Myanmar General Visits Bodhgaya
28 July 2010. Peter Friedlander. There are lots of stories about the
visit of senior delegation from Myanmar, including its leader General
Than Shwe, to Bodhgaya and other sacred Buddhist sites in the Hindi
and English press. Meanwhile other local stories reported in the Dainik
Jagran included items like a head on crash between two motor cycles
on the river road between Gaya and Bodhgaya on the 21st July in which
two were injured. There is also a lot of election campaigning going
on such as a speech by former central minister Shah Navaz saying that
tourism should be developed and declared an industry but that the central
government is not interested in this.
Cash payments if re-elected: Lalu
24 June 2010. Peter Friedlander, Melbourne. Jagran reported on June
19th that in a speech made by Lalu Prasad, former chief minister of
Bihar, to an assembly in a village near Bodhgaya he promised that he
would give regular employment to teachers without contracts in the state
and make cash payments in place of providing housing under the 'Indira
Dwellings' scheme. He was addressing a meeting which sought to create
unity between extreme Dalit groups and other groups in society. He claimed
that the present government was falsely asserting that it was creating
progress when the funds were actually coming from the central government.
For more on the story, in Hindi, visit Jagran
- Yahoo! India.
Solstice Scenes in Yarra Valley
24 June 2010. Peter Friedlander, Melbourne. Back in Melbourne again
in mid winter, click on images for more.
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Melbourne From Ferny Creek
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Near Woori Yallock and Millgrove
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Life Imprisonment for three convicted of gang rape, two still absconding
1 June 2010. Peter Friedlander. There are reports in various Hindi papers,
such as Dainik
Bhaskar, that three of the accused in the case of Japanese woman
who was raped in April on her way to Gaya station have been sentenced
to life imprisonment and that two others are still absconding but their
possessions have been seized. This is an instance of how remarkably
quick justice can be in India when there is a need for it to be, and
when a special court is set up to deal with a case. See this coverage
of the story on Zeenews
and the Judge's highlighting of the harm the case had done to Bihar's
reputation and on Nitish Kumar's directions to the police see this story
on the India
Today website.
Yogyakarta skyline
31 May 2010. Peter Friedlander. A sketch from a recent trip to Yogyakarta,
more images on May Sketch page.
PaintedWorlds: Pictures by Peter Friedlander
19 May 2010. Peter Friedlander. Only very tangentally related to Bodhgaya
I am afraid, but I recently gave a talk about my painting and sketching
activities over the years which does include mentions of Bodhgaya and
India so I thought I would post a link to it here. The presentation
is here in the form of six YouTube clips.
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Introduction
Overland to India in 1977
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Part 1
From Cambridge to Varanasi
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Part 2
Singapore and beyond
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Part 3
Q&A part 1
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Part 4
Q&A part 2
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Ending
Impossiblesky
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Awareness of Road impovements delayed and a sad story
18 April 2010. Peter Friedlander. There is a recent (27 March) article
on the BBC Hindi website by Vinod Varma about the improvements to the
roads to Bodhgaya going on a the moment. Apparently now the previous
trip time of ten to twelve hours on a single lane road to Varanasi has
been reduced to two or three hours due to the new road. He reports mixed
receptions to this in some quarters though. In particular local taxi
drivers have found their business harmed as people no longer fly, or
catch the train, to Bodhaya and then hire taxis there. There is a also
a suggestion that this may lead to more traffic reaching Bodhgaya due
to people prefering to come by car rather than having to make railway
bookings. What this will do for the traffic situation in Bodhgaya I
am not sure. For more read the Hindi article on the BBC
Hindi website. The reputation of the local taxi services is also
not helped by events such as the recent case (17 April 2010) of a Japanese
woman who hired a taxi to the station from Bodhgaya and was then gangraped
by the a group of five men en route, for more on this see a report in
Dainik
Bhaskar.
551,000,000 Hindi speakers vs 125,000,000 English speakers: 2001
census data
14 March 2010. Peter Friedlander. A report in the Times of India gives
a break down of the 2001 census of India data on people's second and
third languages. After almost a decade ago now this data has been released
that shows how knowledge of English as a second, or third, language
has been growing in India. It also shows how the number of those who
know Hindi as a second or third language keeps growing.
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(millions) |
| Hindi |
551.4 |
| English |
125 |
| Bengali |
91 |
| Telegu |
85 |
| Marathi |
84.2 |
| Tamil |
66.7 |
| Urdu |
59 |
| Kannada |
50.8 |
| Gujarati |
50.3 |
| Oriya |
36.6 |
| Malayalam |
33.3 |
| Punjabi |
31.4 |
| Assamese |
18.9 |
For more details read the report on the Times
of India website
Attacks on Indians in Australia not just Racism: Australian born
Peter speaks?
Tuesday 23 February. Below is the text, and translation, of an article
based on on an interview published in Hindustan, a major Hindi daily
paper, with me in Varanasi recently when I was visiting the Kabir Panth
monastery. Surojeet, the reporter, and his editor(s) manage to report
what I said in a way which is quite pleasing, but in which they connect
what I said in a rather odd way which at times obscures, or slightly
'pinches' the meaning of what I said by the way things get put together.
Its a great example of how journalism works, I can recognise in it what
I said, but there is also much that comes from the paper's way of approaching
what I said. Here is my rough translation of what they said, I said.

Attacks on Indians in Australia not just Racism: Australian born
Peter speaks of believing in the Kabir Panth as a religion Surojeet
Chaterjee, Hindustan, Monday 15 February, Varanasi, page seven.
Doctor Peter Gerard Friedlander, who abandoned an aetheist life to become
a Buddhist says that the Kabir Panth can be regarded as a religion.
This is important in the context of Indian relgion as Kabir is relevant
in every age. He taught that rather than looking at outward appearances
we should look within. "Everybody knows, there are drops in the
ocean; but few realise, there are oceans in every drop". On another
front due to the ongoing racism in Australia there is an atmosphere
of consumerism [I said that consumerism was a factor contributing
to crime]. Also during the last twenty years there has been an economic
downtown. In addition there are factional and political Indian organisations
which are raising their voices for the Indians which may be a factor
[which then misses out - a factor in highlighting publicity about the
attacks]. Moreover, everybody is afraid to travel on public transport
in Melbourne [then missed out - at night]. London born National University
of Singapore Hindi lecturer Peter came to Banaras in 1977. Recently
for a number of years he has been working on a study of the translations
of Kabir's poems done by Rabindranath Tagore as 'One Hundred Poems of
Kabir'. He wants to know what were the factors which led to Tagore adding
elements of his own words to the translation. Speaking in the Kabir
Chaura Monastery on Sunday to Hindustan he said - Tagore made his translation
based on a work made by Kshitimohan Sen. Through this in in the 19th
century [should be early 20th] the works of Kabir become well established
throughout the world. I am not interested in determining fault [misses
out in the sense of whether there there are faults in the translations].
Furthermore, nobody knows the sources for some of the verses in the
collection made by Baleshwar Prasad Agrawal [misses out that these are
the basis for Kshitimohan Sen's collection]. The translations always
change, but the message remains the same.
Chief Minister to visit various religious sites
Jan 25, 2010 (Jagran
Yahoo!).
Gaya. The Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is coming on Tuesday for a four
trip to Gaya and will pay honour (literally 'bow') at various religious
sites. The district administration officers have notified the ordinary
people at these sites after site inspections that he may be coming knocking
on their doors at the possible locations. Whilst the start may be in
Bodhgaya there is also the possibility of visiting, Vishnupad, Mangalagauri,
Pita Maheshwar, Peer Mansur etc. etc. At an official level during his
trip (techically described here as a pravas a 'journey away from
home' perhaps here in the sense of 'leave') there will be no notification
of his tours of inspection during this period. The reasons for this
include his security and other possible reasons. It is possible that
where and when he will go anywhere will be decided everyday during the
night watches and information given to the officers. So the district
administration of Gaya district is watching out over all the archeological
and historical sites in the district where the CM might go.
There has been cleaning work going on for two days at Vishnupad. Amongst
the Gayawal priests there is considerable talk that the CM is coming
to the Vishnupad temple. On the way he will also have darshan at
Mangalagauri. This is because when he was about to become CM he had
darshan at Mangalagauri. (the implication is perhaps that he
might have made some sort of pledge, manauti, to the deity there
that if he became CM he would return and make offerings in thanks for
the goddess's aid). It is also said that it is possible he will visit
the grave of Peer Mansur (i.e. a Muslim sacred site) which is situated
near to Pita Maheshvar temple. The administration has also started cleaning
and painting works at various other sacred sites as well as Vishnupad.
Because the CM knows that Hindus as well as making offering at Vishnupad
do so at dozens of other sites for making offerings to the ancestors
(vedi). Finally, work is also in progress to clean up at the
river Phalgu, it is also possible that the CM may take a glimpse of
this (seasonally) dried up river. (Note: this story was then followed
up by two more, first that the All India Monks Federation have announced
that they will demonstrate during his visit in support of their demand
that the temple management be handed over to only Buddhists, and second
that the Temple Management Committee will roll our the red carpet in
honour of the CM's visit.)
Third Cultural Evening of Buddhist Festival cancelled
Jan 17 2010, (Jagran
- Yahoo! India). Bodhgaya. On the news of the passing away of the
former chief minister and senior CPM leader Jyoti Basu the program for
the third cultural evening at the third Buddhist cultural festival was
cancelled. Meanwhile after the concluding ceremony of the Buddhist festival
at the Kalacakra field there was a memorial ceremony organised by the
DM Mr Singh along with other officials, along with the Secretary of
the BTMC N. Dorje and the member Radha Krishna Mishra and a two minute
silence as an expression of faith.