Mangoes

May is the prime season for mangoes. Alfonso mangoes are at or near their peak. Kesars will be following in about two weeks.

The highways are lined with mango stalls. An equal length of mango sellers is behind me. There's at least one stretch like this every few km along the highway.

More mangoes.

Everyone is serving "aamras" or "aamras puri". "Aamras" is "mango juice" -- not really juice, but blended mango pulp. Just put ripe mango pieces into a blender or food processor and blend into a thick puree. Maybe add a small amount of sugar if needed. It's served as a dessert or snack, traditionally with puri -- fried flat bread. When you dip the puri into the aamras, it ends up tasting very doughnut-y. Delicious! But it requires Indian Alfonso mangoes. No other variety really works as well.

This Week in Vapi

It's been another hot and dusty week in Vapi. With the heat, I haven't been doing as much walking as when it's cool, and so there are not as many pictures. Here's what I have this week.

One of my favorite trees in Vapi -- a peepal tree growing atop an old wall. The peepal is also known as the "Bodhi Tree", as it was under a peepal tree that the Buddha attained enlightenment. It's considered a holy tree by Hindus as well, and this particular tree frequently has offerings at its base. These two figures were particularly colorful.

The Indian alternative to a "cherry picker" or a "bucket truck". This man is working on a street light -- the bed of the truck has a number of lighting units in it.  I didn't see them extend the ladder-like structure, but it must collapse in some way for the vehicle to negotiate Vapi's underpasses and low-hanging wires (of all sorts).

The wedding season is coming to an end -- no one gets married during monsoon! Yesterday we traveled to a reception in Surat -- a two to three hour drive, depending upon traffic. Formal occasions always call for a sari, and I'm (slowly) learning how to wear one. It takes lots of practice!

And finally a note about Vapi "in the news". Chemical and Engineering News ("C&EN", a weekly news publication of the American Chemical Society) had India as their cover story last week. This included a two-page spread on Vapi, as a one-time "most polluted" city (in the world). It's now been "upgraded" to simply one of the most polluted cities in India. (Thank you, China.) You can read the article here: http://cen.acs.org/articles/93/i18/India-Under-New-Management.html

When the reporter came to Vapi, the head of the local industrial association was very concerned. C&EN's Asia bureau is based in Hong Kong, as is Greenpeace's Asian headquarters. So the local industrial head was convinced that this must be part of a Greenpeace effort to get underground information on Vapi. It never occurred to him that "Chemical and Engineering News" actually covers the chemical industry, and is generally pretty friendly to it. Not to mention that India's national government has essentially thrown Greenpeace out of India by freezing their bank accounts and revoking their NGO status. Doesn't matter. Guilt by association.

Thoughts on Learning a New Language

We've been attempting to learn Hindi for 2 years now. To put it bluntly, it's not going well. Language is one of those things that the more you learn, the more you realize just how much you still need to learn.

Attempting a new language in my 60s, and watching much younger school children learn second and third and fourth languages has given me a much better appreciation of a number of things. Specifically:

• The younger you start a second (third, fourth) language, the better you will learn it. I started French class in 6th grade. While I never developed anything close to fluency, and I haven't studied French for over 40 years, I can do a passable job of reading a French newspaper, but speaking and writing would be a disaster. I took a year (3 semesters) of Russian in my last year of college, but that hasn't stuck nearly as well. Partly because it was only one year, but also because I was older.

• I have much more tolerance for poor English on the part of "English language learners" (or "ELLs" in ed-speak). Most of the misspellings I see here are attempts to write phonetically. What's so awful about that? Of course, if you want to succeed in business, you need to learn proper English speaking and writing -- although what "proper English"is a question -- British, Australian, American? But if you're a shop owner, what's so bad about misspellings if you get your point across, and you can communicate the essentials in English? Most people here do a much better job of English than I do with Hindi -- and a large number of them are self-taught.

Educated Indians need to know at least three languages: the local language (in Vapi it's Gujarati), English, and Hindi. Many know at least one other Indian language -- there's about 20 official ones. Most Muslims learn Arabic and/or Urdu (which is pretty much the same as Hindi, but written with the Arabic script). The former Portuguese colonies (such as nearby Daman) still teach Portuguese. Very few learn German or French; Italian is a rarity; Spanish is pretty much unknown.

On thing is for certain: Americans are way behind the curve when it comes to language study!

Ants

As the summer heat builds (summer is the pre-monsoon months: March, April, and, especially, May), the mosquitoes go on hiatus, but the ants and roaches take center stage. I refuse to take photos of the roaches -- they like the damp areas (bathroom especially), but the ants are tiny, aggressive, and ubiquitous. They love carbohydrates -- especially wheat flour and sugar. They can even get into screw-cap containers, so I have to keep everything in Tupperware or the refrigerator to keep ants out.

A trail of ants across the kitchen wall.

I generally buy cookies that are individually wrapped. Once a package is open, the cookies go soggy in minutes. Here I took a cookie out of its box, and the ants poured out of the wrapper. Even though the cookie was sealed, the ants bored small holes in the package and started enjoying the carbs! One recent box of six cookies had two totally consumed cookies -- two empty cookie wraps.

A group of ants tackle a small almond chip on our kitchen floor. These are tiny ants at most 1 or 2 mm long.

One morning last week, I opened up my laptop and found it swarming with ants -- I think they wanted to use it as a "nursery", since there wasn't any food in there! Fortunately, once I started using the computer, they vacated the premises. (And probably started looking for food.)

I'm really tired of dealing with the ants.

Along NH8

I've been collecting photos along the road for a couple of months now. Today's shot made me decide that the time is ripe for posting.

I'll start with animals:

Here's today's contribution: chickens and veggies on the move.

While we've seen occasional horse carts on NH8, this time the horses were galloping, and doing a pretty good job of keeping up with traffic.

A horse cart being transported. These elaborate carts are mostly used for weddings.

This mobile shrine included a cow and calf.

Moving on to agriculture:

India needs vast quantities of marigolds for celebrations of every kind. (With marigolds harvested, this field will be planted in rice during monsoon.)

I couldn't get my iPhone camera to focus properly, but you get the idea of how agricultural fields are periodically burned over. I am amazed that these fires are contained. The surrounding land is filled with bone-dry vegetation, and there's no water around for fire suppression. Yet I haven't heard or seen of any "wild fires".

Now for landforms:

Between Vapi and Valsad is a quarry that is gradually consuming this substantial hill. (Of course, quarrying a mountain out of existence is not unique to India. In Virginia, Willis Mountain, near Dillwyn, is being similarly consumed by kyanite mining. And "mountain top removal" coal mining is an extreme example.)

And finally, an interesting camera artifact:

My out-of-focus camera not only gave blurred photos, but gave everything a slant. Apparently the exposure was long enough that the movement of our vehicle made the truck slant forward as the scene was scanned. (I wasn't even trying to take a picture of the truck -- I think I was trying to get the "chicken man".)

And that's the way it was on NH8.

Vasai Fort (Bassein)

Lon had business in Mumbai today, so I took the opportunity to visit Vasai Fort (also known as Bassein). The fort is a large Portuguese fort north of Mumbai on the north side of Vasai Creek. That's "creek" as in a large estuary. It's 550 m wide where NH8 crosses it, and even wider by the time it gets to the fort, which is pretty much on the Arabian Sea.

Vasai Creek. The remnants of the fort wall can barely be seen at the far left.

The remaining walls of the fort are clearly visible in this satellite view from Google Maps. Sites 1 through 3 are the major ruins. Site 4 is the jetty where the picture above was taken.

The site is under the jurisdiction of the Archaeological Survey of India, but it's clear that this is a low priority site. A modern temple, a cricket pitch, and a good bit of housing have encroached the site -- most likely before it was deemed worthy of preservation.

The Portuguese built this fort in the early 16th Century, and it became their northern headquarters. It was conquered by the Marathas in 1739. The British took it over in 1780, but returned it to the Marathas in the Treaty of Salbai in 1783. I can find no mention of when it was abandoned, but clearly it's been many, many years!

The road-side view of the ruins at site 1 on the satellite view above.

Our driver, Sachin, and his family.

Same view, but yours truly replacing Sachin in the photo!

More ruins at site 1.

Site 2 starts with an impressive (but difficult to photograph) church, and continues into a large open area (parade ground?).

This area has an active well. The woman is using a plastic jug to get water for laundry.

Site 3 also has a substantial (but smaller than site 2) open area.

More ruins (site 3).

There's a lot more here that is just too difficult to photograph, including a tower that's about 20 m tall. It's really difficult to give a proper view of this amazing place.

On the Street in Vapi

For the last month or two, freshly prepared "wafers" (we would call them "chips") are all the rage in Vapi. The veggies are cut, fried, and seasoned each day.

Frying the banana wafers.

Adding masala and packaging the wafers. The bags get sealed by melting the bag opening together on the side of the cooking wok. Note the green bananas in the background.

And while I'm on the topic of green bananas, a few bungalows have their own banana tree.

On to other topics:

Water jugs at the Jain temple in town. The porous terra cotta jugs keep the water cool. Indians can pour water directly into their mouths from a cup or bottle without touching their lips to the cup/bottle. I've tried, but all I get is a shower!

The yellow-flowering trees (see previous post) cover the ground with their flowers.

Our secretive neighborhood cat hanging out on the roof of our neighbor's carport.

These sure look like geese to me, but my bird book doesn't have any summer-resident geese in this area, and it seems a bit late for migration.

The photo below is the reason you should not include any plastic in your recycled paper. (Please don't use a plastic bag to wrap your newspapers when you recycle them!) This mountain of plastic trash comes from another paper mill in Vapi -- it's what's been removed from corrugated cartons and other recyclable paper before it is pulped to make new paper. It's just across the "canal" from MWV's mill, and it's the view from Lon's office.

 The man at the top is hosing down the pile hoping to keep it from catching fire ...

… which it did in June 2014.