Because I can't seem to keep this blog updated enough, I've decided to include my wife's update. She emails this out once in a while. Obviously, more often then I!
Here goes....... I hope you enjoy it.
December 4, 2008
Namaste!
India has certainly gotten a lot of press lately and I cannot ignore this tragedy here. We are praying the terrorists won't win one of their main objectives and cause a war between India & Pakistan. Things are really tense now. The Indian people are also rightfully furious with their government for ignoring specific warnings from the U.S. and being woefully unprepared for this kind of attack despite all the relatively smaller attacks they've had previously. I wonder how many lives could have been saved if there was a central intelligence gathering agency or if everything in India wasn't politicized by all of the innumerable political parties trying to get a little power. The police and army have very little training or equipment and the commandos need much more too. They all did the best they could, considering. Many in India are saying "enough is enough!" I hope this time they mean it. So many lives lost and it seems at least some of them could have been saved.
It was the usual chaos throughout the ordeal with mobs of people allowed to be only yards away from the Nariman House (incredible even for India) and the crowds allowed to be within firing range of the terrorists inside the Taj. There was plenty of drinking going on too. That really got me. What a time for that. The Taj is my favorite hotel in the world and Francesca & Walker love it too. All that the newscasters were saying about it being a huge Indian icon are absolutely true. It is probably second only to the Taj Mahal. I have stayed there every time I traveled to India in the last 30 years--except this time. So I could picture where all the hostages and those that were trapped inside were waiting and praying. It is such a beautiful, elegant and old world place, especially the old colonial section. The terrorists wanted to take it down but it was just too strong. None of this has dampened my love for this country but we are so sad.
Walker & Cesca at the Gateway of India across from The Taj.
Just a few weeks ago we were all in Mumbai for Divali. We were at the Taj for lunch with friends and left from the beautiful old Victoria Station which is now renamed something unpronounceable. Both these sites will have a very different memory now. I try not to think what a few weeks delay in the terrorists' plans could have meant to our family.
We visited Gandhi's Bhavan and that was inspiring. India needs him or someone like him now. He was against the separation of India into India & Pakistan. And of course his abhorrence of violence is known the world over. I'm including a picture of his library and of his room. You can see his bed and the spinning wheel which is represented on India's flag. The English exported Indian cotton to Britain where it was manufactured into cloth and then shipped back to india where the cloth was sold at a high price. Gandhi believed that if every Indian spun a little yarn every day and refused to buy English products that India could soon be free. Again, a small step that led to many more, and eventually Independence.
Every region of India celebrates different festivals. Some are obviously more important in some regions than others. But Divali seems to be the most important and widely celebrated. It is the "Festival of Lights" and there are many, many strings of electric lights decorating homes and businesses everywhere. The Indians LOVE to decorate. Also, the Indians love to light candles, which are really oil in a small, pretty clay bowl with a wick. There must have been hundreds just in our hotel lobby arranged in a beautiful pattern around a Rangoli. But the meaning of Divali is quite beautiful. It is time to celebrate the victory of Light over Darkness, Good over Evil. Light symbolizes knowledge while darkness symbolizes Ignorance. The festival focuses on Lord Ram and also on Lakshmi, the goddess of prosperity. She is supposed to visit every house during Divali, attracted by the light within. So even the poorest household tries to find a candle to light.
Indians also love fireworks and light them for many festivals, especially Divali. And just for fun, it seems--any time any where. The festival lasts for days and the fireworks go on ALL NIGHT. On rooftops, in the streets--everywhere. Of course there are no regulations and the quality and therefore safety of them is suspect. Cesca & I had to wait 20 minutes to get by a gang of 30 or so young men who weren't going to stop lighting M80s, Cherrybombs and who knows what all else to let us by. Sparks are everywhere as the fireworks don't make it very high in the sky. Fun, but a little scary. I guess it's a good thing it's so dang humid here or else half of the city would burn down every year!
This is the Launderia in Mumbai. 100, 000s of clothes are washed here every day.
Next we headed to Goa after a 14 hr. train ride down the west coast, stopping at hundreds (not kidding) of villages or ?? Those were the places that were so unidentifiable as a station that I don't know how they knew where to stop. One stop was the remains of a cart, toppled over, by the rails. It was mostly village life once we got out of Mumbai. There are hundreds of thousands of villages in India where life is hard but simple. My Tamil professor likes to say that "The village people are very good people. Very simple people." I think he yearns to return to that way of life. I wish my camera could have captured some of the scenes we passed but the windows were too thick and too dirty. Fields, ponds with water lilies and the famous lotus flowers were scattered across the landscape. Years ago, a friend who was the first person I knew to travel to India likened the country to a lotus flower booming in the mud. Pretty close. So much pain, filth and suffering here but also such indescribable beauty. My favorite visual memory from our train ride was a group of villagers in their field separating the wheat from the chaff by beating the wheat against an old drum barrel. The beauty of it was the rhythm they had. Two beaters on one side, one on the other, alternating swinging the wheat over their heads down onto the barrel. The chaff would fly away while the bran would fall onto a burlap sheet. Lovely.
Goa is the big vacation spot in India, kind of like Hawaii but it's not an island. I had heard about it for decades. The hippee culture really embraced it from the 70's on. Lots of drugs, drinking & nudity. Much tamer now but very over developed and crowded, which is why we headed for South Goa which was beautiful. Big Portuguese influence complete with old churches, one of which contains the remains of Francis Xavier. They had a pretty wicked Inquisition here which went on for 200 years. They destroyed many Hindu Temples and threw in prison any Hindu who would not convert. Those who survived that were burned at the stake. Did I warn you that these Updates would contain the good, the bad and the ugly of India?
I think we were the only Americans at the resort, with lots of Indians. As we were leaving, the Russians were pouring in as their high season was about to begin. The Indians who worked there much preferred westerners, esp. Americans. We seem to treat the locals in the friendliest, most respectful way of any other nationality. I have heard this everywhere, over & over again, so we Americans must be doing something right.
Walker on a Goan fishing boat.
I realize I haven't written much about the city we live in as a lot of friends didn't know how close we were to Mumbai. Chennai is on the southeast coast in the state of Tamil Nadu. The city was called Madras (as in the plaid from the 60s). We are the 4th largest city in India behind Mumbai (used to be Bombay), New Delhi and Kolkatta (used to be Calcutta). The idea to de-Anglacize the names comes from the politicians. Chennai has somewhere between 4 and 7 million people--but how could they possibly know?
South India is more Hindu, more conservative and more vegetarian. Hotter too. We are about 1 1/2 hr flight across the country to Mumbai, the financial & film center. Chennai is the gateway to South India. I think it's prettier than Mumbai because there are a lot more trees and less pollution. There is a surprising 20% Christian population here in Chennai. That is due to Saint Thomas settling here and converting many. Saint Thome contains a relic from his body and is one of the three churches in the world built around a relic of an apostle. St Peter's in Rome of course and another in Spain.
Something we find appalling here is the amount of skin whitening ads there are in the media. 60% of all cosmetic sales (male & female) are some cream that claims to whiten the skin, which is quite dark here in South India. They are Dravidians and quite beautiful to my eye. But the skin whitening craze is all over India. I guess it's the result of the English rule here.
A little on the caste system of India which is ancient and very slow to change. There are many subdivisions but the four major caste divisions go like this:
Brahmins: priestly caste
Kshatriya: the warrior caste
Vaishya: the merchant caste
Sudras: those who do the manual labor
Untouchables: those who deal with things that are unclean. (cleaning latrines, working with leather, removing dead animals etc.) Nowadays they are referred to as Dalit " the oppressed". After the government passed laws providing assistance to some Dahlits several other low castes have claimed that they too are oppressed and deserve some handouts from the government. They are arguing that they are lower than each other.
Brahmins and others of a higher caste would cross the street rather than come in contact or proximity of a lower class person, esp. an Untouchable. This system is obviously much more complex than I have room to explain here. Change is coming to India but it will take centuries to completely root out this deeply ingrained social system. Gandhi was very much against the caste system and was also for equal treatment of women.
Any Indian can take a look at another Indian and know all about them including their caste, probable job, their religion and if they hear their last name, what state their family is originally from. I showed a picture of a baby shower I attended to my cook and she immediately said, "Brahmin. North indian."
The government has passed many laws trying to do away with this system but as usual with the many laws and regulations in India, there is almost no enforcement. Corruption and bribes are the norm and expected. There just isn't any justice here. Everyone gets paid off and it takes years & years for anything to come to court, if ever.
Cotton Candy
Four of the ten richest people on The Forbes World's Billionaires list are Indian. Yet close to 87,000 Indian farmers committed suicide between 2001 & 2005 because they couldn't pay their debts. No idea how they came up with that number. Who is there to report these deaths or care, beyond their families, who of course are very rural and very poor? Banks don't lend money, even before the credit crunch. Money lenders charge high interest and most never get out of debt no matter how hard they work.
I realize this Update has been a lot more somber than the others so I will end on a brighter note. I was invited to a baby shower "Vallekappu" in Tamil. They rent a big hall and bless the expectant parents. These people are Brahmins of the Jain faith and originally from Rajasthan which is why the saree pallau is worn over the head. They have this ceremony at 5 months, again at 7 months and again at 9 months during the pregnancy. Each guest, beginning with family, blesses the couple by placing a tika (Hindi) or pottu (Tamil) on the forehead. This is the red and yellow powders. Then a few grains of rice are sprinkled on their heads and the person doing the blessing feeds them both a small bite of special food from the Thali. The mom-to-be has had bangles placed on her arms because they believe the baby in the womb is old enough to hear the sounds they make. They are seated on an ornately carved wooden swing because the mother will soon be swinging her baby. Gifts are given, usually money. Then of course there is a huge feast!
Notice the Communist Party flag in front of the Christian Church? Just one of the many political parties.
Henna
Joe at a wedding--there is a 4' tail in the back! Next to him is Abahya Kumar--one of the partners at Sonyimageworks India. We call him the King of Chennai. Whatever you need, just ask Abahya.
I have so much more to write so I am splitting this in 2! Bye for now and God Bless!
Karen
I love this picture. Joe took it when he first arrived. These lovelies are of course, water buffalos. What can I say? We love cows.
Hema with Mary-Chitra helping Cesca with her first saree.
A brahmin wedding Joe went to. The groom always arrives on a horse. Notice his hands are hennaed too.
The weddings usually last several days. This is the actual marriage ceremony the time of which is set by astrologers, numerologists and the lunar calendar. It could be @ 4 a.m. Sometimes there can be 1000s invited and everyone comes. People feast after they have greeted the bride & groom. In South India the marriage is official when a gold colored string is knotted around the bride's neck several times. She never takes it off except for replacing it once a year on their anniversary. The groom places a toe ring on each foot. Only married women wear tikkas--the powdered mark on the forehead. Widows usually stop wearing tikas. Tikkas are blessing, usually gotten at a temple each day. Those that worship Vishnu will wear a different mark than those that worship Shiva, etc.
One of my favorite stores, full of lots of shiny things.
The mall. The first time Joe & I went it was a weekend and we had to leave because we couldn't take the crush of people. Now I'm a pro and can make my way through any crowd.
A typical sweet shop with lots & lots of help. Still, service is usually agonizingly slow.
Preparing for the arrival of Krishna's Chariot during a festival procession. Now that was fun & joyful. 
Remember the Hari Krishna's in the 60's with all the dancing & chanting? I went with some friends who are followers.This typical South Indian dress. They may have a small towel over their shoulder which has many uses. Check out the cell phone.
One way to deliver chickens to a shop or restaurant.
Blessing of the groom by a relative.
Mix of modern & ancient India.
Our Puja man.
Puja for our car and our driver, Raj's two-wheeler (motorcycle) of which he is very proud.
High Holi!!!
