Weddings

A couple of days ago, my walk home from work was interrupted by a wedding procession.  A hundred or so men in red turbans and women in brightly colored sarees marched along with the groom, who rode on an ornamented white horse.  These lamps were lifted on top of people's heads.  My camera was buried in my purse, so unfortunately I have no photo evidence of the white horse or lovely sarees.  And of course it's not the same when you don't hear the blaring music spurring on the festivities.

And last week, my friend and boss got married!  She was the most beautiful bride...

And I borrowed a gorgeous saree from my dear friend Lakshmi Priya.  Thanks to Nicolette for helping me get dressed!

There were hundreds of people at her wedding, including everyone from our office, a few of us pictured below.  There was also a 12-person band, a popcorn machine, and the traditional rice dish biriyani served on banana leaves at long tables where guests rotated and the banana leaves were folded up and the next line of hungry, happy people sat down to chow down.

Shout out to Meggie and Lauren: the past few weeks and months that Hephzibah has been choosing invitations, wedding sarees, house-hunting, etc has made me miss each of you but feel vicariously connected to your respective wedding/marriage/life planning!

A Sunday drive

I remember my mom telling us that when she was a little girl, she used to take Sunday drives. Sometimes ice cream was involved, but sometimes the six Glancy kids packed into the car, no doubt fighting for a window seat, and just drove. A Sunday drive. I thought about that this morning as I drove home from church. My auto driver chose to take some back roads, perhaps an attempt at a short cut. It definitely wasn't shorter, but it was unfamiliar and therefore I paid more attention than I often do when I'm rushing from one place to another.

Smoke and smells of idly and dosa swirled out of the tiny homes, patched together with slanty roofs and cardboard cross sections. We skidded on rocks and broken somethings as we swerved to avoid the young mother with a shorts-less baby on her hip and a plate of leftover cooking scraps. She tossed the rubbish into the thin river, adding to the trash lining the banks and adding to the confusing smell in the muggy air.

Little boys ran next to my auto, shouting in high-pitched voices and pointing and laughing at the strange girl passing through their neighborhood. We whizzed passed another woman bargaining with a man, his bicycle basket full of tomatoes and and an antique scale tied to the rusted sides. I made eye contact with a very skinny man in a plaid turban, who was leading a mud-colored and mud-covered bull down the middle of the tight street. Stray dogs yapped as a gang of preteen boys gathered for a game of cricket in the same street. A goat was tied to a post. A woman in a bright red saree walked down the street with tired arms hanging at her small sides and a large bag of rice balanced casually atop her head.

We pulled out onto a main road I half recognized and then approached an overpass I knew. A lorry in front of my tiny auto sputtered and threatened to cloud my driver's vision with an impressive puff of black exhaust. Men sat on top of the bags and boxes and loose trash filling the bed of the truck. Motorcycles and scooters competed with us for a front row spot at the starting line of the traffic signal. One little girl caught my eye, pretty jasmine pinned into her pretty hair, her arms wrapped around her father's waist. On my other side, a little boy in his father's lap, a mother seated behind them, and another 8 or 10-year-old girl behind--all on the same motorbike. I wondered if they were on a Sunday drive, headed to Greams Road Fruit Shop for a strawberry shake or sweet lime juice.

Shopping: just go with the flow

This weekend, my friend Priya took me and two other interns shopping, Martine and Kim. We got to experience how the locals shop: en masse. Put yourself in my shoes and watch this clip:

I took my first "share auto" with these gals; we hopped in a [slightly] oversized auto rickshaw with a handful of strangers and rode to T. Nagar, a part of town renown for its massive saree and salwar stores...and crowds.

Stacks of fabric for new salwar sets: top, bottoms and a dupata (or scarf). The men behind the counter pull down whichever set you want to see, then you buy and take to a tailor for the final product.

Shops line both sides of the street. Shoppers line the street.

Shopping in this kind of crowd requires some serious energy. Priya introduced us to sugarcane juice. Not my fave--very bitter and tasted a lot like I imagine a grass and root smoothie might taste. But I'm all for trying new things.

mmm, Samosas. Now here's a street food I like. Some sort of mystery mash with potatoes, lentils, maybe some veggies...all fried up in a poof of pastry-like dough. Martine, Priya, me. What's not to love?

Although I'll stick to sweet lime or strawberry juice, I do appreciate the labor-intensive process for juicing sugarcane. Check it out:

P.S. Where you able to view my video clips?

Living a strangely normal life here

I think I am finally realizing that this is my reality. Living here in South Asia, that is, working for IJM. The reality sinking in a little more each day is just as exciting, if not more, as the beginning days of wide-eyed discovery. I'm amazed that my calendar tells me it is May. Although the stifling hot temperatures certainly confirm the official start of summer in the city.

Strangely, these are a few normal parts of my life now:

* Power outages. As the city heats up and the A/C's cool down, the power goes out sporadically, and I'm told with increasing frequency. So sometimes I wake up to an especially quiet room at 3am, with no noisy A/C and no need for my thin covers. Other times I just switch gears entirely; like last week when I was working on my resume and an application for a potential post-IJM opportunity and the power went out, taking my nicely worded Word documents with it. (My laptop battery is totally dead and needs to be plugged in 100% of the time; this is a problem I can and will fix...at some point.) And then there was today, when the power went out just as I opened my Outlook inbox. It came on 20 or 30 minutes later, but the internet and our server never did. So you learn to improvise, adjust, and hit "save" incessantly.

* Strikes. Last week we had an impromptu holiday, or a "bundt" day, thanks to a "voluntary" strike issued by the state government. Everything was closed from 6 am to 6 pm, a statewide day of silent protest against the civil war and bloody dispute escalating between the "Tamil Tigers" and government in Sri Lanka. The "Tamil Tigers" are demanding separate recognition and rights, and the Sri Lankan government has been attempting to quell their small and weakening uprising. The state where I am is closely tied to the Tamil Tigers, due to the shared nationality and heritage. Over the past several months I have been here, I have witnessed many protests and gatherings about the Sri Lanka conflict. On several occasions, our advocates have not been able to attend hearings because various advocate unions are on strike and it is unsafe for lawyers to enter court premises. A month or so ago, one advocate was actually beaten to death during a bitter dispute between civilians, advocates and police in the very courtyard of the High Court here in the city.

* Crowds. Words fail me. Check out tomorrow's blog entry.

Ironic Note: literally, as I clicked "post," the power went out and my blog entry disappeared into the dark. At least I fell asleep with a smile on my face.