The service at the Taj

as always, is impeccable (except when arresting us for using the pool).

        Dear Mr.Pos ,

         The Management & Staff of The Taj Mahal Palace & Tower Mumbai   join me in extending to you our warmest wishes on your Birthday.  May this coming year be filled with all finest things for you & many more years to come.         

         Warm Regards,

         Payel Bhattacharjee

         Guest Relations Executive

         The Taj Mahal Palace & Tower,

         Mumbai-400001

         Tel: +91-22-66653366

         Fax: +91-22-66650300

         E-mail: payel.bhattacharjee@tajhotels.com

         Website: www.tajhotels.com 

Where's Alexander now?

Well briefly, I'm in Mumbai, with a day or two before flying to Sydney for a week. The last few months of my blog still have to be blogged - Delhi, Jaipur, Pushkar, Pune, Goa again and Mumbai. And of course general specials on hygiene, family relations in India and the like have to be written. Fear not, I have lots of notes and will continue to blog when I get home. Only then you can come round and see me.

So to the question 'where will I be', the answer is Sydney, doing an Arts Degree at the University of Sydney. Thanks to all who helped with my application. I'll be in Tasmania during February and I'm looking forwards to seeing you all then.

Birthday roundup

Congratulations on getting a year older to Edward, Rob, and in a few days, my Granny!

Nepal overview

Nepal is a lot more shanti than India. The people are more relaxed and friendly. Even the worst of the tourist areas, Thamel in Kathmandu, is a breeze after, say, pretty much any equivalent area in any Indian city. But it takes some adjustment to go from India to Nepal. In India, everything and everyone is larger than life. In Nepal things are much cooler, but less likely to happen unless you make them.

Here's a random quote from a blog that sums up my feelings on arriving in Kathmandu pretty well:

As we dumped our bags in our hotel room in Pokhara a member of staff asked if we wanted some 'welcome tea'. We looked at him suspiciously and asked how much and he laughed saying we must have come from India. He came back with the two teas saying 'Relax, your in Nepal now' and we have done just that.

When I first arrived I was still used to the Indian way of bargaining for things – aggressive, full of little tricks and plays (the walk-away is an old favourite), and kinda fun. In Nepal they will start with a price to high, then you give your price, then they will just smile, say no and wait. What for? They’re meant to come down in price, I come up, and we meet in the middle. Instead your price just goes up and up. In Nepal they charm you into paying too much.

Whether from lots of Western influence through NGO’s and tourism, or just the national character, people seem to be on the same page. In India, it can sometimes be like starting on different pages on different books on opposite ends of the library. Nepali's won’t start a conversation and ask how much you earn or enquire about your relationship status. The ubiquitous hawker’s call of “hello, hello” is replaced by “excuse me…”. Out of the cities everyone greets everyone with prayered hands and a namaste - you feel silly at first but then it's really nice, and people appreciate it.

While the cities, to be honest, are not that great after India, the countryside is wonderful. Beautiful, different everywhere you go (because of the steep terrain, you can walk through different climates in a few hours, and feel like you’re walking through different countries. People adapt to the different climates in different ways in a the same valley), often great views of the Himalayas (pronounced Himaalya, darlink). Plenty of cheap places to stop and stay while you wander around, and at least where I went, nowhere that’s too hard to go for the average person. Plus there are buses running everywhere.

Physically, Nepal is kind of like Tasmania, although more beautiful (although Tassie's temperate rainforest has it beat), except when it's being more beautiful than the south of France (and nearly always with the Himalayas soaring overhead). Nepali's have a lot of problems, but what with living in one of the most beautiful countries in the world, pound for pound they are probably one of the happiest people in the world. Even the animals look happy. And why not? They are living in Nepal.

(Actually, the above thought was scribbled down while watching lots of happy looking goats being driven around on motorcycles on the way up to Sarangkot. The next day turned out to be Dashain, the big goat-slaughtering festival. But goats look happy anywhere, I've discovered)

People are going to be angry at me for not going "trekking" - but I didn't want to have to buy all the gear, and then sell it when I was done. It's more fun with someone else, and when I was here the monsoon was still going on so you couldn't see much most of the time. Anyway, I did my equivalent - Alex trekking.

There’s a huge phwoar factor here too. Nepali women are immensely attractive. A lot of them dress in really eye-catching western clothes. Men dress in snappy western trousers and shirts, often with a topi and waistcoat. The older women and some younger dress in traditional Nepali clothes.

After roughing it in India, the tourists in Nepal seemed despicable to me at first. All clad in expensive gore-tex and hiking gear, humping their day-packs around the cities like they're on an expedition, flown straight in from America or France or Germany. And all so good looking and clean! Tourists in India are never clean.

Food is not that great – mostly Dal Baat, basically rice with vegetable curry, lentils and a papad. Every night. The tourist restaurants though, especially after India, are pretty amazing. And every hotel you go to in India seems to have a Nepali cook or two.

It seems everywhere you look in the countryside there’s an NGO project going on – millions of dollars get poured into Nepal every year - almost half the budget comes from foreign aid (and they need it – 45% of the country lives in poverty, there are terrible rates of education and health), and there are no taxes to speak of. Eventually some of the foreign aid sometimes gets to where it’s needed. Indologists, Tibetologists and even a few Nepalologists are thick on the ground researching Nepal’s customs, religions, languages and refugees.

Ethnically and culturally the people are a mix of Tibetans, Chinese and Indians (moving in stages from the Indian border in the south to the Tibetan border to the north). Religion is a mix of Hinduism and Buddhism. Caste is even more crazy (or less devolved than India has become - Nepal was only recently opened up to the west). Generally, a barber's daughter is going to get married to a barber's son.

Since the 60s there's been a slow cultural revolution going on - numerous 'dance bars', western shops and ideas have been introduced. Since the Communist rebels came to power (just before I arrived), a new sort of cultural revolution has been swinging things the other way - dance bars are still open but there are curfews and stricter policing. There are power cuts every day, even in Kathmandu.

The best thing regarding the Communists is to not mention the war. Nearly everyone asks you what you think of them, and the general consensus seems to be wait and see what they do (they might not be so corrupt as previous governments). I put my foot in it when I mentioned was in favour of them with one guy, who then told me how he had watched the Communists kill his mother as she got in the way of a gunfight (they were confiscating land held privately by a rich Nepali). Then another guy, who I was more reserved with, turned out to be the leader of the Youth Communists in his school. Things will be a lot less corrupt, he said, now that he had stacked the votes there. Animal Farm.

In general, the people are so trapped by the caste system (which has it's positives and negatives always) and a succession of corrupt governments that the catch-all phrase to any dissatisfying situation is a shrug and "what to do?" See, this post was actually a three-way pun!

Here's a pic of the new and old currency, with the King replaced by Mt. Everest.

That’s about all I can remember for now, there’s a lot to be said for writing things down immediately. But overall it’s a lovely place, the people are warm and friendly, and the countryside is beautiful. Whenever I see a Nepali in India I always share a smile and the few words of Nepali I picked up.

Maya's Nepali Recipes

Maya from Sarangkot.

Veg Pakora:

Mix chopped (thinly, or grated) firm veges (potato is good)
Add garlic, onion, chilli, coriander, yellow tumeric, salt & pepper, corn flour, masala mix
Roll into small patties with oiled hands
Fry in oil coming half way up patty until golden brown, turn.

Maya's Delicious Chutney

Veg oil in pan. Add pinch of cumin seed until brown.
Add onion and garlic (one spoon each) until brown
Add 2 or 3 chopped green chillies, salt, pepper & yellow tumeric
Add 2 or 3 chopped tomatoes (or mangoes, etc)
Cook 5 mins on medium heat
Season with coriander

Pokhara II - This time, it's personal

On that Sarangkot hillside, watching the crazy paragliders jump into nothing, I noticed a suitably impressive looking Swami. He was from India, travelling with his western students. He's a commercial swami (he has his own Myspace page!) and goes from Goa to Rishikesh to Pokhara, following his (lucrative) students around. Does he know Gosh, my uncle, who lives in a cave on a beach? Of course he does!

Back in Pokhara I went into a bookshop I had gone to before. The conversation had gone roughly like this:

Me browsing, bearded shopkeeper hovering.

Guy: Looking for anything?
Me: Just passing time
Guy: It's easy to pass time. Everyone here is just passing time [dissaprovingly]
Me, taking a book out, looking at it, then putting it back slightly out of place.
Guy: Put it back right, or don't take it out at all.
Me: Ok ok. Whistling innocently, trying to stay happy
Guy: Don't whistle. It may be ok in Western countries, but on the sub-continent it's very bad luck [I've checked this and haven't heard of it anywhere else].
Me, leaving: Thankyou.
Guy: Don't thank me... but I was out the door.

Unnecessarily grumpy shopkeepers fascinate me (hello Anton!), so I headed back for some more punishment. He seemed surprised that I'd come, we got talking, he shared his knowledge of a dozen languages, the books on yoga he was writing, his numerous students abroad, his trance music, and of course, Gosh. Is there an international fraternity of slightly strange western-orientated gurus?

So what did I do the rest of my time in Pokhara? I spent some time improving my pool game, particularly against two English guys. Whenever an Australian plays an English person, in any sport, it's the Ashes. And you get all the mental edge that implies - they are thinking 'Warney Warney Warney no matter what position we get ourselves in he will win oh no oh no'. You're thinking 'I can't lose to them at any cost, I can see the fear in their eyes', and the battle's half won. But it's not enough just to win - you have to be like Warney, bedevilling and befuddling the hapless Englishmen. You have to crush them mentally. No one speaks of it, but in the crowded corner of the pub, between you and them, it's the Ashes.

What else did I do? For some reason, I ended up overstaying my visa. It may have had something to do with a girl. I couldn't possibly comment.

Merry Christmas to everyone

Ho ho ho.

Vedic maths, Part 2

In the last lesson we learnt the basic vedic style for multiplication and addition - going from left to right. There are a few more developments on this later - but once you've got the trick it's very handy. When I'm bored I like to double numbers in my head: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024 etc. I get a lot further with this technique.

Anyway this lesson is just going to be some simple tricks you can do. Some are just common sense or you may know already.

Multiplication by 4, 8, 16, 20, 40 etc:

Doubling numbers is easy, so in multiplying a number, by say, 4, you just double the number twice (and again to multiply by 8).

In doubling, say, 152, it may be easier to split 152 into 15,2 and double 15 to 30 and 2 to 4, getting 304. This number splitting gets used a lot. Multiplying by 40, 800, you just double the right number of times and add the appropriate number of noughts. 17 x 40 = 17, 34, 68, 680.

Extending the multiplication table:

Say you want 14 x 18. You may not know this off the top of your head, but you may know that 7 x 9 = 63. Since 14 and 18 are double of 7 and 9 you can just double 63 twice: 126, 252. For 14 x 7, since 7 x 7 = 49, 14 x 7 = 98. for 17 x 14 you can either multiply 17 by 7 and double the result, or find 16 14's and add another 14 (238).

Multiplication by 5, 25, 50 etc:

Rather than multiplying a number by 5, you can just put a 0 onto the number and halve it (because half of 10 is 5). 44 x 5 = 440, 220. 27 x 50 = 2700, 1350. Using the number splitting above, an easy way to halve 2700 would be to split the number into 2,70,0 and halve the sections (1,35,0).

For multiplication by 25 you multiply by 100 and halve twice. 82 x 25 =8200, 4100, 2050. 181 x 25 = 18100 (18,10,0), 9050 (90,50), 4525.

Squaring numbers that end in 5:

Use the formula 'by one more than the one before'. For 75 squared, multiply the 7 by the next number up, 8. This gives 56 for the first part of the answer, and the last part is just 25 (5 squared). So 75 squared = 5625. 305 squared = 30 x 31 + 25 = 93025 (930,25).

Mumbai terror attacks - I'm ok

I got into Delhi last night.

There are approximately 150 million Muslims in India, and relations between the 80% Hindu population have been strained ever since partition. Muslims, on the whole, are treated rather badly here, and there have been periodic bouts of sectarian violence and reprisals on both sides. It seems one of Mumbai's outbursts of religion-fuelled violence has happened again.

Several groups started shooting, taking hostages, and lobbing grenades around popular spots in Mumbai. The heritage wing of the Taj Mahal Hotel (Mumbai's premier hotel, and where I stayed for my birthday) is on fire, Cafe Leopold's (a popular institution taken over by tourists, and where Shantaram was written) was attacked, as was the Metro theatre - a beautiful 1940s art deco cinema, the central train station, hospitals, and various other locations. Terrorists in various places were asking for British and American citizens.

The Indian Mujahaddin has claimed responsibility, which means it may be a while before I venture into the old (and more interesting) Muslim section of Delhi.

Update:

Added to this post, Metro Cinema is near where Pheroze lives, and I'll have to check back on the friendly Colaba cop when I get back.

Update 2:

And I believe Chabad House was where I celebrated Passover with the dead Rabbi and his family, some Israeli tourists and some Indian Jews (who have been here a long, long time).

Update 3:

Picture link one and two

Update 4:

Two sides of the Taj debate: tails (how I felt the first time I visited the Taj) and heads (how I felt after staying there)

To tide you over...

Here's a post from a great column (?) that is well worth adding to your feed reader. Or checking regularly, Mum.

My friend Jon from Bombay saw the Ganesh Chaturthi and Janmashthmi festivals in Bombay. During Janmashthmi, he said the man who broke the pot was about 30 feet up, and hung on the rope for a while before dropping into the crowd and disappearing from sight.