Maureen Dowd writes in an Op-Ed in the New York Times that Obama and his messianic followers need to lighten up and have a sense of humor about things. The recent furor, as I am sure you have heard, is about the cover cartoon of the latest issue of New Yorker magazine that depicts our man as an Osama look alike and Michelle Obama as an AK-47 wielding terrorist. Even John McCain was forced to decry the cartoon in the name of political civility.

I really hope that we don’t end up having an unfunny president as Dowd fears. We need to keep feeding the genius of the likes of Letterman, Leno, and Stewart and who better to feed them than our leaders? We can only take so much of the Brits and the Lindseys. The nation is depressed as it is. We need more humor to survive through these tough times in the economy and not complain over mere cartoons. What are we, turning into The Netherlands or something? (No offense, reneejo.)

http://myinjimanga.blogspot.com/2008/06/stealing-threat-cyber-stalking-abuse.html

The funniest thing is that these same buffoons run a matrimonial site. With such a criminal mindset among its highest executives (the Shiva guy quoted extensively in the link above is their director of operations), who can bet against matrimonial pictures being used on their porn sites? I’m sure these guys have some director of Photoshop operations as well. Methinks this is a promotion just waiting for some sharp cyber-crime sleuth. Tourism, misogyny, matrimony, and porn - all in a day’s work for the fine people at Kerals.com. Buyer beware.

“You know it might be just this one anonymous glory of all things, this rich stone forest, this epic chant, this gaiety, this grand choiring shout of affirmation, which we choose when all our cities are dust; to stand intact, to mark where we have been, to testify to what we had it in us to accomplish.”

The quote is Orson Welles talking about the cathedral at Chartres, and it’s from the movie “F for Fake” but it could just as easily have been about the topic of this post. Borobudur - a tapestry of stone, a rich stone forest, an epic chant. I’d read about Borobudur in history textbooks, as the lesser known sibling of Angkor Wat, and I’d long had a desire to visit the temple and see for myself if it matched up to its formidable reputation. Earlier this year, an anthropologist friend researching urban planning in the nearby Javan city of Jogjakarta urged me to visit, and I did not need to be asked twice.

Borobudur is located about an hour away from the city of Jogjakarta in East Java, brooding over the surrounding paddy fields. It is rather too close for comfort to the active volcano Gunung Merapi, and the latter has over the years been a constant concern for the safety of the temple. However, Borobudur has survived not only the vagaries of Merapi’s explosions and numerous earthquakes, but even human attempts to destroy it. It still stands largely intact, a testament to the endurance of faith.

My visit to Borobudur started from the Jalan Dagen, in the steaming heart of Jogja at the unholy hour of 4 in the morning. Borobudur is best viewed in the early morning light (more on that later) and so tour buses that ply from Jogja start before dawn. Even at that hour, Jogja hums with activity. The city has several markets which start at 2 or 3 in the morning, and most of the markets close down at around 4 in the afternoon. It is definitely an early bird’s delight. Not so much for me. In any case, even at this early hour, we passed several marketplaces humming with activity and the traffic was quite dense. Outside the city, lush paddies came into view and the traffic thinned out. As the sun came up over the horizon, we got a clear view of Gunung Merapi with its long plume of smoke. It is (incredibly) still possible to hike all the way to the summit, though the guidebook advises extreme caution. I’m not sure what precisely being cautious means if the volcano decides to erupt just when you get to the summit, but at any rate, I did not find out on this trip.

I got to Borobudur as dawn was breaking. The first sight of the temple is awe-inspiring. In the soft dawn light, the intricate carvings of the lower layers reveal their nuanced beauty. The early morning dew keeps the stone moist, and the lines and curves of the murals are enhanced. Later as the sun comes up, the heat dries out the stone, and the harsh light hides some of the finer lines, except in those areas that are still in the cooler shade. Also, the crowds swell as the day progresses, but the temple is so vast that except for the very top story, one can always find a place to be alone.

The pilgrim’s path takes him in a clockwise direction from one level of the temple to the next. The size of the temple can be ascertained from the fact that the length of the complete circumambulation is about 5 km (over 3 miles). The various levels of the temple correspond to the stages of a pilgrim’s spiritual development - the base of the temple is called Kamadhatu or the world of desires, the lower levels are called Rupadhatu and correspond to the world of forms (or the intellect, if you will) and the very upper levels are called Arupadhatu or the world of no form. The Rupadhatu stories are richly adorned with murals and sculptures depicting the life of the Buddha, but at the very highest levels, there are only plain stupas. Of course, one can always go the Art Buchwald route and run straight up to the top, thereby attaining enlightenment without the hassle of intellectual rigor. In my case, 3 miles were clearly too little and I ended up at the highest stupa elated, light-headed, and a little short of breath, but well short of enlightenment.

Even the greatest temple can only take you thus far. The rest is faith.

On my first day in the Indonesian city of Jogjakarta, my friend, anthropologist and all round Matahari, Sheri, handed me a map of the city with illustrations showing the various points of interest. My eye was immediately drawn to a little picture of a birdcage in the bottom left corner, right next to the famous Kraton - the palace of the Javanese sultan. It said Pasar Burung which means ‘bird market’. “It’s a market”, Sheri deadpanned, “for birds.”

I’m a sucker for markets. Some of my best times have been spent in the teeming bowels of some native marketplace. Long ago, when I used to work in Delhi, I would scarcely glance at the ramparts of the Red Fort on my way to the old city bazaar, where I spent many a happy hour gorging on kebabs, lingering in motorcycle repair shops and browsing used bookstores. Bazaar over cathedral any day; twice on market day. More recently, a meal of roast pig and boiled corn from the marketplace at Otavalo will linger long in my memory. Small wonder then, that as soon as I’d dumped my bags at the Lilik, I hotfooted it across town to the Pasar Burung.

When they named this place the bird market, they were not kidding. It’s a small market, but is packed wall to wall with birds and birdcages of a bewildering variety. Can you smell it yet? I was intrigued - my immediate thought was that owning birds must be huge in Java. I then noticed that almost every house and shop had a caged bird or two hung from the rafters over the porch. The market also has other small animals - cats, dogs, rabbits, ornamental fish and so on, but birds rule the roost, so to speak. After a few hours browsing through the market in the sweltering heat, I was ready for a drink and was drawn to the “Water Castle Cafe”, named after the nearby Tamansari or “Water Castle” where the sultan used to house his harem.

The cafe is run by Kompi, a painter and photographer of no mean talent, who also happened to be quite knowledgeable about Indian and Indonesian culture and mythology. India casts a long cultural shadow in these parts, and many of the traditions of Indonesia have their origins in India, but with indigenous modifications and interpretations - but that’s a whole different post. I asked Kompi about the birds, and he explained it thus.

In Java, a boy becomes a man when he obtains the following - a house, a horse, a kris (traditional sword), a wife, and birds. I could understand the first four. They are purely material needs. A wife for procreation, a house for shelter, a horse for transportation, and a kris for protecting them all. But why birds? Kompi’s answer was that the birds feed the spirit. They embody music and art, our hunger for the mystic and spiritual, our desire to transcend mere flesh. Caged as they are, their song reminds us of our yearning to be free.

When I left the cafe, the bird market glowed in an altogether different light.

American, Cutting Back, Plans $15 Pants Fee

Published: May 22, 2008
There’s an old saying about the best way to travel: bring half the clothes and twice the money.

Now may be the time to take that advice to heart and you had better not be Indian or Chinese.

American Airlines said Wednesday that it would soon start charging passengers for the clothes and shoes that they wear. $10 for cotton pants ($15 for Jeans) and $5 for Shirts ($7 for full-sleeved shirts). Additionally, American will charge $5 per shoe ($10 if they are hiking shoes) - if they are flying on a discounted fare. Asked why they charge per shoe and not for a pair of shoes, an American spokesperson said that as per the Americans with Disabilities Act, such pricing would be discriminatory.

The airline’s new policy — to take effect July15 — comes only weeks after many major carriers, including American, began charging $15 each way for checked baggage,

The new fee is just the latest example of airlines adding charges on top of rising airfares, even at the risk of angering travelers further, to make up for the billions of dollars they are losing as fuel prices soar. In an effort to reduce the weight and consequent fuel consumption, airlines continue to explore ways to reduce the weight and the clothes we wear are the latest target.

“It’s only going to get worse and worse,” said Laura Glading, president of the Association of Professional Flight Attendants, which represents employees at American. “Flight attendants are not trained to distinguish between running shoes and hiking shoes, and what if passengers decide not to wear any clothes so as not to pay the fee” said Glading?

American Airlines executives said they had little choice but to impose such fees, given that the price of jet fuel is up more than 80 percent from a year ago.

Airline industry losses could top $7.2 billion in 2008, Jamie Baker, an analyst with JPMorgan Chase, estimated this week. Airline shares were battered Wednesday, as oil surged to a record $133.17 a barrel. Stock in American’s parent company fell 24.2 percent, to $6.22 a share.

In another development, several airlines are considering charging Indians and Chinese an extra fee - because India and China are being blamed for soaring oil prices. The rise in global oil and food prices are being blamed on demand from India and China. Last week President Geroge W. Bush blamed the demand for food with higher nutrition among Indians as the reason for 9% inflation in food prices in the US.

In a surprising move American announced that for every snack purchased by a non-Indian and non-Chinese passenger, Indian and Chinese passengers on board will be assessed an extra fee.”We are looking for every opportunity to change our cost-structure and even President George Bush has said that food prices are rising because of increased demand in India and China, so it is only appropriate that we pass the price of food consumed by average Americans to the average Indian or Chinese.

“Our company and industry simply cannot afford to sit by hoping for industry and market conditions to improve,” American’s chief executive, Gerard J. Arpey, said Wednesday at a shareholder meeting.

To cut costs, the company also said Wednesday that it would eliminate toilet paper and running water from toilets. “The weight of toilet paper and water adds several hundred pounds to the gross weight of an airplane - this move is expected to save $5000 per year and increase share holder value” said Mr Arpey.

American is also considering charging access fees to toilets for discount fare passengers. Robert Harrell, an industry consultant, estimated that as many as 40 million American passengers could be subject to the new toilet access fee. American carries about 98 million travelers a year. With an average of 100 toilet access per flight, at $1 per toilet access this move could potentially net upwards of $40 million per year. “Each passenger will get a cup of water and 3 sheets of toilet paper and 5 minutes of access to the toilet” said Mr Arpey

Asked whether the Toilet paper charge will be arbitrarily passed on to fellow Indian and Chinese passengers, Mr Arpey said “No. We understand that they don’t use toilet paper in India and China, so we can’t charge them for that”

As the furor over the racial remarks by a pastor associated with Obama rages on, I am really curious about this. Obama is definitely the first half-black person to have a chance at becoming president but he’s not fully black. Maybe the Obamans in the audience can shed some light to this mystery.

Although it has been suggested that he was referring to brokerage accounts held with the firm and not its stock.

After:

Welcome to the future!

While it’s possible to use curry leaf powder as a substitute, it’s just not the same. Curry leaves are normally added in the beginning when cooking a veggie, chicken, or seafood dish. The splatter when they hit the oil, the crackling sound, and the aroma they release within a few seconds adds so much to the flavor and pleasure of cooking. I am going to miss them dearly.

Harrison Ford is 66 years old but might have a better chance at reviving an ancient franchise than Sylvester Stallone who tried to do the same recently with Rambo and Rocky without much success. To make sure the audience will include people other than AARP members, the filmmakers (both Spielberg and Lucas are back together) have wisely cast up-and-comer Shia LaBeouf (of “The Transformers” fame) and the great Cate Blanchett in supporting roles.

The trailer doesn’t reveal much and I am not sure the original theme music is contemporary enough but I’ll reserve further judgement until I see the actual movie.