so perhaps you've been wondering what's been up over here

well, last weekend we went on an organized trip with the group to Chennai and Pondicherry, former french colonies. it was very strange to see and hear French in India. the local authorities do a good job of keeping the streets where the tourists hang out looking perfect and french. we were mostly doing more rural stuff, such as a visit to auroville.

what a weird place.

a more logical but not chronological explanation of the trip may be in order.

so we visited the ashram of the late sri aurobindo, a philosopher who has influenced a great number of indians as well as some of the new age types back in the good ole u s of a. he died though, and "THE MOTHER" took over. an indian woman born in france and raised as such, she devoted her life to sri aurobindo and took care of his ashram for him (strangely enough, her remains are enterred in a big shrine in the main meditation area), established the education centre (the only people i saw there was a big crowd of funny looking french tourists attending a presentation of dynamised water [explained to me as enlightened and smart water that has 'listened' to mozart and bach]), and also established auroville.

auroville is a small village built to put the ideals of sri aurobindo and THE MOTHER into practice. there are no laws or politics, supposed to be no money, and other such communal values. it is technically outside the jurisdiction of the indian government i think. it is about 50% indian and 50% white - the foreign population now experiencing some poverty because they came here decades ago and have now run out of money and don't have useful skills (the communal thing didn't work out so well). there's also the Matrimandir (http://www.worldspirit.org.uk/images/india-matrimandir.jpg) - we didn't go to it but it's the meditation spot for the whole area. auroville is also surrounded by a poor indian population that is hired to do work around the village.

we visited a potter there who doesn't subscribe to the values of the community as such but chose it as a place where she could develop her pottery as an art form. interesting tidbits from our visit: contrary to THE MOTHER, she pays for things with rupees. the locals sometimes set up money-less relationships where they just trade things, but generally, she can't afford products such as the local rice because it sells for so much. she also couldn't afford her own pottery if she were to buy it in a store. she also knows a couple of murderers who live around her.

moral of the story, it was very interesting. fun to visit, might be a bit weird to live there, but cool that some people have made it their home sweet home.

just in case you're interested, i haven't read these entries so they may contradict everything i've come to understand, but it may give you a better sense of the dealy-o:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Aurobindo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auroville
enjoy!

we did a lot of cultural stuff, the most outstanding by a long shot was a visit to a rural school that both gives kids of lower casts or who need shelter a standard education as well as teaches them kuttikathak dance. they put on a performance of tagores 'deliverance' for us, and hot damn it was amazing. the makeup was unbelievable and these kids did a truly impressive job. seems like a pretty cool place - there were also a few people from switzerland there who were around to give the kids a seminar in acrobatics!

we also visited many temples, a sari workshop, a brahmin vedic school, and a church-complex on the beach in chennai. whoa, weird. neon lights, a meditation room, brides in saris.. we were there on a sunday so it was pretty bumpin', and it was definitely strange to see the indian interpretation of christianity.

rounded it all off with dinner at a diner on the beach (i had a HAMBURGER! sorry, india), where there was a cute little baby monkey hangin out.

last week, i didn't have class for most of the day, so i went in to the old city and tried to get lost. damn it was fun. there were so many beautiful mosques and temples, and i stumbled across such crazy stuff - meat markets, a series of stalls selling all kinds of locks, burqa shops, and all sorts of animals, people, and buildings. i was able to butcher enough hindi to make sense out of what was going on around me! i'm starting to feel comfortable here in terms of being in the city and getting around. (this might be dangerous.) i'm starting to make sense out of the kind of mentality that is needed to succeed here, but there's clearly still a lot left to grapple with.

things have also been pretty fun around campus. had a very interesting discussion with a poli sci guy and this one cat who's renounced paying for stuff and the like and lives as though he's already reached enlightenment. i'm not going to be able to explain this very well, but basically he sees us all as being enlightened and we become more so through our experiences and mistakes. i've had a very interesting past few weeks as i learn more about the immensely diverse perspectives on life and what it means to be in this world. i'm in a class called modern indian thought and we've been learning about hinduism - i had no idea. apparently, putting judaism, christianity, and islam under one banner would be truer than the range of things that are commonly called 'hinduism'. no one knows for sure where the concept of castes came from, and it's hard to tell how prevalent it is here. it's sort of like the concept of race back home, but less easily distinguishable.

i think the reason i still feel somewhat out of the loop here has a lot to do with my completely different background. a big element of that is time - westerners view time as a linear thing, and as such, deadlines, appointments, and the like are much more strict, and the concept of life is also linear. the indians have a cyclical view on time, an explanation of which is unsurprisingly beyond me, but i'll get back to you on that one soon.

i've been making friends with some of the yemeni guys (their tea and coffee is DELICIOUS!). one of them is really funny, he's always making fun of the indians (velcome, vhat? vater, etc.). he used to be on the yemeni national soccer team! been chillin with them though, learning crazy yemeni card games and the like.

this weekend i'm going to goa, a portugese colony in the good ol' days, the hippy refuge of the world when san francisco couldn't cut it anymore in the 60s and 70s. not sure what we're going to do there yet, but my plans are:
- rent a scooter
- find a beautiful beach
- eat a fish
- meet a hippy
- visit a spice plantation
- get an elephant shower / ride an elephant / kick it with elephants
it's a 16 hour bus ride each way which should be a great time.