Desicritics Category: Culture: Hobbies

The £5.50 Chinese Monkey-Picked Tea

Dr Bhaskar Dasgupta — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 03:11:39 EDT

I went to a swanky restaurant in London the other day and after a great cocktail, some very good Argentinean red wine and English rose (yes, I kid you not, it was very nice), an excellent thick rare 700 gram steak, sat back and thought about having a good port and a nice cheese platter, when my eyes fell on this item on the dessert menu.

Monkey Picked Tea: Monkey picked tea is the rarest tea available. According to legend, monkeys were once trained to harvest tea from otherwise inaccessible cliffs but today the term monkey picked refers to the tea's rarity and the hard work put into its production.

It was for £5.50 if I am not wrong, and being the sucker for new and innovative things that I am, I went for it. First of all, my boss took the piss out of me unmercifully by saying, you have simply ordered PG tips, and the restaurant is taking you for a ride. Mainly because of the Monkey bit which advertises the bloody PG Tips. You can buy all kinds of PG Tips monkey stuff here. But more on the end result later.

I took a photo and then came back to look it up. The basic story is simple and I quote:

This rare Chinese tea is carefully picked by specially trained monkeys in a remote mountain region of China. Legend has it that monkeys were first used to collect tea ten centuries ago, because upon seeing it's master trying to reach some tea growing wild on a mountain face, the monkey climbed up the steep face and collected the tea growing there and brought it down to his master. This wild tea was considered so delicious that other people began to train monkeys to collect this rare wild tea. Nowadays the practice of monkeys picking tea has all but died out, except in one small remote village where they still continue this remarkable tradition.

This video seems to be showing a monkey which the zoo commentator claims to be a tea picking monkey. All I can hope is that I hope the bloody monkey washed his hands after picking its nose but before picking the tea leaves.

Here's an example of the pack. And here's an interesting discussion on this tea.

But I was a bit suspicious because nobody actually mentions the type of tea leaves, all this monkey picking business is good and fine, but what is the actual name of the tea plant? I then found it. Can you purchase this? Well, here it is. I quote the product description:

These finest grade tightly hand-rolled leaves are bursting with flavor and have a lingering fruity aftertaste. This is perhaps the most fabled tea in China, prized for its complexity. This lot was grown in Fujian Province. Legends relate the story of how the tea is named after Kuanyin, the goddess (or bodhisattva) of compassion. This tea is greener than other Tieguanyins, in the style which is popular throughout China.

The often-used term "Monkey Picked" comes from another legend: Local monks convinced monkeys to climb the tall, wild tea trees and bring them the new leaves from above. This tea is one of the few that holds up well to up to three infusions, and produces a rich golden liquor with a spicy aroma and semisweet aftertaste. We recommend this tea as a high quality everyday tea. It goes well with most foods and is good with cakes, scones and the like.

But I am afraid the tea was absolutely horrible, it was musty, dusty and tasted like the tea was made by actually dipping the original old monkey in hot water rather than tea leaves. It was golden all right, but no, I am going to give this a miss.

And this left my boss and rest of the gang rolling around on the floor looking at my face and expression. Still suffering from that incident, every time I ask for a tea or coffee in the office, somebody shouts PG Tips or makes those monkey noises. Sighs, life sucks.

Technorati Tags: Humour, Agriculture, History, Personal

Stubborn As A Mule

Diya S. — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 10:28:15 EDT

Last Durga Puja, my father organized a musical show where all my family members took part; albeit me missing as usual. My father played the violin, my mother sang and my brother played the synthesizer. When someone asked me why I wasn’t a part of the concert, I proudly declared myself to be the black sheep of the family, with no musical talent what so ever.

But later when I reflected upon my answer, I came to realize a very important aspect of my personality, which was that I am as stubborn as a mule! Even though it is not that I can’t sing (a friend of mine who is a professional guitarist even asked me to sing with him in one of his gigs) I have abstained from being properly trained in music.

This is mainly because as a child I had grown quite tired of hearing things like, “Bengali girls who can sing get good husbands” and thus had promised to myself never to sing in front of people.

My husband should love me despite the fact that I don’t sing, I had stubbornly thought. Today I am 21 and having matured considerably, I have come to realize that this obstinately behavior has had a very paradoxical effect on me.

Even though I love singing, the only reason I didn’t do so was just to vex others. And in the end it is I was the one who got hurt because, every thing said and done, I do love singing. I have now finally realized that I should learn to sing properly and nothing should stop me from doing so.

"Scoring" in the United States

Chaitanya S — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 01:07:55 EDT

The Indian economy is on an upward growth path and showing a tremendous growth at 9%. My girth is doing exactly the same, though I feel my growth rate is much more. Talk of being a true representative of your country on foreign soil!

What can represent Indian more than a game of cricket? I finally played a match last month. I was looking forward to having a dream debut and leaving an impact on the game. I had this personal ambition of seeing a 50 next to my name on the score card. I got the game off to a rollicking start and reached 40 in the 3 overs in which I was in action. Suddenly the captain gestured me to stop and let someone else take over. He made it pretty clear to me that the 50 looks better next to my name while batting, not bowling! Whatever! I clearly remember hearing commentators saying “A half century is a half century in any form of cricket”. Shooting down aspirations of budding sportsmen is such an Indian trait. The captain thus displayed his "Indianness"!

I was chatting with a friend and he asked me “So have you scored in the US as yet?” I was a bit ashamed of my batting performance, but being an honest soul, I said, “Yeah it was pretty tough, but I managed 5”. Knowing every honest bone in my body, he gave me a phone call within 30 seconds of me sending the message in. “So how were they? Americans or Indians? How did you manage so quickly? Damn, 5 chicks in 3 months is rocking! Wish I’d studied there!” Maybe this is the communication gap between virtual teams that the professor warned us about in class. No wonder most people say that MBA education is mostly based on real life situations.

Back to the point, I did not have the heart to act like my captain and curtail someone’s excitement. But after a few seconds of listening to a running commentary of his own exploits, I let the bubble burst and told him I meant cricket. Suddenly I was flooded with comments of how busy he was, how late in the night it was for him and how he really had to hang up.

Statistics show that 80,000 Indian students come to the US annually. I am dead sure that when these 80,000 cross the psychological barrier of making the first long distance call to their friends, the first question they are faced with is the one which faced me. Friends back in India don’t give two hoots about whether you are pursuing an MS, an MBA or a janitor’s diploma.

Hard as it may seem since I’m a “pakka Mumbaikar”, I’d rather be a Dravid than a Tendulkar on foreign shores (figuratively speaking, of course). That will equip me with the perfect technique to “score” consistently in alien conditions rather than just “plundering” on home soil. Now I’ve realized what they mean by accomplishments in India not being appreciated as compared to foreign ones.

Since I’m on the topic of sports, I have to mention my experience in a bowling alley. Now my bowling in the alley isn’t as accomplished as that on a cricket pitch. So by the time we were half way through the game, the screen displaying scores appeared like a chart of noughts and crosses. I had most of the noughts because of innumerable gutter balls and my friends had the crosses because of perfect strikes. One of them asked me “Bet you’ll never manage 3 straight crosses?” Well I could have shown him a few sheets with my name and lots of crosses under that. Too bad Mumbai University does not return our engineering answer sheets. But the score sheet surely evoked nostalgia of my engineering tests, with the crosses, and the zeros right next to them.

But things aren’t all that bleak in my life. I think I’ve finally learned to cook now and my roomies have heaved a sigh of relief. Well I don’t blame them. If the cook doesn’t eat his own food, it surely does provide food for thought to the others. Well I’m proud to state my cooking has reached a stage where I can satiate my own taste buds without going green in the face.

I was chatting with one of my friends yesterday and she asked me,”You’ve been there for almost 3 months, what was the most difficult thing you found fitting into?” I read it and I bit my lower lip with regret. That question hit me where it really hurt. An honest answer was typed back. “My denims”.

Play Review: Lucknow 76

Tanay Behera — Mon, 7 Jul 2008 10:45:24 EDT

Few months back, Dr.BD had made a post on Lucknow, depicting few panoramas of the city sitting in a roof top restaurant relishing gorgeous food.

But why did this topic come into picture, the connecting chord is 'Lucknow', a city that I have never visited but have read about it and also heard lots about from my room-mate who graduated from IIM Lucknow. Last weekend, I was at Alliance Francaise de Bangalore, to watch a play titled 'Lucknow 76'.

The plot of the play was based on politics and history, shifting between two time frames of 1876 and 1976 looking at Lucknow city through the eyes of the common man. 1876 was a milestone for the Britishers, as that was the year, when Queen Victoria took over the command from the East India Company. 1976 was also significant in history because during that time, the once proud democracy, India was under the clutches of tin pot dictator, Indira Gandhi who had declared a state of Emergency as the Prime Minister of the nation.

So that reasons out for the numeral '76' in the title of the play.

But then why 'Lucknow' and why not 'Delhi' or 'Bombay' or 'Calcutta' or 'Madras' or 'Bangalore'. Because the director and playwright of the play, Abhishek Majumdar (AM) had spent some part of his childhood in this city. During AM's visits to Lucknow, his grand uncle, a scholar of history and geology had inundated his mind with tales and chronicles about the city from an old bungalow.

Now back to the play and the players on the stage.

The stage was a raised platform, bare minimal in terms of setting. A collage carpet dressed the entire floor. A ziz-zag geometrically-shaped stool, an artistically designed bench on one corner and few cushions were all the props used during the various scenes.

The play began with the entire cast of actors on stage firing words arbitrarily, and this state of confusion continued until two characters working in a press chisel in. Soon an old madam editor of the press enters and they discuss the sabotage of press and free speech during the 1976 emergency.

The sequence of the scenes in the plot follows a pattern like they do in these aerobic classes, one step back and then one step front. So one scene from 1876 and then one from 1976 and the flow continues. You get me right.

A greater part of the play covered, the 1876 era and it was masterly role-played.

The three lead actors for this part were a Muslim revolutionary, a Brahmin Compounder and a brownBritish madam. Now how can a British madam be brown, that's because her father, a Brit and a general on duty in India had married an Indian woman.

As the play moves to Victorian India, fervent and fiery debates rise about nation and ruler royalty neatly animated by the revolutionary and the Compounder. Questions are tossed about one's dedication to one's own motherland, supporting indigenous medicines against propagating Brit medical practices for general welfare, the language in which Vande Mataram was written and likewise. Though the two characters share views that are completely opposite, the Muslim revolutionary considering the very presence of Britishers in their own land a bane, the Hindu Compounder considering it a boon but yet they are the best of friends. These two characters expressed their school of views with downrightness.

The character of the British lady who wants to study India through the eyes of the common man was also commendable. She seeks the help of the Muslim revolutionary to take her on tours to the local bazaars, to the river bed of Gomti, to the sectors where the natives of Lucknow live, and where the street dogs, the cattle and innumerable flies add to the bustle. She is also introduced to mouth watering local food: the Dum Biryani, Sheermal, Zamin Doz, Kakri Kebab, Shami Kebab, etc.

During one of their saunters, the Muslim revolutionary cracks a joke to the Madam, the dialogue piece of which goes like this: 'Madam, you know what, in Lucknow we have more varieties of kebabs than you have Britishers in that small island.'

Few of the dialogues were engaging and just got glued to my mind. 'In a war, its beliefs that fight, not people.' You see the contemporary relevance, it was then, and it is the same, even today and I don't know what will happen in future.

The 1976 half of the play was more of a disjointed and garbled commentary. The unprovoked detention of innocent people, the abuse and torture of detainees in jails, the forced vasectomy of thousands of men under the infamous family planning initiative, the cutting down of electricity supply to publishing houses and the censorship on press were portrayed tactfully. The highlight of the 1976 era depiction was the naxal interaction which was arresting in terms of energizing acting and dialogue delivery. This bit was in Bengali which I feel quite a few in the audience could not understand.

The scenes were as sensitive as was the dark period but to add some easiness in the air, subtle and clever jokes were cracked like 'it's difficult to understand the philosophy of philosophy' (pun on Indira Gandhi's intent for the Emergency) and about the 'Mango tree on the Moon'. (Can someone guess what was actually pointed at here, for the second bit, though I have my own version but not sure if it fits perfectly to the context?)

The lighting was dim for most of the time, mostly because events showcased on stage were from pages of history. A quiet whiskered man, sitting on one corner, strumming his guitar and lending his voice to few evocative songs in Punjabi and Hindi in his countrified voice made the audience travel through the lanes of Lucknow both in 1876 and 1976. The music was a one-man-show, full credits to this gentleman.

Though I am not a connoisseur in the theatrical aspects of sound, lighting, music but still arrangements on the whole for 'Lucknow 76', appealed to me. The only glitch that I could notice, many in the audience had was that many crucial parts of the play were enacted in languages that was not deciphered by all (around 75% of the play was in English and the rest 25% in Malayalam, Hindu, Bengali, Tamil and Kannada).

There were around 12 performers for this play, (sorry, I don't remember their names, and I even lost the play's brochure) and each of them performed splendidly. This play was supported by the Black Coffee Productions in aid of the Concern India Foundation. The director Abhishek is an engineering graduate from NIT Trichy, one of the best technical institutes in India and then an MBA from Delhi University, after which he entered into his professional life in Bangalore. But his heart was in theater, Abhishek won the Charles Wallace Fellowship and went to do a course at the London International School of Performing Arts for a year in 2006. A couple of months back he was awarded the Metro Plus Playwright Award by 'The Hindu'. In a couple of months he is heading to the UK again armed with an Inlaks scholarship.

Bon voyage and wish you all the best.

Downtime, Uptime: 10 Suggested Activities

Varun P — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 12:01:59 EDT

Off late, I've found myself with plenty of time on hand and not much work to do. Not being used to sitting idle, I indulged myself in a host of activities to ensure that I keep myself busy. So, here is a list of 10 things to do during your free time in case you too end up idle like me:

1) Think of ways to earn money - more & more money:

Ha ha, this is the best way to put your skills to test and use - in case you are a blogger, you can try and enhance your blog with additional features that help you retain visitors and get regular readers. Some of these features can also help you improve your site's visibility - check here or do a google search for features/articles that inform you on ways to increase your reader base.

An alternative case could be for you to think of ways to spend money: one such thing could be going bungee jumping or maybe parasailing!

2) Read a book:

This is one of my favourite past times - when faced with the option of no work, I simply head over to Crosswords, pick up a book whose title / cover catches my fancy, grab a comfy seat and simply lsoe myself into the book. The latest book that I've picked off the shelves is Karen Rose's Scream for Me.

Alternatively, you can buy a book and head home, make yourself cozy and then proceed to immerse yourself in the book. You may also go bargain-hunting in the second hand bookshops. A couple of places in Kolkata like the Free School Street or the book stalls under the Gariahat flyover are great places to get an awesome bargain!

3) Head for the gym:

Most of the times, we have plenty of excuses lined up for not workng out and staying fit - hence, this will be one of the best ways to ensure that all you workout-phobiacs put your idle time to some fat-burning use!

4) Pamper yourself:

Idle times have a bad way of coinciding with times when we are at our wits's ends or are feleing a bit under the weather. Your greatest asset (or atleast the second best one) is YOU - so why not throw a treat in your honour? Who needs another reason to celebrate life - say cheers to life for who you are! Go shopping else go binging on ice creams or cakes!

5) Hunt for a job:

There is nothing more depressing than going on a job hunt and not finding a single job that suits your profile! This will in turn make you go back to the rest of the activities to occupy your time.

6) Make all those phone calls that you had been avoiding - catch up with long-forgotten acquiatances, old friends, relatives and all those aunties, uncles and cousins.

7) Grab a bunch of friends and go partying:

Well, I rather prefer to sit down with friends and recount tales of our times spend together, indulge into arguments, trade knowledge of the latest happenings in town or in someone else's life - all while sitting around a few hot cups of coffee and some soothing music in the background.

8) Do something special for your family, loved near and dear ones:

Give someone special a surprise, take your family out for dinner or a movie or simply express your gratitude for their support, love, care - Do not hesitate to tell those who matter to you that THEY MATTER! Some things are better left said than assumed - oops, sorry if I didn't get the phrase right but I know that you get my drift.

9) Switch off your phone, draw curtains across your windows and lock yourself up in your bedroom and doze off to glory:

So many of us are running low on sleep, so simply take a day off and recharge those old batteries.

10) Go & enroll yourself in a langage/computer/martial arts course - Dude, do somthing to kick some butt man!

Basically, don't just sit twiddlign your thumbs and wonder what you should do - do what you want to, what you haven't had time to off late (like practicing your guitar); more than anything else, do something close your heart, something therapeutic like playing with kids (word of caution: some kids can send your blood pressure soaring - avoid such kids at all costs!)!

Well, there must be a lot more activities that I may have missed in my short post here (e.g. watching movies) - so why don't you go ahead and update me with the activities that you do in your idle time. Looking forward to your valuable suggestions...

Little Deaths in the Garden

Deepti Lamba — Thu, 5 Jun 2008 14:51:41 EDT

Last year I had written about killing a mole who had been eating my vegetables, roots of my other expensive plants and making horrid little holes all over the garden. I rammed down stones in the holes but mole was an exuberant destroyer. I went psycho and killed him with lethal pesticides. I even put of a picture of a dead mole on my site.

Till date I get nasty wayward emails about my 'shameful' behavior. One even mentioned that I should have called Animal Control and gotten them to remove the pestering pest. Yeah right!! If I called the animal control guys they would have laughed me off- Excuse me, can you take the mole out of my garden?

The snake that cohabited with us when we came back from the US decided to bid me a firm sayonara after we had a run in with each other. The villagers poured in to look for the snake but he had decided to part company. There was no more free loading and the trespasser left without any sort of harassment from my side but the mole was another story.

He enraged me and so was killed with poison. I got hate mail, but hey I am the type who doesn't believe in street dogs either. A menace is a menace and needs to be dealt with - dogs should be killed humanely; moles - well, they, along with the rest of their plague-carrying relatives do not have my sympathies.

Of course other species of nature are most welcome in my garden like spiders, butterflies, dragon flies,chameleons, earthworms and of course lady birds. The crow living on the mango tree deterred me from getting a Koi pond. Crows love fish and I'd have to kill it or cut the tree and I am not ready to do either for a bunch of fish.

Killing seems to be a natural part of gardening. Pesticides to kill aphids, boric powder to deter ants who run away with seeds, list goes on.

For a long time I believed I was the only one giving in to her nasty psycho killing streak but on reading the New York Times article - Peter Rabbit Must Die I breathed a sigh of relief I wasn't the only one but one amongst the many.

The article ended with a weak:

There is also the approach offered by Catherine Wachs, a gardener who runs the Right Brain Design advertising company and lives in Larchmont, N.Y.: “I do what the Bible says: Leave the corners of your field unharvested for the poor and strangers among you.”

They are not human strangers wanting to eat your fruit but pests who destroy the entire crop! And most of us love our tomatoes and cabbages. Think we are crazy? - dig your fingers in dirt, sow some seeds, watch them bloom or watch the vegetables grow and then feel the blow when the devastation happens overnight. If the gardening bug bites you so will the call of the wild come to your aid. Its as simple as that.

Book Review: Quondam by Jayel Gibson

Deepti Lamba — Mon, 2 Jun 2008 02:10:02 EDT

Avid video gamers tend to gravitate towards story lines that are action packed, are believable or as such bring strong magical realism to the games. Movies based on games such as Lara Croft, Resident Evil etc have been box office hits. The influence of video gaming has not only heavily influenced contemporary literature especially in the Scifi and Magic genres but have also reflected the strong feminist presence in modern times.

Take for example Jayel Gibson's book, Quondam which happens to be the last of the four part The Ancient Mirror Series. It has strong female characters. The main character Cwen finds herself falling through a portal to a world devastated by the cruelty of a nymph of the woods who is cursed to live in the flesh and becomes a cruel queen driven to destroy magic and extends her rule over mankind and only through Cwen can the world be saved. A lot rides on her shoulders and the other female characters in the novel are as strong in Cwen in spirit and in magic.

The feminist tone in the book is as strong as it is in the gaming world where the women fight shoulder to shoulder with their male warriors. And like the characters in video games the women in Jayel Gibson's book are beautiful, feminine and yet burn with fierce inner spirit.

What makes this book a novelty is that Jayel Gibson is herself a gamer and believes that video gaming is actually good for people. And her books prove her opinion as the characters are complex, their missions difficult and the storyline is action packed. The books are immersing and deal with human frailties as well which not only hooks the readers but also lend the story lines credibility for in the end its not only about good winning over evil but about the indomitable human spirit - a concept that many games are based on where one continues to try and overcome hurdles and conquer missions despite repeated failures.

Jayel Gibson's novels are well written, refreshing and are light reads. For more information on the books visit: Wix.com

Patang Fever - For the Love Of Kites

Harold Bergsma — Thu, 15 May 2008 09:55:52 EDT

Two annas! I clutched the strangely shaped squared cupro-nickel coin in my hand as I stared at the display. Noab Din our cook held my other hand and pointed first at one, then another marvel, each a different color of paper, each slightly different depending on the whims of the kite makers.

I glanced up when I heard the rattling snarl of paper being buffeted by the breeze. Above my head, four kites flew; their strings invisible to me. It seemed that each had a life of its own swooping and descending with dizzying speed only to magically turn and climb into the sky again. Then one kite, a large green one, no longer flew but fell with swooping, sickening arches and caught by the wind was carried away. Under it a horde of children ran, shouting and pushing each other, eager to be the one to catch the falling treasure. I watched as the kite neared the earth, only to be snared by electric lines. Now it hung sadly out of the reach of the children beneath it. Instead of trying to retrieve it they picked up stones and pebbles and threw them at the paper, shouting each time a stone tore the green gauze.

"I will take the red and white one." I pointed at a medium-sized beauty. "I will need a spool and lots of line covered with ground glass." I looked confident.
"Watch out. Wait until you learn to fly well before you try the glass covered line. You can easily cut your fingers, and then I will be in trouble with mem-sahib."

Childhood memories make us what we are.

What greater joy is there than to stand on the roof of your house and hold a line tied to a soaring kite above you? Basant! What joy. The breeze was good on this January day and it took my kite joyfully aloft. I let out the string too quickly and the kite twirled and sagged, then plummeted toward the earth. As soon as I stopped the reel from spinning the kite again reared upward. It was an early lesson; one can't rush joy and love. Now I let out the string more slowly, hoping to get my kite higher than all my neighbors.

Patrus, my friend stood next to me giving instructions. "Not so high. Others will not like it and cut you down."

Hardly had he spoken when a white, small kite moved toward mine and crossed my string and in a flash my kite was floundering in the sky.

"Bo kata! Patang kat gayi!" The children screamed and began their chase after my descending shame.

I stood dejectedly holding limp string and a spool almost empty. I began to wind up the string, feeling violated, cheated of my glory. "I will buy another and get glass on my string. I will come back and cut that white one down!" There were tears in my eyes.

Basant! Spring in the Punjab. Kite glory in Lahore and kite madness in Taxila.

Maryam Arif's comments in Pakistan Paindabad, (March 26, 2007) "Kat Gayi, Kat Gayi, Patang Kat Gayi" were wonderful to read. I can see her standing on a Lahore rooftop in the evening, holding a kite string and reveling in the joy of being shoulder to shoulder with the male members of her household experiencing the fun of the Basant festival. She asks, "Who owns this festival?" Good question. Perhaps before Partition such a question would never be asked, because Lahore, the city of delights was in and of India. But what about now?

Where did all this high flying madness begin? Who has the ownership rights? Is this a purely Punjabi exercise? Did India fly kites before 1947? Why are conservative Islamists in Pakistan opposed to the fun of kite flying to celebrate the coming of spring?

It was not madness that began it. There was a General Han Hsin in the Han Dynasty in China who, according to written records, flew a kite in 200 B.C. They had lots of bamboo, string and of course, fine silk cloth that was light and strong. Written records show that this Chinese cultural phenomenon was adopted by others over a period of time and kite flying, particularly in the spring was a custom that migrated to Japan, Korea, Burma and eventually to India.

India really picked up on it and incorporated kite flying during Basant into their Hindu religious festivals. Basant was a time to honor deities, wear yellow clothing, eat yellow colored candies and fly kites that would soar high, lift spirits, give even the common poor man a chance to celebrate and have sky fun for a few paisa. Any kind of tamasha was a mechanism to forget for a brief time the drudgery, boredom and pain of living in poverty. Fun! How else could it be put?

"Fun is wrong!" Can you hear the mullahs shouting in Lahore about banning Basant, banning the flying of kites which leads one away from the important and serious considerations of service to Allah, leading Muslims away to the new-found secular freedoms of pagan and Hindu origin, leading young women to hold a string on a kite in Lahore and laugh and shout for joy?

There is a lovely expression we used to use in Michigan. "Oh, go fly a kite!" When a person became too heavy, too dogmatic and would not listen to reason, we would say it. Very interesting! The very act of flying a kite moves one into a new realm, away from the seriousness of one's own arguments and philosophy to feel the tug on the string, hear the rattle of paper as the wind buffets the surface of the kite. There is another use of the expression of kite flying. "Come fly a kite with me!" This was written on a greeting card that lovers could send to each other. The image is beautiful, uplifting and wonderfully sensual, two kites flying side by side, each responding to the winds of love, uncontrollable invisible currents that move their colorful displays.

Aamir Khan Blogs Shahrukh

Deepti Lamba — Wed, 14 May 2008 12:47:42 EDT

An Indian blog that gets about 1288 comments belongs to a fellow called Aamir Khan and the latest post is about a dog named Shahrukh! Before you jump the gun- the dog isn't Aamir's nor did he get to name the dog.

Now, before you jump to any conclusions let me add that Shahrukh is the name of our dog. And before you jump to any further conclusions let me add that I had nothing to do with naming him. In fact Shahrukh is the dog of the caretakers of our house. When I bought this house it came with the caretakers and their dog! Apparently Shahrukh (the actor) was shooting for a commercial in this house a few years ago, and that very day the caretakers bought a pup…, and named him Shahrukh. What are the chances of me buying a house which comes with a dog called Shahrukh!!!

Aamir is a precocious fellow and there is supposed to be some kind of uneasy rivalry/acquaintance between Shahrukh Khan and him. In fact, if we are to believe the Bollywood rags, Aamir told his child prodigy Darsheel Safary not to overact like Shahrukh and had the wounded Khan reply 'I thought we were friends'.

It seems this time round, Aamir has ensured that the new gossip came from the horse's mouth.

There are a number of celebrities, actors and even anchormen who have blogs maintained by their PR people and treated as sites where their official statements are made:

I am sorry I showed my coochie (paraphasing Britney Spears)
I am sorry I have to go to prison, save me from imprisoned she-men (para-phasing Paris Hilton)
I'm what hot stuff is made of ( Premiere SRK says it all without SRK having to say a word)
I'm about making a difference and like Huffingtonpost its my name but others write ( para-phrasing Anderson Cooper 360)

The Celeb List goes on, and yet the websites of most celebrities don't give glimpses into their lives except when deeply effected like Paris Hilton (I couldn't help that one).

Aamir Khan's blog, like Neil Gaiman's, is a novelty since he lays his life somewhat open for others to read and observe. Aamir's blog is his personality and in many ways his life. He is a hardworking man with an impish sense of humor and while the google news is buzzing with words like - Aamir's dog's name is Shahrukh, Aamir is having a ball acting like a cat amongst the pigeons.

Sixteen Flies on a Rope

Harold Bergsma — Wed, 14 May 2008 02:23:32 EDT

The white canvas tent was stained the color of mud and clay on its bottom. Touches of greasy hands had left their marks on the fabric which in turn had become magnets for dust. A capricious Nepali child, with charcoal in hand, had drawn two pictures at the back of the tent, perhaps of the owners of it, as the men depicted were too tall and all had strange hats on their heads. But the tent, when pitched under a tall Deodar Cedar looked inviting and spoke of restfulness, an escape from weary muscles, aching joints, a place into which one crawled for quietness, sleep, a place that smelled of often used sleeping bags and socks, almost stiff from use, stuffed into the bottoms that waited for the next hot springs to be washed and pounded a grey-clean.

The tent’s ropes were anchored to stakes pounded into the soil, three on each side, one in the front and one in the back. During the day, the front rope was untied and hung loose, making entry to the tent easier, or if perchance a small tree grew nearby, it could be tied up high enough so that the occupants did not need to bend down to enter. This rope was a light brown color, not from dye but from the stains of a hundred hand-holds, hands that had just finished eating the leg of a Monal Pheasant, hands that minutes earlier had held the blood stained skinning blades now lying on the small folding table with bird specimens in various stages of being skinned and stuffed, hands that had held ink pens that leaked onto fingers that wrote the day’s diary, ‘Jumuson-Nepal, September, 1949.’

These ropes, still wet from the light rain during the night, now sagged from the weight of their wetness, but when the sun shone bright and brilliantly, would once again shrink and resume their tightness.

It was on this rope, tied to a small tree, that visitors arrived daily. When the men had left for a daily hike or hunting expedition to the lake near Pokhara, sparrows landed on the rope, a mother sparrow and a fledgling baby bird nearly the size of its mother, which sat and begged with a wide open yellow mouth to be fed; then waited for her return. Sitting fat bellied on the rope it defecated a white sticky dung ball which stuck to the cord. A small green caterpillar hanging from a gossamer thread swayed back and forth in the breeze until its perigee from some distant branch, brought it to the rope where it rested momentarily, then arched its green slender body and began the long, inching journey the length of the rope all the way to the tent, where it hesitated, then dropped again on a silken thread to be carried away by the breeze to another juicier landing place. The lizard, not more than two inches long, crawled out onto the tent rope and did two little push ups, then sat motionless waiting for flies.

In spite of the open front flaps of the tent the temperature inside the tent became hot and humid and all the odors and aromas on bags, clothing and old boots filled the tent with fetid air. I looked up from my sleeping bag, now half out of the tent, resting on the ground in the shade, and studied the rope above my head. Sixteen flies were now the owners of the fiber highway, and from where I lay in the partial shade they looked like dark knots until one or another flew off, or until without foreplay or warning two mated for a frenzied moment and then remained in a coital bind that held them together until the female flew off, carrying her conjugal partner on her back to land on the tent flap some six feet away. Sixteen! I counted them again and now noted that all sat horizontally on the rope, all facing away from the tent. Some compulsion moved them to wash their ‘hands’ and then stroke their eyes and heads with their front feet as if ridding them of some unseen taint. All were common house flies except for one which was larger, a brilliant shiny blue-green. When this green bot rose in flight, its wings hummed and sang a tune known well to all who use the great out-of-doors as their toilet; all who remember with amazement that these ‘shit flies’, invisible, until fecal deposits graced the floor of the jungle, arrived in aggressive numbers, intent on some ghoulish quest. Fifteen; and one preening green blue-bot fly.

A shadow of a flying vulture passed across the rope and in an instant the flies were gone, leaving the rope alone and lonely, but not for long. The breeze caught the opening of the tent and the sides billowed, pulling the rope taught each time air blew into the tent. The roof canvas now flapped and snapped and dust swirled near the entrance, filling my eyes and blowing sand into my sleeping bag so that I was forced to turn away with eyes tightly closed. Then as abruptly as the wind arrived, it left and there was a still, an almost breathless waiting until the next current found its way to my campsite. A bright red dragonfly, the largest I had ever seen, landed on the tent rope, less than three feet from my eyes. I watched it sitting motionlessly, noticed that its head was in constant motion, its compound eyes staring, first one way, then another, watching for flies. The sun reflected from its wings, yet shone through the diaphanous lace throwing a glow onto the rope beneath it as if igniting the fibers in pink splendor. I blinked and the creature was gone, for an instant, to return with a green fly in its mouth, held with two tiny legs as it consumed its prey. A vulture circled high and the pink dragon was gone with a flip of its wings.

The tent-rope now looked black against the white snows of Annapurna behind it. The black line sliced the massif in two, as if a willful child had drawn a dark crayon across the picture in a travel book. Annapurna! From where I lay it stretched for some thirty miles and soared into the azure sky with its six major peaks, its summit reaching 26,538 feet, the tenth highest mountain in the world. ( Annapurna, in Sanskrit, Goddess of the Harvests; in Hinduism a symbol of fertility and a manifestation, an avatar of Durga.) The late afternoon sun shone against the snow-covered surface, now a slight orange- saffron tint. High, near its summit, strong winds blew a snow plume, like the plumed crest of a snowy egret which wavered and swirled in the late sunset.

I could hear their voices now. “Kaseru. How has the Barkat Zaman* sahib done today? Did you feed him?” Dr. Carl Taylor, the expedition’s physician, strolled into the clearing and headed toward the tent. “Harold. How’s it going, old man?” He reached down to feel my forehead and withdrew his hand, his face slightly frowning. “Did you take the medications I set out for you?”

“Yes,” I replied. “There were sixteen of them on the rope. The blue one got eaten. The baby shit on the line.” The words came tumbling out all at once.

Later I could hear the other members of the Nepal Ornithological Expedition talking as they ate their meal that Kaseru had prepared.

“No. It is really a mystery. Fever’s still at 104 degrees. Dangerously high. Until we get down to the plains, to Butwal or later in Ludhiana and have blood work done, I can only guess. Hemorrhagic fever, perhaps carried by the rats in the place we stayed in Jumosum, or typhus, or some strange parasitic disease.” Doctor Carl sipped the hot coffee in his mug. “Poor chap, hallucinating again. Rectal bleeding. All he could say this evening was, ‘Today about sixteen of them on a rope and the green one was eaten.’ Poor chap.”

“Well,” said Dr. Robert Fleming, the expedition leader, “we may just have to have him carried out on a litter; Pokhara to Tansing, then on to Butwal. That is going to be some feat, carrying him over the Himalayas in a litter.”

* Barkat Zaman is the Urdu equivalent of Bergsma. Harold Bergsma is the only surviving member of the Chicago Natural History Museum and the National Geographic Society Ornithological Expedition to West Nepal in 1949-1950.