The princely state, under Britain’s Raj, allowed a feudal lord – often a maharaja, sometimes a nawab or nizam or rana – some, mostly internal control over his chunk of India. The chunks, big, small and in between, were many: in 1947, before independence and the end of princely states, 565 had representatives in a chamber of India’s legislative assembly.
Madrid
Claire and I arrived in Madrid late at night. We waited for a train to our hostel, watched by police with sniffer dogs, listening to the murmur of news and advertising emitted from wide screen televisions placed between the tracks.
We stayed at Pop Hostel, in a small, two bunk bed dorm. The room was quiet but sometimes too intimate and often awkward. The hostel was full of Brazilians, so full that Portuguese had replaced English as the language of first recourse. I was often addressed in Portuguese by strangers, then laughed at when I stammered back in confusion.
The building’s bottom floor was occupied by a small shop, selling basic foodstuffs. It was one of what would be referred to by every local I met as a “Chinese shop”. Open from early until late, it was busiest during the siesta hours when Spanish run supermarkets would close. These shops could be found everywhere. The attendants sat behind small, dark counters, closed in by the cluttered shelves, watching Chinese movies on nearby televisions. An agreement apparently exists between China’s government and Spain’s, which allows people to come over as self employed shop keepers, and sell, among other things, the cheap wares mass produced in China. Continue reading Madrid>>
