Last Wednesday was Karwa Chauth, a festival where married women fast for the wellbeing of their husbands. They put on Mehndi, get very dressed up, and receive a gift from their husbands when the moon comes out and they can break their fast. The markets were crazy busy: mehndi people on just about every corner, lots of sweet stalls, christmas lights everywhere, and bangles on display. Made me a little "Hoopeh" inside.
Being in Delhi, I went to Atul's family's house for their Karwa Chauth pooja on Wednesday afternoon. It was great to see his family traditions (Gujarati's don't celebrate Karwa Chauth. And I dont actually fast for anything anymore bc I get grumpy when I fast and then I'm mean and if I'm mean, then it defeats the purpose of doing a fast). Anyway, the pooja took place at Harsha's house. All the women got together, did a prayer, listened to a story of Karwa Chauth, offered water to the sun, and then had a cup of chai (their actual food fast would break at night, with their husbands).
Pretty Harsha on her very first Karwa Chauth
I got to see the entire family again on Friday for Atul's cousins birthday. During Diwali time, everyone plays cards and gambles a little. So, I got to learn how to play Indian cards (I was given "honorary" poker chips). Shruti won 1500 Rupees and the aunties had fun playing Bingo.
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On Friday, I also went to the Girls Home again. My new friend is Shivani and she is so adorable and was teaching me Hindi and is learning how to add and subtract and counts on the little creases on the inside of her fingers (instead of counting on the actual fingers like we do in America). I've started speaking to them in a lot more Hindi and I saw a really big difference in how they interact with me now: they're more open and tell me jokes and test me on words and just overall a lot more open about stuff (yay!). Shivani and Anjali made me tell them the story of Cinderella in English. I realized that I've forgotten these stories (every couple of lines into it, I'd say "and then what happened?!" and then they would tell me "ooh! then the lady put a blue dress on cinderella!!!"). So this week, I'm going to actually read up on Disney stories. Any suggestions?
I decided to buy them some arts & crafts stuff for diwali: colored pencils, glitter glue, construction papers, gel pens, scissors, glue. Also bought them some cool stone jewelry that I bought from the Sarojni Nagar market (which, btw was MAD CRAZY today. my goodness - Indians can shop!!)
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Also attended a Diwali Mela at Action for Autism on Saturday morning. It's an annual carnival that they have for families whose children have Autism and for members of the community to come support AFA. They had tons of games/prizes for the children, food vendors, and stalls where they sold things (paintings, keychains, scarves) that were made by Autistic children from their Aadhar workshops, where AFA teaches them skills that allows them to work in vocational settings. It was really neat to see these kids get excited about the games and I am now really excited to start my project soon :)
My favorite game: The Bindi Game! It's the Indian adaptation to Pin the tail on the donkey, except its with a poster of Madhuri Dixit:
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OOH: Thalia, Kyle and I went to watch Wake Up Sid today. I now officially have a crush on Ranbir Kapoor (I can't believe I just admitted to that). This has lead me to believe that I am actually turning into a fob.
Other signs of Fobiness:
- Waiting for things to 'buffer' online is just not that big of a deal anymore.
- Indian Standard Time is a way of life for me.
- I've started buying/wearing bright colors, including bright red nailpolish, orange kurtas, and a new suit that has yellow lace sleeves.
- I've stopped caring about whether or not I am sweating. Pit stains mean nothing to me, and I don't have to shower at nighttimes anymore (although this is more due to the fact that I dont have running warm water and have to use a scary electric wand which you plug into the socket and dunk in a bucket of water to warm it up. I am waiting until I just absolutely NEED hot water. My experience with the electric sockets in India have been a bit unfortunate: I've been shocked twice, electrocuted once, and managed to burn the prongs of my hairdryer plug. So, no thankyou):
- I've started bargaining Auto-walas for small amounts, like 5 or 10 Rupees. Really, it's the principal of charging me 50 Rupees to go to Lajpat Nagar!
- I used to have a food-bathroom combination problem: I could never throw food products and cleaning product things in the same trashcan, could never eat if I smelled bathroom, and definitely could never be chewing things while I was in the bathroom. Now, the world is my oyster (rather, all of India stinks of raw Oyster...) so whatever.
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