Mahabalipuram

Last month, I realized a long-standing ambition to visit southern India. India is endlessly fascinating in its variety of ethnic groups and languages, and I believe that the common thread that runs through these groups is Hinduism.

My husband and I flew from Kolkata (Calcutta) to Chennai, from where we took road trips to Mahabalipuram, Puducherry (formerly Pondicherry), and Auroville.

In this post, I will discuss our visit to Mahabalipuram. Mahabalipuram hosts many rock-cut monuments that date to the Pallava dynasty of the 7th century CE.

Mahabalipuram is somewhat of an anomaly: while it is located in southern India, the monuments make references to the Mahabharata.


Arjuna's Penance

Arjuna is the emaciated figure standing on one leg on the upper left. Wikipedia states that one interpretation of the Arjuna's Penance relief is that "[Arjuna is] performing an austerity Tapas to receive a boon from Shiva as an aid in fighting the Mahabharata war. (The boon which Arjuna is said to have received was called Pasupata, Shiva's most powerful weapon)."

However, the Wikipedia account is not consistent with the account given in the translation of The Mahabharata by Chakravarthi V. Narasimhan, which is based on the critical edition from the Bhandakar Oriental Research Institute in Pune. In the latter account, Arjuna meets Shiva, who is in the guise of a hunter. Shiva bests Arjuna with his prowess with bow and arrow and hand-to-hand fighting, but nonetheless praises Arjuna's skills and bequeaths the Pasupata to Arjuna.



Above is the panch ratras, each dedicated to one of the Pandavas. From left (foreground) to right: Draupadi's ratha (resembling a thatched roof house), Arjuna's ratha, Bhima's ratha, and Dharmaraja Yudhisthira's ratha. To the right of the elephant is the ratha for the twins Nakula and Sahadeva, sons of Madri.

There is so much more to Mahabalipuram - for example, the rock relief showing Krishna's raising of Govardhan hill, the "Butter Ball," a huge rock resting precipitously on a slope, and the Shore Temple - that I encourage the reader to Google Mahabalipuram.

Mumbai: Islamist Terror's New Modus Operandi

From the Middle East Times, an excellent article about the change in MO of Islamic terrorists.

One item stands out in particular:
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One of the main reasons for the terrorists switching tactics was to grab the world's attention. In fact as of last week before Mumbai, how many people knew that after Iraq India was the second country in the world most afflicted by terrorism? I would suspect not many. Nonetheless from January 2004 to today, over 4,100 people have died as a result of terrorist attacks in India.
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Indeed, I was angry at the media's indifference to bomb blasts in India. Bomb blasts had become commonplace. Even people in India had become indifferent. I had fallen down on the job. I had tracked the bomb blasts on Tagzania, but so many bomb blasts had happened, that I didn't keep up.

India with a backbone

Piracy off the coast of Somalia is only beginning to emerge as a news story in the mainstream media (MSM). Somali piracy in the Gulf of Aden cripples international trade: one tenth of world’s seaborne petroleum and 16,000 vessels pass through the Gulf of Aden. Insurance premiums for commercial shipping have increased tenfold this year. Some shipping companies have already decided to go around the Cape of Good Hope (South Africa) instead of going through the Gulf of Aden, thereby adding weeks to the voyage and increasing the costs of raw materials and manufactured goods.



A recurring theme of Mera Bharat Mahan has been the need for India to project assertiveness on the world stage. In the last two weeks, the Indian navy has flexed its muscle and successfully defeated Somali pirates.

According to this Associated Press report dated Wednesday, November 19, 2008:
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The ship… was crewed by heavily armed men, some carrying rocket-propelled grenade launchers. Behind it were a pair of speedboats — the sort pirates often use when they launch attacks on merchant ships in these violent seas.

What followed, officials said Wednesday, was a rare victory in a sea war against Somalia-based piracy that has become increasingly more violent, and where the pirates are ever more bold.

A patrolling Indian navy frigate [INS Tabar] quickly identified the vessel as a "mother ship" — a mobile attack base used to take gangs of pirates and smaller speedboats into deep water — and ordered it to stop and be searched.


In this Nov. 11, 2008 file photo made available by Indian Navy, Indian warship INS Tabar, right, escorts the MV Jag Arnav ship to safety after rescuing it from a hijack attempt by Somali pirates. The Indian navy says the INS Tabar dedicated to fighting pirates has successfully fought off an attempted pirate attack in the Gulf of Aden, sparking explosions and a fire on the suspected pirate ship late Tuesday, Nov. 18. (AP Photo/Indian Navy, HO, File)

"They responded on the offensive and said that they would blow up the Indian naval ship," Commander Nirad Sinha, a navy press officer, told reporters in New Delhi. Then the pirates opened fire.

… By the time the battle was over, the mother ship had sunk — the Indian gunfire sparked fires and a series of onboard blasts, possibly due to exploding ammunition — and the speedboats were racing into the darkness.

One was later found abandoned. The other escaped. An unknown number of people died on the mother ship, a navy statement said.

It's not the first success. Last week, Indian navy commandos operating from a warship foiled a pirate attempt to hijack a ship in the Gulf of Aden. The navy said an armed helicopter with marine commandos prevented the pirates from boarding and hijacking the Indian merchant vessel.
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Mera Bharat Mahan congratulates the Indian navy for taking on the Somali pirates - and winning!

The last Jews of Calcutta

Beth-el synagogue in Kolkata

From the Associated Press via the International Herald Tribune, a poignant story about the dwindling Jewish population of Calcutta, as many Jews die or move away for better opportunities.

What the article doesn't mention, however, is India's acceptance of religious refugees. The story of the Parsis, Zoroastrians from Iran, is well-known. Calcutta (or Kolkata, as it's currently known) itself has absorbed Armenians as well as Jews - to say nothing about the Hindu refugees from Partition and the Bangladeshi war of 1971.

Case not closed

In his indignant letter to The Indian American, Washington Post reporter Rajiv Chandrasekaran wrote that the Banerjee commission concluded that the Godhra atrocity was an accident. "Case closed" was the last sentence in his letter.

Not so fast. The Nanavati-Mehta judicial inquiry commission states the Godhra atrocity was a “pre-planned conspiracy,” thereby contradicting the findings of the Banerjee commission, and by extension, Chandrasekharan's conclusion. As Chandrasekharan claimed that he based his report on interviews with witnesses, the Nanavati-Mehta commission based its conclusions on over 100 interviews with witnesses.