Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, Everyone!
A few years ago, when I started this blog, my intention was to compose regular updates as things happened and then, at Christmas or New Years, simply send out greetings and point folks to those blog entries to let them know what had happened over the past year. Yeah, you can see how well that has worked!
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After the Dig
The Deobald Hacienda – December 23, 2009
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Considering that I haven’t done an update in quite a while, here are some highlights from the past two or so years …
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December 24th, 2009
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Despite all its physical grandeur, the Taj is, after all, a tomb. That diminishes it somehow for me. Temples are, or were, living places of worship; forts protected and sustained life and carved a place for themselves in history; the Taj is a grave. No one ever lived in the Taj Mahal, no battles were ever fought there; and the course of history was never altered by its construction.
Call it a monument to love, if you will, but I call it a monument to megalomania and narcissism, one man’s attempt to fend off mortality by building an edifice so grand that countless generations would speak his – and his wife’s – names. Remember, too, Mumtaz Mahal wasn’t Shah Jihan’s only wife; she was just his third, and favourite, wife.
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July 18th, 2008
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The road to Agra was nothing short of a marvel, a place where the 21st Century and the Middle Ages roll along side by side.
That’s the thing about India; just when I would think that I was beyond surprise, India would smack me upside the head with some stunner that forced me to confess, “Didn’t see that one in the tea leaves.”
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July 17th, 2008
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By this time the trip had begun to take on that If-this-is-Tuesday-then-this-must-be-Delhi vibe. Even though the last couple of days had involved less of the frenetic hop-scotching from one monument to another, the rigors of traveling at least every other day, along with some persistent digestive issues that Irene and I continued to suffer from, were taking their toll. I doubt that even as an anal-retentive toddler, I ever paid such close attention to the machinations of my lower digestive tract.
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July 16th, 2008
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In essence, the backwaters of Kerala are river deltas that have, over many years, been contained by man-made sea walls to form a series of canals, some large, others very small. Rather like a rural, tropical Venice.
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July 15th, 2008
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I felt certain that these photos would emerge at some later date to bite me in the ass, perhaps at my retirement or my funeral. I can hear the eulogist now, “Cal was not only adventurous, but also fun-loving. Why, here he is in India riding on the back of an elephant.” This narrative would, of course, be accompanied by one of those tragic Powerpoint slide shows, the type which I have railed against in my years as a teacher, each slide with a different, senseless transition; some annoying inappropriate noise; and, alas, some spinning text.
The things I do for my wife.
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July 14th, 2008
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After a while, however, I noticed one or two of these hanging sacks stir and unfurl slightly. They weren’t birds’ nests; they were bats, huge frigging bats. They were so big that they bent the branches on which they were hanging. I haven’t yet been able to determine the exact species, but lying on our backs in the pool at night, Steven and I watched them fly overhead and estimated their wing span to be at least two feet, probably more.
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July 13th, 2008
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We were tempted to stay watching the elephant for a long time, especially since it made our guide, Mr. Timid, absolutely squirm. Apparently, he had been attacked by a bull elephant while on his motor cycle very recently, so he was particularly averse to being in the company of the beast.
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July 12th, 2008
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Essentially, flying the few hundred kilometers from Pune to Cochin, two provinces to the south, equates to travelling to an entirely different country. In most ways, Kerala shares less with Maharashtra than Canada shares with the U.S. From Pune to Cochin, almost all aspects of culture – language, religion, cuisine, dress and government – undergo significant shifts.
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July 11th, 2008
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In the middle of the night last night, I momentarily entertained the smug thought that my digestive system had survived pretty well so far on the trip, and that, actually, I had probably been more regular here than in Canada. Big mistake. Not five minutes later Fate decided to bitch-slap my hubris with an intestinal tornado that had me out of commission for the better part of eighteen hours.
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July 10th, 2008
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Those of you who have “endured” lengthy Roman Catholic or Greek Orthodox weddings can rest easy. You ain’t seen nothing until you’ve been to a Hindu wedding.
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July 7th, 2008
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Irene wanted to visit Sangam, an International Girl Guide Centre, which happens to be just a short distance away from Steven’s office.
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July 6th, 2008
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I am going to try to describe traffic in Mumbai and Pune, but I will fail – miserably.
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July 5th, 2008
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Sitting for nine hours in Terminal 4 gives a person the luxury to do silly things, like tally the frequency of flights out of Heathrow.
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July 4th, 2008
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