Category Archives: Daily Scribble

My random thoughts of the day.

Daily Scribble

Holy Cow

4 Comments

Holy Cow

India is famous for the scared cows roaming around in the city.  You see cows everywhere, along the road site, next to parked cars, even in the middle of the busiest intersection.  Cow is considered holy in the Hindu religion, so killing of cow is forbidden in India.  You don’t find beef in the menu of Indian restaurants.  To a beef lover like me, I could never understand why the Hindus would make a tasty animal being holy.

Actually I asked the question why cow is holy in Hindu to my Indian friends.  It seems none of them know the exact answer.  They don’t eat beef simply by following the Hindu tradition without questioning its origin.  I read from Wiki that holy cow may have its origin from the agriculture use of cows.  However, cows are no longer used in modern day farms, maybe we should stripe the holiness of cows and make tractors holy instead.  Another explanation is that cow has some symbolic meaning in Hindu religion.  Since choosing a symbol is kinda arbitary, why can’t they pick some other less tasty animals like shrimp or crab to worship?

Luckily, if you know the right place, you can still enjoy beef in India.  Most western restaurant in big hotels serve beef in their menu.  I just had a tenderloin steak grilled to perfection for dinner last night.  There is an old saying that you are what you eat.  If I eat holy cows, shouldn’t I become holy too?

Daily Scribble

Infanticide in India

2 Comments

One of my Indian colleague is going to be a dad soon.  I congratulated him and asked him is it a baby boy or baby girl.  To my surprise, he said he have no idea.  It turn out in India it is illegal for the doctor telling the parents the sex of the baby.  The India government have such a law is because killing unborn baby girls is quite common in India.  The male to female ratio in India is 93 to 100, which means 7 out of 100 men cannot find a wife.  The problem is so bad that the government have to pass laws in order to have more baby girls.

I know Indian discriminate against woman, but discrimination alone won’t explain the killing of baby girl.  Your son have to marry a woman when he grow up, if everyone only give birth to boy, where the wives come from?  It turn out there is a financial penalty of having baby girl.  In Indian tradition marriage, the parent of the bride has to give a large sum of money to the groom.  Some people even take out a loan so that their daughter can marry the guy they like.  Here is something does not make sense.  According to the law of supply and demand, there are not enough women for every men in India.  Women are short in supply and high in demand, their price should go up.  In a free market of getting marriage, the groom should pay the large sum to find the right bride.  In a long run, the Indian wedding tradition is due to change, nothing can defying the law of economics forever.

If I am an Indian parent, I rather my daughter remains daddy’s girl then paying a large sum to get her a husband.  Any guy asking money from the in-law are not suitable to be a good husband.  If the Indian wedding tradition is the cause of killing baby girls.  Forbidding the doctor telling the parent the sex of the baby only treat the symptoms, it is not fixing the problem.  Assume we have to work within the constraint of arranged marriage, maybe the government should setup an internet auction platform for match making and require all parents using the auction platform to arranged the marriage for their sons and daughters.  An open auction platform just like eBay will show the true market value of the bride.  Given the lack of women in India, the price signal should strong enough to reverse trend of killing baby girl.  There is also a plan B, the Indian government can simply legalize gay marriage.  For the 7 out of 100 poor men who can’t find a wife, they just marry another guy.

Daily Scribble

Goa

1 Comment

Goa

After two weeks staying in Bangalore, I have to get away from city to get a break. So I went to Goa for a weekend trip. Goa is a beach resort town on the west coast of India, which is about 1 hour flight away from Bangalore. Comparing to the busy and polluted Bangalore, Goa is nice and peaceful. I can tell the difference once I step out of the plane. The air in Goa is refreshing, no only it has breeze from the sea, it also has the fresh smell of greenery. The whole city is surrounded by trees and plantation. The coast line of Goa is a really long beach, probably over a few kilometers. There are lots hotels and vacation houses along the main road a few minutes walk away from the beach. It is a tourist heaven.

I took the Kingfisher airline from Bangalore to Goa. The Indian domestic flight is better than I expected. Although the flight is only 1 hour, we are served a nice meal on the airplane. The airport in Goa is small, it only has two gates. After we got off the plane, we can walk to the terminal building under the sun from where the plane is parked. The weather of Goa is sweaty hot, only when you are under the sun or moving. If you sit under the shade, it is quite cool. The hotel is about 1 hour from the airport and 5 minutes away from the beach. The room is quite nice in Indian standard, most important it has air condition. We were quite tired after the traveling, so we just have dinner and retire to bed early. We had dinner at an Indian restaurant next to the hotel. It is funny that all customers are white people! The Indian food there is westernized, so it actually taste not bad.

The next day was quite an adventure. It turned out we joined a Indian tour, so we are touring the city with a whole bus of Indians. One good thing about the Indian tour compare to white guys tour is that there is not souvenir shop over. The second good thing is that the four is full of surprise. We don’t know the itinerary and we can’t really understand what the tour guide said, so have no idea what is our next destination.
The first stop is a beach, nothing special. The next stop is the Bom Jesus Basilica, which house the relic of St. Francis Xavier. The church itself is named one of world heritage sites by UN. Too bad that the relic of SFX is placed high up, I couldn’t get a closer look at the dead body. Then we visited the Mangesh Indian temples. You have to take off your shoes to enter the temple. Since I am not that keen on taking off my shoes, so I didn’t go inside. I just take a few photo form outside. You can’t take photo inside anyways. Other than some god statues, probably nothing interesting inside the crowded temple.

In the afternoon, we visited another Indian temple. All Indian temple looks the same. It got one main building a white tower and a large pool. You see one, you see them all. The temple itself is kind boring, but the rice field next the temple is quite a view. I never seen a real rice field before and never know that rice field is so green. It probably has RGB value of 0-255-0, you have to see it with your eyes. After seeing the temple, we went to a Portuguese house museum. It is an old building preserving how the Portuguese lives when they colonize Goa. The guided tour is quite interesting and it’s like a school field trip. Probably the white guy tour will not come to this place and I don’t see any white guy in the museum.

The next stop is another beach. This time we are given an hour of free time, so I and Martin just have a beer and chill out on the beach. The beach is mostly Indians. Some people swim but most of them just walking around on the beach. There are a few jet ski for rented and speed boat offering parachute-ride. It is kinda scary seeing the jet ski going between the swimmers. No wonder the tour guide told us not to swim. The tour ended with a river cruise. The sun set and the sea breeze are nice. However the cruise boat has some funky Indian dance show and the noisy music is quite annoying. I rather they let me enjoy the river wide quietly. Apparently the cruise boat as double as floating disco at night. When we dock, I see lots of young people lining up for the next boat run.

After a full day of tour on Saturday, Sunday is very relaxing. We just went to the beach and sit there doing nothing except having beer for the whole day until the car pick us up to the airport. We had a nice walked along the beach and get our foot wet in the cool ocean water. Too bad that I am stuck with Martin inside of Pat. We both agree it is kinda gay. I saw some fish boats on the beach and fishermen repairing their nets. I guess the local people still catch fish for living. A more stunting scene is rows after rows of beach chairs. Along the several kilometer stretch of the beach, I estimate there are at least ten thousand beach chairs. Can you imagine the beach chairs are full of white guys sun bathing in the peak tourist season?

Two days in Goa is too short, I wish I don’t have to come back to Bangalore. Bangalore sure gave me a bad impression on India. After seeing Goa, I think India is not too bad after all.

Daily Scribble

Auto Rickshaw

7 Comments

Auto Richshaw

Auto rickshaw is the most common transportation in Bangalore.  It is kinda like the taxi of India.  You can hire one by raising your hand on street corners or find a richshaw stop in front of shopping malls.  The auto richshaw drives like a motorcycle, except it has two wheels and a passenager cabinet at the back.  They runs on small 2 stroke engine, making the tuc- tuc noise.  That’s why auto rickshaw is also called tuctucs.  The auto rickshaw has no door nor windows.  The engine probably runs on dirty gas, so you can smell the exhaust when you riding on it.  I guess the auto rickshaw is not very eco-friendly.

On my first week in Banaglore, I tried to avoid taking the auto rickshaw.  It seems not very safe and kinda shabby.  However there is no restaurant serves real food around the guest house.  So, I overcome my reluctance and start taking auto rickshaw this week.  After the work, the company driver just drop me off at the restaurant of the night, then I ride the auto rickshaw back to the guest house after dinner.

All auto rickshaw comes with a fare meter but it is rarely use.  Usually you negotiate the price before hopping into it.  It costs about CAD$2.5 for a 20 minutes ride from downtown Bangalore back to the guest house.  The rickshaw driver probably over charged me by almost doubling the fare.  Do I really care?  Probably not, I don’t really want to bargain on the street for merely $1.  I rather pay the premium and let the driver take me to my destination with no fuss.

Daily Scribble

Cricket

1 Comment

Cricket

Cricket to Indian is like Hockey to Canadian.  Cricket is probably the national sport in India and every one seems crazy about it.   I haven’t a live game, but I see lots of cricket on TV as the world champion is playing in Australia this week.  The India team is playing against the Australians and too bad they lost the game.  At first I have no clue what is going on in the game.  The good thing is that everyone is happy to explain the rule to me.  It took me a while to get a sense of what is going on in the field.

Cricket is kinda like baseball, with pitcher, batter and catcher.  Instead of running in diamond, the batter runs back and forth in the dirt stripe in the middle of the field.  The rule is similar to baseball.  The pitcher throw the ball to the batter, then the batter strike the ball.  If the ball is caught in the air, the batter is out.   Otherwise, the batter can keep running to score more points until the ball is threw back to the stripe.  If the ball go outside of the field, it kinda like home run, the batter automatically score 4 points or 6 points depending on whether the ball is in the air.  Of course, the team score more points win the game.  The rule kinda make sense up to this point, just like baseball.

The flow of game is weird.  Instead of having innings with teams playing offense and defense alternatively, the game is played in two sessions.  One team will finish all his batting in first session, then the other team will do the batting in second session.  A session ends when all the batter are strike out or 500 balls is threw.  It’s kinda like a team score several hundred points first, then let the another team to catch up.  The game flow makes the game not very exciting.  The first few hundred points is kinda boring, since it won’t make much difference to the game.  Only when the second team come close to catch up and almost run of batters or balls, then the game becomes interesting.  It is more fun to see the score from both teams leap frogging each other every inning.