ADHVAGATI

Small communities of expatriate Indians , living in far flung small towns in alien land, are always thrilled to seize upon any excuse to have a jingoistic bash where they can wallow in nostalgia and longing for "home", with over- the- top exhibitions of Desi-ness. Hyper-Desi sentiments, Uber-Desi attire, Ultra-Desi feasts . Diwali is one such excuse and a grand one at that. In the ghetto of the factory -campus in a smaller- than -small town of Indonesia, where we once lived, Diwali was always a Big Fat Desi Affaire par Excellence - yeah, Bollywood dances religiously included ! The Party was usually held not on actual Diwali day, but on the Saturday night nearest to it. Since Fireworks were prohibited, a few anaemic chinese flare sticks were burnt for "tradition's" sake. But the rest of the party was great fun. Women turned out in bridal finery, men togged up like residual royalty, children stumbled around in cumbersome "ethnic" wear. Dark ...

Not in my looniest dreams had i imagined that i would some day walk into a live volcano. But i did........I know that sounds like a stretched fantasy yarn. But if revise our perceptions about volcanoes and re-educate ourselves in descriptions, such a claim will not sound so daft after all. In our country volcanoes never figure in normal, perceived geography. They are in text books, fairy tales, sometimes in newspapers, and always evoke the mental association with the image of a perfectly conical mountain,furiously blowing its top in a blaze of red, orange and yellow illumination. Thats the standard "live" volcano ; and it was just such an image that popped in mind's eye when we heard that there was a friendly, neighbourhood "live volcano" about two hours away from where we lived in Sumedang-Bandung, Indonesia. And it being the biggest tourist attraction of the region, we just couldn't give it a miss. It last erupted in 1983 and exhibited some half-he...