We took a cab from the airport to the guest-house. I was looking at the scenery – I’d been to Bangalore only once before way back in 1996. From what I remembered, Bangalore had the feel of a small city (I was living in Mumbai then, every other place in India was small and had lots of tree-lined boulevards and streets. This time around, a lot of the trees seemed to have been cut down to widen the roads (except in the rich parts of town, where they kept the same narrow roads, only made them one-way). Pretty soon, I could tell if we were in a rich or poor part of town.

We got to the guest house (which was on a one-way street, of course) and they had only one room free. The rest of my family took it in stride. Put seven people in one room? No problem. I wondered if I would last the night and if it would be better for me to see if the hotel across the road had room, but we decided to play it by ear (the room was reasonably large – about 16′x32′, with a bathroom 6′x12′ and a kitchen 6′x’12′. We changed, showered and stepped out to meet Bangalore.

My brother-in-law and I stopped at the railway reservation counter to book our tickets to Mysore and it seemed like nothing had changed.

Queues? What queues?

Of all the possible things that can drive you nuts about India, this is the one thing that annoys me the most. There seems to be some great fear that if you don’t crowd the counter, you may never get your turn. When I’m queuing for service, I find it amusing to stand in the proper (for an American) place and wait for the customer service rep to notice you. Which they do, without fail.

We had lunch at the guest house – amazing vegetarian food: two kinds of dal, some rumali rotis, carrots cooked in spices and shredded coconut, rice and curd. The carrots were spicy and delicious, making me want to learn how to cook them.

I had made a list of things I’d want to see in Bangalore, so after lunch I pulled it out and handed it to my Mom and Sister. One of the parks was pretty close to where we were staying so we cleaned up and went on to Cubbon Park. A lot of the park was under renovation and we didn’t want to wander around looking at the natural rock formations that were in the park. The kids (my nephews) spotted an aquarium and children’s park across the street, which was part of the same park, so we went there instead. The aquarium was closed. The children’s park had a toy railway which they had a lot of fun riding. We hung out there for a while and then went to the shopping strip of the city M. G. Road. I was a little disappointed, but my mom had fun buying amazing guavas from a street vendor.

We got back to the guest house, I checked in with the caretaker and they had another two-bedroom suite free (with four beds!). They hadn’t given it to us in the morning because the kitchen was trashed and being repaired. We didn’t care about that, and I was happy that we could all at least sleep comfortably after dining on another amazing vegetarian meal.

I can understand being detained for having drugs. But condoms?

My nephews are hooked on the matches, so I watched one. It was a lot of fun – a lot. The cheerleading surprised me and I was excited to see the TV cameras switch to them during breaks. They didn’t do any long shots, just close ups, starting a pan from a pom-pom or from the head or feet. It was the ultimate tease: they panned down from their heads or hands, or up from their feet and always cut away right after they got to the knees or just before the camera showed any cleavage.

The trusted internet has pictures you may be interested in. I was very disappointed to find out that none of the cheerleaders were Indian.

There was also a scandal about a (very tame) blog post which caused the cheerleader in question to be fired.

Sigh. Such a strange country: Sex doesn’t exist. Skin is meant to be covered up. And kissing? In public? Unless you’ve just been married (and sometimes, not even then!), forget it.

(I’m not sure if anyone kisses in private either: there seems to be so much repressed sexuality around, it is palpable. But that may just be me.)

The last time I celebrated this feast was in 1992.

I was surprised at how crowded the church was. Feast masses in general get very crowded, but this was insane. They had put in seats behind the altar, had taken over the road, and there were people in the courtyard of the parish priest’s living quarters.

I loved the priest (who was visiting from another parish) and his homily. Most priests are cut from the same mould as the TV preachers. All doom/gloom/you are sinners and will suffer in hell/JC died for your sins/and a random out of context story that’s suppose to illustrate the point. This guy was present, down to earth and funny. He had the congregation chuckling which amazed me.

He started by welcoming the zante (older dudes) who only come to church on All Souls Day, Easter and the feast day which caused everyone to chuckle and look around trying to spot the visitors. But what I loved most about his homily was his almost buddhist/zen take on things.

I have written earlier about the propensity of Goans to be negative, even when agreeing with you. The other trait that Goans have is to be dismissive and contemptive. I spent some time being depressed and torn when I recognized those traits in me and I know I’m a lot more accepting, compassionate and less of a self-centered asshole now.

Goans have been also described as a bunch of crabs in a basket. If you haven’t seen a bunch of crabs in a basket, it’s very informative: one crab will try to crawl out of the basket, and the other crabs will pull it back in. Terry Pratchett had something to say about that too, but I must add that I haven’t noticed that ‘feature’ in the people I interact with in San Francisco.

Anyway, the homily touched a lot on these two traits and that made me very happy. I was also surprised: Change? Coming from the Catholic Church? What next?

Church of the Holy Cross in Santa Cruz, Goa.

More pictures after the cut.The feast meal:
We were going to celebrate our parent’s 41st wedding anniversary on the feast day, but logistical difficulties prevented that from happening – most of our friends and relatives were busy. So we decide to have a small family feast celebration instead.

The fair:
The last few weeks before the monsoons hit Goa is when everyone stocks up on everything they need for the rains. This is the time to buy pots, pans, machetes, buckets and most importantly spices. The spices are taken home, dried in the sun for a week or so, then stored and used in the rains.

The cab driver was a character. We spoke for a while in English and we both seemed to have accents so we exchanged our origins. He was from Brazil and got really excited when I told him I was from Goa and started speaking to me in rapid Portuguese. He got even more excited when I said “mia famila fala Portugues, mais eu nao” saying “no, no, that was fluent – what would you think if I said My family speaks English, but I don’t?” Then we switched to talking about music and he put on some Sambas and danced me all the way to the terminal.

I got to the airport, and was one of the last people to check in. I was also the last person to get on the plane.

I’ve always loved take-offs and landings. But the last few times I’ve travelled, I’ve noticed that I can’t seem to stay awake once the plane starts moving. It’s like a drug or something, the plane leaves the gate, starts its engines and I nod off. Very frustrating, specially when it makes me miss the drinks cart when it comes around the first time.

After a long a boring flight, half of which I slept through, I landed in Bombay/Mumbai at 1:20am. The Lufthansa pilot was very apologetic for getting us there 20 minutes late. There weren’t any other flights that landed with us, so I got through immigration really quickly, picked up my checked in bag and headed for the red channel, ignoring the customs officer that was directing me to the green channel.

If you’re every flying into Bombay and know you are carrying more than the duty free allowance (Rs 8000/$200), save yourself some grief and head for the red channel. Everyone’s luggage goes through the xray machine when you head out the green channel and for a long time I thought that the only reason they directed you through the green channel was so that they could pull you out of line and demand bribes for walking through the green channel when obviously you have goods that exceed the allowance. I may have had only half the picture there.

The officer sitting at the red channel tried to convince me to go through the green and I told him I was carrying two laptops (an ipad and a laptop actually). He asked me again “are you sure you want to pay duty? and do you want a receipt?” and resigned himself to dealing with me when I said yes. He picked up my passport, the customs form with the declared value (Rs 55,000) and the receipt for the ipad, went and spoke to his superior officer who was operating the xray machine on the green channel, and came back and tried again “customs duty is 36.2%, it will come to around Rs 20,000. Do you want a receipt or should we reduce it?”

He pulled out his receipt book and handed it to his subordinate asking him to prepare the receipt. I began to see why they prefer to get bribed instead of doing the right thing. The way to pay customs duty in India is as follows:
1. get the duty invoice from the customs officer. This includes all details of the item you are paying duty on, including the make/model and serial number. It also includes all the details from your passport, including your fathers name and home address.
2. you take this form, leave your cart with the office and head over to the bank (which is located about halfway down the terminal), pay the duty (cash only, no checks or credit cards).
3. when it’s your turn (you were standing in line, weren’t you?) the bank clerk will stamp the form, give you another one and you take both of these back to the officer.
4. The officer will copy details from the stamp on the form and the other form the bank clerk gave you back into his book and the customs declaration form and return everything back to you.

I’m not sure how painless it is paying customs duty in other countries, but there’s still some way to go to make it less of a hassle in India.

While his flunky was filling out the paperwork, the customs officer I approached started chatting with me about Goa. Turns out he had been posted to the Goa customs department some time ago and wanted to talk to me. My uncle had worked in the customs so I asked him if he knew my uncle. Turns out he did. Now how small a world is that?

I got to the domestic terminal around 2:30am and was excited to see the ‘free wi-fi’ signs everywhere, so I pulled out my laptop and tried to sign on. Unfortunately, I could not. India seems to have gone SMS crazy. The way to get a wi-fi connection at airports in India is to go to the landing page, enter your cellphone number and the wi-fi provider will text you a password, with which you login. I have become so reliant on google voice that I didn’t bother to check if my cell-phone worked in India (it doesn’t) so I was in the strange position of having to have an internet connection in order to get the password that would get me an internet connection.

I suppose I could have chatted with some of my fellow passengers with working cellphones and seen if anyone was willing to let me get a text message on their cell, but I had a book with me and movies on the laptop, so I stayed offline until I got home.

Step 2: take it to the local mill and get it pressed.

Back when we were poor, the leftover cake was used in cooking. Now, it’s used as mulch.

Step 3: let the oil cool overnight and then disinfect/dry it in the sun.

I’ve picked the a day at the beginning of the month, on the theory that I’m more likely to do it if it’s right at the start of the month. My X-day is tomorrow. And I’ll be modifying the ‘vow of silence part’ to mean that can speak when spoken to or only if necessary, at least for the first few months.

If you need to get hold of me, you’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way. I’m also planning on being at Muddy’s on 24th and Valencia from 6-9pm, so thats a possibility.

2010 was not a great year for reading. I ended up lost in a lot of fluff, stuff I could port around on my pdf reader when I took my cross country trips to Chicago and Wisconsin, and on my road trip to Portland. There was a lot of stuff from gutenberg and the free stuff from Baen.

I also discovered H. Beam Piper, Donald Westlake and Gregory McDonald and devoured those books as I could get my hands on them. OF the non-fiction, the interesting books were:

The Female Brain – Louann Brizendine, M.D.
Drive – Daniel H. Pink
The World Without Us – Alan Weisman
50 Things You’re Not Supposed to Know – Russ Kick
Self Employed Tax Solutions – June Walker
Don’t Shoot the Dog – Karen Pryor
How To Improvise A Full Length Play – Kenn Adams
Sway – Ori Brafman & Rom Brafman
Nonviolent Communication – Marshall B. Rosenberg

And if anyone’s interested in the whole list, it’s after the cut.1. Unseen Academicals – Terry Pratchett
2. The Adept – Katherine Kurtz and Deborah Turner Harris
3. Be the pack leader – Cesar Milan
4. Leviathan – Scott Westerfeld
5. Unknown – Stanley Schmidt (Editor)
6. And Another Thing … – Eoin Colfer
7. The Female Brain – Louann Brizendine, M.D.
8. Warrior Wisewoman – Roby James (Editor)
9. Warrior Wisewoman 2 – Roby James (Editor)
10. Norse Code – Greg van Eekhout
11. Passion Play – Sean Stewart
12. Imager’s Challenge – L. E. Modesitt Jr.
13. The Wealthy Barber – David Chilton
14. The City & The City – China Miéville
15. The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps – Otto Penzler (Editor)
16. Galatea 2.2 – Richard Powers
17. The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – John Joseph Adams (Editor)
18. Bolo 1: The Honor of the Regiment – Bill Fawcett (Editor)
19. Bolo 2: Bolo Strike – William H. Keith
20. Bolo 3: The Triumphant – Bill Fawcett (Editor)
21. Toast – Charles Stross
22. Sherlock Holmes in America – Martin H. Greenberg (Editor)
23. The Big Necessity – Rose George
24. Hive – Ischade Bradean
25. Sexy Orchids make Lousy Lovers – Marty Crump
26. Crossroads of Destiny – H. Beam Piper
27. Day of the Moron – H. Beam Piper
28. Flight from Tomorrow – H. Beam Piper
29. Four Day Planet – H. Beam Piper
30. Dead Witch Walking – Kim Harrison
31. Genesis – H. Piper Beam
32. Graveyard of Dreams – H. Piper Beam
33. The Keeper – H. Piper Beam
34. Last Enemy – H. Piper Beam
35. Lone Star Planet – H. Piper Beam
36. The Mercenaries – H. Piper Beam
37. Drive – Daniel H. Pink
38. The Blue Place – Nicola Griffith
38. Stay – Nicola Griffith
39. The World Without Us – Alan Weisman
40. Naudsonce – H. Piper Beam
41. My Man Jeeves – P. G. Wodehouse
42. Right Ho, Jeeves – P. G. Wodehouse
43. Extraordinary Engines – Nick Gevers (Editor)
44. 50 Things You’re Not Supposed to Know – Russ Kick
45. 4:50 From Paddington – Agatha Christie
46. Strange Brew – P. N. Elrod (Editor)
47. The Dark Side of the Sun – Terry Pratchett
48. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – A. C. Doyle
49. Feeling Very Strange: The Slipstream Anthology – James Patrick Kelley & John Kessel (Editors)
50. The Body in the Library – Agatha Christie
51. Psmith in the City – P. G. Wodehouse
52. Fast Ships, Black Sails – Ann & Jeff VanderMeer (Editors)
53. Northworld – David Drake
54. Vengance – David Drake
55. Justice — David Drake
56. Plot – Ansen Dibell
57. Land of Mist and Snow – Debra Doyle & James D. Macdonald
58. Year’s Best SF 14 – David G. Hartwell & Katheryn Cramer (Editors)
59. Year’s Best SF 15 – David G. Hartwell & Katheryn Cramer (Editors)
60. Flash Fiction – James Thomas, Denise Thomas, Tom Hazuka (Editors)
61. The Most of P. G. Wodehouse – P. G. Wodehouse
62. Strong Arm Tactics – Jody Lynn Nye
63. Gaslight Grimoire: Fantastic Tales of Sherlock Holmes – J. R. Campbell & Charles Prepolec (Editors)
64. Self Employed Tax Solutions – June Walker
65. Dead to Me – Anton Strout
66. The Spy’s Bedside Book – Graham Greene & Hugh Greene (Editors)
67. Synergy: New Science Fiction – George Zebrowski (Editor)
68. Memories and Visions – Susanna J. Sturgis (Editor)
69. The Year’s Best Fantasy 6 – David G. Hartwell & Kathryn Cramer (Editors)
70. Science Fiction: The Best of the Year 2007 — Rich Horton (Editor)
71. The Year’s Best Fantasy 7 – David G. Hartwell & Kathryn Cramer (Editors)
72. The Wee Free Men – Terry Pratchett
73. A Hat Full Of Sky – Terry Pratchett
74. Wintersmith – Terry Pratchett
75. Don’t Shoot the Dog – Karen Pryor
76. The Starry Rift – Jonathan Strahan (Editor)
77. How To Improvise A Full Length Play – Kenn Adams
78. Finders Keepers – Linnea Sinclair
79. Sherlock Holmes in Orbit – Mike Resnick & Martin H. Greenberg (Editors)
80. Dark Victory (Batman) – Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale
81. Misspelled – Julie Czerneda
82. The Accidental Sorcerer – K. E. Mills
83. Witches Incorporated – K. E. Mills
84. Wizard Squared – K. E. Mills
85. Back in Black (Spiderman) – J. Michael Straczynski
86. Ultimate Spiderman – Bill Jemas & Brian Michael Bendis
87. Sway – Ori Brafman & Rom Brafman
88. Murder in Baker Street – Martin H. Greenberg, Jon L. Lellenberg & Daniel Stashower (Editors)
89. Sherlock Holmes: The Hidden Years – Michael Kurland (Editor)
90. Unplugged – Rich Horton (Editor)
91. Whose Body? – Dorothy L. Sayers
92. All Star Batman and Robin, The Boy Wonder – Frank Miller & Jim Lee
93. Batman: Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? – Neil Gaiman & Andy Kubert
94. Always – Nicola Griffith
95. Super Crunchers – Ian Ayres
96. Oceans of Magic – Brian M. Thomsen & Martin H. Greenberg (Editors)
97. How To Train Your Dragon – Cressida Cowell
98. Fletch – Gregory McDonald
99. Confess, Fletch – Gregory McDonald
100. Fletch and the Widow Bradley – Gregory McDonald
101. Fletch Won – Gregory McDonald
102. Fletch, Too – Gregory McDonald
103. Carioca, Fletch – Gregory McDonald
104. Fletch’s Fortune – Gregory McDonald
105. Fletch’s Moxie – Gregory McDonald
106. Fletch and the Man Who – Gregory McDonald
107. The Man Who Japed – Philip K. Dick
108. The Crack in Space – Philip K. Dick
109. Destination Future – Z. S. Adani & Eric T. Reynolds (Editors)
110. The Hunter – Richard Stark
111. The Mourner – Richard Stark
112. The Outfit – Richard Stark
113. Fledgling – Sharon Lee & Steve Miller
114. The Norman Conquests – Alan Ayckbourn
115. Hunting the Corrigans Blood – Holly Lisle
116. Jack Daniels Stories – J.A. Konrath
117. The Steel Hit – Richard Stark
118. The Score – Richard Stark
119. The Black Ice Score – Richard Stark
120. The Jugger – Richard Stark
121. The Handle – Richard Stark
122. The Split – Richard Stark
123. The Star Treasure – Keith Laumer
124. The Dragon Variation – Sharon Lee & Steve Miller
125. Mouse and Dragon – Sharon Lee & Steve Miller
126. Saltation – Sharon Lee & Steve Miller
127. The Rare Coin Score – Donald Westlake
128. The Tomorrow Log – Sharon Lee & Steve Miller
129. Dragon Tide – Sharon Lee & Steve Miller
130. Nonviolent Communication – Marshall B. Rosenberg

This time, in talking to my dad, I found out that my grandfather was hired as a grave digger in 1918/19. He was probably around 16/17 at that time, and my dad remembers stories about how they would have a funeral procession (Goa is very catholic) to bury someone who had died, come back to the village church and find another body ready for burial.

I’m glad H5N1 was not as brutal in its virulence.

I was afraid it wouldn’t work, because they had stopped doing stuff like that. But then the guy must have realised I would be too much trouble to shake down for a bribe and let me go.

Maybe next time I’ll carry my film SLR and watch their heads explode. Which might be fun, and on the other hand they might try to ding me for the lens and I wouldn’t want that.

The jet lag seemed a lot worse on this trip. I couldn’t stay awake on Thursday or Friday after lunch. And it was raining too heavily so I didn’t get to go out or do anything outside. My nephews (one of whom is in pre-school; the other in 2nd grade) and sister were sick with colds and given how much I was sneezed around and upon, I think I’m currently incubating a super-virus. Feni seems to help a little.

Sunday, I went for mass in the village church. It’s been all snazzed up, with a new paint job, gold paint on the altars, faux marble wall panels depicting events from the bible and bird guards on the rafters. Goa’s a rich state (second-highest per-capita income in India: Rs 28,000 [around $600], compared to Rs 11,000 for India as a whole. Uttar Pradesh is the lowest at Rs 5,500 [around $120]) and it shows. But I missed the sparrows that used to chirp and flit around during services. It was also heartwarming to hear church-goers break out into spontaneous two and three-part harmonies on the hymns.

The homily was interesting. The priest started out with a general fable about a zen monk and his disciple. The one about how your possessions end up owning you. And then went on to something else that I forgot, because he finished with rant about a statistic: every week, their office is receiving two applications for marriage annulments and he went on about how the parish (second largest in Goa, about 10,000 people) has been doing so much to prepare couples for marriage, organizing a compulsory two day marriage preparation course and despite that, people were wanting annulments, so here he was entreating the parish to pray (yes, that’s right, pray) for the couples to be strong in the face of their troubles.

Grrr. Seem to me things will get a lot worse before they start to get better.