy man, including the "kamandala" in his left hand.  But, also in his left hand is a cigarette.  Or is that good ol' weed rolled up?  And, to make it even more exciting a juxtaposition, he is talking on the cellphone! 

Now, the image on the right might come across as perhaps a meeting of all the holy people discussing some profound theological issues, right? 
Want to guess again?
The caption for the photo on the right is: "PRIESTS FOR MORE PAY: Village priests stage a demonstration in Coimbatore pressing for various demands including pension hikes."  


India is one complicated place where I have run into way more surreal images than I can ever imagine.  Salvador Dali's creation of the dream sequence for Hitchcock's "Spellbound," ahem, pales next to such everyday images in India!  Even neater is the fact that unlike me, a visitor these days, the "locals" don't even pause to consider these as surreal juxtapositions.  A German colleague with whom dad worked in Orissa apparently had a frequent remark that I find absolutely marvelous in situations like this one: "That is India for you" :)


Anyway, I grabbed the photo of the kamandala-holding, cigarette-smoking, sadhu on the cellphone from this note on almost fiive billion cellphones on the planet now:

This month may not actually see the 5 billionth mobile phone subscription, but earlier this year a Singapore research firm estimated that that happy threshold would be passed sometime before the advent of 2011. Keep in mind that total world population is just 6.8 billion. The first commercial cell phone network began operation in Japan in 1979 and the Federal Communications Commission finally authorized the operation of the first cell phone system in the U.S. in 1982. Motorola's first phone weighed two pounds and cost $3,995 ($8,800 in today's dollars).

What a remarkable rate of technological diffusion across the planet! 

An interesting parallel between mobile phones and the personal computer: the two electronic devices date back to pretty much the same time period.  The world has never been the same since then.  Good for us all :)