Coffee Nirvana

The venue for IITM (India International Travel Mart) event could not have been more apt. Set in the spacious grounds of Bangalore Palace, the summer home of the erstwhile ruler of Mysore, it exuded both royal comfort and verdant gardens that many urban dwellers desire. The huge garden in front of the palace was picturesque and so were the brochures that enticed the visitors and revealed how enchanting our country really is.

At the entrance, facing the beautiful lawns, were different types of horse drawn carriages, the automobiles of an early era. The exhibition stalls were set behind the Palace. Tickets were modestly priced Rs 20/- per head.

The stalls were huge and with many props that showcased the states’ attraction. While Andhra predictably put up a prop of the Charminar, Gujarat had a 4-winged frame in which each frame acted as a collage of attractions of a particular city. Kerala enticed both the elite and the backpackers. A set of stalls marketed affordable homestays while there were others which sold us dreams of luxury on a houseboat.

Karnataka’s section was designed after the Patadakkal temple. The Karnataka brochure encapsulated the state’s map & its attractions – beaches, waterfalls, culture, heritage, wildlife and adventure tourism – along with lists of travel agents and tour operators for the state.

Karnataka

The staff at the Puducherry (Pondicherry) stall handed me a brochure that showed that the place was more than just Aurobindo Ashram and Auroville. I knew that the city was mentioned in Sherlock Holmes stories but did not know that Man Booker prize winner -‘Life of PI’ – revolved around this city. A handy map of the city centre is also given in the brochure.

I also loved the stall Wandervogel who specialise in customised tours and adventure tourism in the North East and Ladakh.

There were also magazines like Travel Media, Safari Plus and World Travel to name a few. The international stalls in the exhibition were interesting – Jordan, Greece, Dubai and Thailand.

It was a head spinning time browsing at the various stalls. Busy Travel agents and tour operators flipped in and out of stalls. Small business operators, families and individuals like me were also a part of crowd. Looking at the number of people who thronged the exhibition, I wonder if  the recession’s over.

The diverse places, exotic holidays, adventures and leisure all contained in the handful of brochures, I walked out happily.

About the event

Bangalore: 18th – 20th July 2009

Venue: Bangalore Palace Grounds (from the entrance opp. Mount Carmel College)

Tickets: Rs 20/- per head.

Website: http://www.iitmindia.com/

“In this water, I invoke the presence of divine waters from the rivers Ganga, Yamuna, Godavari, Saraswati, Narmada, Sindhu and Kaveri”

As a kid, I have heard my father recite this shloka (hymn) everyday before he took a bath. However, I had hardly realised the importance of this Vedic hymn at that time.

Rivers are an important source for the development of any community. Around the world, almost every famous city in the past or present are by the banks of a river. In India, we consider all our rivers as divine and worship them. Even the word ‘India’ is derived from  the  word ‘Indus’ or ‘Sindhu’.

As I grew older, from the school’s social studies curriculum I learnt that the Indus Valley civilizations – Harappa and Mohenjodaro – lie in Pakistan. My knowledge of the region was also very vague. I knew that their big cities like Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad were similar to our cities and the rest , I assumed, consisted of feudal gun-toting tribesmen. That was before I read this book.

I bought Alice’s book since I had been told that it was a ‘best seller’ in the travel category. The book chronicles her Indus river journey and describes in detail the history, culture and important events that took place on the banks of this ancient river. As a historian and traveller, Alice leads one through different periods of history and its significance to the sacred Sindhu River – the bedrock of our very ancient civilization.

In the initial chapters one learns the importance of Pakistan’s low caste Hindus (Shudras) who keep the sewers clean in the fabric of Pakistan’s society. The chapter then describes the period of vivisection of India and Pakistan and reveals the stories of the refugees. At this stage, it did not speak much about the river itself. However, as one reads further, it becomes quite clear on what Alice is trying to achieve. She provides the socio-political events as a context to explain its impact on the Indus. Going through the travails of Sindh, the follies of the British and the power struggle in present Pakistan government, the tale is so absorbing that one feels that he is a silent spectator during the Pakistan’s  evolution.

Her journey is in reality as a set of travelogues interspersed with history. The volume of her travels is so huge that each chapter can become a story by itself. Whether it’s the rise of Sikhism or Buddhism or Islam on the banks of the river or the conquests of Alexander or Ghazni, the river becomes an important backbone to every tale.

Until she explained the similarities between Islam and Buddhism – intense religious learning, non-idolatry worship– one could have never believed that such a concept can exist. Swat, a place that has become a victim to Taliban was once known as Uddiyana, an ancient thoroughfare of trans-Asian Silk Road. This and many other similar facts unfolds the roots to early Vedic and Buddhist history of India. In fact, if  the Taliban had read this book they would never have destroyed the huge carving of Maitreya Buddha in Swat.

The famous Alexander and Puru’s battle on the banks of Indus has been often told with glorification of either of the great Kings. A much distorted (read Americanised) Hollywood movie, where Alexander speaks with a North American accent, was released a few years back. To understand the actual facts on how Alexander met his match at the Indus river and used his military tactics to defeat Puru’s huge army is a captivating tale in this book.

The migration of early Vedic civilizations from the Indus to the banks of Ganga, a more fertile region, the tempting but unsubstantiated claim of the Aryan-Dravidian theory and the distorted theory that the Aryans were early migrants from Europe depict the extent of research that has been done for the book.

As she travels further north into the vast spaces of Tibet and Ladakh in her quest to seek the source of Indus, civilizations and cultures are left behind and the river and the landscape takes over. The Indus is Senge Tsampo (Lion’s mouth) here, her guides are Drokpas, the terrain are mountains and valleys.  The last few pages narrate the end of her journey, to the source of a river that was known as ‘Saaransh’ (flowing for ever) in the ancient Vedas, and ends with a warning that the river might be ‘dammed out of existence’ due to man’s costly mistakes.

You can’t read this book in a day. Nor can you finish reading it just one time. Close the book now. I can guarantee that you’ll reopen it; maybe to read about a tribe or history of a conqueror or life of a Wajiristan’s tribal or about the ‘older than vedic age’ and yet surviving Kalash culture or about the Indus river herself. Awards or no awards, its a very spellbinding tale of a river that gave a name – India – to our country.

(Image courtesy: Wikipedia)

‘Sikh student becomes 20th Indian victim in Oz’, ‘Aussie teens try to cut Sikh youth’s hair’ announced today’s newspaper. But what caught my eye in yet another repetitive news clip about the Oz ‘racism’ attacks was the word ‘Dandenong Station’ and a ‘Singh’.

Dandenong is a place that I have been to and know very well. I was sent to work in the General Motors (GM) office in Dandenong for a few months. Every morning, I took a train from Flinders Station to this far-off suburb. The suburb is nearly an hour’s journey on train from the city. At the Dandenong station, it was another 15 minute taxi ride to the GM office in Dandenong Industrial zone. As you ride out of Dandenong town, you can see the factories or ware houses in the industrial zone that borders the town. Dandenong once thrived due to automobile economy.

Then as the auto slump happened, the factories were shifted to China; the warehouses either closed or just have a token presence here. Scores of factory workers were displaced. An Aussie colleague told me that this was huge impact on the locals and the living standards declined. If you take a train from Dandenong to the city on a friday evening or in the weekends, you can see the antics of alcohol induced morons who take the train back home.

However, the suburb has also got a strong South Asian presence. Like any other suburb of big cities, the cost of living is cheaper here and the immigrant community thrives on small businesses. Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Indians all have storefronts that have names like ‘Taj Mahal’, ‘Zamzam’, ‘Kohinoor’ etc that cater to every Indian need. GM’s canteen was not very vegetarian friendly. So I used to frequent one of the hotels in Dandenong town for a much needed masala dosa or a channa masala, especially on fridays, when work was low.

In Oz, most of the Indian taxi cab drivers are Sikhs or Punjabis; the other huge community, the Telugu speaking Andhra students prefer manning the stores. Many Punjabis who come to study here also have a motive of settling in Australia. A ‘resident’ status for a Punjabi is an obsession. I once met a friendly Punjabi who joked, “If it was declared that Punjabis do not need visas to go abroad, the entire Punjab will become empty in a day”. They work in night shifts, drive cabs on weekends all in the process of making money for their living expenses and also for residency application fees.

The life of an International student is quite tough. The business of ‘education’ is quite cruel as it lures International students by marketing the country’s ‘standard of living’. They have to take up odd jobs to make ends meet.  An andhrite once told me, “After spending much money(read dollars) on an MBA, why would I go back to India?”. Makes sense.

But a racist attack in Dandenong is very surprising considering that the strong South Asian population here. Though the teens are noisy and boisterous on trains or in cabs, I hadn’t expected them to be racist in Melbourne. In fact I felt more alienated by my own very ‘Indian’ project team than any white Aussie however drunk he may be. But then I never travelled beyond 9 pm.

I  have frequently heard that Indians or Chinese are attacked as they are ‘soft’ targets in all Western countries like the US, the UK, Germany and also in the ‘eastern’ Australia and ‘New Zealand’. What’s surprising is its coverage now in Indian media. Why has it woken up now? Is it because of ‘racism’ in Cricket? The Indian Media bristles at every Aussie jibe on the Indian team. Maybe now they are ‘giving it back’?

Whatever the reason maybe, it has worked well. Australia has now woken up to this problem. It might not be always ‘racist’ as the media suggests, but the bad press has made Australia try to curb this problem.

Ending on a lighter note, a tip for all the Indian journos out there – try the ‘masala dosa’ in Dandenong restaurants. Best I ever had in Australia.