Folks,
Since its been a while since I've written and since I've been in the north-east, I thought I'd post at least something I wrote sitting in my field site three months ago. Also, I almost forgot my blog password, so better keep writing and log in more often!
No pics, but this one doesn't need.
'The Hindu means home to me
Waking up at 7 am and smelling the coffee brewing and breakfast cooking was a schedule for me everyday in Bangalore. The newspaper would be dropped anytime between 7 and 7.15 am and I would be eagerly waiting to pick up a cup of coffee and read 'The Hindu' newspaper. Having a grandfather who worked for the newspaper for almost fifty years and a cousin who writes for the Hyderabad edition, we always subscribed to the Hindu. Saturdays and Sundays were even more special with the Young World and Sunday Magazine supplements, and sometimes better still, Book Reviews. The Editorial, the crossword and the Calvin and Hobbes strip will remain my all-time favourites.
Working in north-east India on wildlife for the last year or so, I haven't had access to the Hindu, although for a month I subscribed to the pdf version of the paper which was quite expensive so couldn't follow it up. The website version was not the same as reading the paper although I often browse it. But this time when I got back from home I brought few copies of the paper.
My schedule here is quite different. In Arunachal Pradesh where I work on birds and shifting cultivation, no one can afford to wake up at 7 am; I wake at 4.30 most days and cook my breakfast and then head to field. They say the early wildlifers get the birds! I come back few hours later and then settle down and today on the 30th of January still enjoy reading the Hindu copy of January 3rd I picked up from home! Paul Krugman says the republicants have started whining in the days before Obama has taken power, LTTE have been blown in Kilinochchi in Sri Lanka and the army is headed further north, beef slaughter houses in Bangalore are going to be closed temporarily and so on and so forth.
The point being that sometimes when I miss home, reading this paper I catch a glimpse of the leisure hours at home when mom makes coffee and breakfast and my chore is merely to wake up and then head to college. Here it's quite different, slightly more independent and sometimes a bit tiring. But when I read The Hindu, it still feels different; I take a leap two thousand km south-west to back home sitting on my sofa with a cup of coffee! Maybe, I will ask my mother to post me the Sunday Magazines copies too!'
PS: Now, the Hindu has a north-east edition, YAY!
