Dasara Followup

Today I went to the grocery store. Along the way I spotted a couple of items which had had a pooja and were still garlanded. Over the last years I've seen a lot of things--all mechanical in some way. I have seen trucks, cars, motor bikes, gates, buses, but till now, never a petrol pump...


I also spotted one of the small garbage trucks which roam our neighborhood collecting the trash almost every day...

Dasara trip

Typical Indian Style, I got invited to go on an expedition on Friday, leaving Saturday morning at 6:30 from downtown Bangalore. A friend at work had a trip to Mysore, there were extra seats on the trip available so I was offered one. Since I didn't have any big plans for the weekend, I decided to go along. Dasara is a 10 day festival celebrated in South India (maybe elsewhere, I'm not sure). There is a lot going on in Mysore for the whole 10 days, culminating on the last day which is Monday this year. Apparently it is divided into 9 days of Puja, 3 each to Lakshmi, Saraswati, and Durga, followed by one day of celebration. It is a time when there are poojas for tools and other implements of work. This came originally from blessings of weapons, but got widened to everything. For example Manju took our car today (sunday) for pooja and it will come back to the house with garlands and other indications of the blessing. We see lots of buses, trucks and other vehicles with garlands and banana leaves attached.

Anyways back to the Mysore trip. We left at about 6:30, in 2 Inovas. Someone from the German Consulate was one of the guests, my co-worker and his wife and several other Germans. Also a couple of Indian ladies. First off we went to breakfast in Mysore, a nice spread typical of any hotel restaurant. After this we were given turbans (sort of helmets with gold material on them) for the men, and shawls for the women. We had to take pictures out front of the hotel. I got a paper copy, but not an electronic one. I hope to get one yet from one of the others who did get pictures.

After this ceremony, we went to the house of someone that the travel agent who arranged this knows in Mysore. An aside-- the travel agent, Manuel, is used a lot by my co-worker and this was a freebie of sorts to show off Mysore to him/us. Manuel lives in Mysore, and knows a lot of people there apparently. He used to be in Industry, but retired from that to be a travel agent. So back to the house. We got to see the decorations they do for Dasara. They had one for the outside of the house, then one with what looked like a depiction of a procession in the main entry hall of the house, and then they had this one, in a separate room. Apparently it is tradition to pass these down inside the family, and for them to be set up each year. Once set up, friends and associates are invited over to see the decorations. It is a way for the families to get together once during the year and meet. We also heard it is a way for the young men to get to meet the young ladies in the social circle who might be 'interesting' to them.

After this we went off to see the palace. I've seen it two times, so I wasn't holding much out for this. But on the way we stopped, and then these 4 horse drawn carriages (of sorts) showed up. We were decked out in our finery, and off we went to the palace. I must say, since we were in the back, it was amusing to see the reactions of the locals and Indian tourists following us. There was a lot of smiling, laughing, and some hand waving. There were also looks of complete befuddlement and confusion. The sad part of the trip is that the vehicular traffic didn't give way at all for the horses. They honked, cut them off, etc. This was a bit uncomfortable for those up front, we (Max and I) didn't notice it too much at the back as one of the cars was following closely to protect our entourage.

Then we arrived at the Palace. We got special treatment there. We skipped the ticket line, we were able to take pictures inside the grounds, but had to hand in our cameras for the palace tour. As we went inside, we were escorted by a policeman. He was obviously there to help us get to specific parts of the palace quickly without having to do the whole tour. Then we were escorted behind the ropes to get close to some objects (ie the golden throne) which the general public had to stay far away from. Not quite the royal treatment, but obviously something special. After the palace, we went for lunch. This was at another hotel (The Windflower) Very nice overall. Didn't get to see the rooms, but the grounds were lovely and the food good.

After lunch, we went to see some wrestling. Wrestling is a tradition around Dasara, particularly in Mysore. We were asked to put on our turbans etc. Then we walked through the muddy parking lot, into the stadium area. We were immediately escorted up on to the VIP platform, and introduced to the Local Minister, along with other dignitaries. Then we were seated to watch the wrestling. The stadium was pretty full of people. But the audience was 99% men. The only women I saw during the whole time were a couple of press people, a couple of other dignitaries, and the ladies who were with us. During our time there we got to watch them put the orange turban on one of the dignitaries. Christina wondered how it stayed on, so they volunteered to put one on her. The begining, and the finishing. And then the result, as we were in the parking lot afterwards.
The wrestlers had to keep going, even when the rain started. It didn't come down hard, but it did get the mat wet, so there were 3 guys who were going around the mat, trying to avoid the ongoing wrestling, drying it with rags. They were able to sop up a fair amoung. Also the Policemen seemed to spend most of their time either chatting or watching the wrestling, not watching what was going on in the crowd, etc.

After the wrestling, we got to relax at a hotel for an hour's nap, and then off to the palace again. We got to see the elephants they use for the ceremonies, we saw the camels too. Then we got to see the royal elephant, and royal cow. It was too dark for good photos, but I did get a few. Look on my flickr if you want to see them. Then we got to see the procession, and the lit up palace. There are over 9000 15 watt lightbulbs on the outside of the palace. They only light it for festivals and one or 2 nights a week for a couple of hours. Otherwise it uses too much electricity. I took a few photos there from the palace grounds, and as well from the hotel where we had dinner. The hotel is a former palace built by one of the Mysore Kings as a guest palace. We got to sit on the 1st floor terrace overlooking Mysore for our dinner. Then we left Mysore at about 10pm and I finally got home around 12:30-- definitely a long day, but a fun trip.

Grey days in Bangalore

It's been really drab here lately with the monsoons having finally hit with full force. The sky has been cloudy more often than not. It has rained almost every day for the last couple of weeks. Not all the time, but it rains hard for a while every afternoon. This has made it harder to get out of the house and do any photography. Saturday it was threatening to rain all morning, and the wind was really blowing. Unfortunately our house now has another house built up right next to the big picture windows we have on the ground and 1st floors, so it looks dark inside all the time. I was starting to feel a bit stuck, when I decided to head out anyways. Then the rains hit. I wasn't really feeling 100%--tummy problems-- so I gave up on Saturday and stayed home and read instead.

Sunday, I felt I just couldn't let the weather get the better of me. So about 3:30 I grabbed a rickshaw and headed for Sankey Tank--which is where the photo above was taken. It is the season to dunk Ganesha in the water, which is part of the reason I was itching to get out. I did manage to get a few photos of one being dunked, and later another showing up as I was getting ready to head back home. A couple of notes on the Ganesha activities. Some families have their own, and they come to dunk him, or do it at home in a bucket or elsewhere, but there are these larger ones which get taken around the neighborhoods. It seems that this activity is mostly young men, and they use a tractor, truck, or any other large vehicle capable of carrying him and them. They will decorate it up with flowers etc, and then they follow, or ride banging drums, and chanting loudly. Sometimes it will take them half an hour to go one block. Other times, they load up in the truck and go joy riding, yelling at everyone as they go by. It seems to be mostly a joyous celebration. And they are thrilled to have their pictures taken while doing this.

After wandering around the tank (or lake as we in the US would call it), I wandered down into Malleswaram. This is an older neighborhood close to Sankey tank. I wandered down Sampige road to the market, and back up. I must say it was nice to get out and wander around. I didn't even get rained on--lucky me. I did find this key maker, there is a fellow like him on the main road near our house too, but I got this one on camera. He shapes the keys by hand with various files. There is nothing mechanized about this process. (There are also higher tech places to get keys around). I also spotted these flowers which were knocked down by the rain into a construction site.

Last weekend we were invited to Manju's daughter's first birthday party. It was at his house. We had a nice time, but were again the guests of honor. We got the only chairs in the house (and there were about 25 people there); we got the first pieces of cake, the first food & drinks. I always feel a bit weird about this, but this is how it is done. Here is Manju with his daughter. You can see more on my Flickr page, including the candle which looked more like a bonfire and played music after opening up, and some of the other visitors.

And finally the grey days, sometimes lead to some fantastic sunsets. Here's one taken from the roof of our house. I was just trying out the camera.

About town

The last few weeks this guy has been set up right across from the entrance to our Layout. I had to capture this for my US readers. I had to think of Obama. My suggestion for him is that we put all the congressmen who don't vote for real healthcare reform on a new congressional health plan. We can park this guy on the lawn outside the capitol building and he can provide for everything that ails them!!


One of my observations about India, is that not everything is so clearly demarcated. Many official items are personalized or done by hand or there is some mix of public and private. For instance one of our nearby police stations has a sign on it that it was provided by some fabric or apparel company. The sign for that is larger than the sign for the police station. If it wasn't for the gun toting policeman guarding the front door, you might not notice right away that it is the local police station. Many of the police now have motorbikes with a special pattern painted on them. They have a leopard print. I assume this was the predecessor to the leopard print. I spotted it on MG road last weekend.


We happened to be going through an intersection we don't normally go through to get to Garuda mall, but because of the construction on MG road, they have made it one way.

On New B.E.L. Road, the main road to our house, on one corner, there is this store. I guess it's a small world after all, but I do wonder what Walt would think of the dolls?


And I won't comment much on this, but those of you who read about it a year ago will recognize the festival. I did really enjoy the Ganesha in the Auto.
And here are people selling the necessaries to go with the Ganesha for the festival.

And an army of Ganeshas, both painted and unpainted, waiting to be blessed and 'drowned' until melted away.

Bannerghatta Park

Yesterday we went to Bannerghatta Park. Bannerghatta is a wildlife park an zoo south of Bangalore. It took us about 1.5 hours to reach there from our house. We had been invited by Linda(a friend through the OWC), who was organizing an outing for some persons who live at a home for mentally disturbed, or delayed people. This is again one of the Charities that the OWC supports. We were going along to escort these residents, though in the end, I don't think they needed too much escorting as they pretty much kept together by themselves.

The first thing we did after we arrived there, was to take the safari tour. Here you can see out of the bus front windows. They had screens over all of the windows, presumably to protect us and to keep people from sticking things out of the bus.
I had heard bad stories about these buses and how crowded they can get. Fortunately we were with this group, so we got our own bus and it wasn't too bad. The driver did take us down this dirt road very quickly, I thought we must look like a car in a cartoon, where when it hits a bump, it flies up in the air and the wheels jump off. Unfortunately this caused the young man behind me to get car sick, so he didn't enjoy the trip so much.

Lions and Tigers and Bears Oh My !!!

Some of the bears we even roaming on the road and able to come up to the bus--you can just see the outline of the bear behind the glass of the door in this picture.

The Safari takes you through several sections. One of which is herbivores, so there is a section of deer, antelope, wild cows etc. Then you get into the section with the bears, where some are behind wire, and others are free to roam the road. We were able to get pretty close to the animals, especially the White tigers. Although you can tell they are still 'caged' animals, but it is nicer than the zoo where the cages are really not much to speak of. You can see one of the other buses in the background. They aren't that big.

After the bus ride, we went for lunch. And after lunch, we walked down the hill to the zoo. They had all kinds of signage about not teasing, feeding or yelling at the animals. It didn't work, but some of the signs were amusing.

At some point we were almost all collected for a group photo. I took this one while they were getting everyone in position for Cindy to take the official photo.

And then we put the group on their bus, and headed home. Conner and Maya seemed to have enjoyed the trip--we did let them wander during the zoo part as the rest of the part moved fairly slowly.

Painting the Future-My Dream India

Sunday Cindy and I went to an event sponsored by Sukrupa. Sukrupa is an organization whose mission is to help underprivileged children escape a background of poverty, slum life, illiteracy and ignorance.
Cindy came to know of the organization through the OWC. It is one of the charities she works with on their charity committee.

The event was an artistic competition between children. I couldn't tell exactly what the age range was, but I know there were kids in 8th and 9th standard at the higher end. Some were probably down to about ten or eleven years old at the lower end.

Basically the children( all 137 of them) were given watercolor paints, brushes, and paper. They were asked to paint on the theme of "My Dream India". These children competing were from both the Sukrupa school, as well as local schools in the area. You can tell by the many school uniforms present.

The children were given roughly 1.5 hours to paint on the theme, and then all of the paintings were collected and hung inside. I was amazed at the creativity present here. Some were very detailed and drew with rulers and pencils before painting, others just started in. Many were very beautiful, and all were inspiring.
Once the paintings were hung up inside, the judges (Cindy was one), were asked to go in and pick the winners. During this time the children were fed Samosas and a sweet. Some of the children from Sukrupa school helped out with the distribution, as did others who were children of other sponsors or judges. The judging panel was comprised of artists, and local business people.

I was amazed at how quiet and well behaved the children were both during the painting, meal and waiting afterward. There was about 20 minutes once the food was done when the judges were making their decisions. I'm glad I didn't have to choose as it would have been very difficult. Anyways the children were sitting quietly, sometimes talking, but not rudely or loudly. Then there was some dancing and singing by some of the children.

In the end prizes were handed out and the event ended. I must say I was very impressed by what the children did, as well as the organization of the event, and how much was done with so little. Hats off to Sukrupa!!
More photos on Flickr.

Squeaky Green

As friends and relatives will likely know, I like to do a bit of gardening. Unfortunately I don't get much time (nor have much space) to do that here in Bangalore. But... About a year ago, we went to a gardening center to pick out some potted plants and other things to spruce up the house. I found a number of plants I liked and we took them home, or had them delivered. I also found a variety of seeds.

So what does this all have to do with squeaking, well not long ago, I heard squeaking one night outside our bedroom window. At first I thought it might be animals. After all we do leave the garbage out there sometimes for collection. I did some looking around and never found anything. Then I heard it again, and yet again, especially on stormy evenings. So I started to get suspicious. We have a couple of plants out there-- actually dwarf papaya trees.

See I had gotten the seeds when we were shopping last year. I had planted 2 in a very large pot, thinking we would have some small (4-6 foot) papaya trees in the pot. Well, they outgrew the pot, and the gardener (who is now gone by the way--he just took off one day and never came back) moved them from the pot on the roof to by the side and front of the house.

I thought I might get one or two papayas from the trees when they started to flower, but holy cow, never this. And guess what, they squeak when the wind blows the trees around. So that is why I hear squeaking outside the window at night. Strangely enough only one of the three plants is very fruitful, the second has a few fruit, and the third has none, though it is around the corner from the other two.