Top 5 Things to be thankful for

Besides dancing food....

1. Global warming keeps down our heating bills

2. George W. Bush is still alive - after all, if he wasn't - President Cheney!

3. The Maoists' ceasefire doesn't run out till December 3. Eight more shopping days!

4. Bird flu will almost certainly guarantee fewer turkeys are slaughtered today, because most of them were already culled prophylactically (in Asia anyway).

5. I may not have a camera, a job, a laptop, a phone or a place to live, but people still tune into this blog and read every day, so I must be doing something right.

And for that, I am sincerely thankful. (Okay, it's corny, but the cynical thing gets old sometimes.)

Campout on concrete

Where the sidewalk ends

Mystery solved! I have a new insight into the surliness of the queue denizens at the Indian Embassy.

You would not belieeeeeeeve the ordeal for getting the Indian visa here. Literally, you must show up at 5 am, preferably 4am, and camp out (!) on the sidewalk in front of the gates. My friend Marcus from Canada brought a sleeping bag at 3AM and stayed there with a thermos of hot water! Then at 6 am someone appears with a list and everyone scrambles to sign it. This list determines the order you will go in at the window. Mind you, the office itself does not open a minute before 9.30.

People who sign up for the list at 6am, for example, might make it to the window by 12 noon just before they shut for lunch. I am serious! 6 is actually too late some say, better to be there by 4 or 5. I came at 7 yesterday and did not even get seen at all! Seven am, ha, what a joke, was the attitude. The Red Cross needs to be out there on the line handing out donuts and coffee! Seriously, it is quite cold here at 4am.

At 12 noon, even if your name is on the list of yet-unseen people, the window slams shut and that's it till tomorrow morning. You have to start over at 4am. And this is just the first visit! In a week's time, you must return during yet another set of special hours to retrieve your papers and hope they are ready.

Back in July, when my friend Diana came to do her Indian visa, it was nothing like this - the place was a ghost town. But this is high tourist season. What a difference a season makes.

My friend Joanne visiting from the Kerala ashram has loaned me her camera. It needs a proper adapter in order to be able to recharge the battery. All digital cameras these days seem to have pain-in-the-asterisk "special" batteries that can't be bought or replaced in just any store, or recharged in a normal recharger. Overspecialization is a rampant disease of modern times.

Today I will get the proper battery for Joanne's camera and go document this entire phenomenon from 3am onwards for the blog. I have never seen anything like it at a government office , you would think they were camping for Greatful Dead tickets, or the new Star Wars movie. Or waiting for food relief packets from Hurricane Katrina.

Bhutan: GNH vs. GNP

Reprinted from the NY Times

Nov. 11, 2005 — You cannot get much further from America. You could call the tiny, landlocked nation of Bhutan the anti-greed country: an ancient Himalayan kingdom where yaks roam the hills and every trail ends at a Buddhist monastery. Forty years ago, it had no roads; today, there are still no traffic lights in a country of only 700,000 people … a nation ranked near the bottom of the world's development scale. When the standard is production and consumption, Bhutan simply can't compete, so it came up with its own way to measure progress, an alternative to the world's economic scale. Instead of seeking a gross national product, the official goal here is gross national happiness. The policy was decreed by King Jigme Singye Wangchuck — by all accounts, an enlightened monarch.

Full story at http://abcnews.go.com/2020/International/story?id=1296605&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312

What's your sign?

The Joy of Sects

This just in: Blissful, Beatific Bony Buddha Boy Baffles Bara

Coming Distractions: Siren's next destination

Pilgrims flock to see 'Buddha boy'- said to have fasted six months
Source: the UK Telegraph
By Thomas Bell in Bara District, Nepal (Filed: 21/11/2005) Thousands of pilgrims are pouring into the dense jungle of southern Nepal to worship a 15-year-old boy who has been hailed as a new Buddha. Devotees claim that Ram Bomjon, who is silently meditating beneath a tree, has not eaten or drunk anything since he sat down at his chosen spot six months ago. Witnesses say they have seen light emanating from the teenager's forehead.

Full story at
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/

They're already selling photos and trinkets; why not a snowdome with the boy seated blissfully beneath the tree? When you shake it, all the bits of litter and trash from the tourists, paper money and coin "offerings" can come raining down on him.