Ketan Gajria | Blog

New Gallery: Europe 2009-Present

2011-11-25T17:02:00.002+02:00

I've collected some of my older shots from trips to Europe and added my recent photos from Russia and Bulgaria to create the following compilation. The majority of photos were taken with my LX-5 pocket camera, which is one of the best photography purchases I've made. Here are some samples (note that Blogger desaturates the color in the thumbnail, it's best to visit the gallery itself):

Snapshots from the Past Several Months

2011-09-27T05:12:00.001+02:00

Some favorites:

Rio de Janeiro

Clinton, New York

Boston, Massachusetts

California

New Gallery: California

2011-05-09T00:31:00.000+02:00

Click on the image below to view the gallery!

New Snapshots

2011-05-09T00:24:00.000+02:00

See all of them in larger sizes in the gallery!

On Being Considerate

2011-04-22T08:03:00.000+02:00

Videos from California

2011-04-18T17:37:00.005+02:00

Muir Beach, North of San Francisco (available in 720p HD):

Tilden Regional Park, Berkeley (available in 720p HD):

Ocean View Trail, Muir Woods (available in 720p HD):

Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco (available in 720p HD):

San Francisco Skyline from Twin Peaks (available in 720p HD):

Fortune Cookie Factory, Chinatown, San Francisco (available in 720p HD):

Downtown Crossing

2011-04-14T02:37:00.000+02:00

Downtown Crossing, Boston, 2011.

Wide-Aspect Portrait of my Father

2011-04-14T00:24:00.001+02:00

This is exactly how I find him most evenings: completing his sudoku puzzles.

Snapshots: New and Old

2011-04-08T16:01:00.001+02:00

Since there is a dearth of new work on my website, I've gone back through my archives and edited/re-edited some shots taken a few years back and added them to my gallery of Snapshots:

Massachusetts Woods, 2008.

The Massachusetts Coast, 2008.

Damascus Opera House, 2008.

Damascus, 2008.

Panasonic LX5 RAW vs. JPEG

2011-04-08T05:37:00.002+02:00

Here's a short, instructive comparison on the benefits of shooting RAW. After selling off a few old cameras, I now have a Panasonic LX5 on order, so I started playing with RAW shot of DPReview's test set-up to see what noise reduction techniques would work best.

First, here is a 100% crop of the LX5's JPEG at ISO 800 (click to enlarge):

And here is the RAW (ISO 800) from Adobe Camera RAW after some noise reduction and sharpening (click to enlarge):

Below is a comparison with 100% crops taken from the shots above. I've included a crop from the JPEG at ISO 80 as an example of the best JPEG quality available from this camera (click to enlarge).

Some caveats: Test scenes like this are easy to edit and remove noise from. Real world shots can be a bit trickier. That being said, to my eye, my RAW edit at ISO 800 has detail which is equal to, if not greater than, the IS0 80 JPEG. There is a bit more noise, but it adds a nice texture and wouldn't be bothersome in a print. It also goes without saying that the enhanced ability to correct exposure, color, and white balance with the RAW shot (although I didn't do so for this example) is invaluable.

My RAW noise reduction was half-ACR and half-DFine 2.0 (I found that, for this camera, the two actually give better results than Topaz DeNoise 5). After that I tweaked the contrast and sharpening, but that's it.

In Summary: If you are going to spend lots of money on a camera, it makes sense to shoot RAW and get your money's worth.

UPDATE (4/8/2011): I've added below a comparison of the RAW files from ISO 80 and ISO 800 (click to enlarge). The ISO 800 still impresses relative to its low-ISO sibling, although part of this might be due to the fact that I'm not the best at sharpening. I'm hoping that real-world usability for this camera extends through ISO 400.

Amazing Dollhouse

2011-04-04T23:09:00.000+02:00

I've just finished photographing what might be my mother's most detailed dollhouse to date. Click on this sentence to visit the gallery. I've included several shots of the house below:

The Netflix Average Member Rating: Useless

2011-03-26T19:48:00.001+02:00

Is it just me or is it near-impossible for even the worst films to get a poor rating on Netflix?

Some examples, in alphabetical order:

Three New Miniature Galleries

2011-03-20T17:30:00.000+02:00

Click on the images below to view the galleries:

Photo Studio Examples

2011-03-13T20:21:00.000+02:00

I've just put my Panasonic G1 up for sale on Craigslist. It doesn't get much use now that I'm home so I believe now would be a good time to sell.

This is the first time that I'm using the homemade studio to sell an item. I was able to get good-quality shots of the camera with a minimum of set-up effort. All I did was place the camera on a piece of foam and composed my shots. With a little more effort I could have controlled a bit more for detail loss in blown highlights on the camera body surface and cloned-out the foam piece, but for a Craigslist ad, I'm very happy with the results:

The Joy of Netflix Member Reviews

2011-03-12T04:02:00.003+02:00

The Movie:

Member Reviews:

Wild Card (Can You Guess the Name of the Film?):

New Website section: Miniatures

2011-02-11T19:42:00.001+02:00

I've reorganized all the photography of my mother's miniatures and dollhouses under a new category found at KetanGajria.com/Miniatures. Click on the image below to view the collection of galleries or on the second image which links to the newest gallery in this category:

And here, the newest gallery:

New Website

2011-02-02T21:43:00.001+02:00

My photo website is now Ketan Gajria | Photography and has its own domain at KetanGajria.com. I've redesigned the homepage for a more elegant look along with a drop-down menu:

Accordingly, this blog is now "Ketan Gajria | Blog" and is accessible from my photo website's homepage.
The new banners for each site were designed by Scott Wilson Design.

Basement Photo Studio

2011-02-02T21:35:00.002+02:00

My parents have been helping set up a small photo studio in the basement so that I can take pictures of items they want to sell on Ebay. To save money we've used a large cardboard box for the light tent and cheap clip-on lamps from Home Depot. The total cost was probably less than $40. An equivalent set from B&H would run at least $150. Here is the set-up:

So far it seems to work well enough with a bit of Photoshop editing as part of the recipe. Here is a sample shot of the final result:

The Syrian October War Panorama Museum

2010-12-15T21:01:00.003+02:00

During the CASA program my class made a visit to the Syrian October War Panorama (متحف بانوراما حرب تشرين) which is located off the Al-Adawi highway in Damascus.

The building, which houses a museum commemorating the 1973 conflict, is built as a small castle which resembles the rook from chess, a shape which facilitates the housing of its titular exhibit. According to others who have visited, admission to the site usually costs $10 (I'd say it's worth it), but thankfully, the University arranged our trip and so we were allowed in for free.

After passing through the outer gate we were assigned our tour guide. Before entering the museum itself, I had a chance to speak with him and learned that he was Kurdish and that his work here constituted his duty assignment for Syria's compulsory military service. For many Syrians, this wouldn't be so bad as far as assignments go, but I didn't get the chance to ask him if his family was based in Damascus or up north in Kurdish Qamishle (or elswhere) so I don't know if he was serving far from home.

The museum's exterior is dominated by a statue of Syria's previous president, Hafez Al-Asad, as well as giant murals depicting what seems to be Syrian War Minister Yusuf Al-Azmeh's stand against the invading French army at the Battle of Maysalun and secondly, a rather stock illustration of socialist pride where the politician, mother, soldier, and farmer are shown as the pillars of the Syrian society.

Adjacent to these murals is a battery of Syrian and captured Israeli military equipment labeled in Arabic and somewhat poor English.

Upon entering the museum, the visitor is greeted by a selection of large-canvas paintings highlighting various military victories from the region, some events which date back thousands of years, thus tying these successes with the modern state we know as Syria. I personally had come to see these exhibits without any background knowledge of why or how this museum was established, and so my curiosity was aroused when I noticed that the byline of the artist in the corner of each painting was written in characters rather than Arabic or Latin letters. Our guide explained that the museum's raison d'etre is actually to promote and strengthen the political and economic ties between Syria and North Korea. In fact, North Korean artists had painted every work on display.

We continued on to a cinema-room where a patriotic video about the 1973 war was presented featuring Syrian soldiers running around preceded by the national anthem and then accompanied by similarly "stirring" music. After this short film we were directed upstairs to the primary exhibit, an enormous circular diorama which captures a moment in the battle for the Golan Heights where Syrian troops reclaimed their territory for a single hour before being turned back by Israeli forces. As a three-hundred and sixty degree work, visitors are spun around while seated on a central platform in order to view the entire display. The panorama is a mixture of painting combined with military props to provide a three-dimensional effect. We see a Syrian officer raising his Kalashnikov in the air, encouraging his troops to drive forward as ordinance explodes all around him. We see Israeli troops being hit by gunfire, some retreating, some being taken prisoner and with all of their tanks disabled and in flames. While undeniably impressive due to its size, the details of the work are merely competent, and the painting is, overall, serviceable rather than artistic.

The final room we entered was the Hafez Al-Asad exhibit which features informational blurbs on his life and military career (he was the Minister of Defense when he seized power) as well as a portrait of his family.

The dominant work is a wide mural of Hafez Al-Asad standing amongst a crowd of cheering Syrian citizens. Each man, woman, and child in the crowd represents a different region of Syria as identified by his or her traditional dress. We see the people of Deir Azur, Hasaka, Daraa, and other regions all joining together in praise of their leader.

More interesting is the portrait of Hafez Al-Asad with North Korean leader Kim Il-Sung, depicting the two holding hands with arms raised as if appearing before an adoring crowd. It is, in my opinion, along with the Hafez mural, the most obviously North Korean work in the museum. While Hafez Al-Asad in some ways attempted to inject his idolatry around the country with his various statues and portraits, his ubiquity is minor compared to the reverential cult-of-personality we see for Kim Il-Sung in North Korea. In fact, recently, while watching a documentary on North Korea, I noticed that many portraits on display of their Great Leader were painted in the same style as these North Korean paintings at the War Panorama, either indicating prolificacy of this group of artists or perhaps evidence of one of the North Korean styles of painting.

What intrigued me the most about the museum was how North Korean artists had been commissioned to produce Syrian military propaganda. These two countries are not neighbors and have not developed as independent nations in the same geo-political sphere of influence. As such, how exactly were the North Korean artists advised in order to tap into Syrian nationalist images? How were they told to portray the Syrian army? How where they instructed to to portray the "enemy" army?

As for the Al-Asad and Il-Sung portrait, it depicts a meeting that, as far as I know, never took place. I would guess that this work was commissioned as an agreement between each of their sons, Bashar Al-Asad and Kim Jong-Il, both of whom inherited the rule of their countries, and yet the partnership is represented by the two fathers.

Furthermore, I was surprised to learn that instilling Syrian citizens with pride for their military achievements and armed forces (if not the country as a whole) was not the primary purpose for building this museum. Is it not ironic that in what may be Syria's most overtly (and perhaps, superficially) nationalistic museum, all of the contributing artists are non-Syrian?

Egypt Photos re-posted

2010-11-10T17:09:00.000+02:00

Click on the image below to view the gallery:

Jordan Photos re-posted

2010-11-04T18:06:00.000+02:00

My photographs from Jordan have been re-edited and re-posted. Click on the image below to view the galley.

New Galleries: Lots of Links

2010-10-28T17:32:00.000+02:00

I'm still hard at work on my photo website and I have a collection of links to new galleries. The updates listed below are also listed on my photo homepage in the "biography" section. Click on each picture to go to the album:

1) Retrospective gallery of shots from Massachusetts, 2005-2006:

2) Maryland, DC, and North Carolina (updated album):

3) India: Lucknow, Bombay, and Kerala (new album):

4) New dollhouse albums. My mother has me hard at work cataloguing her projects, so this section has a few new albums and will continue to expand:

Three Albums Posted

2010-10-19T22:56:00.001+02:00

I've re-edited and updated my album of Hong Kong shots from 2008. Click the image below to view the album:

Secondly, I have an entirely new album dedicated to one of my mothers' miniature projects which is being posted under a new "Dollhouses" subcategory on my site. Click on the image below to view:

Finally, I've made a new gallery for all the snapshots I take which don't fit into a larger gallery. I hope to update whenever I go out taking [random] pictures:

Diwali in Syria album posted

2010-10-04T16:29:00.000+02:00

I have posted a few shots from last year's Diwali celebrations in an album on the "Personal" section of my website. Click here to view the album.

New Photo Album

2010-10-01T17:22:00.004+02:00

I have a new temporary album of MENA region photos up on my site, click here to go to the album:

I also have a recent snapshot:

My Article on Syria

2010-09-30T21:37:00.002+02:00

Click here to view the article online.

Click on the image below to view or download the full-size scan:

More examples of Re-editing

2010-09-28T17:18:00.001+02:00

Below I've added a few more demonstrations of how the ability to judge accurate color and brightness on your monitor is invaluable for editing. I will shortly re-post my photo essay on Moharram in Lucknow and it will feature re-edits of all the shots which were done on my new system (the old versions were done on my laptop while I was in Syria). Here is a preview which shows, first, the original picture, followed by the re-edited version. Note that Blogger doesn't seem to render thumbnails with 100% accuracy so be sure to click on the photos to get a better idea of how they look. After that I have a new shot that I found in my "archives" of the Omayyad Mosque's outer wall.

UPDATE:

My re-edited gallery has been posted here.

Original:

Re-Edit:

Original:

Re-Edit:

Original:

Re-Edit:

Original:

Re-Edit:

Original:

Re-Edit:

The Omayyad Mosque Outer Wall:

A Walk in the Woods

2010-09-14T00:41:00.001+02:00

Here are some snaps from a recent walk in the woods at the Nelson Memorial Forest in Marshfield, MA:


The starting point of the trail.

Looking up.

One of the trails I took.

This of course caught my eye.

Termites eating away an old tree.

Recent Snaps

2010-08-27T03:59:00.001+02:00

We dropped off my brother at Hamilton College!

All taken with a Canon S90 pocket camera:

Current Project

2010-07-28T00:44:00.022+02:00

I am currently in the process of going through my two-year back log of photos from Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Morocco, the UAE, Iraq, the United States, India, Italy, and France in order to produce finalized, archival edits of my work.

I am sure that this effort will continue through the end of this year, but it is my goal to post all of my work on a revamped website early next year. Below I'll show you a few before and after comparisons of edits I had done previously on my laptop as compared with my new, finalized edits. Some of the differences are more obvious than others.

Old edit:

New Edits:

Old Edit:

New Edit:

Old Edit:

New Edit:

Old Edit:

New Edit:

I Hated “I Hate Luv Storys”

2010-07-17T00:22:00.004+02:00

Punit Malhotra's "I Hate Luv Storys" is a star-vehicle which attempts to cement the dubious star-status of its principle actor, the ever un-engaging Imran Khan, and is designed to do so right down to its painfully "cool" misspelling of half of the film's title and the fact that its titular dance move is literally using ones' fingers to make quotation marks in the air. While being calculating is objectionable, the film's hollow artificiality is unforgiveable.

The film's "story," if it can be called that, revolves around Khan's character Jay (NOT "Jai"), a young 20-something man who works as an assistant to top Bollywood director Veer (Samir Soni), a Karan Johar doppelganger who directs--yes, you guessed it—love stories. It is then through work that he meets the beautiful Simran (Sonam Kapoor), who would be the perfect match for Jay if only he believed in love. Will they ever make it together?

It is no exaggeration to say that the film's plot is wrapped up by the 40-minute mark. I honestly thought there wasn't going to be an intermission, and others in the audience murmured similar sentiments ("wow, I can't believe this is so short!") before watching, in agony, as the film limped along for another two hours in search of some type of conflict for its characters to face. And by the way no, it never finds one. Most films of this genre are inflated to some degree, but is it too much to ask for that inflation to be somewhat convincing? "I Hate Luv Storys" doesn't even try.

If you've paid any attention to the previews for the film, the movie tries to set itself apart by offering to parody numerous Bollywood super-hits from the last 15 years stretching back to 1995's Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. Unfortunately "I Hate Luv Storys" never actually parodies any of these films. Instead it takes a page from the Jason Friedberg/Aaron Seltzer filmmaking manual and at most re-enacts moments from them. For others, an actor simply recites the film's title in his dialogue after which the camera cuts to Imran Khan who has a disgusted look on his face. Hilarious!

In truth, the film isn't out to parody these films at all. Instead, they are constantly referred to by various members of the cast as if they are classics ("you know this film, DON'T YOU??"). As such, it comes as little surprise that almost every single film referenced is connected to Karan Johar. For some, like DDLJ (which Mr. Johar worked on), such references are permissible. Others, like Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna, are just head-scratching. This onslaught of smug self-promotion reveals the film for what it really is: a star-vehicle for Karan Johar's ego.

Anyone who keeps track of the films from Mr. Johar's Dharma Productions will find little that surprises them in this revelation. Mr. Johar makes devoted efforts within his own films to reference his other works despite a lack of thematic justification. It becomes clear in this film that he wants other directors working for him to do the same, to create the Karan Johar brand, or at least the illusion that all his films are undying classics. Who knows, he may just succeed, although he won't have earned it.

Despite presenting a protagonist who claims to be unmoved by love-story plots, the film, as expected, goes on to break all its own rules and indulge in all the clichés it claims to reject. That would be fine if the film all of a sudden became charming or fun-to-watch. Instead, it recycles all the standard formulas, but half-heartedly so, and drains them of all the joy and infectious love that Bollywood at times invokes and inspires. Its tuneless soundtrack and drained of charisma acting (with the exception of Soni, who seems to be having fun) don't help. The end result is a film that admits its content is shit, then dares you to watch.

"I Hate Luv Storys" makes a predictable, although objectionable decision to regurgitate the standard masala film for a new generation, or at the very least, for a new year. Unfortunately, it turns out to be a weak imitator stained with self-congratulatory undertones. In this way the film is worse than a liar: it's a poser.

The "I Hate Luv Stories" theatrical trailer:

Valley of the Wolves Iraq: Paradoxes on a Kurdish Bus

2010-06-12T20:04:00.000+02:00

As part of my Syria-wide trip with Mike we visited the ever popular Palmyra, known as Tadmur in Arabic. Taking a bus to Tadmur requires that you go to a bus station named Pullman and choose between the many different bus companies that have a route to the city. While I sometimes choose a known company whom I've ridden with before, this time we tried taking the earliest bus available, or perhaps more accurately, just went with the company whose representative screamed at us the loudest when we entered the station.

When I entered the company's little office booth to purchase tickets, I noticed that all the employees were speaking Kurdish, which isn't too surprising since certain groups with minority affiliations in Syria will often hire their own people. We boarded the bus, which left 30 minutes late, and were on the road to Tadmur. Since the trip takes about three hours, it is common for the bus staff to screen a DVD for the duration of the journey. I was somewhat surprised then when they film turned out to be 2006's Kurtlar Vadisi: Irak, an infamous Turkish film whose title translates to "Valley of the Wolves: Iraq."

It is impossible for me to explain further without giving my opinion on the film, which to date is the largest Turkish film ever made, and also one of its most successful. Most western descriptions of the film tend to include the phrase "Anti-American" and sure enough it did do harm to the careers of American actors Billy Zane and Gary Busey who play some of the films villains, not that they were doing so well before the film of course, and it must be noted that as per trend in Turkey all of their lines were dubbed into Turkish. Respected Syrian actor Ghassan Massoud's involvement in the film is similarly unfortunate.

I'll leave a summary of the film to Wikipedia, which is a must read, but in short Valley of the Wolves: Iraq is indeed a strange work of full of cartoonishly racist portrayals of Americans and Jews along with laughable doses of extreme Turkish nationalism. Those who are familiar with my political leanings know that I am a passionate critic of U.S. and Israeli foreign policy, but I do differentiate between insightful criticism and dumb racism. The director for this film claims that about 60-70% of the events depicted actually happened. While I don't deny that the inspiration for many of the scenes are actual war crimes which deserve to be investigated, in the film they are simply exploited as an excuse to mount ridiculous scenes which don't indicate any interest on the part of the filmmakers to get to the bottom of what the United States has done in Iraq. Instead these events are weaved together to make it seem like one man, a General named (Uncle?) "Sam" is behind all the killings, which would be threatening if he weren't played so non-threateningly by a scarf and tourist-hat clad Billy Zane.

His minions, supposedly U.S. soldiers, are all dressed like body builders of ambiguous ethnicity and sport pony-tails, again serving to make the film's villains anything but frightening. Moreover, the film's complete disinterest in shedding light on any of these events (to show what really happened) only encourages the serious viewer to disregard its criticism. One could also say that the film's portrayal of Americans is about as bad as the portrayal of Arab Muslims in Hollywood, which is to say, inexcusably poor. Perhaps the film's biggest sin though is that in the end, it's actually quite boring and made with little or no skill or talent, and its ineptness makes it hard to take any of its racism too seriously.

What interested me most was that this film was being screened, by choice, on a Kurdish-run bus. A large number of the films racist portrayals are reserved for Kurds, and the director, quite unnecessarily in the context of the story, goes out of his way on numerous occasions to depict them as short, dumb, grisly, blood-thirsty goons who make the perfect cannon fodder for the film's straight-shooting Turkish heroes. The fact that one of the main heroes is a Kurdish character appears to be little more than a token inclusion to divert charges of bias, but any thinking viewer can easily see that the film wants to lump Kurds together with the Americans and the Jews as responsible for the negative events in the film. One of the film's early scenes shows the Turkish heroes slaughtering a number of Kurdish soldiers at the Turkey-Iraq border in the mountains of northern Iraq after the soldiers request that the Turks show them their passports in order to enter the country. Is the inclusion of the scene a statement that the Kurds will never control a country or even part of a country next to Turkey (how dare they ask the Turkish secret agents for their passports!), or simply an opportunity to blast away some Kurdish villains? Either way, it doesn't look too good, and I was wondering why on earth these Kurdish employees wanted to screen a film that portrayed their people as evil brutes. However, in the version of the film they screened, the Turkish heroes exit their vehicle (in order to kill the Kurdish soldiers) just before the scene is cut and following which the film skips to the scene where American soldiers massacre attendees of an Iraqi wedding party. What? I couldn't believe what I was watching. Apparently those running the bus service had no problem showing a film which is widely acknowledged to be anti-Kurd on the condition that the scenes that most directly express this racism are censored. Could they not have just chosen another film? One would think so since the Valley of the Wolves: Iraq is now four years old and certainly not as popular as when it first was released.

That being said, I want to reiterate that the film's biggest flaw is that it just isn't that good, and a rather talky and dull over two hours. In fact, the first time I tried to watch it, I fell asleep just thirty minutes in, this from a viewer who was able to stay awake for all of Gus Van Zant's torturous "Gerry." Apparently the bus staff agreed with this assessment, because one hour into the film they ejected the DVD and started playing episodes of a popular Syrian television serial, this after a majority of the bus' passengers had dozed off. Whatever message you think this film wants to convey, it won't able to do it successfully if it puts its audience to sleep.

With Director Mohamad Malas

2010-06-05T16:37:00.001+02:00

At the beginning of the year, one of my former professors requested that I do my best to find her copies of some award-winning Syrian films that weren't available in the U.S. She was particularly interested in two films of the Syrian director Mohamad Malas which had be recognized internationally at film festivals. These films are Al-Leil (The Night) and Ahlam El Madina (Dreams of the City):

I visited the largest market in Damascus for DVDs and was unable to find these films. A Damascene resident is able to find virtually any American film on DVD even just days after its release overseas, but isn't able to find some of the most highly regarded Syrian films even though they were produced in his own country. The irony is stinging.

Initially deterred, I mentioned this to one of my former teachers at the IFPO Institute who sometimes hosts screenings of Syrian films for the students in the hope that he might have a copy of these films on DVD. I was then somewhat surprised when he answered my description with the question:

"Well, would you like the director's phone number?"

Both men know each other, and I was able to get in touch with the director just before my parents came to visit Syria on their vacation, meaning that my initial meeting with him was not until after my spring break.

I met Mr. Malas in his home in Damascus, and we had a nice conversation about film and our artistic tastes. I was surprised however when he asked me if I liked to write. I told him that I did and that I maintained a blog, although I was unsure of what he was getting at. As it turned out, in addition to getting copies of his films Mr. Malas and I arranged for me to do a new English translation of an Arabic script he was working on for an upcoming film. Due to my program commitments, my internship, and a post-graduation visit from one of my friends, I was unable to devote much time to it immediately, but yesterday I finished my draft and delivered it to Mr. Malas.

This was the first time I had done a polished translation of a serious work and it certainly was a rewarding experience. Although it remains to be seen if there will be future collaboration (it depends on the going-forward of the project), I feel quite proud to be able to say that I have translated a Syrian film script less than six years after beginning my study of the Arabic language.

Last Hurrahs

2010-06-05T16:23:00.002+02:00

My final trips in Syria were undertaken with the visit of my friend Mike Turner whom I met during my SIT studies in Jordan, and who has appeared on this blog more than once before.

Our first excursion was a two-day trip where we were joined by my friend Reed from the program along with Wael, and which took us from Damascus to Lattakia, a city on Syria's coast which is surrounded by a few, very green, mountain ranges. It is also home to Syria's Allawite community which has produced Syria's last two presidents. We visited two mountains nearby, first Jabal Al-Arbaeen and the secondly Jabal Beni Hashem, both of which are the site of Maqaams, or small sites dedicated to specific religious figures:

From outside the Maqam atop Jabal Al-Arbaeen. Note that pieces of cloth have been tied to the tree, which is a common practice at Maqaams (people often will tie something belonging to a sick relative to a tree or a decoration inside the Maqaam in hopes it will lead to the return of their health).

From the mountain facing Jabal Al-Arbaeen where we found an abandoned castle (not shown).

From atop Jabal Beni Hashem which overlooks the Ghab (see below).

A panorama of the Ghab valley from atop Jabal Beni Hashem.

Me taking that last picture above.

A doorway near the maqaam at Beni Hashem.

Caterpillar near the maqaams at Beni Hashem.

After seeing the mountains we descended towards the Masqita Lake where we had lunch on the water bank:

At the end of the day we returned back to Lattakia to see the sunset on the beach:

The following day we visited the resort area of Mashta Al-Helu set in the mountains near Krak de Chevalier and Homs. We visited a church in the mountains and also an incredible underground cave which was used somewhat recently as the setting for a George Wasouf music video (he is a Syrian singer and from Mashta Al-Helu):

With Mike I also visited Aleppo and Palmyra:

And here on our last night in Damascus we ate out at the Al-Khawali Restaurant in the Old City:

Below I also have a few images of the class from our graduation day (group pictures) and final dinner:

And finally, the photo I gave to Hani of me, him, and Bajj:

Goodbye, Syria!

A Photo

2010-05-08T19:28:00.000+02:00

We still get electrical cuts here in Damascus, and I snapped this yesterday during such an outage. Here Hani and Wael are passing the time waiting for the lights to come back on:

Style Over Content

2010-05-01T20:35:00.001+02:00

Last week when meeting my friend Ahmad at a café in the Old City, a waiter there, who knows me, came up to us and asked for help translating a poem. He had found, in Arabic, a free verse poem which he wanted to send to a special lady. I set about translating it line by line, although adhering only loosely to some of the meanings since literal translation would forfeit the meaning; we express the same ideas differently in English. When I finished, the waiter appeared very grateful. However, since I was translating poetry, many of the words and structures in the English version turned out to be rather literary, meaning that an Arab who hasn’t studied the language might not understand their meaning. As such, Ahmad asked the waiter if the recipient knew any English, noting that the poem was about as challenging in English as it was in Arabic. He replied saying that this wasn’t a problem; the recipient didn’t understand English at all.

While there is undeniably a certain admiration, or at least respect amongst the younger generation for those who have a lot of knowledge of English, to me this seemed a little overboard. The whole point of this poem was to impart a certain meaning to this girl, that she was lovely, kind, had a great smile, et cetera. However, all of the descriptions in the Arabic poem, which would have imparted a great compliment, are to be traded for the sake of merely writing words in English, understandable or, as in this case, not. Apparently, that the poem’s author was able to output this much English is much more attractive than the actual meaning of the poem, however beautiful and heartfelt it was.

Spring Cleaning, Bajj Cleaning

2010-05-01T14:48:00.003+02:00

Hani and I caved and finally got a few friends to help us clean the house. A big thanks to Ali, Hussein, and Khalid:

As an aside, during the cleaning, I spotted two of my neighbors working on an old Opel, and liked the image, so I took it:

Finally, no house cleaning would be complete without cleaning Bajj, so we gave him a bath and it was pretty disgusting how much dirt came off. Bajj is also mortified of water, and when he saw the running tap he dug his claws into me in hopes I'd take him away. Instead I have new Bajj injuries. Here are some pictures:

Photo Competition Winner

2010-04-29T15:17:00.006+02:00

Recently the Canon Photo Company's Middle East division held a photo competition entitled "Celebrating My City" for photographer residing in the Middle East. While the theme of the competition wasn't explcitly described on their website, the general idea was that the photographer could submit one image from the country he resides in, then at the end of the competition judges based in Dubai (some photographers themselves, others photo editors for the press) would pick one winner from each country. I am happy to report that my photo, "The Aleppo Souq," was chosen as the first-prize winner for Syria (click for a larger version):

The contest's homepage can be found here.

The judges' biographies can be found here.

And finally, the all of the winners can be found here.

My win was also posted on the Syria Comment blog where my picture first appeared last year.

واجب بيتي من برنامج كاسا: عرض كتاب

2010-04-24T22:31:00.002+02:00

حين طلبَت منّي هذه الجريدةُ أن أكتب نقداً لمجموعة قصص جديدة للشخصية المحبوبة "ويني دا فو" يجب عليّ أن أعترف ولو كان الأمر مُحرِجاً بأنّني لم أعرف آنذاك من هو هذا الدبّ الصغير الذي نال مكانة مرموقة في قلوب ملايين من الأطفال الأمريكيين مع أنّه في وسعي أن أقول الآن بكل الصراحة إنّ هذا العشق للشخصية لا يُثير إلا الاستفهام الاستنكاريّ بل وإنّه يدلّ على إصابة شعبنا بمرض نفسيّ مستعصٍ.
لا شكّ في أنّ أغلبية قرّاء هذه الجريدة يتمتّعون بخلفية واسعة حول قصص ويني دا فو التي سجّلت إقبالاً ضخماً من المعجبين بها عبر أكثر من ثمانين سنة. ومع ذلك قبل أن أبدأ التنديد بهذه القصص المثيرة للاشمئزاز دعوني أراجع تاريخها "المميّز". صدرت الطبعة الأولى للمجموعة الأولى التي عنوانها هو اسم الشخصية عامَ ألف وتسعمئة وستّة وعشرين للمؤلّف أو بالأحرى صاحب بيت الدعارة "أي. أر. ميلن". وعلى الرغم من شهرة هذه الحكايات فيتمثّل فيها خطرٌ مطّردٌ بل وإنّها تتوخى تدمير أركان الأخلاق والقيم الأمريكية المقدسّة التي يتمسّك بها مجتمعُنا الكريم. وهو أكثر من مفاجئ أنّ عائلات وطنِنا المحترم لا تجد غضاضةً في رواية هذه القصص أمام أطفالها ليلةً بعد ليلةٍ. وما أن فتحتُ المجموعات السابقة لهذه الشخصية اللوطية حتى أدركتُ أنّها لا تسبح بين قطبي الفضائح والشذوذ الجنسيّ فحسب وإنّما ترمي إلى تسويغ وتفخيم هذه التصرّفات. ونرى خير مثال على ذلك في قصة كانغا الكنغرة التي تؤدّي دور الأم العازبة والتي لا تظهر أمام الشخصيات الأخرى إلا سعيدةً على الرغم من أنّها ليس لديها كنغر. إن تبنّينا كانغا كقدوة فسوف ينقرضُ مفهومُ العائلة وكأنّه الديناصور. وفوق ذلك حين تصل شخصيةُ تيغر إلى غابة "الأَيكِر الميئة" لم تلبث كانغا حتى رحّبَتْ بتيغر ويقومان بالمساكنة غير الشرعية فضلاً عن كونهما كنوعين مختلفين ألا وهما الكنغر والنمر. ويجري ذلك أمام طفل كنغا الذي لا يستطيع في عمره الصغير استيعاب التغيرات الصادمة داخل البيت. ماذا يحدث وراء باب مقفول في الغابة؟ لسنا ندري ولكن دعوني أستفرغ. وتتكرّر هذه الأشياء طول الكتاب ولذلك هل هو في وسعنا أن نفسِّر هذه الأحداث غير أنّها مبرّر للجرائم الاجتماعية؟ أستبعد ذلك. وبالإضافة إلى ذلك يكتب ميلن في هذه المجموعات وكأنّه لم يتخرّج من المدرسة الثانوية. وهو غير مفاجئ أنّ اسم الشخصية الرئيسية مرادفٌ باللغة الإنكليزية للخراء, أي لا يساوي كلام ميلن ثمن الحبر الذي كُتِبَ به.أمّا هذه المجموعة الجديدة "الرجوع إلى غابة الأَيكِر الميئة" لدار النشر الأمريكية "الأكتع للكتب" فتتضمّن عشر حكايات جديدة وكافتها إباحية. وبعناوين من ضمنها "فو يبحث عن العسل" (ليس بلا معنى) قرّرتُ ألا أقرأها كي أحمي نفسيّ من التعرّض لرسائلها الواضحة الشريرة. وإن رغبتَ في معرفة معلومات إضافية عن هذه المجموعة الجديدة فلا عليك إلا أن تقصد التلفاز في منزلك وتشاهد سلسة من الأفلام "الثقافية" لأنّها دون ريب تعكس العالم المحتقر الذي تصوّره هذه القصص. كيتن كاجريا

A Challenge

2010-04-23T19:43:00.002+02:00

Can you spot who is making the absolute CRAZIEST pose in this photograph from a recent BBQ at Ahmad's farm?

Reed makes the BEST crazy poses.

The Family Visits Syria and Updates to Old Posts

2010-04-02T14:38:00.069+02:00

My mother, father, and brother joined me in Syria for a 10-day tour of pretty much the entire country. We rented a car and went on the road almost non-stop, visiting, along with Damascus, Tadmur (Palmyra), Qalat Al-Hosn (Krak de Chevaliers), Hama, The Ghab, Afamia, Halab (Aleppo), Qalat Sam'aan, one of the Dead Cities, Rasafa, Qalat Ja'bar, Daraa, Bosra, and Ahmad's village, Bait Sawa. The pages to the destinations with names underlined above have been updated with new photos and/or had some old photos replaced with new edits. Below I have also written up a few mini-posts on Hama, Qalat Sam'aan, Rasafa, and Daraa which were new visits for me on this trip. It was also my first time to eat dinner on top of the Qasyoun Mountain which overlooks Damascus. I have also added a few photos from Bait Sawa and on a separate page I have a new blog post on something interesting which I ran into at Qalat Al-Hosn.

My father also took hundreds upon hundreds of pictures on the trip (the frequency with which he took photos devolved into self-parody) and his album of handpicked favorites has been put up here. Many of the photos I took will only be found as part of my father's album since uploading here in Syria takes such a long time, so do take a look.

Part 1: Click Here.
Part 2: Click Here.

1. Hama:
Located between Homs and Aleppo, Hama is one of Syria's larger cities although it has less to offer than Damascus or Aleppo. It is best known to tourists as the home of a set of ancient water wheels attached to aqueducts. My father's photo album has plenty of pictures of these wheels, but I have included the one photo I took of them here:

2. Aleppo:

Mom and Dad getting their shoes shined by the Boyaji outside the Aleppo Citadel. Boyaji is actually a Turkish word, meaning the one who works with the "Boya," or shoe polish, and as it turned out this Boyaji was actually from Turkey, and said he had come to Syria because there were no opportunities in Ankara, where he was from. I told him that I had loved my visit to Attaturk's tomb there when I went. It is unusual for Syrian women to get their shoes shined by these men (I have personally never seen it) and sure enough this attracted some attention, but perhaps it was good because my mom made friends with the Syrians who came over to watch.

The entrance to the Aleppo Citadel:

The throne room's ceiling:

3. Qalat Sam'aan:
Located less than an hour from Aleppo, these ruins are the remains of the place where Saint Simeon, a monk from the 5^th century AD, spent 37 years as a hermit. More information can be found on the Wikipedia page for the site. This site and the Dead City Jerada below are on a tentative list for UNESCO's World Heritage sites.

4. Jerada, one of Syria's Forgotten, or Dead Cities: This Byzantine city is located not far from Aleppo in the middle of a modern village where inhabitants have built houses adjacent to the ruins.

5. Rasafa: Originally a military camp built by the Assyrians, this city dates as far back as the 9^th century BC. Wow. It is amazingly complete for its age. More information on its Wikipedia page.

6. Daraa:
This is the hometown of my friend Wael. The Bosra ruins are located within the larger Daraa governate. Here we met Wael's uncle who took us to lunch and then showed us his home. Daraa is also home to one of Syria's old train stations. See my father's album for more pictures.

7. Bait Sawa:
No trip to Syria would be complete without visiting Ahmad's home town.

This picture above was taken with the following set-up below, it's my smallest camera that I use regularly and is very easy to transport with it's tripod:

8. Damascus and Jabal Qasyoun:
Again most pictures can be found in my father's album, but I've put a few here from when we had dinner on top of the mountain with Wael (I also have a picture of the view from the top), along with a few from Damascus all of which are labeled below. First is a video that I took at the Omayyad Mosque which is a site on the pilgrimage to Syria which is undertaken by Iranian Shias in the hundreds each day. This is from the room outside the tomb where it is thought that the head of the Imam Hussein is buried. It is common for the Iranians to sing dirges here, and I recorded part of this hymn because in general the Iranians who sing these (in Farsi) have the most beautiful voices which are filled with emotion. You can hear him say Hussein's name and see the audience's reaction.

These below are from a restaurant we ate at which is located atop the Qasyoun Mountain whose peak overlooks Damascus:

The first here is a picture I took from the same night of the view. The second is an initial panorama I did later (late April) from a nearby spot. I will eventually go back with my best equipment and reshoot the same panorama on a clear night.

A second picture from the peak, this of the far off lights of Omayyad Square:

From the Al-Khawali Restaurant in the Old City:

Wael's family invited us all to dinner at their house and the women prepared an incredible, enormous feast:

My brother at the Omayyad Mosque:

Shopping for sweets at my favorite place in Al-Midan:

Out to dinner with Hani, Ahmad, Wael, Khalid, and Roula on my family's last night:

On a separate note I have also updated the page to the Indian Cultural Festival which was held last month with more pictures of the performances.

Return to Qalat Al-Hosn

2010-04-02T14:38:00.020+02:00

Qalat Al-Hosn, better known outside of Syria as Krak de Chevaliers, is perhaps Syria's most impressive tourist site. There are few, if any other Crusader castles in the world that are as complete as Al-Hosn, which is located on a mountain near Homs in an area of pristine natural beauty. My mother believes that her father visited this castle some time during his youth as an explorer of sorts, although it is hard to figure out how he found his way there or made his way up the hill, a visit will dispel any doubts you have about why this castle was never successfully conquered by a foe. You can see a post from my first visit to the site (almost two years ago) here.

On my family's trip we approached the castle in a rented car, and I was able to capture a 2-minute video of the drive up to the gate:

Once there, we spent a few hours exploring the large complex. It was a very windy day but we all enjoyed it.

However, it surprised me to find that one of the large halls had been taken over by some new construction. I walked in to find the following sights:

Upon inquiring I found that this was the work of a Syrian film crew which was doing production work on a Musalsal, or Syrian television mini-series which will be called "Cleopatra." You can judge the appropriateness of using a Syrian Crusader Castle located atop rolling, green mountains as a stand-in for ancient Egypt. This sort of activity is a common site in Damascus' Old City, but is the first time I had seen such a display outside of the capital.

A Second Look at Indiana Jones

2010-03-27T21:34:00.005+02:00

The George Lucas-Steven Spielberg collaboration on the Indiana Jones films marks one of the most enduring movie franchises in memory. Blessed with charismatic acting, witty dialogue, and of course fantastic stunt-work, much of the original trilogy still seems fresh twenty years after the release of "Raiders of the Lost Ark." I count myself, without a doubt, as a fan of the Indiana Jones character and the series in general, with my personal favorites being "Raiders" and "The Last Crusade."

That being said, these blockbusters show their age in regards to their treatment of minority characters and it is impossible to ignore the extent to which all three films cash in on racist stereotypes of Arabs and Indians, who are often depicted as backwards or savages (with the exception of "Good German" characters such as Sallah played by the non-Arab John Rhys-Davies). These contemptuous and frequently orientalist depictions are further accompanied by undertones of paternalistic colonialism, which are most apparent in the trilogy's middle chapter, The Temple of Doom, where Jones takes up the white man's burden to free enslaved brown children living in a barbaric society. The film's climax, wherein British army officers leading sepoy conscripts drop in at just the right moment to beat back the cruel natives and save the day, seems like it could have been written by Rudyard Kipling himself. Of course in addition to that, there are no doubt many Germans who have tired of the somewhat lazy tactic in which Hollywood continually falls back on Nazis as the easy villains. These days Arabs have taken their place in mainstream films (look no further than Peter Berg's "The Kingdom" for a textbook example of cardboard cut-out villains along with the requisite "Good German" Arab), but for the Indiana Jones series they were relegated to the secondary role of frequent Nazi collaborators.

Of course, when one sits down and watches the Indian Jones films, one can for the most part enjoy the overall experience, and this is what I set out to do last week when the MBC Action channel decided to show the entire trilogy over three consecutive evenings. The MBC channels, of which there are several, are notorious for their selective censorship whose implementation reflects some of the values of the American MPAA board, only in the extreme. To take an example from the Indiana Jones trilogy where not a single frame was cut from the innumerable scenes of people being mowed down by machine-gun fire, having their heads sliced-off by saws, or having their hearts extracted from their chests by a man's bare hands, nor were any of the racist depictions of Arabs censored. However, every single kiss was excised in its entirety despite the absence of any nudity. I had expected as much, but what disturbed me was a second type of censorship which I had not expected at all.

In the trilogy's final chapter, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Indy arrives at a cave wherein lies the Cup of Christ, and is forced by the Nazis to retrieve it. In order to reach the chalice, Jones completes three sets of challenges inspired by Judeo-Christian concepts including penitence, religious knowledge, and belief. In the uncut version of the film, we see Jones avoid being decapitated by a sword by kneeling down at the right moment ("the penitent man kneels before God") and crossing a bridge made up of stones with different letters by stepping on the ones that spell the Hebrew name of God, "Jehovah." However, in the MBC version, both scenes are truncated and only the violent or action-oriented moments remain; all the exposition is cut and the viewer is left to wonder how the hell Indy figured out all the puzzles. Why were these scenes cut?

Unfortunately, there seem to be no explanation other than that MBC found it offensive to broadcast dialogue that dealt with the beliefs of Jews and Christians, even within the entertainment-orientated and frankly not-very-serious context of the Indian Jones films which use this subject matter as a crutch in order to craft an engaging storyline. This type of practice is perhaps none-too-surprising as MBC is a television station of Saudi Arabian ownership. Gulf countries, in addition to owning the television channels, have bought up the newspapers that were once Lebanese-owned and the film studios that were once Egyptian and tend to broadcast content that reflects Gulf interests. That the Hebrews had their own name for God is apparently antithetical to these interests. What is ridiculous though is that Indiana Jones can hardly be considered a threat to the beliefs of a Muslim audience in the Middle East. Harrison Ford's performance in the films is charismatic, but I wouldn't say it is enough to draw Muslim viewers away from their religious path. Furthermore, who considers the recognition of the existence of other beliefs a threat to one's own religion? It is again in Saudi Arabia where the building of Churches, Temples, and any other non-Islamic house of worship is forbidden.

Returning to the subject of the films, this type of censorship has no religious basis and moreover it does little except contribute to the image of the Gulf big-wigs as peddlers of an alternate reality confined to a narrow set of values which they seek to broadcast across the region.

A Festival of Indian Culture

2010-03-12T19:53:00.006+02:00

The Indian Embassy recently just put on a mini-cultural festival which was held for five days or so at the Sheraton Hotel in Damascus. First of all, a big thank-you goes to my friend Gangadhar at the Embassy who helped put the show together and gave me an official invitation, and even allowed me to bring my friends from the CASA program as well as my Syrian friends Hani and Wael.

The festival included the modeling of Indian clothing (strangely worn not only by Syrian models, which was to be expected, but also by a girl who was clearly from Russia, not sure why she was there), live music with a dance troupe, and of course lots of delicious foods and sweets along with an open bar. As for this food, I wouldn't call it Indian really since it was all types of heavy meats, not really put in a sauce or anything, just meats, although the chicken was cooked tandoori style. Either way it tasted good. The sweets were also pretty standard French-ish fare. Standard and delicious.

While we were there, my friend Wael commented that the attendees represented the top Syrian elite and I suppose they may have found some of the extremely loud, not so refined music somewhat foreign. The Embassy brought two singers, one was a Punjabi Sikh who apparently writes his own music, although he only sang covers, including "Jai Ho" twice because apparently he thought the Syrians might know it. The other was a woman whose rendition of "Aaja Nachle" is probably worse than mine if I were to sing it in the shower.

Both were completely tone-deaf but that didn't seem to bother the small Indian community that attended the event because they started their own dance circle on one of the corners of the stage. Most of the Syrians either left or looked on bemused as the music played on and on. I personally had a great time. There is a video taken on a cellphone of me dancing to all of this, but I haven't gotten my hands on it yet.

Even though the music was sort of awful, the dance team was AMAZING. Not so much in their technical dancing skills, which were ok, but whoever designed their costumes is my hero. Yes, the clothes looked like they were made five minutes before the performers went on stage, but they were gaudy in a perplexingly awesome way. One of my friends put it best when he said to me, "Those outfits SHOULD be really gay, but for some reason when they wear it, there is no way it could be any straighter."

I also have a video of one of the outfits below. Note that my cousin can be seen in the first frame on the left:

Even more amazing than this was their next outfit, which I haven't yet obtained a video of, which was the men wearing tight black pants and SKIN-TIGHT pink shirts with a plunging neckline that showed more cleavage than anything any of the women in the hall wore that night. Again, it was so amazing that for some reason it wasn't gay. One of my friends got drunk and decided that, more than anything, he wanted one of these pink shirts. Since he wanted to forward his request to the dance group in an Indian language (apparently this would improve his chances) and because he didn't know anyone else at the party, I was undeservingly given the responsiblity of teaching him the phrase to do this. As we know my Hindi is pretty much non-existent, but I told my friend, whose name is Jamie, to say:

"Mera naamm Jamie hai, gulabi kameez chahi ye!"

They understood, but refused to give him the shirt. One guy simply replied "No, finished!" The second guy began having a conversation with him in Hindi, none of which Jamie understood.

One of the best performances that night was when they took the Hisham Abbas song Nari Narain and performed their own dance to it. This song is of course, great, and the video below is a must-see. Abbas is an Egyptian singer and this song and video were a response to the popularity of Bollywood in Egypt. You don't need to know Arabic or Hindi to understand (both are in the song), essentially he is talking about how hot this girl he saw is:

Yaraana

2010-03-12T01:50:00.003+02:00

I honestly believe that the first 15 minutes of Yaraana (1995) through the first song constitute an accidental surrealist masterpiece. The manequin scene alone is full of juicy, unintended subtext. That being said, the rest of the movie is kind of lame, with the exception perhaps of the final dance scene, which, like the first part of the film, if viewed out of context is a stange experience indeed.

Yaraana does however provide one additional pleasure, or to be more precise, the ever-unreliable Eagle DVD Entertainment provides it, and it's one of the more head-scratching subtitle translations I've seen this year:

India: Bombay

2010-03-10T16:35:00.021+02:00

My final post on my India trip covers Bombay, where I stayed on either end our Kerala visit. The following pictures depict my visits to a few tourist sites in the area, a few excursions where I went out with family and friends, a trip to a jewelry market and workshop, and also the day when I met up with fellow Tufts friend and graduate Veda who is currently living in India.

As for the jewelry market, it is an area known as the Zaveri, or jeweler’s Bazaar. The workshop we visited is run by our family’s go-to man for these trinkets. The workers are primarily Bengalis, who are known for their skill in jewelry-making. Since there are so many of them working at the Bazaar, they have formed a local association for Bengalis, which we visited as well. It provides them with some services that they certainly miss (most have come from Calcutta) which include a library with Bengali books, and a doctor is provided for the workers as well.

Here are the pictures:

My nephew, Keshav with my cousins.

The stairs at my uncle's apartment in Kandivali, a suburb of Bombay.

Across the street from Regal Cinemas.

The Gateway of India.

My brother inside the newly-renovated Taj, opening a year after the attacks.

The reception at the Taj.

My brother and I at Delhi Durbar. Great food!

A rickshaw ad for the hit-film "3 Idiots."

The Jewish Synagogue in the Kala Ghora area.

A parking lot attendant in the Kala Ghora area near the Rhythm House.

My own gym.

An ad for MNIK at the InOrbit Mall in Andheri West.

Eating lunch in Andheri West with friends and family.

Again out to lunch at Chetana's next to the Rhythm House.

The new Bandra-Worli sea-link bridge.

A restaurant we visited on the way to Zaveri Bazaar.

The Jeweler's workshop.

Veda and I visited this theater which had an outdoor cafe.

Veda and I again met at the High Point Restaurant in the Lokhandwalla Market.

My uncle relaxing outside his apartment in Kandivali.

The end!

Qalat Ja'bar

2010-03-10T01:10:00.009+02:00

I awake to see the headlights of an oncoming car bobbing up and down through the windshield of our coach. There are no hills in the area and the road is smooth; the problem is with our bus which is bouncing forward and back, its weight shifting as it careens to a stop in the middle of the road. Something is clearly wrong. As the lights overhead go dark, the two shafts of light from the oncoming car cut down the aisle in between the two rows of seats and reveal a thick smoke rising in the cabin.

A woman to my right begins wailing in her village dialect, literally exclaiming that she is burning up. She had smelled the smoke when it first started filling the bus and now feels that she is suffocating. Her husband with his free hand removes a keychain flashlight from his pocket while keeping a firm grip on their infant son. The light illuminates her face and it is clear that she is panicking.

Hani and I have taken, on a whim again, a bus for a day trip, this time out to the city of Al-Raqqa in order to visit an ancient castle known as “Ja’bar.” Although provided by one of the larger tour companies in Syria, our bus has just broken down.

In reality there was no immediate danger, although anyone’s experiences watching Hollywood movies assures you that when an automobile starts to smoke, it tends to explode after about five seconds. As such, when the overhead lights blinked on again for an instant before sparking and their electrical cables exploding, you can understand why some of the passengers began to worry.

In any case, the increasing amount of smoke gave cause for concern and I suggested to Hani that we de-board rather than breathe it in. Upon getting down from the bus we found that it had stopped in the middle of the road without lights, usually a danger, but fortunately this was a long, straight highway which gave the approaching vehicles time to avoid it. It wasn’t long however until we heard the driver call out to us “Dafsha Ya Shabab!” It was time to push the bus. Getting it rolling was surprisingly easy, perhaps because there were a dozen of us, and after hearing the engine roar to life we re-boarded.

Although the driver had gotten the engine running, the electricity was, quite literally, toast, meaning we were driving along an unlit highway without head or taillights in the desert in the middle of the night. My only personal scare came soon after as we heard the sound of a large vehicle blasting its horn, the sound rising at a discomforting rate as if it were a large train whose conductor had spotted a body on the tracks and knew he would run over it. Since a number of the passengers were standing up, I couldn’t tell from which direction the sound was coming, and being at the back of the bus I didn’t particularly prefer getting hit from behind over a head-on collision. As the din reached its zenith, a large truck towing containers passed us on the left; this was a relief.

Here however began some strange decision-making on the part of our driver. Despite the fact that this truck had ostensibly come in front of us to light the road which now was beginning to feature some turns, our driver was not content to stay behind the truck for long and proceeded to pass it, coasting along at full-speed in order to catch up with a small minivan that was disappearing over the horizon. After finally catching up, the minivan took an exit off the highway leaving us stranded in the dark and the driver, defeated, pulled over to the side of the road to once again wait for the truck which we had left in the dust several minutes ago.

The whole time we had left the roof and rear boarding door of the coach ajar in order to rid the bus of the smoke. In the desert at night and at 50 MPH, this can get cold. Hani and I talked about how if any negligence on the part of a transportation company demanded their returning of the fare, this qualified without a doubt, whether it was sending out a bus on the road which was about to break-down or treating the remainder of the drive to Al-Raqqa as a road race in total darkness in a vehicle without lights and thirty passengers inside. We agreed that even if we demanded our money back, we would no doubt be the only passengers to do so, and of course we wouldn’t get anything. I imagined the same problem happening in America. The transportation company would be calling for a new bus and offering refunds, begging the customers to accept in order to avoid any formal complaints. I imagined myself then asking for my money back here, and having them laugh in my face.

We did end up making it to the city and visiting the castle which was located about an hour away. It is an old fortress around which a man-made lake was constructed by the previous president. Here is a shot of the castle itself, along with another of a building nearby to give you an idea of the area:

And here are the photos I took, most from atop the castle:

Tracks to Nowhere.

Hani had me take some portaits. Here is the first.

For the second one here he climbed out on the ledge. Worth it?

India: Kerala

2010-03-04T13:43:00.036+02:00

Following the wedding my family took a week to visit Kerala in the southern part of India. It was my first trip to the south. Here are the photos:

Our driver who took us around throughout the trip. Can't remember his name for the life of me.

From an overlook we stopped at on our way up into the mountains at Thekkady.

This and below are flowers from the outdoor garden of the first restaurant we ate at.

The table-cloth and napkins at this same restaurant.

A monster of a dragonfly which visited us during our meal at the same restaurant.

Our first hotel was this one in the mountains of Thekkady.

Sunrise as seen from the hotel reception area.

Our first full-day in Thekkady was spent at a wildlife reserve on the border with Tamil Nadu. There, as seems to be the case with much of South India, there was an excess of monkeys.

We got ourselves a guide for a midday nature walk in the thick forest at the reserve. To get to the heavily wooded area, they brought us across on a wooden raft powered by...a rope.

I have no idea what this species is.

Here is where my dad fell down into the mud while trying to cross over a stream. After making sure he was okay I took the picture.

From a spice-plantation which we visited. This seemed to be just a touristy shop set up to make money. Oh well.

The resort hotel where we rented a Kettuvallam house boat from. Heaven on earth!

Since it as my sister's birthday we surprised her with a cake which they wrote on in Malayalam.

We floated down the waters of Lake Vembanad.

Our captain on the Kettuvallam boat.

The rooms on the boat.

We also had a cook in addition to two captains!

One of the stops was a Catholic Church whose founder's original house is kept inside. His name is Kuriakose Elias Chavara and he was very influential in the Kerala Catholic Community. Kerala's overall population is about 20% Christian.

Photographs: Al-Nabi Houri and Qatana

2010-03-01T18:30:00.014+02:00

Last Wednesday my roommate Hany asked me on the spur of the moment if I felt like traveling to Aleppo that day. I said yes.

Hany had been reading an Arabic-language guidebook that the program had given us at the start of the year and which none of us, I'm sure, had, have, or ever will have opened. However, in the book he came across a picture of an ancient bridge over a tributary known as "Sirius" both of which were located outside of Aleppo. The book provided no further details, but this single image sparked his interest and we decided to locate the area, eventually learning via some internet research (even though almost nothing is written about a river or bridge named "Sirius") that it was located north of Aleppo up as far as you can get without being in Turkey. Actually, to be honest, we thought it might really be in Turkey since the map in the guidebook also identified Antakya as still being part of Syria, even though that is of course, no longer the case. Regardless I grabbed my passport (my Turkish visa was still valid for one more day at the time) and we took the next train up to Aleppo, arriving late and staying at an extremely cheap hostel for the night.

The next morning we grabbed a servees min-bus which took us to the next northernmost city (the people in Aleppo didn't even know where this area was), and hired the driver to continue on to the bridge, which turned out to be in an area named Al-Nabi Houri (literally "The Prophet Houri") who was a prophet likely of Kurdish origin, and who has his own religious site in the area. We found that the location was quite impressive for it's natural beauty, and the following pictures come from there:

A panorama of the area.

At the start of the bridge.

One of the two ancient bridges there, this one just before the Sirius Bridge.

Vegetation on a nearby hill.

A local farmer gathering water from the stream.

The second new area I visited this week is called Qatana, and it is a town between Damascus and the mountains on the Lebanese border. I visited for an acquaintances birthday party, and took the following shots of the nearby mountains:

This is the mountain from the middle of the frame of the first shot.

Indian Wedding

2010-02-24T00:17:00.062+02:00

The main reason for my family's trip to India this past December was to attend my cousin Jyotsna's wedding to Nirav Gajaria (they claim their spelling is correct, we claim they are wrong) which took place January 3rd, 2010. This gallery features photos taken by various members of the family and friends during the preparations leading up to the wedding, the pre-wedding puja prayer (to be explained below), the sangeet dance party, the wedding ceremony, and finally the wedding reception. Captions are provided:

First, before all of the ceremonies, the women of the family get their hands dyed as part of Mehndi, also known as henna in Arabic-speaking countries. The designs below were done for my mother and sister:

My father even got my mother's Hindu name, Madhavi, written on his hand in Hindi. Cute:

Decorations put up at the wedding hall, all of the walls were lined like this:

I myself went out and got some Churidar pajamas for my Kurta, a type of traditional Indian dress which I wore to the wedding:

These below are from the pre-wedding Nava Graha Puja prayer held at the wedding hall the day before the wedding ceremony. Nava Graha literally means "nine planets" which are represented by the nine betel nuts as seen on the right side of table in the picture below. You can also see next to it the Hindu swastika. This puja is attented only by the family members of the bride's side (us) and includes a Ganapati Puja for the Lord Ganesh, the elephant form of God who is invoked before an auspicious event.

The Guru in preparation for the Puja:

My cousins Karan (left) and Rohit (right) and I at the puja:

My father and brother with my uncle Manoj and his children:

My sister with the lovely bride, my cousin Jyotsna!

Jyotsna with my aunts and uncles Kamal, Sheila, and Prakash during the puja:

The women get together and sing wedding songs along with some dhol playing, quite a few from some well-known Bollywood films:

Auntie promised me that if I found a girl at the wedding later that I liked, she would set it all up so we could be married. I think I disappointed her because I didn't find anyone:

My mother and father with his two brothers Muni and Pradeep along with their wives Asha and Maria (from Columbia!):

The all-stars of the Gajria family at the end of the puja:

Downstairs there was a separate ceremony for the groom, Nirav, wherein he is fed milk and nuts before having his shirt ripped off of his chest and being given new clothes as part of the wedding:

This ceremony is of course, extremely popular and it's hard to get close:

After the puja there is the Sangeet dance which for us began with one of the relatives grabbing a microphone and singing Hindi songs before quickly shifting to the party with a DJ who blasted a lot of the latest Bollywood dance hits:

In a corner of the room during the Sangheet, the hired photographer takes the bride's portrait. I steal his lighting set-up with a compact camera. Score:

The front of the building where the wedding is took take place on the morning of the wedding ceremony and the reception:

The car which the bride and groom are to take after the reception:

A small army prepares food for the wedding and reception. 100% vegetarian, 100% delicious:

Just one of the many, many stands which were set up at the wedding:

Decorations near the food counters:

Setting up the large, open-air hall for the wedding reception with the stage in the background (to be used for the family portraits):

My wedding reception outfit:

With my cousins Rohit (left) and Punaal (right):

At the wedding ceremony where all the Gajria men have their heads wrapped in a saafa or pugree turban:

Shaan also got one to go with his suit:

With my cousin Punaal along with Meher who joined us after finishing up her visit with Ali in Lucknow:

Even the littlest ones, like nephew Rahul, get to wear the turban:

My little cousin Hriday:

My even littler nephew, Keshav:

My father and uncles:

Oh look, it's the Gajrias!

Waiting for the groom's entrance to the wedding ceremony, also known as the baaraat, which invovles him approaching the hall surrounded by inummerable relatives and loud music:

He's arrived!

Jyotsna the bride in her outfit for the wedding ceremony:

We caught the groom on our way down to the reception and on his way up to change into yet another outfit:

All of us dressed for the wedding reception (yes, there is a costume change):

My Dadi (my father's mother) was even able to make it for the reception!

My uncle Pradeep and his wife Maria:

Most of my immediate family members together for a group photo:

India: Lucknow and Mahmoudabad

2010-02-12T12:17:00.024+02:00

The first leg of my trip to India was spent visiting my friend Ali whom I met in Damascus in the fall of 2008. His family lives in the village of Mahmoudabad which is located outside the city of Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh. My visit fell during the Islamic month of Moharram in which Shia Muslims, including Ali's family, mourn the death of one of their Imams, or religious leaders, which occurred during the Battle of Karbala in Iraq in 680 AD. Ali's father is Mahmoudabad's Raja, or prince, and the family gave me the incredible opportunity to witness and participate in the many practices and rituals of this event, in addition to full-permission to take photographs as I pleased.

First, here are a few photos of Ali and me, along with Meher who was also able to join us as part of her first trip to India. The three of us were finally all together again one year later:

Ali and Meher in the courtyard as Ali tries to hide that he's cleaning his feet.

I was kindly provided with a black, very Shia kurta which I wore to all the rituals. Notice how Ali is ignoring my physical affection towards him.

Ali and Meher in the Library.

Meher snapped this while I was photographing one of the Moharram events:

A frontal view of the Mahmoudabad estate which Meher took from high up.

The family's library has a guest-book, and while signing it I found that the following two notables had preceeded me:

According to the entries, the two had visited in early 2006 as part of filming for JP Dutta's Umrao Jaan. While men aren't normally allowed in the women's section of the house, apparently all the women banded together to vote an exception for Abhishek. Hilarious.

These are from the Bara Imambara in Lucknow:

These are from Ali's house and Lucknow:

A historical site right down the road from Ali's house:

Secondly, I have put together a photo-essay on the events of Moharram which is available on my photo-website via this link. Click on the picture below to take a look:

Top 5 Most Ridiculous Moments in Hum Aapke Hain Koun

2010-02-06T15:42:00.011+02:00

The Salman Khan-Madhuri Dixit starrer "Hum Aapke Hain Koun" was the top grossing Bollywood film in the 1990s and is one of the biggest hits of all time, even BEFORE you adjust for inflation. Given its stellar pedigree, I knew this had to be one of my essential, original DVD purchases, so I threw down the equivalent of one US dollar and brought home the Moserbaer (synonymous for quality that's worse than the pirated version) DVD. A single viewing confirms why India fell in love with Madhuri, and further adds to my inability to explain why they fell in love with Salman as well. In any case, you might want to go back for a second viewing, and focus on the following list of ridiculous moments that add that little extra something to this Hindi sensation:

1) The tour of Madhuri's room:

There's nothing wrong really with her room in this film, not even the giant mural of food and beverages that hangs above her bed.

No, nothing wrong, but it is a real head-scratcher that her pad is decorated with no less than THREE giant posters of her starring in an ad for what must be a major brand of Indian ice-cream:

2) Salman Khan solves Rubik's Cube:

Salman Khan has enough trouble trying to remember simple dance steps without looking like an idiot, so how are we supposed to believe that he tackles a much trickier challenge that has frustrated millions over the past 35 years?

3) The "Women's Function" scene:

This memorable moment is started off with the gathering of the female characters before the wedding for their own celebration. When the parasitic family friend/auntie arrives, they try to flatter her by telling her she looks like a popular Julia Roberts character:

A good idea, except for in that movie, Julia Roberts played a prostitute. Not that she looks much better than one here.

Following this, the women have one of their own cross-dress as Salman Khan, whose female doppelganger proceeds to physically molest most of the women in the room:

This scene only provides more ammunition to those who claim that when girls get together and party alone, it always results in something more-than-a-little-bit lesbian.

4) Salman Khan surrounded by babies.

I don't even know what to write here. This may be the single-greatest frame in the history of Indian cinema.

5) Every time Salman Khan wears clothes in the film:

OK, first of in no way is this statement gay. I'm not trying to say that Salman Khan should NOT be wearing clothes. Well, on the other hand, now that I mention it:

No but seriously, what I'm really getting at here is the costume design, which despite being from the early 90s, is still inexcusably ridiculous.

The first eye-turner is his choice for the wedding, it's mostly a normal suit, except ruined by a splash of color that would make Liberace blush.

In spite of its horridness, Madhuri inexplicably takes a liking to it. What kind of message is this sending??

Next is Salman's outfit for the song "Mausam Ka Jadoo":

This one is actually a double-foul because just look at his car!

A game of tic-tac-toe? (Btw, we don't play it with check marks, idiot.)

"Cool Rider"?

"I Love My Family – Prem"? If he hadn't signed his name I would have just assumed that some street-gang tagged his car and he didn't have the money to re-paint it.

He even wears this outfit to Mandir!

This one reminds me of Beethoven. Beethoven and gay:

Here, Salman thinks it's a cool to dress up like a guest star on the Fresh Prince of Bel Air and put on a hat that says "SEXY" in bold, capital letters. The DVD copy I have isn't very good so it's kind of hard to read it. Oh well, maybe it's best that you can't.

This one is supposed to be a kurta, but it's actually the worst outfit I've seen since they stopped showing re-runs of "In Living Color":

Finally, this one pops up half-way through the film, and tricks you into thinking it's normal:

But just when you've let your guard down, surprise! Flower-print on the reverse side! This shirt gives new meaning to the expression "Business in the front, party in the back."

This list of course is by no means exhaustive. I didn't get into the particulars of the plot, or how there is an absence of conflict in the film until the last 20 minutes (the last 20 of 200) when the filmmakers realize that they can't let Salman and Madhuri get married so easily and therefore involve her sister in a freak stair-descending accident that is the most forced tragedy I've seen since Saathiya. No, I didn't get into any of that. A list dealing with that would be twice as long.

Punjabi Pepsi and the Open-Sewer

2010-02-03T19:28:00.006+02:00

During my month-long vacation in India, one of the main destinations for my family and I was the southern state of Kerala, which is equally home to luscious green mountains and scenic backwaters. Kerala's tourist industry has bestowed the moniker "God's Own Country" upon this region, and in many ways it's hard to argue with them given that it is the setting for picturesque scenes (wait, am I complementing Kerala, or myself?) such as these:

However, Kerala is also part of India, and as such the municipal development in cities like the capital Cochin can sometimes provide a few surprises. Case in point: The open-sewer. Cochin is not the only city in India to feature the open sewer, but given how well most things seem to be run, it's too bad they haven't yet gotten rid of it. Here, you could be walking down the sidewalk, and suddenly the surface you're walking on will suddenly end, and you'll be facing a huge hole in the sidewalk; the open-sewer has begun. Sidewalk, open-sewer, sidewalk, open-sewer. Get used to this potential alternation because, if you refuse to pay attention, it could spell trouble.

Exhibit A:

As it so happened, we were driving along the streets of Cochin in our rented bus when out of the corner of my eye I spotted the store "Planet M," one of the Indian chains that sell original (non-pirated) music CDs and DVD films. Given that my shopping list was at least 30 films long, I told our driver that we had to make a much-needed stop. However, instead of pulling into the Planet M parking lot, our driver continued along the road for another 100 meters, eventually pulling up alongside what could conceivably be confused with a sidewalk. My father descended from the bus first, noticing after getting down that we had actually pulled up next to the open-sewer. Sensing potential danger, he wisely advised me to watch my step on the way down, although he didn't mention why this was the case. Now, it's important to note here that I did, in fact, hear what my father said, and heeded this warning. Unfortunately, there were two complications:

It was nighttime.
In Cochin, in addition to having an open-sewer in the first-place, they don't put any railings around it, nor any signs, and worst of all, there are no street lights alongside it. As such, unless you are from Cochin, or have seen this location during the day…well…just read on:

Getting down from our elevated bus, I stared into the darkness below me and carefully placed my foot on what looked to be solid ground. As it turned out, it wasn't the ground. In fact, where I put my foot there was nothing solid at all, and I fell from the steps of the bus down into the open-sewer.

Falling into any dark hole at night, and especially the open-sewer, can be a disorienting experience. I found myself lying on my back submerged in a thick liquid, with a bump on the back of my head where I had hit a concrete slab on the way down. The first words I heard were from my father, who had actually gotten quite angry with me and seemed to be yelling, "KETAN! I TOLD YOU TO WATCH YOUR STEP!" all of this while I was lying in poo. In retrospect, I think that's actually kind of funny.

Meanwhile, my sister had gotten down from the bus and was able to pull me out of the pool of excrement. Whereas before my clothes had been a shade of blue, my whole body up to my neck was now soiled jet-black. My face showed signs of a feces-esque spray, and I found numerous scrapes on my legs and back where waste matter was seeping into open wounds. This was sort of bad.

It took a minute or two to figure out what on earth we could do (Should I just get back on the bus? Should we begin filming scenes for the "Slumdog Millionaire" sequel?), but my dad, God-bless him, remembered that the Planet M we had passed was located adjacent to a gas station, where there was sure to be some type of water hose. I walked from the scene of the accident, down past the Planet M, and made-use of the gas station's rest-room, which, had I not just fallen into a basin of fecal matter, would probably have made me even dirtier. I got as much of my body as I could beneath the waist-level tap and began my initial phase of cleaning. At the time I kept thinking to myself that we HAD to take pictures, but for some reason this didn't seem to be on anyone else's mind. After 10 minutes of the faucet and a bar of soap, we decided to head back to the hotel, which I entered avoiding eye-contact with any of the employees, then proceeded to take an 80-minute shower.

What did I learn from this experience? Absolutely nothing, but at the same time I feel like my immune-system must have been enhanced by at least 300%. If the poo doesn't kill you, and it doesn't make you any wiser, it can at least make you a bit stronger. We'll see how that pans out.

We also returned the next day to get pictures. I think the following is a winner:

After that, I decided that it would be unfair to let the open-sewer win, and so I returned to the Planet M and proceeded to buy original copies of "Kuch Kuch Hota Hai" and "Fashion," as well as the soundtracks to "Ghajini" and "Veer." You were worth it Salman Khan, you were worth all of it.

The same day that I had my accident, my family and I had eaten lunch at a Punjabi restaurant that my dad picked based solely on the fact that there was supposed to be free wireless internet (there wasn't). There, he made the second poor decision of ordering for him and for my brother the restaurant's special "Bhangra Pepsi," which is essentially the soft-drink and the addition of numerous Punjabi spices that in no-way complement a soda:

Upon taking his first sip, my brother pushed the glass away, refusing to drink a drop more. He explained that it "tasted like sewage." Therefore, that evening, after my accident and before my shower, I very logically polled my family as to whether or not I smelled like Bhangra Pepsi. As I recall, I think everyone except my mother found that one funny.

Ketan Nurses an Addiction

2010-02-03T18:58:00.006+02:00

While in India, I wrote up a list of my favorite Bollywood films, as well as a list of the other Hindi-language films that I most wanted to see, and made trips to several stores of the popular music and DVD chain "Planet M" and the Rhythm House in Bombay to get original copies of these films along with some soundtracks. While I didn't find EVERYTHING I wanted (how come I can get an original DVD of the Bollywood remake of "Fight Club," but can't find a copy of Sholay or Pyaasa??), I think you can agree that victory was mine. Behold, the best $50 ever spent:

Saathiya: A Short Review

2010-01-27T18:28:00.007+02:00

I finally got around to seeing "Saathiya," one of the original DVDs I bought in India. It's not very good, but it does carry an important message for all you husbands out there:

Appreciate your wife, you never know when she might get hit by a large bus.

The Class Presentation

2010-01-27T18:19:00.002+02:00

Recently an acquaintance of mine requested my assistance to prepare a presentation for an English-language course in which he is studying. He intended to deliver a presentation on the issue of rape in Syria and the society’s treatment of the perpetrator and victim. After going through the his presentation’s introduction, we began translating his set of ten or so questions which he would pose to the class to facilitate a discussion, and which would form the bulk of his talk. While the language in his questions was easy enough to translate, I became more interested in the order in which they were to be posed, specifically after he expressed his intention to first ask them, “Should the victim’s family marry the girl to the perpetrator, which some believe to be a viable solution to the entire problem?” I, on the other hand, had thought it more appropriate to begin with a different question, “What are the psychological effects of rape on the victim?”

I explained to him that I understood why he might want to pose the former question first, given that in Syrian society, the perpetration of rape is often viewed primarily as a social scandal, wherein the victim and her family are shamed even more than the criminal and his reputation, then secondly as a personal calamity. A female victim of rape is inevitably viewed as “tainted” to some extent, and if word gets out that she has been raped it will form a permanent blot on her standing in that society. As such, the family will be concerned to a great extent with preventing the fadeeHa (فضيحة), or scandal within the community. Interestingly, avoiding this scandal is also the primary justification for obtaining an otherwise unpermitted abortion, whereas in the States even the more conservative might allow abortion in the case of rape as an exception given that the baby delivered will remain a reminder of the horror that the mother experienced.

In any case, I continued by saying that I thought it it morally more appropriate to start first and foremost with victim and how she will be affected by this situation. Although I’ve lived here long enough not to pass quick moral judgments, I would still stand beside my belief that to start with the girl, rather than the potential scandal, is overall, more important. I would just add to this that there is a second face to this coin, which is that perhaps the victim herself would also be more concerned with the outbreak of scandal since it would directly affect her, and therefore could be for her the primary source of psychological torment.

Regardless, I was surprised by the response I received. He understood my concern with focusing first on the female victim, but explained that his reasoning behind choosing the question of marriage was entirely practical. We had previously discussed how the issue of rape, due to its sensitivity, must be presented in a way so that the students feel comfortable discussing it in a relatively open forum. Accordingly, special care must be given to the introduction rather than rushing right into the blunt questions, which, if the students are immediately faced with them, will certainly create embarrassment and leave the students too shy to speak honestly. Building upon this concern, he told me the marriage question HAD to be posed first, since it concerns the society rather than one’s innermost feelings, and additionally everyone will have a strong opinion on the issue. Beginning here would pave the way and ready the students to discuss the even more sensitive topics such as how the girl is affected as an individual, what should a mother say to a daughter who has revealed to her that she has been raped, who should take responsibility for raising the child born of the crime, etc. Despite my misgivings over this approach given my cultural background, I had to admit that he was right, not only practically, but also because it is in the end more important, even vital, that these students discuss this issue openly, and the greater social harm lies in remaining silent.

Back to Turkey

2009-12-12T13:44:00.074+02:00

For the most recent Eid celebration, I once again decided to return to Turkey with Reed and Sasha for a period of about 8 days. This time we were joined by our classmate Emily from the CASA program along with her spouse, Scott, as well as our mutual classmate Graham.

We began by taking a 9 PM bus directly from Damascus to Antakya in Turkey, with a final destination of Adana for the end of the first day. Normally there is a train line connecting these locations, but as of last year there is no longer any train service from Damascus to Turkey, meaning one has to rely on the large Greyhound-style buses which rarely fail to induce road-sickness. This particular ride ended up being 12 hours due to delays at the border for some of the Syria passengers, which was ironic because we were able to cross before them despite the fact that a new law negates the visa requirement for them.

After finally pulling into Antakya, we found ourselves with a free hour while waiting for the bus to Adana. At this point the time was approximately five or six in the morning, and I was able to capture the pre-dawn light at the bus station looking out towards the nearby hills:

After boarding the next bus, weariness immediately set-in (we hadn't slept up until this point) and most of the group nodded off. I have the heroic gift/damned curse of not being able to fall asleep on buses for very long, and as such was wide and awake in order to capture this special, loving, physically affectionate moment shared by Reed and Graham when they no longer cared about anyone else judging or staring at them:

In Adana we wasted no time in purchasing train tickets to Ankara for that night. Knowing that we only had a few sites to see, despite the fact that Adana is Turkey's fourth largest city, we decided against booking a hotel and instead booked the sleeper car. The trade-off of course was that at this point I hadn't slept and was starting to behave more...unpredictably, as happens when I don't get any sleep for an extended period of time. Regardless it was better that I didn't sleep because we ended up visiting the Sabanci Mosque, which is the largest in Turkey and supposedly the second largest in all of Asia (behind Mecca I would assume). It is indeed gargantuan, supposedly funded by one of Turkey's most successful businessmen, and while it's "newness" felt a touch artificial or at least characterless a la Hariri's Mosque in Beirut, it was overall an impressive site:

From the inside:

A portrait of the group out front:

In the evening we finally boarded the train and it wasn't long before I was passed out in our sleeper car. While equipped with surprisingly uncomfortable seats, the car was invaluable in that it had a bed (we were able to save on hotels by sleeping on trains and buses more than once) and in general trains in Turkey are extremely clean. To give you an idea of what these are like, here is a picture of Reed and Sasha's car:

I awoke early, perhaps at 6 AM, on the assumption that the train was to arrive in station at Antakya at 7:30 AM. For some unexplained reason, this train, as well as the second night train we took at the end of the voyage, ended up being hours late. How this happens is beyond me. Either way, this gave me the opportunity to take some pictures in the morning fog from the window:

As in Adana, we decided against getting staying the night in Ankara, Turkey's large, if someone dull capital city. Again we booked bus tickets for that night and decided to make the most of the day by visiting Ataturk's Mausoleum. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (1881-1938) is Turkey's most revered President, and is credited as being a war hero (in Turkey's War of Independence) as well as a great modernizer who banned the hijab in government offices and replaced the Ottoman alphabet with modified Latin characters. While his reputation is, overall, positive outside of Turkey, within the country he is revered as a deity of sorts and as a result any public criticism of him is more or less outlawed, not that there seem to be many Turks critical of him. As such, the museum built around his grave is better-likened to a temple of his worship, and visiting it is highly recommended for anyone passing through the capital, with a visit requiring just a few hours and being free of admission. It is an eye-opening look at how modern Turkish nationalism looks towards its recent past. Here are some pictures from our visit:

A wing of the museum near the entrance to the complex:

Walking towards the grand courtyard:

Scott, whose little HD camcorder was never out of reach, videotapes Emily walking in the courtyard:

The guard standing outside the grand hall of Ataturk's grave:

Changing of the guard:

Inside this hall photography is explicitly banned, but after seeing every single other visitor take a picture at Ataturk's grave (a picture of Obama's visit to the grave is shown outside), we decided we could as well:

That evening we moved on to a town called Safronbolu located in between Anakara and Istanbul. It is described as an "Ottoman" town in reference to its careful preservation of 19th-century (or earlier) Ottoman architecture, and as such the Old City has been named a UNESCO World Heritage site. This town was my addition to the list of places to visit, and was perhaps my favorite despite the fact that all the other guys were anxious to move on to Istanbul, and as such we stayed there less than 24 hours. It may not have Istanbul's development, but it may just possess twice it's charm. Some of the pictures won't exactly show that, but believe me, I want to go back and visit again.

The view from our hostel window:

Not all of the town gives off the air of preservation:

Reed and Sasha:

Graham in the town:

Reed poses with some sheep, assumes it will be a good photo:

Scott's portrait:

Reed and Scott found an airplane atop one of the hills, very Ottoman:

Finally, here is our group all together in the town:

The next morning we took the bus to Istanbul, where we would stay for the remainder of the trip. Having had visited the city one before with my mother, I wasn't too interested in seeing the major tourist sites, and instead concentrated on enjoying, for the most part, the excellent food. Here are my photos from the Istanbul-leg of the trip:

Reed and Sasha at Istiklal street, the busiest walk in the new city where all kinds of shops are found:

The same two waiting at one of the metro stops on the water:

The following are all taken from atop the Galata Tower which provides a great panoramic view of the city. No tripods allowed:

Reed and Sasha at a bar on the Asian-side of the city (Istanbul straddles the border between the continents):

The interior of the Yeni or "New" Mosque on the end of the Galata Bridge. It was actually built in the 16th century, so I'm not sure if there is another mosque which is the "Old" one:

Some of the group from when I went to go shoot a mosque on the water-front:

This is a street band I heard playing on Istiklal Street and whose album I purchased after hearing just one of their songs. Their name is Kara Gunes (official site here) and I got this photo of them in almost no-light. They seem to need pictures on their site so I'm thinking about offering this one to them:

Here I'm throwing in two pictures taken of me since I'm sure my mom would love to see me and not just the view in front of my camera lens. I have a camera in one of these pictures though. Sorry, mom.

On our final night we decided to go out for karaoke in the New City. Everyone came except Reed who embarked on a futile attempt to make a Turkish girlfriend of his fall in love with him. For the record I sang:

1) Unchained Melody - The Righteous Brothers (duet with Emily)

2) Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me - Elton John and George Michael(duet with Scott, I was Elton John)

3) Wonderwall - Oasis (with Graham)

4) As Long as You Love Me - The Backstreet Boys

After finishing karaoke at 9:30 PM, we had to rush to get back to our hostel (on the other side of the city, in the old section), grab our bags, and return across the bridge in order to catch a ferry to the Asian side where the train station is located. Somehow we made it, and boarded our train heading back to Adana. We boarded that train at 11 PM or so on Thursday night, and from there we traveled (literally) non-stop to Adana, then took a bus to Antakya, then immediately a service taxi across the border to Aleppo, and finally the train from Aleppo to Damascus. I arrived at my house at 5:30 PM on Saturday, once again without sleep, and got ready to start class the following day.

These pictures are from the train ride home:

Sleeper-car:

Restaurant car:

The employee makes us some food in the kitchen while Ataturk looks on:

Last, but not least, as I mentioned earlier that one of my goals in Turkey was to enjoy the food. I sure did. One of the most delicious things I ate was this:

Pictures from a few Recent Events

2009-12-12T13:39:00.009+02:00

I've gone back through my library of photos on my hard drive and found some shots to post in addition to pictures from various events last month.

The first two I took during the summer in my walk at Kew Gardens, London:

Next is a shot from Sasha's birthday party where we were treated to a surprise visit from a local Oud (the instrument pictured) player:

Next I am happy to report that the Ahmad's older brother has just been married, meaning it might not be too long before Ahmad gets engaged. Here are some of the children from the Bait Sawa village who were at the wedding lunch I attended:

And here is Ahmad's elder brother (perhaps the eldest, he was married first I believe) with his daughter:

And finally here is the groom on his way to the wedding (dance and music) party:

Finally, I recently attended a high-concept musical concert at the Damascus Dar Al-Asad Opera house. According to the program, students from public schools across Syria were tasked with writing lines of poetry which were to be combined into a long poem to serve as the inspiration for a Syrian composer's symphony. As it turned out, they organizers apparently never ended up using the children's input, and instead brought a choir of students from numerous Syrian schools to sing a poem written by an adult poet based on the myth of Cadmus and Europa, while the Syrian composer wrote music based upon this story which was in turn played by an orchestra made up of Syrian and foreign classical musicians. As it turned out, the resulting composition was occasionally stirring, but it was the children's choir that captured the audiences hearts given as it was made up of a group of adorable children aged perhaps 6-10. Here is a picture of the entire group on stage during the final applause:

Over 200 Posts and Counting...

2009-11-16T14:59:00.012+02:00

Here at the Ketan Sessions we have recently surpassed that magical milestone of 200 posts. To celebrate, here is a gift from Hrithik Roshan to Ameesha Patel to me and finally, to you:

Thanks Hrithik, your hastily-made necklace of string and seashells is super-awesome.

My New House

2009-11-10T12:00:00.004+02:00

As promised, I have some pictures of the house I moved into about a month ago. The inhabitants are Hany and I, and Hany's cat which is named "Bajj." According to Hany, he came up with this name somewhat randomly, not thinking it was a word, but later found it is the Arabic word for a certain species of wildcat, so the naming was all the more appropriate:

Sometimes Bajj gets upset, and in general wants to play 24 hours a day, and by playing I mean biting you or attacking with claws.

Yes, I am allergic to cats, but this is something I have to put up with. It's best if I play with budge with a layer of clothing in between, such as with my feet, but only if I have socks on.

Below are some pictures of the house. I don't have the time to do a proper shot of my room, so I combined a bunch of distorted images to give you a general idea of what it looks like:

And here are the various other rooms:

Class Trip to Bosra

2009-11-03T16:10:00.021+02:00

Two Fridays ago, we took our third class-trip and visited the city of Bosra in southern Syria. Like Damascus' and Aleppo's Old Cities, Krak des Chevaliers, Salah Ad-Din's Castle, and Tadmur, Bosra has been named a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

A description of the city's history courtesy of Wikipedia:

The settlement was first mentioned in the documents of Tutmose III and Akhenaton (14th century BC). Bosra was the first Nabatean city in the 2nd century BC. The Nabatean Kingdom was conquered by Cornelius Palma, a general of Trajan, in 106.

Under the Roman Empire, Bosra was renamed Nova Trajana Bostra, and was the residence of the legio III Cyrenaica and capital of the Roman province Arabia Petraea. The city flourished and became a major metropolis at the juncture of several trade routes, including the Roman road to the Red Sea. The two Councils of Arabia were held at Bostra in 246 and 247 AD. The city was conquered by the Sassanid Persians in the early 7th century, and, after a hosrt Byzantine reconquest, was finally captured by the forces of the Rashidun Caliphate under Khalid ibn Walid in the Battle of Bosra (634). Thereafter it was an Islamic possession.

Bosra played an important part in the early life of the Prophet of Islam, Mohammed as described in the entry for the Christian Monk, Bahira.

Today, Bosra is a major archaeological site, containing ruins from Roman, Byzantine, and Muslim times, its main feature being the well preserved Roman theatre. Every year there is a national music festival hosted in the theater.

(End description)

One of the main attractions in the city is it's amazingly complete Amphitheater, which I've included a picture of below. I didn't really photograph any of the ruins on this trip, partly because I didn't want to bring my heavy gear and partly because they have been photographed by so many thousands of others that I figured I didn't have much to add or comment on. Here are a few pictures I found on the internet of the theater and the ruins:

I instead photographed what interested me more, the following little scenes:

A run down house/building on the stone-path leading to the ruins:

A portrait of my friend Paul from the program. Paul is an extremely bright history-buff who hopes to become a Professor of Middle Eastern studies in the future. I think this photo is 100% Paul:

Door on a coffee shop just outside the ruins:

A mosque I saw in the distance while standing in front of the Citadel:

A decorated wall next to the Citadel:

Syrian shabab hanging out next to a portait of the previous Syrian leader, Hafez Al-Asad:

A portrait of my indomitable Fusha teacher, Shadi:

Finally, while walking through the ruins, a man in one of the tour groups called me over and asked me if I were studying at Tufts. He had spotted my college sweatshirt that I was wearing with "Tufts" written on it in bold letters. I told him that I had graduated in 2008 and that I was currently studying here. He told me that he had graduated in '85 and was now part of an investment group visiting the country, and was set to have lunch with Bashar Al-Asad, Syria's current president, the following day. He also said that within a week he was to return to Boston to meet with Lawrence Bacow, the current President of Tufts University. While I don't think this deserves one of those "it's a small world" comments, I did find it to be quite the coincidence.

UPDATE (04/02/2010): I returned to Bosra with my family a few weeks ago. Here are some new pictures from that trip, in which my friend Wael joined us.

Saladin: The Musical

2009-10-31T13:19:00.028+02:00

Hany invited me to a play held at the Dar Al-Asad Opera House based on the life of the Syrian Kurdish hero Salah Ad-Din Ibn Ayyub (you may recall that I visited one of his castles in Syria). This play, put on by the Syrian dance troupe Anana, could most aptly be described as a form of dance-theatre with the addition of some interesting “cinematic” elements. It depicts Salah Ad-Din’s successful capture of Jerusalem from a Crusader army to whom the hero offers generous terms of surrender. The on-stage action was divided into scenes of dialogue in Classical Arabic (but from a recorded track that actors lip-synched) and scenes of dance and dance-action. We see the ruthless tactics of the Crusaders, Salah Ad-Din’s deliberations with his advisors as well as those of the Crusader king and his staff, and of course a few battle scenes thrown in for good-measure. While the dialogue scenes were inevitably somewhat dry and procedural, the dance scenes were consistently impressive and occasionally superb, incorporating classical ballet styles as well as more modern, interpretative routines to drive forward the plot. Certain routines filled up not only the stage with dozens of performers, but also featured aerial components with dancers hanging from wires and swinging around like spider-men.

As I alluded to earlier, some of these scenes were spruced-up with cinematic treatments. To explain, the back wall of the theater’s stage was dominated by a formidably-sized, if somewhat outdated, video screen which was adorned with various props so that it fit into the background of each scene. At various points during the play, the video screen would come alive to display scenes that had previously been shot with different actors to either replace or complement the action occurring on stage. For example, in the scene where the Crusader army invades and attacks a group of civilians, the army is first shown approaching on the video screen, then real-life actors playing Crusader soldiers accompany them on stage to give the impression that they have been getting closer and closer. It was a rather novel idea (at least given my limited experience attending plays) and moreover I thought it was well-executed, being employed to broaden the scope of the on-stage action in an appropriate manner.

As for the content, Salah Ad-Din has, at least in recent Arab history, consistently cited as the ideal Arab hero: brave, strong, and chivalrous. Part of his appeal is that he was both able to resist Western invasions on the part of the Crusaders and earn the respect of both sides in the process. His reputation to this end is well-deserved, and if the history of his achievements is not without some harsh actions, it stands in stark contrast to the reputation of many of his enemies of the time at a specific period in history (the wars of the Crusades) when horrific actions were too numerous to count. That being said, I personally asked the question if there were additional reasons for presenting a play about Salah Ad-Din during the year when Jerusalem has been chosen as the Capital of Arab Culture for 2009 (it was Damascus last year). At the close of the play when Salah Ad-Din’s forces finally regain control of the Holy City, the lighting, music, and performances are all in sync to present a scene of orgasmic tranquility and satisfaction. It goes without saying that most in the audience would like to see Jerusalem freed from its current occupation. So while the play is able to tap into those Arab hopes, it is also presenting a type of nostalgia for the golden days when the Arabs were able to military defeat those who attempted to steal their land, a vision of the past which unfortunately offers no concrete answers for today’s political and humanitarian crises. For as resistance during the Crusades led to the recapture of Jerusalem, such tactics nowadays, although they are for the most part justified in their continuation, will never yield the same outright victories. In this way, although the play Saladin may on some level provide comfort to its intended audience, it is also a play that looks primarily to the past, and is one which is unable to provide a lasting solution for the future.

Here are some pictures of us attending the play at the Dar Al-Asad Opera house along with some of Hany’s family friends. I also took a number of shots inside to make a panorama, but as you can see I forgot to photograph a few of the corners, I will hopefully retake this when I next attend a play:

Pictures from Diwali at Indian Embassy

2009-10-26T14:22:00.015+02:00

Last weekend I played the role of official photographer for the Diwali celebration at the Indian Embassy. The get-together featured a cultural show with musical and dance performances, followed by a magic show for the kids, fireworks, and finally dinner. Here are some of the pictures I took for the Embassy (it should be noted that considering how small the Gajria extended family is, it is somewhat surprising that some of the people in this photograph are related to me):

Fuzzy Statistics

2009-10-15T12:48:00.002+02:00

Today I was speaking with my friend who owns a nut shop, and he asked me a few questions about occurrences of adultery and shootings in America. He had estimated that the rate of shootings in a city like Los Angeles was around 70%, meaning that he thought 70% of people walking on the street get shot. He then placed the rate of adultery at 80% (and then at 5% in Syria amongst married couples). When I told him the crime rate in my city of Boston was actually very low, he thought I meant 20% of people get shot.

Why is this? First of all it must be said that my friend doesn't represent the majority of Syrians in any way (that kind of statistic would be as inaccurate as those we had been talking about), but having said that, his misconception is much more widespread than it should be amongst those Syrians who have never traveled outside of the country. Unfortunately, in spite of our trade sanctions with Syria, our most popular export is without a doubt our mainstream Hollywood films which are filled with scenes of random people getting caught in the line of gunfire or cheating on their wives. Now I'm not saying we can't put this in our films, but we do have to recognize that for many people this will be their only exposure to our culture. If you doubt their importance, think again about how my friend, who is relatively reasonable and who interacts with a good deal of foreigners in his shop, still placed our shooting rate at seventy-percent without a hint of disbelief. Wow.

Monster Update: Morocco, America, Turkey, Syria

2009-10-11T19:42:00.056+02:00

As you may have noticed I haven't written a substantial update for a considerable amount of time. Looking at my blog-sidebar, I noticed that the entire month of September was empty, which is indicative of the flood of assignments that I've received since beginning the fall semester at the CASA program. As promised in the summer, the teachers proceeded to dump upon us an inhumane amount of homework in addition to extended class hours, such that we have been studying five-hours a day in class followed by approximately six-hours per day of homework assignments, meaning that as soon as class was done, it was a matter of getting home to start doing homework until it was time to sleep, with the only breaks being for meals, and waking up tired in order to march to class.

However, it wasn't long before I sat down the lead teacher and expressed my misgivings, not only based on the fact that a lack of sleep prevents all of us from participating in class, but also putting a question mark on this approach to an intensive program. At CASA what I have seen are teachers whose brevity of experience has perhaps led them to assign more and more homework due to a shortage of other ideas. I personally feel that if my goal were to sit in either a classroom or my house all day and read and answer questions, then how does the CASA program differ from a program based in the United States? I am studying in Syria to have access to a real context for what I am learning, meaning I need to take advantage of being in an Arabic-speaking city, interacting with the population (and with my friends at the VERY least), and hopefully studying in a program that forges a bond between the students and their city. However, it seems any sense of imagination is lost in what is essentially a rather traditional language study program (long class hours and lots of homework), likely because it is linked with the very traditional University of Damascus, that fails to harness its surroundings for foreign students. In brief, I can imagine a great program with 5 hours of class per day, 3 hours of homework, and the rest of the time devoted to interacting with Syrians. Had I not had a whole year previous at IFPO, I think I would know too little about my surroundings.

After making my complaints, which I believe were echoed by a considerable number of other students, the program has promised to find a better balance in assigning homework. We will see how that works out, but my experiences here only further prove that the teaching of Arabic to Western students is a science still in its infancy despite all the money and interest being poured into it and is in need of some thinking outside of the box…perhaps I will write a large post on that after I leave the program. I already have many ideas cooking, but given how the Damascus program is run, they would require a totally new program as their integration would be impossible.

The important thing is that I am now taking time this weekend to run through an extremely abbreviated update of my life over the past few months in chronological order.

First off, I have finally gotten my hands on some of my friend Mike's pictures from Morocco that we took on our 10-day-ish trip around the country. Without further ado, here they are:

The first is of Mike and I along with one of his friends from the Peace Corps who we met up with in what I recall is Meknes:

The second is from Sefrou where accessing the valley we sought required a somewhat dangerous pipe crossing. The picture I took of Mike makes the cross look approximately twice as dangerous:

The next four are from our hike in the mountains in Chefchauoun where we ran out of drinking water about two hours after starting out. Since this was an all-day-hike (we didn't come close to finishing it even after 8 or so hours) we were forced to drink local water, which despite being from the mountains, was still a risky prospect:

As such, we took plenty of pictures of us drinking from the various holes in the rocks and/or pipes in case we got sick and wanted to have memories of how it happened:

Soon after Morocco my IFPO program ended, CASA Summer started and ended, and then I was off home to the U.S. for a one-month break. There I managed to edit a hundred or so of my photos, take care of some errands, and MOST importantly see a good number of friends and family, which I was really in need of after what had been a little over a year in Syria with only one short return in between. Among the good times I had was a trip to see the mansions in Rhode Island for Labor Day with Jess, Jose, Tim, and Harsha. Here are some photos from that little road-trip. Why are so many of these photos of Jose? A question best posed, but left unanswered.

I started classes the morning that I returned to Syria. Unfortunately, during the break I learned from my friend Ahmad that my landlord had decided to give the house over to his father while I was away. As such, I was unable to return home to sleep and instead had to grab my belongings from my room at 2 AM and bring them to my house of my CASA friend Reed, who thankfully lives only about 3 minutes away. I ended up taking a room on the upper floor of his house for the start of the program. However, it wasn't long before I was hit with another surprise. At the end of our first half-week of classes, it was announced that the following week had been declared a nation-wide vacation in honor of the post-Ramadan Eid celebration. Although a break is always nice, it meant that I could have stayed in America an extra week and a half! The important thing now however was to decide what to do with this free time. The same weekend we received this news, I made sure to visit the Midan area of Damascus just before Eid where all the best sweets were on sale. The entire area was lit up and even at 2 AM the streets were crowded as if it were 2 PM. Here are some snaps from the evening:

Setting up my tripod for a panorama:

Rough draft of the panorama:

Preparing dough:

As luck would have it, my friend Reed who I moved in with happens to speak Turkish and was planning on making a trip to the less-touristy Southern Turkey for the break. Knowing this was a unique opportunity (a basic knowledge of Turkish helps you discover otherwise inaccessible parts of the country without paying for a guide), I decided this would be the best way to take advantage of the break. We were joined by two other CASA classmates, Paul and Sasha. We ended up visiting three main areas. On day one we took a train from Damascus to Aleppo, from which we took a taxi across the Turkish border into a city called Gaziantep (Antep), from which we then took a bus to Sanlurfa (Urfa). See the map below for the route:

In Urfa we first saw the Rizvaniye Mosque which is located on a large pool filled with what are considered to be sacred fish. Most visitors buy a tin of fish food to throw to the fish which crowd over to the edge where you stand even before you drop in the pellets.

First here is someone else's photo of the area at night (I felt this area had been photographed so much that there wasn't much point in me trying):

Here are my friends feeding the fish:

Next we climbed up the nearby hill upon which is perched the Urfa citadel. From above we got this view of Great Mosque which adjoins the Rizvaniye Mosque:

I ended up liking the view so much that I made this panorama with Reed standing on the side (rough draft):

Sasha spotted me taking all that time and snapped this:

And then this of Reed, Paul, and I exploring:

From atop the citadel I took a few pictures myself:

We then descended to the Great Mosque that I had photographed from up top, although it was unfortunately closed for renovations. I got these shots of it:

We also walked around the streets of Urfa, which I must say were quite charming. The city's market has the feel of an Old City not unlike Damascus or Meknes, with some nice old alleys, where Sasha got one of the pictures below of me walking around. We also stopped for tea at the garden next to the Mosque and I got a picture of the little boats that you can ride on the pool via a reflection:

The next day we decided to visit the mountain of Nemrut Dagi on top of which are the famous "giant-head" statues. A king from ancient times commissioned not only the building of these statues (which were originally attached to equally large body-statues), but the creation of a summit since the mountain was flat topped, meaning countless slaves had to pile up dirt until the mountain looked pointy. From Wikipedia:

"In 62 BC, King Antiochus I Theos of Commagene built on the mountain top a tomb-sanctuary flanked by huge statues (8–9 m/26–30 ft high) of himself, two lions, two eagles and various Greek, and Armenian gods, such as Hercules-Vahagn, Zeus-Aramazd or Oromasdes (associated with the Iranic god Ahura Mazda), Tyche, and Apollo-Mithras. These statues were once seated, with names of each god inscribed on them. The heads of the statues are now scattered throughout the site; the pattern of damage to the heads (notably to noses) suggests that they were deliberately damaged because of belief in iconoclasm. The statues have not been restored to their original positions. The site also preserves stone slabs with bas-relief figures that are thought to have formed a large frieze. These slabs display the ancestors of Antiochus, who included both Macedonians and Persians."

To get there we decided to rent a car rather than deal with a guided tour group. We ended up renting from "Avis," or rather made a deal at Avis for a guy to rent what seemed like his own work car to us. It was a Peugeot and it was the most difficult piece of junk to drive (there seems to be consensus on this from everyone who I talked to about this model), although the real trouble was in the city where there was crazy Middle-Eastern traffic as opposed to the highways outside or even the steep mountain where you could take your time. On the way we stopped in a town situated on the river that runs through the Ataturk Dam for some fresh seafood. This is us with the car and then the Ataturk Dam which we visited shortly afterwards:

While at the seafood restaurant, we saw a swing set sitting in the middle of the adjacent field, and decided it would be perfect to make a "band photo" with, ie the cover art for our album assuming that we were a band. We came up with this:

The mountain itself is a large national park with several sites on the way to the peak. We stopped at the major ones including some eagle statues and an old Roman bridge, along with some tablets with writings in ancient Greek among other languages. Despite all the rich history, I only snapped this photo which puts Reed against the background of a carving depicting the meeting between Pericles and the king Mithridates:

"Basking in the glow of the junk":

After an incredibly steep drive to the summit (I drove in 1^st gear most of the way), we reached the point where we had to start hiking, after which we saw the gigantic heads and stayed for the sunset. Here are some pictures from that, including a shot of the artificial summit that was created (don't let the picture fool you, it's actually HUGE):

I should have some more pictures of this when I finally go home and edit some of the HDRs I took of the sunset.

We drove back that night and among the great things we drove by was a Mosque which had converted the entire lower-floor into a furniture store. Mosque fail.

The next day we drove back in the direction of Syria to the city of Antep. There we sampled the delicious Turkish cuisine, visited a mosaic museum where they had just opened an exhibit on a piece of what I believe is Roman-period art entitled "The Gypsy Girl" (see photo below). We also found a hotel which may or may not have been opened in my honor:

So I guess if I were a hotel, I'd be a two-star hotel. But I'm OK with that, which perhaps I couldn't have said when I first saw it, or even a few days after.

Our final day was essentially a long trip home the way we came. The pictures below are from the train station in Antep, Urfa, then finally Aleppo where I spotted a familiar face on a sign for a store that promised "the most stylish haircuts":

Upon returning home I found a bird perched on one of the railings upstairs. I think it had a mental issue because I threw numerous objects around it (pens, etc) to get it to fly away (it was poised to poop on the dinner table) but it refused to move, even after I splashed water on it and Reed pounded on the railing next to it with a broom. Darwin fail:

Unfortunately, it wasn't long after getting back until I found out that I had to move for the fifth time since coming to Syria. The landlady for Reed's house turned out to be a nutcase and wanted to charge extravagant amounts for the room I was staying in. After long negotiations over the phone including my offer to stay for the next 10-months, she actually ended up RAISING the price she wanted. Apparently she is in the middle of some mental breakdown so I figured it wasn't worth the effort or annoyance to stay. As such, I am now moving in with a Syrian friend of mine named Hani who I met via Meher who had met Hani via their work at the UN. Hani is a student of economics at the University and is among the sharpest Syrian youths I've met. The house I'm moving into is essentially brand new compared to houses in Old Damascus and has 24-hot water due to the clever use of solar panels on the roof, in addition to ADSL internet, meaning I might finally be able to Skype with either having to stay late at school or pay fees at a café far from the house! I will try to get some pictures of this new house after I move in. By the time you read this, I should already be living there. It is located a outside both the Old City and downtown Damascus, but I would really like to live with a friend and since Hani and I have a great time together I think this is the best decision.

Whew. So that was all my major news in brief! I leave you with my most recent snap of the Madhat Basha market which I will be moving far, far away from:

Abu Shaker TV

2009-10-11T18:35:00.004+02:00

In a nice coincidence, I was assigned for homework to watch a Syrian TV sketch that featured the main characters drinking at Abu Shaker. As per the screen grabs, the sign is featured, as well as Abu Hamza and the guy who works as the main guy in the morning then later as the assistant to Abu Qasim.