Lazy Days and Holidays

Well, last weekend Will came to Delhi for a much too short visit and we had a lovely time doing a lot of nothing. Mostly we had lazy days filled with conversations, walks, and food. The only real site I think we saw was Lodi Garden, a garden in the south of Delhi that has tombs of some rulers of the Delhi Sultanate. My favorite tomb is Sikander Lodi's, he was a ruler of India from 1489 - 1517, but there are also the tombs of Mubarak Shah (died, 1433) and Ibrahim Lodi (died 1526) in the garden. The garden also has a phenomenal maze of paths to wander around.

The other "cultural" thing that we did was look at the art in the India Habitat Centre. The Centre is a beautiful space in Delhi, beautifully designed with tall office buildings and large open spaces. We went there because located within the compound is a restaurant called the All American Diner that has a menu remarkably similar to Denny's in the US, but with more vegan options. We also went there because of the photography exhibit. The exhibit was in the office buildings lobbies's and was set up by Manas, Mental Health and Social Service, a non-profit organization committed to working for mental health awareness in India. Walking from lobby to lobby provided a nice time to contemplate the paintings, which were stylistically beautiful but slightly disturbing in their subject.

After Will's short visit, I returned to Lucknow and celebrated Thanksgiving with my friends in Lucknow. We had a wonderful potluck (I, again, made a very yummy vegan chocolate pie). My friends here are very sweet and even made me my own portion of the cornbread, stuffing, sticky date pudding, and mashed potatoes. It was an excellent meal and in the spirit of the holiday, I overstuffed myself.

My Ride to School and an Afternoon Fieldtrip

My room opens onto the street below. Last night I was up in the middle of the night because I've been a little sick this week with a fever and, therefore, sleeping lots and lots, but sometimes at weird hours. This morning I was awakened by one of the girls across the street yelling at someone (something?) to get out of the house. I felt compelled to get out of bed in order to see what was happening. It was the cow below. By the time I got my camera, the front door had been secured, but the cow's determination was pleasantly funny to me, so I thought I share.

Because I woke up late-ish this morning (about 7 am) I didn't go to yoga and just headed to school. This means that I take a picture-esqe route (instead of the boring one) and I thought I'd take pictures along the way. . . . Below is one of the small roads (gully in Hindi) that I take. In effect, I work through a maze of streets so that I don't have to take the highway (the site of my accident). As you can see, traffic lanes don't exist really anywhere, the streets are pretty narrow, and sometimes, in nice areas, the houses are beautifully painted. Because it is early in the morning, the street is extremely empty. In a few hours it'll be full of cars, bicycles, rickshaws, horse-drawn carts, and people walking.


There are also a couple of historical buildings that I pass along the way. This abandoned administration building's yard is where young boys often play cricket in the morning. In the background is construction on a new high-rise (probably of apartments. I am not sure if it is clear from this picture, but the scaffolding is made from bamboo tied together. I find this horribly terrifying and I have met men who have fallen because the bamboo scaffolding is of dubious sturdiness. It really makes me thankful that there are many jobs I will never try.)


In addition to sometimes crazy traffic, other things in Lucknow sometimes cause delays on the way to school. The below road was closed due to cows, and people just hanging out with the cows.
And below is my favorite. To be honest, I have no idea what the old remains are, but I do think they are beautiful (especially in the golden early morning sun) and always remind me that here I make a left turn. I also find it interesting that a few families live in and around this old architectural site. You can see them eating breakfast and preparing for the day in the bottom left of the photo.



Today school took us on a trip to the Residency, which is a huge complex of buildings that the British lived in before the first war for Independence in 1857. Lucknow was the center of this war and the fighting was fierce. The picture to the right is a picture of a cross built to remember those who died. In the museum, it said that over 20,000 Indian soldiers lost their lives. The Residency was besieged during this time and the building below shows the bullet holes and the cannon ball holes from the siege.













There is also a beautiful mosque that was part of the original Residency and that is still used by people as a site of prayer today. It is set up a series of stairs, but below there were these beautiful colonnade ruins that a friend took a picture of me in.

My first sari

Well, I've been needing to buy a sari, because adult women in Lucknow at nice functions like weddings, parties, dinners, and engagements wear saris. Often, I have been the only woman in the room that was not wearing a sari and while I usually feel horribly socially awkward anyway (with the limited language skills and general cultural confusion) the lack of a sari has been something that I've been meaning to rectify and had not until this week.

This week, I was invited to a very posh dinner get-together at a woman's home and knowing that it would be a big event with all the women in fancy saris, I set out to buy a sari. I went to a rather nice store where the prices are fixed (no bargaining) and the sales staff are very pleasant. They showed me a variety of saris and I was generally unable to tell what made a sari nice and had minor worries that the sari I would choose would not be nice enough or would be too fancy. There were two very nice Indian women also shopping in the store (one of whom grew up in Lucknow but now lives in Las Vegas) and after noticing my confusion, they graciously offered to help me pick out a sari. I am happy with what we chose. After buying the sari, the store kept the bulk of the material to hem the edges and put a netting so that the sari falls better. I took the material for the blouse to the tailor to make the blouse. After a few days, my entire sari was ready. After 3 different people helping me properly put on the sari, I wore it to the party. The gathering was nice and one lady, whom I much admire, complimented the sari on me, so I guess it worked out pretty well.

"It was a thumping"

said President Bush on 8/11/2006 in a news conference

I am so excited that the Democrats took both the House and Senate that I think I am going to microwave (no ovens in India) an Apple Pie tomorrow. Hooray for the American people!

(I've been excited about this since 5:30 am on November 10 when I woke up to hear the initial poll results.)

I hope now we develop a good way to get out of Iraq (I like McGovern and Polk's article in Harper's as a starting point, http://www.harpers.org/index.html), raise minimum wage, fix education, and well, my list goes on and on. . . but, it seems that many people in the US agree that the course we are following is leading to a horrible end for the American people and doing unimaginable damage to those living in other countries (especially Iraq and Afghanistan) and, now, we have decided to change our country's direction. CHEERS!

Happy Halloween

The Saturday after Halloween, my housemates and I threw a Halloween party. Everyone who lives in my house contributed a meal or labor and the result was a rocking good time. I made a pasta salad (which was good, but not terribly exciting) and a tofu-chocolate-peanut butter pie (that totally blew my mind - in fact, I am waiting for the next excuse to make such a rich and yummy dessert). We also had many other delicious delicious salads, hummus, and rotis. There was even a grill cooking chicken for the meat eaters.


We had the party on the roof of our house with inside space available for dancing. The night was beautiful. We danced to Bollywood songs, hip-hop, and 80s hits. Many of my roommates and some of our guests dressed up. Unfortunately, I just dressed as Andrea in the USA. This was due to laziness and because I bought a nice skirt when I was in Lebanon and wanted an excuse to wear it. Mostly our guests were from school, but a few other people who live in Lucknow came as well. This allowed me to meet (and re-meet) some nice Lucknowi people. Also, some of the people who work in our house came.