Understanding and Promoting Empowerment

I have been involved in Emancipatory Disability Research (EDR) initiatives in different parts of the world. The goal of Emancipatory Research is to promote empowerment of marginalised people. Therefore, it is important to ask ourselves what is empowerment? Can it be promoted? If yes, how?

This post talks about some ideas of empowerment and how it can be promoted. It includes ideas from some of my discussions with young persons with disabilities in Mongolia during 2017-2020, who had taken part in an emancipatory research.

Emancipatory Research (ER)

Normally the main goal of a research is to gain new knowledge or new understandings. The main goal of a Emancipatory Research (ER) is to help marginalised persons to gain understanding about factors which cause or worsen their marginalisation.

ER can be done by individuals (IER) or by groups or communities (CER) of marginalised persons. My professional experience relates mainly to ER conducted by groups of disabled persons.

From my experiences, my understanding is that each kind of marginalisation and thus, each specific group of marginalised persons (for example, persons with mental health issues, sex workers, persons with alternate sexualities, persons with disabilities, etc.) is associated with specific kinds of barriers - such as attitudinal, social, economic, legal, cultural and physical barriers. Each kind of marginalised group also also needs to understand its own internalised barriers (barriers located in the persons themselves).

 

I would like to see more research in this area of differences and similarities in barriers faced by different marginalised groups.

The ER process can help in promoting a systematic collective examination of the different barriers in understanding how they affect their individual life-experiences. The ER process conducted jointly by a group of persons facing similar marginalisations can also help in finds ways and strategies to overcome those barriers.

Apart from its impact on the barriers, this whole ER process is also expected to promote empowerment of the participants. I asked a group of 34 young persons with disabilities in Mongolia about the meaning and significance of empowerment for them. The following ideas came out from these discussions.

Meanings of Empowerment

Empowerment can be at individual level and collective level (of groups of people or communities) and of their organisations and institutions.  Empowerment of an individual usually means taking control of his/her own life, having opportunities and abilities to make their own life-choices, and, the capacity of speaking out and making their voices heard.

However, persons from different cultures can different expectations from their empowerment because they may make very different life choices. For example, in an individualistic culture, living independently and ability to say whatever we wish may be seen as an important (or even the most important) part of empowerment. In other cultures where family values are seen as more valuable, empowered persons may still prefer to stay with their parents or listen to their elders, instead of insisting on making their own choices, and empowerment may be perceived in their family status and roles.

Zimmerman (1995) proposed that empowerment is both a process and an outcome. He identified different contributing factors of empowerment, such as - control and access to resources, participation with others, and critical understanding of socio-political environment.

I feel that empowerment is a never-ending process and it relates to different facets of life, so that while we may be more empowered in one life-domain, we can still be less empowered in other life-domains. It also means that our life-circumstances can lead to a reduction or strengthening of our empowerment. For example, finding a job or receiving pension and improving our economic independence may strengthen our empowerment.

Meanings of empowerment for Persons with Disabilities

Different groups of marginalised persons may have different ideas about empowerment. For example, for persons with disabilities, physical and material barriers such as lack of wheel-chairs, lack of ramps and lifts, lack of sign language translation, and lack of Braille materials are a very significant barrier and findings ways to overcome these barriers will play an important role in their empowerment.

 

For an Emancipatory Disability Research (EDR) project in Mongolia conducted during 2017-2020, I asked its participants (young adults with moderate to severe disabilities of different kinds) about the meaning of empowerment and what were the barriers to empowerment for them. 

For some of them, empowerment meant overcoming fear of the negative views and opinions of others, in their families, among friends, among peers and in communities. For them the biggest barriers to empowerment were the negative attitudes in the family and in the community.

Others looked at positive qualities to define empowerment, such as having self-confidence, having courage, and to be able to hold responsibility. One person said, “We have to first recognise our own skills and show our skills to others. If we change, we can change attitudes of the society, like Stephen Hawkins did, even if he can’t speak or move.”

For most of them, making independent decisions was a key to empowerment. Most felt that having a work and being financially independent helped in the process of empowerment.

Some persons shared their life stories to explain how they had fought against family attitudes to assert their need for making their own life-decisions. This raised the question about the links between personalities of the persons and their empowerment. Some persons are born fighters, they do not give up and insist on following their decisions, so they are naturally empowered. Others do not have fighting personalities and need help in developing their empowerment skills.

For some persons, parents' love and protectiveness were the barriers to their empowerment. One person said, “Barriers are also inside us, we are sensitive and feel hurt. Lack of accessibility restricts us, forcing us to depend upon others. Going to school is important for empowerment, not only to learn to read and write, but it is an opportunity of meeting others, talking, expressing ourselves, and having friends.”

How would you define empowerment?

Some Questions

One question in my mind is: does collective empowerment automatically lead to individual empowerment? If a group of persons undertakes a joint action to correct an injustice and through their efforts they manage to change the situation, I think that it will promote feelings of value and self-confidence among all members of the group. Thus, it will promote both collective empowerment and individual empowerment. However, I feel that those persons who play a more active role will gain more self-confidence and become more empowered. Therefore, group action may promote different levels of empowerment among the group members.

On the other hand, I think that when unjust situations change, this may help other persons to become empowered by showing that a change is possible, even if they did not take part in the fight to change the situation.

Another question I ask is: does individual empowerment automatically lead to collective empowerment? If a group of empowered persons agree and come together to fight, then they can be more effective in changing the unjust situation. However, if persons are individually empowered but do not agree with each other, and do not come together to change the situation, then probably there will not be any collective empowerment. I see collective empowerment as a process of inter-action and exchange between persons.

Conclusions

Empowerment can have different meanings for different groups of marginalised persons and across different countries and cultures. It is not a question to which you can answer with a yes or no - it is a process. It starts when we become aware that we can also make our own decisions. It is easier for us if we are economically independent and educated, but that does not mean that without education or financial independence we can’t be empowered.

Empowerment means not just getting respect for your decisions, but also respecting the others by listening to them and allowing them to make their decisions. It also means accepting that sometimes, some of us can also decide that we do not wish to make our own decisions.

 

 

Meeting others, learning from their life experiences, sharing our doubts and fears are all steps towards empowerment.

As Zimmerman (1995) wrote, “asking why” is a key part of promoting empowerment. Emancipatory Research (ER) approach facilitates groups of marginalised persons to come together, ask questions and understand the reasons behind their life situations, to discuss how to overcome the obstacles they face and thus promotes empowerment.

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Most Beautiful Experiences

What makes some memories so special, that we can't forget them, even after decades? I was thinking about my memories of my most unforgettable evenings and wondering about what had made them so special.

In this post, I want to talk about 5 of my most unforgettable evenings and what made them special.

An Evening at the Taj Mahal, India

Talking about a beautiful evening at the Taj Mahal is a cliché, but since it was one the most incredible evenings that I had ever had, I decided to start with it. I had been to Taj in Agra a few times, the first time in 1967 on a school trip. This particular visit was in 2012, when I was in Agra for a conference. One afternoon, as I came out of a tiring meeting, I decided to walk and ended up at Taj Mahal. When I reached, the sky was already turning pink.

It was still crowded and I decided to sit down on a bench on one side, to wait for the evening. Slowly the crowd thinned and it became quieter. There was an azaan, I think from the mosque on the side of Taj or may be from outside. In that quiet, listening to that azaan and watching the silhouette of the familiar shape of the monument against the darkening sky, it was absolutely divine. It was the combination of beauty, colours and the music/sounds which made this evening so special.

The Uvs lake in Mongolia

I have also been to Mongolia many times. This particular evening was in 2008. We had travelled in a jeep from Bayan Ulgii to Uvs in the extreme west of Mongolia. In Uvs, I had one incredible afternoon in the stadium in Ulaangom where a Buddhist lama had led a special session of prayers.

One afternoon, after we finished our meetings, my friends accompanied me to Uvs lake, about 60 kms away from Ulaangom. The lake forms the border between Russia and Mongolia, which means that the mountains you can see in the image below on the other side of the lake were in Russia.

It was cloudy and windy that day. The contrast between light and dark shades of the dry grass, land, lake water and the snow covered mountains was very striking. A row of white round gers (tents) for the tourists, stood out. There were noisy seagulls and black and white lapwings. There, a few of my Mongolian friends sang polyphonic songs, which is a special Mongolian skill. The singers can simultaneously make multiple sounds, some in a wonderful bass and others, more acute.

The colours of the nature, the wind and clouds, the cries of seagulls and the polyphonic sounds of the Mongolian songs, together created something unique, which made that evening unforgettable for me. Even now, when I listen to polyphonic music from Mongolia, I remember that evening along the lake. If you have never heard a Mongolian polyphonic song, take a few minutes to listen to one on Youtube.

Pasubio Mountain, Veneto, Italy

Pasubio is the dolomite mountain of Schio, the little town in the north-east of Italy where we now live. Its highest peak is at more than 2,200 metres. From our home, a 20-25 minutes drive takes us to the mountain pass known as Pian delle Fugazze, at a little less than 1,200 metres. This was the border between Italy and Austria where the First World War battles had taken place. Hundreds of young men from different parts of Italy, but specially from all the towns of our region, had died here. At this mountain pass, visible from miles all around, is an Ossario, where bodily remains of those young men are kept.

We often go to the Ossario of Pasubio (in the image below). There are may mountain paths marked by the Italian Alpine association, where you can go for trekking. There is a hanging bridge there, about 2 km away, which makes for a nice walk. The evening at Pasubio which I remember is from a visit in 2012 evening. It was December and very cold. There had been different snowfalls, but on that day the sky was clear.

Soon after we arrived, the sky turned pink and orange, lighting up the snow with a strange glow. The moon was already out, not yet a full moon, but still glowing nicely. There was no one else at Ossario, just I and my wife. We stood there admiring the beautiful views till it turned dark. I think that it was special because we were alone and surrounded by incredible beauty.

An Evening in the Petrified Forest, New Mexico, USA

In 2018, I went on a road trip with my sister and one of her friends, in USA. We started from Santa Fe and finished our journey in Phoenix, visiting places like Grand Canyon and Sedona on the way. There is just a 2 years gap between I and my sister and I have a level of comfort with her, which is different from all other relationships. For much of our adult lives, we meet once in a while, usually with our families. Only now, with our children grown up, we can meet without our families and spend our time talking, as we used to do in our childhood.

That road-trip gave some wonderful memories, one of which was an evening spent in the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest. The beautiful shades of the earth, the amazing landscapes and our constant bickering (which sometimes irritated my sister's friend), made it a wonderful evening.

Baja beach on Tapajos river in Amazon region, Brazil

I have also been to Brazil many times, most recently in 2019 when I had a wonderful visit in Rio de Janeiro. However, my special evening memory is once again from 2012. I was with my friend and colleague Deo, and we were visiting a project in Abaetetuba town in Para state in the north-east of Brazil. One evening, we went to a shack on the Baja beach on the Tapejos river, a few kilometres away. We had some beer, and while Deo chatted with some friends, I wandered alone.

Tapejos is a huge river, its other shore was probably a few kilometres away. It changes with the sea tides of Atlantic ocean. The retreating high tide had left its marks on the sand. A group of children was playing football. Strips of land alternating with streams of water, created a wonderful background.

I walked to the edge of the river. A few families with children were there, including a man with a baby boy, who had parked his motorbike and was playing with the child in the water. Slowly the sun went down the sky turned yellow and orange. As I walked back to the beer shack, the man and the baby boy left on their motorbike. The river, the colours, the families chattering, it all created something magical.

Conclusions

I love writing posts like this, which give me an opportunity to revisit forgotten journeys and to remember places and persons, some of whom are no longer alive. I hope that you have also enjoyed this journey, and that it has made you remember some special moments from your own life.

Writing such posts is also about understanding ourselves and our desires. I have hundreds of beautiful pictures of sunsets. Why did I choose these five? Thinking about it, makes me understand myself - what is important for me, and what touches me deeply. I that it is a way of meditating or may be a way of more mindful-living.

Because of smart-phones, most of us have hundreds or even thousands of pictures. Try to make them count - think which pictures matter to you and why? It will help you to learn about yourself.

I think that many factors contribute to making some memories special for us - 

(1) Beauty or aesthetic pleasure is an part of it.

(2) The persons who are with me contribute to making it special.

(3) A dash of music or art can also contribute to it.

(4) Possibility of remembering it through photographs or a diary or talking about it with friends

What makes some moments of your life unforgettable for you?

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Highlights from My Journeys in 2019

2019 was full of journeys for me, from Philippines in the east to Brazil in the west. This post is to remember the most significant moments of my travels. The first picture (below) is from a wonderful journey across Kerala and Karnataka in India - from the Chennakeshava temple in Belur.

There was a time, when I did a lot of international travel. Then over the past decade, my travelling had gradually decreased, though I still continued to visit 3-4 countries every year. However, in 2019, a number of events came together, creating greater opportunities for my travel.

Travels in India

I started 2019 by travelling to Delhi in January. During this visit, I decided to explore the expanded network of the Delhi metro. For example, one day I went to search for the Dalit Pride Park in NOIDA. On my way back, I stopped in Jamia Milia and went to visit the tomb of Dr Zakir Hussain (in the image below), who was the President of India during 1967-69.

As a child, I had met Dr. Hussain and the well-known artist M.F. Hussain at Triveni Kala Sangam in Delhi and had vivid memories of that meeting. I was curious to visit his tomb.

In January, I also went to Kerala, where in Fort Kochi I visited the Kochi Art Biennale 2018-19. The image below presents an installation by Venu V. from the biennale.

I travelled in trains and buses along the Kerala coast, going from Kochi to Mangalore and then to the town of Hassan in Karnataka. From Hassan, I visited the amazing temples of Halebidu and Belur. The first image at the top presents one of the amazing women sculptures from the Chennakeshava temple in Belur.

Back in Delhi in February, I visited the recently rennovated Sundar Gardens near Hamayun tomb. The image below shows Sundar burj from these beautiful gardens.

February was also an opportunity to visit the street art in Lodhi colony, about which I had heard a lot. It was the time when some artists were visiting the city to make new murals, so during my next visit to Delhi, I am planning to visit this area once more to see the new additions.

In March, we had a family visit to the Kumbh mela in Prayagraj (Allahabad). My cousin sister had passed away suddenly and our visit included a ceremony for dispersing her ashes at Sangam, where river Ganges meets Yamuna. This visit was also an opportunity to visit and meet persons from our extended family and our old family home, before coming back to Delhi and concluding my India visit.

Milan, Italy

Back in Italy, in early April, I was part of a conference in Milan. This was an opportunity to explore the Naviglio canal. I had been there many years ago and remembered it as an old and decaying area. With the cleaning of Naviglio, the whole place has changed completely. Now it is full of tourists visiting crowded restaurants and new glittering shops.

Liberia

In the last week of April, I was back in Monrovia, the capital of Liberia. There is not much to see in Monrovia and security concerns make it difficult to go out. I also had to run a training course, so there was not much free time. However, one early morning, before the starting of the training, I did manage a walk along the seaside.

I also travelled for a day to Ganta in Nimba county to meet some old friends. They are trying to build up a wild life sanctuary in Liberia. May be in future, one day there will be places to visit here.

Mongolia

I visited Mongolia twice in 2019. The first time at the end of June when I stayed in Ulaanbaatar and did not travel to other places. However, I did go out for different walks to discover the city, such as a walk to look at the sculptures of a camel caravan.

During the second visit, in October, we visited some provinces around Ulaanbaatar. One of the visits was to Arkhangai and on the way, we stopped to see the Buddhist monastery at Korakorum, the old capital of Mongolia during the times of Gengiz Khan (in the image below). It was a place that I had dreamt of visiting one day and the visit was really great.

Brazil - Campo Grande and Niteroi

In August I was in Brazil for a couple of weeks, first in Campo Grande and then in Niteroi, near Rio de Janeiro. In between my work commitments, I had plenty of time to go around for walks in Brazil. In Rio de Janeiro, a short ferry ride away from Nietroi, I went to different museums but my most precious experience was visiting an Ai Wei Wei art exhibition.

Niteroi is a wonderful place to stay with some of the most beautiful views of the Bay of Guanabara and the amazing skyline of Rio de Janeiro (in the image below).

Manila, Philippines

Back from Brazil and with a short break of a few days, I had to go Manila for a conference. The 12 hours time difference from Brazil, made this visit very difficult for me. I tried everyday to walk and discover parts of Manila that I had not seen earlier. Thus, I joined the visit organized by our conference hosts to visit Intramuros, the Spanish part of Manila (Fort Santiago in the image below).

Istanbul, Turkey

In October, on my way back from Mongolia, I stayed overnight in Istanbul. I have passed through Istanbul airport many times, but had never stopped there and was hoping to visit the city. However, during my one day of stay, it was raining most of the time and thus, I was forced to stay in my hotel room. The image below was clicked from the bus going back to the airport. I hope to have another opportunity to visit Turkey in the new year.

Geneva, Switzerland

Between August to October, I had travelled so much that I became unwell and had to cancel a visit to Spain. I had also made plans for a family gathering in the USA, but I was so tired of travelling that I cancelled it.

The only journey outside Italy I made was to Geneva for a meeting at the World Health Organisation in mid-November. Even during the brief stay, I found some time to go for a walk along the left bank of the Leman lake, which I like very much (image below). Unfortunately, there was not enough free time to visit the botanical gardens, another of my favourite places in Geneva.

Italy - Padova, Treviso & Venice

Veneto region of Italy, where I live, is full of beautiful little medieval towns. This year, I visited some of them such as Castelfranco Veneto, Padova, Treviso, Thiene and Vicenza (below an image from the Padova Pride parade).

In November, I also managed to visit the Venice Art Biennale before it ended. It had a couple of installations that I had seen in Kochi art biennale in the beginning of the year. The image below shows the visually striking giant installation by Lorenzo Quinn from this Biennale.

Conclusions

I am glad that I could visit so many countries during 2019, though I overdid it! My new year resolution is to have fewer work commitments in other countries in 2020, so that I can enjoy my travels more.

Already my bags are packed and I am preparing to go back to India. I want to conclude this post with an image from the street theatre perforamnce by students of Aurobindo college in Delhi, which I had seen during my last visit to Delhi - the play was about the vanishing languages of India and was called "Zubaan sambhal ke". I like street theatre plays very much and am hoping to catch some of them during my visit.

One new development in 2019 was my increasing use of phone-cameras, instead of my usual Canon DSLR. This explains the different sizes and qualities of the pictures used for this post. Carrying a mobile to click pictures is so convenient and I think that in 2020, I will use it even more.

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The Camels of Genghis Khan

While passing through Ulaanbataar (UB), I had seen a strange sculpture with a row of camels standing in a tiny park in the middle of the road. I wanted to look at them properly and photograph them. However, it was a busy crossing, always full of traffic and clicking a picture of those camels from a moving car was impossible. So one afternoon I decided to walk and search for those camels.

This post is about my walk through the city, searching for those camels in Ulaanbataar (UB), the capital of Mongolia.

Mongolian Hero Genghis Khan

Genghis Khan is the national hero of Mongolia. His statues adorn some of the famous landmarks of the country like the central square of UB in front of the national parliament. They can also be seen in some unlikely places like his giant face designed on the side of a hill overlooking the city. Genghis Khan had led his caravans to conquer the world.

Mongolia is the land of nomadic people with their animals including horses, sheep, goats and camels – in fact Mongolia has 10 times more animals/cattle compared to its human population. So those camels could have been a representation of a Mongolian nomad. Thus, those sculptures could be a representation of the great Khan or of a Mongolian nomad.

Old wall-paintings & The Motorbike Guy

This time, I am staying at Shangri-La hotel on Embassy road in UB. I came out of the hotel and started my walk by going towards left, to the Children’s Palace, while across the road I could see Bayangol hotel, which is one of the historical hotels of UB.

I have been to Mongolia many times for work related to a disability programme. During my first visit to Mongolia in early 1990s, I had stayed in the Bayangol hotel. At that time UB was a completely different city, as Mongolia was just coming out of decades of a communist regime under the Soviet influence. Hardly anyone spoke English, while many persons spoke Russian. There were only a few buildings in this part of UB at that time while the road was narrow and there was no traffic except for a rare car.

This whole area is now completely transformed, full of sky-scrappers. The much wider road is jam-packed with cars. In the nearby Sukhbataar square there is the new parliament building. It is a beautiful place today with wonderful ambience and colourful buildings.

As I started my walk on Embassy road, I saw some beautiful old wall-paintings along the road. Their colours had faded but I could still make out their designs, which seemed to be telling some Buddhist story regarding the killing of some demon. I hope that these can be rennovated.

My first stop was the metallic sculpture of the Motorbike Man, which looks straight out of the Mad Max films, with an alien guy driving an amazing alien looking motorbike. I loved this sculpture placed just outside the Children's Palace. It seems to be the work of an artist called Mr. Santo, born in Thailand, who uses chains, springs, rods, ball bearings, brake bands, gears, and lots of other recycled metal to create art.

Park Place City Marker

I turned left on Chinggis Road (another way of saying Genghis), which is a broad road with never-ending traffic. My next stop was to admire the metallic city-marker of Park Place, showing the distances from UB to major cities of the world, including London, Sydney, Moscow and Beijing.

I have seen similar distance markers in many cities but this was the first time to see a metallic sculpture made for this purpose.

Peace Bridge

Going further south along the Chinggis Road I reached the Peace Bridge which passes above Dund-Gol river and Narnii Road, the bypass road of UB made for avoiding the traffic of the city centre.

The Peace Bridge was built with Chinese help in 1963 and was renovated in 2012. Dund-Gol is a small river, which joins Tuul river to the south of UB. From the Peace Bridge, I could see little water in Dund Gol (literally ‘Middle River’). Fortunately, it seemed relatively free of the trash which such places usually seem to get due to neglect.

The Blue Horses and the Summer Fountain

After crossing the bridge I reached the area around the National Sports Stadium of UB, which is full of shopping areas, restaurants and other modern buildings. In front of the square facing the Nadaam Mall, there was an open space with two beautiful blue horses, made in plastic or some synthetic materials. After the Motorbike Man and Park Place City Distances indicator and these horses, I was really impressed by the quality of public art in UB. It was also good to see that local youth had not tried to deface these art works by writing on them, which is a common problem in most urban places.

The fountains next to the horses, erupted with water suddenly and in unpredictable ways. Children playing between those fountains, were having a lot of fun as it was a warm day and many of them were soaking wet. As usually happens in such situations, a couple of adolescent boys had picked another boy and forced-carried him above one of the erupting fountains, accompanied with a lot of shouting and merry-making. Families sitting around looked at them with tolerant bemusement.

Children's Park

Next to the Nadaam Mall is the only pedestrian crossing bridge over Chenggis road. With so much traffic on this road, it was a safe way for me to cross the road. On the other side, the bridge led to a children's park full of statues of zebras, deer, eagles and tigers, where families were children were visiting. It is almost like a zoo, the only difference was that instead of live animals, it has statues.

It also had a nice fountain with the Blue coloured sculpture of a woman wearing traditional Mongolian dress.

Behind the park, I saw an old building which had a mosaic of a Soviet style of wall-art from the pre-1990s period (in the image below). Most of such buildings are slowly being replaced by new constructions. I wish someone would photograph and keep a record of all such wall-arts as these represent the city history.

Genghis Khan Camel Caravan

Finally, I reached the Camel sculptures in the traffic island marking the point where the north-to-south going Chenggis road meets the east-to-west going Chenggis avenue, which goes towards the international airport. The metal sculptures are called the "Silk Road Complex monument" and are the works of an artist called Dalkh-Ochir.

In 2015 a competition was held to identify sculptures for UB and in that competition 15 sculptures were selected. These have been placed in different parts of UB, including the motorbike man mentioned above.

In the Silk Road sculptures, initially there was only one statue of a Bactrian camel. Now there are 9 Bactrian camels, one dog and a bearded man on a horse, who may represent Genghis Khan or perhaps a Mongolian nomad. According to the GoGo website, "Initially the camel monument complex was named Migration and the idea of camels facing towards the city center has a meaning of inflow of wealth."

I am glad that I had decided to make this walk to look for those camels. They looked absolutely amazing. The sculptures are huge and made with a metallic sheet, and thus can hopefully withstand the harsh Mongolian winter.

I spent some time walking around the sculptures and clicking pictures while the amused locals, waiting for the bus at the bus-stand across the road looked at me.

To Conclude

Just after the Silk Road monument complex crossing, there was the Palace and Museum of Bogd Khan, who was the first king of Mongolia after its independence from China in early twentieth century. However, I was too tired by this time and decided to leave visiting that to another day.

It was a very satisfying walk. It took me a couple of hours, but that was because I was stopping every where to look around and click pictures. If you are in a hurry, you can do it faster. The image below shows another Soviet-era wall-art from a building near the Silk Road complex crossing. I am fascinated by the history hidden in these wall-arts.

UB has some wonderful examples of good quality public art. Though I have been to UB many times, I am not much acquainted with the town except for the area around Gandam monastery. I am glad that this time I could explore a new part of the city.

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#mongoliaub #ubmongolia #ulaanbaatar #publicart #genghiskhan

Land of Never Ending Sky - Mongolia diary

As the plane circled for landing, I was surprised by the way the whole landscape had changed. I had come back to Mongolia after more than 10 years and in those ten years, Ulaan Baatar (UB) had grown into a sprawling metropolis with some sky scrappers. However, more than the sky scrappers, it was the spread of Ger-townships on the hills surrounding the capital, that hit me. I remembered those hills completely bare, those gers were not there during my last visit. Mongolia is a huge and almost empty country except for UB and some small centres. (Pic. one of the ever-expanding ger districts of UB)

“Gers” are the round and white Mongolian tent-houses for the nomadic communities, that you can roll up and carry away to the next pastureland. With about 2 million humans and 32 million animals, pastures for animals are an important consideration for building your gers. You need plenty of space around your gers, so that your animals (twin humped camels, horses, goats, sheep, yaks, cows and a few raindeers) get plenty of grass for grazing. Thus your next door neighbours may be 10 or even 20 miles away, for not stepping on your toes. (Pic. Tourist gers are usually whiter, cleaner, and always in groups, and of course they are near panoramic places)

During winters, Mongolians may shift their gers closer to the cities and during summer, people move away for setting up their place near lakes and mountains. The word “city” is used here with lot of imagination since most “big cities” have only a motley group of government buildings and a few houses. Most of the time you just see empty spaces, rolling gentle hills and an occasional man on a horse looking after his animals. (Pic. a Mongolian man on a horse)

To me, Ulaan Baatar seems to be a very long name and I prefer calling it UB. Tuki my Mongolian host says that only foreigners call it UB, Mongolians prefer the full name of their city that literally means Red Hero, a memory from the socialist days. Mongolians had an ancient script that came from Tibetan but socialist era changed that, when monasteries were closed and ransacked, while use of Cyrilic (Russian) alphabet came into practice. UB has more than 50% of the national population and is always growing due to migrants from the countryside. (pic. Parliament house in Sukhbaatar Square of UB)

UB seemed to have changed a lot in these 10 years. The parliament house in Sukhbaatar square had a new facade with an imposing statue of the national hero, Changez Khan. I am never sure how to write his name. Some call him the famous Gengis Khan or we in India had called him in India, Changez Khan. Mongolians call him Changgis Khan and have him every where, from coffee shops to restaurants to beer and vodka bottles. They are building a huge statue of him on the lines of statue of Liberty in NY, just outside UB, looking on from his horse to a sea of rolling never-ending hills. He is responsible for the glory of Mongolia as his empire had stretched from Korakoram right up to Europe. (Pic. the giant Chenggis Khan statue just outside UB)

The choice of eating places in UB, that was extremely limited in the past, had been gradually improving. During my first visit almost twenty years ago, the only edible things I could find were dry meat and potatoes. This time the choice of eating joints seemed endless with a few wonderful Korean places and even two Indian restaurants. BTW, I loved Korean spicy food and insisted on going there every time we had that choice. But if you are a vegetarian and you are invited hom by some Mongolians for lunch or dinner, beware, you may not find much to eat. The Mongolian food is mainly lot of meat from all kinds of animals, often just boiled, along with light salty tea like those used by Tibetans. (Pic. A lunch invitation at a nurse's house in the countryside)

One of the most beautiful places in UB continues to be Gandam Buddhist temple and monastery. Its giant Buddha statue had been broken and thrown away in socialist times, but now a new copy of that statue is back. The stupas are again covered with colourful designs and gold filigree, and hordes of monks walk busily from one end to another. It is difficult to remember its desolate look in the early nineties and Buddhist revival is in full swing. At the end of socialist period, India had helped in this reincarnation of Gandam by nominating a Buddhist monk as its ambassador in UB. Tibetan Buddhism and Dalai Lama are very strong in Mongolia even if Buddhism reached here only 4-5 centuries ago. (Pic. Stupas at Gandam monastery)

During my visit, I kept on passing through UB, but it was outside in the open spaces of Mongolian countryside, away from crowds of UB, that I fell in love with the gently rolling hills on which clouds made lazy designs and the sky seemed never ending. My hands itched constantly to click pictures. “Nothing could be so beautiful”, I kept on repeating, risking a clickitis in my index finger (I swear that it was the first time in my life that my finger hurt from too-much clicking on the camera!). The subtle shades of the earth on those hills were magical. At times hordes of sheep or horses would suddenly appear, sometimes followed by a lonely figure of a shepherd on a horse or a motorcycle, other times we could go on for an hour without seeing anyone. (Pic. clouds making patterns on gently rolling hills in Bayan Ulgii province in the west)

Some times we came across lakes with Turkish blue, dark green, sky blue and other shades of waters, surrounded by craggy mountains of breathtaking beauty without a single soul to look at the view and admire it. The views often remind me of the pictures of Leh and Ladakh that I have seen even if here the altitude is lower, between 1.5 to 3 thousand meters. (Pic. Sezdhan lake in Bayan Ulgii province)

One of the most beautiful panoramas of the entire journey was from Omnogobi to Tarailan, when we had crossed a highland at 3000 meters. It was lovely to see fearless wild rabbits staring back at you, and take their pictures. However, I couldn’t take picture of any marmots, they were very shy and quickly dove away back to their holes as we passed. During that journey thick dark clouds had come out and the whole panorama had become magical, dark and sinister. (Pic. Highlands near Tarailan)

Another view that would remain with me forever is that near Ulaangom, where it had rained and the green grass was like shining emerald. A group of twin humped camels and hundreds of white sheep with black spots lit by the evening sun seemed painted by some magical realism style painter. No picture can ever catch the beauty of that scene. (Pic. After the rains near Ulaangom; a group of camels)

In Sagsai village near the western border of Mongolia, we had visited Kazak houses where they kept pet eagles for traditional hunting. I was mesmerised by the eagle’s eyes as it sat chained down to the ground like a dog, it was so huge and powerful and its eyes seemed to stare into my soul, sending a chill deep inside me. Only female eagles can be kept as pets and in Sagsai every year they have an eagle hunting festival. (Pic. a pet eagle in a village near Sagsai)

Another memory is that of seagulls and other water birds along the hundreds of kilometers long Uvs salt water lake next to the Russian border in the north. Our hosts from the local health department, Dorj and Ebe had sung traditional Mongolian songs. Their rough male voices, vibrating with the Mongolian sounds that are supposed to come from the stomach, in that windswept place with so many seagulls following us hoping to catch some meat or bones, was a unique experience. Try listening to some Mongolian traditional male singing if you have never heard it before, and you will never forget it. It can be rough vibrations kind sound, or even a combination of a shrill whistle and a rough, thick bass, both coming out at the same time, that hums and vibrates in your head. For example listen to the sounds of this video on Youtube, it is not very good quality recording but can give you a glimpse of what I mean. If you have heard Tibetan prayers from Buddhist temples in Ladhakh, these songs are very similar to those sounds. (Pic. the seagulls on Uvs lake)

In Ulaangom we also attended a Buddhist prayer meeting where a delegate of Dalai Lama had come from India. The prayer meeting was held in a stadium, where the green grass, bright orange of the stage and the dark browns of the monks' clothes had made a wonderful colourful combination. It was another occasion for my clickitis. Talking to my Mongolian friends, while I noted reverence towards Tibetan monks and the delegate Rimpoche who has come from Dalai Lama, at the same time, I noticed a bit of problem with all the Buddhist prayers being in Tibetan and not in Mongolian. Thus Mongolians reciting the prayers do not know the meanings of the words of their prayers. I think that some kind of language reform in this sense would be very useful. Monk Rimpoche, delegate of Dalai Lama lives in Dharamsala and he stayed in the same hotel where I was staying and then we travelled together back to UB, so I had the opportunity to say a hello to him. (Pic. A monk at Buddhist prayer meeting in Ulaangom)

Lot of Mongolians believe in Shamanism, defined also a cult of the sky. One of the most visible signs of these beliefs are the "ovoo", heaps of stones with blue and white clothes and motley offerings, especially at the crossings of paths (sometimes you have to imagine those paths rather than actually see them), where travellers stop to go around clockwise and in the end, add a few stones to the heap. There are some times very strong beliefs that picking up and taking away anything from a place, including stones, disturbs its nature spirit and brings misfortune, so remember not to pick any stones for taking back home, as it might make your plane crash. (Pic. An ovoo prayer)

A special high point of this visit was receiving the honorary Uvs province citizenship from the Governor, along with the highest civil honour medal. My hosts had not warned me about it and when it had happened, it was so unexpected. That day as I had walked around showing off my medal in the city square where they were having some kind of military "open-day" celebrations, people had looked at me and smiled, coming to shake hands or just nodding at me. (Pic. Military boys showing off their different kinds of uniforms at the open-day celebrations)

There were some adventures like getting stuck in floods in the eastern Hentii province, difficulties of landing in UB due to strong winds and adventure of going to a toilet in a small village. That toilet was basically a deep hole in the ground, surrounded by some wooden planks and it was in the middle of an empty ground, about 300 meters from the hospital where we were staying. On the morning when I had to use it, there was so much wind that I was afraid of being swept away and when I reached the toilet, the gusts of wind coming from all sides through the wooden planks were so strong that I was afraid of falling down in the shit-pit (it was deep and we were so far away that I was afraid no one would hear my cries for help). I had some bad diarrhoea that morning and it didn’t help when my wad of toilet paper slipped from hands and was blown away. You can imagine my walk back to the hospital after that ordeal. In any case, Mongolia forces you to review your notions about privacy and body functions because of cramped living place inside the gers, lack of toilets in the countryside and lack of hiding places like dunes or plants for relieving your body needs. (Pic. reviewing your notions about privacy and body functions)

However, apart from such small problems including the never ending lunches and dinner with different kinds of meats, meats and meats, it has been an unforgettable journey, especially because of the warm hearted and hospitable Mongolians, forever ready to offer a swig of vodka on every occasion or even without any occasion! To them I would like to say San Beno (hello), Za Bayerla (thanks), Za Bayesta (good bye). (Pic. With some Mongolian friends near Uvs lake)

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This post was originally written in 2008