Pushkar

So I'm finally trying to catch up on my blogging with highlights from the last three weeks, but I'm feeling kind of lazy right now and sort of just want to upload pictures. The weekend of July 10th, the program had arranged for an overnight field trip to Pushkar, a nearby town notable for its significant Brahmin population. I think the teachers may have said somewhere close to 70% of the population are of the holy caste. On top of that, there's a significant Israeli Jewish population, which plays out interestingly on the ground. In short: there's a whole lotta God everywhere. Continuing with the theme of Indian religious landscape, here are a few of the statues that were put up around our hotel:

Pushkar is also famous for its ghats, which are essentially entrances into Lake Pushkar that carry religious significance. On the ghats, one can get a brahmin to carry out a puja in one's name. Or, in the case of Pushkar, one can try their hardest to avoid getting scammed by the literally hundreds of brahmins who hang around the ghats to try to trap tourists by starting a puja and demanding payment after the fact (happened to a friend of mine)

I'm also feeling pretty lazy about finishing this post, so here are some miscellaneous pictures of Pushkar:

One of 52 or so ghats leading to Pushkar Lake

... so maybe they're not all that exciting, but I really liked them

My attempt at a cool picture

So after arriving in Pushkar and briefly taking in our surroundings, our first scheduled event was up: watching a camel decoration. I think I can summarize my thoughts in two main points:

1) Camels are actually surprisingly beautiful animals.

Forget puppies, man

2) Camels, when decorated, actually are more stylish than I am

My desire to be a Mamluk has been increasing since this moment

After the camel decoration, we had some free time before we got to see Kalbelia dancers perform. Kalbelia dance comes from the eponymous tribe, famous in Rajasthan as the main snake charming community. One of the snake charmer elders came to our class to talk and perform a bit of snake charming for us on a later date, but that's for another post. The dance we saw in Pushkar was performed by 4 women, all of whom were incredible dancers. Here are a few shots I got (that do no justice to their talent):

Now, something that I had not realized was that the Kalbelia community is freaking sweet in more ways than one - aside from the obvious awesomeness entailed in snake charming, the community also specializes in this:

They charm snakes. Oh yeah, and on their free time they just, you know, breathe fire. Amma, Acha - I think I've found my backup plan for life if I fail out of college/can't get a job. I even got the contact information of the fire-breather. I think this is called maturity: most kids want to run away and join the circus, but few ever take active steps of preparation.

Independence

The last two weeks have been crazy. Too crazy, in fact, for one post. So I'm going to split it into two parts - being American (4th of July weekend) and being Indian (going to Pushkar to experience some Brahmin living, going to Kerala to see my family). If the title wasn't a hint, this will be about America.

As you all (hopefully) know, two weeks was American Independence Day. And as Americans in a foreign country, it was our national duty to celebrate in as loud and ostentatious as possible. So my flat decided to throw a party. Now this seems like a fairly simple task (or at least it did to me), but I didn't really consider the fact that we would be inviting all 60 kids in the program over to our building for the big event. And 60 college-/grad-school-aged kids means a whole lot of preparation: drinks, food, entertainment, etc.

So first order of business was entertainment: what's 4th of July without fireworks, anyway? So we decided to put together a little show for everyone. As it turned out, Caleb (for those of you who have yet to hear about the different people in the program, ask me sometime) turned out to be something of an expert (according to him, every child who grows up in the south has to learn how to set off fireworks. Of course, this was also followed by a few stories of how he severely injured his friends in fireworks battles, so I'm not sure how credible/safe this theory is), so he and Vince were put in charge of the show. They got a little out of control... and by a little I mean a lot. This is part of what they came back with:


Side note: the level of precision that went into posing this picture was truly remarkable. But this is Caleb (left) and Vince (right). They're pretty cool guys.
But anyway, with entertainment taken care of, the next order of business was drinks and snacks. This was an entire group effort - getting ice, drinks, chips, and an American-flag-shaped caked took all of our man (and woman) power. It was worth it in the end, however; the party was pretty successful, if I do say so myself. It was a good way for everyone to come together just to hang out without any academic pressure or anything. Here are some highlights:

Our fancy flag cake

Setting off fireworks

Lesson of the party: nothing turns grown men into children like explosions and beer. Nothing.

Back!

So I know I haven't posted anything in the last week or so (I know all of you have been crushed), but my computer had stopped working for some unknown reason. I assumed it was the result of a power surge, but today it suddenly started up just fine. So a detailed post about the week will follow later!

Also, if anybody knows how to center text on Blogger, help would be appreciated.

Celebrate good times, come on!

It's a celebration... no, seriously, this week has been filled with lots of celebrations, festivals, and general happiness. From a pilgrimage/carnival with hundreds of people to a series of great conversations with various flatmates, I've been in a really great mood all week. So basically, here's a rundown of what all has happened:

Wedding processions in the street:
So one night, all of us were studying in the common room of the first floor when someone heard what sounded like a marching band procession. We were all a little confused (who has a parade at midnight?), so we decided to head to the roof to see what was going on. It was pretty dark, so we couldn't really see anything except this:


Naturally, we were pretty curious. All sorts of theories, ranging from holiday parade to protest march, were put forward, but I wanted to get a closer look. So me and 3 of the guys ran down to the street, where we realized that this was no parade: it was a wedding procession!


It moved on pretty quickly, so I couldn't get too many pictures, but here are two I did manage to get:

Cool lamps!

The groom, I think

World Trade Park Construction:
So for those of you who don't know (I didn't before last week), the Rajasthani government is constructing the World Trade Park as a center of South Asian international trade in Jaipur right now, so we saw the unveiling ceremony. No, I didn't go the the model unveiling ceremony (at which Shah Rukh Khan spoke, for the record), but I did get some close-up pictures of the current state of the WTP:




Pilgrimage comes to Jaipur!
This was one of the most surprising events of the week. A few of my friends decided to randomly go to the carnival on a day with a particularly light workload. Upon their return, they told us (incredibly excitedly - they're all religious studies grad students, a.k.a. your future, Kaitlyn) about the Amarnath Yathra they had gone through. Now, I'm no expert, but I was pretty sure the yathra was supposed to end up at the Amarnath Caves in Kashmir. A slight problem? Not for the clever Rajasthanis, who built A MINIATURE VERSION OF THE ENTIRE PILGRIMAGE INSIDE THE CARNIVAL. Seriously. So amidst the ferris wheels and merry-go-rounds (all of which went far too fast to be child-appropriate), there was this huge enclosure:


attached to the main carnival office:


Now I'm a sucker for anything with a huge serpent hanging over the entrance:


so I had to go on this little yathra. Once I got in, I was... actually really impressed/scared. They had essentially recreated (or attempted to) the Kashmiri landscape, as well as the various checkpoints (I don't really know the proper word for this. Stops? Noteworthy locations?) along the way. I wish I could have gotten more pictures, but as soon as I snapped this one of the entire pilgrimage from the entrance, a guard yelled at me that taking pictures was banned. So here's the first impression:


And if you want to see more, I guess you'll just have to come to Rajasthan and go on the pilgrimage yourself!