The Russian artist who put Bali on the world map

Walter Spies, a primitivist painter, who was born and raised in Moscow, is a celebrated figure in the artists’ haven of Ubud and is credited with attracting Western cultural figures to Balinese art and culture in the 1930s.

Read more here

5 offbeat winter destinations in Russia for Indians

Of late, I have been hearing from a lot of intrepid Indian travellers that they’ve had their fair share of Moscow and St. Petersburg.The two cities are no longer considered exotic enough for those with wanderlust, but this is not a problem.  Russia is by far the largest country in the world and there is so much more to the country than its most famous cities.

Read more here

Interesting Buddhist sites in Moscow

Whether you're a practitioner of Theravada, Zen, Mahayana or even "European" Buddhism, Moscow has a place for you. Read my article on Buddhist sites in Moscow here.

An article about my first winter in Russia

Before moving to the Russian Far East in 2003, I had experienced snow, both in the United States as a child and as an adult when I trekked in the Himalayas in India and Nepal. However those experiences could not possibly prepare me for my first winter in Sakhalin.

Read more here

Political correctness is not a forte in Indonesia

While having lunch at my favourite vegan cafe in Ubud, a group of three tourists walked in. Two of them were from the UK and the third was from the US.

The American looked like she was of Chinese heritage, but she seemed to have some stereotypical American behavioural issues. At the next table, she was either (loudly) slamming the local Balinese or talking about them in a patronising manner. She kept using the word "like" ever so often. This was an American girl who wanted to be accepted as one, and with a superiority complex when it came to others with Mongoloid features. I could make this out by her comments and tone of voice.

The friendly and innocent waiter at the cafe asked the group where they were from and when the American can said she's from California, he replied that she looked Asian. The girl, visibly upset, said that her parents were from Asia.  She grew a lot quieter after that incident. I am sure the waiter would not have passed that comment if he knew how he would be striking a nerve.

A humble request from the Balinese to India

Yesterday, at a small cafe, I had a conversation with a man who owns several properties in Ubud.  The man has visited India on many occasions, and his main purpose is to collect water from the Ganga, which is considered holy for the Balinese as well.

He said the filth of the Ganga in Varanasi is heart-breaking. "You need to remember that the Ganga is the holy river for Hindus around the world, and not just Indians," he said. "Please do something to protect our mother."

Almost every Balinese person dreams of visiting the "motherland." I guess they take the rigours of India in their stride, the way Buddhists do when they visit their religious sites in Bihar and UP. 

A novel way to stop wastage of electricity in Indonesia

Here in Ubud, people are very cautious about the way they use electricity. Lights are switched off when no one is in a room, people don't leave TVs on stand-by mode and adopt many measures to save electricity.

I have been told that this is largely because of a novel initiative that I think should be replicated around Asia. Consumer have a prepaid system for electricity units. So, if the unit balance is zero, the power shuts down immediately. People check their meters regularly to see that they have enough credit!

I honestly think this is a brilliant system! Imagine if such discipline was brought to India. We'd be much better off. 

Ubud, Bali: A vegetarian's dream come true

Ever since I gave up meat in May, I have understood what kind of struggles vegetarians have to undergo when travelling. At times, it has taken an extra effort to find decent vegetarian food. In Ubud, you get wonderful vegan and vegetarian food.

I have been relishing my vegetarian sate with tofu, mushrooms and tempe. There's also great nasi campur, nani goring and mie goring, all vegan! This can be attributed to the strong yoga, new age and Hindu and Buddhist movements here, that are the contribution of western tourists.

I somehow feel that this paradise island has preserved the best of Hinduism. 

Visa on arrival for Indians in Indonesia

The Indonesian government has decided to lift the $35 visa fee for visitors from India. Now, you get a free 30-day entry stamp at the border.  This is a nice way to start a trip to this wonderful country.

Although I have to add that I had my first ever major run-in with customs. They made me open my bag and had a laundry list of idiotic questions. They even took a swab for a drug test and then took a copy of my passport and wanted the name and the website of the company I work for!

Obviously I was clean and they apologised for taking up my time, but really, Indonesia needs to develop better intelligence to catch drug smugglers. They were pulling out random males for the checks, irrespective of nationality. 

Brilliant strategy by Malaysia Airlines for Bombay!

Most international flights out of India depart at night. So, flying overseas is bound to give you a red eye and a loss of a night's sleep. One of the few exceptions to this rule was Malaysia Airlines, which had a flight that departed from Bombay to Kuala Lumpur at 12:45 pm.  The flight would land in KL at 8:00 pm. It was super convenient and I looked forward to taking the flight.

Now, the geniuses cancelled that flight and pushed it to 2 am! The result, as I was to find out, was an empty plane. The afternoon flight was always full as many people took an onward connection to Australia. The red-eye was empty. Yes, I did manage to get sleep but it's never nice to fly at night.  I am sure that the airline will run into further losses with the shifting of the flight. They say they did this to reduce waiting time for transit passengers. Except that there are hardly any
passengers- transit or non-transit.

Give me back that 12:45 pm flight!

Soviet films in languages from the republics

One common compliant that one often hears from citizens of countries that were part of the Soviet Union is that the Russians attempted to kill their languages. This may be partly true, but I was recently introduced to a couple of Soviet classics that were either partly in Russian or not in Russian at all.

The first one is Mimino- a film about a Georgian pilot. Part of the film is in Georgian and part in Russian. It gives the viewer a rare glimpse into rural life in Soviet Georgia. It's a comedy and also shows early 1970s Moscow.  It has the famous Georgian song Chito Grito.

Another film I watched was is in the Ukrainian Hutsul language. Тiнi забутих предкiв (Shadows of our forgotten ancestors) is a bizarre, violent and gory film, but at the same time is a visual delight and one of the best films to ever come out of the USSR.

The film is based on a book by Ukrainian writer Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky.  I was fascinated to see a resemblance in customs, clothes and music of the residents of the Carpathian mountains and those who live in remote villages in Himachal Pradesh. I'd love to do some research and establish a connection.   

Beware of excessive smiling

A lot more people smile at strangers now in Moscow. These are genuine and sincere smiles, partly stemming from the fact that the Russian capital is a far more liveable city with much better standards of living than it has ever had.

But then I am a bit cautious about people who smile too much. On a cold Saturday night, I take the metro and there is this odd couple smiling at me. I get the feeling that these two cartoon characters are drunk. One of them is dressed in a suit, but wearing black sneakers and the other in a funny t-shirt.  Suddenly they burst out in laughter over god only knows what!

One of them offers a woman a place to sit and then tries to pick her up. She politely refuses. They laugh even louder and then hug each other and leave the train at the next station. They're not gay. Any public display of gay affection in Moscow will be met with disgust, aggression and even violence. When Russian men get drunk, they become extremely affectionate! 

Vika podruga

Podruga means girlfriend, not in the romantic sense, but as a feminine form of friend.

Meet Vika, the kind of eccentric Muscovite who is in every girl's circle in this city. 37, with a young face and a very good body, Vika has managed to escape the horrors of ageing that many Russian women fall prey to, well before they should.

Vika meets the beautician at 8 pm, so that she looks her best before going to her ex-boyfriend's house to return the keys and take her clothes and other stuff. During the week, she got her teeth artificially whitened, pondered over botox and even thought my landlady has the kind of nose and lips she could get after relatively inexpensive surgeries!

"Don't wear such long heels Vika," my landlady tells her, describing how her body looks disproportionate on account of the heels. "Give Ajay the keys and ask him to return them and collect your stuff," she adds. "Tell your ex that he is an Indian millionaire, who is madly in love with you." I suspected that this could backfire on me and her ex may attack me physically!

The idea is dropped. Vika cries, smokes and has 2 shots of delicious Ukrainian cognac and eats a few pieces of chocolate. The body is perfect, but the biological clock is running out, and she is back in a shared apartment with 3 lonely women! Autumn is giving way to winter. It would be too premature to say that her life is in a late-autumn stage.

I hope Vika finds a good man. Unlike popular misconceptions, Moscow is full of wonderful, intelligent, sophisticated and well-groomed men. Surely, Vika can find a good man, but she has to let go of the ex and not turn to surgeries and cognac. A few nights of good sleep and those captivating aqua blue eyes and her striking black hair would attract their share of nice men. 

Hard days for the Roerich Museum in Moscow

Few Russians symbolise the strong bonds between Russia and India the way Nicholas Roerich does. The great painter, writer, philosopher and mystic was a great scholar of Hinduism and Buddhism and his works were greatly influenced by Indian philosophies.

He was also the first artist to paint the Himalayas, and he captured them at a time when they were way more remote and inaccessible.  Nicholas Roerich died in Kulu in 1947.

Thanks to his sons Yuri and Svetoslav, a large number of his masterpieces were brought to Moscow and are displayed at a museum in the heart of the Russian capital. This museum is housed in a beautiful mansion next to the Pushkin Museum of Arts. It gets no state support and there is growing pressure from the land mafia to evict the museum from the building, which is worth millions of dollars. 

The staff at the museum look stressed but lovingly maintain the museum, even though I suspect that they have not been paid their salaries in a long time. 

Seeing the Buddhist stupa in the museum's courtyard and observing the great works of this master, who was responsible for the Roerich Pact, I feel a great sense of unease when I think that the museum may be forcibly relocated. The museum also does not have enough money to maintain the great paintings and recently the museum director and one of India's best friends in Moscow - Lyudmila Shaposhnikova passed away (she was in her 80s). 

It's also a shame that a great man like Roerich is hardly known in Russia, except by the intelligentsia. Given the way things work in Russia, I would not be surprised to see the museum relocated, although I hope it manages to survive in its current venue.

I quote from the Russia & India Report

"Nicholas Roerich is remembered around world as an advocate of the arts and culture and as a man who initiated the Roerich pact for the protection of artistic and academic institutions and historical sites. He left behind some seven thousand paintings and dozens of books and essays. The Moscow Roerich museum offers a captivating look at his life and legacy."

Moscow needs more public toilets!

Moscow is more or less spotlessly clean and in this season, full of the wonderful aromas of autumn... The last thing I would ever do is to take a leak in the open, but public toilets are so few and far between. A few days ago, we managed to spot one near the Christ the Saviour Cathedral. It cost 50 roubles (around 80 cents)! This is expensive by Moscow standards, but it was absolutely clean.

I wonder what happens when people get drunk on Friday nights and just have to pee!  

Cultured Moscow

The classical music, theatre and ballet season is under way in this city. There is just an abundance of programs on any given day, but this comes with a Catch 22. Tickets are next to impossible to get unless you buy them many days in advance. When it comes to the Bolshoi Theatre, try three months in advance!

It's disheartening to see plays of Chekhov, Stanislavsky and other giants of Russian culture, all sold out for the next few weeks. The same goes with classical music concerts.

At least, the weather is still fantabulous!  

My first ever personal encounter with 'Gastarbeiters'

For years, I have heard from friends about how there are too many people from the former Soviet states in Russia. Central Asians all get classified as Tajiks.  I see a lot more of them in smaller towns in Russia, although the ruble fall has led to an exodus out of Moscow and back home for many of them.

Yesterday morning I was horrified to see that the dirty water from my kitchen sink was heading straight to the bathtub! When I called my landlady for help, she said she would let the Moscow housing department know, since such work is covered under her utility bills.

Within 20 minutes, two Tajiks turned up at my apartment. Incredibly nosy, they started asking me if I was involved with my landlady.  Then one of them proposes to her! They both claim to have 2 wives a piece, but still fancy the Ukrainian woman who owns my flat.

They look at everything in the apartment and finally fix this awkward problem. Then they demand 1000 rubles! They get a fixed salary from the Moscow Government but insist that these are their charges. My landlady pays them and tells me that these people won't work otherwise. She says they earn close to 15,000 roubles a day in black money, which is shared with some people in power in Moscow and of course with police that stop them for document checks.  These guys are of course legal, since the Moscow administration hired them, but they are happy to pay the cops and go on with their illegal activities. 

Images from Moscow

After its 2-year beautification, I must say that Moscow is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Here are some pics.

Drunk Central Asian on the metro

Over the last fortnight, I have been using the Moscow metro every single day and have felt absolutely safe.  There was one small incident though, yesterday, which is actually funnier than it is scary.

It's a long held stereotype in Russia that Asians cannot hold their drink. As I was heading home on Sunday night,  I heard someone screaming in Russian. I could make out from the accent that the person was not a native Russian speaker. The man in question was a Central Asian in his 20s. He was piss drunk and was creating a racket. One passenger pressed a button to alert the driver that there was a problem, but no policeman showed up as the train passed three stations.

Then a big and strong Russian man entered the wagon and told the drunk to sit and shut up.  When he started shouting again, the man grabbed his arm and was ready to throw him out at the next station, but the drunk begged him not to.  Finally the drunk and the strong man both got off at the same station as I did.

Russians are much better at holding their drinks, although in the past I have seen worse.

Long escalators in the Moscow metro

The best way to people-watch in this city is to travel on its extensive metro network. Of course, eye contact is still a bit taboo here, although people tend to smile more and do look a lot more relaxed and happier.

The best way to see every single person in Moscow is while going up and down the incredibly long escalators at metro stations. Heading up or down in the opposite direction is the intellectual 50-year old with the beard, the excited college student from Penza, the sports coach, the bureaucrat with an iron face, the pensioner, the fashionista, the kissing couples (a rarer site these days), the Uzbek labourer, fashionable young man wearing an expensive suit and reading a paper on his iPad... 

Being trained by a champ

The icy winds of autumn were blowing as I ran this morning. An old and super-fit person passed me by and told me that I needed to lose quite a bit of weight. I laughed and told him that I was up at 5 am and running at sunrise for that very purpose.

He then told me that I was not running the right way and that my feet weren't landing the way they should. So, the conversation went on, and I found out that he is 68 years old, going on 30.  He said he was a national level athlete in the Soviet Union and now lived alone, since he wife passed away.

The wonderful gentleman offered to train me over the next few weeks! How much luckier can I get!  

Me, the elder statesman?

It takes a lot of getting used to when it comes to accepting the fact that I am not really that young anymore. Ten years ago, I had a fiery temper and thanks to a New York upbringing, I'd never back away from a confrontation.  That along with my hot Malayali blood, made me a good candidate at making a bad situation worse.

So, here we were on a lovely autumn night in Moscow, by the Mayakovsky Square. The city authorities constructed many swings in the square and this has made the place very popular among young people and couples.

We waited patiently for our turns to use the swings and when the first one was vacant, we sat. But within a few seconds, a young man behind us started hurling obscenities at us. He said we didn't take his permission and that his fiancee and him were still using the swing.  When my friend responded, this thug started hurling more obscenities. I saw the fire in my younger friend's eyes and I am pretty sure he would have knocked out that idiot. This is when I intervened and told him in English that this moron wasn't worth it. I gently pulled away my friend. Ten years ago, I'd have backed up my friend and decked this worthless waste of a human life, but yes.. age has taught me..

Within another few minutes, the fool got into a fight with another group and they escorted him away.  I feel sorry for the young woman who will marry this man. But then again, many women love jerks! It's their way of rebelling against their fathers.. 

Unlucky Moscow women

I am just amazed with how many incredibly beautiful women there are in this city.  They're not just beautiful.. They are articulate, well-groomed and confident!  In other places, where such beauty is not as common, women have it easier.  But in Moscow, they have such intense competition between each other and a lesser number of men, because of Russian demographics..

Of course, I am not complaining..

My article on the Russian harvest season

September is the most beautiful month in Russia, with the combination of early autumn and a harvest.

I shared my experiences of being a part-time farmer in my Russia & India Report blog. 

I may have found the solution to my fluctuating weight problem

A month ago, when I met two friends in Sakhalin, they looked at each other and laughed. They weren't laughing at me in the strictest sense, but instead were thinking of a bet they made earlier in the day- "Will we see a thin version or a fat version of Ajay?" Apparently, neither of them won the bet since I was a medium version of myself.

I have gone from being overweight to the point my rib cage hurts to being a marathoner and cross country skier. My weight changes with where I live.  In Russia or Hong Kong, I am usually leaner and more energetic and in Bombay, I gain all the precious weight I lost, back.

So, what's the connection with the city and excess weight? It may just have to do with my mother's wonderful cooking, but maybe not. When I am home, I am comfortable, very comfortable. I turn into a couch-potato editor and writer. The most relaxing position helps me concentrate better, or so i thought until I watched a webinar about metabolism.

There were 4 interesting points:

1) Sitting causes weight gain, so the longer I sat, the less calories I burn

2) Walking 30 minutes in the sun regulates weight- I can easily manage this

3) Processed foods and vegetable oils cause weight gain-- I will stock to olive and coconut oil.

4) Blue light! That's right. Light from computers, televisions etc after dark, apparently causes weight gain - I need to find anti-blue light glasses when I use computers after sunset.

I honestly believe though that the key to releasing weight is standing. For the last four days, I have been writing and editing while standing. It's too early to comment on the results since I am not obsessive when it comes to checking my weight. The person who conducted the webinar also said that people should stand while using public transport- another great idea.

There's been a lot of medical research on standing. This article from the Daily Mail cites Dr Mike Loosemore from the Institute of Sport, Exercise and Health as saying that standing three hours a day every year is equivalent to running 10 marathons!

Another article based on a study says standers burn 50 more calories per hour than sitters. Say I stand for 5 hours a day, 5 days a week, that would mean burning 1250 extra calories a week, and this almost adds up to 1 kilogram a month. So, in a year, it means 12 kgs are off my system.  I will gladly take this..

Note: I wrote this post while standing. 

Sunday Night Jazz

It's a warm August night and the monsoons seem to have vanished almost completely. The signs are ominous that the inefficient and corrupt municipal authorities are going to impose water supply cuts.  If the monsoons don't make a comeback soon, we're headed for water cuts right upto next July!

Ah, but I couldn't care less this evening, as I listen Thelonious Monk's 'A Monk's Dream.' It is only the present moment that counts. After all, this moment is all we have.  The lovely music raises my vibration and I feel relaxed and free of monsoon-related and other worries.

Now, if only I could stretch this evening out for a few extra hours! 

Indian large-heartedness when it comes to refugees

When India became independent in 1947, it had an adult literacy rate of 16 percent and a poverty rate of 90 percent.

In the 1950s, the country was already overcrowded and had scarce resources, but despite all these factors, took in hundreds of thousands of Tibetan refugees. There were no complaints or protests from anyone about the fact that so many refugees were coming to live in a poor country.  The Tibetan community has thrived in exile in India, with little help from the Indian public or government.

In 1971, when there was a genocide in East Pakistan, 10 million refugees came to India, and this prompted many people to go to West Bengal and set up relief camps and help these people.

Compare this reaction to European politicians and the media. I agree that not every single migrant arriving on European shores is a refugee fleeing conflict, but then again, the racist language and rhetoric against genuine refugees is just sickening. 

World's first solar energy-powered airport: Kudos to Kochi!

In a state that is often starved of good news, this is something that we can all be proud of.

Kochi's Nedumbassery Airport is the first in the world that is powered entirely by solar energy.  The airport will recover the cost of installing solar panels within 6 years and the panels have a shelf-life of 30 years. Apparently, the carbon emissions saved is equal to the planting of 3 million trees!  This is a wonderful initiative from Kochi, and should be implemented across India.

The country is blessed with strong sunshine for most of the year and this is an asset that we need to make full use of.

I strongly believe that one of the paths to prosperity is going green and using clean and renewable energy. 

Hong Kong: The cost of success and development

It was a lovely summer Saturday night in Asia's World City, and I was enjoying a drink with a friend in a bar in Hong Kong Central, which had a view to die for.

As I praised the city and its infrastructure and friendly people, my Hong Konger friend asked me to turn around and look at the HSBC building. He said there were less people working there at this time because it was a Saturday, but five days a week, I'd see people there and in many other offices even at 11 pm.

12-hour working days are a norm in Hong Kong since it's just the way things are done! An expat couple I spoke to said they were also thrown into this rat race from day one and slept properly only on weekends! Finally, one of them managed to switch to free lancing, while the other somehow found a lower paying job that involved somewhat normal hours.

Hong Kong has the best infrastructure in all of Asia, and this includes great public transport. On top of this, the city is surrounded by nature. It's a great place to live, but to enjoy these facilities, you have to give up a lot in terms of time and work. 

Flying on MH370's route

A year before Malaysia Airlines Flight MH 370 vanished, I flew to Beijing via Kuala Lumpur on the same airline but took a different flight. As always, the food, in-flight entertainment and service were great and I enjoyed the flight immensely, excited about a friend's wedding that I was going to attend in the Hebei province. 

The fact that MH 370 vanished and that there is still no plausible explanation for what happened still disturbs me. Last month, I flew from Kuala Lumpur to Hong Kong. The flight takes the same route north across the South China Sea and into Vietnam and further north. As the aircraft was over the small stretch of water before Vietnam, there was an incredible amount of turbulence and all sorts of unpleasant thoughts crossed my mind. 

When the plane reached Vietnamese air space, I was actually relieved. An accident can take place on any airline so I will not stop flying one of my favourite airlines, but still...

Images from my Beautiful Sakhalin Island

Here are some pictures from Sakhalin

When Vladivostok Sleeps

Here are some images of Vladivostok, taken after midnight.

My Turkish friends and the Armenian genocide

It was warm evening in 2012 in the Italian town of Siena that the topic of the massacre of over a million Armenians (1915-1918) by the Ottoman Empire came up. A Turkish friend of mine, who represented all the fine qualities that a young man educated in the country possess, was agitated. He insisted that there was no genocide and that many Turks and Armenians died in a civil war that broke out. Since he was losing control of his emotions and we were, after all, just students enjoying a Tuscan summer, I changed the topic.

A year and a half later, I had the opportunity of visiting Turkey, a country I completely fell in love with at first sight. The flat I rented in the Beyoglu area of Istanbul was right next to an Armenian Church. There were still some people in the city who were parishioners.

My young and lovely landlady told me that the building and the flat were once inhabited by Armenians, who were then marched off to the desert in Syria. She said her grandfather recounted the tales of the expulsion, and that she would risk a jail sentence to say publicly that this was a genocide.

This girl is a secular Turk who admires the legacy of Attaturk but refuses to idolise him.

Realising that I may be slightly putting her in an uncomfortable position, I wanted to change the topic, but she persisted and talked about how there was still some hostility in the country towards its minuscule Armenian minority, who some hated as much as they did the Kurds.

She went on to tell me that many saw the expulsion of the Armenians from Istanbul as a great chance to seize their property. The very flat I was renting was occupied by poor Turks who guarded it with knives from other possible encroachers. This reminded me of what happened to many homes of Hindus and Sikhs in Lahore after the city fell on the wrong side of the Radcliffe Line.

As someone who loves modern Turkey, I really think the country must accept that the massacres did take place around the First World War and that they very much constituted genocide. In all fairness, the government in Ankara said it wants to invite scholars from all over the world and open up all the archives and let them reach a conclusion. This is something that the government of Armenia must accept.

Back on board

My popular column on the Russia & India Report is back. I'll try and write a few times a month there, given how much good feedback I am getting. 

Another world

I love public holidays in this city, especially when there is a flurry of them leading to a long weekend.  Bombay actually looks it was meant to be. A reasonably populated city where you can walk without bumping into 200 people.

There is a wonderful calm in the city and thanks to the dramatic reduction in traffic, the air is so much cleaner.

Here's to this 4-day weekend in the city! 

A journey of 42.195 kms

I have successfully run 2 marathons in my life, with timings that are nothing to write home about. Although I trained reasonably well for both of them with a focussed diet being the mainstay of the second attempt, I know deep down that I could have trained much better and as a result performed better.  So here I am, attempting to train for marathon number 3. 

This time, I am going to spend a greater part of a year in the training process and set my sights on Rome 2016.  The run is in March, when the weather is gorgeous in the Eternal City. I want to slowly pick up the pace in my training and be super-fit on the day of the run. This really means a detailed plan over the course of 11 months to be in the kind of shape that I have never been in. 

The closer I get to 40, the tougher it gets to be able to finish a marathon in less than 4 hours. So here goes... I am going to give it my all  :) 

Forza Roma!

The two most wonderful months of the year in Bombay

Most people dread the thought of April and May in Bombay. The high humidity levels scare a lot of people away.

I love the city in its two "summer" months. The days are longer, the trees flower and best of all, it's mango season.

The schools are shut, so there's far less traffic on the roads. Many families also take off for the season, making the city feel emptier.

Bring on April! 

German Autumn by Stig Dagerman

I remember how horrified I was when I was taught about the Holocaust. I was 11 at that time and my wonderful history teacher not only explained what happened but showed us some documentaries and played some audio tapes of survivors.

Naturally, we were made to believe that the entire German nation supported both the Nazi regime as well as the policy of sending Jews to concentration camps. There were lessons on the Nuremburg trials and the punishment handed out to those who operated the death camps.

I was also made to believe that in a defeated and divided Germany that people immediately shunned the ideas of the previous regime.  I carried this thinking right up to my adult life, until a conversation a few years that began on a much lighter note.

I was living in Bangalore at that time and had a German friend. While an auto driver tried to rip us off one night, we refused to pay and the man in a fit of anger called us “bloody North Indians.” The assumption was that my German friend, with his dark black hair, was a light-skinned Indian from Kashmir or Punjab.

When I met his mother who also has jet black hair and recounted this incident, she said the reason they had black hair was that her biological father was a Hawaiian GI who served in Germany, but left soon after the war. 

She then spoke about how grateful she was that her mother’s husband accepted her. In those days, “children of the enemy” were looked upon as virtual untouchables. As our conversation went on, she gave me a glimpse of life in post-war Germany.

Stig Dagerman, one of Sweden’s greatest writers and journalists, was in Germany as a correspondent for a Swedish paper in the autumn of 1946.  The articles, he wrote, were compiled into a book titled ‘German Autumn.’ His approach to reporting what he witnessed was thoroughly professional and at the same time he showed a great degree of compassion.

He was disturbed by the way Western journalists wrote judgmental and triumphalist articles about the German people. He called out those who asked a starving family if they were happier in the Nazi days. Of course, a person who is under the worst duress would answer in the affirmative.

What touched me most about the writing is the fact that he did not look at rubbing in the suffering of the German people. He writes that suffering is suffering whether deserved or undeserved and his compassion purely came from seeing that people were suffering.

Dagerman who was in his mid-20s at that time, vividly captures the occurrences of the time, including the way Bavaria was deporting people to other parts of Germany and how poor women were throwing themselves at Allied soldiers and journalists. He also noted how some former Nazis with a dark past managed to thrive under the new system.

The book is probably the best account of immediate post-war Germany ever written.  It also helps the reader become less judgmental of an entire nation.  I can’t help but agree that suffering, whether deserved or not, hurts and that we all need to be compassionate. 

Hike to Tatsang Monastery

The Tiger's Nest or Tatsang Monastery in Bhutan is one of the most spectacular Himalayan sights in the world. It is by no means an easy trek for those accustomed to life on the plains.

The 900-metre climb from an altitude of 2300 metres above sea level is challenging but worth it. Here are some images from my climb.

Magical moment in Paro

It was a cold eary-spring night in Paro and although not late by international standards, most residents of the valley were already in bed. The only sound one could hear from the neighbourhood was that of barking dogs.

This was my last night in the Land of the Thunder Dragon, and under normal circumstances I would have called in early, so that I don’t travel out of the country without a proper night’s sleep. But, something just called me out into the balcony.

I stepped out at 20 minutes past 9 on this Sunday night to see the fully illuminated Paro Dzong. Over the monastery and in the mountains, I noticed the usual lights that resembled pearls, but I was dumbstruck by a beacon beyond the range.

Within minutes, I saw a few pine trees getting lit up and noticed a rapid moonrise. The moon, which was full for the first time in the Lunar New Year just 3 days ago, looked larger than life as it rose over the Paro Valley. This was one of the most beautiful natural sights that I have ever seen in my life.