tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-55883220093598164462024-03-14T03:26:32.329+08:00Uma Anyar in BaliWritings about life in Bali, reviews of books published in The Bali Advertiser and the Bali Times for the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival, travel pieces about Africa and Nepal, a selection of short stories, fictional experiments and other interesting stuff I think about now and then.Tamarra Kaidahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05621912540576496011noreply@blogger.comBlogger24125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5588322009359816446.post-63869823340953506622010-10-13T21:34:00.003+08:002010-10-13T21:46:28.611+08:00Confessing my life to Ma Jian (in translation)<div>A personal essay by Uma anyar</div><div><br /></div><div> The Ubud Writers and Readers Festival was a huge success. It attracted the largest attendance in its seven-year history. Not enough chairs at several events. Opening night dinner at Casa Luna had folks scrambling for seats at the table, sending off a cranky grumble until the first and then the second glasses of wine arrived and made everything all right. </div><div><br /></div><div><div>Everyone wanted to do, see, attend, and partake in all that was available. The program centered on the notion of Bhinneka Tunggal Ika (Harmony in Diversity.) The actual presentations covered a lot of the same ground that has been explored other years, under different mottos, but you only notice this if you have attended as many of festivals as I have. Interviews with famous and near famous writers, who are questioned on how they write, why they write and what makes them write? The predictable replies, “I have to, I can’t do anything about it.” Etc. There were the usual travel-writing sessions and panels on race, religion and politics. Also, to lighten things up, there were the cute, the funny, and the clever sessions that sound like dessert menu offerings, ‘afternoon delights’. There was the standard all-day workshop on ‘writing the best short story ever’, repackaged for freshness, and the always popular half-day workshop on how to produce a successful memoir. This one filled up fast. This was no surprise as the dominant constituencies at the festivals are middle-aged women, who like me, are educated, serious readers with a week ‘s time to spare in devotion to words. Many harbor the secret desire to write a memoir. Heck, everyone past age forty has a story to tell. Intuitively we know that the writer who said, “At the end of your life all you have is your story … and perhaps that is everything,” was right on!</div><div><br /></div><div>As there are more than three events going on simultaneously in venues near and far, indecisive people like me undergo angst and uncertainty all day, thinking ‘this panel and topic sounded great on paper but now that I am sitting in my chair surrounded by tropical greenery (always beautiful, especially at the Indus and Neka venues) and see that the moderator is silly and shrill or dull and monotone or worse, a mumbler, I have to keep my feet from fleeing. Patience is either a virtue or a stupidity depending on the circumstances. I have a difficult time telling the difference.</div><div> </div><div>Most of the panels are either very good or just good enough. Some are out-standing. At least one-third of the audience members are struggling, striving writers. The presenting writers gave advice; some point or other will reach the listeners. “Writing is a matter of mood management, put your moods in a box, lock it and shove it under the bed,” states the Booker Prize winner, Anne Enright. Good advice. But how to do this consistently is the question. Still, it helps to know that the issue is something Enright and other writers struggle with. If it weren’t, she wouldn’t have mentioned it.</div><div><br /></div><div> would be a fool if I didn’t already know that festivals are more about rubbing shoulders with literary stardom than they are about ‘INFORMATION SHARING’, as the festival would require a completely different model of connecting and interacting. But heck, information, interesting ideas and things you didn’t expect to happen, DO happen. Intellectual and (and dare I say it?) spiritual nourishment do occur. Everyone who attends these festivals has an unspoken, some times unknown desire they hope will some how be met. It has little to do with programs or topics or authors. It is something subtle. Something that isn’t clear until it is given and one thinks to oneself, ‘Ah this is why I came, this is what I needed.’</div><div>For me it occurred after the last session on the last day of the festival, in a panel presentation on the topic entitled Beyond Nations.</div><div><br /></div><div>The three panelists, Ma Jian, Najat El Hachmi and Adrian Grima and moderator, Ruby Murray, were all serious, thoughtful people who had more on their plate than fiction per se. They were involved in the effort to expose the dire wrongs in human rights in their respective countries, Ma Jian from China and Adrian Grima from Malta, who didn’t want to be perceived as a typical European now that Malta had joined the EU. Najat El Hachmi from East Timor, an island east of Bali that had fought it’s way to independence from Indonesia said, “We are a free country but now what? How do you build a nation? “</div><div><br /></div><div>It was Ma Jian that I came to see, in the living, breathing flesh. I had discovered him when I reviewed his book, Stick Out Your Tongue for the Festival. ”Make it a profile piece,” urged Sarah, the Co- director of the festival some time back in January. “We don’t have the other books currently available.”</div><div> </div><div>Thank God for Google and e-books. </div><div><br /></div><div>I spent hours on line reading and discovering a Chinese writer who wrote a book about a Tibet which, no one (to my knowledge) had shown before. It was a book that got Ma Jian booted out of China. Stick Out Your Tongue was a disconcerting surprise to me. It wasn’t anything like Xinran’s Sky Burial or the English journalist’s book about a wandering Buddhist Nun, Ani, or any of the more popular, more romantic spiritually uplifting books like Seven Years in Tibet.</div><div>Here was a book of travel tales that dealt with ritual incest, family abuse, ignorance, and male oppression of women. Marrying two brothers may be a form of sexual slavery. The feeding of hunks of flesh of a beloved woman the writer had cared for to vultures on mountain cliff is a bizarre and disturbing cultural custom. This was a book that slapped me awake. I wandered around the house trying to comprehend why the world is such a hard place to be in. Of course, I thought, my rose-colored glasses are culturally constructed and supported by western media. As Chinese propaganda influences Chinese citizens about Tibet, so does western media over sentimentalize and romanticize Tibet as a Shangri-La of purity and spirituality. Most of what I know about Tibet is from generic news media, films that featured Buddhism and books by the Dali Lama. I revere the latter and it was hard to ponder the notion that brutality is as much a part of the austere, rural-steppe life in Tibet as it is in Mongolia, Russia, Africa or elsewhere. Stick Out Your Tongue (A form of facial greeting) had the feel and taste of the writer’s unfiltered experience. The book was translated into English, but I could sense, it wasn’t written by a Westerner.</div><div><br /></div><div>During the panel discussions when asked about the notion of the nation, Ma Jian said, via Flora Drew his English wife, interpreter and translator, that in China, ‘the Nation’ is the BIG ME and the individual is the little me, who is taught from kindergarten to think that it is an honor and a duty to sacrifice oneself for the nation. Women do not have ultimate control of their bodies as they must report to a family planning clinic and be checked to see if the birth control coil is in place and that they are menstruating regularly. His examples of Chinese Communist oppression, conveyed in a level voice, touched some thing buried deeply within me. This thing spilled over when the moderator mentioned in closing that there were more displaced peoples now than ever before. I think she was incorrect about that but numbers are not the issue when the displaced person is you. After the session finished, I walked over and told Ma Jian that I had reviewed his book for the Festival and that it had affected me more than any other book this past year. Flora translated this to her husband. We were being polite. Then it happened, my words just spoke themselves while I stood by helpless. </div><div><br /></div><div>“I was born in a displaced person’s camp in Austria after WWII to a White Russian soldier and a Ukrainian girl who was a Nazi labor camp survivor. They could not return to their homeland as White Russians were considered to be traitors by the Red Soviets. My father had lost his father, his uncles and his brother to Siberian prison camps. The family lands were taken over by Stalin’s soldiers. He didn’t see a glorious new Russia arising from the blood and bones of his family. He knew that repatriation meant Soviet prison or a firing squad ,later verified by the forced repatriation and slaughter of thousands of White Russians. Home was something he had fought for, but even if the land was still there it was no longer home. Ma Jian nodded in agreement. </div><div> </div><div>“We got to America with the help of Tolstoy’s daughter, Alexandra and the Tolstoy Foundation, located in Valley Cottage, New York. It seems ironically relevant to mention Tolstoy, a writer with a mission. I told them about growing up in the United States, about being ashamed of being Russian in the cold war atmosphere of 1950’s America. When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. I traveled there to see, to feel to celebrate, to document and make photographs. Later, I produced two photographic exhibitions about those trips to Moscow and St Petersburg, but I did not feel I could move to Russia. Flora asked if I spoke the language. “Yes, enough to get by but I was too American culturally and I felt I stuck out awkwardly. During the George W. Bush administration I became ashamed to call myself an American. I also discovered Bali and fell in love with it, as did my husband. We moved here with my mother six years ago. “</div><div> </div><div>“But this time you left by choice” says Flora, speaking for both of them. “Yes, and that makes all the difference in the world.”</div><div> </div><div>Ma Jian asked if I had written my story. </div><div>If only he knew how hard I had tried. How many conflicting and contradictory feelings I have about the history I was handed in Pegettz, the displaced camp in Lienz, Austria. It’s not my story; it’s my parents’ story. It’s my mother’s story and I can’t stand to hear it, to tell it, to think about it ever again. The story is a burden, something that over shadows me, a horror I did not personally endure but still carry its wounds. It colors everything grayish.</div><div> </div><div>If I told the truth or rather my feelings about the story I was born into I think my keyboard would burst into flames.</div><div>I had no idea so much would come out, and so intensely. Ma Jian eyes wetted for a single second. He averted his face just a little, men don’t cry. He got it, Flora got it, and even I got it. The damned story just slipped out of me and told itself to someone who made the time to listen. </div><div><br /></div><div>For this I am grateful. In the silence afterwards I felt awkward. Mercifully someone came up to ask Ma Jian to sign a book.</div><div><br /></div><div> I stood on the top steps of Indus, tears spoiling my view, but happy and satisfied with the festival.</div><div><br /></div><div>Later, I wondered how many other stories like mine jump out of strangers and find their way to Ma Jian, because he is a writer, has an empathetic face and stories want to be told.</div><div><br /></div><div>October 13, 2010</div><div><br /></div></div><div><br /></div>Tamarra Kaidahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05621912540576496011noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5588322009359816446.post-62911075484663780202010-07-29T17:18:00.005+08:002010-07-29T17:34:12.283+08:00Review of Booker Prize book "The Gathering" by Anne EnrightIrish Family Stories: The Gathering<br /><br /><br />‘I WANTED TO EXPLORE DESIRE AND HATRED’- Anne ENRIGHT<br /><br />BY UMA ANYAR<br /><br />The Booker Prize, along with all the other coveted awards that many writers stalk, is a magical, curious thing, like a fairy wand that instantly transforms mundane reality, grants renown, money, and status upon an individual writer who only a week before was just another writer trying to tell her truth and hoping sales would pick up. Indeed, this was the situation Anne Enright was in prior to the Booker Prize announcement.<br /><br />In fact, The Gathering had sold only 3,553 copies in Britain before the award. Sales shot up to 350,000 after the winner was announced. Anne Enright author of three previous novels and a collection of short stories was the dark horse in the race; she did not expect to win. But win she did, and now even her old school friend has confessed she would have to “read it,” although she was “dreading it.” Enright laughed off this response as she had grown use to the book being described as ‘grim’, ‘laconic’, ‘darkly rich’, and possessing ‘ no consolation.’ The Guardian announced: 'Outsider beats favorites to scoop prize for tale of dysfunctional family life set in Ireland.' There is more such praise but I will depart from the mainstream opinion experts and say I am glad I knew none of this when I read the book. I did know it had won the Man Booker Prize for 2007 and like it or not, this sort of knowledge affects the intimate experience of reading.<br /><br />The strongest aspect of The Gathering is not the actual story, which wanders into memories of events that could have happened, but maybe did not, and then into the present crises in the narrator’s marriage: should she leave or should she stay? The Hegarty clan’s tale of love and loss, of possible sexual abuse by a distant family member is not unique, in this time of confessional memoirs and the child sexual abuse scandal currently raging in the Catholic Church. The actual facts the grieving narrator works so hard at remembering do not save her from pain or depression, but her search leads readers into questions about the nature of desire, the power of the flesh and the hatred of loved ones that are not a part of less demanding, less well-written novels.<br /><br />But the narrator’s voice is compelling, assertive, and demands that you see things her way. Veronica is an angry, grieving, modern woman who cannot come to grips with the ridiculousness of living and the misery of dying. “Why bother?” she wonders. Her mother had 12 children, 7 miscarriages, one killed himself, the others went on living-for the time being. We are all here to just ‘feed the grave,’ the narrator spews out in her grief and hatred of her father and mother, whom she thinks over procreated. She sees her mother as a baby factory.<br /><br />“I have not forgiven her for my sister Margaret who we called Midge, until she died, aged forty-two, from pancreatic cancer, I do not forgive her my beautiful, drifting sister Bea. I do not forgive her my first brother Ernest, who was a priest in Peru, until he became a lapsed priest in Peru. I do not forgive her my brother Stevie, who is a little angel in heaven. I do not forgive her the whole tedious litany of Midge, Bea, Earnest, Stevie, Ita, Mossie, Liam, Veronica, Kitty, Alice and the twins, Ivor and Jem.”<br /><br />Veronica, a thirty nine year old mother of two children, with a proper husband living in Dublin is predominately angry in her grieving and that anger is the force that drives the narrative of memories. What made Liam commit suicide by donning a bright orange road worker’s vest then filling it with stones and walking into the ocean at Brighton Beach one night? His body was pulled from the sea and saved in an English morgue locker for Veronica to identify. He was not wearing underpants under his jeans. He didn’t want to be found dead in dirty under pants. Veronica deduces this about Liam and it shows us how much she understood him. As I read this passage, I had a flash of memories about the way a whole generation of Irish and Italian Catholic working class kids were raised in the neighborhood I grew up in Paterson, New Jersey. They were constantly being told that ‘cleanliness was next to godliness ’ and that they shouldn’t ever be caught in a situation in which they could be perceived as unclean.<br /><br />Veronica clearly loves her brother but calls him ‘a messer’, a ‘chaos maker’, someone who never ‘pulled it together’ and made a ‘go of life’. Enright explores the haunting and unproductive power of memory and its hold on the living, on the ones who remain after ‘the thing’ is done.<br /><br />"The seeds of my brother’s death were sown many years ago. The person who planted them is long dead- at least that’s what I think. So if I want to tell Liam’s story, then I have to start before he was born. And, in fact, this is the tale that I would love to write: History is such a romantic place, with its jarveys and urchins and side buttoned boots. If it would just stay still, I think, and settle down. If it would just stop sliding around in my head."<br /><br />But no matter how much she remembers or figures out about the sexual abuse of her beautiful brother, there is no one left to blame as they are all now dead. This adds to Veronica’s conundrum about life itself. This is a book that mirrors life too realistically for many reviewers comfort.<br /><br />The book has been praised for its muscularity, agility and witty perceptiveness, as well as hallucinogenic, dark, lyrical prose. Interesting to find such manly terms applied to a woman’s writing.<br /><br />Anne Enright will be participating in The Ubud Writers and Reader’s Festival (October 6-10, 2010).Tamarra Kaidahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05621912540576496011noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5588322009359816446.post-88207635222557882712010-02-15T13:21:00.004+08:002010-02-15T13:44:25.397+08:00My Right Foot- Interview with a painter in BaliBy Uma Anyar<br /><br />Mohammad Asroel has a remarkable right foot. <br /><br />It is not remarkable because his right foot and leg is the only fully formed limb on his body, or because he uses this appendage to dexterously hop across busy streets and rough yards on a single rubber sandal. It is not only remarkable but it is notable that he can maneuver uneven Balinese entrance steps with the grace of a feline, smoke filter- less cigarettes, eat nasi campur and SMS on his Nokia, all with the nimble toes on his right foot. <br /><br />What is truly remarkable is that Asroel paints masterpieces with his right foot. <br /><br />I have watched him do this with my own amazed eyes. True, they are copies of masterpieces. But masterpieces by Rembrandt, Archimbaldo, Van Eyck, Petrus Cristus and Frieda Kahlo are not to be taken lightly even by talented painters with two hands at their command. Asroel has painted copies of other famous historical paintings but these are the artists I have commissioned him to paint from photographic reproductions in art books. Other clients have gratefully walked off, grinning from ear to ear with a replica of their favorite painting tucked under their arms. Mohammed Asroel is a master copyist, not a forger in any sense. No deception is involved. He signs each painting with a big toe imprint. <br /><br />Copies have enhanced our awareness and appreciation of original art works since the invention of photography. Try and imagine an art history class without projected slides lighting up students’ minds. Reproductions have helped to both rarify and denigrate the original masterpieces. Museum Shops sell copies of famous paintings and sculptures in many forms, from postcards and posters to silk scarves and umbrella designs, not to mention high priced knick -knacks for the home or office. And, that much vaunted theory, postmodernism, scoffs at the validity of originality altogether as a viable construct for our disenchanted era.<br /><br />There are some who talk about Asroel as handicapped. But, it would be in error. To say that or call him disabled is to not see what is before one’s own eyes. A man more able than many. A notionof what those words means stands in our way. Not only the word, but also an emotion, be it compassion, pity, dread, discomfort or even admiration, gets in the way and becomes an impediment to understanding the remarkable power, ingenuity and faith can play in any human life.<br /><br />I have committed this error. <br /><br />A few months after I first met Asroel, I felt compelled to find an institution that would provide him with a pair of prosthetic arms and a prosthetic left leg and foot. I searched the Internet. I discussed various fund raising projects with friends involved with yayasan projects. When I finally approached Asroel with my ideas and suggestions I was politely told, “Please, Ibu I like my body this way, I no want change.”<br /><br /> In that moment I grasped my blindness, my conventional assumptions of what constituted helping. Suddenly, I realized that all Asroel wanted was what any other artist would want from any client, and that was to just buy his paintings so that he could make a living for himself and his family. He did not require extraordinary help.<br /><br />It was at this point that an invisible screen fell away and we were free to meet each other as curious individuals who had art in common. As a professional photographer and teacher I have had a long-standing interest in the process of art making. I think it is the best thing human beings do. So with the help of Gede, our mutual friend who kindly translated between Indonesian and English, I got to interview Asroel about his life, his painting and his aspirations for the future. We sat in his stark cement studio where a bright yellow curtain tinted the late afternoon incoming rays, a translucent gold. As we talked, I watched the gray walls, the piled up canvases, the sticky painting pallet and the right-footed painter, gradually merge into a beautifully composed image constructed entirely of light.<br /><br />UA: How long have you been painting?<br /><span style="font-style:italic;"> <br />Since 1998</span><br /><br />UA: How old were you when you started painting?<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Seventeen.</span><br /><br />UA: What pulled you to painting?<br /> <br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Oh, I just liked pictures. </span><br /><br />UA: Who taught you to paint?<br /> <br /><span style="font-style:italic;">In the beginning I taught myself but later when I lived in Yogyakarta some friends who were painters helped me, showed me some techniques and helped me get books to copy.<br /></span><br />UA: What was the subject of your first painting?<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Islamic calligraphy for our mosque. It was good and people liked it and I was able to sell my work.</span><br /><br />UA: I was under the impression that direct representation is frowned upon by Muslims. Is this true?<br /><br /> I<span style="font-style:italic;"> think art happens because of the deep humanity inside people, but also because of God too. Religion is in the heart; it is not just a set of rules. I feel strong in my religion and I think religion and art are very close. When I want to pray, I paint.<br /></span><br />UA: I notice that you can paint in a variety of styles. What is your preferred style for your own art works?<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">I have tried many processes and styles. I like Surrealism the best because I myself am surreal! I try to practice positive thinking and positive actions.</span><br /><br />UA: Which painters do you admire?<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Oh many. Salvador Dali, Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Peter Paul Rubens, Vermeer and, of course, Magritte. He is my favorite surrealist painter.</span><br /><br />UA: Do you like anyone alive and currently working?<br /> <br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Yes, Hendra Buana from Padang in Sumatra.<br /></span><br />A: Do you think you would be a painter if you had been born with hands and arms?<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;"> Yes, of course. My painting, my talent and my need to paint are much deeper than my disability. It is more than my body. It is about my feeling, not about my body.</span><br /><br />UA: The last time we talked you told me that your birth defects may be the result of your mother working on a chemically sprayed coffee field while she was pregnant with you. Can you expand on that?<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;"> My mother worked on a coffee plantation in Java. The fields were heavily sprayed with some kind of chemical fertilizer. We think this affected her pregnancy. I remember my mother was always very tired when I was a child. There are four children in my family but I am the only one who was born as I was. I was the fourth child.<br /></span><br /> UA: What was your childhood like?<br /><br /> <span style="font-style:italic;">I was treated equally, the same as the other children. My father would say, "Asroel you are a boy, come with me to the garden to work." I helped as I could. My father did not pity me or treat me differently than my sister or brothers. My mother loved me a lot and supported me. She always told me that I would be all right. I would have a good life.</span><br /><br />UA: Where were you born?<br /> <br /><span style="font-style:italic;">I was born in Gondang, Java in 1979 but I left my village because there was no work and went to Yogyakarta. In the beginning I made jewelry, earrings, belts, necklaces and sold them on the street. My friends and I sold the jewelry to tourists. One time, an American man bought over a hundred pieces and then sold them in America.</span><br /><br />UA: How old were you when you left home?<br /> Eighteen.<br /><br />UA:Who did you go with?<br /> <br /><span style="font-style:italic;">No one. . I went alone. I have been to Kalimantan, Sumatra, and Jakarta alone.<br /></span><br />UA: How were you able to do this?<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;"> I made jewelry and sold it on the street. In 2003, I came to Bali because I wanted to just paint. I wanted to make my living painting if possible. I lived in Jimbaran at first but then friends told me to go to Ubud because I was a painter. Many friends helped me get established. Senang Hati foundation is like my family. Sometimes I exhibit with them in group shows.</span><br /><br />UA: When did you start making replicas of other paintings?<br />Three years ago. A lady brought me a book of paintings of the King of Klungkung pictures. I made small copies for sale, postcards, and tourist pictures. At that time I would do anything and everything to make money, now I just paint. I like that.<br /><br />UA: What do you hope for in the next ten years?<br /> <br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Of course, I want success with my paintings. I hope they will inspire others to live better. I want to be able to make enough for my family and I to live. This is my life process, everybody has a life path, painting is mine. I hope my paintings will inspire my son, I want him to know my life process.</span><br /><br />UA: Do you mean you want your son to be strong in life spirit?<br /><br /> <span style="font-style:italic;">I know that the art life it is not an easy way. It is a difficult path. I want my son to have his own process I will not choose his life for him. I want him to find something he is passionate about in his life. Many people do not have this. I am a lucky man. I focus on my abilities, not my disabilities. I thank God for my life as it is.<br /></span><br /> At this point a three year-old boy appeared in the doorway of Asroel’s studio. The painter’s face lit up with joy. I put away the tape recorder. The interview was over but the friendship was just beginning. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">(Anyone is interested in commissioning a painting by Mohammad Asroel should contact him by calling 081358317968</span>.)Tamarra Kaidahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05621912540576496011noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5588322009359816446.post-90719018279317606772010-02-15T13:11:00.003+08:002010-02-15T13:18:55.776+08:00Hari Kunzru: A writer with a mission<span style="font-weight:bold;">Hari Kunzru: a writer with a mission.</span><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">By Uma Anyar</span><br /><br />Hari Kunzru is one of the prestigious authors who will be presenting at the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival (Oct). He is the recipient of several coveted literary prizes, including a Betty Trask Award and the Pendleton May/Gilford Arts in 2002 followed by the Somerset Maugham Award in 2003 for his first novel The Impressionist. The book was also short listed for the best new novel category by, the Los Angeles Times, the Guardian, the Whitbread, the WH Smith Literary award and the William Saroyan first novel award among others. That is an impressive response to a debut novel. <br /> <br />But Hari Kunzru is not a mere prize seeker. He has stirred up controversy by refusing to accept the Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys prize because ‘Sometimes questions of literary value are inseparable from politics.’ The prize was funded by the Mail on Sunday, which, according to Kunzru, was responsible; with its sister paper The Daily Mail, of pursuing ‘an editorial policy of vilifying and demonizing refugees and asylum-seekers’. Such editorial policy contributed to the establishment of ‘a pervasive atmosphere of hostility towards black and Asian British people’. It would have been hypocritical, the writer argues, to accept a prize sponsored by ‘a publication that has over many years shown itself to be extremely xenophobic’ and awarded for a novel that disputes the accuracy of racial definitions. <br /><br />“As the child of an immigrant, I am only too aware of the poisonous effect of the Mail’s editorial line.... The atmosphere of prejudice it fosters translates into violence, and I have no wish to profit from it.” He suggested that the money be given to the United Kingdom Refugee Council.<br /><br />Politics and literature intertwine in all of Kunzru’s writings, which explore the complicated and contentious legacy of colonialism as well as the influences of contemporary globalization on the construction of individual identities. Globalization is a new form of imperialism by multinational conglomerates that control and consolidate power through capital. His concerns are for the people who never benefit from this wealth and power, who are marginalized and unseen with little or no rights in society. <br /><br />Kunzru defines <span style="font-style:italic;">The Impressionist </span>as an attempt to turn Kipling’s novel on its head: ‘Kim is the fantasy of the white subject who can see the hidden easternness of things. I wanted to change that round, to make western whiteness the exotic thing. I have worried in the past that I’ve not felt anchored to things, not felt committed. Part of it is being mixed-race, but part of it is temperamental. I’ve always been very scared of people who are certain. Nothing terrifies me more than a religious fundamentalist who really knows what right is and is prepared to do violence to what they consider is wrong. Claiming that degree of moral certainty is more or less a form of mental illness. I wanted to write in praise of the unformed and fluid.’<br /><br />Hari Kunzru was born in 1969 of mixed British and Kashmiri Pandit ancestry. He grew up in Essex and educated in England where he earned an MA in philosophy and English at the University of Warwick. He currently lives in New York City. Kunzru has a background in journalism and has written travel articles and conducted interviews for Sky TV’s electronic arts program The Lounge. He is a citizen of the world and is considered a futurist because his second novel Transmission, which is the story of Arjun Metha, an Indian ‘cyber- coolie’ who carries his version of the American dream not to New York or Los Angeles but to Silicon Valley where he discovers he is just an updated version of cheap labor. He retaliates, when the anti-virus corporation he works for fires him, by creating and transmitting computer viruses that threaten world stability. The story is about public and personal boundaries and how the effort to keep out the real refugees seeking asylum with border fences backfires when cyber space viruses coyly named after Arjun’s favorite Bollywood film star, Leela Zahir, breach cyber firewalls. Transmission personalizes the fears and the delights of a globalized world as well as examines loneliness and unconnectedness in a world where the local, the particular are fast disappearing. Pizza Hut pizzas are available in almost any city on earth. If information is power then the disruption of information is another kind of power, that of a down trodden and dispensable man’s retribution for being shut out of the glittering candy shop of the American dream<br /><br />Kunzru published <span style="font-style:italic;">Noise,</span> a collection of short stories in 2005 and then chose to go against the established, successful trend in the publishing world that requires an Indian writer or even a half -Indian writer like Hari Kunzru, to write about migration, marriage and family ties. <br />“I said let’s do it, let’s not even have a hint of India in the book because I wanted to make a statement that I reserve the right to imagine anything I want,” Kunzru told Reuters at an annual literary festival in Jaipur, India.<br /><br />“I wondered if I would be allowed to write a book that didn’t have Raj furniture or any Indian people. And I found that my publisher was very supportive,” he added. Readers have long been fed a steady diet of multi-generational family sagas, arranged marriages and difficult migrations from writers of Indian descent, but Kunzru said people are more sophisticated now and more accepting of other themes.”<br /><br /> <span style="font-style:italic;">My Revolutions </span>(2007) does not have a single reference to a sari or to anything exotically Indian. It deals with a failed 1960’s English radical. This book takes on another set of problems that any author writing about sixties and seventies radical politics would have to contend with; how to adequately convey the abhorrence of violence and the inevitable pull toward it, which fueled Radicals in the sixties. The urge to make a difference, to be affective, pulled the leftist radical underground warriors to extremes they never expected to be part of when they started protesting against government policies and the Viet Nam war. <br /><br />The comparison of today’s suicidal terrorist acts and a quainter era when bomb threats came with considerate phone call warnings.Tamarra Kaidahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05621912540576496011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5588322009359816446.post-12347890078665770152008-11-08T14:53:00.005+08:002008-11-08T15:22:32.230+08:00Tales From Bali- A Death in the VillageDeath in the Village by Uma Anyar<br /><br />Death in Bali is like life in Bali- communal. Everyone is intertwined with family, banjar, village and God and nature. <br /><br />One morning last week I came into the kitchen and heard Made talking to her husband on our phone. Even though I did not understand what she was saying in Balinese, I could tell by the tone of her voice that it wasn’t good news. When she turned her tear streaked face toward me it registered like a smack. I opened my arms and she fell into them. I stroked her tangled dirty hair and breathed in her suffering, her exhaustion. A month ago Made’ terminally ill mother–in-law had been sent home from the hospital to die. Nothing more could be done. So, Made got the caretaker’s job while her husband became very busy and unavailable. She sobs several times and then inwardly gathers her will to do the next thing. Grief has shrunken her small frame and she feels like an overwhelmed ten-year-old child in my arms.<br /><br />Pity wrenches my heart. Made is a pleasant person to have around. She is polite, a competent cleaner, and speaks good English. Like most humans she has her weak points but in the spirit of Balinese customs I won’t talk about them. Somehow everyone accommodates everyone else. Today we are dealing with big stuff and all I can do is hold her and pat her hair while grief grips her. <br /> <br />“My husband in Ubud, I call him to come back. His mother die. My telephone no good.” The memory of her phone not having calling minutes in a time of need sends her into a second spasm of sobs.<br />The phone rings bluntly, disrupting our bond. It is her husband. The call is brief. “I go now. Putu alone in house”. <br />Putu is Made’s oldest child. The shy, twelve year old girl will become the main babysitter for the two younger children when Made’ is working or at the temple or the banjar. Grandparents are backup child rearers in many Balinese families.<br />The news gets around the village and everyone in the banjar knows they will be helping the family wash and purify the body (nyiramin in Balinese) this evening. Preparations for the burial are the oldest son’s responsibility. The offerings, foods, holy water and special white cloth needed for wrapping the body are women’s work.<br /> <br />The rest of the staff understand and take over Made’s duties without a word from me. No one talks much. A serious but not depressing mood settles over our kitchen.<br /><br />Paul and I have been to many cremation ceremonies. They are colorful events that cannot be compared to a Western funeral, as they occur many years after the actual death of a family member. Cremations are expensive and time-consuming events, which sometimes deplete families’ finances. In recent times many village banjars have organized collective cremations. This saves individual families from the sole burden and cost. It is not unusual to attend a ceremony where twenty or more funeral piers in the form of bulls or lions are set on fire, their papier-mâché bellies holding the dead person’s bones which have been excavated from the burial and wrapped in cloth. The occasion is solemn but also rather festive because the family is fulfilling its responsibility and demonstrating its love in helping the deceased spirit free itself from the body. It is a religious spectacle and a public ceremony which any one, even outsiders like us, can watch as a cultural phenomena.<br /><br />Some Bules have mistakenly surmised that the Balinese don’t show strong emotion. Some have gone so far as to say the Balinese don’t feel loss the way Westerners do. This is absurd. True, they do not wail like the Russians I know and they do not hire professional keeners as some Irish families do. The Hindu belief in reincarnation helps but it doesn’t obliterate the feelings of loss.<br /><br />Death in Bali, like all other life passages, has a set of prescribed ritualistic steps that must be carried out. Things have to be done properly in accordance with the customs and traditions of the village and the region. Every village seems to have several ‘Pak Mangkus,’ low cast holy men and every region has higher cast and more holy ones, ‘Pedandas’. These holy men train and prepare for years to perform the sacred duties of the community. Their lives are at risk from black magic forces that will particularly test holy men because they want to assimilate their power. These forces are acknowledged and offerings are made to them. By doing this the Balinese believe they can achieve a balance between the negative and the positive in their spiritual and secular lives.<br /><br />At five o’clock Kadek reminds me to put on my sarong and kebaya for the nyiramin. I consider taking my camera but something in me resists the idea. Even though I know this is an opportunity for a unique photograph I leave the Cannon in the closet. This is not a tourist spectacle. It is a real family event, or at least it as close to an extended family as I am going to get in my modern, scattered and segmented, Western style life. Paul is wearing his ceremony sarong and is walking up the hill with Wayan, Gede and Kadek. I gaze at them, as they pause to notice the ducks in the parit (small stream) and suddenly I feel so much love for them, for everyone and everything that I can hardly breathe. The emotion is so sweet my teeth ache and my heart swells. Tears well up out of nowhere. I am not sure if I am happy or sad. <br /> <br />A sudden gusty wind blows through the palm trees; Paul turns around and waves to me to hurry up and join them.<br /><br />The compound is full of local villagers, their dogs, chickens and children milling about. The women cluster together and tend to small children. I notice a eight-year-old boy wearing a faded black tea shirt with the words ‘Fuck Terrorism’ stenciled on the back, a tell tale sign that the shirt is a hand me down from an older brother who acquired it after the first Bali bombing and wore it, like many other teenage boys, as a defiant political statement. No one is paying the slightest bit of attention to this odd choice of funeral attire, but me. I bow and put my hands together and repeat Om Swastiastu, over and over to several tired looking women who are my neighbors. They seem pleased that we are attending a local ceremony and reply in kind. A mangy dog sniffs my leg and growls menacingly. Immediately a village woman shoos him away. I look around taking in the scene, trying to be aware but not intrusive. <br /><br />The men sit on one end of the dirt courtyard smoking kreteks (clove cigarettes) and the women sit on the other end near the heaps of varied hand made leafy offerings. People squeeze in wherever they can. Two boys stand against a cement wall; one of them has his arms around the other boy’s shoulders. The other boy leans into him tenderly. This would be a sign of a gay partnership in the States but in Bali it only means the boys are good friends. It is not an uncommon site. I think it is one of the reasons Gay men choose to reside in Bali, as it is a place where male gentleness is encouraged as opposed to the macho toughness of the West.<br /><br />I am offered a plastic glass of water. I puncture the lid with the sharp end of the straw then suck the tumbler to the bottom. Sweat drips down the back of my neck. I swab at it with a paper napkin. Is it nerves or just the heat that is making me perspire so much? Made thanks me for coming. She sits beside me while a group of men move the deceased grandmother's body from the Bale and onto a grass mat on a bamboo pier bed. Made joins her family. Tears run down her cheeks, her husband looks scared but the others proceed with the designated task at hand. <br /><br />Suddenly I am looking at a very old naked dead woman exposed to the late afternoon light and the sight of everyone in the village. A priest is pouring holy water on her gray hair; flowers are being placed on her eyes, in her ears, nose, and mouth. She is being rolled up in a silk white cloth and tied with yellow silk sashes. Then the Pak Mangku chants sacred words and rings a small bell over her head. The designated helpers turn the tiny body this way and that carefully until she is enclosed in a new grass mat. She looks like a human burrito. More twine and palm grass is twisted and tied around the body. She is ready for her last trip out of the village and into the cemetery, the Pura Dalem. Later there will be a small ceremony as she is put in the grave. Not everyone is required to attend this part of the ceremony. We are expected to witness her spiritual preparation for departure. It is only polite and respectful. <br /><br />Kadek nudges me and says we can leave now. I am still in awe of the stark suppleness of a dead body. Only her right arm and hand sticking up like a rusty garden claw makes me cringe. I am impressed that the children are not shielded from the ceremony and marvel at the sight of two village boys helping wrap and carry the old woman’s leathery body along with the men. There are no professional morticians to mollify death with make up and pomades. It is not hidden in closed caskets. Death is there before you and everyone else in the village, just another stark but ordinary fact of life. <br /><br />We head back to our house. Kadek and Wayan are whispering as they totter down the gravel path in their heeled sandals. I hurry to catch up to them. <br />“Are you all right?” <br /> “We are afraid because the dead bring out many spirits and we have to drive through here later tonight.”<br /> <br />I have long ago stopped trying to talk them out of such notions. This is Bali where ghosts, layaks, and spirits fly about causing chaos and woe to us if ceremonies and attitudes are not maintained properly. There is no point telling a Balinese that there is no such thing as ghosts as some do in America, because in Bali, they do exist.<br /> “Paul will walk up the hill with you when you leave tonight so you won’t be alone.”<br /> “Thanks Mum.”<br /><br />Where does spirit go when the body is worn out? Where is the most important aspect of us? Is there a pure consciousness that connects with everything else at some super sub-atomic level? <br /><br />The Balinese Hindus believe in the Sekala and the Niskala,or the seen and unseen worlds, the physical and spirit realms. Both exist and must be balanced. <br /><br />Currently there is a big stir in the physics community. Parallel worlds are being discussed openly. We can’t see them but mathematics leads rational unreligious people into other dimensions. Places we cannot even fathom with our limited minds. Parallel universes where it is possible that another version of this story I’m writing is taking place. Another version of your story is occurring even as we speak. Is the Sekala /Niskala the Balinese version of this astounding new mathematical postulate? <br /><br />I like to think so.Tamarra Kaidahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05621912540576496011noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5588322009359816446.post-85874541630229041252008-10-26T17:50:00.003+08:002008-10-26T18:14:52.718+08:00Musings on Factual FictionMusings on Factual Fiction <br /> Fiction is just improved reality.<br />Everything I know about life I learned from movies. No, that isn’t true… television and rock and roll have also been heavy influences on who I am today. Not to mention numerous books (novels) and several magazines, particularly the New Yorker, have contributed to my mostly Western, post industrial, post romantic, postmodern point of view. <br /> You may wonder why I have not mentioned real people or real life experiences. Reality.<br /> First of all, Reality Isn’t What It Used To Be. (By Walter Truitt) explains all the ways reality has transformed, like some shape-shifter from an episode of The X Files, right under our noses without us grasping what is going on. The paradigm has shifted far enough to unbalance almost everybody. There are instances of confusion in every segment of society.<br />People are still trying to cling to facts as if they will save them. I don’t blame them. Denial is also a useful psychological tool and has been serving us well since Genesis. Truth is on shaky ground as well. I’ve noticed the way it has been eroding on the shoreline of consciousness year after year. Spin, opinion, multiple points of view, are all taken as equally valid. Everything is a matter of interpretation. Multiple modes of reality bump up against each other on CNN, BBC, Aljazeera, and Fox News. Sometimes the same pictures (footage) appear on several channels at the same time and we sit in our unseen rooms and say, <br />” Boy, Did you see that! What is this world coming to?”<br />My friends have started telling me stories from their lives as if they were episodes from a sit -com or a crime show. They are secretly pleased to relate the queer fantastic quality of an actual event in their barely significant lives. They make an effort to squeeze as much wonderment as they can and they want me to confirm their experience as reality, to agree with them so they are reassured that they are not wrong and alone in some opinion that is only important for the time being and will have little or no merit tomorrow.<br />My friend Uma Anyar showed up unexpectantly while I was writing and said, “You will never believe what has happened. It is so weird!”<br /> I clicked save on my computer and turned away from the screen.<br />“ What is so weird?”<br />“You know that story I read at the last writer’s meeting?”<br />“Angry Ghosts?”<br />“ Yea, and you remember that the main character steals a tennis shoe from her son’s girl friend in order to create worry, confusion and frustration?”<br /> “I remember that.”<br />“Well, You are not going to believe this but, the other day I picked up my new shoes at the shoemaker. Those cute Chinese style ones I brought back from Hanoi, in black silk. You liked them.”<br />“ Yes, I liked them. I would love a pair just like them but in green.”<br /> “Well I had the guy make two pairs one in yellow leather with red piping and the other pair in red leather with yellow piping. Very Cute! And I also had the black pair repaired from where the dog had chewed on the heel.”<br /> “Yea,”<br />“ Ok, so I take both pairs of shoes and I try on each color, red on my right foot and yellow on my left foot. They looked so cool I danced out of the shop and into the car where my husband and Akkiko where waiting for me. I showed the shoes to Akkiko and she said they were cool and then put the bag with the shoes on the seat beside her. “ We dropped her off and drove home. I had to pee real bad so I ran into the house without collecting all my packages from the back seat. My husband didn’t bother to bring them in either.”<br /> “Uma, this is boring get to the punch line before I fall asleep.”<br />“ Hold on there is more. So the next day I take the basket with the remaining packages from the back of the Taruna and pull out all the stuff from the plastic bags. And I can’t find the yellow right foot shoe or the left red shoe. They are gone. Vanished into thin air!”<br />“ You can make another pair of each. Or wear them as different colors. That is the sort of thing that you would do.”<br /> “ You are not getting the point. Where did they go? Who would take a pair of mismatched shoes from the back of my car? And more importantly, that is exactly the situation I had written about in my Angry Ghosts story. Only that was fiction and this is real life.”<br />“What? Do you think Akkiko stole your shoes? She wouldn’t do that!”<br /> “I know. I know. I don’t believe she took them but I am starting to think an angry ghost or a prankster coyote, a naughty spirit in Native American mythology has.”<br />“ You are not an Indian or Chinese so why would a spirit bother with you and your mismatched shoes?”<br />“ It’s one explanation. The other is that life imitates art.”<br /> “Oh, that happens on a regular basis only we don’t catch all the occurrences because we are doing something else, like watching TV or DVD or VHS or Listening to I pod downloads while we check out news on the internet.”<br />“ Still, where did the shoes go? It is a mystery.”<br /> “Maybe it is meant to be one. It is about pondering the possibilities. It is a slap in the face of logic and rationality.”<br /> ‘I feel so unsettled. This is the second time some small insignificant object has disappeared almost in front of my eyes.”<br /> “ You have lost mismatched shoes before? “<br />“No, mismatched socks.”<br /> “Ok, explain.”<br /> ‘”One day long ago, when I was seven and watching cartoons on TV in the living room, My mother was washing some laundry in the kitchen sink. She asked me to give her my socks so I would have clean ones for the next day. I pulled off the pink and yellow socks left them by the sink and returned to my cartoons. Five minutes later my mother came in the living room with wet hands and asked for my socks. I told her I already left them by the sink. She said No I didn’t. I said yes I did and ran to the kitchen o point out the socks. They were not where I left them.”<br /> ‘ Your dog took them.”<br />“ We only had a parakeet for a pet”<br /> “They fell behind the sink.”<br /> “How could they? The sink was stuck to the wall. Any way we looked and looked and my mother became angrier as she became frustrated and I got mad because she didn’t believe me. Before you know it a perfectly nice Saturday afternoon became a family battlefield.”<br />“Did you ever find the socks?”<br />“ Nope.”<br />“Did you write about the socks?”<br /> “Not until now.”<br />“ Ok, so is this writing fact or fiction?”<br /> “Fact! Absolutely Fact!”<br />“It makes for better fiction.” <br />“ But it really happened.”<br />“ So has the story on this page.”Tamarra Kaidahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05621912540576496011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5588322009359816446.post-35208953519665635532008-10-26T15:31:00.000+08:002008-10-26T17:10:43.964+08:00Tales from Bali-HorrorHorror<br />By Uma Anyar<br /><br />The sight hits me, like a slap across the face.<br /><br /> There are four of us in the cramped car stuck in traffic. Judy is prattling on about kite flying evolving into a national sport in Bali. I glance past her hands on the steering wheel and witness a man beating a dog with a big stick on the opposite side walk. The small white puppy is cowering on the ground; a brown man in tattered trousers is lifting the stick with both arms over his head and slamming it down on the hapless dog with all his might. Inexplicably, there is no blood. No sound, just the stick rising and falling like a clever. My hands fly to my mouth, I moan, Judy looks in the direction of my gaze. Everything is too vivid and unreal. A black dog looks on and hops around excitedly. The retched sight is spellbinding, searing itself into my brain like a cattle brand. <br /><br />Suddenly, as if from the bottom of the movie screen, I see, tourists, a husband and wife, about our age, jumping into the slow moving traffic, maneuvering between cars, waving their arms and shouting at the culprit. Their outrage brings sound back into this picture. Instantly, all noises return. Dogs bark. Car engines hum. Radios play. The frantic couple is moving in slow motion across the tributary of cars. The shocking awareness of violence flashes from car to car like lightening. Simultaneously, the morally oblivious traffic light turns green and we glide forward like logs on a river.<br />. <br />Judy says,” I hope the police don’t show up or it will all get worse.” those tourists shouldn’t go in the local man’s house.<br /><br />“ I hope they kill the bastard!” I say, and I mean it whole-heartedly.<br /> “What happened?” asks Gede from the back seat.<br />“ You don’t want to know.” <br /><br />Violence begets violence. The heart boils in pity and fury. And, evil, he just turns his back and saunters into the dark ally like a plump rat, then turns and sneers,” Gotcha!”<br />.Tamarra Kaidahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05621912540576496011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5588322009359816446.post-92201424693763301442008-10-26T15:27:00.000+08:002008-10-26T15:28:55.145+08:00Tales from Bali-The Woman next DoorTHE WOMAN NEXT DOOR<br />By Uma Anyar<br /><br />The woman next door is mad at God. I do not question her reasons. Words, explanations, advice only skim the surface and do no good. Such angers run deep.<br /><br />The woman next door has seventeen cats. She complains of trouble with sleeping through the night because she worries about her cats. One did not come home last night, another puked on the bed and a third has taken to making pee pee in her closet ruining two pairs of new sandals with leather straps and designer names embossed on the tread. The youngest one is cross-eyed.<br /><br />She curls up on the sofa and tells me her life used to be simple. She had no problems. She was moderately friendly, but kept mostly to herself, read good books, exercised regularly, ate healthy foods- raw vegetables, pressed juices and free range protein. She sustained a level of harmony rare to most of us. <br /><br />That was before the cats found their way into her life. It began innocently enough. First there was the black and white female with the scratched face who was in need of nursing and fresh milk. “ What kind of a monster would I be if I didn’t help the poor thing”? She asks me.<br /><br />“ A terrible one. “ I respond. <br /><br />“Then, one morning an orange marmalade momma cat with three kittens appeared and mewed until milk and bits of shredded chicken was served on a chipped china plate. “You should have seen them, so thin, like refugees”. She rings her hands and looks away. Her helplessness is beguiling. I want to stroke her shoulder or pet her head.<br /><br />“What could I do?”<br /><br />“Exactly what you did.” I answer.<br /><br />“ A few weeks ago, I went for a walk, I cut through the rice fields near the Banyan tree, the big one near the cemetery on the road to Penestanan?” She looks at me queryingly.<br /><br />“ I know the one. It is a beautiful tree. The Balinese consider it sacred. They say spirits live in the twisting trunks and fly from the branches in the form of fireballs.”<br /><br />“Yes, that is the one. I found a cloth sack stuffed with squirming kittens. No one was around. I could feel death sneaking up through the tall grasses. What could I do? What would you do?<br /><br />“Grab the sack and run like hell?” I suggest.<br /> <br />“That is just what I did.”<br /><br />“Then what happened?”<br /> <br />All of them lived and become pregnant and gave birth to more kittens. They were so cute, so soft…. How many cats. . Now? I don’t know.”<br />Her voice trails off. She has lost count of her cats. <br /><br />We are both quiet caught in observing the butterflies fluttering over the lily pond in her garden. <br /> <br />“Everything was all right until the cats. I love the cats. But, I cannot sleep because I think they are not happy or that some one will hurt them. Some body killed two of my cats where I lived before. They said I had too many cats. Every body smiled to my face but they kill my cats when I am not home. Now, I cannot go out. What will happen to my cats if I go to Spain for three weeks?”<br /><br />“ Maybe you can hire a live in cat sitter for the time you are away,” I suggest.<br /><br />“ Oh no, my cats like only me. They will not be happy with anyone else.”<br /><br />The woman next door ponders her dilemma. She absentmindedly stretches her arms high above her soft head before continuing her lament. “Life is strange. God is stranger. My life was so simple, so peaceful. No husband, no children. I came. I went. I never locked my door… now, I am trapped by love.” <br /><br />“Aren’t we all in one way or another at one time or another.”Tamarra Kaidahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05621912540576496011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5588322009359816446.post-81476731965822527372008-10-26T15:16:00.001+08:002008-10-26T15:26:33.262+08:00Tales from Bali- The Price of PotatoesThe Price of Potatoes<br /> By Uma Anyar<br /><br /><br />To get to our house, in the rice fields of Banjar Apuh, (population 180 men, women, and children plus fifteen cows, twelve pigs and a smattering of roosters) we have to drive down a barely paved narrow road past a soirée of free roaming chickens, which scatter like demented hysterics into trash-strewn ditches. Halfway down this country lane, just before Made’s Warung we slow to a snails pace to accommodate the family of geese who live on this swatch of cement like royal squatters. In Bali, no one bothers penning up domestic foul. Curiously, the chickens and geese get along with the mangy black and white dogs as well as the feral cats and the passing cars or motorbikes. No one complains if a platoon of ducks comes waddling down the street. Everyone just slows down and waits for the herdsman with the bamboo pole to nudge quacking tribe into a straight line so that motorists can get by. Both parties smile and nod as if approving the transaction before passing each other.<br /> After the open hut that houses the ping-pong table over which young men thwack resilient balls with great gusto in the early evenings, the same small gang of local children emerge from various family compounds and wave vigorously while yelling “Hello, hello,” as loudly as possible, their tiny wrists twisting in unison, their eyes bright with excitement.<br /><br /> Greetings and smiles are as natural as sunshine in Bali. <br /> <br />When we pass Putu the painter’s house, we wave at the band of young Balinese guys hanging out on their motorbikes, smoking kreteks and shooting the shit in Balinese. They are not as interested in the Bules who have taken up residence in their village, as their elders appear to be.<br /><br /> Bules are foreigners who have elected to live in Bali. There are a lot of us in the Ubud area. Every Balinese knows we are a source of income. And everyone and his cousin have a business of some kind or other. Bules like art and Bules buy things. There are eight different painters shops on the pot holed main road leading to our village displaying Balinese interpretations of Western sensuality. Messily coiffured blond babe’s with puffy lips pout and strike provocative poses from canvases large enough to impress any lusty art aficionado. Tourism has affected Balinese painting styles as well as subject matter. But the sweet smiling bare breasted maiden carrying fruit on her head is a staple and has been selling well since the nineteen thirties when Bali emerged as a exotic place to visit.<br /><br />Electricity reached Mawang just fifteen years ago. Telephone lines never made it to Banjar Apuh but everyone under fifty has a hand phone and thinks nothing of driving and speed dialing while passing a truck piled high with rattan wrapped pigs on their way to a profitable slaughter. It is impossible to be bored when driving in Bali. In fact it is crucial to everyone’s health and well being that drivers stay alert as sauntering old people, snoozing dogs, soup wagons selling bakso balls and noodles share the road with jeeps and motorcycles. <br /><br />During harvest season it is common to come across large plastic turquoise tarps spread evenly with drying rice. If you have to drive over the rice then … please do so with care. No one admonishes the road hogs or suggests that they should spread their rice drying tarps someplace less obstreptous to village traffic. Only main roads devoted to speed are free of the brown kernel. Rice is life. Everyone knows this and everyone, even the new orange haired punk boys and the tattooed rebel painters slow down when they pass Ibu’s rice blanket. The local roosters peck at the bounty and no one raises a fuss. Sometimes an old man wrapped in a stained sarong doses on the grass beside the exposed rice, his watchful eyes lazy with the afternoon heat.<br /><br /> Afternoon siestas are normal in most Balinese rural villages. It is not uncommon to see groups of old men pile onto the village bale, curl up on the dusty straw mat and sleep together peacefully as children. No one uses pillows or cushions or covers of any kind. <br /><br />Sleep is both a private and a collective activity.<br /><br />Paul makes his way slowly over the banjar speed bump, we say hello to the bare breasted old woman in the brown sarong and old orange towel over her shoulder. Nenek is on her way to the river to scrub down before the grand- children return from school.<br /> We stop by the warung where Kadek the saucy village warung proprietress is selling candies, soda pop, bottled water, four cucumbers and a single cabbage, the shelves s are stocked with krupuks and chips as well as several small rice concoctions wrapped in banana leaves. Hot coffee- black and sweet is available if the thermos isn’t empty <br /><br />It is rumored that sexy Kadek recently had an affaire with our architect’s uncle. There are whispers of an abortion. But no one is pointing fingers; no one is avoiding her wooden hut resplendid with junk food and a few vegetables. Good and bad deeds get absorbed or stored for future scoldings. Kadek wears tight blue jeans and form fitting tee shirts. She watches and assess like a cat sizing up her opportunities. Her teen-age daughters take after her. They are lovely to look at and ripe for trouble. But no one will be too upset if one or the other is pregnant before she marries. Most brides are at least three months expectant when they marry. <br /> <br /> Paul parks the car and we take out the blue and red plastic trash cans purchased specifically for the village square. “Hallo” smiles the old Nekek with the towel then turns quick as a ninja and swats the orange rag at a pair of barking dogs who run off. Paul shows the Village counsel leader the lids and the handy handles on the large containers. “This is for plastic,” I say. Plastic trash in the streams, rivers, ditches, roadsides and village area makes me crazy. We have decided to risk looking like interfering Americans and have helped instigate recycling in our tiny community.<br /><br />Think Globally but work with your local banjar is our new motto.<br /><br /> Removing the trash barrels from the car has exposed our groceries and household items in the back of the jeep. Within minutes Kadek has wandered over to look into the bags noting our brand of laundry detergent and the back up mop refills and the cling wrap and the packages of light bulbs. She has no problem asking me how much I paid for the light bulbs and the towels as well.<br /> Balinese have no issues with privacy. Or they don’t have it around the same things that westerners do, like money. <br /><br />Money is of prime concern. Every body knows how much the local farmer sold his land for. Everyone also knows what we spent on our car and the cost of the extra electricity, which powers our swimming pool.<br />I watch Kadek paw over my tomatoes and watermelon “How much you pay?” She shouts holding up the plastic bag of potatoes. <br />“Twenty thousand rupiahs.”<br />“ Mahal!” she exclaims. “ You go to passar in Sukawati. Better price.”<br /> She sees it as her civic duty to instruct Paul and me in the economics of grocery shopping. Only a fool would ignore her advice. <br /> The price of everything and anything is of such interest to most Balinese villagers that at times it can seem perversely humorous. One day I was telling Made’ our neighbor about the program I saw on the BBC exposing the sale of children for the sex industry in India. “Is this true?” Made’ asks, bewildered by the information. I realize she has little awareness of the world outside her village. But in true Balinese fashion her curiosity gets the best of her and her practical nature takes over.<br /> <br />“ How much money they sell their children for?” She asks innocently.Tamarra Kaidahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05621912540576496011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5588322009359816446.post-47656172321587344872008-10-26T15:11:00.002+08:002008-10-26T15:15:50.758+08:00Interviw with Charlotte Bacon-Turning the Page to BaliCharlotte Bacon: Turning the page to Bali<br />By Uma Anyar<br />Writer Charlotte Bacon has recently moved to Bali with her husband Brad Choyt, the Director of the new Green School in Sibang Kaja, near Mambal. She will be participating in the fourth Ubud Writers and Readers Festival, October 14-19, 2008. Ms. Bacon has published three novels, Lost Geography, Split Estate, There is Room for You and a collection of short stories, A Private State, for which she received the PEN/ Hemmingway award. <br />Bacon taught Creative Writing at The University of New Hampshire but left mainstream academia to help create a more relevant and ecologically conscious form of education, which aims to serve the needs and talents of the “whole child.” Sustainability on every level is the goal of the school. The international program will “combine rigorous academic content taught through a holistic approach that aims to inspire and enhance all of a child’s capacities.” The Kul-Kul campus is buzzing with workers building bamboo houses and classrooms, landscaping and planting vegetable gardens on the 8-hectare site. The visionaries for the school, John and Cynthia Hardy, are also providing the funding. The school will open September 1st with 100 students, one of who is Charlotte’s son, Tom. <br /> Charlotte Bacon is an intelligent, strong, highly ethical person, who wants a better world and is willing to embrace a challenging undertaking because she believes the Green School will make a difference. It was inspiring to talk with her about writing, education, motherhood and the future of publishing.<br />UA “Will you be teaching Creative Writing at the Green School?”<br />CB “No, I want to work behind the scenes, be in a supportive roll and assist where needed. I don’t want to talk about fiction anymore; I only want to make it. I’d rather have a life that helped me to think richly about my art rather than talk constantly about it. Right now I am passionate about the Green School and the potential of what is possible here in Bali. We will have twenty percent of all students on scholarship. Amazing things are possible here. I love writing but I have come to see it as almost ornamental. But that is not what the planet needs. I probably will not publish large size editions of my next book. The cost in trees is not worth it. Publishing will be changing. I wanted to plant bamboo to offset the paper in my last book. Do you know I would have to plant 250,000 seedlings to offset one book? One book! That is not sustainable. It isn’t even the paper and the oil to produce the book but the gas to ship it, the gas and energy to drive to the store or the library to get the book. That sort of thing has to counted.”<br />UA “What about the internet as a publishing venue?”<br />CB “Yes, I think we will be publishing artisanally, by which I mean publishing an edition of beautiful, well-crafted books that will go to the Library of Congress and to private collectors and other special venues. The rest will be on the Internet and it will be downloadable. Maybe paperbacks will hang on as they are less harmful to the environment, but hard cover books are dead. Look at what has happened to songs, to images. Everything is downloadable. That is what people want.”<br />UA “How will this change the nature of creative writing?”<br />CB “People no longer want long novels. They want it fast, succinct something to read on the cell phone. What I do is a dying art, an old craft. People still want fiction, story, but they want it easily codifiable. Simplistic. Fast. They don’t want the long, drawn out leisure of a finely developed character.”<br />UA “But this is a loss for the whole culture. Novels are invaluable! It is easier to find thoughtful, meaningful encounters with characters in books than it sometimes is with live people who are too busy to be present or aware.”<br />CB “Yes, a terrible loss. There is much that fiction writers have to say about how to live a life. Novels can aid in private healing. Books are vital; we need to relearn how to think more complexly. Reading is part of a vibrant life. To hold a book in your hands is important, but we are in a critical time and it is hard to find the proper balance between the planet’s needs and our own. I know what I do is an old art. It is destined for obsolescence. It is just like gold gilding and we are in critical times ecologically.”<br />UA “Charlotte, for me this future you are describing feels hallow and deprived of the things I hold most dear.”<br />CB “Yes, me too. I’m sorry to say all of this, but it is coming.”<br />UA “What made you become a writer?”<br />CB “I loved language, words. I think this is something you either have or you don’t, also writing helped me to sort out what I thought about things as I was growing up. Don De’Lillo once said ‘I write so that I find out what I am thinking.’ I feel that too. Language can be a springboard for meaning. I write ten pages for every one I keep. The writing process is looking for the underneath of meaning; recursion, returning in little steps until I have it. This sounds mystical but it isn’t. It’s a lot of hard, silent work. It’s sitting alone in a room and doing it. But now I have become monkish, simpler about writing. I do it when I can. I do as my kids are crawling over me. I do it while others are talking. I just do it. I am a mother and a wife, not only a writer.”<br />UA “ What do you like the most about writing?”<br />CB “Besides language, I love story and most of all that I can connect with people silently when I am not present. Storytelling, I like being part of something that has an ancient history.” <br />UA “What do you like the least?”<br />CB “Publishing, or rather, promoting. I don’t like selling. I don’t want to be in front of the work. I want it to speak for itself. But that is not how the market place works.”<br /> UA “How will you be participating in the URWF?”<br /> CB “I will be offering a workshop on writing and materials, reading from my book and participating in a panel discussion.”<br />UA “I think your readers will enjoy listening and learning from you and I’m sure you will attract some new readers who will like spending time with your silent voice on the still available, paper page.”Tamarra Kaidahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05621912540576496011noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5588322009359816446.post-89555673613518069902008-10-26T14:57:00.000+08:002008-10-26T14:59:47.723+08:00Book Review: Bollywood Beauty by Shalini AkhilThe Bollywood Beauty<br />By Shalini Akhil<br /><br />REVIEWED BY TAMARRA KAIDA<br /><br />WE TRAVEL IN ORDER TO SEE OTHER PLACES AND TO MEET DIFFERENT KINDS OF PEOPLE. WE READ FOR SOME OF THE SAME REASONS. SOMETIMES IT IS AN EXCITING JOURNEY. SOMETIMES IT WOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER TO STAY HOME. <br /><br />THE BOLLYWOOD BEAUTY IS SET IN FIJI AND AUSTRALIA AND IS A CONTEMPORARY COMING OF AGE STORY OF TWO INDIAN COUSINS, KESH AND RUPA, WHO ARE OF MARRIAGEABLE AGE AND EMBODY OPPOSING ATTITUDES ABOUT THEIR FATE AS WOMEN.<br /><br />THE STORY BEGINS IN MELBOURNE WHERE THE MAIN CHARACTER, KESH, HAS HER OWN APARTMENT, HOLDS A PART TIME JOB IN A BAR AND IS AN ART MAJOR AT UNIVERSITY. SHE HAS MOVED OUT OF HER FAMILY’S HOME BUT HAS NOT ESCAPED HER MOTHER’S FAMILIAL CONTROL. RUPA ARRIVES IN AUSTRALIA FOR AN INTENSIVE SIX MONTH COMPUTER COURSE. KESH’S MOTHER ARRANGES FOR THE COUSINS TO LIVE TOGETHER. CONFLICT IS INEVITABLE. THE STORY EXPLORES HOW THEY AFFECT EACH OTHER’S WORLD VIEWS, WHERE THEY ARE ALIKE AS INDIANS IN A DOMINANT WESTERN CULTURE AND WHERE THEY ARE DIFFERENT FROM THEIR PARENTS’ GENERATION.<br /><br />KESH IS THE MODERN REBEL WHO HAS GROWN UP IN AUSTRALIA AND WANTS TO BE CAPTAIN OF HER OWN DESTINY. RUPA IS THE BOLLYWOOD BEAUTY FROM A CONSERVATIVE INDIAN FAMILY WHO HAS BEEN RAISED IN FIJI. FAMILY TIES HAVE CAST THE GIRLS AS FRIENDS AND RIVALS SINCE CHILDHOOD. KESH WAS THE FREEDOM LOVING, ADVENTUROUS TOMBOY WHO, MUCH TO HER MOTHER’S DISMAY, RAN ABOUT IN THE BRIGHT SUN LIGHT AND ALLOWED HER SKIN TO DARKEN. RUPA WAS THE PROPER FEMININE GIRL WHO WAS OBEDIENT AND PLAYED INDOORS WITH TEA SETS.<br /><br />YET, OPPOSITES ATTRACT AND THE GIRLS ARE BOUND TOGETHER BY LOVE, ENVY, AND THEIR INDIAN CULTURAL ROOTS. IN THE RICHEST PARTS OF THE BOOK, KESH AND RUPA STRUGGLE TO UNDERSTAND THEIR FEELINGS ABOUT THEIR OWN ‘INDIAN–NESS’. IF YOU GROW UP OUTSIDE OF A DOMINANT CULTURAL NORM IT IS INEVITABLE THAT YOU WILL PERCEIVE YOURSELF AS ‘OTHER’. IF YOU ADOPT THE VALUES AND TASTES OF THAT CULTURE YOU OFTEN DON’T FEEL COMFORTABLE IN YOUR BIRTH CULTURE. IT IS A CLASSIC IMMIGRANT IDENTITY ISSUE.<br />KESH IS BOTH AN AUSSIE AND A TRANSPLANT INDIAN WHO WEARS JEANS, HAS SHORT HAIR AND IS STRONG WILLED AND ANGRY. SHE DRINKS, SMOKES CIGARETTES AND OCCASIONALLY POT. SHE REFUSES TO CONFORM TO THE INDIAN CUSTOM OF ARRANGED MARRIAGES. KESHE’S FRIENDS ARE AN INTERESTING MIX OF WESTERN AND INDIANAN PALS AND CONFIDANTS THAT ENRICH THE STORY. AMONG THEM IS DAVE, A CHARMING WOMANIZER WHO FINDS THE NEWLY ARRIVED RUPA VERY ‘EXOTIC’. KESH SEES THROUGH THIS ROMANTIC ILLUSION AND HER SPIRITED ANALYSIS OF THE ‘EXOTIC OTHER’ MAKES FOR SMART POLITICAL DIALOG. KESH’S STREET SMARTS AND FAMILY LOYALTY CASTS HER INTO THE RELUCTANT ROLE AS PROTECTOR OF HER COUSIN’S VIRGINITY.<br /><br />“LOVE, SHE TALKS ABOUT. LOVE. LOVE WILL COME. LOVE MARRIAGES NEVER LAST. FIRST MARRY, AND THEN LOVE. THIS IS THE WAY IT SHOULD BE DONE,” PRONOUNCES KESH’S MOTHER. THE STAGE IS SET FOR A BATTLE BETWEEN MOTHER AND DAUGHTER AS WELL AS TRADITIONAL VALUES VERSUS INDIVIDUAL CHOICE. THESE ARE THE LIVELIEST PARTS OF THE BOOK. RUPA TURNS OUT TO BE A BIT OF A WILD CARD AND FINDS A WAY TO HAVE HER CAKE AND EAT IT TOO. AFTER THAT, THE STORY FOLLOWS A PREDICTABLE PATH CULMINATING IN THE WEDDING OF RUPA TO A SUITABLE BOY.<br /><br />SHALINI AKHIL DOES AN ADMIRABLE JOB OF WEAVING TRADITIONAL INDIAN DISHES, CLOTHING AND AGE OLD CULTURAL AND RELIGIOUS CUSTOMS INTO THE STORY PLOTLINE. BUT THIS READER WAS OFTEN FRUSTRATED BY THE LACK OF EXPLANATION OF CERTAIN CUSTOMS. WHAT ARE DUPATTAS, WHICH APPARENTLY CAN ALSO FUNCTION AS CURTAINS? WHAT IS A GRAGAH? I FOUND THE DESCRIPTION OF THE INDIAN PRE- WEDDING RITUALS INTRIGUING BUT INCOMPLETE. WHY IS THE BRIDE SMEARED WITH TURMERIC PASTE? WHY IS SHE NOT PERMITTED TO BATHE FOR ALMOST A WEEK AND ONLY ON THE MORNING OF HER WEDDING? WHY DOES KESH ALSO HAVE HER FACE SMEARED WITH TURMERIC?<br />WHAT DOES IT SYMBOLIZE? <br /><br /> THE BOLLYWOOD BEAUTY IS A BREEZY NOVEL THAT TOUCHES LIGHTLY ON INTERESTING ISSUES OF MULTI-CULTURALISM IN AUSTRALIA. UNFORTUNATELY, SHALINI AKHIL DIDN’T EXPLORE THEM DEEPLY OR SERIOUSLY. THE COMING OF AGE STORY BETWEEN THE TWO GIRLS IS SINCERE. BUT THE BOLLYWOOD ENDING, UNDERMINES THE BELIEVABILITY OF THE STORY. IF AKHIL INTENDED IT TO BE A PARODY OF THE INDIAN ROMANCE MOVIES, THEN IT REDUCES THE CONCERN FOR THE MAIN ISSUE OF ARRANGED MARRIAGES ON WHICH THE NOVEL IS CENTERED.<br /><br /> THIS IS A SHAME, AS THE POTENTIAL FOR A RICH AND COMPLEX BI-CULTURAL STORY RESIDES IN THE PAGES OF THIS DEBUT NOVEL. HOPEFULLY, AKHIL WILL BECOME A BRAVER WRITER WHO RISKS REACHING BELOW THE SURFACE OF HER UNIQUE MATERIAL. THE POTENTIAL IS THERE.Tamarra Kaidahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05621912540576496011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5588322009359816446.post-37821083499425062662008-10-26T13:51:00.001+08:002008-10-26T13:53:48.814+08:00Book Review: Lost Geography by Charlotte BaconLost Geography by Charlotte Bacon<br />Review by Uma Anyar<br /><br />How much does place affect what we are as individuals? To what extent does geography help to mold a person’s character? How does changing where you live alter who you are?<br /> Charlotte Bacon explores these concepts in Lost Geography, her debut novel set in rural Saskatchewan, Toronto, Paris, London, Istanbul and New York. Scotland is the kickoff location for this multi generational saga that spans over sixty years in the history of a family who’s names are not well known but whose lives are compelling because the writer makes us care about each and every member. The main characters are women but the husbands, Davis and Osmon, linger on in memory. Bacon writes about family love and life sensitively and unsentimentally.<br />The story starts with Margaret Evans a young nurse, and Davis Campbell a bookish fisherman who hates the stink of the sea.<br /> Davis leaves Scotland to seek his fortune in Canada and to find a place inland away from, “The salty wool of wet sweaters, the blood on the gills. Billows of odors that made his gut slide and his eyes blur. It was everywhere. In pubs, his clothes, the hair of whey colored children.” <br />Davis made his way to Regina, a farming region of Saskatchewan, where the flu and a 104-degree fever placed him in the capable hands of pretty Nurse Evans. They discover a bond through their love of books. Davis’ convalescence becomes a form of courtship as Margaret reads him sonnets and Bleak House, just as his mother had done when he was a child. They marry and discover a sexual passion neither had expected or understood but it survives three children and hard times on the family farm. It is a simple but very poignant story of love and family life rooted in hard soil, animals, cold winters and broad flat landscape that takes more than it gives.<br /> Ironically, it is the sexual desire that pulls Margaret and Davis away from their twentieth anniversary celebratory dinner at a restaurant and into their sturdy truck for privacy, in an effort to find a secluded spot to park and make love. This is an uncharacteristic and boldly daring act for this practical couple. Tragically and simply, the truck skids on bridge and plunges into the Wasakana River where they drown. This calamity is the first in a line of sad and painful losses that moves the family tale onward to a new piece of geography and onto a new family character and how she adapts and changes in her new location. The story moves in a matrilineal arc each section of the book devoted to a daughter and the city she lives in. <br /> Toronto becomes home for Hilda, the strong and needy female in the Campbell clan. Interestingly it is the girl rather than either of the brothers who moves on, alone, to make her fortune or at least try to survive on her own terms in a large cosmopolitan city in the 1950’s. Bacon presents us with a strong female character that raises her daughter while working for a travel agency. Hilda finds love after a precipitous one-night stand that leaves her pregnant. She marries a good man who dies unexpectedly of a heart attack. Hilda’s daughter Danielle loves her mother but also yearns to get away from her.<br /> Danielle moves to Paris because of a job at an antiques auction house. Danielle has the grit, beauty and sensuality of her mother and grandmother. Eventually, she marries Osmon, an English-Turkish rug dealer and this is where the book becomes more intricate and complex. Bacon takes us into Osmon’s London childhood where we encounter a patriarchal brute of a father, a mother whose Turkish accent betrays her English life style and focuses on the problems of not fitting in.<br /> I found the London/Paris section of the book most absorbing. Bacon’s elegant, sensitive writing is especially persuasive describing the horrible brutality that sometimes is part of family life. She explores the convoluted ways parents try to fit into their new country and the ways their children are affected.<br /> Despite the title of the book, geography plays a secondary role to the personal and devastating loss and grief that death forces on a family. Proving that the powerful places on earth are in the human heart.<br />The book closes in New York City where Sophie and Sasha, the teenage children of Danielle and Osmon Harris break through their father’s all consuming grief of the loss of Danielle to cancer and prevent his suicide. The descriptions of Osmon’s depression and isolation, his efforts to live for his children are among the more powerful and convincing I have ever read. It is impossible to not care about the human struggle to go on when there seems to be no reason to. <br />Sometimes the wrong thing to do is actually the right thing. Sophie throws her father’s precious Persian rugs out the window of the New York store. “The Carpets didn’t fly. They didn’t catch the wind, they didn’t soar… They fell with a purpose, the way a hawk falls on prey.” <br />Through Sasha and Sophie’s bizarre act of love for their father Osmon, we come to understand that it is emotional geography, which spreads itself out like a magic carpet beneath our feet that helps us endure life’s tragedies.Tamarra Kaidahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05621912540576496011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5588322009359816446.post-1168558034403512272008-10-26T13:34:00.003+08:002008-10-26T13:45:41.490+08:00Book Review: Everyman's Rules For Scientific Living by Carrie TiffanyEveryman’s Rules For Scientific Living<br />By Carrie Tiffany<br />Review by Uma Anyar<br />Science can be a form of faith. And, just like religion, it can let you down if all you have is a list of rules.<br />“Everyman’s Rules for Scientific Living<br />By Robert L. Pettergree, Agrostologist<br />1. Contribute to society for the achievement of mutual benefits<br />2. The only true foundation is a fact.<br />3. Keep up -to –date.<br />4. Avoid mawkish consideration of History and Religion.<br />5. Keep the mind Flexible through the development and testing of new hypotheses.<br />6. Cultivate the company of wiser men- men who are sticklers not shirkers.<br />7. Disseminate. The labors and achievements of men of science must become the permanent possession of many.<br />8. Bring science into the home.<br />Published in the Victorian Department of Agricultural Journal, May 1934.”<br />In 1934 Robert Pettergree put his faith in agro-science and moved to Wycheproof, a dusty farming town in the Mallee region of Victoria, Australia. He had charts, a slide rule, production notebooks, agricultural department pamphlets, a night school education and, most importantly, a need to prove himself in the world. He was a modern man armed with science.<br />Robert Pettergree’s thirst for success was predicated on a childhood filled with hunger and neediness. His mother, Lillian, a poor prostitute, loved him and shared her hand full of dirt with her hungry son. <br />“She takes the tonic spoon and sits on the back step digging at the soil… and says ‘Brown –It tastes brown.’ They share. They always share.”<br />She gave birth to two other babies who died of Spina Bifida, Latin for split spine. Poor diet with a lack of oranges seemed to be the cause. Robert pursued science and learning as if it were salvation. Ironically, Robert developed a taste for dirt and could tell when a pinch of soil was from one farming county or another. He was never wrong and the astonished farmers enjoyed placed bets on the ‘Soil Taster’s’ remarkable skill.<br />Carrie Tiffany’s debut novel has a rich story line, believable characters and is informative about 1930’s Australian farm life and the vicissitudes of growing wheat in the Mallee. It is powerful in the way Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath depicted the dust bowl calamity to Americans. <br />The story is about a marriage and a man’s mission to improve nature through science. It is told in a clean, spare style. Indeed, the most beguiling aspect of the book is Robert’s wife’s observant, non self-pitying voice. As the main character, Jean leads us into a time and a place that on the surface may not sound like exciting reading material but is surprisingly gripping. This is a remarkably beautiful book, well researched, literary in the best sense and very wise. Carrie Tiffany is dealing with more than the flat facts of farming in poor soil; she is exploring human nature, desire, belief and faith from both a female and male point of view. Yet, this book is not a feminist polemic. It is art because the writer makes us care not only about the characters on her pages but also about the place itself. This is a novel in which the land and the historical era are not mere atmospheric background but actual presences. <br />“Mallee mornings don’t flicker. There are no hazy beginnings, no half-light of hesitation where day meets night. The Mallee sun snaps over the horizon with a sure and sudden glow of electric light. Long sharp rays of yellow reach across the flat horizon like tentacles. I have seen this before. On a packet of Mildura raisins. Raisins, Full of Goodness from the sun. Eat More Raisins Everyday in Every Way. The picture on the packet shows children frolicking in a paddock of golden wheat wearing neat shorts and knitted jumpers; the sun’s rays touch them like ribbons from a maypole.”<br />Jean Finnegan, a woman with her own ideas, is the surprising survivor of her husband’s failed scientific farming experiment and her own miscarriage. She knows how to go on, how to bend into the land rather than conquer it. In the end it is she who bonds with the hard land in a passionate and permanent way. It is Robert Pettergree’s tragic tunnel vision and cold determination that make him blind to Nature and to his devoted wife. In spite of Jean’s strong character I find myself haunted by Robert who shifts his idealism from science to patriotism and goes off to war rather than accept the failure of his vision. His belief that science and technology could tame Nature was one of the hallmarks of Modernism. That kind of hubris has brought us to a time when global warming is making us seriously question those tenets and consider new ways of working within Nature’s paradigm.Tamarra Kaidahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05621912540576496011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5588322009359816446.post-73508247207372693832008-10-26T13:23:00.003+08:002008-10-26T13:30:51.502+08:00Book Review: Reasons for Reading-The Giniralla Conspiracy by Nihal de SilvaReasons for Reading <br /><br />By Tamarra Kaida<br /><br />Writers have long complained about the loneliness of writing. “All you have is a blank page and your brain”. Conversely, readers can evade loneliness, boredom, by reading what a writer has written. <br /><br />Reading a book is an intimate act. Surprisingly, it can be done in the most public of places. Train stations, cramped airplane seats, and doctors’ waiting rooms encourage reading more than libraries, which tend to make one sleepy. The best public reading is in cafes where lattes and cappuccinos add to the pleasure. It can also be done in the privacy of your own bed or even someone else’s bed. Husbands and boyfriends don’t mind if you slip into your “good book” and journey into another realm while your body lies by their side. A friend told me about the time the love scene she was reading was so much better then her own sexual experience that she got up and left the boyfriend, but took his book. It was a tattered copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover.<br /><br />It takes more time to read a book then it does to look at a painting or listen to most music. Even movies, which engage both our sight and sound senses, are limited to about two hours. Books can keep you involved for weeks, even months. It took my husband and I four months to read War and Peace aloud. It was quality time and a shared pleasure.<br /><br />Fiction never lies.<br /><br />There is something about reading a novel that requests the reader to suspend judgment of the author in ways one doesn’t do with essays or theoretical writing.<br /><br />Fiction is about characters and plot and a good tale. But there is something else… and that is the author’s voice. It is not difficult to sense what kind of human being is writing the story one is reading. Recently, I read The Giniralla Conspiracy, by Nihal de Silva, a Sri Lankan writer who won the Gratian Prize in 2003 for his first book, The Road From Elephant Pass. De Silva was scheduled to speak at the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival in October, but tragically he won’t be attending, he was killed when his bus ran over a land mine in northern Sri Lanka. <br /><br />Sometimes, books are better company then people.<br /><br /> I was in the middle of The Giniralla Conspiracy when I received the bad news via email. <br />The book was about revolutionaries who recruit young idealistic college students into their radical political organization, which aims to change the corrupt establishment. Sujatha Mallika, a brave village girl with a traumatic childhood is attracted to the radicals’ worthy cause but deplores the violent methods used by the party to control their own members. Sujatha discovers a secret plan that promises to destroy the government and kill many innocent people. She and her friends work at preventing the forthcoming catastrophe. The love stories interweave with the plot in a graceful and realistic manner. It is a tale about the complexity of revolutionary actions and raises the issue of weather malevolent means justify noble aims. <br /><br />What struck me about The Giniralla Conspiracy is how different his heroine and his hero were from Western contemporary counterparts. Mithra, the hero, is a victim of childhood polio who is gentle, sweet and the target of much abuse during initiation rag at Jaypura University. He endures the sadistic bullying inflicted on him by the older students without bitterness or rancor. He is not especially hip or cool but he possesses emotional savy and depth of spirit. He is a very likable and memorable character. There were no big gun fights, no hot sex scenes. Instead the reader was given believable characters in a thriller plot set in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Even de Silva’s bad guy surprised this reader with his moral integrity. The best part of the reading experience was de Silva’s voice holding his fictional world together with a gentle humanity that exceeds the actual plot. I was looking forward to meeting him at the Festival to see if he actually was all that I sensed him to be on the page.<br /><br />Paradoxically, the terrorism and violence he deplored and wrote about killed him. Land mines are deadly planted bulbs, which burst into bloom indiscriminately.<br /><br />His books remain. His voice lives on.Tamarra Kaidahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05621912540576496011noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5588322009359816446.post-72500383672090807072008-10-26T13:18:00.001+08:002008-10-26T13:20:45.776+08:00Book Review: On Reading Orhan Pamuk in BaliOn Reading Orhan Pamuk in Bali <br />By Uma Anyar<br /><br /><br />I have not been able to read more then a page of Orhan Pamuk’s writing without yearning for a pen or pencil, a scrap of paper. Words speak themselves inside my head. Not the customary voice that I associate with the everyday me but a more observant consciousness that resides deeper in my psyche. This awareness attends to the neglected beauty of the curtains fluttering away from my open windows; noting the way the sheer fabric lifts and falls like large white wings without a body.<br /><br />This voice, which comes into being while my eyes scan Pamuk’s words on a page, is an off- spring of the writer himself. This kind of reading is the most intimate of acts. It engenders creative energy. It focuses the mind into gentle receptivity. The reader enters the writer’s heart and mind like a willing lover ready to follow a train of thought where ever it may lead. And then, if the reader is also a writer, to speak through silent words strung together in sentences and paragraphs some particular truth one does not know is there until it reveals itself on the page.<br /><br />This is beauty of another kind. It is formed of trust and inner hushes, the lightest whispers inside the soul, it is the foundation of something sacred which every writer tries to reach by reading the words of another.<br /> <br />Pamuk honors Dostoyevsky, Nabakov by presenting them to me and other readers elsewhere on the planet holding a copy of Other Colours, Essays and A Story in their hands, as a close friend might do when he wants you to ‘get’ what he ‘gets’ about them. And, because Pamuk is such an insightful reader/writer who has provoked new thoughts about old books, I will get a copy of The Brothers Karamazov and Lolita when I go to Ubud later today. I want to understand how beauty and cruelty are displayed in Nabakov’s characters and re-visit the tortured Karamozovs. Russian writers are not a happy lot but they take us into the depths of the human soul better then anyone else.<br />One book incites reading another.<br /><br />After four hours of browsing through Borders Bookstore in Singapore, I was still unsatisfied with my book selections. I could not put my fingers on what I wanted because I did not know what I was looking for. There were just too many books bearing an overwhelming sense of sameness and formulaic promises to reveal The Secret of financial and spiritual success. There are just too many paths, too many truths; all clamoring for attention, each with a price on it’s freshly published face. So many voices yet not one spoke to me.<br /> <br /> It was in a Changi Airport bookshop on the way back to Bali that a hefty paperback bearing a picture of a lone young man in a white shirt sitting at a table and drawing caught my eye. The descriptive line, below the image,“ Writings on Life, Art, Books, and Cities” captured my interest. Now, here is a mind worth meeting I thought. I was happy the cover said nothing about the writer’s 2006 Nobel Prize. The prominent proclamation of awards or accolades smells of promotion and affects the quality of the initial meeting between writer and reader.<br /><br /> I danced the hesitation waltz of commitment by wandering away from the book, fingering other paperbacks, ruffling through magazines but I returned to Pamuk. I wanted to meet him on the page and in my bed with tea and thought, in the sweetest silent intimacy.<br /><br />Today is Saraswati Day, here in Bali. The unseen spiritual world intertwines with daily reality by the constant attention my Balinese friends and neighbors pay to gods and demons through offerings and ceremonies. As I type these words, Ibu Mangku, the local holy man’s wife, is lighting incense and placing a selection of woven offering trays containing flowers, candies, and special mosses on my bookshelf. Ibu Mangku sees to the spiritual needs of the house. She is a serene gray haired woman who goes about her spiritual duties with devotion and simplicity. She doesn’t hang around to chat or gossip. In fact, Ibu Mangku is not quite in this world anymore. She places leaf baskets near the intricately carved statue of the four-armed Goddess, Sarasawti. Incense smoke rises over my lap top screen. In the past lontar leaf books would have been blessed, today the computer is also honored. The Balinese are masters of balance and practicality and have managed to maintain their unique blend of Hindu, Buddhist and animist beliefs despite years of colonial rule and the onslaught of Western tourism. I hold off typing and join Ibu in silent prayers. Holy water sprinkled from a used coke-a-cola bottle ends the brief ritual.<br /> <br />Wayan, our young housekeeper enters my studio and teasingly reprimands me for reading and writing on Saraswati day. “Not good to do that today Mum, no reading, no writing today.” she pronounces playfully.<br /><br />“That just doesn’t make sense. It should be the opposite. Everyone should be doing nothing but reading and writing today. What better way to honor the goddess of learning, arts and music,” I state, certain of the logic of my argument.<br />“ No, not like that Mum. Today like birthday for Saraswati. Everybody rest now.” She sees my disappointed face and adds with a smile, “ But OK for you to write, you not Balinese.” I ponder the other side of this<br /> ‘to write or not to write’ dilemma while gazing at the terraced rice fields outside my window and choose Balinese sacred tradition over personal preference by clicking on ‘word quit.’<br /><br />Saraswati smiles.Tamarra Kaidahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05621912540576496011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5588322009359816446.post-62854944329026237122008-10-26T13:10:00.002+08:002008-10-26T13:14:51.966+08:00Book Review: The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin HamidThe Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid<br />Book Review - Uma Anyar<br />Ironically, the American dream of success, recognition and status has been achieved by Mohsin Hamid, the Pakistani author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist, a novel about a Princeton educated Muslim man who rejects becoming Americanized and returns to Lahore to tell his story to an anonymous American dinner companion who may or may not be a CIA agent.<br />Hamid the writer, like his hero Chandez, graduated from Princeton and worked for a New York business consulting company at an enviable salary. He currently lives in London and this book has been short listed for the Man Booker Prize. Chandez, the character, walked away from success, the writer Hamid did not. The book is written in a confessional style that elicits trust and draws on the author’s experience; to what degree, is left for the reader to wonder.<br />Chandez captures our attention more firmly than his mysterious American. Despite all that is implied by Chandez’s assumptions as to who he might be, we have to admire the guy for sitting through a long hot Lahore afternoon and evening listening to Chandez unload his life story without uttering a single peep himself. Writers are in control as long as they remain in the framework of fiction where anything is possible- even a silent, all ears listener.<br />The strength of this novel is the narrator’s compelling voice, which is calm, polite, and at times solicitous. The reader is his true target and Hamid had no trouble capturing my sympathetic ear. <br />The plot of a bright, hardworking, striving young man who either wants to rise in social status, like Fitzgerald’s J. Gatsby, or like Chandez, to reclaim what his family had lost, is familiar to most readers. This outsider falls in love with a patrician Princeton coed, Erica, who hails from a wealthy upper east side New York family. Their relationship is doomed by her nostalgic love for her childhood boyfriend Chris, who died of cancer. Changez has unconsciously been playing the part of an assimilated American so long that he encourages Erica to sleep with him and pretend that she is making love to Chris. The love story seems contrived until one realizes it is an allegory for America herself. Can America get over its nostalgia for its past and embrace change and true acceptance of the “Other”?<br />As Erica succumbs to depression and is committed to a mental institution, Changez, while on a corporate business trip to Manila where he watched the events of 9/11 on a hotel TV, discovers his true self.<br />“I stared as one — and then the other — of the twin towers of New York’s World Trade Center collapsed. And then I smiled. Yes, despicable as it may sound, my initial reaction was to be remarkably pleased.”<br />His secret, hidden anger reveals itself to him through his unexpected smile. From then on he can no longer play the game. He goes on working but the psychological erosion continues and finally he walks out on an important job, which his mentor has granted him as a sign of support and esteem. Instead of working on the appraisal of a publishing house in Valparaiso, Chile, Chandez spends his days at Pablo Neruda’s house. The final veil is pulled from Chandez’s eyes by one of the publishers who compares him to the Janissaries, early Christians, who were captured in their youth by the Ottomans and trained to fight against their own people. Chandez’s curt departure, “I’m done,” is both cinematic smart-ass and realistically believable, since there is never much to say when an irrevocable decision has been reached in the depth of one’s soul.<br />Chandez returns to Lahore and becomes a university lecturer in economics who may be helping student led anti American protests. We are brought back to the question of who the mysterious American might be. Paranoia and the depressing sense of mistrust of anyone “Other”- be it Pakistani Muslim or American Christian, does not bode well for a peaceful world. Who is the reluctant fundamentalist, the polite but angry narrator, or the silent suspicious looking American with the possible gun in his suit jacket? <br />“…You should not imagine that we Pakistanis are all potential terrorists, just as we should not imagine that you Americans are all undercover assassins.” <br />Mohsin Hamid’s short compelling novel pulls you in for a leisurely meal of juicy shiskababs at a sidewalk cafe, carries you along for 184 pages of confessions and introspection and then leaves you sitting alone at a table where fears and a sense of dismay for a peaceful mutual future lie beside the bread crumbs and dirty plates.Tamarra Kaidahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05621912540576496011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5588322009359816446.post-69446405069112544182008-10-26T13:02:00.002+08:002008-10-26T13:08:05.054+08:00Book Review: The Good Women Of China by XinranThe Good Women of China - Hidden Voices: By Xinran Translated by Esther Tyldesley<br /><br />Review by Tamarra Kaida<br /><br />“The world is not made up of atoms but rather of stories” Muriel Ruykiser<br /><br />In the prologue to Hidden Voices, Xinran recounts an incident that illustrates the power of true-life stories. <br /><br />One evening in November 1999 when Xinran was on her way home from teaching an evening class at London University, a mugger hit her on the head, pushed her to the ground and shouted, “ give me your bag!” Although Xinran was in physical danger, she did not release her handbag. Luckily, passers- by came to her rescue and she did not loose her purse or get beaten further. Later, when questioned by the police as to why she risked her life fighting to keep her bag. She explained her manuscript was in the bag. “And is a book worth your life?” asked the policeman. “No, of course not, but this book is my life.”<br /><br />It was my testimony to the lives of Chinese women, the result of many years’ work as a journalist. I knew I could have tried to recreate it. However, I wasn’t sure that I could put myself through the extremes of feeling provoked by writing the book again… In fighting for that bag I was defending my feelings and the feelings of Chinese women. The book was the result of so many things which, once lost, could never be found again. When you walk into your memories, you are opening a door to the past; the road within has many branches, the route is different every time<br /><br />In the late 1980’s Xinran worked for a radio station in Nanjing, China as a presenter of a talk show called Words on the Night Breeze. “During the program I discussed various aspects of daily life and used my own experiences to win the listeners’ trust and suggest ways of approaching life’s difficulties.” At this time in China, this type of advice on life show was a new thing. Communist officials heavily regulated it and getting a listener call-in segment with live discussions was risky business. Because of Xinran’s humane presentation style and her compassionate personality listeners wrote in and asked her help in various injustices to women. Xinran the trained journalist became a women’s issues champion. <br /><br />One of the first letters to reach her contained a chicken feather and a letter. According to Chinese tradition, a chicken feather is an urgent distress signal. The letter was from a young boy, a follower of Xinran’s radio show who was appealing for help on the behalf of a powerless girl. The letter explained that an old man in his village had bought a young girl who had been kidnapped from a distant village and sold to the old man who wanted male heirs before he died. This was not an uncommon practice in outlying villages at that time. The man kept the girl a prisoner, chained at the waist and attached to a wall. Her skin was rubbed raw and blood was seeping through her clothes. “I think he will kill her. Please save her. What ever you do, don’t mention this on the radio. If the villegers find out they will drive my family away.”<br /><br />This was the first of a series of life threatening stories that would find their way to Xinran’s desk. The book contains fifteen absorbing and sometimes heart wrenching stories about women’s lives in China during the Cultural Revolution and up to 1999.<br /> <br />The Mothers Who Endured an Earthquake tells the story of women survivors of The Tangshan earth quake of 1976 who lost their own children in the disaster but later started an home for orphans from that catastrophe. Each personal story of suffering broke my heart and deepened it with compassion. Xinran asks what does it mean to be a mother and to watch your beloved child suffer for 14 days trapped under a fallen building before fially dying? <br /><br />In What do Chinese Women Want Xinran addresses three questions posed to her by a Chinese university student who was also an ‘ escort girl’ or ‘personal secretary.’<br />“What philosophy do women have?” <br />“What is happiness for a woman?”<br />“And what makes a good woman?”<br />The questions themselves pose queries for me and all Western women raised and educated in relative freedom and democracy, but still aware of the long road that must be trodden before all women achieve full equality. ‘The personal is political’ was the motto that turned my ideas about politics in a feminist direction. Xinran asks, “What is a woman’s life worth in China?” When the police consider it a bureaucratic hassle to investigate a peasant girl chained to a wall by a dirty old man. What is a daughter’s life worth when her own mother says she must submit to the sexual abuse by her own father?<br />Her only recourse is to become so physically ill that she must remain in a hospital where she can escape her father’s advances. The Girl Who Kept a Fly as a Pet is a story of a young girl’s poignant resourcefulness in the face of this dire situation.<br /><br />This is a book of true stories, stories that cry out to be witnessed. They will remind you that compassion requires courage. They will make you ask questions about the nature of ignorance, e, and love in a new way.Tamarra Kaidahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05621912540576496011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5588322009359816446.post-2692092393056507072008-10-26T12:34:00.002+08:002008-10-26T12:42:44.923+08:00Book Review: The Follow by Linda SpaldingThe Follow by Linda Spalding<br /><br /> <br /><br /> Review by Tamarra Kaida<br /><br /> <br /><br />Orangutans may not be with us much longer if illegal logging continues to erode their natural habitat in the Indonesian islands of Kalimantan and Sumatra.<br /><br /> <br /><br /> Writer Linda Spalding makes several trips to Borneo in search of not only understanding orangutans but also of the ecological and political systems that surround and affect this endangered specie. She conducts a " follow” on world-renowned primatologist, Birute’Galdikas. “A follow” is a term used by rain forest researchers to describe a form of benign stalking and observation of an individual oraungutan. Linda’s “ follow” starts out with the intention of getting to know and interview Birute’, a women she admires for dedicating her life to the preservation of oragutans. She is one of Louis Leakey’s protégées. Like Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey, (Birute’),“ followed” a primate for days, even weeks, learning what she ate, where she slept, how she raised her children, what mark her life in the forest made”. Louis Leakey found women particularly adept at this kind of research, observation in situ. The traditional domestic qualities of nurturance, patience, attention to detail, apparently became scientific attributes in the jungle. Woman’s place was no longer just in the home. Or did we have to broaden our notion of home?<br /><br /> <br /><br />Connecting with the formidable Dr. Galdikas proves to be difficult. Linda’s “follow” turns into a search, for understanding the genesis of nurturance itself, of cross special interdependence and a personal journey replete with greedy gold miners, politically protected illegal loggers and a profound friendship with Riska, a Dayak woman guide.<br /><br /> <br /><br />The Follow, a deeply feminine book, tracks previously male territory – difficult and primitive terrain, jungle heat, unsavory characters and a buddy friendship that survives cultural differences. The heart of Spalding’s book is her personal quest for answers to the big questions of why we are all here and how we animals can live together on our small and fragile planet. Linda is not afraid to examine the pluses and minuses Birute’s actions. Perhaps trying to rehabituate former captive pet orangutans back into the rainforest is not a productive act of nurturance but rather of misguided love, which can endanger the remaining wild orangutans with contagious diseases. Another concern is that many of the former “pets” have lost their ability to survive in their natural environment. Are we helping or hindering the preservation of orangutans? The correct scientific approach is under fierce debate.<br /><br /> <br /><br /> <br /><br />Linda began her “follow” because she was questioning our connection to nature. “ We seem to be wandering outside of it, but how can that be? Aren’t we made of the same coils of DNA as everything living? Aren’t our closest relatives the great apes? Now only orangutans still live in trees whence we came, wandering like nomads through the canopy, without permanent nests, the way we must have wandered once .Was it settlement that cut us off from nature? Are we human because we left paradise?”<br /><br /> <br /><br />What makes us want to save a species?<br /><br /> <br /><br />“ The story of the ark is a fable for our time, the dream of all people who have similar stories everywhere. Stories of saving may even be part of our biological inheritance. While we sleep, the brain cells that hold our maps are working, communicating with each other about our hopes of survival, carving ever more complex maps in our brains, carving frightening and protective thoughts as one who carves a dragon and lets loose its spirit.”<br /><br /> <br /><br />Spalding’s “ Follow” of Galdikas and the endangered orangutans takes her far from her home in Toronto to the Borneo rainforest, but ultimately it brings her home to herself. Through her writing we also track the predominant issue of species survival in an ever more interdependent global village.Tamarra Kaidahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05621912540576496011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5588322009359816446.post-49292637783770984362008-10-26T12:26:00.002+08:002008-10-26T12:31:11.166+08:00Interview with Richard Lewis - The Flame TreeThe Flame Tree -by Richard Lewis<br />Interview by Tamarra Kaida<br /><br />Tamarra: The Flame Tree is set in Java and addresses religious/political conflicts between Muslims and Christians as experienced by the main character Isaac, who is the 12-year-old son of American Baptist Missionary doctors. Your biographical notes state that you are the son of Christian missionary parents and you grew up in Indonesia. What aspects of the book are based on your personal experiences of Muslim /Christian tensions?<br /><br />Richard: Well, my parents were missionaries in Bali that is a Hindu island but I went to an American boarding school in Java. When I was a child the same age as my character Isaac there were no religious tensions per se, the tensions were political. It was when Suharto was in power and the communists were trying to take control.. When Suharto fell from power I had the thought “ what if a young Christian kid gets caught up in the political upheaval. I didn’t start out to deal with religious tensions. I didn’t per se want to write about Muslim /Christian issues I just wanted to tell a good story about a kid who gets caught up in the events of the day. And what I put in regarding religious tensions came from the time I went to university in the states and realized that Americans knew very little about Islam. I started writing this novel in 1998. I don’t know if that answers your question.<br /><br /> Tamarra: What personal experiences of growing up in Indonesia find there way into the novel?<br /><br />Richard: Well, it would have been my boarding school experiences going to an American school in the middle of a Muslin community. And when you left the grounds of the school you went out and played with your Muslim friends. My personal experiences did not have religious tensions. I put that in later as a writer. It was part of my fictive world. I personally had no personal experience of Muslim/ Christian issues when I was a child. That would have come later in life as an adult.<br /><br />Tamarra: this is your first novel and Simon and Shuster’s “Young Adult” editor picked it up. It is a powerful book and hardly what I remember reading as a teenager. Did you write for a teen or adult audience?<br /><br />Richard: You picked up on something important. I wrote the book as an adult novel and my agent sent it off to 15 editors and they sent it back with compliments. It was just after 9/11 and they all felt uncomfortable with it. Then one day my agent was having lunch with an editorial director and mentioned my novel and the editor read it loved it and said we would love to buy it. But cut out the sub plots and focus only on the 12-year-old boy.<br /> And that’s what I did I had to cut other issues that focused on Isaac’s sister and abortion issues. I cut a lot from the first draft. But what remained after I focused on Issac. I did not write down for a young adult audience that’s why it still reads very much like an adult novel. In fact I have gotten most of my feed back from adult readers.<br /><br />Tamarra: But since the book will be marketed to a young Adult readership. What do you hope teenagers will get out of the book?<br /><br />Richard: First of all, I hope they will get an appreciation of a different culture. And a realization that people around the world share the same concerns for life, which for example, an American kid might think that a Muslim kid in Indonesia is a totally alien being but he isn’t. Actually the humanity they share is far greater then the differences. But when a kid reads a novel I want him to read a good story. I want to write a good story.<br /><br />Tamarra: oh they will get that. It is a very compelling story.<br /> <br />Richard: Second of all, everybody shares a common humanity even if there are differences in turns of religion. And third, I hope they will get an understanding of Islam as a religion. I hope they realize that people who practice another belief are not that different than I am or they are. That’s what I hope.<br /><br />Tamarra: Both Muslims and Christians can be criticized for their proselytizing fervor. In The Flame Tree you concentrate on the Muslim conversion rituals. How have Muslims and Christians responded to this book?<br /><br />Richard: You know, I was really nervous when the book came out. I thought that my community, the Christian community would be dead set against it. But for the most part they have been very supportive. As far as Muslims, I haven’t had any Muslims actually sit down and give it a good reading. I think that they only read a short way and decide the book could be about Muslim bashing which I never intended I use a stereotype and turn it around on it’s head. I think that if Muslims read the entire book they will be pleasantly surprised.<br /><br />Tamara: What do your parents think of the book?<br /><br />Richard: My father passed away before I even had a first draft five years ago. My mother read it and thinks it is a powerful story. She tells all her friends about it. My family has read it and they all love it.<br /><br />Tamarra: So they are supportive but you have not received much feed back from Muslims?<br /><br />Richard: I have received no feedback from Muslims. That may change when the book is marketed here in Indonesia. There will be a book launch in Jakarta on April 7th. So this interview is quite timely.<br /><br />Tamarra: Most Western readers are fairly ignorant about the Islamic Faith. As one of those readers, I especially liked reading The Flame Tree because I felt I was learning about Islam as well as following a suspenseful story. The circumcision scene is well written and disturbing. There are undercurrents of castration anxiety. Have you ever witnessed a Muslim circumsion ceremony? Why did you choose to include it in the abduction scenes rather then just leave it a kidnapping?<br /><br />Richard: Well that is a tough one. Let’s look at it from the perspective of a fiction writer who is trying to orchestrate events in the novel using craft techniques. I needed something that would be very compelling. And to me it seemed the way to go. You know, to build up the constant threat, the ongoing threat, of what is going to happen to this boy? I couldn’t just settle for a normal kidnapping. The boy would just be released. No that would be very anti climactic.<br /> Have I ever witnessed a circumcision? Yes, I have. It is really a very joyous holiday. Very celebratory in the novel I turn that on it’s head. I never intended to write a shocking scene. It just grew out of the story organically. Things just got worse and worse for the main character. And it does show the bad side of fanaticisms that can occur on both sides in Christianity and Islam. That’s probably my best answer. But, I want to add that I talked to people and researched extensively about Islam and Muslim beliefs .I contrasted Christianity and Islam but I also show how very similar they are. If you sat in a Mosque and listen to a sermon and understood what was being said you would swear you were sitting in a church. It is quite remarkable. IT is the same thing in terms of the Bible and the Koran. What the (Inman?) and the preacher will preach is really very similar. I try to show this in the book. Through the dialogs between Isaac and his Islamic teacher.<br /> <br />Tamarra: Yes, I thought that was an excellent approach as Isaacs asks the questions most thoughtful kids would ask and Mr. Suherman is a wise and patient idealist/ teacher a complex character that I would have found intimidating and compelling if I met him in real life.<br /><br />Richard: I tried to show good and bad characters that were Christians and Muslims. I tried to show that the bad side of Islam does not stem from Islam but rather from the dark side of human nature. I tried to show life as it is and there are bad people on both sides of the fence. As a writer I wrote to the reality of how things are in the world. A careful reader will see this and understand that many bad things are being done in the name of religion. As a writer I want to tell a compelling story with believable characters and present issues that are important today. <br /><br />Tamarra: What do you think is stronger in you the Christian or the writer?<br /> <br />Richard: Oh, that is a good question! You know, I think a good writer is someone who not only uses writing to explore a worldview but also his own worldview and his attitudes towards it. I am a practicing Christian, go to church and all that but that does not mean that it is an uncritical belief. I use my writing as a way to explore my faith.<br /><br />Tamarra: What did you get from writing this book in terms of your own faith?<br /><br />Richard: The Flame Tree? (Long pause while thinking) I think in my heart of hearts I wanted to make things, as they should be. …Where people dialog with each other rather then shout at each other. I wanted to show Muslims as people of Faith, an equal amount of faith as many Christians do. They are trying to find a way to live a good life, trying to find a moral way, trying to be good people. . They are searching for a way to live life.<br /><br />Tamarra: For me, forgiveness and compassion are the books moral lessons rather than a particular Faith being proved right or wrong. Did you deliberately take a humanist position rather then a religious one? Or do they over lap for you?<br /><br />Richard: Oh, I think they defiantly overlap. You know forgiveness is probably one of the most important lessons we can learn from the Bible. But I definitely did not want to write a religious novel. I wanted to show Christianity warts and all. . The same is true with Islam. I tried to show that as well.<br /><br />Tamarra: What part of the book was easiest to write and what parts caused personal problems and growth? <br /><br />Richard: Well, I had no problem writing the novel the first draft was one thousand four hundred pages. I just wrote and wrote. It was the second draft where I had to write the sermon in the mosque. I had to get in the clerics head to writ it from a Muslim perspective and that I did by talking to Muslims and running the words by them. It was a difficult scene to write from a technical and a moral stand. I wanted to be true to what Islam really believes and teaches.<br /><br />Tamarra: Who were these Muslims?<br /><br />Richard: People in The States, which I contacted by Internet and I ran scenes by them. They were a great help.<br /><br />Tamarra: You have been in Ache doing relief work for Tsunami victims. In what ways is this affecting the writer side of your nature?<br /><br />Richard: You know I was holed up in my office and my world was shrinking down to the world of the imagination and when this tragedy happened I really wanted to help and in an odd way it helped Richard Lewis the person more then Richard the writer. It reconnected me. I am glad I got up the gumption to go because many Balinese friends thought it would be dangerous to go that the people in Ache are fanatics. They will kill you as soon as look at you!<br /> Nothing could be further from the truth they were the most gracious, hospitable people I ever met. Even in the midst of a disaster, very generous, outgoing and giving of them.<br /> And from the writers side of it, Simon and Shuster have put me under contract to write a book based on events in the Tsunami so that is what I am working on right now.<br /><br />Tamarra: What kind of relief work were you doing there?<br /><br />Richard: Oh, I was working with an NGO. Helping distribute a product that helped purify water. It’s a powder that you put in the water, which cleans it after the muck settles to the bottom. And then it chlorinates it and you have drinking water in thirty minutes. And I just talked to people and listened to their stories. Then I worked on rebuilding homes. The scale of the disaster is unbelievable. . You can’t really understand from the news.<br /> It was interesting to see that they did not blame God. Through out my time there I did not see one Muslim whose faith had been shaken. They did not say” why me”? They did not embrace a rationalist position that says a disaster of this magnitude makes one question the existence of God all together. There was none of that. They did not doubt God.<br /><br />Tamarra: How about you?<br /><br />Richard: Me personally?<br /> <br />Tamara: Well, you know, you as a Christian?<br /> Richard: Yes, you do stop and think of these questions because it would be silly to say you don’t because these are hard questions I can’t sit here and answer why. Or say it is God’s will or God’s punishment. No. A lot of it is just that the earth is a dangerous place. I think it is because we our selves are responsible. Look we are overpopulating, over polluting over using natural resources. We live in danger zones. We don’t do enough to protect our own people. We need early warning systems. This is mankind’s own fault. I’m not giving a glib answer. It’s just that there is more to this then just saying, “How can god allow this"? We have to ask, “How could we allow this to happen too”? We have to take responsibility.<br /><br />Tamarra: Identity is an important psychological issue emerging in our current Global culture. Do you consider yourself an American or an Indonesian or a hybrid of both?<br /><br />Richard: Hybrid. Yea, Actually I found out while doing research for this book that there is what is called “Third culture kids”. They are children who like me are from one culture but grew up in another culture. There are studies done about these kids. Not necessarily children of missionaries but also children of business people who grow up in a third culture. Yea, I sort of feel in between. I’m not really American and I’m not Indonesian either.<br /><br />Tamarra: How does this manifest in your life? What are the blessings of this situation?<br /><br />Richard: The blessings are that you are equally at home in two cultures. Your worldview is bigger, more encompassing and able to tolerate a lot more ambiguity then someone who grew up in one particular culture. I saw this in college. Some of my mid western friends had a very narrow-minded world view which I had a very hard time relating to. That position which says that what I know is the best way, the only way, it isn’t even conscious on their part. So, I would say there are defiantly more blessings about growing up in an internationalist culture.<br />Let me get a little political. This is what I see as a problem in America. It is so inward looking, so insular. It causes a lot of the problems that arise in the states. Not being able to see outside ones narrow perspective.<br /><br />Tamarra: That seems to be the current situation, It disturbs me deeply since America was such an welcoming country in the early There is a long and important conversation here, Richard, and I would like to have it later. But we are running out of time and I want our readers to know how to get your book and can I direct them to your web site?<br /> <br />Richard: Well they can get the book from Amazon.com of course. But it will be available at bookstores in Jakarta and other places in Indonesia. My web site is<www.theflametree.com>.<br /><br /> Tamarra: Thank you for your time and I think you deserve great success with this book. I found it a great reading experience and I learned a lot about Islam. I am also grateful to have had the opportunity to talk with you. You have dispelled a Christian missionary stereotype that I wasn’t aware I had and you did it by being real. I think this is another reason you are a good writer. Thank you.Tamarra Kaidahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05621912540576496011noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5588322009359816446.post-37078522667291560672008-10-26T12:24:00.000+08:002008-10-26T12:25:36.639+08:00Interview with Deborah Carlyon - Mama Kuma“Mama Kuma: One Woman, Two Cultures” by Deborah Carlyon <br /><br />Mama Kuma is a biography which tells the story of a Chimbu woman from the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea. Kuma was born in the 1930s in the village of Gunkwa, the daughter of a warrior chief. When the villagers feared the ‘White Man,’ Kuma’s curiosity drew her to them, to one in particular… <br /><br />Interview by Tamarra Kaida<br /> <br />Tamarra Kaida: What made you want to write “Mama Kuma?” <br /><br />Deborah Carlyon: I had many reasons. Initially the desire to write Kuma's life story was born out of a deep love for her, because I grew up living near her and like everyone else from her tribe, I came to know and see her as a respected leader. I also came to appreciate that no one else from her village would be able to write it because she came from an oral culture and most of her relatives did not know how to read or write. And finally, I felt I had to write her story (herstory) because I wished to balance a perception of history; the white male colonial (his story) with that of a black woman's perception.<br /><br />TK: I am not surprised that “Mama Kuma: One Woman, Two Cultures” has won an emerging writers award in Queensland Australia in 2001. How and when did you get the idea to write about your grandmother, Kuma Kelage as a heroine of two cultures?<br /><br />DC: In 1988 when Australia celebrated the bicentennial year. I was in year 12, (in Australia) and I was made aware of the shadow side of Australian history through reading My Place by Sally Morgan. I began interviewing Mama Kuma that year as a result.<br /><br />TK: How have Kuma's relatives and friends responded to your book?<br /><br />DC: The elders (mostly illiterate) treasured the photos and cried openly, and the young listened with keen wide eyes. The women appreciated something of my achievement; however, were more concerned that I had not yet had a child.<br /><br />TK: As a bi-cultural woman yourself, what are the most important things you possess from each side of your family?<br /><br />DC: My inner life is New Guinean - from Chimbu. My outer life is Australian. I have always said that I feel and respond emotionally like a New Guinean woman, yet I think and live like an Australian. The place where these two different parts of me meet is poetry and so writing or reading poetry is when I feel at peace or harmony with who I am. The most important thing that I possess from Papua New Guinea is my heart - it remains collective and knows how to measure the warmth or coldness of ideas that are so important in the west. The most important thing I possess from Australia is my freedom as an individual. <br /><br />TK: What do you hope readers get from reading “Mama Kuma?”<br /><br />DC: I hope that readers are able to appreciate the importance of cultural diversity in providing people with different perceptions to living, seeing, and thinking. A real appreciation of cultural diversity leaves people with the understanding that there is plurality of norms, of truths.<br /><br />TK: You have recently given birth to new baby? What do you hope for her future?<br /><br />DC: I wish for my child to know her Papua New Guinean background and to be at least bi-lingual. Travel has been important to my husband and me, so I wish for her to travel and experience the world through her own meetings and dreamings.<br /><br />TK: Thank you for doing this interview. How can readers get copies of “Mama Kuma; One Woman, Two Cultures?” <br /><br />DC: Readers can order copies of “Mama Kuma” from The University of Queensland Press by emailing the sales manager, Rosemary Chay on rosiec@uqp.uqTamarra Kaidahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05621912540576496011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5588322009359816446.post-37022330571970047402008-10-26T12:19:00.001+08:002008-10-26T12:22:59.927+08:00Interview with Jennifer Claire - Tolstoy's WifePlaywright/ Actress Jennifer Claire talks about her Play -Tolstoy’s Wife<br /><br />Interview by Tamarra Kaida<br /><br /><br />TK: In January I had the great pleasure of seeing you perform your extraordinary play, Tolstoy’s Wife, at the Amandari. For me it was especially interesting as it was The Tolstoy Foundation that helped bring me to New York from a White Russian refugee camp in Austria where I was born after WWII.<br /> I have also read Sonya’s diaries and thought her story would make a good play. Imagine how surprised and delighted I was to find a play about Countess Sonya Tolstoy in Bali. <br /><br />How did you become interested in Sonya Tolstoy and what made you want to write a play about her life?<br /><br />JC: Many tears ago, on an ocean liner traveling from Vancouver to Australia, I found, in the ship’s library, an English translation of Sonya’s first diary, which she wrote during the early days of her marriage at the age of 18. The idea of a play lay in my mind, coming to the fore again, when thirty years later, I discovered and read her later diaries, written in her fifties- a whole life and 13 children later. I thought, now I will try and do it. I will try to write about this woman’s life. It took a year and many rewrites. It was when I really understood the role Vladimir Geigoryevich Chertkov, Tolstoy’s fanatic disciple, played in Sonya’s life, that I realized I had an antagonist. And, then I knew I had a play!<br /><br />TK: But what actually captured your imagination about Sonya, as a person?<br /><br />JC: Oh so much, her passion, her acute sensitivity, femininity, her boundless sense of giving. She loved to be needed. I am a little in awe of her.<br /><br />TK: You are an actor and a playwright. Which career came first and what else have you written?<br /><br />JC: I’ve always been an actress since my first professional job in English Repertory Company, at the age of 17. A lot of my life has been spent in theaters, where I have played in over 200 productions, plus film and TV. I started to write around the time I first came to Bali in 1974. Bali gave me a certain peace and balance, after the hectic life of the theatre. Thinking and dreaming became possible. I fell in love with this beautiful island, as have many people. In Bali, I really began to write. I have written all my plays here including The Butterflies of Kalimantan and Siestas in a Pink Hotel. I see my two talents as equal. One feeds the other. Although, I have to say, writing is by far the more difficult.<br /><br />TK: What other one person plays or monolog performances have inspired you?<br /><br />JC: I didn’t model my work on anything specifically. The only rule I set for myself, was to write with as much immediacy as possible, I took great leaps of tenses, still the theatre allows that, and I have to say that I was greatly helped by having had the experience of performing Lillian, by William Luce. I learnt from a great director. The play opened the Spoleto Festival in Melbourne. On opening night I was terrified and so lonely. A one-woman play in a thousand-seat auditorium! No other actors to work with. But once I hit the stage everything came good. I learnt big lessons that gave me the confidence to do Sonya.<br /><br />TK: Have you ever felt possessed by Sonya’s ghost?<br /><br />JC: To be an actress is at times to be possessed. A lot of my life has been taken up with the business of thinking and feeling myself into another persona. It’s the life of an actress, there were times I could feel Sonya take over, she became quite a tyrant.<br /><br />TK: You have performed the play in New York, London, Singapore, Melbourne, Bali and Java. Where was your most responsive audience?<br /><br />JC: In New York, before my showcase performance. I had a ten-day rehearsal period with William Pomeranze, one of New York's great directors. He was inspiring and after the show I got a huge reception and was asked back to do their Women’s Center Stage season at the Bleeker Street Theater. All audiences are different. It is up to me to get them involved.<br /><br />TK: Have you performed the play in Russia? Is anyone translating it into Russian?<br /><br />JC: I cannot speak Russian, my love affair with all things Russian came first from performing all of Chekhov’s plays and some of Gorky’s. I have never been to Russia, maybe one day. No, no one is translating the play into Russian.<br /><br />TK: Are you working on something new?<br /><br />JC: No, not at the moment. I always have ideas. But I am not yet finished with Sonya.Tamarra Kaidahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05621912540576496011noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5588322009359816446.post-39568961977097689602008-10-26T12:05:00.001+08:002008-10-26T12:07:50.943+08:00Interview with Janet De Neefe - Fragrant RiceFragrant Rice -By Janet De Neefe<br /><br />Interview by Tamarra Kaida<br /><br />(Interview takes place at Casa Luna Restaurant starting with plates of Turkish bread and guacamole and chilled Chardonnay)<br /><br />TK- You are a talented painter, successful restaurateur and cooking teacher. What factors brought you to write your memoir, Fragrant Rice.<br /><br />JDN -I had wanted to write a cookbook about Balinese cooking. Then when I was teaching my cooking classes I talked about cooking, my life in Bali and about raising my children here as Balinese. People would say “Oh, but you must include the stories about your life.” People were intrigued with what life was like for a westerner in Bali. So, my cookbook developed into a memoir.<br /><br />TK- So your students inspired you to become a writer.<br /><br />JDN- Oh absolutely!<br /><br />TK- Food is the element that sifts through your book and your life in Bali. To what do you attribute this passion for cooking and food?<br /><br />JDN- I think you are born with your passions, especially if you have an artistic bent. I was born with a passion for food. It has always been an important part of my life. When I was young I was always experimenting with pastries and god knows what else. When I was about twelve I was always making up cookbooks, cutting and pasting recipes<br />together. I drove my mother nuts. When I came to Bali with my parents, I was fifteen and discovered peanut sauce and curry. I just loved it. I was comfortable with Bali and right away I felt I could live here at the drop of a hat. When I came back in 1984. I still had that thought of writing a Balinese cookbook. I knew I wanted to do that.<br /> <br />TK. So you have a lot of different passions. Where does painting fit in?<br /><br />JDF Actually, it was my primary passion and I wanted to pursue a career in art. I never studied cooking in school as I thought no one needs to teach me that. So yes, I have many passions.<br /><br />TK- When you are not cooking Indonesian, what kind of food do you like to make?<br /><br />JDN- I cook a lot of food. When I am in Australia I cook a lot. I don’t have time to cook here, as I am director of cooking in the restaurants. but when I am in Australia I cook everything under the sun. I do lots of Mediteranian dishes. I make Risotto and I make casseroles. I just love it. I love experimenting with curries and sauces. I like cooking for my Mom and Dad. Usually they cook for themselves. But they are getting old so I like doing the best I can for them.<br /><br />TK: So is cooking is a way of showing love?<br /><br />JDN-Oh, totally, absolutely.<br /><br />TK -What do cooking and writing have in common for you?<br /><br />JDN- They are both creative. When I get on a roll with writing, I love it so much! I am painting in my mind. And I am mixing and sifting and it is like cooking. Combining words is like mixing ingredients. In the end you have some thing that is… well your own. Writing is so personal. It is a very intimate relationship you have with your mind, your pen and a piece of paper. It is very personal. And then you publish it and suddenly BAM! Everybody knows about it. I never really thought about that and why would you want to publish that? … But yes, cooking and writing… I love writing about cooking. It is a passion.<br /><br /> TK- In your memoir you write about falling in love with your Balinese husband, Ketut, and about living with your in-laws in a Balinese compound in Ubud. You tell about your four children. What were the easiest and the hardest issues to write about?<br /><br />JDN- The easiest are the joyful incidences. The ceremonies, the weddings, those everyday sorts of occurrences. The hardest was revealing more about my relationship with Ketut. Not that I went into it that much. It was no longer just about me but the family. I wanted to be respectful of their feelings. The most sensitive thing was writing about the bomb. But that was different. It was a sad kind of thing. The last sections I wrote were about Ketut.<br /><br />TK- So, you wrote it in sections, not straight through.<br /><br />JDN – Stories about Bali and stories about the kids I wrote years ago. I went over sections. I rewrote and fine-tuned previous writings. I decided to write more personally when it felt important to answer all those questions people asked about my life with Ketut. So I wrote about how we met and all that. I figured if I was asked those questions again I could just say. Please read the book.<br /><br />TK- Did Ketut agree to that?<br /><br />JDF- No of course not ! (Some laughter) He felt all that had nothing to do with the book. Then one day we had a good friend visit us and we were talking about writing about me meeting Ketut and our friend said, “What do you mean that has nothing to do with the book, Ketut, you are the book. She wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you.” Ketut thought about it and just nodded his head. He didn’t say anything but from then on I knew I could write about it.<br /><br />TK- Has he read the book?<br /><br />JDN- No he already knows what’s in it and he only reads books about religion anyway. My son Krishna saw the book on the kitchen table and said hey, there’s my picture. How did that get in there? And suddenly I realized that I had sort of exposed the kids to public platform and I had never really thought about. I hadn’t asked them, they were young and wouldn’t have understood but I had to wonder what had I done?<br /><br />TK. Well, you have to be a risk taker to get things started.<br /><br />JDN- Yes, I am impetuous. It is the same with the Festival. If I get an idea, I just do it and deal with the repercussions later. I have to say “ maaf, maaf” (sorry) to a lot of people later. I do what I do with the kindest, sincerest intentions, but I don’t always think it all through beforehand. <br /><br />TK. What do you think is the most important aspect of Fragrant Rice? <br /><br />JDN- Oh, the stories. I see my self as a person who stratles two cultures. I want visitors to understand Balinese culture better. I guess I’m an interpreter. I saw it in the cooking classes. I realized my job was to inform people and help them to understand the richness and beauty of Balinese culture. The book is an extension of that realization.<br /><br />TK- In what ways did publishing your book “’Fragrant Rice” affect you starting and directing The Ubud Writers and Readers festival?<br /><br />JDN- Well, even before” the Bomb” I was thinking of how there was no active tourist body/ office that actively promoted Bali. We are on our own. India has a huge promotion agency. I felt Ubud, in particular, needed a stronger identity. When people think of Bali they think of Kuta.They think of beaches, braids, and bars. No one thinks of Ubud. So I started to think of how the culture and arts could be brought up front. After “the Bomb”<br /> we were all talking about how there are no festivals in Ubud. Byron Bay in Australia has a festival almost every week. I love Ubud and the people and I want to promote it. When I published the book I started to think about starting a writer’s festival in Ubud. I knew I would be invited to other writers festivals and I thought why not one in Ubud? Ubud needs something that works with its character. It needed something for the thinking person. I talked to my friend Heather and we decided to do it. There it is. I just jumped in off the deep end.<br /><br /> TK- I’m glad you did. One of the reasons I volunteered to work on it is that it is an idea whose time has come. The mix of Indonesian, Western/ Asian/ writers, poets is already unique and valuable. It is time for Ubud to benefit from its bicultural creative, intellectual persona and come into the twenty first century as a positive image of Indonesia. We need a new image of Ubud. One that goes beyond the 1930’s, Walter Spies and all that creative ferment. There are exciting people from both East and West here and it feels like the time for a renaissance is possible despite the bomb and the economy. Something new needs to be born. Maybe we need to revisit the Phoenix bird. The symbol is powerful and appropriate.<br /><br /> JDN- Yes, Ubud is home to writers and artists. As we know Writers Festivals create a huge audience and bring in all sorts of creative people. I wondered, how could I make a lasting effect on this community, where I could eventually step back and let the locals reap the rewards? And also as a mother with children, how could I benefit their lives and effect the education process etc. It was one of those things where you try and work on many levels at once. That is why we have a children’s education program and why we have special Indonesian panels and discussions events. We are working from an inclusive multi- cultural model.<br /><br /> TK – What do you hope will develop from the Ubud Writers Festival?<br /><br /> JDN- All sorts of things. I think this could become one of the most important events in Southeast Asia. Ubud is a showcase for Balinese culture. We have dance, art, performance, and music. It is important to not underestimate these things. And most important we have the hospitality of the local community. We have rooms donated, food donated. Help of all kinds you don’t always get that in other festivals. There is great potential here.<br /><br />TK –So you feel supported by the local community? <br /><br />JDN-Totally, I mean a new idea always has people on the edge who are unsure of what is happening. Perhaps I did things the wrong way. Because as I said I’m impetuous and I have jumped in off the deep end, but eventually the Festival will have such wide reaching benefits that people can’t refuse that. I apologize if I made mistakes and I am sure I made many. But nothing ventured nothing gained. All I can do is try and follow my vision<br /><br />TK- What is your hope for the future of the festival? <br /><br />JDN- Eventually, I want to be able to step back from it. I want it to be under the umbrella of the Saraswati Foundation.<br /><br />TK- What are some of your other dreams for events in Ubud?<br /><br />JDN- Eventually, I want to see more arts and literary events happening in Bali so that we can bring in writers from all over the world who may be on there way elsewhere but would come to Bali for a workshop or reading. I would also like to bring the food element back in and have special events with food writers and famous chefs.<br /><br />TK- So, food remains the center of your creative vision.<br /><br />JDN. Munch, munch, munch. Yes, I guess it does<br />(The interview concludes with mango tarts and hot frothing cappuccino.)Tamarra Kaidahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05621912540576496011noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5588322009359816446.post-45971877728195958852008-10-26T11:59:00.002+08:002008-10-26T12:18:07.348+08:00Interview with Jan Cornall - Take Me To ParadiseJan Cornall is multi talented woman with limitless energy and enthusiasms for life, art, teaching, performing and Bali. Jan is a Sidney based performance artist, a film scriptwriter, (Talk), poet, playwright, (Escape From A Better Place) and jazz singer. She has conducted at least 6 writing workshops in the Ubud area over the last four years. At the recent Ubud Writers and Readers Festival, she launched her first novella (Take Me To Paradise) along with a collaborative music/poetry CD- Jan Cornall Sings Sarengenge. Jan is also, a mother of two grown children and an inspirational teacher whose student’s return time after time for nurturing infusions of Jan’s advice and support.<br /> <br />TK: No one can accuse you of laziness or allowing boredom to creep into your life. What is the source of your many creative interests and how do they integrate?<br /><br />JC: Everything is a source. I am creatively on all the time everything I see taste touch is a fodder. I try to teach this to my students and I try to be a role model to show how fantastic it is to wake up in the morning and be one creative, I try and integrate it all. Life and art interweave rather then become compartmentalized. I wake up meditate take a walk and bring my notebook ideas come and I write them down. It’s a sort on ongoing meditation centered on the writing. Also, I have a background in theater and I write for a theater audience. I like the performance element to be part of my writing.<br /><br /> Take Me to Paradise is set in Ubud and tells the story of a western woman in mid life who awakes one Monday morning and takes a spontaneous holiday in Bali instead of going to her job. What made you want to write this book?<br /><br />JC: Escape is one of my themes. I did a one-woman play called Woman on the Run and another play Escape to A Better Place. When I was young mother with small children I wondered what would happen if I just walked out the door for a few days. Maybe this is a hold over theme from those days. At the time of writing the book I was in a dull sameness sort of place and I wrote about my character, Marilyn just leaving the house and getting on a plane going to Bali, a place she had wanted to visit but never got around to it. It seemed like a good idea. I never did this myself in real life, but maybe I did it through the writing process.<br /><br />TK: This is a tender cross-cultural love story. How much of the book is based on actual events and how much is fictional? <br /><br />JC: All my work is memoir based. But it is fictionized because that gives the story an extra edge. Even fiction writers who claim to write pure fiction are writing from some emotional essence, some core interest. It may not be real life exactly, but it is about issues they need to work through. In my case some of it is true, some isn’t and some characters are a combinations of people. Some of the events are made up for better narrative flow.<br /><br />TK: I can easily recommend Take me to Paradise to many of my women friend in Bali and in The United States. There is an open friendly inclusive quality to the narrator’s voice. Marilyn is a modern divorced woman of today who lets us into her thoughts, her foibles, her dreams and her needy desires. There are several internal monologs that spoke directly to me. Did you have a female audience in mind when you were writing the book?<br /><br />JC: Not necessarily, those monologs I had to write to give voice to those feelings. I had to write this book so that I can go on to write other books and articles I have in mind. I had to tell the story of my divorce in the book to go beyond it. So my character Marilyn arrives in Bali with all this emotional baggage and Bali helps her to heal. It helps her to go on, to leave the divorce behind. So writing this book is step in my own integration and a way to come back into life fully. But it is not a direct correlation of events or characters. Many women respond to my work and some men don’t get it but I write to just write.<br /><br />TK: Have you given copies to Indonesian readers? Is the book perceived differently by Balinese /Indonesian readers?<br /><br />JC: I have. But I have not had a response yet. We are planning to translate the book into Bahasa Indonesian. I look forward to that and getting responses.<br /><br /><br />TK: You have set the story between Bali’s 2002 and 2004 terror bombings. Was this intentional and symbolic?<br /><br />JC: I first came to Bali in 2004 and loved Bali and then 4 months later the bombing in Kuta happened and it had a huge impact on me because here was a place I wanted to come back to very much to run my writers retreats in Bali and I had to wait a year as no one was ready to return to Bali at that time. I knew I had to put both bombings in the book to writ about in a way that showed I was not going to be scared away from a place I loved.<br /><br />TK: Do you see your book as part of an emerging travel-writing genre in which Western women seek renewal in the spiritual values of less technological societies? I recently read Elizabeth Gilbert’s memoir - Eat, Pray, Love. The last section is set in Ubud where the writer becomes involved with real Balinese locals who are clearly identifiable. She goes into detailed descriptions of her love affair with a local expat. Is the kiss and tell book the newest wave of travel story/fiction? What societal factors do you think are contributing to a growing readership for this type of story?<br /><br />JC: There has always been this genre. Take Karen Blixen's Out of Africa for example. Lately there is a genre of book about women who go to France or Italy and have an affaire or renovate a house. I never thought about this genre when I was writing the book. Western women are on a search. I think a lot of women are on a genuine spiritual search and places like Bali are part of that search. I think there is something to look at in this phenomenon. I want to write about it.<br /><br />TK: What are your personal hopes for Take Me To Paradise? Do you hope it will become a film?<br /><br />JC: If somebody wanted to make it into a movie I think I would be interested. Someone is interested in doing a theater piece out of it, with music, sound effects this why I have started video taping places and scenes. I would do a reading/ performance with music. I am interested in doing theatrical versions of it. <br /><br /><br />TK: Do you plan to do another book set in Bali? What are your future projects?<br /><br /><br />JC. I am still interested in Marilyn and I am very connected to Bali so I want to see what immerges. Yes, there may be a part Two. A deeper exploration<br /><br />TK: Tell us about your CD which you also launched at the Festival? <br /> <br /><br />JC: The CD is collaboration with Sitock Sarengenge, who is an Indonesian Poet and we met at the first Ubud Writers and Readers Festival. We were interested in working together. I was going to write in response to his amazing poems but that wasn’t working and one night I started singing the poems and then I wrote some music and we expanded the collaboration to include--------- who is a pianist. <br /><br /><br />TK: Where can we purchase the book and the CD?<br /><br /><br />JC: Ary’s Book Shop, Rendevous Duex, Ubud Music and Genesa book Shop in Ubud and down on the coast -Gra Media in Discovery Plaza.Tamarra Kaidahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05621912540576496011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5588322009359816446.post-47062794336784847742008-05-01T14:33:00.017+08:002008-05-16T11:50:43.804+08:00Apple pie On Buddha's Birthday<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhofNMmKzVrlA20huPlQdr8ZAbu56ZqyvNOX_cxE9aOi6xf7c_dNIAjBVJEqOmJWTezajwCabss_VTnuB1BpKClypmWyJQKnokqWejH6xe_fMOqSN2ik8-CG3e6O81gfKE0STiNPuQk6PDU/s1600-h/postcards+of+nepal.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhofNMmKzVrlA20huPlQdr8ZAbu56ZqyvNOX_cxE9aOi6xf7c_dNIAjBVJEqOmJWTezajwCabss_VTnuB1BpKClypmWyJQKnokqWejH6xe_fMOqSN2ik8-CG3e6O81gfKE0STiNPuQk6PDU/s320/postcards+of+nepal.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5195320490544019858" /></a><br /><br />Apple Pie on Buddha’s Birthday - By Tamarra Kaida<br /><br /><br /> <br /><br />Bowing Boy/ Bangkok<br /><br />The elevator door opens onto the 10th floor of the Asian Hotel and reveals a teenage boy bowing deeply to us. He is wearing a dark oversized jacket and a white shirt. His pants hang on his bony hips like drapery. He is bowing up and down while we stand stuck in the opened elevator doors, mesmerized. Each time he bows his right hand jerks up to adjust a thin black telephone microphone which is anchored behind his right ear and extends to the front of his mouth. <br /> <br />The on the go constant communication with others not in sight seems to be the desired form of relating among teenagers no matter where they live on this wired planet. He is not talking to any one at present. He is wearing the mic phone just in case some one calls him. Mic phones and I-pods have become fashion statements, which are suppose to enhance the wearer’s status through technological hipness. Unconsciously, we have all started to yearn for upgraded bodies. Can human robotics be far behind? I have read that a secret phone imbedded in a fingernail is already in the works in China. Somehow a mic phone is too incongruous an apparatus to be part of a low pay, late night job at a 3 star hotel in Bangkok. It must be the boy’s personal communications device of choice. <br /><br />“Kapun kap”, states the boy on his fourth deep bow. Finally, we snap out of our enthralled state and mutter “good evening” then push past the high tech bellhop greeter and follow the arrows directing us to the café. We exchange looks and burst into suppressed giggles. <br />“What was that all about”? Asks Paul.<br />“ Hospitality, Thai style”. I reply.<br />“Let’s go back and see if he does it again,” says Paul slyly.<br /><br />We take the stairs down one flight push the button for the elevator and ascend to the 10th floor once more. The doors open and there he is, bowing to us again. We bow to him, “Kapun Kap.” <br />Paul grabs my arm and pulls me along behind him, as we round the corner we are already in hysterics. <br /> <br />Is this real? Or did we just happen to wander onto a TV sitcom set in a shabby Bangkok hotel with more affectation than quality? I wonder aloud.<br />“Is there a bowing boy on every floor”? <br />“No, just the 10th”. <br />“Because of the café”? <br />“Because of the café.” <br /><br />The café is empty except for the two of us. It is a lonely place decorated like every bland restaurant in any city in America. The waiter would rather be somewhere else and I don’t blame him. The café is a generic attempt at modernism and is painfully plain. We order a scrambled eggs and tea. Safe. Inexpensive. Boring. Below us Bangkok blinks its myriad lights and cars flow on the strips of elevated highways like glowing toys. It is a sad, beautiful and lonely night. We, humans, have succeeded in removing the blackness from the night but we have lost the camaraderie of shared firelight. <br /><br /> We are alone with our machines as company. Radios and Televisions attempt to fill in the vacant sense of loss that hangs in the stillness of public spaces. A 1980’s Prince croons softly “ You’re a sexy mother fucker….” over the unseen speakers. It is a good night for absurdity to take precedence. We eat in tired silence. The waiter brings the check. We pay and head back to the elevators. At the end of the long beige and brown hallway is a long wooden table empty of any purpose whatsoever. Behind it slumps the bowing boy, sound asleep. The telephone mic askew next to his left cheek, his mouth open.<br /> <br />Without exchanging a word or a look we take the stairs so as not to waken him. <br /><br /> It is very late and we have an early morning flight to Kathmandu.<br /><br /><br />Shangri-la<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinuvgRa3jjn2hzpEy9yszDk3srfjPFne-VZalMAPuYVvkNcCcj4pofEk-mtnvuKIb-Y0YfpKSj2HFi4B20z31tWRPmfT60yTL3-MVywuXL5vv4B8mYR732o8t-5qJ4rOedLBBWmHouo9u4/s1600-h/postcars+himalayas.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinuvgRa3jjn2hzpEy9yszDk3srfjPFne-VZalMAPuYVvkNcCcj4pofEk-mtnvuKIb-Y0YfpKSj2HFi4B20z31tWRPmfT60yTL3-MVywuXL5vv4B8mYR732o8t-5qJ4rOedLBBWmHouo9u4/s320/postcars+himalayas.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5200483153778426338" /></a><br /><br /><br />The photographs show Nepal to be an ancient mountainous land in habited by orange and red-robed monks, colorfully dressed women with broad smiles and armloads of necklaces, ear rings and ornamental decorations fit for fashion magazines. The text below the pictures proclaims it to be a land steeped in tradition and spirituality<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgApuA50x1x4TNtljyTgENX4FHZ-in93oqfp-BF0AQ3_4nj9qE_W_Nnzz2ako2XTBIu3YCkclKlS0VCqOhBKwdzwfXPrGe9ElxR0_pTDx5wOkKx_JlkLJ3C8Nwny0KC1b7Wj-8lwpE2fHfx/s1600-h/boy+monks.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgApuA50x1x4TNtljyTgENX4FHZ-in93oqfp-BF0AQ3_4nj9qE_W_Nnzz2ako2XTBIu3YCkclKlS0VCqOhBKwdzwfXPrGe9ElxR0_pTDx5wOkKx_JlkLJ3C8Nwny0KC1b7Wj-8lwpE2fHfx/s320/boy+monks.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5200484609772339698" /></a><br /><br />.<br /> <br /><br /><br />The guidebooks refer to it as the ‘rooftop of the world’. <br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuioryYJFyeO8dHKEXU8Yq2hURf62QvXtXz9FPNPl9ArGHv1s_VUMXnqh79TnZUTEBJdULjx8ekAMPnElppS4Qedh4HTfnFN1JzYZCj5f1-SrQuidTXDwVXB6mbqMSF0npbLNEqAA7UtPN/s1600-h/nepal+in+a+nutshell.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuioryYJFyeO8dHKEXU8Yq2hURf62QvXtXz9FPNPl9ArGHv1s_VUMXnqh79TnZUTEBJdULjx8ekAMPnElppS4Qedh4HTfnFN1JzYZCj5f1-SrQuidTXDwVXB6mbqMSF0npbLNEqAA7UtPN/s320/nepal+in+a+nutshell.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5200809773156385282" /></a><br /><br />Some of the highest mountains in the world rise from Nepal’s soil. Mount Everest, in neighboring Tibet, once a forbidden icy peak accessible only to the bravest and most ardent mountain climbers is now a climber’s thoroughfare. Men, women and children come from all over the world to climb in the Himalayas. It is the ultimate in bragging rights, since Sir Edmund Hillary made the first assent in 1953. There have been others; the first woman to climb Everest and recently a legless man wearing high tech prostheses has achieved the feat. For the trekkers there are five, ten and twelve day treks offered by a variety of wilderness companies. Then there is hang gliding and river rafting. It is all here and everyone who has ever watched a National Geographic Special on Everest yearns to come to the Himalayas. Many do. <br /><br />Paul and I are not among this set. We are not on a tour or a trek. We are here because it is vaguely exotic, famous for its monasteries and easier to acclimatize to than the higher altitudes of neighboring Tibet. And most significantly we were supposed to meet up with a Russian friend who dropped out at the last minute. Katmandu has a laidback hippie mystique that promises mysterious spiritual adventures, we hoped.<br /><br />It is also the kingdom, where just 4 years ago, the young crown Prince disgruntled by his family’s refusal to let him marry the girl of his dreams, dressed up in army fatigues loaded several rifles and pistols and shot most of the Royal family during a reunion cocktail party in the palace.<br /> <br />There has been much unrest in Kathmandu and various political factions frequently skirmishing. Lately things have been quiet and so the trekkers and seekers have returned. The hotels are almost full. The streets and restaurants are busy with locals and travelers alike. <br /><br />We are here too.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQG5x6hMMLaSEc88c7VQWBtziuwa0KZmRi1WRrN0YC83t5EMr3x9AfA_97YILu3QF0OmrbxVEkJtwxzY6J2RRLPQRvcZYSKNWEphooBcFFsy078MascrJos1SeQb1JlAm63PeXIeY9ko4v/s1600-h/bike+and+cow.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQG5x6hMMLaSEc88c7VQWBtziuwa0KZmRi1WRrN0YC83t5EMr3x9AfA_97YILu3QF0OmrbxVEkJtwxzY6J2RRLPQRvcZYSKNWEphooBcFFsy078MascrJos1SeQb1JlAm63PeXIeY9ko4v/s320/bike+and+cow.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5200816615039287890" /></a><br /><br />Here on this street corner snared in traffic, honking cars and a half dead cow hobbling across a jammed crossroads. The palace is behind, ugly high metal gates. There are street kids in rags lying on sidewalks or begging. There are men with vacant eyes roaming the crowded roads looking for anything that could improve their lives. Bechak drivers push their way past uncared for dogs that snarl at passers by. There are just too many people in too small a space.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC692ghBefy32muOkiqBP9gC_Lf0JJE7sbCBfb7eKmCZyBcvRyYyBP_O3P1Zh4mtIMhHrEBIGWM457NssnWwsp2y32XDfTmdysvffnSBWrjBFF72d7uHhZ_-f9i845A_lfd8N3G3LiItmu/s1600-h/streetsign.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC692ghBefy32muOkiqBP9gC_Lf0JJE7sbCBfb7eKmCZyBcvRyYyBP_O3P1Zh4mtIMhHrEBIGWM457NssnWwsp2y32XDfTmdysvffnSBWrjBFF72d7uHhZ_-f9i845A_lfd8N3G3LiItmu/s320/streetsign.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5200814617879495218" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3oaiLodt98M2S4fDAQsHcVdpqUy2FI43VyKsP71h6niI9KjsPz4GeliZBHrmH10H3RO8LtDJx42J_deRQe4pyv7kwOvoRZpPcFr5hpHihN4DsPU6-nOp_HGGY-ZonqfRiTJcRpu2fZfB6/s1600-h/free+coke.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3oaiLodt98M2S4fDAQsHcVdpqUy2FI43VyKsP71h6niI9KjsPz4GeliZBHrmH10H3RO8LtDJx42J_deRQe4pyv7kwOvoRZpPcFr5hpHihN4DsPU6-nOp_HGGY-ZonqfRiTJcRpu2fZfB6/s320/free+coke.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5200817379543466594" /></a><br /><br /> <br /> A mix of races, religions and nationalities populates Kathmandu. Refugees from neighboring Tibet who have settled in for as long as it takes to free Tibet, Indians who have spilled over the adjacent border as well many ethnic tribes indigenous to Nepal. It is hard to tell who is actually Nepalese.<br /><br /> <br />But one thing is easy to grasp. Kathmandu is above all a capitalist enterprise. Everybody is hard working and trying to get ahead by hustling the main source of income- tourists. Everyone is a salesman or a hustler or a con man or a tour operator or guide or flute hawker or a pashmina shop owner. Everyone’s’ brother or cousin can get you anything you may or may not want. One my third day in the Thamel district I stand on the busy street trying to remember where that great shop with the paper-thin silk shirts is located. A silk shirt awaits payment and pickup if only I could find the exact shop. “Mooka Silks?” I ask several locals. Everyone gets involved. They all scratch their heads, and then ask, “What is the telephone number?” Addresses are not much help as few buildings have numbers and usually every thing is referred to by something better know in its vicinity. “Is it near the Kathmandu Guest House or La Dolce Vita Restaurant or the Pilgrim Bookstore?” they query. “I don’t know the address just the name of the shop. I say this over and over. The bechak (pedi-cab) drivers offer me rides even though I have explained I don’t know where the shop is It was near here yesterday or so I remember More and more locals huddle around me like cartoon vultures, staring, muttering among themselves but unable to help me. Then, an enterprising young man offers to save the day for the American madam in distress. “You go eat at this restaurant, he points to a cafe that has lattes, cappuccinos, and home baked goodies in plentitude and variety. I will help you. I will look for the Mooka Tailor shop and bring you there later. He is so persuasive, so kind, so self assured that I do as he tells me. I realize there will be a fee for this service but this Johnny on the spot has figured out how to turn Madam’s problem into his profit. He is also skilled at the game of making you think he is doing this out of the kindness of his heart and the money is incidental, which most certainly it is not. But this opportunist has turned an hour of just hanging around into revenue. This is the type of capitalist hustler who has made America the economic success it is. He is a smart street con he employs his cousin in the earnest effort to locate the mysterious shop. He shows up just as I sip the last of my double latte. Together we whisk off in the golden chariot with the torn canvas hood. Mooka Silk is only a side lane away from where I thought it was. My Lancelot accompanies me into the shop and tells the owner that it is his fault that this lovely madam could not find him as he neglected to print the establishment’s phone number on the deposit receipt. Suddenly, everyone is apologizing, explaining, begging forgiveness waving his or her arms and asking me to sit in a chair and have a cold drink. It is a comedy of errors par excellence. Eventually, I pay for the shirt depart the shop thanking everyone for his or her kindness. “Namaste, Namaste” we say to each other. <br /><br /> <br />Once outside, the performance is knocked up a notch by my shopping escort, complete with sentimental sighs and dramatic hand wringing. As my hero accompanies me to my hotel in his cousin’s tricycle cab, he tells me how difficult it was for him to find the shop. How many places he had to ask, how he has to send his sister and her daughter to school and how ill his mother is. I listen and listen and know that as each relative is mentioned the fee for the good deed has doubled, tripled and quadrupled. We arrive at the Utse Hotel in a few minutes. “How much?” Twenty-five dollars,” he says looking at the ground. My jaw drops. Then he says, “How much you want to pay?” We bargain, numbers are brought up and then countered. I pay him far more then I wanted too but I am too tired to bargain anymore.<br /><br /> Later, I realize the cheap shirt made of paper thin silk from India cost twice the price I would have paid in the States. This guy could sell anything to any one. And even though I have been conned by a facsimile of attention and kindness I can’t help being impressed by the charming fellow.<br /><br />Kathmandu is one glorious hustle after another. There are no postcards depicting the seamless beauty of it. You have to see it for yourself.<br /> <br />After two days of temples, markets and tourists shops we are yearning for trees, sky and quiet. <br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Jungle Journey<br /><br />We book a three-day bus trip to Royal Chitwan National Park where we will see the unusual Indian rhinoceros and maybe a Bengal tiger. Crocodiles are guaranteed! It is on the tourist trail. It is authentic in the sense that all the visitors do get to ride through the dense jungle on Indian elephants, pleasant creatures that tolerate 4 large westerners stuffed into a small wooden playpen contraption on their backs. Four elephants lumber into the woods each guided by a local boy whose job is to spot other animals, primarily the armor-plated rhinoceros shown in the resort pamphlets. The boy is also responsible to get everybody back to the jungle lodge with enough photos in their camera to make them feel they got the best-shot possible. The brochures show a luxury bed suite and a big blue pool. None of these images fit the Island Jungle Resort we are at, although it is good enough and the location on the Narayani River is picturesque and cool.<br />. <br />A fellow traveler named Bill is very American looking but is actually from Toronto and currently lives in London. Bill is heavy set, has an overhanging gut and closely cropped hair like a Marine, which he is not as he makes his living making sure office building windows are straight when they are erected. It’s all about level measurements and plumb bobs.<br /> <br />Bill is traveling alone but it is evident that he would like to be traveling with Akiko, a pretty Japanese women in her late twenties who is also traveling alone but seems to be having a lot more fun than Bill who is pissed off about everything. He was expecting a vacation with some luxury and nice scenery. <br /> <br />Bill is eager to tell us about his various travails thus far. And when we arrive at the Island Jungle Resort Lodges he quickly gets on his cell phone and calls the tour operator to complain about the rooms. There are no fans, electricity is only on until 8 pm and then you have to make do with kerosene lamps. About one half gallon of hot water is available upon request when the solar panels have been working all day. The lodge cabins, dining hall, bar and lounge the latter overlooking the river, feel like a camp for grownups as there are nature trails, bird watching walks along with the exotic elephant rides and the dug out canoe crocodile citing excursions. Some of the local flora and fauna are labeled with Latin nomenclature hand printed onto metal tags stuck into the ground before each plant or bush.<br /><br />Bill wants a gin and tonic and a refund. After a few minutes of agitated pacing with his phone to his ear he returns to our wooden bench and proudly informs us that he has gotten the tour operator to refund half his fee. Since the trip is only $110 for 3 days it seems picayune. And yet, I know this sort of thing is exactly what happens to reasonable people who find themselves in a poor country and expect high living standards. Paul casually states that they don’t have enough energy to run everything. No one is sure if this is some kind of concerned ecological energy saving attempt or more probably the whole resort was built on a shoe-string budget and the owners are not completely sure of what they are doing except they want to make money.<br /> <br />The Island Jungle Resort is not too bad in my estimation and all the other guests seem eager to play together. If you get lazy and don’t show up for one of the scheduled activities a smiling boy appears at your cabin door to re-invite you to go to the 3 pm elephant river-bathing event.<br /><br />Akiko, and a trio of French boys all climb on the elephants in the river. They stand on the elephant’s backs, push each other over the sides and get squirted by the elephants. And of course, they all get their pictures taken by everyone else that is standing on the shore smiling with pleasure at the fun time the kids are having. The French family is absolutely perfect. The mother is pretty, slim, dark-haired, stylish and naturally outdoorsy. The children are exactly one year apart and lineup in height levels of 2 or 3-inch differences. The father looks like a nice Dad who also makes enough money to take his brood to Nepal for an active vacation. C’est normal.<br /><br />I watch them interact and wonder if their lives are as good and as lucky as it seems. Will the brothers remain friends for life? Will the attractive parents stay together or is a divorce to be part of their story?<br /><br />Paul takes a few minutes of video footage and includes the lovely Akiko who we already like as she has quit her job as a medical lab assistant and is traveling on her own through Nepal, Tibet and India. I ask if she gets harassed because she is a lone woman traveler. She says no, she always leaves before that starts. She is very polite and very Japanese in her shy mannerisms. <br /><br />Bill keeps trying to strike up a conversation with Akiko but she just nods at him and becomes invisible behind the language barrier. Bill is not into jungles, canoes, or crocodiles. He would prefer to be on a beach drinking gin and tonics with lots of ice. There is not enough electricity at the Island Jungle Resort to produce ice. <br /> “I think I’ll head out of here for Goa as soon as this trip is over,” he informs us. I say all the nice polite things that are supportive of his decision. <br /><br />More likely there is more wrong in Bill’s life than a miss-planned vacation. Everything about him is needy and sad and I wish I could fix it and I know I can’t and so I avert my eyes and focus on the German couple dressed entirely in black. The tall young man, Gunter from Cologne, in his early thirties, is ether an artist or a musician. His skinny girl friend is blond, moody and smokes one hand-rolled cigarette after another. Gunter speaks English and is heavily tattooed on almost all the surfaces of his body except his face. He wears a black tee shirt that advocates anarchy versus lethargy and complacency. Everything about him is a sign, a thoroughly postmodern person. He is intelligent and had traveled in Tibet when he was in his early twenties. He did it the hard way and is still proud of it. The girl friend makes zero effort to smile or communicate. We are obviously too old or too American to interest her. It is hard to be happy if you are already tired of everything on earth at the age of 23. She is on this trip because Gunter wanted to go. Obviously, it is the only way to be with the pierced and inked man of her dreams. <br /><br />A middle-aged couple from the Middle East, possibly Turkey, sticks together and avoids excess conversation with anyone including each other. I can’t help wondering what made them decide to visit Nepal. What are they looking for? What are we all looking for that we can’t find in our own countries?<br /> <br /> <br />At 4 pm we climb an elephant-loading platform and squeeze ourselves into the wooden seats. It is not comfortable as your legs just dangle off the sides. Branches, vines and twigs have to be watched for as we suddenly find ourselves in the trees. In a few minutes the boys separate their elephants from the straight-line procession and head into dense jungle. There are shouts and calls. Suddenly the boy who is guiding our elephant lets out a blood curdling Tarzan call and we are looking directly at a bulletproof rhinoceros that has been quietly chewing a bush and is annoyed at this sudden disturbance. The two creatures stare at each other and I can feel the elephants hide quiver. He is ready to show the rhino who is the boss. I would rather the elephant chose to play coward and just back up a bit. It is the rhinoceros that blinks and turns his back and departs down a small path into the brush.<br /> <br /><br />Our elephant boy driver is tugging and shouting commands and finally the elephant obeys. He spots a mother bear and two clinging cubs hanging off her sides. She heads for a stream and the boy urges the elephant to follow. Everyone is snapping photos as best they can. I am doing this as well but I don’t know why as it is too far to really get a good image and the light is fading and flash is already necessary. The boy is relentless. He gives another piercing yell and the other elephants show up. Now there are 4 elephants and 16 tourists surrounding this terrified mother bear and her cubs. We decide this is ridiculous and put our cameras back into our camera bags. We start to pull on the elephant boy’s shirt. “No more, let’s go back. This enough, we got photo enough.” The bear slips into the woods and the elephants turn and we walk back to the loading platform. We climb off and when we touch ground. I vow to skip tomorrow morning’s elephant ride. I start to think that I should become a rabid animal rights activist, as I like animals more than I like most people. I settle for writing a carefully worded letter and placing it in the suggestion box.<br /><br />Crocks and Tigers<br /> <br />Cruising for crocodiles is far more relaxing than nature walking on a mosquito riddled trail. I lounge in the dug out canoe and take photos of the two boatmen while Paul joins the hikers. We pass a mound with a cross on the banks of the river. <br />“What is that”? <br />“Man who got killed by tiger last year,” answers the front boatman. <br />“Really?” <br />“Oh yes, one come to camp last week”.<br />“Really”?”<br />“Yes. Big boy tiger”.<br /> <br />This information disrupts my idea that this is a sort of set up Zoo Park where tourists ride off every evening and gawk at the same two rhinos that we spotted the day before. <br />Maybe, the exotic other that we crave in one form or another is not just a tourist attraction, but also the real thing, and actual danger is part of the package deal.<br /><br />Buddha’s Birthday<br /> <br />I wanted to spend Buddha’s birthday in Lumbini where he was born. Lumbini is in southern Nepal near the border with India, but every one said that the better place would be in Bodanath just outside of Kathmandu. The deciding factor to scratch Lumbini was the idea of another 7-10 hour bus ride on switch back roads.<br />Bodanath came highly recommended by our Bali friend, Carmen, who lived in Kathmandu for a year and spent most of it in a small monastery run guesthouse in Bodanath<br /> <br /> <br />We take her advice and find the Shechen Monastery and the clean and quiet 20-room Rabsel guesthouse with outdoor garden and vegetarian restaurant. It is a secret hidden place that is inexpensive and friendly. Most of the other guests are international travelers. Two French women in their fifties add the French tinkle to the mix of lively conversations taking place in the garden. I ask if it would be possible to talk to a Buddhist monk as I am writing about Buddha’s birthday in Bodanath. The waiter returns and says there is an English-speaking monk who will meet me at 4pm and permit an interview.<br />“ That was easy”, I say to Paul, “considering my readership is a bunch of art friends and reluctant family members.”<br /> Hey, don’t question Fate!<br /> You think this is Karma or something?<br /> Yea, something… like that.<br /><br />Interview with a Monk<br /> <br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBB8WiKbSSXQqyK4gcCxjREWyEIL_o1-_AevB01jkBDwb97w29VtjdaVJQZar3XAXiXFI-_fqG59lomx6ko6-wLk_0mJ4MVfj_dxdiezb_bQEtzF5hO8_el6Lbuyn6SjlKkxEZ3fRCYujv/s1600-h/3+monks.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBB8WiKbSSXQqyK4gcCxjREWyEIL_o1-_AevB01jkBDwb97w29VtjdaVJQZar3XAXiXFI-_fqG59lomx6ko6-wLk_0mJ4MVfj_dxdiezb_bQEtzF5hO8_el6Lbuyn6SjlKkxEZ3fRCYujv/s320/3+monks.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5195320499133954466" /></a><br />At 4 pm, Paul and I are introduced to Acharya Chenwang Samdrup Gurung of Shechen Monastery. He declines any drinks and presents me with a DVD of the movie Himalaya. Acharya is an energetic, friendly 26 year-old monk who has just passed his major philosophy exams and has started assisting in public talks to lay people in the plaza near the Bodanath Stuppa. He will be speaking at 6pm and can only give me an hour of his time.<br /><br />The dark shading of his hairline is visible on his closely shaven head. His skin is the color of honey on wheat bread. But it is the energy I notice right away, as it is both gentle and viral. He apologizes for his poor English and says he wishes it were better. His English is good enough to have a conversation and that is all I want. He tells me it is Karma that we should talk together and he is honored to meet me. <br />I am surprised by this comment but also inexplicably flattered. Could I actually have some karmic history with a monk? Or am I just ratcheting up my self-importance with a desirable story?<br />I start with a series of prepared questions.<br /><br />“How long have you been a monk”?<br /><br />“Since I was nine years old”.<br /><br />“What made you decide to become a monk”?<br /><br />“This interesting story. Very funny. When I was 7 or 8 years old I live with my family in small village in mountains, in Mustang region. People live there like in 18th century. I take care of animals, yaks. I already a shepherd. One day an uncle from my mother’s family come to our village. He is dressed differently from us. He has a shirt and tie and he talks in a better way. Later I say to my mother, can I be like the uncle. No my mother told me. He is educated and you are not. He lives in Kathmandu and has a government job. But I want to be like him I cried. The next day the uncle was to go back to Kathmandu. In the early morning I stole his suitcase and took it to another village. My family found me later and my father has big talk with me and brings me back home. But later my father says I can go to Kathmandu with my uncle. My brother is put in a monastery and I in a regular school. I am unhappy as I am outsider and children make fun of me. I see my brother’s life was happier so I want to be a monk. I asked my parents and they said OK. I became student of H.H. Dilgo Khentse Rimpoche, who was the teacher of the Dali Lama and head of the Nyingmapa Sect of Tibetan Buddhism. He took me and I see there is a karmic connection to this high monk. So the impossible become possible.” He laughs loudly and happily, and then continues his story.<br /> <br />“He cut my hair; give me new name, Gyurme Ngedon, new clothes, new identity”.<br /> <br />“What is life like for a young monk, what do you do, what do you study”?<br /><br />“I studied in elementary school at Shechen Monastery for six years, grammar, Tibetan language, Buddhist history, Tibetan history, at age fifteen I moved to the training course. There I learned about Buddhist rituals dancing, chants, and music. After 2 years in training course I move to Buddhist philosophical college near here. I studied ten years there. This year I will graduate at the teaching level or professor”. <br /><br />He sounds proud of his achievement.<br />And sees I am impressed, sits up straighter and continues. <br /><br />“At seventeen I started learning the Sanskrit language. The head of the monastery asked me to go teach in Nepalese. I was not good in the Nepalese language. But he tells me I must give Buddhist teachings to the lay people in the Nepal Buddhist community. I learn and later I translate high lamas who come to Bodanath to give talks. They speak only Tibetan”. <br /> <br />“How did you learn English”?<br /><br />“Oh, just here and there. I want to study more so that I can translate to English from Sanskrit. Translate books and give teachings to others. I am a learner. Someday teacher”.<br /><br /> I smile, and look directly at him as I change the line of questioning. <br /><br />“What is Happiness to you”?<br /> <br />He lurches at the question. I can sense his eagerness to get into it.<br /><br />“Actually happiness is simple. I am happy if I take a sip of juice because it relieves my small thirst. This is little bit of happiness”. He looks directly at me and says, “All sentient beings want to be free of Samsara and to help others is my happiness. If we can renounce our ego then there is less suffering. Meditation is the key”. The answer sounds learned and predictable even if true.<br /><br />“What kind of meditation do you do”?<br /> <br />“There are many levels of meditation. Level one is mind concentration. Level two is compassion and level three is visualization on emptiness.<br />Buddha is very heavy. His body turns into rays. When I meditate on his image. He is heavy so that our minds don’t blow everywhere like paper blown by some wind. First you concentrate for 10, 20, 30 minutes, once you can concentrate for one hour then you move to level two, compassion. Our mind is like a king and our bodies like a servant”.<br /> <br />Paul breaks in with a spontaneous question.<br /> <br />“How do lay people take in the suffering for other people? We see people who are hungry, sick, begging on the street. As westerners we want to run from this, we don’t know how to help without becoming overwhelmed”.<br /><br />“We have to accept Karma. Every sentient being is working toward happiness. We all want to be free of suffering. But we do not have the knowledge on how to get happiness. Poor people want to get money so maybe they become a thief. That is not the correct way. He is hurting others by stealing and making more bad karma. Your mind has to be pure mind to give others happiness. In the world there are many beggars, it is the result of their previous actions. We need to feel compassion. Oh I can help this person even if all I can give him is my compassion. You must look within and give what you can”.<br /><br />“Have you experienced Nirvana”?<br /> <br />“If you remove the differentiation between people you like and people you dislike then you may reach nirvana. If you cannot remove differentiation, then you will never reach nirvana. We have to have compassion for all sentient beings, think of them as your mother. Your body is like a guesthouse and the mind is like a guest. Our mother has helped us, fed us, taught us, and loved us. When you are free of differentiation you treat everybody with the love for your mother. Think of them as your mother.<br /><br />God is one but manifests as many things. We are Buddha seed but obscured by our egos. We can clear our minds by practicing meditation. Like wind that clears the clouds from the sky. Buddha cannot remove people’s suffering by himself. We are ill with attachments, ignorance, and ego. These are the four roots of our suffering. When we die we have to leave behind our wealth, property, friends, and body. All we take is our Karma, good and bad”.<br /> <br />I can’t help noticing that like a good politician the young monk has avoided answering the direct question. At this moment we are sitting at a table for four in the shaded patio of the restaurant. Others are involved with their own conversations but I am aware of an American man sitting just behind the monk and directly in my line of sight. I cannot ignore him. He is straining to hear every word. Suddenly I feel compassion. I want to be inclusive. So I get up and say, would you like to join us? I noticed you are interested in our discussion.<br />“Oh is it that obvious?” asks the man who quickly joins our table and introduces himself as John from San Francisco. He has been part of a Buddhist meditation group in the Bay area and is in Nepal with them.<br /> <br />“I couldn’t help over hearing and I want to clear something up. You see”, he says to the monk, “in America we don’t all love our mothers the way you seem to here. So, that is a not a good example about love and compassion as many westerners can not relate to it.” The monk is perplexed. <br /><br />I feel the monk’s unease. His head sinks into his shoulders, his eyes look at the wooden table. John continues to explain ideas westerners have trouble grasping. He launches onto ego issues and how he has been working on these. He has lost two marriages and several friendships to ego but now he has a handle on it and feels he is progressing in his meditation practice. Paul and I exchange instant looks of disbelief and dismay. I can see that I have made a big error in judgment in my invitation. The flow of our conversation has faltered. The monk becomes defensive. John does not notice this. He talks on and on. <br /><br />All of the energy is draining from the small circle we had created. To try and move the discussion onwards I ask what is the difference between Zen Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism. As I ask this I realize it is a stupid question. Too academic and one I am not really interested in at this moment. But John and the monk go into it and John is eager to show off his erudition and the monk’s English skills grow weaker as his confidence is undermined. Finally, the monk stands and says he has to go. I thank him and make a donation to his monastery. I ask if it would be possible to visit his village in the more remote Mustang region of Nepal. “Would you be interested in taking us to your village?” “Yes”, I can do that,” and he gives me his email address. His cell phone rings and he excuses himself to take the call.<br /><br />While I shake hands with the monk John responds to my question, “Oh I think there are a lot more rituals more deities, more ceremonies in Tibetan Buddhism, Zen is down to the bones. I look at John and wonder if he has any idea of the effect he has had on the group. I am struggling with compassion and failing miserably. It is over <br />John takes a sip of his tea and says, “They have a hard time teaching westerners because they don’t understand us.”<br />I stare at him dumbfounded. I am about to give him a piece of my mind when Jennifer from John’s group shows up and he jumps up to hug her. <br /> <br />Paul and I retreat to our room. I am agitated and outraged. “Who does that ass think he is”, I bark as soon as the door is closed. “Just because he spends a couple of hours sitting on a cushion in some meditation hall in San Francisco doesn’t make him an expert on Buddhism. Did you see how he took over?”<br /> <br />“Why did you invite him to join us”?<br /><br />“I don’t know… I guess I returned to the teacher role and wanted everyone to participate and learn together. Or something… I think I saw his need and I wanted to give him what he wanted.”<br /><br />Paul dramatically pantomimes playing a violin.<br /><br />“I know, doing unto others as you would have them do unto you doesn’t always work”.<br /><br />“Where in Buddhism does it say that”?<br /><br />“ I don’t know and it probably doesn’t. It’s the mixed up blend of beliefs I try and get by with. But there is a lesson in this encounter. The monk didn’t like his authority undermined. John just had to show his erudition. He had to correct the monk’s lack of knowledge about American’s attitudes towards their mothers. He has read a lot about Buddhism and he had to show off. The monk gave examples he has heard in lectures by his teachers. He is a student and has student experiences”.<br /><br />“What is the lesson”?<br /><br />“Well, It must be that if we could stop the differentiation between the monk whom we liked and the American jerk that we didn’t like that we would be half way to Nirvana”.<br /><br />We sit on the edge of our twin beds, quiet. After a few minutes Paul says, “Let’s go to the stuppa and see what’s going on.<br />Tomorrow is Buddha’s birthday. They must be setting up”.<br /><br /><br />On the path, which leads to Bodanath Stuppa, we pass several shops selling jewelry, pashmina and even a tailor who sells cloth for Buddhist robes. It is chilly and I am drawn toward a large maroon pashmina like the ones the monks wear. The shopkeeper wraps me up in the shawl. I feel safe and special. Like I did when my father took me on walks and enveloped me with his big sweater. Paul pays the man and we continue. The thing about all of the holy places I have ever visited, be it Lourdes, Fatima, or many Hindu temples in Bali, is that one can always do a little shopping on one’s spiritual path to the sacred site. Commerce and religion are tourism’s happy bedfellows.<br /><br /> <br /><br />Bodanath Stuppa<br /><br /> <br /> <br />The Bodanath Stuppa is the largest and one of the most holy Buddhist shrines in all of Nepal. It is surrounded by many monasteries and attracts serious Tibetan Buddhist pilgrims as well as western tourists of various religious persuasions.<br />Every evening from 4 to 8 pm visitors, pilgrims and locals walk around the circular white dome with the spooky painted eyes at the top. The stuppa is said to hold a bone from Buddha somewhere inside the center. So, the Tibetan Buddhists are like Catholics who worship the remains of saints and build churches and reliquaries around mortal remains. There are prayer wheels around the base, which can be spun by the touch of passing hands of pilgrims. There are incense and candles in various locations on and around the stuppa. The Tibetan prayer flags flutter in long strands from the top layer of the white cake like structure to all sides of the surrounding plaza. <br /><br />Ringing the stuppa are shops and stalls selling prayer beads, antiques, pashmina shawls, and Tibetan singing bowls. Spices and powders sit in large sacks on the doorsteps of shops and hallways. Restaurants are on the ground and several stories up with a view. Every private house has become a guesthouse. We are drawn to the New Orleans Café, which has a three tier glass cabinet displaying deep-dish apple pie, black forest cake and blueberry muffins.<br />Beer, French wine great pasta, as well as buff steak is available. This must be a hot spot cafe as there is a monk sitting at his laptop and doing email. The girl from France is eyeing the designer jewelry case on the glassed in sidewall. I order latte and Paul chooses a double cappuccino plus lemon meringue pie as the apple is all sold out. We eat and watch the pilgrims walk. We note the monk with the crutch and the old woman whose feet hurt and the trio of Indian girls dressed in jeans and high heels trotting around the stuppa for the fifth or the sixth time. Some are just walking in a distracted manner and chatting with each other. Others purposefully spin prayer wheels and finger their 108 bead rosary strands. It is a social as well as a spiritual event.<br /> <br /> <br />May 2 is Buddha’s birthday. There are heaps of flowers, piles of candy and fruit offerings. Each shrine holds piles of burnt incense, candles and small fires. Red powder covers some of the statues. People climb the stuppa for the view, to have their photo taken with the city rooftops behind them and to meditate. Some are there for private requests and there is more then one prostrating monk circumambulating the stuppa. They wear a thick dark cloth aprons to protect their clothing from becoming threadbare. They put their palms together, drop to their knees and continue into a full face down prostration. They raise, stand up press their palms together and then repeat the prescribed steps while chanting and remaining in meditation. Some Tibetan pilgrims do this for several hundred miles. The amount of physical exertion required for these acts of devotion is astonishing. It is humbling to witness several monks make their way around the stuppa 108 times. This is the number of beads on a string of prayer beads. The Catholic Rosary is a derivative of this ancient Buddhist practice for stilling the mind <br /> <br />Paul and I each have a string of wooden beads and we silently chant. Gradually we make our way to the top layer of the stuppa. Close to the top a pair of painted eyes on each of the four sides, watch all the pilgrims and visitors. There is an almost carnival feeling to the site. At night the distant lights of Katmandu look lovely. The myriad arrays of prayer flags flutter out prayers onto a needy world. Paul and I walk and push one bead after another and chant “ohm mani padme hum” while placing one foot in front of the other. We circled the stuppa seven times and now feel calm and peaceful.<br /><br />“ Now what”? I say? Paul points towards the New Orleans Café, where the deep-dish apple pie is to die for. Later we sleep in our beds and the dogs barking in the wee hours never wake us.<br /><br />Post Birthday Blues<br /><br />One of the reasons I wanted to visit Kathmandu was to soak in the spiritual vibrations. Bodanath just a few miles outside of Kathmandu is the only place, which affected me spiritually. The morning after Buddha’s birthday Paul and I walked through the stuppa enclave. A band of beggars accosted us next to a store which was playing Buddhists chants CD’s. Inexplicably, I started to cry. I sobbed and sobbed into Paul’s shoulder and we stood like that for several minutes while everybody went about his or her business. It hit me like an onslaught of woe. Yes, yes, I thought. This is Samsara. Life is suffering and ignorance and doubt and pain of all kinds. And maybe we are reborn into this arena to suffer and hurt and love and hate until we can finally stop. That’s the basic deal the Buddhists offer. Heaven and hell is what we reap right here on the bricks and mortar of this earth. But it seems intolerable that so many live in poverty degradation and abuse. Karma is such an unsatisfying answer. It makes me feel ashamed of my personal good fortune compared with most of the people in this wretched city. It dosen’t feel like Karma, just better luck. <br /><br />It sinks in like a dead stone that I know nothing and that I believe everything and nothing and that I wish it were otherwise with all my heart, but it isn’t. I want what we all want deep down; that the world be a better place.<br /> A man in a long gauzy Indian shirt and white pants walks over and says. “She is overcome with memories and emotions.” He states to Paul who is still comforting me in our tiny patch of privacy. “You would be able to control your feelings better if you meditated,” He tells me. I am sure he meant this as kind advice but I resent his interruption and blurt out, “I don’t want to control my feelings. Leave me alone.” We turn to leave and bump into two more beggars who fall upon us with dramatic sorrowful eyes like extras in a Bollywood film.<br /> Again I am tested in my ability to show compassion and to not differentiate. There are no private moments in Kathmandu. Everything and everyone is an opportunity for yet another lesson. Indians like to give advice. We give the beggars money and scramble into the first taxi we see.<br /> <br /> <br />Hotel Utse we tell the driver who is a young skinny kid who seems to have learned how to drive last Wednesday and has never been in the nations capital just 3 miles from Bodanath.<br /> The kid heads down rutted alleys slips and slides out of muddy potholes the size of bathtubs. Suddenly, he stops in front of a pile of large rocks someone has put at the end of this alley in order to keep cars out. There is no way to back up. So the boy gets out and moves few rocks. They seem heavy. He pushes and prods. Two women come up and watch him. The old lady yells something at him in Nepalese. He is sweating grunting but he has moved enough stones to get by. He gets back in, guns the car over one of the stray stones and escapes onto the main street. The old lady shouts. He gets out of the car and hurriedly replaces a few of the disturbed stones. The barricade is restored.<br /> <br />The car inches into the traffic jam of trucks, motorbikes and buses and so we sit for ten minutes until someone lets our car through. Everyday is a battle in Kathmandu. Traffic lights would clear up the problem but that would mean spending government money on public services rather than corruption. Life is excessively hard in Kathmandu.<br /><br /> <br />Back in Thamel<br /><br />Paul goes to the Utse Hotel, which has become our home base in Nepal. He is going to book a bus trip to Pokhara, a place of relaxation with a large lake and never ending views of the snow covered peaks of the Himalayas. I head for the bookstore. There are many in Katmandu. This excites me, as bookstores in Ubud, Bali, my adopted hometown,<br />are mostly second hand or Periplus franchises. The storeowner is hidden behind a desk piled high with copies of large photographic books on Tibetan landscapes, Mount Everest, Tibetan tribes, Tibetan folk dress and exotic jewelry on the necks and wrists of beautiful girls with warm smiles and almond colored skin. Above these there is a 12-foot high wall of shelves reachable only by a wooden ladder. Books on Buddhism and Shamanism beckon me. How can there be so many books when nirvana can only be attained by direct enlightenment. And of course, at least a dozen books about or by the Dali Lama, each of which has a pleasing photo of His Holiness on the cover. The Dali Lama has done more to bring attention to Tibet’s plight for independence from the Communist China. He is a holy man with a good understanding of necessary marketing tools that help his cause. In an ironic twist of fate the Chinese leaders are beginning to figure out that Spirituality sells and that Lhasa can be museum site for Tibetan Buddhism. I wonder if Lhasa will one day become an Asian Venice, sans canals a place that tourists visit but locals can no longer afford to live in. I hope that time is along time away. <br /> <br /><br />The romantic hippy quest years are long gone and the omnipresent trekkers have taken over. There are more discos and bars and far less hash to be found. The Northface clone shops displaying nylon cargo pants, fleece mountain jackets, hang next to the colorful cotton baggy pants geared to post hippies with nose rings and shoulder tattoos.<br /><br /> Katmandu is renown for adapting to the needs of the market place. <br /> <br />There are posters announcing talks by various monks, yoga courses, Nepalese Language classes and Thanka painting instruction. Tourist gourmet gift shops which also sell tastefully wrapped packages of Rhododendron organic tea, Rose hip tea, Nepalese high mountain tea green tea, white tea and scoops of ground red turmeric, purple lavender and green oregano. Kathmandu merchants are in step with the latest trends in tourist tastes and they are happy to cater to TV cooking show addicts who travel to eat and explore, just like Anthony Burdain.<br /><br />The shop keepers and I chat about where I am from and about the freshness of the herbs and “no madam it is not possible to buy the fermented millet which is served in the Tibetan hotels but if I wish I can go with him to his friends place…. and maybe for a price I can get the beer making millet”. “Well,” I say, “my husband won’t be interested in an afternoon of millet hunting so I had better decline.” I buy 10 packages of various teas, five bags of pungent spices and two recipe books with black and white illustrations. “Great gifts!” I exclaim. Everybody bows and smiles. Happiness for only fifteen dollars US.<br /><br />The Thamel tourist district has grown by leaps and bounds and Tibetan refugees have raised their families in tourist hotels and continued lighting candles and chanting each morning and evening. Several portraits of the Dali Lama grace the walls of the lobby of the Utse guesthouse. <br />The strange thing is that I get the sense that Nepal is a sort of second hand Tibet or a third hand India. What the hell is pure Nepalese in this miasma of commerce and accommodation? Kathmandu has done a remarkable job of moving with the times and supplies Western travelers with their hearts desire. Today that desire is trekking, eating and pashminas.<br /><br />Paul has not phoned me to meet him for lunch on my tri-band international mobile phone. So I proceed to the next shop. Which curiously sells only hand blown glass hash pipes. There are rows and rows of green speckled and yellow ringed pipes in small, medium and large. The shopkeeper has a twisted arm and hand. Most likely childhood polio. But he is happy and friendly enough. He is grinning from ear to ear. WOW I say these are really pretty. I would love to buy one of these but what am I going to do with it, as I have no hash. The gnome like man climbs out from behind the counter and opens a secret sliding panel in the wall and pulls out a small plastic bag with a wad of hashish in a dirty newspaper. Wow! Is this real?<br /> He nods still grinning.<br /> Is it legal? I ask wondering if somehow I might be in some kind of entrapment situation.<br /> No. He says.<br /> I look in his eyes and see that he is wondering the same thing about me. Could I be a tourist narcotics agent sent here from Washington just to bust this poor stoned polio stricken shopkeeper?<br /> How much?<br /> 200 rupees<br /> How much for the pipe?<br /> 200 rupees.<br /> Ok. Sold! I put 400 rupees ($6.00 US) on the glass counter. He wraps up the contraband and I depart. Wow! I exclaim once more, to no one in particular. The legendary cheap druggy Kathmandu of the seeking sixties. has not completely died out!<br /> <br />Nothing beats breaking the rules for fun and excitement. For the next hour I am not an aging matron with packets of tea gifts in her plastic bags, but the hippy chick I was years ago with hash at the bottom of her purse.<br /> <br />Truth or Dare<br /><br />I had asked the man behind the computer surrounded by books on mysticism and enlightenment if he knew of a good astrologer in the area. Without looking up he points to the bulletin board.<br />Then he remembered his manners and noticed me struggling with my armload of books on Tibetan Buddhism and Nepalese Shamanism.<br /> Put those in that basket and sit down. He points to a wooden stool.<br />“You want a good astrologer? Or just someome one who will tell you what your future holds”?<br />“Well, I already know what is in my past so I guess the future is what I am interested in.” I say lightly.<br /> He reaches into his wallet and pulls out a piece of paper, then he copies the information onto a yellow sticky pad sheet. <br /><br />“ I don’t know if she is still in Bodanath but if you can find her she is the real thing.”<br /><br />“Oh that is great as we are staying in Bodanath and maybe I can locate her.”<br /> I stare at the name and telephone number. <br />At the Shechen guesthouse I ask the desk boy to call the number. There is no hassle. She is home, she can see me now. The boy will bring me after he gets one of the waiters to watch the front desk.<br /><br /> “ Ask and you shall receive,” kids my husband. “You go I’m taking a short nap.”<br /><br /><br />I follow the boy through several alleyways, across a street with a stalled cow in the middle of the road. Cars and motorcycles maneuvering around the sad looking animal. <br />“Why are the cows in the street”? <br /> Because holy cow. Cannot kill.<br /> “But isn’t it in a field eating grass instead of risking its life in traffic and causing traffic jams.<br />“ No fields in Kathmandu”.<br /> He is right about that. There are hardly any trees except a few sacred Banyan trees on certain auspicious corners.<br />Holy cows wandering in traffic, Soothsayers who SMS messages on cell phones but no fields for cows who no longer give milk. The cows are holy but they are also abandoned and left to get by. Kathmandu is a conundrum.<br /> My boy guide knocks twice on a door. A voice calls from within. He steps aside and motions I enter past a heavy woolen curtain, which must have been a blanket at one time.<br /> The room is like a wooden cave. The walls are grungy from candles smoke and street dirt and time.<br /> The woman sits at a small table. The air is heavy in the room. “Please, please, sit down. “I am Liana”, states the woman in the red and pink sari. She has a red painted spot on her forehead. <br /> I introduce myself. We eye each other. I smile submissively. There is no doubt in my mind as to who is in charge in this cave. <br /> She says something in Nepalese and a young girl appears from the shadows with chipped cups of tea heavily seasoned with local honey. The girl is about 13 years old and pretty. She also has a red dot in the space between her eyes, but she is wearing a blue sari.<br /> We agree on a price for my future.<br />Liana takes a long look at me. Her brown fleshy face dominated by a strong nose is framed by graying hair pulled into a neat bun behind her neck.<br />Liana’s voice has a lilting rhythm common to Indian speakers of English. She is educated and aware. This is no small town peasant picking up a few extra rupees by flattering tourists. This is a woman you take seriously.<br /><br />“ Let me tell you a story.” She says, smiling knowingly at me. <br /><br />I wonder, “does she know about my obsession with Story? Why is she emphasizing the word story? ” <br />“The world is not made up of atoms but rather of stories. Am I right?”<br /> <br />I nod. She has just recited one of my favorite quotes by Muriel Rukeyser. Is she letting me know what she knows about me or is she letting me know that we are on the same page philosophically speaking.<br /><br />“This is a karmic story. A true one you will recognize in the future.”<br /> I blink but say nothing.<br /><br />“Yes, you will understand in the future.” She laughs gaily and her exposed belly flesh jiggles. I become aware of her body, her smell, her enveloping energy. This is a tigress in a human body. Am I in the den of a shape shifter? Is this an X file story or travel tale?<br /> <br />‘Once upon a time, as you Europeans like to say. There will be a man and a woman who will love each other very much. I will call him John and her Samara. He will be tall, blond and have sapphire blue eyes. As kind and handsome a man as you will like to meet and he will own a bookshop in Kathmandu. At times he will take seekers trekking to caves and power places that are unknown to outsiders. He will be much loved and much blessed because he will have a beautiful Nepalese wife. She will have a lovely voice and her singing will be so sweet that birds will come to her window to listen and learn. Samara will excel at Indian cooking and prepare dishes that few remember how to make anymore. She will bare John two extraordinary children, a boy and a girl. These children will be very important in the future you will not see. They will be forces of good borne from an uncommon love that is a perfect blend of East and West. A Karmic marriage made in heaven.<br />Occasionally, outsiders who do not know of their blessings will feel sorry for John and Samara because all they will see was their obvious physical deformities. You see, Samara has only one leg, but she hops quite capably on her left foot and sometimes forgets to use her crutch. She is lithe and lovely and happy and so she is beautiful both inside and out. John has only his right arm, as the left one ends in a fleshy nub just below his elbow. This is how you will know them. There is no need for sadness or pity. They were born with deformed limbs and never knew anything different. They never felt sorry for themselves. Everyone understands it is their karma, something left over from a past life that needs to be resolved.<br />John is an only child of an English woman and Samara is born into a large and happy family of girls with parents who love and spoil them. John came to Nepal in 2000 when he was 5 years old. His mother is a photographer and a seeker. She will find her dream in Tibet but not for many years.<br /> The boy and the girl must meet. The seed of love must be sown through their eyes. It will blossom years from now.<br /> <br />“ Why are you telling me this story? I don’t know these people?”<br /><br />“ That is not important. It is important that you know their story and that they will have children who will be of importance in the far future.”<br /> She pats my hand then asks me if I have any questions and tells me to drink the cold tea.<br /> I just sit. I had questions about my little life when I walked in, but I cannot remember a single one now.<br /> She takes my hand and says, “You must never forget that truth is superior to facts and to trust your heart.”<br /> I nod. After awhile I pay her and back out past the curtain bowing and thanking her. <br />Once outside I fill my lungs with cold clean air and refocus. The boy asks me to follow him back through the maze of alleys and short cuts to the monastery hotel where my husband is reading a book in our clean quiet room.<br /> <br /><br />Bus to Pokhara<br /><br />We have paid extra to ride the luxury air-conditioned bus and the bus attendant gives us two front seats. Plenty of legroom and open view.<br /> We settle into our senior citizen reward seats and watch the rest of the passengers climb on board.<br /><br />It is a cool morning and I have pulled out one of my pashmina shawls against the chill. A woman climbs on board. She is in her thirties and has a spaghetti strap tea shirt that clings to her small perky breasts. She has a beautiful tattooed dragon snaking its way up her arm all the way to the cap of her tan shoulder. She is wearing bright orange balloon pants. Her blond hair is a messy mass of curls. Her limber body suggests that she might be a yoga teacher, but the cigarettes peeking out of her pocket imply otherwise.<br /><br />An Indian man and his brother squeeze past the young woman, who has chosen to sit across the aisle from us. More westerners in trekking pants and lightweight jackets scramble past us, dragging back packs. I drink some bottled water and close my eyes knowing this will be an all day ride.<br /><br />Next, a blond scruffy seven year old boy with shoulder length blond hair and a red back pack scampers up and plops several candy bars and a game boy on the seat next to the hippy woman with the dragon tattoo.<br />He stuffs his pack into the overhead and tells his mother he wants the window seat. She obliges without uttering a word. They seem like brother and sister rather than mother and son. But that could be an aspect of their ability to travel together. Travel turns everyone into equals. It is easier to talk to people when traveling then in everyday situations. The boy turns to get past his mother and I notice his arm ends at the elbow.<br /> <br />More passengers walk past us toward the back of the bus and I turn to look at who is on the bus. There is no Indian family with a one legged girl and her three sisters.<br /> <br />The bus driver settles into his seat and talks to some one on a cell phone. The coach aid passes out bottles of spring water from a large cardboard box. Still, no Indian family. No one legged girl. The aid counts the passengers. There are two sets of seats empty in the sixth row of the bus. The aid closes the door. <br />“ Wait”, I say, to the aid. “I have to go to the restroom. Toilet…”<br /> I push past Paul who is looking at me with discomfiture. “Didn’t you go earlier?” <br />“ I have to go again.”<br /> I make my way to the lavatory and take as long as possible. I feel foolish, embarrassed. This is so silly, I’d better get back. I head for the bus and notice that a taxi has just pulled up and an Indian family emerges one by one and head for the bus. The last one is a girl with long black hair and a crutch. I climb on last.<br /><br />This is a true story found only in the annals of travel and I now know that truth is superior to facts. And, that when you die you take only your story, which, some call karma.<br /><br />Reflections on the lake<br /><br />In Pohkara, Paul and I come down with food poisoning from the roadside café where we foolishly chose the chicken instead of the egg. We spend two days in bed at Fewa Hotel, the only guesthouse right on the lake. <br /><br />The atmosphere is laid back, the staff is friendly and a little jaded by years of tourist exposure. The manager angles for extra cash by offering guided treks down the well-traveled road that can be walked by a blind man. We thank him, but decline. By now, we have a handle on the hustle. We know it’s cause and we know that it is the unspoken charge in any trip to a developing country. No matter what we feel our economic condition is, we are wealthy to the locals and they know it is up to them to get some of those riches from us as best they can. Some sell, some provide a service, some beg, some con with spiritual offers too good to believe, some wheedle and whine. <br /> <br />Eventually, we all want to get off the karmic wheel.<br /><br /><br /> <br /><br /><br /><br /><br />The lake is beautiful. The famous Fishtail mountain peak is covered in snow and only visible at dawn. The owner of the guesthouse is an ex-peace core worker who became a restaurateur. His ten-dollar a copy cookbook, Mike’s Breakfasts, contains recipes that he adapted from local cuisines. Also included, is the story of Mike’s journey from Michigan to Kathmandu. He currently is in America getting cancer treatments.<br /><br />I am sipping green organic tea and reading Video Nights in Kathmandu. According to Pico Iyer the halcyon days of hippy travel were already over in the mid 1980’s when he arrived in Nepal. Iyer was interested in how the West affects the East, tourism’s commercialism corrupting local values and traditional ways. It seems to me that corruption on the political level is the biggest problem in Nepal. If the infrastructure were improved, if education were available to all, if medical care… well, life would be easier, better. People need permanent jobs rather than the strain and uncertainty of hustling tourists day in and day out.<br />I get up to check out the pie cabinet and bump into the mother and son from the bus to Pokhara.<br />“ Hello”<br /> “Oh hi,” says the woman.” Are you staying here?”<br /><br /> “Yes, where are you staying?” <br /> “We are staying at a guest house run by the Indian family that got on the bus last. My son has made a new friend, didn’t you?” says the young mom as she tussles her son’s hair. She looks happy because her son has a new girlfriend.<br />“ That is terrific. And what is your name?” I ask the boy, hoping for conformation of the fortune-teller’s story.<br />“ Ace.” states the boy and pushes his hair out of his eyes with the stub end of his left arm.<br />“ Wow, cool name for a cool fellow!” I say. Realizing I sound like a patronizing old lady.<br /> “Ok, we gotta go.,” says his mother. They depart through the gate and out of my life.<br /> Ace? She named her son Ace. Not John. What is truth and what is fiction and can we ever tell them apart no matter how hard we try.<br /> I select a slice of blueberry pie and return to gaze at the smooth blue lake.<br /> <br />Children walk up and down steep hills and small mountains just to go to school. Locals row past tourists across the lake on their way home. Wives leave their farmer husbands for fishermen. There is a Tibetan refugee camp not far from Pokhara. There are thousands of Tibetans whose whole lives have been spent outside their country. Story upon story is lived out in this scenic spot beneath the snow-capped Himalayas. <br /><br />A life with meaning in a past is just as possible as a life of mere chance. I can’t help thinking that everything matters, that we are responsible for the mess we are in. The yearning for a transcendent spirituality gnaws at me. Maybe, just maybe, in some lifetime, I will return to Shechen Monastery and play this game of life in a wholly different way. Acharya Chenwang is certain that fate has brought us together. I like to think it is possible, but certainty is beyond my grasp. I am a Western woman mired in reason and prone to fantasy. <br /><br />There are too many honky tonk joints crowding the scenic lake and I know we will never return to Pokhara. Nepal has joined the West in all the ways it should have avoided. The fast buck extracts a hidden price from the inhabitants. The Nepalese are masters at keeping up with the trends of Western tourists. And we like that even as we chide them for not remaining more ethnic, more authentic.<br /><br />They too want to be able to visit a Shangri-la called Los Angeles or Las Vegas. Perhaps, they will discover the same sense of loss upon arrival in the golden land of their dreams as we have on their precipitous doorstep. We are natural roamers, seekers of dreams and greener fields. After all, we left Africa thousands of years ago, crossed over vast and varied lands, mountains, and ice masses, and spread ourselves all over the planet. We invented the airplane and accelerated the process of cross-pollination, for the good and bad of the earth. We want to see the world before it becomes homogenized by globalization. <br /><br /> In the evening we dine under the stars by candlelight. The national electricity conservation policy knocks out every lamp on this side of the lake at seven o’clock. Everybody is use to it but Western tourists who stumble about with flashlights and curse the darkness. Maybe the over- developed world can use less material light and more spiritual light. Perhaps, like in Nepal, there will be little choice in the matter as worldwide energy resources run out. I like to think that better scenarios are possible. <br /><br />Tonight, candles give enough light to illuminate our fresh fish dinners. The Chablis is from California and we are told that Mike’s apple pie is something not to be missed in this lifetime.Tamarra Kaidahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05621912540576496011noreply@blogger.com3