India has 7,500km of coastline, but the last thing you are likely to see on its palm-fringed beaches is a surfboard — until now. That is changing, thanks to a group of surfers from near the port city of Mangalore known as — what else? — the Surfing Swamis.
Born under the technical and spiritual guidance of a former US surfer turned swami named Jack Hebner, the group last year set up the Surfing Federation of India (SFI) and has just organized the first Indian Surfing Festival in Orissa State on the other side of the peninsula.
“Three fishermen take on the world and win,” exulted CNN-IBN TV, as surfers from the southern Tamil Nadu State came first, second and third in the stand-up paddle event — the only race at the festival — against competitors from nine other countries, including the US, Australia, South Africa and Vietnam.
“Riding the padagu [catamaran] for a living makes us endure long stretches of stress,” said Murthy Megavan, one of the fishermen/surfers.
He and his teammates were trained at the Bay of Life surfing school, where they learned stand-up paddle surfing in two months.
“They have it in their blood,” said Showkath Jamal, who set up the school in Tamil Nadu after watching foreigners surf at a beach near Chennai.
“Indians respect, fear and worship the ocean, but as we propagate the idea of surfing as a sport — and also teach people how to understand currents, zips, etc — people are getting interested,” he said.
“Even now before we surf we say a prayer to Varuna, the god of the sea,” said Kishore Kumar, surfer and founder of the SFI. “Ultimately, it’s at the ocean’s mercy that you catch a good wave.”
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
TURNAROUND: The Liberal Party had trailed the Conservatives by a wide margin, but that was before Trump threatened to make Canada the US’ 51st state Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls. An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed that the left-leaning Liberals have 38 percent public support and the official opposition center-right Conservatives have 36 percent. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing the Conservative leader to Trump. The Conservative strategy had long been to attack unpopular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but last month he
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
RSS