Agni Kavadi

I was walking home from the conservatory and suddenly found myself in the middle of a huge religious celebration involving many rituals I had never seen before.  It was the most bizarre experience to turn a corner and find yourself in the middle of something so ornate and ritualistic. I looked it up immediately and learned that what I had walked in on was the Agni Kavadi festival of Chennai.

The Kavadi festival is celebrated by the devotees of lord Muruga and involves a long processional from the Palani hills by a man carrying a large gold and flower adorned diety on his head to the Muruga temple which apparently is on my street.  I had no idea. 

The journey to the temple is filled with songs dedicated to Muruga, dancing and loud rhythmic drumming.  In this processional men and women carry baskets filled with fruits, coconuts, vegetables, rice, and milk as an offering for the god.  Even animals like goats and roosters are brought along for the ride.  

The Agni Kavadi (which I experienced) is the most intense offering to the god.  Once the people finally arrive at the temple, they have to walk across pits of burning coal as their final hurdle before entering the temple. It is said that the men who cross this fire come out unscathed because of their devotion.  Oh and did I mention that these men also had their lips sewed shut with long silver lances pierced through their face?  I don't know.  I feel like your body would be confused as to what it should tend to first - feet or face.  

It was absolutely amazing to watch and everyone was so nice to us.  They offered us food and took our pictures.  I felt a little like a specimen and I'm sure our picture is in some Tamil newspaper somewhere as "the foreigners who came to worship."  

The Meat Point

Good lord. I made the mistake of thinking I could cook in this country and I clearly cannot. Apparently western cooking techniques don't exactly work here because of the climate, products and cooking apparatuses. First of all, I don't have a stove and assumed that a hot plate would work just as well as gas or electric range. Mmm, it doesn't. Second, the humidity in the air does something bizarre to food here. I'll explain in a minute. And third, the products are so unfamiliar that making assumptions about cooking/boiling time won't work.

Which brings me to... The Meat Point. [Insert loud booming sounds of impending doom]. I went to get groceries at what I thought was a more western grocery store and found ingredients like vinegar, soy sauce, pasta etc. I was ecstatic. I thought "Yes! I don't have to eat sambar rice and butter chicken for nine months, Huzzah!" So I thought, tonight let's make a thai chicken curry with white rice. Simple enough, right? No. Chicken. I don't know what I was thinking when I decided to buy raw meat in Chennai, but it is an experience I will never forget. Down the street from my apartment is what is called a Meat Point. This is exactly what you think it is - the place where they sell meat. The thing I wasn't anticipating, was that it's also the place where they Kill the animals to give you the meat. *Shudder. I walked over to find a man holding four screaming live chickens by their necks holding a cleaver in the other hand and I almost died. In the states, somehow it's possible to avoid the fact that you're actually eating an animal that was once living and breathing. When meat comes neatly packaged with no blood, fat or hair, it's easy to turn a blind eye. But the meat point certainly brought me back to reality. Eeek! While the guy was struggling to hack off their heads, the healthy chickens in the cage watched in horror as the wall behind him became completely splattered with blood. Within 10 minutes my chicken was de-feathered, de-boned, chopped and weighed. I wanted to vomit.

Nevertheless I came home and attempted to cook this meal and failed miserably. What the bottle described as thai tomato seasoning was actually ketchup and later when I tried to boil milk, it suspiciously became paneer.

I don't know man. I think I'll just order out from now on.
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On a happier note, I went around the neighborhood and took pictures. The area is so fun and I'm actually starting to see how beautiful India is when you actually take the time to look:
There is tiny little temple that I pass on the way to work every day with an amazingly intricate roof. I barely noticed it the first few times I walked that way, but I'm starting to notice things more and more each day. Why would someone build such an intricate roof over a temple that can only fit one person in it at a time? I don't know but isn't it beautiful?

This is a street really close to where I live. On the left side of the street is where the ice cream bicyclists reside ( I don't know why but there are like dozens of men on bicycles with freezers attached the back who sell ice cream.)  And on the right is I believe a doctor's office.

Amethyst is a restaurant that all of the faculty went to a couple days ago.  It's supposed to be French, but it's actually everything except for Indian.  We enjoyed bruschetta with pomodoro e pesto, A spinach salad with fresh slices of pear, real blue cheese and walnuts,  and I actually got to eat an Indian spiced burger.  Like, a real burger made with real beef but with Indian spice.  

Absolutely delicious.  When you come to visit, we'll go.

Hilarity

Yesterday I jumped in a ricksha and decided to explore. I took it to the department store Spencer's which is actually quite far from Kodambakkam, but I had a great time. Spencer's is Chennai's biggest shopping mall with floors and floors of stores - with western as well as Indian clothing, book/music shops, and appliances galore. I had to get a bunch of things for my apartment (tupperware, groceries,etc.) so I went there. And then of course I ended up buying fabric to make Kurthis and stuff. Anyway the store is quite impressive and I saw all sorts of people there. There were mostly tourists but not just tourists from around the world. Most of the people in the mall were from different parts of India so I had fun trying to guess what they were speaking and where they were from.

I have to say, some things in India are just so ridiculously comical because we would never hear something of the sort in the states. Just... absolutely... ridiculous. I'll give you an example. I was talking to Liz about the the housing people ordering a couch for the apartment next to mine, and so Liz calls the woman to ask what's happening with the couch. The woman says.. "Oh, we were bringing the couch back from the store in my car, but unfortunately the car happened to get stuck in quicksand. Don't worry, the couch is fine. We're figuring out a way to bring it." Um. WHAT?! The car got sucked into a giant pile of quicksand? And the lady was like "The car disappeared, but don't worry, the couch is ok." ???????????????? First of all, where is this quicksand because shouldn't we know about it if there's a possibility it could devour us whole? And second, you would think the woman would be a little more upset about her car being sucked into the earth.

Another example: I needed to make copies of some music to give to the students so I asked Liz how I would go about doing that. She showed me who the designated copy guy was so I approached him and asked him to make me 15 copies of the original. Not only did he not do what I asked him, but he managed to eat lunch and take a nap before making me the copies! You just want to laugh at how silly things are here.

The last example is the hilarity of the "Night Watchman". As expected, the night watchman is basically the equivalent of a security guard who stands outside all of the apartment houses to make sure no one breaks in. The most hilarious thing is, the night watchman falls asleep at around 10 pm! One of the faculty members came back from practicing and tried to get into his apartment at around midnight. He screamed, he kicked, he threw rocks, he tried to climb over the gate - the watchman was fast asleep and he couldn't wake him up! So he had to go sleep on the couches at KM! Ridiculous.

I'm having a great time laughing.