Yoga

This is a yoga/meditation center that we went to. It is about an hours drive from Praveen's parent's house. The drive, though very bumpy, is nice. I like to ride through the back country of India. It's amazing that so close to civilization people live in such conditions. Actually they live that way even in civilization, but it some how looks a little less painful when there are hills, trees and farms everywhere. I saw some people doing thier laundry in the pond in the city then laying it on the dirt to dry. At least in the country you can lay it on some grass or something. Also I always think that they must be able to sustain themselves a little easier living off the land then digging through garbage bins, but what do I know?

We didn't do yoga. In fact, I have had no exercise in two and half weeks and have been eating three very full, gee filled, meals a day. I have managed to put on about five lbs that I will have to get rid of upon returning. Yoga is different in India, there are no one or two hour "classes" to go to. You can go to a 3 day-1 month training session then you are expected to practice on your own at home. Next time we come I will come out here and go to the three day session and see how it is. I really liked the place. It is quite beautiful and peaceful. Inside that round building below they have this phallic looking big, black lingam. I think it's made of granite. Inside is completely quite and in the wall they have carved out these places for people to sit and meditate. We sat there for about 20 minutes. It was nice.

They also have this area where you can go and swim in water that is imported from the Ganges river. It's quite beautiful. They have made this waterfall thing and have another lingam in the center to swim around.

We leave India tonight. We will arrive in Thailand tomorrow am where we will stay for a day and a half before jumping on our two day journey to return home on Monday night. I am very much looking forward to my bed and returning to work.

Handmade

It’s pretty amazing how much stuff is done here by hand. When you buy a sari all the threads are hand woven, every bead hand stitched. When you buy a handicraft each god or elephant is hand carved. When a house is built soil is carried out by hand on what looks like a wok on top of the head. The ground is dug with hand trowels and shovels. Each rock is moved and placed by hand. I was watching the cook make chutney and she sat on the floor with this chair with a point on the end and hand ground each coconut. It’s hard for me to take pictures of things like that because I always feel like someone is going to think I am harassing them or something. It’s hard to explain. Here is a few that I did take though.

When I buy an item on the street form China or India for $1 or $2 I will think about it in a different light. For some reason I always pictured that stuff being mass produced somewhere. And I guess it is, just not on a machine.



These ladies are weeding the grass. (Left)


This yoga place we went to was covered in Granite stone, the pilers the floors, the steps, the statutes are all hand carved, with very basic tools. These guys are chipping away and these huge pilers and making them smooth. (Below)

Favorite baby pictures of praveen

So I have had too much fun grabbing my favorite pictures of Praveen gowning up. Here are some of my favorites. We have Michael Jackson below and Tarzan down further.

A day at the beach

One last reception in Madras!

This picture of Sandyha is the funniest thing ever. In India the photos that are professionally taken for your wedding are totally cheesy. This is an example of what I mean. They added a bindi which is a photo of Karthic to Sandyha's forehead!

I wish I had it in me to write about the second reception (the third wedding function) but to be honest at this point I am so over the wedding thing that I have my doubts if I will ever have it in me to attend another wedding in India. It was beautiful and nice, but I think we are all tired and ready to move on.

Wedding pictures

Mehndi

My nephews have got moves like I have never seen! If I hadn’t seen them dancing I would have never believed it for myself. They were amazing and they are 3 years old. They have all the bollywood moves down. They both got up on a chair and were shaking their booties like you only see in the movies. It was a riot! When we turned the music off to eat one of them started crying.

So last night was the Mehndi, which is where we got painted with henna and danced the night away. Mehndi is not a South Indian thing, but I had it and Sandhya wanted it too so we did it. I think it will be my last henna painting session. I only got one hand painted this time. It’s not the easiest thing. After sitting there and getting it done you need to keep this paint on your hands for several hours until it falls away. You can’t wash your hands for 24 hours. This time I just waited until morning. Since it’s not my wedding I wasn’t so concerned about it turning out perfectly. It looks good though. The problem is that it stinks. Even after you wash it you can still smell it and there’s something about putting a stinky hand on my face that doesn’t really work for me. If I was smart I would have had my left hand done instead of my right so that I could still eat.

Today is the reception so everyone is running around like busy bees to get everything done. Weddings in India are so much work and money for the family that it blows me away. Even after having had my own wedding here and knowing full well the financial implications, I still find myself stunned. The family is obligated not only to transport people to and from the airport and railway station to the hotel and back to the wedding hall, but also to pay for the accommodations. Keep in mind that the average Indian wedding is 500-1000 people so that means the families are paying for the wedding, plus the accommodation, transportation and food for all those who come from out of town. Food is not only provided at the wedding but the days that precede and follow the wedding as well. Then there is the cost of everything. Here we are in a country where people don’t make US wages (though that is changing) but pay US prices for some services that are often times not up to par with the services you receive in the US. There are tremendous business opportunities EVERYWHERE here.

Oh and another funny thing is that people don’t RSVP. Imagine, having to book hotel rooms without knowing who will come to the wedding. Luckily, I haven’t had to be too involved with the logistics. Praveen’s parents seem to have it down really well after planning our wedding. Bless them!!! The parents do the majority of the planning for the kids here, so the bride and groom pretty much just show up. It definitely makes the wedding less stressful and likely more enjoyable, assuming they are marrying someone of their own choosing.

That brings up another point. Arranged marriages are still the norm in India. That’s how Praveen and I met of courseJ Ha, just kidding. Sandhya, however did chose her own groom. She took the opportunity during my wedding to introduce him to the family while every one was overwhelmed with something else. She’s a smart girl. I think also after the drama with Praveen and I getting married, her choosing someone from a different caste, who is also Indian, probably seemed more acceptable.

Anyways, there are a lot of things that are different here when compared to the US. We chose our own mates, and often our parents have no say so in who that person is. We also usually plan our own weddings and many brides get the stressed out earning them the title of ‘bridezilla’. As a guest, you buy a nice gift intended to get the new couple on their feet. Oh and of course gifts are chosen off of a registry, so you can’t go wrong. The average wedding gift in the US is $50-$100 depending on your income status and how close you are to the bride and groom. And of course, you pay for your room and transportation. One good thing is that before I go to someone’s wedding, I think to myself, is this person really worth it to me? If it is out of town on average you’ll be spending $500 just to attend, assuming that you don’t need a plane ticket. So if that couple isn’t really special to me, then I don’t go and I save the couple $40-100 in food and liqueur costs. Anyway it’s all very different. There is no need to compare which is better or worse, but the observations of differences are interesting.

Mehndi

Superstition and Birthdays

November 20^th

Well, I am not blogging well this time around! I have a feeling that this blog will be more of a list of ramblings then anything else. There is not a lot that is new to me here so I have fewer things to reflect upon then I did two years ago during my first visit. Since Praveen doesn’t make it home much we really just want to concentrate on spending as much time with his family as possible.

We may do something but at this point I am not sure what. One thing that we are planning which I am excited about is a trip to the leaf reader. There is apparently someone here who claims that thousands of years ago some amazing person was given the gift to know the future of every soul on earth. He wrote down everyone’s future on palm leaves. To find the leaf with your future, they need your finger print, what time you were born and some other random info. Apparently they don’t have everyone’s leaves-- only those who have pervious lives of a certain spiritual status. Anyway, we are going to go to this man and see what he has to say.

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That is one thing about this part of the world that is very interesting. It seems to be very superstitious. Praveen’s parents had a visit from an architect yesterday who has suggested some major structural changes to the house in order to increase good luck. Praveen’s father would really like to make the changes, but is being pressured by both his children not to. There is a laundry list of things that have been tried over the years including butchering goats and various prayers and pilgrimages. It seems when things are going right it is believed that the reason why is because of all these adjustments. The things that go wrong are blamed on not enough adjustments.

Praveen’s uncle, who is a doctor, told us that when his house was built a few years ago a priest came over with a cow. The priest let the cow wonder around the house walking all over the very high-end floor. The cow climbed up the stairs and back down and finally back through the living room without leaving a scratch. The cow crossed back to the center of the living room and took a big dump and pee right in the middle!!! The priest said, of course, “this is very good luck!” The priest then said that the mess needed to be left for a full day AND Praveen’s uncle needed to sleep that night in the living room. The next day some girls were sent over to clean the mess. Wow!!! That’s all I can say!

Anyway, I wouldn’t say I lack superstition. I have been to card readers, palm readers and had my fair share of interesting encounters. I do believe in reincarnation, karma, clairvoyance, and energy among other things. I also think that if something has been practiced for thousands of years there may be some merit to it.

Yesterday was a long social day. Socializing always wears me out more then anything else. I am always trying to figure out what people are saying because even though most people in the South speak English often time it is difficult to understand each other. Praveen’s Grandfather, who is one of the most important figures in the family, had an 80^th birthday celebration. Praveen’s grandfather lives in a neighboring state called Kerala, which is my favorite state in India thus far. It is really beautiful. There are lots of trees and greenery. I can’t say I have been around much of Tamil Nadu, the state where Praveen’s parents live, but what I have seen of it doesn’t do much for me. The town is large but nothing like an American city. It is very dusty, dirty and well “developing.” The parts of India that I have really enjoyed have been either the ‘back’ country, like Sampath’s farm, the back waters (of Kerala), or some of the more decorative towns like Jaipur. What is important about Coimbatore is the people and that is why we are here. Being able to spend time with his family has been really, really beautiful.

Okay, so back to the birthday party. The family hired some traditional dance group to come and perform a story. Normally this dance is five hours long. It has a lot of singing and acting, but few people understand the language because it is a much more traditional formal dialect then they speak. Luckily the group has a written version of the story in English so you can follow along. Praveen’s mother talked them into reducing the time down to 3 hours, which is the shortest time they would agree to. I mostly kept myself occupied playing with my cute niece and nephews, who I truly adore.

After the play we had a traditional Kerala style lunch which was very similar to the meal we had at our wedding. It was various chutneys served on a banana leaf that you eat, of course, with your hands. Eating with your hands is one of the interesting things about the south and I hadn’t done it since our last trip to India, but I quickly found some nail clippers and adjusted.

I really do like south Indian style food. It does have to grow on you though. Many of the things I love now, I had no taste for the first few times I ate them. Thank god too that I like it because there really are no other alternatives and this trip could be really miserable other wise.

Arriving in India

11/17/07

We arrived to Praveen’s parents’ house yesterday after what was the longest trip of my life. We left SFO at 12am on Thursday and flew 13 hours to Hong Kong. We had a 3 hour layover in Hong Kong then flew four hours to Singapore. We then had a 9 hour layover in Singapore then flew 4 hours to Chennai where we had a 8 hour layover then finally flew an hour to Praveen’s home town. Phew! We booked the trip originally this way so we could spend a week in Thailand but due to some work obligations we had to cut that trip out of our itinerary.

I have to say if you are going to be stuck for nine hours in an airport Singapore is the one to be in. There is a hotel within the airport where you can rent rooms by the hour! Wow, how exciting! That was my first time ever renting a room by the hour, though Praveen tells me he has done it on many occasions :/ . The room was great. We took a shower, worked out in the gym, went to the pool, took another shower, got a pedicure and ate some nasty food. A good restaurant is all the airport lacks. When we arrived in India the adventure began. A few of Praveen’s very devoted friends showed up to pick us up at 12.30 am and take us to a hotel. When we arrived at the hotel I noticed my carry on bag was missing. I always pack only the most important stuff in my carry on so that it is ALWAYS with me and I don’t have to worry about someone riffling through it and stealing something. I had packed my laptop, Sandhya’s wedding gift (a set of pearls), recently purchased cosmetics (because I forgot my makeup bag), both our cameras and other random stuff. Oh, also some very expensive face cream that I had been sparingly using because of the price (A lady who gave me a facial in SF had guilted me into buying it. It has ‘breast milk’ among other things and it is supposed to make me beautiful and reduce all signs of aging. Anyway, we knew the bag was on the cart, which was loaded by a driver sent by the hotel, for some reason he never loaded that bag. Praveen’s friends, who are very sweet and protective, proceeded to take me on a high speed chase back to the airport to find my bag, which I was sure I had lost. I was fighting back tears, trying to focus on the positive and not focus on what it would be like to be laid up in an Indian hospital should we crash into one of the thousand motorbikes, oxen or other cars coming directly towards us. For those of you who aren’t aware, there are no rules when it comes to driving in India. It’s crazy to say the least.

When we arrived back at the airport we paced the parking lot and did not find the bag. One of Praveen’s friends proceeded to ask a police officer about the bag. I had written it off and at this point and finally broke down in tears. I was trying to figure out how in the world I was going to live with out my laptop for two weeks. I had all these plans that included my laptop and with out it I thought I’d surely die. I began negotiating in my head, trying to figure out what could and couldn’t be replaced. Everything except the cosmetics and the laptop could be replaced in India. Even the laptop could though probably not with one that I’d want or with the programs I need to work while here.

The cop said they had found the bag and taken it to security in the airport. I don’t think I am an expert on the third world by any means, but I have been around enough to know that even with this news I wasn’t necessary going to see my bag and if
I did see it I wasn’t sure that anything would be inside. Actually had I left it in SFO or STL international I wouldn’t expect it to be there either, but it would be different. We proceed to the place where we thought the cop was directing us, luckily it was not the place he intended we go, because luck had turned. We ended up in the office of an angelic airport manager, who was a very feisty woman, who wanted to help. After a recent trip to Mexico where we were ushered from one place to another looking for bags I was still not hopeful, but I knew enough to know that this woman was a rarity. After several phone calls to the police who were looking for a bribe to bring back the bag, they brought it to her were I inspected it. I would have happily paid them what they wanted, but the airport manager was determined to get it without the BS. The only item missing was a bag of my liquid cosmetics, face lotion and some random shampoos, deodorants, ect. I am sure it got tossed aside by accident while they were looking for what they could use for a bribe. I was Elated! Finally we returned to the hotel at 2am for a few drinks before getting 3 hours of shut eye.

The really ironic thing is that this is the same bag that I had left at home by accident. When we got to SFO, we realized we didn’t have it so we actually drove back home to get it. AHHHH! From now on I am committed to being the only one responsible for my carry on and counting all bags loaded in any car.

Anyway, since arriving at Praveen’s parents we have been relaxing and getting ready for the wedding which is a few days away. I was very pleased to find that a Sari left over from my wedding (that I never wore) and several items borrowed from an Indian friend in the US were approved for wearing at various events, so that I don’t have to buy anything! Since shopping is such an exhausting event, this makes me very happy.

Praveen and his sister have quickly reverted back to their brother and sister games. He woke form a nap yesterday to find post-its all over his face. They are really cute together.

Praveen’s parents were nice enough to install a shower for me. Showering out of a bucket my last trip was a first for me, but not one I particularly minded. As long as I can take a shower, I am good. Anyway, no more buckets. The shower has jets that shoot in every direction, although since the bathrooms here are wet, therefore open, I don’t think I’ll be using the jets. Also the water is not warm and is in short supply so I basically use it very similarly to how I’d used the bucket. I drench myself, do what I got to do and get out of there. I totally understand why all the Indian women I know are into waxing. I am a daily shaver. When you are soaping up with cold water and your legs have goose bumps on them, it makes for a pretty rough shave.

It’s good to have home cooked food though praveen is very disappointed that there is again a hired cook doing the cooking rather than his mother who is busy preparing for the wedding and catching up with guests.