One Wall Street Journal reporter’s rickshaw ride through India

by Jerry Guo on

If you’re looking for a fresh take on the Grand-Tour-Through-India travelogue, one with a heavy dose of culture (and even danger!), check out Niraj Sheth’s blog on his roadtrip by rickshaw through southern India.

What makes this blog–running until the end of this week–stand out is Niraj’s unique perspective as a Wall Street Journal reporter and in his own words, as a ABCD: “American-born, confused desis [slang for Indian].”

His commentary about how the local Indians view him is especially sharp, and humorous in parts. For instance, one mechanic, and he seems to need many, jabbers to a friend in front of Niraj, who has spoken Hindi throughout his life, “It’s amazing he speaks Hindi so well.”

The multimedia here is also better than most–make sure not to miss the photo slide-show and intro video below.

India gifts rickshaw transport to the Pope

by Abha Malpani on

Looks like the “Pope-mobile” is changing from a Mercedes Benz to an Indian rickshaw!

An auto-rickshaw, a black and yellow 3-wheeler that can seat no more than 3 people, is India’s most used form of private transport. The Pope has just received a personalized, completely white one with special insignia, that he will be using for public appearances as he commutes around the Vatican.

The Times Of India has hyped this piece of news as a symbolic step in marking India’s connection with the spiritual leader.

Definitely unique news and a novel marketing gimmick by Piaggio Ape Calessino, the rickshaw manufacturing company, but not worthy of front page status.

In my opinion, the Pope making use this mode of transport from a developing country is a feather in the cap for India’s awesome transportation system, but other than that, no big deal.

New Delhi runway turns into a zoo

by Jamie Rhein on

The mix of animals, traffic and people in New Delhi is fascinating any day of the week. When I lived there, pulling up alongside an elephant at a traffic light did happen. Avoiding hitting the cows that meandered at the sides of the roads was a daily venture.

Once, our car grazed a cow just as it twitched its hind end towards traffic. When the side-view mirror was snapped off, my husband quipped, “It must have been in a reflective mood.”

There was one section where fruit bats the size of dogs hung upside down from trees, and another part where monkeys gathered in large groups. Camels also meandered through the neighborhood. Hiring one for a kid’s birthday party was standard.

Recently, New Delhi has become more zoo-like with the heavy rains. As animals are getting flooded out of their natural habitat homes, they’ve looked for higher ground and have found it at the New Delhi airport on the runways. Lizards, jackals and birds have shown up in large enough numbers that they’ve been removed to a wildlife sanctuary.

Just another reason for a flight delay. “Monitor lizard in the way. Please be patient; we’ll be taking off shortly.”

According to the article, this three to four-foot-long creature can create some significant damage to an airplane. I’ll say.

Photo of the Day (05.31.08)

by Anna Brones on

Door shots tend to be intriguing, and this one is thanks to Bernard-SD. There is something about photographing the entrance to someone’s personal space that can’t be seen. I immediately think of what’s going on behind the door — who lives there, what they are doing, etc. It’s hard to pull your eyes away from the bright color of this door in Hyderabad, India, but what I really like are the drawings on the doorstep. I wonder what they mean?

Do you have a great shot from your travels? Submit it to the Gadling flickr pool and we’ll consider it for Photo of the Day.

Update — Bernard-SD alerted me to an interesting explanation of the drawings that someone posted on his flickr page. Thanks!

Sex and the City: You can catch up with a craze in the modern age

by Jamie Rhein on

Sex and the City was the hot topic the summer between our two years living in Taiwan and our two years in India. I saw it once at a friend’s house when I stopped over in Albuquerque for a few days visit. I liked it, but nothing I couldn’t live without. I was jet-lagged anyway. Two years later, I saw one more episode. Friends we were visiting in Pochetello, Idaho had TiVoed it—something else that was new phenomenon in the U.S. cultural scene.

Five years after that, there I was last night with two of my women friends at the opening night Sex and the City event at Drexel East, one of the independent movie theaters in Columbus, Ohio. One friend was wearing a black dress. Since living overseas has made me totally out of tune with what to wear on many occasions, and I don’t travel in glamorous circles very often, I wasn’t paying attention to my attire. Plus, this was a back to back event–the first event was the end-of -the-year potluck at my son’s elementary school. With ten minutes in between the two, I had on a very nice T-shirt, black jeans and a pair of new shoes that fit into casual nice. Ooops.

I was all caught up with the Sex and the City storyline, however, thanks to videos and cable television. It used to be that living overseas meant huge chunks of popular culture were totally gone. It wasn’t a terrible loss, but there were movies I hadn’t seen, or events that happened in celebrity-ville that I wasn’t privy too. There were some conversations at parties I couldn’t join in. No loss really, but it was clear who had been living a life out of the American mainstream.

These days, it is not hard to stay caught up, or to catch up, even though people started miles before. When we lived in New Delhi, we rented Season 1, 2 and 3 of The Sopranos, and with each new season rented those too. Although, we weren’t where everyone else was who saw the series as it was unfolding, with the speed of being able to watch back to back episodes in a row at one sitting, it didn’t take long for us to be in the know of the latest whack job.

It is true that watching the TBS rerun version of Sex in the City is not the same as the HBO version, and at times it’s hard to keep the episodes in order as to what events happened first when one doesn’t start watching at the beginning, but last night I was caught up. It has taken five years, but I do know when it comes to Sex and the City what everyone is talking about, and I finally found out what a Cosmos is. As part of the event you could buy one.

Because I lived overseas during the Cosmos craze, I had a beer instead. It’s summer and I was hot. And, yes, I did like the movie. I think Manohla Dargis’s review in the New York Times is off the mark, although, I usually agree with this particular film critic.