OK this one is about Hampi
Now, it seems, I have a little time to breathe.
Just a little, though, there may be a wedding on the 30th-31st in Mysore that I might go to. It's my choice - if I go to the wedding, we'll also see some museums we missed in Mysore, and maybe do some Mysore silk shopping. If not, I stay in Bangalore, where I might have learned the territory enough to poke around on my own. Aparna and Anil left for Germany on the 25th, so it's Amma, Preeti, Arnama and I until I leave for Boston.
Hampi was truly once in lifetime. I haven't explained here, fully, but Hampi is the modern name of the site that was the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire. That is empire that I study for the SCA, and over the years, Lakshmi (the character I re-enact in the SCA) has slowly evolved to be more and more of that empire. To stand in it's capital and see the remains of that civilization was like nothing I can describe. I would bet most heavy persona nuts feel that way - I know Morwenna feels similarly about London. I never expected, really, to be able to stand in the place that Lakshmi would have stood and look at a place that she would have seen. It was mind blowing.
Also mind blowing was the chance to take actual pictures and make actual notes without the reinterpretation and frustrating camera angles of a published book or website. I ended up taking over 700 pictures. I maxed out my original camera (an 8 year old Nikon CoolPix 775 with a 64 MB memory card and dying rechargable Lithion Ion battery) and ended up spontaneously replacing it with a damn sexy Kodak Easy Share C190 - that takes AA batteries (including a recharging set that is India compatible) and has all sorts of fun, whizbang settings. As per usual... camera buying in India is not at all like high tech electronics buying in the US. It feels a little bit like you are buying from a very classy guy in a back alley who has an affiliation with Geek Squad. Cash only, but the guy checks out all the parts in front of you and nicely sets up the time and date settings and formats your card, so the camera is ready to go. And 1 day later, when the charger doesn't work, he replaces it free of charge, no questions, no fuss. But you're in a little room stacked with camera parts, thinking... "Does Kodak know about this guy??".
Anyhow - back to Hampi. We spent 3 days seeing Hampi, one more seeing the nearby Anagundi, and then 1 day in Hospet (the city we stayed in, 20 minutes from Hampi) resting. I managed not to get sunburned the first day, but by the 4th, there was no amount of sunscreen that was going to keep this giant white woman from crispiness. Amma and I wore each other out - for someone old enough to be my mother, that lady has a frightening amount of pep. She was tired, but I think she wore me out first.
Another wonderful memory - I wore cotton saris for 3 out of 4 days. Wherever we went in Hampi, I was a tourist attraction, but in a good way. The picture above is of a group of schoolgirls I caught taking pictures of me. It made me chuckle - thinking what the post field-trip pictures would be like with the family --- "and we saw these ancient ruins, and this lovely river, and this ancient temple, and this giant white woman in a sari, and this other ancient temple....". So I figured one picture deserved another and I started taking their picture. This prompted a flurry of introductions back and forth between the girls and me, and finally they all happily lined up for a group shot.
Aside from the school girls, about 50% of the time when we crossed by Indian tourists, the women would reach out and gently touch my arm or my sari saying "oh how lovely! You dress Indian! you wear a sari!". It was so flattering it often brought tears to my eyes. They were clearly thrilled that a Western woman would adopt their style and I was so flattered that they thought I was wearing it good enough. It enourages me to keep wearing the new and old saris I have with me. Dress sets (long tunic, pants, and shawl) don't create the same reaction. I'm not sure an Indian would agree - but my thought is that dress sets are pretty much the most comfortable clothing on the planet - and the easiest to wear. Saris are the opposite end of the spectrum. To wear it, keep it on, and look good doing it, you need to stand straight, be aware of how you move, and have a good skill with getting fabric to go where you want it to. It is an acquired skill. Any woman who has tried to wear a sari knows this. And in my case, it's the women who are giving the compliments, so they know what it takes. The men just stand by and wait for the women to finish doing their woman things with the same expressions on their faces as new_man has when I ask him to hold my purse while shopping.
A harder memory is trying to speak Kannada. Amma (who is also my Kannada teacher) is pushing me to speak. She's right, of course, if I don't stumble and stumble through speaking, I won't get better at it. But I find this tremendously hard and scary. I broke down in tears one night - I think I was just overwhelmed. I'd been trying all day to speak and managed only one phrase all day - "I need the toilet" (Nanu toilet beku) - which wasn't so satisfactory, since it took us quite a while to find one. I hated this part of French class - which is probably why I don't speak French. When I broke down in tears, Amma changed from pushing to encouraging. She seems to have caught on that I am too much a perfectionist and don't want to try when I don't know how to get it right.
That said the next day or two I've been working on it. I lapsed a bit yesterday, but I'm not sucking completely at simple things like "can we go?", "I will go", "let's go", "we have come" and things like that. I'm currently working on "see" and "do", although "do" is tricky - I haven't gotten a clue yet on what "do" can be used when. When we "do lunch", it is different from "do embroidery", for example. I only know the do for eating lunch and dinner and I'm not sure what other uses it can be put to. A big "aha" for me was starting to learn to conjugate verbs. I knew that verbs changed depending on past/present/future and I knew that they are more like French - where they change based on first, second, third person, singular and groups - but knowing that they change, and knowing how to use them --- that's a bit more work. We're working on that now. The good news is, I've gone from kindergarten to about 2nd grade in the last 3 weeks - I can sound out most words now, and I have a pretty solid grip on the alphabet. I'm missing a few letters that we've skipped in the interest of time, but I know what they are and where they fit, I just don't always recognize them immediately.
Maybe the best part of Hampi is the inspiration it's given me for writing. I have a LOT of material to sort through. So much, in fact, that I'm trying to think of ways to enlist help. One of the things that plagues India SCA researchers is access to reliable primary sources. We can get picture books, but we are at the mercy of the publisher on what they thought would be good to include, and often you don't get good references for the pictures you do have. They may say "from Vitthala Temple" but not particularly where - and since the temple was constructed in phases that are 10 and 20 years apart - this makes something of a difference!
So... I'm looking at ways to archive and organize the pictures. I'd like something where I can set the dates and locations, but let other people tag them with things like "dance", "vine pattern", "male", "female", "Vishnu" or whatever else. Often the pictures include more than one thing, so having the ability for people to tag things for bulk searches seems very useful. Then I want to organize it all into a site, so other researchers can use them too. I'll probably power the look and feel with Google Sites - and maybe generalism.net on the back end, if Vairavi is good with that.
After that, it's quite likely that I will make a bid for a Compleat Anachronist. It seems crazy not to - I have enough material to do a really solid article on dance and dancer dress in Viyanagara. Maybe "women's dress", since I have some nice women-who-aren't-dancing pictures too. It's a big of a bummer that I won't be studying Kola Attam (stick dance) on this trip, because the Hampi examples of it are pretty awesome. The upside is, this is something Aparna knows and could teach, and I'm not above using guilt on her to teach me. :) I know a little of it, and it's not as hard as Bharata Natyam. OK, it's as physically rigorous, but it's not as tight, precise and picky. So easier to learn.
Also, I want to write an online travel guide for crazy white women. Something sort of chatty and funny but including things that I've never seen in guide books. I know of at least two friends that are thinking about trips to India soonish, so I know there's a use out there. That'll probably happen in this journal.
Lastly, I think I may write or teach on some persona stuff. I certainly have some more thoughts for things I want to do with my persona, including some specific thoughts on apprentices.
The trip so far has been great. I'm a little mixed today, because I'm realizing that Aparna is now officially gone and will be gone beyond my departure date. While I was here, I saw her for 4 days and I saw Anil for 4 days. My main hostess has been Aparna's mother. I like her very much, but she wasn't the person who invited me here. I don't see it as totally Aparna's fault -- I could have clung to her more while she was in India - the invite was always open for me to be in Chennai - but I wanted to make sure I got in the adventures of Hampi and Mysore and Trivandrum - so some of this was my choice. But some of this is the chaos that is Aparna's life. She has a chaotic schedule when we are in Boston, but I can generally ignore it, since my schedule is also very full -- the challenge is always how much to give, and how much to take when we negotiate schedules. But here, I'm not so much able to make plans and do things alone.
When I look at the trip objectively, I'm very happy - I have already done and seen many of the things I've been dreaming about. And I have been taken good care of by nice people. So should I really be grumpy about the fact that these nice people are not the nice person who originally invited me? No. But I guess I should be aware that Aparna is not in a place in her life where she is capable of having a reliable locked down schedule. Not sure if this changes how she and I relate to each other in the long run. It does mean that if I decide to another month in a foreign country that I will not count on her as my agenda planner -- but I may ask her mom! Amma is one cool lady.
For those of you in Boston - you may get a chance to meet the infamous Amma. Note that scheduling in Aparna's life is extremely wonky - but she walks for her PhD in May. The current vague, no reservations made yet, plan is that Amma will come to Boston to attend Aparna's PhD graduation - provided that Aparna is there for it. If Amma comes, I am defintely taking her shopping and museum hopping in Boston. Aparna is shopping impaired in any country, so it's my plan to be the shopping guide. Amma is good at getting herself around, so she may go museum hopping without me, but if she hasn't seen Plymouth or the Gardner, I'd like to take her, because those are places I think are particularly neat.
Just a little, though, there may be a wedding on the 30th-31st in Mysore that I might go to. It's my choice - if I go to the wedding, we'll also see some museums we missed in Mysore, and maybe do some Mysore silk shopping. If not, I stay in Bangalore, where I might have learned the territory enough to poke around on my own. Aparna and Anil left for Germany on the 25th, so it's Amma, Preeti, Arnama and I until I leave for Boston.
Hampi was truly once in lifetime. I haven't explained here, fully, but Hampi is the modern name of the site that was the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire. That is empire that I study for the SCA, and over the years, Lakshmi (the character I re-enact in the SCA) has slowly evolved to be more and more of that empire. To stand in it's capital and see the remains of that civilization was like nothing I can describe. I would bet most heavy persona nuts feel that way - I know Morwenna feels similarly about London. I never expected, really, to be able to stand in the place that Lakshmi would have stood and look at a place that she would have seen. It was mind blowing.
Also mind blowing was the chance to take actual pictures and make actual notes without the reinterpretation and frustrating camera angles of a published book or website. I ended up taking over 700 pictures. I maxed out my original camera (an 8 year old Nikon CoolPix 775 with a 64 MB memory card and dying rechargable Lithion Ion battery) and ended up spontaneously replacing it with a damn sexy Kodak Easy Share C190 - that takes AA batteries (including a recharging set that is India compatible) and has all sorts of fun, whizbang settings. As per usual... camera buying in India is not at all like high tech electronics buying in the US. It feels a little bit like you are buying from a very classy guy in a back alley who has an affiliation with Geek Squad. Cash only, but the guy checks out all the parts in front of you and nicely sets up the time and date settings and formats your card, so the camera is ready to go. And 1 day later, when the charger doesn't work, he replaces it free of charge, no questions, no fuss. But you're in a little room stacked with camera parts, thinking... "Does Kodak know about this guy??".
Anyhow - back to Hampi. We spent 3 days seeing Hampi, one more seeing the nearby Anagundi, and then 1 day in Hospet (the city we stayed in, 20 minutes from Hampi) resting. I managed not to get sunburned the first day, but by the 4th, there was no amount of sunscreen that was going to keep this giant white woman from crispiness. Amma and I wore each other out - for someone old enough to be my mother, that lady has a frightening amount of pep. She was tired, but I think she wore me out first.
Another wonderful memory - I wore cotton saris for 3 out of 4 days. Wherever we went in Hampi, I was a tourist attraction, but in a good way. The picture above is of a group of schoolgirls I caught taking pictures of me. It made me chuckle - thinking what the post field-trip pictures would be like with the family --- "and we saw these ancient ruins, and this lovely river, and this ancient temple, and this giant white woman in a sari, and this other ancient temple....". So I figured one picture deserved another and I started taking their picture. This prompted a flurry of introductions back and forth between the girls and me, and finally they all happily lined up for a group shot.
Aside from the school girls, about 50% of the time when we crossed by Indian tourists, the women would reach out and gently touch my arm or my sari saying "oh how lovely! You dress Indian! you wear a sari!". It was so flattering it often brought tears to my eyes. They were clearly thrilled that a Western woman would adopt their style and I was so flattered that they thought I was wearing it good enough. It enourages me to keep wearing the new and old saris I have with me. Dress sets (long tunic, pants, and shawl) don't create the same reaction. I'm not sure an Indian would agree - but my thought is that dress sets are pretty much the most comfortable clothing on the planet - and the easiest to wear. Saris are the opposite end of the spectrum. To wear it, keep it on, and look good doing it, you need to stand straight, be aware of how you move, and have a good skill with getting fabric to go where you want it to. It is an acquired skill. Any woman who has tried to wear a sari knows this. And in my case, it's the women who are giving the compliments, so they know what it takes. The men just stand by and wait for the women to finish doing their woman things with the same expressions on their faces as new_man has when I ask him to hold my purse while shopping.
A harder memory is trying to speak Kannada. Amma (who is also my Kannada teacher) is pushing me to speak. She's right, of course, if I don't stumble and stumble through speaking, I won't get better at it. But I find this tremendously hard and scary. I broke down in tears one night - I think I was just overwhelmed. I'd been trying all day to speak and managed only one phrase all day - "I need the toilet" (Nanu toilet beku) - which wasn't so satisfactory, since it took us quite a while to find one. I hated this part of French class - which is probably why I don't speak French. When I broke down in tears, Amma changed from pushing to encouraging. She seems to have caught on that I am too much a perfectionist and don't want to try when I don't know how to get it right.
That said the next day or two I've been working on it. I lapsed a bit yesterday, but I'm not sucking completely at simple things like "can we go?", "I will go", "let's go", "we have come" and things like that. I'm currently working on "see" and "do", although "do" is tricky - I haven't gotten a clue yet on what "do" can be used when. When we "do lunch", it is different from "do embroidery", for example. I only know the do for eating lunch and dinner and I'm not sure what other uses it can be put to. A big "aha" for me was starting to learn to conjugate verbs. I knew that verbs changed depending on past/present/future and I knew that they are more like French - where they change based on first, second, third person, singular and groups - but knowing that they change, and knowing how to use them --- that's a bit more work. We're working on that now. The good news is, I've gone from kindergarten to about 2nd grade in the last 3 weeks - I can sound out most words now, and I have a pretty solid grip on the alphabet. I'm missing a few letters that we've skipped in the interest of time, but I know what they are and where they fit, I just don't always recognize them immediately.
Maybe the best part of Hampi is the inspiration it's given me for writing. I have a LOT of material to sort through. So much, in fact, that I'm trying to think of ways to enlist help. One of the things that plagues India SCA researchers is access to reliable primary sources. We can get picture books, but we are at the mercy of the publisher on what they thought would be good to include, and often you don't get good references for the pictures you do have. They may say "from Vitthala Temple" but not particularly where - and since the temple was constructed in phases that are 10 and 20 years apart - this makes something of a difference!
So... I'm looking at ways to archive and organize the pictures. I'd like something where I can set the dates and locations, but let other people tag them with things like "dance", "vine pattern", "male", "female", "Vishnu" or whatever else. Often the pictures include more than one thing, so having the ability for people to tag things for bulk searches seems very useful. Then I want to organize it all into a site, so other researchers can use them too. I'll probably power the look and feel with Google Sites - and maybe generalism.net on the back end, if Vairavi is good with that.
After that, it's quite likely that I will make a bid for a Compleat Anachronist. It seems crazy not to - I have enough material to do a really solid article on dance and dancer dress in Viyanagara. Maybe "women's dress", since I have some nice women-who-aren't-dancing pictures too. It's a big of a bummer that I won't be studying Kola Attam (stick dance) on this trip, because the Hampi examples of it are pretty awesome. The upside is, this is something Aparna knows and could teach, and I'm not above using guilt on her to teach me. :) I know a little of it, and it's not as hard as Bharata Natyam. OK, it's as physically rigorous, but it's not as tight, precise and picky. So easier to learn.
Also, I want to write an online travel guide for crazy white women. Something sort of chatty and funny but including things that I've never seen in guide books. I know of at least two friends that are thinking about trips to India soonish, so I know there's a use out there. That'll probably happen in this journal.
Lastly, I think I may write or teach on some persona stuff. I certainly have some more thoughts for things I want to do with my persona, including some specific thoughts on apprentices.
The trip so far has been great. I'm a little mixed today, because I'm realizing that Aparna is now officially gone and will be gone beyond my departure date. While I was here, I saw her for 4 days and I saw Anil for 4 days. My main hostess has been Aparna's mother. I like her very much, but she wasn't the person who invited me here. I don't see it as totally Aparna's fault -- I could have clung to her more while she was in India - the invite was always open for me to be in Chennai - but I wanted to make sure I got in the adventures of Hampi and Mysore and Trivandrum - so some of this was my choice. But some of this is the chaos that is Aparna's life. She has a chaotic schedule when we are in Boston, but I can generally ignore it, since my schedule is also very full -- the challenge is always how much to give, and how much to take when we negotiate schedules. But here, I'm not so much able to make plans and do things alone.
When I look at the trip objectively, I'm very happy - I have already done and seen many of the things I've been dreaming about. And I have been taken good care of by nice people. So should I really be grumpy about the fact that these nice people are not the nice person who originally invited me? No. But I guess I should be aware that Aparna is not in a place in her life where she is capable of having a reliable locked down schedule. Not sure if this changes how she and I relate to each other in the long run. It does mean that if I decide to another month in a foreign country that I will not count on her as my agenda planner -- but I may ask her mom! Amma is one cool lady.
For those of you in Boston - you may get a chance to meet the infamous Amma. Note that scheduling in Aparna's life is extremely wonky - but she walks for her PhD in May. The current vague, no reservations made yet, plan is that Amma will come to Boston to attend Aparna's PhD graduation - provided that Aparna is there for it. If Amma comes, I am defintely taking her shopping and museum hopping in Boston. Aparna is shopping impaired in any country, so it's my plan to be the shopping guide. Amma is good at getting herself around, so she may go museum hopping without me, but if she hasn't seen Plymouth or the Gardner, I'd like to take her, because those are places I think are particularly neat.