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Published: August 17th 2010
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This Sunday was Independence Day in India and we went to the flower festival in the Bangalore Botanical Gardens to celebrate. It’s nothing like the 4th, no fireworks or anything, but still pretty fantastic! I asked people who they were celebrating their independence from but was told no one in particular, they were just happy to be independent from someone. Maybe I look British to them. The gardens were wall to wall Indians and 5 white girls. There were so many people jammed into this place that there was a guy beating people back with a stick just to get the crowd under control. Of course, and for no apparent reason, we were escorted right past all the crowds of people and led directly into the park. I felt pretty horrible about it…but not enough that I didn’t go right on in! I really wasn’t looking forward to getting beat over the head with a stick just so I could get into some botanical garden. Once we got in we were mobbed in a picture taking frenzy. It was like some mad Michael Jackson sighting (MJ and trance music are huge here, it's hilarious. So are mustaches but I want to
Family Outing
They loved their picture being taken! dedicate an entire blog entry to that gem of Indian culture so I'll come back to that some other day). One man even asked me to hold his baby (who had earrings and eyeliner on) so he could get a picture of the two of us. My favorite moment was when a teenage boy asked one of the UK girls I was with if she could 'give him hand'. We are still not exactly sure what he was asking for but in any event, she said no, so now we'll never know. I've tried to upload a video of one of our rickshaw rides. It was an unusually smooth and uneventful ride since apparently everyone and their mother was already at the botanical gardens waiting in line. I'll upload a more interesting video at some point.
There was also a big parade somewhere but we could never get the same answer as to what time it started. We were eventually able to narrow it down to starting somewhere between 6am-8am which for us, was a little early for a Sunday morning. I have been slowly coming to the realization that answers in India just depend on who you ask.
Because of this I have decided that the fortune cookie must have actually originated in India. They are also full of dubious information. I guess there's some fun in seeing just how many different answers to a one-anwer question you can get back. Just like fingerprints and snowflakes, no two will ever be the same.
In my favorite instance of miscommunication so far, we tried to set up a weekly poker match to break up the monotony of the work week (6 days/wk, 12hr days = tons of fun btw) but completely gave up on finding poker chips when we asked a few local guys at work to pick some up for us and just about ended up with bags of potato chips to play with instead. The best part was that they were so adamant that these elusive poker chips were on every corner, at every general store (there is no such thing as a 'general store' around here either in my opinion!) We played rummy instead, got silly, and by 2am decided it would be a great idea to drag race rickshaws. My rickshaw lost but I survived so I still feel like I won a little
something.
Anyway, it’s been another great week and I was able to cross a few additional must-sees off of my list: cows holding up traffic, men urinating in public, babies driving motorcycles, etc. The one thing I absolutely love about this place is that every time I step outside I see something I didn’t even know I ever wanted to see!
“Like the cricket, who chirps the whole night, but seldom says anything meaningful, so too are my opinions, and should be regarded as such"
Love that quote. Don't take anything I say too seriously. It's possible fortune cookies did come from China, just highly unlikely.
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Kurian
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poker?
hey!! we play poker Friday/sat evenings, poker chips and all - we'd be happy to accomodate more! don't worry , we"re safe happy people, cheers