Postcards From The Edge

POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE

Ajit Chaudhuri – February 2014

‘That which does not kill us makes us stronger’ - Friedrich Nietzsche

I’ve travelled a bit in my fifty plus years, and done a few dumb things in the process. I place the blame for these on a line of thinking that I have consistently adhered to that goes ‘the nice thing about advice, no matter how credible, good or sensible it is, is that I don’t have to take it’. If I’d known what I know now, would I have done those things? I don’t know! Mad plans (or no plans), after all, give space for serendipity to work its magic. And yet, when I look at the following list of travel experiences that I would not advise anyone to repeat, I cannot help but think, ‘Good God, was I really that stupid?’

Going Topless on Taglang La: I was trekking from Leh to Spiti in August 1995 and decided to use the opportunity while crossing the Taglang La pass to pose for a photograph next to the signboard (the photo is attached below).

The temperature at the time was -11c, and yes, the white in the background is snow. I was cold from deep within for the next two days, and miserable too, but the stunt was well worth it – it has set the gold standard for machismo or stupidity (depending upon gender) among family and friends. When my grandchildren see me doddering around with a walking stick and make fun, they will be shown this and told, ‘do something similar, and then talk’.

Crossing the Arctic Circle in Winter: As a mid-career student in London in late November 2001 (on a generous scholarship, may I add, and with wife and children far away), I had a long weekend coming up and one of the things I hadn’t yet done in life was see the aurora borealis. Where could one do this? The chances were higher the further north one was, I was told, so I booked a ticket from London to Oslo and then onwards north to Tromso at 70 degrees latitude, and duly spent the weekend there. The damn lights refused to oblige, however, and I returned without seeing them, but I had a pretty good time supporting the local alcohol and nightclub industries – the appended link has a detailed account of my adventures there. The surprising thing was that, despite the heavy snow, it wasn’t too cold (the Barents Sea has a warm water current) and it also wasn’t too weird having no sun and seeing, instead, the effects of moonlight on snow through the day. Beautiful! But never again!

http://kaaluontheroad.blogspot.in/2007/03/far-north.html

Visit to Ukhrul: Manipur in early 1997 was a mess! The Nagas were fighting the Kukis, the Meiteis were fighting the hill tribes, the drug dealers were fighting the Church and everyone was fighting the Army, and I was in the state with a colleague, Dr. Sunil Kaul, to appraise an NGO for possible financial support. We could have done it sitting in the state capital, Imphal, but decided, what the hell, let’s go and see the NGO where it worked, in the hills in Ukhrul. Not an easy decision, may I add, because the organization leading the Naga insurgency (the NSCN-IM, for the pundits among you) was founded and headquartered there, and because the foothills, which we would have had to pass through, were under the control of Kuki militant groups.

The daylong journey from Imphal was tense, but we ended up in a place that would have made Kashmir seem ordinary – beautiful rolling hills lightly covered in mist, the smell of light rain on dry ground, and little log cabins with smoking chimneys intermittently spread across the hillside. The NGO had a training centre a little away from town, another log cabin, and we were put up there. Coincidentally, a group of 19 young ladies were being trained in the arts of beekeeping (or something) there at the time, and they were told that ‘two young men have come from Delhi – look after them!’ The quality of care that we got over the next day was unimaginable! To give you an idea, to wash hands before our evening meal, four young ladies came up to us; one with a kettle of hot water, one with a bowl for the used water to fall into, one with soap and one with a towel. Seven star hotels – you don’t compare!

Driving Holiday to Yamunotri: My family has been taking driving holidays together since 2001. They usually follow a pattern; a 6 to 18 day duration, an intended destination from which to begin the return journey but no plans on where to stop for nights or routes to take, and a promise upon returning to Delhi never to do it again because we are all sick of each other. In the process, we have made some interesting journeys, stayed in some excellent (and some terrible) hotels, eaten some unusual food and seen some exotic sights. But once, and only once, in 2005, did we leave the house with absolutely no destination in mind. We took NH1 towards Chandigarh, turned east somewhere towards Paonta Saheb, and then north again at Vikas Nagar, stopped for a night on the way, and finally ended up at a yatri niwas in Janki Chatti (which my kids renamed Janki’s Chaddi), where one begins the 6 km walk to Yamunotri. The next day, we did the walk up and down, with my kids aged 5 and 8 being bribed with the promise of a prize if they made it without a horse, which they duly did. We made quite a contrast to the yatris on the trail.

Fieldwork in Panjab and Waras: Being entrusted with the task of evaluating a training centre in Bamiyan (Afghanistan, summer of 2009) did not require me to visit the centre’s extension outposts in the province’s remote districts, but I asked to do so anyway. ‘If I am required to attest to their existence,’ I told my rather incredulous hosts, who were more used to the opposite sort of requests from consultants, ‘I will have to see them.’ Thus began a journey in a muscular 4-wheel-drive through some of the toughest terrain in the world, the central highland region of Afghanistan, from Bamiyan via Yakawlang to the districts of Panjab and Waras. The highlight of the visit was a stopover on the way back at Bandh-e-Amir, a series of seven large, naturally formed, stepped, blue water lakes, one of the remotest and most beautiful wonders of nature, where I even managed to get a boat out into the waters. I am informed that the journey is off limits now because of some recent kidnappings indicating Taliban activity in the region, and I am damned glad that I did it when I could.

Conclusions: If the tone of this paper indicates that mad travel-related stuff is relegated to the past let me assure you that such is, hopefully, not the case. To conclude, I list out five acts that, inshallah, I will do some day in the future.

1.    Trek around Mt. Nanda Devi – this involves going north in Kumaon, crossing Milam and then hitting the 5,000 meter plus passes Unta Dhura, Khingri Bingri and Jandi Dhura, going around the Nanda Devi and getting back via Garhwal. Some day when my trekking friends and I have sufficient contact in the Home Ministry to get the necessary permissions …

2.    Watch a Millwall match at The Den – this is one of the roughest and most passionate football crowds in the UK, who mix their passion for football and love for their club with racism, anti-immigration, and right wing politics. Not a place for the faint-hearted, but I look forward to my friend Tony (who ashamedly admitted to being a Millwall fan) taking me there some day.

3.    Travel up the Wakhan Corridor – I have been several times to the province of Badakhshan in Afghanistan, and one day want to see its most remote district, Pamir, and to travel along the buffer zone between the British and Russian empires, in the narrow sliver of land between the Tian Shan, Hindukush and Karakorum mountain ranges. This is the Wakhan Corridor.

4.    Take an Alaskan Cruise – get on to a ship in Seattle, and take a journey northwards along the western American coastline across the Puget Sound, then British Columbia (Canada) and then Alaska, through the many little islands in this part of the Pacific, and preferably with my larger family.

5.    Visit the battle sites of the Mongol Army’s western campaigns of the 13^th century – these are spread across modern day Poland, Hungary, Ukraine and Russia, in places like Legnica, Kalka River, Ryazan, Suzdal and Mohi.

A JOURNEY TO KASMU

A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY TO KASMU

By Ajit Chaudhuri – August 2013

Introduction: This note is about a visit to Kasmu, Estonia, on 27^th April 2013.

I will begin with events in the early 1930s, when a young lady in a coastal village in the country of Estonia was the object of attraction for the village adventurer. Her parents, obviously not enamoured of the prospects of this relationship, decided to circumvent things by sending her to London to learn English. The law of unintended consequences duly applied, she met an Indian medical student while in London, and they fell in love and subsequently married in 1935. They returned to India in 1938, the young medical student (by then a doctor) joined the Indian Army Medical Corps and rose to become a General, and they had four children – the youngest of whom is my mother. They retired in the town of Dehradun, and he died in 1985, a little after their 50^th wedding anniversary. She lived on till 1996, never visiting her village or her country (which in 1940 became part of the Soviet Union) again.

I was close to my maternal grandparents and spent a lot of time with them (and later with my grandmother). They were typical grandparents, I suppose – I was always sure of my welcome, and there was always something good to eat in the house. My grandfather was a typical military patriarch, and the only thing distinguishing my grandmother from a fairly typical Bengali housewife was her light hair and blue eyes. The eldest of my sisters, who was also close to them, said that she also had a certain northern coldness – my grandfather was always delighted at my unannounced visits, but like all Bengali men did nothing in the house; my grandmother was never so overtly happy at them, but did all the work, the additional cooking, cleaning and bed making, that made me comfortable. It was only when she took out her photo albums and showed us pictures from her childhood that we actually saw her animated.

She loved showing these old black and white photos of her family and friends, and talking about her childhood in the village Kasmu, her school and the various cultural performances she took part in, and the times spent playing on the rocks along the shores of the Baltic Sea with her friends Sigrid and Jus. She talked about the Sea School in Kasmu, where her father and most men in her family had trained to become ship captains. She talked about her visits to Tallinn, the country’s capital city, usually done in an overnight sleigh ride, with all the wonderment of a village child seeing the big city lights. She also saved up, to my grandfather’s amusement, a Reader’s Digest article about Ahto Walter, her adventurer admirer, who went on to set records in Atlantic crossings. Estonia, in her descriptions, was a land of milk and honey.

The entrance to the Sea School (now Museum) at Kasmu 

But there was sadness in her tone as well. She could never go back – the independent Estonia she had grown up in did not exist – it was a corner outpost of the Soviet Empire. Her mother, father (who died early) and stepfather were all dead. Those of her relatives who could not escape to Finland or Sweden (both countries across the Baltic from Kasmu) and become refugees in foreign lands were systematically rounded up and shipped off to Siberia, where they died. There was nothing to go back to!

My maternal grandparents (large photo), the brothers Jakob and Alexander Kaskni (right) and Nadezhda

We, the elder grandchildren, did not think too much of it – Estonia was always some faraway place that our grandmother talked about, and nothing more. It was only when we saw her happiness at Estonia regaining independence in 1991 – we were delighted that it happened in her lifetime – that we realized that there was a side to her that we did not know at all. It was after her death that I decided that the journey to Kasmu was one pilgrimage I had to make.

The author in Tallinn

Visiting Estonia became a real possibility once it became a part of the Schengen Agreement (this enables visa-free travel within member states), and I used the opportunity provided by a visa to visit Germany (and present a paper at an academic conference at Heidelberg University) to take a few days out for this. I tried to take my mother along (she has never been), but she demurred – she did the next best thing, however, and financed my trip (thanks Mum). I am not the first in the family to have been – my wife, two sisters, a niece and two nephews have preceded me there over the years. I arrived in Tallinn and spent a day acclimatizing to the late northern winter before making a day trip to Kasmu to see the house where she grew up in and the shores in which she played as a little girl, and to say a short prayer at her family graveyard (where her father, mother and relatives are buried) in the village. I was assisted in this endeavour by my cousins by marriage, Helve and Arvo Saat from Tallinn, who drove me there, took me around, translated for me, and then treated me to a damn good lunch before bringing me back to Tallinn. Many thanks to them! All photos are by Arvo, and, for the curious among you on these matters, the glamorous lady by my side in some of them is Helve.

Helve and I at the door of the Sea School

Kasmu Itself: The journey to Kasmu is a beautiful and pleasant one – northeast along the highway to St. Petersburg, and then a turn westward just before Rakvere to the Baltic coast – traversing temperate forests and the Lahemaa National Park area before hitting the coastline and the two adjacent villages of Vosu and Kasmu. Visiting the region was forbidden during Soviet rule for its proximity to Finland. In April, it was a sleepy little village with no restaurant, but I am told that things liven up in the summer months, when it becomes a tourist hotspot and also the venue of an annual music festival.

The Sea School: It is here that I met my cousin Arne Viik, who runs the Kasmu Museum that was the Sea School in my grandmother’s times. Her father, Alexander Kaskni, was both a graduate of the school and later its principal, and it is here that she was born. During the Soviet years, the building was taken over by the Soviet border guards and used as a barrack.

Cousin Arne showing me photos of our common ancestors

The museum itself is a fascinating place that records Kasmu’s relationship with the sea with dedication and commitment. Cousin Arne was in the process of writing a history of the Sea School and a record of the many sea captains who had studied here, and he mentioned that one of the few of whom he had no photos was Justin Lyschak or my grandmother’s cousin and childhood playmate Jus. I was delighted to arrange for a photo, available with my Aunt Niila in England, so that Uncle Jus was appropriately recorded in the book.

Captain Justin Lyschak or Uncle Jus, who lived a life less ordinary

I also discovered that my grandfather had visited here with my grandmother in the 1930s, and had introduced himself to his family-by-marriage. He was the first dark skinned person to visit the village, and there was much curiosity about him at the time. Great-grandmother Nadezhda had already died by then, but she was famously quoted as saying "If I knew that Ira (my grandmother), who I sent to England to get away from the rascal Ahto Walter, would fall in love with an Indian, I would have let her marry Ahto!" before doing so.

My grandparents, photographed when they visited Kasmu in the mid-1930s

My grandmother had kept in touch with her friends, most of whom had settled in the USA, Canada and Sweden, over the years, and had shared photographs that eventually found their way into the Kasmu museum. It was especially touching to see photos of my own childhood, photos that I had thought were long lost , stored carefully here.

Looking out at the sea on one of the rocks I knew so well

From the Sea School, looking out into the Kasmu Harbour was a weird experience – I knew all the rocks from my grandmother’s photos and vivid descriptions, and I could almost see a young girl and her two friends jumping around on them. I went around the beach, climbed some of the rocks, and even wiggled my toes in the freezing Baltic waters.

A view of Kasmu Harbour from a window in the Sea School

The Kristenbrunn Residence: Alexander Kaskni died early, and his wife, my great-grandmother Nadezhda, subsequently married Eduard Kristenbrunn. My grandmother and her cousin Jus (Nadezhda’s sister and her husband both contracted TB early and gave Jus over to Nadezhda to bring up before they died) also moved to the Kristenbrunn residence. It is here that my grandparents stayed when they visited Estonia in the 1930s, which was to be my grandmother’s last visit to her watan. The residence is now a writers’ home, or a place that writers come to for prolonged periods of peace and quiet so that they can concentrate on their writing. When my sister, niece and nephews visited, cousin Aarne, who was taking them around, jokingly announced to the writers in residence that they would have to leave, the original owners of the building had come to reclaim the property. My wife, who travelled here with a friend while on an official visit to Sweden, even stayed the night here – she visited in mid-winter when nothing was open.

The Kristenbrunn residence

I was shown around by one of the writers in residence, who also asked me to write something in Hindi in the visitors’ book that they maintained.

Sitting at the table where my grandmother used to eat, with the writer in residence

The Family Graveyard: One of the things my grandmother had done, once it was possible to do (i.e. after the Russians had buggered off), was to have a proper gravestone put on her father’s and uncle’s graves. The graveyard is beside a Lutheran Church, reminding one of a time when Estonia was not the most non-religious country in the world (it is now). I did a round around the yard and spent some time reflecting by the graves of my ancestors.

A moment of reflection at Aleksander Kaskni's grave

The stone mentions Ira Kaskni-Roy on the right hand corner

Conclusions: The visit concluded with a wonderful lunch in the neighbouring village of Vosu, washed down with Estonian beer, and a drive on that beautiful road back to Tallinn. But I left wanting to do this again, with my children, and with the nephews who have yet to make the journey, so that they too recognize the part of themselves that is from this strange and faraway land, and so that they too are acquainted with that wonderful lady, my grandmother, and do not relegate her to just another name on a listing of ancestors. I hope that all her Indian descendants get to make this journey once in their lifetimes.

COMING TO AMERICA

COMING TO AMERICA

By Ajit Chaudhuri, July 2013

Introduction: I visited the US (for the first time) earlier this month, Afghanistan in May/June, and Germany (with a break in Estonia) in April/May – traversing four countries – the world’s most forward and backward nations, the economic powerhouse of western Europe, and a corner of the erstwhile Soviet Union – in a period of four months. If I may say so myself – WOW!

Few dispute that Afghanistan is the worst country to be born in today, and those questioning the US’s no. 1 status too would be on sticky ground; it is a huge country – the world’s third largest in area and population, and by far its richest – it is the sole global superpower, it combines natural resources with first world infrastructure and innovation with high quality governance, and it is unsurpassable in software, entertainment and high speed pizza delivery. The differences between the world’s two no. 1s (i.e. those at either end of the spectrum) would fill an encyclopaedia, but are pretty much obvious. It is the rather fewer similarities that interested me, especially so because these also contrast them sharply from the other two countries I visited. On the soft side, the first similarity was that religiosity is high, the second that family is important and the safety nets it provides critical for an individual’s progress, and the third was the love for guns within the populace. Respect for hard work and a lack of shame in undertaking menial occupations were discernable in both. And, on the tangible side, the complete absence of any form of public transport (except the most rudimentary kind) was common to both countries.

But this note is not to compare, it is to reflect upon the many things I learnt and to convey my wonderment at what I did, saw and heard upon my visit to the US. For me, the visit served to convert a familiarity gained from newspapers, novels (especially Steinbeck, Chase and L’Amour) and films to one gained from first hand experience. Let me begin by saying that this is the only longish (3 weeks Delhi to Delhi) trip that I have ever made that has had only highs – there were no low points, no difficulties or unpleasantness’s of any sort, no trying circumstances, from the time I left my doorstep in Delhi to the time I returned. For this, I owe a huge thanks to my father and brother, who joined me for the trip, and to my aunt and cousin in Seattle, all of whom did everything they could to make my experience memorable (yeah, I know, this sounds like an Oscar acceptance speech, but is no less true for it).

Getting to the US: The difference, for the visitor, between the US and other developed countries begins well before the visit, with the visa process – high tech, streamlined, efficient, and ending (for me) with a long-yerm visa. This compares favourably with the UK (where the visa process is a profit centre and charges are huge) and Western Europe (where every visit requires a visa, and one has to make false hotel bookings and lie about itineraries). I must confess to having been worried, expecting my six visits to Afghanistan since 2009 to set off red flags, but nobody in the visa process, or even later (for example, homeland security while entering the US) was in the slightest bit interested. And a bit cheesed - all that time and money spent photocopying my Afghanistan contracts and preparing explanations gone to waste!

I went to Seattle on Emirates Airlines – this involved a 14-hour flight from Dubai to Seattle, the first time I have flown so long and among the longest commercial flights one can take. This was my first time on Emirates as well, and I was subject to another surprise here. My experience is that most journeys westward with a changeover in the Gulf area involve a jam-packed flight from India to the Gulf, usually in the company of beedi-smoking labourers, and a near empty flight from the Gulf onwards in which one can spread out. Here, it was the opposite! I got three seats to myself on Delhi-Dubai and a window seat next to the emergency door (and therefore nothing in front) with an empty middle seat on Dubai-Delhi. Dubai-Seattle was full, but I had the company of my father and brother and we were well looked after and plied with copious quantities of beer and wine while I watched educative films such as ‘Cockneys versus Zombies’ and ‘The Quartet’. Seattle-Dubai was done alone in a jam-packed but pleasant flight, and I managed to see ‘Silver Linings Playbook’ (not a patch on the book) and ‘Argo’ (quite good) and get some sleep. I also discovered that flights touching the US have an additional safety instruction – passengers are told not to congregate in the common spaces, such as outside the toilets – never heard that one before!

Driving in the US: I asked many regular visitors to the US a) whether I would need an international driving license to drive and b) how difficult was it to drive there, given that I was used to doing so in Delhi. I got differing advice on the first, and this was only cleared up once I checked the rules for Washington State (where I was visiting) on the Internet where it specified that, as a short-term visitor, my normal (Indian) driving license was valid. This was confirmed when I actually went to hire a car from Hertz and had to display my license to get the car and insurance – there were no difficulties. On the second, everyone said it is easy to switch to driving on the other side of the road and to do things one doesn’t do in India like observe rules and lane discipline. This wasn’t quite the case! I did a fair amount of driving, including on larger inter-states (such as the I-5 connecting Mexico with Canada along the Pacific coast), smaller highways (such as the 101 that circumnavigates the Olympic Peninsula), inner city roads (in Seattle) and small town roads (going through Port Angeles and Aberdeen comes to mind here), and don’t remember a moment wherein I did not have to concentrate fully. It helped that the car we hired had a ‘Neverlost’, a GPS system with nearly idiot-proof instructions on directions, including options such as ‘no-tolls’ (avoid all routes involving toll taxes), ‘no-freeways’ (use smaller roads only) and ‘nearest-Burger-King’.

The author inside the Washington National Park near Anacortes

One would have noticed that car advertisements on TV always have the featured vehicle rolling along empty but perfect roads amidst idyllic scenery – far removed from the realities of driving. In the US, driving was quite close to these advertisements – great roads, not too much traffic, and beautiful scenery (Washington has ocean, coastline, mountains, islands, rivers, lakes, forests, and an abundance of spectacular sights). Good road manners was evident everywhere; people made space when a car enter their lanes, kept correct distances on the road and at traffic lights, and acknowledged and waved hands in apology for mistakes. The main difficulties I had were figuring out the correct speed to drive at (on average, traffic moved at 9 miles per hour above notified limits on highways, and limits were not overtly written in many urban areas), keeping to the centre of the lane (being used to a view of the road from the right of a car, I was unconsciously veering right), and getting used to overtaking and being overtaken on both sides (which is fine in the US but illegal on the wrong side anywhere else). On the whole, driving in the US was a pleasure, and I rediscovered my long-lost liking for it here.

Mt. St. Helen's, a volcanic mountain that last erupted in 1980

Public Behaviour: We had many minor interactions with strangers during the visit, and the high standards of public behaviour in the US stood out. Outside of the inner cities and the crowds, it was done to greet people warmly when you passed them and to speak to others softly, politely and correctly. This was in contrast to written impressions typifying Americans as loud and boorish, and to England, where politeness standards are high but it is somewhat fashionable to intersperse one’s conversations with pejoratives. Some say that this overt politeness is superficial and used mostly by people whose job requires it, such as waiters and shop assistants, but we found that it cut across and that it was often a pleasure to get into conversations with the people around us. The youngish couple seated next to our group on a sailing trip around the Puget Sound turned out to be West Pointers with tours of Iraq behind them, and the guy driving a Corvette in the Washington National Park was happy to take a photograph with me sitting in its driver’s seat so that I could show off to my wife back home. One also saw cleanliness in public places, without any signature warning against littering, and unobtrusive but high quality maintenance of public infrastructure. Were there beggars? A few – mostly white males, and mostly hanging out at traffic lights with signs making their case for alms (pathetic stuff like ‘Single Dad needs support to look after his two young children’). Indian beggars are far more evolved! I pondered over issues such as the honesty elasticity of begging incomes or, to put it minus the economic jargon, the extent to which honesty in these situations, and therefore signs like ‘addict needs money for his habit’ or ‘broke bum needs cash for booze and prostitutes’, would loosen purses.

Native American Reservations: We passed through and spent time in Native American reservations, and stayed two nights in the Quiluete Indian Reservation on the Olympic Peninsula. Some differences between Indian reservations and other areas stood out. The first was that it was obvious that Native Americans had problems with booze and drugs – the reservation areas had overt signs warning against the use of narcotics, the availability of booze in shops and restaurants was limited, and our instinct in the reservations was to be back in our hotel rooms before dark (which was at about 2200 hours, so it’s not that we missed much). The second was that some large businesses appeared to be community owned and run, with profits being plied back into the community, businesses such as the (excellent) resort we stayed in and restaurant we ate in on the Quiluete Reservation and the multitudes of casinos we saw that seemed to be a synonym for Indian Reservation, businesses that would have been in the private sector in other parts of the country (except casinos, which are allowed only on reservations in most parts of the US – a result of decentralization of law-making to local Native American councils). This left me wondering if there is something worth emulating in India in the not-particularly-successful UN-promoted programme to set up community-owned productive assets. And the third was that the proportion of slim women observable on the streets was low, even by American standards.

These two young Quiluete ladies, Kimberley and Samantha (middle), are mother and daughter. Samantha was our server at the River's Edge Restaurant at La Push. The author is about to tuck in to a Blueberry Pie & Ice Cream dessert.

Shopping: Conventional wisdom goes that one should not shop in a first world country – exchange rates make everything ridiculously expensive, and most things are available here in India anyway (gone are the days when one had to go abroad for nappy liners). The US turned out to be an exception – good quality clothes are cheap (and made in India, China and Bangladesh), especially if one visits the out-of-town outlet malls and warehouses, the choice is humungous, and the rights of customers are respected. Similarly with food, booze, cars and shoes. As somebody who abhors shopping, I must admit that our purchasing expeditions were pretty good fun. The main disappointment was in toys – the famed Toys R Us was downright boring.

Attitudes: It was obvious that Americans are very proud to be Americans; this showed in every conversation everywhere, and in the belief on their faces every time the Star Spangled Banner was sung. The American identity is expected to subsume all other identities in this essentially immigrant nation in what people refer to as a ‘melting pot’, in sharp contrast to ‘salad bowl’ Canada, also an immigrant nation where it is acceptable and even expected that one could retain other identities while staying together. This was most obvious in the difference between 4^th of July (I celebrated at ‘The Gasworks’ in Seattle) and Canada Day celebrations (I was in Ottawa on the day in 2006). While joy, pride and a sense of occasion were common to both, most revellers in Ottawa draped themselves in two flags – the Maple Leaf, and the flag of their country of origin. In Seattle, there was only one flag visible.

Fourth of July at The Gasworks in Seattle

Most Americans are inward looking – to them, the world is a chaotic place that they want nothing to do with. Few travel out of the country, mostly to Mexico and Canada. And they share a distrust of anyone telling them what to do, such as government, and extreme distrust of foreigners telling them what to do (such as multilateral and global institutions). Even a remote corner such as the Olympic Peninsula had signs denouncing the UN (there is concern in the Quinault Reservation that a possible UNESCO heritage site will affect logging, hunting and fishing). And herein lies an interesting paradox – while no global institution can survive without the US on board, Americans themselves have no time for such institutions and see no reason to be subject to their laws and party to their agreements. There is a logic to this – it is undemocratic to ratify laws that have not been made or subjected to scrutiny by a nation’s own representative institutions, and therefore easier done by those who do not have such institutions (such as dictatorships) and those that do not take laws too seriously and have little intention of making the hard choices involved in implementing them (such as, I say with shame, India).

To Conclude: I did many things in what turned out to be a packed schedule, and have missed describing several that I would have liked to; my first Major League Soccer game (Seattle Sounders vs. DC United in a full stadium), and my visits to the University of Washington (what a library), Microsoft (what variety in their food court) and Boeing (watched a Dreamliner being born). The US made a great first impression on me, and I look forward to visiting again. 

A GLUTTON'S GUIDE TO NORTHWESTERN AMERICA

A GLUTTON’S GUIDE TO NORTHWESTERN AMERICA

By Ajit Chaudhuri

Introduction: Be warned, dear readers inclined towards vegetarianism or healthy eating – this note is about real food! I visited the US for the first time this summer. I was looking forward to many things, but I must confess that titillating my taste buds was not among them – after all, what could one expect from burgers, pizzas and hot dogs washed down with a Budweiser? Boy, was I WRONG! My father, brother and I (all hardcore foodies), often accompanied by a resident aunt and cousin, spent three weeks traveling around northwest US, across its peninsulas, islands, mountains and coastal roads, in search of good food and beautiful scenery. And we got plenty of both! As an aside, we also took in a Major League Soccer game to make for the perfect holiday. An appendix to this note lists the specifics – when, where, what, etc. – for those interested in gastronomic adventures in the region themselves. And we used tripadvisor.com and our own foodie networks to select eateries.

Burgers, Pizzas and Dogs

We observed a code that precluded visiting any food chain type of places (and made only one exception during the entire tour, a rest room cum driver-change stop at Burger King), and so got to eat some amazing typically American food. The two highlights were Mrs. Beasley’s and Linda’s Kitchen.

Mrs. Beasley’s was an unassuming (above) but highly recommended place on the famous west coast highway that lies along the Pacific Ocean and connects Mexico with Canada. We stopped there for a late breakfast en route to the Mt. St. Helen’s volcano, and I had a double cheeseburger washed down with a fresh strawberry smoothie. Heaven! The tables (and the entire ambience) were clean but basic, and there was no service – one had to order, pay, and then pick up when one of the staff (all of whom looked like advertisements for good food) yelled that it was ready. We chatted with the other customers, all repeats who stopped every time they passed by, and learnt that we were unlikely to get another burger of this quality in America.

Linda’s Kitchen (pictured below) was visited when really hungry – I had completed a 15 km hike around Lake Ozette on the Olympic Peninsula (famous also for being the only temperate rain forest in the northern hemisphere) before arriving at this joint in the Makah Indian Reservation in the absolute northwestern corner of the contiguous United States.

I had pizza with homemade mozzarella cheese and pepperoni topping (pictured below), washed down with homemade root beer. Again, fantastic to the extent that we had a bite of the first pizza and immediately ordered a second. The ambience too was wonderful in a homely and comfortable way – there was a guitar lying around that I used, some kids were playing chess on a couch in the room, and the other customers were talkative and friendly. No booze available, though, in the restaurant or anywhere on the reservation.

Linda herself seemed quite a character – proud of the fact that everything she served, including the ingredients, baking dough, cheese, etc., was made in the kitchen and that she took her time over her cooking (and you had to wait). Rumour had it that whenever she had too many customers she simply closed shop – apparently she was averse to any form of stress. We were given a tour of the kitchen, where Linda showed us her stove (pictured below) – the sign above reads ‘This is a Drama-free Environment’. A wonderful evening overall!

I would also like to mention Patty’s Place in the area around the Mt. St. Helen’s volcanic mountain, where the view from our table is pictured below.

It is famous for its deserts, one of which (a peach and rhubarb cobbler with vanilla ice cream, pictured below) I wolfed down after eating an Elk Burger.

Another honourable mention was the Gere-a-Deli in Anacortes Island, where we ate after visiting the Boeing Factory in Everett (where they make 747s, 777s and 787s), up north near the Canadian border. We had roast beef sandwiches, which they called Reubens, and quiche washed down with Mack and Jack beer. The ambience (pictured below, me in a blue shirt on the right seated with my aunt and cousin) was more memorable than the food, and the clientele consisted mostly of locals. It was here that I was introduced to the fact that, when one bought a cold drink, one was just given a large glass that one could subsequently fill up as much, and as often, as one liked from what they called the ‘soda fountain’. This element of trust – that three of you won’t drink from the same glass – was prevalent in all our interactions in America.

Other facts that I discovered included that one could take photographs almost anywhere, and service standards were high and friendly. We took a picture of the back of our server’s T-shirt, where it was written ‘Serving Anacortes since 1981’, and she smiled so nicely (below) that we got one of the smile as well.

The other place that we all remember fondly is the River’s Edge Restaurant at La Push, where we ate one dinner and two breakfasts because we were staying at a nearby resort and it was the only eatery in 5 miles or so. La Push is a coastal village on the Olympic Peninsula, and is part of the Quiluete Indian reservation (beer available in the village shop, thank God, but not in the restaurant). The restaurant itself looks on to the area where the Quiluete river flows into the ocean (pictured below from our table), and is community owned.

The restaurant’s dinner menu had an item called ‘catch of the day’ (this depended upon what the fishing fleet brought in every evening, and in brackets was a commitment from the Quiluete Indian community that they would never eat, or serve others, farm-raised fish), which I had, and thereby tasted grilled salmon that was fresh from the sea. Wonderful - all it needed was a beer to precede it. It was followed by a blueberry pie and ice cream.

The breakfast menu was different – with two egg combinations of cheese, ham, bacon and sausages and unlimited buttered toast and coffee (pictured below with my brother and me).

In the process of all this, I discovered that typical American food could taste good. I also discovered new typical American food – the highlight of this was the New England Clam Chowder (a thick soup eaten with bread) at Pike Place Chowder, right beside the hippie infested Pike Place market in Seattle. My latest ambition is to open my own Chowder eatery, called ‘Chowder-i’s’.

Fine Dining

Not all meals were had in All-American places in the company of the local peasantry – we did have the occasional posh evening with the glitterati. One such was at Elliot’s, right on the water of the Puget Sound in Seattle. I had the Alaskan cod, and also sampled my father’s oysters (pictured below).

Another was at Daniel’s, a bar in Bellevue, where the highlight was knocking back copious quantities of beer and eating bacon-wrapped scallops and popcorn shrimp while a singer on his piano belted out Elton John and Billy Joel numbers. Pictured below are my brother, cousin and I at the bar appreciating one of the songs.

Chinese Food

I had Chinese food on three occasions, two of them excellent. One of these was at Hing Loon in the Chinatown part of Seattle on the 4th of July, where its other attraction was that it was open till 0100 hours and so we could get a meal after the 4th of July fireworks. In addition to excellent Cantonese cuisine, I had my first taste of the superb Tsingtao beer (evidence below). A group of Indians celebrating 4th of July in a Chinese restaurant – hey, this is America!

The other excellent Chinese meal was at a restaurant serving food from Sichuan province, imaginatively called Sichuanese Cuisine. Nomenclature here was unusual all around – our highlight dish was a spicy and extremely tasty fish dish called ‘Boiled Fish’, and another superb dish, a mix of finely grained meats, was called ‘Ants on a Tree’. Most of the clientele here were Chinese, so one assumes that the food was authentic in addition to good.

Conclusion: It is difficult to get excellent food, service and ambience simultaneously in a restaurant, anywhere in the world. In northwest US, we managed two out of three quite often, and at least one in most cases – a good record. This area has so much going for it in terms of visit-ability, coastlines, islands, forests, mountains, lakes, trails, ocean, rivers, modern cities, top-notch universities, high-tech industry, inter alia, that visiting for its gastronomic possibilities tends to be low priority. This is a pity! My own experience was, and I think I can speak for my fellow travellers as well here, that the area is a food lover’s paradise for its quality and variety. Worth going thirteen and a half time zones for this? In combination with everything else – definitely!



Appendix 1: A Listing of Restaurants Visited
(Date/Meal - Restaurant - Area - What I Ate)

3rd July/Dinner - Century Links Stadium - Seattle - Burgers, Beer
4th July/Dinner - Hing Loon, 628, S Weller Street, Seattle 98104, +1-206-682-2828 - Chinatown, Seattle - Cantonese food, Tsingtao Beer
5th July/Dinner - Elliott’s Oyster House, 1201 Alaskan Way Pier 56, Seattle, WA 98101 - Facing the Puget Sound, Seattle - Fried Alaskan Cod, Oysters, Amber Beer
8th July/Dinner - Sichuanese Cuisine, 15005 NE 24th Street, Redmond, WA 98052, +1-425-562-1552 - Redmond - Boiled Fish, Ants Climbing a Tree, Kung Pao Chicken, Mongolian Beef
9th July/Brunch - Mrs. Beasley’s Burgers, 393, Cowlitz Ridge Road, Toledo, WA 98591, +1-360-864-4866 - Off the Seattle to Portland Highway, Toledo - Double Cheeseburgers, Fresh Strawberry smoothie
9th July/High Tea - Patty’s Place, 9440, Spirit Lake Highway, Toutle, WA 98649 - On the road to Mt. St. Helen Volcano - Elk Burger, Rhubarb Cobbler with Ice Cream
10th July/Lunch - Mongolian Grill, 461 South Fork Avenue SW, North Bend, WA 98045 - At the outlets’ mall in North Bend near the Snoqualmie Reservation - Noodles, meat and vegetables
11th July/Lunch - Gere-a-Deli, 502 Commercial Avenue, Anacortes WA 98221, +1-360-293-7383 - On Anacortes Island - Quiche, Roast Beef Reubens, Mack and Jack Beer
12th July/Lunch - Pike Place Chowder, 1530, Post Alley, Seattle, WA 98101, +1-206-267-2537, www.pikeplacechowder.com - Pike Place Market, Seattle - New England Clam Chowder, Smoked Salmon Chowder
13th July/Dinner - Chateau St. Michelle Winery, 14111 NE 145th Street, Woodinville, WA 98072, +1-425-488-1133, info@ste-michelle.com - During the Chris Botti Concert - Wine, Hot Dog
14th and 18th July/Lunch - Costco Food Court, 1801, 10th Avenue NW
Issaquah, WA 98207 - Outside Costco Warehouse in Issakuah near Bellevue - Hot Dog, Polish Dog
15th July/Breakfast - Burger King, Puyallup
15th July/Lunch - Quinault River Internet Café, 6094, US Highway 101, Amanda Park, WA 98526 - Along the Quinault Lake in Olympic Peninsula - Burgers, Coke
15th July/Dinner and 16th, 17th July/Breakfast - River’s Edge Restaurant, 41 Main Street, La Push, WA 98350, +1-360-374-3236 - Facing the river’s mouth onto Pacific Ocean, on the Quileute reservation - Catch of the Day (Grilled Salmon), Blueberry Pie and Ice Cream, 2 Egg Mix, American style Skillet
16th July/Dinner - Linda’s Kitchen, 1110 Bay View Avenue, Neah Bay, WA 98381, +1-360-645-2292 - At the Northwestern tip of the US on the Makah reservation - Mozarella Cheese Pizza with Pepperoni topping, homemade Vanilla Ice Cream with Rasberries, homemade Root Beer
17th July/Lunch - Bainbridge Island to Seattle Ferry - Across the Puget Sound - Cheeseburgers
18th July/Dinner - Daniel’s Broiler, 10500 NE 8th Street, Bellevue, WA 98004, +1-425-462-4662 - Piano bar with live music, lots of Elton John and Billy Joel - Bacon wrapped Scallops, Shrimp Popcorn, Tacos, Beer
19th July/Lunch - Microsoft Commons, 15255 NE 40th Street, Redmond, WA 98052 - At the Microsoft HQ in Redmond - Fried Salmon and chips, Peach flavoured Soda

22 Years After

TWENTY-TWO YEARS AFTER

Ajit Chaudhuri – June 2013


I first travelled in Germany in 1991 – I spent three months there, hitchhiked around the country, did some journeys on cycle, stayed and ate on the cheap, and generally had a good time. I visited again this April to present a paper at an academic conference in Heidelberg, and took the opportunity to do some more travel within. This paper looks at what has changed in these 22 years.


Let me begin with what has not! I was an unemployed and broke bum in 1991 with an abiding interest in cold beer, good food, beautiful women and football (not necessarily in that order), not dissimilar to my situation today (OK, plus 20 kilos and a few grey hairs!). Germany too continues to be a beautiful and efficiently run country that is a pleasure to visit. Landing in Frankfurt was a revelation – it took 15 minutes from leaving the plane to leaving the airport (immigration, baggage retrieval, customs all included) – quite a change from the chaos of Heathrow that I had grown accustomed to. The forests are just as abundant, and access to them for long walks just as convenient. Beer is still cheaper than water, each town still has its own breweries so that one doesn’t drink customized branded stuff, and two litres of Bayerische dark beer washed down with ‘weisswurst’ and sauce continues to be worth dying for.


And football continues to be important! In 1991, Germany was the reigning world champion and Bayern Munich the richest, most successful, and most hated (outside the province of Bavaria) team in the country. Today, with both Champion’s League finalists from Germany, it is difficult to suggest that German football is not right up there, and there was evidence to support the latter statement as well. The footballing public continues to be passionate, knowledgeable and friendly – I was in the country for the Champion’s League semis (when Munich and Dortmund played Madrid and Barcelona respectively), saw two of the matches in packed bars and felt welcome and comfortable despite my more-Spanish-than-German looks and the fact that I was the only one not jumping around every time the German clubs scored.


Now, for the changes! First, the roads have turned kinder. In 1991, when a German got behind a steering wheel, s/he reverted from a polite and considerate person into the sort of barbarian that had had the Roman Empire trembling, helped along by the best cars in the world and a highway system sans speed limits. They still have great cars, but the drivers are considerably gentler. All that testosterone seems to have transferred to cyclists over time – they are now rude and aggressive, just as the cars used to be. The train system, which was a mess in 1991 and a laughing stock in neighbouring countries (the French had just introduced high speed TGVs), has sorted itself out – I did some travel by train and found them clean, fast, convenient and punctual (though not quite to the minute that Germans are famous for). And the public transport was of a very high standard – there is a saying that ‘a developed country is not where the poor use cars, it is where the rich use public transport’ – Germany truly is a developed country by this standard.


Some changes are because the world has changed! In 1991, Germany was still a frontline state in the cold war (even though it had just unified). Western Germany had large numbers of American armed forces strutting around, and the eastern side still had the considerably scruffier looking Soviet Army all over the place. I remember that, when I was there, five of them saw an opportunity in unification and asked to defect to the west. The German government asked the Soviet government what to do, and the Soviets replied, “By all means take them, but be ready because tomorrow you will have 500,000 more.” The Germans didn’t! The Americans are still there, but with a smaller and a lower key presence, and the Soviet Union doesn’t exist. In 1991, unification was on top of everyone’s mind; the erstwhile East Germany, according to everyone from the western side, was a dump that had to be dismantled and rebuilt from scratch, all to be paid for from their (the Wessies) taxes – think German attitudes to Greece and Bulgaria today. I travelled a bit in the East as well, and saw the Easterners initial struggles with the capitalist paradise they thought they were entering, where, for example, free day-care suddenly turned prohibitively expensive. At that time, if you had suggested that, twenty years later, the all-powerful German Chancellor, sitting on the same chair as Bismarck, Adenauer and Kohl, would be an East German woman, your audience would have thought you were smoking something.


Germany’s place in the world too has changed! In 1991 it was still tentative, low key, and somewhat apologetic about its Nazi past – a financial centre but a political minnow. It’s capital was Bonn, a small university town along the Rhine whose only recommendation was that it was uncontroversial. I was in Bonn in 1991 when a referendum was held as to whether it should continue as capital and, while there was a sense of sadness that Germany chose against it, there was also a feeling that the large and historic city of Berlin would be a suitable headquarters for a European powerhouse, which was Germany’s rightful place in the world. Today, Bonn has reverted to being a small university town – the federal government has shifted completely to Berlin, and Germany is the economic and political centre of Europe.


Two changes took me by pleasant surprise! The first is that the German immigration police have turned nicer! In 1991, and in my many subsequent visits in the late 1990s and early 2000s, about the only unpleasant thing about visiting Germany was dealing with these racist pricks (I crossed passport controls in many European countries in those days and it was rarely, except for the UK, an easy experience, but the Germans had harassment down to a fine art – maybe it was because I used the city of Cologne a lot to get in and out, a smaller and less busy airport where they had the time to pester a kaalu). In fact, I think I almost had a heart attack when I last visited in 2006 and was handed back my passport immediately, with a stamp, a smile, and words of welcome – a cynical German I mentioned this to told me that they had been told to ‘be nice’ for the four weeks that Germany was hosting the World Cup and, not to worry, they would revert back to business as usual once it was over. Well, they were ‘nice’ this time too, and I am left wondering how to explain this! Indian passports have become more acceptable? I don’t look like an undesirable alien any more? Or, the principles of niceness, dignity and politeness have finally invaded that last bastion of apartheid values?


And second, the women have turned beautiful! This too was quite a shock! Germany in 1991 was an ornithologist’s hell, and a blind lecher would not have rued his disability here. This time, there were beautiful women all over the place, in numbers, and in all age groups. Again, I am left having difficulty explaining this phenomenon. Can a Darwinian evolution in response to post-modern values of ‘self’, ‘image’ and ‘beauty’ have occurred in just twenty years? Or has my taste deteriorated in inverse proportion to age? A possible explanation is that, in 1991, German women were trying to look as bad as they possibly could (no make-up, bad hair and frumpy clothes) – an outcome of the feminist attitude of the time that ‘you have to like me for what I am inside’. And today, they are trying to look as good as possible (realism has set in, and the attitude is – tart up and be noticed, who has the attention span for substance?), and the wide difference between the two explains the change.


Last but not least of the changes, the Germans have learnt English! In 1991, only the educated elite could hold a conversation in English, and I had to use my rudimentary German while travelling around – for getting directions, buying beer, organizing night stays at youth hostels and everything else – and get taken for a Turk or an Arab in the process. One often got to see people’s real attitudes in small interactions, and there were many surprises. For example, I found that that famed Prussian rudeness in Berlin was just a cover – if one needed help, Berliners would go out of their way to provide it. This time, almost everyone spoke enough English for me to get by, and people were happy for opportunities to show off their command over the language (good English continues to be a sign of education and status), making the small interactions considerably easier – but also, I missed the opportunity to improve my German. You win some, and you lose some!


Twenty-two years is a long time and of course there will be changes, especially as 1991 was before the Internet, the cell phone, and low cost airlines, when globalization had yet to set in, and this paper would be a long one if I were to recount them all. It is the soft changes that have been, in Germany, (almost) universally for the better. I would happily visit again!