It is early in the day for me to be writing but a hole just opened in my schedule so I decided to make use of it and write my blog for the day. My friend Raja was to have come and picked me up and we were to have gone to his wife’s shop. Unfortunately, he was at a shoot late into the night and then up early again working so he cancelled for the afternoon.
It is a greyish day in Delhi and on the cool side as it rained all night while I slept.
My day started with a late breakfast with Kiran Karnik, who was GM of Discovery India when I was here in the 1990’s. He is a small, thin man, very gentle and razor sharp. He is currently doing many things. One of them is being on the Board of the Reserve Bank of India as well as being President of the India Habitat Center, where I am staying.
Service in the restaurant this morning was impeccable, he said smiling.
Sanjay was at the breakfast, too. We were nostalgic for the days when we were launching Discovery India, laughing at some of our adventures. Talk then moved to politics, both here and in the States. Both Sanjay and Kiran are concerned that parts of the fabric of Indian society are becoming worn in the rush toward modernization. Within twenty-five years India will be one of the world’s top four economies and that change will be wrenching, just as it has been in China.
Prime Minister Modi seems to be enormously popular and is, from all accounts, charismatic. “Conventional wisdom” is that he should be Prime Minister and have all his ministers from the Congress Party, his opponents, because they have experience in government. The BJP, which is Modi’s party, has not governed all that often in India and hasn’t had a lot of national experience.
Some large announcement is coming shortly about interest rates though Kiran gave no hint as to what it will be. He did say they [the Reserve Bank] were closely watching the situation in Yemen for what affect it might have on oil prices along with the “rain issue.” This last season was exceptionally rainy, having a negative effect on food production. Every little thing becomes a factor that needs weighing.
It was interesting to hear Kiran’s perspective on the Yemeni situation. He pointed out that this is the first time in memory that Saudi Arabia has used its military in this way. Thinking about, I had to agree.
They intervened in Bahrain but that was minor compared to this.
We all agreed that the world situation is remarkable and deeply fraught. The Kenyan massacre of Christians at Garissa only underscores the situation.
Pope Francis spoke out about it at Holy Friday services in Rome. Christians are being killed for their beliefs in Africa and in the Middle East. Shabab is promising more Kenyan attacks.
In the Middle East, Tikrit has been freed from IS though the once bustling city, hometown of Saddam Hussein, now lies in ruins. The Iraqi Prime Minister, Haider al-Abidi, has ordered looters arrested.
As we pass through the Easter weekend, which culminates on Sunday with the celebration of Christ’s resurrection, the world is parsing all the reports on the Iranian Nuclear Deal, attempting to see if there are true threads of hope or mere obfuscation.
Pakistan is walking a tightrope between Iran, with which it shares a border, and Saudi Arabia, which has been a staunch Pakistani ally. Saudi Arabia wants Pakistan’s help in Yemen and Iran is doing its best to make sure that doesn’t happen. So far Pakistan has managed to stay upright on the tightrope but it is going to take some deft diplomacy to continue that if the Yemeni situation continues.
Easter, when I was young, was always a time for new clothes and long hours in our Catholic church. Some of it I remember fondly. Some of it not so much. One year it was unseasonably warm and Visitation Church grew so hot students at Good Friday services were fainting by the dozen.
Those seemed like simpler times. Perhaps that is nostalgia. “The Go-Between” is a novel by L.P. Hartley, adapted for the screen by Harold Pinter. Both book and film begin with the haunting line, “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”
I do not think I would want to go back to the days of my youth. There were too many things that were wrong there but sometimes I am nostalgic for the simplicity that seemed to live there.
Letter from the Vineyard 
Letter From New York 04 07 15 From the heat of Delhi to the chill of the Northeast…
April 7, 2015Outside the cottage, it’s grey and damp, all the colors very muted after the riot of hues, which was India. I can hardly keep my eyes open and am crying for a nap.
I made this an easy day, collecting two plus weeks of mail, sorting it, paying some bills, attempting not to do any serious mental work as my brain is more than a little cloudy.
It is both good and a bit odd being home; hard to grasp I have come and gone from India, that it was real and not a dream. I have thank you notes to write. My friend Sanjay was incredibly generous and that humbles me. Everywhere I went in India, people went out of their way to make me feel comfortable and respected.
I got out just before the burning heat of summer descends on the country; there were little tastes of it along the way and I’m glad to be missing it.
Tomorrow I must get down to work, having a few things due on Thursday when I will be going back to the city. I’ll be there Thursday and Friday and then again most of next week.
Next, I need to sort out the things which I brought back for people, little gifts from the markets and the things from my friend, Jag’s, Crazy Daisy store in Delhi.
To fight the chill, I have lit a fire in the Franklin stove and turned up the heat a bit. Jazz plays in the background.
Spring is not willing to grab the land and bless it with warmth. Old man winter is grumpily holding on, determined we not forget him too soon this year. And he has been successful.
While I have been acclimating to being home, Rand Paul has declared he is running for the Presidency, number two in the Republican game. He is likely to be followed by as many as twenty more. It’s a banner year for Republican contenders.
Speaking of things Washington, a power outage affected much of DC this afternoon, including the White House, which went on a back-up generator, and the State Department where a spokesperson used the light on her phone to continue handling questions.
The EU is a bit in the dark about why Prime Minister Tsipras of Greece is gallivanting off to Moscow to visit with Putin. It is making them nervous; Tsipras’ flirtations come as the tortuous negotiations over Greece’s debt continues. In another gambit, Greece has declared that Germany owes it about 280 billion Euros in war reparations. Germany asserts these claims have long been settled.
It’s the day many have been waiting for: HBO Now [as opposed to HBO Go] is available on iOS devices. It means you can now watch “Game of Thrones” without a cable subscription. It is going to be REALLY interesting to watch how this plays out. HBO and sports are two major reasons people keep their cable subscriptions. One reason down…
Now that Tikrit is back in the hands of the Iraqis, they have begun discovering a series of mass graves believed to hold the remains of 1700 Iraqi cadets who were captured by IS and murdered. While this gruesome task is going one, there is another task in front of the liberating Shia forces: to win the hearts and minds of the Sunnis who mostly inhabit the region.
For years, Tony Blair, the former Labour Prime Minister of Britain, has been keeping a very low profile. He has “issues” with Mr. Miliband, who is now leading the Labour Party. But he has recently declared his “full support” for Miliband, who loudly repudiated the policies of Blair to gain leadership of the party. Blair is warning about holding a referendum on Europe, which Tory Prime Minister Cameron is advocating.
Strife continues in Yemen; there are reports bombs hit a school, killing a number of students. Aden is being bombarded by air and from the sea. The country may descend into a worse humanitarian crisis than Syria and that probably would only play into the hand of Al-Qaeda. The Houthi rebels are being supported to some extent by Iran while the Saudis are full blown in their efforts to restore the previous government. It is a crisis threatening to spiral out of control.
Now I am going to do my best to catch a quick nap before going over to Coyote Flaco for some fajitas. I didn’t find those in India.
Tags:Afghanistan, Crazy Daisy, Delhi, Ed Miliband, HBO Go, HBO Now, Houthi, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Putin, Rand Paul, Sanjay Khanna, Saudi Arabia, Tony Blair, Tsipras, Yemen
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