I went to Goa for a few days with some friends from college. It’s an awesome place if you like hanging out on beaches, cheap shopping, riding motorcycles, and clicking pictures. Oh, and you can get a King’s beer for the equivalent of about fifty cents. Plz enjoy some snaps I took with my manual Pentax
I also set up a Flickr account because I’m really into conforming.
Some of you have already seen this, video but I’m posting it anyways. I’m studying abroad in India right now and the program I’m here with wanted me to write a REALLY long big post for them about my impressions pre and post coming to Mumbai, but I thought a cool video would be more fun. If I have time, I’d like to make some more videos while I’m here. I’ll let you know if I do
And now for the short update:
I just finished all of my courses and exams and decided to stay in India until Christmas. I got a really sweet internship with a film and television production company, and I’ve been unsuccessfully hunting for an apartment. It’s nearly impossible to find listings without posting a broker, subletting does not exist here, and convincing someone to give you an apartment for two months is basically a waste of time, but I’m still trying. Wish me luck!
Also, I’m going to get better about posting now. I promise.
I was just minding my own business, strolling through an empty plaza and ignoring some dumb boy, when suddenly hundreds of people dressed in matching outfits popped up out of nowhere and started dancing in unison and singing about the dumb boy and me. Men playing instruments flooded in from nearby homes, women decked out in lavishly decorated sarees twirled in from the streets, and I couldn’t help but join in and have a few awkwardly long I-love-you-but-I-shouldn’t-but-I-have-to-but-I-can’t moments with the dumb boy.
It happens more often than you think. Proof:
But in all seriousness, this dance is called Garba. It originated in the state of Gujarat, and is most widely performed during a festival called Navratri, which is right around the corner. Navratri is a nine-night/ten-day festival in which people dance to Garbas and another one, involving sticks, whose name escapes me. I was told that these dances used to go until like 5am, which is a bfd in Indian culture. The dances are meant to worship the mother goddess, and people get REALLY into them (i.e. the energetic bunch in the clip above).
I had a dance lesson today so I could learn some of the moves in preparation for the festival. Let’s just say my teacher was pretty impressed with my natural talent and I’m thinking about going pro.
Last week there was a festival called Dahi Handi (also known as Krishna Janmashtami) which celebrates the birthday of Krishna, an avatar of the God Vishnu.
People in the state of Maharashta, where I am now, have the BEST way of celebrating. There’s a legend that says when Krishna was little, he loved buttermilk. To keep him from drinking it all, his mom would put it in a pot and tie the pot really high up. So, Krishna got a group of his friends together, made a human pyramid, and broke the pot so they could all share the delicious treat inside.
To commemorate this and to celebrate Krishna’s playfulness on Dahi Handi, Maharashtan men tie a pot to a decorated rope really high up, make a human pyranmid (sometimes 8 or 9 tiers high), and the person at the very top (either a kid or a really small guy) breaks the pot with a coconut or some other blunt object. If he is successful, the pot breaks and the milk pours down on everyone as a celebration of victory through teamwork. If they don’t get it, they only get a few more tries.
The Handi is the clay pot
Dahi Handi - The human pyramid
Because of the current political tension and recent bomb blasts, most human pyramid locations kept their event times a secret, so I didn’t get to see it in person. My friend and I ran around for like an hour that night trying to find one, but no luck.
Here’s a video to give you an idea of what it’s like:
Indian women sifting through stacks of beautiful sarees
Sarees are really beautiful, traditional dresses worn by Indian women. It’s comprised of a blouse, a petticoat, a couple strategically placed safety pins, and a VERY long piece of fabric which is wrapped around in a specific manner exposing just your midriff and your arms.
There was a big dance a few weeks ago, so decided that was the perfect excuse to get a saree.
Saree shopping entails running around to find a fabric you like, having someone practice drape it on you, getting approval from the dozen people you brought with to help you pick just the right one, finding a matching petticoat, optionally buying extra fabric for the blouse (the main piece of fabric already includes a few extra feet at the end which can be used for a basic blouse), bringing it to a tailor to get a runner stitched to the main piece of fabric and to get the blouse measured and stitched, and then finally picking it up a few days later.
Saree Option #1
Saree Option #2
I love sarees. I felt like a princess wearing this at the dance.
I was cruising around Burrp, an Indian version of Yelp, and found a nearby event called “Beer and BBQ Festival.” What American doesn’t like beer and bbq? So I clicked on it and stumbled upon this description:
Beer & BBQ Festival Euro Asian style at Fat Cat Kitchen & Bar. Choose from salad, smoked tofu, broccoli & shitake mushroom, plum cured chicken drumstick, citrus sova Tiger prawns and more.
When I clicked on “Beer & BBQ Festival” I was picturing something more like… PBR and ribs. Hahahaha
If there were more meat-eating, beer-loving people here, I would open up a proper American-style restaurant and show India how a real BBQ is done – 4TH OF JULY STYLE.
Saturday was Raksha Badhan, the first of many festivals coming up here in India. On Raksha Badhan, brothers and sisters remember their love for each other.
These bracelets are called rakhi. On Raksha Badhan, the sister puts one of these bracelets, tikka (red powder that goes on your forehead), rice (representing prosperity), and a candle-ish thing on a silver plate. Then she takes the plate, circles it around his head a few times, blessing him, puts the tikka on his forehead, and ties the rakhi on his right wrist. This is to remind him that he has to protect his sister for the rest of her life. Then the brother and sister hug each other and feed each other sweets and the brother gives his sister a gift like money, chocolate, or for the more adult siblings, something like a laptop, as a thanks for the blessing.
Plz enjoy the cutest display of Raksha Badhan everrrrrrrr:
If you had told me four years ago, when I was starting to apply to colleges, that before I graduated I would visit 11 new countries spanning two continents, I would have said you were out of your fucking mind. But, several impulsive decisions, ungodly sums of student loans, and many worn out pairs of Converse later, here I am finishing my last semester of school in Mumbai, India.
This will be the longest I’ve stayed in one place since… I don’t even know when. I’ll do my best to explain everything to you, but there aren’t enough words in English to describe everything adequately.
Plz enjoy some intro pictures of my hostel, my school, and the area I’m living in (it’s called Matunga)!
If there are any myths you want confirmed/busted, places you want to see pictures of, questions you want answered, drop me a line on my blog’s facebook page.
I was a starry-eyed girl with big dreams and a taste for an adventure, and what an adventure it has been. I hopped into my parents’ minivan in the small coastal Rhode Island town where we were vacationing. After a 45-minute drive to Providence, I hopped a bus that would take me to Logan Airport in Boston. According to the original plan, I was supposed to fly from Boston to O’Hare to Delhi to Mumbai. The storms in Chicago threw off all the flights going in. My flight was delayed two and a half hours. It was also overbooked and I ended up getting bumped back two more flights and walking about four miles between gates, thereby missing my first connection to Delhi. After seven hours I finally got on a flight to Chicago, my parents started driving back to Chicago early, and my uncle let me sleep over at his place because my mom had my house keys. My cab driver from the airport was so smelly I was literally almost suffocating with the windows rolled down. It was as if my dad had finished working out and then sat in a hot cab cooking for eight hours. Yes, I know it’s not his fault, but it was smelly nonetheless.
The next day I got to O’Hare, now scheduled to leave on that day’s flight to Dehli, got dropped off at the wrong terminal, found the right terminal, exchange all my dollars for rupees, and waited patiently at the Delhi gate. It was overbooked. I didn’t get on. Again. When the woman at the counter saw me burst into tears, she offered to help me get to India. She pushed me onto a flight to Brussels, which I also ended up not being able to get onto. The man at the counter told me to sit and wait for a call from baggage claim about my bags.
After a half hour, I asked someone else at the counter about my bags, and she told me to go down to baggage claim and ask them. So I went down there, and they told me I was supposed to wait upstairs for a phone call, and I should sit and wait at the carousel for an hour because they’d show up there. My dad came to get me. The bags never showed up on the carousel. I waited at baggage claim for six hours while my dad went around and had nearly everyone in baggage service looking for my bags. They were no where to be found. Feeling defeated, I went home.
In the morning I’ll know if my bags ended up in Brussels or Delhi, and then in the evening I will 100% FOR SURE be on a flight to Mumbai. Possibly with two new bags of new stuff.
I haven’t cried this much in a really long time, but hey, third time’s a charm I guess. Wish me luck!
For those of you who don’t already follow me on Facebook or Twitter, here’s what’s going down:
After studying abroad in Ireland and Turkey, serving as an ambassador in Northern Ireland, and spending a month backpacking by myself in Europe, I’m ready for something bigger and more challenging. I’ll be finishing up my International Business major in Mumbai, India, taking classes for four months, and then I’ll be on my own in Gujarat working at a month-long internship.
Similar to last summer, I’ll be blogging daily with stories, pie charts, and shit tons of photos.
Want to come along with me for the ride?
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Went to the Gaziantep Museum to see the “Gypsy Girl” mosaic fragment, had some really yummy eggplant stuffed with lamb (which a waiter had to cut up for me because I was eating it wrong hahahahaha) at Imam Cagdas (one of the most famous restaurants in Turkey), visited a mosque where my professor once served as imam, wandered around the bazaar, and ended the day with a housecall at my professor’s good friend’s home. CUTEST TURKISH KIDS EVER.
While in Urfa, which many historians and anthropologists believe to be Ur, we went to the birthplace of Abraham.
According to legend, King Nimrod sentenced Abraham to death by pyre, but God intervened and turned the fire into water and the wood into fish. This sacred pool is still in existence, and legend has it that anyone who tries to fish the carp will go blind.
There is a park, a mosque, and madrasahs surrounding the birthplace of the prophet Abraham which is located in a small cave within the neighboring mountain.
Later that night, the receptionist at our hotel invited us to come have tea at his house and meet his family. His daughters insisted on dressing someone in our group in their traditional clothes, and his sister gave gifts to my professors including a doll she handmade. It was so cool!
His sister brought her family as well, and she offered to make us some food that normally men make. After the food, she was talking to my professor about how important tradition is, asking if we as American college students found it difficult to retain our traditions in such a fast-paced progressive world.
I was eavesdropping and, playing the devil’s advocate, asked if she felt like she was breaking her own traditions because she had mentioned just getting her driver’s license and that she refuses to make her children go through arranged marriages. She laughed and gave me a funny look for being so sassy, but then she went on to talk about the delicate balance between traditions and change. I wish I could have recorded the eloquent way my professor translated her words to me.
In her eyes, getting her driver’s license isn’t going against tradition. It’s a positive change that doesn’t corrupt her way of life. She said that she protested her arranged marriage once before meeting her husband at the altar, and her mother slapped her. As for her views on arranged marriage, she told me that had she known what she was getting herself into, she would have been slapped one hundred times more and that she would never make her children go through the same thing.
She explained that although it seems that the Muslim world’s traditions hold them back from progress, it doesn’t. It gives them the leverage to make change where it is needed while allowing them to keep the traditions that serve as the foundation for their culture.
I told her how lucky she is to have tradition and such a rich culture flowing through and rooting her life. Americans don’t realize what they’re missing. Our culture encourages individualism to the point where some people set themselves so far apart that they’re lonely and try to fill the void with material things. I think this stems from the huge influx of immigrants with the pick-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps and the come-to-America-for-a-chance-to-start-your-life mentalities of the early 1900’s.
Unfortunately, this era and its ideals also exterminated most of the traditions and cultures of the immigrants who wanted to be American. Since then, immigrants have tried to learn English, lose their accents, and give into the American way of life so they could blend in. This has led to a subconscious mourning generations later, a longing for a community with which we can share habits, foods, and life itself. If you ask most Americans what they’re nationality is, you’ll get a response like “I’m 25% Polish, 25% Irish, and 50% Czech.” This isn’t something most people from outside the US can understand. I mentioned this to my friend in the Netherlands and she had a good laugh about it (not in a mean way, of course). We’re an unanchored society, and we don’t even know it. Most cultures have this unspoken sense of community and togetherness with unconditional care and support that even some families in America lack.
After being so welcomed and taken care of, not only in Turkey, but in all of the countries where families and friends have taken me in, I’m burning with jealousy. If you were working in a hotel and heard that thirty college students were looking for a family to visit, would you have offered your home, food, and tea to them that same day? The Turks have a saying, “Our homes are small, but our hearts are large.” That saying has been reflected by every family that we’ve visited. When I return to the States, I plan on taking that value with me. As a nomad, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to, but I’ll try to instill the same sense of community in everyone I meet everywhere I go.
After our time as the mosque, we drove to Harran. In Harran is located the ruins of an Islamic mosque/university called Ulu Cami, where the number 0 was first used in mathematics and the distance from Earth to the moon was first accurately calculated.
Harran is also famous for its “beehive” houses. These houses look like beehives from the outside (duh) and the shape helps keep them really warm in the winter and really cool in the summer. They’re made of clay and mud, and the one we went into had 22 rooms. It was so cool.
People in the state of Maharashta, where I am now, have the BEST way of celebrating. There’s a legend that says when Krishna was little, he loved buttermilk. To keep him from drinking it all, his mom would put it in a pot and tie the pot really high up. So, Krishna got a group of his friends together, made a human pyramid, and broke the pot so they could all share the delicious treat inside.
