But I would walk five hundred miles, And I would walk five hundred more…

Well not me exactly. Or at all. But as you will see walking pays an important part of this blontary. So, thanks Proclaimers for providing the title to this week’s entry.

I am struck this week by the willingness to sacrifice for one’s belief. I mentioned a few weeks ago that Ramadan was starting – 30 days of fasting by believing Muslims. During daylight hours, observant Muslims go without any food or drink; they break their fast with Iftar, or the meal that breaks the fast. I have watched staff members and students observe their fast and gather in our auditorium for evening prayer and Iftar. I am not a stranger to fasting but I haven’t come close to fasting for such a long period. I am impressed with those who have fulfilled this important aspect of their religious observance.

Now to the walking part. Shifting from Muslims to Hindus, this week marked an important Hindu observance: Kanvar Yatra. During Kanvar Yatra participants carry water from the Ganges to their local temples that honor Shiva (see below), where the water is used in purification ceremonies. This is where the above referenced 500 miles comes in. It is not at all unusual for Kanvarias to cover hundreds of miles. Originally participants walked or ran the entire distance, usually barefoot. Now, most often they participate in teams, taking turns in walking or running. In between, they ride in the back of trucks, in cars, or on motorcycles. One characteristic of most of the trucks is blaring VERY LOUD music. You can hear the trucks coming from a long ways away. Participants keep going 24 hours a day until they complete their journeys. There are rest stations, provided by local communities, to support those who are walking. At these rest stations there is food, drink, and even medical attention for those who need it. Providing support to the Kanvarias is considered as much a form of worship or service as actually making the journey.

Also originally the water was carried in simple pots on either end of a bamboo pole carried across the shoulders. Those simple arrangements still exist but they are increasingly rare. They have been replaced with elaborate scaffolding of light wood and paper or fabric. Even full shrines are carried by teams of walkers, some with colored lights all over them. Here are some pictures Rae and I took. All of these were at night so the quality isn't great but I think you’ll get the feel for what we saw.

Rae here,

I’m going to add a few other random thoughts and tidbits that I got out of watching part of this process.  It seems that there are only male runners.  There seems to be very little involvement of women.  Women are mostly standing along the road and giving out some food, water, or just cheering on the runners.

 Phil talked about the trucks that travel along with the runners and play loud music.  Sometimes the music is live, being made by the actual riders with a heavy emphasis on drumming, but quite often it seems to be broadcast from some sort of recorded source.  There is a platform built on the top of the truck and that is where the musicians or other supporters sit, stand and dance around.  They are usually quite enthusiastic and excited.  It would be pretty hard to miss the fact that they are coming your way.  I don’t know if the open space below the platform is used as a resting place for the runners or a place to store supplies, or what.  While the picture we got is blurry hopefully you get a bit of an idea.    

Most of the runners are dressed in orange.  I’m not sure of all the significance other than it is connected to saffron, and that is what they call that color of orange.   Saffron in Hinduism is a highly religious color associated with sacrifice, abstinence, and the quest for light and salvation. Hopefully that helps explain some of the significance. 

The walkers/runners of the pilgrimage make their journey down the same roads that all the rest of us travel and I know we have mentioned on more than one occasion how crazy and crowded the traffic here, and other places is.  In most areas there are no special provisions made in the way of clearing a lane or blocking off areas.  The trucks and runners somehow manage to make their way through the traffic and the traffic somehow manages to accommodate them.  I guess when you are used to avoiding cows, you can also avoid some noisy trucks that are announcing runners. 

It was a fun to watch and learn a bit more about.  Phil picked me up after work one evening and we traveled a ways out of Delhi to try to get a better look at the runners and a bit of the process.  It was getting dark and most all our shots were taken from the car so the quality is not great, but hopefully you get the idea.  It is a highly religious event that takes place in the middle of the everyday world.  Amazing, crazy, and inspiring.

Hope you enjoy the pictures. 

       

Namaste.                         

We are not alone, being on our own….

Thanks to the Fruit Bats (yeah, I don’t know them either) for today’s lyrical title. It reflects what it was like at Church today. Since I have been called to be in the Branch Presidency, I have dreaded the day I would be the only member of the Presidency in attendance. Sure, there is the issue of having too many things to do and no one else to get them done, but that isn’t my issue. I always figure I would only do what I could. If things didn’t work exactly right, or if absolutely everything didn’t get done, “oh well”. Fifty years from now, who would remember? I did however have a couple of apprehensions.  Initially one of my concerns was not knowing all the members of the Branch, well that’s not an issue now.

My other concern was and remains speaking essentially no Hindi, what do I do when a member who speaks essentially no English needs something? I have written before about giving interview. At least as long as another member of the Branch Presidency is here, I can always hold up a finger say “ek minute (one minute)” and go get someone else. So what to do when there is no one else there?

Well, today I found out. It wasn’t too bad. I made it through unscathed and got home perhaps only an hour later than usual. President Jurial is with his wife and new born baby boy (Rimpy gave birth on Wednesday – picture below) and President Kuberan is in the South visiting is wife’s family. So I got to live one of my fears. As I said, not too bad. I once again got to give an impromptu talk, as one of our speakers did not show up. However, speaking, whether with or without notice is not an issue. It’s always been a joke in our family, although one born in truth, if you want something done, ask Rae; if you want something said, ask Phil.  In other words, I am all talk.

Here, now is a woman of action, Rae.

Life on the home front was pretty quiet with only some of the usual issues to deal with, i.e. power outages, lies from the landlord and his managers, you know, the usual.  I know, same song and actually the same verse.  I won’t bore you with those fun details, but will say I’m tired of feeling lied to and jerked around.  There, I’ve vented.

Saturday we decided to try another movie.  We had planned to go see How to Train Your Dragon II with the Slocombes.  We were too slow and the movie ended on Thursday.  So we decided to see Planes, Fire and Rescue.  It was a fun movie and the Slocombes first experience at the movies.  Normally we would have gone to dinner afterwards but it turned out that Phil had to go to work for a (hopefully) quick meeting at 4:00.  I went home to chillax while Phil went to his meeting which only lasted 3 hours.  Oh yeah!  So much for his day off.  That’s how we roll in India. 

I did go to lunch with Phil one day this week.  That’s always a nice break. 

Phil did talk about today and how shorthanded he was.  That was the case for primary also.  Just before church Phil got a call from the primary president’s husband saying that she wouldn’t be there today.  That doesn’t seem like a big deal, but they are in the process of reorganizing the presidency and only one counsellor has been called.  She however is the woman Phil spoke of earlier that had gone home to visit her family (President Kuberan’s wife).  Time to regroup.  I told him that I’d go in there and come up with something.  I’m normally in YW for 3^rd hr.   There was a small group today and it really was pretty fun being in there with them.  The Primary all meets together so the biggest challenge is trying to do something that works for the varied age group 3-12.  Didn’t realize that Phil stuck his head in and took a picture of us.  Guess I was having fun. 

I know I’ve talked about how close cars come to each other and to people.  Well, to illustrate that let me tell you why the primary president wasn’t there today.  Last Sunday as she was walking home an auto (a motorized three wheel taxi) drove so close to her that they ran over her foot and fractured it.  See told you we are close.  Poor Ruchika. 

So, today was play the organ for sacrament meeting, teach primary, and then meet with the YW president to do some planning.  My Sunday was shorter and easier than Phil’s.

 Namaste.                        

And all he’d say was rain, rain, rain….

The monsoon started this afternoon, two weeks late and three days early. Two weeks late because historically the monsoons should have started by now based on historical start dates. Three days early because the weather man said the rains were supposed to start on Wednesday. The two week delay is actually a big deal. A deal of three weeks means the monsoon will produce so little rain that crop harvest will be catastrophically low. A delay of two weeks like this year will mean crops will be reduced but there will still be a viable harvest. I read an article the other day that stated, probably correctly that there is no single weather phenomenon that affects more people than monsoon in India.

I have decided to kick up my study of Hindi. I have been focused on learning the Hindi alphabet. This may be more detail than anyone else wants to know but I think it is kinda cool. The “natural” state of consonants is accompanied with a short “a” sound like the (A in America). So (written in roman letters) the consonants are ka, kha, ga, gha, and so forth. These consonants are changed to other consonants not by adding another vowel to the k, kh, g, gh, and so forth but by adding a mantra to the base consonant.  This is harder to explain than to show, so I’ll show it using ka as an example:

The red marks you see on the "ka" symbol are called mantra. As I said, they change the sound of the base consonant. Note the third symbol. The mantra that changes the sound actually is written before base symbol (in this case a short i sound, as in bit). The fourth symbol is essentially the mirror image of the third; it make long the base symbol a long e sound, as in feet) So, too much information, right? I am sorry. I know it makes me a nerd but I think this is really cool. 

Here’s Rae.

This week has been pretty uneventful so this entry will likewise be pretty uneventful.  I did go out to lunch with Sister Slocombe and a sister from our branch, Amy Paul.  Sister Slocombe is a senior missionary, here with her husband, who are assigned to the mission office.  Amy and I had agreed to meet her at the mission office and then go to lunch from there.  The mission office is on the 3^rd floor.  Remember that the way they do floors here is ground, 1st (which we would call 2^nd), 2^nd (which we would call 3^rd), etc. So, the office is on the 3^rd floor (which we would call 4^th).  The building is being remodelled.  The basement, ground floor, and 1^st floor are being converted to take the place of the building that is currently being used for 2 branches.  The old building is about a block away and is owned by someone else and leased by the church.  This new building is part of the mission home, office and Mission President’s residence.  I digress.  Back to lunch, and my reason for the long explanation about the remodel.  Because of the remodel, the building’s elevator was not functioning and so a trek up the stairs was required.  I know that sounds like I’m in such bad shape that climbing the stairs was too much. This building like the one we meet in [Phil-and like most buildings in India] doesn’t enclose and air condition the stairs.  So when you need to use the stairs, you have to enter the “hot zone”.  The multiple flights of stairs was not the problem, it was the 104 degrees that I objected to.  Anyway, we survived that and had a nice lunch at a local mall that had nice air conditioning.  It was fun to spend time with these ladies. 

I’ve been thinking of writing a bit about some of the buses around here.  There are basically three different colored public transportation buses.  Green, orange and red.  I’m unclear on the difference in the green and orange, maybe routes.  The red bus is the only one that is air conditioned and it costs a bit more to ride. There are pictures below of the red and green but we still need a picture of the orange one there. Here’s the part that I find interesting.  I’ve been told by more than one person that women should not ride the red bus because it is air conditioned.  Air conditioned buses, it is explained, are bad for women and will cause them to become ill because they are too cold?!?!?  I’ve tried to pay attention to see if people really believe this and if the red bus is only ridden by men.  While I know this is not a scientific test, I do have to say that I have observed mostly men on these buses.  I’ll keep observations going and update if I find my conclusions are wrong.   Poor women!

Today was branch conference at the Delhi 3^rd branch which meets in the old building that I talked about above.  Since I’m the 1^st counsellor in the District Young Women’s I visited that branch.  I was told that normally they have 4 or 5 young women but today they had a record number [Phil - the word had gotten out that Rae was going to be there].  There were a couple of investigators, one young woman that was baptised last week and one young woman that just came in from primary.  I thought you’d like to see what a Young Women’s group in Delhi India looks like.  There are some really impressive young women here and they will be the future leaders of the church in India.    

Namaste.                         

I saw a film today, oh boy….

After a year without seeing a movie in India, Rae and I saw two movies this week. On Thursday, one of the teams from the campus went to see a movie. It was their reward for completing a very long, very complex project. I asked them what kind of reward they would like to have and seeing a movie was the unanimous answer. I was willing to send them all off to see a movie but they insisted that I go with them. I thought, “Fine, if I am going to see a Hindi movie, then Rae should go with us.” So I paid for her ticket and off we went.

As mentioned, above it was a Hindi movie, the English translation of which is One Villain. Bollywood movies are best known for singing and dancing – lots of light fun. However, they also make thrillers, as well as every other genre including westerns. This one was a thriller with a fairly complex story structure, jumping back and forth in time. Trying to understand everything that was going on, with the dialog in Hindi and no subtitles, was a challenge. Fortunately, based on sample of three movies I’ve seen, they always seem to have intermissions. During the intermission, I cranked up the Google machine and read the plot summary. All of a sudden the pieces came together and I enjoyed the second half of the movie much more.  Oh, I guess I should say just because it was a thriller doesn’t mean there was no singing and dancing. However, it was set in a night club and didn’t involve the movie principals, except as observers. It was also quite dark by typical Bollywood standards.

Movie two was in English, Transformers 4, and I actually think I understood the Hindi movie more fully. OK, the plot was dead simple but the way the movie was cut, the similarity of the good and bad transformers, and the overall grey tone of the cinematography made it difficult for this old man to understand the details of all the computer generated graphic action scenes. Since that was, oh, 90% of the movie, you can see my problem. I am not sure watching it in 3D really helped me with understanding the computer generated graphics either, for that matter. But it was cool watching stuff fall.

So on balance, “Yes” to Ek Villain and “No” to Transformers 4.

Now a couple of things about the process. First of all, and most importantly, they have popcorn. Since I am married to a woman who is genetically unable to watch a movie without simultaneously eating popcorn that was a very good thing. Second, the popcorn wasn’t too bad. Finally, a very cool thing is all the seats in the theaters are reserved. You can get them at the box office but you can also do it online. There is an app called Book My Show, which covers most theaters in Delhi. So you go on to the app, pick the movie, pick the theater, pick the time and pick you seats. Easy, peasy.  Since we’ve been here a year many things may have changed – is a similar app available in the US now?

Here’s Rae.

My part of the blog is going to be some highlights of my week.  These are random and kind of all over the place so bear with me. 

I know we have mentioned in the past that it is not uncommon to see men standing at the side of the road urinating.  Earlier in the week Phil was telling me that India is one of the top countries for public elimination, so not just whizzing.  Tuesday as I was out and about I witnessed my 1^st, I’ll call him “squatter”.  As the car turned the corner and moved behind him I was probably 6 feet away.  The image of his bare backside will be etched in my mind for heaven knows how long.  Later in the week I noticed another guy but luckily he was behind a small mound of dirt.  Unlike some of my next experiences, this experience comes without pictures.  Phew!

This is mango season and fresh mangos are at the top of my list of favorite fruits.  There are several varieties of mangos depending on the area they come from.  Lychees are also fresh right now.  While I have eaten and loved lychees I’ve never seen them fresh.  If I did I didn’t know what they were and I wouldn’t have thought they looked particularly yummy.  So, I thought some of you might be interested to see what fresh lychees, and one variety of mango, look like.

Friday afternoon Phil and I went to the National Museum.  The museum was interesting and we didn’t see all there was to see so we will be going back again.  The thing about the museum was that it, like almost everywhere we’ve visited, is poorly maintained and things are not clean.  I know that dealing with the black soot that covers everything is a challenge, but cleanliness just doesn’t seem to be a priority.  Anyway, hope you enjoy the pictures.

Cows are not uncommon, but I’ve usually seen them wandering around, laying off to the side of the road or laying on a center median, rarely in the middle of the road. Friday on the way to the museum there was a cow laying in the middle of the road.  The car that you see the side of is our car which was about 6 inches from him with motorcycles on two other sides of him.  He wasn’t bothered at all by the fact that traffic was moving so closely around him.  Just lying there in the shade in the middle of the road, why not?

One last thing I’d like to share.  Last week in church a young man spoke and was talking about women in his life and how they had helped teach him different things.  One woman he said had really helped him learn the importance of honesty, and then shared the following experience.  He (Shibu) is a college student and attending a local university.  He was sitting for an exam with 29 other students.  There was a supervisor who was overseeing the exam.  As Shibu was working on his exam he noticed a lot of the students were using books or papers to get their answers, not being honest.  After a bit, the supervisor took their books and papers away from them but, after that, he asked the class how many of them would like to be able to take the test using their books.  29 students raised their hands, all but Shibu.  The supervisor then told them if they would each pay him 300 rupees (about $5) then he would let them use their books and papers.  Everyone, except Shibu, paid him the money and he stepped outside into the hall to watch for his supervisor so that he wouldn’t get caught letting the students cheat.  WHAT? Unbelievable, except from other things we’ve heard, maybe not so unbelievable.  Yet another story of bribes being paid.  [Phil here – the preferred term is "administrative fees"].

Namaste.