Book Review: One Way to Pakistan

A very nice book review by Deepti Lamba originally published on Desicritics on 10/30/07

Although the central theme of the book One Way To Pakistan is about the expatriate experience and the existence of sex slavery in Pakistan, but the demons of Islamic zealotries and political fascism that plague and paralyze the characters' lives in the post 9/11 scenario have been woven into the story quite well. The lack of freedom suffered by both men and women is brought to the forefront by the author, whether they are rich or poor; each fears the long arm of the law and suffers under its brutal tactics that begins with the ominous ‘First Information Report for police files for not following the law’.

To some, the Pakistani way of life may seem fraught with insecurity and religious intolerance, but in Harold’s book, while depicting such conditions he also shows that though a culture may be capable of following certain barbaric practices yet the spirit of human kindness continues to kindle in the hearts of those who are seemingly unimportant.

The characters in his book are complex people - some in position of power are predatory, some are social climbers and others just leading lives of petty crime like evading taxes, stealing electricity or tucking away a sex slave in a remote ancestral home. In the complex scenario, seething with repressed sexual tension entwined with religious prohibitions, Harold explores the concept of innocence, whether of the expatriate women like Gretchen or Celia who believe in basic human goodness in men and land up getting roughed up and mauled, or of the sex slaves like Ankh or Leila, sold into slavery or abducted, who continue to be more humane in their simple lives and try to survive even in the worst of situations and also of young unemployed men like Dost who teeter at the brink of cynicism and hopelessness.

In some ways this story could just as well have been set in India. While the urban centers are progressive and secular, the underbelly of our country is equally horrific where the rights of the vulnerable are easily trampled upon and rarely reported. Women and children frequently go missing from rural areas and are rarely reported. The recent report of the gang rape of a Dalit woman and the apathy of the political machinery shamed us into acknowledging the discrepancies within our own social fabric and the stigma the violated victim suffers from.

While the book’s storyline is dark, by virtue of being an excellent writer Harold transports us easily from the US expat mansions to the remote villages of the NWFP. Through his words we are able to feel the vastness of a land still untamed, and also the wild spirit of the tribes who refuse to submit to Pakistani rule and their war against USA.

Though the terrorism angle is brought in towards the end of the book, it does have relevance in the plot and is believable. The anger against the U.S. amongst the Pakistani people is palpable and the risks that the American women take, despite repeated warnings lands them in trouble time and time again. The question of assimilation itself does not arise when these people are basically visiting only for a short duration and it seems naïve to think that their one small victory makes any difference in the grand scheme of things.

In the end the book is about the insurmountable human spirit that endures despite all that life throws its way.

San Diego Fires, Chinese Smog and Desi Dung Patties

Originally published on Desicritics on 11/7/07

Finally! We are breathing more easily. I look out across San Diego Bay and the sky is clear for the first time in two weeks. Only a week ago I looked at the setting sun and saw an angry grey sky and an orange-red orb. The news on T V had little else on it, fires, thousand of square miles of wild fires which ravaged San Diego County, burning more than a thousand homes and causing a billion dollars in property damage.

There were satellite pictures of the smoke plumes that drifted out across the Pacific Ocean, driven by what we call Santa Anna winds which come from the east. These winds drove the fires and made the job of putting them out very difficult. The plumes looked like grey-white smears. Carbon emissions of the worst kind! It is hard to imagine how many thousands of tons of carbon were represented in those smoke plumes and what that did to the atmosphere. This was another contributor to global warming, and yes, an inconvenient truth.

The grey yellow smog that used to blanket the Los Angeles area has been reduced in the last ten years, but a vast amount of carbon fuel consumed by vehicles in California; vehicles are daily throwing tons of carbon into the air, our atmosphere. The simple fact is that the hundreds of millions of vehicles operating in the United States on a daily basis is a major factor in atmospheric pollution that continues to plague the earth. America continues to contribute a huge share of global atmospheric carbon. From time to time I glance at Visible Earth for NASA images to see what the earth looks like. What amazing images these are, smog and smoke plumes show up dramatically in various localities on our planet.

Almost one month ago, there were computer enhanced models of smoke which were spooky. Grey-brown in nature, they moved from west to east across Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh across the Himalayas into Tibet and onwards. Curious I checked and saw other such satellite pictures made last year and the year before. I read about the ‘smog’ that is rising from across the sub-continent constantly. China is upset because her own terrible pollution problem is aggravated by the grey-brown plumes moving in from the east. Kiran Nagarkar describes this phenomenon from Bombay in a report dated 11/06/07, “From Bombay with Smog.” He writes, “Bombay is already considered the world’s most polluted city. In ten years, it will become the most populated one.”

Justin Huggler writes in 2005 in “India Smog Hides Deeper Fear” that India is the fifth-largest producer of carbon emissions in the world releasing 50 million tons into the atmosphere a year, more than any European country. He explains that the main factor is the demand for power generation, for large cities like Bombay and Delhi. The big problem, he says, is that most of India’s power stations are still coal-fired, and the domestically mined coal is of poor quality, leading to carbon emissions. So, the need for electricity is the reason such vast amounts of coal are burned daily. But there are other areas of pollution that are unique to India.

Imagine five hundred million common folk who can not afford natural gas or kerosene, all cooking their breakfast and dinner. I can imagine.

As a child I squatted next to chulas and blew on dung fires with a pipe to heat the water for tea, the griddle to make chappati. Six of us, all kids, living in Taxila would follow the cattle to the fields, and I can remember the feeling of warm dung I picked up for my friends to take to their homes. I remember plastering the dung patties on sun facing walls to dry. My mom would ask me what I did while I ‘played with the Indian kids’ and my reply was always, having fun. I would always return home dirty, to her chagrin. My dad, a doctor, worked in the hospital operating on hundreds of people, removing their cataracts. That hospital had a large godaam which stored coal for fires and heaters. The dust from that coal was fair game for anyone to take away. My friends picked up small particles and swept up black dust to take home to add to the fresh cow dung. Round bricks were made from this mixture with finger holes poked in them to burn evenly. In America kids play with mud from time to time. I played making black dung bricks.

Imagine how difficult it is for poor folk to cook their food. Fortunately many of them have cattle; for milk, ghee, curds and yogurt, and the by-product, dung. The cow is really a boon to India, holy cow, it feeds people and then even helps do the cooking besides. Recently I read that there are perhaps four hundred million of them in India. Oh, oh, natural gas. All of this adds onto the picture I see on Visible Earth, images of Indian plumes of pollution that cover the land in a thick cloud, drifting eastward toward China.

“The clouds consist of ash, acidic chemicals and carbon, which come from the burning of fossil fuels and wildfire. One of the most intensely polluted and most studied brown clouds, which hangs over the Indian Ocean, has recently been found to consist largely of the smoke from dried manure used for cooking." (C.Venkataram et al. Science 307, 1454-1456:2005). Obviously such visible brown clouds drifting eastward become smoking international political issues.

So what do the Chinese burn? Coal. A report about this warns, “Beijingers Told to Stay Indoors As Smog Hangs Over North China”. Lots and lots of dirty coal is being burned, 6000 coal-fire heating furnaces and up to two million home coal burners in Beijing send the toxic mess up into the atmosphere; Olympic games here we come! The rural peasants also burn twigs, grasses, branches, leaves, anything that will burn, including cow dung. Entire forests have been denuded. The resultant? China has one of the worst air environments in the world. In the larger cities the skies were always grey; when I was there a few months ago and I was amazed that I seldom saw ‘blue skies smiling at me’. After a few days one gets used to it, except for the cough and sneezing and tight feeling in the chest.

Above the Amazon basin a smoke plume billows. Slash and burn. Slash and burn the rain forests to make room for farmers who need fields to plant crops. Millions of them. What do you say to a guy that wants a hectare or two to feed his family? Rain forests are natural air purifiers and they are going, going, --- The rain forests are the earth’s natural purifiers and they are rapidly being cut down by people in need. The issue is people need fuel, farms and food. People and more people with needs! From my perspective the greatest area of environmental pollution is the hot population growth, unchecked population growth that is straining the earth’s capabilities.

The San Diego fires threw up a lot of smoke. Top ‘world’ politicians throw up smoke screens or ignore the warnings in favor of continued economic development. Air pollution is certainly a factor in global warming that many wish to ignore. Making money, keeping the economy going is the cry. Even if the problem were taken seriously right now, we as global inhabitants are leaving behind us a legacy which will change the nature of life for our children.

The answer to the need for cheap and clean energy production may well be in the realm of nuclear and fuel technology for India’s “civilian program...” Nuclear Friends in Need, Yale Global Outline, July 12, 2007. No easy solutions. Few Indians living in the millions of small villages use electric stoves to cook food, nor will they in the future. God, what a lot of problems there are! Nero fiddled while Rome burns. We are global fiddlers too. I look back to my simple, carefree childhood with feelings of warm pleasure; a hot cow-dung patty in my hand. Fuel for thought.

India's Monkey Business

Originally published on Desicritics on 11/2/07

When animals are endangered we take immediate notice. But recently I had to smile a bit, perhaps wryly, that those endangered were not mammals such as Asiatic Lions, vultures or River Dolphins but human beings. “Man Dies, Attacked by Monkeys in Delhi” “Tourist’s Spectacles Stolen by Monkey” “Monkey Business in Indian Airport” “Monkey Man with Iron Claws.” On and on, reports of huge numbers of monkeys in Delhi, perhaps more than twenty thousand, on the rampage. Stealing, snatching, entering dwellings, acting so aggressively that in spite of a reverence for the monkeys, people were picking up sticks and stones, even swords to drive them off, ward off the pests. Even tourists were endangered! My goodness, please not that! Such monkey business gets the attention of journalists, it makes interesting press. We read and shake our heads and smile and think, oh well, yes there is a problem but what can we do anyway?

I read also that a high Indian official had banned the export and sale of monkeys to the United States because the treatment they received had violated the agreements for how monkeys were to be handled. Some reports stated that twenty thousand Indian monkeys a year had been shipped for medical research purposes, such as the development of Polio vaccine. Now exportation was to stop. No more monkeys to be sold, at high cost, to the States.

What is the solution to this overpopulation problem of monkeys? Avenues for addressing the problem have been suggested by researchers but are then quickly dismissed. No killing of monkeys because of religious beliefs, Hanuman, and respect for monkeys in India! Removing and taking so many monkeys to remote areas was impossible and too costly and involved risks to humans and monkeys alike. Introduce larger Langurs which would chase them away; no, this only multiplies the problem. Birth control measures for monkeys would be difficult to administer and involve risks, moreover, would be costly and the drug’s effectiveness wears off unless consistent measures are applied. Sterilization of large populations of monkeys seemed difficult because of the lack of appropriate technologies to administer to so many animals safely, such as in tablet form. Injections require capture, sedation and risks to handlers. Status quo; no killing, no way to prevent monkey births, no way to sterilize and no way to sell them to an eager market. (It will take five years before the breeding facilities in the States will be able to supply the annual demand for monkeys for research and medical development.) Sounds grim.

Perhaps there is hope, however; in drugs which could be inserted into food and given to monkeys that could sterilize them. So far there does not appear to be any such drug available. Implants and injections are used widely for sterilization, but orally administered drugs have not been developed and used as far as I can ascertain. Could it be developed and administered safely and not cause a social problem? So many aspects of our environment are controlled, actively and passively by new inventions. Why not invent a safe sterilization agent to help solve the monkey problem? Actions need to be taken because there are possible serious health issues involved in the monkey and human interaction equation. In such cases science could inform politics.

The latest National Geographic Magazine, October 2007 has an excellent article by David Quammen, “Deadly Contact”, discussing zoonosis. Briefly, zoonosis means, “animal disease” and in this article it refers to such diseases in animals which jump to humans, “when pathogens leap”. Ebola Virus, SARS, HIV and even Monkey Pox are horrific diseases that ‘leap’ from animal populations to human beings with terrible consequences. Quammen makes the point that it takes certain viruses to leap across species barriers and they evolve quickly and are...”unaffected by antibiotics, they can be elusive, they can be versatile and they can inflict extremely high rates of mortality, and they are fiendishly simple.” He points out that close contact ... “between two species represents opportunity for a pathogen to expand its horizon and possibilities.” Pathogens take risks for the “big payoff”. Pathogens do not literally jump from one species to another; they are transported, carried by animals to people who contact animals in intimate ways. (I can hear the rattle of the small hand-held drum on the top of a stick announcing dholna that the monkey wallah is going to put on a show. Or is it the man with the dancing bear?) Intimate contact, prolonged intimate contact between animal species enhances the opportunity for viral transfer.

Many deadly viruses have been involved in Zoonosis in Africa where very intimate contacts were made with monkeys and apes. Very intimate simian contact! People ate them. Bush meat is one means many Africans have to get animal protein. The monkey or ape meat is not always thoroughly cooked; the meat is handled with no regard for hygiene. Live animals, particularly baby animals, are kept when their mothers are slaughtered, especially apes and monkeys.

I was surprised by one thing that was emphasized in Quammen’s article. Bats! Bats can carry deadly diseases such as the Hendra virus. Certain bats carry and die of rabies but can pass this deadly disease to other animals such as cows, dogs or directly to people. Hendra, the newly discovered viral disease is deadly. Bats, fruit bats, chimgadar, hang around in colonies and leave droppings of feces and urinate on grasses and leaves. Other animals such as cattle, birds and monkeys ingest feces and become infected. People eat the infected animals, or get into close touching contact with them and become infected. Many people eat with their hands, and many do not thoroughly wash before eating after handling dead animals. Africa has had tremendous problems with the spread of deadly disease through human contact with animals, particularly monkeys and apes.

Monkeys are a really big problem in India and their close and frequent contact with people creates a situation that may be optimal for zoonosis, that is, if a given virus is present at the right time that allows pathogens to make that crucial leap. The problem, monkeys, is multiplying rapidly without control; good sources of food are available, human food, often provided by kind ‘faithful’ people. Bandar log are becoming more aggressive and their fear of humans has diminished so they encroach intimately.

It is not just the nuisance factor of having too many monkeys around too many human beings. It is a matter of public health and safety. Solutions to the monkey problem can be found through scientific means. It is a matter of using reasoned care for precious human populations by India’s leaders, informed by researchers and public health workers. This is a problem that will only get worse. Monkey business is serious business.

Indian Railways - Whose Legacy?

Originally published on Desicritics on 10/30/07

“The Indian railways traverse through the length and width of the country; the routes cover a total length of 63,140 km (39,462 miles). It is one of the largest and busiest rail networks in the world, transporting just over six billion passengers and almost 750 million tonnes of freight annually. Indian Railway is the world's largest commercial or utility employer, with more than 1.6 million employees. The entire railway reservation system was streamlined with computerisation in 1995.”
Indian Railways Network, WorldJute.com.

"What an amazing system, one of the world’s greatest! Six billion passengers is a lot of people to transport. Indian railways provide jobs to more than a million and a half employees! How in the world did it get so big, so important to the social, economic and cultural life of India?"
(See: Exploring Indian Railway, OUP India, New Edition, 1996, by Bill Aitken.)

Here are a few statements to consider.

India’s trains are a shining legacy of the British Raj, a track record of which they can be proud. The railway system unified India as little else did, sparking economic development and social sharing. The system of rails that ran from Calcutta to the Khyber Pass provided employment, training and a way of life for thousands upon thousands of Indians. The development of a railway system necessitated the construction of thousands of miles of steel tracks which sparked industrial development, galvanized the iron and steel producing industry. Trains became social levelers which broke down caste as millions shared crowded quarters. Trains facilitated the movement of vast numbers of Muslims who moved to Pakistan and millions of Hindus who moved to India.

Without the railway system the present economic boom in India would never have taken place. The British Raj left behind an efficient and smoothly operating infrastructure, India Railway, second to none in the world!

Sound familiar?

True? It depends on who writes the history.

“It is peculiar that so many educated Indians fondly remember the Raj. The British Empire ruled India for more than 200 years; British rule drained India of natural resources, induced famines by interfering with agricultural production and the distribution of foodstuffs, dismantled previously competitive Indian industries (e.g. shipbuilding, steel production), and acerbated poverty. The British parliament never considered conferring citizenship to Indian...” Indian nostalgia for the Raj; What’s going on?,

To the vast majority of Indians who travel on the trains such statements may mean little. To Indians who remember an India before partition, the statements may spark fire. To the steel developers, such as at Tata, the track record of the development of the railway system is a history of struggle against the policies of the Raj which supported English steel mills, English manufacturing plants, to the detriment of economic development within India. Indian cotton was shipped out to be processed into cloth in England to bring back to sell to Indians who could have produced their own textiles. As far as being a social leveler, travelers developed their own systems of segregation. Do you remember?

“Hindu Pani!” How often I heard the cry as a kid at the railway stations. I remember there was a third class, a second class, an inter-class and first class reserved compartments. I remember that only select folk were welcomed in the train stations’ catering tea-rest rooms. Being a gora sahib was all it took to be served there. When the British left India, the train system had been sorely neglected and it took the new Indian government some time to get it running well.

Wait, let’s give credit where credit is due; what was started by the British was a legacy, an enduring infrastructure that facilitated future development. I was traveling in Baluchistan by car some years ago and came across a beautifully constructed railway bridge. On it was the year of its construction, 1932. That bridge is still functioning very well, thank you, as are thousands in India that were designed by British engineers and constructed in the early years of the development of the railway system. Yet it was Indians that took it over who made it what it is today.

Trains played a huge role in the development of the United States. There are some parallels to the development of the Indian railways to that system.

Do you remember the legendary American golden spike that was pounded into the ties at Promotional Point, when the two railway lines met, one coming from the east, the other from the west. At that time, the old saying, ‘go west, young man, go west!’ took on new meaning. No longer did a lad with a gun slung across his shoulder, have to hike two thousand miles, fight Indians, and critters to get to the WEST. Now, for the price of a train ticket people could move, and move rather quickly for the time. The date was May 10th. 1896.

The transcontinental railroad unified America. It surely was an impetus in the great western movement; in the eventual development of California, Oregon and Washington. It enhanced the ‘gold rush’; it served the North in the Civil War. The railway became a social mixer; people of all walks of life used it for trade, for bilking others, for carpet baggers and snake-oil salesmen who used the train to find their markets. It made the slaughter of the American Bison a reality, since meat, skins and eventually bones could be shipped to the east by rail. Traditional folk, called Indians were strongly affected by the rail which brought droves of white men with guns into their territories, and eventually led to their being placed on reservations. “The only good Indian is a dead Indian.” Remember Custer’s last stand? It is true that the railway provided employment for thousands to build the track system. Remember the role the Chinese ‘slaves’ had in laying tracks? They slaved for pennies a day and died by the hundreds and then, imagine, government policies cut off Chinese immigration in the Exclusion Act and made interracial marriages illegal. The rails carried mail, bullion, building materials and fancy dresses and booze. Goods were shipped all the way from Paris to ‘Californ-eye-aye’. It is the stuff that old Western movies are made of.

Thousands of miles of steel tracks had to be made for this American transcontinental railway line. The eastern steel mills roared; millions of dollars were made by tycoons who invested in steel mills, and they did not have to pay capital gains taxes. Yes, the railway was a significant factor in development of all types and opened communications from east to west.

I have traveled across the United States on trains and I give them a B- for impact and A for effort. Yes, today the trains still operate, many with government subsidies. Amtrak’s stock is owned by the Federal Government and employs some 19,000 people. (Compare this to how many work for the railways in India.) But Henry Ford certainly changed American’s ideas of how to get around. Cheap cars, Model A and Model T Fords became affordable and people loved having their own way of getting from point A to B. The vast majority of cars that fill America’s highways have no passengers, only the driver. Roads, roads, ‘grand trunk’ roads were developed from north to south, east to west and began to eclipse the impact of the railroads. ‘A chicken in every pot’ and later a car for every home were the slogans. Extensive roads brought the development of huge trucks called semis (sem eyes) which currently carry the vast majority of goods within the country.

In 1896 a gold spike was driven in America, celebrating the construction of a railway line across the country.

What was happening in India at that time?

“After the first passenger train run between thane and bori bander, almost six years later, on March 3, 1859, the first Railway Line in North India was laid between Allahabad and Kanpur. This was followed, in 1889, by the Delhi-Amballa-Kalka line. Both Bombay and Calcutta were competing for the first train run in British India. One of the major reason behind the introduction of the Railways in India help movement of freight, particularly cotton, from the interiors Gujarat and Maharashtra to the coastal cities like Bombay. In the early 1850s British cotton and textile industry was booming and it was decided to tap the Indian cotton market. Bombay had a stronger cotton market and advantage of neigbouring cotton producing states and won the race for the first train. The services in Calcutta began the following year.”(Spelling recorded as written)

India beat the Americans at the railroad game, or was it the British in India? I was amazed at the speed of the development of rail lines in India. (Howrah Station for Hoogly, August 15th, 1885.); a small beginning of only 24 miles, but by 1880, an Indian railway system had developed which had a route of 9000 miles! What a lot of track to lay, what brutal labouring conditions! And you think the Chinese coolies in America had it bad.

“The Railways became the pride of British India, but their construction aroused fears that contributed to the great rebellion, or mutiny of 1857-8.” (Illustration no.11) in The Lion and the Tiger, The Rise and Fall of the British Raj, Denis Judd, Oxford University Press, 2004.

Judd’s book The Lion and the Tiger is a good read, including the animal imagery. Yet Judd mentions the trains only in passing in his book, seems to avoid dealing with them and the controversies which surrounded them in India’s struggle for nationhood. I think that the railway system was a real Tiger, the Sher Khan of India. ‘Sher Khan’ is a reality, and could well be the name for the vast Indian rail system that has developed since the British left; all 39,462 miles of it! (Excluding Pakistan)

He does say, “Trainloads of waylaid and murdered refugees steamed into their final destinations, the flies swarming over the corpses and the stench of death hanging over the carriages like a miasma.” Page 188.

The trains got bad press in 1947!

Trains are very much an Indian institution. Billions of people use them. I can not imagine an India without trains. People of all ‘castes’, of all walks of life, of all social groups, move around in India on trains. Roads, such as the Grand Trunk Road may move millions, but the common man in India does not own a car and relies on trains, the grand trains, broad gage and narrow gauge, that service the sub-continent so very well.

In recent years, communications along the railways occur in local vernacular; signs are posted in English, Marathi, even the Devanagari script. (Rajendra Allekar, Vernacular Languages in Indian Railways). Schedules are computerized; trains have entered the digital age and few are steaming about it.

The old Indian trains with their grand steam engines foster nostalgia, memories of sounds and sights that remain with me for a lifetime. Hissing steam engines, clouds of black smoke filled with coal cinders that got in one’s eyes, clothing and food; toilets that gave one a view of the filthy ‘tracks of time’ clacking below, bistar bunds rolled out in the luggage racks, Hardwar monkeys during the great Kumbha Mela festival that swarm over the loaded carriages and steal passengers’ food, wails of the train whistle in the night answered by jackals, and buying aloo cholay, oranges and sugar cane from vendors through the passenger windows at a train station. Water any one? “Hindu Pani” “Chai, garam chai!” “Thande ande”

TRAIN TRACK TREASURES

Wails of passing Lucknow train
Cries of jackal, answer in yipping tunes
Black night, black, life sounds far, far
Away, away, sleeping children awake, listen
Stir on squeaky charpai, tomorrow, tomorrow
Six copper coins on the table near the bed
King George Two Annas, tomorrow’s treasure!

Shiny-topped tracks run hot, silvery, away-away
Listening ears against the metal, glistening eyes
Sea shell sounds, messages of distant motion
Rumbles of a metal surf, clacking waves of steel
Railgaree telegraphs, rumbling, excitement moving near
Excited smiles and nods; its coming, watch out, hurry!
Six coins placed, set carefully on the tracks

Hissing, chuffing, rumbling, puffing, hooting
Get away, away! Black and charging it comes
Annas neatly laid two feet apart; stand back!
Engineer waves and people hanging from doors
Shouting, wind blows dhotis, black smoke billows
Steam escapes in short pants, a track star.
Pistons push, push, huge iron wheels rumble
Coins flatten, flatten, flatten small chappaties!

Tracks, all shiny with birthday cake medallions
Six copper discs shine, sparkle brightly in the sun
Children shriek, pick up their track treasures
One by one, compare, laugh, rub surfaces
Smooth against their cheeks, stroking cool flat discs
Busy little fingertips explore, thumbs flip coppers
Spinning up, catch the sun, no heads, no tails.

Wails of the Lucknow train cry in the distance.
Harold Bergsma, San Diego, 2007

Ammonites and Sri Salagrama Shila

Originally published 9/29/07 on Desicritics

The Ammonites were nothing but trouble for ancient Israel. Ammon, according to Genesis 19:38 was a son of Lot who had lots of descendants who were nomadic types and thus warlike and bothersome to other descendants of Abraham. They pillaged their towns and because of their worship ceremonies which required human sacrifices, were abhorred by ancient descendants of Israel. But once in a while beauty won over caution. Solomon had a gorgeous wife who was an Ammonite. (Ezekiel 25:6 and Kings 2, 23:13)

Ammon as a term that is now commonly used by scientists and historians alike harks back to a Greek word, Ammon, derived from the ancient Egyptians who called their god Amun. Amun had curled horns like a ram on his head, thus the application to modern usages of the word in our vocabulary. In medicine there is the cornu ammonis, a region of the hippocampus in the brain which literally means “Amun’s Horns”. Shelled extinct cephalopods have spiral shells resembling a ram’s and Ammon’s horns. We call them ammonites. Even our word ammonia, a chemical is named as a derivation from Ammon.

Alexander the Great, who visited Taxila, was once greeted as Ammon’s son because of his veneration and respect for the Egyptian deity. He had the temerity to have a coin struck with his profile on which the whorls of hair are shaped to resemble the ram’s horn. He had other godly images of himself struck as well. Some of those ancient misshapen, thick, copper coins got buried in pottery in Taxila and one of them, as well as others that bear his image, are beside my computer as I write. Ammon, the horns of the ram. But the story does not end here or in Taxila, it eventually takes us to the Kali Gandaki River of Nepal.

Long before the great cosmic collision that killed many of earth’s terrestrial creatures, including the dinosaurs, there were creatures in the depths of the ocean that survived, that rose to the shallows to feed, great and small ammonites, the chambered nautiluses. “The long voyages of the nautilus, from the depths into the shallow each night, are thus a perfect metaphor for its evolutionary history, which comes up to our world unchanged from the depths of time.” (Megalania Dinosaur Page—Dinosaur News)

Also on my table, next to the computer for inspiration and reference, is in my bolo-tie. It is a magnificent fossil form, cut, shaped and polished like a jewel, revealing the swirl, the ram’s horn configuration that formed some 65 to 140 million years ago. From a tiny living cephalopod-mollusk the size of a grain of basmati rice, it grew, expanded and made new rooms for itself, in the shape we all know so well, room upon room, chamber upon chamber, as it occupied progressively larger rooms which it made for itself. The Chambered Nautilus!

This ammonite has captured the minds of many throughout history, bards, poets, and religious saints. Hear the words of Ayappa Suprabhatam: “A handsome mien, the entire world yearned, with a holy stone around his neck, and with a luster, none in the world dreamed, grew the holy babe, King of souls, oh my Lord, to you ... holy and a pleasant...” (by Narayana lyer, translated by P.R. Ramachander)

Or hear Oliver Wendell Holmes who caught the idea of the progression of the soul in his poem “The Chambered Nautilus”. “Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, as the swift seasons roll! Leave thy low-vaulted past! Let each new temple, nobler than the last, shut thee room, heaven with a dome more vast, Till thou at length art free, Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea!” How lovely. Transmigration, reincarnation, the imprint of growth leaving behind a jewel!

The Skanda Purana states that, “a genuine Salagram Sila (or Shila) is directly a manifestation of the Supreme Lord Vishnu and does not require installation.” It states that, “Merely by touching a genuine Salagram Sila one becomes free from the sins of millions of births, so what to speak of worshiping Him. By puja of Salagrama Sila one gains the direct association of Lord Hari” (Vedic Sacred Stones)

***

It was many, many, years ago, in 1949 that I climbed through the deep valley of the Kali Gandaki valley, moving slowly in the rarified air toward the Tibetan border, Jomosom and Muchtinath, an altitude of almost 12,000 feet. Often alone during the long day’s hike, I stopped to eat my chappati and canned cheese. The river ran out from Tibet on the dark stones, shiny and crystal, icy cold from the snows high above. Re-billed Choughs played on up-currents of air calling to each other as they did acrobatics above me.

My feet rested on damp rocks, my eyes feasted on the view. I stood and dislodged a rock, not a large one but roundish and black. I bent to pick it up and was surprised at how heavy it was. It was the size of a very large mango. Its surface had been polished by the moving water for eons and was shiny and black. One edge was unusual, looking almost carved, whorls that faced each other forming a labial configuration. The imagination of a youth! I held the stone, hefted it, held it near my cheek and felt it cool and magical. What is this, I wondered? There was a large boulder near me. I took the stone and threw it with force against the boulder. It broke in two, evenly, revealing the most astonishing sight! Jewels, arranged in a spiraling whorl, as if the eternal Jeweler had arranged the smallest ‘diamond’ crystals in the center and then progressively increased their size, room by room, until the picture that emerged was that of a twisted, curling ram’s horn. I set the two halves on the boulder and looked at the ancient wonder, sparkling in the sun, now upset that I had violated this hidden wonderful microcosm of growth which had lain for some one hundred million years, unseen by mortal man. This rock was here because of the up-thrust of the mountains, the Himalayas, which were once under the deepest seas. What a migration for this rock, and what karma for me to have touched it.

My pack was heavy, filled with skinning tools, a water canteen, a camera, film, ammunition, food and clothes for the day. The stone was heavy. To carry it one mile would be easy, eighteen, problematic, for three months, wearisome. I sighed, kissed each side goodbye, put the halves together and placed the stone back where I had found it, humming to myself. OM MANI PADME HUM.

It is the song of Tibet, sung by many who traverse the cruel trails leading from Tibet to Tansing along the Kali Gandaki River. The devout among them moved along and murmured, counting their beads, trying to concentrate their minds. Many carry Mani Stones, on which is carved this very mantra; of compassions which vibrate, resonate and develop a corresponding feeling in the heart; as if by these vocal repetitions and sounds and by using the mind intoxicating words a new state of spiritual awareness would occur. In the brutality of their life and environment, the deprivation of adequate food, the hard earth as their bed, OM MANI PADME HUM lifted them up, up and away.

I sat with the carriers that night and we talked about their grueling day of labor, each carrying about seventy pounds on their backs supported by head straps that cut into their foreheads. Their karma, coolies! They huddled over a hot coal on which a pea-sized greenish substance, bhang, was placed and with straws inhaled the sweet smoke and sighed, their aches and pains, their hunger assuaged for a lingering moment, even the humming now a vague memory. I told them of the stone I had found and they sat up more alert and questioned me. Where? How far back? Could I take them there to retrieve the stone? Sadly, I said that of the thousand steps I took that day, I could not return to that exact spot. They murmured, “Sri Salagrama Shila” and shook their heads sadly. They looked at me strangely now.

I travel back in time to that memory of holding a sacred stone, the Salagrama Shila, a manifestation of the Supreme Lord Vishnu. Was my kiss an appropriate puja? Was my smashing the stone to reveal its hidden splendor a mystic violation? Or was the peek into the spiral arrangement of rooms of the primordial creature a portent of the rooms of my own life?

CHAMBERED NAUTILUS

Kaligandaki River
Winds, a snake, black
Between high rock walls
Primordial thrusts, upheavals
Erecting earth extensions high
Himalaya fingers proudly holding
Creatures born yesterday in sea chambers
Black time warps, frozen stone sea memories
Bathed for centuries, awash in earth’s salty solutions
Sea mummies, mysterious black stone folds, cupped secrets
Held silently in frozen time, millions of years unseen, unknown
This fossil form, just a stone picked up by wandering callow youth
Tossed against a boulder, cracks and unfolds its obsidian hands holding
Sleeping places, bejeweled rooms, crystal filled, chambers of once soft life
Shining mantras of yesterdays.


Self Grows Slowly
Tortuously formed fossil stuff
Tomorrows, chambered though brief years
Birthday parties, picnics on white sands, report cards
Tears, new sneakers, joy and insecurities neatly packaged
Accretions, unnoticed, forming, reforming, life’s lost wax molds
Castings, edges rough, unending parades in self or other’s lives, in, out,
Nudging, pushing at delicate stuff, mind tissues, will struggles, love strokes,
Calligraphy marks of pain and joy, diplomas, gold stars, motorcycle licenses
Diagnosis and life prescriptions

Pulsating and Throbbing
Growths under this deep sea of stars
Planet creatures that crawl on dirt and sand
Life forms filling time and space, mere calcifications
Just human reefs; libraries, compact discs, Taxila ruins,
Sand Castle construction, aching retractions, hopeful advances
Cycles, shock waves of life energy, human anemones undulating
Old lives and shadows, petrified human forests, memories of yesterday
Rediscovered anew, soft memories stored in calcified chambers, limitations
Of our own life’s rooms

From : Soft Shoe in Soft Rain, Poems
by Harold Bergsma, Copyright 2004

Memories of Chinars - Kashmiri Treasures

Originally published 9/17/07 on Desicritics

What brings back precious memories to you? Smells, sights, sounds, kinesthetic sensations? The fragrance of Scheherazade perfume on an elevator? The glint of sunshine on jet black hair? The sound of a tinkling laugh that turns your head? The hard mace-like seeds of the Chinar crunching underfoot? The name Suffering Moses?

Yesterday I walked along the Embarcadero, the waterfront of San Diego Bay. It was a grand day, as usual, a light breeze wafted in from the waters, sea gulls cried and twice I was accosted by ‘Rickshaw wallahs’ who asked with Latvian accents if I wanted a ride. I walked under an arbor of Sycamore trees and kicked aside the mace-like seeds on the sidewalk. I sat on a bench for a moment and looked up at the grey trunks, the rough shedding bark, the leaves, almost hand-like in shape, clapping in the breeze from the bay. I was brought back to Bagh-i Naseem near Dal Lake in Kashmir.

Almost every year our family would travel from Taxila by car to Kashmir, the trunk crammed with so many possessions that the lid would not close and had to be tied down with rope, the car-top carrier stacked high with a large folded tent and sacks of food stuffs. Our destination was the Vale of Kashmir! We were in store for swimming in Dal Lake, buying flowers from the boat vendors in their shikaras that sold practically everything. Best of all, we would pitch our tent in ‘Naseem Bagh’ under a massive Chinar, first clearing the ball-like spiked seeds and grey bark away so the ground was smooth. Across from our tent was a Chinar that was massive. It was so old that part of the inside had decayed; fire had burned out some of the soft wood making a secret cave we could crawl into. Magic! There were two baby crows inside it which squawked and brought adult crows swooping over our heads.

“Thank Emperor Akbar,” my father said. Dad knew everything. Doctor Sahib, even on vacation had a book in his hands, this time it was Shalimar Gardens. We sat around a camping table and our cook Noab Din served us chapattis, a huge bowl of whipped cream from the milk of buffaloes, and Mixed Fruit jam. What a breakfast. My father talked, sort of lectured, as we filled the flat breads with cream and jam and ate until we were stuffed. “Shah Jehan laid out the gardens of Chashma Shahi, so named because of a mountain spring in that place that provides water to it.” We all smiled. “Tomorrow. But first a boat ride on Dal Lake in a shikara.”

What brings back precious memories to you? The sound of jackals calling across the valley? The sound of your mother humming as she works in the kitchen? For me it is the sound of a crackling camp fire on a dark cool night. We pile dry Chinar leaves on the flames and watch it flare up, leaving sparkler trails in the sky? The biting smell of smoke from burning leaves as the winds shifts toward us makes us run to the other side, rubbing our eyes.

On the small table next to me, one of four beautifully hand-crafted nesting tables sits my tea cup. The grain of the wood looks like a relief map, dark swirls and streaks, the surface as smooth as the day it was made in the furniture shop of Suffering Moses in Srinagar in 1939. Chinar wood!

I can still smell the smoke of the burning leaves of the campfire, still hear my dad’s lectures about this tree, this Kashmiri treasure. “There are stories about how the tree got its name in the first place. Jahangir traveled to Kashmir from Delhi, or maybe it was Lahore, all the way to Srinagar. In the autumn the leaves of the Booune tree turned red, just like maples in Michigan do. Well the emperor saw the red leaves in the distance and cried out, ‘Chin-nar’. That means blazing color. So the tree got its name.” My dad loved stories like this. But now I find that he had his facts all wrong, that is if you believe modern writers. The Persian name for the tree is Cinar or Chinar, and the Moghals knew this of course. If mature trees already existed when the Moghals ruled, how did they get there?

M.S. Wadoo writes in the Kashmir Observer a fine article entitled Booune. In it he mentions my father’s point of view. The Booune was introduced by Akbar in about 1586. “It is a historical fact that Akbar planted about 1200 plants of Booune near the sacred shrine of Hazratbal...” After that time the tree was called Cinar. Wadoo tell about the wonderful idea that Jehangir had; he was a truly shady character. He introduced the idea of planting Chinar trees on all four sides of a park (char chinar) which would grow to huge heights and thus provide shade to the stroller, the families who sit out on the grass and have picnics, the lovers, heaven forbid, who would stroll in the dark shade, perhaps even sneak into the hollow trunk of a huge tree for communication. It was a good idea because no matter how the ‘sun its course doth run’, there would be areas of shade making the park a pleasant place, and Jehangir loved pleasant faces and places.(Anarkali) And what was more pleasant than the shade of the trees in a garden filled with marigolds? So my father was correct. Thanks to the foresight of emperors the plane tree, the lovely Chinar is a feature in Kashmir that grows with its roots in history, but that is not the whole story. Pran Nath Wanchoo, writes, Chinar Tree, “Bouin” of Kashmir, Symbol of Goddess Bhawani, in Vitasta: A Kashmir Sabha, Kolkata Publication, 202, “The origin of the tree in Kashmir is by inference of the recorded evidence in literature deduced to be very ancient.”

Some of the existing trees in Kashmir are so huge that they predate the Moguls by some three hundred years. Akbar in his memoirs, yes, emperors had wonderful foresight and wrote things down, or had them written down by scribes, (Akbar Nama) that “34 guards took shelter in a hollow tree trunk of a Booune tree”, when it started raining. That is a large tree! Other evidence of massive trees which would predate the Moguls exists in Kashmir. So how and when did these trees get introduced into Kashmir?

First, it is very hard to plant the seeds of the tree and to get the seedlings to do well Kashmir climate. Second, many of the trees that exist were taken from live shoots that spring up from the roots. Such root stock, kept moist can be transported long distances and planted in far away sites. So who was the clever one who introduced this tree?

Now I really like Wadoo’s argument that it was probably because of the influence of Buddhism into this area during the period of Ashoka, the ruler of Magada (271-231 BC). The foundations for a city were laid by Ashoka called Puranadhisthena sponsoring 5000 monks so that it could become a center of learning. Huge shade trees were the missing feature, such as the Bodhi, so of course the Booune (his spelling) was introduced and planted as a tree that was large, would live long and would ‘replace’ the holy Bodhi. I will not go into the intricate horticultural steps necessary to grow seedlings which have a low germination rate, or how to prepare viable shoots for transportation, leave that part alone. Trees were probably introduced by Ashoka, perhaps as early as the first century before Christ. Not only that, the tree became a sacred tree, often adorned and respected. Remember, knowledge of the origin of the tree is by ‘inference.’

This all gets us back to Taxila. Why Taxila? Because of the early introduction of Buddhism to that part of the world, including what we now call Afghanistan. Remember the Bamiyan Buddhas and their destruction by the Taliban? When those massive statues were being carved in the stone face of the cliff, the Bouin (modern spelling) was already growing in Kashmir. Where did these seeds or saplings come from? Remember the Silk Road, the trade routes that went all the way from Asia Minor to China? People are funny, they like to plant exotic trees in far countries that remind them of home. Perhaps such saplings had high trade value, much like the Tulip bulbs in Holland and Europe that in the early years of introduction were worth their weight in gold! Traders carried them.

Of course my Dad was correct. Akbar did plant thousands of the trees, but remnants of much older trees have been found which would predate Akbar by centuries. So, my humble theory is that if it were not for Buddhism there would be no Bouin or Chinar in Kashmir.

Trees were in fashion back in Ashoka’s time. He was a darakht wallah, a tree dude. I think history records that he sent Bodhi saplings to the king of what was later called Ceylon or even later, Sri Lanka, when the religion was in its early stages there, and these were planted near the Temple of the Tooth. So of course, logically, he could have brought in the wonderful Chinar trees to the region that grow well in that climate, to Kashmir as a substitute for the Bodhi. Remember, he was a relic man as well and distributed these all over India. In my sojourns on the sub-continent, from the Peshawar to Sri Lanka, I have walked in his shadow, kicked seeds of Chinar, looked at the hand shaped leaves and have felt the influence of the sages around me in trees.

Science wins! Pran Nath Wanchoo, of New Delhi, the retired Dy. Director of Agriculture /Horticulture and author of “Horticulture in the Himalayas”, in his “Chinar Tree, Bouin of Kashmir-Symbol of Goddess Bhawani”, previously mentioned, makes a strong claim that a Chinar tree which had a girth of 31.85 meters at the ground level was found on the premises of a mosque. It was said that the tree was planted by Hazrat Syed Qasim Sahib in 1374 AD and that people considered it holy. Vitasta.org/2002/1.8. So there you have it. Or do you? Ashoka? Akbar? Hazrat Syed Qasim sahib? Symbol of Goddess Bhawani? We may never know for sure, but the Chinar has been in Kashmir as a near holy tree, from the first century until now. I have recently read that the grove of Chinar in Naseem Bagh where I played as a youth is dying out, that the leaves are turning brown, that many trees are already dead. Nature has its cycles and its reasons. Visit Kashmir and revel in the Char Chinar plantations in Shalimar Gardens, walk in the shade of history. Our sojourn in life is much like that of boats passing on Dal Lake in the sunset.

Beauty Spots-Til

Sunset caught mists rising from Dal Lake

Gold orange, nimbus Benarsi scarves

Fluttered on the shiny skin of water

Glass smooth, unwrinkled peach tone

Reflected back smiles of day’s messenger

Sinking slowly on the soft and yielding grey

Cushions; yawning, bidding sleep to come

Sunset caught the two Shikaras, drifting

Slowly through a fog of orange

Collision courses set, quietly they

Came and met, passed each other by

Wrinkling taught, lake skin in golden

Folds, touching deep clams and muscles

Which shudder and shimmer into waves

Sunset caught the crane, flying low

Wing tips touching black water skin

Raising gold beauty spots, til in pairs

Across the breast; sighing now

For sleep and quiet rest, the lady

Of the lake gently closes her dark eyes

Wisps of mist rise from Anarkali’s cheeks.

Adapted from Lalla and Lavina, Stories about Indian Women, Harold Bergsma, Authorhouse, 10/13/05

My tea cup rests on a small end table. The top is twenty four inches across. It is made of Chinar, hand carved in the shop of Suffering Moses in Srinagar over seventy years ago. That hunk of wood has not warped or cracked and has the original shine applied by polishers long before my birth. My dad liked old things. What a huge tree that must have come from; an unblemished piece of wood from a Chinar that was made from an ancient, huge, dried, seasoned log. I think my dad knew his history pretty well when he bought the table because all the artifacts in our home have a special story to tell. At night they tell each other stories of India and whisper of Bhawani.

Lady with the Lotus - Sojourn in Sigiriya, Sri Lanka

Originally published 9/10/07 on Desicritics

Image courtesy of Desicritics

“No flash! No Flash!” It was too late. I had already captured the Lady of the Lotus on film as well as many of her companions, all half nude and gorgeous. I thought the guide would rip the film from my camera. Instead he actually held my left elbow and moved me along the narrow rock trail of Sigiriya and lectured me. “Light destroys color. Picture is 479 AD.” He said the last as ‘Ayedeee’. I felt bad and said that I had moved the setting from flash to auto, but clouds and shade at the instant I took the picture brought the flash. Sorry. I like my color picture better than the black and white one in Ajit Mookerjee’s The Arts of India, 1966! But his is pretty good too. I actually missed the lotus in his picture the first time I saw it.

So where in the world is this place? Sigiriya, or Sinhagiri, or Sihagiri which means ‘lion of the rock’. It is in Sri Lanka. What a wonder it is. Ayers Rock in Australia is grand but this stone, this monolith is huge and appeared black when I first saw the massive rock with the sun behind it. It rises out of the green steaming jungle like a supine lion. It compares to Machu Picchu or the Masada. The latter comparisons are appropriate in that both were places of human settlement, on the rocks, as was Sigiriya.

Our party spent the night in the Sigiriya Village Hotel. The rooms were wonderful, though we did have to ask for bug spray. Buzzing mosquitoes in the room make for whining, irritable, unhappy campers. The next day our gang of four was deposited at the base of the big rock and we began our hike to the top. The first two hundred feet were relatively easy. That is where I got into trouble taking pictures of the naked women. The rest of the climb was up to us. The guide had been up those metal ladders a hundred times and we did not look like the type that would leave a big tip. He glanced up at the top, at the snaking, spiraling metal rungs and ladders that stuck to the face of the rock like clinging ivy. He smiled politely and left, shaking his head and muttering, perhaps some words like pagal amni.

Up, up we climbed. No big deal as long as you don’t look down. Stretches of the climb were steps carved into the rock itself which were shiny with a paten of hundreds of thousands of feet that had polished it since the 5th. Century. On top at last! At one time there was a small city at Sigiriya. There are cisterns and baths, foundations for many rooms, strolling areas, cooking areas, (slave quarters were down below, they had to commute-climb to work each day). The drop-off was something to write home about. It had claimed the lives of quite a few, we were told, including unhappy princesses and concubines left all alone, perched high above the jungle floor, their lord and masters slain in a fraternal war.

The legends of Sigiriya feature Kasyapa, who according to some was a security nut who used the rock as an impregnable palace. Our guide had mentioned that this usurper of the throne of Anuradhapura loved beautiful women. He had five hundred of them, each one more beautiful than the other. And he was really smart; he had their pictures drawn on the rock surfaces, kind of a Playboy fresco thing. Really, that is what the guide said. I think Kasyapa had read about Solomon of old who had a thousand, but had never left any pictures to prove it. Was Kasyapa an ancient historical role model for Hugh Hefner?

Solomon of old, wise old Solomon reputedly had a thousand wives, but that is just a story that emerged from the Old Testament. No pictures please. (Muslim and ancient Jewish guys didn’t like to have other men snoop around in their private zennanah or harems. Some covered up their women so only their eyes could be seen. They had strong religious inhibitions against displaying the female form.) But one of Solomon’s favorites was enshrined in history in the Song of Solomon. His words still have a pretty good ring to them. “Thy navel is like a round goblet, which wanteth not liquor... Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins...Thy neck is a tower of ivory... How fair and how pleasant art thou, O love, for delights.” Wow!

Kasyapa left no flowery words behind, he paid artists to draw his beauties. The Lady with the Lotus is a knock-out. Let me name her Sita. When I see her there, high on the cliff above the jungle far below I say, “Tell me, female of the forest, who thou be and whence thy birth. Much I fear thou art a Raksha wearing various forms on earth.” (From Romesh C Dutt’s translation - Book 6, The Ramayana, Sita Lost). She holds a lotus flower that I had not noticed at first. Typical occidental reaction, the prurient first, the artistic second and the meaning behind it all, the religious connotations, last. “To the oriental and especially the Buddhist, the lotus flower is sacred and its blossom is filled with meaning. For the occidental this flower contains little more than satisfying beauty.” (William Ward, The Lotus Symbol: Its meaning in Buddhist Art and Philosophy, 1952, page 135.)

The historical version that is least liked in Sri Lanka is the one put forward on Remyc.com.

“Think Devil Tower with a health spa on top. “Rising 650 feet out of the ground, this Eighth Wonder of the World, long believed to be the fortress of a mad king, has been revealed for what it really was: a Tantric sex initiation. King Kasyapa had 500 wives. He was a 5th Century Hugh Hefner. Sigiriya was his Playboy Mansion.”

I found it very disappointing to read in this person’s account that he had never even been there. Terrible. Playboy themes sell.

One who did visit at a time when the pictures on the walls were fresh was John Still who in 1907 observed that; “The whole face of the hill appears to have been a gigantic picture gallery...the largest picture in the world perhaps. The pictures covered an area, 140 meters long and 40 meters high, and there is ancient graffiti which refers to the 500 ladies in these paintings."

The story goes that later on, this glorious wall of paintings became a disturbance, a distraction. Sigirya had become a religious monastery, and the young monks kept sneaking down to take a peek and neglected their holy books and uplifting thoughts. You have it, most of the best pictures, frescos, were destroyed. That hurts philosophically. Remember the Bamiyan Buddhas that were destroyed because of religious zeal? Amazing!

The gardens at the foot of the monolith are beautifully laid out. In their hay day they must have been stunning, filled with jasmine and rat ki rani; the fair ladies must have taken excursions down from their high life to stroll and sit beside the pools and listen to the birds and watch the peacocks strut. The gardens have three aspects, Water, Cave and Boulders. The water gardens are the most sophisticated in design and water fountains work today that were designed long, long ago. A visit to them will give a grounded perspective to Sigiriya.

I took out my photograph of the Lady with the Lotus from the album yesterday. The Ektachrome colors have faded; she looks pale, washed out. There is only one way to fix it. I must visit Sri Lanka again, this time with a digital camera so I can download Sita and make her my screen saver.

Sita’s Dream

The lotus seed sinks into muck

Sleeps, then awakens from calls of ancient past

Listening, it stirs, shudders open and puts forth

Green tender leaves seeking sun and air

The lotus lies deep within black ooze

Awakens, draws life and strength from dark decay

Raises a brave and jubilant head within a day

Lifts its gold-pink face to kiss the sky

Adapted from Rhododendron Wine Factory, Memoirs of a Wanderer, by Harold Bergsma, March 2006

Do Asiatic Lions Still Roar in Gir?

Originally published 9/07/07 on Desicritics
Image courtesy of http://www.predatorconservation.com/

It is hard to believe we did this! We pitched a tent in an isolated area of a game reserve in lion country. I was awakened by the terrifying sound of a lion roaring. I was sure it was in the tent with us. There are few things as awe inspiring, or should I say exciting as hearing a lion roar in the wild. It is an instant adrenaline high. The hair stood up on the back of my neck.
Another time I was strolling along on a visit to the Lahore Zoo and stood bored and feeling sad for the scraggly, thin, lethargic 'Asiatic' lion there. He must have picked up on my intense stare and started to roar. In seconds I was surrounded by kids and their families all looking wide-eyed. I could understand how lady lions would be impressed.

The Maldharis who live in the Gir Forest in small gatherings called, 'ness' listen to the roars of the majestic Asiatic Lion almost on a daily basis. The lions regularly eat their cattle too. Perhaps they are used to the roars. It's a jungle out there! But the Maldharis don't want to leave the Gir reserve which they consider home, a place to graze their cattle. Dionne Bunsha's article, "A kingdom too small" presents an excellent review of the present, sad condition of the Asiatic Lion, the last remnant of a once large and widely distributed sub-species. Truly, their kingdom is too small, and the kings are too few, now some three hundred individuals. But it was not always this way. Once upon a time, the Asiatic lion really was the lion king.

The Asian Lion roamed a vast territory ranging from Greece through the Middle East and part of North Africa all the way down to India. This lion has been the focus of literature, the inspiration of religious texts, the model for motifs of entire kingdoms and the inspiration of poets and religious leaders in the middle east, south east Asia and even China. I often wondered where the Chinese got the model for their strange lions, you remember, the ones that stand guarding gates; stone lions poised menacingly at leading restaurants. The male Chinese lion is represented by a stylized lion with a ball under its foot; the female lion with a lion cub under her foot. Legend has it that the female's nipples are on her feet. How in the world did Chinese artists come to depict the lion that way? The answer of course; the Indian or Asiatic lion. Buddhists regard the lion as a protector of truth, a defender against evil. But, the Chinese had no lions of their own, you say. Correct, but the Silk Road, and the advance of Buddhism carried the images from India where the real lion roamed. The King of Parthia, in 87 AD gave China a gift of lions as China had none of its own.

In Indian art history lions are shown supporting Buddha's throne. Those lions are more realistic than the Chinese depiction of lions. On India's Republic Day the streets of the capital are filled with lion images. TheAshoka pillar, a symbol of the state of India, is surmounted by four lions with manes crouching back to back.

The word Singh, derived from the Sanskrit simha is a name that rings out in Indian history. It rings a note of recognition in other parts of the world. In fact the word was on CNN yesterday. Bearded men with turbans were being stopped in American airports and being requested to remove their turbans. It is hard to pat down certain areas. (I wondered about the Kachk, Kara or Kirpan that are traditionally worn by many, which are made of metal?) Many variations of the name meaning lion appear. Singh! Sinhagiri, (lion of the rock) Sinh, Simha, or in Gujarati, sawaj. I knew one other name for the Asian lion as I grew up and I think it is the best one by far, babbar sher; it has a princely ring to it that Rajas liked; Bir Narsing Kunwar (Nepal 1816), and later Shumsher Jang-Bahadur Rana. Kipling put the Tiger and the Leopard in the minds of his readers, worldwide, with the names of two other cool cats, Bagheera and Sher Khan. The Persians would smile, knowing that the name originated with them, shir. But the Persians did not have a monopoly on giving the lion a name. The Greek, leon sounds familiar, as does the Roman leo. The Lion King shamelessly picked up on it all and made a killing.

The Asiatic leo was the emotional experience of folks living around the Mediterranean and the Middle East throughout recorded history. What images are conjured up when you hear the words 'Lion of Judah' or 'Daniel in the Lions' Den' 'Richard the Lion-Hearted' or 'Bishan Bedi, lion-hearted cricketer'? How many great Indian leaders carried the name Singh?
It becomes an emotional journey to read of the historical distribution of the Asiatic Lion, 'last know lion killed in Tunisia in 1891' 'last known lion in Turkey killed in 1870' 'last know in Iran in 1942' last know lion in Pakistan killed near Kot Beji in Sind province in 1810' 'fifty lions were killed in the district of Delhi between1856-58'! Twenty five years later Blanford (1891) wrote that in India the lion is on the verge of extinction'. During the British Raj, the gora sahibs would engage in shikar, wonderful events hosted by local potentates with the lion in their name, the trophy in their mind. But not only did the Brits kill thousands of animal, so did many Maharajas. Mahesh Rangarajan, a well known historian of ecological change, documents amazing exploits of Indian rulers. One in particular, a certain Sadul Singh, Maharajkumar of Bikaner (1936) kept a Diary for over a quarter of a century recording all his shoots. "Nearly 50,000 head of animals and a further 46,000 game birds fell to his gun. Among these were 33 tigers... and a lone Asiatic lion." (See India's Wildlife History, Mahesh Ranagarajan, Permanent Black, p 160, Rs 250) Hapless animals would be slaughtered and the proud hunters would have their photo taken sitting behind the poor dead lion, or tiger. I have a wonderful old book, still available on Amazon.com, The Last Empire (1855-1911) by Ainslie Embre, in which there is a picture of a bored looking King Edward and a Raja posing behind a tiger. Such pictures were all the rage for those who served in India, as were carpets made of skins of animals, especially lion rugs that had a mounted skull with mouth wide open. As a child I loved to lie on the rug and reach over and put my fingers into the gaping maw and feel the teeth. Honestly.

Soon there were few lions left. Some attempts were made to breed the Asian Lion with the African Lion, to give it a genetic boost, so to speak. It was a bad mistake. Very soon it was discovered that the offspring developed all sorts of problems, including insanity. During one period about 200 of these Asiatic lions were sent to various zoos in different parts of the world as a program to insure the survival of the sub-species. "In the mid 1980s it was found that some Asian lions exported to the USA from the Trivandrum Zoo India, were Asian/African hybrids. Paul Joslin, former assistant director of Chicago's Brookfield Zoo had noticed that many "Asian " lions in US zoos lacked the telltale belly fold. He also noticed an increase in infant mortality which is indicative of inbreeding depression." There is a detailed description of the 'analysis of mitochondrial DNA which showed, that in fact these were hybrids. So the preservation efforts ended in having to sterilize all the breeding males. They will live out their sterile existence and their majestic once sexy roars will now be not much more than an impotent whimpers.

At the present time in Indian zoos, there may be dozens of 'retired' lions who have not been euthanized because of India's official prohibition about killing such animals. There are two categories for euthanasia, active and passive. The passive variety allows animals. Monkeys, dogs, cats and cattle are ignored, get by, survive on their own and eventually die off, or disease decimates a population. But the sterilized and inferior retired lions are a privileged group who enjoy a decent, sterile, segregated life with ample food until their death do us part. Humans, however, can be cruel to each other, kill off each other, kill off unwanted female children, but official policy prohibits such, and hopefully attempts to establish an environment for all life which is one of respect and preservation will prevail. Hopefully there are not many rajas or vast land owners around who still enjoy the shikar and kill off large numbers of game animals.

Now these magnificent lions are confined to a small area, the Gir Forest in Gujarat, some three hundred of them or fewer. Their future hangs in the balance; their fate rests in the hands of scientists and conservationists who seek to preserve them. It is not an easy task. The Asiatic lion in the Gir Forest now enjoys heightened world awareness. The extinction of this fine carnivore would be a world tragedy. This sub-species once roamed widely but was the victim of a number of factors that led to its being protected in a tiny area. What killed off the lions?

1. Human population explosions, increased farming, the cutting of trees and slaughter of game species was a major factor in the rapid decline of these lions. If people and carnivores compete for the same resources, guess who wins.

2. Trophy hunting systematically caused the demise of regional populations of lions. "Fifty lions in the Delhi area!"

3. Superstition and ill founded belief that lion body parts have magical properties resulted in animals being collected for sale to male Chinese people who wanted increased potency and sexual stamina. Lions are sexy creatures that mate as many as thirty times a day so it figures; if you eat certain parts ... It could be called imitative magic.

4. Climate change brings about habitat change, deforestation, desertification, lack of water supplies, all of which kills off the animals.

5. Parasites and insect pests can kill off entire prides of lions. From time to time there is a scourge of biting flies that torment lions so intensely that they have little appetite for game.
6. Anthrax, rabies and other diseases can wipe out animals.

7. Human pollution of environments with drugs, (remember the vultures) toxic wastes which pollute the water, the land and food sources kill off predators.

8. Sub-species and cross species breeding programs can create genetic monsters, infertility and non-viable populations of lions. In-breeding weakens the gene pool.

It is amazing with all that going against them that there are a few Asiatic lions left in the Gir. International conservation bodies and the Indian government are setting up a variety of approaches to preserve, protect and enhance the survival of this lion. It may be working; there may be hope. Lions are leaving the preserve and expanding their own territory. A few have even been reported on distant beaches far from their Gir Forest reserve. Their will to survive, to search for new territory, to establish new colonies are encouraging signs.

There is a sparkling new book about all of this written by an expert with a name to match - The Story of Asia's Lions, by Divyabhanusinh; Marg Publications, Mumbai, 2005. If you don't make it to the Gir Forest, you can imagine the roars as you read his wonderful book. The Asiatic lion still roars and people get goose pimples.

The Grand Old Trunk Road, Part I

Originally published Sept. 3, 2007 on Desicritics

It was not a goose step! The Pakistani border guard high-kicked his leg above his head some six feet and six inches above the ground. Across from him his counterparts made their aggressive moves, staying of course on the Indian side of the border of Wagah. Their uniforms were spectacular, and their head gear, looking like papier-mâché cocks combs added at least six inches to their height, making them look seven feet tall. I stood and watched the aggressive ceremony, a fierce, glaring, challenging, change of the guard ceremony. Just like the beginning of a cock-fight. On the India side a crowd had gathered to watch the tamasha. Wah, said a little boy as he gazed up at the very tall men putting on their display. Wow!

Way Back Then

The Grand Trunk Road I knew as a child when living in a unified India ran past our home in Taxila, and then south to Amritsar. The road was often rough, full of potholes, road-bumps galore in villages to slow traffic, and narrow. Later in the late 1980s I traveled north from Lahore to Peshawar and the road was similar. I am sure that now the pot holes must be filled and the road has been broadened to multiple lanes and shoulders reinforced. I am sure the traffic has increased ten fold, filled with gaily decorated buses and air conditioned coaches that can whiz one to Sukkur or Peshawar. I am sure that ox carts with lanterns hanging at the back, moving slowly at night, are also things of the past, or slow moving tractors pulling trailers piled high with sugar cane.

In my youth I crossed this area many times in my dad’s 1937 Ford. In our Taxila days we took the Grand Trunk Road down to Lahore and on to Amritsar to see the Golden Temple. Later in my teens we reversed the trip since we were living in Ludhiana and made our way as far as Amritsar and that was as far as we could go. There was a road block of huge proportions at the Pakistani border. Now as an adult, looking at the Wagah crossing I saw a strange phenomenon. I looked into India this time and thought about the tough time travelers would have on busses or in private cars getting across the border. The scene of the guards seemed to be a parody of the relationships between the countries, particularly on the Pakistan side. I felt it was staged hostility, challenge, a display of one-up-man-ship.

In Pakistan, I have traveled on the Grand Trunk Road all the way to Peshawar a number of times and have stood and looked across at the Khyber Pass and saw quite another border scene, traffic, lots of traffic seemed to be moving back and forth. In the local bazaars you could buy practically anything. When I traveled in the NWFP into rural areas to meet farmers who had been growing poppies and who now were trying to make it with alternative crops, (1985) I looked at the vast mountainous countryside, at the dark valleys with hints of green and small roads and trails. The border was porous and the tribal people moved back and forth with ease across the international boundary, the invisible line. My Pakistani counterpart from the Ministry of Agriculture pointed and said, “See. That is the line that separates us from Afghanistan.” Where?

The Durand Line, what is that? It is the line that demarked Afghanistan from the British Indian Empire, a line agreed upon with Amir Abdur Rehman Khan on Nov. 12, 1893, that has been disputed, discussed and cussed ever since. But the Pushtuns who lived on, around and across that magical border have always felt that the land is theirs, and they rule it as they deemed appropriate by their own laws and with their own leadership. They move back and forth with ease across the hills and valleys. It is a porous tribal border.

Those words, back and forth with ease, stuck with me. The Grand Trunk Road I knew as a child when living in a unified India ran past our home in Taxila. What a fantastic thing the old Grand Trunk Road was, India’s oldest highway, and certainly its most historic one. We traveled it with ‘ease’, dodging buffalo and bullock carts, people crowding on the road, camels, donkeys, and of course traffic that came at us which was bigger than we were, pushing us off onto the shoulder. But it was with relative ease that one could move and enjoy the cultural-religious nature of Mother India, its temples and statues, Hindu, Jain, Sikh, Muslim and Buddhist. What a fantastic, colorful mélange; no other road has carried such a baggage of history, which includes the magnificent Mogul cities. I would encourage you to look at Raghubir Singh’s book, The Grand Trunk Road: A Passage Through India to take a beautiful photographic tour of the road of roads. This corridor moves goods, people and of course ideas. In much the same way as ‘all roads lead to Rome’, the Grand Trunk led into the heart of the sub-continent from its most southern tip all the way to ... Wagah.

And Now

The narrow funnel that is at the Wagah border is extremely effective in holding back land travel. It restricts movement, traffic, goods, people and liberating ideas, though somehow there is hope, even in Pakistan; popular Indian songs, raunchy movies, and DVDs slip through and trade is increasing between the two countries. But the grand trunk road is truncated effectively at the Pakistan border. The greater the stress about Kashmir, the more the Pakistani sabers rattle, the tighter the funnel gets and the higher the guards at the border kick up their heels and look really fierce and the longer it takes for one to get through immigration and customs, even if all the right papers and visas are in hand! On the other hand, to the south, the road of roads is celebrated.

In 2003 the Indian department of tourism and culture and a tire company, Birla Tyres, came together to celebrate the Indian part of the road. “It is said that since the Aryan invasion of the subcontinent, 3,500 years ago, the road served as a corridor for movement of travelers, goods, armies ...”. Now that is a persistent road! The magnificent cities of Mogul and British India were highlights! The road was an open and effective land corridor connecting travelers to the wonders of India. It used to be that this corridor ran all the way to Afghanistan, through the amazing city of Lahore and on to historic Peshawar. But international border crossings have prevented what used to be a land corridor for cultural exchange on which people moved with ease. To the north the road led to cultural wonders now seen by very few from India. How many younger Indians have visited Lahore? How many Pakistani’s have visited India and seen its wonders? Few. The lack of a communication corridor has reinforced cultural biases.

In Lahore I was talking to a young Pakistani man about the Taj Mahal. He looked troubled. “The builder of the Taj Mahal was a Muslim. The great mogul treasures such as the Shalimar Gardens were made by Muslims, Pakistanis.” I reminded him of the partition and a unified India and that Muslim history on the sub-continent existed before 1947. I reminded him that Lahore, as cities go is ancient. Written histories go back as far as 1206. Europe at that time was, ah....sort of primitive. Genghis Khan and his hordes were on the move. But India was a thriving civilization. Qautb-ud-din Aybak was crowned Sultan of Lahore in 1206. The Silk Road was established, bringing trade items into India from China. In more modern history, Akbar the Great was emperor in the period from 1584-1598. Fantastic buildings were constructed in Lahore. Gardens with fountains were delighting the women of his harem in Kashmir and in the Punjab. Two hundred years later, 1776, a declaration of independence was made in America. Lahore was thriving. The Taj Mahal had been standing already for almost two hundred years in Agra.

Sipping garamchai we spoke now of our life in Lahore, the miserable hot season, the humidity and his visit to the Ravi early in the morning. I had written a poem that day, and of course had carried the draft in my pocket. We sat in a small tea house and drank tea. “Would you like to hear a poem I wrote about Lahore?” He smiled and nodded, not knowing what to expect. I cleared my throat.

CITY ON THE RAVI
Ravi city , fathered by many
Iron Fort, Ram Chandra named
Loh-Awar, a fortress by the river
Shabuddin Ghuri a despot’s abode
Fragrant gardens of Kamran Mirza
Zannana of Akbar, keep of Nur Jahan
Tomb of Anarkali, pomegranate blossom
A burial place of jealousy and regal shame
Aurangzeb the righteous, builder of mosques
Moghul splendor, Badshahi Mosque grandeur
Sikh and Guru strongholds, Mogul desecraters
Pakka British Raj, white bungalows and botanicals
Minar-e-Pakistan, Zia al Huq, land of the pure, wars
Capital of Islamization, border disputes, atomic rockets
Ten million dung fires, stifling heat, five calls to prayer
A Trunk Road sarai, life corridor; Khans and slaves alike
Oh glorious Lahore, City on the Ravi, fathered by so
many

Muj ko samaj nahin ahta. “I do not understand,” he said. “What is meaning of ‘fathered’?”

To the north there are wonders! In Kipling’s time the movement along the road led to Lahore. His story, The Gate of a Hundred Sorrows, was prescient of the horrors of the Partition’s woes and sorrows. Anthony Weller’s work, Salon Wanderlust, Days and Nights on the Grand Trunk Road, speaks of current Lahore and a different view perceived by Lahore citizens of their decaying Mogul treasures. “A Pakistani mother who wants to frighten a misbehaving child will still let him know that So-and-so Singh will come and get him unless he straightens out.” The Salon Wanderlust goes on to say that when you’ve been into your fifth great mosque or palace or tomb in a morning and find that the Sikhs had stripped it bare of the semiprecious décor two centuries ago, then used it as a “...dump, storehouse or whorehouse, it does something to how you might have enjoyed Amritsar.” I begin to see how the Wagah border guards on both sides got the expression on their faces. The nightmare of partition still rankles.

Grand Trunk Road - New Corridor of Asia

Originally published Sept. 4, 2007 on Desicritics

Road traffic may bottleneck at the Wagah border, but bilateral trade is booming between the two countries. The Economic Times (indiatimes.com) reported encouraging news on 10 Apr. that the bi-lateral trade has "...swelled from $235.74 million in 2001-02 to more than $1 billion last fiscal year." This increase in trading between the countries bodes well for improved means of moving goods. Many goods which come into Pakistan by land must be transshipped at the border. I was told that it took passenger buses about one and a half hours to get across the border. But infrastructures are improving. Electronic communication has greatly enhanced the trade across the borders and businessmen can more easily buy and sell using computer orders.
Though economic protectionism exists, both countries are trying to remove barriers to improve trade. India and Pakistan have opened banks in each other's territories. All this bodes well for the establishment of an international land corridor.

There are visionaries around who see not only the India-Pakistan links but an APIBM CORRIDER! (Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Myanmar)
Imagine being able to zoom along such a corridor as a tourist, researcher, as a trader or transporter of goods on roads that form a corridor all the way from Afghanistan through Pakistan, to India, the hub, to Bangladesh and Myanmar, a new silk road in Asia! Imagine the boon this would be to landlocked countries that border India, particularly Nepal that could tie into the linked roads.

RIS Policy Brief No. 30, March 2007 for the SAARC Summit held in Delhi on April 3-4 outlines a visionary look at ground transportation networks, that is, overland travel routes which if developed would make India the hub for commerce and trade in Asia. One item mentioned is "Strengthening Infrastructures at Borders." Reading the list of things needed to be done makes one wonder if all this is possible, however, there were similar thoughts years ago in a non-unified Europe and look what happened there. The Grand Trunk road is a reality, a somewhat uneven continuum that covers a distance of over 2,500 km. Imagine if it were easy for Indians and Pakistanis to cross their international border, what it could mean to families that have been torn apart for decades. Imagine how the information from an APIBM corridor would change the perceptions of the youth, in all of the countries.

Pakistan, looking into its future, has done its own smaller version of the road. They have developed the New Grand Trunk Road, also called the National Highway 5. I have traveled on many parts of it and there are some sections that are very fine. It begins in Karachi in the Sindh province, moves north to Thatta, Hyderabad, Moro, Multan, Sahiwal, Lahore, Gujaranwala, Gujrat, Jhelum and Rawlpindi. Then it turns east and crosses the Indus River and moves into the NWFP where it goes through Nowshera and Peshawar before reaching the town of Torkham crossing into Afghanistan. Regional cultural exchanges are occurring. People are mixing it up; Sindh, Punjab, NWFP; Baluchistan residents are meeting each other in Peshawar and Lahore. Afghani people are now a significant part of Pakistan's cultural experience through population movement of vast numbers of refugees coming from across northern borders, yes, some on the old Grand Trunk Road.

I looked up the record on the current SAFTA '2006 Agreement'. I was amazed at the number of "Sensitive" trade items Pakistan and India list. It is hard to imagine the bureaucracy that will be needed to enforce such trade exchanges. These are mere economic trade barriers. There may be detours, diversions of a socio-religious-cum-political nature which will hamper the establishment of a corridor; however, improved bi-lateral trade, people making lots of money may move the political policy makers of both countries toward more liberal trade policies. Money squawks.

The historical Grand Trunk Road could once again function as a corridor for commerce, trade and cultural exchange. It could be a mechanism to link Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Myanmar in a new Silk Road of Asia, not moving silk but cultural ideas. The SAFTA mentioned above could become the impetus for such a development. In the good old days of the Silk Road trade was confined by and large to movement of material across land. Now with global communications and air and sea transportation, land traffic may very well not be the major means of enhancing trade, however, six lane highways that tie southeast Asia together could create a vibrant Asian community, much like what has occurred between the European countries. But creating a corridor will be a complicated process.

India and Pakistan celebrated their 60th birthday last week! Congrats. Jim Hoagland of the Washington Post wrote an article, "A tale of two South Asian Nations" which appeared in the San Diego Union Tribune this morning, August 20th. 2007. "New Delhi had the air of the capital of an emerging world power looking ahead into a promising if complicated future. Pakistan marked the same occasion by sinking deeper into the past. The corrupt backroom dealing between military rulers and politicians that has produced a cycle of disasters for the Pakistani nation resumed-- aided by the hidden hand of U.S. diplomacy working to pressure President Pervez Musharraf's dwindling power in Islamabad." Bring back Benazir? This does not look good for Grand Road construction or repairs. It does not look very hopeful for open negotiations to create a functional land corridor.

Tragic as it may seem, the Grand Trunk Road Wagah international border displays may well be a thing of the near future. Posturing, high kicking, fierce appearance, Inshallah, will do the trick for now. But let's dream of a corridor.