David Kotz

In spite of the gods

My favorite non-fiction about India so far.

I’ve just finished reading this excellent 2006 book by Edward Luce, a journalist who lived in India for five years as the South Asia bureau chief for Financial Times, and who is married to an Indian. His prose is wonderful, his insights fascinating, and his anecdotes amusing. Definitely my favorite non-fiction about India so far [though I still recommend Nilekani’s more recent book Imagining India.] It is a must-read for anyone who wants to begin to understand India.

In his conclusion, Luce cites four major challenges that India must face in order to thrive:

“Lifting 300 million people out of poverty and providing the remainder with a more secure standard of living…,
“Overcoming the dangers of rapid environmental degradation…,
“Heading off the spectre of an HIV-Aids epidemic…,
“Protecting and strengthening India’s system of liberal democracy….”

Indeed, he quotes Vijay Kelkar in noting that “The twenty-first century is India’s to lose.” Huge challenges, and huge opportunity.

For a more extensive (and professional) review of the book, see the NYT reviews [Macintyre, Grimes]; the NPR interview with the author is also very interesting. The book is available on Amazon.

This post was transferred from MobileMe to WordPress in 2021, with an effort to retain the content as close to the original as possible; I recognize that some comments may now seem dated or some links may now be broken.

Favorite India photos

The best of the best.

With 5,662 ‘keeper’ photos from India, it was awfully difficult to narrow them down to my favorites. I tried to select a dozen in each of several categories, based on a mixture of criteria – trying to represent the diversity of people and experiences, and also an amateur notion of what makes a nice photograph. I hope you’ll enjoy them!

[nature] [people] [children] [farms] [streets] [sights] [IISc] [universities]

South Pacific favorites

A dozen favorite photos from each place.

For those readers – if I have any – who may have been overwhelmed by all the albums I’ve been posting in recent weeks (I know I have!), this blog entry is for you.

I selected a dozen favorite photos each from Australia, New Zealand, and Fiji, for your viewing pleasure. Well, actually, New Zealand’s “dozen” has 15 photos, because I could not bear to part with any of them.

The index page also provides links to the start of each country’s visit.

Lautoka hospital

Twenty years ago I was a patient at Lautoka hospital. Today we visited and had a look around.

Twenty years ago, on June 23, 1989, I was enjoying the last day of my family’s trip in Fiji. We had taken the “Coral Coast railway”, an old sugar-cane train converted into a tourist excursion train, to the beautiful Natadola beach. While bodysurfing there, I broke my neck. As my father’s story indicates, I ended up at the hospital in Lautoka. Although my parents returned there a few years later, to deliver a container-full of donated medical equipment, I myself had never been back. Indeed, even on the first visit I had never seen anything other than the ceilings ;-).

Today we stopped by for a visit, and simply asked to look around. The staff was very polite and friendly, and we had no problem wandering the halls and peeking into the wards. I felt a little intrusive so I took only a few photos.

In the Tragedy subsection of the 1989 blog post, my father (Jack) wrote about me (Dave), my brother (Pete), and my mother (Katie). It’s a long but compelling read.

Fiji – Abaca

A small village in the highlands above Lautoka, a bit east of Nadi.

We spent Monday morning on a tour up into the hills above Nadi and Lautoka, to see a small village called Abaca. In Fijian, ‘b’ is pronounced ‘mb’, ‘d’ is pronounced ‘nd’, and ‘c’ is pronounced ‘th’. Thus we left Nandi to visit Ambatha. Read on!

our guide (left) leads us through the kava ceremony. (Abaca village, Near Lautoka, Fiji.)

Club Fiji

Our home on ‘mainland’ Fiji.

For our first night in Fiji we stayed at Club Fiji, a small beachside resort near Nadi. A lovely place. We stayed in a bure with two rooms, right across the lawn from the beach and the sea. The beach here is on Nadi bay, which is very shallow at this point. At high tide, the bay was a pretty blue but at low tide, the beach was a vast area of tidepools and mudflats. Still, this makes for interesting exploring and a huge area for seeking shells. Read on!

Fiji – Malolo Lailai

This small island is the quintessential tropical paradise, with white sandy beaches, palm trees, sea breezes, and coral reefs.

Ah, Fiji. Quite the contrast from the chilly winter in New Zealand! The highlight of our time in Fiji was a stay on Malolo lailai island, at Musket Cove resort. Read on! and check out the photos.

a quiet beach on my walk around the isalnd. [Malolo lailai, Fiji]

New Zealand wrap-up

Our drive up the western side of the north island involved a lot of beautiful green countryside, with rolling hills and sheep pasture like this one.

We completed our tour of the south island with another visit to Blenheim, in the north-east corner [location]. In the morning we quickly toured some of the local vineyards – and it seems there are dozens in this area, known as Marlborough. We found excellent wines at Cloudy Bay, Spy Valley, and Villa Maria. I understand that Villa Maria is readily available in the US. Read on!

Much of the countryside was rolling hills.

Franz Josef glacier

We walked to the face of the Franz Josef glacier.

Early on this winter’s morning we took a hike to a glacier. The Franz Josef glacier (named by an Austrian explorer for the then emperor of Austria) is one of the most accessible and indeed very impressive glaciers on the west slope of the southern alps. [location] Read on!

A steep icefall just above the main face of the glacier. South Island, New Zealand.

The west coast

The west coast of the south island is rugged and beautiful.

We drove, in parts of three days, up the west coast of the south island. Or those parts that are drivable, anyway, because the southwest corner (Fiordland) is roadless, and the northwest corner (Abel Tasman park) is remote with few roads. The southern alps loom close at hand on your right, and the hills drop steeply into the sea on your left. At times the road was winding and twisting along these hillsides. Rarely, we encountered a beach made of smooth rounded stones. All in all, it was beautiful. Check out those photos and read on for more photos!