India Red: ::Some Snaps--Rikshaws and Goddess Worship::

A lot of people call pictures "snaps" her. Ex: "Can I take a snap of you?" Ex: "Here, take a snap."

Rice fields

old, old books written on palm leaves (I think... I can't remember if it was palm or banana... looks like palm--go with that...)

More buddhist ruins. This one is called Bojjanna Konda/ Buddha(nna) Konda

Devipuram (Temple of a Hundred Goddesses). There are women priestesses here like this woman here in the center (she's the one who brought us). She is also a guru (someone who has devoted almost all of their time to worship the gods and teach others).

We actually got to meet Saujinia's guru. It was really cool because I had read about the gurus and was really curious to meet them. I was not disappointed. I didn't get what he said to about half our questions (we were really lucky we got to see him--if I had known we would have a question answer session I would've prepared more questions before him). Krishnaya-garu says that usually you only get question-answer opportunities like that in a group of hundreds of people.

I asked him what he taught his disciples. It was a long, complicated answer I didn't really understand (stuff about self realization mixed with selflessness?), but I liked him. He wasn't like some other religious leaders I've met that were pure evil--but I respect him as a kind, intelligent, and wise old man. One of the only things I remember that he said was part of his answer to the question: "Is happiness selfishness?" He said that no, it wasn't. Being satisfied and happy about something is not selfish. He said: "Happiness is the manifestation of love."

I guess this lady saw us one time and told Krishnaya she would like to invite us to her temple. So we went on a trip with her and saw the temple of a hundred Goddesses (or something) it's called Devipuram. She invited us over to a ritual she does regularly at her house where they make a design in the temples shape (each point represents a goddess) and they sang songs etc. It was pretty much based on women worship which was really strange. All the other girls sat in the painful Indian style for two and a half hours of this song-ceremony. I was sitting inappropriately and resting my head in my hand even before the majority of her guests had arrived (they hadn't officially started). So I took the first opportunity I got take a washroom break... and sit outside and watch the rest of the time. They it a bunch of candles during the service which was really pretty--I wish I could get you a photo but my camera can never do anything justice in the dark.

This is Madhu (one of our translators) and his wife Parvina (she's tiny!)

A museum based on the tribal traditions of India (I would show more, but it really wasn't too exciting--it looked like everything interesting had been robbed from the museum)

Me and Sarah on the train. Me and her screamed in just about every tunnel on the way up which made the trip so much better.

Ye Olde British Gardens that the Indian Gov't now owns. It's a bit dead because we just had the Sun God festival on February 6th (I think) and they're not joking when they say "summer starts today..." because it is HOT.

Shiva and Parvati in ye olde gardens

This is what happens when we give the rikshaw drivers a hard bargain--you can't get a very big rikshaw if you insist on going for 50 ruppees with 6 people. In this photo you can see Rajalaksmi (translator in the far left corner), Carly (upper left corner), Stefanie (who is the one in blue and we really aren't sure what happened to her leg, but one of them disappeared to some unknown place under the rest of us), me (light green one in the middle), McKenna (green sari). The only one I didn't get to fit in my photo was Sarah who was in front of McKenna.

Wooden carving of Krishna (a god) driving Arjuna (warrior of the Mahabharata epic) at Sudha's house (one of our translators. We've been going to her house which is at Gitam University every Saturday).