Holi Festival of Colors...

It was about this time last year that we told the kids we would be spending this year in India. One of the first things we came across when researching India on the Internet, was the Holi Festival. The kids were excited at the thought of celebrating this festival... and you will soon see why. It is a kid's dream, really. And a time when grown ups can act like kids.

I will spare you all the details of the origins of this festival (I know this is not like me, but quite frankly, I am just too darn tired tonight to fact check!).

The main event of Holi is indeed a carnival of colors. On this day, children, friends and neighbors come out on the streets. And the spree to color-anyone-you-see takes over. Colors of all form and variety. They come in every color of the rainbow. And they are available in oil, water or powder base. Colored powder, or, gulal was earlier made out of Dried seeds of some tropical flowers like the Palash, and dried silt from the riverbed. People throw these colored powders in the air as they shout "Holi Hai!", and smear each other with this colored powder. Throw some water into the mix, why not??? It makes for one "Holi" mess. But also so much fun!!

Holi is celebrated throughout India. In big cities and small villages. On roadsides and in neighborhoods.

Just seeing the neat cones of powder on the roadside vendor's carts, is amazing.

I took these pictures in town, just outside of Palm Meadows...

We had some neighbors and friends over after school today to celebrate. Holi Festival of Color did not disappoint... check it out...

Somehow I look completely clean in this shot, let me assure you, I WAS NOT !!!

Our driver, Harish, got a splash of color from Lauren!

We may need to carry this tradition back to the states with us... it was terrific fun!

Missing...

My Mom flew out yesterday , and WOW, do we miss her!!!!!!! 6 weeks really sailed right by and I can barely believe we are into March already! I’d say that now, we are all missing home a lot . Pat did get a 2 week “home” visit in January, and he will be back again in May for a week. This is a blog about things I really miss (it goes without saying that we miss EVERYBODY tremendously, so these are things, and not people), and things I do not miss at all... and looking forward, the things I will miss when we leave India.
I REALLY MISS:

• Coffee - I got a big fill of coffee in Australia, but I sorely miss my morning cuppa Joe (OK, and my afternoon and evening… and even late night cup!) There are many things we have gone without here, which I hope to never have again… coffee is NOT one of them!
• Music - We have our IPODS and we download music all the time… but I never realized how much I love listening to the local radio stations in NY. It really struck me when we watched the Grammy Awards last month, how great the music selection in the US really is.
• Cold and rainy days - So this one might seem weird, since the weather here in Bangalore has been a carbon copy EVERY day since last September… sunny and 85 degrees, no chance of rain. Seriously…not a drop of rain has fallen here in 5 straight months.! It is beautiful every single moment of every single day. Somehow, it gets quite boring after a while. I long for my first cold, rainy day next fall. To just sit by the fire, with my coffee (and maybe listen to the radio!)
• My kitchen - Oh, how I miss my kitchen! Kitchens here in India are completely separate rooms in the house... like a bedroom (with a door and all!) I think the theory is, only the cook and the maid actually use the kitchen (not true for me). It is sort of lonely and dreary in there :(
• The barbecue. Even if we had a barbecue here, what would we really cook on it? I miss the smell of a steak on the grill.
• An empty house. The house here is never empty. Someone is always roaming around, doing something. The door bell rings non-stop (the flower delivery, mail delivery, bug spray guy, newspaper, water bill, cable bill, electric bill, Internet bill (these guys just show up at the door and you pay them cash... no kidding)
• Chudys buffet parties (and mostly Robin’s brownies)
• Milk. Real milk. In a gallon container. Pasteurized. Homogenized. Fortified. From Stewarts. Or Price Chopper. Or Hannaford. I have not had a drop of milk in India. Not a drop. Somehow the kids have not balked at the box of Nestle Slim 'milk' which sits on the shelf (not in the fridge) in the market. While on holiday in Australia, we bought a gallon of milk and sat down around a table outside the store and drank the entire gallon down, straight away! It was one of the (many, many) highlights of Australia for me!!
• Drinking water from the faucet - of course the water situation here in India is a catastrophe. Only bottled water is suitable for consumption. Even for cooking, water needs to be purchased in 10 gallon jugs. I can't wait to glug down a glass of good old fashioned Saratoga tap water. Not sure I will ever buy bottled water again!

I DON’T MISS

• Driving - there is a lot to be said about just getting into your car and saying “Home, Harish", then reading a good book until you pull into your driveway.
• Cleaning the house
• Yard work
• Running errands - It is nice to be able to send the driver back out for you when you realize the 3 things you forgot to pick up at the grocery store.
• TV - American Idol is the only US show we get here, but I realize that other than Grey's Anatomy, I really don't miss any other television programming. And it has been great for the kids... they do watch a few shows (mostly in Hindi... Spongebob in Hindi, I guess, is still pretty funny to them!)
• The crazy, over scheduled days ... you know the ones... soccer practice, to dance class, to ice skating lessons... oh and squeeze in homework and 2 birthday parties as well if you can.
• Fast food restaurants … would have been on the “miss” list a few months ago, but once you do without it for a while, you do realize how unnecessary they really are.

I WILL MISS

• $5 pedicures (AND having the time to sit for a few hours a week and be pampered!)
• The 7:30am-5:00pm school day
• School uniforms (oh, how easy they make the morning routine)
• The broad range of cultures encountered every single day
• I must admit, I will miss the Indian food... I may need to visit the Indian restaurant in town every now and then for a "fix"
• Having Pat around in the morning to walk the kids to the bus and enjoy our lounging mornings... just chatting and drinking tea for an hour every day.
• The travel... having the chance to explore this side of the globe has been PRICELESS!
• Last, but certainly not least.. ALL the wonderful people we have met on this journey. Some of them, I hope, will be friends forever!
  

Indus Aquatics Championship...

It was yet another full day of competition at Indus! We spent 6 hours poolside while the kids swam their hearts out. Who knew the Patnode kids are fast swimmers?? They took home 6 gold medals, 4 bronze and Andrew won the 2nd grade individual trophy (he placed 1st in every individual 2nd grade event!)

Pat even raced in the Dad's 25 meter freestyle. Check out the serious swimmers in their Speedos (not Pat, of course... but the other Dads)!

Pat won a medal as well!!
Everyone had a fun, fun time...

Trophy Presentation Video

Bear with me as I post a few videos that are a bit out of date. I finally located the video conversion software I need to transfer the data from my computer to the website!! Anyway, these 2 videos are from the althletic day trophy presentation. Andrew, it seems, has reached superstar status among his classmates... in the first clip, the entire primary block begins chanting his name - he is completely embarrassed and shrugs his shoulders in such a cute way. Watch how the other kids are touching him at the end of the first clip and in the second clip as well. What a great memory for him!

India etiquette

Here in India, it is common to receive an invitation on the day of the affair. I am not talking about, "hey, why don't you come by for pizza tonight"... I am talking about "Please come to our wedding tonight"!!!! No joke. We have been invited to a dozen weddings since we arrived, and the invites never happen more than a week in advance. Our last invitation came the morning of the wedding. Last night at 6:15pm our doorbell rang. I opened the door to see Andrew's friend, Nihal, with a stack of birthday invitations. I opened it, to find that the party was today at 11am. AND, the rsvp was for "before 7:00pm tonight". Can you imagine? So, basically you are getting 44 minutes to decide if you can make it, and then 15 hours to go buy a gift. And it's not like there's a 24 hour Walmart nearby... OR ANYWHERE IN INDIA!!!!!!

Andrew had a great time at the party!

Spice Route Sleeper...

While we were up in Delhi, we had dinner at the Spice Route restaurant - ranked in the top 10 worldwide!! It was an amazing atmosphere with terrific food. Poor Lauren fell asleep at the table before we even ordered our food. She slept through the entire meal. Must have been the cozy pashmina they wrapped around her!! I love how we just go ahead and have the waiter take a family picture anyway...

Agra Fort

If you were to list the surviving structures, that had a profound role in shaping the history of India , probably Agra Fort tops the list. In other words , if you make a who is who of the Mughal Emperors, more than half a dozen Emperors - Babur, Humayun, Akbar, Jehangir, Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb - lived in the Agra Fort.
The Agra Fort is not a mausoleum. It is a completely different feeling than exploring the Taj Mahal. It was a strong hold , the administrative headquarters, the royal palace , the court , and even a bazaar .... all boiled into one giant imperial ball. It gives a close view as to how the Mughals lived, what their living rooms looked like, how magnificent their private gardens and mosques were. Walking around Agra Fort is like visiting the private homes and courts of the bygone emperors. And it is very easy to get the feel of their daily life in the grand and ordinary corridors of their living quarters.

Built originally prior to 1500 as a brick military fort, it received a major face lift in 1565, when Akbar commissioned a project which took 4,000 workers 8 years to complete. By 1573, the Agra Fort had been transformed into a majestic red sandstone structure - with 70 foot high outer walls, 2 moats (one wet moat filled with crocodiles, and one dry moat filled with lions, tiger and leopards), an enormous drawbridge and zig zag corridors with portholes to spew hot oil on invaders! Akbar's son, Jehangir, ruled the empire next - followed by his son, Shah Jahan (who built the Taj Mahal for his beloved wife, Mumtaz) and finally, Aurangzeb, who took over power from his father Shah Jahan and placed him under house arrest in the fort until his death in 1666. Each ruler added his own flare to the fort.

It is amazing how the red sandstone has maintained it's color through all of these centuries. This fort was built, of course, long before anything but hand tools were available. So each piece of sandstone was chiseled perfectly and then interlocked, one piece at a time. No cement or mortar... just interlocking pieces - imagine that? 2.5 kilometers in circumference... that is a LOT of sandstone!

Within the walls of the fort, the common areas and living quarters flow into one another seamlessly. Many areas have a great view of the majestic Taj Mahal.
The attention to detail and the symmetry everywhere is startling. In the main palace area the marble is all inlaid with semi-precious stones. The small decorative cavities you see all over the walls are to hold candles. Don't forget... it would be hundreds of years before electricity was invented!!

This kid asked to take a picture with Pat and was so surprised when Pat picked him up!!!

This is beautiful example of the Persian style gardens the Mughals were fond of. On three sides of the garden are arched chambers each with a panoramic view of the garden. These are the storied rooms where the ladies of the royal family lived. Once the garden had the best grapevines known. Now the garden is planted with green and red creepers alternatively giving it an amazing geometric pattern of its jigsaw like features.

The kids really enjoyed the tour as well. Andrew said it was "almost" as great as the Taj Mahal!! For them, I think it was like a giant playground...


And there were loads of monkeys... and you know what kids don't love monkeys?
So it was goodbye Agra Fort... goodbye Agra. It was back off to Delhi!!