Announcing Apraila Murkha

Table Land in Panchgani. Photo credit: “Waiting for master” by Flickr user Sindhur Reddy

In March 2011 I was living in Panchgani, India doing some work with the Baha’i Academy. At that same time my mother was doing community development work with the Baha’is of Slovenia and my dad and sister were back home in Ottawa.

Just before going to bed on 30 March I send my family a very carefully-worded email with the subject line ‘Big news!’.

Dear mum and dad (and Julie and Fanfan, too),

I want to apologize for not being in very much touch over the past couple of weeks, but soon you will understand. I have some really big news. The day you worried would never arrive has finally come.

See, just less than two very eventful weeks ago I went to Table Land in the evening to meet some friends and ride on the horses they have there. There I met this young woman named Apraila Murkha and we immediately hit it off. We started spending almost all of our time together just talking about everything. She’s from a village called Nakali here in Maharashtra and studied dance and singing at a college in Pune. We have lots in common, like we’re both vegetarians, like India, and are kinda short.

Anyways the idea of getting married came up exactly three days ago and we are both really excited about the possibility. That’s why I’m writing.

Its a little complicated because she is still technically married to this guy she married when she was 13 who is actually also her first cousin. Doesn’t really count because it was an arranged marriage and she hasn’t even seen him in like two weeks. She is just now arranging for the divorce.

Her parents are cool with it, so I’m writing you guys to see if you want to come over within a few weeks to meet her or if you are cool with giving the okay remotely and sequestering some carbon in the process. Although if you want to come, that would be cool – you could probably stay here at the Academy, there’s lots of bunk beds.

I’ll tell you a bit more right now to maybe answer some of your questions before you need to ask them and make the whole process a bit faster. Let’s see… we are planning on living with her parents in Nakali and taking care of their strawberry farm while Apraila sometimes goes into Mumbai to audition for films. They also have cows and onions. She’s a 36 years old, but she looks like she could be 15, which is weird. What else do you need to know? That’s all I can think of.

As exciting as this big news is, please don’t tell a soul just yet. I would prefer to do myself. And besides, you guys haven’t even said yes yet!

From your son and future daughter-in-law,

Samuel and Apraila

The reason I would send my parents an email like this is that I am a Baha’i and to have a Baha’i marriage, I would need the consent of all the parents to go through with it.

Out of my excitement I couldn’t resist sharing this announcement with a few of my friends even while I waited for my parents reaction.

Hey guys, I just shared some really big news with my parents and I was too excited to wait for their response not to tell you guys.  Way too excited!  Don’t tell anyone yet, though.

I was excited to check my email the next morning to see the reactions from my family and friends in Europe and Canada.  Among those friends, one was disappointed by how obvious the prank was.  This critic, who knows who she is, had this to say:

Really, Sam? You couldn’t even provide some pics of you and April Fool’s Day fiancee to make this more convincing?

You’ve lost your touch.

…No you’re NOT supposed the crank the ridiculous dial! The best part about pranks is make them subtle enough to be believable! MASS FALLOUT.

My BFF and renowned egg punster Chloe Filson replied:

Nice one, April Fool.  I mean, ZOMG I CAN’T WAIT TO MEET HER SHE SOUNDS SO AWESOME AND TINY CONGRATULATIONS YAAAY!

The effect I was going for was to make it plausible on first glance, but then to reveal itself as an obvious joke by the second reading.  I didn’t want anyone to suffer of a heart attack.  I put in many details that were meant to raise the suspicion of anyone who knows me well.  And who knows me better than my parents, right?

Let’s review:  I sent an email to my parents asking them to hurry to India to meet a woman ten years my senior, but only looks 15, “which is weird”.   I have only known her for two weeks.  She’s married, but she hasn’t seen her husband in awhile. Two weeks, in fact.  It has been suggested that my parents can either give their blessing remotely or come on over to stay in some bunk beds.

Another April Fool’s day wasted on an obvious joke.  Better luck next year.

My classmate Niketa playing the role of Apraila

A few hours later I finally heard from someone in my family.  My sister Julie wrote:

Ok, now is the time to say “April fools!” because I just called dad and it hadn’t even occured to him that you could be joking and I think I caught him mid-heart attack.  You are joking right?!?

Apparently she didn’t buy the story, but my dad totally did.  She called him and found him to be very perturbed.  She said that he was practically hyperventilating.  He was totally consumed with trying to get in touch with my mom in Slovenia to figure out what to do now that their son had gone off the deep end.  He emailed her:

I do not have a good feeling about this.  Please Skype me as soon as you get this.

In the meantime, Julie did her homework.  Using Google Translate, she realized that the name of my fiance-to-be, Apraila Murkha is April fool in Hindi.  Her village Nakali is the word fake.  She emailed me again:

Well you didn’t get me but your poor dad!!!  You are going to have to talk to him on the phone to fully appreciate your achievement.

When Julie pointed out to him that it must be a joke, he was incredulous.  ”No!  He would never do that to us!” he said.  Julie had him read it again to see how far fetched it was and he came around.  The two of them decided to join on the fun and wait until they be together to see my mother’s reaction over Skype.

It turns out she was duped too and was sent into same panic as my father, all by herself in Slovenia.  It took them a few long hours for them to all meet up and reveal the truth.  My mother quickly transitioned from panic, to anger, then embarrassment, laughter, and finally revenge.

Back in India, I was going through my own personal hell waiting to hear back from my parents.  Finally, I reciecieved a very serious email from my mother.

Dear Sam,

Daddy and I have consulted on Skype about your Big News. We have not been able to reach Julie for her reaction, unfortunately.

We are quite concerned about your idea for several reasons.
Please don’t think that we will be coming to meet Apraila in the very near future, because we have too many questions that would need responses before we take on such an expense. Also, Daddy would have trouble getting away from work again, He was just here in Slovenia for 2 weeks.

A this point we don’t have a good feeling about this plan, Sam. We are grateful for the marriage law that you are being obedient to. We will not give consent without meeting Apraila and maybe even her family, so you are going to have to imagine a longish wait for all that to happen.

We hope this is not too painful for you to read. We think there will be wisdom in waiting.

We love you and will pray for a good outcome to all this.

Much love,

Mum and Dad

I rushed to call my mother and put end to this before my parents disown me forever for being such a brat.  When I finally got through to her I fessed up straight away that I was just kidding.  She giggled with glee as she told me that she was kidding too.  She got the last laugh and has been dining out on the story ever since.

Click here to read about how my friend Eric and I celebrated April Fool’s Day 2012.

Pilgrimage to Bhopal

Late in the night of 2 December 1984 poor safety measures led to the release of 27 tonnes of methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas from a pesticide plant owned by Union Carbide India Limited in the city of Bhopal, India.  The poisonous gas went on to kill 25,000 people in the minutes, days, months and years following.  Many more were injured and children there are often born with birth defects.  The Union Carbide Corporation did their best to downplay their responsibility as much as they could in the aftermath and after a sketchy settlement process they were done with the matter. When the Dow Chemical Company bought Union Carbide in 2001 they generously settled all outstanding claims against Carbide at home in the US and have consistently ignored claims from Bhopal.  The story is back in the news as a result of the public outcry over Dow Chemical’s sponsorship of the 2012 London Olympics.

In this post I want to share an account of my visit to the abandoned Union Carbide factory site last month.  All these photos and a few more can be found in a new set I have just posted on my flikr photostream.

I was four months old when the initial leak happened.  I probably heard it mentioned a few times in school or pop culture, but only knew about as much about it as anyone knows about horrible things that happened a long time ago in a foreign country.  The first time I really started to learn about it was after I heard about the culture jamming pranksters the Yes Men and saw this legendary 2003 hoax:

In 2007 when I was sent to Karnataka in South India as part of my internship through the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute, I was trained in Calgary, Alberta with Prabjit Barn, another Shastri intern who was being sent to do research with the Sambhavna Clinic on the ongoing health impacts of the gas leak on people in the area.  When we all got together again in Delhi at the end of the internship some of us met up with some of Prabjit’s friends from Bhopal who had marched to Delhi to demand more from their government.  Many of the people I saw there were old women, including one octogenarian who apparently led the entire 700km march, walking faster than everyone else.

I learned much more later on after I returned to university and took on a group assignment where each of us were to take on different stakeholders on the Bhopal gas leak tragedy.  Despite all the depressing subjects I had studied up to then, I had never found myself feel so upset and moved by a research topic before.  In the way they allowed for the disaster to happen and how they have managed it in the aftermath, Union Carbide and Dow Chemical have showed almost no respect for human life and no legal system has been able to bring them to account.

In his 2004 documentary Scared Sacred, Canadian filmmaker Velcrow Ripper visits a number of the planet’s ground zeros as a sort of modern pilgrimage to make connections and search for hope.  I wasn’t crazy about the film itself, but I appreciated how he decided to take a pilgrimage to Bhopal to pay his respects to these victims of the world’s worst industrial disaster.  I decided that the next time I was in India, I would do the same.

Believe it or not, the market for serving Bhopal gas tragedy pilgrims is not a big one.  Search any website or guidebook on visiting Bhopal and they will mention the lakes, temples and museums – but nothing on the single event that most people know the city for and how one can learn about it first-hand.  Through emails with Prabjit back in Canada and connecting with some people at the local Baha’i Centre I figured out where the factory site was and a couple clinics to visit and people to meet.

From what I read during my research I was pretty sure that the factory site would be closed to the public since the factory site itself has yet to be cleaned up and is a major part of the ongoing controversy.  To my surprise, my new friend Manoj and I were met at an entrance by three casually dressed men lying on cots who claimed to be in charge of letting people in.  For 300 rupees (about $6) they would let us in and show us around.  From looking at them I doubted they were in charge of anything.  I asked who they work for – the city, state or central government?  They said that they answer to the In charge, who was not around today.  In charge is actually a very common job title in India which means exactly what it sounds like.  Eventually one of the men brought me inside a building where their uniforms were hung on hooks on the wall and there was a pile of signed photocopies of passports and forms of other foreigners who went through the municipal corporation (think: city hall) to request access the legal (think: mind-numbingly bureaucratic) way, a three day process.  Three hundred rupees it is!

First stop was an empty lab where Union Carbide scientists did their research.  The floor was covered with broken glass from the windows and old lab containers.  Under the counter we found several bottles of lab materials left untouched that none have dared to disturb.

While the plant has been abandoned, it hasn’t really been abandoned.  As we walked along its lanes we crossed paths with women grazing their livestock and boys hanging out as they foraged for small fruit.  I have now learned that the people who live near nearby know that these are dangerous activities, but they feel they have no choice.  The pressure is worse when it comes to drinking the water that continues to poison them.  Researchers have found high concentrations of chlorobenzenes, organochlorines, chromium, copper, nickel, lead, zinc and mercury in the local water and soil.

It should be noted here that it is far to easy to make Indians look sad and severe in photos.  That’s just how they like to be photographed. These guys were actually really excited to see a foreigner and have their photo taken, but as soon as I raised my camera to my face, the smiles had been wiped off theirs.

We made our way to a very tall structure of pipes, platforms and containers at the centre of the site.  Our guide pointed out a tiny pipe near the top and said that it was the very pipe that the MIC gas escaped from that night in 1984.

Across from this structure was a giant tank sitting on the ground that reminded me of beached whale.  Not that I have ever seen a beached whale.  Our guide said that this was the very pipe that held the MIC gas before it escaped.  What happened was that some water leaked in past a number of shoddy safeguards, which caused a reaction with the MIC, dramatically raising the temperature and pressure inside the tank and leading to the leak.  Our guide said that the government later pulled the tank out of the ground so that they could more easily show the world the tank that killed so many people.  There are several other tanks throughout the plant which many suspect may not still hold MIC and other toxic materials.

As we walked through the site a police officer called down to us from a rooftop and our guide waved some pieces of paper he had been carrying up at him.  I assume those papers were standing in for the authorized forms showing that we were allowed to be there.

Before we left we walked over a wide concrete surface that was growing over with weeds.  Our guide explained that here there used to be a building there but it was torn down by a mob of local people in the days after the disaster.  They were enraged over what happened and decided to take it out on a number of buildings on the site.

Outside the plant Manoj and I crossed the street and walked over to a statue of a woman and a baby that I had seen pictures of years earlier online.  Its plaque reads:

NO MORE HIROSHIMA
NO MORE BHOPAL
WE WANT TO LIVE

We decided to make our pilgrimage complete by reading a couple prayers for the departed, one in Hindi and one in English.  I chose this short prayer:

O my God!  O Thou forgiver of sins, bestower of gifts, dispeller of afflictions!

Verily, I beseech thee to forgive the sins of such as have abandoned the physical garment and have ascended to the spiritual world.

O my Lord!  Purify them from trespasses, dispel their sorrows, and change their darkness into light.  Cause them to enter the garden of happiness, cleanse them with the most pure water, and grant them to behold Thy splendors on the loftiest mount.

-’Abdu’l-Bahá (Bahá’í Prayers, p.45)

The red text ‘ORA E SEMPRE RESTENZA’is Spanish for ‘Now and always resistance’

We also visited two amazing organizations that serve the victims of the disaster, Sambhavna Clinic and the Chingari Rehabilitation Centre. Sambhavna Clinic offers all types of health care to victims of the disaster as well as heath education and research work on the ongoing contamination of water and soil.  Prabjit had a list of people for me to say hello to for her, including Chandrakanta a very good friend of hers who does cleaning at the clinic.

At the Chingari Rehabilitation Centre we chatted with their new Public Relations Officer Tabish Ali. Chingari offers special education and other treatment for children who are born with severe learning disabilities as a result of the gas leak.  He told us about their activities and showed us a great short film he had just made with the help of a volunteer.  The film is made entirely of digital photographs rather than actual video footage:

To keep up with the ongoing struggle, I recommend the blog of the Bhopal Medical Appeal, a UK based organization that raises funds for these two clinics and works with the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal.

UPDATE:  A version of this article was published by the Bhopal Medical Appeal on their blog at bhopal.org.  Click here to see it.  (21 March 2012)

Happy Anniversary, Clobin

Where many friends engage in public conversations with one another over Facebook and Twitter to make sure everyone knows who they are talking to and about what, my BFF Chloë and I are way too mature for all that.  We tend to communicate through our blogs with elaborate posts featuring comics, videos, rules for other friendships, friendship business cards and pie charts analyzing each other’s Twitter feeds.

I don't have a business card, but our friendship does.

Now for the one year (and 11 day) anniversary of Chloë’s marriage to her husband Robin, I am sharing an illustrated version of the critically acclaimed speech I gave at their wedding.  Most of the photos are by Andrew Bassett.  I’m not sure if this will work, but actions will be noted in bracketed italics [like so].

~

Hello everyone.  In case you haven’t met me yet, my name is Samuel.  As Chloë’s BFF, it came as no surprise that she should ask me to share a few remarks with all of you.  Since the whole night everyone has been talking about the wedding, I thought that a few people might be bored of it and interested in talking about something else for a change.  As some of you know, I have presented at conferences and public meetings on the subjects of ecology and ethics, but I was thinking that for the occasion I would branch out and try something new.  Let’s start.

All images I found when I searched 'Saskatoon' on Google Images.

As we are in Saskatoon, I thought that we could explore this city as a subject.  How did it come to be?  Why does it persist in being?  Why do I only ever come here in January?  I’ll try to make this a more relaxed presentation, so please feel free to interrupt me at any time if you have scripted questions.

How is this possible?

Let’s first take a look at this unlikely increase of population over time….

[Geoffrey Cameron interrupts presentation with obviously scripted dialogue:] Excuse me, Sam – if it’s alright I would just like to stop you right there with a two-part question.

[Samuel Benoit:] Oh Geoff, it’s so great to see you here – I didn’t know that Chloë had invited you.  Please go ahead.

[GC:]  Well, the first part has to do with Jean Murray’s 1959 analysis of the contest to host the university of Saskatchewan and how this played into the future development of the city…

[SB:]  Actually, I’m planning on getting to that.

[GC:]  Oh.  Great.  The second part of my question is to ask if you plan on covering what is going on right now, namely Chloë and Robin’s wedding.

[SB:]  Robin who?

[GC:]  Wilson.

[SB:]  …I’m going to need more than that.

[GC:]  The dude Chloë just married.

[SB:]  Oh yes!  THAT dude Chloë just married!  I considered doing a presentation on that, but again, figured everyone was more curious about Saskatoon.  But if that’s what people are interested in, I do have some notes on the subject.

[GC:]  I’d be interested in that.

[SB:]  Sounds like fun.  As Chloë can tell you, my memory is pretty bad – normally I count on her for how to spell common words, to tell me about things I have done and rude things I have said to people a long time ago – so putting down old stories without Chloë’s help is very challenging without making things up.

People have often been perplexed about our friendship.  Chloë and I have always expected that even our respective children would someday be confused by it.  “Why is Auntie Chloë so much smarter and funnier than mommy?” my future children will ask me.  “Why do we always have the most fun when Uncle Sam is around?  Also, why is he always around?”  They will ask Chloë.  To both sets of children, we will simply say “SHUT UP AND EAT YOUR NAILS.”

I have always been very protective of Chloë, usually opting to give her friends and roommates a hard time to test their worthiness.  All of her university roommates had no choice but expect phone calls for Chloë between two and five AM for me to call and sing her Elton John and Coldplay songs after late night assignment writing sessions.  [Pause to acknowledge one of Chloë’s former roommates in the audience:]  Hello Fiona, good to see you here.  You look rested.

Fiona looking rested.

I could barely tolerate her friend Goeff, who managed to weasel his way into her life while they both attended Trent University in Peterbourough and my back was turned.  To this day we can barely get along and only very recently I forced him to contribute to a wedding speech I was giving with some obviously scripted and poorly written text.

Geoff and I temporarily putting our differences aside for the sake of the kids.

Even Chloë’s father Bruce has been subjected to my tests of worthiness despite the fact that – so he claims – he knew Chloë first.

Where's the proof?

Somehow these tests of worthiness also explain why I had to shamelessly flirt with Chloë’s old roommate Celeste every time I visited Chloë in Peterborough.  [Pause to shamelessly flirt with Celeste:]  Hello Celeste.  You are looking wonderful tonight.  As always.

Celeste looking wonderful. As always.

One of the first things I noticed about Robin was his height.  As my mother would have said if she could have made it here tonight, anything over six feet is just showing off – it’s unnecessary.  So, by virtue of his genetics - [Pause to acknowledge his towering parents:] Hello Tony and Bernadette – Robin is a show off.

The towering Wilsons next to another family for scale.

Another so called attribute of Robin’s we all know about is that he’s too smart.  Some other things he is too good at include: drawing, beard growing and spouse choosing.

One of Robin's totally insane drawings.

It's all real.

Robin passed my subtle tests of worthiness, showing great strength of character, devotion to Chloë and probably most importantly, wit.  Likely through some sort of cheating.

Chloë, I know that over the past few days you have often wished you were just married and not this bride everyone is making you out to be – that it’s been frustrating at the same time as you have had to acknowledge that you can’t control how people express themselves and the extent to which they follow your precise instructions.  So just to remind you that you really aren’t in control – after I am finished speaking something is going to happen up here that you didn’t plan.  [After my speech Chloë’s sisters sang Timon and Pumba’s part of ‘Can You Feel the Love Tonight’ from the Lion King.]

"...our trio's down to two..."

But before that, a message to Robin:  Even though I couldn’t protect Chloë from you – I am now bound to protect you as well.  For that, I congratulate you.

Hugs all around.

Performance of ‘Radiant Heart’ by Iain Nabil

Iain Nabil Ferguson is a fellow Canadian who has been serving at the Baha’i House of Worship here in New Delhi for the past few months.  He sings a number of songs based on the writings of the Baha’i Faith in this wonderful style that strikes me as quintessentially Canadian.  This one is based on the following two selections from The Hidden Words by Baha’u'llah:

O SON OF SPIRIT! My first counsel is this: Possess a pure, kindly and radiant heart, that thine may be a sovereignty ancient, imperishable and everlasting. (Number 1, from the Arabic)

O SON OF BEING! Love Me, that I may love thee. If thou lovest Me not, My love can in no wise reach thee. Know this, O servant. (Number 5, from the Arabic)

You can listen to more of Iain’s music and keep track of him online on his Myspace and Facebook pages.  For another such video, check out this one I made with Honeyman and the Brothers Farr.  For more great music based on the Baha’i writings, check out this selection from the band The Hidden Words.

Anti-corruption demonstrations in New Delhi

If you haven’t been in India or purposefully following the news here, it’s possible that you might have finally heard about the intense conversation about corruption that is going on here.  That’s because this week zillions of people have been taking it to the streets to show their support for activist Anna Hazare.  Seeing on the news that demonstrations were just around the corner at the iconic India Gate monument, I decided to grab my camera and check it out.

This blog has gone without updates for a long while, but I do have a bunch of interesting items to share so I decided to get warmed up by sharing some timely photos.

This story has finally broken into international news thanks very much to the decision of Delhi police to arrest Mr. Hazare for refusing to abide by a number of the conditions they had imposed for his next fasting sit-in. The purpose of the sit-in was to demand a particular piece of anti-corruption legislation to come before the Indian parliament just the way he think it should.

Long story short, they decided to release him from prison a few hours later but Mr. Hazare decided to stick around in the jail and begin fasting there.  He finally decided to leave today and made is way to Ramlila Grounds in Delhi where he plans to continue fasting for the next 15 days.

A few more photos can be found in this new album on Flickr.  For a good primer on the whole story, check out this article from the Globe and Mail.

The Baha’i Academy (where I have been for the past two months)

I have always been fascinated by how Baha’i and Baha’i-inspired organizations tend to evolve so drastically to meet changing conditions and build on experience.  The Baha’i Academy is a perfect example.  It began in 1982  to provide an academic home for some of the many Baha’i scholars who were forced to flee Iran during the Islamic Revolution.  For many years they ran training programs for Baha’is who were coming in from all over the world in venues all over Panchgani like the campus of the New Era Teacher Training Centre and the famous Prospect Hotel.  In 1998 the Academy moved into its current home right next to the Baha’i Bhavan (Baha’i Centre) and an old house that apparently Gandhi had stayed in at some point.

'Baha'i Academy 002' by Flickr user Neissan Alessandro

In 2000 it began to collaborate with a number of colleges and universities across the state of Maharashtra to offer a program that helps to fill the gap that exists in value education offered to students.  Since then the Academy has gone on to focus more and more on this program and develop curriculum that is used along side curriculum developed by the The Foundation for the Application and Teaching of the Sciences (FUNDAEC) in Columbia.

To support the Academy’s efforts to build institutional capacity I have had the chance to help out things like their three year planning process, website planning, curriculum development and public relations work.  One of the main reasons I decided to set out on from home again this year was to have the chance to work in an environment where I could more directly and explicitly apply the teachings of the Baha’i Faith in the context of a formal organization.  It’s been incredibly stimulating to spend so much time studying material to try to draw from the experience of other Baha’i-inspired organizations all over the world that are part of this collective learning process about how to effectively engage in social action and discourse.

Click here to see a small set of photos from trip I went on to Nashik for the Baha’i Academy.  Click here to see a larger set from the Baha’i Academy, including many of enormous toads.

To vote or to not not vote

Inukshuk in small town India?! Canadian was here?

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is once again applying to renew his contract with the people of Canada, but there are a handful of other guys that think that they can do the job better.  Over here in India I feel connected with all my fellow Canadians as we reflect once again on our electoral process, wondering how it got so ugly.  A recent article from the Canadian Baha’i News Service contrasting the partisan political system to the Baha’i electoral model put it very well when it says:

… Although the Canadian political system reflects well fundamental democratic reforms that have served to advance humanity’s ability to govern itself, it is not without its challenges. Cynicism and apathy about the Canadian electoral system seem to have reached a new high, especially among younger voters. Some political scientists have attributed this apathy to a general decline in interest in institutional democracy.

They correlate it to a disconnect between what politicians are saying and doing and the way people, and especially youth, would like to see democracy operate. Ethical scandals, attack ads and the heightened acrimony between parties sour the public’s attitude toward politicians and government.

Such practices are perhaps inevitable characteristics of political systems founded on a competitive, partisan approach. These systems often tend to work in the interest of those with the influence and money required to mount and finance electoral campaigns. The ethic of partisan politics fosters divisiveness and immoderate rhetoric which reinforces the voter’s sense of disillusionment.

That said, I personally don’t think that opting out of the system is going to fix it, but I might be wrong about that.  This election I have realized that voting in civic elections is definitely one of the shakiest elements in my conceptual framework for social action.  Even if there is a leader on the ballot who doesn’t give you the creeps, how can an free-thinking person approve of all of the positions that leader’s party has preselected, seemingly at random?

As broken as the system is, my inner citizen has never failed to cycle over to the community centre to throw my vote away.  No way am I going to miss out this time just because I live on the other side of the planet.  At first I thought it would involve an epic, democracy-themed road trip to the nearest Canadian consulate in Mumbai to cast my vote.  It turns out that with just enough paperwork I could vote from up here in the remote hill station of Panchgani where I now reside.

If my ballot could talk, it would have quite the travelogue to share.  First I needed to download, fill in and fax a form from the Elections Canada website with some ID to Ottawa.  They then spent untold taxpayer’s dollars to send me a ballot via international courier company TNT.  When I received an email from Elections Canada to that effect, I went to TNT’s main page to find a photo the dude I like to think was the actual guy with the actual facial expression that carried my ballot all the way India.

What they brought was the ballot for me to fill out and place inside a series of envelopes like a Russian doll.

Rather than to mail my ballot directly to Ottawa, I decided to send it to the Canadian Consulate in Mumbai who would then send it to the Canadian High Commission in Delhi who would send it to Ottawa.  Once it was ready to go one my colleagues was on his way to town and I asked him to drop my sealed ballot off at the post office.  ”The Canadian democracy is in your hands, my friend.  My whole country is counting on you to safely deliver this ballot.  Do not fail us.”

“Relax, yarr! I will drop your letter and your democracy will be fine, okay?”  He said as he threw up his hands and turned around to climb up the hill towards town.

A short film about sports

If I don’t understand football, curling, or even marathon running – there is no way I am going to understand the sport that the majority of the planet has long written off as too perplexing to even try.  As little as I understand about cricket, I did have the feeling that if India was going to win their ICC World Cup final match against Sri Lanka last night – the quiet hill station of Panchgani was going to get loud.

Check out the above video if you would like a taste of what broke out all over this giant country last night.  Share it if you like it.

A Magic Show by Parmesh

Every 19 days Baha’i communities all over the globe get together for an event called the Nineteen Day Feast.  The Feast generally consists of collective worship, consultation and socializing – but each of those elements can take any of a number of forms depending on the culture and style of the community.