Air Deccan again!

HAL Airport Bangalore.
Stuck once again in the Bangalore airport @#$%!

Notoriously late Air Deccan is delayed by 5 hours! Should be sleeping in Cochin by now and instead I am still stuck listening to the "delay" announcements. Shame that I am not carrying a digi-cam to take pictures of the chaos in this airport. Everyone seems to be losing their patience. Looks like this is going to be one more of those moments of OTS (One Tight Slap).

Probably the last time I am going to take an Air Deccan flight!

Flashback:
Seeing me struggling to find finance to organise the symposium in Bangalore last month, a friend who is close to Capt Gopinath of Air Deccan, offered to get a booklet of tickets and I kindly refused. Instead I said that I will be keen to see him attending the symposium rather.

I should probably thank the stars that made me stick to that decision. Probably I would have made more enemies than friends if at all I had offered these tickets for the delegates!!

In the meanwhile:



"Vettakorumagan - Kalam prepared for our visiting guests



Five basic natural colours that were used for preparing the "Kalam".

© GP 2007

Welcoming another year

Fort Cochin
By the beginning of the New Year in Fort Cochin, we had :

- Four hotels attacked by a mob in Fort Cochin
- Seven cars broken (those I counted on the Calvathy road)
- Foreign tourists abused (as I heard one drunk shouting to a tourist, "Go back Go back , Bloody bastard George Bush!") (What did the poor Dutch tourist and his daughter had to do with Saddam or George Bush for that matter!)
- Musicians scared away ( they were on their way to a fusion music concert)
- Business loss for many ( tourists left many restaurants fearing another attack!)
- Business gain for some (those tourists who ran ended up in the shacks on the beach!)

When asked "Who do you think these people were?", various answers came from the property owners


- Rioters! (Drunk and having fun!)
- Muslims (Emotional response to Saddams' hanging on the Eid. (Though most of the faces I saw were regulars in leftist rallies, and some of them were coming out of the reading room of a local political party office! It is quite sad to see these sort of branding)
- Business rivals ("You buy we Cook eateries" who were trying to take business away from established hotels on Calvathy road!)
- Dissidents from the Cochin carnival organising committee!

Basically when the bell struck at 12, I was wandering looking for a taxi to go home!
(What a wonderful way to celebrate the new year!)

When I found some vehicles drivers were not willing to take an "unknown" male passenger unless I have a reference of an "attached hotel" they work with! Am sure I didn't look like a "tough guy!". It's really unfortunate to be reminded of the insecurity in which this society lives!

One can't blame these drivers considering the number of murders and criminal activities that are increasing in Kerala these days.


© GP 2007

Madhava Vadya Vidyalayam

Bangalore

It was when we heard about the caste barriers that many of the lower caste musicians face in terms of performing with other upper caste musicians (in front of respectable audience and famous temple courtyards) that we decided to incorporate "Music trail" as a one day program during our Nila experience. Since we were working closely with the Pulluvans by then, we were already looking at the social angle of the work we were involved with.

The Pulluvans were facing economic and social problems as they were struggling to make a living with the traditional knowledge they couldn't practice much any more (which was their sole source of income for many generations).

Similiarly, the musicians of Madhava Vidyalayam in Mulayankavu were from a community called "Mannan". (different from the Scheduled tribe of mannan who are found in Idukki and Madurai districts of Kerala and Tamilnadu). The "mannathi" basically does (used to) the laundry for the neighbouring villages and the men of the family were taking on the roles of "Velichappaadu" (Oracle) or priests in community temples (kaavu) or even as traditional healers (medicinal). The men also used to play musical instruments like "Thudi" and "Para", but not Classical instruments like "Chenda" which were mostly related to temple rituals. (and hence no entry for lower castes to perform inside the courtyard)

It was Aravindakhan's father (standing on the left in the group photo) who instilled the interest for music amongst his sons and they went on to practice music for many years and most of them ended up playing almost all the percussion's known in Kerala including classical Chenda. Unfortunately the rigid caste system that is followed in Kerala (Yes, we are also known as the most progressive, educated and literate society in India!!) keeps them away from many places where they would ideally like to perform!

If they can't be taken to places and courtyards of traditional performances, we thought of bringing music loving audience to them and that was the beginning of "Music Trail", which is one of the strongest element of our holidays on the banks of River Nila.

© GP 2006

Music Trail

Mulayamkavu

Every river has a rhythm. River Nila has the uniqueness of having influenced the percussion based music culture of Kerala. The now popular percussions like Chenda, Thimila, Idakka, Madhalam, Kombu, Kuzhal, Illathaalam, have gained its existing playing style from various schools set on the banks of the river.

Today we had taken a group of American friends to get a feel of the music of the place. The idea was to introduce them to the river culture, its influence on our music and how the above instruments form various symphonies like ‘Pancha Vaadyam, Thaayambaka, Panchaari Melam, Paandimelam'.

This was a rare opportunity for them to see all the musical instruments from Kerala in one place. Hari Govindan explained how they practice throughout the day and how they master the skills. By the end of the day they were treated to a symphony of all these musical instruments played together.

From wind, string to percussion the notes varied.

And as one of our previous guests wrote, "the experience indelible..."

Hope it was the same for Allison and her family.

© GP 2006

The real story

Tirur

Quoting the Business Line report on the International Centre.

"India to get responsible tourism centre "

To commence activities with workshop on Dec 16 ICRT-India will be funded through grants, consultancy and teaching, fees.

Thiruvananthapuram , Dec. 14 India is set to become the first Asian nation to have an International Centre for Responsible Tourism (ICRT).

The non-profit ICRT-India will formally commence its activities in the country with a workshop on responsible tourism to be held in Bangalore on December 16. ICRT-India is affiliated to the international centres for responsible tourism in South Africa and The Gambia and also to the ICRT-UK, a post-graduate training and research centre at the University of Greenwich.

Dr Harold Goodwin, Director, ICRT-UK and Chief Advisor, ICRT-India told Business Line that India is ready for responsible tourism. "People increasingly want more meaningful experiences on holiday, more activities and contact, and they want their trip to be guilt-free. These are business opportunities as well as contributing to sustainable development," he said.

ICRT-India is keen to encourage the tourism industry and the Governments — both at the Centre and State-level — to do more to make tourism responsible, he said. Towards this objective, the organisation will develop its own programme of work in areas such as continuing professional development, training, research, consultancy and advocacy, he said.

ICRT-India, which will be based in Bangalore, will also work with its sister organisations in South Africa and The Gambia, Dr Goodwin added.

Academic programmes

For its academic programmes, the organisation is also looking at establishing partnerships or links with Indian educational and research institutions. Such partnerships are being considered for its planned masters and continuing professional development programmes, he said. ICRT-India is not yet talking with anyone in particular about partnerships and is open to discussions with institutions in the country, he added.

According to Dr Goodwin, ICRT-India will be funded through grants, consultancy and teaching fees. The organisation is also looking for a sponsor, he added.

Global interest

Commenting on the increasing global interest in responsible tourism, he pointed out that it is in tourism destinations that most of the work can be done to ensure sustainability and maximise local economic development. More international centres of responsible tourism are planned, he added. "

By Sankar Radhakrishnan

© GP 2006

Passing Shots!

HAL Airport Bangalore

The Hindu Newspaper reports :

"Resource centre for Responsible Tourism planned". "We are trying to rope in one of the main advocates and promoters of Responsible Tourism, Harold Goodwin, for setting up the proposed centre," (read more here).

Now this is what I would call as a 'Passing Shot'!

It's truly amazing how people claim for things they haven't even attempted. Wonder why they waited until the last day in the office to make a statement that had no truth in it? All that happened was a lecture Dr. Goodwin gave for Kerala Tourism at the WTM 2005 in London and it was agreed upon by Kerala Tourism Department and some leading industry leaders that they will invite Dr Goodwin for the Kerala Travel Mart 2006 and even asked him to block his dates for the same!

Since then, there was no response from Government and didn't even care to acknowledge the emails asking if this was actually going to happen or not! I don't know if that was a great way of showing hospitality to a man who has changed the way on how people choose to travel.

It's been at least six months since we have been trying to convince the Kerala Tourism, that they should take Responsible Tourism as a way forward for the destination and not just continue doing the lip service. In the last one year, we have been hearing about Responsible Tourism and it reached a stage were one day we decided to visit senior bureaucrats in Trivandrum. The idea was to learn how serious they were about Responsible Tourism in destination.

We did ask this much. "How serious are you guys on RT?".

Answer was "Hmm, we aren't sure, we don't even know if the industry would accept this. Right now, we are testing it with the media. We are just testing to check how the industry would respond. There is actually fear amongst the politicians that RT would scare away investors!".

Great! So much for the understanding on RT!

In the same meeting I suggested that they should do workshops on RT for Government, Industry, NGOs and Political parties of Kerala as an initial step. There was (still is) a danger of trends of "greening" that happened in the name of Eco Tourism.

For this to be taken care, all stake holders should have clear understanding about what the whole concept is about. There was a tremendous level of learning that needs to go into the system.Being a fertile ground for many initiatives which were entrepreneur driven, there was (is) tremendous scope for Kerala to be the ideal flag bearer of Responsible Tourism in the country if supported by the government machinery.

We had proposed that we would do two symposiums in India. A National level one in New Delhi and a State level one in Kerala with Dr. Harold Goodwin leading the symposia. Kerala tourism offered to support but disagreed about the Delhi part. Finally we agreed to do the National Symposium in Kerala and were offered financial support to organise the same.

Even 14 days into the event, nothing happened and I was just tired running from office to another and explaining why RT is important for a destination like India and especially Kerala.

When we arranged a meeting for Kerala Tourism with Dr. Goodwin of the International Centre, in the back drop of World Travel Mart in November 2006, all that they did was to tell us that they will take a decision once they are in Kerala and asked me to go down for a meeting . (and this was after keeping them on the loop for almost 6 months!) And, the decision was all about if Kerala wanted to host the Symposium on Responsible Tourism or not!

Both the bureaucrats were definitely moving out of the tourism department and hence were quite indecisive. It reached a stage where I decided "enough was enough" and took the event to Bangalore which was organised on the 16th of this month at Our Native Village, in Bangalore.

With the remaining two weeks, I wanted to ensure that whatever little energy I had, that should be channelised to make the event a success and bring together a small group of people from the travel industry, NGOs, Government, media and academicians. I really didn't have any more time to waste.

© GP 2006

Monsoon clouds

Two years and a half back, we were in the backwaters of Alleppey in Kerala. Three of my friends and I were scouting for locations in Central Kerala and experiences that we could share with travellers across the world.

I was so tired running around, meeting far too many people and my energy was just running out. I was so happy to get on board one of our friend's houseboat and just sleep after a sumptuous traditional lunch they served on the houseboat.

The summer day was hot and humid and we were out there waiting for the monsoon to arrive. With all the windows opened and still not a bit of air blowing from any side, I don't know how I slept. What appeared to be ages, I was woken up by heavy movement of the boat and could hear the shouting of our oarsmen. We were in the middle of the vast lake and our boat was just turning round and round in the wind!

I couldn't believe what I saw then. In few seconds, the whole lake was getting enveloped in darkness at around 330pm. The atmosphere was so charged and that was definitely a once in a life time experience. While still lying down in the bed looking out through the window, what I saw was breathtaking.

There was a huge rain cloud moving towards us from the horizon so fast.

The first monsoon cloud in that area!

It was rich, dark, mad and seductive!

© GP 2006