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stereotypes

Posted on August 27, 2011 @ 11:42 am by massimo | Filed under: advertisement,blog,cheap,flights,fun,illustration,india,news,people,travel,wordpress

Plenty of cheap flights to India in Bangkok! I had bought one, a night flight to Delhi. I had got my 6 months visa at the Indian Embassy in Sukhumvit. After travelling an year I was now coming back from the costly Japan. Yet it was to early to get back home and India was on my way home: a great, fascinating place to visit,  an affordable and exciting stop-over before to fly to Italy. The night flight found me mostly reading a beautifully illustrated, yet  misleading India guide book. When the plane landed my mind and my eyes were so full of visual stereotypes about sacred cows, sadhu, fakirs, holy men, Kumbha Mela, and then Taj Mahal and Hindu temples, snow capped peaks in Himalaya and the Ganga river, that I said to myself: “The author of this book is just exaggerating and his is a very trivial way to advertise such a wonderful land: there must be a deeper way than this!.” . But, alas! A few minutes later, at the passport control desk, the mature female officer checking my visa, smiled politely and pointed out that, during my six months stay in India, I would surely meet a fakir.  Her concise  talk caused my sudden, puzzled  immobility which she could not but  noticing:  to check that I had understood,  she gently turned her head and glanced to the closest wall where an old poster promoting tourism in India, was sticked: a poster that my eyes had obviously, unconsciously rejected…When I left India 4 months later, not even a fakir had been in sight.

The Lord of beginnings

Posted on May 19, 2011 @ 6:01 pm by massimo | Filed under: advertisement,blog,fun,himalaya,holidays,illustration,india,mythology,travel,wordpress

Yes, definitely this blog needs a new start! Altough I quit  the  reckless and endless wandering that I experienced for more than a decade, yet I’m still able to take my  time and travel once in a while. Nevertheless my actual travel time shortage, I found out  that there is a lot to say about even a few days, all inclusive holidays : let’s say that as we growing old, we experience and fully enjoy those little details that make life wonderful; off course we  realize  this concept especially when we travel  in a foreign country. So, from now on, I reckon well to spend an hour or two to report some funny stories that happened to me in recent trips abroad. The  Lord of Beginnings Ganesha is here to mark this new start. Not a joke, I really placed a metal Ganesha, a very small and cheap God casted by some Indian factory, on my desk, just beside my computer and the scanner….I believe I bought the tiny little metal statue in Parvati Valley, some 20 years ago: wow! Safari in my mind: by the way, “safari” is the swahili word for journey wherever you are!

Illustration Friday topic is: safari

a surprising man…

Posted on August 22, 2008 @ 10:52 am by massimo | Filed under: another green world,art,bargain,blog,boracay,fashion,fun,illustration,india,island,news,people,philippines,thailand,travel,ukiyo-e,wordpress

I like to edit again an old post written on November the 22, 2006…this fellow had a totally anti-routine life…it’s worth taking a look at his “biography” that my friend Gino edited recently in his blog.
Enjoy!

Among the strange people that I met, Max Maxwell is certainly the most unfathomable. I firstly met Max in Boracay Island in 1990. Max came from Bombay and belongs to the Parsee upper-class.
At that time he was a fit, middle aged man who enjoyed beach-tennis, wind surfing and excellent Italian food. He basically travelled between Boracay, Koh Lanta, Laddak and Hong Kong, making his earn out of fashionable batik-shirts, rattan-bags, Tibetan amulets and first rate (yet fake) Ray-Ban sunglasses. Max had an enormous ego, he was desperately scornful and selfish and, for some reason, he always surprised me. He had seen the World, that was the fact! When some harmless tourist, tried to approach him by asking silly questions such us “have you been…?”, Max’s provocative answer simply was: “thanks for not talking to me!”. And that was all. As I said Max loved food and he was among Gino’s selected acquaintances.
At that time Gino ran the cosiest restaurant in Boracay -according to Max’s parameters- and one day at Gino’s, for some unpredictable reason, Max allowed himself to talk to me! Max abhorred “stupid talks” but, after a good beer (he used to sip beer always by the same special glass that he-himself carried in a bag), Gino and I had the chance of glancing over his wonderful life. Finally Max decided to present Gino his photocopied “biography“. The document (his masterpiece) stated the man “born in Bombay during a devastating cyclone” and amazingly went on with Max ”making friends with Miles Davis, art-directing Vogue Magazine, etc”. I still have the rattan-bag that he sold me and still I wear those fake Ray-Ban sunglasses;  Gino and I still disputed about his reliability, his clever scorn and puzzling behaviour, until on December 8, 2006 we  received a stunning report:

BREAKING NEWS:
MAX MAXWELL DIES IN GOA AFTER COMMITTING SUICIDE. HE LEFT A NOTE IN WICH HE SAYS :
“DON’T BE SORRY FOR ME. I’M THE ONE TO DECIDE MY TIME WAS OVER”

Illustration Friday ’s topic is: routine

fail faith

Posted on April 13, 2008 @ 1:55 pm by massimo | Filed under: another green world,blog,himalaya,illustration,india,news,people,travel,wordpress

Buddhist teaching is clear and logical: that we can neither define, describe, nor usefully discuss the nature of that which is beyond the perception of our consciousness. According to the teaching the ideas of eternal self or eternity in nature may be described indirectly by analogy and symbols. Otherwise it …

old manali’s blankets

Posted on February 2, 2008 @ 6:02 pm by massimo | Filed under: another green world,bargain,blog,cheap,fun,himalaya,holidays,illustration,india,news,travel,wordpress

Manali, at the northern end of the Kullu Valley in Himachal Pradesh, is a hill station situated at a height of 2050 m in the Himalayas. It is a very popular and crowded tourist spot for Indians and foreigners in summer and in winter: actually too crowded according to my standards.
That’s why, a …

the admiral’s hat

Posted on November 2, 2007 @ 10:53 pm by massimo | Filed under: africa,blog,china,illustration,india,island,kenya,package tour,people,travel,ukiyo-e,wordpress

This is Zheng He the great Ming navigator wearing his favourite straw hat….
Between 1405 and 1433, the Ming government sponsored a series of seven naval expeditions and Zheng He was placed as the admiral in control of the huge fleet.
Zheng He’s first voyage consisted of a fleet of 317 ships …

great Indian desert

Posted on October 13, 2007 @ 11:33 am by massimo | Filed under: another green world,blog,holidays,illustration,india,news,package tour,travel,wordpress

The Rajasthan desert  is the biggest desert in India; it encompasses about 70% of total landmass of Rajasthan and hence it is identified as the “Desert State of India”.
Rajasthan desert becomes very hot during the summer and it experiences extreme climate. Days are hot and the nights are cold .The desiccated land …

stonefish

Posted on June 23, 2007 @ 6:28 pm by massimo | Filed under: animals,another green world,blog,boracay,diving,fear,illustration,india,indonesia,island,kenya,wordpress

Many fish use camouflage to blend into their surroundings. Camouflage has two purposes: it helps fish avoid being eaten and allows them to make sneak …among them stonefish are found in the tropical waters of the Pacific and Indian oceans. Averaging about 30 centimeters in length, their subdued …

sarong

Posted on June 12, 2007 @ 10:05 pm by massimo | Filed under: africa,ancona,art,beach,blog,fashion,fun,illustration,india,indonesia,island,kenya,mediterranean,news,philippines,thailand,wordpress

No much time to post this week: I’m rather busy with the Cuprarte Art Festival opening, next Saturday. So I have drawn myself wearing a sarong. Sarongs are large sheet of fabric, wrapped around the waist and worn as a skirt by men and women throughout much …

another green world

Posted on April 6, 2007 @ 9:56 pm by massimo | Filed under: another green world,blog,fashion,fun,himalaya,illustration,india,music,news,travel,wordpress

Darjeeling is a fascinating place rich in natural beauty and surrounded by the Himalayan range. The scenery are stunning: the roads snakes their way through rice fields, sub-tropical thick jungle, rocky valleys, endless roadside waterfalls, grassy tree-dotted plains, dense green forest and huge mountains!
Down below in the …

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