New books by post!

Howdy y'all!

I mean...namaskar!

I'm very excited at the moment because two books have just arrived in the mail: Dreaming in Hindi by Katherine Russel Rich and How Much Should a Person Consume?: Environmentalism in India and the United States by Ramachandra Guha.

Oh my goodness. First of all, these books are just so beautiful - smooth, unfurled pages, colorful, unstained covers, and just the right weight and thickness to prop my eyelids open on a rainy (or snowy, as the case may be these days) afternoon. I bought them new, which I rarely ever do with books. My knowledge of the Indian subcontinent, up until this very moment, has come from outdated National Geographics, scuffed-up copies of the Mahabharata, and snippets of Al-Jazeera on CNN (which is, of course, the most enthralling news channel on the planet.)

Hey, I suppose it's one step closer to a plane ticket.

Awhile back I read (and reviewed) Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love. I was so disappointed in that book. Gilbert had traveled to India on a whimsical soul search, but everything about her spiritual journey smacked of ethnocentric mockery and slack-jawed gaping at Indian "weirdness" (though to be fair, I believe it was unintentional - and I am probably biased). Though Dreaming in Hindi by Katherine Russel Rich is yet another American travel experience, I have a good feeling about this one. Rather than imitating Gilbert's desire to escape from worldly concerns and commune with God, Rich throws herself into a frighteningly foreign throng in order to understand the most rudimentary building block of human experience: language. In a "rash" moment, Rich moves to Udaipur to learn Hindi, and her memoir details the unexpected lessons she learns through it. I am really excited to delve into this one, mainly because my own experiences in learning Hindi so far have been incredibly transformative.

What started out as an innocent curiosity has tried my patience more times than I can count - but I always remind myself that the joy of learning Hindi is that it isn't easy. Every new word is so abstract from the limitations of my English-speaking mind, sometimes even one new sound, one new arrangement of a sentence, can open up a whole new world inside my mind. To me, these are not just words. These are Lilliputian victories; the foundational blocks of a seemingly alternate universe. And through this foreign lens I have come to understand my own language, my own country, and my own people better. That's why I'm always eager to share what I'm learning about India with the people that I meet.

I once met a man from Ethiopia while traveling on a bus from Boston to New York City. He was just CRAZY for America. He told me a great and epic love story, from his beginnings on a small farm growing up with eleven brothers and sisters in Ethiopia to his struggle to survive on the streets of New York City. He had fought for America in such a way that I had never heard before. He was proud of where he came from, where he was going, and where he was. He was simply happy to be alive. After he got off the bus and we went our separate ways, I never looked at life in quite the same way again.

So maybe I'm a little crazy too, but I really can't wait to review this book for you guys. Maybe I can't convince you to start learning Hindi, but I want you to know how much joy there is to be had in the experience if you're willing to seize it.

Oh, boy. I'm beginning to sound like a high school math teacher. Moving on.

How Much Should a Person Consume?: Environmentalism in India and the United States by Ramachandra Guha jumped out at me from its, er, "shelf" at Amazon.com because of its obviously unique approach to this hot-button issue. In some of my previous posts I explored the differences in agriculture between India and the United States, and what the water crisis really means to a country in which half of its hospital patients typically suffer from water-borne diseases on any given day. Based on research conducted over two decades, Guha's book plunges into the differences between environmental philosophies in India and America and arrives at a new "social ecology" approach to conservation, critically important to the relationship between these two great democracies and to the future of the world. It seems to be written in a friendly lilt, an approachable read for anyone interested.

Anyway, that's enough for now. I'll post my reviews soon enough.

A Bengali Wedding.

I'm very pleased to say that my pen-pal Devi has agreed to let me share the pictures she sent me from a wedding ceremony in her community in West Bengal - this is a traditional Bengali Hindu wedding. The captions below the pictures are her writings.

"Weddings are big events here - festivities can go on for days. Marriages are most often arranged and set at an astrologically auspicious time, such as this wedding parade set after the full moon. Before sunrise I could already hear things getting started with the neighbors, whose son will be wedded."

"Before the bride makes her entrance, the groom and his family make preparations for worship in the temple. The crowd was very joyful and it was a real Bengali party, even though the strongest drink you'd find in this group of Vaishnavas would be a straight glass of Sprite."

"I got a sneak preview of the bride-to-be upstairs in her father's house. Ordinarily she is a somewhat plain, plump young lady, but here she is dressed so ornamentally and so radiant with happiness that she looks like a gandharva, or angel."

"The bride meets the groom for the first time. She covers her face with betel leaves to symbolize the humbling effect of her husband's presence."

"Two of the bride's brothers lift her and circumambulate around the groom. She pelts flower petals at her husband-to-be, and his friends must dart in to 'shield' him from her love."

"A cloth is placed over the couple's heads and their eyes meet for the first time...in private."

"Now everybody else gets a sneak peek, too!"

"After the pandit offers a prayer to the elephant god Ganesh, he puts a coin and a spot of mehendi in the groom's right hand. The couple's hands are united with auspicious substances such as sweet grass, purified water and strings of flowers. This ritual is called panigrahana hathlewa."

"Now the father adds his hand in a gesture of blessing, giving his lovely daughter away."

"If you’ve ever wondered where the expression 'tying the knot' came from, it probably came from Hindu ceremonies in which the bride and groom’s clothes are literally knotted together for the rest of the night. The Vedas say that there is a knot in the heart caused by the false ego which thinks 'I' and 'mine' separately from its Creator, and when a man and woman are united the knot in the heart tightens. One thinks, 'I am this body. This is my wife, my family, my country, my religion,' and so on. But if a man and woman unite for the purpose of serving Krishna, they can work cooperatively to undo the illusion of material existence and thus progress spiritually. Then one thinks, 'I am servant of the Lord. Everything belongs to Him. Let me utilize it properly by engaging it in His service.'"

"Here, the bride and groom await the lighting of the sacrificial fire. They took half an hour to recite their vows, which they wrote up themselves and included things like 'always respect each other' and 'no domestic violence'. That's the unfortunate thing about Indian weddings. They take forever. There are a few more rituals after this, but the ceremony had already gone on for four hours, so I made my exit."

Four hours? That's completely understandable. This post was getting a little picture-heavy anyway. Thank you, darling Devi!

Stay tuned!

Bahut bahut maaf kajiye, sabhi. (I'm very very sorry, everyone.)

I haven't abandoned this blog! Don't let yourself think that even for a minute. I've just been very busy this month preparing for examns (yes, that's an n), but I think my hard work has paid off. So far I've earned 18 college credits this semester with a 3.835 GPA - though that doesn't include the grade on my final math exam, which was all calculus. (Believe me, I should've taken Algebra.) I have a feeling my GPA will drop a little once I see the results on that...aahe.

Anyway, there's so much I have to share with you this month, so stay tuned!