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I hope you enjoyed Vinayaka Chathurthi (you know, the Ganesha festival/ National holiday here). Since the office was closed, I worked from the hotel, but after a few hours cabin fever set and it was time to get out. Fortunately it was unseasonably cool, and thus a perfect day for a walk. I saw very little signs of the holiday. The roads were still crowed with people, shops still open. I did see one small Ganesha procession moving through a back street, on a cart pulled by what I am assuming were worshipers.

Although cool, it was still extremely humid and by the time I got back to hotel, it was afternoon and the perfect time for swimming laps in the hotel pool (hence the picture above). As you may have noticed, the pool is on the 8th floor and has a fairly commanding view of the city. If you are thinking that the photograph fails the capture the grandeur of the cityscape, you would be mistaken. It is exactly as majestic as the photo suggests.

The pool, however, is truly a mechiah (Yiddish for pleasure, joy). When not swimming, there are ample places to lie in the shade reading a book (which you can safely assume is how I spent a couple of hours).

Speaking of reading, I have been dutifully reading an Indian newspaper every morning. There are several very common topics. One was a series of attacks on a community of Dalits (untouchables). Another was recent measure to ban cell phones in local university. I noticed that education was actually quite a common topic in the local paper. I saw articles on a recent changes the government specified curriculum and some articles specifically about the topic of history education. This is a very education focused country.

The most common topic on the editorial pages, however, has been Hurricane Katrina. The prevailing view seems to be utter mystification about how the most powerful and wealth nation in the world could have such an anemic response. I think this have done more damage to the world’s image of America than even the war in Iraq. Almost ever letter to the editor compared the US response to Katrina with India much more successful response to both recent flooding in Mumbai (Bombay) and the Tsunami (which I was informed killed about 3,000 people in Chennai).