Tag: india

Exploring Kathakali: A Journey Through Kerala’s Cultural Heritage

December 19, 2024


Last night, a friend told me they’ve stopped traveling. His world travels, he claimed, made him weary of endless airport security lines and long flights. Since they prefer staying home, what’s the point of traveling? His comments resonated with me. While we’ve travelled extensively and still yearn for more adventures, the ease of watching travel programs at home is appealing. But his comments brought up memories of some journeys that we took in the past and decided to blog with them. Following are my memories of our Indian adventure in Kerala in 2011. More of our journey will be detailed in later blogs.

Our guide, Dinesh, collected us from Kōchi Airport and drove us to Green Woods Bethlehem Homestay. It was located in a tranquil Kochin suburb. Despite its small, fenced-in suburban appearance, the house’s interior was unexpectedly large. We walked through a landscaped garden to reach the building. The hostess asked for our passports; the first business item at the hotels in India was to take your passport and make a copy. Despite providing copies, hotels and guesthouses sometimes still needed the original documents. Our room included a seating area and was furnished with English colonial pieces and mementos. We found the dining area upstairs on the roof with a canopy and many plants. It overlooked the landscaped garden

Following a light dinner, we went with Dinesh to see a Kathakali dance. I had never heard of this type of dancing before, but I discovered it originated in Kerala about three hundred years ago. It remained largely unknown beyond the State’s borders. Kathakali, a story-play, is renowned for its costumes, musical accompaniment (drums and cymbals), and symbolic storytelling drawing from the Puranas—Hindu legends and myths. The stories are conveyed through pantomime, sign language, and physical expressions, like fluttering eyelids, twirling fingers, and quivering lips. Even without comprehending the Hastalakshana Deepika-derived sign language, the pantomime’s expressiveness made the story clear just by watching the actors. The actors were all males; males performed even the female roles, although, given their makeup and dresses, I could not tell that they were all males in the audience.

It is not just the play but also the preparations for the play itself that were part of the entertainment. Once seated, the actors came in and painted each other’s faces with vivid hues. It took a long time. One actor was painting another for more than an hour. It was interesting but long. I learned that each of the paints, prepared from local materials, had significance and symbolism. For example, green paint on the face meant a noble protagonist and black clothing was designated as a she-demon. They prepared all the paints used for the makeup from local natural materials: they make red from red earth, such as cinnabar, and they make black from soot.


Besides the wide use of facial makeup, the story relied heavily on costumes to identify the roles. For example, the actors wore huge headgear that, along with the makeup, signified who the actors portrayed: the hero, the villain, or the female. Each actor donned a beautiful, decorative jacket over a long skirt with thick cushions for added volume. The show lasted more than three hours, and we were tired just by the concentration on what was happening on the stage. Dinesh told us that there were Kathakali schools to preserve the old ways. 

The Challenge of Tipping at the Taj Mahal and Other UNESCO World Heritage Sites

January 16, 2023

We caught an early Indian Railways train in Delhi to get to the Taj Mahal in Agra. There was a substantial breakfast served by a dapper, uniformed porter on the two-hour train ride. We joined a long line of people waiting for the opening when we arrived at the Taj at 7:00 am. Inside, several official guides competed for our attention.

One guide, a small man with a starched white shirt and tie and formal manner, offered to show me where to take the best photo shots, including where the shots in the James Bond movie Octopussy were taken. Believing he was a government employee on the Taj grounds, I thought his services were free.

He took me on an extensive tour that lasted more than half an hour. He knew the story of the Taj. And he showed me a glorious spot to take a picture of the Taj, from an arcade looking at the front of the Taj, framed by an arch above. It is a novel snapshot that shows the Taj with the minarets at the four corners. It was early in the morning, and the white marble building showed unforgettable translucency in the rising sun.

I thought that even though he was a government employee, I should at least offer him a tip for his tour and offered as much as the entrance fee. He asked me what it was for. I said I wanted to show my appreciation for his time with a tip.

He stared at me in astonishment, then laughed and explained that I did not realize what an expert story he shared with me and that at least ten times what I offered would be a minimum to pay for his expertise. His gall and arrogance astonished me. I was going to negotiate but got my back up at hearing what I thought was an outrageous demand. I told him he had never said that he expected remuneration and that if I had been aware that he would expect so much money, I would have refused his offer for the tour. And I started walking away.

He called after me and negotiated to double my original offer. I chalked up this encounter as an experience in traveling at world-famous tourist sites.

This incident reminded me of an episode we had in Jaresh, Egypt, where we paid for a guided tour. The guide was excellent, and I offered what I thought was a generous tip, which he pooh-poohed and told me to give it to the paperboy and explained in a loud voice that he was worth ten times as much. I finally just started walking away from him, leaving an amount equal to the entrance fee that the guide then threw to the boy selling trinkets at the gate.

From these two experiences, I gathered that, as an initial gambit, the guides ask ten times what you offer, but are happy to accept less than half the suggested tip. I found tipping an unpleasant task with educated and experienced guides.

Traveling in Morocco (Fez) and Egypt (Karnak), the distinguished-looking guides, those with a suit and a tie, had a much more sophisticated approach to earning money. These guides took us on tours that ended up in a gift store, where they expected us to buy artifacts in the store made by local artisans. I noticed that when we left; the guides had a few words with the owners of the stores, and my strong suspicion was that the guides received a kickback, a percentage of the amount we spent in the store.

Some of these guides are professional historians and provide excellent guided tours. But they are also aggressive in securing huge tips by shaming the Westerners, who are often seduced by suave guides with a suit and a tie on, university professors moonlighting as tour leaders.

I found group tours are better, in that they include tips in the price, although the guides always expect additional money.

Regardless of such annoyances, the Taj is a great place to visit. It is a unique building that has an eerie, light feeling in the sun and is surrounded by a well-maintained garden. When leaving, the guards at the gate told us that there are always lots of tourists there.

My Questions for the Canadian Immigration Minister

November 5, 2022

The Minister announced yesterday that Canada will welcome 500,000 immigrants annually. He said the country needs to move up immigration targets because of the low fertility rate and a million vacant jobs in Canada. But, Mr. Minister, have you fully considered the costs of a sudden surge in immigration, and the impacts on healthcare and housing in Canada?

Canada used to welcome a quarter million immigrants annually, ramping up to 300,000 recently. The number jumped to over 400,000 in 2001 and is likely to approach 500,000 this year.

Immigration policy in Canada has evolved. Initially, immigrants were invited in the 18th century to colonize the west, coming mostly from the British Isles. Central Europeans came early in the 20th century. People coming to work in Canada created the “economic class” of immigrants, and their families followed them (called the “family reunification” class of people). The “refugee” class of people was created under Prime Minister Diefenbaker, who welcomed 37,500 Hungarian refugees escaping their country after the 1956 Hungarian revolution. Sixty percent of immigrants today fall into the “economic” class. India is the source of 32% of today’s immigrants, followed by China at 8%.

Besides economic development, demographics have become a new policy issue for Canada because of our low fertility rate of 1.5%, the replacement rate is 2.1%. So, the question comes to mind: have we tried to influence fertility rates? Many countries have tried it with limited success (Russia, and France, for example). Changing behavior is difficult, so let’s bring more people into the country to boost our population.

But the devil is in the details. Of the two major sources of immigrants to Canada today, India’s fertility rate was 2.1% in 2021 and China’s 1.7%. If immigrants from these two countries continue to follow their culture, they may not help with Canadian fertility rates. But would this flow of immigrants help with the economy?

A target group for the Minister is the science, technology, engineering, and math people (STEM). Yes, we have a million vacant jobs, but most are in the service industries, the hospitality and retail industries, and not in STEM. So this group of immigrants may not help fill the vacant jobs we have in Canada, especially when technology people are being laid off these days (Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Twitter).

A related question I have for the Minister is: what do we do with the one million unemployed people in Canada and another half million people who stopped looking for work? We have one and one-half million people who could be employed. Retraining may make them employable. It may not be in the Immigration Minister’s mandate to solve labor shortages via retraining, but it begs the question: should we look at the unemployed and the stay-at-home people for filling vacant positions in Canada before filling these jobs with immigrants?

And the Minister has not talked about the cost of immigration, except for the benefits to the GDP and the income taxes immigrants will pay. But clearly, immigrants need services like healthcare and housing, provided by lower levels of government. We, the taxpayers, pay all government taxes – federal, provincial and local – so perhaps it is time to reflect on the costs of immigration.

At a time when healthcare is already breaking at the seams with doctors’ shortages and nurses retiring, an increase in immigration will put an additional load on the system. (Six million people in Canada do not have a family doctor. Some emergency rooms have closed due to a lack of nursing staff). You say that, of course, we should target doctors and nurses in the immigration program. Makes sense. But do you realize that both professions require certification by relevant authorities and the reality in Canada is that foreign doctors and nurses must qualify before they can practice?

For example, I had a technician perform an ”ultrasound” procedure on me and I found out that she was a medical doctor from Belarus and took all the Canadian exams to become a doctor but failed to get residency in a hospital required for certification and was forced to take a technician’s job.

Yes, Mr. Minister, we have a supply problem: we need more doctors and nurses and immigration will not provide a quick fix because of certification barriers.

And immigrants need housing. On average, 200,000 housing units are built in Canada annually. The half million immigrants coming to Canada each year could use a few hundred thousand units and drive-up housing prices, especially given the present housing shortage (for example, the Premier of Ontario recently announced a sweeping housing plan to ease the shortage of housing).

Preserving and increasing the value of current homeowners’ units may be good for the homeowners, but difficult for young Canadians who would like to get into the housing market. Has the Minister thought through how the half million immigrants coming into the country each year impact housing markets?

And my questions to the Minister would not be complete without asking about “absorption rates” for immigrants in Canada. Absorption refers to the ease with which immigrants assimilate or integrate into Canadian society: get a job, acquire housing, have their children in school, and become a part of their local community.

Ethnic groups like to settle near each other for comfort. When a large group of immigrants settles in an area – that often happens – ghettos may result and integration into Canadian society may take the back seat. Has the Minister studied how many immigrants can Canada absorb annually?

There are costly impacts on education and social services at the local level when immigrants arrive. Teaching the official languages of Canada to immigrants is a significant cost for school boards. For example, Quebec has 23% of Canada’s population and could take up to 117,000 of the 500,000 immigrants, but the Premier said their capacity to teach the French language is limited to 50,000 people annually. Has the Minister discussed how many immigrants each province would take?

I am for immigration; I was an immigrant myself and found my journey to assimilate into Canadian society has been challenging but tremendously satisfying (it never stops). But I ask the Minister whether he has thought about the impact immigrants will have on our healthcare system, our housing situation today, and our experience with integrating immigrants successfully into our society when suddenly we’ll receive a half million newcomers each year.