IN A PREVIOUS MEMO I JUPMED THE GUN. MY DAUGHTER ASKED ME TO POST THIS RE-TRACTION:
Protesters, shame on you!
THE PARTISAN PROTESTS AGAINST THE
GOVERNMENT ONLY SERVE HAMAS’S
INTERESTS.
++++
Melissa travels: 5 and 6!
+++
Chapter 5 Matiari, Murshidabad and Baranagar
March 25 is the Festival of Holi. This is a fun event, where children and adults both do a lot of dancing, playing loud music, and putting colored chalk powder all over each other. We arrived at our next stop, Matiari, before dinner on the 24 th , and the music and festivities were already underway.
In the morning, we had a walking tour of the village, which is more prosperous than many. They make and sell a lot of brass goods, both to the public and to dealers from around the world. We stopped in two shops and watched the men at work etching decorative designs into the brass by hand. About 100 years ago, the senior leaders of this village went to Calcutta to work in the brass utensils-making factory. As they grew
old, they were sent back to Matiari and they taught villagers how to make brass utensils. This is now the main source of income for the 8000 or so inhabitants.
The children in the village were all excited about Holi and wanted to decorate the white faces that were parading by. We surprised them and decorated their faces. The ship had given us each a cheap white tee shirt to wear for the occasion, and that was a grand idea. We all ended up with 6-7 different colors of chalk on our faces, hands, and clothes, but it was good fun.
(Somehow, all of our photos from Matiahave disappeared. It must be the revenge of the gods for all that chalk dust flying around.)
When we returned to the ship, the crew threw a Holi party for the passengers. Everyone was there, tossing chalk power at each other and dancing like teenagers. Some of the crew were really good dancers, and they were having as much fun as any passenger. Of course, then we could go back and take showers while they had to clean up all the mess.
We are passing a lot of very fertile-looking farm areas. So far, we’ve seen one dead cow in the river, but no other bodies. A sacred cow in a sacred river. Not sure how to process that.
March 26, we were in two towns I’ll wager are not on your buckets lists: Murshidabad and Baranagar. They are just small towns in the countryside along the Ganges. Murshidabad is the larger of the two, with some lovely old colonial buildings and some new, large homes being built. This was the capital of Bengal and an important center of government during the Raj.
They loaded us into pony carts – oh, wait, I couldn’t get my big fanny up the step into the cart, so we rode in a rickshaw. The rickshaw had a kindly young driver and at least a little cushioning against the potholes and bumps in the road. Those who rode in the pony carts reported a lot of bouncing around, so thanks be to my puny and decrepit frame.
We rode first through town to the Katra Mosque. This was built in 1723 by the first Nawab (Governor or Mayor) of Murshidabad, Murshid Quli Khan, who gave his name to the town. He asked that, to atone for his sins during his life, this mosque be built and that he be buried under to entrance steps so that anyone he had wronged could walk on his grave.
The mosque had four towers rather than minarets, but an earthquake in 1897 knocked down two of them and they were never rebuilt. As well as a mosque, there was a school here, with students and teachers living in tiny cells around a central green area.
It was unclear whether or not this mosque was still in use. One person said it was the oldest mosque still in use for Friday prayers, and another said it was no longer in use. Whichever was correct, it is an attraction for Indian tourists as well as white folks “movin’ on the river.”
Back in our rickshaw, we went to the Hazar Duari Palace or the “Palace of 1,000 doors.” It does have 1000 doors, but only 900 of them are real. The remaining 100 just hang on a wall without opening and are there to make a nice, round number of 1,000. The palace was built in the mid-19 th century for British officials who had their offices in its 114 rooms. One end of this palace has been repainted in its original rich yellow. I’m sure the rest of it will look equally good when they get it done. Krishna only knows how long
that might take.
We were able to stroll back to the boat through the main shopping area of town. Fifth Avenue it ain’t. A few small shacks with a small selection of things to sell. Mostly it was good for photos of people, so Jim was loving it.
The majority of the people here seem happy enough to have their photos taken. Kids love it, and then love to see the photos. That was a trick we learned from Al Perry, a photographer who was on our first trip to Cuba. He showed us that, if we turned the cameras around and showed the kids the photos, they were delighted. It has always worked, so thank you, Al!
After lunch on the boat, Jim went for the afternoon excursion in Baranagar and I tried mightily and completely unsuccessfully to get some photos uploaded. The internet here will work for a few seconds and then quit again. Mahendra, our cabin attendant, found me a booster, but it didn’t do any good. So I missed a stroll through a rural village with several temples dedicated to Shiva. The temples were built by Rani (Queen) Bhavani of Natore, who lived here at the end of her life in the 1700’s.
In a description for tourists:
“Goats frolic among the temples and vines attempt to take them over, but the terra cotta carvings are considered among the best in Bengal and the temples are well tended.” Sounds pretty good, right? The group also observed a cricket game between some of the crewmembers who got to let off some steam.
Before dinner, there was a group of traditional Indian dancers who came on board to delight us. There were 5 women and one man. I didn’t catch the entire performance, but I did see the women do two dances and the man do one. Partway through his performance, the man stood on the edges of a brass tray and wiggled his way forward and back on the tray on the floor. I used to do that as a kid on cardboard, so it didn’t seem that special, but the leader talked about how difficult this dance was to do. I’m sure it was. The women danced 4 around 1, and the one in the center was much taller and pretty masculine looking, so nobody was sure what the message of their dance was.
At this point, I believe, the boat has turned around and we are headed south, back to Kolkata. We’ll stop in some different places on the way, so stay tuned.
Here is the link to the photos:
https://www.mmemery.com/Murshidibad-and-Baranagar
++++
Chapter 6: Khushbagh, Mayapur, and Chandannagar
On Wednesday, March 27, we toured the “town” of Khushbagh. The town’s name means “Garden of Happiness.” It was a walk through some lush fields, where residents were working on harvesting wheat with scythes. At the end of the path were a small temple and burial ground. This is the garden-graveyard of the Nawabs of Bengal, and several historic rulers are buried here.
Back on the ship, we both attended the Indian cooking class put on by the chef. He made some masala chai, and then what he called “gravy” for curry. I never realized that curry powder is a mixture of several different spices rather than a single thing. He recommended making your own “masala curry” so that you could adjust the levels of the various spices to your liking. Perhaps Chef Jim will try that when we get home (or maybe not.)
We had to leave the class a bit early to go to our Chair Yoga class. Amazing how un- supple we both are. We’ll have to look for an easy class like this when we get home. “When we get home” is full of promises: diet, exercise, meditation, yada yada yada.
After dinner, the crew took the ship’s sampan out and launched 401 candles in the Ganges. It was a lovely sight to see all those sparkling lights on the river under an almost-full moon of just the same golden color. Very peaceful. Sometimes, being in India is emotionally overwhelming.
The next morning, Thursday, we were up early to eat and then leave the boat at 7:30 a.m. We took the sampans across the water to Mayapur. This town was the birthplace of Chaitanya Mahaprobhu in 1486. Chaitanya is thought to be a reincarnation of Krishna, and this town is home to the International Krishna movement.
There is a large complex of buildings here: apartments, classrooms, and temples. They are building what will be the tallest Hindu temple in the world at 340 feet, and one of the largest, rivaling the Vatican in size. It was scheduled to be completed in 2016 but is running a bit behind schedule. The current estimated completion date in 2026. They have the
exterior of the dome completed. It is turquoise in color and quite beautiful, both from the river and up close.
We met a Hari Krishna guide, and he was a delightful surprise. A black man from Atlanta! He is very jolly and shook our hands (no one else in India has done that) and laughed uproariously at this own jokes. He is 65 years old and lived for a long time in Chicago. He told his parents that he wanted to quit school and become a Hari Krishna. They were not too keen on this idea, but he did it, and spent several years being one of those guys in saffron robes that we used to see in the airports. He said he would chat people up and try to get them to buy one of the books they were selling to raise money.
He’s also been to Africa as a missionary. He would work long enough to earn the money for a plane ticket, and then figure out the rest when he landed. He explained to us that Hari Krishnas believe in shedding all material goods and just living in service to others. (A lot like monks and nuns.) Conveniently, the international movement is happy to accept all of their worldly goods as a donation.
Henry Ford’s grandson married an Indian woman, so The Ford Foundation gave a large chunk of money to get this temple underway. We explored the completed parts of the complex and learned a lot about the Hari Krishnas and the man who really began the movement back in the mid-20 th century. He was His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.
There is a diorama of his life showing the various stages of building the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, which is headquartered here. He traveled all over the world, recruiting followers and seeking donations.
Late in the afternoon, as it was “cooling off” from the 95 degree heat and 99% humidity, we went out again to visit Chandannagar, our last town before returning to Kolkata. This town was developed by the French after they received permission to establish a trading post from the Governor of Bengal in 1673.
From 1731 to 1741, the town rose in prominence under the governorship of Joseph François Dupleix. About 2,000 brick homes were constructed and the population reached 100,000. Trade included such items as silk, sugar, opium, indigo and rice.
At this time, Chandannagar was far more prosperous that Kolkata. Beginning in 1756, Britain and France carried on the Carnatic Wars, fighting over territory in Bengal. The British captured the town in 1757 and again in 1794, but it was restored to France in 1815. In 1950, the French government ceded the city to the newly-independent country
of India.
The French created a lovely promenade along the river, lined with trees and a broad boulevard for buggies/cars. Our guide said that no one in India had ever thought of creating such a promenade, so Chandannagar was the first. The French also built some stately buildings in the town. We visited a couple of them, which are now colleges or museums.
We also visited a Catholic church that was built by the French. The color scheme inside is Indian -- bright pink and yellow -- but there are some quality porcelain renditions of the Stations of the Cross.
Back on the ship, we had an entertaining Indian trivia game, followed by our farewell dinner, as some people have to leave as early as tomorrow night.
Tomorrow: Kolkata
https://www.mmemery.com/Murshidibad-and-Baranagar
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
WHEN A ‘DIFFICULT CONVERSATION’ THREATENS FREE SPEECH.
By Byron York
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) is perhaps the leading Trump inquisitor in the House of Representatives. He led one impeachment, played a key role in another, and helped produce the anti-Trump reality series that was the Jan. 6 committee. So when Raskin proposes to give a speech titled Democracy, Autocracy, and the Threat to Reason in the 21st Century, you can probably guess what it is going to be about.
That was the speech Raskin was scheduled to deliver Thursday at the University of Maryland. One might ask: What could go wrong with bashing former President Donald Trump on a college campus? Such a speech would be very well received, wouldn’t it?
Only if the speaker were allowed to speak. In this case, Raskin got just a few sentences into his remarks before he was interrupted by pro-Palestinian protesters who yelled that Raskin is “complicit in genocide.” In that moment, the Israel-Hamas war trumped Trump, and Raskin’s prepared remarks went unspoken. (What follows is based on this account by Capital News Service.)
Raskin did not ignore the protesters. He told them they would be better off engaging in conversation than “heckling.” Then, according to Capital News Service, Raskin “emphasized that he has taken a strong position on returning the hostages held by Hamas, has advocated a military ceasefire, and has championed a two-state solution.” Raskin then tried to resume his speech, which just led to more yelling from the protesters. At that point, Raskin said the protesters were “not engaging in real dialogue” and “not convincing anybody.”
Raskin surely knew that there would be no reasoning with the protesters. At some point, it appears there were pro-Israel voices in the crowd to answer the anti-Israel demonstrators. There was more heckling and yelling, and it soon became clear there was no way Raskin was going to continue his remarks. Then, according to Capital News Service, Raskin “abandoned his speech and said he was open to taking questions from the audience.”
That didn’t work, either. Raskin’s openness just led to “more discourse among protesters,” which is a polite way of saying everybody kept yelling at Raskin and one another. Any hope of discussing “democracy, autocracy, and the threat to reason in the 21st century” disappeared entirely. Indeed, the scene made the “threat to reason” part seem like a joke. Finally, the president of the University of Maryland, Darryll Pines, stepped in to stop Raskin’s speech.
All in all, it was another bad day for freedom of speech on college campuses, something the nation’s institutions of higher education have seen a lot of in the last few years. The situation has become exponentially worse since the Hamas attack on Israel and amid Israel’s retaliation.
Here’s the thing. University of Maryland officials should have been appalled that protesters stopped a member of Congress from speaking on campus. They should have vowed to take strong measures to punish those who shouted Raskin down and stop such demonstrations in the future. But they didn’t. In fact, Pines seemed somewhat pleased by what happened to Raskin’s speech.
“He came here to speak about where our democracy is going in our country,” Pines said of Raskin. “What you saw play out actually was democracy and free speech and academic freedom. From our perspective as a university, there are the difficult conversations that we should be having.”
Just in case it needs saying: Shouting down Raskin was not an exercise in free speech, and it was not an exercise in academic freedom. It was in fact the opposite of free speech and academic freedom. That a university president would say such a thing should be embarrassing to the university.
Finally, it should be noted that Pines did say he wished the protesters had been more civil, according to the Capital News Service report. Pines also praised Raskin’s “patience and empathy” when confronted by the protesters who prevented him from speaking. So Pines seemed to understand at some level that what happened was not a good thing. It is too bad he did not recognize the greater threat to free speech that happened in front of his eyes.
For a deeper dive into many of the topics covered in the Daily Memo, please listen to my podcast, The Byron York Show — available on Radio America and the Ricochet Audio Network and everywhere else podcasts can be found.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ |
No comments:
Post a Comment