Nommer les Laurentides, La petite histoire des cantons du nord
Naming the Laurentians, A History of Place Names “Up-North” is now available in French as “Nommer les Laurentides, La petite histoire des cantons du nord”
Finally the translation of my book ‘Naming the Laurentians' is ready. The Ste Agathe Heritage Committee, together with the Direction de la culture of the town, have graciously arranged to host the initial launch, which will take place at the Gaston Miron Municipal Library, 83 rue St. Vincent in Ste. Agathe des Monts at 5:00 pm on Friday, September 26, 2008 as part of the Journées de la culture events.
Subsequent scheduled events:
Bibliothèque municipale de Ste Lucie, 2057 Chemin des Hauteurs, Ste. Lucie des Laurentides on Saturday, October 25, 2008 at 11:00 AM.
Bibliothèque municipale de Val David, 1355 rue de l'Académie, Val David on Wednesday, October 29, 2008 at 7:00 PM.
We have also scheduled a large event for the lower Laurentians at the Prévost community centre, 794, rue Maple, Prévost, for November 13, 2008 at 7:30 PM.
As soon as the details of other venues are firmed up they will be posted here, so please revisit this site for events in Montreal and elsewhere.
Enfin, après plusieurs délais, il me fait plaisir de vous annoncer la parution de Nommer les Laurentides : La petite histoire des cantons du nord.
Le lancement officiel aura lieu à la Bibliothèque municipale Gaston-Miron à Ste-Agathe-des-Monts le 26 septembre 2008 à 17h, dans le cadre des Journées de la Culture et grâce à l'instigation du comité du Patrimoine et du Service de la culture de Ste-Agathe-des-Monts. Il sera suivi d'un série d'événements, y compris une conférence à au Centre communautaire de Prévost, 794, rue Maple, Prévost le 13 novembre 2008 à 19h30.
Des autres événements actuellement organisés auront lieux au :
Bibliothèque municipale de Ste Lucie, 2057 Chemin des Hauteurs, Ste. Lucie des Laurentides samedi le 25 octobre 2008 à 11h00.
Bibliothèque municipale de Val David, 1355 rue de l'Académie, Val David, mercredi le 29 octobre 2008 à 19h00
Aussitôt que des autres événements à Montéal ainsi que dans les Laurentides sont confirmés, ils seront inscrits ici. Prière de revenir sur le site pour voir leurs détails.
Communiqué de presse :
COMMUNIQUÉ
Pour publication immédiate
LE LIVRE DE JOSEPH GRAHAM
NOMMER LES LAURENTIDES: LA PETITE HISTOIRE DES CANTONS DU NORD
SERA LANCÉ À LA BIBLIOTHÈQUE MUNICIPALE GASTON-MIRON
DANS LE CADRE DES JOURNÉES DE LA CULTURE
Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts, le 3 septembre 2008.- Ayant connu un succès remarquable dans sa version anglaise, le livre de Joseph Graham sur l'histoire des Laurentides est maintenant disponible en français. Publié en 2005 sous le titre Naming the Laurentians: A history of place names up north, le livre a vite grimpé au palmarès des best-sellers de la Gazette, où il s'est maintenu pendant12 semaines.
Le lancement officiel de la version française aura lieu à la bibliothèque municipale Gaston Miron, au 83 rue Saint-Vincent à Ste-Agathe-des-Monts, le vendredi 26 septembre à 17 heures, dans le cadre des Journées de la Culture. Suivra une série de conférences et de séances de signature dans les bibliothèques et sociétés historiques de la région, ainsi qu'à Montréal plus tard cet automne.
Nommer les Laurentides: La petite histoire des cantons du nord, traduit par Michelle Tisseyre, accompagné d'une préface par l'anthropologue sociale Pierre Anctil et entièrement illustré de cartes géographiques et de cartes postales d'époque, est un recueil fascinant qui raconte d'où viennent les noms de lieux tels que la rivière du Nord, le canton d'Abercrombie, Ivry-sur-le-lac, le chemin Renaud à Ste-Agathe, et même le Québec et le Canada. Ce faisant, il effectue un survol de la géologie et de la topographie de la région, remonte à sa préhistoire et à l'arrivée des premiers Amérindiens, explore la période de la colonisation par les Anglais et les Français, et trace l'évolution des Laurentides jusqu'à leur transformation par l'avènement du ski en destination favorite des sportifs, des villégiateurs et des touristes
Joseph Graham vit dans les Laurentides depuis près d'un demi-siècle et y a fait sa marque comme historien de la région et défenseur infatigable du patrimoine. Cofondateur du Comité du patrimoine de Ste-Agathe, il a, entre autres, piloté le projet qui a permis de préserver la gare de Ste-Agathe. Depuis de nombreuses années, d'abord dans le Doncaster Ballyhoo, le bulletin de sa compagnie, et ensuite par sa chronique mensuelle dans Main Street, le magazine anglophone des Laurentides, Joseph Graham n'a cessé d'explorer et de documenter l'histoire des Laurentides dans un style accessible et haut en couleur.
Nommer les Laurentides: La petite histoire des cantons du nord, Les Éditions Main Street Inc. ISBN 978-0-9739586-1-4 $28.00
- 30 -
Source: Brygitte Foisy, Directrice du service de la culture, (819) 326-4595, poste 3322
A rough translation follows:
NOMMER LES LAURENTIDES: LA PETITE HISTOIRE DES CANTONS DU NORD
WILL BE LAUNCHED AT THE GASTON-MIRON MUNICIPAL LIBRARY DURING AN ANNUAL EVENT CALLED « JOURNÉES DE LA CULTURE. »
After it's remarkable success in English, Joseph Graham's book of Laurentian history is now available in French. Nommer les Laurentides: La petite histoire des cantons du nord spent 12 weeks on The Gazette's best-seller list when it was published in English as Naming the Laurentians: A history of place names up north. Faithfully translated by Michelle Tisseyre, graced with an introduction by well-known historian Pierre Anctil, and fully illustrated with maps as well as antique postcards, this fascinating book tells the stories of how places in the Laurentians came to be named. Including the North River, the canton of Abercrombie, Ivry-sur-le-Lac, Chemin Renaud in Ste-Agathe, and even the names of Canada and Quebec, this book delves into the history behind the names. It ranges from pre-history through the aboriginal first residents, the colonial eras of French and English settlement, to the more recent early recreational period.
Joseph Graham, who grew up in the Laurentians, has been involved in protecting and promoting the history of the region for many years. A co-founder of the Comité du patrimoine de Ste-Agathe, he piloted the project that saved the railroad station. First in his company newsletter, the Doncaster Ballyhoo, then in a monthly column in the Laurentians' English-language newsmagazine Main Street, Joseph Graham has been writing the history of the Laurentians in a lively and accessible style for many years.
The official launch will take place at the Gaston Miron Municipal Library, 83 rue St. Vincent in Ste-Agathe-des-Monts at 5:00 pm on Friday, September 26 as part of the Journées de la culture events. It will be followed through the autumn by a series of conferences and presentations at libraries and historical societies across the Laurentians an in Montreal.
Nommer les Laurentides: La petite histoire des cantons du nord, Les Éditions Main Street Inc. ISBN 978-0-9739586-1-4 $28.00
You can also contact :
Sheila Eskenazi
819-326-4963
Posted by joseph. Permanent link - comments: 0. Posted at 14:22 on
September 06, 2008
A Leader with a Vision
I listened to Stephane Dion being interviewed on the radio this morning. He was on a telephone and fairly hard to understand, but listening carefully I heard a sincere man talking, expressing a vision for our country.
No-one knows where, or when, a leader with a vision will arrive on the public stage. It is not what the leader looks like or sounds like, nor where he hails from. It is the vision – what he says – that matters.
Intelligent Canadians know that our country is rudderless since Mulroney sold us down the river to earn himself a place in the international oligarchy. Dion's vision, which he calls the Green Shift, is a first step for Canadians to take forward into the problems that will confront our world in the 21st century. The alternative is the continued watering – and dumbing – down of our country, the spectre of leaders who try to appear to be at the head of the crowd or who encourage the basest, lowest common fears and play on them.
By Joseph Graham
Posted by joseph. Permanent link - comments: 0. Posted at 21:16 on
June 24, 2008
Zimbabwe Election and Our Early Days
Morgan Chanderai's withdrawal from the race for the presidency of Zimbabwe, citing the escalating violence that incumbent president Robert Mugabe has directed against the opposition brings to mind Louis Hippolyte La Fontaine's withdrawal from the election in Canada in 1841. He cited the very same reasons.
The monstrous Governor Thomson (Lord Sydenham) was determined to assure that the English vote would dominate. Throughout Lower Canada, Canada East, he gerrymandered ridings and made sure that the polling offices would be located as far as possible from French-dominated towns if English ones were available. The elections, held in March 1841, proved to be violent and the army showed up only when English or Tory candidates were threatened. In the French riding of Terrebonne, the polls were set up at New Glasgow, a small, unrepresentative English town, and when La Fontaine and his supporters arrived to declare their vote, a mob confronted them. La Fontaine, the incumbent when the Assembly was dissolved, realised that the situation would rapidly degenerate into a violent confrontation. He announced he was withdrawing from the election. A quick search of history reveals that he was listed as defeated in Terrebonne.
Mugabe will no doubt declare the same about Chanderai.
Has our current government voiced an opinion about this nightmare? If it has, I haven't heard it.
By Joseph Graham
Posted by joseph. Permanent link - comments: 0. Posted at 21:50 on
June 23, 2008
History Interpreted
This article interprets history in a distorted manner. This Quebec journalist sees Pauline Marois as leading Quebec to assimilation because she advocated more English be taught in French elementary and high schools.
Posted by joseph. Permanent link - comments: 0. Posted at 15:46 on
March 31, 2008
Bloc acting like a Federal Party
This article was recently published in the Montreal Gazette and, according to the Liberals, the bill could threaten English Quebecers' rights to be heard in English in the criminal courts. The NDP and the Conservatives see nothing wrong with it, but both the Bloc and the Liberals object. Could the Bloc be behaving federally? Certainly it does not seem likely that they would oppose English being heard in French in Quebec criminal cases, so they must be responding to the mirror problem of French speakers losing access to French in criminal courts outside Quebec -- outside of a jurisdiction that they say they exist to renounce.
Posted by joseph. Permanent link - comments: 0. Posted at 15:46 on
February 09, 2008
South India, January 2007
January 12
Breakfast consisted of flat bread, home-made banana jam (red and delicious), home-made peanut butter and a cup of coffee. We declined the omelette, since we could not have eaten more. Our host declined payment for the previous day’s meals, and we warmly thanked him and commended their place. Soon we were off again. John, however, who is always impeccably dressed and groomed in the morning, was unshaven. He looked tired. I asked him if he had had breakfast, and he said no. It wasn’t offered to the drivers. He was told there was a place he could go to eat in the village, five minutes’ drive. He would never ever think to use the car for his own needs. Supper had also been thin and the staffhouse had been posted with rules, making for a generally unwelcoming environment. I had to coax this information out of him because he is such a proud professional that he would rather stay silent. He explained to us that the drivers generally had trouble with the home-stay places. Some treated the staff well, but this was not one of them. I remembered the old woman who had been ushered off after bringing our bags. John told us he had never been to this one before, but that the drivers had a list of ones that they refused to drive to, and such a list hurt the home-stay owner’s business. He did not have to tell us that Vanilla County would be put on that list. We felt sad about this otherwise lovely place.
Back on the road, we were on our way down the valley to our next adventure, a day-and-night long stay on a canal boat. This was the event everyone had told us not to miss: The highlight. We were particularly happy for John, too, since he could get home and see his wife and daughter. First, though, we had to solve a cash shortage problem. We needed to find an ATM that recognised our Desjardins “Plus” debit card. This turned out to be a challenge. In Thekkady we had failed to get one to work, and after another failure in Alleppey, we were directed to the UAExpress. This outlet, we were told, could solve the problem. They had a universal card reader. I walked up to the counter and told the man what I needed, but he apologized that the machine was not working right then, indicating a technician who was tinkering with some electronics. “Shall I wait, then?” I offered. I figured a half-hour wait would be worth solving the problem since I had learned that you have to wait for all kinds of things here. “You could come back,” he offered, “it’s been broken for a week.” We traded our last cash reserve in for rupees.
When we arrived at the canal, we saw all kinds of boats, and we were soon boarding a ‘wicker’ boat that looked like something out of a fantasy story. These canal boats are converted rice barges that have been adapted for a 24-hour trip on the canals of Alleppey. The basic boat, a solidly built wooden hull, is fitted with bamboo arches and then enclosed with woven palm leaves. They have a kitchen, rooms, bathrooms and a lovely deck. The floor was made of coir, a rope made from coconut husks. Sebastian, Baby John and Captain World, our crew and companions for the next 20 hours, greeted us. We were on our way. Our bags were put carefully in our room, and as usual, we discovered we were the only tourists on board; another private tour.
This is a typical converted rice barge with added superstructure.
We began by pretending to be sophisticates and reading in the comfortable chairs on deck. Baby John, the cook, prepared an Indian snack (a cocoanut with a straw and a bowl of very sweet fruit) and Sebastian offered to answer any questions while Captain World carefully steered the craft along the canal. At one point when Sebastian was in the stern, I asked Captain World a question, but he responded by pulling a string that rang a bell in the stern, and Sebastian arrived to answer. Soon, our reading was put to the side and we were gazing out at the fascinating scenery, rice fields, small homes, walkways with people going to-and-fro.
Seasoned traveler relaxing onboard the houseboat while Captain World navigates carefully through the canals.
The floating plants are water hyacinth.
The system of canals around Alleppey was built under the reigning Maharaja in the last half of the 18th century. He saw the potential of a young man named Kesava Pillay on whom he relied increasingly over time. Kesava, who became known as Raja Kesava Das, rebuilt the town and is considered the architect of two of the major canals. The region boasts three rivers and two large lakes forming hundreds of kilometres of navigable waterways, but the real genius of the backwaters and canals is the Thannermukkom regulator, a barrier that protects the region from the tidal intrusion of salt water. Large sections of land between the canals are flooded with fresh river water creating rice paddies, while the canals themselves grow fish and are used for transportation. Water hyacinth, a fast-growing floating plant, can clog up the canals but at the same time cleans the water. Once a year, the tides are let in, and the salt water cleanses the canals, flushing out the water hyacinth and the remaining dirty water, allowing the process to start over. Called the Venice of the East, it is a large community living almost entirely on these canals. We were wined, dined and entertained in whatever original way seemed to work. Most of the time, just watching the beauty of the canal life, the setting sun and the people was enough. We saw ferry buses and school boats, people washing, domestic scenes complete with chickens and ducks as well as the production of huge fields of rice. In the evening, Baby John made us a delicious supper of giant prawns that we bought from their fishermen at I am sure exorbitant prices, and, with the boat tied up, the crew decided to entertain us. Sebastian had picked up a puppy that he intended to bring home to his family, but in the meantime it became the mascot as Sebastian sang and Baby John kept time by pounding the deck. When I identified the dog as Puppy, the name stuck, so I can proudly say there is a dog that I named running around in an Indian village somewhere near Alleppey, playing with little kids. Sebastian asked us to sing to them as well, but when they heard my voice they quickly excused me and contented themselves with Sheila’s singing while I took on the role of deck-thumper.
Dragon boat tied to the shore as water hyacinth floats by.
School 'bus'?
There are many ways to navigate the canals.
Commuter traveling home as the sun sets.
When it was time for bed, Sebastian asked us if we wanted the air conditioner on. I told him that we would rather not have it running, and so he told us to keep our door and windows open for cross-ventilation. We were anxious that the puppy would keep us awake all night, but while he continued to pee on the coir floor, leaving little wet circles, he was reasonably quiet. That said, I had a rush of urban nerves when the boat lights went out and we were floating off the shore of Lake Vemabanadu. I kept hearing the voices of men in other boats as they paddled home and wondered at how vulnerable we would have been if this were an American city. We finally slept well onboard the boat, but life on the canal starts very, very early and so our day began well before I was completely rested from my night worries.
January 13
After a good breakfast, we met John who looked refreshed, having spent the night at his own home in Alleppey with his wife Sheena and his daughter Rosalie.
He brought us to a small village called Vaikom where we took another tour by boat. This time the guide, a dignified middle-aged man, would be accompanying us in a dugout-like boat that is poled along a very narrow canal - a wide creek. John described the village as similar to where he lives. There is a village square where people gather to exchange. It is under a roof, and nearby there are public washrooms and a tap. We were told that after our boat ride, we would return here.
Vaikom village square
When we embarked, sitting comfortably in the centre of the narrow craft, our guide began to fidget. He was wearing the customary dhoti, and it seems that a number of tenacious insects were displaced when he sat down, and so they took up residence in the poor man’s dhoti. As he lectured on the history of the woodland and the canal, his new tenants distracted him continuously, entertaining us in the process. We managed to appear ignorant of his plight, thereby allowing him greater confidence to shake them out as we tried not to chuckle our way up the creek.
The pilot is behind me, pushing a pole into the ground to guide us.
We disembarked at one point to watch two women in a cottage industry making twine from coir fibre. They carried bundles of coir in their aprons, and as they pulled it out, the remaining coir attached itself to it, forming a string. They tied this to a hook that was attached to a motor that spun the hook around. The women proceeded to back across the yard feeding coir out of their aprons, spinning longer and longer strings as the hook turned.
Women making coir from coconut husk fibre.
The guide, whose name was difficult to pronounce, and so is lost, also showed us an unusual tree. He told us that unlike most trees, it absorbs carbon dioxide through its leaves, but does not convert it to oxygen. He explained that if it were calm and a pilgrim should happen to sleep under such a tree, he would be asphyxiated. I tried to verify the existence of the tree on Google, but have not succeeded. Sheila asked how such a tree has survived in a community like this if it is so dangerous. He explained that believers plant the tree in the corner of the yard, a protection against pilgrims and evil-doers.
This small boat trip was memorable because we were literally passing through the daily life of the homes. Women were washing clothes, one was weaving reed mats, and a boy was bathing. Children were running around their houses, ducks swam in little groups. It was very domestic.
A domestic scene of life on the canal of Vaikom village.
The guide explained the different trees and a little bit about the village life, but since we were his whole tour, he finished telling us everything he was supposed to tell us before we headed back along the canal to the village square. I was very tired after finally having a good night’s sleep, no doubt, and so Sheila took the brunt of the focus from our (once again) private tour guide, who seemed to quite like her. He told us that he was a radiographer, and that he had learned his trade as an apprentice and had found a very well-paying job in the north of India, but eventually he had fallen sick, and the doctor told him he was suffering from radiation poisoning. His co-workers were Japanese, all of whom had dose-o-metres (Geiger counters?), and when they found the radiation was too strong, they would refuse to go close. Since he did not have one, he became the person who was exposed. He could get neither recognition for the danger nor a dose-o-metre for himself, so he was obliged to quit. He said that he has been sick ever since, but that he came back to his village to live with his wife and family. He was very cynical, and told us that the things John and others had said about Kerala having a 100% literacy rate were just propaganda. He said that the states received international funding for education, and so they had to demonstrate that the funds had been used successfully, but that much of the funding had landed in politicians' private accounts. When we returned to the village square, we had a lovely meal on banana-leaf plates while another tour, this time of Indian tourists, were at the adjacent table. Sheila could finally get a good glimpse of how one eats politely with ones fingers, and became quite adept.
A feast served on banana leaves at the village square.
From there, we drove to Kochi where we checked into a fairly nice hotel on a side street. It was certainly no resort, but felt more like a good, midrange hotel you might find in Europe. Once we were settled, John brought us to the docks for a harbour sunset cruise. One of the signs boasted a “Calm and Quite family restaurant”. Arriving in the hustle and bustle of tourists getting onto cruise boats to motor out through the harbour, we were directed to ours, a large boat with two decks that could accommodate a fair number of people and a crew of two. We were ushered to two prime seats on the upper deck and the boat set off – with just us! Once again, a private tour.
Modern Indian architecture. The Cochin Port Trust building in the harbour.
The crew member who was not piloting the boat came up and told us a little bit about the harbour, describing buildings and answering questions as we passed ships full of tourists and the occasional boat like ours, with just two or three passengers. He even invited us to the cabin to meet the pilot. They gave me the steering and took our picture with me pretending to control the boat as it began a series of hesitant tacks back and forth across the harbour. As the day fell, the captain positioned the boat in a spectacular location where I began photographing the sun setting through some Chinese fishing nets. The position was so prized that I soon realised other boats were jockeying in around us to try to take it. One boat that we clearly blocked blasted a horn at us and moved off in a huff. Others just had to wait for us to finish. We eventually drifted further out where we managed to get other views of the setting sun.
The sun caught in a Chinese fishing net in Cochin harbour.
John had told us earlier that some of the guides and hotels would introduce us to stores, and that they would tell us that the drivers got kickbacks – finder’s fees – for introducing us to their stores. He said this was true, and that it was also true of them. He told us that we should feel comfortable buying where we want, knowing that in a sense we were rewarding the guide, hotel employee or driver by choosing their connections. We asked him to introduce us to his tailor because Sheila wanted a shalwar kameez. We had also thanked another guide by letting him introduce us to his store, and bought other things the same way. After our harbour sunset cruise, John brought us to a good tailor who made me some pyjamas and made Sheila some more dresses. Sheila was taken with the signage, advertising “Lenin and Silk Material.”
One should not come to India to learn English.
That night, we ate at the hotel, where three very young dancers, probably part of a school dance programme, entertained us. In their lovely costumes they did their best to evoke the /images of the young women that they will eventually become. Dark as most of the South Indians are, it was surprising to see that one of these young girls had clear blue eyes. To our surprise, during the performance, the Israeli man whom we had met twice before arrived, walked over to the dance floor, and took some pictures. We connected with them again, and promised to get together the next evening if they were still around, and they also invited us to spend the next day on an excursion with them, but we already had other plans.
Child dancing at the hotel restaurant.
January 14
We met George, an elderly, prosperous-looking man who would be our guide for the day. A very proud Syrian Christian, he took us around to the churches, telling us their stories and filling in a lot of loose ends. For instance, the god Shiva is called Shiva the Destroyer, but George called him Shiva the Destroyer of Evil. (I checked this afterwards, and while some sources describe Shiva as the destroyer of evil, I am not sure the destruction of evil was originally intended or considered, although there are references to Shiva as Rudra, and one of Rudra’s roles is to drive away sorrow. Shiva could be the God Shiva the Destroyer without any reference to good and evil.) He also told us that the canals of Alleppey were a result of the Dutch influence, which makes sense given the dikes of Holland. (This was not borne out at all. The Dutch were present at that time, but not as allies, and I could find nothing connecting them to the building of the canals or of the Thannermukkom regulator.) As colourful as the different guides' information might be, it often is not reliable.
George proudly showed us the various churches of Kochi and took us to the Syrian Church’s Bishop’s residence, where he seemed like a regular. He also took us to the Cochin Synagogue, which was built in 1568. Sadly for the Jews, the Portuguese brought the Inquisition to India in the early 1500s and destroyed the Jewish communities that it found. The synagogue represented a new start. According to a booklet that we found there, when St. Thomas arrived in Cranganore, the Jewish princedom, in 55 CE, a Jewish girl playing the flute was among the party that greeted him. The pamphlet also reports the legends that the first Jews in South India arrived with the trading ships of King Solomon, but it also reports that the real influx was at the time of the destruction of the Second Temple in the first century. While the Syrian Christians coexisted with the Hindu majority, the Jews, thanks to the Inquisition instigated so far away, had a rougher time. Even the Syrian Christians, however, were forced to become Catholic at that time.
The Infant Jesus Church Emakulam.
George brought us through a closed market to catch a glimpse of another, larger synagogue. It was the congregation of the black Jews who moved to Israel before 1952. It is generally accepted that they experienced no persecution in Kerala, but they moved for religious reasons. Of the surviving community, there are not enough men to form a minyan and one sad young woman that we met refuses to abandon her elders despite the hopeless task the marriage broker has of finding her a Jewish husband in Kochi.
Walking through the closed market to see the closed synagogue.
The rain tree, brought by the Portuguese, constantly rains small leaves.
At the end of the day, George invited us to his home for tea where we saw his daughter’s wedding album. She was married just the previous year, and he explained to us that despite the law forbidding it, the bride’s family was expected to supply a dowry; a page in the album showed the wedding party with a car, a ribbon tied around it. Socializing with George was an interesting experience. We crossed his front yard, which was a pile of rubble. He had just acquired it and was intending to build a house for his son. Beyond that, we entered a simple waiting room, clearly the reception room, and we sat on straight-backed chairs while his wife served us tea. She did not appear for more than this function. When the tea arrived I expressed a serious dilemma to George, because we could not drink tea on our laps while looking at the wedding album without risking the latter. Perhaps, I thought, we could put the album aside, finish our tea, and then go on from there. Seeing the problem, this 60-odd year-old leaned over us holding the album and showing us one page at the time. We would learn in Goa that the reception rooms are somewhat awkward, formal places. We soon thanked him for his warm hospitality and I said thank you in both English and Malayalam to his wife. This was a little bit of a faux-pas since George insisted that her English was fine; another theme that recurred throughout our trip.
Another view of Chinese fishing nets.
Later that evening we went, as scheduled, to see Kathakali (story-play) dance. The first part of the show was watching the two male dancers put on their make-up (1 hour). John took his role as 'minder' very seriously. He felt responsible to know what we were doing, when. He delivered us to approved guides and collected us from them, wherever possible. Of course we knew that this was all being done because the touring company and sub-contractor felt answerable, and were really concerned that their ‘care’ be properly looked after. We had conditioned John to stop worrying about us, and on this particular evening, he did not need too much convincing to trust us to find our own way around Kochi after the performance. Most of the other people were delivered to the theatre in white tour-company cars similar to ours, and we could see that the audience was made up, at last, of people like us. One-hour of watching these guys put on their make-up, we had been told, was getting the inside scoop, the real thing. We were ‘minded’ – read bored – for an extra hour. The MC presenting the show told us to watch the actors/dancers’ eyes. A part of the form is the incredible range of emotions they show through their made-up faces and their eye movements. It was fascinating, and we can imagine how sore our eyes would have been if we had tried. Even though we were only told the story of the myth, we could still follow it through the dancers’ expressions, and it was entertaining. Like most of the guides, this one, the MC, was difficult to understand. Each one seems to speak a different dialect of English, and it takes a lot of time to catch their drift, sometimes so long that the relationship is over before you have. This one compounded the problem by casually interrupting his presentation to answer his cell phone twice. He did so without self-consciousness or apology, as though this was totally normal and modern. Still, accompanied by two shirtless percussionists, the dancers succeeded in relating their tale.
Demon enticing the maiden in the Kathakali dance.
After, while everyone else was being ushered to white tourist cars by mindful drivers, we happily walked out into the dark city. Throughout our trip across South India, we felt safe. It makes for a special kind of relaxing in a thoroughly foreign environment to feel safe in a dark alley at night. Single women walking freely and unselfconsciously tells the story. We soon arrived at a restaurant that we had identified earlier and got a table. We sat right near the tandoori oven, where I had a great opportunity to examine how it was built and to start fantasizing about building one myself. We concluded that a culinary guide would have really enhanced our trip. Imagine, we thought, if the organiser, Altaf, had also set up the occasional meal with a guide to explain it to us. We did acquire a book on Kerala cuisine.
January 15
After breakfast and an early checkout, we took a very long walk around Kochi. We examined the Chinese fishing nets and the smaller stores in the side streets. We walked a long section of waterfront that was clearly not used by the tourists and we generally enjoyed our last morning. At one point on the beach, we saw an attractive young western woman lying in the sun in very skimpy clothes and, considering how conservatively the locals dress, we were impressed at how she was being left alone. Her skin was quite pale, suggesting that she had arrived only recently and perhaps had not yet noticed how her dress might not be all that considerate of local customs. We hadn’t seen Goa yet, where there are no such considerations.
That afternoon we saw our second traffic accident on our way to the airport for our flight to Goa. It was a minor accident, but it underlined to us how few we had seen, and how safe the roads had come to feel.
On the plane, an American woman sat beside me. We had seen very few Americans on this trip - in fact we saw more Canadians. Almost all the Western tourists were from Europe, and a number of them were mixed Indian European couples. This woman was more what you would expect, a part of a tour group. She was a white-knuckle flyer, and reminded me of an absurd idea I have had at different times: Sometimes, it seems, we live our own lives, but sometimes we drift into other people’s lives and at those time, we are the bit players, subject to their karmas. Their fears and wishes are the ones that become central, causal, that become the elements of a story with its own predictable twists. It was a very short flight, and when the plane began to land, I could feel this talkative, nervous seatmate tighten up into near panic. It did not surprise me, given my absurd perspective, when the plane hit the runway in the most jarring landing I had experienced on a commercial flight. I just had to accept that I was traveling in the shadow of someone else’s karma. Had the plane been in serious trouble, I would simply have been another statistic in someone’s story.
We were in our story, though, and the trip through these two southern Indian states revealed to us just how many different karmas there are; how central and imposing that culture is, and how we seem, at times, to be the supporting cast, our short histories starting and ending on the fringes of this major stage of the world.
Posted by joseph. Permanent link - comments: 0. Posted at 15:46 on
February 21, 2007
Why Afghanistan is Our Problem and Jack Layton Has a Point
Like an animal that soils its nest, Western Culture has never learned social hygiene. The problems that we in the West face in the world today are of our own creation. We have never been tolerant of the other, as Jews, Gypsies, blacks and indigenous people know, and so the other must move elsewhere or adjust. That is largely how Israel has come into being in our time. As these words flow out, I can hear the arguments that the Coalition of the Offended will echo back, comparing our record to others, but be careful of your facts, because we have never measured up. Moslem culture, as found in its large urban capitals throughout history, was demonstrably more tolerant and cosmopolitan than Christian culture was. When the Turks first took Constantinople, Jews fleeing persecution in Christian lands swarmed to the welcoming city, and even before that, the Moors of the Iberian Peninsula more than tolerated their minorities. Chinese children have been taught from time immemorial the stories of tolerance through the legends of the Monkey King, and the indigenous peoples of the Americas initially fed and clothed the first Europeans to arrive, only shunning them when they discovered how dirty and diseased they were. Even if one accepts the arguments of the Offended who will cite intolerance in Moslem culture today, it is too easy an answer, because in many ways, they are in reaction. Our actions and colonial adventures have contributed to their current behaviour.
It is not only in ethnic matters, though, that we hurt ourselves. Our intolerance of the needy among us, our indifference to our environment and our heritage of entitlement send ripples out through the world that come back to wash over us, while our unimaginative response is to make war on terrorists on drugs. We have the capacity to reduce our need for petroleum to a point where our purchasing power could be used to positive influence, choosing to buy from countries who invest the proceeds in the betterment of their citizens, but instead our appetite swallows all available supply. We declare war on the misguided drug victims of our society, forcing them to buy illegally, and then we attack the farmers in Afghanistan who are supplying the illicit market that we created.
Should Jack Layton sincerely wish to make a difference with his policy of withdrawing from Afghanistan, he should reach out, not to the Taliban, but to the farmers who are producing over 90% of the worlds opium poppies. In order to do so, though, he would have to make the bold move of legalizing Government administered heroin and start treating drug users as patients instead of criminals. The rest of us can make a difference by drastically reducing our fuel consumption. Even the Taliban, who, like the Hezbollah, are not simply terrorists, but community groups who use drastic and violent means in the course of enfranchising their members, receive help from the very people who satisfy our huge appetite for oil.
We are theoretically in control of these things, but our self-centred sense of entitlement has us endorsing a civil policy that dumps the needy into the hands of the criminal communities while we smugly drive around in cars and SUVs bragging about our anti-theft devices. Today we protect ourselves from street gangs, but what happens when they discover God, or Allah? What happens when they become righteous? How long will it be before terrorists, begin to enfranchise the children of the needy in our cities? How long will it take for us to recognise our hubris and to clean up our own act?
Posted by joseph. Permanent link - comments: 0. Posted at 15:46 on
October 01, 2006
