No man's land?

21 Dec 2014: Today's flight - by happenstance on the shortest day of the year - was interesting. It went from Point G(uwahati) in India to Point K(olkata) also in India, but mostly over another country. It was rather foggy, so no good photographs, but got to see the expanse of the Brahmaputra delta and the majestic Himalayas.

bhut jolokia aka Ghost Pepper

15 Dec 2014: A bagful of bhut jolokia i.e. ghostly-hot capsicum peppers at the roadside market outside Tezpur University, Assam. It is over a million Scoville Heat Units (SHUs). In fact, in 2007 it was the hottest substance on the Scoville Scale, 900 times hotter than Tabasco sauce. It has since been superseded, and the current record is held by the Carolina Reaper, a cultivar i.e. cultivated variety (twice as hot).

Brahmaputra in/and Guwahati

13 Dec 2014: Brahmaputra, and Guwahati, from River Breeze, Uzanbazar. Spent a day in Guwahati before arriving for the IDMC meeting in Tezpur. The few hours I had in Guwahati became fewer by my flight from Delhi leaving a few hours late due to fog. So clearly that problem has not bene solved.

Brahmaputra, the fifth largest river (in terms of length) that flows through India is supposedly the only one which bears a male name - the son of Brahma.

Surprisingly (to me at least) Guwahati reminded me of Kerala - green, bananas, coconuts ...

Oldemarkt and the Prince of Orange

One of the Amsterdam old markets held in a place called Nieuwmarkt. It is delightfully located with a canal going under it, many coffee houses (and, needless to say, tons of bikes) near it, and the Waag, a 15th century building and the oldest non-religious building standing, right next to it. The Waag, now a restaurant, used to be the weight-house. Look at some of the tilted buildings on the left. Some of them were warehouse (at least indirectly linked to the Waag) and their structure was such that carrying weights upstairs should not damage them.

In the market was a coin shop. As I collect contemporary coins (not collecting old coins is mainly a side-effect of not being rich) and asked for Commemorative 2 Euro coins. They had none. But oh wait, I do have a Dutch one from this year. You see, Queen Beatrix has now handed over the reins to her son, Willem-Alexander, the Prince of Orange. The coin minted to commemorate that occasion is called the double portrait and is prized by the Dutch who are perhaps almost as crazy about their monarchs as the rest of Europe. The coins do not tend to show up that frequently. I keep them aside when I get one. Here is one, he said, producing a coin neatly kept in a small transparent plastic bag. 'How much?', was my quick question. 'Oh, 2 Euro', he said even more quickly. I made sure that he really meant it and accepted it. Just to show my gratitude I bought a small box of world stamps. At that he proceeded to produce his box of change in case I wanted to rummage through it looking for more Euro coins that I did not have. What a man! I had all of them, but picked a few small denomination ones that are seen less frequently, paid at face value. I also gave him a Hawaii National Parks quarter that I happened to have and moved on. 

23 June 2013, Amsterdam

Richard Serra's 'Sight Point' on exhibit near the recently reopened RijksMuseum is part of the '2013 South Art' walk in Amsterdam's southern district of Berlage (ArtZuid2013). Over 60 pieces are on display mostly along the roads. It makes for an excellent bike-ride especially if it is not raining. I could not cover even half of them. The art is self-something. You like it if you like those kinds of things, or if you think you should like those kinds of things. The birds have naturally made a point to use this particular piece creating nice lines of sight. ArtZuid will continue until late Sep. 2013.

26 June 2010: Druids at Stonehenge

As I was approaching my Gaia alerts conference in Cambridge, I realized that it was close to the summer solstice, a day when the otherwise roped off Stonehenge comes alive with activity. Of course I could not be there that day as I was leaving US on the longest day. After the conference managed to get there on the 26th. Not many signs about it until one gets quiet close. Then the structure looms large.

As it is, I did get to see some druids entering the circle that day. One would think they need to arrive at sunrise. But they aimed for noon and missed it too. Moreover, it would have been noon GMT and not localtime. The day was well past solstice anyway. All in all, they obviously did not know what they were doing. It is fitting the fact that not even astronomers know exactly what the Stonehenge is all about. Sure, some kind of sun worship cum sundial plus burial place, but why did they invest so much energy in moving huge rocks from different places to here?


Druids at Stonehenge