From Galicia to Tamil Nadu...

One can read incredible things every day in the newspaper. This morning reading the India Express ("journalism of courage") I learnt that yesterday 2 people had been killed by leopards in a natural park close to Mumbai and that one worker died after a long hunger strike in a collective protest against a building contractor who had not payed the "tribe" for a work done in 2000. "Tribe" because the civil works are done usually by nomade tribes (each tribe is specialised & the women work in saari, what makes it a colour show) that go from place to place where they get work. I'll try to give you some abstacts from the article because the way to say it is also very entertaining.
In fact maybe same things were happening in Poland but unfortunatly I couldn't read it...(I can hear some protests rising!). I really enjoy understanding the local newspaper!

The way from Paris to Mumbai via Incheon/Korea was quite long on monday 21st. I was 2 days in Incheon (half way between the island where is the int. airport and Seoul) for some production trials. Guess in which hotel? In "Paradise", the one which hosted both korean and french teams (probably for the last preparation game during the world cup in 2002, so no good memories for "frog eaters"). Lots of souvenirs like signed balls and a pub called ZiDane! Korean "englisheee" is really catastrophic, much worse than french one (which is supposed to be the negative reference, but improving as you can notice when talking with Christian...). But they are friendly, woman carry umbrella to protect from sun (romantic!), you have individual bells on the pub's table to ring for service, internet in hotel room, high sophisticated toilets ("Toto", made in Japan, with possible automatic water jet as substitute for paper)and some nice rules at diner like you should never serve yourself beer or soju (a sweet potato alcool, 20 degree but efficient...), your neighbour has to and when he does - actually very, very (,too?)frequently - take your glass with both hands.
On the way back I had some time, my camera and a high-tech lounge from Korean-Air with nice computer with USB plug, so I started to build-up my site and unloaded pictures there. Incredible what you can do with "freewebs" within 90 minutes (take a look at www.freewebs.com/identic/index.htm).

Some hours of difficult plane sleep later, as I landed in Mumbai at 2AM, "Murphy's law" had proved to be true again and there was no coach for me (predictible since my stay in Korea had been shortened). Eventually I found a taxi to bring me to Pune (3 hours drive). Crossing the Mumbai suburbs I saw hundreds of rickshaws (black&yellow) parked along the road in the night with their driver sleeping on the rear seat (with open access on both side of the rick'). Was it their home? Where they living to far away? The next surrealistic step was one hour later on the highway columns of ghost trucks climbing the Deccan plateau. Why ghost? Because they had no rear lights (generally in a bad shape & rosted), no light in the cabin, they where very slow (strong slope!) and they had erratic ways so that your could have doubts whether there were drivers or not. The taxi made a great "slalom" between those dangerous moving grey masses...but where they trucks or elephants? I don't remember so well...

You probably followed the dramatic events of the last indian democratic election in may. No casulaties (only political ones) but big, big suspens. At that time I still had a TV (I was in the hotel...) so I could watch daily the progress of the drama. India had no governmnent during about 10 days until Sonia Gandhi decided NOT TO BE Prime Minister even if she had the possibility.

Nobody expected the Congress victory even the Congress itself.

The "foreign origin" of Sonia (everybody calls her like that here), already used by the BJP (right wing, nationalists, main ruling party from previous government) during the campaign was emphasized after the election results were published, and you could hear basic hate and xenophobic speech from 2 or 3 BJP members which didn't honor their party at all. BJP showed absolute non-respect to Sonia as they announced they wouldn't attend the "sworn-in" ceremony which is an important democratic step of enpowering process.
Sonia played great, she had a huge popular support, but guessing that the BJG would systematically block all processes and finally the country would be the victim, she apparently gave up. Clever tactic, she is now bigger than before (her sacrifice is unique) and she is at the head of the ruling party without participating directly in the gouvernement. The PM - Manmohan Singh - is a discret but eminent economist. A Sikh, always in white with light blue turban. He sworn in in front of the president, a scientific, muslem "untouchable", father of the indian atomic bomb...