Raju's Wanderings

Papua New Guinea is a small island nation to the east of Indonesia, and north of Australia. The indigenous people of PNG trace themselves to 50,000 years ago, during the migration of humans out of Africa.  PNG has 850 different languages spread across as many tribes in a population less than 10 million (as many people as my city of Hyderabad).   Poverty is very high, and it has one of the highest crime rates in the world. Just like my local city of Hyderabad, street vendors can be seen in the middle of traffic at junctions, trying to sell their wares to make a living.  Except for the locals, the expatriates are even scared to roll down their windows to ask the price.  The rich are in cars on roads, while the poor are on the dividers separating lanes, gathering the scraps of the rich, rather like seagulls surrounding ships. Streets are mostly deserted in Port Moresby, the capital of Papa New Guinea. The population density even in the capital is barely 1,500/sq. k...

  From February 5, 2023 I was visiting Jagdalpur (Chattisgarh, India) for a whirlwind two-day trip with eight of my close friends. Jagdalpur is a sleepy city with connectivity to exactly one other airport outside Chattisgarh, that is Hyderabad! About 30% of the population are "Schedule Tribes" - that is Adivasis - the Original Inhabitants of India. They are so ancient that they predate all other migrants to India. Most of these are "Gond" - their script has finally been used with success to decipher the script of Indus Valley Civilization dating back to 7500 BCE (Bhirrana, Haryana). That is much to the chagrin of the "Aryans are local Indians" gang who failed for decades to connect the Indus Valley script to Sanskrit and Brahmi.   You can see the complete list of flights in and out of Ma Danteshwari ("Mother Tooth Goddess") Airport. Ma Danteshwari refers to the local goddess, for who a temple was made around 14th century CE. Worship of some local...