Sandra's Visit to India

Ears and noses

2011-03-29T20:09:00.001-07:00

I've been home a few months, but Holly was just showing someone the nose jewelry I brought her, so I went to look for a couple of photos I took (on the sly) of people's jewelry, in India.

This was at the zoo, during week 3, and I'll look for the other one or two I snagged.

Chikki cannot cross the world

2010-12-27T10:38:00.000-08:00

In India, I LOVED Chikki! The first time I had it was from this shop:

I don't know the name of that very dinky village. It was "in Velhe," which (I guess) is a district, and it was past the only real village of any size (which might itself have been named "Velhe" but I don't know). http://maps.thefullwiki.org/Velhe If anyone who was there that day can name me names, I'd appreciate it.

I ate chikki several times in India, and then I brought three kinds home. But... it was hard as a rock. We don't have the low elevation and the humidity it needs to live its long life.

I went to check the elevation of Pune:

560 m (1,840 ft) above sea level ... with its tallest hill, Vetal Hill, rising to 800 m (2,600 ft) above sea level

Albuquerque is

4,900 feet (1,490 m) above sea level near the Rio Grande (in the Valley) to over 6,700 feet (1,950 m) in the foothill areas

I'm in the foothills. Chikki doesn't like that.

Chikki is made of ground nuts and jaggery. We have ground nuts. Peanuts, we call them. We don't have jaggery. I think it's a cousin of molasses but it looks nothing on earth like molasses.

While I was in there, I see the temperatures by season:

Winter begins in November; November in particular is referred to as the Rosy Cold (literal translation) (Marathi: गुलाबी थंडी). The daytime temperature hovers around 28 °C (82 °F) while night temperature is below 10 °C (50 °F) for most of December and January, often dropping to 5 to 6 °C (41 to 43 °F). The lowest temperature ever recorded was 1.7 °C on January 17, 1935.

So it hasn't frozen in the city ever!?

Well.... chikki freezes when it goes from Pune to Albuquerque. I'm just sayin'...
(Haven't attempted microwaving it to see if it will soften it up a little, temporarily.)
Source of stats: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pune

I own this

2010-11-21T21:35:00.000-08:00

Take a careful look at the printed bedspread hanging on this wall in a shop in Bangalore. The matching pillow cases are up to the right.

I own this! It is in a suitcase upstairs, and I am about to sleep in my own bed.

Flying Hanuman

2010-11-19T01:22:00.000-08:00

The day after I got here, we were at an intersection where a guy was selling these plastic figures, and nothing but these— he probably had 150 of them or more, all this dark orange. We got one for Hema's car and one for me to take home, and I have spent the rest of the time looking for more of them without luck.

After that day, though, we've seen them in four other vehicles, and I'm glad to have one. They bounce along just as happily as can be, watching the road. It's about (as Raghu explained to me) when Hanuman went to get a certain plant from a mountain that would cure Ram's brother. He wasn't sure which plant, or he didn't have time or something, so he made himself big (which is his super power—to be huge or tiny if he needs to be) and flew back with his mace in one hand and the mountain in the other. Raghu told me that Hanuman's mace doesn't need spikes because he doesn't actually even need the mace. He can beat anyone with his bare hands.

See Hanuman there in the upper right?
The car in front of us had one, too:

Here's Hema's, candidly, out in the country. I was taking a picture of the roller, and the road work.

Here it is posed:

Time for Ganesha

2010-11-18T14:08:00.000-08:00

This one isn't a clock, but it reminded me of Ninja Turtles. He has a rat, too.

In a museum, marked just "20th century":

Microwave

2010-11-18T13:50:00.000-08:00

Rajanigandha

2010-11-18T07:41:00.000-08:00

Chitra gave me these flowers. She wrote the name down as rajneekandh but said it might have a g. I found them as Rajanigandha, and the photo is the same.

Here's a photo of Pradnya, me, Hema and Chitra:

Here's a cool photo showing all five kids, doing various things:

More about the flower: http://www.flowersofindia.net/catalog/slides/Rajanigandha.html

I saw some in Hawaii, too, and I think they might have been what the lei was made of that Jihong brought when she met me at the airport. It feels the same and smells like Hawaii to me. :-)

The Meridien Hotel

2010-11-18T07:27:00.000-08:00

Lunch at the The Meridien Hotel in Pune:

The elevators have mirrors in them. This is my flash in a mirror in a fancy elevator I did not go into.

The first two are elevators. The third one is a supply closet. Nice, huh? Really nice camouflage. The elevator that never arrives.

Hema was having a beautiful hair day.

This ice was put into the glass at the table, with tongs, one cube at a time. Artfully arranged. Then he poured water over it. Very pretty.

A floral display without flowers.

The hotel had just bought three matching new cars and had them blessed/Christened [no, not Christened...] ...had a car puja... and the license plate numbers are all in a row.

Sandra Dodd's Wild Rides

2010-11-17T17:06:00.001-08:00

More video from auto rickshaws!

Dusk, Laxmi Road in Pune, the stores with their lights on:

Here's the preview to the one above, a wild wait, while Pradnya got a second rickshaw and then gathered our party together so we could go back to her mom's place where she had left her car.

Another day, another auto; same part of town:

Beauty

2010-11-17T03:43:00.000-08:00

Some of my favorite images from yesterday. I'm behind on processing thoughts and pictures both.

Arvind Gupta's science toys

2010-11-13T19:42:00.000-08:00

Chitra arranged a brief visit to Arvind Gupta's lab/workshop on Friday. He designs science toys that can be made by street kids from easily obtainable Indian trash. His site is linked below.

http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/
He showed us the balancing nails trick (which they have at Explora in Albuquerque, too).

There was a flexagon with drawings of stages of evolution. In this video (linked from his site, to YouTube) he shows a food chain. Any four-part series could be illustrated on those, he said. (He told us who discovered/created this design first, too, but I don't remember the name, so if anyone does know, please leave a note.

Pictures of the building in which he and his team work, and some of the things we saw:

Highway traffic with Christmas music

2010-11-13T19:21:00.001-08:00

On the piece of cardboard on which I've been taking notes on which photos to delete and which are brooms and whatnot, I had noted: "Good 1454.mp4" I can't say at the moment what I thought was good about it, but I will trust my notes from day before yesterday and share it.

flag/palm/moon

2010-11-13T19:15:00.000-08:00

I wasn't tall enough to get the flag fully. Had I backed up more, other trees would have been between me and the moon. It was getting dark and getting cloudy at the same time. It's not a great photo, but will be a memory jogger for me. I was in the driveway of Pradnya's mom's house.

Outside the zoo

2010-11-12T20:36:00.001-08:00

I thought I would bring something interesting since I might not get time for a careful post today:

Sari shop

2010-11-12T14:08:00.000-08:00

I got to be in a fancy sari shop while Chitra bought a sari for her mother-in-law. Because she wanted a typical local sari, Pradnya was advising.

This is the second floor (third, American--there was another place over the entry room). Shoes off for this one, and the floor was covered in pads about 3" thick, like old-style futons. There were three salesmen, and when we came in they indicated a corner for us to sit, and brought me a plastic stool (which I didn't mind, because I was really tired and would've had an awkward get-back-up).

Behind me was the entry, where the shoes were, and the windows to the street. I should've just captured everything, but I was the last of the people in our group, and anyway one can't capture everything.

When we went downstairs to pay, I started to do a 360° view, but was interrupted by a man having brought me a chair. How nice of him! How rude to interrupt my nosy, touristy capture of his store, though. :-)

I'm scheduled to be back down on that street again before I leave, so I'll try to get a shot of the front of the store to add here.

an old woman with a broom

2010-11-11T18:57:00.000-08:00

This is my favorite photo from yesterday:

Here it is with more context:

There are old women with brooms cleaning paths and roadsides all over the place, but this one was at the zoo. She was taking a break. I took the photo for my brooms collection (to which I'm still adding, and I don't expect anyone else to care as much as I do).

The proper zoo photos will come later. I had an upload problem and need to figure out which images failed. I was glad to see this one come through, though.

Library dog

2010-11-10T18:58:00.001-08:00

A dog with a picturesque sleeping spot, outside an old library with a large rose garden in front and lots of trees around:

(Library insides to follow in a later post; I need to go to the zoo soon.)

Tricks and Flowers

2010-11-10T15:53:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I went for a little "explore" with Tejas (on the bike, who lived there, and whom I'd known before), Shakthi and Shree (Chitra's daughters, who arrived from Coimbatore yesterday).

Tejas showed us how well he could ride his bicycle with one hand, and even turn.

Shakthi is an artist, and I had some of her work before by e-mail, but yesterday I saw some of her more 3-D art, and how quickly she can make beautiful things. She told me Shree, her younger sister, was a naturalist and cared about flowers and plants. When we went on the walk, sure enough Shree pointed out each new flower, and told me to take pictures. These were just along the pool and parking lot at the housing society where Tejas lives. Shree knew the names of a lot of them, but I didn't take notes. Tejas knew some of them too, and took us to the larger papaya tree for photos of those too.

Competitive problem

2010-11-10T01:03:00.000-08:00

The grandparents of unschoolers I spoke with the first week I was here were all worried about competitive tests. Since then I've seen what they're thinking:

In a library in Bangalore:

There does seem to be an atmosphere of competition, and that will affect unschoolers in the way they deal with others (and especially with other people's questions and fears).

Ganesha specialities

2010-11-10T00:15:00.001-08:00

Doctor (vet?), gamer and computer Ganeshas:

Oh! That's his mouse, each time.

The stylized image on the right, nearly to the bottom, is interesting. In figurines, there are round Ganesha's, very modern seeming, nearly round, with only the slightest of details.

He's recognizeable even in minimal or abstract ways:

a lotus lesson at the flower market

2010-11-09T22:44:00.000-08:00

Hema's mom told me something important, while we were in the vegetable and fruit market.

You can live your life like a lotus, untouched by dirty water.

Auto rickshaw in Bangalore

2010-11-09T22:16:00.000-08:00

Four minutes of a ride up the road on Monday. It's uphill, to a temple, and then we walked back down.

Up to then, I had heard these things called "rickshaw," which they are, but to hail one, the word is "Auto!" And Hema's mom called it "auto" the whole time.

The voices are me, Hema, and her mom, Uma. I will add some photos illustrating what we were talking about, but I've just woken up (at nearly noon Wednesday) after a late night arrival in Pune. I'm hungry, and I need to go and see what my social obligations for the day are. One obligatory thing is doing laundry, after five days away.

Daily Flower Delivery

2010-11-06T20:33:00.000-07:00

Each morning, Hema's parents (and lots of other people) get a small bag of flowers delivered. This morning I got to examine them. When her mom gets up she will do the morning altar cleaning/offering and replace a garland and a flower.

These are the shrine without the new flowers—yesterday's flowers.

Ganesha on a swing

2010-11-06T08:48:00.000-07:00

This is the kind of brass stuff I love, but it's heavy and impractical to take home, so I'm taking its electronic image.

I had never seen Ganesha on a swing, but Hema said it's a common motif.

It's a little elaborate and bulky for taking to the U.S., I suppose. Google Image search had many images with a swing:

>

and one cloth figure that looks kind of like a kewpie doll (the eyes, I guess, and the cuteness).

improvisation

2010-11-06T06:53:00.000-07:00

A store in the mall had a melon cut and each half out front of the front corners of the store. They had done their morning Diwali puja with it as an altar/containers.

The red stuff is spices and vermillion, and they put a mark with it on the foreheads of participants as a blessing. (Surely I'm unclear on this, and if anyone wants to leave clarification in the comments, that would be cool.)

Hema and Ravi once saw a similar deal by the side of the road, done with halves of an empty Coke can.

"Spice Route"

2010-11-06T06:37:00.000-07:00

There is a beautiful shop in the mall called Spice Route. Hema talked to the owner a long time, and went again today with Raghu, who identified three of four ingredients in a certain mix. They guy was really impressed, and found Hema later elsewhere in the mall and said she should take good care of Raghu because he has a gift. It's interesting, because yesterday after we had spent a long time in the store, we saw the owner somewhere outside the shop, too.

He gave me two extra cloth bags from the store. They don't have the store's name. He said that was a conscious choice. They were designed to go with the store, but not to "be advertising" in a blatant way.

They imported the glass containers from Scotland. It's just beautiful in there, and smells wonderful, too. They're going to have cooking workshops and offer food samples (and recipes, I think) out front of the store, starting in a week.

The mall is a few months old, and the shop is just a week or so old, I think.

Mehndi in the Mall

2010-11-06T04:13:00.000-07:00

Four teenaged girls were hanging out near the dressing rooms at Fabindia, because one was trying on clothes and the others were commenting. Two of them were were holding one hand up and away from clothes and other people, and I asked if I could get a picture of their fresh henna. They agreed.

Hema asked if it was for a special occasion, but they said it was just for fun, and they had had it done elsewhere in the mall.

My Bangalore view

2010-11-06T02:26:00.000-07:00

From the balcony of "my" 13th floor bedroom in Hema's parents' house:

Taco Bell in vegetarian land

2010-11-06T00:15:00.000-07:00

Hema's parents live near a mall with a Taco Bell. Even though it says "Visit Mexico for 18 rupees," I think it would be southern California they'd be visiting, as to taste. Or nearly. Because there's no beef here.

Images with text can be clicked to enlarge.

In India, there are attendants all over the place. There were two guys between us and the trashcan waiting for us to need something. There were free refills on drinks, and the dispenser was out in the open, but there was a guy there who filled your cup initially, and then gave you the refill.

They haven't learned the American trick of filling the cup up with ice and giving very little soda. They only filled the bottom of the cup with ice about an inch deep.

I'm sorry the image above isn't clearer. It says "Empty Trash Here. You anyway can't carry it along."

Diwali, yesterday morning

2010-11-05T23:13:00.000-07:00

These are images from Friday, November 5:

The sunrise photos are here: http://sandraindia2010.blogspot.com/2010/11/sunrise-on-diwali-in-bangalore.html

Hitler, Snakes and The Red Fort

2010-11-05T07:02:00.000-07:00

I took photos of the fireworks before they were taken downstairs to join the stunning array of sound and light coming up to the 13th floor here from Bangalore below, on the evening of Diwali. Holy Cow for REALS. Mostly noisemakers, and these guys have "atomic bombs" and a bunch of what we would call black cats. Also there are fireworks with pictures of The Red Fort, elephants, peacocks, trains, a movie star, snakes, Hitler (yeah, really), a penguin (poor penguin)...

I walked too far today and my feet are exhausted. The dog is in the room with me and everyone else has gone down to set off Hitler and the snakes.

Here are photos of the fireworks. Many are as Chinese made as ours usually are, just packaged for the Indian market. Some, though, were local. I didn't have time to document each one; Raghu wanted to take them off and light them. I remember being a kid with fireworks, so I totally understand.

Naragasuran was a demon killed by Krishna, and part of the celebrations are about that (one day of five?), so this "letter bomb" is addressed to Naragasuran, in Hell.

Ayyan's is an Indian company. This one might have been made in India. The picture is of a famous movie actress.

9:15 pm:
Two hours later and the fireworks are WAY louder then when I wrote before.

Sunrise on Diwali, in Bangalore

2010-11-04T21:40:00.001-07:00

The sound effects would be fire crackers—many firecrackers and horns honking, all around.

It was so nice of that bird to pose with the sun while I zoomed in. I didn't even see him until later.

Soap for Jains and Hindus (and 18+...)

2010-11-04T04:10:00.000-07:00

We're at Hema's parents' home in Bangalore. It's wonderful. So far I've had tea, a nap, and watched some cricket. Or I watched the advertisements, and Hema's dad watched the game (New Zealand vs. India).

The ads were mostly for cars, men's scents and internet. One commercial was for "18+"—the deodorant that thinks it's a perfume. They showed four different packages at the end. One had words over it so I couldn't read it, but the other three were called
License to Surprise
License to Date
License to Thrill
I'm assuming it's popular among males who are UNDER 18.

I really liked this detail, on a bottle of liquid hand soap:

I'm used to anti-bacterial hand soap that kills germs. Here, it's not "anti-" anything. It's very peaceful, in fact. The germs are simply removed. Safe for Jains and Hindus.

Bamboo Scaffolding

2010-11-03T07:44:00.000-07:00

This has been up for at least a week:

It's lashed with twine.

The Attachment Parenting talk at Pushpa's

2010-11-02T18:44:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, October 31, there was a VERY well-attended discussion on attachment parenting, organized by Pushpa Ramachandran in her home in Pune, in India. Her husband, Anand, set up a projector and we had Schuyler and David Waynforth live on Skype (they were home in Norfolk, England). It was really wonderful to have them involved that way. Thank you, Pushpa, for the photos and videos of the day!

Click to enlarge:

The website that goes with all this is here:
http://sandradodd.com/attachmentparenting

The Littlest Rangoli

2010-11-02T05:00:00.000-07:00

In the corner between the stairs and the door of a flat was a tiny patch of rangoli.

(other rangoli examples, from google images)

and what we did with Hema in Albuquerque in 2009: Rangoli on Sunday

Two historic temples

2010-11-02T04:01:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Pradnya and Sameer took me to see an 8th Century site right next to a 19th century site, both temples. The first is called The Pataleshwar Cave Temple, and is a complex of temples hewn of solid rock, including the images—all carved in one giant sculpture. I was trying not to use any flash inside, so I don't have as many photos as I have memories, but there are some parts I can show you.

More info and from a totally unrelated conference site*, this description:

Pataleshwar Caves : Pataleshwar Cave Temple is also known as Panchaleshwar or Bamburde. It is rock cut excavation of the Rashtrakuta period (8-9rh century A. D.) The temple is dedicated to Lord Shiva. The central shrine houses a linga and there are two smaller cells on either side. In front of the cave is the circular Nandi- Mandapa. Massive square plane pillars support the umbrella shaped canopy of the Nandi-Mandapa,

There is a circular monument in the first area, with a cow facing the temple, and then the temple proper, which looks like this inside:

Within the grounds of that temple were smaller shrines, maybe not as old, all with worshippers, some with people sitting or sleeping.

Right next to that is the 19th Century Jangli Maharaj (Wild Saint) Temple, which is a shrine to a holy man whose arms were so long his hands reached his knees, and because he attained enlightenment in his lifetime, he was enshrined rather than cremated. (More information is here: omgurudev...)

Outside, beautiful lettering, in chalk, out in the open:

A big shoe rack (I've started photographing shoe racks), and it wasn't very busy that day (Monday, November 1):

The approach to the shrine, all covered, with large glass jar-like globes hanging in the ceiling:

Just before the elevated place where the saint was:

There were English Victorian floral tiles, the kind that are on the splashboards of wash stands in England, in a couple of patterns on the floor and facing the steps.

(A clearer copy of that image, with animated lamps like the one below, which is behind the shrine, is here: http://www.vishwatmak.org/. He has current followers, and a website.)

The exit gate, right on the street:

Banyan Tree

2010-11-02T03:27:00.001-07:00

This is Tejas, Sameer and Pradnya, beneath a huge, beautiful banyan tree
on November 1:

A camel, and horses

2010-11-01T19:55:00.000-07:00

Worst photo of a camel ever:

But here's the story. Sunday we left the house and I didn't have a camera. I said "What if I saw a camel caravan and didn't have my camera?" and then I thought that was really silly to even think; there wasn't going to be a camel.

The next day, out with my camera but not looking for a camels, there was a camel.

I also saw horses, and light-colored ones (Steve Muhlberger had commented in his India notes that the horses seemed to be all dark colored). I saw a fluffy-coated almost gold colored one with a darker foal, grazing near the road. I didn't get a photo.

Later in the day there was a group of nomads with horses, but my camera wasn't set well and the sun was in a bad place. This will help my own memories, but no one else's clarity. There were some children, several women, and a couple of men. The horses were pack horses with two big baskets on top of most of them--on either side, but not down, like saddle bags, up on top. On top of enough cloth to have been tents, possibly. There were probably sixteen horses or maybe more. We were moving pretty quickly, and they were spread out a bit, into four different groups, moving on the side of the road, as the people were all on foot.

Halloween Party

2010-10-31T16:04:00.000-07:00

Saturday, Hema's house was transformed.

Oye como va

Veda was dancing, and Snowy thought she wanted to play.

(She really didn't want to play with Snowy.)

These images and a few more can be seen here:
http://s26.photobucket.com/albums/c111/SandraDodd/india/week2/HalloweenParty/?start=all Feel free to lift or link.

Elephant

2010-10-30T03:45:00.000-07:00

Not really on the road, but parallel parked, in Pune, Friday, October 29. "Elephants are auspicious," Hema said. So people will come up to touch or see (not ride) the elephant, and give the owner money. Apparently. I think.

Sorry it wasn't a clearer photo, but I really wasn't expecting to see an elephant, and stopping wouldn't have been safe.

Maybe I need to start expecting to see things, and have my camera at the ready every second. I have missed three examples of four people on a scooter, because I was unprepared. (Twice, two of the people were children. Once three of them were.)

Country road sights

2010-10-30T03:05:00.000-07:00

These were from the trip last Wednesday--not the destinations or special sights, but snaps taken as we travelled on the road of various things. Some I recognized and some I wondered about. There were mile markers, animals, people, buildings, and a curve had a concrete barrier (guardrail-style) painted with gold and black stripes.

There was roadwork, with guys pouring hot tar from an oil can of sorts, into cracks in the pavement, and other guys throwing sand on it. We passed three hot-tar stations, with a fire under a barrel, and strips of old tires. I think they were melting the tire rubber to get the tar for the cracks, but I'm not sure. I think if they had been using the rubber for the fire there would have been stench and smoke, but there wasn't much smoke, so it was probably a wood fire under the barrel. (Or possibly cow dung? I don't know how hot it burns.)

That fuzzy monkey thing in the car is a CD case.

They're not great photos, but they will remind me of what I saw. There's a temple in there, and a wagon, and a guy plowing with a wooden plow. People really can't stop the car every time I see something I've never seen before.

The trip to Vilhe

2010-10-29T04:14:00.000-07:00

I don't know where "Vilhe" was. On Wednesday the 26th we drove and drove, probably two hours. We passed through one small town (not so small) but that wasn't Vilhe. I don't know what it was, but I took some photos as we passed through.

Just outside of town, women were drying clothes near the river.

We drove some more, and there were always people, buildings, animals, vehicles... we were never totally away from people or dwellings.

THIS IS NOT FINISHED. I accidentally hit "publish" rather than "preview," and I'm about to be unavailable to finish it for a while. The pictures are mixed up below, and there will be more notes, and a video, but for those who come by early, here's soething to look at and I'll clean it up and expand later.

Because it was farther that we had expected, Raghu got hungry. The rest of us had eaten guava we bought at the toll booth, but he hadn't wanted any. In a much smaller village, we stopped in front of a store, so both cars stopped:

It didn't really look like a store to me, but here I discovered chikki. I intend to eat chikki forevermore.

Near the store was a blue something, and I asked. It was a little shrine, and the figures were rocks (boulders, kind of) painted (kind of). I didn't take photos because I thought it would be rude, but was told later I could have.

But after he showed Hema and me the shrine (and we took our shoes off to walk around front; Hema says it was a shrine to Mukkai-Devi), the man showed us some dung patties, made for fuel or for flooring.

Then he asked us to come back and look at what was going on behind his store/house, where people were cutting and threshing rice. Cutting it with a sickle and beating it on a stump. Two carloads of unschoolers ended up back there.

My favorite pictures are of inside the store.

The post office

2010-10-28T23:55:00.000-07:00

People tend not to use the post office here, and now I see why. We were told there was a post office in this strip, passed by one day, looked, didn't see one. We checked, and were assured that's where it was. So we went, bumped through dirt and mud, and found a place to park near a motorcycle repair shop. Outside in front of that shop was evidence of things they had failed to repair, I guess (or junkyard turned to art):

The former bicycle was unrelated to the former motorcycles. It was nearer to the post office.

This is the post office. This is why we didn't see it from the road:

This once-maybe-red box used to be a letter drop. It must have been a long, long time ago:

I took a picture of the sign just inside the door (open wall), and turned around to take another picture, for the folks at the post office back home, but the guy behind the counter waved his hand and was talking to the younger guy, and said something like "Why use your camera?" He didn't want me taking photos. So I got sneakier, and didn't take a picture of him.

The sign says there was a post office (it seems) at the railway station. We had just been there, and asked a policeman where a post office was, and he directed us out and away from the train station to a place where it turned out we couldn't park because it was an aggressive cab stand (rickshaws—the three-wheeled vehicles here that people use for cabs).

The side of the room I didn't photograph had stacks and piles of old (very old-looking) papers and documents on top of the desk, the filing cabinet, and shelves. I didn't see anything that looked like mail. There were postmark stamps on the table that shows in the corner.

I bought stamps for, and stuck them and left, birthday cards for Paul/Lavan and Holly, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if they never made it to the house.

Future note to Kathy, Debbie and Dante, at the Manzano post office--I have not seen a single post card for sale, and I wouldn't trust going back to that scary little post office. I'll try to remember to check in Bangalore, when we go there next week. Maybe there's a more... less... Maybe there's a more trust-inspiring post office. Maybe there will be a postcard.

Grocery shopping

2010-10-28T10:45:00.000-07:00

I still haven't done "show and tell" about the outing on Wednesday to rural areas, but I have lots of photos. I'm doing shorter, easier things first so that the overwhelmingly big day doesn't keep me from posting other things.

Today we went to this market:

It was filled with things above the counter, hanging, on shelves behind us (the clerk would climb on the counter to reach the shelves, and he could reach all around the room from there), outside, inside under the counter. It was really interesting. The books were kept by hand, and there was a ledger in the same red cloth book Hema brought me one of last fall. Now I've seen one in solid action!

Diwali supplies:

Rangoli powders:

That's Hema with the white scarf at the right.

One thing we got was an assortment of shampoo packets. It's common for people to buy a single shampoo pack (and you can wash twice with one, maybe). You can click the thumbnails to see the details about long black hair and hair fall therapy (second thing I've seen about "hair fall"). We get "Pantene" but not "Pantene Long Black Shampoo." My hair used to be really long and dark. Now it's kinda long and mostly grey and brown. Still... this is nice.

Beautiful vegetable stand

2010-10-28T10:22:00.000-07:00

This is taken down each night and put back. A lady was arranging and cleaning each display, and sprinkling water on them. It was really nicely kept.

Most baskets were propped at a good angle by rocks, but the tomatoes near the front were set in a small rubber tire.

Pune traffic and train station

2010-10-28T06:50:00.000-07:00

Candid traffic in Pune, not a busy time. Tuesday, October 26, taking Ravi's mom to the station so she could travel to Indore to have Diwali with her daughter (Ravi's sister). What you might see sitting on the dash is Ganesha. That's serious. The less-serious, orange flying Hanuman was a recent addition. Someone was selling them at an intersection on Sunday when we were going to the fair and I wanted one, and so Hema bought two and hung one immediately on the rearview mirror. We saw another one hanging in a delivery van this afternoon. I'm guessing it's been there since Sunday, too.

Same trip, nearer to the train station (busier):

Jeep with Americanish art:

People's names are on a printout on the outside of each car.

We went in and waited until other people arrived (until we were in people's way).

McDonald's on the road to Pune last night

2010-10-28T06:30:00.000-07:00

There was a drive-through. And in the same building is a Domino's pizza, a candy shop, and a coffee shop. The dining room is shared. It's open to the outside. McDonald's has a glass enclosure for the counter area and the line for ordering, but the tables are outside that. The menu was on the wall of the glass room. What looks like the front windows in the images, though, are openings in the wall.

The upper right item is "Salad sandwich."

Artifacts

2010-10-26T00:21:00.000-07:00

Cassette tape holder from the 1970's, at Ravi's mom's:

These bolts and latches seem common, on doors of and within houses:

The range of vehicles is huge, and fascinating.

Zoya's grandmother's house

2010-10-25T22:41:00.000-07:00

We visited Ravi's mom yesterday—I wish I had taken more pictures, but I feel bad about taking people's pictures doing regular things. She made lunch for me, Hema, Ravi, Hema's uncle and Zoya. These can be enlarged with a click.

She showed me her saris. She has her wedding sari and her mother's wedding sari. This photo will not show the feel of all the silk, and I didn't take photos while we were unfolding and admiring them. Sorry. But this will help me remember.

Ravi's mom used to teach history and geography to 13 year olds, so we had that in common (teaching mid-school/Jr. high). His dad was an English professor and she married for love, rather than arrangement, when she was a student at the college where he taught. Their parents knew and approved, though. Ravi's dad died fifteen years ago.

Snake!

2010-10-25T22:06:00.000-07:00

Okay, dead snake. In the gutter near Fabindia (a shop).

Here it is with the flash. Poor guy had a squished head.

Taking Snowy to the vet

2010-10-25T20:47:00.000-07:00

I know the photos are too large for the format, but I'm leaving them as is because there are things to read.

Snowy, the new puppy at the Bharadwaj house, is still getting shots, so that she can go on the plane to Bangalore. I went with Hema to the veterinarian's office, and saved these images to share. I was thinking of Sadie Yurista, mostly, and our recent visit to the spacious and sanitary veterinary hospital we visited recently.

I love "the withinsigned...":

I liked the description: "All natural, moist, easy to digest, smackingly delicious..."

The brand name is "Naughty Pet":

Here's Hema, Snowy and the tech assistant:

This is the chair in the front room (of two):

I didn't take a photo of the vet or the back room, but he was young and bright and there was another assistant in the back. You could see into the back room through glass from the front. Both rooms were small.

Fair

2010-10-24T02:09:00.000-07:00

We were at a regional rural arts festival. There was music, three carnival rides, LOTS of booths from various villages, and most things happening in Marathi, the local language. My feet hurt.

The two families I went with to the fair:

The motorcycle parking:

The woman in the middle with the blue shirt and long sleeves was also wearing high heels, and riding a motorbike. Sorry I didn't get a better photo of her outfit.

Food:

For the corn, you choose your spices and additives, and they put one cup on top of the paper serving cup and shake it to mix with the butter (the corn is hot). There was a little plastic spoon.

Here is a bowl made of leaves, stuck together with sticks, and then pressed. Of course, I wanted to keep it and bring it home, but decided photos would be cleaner and better. What was in it was a kind of sweet cheese made of some of the first milk of a cow that has recently calved. "Kharvas."

Not a eunuch...

2010-10-23T11:40:00.000-07:00

A cross-dressing man in a sari was peeking in the window of the car and trying to open the car door, gently, and speaking to Hema, when we got in the car after the bookstore. Crossing the street had been scary, with six lanes of traffic in three lanes of road and no crosswalk, but that was okay, until I got in the car and saw this other person trying (slightly zombielike) to open Hema's door.

I said "Someone's trying to talk to you." And then I noticed it was a man's voice. Hema said it was a eunuch; no, not a eunuch. We talked about eunuchs then, but he wasn't one. He was a transgendered beggar, I think.

Outside the bookstore was a set of signs for a feel happy organization of some sort, which I will learn more about. [Happy Thoughts] And the store had all sorts of music and books, but no cards. There was an Elvis book right below the register, and a Michael Jackson section in the CDs.

Outside:

Same place, action and sound:

I stayed with Zoya tonight. We played games and watched movies, had food, and combed each others' hair. We played with the puppy and talked.

I'm in Pune

2010-10-22T17:43:00.000-07:00

It's 5:30 in the morning, but I'm at Hema's, finally. I hope I never plan another middle-of-the-night arrival, as it was way too inconvenient, but I'm grateful that Hema and Pradnya met me at the airport. And though Hema had planned to drive, Ravi hired a driver and a van, which turned out to be a great idea because the plane was late, and Hema fell asleep in the van after a while. But I was wide awake.

We were on a six-lane expressway from Mumbai to Pune, and it was FULL of trucks. I thought I was going to write and say I saw 300 trucks, but that count came and went twice. I saw fifty parked in one place. But most were moving. Most had awesome decorations with paint, some had two tassles, on on each side, hanging from underneath the bed, or patterned mudflaps. One had a pattern in tinsel garlands underneath about a foot in from the end of the bed.

Most of them had a polite message on the back, asking other vehicles to "horn please," mostly, though some said "Blow Horn" or "Honk OK Please" or "Please sound horn." One said "Horn Ideal Please" and this would be in bright colors all across the bumper, and in Hindi, and with other patterned decorations sometimes.

Some of the trucks had the cabs done up like gypsy wagons. Some were very plain (newer trucks, especially. I wanted to know what they were carrying.

We stopped at a truck stop for our driver to use the restroom. Hema was asleep. Pradnya asked if I wanted to go. I would have liked to, but it wouldn't have been good to leave Hema there. I was curious, but also hoping to help facilitate getting my kind welcoming party back home and to sleep.

People were awake, and up, and working, EVERYwhere, especially in Mumbai, but at the truck stop there were shops with snacks and they were open at 4:00 a.m.

The billboards I saw were generally bigger than ours—if not wider, then often much taller—twice or three times the height. One huge set of three billboards had a back like the back of old drive-in movie screens. There were billboards on overpasses, too.

Here's the only image I took of things on the road. Left is the bus that was parked right behind us. In the distance is the filling station/truck pumps, and they were decorated with garlands of tinsel along the roof line, hanging in two loops all along, and bushes on the roadway had tinsel too, looking kind of Christmassy. The upper building had the bathrooms. The lower building is snacks.

Prior to the exciting nighttime journey with the stunt driver who was weaving in and out of these trucks, honking as instructed, the first notable thing I saw after exiting the plane was this, at the bottom of the escalators from the gates:

Preparations

2010-10-19T10:35:00.000-07:00

I'm packed, all but for a few tiny things. I have another day and a half at home to think of what I'm forgetting and to do things for the family that I think they might forget. I've brought most of the outside plants in, because it will freeze while I'm gone.

I've listened to two audiobooks and watched two movies, to help me be a better guest (I hope) in India. I'd rather ask good questions and not so many basic beginner questions. I listened to The Story of India, and A Passage to India (an older novel with lots of social and religious overtones). I watched "Rajneeti" (too much violence and politics for me, but hay... it's about violence and politics) and I watched "Life in a Metro" which is similar to "Love Actually," set in Mumbai.

I'm reading (but won't have time to finish, and it's too big to carry with me) Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India, by William Dalrymple.

I've read several webpages and a little book on how to act. Still, no doubt, I'll commit some unintended offenses, but I will attempt to be aware and to keep my left hand away from the food.

Purpose

2010-09-12T22:47:00.000-07:00

This page can be used for plans, a schedule and a record of my trip to India to hang out with home educating/unschooling families. Comments are welcome. Eventually there will be photos. I will leave Albuquerque on October 21st and will arrive in Mumbai very late on the 22nd.

The first big plan is a Halloween party at Hema Bharadwaj's home on October 30.