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!