Tuesday, October 25
I stopped by the Akshardham Temple on my way over the trans-Yamuna Bridge. It’s a temple to Lord Swaminarayan that has been five years in the making – apparently it was his dream to construct a temple on the banks of this stinky, fetid river. NRIs from London and the US have contributed lots. The temple is going to be inaugurated on Nov. 6 and officially open to the public on Nov. 8. But for the last eight months, devotees of Narayan around the country have been signing up for pre-opening tours. Someone told me that eventually there will be about 20,000 visitors a day to the temple, which is apparently modeled on Cambodia's Angkor Wat and various Hindu temples.
If only all tourists could be so lucky. My mother hates the temple -- she thinks it looks like a giant mammary. But I think it looks quite nice all lit up at night. Probably people thought St. Peter's was very tacky when they first saw it.
In an unrelated, here is a photograph of our elevator call button. And a query: Are Haryanvi Jats the Italian-Americans of India? Thursday, October 20 My life at the moment is dominated by fashion shows. Last night I went to one on swank diplomatic premises, hoping to "network" and drink wine, both of which I accomplished to some extent. After the rigors of life in East Delhi, it was delightful to eat bite-sized servings of lamb satay and spackled (?) chicken offered by an abundance of waiters -- they were coming to you instead of you circling them as often happens when free eats and drinks are to be had -- while waiting for the show that was to introduce us to the marvels of this season's "summery 'oolly 'oollens." (The key presenter had a tendency to drop w and turn v's to b's.) mr. india and me
I spent the morning Googling some of my other acquaintances of last night, most of whom were fellow journalists. One of them has several anti-tributes to her on the Web, on blogs written by IT professionals who've taken affront to her pieces on the IT lifestyle. The other, a frighteningly well-informed personage who claimed to be a nonentity at a well-known weekly news magazine, has untold amounts of bylines on the web on some very interesting, well-researched stories. Grrr. Tuesday, October 11 Okay, it’s confirmed. No one loves me. Only one person (my ex-boss) e-mailed me to see if I was affected by the earthquake. It’s true that I was not physically harmed, and that Delhi was quite far from the epicenter of the quake, but still. The building I was in shook from side-to-side – even though we are 700 kilometers (500 miles) from where the quake hit -- and it was quite scary to realize that what seem like terribly stout bricks and mortar are not. Except when they’re on top of you. Apparently if there ever is a quake near Delhi, the building in East Delhi where I currently live on the top floor will be razed to the ground. First of all it is in an earthquake-prone area, across the Yamuna river. Secondly the soil around here is supposed to be sandy and that makes high-rise construction very unstable. And finally, our building is built on stilts to make room for parking underneath. I guess you can’t expect a city that is ranked 108 out of 121 cities in term of livability to have coherent building safety standards. Tuesday, October 4 I’ve noticed that people aren’t particularly polite to women when they ask questions related to cars or gadgets. When I went to look at fridges and air-conditioners with my mother and I asked for a brochure so I could look at the technical specifications, the salesman said, “What? Are you doing an MBA?” Today I went to have a rustproof coating put on my car because I scratched the paint off on my way out one day. Joginder, the sardar car mechanic said he would take care of it and when I asked him what he would do, he said, “How will I explain to you?” When I asked if he could rustproof it without painting it, he scoffed at the suggestion and told me to go home and find some nail polish to match the car and paint over the rust myself. But when I said that I had no idea about any of this and that the car was my father’s and my father was insisting on not painting it (he thinks we should do all my future dents and paint jobs at once), he became much more cooperative and offered to apply a clear rustproof coating. (un)boxing day With the arrival of 200 boxes of my parents’ baggage, I am now swimming in fish sauce, canned palm hearts and teeny tiny hotel toiletries, which seem to make up the bulk of my parents’ possessions. I’ve always laughed at my mother’s various orders any time my sister and I have come to visit her in India – tea bags! – or other places, but it’s true that there are some things, or lack thereof, about living in a place that you only discover when you run a household.
the cultural significance of beds
sashay, shante
I was very delighted to attend the program, since I'm always reading about models here -- if someone isn't in IT these days, then they're likely to be a model. The show consisted of a salsa performance, a short play about arranged romance that included a spoof of the Indian version of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” and three ramp sequences. I went with my 8-year-old cousin who liked the play, because it had a fight sequence. To see a video of the dance performance, click here.
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