…but even so, this street food vendor’s claim was relatively ambitious, even in terms of “locally famous, within the vale of Kashmir”.
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As last updated on 02 January 2025, on www.WA.gov.au:
If you are thinking about owner-building your own home or small commercial building, you will need to have been granted owner-builder approval from the Building Services Board before you can be granted a building permit from your local government authority.
Indian bureaucracy is globally-notorious, but in at least some parts of Rajasthan, the “DIY housing sector” is subject to very much less “regulation” than is Western Australia’s.
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The mammalian world’s biggest family – the rodents – includes six genera which (collectively) contain at least 110 living species of “gerbil”
Some of them – on their own turf, at least – are more commonly known as “jirds”.
Jirds are members of the genus Meriones.
As is generally true of gerbils, jirds live in deserts, and other “arid” or “semi-arid” places.
Unsurprisingly, most are nocturnal; but not the Indian desert jird, Meriones hurrianae.
One Indian blogger has described this post’s highly atypical hero as the tiny musketeer of Rajasthan’s Thar Desert.
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The Thar Desert’s other name accords with reality: it is India’s biggest desert, although 15% of it is in Pakistan.
Most of it – around 60% – is in Rajasthan; the Thar Desert occupies a little more than 60% of India’s largest state, by area
According to most sources, around 40% of Rajasthan’s human population live within the Thar Desert.
Rajasthan is far from India’s most populous state, but it is currently home to more than 80 million humans.
Unsurprisingly, the Thar Desert is “our” planet’s most densely populated desert, by a large margin.
It is also remarkably rich in wildlife.
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I do not believe in the notion that any single player/composer/writer/whatever kind of artist is – or ever was the best.
That said, Zakir Hussain was undoubtedly the most influential, most eclectically-inclined, and most ubiquitous hand-drummer/percussionist in human history.
(Jim McGuire took the photo of him)
Zakir Hussain died on Monday, in his adoptive home city of San Francisco.
He was born 73 years earlier, in what was then Bombay, now Mumbai.
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As this post shows, our Dal Lake entertainment barge’s singer-dancer was a very effective encourager-teacher.
During the course of the evening, most physically-able-enough members of our party were coaxed onto the dance floor.
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By 7.15 pm, as pictured above, the singer and dancer on “our” Dal Lake entertainment barge had already shown us that she was a capable and committed performer.
Relatively speaking, however, she was still in “low gear”…but only for another minute or so.
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By the time it was fully dark outside – and we were well away from inhabited shores – our “party on Dal Lake” had become very exuberant.
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As we slowly glided our way out of the “Toorak/Peppermint Grove” end of the houseboats-fringed section of Dal Lake, the musicians were tuning up, plugging in, preparing.
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At 5.36pm on 04 May 2024, we were on board a barge, in front of “our” houseboat.
We were about to head out into the quiet, unpopulated part of Dal Lake, well away from houses and houseboats.
Late afternoon light was flattering the houseboats that were directly opposite “ours”.
A few minutes later MV Bulbul (pictured in immediately-preceding post) would fire up, and begin to tow us, very slowly, toward the lake’s more “open” waters.
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