Wanderlust (A traveler's memoir) Part 1

The unending undulating landscape


15th April 2010,
"It always feels good to talk to people. I like doing that," says Gopal Sharma. He is one of the shopkeepers outside the temple built in honor of 'Ramdev' (not the quasi guru, a celebrated deity). This is at Ramdeora, a tiny albeit a bustling one street hamlet surrounded amidst the sandy dunes of Rajasthan.

I am not supposed to be here i.e. 12 kms away from Pokhran. I am not even supposed to be in Pokhran which itself is 110 kms from Jaisalmer where my bags are dumped. Yet the call of a place which shot to fame as a center of India's nuclear tests and the mystic desert landscape is far too strong. Thus, here I am, after making the journey first by a bus with a rather unpleasant horn consisting of choicest Bollywood 'hits' (sample: Dhoom, Kajra re) blown rather liberally and for no apparent reason by the driver. Then by sharing the good ol' Mahindra jeep so ubiquitous in these parts meant for ferrying 11 humans at the maximum yet stuffed with 20 of us at my last count. For the past 45 minutes, I have struck up a conversation with this shopkeeper selling memorabilia to the devotees to remember their revered deity, discussing topics as varied from effects of the nuclear explosion on the village, to its exact location, to my origins and then to the the story behind this revered temple among many others.
He was kind enough to offer me tea and here I was sharing tea with a person, hundreds of kms away from Bombay, 120 kms away from the city I was supposed to be in, with a rank stranger in a nondescript town, exchanging stories. These were the kind of experiences I was seeking when I set out all alone to discover the desert landscape in the searing summer heat.

The past 2 days in Jaisalmer have been a fabulous experience. Striking up conversation with a fellow traveler, an American backpacker in the train, touring because her assignment of teaching English in Thailand was cut short due to widespread political strife there who seemed to love India but added in the same breath how 'weird' she found Indian men. Meeting this 'illiterate' person who put me to shame with his knowledge about the city, its history, geology and fossils to learning Telegu from a friendly Hydrabadi, Balu (who pronounced his name as Bauloo), have been some of the other memorable encounters. It has indeed been different from my erstwhile adventures as a 'tourist.'

Jaisalmer, standing on the fringes of the Great Indian Thar desert, rising above the landscape with its golden stoned buildings, with intricately sculpted designs and beautifully detailed and rich carvings, spectacular jharokhas and jaalis in temples like Lodurva, Amar Sagar and in its varied Havelis like the extremely gorgeous Patwon ki Haveli and the Nathumal Haveli, has been a perfect mirage. A mirage because in spite of its outstanding beauty and uniqueness in being the only city with people still settled inside the fort, the civic administration is in jeopardy.
Water is a persistent problem, civic planning resembling most Indian cities is absent and the entire economy is totally dependent on tourism. It needs diversification as it might be reaching its saturation point.
Still, nothing takes away from the rustic beauty of the city. The small cobbled paths inside the fort lined up with houses, handicrafts shops and restaurants selling genuine 'ItaliYan' cuisine. The Golden City, as it is known has a fort atop a hill, la Mehrangarh in Jodhpur albeit on a smaller scale but imposing and spectacular nonetheless. The yellow fort has ensconced within its imposing folds, a world adapted to suit the the foreigners frequenting this sleepy town. Internet cafes, restaurants with western cuisines (with an Indian twist, sample 'Chenese'), ports for digital cameras, travel offices, all point out to the pertinence of tourism to the survival of the local economy. In spite of the grandeur around me, the memorable moments have been the quieter times, spent by myself, alone. Having dinner from a jain Dhaba on a quiet deserted street at night with cows gazing, rather bored (i suspect due to the unappetizing tepid Jain food), talking to my ever smiling rest house caretaker, Ganga Ram. Struggling with a room, which does not lock nor latch properly, observing rural inhabitants in the full glory of their quaint lifestyle, dressed colorfully in turbans and ornaments, travelling in a jeep with 20 people with one leg outside the back door, observing large swathes of yellow sands with scrubs, noticing the sun set with all its bedazzling finery surrounded by the sand dunes reflecting the golden hues of the setting sun.

Experiences have been varied, numerous and profound. I am discovering my home state and probably myself as this trip continues. As of now, I need to figure out a way to get back. Time for another adventure...

India and Russia- Ties that still bind

It would take sheer ingenuity on part of a person to venture into finding similarities between the cities of Raipur and Moscow. What could possibly link these two disparate lands? Boasting of different languages, different demography and geography, relative importance in political circles of the country, they are possibly as different as chalk and cheese. However, the past month, they have been witness to two farcical trials, where verdicts delivered by kangaroo courts held to hostage the very ideals of freedom which the nations of India and Russia claim to practice and promote.



The first case being refereed to is the one of Binayak Sen who was charged with sedition against the Indian State under the draconian Public Security Act by the Raipur district court and sentenced to a life term. The other is the conviction of Mikhail Khodorkovsky in Moscow on charges of fresh embezzlement and fraud, in spite of his conviction on similar charges in 2003. Despite stark differences in their personal characters, Binayak Sen was a respected human rights activist whereas Mikhail Khodorkovsky was a billionaire oligarch having major stakes in Russian Economy (legal and illegal), today they stand on the cusp of being coroneted as symbols of victimization for human rights activists in both the countries.

The trials show a systematic subversion of doctrine of justice by the state in collusion with the judiciary. It raises serious questions about the nature of freedom these two rapidly growing nations postulate and guarantee their citizens. Not many consider Russia a serious democracy. Mr. Vladimir Putin has been the cornerstone of Russian politics since the turn of the millennium and shows no sign of giving up his grip on power. After the USSR crumbled, there was hope of a democratic change. However, Russia has been reduced to a land of extreme corruption where cohorts of those in power, patronized by the wealthy oligarchs call the shots. In such a scenario, many human rights activists claim that Mr. Khodorkovsky real crime was to have posed a threat to Vladimir Putin, by acting as an independent property-owner rather than a servile manager of Russia's natural resources, and by funding opposition parties and using his influence to lobby against Mr. Putin's aim of building an oil-fuelled authoritarian regime. Thus in spite of many Russians reviling him for his behavior during the turbulent decade of 1990’s, today, ironically he stands defeated by the same system he once perpetuated. Mr. Binayak Sen on the other hand was pediatrician and a highly respected human rights activist who served as the Vice President of People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL). He was charged on the filmiest of circumstantial evidence as being a courier for a Maoist leader Narayan Sanyal and after a Kafkaesque trial, he has been pronounced guilty. This travesty of justices, say human rights activists, has been motivated by Dr. Sen’s constant stand against Salwa Judum, the state sponsored civil militia meant to fight the naxals (seen as largely responsible for grave human rights abuses across the tribal areas) and his constant support to the adivasis and opposition to the military approach used by the Indian Government to tackle the ‘problem’ of Naxalism. Last heard, both Mr. Khodorkovsky and Dr. Sen were filing an appeal to higher courts.

Recent trip by the President of United States of America would have made many believe in the future of ‘Indo-US friendship,’ and similarities between the ‘glorious democracies’ of these two nations. However such politically motivated convictions, a cabal of oligarchs and funded politicians calling the shots (Nira Radia tapes prove that in ample measure), chronic corruption marked by inequalities of wealth, scant respect for human rights are all indicators of the fact that India might just have a lot more in common with political systems prevalent in Russia than it ever imagined.