More content from a while ago.

One of the biggest Hindu Holidays is the festival of lights (Diwali or Deepawali depending on who you talk to.). It commemorates the return of Ram (the ideal man and incarnation of Vishnu) to his home after he and the monkey god Hanuman killed the evil (or not so evil according to your sources), ten-headed, Sri Lankan wizard dude Ravana who had stolen Sita (Ram's wife). Any way there is a smaller festival a week or two before Diwali, which commemorates the killing of Ravana called Dusshera. This is pretty cool as in many places in India huge effigies of Ravana and his two lieutenants (who I believe are also his brothers) are built and subsequently burnt to the ground. This was also done on my campus which I of course attended as the effigies were maybe 40 feet tall or so. The thing I didn't realize at the time was that it was also considered to be a good idea to stuff the chest of the effigies with fireworks. This gave the burning an added dimension of craziness. Fortunately they were only the kind of explosives that make loud noises without flying around. It seemed pretty reckless but it ensured that everyone had a blast on Dusshera.

It has pretty much not rained since the Rendezvous event (So late September or so). This is easy to monitor as there was an asphalt painting competition at Rendezvous where they painted pictures with chalk on the street to the main building. They still haven't been washed away, so it's possible to infer that it doesn't rain too much during the nights, and during the days I haven't seen any rain. Only once there was a very short shower. My mom noticed all the dust that is now everywhere which sort of crept onto everything without my noticing. Prolly this is also a symptom of the lack of rain. This hasn't bothered me too much as I've gradually become used to the amount of airborne dirt, but my mom was pretty shocked when she encountered it. Also when we finally washed my clothes with real washing machines in Germany there was a layer of dirt with every load of laundry and every time I washed things on my own in Indian machines the water became a distinctly darker color regardless of how often I washed them.

The european student all complained of the food a bit and got sick of rice because it was with every meal. I find that eating Indian food is awesome, and I don't dislike the food, but I also miss western food, in particular bread, for which there is no suitable analog. The european students then often organized themselves around food related events. Particularly this one French couple had an apartment off campus where we went to have something unIndian for a change. Usually it was crêpes or something along those lines. We also had something that was supposed to be Mouse au chocolat, which contained raw eggs, but was very good. I also tried eating at a McDonalds, which I generally don't do at home for the weirdness of it. The burgers there consist of either these vegetarian potato based burgers or of chicken patties. The best that they have to offer is a Chicken Maharaja Burger which is very well spiced and reasonably filling for a chicken dish. The Mcdonalds generally have a big sign near the counter saying that they do not serve beef products there to avoid any social uproar.

Right before Diwali I went traveling to the south before returning North to Aligarh to my friend Amit's house. We briefly checked out a little known city with ancient forts called Orchha. It is near the somewhat uglier train hub called Jhansi, and has beautiful palaces and temples belonging to one despot or the other a little while back. My travel companions consisted of an Austrian, a German, and a Swiss guy so we were all able to speak German together. This was cool as it made discussing our intentions in front of sales people possible and gave us an added edge of privacy on our journey. It also led to the chance encounter with a tourist from Lichtenstein, who also happened to speak German. Tourist's often have interesting stories behind why they came to a given place. I liked this guy's story because of how extreme it was. Essentially he worked as an mechanic in one of the smallest countries in the world and then decided to just quit his job and see the world, and so he's been traveling for maybe six months or so, I can't remember the details. The idea of just getting up and leaving has always been cool to me, and the fact that he just went was cool to me. Of course it's not all as cool as it sounds since his sister had already done something similar. Also my one problem with his story was he did not really understand the places he went to, rather he was more about sight-seeing it seemed. The thing that hinted toward this was that he was completely oblivious to the fact that Diwali was approaching, which is hard to imagine as any Indian you would have talked to would prolly have mentioned it, and was preparing for it. Be that as it may, Orchha was a beautiful and quiet place unlike many of the tourist traps in India such as our next destination; Kajuraho.

Kajuraho is a town that has no train connections to the outside world but is still heavily visited by tourists because it is the site of some temples which have some pretty explicit sculptures of people having sex. I was struck down with a migraine the morning of our arrival so I missed the viewing of the main group of temples. I did manage to see some of the other temples which also had strangely globularly breasted women in suggestive poses. The temples were very beautiful, but it was hard to unite the possibly sexually freed temples with the somewhat more repressed modern India of today. It's also unclear who built them and why. Despite the beauty of the temples, though, I personally did not enjoy Kajuraho because of the surrounding village. It was similar to my experiences in Jaisalmer in that it seemed to exist solely as a showroom of useless junk to sell to tourists. It was almost impossible to avoid young kids and young adults who were trying to be friendly in order to sell something or get money as tourguides or something. Apparently the trick to getting around these people is to be very impolite and just ignoring them completely. Unfortunately my companions weren't cold enough to complete not talk with them, which led to us leading an army of people in hopes of money around with us. Despite the beauty of the temples, I would not recommend going there.

I then left my German speaking friends behind (they were going to go to some wildlife preserves) and went to Delhi in a rush to meet Amit so I could accompany him home for Diwali. Amit lives in a city called Aligarh, which is cool for several reasons. I personally liked it as it had no tourist attractions. This meant there were no tourists, and none of the tourist sharks who come along with them. This also meant that very few people spoke English, but that wasn't so bad. Aligarh is an industrial city famous for making locks. It also is split into to sides a Hindu and an Muslim population, which do not really mix. There is a huge market at the intersection of the two parts of the city, the muslim side is not as bright and gaudy as the Hindu side. Sometimes that particular area is the site of riots so that there are soldiers there to ensure the peace is kept. Aligarh is also home to the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) in which Amit got his Undergrad degrees. (He is now working on his Masters.) Accompanied by Amit then, I was able to just observe normal people doing what they generally do.

He also took me to his home which was a on top of his landlord's home. He had two patios (huge balconies), one on in front of his home and one on it's roof. Indian homes, or at least those in Aligarh, are generally built from bricks and concrete. Essentially the walls are made of brick which are sandwiched between two enormous plates of concrete which compose the roof and the floor. This is really cool as it makes spilling water on the floor not a big deal at all. In fact there were no sinks in the house, there were only two places (one in the kitchen and one on the front patio) where there were spigots and the water was allowed to fall on the floor, and then run along the floor to the outlets that lined the house to pour into the streets. I thought it was pretty cool, especially as his mother didn't use a sink in the kitchen, although that isn't typical in India. The house was incredibly clean, and everything had a place and a function. It was really nice to see something that really worked well for a change. The showers consisted of a bucket with a mug, but that actually was pretty nice, especially because his mother boiled water in the morning for me so that I could shower at a decent temperature for a change. (When I returned to Delhi I also quickly procured a bucket and a mug to take advantage of hot water spigots at IIT.) The toilet was Indian, which I had gotten used to, and almost prefer, by that time. The flushing consisted of just pouring a bucket of water into the toilet, which was pretty simple, and kind of cool since I never understood what all was necessary to flush a toilet before.

Amit's mother was an amazing cook, and in keeping with the traditions I as a guest was served. Typically the women eat after the men have eaten enough, so I was forced to eat with Amit, while his beautiful sister kept bringing refilling my various dishes with whatever had been finished. It was pretty tough to eat all the good food and when I was full his sister would not ask me if I wanted more but instead would ask very sweetly to please have some more of this or that. It was so bad that I was half to three quarters full when the next meal started, but I persevered (the food was too good not to) and had extra helpings at every meal.

I took part in the family Pooja (Hindu prayer) for Diwali, which essentially consisted of chanting some mantras and stuff while waving a plate full of deepaks (clay bowls filled with mustard oil, with a wick which is lit like a candle) in front of some idols. There was also an interesting portion in the Pooja when the traditional greeting of the parents is done. It consists of touching the feet of the elder people in your family and then bringing your hand to your chest and stuff. It went up the family by age, and the Amit's mother did it to his father, but he wasn't required to do it to her. I thought it was worth noting that a hierarchy is built into the greeting of family and into the prayer itself. Traditionally younger siblings don't call their older brothers or sisters in families, but by a title that means older brother or sister.

Later that night we lit deepaks and lined them all around the roof and front patio and Amit's sister made a Rangoli in front of the house. (Rangolis are temporary floor pictures usually made with flowers or colored dust. Basically it's just spread on the ground in a pattern that often has a concentric scheme. It's very pretty. Then there were fireworks all around, although less spectacular than previous years, I'm told. It was all in all pretty dangerous I suspect as they were just normal people shooting them off, but it was cool that a large portion of the city was celebrating. The Muslim part of town, however, had only very few fireworks above it.

When I returned from Diwali Johannes (the German dude) and I went to the nearby Jawarhallal Nehru University (JNU) to see what it was like. JNU is a more humanities oriented school very near to us. (It was in fact just across the large street which borders our campus wall, which I had only realized at that point.) We walked onto campus and had the plan to find a mess in one of the hostels and to eat there, as it would facilitate the meeting of JNUites. The mess food in JNU is comparable to ours, but lacks the variety of roti (breadish things) and prolly is just as monotonous. We met one of the grad students who was happy to show us around, he didn't speak the greatest english, but was the second best of our random sampling (the sample size consisted of four and was chosen based off of who was sitting next to me in the mess and of the student who directed us to the mess in the first place). The student was kind enough to show us his room and explained the general situation on campus. Apparently JNU students are mostly grad students, who aren't subjected to the same strict rules that apply to IIT. Unfortunately they need to supply their own internet connections, but on the upside girls are allowed to enter boys hostels as they please whenever they wish. (The other way around is not permitted, but the hostels are generally not incredibly far apart either as they are at IIT.) The students seem to be more active as far as clubs, parties, shows and other fun stuff are concerned, but there is also a huge amount of politics on campus. (Politics seems to involve having annoying people asking you to support them in causes.) Campus was also generally prettier, newer, and cleaner than at IIT. In general it seemed like a nice place. I figured I'd check it out later in the semester but that never ended up happening.