Taken on October 3, 2014 in Mysore
The Mysore Palace is usually only lit up on Sunday evenings. However, during the 10-day festival of Dasara (Vijayadashami), they light it up every night. This was taken on the penultimate day of festivities.
Taken in April of 2014 in Bangalore.
Saw a dog doing its business in the fountain of a swanky office building the other day. If that doesn’t capture the spirit of Bangalore, I’m not sure what does.
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 October 14, 2013 in Old Delhi.
This is the view roughly northward from the minaret of the Jama Masjid.
Taken on November 1, 2013
In the tropics the summer days seem so short and the winter days seem so long–at least if you grew up at 42°N (northern Indiana) and now you’re living at 13°N (Bangalore, India.) There’s no discernible adjustment in the length of days here. Maybe, if you’re a local. But it always gets dark around 6 at night and becomes light around 6am the next morning.
Taken on October 25, 2013.
Well I’m back from my 10-day Thai Yoga Bodywork course, and will resume a normal posting schedule.
While I was gone I visited a couple interesting places. One of which was the Narayana Gurukula Bangalore location. This small and simple ashram is watched over by a sweet lady known to visitors as “Ma”… and some really menacing looking dogs. Above is the interior of what might be called the main hall. There are some interesting stone carvings and artworks across the property as well as a little stone temple and a lilliputian book house.
I wasn’t familiar with Narayana Guru before my visit. There have been so many gurus in India, and it’s hard to know of them all. However, this particular guru and his disciples (one of whom, Nataraja Guru, started the Gurukulam) held forward-thinking views on society and spirituality. A Hindu, Narayana guru advocated unity between traditions and a focus on introspection as the route to betterment.
Taken Sept 5, 2013 in Bangalore, India
Tuk-tuks or Autorickshaws are the ubiquitous three-wheeled vehicles-for-hire seen throughout South and Southeast Asia. (Note: Owing to their evolution from walking or pedal rickshaws, they’re sometimes just called “rickshaw” for short, or even “pedicab” or “petty cab”–the latter likely a corruption of the former.) They’re an essential way to get around in the big cities of Mega-Asia, but almost everyone has a bad experience with one at some point.
Let me point out that I’m not suggesting that most tuk-tuk drivers are amoral liars, but as a tourist (or someone who looks like one) the drivers that approach you probably will be. The vast majority of drivers are honest, hard-working men (and the elusive woman) just trying to put food on the table. That’s why my key advice to people on the subject is, “Pick your driver, and don’t ride with the ones who pick you. Then always negotiate your fare–or make sure they will use the meter– before you get in.” The drivers who pick you often have rationalized that it’s alright to treat foreigners like crap. And I’m not so much talking about charging you a little more money (which I personally don’t mind), but more that it’s alright to waste your time or take you places you didn’t ask to go [and potentially much worse.]
Well, without further ado, I’ll share some of my interactions with drivers. This is inspired by a whooper I was told yesterday.
1.) Driver: “The Temple is closed.”
Me: “But there’s a line of Caucasians and Japanese people with cameras going into the place right this moment. I can see them as we speak.”
Driver: “Uhh, monks and nuns.”
2.) Driver: “That road closed. Big protests. Throwing stones. Very dangerous!”
Me: “But I can see all the way to the corner where we need to turn, there’s nobody there.”
Driver: “They hide. [Pantomiming popping up over a wall] Throw rocks.”
3.) Driver: “Meter[ed fare is] 200 Rupee, but I’ll take– only 150 Rupee.”
Me: “I just took a trip yesterday that was 50% farther and took twice as long, and the metered fare was 50 Rupee.”
4.) Driver: “But traffic very bad, VERY BAD. Premium rate time.”
Me: “But it’s Sunday morning at 8:00am. I haven’t heard a horn for half an hour, and I happen to know that there’s no such thing as ‘premium rate time.'”
Driver: “It’s new.”
5.) Driver: “You can’t get from here to there, except go past travel office.”
Me: “Sure you can. It’s one block over and then a straight shot of five kilometers. The travel office is four kilometers out-of-the-way.”
Driver: See lie #2
Taken June 8, 2013 in Little Mulberry Park (Dacula, GA)
Six months a year
the river flows
away from the sea.
Entropy’s fall?
No.
The fits and starts
of progress are
not rooted in
twisted time.
Here,
blacksmiths exist.
The hammer bounces
on the anvil
Tap-Tap-CLANG
Tap-Tap-CLANG
Ordered repetition,
until the steel begins
to bend and twist
and flex and tear.
It tears like taffy,
taffy glowing orange.
Tap-Tap-CLANG
Tap-Tap-CLANG
What is time for
that glowing rod?
The fire makes
its molecules
race and feud.
The hammer spreads
time into an eternity
of
Tap-Tap-CLANG
Tap-Tap-CLANG
Taken in Hungary in 2008
You just don’t see enough moats these days.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 