India
sometimes I talk about India
By bluerasberry on March 5, 2011
I said, “Why don’t you come live in Benares at my place for a while?” So Pradeep from Mumbai Gay Pride got on a train and came 1600km to visit me from Mumbai. A couple of days ago was Shivratri. I was really sick but Nandan had made special arrangements to go backstage at Tilbhandeshwar [...]
Posted in festival, India, religion | Tagged Hinduism, sickness
By bluerasberry on February 22, 2011
I was giving Nandan a tour of Wikipedia and one of the entries he wandered to was for Baba Keenaram Sthal. I did not recognize the name of either the place or the founder so Nandan started telling me their history. Later that evening I went for a walk and ran into both Attila and [...]
Posted in gay stuff, India, religion | Tagged sex, temple
By bluerasberry on February 20, 2011
I went to meet with Arun Pathak. He lives at the monastery for the 23rd Jain Tirthankar’s birthplace, which was a detail Nandan had not mentioned until we arrived. I first read about Pathak in 2005 before I ever even made plans to visit India. This was in relation to his Deepa Mehta Water protest. [...]
Posted in education, India | Tagged politics
By bluerasberry on February 20, 2011
The temple complex at Khujaraho shows the best Hindu carvings I have yet seen and I would recommend the place to anyone is interested in the subject and has time to spend a day there. I had heard a lot about the erotic carvings there, and they are interesting, but there are maybe 10-20 erotic [...]
Posted in art, India, tour | Tagged architecture, monument
By bluerasberry on February 20, 2011
Nandan and I visited some places around Bhopal. Madhya Pradesh as a state seems more livable than Uttar Pradesh as the population seems lower, the roads are better, the cities and countryside are generally cleaner, and the government does more to make things easier for tourists. We visited this zoo called Van Vihar near a [...]
Posted in India, tour | Tagged waste
By bluerasberry on February 20, 2011
Nandan and I stayed at this hotel called Ranjeet. As far as hotels go it suited my needs but I want to mention that it had a ground floor restaurant with a lounge singer every night. He had a cassette deck and a bunch of tapes and a microphone. He sung old Bollywood songs. Many [...]
Posted in encounter, India | Tagged music
By bluerasberry on February 20, 2011
I wanted to visit the site of the 1984 Union Carbide disaster. I also wanted to visit whatever major NGO was working with the survivors. This is why we went to Bhopal, the capitol of Madhya Pradesh. I expected that affected people were still living in the area. I also expected that these people had [...]
Posted in education, health, India, legal, non-profit | Tagged death, pollution, school, toxic waste
By bluerasberry on February 17, 2011
At the railway station in Agra we ate at Comesum, which is a restaurant chain at railway stations. They offer Western-style fast-food service with both Indian and Western food. Also they advertise that anyone on a long train journey can call their central phone line and order food delivered to them on the train when [...]
Posted in India, service industry | Tagged food
By bluerasberry on February 17, 2011
Nandan and I took a taxi in Agra and the driver wanted me to visit some shop. I asked Nandan what he thought and he said let’s check customer service in a tourist capitol. In the front of this shop there were marble workers toiling on the floor with all kinds of complicated equipment. I [...]
Posted in art, India, service industry | Tagged service industry
By bluerasberry on February 16, 2011
Chandan, Nandan’s tour guide brother, recommended that Nandan and I go to a certain restaurant to eat. The food was great. Nandan was supposed to tell the staff that he worked with Chandan. He told them this and they gave something like a 20% discount on the bill. Later that night Nandan called Chandan to [...]
Posted in India | Tagged food