Saturday, March 8, 2014

Welcome to the Hotel California, Such a lovely place, Such a lovely place….


The Eagles’ song, the lyrics of which are cited above, is well known. It applies this week to us because this afternoon we got a call that the daughter and two grandsons of a Sister in our branch were in danger and needed a safe place to stay (that her husband and his associates wouldn't know about) until Monday when she has an appointment at the US Embassy. We, apparently, are now running a safe house.  Other than having a spare bedroom and knowing the mother/grandmother, we really don’t have any idea what is going on.

One thing about India, it is rarely dull. Woohoo!

On Friday night Rae and I went to a reception for representatives of the embassies here in Delhi and business representatives. From a business standpoint, it was okay. I made a few contacts; our Dean made a few contacts. There was a very interesting program which consisted of numbers representing various states of India. Once again, we got drug on to the dance floor. During the last number of the program dancers started to go out to the audience and attempted to bring guests to the dance floor. Rae had just said, “I think we should move over a little so we are less conspicuous,” when one of the performers grabbed my hand and started pulling me to the dance floor. Despite what she said, I knew Rae wanted to get up there and cut a Punjabi rug so I grabbed her hand too. Next thing the two of us are in a dance circle with a half dozen performers. I am sure we were the hit of the night.

My mobile battery was almost dead so I only got the two pictures below. This was an amazing display the one guy was triple blind folded; the other guy was kneeling with some kind of vegetable on his hand, another one on his head, and a “straw” in his mouth (I couldn’t really see what it was other than it was red). The first guy starts dancing around the stage waiving two swords. After a few minutes, including taking swings of the swords right by the second guy, he split the two vegetables and cut the straw. After that, the blindfolded guy was brought back to the front of the stage. Another guy was brought in and he laid down. Again a root vegetable was applied, this time to his stomach. Again, blindfolded guy danced around the stage, this time with a short-handled pick axe. This time he smacks the ground with the pick axe all around the head and body of the guy lying on the floor. Finally he splits the vegetable on the second guy’s stomach. Funny, they couldn’t get anyone to come from the audience to help with either of these two numbers.




Not much else from me this week other than work, and more work. So I am going to pass off the blog to Rae.

I will just warn you now, that our “out and about” blog entries are numbered. This morning we went back to the temple of Akshardham.  We had gone there a few weeks ago with my niece, her husband and the McConkies.  Our time there was limited and we were not able to see everything, so went back to see the rest.  This temple is one that doesn’t allow ANY cameras or phones (trust me they do a thorough pat down), so there was absolutely no picture taking. This is the temple that had the elaborate elephant carvings.  It is truly a beautiful modern day temple (Indian style anyway).

We heard they have a big screen movie, a historical display a boat ride and musical water fountains, (the fountains were all torn apart and being completely redone).   We thought the boat ride sounded pleasant and the other stuff okay so, we went back to see those things. The fountains were still under construction and it turns out that if you want the boat ride you have to do the other two things. I thought the boat ride would be this pleasant excursion, but it turns out it was more like a Disneyland’s “It’s a Small World”.  Well, not “it’s a Small World” exactly, there was no music. Perhaps, “Pirates of the Caribbean”. It covered (in about 15 minutes) 10,000 years of Indian history. There are an amazing number of things that originated here. It was all enjoyable, but not quite what I had expected. As I noted, no cameras nor phones are allowed in Akshardham, so naturally we have no photos of our own, but here are a couple we got off the Internet.





Now, back to my original comment.  The weather here is quickly heating up and so our days of wanting to be out and about will soon be coming to an end.  Hopefully we will still be able to get in few more sights before we begin entertaining you with the more human interest type posts.   


Namaste.

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