Preoccupying Fritz (& Khena)

Vivek and I are going to Salt Lake City for the holidays, and for the first time ever, I have to leave Fritz in the care of strangers. In the past I always relied on friends to check in on Fritz while I was away. But now we have no local friends to take advantage of. It's sad, but true that in 3 months of living in Minneapolis, we haven't met anyone that we would feel comfortable asking to check in on Mr. Fritz while we're away. Oh well, there are always people who are happy to come by if you pay 'em.

To help assuage our guilt over leaving Fritz in the care of a perfect stranger, whom he only briefly met the other day, we gave him his Christmas gift early. I'm willing to say that he loved it, and if he doesn't forget about it while we're away, he probably won't even notice that we're gone. Why? Well...



In a way, I've also been in need of some preoccupation over the last couple weeks. I've been plenty busy, but when I come home my company is limited to Fritz and the TV. Vivek is now on a project that requires him to travel to Connecticut for four days of every work week. It's supposed to last until July, so I need to get used to our new "part-time" long distance relationship (thanks A, for helping me get the terminology right!). It's pretty funny how old habits return quickly, as in Vivek's absence I've taken to working through the evening and even into the early morning hours again. All of this is of course done with the TV on - it's like caffeine for me, but without the lasting effects.

I bring this up because we don't have cable so I've been playing old episodes of the X-Files. I got through season 2 in about a week and a half! I had forgotten how much I used to love! Love! the X-Files. I still think it's good, and better than a lot of shows out there, but watching all the episodes back to back really makes it clear how recycled the plots of each show are. I mean...it's almost always the case that Scully gets kidnapped and would die except for sheer luck. And if it's not Scully that nearly dies, it's Mulder. It's good that I ran out of DVD's to watch, because I think that if I watched many more I'd start hating the show.

Fun in the snow

Vivek's already posted about all the fun we had with the snow last Sunday, but since then we've had two more snow storms come through our area. Thankfully today's storm was just a dusting. The one last Tuesday, however, wreaked havoc on traffic in the Twin Cities. It wasn't a big storm, but somehow it shut this great northern city down for a couple hours. Click here for an article on it from the local paper.

The basic point of the article seems to be that there were two problems: the missing bridge and misplaced priorities of the traffic cops. Apparently, they were too busy issuing parking tickets and getting cars towed to bother with directing traffic through the first major rush-hour snowstorm without the I-35W bridge. Hmm...I wonder what motivated that decision.

Ok, I can guess. (It's rant time.) For those of you who don't know, Vivek and I have learned the hard way that Minneapolis is a tow-happy city. Early in October we noticed that Vivek's car was missing, and we eventually located it in the city's impound lot. That's when we learned that if you leave your car in the same parking spot for more than three days (and a friendly neighbor complains), they can tow it away. And the cost to you? ~$200. Then, early in November we learned that the city will also happily tow your car if you leave it on the street during street cleaning season. It would be hard to argue with that if it wasn't for the fact that they don't post ANY notices about street cleaning until 24 hours before they clean the streets. So if you don't drive your car to work, and don't walk by your car on your way to the bus stop and back, they'll tow it. Cost to you? ~$200

No wonder there were no traffic cops around to do their job - they had to go make a lot of money for the city and tow companies. Apparently they towed about 1400 cars in the first two days after Saturday's snow storm.

Since I don't drive this meant that I had to wait for the bus for a very, very long time Tuesday. One of the things that I like about this city is that tons of people take the bus. It's great! On Tuesday though it was a bit problematic, because when my bus showed up so many people got on it that there was no room for me (I should have been pushier). This is remarkable because the bus was a double bus - the kind that bends in the middle and has about twice as many seats as a standard bus. By the time the bus left our stop it was packed with people. People were even (gasp!) standing in front of the white line! Anyway, there was no room for me, so I waited another 40 minutes to catch a bus that could get me within a couple miles of home.

When I got to the bus stop there were so many people there that I had to take a picture (thanks cell phone!) I wasn't able to get all of the bus stop, so this should just give you a taste of what it was like. The other pictures are of the crazy gridlock on the other side of the street, and no traffic on my side of the street.

Land of the Free(ze)

It is a delightful 9°F outside, which feels like -6°F with wind chill. I have seen these temperatures in the past when I lived in Iowa -- but we've had quite the cold snap here for the past week or so. The recent lowest temperature I think was somewhere around -5, which felt like -15. Anyway.

Khena and I spent a few hours today shoveling snow. We live on a designated snow emergency route, and the City of Minneapolis declared a snow emergency today. (A snow emergency means that there are special parking rules.) First, we dug out our cars so that we could get them off the main street. And after that, we cleared 2 spots on a side street so that we could park there overnight.

All in all, it was good exercise. I am starting to feel like a hardy Minnesotan already. I will soon be ready for ice hockey on Lake Calhoun.

Life in Minnesota, Part 1

Since we've got most of the wedding stuff out of the way I've decided to post stuff about what it's like for us up here in Minneapolis. Most people know about the bridge that collapsed here in Minneapolis last August and before we even moved here we were getting questions about how it might effect us. It's of course hard to answer that since we don't know what life would have been if the bridge were still around, but at most the absence of the 35W bridge just makes some of our travel times a little longer. I take the bus into school and even though I have to cross the river to get to my building, the bus takes a bridge that's about a mile south of the bridge that collapsed. In fact, the collapse didn't seem real to me until I drove by where it once was and realized that there was a huge hole where a road should be. It's hard to imagine what it was like for the people who were there during the collapse.

Anyway, several weeks ago I was eating lunch outside and realized that it would probably be my last opportunity to comfortably take some pictures of the area around my building. The psychology building on the East bank of the Mississippi river and is fairly close to the 35W bridge. I thought I'd take some pictures of the remaining bridges over the river and the last vestiges of the 35W bridge. So, I started with the view from my lunch spot. In this picture you can see downtown Minneapolis in the background. You can also see a pedestrian bridge, which is about a two minute walk away from the psychology building.
To get some pictures of where the 35W bridge once was, I walked to the pedestrian bridge and took some pictures from there. If the 35 W bridge were still around, it would be just behind the one that's still standing in this next picture. If you look closely you can see some of the foundation for the old bridge, and construction equipment along the river banks (it's easiest to see on the right side). You can also see Saint Anthony Falls in the background.By the time I took these pictures the cleanup was complete, and they were about a week away from starting construction on a new bridge. One of the eeriest things about the missing bridge, however, is that it's not really missing - it's just downstream. In the next picture you can see the twisted steel girders that have been pulled out from the river and lined up on the west bank. Although you can't see it in this picture, it looks like the NTSB is making good on their promise to put the bridge back together to figure out why it fell apart. My bus takes the bridge in the back of the picture to cross the river, and from there you can see that some of the girders have been arranged into what appears to be their original configuration.

More pictures on their way! (Soon! Very soon!!)

It turns out that it's going to be really hard for us to scan pictures from our print album and post them online. Therefore, I have asked my Dad to get in touch with the photo lab and send us a digital pictures on a CD or DVD. Once we get those, we will create an online photo album and post them online. Sorry to have kept you waiting for so long!

We are also trying to start the planning process for our Round #2 wedding in Utah next year. Due to a complicated mix of reasons, we have not been able to get going on it.

O!

hello again,

Vivek and I got our Indian wedding and reception albums last week (these aren't from my Uncle Bill - those are still months away) and I couldn't resist scanning a picture from our reception and posting it here.

And...here's a close-up:
Heheh :)...or should I say :o

A half-day version of a Hindu wedding...

All right. This is it. Here's how we got married the first time (as told by K):


The wedding was really really early. And by early I mean that it started at a time of day when I'm normally just barely waking up. BEFORE the wedding I had to shower (essential), travel 40 minutes to the wedding site, drink coffee (more essential than showering), meet the beauticians, and finally, thanks to the beauticians, turn into an apparent stranger. For all of this to happen I had to wake up around 4:30 that morning...so I was tired when we eventually arrived at the wedding hall.

When we got there, we were greeted by the sign in the above picture, which framed the entrance to the wedding hall. This sort of display (I'm not sure what to call it) is standard at Indian weddings (at least Southern Indian weddings). I had no idea what ours would look like and to be honest I hadn't thought about it much. So, it was a nice surprise to see this that morning. In case you're wondering, the sign is made of colored yarn that is glued onto the backboard.

Anyway, I don't have a lot of pictures from the wedding, particularly that morning. However, there are a couple things that I will always remember: the delicious coffee, the amazing view from the wedding hall, the horrible torture associated with having my make-up put on, and witnessing the preparation of a South Indian feast. I wouldn't normally call having make-up applied torture, but this experience was truly grueling. Why was it so bad? Well, I sat in a normal chair, with my head back as far as I could get it, while two women pressed down on my face for what I guess was forty-five minutes. It hurt. I mention this only because this was the first test of my ability to endure painful discomfort for a long period of time that day. The second and third were equally difficult, and involved string cutting into my skin for most of the day (the ceremony is not meant to be sadistic, it was just a consequence of a very heavy garland and a skirt that was tied really, really tight). Anyway, I shouldn't dwell on that stuff....so to move on, here's a picture of Vivek waiting for me during this process - all of these pictures are from my brother:

The wedding started soon after the beauticians were finished with me. I would write more about this, but I was so confused through most of it that I'm afraid that I'll get it all wrong. I do remember that things started when Vivek's Aunt Bhavani came upstairs (where I was getting ready) with garlands and told me that my Uncle needed to put one on me. I seem to remember that he was supposed to put the first one on, but I'm not really sure if that's right. In any case, the garlands were piled on and my uncle escorted me down the stairs to the wedding. I was greeted by apparent chaos. I eventually realized that this chaos was actually the beginning of the part of the wedding where Vivek pretends to decide to become a monk.

Now, you may be wondering what the purpose of this part of the wedding is. I really don't know, except that we were asked to include it since it was the only part of the wedding that is "fun." And, actually, it was kind of fun. Once Vivek pretends to want to skip the wedding, my parents graciously put their pride aside and asked him to consider their daughter's hand in marriage (it took some effort to convince my dad that Vivek didn't really need to be convinced, and also didn't feel like this part of the ceremony was necessary). As a way to convince him to get married, my parents gave Vivek a coconut, and this of course did the trick. (After reading this, Vivek is telling me that I got the purpose of the ceremony wrong, so hopefully he'll explain this part of the ceremony in a later post.) After this, the fun starts. In this next picture one of the priests is pulling a few garlands from around my neck (that red garland was the evil thing that cut into my neck...it left marks that were still there for my defense four weeks later). Behind me is my Uncle Bill. He's squatting a bit because he's just been told that as my uncle, it's his job to hoist me into the air....


Vivek also gets lifted.....and we then throw garlands around each other's necks.



Everyone is having fun - even me and Vivek. After we've exchanged a sufficient number of garlands (three, maybe?) our relatives and priests set us back on the ground. From that moment until the time that we're finally married, Vivek has to hold my right hand in his, in a very particular manner, whenever we're not sitting on a certain mat (again, I'm sure that there's something more to this part of the ceremony, and that the mat itself isn't what's important). You can see that in this next photo. This is right after the garland exchange, and we've been seated for a ceremony in which the married women offer us their blessings.


As part of this ceremony the married women throw ladoos in each of the four cardinal directions around us to ward off evil spirits. Once they've done that we hold out our right hands so they can put three spoons of milk and banana on them, and we're supposed to slurp it up. Here's a picture of my mom doing that for Vivek. My sister Shaela also did this part of the ceremony, but I don't have a picture. (If you're wondering, we're sitting on the mat so it's ok for us to not hold hands at this point.)


All the women do this part of the ceremony, so we actually ate a lot of banana and milk. This was a very good thing, since it was the only food we had until late that afternoon. I actually thought this part of the ceremony was pretty neat. Throughout the women who are not giving us milk and banana are singing something and then at the end they walked/ran around us in a big circle. For that my mom also got to pour water on the floor. Not sure what the significance of that was either, but it looked like it was fun.

From there we moved on to what I believe was the actual wedding ceremony. Inside the wedding hall, on a stage, the priests had started a fire, a holy fire in fact. This fire is the center of the Hindu wedding ceremony and we sat around it and did things. Well really Vivek did things and I watched. Every once in a while I handed something to Vivek and we'd throw it in the fire together. At one point I passed puffed rice from my brother to Vivek. At other points, we'd stand, Vivek would take my hand, and we'd walk around the fire. However, most of what I remember is a lot of chanting and that Vivek repeated a lot of things that the main priest said. The priests would also often take a break in the ceremony to argue (V told me that they arguing about what they were supposed to do next). At one point, my father joined in. Here's a picture of that:


Eventually, I was presented with a gift from Vivek's parents: a 9 yard sari and some gold to wear with it. I was then rushed to a back room where V's Aunt Bhavani and Cousin Bharu helped me change into my new sari. I was very happy in this new sari - not because it was new, but because it is worn is such a way that one's legs are much more free to move. Suddenly, I could walk again! Hurray!

The only downside of the new sari was that sitting down on the floor was a little more difficult. When I got back out it was time for Vivek to marry me. The bride and groom are considered to be married once the groom ties a necklace around the bride's neck (it's a string covered in turmeric and it holds a couple lion pendants). Despite any confusion that I may have had about this, the large crowd that gathered for this part of the ceremony and the applause that followed it made it pretty clear that once that knot was tied, Vivek's family considered us married. Anyway, after Vivek tied the knot, we walked around the fire several times, and after each cycle we had to sit back down again and throw more things into the fire. And, each time I sat down in the new sari, it would somehow catch itself on my leg and reveal too much to the people around me (nothing more than you might see with shorts around here). As a result there was almost always someone nearby to pull it back down for me. It was a bit embarrassing to have someone there, ready to jump at the sight of my calves...I always thought that people didn't really want to see them!

At some point soon after Vivek tied the knot, his cousin put a couple toe rings on my feet. You can see her doing that in this next picture. Supposedly, the toe rings are meant to ease the pain of child-birth, but even though I wasn't in labor, or expecting to be any time soon, I was told that I must never take the toe rings off.....I wonder how many women follow that rule, and how strict it really is meant to be.


Well, eventually the fire died (the holy fire, that is), and we were done. I don't remember the end so well. I do know that we then transitioned to a situation that was very similar to our reception - people handed us gifts and lots of photographs were taken. This also eventually ended, and then we were free to seek the blessings of our elders. To do this, they took some rice from a bowl and we touched their feet - to bless us they threw rice on our heads.

From there we were off to Vivek's house where one last ceremony needed to be performed. Traditionally, wives would move in with their husband and his parents after they got married. The groom's family welcomes the bride into the home by doing something with ladoos and giving her milk and banana. Here's a picture of us during the ceremony outside Vivek's parents home (my mother in law and sister in law are the ones holding a plate of ladoos, and my Uncle Bill is the one with the camera in the back):


As you can see, this is not a part of the ceremony that most people witness, and in fact, there were probably fewer than 10 people there. In any case it was important, and we even delayed our first meal of the day in order to perform it. So, my grumbling stomach was thrilled to have more bananas and milk. More importantly, to me, it represented one important beginning of our marriage - from then on I would be welcomed into his family's home as his wife.

Cut to - last night

I will eventually post about the wedding and the rest of our trip to India. I have even started to write the post about our wedding (it consists of a single sentence, and that will probably be deleted). However, things keep happening that I think would be fun to write about here and then it never happens because I keep thinking that the wedding story must first be completed. Well, no more. Here's a little post about last night, though I'll start it with some unnecessary history....

In June a good friend threw a surprise Preception party for me and Vivek. Even though I hate surprises and I immediately took an oath of revenge against my friend, we had a good time. My mom even flew in and thanks to another friend, we were able to video chat with friends in SF, CO, and RI and type chat with my uncle in NJ. It was great! A couple weeks later we received a gift from N and J - season tickets to the Minnesota Orchestra. It was an awesome gift and we couldn't have been happier.

Last night was our first concert, and it consisted of a short Stravinsky piece followed by Grieg, then a ghoulish composition from Crumb, and finally Debussey's La Mer. A well know and "highly respected" concert pianist, Garrick Ohlsson, performed during the Grieg (I mention all of this because it may mean something to someone - I'm just repeating what the program said). The Minneapolis crowd was very pleased by his performance and cheered until the man came back for an encore. He chose to perform Chopin and his interpretations of Chopin are some of the best (according to the program). So hopefully I've set the scene for you: Concert Hall, well respected virtuoso pianist, pianist is doing what he does best during an encore performance. Vivek and I were sitting there, enjoying as much as we could, when it happened: A 'discordant wind instrument' (Vivek's words) from several rows behind us, well, tooted. I wasn't sure about what I had just heard so I ignored it. However, a short time later I heard a man pleadingly say "Sorry!" And then, again "Sorry!! Apologies! Sorry!!" I can only imagine what was happening behind us. In front of us, however, the violinists started giggling. Much to his credit, the concert pianist continued to play his Chopin, though who knows whether he heard the additions from the audience.

Even if there had been no sideshow we had a great time at the symphony and are looking forward to our next concert. Anyway, that's the story. I hope you enjoyed it.

Reception Day

You may think that I'm skipping the wedding, but....the reception was the night before the wedding. This created an odd experience. At the reception (which I'll describe in a bit) we were constantly being congratulated on our wedding. And yet, we weren't married. So every time someone would walk up to us and say "Congratulations! You got married!" I'd secretly think to myself "Well, really, no. Didn't you know? The wedding's not till tomorrow." Anyway, the reception was before the wedding, not after.

Reception Day started out like any other day. Our hotel was in the center of Bangalore, and every morning around 5 a.m. we were woken by the Muslim call to prayer. There must have been a mosque within a half mile of our hotel. I'm not complaining though. It was pretty, a bit surreal, and it ensured that every morning I was reminded that I was in a foreign place. So... Reception Day started with a Muslim call to prayer. After that the day was very much like the other days in Bangalore. We went shopping...at Commercial Street...again. This time was more exciting though, because for the first time we went on our own, without any one from India to help us out: Vivek and his family were busy with a ritual that I believe was meant to mark his transition from one stage of his life to another (hopefully he'll write about it at some point).

My Uncle Bill arrived early the day before so he hadn't had a chance to see much yet (Amazingly, he spent his first day taking pictures of the mehndi). So we all took a trip for some much needed shopping (it's true that, for some reason, a wedding means that the shopping that's already been done will never be enough). I desperately needed shoes that would be appropriate for the reception and wedding. Vivek had been telling me for weeks that my flip flops would be fine since no one would see them underneath the sari. I had foolishly believed him until I noticed that you can see the shoes that women wear under their saris. In fact they're very obvious. After realizing this, the flip flops were out and some sparkly new shoes were in. Our first stop at Commercial Street was an open-air shoe store where my female counter parts and I spent some time trying on shoes. I bought four for about $15. I even bought a magenta pair of flip flops that I, uh, wore for the reception. But they did sparkle - they had sequins! I might even go so far as to say that they were like an Indian version of Dorothy's slippers, but they weren't covered in rubies, so I won't.

After Shaela and my mom picked up some clothes that they had tailored (salwar kameez that they bought a couple days earlier) we had some time on our hands, so we went into a few stores. There was one shop that stands out quite a bit. And this, among other things, is why:
You see, the shop owner was a very friendly guy (as most shop owners seemed to be). He was also very blatantly trying to sell anything our gaze happened to fall on. I did my best to avoid him and pretended to be an unfriendly person who has no money (ok, I didn't have to pretend much). However, I was with three open, caring, and yes, very friendly family members. He had us you see - and he knew it! So he chatted us up and found out that I was getting married. Nice guy that he is, he offered me a wedding gift (see the picture above). I briefly tried to refuse but met with an extreme look of disapproval. So I thanked him and wondered what this thing could possibly be. He showed me, as I will show you:
My family and I spent a lot of money there that day. And because there was always something else that we "just had to see," it was very difficult to leave. We made it out eventually.

This shopping trip took most of the day, so by the time we got home it was time to get ready for the reception. Vivek's mother had arranged for the two women who had applied the mendhi the day before to come back to the hotel to help get me ready for the reception. Sometime that afternoon one of the women had caught a cold and said that she couldn't do it anymore. This might not normally be such a bad thing, but trying to get someone else to fill in for her at the last minute and with Bangalore traffic was horrible. I wasn't involved, but I say this because I kept getting updates from Vivek about how his mother was on her way over to the hotel, oh no, wait! now she's going out to a distant village to pick up the woman....nope!....she's going home to pick up a relative who will help. And oh - did I mention that she was traveling in an autorickshaw in the rain? That couldn't have been a fun experience for her. She, Pinky, and Renu (Vivek's Aunt) eventually arrived about an hour before the reception was supposed to start. In the meantime my sister Shaela had graciously agreed to start my make-up: By the time they got there I was well on my way to looking much better than I normally do.

Once Vivek's mother and relatives arrived we had to select the sari that I would be wearing for the reception. I had thought that this would be the one that Vivek's parents bought for me before I arrived. However, for the reception I was to wear the most "grand" sari and they apparently thought that one I bought earlier in the week was better. Selecting the sari actually took a bit of time and there was much discussion. In the end I realized that this must have been because they were trying to figure out how I should wear the sari. It seems that there are at least two ways to wear a sari - the one that most people are familiar with, and another way, called Gujarati style. They eventually went with Gujarati style. Here's a picture Thos took once they had it on me. In it, Pinky is putting one of Vivek's mother's prized gold chains on me.
You may notice that my shoes are not visible. Funny. Oh well. The sari ended up being very long and I had a difficult time not stepping on it throughout the evening. It may not be obvious, but for practical purposes, stepping on your sari is a very, very bad thing. Underneath all that cloth there is, thankfully, a skirt. To wear a sari, women tuck parts of the long length of the sari into the skirt and then fold, tuck, drape, and pin the rest of it. Stepping on the sari pulls it out of the skirt and leads to a mess. I never got to that point, but there was a fear in my heart that it would happen, and worse, that it would happen while I was walking to the reception stage. It didn't happen but I shuffled rather than walked the rest of that night. And thinking about those shoes again, this may be why shoes are normally visible under saris....I wonder if the maroon flip-flops (with sequins!) is why they made the sari a little long....huh.

We did finally make it to the reception. As you can see from this picture, our reception was the function of the day at the White House.
The reception was in a ballroom called the "White House" in a hotel ("The Capitol") so it does actually make sense. It was a pretty simple reception - there was a delicious buffet and silver and red velvet thrones for me and Vivek. Vivek and I spent the reception on a stage sometimes sitting in, but usually standing in front of, two large silver and red velvet chairs. While we were there we endured hours of a bright video camera light coming from one direction and an incessant flash coming from a camera in the other direction. In all of that my Uncle Bill also managed to take a picture or two, though sometimes it did look like the other photographer was unhappy about having his turf violated. All of this was done so people could give us gifts and have their picture taken with us. Here's one that Thos took. I believe that most of these people work with Vivek's father at the bank (his father is the guy on the far right).Those are all of the pictures that I have from Reception Day. Sorry it took so long for me to post them....and that I'm going to save wedding day pictures for another time.

P.S. In defense of my plan to wear flip-flops to my wedding reception - we stood there for a very, very long time. There were few breaks. I needed comfortable shoes and flip-flops mold to your feet. They also pack well. Well, there's that and the fact that I like to pretend that I don't care about these sorts of things....

Mendhi! or Mehndi?

Hello, again! I'm back from St. Louis, having successfully defended my dissertation. So I have a couple minutes to post pictures and talk about mendhi day (as I like to think of it).

After my last post from India I was sucked into a whirlwind of beauticians and cameras. There were always at least 2 women working very hard to make me look good for the cameras, and then I'd ruin it all by pulling dorky faces once the flashes started going off. At least that's the excuse I make for myself. Anyway, the first step in my makeover process was the mehndi. One of Vivek's relatives was kind enough to drag her friend over to our hotel so they could then spend many, many hours applying mendhi on me and my mom and sister. It took both women two hours to cover my hands, arms, and feet. Here's a picture my brother took.
Here's what they did to my feet..
And, here's what the mendhi looked like after it dried and I (finally!) got to remove it.

Pretty orange, eh? It did darken overnight.
Anyway, I realize that this mendhi story is probably pretty boring. There was more to mendhi day though. Later on we went back to Commercial Street to pick up the Sari tops from the tailor. But, again, I can't think of a great story to tell. The tailors were pretty cool though. They had basically set up shop in a two-level room that was about the size of two suvs stacked on top of each other. They had a couple old sewing machines and giant sheers. Scraps of cloth and thread were everywhere. And, as we waited for something (I can't remember what), we were able to watch as a new kameez was made by hand - with no pattern, just a guy with scissors. I guess that I can add this to the list of interesting experiences that I have not documented.

Anyway, I hope all is well with everyone. I will try to add more about the next day (Reception Day) soon.

A brief hello

You may notice that the title of this blog has changed. Even though we failed to document much of it on this blog, we did get married, so we thought the blog should reflect that somewhere.

Unfortunately life is still crazy and we won't have time to post much to this blog for another week or two. We're now in Minneapolis and settling down, though we're doing that rather slowly. Khena is also trying to prepare for her dissertation defense in a week and a half. Once that's over with we'll try to tell the story of our wedding here in words and pictures. Hopefully at that time we'll still remember it....

Sorry we have been able to post anyting

Things have been totally nuts over the past week, and we have had no time to post anything. we will be back with more later. Right now, we are busy packing because we have to get to the airport in 4 hours or so.

Mysore....back

Sorry for not posting for a couple days. Things have been a bit crazy and yesterday we weren't even in Bangalore (or now, officially, Bangaluru). Instead, we drove to Mysore.

Vivek and the driver arrived at the hotel around 6:30 yesterday morning and after a quick breakfast we took off. The road to Mysore is long, bumpy, and full of obstacles. Like leaning buses piled with people...

Along the way we nearly killed several people in our speeding taxi, but thanks to our driver and his expert use of his brakes no people or animals were harmed by our trip (including us!). Because it takes so long to get anywhere in India, my day mostly consisted of staring out the window and gritting my teeth at all the close calls. Here's what my day was like:

Ok, not really. But I swear that was most of it! There was also an hour that we spent at the side of the road, waiting to get out of a traffic jam. This was apparently caused by a taxi hitting a bullock cart. No one really knows what happened to the people involved, but given the driving conditions and habits, it couldn't have been good. To get out of the traffic jam we ended up driving along the shoulder of the road until we ended up behind a military bus (in the picture above) which was making its way over to a side road. This was by far one of the best parts of our road trip. The side road took us through some beautiful rice and sugar cane fields. I tried to take a few pictures, but I'm afraid they're not that great (I had to take them through a tinted car window - I'm really not this bad with a camera).

Along the way to Mysore we stopped at a place called Srirangapatnam. It's a city on an island in the middle of the Cauvery River and was home to Tippu Sultan. This guy apparently had a long rivalry with the Maharajah of Mysore and the Brits (with whom the Maharajah was collaborating). He eventually was killed in battle as the Brits finally stormed and took control of Srirangapatnam and Mysore. We stopped by his summer home while we were in town. The palace itself was in disrepair but must have been amazing at one point. I suppose that they're trying to preserve it now as they wouldn't allow photography in the palace. However, the grounds were quite beautiful (the palace is the building in the background of the first photo).Our first stop in Mysore was at Chamundi Hill, the place where the goddess Chamundi is said to have defeated the demon Mahishasura. Although Vivek, Vijay, and I visited this place last year, we weren't able to go inside, so this was another new thing for me. Also, a band of monkeys must have been moving through the area, or had made a home of the temple grounds, because there were tons of them everywhere! And they weren't friendly. There were several times that we were chased away by hissing angry monkeys. It was probably because there were so many babies around. Here's a picture of a baby with his mother as they perched on the roof of the temple.
Anyway, after that it was the Maharajah's palace. If anything could demonstrate the benefits of siding with the rich invading army, a comparison of this place to Tippu's place would do it.
It's quite remarkable how things can change over short periods of time - last year Vivek, Vijay, and I visited the Maharajah's palace and I was struck by how poorly cared for it was. The interior paint was peeling away, the paint that was still there was dirty and dull, the columns were horribly chipped, and marble and tile were missing in several parts of the building. Just nine months later, things had changed dramatically. The palace looked remarkable inside (again, no photos were allowed) and there was no need to imagine how beautiful it was in the past. Although there were several things that really bugged me about our time at the palace (if I get a chance maybe I'll write about them later), this made me feel like there's a great deal of hope for rapid improvements in India.

After seeing the grandeur of the palace we then took off to buy expensive things. Mysore is known for its silk and sandalwood and unfortunately you have to be very careful about where you go to purchase it. Our driver took us to a state-owned silk factory where we were overwhelmed by the beauty and quality of the silk fabrics. There was one guy who told us all about the silks and was also a great salesman. Here we are looking at the piles of fabric that he's pulled out for us:


After that, we had dinner at a nice restaurant (Hotel Sandesh?) and drove back to Bangalore. Okay, that's it. Mehndi must be done!

Ankles gain 50 lbs overnight!

Although our flight over here was better than I expected, there were some unexpected consequences....I suppose I just experienced what it's like to be pregnant in the summer - and, as a summer baby, what my mom went through when she was pregnant with me. Thanks mom!

Speaking of my mom, she's been having a pretty good time checking out all the clothes and material while we've been here. Here she is at the sari shop where we bought my wedding sari

Ok, that's it for now!

Little sleep...

I have been getting very little sleep and am sort of operating in Zombie mode. My maternal grandmother, an uncle and aunt arrived this morning. I was supposed to receive them at around 4 AM at the train station with my brother, but my Dad went instead. However, I woke up somehow at 3 AM along with my Dad, Mom and brother, and could not fall asleep after that.

The good news is that the shopping is almost over. We have to make one more trip to pick up some clothes from the tailor, and to get a pair of shoes and toerings for Khena. Yesterday, we shopped for about 6 hours to get jewelry and stuff for everyone.

Today, I am going to be showing people around Bangalore. Tomorrow, we will be making a trip to Mysore. After that, we are going to be busy exclusively with wedding-related activities.

Hello from Bangalore

We all made it safely into Bangalore early yesterday morning (Bangalore time). Ever since then it's been crazy traffic, noise, and smells (today I am wearing eau de deet). Unfortunately, we're having some trouble with connecting to the internet and I have very little time for this post. To hold you over, here's a picture from yesterday's adventures (care of my brother). We took a trip to M.G. Road and spent an hour or so looking at saris. Here I'm looking through several saris to find that "perfect wedding sari." My sister Shaela is there in the foreground, I'm there behind my mom (in the blue) and that's Vidya in the bright green clothing behind me.

Here's me with the one I eventually chose....


Anyway, we have to head back out for some more shopping today. This time to Commerical Street where my mom will probably get a salwar kameez. More updates soon!

Map

I thought it would be fun to test out the "my maps" feature of google maps. So, I made my own map of Bangalore that has landmarks related to our wedding plans and the major places we'll be during our trip to India. You can check it out here: Bangalore Map

the time has come

We're now within one month of our wedding date and we're only now setting up a wedding blog. How retro of us! We thought you might like to see some pictures of India and whatnot, so we had to set something up to satisfy the hungry masses. We'll do our best to post pictures and video while we're in India. Out internet access should be sporadic while we're there, but perhaps the variable reward schedule will lead you to to check back often (bwahaha).

Here's our schedule for the wedding stuff:
August 15 - Fly to India
August 17 - Arrive in Bangalore, India
August 22 - Reception
August 23 - Wedding
August 27 - Return to the States

Well, we hope that you have enjoyed your stay at what is now a paltry site. We promise to make it better soon.