Miscellany- Sitar, Wedding, eclipse, art walk and bees again

In the past week we attended two evening events. The first was a recital of Sitar, Tabla and Tamboura(?) music. This was a sort of pre- event to a wedding two nights later. The Sitar player was Ustad Shahid Parvez Khan (the order of the names may not be correct and some parts of that might be titles). He is very well known and we thoroughly enjoyed listening, even though we may not have appreciated some of the subtleties in his playing. He has his own web page and is described in many other places on the web. Much of what he played can be described as "dazzling", but there were other parts that seemed a bit dull, but in his descriptions he implied that these were all parts of Indian Classical music with special meanings of their own. In any case it was great music followed by an excellent dinner.
Two night later we attended the wedding, which was held at another very nice hotel in Bangalore. We do not know the people well, but were invited because Janet belongs to a women's group, to which the mother of the groom belongs, and all the members were invited. It turned out to be a huge wedding. We heard that 1100 people were invited and they think about 700 attended! We arrived while the ceremony was in progress. One thing we notice about Indian weddings is that they are taken very seriously in that people do attend, but they are not taken so formally by most attendees- because people often arrive late or only for part of the event or they talk during the ceremony and even talk on their cell phones during the ceremony. In this one, we arrived probably half way through the actual marriage ceremony and there were, perhaps, 250 people present. After the ceremony the couple left briefly and then returned for a reception line that ended up being quite long. Meanwhile, buffet dinner was served. At the reception, all the people would offer congratulations or some other greeting to the couple and usually, present an envelope as a gift. We understand that many gifts were delivered before the ceremony too. As mentioned, in the end, we heard about 700 people attended- most arriving after the ceremony, but for the reception and dinner. It was obvious, that the family is well known and well to do. A well known local multi- billionaire (in dollars as well as Rupees) and his wife were among the attendees.
It was quite a show with all the women dressed in their best Saris.
While riding to work one morning recently, Jim saw a car with a St. Bernard sticking its head out the window. These are cold weather dogs, so it must be rough for them here most of the year- the cooler months, which seem to have passed now, would probably be ok, but the hot months, which are starting now, will be rough.
Feb. 12 was a Holiday here. We asked Joseph what is the significance of the date. He said : "It means the cool weather ends and the hot weather starts in Bangalore". Apparently, it has significance to Hindus, but he is Christian, but in Bangalore that meaning has come to be the practical interpretation.
Back in January there was an eclipse that reached its peak at around 1:30PM. It was a normal work day in most respects for Jim, but at lunch time it was surprisingly cool outside. The light was still quite bright even though people said it was supposed to be about 85% of the sun eclipsed by the moon. We learned that most shops would close early this day or not open at all as it was considered unlucky to open or even dangerous to be outside one's home, so we did notice that traffic was very light that day. It was, practically, another holiday as far as getting any tasks done outside the office, though bigger stores and malls were open. There is a lot of superstition about these things. Most of the people Jim works with joked about it all, but a few people stayed home.
At the end of January each year there is an "art walk" scheduled by the Chitrakala Parishanth- or "CKP". We don't know the translation of the words, but the place is intended to encourage artists and artisans to pursue their interests. They have many events at their building in the city and we have gone there many times for lectures and art shows and craft shows. Last year we attended the "art walk" and wrote something about it. We went again this year. It is a huge event with hundreds- perhaps more than a thousand artists showing their work on the long street outside CKP as well as on the grounds. Just like last year, the street was "nominally closed" to vehicular traffic, but numerous cars and bicycles and motorbikes still moved up and down the street at all- to0- great- a- speed in some cases. It really is a hazard, though we did not see anyone get injured. There is a large hotel on the road, so they have to allow some vehicles to move, but we saw few of them going in and out of the hotel! The art works varied a lot in quality- just as in the past. There were some huge paintings of good quality and several artists with high skills. We each bought a couple small items we liked that were quite inexpensive. We got the name of one artist who does charcoals and may see if he can do portraits of Ziggy and Zoe.
Speaking of the Z's, there have not been able to log on lately because we changed the passwords on the computers. They seem to be reasonably healthy. Ziggy seems to be gaining weight and is becoming as heavy as he looks. His fur is very thick and this makes him look big, though in the past he has not actually weighed that much. Zoe is still fairly light and pretty active. She runs around the apartment more than Ziggy does, so she is getting more exercise. Ziggy has always been more docile.
"The Bees" came back again a week ago - on Valentines day- the 14th. We came back home after late lunch around 4:30 or 5PM and found a huge swarm of bees converging on our balcony outside our kitchen. They did this 3 times last year in Jan. so we thought we had passed the swarming season this year, but, obviously, did not. One of the building maintenance people came the next day and sprayed them. He got stung once and Janet later got stung by a bee that was not yet dead. They seem not to be too aggressive toward the sprayer- thankfully. We hate to seem them killed, but there seem to be no bee- keepers here who would move them to another place. We hope we do not get another group. We are guessing that they come because there is a mango tree just outside the building and they probably like the nectar- and pollinate the tree too!

busy week

It was a busy week. Jim was getting over a cold or whatever it was after we returned from our fascinating visit to Gujurat, but it seemed like a busy week at work though the evening telecons were not so bad. He had them 3 nights out of 5 but not many back to back. There was one relatively important one on Friday night, but his trip home from work took 90 minutes instead of the usual 40 or so. So he missed the telecon. It will have to take place another day. The traffic delays are often bad, but not that bad. The drive to work on one particularly light day was just over 20 minutes. Typically, it take 35 -40 minutes and about 40 to get home in the evening- unless he leaves the office later and gets caught up in some rush hour mess, then it can be bad.
On Saturday we had a rather full agenda of things to do and each one took longer than expected- from leaving the apartment in the morning through meeting up with the carpenter when we returned home in the evening, each ran late. The carpenter left about 10:30PM. The good thing to point out is that at home we would never even have a carpenter present that late without paying a fortune, the bad thing is that his work is not of high quality so we have to keep having things done over. (You may look back at earlier postings and find one about "The Carpenter"- the one who seemed very competent and who's wife was seriously injured before he could do our tasks has not been heard from since then. We do not know what happened- he may have had to take his wife to a town or village where they have more relatives who can help care for her and the kids so he can work. Families are extremely important in that respect as they all recognize the need to help. This is less strong in many western countries where the social needs are more heavily taken up by the government.) Of course, labor costs are very low here, so that is not a huge issue. The carpenter has made two stands for sculptures for us and two shelves for storage of shoes and odds and ends. He is around 3/4 done -and none are exactly right, but they will probably be OK.
We had some photos from our recent trips printed on nice paper on Saturday. This was generally a pleasant experience, though, long. The printing paper and ink are the expensive parts. The labor is cheap, so they will sit with you and help edit pictures for printing for a long time. Next we have to see about framing some. This too, is inexpensive here. We don't quite understand why it is so cheap- both materials and labor.
Janet had a bit of an argument with people in a shop on Saturday. It is a little strange when we go into shops- big or small- and the staff follow us around. In a few places they know not to follow, in some they follow at a distance and are there to answer questions. However, in most places they follow very close by- sometimes it can be 2 or 3 or even 4 store staff members following one or both of us. What often makes matters worse is that these staff people feel obligated to try to tell us about each thing we look at- especially if we touch it. 90% of the time we know what the thing is, so it is annoying to have someone tell us "that is a blue scarf" or "That is a red scarf" when it is quite obvious most of the time. In any case, Janet said she lost her cool after asking them to move away (4 staff people) several times. She told the store manager this was annoying to be followed and be told silly things. Some Indian friends said they are followed too and the staff often tell them dumb things too and they don't understand it either. We think they are partly curious about us, and we think they really want to be helpful, but most of what they tell us is useless or obvious information. About 90% of the time when we do ask for more information about something the same people have no idea what the answer is. Eventually, they may find a manager to answer, but generally they are poorly trained and probably not paid much either. We had to go back to the same shop today because they also over charged on something Janet bought, but they were quite good and refunded her money in cash. She paid with a credit card. It is nice that they paid in cash, but we suspect that the banking system does not allow them to easily credit her card, so it is easier to just give cash.
On the subject of cash... we are constantly amazed at how many shop owners have no change to give customers when we buy something. It is not a rare occurance to want to buy something and find that the shop has NO change. This may happen 50% of the time with small shops- especially early in the day. They may be able to get change from someone else, or, we know this happens a lot, so we carry as much small change as we can, but it is still surprising. Of course, everyone manages to move forward, despite this, but it does waste time... but labor, and time are cheap here for the vast majority.
Feb. 12 is another holiday here. It will be nice to have another day off from work for Jim. We ought to be looking for a short trip to take- to see more while we are still here, but we may just want to relax too.