may the festivals begin

being in india at this time of year, i'm told, is a very good thing. i’m experiencing the rainy season for the first time in my life, which i will probably write more about later. also, i will experience the festival season. there are many festivals that are celebrated here, all year long, but the end of august into september to october, which would be autumn at home, is when all the biggest and most exciting festivals happen. for the first time i'll be here to witness them.

it started yesterday with janmashtami, the birth day of krishna. there is a very interesting tradition that happens here on this day each year - the dahi handi. that is a clay pot filled with dahi (yogurt/curd), decorated and strung up on a rope. the height of this rope varies; in some places its just a few stories high, but i've heard in other places, such is in mumbai proper, it's strung between buildings, reaching seven or eight stories high. teams of people (who have practiced all year for this) create human pyramids so that someone can reach the top and break the handi. the motivation is a cash prize to the team that succeeds, which can be quite a lot of money depending on the location and how high the handi is.

my aunt-in-law told me that when my husband was a child, his dad and the other parents in the neighborhood used to put up a much lower handi, so that all the kids in the area could climb on top of each other to break it. satyajit remembers that time fondly – we fell and got bruised, he said, but it was great fun. that story reminded me of halloween and the crowds of kids that used to go trick-or-treating in our neighborhood.

i also wondered what happens if no one can reach the pot – well apparently as the day goes by it gets lowered a bit, so that finally someone can break it before midnight.

yesterday i saw a lot of these teams here in navi mumbai. they were crowds of guys in matching t-shirts riding buses to get to the places where the handis were strung up. apparently there are teams of girls as well, although they are rarer. i saw a few teams earlier in the day that made the attempt but did not reach. one team could not even get their top guy up, they all kept slipping and so gave up. but finally in the night we went out again to watch and at last a i saw a team reach the top and succeed.

crowds of people gather to watch these attempts, there’s music and dancing, and a guy with a hose sprays water on each team after they try. i’ve heard that actually they are supposed to pour water on them while they climb up, to make it harder. and since this is the rainy season, it could have been even more slippery if it actually been raining yesterday. lucky for them, it wasn’t.
overall it was a wonderful thing to watch although i did worry a bit too. i didn’t see anyone get hurt myself but i’m sure there are lots of bruises and minor injuries that happen on this day each year. but as i said these teams do practice and it’s a lot of fun watching them climb up. you do have to wait around if you want to see a team try, because they climb up very quickly, and climb back down even faster. the whole thing happens in just a few minutes. i missed most of the ones that happened yesterday in our area, but i’ve put up the pictures of the team i managed to catch last night that actually did climb up and break the handi.

a taste of africa

people who know me know that there are really only two things i drink a lot of – water and tea. one of the things i miss about my old job at hopkins is doing a “me latte" run with my co-workers, usually for a tall cup of british breakfast with milk. in fact one of my biggest regrets about living in the u.s. is the lack of availability of a good cup of chai. on the other hand, there’s plenty of starbucks’ “chai lattes”.

in india, however, i lack for nothing when it comes to caffeinated pleasures. chai is not just readily available, it’s ubiquitous. and the coffee! though indifferent to it in america, i constantly crave it here, and suggest a visit to cafe coffee day every time satyajit and i go out. i would gladly replace every starbucks on the planet with a cafe coffee day. it’s just too wonderful. in the heat of summer, go there and try a kaapi nirvana, a cold drink made with delicious indian filter coffee. or do as i did today and watch the rains over a cup of ethiopian qahwah. it’s the best coffee i’ve ever tasted – incomparibly rich and smooth. i’m already thinking of when i can go back and have another cup.

on my first visit to mumbai last year, satyajit took me out on my last night before i was to fly back home. it was the night of our engagement party. we left our own event a little early and went out for a movie - “life in a metro”. after that, despite the lateness of the hour, we decided to drive all the way across town to south bombay, to the taj hotel. there we had the tastiest, most expensive, and most romantic cappuccino we’d ever had. we finally came home at four in the morning, and actually got in trouble for neglecting to inform anyone we’d be out so late, and for not answering repeated calls on satyajit’s mobile – as he’d accidentally dropped it in the car. his parents had stayed up waiting for us, angry and worried.

and yet now i remember that incident with fondness, because things have changed so much since then. i’d give anything for my father-in-law to be home waiting for me on the steps of the house, even if it was with a reprimand. (although to be honest he was only really angry at satyajit, and only really worried for me.)

now my visit is entirely different. so far i’ve been staying at home all day, exceptions being my daily walk whenever the rains stop, or at least lessen. i’m hunting for an internship, but in the meantime i do have things to keep me busy, including some online volunteering with reaching hearts for kids. we just added another country to our work – the democratic republic of the congo. we are going to finance a newly built school and orphanges’ much needed access to water. until i did a little reseach on it, i had no idea how many name changes this country had gone through. but i did know that this is a place where, in some areas at least, brutality towards women and children is a daily occurrence. it’s going to take a lot to stop such insanity, but providing orphans and disadvantaged children with education and a future is certainly one part of it.

the backstory

my husband, satyajit, and i have been married for about eight months. we spent two weeks together just after our wedding, and then i spent two weeks with him last month, when tragedy compelled me to journey to india earlier than i had planned. i know this does not seem like a long separation, but in fact we've had a long-distance relationship for nearly four years. first an online romance, to a long-distance engagement, and finally and most-painful of all, a long-distance marriage.

it seems hard to believe all that is behind us now. instead of waiting for him to arrive on my side of the world, i've come to join him and his family on his side. india. i've never lived here before. i've come on quite a few visits durning my lifetime, but all were brief - a maximum of three weeks. and until our engagement i'd never even come to mumbai, actually navi mumbai (new bombay), but always stayed in the north where my relatives live.

most people begin their new lives when they get married, or perhaps move in together. we are just beginning our new life now. i arrived here five days ago, and as i said, it seems hard to believe that the separation is over. that from now on, we'll be with each other everyday.

during the last week when i was preparing for my trip, i was an emotional mess. luckily, i don't think anyone noticed, although of course satyajit did. i was terribly nervous about us finally living together, about staying in india when i'm so culturally american, about being away from my friends and family and beloved maryland for months at a time. about missing fooball season! i know the redskins are going to do better this year...about not knowing how to speak (more importantly, understand) the language of my in-laws, marathi. about not being able to drive, and not knowing where to go even if i could. about feeling dependent, new, and out-of-place.

to be honest i don't feel all that out-of-place now that i'm here. i do feel new. i do feel a little nervous to try going out on my own, talking to strangers, shopping or running errands alone. but i think that's the common beginning of anyone who has had to stay in a new place, whether it's an american in india, an indian in america, or say, an african in europe. we all have to learn new things.

the best thing about me being here is my family. i do miss my family at home but my family here is really wonderful too. true, i haven't known them that long, nor do they know me so well. but they are all really wonderful people. for the past four years satyajit has been telling me that the main difference between the united states and india is how the people of each country define their assets. in the u.s., our assets consist of things, or our ability to get things: money, property, investments. in india, he says, people define their assets by people. their families especially, but also friends, neighbors, colleagues. and not in the way of what these people can do for you, but simply that they are the assets themselves; that which makes life richer.

well, obviously this is a little idealistic and of course there are plenty of americans who value their families and friends, church groups or communities. but there is something to what he says, that's true enough. now i'll finally have the opportunity to see the differences and similarities for myself. and that's definitely a good thing. but i do wonder if i'll be able to catch the skins games online?