For our final cycling tour lunch, our guide and
driver, Safi and Michael, bargained with fishermen for fresh fish and tiger
prawns. We brought them to a restaurant that offers “you buy, we cook” services
and enjoyed a delicious farewell lunch.
We are so appreciative that we can communicate in English while we’ve been in India. We’ve noticed some funny-to-us signs like restaurants offering “homely food”, and temples posting “eatables not allowed inside”. The phrases are technically accurate, but are idiomatically different than what we’d find in the US. Here’s what is written on fire extinguishers:
Throughout our travels in Kerala, we've noticed a number of communist images. We also saw thousands of signs for the Democratic Youth Federation of India as we cycled; they were painted on posts, walls and the on the pavement. We learned that DYFI is the largest youth organization in India and it's affiliated with the Communist Party of India (Marxist). According to our guide Safi, they use violent tactics to further their cause.
We were curious about the history of communism in Kerala, so we checked in Wikipedia. Here's an excerpt: Nine years after India gained independence from the British, the state of Kerala was formed. In 1957 elections were held and a reformist, Communist-led government came to power. It was the first time a Communist government had been democratically elected to power anywhere in the world. It initiated pioneering land reforms, leading to the lowest levels of rural poverty in India. The new government refused to nationalize the large estates but did provide reforms to protect manual laborers and farm workers, and invited capitalists to set up industry. Much more controversial was an effort to impose state control on private schools, which enrolled 40% of the students. There were huge protests and the police arrested 150,000 people (often the same people arrested time and again). The opposition called on Prime Minister Nehru to seize control of the state government. Nehru was reluctant but when his daughter Indira Gandhi, the national head of the Congress Party, joined in, he finally did so. New elections in 1959 cost the Communists most of their seats and Congress resumed control. Since the ‘80’s, the various communist party groups have controlled a minority of the legislature seats, so their influence is still felt today.
We were able to keep the bikes for one additional day, so we used them to cruise around Fort Kochi and visit the spread out Kochi-Muziris Biennale exhibits. Here are photos of Pete riding into a site specific installation called “Echo Armada” by Rigo 23. (For those of you who live in San Francisco, you may have seen this Portuguese artist’s work in the Clarion Alley murals or his piece, “One Tree,” near the 10th and Bryant streets onramp to Highway 101.) The ‘bat mobile’ was created using the body of a tuktuk (Indian auto rickshaw).
One installation that we revisited was called “Life is a River” by the Brazilian sculptor Ernesto Neto. This piece is installed on the top floor of an old warehouse on the waterfront. He used fabrics found in the local Kochi marketplace and suspended them from the ceiling. The fabric “bags” were filled with spices also bought at the marketplace. Neto is interested in the relationships created by these elements touching each other in a field of gravity. The heat of the space (it’s about 100F and probably 85% humidity in the attic) also creates a relationship between the viewers who are smelling the sweet fragrance of the spices while sweating, and the spices too are sweating into the fabric.
These pictures are from a video installation entitled “Destroyed Word” by Santiago Sierra, a Spanish artist who had these letters created in ten different countries, then paid local workers to destroy them. Our favorite images were the A (New Zealand) made of milk containers which were shot, the I (Papau New Guinea) made of wood which was chopped down, and the S (Netherlands) made of local fruits and vegetables being eaten by pigs.
There are many murals and some interesting graffiti art in Fort Kochi. We are not sure which were created for Biennale and which were already here. These are photos of some of our favorites.
This will be our last post from India, and we’re a bit sad to be leaving. It’s interesting to compare how we feel now to when we travelled here in 1990 – then, after six weeks of India, we were ready to go home. This trip has been great, and we’ve really appreciated having two months to immerse ourselves and learn about India, and to experience all its flavors. Lunch today was wonderful Mughlai “burritos”: parathas filled with a sweet-spicy mix of chicken, egg and lightly pickled onions. Yum!
Next stop is Bangkok, Thailand for a week. Here’s our revised itinerary through the summer:
3/19-4/1 - Sri Lanka
4/1-4/20: Thailand
4/21-5/3: Laos
5/4-5/16-: Cambodia
5/17-5/30: North Vietnam
6/1-7/30: Indonesia (Java, Bali, Lombok)
Send us an email (yoga@KristinaIsberg.com) if you want to come meet us on the way and we’ll let you know the details about places in these countries we are planning to visit. We are missing our friends and family, so we’d love to hear from you with news of how you are doing and life in the US!
We are so appreciative that we can communicate in English while we’ve been in India. We’ve noticed some funny-to-us signs like restaurants offering “homely food”, and temples posting “eatables not allowed inside”. The phrases are technically accurate, but are idiomatically different than what we’d find in the US. Here’s what is written on fire extinguishers:
Throughout our travels in Kerala, we've noticed a number of communist images. We also saw thousands of signs for the Democratic Youth Federation of India as we cycled; they were painted on posts, walls and the on the pavement. We learned that DYFI is the largest youth organization in India and it's affiliated with the Communist Party of India (Marxist). According to our guide Safi, they use violent tactics to further their cause.
We were curious about the history of communism in Kerala, so we checked in Wikipedia. Here's an excerpt: Nine years after India gained independence from the British, the state of Kerala was formed. In 1957 elections were held and a reformist, Communist-led government came to power. It was the first time a Communist government had been democratically elected to power anywhere in the world. It initiated pioneering land reforms, leading to the lowest levels of rural poverty in India. The new government refused to nationalize the large estates but did provide reforms to protect manual laborers and farm workers, and invited capitalists to set up industry. Much more controversial was an effort to impose state control on private schools, which enrolled 40% of the students. There were huge protests and the police arrested 150,000 people (often the same people arrested time and again). The opposition called on Prime Minister Nehru to seize control of the state government. Nehru was reluctant but when his daughter Indira Gandhi, the national head of the Congress Party, joined in, he finally did so. New elections in 1959 cost the Communists most of their seats and Congress resumed control. Since the ‘80’s, the various communist party groups have controlled a minority of the legislature seats, so their influence is still felt today.
We were able to keep the bikes for one additional day, so we used them to cruise around Fort Kochi and visit the spread out Kochi-Muziris Biennale exhibits. Here are photos of Pete riding into a site specific installation called “Echo Armada” by Rigo 23. (For those of you who live in San Francisco, you may have seen this Portuguese artist’s work in the Clarion Alley murals or his piece, “One Tree,” near the 10th and Bryant streets onramp to Highway 101.) The ‘bat mobile’ was created using the body of a tuktuk (Indian auto rickshaw).
One installation that we revisited was called “Life is a River” by the Brazilian sculptor Ernesto Neto. This piece is installed on the top floor of an old warehouse on the waterfront. He used fabrics found in the local Kochi marketplace and suspended them from the ceiling. The fabric “bags” were filled with spices also bought at the marketplace. Neto is interested in the relationships created by these elements touching each other in a field of gravity. The heat of the space (it’s about 100F and probably 85% humidity in the attic) also creates a relationship between the viewers who are smelling the sweet fragrance of the spices while sweating, and the spices too are sweating into the fabric.
These pictures are from a video installation entitled “Destroyed Word” by Santiago Sierra, a Spanish artist who had these letters created in ten different countries, then paid local workers to destroy them. Our favorite images were the A (New Zealand) made of milk containers which were shot, the I (Papau New Guinea) made of wood which was chopped down, and the S (Netherlands) made of local fruits and vegetables being eaten by pigs.
There are many murals and some interesting graffiti art in Fort Kochi. We are not sure which were created for Biennale and which were already here. These are photos of some of our favorites.
This will be our last post from India, and we’re a bit sad to be leaving. It’s interesting to compare how we feel now to when we travelled here in 1990 – then, after six weeks of India, we were ready to go home. This trip has been great, and we’ve really appreciated having two months to immerse ourselves and learn about India, and to experience all its flavors. Lunch today was wonderful Mughlai “burritos”: parathas filled with a sweet-spicy mix of chicken, egg and lightly pickled onions. Yum!
Next stop is Bangkok, Thailand for a week. Here’s our revised itinerary through the summer:
3/19-4/1 - Sri Lanka
4/1-4/20: Thailand
4/21-5/3: Laos
5/4-5/16-: Cambodia
5/17-5/30: North Vietnam
6/1-7/30: Indonesia (Java, Bali, Lombok)
Send us an email (yoga@KristinaIsberg.com) if you want to come meet us on the way and we’ll let you know the details about places in these countries we are planning to visit. We are missing our friends and family, so we’d love to hear from you with news of how you are doing and life in the US!
