Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

Pradip, a close friend of my brother's, read this book about 5 years ago, and recommended it to everyone. I chanced upon it during my recent trip to NYC, and was reminded by my brother, when he saw the stark grey cover lying on his couch, that I was a bit late on this one.

Mostly, I thought it was brilliant and hillarious. It's challenging to keep a high standard of witty writing right throughout a book, and Sedaris almost gets full marks. I like his underdog approach, and the fact that he's irreverent about everything: himself, his family, his male lovers, America, and the rest of the world. But while he mocks everything in his universe, he's gentle as well, and is a lover of humanity and of eccentricities. This dual aspect of his writing, kept me hooked. He alternates between the formal and informal, which I found refreshing. He will write a beautifully structured and nuanced sentence, at times with self-conscious formality and then follows-up with informal, and often, brazen langauge.

My favorite piece (I don't know what else to call it because they aren't chapters, though the book is loosely autobiographical and chronological) is Twelve Moments in the Life of the Artist. It's about his time in art school and is a masterpiece of writing.

Ramagiri, California.

In early June I visited Tomales, which is an hour-and-a-half north of San Francisco, and is across the Golden Gate and near Napa country. It's a little one-street town and is less than a mile away from the site of Ramagiri, the community center of the spiritual teacher, Eknath Easwaran, and his followers.

Easwaran, came from India in the 1960s, and taught meditation to a tightly-knit community of loyal followers in Berkeley. He wrote amongst the most accessible translations of the Bhagawad Gita, the Upanishads, and the Dhammapada. Easwaran died in 1999. Today his wife, Christine and his close followers continue to live like a family in Ramagiri. They have dedicated their lives to Easwaran's teachings and are still an independent community. In the early days, they grew their own vegetables (which they still do), schooled their children, built their own houses, and even printed and bound Easwaran's books. It was inspirational to see people well into their 60s, 70s and 80s sticking to ideals and a path chosen almost 50 years ago, with enormous dedication and enthusiasm.

The High Line

Cheers to the High Line, an elevated walkway which was originally a railway track. It extends from around 13th street on the extreme Westside of Manhattan upto 2oth street. And It's not going to end here. I went there twice. Once on a lovely late sunny afternoon at around 5 and then the next day with my brother, when the sky was overcast. As you walk on the track, you realize how old some of New York city's buildings are, especially when they are rubbing shoulders with contorted shapes - today's ultra modern architecture. I'm sure the real estate prices have gone up in the area. One building opens out onto the walkway. With the tourist and local traffic the bridge attracts, restaraunts, coffe shops etc. are going to thrive along its exits. It's interesting how a simple construction can change the fortunes of a particular neighborhood.

Lost Worlds

Michael Wood's A South Indian Journey (previously published as The Smile Of Murugan) and Alice Albina's The Empires of The Indus are both about the loss of tradition and culture.

Wood describes his visits to the "deep south" in Tamil Nadu over 13 years (starting in the early 1990s), where he develops strong bonds with a family in Chidambaram, especially with Mala, the matriarch. He also travels the pilgrimage circuit, and observes ancient temple rituals and customs first-hand. The author's sensitive descriptions of temples and gentle portraits of people he encounters are wonderful to read. He immerses himself into everyday life, anthropologist-like.

Wood calls Tamil Nadu, the "last classical civilization" because Tamil culture has arguably withstood the effects of modernization more than other Indian cultures (or other ancient cultures of the world, for that matter). However by early 2000, he sees dramtic changes in the lifestyles of Mala's children as they grow older, marry and have children. Their lives in rapidly urbanizing cities such as Madras, though an intricate blend of east and west, have lost many of the elements that made their parents' lives whole. At the end of the book Wood laments,"But how wonderful is difference, and how diminished we will be, if the global culture takes hold everywhere, and destroys these worlds; thoughtlessly rubbing out encoded identities which have grown over sometimes thousands of years." He does however, acknowledge the economic and educational benefits modernization has bought Tamilians.

Albina travels the length of the Indus cataloging and recapping the history of cultures that thrived along the the river over the past few centuries. The river weaves it's way through Tibet, India (Ladakh), Afghanistan and Pakistan. Therefore her books spans Vedic times, Alexander's invasion, the growth of Buddhism in Afghanistan, early Afghan invasions of India, the birth and development of Sikhism and so on. Unfortunately, Albina's book reads more like a history lesson interspersed with her travel difficulties, rather than a diary of observations and insights. Wood's book is just the opposite. But her main point is is unmistakable, ancient ways of life along the river are fast disappearing, without a trace.

Fusion Architecture

The Lotus Mahal at Hampi is a wonderful combination of Hindu and Islamic architecture. After seeing a number of profusely decorated Hindu temples in Hampi, the restraint and minimalism of Islamic architecture can be quite a relief. The Lotus Mahal delicately balances the two. The roof of the building is clearly derived from Hindu temple architecture. The arches on the other hand are Islamic. However, the intense decoration around the arches is Islamic in form, but Hindu in spirit. Most of the walls are plain, indirectly leading our eyes to the arches of the doorways and windows. I also like the balance of openness on the ground floor which contrasts with the closeted feel of the first.

Buddhist Influences on Hindu Temple Architecture

During my undergraduate years, I took a class called Shrine and Image, under the tutelage of my favorite art history professor Diran Dohanian. In this class, he taught that the design of Hindu temples developed from early Buddhist stupas. I saw evidence to further support this theory during my visit to the temples of Aihole, Patadakal and Badami in Karnataka last week.

The semi-circular shrine chamber, pillared circum-ambulatory path, and pillared entrance hall, which are critical features of the Durga temple at Aihole (640-680 AD), all derive from early Buddhist shrines, such as those at Ajanta.

The structure and ornamentation of pillars at the rock-cut caves at Badami (6 to 8th c. AD) and the interiors of the temples at Patadakal such as the Virupaksha temple (740 AD) and the unfinished temple alongside it are strongly influenced by Buddhist cave designs.

A relief of a couple crowned by an overarching tree at the entrance of one of the temples at Patadakal can be traced to the torana reliefs at Sanchi(1st c. BC).

If these works of art were included in my course, I think Professor's Dohanian's argument would have been even stronger. However, the class would have lost much of it's mystery.

Lashkar-e-Shivoba

After the terror attacks in Mumbai on 26th November 2008, the Lashkar-e-Taiba, one of South Asia's most active terrorist organization headquartered in Lahore, has constantly been in the news. The title, which in both Urdu and Arabic mean Army of The Good/Army Of The Pure, is a dreaded name. A few months ago, I noticed a green bus on Tulsi Pipe Road in the heart of Mumbai with the image of a tiger and the words, Laskhar-e-Shivoba. Loosely translated, the words mean The Army of Shiva. The use of Urdu words with the name of a Hindu God is enigmatic. The association of the name with LeT, suggests a Hindu terrorist group united to fight Islamic terrorism. Green is rarely used in Hinduism, and is the the color of Islam. Therefore the use of green as opposed to safffron, the colour of Hinduism, for the bus, is also puzzling.

The symbol of the tiger is also so the symbol of one Maharashtra's major right wing political parties - The Shiv Sena. Laskhar-e-Shivoba seems to be an Urdu translation of The Shiv Sena, and this organization could be the Gujrati wing of the Shiv Sena.

A blog, http://csimumbai.wordpress.com/2008/11/09/lashkar-e-shivoba/, notes that Lashkar-e-Shivoba means Army Of Shivaji. Shivaji was the famous 17th century Maratha king and warrior, who prevented the Mughals from conquering what we today call the state of Maharasthra, by using guerrilla warfare techniques.