tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-219631352024-03-15T03:22:15.791-04:00A Joyful Experience...from Hooghly to Hyderabad and beyond.Joy Foreverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12648549085158946686noreply@blogger.comBlogger322125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21963135.post-31247911646591192282023-05-09T08:22:00.004-04:002023-05-09T08:24:14.676-04:00The Miser<p>Normally I post a translation of a Tagore poem every year on Rabindranath Tagore's birth anniversary. This year I already posted an <a href="http://sugatabanerji.blogspot.com/2023/03/holi.html" target="_blank">extra one on Holi</a>, and here's one for the big day. The original can be found <a href="https://www.tagoreweb.in/Verses/kheya-54/kripon-304" target="_blank">here</a>.</p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>The Miser</b></span></p><p style="text-align: right;"><b><i><span style="font-size: medium;">~Rabindranath Tagore</span></i></b></p><p style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Begging for alms back and forth</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The village lanes I strolled,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>You were then passing on</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Your chariot of gold.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>As a magnificent dream</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In my eyes it did seem</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Such wondrous appearance,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Wonderful attire.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I was thinking in my mind,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Who are you, Sire?”</span></p><p></p><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The morning brought a good omen</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I had then thought,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Today, to beg door to door</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I will need not.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Outside as I set my foot</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I met the one on my route,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Who would throw, riding by, </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Riches on the wayside---</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I would just pick handfuls,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Opening my arms wide.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">That chariot stopped suddenly</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>As it reached me</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Looking at my face, you</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Alit smilingly.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Observing your serene face</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>My pains left without a trace,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>At this time, for some reason</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Suddenly you said</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Please give me something”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>With your palm spread.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr6u6vG8jHHv7ey8F_kdJblFCKelXCQKuw0WEAeJLzVRzILCEdW9qWFX9JLfdjN030xSjjUazlcFH2AdCUqgXxVTVmlyA9xiTmtUncNMIffhnORlAYyM48KISa1k_3dba0FaBWUXBFDTH2451_gz2ggS4x-JDY_VQCE5bHzSKk0jruQOzSb_A/s969/kripan.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="969" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr6u6vG8jHHv7ey8F_kdJblFCKelXCQKuw0WEAeJLzVRzILCEdW9qWFX9JLfdjN030xSjjUazlcFH2AdCUqgXxVTVmlyA9xiTmtUncNMIffhnORlAYyM48KISa1k_3dba0FaBWUXBFDTH2451_gz2ggS4x-JDY_VQCE5bHzSKk0jruQOzSb_A/w400-h318/kripan.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://thequiltsofindia.wordpress.com/2012/01/25/kripon-the-miser/" target="_blank">Image source</a></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">What is this you say, my Lord,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Give me something please!”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Hearing this, for a few moments</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>My head I couldn’t raise.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>What is it that you could want,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>That a begging beggar can grant.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>This is just jest for you</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>For me, a mean trick.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>From my bag I gave you</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>One tiny speck.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">On returning home, that container I</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Pour out, and behold!</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Among my alms, I can see</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>A tiny speck of gold.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Royal-beggar, what I gave thee</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In gold it came back to me,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Then tears swelled in my eyes</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>And I sat crying---</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Oh, why didn’t I give you then</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>All that was mine.</span></p><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><i><span style="font-size: medium;">(Translated by Sugata Banerji)</span></i></div>Joy Foreverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12648549085158946686noreply@blogger.com6Grayslake, IL 60030, USA42.344466399999988 -88.04174599999998914.034232563821142 -123.19799599999999 70.654700236178826 -52.885495999999989tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21963135.post-22737544418259601782023-03-08T09:44:00.009-05:002023-03-12T14:41:30.906-04:00Holi<p style="text-align: justify;"> While I have been busy with a variety of things, there have also been a lot of developments in my life since I wrote the last blog post almost a year ago. Most notably, we went to India for a month-and-a-half in the winter and were able to get our US visas stamped. This was our first visit home since the COVID-19 pandemic started.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Anyway, my readers know about my hobby of translating Bengali poems by Rabindranath Tagore to English, and I have worked on several poems lately. This one, "<i><a href="https://www.tagoreweb.in/Verses/kotha-39/horikhela-1579" target="_blank">Horikhela</a></i>", is one of my favourite poems since the day I read it in the book "<i>Katha O Kahini</i>" in my school days. Since this tells the story of brave Rajput women, and takes place on Holi, it seemed particularly suitable for posting today, on the occasion of Holi and International Women's Day.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMHrgMq8YB9QDkylJrhUPy2ZSXPjO5-KCi5Nc6D0k45BliLeMeKXtFKFSEJf1j4bKKPOcD0y2VazTY3xqemjJbIobx6c3WHQXUUfHmEQZbRQnxexVmTe2U9seWt9p4w8Cq9lBWN43bbaXOof75fsuUaE2oqRVUrkmZEtqnpbxffrrV9oHe0-0/s346/splash.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="310" data-original-width="346" height="287" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMHrgMq8YB9QDkylJrhUPy2ZSXPjO5-KCi5Nc6D0k45BliLeMeKXtFKFSEJf1j4bKKPOcD0y2VazTY3xqemjJbIobx6c3WHQXUUfHmEQZbRQnxexVmTe2U9seWt9p4w8Cq9lBWN43bbaXOof75fsuUaE2oqRVUrkmZEtqnpbxffrrV9oHe0-0/s320/splash.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Holi</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>~Rabindranath Tagore</i></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">A letter came to the <i>Pathan</i>, Kesar Khan,</p><p style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>From Kaitun, king Bhunag's queen writes---</p><p style="text-align: justify;">"Has war satisfied your thirst?</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Springtime is now going past</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Come with your <i>Pathan</i> army fast---</p><p style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>To play <i>Holi</i> with us, the <i>Rajput</i> wives.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Losing a battle, leaving Kota town</p><p style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>From Kaitun, the queen a letter writes.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"> </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Reading it, Kesar laughed out loud,</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Happily his moustache he twirled.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Put a colourful turban on his head</p><p style="text-align: justify;">His eyes with kohl he painted.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Picked a handkerchief scented--</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>A thousand times his beard he uncurled.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">With <i>Pathans</i> the queen will play <i>Holi</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Chuckling, his moustache Kesar twirled.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3fwU_kpquVzYB_Y_681q0CPnjc-DNfo3vPU_CZSSJKlnmV-3H1j-cVNODoEA9BLBT9VnR1kyRP3zdmoaj3j3dQK64VYJzhkPrrBBXfKMDH9LNsm4I01R3IFg0c9JhCJeptqvhpKH2fmDg5Xr_2YcDLCv_lep9AyasYWm1Lr3UwmBkNzwF3rw/s2000/bees.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1351" data-original-width="2000" height="135" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3fwU_kpquVzYB_Y_681q0CPnjc-DNfo3vPU_CZSSJKlnmV-3H1j-cVNODoEA9BLBT9VnR1kyRP3zdmoaj3j3dQK64VYJzhkPrrBBXfKMDH9LNsm4I01R3IFg0c9JhCJeptqvhpKH2fmDg5Xr_2YcDLCv_lep9AyasYWm1Lr3UwmBkNzwF3rw/w200-h135/bees.png" width="200" /></a></div><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">In March, the wind from the south</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Arrived at the <i>bakul</i> groves drunk.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Blossoms have filled the mango woods,</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The bees are in inattentive moods,</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Buzzing by themselves they brood</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>And fly around, their minds blank.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">To play <i>Holi</i> in Kaitun city today,</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The <i>Pathan</i> soldiers arrive in ranks.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"> </p><p style="text-align: justify;">At Kaitun palace, in the king's park,</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Just then was the glittering time of day.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">In the woods stood the <i>Pathan</i> platoon,</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The flute played the <i>Multaan</i> tune ---</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The queen’s handmaidens came soon,</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>A hundred <i>Rajput</i> wives, to <i>Holi</i> play.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The sun was tinted red, like blood,</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span> Then was just the glittering time of day.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">With each step their skirts start to sway,</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In the southern breeze the scarves blow.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">In their right hand a plate of coloured powder,</p><p style="text-align: justify;">From their belt hangs the colour-water-sprayer,</p><p style="text-align: justify;">In their left hand a can of rose-water --</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The <i>Rajput</i> ladies arrive, row by row.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">With each step their skirts start to sway,</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In the southern breeze the scarves blow.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"> </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Wittily smiling through his eyes</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Kesar says, as he comes close,</p><p style="text-align: justify;">“I came through many battles alive,</p><p style="text-align: justify;">But today I may not survive!</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Hearing, from the hundred <i>Rajput</i> wives</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Suddenly a loud laughter rose.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Tilting his red turban Kesar Khan</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Jokingly bowed and came close.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Then the <i>Holi</i> festivities started,</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Colour filled the red evening skies.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The <i>bakul</i> flowers got a new hue,</p><p style="text-align: justify;">On tree-roots, blood-red dust blew—</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Frightened birds forgot to coo </p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>By the guffaws of the <i>Rajput</i> wives.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">It seemed a red mist had appeared</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>And filled up the red evening skies.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"> </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Why don’t my eyes feel drunk?</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Kesar Khan wonders in his thoughts.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Why does my heart not sway?</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The women’s twisted anklets play</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Out of tune sounds in a way,</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The bangles too, properly ring not!</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Why don’t my eyes feel drunk,</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Kesar Khan wonders in his thoughts.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">The <i>Pathan</i> says, “In the <i>Rajput</i> woman’s being</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Isn’t there anything delicate?</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Her arms aren’t soft as a lotus stem,</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Voice’d put a thunderbolt to shame— </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Hard, dry, flowerless, untamed</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Vines of the desert waste.”</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The <i>Pathan</i> thinks, in body or in mind</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The <i>Rajput</i> woman isn’t delicate.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"> </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Starting tunes in <i>Iman - Bhupali</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The flute then plays a faster beat.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">In earrings, strings of pearls sway,</p><p style="text-align: justify;">On strong wrists, gold bracelets play</p><p style="text-align: justify;">With a maid carrying colours on a tray</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The queen now entered the woods to meet.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Starting tunes in <i>Iman - Bhupali</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The flute was then playing a faster beat.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"> </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Kesar says, “Staring at your path</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>My eyesight has almost gone away!”</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The queen says, “I’m the same way now.”</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The hundred maids laugh anyhow —</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Suddenly, on the <i>Pathan</i> kings’ brow</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The queen hits her heavy metal tray.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Blood flowed out freely from the wound</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The <i>Pathan</i> king’s eyesight went away.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Like a bolt of thunder from the blue</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Loud began the beat of war-drums.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The moon startles in a stark sky,</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Clinking cutlasses make sparks fly,</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Sitting at the gate, the <i>shehnai</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Starts on deep <i>Kanara</i> hums.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">From under the trees of the park</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Loud began the beat of war-drums.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">The scarves blew away riding the breeze,</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The skirts that were there, fell away.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">A hundred men by magic materialized,</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Emerged from their fake female guise,</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Encircled the Pathans from all sides</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Like a hundred snakes from a bouquet.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The scarves blew away like a dream, </p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The skirts that were there, fell away.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"> </p><p style="text-align: justify;">The road by which the <i>Pathans</i> had arrived,</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>On that road they never did return.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">In the woods on that pretty March night</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The crazed cuckoo wouldn’t stay quiet,</p><p style="text-align: justify;">In Kaitun groves with <i>bakul</i> trees in sight</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Kesar Khan’s game was finally done.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The road by which the <i>Pathans</i> had arrived,</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>On that road they never did return.<br /><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>(Translated by Sugata Banerji)</i></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><i>(Illustrations found on the Internet)</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMIlRSkJ7LSnuzfGColrAVnsho3ACH9jAawklOoc9EyTClN5AhLX4uUdRiDWNLQd4gAegDTjfxjLdQ3coqCZkYHJQvLpqGIoiKyVrQKqJVMmEe_br1d-rH_ytDVIk8AJ5svR0ep_fdQbTFs2lCH-TKBinyFifEgi3dNgSlb5wWYDydF1R3_PI/s1229/sword.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="783" data-original-width="1229" height="204" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMIlRSkJ7LSnuzfGColrAVnsho3ACH9jAawklOoc9EyTClN5AhLX4uUdRiDWNLQd4gAegDTjfxjLdQ3coqCZkYHJQvLpqGIoiKyVrQKqJVMmEe_br1d-rH_ytDVIk8AJ5svR0ep_fdQbTFs2lCH-TKBinyFifEgi3dNgSlb5wWYDydF1R3_PI/s320/sword.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p>Joy Foreverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12648549085158946686noreply@blogger.com1Lake Forest, IL, USA42.2586342 -87.84062513.948400363821158 -122.996875 70.568868036178856 -52.684375tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21963135.post-71742113570331013612022-05-09T10:55:00.003-04:002022-05-09T11:00:24.598-04:00Infamy<p style="text-align: justify;">What I have repeatedly felt while reading poems by Rabindranath Tagore, is that he could express my exact feelings better than me. This is more true now, when I'm raising a child. There are many poems where he describes the parent-child relationship, both from the parent's viewpoint and the child's, and I have translated <a href="https://sugatabanerji.blogspot.com/2010/04/judgment.html" target="_blank">several</a> of <a href="http://sugatabanerji.blogspot.com/2012/05/small-and-big.html" target="_blank">them</a> in the <a href="http://sugatabanerji.blogspot.com/2011/05/identity.html" target="_blank">past</a>. This year, my annual translation is <a href="https://tagoreweb.in/Verses/shishu-52/opojosh-1586" target="_blank">another such poem</a>, where the poet defends the actions of his child.</p><p><span style="font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: xx-large;">Infamy</span></p><p><i> ~Rabindranath Tagore</i></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJuAxipLrlhMPJse53-zLV3oa1I69egSn64wvF9cm66KvKYE5AssMkBSqhibucjDft476n3V1HArNhRGUORikjUTFFOtw1mskg_dO8wuVzq0iFfvU_H97KOlZBz4vlYLMu7q6oQXPc3KbcyzrVSdiFVNE1Hk6vOFwHBcc1Jo2aGwNe02fk_8Y/s2437/kali2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2437" data-original-width="2400" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJuAxipLrlhMPJse53-zLV3oa1I69egSn64wvF9cm66KvKYE5AssMkBSqhibucjDft476n3V1HArNhRGUORikjUTFFOtw1mskg_dO8wuVzq0iFfvU_H97KOlZBz4vlYLMu7q6oQXPc3KbcyzrVSdiFVNE1Hk6vOFwHBcc1Jo2aGwNe02fk_8Y/w394-h400/kali2.jpg" width="394" /></a></div><br /><i><br /></i><p></p><p>Dear child, why do you have tears?</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Who has said bad things to you</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Please let me hear.</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>While writing, your hands and face</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>With some ink got soiled</p><p>Is that why they said, “A dirty child”?</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Shame, is that fair?</p><p>The full moon is smeared with ink</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Call him dirty, I dare! </p><p><br /></p><p>Child, your faults are all they see.</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I find anything you do</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Makes them unhappy.</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>You go to play and come back</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>With clothes torn away</p><p>Is that why “Wretched boy!” they say?</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Shame, how’s that true?</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The dawn smiles through torn clouds,</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Is he wretched too?</p><p><br /></p><p>Don’t listen to what people say.</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I find your infamy</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Growing everyday.</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>You love sweets</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>That’s why all of them</p><p>Call you greedy and blame?</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Shame, what to say. </p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>All those who love you</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Then what are they?</p><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i> (Translated by Sugata Banerji)</i></div>Joy Foreverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12648549085158946686noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21963135.post-71046865284616815402022-04-12T16:31:00.003-04:002022-04-12T16:31:44.596-04:00Death on the Nile - A Review<p style="text-align: justify;">I just watched <strike>Gilderoy Lockhart's</strike> Kenneth Branagh's version of Agatha Christie's Death on the Nile, and wanted to share a few of my thoughts about it. This review will have mild spoilers, so stay away if you haven't read the book or seen another version of the movie.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib38yv3ycKXz_WQE3UV1Fl8KOW6lUNnnyAfa6ja7LFWgA5qJ6uco-Ws3Mfqpae3YYwtUeOON9XMIti3bJA4x8k-eWxfCuztSrHEhtdO5jlEcwWPWExgPIWUtD4t8nrN4DnHpxD5eZp-sGSrQ0olN8GtGPQ6aN1ZfGSQ89W_7g1kFj0CAGx2V8/s1200/death_on_the_nile_review.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1200" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib38yv3ycKXz_WQE3UV1Fl8KOW6lUNnnyAfa6ja7LFWgA5qJ6uco-Ws3Mfqpae3YYwtUeOON9XMIti3bJA4x8k-eWxfCuztSrHEhtdO5jlEcwWPWExgPIWUtD4t8nrN4DnHpxD5eZp-sGSrQ0olN8GtGPQ6aN1ZfGSQ89W_7g1kFj0CAGx2V8/w400-h300/death_on_the_nile_review.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: justify;">I'll start with the positives.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Kenneth Branagh isn't terrible as Poirot. In fact, he seems to have improved his act since the first movie, Murder on the Orient Express, and his accent is slightly more like David Suchet in this movie (who is the best Poirot in my opinion). I would keep Branagh ahead of Alfred Molina, Peter Ustinov, and of course, John Malkovich. He may even be better than Albert Finney. I like the rest of the cast as well - Gal Gadot, Emma Mackey and Armie Hammer fit into their roles. The visuals are great, and modern techniques, such as drone shots and CGI suit the story well. The digitally de-aged Branagh looks a little weird in a flashback scene, but I can live with that. Overall, anyone who is not fanatic about murder mysteries or Poirot would probably find this a gripping movie.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">But I'm not such a person. I scrutinize murder mysteries with psychopathic attention to detail, and I'd not hesitate to end friendships over a disagreement involving Poirot. So here's my verdict.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">First, the story is incoherent and full of holes. It's too much to think Poirot would go back to the heat of Egypt after having just come from there, whatever be the justification. Secondly, when people are dropping dead like flies, and everyone is trapped on a boat, is it believable that Poirot will not have everyone's belongings searched? And how does the murderer get the gun in the revelation scene, while Poirot himself remained clueless? The first murder comes a bit too late in the movie, and as a result, the movie drags on quite a bit longer than necessary.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The second aspect in which this movie fails is perhaps evident even from the poster above. Quick, look at it, and tell me who the main character is in the movie? From the beginning to the end, Poirot remains just a character in the movie, not <b><i>the </i></b>character. I would have blamed the director for this, but Kenneth Branagh himself is the director. If a person who played Gilderoy Lockhart <i>and</i> Hercule Poirot, arguably two of the most pompous characters in British literature, fails to make a movie revolve around himself, I don't know who can. I re-watched David Suchet's Death on the Nile right after watching this one and the difference between the two is stark. The older version has long sequences focused on Poirot, his mannerisms, his dialog, his idiosyncrasies. In the newer one, the other characters often steal the show. We never even see Poirot sitting still and thinking, exercising his little grey cells, something that the older version focused on often. The newer version replaces that by cheap thrills of a nimble Poirot chasing the murderer across the ship's deck, up and down stairs.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">But the third and most vital point where the movie maker failed, and which was totally avoidable in my opinion, is what they did with Poirot's moustache. They gave it a back story.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7hTEKHZjYwZGirtO_LoeBffjcgQyfOgpufP_TVvirah-ks39EyNq98SUOh6Cpp97XRjHxB2w4C-rPM0S91DIgNHipHQ2y7Rl2BpiqaYyyo6xN2MVD7L44ZE5QvuNkGea1Cce6T1TJrBlmENc8ZgXy3aCEDv9-UOFdq2xaItpjc1Ot5vOIPGc/s1280/Dc9p3esVQAYFJ_A.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7hTEKHZjYwZGirtO_LoeBffjcgQyfOgpufP_TVvirah-ks39EyNq98SUOh6Cpp97XRjHxB2w4C-rPM0S91DIgNHipHQ2y7Rl2BpiqaYyyo6xN2MVD7L44ZE5QvuNkGea1Cce6T1TJrBlmENc8ZgXy3aCEDv9-UOFdq2xaItpjc1Ot5vOIPGc/s320/Dc9p3esVQAYFJ_A.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: justify;">I try to keep an open mind when it comes to interpretation of literature into film, and while I'm infinitely more fond of David Suchet's waxed version of the moustache, I don't blame Kenneth Branagh for trying to do something different. But whatever be the style, I do consider Poirot's moustache to be his pride, not his weakness. Characters like Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot are like superheroes in many ways, and their little oddities, however illogical, become part of their personalities. Imagine a Superman movie showing a backstory about why Superman started using the red cape, then trying to explain the cape using aerodynamics, and finally showing him giving it up so that he can fly/fight better. Would you like that movie? I wouldn't. Similarly, one can invent all sorts of backstories to make the character more real, but when they try to rationalize Poirot's moustache, or love for symmetry, with logic from that backstory, these things definitely lose their magic. These things are not loved because they are logical - in fact, I'd say it's quite the opposite.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Branagh has said he wants to do more Poirot movies, and this movie hints "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd" is going to be the next installment. Will I watch that when it comes out?</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Probably.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">I'll watch it for the same reason I watch every new Jurassic World movie, every new Fantastic Beasts movie, every new Feluda / Byomkesh movie or Srijit Mukherjee's Kakababu movies - even when I know the stories and I hate the movies. I have grown up with these characters, and watching them say or do something familiar on screen still gives me a moment of attachment to my childhood days, and harks me back to the carefree summer afternoons I spent binge-reading mystery stories lying on my bed. Watching <strike>any rendition of Poirot</strike> a rendition of Poirot that at least tries to stay faithful to the original will always recreate some of that magic for me, and Branagh's rendition is definitely in that category.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">But if he wants me to love him as Poirot, he will have to do better. He'll have to stop trying to explain Poirot's eccentricities and embrace them for what they are, and make the movie all about himself, as Gilderoy Lockhart would have done.</p>Joy Foreverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12648549085158946686noreply@blogger.com2Lake Forest, IL, USA42.2586342 -87.84062513.948400363821158 -122.996875 70.568868036178856 -52.684375tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21963135.post-22979182651898295652021-05-09T01:16:00.001-04:002021-05-09T03:23:30.914-04:00Mother-loving Child<p style="text-align: justify;">These are bad times.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">People are dying of COVID-19. People are dying from lack of oxygen. People are even being killed by other people. Sitting in this far-off land, the news from India is just unbearably depressing. And yet, I cannot travel back to India to be with the people I love.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">So when Rabindranath Tagore's birth anniversary approached this year in the middle of all this, I had to think extra-hard about what poem to translate. I was tempted to look for some poem that talks about suffering or death (which I sort of did <a href="http://sugatabanerji.blogspot.com/2020/05/karma.html" target="_blank">last year</a>), but then I decided against it. There's enough of that already out there - there's no need for me to add to it. Then I realized the day of Tagore's birthday is also Mother's Day here in the US and since I had started to translate a poem about a mother-loving child sometime ago, it would be suitable for the occasion. So here's my Tagore translation for this year. The original can be found <a href="https://www.tagoreweb.in/Verses/shishu-52/matribotsol-2310" target="_blank">here</a>.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Mother-loving Child</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>~Rabindranath Tagore</i></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Those who live, mother, in the clouds</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>They call to me, call out loud.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>They say, “All we do is play,</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Morning to end of the day.”</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">We play a game of gold at dawn,</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Holding the moon, a silver one.”</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I say, “How will I go on?”</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>They say, “Come to the field’s end.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Stand there with your arms raised,</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We’ll take you into cloud-land.”</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I say, “But mother’s at home</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Sitting waiting for me all alone,</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Without her, how can I be gone?”</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Hearing that they laugh and disband.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Better, mother, if I be the clouds;</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>To act as my moon you can try—</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I’ll cover you up with my hands,</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Our roof will act as the sky.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LKsDL0tdB_I/YJeLHhWuisI/AAAAAAACRjc/MfeZ8DARHpMoYeNEp92XXQ5onPLmtU8OwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1104/Ma-meye-square.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1104" data-original-width="1104" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LKsDL0tdB_I/YJeLHhWuisI/AAAAAAACRjc/MfeZ8DARHpMoYeNEp92XXQ5onPLmtU8OwCLcBGAsYHQ/w200-h200/Ma-meye-square.png" width="200" /></a></div><span style="font-size: medium;">In the waves, mother, those who live,</span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>To me repeated calls they give.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>They say, “Singing is all we do,</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>From the morning and all day through.”</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">They say, “To what lands we flow,</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Their locations no one can know.”</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I ask them, “How can I go?”</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>They say, “Come to the shore’s end.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Stand there with your eyes closed,</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We’ll take you into wave-land.”</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I say, “But mother looks out,</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In the evening my name she’ll shout,</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Her, how can I live without?”</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Hearing that they laugh and disband.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Better, mother, I’ll be the waves,</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>You’ll be some land from afar.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I’ll jump and fall into your lap,</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>No one will know where we are.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><i>(Translated and illustrated by Sugata Banerji)</i></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>Joy Foreverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12648549085158946686noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21963135.post-77157200741593942021-05-03T23:31:00.006-04:002021-05-03T23:33:16.858-04:00Death of a Teacher<p style="text-align: justify;">I started learning Computer Science when I was in the fifth grade. We called it Computer Studies.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Throughout the first year, we learnt mostly theory: the characteristics of a computer, the parts of a computer, the history of computers, etc. Then in the sixth grade, we started to learn programming in BASIC. Little did I know at the time that this would become my favourite subject in school, and then I would go on to get an engineering degree and a Ph.D. in this field. Today, I am a professor of Computer Science, and if I try to trace the roots of my love for this subject, I will inevitably end up in those fifth and sixth grade classrooms where we learnt the basics of computer science and programming.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">And I will inevitably end up remembering our teacher, Mr. Sandeep Chintamani. If I have to choose one teacher from my school who had the most influence on my life, it would be him.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">I can still clearly remember his voice, his smile, his mannerisms and even his accent, as he taught computer science to us. Most of us had never even seen a computer when we started to learn about them, but he told us a secret: we did not need to actually sit at computers to learn programming. And then, the latter half of sixth grade onwards, we would form a queue and walk to the computer lab at the back of the biology lab once every few weeks and spend some time at a computer. There were only eight or ten computers for the fifty-odd students in our class, and they were old even by the standards of the day, but I still eagerly looked forward to these practical sessions and even theory classes with Mr. Chintamani. Of course, I may be biased, since I eventually fell in love with Computer Science, but I don't know whether that would have happened if the subject had been taught by another teacher.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">I later had other Computer Science teachers, of course, and I remember all of them fondly. But Mr. Chintamani held a special place in my childhood memories, and even now, when I teach my students about <i>if-else</i> blocks, or loops, I hear certain words and phrases in my head in his voice. "How would Mr. Chintamani teach this?" has been a question that I have asked myself often, and used the answer to improve my teaching.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">I bring this up today, because Mr. Chintamani passed away last week. He was on my Facebook friendlist, and when the obituary from my school appeared on my timeline, it was shocking and sad in equal parts. Just a couple of days ago, he had shared some COVID-related information on his wall. Little did I know that his life would be cut short by the disease within the week. Of the millions of lives this pandemic is claiming in India right now, this one is a little too close to my heart. He was only fifty-five. Rest in peace Sir, you left us too soon!</p><p style="text-align: justify;">I don't feel like writing anything more. I don't feel like doing anything anymore. I want to be able to go home and see my parents again.</p>Joy Foreverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12648549085158946686noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21963135.post-64966912455946931122020-05-08T02:00:00.002-04:002020-05-08T10:03:13.609-04:00Karma<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I have been practically living indoors for over seven weeks now. On the one or two occasions when I had to go outside for essential work, I had to clean myself obsessively after coming home. Even then, I inevitably spent the next few days worrying about catching the virus and dying. Between that and feeling anxious about family members back in India (not to speak of the millions of other people in the world), naturally, little else could occupy my mind during this time. So when I sat down to choose a Tagore poem to translate this year, I was still thinking of the pandemic and death and wondering whether the poet wrote anything applicable to the Coronavirus. As some geniuses on social media have already discovered, some <a href="https://tagoreweb.in/Render/ShowContent.aspx?ct=Songs&bi=B08A005B-A4A0-40E5-951D-C70C8B1532CC&ti=B08A005B-A4A1-41B5-451D-3684D95D9CBA&ch=c" target="_blank">Tagore creations</a> are particularly suited for this situation.</div>
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So searching for a poem applicable to the pandemic, I came across a poem called <a href="https://tagoreweb.in/Render/ShowContent.aspx?ct=Verses&bi=14576005-A4A0-4025-A51D-B2EAEB60FB63&ti=14576005-A4A0-4685-251D-B2EAEB60FB63&ch=c" target="_blank">"<i>Karmaphal</i>" (কর্মফল)</a> which means payback for one's actions. While the subject of the poem isn't really pandemic-related, it can be argued that this terrible disease is a payback to Humanity for the blatant destruction of Nature and overcrowding the planet beyond its capacity. It also talks about dying and being born again in the same place, which is probably the most positive thing that you can think of when you are being forced to think about death all the time. So this was my choice.</div>
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Also, when I was thinking of a suitable English title for this poem, I realized the most suitable word was "Karma". Although the English language has pretty much <a href="https://www.dictionary.com/browse/karma" target="_blank">internalized</a> that word today, it is really the Sanskrit root in the actual Bengali title of this poem, and for the first time, <a href="http://sugatabanerji.blogspot.com/search/label/Translations" target="_blank">my English translation</a> of a Bengali poem has practically the same name as the original Bengali version (where it is neither a proper noun nor an English word). So here's my translation.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Karma</span></div>
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~ Rabindranath Tagore</div>
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If a next birth truly comes </div>
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<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I know what is in my fate—</div>
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I’ll be drawn again to this</div>
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<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Capital of the Bengal state.</div>
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Poems and prose I’ve woven a lot,</div>
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In their snare I’ll get caught,</div>
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All faults in all that work will</div>
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<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Atone for their every vice—</div>
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<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Maybe I will have to then</div>
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<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>My own writing criticize.</div>
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.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span></div>
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In those days, if by chance,</div>
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<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Loving readers I still retain.</div>
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Their ears will all blush crimson</div>
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<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I’ll call them such ugly names.</div>
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Any book that comes my way</div>
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Page by page I’ll blaze away,</div>
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To ruin my fate, I will like</div>
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<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>A mythic demon re-arise— </div>
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<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Maybe I will have to then</div>
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<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>My own writing criticize.</div>
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I will say, “This ancient text!</div>
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<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Seems stolen from start to end.</div>
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I think even I can pen,</div>
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<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Baskets full of such nonsense.”</div>
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Other things that I will pen</div>
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Thinking now, it causes pain,</div>
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For cruelty of my next birth</div>
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<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Now I wish to apologize—</div>
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<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Maybe I will have to then</div>
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<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>My own writing criticize.</div>
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You, who often don’t say things</div>
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<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>That I really like to hear.</div>
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If you too reincarnate</div>
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<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>And as critics reappear—</div>
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My own self I will spite,</div>
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You will think of how to write</div>
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Rubbing pens in your dens</div>
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<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>To my protest, fit replies.</div>
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<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Maybe I will have to then</div>
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<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>My own writing criticize.</div>
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I’ll write, “He’s a misfit poet,</div>
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<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Like a heron among the swans!”</div>
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You’ll write, “What hateful mind</div>
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<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Lies with such nonchalance!”<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span></div>
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I will call you – ignorant,</div>
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You will call me – rude and blunt,</div>
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Then the things that will be written</div>
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<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>By no means will they be nice.</div>
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<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>You will write a strong response,</div>
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<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I will strongly criticize.</div>
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<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>(Translated by Sugata Banerji)</div>
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Joy Foreverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12648549085158946686noreply@blogger.com1Lake Forest, IL, USA42.2586342 -87.84062542.1645922 -88.0019865 42.352676200000005 -87.6792635tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21963135.post-25312791049272918992020-04-11T02:57:00.002-04:002020-04-11T02:57:27.476-04:00Where are they now?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GpI2NJ4n12E/Xo-n2Hbn_PI/AAAAAAABxmE/ITSZEwMRfDI6VlBkHDi4ZyUHllfI1yrPgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/67229436_10157632180944114_7709261426379980800_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GpI2NJ4n12E/Xo-n2Hbn_PI/AAAAAAABxmE/ITSZEwMRfDI6VlBkHDi4ZyUHllfI1yrPgCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/67229436_10157632180944114_7709261426379980800_o.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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A man stood at the midpoint of the Ponte Vecchio in Florence on a clear golden summer evening. A crowd had gathered around him to see the sunset, but he had his back to the sun. The beautiful medieval covered bridge was a major tourist attraction in this colorful Italian city full of tourist attractions, and the fact that it offered a magnificent view of the sun setting over the river Arno had pushed the whole crowd to this spot. It was almost 9 o'clock but the crowd was still mostly energetic. This man was holding a guitar, and he was singing into a microphone. He had large speakers next to him which amplified the music and filled the atmosphere with rhythm. Was he a great singer? I wouldn't say so. He was more loud than melodious, his voice more mundane than magical as he reminded everyone to tip him and buy his CDs. But the music that he created is definitely part of my memory of that evening from last June. From his sweaty face to his sinewy hands, everything about him showed that he was hardworking if nothing else, and sincere about his music. I had photographed him and dropped a Euro into his hat, but I had not really expected to remember him a few months later. His music, maybe, because that was an overwhelming part of the scene, but not him as a person.</div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-l32dhovsPDA/Xo-nKweR3jI/AAAAAAABxl8/LT1kvn3mPDAJ1yOCNGxG21iP6L4RUhtHwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/48742953552_58d7c612e2_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-l32dhovsPDA/Xo-nKweR3jI/AAAAAAABxl8/LT1kvn3mPDAJ1yOCNGxG21iP6L4RUhtHwCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/48742953552_58d7c612e2_o.jpg" width="320" /></a>And yet, I find myself thinking about him for the past few days. Is he still alive, or is he one of the nearly 19,000 people that have died in the Covid-19 pandemic? If he's alive, what is he doing now? He can't sing on the streets anymore, so what does he do for a living? What about the waiter who stood waiting for customers at the Piazza della Signoria in the summer evenings, or the art sellers in Piazza della Repubblica? Where are the musicians who played for the open-air diners at the San Marco Square in Venice, or the sellers of leather goods at the Florence Central Market? I saw an old gentleman in Venice having a morning walk and buying a newspaper from a newsstand. Is he still alive? If he is, he definitely cannot go out for walks anymore, and can he still get his newspapers?</div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vQqcyuq3JGI/XpCm5YLFcwI/AAAAAAABxso/w1b9XNyeb4sV2CrYrSRFYDtvHDZYvY65wCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/IMGP7556.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vQqcyuq3JGI/XpCm5YLFcwI/AAAAAAABxso/w1b9XNyeb4sV2CrYrSRFYDtvHDZYvY65wCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/IMGP7556.JPG" width="320" /></a>These are questions that keep haunting me and my wife Poulami repeatedly as we look through the photos of our Europe tour from last summer. We had always wanted to tour Europe, and Italy was the brightest jewel in that crown of a tour. We remember Italy as a hot, crowded, colourful country full of loud, cheerful people everywhere eating delicious food in the roadside cafes. A country of bustling marketplaces, busy alleyways, and people standing in queues to eat gelato while the tantalizing aroma of freshly baked pizza wafted through the air. The brightly colored country full of tourists, souvenir sellers and priceless wonders scattered everywhere surely left us impressed and longing for more. My parents had also come from India to accompany us during these ten days of tiring but unforgettable sight-seeing. </div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_a2iUzGwWn4/XpFotksVSvI/AAAAAAABxzE/ZBZ0UlNEX1AzM_b87NtNigNEFllSpGI7wCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/IMGP7019.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_a2iUzGwWn4/XpFotksVSvI/AAAAAAABxzE/ZBZ0UlNEX1AzM_b87NtNigNEFllSpGI7wCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/IMGP7019.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sWO3p2usdqs/XpFot1wimvI/AAAAAAABxzQ/ZHeuWygE3dEzpchkX4BycOx5nwEvI027ACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/IMGP7441.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sWO3p2usdqs/XpFot1wimvI/AAAAAAABxzQ/ZHeuWygE3dEzpchkX4BycOx5nwEvI027ACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/IMGP7441.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-754ACrZMh3Y/XpFottb3RHI/AAAAAAABxzM/5PeZ4Ed0kToSmuNj5v9PVEbXgoeQU0o5QCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/IMGP7148.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-754ACrZMh3Y/XpFottb3RHI/AAAAAAABxzM/5PeZ4Ed0kToSmuNj5v9PVEbXgoeQU0o5QCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/IMGP7148.jpg" width="320" /></a>And today, barely eight months later, all of that is gone. It's gone, along with nearly 19,000 people, leaving hundreds of thousands whose lives were changed forever. Of course, everyone in the media is talking about the sufferings of gondoliers, cafe owners, shopkeepers and other faceless people, but it feels particularly bad when one has captured some of their faces. Many of the people in my photos are tourists, and they are unlikely to be there now. But there were others whom we remember vividly, such as the lady who owned the gelateria near our AirBnB in Rome, the young woman who showed us our AirBnB in Venice, and the taxi driver in Rome who magically changed my 50 euro note to a 10 euro note. Maybe we don't remember that last person with a lot of fondness, but we do remember him vividly. It feels very painful to think of that country under lockdown now, with the hospitals overflowing with COVID-19 patients.</div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xSipfkeVjV8/XpFotmk4S2I/AAAAAAABxzI/PU8SQAL14eA7q5M3FR3qO1oaKFszqb_xACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/IMGP7412_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xSipfkeVjV8/XpFotmk4S2I/AAAAAAABxzI/PU8SQAL14eA7q5M3FR3qO1oaKFszqb_xACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/IMGP7412_2.jpg" width="320" /></a>Italy is by no means the only country to suffer in this pandemic, and bodies are piling up fast in my favourite city in the US as well. Spain wasn't part of our itinerary last summer, but we traveled through UK, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland, Greece, Germany, Austria and Greece. All of these countries are affected to various degrees and I really hate to think what this beautiful continent is going through right now. Meanwhile, we haven't left the house for the last three weeks and teaching classes through Zoom seems like the new normal. The world we know has changed - probably forever - and it happened so quickly that everyone seems to be in denial. It is this denial that is exacerbating all this suffering in the US, and I shudder to think what can happen back home in India if things are not handled well.</div>
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But this blog post is about Italy and the happy people we met there. I wish I had some way of knowing where they are now, and how they are doing. I also hope they can get back to their normal way of living sometime soon. For an elderly gentleman who has spent all his life taking morning walks and buying newspapers, it would be very sad if he has to spend the last few years of his life deprived of these simple pleasures of his daily routine.</div>
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Joy Foreverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12648549085158946686noreply@blogger.com0Lake Forest, IL, USA42.2586342 -87.84062542.1645922 -88.0019865 42.352676200000005 -87.6792635tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21963135.post-65580045278084570892020-02-21T22:59:00.000-05:002020-02-21T23:05:07.836-05:00The Laws of Twenty-one<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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This Bengali <a href="https://bn.wikisource.org/wiki/%E0%A6%86%E0%A6%AC%E0%A7%8B%E0%A6%B2_%E0%A6%A4%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%AC%E0%A7%8B%E0%A6%B2/%E0%A6%8F%E0%A6%95%E0%A7%81%E0%A6%B6%E0%A7%87_%E0%A6%86%E0%A6%87%E0%A6%A8" target="_blank">nonsense poem</a> by the great Sukumar Ray talks about the strange laws in the imagined country of Lord Shiva. Such laws may or may not resemble real laws in real countries. The laws relate to the number 21 various ways.</div>
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Today being the 21st of February, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Mother_Language_Day" target="_blank">International Mother Language Day</a>, AND Maha Shivaratri, the annual worship day of Lord Shiva, I couldn't resist the temptation to translate this poem to English from my mother language today.</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br />In the land where Lord Shiva stays,<br />Terrible laws one must obey!<br />If someone happens to slip and fall,<br />A policeman will arrest and haul<br />To the court, and the judge opines,<br />He pays twenty-one rupees in fines.<br /><br /> There, before it's evening six<br />For sneezing you need permits.<br />Without permit, if a sneeze will come,<br />Bang! Boom! On your back they drum,<br />A dose of snuff the Chief applies,<br />Until you sneeze twenty-one times.<br /><br /> A loose tooth, if someone has,<br />They must pay four rupees as tax.<br />If whiskers grow on someone's face,<br />A hundred annas is their cess.<br />Poking his back, bending his neck,<br />Twenty-one salutes they have him make.<br /><br />While walking, if someone chance<br />To cast left or right, a sideways glance,<br />At once to the king this news will rush,<br />The soldiers all jump and make a fuss,<br />They make him drink, in the sun at noon,<br />Water in twenty-one serving spoons.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">With poetry, those who fill the pages,<br />They are caught, and put in cages,<br />And made to listen, in tunes variable,<br />Recitations of the multiplication table.<br />They have to read grocery-store ledgers,<br />And do additions for twenty-one pages.<br /><br /> If suddenly when the night is deep,<br />Someone snores while they're in sleep.<br />On their head they rub with glee,<br />Cow-dung mixed with apple puree,<br />Twenty-one times they are spun<br />And hung for hours twenty-one.</span><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
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(Translated by Sugata Banerji)</div>
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Joy Foreverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12648549085158946686noreply@blogger.com2Lake Forest, IL, USA42.2586342 -87.84062542.1645922 -88.0019865 42.352676200000005 -87.6792635tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21963135.post-59340134969910891882020-02-16T00:52:00.000-05:002020-02-16T00:56:18.239-05:00Remembering Dadu<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Very old readers of this blog may remember <a href="https://sugatabanerji.blogspot.com/2006/02/my-brothers-birthday.html" target="_blank">my post</a> on my grandfather's birthday, fourteen years ago. This blog was only a few days old at that time, and I wrote more regularly.</div>
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Today is my grandfather's birthday once again. What's more, today is his 100th birth anniversary.</div>
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My grandfather, or Dadu, as I called him, was a man of many interests. When he got interested in something, he worked at it until he became an expert. The fact that these interests often had no practical value did not deter him at all. Some of the activities that he tried during his life (other than mathematics) are contract bridge, carrom, aquarium-keeping, candle-making, ink-making, spirograph, carpentry, book-binding, sandpaper-making, homoeopathic and biochemic medicine, and astrology. Most of these were before my time, of course, and so I only know these from stories I have heard since my childhood. I have also seen him making innumerable small tools and gadgets around the house.<span style="text-align: left;"> </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A spirograph design by Dadu</td></tr>
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Dadu was a man of discipline. He woke up by 4:00 every morning and walked to the banks of the river Ganga, which is about a kilometre from our house. When heart troubles appeared later in his life, and the doctor advised against brisk walks, he went there by rickshaw. If I was visiting Hooghly at the time, I would accompany him there. The two of us would sit there on a bench and he would tell me stories from the Mythologies, incidents from History, facts from Geography, theories from Physics. He pointed out the Milky Way and talked about astronomy. He talked about old Hollywood movies. He explained to me the difference between the different kinds of boats passing in the still dark river. He recited verses from the Gita and explained their meaning to me. There was hardly a subject on which he couldn't talk. He told me about all these things throughout the day, of course, but during that early morning hour I had his undivided attention. Dadu also had a great collection of books. Most of those books are crumbling and somewhat obsolete now, but I spent hours with those books, looking at pictures and reading up about the world. He also bought many such books for me. I wonder if my daughter will ever develop an interest in those books, or if that interest will even be relevant in the age of the Internet.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sebNGv-n79U/XkjWywDKW8I/AAAAAAABris/T_RJFuED6cgZxeCFBNrCuAALOTjSazRFwCEwYBhgL/s1600/IMGP6341.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="789" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sebNGv-n79U/XkjWywDKW8I/AAAAAAABris/T_RJFuED6cgZxeCFBNrCuAALOTjSazRFwCEwYBhgL/s640/IMGP6341.jpg" width="420" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A sample of Dadu's english handwriting</td></tr>
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Dadu had a great sense of humour. He loved to joke and play pranks on everyone around him. When we lived in Allahabad, I sent a letter to him in Hooghly every week, and he did likewise. These letters were often very odd - I sometimes substituted words with little pictures. Both of us sometimes wrote little riddles that had to be solved to get the full message. He once even wrote a whole letter in heavily sanskritized bengali, describing mundane everyday things in a hilarious manner. Also, his handwriting was amazingly beautiful. Waiting for letters, writing of letters and reading letters is another set of pleasures that our next generation will never know. </div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wG-_sKS9_24/XkjWy3ge_UI/AAAAAAABri0/4RAxxAsjDK8kZ74BgUNsXhH8t_MYl0dLQCEwYBhgL/s1600/IMGP6347-8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="604" data-original-width="1200" height="201" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wG-_sKS9_24/XkjWy3ge_UI/AAAAAAABri0/4RAxxAsjDK8kZ74BgUNsXhH8t_MYl0dLQCEwYBhgL/s400/IMGP6347-8.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A bengali letter from Dadu (click to enlarge and read)</td></tr>
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I could go on writing, but then, this post would never end. So there is no point in going on and on. The only thing that I wish on Dadu's 100th birthday is that I can use at least some of the teaching techniques that I learnt from him to teach my daughter. She wasn't fortunate enough to meet Dadu, but I hope at least she can learn from one of his students.</div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7xx0CiwVSxo/XkjXMAnAwBI/AAAAAAABrjE/ThZRi84RDqERJGGjaTPu4KWyEKF9qeLogCEwYBhgL/s1600/IMGP6270.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="838" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7xx0CiwVSxo/XkjXMAnAwBI/AAAAAAABrjE/ThZRi84RDqERJGGjaTPu4KWyEKF9qeLogCEwYBhgL/s320/IMGP6270.jpg" width="223" /></a></div>
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Joy Foreverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12648549085158946686noreply@blogger.com0Madison, WI, USA43.0730517 -89.40123019999998642.8875022 -89.723953699999981 43.2586012 -89.078506699999991tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21963135.post-42258215720509498312020-02-06T01:04:00.002-05:002020-02-06T01:04:41.795-05:00Fourteen Years<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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How long is fourteen years?</div>
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When I was a child and my mother used to tell me stories from the Ramayana, fourteen years always seemed an interminably long period for an exile. Later, when I read the Mahabharata, I realized that the Pandavas spent about fourteen years in exile as well - twelve years in the forest, one more year anonymously, and then about another year preparing for the battle (which lasted eighteen days). Again, a huge chunk out of the lives of our heroes.</div>
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And yet, when I look back at that night fourteen years ago when I started writing my blog, it seems just like yesterday. It will be an exaggeration to call this my "exile", but it does mark my time away from home. First in Hyderabad, then in Kolkata and finally in the suburbs of three cities across the USA - New York City, Washington, D.C. and Chicago.</div>
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While it doesn't feel like a lot of time has passed, a lot has changed in these fourteen years. I left my IT job, started and finished a PhD, did a post-doc and then became a professor at a college. I got married. I became a father. And fatter. In the world of social networks, Orkut died off, Facebook came to rule the world. Blogging went out of fashion, microblogging caught the fancy of the world with the introduction of Twitter. Cellphones became smart. Tablets and e-book readers came into existence.</div>
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I bought a DSLR. Two DSLRs actually, and started calling myself a photographer.</div>
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And in between all this, I started a second blog. In Bengali. While I hardly write in either one anymore, I definitely enjoy writing when I do. Nobody reads my blogs anymore, of course. Nobody reads blogs as much as they used to do fourteen years ago.</div>
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Still, it seemed like a nice occasion to commemorate by writing a post here on my first blog. I missed the actual date by a day, but what difference does a day make in fourteen years?</div>
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Joy Foreverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12648549085158946686noreply@blogger.com2Lake Forest, IL, USA42.2586342 -87.84062499999998942.1645922 -88.001986499999987 42.352676200000005 -87.67926349999999tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21963135.post-756864174502354382019-05-09T01:00:00.000-04:002019-05-09T01:00:05.002-04:00Astronomy<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Astronomy is making the news these days, with the first picture of a black hole becoming public last month. So I thought of translating <a href="http://tagoreweb.in/Render/ShowContent.aspx?ct=Verses&bi=FF66344F-BF40-403F-485B-407E73D94158&ti=FF66344F-BF40-424F-285B-407E73D94158&ch=1" target="_blank">this little poem</a> by Rabindranath Tagore this year on his birth anniversary, whose Bengali title literally translates to "astronomy." It is based on a dialogue between a little boy and his elder brother. Once I and my slightly older cousin brother recited this poem at an event back home in Hooghly. Those days almost seem like another life when I think about it.</div>
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So here's my translation of the poem, without much further ado. The illustration is my attempt at digital art using the Wacom tablet I impulse-bought last Thanksgiving.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Astronomy</span><br />
<i>~Rabindranath Tagore</i><br />
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All I said was, “In the evenings,<br />
<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>On the kadam tree<br />
When the full moon gets entangled<br />
<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>And can’t get himself free<br />
<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Could someone then<br />
<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Catch and bring him in?”<br />
Why did big brother, hearing that,<br />
<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Laugh and tell me, “Brother,<br />
<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>A fool like you I’ve seen no other.<br />
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OJgAd2N0yT0/XNJDk_K3_rI/AAAAAAABY_I/qoXTwL8MlCInIhLJkwOxoHmlHF633cvMACLcBGAs/s1600/Moon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="639" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OJgAd2N0yT0/XNJDk_K3_rI/AAAAAAABY_I/qoXTwL8MlCInIhLJkwOxoHmlHF633cvMACLcBGAs/s320/Moon.jpg" width="254" /></a></div>
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The moon stays very far<br />
<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>How can we even touch?”<br />
I said, “Big brother, you<br />
<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Surely don’t know much.<br />
When our mother smiles at us<br />
<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Through the window bars<br />
Would you then say that mother<br />
<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Lives very far?”<br />
<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Even then he told me, “Brother,<br />
<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>A fool like you I’ve seen no other.”<br />
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<br />
Brother says, “Where will you get<br />
<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Such a large snare?”<br />
I tell him, “Why brother,<br />
<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The moon is tiny there;<br />
<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>To grab him, my two<br />
<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Little fists would do.”<br />
On hearing that why did he<br />
<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Laugh and tell me “Brother,<br />
<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>A fool like you I’ve seen no other.<br />
<br />
<br />
If the moon came close to us<br />
<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>You’d see it’s immense.”<br />
I say, “Hasn’t attending school<br />
<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Given you any sense?<br />
When mother, to kiss us<br />
<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Bows down her head<br />
Then, does her face look like<br />
<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>A huge thing by our bed?”<br />
<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Even then he told me, “Brother,<br />
<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>A fool like you I’ve seen no other.”<br />
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<i>(Translated by Sugata Banerji)</i></div>
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Joy Foreverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12648549085158946686noreply@blogger.com6Lake Forest, IL, USA42.2586342 -87.84062499999998942.1645922 -88.001986499999987 42.352676200000005 -87.67926349999999tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21963135.post-56562840582691669532018-05-09T10:34:00.000-04:002018-05-09T10:37:30.002-04:00A Dream and an Announcement<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Let me start with the dream. It isn't mine, it was Rabindranath Tagore's dream. The <a href="http://www.rabindra-rachanabali.nltr.org/node/15364" target="_blank">original Bengali poem</a> is part of a collection of easy prose and poetry aimed at children learning to read. This is the poem that I chose for translating on Tagore's birthday this year. This was very different from the other Tagore poems that I have translated in recent times, and was great fun. The poem doesn't really have a name, but I decided to give it the title "The Dream" in my English translation. I decided to use the names Calcutta and Bombay instead of the more modern versions Kolkata and Mumbai since those were the names used during Tagore's time.</div>
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<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">The Dream</span></h2>
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<h3 style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>~Rabindranath Tagore</i></span></h3>
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<h4 style="text-align: right;">
<i>(Translated by Sugata Banerji)</i></h4>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The other night I had a dream</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">“Look! Look!” I heard Binu scream.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I looked and saw roof beams collide,</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Calcutta on the go, nodding side-to-side.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The houses are rhinos made of brick</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Doors and windows moving quick.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The roads, like pythons they crawl,</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">On their backs the tramcars fall.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Up and down go markets and shops.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Rooftops head-butt other rooftops.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Howrah Bridge, giant centipede goes,</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Harrison Road on its tail follows.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Monument swings, an elephant crazed</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Dancing, his trunk skyward raised.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Our schoolhouse runs with a clamor</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The math book runs, so does grammar</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The maps on the walls struggle and slap</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Just like birds, when wings they flap.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The bell rings ding-dong swinging away—</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Does not stop any hour of the day.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Millions of people say, “Stop please!”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">“Wherefrom? Where to? This is craziness.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Calcutta, busy going, ignores these calls—</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Drunk with dance her pillars and walls.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I think to myself, worry there’s none,</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">To Bombay Calcutta can straight go on.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">If Delhi, Lahore or Agra she’ll choose</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I’ll wear a turban, put on jeweled shoes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Or if today, to London she scoots</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Like English folk, all would wear suits.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Then some noise made my sleep shatter</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I saw, Calcutta was still in Calcutta.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">--------------------------------------------------</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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Which brings us to the announcement. And <i>that </i>is very much mine.</div>
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My sleep is getting shattered by some noise or other every night now for the last two weeks, and so is my wife Poulami's. Unlike Tagore, we don't find our life restored to normalcy even when we wake up, because our dream has come true and has decided to live with us (while making all kinds of noises at all kinds of hours).</div>
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She is our daughter Shalmoli. She was born on April 25, 2018 at Lake Forest Hospital, approximately three weeks before her due date amidst a lot of drama. Shalmoli is the name of a flower that blooms in early summer in India on a dry, rugged-looking tree and contains letters from both my name and my wife's. Being a Bengali, she also has a nickname, and that nickname is formed by the last three letters of her official name. The nickname has a meaning too. Oli means <i>bee </i>in Bengali.</div>
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Oli also rhymes with <i>Tuli</i>, which is the name of <a href="http://sugatabanerji.blogspot.com/2014/05/timi.html" target="_blank">my niece</a>.</div>
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So right now, my parents are staying with us. They were supposed to arrive on the 26th anyway, and throw a baby shower for my wife on the 27th. Oli was born while they were in the air and the baby arrived on the day of the baby shower. Now I am finding it hard to do anything not strictly necessary (such as blogging), between the final exams week at the college, all kinds of extra work at home and pediatrician visits at, well, the pediatrician's office. Life has changed overnight - nothing is as easy as it was before.</div>
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And we're enjoying every moment of it.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-761lF-PD33E/WvME8KO5dfI/AAAAAAABBIc/mPDuh2zQeIYshrsfk0dNO5HSYGsGVc0AwCLcBGAs/s1600/Bella%2BBaby-13.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="900" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-761lF-PD33E/WvME8KO5dfI/AAAAAAABBIc/mPDuh2zQeIYshrsfk0dNO5HSYGsGVc0AwCLcBGAs/s320/Bella%2BBaby-13.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Shirt painted by me. Photos not taken by me.</td></tr>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HO9dYnf88hw/WvME8Dj1vZI/AAAAAAABBIg/pMXLJ5HeFdYxmFFfA-TsgjYPDa5e50mcgCLcBGAs/s1600/Bella%2BBaby-6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="900" height="213" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HO9dYnf88hw/WvME8Dj1vZI/AAAAAAABBIg/pMXLJ5HeFdYxmFFfA-TsgjYPDa5e50mcgCLcBGAs/s320/Bella%2BBaby-6.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Joy Foreverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12648549085158946686noreply@blogger.com6Lake Forest, IL, USA42.2586342 -87.84062499999998942.1645922 -88.001986499999987 42.352676200000005 -87.67926349999999tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21963135.post-49327580101095402582017-12-31T17:01:00.000-05:002017-12-31T17:06:23.831-05:00The Last Week<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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The last week of 2017 has been cold.</div>
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That statement, at first glance, may seem to state the obvious. Isn't the last week of every year, at least in the northern hemisphere, always cold? But when I say cold, I mean colder than usual. Only last week, I <a href="http://sugatabanerji.blogspot.com/2017/12/a-walk-in-lake-forest.html" target="_blank">was complaining</a> about not getting my money's worth of low temperatures and snowfalls here in Chicagoland. Soon after that post was written, we had a snowfall on Christmas Eve and another one a few days later. The highest temperature that we've seen since then was -7 degrees Celsius and the lowest -19. Today, we are expecting the mercury to go down to -22.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ObadgOnmOOM/WklXgas9z0I/AAAAAAAA3Jo/qcNzB-xTEOEK3h9BIPUSfn1YhFDnVGHgwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_20171224_131359774_HDR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ObadgOnmOOM/WklXgas9z0I/AAAAAAAA3Jo/qcNzB-xTEOEK3h9BIPUSfn1YhFDnVGHgwCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_20171224_131359774_HDR.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Outside our house on Christmas Eve</td></tr>
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We haven't been stepping outside our house at all except for the most immediate needs, such as attending parties, and shopping for throwing parties. We had planned to go and see Christmas decorations in Chicago one of these days but scrapped that plan in view of the cold. The other day I lost feeling in my hands and ears and had a whole body ache when I cleaned snow off my car before I went shopping. I can only imagine what would have happened if I was out photographing the streets of the Windy City.</div>
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Not that the inside of the house is all good. Here's a photo of the windowsill near the head of our bed in our bedroom. I'll let that sink in for a moment.</div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4edNBMQq0zA/WklRHnSlqYI/AAAAAAAA3Ig/ufy_sqEGYaAZZ31zIfaB0bVdhkvimEBQgCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_20171230_163042981.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4edNBMQq0zA/WklRHnSlqYI/AAAAAAAA3Ig/ufy_sqEGYaAZZ31zIfaB0bVdhkvimEBQgCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_20171230_163042981.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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That windowsill, a few inches from our bed (seen on the left), has a layer of ice (seen on the right) frozen below it inside the room. Let me explain. In winter, the air inside heated houses tends to become terribly dry. This causes a lot of inconveniences such as itchy skin and bleeding noses. To prevent that, we run a humidifier in our bedroom which pours water vapour into the atmosphere throughout the night. This water vapour condenses as water droplets when it comes in contact with the glass window panes. These water drops flow down the pane and accumulate as a thin layer on the windowsill just below the shutter. The house, being an old "heritage" house built in 1938, does not have airtight windows, so there is a (very tiny) gap on this windowsill where this water enters by capillary effect and comes in contact with the outside air which, as I mentioned before, is colder than -7 degrees Celsius. So this water freezes and forms an airtight seal of ice on the windows. In the end, this ice keeps us warm in the room.</div>
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I went out on Christmas Day an hour before sunset to take a walk around our campus and take some photos of the freshly fallen snow. Here are a few photos from that day.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hzXl9E2aT-E/WklaVvixsII/AAAAAAAA3J8/z2C3zNOF6wIOs7nCLWBXlvJNk1H2bYtcQCLcBGAs/s1600/IMGP0711.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hzXl9E2aT-E/WklaVvixsII/AAAAAAAA3J8/z2C3zNOF6wIOs7nCLWBXlvJNk1H2bYtcQCLcBGAs/s320/IMGP0711.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Music department</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3OmsnN5LOTY/WklaV8CjxsI/AAAAAAAA3KA/jvbxfwv_MlEyFgzYCoabjHjaStXzQRk8wCLcBGAs/s1600/IMGP0719.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3OmsnN5LOTY/WklaV8CjxsI/AAAAAAAA3KA/jvbxfwv_MlEyFgzYCoabjHjaStXzQRk8wCLcBGAs/s320/IMGP0719.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My office</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZzmjONRtgAU/WklaVveXBlI/AAAAAAAA3J4/5FWd_QKgzZUfAxHP1Ar6yAzuZgx8xowAACLcBGAs/s1600/IMGP0734.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZzmjONRtgAU/WklaVveXBlI/AAAAAAAA3J4/5FWd_QKgzZUfAxHP1Ar6yAzuZgx8xowAACLcBGAs/s320/IMGP0734.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Art department</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vqXssrNL-Fw/WklaWOy1lvI/AAAAAAAA3KE/opEfZW8MOaEXCY-hcHmuR8b4hrZ1QMiMACLcBGAs/s1600/IMGP0756.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vqXssrNL-Fw/WklaWOy1lvI/AAAAAAAA3KE/opEfZW8MOaEXCY-hcHmuR8b4hrZ1QMiMACLcBGAs/s320/IMGP0756.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our house</td></tr>
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The parties that I mentioned earlier have been fun. Between tasting food and exchanging gifts from several different countries, life has been good. But now, I must end this blog post and go prepare for a New Year's party this evening. In the meantime, here's a photo of Bengali style egg devils that Poulami made for the last party at our house. I wish every one of you a very happy and prosperous new year 2018.</div>
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Joy Foreverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12648549085158946686noreply@blogger.com0Lake Forest, IL, USA42.2586342 -87.84062499999998942.1645922 -88.001986499999987 42.352676200000005 -87.67926349999999tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21963135.post-9094329345118686112017-12-24T12:03:00.001-05:002017-12-24T13:31:14.738-05:00A Walk in Lake Forest<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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One of the good things about the life of a professor is that one gets to enjoy a summer break and a winter break. Of course, the vacation also brings with it the realization that one has been indulging a little too much during the semester and has accumulated a considerable amount of bulk around one's midsection. Owing to the fact that the excuse of having too much work and too little time is also unavailable during the break, one tries to make amends, at least partially, so that the midsection is fit to accommodate more bulk again the next semester. That, in short, is the state that I find myself in these days. Also, since the break is of the latter kind, the outside world is somewhat lacking in the temperature department, and any kind of exercise desired must be attempted either in overcoats or in the cozy centrally heated interiors.</div>
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From time to time, however, one gets a warm day even in a place like Lake Forest. When one says 'warm' here, one says so keeping in mind the fact that Lake Forest is 30 miles north of Chicago and the average temperature for December is -2 degrees Celsius with a historic low of -21. With those reduced expectations of warmth, a December day when the temperature rises 5 degrees above freezing is considered warm, and when the mercury climbs over 10, people are positively sweating in their aforementioned overcoats and centrally heated interiors. The local people are usually not heard complaining about the lack of cold, because living in these latitudes gives them a dread of lower temperatures and snow-covered driveways that is difficult to shake off. However, when one has grown up in India, and has suffered wearing a monkey-cap on a 10-degree day, one tends to look at these 'warm' days as some sort of cheating by Mother Nature and can't stop complaining about how global warming is robbing mankind from some of the simple pleasures of life such as cold winters, and how they are not getting their time and money's worth by spending the winter in the US.</div>
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But complain as one may about the lack of cold, one can't deny that a warm day has its advantages. One of the primary benefits that it offers is the chance to reduce the bulk around one's midsection by actually walking outside in the open air instead of the treadmill at the college gym. The gym may be shielded from elements, it is not shielded from the eyes of my students, and when I put on form-fitting exercising clothes that were bought when I was two sizes thinner and go to work out there, I present a spectacle for the occasional unlucky student that, to put it mildly, we both want to avoid. Walking outside, on the other hand, needs the presence of a winter jacket or overcoat even on the warmest of winter days that can conceal the finer details of my over-indulged anatomy from the world. So when we got a string of these warm days this week, I decided to grab the opportunity and walk downtown to post some letters. Downtown Lake Forest is about a mile from my home and the round trip could be considered a fair amount of exercise for someone out of touch with the thing. So I plugged in my earphones into my smartphone, casting the necessary spells to prevent them from falling off, and muffled, jacketed and capped myself with a muffler, a jacket and a cap, respectively. Finally I put the letters in my backpack and started on my walk through the campus. The campus grounds look mostly deserted now, as the usual occupants of the grounds have gone home for their break and the unusual occupants prefer to stay indoors. I crossed the campus, exited it through the large gate on Sheridan Road and entered College Road.</div>
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Lake Forest, as the name suggests, is full of large trees. Most of these trees are part of estates surrounding large mansions. Many years ago, I have forgotten exactly how many, the rich professionals working in Chicago decided they liked this little town on lake Michigan for some reason, which I have also forgotten. So all the affluent lawyers, doctors and industrialists built their mansions in Lake Forest. In time, media barons, actors and other kinds of rich people whose professions I can't even begin to imagine moved here and bought all the properties available. Today, Lake Forest has mostly mansions and hardly any regular-sized houses. The best and the costliest mansions, one imagines, are the ones by lake Michigan, with their private beaches and boathouses where they keep their yachts. That's only a guess, of course, since someone like me wouldn't know anything about the prices of mansions. My guess is based on a <a href="https://patch.com/illinois/lakeforest/possibly-haunted-mansion-estate-cant-find-buyer-9-5-million" target="_blank">news report</a> from a few months ago that reported one of the beachfront mansions was supposedly haunted and so its owners were trying to sell it off at a greatly reduced price of ten million dollars.</div>
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College Road is one of the roads that have these wooded mansions on both sides. The sidewalk here has deep deer tracks imprinted into the concrete at one point, which always makes me wonder how old those must be. The town itself is pretty ancient--- the college was established in 1857 and the downtown area in 1916. But the concrete sidewalks are probably much newer than that. I entered Washington Road at the next crossing and continued walking. Some areas of Lake Forest have a somewhat English-village-like feel and walking here often takes one back to the land of Miss Marple and Blandings Castle. People who live in real English villages will probably fail to see this resemblance, but when one's familiarity with the English villages is based on murder mysteries, even the small similarities seem significant. Thinking about murder mysteries, I reached the next crossing, and walked across the triangular grassy area on Deerpath Road. There is a beautiful life-size bronze deer statue in this park which I had used for my <a href="https://joyforever.aminus3.com/image/2016-12-25.html" target="_blank">holiday greetings</a> last year. As usual for this time of the year, a bright red ribbon was tied around the statue's neck in a large bow. Most of the houses around me were also decorated in some form or another for Christmas. It was only half past three, but the low rays of a dying sun had turned the green grass at the deer's feet golden. Although Jim Reeves' soothing voice dreamed of a white Christmas in my ear, this year we have had only one light snowfall and very few frosty nights, so the grass is still mostly green everywhere. I passed the Lake Forest Library guiltily looking at the crowd of cars parked there. I haven't found time to visit the library even once this year. With an advanced new year resolution to visit the library in the coming year, I crossed the railway tracks and stepped into the downtown area.</div>
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The downtown in Lake Forest, like the other parts of the town, reflects the prosperity of the residents. For the most part, the businesses are either standalone stores, or chains like Williams-Sonoma, Talbots or J. Crew that stock items on the pricier side. When the first McDonald's was being opened in a different part of Lake Forest many years ago, the local residents were <a href="https://patch.com/illinois/lakeforest/lake-forest-mcdonalds-be-replaced-bank" target="_blank">up in arms against it</a>, claiming it would attract the wrong kind of people who would destroy the town. Later, they were allowed to open the store on condition of not displaying their iconic golden double-arch 'M' sign. Even the Starbucks Cafe on North Western Avenue, the main street through the downtown area, is a vast and fancy affair with rustic brick walls, fireside sofas and special reserve coffee blends that one can order and be served in porcelain mugs. I like this cafe a lot because the presence of students with notebooks and laptops inside gives the place a college-town feel seen in places like Cambridge, MA or Madison, WI which is otherwise missing from Lake Forest. The streetlights are now decorated with wreaths of red and green and the big pine in Market Square is decorated as a Christmas tree. Other trees around the place are also covered in lights, although they won't be lit until an hour or so later. I know because I have been to this place <a href="https://joyforever.aminus3.com/image/2017-12-23.html" target="_blank">after dark</a>. The town bookstore has a very nice window display of a model town, and I paused to take photos of it with my cellphone.</div>
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The Market Square in Lake Forest claims to be the oldest shopping center in the US which was built with parking space for shoppers. Built in 1916, the place has a clock tower, another tower with a sundial, and rows of shops around a central green. The central green has a <a href="https://joyforever.aminus3.com/image/2016-03-04.html" target="_blank">bronze statue</a> of a mother and her child which is also a fountain in the warmer months but has the water turned off now. The Union Pacific North Metra railway line which connects Chicago to Milwaukee has a station right opposite Market Square. As I turned into Market Square, I heard the bells from the railway crossing and seconds later, a bi-level train came to a halt at the station. I walked through the Mercedes, Porsche, Audi and Tesla cars parked around the parking lot of Market Square and headed for the post office at the opposite corner.</div>
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The Lake Forest post office is housed in a quite large building and the interior is reminiscent of the General Post Office in New York City. Much, much smaller, of course, but just reminiscent of that place. There was a line at the post office, mainly because only one window was manned and there were several people with dozens of holiday cards to mail. I myself had five envelopes which I dispatched, and then left. Work done, I was feeling elated. Also, Google Fit was informing me I had already walked for about half an hour. I decided to check out Sweet Pete's, the candy store at Market Square. Poulami and I have been yearning to eat some of their handmade chocolates since we arrived in Lake Forest two years ago, but something or the other always came up and prevented us from eating those chocolates. We even bought them as gifts for other people, but never ate them ourselves. I thought, I'll buy a box of those chocolates and surprise Poulami with them. Besides, the fact that one has started exercising to reduce weight is cause enough for celebration with chocolates. When I reached the shop, I found all the windows covered with black fabric. There were some legal notices stuck on the door. I tried reading them but they couldn't be understood because they were in legalese nonsense. I could only guess that the candy shop had been kicked out because they couldn't pay their rent. A mom with two kids was excitedly discussing the shop's closure with another man standing right there. Presumably, she had brought her children for a treat and had been disappointed like me.</div>
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I felt a little sad, not only because I wanted to eat those chocolates and now I couldn't, but also because I feel sad whenever I see stores closing down in this country. Since the time I arrived in the US in 2008, I have seen large and apparently busy stores abruptly go bankrupt and close. There was Steve & Barry's soon after I came here, then <a href="https://joyforever.aminus3.com/image/2012-09-21.html" target="_blank">Virgin Records at Times Square</a>, and then Borders <a href="http://sugatabanerji.blogspot.com/2011/08/future-of-books.html" target="_blank">which really hurt</a>, and Circuit City, and then Pearl Paint which hurt some more, because I loved the place, and then the much-visited Times Square ToysRUs store. More recently, ToysRUs has filed for bankruptcy, and if news reports are to be believed, Sears won't last another year. Sears, whose office space requirement created the tallest building in the world, which was the original mail-order company in the days before the Internet, is bending its knees to Amazon.com and the like. Retail giants like Macy's and Bon-Ton are also closing down stores every year. I had no idea whether this candy store was one of a chain or just a stand-alone store, but its closure surely felt like a small but significant change in the town that I have come to love in the last two years.</div>
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But my sadness didn't last long. Pandora was playing "<i>It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas</i>" into my ears and if Holiday music has one good quality, that's its ability to lift one's spirits. I started on my brisk walk back towards home. Chocolates would have to wait for another day, and I'm sure we'll be able to find other stores nearby. About fifteen minutes later, when I entered the college grounds through the gate on Sheridan Road, the sun had already dipped behind the trees and the lower part of my office building was submerged in shadows, but a narrow band at the very top still glittered golden. I stopped to take <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/Bc8mHcmghXJ/?taken-by=sugata.banerji" target="_blank">photos</a> of that spectacle with my phone, and then walked home. That's when I thought, "I haven't formally described Lake Forest on my blog in the last two years, why not do it now?"</div>
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Joy Foreverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12648549085158946686noreply@blogger.com0Lake Forest, IL, USA42.2586342 -87.84062499999998942.1645922 -88.001986499999987 42.352676200000005 -87.67926349999999tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21963135.post-4495987076979155112017-12-18T23:13:00.000-05:002017-12-19T13:26:43.972-05:00Hookah-faced Crave-all<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">As I have </span><a href="http://sugatabanerji.blogspot.com/2012/05/song-of-envy.html" style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">written before</a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> on this blog, </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukumar_Ray" style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Sukumar Ray</a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> was a multi-faceted genius who is primarily remembered for his Bengali nonsense poems for children. I cannot emphasize this multi-faceted aspect enough - much of what I know today about science, technology, engineering, mythology, geography, and the natural world, had its roots in Sukumar Ray's writings. All these years later, when I see a beaver building a dam in a documentary, or I see compressed air being used to transport messages through tubes, or I read an article about some underground fire burning for decades, or I see Thor and Loki fighting on the silver screen, my mind travels back to that large red book of my childhood, with the smirking green cat on the cover.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">When it comes to translating something out of that book, however, I always <a href="http://sugatabanerji.blogspot.com/2012/05/fear-me-not.html">choose</a> one of the <a href="http://sugatabanerji.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-tom-cats-song.html">nonsense</a> <a href="http://sugatabanerji.blogspot.com/2012/05/song-of-envy.html">poems</a>. I find translating nonsense particularly interesting, especially since I try to preserve the rhyme of the original poem. I try to do the same with <a href="http://sugatabanerji.blogspot.com/2017/05/compromise.html">Tagore's verse</a>, but in case of Ray, since the tone is decidedly more frivolous and common Bengali words and their sounds play a very important role in conveying the mood, translating is somewhat more challenging. I'm not the first person to translate Ray's nonsense though. Acclaimed scholar <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukanta_Chaudhuri">Sukanta Chaudhuri</a> translated many of these poems about twenty years ago and he did a fantastic job. But I still go ahead and translate some of these poems from time to time, just for the fun of it, and I make sure I don't look at Sukanta Chaudhuri's translation before I do. So here's <a href="https://bn.wikisource.org/wiki/%E0%A6%86%E0%A6%AC%E0%A7%8B%E0%A6%B2_%E0%A6%A4%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%AC%E0%A7%8B%E0%A6%B2/%E0%A6%B9%E0%A7%81%E0%A6%81%E0%A6%95%E0%A7%8B%E0%A6%AE%E0%A7%81%E0%A6%96%E0%A7%8B_%E0%A6%B9%E0%A7%8D%E0%A6%AF%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%82%E0%A6%B2%E0%A6%BE">one of my favorite poems</a>, with the illustration by Sukumar Ray himself. [<i>Coming to think of it, this is how I would expect one of my image classification algorithms to behave when a query image is equidistant from two reference images.</i>]</span></div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RYMgCegYbw4/Wjh4zihq5JI/AAAAAAAA12A/_CVq1JXnNnwhMH8gntInN1y8R17VHVBDwCLcBGAs/s1600/hookah-face.png"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RYMgCegYbw4/Wjh4zihq5JI/AAAAAAAA12A/_CVq1JXnNnwhMH8gntInN1y8R17VHVBDwCLcBGAs/s1600/hookah-face.png" /></a></div>
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Hookah-faced Crave-all</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>~Sukumar Ray</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Hookah-faced Crave-all, lives in Bengal</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">His face holds no smile, have you seen?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">No smile, why so? Anyone in the know?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">To stay with him, have you ever been?</span></div>
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Shyamadas, uncle of his is the opium police,</div>
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He has no other relation---</div>
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Is that why alone, his face devoid of tone,</div>
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He sits with a sad expression?</div>
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Thumping his feet, he danced to every beat</div>
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His voice always full of glee,</div>
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All day he would sing Do-re-mi-Fa-Ting-ting,</div>
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An image of happiness was he.</div>
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Today during lunch, sitting on that branch,</div>
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He was eating smashed plantain.</div>
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Then what transpired? Did his uncle expire?</div>
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Or did his leg suffer a sprain?</div>
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Hookah-face yells back "You're on the wrong track!"</div>
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"Don't you see the fix I'm in?"</div>
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"The way to swat flies the more I theorize,</div>
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My whole day passes worrying.</div>
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If it sits on the right, in my rule-book I write</div>
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This tail I use for the kill.</div>
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If the left it would choose, I'm not one to lose,</div>
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This other tail then fits the bill.</div>
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But if some naughty fly the centre-line does try</div>
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I can't imagine what I would do ---</div>
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How hard it is to choose which tail should I use,</div>
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I don't have tails but these two."</div>
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<i>(Translation by Sugata Banerji)</i></div>
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Joy Foreverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12648549085158946686noreply@blogger.com4Lake Forest, IL, USA42.2586342 -87.84062499999998942.1645922 -88.001986499999987 42.352676200000005 -87.67926349999999tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21963135.post-67401716669265783562017-11-17T20:46:00.000-05:002017-12-02T10:47:56.898-05:00Magic in the Sky<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b>The rest of this series:</b><br />
<a href="http://sugatabanerji.blogspot.com/2017/09/a-road-trip-and-speeding-ticket.html" target="_blank"><i>A Road Trip and a Speeding Ticket</i></a><br />
<a href="http://sugatabanerji.blogspot.com/2017/09/badlands.html" target="_blank"><i>Badlands</i></a><br />
<a href="http://sugatabanerji.blogspot.com/2017/09/devils-tower-and-onwards.html" target="_blank"><i>Devil's Tower and Onwards</i></a><br />
<a href="http://sugatabanerji.blogspot.com/2017/09/a-land-of-water-and-fire.html" target="_blank"><i>A Land of Water and Fire</i></a><br />
<a href="http://sugatabanerji.blogspot.com/2017/09/the-strange-dinner.html" target="_blank"><i>The Strange Dinner</i></a><br />
<a href="http://sugatabanerji.blogspot.com/2017/09/bison-jam.html" target="_blank"><i>Bison Jam</i></a><br />
<a href="http://sugatabanerji.blogspot.com/2017/10/last-day-at-yellowstone.html" target="_blank"><i>Last Day at Yellowstone</i></a><br />
<a href="http://sugatabanerji.blogspot.com/2017/10/two-days-at-grand-tetons.html" target="_blank"><i>Two Days at Grand Tetons</i></a><br />
<a href="http://sugatabanerji.blogspot.com/2017/10/a-desert-of-salt.html" target="_blank"><i>A Desert of Salt</i></a><br />
<a href="http://sugatabanerji.blogspot.com/2017/11/mountains-of-sand.html" target="_blank"><i>Mountains of Sand</i></a><br />
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***<br />
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A very long time ago - on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_eclipse_of_October_24,_1995" target="_blank">October 24, 1995</a>, to be exact - I <a href="https://hellocheck123.blogspot.com/2014/10/blog-post_24.html?view=magazine" target="_blank">witnessed</a> something magical.</div>
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I was in Allahabad at the time, and the moon decided to pass between the sun and the earth on that day, casting its shadow on northern India. What's more, Allahabad was one of those few lucky cities where the eclipse was total. The moon completely covered the face of the sun, enabling us to look at the duo with our naked eyes and see the solar corona. My father even took photos of the event. I remember everything about the day vividly: how the light decreased in jumps, how the panicked sparrows came back to the tree in our garden, how the circles of sunlight in the shadow of that tree turned to crescents. And I remembered the diamond ring. As the moon passed the face of the sun and the sun started to peek out from one of the sides, I saw light that was whiter than I could ever imagine. Naturally, I have wanted to see it again ever since.</div>
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So when I found out about the Great American Total Solar Eclipse (as the media keeps calling it) last year, I had decided I had to witness the event. What's more, the path of the total eclipse was passing through St. Louis, Missouri this time, and we have friends there. I ordered a solar filter sheet on Amazon before they went out of stock, and cut it out to create caps for my telephoto lens and Poulami's binoculars. The only thing that remained to be done now was to plan our road trip in such a way that our return journey took us through St. Louis on August 21.</div>
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So we decided to drive from <a href="http://sugatabanerji.blogspot.com/2017/11/mountains-of-sand.html" target="_blank">Great Sand Dunes</a> in Colorado to St. Louis, Missouri over two days. Most of this drive was through the agricultural lands of Kansas - a terribly straight road through a terribly flat land. Our car's AC started acting up on the first day of this trip and we got a feel of the 40-ish degree Celsius temperature outside. On the second day, the AC gave up completely and turned this into the most uncomfortable leg of our trip.</div>
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We spent the first night at a hotel in Hays, a city in Kansas. This place was chosen only because it was on our way and roughly the center point between Great Sand Dunes and St. Louis. We were so exhausted by our seven-hour drive that day that we didn't feel like leaving the hotel at all. We ordered Chinese food for dinner and ate in our room. Next morning, we hit the road again and reached St. Louis after driving for another eight hours. The city where our friends live isn't actually St. Louis but one of the southern suburbs called Fenton, and this was good because the moon's shadow would be passing just south of St. Louis. Staying in Fenton meant we could see the eclipse from the house. And that's what we did in the afternoon. Our friends were at work, but Poulami and I watched the eclipse from their deck. My father had to worry about running out of film in 1995, but I don't have to think of such matters anymore. I set up my digital SLR on my tripod and took photos to my heart's content.</div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-asHGwyA_ctk/Wg-Kti2PAqI/AAAAAAAA0sU/oYk3gw_WotoIaFj6TKH1SxeIk2tE87PjgCLcBGAs/s1600/IMGP9425.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-asHGwyA_ctk/Wg-Kti2PAqI/AAAAAAAA0sU/oYk3gw_WotoIaFj6TKH1SxeIk2tE87PjgCLcBGAs/s320/IMGP9425.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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It was strange how similar the experience was to the last time. The light going down by leaps and bounds, the crescent shaped patches of sunlight. The absence of sparrows, or any other birds for that matter, was conspicuous. But then, maybe the tree in their garden doesn't have birds. Once during the whole experience light clouds threatened to cover the face of the sun, but they went away quickly.</div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-JnPMmnO_Z3U/Wg-KtnYhkqI/AAAAAAAA0sQ/7T8z6Zx6jc0wxBtYAApnPl6xke8v30ZJACLcBGAs/s1600/IMGP9429.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-JnPMmnO_Z3U/Wg-KtnYhkqI/AAAAAAAA0sQ/7T8z6Zx6jc0wxBtYAApnPl6xke8v30ZJACLcBGAs/s320/IMGP9429.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BF5mmV7eAZM/Wg-KuJ-3DzI/AAAAAAAA0sY/vVLajB3EPdowsqk15lyY0k5-MYNBHJWvgCLcBGAs/s1600/IMGP9431.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BF5mmV7eAZM/Wg-KuJ-3DzI/AAAAAAAA0sY/vVLajB3EPdowsqk15lyY0k5-MYNBHJWvgCLcBGAs/s320/IMGP9431.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Crescent-shaped images of the sun</td></tr>
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Here are the photos that I took that day. I think they would do a much better job of describing the celestial magic by which the sun and the moon appear exactly the same size during a total solar eclipse on the only planet that has observers to appreciate it.</div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JyBDwXrzVMY/Wg-KtUeNvuI/AAAAAAAA0sM/KOV1jFrdcekYmJpyUJ2zm4vUwi3bUufuQCLcBGAs/s1600/IMGP9414.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JyBDwXrzVMY/Wg-KtUeNvuI/AAAAAAAA0sM/KOV1jFrdcekYmJpyUJ2zm4vUwi3bUufuQCLcBGAs/s320/IMGP9414.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-aDiW5ZsNLVc/Wg-KuXQj2kI/AAAAAAAA0sc/xCs3lDGXnLMu-f83lFjl_F4J5InwsJDGgCLcBGAs/s1600/IMGP9437.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-aDiW5ZsNLVc/Wg-KuXQj2kI/AAAAAAAA0sc/xCs3lDGXnLMu-f83lFjl_F4J5InwsJDGgCLcBGAs/s320/IMGP9437.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SdISC5f5Lwc/Wg-KukumIRI/AAAAAAAA0sg/_WU6kM7ODpUeprydj7KJKwbhsRvIV0T4QCLcBGAs/s1600/IMGP9467.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SdISC5f5Lwc/Wg-KukumIRI/AAAAAAAA0sg/_WU6kM7ODpUeprydj7KJKwbhsRvIV0T4QCLcBGAs/s320/IMGP9467.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Solar corona</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kXqT19lnAD0/Wg-KuyDd8hI/AAAAAAAA0sk/CSfOEVczsFIqagBRmbi251g9zhp1DTAFACLcBGAs/s1600/IMGP9469.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kXqT19lnAD0/Wg-KuyDd8hI/AAAAAAAA0sk/CSfOEVczsFIqagBRmbi251g9zhp1DTAFACLcBGAs/s320/IMGP9469.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Totality selfie</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nTYqxio9gIo/Wg-KvMOzdrI/AAAAAAAA0so/hBhypl1Cd5kVhYbHeUC-pN805EhyctHmQCLcBGAs/s1600/IMGP9478.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nTYqxio9gIo/Wg-KvMOzdrI/AAAAAAAA0so/hBhypl1Cd5kVhYbHeUC-pN805EhyctHmQCLcBGAs/s320/IMGP9478.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Diamond ring</td></tr>
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Our road trip story ends here. Actually, truth be told, it <i>should have</i> ended here. I would have liked to write that we left Fenton that evening and made an uneventful five-hour drive back home, because any further experience wouldn't be able to top the solar eclipse. But I can't write that because that journey took nine hours and we reached home at 3:00 a.m. The highway was congested with traffic moving at a snail's pace. All this traffic was returning to the northern states of Illinois and Wisconsin and Minnesota after watching the total solar eclipse from Missouri. The traffic was so slow at points that people were literally getting out of their cars, grabbing drinks from their trunk and going back to their seat again. To add insult to injury, we were also hit by severe thunderstorms on the way.</div>
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After going to bed at 4:00 a.m., I also had to go attend a departmental meeting at 9:00 o'clock the next morning. That meeting kicked off the semester which has caused this inordinate amount of delay in writing about our <a href="http://sugatabanerji.blogspot.com/search/label/RoadTrip2017" target="_blank">road trip</a> from August. Now that I'm done, I can go back to writing about other topics of a non-serial nature.</div>
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(The End)</div>
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Joy Foreverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12648549085158946686noreply@blogger.com0Lake Forest, IL, USA42.2586342 -87.84062499999998942.1645922 -88.001986499999987 42.352676200000005 -87.67926349999999tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21963135.post-8433633385992241612017-11-06T21:03:00.002-05:002017-11-17T20:47:57.254-05:00Mountains of Sand<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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When we were planning this road trip back in February, deciding the journey up to <a href="http://sugatabanerji.blogspot.com/2017/10/a-desert-of-salt.html" target="_blank">Salt Lake City</a> was fairly easy. The difficult part was planning the return trip. Salt Lake City is about 1500 miles away from Lake Forest by the shortest route. This route passes through the lower part of Wyoming, and Nebraska and Iowa, a part of the US completely devoid of national parks. Now since we would be traveling in our own car, so we didn't have the option of flying back and would have to make this long and boring drive anyway. We would also need to stay at hotels for the night since driving 1500 miles takes at least three days. So we decided to add another 300 miles to the route, so that we could travel via another national park, and then stay with our friends in St. Louis, Missouri for the total solar eclipse of August 21.<br />
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So the final plan was this: we would drive from Salt Lake City to the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve in Colorado and camp there for two nights. Then we would drive to a city called Hays in Kansas where we would stay in a hotel for a night. Finally, we would drive to St. Louis and spend the night there, and if the weather permitted, we would be able to witness one of the greatest celestial spectacles the next day, before driving back to Lake Forest the same evening.<br />
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By the time we reached Great Sand Dunes at the end of a ten-hour drive through Utah and Colorado, it was getting dark. We had passed through mixed weather, and as the sun dipped low in the western sky, we had seen sand dunes, and rainbows over mountains in the distance, and fields of sunflowers glowing in the late evening sunlight. But we had not stopped to take photos. Finally, when we had entered the park and set up our tent at our pre-reserved the Pinyon Flats Campground, we decided to rest and look around us. We could see that the campground had evergreen trees, and the outline of a dark mountain was just visible against the dark sky on one side. As we lit a campfire and finished our dinner with leftover Thai food from the previous night, the milky way came up above us. We were very tired, but I managed a few photos of the starry sky as Poulami wrote her journal in the tent.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-RrhkwcE4sPI/Wf8usb0MXFI/AAAAAAAA0nQ/TObZwtilBwUMEPekGxXDUWVF18TaMrEzwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMGP8885.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-RrhkwcE4sPI/Wf8usb0MXFI/AAAAAAAA0nQ/TObZwtilBwUMEPekGxXDUWVF18TaMrEzwCLcBGAs/s320/IMGP8885.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The sky from our campsite the first night</td></tr>
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When we initially made our travel plans, we had reserved the campsite for two nights. But then, since we had added one extra night at Salt Lake City, we had to cancel the first night's reservation at Great Sand Dunes and we didn't find a reservation for a second night there. So when we woke up the next morning, our first thought was, "Where do we sleep tonight?" Of course, we had a fallback option, but we didn't like it. A few miles down the road outside the park gates, there was a small privately-owned place called "Great Sand Dunes Oasis." The place had a restaurant, a fuel pump, a general store, a tiny motel, a tiny lodge, and a campground. The hotel and the lodge had been full, but we knew the campground would have space for us. Whether we wanted to stay there was a different matter altogether. The online reviews of this campground weren't stellar; it was just a piece of rocky land without much marking for campsites and people had had to drive uphill or downhill over rocks the size of baseballs to reach their sites. So we were a little hesitant.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TKe_BFIjriQ/Wf8usQBzWUI/AAAAAAAA0nM/HQJZa72Fq38hCb9yu0y1ILWC8rYYZ9A9gCLcBGAs/s1600/IMGP8894.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TKe_BFIjriQ/Wf8usQBzWUI/AAAAAAAA0nM/HQJZa72Fq38hCb9yu0y1ILWC8rYYZ9A9gCLcBGAs/s320/IMGP8894.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our first campsite</td></tr>
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But the problem solved itself in a very unexpected manner. Two rangers were walking by when we were folding up our tent, and we asked them if there were any empty sites on the campground here, just in case. They replied that the other side of the campground was completely first-come-first-serve, and so there were several empty campsites there. We should just go and choose one, pay for it, and set up our tent. This fact wasn't very clear from their website, so we had no idea there could be empty campsites. So we quickly packed up our stuff, drove to Loop A, chose one of the best campsites and set up our tent there. Our campsite was a couple of feet above the road, and the campsites across the road were a couple of feet below. So when we looked at the sand dunes - yes, we could see the sand dunes from our campsite - it was as if we were on the highest row of a gallery, and the other rows would not obstruct our view. Happy with our campsite, we went to look for breakfast.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Zjpg_dAmyIU/Wf8usZ0YbTI/AAAAAAAA0nU/TVSUGZh5X1QcDjIL9aox_-ByqKtkq-TsQCLcBGAs/s1600/IMGP8981.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Zjpg_dAmyIU/Wf8usZ0YbTI/AAAAAAAA0nU/TVSUGZh5X1QcDjIL9aox_-ByqKtkq-TsQCLcBGAs/s320/IMGP8981.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hummingbirds at the Oasis</td></tr>
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Breakfast at the Oasis restaurant was good. As a bonus, we sat next to a window outside which they had a hung a hummingbird feeder. So I could take lots of photos of hummingbirds feeding with the sand dunes in the background. After leaving the Oasis, we took photos at the park entrance sign, then headed back into the park. We had already been to the visitor center, now we wanted to see the dunes up close.<br />
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-goUcOQbwdnw/Wf85uZ1WoLI/AAAAAAAA0ns/7stdE_SDBzIFpzGVFMp9rQW-U_hIAnoxQCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_20170818_104404319.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-goUcOQbwdnw/Wf85uZ1WoLI/AAAAAAAA0ns/7stdE_SDBzIFpzGVFMp9rQW-U_hIAnoxQCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_20170818_104404319.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HSvBXnaZgy8/Wf85ten3vbI/AAAAAAAA0nk/ZT2CSwiXm-gsM1Tk3nsCm9ubGWWFA8dlQCLcBGAs/s1600/IMGP9010.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HSvBXnaZgy8/Wf85ten3vbI/AAAAAAAA0nk/ZT2CSwiXm-gsM1Tk3nsCm9ubGWWFA8dlQCLcBGAs/s320/IMGP9010.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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The sand dunes are actually just one part of the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve. They cover an area of 30 square miles and the tallest dunes are up to 750 feet high. The sand flowed in as sediment from the surrounding mountains over millions of years. Today, no new sand enters the system, but the upper layers of the dunes regularly shift around by the wind. The dunes are sandwiched between mountains on both sides, and two creeks that flow over the edge of the sand. We had to wade through cool, crystal-clear ankle-deep flowing water of one of these to walk to the sand dunes.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xaFi2fRdTLM/Wf85td9uClI/AAAAAAAA0no/gJaBvxojwVY9nYktkCbzrGzaLzjqCJN5gCLcBGAs/s1600/IMGP9016.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xaFi2fRdTLM/Wf85td9uClI/AAAAAAAA0no/gJaBvxojwVY9nYktkCbzrGzaLzjqCJN5gCLcBGAs/s320/IMGP9016.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Medano Creek</td></tr>
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Once we stepped onto the sand, we began to feel the true scale of things. On looking ahead, we saw a scene that could have come out straight of the Sahara Desert. Only, I doubt if Sahara is as dotted with colourful tourists as this place was. Also, even though it wasn't evident from where we stood, this place was about 8000 feet above the sea level.<br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jdZN-fkYvHg/Wf9aKOMTiiI/AAAAAAAA0oE/Fu9_6dJJO4UeHvZXfC6nXCgc3aJqYSZdwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMGP9024.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jdZN-fkYvHg/Wf9aKOMTiiI/AAAAAAAA0oE/Fu9_6dJJO4UeHvZXfC6nXCgc3aJqYSZdwCLcBGAs/s320/IMGP9024.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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What was also not evident to us, was how difficult it was to climb the dunes. There were people who were climbing to the tops of the dunes, and some of them brought boards to slide down the sand on. We climbed halfway up the first one and realized it wasn't our cup of tea. Besides, we were walking barefoot and the sand was beginning to heat up. Actually there were signs warning us not to go barefoot on the sand for this specific reason, but we couldn't have walked through the water in our shoes, and putting on shoes and socks on our wet feet while on the sand would have been messy. Besides, we thought we are from India, how hot can it get? But as the sun climbed high in the sky, we realized we would have to leave soon. So we did a quick photo shoot on the dune and walked back to our car. After the walk on the hot sand, the walk through the Medano Creek was very soothing.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo shoot on the dunes</td></tr>
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Then we returned to our campground and found an RV the size of a huge bus in the campsite across the road blocking our view of the dunes. We were still like the people sitting in a high gallery seat, but with a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubeus_Hagrid" target="_blank">Hagrid</a>-sized person sitting in the seat in front. Poulami and I had bread, bananas and miscellaneous uncooked items for lunch, and all through the hot afternoon, we cursed the old man and (presumably) his wife who had parked the humongous vehicle in our view. It seemed their idea of a camping holiday was quite different from ours, because the first thing that they did after parking their two vehicles (apart from the RV they had an SUV too) was to get out a dish antenna and install it outside. The second thing was getting two chairs out and sitting down next to the RV, where they promptly had a fight and stopped talking to each other. They spent the rest of the day and the evening watching TV inside their vehicle. We tried to sleep a while in our tent, but it felt more like getting pressure-cooked. The presence of a crying baby in a tent nearby didn't help either, so we finally gave up.<br />
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After our little photo shoot in the sand earlier, I had realized that I had chosen a bad time for it. For really dramatic photos of the sand, we would need to visit the dunes when the sun was low and the dunes were bathed in deep shadows. So we went to the dues once again in the evening. This time, I got the chance to make a video (starts around <a href="https://youtu.be/PsvfVtkItkc?t=4m53s" target="_blank">4:53</a> in the video collage above) of a rare phenomenon called <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Sand_Dunes_National_Park_and_Preserve#Features" target="_blank">surge flow</a> in the Medano Creek. Then, we climbed a low dune and sat in the warm sand until the sun was really low in the sky. As we walked back, we found the sand in the shadows had already started getting cold.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">On the dunes around sunset</td></tr>
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We were not done with the sun yet. The previous evening, we had seen fields of sunflowers in the golden light of the setting sun, but had failed to stop to photograph them. Now, we drove a few miles outside the park gates, parked our car by the side of the road, and I photographed the sunflowers and sunset to my heart's content. It was a beautiful time at a beautiful place, and even the eerie mass- howling of dozens of coyotes nearby added to the magic of the moment. When we had first thought of visiting Great Sand Dunes, I had thought the place had nothing to offer other than a tiny stretch of desert. But the place proved to be much more than that, with flowing creeks and fields of flowers and hummingbirds and dark, starry skies. The more we saw of the place, the more we loved it.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sunset behind sunflowers</td></tr>
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The evening at our campground was quite eventful. We were visited by a herd of deer, we tried to make popcorn on the campfire and ended up making lots of burnt corn, and finally, we cooked couscous and omelettes for dinner. As the night deepened, I managed to take my dream shot - our tent beneath the Milky Way. It wasn't perfect; the campground had too much light and trees and clouds blocked part of the sky, but still, it was something.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Night sky at our second campsite</td></tr>
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The next morning, I woke up early to photograph the dunes from the campground as the first rays of the sun started to paint them golden from the top. When the top of the tallest sand dune did turn gold, I looked through my viewfinder and found that someone had already climbed to the peak and was waiting there to see the sunrise. They must have had to start a few hours earlier to get there on time. Some people can be crazy about hiking.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Visitors to the campground</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sun touches the dunes... and the person at the top.</td></tr>
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Then we had leftover couscous for breakfast and packed up our tent, for the last time on this trip. We had finally run out of interesting places to visit and were about to start on one of the most boring legs of our road trip: a seven-hour drive through the plains of Colorado and Kansas.</div>
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(<i>To be concluded in the <a href="http://sugatabanerji.blogspot.com/2017/11/magic-in-sky.html" target="_blank">next part</a>...</i>)</div>
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Joy Foreverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12648549085158946686noreply@blogger.com0Lake Forest, IL, USA42.2586342 -87.84062499999998942.1645922 -88.001986499999987 42.352676200000005 -87.67926349999999tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21963135.post-41530670636391759052017-10-23T22:13:00.001-04:002017-10-23T22:13:45.828-04:00A Desert of Salt<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="text-align: justify;">The morning of August 15 </span><a href="http://sugatabanerji.blogspot.com/2017/10/two-days-at-grand-tetons.html" style="text-align: justify;" target="_blank">found us</a><span style="text-align: justify;"> in Salt Lake City, minus our car and unsure of what to do.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our Airbnb lodging in Salt Lake City</td></tr>
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When I had filled my fuel tank <a href="http://sugatabanerji.blogspot.com/2017/09/badlands.html" target="_blank">back in Badlands</a> National Park, I had forgetfully put the fuel cap on my trunk and driven away from the pump. Needless to say, I never found it again. Later, the "Check Engine" light on my dashboard had come up, indicating something was wrong. I knew a missing fuel cap triggered that light, but since my car is pretty old, and we had some 1,500 miles to drive home, I decided to get it checked anyway. So after we arrived at our Airbnb accommodation the evening of the 14th, I looked up a nearby Sears Auto while Poulami cooked dinner. The Sears Auto had checked our engine and said they found two codes from the transmission, besides the code for the fuel cap, and I should get it checked at Aamco. The Aamco people said it would take a few hours to check. So here we were, wandering about Salt Lake City on foot, devoid of our car and wondering what to do.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">TRAX station on the road</td></tr>
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We had added a day to our Salt Lake City stay as an afterthought, but didn't want to pack that day with hectic sightseeing. So we had spent the first evening lazily talking to our hosts, asking them about the places to see. After we dropped off the car, it seemed the best course of action would be to go to Temple Square to see the great Mormon Temple of Salt Lake City. Downtown Salt Lake City is not very large, and the streets are very nicely laid out in the form of a grid. The streets are wide and traffic is very disciplined. We saw buses, and also a light rail system called TRAX that was reminiscent of the Newark Light Rail that I used during my PhD days. We didn't take any public transport since the temple was just over a mile away and decided to walk there.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The LDS Temple</td></tr>
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<span style="text-align: justify;">The Mormon Church, formally known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS Church), has its headquarters in Salt Lake City and the huge temple and other surrounding buildings is known as the Temple Square. Members of the church use the building for weddings (among other things), and we saw at least half a dozen couples getting married. We thought some of the brides looked too young to be getting married, so we Googled for the legal age for marriage in Utah and were surprised to learn that it was only 15. We spent quite some time in the Temple premises and then crossed the road to a nice shopping area with outdoor fountains. We found a restaurant called Blue Lemon and had our lunch there, complete with a Facebook post of the food and check-in. This incident, as they say in novels, will be important in the latter part of the story.
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">City Creek at Temple Square</td></tr>
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After lunch, we decided we were getting worried about our car. The Aamco people were supposed to call us, but they hadn't. So we walked back to Aamco and asked about the car. Initially, everyone seemed to be avoiding us, compounding our worries. Then, the manager came and faced us. He seemed embarrassed.</div>
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<i>"Er... actually, sir, we are sorry to say this, we didn't find anything wrong with your car. We have been running tests on your transmission since the morning, but everything seems fine. We hate to send you away across the country without fixing anything, but we can't find anything to fix."</i></blockquote>
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I suspected the <i>"Hate to send you away without fixing anything"</i> was less due to a concern for our safety and more due to the fact that the tests that they have been conducting were supposed to be complimentary unless they found something wrong. But we were happy, and we left with our car.<br />
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The previous evening, when we had asked our Airbnb hosts about places to see in the city, both of them had told us to take a tour of the Utah State Capitol. The tour was a one-hour affair, with explanations and anecdotes about the architectural features of the magnificent building. It turned out that Poulami and I were the only two people interested to see the building on this hot summer afternoon, and the docent, who was an Indian lady, gave the tour for just the two of us.<br />
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-p_6FHwu2HIg/We1ofzclVvI/AAAAAAAA0gw/QkzcCbxTc9EolEAojeJ6Q0j0j1b9ALPJgCLcBGAs/s1600/IMGP8576.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-p_6FHwu2HIg/We1ofzclVvI/AAAAAAAA0gw/QkzcCbxTc9EolEAojeJ6Q0j0j1b9ALPJgCLcBGAs/s320/IMGP8576.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">At the Utah State Capitol</td></tr>
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Next morning, we set out for the place that I had been waiting for since the day I decided to come to Salt Lake City. The Great Salt Lake of Utah is one of the saltiest bodies of water in the world, second only to the Dead Sea. It is remnant of the prehistoric Lake Bonneville that once covered much of western Utah. Today, Lake Bonneville has dried up, leaving behind a vast flat area covered with salt known as the Bonneville Salt Flats. this is the place that I had wanted to visit. I had come to know about the Salt Flats from an issue of the National Geographic Magazine back in my childhood, but most people now know the Bonneville Salt Flats for the speedway that is built on the flats. This is the track on which cars attempt to break the land speed record. In fact, the place is open to the public, and it was my secret wish to drive my car over the Salt Flats and take a picture of my car there.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mirage on the road</td></tr>
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The place is about 90 miles from the city and it takes an hour and a half to drive. As we left the outer limits of Salt Lake City, we found the remains of the Great Salt Lake right of the road. Then, as we moved further out, the temperature soared to 40 degrees Celsius and the earth changed to salt all around. There was even a factory of Morton Salt right on the flats. Then vegetation became rarer and we started seeing mirages. I have seen mirages on the highway before and after that day, but the mirages that I saw on the salt flats were somewhat more pronounced than any that I have ever seen anywhere else. If I stared too long, it was creating some sort of illusion in my eyes and it was difficult to see the horizon. I wondered whether there was any chance of my old car overheating, but nothing of the kind happened. At one point, we saw a partially covered parking area by the side of the road. This was our destination.<br />
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As I parked, a family in a big SUV came and parked a few spots away. They had been driving over the salt flats, and this was evident from the salt encrusted tires of their car. The bottom of their car, which was quite higher than mine, was also covered in a thick layer of salt. The passengers had apparently not stayed in the car the whole time, because when they came out, their shoes were caked with salt. I decided I was not taking my car on the salt flats. We walked down on the salt flats with our camera and tripod to take photos.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bonneville Salt Flats</td></tr>
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Imagine a flat field laid out right up to the horizon. Now imagine that field is a dazzling white instead of green, and you will have imagined the Bonneville Salt Flats. The ground beneath our feet was wet and granular, not unlike what salt left outside in the rainy season becomes. When it rains, this whole place is transformed into a shallow flat lake stretching up to the horizon, whose flawless surface perfectly mirrors the sky above. We didn't have a chance to see that spectacle as it had not rained in the last few days, but what we saw was pretty amazing in itself. I set up my camera on the tripod and took many photos. There were other tourists on the flat as well, and some had even come with dogs. One lady was collecting salt from the flat in a Ziplock bag. I wanted to ask what she intended to do with it, but shyness prevented me from doing so. There is a faucet of water for washing salt off your shoes right where you come out of the flats. When we had seen and photographed the place to our hearts' content, we washed our sneakers there and came back to the car. Then we drove back to our Airbnb lodging and napped the afternoon off.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-p_utsjBtne8/We1mp_AUfSI/AAAAAAAA0gc/9Zu0CcvuquIM50SZ9kkzJSRuxwhE0CblgCEwYBhgL/s1600/IMG_20170815_135150.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-p_utsjBtne8/We1mp_AUfSI/AAAAAAAA0gc/9Zu0CcvuquIM50SZ9kkzJSRuxwhE0CblgCEwYBhgL/s320/IMG_20170815_135150.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">Our lunch at Blue Lemon<br />
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When I had Facebook-posted our lunch from Blue Lemon the previous day, my old friend Payel, who lives in Salt Lake City with her husband Dipanjan, had seen it. She had subsequently contacted me, and after some awkward explanation about why I had not informed her of our impending visit, we had agreed to meet them for dinner. So that evening we drove to a Thai restaurant called Sawadee, again near Temple Square and also close to the University of Utah campus. I usually avoid driving in the downtown areas of big cities, especially unknown ones, but I found driving in Salt Lake City a breeze. The food was fantastic and it felt really good to meet up with an old friend after more than a decade.<br />
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That was all there was to our two and a half days in Salt Lake City: a temple, a state capitol and a desert of salt. When we started on our journey again the next morning, we realized that we had not even bought a souvenir fridge magnet to remember the place by. We tried to correct this omission by visiting a couple of stores looking for souvenirs, but we didn't find them. In the end, we had to leave Salt Lake City with just some memories, some photos, and some grains of salt stuck to our shoes.<br />
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This time, we were headed for a real desert. As deserts go, it was tiny, but it was made of sand.<br />
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(<i>To be continued...</i>)<br />
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Joy Foreverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12648549085158946686noreply@blogger.com0Lake Forest, IL, USA42.2586342 -87.84062499999998942.1645922 -88.001986499999987 42.352676200000005 -87.67926349999999tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21963135.post-3790135039282026372017-10-15T21:52:00.002-04:002017-10-16T18:59:55.411-04:00Two days at Grand Tetons<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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There are some places that are magnificent at first sight, but have nothing more to add if you look deeper. Both of us found Grand Teton National Park to be like that. Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying we didn't love it. I'm just saying that the amount of love that we had when we first entered Grand Teton didn't increase over the two days that we stayed there.</div>
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We entered the park on a foggy morning, driving straight <a href="http://sugatabanerji.blogspot.com/2017/10/last-day-at-yellowstone.html" target="_blank">from Yellowstone National Park</a>. We originally wanted to stay in one of the lodges in the park, because... grizzlies. But the lodges were all full when we had planned the trip five months earlier and we had no choice but to stay in a campground. Grand Teton has several campgrounds and all of them are first-come-first-serve. So we had to go and reserve a site early, and we chose Jenny Lake, the most popular one. It also happened to be one of the farthest from Yellowstone, so we literally saw most of the park even before we got to the campground.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Tetons from Colter Bay</td></tr>
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We missed a spot at the Jenny Lake campground by a whisker. The car ahead of us got the last campsite, while we got nothing. I'm sure this will sound like a classic case of sour grapes now, but we had not liked the Jenny Lake campground at all by the looks of it, and we were sort of relieved when we didn't get a site. The sites were all shaded and wooded and the whole area seemed cold and damp and full of bears. So we turned our car around and drove straight to Lizard Creek campground, which was the second most popular campground at the other end of the park. We found a nice sunny campground close to Jackson Lake here and set up our tent. Over the next two days, we stayed at the campground and went to the nearby Colter Bay village for our dining, fuel, souvenir-buying and ranger-consulting needs. The last of these things didn't go too well, because the ranger that we met there was the pontificating type. Our conversation went somewhat like this:<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>I: </b><i>"Which are the best places for photography?"</i><br />
<b>Ranger: </b><i>You have to find them. It's not as if I can tell you a spot, you drive there and click a great photo. Go all over the park, get a feel of the places and see what works best for you.</i><br />
<b>I:</b> <i>Uh.. thanks! Which are the best places to see animals?</i><br />
<b>Ranger: </b><i>Right here. You are in the middle of it. Just choose any hiking trail and hike away from the road, and you'll come across animals. Since yesterday, people have seen all kinds of animals within a few miles from here. I cannot tell you where to go, you have to find them.</i></blockquote>
So we collected a map and a pamphlet from him and left. The pamphlet gave us more concrete directions about where to find animals and we spent most of our time at those places, but in vain. We hardly saw anything worth mentioning, apart from a bear. But I'll come to that later. First let me describe the park.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Evening at Oxbow Bend</td></tr>
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The most impressive feature of Grand Teton National Park is the massive Teton mountain range standing right next to it. I have been to Colorado and seen a lot of the Rockies, but I have never seen a mountain range in this country that looked more imposing and majestic than the Grand Tetons. At 13,775 ft, it is only the 60th tallest peak in the US, but it is definitely one of the most photogenic. The park is full of tranquil lakes and calm-surfaced rivers that mirror this range and create picture-postcard scenes round the clock. Apart from the mountain range, lucky visitors also get to photograph moose, elk, deer, wolves, black bears and grizzlies, not to mention smaller animals and birds.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Meteor shower from the campground</td></tr>
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We didn't see any of these animals on the first day, though we spent a considerable amount of time sitting by the river at a place called the Oxbow Bend. We did see a few deer when we were having dinner at the Colter Bay Village, but we see deer in our garden at home, so that doesn't count. Other than that, we saw a must-rat or river-otter (not sure which) swimming in the water, and pelicans. That night, we could see the Perseid meteor shower from our campsite and I was even able to take a few photos of meteors by putting my camera on my car dashboard and setting it up to shoot the sky automatically through the night. But in the tent, we slept uneasy because we had heard that there had been six bear sightings around the campground this summer.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dawn at Oxbow bend</td></tr>
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Next morning, we were up before sunrise and back at Oxbow Bend. This time, we saw hoof prints of moose or elk next to the water, but nothing else. After the sun came up, the number of people there increased, and we left. As we left, we saw a crowd by the roadside a mile from where we had been sitting. We stopped to inquire a ranger what had happened.<br />
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<i>"Grizzly number 360 was sighted going into the woods next to these roads here ten minutes ago."</i></blockquote>
We parked our car and got out. I put my telephoto lens on my camera and joined the crowd of people waiting to see grizzly number 360. It was maddening to think that we were drinking tea from our flask standing next to our car at Oxbow bend ten minutes ago, while there was a grizzly on the road hardly a mile from us. While one may be forgiven for considering us unenthusiastic about the presence of bears at our campsite at night, our enthusiasm for photographing such bears in the daylight and away from the campground knew no bounds. If only we had not taken that tea break!<br />
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An elderly couple standing at the "bear jam" told us they had seen a black bear on Signal Mountain summit that morning. The bear had crossed the road in front of their car and later, they had seen it eating berries on the mountain slope. So we decided to go to Signal Mountain.<br />
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To reach Signal Mountain summit, one has to drive on a very narrow winding road with dense forest on both sides, and the place immediately screams "bears." Sure enough, Poulami spotted the bear browsing berry bushes on the hillside through her binoculars from the summit. Soon, we were showing it to a growing crowd of other tourists and taking photos. An Indian lady even borrowed Poulami's binoculars for a view, and then while returning them, glared at her husband and said "<i>I told you, we need a pair of binoculars!</i>"<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Black bear on Signal Mountain</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Snake River Overlook (on B&W film)</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Poulami at Cunningham Cabin</td></tr>
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It was all bright and sunny at this time, and it was quite warm when we drove to the Snake River Overlook and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cunningham_Cabin" target="_blank">Cunningham Cabin</a> outside the park gates. But the day went downhill from there. As Poulami tried to cook rice at the campground, the sky darkened and big drops started falling. The rice wasn't cooking because we didn't have a pressure cooker (we were at an elevation of 6,827 ft), but somehow we managed to cook it by weighing the lid of our pot down with a heavy rock. As soon as we had finished serving ourselves the food, the rain came down in torrents and we had to get into the car and finish eating there. Later, we tried to take a nap in our tent as a heavy thunderstorm raged outside, and let's just say that the experience wasn't nice. Firstly, being surrounded by tall pines isn't the best of situations to be in during a thunderstorm, and secondly, after about an hour of torrential rain, our tent started leaking water at the seams. It was only a drop or two coming in through the piercings in the fabric where it is stitched at the corners, but it made the inside damp. The thunderstorm passed after some time, but the sky remained overcast with promise of more rain in the hours to come.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Overcast Tetons at Willow Flats Overlook, second evening</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Aspen grove, Willow Flats Overlook</td></tr>
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As we sat in our car watching a fresh bout of rain at the Willow Flats Overlook that evening, we simultaneously said something: we were not enjoying this camping experience as much as we usually do. This was the first time we were staying in a tent without actually wanting to do it in the first place. The weather was cold and damp and we longed for a warm lodge room. There was a real fear of bears in the campground that we couldn't put out of our minds despite being repeatedly told the fact that bear attacks were rare. And the thunderstorms were not helping matters; according to the radio news there were more in the offing tonight. We needed a good night's sleep because we had another long drive ahead of us the next day. So we decided we were going to sleep in the car that night. The car was definitely safer than the tent, both from bears and lightning strikes. So after we had finished our dinner with pizza from the village and leftover rice from our lunch, we reclined the front seats of our car as far as they would go, warmed the inside to a comfortable temperature (and turned the engine off), and went to sleep. I woke up a few times in the night, and it was raining most of that time. At some point, I found the inside of the windshield and the windows all fogged up, and opened the windows a crack. I am happy to say, both of us slept a lot better that night. On looking back, I can now see why we had not been able to book lodges at Grand Teton five months before the trip, when even lodges at Yellowstone were available. Grant Teton National Park was on the path of the total solar eclipse of August 21, and people were trying to get in and stay at the park during the eclipse, even if that meant reserving campgrounds and lodges for over a week before the big day.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Arch made of deer antlers, Jackson, Wyoming</td></tr>
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We had other plans, of course. We would see the Solar Eclipse from St. Louis, but before that, we had two other important destinations to visit. So the next morning, after coming back from an early morning drive through the park, we packed our stuff and were back on the road. We paused briefly at the Snake River Overlook again, because the Tetons were looking stunning in the early morning sunlight. We slowed down a little as we passed through the quaint town of Jackson where we saw pretty little houses decorated with flowers and arches made of deer antlers by the road. But soon, we were driving towards Salt Lake City, Utah almost six hours away.<br />
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Apart from getting <a href="http://sugatabanerji.blogspot.com/2017/09/a-road-trip-and-speeding-ticket.html" target="_blank">my first speeding ticket</a>, this journey was mostly uneventful and we reached Salt Lake City late in the afternoon.<br />
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(To be continued...)</div>
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Joy Foreverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12648549085158946686noreply@blogger.com0Lake Forest, IL, USA42.2586342 -87.84062499999998942.2586342 -87.840624999999989 42.2586342 -87.840624999999989tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21963135.post-40233128588618505092017-10-01T16:52:00.000-04:002017-10-15T22:10:16.321-04:00Last Day at Yellowstone<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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On our last full day at Yellowstone, we started early. I don't just mean earlier than <a href="http://sugatabanerji.blogspot.com/2017/09/bison-jam.html" target="_blank">the previous day</a>, but also earlier than we thought we did. My new Casio watch was to blame.</div>
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Just before leaving for the trip, I bought a new wristwatch whose one flaw is that its hands can only be moved forward while adjusting the time. When we crossed over from Central Time to Mountain Time while driving to Badlands <a href="http://sugatabanerji.blogspot.com/2017/09/badlands.html" target="_blank">on the first day</a>, I didn't set my watch back by one hour because that would require moving the hands forward by eleven hours. I just thought I'd remember to subtract an hour every time I looked at the watch. I didn't remember it this morning. So when we thought we were leaving a little before our check-out time of 11:00 a.m., it was not yet 10:00 a.m. We realized our mistake sometime later, but we were happy we made it.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cow elk near Grant Village</td></tr>
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Today our first stop was at the Lake Area. There wasn't much to see, apart from the large Lake Hotel facing Yellowstone Lake. In fact, we had been driving next to the lake all the way here. Wikipedia says<br />
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Yellowstone Lake is the largest body of water in Yellowstone National Park. The lake is 7,732 feet (2,357 m) above sea level and covers 136 square miles (350 km<sup>2</sup>) with 110 miles (180 km) of shoreline. While the average depth of the lake is 139 ft (42 m), its greatest depth is at least 390 ft (120 m). Yellowstone Lake is the largest freshwater lake above 7,000 ft (2,100 m) in North America. </blockquote>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Me in front of Yellowstone Lake</td></tr>
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We didn't spend too much time here, but we did take some photos in front of the lake. Then we looked at the map and decided we wanted to do a short hike at the Natural Bridge trail nearby. We hadn't hiked much on this trip so we looked forward to it. We drove to the Natural Bridge trailhead, parked our car and got ready. I took the camera and accessories, and Poulami took her binoculars. We filled our backpacks with trail mix, water bottles and rain ponchos. We put on hats to protect ourselves from the sun, and sprayed ourselves with bug spray. Then we walked to the end of the parking lot and there we saw a sign at the beginning of the hiking trail:</div>
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GRIZZLIES AND BLACK BEARS FREQUENT THIS AREA. ALWAYS HIKE IN GROUPS. MAKE NOISE WHILE HIKING. CARRY BEAR SPRAY AND KNOW HOW TO USE IT. DO NOT RUN IF YOU ENCOUNTER A BEAR.</blockquote>
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We came back to our car and put our stuff back into the car. Soon we were driving away towards our next destination, the Fishing Bridge.</div>
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Fishing Bridge is a small bridge on the Yellowstone River where we spent some time taking photos. Then we drove to the Mud Volcano area which has a handful of hydrothermal features. This place is also one of the most changing places in Yellowstone. The place called "Cooking Hillside", for instance, was a dense forest until 1978. Then there was an earthquake and the ground temperature rose to 94 degrees Celsius. The trees sizzled and toppled one by one until the hill became barren as we see it today. Names of other landmarks, such as Sizzling Basin, Churning Cauldron, Black Dragon's Cauldron, Mud Volcano, Sulfur Cauldron, Sour Lake and Mud Geyser, have equally interesting origin stories. I found the Dragon's Mouth Spring the most interesting of the lot. It is a cave with smoke coming out of it. There is also a constant rumbling roar coming from the inside, accentuated by rhythmical waves of water splashing out. I could almost believe that cave was home to a mythical giant or a real dragon.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dragon's Mouth Spring</td></tr>
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Next we passed Hayden Valley again. By this time we were so used to bison that we didn't even bother to stop. We had seen bison resting at the Mud Volcano area as well. We drove on straight to Artist Point near the Canyon Village. We had seen pictures of the waterfall on Yellowstone River taken from this point and they had looked amazing. On reaching there, however, we had to spend quite some time to park our car. If Yellowstone National Park has one flaw, it's that it is not equipped to adequately handle the amount of visitors it gets. Particularly, if they build a few more restaurants, and keep the existing ones open from morning till night, a lot of that problem can be solved. People don't stick to strict schedules for breakfast, lunch and dinner while on a trip, and so it is odd that restaurants should stick to that schedule and close down during the afternoon while there are people waiting outside to eat.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">View from Artist Point</td></tr>
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Artist Point is an overlook that juts out from the south rim of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River and offers a view of the 308-foot tall Lower Falls of the same river a mile away. The waterfall itself is magnificent, and the colourful walls of the canyon provide a fantastic frame for it, making it many times more beautiful. In fact, I can't remember ever seeing a place that looked so beautiful that it looks equally good in all kinds of photos, irrespective of the camera or the photographer that captured it. We spent some time here, taking our own photos, having our photos taken by kind strangers, and kindly taking group photos of strangers.</div>
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Next we went to the Canyon Village. We would stay at the Canyon Lodge here for the night, but right now we were only interested in lunch. We left for Lamar Valley after having lunch. Lamar Valley was the last major area that we were going to see in the park. It was famous for a variety of animals, but most notably for wolves. And it was easy to see why Lamar Valley was famous - we came across a big bison herd right by the side of the road as we were entering the valley. A lot of cars had gathered at the place and people were photographing the animals from the roadside. We did the same. There were rangers around to keep an eye on everything. Poulami had always wanted to have a picture with bison in the background, and here we had the perfect opportunity to do that. Although the bison seen in the background of this photo are at what is known as a 'safe distance', had they decided to run for some reason, they would have been on top of us in no time.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Poulami's bison-background photo</td></tr>
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Further down the road we saw more bison in the grasslands far away below the road. This place was similar to Hayden Valley - a vast grass-covered plain far below the level of the road, crisscrossed with streams and dotted with occasional trees. As we stopped the car and scanned the valley below, Poulami discovered something light-coloured in the grass with her binoculars and we were momentarily excited thinking it was a wolf. It turned out to be a pronghorn antelope. We saw more pronghorns closer to the road while returning and we were also able to get photos.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pronghorn</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bison herd at Lamar Valley</td></tr>
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<span style="text-align: justify;">A little later, we hit the main bison herd. I speak figuratively, of course. There were bison of all sizes on both sides of the road as far as the eyes could see. They were standing, sitting, grazing and blowing up little clouds of dust close to the road. The traffic slowed to a crawl, and from time to time, even stopped long enough to allow me to take the camera from Poulami and click a few pictures on my side of the road. We passed through this place and then came to a part of the valley where there was a river by the road. There were people hiking and fishing here, and we felt that really destroyed any chances of us seeing bears and wolves. So we decided to turn back from this point. And while returning, we had our first bison-on-the-road moment of the trip.</span><br />
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As I mentioned above, we faced quite a lot of traffic while going. However, while returning, we didn't face that much of traffic. As we approached the area where the most bison were grazing, we saw bison cross the road in ones or twos in the distance. Cars were avoiding them by moving to the other lane because there was little oncoming traffic at this time. Suddenly, there was some activity in the herd to our right and about twenty of the animals stampeded towards the road, just ahead of our car. Now I have bicycled among a stampeding herd of (domestic) buffalo in Allahabad during my school days, but I was young and silly in those days. Although I was in my car now, these were wild bison and I wouldn't want a score of these animals charging at my car.</div>
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I want to make it clear that the bison here were not aggressive towards us, or attacking us. In fact, all evidence seemed to suggest that they didn't even see us. But just because there were so many of them and they were starting to climb on to the road about 50 feet from us, I slammed on the brakes and waited. There were no other cars on the road for at least a quarter of a mile in either direction. As the first few animals climbed on the road and turned to face our car, I put the car in reverse and started backing up, and stopped again, unsure of what to do. Then, I saw the other car in the rear-view mirror.</div>
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It was a white SUV with the National Park Service logo on it. It came from behind us, passed our car and stopped close to the bison - probably about ten feet from the front of the herd. Then a ranger put his hand out through the window and waved a white piece of cloth. The bison seemed terrified of it and they scattered back into the grass. The SUV started again and we followed it. We were not bothered by the bison anymore that evening. We saw a dead bison at one point while driving, and although we didn't realize it at the moment, it could have provided us an excellent opportunity to see wolves or bears had we waited on the road and kept watch on the carcass. However, we decided to drive on.</div>
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We saw one more animal that evening. Before leaving Lamar Valley, we saw a large crowd of people on a bridge, looking at something down in the river below. It seemed like an ideal place to see bears safely, and we were very excited. As I found parking by the road and we walked towards the bridge, we met a man returning from there. "What did you see?" I asked eagerly. "There is some sort of animal," he replied, "but I don't know what it is." Finally, when we peered over the railing and looked down at the river below, we saw a pair of beavers swimming in the water. Later they came up on the bank and gave me opportunity to take pictures. The gentleman standing next to me had a professional-looking camera on a huge tripod with an immense camouflage-covered telephoto lens attached. With every press of the shutter, his camera shot off at least half a dozen frames. He looked most comical shooting the beaver when it was right below us, and at one point I thought his camera was going to topple over the railing and fall to the riverbed below. However, we didn't wait for it to happen, because we were tired and hungry.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Beavers</td></tr>
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The Chinese dinner at the Canyon Village was a welcome change, and we took it to our room in the Canyon Lodge. We also brought some grocery supplies for our onward journey. This lodge was the best one on this trip so far and the room was nice with a view of the parking lot. We even saw some deer from our window. We turned in soon, because we wanted to leave early next morning for Grand Teton National Park.</div>
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Next morning, we started at six, when it was still dark. We were driving to the Jenny Lake campground in Grand Teton National Park and we wanted to secure a campsite at this most coveted first-come-first-serve campground in the park. The drive was expected to be two and a half hours, but we faced unexpected problems right after we started. First, there was dense fog and second, there were bison on the road. I had to drive very slowly to avoid them. As we crossed Hayden Valley, we had to stop for bison crossing the road in the headlights of idling cars in the fog. Later on, we avoided bison several times, walking about absent-minded on the road. At one place, we found a bison walking towards us in our (right) lane, and some idiot was driving a car in the oncoming (left) lane at the same speed as the bison, so that they could stay alongside it. People inside the car were taking photos. I could neither pass by the bison on our lane, nor go to the other lane and hit the oncoming car, so I just stopped and waited. The bison would have probably walked by our car if it had reached us, but when it was about twenty feet away, the driver of the other car sped up and left, leaving me free to bypass the bison via the oncoming lane.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bison crossing in the fog</td></tr>
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As we drove by the Yellowstone River, the fog rising off the water presented a pretty picture. I mostly ignored it because I wanted to reach that campground on time, but when the sun showed itself, like a giant egg yolk, over the treetops on the far bank of the river, I decided I needed to stop and capture this scene. So we stopped at a suitable pullout and photographed the sunrise.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sunrise over Yellowstone River</td></tr>
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Then, as the sun rose higher over the treetops and the first rays hit the leaves, we exited Yellowstone through its south entrance and sped southwards. The word 'sped' is just used in a manner of speaking, of course. The area between Yellowstone and Grand Teton is also full of the same animals that live in the parks, and so I still had to drive slowly. Just seven miles after leaving Yellowstone, we found a sign welcoming us to Grand Teton National Park. After a brief break and selfie-session, we entered Grand Teton National Park and proceeded towards Jenny Lake campground.</div>
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(<i><a href="http://sugatabanerji.blogspot.com/2017/10/two-days-at-grand-tetons.html" target="_blank">To be continued</a>...</i>)<br />
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Joy Foreverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12648549085158946686noreply@blogger.com0Lake Forest, IL, USA42.2586342 -87.84062499999998942.1645922 -88.001986499999987 42.352676200000005 -87.67926349999999tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21963135.post-84548166295702259122017-09-27T19:24:00.001-04:002021-07-17T11:17:48.203-04:00Bison Jam<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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If you have seen any photos of Yellowstone at all, it is likely that you have seen photos of either Grand Prismatic Spring or Old Faithful Geyser. We decided to visit these attractions at the very beginning of our second full day at Yellowstone. After our over-ambitious plan of going out before sunrise to see animals fell flat, that is.</div>
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The plan we made was like this: have breakfast with stuff we had with us in our room. Then visit Grand Prismatic Spring, followed by Old Faithful. Then, we come back to Grant Village to have lunch at the Lake Restaurant (we weren't going back into the Grant Village Restaurant after the <a href="http://sugatabanerji.blogspot.com/2017/09/the-strange-dinner.html" target="_blank">previous night's fiasco</a>). Then we cross Hayden Valley, viewing animals, and reach Lamar Valley, to see more animals. Finally, we have dinner at Roosevelt Lodge Restaurant and drive back to our hotel.</div>
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We didn't consider that this plan involved a 200 mile drive. We didn't consider that restaurants closed after the peak lunch hour. We didn't consider that even when open, they have waiting times.</div>
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And we didn't consider the bison jam.</div>
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So we started with the Grand Prismatic Spring which is in the Midway Geyser Basin. This place contains several brilliantly coloured (and I mean surrealistically brilliant) hot pools whose smoking mineral-laden waters flow into the Firehole river. The place was already crowded when we got there. We crossed a small bridge over the river on foot and reached the pools. The first one is the Excelsior Geyser crater. This used to be a proper geyser until one fine day when it blew itself apart. Now it is a hot spring which constantly pours boiling water into the river. It serves as a constant reminder that this landscape is as volatile today as it was millions of years ago.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><br />
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ql8Ip-E6hfc/WcbOQp-QwpI/AAAAAAAA0HM/k8PqQIYdFXkGj3DZE2f8dwnl5zgYwxp9ACEwYBhgL/s1600/IMGP7192.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ql8Ip-E6hfc/WcbOQp-QwpI/AAAAAAAA0HM/k8PqQIYdFXkGj3DZE2f8dwnl5zgYwxp9ACEwYBhgL/s320/IMGP7192.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Firehole River</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Grand Prismatic Spring</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Opal Pool</td></tr>
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Then the boardwalk goes round past another hot spring whose name I have forgotten, to Grand Prismatic. Grand Prismatic is so colourful that even the steam rising from that pool seems coloured. True to its name, the spring shows a whole spectrum of colours, from intense blue-green to bright orange-red. We saw the pool edge-on, of course, so it wasn't possible to see the whole thing at once. We could see a viewing platform on a distant hillside that must have offered a breathtaking view of the whole basin, but it was quite far away and high up. So we didn't try to hike there. The narrow winding boardwalk passes two other hot springs- the Opal Pool and the Turquoise Pool. When we came out beside the Firehole River again, we found the crowd had increased even more. We took a few more pictures beside the river, and then left for Old Faithful.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Old Faithful Lodge (B&W film)</td></tr>
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Old Faithful Geyser is a fountain-type geyser, and it is one of the six geysers in Yellowstone National Park that can be predicted. It lies in its own village, with a huge new visitor center and a lodge that is the largest log structure in the world. The geyser itself lies at the middle of a barren roughly circular area about 200 yards across. A wooden boardwalk with benches forms a large amphitheatre-like viewing area where a crowd was beginning to gather when we arrived. It was about 1:30 p.m., and the geyser, which erupts every 90 minutes, was predicted to erupt at 2:10, plus or minus 10 minutes. We took some front-row seats and sat down to watch, while a ranger arrived and started explaining facts about Yellowstone and the Old Faithful Geyser. The geyser is similar to a pressure cooker in some ways. There's a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4zA_YPCyHs" target="_blank">constricted plumbing system</a> below the geyser which prevents water and steam from escaping unless it reaches a critical pressure. When that critical pressure is reached, the superheated steam escapes with the plug of water above it. Old Faithful can erupt to a height of 185 feet, and eruptions typically last 3-5 minutes.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Waiting for Old Faithful</td></tr>
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Since the time we had arrived, Old Faithful was visible as a wisp of steam coming out of the ground. Exactly at five minutes past two, we saw the first spurt of water from the geyser. This was not the real eruption - the ranger had told us that this was the "pre-play", which is a series of short eruptions that occur before the true eruption. We got ready with our devices - I with my digital and film SLR cameras and Poulami with the video camera of her smartphone. After a few false alarms, and loud assertions from a child behind me that "It's already over," Old Faithful did finally erupt. What a sight it was! Snow white water and steam rising up in front of the brilliant blue sky. After the first minute or so, it seemed the steam from the geyser rose up to meet the clouds overhead. Then after a few minutes, though I'm not sure how many, the height of the water gradually decreased until it was just a wisp of smoke once gain. I looked at my watch: it was exactly 2:20 p.m.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Old Faithful erupts (B&W film)</td></tr>
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We should have eaten lunch at this point, but we thought since the place was crowded, we would rather go and eat lunch at the Lake Restaurant at Grant Village. By the time we reached the Lake Restaurant, we found it closed. We had to be satisfied with just a photo of Yellowstone Lake.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4Os3iG73KSE/WcbiOK2hQFI/AAAAAAAA0Hw/PQLsI_uJ3bADxxN3irMW8_diXhA-ydxfwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMGP7345.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4Os3iG73KSE/WcbiOK2hQFI/AAAAAAAA0Hw/PQLsI_uJ3bADxxN3irMW8_diXhA-ydxfwCLcBGAs/s320/IMGP7345.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yellowstone Lake</td></tr>
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This was a setback to our plan - we were hungry now and without a place to eat, but we decided we could still recover. We ate whatever we could find in our car (when your car is your home for half a month, it is surprising what you can find in there) - cereal bars, soda, even mangoes - and decided to push on towards Roosevelt Lodge. We would have to cross Hayden Valley on the way there where we hoped to see bison. "The bison herd at Hayden Valley has 1500 animals," the ranger had told us the previous day, "And the bison herd at Lamar Valley has 4000 animals," she had added.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-acyXIz5G0To/WcblmLCD3NI/AAAAAAAA0H8/vw3xHrYBmQQKHeCAgp0DANK3OPEXQ_5HACLcBGAs/s1600/IMGP7364.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-acyXIz5G0To/WcblmLCD3NI/AAAAAAAA0H8/vw3xHrYBmQQKHeCAgp0DANK3OPEXQ_5HACLcBGAs/s320/IMGP7364.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The forest of dead trees</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-V1C8E01lSNE/WcblmSN5s8I/AAAAAAAA0IE/V_RQvTa00Q4T9XaVQnLQmKLy1cL4w8YkwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMGP7371.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-V1C8E01lSNE/WcblmSN5s8I/AAAAAAAA0IE/V_RQvTa00Q4T9XaVQnLQmKLy1cL4w8YkwCLcBGAs/s320/IMGP7371.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our first bison at Yellowstone</td></tr>
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We drove through the forest, scanning the road and the trees for any signs of animals. We even drove through a forest of dead trees. We have no idea whether these trees died of disease, of beetle infestation, or forest fires, or the ground just turned toxic, like other places in Yellowstone. Just before reaching Hayden Valley, we stopped our car at the side of the road because there were a lot of cars parked there and there was obviously some animal nearby. On crossing the road and peeking into the forest, we saw a bison standing close to us. The bison was huge - much larger than I had thought it would be, and almost too close for comfort. He completely ignored the crowd and sat down on the ground. We also left, and immediately came upon a large meadow down below the right side of the road. This was Hayden Valley. We parked our car again and walked to the edge and looked down. The plain below was full of grazing bison.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VzVaWYQcCtY/WcblmAjNP-I/AAAAAAAA0IA/X8zqVqS_7UgbNzjm0j0xfmkywn8b8TmCwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMGP7377.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VzVaWYQcCtY/WcblmAjNP-I/AAAAAAAA0IA/X8zqVqS_7UgbNzjm0j0xfmkywn8b8TmCwCLcBGAs/s320/IMGP7377.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Grazing bison at Hayden Valley</td></tr>
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After a few minutes we started again, but the traffic crawled to a stop soon. Initially the reason for the stop was not evident, but then we started seeing bison by the side of the road on both sides and realized the animals must be crossing the road occasionally. At places, they were within 20 feet of us. I am no stranger to cattle stopping traffic, having grown up in North India, and the female bison and the calves look somewhat like our buffaloes back home, so the bison jam was making me nostalgic. Even with our windows closed we could catch the smell outside which was a mix of rotten eggs and bison dung, vaguely reminiscent of Allahabad. But one look at the male bison assured us that these were not our domestic buffalo. They were massive hairy beasts and it was obvious that they could be violent and dangerous at close quarters.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-J-tvp3_cETQ/WcblmlcbRbI/AAAAAAAA0II/__Gr8FZ-bwExjz5qOo6F796EN52UfTyxgCLcBGAs/s1600/IMGP7423.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-J-tvp3_cETQ/WcblmlcbRbI/AAAAAAAA0II/__Gr8FZ-bwExjz5qOo6F796EN52UfTyxgCLcBGAs/s320/IMGP7423.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The bison jam</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MfEiJd9qizg/WcfWLduVSAI/AAAAAAAA0JE/gy0oCt5ySBwJ2OI1Hlkl6Ngx8iRKhSV7wCLcBGAs/s1600/IMGP7421.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MfEiJd9qizg/WcfWLduVSAI/AAAAAAAA0JE/gy0oCt5ySBwJ2OI1Hlkl6Ngx8iRKhSV7wCLcBGAs/s320/IMGP7421.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Young bison</td></tr>
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The bison jam delayed us considerably and now we were doubtful about the feasibility of our entire plan. Also, we had not had any proper meals the whole day and needed an early dinner. The next place to have dinner along the road was Canyon Village, but we were not sure if they had started serving dinner there, so we decided to drive to Roosevelt Lodge anyway. Besides, the area around Roosevelt Lodge was popular with bears, and we wanted to try our luck.</div>
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It seems our luck was out that day, because we didn't see any bears. The road around Roosevelt is hilly and full of hairpin bends (switchbacks in American English) and it wasn't exactly easy to look out for bears while driving. Finally, when we reached Roosevelt Lodge and tried to get dinner, we were told there was a 30-40 minute wait time and were given a pager. Hungry as we were, we had no option other than waiting for the pager to ring. Luckily, some of the rocking chairs on the porch were empty and we were able to sit down and scan the hillside opposite with binoculars. We were finally called in after 45 minutes. We were starving by this time and we ordered grilled trout once again. This time there was no doubt about the fish being trout and the rice being pilaf. We were happy with our food.</div>
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When we came out of the restaurant, it was 8:00 p.m. and the sun had set behind the hills. We still had to drive to our lodge about sixty miles away. So we had to scrap the plan for Lamar Valley, which meant our trip to Roosevelt was not very useful today. But as we started of our return trip, we had to stop and make way for horse-drawn tourist coaches that were returning from their trips and we had to wait for about ten minutes on the road until the last of these had crossed the road.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Horse-drawn tourist coaches</td></tr>
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The only other thing worth mentioning that we saw before darkness was couple of women changing the diaper on a baby. They had stopped their SUV at a pullout by the roadside on the mountain, and had spread out their things on the ground next to the car. The baby was lying on the ground and the women were sitting next to it. We thought it was an extremely poor decision to change a baby at a bear-infested area of the park at dusk, but we didn't stop to tell them what we thought.</div>
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After darkness fell, driving was more stressful. I had to stick to the speed limit and watch out for any animals that might come out on the road from the surrounding woods, but we didn't see anything other than a few deer. When we reached Hayden Valley, the bison jam had grown to double the size of what we saw earlier. We realized this was because the bison were now leaving the valley on our left one by one, crossing the road, and climbing the wooded hill on our right. Since they were in no hurry to make this crossing, the traffic had to stand and wait whenever an animal was visible close to the road. A frightened coyote was running to and fro on the road in the headlight of all the idling vehicles, but for some reason, it was not going away. This time, we spent a much longer time at Lamar Valley due to the bison, though we didn't actually see the animals in the dark. Finally, we reached our lodge at around ten in the night.</div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a href="http://sugatabanerji.blogspot.com/2017/10/last-day-at-yellowstone.html" target="_blank">The next day</a> was going to be our last day in Yellowstone, and we would need to leave the hotel early to make the most of it.</div>
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Joy Foreverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12648549085158946686noreply@blogger.com0Lake Forest, IL, USA42.2586342 -87.84062499999998942.1645922 -88.001986499999987 42.352676200000005 -87.67926349999999tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21963135.post-13208391058525729912017-09-24T22:30:00.000-04:002017-10-02T10:29:46.266-04:00The Strange Dinner<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
"How can I help you, Sir?" asked the woman at the front desk. We were surprised by her question, because she had written down my name in the list of people waiting for dinner <a href="http://sugatabanerji.blogspot.com/2017/09/a-land-of-water-and-fire.html" target="_blank">thirty minutes ago</a>.<br />
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"I, er... you wrote down my name... you said there was a thirty to forty minute wait for dinner, and I said we'll come back and... the name's Banerji."</div>
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She glanced at her notebook. I could see my name had been scratched out. Clearly, she had thought we weren't coming back.</div>
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"Oh.. ah.. yes, yes! Please follow me." She showed us to an empty table for two. The time was around 9:20 p.m. Grant Village Restaurant closed at 10:00.</div>
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Soon, a waiter arrived to take our orders. "Hi, I'm Sam," he said. "What can I get for you tonight?" he asked, pouring us two glasses of water.</div>
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We were terribly hungry after our long day and we had already decided on our order. "Grilled trout and rice pilaf with steamed vegetables for both of us." I said. He wrote it down and went away.</div>
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Poulami and I sat and talked for some time. The restaurant was still quite crowded, even though empty tables could be seen here and there. "Would the order take long?" we wondered. We could see Sam serving other tables, but he seemed to be avoiding us. I signaled to him.</div>
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"Don't you serve dinner rolls with everything here?" The question was just a formality. It was written on the menu. </div>
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"Yes Sir, we do."</div>
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"Can you please serve our rolls?"</div>
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"Actually Sir, the rolls are being warmed. They will be ready in three to five minutes." He went away.</div>
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We stared longingly at other people's tables. They had baskets full of dinner rolls, and baskets full of butter. "Well, at least we'll get the fresh warm ones." I told Poulami.</div>
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But the rolls didn't arrive. Five minutes passed. Then ten minutes passed. Then our food came. The main food, not the rolls. The portions were pathetically small. Whatever little rice they had served was just plain white rice. The "steamed vegetables" turned out to be half a dozen shriveled asparagus. We were aghast. It didn't look like food worth $23. I asked about the rolls again and were assured they would arrive soon as they were being warmed. Sam left again.<br />
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Then I looked at our dinner properly. The colour of the trout seemed suspiciously pink. I tasted a piece. It tasted exactly like salmon. Poulami agreed that it tasted like salmon. This was the last straw. Sam was nowhere in sight, so I called a nearby waitress.<br />
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"Do you find everything all right, sir?" she asked, surprised.<br />
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"No! Our waiter is ignoring us. We didn't get rolls. We didn't get the food we ordered. Nothing is all right." I barked. She fetched Sam. The subsequent conversations went somewhat like this.<br />
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"Sam, what did we order?"<br />
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"Rolls, Sir."<br />
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"No, what food did we order?"<br />
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"Trout."<br />
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"And what is this?"<br />
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"Trout, Sir."<br />
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"Are you sure this is not salmon?"<br />
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"Absolutely sure Sir. Would you like to talk to the chef?"<br />
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Now I am pretty confident about my ability to distinguish between fish, being a Bengali and all. But when it comes to calling a person a liar on their face on a fact which would be difficult to prove, I back out. So I said there was no need for the chef, just the rolls would be sufficient. Sam went away and returned with two rolls on two little plates.<br />
<br />
Two rolls. On two side plates. One for each of us. Not a basket of rolls. No butter to accompany them. The rolls were cold, and pretty much the worst rolls that I have ever tasted. So much for the story about them being warmed.<br />
<br />
I asked for butter. Sam vanished again. The chef showed up, grinning from ear to ear.<br />
<br />
"I heard you're having difficulty believing that's trout?"<br />
<br />
"Ah yes, I think this tastes like salmon."<br />
<br />
"Actually, that's a type of trout called the red trout. The salmon comes without the skin on the fillet."<br />
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"Okay, I believe you. By the way, do you serve butter with your dinner rolls here?"<br />
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"Yes. Let me send you some butter." She left. Sam came back with a large plate heaped full of those little rectangular packs of butter that they give you at restaurants. It was a very weird way of serving, and I may have been imagining things at this point, but there was definitely an unsaid "Here's all the butter you can eat. Calm down now," hanging in the air.<br />
<br />
We stopped complaining and tried to eat. We were still hungry by the time we finished everything. By 'everything' I mean the food and the rolls, of course, and not all the butter. We had also finished the water long ago, but nobody came to refill our glasses. We were too tired to complain. Since it was nearing closing time, it was too late to order anything else. And let's be honest, we hated everything about the place by this time. We knew we were being treated poorly; we just didn't know why.<br />
<br />
We asked for the check. When Sam delivered the check, that question answered itself. The check was just for one order of grilled trout, not two. So they had judged us to be cheapskates who would order one entree and share it, and they had been behaving poorly towards us throughout the dinner because apparently that's how they treat people whom they judge to be cheapskates. Keeping aside the question of whether such behaviour was appropriate, we can say that we didn't even deserve that behaviour since we actually wanted to order two entrees and were hungry even now. I told Sam what had happened. I expected him to apologize, at the very least. I expected too much.<br />
<br />
"Actually Sir, in English, when we say 'Grilled trout for both of us' it means split one order of trout for the two of us."<br />
<br />
"You don't have to teach me English now, do you? This isn't the first time I'm ordering something at a restaurant."<br />
<br />
"I wasn't trying to teach you anything Sir, I was just saying that the fault lies with both of us. Why didn't you say you had ordered two when I brought the food?"<br />
<br />
"How was I supposed to know you had brought one order when you had split it equally into two parts? I thought maybe your portions were small."<br />
<br />
He took away my credit card. When he brought it back with the receipt, I wrote down $0.00 for the tip, something I don't remember having done in a very long time.<br />
<br />
"Open the trunk," Poulami said as I parked at our lodge. "I'll need to grab the cereal bars and bread and bananas for the night."<br />
<br />
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<i>(<a href="http://sugatabanerji.blogspot.com/2017/09/bison-jam.html" target="_blank">To be continued</a>...)</i></div>
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Joy Foreverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12648549085158946686noreply@blogger.com0Lake Forest, IL, USA42.2586342 -87.84062499999998942.1645922 -88.001986499999987 42.352676200000005 -87.67926349999999tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21963135.post-42511585708717695332017-09-20T23:46:00.001-04:002021-07-17T10:56:35.611-04:00A Land of Water and Fire<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Have I said it before? If not, I say it now: Yellowstone National Park is huge.</div>
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While Wikipedia tells me it is only the seventh largest national park in the US [fun fact: five of the largest six, and the eighth largest are all in one single state - Alaska], it is about a million acres larger than Grand Canyon, the largest national park that we had visited before. So, it becomes extremely important to plan the sightseeing around the park because driving can be a real time consuming part of the day here. Thankfully, the Yellowstone map and guidebook that they provide at the entrance is pretty helpful and we had no trouble deciding what we would start our day with. After checking out of Roosevelt Lodge where we had <a href="http://sugatabanerji.blogspot.com/2017/09/devils-tower-and-onwards.html" target="_blank">arrived the previous night</a>, we drove straight to Mammoth Hot Springs.</div>
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Before we move on to describing this wonderful place, let me briefly describe what Yellowstone National Park actually is, geologically. If you already know this, please bear with me.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Click to enlarge</td></tr>
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Yellowstone National Park sits on top of a supervolcano, which I guess means something much larger than a regular volcano. This supervolcano has erupted at least three times in the past, the last time being 640,000 years ago. Now part of the park is inside the crater of the last eruption while the other part is right outside. This huge crater, which is known as a caldera, is marked with an oval on maps of Yellowstone. There is a large magma chamber right under Yellowstone and <a href="http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170817-nasas-ambitious-plan-to-save-earth-from-a-supervolcano" target="_blank">some scientists feel</a> it is about to erupt again (while others disagree). Today, while the earth's crust is 20-30 miles thick at most places on the planet, it is only 3-5 miles thick in Yellowstone. This causes groundwater to come in contact with the hot magma beneath the crust, and then form hydrothermal features. These hydrothermal features can be of four types - hot springs, geysers, steam vents and mud pots. Mammoth Hot Springs, as evident from its name, belongs to the first category.<br />
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As we drove along the road that goes northwards from Roosevelt Lodge, Poulami pointed to a dazzling white formation on a hillside ahead of us, at a somewhat higher elevation. It soon became clear that the dazzling white formation was Mammoth Hot Springs, our first destination. After spending some time finding parking close to the springs, we finally stepped on to the boardwalk.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mammoth Hot Springs as seen from the road</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The boardwalk and a section of the ground that caved in</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A portion of the hillside made of mineral deposits</td></tr>
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Mammoth Hot Springs can be described as a barren hill with water cascading down different sides. At places, the water has formed puddles and pools. But the real interesting thing about this place is that all of this water is smoking hot and heavy with chemicals. The ground is either white or various shades of rusty brown. Once, there were trees on this barren landscape; now only their blackened skeletons bear testimony to the toxic ground and water. The hillside itself is formed of scale-like layers and some of these places could collapse anytime, leaving a gaping hole underneath. That is why, a wooden boardwalk and stairs have been provided for the tourists, and we aren't allowed to step on the ground. A closer look at the cascades revealed pretty coral-like formations created by deposits of calcium carbonate and other compounds. The water flowed slowly, but in the most amazing rippling pattern. The pools of stagnant water looked like an alien planet - a dead and poisonous world with dead trees and the air heavy with the foul odour of rotten eggs (hydrogen sulfide).<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One of the cascades or terraces with continuous water flow</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A close-up of the deposits under the flowing water</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Another cascade</td></tr>
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It rained a little while we were on the boardwalk and I had to put my film camera away. I was carrying my father's old Pentax MX 35mm film camera with black and white film on this trip, since we were traveling by our own car and had no need to travel light. However, the rain didn't last long and we could see and photograph the place to our heart's content.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mammoth Hot Springs on B&W film</td></tr>
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The village around Mammoth Hot Springs also holds the administrative headquarters of Yellowstone National Park, and so, the place is always crowded. We decided to grab some fast food for lunch to avoid waiting, but even the fast food place had a queue that had reached outside the door. We ended up having chicken sandwiches and ice cream for lunch. The elk herd from the previous evening was still walking around the village, attracting crowds of photographers everywhere they went. We ignored them and went into the visitors' center. There we pestered a ranger until she had told us all about the places to see, and marked the animal viewing areas on the map. Then we set out for Norris Geyser Basin.<br />
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The strange thing about Yellowstone is the variety of landscapes seen here. When you go to Rocky Mountain National Park, you see mountains. At Grand Canyon National Park, you see the canyon. At Badlands, you see the prairie. At Yellowstone, you see all of that, and more. As we started from Mammoth Hot Springs, we passed through a region of huge boulders perched precariously on the hillside, as if someone had thrown that mountain into a blender. Later, we passed by a mountain river down in a gorge, and then tree-covered hills descending into serene lakes. We guessed later that this variety was due to the multiple volcanic eruptions in the past. Every time Nature built something new, it got destroyed in the next eruption and Nature had to start afresh. But since the tectonic plate under Yellowstone is shifting over the magma chamber down below, the eruptions have not been in the same place, and parts of everything managed to survive.<br />
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The road between Mammoth and Norris is undergoing some heavy construction at the moment and the traffic moved slowly. When we reached Norris, we had to circle around the parking lot twice before we could find a spot. But finally, we were ready to descend into Porcelain Basin.<br />
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The Norris Geyser Basin has the most number of hydrothermal features of any place on earth. The Porcelain Basin is a large flat area dotted with steam vents and hot springs, covered with a milky white mineral deposit and crisscrossed by flows of mineral-laden water that are vividly coloured by bacteria and algae. Trunks of long-dead trees scattered around the plain indicated that although the ground was not fit for survival now, it wasn't always that way. The ground here is unstable as well and so a narrow winding boardwalk goes all over the basin. We went down steps into the basin, passing close to a steam vent spewing thick white steam into the air.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Steam vent at Norris Geyser Basin</td></tr>
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Steam vents or fumeroles are the hottest among the hydrothermal features. They have lots of heat, but very little water to cool them down. Whatever little water can trickle down into them, turns to steam instantly. A fumerole looks like a hole in the ground with steam coming out. There were fumeroles all around this place and we could see columns of steam rising from the distant hillsides like smoke from chimneys. We walked the length of the boardwalk and came back to where we started. On the way, we saw several small geysers and hot pools.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Porcelain Basin</td></tr>
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After coming back on top, we took another short hike to a geyser called the Steamboat Geyser. We passed a boiling pond of emerald-green water on the way that had so much hydrogen sulfide-laden vapor bubbling out of it that it was difficult to stand there. It left our throats and nasal passages feeling funny even after we had left the area.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">All that steam smells like rotten eggs</td></tr>
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Our next stop was a place called Artist Paintpots. This is also a hydrothermal basin like Norris, with scattered turquoise hot pools, steam vents and dead trees. The new thing that we saw here was a boiling mud pot. Large bubbles were forming and bursting in a small pool of thick mud with satisfying pops. The consistency of the mud was so smooth, and the popping sounds were so soothing that it seemed we could just stand there and watch it for hours. Poulami said she also felt an urge to touch and feel the mud. Thankfully, it was surrounded by a railing, presumably to suppress such urges. The sun was also getting lower in the sky and it was overcast anyway. So we decided to move to our next destination.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Artists' Paintpots</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Boiling mud pot</td></tr>
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Our next destination was supposed to be Grand Prismatic Spring, but we decided to push that to the next day as it was getting late and we were hungry. We did stop at a small hot pool though, and photographed its incredibly beautiful aquamarine water surrounded by bright rust-coloured deposits. The blue color is due to minerals and the red colour due to the presence of microorganisms. There were lots of dead trees everywhere.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hot pool</td></tr>
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Finally, we were ready to go to our hotel for the night - the Grant Village Lodge. It wasn't very close, but we eventually reached the place. Just before reaching Grant Village, we had one last experience for the day, or so we thought at the time. We saw half a dozen cars stopped at the side of the road and their riders roaming outside, looking at the forest with their cameras and binoculars, so we followed suit. But there was nothing to be seen except for two elk and an indignant man claiming confidently that he saw a bear vanishing into the woods. Some people were going into the woods to see the bear, but it was nearly dark at this time and we didn't want to follow any real or imaginary bear into the woods at dusk. As a matter of fact, we wouldn't have followed a bear into the woods even in broad daylight. So we returned to our car and drove to the hotel.<br />
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Grant Village Lodge has a check-in desk that is a block away from the rooms (which are in different buildings named after different animals; ours was Elk Lodge). It is also a block away from the Grant Village Restaurant where we planned to have our dinner. It was 8:45 and the restaurant closed at 10:00, so we decided to have dinner first and then go to our room. However, the restaurant had a wait time of thirty to forty minutes, so we decided to go to the lodge first, take our bags up to our room, and then come back. After a long day filled with hikes and a fast food lunch, we were looking forward to a satisfying dinner to end our first full day in Yellowstone.<br />
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Or so we thought at the time.<br />
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<i>(<a href="http://sugatabanerji.blogspot.com/2017/09/the-strange-dinner.html" target="_blank">To be continued</a>...)</i></div>
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Joy Foreverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12648549085158946686noreply@blogger.com0Lake Forest, IL, USA42.2586342 -87.84062499999998942.1645922 -88.001986499999987 42.352676200000005 -87.67926349999999tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21963135.post-86849931763236255752017-09-12T18:17:00.000-04:002017-10-02T10:29:46.298-04:00Devil's Tower and Onwards<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Both Poulami and I keep referring to this trip as "the Yellowstone trip." But the truth is, while our earlier trips may have been called "the Colorado trip" or "The California trip" or even "the Southwest trip", this one was spread over so many states and so many destinations that it is unfair to focus only on Yellowstone National Park. So when I sit down to write about this trip, I think I'm going to write about Yellowstone, but then realize that there are so many other places and things to write about. In particular, when we are on a road trip, the journeys are almost as important as the destinations. This post is about one such journey.</div>
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After <a href="http://sugatabanerji.blogspot.com/2017/09/badlands.html" target="_blank">Badlands</a>, our next destination was Yellowstone. But we decided to take a slight detour. Badlands to Roosevelt Lodge in Yellowstone National Park is about a ten-hour drive. We decided to visit Devil's Tower National Monument on the way, at the cost of adding an hour to this already long journey. Our choices were Mount Rushmore and Devil's Tower. Both were close to Badlands and kind of on the way to Yellowstone, but we finally chose the latter because we felt the former deserved more than a drive-through. As we drove along the Interstate 90, we realized we must have passed quite close to Mount Rushmore because signs told us so. Here, we also passed places where both sides of the highway were crowded with huge advertising billboards, more than any place that we had ever seen before.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Billboards on the highway near Mount Rushmore</td></tr>
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Devil's Tower in Wyoming will be familiar to anyone who has seen the movie <i>Close Encounters of the Third Kind</i> by Steven Spielberg. Or, if like me, you haven't actually seen the movie, you may have seen posters of the movie that show the tower. Either way, the tower provides a visual that you are unlikely to forget. It also happens to be the first site in the US designated as a national monument.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Scene from <i>Close Encounters of the Third Kind</i>. </td></tr>
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We could see Devil's Tower from a great distance away. We left the Interstate about 30 miles away from the tower, and soon, we could see a familiar shape on the horizon. The tower is actually a geological feature, technically a laccolithic butte, that rises 1267 feet (386 metres) above the surrounding plains and the Belle Fourche river. That description (copied from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devils_Tower" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a>), however, doesn't really explain what it looks like. That is done in a far better manner by the nut-jobs who call themselves the Flat-Earthers.</div>
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Yes, there are still people in the US who believe the Earth is flat and the government and NASA are deliberately guarding this secret, but we're not here to discuss them. One of the crazy theories that stem from their flat worldview is that there were gigantic (<i>miles</i> tall) trees on this planet a long time ago and Devil's Tower is the petrified stump of such a gigantic tree. And this is the best way to describe this strange mountain. With its roughly cylindrical shape, flat top, nearly vertical sides marked by parallel ridges all around, and the root-like spread at the base, it could very well have been a petrified tree stump, had it not been so big. Other descriptions that came to my mind were that it looked like an enormous <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kulfi" target="_blank">kulfi</a> (a frozen dessert from India), or an upside-down planting-pot.</div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UMZNJUs8b8w/WbgVOrlApsI/AAAAAAAAz_s/nEVuIvjJrOkkY2wqqn_q24Czd8I3aH1iQCLcBGAs/s1600/IMGP6828.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="829" data-original-width="1200" height="221" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UMZNJUs8b8w/WbgVOrlApsI/AAAAAAAAz_s/nEVuIvjJrOkkY2wqqn_q24Czd8I3aH1iQCLcBGAs/s320/IMGP6828.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-f4c7GZ9Fy0A/WbgVOtI01iI/AAAAAAAAz_o/yx0bWijmaiYbnh7u8AP2frkDGIrMdTLmQCLcBGAs/s1600/IMGP6834.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="824" data-original-width="1200" height="219" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-f4c7GZ9Fy0A/WbgVOtI01iI/AAAAAAAAz_o/yx0bWijmaiYbnh7u8AP2frkDGIrMdTLmQCLcBGAs/s320/IMGP6834.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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We were soon at the entrance of the monument where there was a queue of cars buying tickets. Then, when we were at the base of the tower looking for a parking space, we realized that this little detour would cost us way more than the one hour that Google had promised. We also realized why, the people who had stopped by the side of the road outside the monument and were taking photos from several miles away, were doing so. But since we were here already, we decided to take a much-needed break, visit the restrooms, check out the souvenir store and take a few pictures of the tower up close. The souvenir store seemed to primarily bank on the movie and most of the stuff was alien-themed.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Devil's Tower up close (shot by me on B&W film)</td></tr>
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The long vertical ridges that run all around Devil's tower are probably the result of some crystalline structure of the igneous rock that formed it, but they make the tower a very popular destination for climbers. On scanning the tower with our binoculars and telephoto lens, we discovered a couple on the tower about halfway up. Here's a photo to give you a sense of the scale. We realized a little later that they were actually climbing <i>down</i> from the tower.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">climbers on Devil's Tower</td></tr>
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We, however, had no such inclinations. We were back in our car soon after taking those photos and were on our way again.</div>
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Both in South Dakota and Wyoming, we had encountered bikers by the hordes. The ranger at Badlands had told us jokingly that the population of South Dakota was now probably double of what it usually is because of all the bikers visiting from outside the state. We saw the same thing in Wyoming. Devil's Tower seemed to be quite popular with bikers and the nearby gas station had long queues of motorbikes at every pump. Our car's tank was about 70% full, so I decided to skip the queues and fill it at the next stop. This proved to be a mistake. Our GPS decided to take us through rural Wyoming and Montana and we didn't find another gas pump until the town of Broadus about 100 miles away. Coupled with the fact that we were often stuck on long jams and dirt roads due to road work, our fuel was almost down to quarter of the tank and we were panicking by the time we found that pump. We also had lunch around this time.</div>
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Our next stop was the town of Livingston nearly 300 miles away, still in Montana. The number of bikers had decreased for some time now and we were beginning to get the feel of Yellowstone at this point, but the sun was getting low in the sky and we were a little worried that the park was still over 50 miles away. However, we stopped long enough to get fuel, coffee and a few emergency grocery supplies to act as breakfast or snacks in times of need. Then, driving by the Yellowstone river on one side and hill slopes with bison and elk farms on the other, we finally reached the town of Gardiner, Montana. Here we made a brief stop to take photos with the huge "Yellowstone National Park" sign and the old stone arch (Roosevelt Arch) that forms the northern entrance of Yellowstone.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Before entering Yellowstone</td></tr>
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Then we entered the park.</div>
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Our first night's stay was at the Roosevelt Lodge. To be more precise, we were staying at the "Rough-rider Cabins" of Roosevelt Lodge which were individual cabins with stove heating and a common bathroom a hundred yards away. When we were making the hotel reservations five months ago, we were lucky enough to get accommodation inside Yellowstone, but were not so lucky that we would find space in the same hotel for four consecutive nights. So after spending this first night at the Roosevelt Lodge, we would spend the next two nights at the Grant Village Lodge and the final night at the Canyon Lodge. As we were about to realize, the lodges within Yellowstone are very far away from each other and it takes hours to travel from one to another.<br />
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The Roosevelt Lodge is 24 miles from the Roosevelt Arch. The sun had gone down, but there was still light around as we started our drive towards the lodge, hoping to see animals at every turn. About six miles down the road, we passed through the Mammoth Hot Springs area which holds the administrative headquarters of the park. We saw our first animals here. A herd of elk - mostly does and fawns - were lazily walking around on the village green, surrounded by cars with photographing tourists on all sides. We stopped briefly, but we had little interest in elk after our <a href="http://sugatabanerji.blogspot.com/2016/11/colorado-2-photo-of-lifetime.html" target="_blank">close encounter</a> in the Rockies last year. So we drove straight to our lodge.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Elk on the village green at Mammoth Hot Springs</td></tr>
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We were very tired by this time, and I had been driving for over twelve hours. So we decided to call it a day. We had enough packed food to have dinner in our room, and soon after dinner we went to sleep. We didn't think lighting the stove would be necessary, but the night was cold and we had to light a few logs early in the morning to make the room comfortable again.<br />
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We would start our exploration of Yellowstone National Park <a href="http://sugatabanerji.blogspot.com/2017/09/a-land-of-water-and-fire.html" target="_blank">the next day</a>.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our cabin at the Roosevelt Lodge</td></tr>
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Joy Foreverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12648549085158946686noreply@blogger.com0Lake Forest, IL, USA42.2586342 -87.84062499999998942.1645922 -88.001986499999987 42.352676200000005 -87.67926349999999