Faces of India

I wanted to capture the faces of the people I pass on the street, in the markets to give you a glimpse at this vast and different culture.  I began snapping picture of people primarily trying to capture children with their parents.  The little girl above never smiled the entire time our eyes met.  She just had an innocent but blank look on her face.  The look of today is just another day and I hope I make it without anything bad happening.  There is a side of poverty I have seen in pictures but never before have I seen the poverty that is prevalent in India.  With 1.17 billion people living here the law of numbers creates an impoverished population that is greater than that of the entire United States. 

You don't always see it in the form of begging, it comes in the form of purchasing items from young teens and children selling trinkets and other items with little value so they will have enough money for their next meal.  I have seen homeless people before in some on the major US cities, but I can honestly say I have never seen family after family with husband wife and children homeless.  I am but one person but I can say that more than one child received a Cliff Bar from this soft hearted Georgia Boy.

The family above is probably my favorite picture of the trip thus far.  Simple.

The Agra Fort

This folks is the Agra Fort.  It is hard to imagine the size of this thing.  Best thing I can say is, it is huge.  The Agra fort was restored and expaned shortly after the Taj Mahal by Shah Jahan also the builder of the Taj Mahal.  It is said that Shah Jahan's son Akbar revolted against his father and assumed the throne.  There are other stories that are more probable that said Shah Jahan so neglected his duties that his son for forced to replace him.   Shah Jahan then relatiated against his son and was captured alive.  Subsequently Akbar imprisoned his father in the Red Fort aka Agra Fort. 

Because Akbar loved his father he had built a palace that had a great view of the Taj Mahal as you can see in the picture here.  Shah Jahan is buried in the Taj Mahal next to his wife.   It is said that Shah Jahan died in the balconey pictured below still morning the loss of his wife.

Here are a couple of courtyards within the Red Fort.  Just to give you an estimate of how big this thing is.  The court yards are about 60 to 70 yards long.  Now that is not a foofball field unless you are playing arena ball.  There are a total of 7 palaces contained within the fort itself.  Each one had it own monaric living there.  Again like the Taj Mahal, if you are not of Indian decent prepare to be discriminated against and open the wallet they know you did not come all the way to turn around and go home.

Lastly here is some of the art work at the Fort.  Here you will find in the mosque a type of painting/sculpture.  I believe it is a type of fresca painting that uses plaster to create the desige.  It is remarkable, the craftsmanship represented in the fort.

Shopping at Dilli Haat

This is Dilli Haat.  It is a market where you can find almost anything India has to offer.  The premise behind the market is a place where each state in India can come a set up shop to sell handicrafts specific to their state.  There is so much stuff there, and you will not find made in China or Twain stamped on the bottom.  You can actually watch some of the craftsmen do their work.  Everything from looms, to paper mache, to marble carvings you name it you can see it.  Very unlike the trinket shops at home.

I have not had much time to do a lot of shopping since I have been here and I hope to get all my shopping done by Columbus Day.  I am not much of a shopper as you know but I am taking orders.  My mark up is only 50%...still a steal of a deal.  You know I am kidding.  

Durga Puja

This is Durga, here she is riding a lion and she is defeating Mahisashura who we consider the devil.

Durga has four children. Left to right are Ganesha the god of wisdom, Lakshmi goddess of wealth & pleasure, Durga, Mahisashura the devil, Kama goddess of love, and Krishna does not really have a speciality and no one worships him.   You will also notice a small ornement on the top of Durga's crown that does not seem to be attached.  It is not, this is lord Shiva Durga's husband.

Durga Puja is an annual celebration to honor the goddess Durga.  It is called Durga Puja because Durga is the goddess and puja is worship.  So the festival is called Durga worship.  The festival started on Sunday the day I was there and will culminate on Thursday into a full fledged Mardi Gras.  I came to the festival as a guest of Sangeeta who is pictured here with her boyfriend Dev.  There were a total of 11 idols that were positioned in different places throughout Chittranjan Park.  Here is picture of the drummers.  Their job is to awaken Durga for the upcoming festival.  Near many of the idols there are bells, gongs and drums the people will use to awaken the goddess so she will hear their wishes and prayers.  Then they will go in and offer their prayers.  This was a very surreal experience for me.  The concept of many gods that I have to wake up to pray to and they may or may not hear or answer my prayers I have a hard time comprehending.  The people here pray and don’t have an expectation of answer. Thank God we worship a God that is real and we can expect him to hear our prayers and respond.

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These pictures are of a festival Jeremiah attended this past Saturday night. It is called Durga Puja. You can read more about it at http://www.123durgapuja.com

He did not know what the festival was about, but was invited by some friends. However, once he got there he could feel the spiritual warfare as these Hindi's worshipped several gods throughout the course of the evening. Pray for God to guard Jeremiah with the protection and to guard his mind and heart with all he is experiencing.

I am hoping he will blog soon and tell us more about these pictures.

Taj Mahal

My first of the seven wonders of the world.  Yesterday I have the opportunity to visit the Taj Mahal.  It is definately a pretty cool place.  For all you math nerds like me out there, the Taj Mahal is supposed to be the most geometrically perfect building in the world.  They say if you cut it in half you will have a complete and perfect mirror image on the other side.  Some of you may be asking yourselves now if I look at it from here it looks like those four towers on the corners are leaning.  You would be right.  Each of them is leaning away from the Taj Mahal, India sits on a major fault and in the case of an earthquake and the towers were to fall they would fall away from the main building.  Forward thinkers. 

Couple of notes about the Taj Mahal for all you tourists.  The Taj Mahal is located about a 4 hours drive from Delhi in the city of Agra.  When you get there, you will be discriminated against.  I went with Vishal, an Indian national, whom you have met in previous posts.  The cost of entry is 750 ruppees, now that equates to about $13.00 US.  However for Vishal it cost 20 ruppees, that is about 40 cents US.  The second thing you should excpect is to remove your shoes.  Before you enter the court of the Taj Mahal you must remove your shoes.  I am glad I wore socks that day.  The Taj Mahal is the tomb of a Muslim and it is custom to remove your shoes.  What you don't see in the pictures above is off to the left there is a mosque.

I am here standing in a mosque.  At what is considered a holy place about 40km outside of Agra.  Muslim culture requires again that you remove your shoes, but further you cannot show your knees or legs.  So before I could enter they made me put on a dress and house slippers.  My choices were red or red so I chose red. The window I am standing infront of is made from a solid piece of marble.  It was carved by a craftsman.  From the inside looking out you can see what is outside.  From the outside looking in you can see nothing.  Pretty impressive workmanship, the reward for the craftsman that made this was he was set up for the rest of his life. They made sure he was taken care of.  There is one more thing they did not tell him when he took the job.  After he was finished they cut off his hands so that this art work could not be replicated anywhere in the world. 

Dinner with Friends

For all you guys out there no laughing.  We had just completed our first week in India and one of our colleagues Lalitha was going back home to Hyderabad. So they do what we do back home and that is celebrate success with dinner.  If you are looking at the picture above from left to right.  Vishal is a trainer, Lalitha is also a trainer, Christine from the US is a trainer, Abhishek a Team Leader and me. 

Dinner with these folks was pretty interesting.  Nitin the person you see on the left and not in the picture above is the big boss at the table.  Other than Christine and I everyone at that table reports to him.  We sat down at 7:00 to eat supper and we ordered appetizers.  We drank all kinds of stuff, non-alcoholic, from raw mango juice with cumin to yogurt drinks with papaya.  It was a very interesting culinary experience.  About 7:45 we ordered our main course.  Everything was good I will do a culinary right up a little later.  At 9:00 we sent what we had not eaten back to the kitchen to be reheated.  Yep they do that here.   Then we ate some more.  About 10:00 I could not eat another bite.  I did not do a good job of pacing at the main course.  So then we ordered desert.   Ice cream, it was also pretty good.  The flavor any guesses...rose petal.

The guy in the middle in the blue shirt is a believer, his name is Vishal.  I will be going to church with Vishal on Sunday. Talk to you soon.

Dreaming my weekend away

Well ask me about my first weekend in India.  I did not realize how tired I really was.  I came back to the hotel on Friday night about 11:00 and went to bed at midnight.  I woke up at 8:00 or 20:00 if you are using the 24 hour clock.  I slept for 20 hours.  Needless to say I was a little surprised to see my Saturday came and went largely unnoticed.  I watched ESPN’s College Gameday being broadcast from Athens, GA which is home to my beloved Bulldogs.  If I want to watch the game I will need to go back to bed just four hours after getting up.  So with that good night and I will write again in tomorrow.