an indian moment.

When you have been here for a while, you start to notice these moments. They are unique to the sub-continent and if you are in good spirits they make you laugh. If you are having a bad day they can tip you over the edge. They are called 'Indian moments'. 

The other morning, after a night of relentless head scratching, I begged mum to check my hair, yet again, for creepy crawlies. So we were sitting outside the hut, in the sun, and she was diligently searching my scalp. And then some of the older boys wandered up, for whatever reason, saw what we were doing, and stood and watched. They said nothing. Just stared for five minutes or so until they got bored. Then they left. Mum and I just looked at each other in acknowledgement of this Indian moment. 

We went shopping the other day. Just because. When you live in the jungle anrd spend every day covered in dirt (and recently oil, thanks to an ill-conceived idea to rust  proof a fence) it is sometimes nice to be around things that are clean and new. So we went shopping. 

Traditional Indian clothes stores tend to avoid coat hangers, so to browse you must lean over the counter and point to what you want to look at and then the assistant will pull it out. You have a quick look, realise it isn't really you and then the scene begins all over again. This makes shopping for a top quite an investment of your time, but it is certainly an interactive activity. It also means that in most clothes shops the counters are piled high with colourful rejects. 

We went into one of these shops. I found a scarf, mum found some leggings and just as we were going to pay, she spotted something bright pink sticking out from the fabric mountain on the counter. They were cotton pants, exactly what she was looking for. She pulled them out and decided she would like them, they would go perfectly with a tunic that had not yet been paired (wearing a dress with no pants or leggings underneath is simply unheard of in rural India). She took them to the counter with our other choices, ready to leave happy and satisfied, and then this happened...

"Oh no madam, not those pants".

"Oh yes, I would like these please. Just these three."

"No madam. You can't buy those pants."

"I can't buy these pants?"

"Correct."

"Why? This is a clothes shop and I have selected these clothes and I now wish to pay for them."

(I suspect some of her responses may have been lost on the three men behind the counter, but they certainly amused us).

"No madam. They are part of a set. You cannot buy them alone."

"Right. I don't want a top, but where is it? I'll have a look anyway."

The two underlings then spent a good fifteen minutes hunting for the matching top. They rummaged through cupboards, scanned all the shelves and sifted through the fabric mountains. At one point they pulled out a new dress, with bright green pants and suggested mum might prefer those. She did not. We were all in fits of laughter by now, commentating on their fruitless search as they doggedly pursued it. They realised she wanted pink pants and pulled out numerous other pants of different shades and fabric and tried to convince us they were the same. 

After this had gone on for some time I thought we may be there all day if nobody said anything and I asked if, in fact, there even was a top that went with these pants.

I was met with laughter and renewed searching. 

"I don't actually want the top guys. If there is no top why can I not simply buy the pants?"

"No, no, no. It is part of a set you see."

"Uhhhhh huh. But you haven't got the set, the pants are all alone and why. Simply why."

"Ahhh, they are our last pair of cotton pants this colour. We have no more."

Finally we understood (sort of). The pants had no top but they were the last of their breed in store. So if someone happened to come in and want a top that these pants would match, the clerks would be in quite the pickle.

"Ok fine. That doesn't make sense but fine. We will just take these two."

And as we were paying, one of the underlings held up the offending pair of pink cotton pants and said "stitch?"

This set us off. We were in hysterics. We had just spent well over half an hour discussing the sale of these pants, which was 'not possible' as they were the last pair and now they were telling us they could stitch us some...

They did not understand why this was funny. We paid, thanked the men, and left the shop laughing incredulously over our Indian moment. 

You could go mad in this country. So sometimes it is wise just to sit and stare at the skies. Thankfully, they are often magnificent.

onam

 

I have just come back from the singing and clapping of the girl's home prayer time with a newly henna-ed hand, and I am feeling fairly exhausted after a day of chicken coop building with ten young girls who are all very eager to help but aren't that interested in listening. But I thought, you know what, I think everyone would like to know about Onam (and if you didn't before, you do now right?), and right now there is power, the computer is free and I have a spare moment- there's no time like the present! So this is what we woke to, two Sundays ago... 

Ten kilos of fresh flowers nestled safely between the seats of the jeep, waiting to be arranged into eye-catching patterns, and when we went into the kitchen we thought a food bomb had exploded. Welcome to Onam, Our Home style.  

Onam is an exclusively Keralan celebration and the legend behind it is thus...

Once upon a time the state was ruled by a demon king called Mahabali. In a hefty contradiction of terms this king was incredibly popular amongst Keralans- all were happy, peaceful and prosperous. Good times abounded. But the demon king had one shortcoming (and it wasn't that he was a demon...I feel like I am missing something here)- he was egotistic. And so the gods decided he was getting a little too big for his boots (and they were also a bit jealous that everyone liked him so much...even gods aren't above a little pettiness you know) and so they banished him to some place far, far away. Shrek was there. So the king was gone, but the gods did have to admit that he had done a lot of good for the people of Kerala and so they granted him the right to come back and visit his people once a year. That day is Onam and it is a day of feasts, flower arrangements and general merriment to welcome back the demon king on his annual visit.

That, as far as I can gather, is what it's all about. What it meant for us was a good hour of everybody's Onam morning spent plucking the petals from flowers to make impressive bursts of colour on the floor...

...quite a few flower fights when the dull repetition of pluck pluck pluck next became too much and the kids went nuts...

 

...and a solid ten hours of cooking in the girl's home kitchen to produce the 11 different curries that would grace our fresh banana leaves for the Onam feast later in the afternoon.

Food and flowers, that's what it's all about. And making merry with family and friends. And then a lazy afternoon nap when everyone is full to bursting and all the excitement has died down. Kind of like Christmas, without religion or presents.

So there you go, the story of an obscure Indian festival to file away in that box in your brain that is reserved purely for the 'things that are quite interesting but serve absolutely no purpose in day to day life'. You're welcome.

Now, I have to go. We have a chicken coop to finish.

bubbles and biscuits.

There's a change in the air here. The monsoon is thinking about leaving, like that party guest who rises from the dinner table to make his goodbyes and then half an hour later has everyone standing by the door, surreptitiously checking the clock, while he recounts for them yet another tale that just must be told. It is thinking about leaving, but it hasn't gone just yet. And though the days have been getting drier, the sun is still scarce; the sky a cloudscape of thick grays and whites. The mornings have been perfect- reminiscent of those days in the height of summer when you wake up at six and sit outside while the sun is still bearable and you can smell the heat that will arrive to blanket everything later in the afternoon.

The ever-drier days bring herald many things: the excitement of a changing season, the opportunity to turn brown again, after two months of cloud, and snakes. Lots and lots of snakes. So what have we been doing the last few days? Snake-proofing! Which is just a different way of saying weeding (it does sound more dramatic though, right?). So much weeding. The thing about living in such a fertile place is that as soon as you pull out a weed and turn your back on it, it pokes its little green head right back out of the ground in some kind of "hilarious" magic trick.

But one can only weed for so long without turning into a crazy person and so in between ripping undesirables from the earth we have been bubble blowing and biscuit baking (and alliterating). Because everyone loves a good bubble and baking outside is fun. Although to be totally honest we were not baking as we have no oven, we were deep frying. But for good alliteration that does not make, so I'm sticking with baking. They're biscuits, after all.

 

 

street scenes: kalpetta

Humans are very good at adapting. This is what makes us such strong survivalists; this is why we are at the top of the food chain. It has to be so- imagine what it would be like if we weren't. A planet full of people who freak out when their situation changes equals a planet full of lunatics flapping about like headless chickens...we'd crash into each other, there would be blood everywhere, we'd all have our shirts on backwards. A funny sight to see perhaps, but not a very productive species. 

The downside to all this kick-ass adaptation is that we also have the tendency to take things for granted. You know it, we all do it. The scenery, the lifestyle, the whatever it is that is so amazing becomes deadened by over-exposure, becomes the norm. Seriously, Will and I have been traveling for eighteen months and we have begun to think that hopping from country to country whenever we get a whim is normal; we have stopped seeing the incredible in what we are doing (only sometimes though...other times we will be doing something and I will just stop and think wow, we are doing this). 

And so with India. Everything about this place is insane. Really, everything. But after four months of living here we have kind of stopped seeing it. So it was a happy email I received from my young cousin the other day, asking for photographs of India for her school project. Now I had something to force me to look around, to be a tourist in our local town again. I not only had to keep my eyes open for the unusual, I had to seek it out. Turns out, it was the easiest thing ever. Because once I started to look around with my 'Australia' eyes, everything was unusual, everything was a photo opportunity.

So thank you Riley Mae, for making me open my eyes and remember where I am.