Tall tales and other thoughts from storyteller, sailor and nomad Dennison Berwick. "Kuan Yin" is his 32-foot go-anywhere home.
Posted in Reportage/Stories on Mar 28th, 2010
My thanks to Vijay Srinivas, a journalist in Delhi, for sending me this update:
‘Rs 33k cr needed to clean India’s rivers’
Times New Service, Mar 18, 2010
NEW DELHI: Diehard devotees may not believe this. But it’s true that the water of the holiest among holy rivers — the Ganga — fails to [...]
Posted in Reportage/Stories on Mar 13th, 2010
It’s with considerable relief that I’ve received comments on my recent post Goodbye mother Ganges. I long delayed even publishing the post because to some, who had seen a draft, it seemed unnecessarily pessimistic. Who wants to hear a foreigner being critical of India’s headlong rush to consumerism? However, in the end, I decided it [...]
Posted in Books/Language, Reportage/Stories on Mar 10th, 2010
I certainly wasn’t the first to write a book about Ganga Ma (Mother Ganges), the holy river which flows across northern India. And I’m glad to see that I haven’t been the last. (Though I think I’m still the only foreigner to have walked the entire length of the river.)
Edmund Hilary took a jet boat [...]
Posted in Reportage/Stories on Mar 9th, 2010
Unless more rain falls, India’s ambition of becoming a vast consumer society is an impossible dream from which the vast majority will be excluded because of water shortages.
In the headlong rush to become consumers, few people inside India or outside are asking whether it is even possible for more than one billion people to [...]
Posted in Reportage/Stories on Jan 9th, 2010
A police inspector was viciously attacked out in the countryside by a criminal gang who cut off both his legs with a machete. As the man lay on the road, a convoy of vehicles with two government ministers and the Collector came down the road and stopped. It took EIGHT minutes just for the Collector [...]
Posted in Reportage/Stories on Jan 5th, 2010
A short video of a tram journey through the noisey streets of Kolkata. Tram routes are being cut back as private cars take up more and more room on the already crowded streets of this great city. Enjoy the ride while you can!
Posted in Reportage/Stories on Jan 4th, 2010
Revisiting the people I met 25 years ago during my walk along the Ganges (recounted in “A Walk Along The Ganges”) seemed like a great idea at the time. India’s changing, everyone was telling me. So I went, eager to reconnect with some of those who welcomed me so warmly to their country and their [...]
"Serendipity" is the art of finding something valuable or delightful when you're not looking for it. It's how you might also define living life as an adventure - which is something I seek to do everyday - and accepting whatever happens.
