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.

**********************************************************

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.

Working like a Dawg

I am not much of a mall person and never have been.  I mean I have been to a mall in the US, but this week I went to a mall that rivals any I have ever seen.  The mall is 5 stories high and a kilometer long.  For those of you not familiar with the metric system that is .74565 miles.  So for all you ladies out there that is a total of 3.7283 miles of shopping pleasure.  And for you guys out there that is the reason God gave us football. 

Things here are going well.  This week I am working the first shift, India Standard time is 9.5 hours ahead of Eastern Daylight Savings Time.  I am not sleeping much as my internal clock is a little messed up right now.  Don’t worry as soon as I get adjusted I will have to flip my nights and days again this coming Monday.  I should run now so I can get some sleep.  I will write more later.

Paris the Nickel Tour

I wish I could tell you what this is but to be honest I have no idea.  It is a cool looking building though.

This is a park near the Eifle Tour.

This is the Paris Metro.  Strap on your combat boots, make sure you have a map, and know enough French to ask for directions and where is the bathroom.

India, the Dawg has arrived!!

I made it. Got in late last night and could not stay awake to see anything much less do anything. There is a 9 1/2 hour difference between home and here. I am still getting settled in so I won't have much to say over the next couple of days. I am majorly jet lagged and have only traveled from the hotel to the site (work site). I am staying at the Trident Gurgaon. The hotel is very nice and I can't believe how nice everyone is.

 

I will tell you my one stories of the day. Indian traffic; lets just say with 15,000,000 in the Delhi area and no traffic lights, stop signs, or organization to traffic flow it is mass chaos. Just imagine the following... a car, a bus, a dog, a cow, a bicycle, and lets say 10,000 people. Now put all these on a single lane road the length of a city block. There are two directions of traffic on this road and you are not allowed to stop for anything, well maybe they will stop for the cow. That is what driving in India is like. Totally nuts.

More to come when I finally get out of the hotel and explore a little.

Why did we just pass my Metro stop?

I spent the day in Paris taking in the sights. I was told by a friend of mine that Paris was a walking city, my first thought was ok, like Boston. I mean the entire Freedom Trail is only 5 miles, a bit of a hike I know but doable. You can see pretty much everything in Boston on that 5 mile trek. I thought it would be the same for Paris. Not so, I think it was 5 miles from Notre Dame to the Eiffel Tour!!! Things got a lot better once I learned how to use the Metro. Boy you talk about a different experience, I ain’t in Atlanta, New York or Boston any more. Our transit system is pretty easy to understand. There is a line that is colored and it has stops indicated on it. Makes sense so far? The Paris Metro map looks the same as ours, but did you know that certain trains on the blue line don’t stop at every stop on the blue line? Some of the time you ride right past your stop leaving you to wonder how in the world am I going to get back where I came from. I am on the blue line and the map says it stops here but it didn’t. Well that will be because their Metro is a lot like calculus. Yes there is a blue line, and yes it has stops on it, but the trains also have numbers on them. This number is important because it will let you know where the train will stop on the blue line. CRAZY!!! It’s all François to me.

Now that I have that off my chest… what a cool place!!! I will refer to my 10 hours in the city of Paris as a vision trip. Now that I have seen it, I know what I want to see. I will be taking the family in the not so near future. I wanted to take a couple of pictures from the top of the Eiffel Tower to post on the blog, but I was not about to take the poor man’s way to the top. I wanted to ride the lift, “elevator” for some who are asking what is a lift? The wait in line for the lift was 3.5 hours, and I was told it would take about 1.5 hours to climb the stairs to the top. After my 5 mile trek from Norte Dame to the Eiffel Tower, I was not about to climb stairs to the top of that thing. Next time I am going to the top.

Because I don’t have internet access you will get this post about the same time you get one about my first day in India. I am currently flying over the Black Sea, which is on the northern boarder of Turkey. The way the crow flies it is about 2,267 miles from New Delhi.

What do I Pack?

T minus 42 hours and counting and I have yet to pack a bag.  Even worse I don't yet own the bag I will be taking.  Lucky for me I have a wife that is willing to go shopping on my behalf.  I would write more but there is no time, got to get packing.