Groove on the Rubble

I was honored to receive an enthusiastic invitation from my friend and colleague, Deepak, to attend his brother-in-law’s wedding. Deepak really set the bar high for this would-be wedding planner. Punjabi’s are known for throwing particularly fun and festive weddings and he didn’t disappoint.The wedding is a several-event affair. Unfortunately I had to miss the first–a Bollywood-themed cocktail party–because of a few unavoidable meetings (after all my purpose for being here is work). So I journeyed to Delhi for the other couple events leading up to the happy couple’s auspicious day (particularly auspicious if you’re in the event planning game because I think there were to be something like 10,000 wedding in Delhi on that same day).All of the events leading up to and including the wedding had a few things in common: celebratory friends and families, a holy ceremony, music, dancing and food.The first day’s event was a day time celebration with the groom, Anubhav, and his family. It was a traditional Punjabi-themed event complete with traditional singers and dancers. It was awesome. What happens is that the groom’s family gathers and the bride’s family comes to pay respects, offer blessings…and dance!The second event was that evening. Similar to the day time event, except in reverse: the groom’s family goes to the bride, Deepti, and her family for blessings, eatings and dancings.Then, wedding day, which is a pretty elaborate affair steeped in tradition. It was really cool to watch. We started with a family ceremony to bless Anubhav and prepare him for the wedding. He then boarded his white, bedazzled steed and we packed up the marching band and got to marching…all the way to the wedding locale. The marching band and dancing was so awesome. We’d walk a few paces, then we’d stop and dance. Walk a few paces, dance. Again and again. Best street party ever. Once we arrive at the wedding venue, the families greet each other–mother greets mother, father greets father, on down the line to brothers, uncles, first cousins, etc.The bride makes a much-anticipated and awe-inspiring entrance in full wedding dress and then she and her husband-to-be sit for about 1000 photos while the rest of us either look on, chit chat or eat. The actual wedding happens at a pre-ordained time, which in our case was about 4:00 am. It’s a subdued affair and after dancing, partying and feasting some of the onlookers had a bit of trouble keeping their lids open.A few interesting tidbits:

• The wedding was full of traditions that I loved. Like the groom’s sister, Depali, feeding the horse something sweet and tastey in return for her brother’s safe passage. Like waving money above happy dancing people to wish them prosperity. Like the groom having a “second groom”, who is a young boy from the family, to accompany and protect the groom. Like the families and friends of the bride and groom all wearing their families’ traditional turbans. It was all so cool and different and enchanting
• After wearing traditional shoes–which are leather with hard leather soles, and nothing else–all day, I have a new respect for my stilleto-wearing all-night-dancing friends. Wow.
• There were a whole lotta turbans to be tied, so in addition to the usual flower person, caterers, marching bands, we had guys tying turbans
• The wedding was an all veg, alcohol-free celebration. Fortunately, my host shares my fondness for meat and whiskey and knew exactly what was happening when so we take opportunistic meat and whiskey breaks
• I did my best to adhere to traditions–including the traditional dress for fun and assimilation. Ironically, at the wedding I was the only man besides the groom to be wearing traditional dress at the wedding.
• As I was taking the few paces between our in-the-street dance parties, someone said to me that I seemed like I was “part of the family.” That was awesome, and only possible because everyone worked so hard to make me feel like I was

The wedding was one of the highlights of my trip. Thanks Deepak and family. I really appreciate you opening your hearts and your traditions to me.

If it wouldn’t look so out of context in the U.S. and I could actually tie one, a turban would be my tied accessory of choice. As it stands, I’ll stick with the incumbent: a bow tie. I’m confident it’ll only take me 100 more attempts to get good at tying one.More turbans available in the Delhi set on Flickr.

You’re right, I haven’t tried every brownie in Bombay, but given the gooey, chocolately deliciousness of the brownie at Candie’s in Bandra I can say with confidence that it is the best. Tho’ Roshan has proposed a brownie-off and will be importing some of his aunt’s brownies from Goa–convinced that they far exceed anything I’ve ever tried. I welcome the challenge.Candie’s is a great little cafe tucked away on a quiet, tree-lined street in Bandra. It’s near two colleges, so there is lots of activity with lots of youngsters. Good energy. Good people watching.There is a huge variety of desserts, patries, sandwiches, tasty Indian dishes (chicken tikka wrap!) and specialty beverages–like the peach iced tea they were kind enough to make for me with mineral water. Everything is made fresh daily and presented beautifully. If you come after 8:00 you’ll get a 25% discount on everything, tho’ I’ve got it from good sources that “everything” won’t include much.Yum.

This from Matt Taibbi’s Road Rage article entitled “Be Careful What You Wish For…” appearing in the December 14th issue. It’s a part of his response to the media’s latching onto Nancy Pelosi’s backing of John Murtha, the ethincally questionable losing candidate for House Majority Leader.

With Iraq in flames and half the Republican Congress in manacles, the press has been forced to ditch that particular story lately, but with Nancy Pelosi in power, that cartoon is set for another run. Count on it: For the next two years, no matter how much the Republicans fuck up, the story is going to be the shrill bitch from San Francisco tripping over her own tits.

You’ve gotta appreciate that alliterative turning of a phrase.

December’s Rolling Stone is packed full of interesting reading, including a disturbing article about the dirty underbelly of the pork processing business.

Here’s a cutlet from the article’s beginning that puts the scale of the business into perspective:

Smithfield Foods, the largest and most profitable pork processor in the world, killed 27 million hogs last year…The logistical challenge of processing that many pigs each year is roughly equivalent to butchering and boxing the entire human populations of New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Antonio, San Diego, Dallas, San Jose, Detroit, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, San Francisco, Columbus, Austin, Memphis, Baltimore, Fort Worth, Charlotte, El Paso, Milwaukee, Seattle, Boston, Denver, Louisville, Washington, D.C., Nashville, Las Vegas, Portland, Oklahoma City and Tucson.

The 500,000 pigs at a single Smithfield subsidiary in Utah generate more fecal matter each year than the 1.5 million inhabitants of Manhattan. The best estimates put Smithfield’s total waste discharge at 26 million tons a year. That would fill four Yankee Stadiums.

(I’ll spare you my “shitty season” joke.)

Well surely they have sophisticated waste processing facilities to handle millions of tons of pig shit, right? Oh-ho-ho don’t the residents of nearby towns wish they did.

Read on to smell the stench of reality, but don’t do it during meal time–or anywhere near to meal time.

Tally one in the “reasons to be a vegetarian” column. I’m sure the facts are equally staggering for beef.  I wonder what dirty secrets tofu is hiding.

I traveled to Goa for some rest and relaxation. Lucky for me, my friend and colleague Ajai and his family were also making a trip there so we got to spend some quality time together.

I arrived in the bustling capital city of Panjim (also known as Panaji) and spent a couple of days there at the quaint Hotel Mandovi. I was there mostly for the food. Goan food is renowned for its tastiness–and meatiness. It’s a former Portuguese colony so there’s lots of meat (and lots of Catholic churches) there. The food is quite different. And our host, the Panjim branch manager for Investsmart, was good enough to take us to the hot spots for local cuisine.

I’m bringing home some delicious ready-made masalas to try my hand at cooking them. Namely cafreal, xacuti and recheado. They also have some local specialty sweets. My favorite is bebinca. I got a 1 kg slab and nearly finished the whole thing when I got back to Bombay.

After a nice stay in Panjim, Ajai, his family and I hired a car to drive us the couple hours south to Palolem Beach. That’s where most of my Goa photos were taken. The drive there was an adventure. We nearly had a head-on collision…maybe more than once. People in Goa seem to pass when the urge strikes even when that urge finds us on a blind corner.

The plan in Palolem was to find me a place to stay for a few days, play on the beach all day and then Ajai, Komal and Anushka would head back to Panjim. Mission accomplished. I found a little shack on the beach for 600 Rs. (or about $13) per night. Nothing fancy. Just a bed, a mosquito net, a toilet and a shower head…and the beach. Right in front of my simple little shack on stilts.

Palolem is a lovely, peaceful beach. I could describe it, but I’d have to say things like “gently lapping waves” and “rustling of palm fronds” and “sunkissed” and that just sounds corny. The few pictures I posted do the trick and save me from having to cheese it up with romance novel beach talk.

I didn’t do much while I was there…and that was precisely the plan. Breakfast, then beach to read, listen to music and swim. Lunch of paratha, curd, beer, then back to the beach. Dinner on the beach then a walk on the beach. One morning I did go for a boat ride to tour the area and see some dolphins. It was really cool to see a bunch of dolphins doing their Flipper thing. Outside of Sea World, I’ve never seen it before. These ones didn’t play with rings or balls or “talk,” which I complained about, but wasn’t able to get my money back.

Ok, I fibbed a little. The beach I went to was probably 99% Europeans and one night there was a big dance party at a pub on the beach. And there were DJs, but it definitely wasn’t a rave.

I’ve posted photos from Agra. While there, I visited the Taj Mahal (shoeless) and Agra Fort. Both notable monumentsof the Moghul Empire who ruled in India on and off for a hundred years or so. They weren’t messing around with their architecture.

The Taj Mahal is an amazing site to see. Oh sure, we’ve all seen photos o’ plenty of it’s shining marble domes, but to enter the massive gate, walk across its sprawling garden and stand beneath its marbledness is quite impressive. It’s an awe that just isn’t captured in photos–tho’ admittedly I tried my best.

I get a little intimidated by designing and building a sandcastle, so I had a hard time imagining taking the Taj Mahal from big concept (a marble, double-domed mega mausoleum) all the way down to the itty bitty details (a floral inlay here, a marbled archway there). Thinking about it gives me a headache and leaves no doubt that it was a labor of love–or lost love for Shah Jahan. And he did it all while playing Mr. Mom to his 14 kids. It’s well documented that he was the kind of dad who tossed around the pigskin with his little shavers in the garden. Seriously. Look it up.

The Agra Fort is similarly impressive. It’s HUGE. It was built by the Lodis and then taken by the Moghuls. Of course, they totally pimped it out. It’s mostly red sandstone, but has lots of added marble which makes for a neat stark contrast.
There are several other sites worth seeing in Agra, but I spent lots of time at the two I visited (as evidenced by my 300+ photos). It got late and my over-burdened photo finger got tired. I prefer to really get into the nooks and crannies of a place as opposed to breezing thru to say that I’ve done it. If you’re going to do the others, probably best to book a room and make it a two-day adventure.

Of course no big tourist attraction is complete without aggressive hawkers. No exceptions in Agra. Most of the things being sold were sensible: postcards, tiny Taj Mahal models (or Taj Mahodels), film and more postcards. In stark contrast to sensible, were the seemingly misplaced things being sold. Nothing says “I saw Taj Mahal” like a rubber band that shoots a helicopter thingy into the air. I guess people buy these things else they wouldn’t be selling them. But who?

I just uploaded a few photos from Goa and a whole lotta photos from Delhi. Agra is still to come. As are stories from the aforementioned trips. You’re on my to do list, little blog. Keep your chin up.

The entire front page of The Times of India on January 1, 2007 had the following:

India v/s IndiaThere are two Indias in this country.One India is straining at the leash, eager to spring forth and live up to all the adjectives that the world has been showering recently upon us.The other India is the leash.One India says, give me a chance and I’ll prove myself. The other India says, prove yourself first and maybe then you’ll have a chance.One India lives in the optimism of our hearts. The other India lurks in the skepticism of our minds.One India wants. The other India hopes.One India leads. The other India follows. But conversions are on the rise. With each passing day more and more people from the other India have been coming over to this side.And quietly, while the world is not looking, a pulsating, dynamic new India is emerging.An India whose faith in success is far greater than its fear of failure.An India that no longer boycotts foreign-made goods but buys out the companies that make them instead.History, they say, is a bad motorist. It rarely ever signals its intentions when it is taking a turn.This is that rarely-ever moment. History is turning a page.For more than half a century, our nation has sprung, stumbled, run, fallen, rolled over, got up, dusted herself and cantered, sometimes lurched on.But today, as we begin our 60th year as a free nation, the ride has brought us to the edge of time’s great precipice.And one India—a tiny little voice at the back of the head—is looking down at the bottom of the ravine and hesitating.The other India is looking up at the sky and saying, it’s time to fly.

This was the official introduction of the “India Poised” campaign.One thing Susie and I spoke much about when she was here were the seemingly limitless opportunities we see. It’ll be interesting how those opportunities take shape in the next 60 years of India’s long and storied history.