Sunday, February 10, 2013

Two weddings and Tiger Footprints

It is that time of the year when I visit my family in India and throw in a drive by tour of another place in Asia. This trip is almost round the world in its scope - Adelaide, Singapore, HongKong, Kunming, Kolkata, Dubai .... back. There are always memorable things at each spot. Singapore airport is just too familiar, but on 2 flights I sat next to Capgemini employees flying in and out of China (from Australia and to India). Something huge is brewing.

Hong Kong skyline
The highlight of HongKong was the busy life-style, crazy shopping and the hybrid cultural wedding. The lights make for great photography and testing out of my new 4/3 camera. Some serious lens shopping coming up. The wedding was a fun, great venue, good scale and +Rowan Fry looked understandly over the moon. The best part was the entrance in traditional chinese gear, he would have made a rather respectable official in imperial china. I wish them a happy life together.

Last week I attended another wedding in Bengal. The contrast was stark, the rush, the colours, the food. The only thing that was constant was the hot wire cut foam decorations, the flowers and the suit I wore to the other wedding. The wedding invitations extend to whoever bothers to come, I hardly knew anybody, not even bride and the groom. Felt a bit like a wedding crasher, till we went to see the bride's dad, he was laid up with all the stress from getting the feast organised for some 600 people.
Devil is in the detail
The last few days we toured the Sunderbans with a Backpackers group aimed at foreigners, much more relaxed than trying to do it packed like sardines in local style. There seems to be zero-respect locally for the Sunderbans, since the majority have not been lucky enough to see the tigers, all believe no tigers exist. They should perform 3D photogrammetry on tiger footprints, lay out some tiger sized dolls and change the holiday season to coincide with tiger mating season. Only then will people believe tigers do exist. Saw plenty of crocs though and some crazy tourists to keep us company. I was both local and foreign, had fun teaching Bengali - managed to teach a Canadian to count to ten. Should start some word association based Bengali learning kit.

Tiger paw prints

No comments: