Latino Kiss in Bollywood film.....

What is a Latino kiss? Latinos say it is the opposite of Australian kiss.....
Here is a demonstration of Latino kiss...

This is a scene from Kites, the first Bollywood film with a Latin American heroine. It is Barbara Mori, the Uruguyan-born Mexican actress. The Bollywood actor is Hrithik Roshan... wearing a Mexican sombrero in the picture below.....

The story is about an Indian man’s romantic affair with a Latina woman. Hrithik Roshan plays a salsa teacher who speaks only Hindi and English. Barbara Mori plays a Latina who speaks only Spanish. But they understand each other through the Latino language of love....

The Indian businessmen should now stop talking about the language barrier to do business with latin America...

There are some scenes shot in Mexico ....

The film is expected to be released in May in Hindi ,English and Spanish too....

A Brasilian garota Giselle Monteiro has also acted in a Bollywood film (Love aaj kal) but in a supporting role. Before becoming an actress in Bollywood, Giselle was a professional model. She came to Mumbai on a modelling assignment which opened the doors to Bollywood. Indians who watched the film did not know she was a Brazilian untill it was publicised...doesnt she look like a kaur from Jullunder.....?

Indian Fashion Show in Buenos Aires

The first-ever Indian Fashion Show we organized on 24 March at Hotel Sheraton in Buenos Aires, was a spectacular success. It was attended by almost 1000 invitees including fashion designers, importers, textile industry representatives and media. The Indian designs, colours and creativity floored the Argentines and has opened the doors to the high-end textile market of Argentina. Since Buenos Aires is the fashion capital of Latin America, the impact of the show will be felt in the whole region.


Two Indian designers Nachiket Barve and Anita Dongre came from Mumbai for the show. We combined them with two Argentine designers Monica Socolovsky and Fabian Zita who use Indian materials and accessories. Monica has travelled to India 96 times and is an ardent devotee of Sai Baba. Her company is called “Satya Fashion”. Her clothes are sold in nearly 200 stores in the country and she also exports to Europe, USA and rest of Latin America.

Following the show, we organized a reception for 200 VIPs. The Show was telecast by Fashion TV and a number of local TV channels. Fashion magazines and newspapers have given wide coverage.
Bandana Tiwari, Editor of the Vogue magazine of India had come specially from Mumbai for our show. Her passage and local hospitality were given by the Argentine government export promotion agency. This was organized by Monica Socolosvky.

Our show was part of the week-long Buenos Aires ‘Alta Moda Fashion Week´ (22-28 March), which featured Argentine and foreign fashion designers. Since we plugged our show into this, we were able to reduce the expenditure on publicity and infrastructure as well as on the Argentine models who were hired for the Fashion Week.

Monica Socolovsky (in the picture baove) has popularized and enhanced the profile of Indian textiles for the last thirty years in Argentina through her “Satya Fashion” stores and franchise. She was the one behind the organization and success of our Fashion Show. She had taken the trouble of visiting our designers in India and coordinating the preparations.

We hope to repeat the Indian Fashion Show next year and the coming years too.. We are also planning to invite a delegation of six to ten Argentine designers for our Fashion shows in India and expose them to our traditions and variety and colours of our materials, embroideries and designs.

Fernandez - Argentine novel

The author of this novel is Jorge Fernandez Diaz, the same who wrote La segunda vida de las Flores.

This is the story of Fernandez, the journalist and his exposure to political and social issues of Argentina. One day, Fernandez in his middle age, is at the waiting room of a dentist in Palermo in Buenos Aires. There appears Lili, his ex-girl friend from the school days. The unexpected meeting of the two after thirty years sets off both of them on a memory trip going over what happened in their lives in this period. They recall their friends and acquaintances, adventures and misadventures as well as amores y desamores.

Fernandez became a journalist and got a rich experience of dealing with political leaders and social issues. He was lured by the governor of a Patagonian province to edit a local newspaper. The governor used the newspaper to manipulate news and opinion in the region. Fernandez was unable to take beyond a point and returned to Buenos Aires. After his return, Fernandez started working in a magazine. Here he got a different experience of political manipulation by the media. Delia, the owner of the magazine used and misused political leaders for her profit. She tried to make Fernando write her biography with falsified information. During this period, he went to Punta del Este, where the rich and famous Argentines do wheeling and dealing while partying and vacationing.

Lili had her own adventures of romance and marriage. She was married to a rich man but it did not work out. Both Fernandez and Lili, in their formative years were influenced by Marxism and other leftist ideologies, as was fashionable in those days. But they moved on.

Ideas of love and romance are reawakened in the hearts of Fernandez and Lili in this meeting after such a long time. She looks radiant and well operated …from top to bottom !! He looks like he carried the wounds of a hundred battles of life. But as typical Porteños, they analyse and reanalyse every word and every gesture of each other… and walk away from the Second Opportunity life presented to them.

Jorge Fernandez Diaz, who is also a journalist, has given a vivid account of what goes on behind the news coverage and commentaries. He has brought out the nexus between political leaders and journalists and how the two try to take advantage of each other using their political and journalistic power. Diaz takes the readers around the cafes and bars of the neighbourhood of Palermo, as he had done in his previous novel. The middle age crisis of Fernandez and Lili has been used by Diaz for psychoanalysis, which is a trade mark of the Argentine authors. Diaz has cleverly woven the political crisis of the country with the middle age crisis of the two individuals.

I agree with Diaz´s political comment that Argentines sought Truth in the eighties but Truth did not matter in the nineties ¨. Now Argentina seems to have entered a post-truth era….

Costa Rica, the land of enlightened elite, elects Laura Chinchilla as the new President

In the elections held on 7 February, Laura Chinchilla was elected as the first woman President of Costa Rica. She was a Minister of Justice and first Vice President in the administration of her predecessor, President Oscar Arias. She was leading in the opinion polls and her victory was predicted. It is this predictability and long democratic tradition which makes Costa Rica different from the rest of Latin America. The country has held regular elections every four years and peaceful transfer of power in the last sixty years. This is remarkable and distinct in the contemporary history of Latin America where many countries had suffered military dictatorships, civil wars and interruption of democracies.

What is the secret behind this unique achivement of Costa Rica which has managed to be an island of peace and democracy in the ocean of Latin American political instability and chaos in the post- Second World War era. In fact there are two secrets behind this.

Firstly, the country has no military. It abolished the armed forces voluntarily in 1948. The absence of armed forces meant that there were no cocky colonels or generals who thought they knew how to run governments better than the politicians. Ballots , not bullets , became the only route to power. Costa Rica boasts that they spend their money on teachers and schools instead of colonels and barracks. Costa Rica has set an example to Latin America and the world of a military-free society.

The second secret is the abiding commitment and consensus among the elite of Costa Rica to democracy and social equity. It is true that most of the political leaders come from the small number of oligarchic families in the country, as in many other countries in the region. This includes President Arias, a coffee baron and from the top three wealthiest families in the country. But the Costa Rican oligarchy is an enlightened one with a social conscience. The governments have pursued a policy of inclusive development, irrespective of whether they are conservatives or liberals. The four million citizens enjoy the benefits of a modern social welfare state including pensions, labour legislation, national health care and a life expectancy of 77. In 1869, the country became one of the first in the world to make education both free and obligatory, funded by the state’s share of the great coffee wealth. The literacy rate of over 95 percent is one of the highest in Latin America. Even the coffee growing land is distributed among 100,000 families and not monopolised by the oligarchy. Costa Rica was the first country in Central America to give voting rights to women and people of African origin in 1948. It is because of this equity in the society that there has been no revolutionary leftist outsider to challenge the status quo as it happened in some other countries in the region. Latin America has the highest disparity of income in the world. It is this factor which has been responsible for the polarisation of politics and societies and the consequent political instability. Costa Rica has succeeded in reducing the disparity through inclusive development and making all its citizens as stakeholders in democracy. The voter turn out in the elections is one of the highest in the region.

Costa Rica´s democracy which had taken strong roots since the very beginning of the twentieth century was interrupted once in February 1948. President Rafael Calderon annuled the 1948 elections after his handpicked successor candidate lost the elctions. A civil war followed claiming 2000 lives. Jose Figueres , the conservative leader lead a rebel army and toppled the government and took over power in May 1948. But Figueres promised that he would relinquish power in eighteen months after carrying out some reforms. He fulfilled both the promises. He handed over power promptly in November 1949 to the legally elected President in February 1948. His reforms included abolition of the army, decentralisation of power and extension of vote to women. Later he created his own National Liberation party and won the presidential elections in 1953 and in 1970. He handed over power gracefully when he lost the elections in 1958. His son became President in 1990. Ironically he took over from the son of Rafael Calderon against whom his father lead the armed rebellion in 1948. President–elect Chinchilla and President Arias are from the same National Liberation party founded by Figueres.

Costa Rica, known as the Switzerland of Latin America, is not a passively peaceful society blind to the problems around. The country has taken initiatives to help their neighbours. It was Costa Rica which brokered a peace agreement ending the civil war in the region for which President Oscar Arias was awarded Nobel Peace Prize in 1987. In June last year when the El Salvadorean democracy was interrupted, USA and OAS turned to President Arias for his help in resolving the issue.
Costa Rica is, of course, not free from challenges such as corruption, drug trafficking and crime. There have been corruption scandals involving ex-Presidents and Ministers. Chinchilla has promised in her election agenda to tackle these issues.

Costa Rica also stands out as a role model for Latin America in many other respects. With its high literacy rate and per capita computer penetration, the country has attracted Silicon Valley and silicon implants. Intel, HP and other computer companies, call centres and BPOs have a significant presence. Silicon implants for breast enlargement are major exports besides other medical equipments as well as some pharmaceuticals. The country has successfully diversified its economy which was dependent soley upon export of coffee in the past. Costa Rica has also pioneered Ecotourism in the region. The country attracts over two million tourists a year. The per capita income of Costa Rica at 11,000 US Dollars is three times higher than the other countries in Central America.

Costa Rica was one of the first in the world which combined its ministries of energy and the environment back in the 1970s and generates an impressive 99 per cent of its energy from renewable sources. In 1997, a carbon tax was introduced on emissions – with the funds gained being used to pay indigenous communities to protect their surrounding forests. Deforestation has been reversed, and forests cover twice as much land as 20 years ago. In 2007, the Costa Rican Government declared that it intended to become carbon neutral by 2021.

¨Pura Vida¨ is how the Costa Ricans respond cheerfully when you ask them , Como esta ( how are you ). Pura vida literally means pure life. But what the Costa Ricans mean is ¨full of life¨. This makes them distinct among the Latin Americans who respond generally as Bien ( fine) or Muy Bien ( very well ). It is not surprising that Costa Ricans were classified as the happiest people in the world in the Happy Planet Index compiled by the British research group, the New Economics Foundation in their annual survey of 2009.

The Peron Novel – by Tomas Eloy Martinez

This is the fictionalised versión of the life of Juan Domingo Peron who was President of Argentina 1946-55 and later in 1973-74. After overthrown by rightist military generals in 1955, Peron was in exile in Madrid for 18 years and returned in 1973 to become President of the country and died a year later. The story starts with Peron preparing to leave Madrid in 1973 and return to Buenos Aires and be reanointed as President of the country. But the 18 years of exile and 78 years of age had taken its toll on his body and mind. He is no longer sure about himself, his ideology, friends, followers and even about Argentina in general. He is in a progressive state of mental decay and is uncertain and confused in his understanding and decision making. At the same time, his followers are also equally confused since they had lost touch with the leader for a long period which was painful for the country and themselves . Even the mention of the word Peron, Eva or peronism was prohibited and was punishable with jail sentence in the anti-Peronist military rule. Understandly, the Peronists were clueless as to how Peron would relead the country which had undergone so much of traumatic changes.

Peron is manipulated by his fawning secretary Lopez who has a game plan for the post-Peron time. He is preparing Isabella the third wife of Peron to take over after the death of Peron. Knowing that he has very little life left in him, Peron is preparing his memoirs to claim his place in the history of Argentina. This exercise makes him recollect his past starting from his childhood. He recalls his career as an army officer, marriages and involvement in politics leading to his Presidency of the country. In the memoirs, Peron edits his life story with omissions and commissions to make him appear as heroic and admirable.

Peron was not just one of those Presidents of Argentina. He has left an indelible mark on Argentine politics and modern history. Peronism has become a force to reckon with in the politics of the country. Peron´s second wife Evita has also contributed to the mythology of Peronism. The current President Christina and her husband who was President from 2003 to 2007 as well as Menem who was President from 1989 to 1999 are Peronists. Peronism has come to stay as a leftist and populist ideology with belief in a strong government as protector of the masses and control of the market. While Peron was the undisputed supreme leader of Peronism at that time, Peronism has now broken into several factions and is divided.

One can see the origin and evolution of the Peronist ideology from Peron´s remiscenses. As an army officer, Peron believed in strong leadership leaning towards authoritarianism. He is influenced and inspired by Mussolini during his posting as military attache in Italy. He is impressed by Mussolini´s nationalism, populism and militarism which became ingredients of Peron´s brand of ideology later. Although his political ideolgy became controversial, Peron had
contributed to development of the country in industry, infrastructure and social justice.

Tomas Eloy Martinez, the Argentin author of this novel passed away last month. I have developed admiration for him after reading two of his other novels, Santa Evita and The Tango Singer. Martinez was also a victim of military dictatorship and was exiled to Venezuela from where he migrated to US and became a professor at Rutgers University. Before his exile, he had worked as a journalist and had interacted with and interviewed Peron. With his personal knowledge and experience, Martinez has given an accurate description of Peron highlighting the various facets of the personality of this enigmatic leader. Martinez has done extensive research on the life of Peron and has published two other books. He has cleverly mixed facts with fiction in the style of magical realism. It is difficult to know where reality ends and imagination starts. Combining his real-life knowledge with his magical realism skills, Martinez has made the novel more powerful, leaving a strong impact on the readers. The book is useful to understand not only Peron but also the contemporary politics and society of Argentina which are haunted by the past.

The News from Paraguay – novel by Lily Tuck

The story starts with a feather. A bright blue parrot feather falls out of the hat of Ella while riding a horse in Paris. Francisco Lopez picks it up and gives it to her. And there starts a romance ... like in a Bollywood movie. Francisco has been sent to Paris by his father Carlos Antonio Lopez, the first constituitional President of Paraguay. Francisco lives an adventurous playboy life in Paris showing off his wealth and status. Alongwith his luggage from Paraguay he has even brought a native band to play at his parties. He falls in love with Ella, an equally adventurous and horse-riding Irish girl of nineteen, who has come to live the good life of Paris. She lives with a Russian count after having divorced a French man whom she married when she was fifteen. The Count leaves her to join the Russian war and Francisco enters her life at this opportune time. Francisco courts her in royal style and takes her back to Paraguay. But he cannot marry her since his father does not allow the marriage because she is a divorcee . He puts her up in a separate house and Ella puts up with her status as a mistress. She manages to survive in the midst of the hostile family members of Francisco and the hot, humid and backward life in Asuncion. She impresses the natives with her elegant Parisian dress, shoes and perfumes. She gives birth to seven children of whom the first one Pancho takes after his father in his adventurous and headstrong attitude. Franciso takes over from his father as the President of Paraguay and modernises the country with railways, telegraph, industries and even starts building a opera hall like the La Scala of Italy. But his overconfidence and megalomania lead him into a war against the combined forces of Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil. He is killed in combat and Paraguay is ruined. Ella goes back to Paris but dies as a pauper, having lost everything.

This is a historical fiction based on the Paraguyan President (1862-70) Francisco Solano Lopez and his Irish mistress Ella Lynch. Many other characters in the novel are also real. Lopez started off his Presidency well with his modernisation programme. He built the first railways in South America, ahead of Brazil and Argentina. Paraguay at this time was more developed and industrialised than many countries in the region. But the war against the Triple Alliance of Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay was foolish and catastrophic. Predictably, Paraguay was defeated. But more devastating was the fact that two thirds of the male population of the country was killed in the war. The impact of this is felt even now and there is shortage of men., who have taken advantage of this situation. There are lot of children in Paraguay who don’t know their fathers.

This book won the National Book Award in 2004. The author Lily Tuck is an American who was born in Paris. She had lived for sometime in Uruguay. She has given a flavour of Paraguay in the novel and has given a lively portrayal of the historical characters. She has blended and contrasted the high society Parisian lifestyle with the laid back life in backward Paraguay. These are brought out in the exchange of correspondence between Ella from Paraguay and her friend princess Mathilde who lives in Paris. Buenos Aires also figures in the novel since it is the transit point to enter the landlocked Paraguay through the Rio de la Plata river. The Paraguayans in those days as well as now come to enjoy the parties and fashions of Buenos Aires, the Paris of Latin America.

Combi – Argentine novel by Angela Pradelli

The previous two Argentine novels I had read this month were about middle class and rich people. But Combi is about the poor and marginalised, who travel by Combi ( minibus) from their residences in the outskirts of Buenos Aires city for more than one hour for their work in the city. This novel is about the fifteen passengers who travel in one of the Combis regularly to the city.

The novel starts with the driver Esteban whose father was also a Combi driver. His father runs away with the wife and money of the owner of the minibus company, uses the money to buy a hotel in a southern town, loses the money with poor management and dies in misery. Esteban´s happiest memories were travelling with his father, talking to him and singing together when they went to a beach town when he was a kid. Esteban is content with his job and his modest life with limited ambitions. His wife asks him to buy diapers for the baby but he forgets it and remembers only the ample breasts pushing against the tight blouse of the receptionist in the minibus company office.
- Carolina, the receptionist in the minibus company had earlier worked in an icecream shop and had a fling with a college student during his summer vacation. She struggles to tolerate her boss who smokes all the time and the irate passengers who take it out on her when the minibus is delayed or when they could not get a seat.
-America Levano, the Peruvian woman, comes to find livelihood in Buenos Aires after her husband ran away with another woman leaving her with his daughter. She lives with other Peruvians and Bolivians in a ghetto which is raided periodically by the Argentine police. She finds work as a domestic help and later an Argentine man to live with. Discovering one day that the Argentine was abusing her daughter, She kills him with a kitchen knife. After her jail term ends she resumes her work and travel by the Combi.
-Olga makes a career out of giving bath to sick and handicapped people. Her job is disgusting when she has to touch and clean the bodies of people with infections and skin diseases. But she has got used to it and the money she earns is good compensation. Her job exposes her to all kinds of people including one who wants her to wash a mannequin.
-Megumi, a woman of Japanese descent enjoys her volunteer job as a reader to sick and handicapped people. Once she is asked to read to a person in coma on the belief that the person in coma might be hearing what is read. By a miracle, the person in coma wakes up one day and remembers the stories read out to him by Megumi. When she reads out in an old peoples´home, the history professor there notices her small feet which make him recall the Chinese tradition of forcefully making women´s feet small and the erotic connotations of small feet in China.
-Bruno is an anthropologist who works as a forensic expert to identify the persons who were tortured, killed and buried by the military dictatorship. He along with other experts analyse the bones and other remains from cemetries and make out who they were and how they died. His technical job gets complicated when he works with the sad and desperate families of those who lost their fathers, brothers and sons to military repression.
- Josef Wrobleswki, of Polish origin, has a habit of telling everyone the story of his family from Poland. But while narrating the sadder parts of the story he starts speaking in Polish and sobbing uncontrollably.
-Ivo mayer is a porno film director after hhaving failed in his ventures to make political films to convey his leftist message. He gets exiled for his political beliefs and on return from exile, he is unable to relaunch his political film project and is stuck in porno films.
The remaining occupants of the fifteen seats in the Combi include a pock marked young woman struggling with the disfiguring of her face by constant eruptions and acnes, a woman who writes astrological columns in a weekly, a man who does magic and tricks and Nacho the orphan kid who is obsessed with cemetries where he spends most of his time. The precariousness of the lives of these characters and the life stories of others with whom they interact in their daily lives are poignant and moving.

On this particular day of the journey, everyone is upset and anxious because the Combi is delayed because of a roadblock by piqueteros ( picketers) on the way. The reason for blocking the road on this day is to commemorate the third anniversary of the death of two of their comrades who were killed in one of the protest marches. The minibus gets stuck in the middle of the protest demonstration. One of the passengers remark,¨we are fucked ( jodido- in spanish) by the dead besides the living Argentines¨. Especially since 2001 (December 2001 saw the worst economic and political crisis in Argentina) the piqueteros have become one of the protagonists of the Argentine society. Day in and day out there are many protest marches in the city of Buenos Aires and traffic is disrupted along with the work and lives of people. Sometimes the piqueteros block the main highways connecting the cities causing traffic jam for miles together. The reasons for such protests could be local or national causes, serious or trivial. But they have become a force to reckon with and part of everyday life in Argentina to the chagrin of middle class and working people. Roadblocks and protests have become instituitionalised. There are many professional piqueteros who have become experts in organisation and media management. They are used by political parties too.

This is the third book I have read in the original Spanish. The author Angela Pradelli has given a vivid account of the lives of poor people who work as domestic help and bus drivers. She has captured their emotions and struggles and made a powerful impact on the readers. The novel is based on her personal experience of travel in Combis and her interaction with all kinds of fellow passengers. Angela works as a teacher

Combi is not a fiction. It is a reality of Argentina. It exists along with the elegant theaters, cafes, bars and restaurants of Buenos Aires and the Country Clubs which have high walls to block the unpleasant reality of slums around them. But the people who live in high-rise apartments and high-walled country clubs cannot avoid the piqueteros and the reality of Argentina....

Las Viudas de los jueves- Argentine novel by Claudia Piñeiro

The novel Las Viudas de los jueves ( the Thursday widows ) takes the readers into the country clubs of Argentina and gives an insight into the lives of the rich Argentines who live in these exclusive places. Country clubs in Argentina ( called as Countries ) are gated residential communities with 100 to 1000 houses. There are around 200 Countries around Buenos Aires city. The main newspapers have weekly supplements on the countries with pictures of idyllic lives. These countries have large houses with spacious gardens, sports facilities such as polofields, golf courses, tennis courts and swimming pools. Most importantly the countries provide security with its own private security guards and systems. They have high walls around so that the poor people outside cannot see the affluence inside. Outsiders cannot enter the countries unless they are invited by a resident. The families and children can walk around and do cycling and skating and there is no need to lock the houses. Many of the Countries have golf courses which add to the greenery and scenery. While some people use their country houses for weekends, there are many who live there permanently and commute to work in the city. During weekends, everyone is out in the gardens, golf courses, tennis courts and pools. Even the kitchen goes outdoor for Asado ( barbecue ). Friends and families get together for barbecue lunch and wine.

I have played golf in dozens of these country clubs and been to the barbecue parties of friends living there. I have been impressed with the style of living, elegance of the houses and aesthetic taste with which the houses are furnished. The country club residences look like entries of architects and interior designers for a competition.

The principal characters in the novel are four couples in the country club called as Los Altos de Cascada. The four wives call themselves as Thursday Widows because their husbands get together on Thursday nights to play cards and have fun among themselves. The wives are excluded from this and they go out for movies or find other ways to occupy themselves. On one fatal Thursday, three of the husbands commit suicide by eloctrocutting in the swimming pool. The fourth guy does not agree to this collective suicide and escapes. The reason for the suicide is the fall in their income and loss of jobs and business which make it impossible for them to sustain the lifestyle they had maintained in the country club.

The novel portrays vividly the aspirations, ostentations, anxieties and insecurities within the high society of the countries. A house in a country is a statement by the social climbers. It is to get away from the city crowd and become part of an exclusive group. But after having moved into the country, they are under intense and constant pressure to keep up with the neighbours and keep up appearances. Clothes, cars, gardens and lives are compared all the time. The scrutiny is more intense than among those living in apartments. In the countries everything is open. There are no fences between houses and there is no place to hide. It is like living in glasshouses. Two teenagers in the novel spend the nights spying on the houses of other residents through binoculars watching from trees and bushes. They happen to see the suicide event and film it. Another kid makes sketches of what he sees through the windows. His sketch and diary description of the sexual activities of his neighbour becomes an issue in the school, who advise the parents to take the kid to a psychologist.

In the Argentine society, show is more important than content. This can be seen from the elaborate artistic façade of the buildings and the elegant dressing by old people who come to the neighbourhood cafes. In Brazil dress does not matter. Choli ke peeche kya hai .. is all that the Brasilians are interested.

The son of one of the principal characters in the novel does not know what to write when the teacher asks the children to write about what their fathers do. The father puts a Dr as prefix and pretend to be an advocate although he never went to a law college.

While the men go to work in the city and kids go to bilingual schools during the day, the housewives have plenty of time. Some of them find themselves trapped in the countries. They try to learn painting, tennis, card games and golf. Those who cannot find things to occupy themselves end up drinking. Carmen, one of the characters in the novel, asks her maid to bring a glass of Rutini ( upscale argentine brand) wine as soon as she gets up. She drinks it in the bathroom even before brushing her teeth. The kids take to drugs. They do it freely making use of the protected environment of the gated community which is off limit for police and law enforcement.

In the countries everyone talks only in US dollars even while buying and selling among themselves. A painting made by of one of the residents is sold to a neighbour in dollars.The prices of properties are, of course, quoted in dollars in Argentina in general.

The novel gives an account of what goes on in the golf courses. Golf is not only for fun and relaxation. The fairways of the course are the places where contacts are established and cultivated and business deals are made. Argentina is full of deal makers and contacts are vital for business and success.

When any Korean calls the golf club of Los Altos, the starter is under instructions from the committee to tell them that the course is full or quote very high green fees to deter them from coming. This is not just fiction. It is a fact in most golf clubs in Argentina and Latin America. Korean players are not welcome since they are perceived as rude, quarrelsome and discourteous to other players. The Koreans ahve found a solution to this problem. They have established their own golf courses in many countries of Latin America including in Argentina.

This is the first novel of Claudia Piñeiro I have read. She has impressed me as a talented writer with a sensitive understanding and perceptive analysis of the Argentine society. She has a keen eye for details and her commentaries are apt and sharp.

The Thursday widows was chosen for the award of the best novel of the year in 2005 by Clarin, the largest circulated newspaper of Argentina. A movie with the same title based on the book was released in 2009.

This is the second novel I have read fully in Spanish language and managed to finish the 318 pages in one week. Hmm.. it seems I might read more books in Spanish.

La segunda vida de las Flores- Argentine novel by Jorge Fernandez Diaz

La segunda vida de las Flores- the second life of Flores - is a delightful novel which deals with love, affairs and emotions in a typical Porteño ( Buenos Aires city) way. It is about the conquests of Machos and the way they get it back from the Latino women who play their own games and how the two sides seek and elude each other.

The story starts with the character of Leno Frangolini who is a legendary seductor. He has affairs with dozens of women. He enjoys the chase and hunts them in cafes, bars and Milongas ( Tango parties) . He moves from one lover to the next smoothly and pleasantly without causing hurt to them. When he turns eighty, he goes for his last conquest ( reminds me of Gabriel Garcia Marquez´s last book ¨memory of my melancholy whores¨) to a Milonga and picks up a woman who had always wanted to dance with him but was never invited by him. She is thrilled when he takes her on the floor and leads with the touch of a maestro. But Leno´s body gives up. It is way behind his spirit and causes a sudden pain in the waist causing a minor disaster on the dance floor. He comes back home, shows his album of affairs to his disciple Fernandez, goes to sleep and dies....
Fernandez, the disciple of Leno, is a journalist. He falls in love with Milagros the Mexican girl who has come to Buenos Aires for a photo shoot of Palermo neighbourhood. Her real reason for coming to Buenos Aires is to look for her Argentine father Durmes , who abandoned his Mexican wife with four small kids including Milagros. She wants to take revenge on the irresponsible father. Fernandez helps her in locating him. Milagros runs the car over her father in the street, killing him. The next day she escapes to Mexico. Fernandes is unable to get over his love who has just disappeared without even a goodbye kiss. He goes to Mexico looking for her desperately. He tracks her down in a small town away from Mexico city. But he gets a shock when he discovers that Milagros is living with her Lesbian friend. Disillusioned, he gets back to Buenos Aires and publishes a novel on the story of Milagros. At the launching of the book many of the lovers of his guru Frangolini and another lover of Durmes turn up.

The novel is not just about the Macho affairs. Female characters such as Colorada, Nerina and Amapola have equally fascinating adventures and escapades. Colorada is bored with her married life with a successful husband, lovely kids and a perfect family in the eyes of the others. She goes for an online romance with a guy who turns out to be a complete liar. Mora is addicted to romance and conquers the conqueror Leno himself. But when the conqueror leaves her for other adventures and comes back later for a second time, she turns him down saying.. there is no more cooking in the kitchen... She philosophises ¨love is an energising driving force which makes one want to be with another person. When there is no drive, why keep a prisoner?¨She turns out to be a narcissist mother interfering with the life and love affairs of her daughter, trying to advise her to get the ideal husband, whom she could never find. Nerina is a puzzle to the conquerors and confuses even the Peronists with her ambivalent political inclinations. Prof Murena, who is hypnotised by her love goes round and round in his cyle around the pond in Palermo, seeing her ghost. Then there is Patricia the boss of Fernandez who is a practical no-nonsense woman. She takes care of Fernandez when he gets lost in love and frustrations. She understands the weaknesses of the romantic Fernandez and rescues him without judging him or manipulating him.

The story brings out the essence of the life and spirit of the inhabitants of Buenos Aires, called as Porteños. The locale of the story is Palermo , the upper middle class neighbourhood.

Montecarlo bar/cafe is the scene of conquests and seductions. This is the hunting ground of the Great seductor and his disciple. The cafes and bars play an important part not only in novels but in the real life of the Porteños. They sit there for hours together reading, thinking and fantasising when they are alone. Friends sit together talking, debating and arguing about every subject under the sun. Lovers exchange glances and endearments and are lost in long kisses, intoxicationed with the wines and the caffeine of the cafe cortado.

No porteño story wil be complete without therapy and psycho analysis. The Porteños are obesessed with the shrinks as much as they are attached to books, parks and cafes. The Great seductor holds forth on the psychology of women and the art of dealing with them. He classifies his women into two types; precious stones and semiprecious stones. As he grows older he settles for semiprecious ones which are less demanding. He sums up his philosophy with a typical Porteño remark, ¨each makes his or her own pelicula ( film ) .¨

This is the first novel I have read in the original Spanish language. I surprised myself finishing this 246 page book in one week. I had always preferred to read Latin American novels in English translation since I was afraid that it would take months for me to complete them in Spanish language. I am now encouraged to try more books in Spanish.

The author Jorge Fernandez Diaz works for La Nacion newspaper of Argentina. This is his latest novel published in October 2009. He has a bit of the touch of Mario Vargas Llosa, my favourite Latin American author.

Penguins in Punta Tombo, Argentina

Last week I was in Punta Tombo ( near Puerto Madryn in Chubut province of Argentina),which has one of the largest colonies of Megallanic ( also called as Patagonic ) penguins, a kind of warm weather species, smaller than the Antarctic penguins. There are over two hundred thousand of them in an area of a few kilometres on the beaches of Punta Tombo. They are there during their breeding season from September to March. During the rest of the year, they move over 2000 kilometres to the ocean off Brazil. Punta Tombo penguin colony is accessible easily and one can walk around and observe the penguins closely.

It is amazing to see how the penguins walk like human babies in short steps slowly and awkwardly. They dive into the water and swim fast like fish. They stand upright like sentries for hours together while guarding their nests and chicks. The male and female do the guard duty in shifts. They look after the chicks with exemplary parental care, feeding them through the mouth. They move around in groups and are together in large colonies.
Here is how they walk...

In the picture below, the penguins are walking towards the sea....like pilgrims going for a holy dip..

The Magellanic Penguins live for about 25 years. They are monogamous and mate with the same partner year after year. Hmm... very unLatino in character....The male comes first in September and reclaims his burrow from the previous year and waits to reconnect with his female partner. The females are able to recognize their mates through their calls. They build their nests under bushes or in burrows. They lay only two eggs of which only one chick survives generally.
Here is a typical burrow of the penguins...

Here is how the penguins guard the nest, standing like a sentry...

Puerto Madryn is also the best place for whale watching. The Southern Right whales come here for their breeding season from June to December. Hmm..the whales were already gone by the time I got there...

Penguin colonies are also there in Valdez Peninsula, north of Puerto Madryn city. Besides penguins, one can see sea lions and elephant seals. During the journey through this patagonian windsewpt landscape of treeless rolling plains , one can see Guanacas ( looks like a combination of camel and sheep) and Ostrich-like Nandu birds.

At the entrance to the Valdez Peninsula there is a visitor centre, which is one of the best in the world. The bathrooms there are cleaner and shinier than the ones in Oberoi Hotel in Delhi. There are displays of information,maps and videos and friendly English-speaking guides. Punta Tumbo is also well organised with paths and facilities in an ecofriendly and efficient manner making the experience educative and pleasant for visitors. I have seen this kind of professionalism, and elegant visitor-friendly facilities maintained in other tourist places in Argentina.

Felicitaciones ... amigos Argentinos....

Polo.... born in India....perfected in Argentina

The game between Dolfina and Ellerstina teams at the Argentine Polo Open yesterday was a Dream Game. The two teams had the perfect 40 handicaps each. It was a rare opportunity and incredible excitement to watch the masters play at the Palermo polo stadium in Buenos Aires considered as the cathedral of polo.

Here are the perfect handicappers and their age in brackets from left to right:
Dolfina team in white - Castagnola(39), Mariano Aguerre(40), Lucas Monteverde(32) and Adolfo Cambiaso(34)
Ellerstina team in black, left to right-Facundo Pires ( 23),Gonzalo Pires (26),Pablo Mac Donough(27), Juan Martin Nero(28)


Both the teams played an impressive and fast paced game and were neck to neck all the time. Adolfo Cambiaso of Dolfina and Facundo Pires of Ellerstina, the top players, displayed their magic with the ball while flying on the horses. The match ended as a draw with 16 goals each at the end of the eight chukers. They went for a sudden death play-off. Dolfina made the golden goal and became the winner of the Argentine Open 2009.

Ellerstina had earlier won in this season the Tortugas Open and the Hurlingham Open and was hoping to make it a grand slam with the Palermo Open, which is also called as the Argentine Open. But they were outplayed by Dolfina, who took revenge against Ellerstina who beat them in the 2008 Open. Dolfina has won the Argentine open four times in the last five years.

The game of yesterday was a reconfirmation of the fact that Argentina is the undisputed leader of polo in the world. Argentina has, at this moment, 11 ten handicap players out of the twelve in the world. Argentina has not only the best players in the world but also has the largest number of top ranked players. All the top 30 ranked players of the world are Argentines except for the sixth ranked Uruguyan David Stirling. There are over 1000 polo fields in Argentina which also has the best polo horses in the world.

Adolfo Cambiaso is the best polo player in the world. He was the youngest player to reach ten handicap, at the age of ninteen in 1994, when he won the Grandslam of Argentina. Since then he has been winning tournaments in Argentina and around the world.

While Argentina has perfected the game, it was born in India. The modern game of polo, formalized and popularized by the British , originates from Manipur in India. The first polo club was established in the town of Silchar in Assam in 1834. The second polo club came up in Calcutta in 1862. The British took the game from India to Britain, Europe and Americas and popularised them. While the glamour of polo was kept up by the royalty of Jaipur and Jodhpur, the level of the game in India has remained low. The highest handicap in India is said to be six. Since it is an expensive game it has been maintained mainly by the Indian army, which could afford horses. Now there is a boost to the game by the entry of Indian corporate chiefs who play and patronise the game. Even with this, India is likely to continue in the minor league while Argentina has taken the game to new levels of excellence. They say that there are two levels of polo: world class and Argentine class...

Felicitaciones Argentina...... Felicitaciones Cambiaso....

From the bottom of the well to the top of Executive Tower ..The story of Mujica

From the bottom of the well to the top of Executive Tower – How Mujica, the guerilla fighter climbed out of his prison well to become President of Uruguay

Jose Mujica, the former leftist Tupamaro guerilla fighter who was elected as President of Uruguay on 29 November, was held in the bottom of a well for two years as part of his fourteen years of imprisonment. He learned to speak to the frogs and to hear the cry of the ants. He held dialogues with his inner self in order to avoid going mad in the well which was mercifully dry. He survived, abjured violence and embraced democratic ideals. He will now move into the Presidential office in the top floor of the Executive Tower building in Montevideo.

Mujica could not contain his tears at his emotional victory speech. Even the sky burst with rains and drenched him and his supporters with heavy downpour. It was a symbolic washing down of the past of Mujica, heralding a new era in the history of Uruguay and Latin America.

In the sixties and seventies, Latin America was filled with young idealist revolutionaries, who took up arms to change the staus quo and establish utopian socialist states. They assassinated, kidnapped and killed persons of authority and robbed banks for their ideology. Some of the revolutionaries were killed, thrown into sea from planes, jailed, tortured, exiled or simply made to ¨disappear¨, as an Argentine General put it in a kind of magical realism,¨They are not alive, nor dead… but have just diasppeared¨. The word ¨Desaparecido¨, still haunts the society, literature and arts of the region. Che Guevara, the revolutionary Icon, was killed by the Boilivian army. Few of the revolutionaries were lucky to survive the bullets and get a second chance to come to power through the ballot. Jose Mujica is one of them.

Mujica joined the Tupamaro armed militant group and participated in the brief takeover of Pando, a town close to the capital Montevideo in 1969. He was captured and jailed on four occasions and once managed to escape from the prison. He was eventually re-apprehended in 1972, shot by the police six times. After the military coup in 1973, he was held in a military prison for eleven years and tortured. In 1985, when democracy was restored, Mujica was freed under a general amnesty. Mujica, along with his comrades founded a new political party, Movement of Popular Participation. He won the 1994 elctions to become a deputy and later a senator and used to go to the Parliament in a motorbike. His party was the largest component of the centre-left Frente Amplio coalition, which won the election in 2004 and formed the first leftist government in Uruguay´s history. This government lead by President Tabare Vazquez was popular in the last five years with its Inclusive Development Agenda and at the same time being market-friendly. Mujica was Minister of Agriculture in Vazquez´s government. He gained nomination as the Coalition candidate in the 2009 elections and won with 53 percent votes.

Mujica has promised continuity of the pragmatic policies of the coalition government of the last five years. He has said that he would govern like President Lula, who has become the role model for the Latin American leftists. In one of his campaign speeches, Mujica vowed to distance the left from "the stupid ideologies that come from the 1970s — I refer to things like unconditional love of everything that is state-run, scorn for businessmen and intrinsic hate of the United States. He said, ¨I'll shout it if they want: Down with isms! Up with a left that is capable of thinking outside the box! In other words, I am more than completely cured of simplifications, of dividing the world into good and evil, of thinking in black and white. I have repented!"

In 2005, Mujica married Lucia Topolansky, a fellow Tupamaro fighter and current Senator, after many years of co-habitation. The presidential couple would continue to stay in their modest farm house in a working-class community with dirt roads and small plots on the edge of the capital.

The other guerilla leader who became President in Latin America was Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua. He was part of the Sandinista movement which waged an armed struggle and overthrew the Somoza dictatorship. He won the elections in 1984 and was President from 1985 to 1990. He was defeated in the elections in 1990, 1996 and 2000 but succeeded in 2006 and is the current President. His wife Rosario Murillo was also a guerilla fighter.

Alvaro Garcia Linera, the vice president of Bolivia was a cofounder the insurgent Tupak Katari Guerilla Army. He was arrested and charged with insurrection and terrorism. While imprisoned, he studied sociology and became a university professor, after his release from prison. He was elected vice president as the running mate to Evo Morales in the 2005 Presidential elections.

Ali Rodriguez Araque, the Finance Minister of Venezuela , was active in the Marxist guerilla movement and was known as "Commander Fausto", allegedly acting as an explosives expert. He was one of the last guerrilla fighters to put down arms. After the state pardon, he took to parliamentary politics. He has served as oil minister, foreign minister and Vice President of the country as well as OPEC secretary general.
Nilda Garre, the Defence Minister of Argentina was said to be part of the militant leftist movement of Montoneros, which fought against the military dictatorship. Her husband and brother in law were allegedly involved with the Montoneros. Her husband was exiled and her brother in law was killed in a shoot out. In an ironic justice, Nilda Garre is now the boss of the Generals who once considered her as public enemy of the state.

Dilma Rousseff , the chief of staff of President Lula and the candidate for the elections to be held in October 2010 was a member of a clandestine Brazilian guerilla group. She was thrown into jail between 1970 and 1972 and was tortured. After her release from jail, Dilma took to politics and started working with Lula in the Workers Party. Both her two ex-husbands were also part of the underground insurgent groups.

All the major armed guerilla groups of Latin America have now renounced arms and have taken the democratic route. The only major group still fighting is the FARC of Colombia, whose story needs a separate analysis.

The Latin American democracies, which were reborn in the eighties after the end of military dictatorships, do not any longer face the threat of anti-establishment armed guerilla groups. The region is also free from terrorism and religious fundamentalism which have become threats in all the other regions. There are, of course, crime, violence, kidnapping and drug trafficking. But these are law and order problems and do not pose a serious challenge to the new democratic paradigm of Latin America.

Captain Pantoja and the special service – novel by Mario Vargas Llosa

I have just finished reading this yet another extraordinary novel by my favourite Latin American writer Mario Vargas Llosa from Peru. The story is unusual and provocative.

Captain Pantaleon Pantoja is a model officer in the Peruvian Army known for his discipline, seriousness , commitment, military pride and organisational skills. He does not smoke, drink, or give in to other temptations. He is a faithful husband devoted to his wife and a caring son looking after his mother. These traits make him as the ideal and foolproof candidate for a special and secret assignment. He is asked to raise a Special Force of Visitadoras ( sex visitors) to provide service to the garrisons in the remote parts of the Amazon. The objective of the special force is to quench the sexual thirst of the soldiers who become a menace to the women and animals in the Amazon region, stimulated by the local food and humidity. In the language of the report of Pantoja, this is to address the primary psychological and biological needs of the forces in isolated areas. To protect the honour of the army, Pantoja is asked to organise the service secretly and without his uniform and without any overt link with the armed forces. Pantoja applies his military skills and personal integrity to the new job with enthusiasm and enterprise. He plunges into the sordid world of brothels and pimps to get a first hand knowledge of the trade. He organises the special service methodically with proper military rules and systems. He recruits the service providers personally through a rigorous system of interview, physical examination and , of course, intercourse .... He does it in a detached professional manner without letting himself be emotional. He does it as a sacrifice and duty and as a not-for-pleasure professional obligation. He manages to discipline the bunch of wild and temperamental girls and makes them work under a set of military rules. The visitadoras are happy that Captain Pantoja has provided them with a regular income and working hours. They are thankful to him for freeing them from the risk and hazards of their vocations and cruelty of pimps. They are delighted with their new dignity as Armed Forces Specialists. Pantoja does a scientific survey of the sexual needs of the soldiers, does exhaustive research on the subject and evolves an effective logistical system for efficient delivery of services. He works out an optimal solution based on demand and supply with mathematical precision. Each visitadora provides pleasure to 20 soldiers a day and the timing of each service is limited to 20 minutes. To speed up the service, Pantoja arranges reading materials to the soldiers, while they are waiting, so that they are sufficiently stimulated and prepared. The service fees is deducted from the soldiers´s pay. Pantoja sends his special force through a boat and hydroplane to the utility centres, which are located in the remote areas of Amazon. The special service is run efficiently and methodically. Captain Pantoja is always devising new systems and improvisations to make optimal use of the limited resources to satisfy the unlimited demand of the soldiers and achieve the strategic objectives of the military. He sends regular reports of the functioning of the service with military jargon, precision and details to his superiors in top secret communications. The special service has even its own Hymn !!

Pantoja’s special service becomes a hit with the soldiers and achieves the objective of the project successfully. But then things go beyond his control. The special force becomes a special farce. Obviously, in such a small place, it cannot remain a secret. The local radio jockey, tries to blackmail the captain but when Pantoja refuses to give in, he publicises and starts a public campaign on moral grounds. The church and the society women are up in arms. The naive wife and mother of Pantoja are targets of ridicule. The officers of the army ask why only soldiers?..why not extend it to the higher echelons?. The civilian men in the towns too clamour for the special services. Even the senior citizens of the region ask ¨what about us ?¨. Things come to a head and Pantoja´s wife leaves him. The frustrated but still innocent and principled Pantoja becomes human. He falls in love with one of the service providers Olga, popularly known as the ¨Brazilian ¨, because she had returned from providing service in Manaus in Brazil. Olga is pretty, charming, mischievous and full of delightful tricks up her sleeve. Pantoja gives special privileges to the Brazilian and she takes care of him physically and emotionally. With her quick wit and street experience she provokes him to think beyond his narrow military framework. As a special favour, she is given reduced duty for servicing only ten soldiers while others do for twenty. But she complains that this has reduced her income. In the end, she gets killed in one of the attacks on the boat by a gang of men who want to rape the visitadoras. This is the turning point for Pantoja. He throws out the veil of secrecy, puts on his uniform and organises her burial with special military honours. He makes a formal and emotional memorial speech eulogising the patriotic service rendered by Olga to the nation, saying ¨we have worn our noble uniform of an officer in the Peruvian army to accompany you to your last dwelling place, with our head held high and with a full sense of responsibility to proclaim that you had fallen as a valiant soldier in the service of our beloved country Peru. You are an unfortunate martyr to the fulfilment of duty. Your spirit guides us daily and stimulates us to the completion of our duty with the selflessness and perfection with which you performed it¨. This hits the headlines of the national media and all hell breaks loose in the army headquarters. The army recalls Pantoja and disbands the special service. But Pantoja is unrepentent and stands by his decision to honour the specialist of the special service.

Alongwith this main plot, Llosa has woven a parallel story of a mad evangelist who excites the population of Amazon with his religious fanaticism. With his ¨Son of the Cross¨sermons, he makes the followers to sacrifice animals on a cross. This goes beyond control and human beings are crucified. The victims are worshipped as saints. This becomes a serious problem for the police and the army since even soldiers and the visitadoras become fanatic followers of this new sect. It ends with the priest putting himself on the cross and dying like Christ. This subplot is similar to the story in the other novel of Llosa ¨The war of the end of the world¨.

Llosa has interwoven the professions of sex, military and religion in an entertaining and provoactive way. It is a hilarious and thought provoking satire on the service providers of sex, defence and religion. Llosa has transformed the outrageous and absurd situations into readable and laughable stuff but within a cultural and intellectual framework. He has juxtaposed the profane with the profound and let the readers imagine and think.

Llosa brings out the flaw in the military system in which subordinates are required to blindly obey the orders, even when they do not agree with the judgement of the superiors. In the name of order and discipline, men and and women of the military are trained to do what they are told to do. Similiarly, the prophets and evangelists make their flock pursue the chosen and the only path blindly and without questioning. In both the military and religion, there is no option of free thinking. Individuality becomes a casualty to decision from the top and and wisdom from the chosen one. So long as these lead the individuals in a positive and constructive way there is no problem. But history, including the contemporary one, is filled with tragedies caused by wrong military ideas and false prophets.

In this novel, Mario Vargas Llosa has exceeded my expectations with his dextrous handling of this explosive theme. Llosa has handled it like an explosive expert, controlling the process of explosion and letting it explode like firecrackers, amusing and entertaining the readers from the beginning to the end.

Llosa has chosen many such unusual and provocative themes in his other novels and has handled them all with his characteristic satire, irony and humour.

This novel was made into a film in 2000 with the same title by the Peruvian director Francisco Lombardi. I saw it sometime back. It is also entertaining. But the book leaves a deeper impact.

In my view, Mario Vargas Llosa and Jorge Amado ( Brazil) are the only two great Latino geniuses who could transform sexual service to sublime and aesthetic levels of understanding and appreciation. I recall the novel ¨Eleven minutes¨in which the famous Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho has chosen theme of a call girl. But this theme stands out awkwardly unable to blend with the spritual flow of Coelho.

Mario Vargas Llosa is, in my view, the most talented and versatile contemporary Latin American novelist, in the same league as Gabriel Garcia Marquez. He should be next in the line for the Nobel prize for literature....

The Tango Singer –Novel by Tomas Eloy Martinez

This is the second book of the Argentine writer Tomas Eloy Martinez, I have read.

Bruno Cadogan, a writer from New York arrives in Buenos Aires to interview and write a book on the elusive and legendary Tango singer Julio Martel and complete his dissertation on Jorge Luis Borges's essays on tango. Martel has a great voice like the famous Carlos Gardel and sings old tangos. Unlike the handsome and popular Gardel, Martel is physically deformed and suffers from diseases and constant pain. Martel never records his songs and so the only way to listen to him is to see his live performances. But he shuns theatres and public and performs in plazas, streets and in front of certain buildings and monuments. He appears in the venues without notice and starts singing heart rending tangos. Bruno tries to follow the trails of Martel and unravel the mystery behind the choice of venues, dates and lyrics for each performance. He discovers that there is a pattern to Martel´s choice of places and dates for his performances. These form a map of the darkest moments in the city’s past. They relate to historic events including massacres in such places as well as tragedies related to his personal life and that of his friends. One of Martel´s boyhood friends joins the Montoneros Guerilla group and is involved in the kidnapping of General Aramburu. The Group used him as hostage to ask for the return of the body of Evita which was secretly hidden by the military dictatorship. They kill Aramburu when the dictatorship refuses to give in. Later, the group kidnaps the body of Aramburu from the cemetry and uses it as hostage to ask for the return of Evita´s corpse. More on this in my previous blog http://latinamericanaffairs.blogspot.com/search?q=evita.

During one of the wanderings in the labyrinths of the city following Martel´s trails, Bruno comes across Alcira,the girlfriend of Martel. Alcira´s love for Martel is unrequited love. Martel does not treat her well and is cruel to her sometimes. But Alcira loves the voice of Martel and is unconditionally devoted to him and takes care of him till the end. She takes Bruno to the hospital where Martel is fighting for life. Martel picks up the strength to sing a last tango
¨Buenos Aires, cuando lejos de mi ¨– Buenos Aires , so far from me…
Martel dies, after singing this last tango. Bruno´s admiration for Martel is now transferred to Alcira with whom he falls in love. He wants to marry her and take her to New York. But she does not foresee herself to a life outside the Argentine labyrinth and disappears when he goes to use the toilet in the café.

The life of Martel is like the theme of a typical tango, evoking tragedies, frustrations, bitterness and pathos. But Martel lives through them with zest and passion.

Tomas gives a glimpse of the recent history of Argentina through the stay of Bruno when he is caught in the December 2001 financial collapse of Argentina followed by the historic economic and political crisis. The Argentine government declares the largest debt default in world history and devalues the currency by three times. His bank account is frozen and his movements in the city are disrupted by the public protests and traffic blocks. The hungry and angry mobs riot against the government, attack public properties and loot super markets.

Tomas portrays vividly the cafe culture of the elegant city of Buenos Aires . Bruno spends most of his days and nights in the cafes of the city. Cafes are not just for coffee. Like many Porteños ( inhabitants of the city of Buenos Aires) Bruno takes refuge in the cafes, where he reads, researches, reflects and people-watches in between cups of cafe. Argentines including writers such as Borges had used the cafes of the city for inspiration, writing, meetings, celebrations and rantings and ravings against governments, world and life.

Through a sub plot in the novel, Tomas recreates the famous Aleph story of Luis Borges, the Argentine genius and writer. In the building where Bruno stays there is a basement in which a mad and reclusive librarian lives. Bruno is convinced that this basement is the same as in the house of Beatriz in the Garay street mentioned in the short story of Luis Borges with the title Aleph. In his story Borges says he saw Aleph while lying down in the dark cellar and counting off nineteen steps. After the intial panic of darkness of space and fears, Borges says he saw Aleph, which he describes as

-a point in space that contains all other points
-the only place on earth where all places are, seen from every angle, each standing clear, without any confusion or blending
- a small iridescent sphere of almost unbearable brilliance.
-millions of acts both delightful and awful; not one of them occupied the same point in space, without overlapping or transparency. What my eyes beheld was simultaneous, but what I shall now write down will be successive, because language is successive
-daybreak and nightfall
-the multitudes of America
-all the mirrors on earth and none of them reflected him
Borges concludes ¨I saw the Aleph from every point and angle, and in the Aleph I saw the earth and in the earth the Aleph and in the Aleph the earth¨.

Bruno has been trying to go to the basement to experience and encounter Aleph. Finally when he goes there,the building is demolished and Aleph is gone.

Tomas has cleverly blended his fiction with the realities of Argentina and Buenos Aires creating a magical realism. It is difficult to know which is magic and which is reality. Argentine history and real life are merged with fantasy seamlessly. Tomas has used the name of Julio Martel, a Tango singer, who died in february 2009. But the story of the Martel in the book is totally different from the real life of Martel.

Tomas is perceptive in describing Buenos Aires and the Porteños. Here are some excerpts
- Buenos Aires city is so majestic from the second or third floor upwards and so dilapidated at street level, as if the splendour of the past had remained suspended in the heights and refused to descend or disappear.
-The true labyrinth of Buenos Aires is its people. So near and at the same time so distant. So similar on the outside and so diverse within. Such reserve, which Borges tried to assert as the essence of the Argentine, and at the same time such shamelessness.

-I thought the cafes were perfect for writing novels. Reality did not know what to do there and wandered around loose, hunting for authors who would dare to tell it. Everything seemed very real, perhaps too real..so intense you could feel it burning up and stinging the skin…

I like the hypnotic story telling of Tomas leading to delirium and suspension in magical realism. He helps the readers to understand and experience the authentic and labyrinthine Argentine spirit and psyche. I have already bought my third book of Tomas Eloy Martinez. The title is The Peron Novel. I am sure Peron would have given ample material and provocation for Tomas to dig deeper into the Aleph of Argentines.

The sum of our days – autobiography of Isabel Allende

After having enjoyed Isabel Allende´s first autobiography ¨My invented country¨ in which she tells the story of her life in Chile, I was keen to read the ¨ The sum of our days¨ which covers her second life in USA, with her second husband.

Isable has narrated her real life like a fascinating fiction. The autobiography reads like a novel. She entertains and amuses the reader making fun of her life, her beliefs and idiosyncracies. She bares her soul and shares her thoughts on love, marriage and family. She pokes fun at her practice of going to astrologers to know about future. She is a member of the ¨Sisters of Disorder¨, who get together and pray for solutions to the problems of others. Her family members and friends are as colourful as the characters in her novels. Their eccentricities and eclectism are fodder for Isabel´s story telling. There are events and experience which make the readers laugh, cry and reflect.

Some of the events in her life are shocking. For example Celia , her daughter -in -law discovers she is a lesbian and moves away with Sally, the girlfriend of the son of her husband from previous marriage. Both Celia and Sally had lived in the same house of Isabel and Sally was in fact working as secretary to Isabel. Celia leaves her three children to be taken care of by Nico, the son of Isabel, who cannot get over the shock. But Isabel not only continues her friendship with Celia but she even takes the side of Celia and supports her to the annoyance of her son. Before this conversion, Celia was a gay-baiter with very strong views and prejudices. Afterwards, Celia not only practises lesbianism but actively preaches the advantages of gay love. She advocates that everyone should try it and says that it is much better than being heterosexual.

Isabel talks candidly about how desperately she was looking for a second husband afer her arrival in US. She found Willie, who had a dysfunctional family, and was the right fit for her. Still, the relationship goes through ups and downs, with the Chilean way of life and the American approach colliding inevitably. The couple have to go for therapies to save the marriage. But Isabel is content with her choice of husband and in any case it is too late in life for her to think of another one. Willie, who is a compassionate lawyer later becomes a writer and gets his books published. Isabel ends the book reaffirming her love for Willie, saying ¨the sum of our lives, our shared pains and joys, was now our destiny¨.

Willie has built a new house on a hill in San Francisco in the Chilean style and named it as ¨House of Spirits¨, the same name as her first novel which made her famous. Sure, the furniture moves at night and there are odd sounds confirming the spirits in the air ! Isabel describes the house as her Taj Mahal.

Willie´s daugter Jennifer becomes a drug addict and is abused by other drug addicts. Eventually she disappears from the hospital after giving birth to a child. She is believed to have died. Willie is devastated by this tragedy. Isabel takes on the responsibility of taking care of the child. Later, the child is adopted by a lesbian couple.

While Isabel is quick to come to the rescue of the victims of tragedies around her, she is unable to overcome the loss of her daughter Paula, who died suddenly of a disease, after her marriage. Isabel has written a separate book ¨Paula¨. The pain felt by the loss of her daughter is a recurring theme throughout the book and her life, of course.

Isabel implants in California her Chilean system of family by bringing in relatives to live with her. She calls them as her tribe. She goes out of her way to help them and at the same time freely interferes in the lives of the members of her tribe , like a typical Chilean matriarch. It is interesting that her mother who lives in Chile is her soulmate. She is in constant correspondence with Isabel, giving news of Chile and advising her even on the family issues of San Francisco.

The cosmoplitan and avante- garde San Franciso is perfect setting for Isabel´s life and the incredible adventures and misadventures of her extended family. Isabel gives a glimpse of the life in the city through the experience of her friends. She describes the Bohemian lifestyle and love affairs of Tabra, which are equally interesting. Tabra, who makes a living by making and selling artificial jewellery finds USA as an unsuitable place for her convictions and ideals and eventually moves away to Bali. She tries countless blind dates and courts disasters and disapoointment. She receives applications from young studs seeking to be kept by mature and moneyed women. Her Mexican boyfriend, whom Isabel describes as ¨Plumed Lizard¨pursues restoration of the throne of Montezuma, the last Aztec king.

The only disappointment for me as an Indian is Isabel´s superficial and silly dismissal of India in a couple of pages. Even before her travel , she says she would not be able to bear the legendary poverty of India. Her daughter Paula had visited India and told Isabel that India was the richest source of inspiration for a writer. But what Isabel experienced in India was just perspiration and saw it purely from a materialistic point of view and not at all as a writer. She enjoys, of course, shopping in Delhi and stay in a palace hotel in Jaipur. She tells a horrible story of how an Indian woman tried to give away her female baby to her, because female child is unwanted in India. This is not ony bullshit but it should be a plain lie and dishonesty of Isabel to concoct this story. No Indian woman will ever give away her baby to a foreigner passing by, as she has described. Isabel's India visit is cut short by the midnight telefone call from her daughter in law announcing her bisexuality. Thus,India falls in a few paras between the lie of an Indian woman trying to leave her child with Isabel and the truth of the bisexuality of her daughter in law.

Isabel Allende is not the first Chilean writer to look down on India. Pablo Neruda, in his autobiography, has also dismissed India in a few prejudiced Naipulistic words, after having visited India twice. It is a pity that both of them have been so materialistic and arrogant when it comes to India and blind to the culture and spirit of India. During the visit of Chilean President Lagos to India in 2005, I quoted a poem of Pablo Neruda in the draft banquet speech by Indian President. But Mr Natwar Singh , who was External Affairs Minister at that time cut out the quotation. He disliked Neruda, whom he had met and found his uncharitable view of India. Never mind ..... This should not diminish the greatness of the two Chilean writers, whose books I have enjoyed. I bought many books of these two authors in Bangalore and Chennai.

Victoria Ocampo – Argentine writer and feminist

¨Victoria Ocampo – writer, feminist and woman of the world¨ is the book I have just finished reading. It is a 170 -page summary of the autobiography ( which runs into six volumes ) of Victoria, written and annotated in English by the American translator Patricia Owen Steiner.

Victoria wanted to be a writer in her youth. She sent her first writing to two authors for their comments. Both of them threw cold water and discouraged her. She found herself constrained by the censorship on her reading and writing imposed by the family and the society in the beginning of the twentieth century. Victoria was ahead of her times in the patriarchal society of Argentina. She rebelled against the restrictions and later flourished on her own when she got independence from her parents and husband. She became a writer and a patron of letters. Besides contributing to Argentine literature, She went beyond her country and built bridges with the cultural and literary world of Latin America, Europe, US and India. She became the first woman to be admitted to the Argentine Academy of Letters in 1977. This was a special satisfaction to this Queen of Letters, who had suffered discouragement from writing when she was a young woman.

Victoria founded, funded, published and edited a literary magazine ¨Sur¨ which had poems, stories, essays and social commentary of authors from around the world. Sur was the foremost literary and cultural journal of Latin America in the twentieth century. It gave voice to the Argentine and Latin American writers and exposed them to the outside world. It was also her revenge on men who stifled her writing aspiration in the early part of her life. She got the men to write for her magazine. It lasted for an impressive forty years from 1931.

Victoria established a publishing house ¨Sur¨, which published the works of eminent writers like Lorca, Borges, Bioy Casares, Sabato, Onetti, Octavio paz, Cortazar and Vargas Llosa. Sur also brought out spanish translations of North American and European writers. Victoria herself undertook translations of some books. She was more fluent in French than Spanish and she was proficient in English too.

Victoria became a grand patron of literature and culture in Argentina and even outside. She financed the trips of some European writers and artists to Argentina. She hosted the visits of foreign writers and organised literary gatherings. Her friends included Borges, Gabriela Mistral, Pablo Neruda, Jose Ortega y Gasset and Virginia Woolf.

Victoria wrote ten volumes of essays, several books of non-fiction, short stories and literary criticism. Her lengthy six-volume autobiography is useful to understand the Argentina of her times. She is candid and provocative in her commentaries.

She was a victim of the discrimination against women , as was the norm in the early part of the twentieth century. She rebelled against the oppressions of her family, the church and the society and became a feminist leader. She quit her unhappy marriage early on and lived independently for the rest of her life. She had many lovers, affairs and friends. She travelled around the world and moved in the artistic, literary and social circles of Europe especially in France.

Victoria was an iconoclast in a patriarchal society, a woman, who chose not to follow the easy path offered by her wealthy family. She used her money, charm and brain to do something extraordinary with her life from 1890 to 1979.

As happened to many other Argentine writers she also became a victim of politics. She was imprisoned for three weeks by the government of Peron for her criticism of his regime. Her passport was confiscated for two years untill the overthrow of Peron.

Two Indians had been inspiration to her; Gandhi and Tagore. Victoria was impressed by the idea of non-violence, spiritual energy and moral courage of Gandhi, who succeeded in translating his conviction into action. Gandhi became one of the most important influences on her thinking. She was moved after reading Gandhi´s biography in 1924 and her meeting with him in Paris in 1931. This is what she wrote after hearing Gandhi’s speech in Paris.
¨Gandhi spoke with extreme simplicity, without eloquence or tricks of an orator. His physical appearance seemed scarcely suited to impress anyone and especially a Parisian audience. But his spiritual energy dominated and galvanized the audience¨.
She wrote an essay on Gandhi in La Nacion newspaper in 1924 and later wrote a number of articles on him.

Victoria read Gitanjali in 1914 and said ¨it fell like a celestial dew on my anguishing twenty four year old heart¨. She described Tagore´s poetry as ¨magical mysticism¨. She felt powerful echoes in Tagore´s personal loving God, radiating happiness and serenity, unlike the demanding and vengeful God imposed on her in childhood. She was very excited when Tagore came to Buenos Aires in 1924. In her own words, it was one of the great events of her life. She wrote an article in La Nacion, welcoming Tagore. She hosted him for two months in Buenos Aires. There is talk of a platonic love between the sixty three year - old Tagore and the thirty four year- old Victoria. More on this in my earlier blog story http://latinamericanaffairs.blogspot.com/search?q=tagore

Tagore was rejuvenated by the beautiful Victoria on the flower-filled garden of the mansion overlooking the scenic bank of the immense Plata river. She was the muse of his Purabi poems in which she called her as Vijaya and dedicated the poems to her.

Victoria had a spiritual awakening from the encounter with Tagore. She was overawed by his intellect and serenity and she felt like a child before him. She listened to him mostly and did not dare to express herself as she would have liked to do.

The Tagore- Victoria encounter opened an intellectual, literary, cultural and spiritual bridge between India and Argentina. Since then, there has been a strong Argentine tradition of spiritual and cultural interest in India.

Nehru was one of the world leaders who appealed to the Argentine government to release her from jail.

Indira Gandhi was special for Victoria. She was the successful example of emancipation and fulfillment of the dreams of Victoria for women. Victoria received a honorary doctorate from Vishwabharathi University and this was personally handed over to her by Mrs Gandhi during her trip to Buenos Aires in 1968.

Ever since reading Gandhi´s biography in 1924, Victoria had a continuing interest in India. As a feminist she admired the participation of Indian women in the independence struggle under the leadership of Gandhi.

This short summary of the autobiography of Victoria and reproduction of some of her essays gives a glimpse of the cultural history of Argentina. Particia, the author of this book has been ¨reading, translating and thinking about Ocampo¨for almost twenty years. Patricia has interpreted the autobiography of Ocampo in an objective and balanced manner.
After reading this book, I am now inspired to read more about Ocampo. I have already started reading ¨In your blossoming flower garden¨ by Ketari Kushari Dyson.

The Tagore- Victoria story is fantastic material for a film. I am glad I have been able to interest Pablo Cesar, the Argentine director on this. I liked his preliminary script and the title ¨Thinking of Him¨, he has chosen for the film.

Indo-Latin American fusion restaurant in Manhattan

Mixing Indian and Latino cuisines for an American audience struck as intellectually provocative - This is how the owner of the Vermilion restaurant, Rohini Dey described her venture to Financial Times of 12 July 2009.

The provocation in the restaurant starts with

Tamarind Margarita
Clove Tamarind Sour
Garam Masala Bloody Mary
Mojito
caipirinha
corona cerveza

In the wine section there are the famous Malbec and Torrentes from Argentina as well as Chilean wines along with Indian wines.

The Latino entrants in the menu include
caldeirada de peixe from Brasil
chimichurri new york stripred mexican arbol - kashmiri mirch chimichurri
duck vindaloo arepa
peruvian black ceviche

Rohini is an economist and had worked in World Bank and Mckinsey before entering the restaurant business. She first started a Vermilion in Chicago and following its sucess opened the second one in NewYork. Both the restaurants have now become fashionable. Rohini has roped in some Indian celebrites such as Rajat Gupta, Salman Rushdie and Sabeer Bhatia as investors in this venture.

Rohini says Indian and Latino cuisines use common ingredients such as beans, coriander, plantain and guava. Samosa and Latin American Empanada are similiar. Of course, there had been some historic exchanges between the two regions. Chillies went from Mexico to India while mangoes were brought to Latin America from India by the Portuguese.

http://www.thevermilionrestaurant.com/

Latin Americans are the happiest in the world...

Nine of the world's ten happiest nations in the world are in Latin America, according to a recent study by a British research group, the New Economics Foundation, who compile every year a Happy Planet Index(HPI).

Here are the top ten countries in HPI
Costa Rica
Dominican Republic
Jamaica
Guatemala
Vietnam
Colombia
Cuba
El Salvador
Brazil
Honduras

Poor Honduras seems to be out of place at this moment with its ugly political crisis.

Costa Rica comes on top of the Happy Planet Index with the the highest life satisfaction in the world.This is not surprising to me since I had a personal experience of the Pura Vida attitude of Costa Ricans during my recent visit there. Here is my blog story on Pura Vida:
http://latinamericanaffairs.blogspot.com/2009/05/costa-rica-pura-vida-country.html#links

Costa Rica is unique in many respects apart from its Pura Vida atttitude to life. It was the first country in the history of the world to abolish armed forces, one of the first in the world which combined its ministries of energy and the environment back in the 1970s and generates an impressive 99 per cent of its energy from renewable sources. In 1997, a carbon tax was introduced on emissions – with the funds gained being used to pay indigenous communities to protect their surrounding forests. Deforestation has been reversed, and forests cover twice as much land as 20 years ago. In 2007, the Costa Rican Government declared that it intended to become carbon neutral by 2021.

There is one more unique thing about Costa Rica- It makes mountains out of the breasts of Latino women and silicon valley millionaires out of Indian men- by producing silicon implants and chips. See my blog,
http://latinamericanaffairs.blogspot.com/2008/09/indian-men-want-to-conquer-silicon.html#links


Second place in HPI goes to Dominican Republic, the land of
-Juan Luis Guerra, one of my favourite latino singers,
-one of my favourite golf courses ¨the teeth of the dog ¨course in la Romana
-and my favourite writer Julia Alvarez.

The third place goes to Jamaica, the land of Bob Marley. I am a bit skeptical about the ranking of Jamaica which has one of the highest murder rates in the world.

I am surpised that Brazil is in the ninth place. It should have been at the top. In my view, after the experience of having lived in Brazil for four years , Brazilians are the happiest people on the world. They enjoy life not only to the full but even excessively,as witnessed during Carnival. Here is a Brazilian song illustrative of their spirit:

hoje est sexta feira
pega uma cerveza
nada de tristeza

chega de aluguel
chega de patron
traga mais cerveza

today is friday
take a beer
no sadness

no rental
no boss
bring more beer

Here is the utube link to the song,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvjokOGY1qg

The Brazilians look for any excuse to convert any moment into a fiesta even when it is not a happy one. Here is an example.
Last year, when there there was a strike by Argentine Airlines it caused thousands of passengers stranded at the Buenos Aires airport, angry,shouting and breaking glass windows. But when I reached the waiting lounge for the flights to Brazil, there the Brazilians were singing,dancing and merry making although they had been waiting there for over 24 hours for a two hour flight to the city of Port Alegre. Their merry fiesta at that miserable time made even the the non-Brazilians to forget their misery and join the mirth. This is Brazilian spirit. It does not let adversity be an obstacle for happiness.
The people who had taken further this concept of mirth even during misery are the Cubans. They have developed this as an art. Life is tough there with shortage of essential items for day to day life and with the frustartions caused by the anachronic system there. But the Cubans keep singing and dancing even while waiting for hours for the uncertain arrival of a rickety bus.

The researchers of New Economics Foundation have noted a key feature of Latin American culture. It is the presence of relatively unmaterialistic aspirations and values, compared to countries with similar economic conditions. Latin Americans report being much less concerned with material issues than, for example, they are with their friends and family. They have plenty of social and cultural capital even if they dont have financial capital.

While I do not agree with the exact ranking and some other aspects of the Happy Planet Index report, I share the conclusion that Latin Americans are the happiest people in the world.