I spent twenty-seven of my first forty-eight hours in Jerusalem in my hotel bed, and yesterday slept for seventeen hours. A cold and a cough that descended on me the day before I left Canada turned into a full-blown phenomenon on the plane ride into Israel. I became that coughing, sputtering, disgustingly snotty guy on […]
Inauguration Day
posted by Marcello Di Cintio
As I mentioned below, I’ve spent the last few weeks trying to process what learned in India and Morocco into legible prose, and preparing for my next trip. Today, though, like much of the world, I am sure, I spent much of the day watching the inauguration. It is hard, in a way, to react […]
Next trip
posted by Marcello Di Cintio
I haven’t done much writing in the few weeks I’ve been back from India, but I have been busy. Following the advice of my enthusiastic agent, I’ve reworked the proposal for the ‘walls’ book a few times. As I write this, the proposal sits on the desks of publishers in Canada and the US while […]
Home
posted by Marcello Di Cintio
After a delayed flight out of India, then not finding a stand-by seat out of London, I finally made it back to Calgary on Saturday. I was welcomed by the warm arms of my wife and the icy embrace of a Calgary cold snap. It was nearly 30 degrees when I got on the plane […]
Café moment
posted by Marcello Di Cintio
Yesterday, as I was reading in a Starbucks-clone café, the man sitting at the next table removed one of his sandals and began caressing his bare foot while whistling ‘My Heart will Go On.’
Finishing in Kolkata
posted by Marcello Di Cintio
I am back in Kolkata winding down the last few days of my trip. I will be home in Calgary on the weekend, and while returning to a Canadian winter and the Christmas nonsense holds little appeal I am glad, in a way, that this trip is over. It has been a frustrating couple of […]
Imposing identity
posted by Marcello Di Cintio
I’ve spent the last week or so in Assam and Tripura. I intended to make another attempt at the fenced-in village of Bhogdanga in Assam. I had a contact at a television news channel that was willing to ‘lend’ me some credentials, but the attacks in Mumbai meant that all of India’s more sensitive border […]
On Mumbai
posted by Marcello Di Cintio
I’ve resisted commenting on the Mumbai attacks in this blog because I don’t think that my take on the disaster is at all relevant. I was, thankfully, not in Mumbai at the time, not even close, and I knew none of the victims. I cannot pretend to understand what Mumbaikers are feeling – though to […]
November
25
Photos of Srinagar
posted by Marcello Di Cintio
Since it has been a while since I’ve posted any photos – and since I seem to be scamming someone’s wireless signal in my Delhi hotel room – I thought it a good time to add some visuals. All these photos are from Srinagar, the largest city in the Kashmir Valley. (The man in the […]
Kashmir postponed
posted by Marcello Di Cintio
Sadly, I left Srinagar and the Kashmir Valley the other day without having visited the villages I wanted to see. My research plans were frustrated by the combination of snowfall-closed roads and the idiosyncrasies of elections in a disputed territory: general strikes, sudden blockades, and undeclared curfews. I will return to Kashmir in the spring […]
Elsewhere 