Of, course, that was only the beginning of how crazy everything suddenly got.
It all started Wednesday night. We'd heard good things about the movie The Reluctant Fundamentalist and so took an autorickshaw all the way across town to the only theater where it was still showing. When we got there we were told that it wasn't showing (error on its webpage) and since Wednesday night was Rs100 night, the place was crowded and the next show of any film that wasn't sold out wasn't until 9:40pm. Reluctantly, we ate a rather lackluster mall dinner and went outside to bargain our way back to Nitin's house (where we're staying these last few weeks).
Of, course, that was only the beginning of how crazy everything suddenly got.
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After walking thru the area where they were "playing Holi" Holi, Festival of Spring and of Colours is here. It seems to be the most secular of the Hindu festivals and is all about drenching your friends (and strangers!) in color and water. It, apparently, isn't celebrated in the South as much as in the North, but Bangalore is the exception. Our apartment put on a festival with a dinner and concert Tuesday night and colour play and lunch on Wednesday. We listened to the concert, and had tickets for lunch. On the way to lunch Tim and I got waylaid (see pics). We let the kids join in when they got home from school (5pm). Pictures below: Feb 9 was Kavitha's 33rd birthday so we got her a cake. It turns out it was her first birthday celebration and her first cake. I'm really glad we did it.
It took awhile to sink in but it wasn't long before I realized I had no idea how to plan an urban birthday party. We lucked out (tho I'm pretty sure Kalani doesn't see it that way) with Kalani's because we were traveling (see Eastern Ghats blog) on his birthday and he was denied a party. But we were here for Kekai's and I had to figure out something to do that didn't include kids going wild at Bird Park, Namakanipaio, Kulanaokuaiki, or anywhere else with wide open spaces since there aren't any of those around here. Had a good birthday celebration. Tim and the boys bought me a cake (it says "Happy Birthday Ma" in Kannada) with the best candle I've ever seen. It went up like a pine tree on fire, then the petals opened into a lotus with candles at the tips. Pretty darn cool. Not so cool was that it didn't start playing "Happy Birthday" in plingy computereze until sometime in the middle of the night and then it took 12 hours to figure out how to shut it up for more than a few minutes at a time (final solution: pull all the wires). Also got lunch at one of Bangalore's two breweries (Kalani had his first hamburger since leaving the US) and walked through the ritziest mall in Bangalore (Louis Vuitton, anyone?). Sure is a different world than the one I'm calling home these days. The boys also got me some jingly silver anklets (pics below). Diwali lamps for sale Diwali is one of the most important holidays here in India. Like most holidays it seems to celebrate multiple things depending on where and who you are, but in general, it is the start of the Hindu new year and known as the Festival of Lights. Lights are sold everywhere, from little clay dishes for lighting homemade oil lamps to rice paper lanterns to twinkly lights on a strand to the bright pop of fireworks; everywhere. It's also a festival of giving and (although no where near the consumer insanity of Christmas in the US) it's a big shopping time. Mysore's famous tuskers So, after our unexpectedly adventurous first day in Mysore (or rather outside of Mysore) we settled in for a proper Dasara on the last day there. We were supposed to head out to Chamundi Hill in the morning, but with 7 of us, it took us so long to get out of the hotel that there was no way we had time to go to see the temple and the Nandi Bull and still make it to the parade. Instead we made arrangements through Aslam's friend to buy scalped tickets to the sold out Jamoo Saravi parade (for ~2.5 times the original price but he managed to get the kids in for free so, in the end, we didn't come out too far from what we would have paid). Aslam dropped us off at about 10:30am and said it would start in an hour. There was some confusion on where we could sit, but after realizing we were in the wrong seats, we ended up with our pick of front row seats, among the first to arrive. That we had such good choice of seats turned out not to be so surprising since the parade didn't actually start until 2:15pm and we had a long, long wait in a fenced-in area. We made it back from Mysore on Sunday in time for the last part of the Ganesh Chathurti festival here at Mantri Greens.
September 20th (second day of Ganesh Chathurti) was also a National bandh (strike) against a bunch of policies suddenly (it seemed to me) decreed by the government.
September 19th is the start of the Ganesha celebration. It is the day he is welcomed into homes.
Tim and the boys and I walked around the neighborhood expecting to see something amazing but we found that most of the vendors from the day before had left and those that were still there had almost nothing left to sell. |
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