Kanyakumari

We drove to Kanyakumari at the very southern tip of India following our wedding adventure in Tuticorin. We arrived just in time to take the last ferry ride of the day out to the Vivekananda Memorial Rock and the towering statue of Thiruvalluvar. The Vivekananda Rock Memorial and Thiruvalluvar statue are rather recent additions to the tourist map in Kanyakumari. They overshadow the more ancient mainland based Kanyakumari Temple.

Awash in the mingling waters from the Arabian Sea, Bay of Bengal and Indian Ocean the Vivekananda Memorial and statue of Thiruvalluvar are just magnets for tourists.

Ferry service to these tourist attractions costs Rs. 20 (45 cents) "to and fro” and carries the stipulation “no ½ service.” Fine with us. Ferry service consists of two rusty scows that pack travelers onboard with a focus on utilizing all possible deck space. We’re sure the signs inside the ferries that say, “All passengers must be seated while the boat is moving” are for legal reasons only. We were packed in like sardines.

The Vivekananda Memorial Rock is dedicated to Swami Vivekananda who, by legend, spent days in meditation upon the rock. Swami Vivekananda (1863 – 1902) was an influential spiritual leader and devotee of Ramakrishna (1836-1886) and his teachings of Vedanta. Swami Vivekananda was something of a religious superstar in his day, traveling about Europe and America sharing his teachings of the unity of existence. He taught that all religions lead to the same goal. Expressed later by the founder of the Vedanta Society of Southern California, "If you put Jesus, Buddha, and Mohammad in the same room together, they will embrace each other. If you put their followers together, they may kill each other!" Maybe we need to get a Swami to Baghdad.

Barefooted, we toured the windswept Vivekananda Memorial. To our surprise, we actually witnessed a slight difference in color of the waters that mingled at the meeting place of the Indian Ocean, the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea, the great bodies of water that surround the rock outcropping.

The second ferry stop was the 133 foot statue of Thiruvalluvar. The statue is dedicated to the 1^st millennium Tamil poet who authored the Thirukkural, one of the oldest and most revered works in the Tamil language. In an ironic juxtaposition to Vivekananda’s teaching of oneness, Tiruvalluvar's faith is disputed, with Hindus claiming him as one of their own and Jains doing the same. Divinity by many paths.

Back on shore from our raucous, wave-tossed ferry ride, we headed to Sunset Point. Unfortunately, a heavy overcast sky muted our sunset experience. We expected this….

but experienced this.

Only moderately disappointed in our sunset experience, we climbed back into our car for the two hour drive to Trivandrum. We were thankful that we were blessed with another adventure-filled day in our travels in India.

Balaranjith Weds Romila

We had an opportunity to attend the wedding of one of Jay’s work colleagues, Ranjith. This wedding between Ranjith (also known as Bala) and Romila took place in the small port town of Tuticorin in the southeast state of Tamil Nadu, with another reception the following day in Trivandrum (Thiruvanantapuram) in the southwest state of Kerala. Reflecting centuries of western contact with southern India, the wedding was a Christian affair.

After a flight from Bangalore to Madurai the previous evening, we got a very early start on our drive to Tuticorin with instructions to our driver to “get us to the church on time.”

We arrived at St. Patrick’s Church in Tuticorin with sufficient time to mingle with other invited guests, but no one was at the church. A kindly priest intervened and instructed a church guard to walk us to the nearby home of one of the relatives. We were very warmly greeted and chatted briefly. The ladies at the house honored Helen by pinning a small garland of jasmine to her hair. The time of the wedding was approaching. Shouldn’t we all be assembling at the church? Oh, we still have so much to learn.

With great kindness shown to our confusion, we were ushered into an Indian-built Ambassador car and driven to a marriage hall where the first of two ceremonies of the day was underway.

We arrived shortly after a procession of relatives had greeted the newlyweds. There was still much pomp, ceremony, relative-mingling and endless picture taking to come. We were warmly received by Ranjith’s mom and dad as was another honored guest, Philip Bratten, who had traveled from Pittsburgh to attend. We chatted with relatives and had our photo taken with Ranjith’s grandmother, the oldest attendee. Dr. Sundararaj, the father-in-law of one of Ranjith’s brothers, was our guide for the day.

At the appointed time, the groom departed amid the sounds of a marching band! This wedding, in true Indian style, was groom oriented. Lead by the marching band, a procession of cars that individually contained the groom and bride and their attendants meandered its way to the church.

Although the service and hymns at. St. Patrick’s were in Tamil, we generally understood the order of events. There was no ring exchange. Rather, Ranjith presented Romila with an absolutely beautiful gold necklace with a large, custom-made medallion with a cross and their initials on it. The civil ceremony of signing the marriage registry followed.

It was back to the marriage hall where there was more dancing, music, giving of gifts and more picture taking. As the long line of relatives queued to present gifts, family youngsters provided dance entertainment from lame Bollywood gyrations to well-practiced folk traditions. We presented our gift and had our picture taken with the bride and groom. We ate our meal served on a banana leaf, then thanked our hosts for their marvelous hospitality. We got back in the car with instructions to our driver to get us to Kanyakumari at the very southern tip of India in time to catch the evening sunset.

Women in the News

Opening our morning newspapers, we found “ink” liberally dedicated to the news of rich and powerful and not so rich and powerful women. “I’m in. And I’m in to win” was the headline reporting that Hillary Clinton had tossed her hat into the 2008 US presidential race. We suspect that Hillary, with her own savvy skills, long exposure to the global media and a master strategist as a spouse will hold her own in the widening field of Democratic hopefuls.

News of our homegrown Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty’s appearance on the British reality show Celebrity Big Brother also commanded attention. Nearing the halfway mark of their one month of togetherness, the personal bickering among the 12 housemates of faux and yesterday fame was coming to a showdown. Shetty has been holding her own, but ended up being reduced to sobs. Referred to as “the Indian” or the “Paki” and having her English and eating habits questioned, Shetty found her main antagonist in Jade Goody. Goody, a dental nurse, whose fame is based on her previous participation in a Big Brother show, was voted off by British viewers by an 82% margin.

The producers of the show were not all that upset. Goody’s rants substantially pushed up viewership. Now off the show, the producers are considering sending Goody to India. The trip is not to sensitize her Indian sensibilities. Rather, she may appear on the producer’s subcontinent version of the show, Big Boss . On this program it appears that the Indian class conflict tension is not holding viewer attention. A second lightning strike of cultural conflict may be in order. As for Shetty, her 50 Bollywood film career faltering, will pocket 350,000 English Sterling pounds for her pain. Real life for women in India is far harsher.

It is not uncommon to read of dowry harassment, or of a male suitor whose advances have been spurned, retaliating by tossing acid in the woman’s face. The male-prerogative- dominated nature of our subcontinent culture is also seen in the euphemistic term used to describe sexual harassment; “Eve teasing.” Recently a women’s movement called Blank Noise, lead by Jasmeen Patheja, took to busy Brigade Road to combat the sexual advances of the mainly young male crowd that prowls Brigade Road and the nearby pub crawl lane of Church Street. In Gandhigiri style, using moral force to combat society’s inequities, the women “stare insensitive men into shame.”

In another advance for woman, the Bombay High Court came to the aid of Dilshad Begum, albeit 16 years after she contested her husband’s declared divorce. Under Muslim law a man can divorce his wife at his will by declaring three times “talaq, talaq, talaq.” Talaq literally means “undoing the knot.” No such right exists for a woman. She must obtain her husband’s explicit consent. Dilshad will now receive some relief, but, overall, her rights remain diluted in sea of man-made laws.

Hillary may be vying for the most powerful job in the world, but for Dilshad, it was one small step for a woman and one giant leap for womankind.

Offending at Internet Speed

We awoke to a headline in the Times of India, “YouTube Angers I&B with Gandhi Video.” With Danish cartoons causing such agitation just about a year ago, our attention was pulled to read further.

The article revealed that the Information & Broadcast ministry was outraged with YouTube and two Indian networks for airing a video by a 29 year old New York-based comedian Gautham Prasad. The video, called “Time to Get Sexy,” is a lame, one man act. With a scull cover, dark round glasses and fake nose to look like Mahatma Gandhi, Prasad is pole dancing, garbed in a cotton thong and dangling pasties. Indian government officials stated the video was an “assault on the dignity of the Father of the Nation.” The apology demanded from the Indian TV stations by the government I&B minister was quick and unqualified. YouTube was another matter. There within lies the new dilemma in our wired, global community.

YouTube is sensitive to such issues. To access the video, YouTube requires one to login with their YouTube credentials and acknowledgment that they will be exposed to material that the YouTube community considers objectionable. The I&B minister threatened to block access to the YouTube website. The video is still available to the global community to amuse or offend.

Offensive “art” is not new. In the early 1500’s, Michelangelo tussled with Vatican officials over exposed genitalia in figures in the Sistine Chapel’s Last Judgment. Considered as immoral and obscene, the Vatican initiated the Fig-Leaf Campaign and engaged Daniele da Volterra to strategically paint fig leaves on the master’s fresco.

In the late 1980’s, Andres Serrano’s infamous Piss Christ, a photograph of a crucifix submerged in his urine, provoked wide ire in the US. Threats to end funding for the arts were captured in the congressional record. Almost at the same time, the opening at the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center, Robert Maplethorpe: The Perfect Moment photography exhibit resulted in the indictment of the center’s staff. Maplethorpe’s 1978 bathtub photo was just a warm-up for photos in the exhibit some called obscene and immoral.

Through the centuries, fig-leaf painting, threats to suspend funding, legal intimidation, press room closings, transmitter lockouts and website blocking were tools of the offended. With ubiquitous Internet access, expanding WiFi networks and more versatile mobile phones information, both comforting and offensive, everything will be increasingly available.

Is access to so much information a bad thing? Maybe a murky understanding of our universal right to have access to information and our lagging ability to absorb so much data should be our greater concerns.

How many chanting Muslim zealots in February 2006 brandishing banners threatening murder and beheading of Westerners actually saw the obscene and immoral Danish cartoons of the prophet Muhammad? As offensive as they may have been to our Islamic brethren, the cartoons unearthed unsettling contradictions in the use of Holy Scriptures about sending fellow global citizens to their eternal rest by bomb-laden “martyrs.” Without the continuous challenge of conflicting ideas, the skills to consume, judge and absorb new information condemns one to yesterday’s news.

With more than two centuries governed by a Bill of Rights that protects “the freedom of speech,” Americans have acquired some skill in juggling competing ideas. There is no protected right to cry “Fire!” in a crowded theater, but a freedom to speak one’s mind has provided a healthy, if at times uncomfortable, tension in the exchange of ideas. Comedian Stephen Colbert openly roasting (some would say ridiculing) our president, who sat less than 10 feet away, is an exercise of that freedom.

Freedom of speech means some of us may be offended with the burning of our national flag by protesters, but we are all compelled, offender and offended, to stand together to defend the right to do so.

So what will become of Gautham Prasad’s “Time to Get Sexy” YouTube video? In a globally-wired world, we do have choices on what information to consume. The YouTube hit rate for “Time to Get Sexy” stands at about 35,000. On the other hand, The YouTube video “World Freehand Circle Drawing Champion” that shows Alexander Overwijk drawing a perfect freehand circle one meter in diameter in less than a second has over 1 million hits. Let’s hope geometry does not offend any race, creed or religion.

Singapore – The Last Day

We closed our trip to Singapore with adventures to the Night Safari Zoo and a visit to Sentosa Island.

The Night Safari is a highly recommended evening outing. Opened in 1994, this nocturnal zoo gives visitors a chance to see wildlife after hours in well presented natural settings. The 45 minute Disneyesque Tram Ride is the marquee attraction of the park. It has comfortable seating on a slow moving tram that plies a park road system, providing opportunities to see “endearing antics” of elephants, giraffes, tapirs, lions, tigers but no bears. Oh my! A well-rehearsed accompanying guide offers commentary in enthusiastic hushed tones.

We found the Park Walking Trails provided a more relaxed and revealing viewing of different nightlife. We watched tiny mouse deer amble about on their spindly legs, marveled at enormous bats hanging upside down noshing on fresh watermelon, spied pacing hyena, bearded pigs, heavily tusked babirusa, stalking fishing cats (above) and espied the unusually stripped East African bongo (right).

The 30 minute Creatures of the Night Show was also very well executed. Held in the outdoor amphitheatre, educated park rangers engaged their furry and slithering evening colleagues in animal shows that both entertained and educated. Our “educated park ranger” was from New York…go figure.

Sentosa Island, formerly called Blakang Mati, is a heavily built-out theme park and luxury resort on a island that was formerly part of Singapore’s coastal defensive system. At our hotel, we signed up for an island tour that included bus service and a grey-haired Singaporean guide. Our guide unknowingly offered a glimpse into the cultural attitudes of Singapore. He stressed our “personal responsibility” to be on time for each designated departure and indicated that if we failed to execute punctuality we would simply be left to fend for ourselves. Needless to say, all in our group were punctual.

The tour first took us to a large indoor exhibition called the Images of Singapore. Here, images of the Chinese, Indian, Malay and European culture were shown in lifelike displays complete with life-sized wax figures. It was a pleasant experience.

We then toured Fort Siloso on the western tip of the island. Fort Siloso contains modern displays and the remnants of the British “defensive positions” from World War II. The eight day Japanese campaign of Singapore in February 1942 demonstrated that even the best laid plans may not be adequate. Almost as bookends to this era in island’s history, the Surrender Chamber display depicted the surrender of the British to the Japanese in February 1942 shown here and the surrender of the Japanese to the British in September 1945. Our day at Sentosa Island ended with a ride on the highwire cable car back to the main island.

It was then back to the hotel and off to the airport for our trip back home to Bangalore.

Singapore – Asia for Wimps

While touring Ha Long Bay in Vietnam, we met a British family who had been Singapore residents for 12 years. They lovingly referred to Singapore as “Asia for wimps” or simply “Asia lite.” After our recent trip to Singapore we would agree. Unlike our Bangalore home, which we lovingly sometimes call “planet chaos,” with its chaotic traffic, refuse clutter and swirling masses, Singapore is a gleaming, well-ordered city. With an orchid-filled airport, sleek subway system, orderly traffic flow, immaculately clean streets and upscale shopping malls we were far from the Asia we call home.

Singapore, at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, is a teeming small island state of 267 sq miles with a population of 4.5 million. For comparison, the state of Rhode Island is 1,200 sq miles and has a population of 1 million. The ancient history of Singapore is sketchy. Third century Chinese writings refer to Singapore as Pu-luo-chung (island at the end of a peninsula). In the 1300’s, Javanese accounts speak of the Chinese community at Temasek, Sea Town. By the close of the 14^th century, the Sanskrit name, Singapura (Lion City) was in common usage when referring to this island trading outpost.

With its strategic location in the southern end of the Straits of Malacca, Singapore was a prized possession for warring Malay, Javanese and Thai factions until the early 17^th century. When Sir Stamford Raffles founded Singapore in 1819 for the British East Indian Company, Singapore became a gem in the “empire” upon which the sun never set.

With the confluence of oceanic steam travel and the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, Singapore became a major coaling station and port of call along the European – East Asian travel routes. By the mid 19^th century Singapore had a population of 80,000, of which nearly 2/3 was Chinese, with smaller populations of Malay, Indians and European.

The historic influence of the Chinese culture is evident today. The population continues to be mainly Chinese, though English is the language in the city. Chinese and Malaysia signage and announcements are common in public places, however. The cuisine of the city is Asian and international. Dishes of noodle and duck vie for buyer attention along with Malay dishes of mee goreng (fried noodles) and menus from Burger King and Starbucks. The foundation of Chinese cooking is unmistakable. Where but Singapore can you can sit in an air- conditioned food mall and order from the Pig Organ Soup eatery?

Singapore appears peacefully at ease with its British history as well. The Raffles Hotel, in the old colonial district, is the premier prestige hotel in town. We stayed across the street at the more modern high-rise, Raffles the Plaza. The orderliness of centuries of Chinese culture and impeccable British etiquette has fused to form a land where littering and jaywalking are almost unknown. At intersections, people wait with resigned patience for the crossing signal to change to green…even if the street is void of any traffic! Queuing is common. Commerce fills the streets. Shopping malls on Orchard Road and elsewhere are overflowing with global goods. Among the western-like restaurants and boutiques, we found temples (both Buddhist and Hindu) and decidedly Asian street theater that provided the tug to remind us that we were still very far from home.