just arrived (the discovery of India road trip)

Thursday, 10 December 2015

Arriving in Bombay was a bit of a disappointment. Aesthetically, the airport has been vastly improved, but come to the immigration hall, and there were only about a third of the booths occupied by officers, and the queues were simply chaotic. People going under barriers to get ahead, or simply walking past the queue and protests with a smugness writ large on their faces were annoying and disheartening. And, of course, the legend of the giant toilet bowl – one is treated to the aromatic treat of ammonia as soon as one lands in Bombay – continues! I had lived here long enough to know, and have visited a number of times since I first left for the Netherlands to experience a reverse shock. So I will write about the constant honking, visible plumes of smoke and soot, slums et al.

In the midst of it all, Tim, Fabian and I decided to go for a walk in the neighbourhood, but ended up walking more. We walked to my school, college, and some other places where I spent a lot of time in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Not all was the same, but even where the places looked different, the heat, the dust, and the smells took me back to when, for some seemingly inexplicable reason, I loved the searing summer heat. But it was not inexplicable anymore:

about to depart (the discovery of India road trip)

Wednesday, 9 December 2015

At long last, the day has arrived. After two months of hard work and little sleep, the day finally comes when we must fly to India. It is my first vacation of this year, and I am very much looking forward to it. Yet the excitement is not as palpable as I would have imagined it would be. With about 2-4 hours of sleep every weeknight, and no exercise to speak of, my body is fatigued, and my mind is abuzz with thoughts about international tax law. My constitution seems to be numbed, and I do not feel so very much.

The road to India

Having discovered our compatibility in South Africa in 2013, Joline was excited to plan the next adventure together – preferably to India, my country of birth. I had equally enjoyed our African adventures, but was more anxious to get cracking on my doctoral thesis than intent on going for another vacation anytime soon. So, we decided to plan on travelling abroad only in the winter of 2016, when I expect my thesis to be firmly on track. Also, I was not so keen on returning to the country I had left for good. But by June 2015, it became clear that I was going to spend the better part of 2016, and the first quarter of 2017 in the US for my doctoral work, and a vacation before the end of 2017 was unlikely.

...rhetorical in Maastricht

So, I was invited to participate in a debate on the motion that “The European Union should accept more refugees from the Syrian Arab Republic”. I thought it was interesting, and I was happy to accept. But only subsequently was I told that I must argue against the motion!

Loveless in Mannheim; Confused in Dossenheim

11 October 2015

Having car-pooled from Herzogenrath - a German town close to the Dutch border near Maastricht - I arrived in Mannheim late this evening, and went to the tram station to go to Dossenheim. It was the first time I had carpooled, but the pleasantness of the journey had left me underprepared for what I was about to encounter.

The eye of an angry God - 2

The Netherlands is not exactly a place frequented by clear skies, but we had a cloudless sky in Maastricht when it mattered! 

After a few cups of hot chocolate, a friend and I trekked to a field on a nearby hilltop - away from most city lights - and set up the telescope near the Dutch-Belgian border. We stayed up the entire night to see the celestial shadow-works and it was spectacular! It was wonderful to have the optical aids to see Earth’s shadow engulf the moon, crater by crater!

But not everything went as planned.

The eye of an angry God!

Shipwrecked in June 1503, in what is now Jamaica, Christopher Columbus and his fellows waited for rescue ships to arrive for over six months. Initially hospitable, the natives were angered as the castaways had outstayed their welcome, and so cut off their supplies, thus starving them. On 27 February 1504, Columbus threatened the natives that God will send them an angry sign. And in three days, the moon turned red! Fraught, the natives brought food for the travellers. But was it really God’s angry eye that the natives had seen?

The tyranny of "love and peace"

We live in an age of love and peace where there is room for everything. Or do we? Consider this conversation I was recently privy to:

Guglielmo: Do you know this song?

Roy(as Pierre sniggered): No. Who’s the artiste?

G: You do not know Miley Cyrus!

La famille Bélier – une famille extraordinaire!

La famille Bélier is a coming-of-age story of a village girl – the teenaged Paula Bélier – who has the opportunity to audition as a singer for Radio France, while studying and living in Paris. What conflict may that cause, you may ask. The only problem is that her family is deaf, and cannot comprehend the allure of a song.

Teaching - a pursuit of the head and the heart

I like teaching. One had occasionally taught bachelor and master students before, but they were mostly one-day or short-course assignments so far. For the first time, this year, I was responsible for teaching a two-month course to a batch of master students. And the experience has been most surreal.