ROMAN HOLIDAY PART1

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Phnom Penh - from Killing Fields to a Humane City

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Phnom Penh-a great Cambodian City Time began with the Big Bang about 13.77 billion years ago. Our universe originated and began expanding from Day One which included the formation of our planet Earth. But not so long ago, on 17th April 1975, a Cambodian school teacher Pol Pot (who had been to Paris on scholarship to study Radio Electronics and returned to Cambodia to take up a teaching assignment) declared Year Zero in Cambodia. That was in line with the concept of Year One declared during the French Revolution. The idea was to discard and destroy all culture and traditions within the society and bring in revolutionary culture. President Lon Nol fled Cambodia on 1st April 1975 following a bloody civil war that lasted for five years. And on 17th April 1975, a swarm of locusts in the guise of Khmer Rouge descended on Phnom Penh to devour teachers, artists, and intelligentsia of the Cambodian capital. Pol Pot’s intention was to eliminate threats to his idea of agrarian society. That wa
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Heidelberg

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at a cute little University town in Germany         Almost two decades that I first stepped into this romantic little University town of Germany. On an assignment at Nijmegen, Netherlands, I had decided to spend a few days at my brother-in-law’s house in Dreieich – a quiet suburb, around 10 km from Frankfurt International Airport. The museum dedicated to Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, inventor of the first rigid airship ‘Zeppelin’ is located in Dreieich. The day my niece Tanya drove me down to Heidelberg, about 100 km from Frankfurt, I was naturally excited. The main reason being I longed to see the place which boasted of the oldest university in Germany and one of the oldest surviving universities in Europe. The Schloss, a romantic twelfth-century castle. overlooking the university town below, the river Neckar (a tributary of Rhine), and the hills beyond were breathtaking views. Enough to instill a feeling of love at first sight. No wonder Heidelberg is known as an ‘epitome of
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A Roman Holiday

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ROMA - Ancient Rome & Papal Rome Imagine going back 2000 years in time and space while standing on the stone floor inside a colossal amphitheater. Amidst thousands of Roman spectators. The booms of drums reverberate as the ceremonial parade enters the stadium. After saying ‘Ave imperator; morituri te salutant’ (those who are about to die salute you) to the Emperor, the gladiatorial combat begins. The crowd shouts jeers and throw their hands up in excitement. 60000 spectators? Like the excitement at Eden Gardens in Calcutta while watching a Cricket match. The gestures, the excitement, the uproar may be different from our present-day Mexican waves. But how does that matter? After all, a stadium is a venue for entertainment – be it the bloodiest sport in the history of mankind. And how the Romans loved watching violence and killings. Historians remain befuddled as to how Romans who are regarded as the precursor of human civilization could have indulged and e
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