Ganpati Take 2 and Differences

This post is intended to take you through the last few days of Ganpati and explore some differences between Canada and India. This post will be a short one because I am running out of things to talk about.

Firstly I would like to take you through some Ganpati happenings. On Sunday there was a huge celebration to mark the end of the Ganpati festival. The streets were filled with people and it was crazy I have attached a video to show how crazy it was. I went with Jens (German exchange), a Roteract girl and my club president to the mayors bungalow. It was cool because they were doing an eco friendly version of the immersion of the idols so the sea, which is already really dirty, does not become dirtier. At the mayors bungalow we hung out for a bit and watched a few eco friendly immersions then we were about to leave when we were asked to do an interview for a TV network so we did. I just said how I liked the idea of an eco friendly immersion and how much I enjoyed the festival. The interview was on a live feed so I didn’t get to see it on TV but the Roteract girl’s friend said she saw us. Then we were just about to leave again and a newspaper wanted to write an article about us so we waited around again answered a few questions then got a picture, the next day on the third page of a daily paper (that isn’t all that popular) the headline read: “Foreigners On Eco Friendly Bandwagon” and it had our picture. The only bad part is how terribly wrong they spelt my name. I am sure the other exchange students can relate when you can never pronounce or remember the names of people you meet and I figured out it goes both ways. Our ‘normal’ names are really weird to them. So they spelt Allen Fowlis: Alen Souulil, I told the lady how to spell it but she must have had terrible writing so the F looked like an S, instead of W she wrote UU, then li is right and I have no idea how she got the last letter as L maybe the S looked like an L too. So Jens and I are pretty much Bollywood all stars now...not. Speaking of which Bollywood has asked me a couple of times to be in an extra in their movies at Colaba (a touristy area) but I heard it was a scam and plus you can’t work for VISA purposes and Rotary purposes. Julien, a Belgian exchange student, thought Bollywood was a location like Hollywood (when it actually Bombay) so when some guy asked him if he wanted to go to Bollywood he went in to a long hilarious rant (with a French accent I might add) about how he was at Bollywood all last week and this morning and he didn’t like it so the guy asking was pretty unhappy but it was hilarious. I think you had to be there.

It was pretty cool but it was dark by the time we left so we didn’t get great pictures for the real celebration which was on the beach about 500m away. There were literally thousands and thousands of people streaming to the beach to immerse their idols or help immerse a big idol. The beach was packed with people for as long as you could see and the picture really doesn’t do this crazy experience justice. We took quite a few photos but not many of mine turned out great and I really wish I could have seen this in the daylight or at sunset. This is just one of 4 main immersion points and apparently the others are far busier. We went down to the beach and just saw what the whole thing was about there were just a lot of people, there wasn’t a lot going on but there were tons of people. Many of the huge idols which come to this beach were immersed the last day so it was really interesting to see the huge Ganpatis and the way they immerse them. How they do it, or what I’ve heard, is they send one guy out in a boat with a pretty big Ganpati and then the one person has to flip the boat by himself therefore submerging the Ganpati. It was very cool to see this but the pictures aren’t great. I did a lot of walking around that night and I didn’t feel so bad pulling out my camera as there were other Indians pulling out their cameras. Usually when I pull out my camera in the city people give me a dirty look like what are you doing and why are you doing it or maybe a how can I take advantage of this guy. Speaking of which a cab driver tried to get a lot of money out of us for a short ride he didn’t even know the way and he wanted 100Rs and the meter said 21Rs so we gave him the 21 and left. He was very unhappy. We figured out later that when it says something in Rs it is a code for a different amount and we actually gave him 5Rs less than what the amount was but he was trying to take advantage of us so he deserves it.

The rains have not stopped yet so I am pretty pissed about that because they suck. After that is autum and then ‘winter’. I hear October is hot as hell and so is May. Winter is not actually winter it never goes below freezing temperatures so it is like 20 and pleasant in the Winter but people still wear their sweaters. Maybe I will have a tan when I get back, probably not but maybe.

Oh ya, did you hear about the bomb Blasts in Delhi (India’s capital). There were 6 small bombs that were set off in crowded areas that killed at least 23 people and injured many more. 2 more bombs were found and defused. In today’s paper they say police have shot and killed one of the main guys behind the attack. Terrorists say Bombay is next but I hope not. There is prank calls every few days that really set the bomb squads off because they search the area supposedly under threat tirelessly to find nothing. One of the stations that was threatened was the one I get off at to go to college. Generally Bombay is very safe as it is India’s financial capital and is watched very closely so I am not too worried.

Yoga today was pretty weird because it was all about cleansing your body so the Sir tells you all these gross things that you should do everyday. Please if you are groosed out easily don’t read this sentence. He said you should put your middle finger up your but to the max and then move it around to clean it out. I was pretty grossed out but nothing is really considered gross here. For one passing gas is not really rude because he says if you let the gasses build up that is when you have problems so after meals lots of Indians burp and someone will just be sitting and then they will fart not trying to make it silent or anything. I kinda like it though because then I take that as permission that I can burp and fart around you. What was I saying again, oh ya for a different cleansing exercise they gave you this long rubber tube and you put it in your nose and breathe in then swallow and finally grab the tube at the back of your throat. It is like what you see on the discovery channel. Where you have a tube come in your nose and out your mouth and then you have to move it back and forth, needless to say I (along with most of the others) had watering eyes and were gagging all over the place. It was really cool though having something come in your nose and out your mouth and then move it back and forth. I will take a picture next time I do it.

I think I have run out of things to talk about but I do have a really killer story that didn’t happen to me but I will tell it anyway. Some Indian people act really weird when they see a white person who is living in Bombay doing everyday things. So there is this French exchange student called Simon and he is usually pretty bored in the morning so one day he decided to go for a run along Marine Drive (that is in south Bombay where he lives) and very close to my school. So he was running just listening to music minding his own business and he passed an Indian guy and the Indian guy went crazy. Simon was just running along and the Indian guy was running right beside him like running around him all excited. Just bobbing and weaving in an orbit around Simon. What I picture is as is like that old Kibbles and Bits dog food commercial where the big dog is saying “It better be kibbles and bits” and the little dog with way too much energy is like “I hope it’s kibbles and bits” jumping around all over the big dog. So Simon was understandably pretty tired of this after a minute or so, when the annoying guy passed a little too close in front of him, Simon stuck out his foot all casual like and tripped the guy, he didn’t just stumble like was expected but he rather did a huge dive with full extension, like Bobby Orr after scoring that hockey goal, and landed with a thud on the sidewalk. Simon was going to turn around and be like: what happened? But he just kept running. That would have been hilarious to see and I wish I would have but it still cracks me up when I think of it.

Here is just a little tidbit of info about some bad words and a misconception concerning such. One of the girls names is Laura and in Hindi Laura means dick so when ever she tells her name to anyone they do the old rotate head a little and open their eyes it’s pretty funny although I’ve only seen it a couple of times.

I think that is it for now.
Remember to comment because if you don’t I will be unhappy or may go on a hunger strike.
-Allen

Ganapati and Pune

Still can't figure out how to put the photos in the middle of the post so all are on top again. The first is a pretty nice Ganapati there was so much action in that room. The next is a really rich Ganapati that is all real gold. Next is me and a friend with that really rich Ganapati. After that is the immersion at night so the quality isn't that good, it gets much busier than this. Lastly is the procession for that really rich Ganapati on the streets.

This post is intended to inform you about my short trip to Pune and the Ganapati festival that is going on right now.

So on Wednesday last week the Ganapati festival started but let’s first rewind 1 day to the Tuesday. I finally got to have some physical activity on this day, apart from the marathon, that was a little more like a novelty, the trek and riding the trains every day. The later of which is probably the most physically and mentally taxing. I was invited to play soccer or football, as they and most of the rest of the world call it, with my counselor’s son, Tanay. It was really fun but so different from what I am used to. The Canadian fields are like heaven compared to what we played on. So first of all I don’t have any cleats yet so I have to wear Tanay’s old pair, and his jersey, which I really appreciate but they were like playing in clown shoes. We walk to Shivaji Park at 8:15pm, and it is dark out already. So we play in mostly dark, except one pitiful light, on a dirt pitch, with a flat ball, in extreme heat, with bags as goals, and it was so fun. The skill was actually surprisingly good and the people were very kind. I learned a few swear words while playing. It was so hot I was sweating like a hooker in church (thanks Neil) through the whole game and was dirty as the dirt we were playing on by the end, but it was still great fun. I was so tired by the end it was insane, I guess that’s what almost 2 months of hardly any exercise will do to you. The next 2 days I walked like the Tin Man from Wizard of Oz because I was so stiff. Why this was relevant was because while we were playing some Ganesha idols were being brought to their houses via huge processions on the streets. So there was great music and what not.

You may be wondering what this Ganapati celebration is all about so here is the story. Lord Ganesha is the elephant god you may have seen a picture of and we celebrate his birthday. The terms Ganapati and Lord Ganesha are pretty interchangeable from what I’ve heard. The festival is actually pretty confusing but I will try to explain it. So some people, mostly Maharashtrans I think, have Lord Ganesha idols in their house and there are some big public idols on the street. The most common thing everybody yells out on the streets during this festival is “Ganapati Baapa” then you have to yell “Moriya!” It is as common as “Go Flames Go” on at a hockey game. Also I didn’t realize what festival meant back in Canada, we mostly have days (Christmas Day, Thanksgiving Day, Easter Day etc..) what it means here is the whole city is decked out with lights and everything. Another thing festival means is as soon as the sun sets there is a drum beat and firecrackers every few minutes, especially on immersion days (which I will go in to). Ok back on track now, if you have an idol in your house people come over to it and pray. On the Wednesday the festival started so there was no school and an Indian friend took me around to a few of his friend’s places and a few public Ganesha idols to pray. All together we went to 6 I think. Then I got home and my host family took me out to a few of their friend’s places to pray to their Ganesha idols. Then there was one where most people were related to us somehow so we stood in a room and clapped, chanted and preformed some other rituals to the Ganesha idol while a couple of hired drummers made a sick beat. At every single Ganapati you must take a sweet that they supply and eat it, I was so sick of these sweets by the end of the day thinking of them now sickens me. According to belief your family immerses the Ganesh idol in water on certain days. Most commonly the idols are submerged on the 1 & ½ day, the 3rd day, the 5th day, the 7th day, and the 10th day. Most of the house Ganapatis are immersed on the 1 & ½ day, 3rd or 5th day and the big public ones are usually later into the festival. The water which the idols are immersed into is most likely the sea, so you can imagine how dirty the water is the next day. There are other eco friendly options such as big pools supplied by the city or just pouring water over the idol in your house. The way in which the idols get to the sea is crazy, you have the idol on a little wooden cart and you wheel it to the sea, now that doesn’t sound that different. But it is they have hired bands that play ultra loud drums and horns, everybody involved in the procession is dancing, they let off really loud firecrackers and fireworks in the middle of the street and if that isn’t enough some guy always has coloured powder that he will throw on you. I actually wasn’t part of one of these processions yet but I think I will do one on the tenth day. I wasn’t part of one of these processions but I was part of a huge procession for one of the richest Ganapati’s in Bombay. There was gold and precious stones all over this Ganapati and it was at least 2 stories high. There were at least 200 probably closer to 250 people pulling huge ropes with the Ganapati attached it was like ancient Egypt or something. There wasn’t a lot of music or dancing but there were tons of people and it went on really late. On the route the Ganapati takes they give away free food and tea so it was great. There were thousands of people following this Ganapati. I don’t actually have the words to explain how crazy it was. There were garlands hanging from ropes in the middle of the street that would fall onto the Ganapati’s neck. I got home at 4am and slept most of the next day. The crazy thing was the Ganapati was not even at the sea yet when I got home; it would be submerged at 6 or 7 in the morning after travelling all night and removing all the precious stones and gold. The only thing I regret is not pulling the Ganapati, which would have been cool to say. I am sorry if this just seems like a jumble of information but that is really what it was. I wasn’t sure how to explain how different but amazing the experience was, and I am sure I failed in fully capturing the splendor and awe of the event. I hope I gave you a little idea of how much support this celebration receives every year from all the people and how the festival works to an extent.

So lets have a basic recap, I will give you the story of Günter the house Ganapati. The name is just for comedy sake no Ganapati is actually named Günter. So Günter is sitting in his house and people whom are known to his owners come over and pray to Günter. Günter’s owners give away sweets and food to anyone who comes over, then everyone makes small talk for a bit then they leave. Then more people come and pray, and eat. Then they perform some sort of ritual in front of Günter involving a big group of people, chanting, clapping, fire, and music. Günter is a 1 & ½ day Ganapati so after that many days Günter’s family takes him to the sea via a huge procession with music, dancing, firecrackers and colours. Then the family performs a short ritual on the beach and swims Günter out into the ocean. Günter is made of clay so he melts but it takes a while so there is bad pollution in the beaches. Well they actually have swimmers who take all the Ganapatis out deeper because many Indian people don’t know how to swim. That is the story of Günter.

There is also the story of Lord Ganesha that is very complicated and I don’t understand much of it so I will not tell you much but on a basic level: he has 2 mother’s one birth and one who brought him up. Also his father is Shiva, the destroyer, who my families god. Lord ganesha sits on a mouse this is supposed to represent being able to control your temptations or habits because a mouse is all greedy and Ganapati is sitting on him. Also there was another long story of how it is a mans body and some god took his head for some reason and then the first animal he encountered in the jungle he would get his head and it was an elephant hence elephant head. Others say that his father, Shiva, beheaded him and just replaced his head with that of an elephant. So that’s most of what I know.

This festival will go on till Sunday this week. It has been very fun but I wish I had celebrated a little more like joined one of those family processions or something.

Ok that’s enough about Ganapati. From the title there is a second part to this post. I got to travel out of Bombay to Pune this weekend to see Ganapati there. Pune is a very nice place. Instead of 19 million it only has 3 million so, compared to Bombay; it had more greenery and parks.

I really don’t know what to say about the trip apart from what we did. It was a relaxing trip so we just met up with family and ate great meals, saw this shopping area, went to a sports club, and just kinda saw the city. There are lots of reputable universities in Pune so there was an ethnically diverse crowd by Indian standards. There was also this one thing that interested me it was a meditation centre but it was also sort of like a cult, what you do is you give these people tons of money then you can go there and meditate, do yoga, get massages, and do other relaxing and enlightening things. I was so confused by this, what Anil (host dad) told me is that people sell off their lives in America, their home, possessions, everything, and just go live there. It was a very nice green campus but I had so many questions about it, I was so confused. What do they do all day? Don’t they get bored after a few years? Why do they all wear the same maroon robe, is it a cult or something? I was in awe at how people just wanted to find themselves rather than living the corporate created world that we all love.

Pune was mostly just visiting people and eating so there is not much to write about. Just that it was a nice place with a traffic problem. Oh wait one more thing, my host mom pointed out to me a typical Punari person and I was spotting them left and right after that. What she said was that they have a shrewd face, and green eyes. I don’t know if you have ever seen an Indian with deep green eyes but it is memorizing the people must have thought I was crazy staring at them. The shrewd face is pretty funny too like they just did something that was sneaky and no one noticed. I saw a whole family of them and almost laughed out loud.

The language is coming along slowly but surely, the sentence structure is a little different, the noun comes first then the verb like I went to the market is like I market went. Even one of the Indian guys I hang out with says that when I talk in Hindi it sounds like Russian to them. What makes things even tougher is that everyone here speaks english, because of the British influence they learn english at a very young age, english comes almost as natural as their native tongue. I asked an Indian guy if you need to translate things in your head from your language and he doesn't it just all comes natural. One other thing that make things difficult is how there are so many Indian langages being spoken everywhere, the national language is Hindi, the local language is Marathi, and my host father and grandfather speak Konkani, there is also a lot of Gujarati and Punjabi. In India 29 languages are spoken by over 1 million people. Way too many languages for me. I am sure I will start to pick it up if I work harder. That's my little struggle with languages.

Oh ya forgot to mention 2 months in India today. Happy Anniversary.


Ok I think I covered most of what I wanted to so I’m signing out for now.
Remember to leave comments they keep me going.
-Allen

Rant

I can't figure out the photos so all the photos are on top. First it the exchange students at the marathon, next is me on the trek and last is Michelle the stray dog.
This post is intended to rant about anything that comes to mind. So I will start with how the city never sleeps I never been to New York or Vegas but I can almost assure you that this city can beat those sleepless cities on the sleepless meter. So as I said in the previous post I had to catch a bus at 6am Indian Standard time on Friday to go to RYLA (Rotary Youth Leadership Awards). So I wake up at 4:30am because the bus I have to catch departs from the burbs, not that are actually like Suburbs, they are like Calgary’s downtown further away from the city. So I get a ride to Dadar station from my host dad and the station is actually kind of busy, not Indian busy but like Canada busy. There are lots of people transporting vegetables and other consumer goods around and most of the seats on the train were taken. This is Dadar station though; it is the busiest station on the Mumbai Suburban Railway as it links the Western and Central rail lines. It is so busy one time I was on a fast train (a train which doesn’t stop at all stations) and at Dadar you alight from the left of the train I was standing next to the door at the right side of the train and was asked if I was getting off at Dadar. Probably 40 people went out of the door closest to me, and that is just one of 3 doors on the rail car and one of 9 rail cars. The crazy part was this was First Class not Rush hour I can’t believe what second class Rush hour would look like. Honestly everyone around me got off at Dadar, the standing area was empty until people got on. You must know what side your platform is on or you will not get off, unlike the C-Train where you can just get off when you arrive at the station and see the side which you must get off at. So I arrived in Borivali, for the 6am bus which didn’t leave until 7:00 or later and saw one of the weirdest things yet. I think there must be a temple around there because there were lots of people dressed in religious get ups. There were about 10 or so exchange students and Indian students waiting and a pack of naked men came walking by. This is the so weird as in India it is like don’t show any skin, especially if you are a girl, and about 20 naked men just walked by us. We just looked down, had a few chuckles and kicked a few stones then talked about it for a while. The bus took us to RYLA, which was a total flop for the exchange students. The first day we sat and listened to speech after speech. The theme was water and the reiterated concept was that water is used for drinking, washing and cooking. One of the exchange students brought a guitar so we just sat around and listened to that outside much of the time. The weirdest things happen when you are bored, one of the Belgian exchange students (who is hilarious) named one of the stray dogs in the area Michelle, like the French boy name Michelle. Every time he saw him he would yell he name and Michelle didn’t like the other stray dogs in the area so Michelle would growl and snap at them, so we all cheered for Michelle. Also Michelle chased around a female dog sometimes presumably trying to make babies. On Friday night the exchange students presented, and guess what we presented, we did the “Everybody loves Rotary Night Song”, the exchange students will know what it is. I just mentioned it and after a few changes we were ready. We just sang everybody loves Rotary Night in our different languages it was kinda bad but we felt they invited us to this so we should do something. On Saturday we drove around in a bus and they took us to show us people doing activities, we didn’t get to take part in the activities but we did see them being done. Like building a dam on a creek, digging a trench for water harvesting, and equipping a house with rainwater harvesting equipment. It was not very good because we didn’t do anything then they dropped us back to the main place where we sat around till the evening, where we sat around more. All the exchange students did eat record numbers of Parle G biscuits and drank lots of tea. On Sunday we just sat around and listened to more speeches then each group who did an activity presented. Then we left at around 5pm when we were supposed to leave at 2pm. We stayed with host families in a town near the area which RYLA was being held; my host family was very nice. The thing about India is that the people here are too nice, especially when it comes to food. I told my town host family a couple dishes I like and the next night they made them for me and I had already had dinner. So when you are a guest people just keep serving you more food, so you have to turn down food before you are full because people are just going to keep putting food on your plate even if you say you are full and it is rude to leave food on the plate. How it goes is like this:
Host: do you want more?
Me: no thanks
Host: are you sure?
Me: yes
Host: here do you want more chicken or more rice
Me: (action) confused face
Host: (action) places more chicken and rice on plate
Me: (action) eat
So I had way too much food that night. Also the town host family was Muslim so the lady needed to cover her head when eating and we ate while sitting on the ground. They were very nice people though, they had a boy my age and we played carom which is like pool where you flick little wood discs instead of shooting at balls.
Also during RYLA there was this sweet festival that I missed, that celebrates Krishna’s birthday. It is where people make massive human pyramids, you may have seen it on the discovery channel, where they make pyramids 10 stories high and try to break a pot filled with Curds, clarified butter, money, and milk. Many people are injured during this and I missed it, oh well just another reason to come back years from now. The festivals are going to start up pretty soon so I am psyched for that, first is the festival dedicated to the elephant god Ganesh so you celebrate and at the end you go and immerse clay idols of Ganesh into nearby bodies of water. I think that will be great.
On Saturday there were a few exchange students who got up early and participated in a marathon that benefitted an old age home and the 7 of us ran with our flags so it was pretty rad.
This Sunday Rotex took us on a trek up a mountain and there was a fort at the top. It was pretty awesome, the mountain was tall and we went all the way to the top so it was cool. There was also this flower that blooms once every 7 years and it was in bloom while we were hiking so that was neat. There were also a couple of caves with bats, a carving into stone of a monkey god and a cannon at the top. The hike took us most of the day and I was pooped by the end not to mentioned sun burned, hopefully it will turn into a tan. The view from the top was really great though, we were at the bottom about 3-4 hours ago. You had to be carful with the rocks and I slipped a couple of times once into a cactus.
Right now I am kind sick with a sore throat so today sucked majorly.
This post turned into a little more of my weekly activities.
Here is another rant: With the monsoon season coming to a close I thought I would write a little bit on the rains. So the most it rained during the monsoons season this year wasn’t record setting by any means but it was a lot of rain. It rained for the better part of 6 days once and the better part of 3 once. The rains suck; I wore a rain coat or had to bring a rain coat everywhere. The rains can fall in big drops, small drops, from the side, or just in a mist. Your upper body is fairly dry when you get home but the jeans you are wearing are about 10lbs and rub on your legs. The trains run for the most part during rain storms but may be a little slow. One time in a particularly harsh time I had to wade through rain puddles that were like 20cm deep on the way to my counselors place only to get there and find he wasn’t there. The roads near my counselors place aren’t that good so some of the intersections fill up with rain. Although rare the power has gone out a couple times and the tap water has not been available. There are not really speed limits on the roads here but the amount of traffic and the crappiness of the roads keep the speeds down. So the rains will end in about a week and after that it will be super hot. After that is winter which is about 20 degrees and apparently people wear their sweaters. Last year was the harshest winter yet, during extreme cold spells temperatures fell as low as 8 degrees oh no.
Also on a little bit of a weird note, none of the dogs or cats here have been sterilized so you can totally see all their junk, just a little different. I don’t know if I have mentioned but I read that Mumbai has 70,000 stray dogs and 20,000 pet dogs and even the pet dogs aren’t sterilized.
Any questions you can ask and remember to comment. Also check out the National Geographic picture of the day at the bottom of the page it is usually pretty cool.
Namaste
-Allen

Past Week or so + Vacation!

Sorry I haven’t posted but I have not had the time or desire to write so this will be a short one. On Sunday August 10^th we had the inbound orientation for all the inbound students in my District. My District is the city and Suburbs of Mumbai which covers not a huge chunck of land but it contains many people. There are 14 students in Mumbai and area, 5 from Germany, 4 from Brazil, 2 from Belgium, 1 from France, 1 from America and me from Canada. So as you may be aware the Indian people do not have a sense for time they arrive late for everything but at least they do not expect you to be on time. This is relevant because of how I was the person exhibiting the so called Indian “Stretchable” Time on the day of the orientation. The orientation started at 8:30 and was in North Mumbai, my counselor was to drive me and another German there and at 9:00 we left my counselors house starting the ½ hour journey ½ an hour after the program started. Luckily the first 45 minutes were breakfast so we only missed the food and some conversing. When I say house I mean apartment. Basically everyone except the very rich live in apartments or housing societies with 3 to 6 apartment buildings on one lot with a courtyard and stuff. So if you can imagine a Calgary’s downtown, shrink the height a little then spread it across the whole city that is what Mumbai is like. As I said the very rich may choose to live in Bungalows for example Bollywood film star Shah Ruhk Khan is bigger than big in India he lives in a huge Bungalow that looks like the white house but then again he has enough money to own his own cricket team (as I’ve heard). Mumbai is a very rich city, it is the financial capital of India and it’s port handles 40% of the Countries trade. But then again it is the most contradictory place that I have seen, you see squalid slums and standing next to the most unbelievable house fit for a king. Two of the top eight richest people in the world live in Mumbai and 2 more are Indians living abroad but with residences in India. The 5^th richest man in the world is actually building a billion dollar, 27 floor tower as a home for him and his family on the 10^th most expensive road in the world which is located in Mumbai. I think you get the point of the wealth in Mumbai, which also contains the biggest slum in Asia for sure and some say the biggest in the world: Dharavi. So with all these tall residential and office buildings everywhere you can get lost very easily, Jens (German exchange) and I learned that the hard way. We went for a walk at a break in school to try and find a falafel place Jens had seen before and ended up seeing a Ghandi statue so we went to take pictures. Then we wanted to go back to college and we started walking on the road we thought was the right one. We knew what the Tata (Tata is a huge company over here that does everything cars, trucks, mobile phones, satellite TV, and more) building looked like from our college so we just thought we would go to where the college should be in relation to what the Tata building looks like. Big mistake, the Tata building looks the same from all sides so we went to the complete other side of the building and were wandering around for a good hour before we asked anyone. We were heading in the complete wrong direction but refused to ask anyone for so long because 1) we are “locals” now, 2) we are guys and 3) You have to get lost sometimes to really see the city. Needless to say we missed a couple lectures in college. Ok what was I talking about again, oh ya the orientation, did I get off topic or what. The orientation lasted most of Sunday “8:30”- 6:30pm and contained boring but essential information on the exchange. The Rotex is pretty sweet each student is assigned a buddy to show you around town and they are planning some sweet things, like mountain trekking. Also they told us about the trips we will be taking. We get three trips 2 weeks to North India incl. Taj Mahal, 2 weeks to South India and 10 days to the Himalayas. These trips are spread out in the year: December, then February, then April. They sound amazing, and not very costly. There was also some other speakers and the District Chairman spoke too so that was nice. Most of the students seem very nice.

OK I just have to get this one thing off my chest, Indian people do this really weird head bobble thing that I do not know the meaning of but I have started doing it too. It is like if you were to hit a bobble head doll on the side of the head, so to do it you don’t shake your head you keep looking forward but shift your head (if you had a wall clock in front of you) from 1 to 11 or from 2 to 10 fairly quickly. I asked what it meant in my first night questions and they did not have an answer they said even they don’t know, other people I have asked say it means “ok ok.” Nonetheless it is pretty automatic for everyone like saying “eh” for a Canadian.

As the title suggests I also went on a vacation this weekend. It was Independence day in India so it was a long weekend. I was told a couple weeks ago that the family minus Abhishek would be going on a vacation. I didn’t know what to expect but had a great time. The vacation would be up to Khanvel Resort in the State Gujarat. I looked it up on the internet and it looked nice. We got there and it was nice but what I thought was OK we’re going to a resort; I get to talk with another “foreigner.” I was mistaken the resort was pure Veg and I was the only foreigner there. The food was actually very good for vegetarian food but I thought it was a little different than the crazy amount of meat at most resorts. Here they ask if you want regular veg or Jain veg at other resorts they ask if you want meat on your meat. Jain is a religion that is small but a powerful force in India they are very strict vegetarians and want everything to live. If you are a Jain you can not eat potatoes, onions, garlic, as they grow in the ground and the cultivation may kill small bugs in the ground. Very strict Jains even walk around with gauze covering their mouth to avoid the inhalation of very small insects and if they see an insect on the sidewalk they will sweep it to the side with a little broom they carry. At the resort there was a swimming pool, table tennis, billiards, disco, tv, etc. So the games were fun we played cards too, with some of Anil’s friends who were also at the resort. One other different thing was most resorts in India have separate rooms for drivers many people in India hire drivers to take them around. So the Anil’s friends had a driver to drive them to the resort and I didn’t even know he was staying there until he got in the car to drive them home. There was a dance on Friday night at the disco and I took part but most of the Indian people know all the moves to the dances as they were in Bollywood films and I don’t know anything. I mostly just do my own stuff and home no one is watching. The road on the way there and the way back was a highway but in monsoon season all the roads absolutely suck so I was unable to sleep the whole way and if I tried I would smash my head up against the window every minute, it hurt so I stopped trying. We actually lost a hubcap on the car because we hit a bump. Also we hit a traffic jam to we waited a bit then crossed the median and started driving down the wrong side of the road for about a minute to get around it. Many cars were doing this and we were basically to the side of the other road so don’t worry too much mom. The roads in India kinda suck because it rains every year for like 3 months and that ruins the roads. The corruption in India doesn’t help as the company who fixes the roads after the monsoon season purposely doesn’t do a good job so they can make more money next year doing the same job.

The Indian people are very superstitious and I do have a point to back this up now. When we were on vacation the moon was in partial eclipse and instead of going out and taking pictures like in Canada, everyone stays inside because apparently there is radiation from the eclipse that makes the earth impure. There are warnings on the TV’s telling people to stay inside. My family also has something they do every eclipse and it goes like this: you must stay inside the whole eclipse, you can not eat during the eclipse, you must shower directly after the eclipse is over even if it is 4am, you then sprinkle water from the river Ganges (which is Holy) around your house, you then can not eat till you give something black to a poor person then you buy fresh food. My host mother’s mother phoned us on vacation to warn Neeta about the eclipse.

Just something that is a little different.

I am going to RYLA (Rotary Youth Leadership Awards) all this weekend to somewhere an hour north of Mumbai. I don’t know what it entails but I know I am foreign so I have to go. I must catch a bus at 6am on Friday that is going to suck.

I think that is it for now, I got on a roll so it isn't that short.

The picture is of all the inbound students at the orientation.

Please leave comments about anything, you know I love them.

I miss you all.

-Allen

Weekly Activities

In this post I hope to give you a better idea of what my life is like in Mumbai on a day to day basis and telling you about my host family.

Let me start on a typical weekday. I wake up around 7:45 because I have to go to yoga class. I started this yoga class on August the first and it lasts two months. I go every weekday morning at 8:15 and I walk there from my house. I was interested in yoga because I feel it will strengthen my mind as well as my body. The first few days have been a little boring but I think it will pick up soon. So far we have mostly been learning how to breathe and sit. There are various ways of breathing such as breathing in deeply and raising your shoulders then relaxing your abdomen while keeping the shoulders up and forcing the air out though your nose every second passive inhale active exhale, then breathing in one nostril and out the other. I’ll give you a couple of moments to try those as I’m sure you are. So for the first few days we were just learning those and some very basic exercise. Jens (German exchange student) and I are the youngest in the class by about 20 years on average and 10 years for the minimum age difference. The yoga I have seen in Canada is more like glorified stretching, as they do not touch on the other aspects of living life as a yogi. There was a whole Yoga book written about how to live a healthy life and stretching is only one chapter there is a lot written on what to eat and how to control your mind. Some hardcore yogis can even control their heartbeat, and to think I thought getting a stellar mark in Math 30-P was enlightenment I was definitely mistaken. My favorite part of the yoga is at the end, where we lay down with eyes closed and the instructor tells you to relax certain parts of your body from the toes up, it is hard to explain but if you really listen to what he says you become so relaxed it’s insane. I’ve never been so relaxed in my life my body felt like a thousand pounds of blubber. This part can also help you with your mind as I often find my mind wandering off to what tasty breakfast Neeta, my host mom, has prepared for me, I am becoming better at concentrating on what he is saying and relaxing my mind. As you can imagine some people accidently doze off during this part. The best part for my dad is this whole course which goes for 2 months only cost a little more than $9 Canadian Dollars. So a hint for the other exchange students, although the classes are boring (for now) I think it is good to have a schedule that you stick to early in the year to assimilate yourself in the culture and not just stay confined in your room.

After yoga I come home and have breakfast, which Neeta or Agee (my host grandmother) has prepared for me. It usually comprises of some hot dish like eggs or some sort of veg flapjack, and then some toast and corn flakes and then some sort of pastry. I love the pastries they are like eating Christmas baking every day, although that may sicken some people I would love it. After breakfast I usually read the newspaper then go on the computer for a bit, read, study Hindi, or recently I have been watching the Olympics. One thing that really surprised me about India and Mumbai is how many people die on a regular basis from freak accidents. There are cases of big walls falling and crushing people, many people getting washed away or drowned by the volume of rain, human stampede killing people, staircase to temple crumbling which ended up killing and trapping people and the strangest cases of husbands killing their family and themselves when they figure out they have HIV, these stories do not even make the front page. Not to mention all the bombing that happened not to long ago. In Canada they would be talking about something like this for a week on the front page. For example in the paper today an Indian shooter won a gold medal so that took up the better part of the first 4 pages, then on the 5th page there was a stories about how 2 drowned and a family of 4 was swept away by the rain and 7,000 people across the state have been evacuated. Page 10 had information on how Pakistan committed their 22nd cease fire violation and how 135 were rescued out of a 250 foot gorge in the mishap I mentioned above about a temple staircase collapse. I do give the newspaper a little credit as they had a small article on how 5 died in a police fire in Kashmir beside the 1/2 page picture of the Olympic gold medalist. The Olympics are enjoyable like always but I don’t really like the sports that most of the Indian athletes participate in and that is basically all they show. I don’t find watching shooting and archery that interesting. After that I have a small lunch which usually comprises of some sort of curry, rice, vegetable dish, chapatti (bread), and maybe some fish. You eat with your hands here and sometimes you can get a spoon. I actually asked my host mom for a knife the day I made pancakes for them and she couldn't find one. The way that works is you rip the thin bread known as chapatti and grab what you want and soak up the sauce in the same bite, you are only supposed to eat with the right hand but sometimes I need both. Eating the rice is a little more complicated so you usually pour some sort of curry or dal on it and then mix it up with your fingers to combine the plain rice with the sauce then you pak the rice against your fingers with your thumb and scoop up in a motion towards yourself so the rice it is sitting on your 4 fingers and then you put the thumb at the base of you fingers and pop the rice in your mouth. My family got quite a good laugh when I was trying to eat during the first week, I would grab instead of scooping and rotate my head and open up my mouth and then drop it in, and looking back now I see how improper that was. I figured rotating my head was better than looking to the sky and dropping in food but I think that each one makes me look equally retarded so rather than looking like a bird getting fed by its mother I looked like Jean Chrétien taking a nap while in a sitting position. I also had another problem in the first week of eating the food, there was this strange yellow substance under my nails that I had never experience, I thought it must be some sort of Tropical Disease and I was going to lose my right hand. Oh wait isn’t that the hand I eat with, my hands were just really dirty and my mom told me that it was one of the spices that is used in Indian cooking which dyes things yellow. Mondays and Thursdays we don’t eat meat and comparatively to the other exchange students that is a good thing as many other students are in vegetarian families. I don’t know if I could stand eating vegetarian every day but I guess you get used to it.

After lunch I go to college by train, which I described in a previous post. I am in the arts division at Jai Hind College in the Logic division. My classes include: psychology, logic, history, political science, Hindi, English and Environmental Studies. I don’t really like college because it is boring and the class is way too big. There are like 60-70 kids in my class the good part is at least 90% of the class is girls. Around the college is a nice area along the Arabian Sea called Marine Drive. College usually lasts from 2-6 but I often come home a little early to dodge the Rush Hour traffic.

When I get home I have high tea, so that includes tea and biscuits. Then I usually go on the computer for a bit, watch TV or read.

On Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays I have a Hindi tutor with another German exchange student. Those just started up so I don’t know much yet but I am learning or “mai Hindi seik raha hu” transliterated from Devanagari script. The classes are a little different from what you might expect in Canada, as they are at the teacher’s house and we sit on the ground not in some fancy desk while the tutor’s child is making a mess around us and grabbing the tutor.

On Wednesday we go to Church because if you go to the Church 9 Wednesdays in a row you get what you wish for. Yes you are not mistaken I said Church, Christian Church, I have gone to Church more times here for religious purposes in one month than I have been to Church in Canada in my lifetime.

After High Tea and activities after that I have dinner. Dinner is a lot later than in Canada we usually eat dinner at about 9:30 or 10:00 pm. I am having a little trouble with that just eating a huge meal then going to bed. Dinner is very similar to lunch and my even be the same dishes if we didn’t finish them.

More weird train sights, I saw two guys on the side of the track and one was prepping the other to insert a needle I can only assume drugs, also I saw a policeman walking with a guy who had a bleeding head and the policeman was wielding a baton I can only assume unruly behavior and a quick smack to the head by the policeman.

Then I usually have dessert of ice cream, Kulfi (Indian ice cream), chocolate, or some other Indian specialties I can’t pronounce the names of.

My host family is super nice it comprises of Anil, my host father, Neeta, my host mother, Anand, my host grandfather, and Agee, my host grandmother. My host brother Abhishek just left for Brazil 5 days ago. Anil is a lawyer and he does lots of work in the courts, he is out of the house much of the day but still find time to watch TV with me or chat with me in the evening. My host mother Neeta is very nice and she prepares great meals. She is very approachable but she worries a lot. I guess she is just looking out for me though. Neeta runs a class for very young children like 2 year olds and on Mondays and Tuesdays they are in the house so I stay in the TV room/Dining room/Grandparents bedroom. My host grandfather is so funny, he is always dancing and clapping when a tune comes on the TV and he speaks English but he always emphasizes one word in a sentence so he would sound like (mumbling) ddaayyyyawanna EAT. It is pretty funny but I can understand him for the most part and I really enjoy every conversation I have with him. Agee is not very talkative but she is very nice and is a good cook.

I do have servants in case you are wondering but just a maid who comes by for a few hours every day and a kitchen helper who comes by a few times a week for a couple hours.

So I think that is it for now I have attached a photo of the family I am staying with in our living room. I think you can guess who is who.

I hope that gave you a better idea of what I am up to on a daily basis.

Please leave comments, if you want to comment on the structure and format of the blog that would be grand too because then I can improve my next post. Is it too long? Would you like shorter more frequent posts? Any ideas for topics?

Thanks, I miss you all.

Trains, Planes, and Automobiles...and walking

Namaste,
This post will contrast the transportation differences in Mumbai versus Canada. I am sure all these modes of transportation are a topic unto themselves but I will try to cover the basics concerning these modes of transportation.
Firstly the least interesting is planes. I arrived on July 10th at 01:00am via Frankfurt. I flew a Air Canada flight to Frankfurt and Lufthansa to Mumbai. Before I came I was excited to excited to be riding in a 747 from Frankfurt to Mumbai. Little did I know that 747's are way over rated. Firstly I will start with the size. There are hundreds of people on this one plane and they all seem to have one problem or another. Weather it be they can't stand having their tray table down or they can't have garbage for more than 10 seconds before calling a stewardess, everyone had something they needed. I am sure the Lufthansa flight attendants have to take loads of pills to calm their nerves and lull themselves into a trance of slavery before boarding the Frankfurt ---> Mumbai flight. The lady beside me had something to give almost every fight attendant that walked by her aisle seat, the wrapper from her in flight magazine, her headphone wrapper, another blanket request, followed a few minutes later by another pillow request, I guess I shouldn't judge people but I just found it a little different from the Air Canada flight where people were scared to recline their seat 10 degrees. Also they showed 2 Hindi movies on the flight so I just listened to music and read the whole trip. Another German exchange student said he watched the first and last 10 minutes of the Hindi movie and could grasp the entire story. I also had some difficulties that I have not revealed to anyone yet. At the Frankfurt airport, which you may know is massive, I got off the Air Canada flight without having slept at all on a 9.5 hour flight and I found my way to the gate. What I said was I found my way to the gate not my gate. It turns out I went to the gate for a Frankfurt to Delhi flight that was leaving at exactly the same time, I saw the big plane and thought that must be my plane. I waited in the boarding room for a good 1/2 hour at gate C14 my actual gate was C13. So here I am sitting in the wrong boarding gate, tired, eating my chocolate bar and listening to music and I had an epiphany. I looked up then thought I have a feeling I am in the wrong gate. So luckily I rushed off to my right gate, which was only a 2 minute walk away, right as they started boarding. So that's my little mental adventure in the Frankfurt airport. One thing that is weird about Mumbai is that they have an international and domestic airport. I spoke to a German exchange student who had trouble with this. His international flight arrived forty-five minutes late and he had to haul his luggage from the international to domestic airport for a connecting flight to Nagpur. Oh ya did I mention most flights arrive at the international airport after midnight so he arrived at 2am and had to manage all this. Everything worked out though. I think that is it for planes.
Automobiles are different here, as you can imagine, everything is different here. Most cars are very small compared to North American cars and every car I've seen has a manual transmission. Also the cars dive on the left side of the road here so crossing the road can be a little confusing. In south Mumbai every third car is a taxi, one company had 15,000 taxis on the road in Mumbai. The taxis I have been in are funny because they have a manual transmission but have a gear shifter like those old Mini Vans, the bar that you pull towards you and down into drive. It is funny. Mumbai is a city of great wealth so there are many fancy cars, like BMW's with limousine tints and lots of Mercedes, but there are also a fair number of 3 wheeled vehicles. In the part I am living in, Mahim, Rickshaws are not allowed because they are a form of efficient transportation only for the Suburbs, so I don't see many rickshaws but I see a lot of taxis. The volume of traffic is also insane; it is bumper to bumper everywhere as soon as you leave your residential area. Drivers here just look out for "Numero Uno" so you really have to be on your toes when driving and while you are a pedestrian. While driving people just use whatever lane or portion of lane they feel like, often you will have 4 cars on a two lane road and one trying to pass them all. Signal lights are not really used and when used they are improperly used. When people change lanes they just swerve over and hope the person beside them swerves too. When people do put on their signal it is often left on for a few minutes just to keep other drivers on their toes. When someone does something really idiotic to anger another driver both drivers stop in the middle of the road and argue a little while cars go around them, it rarely escalates into anything more than an argument. People in Mumbai use their horns far more than any place of been to. But I think they need to, horns are for warning here, not when someone is an idiot. So we will be driving down the road and we will honk, no car is around but that pedestrian up there may want to cross without looking so we honk. All big vehicles have a sign on the back that says: "Horn ok please". People wonder why I run across the roads here and it is just because I don't know any of the roads or traffic. I will be running across a road with no traffic because I don't know if there will be a stream of traffic coming to get me in a matter of seconds. Here there are no flashing hands as pedestrian signs, you have walk and don't walk pedestrian lights, if you are walking and the walk sign changes to don't walk you better get the hell out of there because the light just tuned green to a pack of speeding cars was just let loose and are heading your way. Like the running of the bulls urban style yo. Other automobile differences are the motor cycles and mopeds. There are so many of these around, and they all weave their way through traffic like maniacs. At Red lights they all go to the front of the intersection, so you need to wait for a big pack of bikes to clear before going. I am sure there is more to write concerning the roads but I will save that for later.
Trains, this is my personal favorite. The trains are not just transportation in Mumbai they are a way of life. People live by train times, a 5:22 vs. 5:26 train time makes a world of difference. I will not be able to explain everything that goes on in the trains but I will try my best. First you get to the station and see all the eccentric personalities to be nice. You will have the beggars, trying to...well beg, the shoe shiners trying to get your attention even though I wear sandals, and the garbage sweepers just sweeping everything onto the tracks. There are the weirdest things on the tracks, there are many single sandals, or shoes, combs, rubber balls and then lots of rubbish. I think the weirdest thing I saw was at the Grant Road station, I wasn't getting off but there was a lady and she was walking with a monkey on leash. Also people just go to the washroom anywhere on the tracks, at least once a day you see someone urinating near the station on the tracks, I saw one fellow squatting and taking a poop on the tracks. I don't want to make this seem like something negative but it is definitely different. So the trains have 9 or 12 cars and most are second class but one is for ladies only and one for first class. So when the train rolls up you have your backpack on the front of your body and you must to allow people off first then everyone just squeezes their way in pushing and shuffling like nothing else. I stole this saying from someone else but you are “packed in there like sardines in a can.” So if you take the smell of sardines that is the smell, the way they stick to each other that is what happens because of the humidity, and the sights are some of the most memorable yet gruesome moments. I have seen so many people with one leg, or none (on a piece of wood dragging themselves along), or one arm, I saw a kid with one arm picking up garbage, there are so many blind people it’s insane and I saw a burn victim whose face is tattooed into my mind. I was behind a blind person trying to get off at Dadar station (the busiest station I’ve experienced) and he was dog paddling the air in front of him and taking hundreds of tiny steps, he had his feeling stick hanging off a sting on one of his arms and hustled off there fairly quickly. He did run into the pole in the middle of the door kinda hard but it was mostly with his hands, I was very impressed with his effort. Naturally being the only white person on the train everyone looks at me for most of the ride. I’m pretty much used to it now. So once you get on you gotta get away from the open door, otherwise you will get pushed out with the rest of the crowd at the next stop. Oh ya by the way there aren’t any fancy buttons to press to get on the train there are just open doors that people hang out of. The first time I got on the train I didn’t see what the big fuss was but then I got on a rush-hour train and all those 70 handles hanging from the ceiling are being used plus all the seats and those who hang out the door. I saw one guy sitting on the top of the train the other day, it looked more comfortable than the sardine can underneath but I wouldn’t want to be electrocuted. Getting off the train you just go reasonably close to the door without risking falling out and get pushed out with the rest of the crowd. Sometime people clog the exit even if they are not getting out and you have to push a little but I haven’t had any beefs with anyone. So that is Mumbai urban trains in nutshell but there are probably many things I forgot. I may address some of those later in my blog.
Walking I touched on a little my last topic so I will just summarize. Most people walk on the road not the sidewalk, you must look down when you are walking (I have stepped in poop twice and vegetable once), you cross when you want but you will get honked at, do not get distracted by what is going on around you concentrate on a point in front of you, and lastly driving on the left side of the road changes a lot, it means you walk on the left side of the sidewalk and on the left side of staircases this is confusing for a Canadian boy to learn.
I have not taken a bus yet but you just jump onto the bus’s open door before it speeds off, if I had a rupee for every person I saw run and jump onto a moving bus I would be set for the rest of the year.

This picture is of a train in transit, the movement of the train blurs it a little but you can see the people hanging out the door, sitting down in the train and all the stuff around the tracks.

The Mumbai system of transportation is complicated but public transit is very efficient and interesting. I hope you understand transportation in Mumbai better now but I have only scratched the surface of the endless web that is ways of transportation in Mumbai.

PS I love comments, and now they are open to anyone.

Differences and Difficulties

So as you can imagine from my previous post this country is like an entirely different planet. It may be hard to imagine but the streets would be like if you take your entire school population and packed them all into the gym and made everyone have a specific task. So everybody is moving very slowly but surely towards an object while jostling with the person next to them and there is always the one person who insists on running around (which would normally be me but not in this city). It is hard to imagine that everyone of the people you see in the streets are out to do something, even if it may be pickpocketing, you see thousands of people a day and think how is it possible that everyone here IS here. You begin to question the world as you know it. To think in numbers this city has half the population of Canada, not Alberta, Canada. The state I am in, Maharashtra, has almost 3 times the population of Canada. Despite the amount of people and the apparent hectic feel, the city has a certain laid back attitude. It is the Indian mentality to not worry about anything so although someone may be late for an appointment they will still talk to me or help me out with directions.
There are some other differences that I have had difficulties with. The Indian accent is a very interesting and pleasing yet it creates some problems. I find it hard to decipher what people are saying and often have to get things said 3 times before I can pick out a word I know and roll with it. Also the direct families in India are small but very important so people in India refer to their cousins as brothers and sister. This can be very confusing when Abhishek says "My brother lives in Delhi", confused I think why does he not live with us. Then I find out he is actually a cousin. Also Sir or Mrs. is very formal in India so many people, including Abhishek, call people Auntie or Uncle so I think that these family friends are actually related to my host family, when I find out they have no familial affiliation whatsoever.
There is also the question of cows on the streets. Many people have asked me about this and it not as bad as I thought it was going to be. From the impressions people were giving me I thought there would be a heard of cows and a elephant around every corner but I only see cows about once a day or net even. The other day a woman was walking her cow in a torrential downpour and I was walking to the train station and the cow took a massive dump. I was not around to see what she did with it but others have told me that people use the crap as morter in the building of huts. There are little huts everywhere and I can't believe people live in them but Indians believe in reincarnation so this life is only one being and they are to just live this part of their life cycle without complaint.
The rains are another topic altogether but I can tell you it has been raining for the better portion of 4 days and I have been out in the rain a few times. There are so many different types of rain it is insane. By the time you walk 500m even with a rain coat you are drenched. It doesn't stop most people around here though so that is good.

Those are just a few differences and difficulties but I will come up with many more in days to come. If you have any comments leave them with me through email or facebook.