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."