28 Nov 2009

Well, it’s the season for marriages. Not sure why. Maybe it’s cooler, maybe it’s the festive season. (The festival of Lights). So, tonight was another wedding that I was invited to. Although this time it was the groom’s party. Not exactly a batchelor’s party. The groom’s brother arranges a party for family and friends. Somewhere else the Bride’s family are also having a party. This evening wasn’t as lavish as the previous wedding I attended. It was smaller and the food wasn’t as nice. We chatted to a few people, had a nibble and said our farewells. This time I got home before midnight. I was going to stay up and watch the All Blacks play France but I don’t remember actually going to bed. I must have been asleep before I hit the pillow.

29 Nov 2009

Ah. Sunday, sacred Sunday. I lazed in bed until around 10am, chatting to the family on Skype. Towards 2.30pm, Ashutosh rang to say we were heading of to the wedding. This was the one we had attended the Groom’s party the night before. When we arrived the main event was already over. The bride and groom were having photographs taken with their extended family, friends and nobodys. (That was me). Yer kinda stand out in the crowd when there’s only one of you and you don’t know anyone. I did get to talk to a couple about my age. The husband is in the Merchant Navy and has travelled to NZ. He couldn’t speak more highly of our country. Seems the way with the people here who have been to NZ. Sometimes we don’t know what we’ve got until someone tells us.

So, we stayed for a bite to eat and then said our goodbyes to the host. I got home around 4pm. I was hoping that was it for the day, but around 9pm Ashutosh rang to say he was picking me up to go to the movies. He arrived some time after 10pm. We were about 30 minutes late for the start of the movie. Not that it seemed to matter much. I still figured out the story. This one was a family movie. It was a Bollywood movie. It was actually quite good. They had a couple of dance sequences that didn’t seem relevant to the plot but got the audience tapping away and jiggling in their seats. It was quite funny in places. Well, at least the audience thought so. I couldn’t understand a word of what was being said. It is amazing what you can pick up from actions though.

22 Nov 2009

Ah. Another Sunday. Oh the bliss. We went to the movies last night. I saw 2012 again. (Not a lot of choices in English movies) At least I can say that the crowd in this showing were just as animated as the previous showing. The movie started at 10.45pm. I was a little surprised that there were young children there. And the cellphones!!!! At times I was trying to distinguish what were the sound effects and what were the ringtones. Indians have one ear glued to their cellphones permanently. At the party the other night, there was a young man with with a cellphone earpiece attached to his ear throughout. He was also sitting close to the earthshattering speakers for most of the night. Now, that’s what I would describe as being dedicated to the yupee scene. And we had ‘intermission’. Haaaaa. It was great.

So, Sunday. I tried sleeping in but alas, the local population chose to ignore the fact that I had a late night and get up with the birds as usual. Just as well I got up though. Shortly after 9am the cable men turned up to work on the problem with my TV reception. Over the last couple of days, I have had no TV at all. The first I heard, the men arrived and started propping up a ladder to climb up onto the roof. Fortunately I was mostly dressed.

It turned out to be a broken cable in three places. I’m surprised I had any reception at all. I have a lovely clear picture now.

Later in the evening, Ashutosh, Maya and Aramon picked me up to take me to the Lake. It’s a pity it was as late as it was. (It was already dark) I’m sure it would have been interesting to see during daylight. It was nice to go for a walk along the water front. It was cool but very calm. We were there for about an hour and then headed to Pizza Hut. We had fun there playing ‘hide the coin’ with Aramon. (He’s a fun wee boy. Nearly five. Thinks he’s ten. Very smart.)

17 Nov 2009
Well, tonight was quite an experience. I was invited to a Hindu wedding. A friend of Ashutosh’s. Now, let’s see if I get this right. The ‘wedding’ actually starts about two weeks before the main event. There’s various celebrations and parties. The bride and her family and friends have an all girls night. The groom has an all boys night. Then they have the wedding. Then they have the welcome home celebration after the reception.
On the way to the wedding, Ashutosh drove me past the bride’s parent’s house and then the groom’s parent’s house. They both lived in the same street about three houses away from each other. You can easily tell when a house is involved with a wedding. It’s normally lite up like a Christmas tree.
We arrived at the wedding around 10pm. We were just in time to tag along behind the wedding procession. Normally the groom and his family will walk a short distance to the venue. The groom is on horseback and dressed in traditional clothing. Wearing a crown. The horse was dressed up to. There was lots of music. (Eh, well, noise anyway. There was a band at the front of the procession but I think someone forgot the sheet music. )
Once we got to the reception area there were major fireworks. One set was coming out of a box that boasted 10,000 crackers. Apparently they all had to go of before the groom and his party could go to the next stage. And I can assure you, they did. I was right there.
As we were waiting, a member of the family (He seemed to be the person driving this part of the celebration) was throwing money into the crowd. I saw a couple of boys darting in to grab as much as they could. Turns out they were not involved with the wedding. They were just lads hoping to score on some cash. They were quickly chased away by some serious looking dudes with batons.
At the entrance to the venue, a ribbon had been stretched across the gate. The idea is that the brides sisters and girlfriends were at the barrier to negotiate the price of the groom’s admission. It was kinda funny really. They haggled there for a while. Some cheers went up, they haggled some more, then they finally came to an agreement and the ribbon was cut. The groom’s party were allowed into the venue.
Well, the one thing I wasn’t expecting was the number of people there. It seemed like the whole of Chandigarh was there. Well, maybe half of Chandigarh. They had all sorts of food to eat. Drinks of all types. The food was very nice. Probably the nicest I’ve had in India so far. In one corner of the venue was a stage where dancers were performing. That was quite spectacular. I even got to see Punjab rappers. Yep, rappers. Quite funny really. There was an area in front of the stage for people to dance. At the early stages of the night, there were plenty of little children dancing. Later, the floor was full. The loud speakers beside the stage were set to ‘earthquake’ volume. In fact, at one point, when I went over to take some pictures of the dancers, I noticed that my feet seemed to be sticking to the grass. I wondered if I had something on my shoes I might regret. On closer inspection there was nothing here. I could only conclude that the volume of the speakers was such that it was somehow affecting the grass. I would have said static, but I’m not sure that’s possible. (Might have to ask Lucaspedia)
The highlight of the evening for the guests was the bride entering. This was a little different. She was in a cabin and lowered into the waiting area by crane. (That sounds terrible. Makes her sound enormous.) No, she was some twenty feet up in the air and they lowered her slowly down to the waiting groom. Once she came out they both stepped up onto a rotating dais. There they exchanged garlands of flowers. Waited for the photographers to do their thing and proceeded to a throne like area where they were hand fed small snacks. Lots more photos.
The guests were then treated to a meal in the reception hall. Again all kinds of meals buffet style. And, yippee, icecream. I had two helpings. (You realise of course that it was forced upon me. I had to refuse twice before I gave in.)
By time we had finished nibbling it was close to midnight. Most of the guests were filtering away. Ashutosh told me it is not uncommon for these wedding to go to 4am in the morning. No sooner had we climbed into the car to go home and Aramon was asleep. It was quite amazing. He was so energetic up to that point.
18 Nov 2009
Ashutosh had told me to ring him when I wanted the driver to pick me up in the morning. I did but found that my phone wasn’t working. Some problem with the telephone company not authenticating my number. I pondered for a moment as to what to do. Then I remembered that there were some rickshaws in the market close to me. I haven’t tried one of those. So I wandered over and purchased a ride to work on one of the motorised three wheeled rickshaws. It was fun. The driver was older than my grandmother’s granddad but he still seemed sprightly enough. It was really cold. The mornings here are getting quite chilly. I don’t normally notice it as I’m out of the flat and straight into a car. The driver dropped me of on the other side of the square to where Touchstone was but didn’t mind the little walk. Fortunatley I had gone for a walk around the shopping area a few days before and it wasn’t hard to navigate my way there. The whole trip cost me 40 rupees. ($1.10)
I got home late tonight. Ashutosh only had one of his cars so I needed to wait until the driver was available. At least I got to do some drawing whilst I was waiting. I had been working on the computer all day and was getting sore arms. I was so tired when I got home, I just went straight to bed.

15 Nov 2009

Sunday. Ah, a chance to stay in bed. Not really a chance to sleep. To many people moving around going about their day. Still, at least I don’t have to go into work. Watched a spot of tele. ‘Dudley Do-right’ Its an oldy but it was fun. I would have done some modelling on the computer but laptop keyboards are not the best when you are using modelling software and they get to your hands and arms. I was doing quite a bit on Saturday and didn’t realise until today that my arms were really sore. (Bit silly really. Should have paid more attention.) So I watched another movie on tele. ‘Kangaroo Jack’. It was OK. Nothing to write home about. :))

13 Nov 2009

Today I experienced Friday night at the movies, Indian style. At around 10pm Ashutosh picked me up and we headed to a mall that I haven’t been to. It was amazing. It had five floors and was very big. The cinema was on the top floor. We were scanned and searched three times before we actually got into the cinema. Ashutosh’s cousin was manager of the cinema and gave us tickets. The movie was 2012. The movie had just started when we arrived but we hadn’t missed much. Maybe one minute, possibly less. Its quite a different experience going to a movie in India. The crowd are very interactive. They like to clap when the good bits come on laugh where it gets cringe worthy. One area where they laughed was when an Indian spoke in Indian. I asked Ashutosh why. He said the Indian was speaking with an English accent. The audience were quite vocal when the boy and girl nearly kissed, but even more so when they did. It was hilarious just listening to the crowd reaction. Oh, and they had intermission. Yep, intermission. I really needed to go to the bathroom, but when I saw hundreds of strapping lads heading out, I thought, hmmm, standing room only, I’ll wait.

So going to the movies for the first time in India was an extremely funny experience. Movie wasn’t to bad either. (Would be kinda good if the American gave up on script writing though. I’m sure they only have one script. They have plenty of actors, so they swap them around and they swap the FX team around from time to time.)

13 Nov 2009
I've put some pictures in the gallery of the Rock Garden. Don't have a lot of space so there's only a few.

10 Nov 2009

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, bliss. My life is semi normal again. They had marmalade at the corner store. Phew!!!! I feel much better now. Today we went to the Government Art College to talk to the students about the courses we are running. Well, nothing over here is quite the way you imagine it. When the staff said that we would be giving our presentation in an auditorium I imagined something like, say one of the ones at the University or even the one at Burnside High. But, oh no. Try a WW2 air raid shelter that’s only got light in it because some of the windows haven’t got black paint on them. (Worn of with age) Well, that’s what it reminded me of. I didn’t look around to much. I saw one area of the ceiling that looked about ready to collapse. It was about then I said to myself, just look down Colin, just look down.

The occasion was a lot of fun. The students that turned up seemed to enjoy themselves. They had a competition afterwards where they had a chance to win an iPod. They were given a brief for an imaginary up coming TV show. They had to design the animated characters for the show.

This was some event. There were Press cameras and reporters there. (Making quite a bit of noise I might add.) This dear old lady wondered in part the way through Ashutosh’s presentation and parked herself in the front row. Now, in this case I’m really talking old. She’s probably as old as Ghandi and just as handsome. Not sure why she was there, but not long after she arrived, the student’s tutor asked her to leave. He he, never a dull moment.

7 Nov 2009

I went to the Mohali office this afternoon. This is the first office of Touchstone. It’s been there for a while. It was an interesting experience. Meeting new people. It’s reception area and main office is quite fancy. Very professional. I was there a bit longer than I wanted to be. I was actually on my way home but Ashutosh thought I might like to visit. So I went along but as soon as we got there he had guests, so I waited in his office watching Maya give out the pay to her staff. (Gosh, they get real money. In their hands what more. Its kinda surreal.) One girl broke down and cried as soon as she sat down in the office. My first reaction was that I had done something. I wanted to be anywhere but there. But then she came back after a while, having been consoled by her piers. Still not sure what that was about.

8 Nov 2009

Today was a very special day for me. Most of the day I spent relaxing in my Flat. I watched a movie, sort of. It was more, looking up every now and then. I was reading at the same time. Basically not really doing much at all. Then around 4pm Ashutosh Maya and Aramon arrived to take me to the Rock Gardens. Poor Aramon was a bit sleepy. It was normally his time for a nap. However once we arrived he was alert again and ready for some fun.

Now, based on the name of the place, you’d have to wonder what possible interest is there in a ‘Rock’ garden. Well, I have to say I was somewhat surprised at what I saw. Once we had parked the car, Ashutosh bought some tickets. He was puzzled as to why he had three tickets that were black and one that was red. Aramon had the answer. It was because I was wearing a red t-shirt. Don’t you love the logic of a for year old. It’s so, innocent. If I had judged the Gardens by the entrance walls, then I would have been way off. The front walls were made of concrete that had been pored into 44 gallon drums and then the metal cut away. On top of the walls were figurines of bird made from recycled metals.

As we entered through the main gates, there was a completely amazing creation of passageways, avenues and areas that were made of all sorts of things. One wall was made of old electrical plug sockets. Another was made of the ceramic cups used on overhead power poles. There were statutes of all shapes and sizes. Animals and people. Thousands of them. There were waterfalls, streams and ponds. There were tall archways that had a swing on them that could easily fit two people. The whole area is manmade. There were a number of archways that were really low. You had to stoop down to pass through them. The area that was designated Phase three, was quite breathtaking. You could be in that area in the middle of an Indian summer and be quite cool. There was an amazing waterfall cascading about 10 metres. The walls in the area were a similar height.

Whilst Aramon was playing on an inflatable castle we went through the hall of mirrors. That was hilarious. Then Aramon wanted a ride on the camel. Yep, it was a real camel. Ashutosh wanted to know if I wanted a ride. I said no. For me, it reminded me of my sister Jenny. (She had her photo taken on a camel when we were in Israel many years ago. Not that it was a bad thing. I’m sure she enjoyed the occasion. Its just that I didn’t want to think to much about Jenny at that moment.)

I kinda glad that I chose not to take the camel ride. A small group of school children in uniforms walked up to me and asked me where I was from. When I told them New Zealand they were quite excited. They knew where that was. We chatted for a few moments and before long there was a major gaggle of uniformed school children joining in. It was fun to talk to them. Its not something you would expect children in NZ to do. I took their photographs, showed them and then we waved goodbye.

Unfortunately, by this time the light had gone so I couldn’t take any more photographs. I did get quite a lot though. (I’ll put them up on the gallery over the next couple of days.)

We finished the evening by heading over to the Mall for a spot of MacDonalds. Well, one thing you should know about India. They have a one day weekend. This means that if you want to get anywhere, you have to be fairly aware of how to get around. Everyone is out and about on Sunday. So there we were about 300 yards from the mall and the traffic was at a standstill. Nobody was going anywhere. And this was the quick route. We eventually got to the mall by turning around and taking the long way.

I can officially tell you that McDonalds is MacDonalds where ever you are in the world. They’re all just as stingy with their burgers. Their chips are the same and so is their Chocolate sundaies. (Now I’ve given away what I had. He he) But the Cheese burger is really a Vege Burger with lettice. (And cheese) The vege part is a sort of vege pate. (Indian style) Not to strong. Hmmm, not bad.

So in all a wonderful afternoon.

5 Nov 2009
We had a good day today. My student was back. We went for a walk looking for design elements.
When I got home, I had just enough time to go to the shops before dark. As I was crossing the park I saw the sun just above the trees. At first I thought it was the moon. It was blood red!! And the fact that I could look at it. Then I realised that it was the way it was because of the dust and pollution. Regardless, it was an amazing site. I determined to hurry back to get a camera. By the time I was back in the park, (It was a matter of moments) the sun wasn’t quite as vibrant. I still got some pictures though.

4 Nov 2009
I don’t know if any of you remember having your fish and chip wrapped up in unused newspapers. I do. That was back in the days prior to them being wrapped up in newsprint paper with nothing on it. Well, the local shop I was telling you about has a great use for newspapers that haven’t sold. They make paper bags out of them. They are very well made too. I had one the other day that I carried my groceries home with me. Once I’d emptied the bag, I caught up on the news. Apparently MJ (Michael Jackson. That’s what they call him over here) has earned $100 million since his death. Not bad for a dead person. I’m guessing the paper bag article was not very fresh. Not like the contents. Hmmmmm. Fresh bread, sliced by the shop keeper.

3 Nov 2009
So, it turns out that it wasn’t a new holiday. Its quite an old holiday that’s celebrated by the Sikhs. It was a quiet day today. I came home a little earlier as my student didn’t turn up. (He’s Sikh. Still on holiday, I think.) I needed to get some groceries. Fortunately the main shop that I needed was open. It’s quite funny really. At home we often talk about the local grocery shop on the corner being owned by Indians. Well, that’s cause that’s what they do here. So. I went to my local dairy (He He) and got the essentials.
The evening was a lot quieter. Only a few fireworks popping off. I suppose you’ll be having a whole lot of noise over the next couple of days. When you hear the fireworks, imagine that 20 times louder and you’ll get an idea as to how loud it got here. Probably about as loud as Sparks in the Park when you are right next to the stadium.

2 Nov 2009
Today was Punjab Day. Apparently it a new holiday. Started this year. No one seems sure as to why the holiday, but they sure made the most of it. We still carried on working. Nearly all the shops were closed. Ashutosh warned me that there may be some firework later in the evening. Well, that was a bit of an understatement. From around 8.30 through to 11.45pm it was explosion mayhem out there. Even the local wild canines were having a good yap. Wasn’t really much point watching television or sleeping. I wonder if they’ve used up all their fireworks. Here’s hoping.

31 Oct 2009
I had a new student today. What a difference. His father has a design business. He helps out. So he know Photoshop reasonably well. He seems self taught. He is kean. I showed him some 3D work and you could see the sparkle.
Some electricians came to the flat this evening. Ashutosh had asked them to come and have a look at the hot water situation. I tried to explain to them that it wasn’t the fact that there was no hot water but that there was very little of it and no pressure. Alas, I couldn’t make myself understood. So it looks like I will be having bucket baths from now on. I had better get used to it. Otherwise, I might get a bit smelly by time I get home.
1 Nov 2009
Today was a quite day at home. I enjoyed relaxing in front of a challenging piece of 3D software and puzzling over its foibles.
Later in the evening Ashutosh rang and invited me out to a fair. It was the first of its kind in India. The fair reminded me very much of the A and P show with out the livestock. Oh, there were animals there but they were statues. The children really loved them. Ashutosh wanted me to stand by one of the statutes to have my photo taken. I was no sooner in position when a group of lads chose to join in. It was hilarious.
The idea of the fair is to promote the diverse cultures in India, from the items they make to the food they eat. I think it may have been the first night. The way Ashutosh understands it, the fair will run for about 30 days. One day for each of the different cultures. We didn’t stay long. Maybe about an hour.
We met his close friend and his family there. It turns out that they had come on his push-through motorbike. It is amusing hoe the Indians manage to get a whole family on one motorbike. A bit worrying too. His oldest son maybe about three and his youngest maybe only one. Later, driving home, I saw two men and a woman on the same motorbike. I wouldn’t have wanted to be the woman. She was hanging on the back, side saddle.