I'm not doing such a good job keeping the blog updated with what I've been upto, so in the meantime I wanted to at least share "what India has been upto"...in pictures...which I didn't take.
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/09/scenes_from_india.html
I continue to find it difficult to comprehend (and even more difficult to articulate) the massive scale of this country but maybe after viewing the above link, my following observation can give you a sense: As the pictures show, in the past 2 months India has witnessed devastating floods; large scale religious violence/persectutions between Hindus, Christians and Muslims; huge regional festivals; bombings in 4 different cities; continued military conflict along the Kashmir/Pakistan border; the near removal of the Prime Minister and then allegations linking him to a money-for-votes scandal (which I'm guessing are bogus); over 3 months of riots regarding an overly politicized land dispute between a Hindu trust and an entire region's populous...and more.
But in reality, I would've had NO IDEA that any of these things were even happening if I hadn't been reading the news or watching television. I cannot think of a single way that my life or the life of anyone I know here has been directly affected by any of these events. Even though I'm in the 4th largest city in the country, there weren't any kinds of "security alerts" that I noticed, or any other local signs that milions of the 1.2 billion people in this country were in a great state of unrest.
A number of you have sent me emails to check, "Were you near those bombings?" or "Are you near the places where Christians are getting attacked?" and my typical response has been "Nope, that's all in the north -- I'm in the far south fortunately." With the exception of the bombings in Bangalore, and the devastating floods and murder of a Catholic priest in Andhra Pradesh (state just north of me), all of these events have occured very far north from where I live. I think it's just too hot for people to fight with each other here. Maybe not though.
In my next post I will say what I've actually been upto, but wanted to share these amazing photos with you in the meantime, and let you know I'm still alive...just an inept blogger.
All the Best,
Peter
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3 comments:
thanks for posting pete. LOVE the photos. I was happily surprised by #9 with the sisters!
All the best.
cool photos pete. the sheer amount of people there seems unreal...i remember my dad said that when he went, there were people everywhere even in the countryside....i hope all is well with you...work, friends, etc., i know you must be meeting tons of people, hope you are having fun! p.s. i want to hear about the food! ...as well as what you do everyday...
Also, it's OK that you're not doing a good job at keeping up with the blog...you're probably doing your real job instead! Blogging is exhausting man!
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