Rangoli

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This post might be a bit shorter than the others as I am pretty tired and my A/C has decided to go on the fritz. I talked to the front desk and they sent someone up, but unfortunately he and I couldn't communicate. It's terribly frustrating, since I was talking to some of the guys from India on the bus perfectly fine, yet I just couldn't grasp the what this man was trying to say. He did say something about it being cool for 5 minutes, or something, but i just could not understand what he wanted from me. And I think he was frustrated that I didn't understand him. So I have no idea if/when they'll fix my A/C. 😞

The day started out a bit earlier than I expected: my 7:30am wake-up call came at 6:40am. Fae said this happened to her as well, so we're not sure what went wrong. It's kind of a common theme here. Well, not things going wrong, exactly. It's a bit hard to explain. To me it feels like everything here is on the verge of falling into total chaos, but things are barely held together by metaphysical tape and the chaos only shows through now and then. Like my bag being lost, and eventually delivered, but damaged. Or dealing with auto drivers (I asked the Indian guys, and that's the way to refer to auto-rickshaws in short). Or getting things fixed, like my A/C. It won't necessarily happen quickly, and I suspect there's no way to know when it will be fixed. It's a different feeling from the states, where everything is very regulated and controlled. You know when you get your food, when the repair-man is coming, when your wake-up call is coming, etc., and if something goes wrong it's cause to complain vigorously. I suppose you could complain for the same things here, too, but it would get you nowhere. Lucky for me I'm pretty easygoing so this is all part of the fun.

The buffet breakfast was the same as yesterday, except that the dubious french toast was replaced with pancakes. Which actually looked like pancakes and tasted similar to pancakes. Oh! And there was fresh-made grape juice, which I've never had before. IT IS DELICIOUS. I wanted to steal the whole pitcher.

I had to bring my duffel back to IISc today because a friend of Keshav (an awesome guy who's been doing a lot of behind-the-scenes work with the program) said he could get my bag repaired. This meant that I had to lug both the bag and Tweaker onto the bus, which was less than stellar. I tried to ride Tweaker during the lunch break, but I didn't inflate the tire nearly enough and had a huge problem just riding straight. Hopefully I'll do better tomorrow with more air. I'm not sure if practicing on the street where I was will work, since it's still driven on occassionally but I'm going to keep trying. Perhaps a bit of exploring will lead me to a spot that will work.

My favorite part of the day was a cultural lecture we had in place of our fourth professor lecture. A lady gave a presentation on the art of Rangoli, which I had no clue existed before she told us about it. Rangoli is artwork that household women do on the pavement between the gate and the house every morning. Mrs. Pradash (I don't think that is her name but I have to call her something...) said that it's one of the first things women do in the morning. After waking up and perhaps boiling mint, she heads out to sweep the front yard, then cleans it with water and cow dung (since cows are sacred this serves as cleansing and purification), then create the Rangoli design in some sort of powder on the ground. Mrs. Pradash also talked about making Rangoli designs on a completly full, completely settled container of water, but I think the design on the ground is the most common. The designs are done every day, unless something terrible has befallen the family such as a death or serious illness. It's even a bit of competition among the different households, who can have the prettiest Rangoli. Kind of like husbands and yards back home.

The name Rangoli comes from the Sanskrit word "Rangavalli" which is a joinging of the words for color (ranga) and rows of color (avalli). The designs are often inspired by nature, and they are meant to block the negative energy outside of the house and only let in the positive energy. For you nerds out there I think of it as a "good-pass filter." :D The story she told us about the history of Rangoli is that a high priest of a long-ago king lost a son, and the king drew an image of the boy and asked Brahma, the god of creation, to bring life to the drawing. In addition to the front yard, Rangolis can also be found in the pooja room (the room where the gods reside) in the house. There are also Rangolis for festivals, different ones for each festival, and the festival begins with Rangoli.

Rangoli can be made with a variety of materials and a veriaty of patterns. The designs made of powder can be made of rice powder, crushed colored chalk, crushed limestone, or even crushed brick for red. Mrs. Pradash showed us pictures of Rangolis made in flowers, from the petals of flowers like crysanthemums and marigolds, and she had several designs she had made out of things like beads, plastics, glass fragments, or fabric. She'd even made a Rangoli pattern on a coaster with puff paints. When I asked to see it at the end of the talk, she told me I could keep it. It's sitting next to my bed, now, to give me good dreams! My favorite style of Rangoli was not the really elaborate patterns, like the peacocks and sunsets, but the geometrical dot and line Rangoli. To see the difference between the elaborate and the geometrical, trying google-imaging "rangoli" and then "dot rangoli" and you'll see what I mean. She even gave us pencil and paper and had us draw the most basic dot Rangoli. I couldn't get my proportions right but I had a lot of fun. 😞

Rangoli is traditionally done by hand, but Mrs. Pradash showed us several gadgets that are available to help women make their Rangoli faster since they may have more responsibilities now that just staying at home. One was a tin cylinder with holes punched in a pattern; you filled the cylinder with sand then rolled it over the ground, leaving a line pattern. Another was a container with four holes that you filled with sand to help you draw parallel lines. She even showed us Rangoli stickers, for the truly busy.

After the lecture we hopped back on the bus and came back here to the hotel. I didn't eat my wrap from lunch, so that is going to be my dinner. Not only does that mean I get to earn a bit of money off my per diem, it means I get to just stay in my room and veg out tonight. I'm pretty excited. What's even better is that as I was writing this post I had a couple times where the electricity in my room went out. I think it was a black out--apparently they are common here, along with brown outs and grey outs--since my internet bugged out at that time, but the best thing is that my A/C is working now! Yay! And I see that my post is just as long as my previous ones, so I guess I muscled through this one just fine. 😊 Until next time!

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