No gnews is good gnews
Well, I had the goal of updating this site once a week so I am going to do it even if at the moment I can't think of anything special that has happened. So I'll just do a category-wise quickie:
School - I am not excited about my classes. Time is running out in the semester and the only class that is really holding my attention is International Relations - fascinating stuff. Hominid Evolution is as boring as if that was the prof's goal. And my health science classes are not so great now -probably because I know I am leaving in a few months and these intro courses are good for those who will continue on, but each day I am more and more sure that Health Science is not for me. Sociology, politics, International Relations, Anthropology and maybe some Psychology as it relates to interpersonal relations. These are the areas that I feel most drawn towards.
Rotary
Not much going on with Rotary nowadays. As always, I spend time with my Rotary host family every week, but I haven't gone to any club meetings lately. I am trying to work into some of the clubs schedules, but it is much easier to show up as a guest than to work your way into the chief-guest, speaker position. So I think i will just start going and giving impromptu presentaions for 5 minutes or so.
Travel
Next Monday - the 29th, I'll be going to Bangalore and then Mysore in the south of India to meet up with fellow Rotary scholar Daphna Dror and to see the festivities of Dasera - a huge festival in India that I believe celebrates the victory of Ram over Ravana in the great Indian Epic "The Ramayana." Calcutta has one of the biggest celebrations but it takes 36 hours to get there by train from Pune. So I will meet Daphna and we'll go to Mysore where they are supposed to have amazing celebrations.
Life in general
Life is good. I am running twice a week in the mornings and swimming thrice at this excellent new 50 meter olympic-style pool I discovered. Together with some other students, I am helping to organize a big Party for the International Students with sports and activities, a food festival (so far about 10 countries are preparing food) and a cultural program. We should have around 130 to 150 people and planning is a chore but it is looking good.
Mom is coming in early Novemeber so I am working on getting our travel plans fixed.
Hmm, this is pretty lackluster.
I'll come back later.
Ganpati Bappa!!! ... Morya!!! Ganpati Festival 2003
Wow. The 10 day long
Ganpati festival just finished. Ganpati, also known as Ganesh, is that extremely popular elephant-headed god that is hugely popular with Indians, especially in Maharashtra and Pune has the biggest celebration of them all. Around this time every year, the 10 day celebration begins. Here is what happens around here during this time:
At home- Most good Hindu families go out and buy a painted terra cotta Ganpati idol, bring it home and make a shrine for it. The statue could be from one to 4 feet tall and during the families' pooja(prayer ceremony), the spirit of the familiy is instilled in the idol. For several days, twice a day, poojas are done twice daily. Towards the end of the 10 days, usually on the 9th night, the family does one final pooja, removing the spirit of the family from the idol, then with much celebration, the idol is taken to the nearest river or lake or even pre-constructed water tank (to cut down on pollution) and immersed then released into the water.
Now the fun part - Each neighborhood takes a collection and uses the money to make a BIG Ganpati related display. Some of these are simple with a large stage, an ornately decorated Ganpati on the dias, and loud blaring music that assults your ears as you walk by. If you go to the old part of town, you find HUGE Ganpati creations - some are painted paper-mache statues that are 10 meters (30 feet) tall and suspended from wires as they move to and fro to a narration that is blasted out of speakers telling a popular story involving Ganpati, Hanuman (the Monkey God) or maybe Shiva. The most spectacular construction was a decent sized temple, constructed of wood that must be around 100 feet tall and is compeltely covered with beautiful blinking lights that flash in white, then in an array of coordinated colorful schemes, dazzling the audience. Endless lines of people line up at many of these temples, buying coconuts, flowers and sweets to give as offerings as they shuffle through the makeshift temples.
Every night, especially the last 5 nights, the streets of downtown are swarming with people - more people than you can possibly imagine if you come from a small town in California. It is absolutely unbelieveble. I would hazzard to guess that their were easily 100,000 people out there on several of the nights, and probably much more. There is a carnival atmosphere as you pass street venders selling all sorts of food and random party favors. Camel rides are available and elephants with colorfully chalked trunks walk the streets. And all the while, people yell "Ganpati Bappa!!!" and receive the immediate Marco-Polo type reply "Morya!!!" by the surrounding masses.
A friend and fellow Rotary Scholar - Daphna Dror - who is newly arrived and doing research at the National Institute of Health in Hyderabad, came to visit during the first few days of the festival. We had a great time going all around town, doing some sightseeing, eating too much and checking out all the beautiful Ganpati displays. At that time, it wasn't too crowded. After she left, I went back downtown on a Saturday night with 6 friends. Immediately the crowds seperated us into a group or 3 and my group of 4 (myself, Isaaic from Ghana, and Sonal and Prachi from Maharashtra). Even with mobile phones, there was no finding the other group. The crowds shuffled down the streets in both directions but on the way to the largest Ganpati temple, 3 streets completely full of one-way-walking-worshippers converged on one intersection. From my perspective, the meeting at that junction was a spectacular mess of black haired, moslty young, male Indians, smiling and shoving left and right, back and forth, in an effort to continue on toward the main temple. From my friends' perspective, it was a bit more claustrophobic as they could only see and smell the throngs of people immediately arround us.
We immediately gave up hope of heading towads the temple, deciding instead to push through the crowd in search of more quiet streets. My presence as the only white man on the streets facilitated our parting of the crowds, and as the 4 of us held each other tightly, I faced backwards, and pushed my way though the crowds caboose first with my friends right in front of me. The shocking effect of a giant white man in their faces gave us just the edge we needed to make our way through that intersection and to the only slighly less ridiculously crowded streets on the other side.
We wandered some more, saw the disturbing red-light district of Pune that I am told during a recent count totalled 10,000 sex-workers or so (many of them from poorer Nepal and a good number them having been sold into sex-slavery by opportunistic relatives). As an aside - I read a story in the Times of India recently where a 10 year old girl was sold to a whore house in Bombay and was rescued 6 years later by the police. She returned to her small rural village and had her Aunt arrested for the crime. The Aunt had made maybe 10 or 20,000 rupees on the deal (20,000= $450). The girls story was special because she was able to help identify the link between the brothels and the police. The red light district is just packed with women of all ages lining the streets, looking out 2nd floor windows and staring at passersby in a distinctly un-Indian way. That is, women do not stare at you here. But these ones do.
So we evenually made our way back through the crowded streets and towards a place where we could catch a rickshaw. At one point, a big group of young boys took an interest in me and began comparing me to a tall Indian film star and yelling out that stars' name. Sonal told them my name was Colin, causing them to go on for 10 minutes yelling my name at the top of their lungs: "Col-in, Col-in, Col-in!!!"
Finally we caught a rickshaw home.
Two nights ago was the grand finale where all the huge Ganpati idols, pulled by tractors, were paraded around town, judged by group of dignitaries on a dias, then ritually immersed in the Mutha river. I went back out at 11pm to find the streets blocked off, main roads were full of people flowing both directions while families sat or slept on blankets in the middle of the road. I was with 5 other Indians. We walked around, found a float that was being judged and actually had a few American girls dancing out in front of it. I was allowed inside the dance area and began dancing as well. The dancers had pinkish-red colored powder all over them and as soon as I began to dance someone threw a handful of the powder on me as well, staining my shirt and baseball had red. Dancing was the easiest way to move along the streets because a large group of people surrounded us holding hands and forming a protected moving dance circle.
Just before I made my way into the dance circle, the judges on the dias announced over the speakers that all of the dancing Foreigners should come up to the dias to be felicitated. I didn't go, but the girls that did each received a handshake and a coconut. Awesome.
On our way home, my friend Bobo and I rode the streets on my motorcycle, passing smaller Ganpati floats with dancing, young, red powder-stained men in front of them. As we passed we'd yell "Ganpati Bappa!!!" and get the resounding "Morya!" out of the tired dancers. If anyone ever wants to come to Pune. This is the time to be here.
