California Diary 1: From Pacifica to Morro Bay

Last month, when Arundhati and I spent a few weeks in California, our son Ritwik hired an eight-seater Toyota Sienna and took us on a drive along the California coastline. I have been fortunate to travel to many beautiful places and I’d say that the 450-kilometre drive was one of the loveliest I have ever experienced. We drove along California State Route 1 which connects San Francisco with Los Angeles and runs almost entirely along the coast. As we were driving south, on our right was the deep blue Pacific, colossal, awe-inspiring, and unvarying. On our left was the coastal mountains of California, which for some reason, has no given name unlike her cousins with well-known names, Sierra Nevada and the Rockies. She’s just called the Coastal Mountain Range.

As we drove, landforms on our left kept changing every 20 miles or so: from rugged mountains to dark forests, to open land with millions of flowers blooming in the spring, to huge tracts of agricultural land on the slopes of hills on which cows were grazing. If you have found the previous sentence little heavy and difficult to follow, then I have been able to convey what I had felt during the journey. It was a bit too much of captivating sights! I have had similar feeling in large art museums. After a few hours, the brain refuses to absorb anymore.

We began at a place called Pacifica, a picture of which you see above, and ended at Morro Bay. The unvaried sea and the widely varying landscape were punctuated with quaint little towns that were straight from Western movies. Let me digress for a moment here. My Oxford dictionary defines the word “city” as “a large town”. Americans however apparently call every human settlement a city. For example, Carmel-by-the-Sea or simply Carmel, is a city with an area of 2.75 kilometre and a population of 3,220! I will come back to this place in the course of this travelogue. The cities on the way that were somewhat bigger were Salinas (population 163,000) and Monterey (30,000). Incidentally, the American author John Steinbeck was born in Salinas and Monterey has a named after one of his novels, The Cannery Row.

I guess the introduction has been long enough! Let’s see some pictures.

Wild flowers on the way

The Pacific Ocean seen from the Pigeon Point Lighthouse. The lighthouse, built in 1871, is one of the two tallest lighthouses on the west coast of North America and is still functional. 

"Research published 2022 by the San Mateo County Office of Sustainability found that the lighthouse was vulnerable to erosion caused by sea level rise." [Wikipedia].

What you see below are not dead fish. They are female and young elephant seals. Ninety miles south of Monterey, we came across the stretch where 25,000 elephant seals come and relax during different times of the year. The place is called Piedras Blancas Rookery, rookery being the term for the breeding ground for sea mammals.

April-May is the moulting season, when female elephant seals shed their skin. They eat nothing for months during their sojourn on the beach. However, it was not the season when males come ashore in search of mates. Adult male elephant seals, which can be as long as 4-5 m and weigh up to 2,300 kg, would be something to watch. The females in comparison are much smaller at 2.5-4 m long and weigh 400-800 kg. 

We passed by Carmel-by-the-Sea, or Carmel. It is a tiny but wealthy city in Monterey County which has beautiful plush homes right on the beach front. Many of them apparently are owned by actors and artists who obviously have deep pockets. Movie star Clint Eastwood was elected the mayor of the city in 1986.

Our hotel was away from the beach. It was a quiet place in the lap of nature. Nishaant is carrying a crutch as he broke his leg while playing a few weeks ago.

The Riverside Inn is beside a river which was narrower than the sign you see in the picture below.

The sun sets in Carmel-by-the-Sea, but a little away from the sea

This is how the place looked next morning. 

Spanish colonialists from Mexico invaded and captured California in the 18th century and called the province Alta California. (Alta means upper and baja means lower in Spanish, Baja California is a state in Mexico just south of the US California.) As everywhere else, missionaries were the soft power used by Spanish imperialists too, who set up their first mission in San Diego in southern tip of present-day California in 1769, and followed it up with a slew of missions along the coast up to San Francisco. In these missions, padres made every effort to bring native Americans to civilization, using temptations and brute force. But it was not smooth sailing for theme, the San Diego mission was burnt down by rebellious locals in 1775. 

In the background of this picture is Carmel Mission Basilica, founded in 1771 by Saint Junipero Serra.

I wish I could tell you the name of the river on which the bridge is. 

The pictures below however, do not need labels. 

 

Our journey ended at Morro Bay, the main feature of the place being volcanic mound Morro Rock. Morro Bay, a city of 10,000 people looked desolate after sundown. 

In the morning that followed

The marina. In the whale country, this is how the weather cock looks.

Finally, the route, courtesy Mr. Google

Discovering Happiness

 

We moved to our country home a few months ago because of the coronavirus. We cannot thank the virus enough.

During the lockdown, like everybody else in the world who lived in an apartment complex in a city, we were feeling a bit boxed in. Fortunately for us, a few years ago, my daughter had bought a small house in a residential layout in the middle of nowhere in Tamil Nadu. The place is about an hour’s drive from our earlier home. Six months ago, we came here for a few weeks.

Now we cannot think of going back. Or going anywhere else. Since coming here, I have been discovering new sources of happiness which I had no idea about.

We came here in the mid-summer of TTTT (the terrible twenty twenty), when it was raining heavily. In spite of the showers, a neem and a pongame we had planted a year before had been nearly dead, although the trumpetbushes (tecoma) in between the two was doing quite well. The neem was stunted; its thin trunk was covered by termites. The pongame too had been attacked by pest. Its leaves were yellow-brown and withering. 

The termites on the neem were driven away, ironically, by spraying neem oil. It looks a healthy, if a little wayward, adolescent tree now. Of the pongame, I snipped off the leaves until the plant looked like a skeleton. But over the last few months, she needed only regular watering to be back to her spirited best, sprouting green leaves in the spring. One of my neighbours, Mr Mohan, who is truly knowledgeable about agriculture and plants in general, tells me the seeds of Pongame (Millettia pinnata) are crushed to produce oil for lighting lamps, while the oil cake is used as manure. My neighbour also gave me some crushed pongame oil cakes mixed in water. In a few years, therefore, I hope to earn a few bucks on the side selling neem twigs for brushing teeth and oilseeds. Please remember me if you needed either of them.

A few weeks ago, we planted a chikoo (sapota). I am trying to register its English name, naseberry /ˈneɪzb(ə)ri/, in my head. Chikoo is a delicate plant. We were a little careless for a few days and she was quite dead.

It showed no signs of life, but I kept watering it every evening when the sun wasn’t too hot, hoping the magic of the pongame would be repeated.

It was. Till then, I hadn’t known how much happiness the green shoots on a dead branch can give to a human being. It is no wonder that Maxim Gorky named his autobiography “In the University of Life.”

Moving from the local flora to the local fauna, a stray dog, Chintu and her two sons, Sonu and Monu are a source of immense joy for us. Chintu has twitches, which was diagnosed as distemper when a vet visited us. We have known Chintu since she was a puppy, struggling to survive in the wilderness with just a few families settled here then, which meant very little food supply for street dogs. Distemper is incurable. I don’t think Chintu will live long. Sonu and Monu, however, are handsome young lads now, and exceedingly well-behaved. I guess quite a few local female dogs will have a crush or two on them.

Our small dog Singham, a Shi Tzu who takes his name a little too seriously than he should, believes he is the Ajay Devgan of the animal kingdom. His biggest joy in life is going to the first-floor terrace and barking at all four-legged creatures he can see around: dogs, sheep, or cows 20 times his size. When we go out for walk, Chintu and her sons give us company. Singham barks at them if they come closer than 10 feet. His snooty class-consciousness makes me cringe.

The latest addition to our extended family is a cow, who I believe has a very high emotional quotient. She was tethered to a post behind our house yesterday, on the other side of the boundary wall. When she saw my wife and me, she came forward confidently, fixed a loving gaze on us, and licked my wife with her rough tongue. In a language that is species-neutral, she also told us she was bored of eating grass.

Singham kept jumping up and down and barked viciously from this side of the wall as we gave the cow two buns and some rotis, whatever we had, which she ate without much ado. The food looked so disproportionately small; she hardly knew she had eaten anything.

Armed with a dozen bananas, I look forward to her visit this afternoon.

11 March 2021

 

Straws in the wind?

The Legend of Bhagat Singh star, Sushant Singh has recently said, "I am very disturbed, especially with the way students are being treated. First, it happened with JNU, where doctored videos were circulated, and they were given the tag of Tukde Tukde Gang. No one apologised to them, and they are still called by the same name. Similarly, the Jamia kids were not involved in any kind of violence, and the police even clarified the same. Even then, we all know what happened with them. It’s so strange that there’s footage of the bus burning but no visual of who lit it? There has been a constant effort to bring down one community and students’ voices. They are our future, and we cannot stay silent over this."

Kankana Sen Sharma and Swara Bhaskar are old sinners, but sadly, a constellation of stars like Anurag Kashyap, Sushant Singh, Tapsi Pannu, Manoj Bajpai, and Rajkumar Rao have joined the ranks of anti-national Pakistan lovers and the infamous tukde-tukde gang. Anurag Kashyap has written, quite khullam khulla, "This has gone too far.. can’t stay silent any longer. This government is clearly fascist .. and it makes me angry to see voices that can actually make a difference stay quiet."

A star from from the South, Siddharth has gone beyond the limit. He has the temerity to speak against the two men who are tirelessly working -- one of them hardly sleeps, as you know -- to Make India Great Again (MIGA). Siddharth tweeted, “These two are not Krishna and Arjuna. They are Shakuni and Duryodhana. Stop attacking #universities! Stop assaulting #students! #JamiaMilia #JamiaProtest.”

After watching videos of police beating up Jamia students mercilessly, actor Taapsee Pannu, the brave girl from Pink, tweeted, “Wonder if this is a start or the end. Whatever it is, this is surely writing new rules of the land and those who don’t fit in can very well see the consequences. This video breaks heart and hopes all together. Irreversible damage, and I’m not talking about just the life and property,”

Manoj Bajpai, the ever so resilient man, says, "There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest. With the students and their democratic rights to protest ! I condemn violence against protesting students!!!!!"

These are high stake individuals. The government can make their life miserable. But can it, now? If there was an IT raid in Anurag Kashyap's house tomorrow, you would know that the government is shaking. It would be the end of the beginning.

Hats off, My Dear Wonderful People! You have the guts to speak out knowing well that the cost could be high. The Kauravas will try to see that you don't get another contract, just as they have made sure that Karan Thapar or Barkha Dutt doesn't get another job. (Sushant Singh's contract as the host of the TV show Savdhaan India has been terminated immediately after he took part in a protest against CAA.)

You have shown that you are not just cardboard heroes. From you, we have learned that even the screen image of Bhagat Singh cannot lick the boots of third-rate rulers. You, Tapsi Pannu, have shown that your struggle against crass misogynistic masculinity was not just acting. In fact, metaphorically speaking, through your tweet, you have broken a bottle on the collective head of countless bastards.

Let me end this brief write-up with another quote from the star of The Legend of Bhagat Singh: “As for fear of losing work, I cannot comment on others’ choices. But for me, I have a very simple principle. I sell my talent, not my conscience. When my kids grow up and ask me what I was doing when students were being tortured, I should have an answer”

Will you have an answer, Dear Reader?

[Information sourced from two reports published in the Indian Express today.

All the pictures courtesy Wikimedia Commons]

18 Dec 2019

To our eternal shame ...

Every Indian should hang their head in shame after reading this.

Farooq Ahmed Dar, a 26-year-old shawl maker from Kashmir was tied to the front of an army jeep by one Major Gogoi of the Indian Army, and paraded him through several Kashmiri villages a few days ago. And a video of the incident went viral on the Internet. Army claims he is a "stone pelter", but Dar, his family and neighbours say he is not, he never was. Scroll.in reports after meeting him:

"This is how Dar said his day proceeded. After he cast his vote in Chil, 33 km from Srinagar, he said that he got on to his motor cycle to attend a condolence meeting at his sister’s house in Gampora village, 20 kms away. His brother Hilal followed him on another motorcycle.

"A few kilometres before their destination, at Utligam village, Dar said he was stopped by an army patrol.

The patrol consisting of at least 17 personnel was led by a major, Dar said. The security men surrounded him and pulled him off his motorcycle. After looking at his identity card, they questioned him about why he was so far from his home. They then began to beat him up and accused him of being a stone pelter. But, said Dar, there were no visible disturbances in the area when the stopped him.

“They thrashed me for 20 minutes,” Dar said, adding that after the beating, they attempted to push him into a stream.

"The soldiers then tied him to a vehicle and paraded him “through 10-20 villages” with a piece of paper attached to his chest declaring that he was a stone pelter, Dar said. He said he did not have a clear recollection of events that transpired when he was tied up. “I was not in my senses,” he said."

Farooq Ahmed Dar's account is bound to be true. Because had he been a stone pelter, the army wouldn't have allowed him to go home on the same day. More importantly, Dar was among the 7% voters in his area who had cast his vote defying a ban and threat of death issued by terrorists. Besides the e-paper I have quoted, he facts have been brought out by several front-line newspapers, including the Indian Express and Hindustan Times.

If Kashmir is boiling today, it's to a large extent because of army and police officers like Gogoi, who have tortured innocent Kashmiris without bothering to think about the long-term consequences of their action. And there are a lot of Indians to glad-hand officers like Gogoi who display tremendous disdain not only to Kashmiri Muslims, but also to the laws of the land.

Please put yourself in Farooq Ahmed Dar's shoes for a minute. You belong to a small minority of Kasmiri Muslims who still have faith in India, you're among the 7% of people who've voted. And on the same day you are picked up by an insane army officer from the road, beaten up, get a judgment "stone pelter" stuck on your chest, and you are strapped to the bonnet of a jeep and paraded through villages like an animal.

Even if I accepted, for the sake of argument that Dar is indeed a stone pelter, which Indian law allowed him to be treated in such an inhuman manner? And what about that nearly-forgotten word "human rights"? Does Geneva Convention allow an army to treat even a captured enemy soldier like that?

And the tragedy is: Farooq Ahmed Dar is a law abiding Indian citizen.

Finally, to our eternal shame, the chief of the Indian Army has commended the Major for this grossly illegal and immoral act.

Terrorists try to break up our democracy from outside. When protectors of the law break laws themselves, the corrode the system from within. They are two sides of the same blob of shit.

Kolkata / 26 May 2017

For your good health

How I wish this convenient tool for good health was still available! (Photo courtesy a friend)

Witnessing history being made

[Dear Reader, I was off-blog for a long time as I was suffering from a serious bout of teaching. You can count on regular posts here from now on. That’s a promise signed with blood.] 

An army of lensmen in front of the new chief minister's house

On 13 May 2011, I stayed glued to the TV since morning to follow the election results in four states including West Bengal, the fourth largest state in India in terms of population, with more people - 9 million - than in Germany. The writing had been on the wall for some time. By midday it was confirmed that "one of the most entrenched political machines in the world", the Marxist government, was on its way out. It was hardly a surprise. But political truth, like God, lives in details. What was surprising was the scale of their defeat. The mighty rulers were reduced to 62 seats in the state legislature, from 235 five years before. Almost all the ministers were defeated by known and unknown upstarts, including a motley collection of fading film-stars, retired government bigwigs, doctors, and so on. The opposition combine of Trinamool Congress (TMC) and Congress came to power with 227 of the 294 seats.

On an awfully humid day, as temperature soared to stifling 36 degrees in shade, people danced on the roads of Kolkata under a scorching sun. It was Holi, the festival of spring, in summer.

In West Bengal, people had started resenting the government of the party, for the party, and by the party. Over time, resentment turned into odium. Ultimately, the common man’s desire found expression in one feisty single woman in her mid-fifties: Mamata Banerjee.

Mamata has neither a political lineage nor much to show for herself except personal integrity, courage and determination. And these qualities she has in abundance. Not long ago, her party’s strength in the parliament was down to one, she being the only MP from TMC. While pundits wrote her political obituary, she kept working towards her goal, undeterred. In 2006 she went on a twenty-six day fast to protest against forcible acquisition of land in Singur. Has anyone else attempted such a thing in India after 1947?

Most of the dancing and merrymaking happened in front of the leader’s house. This is another shift from the past. For the monolithic Marxists, individuals do not matter much; celebrations would happen only in front of their party office. We do not know what this shift foretells. Does it presage an administration with a human touch? Or does it portent tyranny of one person? We will have to wait for the answer.

As the day wore on, temperature soared and a deluge of people visited Mamata’s house, which turned into a place of pilgrimage. In the evening, I along with my friend Gautam walked down to the epicentre of the political Tsunami that swept the left away. A little before reaching our destination, we crossed the famous temple at Kalighat, which had far fewer visitor that day compared to what Mamata's  home had.

Traffic was blocked at the junction near her house. The place looked more like a village fairground. In the palpably lower-middleclass neighbourhood, the narrow lane leading to the house was chock-full with people. Going by the age and gender profile, it didn’t look like a crowd of only political workers. The crowd consisted mainly of ordinary folk like you and me.

Green in Bengal stands as the counterpoint to the Reds

After a short distance, an even narrower alley branched off on the left. We were close to our destination. The ground beneath was covered with a spaghetti like confusion of cables drawn from television OB vans kept in a parallel road some distance away. We stopped in front of an unpretentious house with a tiled roof in front of which dozens of cameramen had gathered under a marquee. The CM elect was away at the Governor's House, a public address system announced. There were thousands of men and women, hope and relief writ large on their faces. I could understand their feeling, because I shared it. It is possibly something that those who haven't lived under a totalitarian regime wouldn't quite fathom.

This tiled building is the address of the new chief minister of West Bengal

A small business close to Mamata's home

On our way back, we came across a shop in a shanty close to Mamata's house. As things stand, it is almost an authentic representation of the state of industry and commerce in Bengal today. Will things change?

A sweat-soaked BBC cameraman

Quite a few foreign journalists were in Kolkata on 13 May to report the end of the elected communist government that lived 34 long years defying all logic. We met one of them on our way home. Will they visit the city again to report something substantially good? Let's hope they will.

Anirban's Rajasthan

These pictures were taken by my friend Anirban Dasgupta. He wrote to me: ‘I am sure you would agree [Rajasthan] has a unique appeal. Along with its natural beauty, it has an extremely rich history. ... If you love history then surely Rajasthan is a must visit. In fact, I do wish to return to the forts once again, especially Chittorgarh. Walking through the ruins there is an overwhelming experience. I felt as if I could visualise the night when thousands of women jumped into a huge well of fire ... the whole area illuminated with the light from it  ... their shrieks ... the next morning with the sun rising in the east, the main gate of the fort is opened and thousands of men in saffron robes rushing to battlefields below shouting “Har Har Mahadev”. ... what a morning it would have been!’

Amber Fort, Jaipur

Amber Fort, Jaipur

Adinath Temple, Ranakpur

In Rajasthan, the barren landscape has been complemented by exquisite creations of men.  

Chittorgarh

Chittorgarh

Meherangarh Fort, Jodhpur

A Courtroom, Meherangarh Fort

The Meherangarh Fort in Jodhpur was built in the fifteenth century by a Rathore King, Rao Jodha. His descendants fortified the structure over the next centuries. I found this interesting piece of information in Wikipedia:

The foundation of the fort was laid on 12 May, 1459 by Jodha on a rocky hill nine kilometres to the south of Mandore. This hill was known as Bhaurcheeria, the Hill of Birds. According to a legend, to build the fort, Jodha had to displace the hill’s only human occupant, a hermit called Cheeria Nathji, the Lord of Birds. Upset at being forced to move out, Cheeria Nathji cursed Rao Jodha: “Jodha! May your citadel ever suffer from scarcity of water!” Rao Jodha managed to appease the hermit by building a house and a temple within the fort very near the cave the hermit had used for meditation. Jodha then took an extreme step to ensure that the new site proved propitious; he buried in its foundations a man called Rajiya Bhambi, a Meghwal, alive. You’ve guessed it right! Meghwals are amongst the scheduled castes in modern India.

Rajiya was promised that in return, his family would be looked after by the Rathores. To this day Rajiya Bhambi’s descendants live in Raj Bagh, Rajiya's Garden, an estate bequeathed to them by Jodha.

A slice of history: In the fort, you can also see hand imprints of some women who committed Sati. I would request you to left-click on the image twice to see the details. You'll see that the hands belonged to women of different ages. At least one (extreme right in the second row) looks like the hand of a little girl. 

What went through the minds of these women when they placed their hands to get the imprint?

In the picture below, you see the Sun Temple at Ranakpur, which was built in 14th/15th Century. This temple in Pali district (between Jodhpur and Udaipur) reminds one of Halebidu in Karnataka and Konark in Orissa. Who says India is a country that was stitched together by the British colonialists? 

Please left-click on the picture to see the details

Anirban, an amateur photographer, lives in Kolkata and runs a software firm with his friends. Thank you Anirban, for allowing me to post your beautiful pictures on this blog. 

And to my dear Readers, let me repeat: to see the details, please left-click on all the pictures. They look even more gorgeous when expanded.

Dubare: The elephant country

A wide river met the road at right angles and stopped us. A shopkeeper at that unusual T junction asked us to turn right. ‘The Tourist Lodge is a few hundred metres ahead ….’

After less than half a kilometre, our taxi stopped again as that road too ended. This time, a forest blocked our way. There was thick foliage in front and on our right, and on the left, the Kavery flowed on indifferently. No sign of any tourist lodge …. It was past lunch time, and after a five-hour drive from Bengaluru, we were not in a frame of mind to appreciate the shopkeeper’s practical joke. But before we could curse him, a young man in a jungle-print shirt and khakis greeted us with a broad smile.

Meet Sattar, a tourism department employee, a boatman who would take us to the other side of the river, as all boatmen do. The Elephant Camp Tourist Resort across the river is new, but the “elephant camp” is old. Elephants were trained and kept here by the Forest Department for logging. The animals lost their jobs when the government banned using elephants for manual labour. At that point, some brilliant mind thought of setting up a tourist resort at the place with a unique selling point: tourists would have the novel experience of “interacting with elephants”, like bathing and feeding them.

Despite our protests, Sattar helped us with our luggage and put us on a motor boat that had been hidden behind a tree. The place is not far off from Talakaveri, where the river begins its 765 kilometre journey. Thanks to good rains, the Kavery was full to the brim at Dubare.  

On the other side, Sattar handed us over to another smiling young man in jungle-print, Uday. The resort had ten cottages beside the river, not built on a line, but scattered randomly, just as trees grow in a forest.

Given the backdrop, the cottages were surprisingly well appointed. Although there was no electricity, the rooms had AC machines. A generator supplied electricity after sunset.

Uday in our room

Behind our cottage was a slender pathway, on the other side of which the bank sloped down to the river. A profusion of trees covered the place. Under an overcast sky, the place was dark even in the early afternoon. There was no sound except for the flowing water and chirping crickets. 

The dining hall begins on the river bank and goes almost into the river, standing on concrete stilts. Its thatched roof stands on beautifully carved wooden pillars. There are also a few tall trees in the dining hall, coming in through the floor and leaving out through the roof. The underside of the roof too has intricate wooden rafters. This architecture is typical in Coorg or Kodagu district of North Karnataka. The hall has no walls on the riverside and the two adjoining sides – only banisters. As we had a late lunch of lovely Kodagu food, we felt we were floating on the river.

It was raining when we boarded a jeep for a guided micro safari, which was a bit of a let down because the only wild animal that we came across during the one-hour drive in the jungle was a stray dog; we saw many elephants, foraging, accompanied by their mahouts. There were three couples and two children in the jeep besides us. Two of the women talked continuously. One of them narrated to the children how a certain uncle, when he had been a child, had peed in a bottle of coke and offered it to a particularly difficult teacher.

In the evening, as we watched a film on Karnataka wildlife in the dark dining hall, a waiter asked if we would like to have beer. Of course, we would .... He produced some chilled beer. My daughter took a few sips more to make a political statement; I enjoyed the rest. Outside, a magical darkness filled in every corner of the planet ... millions of fireflies glimmered in the bushes and in the sky. The place would have been absolutely still but for the orchestra by crickets and cicadas.

Pachyderm - a type of animal with a very thick skin, for example, an elephant.

The next morning, we understood what this really meant when the mahouts brought the elephants to the river bank one after the other. Their mahouts too were supposed to be government employees. But unlike the nattily dressed employees of the tourist lodge, they were in dirty clothes, with unkempt hair. They were tribal men who traditionally tended elephants. They laughed a lot and seemed to enjoy their work. The elephants too laughed and joked with the tourists.

The elephant skin is surprisingly tough and coarse. And the huge animals are surprisingly gentle and tolerant. They took the hundred odd overenthusiastic tourists in their stride. We had a once-in-a-life-time experience of scrubbing the elephants as they were being bathed. Each one of them had a fifteen minute bath after which they walked up to a designated place for their breakfast consisting of a ball of jaggery. An elephant needs two hundred kilograms of food every day. They were given about two by their keepers. They rest they would have to forage.

Breakfast