4 am: If you want to feel famous, come to India with a camera

The last couple of days have been AWESOME. On Monday we got to go downtown and buy some indian clothes. Can I just rant for a minute about how much I love wearing a salwar-kameez?? Wow. SO comfy. I could wear these every day for the rest of my life probably. They are basically just really comfy drawstring leggings with a long shirt/dress thing on top… basically my favorite thing to wear at home anyway! It’s incredible though, they come in seriously every color and pattern, and they have every color imaginable of leggings. AND they are so cheap!! 3-6 dollars for the shirt and 4-5 for the leggings. (see photos below)

I have also survived 3 seafood meals, and I am ok!! They actually haven’t been that bad… I think the spices of the curry cancel out the fishy taste so I have been able to eat everything ok and I am getting accustomed to the taste. Not bad!

Yesterday I finally got the courage to go out and photograph. And let me tell you, it takes a LOT of courage. Hah! If you are shy, never come to India. There are next to no white people in this town, so just being white draws a lot of attention. Whenever we walk anywhere, everyone stares and if they have enough courage they say hi and come up and shake your hand like you’re famous. All of the little kids always come running and they all say ‘hello! My name is so-and-so what’s your name?’ and they all shake your hand or touch you. When I pulled out my camera and started walking around, all of these little kids came running and started posing for me, hahaha. It is SO easy to photograph people here… I am astonished at how much they love getting their picture taken! Out of the all of the photos I’m posting today, most of the ones with people looking at the camera were people who asked me to take their photo. I got to photograph all day, and it was AWESOME. Below are a bunch of my favorites from the day.

I love indian culture, obviously, but probably my least favorite aspect of their culture is Hinduism. Ok, I know that may seem like an oxy-moron. Their culture basically is Hinduism. I mean, I love learning about the belief system… I guess it’s just all of the gods that I’m not that interested in learning about. So yesterday we went to all of these Hindu temple and we had Brahmin priests and priestesses taking us around and performing all of the rituals. Below is a photo of Emily and I with a Brahmin priestess at one of the temples. (it's obviously 2 photos put in one, haha... Doctor Nuckolls is not the greatest at taking photos...)

another in the car

The first two temples were alright… they were interesting, but I mostly just wandered around with my camera and photographed people around there. The third one though, was… wow. Astonishing!! We weren’t allowed to bring cameras in—which was good for me. It was a really old temple and tons of people were inside. Krishnayya our program director here in India has connections to EVERYONE, including the King, so we got special permission to go all the way inside to the most sacred part. Indians have to pay a couple hundred dollars to get into that part, which is a lot for them. The inside is all real silver and gold, it was beautiful. We participated in the little rituals such as drinking the water, putting on the bindi (that’s the dot on the forehead) etc., but my favorite part was all of the Brahmin Priests. They chant throughout the temple and help usher the people through, help them do the rituals, and bless them. They were incredible. They had such a special spirit to them… they were so real and normal and human, but so above the world. We saw a lot of people who had recently shaved their heads which is another ritual they do there. It is like a covenant they make, when one of the gods answers their prayer they shave their head in gratitude. It is beautiful.

India is seriously beautiful. There are so many incredible people here who are so devoted to their beliefs. I have been thinking a lot about my project and exactly what it is that I’m going to be studying. I already had an idea, but I have kind of moved around on what specifically I’m going to do. I decided that I’m going to focus on self-mastery. In most religions and especially Indian religions, self-control or self-mastery is practiced in one form or another. Self-denial is a really big theme in Indian culture and religions, so I’m going to study it in different aspects of indian culture such as yoga, meditation, dance, music, and fasting, and also speak with people from all different religions here about it. I’m really excited, because it means I get to study with a lot of different gurus… I will be taking classes on all of those things—yoga, meditation, singing and dance, and I will be interviewing a lot of people. This morning our Telugu teacher came over and Krishnayya introduced me. I told Krishnayya earlier that I wanted to learn how to sing, and he told me our Telugu teacher would teach me because he's a professional vocalist! So I met him, and he made me sing something for him. Haha! Ok, I love singing, and people hear me sing all the time when I’m just singing to myself or whatever.. but I have never had to sing something in front of someone all by myself, knowing that they are paying attention to how I sing. It was so intimidating!! But they told me I have a good voice, and he will teach me how to use it. We’ll be doing a class now every Monday and Thursday after Telugu and Emily and Rebecca will be doing it with me. I’m so excited! :)

Anyway… all is well. These are going to be an awesome 4 months... I already feel like I have learned a lot and I have also been having some really good gospel studies. I feel like it's going to be a very 'enlightening' 4 months. Yesterday before we went to the temples, a therapist named Doctor Ramalingaswami (yes that’s really his name) came over and spoke to us about Hindu belief and self-mastery… it was so interesting and I know that a lot of the things he was saying were true. He talked about mastering the mind and how much power that gives us, and how we can master it through all 5 of our senses. Anyway… I’ll be studying a lot about that. He is a very intelligent man and I’m excited to have the opportunity to speak with many others like him who will have a lot to tell me.

Here are some of my favorite photos from yesterday… enjoy!!

auto-rickshaws... we ride in these all the time when we don't want to walk

hahaha

everything here is like half Telugu and half English... we have no idea what this advertisement is about. Sex and Mind Power...?? hahaha

richshaw driver taking a nap

this GORGEOUS bird caws all day long and gladly wakes us up in the morning. I heard all of these bird sounds the first few days and thought maybe they were some type of pretty tropical bird... nope. Just big ugly black crows!

hahahaha I'm sorry, I just had to. Don't worry, you can't see anything

There are dying dogs in the streets here too, but it's NOTHING like South America. Hah!

What the...? hahaha. There are these huge hokey statues all over the coast!! It's hilarious

impossible here.

all people wanting me to take their picture...

(look in the windows)

in the first Hindu temple we went to

at the second Hindu temple

beggers beggers. I had to pay 10 rupees for him to let me photograph him.. hah. It's ok, the 15 cents was worth it. This was at the third Hindu temple