I was recently living on a farm just outside of a small town called Mazatepec. Cows and chickens dotted the countryside, yet the families that own them buy their milk and eggs from the store. The milk their own cows produce is picked up by a Nestle truck that rolls through town each week. This perversion of a local food supply isn't the only effect globalization is having on the Mexican countryside.

I read an essay titled ¨Mexico´s Pepsi Challenge: Traditional Cooking, Mass Consumption, and National Identity¨by Jeffrey Pilcher. It discusses the advent of mechanization in tortilla-making and the effect it had on gender roles and household labor. In the 1920s, corn mills began to appear in large numbers, both in the city and countryside, typically at the request of women, and the horror of men. Hours of grinding corn by hand on the metate could be spent in other industrious ways.  Yet women who had more money and time for leisure often continued to grind their corn by hand to signify to their dinner guests their social standing. The answer isn't hard: homemade tortillas are more finely ground and hold together better. 

Today, however, it is rare to find homemade tortillas; instead they are purchased from the corner market, or perhaps made in the home from masa harina, most likely produced by the corporate giant Maseca. Maseca refuses to fortify the corn with proteins or vitamins, though it would only cost them $10 a ton.

According to a study done by the National Nutrition Institute from the 1960s to the 1990s, the average Mexican derives about 20 percent of his or her calories from processed foods. I've seen it myself in the past few weeks: cookies, chips, candies, soft drinks, etc. can be found in every corner store. Sheer quantity aside, the cultural perceptions of these foods are changing: Jeffrey Pilcher chronicles the advent of soft drinks in a traditional Mexican pueblo:  

¨Rather than drinking Pepsi as a daily snack in imitation of the middle classes in either Mexico or the United States, the Chamulans incorporated the soft drink into the community´s ritual life, for example, giving cases of Pepsi as dowries for brides. Religious leaders celebrated church services with Pepsi instead of wine, telling parishioners that carbonation drives off evil spirits and cleanses the soul. The natives even hung Pepsi posters in their homes beside the family crucifix, for as one person explained to an anthropologist, ´When men burp, their hearts open.' ¨

Even when we put the ´junk´ food aside and just consider canned vegetables for example, we run into a few problems. Mexicans have been eating corn and beans together forever. This traditional combo comes not only out of gastronomic logic, but also good biological sense. They each provide important amino acids missing in the corn, and vice versa. Meat of course can provide protein as well, but in cases where meat is too expensive for regular consumption, if beans are substituted for canned vegetables, the nutritional consequences are disastrous. As is the case over and over, it is the poor who suffer the most.

Good: I brought A's hand over to touch me and she held me for quite a while. Have to say she was a bit rough, but this is the first time she's touched me in lust for several years. Also see next point.

Bad: If only I hadn't collapsed yesterday I would have been on a hair trigger! After a few seconds there would have been a generous helping of hot sticky mess everywhere. Damn damn damn!

As it was, we are at least at the status quo ante: we have a nice time, A has her orgasm, we chat pleasantly for a while, A falls asleep, I hang around for a bit then get something to eat and go to work. That's how it always was (in my memory at least).

I'm glad I asked her (by gesture) to touch me and I'm glad she did.

I clearly have to get my incontinence under control, but this is more than just "managed indulgence". For the time being at least, it would be best if I was on a hair trigger --- gagging for it --- all the time. I would love to be as fragile as she is in bed; for both of us to be likely to go off pop at any moment. That's going to require work with the relevant demon.

It's also going to require some regularity and trust (i.e. that an arranged rendezvouz will actually happen). I'm working on the regularity. Re the trust: the last couple of cancellations I swallowed my feelings. It might be better if I let them show a bit; maybe even suggest days myself.

Finally, I've got a feeling nights and mornings might start opening up soon. A couple of minor things A said afterwards hinted (unconsciously I think) in that direction.

Feel sick physically, morally just tired.

The programme showed lap dancers grinding on their "shocked" reporter's dick and shoving their tits and slits into his face - what were they expecting: a performance of swan lake?!! - and offering sex for money. But as most people watching would have already known that, the programme was a soft porn documentary, not an exposé - the only thing it exposed  was rather a lot of the lap dancers! The commentator didn't say whether the girls, who were filmed naked without their consent, were paid to appear in the programme or address the blatant hypocrisy of Channel 4 and Dispatches showing performances, which they called prostitution, when they were making far more money than either the girls or their clubs out of those same performances.

The programme never once asked whether it would make more sense to loosen up the rules and allow the girls to masturbate in front of their customers and give them blowjobs; it's not like girls aren't doing that in every major hotel in London.

Now we’ve got a better handle on this whole parenting thing, and as we began to gain our chops, Emma was busy growing into the little person she’s become. It’s amazing to watch her every single day. Just this week, she started raising her hand when you wave at her. She’s content sitting up in her crib or on her floor playing with toys. And you’ll catch her intensly staring at everything from ceiling fans to tree branches. It’s easy to see her mind working, contemplating what’s she’s seeing and how it helps form the world in which she lives.

She recognizes her family both in person and in the photos Honey and Papaw have sent (which now hang above her changing table). Emma also seems to be enjoying her solid food — everything from pears, apples, avocados and bananas to sweet potatoes, squash and even a baby version of hummus!

Emma has started her own version of crawling, and we know it won’t be too long before she’s completely mobile. Her face is full of expression, and she’s got a keen ability to move her body in rythym (just watch the Nerds video!).

As special and unique and facinating as Emma is to us, we don’t pretend to believe that what we are feeling with our baby is much different from what first-time parents feel the world over. But it doesn’t make a bit of difference to us. Every day is special and cherished and amazing. It’s totally facinating to watch Emma grow, to figure things out on her own and to explore and learn.

I’m intensly looking forward to the time when she begins to discover just how vast this world is, when she begins to conceptualize who she is and where she is. It’s a truly amazing time.

When we first met two things about me seemed particularly salient to A:

• she said (to all her friends) that I was "the most sensual man" she had "ever met";
• she said (to me) that men of my generation were so refreshingly different from men of her generation (I'm about 15 years younger than any of her previous men). To her the main difference was our avoidance of gender-stereotypical tramlines.

Well, all this is waking up again and I feel quite frisky with it. I apologise if my friskiness offends anyone, and I'm going to be careful not to get myself too excited before time.

Once it's alive again, back out in the open, I want it to be even better than it was before. I don't care what it ends up like: we'll sort that out between us, it'll be fresh and new for both of us, every time.

A & I canoodled in the bathroom. I jumped on her and she recoiled with a disgusted look. In the past that would have been it, & I would have retreated. Last night I was able to make light of it ("was I too rough for you?"), we laughed and I came at her again more gently.

Eventually we heard the pit-pat of smallish feet and B opened the door to join us. We had finished before he arrived, but I noticed our embrace was still the lovers' embrace. We all got into a family huggy-kissy session and the group broke up.

Later, with B up in bed reading, A & I got back into it. Like teenagers. A's enthusiasm was new (in recent times): she didn't go so far as to touch me with her hand, but she was pushing her thighs against me, her crotch into me, grabbing my bottom and pulling me into her, ... we really should stop until B was safely asleep and we were in bed, ... I said, "... unless you want another one later." She pinged up with surprise and delight. I swear even her ears pricked up.

So we should have but we didn't stop, and soon it was clear A was past the point of no return. I threw the books off the nearest comfy chair and tried to guide us both over to it. My idea was I would go down on her. We didn't get that far. A was struggling, leaning in a daze against the furniture. I asked, "Should I give you one now?", she nodded from somewhere far away and I brought her in. Good job we have robust furniture.

All silent, we could hear B turning his pages upstairs (very small house he was only separated from us by a curtain).

Although we were still merry, by bedtime it was back to normal. I was frisky for a while but it was clear that nothing was going to happen. I was a bit sad and disappointed, and only slept till three. But I think I'm being impatient --- so close to the end it feels. I think a lot of good things happened last night in terms of the way we are with each other, and I'm still looking forward to our Available Day.

One lesson for the A-day might be to ease off enjoying her body so much and let her enjoy mine. Yesterday was so merry and fun. I might even put her hand somewhere (!).

This morning something kept getting in the way of the practicalities: we kept kissing each other. My hands stroking her legs or resting between her thighs.

A said, "I don't suppose you're available are you, this week?"

I have the busiest week I've had in a long time: four meetings in two days and two hefty reports for Friday, ... but it turns out I am available! I can't do tomorrow; she might not be able to do Thursday, ... pussycat.

"Available" means to forget about work and spend a day in bed together.

Which ever day it turns out to be, the time between this morning and then has had fairy dust sprinkled over it.

This afternoon back home it happened again, she invited me to, I can't remember the words she used, but she wanted me all over her. She said, "... I don't know why I'm feeling like this." Well, it's fine by me!

The colour of A's eyes seems to vary with her health and her moods. Sometimes they can be quite pale. Lately they've been shining sapphires.

I suppose my gripe is this: terror suspects do not receive a fair trial. If this government and the government of the United States are supposed to be the models of modern democratic society and if they throw their weight around and condemn regimes which practise arbitrary detention of suspects without trial (unless of course it's somewhere like Saudi Arabia, where they make too much profit from business relationships), how can the discrepancy not be obvious between what they are meant to be and what they really are? It's the secrecy that is the main problem. It's like there's a modern-day Gestapo going around and deciding appropriate means of detention and punishment without scrutiny. Constant scrutiny is crucial in circumstances as delicate and as controversial as these because there are so many differing viewpoints and if decisions and reviews of decisions are not taken democratically (at least by elected parliamentary representatives) at all stages of the process (voting on acts of parliament every now and then is not enough), the very mandate and authority of the government falls into question. If the governments of the 'free world' were open about their policy on detention of suspects (note: suspects, not convicts, because they have not been put to trial) and were not portraying themselves as such high and mighty role models or, even better, if they were not practising arbitrary detention in the first place, perhaps they could hold their heads up high in relation to foreign policy. Countries around the world would not necessarily see countries like the UK and the US as hypocritical thugs who target their short-term enemies with almost no consideration for long-term consequences.

In bed with A. Both buttoned up in our winter pyjamas. A is reading Strength Training Anatomy. I am reading Chinese Whispers. I kiss her shoulder occasionally and after a while we turn in.

I imagine myself coming to bed naked with A surronded by her heavy lifting library. I give a smirk of self-ridicule and horniness.

I imagine A next to me naked with me trying to concentrate on Ashbery's impossible poetry.

Naked, I don't imagine we would get much reading done.

Maybe I should secretly double up the duvet. "Oh, I'm sorry Marcel. I'm going to have to take off my shirt." "Yes, this heat is dreadful, A isn't it? I shall have to remove all my pyjamas." " ... hm ... what's that?" "Oh, it's just something I keep down there." "Interesting, let me ..."

Vitas: My Body

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In late 2007, the parties have agreed to establish measures for implementing such institutions as an educational structure, a justice system, and a security network to help foster cultural, economic, and political development in Mindanao in separate talks. (Martin and Tuminez, 2008)

The parties were all optimistic that peace would finally become a reality in the Southern part of country that has been beset with armed hostilities, structural and cultural inequities, for decades.

The political initiatives again failed. Could it be that a religious solution should also be considered?

Veteran peace worker, David Smock, points out that “religion in many parts of the world is contributing to violent conflict, although exaggerated in many cases. This is well documented and broadly accepted. Usually disregarded, however, are opportunities to employ the assets of religious leaders and religious institutions to promote peace.” (Smock, 2006)

Smock, citing the conflicts in Israel/Palestine, Iraq, Macedonia, Nigeria, and Sudan, adds: “…traditional diplomacy has been particularly remiss in its neglect of the religious approach to peacemaking…religious approaches to peacemaking do not provide a panacea, but can complement secular peacemaking productively.” (Ibid.)

In Mindanao, time and again, conventions of traditional diplomacy have been used by the Philippine government and the MILF, in trying to stop the fighting between their forces, the killing of non-combatants, and the impeding of human and infrastructure development. What have been absent, especially from the forefronts, however, are initiatives that are led by religious luminaries from all sides that have their interests in the conflict.

While religion, has, at times, been one of the push buttons among the actors in Mindanao, it has yet to be used to help harmonize the stakeholders’ positions and needs. The core demand of the Moros is to reclaim their ancestral lands from a list of alleged grabbers such as multinational corporations and private citizens. (Martin, 2005; Majul, C., n.d.) With their ancestral land comes their heritage and with it comes their religion. Why then should measures for peace just dwell on the political side?

Based on an analysis of 27 Christian, Muslim, and multi-faith groups, researchers from the Netherlands Institute of International Relations Clingendael, observed that faith based organizations have provided emotional and spiritual support to war-affected communities and promoted reconciliation and that religion-based and secular peace building could be interrelated and complementary in certain settings. (Abu-Nimer, Bouta, and Kadayifei, 2005)

In their report, Faith-based Peace-building: Mapping and Analysis of Christian, Muslim, and Multi-Faith Actors, the authors note:

Religion ‘as a powerful constituent of cultural norms and values’ is deeply implicated in individual and social conceptions of peace, because it addresses some of the most profound existential issues of human life, such as freedom/inevitability, fear/security, right/wrong and sacred/profane. [Marc] Gopin remarks that it is probably true for all religions that religion has developed laws and ideas that provide civilization with cultural commitments to critical peace-related values, including empathy, an openness to and even love for strangers, the suppression of unbridled ego and acquisitiveness, human rights, unilateral gestures of forgiveness and humility, interpersonal repentance and the acceptance of responsibility of past errors as a means of reconciliation, and the drive for social justice.” (Ibid.)

Proofs of these are the researchers’ observations on the effects of the peace work of the individuals and groups they have studied, among which are: the change of behaviors/attitudes/negative stereotypes among the participants; healing of trauma and injuries, as well as re-humanizing the ‘other’; more effective dissemination of such ideas as democracy, human rights, justice, development, and peace-building; reaching out to governments, effecting policy changes; and disarmament, demilitarization, and reintegration. (Ibid.)

Given this particular evidence and the trust in the strength of interfaith dialogue in healing the wounds of rape, murder, graft, and corruption, how then could it be applied in the case of Mindanao?

The Institute of inter-faith dialog offers the fundamental “essential qualities” for inter-religious discussions to be effective – sincerity and humility. (2008) But the MOA between the Philippine government and the MILF has been apparently questioned because of constitutional concerns and the state has started backing out from upholding it. The situation was further compounded when President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo had initially broached the idea of changing the country’s charter just to push through with the deal (Various groups have criticized her administration for planning the suggest charter change all along, while negotiating with the MILF).

It is then quite logical to say that the peace talks among the representatives of the Philippine government, the MILF, and their partners, could have had more positive results if their positions were based on these essentials. After all, the creative transformation of violence between cultures and civilizations starts in the roots of trust, empathy, and openness. (Galtung, as cited by Villanueva, 2007)

And while sustainable peace, characterized by the examples above, is widely-accepted as a very long-term end for its students and workers, there are also existing facts that could boost optimism on the positive promise of interfaith discussions, particularly in Mindanao even if they do not immediately bring peace there.

In its special report entitled, What Works? Evaluating Interfaith Dialogue Programs, the United States Institute of Peace (2004), cites the case of religious leaders who met in Egypt in 2002 with the hope of helping bring about calm in the Middle East.

Though “peace, of course, has yet to come to the region…the interfaith effort succeeded in developing high-level relationships that continue to yield positive results.” As a result of what has been known as the Alexandria Agreement, “…violence was averted because of a relationship that developed during the process between a Hebron Muslim leader and the well-known Israeli Rabbi, Michael Melchior.” (Ibid.)

The report shares:

Local anger, never far below the surface in Hebron, was aroused when Jewish schoolboys posted anti-Muslim drawings around a neighborhood. Local Imams organized in response to the provocation and were preparing inflammatory sermons for Friday services. However, because of a personal relationship developed through the Alexandria process, the Mufti of Hebron called Melchior to try and prevent the violence. Melchior saw an impending crisis, and took his concerns straight to the top of the political structure. In response, the Israeli Prime Minister publicly disavowed the schoolboys’ actions. But because he was secular and political, he was not trusted, and preparations in Hebron continued unabated. So Melchior contacted Israeli Chief Rabbi Eliyahu Bakshi-Doron who traveled to Hebron—an important gesture of honor—and met with the Mufti. Bakshi-Doron personally assured the Mufti that not only were the boys’ actions not in accordance with Judaism, but the disrespect they displayed constituted a particular category of sin, a shameful act (chilul hashem). This action and explanation satisfied the Mufti, and for that moment, at least, the anger abated and no violence ensued. Thus, even if interfaith dialogue does not lead directly to peace, it can often have positive effects.” (Ibid.)

Could interfaith dialogue help foster disarmament, livelihood initiatives, and, in the process, peace, in Mindanao, then? The object of the faith could answer that.

References

• Abu-Nimer, M., Bouta, T., and Kadayifei-Orellana, S. (2005) Faith-based Peace-building: Mapping and Analysis of Christian, Muslim, and Multi-Faith Actors. http://www.clingendael.nl/publications/2005/20051100_cru_paper_faith-based%20peace-building.pdf (November 1005)

• Majul, C., (n.d.). The Political and Religious History of the Bangsamoro People. (mnlf.net, 2007). http://mnlf.net/History.htm.

• Martin, E. (2005). U.S. Interests in the Philippines Peace Process. (usip.org). http://www.usip.org/philippines/reports/mindanao_martin.html. (February 8, 2005)

• Martin, G.E., and Tuminez, A.S., Toward Peace in the Southern Philippines: A Summary and Assessment of the USIP Philippine Facilitation Project, 2003–2007.

• OIC-GRP-MNLF Tripartite Meeting Concludes by Agreeing to Form a Framework for Implementing the 1996 Peace Agreement (mnlf.net). http://mnlf.net/OIC/1st%20Tripartite%20Jeddah,%20Conclusion.htm. (November 11, 2007)

• Smock, D. (2006). Religious Contributions to Peacemaking: When Religion Brings Peace, Not War. (usip.org). http://www.usip.org/pubs/peaceworks/pwks55.html. (January 2006).

• The Necessity of Dialogue. (Quoted from: Fountain, A Magazine of Critical, Scientific, and Spiritual Thought, Number 27, July-September 1999, p.21.). (interfaithdialog.org,). http://interfaithdialog.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=123&Itemid=27

• Villanueva, C. (2007) Conflict Transformation presentation, University of St. La Salle). (August 18, 2007)

• What Works? Evaluating Interfaith Dialogue Programs. (usip.org). http://www.usip.org/pubs/specialreports/sr123.pdf. (July 2004)

(Originally submitted as a final paper for the course, Philosophical and Religious Perspectives as part of the requirements for the Master of Arts in Conflict and Reconciliation Studies at the University of St. La Salle-Bacolod, Philippines on April 9, 2008)

I busy about the kitchen making the weekend's food (nothing fancy). Also the week's bread (part one: lasts till Weds or Ths). Sometimes I make ice-cream too (if I make ice-cream, A makes a huge pavlova with the egg whites :D ). In between times I noodle --- uh, practice --- on the piano.

Both afternoons B & I went out on our bikes. A full circuit is still a bit far for him, so we tootle about for a while merrily till he's tired, he goes in and I go for a sprint. I really should remember to myself how much I enjoy cycling.

Such a thin line divides the friendly kiss and cuddle from the sexy version of same. Sat afternoon at my post in front of the cooker A & I dallied around this line. She gave a quick, "M." and we sank across the line comfortably, I lipped her ear. B came bounding down the stairs and we smoothed back across it, just in time for him to join us.

Sunday I seemed to be in a very good mood right from waking up. I was all over A all day: she had to tell me to put her down several times. Cuddling in the back garden I felt her breast weigh against my arm. I wanted to say, "Let's do it here and now among all the grass-cuttings, the branches and the compost." That would beg too many questions to which we both know the answer.

I'm not home yet but the journey is easing.

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Dispatches Program 2008 Report. A continuing report on extremism in UK Mosques building on the 2007 report.

To watch and post discussion or debate: Undercover Mosque - The Return

Or, visit: Islamfactor.org

More on the food theme in a moment but first I should mention Udaipur, the lovely lake city that we visited the day we left Mt Abu. The place has a somewhat unimpressive palace sitting in the middle of a weedy lake, but was amazingly laid-back despite the fact that it's so close to the Delhi-Agra-Jaipur tourist circuit. I get annoyed when I see too many honkeys around, but Udaipur made up for it with really lovely, helpful locals and a pretty promenades and markets. I was on cook duty there, and made a trip with the help of a cool tuk-tuk driver down to the butcher's market to get some mutton for BBQ. "Mutton," it turns out, is actually goat in India - and tough goat at that - but the whole experience more than made up for the subpar dinner.

From Udaipur it took us two hard, dusty days to get to Mumbai. We rolled into the city as we usually do, covered in filth and blaring party music. The locals were flabergasted, and the police stopped us just to take pictures. We found the Salvation Army hostel (a great deal in the heart of Colaba), dropped our bags, and started eating. Our fellow HotRocker, Dave, had been planning a culinary tour of Mumbai for weeks, and the city's restaurants did not disappoint. Mumbai is very pricey - practically at Western cost - but our splurging was well worth it. We even managed to squeeze in a fancy night out, complete with a long overdue dance party. I was sad to leave after just two days, and am looking forward to coming back in the distant future with a pocket full of cash.

Two more days of slightly less filthy, less exhausting transit followed. Again, we slept in the parking lot of a roadhouse. But again, too, our torment was rewarded, this time with a couple of really lovely days on the beach in Goa. We've had good weather despite the tapering monsoon, but the party capital of India has been pretty much empty. Evidently, things have calmed down quite a bit here over the past couple of years, with the authorities putting the party scene on ice. But it's still crawling with weird Euro-hippies, the detritus of the post-rave fallout. The beaches are pretty, but not stunning, which makes me wonder how this place became THE Third World party destination at all.

Some hilarious things have happened, but I'll save my stories for a later post. Right now I have to go and organize a sound system for the inpromptu beach party that we're throwing tonight. Keep your fingers crossed that I don't get arrested, or have to bribe the cops AGAIN.

~br

Friday Night

I was awake from 4am, up at 4:30 for a while, back to bed around 5. Turned out A was awake. We lay there tensely, silent for a while. I thought, "I can either lie here getting tenser and tenser or I can do something."

I asked quietly, "Can I snug up?"

"Rub my shoulder," she replied (A has a dodgy shoulder since crashing her motorbike many years ago).

So I started massaging her shoulder and neck, spreading out to her arms and back. I started to kiss her --- a kiss-massage. I snugged up to her, stroked her bottom, wrapped my arms round her, all this.

I could feel A relax into it, and hear her breath lengthen and soften. But she didn't reciprocate. Eventually I wonder if she's fallen asleep. I think she has. I lie behind her for a while, enjoying being next to her body, then peel off and try to go to sleep myself.

Saturday Morning

We awake more or less together in the morning, quite late. B & the others are already moving about. A seems in a good mood. She smiles and purrs, "Mmm, kiss me lots."

I move over and kiss her lips. Spiralling out I kiss all round her face, along the line of her jaw, her neck, and down to her breasts. My hands caress down her shoulders arms and back. I pull her to me so I can reach her bottom. All this time she is kissing me back, "I think you got me going last night," she says.

We are both securely encased in our pyjamas. I think it's her Time Of The Month, so she's securely encased in an extra layer. There are noises off.

I have untucked her pyjama top and have got in to her real actual breasts. My cock has pinged out and is pressing into her down below. I make my thumb hard and clumsily scratch and jab her buttocks and thighs (I think she likes this sometimes --- contrasts with my usual very fine and careful touching). She is moaning luxuriously, breath fluttering, her skin very pink.

This is all it takes. I haven't rushed. But this was a bonus --- completely unplanned --- I hadn't thought at all about dragging it out for long enough. Now I can tell she's heading into that pre-orgasm territory. A is quite capable of having an orgasm just by being touched around her breasts and the base of her spine (touched by me that is, I dunno what she needs from other people). But as I saw she was coming in, I started to touch her down below, through the layers of clothing --- gently at first, then matching her growing urgency. "Yes," I told her how beautiful she is, encouraged her.

And then the shudders of orgasm ripped through her. I held her tight and kissed her, stroked her with my free hand (one still locked between her thighs).

A pause. She said some nice things to me; then, "Oh! My headache is worse than ever!" Up scrambling for painkillers, closing the situation. And now she's talking about the business of the day ahead.

Discussion

I don't think A's lack of reciprocation (in either of these sessions) is significant: both sessions were explicity about my doing things to her.

The significant point is that in the morning, A asked me, invited me, impromptu and unplanned. She felt comfortable and safe enough. She must have known I would go for it. I think all that is very important and it shows me that, even though "nothing has happened" over the summer, I have been making progress repositioning myself and building trust.

It's the first time anything has happened in the morning, or anything impromptu at all, for years.

How the banks never lose ends in the CEOs of the five big banks all refusing to be interviewed on camera...

The questions are: do the banks care? Can they afford not to care? We'll see what the Treasury's Committee on Banking Reform will propose...

Trains are a lovely way to see India. Maybe they're great everywhere; I wouldn't know. In the West trains are quite expensive, so much so that driving or taking an airplane has always made better financial sense to me. In India, though, you can get from one end of the country to the other, traveling on the order of 1000 miles, for under $100. No special deals are required, and you can get tickets on very short notice. The more comfortable cars (so-called "3AC" and "2AC," both air conditioned, the latter having 2-tiered bunks, etc.) are filled with middle-class families, business men, students, and the rest of progressive Indian society. There's no livestock. You can certainly choose to travel in the people-with-livestock class, but this is generally only undertaken by the exceptionally tight-assed, poor, or masochistic. But I digress. The point is that trains are India's great travel bargain, and that they are a really nice reprieve from the touts, beggars, blowing dust, and other stressors of Indian travel.

The Rajdhani Express has been speeding north for more than 15 hours already, and we have at least 20 more to go until we transfer to a bus in New Delhi. No one is looking forward to returning to Delhi, even for a couple of hours. Last time we were there we'd just come down from a beautiful Himalayan valley and we all immediately got sick. Thereafter, Delhi became synonymous with vomit-inducing filth, open sewers, and tainted food. Now we're looking at just a few-hour layover there, but even that seems unbearable. What's even more daunting is that, after our short stint in Rishikesh, we'll be back in Delhi for a full week so we can suss out our Chinese visas. Wonk.

I'm also a little reticent to leave southern India. The cities here - Mumbai, Hyderabad, and Bangalore all got visits - seem metropolitan, even cosmopolitan, in a way that much of the north did not. By no means have they shaken off the craziness that makes a city an Indian city, but those in the south manage it with a certain panache that allowed me to joyfully overlook some of the typical annoyances that a tourist finds on the Indian street. Even little things like colorful homes, colonial architecture, or tree-lined avenues made the south seem that much more livable. Given the growth in the tech industry in Bangalore, I would even consider coming back for a much longer stay.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Backing up to where we left off last time, we finished off our stay in Goa with a party, as I am sure you've figured out. This was the perfect end to four days of tearing ass around the beach towns on our scooters and watching sunsets on the Arabian Sea. The only real snafu for the dude organizing the party, me, was that it was kinda against the law to do what we were proposing, which was basically to pound out sweet jams next to a bonfire on the beach all night and invite every honky in a 30 mile radius. This is precisely the kind of thing that recent government prohibitions aimed to stop, especially in the monsoon season, and I found it extremely difficult to find any locals who wanted to turn subversive. But the bottom line was that we needed 1) a place and 2) and sound system, and only the locals could provide. In the end, we got both from the place we got everything else we needed in Goa: the "gangsters" who ran our hotel. Whether or not they were actually some kind of organized criminals is open to speculation. All we know is that the headman, John, owns some kind of restaurant, and that they were happy to take our money, seemed to have a lot of connections, could get just about anything, and didn't actually do much other than play cards. But then that was the way that Goa seemed to operate across the boards.

This given, though, I didn't really tell them what I was planning on doing. They had already agreed to provide us with a catered fish BBQ. I got them to bring along a PA systems so we could "play some music while we ate." Then I secretly went about printing up a bunch of fliers, which the whole lot of us spent the day passing out on our scooters. In the end, a handful of people showed up to join us and we had a fresh dance party that ran until the wee hours. The gangsters protested on several occasions and eventually tried to extort us for their support in the inevitable raid by the police (which never came), but the ladies of HotRock were extremely persuasive and the headman accepted a rum-and-coke and some time at the mic instead of hard cash. He was actually a pretty good rapper.

But what about the climbing? I'll cover the topic more thoroughly in a future post, but the punchline is basically that Badami has great sport climbing on miles of underdeveloped sandstone but can be a little repetitive, and that Hampi is very relaxed but not worth your time unless you're bouldering V7 and have fingertips of steel. We spent 6 days in each spot, and I think everyone felt much more productive in Badami. But then, no one on the trip is pulling exceptionally hard at the moment. Even those few that are bouldering within sight of V7 didn't find Hampi to be the nirvana that Sharma's Pilgrimage suggests. We actually took the time to watch the film one night in the Laughing Buddha Cafe and found Sharma echoing some of our sentiments: that Hampi really forces to you go out and look for lines to work, that it requires a significant investment of time to yield rewards. All of this would have been fine if we hadn't come down from Chhattru Valley just a month beforehand, where almost every boulder had a great, accessible line (or ten) on it. Again, see my other post for a more comprehensive treatment.

Let me just say that it is really nice to be able to sit on the train and write without having worry about how many Rupees it's going to cost me. To recap, just so it's all clear: party in Goa, drove to Badami, nearly drowned, climbed sandstone for 5 or 6 days, drove to Hampi, suffered on granite boulders, drove to Ramanagar (outside of Bangalore), went into the city for my birthday, bought a laptop, ate Domino's, climbed some, got on the Rajdhani Express. Got it?

~br