GuerillaZ

Kovalam                          Dec 7th, 2012 I'm getting itchy feet here now. Too many beaches, crashing waves, palm trees and sun. Time for an interlude elsewhere. Trouble is both of the places I chose are terrorist hotspots. Both Jammu and Kashmir are no-nos although Jammu city, according to the foreign office is safe. Think I'll leave that. The other place Orissa, is cripplingly poor and has a crew of Naxalite rebels who have just kidnapped two Italian tourists who were visiting remote tribes. In fact the foreign office has India down as a somewhat unsafe zone. Great!     Classic Keralan scene. A lagoon nearby. The walk past this lagoon is one of the loveliest I have ever been on. The range of flowers and birds and people is rather too much to absorb. I take this constitutional every two days, but while people are generally gentle but there is also some attitude here. Perhaps people are resenting their poverty finally. the ads are appealing to a wealthy middle

On Mahatma Ghandi Road.   I have recovered from my illness, the symptoms of which were compounded by the untimely celebrations of Murugan the Peacock God. Murugan is important to South Indians in particular and both Malayalis and Dravidian cultures on the east side, Tamil Nadu celebrate him as if it's his least coming. Although handsome lemon yellow flags are festooned in every tree the main part of the celebration, only in my village I notice, comes via what appears to be a leftover sound system from a Motorhead concert. A tower of black monster speakers nestle under the Banyan tree with only a pitifully callow youth with the remote control. No council noise patrols here. so what you were left with was 18 hours of Indian music with the inevitable surfacing of Psy's Gangham Style every hour of so. So where was I? oh yes 18 hours a day beginning 5am ending 11pm with occasionally impromptu playing of something less than soothing a 2am. It is quite entertaining to watch som

Samudra November 21st 2013 Fishermen The idyllic element of Kerala, Gods Own Country, as Malayalis call it is somewhat undermined by God's overlooking provision of gainful employment. As this log has noted before, the best education in India isn't matched by the employment opportunities. When I waited for this catch (see above) to come in, and it took about an hour while I was timing, no more than two buckets of fish were caught. Looking at the man hours used, there are a similar number of men pulling on the right side of the net too and further workers guiding the net in the water itself. State off licence and the queues. Consumption of alcoholic beverages has become fashionable in Kerala. But only for the young. This is only for the young. Underemployed men have been drinking for years and queues like this one an be seen wherever there is a 'beer shop'. Ganapurthy 'Coconut' Temple Perhaps as a way of deflecting guilt devotees and re

Mumbai! Mumbai! Even though I am in humid Kerala, I am still dusting myself down from Mumbai. After months in the cold, damp streets of Bedford and London, cows conducting the traffic says everything about Mumbai megacity. The smells here; jasmine, cow dung, camphor, sweat blast the senses a bit. Tropical London. Bombay is disconcerting because it feels like London just with heat, dust, palm trees and monkeys in jeans. Everyone in India seems to want to be here and it is quite an overwhelming location. I have spent  over a month here in the last few years and the resources of human ingenuity are breathtaking (and too long to detail here). These buildings, all British in design and build lend a Victorian grandiosity to the place, if only it could lend a little more to Calcutta. The creakings of memory thrust the city into the filing as 'Dickensian with heatwave'. This section is only maybe a mile square, the rest of the swollen megalopolis is rundown to shanty

Drinking the Emptiness Away Kerala is a communist state. Off licences and cinemas are all run by the state. Education is a priority. This leads to the highest literacy in all of India. All this leads to very well educated taxi drivers and others in a state with low levels of employment, the only buoyant economic sector being tourism: medical, dental and general. People in Kerala swear by the system and the Communists are voted in every time. Old man with Communist heroes in the background The religious traditions stand in stark relief to this programmatic ideology and in wild contrast to western progressive thinking. Men hanging from hooks inserted into the skin. The Indian authorities claim to ban activities like this but appear to turn a blind eye to it since they are present to police it. This is the second time I have attended the festival. Oddly, no one will tell me its name. Does anyone know its name? This is the Power of Now. There can't be

China Thoughts My long trip to India, China, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam approaches and I have a real nerves about it. Whether to take a bike or not? I think I will but how difficult will it be and how will it limit my travel? I know India quite well but how will China be? One only has to think of the negative press that country receives for personal apprehension to develop. What far flung deserts will I pass through? What food will I be eating? In my travels so far Mumbai's ghetto and Calcutta have been the most frightening place I have ever been.                                                             Alley in central Calcutta Yet the yoyo on the sensual spectrum between fear and relaxation make travel the most exciting thing. Another thing I have to ask is how can I make my travelling a regular thing? It is a passion grown out my character and a compulsion. And all the places I have been from my apartment in Kerala, To the dirt and holy waters o