What sells at the Chennai Book Fair? Ahem, ...

Back home, I am a huge fan of C-Span's BookTV.  I have spent one too many hours at home watching and listening to authors talk about their books.  I have even spent the mornings of the first Sundays of many months watching the extended three-hour sessions with writers.

A couple of years ago, when I was in Chennai for a few days, I was starved for intellectual activity.  I scanned the paper every single day for any interesting and non-religious talks.  It was so disappointing and frustrating not to have anything to attend.

Then, one day I spotted a book-review, I think, that excited me.  The book was a compilation of selected Tamil poems--from the Sangam period to modern times--that had been translated into English.

One of the authors was a faculty member at IIT Madras.  I emailed her inquiring whether there would be any book-reading like how it is done in the US.

She replied almost right away.  "Thank you so much. We are having a launch for The Rapids on August 21st at 6 (Landmark, Apex Plaza). Please do come if you are around." 

I was excited. But, disappointed too--the event was to be held a couple of days after I was to leave for the US!  An O Henry irony in real life :(

Largely because of that experience, I went to the book fair with zero expectations.  Furthermore, as with all things in India, I have come to learn not to question anything, and not to expect anything.  I just have to take it the way it comes.  India is simply incomprehensible anymore.

At the book fair, it seemed like four kinds of books dominated over everything else: religious/spiritual books, various exams- and competencies-related texts, left of center books, and books from local newspaper/magazine publishers.

The left-of-center books, with Marxist language, looked and felt so old.  Looking at copies of Mao's dictates in Tamil was quite surreal.

The libertarian streak in me scanned for anything that might challenge the role of government.  I did not see anything along those lines.

Oh well!

Of the Tamil books I spotted, if it were 30 years ago, I would have purchased the complete collections of short stories by Pudhumaipithan. I leafed through the table copy, but that was it.  There was once a time and a place for that in my life.  That moment has passed.

After I put that down, a thirty-something woman picked it up and started scanning it.  I was glad.

And then at another booth, she again picked up a book that I put down.  Now, I was not glad.  When I saw her again at a third booth, well, I skipped a couple of booths and continued on without any worries.  Maybe America has made me paranoid about such things!

As I later told mom, the best thing about the book fair's content was this: the two main preoccupations of the people here were missing at the fair.  And the two that were, thankfully, missing?  Cricket and movies.

So, if you are in Chennai and, if not for any other reason but to get a place where nobody bugs you about cricket or movies, at least for a couple of hours, head to the book fair :)

While you are there, pick up tee shirts at a booth that sells wonderfully attractive ones that are unique--they have creatively designed Tamil phrases on them.  They look great.  Want to check them out before you go?

I watched Nouriel Roubini on TV. Bad idea!

Flicking the channels in this part of the world where I have no idea about the lineup seems to be a version of Forrest Gump's "life's like a box of chocolates. you never gonna know what you're gonna get." :)

Earlier this afternoon, I got Nouriel Roubini.

In his unique voice and tone, Roubini delivered yet another variation of the same message that he has been delivering for, well, forever it seems like--it will get worse before it gets better.

While Roubini was being his usual Dr. Doom self, the ticker at the bottom quoted Joseph Stiglitz that the US economy might be shaky all the way through 2013.

Whatever happened to the two-handed economists that President Harry Truman complained about?

With the downgrading of quite a few Euro Zone countries' bond ratings, there is not much optimism on the economic front. So, ...

I decided that I needed to inflict more painful news on myself.

Off I went to another predictably bad news giver: Glenn Greenwald, who is really, really ticked off with the systematic killings of Iranian nuclear personnel.

I agree with Greenwald that it is terrorism; but, then, when have I not been able to agree with his analysis!

On the Iranian front, Google News brings this to my attention--a news item that quotes the Wall Street Journal:

"The US military is preparing for a number of possible responses to an Israeli strike, including assaults by pro-Iranian Shiite militias in Iraq against the US Embassy in Baghdad," the paper quoted a US official as saying.

According to the report, Washington has moved a second aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf area and has stationed 15,000 troops in Kuwait as means to create deterrence in the region.

All right then, maybe the Mayan prophecy about 2012 will become true, after all, eh!

Meanwhile, my parents wanted an update on the cricket scores; more bad news, but, thankfully, not for me because I don't follow the game anymore and couldn't care about any outcomes there.  I suppose that is my good news for the day!

Imagine Nouriel Roubini forecasting the road ahead for India's cricket team :)

Book fairs: 26 years ago in Calcutta versus now in Chennai

Twenty-six years ago, when I was gainfully employed and living in Calcutta as a freshly minted engineer, I went to the book fair there.  (I think it was during that time, and not during my second work-related stay there, which was for a week much later that year.)

1986 feels so old now.  The world was very different then, and the book fair reflected that old world.  One of the booksellers was the USSR's Mir Publishers.  Thanks to the Soviet government underwriting the costs of publication, and the propaganda goals, the books at Mir's booth were bloody inexpensive.

I picked up a bunch from them--those were the only books that I bought at the fair.  I think it was then that I purchased Dostoevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov," which is one of the few books that I thought were ever worth retaining and are safely at home in Eugene.  I have not re-read them after the initial reading, but that doesn't matter.

And, of course, I bought a copy of "The Communist Manifesto."  After all, those were the last days of my own commie leanings. Yes, this copy, too, is safe in Eugene :)

Anyway, true to the stereotype, Calcutta's population showed up in huge numbers at the fair.  I had plenty of rasagollas and pani puri and then I walked back to the tiny room I had.  (I wonder where the fair was held then for me to have walked back!)

It is now 2012.  A vastly different world, and an equally vastly different me.  As I figured out what I wanted to do in life, I shed my pink colors, well before the wall tumbled down.  Having made myself at home in the arch enemy of the old Soviets, I spent hours in the US, in front of CNN on television, watching the wall come down, and then the USSR disintegrate.


Now, I am more of an outsider and observer when in India.

It is the book fair in Chennai, which is no longer Madras.  Calcutta, too, has undergone a name change.  The USSR is, of course, long gone and, therefore, there was no booth of Mir's at the Chennai fair.

Unlike the old me 26 years ago, I was not in search of anything too literary and philosophical.  Not because I have lost interest in them; they are very much alive.  But, I was not planning on picking up anything that serious in the Tamil language. 

However, there was one publication for which I was on the alert: a collection of Madan's "Ananda Vikatan" cartoons from the old days.

Sure enough, there was a Ananda Vikatan booth.

I zoomed into the humor section, and there they were: collections of Madan's cartoons, in three volumes.  I picked them up, paid, and exited.

What a contrast over the 26 years: the old me at the book fair was excited with Dostoevsky and the current me is thrilled with Madan's cartoons at a book fair!

Notes from the reunion: How green was my valley!

Ok, Neyveli is no valley.

But, boy was it greener than I had ever known and imagined!

Even back when I was a school-going kid, yes, there were lots and lots of trees.  The yard at our home had a whole bunch of mango and tamarind trees, and a few others.  The walk, and later the bicycle ride, to school was along tree-lined roads.

Thirty years later, the town and the school were immensely greener.  I mean, incredibly greener.

When we were in school, the yard, where I stand in the photo, was quite bare with only a couple of trees.

(There was no statue then!  I wish they hadn't installed it.)

When we drove past the house which was once our home, the building was quite lost in the thick vegetation. All the homes on that entire road were way, way greener.  It was great!

As we continued driving, I was struck even more by the phenomenal greenery all around.

Doesn't this photo clearly convey a sense of how green the place is?  With a house (where a former classmate lived) snugly amidst a number of trees of different types?

The greenery is wonderfully contrasted by the bright color of the soil.

I remember well how the Tanzanian soil color reminded me of Neyveli's, and now I am convinced that my mind was not playing any tricks; the similarity is for real.

Not only were there many more banyan trees in Neyveli than I had imagined, many of them were also huge.

Huge!

Like this one, which was way smaller when we were in high school.

Over the hundreds of sunny and warm days in the tree's lifetime, I suppose thousands of people have sought shade and chatted and played and fought under this tree, which, if it could talk, would have fantastically rich stories to tell. 

There were many more like this wherever we went.

After we left town in the evening, through the night and the following day, Cyclone Thane blew through the area and the rain fell hard and fast.

Reports were that many trees were down, which then brought down power lines too.

A classmate, "K," who works and lives there, updated us with plenty of photos--like the one on the left.  Fallen trees across the roads.

Homes in the town, which is a significant source of electricity for the entire state, were apparently without power for a couple of days.

With their multiple supports, most banyan trees are well grounded.  "K" added a note to this photo that only a few branches had broken off this tree.

People come and go. Cyclones blow past.  The firmly rooted banyan trees stand witness to all things good and bad.

Here is to hoping for a lot more good than bad!

Holy cow! The rupee is 60% undercooked against the dollar?

The expansive food court at Chennai's Express Avenue mall had quite a variety of foods--from dosais and aappams to chicken tikkas to KFC and the likes. 

The prices were quite high for local conditions. 

A typical single-serving meal at most outlets was in about 150 to 175 rupees, and more.  At current exchange rates, about three US dollars. Soda or water is an additional payment.

Yet, customers were in plenty everywhere.

I typically don't think in terms of the crude exchange rates in these contexts.  I employ an exchange of fifteen-to-one, instead of the about 50-to-1, for the Purchasing Power Parity comparisons.(Note, for instance, the nominal versus PPP figures for India's per capita GDP in this Wikipedia entry.)

One can now see why I write that the prices were expensive.  If I used a 15-to-1 exchange rate, then on my PPP scale, the food court items were typically in the ten dollar range!

Prices at the food court were merely one of many experiences--now and over the years--that have always made me think that India is an expensive place for a tourist. 

Going to Ecuador, for instance, was incredibly inexpensive.  The hotel room I had in Quito--in its historic downtown area--was about $35, including breakfast.  There is no way I would be able to get that kind of a place in India's major cities at locations that attract tourists.

While there are a number of reasons, the one that appeals to me as the most significant one is also quite simple: there are two Indias, one of which is developed and the other is practically the Third World.  Express Avenue is one of the many that caters to the developed India.  The rates here are high.

And then there is the other India.

Even as I work with this understanding, The Economist complicates my life even more:

The cheapest burger is found in India, costing just $1.62. Though because Big Macs are not sold in India, we take the price of a Maharaja Mac, which is made with chicken instead of beef. Nonetheless, our index suggests the rupee is 60% undercooked.

If the rupee were to appreciate further, then it will be that much more expensive for the bargain-hunting tourists like me who face sticker shock in India.

Imagine the sticker shock for the Third World India, even now!

A New Yorker cartoon explains Brian Greene's multiple universes :)

Source and additional notes here

A simple truth about incomes and expenditures

Could we have avoided the Great Recession if we had paid attention to the following words of wisdom from centuries ago?

इदमेव हि पाण्डित्यं चातुर्यमिदमेव हि ।
इदमेव सुबुद्धित्त्वमायादल्पतरो व्ययः ॥

- समयोचितपद्यमालिका

This is scholarly wisdom. This is intelligence. This is called having a sound mind – Never let expenditure grow bigger than income.

- Samayochitapadyamalika

More such Sanskrit words of wisdom--secular and religious--here.

News about Hostess bankruptcy kindles memories of grad school and more

The WSJ reports:

Hostess Brands Inc., the maker of Twinkies and Wonder Bread, is seeking bankruptcy protection, blaming its pension and medical benefits obligations, increased competition and tough economic conditions.
The filing on Wednesday comes just two years after a predecessor company emerged from bankruptcy proceedings.

I first came to know about this company and its (awful) foods from a graduate course that Michael Dear offered.

I forget now what the course was about.  It was probably in my second year in the US.  Dear's class had very few students--perhaps about eight we were.

Every meeting, Michael Dear brought some kind of snacks to class.

Once, he brought something that I didn't recognize.  It was pink and fuzzy looking.

"What is that?" I asked.

Dear, who had a good sense of wit, looked at me pretending to be upset that I didn't know.

"You don't know Zingers?"

Chuckles from the rest.

"If by now you don't know Zingers, then you don't belong in this country."

We all laughed.

I bit into one.  That was also the last time I ever had Zingers in my life.  It was enough to earn my right to stay in the US :)

Years later, after I became a college instructor, I took up Michael Dear's practice of taking snacks to class, if the class size was small enough.

Sometimes, I even baked brownies and cookies at home and took them to class.

Almost always, I also described to students how I was continuing with a graduate school professor's practice to bring snacks to class and, of course, told them about this Zingers episode.

I did that until one cantankerous and obnoxious student loudly opined in class that I was bringing goodies in order to get favorable ratings from students.  Though, the probability is very high that she was mindlessly echoing her remarkably stupid faculty adviser, whose arrogant ways made me depart from the university's Honors Program.  It brought to an end my practice of taking snacks to class.  A zinger, of a different sort!

(Old) Photo of the day

Caption at the source: PARIS—In the foreground: Gene Kelly during a rehearsal, 1953.

"How did you know they were from California?"

It was warm and bright day at Mahabalipuram (Mamallapuram) as is typical this time of the year.

If only the sun weren't this intense!  But, that kind of a wish is what an old expression captures well: "if my aunt had balls, she would be my uncle!"  It is what it is.

We walked from the car to the "Five Chariots." What an amazing piece of history and art!

It is one thing to have read about these, in history books and in Kalki's wonderful fictionalized history, and it is a completely different experience to see them up close and personal.

Looking at them, I was reminded of the observation attributed to Michelangelo that he saw the images in the chunks of marble and all he did was remove the stone from around those images.  The granite sculptors here in Mahabalipuram, similarly, perhaps clearly saw these images, and slowly and methodically chiseled away the hard stone revealing these fantastic pieces of art. 

Given the tourist attraction of the place on top of its historical status, it deserves a lot more upkeep and enhancements than what is currently provided.  But, again, that quote about aunt, balls, and uncle!

There were a few tourists from outside India.  With small and large cameras and wide-rimmed hats, umbrellas, and water bottles they were all equipped to deal with the intensely bright sun and enjoy the scenery.

There was a large contingent from Japan.  Along with the Japanese, in the same tour group, was a group of older, white folks. One woman just seemed Californian.  I can't quite figure out why she came across that way, but she did.

"Where are you folks from?" I asked her.

"California."

Bingo!

"Hey, I am from Oregon."

I bet that is one confusing statement when I am in India.  "I am visiting now, and so is my brother and his family from Australia. We are here with our parents and sister."

She pointed to another woman in her group and said, "she is from Port Townsend in Washington." And then called her and we said hi.

"Where in California?"

"Los Angeles."

"I went to school at USC" I responded.

Strangers we no more were.  It is human, after all, to feel that sense of a shared home when far away from home.

"My daughter and her husband live in LA; they are doing their residencies at USC."

"Your daughter?  You don't look old enough to have that much grown up a daughter."

By now I am used to that kind of a response from people.  It is almost easy to predict what follows after that, which is what she said: "well, you have grey hair and a grey beard."

Bingo!

"She is my adopted daughter" I clarified.

"Are you a physician too?"

I told her I teach at a university in Oregon.

As her husband joined her after clicking away, she introduced us and added that he was a physician. She pronounced an Indian name, attempting to correctly pronounce the name of the person who worked with her husband.  "There are quite a few Indian physicians" she said.

I took photos of them and the Port Townsend woman and her husband (I am guessing here), all by the elephant. 

We bid adieu.

After they left, my mother asked me, "from the manner in which you talked with them, I thought you knew them.  How did you know they were from California?"

Beats me!

Restrooms in India ... at least two good experiences

As a fresh-off-the-boat graduate student at USC, I was mighty impressed with, among other things, the quality of the restrooms on campus. 

Well, "restroom" was a word I quickly learnt after a funny experience.  I wanted to check out Waite Phillips Hall on campus.  As I entered the building, I asked a young guy who was on his way out for the direction to the lift.  He looked at me with a quizzical expression, shrugged his shoulders and kept going.

Turned out that the "lift" was obviously there.  But, it might have been that I had used the word "lift" in place of the word "elevator."  And, my accent, of course.

In any case, "lift" and "toilet" were words that I quickly deleted from my very, very, limited vocabulary.  The restrooms were mighty clean.

But, oddly enough, it took me only a few days to up my expectations for how clean restrooms ought to be on campus.  So, I started making a mental list of the better restrooms to go to, and the not so good that I wanted to avoid. 

When it came to restrooms, all libraries were certainly not created equal.  My favorites were the ones in the philosophy library and the ones in the basement of Doheny Library.  I even preferred to walk a couple of minutes to these locations than to use the less than clean ones. 

Ironical was this practice, given that it was only a few weeks since I had left India where public restrooms were rare, and I tried to avoid using them as much as I could!

Now, after my limited travel experiences, I have even started using the conditions of public restrooms as some kind of a crude measure of conditions in a place.  Even at the high school reunion, I ended up checking out the restrooms for students and taking photos there.

In the restroom barometer, conditions in India definitely seem to be improving.

In the "family reunion" phase of this trip, we went to Mahabalipuram.  As we started driving, I asked the driver, Balaji, about restrooms there and along the way.  He hesitantly replied that good restrooms are rare, but that they would be clean at the place where he was going to take us for lunch.

"But ..." I started.  "It is a place where lots of tourists go.  Especially foreigners.  Then how come?" 

Balaji paused. Then he said, "that is what we also cannot understand, sir.  I think we Indians don't maintain things well."

He then went on to describe the "petrol bunks" that Reliance had started along highways.  These were stations with restrooms, and mini-food marts, like how most US gas stations are.  But, apparently they soon became horrible restrooms.  In any case, he said Reliance has closed them all.

Just outside the administrative boundaries of Mahabalipuram was the restaurant that Balaji said had clean restrooms.  After we parked there, we men headed to the gents toilet. 

It was clean.  Really clean.

When the women were done and as we got back into the van, I asked them about the women's toilets. They were also clean.

Score that for India's progress.

It was a similar experience when we all went to Express Avenue--a new mall in Chennai.  It is certainly upscale.  And, yes, the restrooms were clean. 

Now, one might yet criticize that these two locations are not geared to serve the average Indian.  True.  But, even for the above-average Indians, such options of clean restrooms did not exist a few years ago. 

There are two challenges for India then: first is to make sure that the maintenance of facilities like these continues.  Second, for similar facilities to become available to "aam aadmi" too.

Photo(s) of the day: After a leopard knocked on the door

Details here

More such problems in the future as humans and animals compete for space?

Been there, done that :)

A different kind of a reunion: a few minutes with "Nallamma"

A few days ago, dad called Nallamma's cell phone number.

"Really?  She has a cell now?" I asked with utter amazement.

Nallamma and her husband, Seenivasan, were a couple we had known from our Neyveli days.

Every year, some time after mid-January--after "Pongal"--they would set up camp in our backyard.  For the next six months, they would bid to harvest mangoes and tamarind and jack fruit and cashew all over town.  Then, sell those to wholesalers in Panruti and beyond.

Over the years, Seenivasan and Nallamma became standard fixtures in our lives, and we in theirs.

Her son and daughter and grandchildren have all been college educated.  One granddaughter has just about wrapped up her nursing program.  Nallamma, who continues to live in the village, uses a cell phone to connect with her family.

Seenivasan died a couple of years ago.  Until then, they almost always visited as a couple. Now, she comes by herself, and has suddenly aged a lot.

Apparently she had come by a couple of months ago, and she was informed at that time that we two brothers would be here at this time.  To enable this reunion was why dad tried her cell phone number a few days ago.

But, her cell phone had been switched off.  It was off for a good reason--the battery had no charge, and there was no way to re-charge it because electricity was off in the village thanks to Hurricane Thane!

Nallamma, however, hadn't forgotten about the dates that we would be here in Chennai.  And thus she showed up.

We recalled old stories.  There is something wonderful when a person who knew us when we were kids wishes us nothing but the best.  There is simply no doubt that she means every word of it. 

The cyclone, Nallamma said, destroyed all the mangoes and jack and cashew in Neyveli and Panruti.  She and Seenivasan always brought us the tastiest jack all our lives, even all the way to Madras.  "Nothing this year" she said, because the cyclone blew through just when the young green jacks were beginning to show up on the trees.

That is life--sometimes even the young ones are gone.  Am glad Nallamma is around.