I did a little of everything today. I went to see my first Hindi film which
was one of the things that is on my list of Things to do in India.
The list also includes things like, see a hockey match, watch
Kabadi (which I've done), sit on the beach at Goa and
drive a rickshaw (also done!). The film was called Dil
Chahta Hai which roughly translates as something like 'He wants
it', although I think it could also be 'What he wants'... anyway,
it's about three friends from college and their lives and loves
over the next few years as they cope with growing up and the responsibilities
of finding a wife - that makes it sound really deep and meaningful,
hmm okay, scratch all that. It's basically Indian 'Friends'. The
film is really well put together, and although it tackles some potentially
really potentially kitchy issues that occasionally appear
to have come out of a bad Australian soap, it handles them very
well (apart from the older woman love dies in hospital bed just
as she and the younger man have declared their love for each other
scene!). There's lots of music (I've bought the sound track on CD!),
dancing, and a huge wardrobe! I would definitely recommend trying
to see it if it's on around you, although the vast majority of the
film is in Hindi, most of the salient points are in English (which
seems to be used to highlight a specific point that that a character
wants to make). And even if you don't understand the words, the
themes are dealt with in such a clear way that it is really easy
to follow the storyline. I enjoyed this film much more than some
British / American moveis that I could mention!
After visiting a Krishna temple, we visited some ladies whose job it was to polish marble carving.
This is a tough thankless task if ever there was one. It may take six ladies up to 3 days to polish one
section of marble. The polishing is done in three progresively finer stages and is perfomed using a
stone. You take your polishing stone (obviously it must be harder than the marble) and rub, and rub, and
keep rubbing, until you've worn away most of the skin on on your fingers, then you swap hands and keep
going... These ladies were in great humor and seemed to really like having their pictures taken (check
out the cheesy grin!)
We also went to visit Dipak's sister and her family this afternoon. They've a great family, with a
couple of 9 month old twins. I had a gorgeous meal (I'm really getting used to the heat of the food, I felt
like asking for it to be served a little hotter!) with them.
Today is the start of the Navratri Mahotsav Dandia festival. It's 9 days long and is in honour of one of
the Hindi godesses. To celebrate, a whole gang of children beseiged the house and gave out
sweets!
After the ceremony, everybody goes dancing to celebrate. We visisted a commercial event that was
sponsored by a computer training company called NIIT. You can take a look at the pictures that I took if you like...
To tomorrow...
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