Jana Gana Mana Adhinayaka Jayehe Bharata bhagya vidhata…

The title to this week’s blontry is the first stanza of the Indian national anthem. I picked that as the title this week because Friday was Indian Independence Day and so it seemed appropriate to talk about. Actually I kinda have the national anthem running through my head these days. I have heard it sung three or four times since Thursday and it had stuck with me.

There is controversy about the origins of the anthem. Some say it was written in honor of King George, who was making a visit to India. Many people believe that is the ruler mentioned in the lyrics. However the man who wrote the original poem from which the lyrics are adapted clearly has stated they weren’t written about “…George V, George VI, or any other George.” Who the ruler actually refers to is open to interpretation. Since the vast majority of Indian citizens are Hindu, most of the population probably assume it means Shiva, Vishnu, Shakti, or whichever god their family particularly worships; Muslim’s of course would identify with Allah; and so forth: each person identifying the ruler in light of his or her own religious perspective. I guess for those who have no religion, the ruler could even be King George or some other mortal leader. In that sense it is the perfect song for India and its multi-culturalism.

Here is an English translation of the lyrics:

Thou art the ruler of the minds of all people,
Dispenser of India's destiny.
Thy name rouses the hearts of Punjab, Sindhu, Gujarat and Maratha,
Of the Dravida, Utkala and Bengal;
It echoes in the hills of the Vindhyas and Himalayas,
mingles in the music of Yamuna and Ganga and is
chanted by the waves of the Indian Ocean.
They pray for thy blessings and sing thy praise.
The saving of all people waits in thy hand,
Thou dispenser of India's destiny.
Victory, victory, victory to thee.

It’s actually kind of cool, I think, that the national anthem was written in a version of Sanskrit such that it can be sung without change in nearly all if not all the official languages (other than English) throughout India. It would sound a little different depending on how those Sanskrit characters were pronounced, but still it can be sung. This might seem like a small thing in the US when there is only the official language of English. But in a country where there are more than 20 official languages and fair amount of chauvinism about the “rightness” of their local language, to have everyone sing in his or her own language is a big deal.

For those who would like to hear the anthem sung, here is a video of it being sung at a meeting at our Church on Friday.

As you might expect, saffron, white, and green is as ubiquitous here around Independence Day as red, white, and blue are in the US for the 4th of July. People often wear those colors, particularly on the 15th. Stores decorate with those colors as well. Below are a couple of pictures from a mall we frequent that show the use of the Indian Tri-color in decorations.

Well, that’s it for me. Here’s Rae.

Just a quick note about the activity at the church on Friday.  Because it was Independence Day and most people had the day off, the district decided to have a missionary activity. Even district wide they were projecting an attendance of around 50 people.  When Phil and I arrived just a couple of minutes late (we’re becoming Indian) most of the chapel was already full.  As in true Indian style as the meeting progressed more people filtered in and more chairs had to be brought in.  There ended up being 246 people attend the activity.  It was inspiring to me to see that many people come and be so excited about sharing the gospel.  The church is growing here in India. 

Another note about the anthem that they sang at the close of the activity.  I will give the people here credit for being enthusiastic singers, but usually their enthusiasm is expressed in their own individual key rather than one unified key. Don’t know if the recording really captures this, but it really was beautiful and shockingly in the same key.  I loved hearing it and was moved as I listened to them sing. 

As seems to be my contribution lately, I will share a few random thoughts and pictures.  I’ve talked before about how amazed I am at the size of loads that are carried on the backs of bicycles.  Here are a couple of pictures that will help illustrate. 

These two shots are of a bicycle moving at least a dozen boxes.  I don’t know what was in them or how heavy each box was, but it was an impressive load.  It is taken from the car as we are passing, so not the greatest photos but you should be used to that by now. 

I think I’ve mentioned in the past that I’ve never seen trash trucks, at least not like we have back home.  Our trash goes out each day to the guard house and someone travels our neighbourhood, on a bicycle and collects it into a much larger bag.  These bags are later gone through and the trash that has value is removed and sold by the collector.  This is how they make their living.  We don’t pay anything for trash pick-up. These two pictures show a guy hauling a bag that looks like those I’ve mentioned above.  I’m not sure if his is full of garbage but that is what they look like.  It is not uncommon to see someone with two, three or even 4 of these bags loaded behind them. 

My third picture/thought is of a barber set up.  Sometimes our driver brings us into our neighbourhood a back way.  This is a neighborhood street and like most neighborhood streets is very narrow and requires some close maneuvering.  During the day there are always two men/barbers set up next to the wall.  When it is dark there is no sign of them.  Their set up consists of a very small table, a mirror, either propped up or hung on the wall, a chair and their tools.  There is no sign of electricity.  This like most of my shots are taken from a moving car so not the best.  (Further down that same street, along that same wall, there are usually two or three guys sorting through some of those bags of garbage I mentioned earlier.  I’ll try to get a poor quality picture of them some time.)

Yesterday I had to be back at the Vasant Vihar building again for a district training that we were doing for some new YW leaders.  It is not unusual to see cows in that neighbourhood.  There is a park close to the church building and in one corner of the park is a small Dump.  The cows go to the dump to sort through for food.  Within a half block of leaving the building we saw 5 or 6 cows, probably headed to the park.  Here is a picture of one of those guys.  They are not intimidated at all by the traffic and just calmly make their way along. Guess they know no one would dare hit them. 

One last thing to share.  This is not a happy note so not a good way to end, but wanted to mention it.   We have a guard that has been our main guard.  He is here almost every day, even most weekends.  He stays in a room at the back of the property.  There is usually a different guard for nights, some weekends and the times when our guard has gone home to be with his family.  Last Wednesday he was at the gate in the morning, but I guess not feeling well so he went home and a substitute guard came.  We heard Thursday afternoon that he had passed away from a heart attack.  I don’t know how old he was but probably no older than us.  So sad to think that his life was spent standing at someone’s gate and away from his family most of the time.  Life here is hard for so many. 

Sorry about ending on a sad note, but I feel her deserves at least a mention. 

    

 

Namaste.                        

Find a thread to pull and we can watch it unravel…

Well, of course since we are into year two, we are seeing the second round of festivals. So here’s a test to see what you remember from last year: today is Raksha Bandhan; what is the key element of this festival? If you said spraying each other with color, you are wrong. If you said throwing popcorn and grain into a bonfire to cast out evil spirits, you are wrong. If you said sisters tying threads onto the wrists of their brothers to symbolize the bond and responsibility for brothers to protect their sisters, ding, ding, ding; you win!

As I mentioned last year, the basics of Raksha Bandhan are these: sisters put threads or threaded bracelets on their brother’s wrists. The brother covenants to protect and watch over his sister. Originally this was a Hindu religious observance. Now it is fairly secular with people of many religious faiths participating. Also, a brother’s protection has grown to include giving of gifts by the brothers to the sisters. It has also expanded from brother and sister to any male female platonic relationship. In fact some girls use giving a rakshi (the threaded bracelets) as a way of cooling off a relationship or letting a boy know she doesn’t feel about him in a serious way. “Dude, she’s just not that in to you.”

This has been somewhat of a wasted week, at least for me. I have been fighting some kind of bug for about a week and it finally caught up to me. I came home early on Wednesday. Thursday, I stayed home. I went to work on Friday but after a half day I was done in and came home. I was feeling much better Saturday. Even though we hadn’t been out, Rae and I decided to go help clean the church. Well, that was probably a mistake. It was about a 1,000 degrees and 200 percent humidity. After two hours, I was feeling totally wasted and Rae wasn’t in much better condition. I ended up staying home today from church but Rae was a better person than me. She fulfilled her calling and went to Dwarka Branch for their Branch Conference. It took her an hour to get there but it has been two and half hours since church was over and she is still not back. She has been texting me and says the traffic is terrible and there are areas the runoff water from the rain is very deep.

August is the rainiest month in Delhi, and today the rain has been trying to keep up the average. We had about two hours of torrential rain with another hour or so of softer, slower rain. That has mitigated the heat somewhat but given the fact our windows are all totally fogged over, I am sure it is not too cool out there. I don’t suppose we are done with rain. I just hope Rae gets home before the heavens open again. Besides, I’ve run out of things to write about. She has to get back to pick up this hand off:

Here’s Rae….

Finally!!!!! I've made it home.  As Phil mentioned above, I went to branch conference at Dwarka branch today.  I left 1 ½ hours before I needed to be there but luckily made it there in 1 hr.  That was definitely not the case coming home.  After a 2 ¾ hr. ride I’m home. The festival that Phil mentioned above and the rain were the cause of the delay.

Traffic was very dense and slow, and in some places there was deep standing water.  When we lived in Arizona there was a lot of talk about how people there didn’t know how to drive on wet roads.  Well take Delhi drivers and rain and maybe you can guess what the result might be.  On the way to the Dwarka branch it was just lightly raining.  As we went down into an underpass/ tunnel I noticed that quite a number of bicycles and motorcycles had decided to pull off to the side, climb off the bikes, have a seat, and just chill out there for a while, hoping I guess that the rain would pass and they could have a dryer ride.  Don’t know how that worked out for them.  The interesting thing is there is no shoulder or pull off section so all this takes place in what would be a lane.  It’s always interesting to me how cars will just stop wherever they want and generally are not hit or run over.  Somehow traffic just squeezes around them 

Coming home traffic was thick in both directions so I was surprised as we headed up a fly over to look into the oncoming lanes and see absolutely no traffic.  I thought is this piece of road closed, but why?  As we headed down the other side I could see traffic at a dead stop.  Looked like someone had put up an invisible barricade and every car behind that was at a dead stop.  As we got closer there were two men, one from each car, (2 cars side by side) having some sort of heated discussion, or worse.  Made me think of our old driver, just the kind of thing he would do.  Didn't mind delaying the hundreds of cars behind them while they had it out.  There’s always something that surprises me. 

As we came to areas where there was standing water, I’d say 12-18 inches, many of the cars tried to inch over to the side of the road where the water was not as deep.  Some cars took this opportunity to gain an advantage by racing past the slower cars.  Why wouldn't you speed up and race through 18” of water if it got you a few cars ahead?  The one that I really liked was the motorcycle with the man and his wife, in her lovely sari, speeding through the deep water and the water spraying up over their heads.  Wonder what she had to say to him when they got home.  I was relieved to see that they stayed upright and in one piece, although quite wet.  Arizona in the rain times 10. 

Because of this festival and because it was a weekend there were many families on the road today.  It continually amazes me how many people you can fit on a motorcycle or squeeze into a car.  So many families of 4, plus a box or package on a motorcycle.  Quite a few families of 5 and two families of 6.  Amazing!  I saw one minivan, and not the extended type, that was pretty loaded and I think I was able to count 14 separate bodies as we crept slowly along side by side. 

I could go on forever about so many things that catch my attention as I travel places, but I will elaborate some of those in a future blontry.  I will end by sharing a picture that I was able to capture on my way home.  I see this all the time but it is so hard to get a shot of it, and while todays is still not great it may give you an idea.  It is very common to see the auto (tuk tuk) drivers driving along with their legs crossed, sitting on one foot, or one knee brought up sort of under their chin.  Some very casual positions. 

I've also posted 3 pictures of our foggy windows.  One is from our living room looking out into our front yard.  Two are of the glass enclosure that surrounds our stairway into the basement.  This is what happens when it’s warm and humid outside and you have single pane windows.

Until next week,

Namaste.         

Mister Banker, Mister please, how much does money mean…

Rae and I are actively making a list of things we like about India; things we will miss when we go back to the States. Today, however, I am going to spend my blontry talking about one of the things I won’t miss. I don’t think I have expressed how archaic the banking system is in India and how frustrating it is – an oversight I intend to correct immediately.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but I hate Indian banks. First, it takes an act of Parliament to open an account. When I first got here, I was told I would need to open an account at the bank that MAII uses, so my pay checks could be deposited. In order to do that, I had to have all of my foreign registration papers, passport and visa; all my employment papers; an affidavit from our CEO; and dozens of pages of banking forms. After all that, it still took a week until my account was actually open. They are so slow and inefficient it is maddening.

This gets reinforced every month when I do the transfer of funds back to the US. Each month I have to go through the same routine of signing about a dozen pages of legalese; I have to provide each time the details of my US banking information (heaven forbid they might retain that information from month to month); each month I have to provide a signed, blank check; and periodically (I haven’t been able to determine any pattern) I have to sign a statement that I am not transferring money for nefarious purposes. To make matters worse, even though there are seemingly a dozen bank officers at my branch alone, there is only one who can do the transfer. So if he is sick, on holiday, or out of the office on business, I have to wait until he is back and available. Very controlled, orderly, and inefficient.

Oh here’s something. There are two kinds of checks. One kind can be cashed but one kind can only be deposited into an account. If it is with the same bank, the funds are available in a day or so. However if it from another bank, good luck.

There is another aspect of this I experience nearly every week when I deposit the funds that people donate at Church. First, you need to have a separate deposit for cash and checks. OK, that seems weird but if you insist I guess that’s okay. The really weird part to me is you need to have separate deposit slips for each check. Further, while the teller will take and process checks from his or her own bank, checks from other banks are examined and information is taken but then the checks have to be put into a separate drop box.

The final frustration - I think we did mention this at the time it happened – when Rae finally arrived here, I couldn’t add her to my existing account; neither could we simply get her a debit card to be able to access funds. No we had to set up another, separate account and transfer funds monthly over to it. Now on that account we could both be signers. So, I could be a co-signer on her account but she could not be a co-signer on mine. If she had been here at the time I initially set up the account, I don’t know if that would have been true. Perhaps then we could have set it up as a joint account. Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt.

Operationally, things seem amazingly disorganized. There are computers, but I am not quite sure why since everything has to done on multiple copies of forms and documents. Consequently, there are piles of papers everywhere. They always seem, after a few minutes, to find what they need. Don’t get me started on their cash drawers. There are no trays or dividers for different denominations. There are stacks of bills, grouped together (but again no dividers) on their sides, so the denominations are not even evident. Once again, this whole systems seems inefficient and prone to error but somehow they seem to make it work.

So, I won’t miss the Indian banking system. The saving grace is they have adopted ATMs, which is where I do all the banking I can. But between my transfers to the US and deposits for the Church, I can’t seem to do everything that way. “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.”

Now, with her unique and cheery take on life, here’s Rae!

I will start by saying that from my stand point the banking isn’t so bad but that’s probably because most of it falls to Phil.  Since we both have a debit card on my account I had the bright idea that we just close Phil’s account and move to mine.  He had to remind me that it took him almost 2 months, and many forms to get his check direct deposited.  We certainly don’t want to cross that bridge again so, two accounts it is. 

So, as has been my pattern of late, I will share a few random thoughts as my part of the blontry. 

A week ago Monday Phil got a text from our branch president inviting us to FHE at the church at 6:30pm.  President Juriel’s wife, Rimpy, had had a baby boy on the 16^th of July.  He didn’t tell us that this event was for them to introduce their baby to everyone.  We got to the church at 6:30.  When will we learn what 6:30 really means?  There were about 4 people there when we arrived.  As we waited, slowly people continued to trickle in. This is pretty typical of most meetings or gatherings. Some of these people were carrying gifts so we started to guess that this FHE had something to do with the new baby.  After a while members of their family started arriving and finally a bit before 8:00 the Juriels arrived with their baby.  There was a song and a prayer and a few comments were made about families and then the Juriel’s both spoke, in Hindi.  I gathered that they were talking about their adjustment to parenthood.  After this part of the program dinner was served and people enjoyed eating and visiting.

After doing the conversion from grams to lbs. we calculated that baby was about 5 lbs.  You may be wondering why I keep calling him baby boy, that’s because they still haven’t named him.  Naming a baby here is a family affair and all the family members get to weigh in on what this child should be named.  It requires much counselling, conferring and I guess some family consensus.  As of last night our little man still had no name.  They were hoping to make the decision by today but I didn’t hear if that actually happened.  Name or no name, he is a tiny, cute little guy and I finally got my turn at holding him last night.

Last night we had a missionary fireside which was well attended and it was there that I got to hold the baby. Here is a picture of President, Rimpy and baby boy on the night of the FHE.  The other picture is of him in my arms last night.

We left the fireside early to go to Old Fort for a light and sound show.  There are 8 forts here in Delhi, Old Fort being one of them.  The show was projected on a wall of the fort and basically covered the History of Delhi for thousands of years dating back to 3000 BC.  Let me just summarize that there were many bloody battles, a lot of destruction and rebuilding, more battles, the rule of the British and then the democracy of the Delhi that exists today. One thought that kept crossing my mind was how lucky I was to be born in the United States.  I struggled with history in school and I think I would die if I had to take history in India.  How do they do it? 

The show was outside and it was hot and humid and I felt like I was being dinner for a lot of mosquitoes, but I’m glad we had the opportunity to go.  One never knows when you go to things if a camera will be allowed so we didn’t take ours.  Our cell phones were not affective, so the only picture we have is one we found on the Internet. It’s better than what we could have taken anyway. 

   

Namaste.

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.