It's all in your perspective

A friend was being driven through Hyderabad and noticed some people sleeping on what passes for a lawn under a billboard. My friend commented to his companion, a government official, that there is also a serious homeless problem in the United States.

The official responded: "ah - but you see: we don't have a homeless problem in India. You look at those people and assume they are homeless. I look at them and I understand - that *is* their home."

No panic in Hyderabad

Despite the terrible goings on in Mumbai this week, I decided to stay with plans to go to Hyderabad for the UN Internet Governance Forum in any case. I confess to thinking the Mumbai attacks were so well organized they would have either consumed all the resources of whatever group organized them, or have been launched by some sect so well resourced and powerful they would be able to move quickly in other cities to create a broader sense of panic and disorder. It's too early to claim I was right, but it's looking like I might have been...

A colleague and I decided that, rather than suffer a weekend locked down in the hotel, we'd better test the waters, however timidly, and go see whatever there is in Hyderabad. It is not a very attractive town. The fairly lengthy Qutb Shahi dynasty produced the impressive Golconda fort, a huge palace, and a series of royal tombs, along with an array of large mosques. They can all be visited easily in a day. The government has developed a sensible pricing scheme for visiting historic sites, charging Indians 5 rupees (about 1.5¢) to visit and foreigners 100. But that is the start. Friendly-seeming locals then rush unwary visitors, and start to explain in vast detail what was before us. It eventually became evident that these folk have a complex (and expensive) rate card they've neglected to tell you about that might include items such as the following:
- 700 rupees per person for the "basic tour" ($17.50 ea)
- 400 rupees pp to have a cloth removed from a carved black marble sarcophagus ($10 ea)
- 500 rupees pp to have someone clap their hands to demonstrate an echo ($12.50 ea), etc.

Knowing none of this in advance, a tour can very easily become a major expense. Fortunately, we figured out the game early on: at the point we were asked to pay for having had the cloth whipped from the sarcophagus, so then denied all further services. No doubt I've missed many vital historical facts, but count on wikipedia to fill me in when necessary.

One of the highlights of the day was climbing to the top of the Charminar -- a four towered monument used at various times as a mosque, headquarters of a French expeditionary force, and the source of Madame Blavatsky's philosophical speculations. The thing is surrounded by a bustling market, and offers a fantastic vantage point from which t watch the chaos that is traffic in Hyderabad.

The good news is that all is calm and getting calmer now that the Mumbai sieges are over, or seems to be calm to 2 old white guys out touring the town. Of course, you might reasonably ask whether we'd even notice anything out of the ordinary without any real sense of what is ordinary in the first place...

I'm hoping my camera will rejoin me soon, following its vacation in Kenya, so I can post some photos later in the week.

William Gibson in Africa

On the second leg of a tour of Intercontinental Hotels of Africa, I was asked whether there is a problem getting broadband to all citizens in countries other than Kenya. Yes I said, and described the situation by quoting William Gibson: "The future is already here. It's just not evenly distributed." This came blindingly home when being transported for dinner in a Nairobi institution called The Carnivore. Rumour had it that elephant was on the menu this week (untrue as it turned out) so I declared myself vegetarian to avoid the possible ethical dilemma. But the drive over was a slice of bladerunner. We travelled in a heavy duty van through streets so clogged with traffic and exhaust the air was blue. HD screens of considerable size lined the streets showing the glories of mobile phones and new appliances. Meanwhile sad women carrying reaching, skinny children roamed through the traffic, knocking on windows and begging for pretty much anything on offer. Immense birds (called Marabou?) fill the tree tops. Scavengers apparently, and the locals say they are remarkable for their ability to digest entire bones, thanks to pouches of acid in their craws. Not a lot like Kansas.

First encounter with a christmas carol, 2008

An outburst of Hark the Herald Angels on Ethiopian Airlines, flight 800, Nairobi to Addis Ababa. This date. Sigh.

Sunny Sunday stroll up and down

A perfect late-October day, with bright sunshine and the fog held off shore. I hiked to the top of Telegraph Hill, and found the Coit Tower open. I had never seen the wonderful series of murals, nor taken the elevator to the top, 20 storeys up. The view is worth the $5, particularly today, as I spotted a huge and highly eccentric yacht docked in the cruise ship slips. It turned out to be the Maltese Falcon, built by a Hewlett-Packard gazillionaire and now chartered out most of the time. Truly amazing from a distance but maybe more up close.

After some searching, I found the staircase down Telegraph that passes through the gardens occupied by the somewhat famous Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill. They seem to be thriving. Several hours later, reversing my steps around the waterfront about 4:30 I heard parrots shrieking in the distance. I could see a couple of hundred of them lift off Telegraph Hill in a flock and fly through the buildings of the financial district, finally emerging in a few large lombardy poplars in Embarcadero Park. I was heading that way anyways, and when I got there they were noisily feeding. Leaves flying everywhere. The parrots don't like pigeons. Anytime one appeared, the parrots would dive-bomb them. Fun to watch, but my camera ran out of batteries..
:-(

Late night North Beach

Pretty sad to wander North Beach late at night these days. The odd landmark is still in evidence. City Lights has consigned the Beats to the 2nd floor poetry room, sensibly displaying more current material on the ground floor. And the store is much cleaner than I remember from 40 years ago when I first dropped in. The few sitting in Café Vesuvio... least said the better. Wandering through party central, I'm calculating that any of the Beats still alive would be in their mid-80s, and hardly likely to be found walkiing these streets at any time of day. Counting lucky stars.