The Pink City

Short week this week because I skipped school to go see my mom! She came in last Monday night and did a whirlwind trip. She started in Delhi, then to Agra, then to Jaipur and finally Mumbai all in six days. I went up to Jaipur to see her and her friend Frances. When you travel with Frances you only travel in style, and I kid you not. In Jaipur there are a ton of palaces that the royal family has converted into hotels or museums, so for two nights we got to stay in palaces. It was amazing to stay in a nice bed, nice room, and not have Indian food for a few nights.

During our day in Jaipur we went to the Amber Fort. The royal family lived in this fort/palace for 600 years before moving down to Jaipur. To get to this fort you have to take elephants, when they are available. They are only allowed five trips up to the fort so you have to get to the fort early enough to be able to ride one. It was pretty fun, kind of bumpy but it was an elephant so it was worth it. We then went to the Silver and Art Palace and bought jewelry because Jaipur is known for its gems. That was probably a bad idea because I wanted everything. We then went to the City Palace and Museum. The royal family converted part of their palace into a museum and the other part they still live in. Until the current Maharaja there had not been a son born into the family for 100 years, so the Maharaja would always adopt one of his sibling’s boys to become the next king. Well the Maharaja didn’t have a son so he adopted his grandson. The Maharaja does not have any power over the people of Jaipur (Indira Gandhi eliminated Princely rule when she was in office), but he is a political figure now. I also learned that the reason Jaipur is called the pink city is because it is a color of welcome. When Prince Albert came to Jaipur, the Maharaja had the city painted pink to welcome him. A lot of the buildings are still pink!!!

We left Saturday morning for Pune so it was a pretty short trip, plus it’s Holi and we did not want to miss it. It was great to see my mom and Frances, and nice to take a little break from Pune. We are playing colors tomorrow and I will post lots of pictures! Short week this week as well because we are off to Mumbai as a program to hear some talks etc.


Amber Fort


Peace

More Pictures

Kailasa temple from above- carved out of the rock

Africa House

Sorry I havent updated in so long, my internet does not work!!!!!

Nothing new to report for this week. The program brought in some government officials who talked to us about the bombing but it was nothing that we had not heard, and they sometimes sent mixed messages. I don’t know if it was the language barrier or something lost in translation, but they were telling us not to worry and to go about our business as usual, while also telling us to not go to crowded areas. Another funny piece of advice was don’t travel but the safest way to travel is by airplane. As far as I’m concerned nothing has changed in my daily routine.

On Friday Brynna, Naani, and I went to Ahmedabad to visit some of my family. My dad’s cousin lives there and my dad’s sister was also in Ahmedabad for a few weeks. It was nice to be among family, and be in a home, which I feel like I haven’t been in for a long time. My dad’s best friend ended up marrying my dad’s cousin, so it’s funny to hear all the old stories. According to the stories my dad was the instigator of every party and every wild thing they did… not so much anymore (what happened dad?).

When we first got to Ahmedabad we saw yellow and green rickshaws, which is different from the black and yellow rickshaws we are used to in Pune. Amit told us that they run on natural gas, and that they have really made a difference in the pollution levels in Ahmedabad. I would really like to know why this initiative hasn’t reached Pune yet, because it is smoggy and really polluted here compared to Ahmedabad. On Friday night we went to see my great grandfathers house, and it’s the house that my dad lived in when he was in India. It’s called the Africa House and it’s pretty cool, from the outside at least. The outside is painted all different colors, and they named it the Africa House because everyone grew up in Kenya. No one lives there now and it is some disrepair, but it would cool if someone in the family bought it back and fixed it up (hint hint family!). Saturday we saw the Gandhi Ashram, and did some shopping (as always). We also went and saw a step well Dada Hari Wav, which was cool. It got significantly colder as you walked down and the walls were beautifully carved. On Sunday morning we did a heritage walk through the old parts of Ahmedabad. The neighborhoods, called pols, were all separated by a gate and there were sometimes secret walkways between them. Most of the houses were supported by these intricately carved wooden beams, and I have seen maybe one building like that in Pune. It is interesting because Ahmedabad seems like it has been able to keep the older housing and integrate it with the new. In Pune all the buildings look the same and they are not old or pretty in any way. All in all it was a great weekend, and we agreed that we like Ahmedabad a lot better than Pune. It seemed a lot cleaner, breathing wise, still had a lot of the old city in tact, and seemed a lot more hip than Pune. We are thinking of transferring to Gujarat University!!!

This week will be another short one, and on Thursday morning I am off to Jaipur to see my mom! Then it’s Holi on Sunday!!! For those of you who don’t know about Holi, you basically have a huge water, and colored powder fight- don’t worry pictures will be taken and they will be great!!! Holi signifies the start of summer (which I am totally looking forward too…) and there are other meanings behind it but I can’t remember. I’ll look it up and post it later.

Elephant carvings on the step well


Africa House



The three S's are the initials for my grandfather, great grandmother, and great grandfather


Plaque outside the house- not my grandfathers name though!


Peace

More Pictures

This is Ruhan, our host mom's nephew. He is probably the best behaved 3 year old I have ever met


Panorama of the Ajanta caves


Unhusked Rice

Pictures

wind turbines on the opposite hill



cool quote in the school- sometimes i love being alone...

Wake Up Call

Sorry I haven’t been updating in awhile, it’s been a busy week. Thursday and Friday we took trips to two different villages. On Thursday we went to a village east of Pune. The story of this village is a testament to what people can do with the land, and how simple things like changing the way you farm or view your land can drastically help people’s welfare.

Twenty years ago this village was full of alcoholics. It was also known for producing really good wrestlers (which apparently is a big thing in India). So the men in the village basically drank, and wrestled. What a life! The amount of poverty, hunger, and water shortage in this village was also very high. A few of the younger men decided that they wanted to help the village and bring people out of poverty. They took over the council from the elders, and started instituting new initiatives to improve the watershed of the land. When these programs started the people did not think it made a difference because the stream that they got water from had the same amount of water, some even thought there was less water. What they soon realized was that their wells were actually higher at certain points in the year. This village now has 1400 people living in it, and only three or four families are below the poverty line. They are known for their farming and there are even a few millionaires within the village.

The second village also improved their watershed, and also diverted a small spring to two hamlets that were not getting enough water.

On Saturday and Sunday our host mom took us to the Ellora and Ajanta caves. These caves were unreal and I have never seen anything like it. The Ajanta caves were carved, by Buddhist monks, into the mountain. The monks lived there and meditated and carved away. The detail that went into these caves was amazing. Just trying to think how they did it boggled my mind. The Ellora caves were even more impressive. They were carved into the rock face, and for some reason just looked more majestic. They consisted of Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain temples. Cave number 16 at Ellora is probably the most famous. It is the Kailasa temple, and it is basically carved from one big rock. The story goes that the Hindu priests made a small version of the temple, put it in a bowl of water, and would scoop away a cup of water at a time. Whatever was not in the water is what they would carve. This would go on until there was no more water in the bowl. If this sounds confusing don’t worry I will post a picture from the top view and it will make sense.

The details on this temple were unreal. There were scenes from the Mahabharata, there was a huge Shivalinga (like Lord Shiva, but male and female form) in the temple, and various gods were carved on the façade of the temple. It was pretty breathtaking.

At dinner on Saturday night we got a text from our program director saying that we had must of heard of what went on in Pune, and that everyone was safe. We had no idea what that meant, and literally a minute later my dad called and said, “Supriya, did you hear what happened and where are you?” He told me that a bomb had gone off in the German Bakery and that eight people had died and thirty or so were injured. This took us all by surprise of course, but was a wake up call at the same time. A few weeks ago the U.S. issued a travel alert for India saying that terrorism attacks would most likely take place in tourist cities. We took this warning seriously but did not think anything of it because we were in Pune, and this city is not a major tourist site. The German Bakery is located in a part of the city that a lot of westerners go to because of the Ashram that is there. We fortunately do not frequent that area a lot and tend to stay more in areas that not many westerners go to, but it was a little scary knowing that two of my friends had been there six or so hours before the bomb went off.

As of now no one has claimed the attack so we do not know the real reason this was done. We do not know what will happen with the program in terms of being suspended or giving students the option of going home. The U.S. did issue another travel alert saying that attacks would most likely continue. It is difficult to gage how safe we are because not much is known right now. I think that most of us do a pretty good job of not drawing attention to ourselves, but that wasn’t really the case in this attack. It makes me feel like I can’t go anywhere that reminds me of home, or tourist sites because they are all going to potentially be targets (this could prove difficult seeing as I’m traveling a lot within the next few weekends). Attacks like this were a thought in the back of my mind when I came here, but I always pushed it aside because you never think something like this is going to happen until it does, and it hits a little too close to home. I will update as soon as more details come in, and as much as I miss you all and home I hope I don’t have to see you anytime soon.

Peace

P.S. Pictures will come I promise! I’ll have a few posts with just pictures- it is sometimes hard to post them because internet is slow here!!!!

Kihim Beach

This week went by fast, which was nice, and my Public Health class started this week as well. We were given an assignment to interview people and ask them what they think makes a healthy person and an unhealthy person. I have been getting the usual answers like eating poorly etc. but my host mom gave me a really interesting answer. She said that a person is unhealthy if their mind is unhealthy, and if they have something weighing down on them that they do not resolve. I asked her if a certain diet or daily exercise would also be considered healthy, and she said no, if ones mind is healthy everything else would fall into place. I thought this was really interesting and I have never really considered the mind to be the determining factor for the health of a person, but it makes sense.

We went to the beach this weekend, which was sooo nice! It was about three and a half hours from Pune, and it was the perfect weekend trip. We stayed at a place called Mauli Village, and we were all expecting the worst. Instead we got great rooms, great food, and all for really cheap. The people that worked there were so nice and were really accommodating. The beach was about 2KM from the place we were staying and it was nice to see some water! Granted the beach wasn’t the cleanest, it was just nice to relax out in the sun. The Arabian Sea is surprisingly not that cold at all. We met some people from Mumbai who worked for Barclay’s bank, and it’s funny because every time I introduce myself people sort of do a double take, and are like wait you’re Indian? I normally chime in before they ask. People are also able to pinpoint exactly which state my dad is from because of my last name, which I find fascinating, because our last names aren’t like this. I was talking to a girl in my hostel about this and she said that there are certain names that only appear in certain areas of India. She said you could also tell what caste people are from by their last name, which is also something very odd. The caste system in India is still very prevalent. Now there are some people that have risen above the certain jobs of their caste, but there are also people that have not. It is a complicated and foreign situation to me. Once we learn more about it in class I might come back and address that issue… but back to the beach!

We met a lot of nice people there, and of course we got more of the staring. It is something that we are all getting used to and it does not bother us so much anymore, but sometimes it does irk us.

This village we stayed in is actually a farm. It is about 200 acres, and they grow squash, peanuts, different fruits, and have about 250 chickens somewhere on the property. The food was amazing and I think most of it came from the farm. There are about three families living on the property, and they also have people come from around the town to work on the farm. They also have a solar panel on the building that we stayed in. My friends who went on the hiking trip last weekend said that the village they stayed in also had a solar panel. It is interesting because the amount of pollution in India is amazing, but also these small villages and farms have solar panels. I am curious to know whether these solar panels are government subsidized or these people took it upon themselves to lower their carbon footprint while also lowering their costs?

Here are some pictures of Kihim Beach! Enjoy!







Peace