February 2, 1999, Tuesday, sunny,
6-20C
[11:36 @ Jungle Lodge]
While
waiting for the Tata Sumo to be loaded, which is to carry Pradeep, Craig and me
to Nagpur for the flight to Delhi, I joined Faiyaz, Chris and Anne for chai.
Raminothna
had in mind to give them a parting shot.
“Is
this jeep alive, dead or non-living?”
“Conventional
wisdom would say that it is nonliving,” answered Faiyaz.
“Watch
out. Anthony is saying that the jeep is
alive,” said Chris. “Don’t say I didn’t
warn you.”
“I’ll
bend conventional wisdom as far as agreeing that the jeep, by some convoluted
logic, is a natural object, but not that it’s alive,” said Anne. “So it needs to ingest fuel and exhales CO2,
it can move and react to road hazards, if there is a driver, but it does not
grow and it certainly does not reproduce, and it will not evolve, even if it
sits here rusting for a thousand years.”
“Faiyaz,
perhaps you can help us,” Raminothna said. “How would you compare the total mass of
road vehicles in India today than that a century ago?”
“Much
greater today than a century ago, obviously.”
“How
about the total number of road vehicles?”
“Obviously
many times more today than back then.”
“And
how would you compare the technology and styling of a road vehicle in India
today compared to those of a road vehicle 100 years ago?”
“Technologically,
much more sophisticated. Styling-wise,
almost unrecognizable.”
“Voila,
we have growth, reproduction and evolution,” said Chris.
“Still, a jeep is not an organism unto
itself, but it is an integral part of an organism called India. No shell, no crab, remember?”
“Raminothna
can breath life into the dead,” said Anne.
“Even
into the nonliving,” said Chris.
“Even
into me,” I said
[01:07 (1999-02-03) @ the B57 Inn in
Delhi, next door to Pradeep’s Delhi residence]
Arrived
in Delhi about an hour ago, after a 6 hour jeep ride from Kanha to Nagpur
(about 12:00-18:00), and a 1.5 hour plane ride from Nagpur to Delhi
(22:30-24:00). Nagpur is another Indian
city looking ten times worse than Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside at the tail end
of a long garbage strike. It’s hard to
imagine it. You’ve got to see it to
appreciate what I’m saying. On the
streets are people aplenty, especially the wealthier women, who are immaculate
dressers, but the streets are filled with garbage of all kinds, mostly small
bits and pieces of disintegrating plastic bags and dark brown or black
undecipherable refuse about a century old in small piles everywhere. This means to me that other than an
incompetent government, the people have little or no social conscience, at
least where public cleanliness or even hygiene is concerned, unless the garbage
is such a ubiquitous part of their day-to-day landscape into which they were
born that it doesn’t even register on their mental radar, which is hard for us
fastidious North Americans to understand, much less accept.
The
drive from Kanha to Nagpur, with our jeep constantly passing lumbering trucks
against heavy oncoming traffic on a narrow and bumpy highway, was not exactly
relaxing, to put it mildly. This
combined with the road condition, vehicle condition, and the total lack of
road-line and signage guidance (e.g. solid-line equals no passing, signs
warning of blind corner or sharp turn ahead) on a road with many unexpected
hazards, is downright bloody dangerous.
On the other hand, if you don’t drive like that, you’d be sandwiched
between diesel trucks, sucking fume and eating dust.
Reminders
of this danger lie along the highway every so often, mostly in the form of
smashed or overturned trucks and cars along the highway. In a previous highway trip, we came across a
two-vehicle accident, where one of the drivers and his co-driver were dragged
out of their vehicle, by their hair, and roughed up, more like lynched, by the
other driver and some of the spectators.
Still, Craig Sholly made a good travel companion.
But
Pradeep is really getting on my nerve.
He can be very charming and likable, but right now, I’m finding him more
and more insufferable, and am having a tough time trying to contain my feelings
about him in his presence. Other than
to preserve harmony, I’m trying to see how far he would go. But there is a limit, and he is getting
pretty damn close to it.
While
Pradeep was gassing up at a town, once again seeing cows all over the place, I
said to Craig, “Cattle overpopulation is a harder problem to solve than even
deforestation. Frankly, I have no
solution.”
Craig
said, “I have one.”
“Oh
yeah? Pray tell.”
“The
Kalashnikov.”
“The
AK-47? I don’t know about you, Craig,
but I can’t afford 500 million bullets,” I said.
Half
way in the trip, we had to stop at a town to fix a flat tire. As usual in a town, the jeep was instantly
surrounded by dozens of people, young and old, with their faces stuck to the
car windows. Makes you feel like caged
animals in a zoo. I extricated myself
and went for a walk down the street, drawing half the crowd with me, and not a
moment too soon. About a block away, I
found a couple of boys in the process of stoning a white puppy to death, and no
one was intervening. I violated Captain
Kirk’s order about non-interference with the natives. The pup just had time to limp away around the corner, whining
pitiably. I gave the boys a short yet
stern lecture in English. They just
stared at me, still with a rock in each hand.
While
waiting in Nagpur to board the 22:30 plane, Pradeep took us into a lavish hotel
for an array of appetizers, during which someone came behind me and said, in a
British accent, “Are you Anthony Marr by any chance?”
“Yes.” I turned around and saw a middle-aged Indian
Man.
“I
am Arun Patel, of Essex, UK. I saw you
on a tiger program on TV awhile back.
It was that program that got me interested in coming to Kanha National
Park, where we just spent the last week.”
The second time this very thing was said in a week.
About
half an hour later, I was at the hotel’s counter cashing a traveler’s cheque,
when Arun again approached me from behind.
“Anthony,” he said, “this is my cousin Shirish Patel. He is a doctor living in New York. He would like to know how he can help you
save the tiger.”
I
asked for their addresses and numbers, and said that I would be in touch after
I return to Vancouver.
The
bill for the snack was, by Indian standards, exorbitant. Pradeep footed it without blinking an
eye. The amount was about half of the
monthly salary he pays Faiyaz.
I
woke up in the middle of the night last night and had a brainstorm re. a
communal parabolic mirror fryer that costs less than $10 to build. All I need is one of those 8’x4’ thin and
flexible polished steel sheets, three large sheets of plywood to cut into
parabolic templates, an 8”X6” dark metal plate to serve as hot plate, and two
supports for the hot plate on either end.
All we have to do is to press the metal sheet into the parabolic
templates which are placed on the ground, line up the long axes of the mirror
and the hot plate to the sun, and cook away – chapati frying, rice cooking,
sauces, soup, you name it. When done,
all we have to do is to take the mirror out from the templates and roll it up,
tie the three templates together and off we go.
The
driver of the jeep, after dropping us off in Nagpur, went to purchase three
8’X4’ steel sheets, two to be cut into the four 4’X4’ reflectors for the
communal solar oven, and one to be the parabolic reflector for the fryer. Can’t wait for the trial demo.
Chris
left me 6 e-mails to send out, and Anne 1, plus a request to have Manoj take
care of booking a hotel room for her in June in Shimla.
I’m
going to be fairly busy in Delhi, though only about half as busy as I would
have wanted myself to be. I have to
write my share of WCWC’s 98/99 members’ report, the letter to WCWC to update
progress, and of course the nearly daily presentations:
99/02/03 Motibagh School Delhi
99/02/04 Colonel Satsanghi Kiran Memorial School Delhi
99/02/05 Sri Ram Public School Delhi
99/02/06 Rotary Club at Taj Mann Singh Delhi
99/02/07-09 Jaipur
99/02/10 Springdales Delhi
99/02/11 College of Vocational Studies Delhi
99/02/14 Save-The-Tiger Walk Delhi
Being
back in Delhi brought back an old resentment, which is exacerbated by something
Pradeep said in the car from the airport.
He told me that tomorrow’s slideshow presentation will be given by
Sucheta, because the school booked is not an English speaking school. He said that English speaking schools
receive such presentations all the time and its no big deal to them, but Hindi
speaking schools will give us much more meaningful receptions. Again, I have to question their motive and
action. First off, he wasn’t at the
Ahlcon Public School presentation, which give us a HUGE reception. Second, while I’m here, it should be English
speaking schools. If he wants to go to
Hindi speaking schools, fine, but do it when I’m gone. I don’t know how many schools in total (at
least two) Sucheta gave presentations after she has shooed me out to Kanha, and
how much media have attended these presentations, but I’m going to find
out. So far, the more I find out, the
more I want to discontinue with Tiger Trust, or rather, not in name, but in
fact, Dynamic Tours.
Made
a phone call after midnight (about 11:00 a.m. Vancouver time) to my
parents. Mother was thrilled to hear
from me, but said that father has the flu.
Being
again submerged in the polluted, chaotic and noisy Delhi street traffic, one
cannot possibly ignore the quirks of Delhi’s transportation system. A large part of Delhi’s traffic noise is
that everybody seem to be driving with one hand constantly on the horn. Pradeep explained, “In Vancouver, honking
you horn is usually an auditory one-finger-salute, but here in Delhi, it just
means ‘I’m here.’” In the unregulated
street traffic, maybe horn blasting is not only helpful to prevent accidents
but needed. Not having developed my
“road ears” in the orderly Vancouver traffic, I have no doubt that I would be
more accident prone than those brought up in Delhi traffic. I love to drive, but in Delhi, no
thanks.