Elizabeth visits us

In the beginning of March, Elizabeth attended a conference in India. In her Ph. D. studies, she deals with the relationship between religion and the environment in Bhutan, Nepal, Tibet, and other nearby parts of the world. She is a poor student (financially speaking, not quality-wise), but Berkeley sent her to attend this particular conference in Mussourie, which is located in the extreme north of the country (and is, apparently, pronounced “Missouri”, which was surprising to all of us). It seemed such a terrible shame for her to get this close, even though this country is gigantic, without us getting to see each other. We toyed with the idea of trying to get up north to see her, but logic prevailed in the end and we decided that it was better for all three of us to pay for one ticket rather than two. So she came here for the weekend.

First we had silly girl time and went to the spa, where we had our feet and hands played with. Then, having such a short time, we decided just to go down to Pondicherry for a night. Unfortunately, Elizabeth didn't feel very well and the night of her arrival was the night that I finally managed to get food poisoning. Luckily, we are both pretty resilient and decided to go anyway. So Rajendran drove us down there for one night.

We happened to arrive just in time for the judging of a rangoli contest. Rangoli are traditional Hindu designs that are typically created on the road or sidewalk or stoop at the entrance to the home or business. Usually, they are simple and made with white rice flower. However, you can often see more elaborate ones during festivals and wedding celebrations. These are made with other colors of dry spices, chalk, flour, etc. They are temporary street designs, basically, much like chalk art on the sidewalks of New York. Except that they're holy.

Anyway, I had never seen rangoli like the ones we saw at this contest.

Begin slide show!

See Elizabeth's story about her visit.