Taken October 2012 at Wat Phnom in Phnom Penh.
How come the noun “incense” means “a substance that releases a strong fragrance when burned,” but in its adjectival or verbal form it means to be, or make someone, extremely angry.
It’s not a rhetorical question, people. If you’ve got an answer, let me know.
Taken at the Mysore Zoo on November 29, 2013.
I took this photo at Mysore zoo through the chain link fence, but got focus on the leopard.
Taken November 23 at Hoysaleshwara Temple in Halebidu
For almost 900 years poor schlubs have had to scrub their way around this temple, washing its ornate carvings.
I wonder how similar or different the workers of past generations looked? Obviously, they didn’t have molded plastic water jugs, but the pottery version might have looked similar (not the day-glo lime green one, but certainly the brick-colored one.) No dress shirts or ball caps back then, but the turbans and sarongs are probably not so out-of-place.
Of course, the scaffolding, rough-cut wood lashed together, gives it an ancient feel.
Probably, the most striking difference is the female job foreman.
Taken October 16, 2013 at Indira Gandhi International Airport.
In the Delhi airport, there is a series of 12 bronze sculptures set up on a spiral platform that together demonstrate the yoga sequence called Surya Namaskara (i.e. Sun Salutation) The sculptor is Nikhil Bhandari.
I think this was a nice move. If ever one needed yoga, it’s in an airport–having been packed into a tiny space for hours and with high stress about whether one will get where one wants to go, it’s the perfect place to bust out the yoga.
Taken November 23, 2013 at Belur.
This is the gate into the Chennakeshava temple in Belur. In the foreground is the base of a pillar that served to hold the temple lantern that let all find the temple in the darkness. (Fun fact: the pillar isn’t secured to the base. That is, it’s held in place by gravity.) The base is the same multi-sided shape as the temple mounts.
Below is a pic of the lantern pillar (it’s not as askew as it appears in the pic.) (Fun fact #2: if you type askew into Google’s browser it will twist the page askew.)
Taken December 7, 2013 in Cox Town.
I took this photo yesterday in Cox Town as we were walking over to the United Charities Bazaar (a great and highly recommended event.) It’s a tree that juts out into the road next to a small Hindu temple. When they put in a flyover, they cut away quite a bit of the tree, but the part that remains seems to be thriving.
When one moves to a new country, one experiences a wide variety of cultural insights. All of a sudden, this invisible thing called culture becomes visible. There are, of course, many norms that grate on one’s nerves with respect to the culture one has been transplanted into. In the vast majority of cases, there isn’t anything inherently wrong with the new culture–they are just differences, just shocks to one’s system. There are a few cultural proclivities that one can fairly say are objectively inferior, and it’s a testament to India that they are trying to fix these problems (e.g. by outlawing the caste, by trying to prevent killing off of girl children, etc.)
However, if one is honest with oneself, one also gains insight into one’s native culture, and its particular inferiorities. As I said, we take culture so for granted that we don’t necessarily even see the peculiarities of our own culture. One of the Indian norms that I find most laudable is the preservation of living things to the extent possible. Put alternatively, one of the norms of my own culture that I’ve come to find most dismaying is the belief that anything that causes a person the least inconvenience must die immediately.
I imagine that some Westerners in India find it to be a pain to have to step out into the street when walking down the sidewalk because there are occasionally ten-foot diameter trees hogging the whole sidewalk. In the US, they’d just cut down the big tree and replace it with a dwarf tree of some sort that would never give them a problem–and if it did, just get out the saw.
Taken November 29, 2013 at Daria Dalaut in Mysore.
This cannon points right at the main entry to Daria Dalaut, Tipu Sultan’s palace in Mysore. It seems a tad inhospitable, but one can’t be too careful.
Taken November 29, 2013.
The gun doesn’t look so imposing from the end of the first cement pond, and is just a speck from the gate.
Taken on October 12, 2013 in Agra.
This photo was taken during Dussehra (Vijayadashami) celebrations in Agra. There were many street parades that day.
Dussehra is a Hindu festival that celebrates the victory of Lord Suraj over Ravana and also marks the victory of the Goddess Durga over the Mahishasur demons.
Taken November 29, 2013 at Brindavan Gardens in Mysore
Brindavan Garden is built at the base of the Krishnarajasagara (KRS) dam. However, it’s so beautiful that one forgets to worry about what would happen if the massive wall holding back a lake from the Kaveri River were to catastrophically fail.
The garden takes advantage of the availability of water both in its fountains and in a gradual cascade that splits the garden down the center.
In the evening, all the tourists in town converge on this site to see the fountains lit up (except on Sundays when everybody is at the Mysore Palace to see it lit up.) About 2 million people a year visit the gardens.
there’s nothing sadder than a monkey
who’s grown pudgy, blown up chunky,
and become a Mars Bar junkie
just cause we’re genetically entwined
makes it neither right nor kind
to give them a bootilicious behind
when swinger’s branches threaten break
and under foot the earth it quakes
it’s then too late to lay off the cakes
when dealing with our friends furry
remember no ice cream or curry
no panicked food drop and scurry
Tiger Riding for Beginners 