Musings of an Idiot

Keyword:Operation

Operation seems to be the keyword for today. Everywhere I look thats the word that I seem to run into - 'Operation:Duryadhan' ; 'Operation:Chakravuya'; 'Operation:Majnu'; 'Operation:Demolition'. The first 2 being sting operations conducted by T.V news channels where they caught about 10 M.P's {Member of Parliments} on tape accepting significant bribes. No action has been taken yet and I am sure that the issue will be buried away like the so many cases of corruption which keep coming up over the years with no chance of being solved.

The third one being extra powers given to U.P state police {Uttar Pradesh, one of the adjoining states to New Delhi} so that they can take action against any boy and girl hanging out together. There was a huge uproar over the video of a policewoman hitting a girl and a guy who were hanging out together in a park. My views on it - a backward looking police state is not my choice for discussion.

And the last operation being the demolition drive across New Delhi by the Muncipal Corporation Department where all illegal and unauthorized construcions/buildings are being razed to ground. This is creating a huge unrest in the city. The thing is that the illegal constructions took place in the first place because of the connivance of the goverment officials and property developers and now the government is getting to correct the wrongs which their employees may have made in the past.

Anyway since 'Operation' was the keyword - Lance and me decided to launch 'Operation:Tourist'. We took a 1 day tour package to Agra and were acting like tourists. The day started off on the wrong foot because the pickup vehicle which was to take us to the tour bus never arrived and after waiting till 5.30 A.M dad decided to drop us there. The tourist company had forgotten to send a pickup so they promised us a free drop-off later in the evening.

The trip to Agra was surprising and disappointing. Most of the monuments had major sections blocked off because the indian army had taken board there to provide security for the monuments. Yesterday, about 50% of Red Fort in Delhi had been blocked off and today at Agra fort, only 20% of the fort was accessible to tourists. While at Taj Mahal, the lower chamber - the original tombs of Noorjahan and Shah Jahan were blocked off. The security across all the places was really high and somehow it did come as a surprise to me.

The tour felt a tad rushed because the tour bus wasted so much time on unnecessary things {like handicraft shops} and gave a limited amount of time at Taj Mahal, which is still an absolute stunner and would have loved more time there. Something so beautiful to personify love, the monument itself causes major shift in your emotions.

I am still pissed off at the differential pricing that India has for locals and tourists. It is discrimination. Also seeing some of the reactions of people to Lance pissed me off as it was racist and it just reitterates my belief that most humans are racists one way or another - whether we choose to acknowledge it or not.

The funny incident at Taj Mahal was security people insisting that I buy a foreign tourist entrance ticket and I insisted otherwise. There reasoning was that since I don't work in India, I am not Indian and my argument was that I have an indian passport, so I am an Indian no matter where I work. Ultimately I did get in with normal tickets but the ignorance which such people have makes me want to laugh out loud.

On our way back we stopped at Mathura - the birth place of Lord Krishna and again it was high security area and highly commercialized. I did not enjoy it as much as I would have wanted to. Religion for me is more about faith than anything else and such commercial places don't evoke faith within me.

Tomorrow, I will be going to meet Uday uncle - with whom I worked a couple of years before coming to NZ. I started off my journey into media because of him. Internet is still tediously slow and uploading photographs at this stage looks a little far stretched - maybe when we are in Vijayawada next week our luck might change. Lance has taken some amazing pics, some which capture the heart and soul of India and I guess that will be a major update on his website once we return to NZ.

For me - the trip till now has been about discovering who I was before I went to NZ and I seem to like some of the aspects while others I don't. As far as Lance is concerned - he says that he loves it and it has opened his eyes to a whole new world and he already feels like a changed man. It is full of life and colours and that it is a photographer's dream.

With that I will end this update for now.
Ciao,
Amit
{P.S - Lance killed his first mosquito in India and we are gonna drink to that at some point :-) }

posted by Amit @ 10:51 PM