Navratri
So, I am in the Midwest, where it is a good ten degrees warmer than it was in New York, and I am feeling a little at sea; it's interesting that I've lost a lot of my anxieties - I mean, for the first time in weeks I have slept ten hours two nights running - and gained a lot of new old ones, because my relations here are kind and loving and acres more conservative than my own parents. The net result is for me to miss home desperately - not the UK in general, not my boy and my books, but the house I grew up, my parents, our way of doing things, food, religion and culture, which is of course better in every respect. Every.
And also, my aunt, who is very kind, she calls me tu and I don't like it. My mother does, sometimes. My grandmother does. But she does all the time, and for some reason it makes my hackles rise, from my aunt. This is a very petty complaint. I shall stop making it now.
But I make things sound dreadful. They are not. I made it here on Sunday after a long journey but with no delays and no issues about my carry-on baggage, and that was after my lovely weekend stayed entirely lovely; on Saturday night I watched Star Trek and ate popcorn with
thingswithwings,
livrelibre and
eruthros and had lots of fannish fun, which has been sadly lacking in my life recently.
And now I am trying to catch up on a little of my work, and have some rest, and tonight is the fifth night of Navratri. Here they go in for organised religion a great deal, and as the mandir for the area serves a lot of people and traditions, they celebrate every festival with the enthusiasm of the group of Hindus who celebrate it with the most enthusiasm, which is... startling. Garba, a tradition that reminds me irreverently of dancing at the Taruithorn Banquet, is a Gujurati thing - no Gujurati blood in me, but we all set to dancing with a will. I had a lot more fun than I let anyone know, for fear of being made to dance at a later date. Still. Lots of colours, and dancing around in circles, and dandia, a tradition where each person carries two thick sticks, and if you do it right you should bang neatly on your partner's sticks in rhythm, and not, for example, your partner's head, or their very shiny dupatta, or the space of air where the small child was just swiftly removed from.
Also, Diwali is soon and I am vaguely torn. Flying here for it is an option - it's a Friday, so I wouldn't miss class and there is a six am flight out of Ithaca, but for all I'd be able to celebrate it with some of my family I'm sure I would merely miss home horribly. At the same time, if I stayed in Ithaca I might just mope even more, and my parents would be in India, where the ten-hour time difference would probably mean I wouldn't even speak to them on Diwali itself.
(Not to mention the airfare. Er. Um, it might be a justifiable expense for a weekend if the alternative is sitting at home feeling like I am the only Hindu in the world - really, this isn't true - but. Okay, to think about later.)
In ten days Shim will be here! This is exciting. In the meantime I potter on and try and get things done.
Oh, and! I am reading the first of the novels that I got from the booksale. The Left Hand of Darkness is surprising me; while I love Le Guin, mostly Earthsea, Western Shore and the short stories. I'd read "Coming of Age in Karhide", the short story about Gethen, before I read this. And while I keep thinking it's boring - very ground in politics rather than the SF setting, and while the prose has the occasional flash of Le Guin's limpidity of vision, it can be quite (by artifice, I'm sure) workmanlike - and yet I keep picking it up again, and wondering what's going to happen in it in odd moments.
Onwards, as ever.
raven is also at Dreamwidth: there is or are
comment(s). Comment there or here.
And also, my aunt, who is very kind, she calls me tu and I don't like it. My mother does, sometimes. My grandmother does. But she does all the time, and for some reason it makes my hackles rise, from my aunt. This is a very petty complaint. I shall stop making it now.
But I make things sound dreadful. They are not. I made it here on Sunday after a long journey but with no delays and no issues about my carry-on baggage, and that was after my lovely weekend stayed entirely lovely; on Saturday night I watched Star Trek and ate popcorn with
thingswithwings,
livrelibre and
eruthros and had lots of fannish fun, which has been sadly lacking in my life recently.
And now I am trying to catch up on a little of my work, and have some rest, and tonight is the fifth night of Navratri. Here they go in for organised religion a great deal, and as the mandir for the area serves a lot of people and traditions, they celebrate every festival with the enthusiasm of the group of Hindus who celebrate it with the most enthusiasm, which is... startling. Garba, a tradition that reminds me irreverently of dancing at the Taruithorn Banquet, is a Gujurati thing - no Gujurati blood in me, but we all set to dancing with a will. I had a lot more fun than I let anyone know, for fear of being made to dance at a later date. Still. Lots of colours, and dancing around in circles, and dandia, a tradition where each person carries two thick sticks, and if you do it right you should bang neatly on your partner's sticks in rhythm, and not, for example, your partner's head, or their very shiny dupatta, or the space of air where the small child was just swiftly removed from.
Also, Diwali is soon and I am vaguely torn. Flying here for it is an option - it's a Friday, so I wouldn't miss class and there is a six am flight out of Ithaca, but for all I'd be able to celebrate it with some of my family I'm sure I would merely miss home horribly. At the same time, if I stayed in Ithaca I might just mope even more, and my parents would be in India, where the ten-hour time difference would probably mean I wouldn't even speak to them on Diwali itself.
(Not to mention the airfare. Er. Um, it might be a justifiable expense for a weekend if the alternative is sitting at home feeling like I am the only Hindu in the world - really, this isn't true - but. Okay, to think about later.)
In ten days Shim will be here! This is exciting. In the meantime I potter on and try and get things done.
Oh, and! I am reading the first of the novels that I got from the booksale. The Left Hand of Darkness is surprising me; while I love Le Guin, mostly Earthsea, Western Shore and the short stories. I'd read "Coming of Age in Karhide", the short story about Gethen, before I read this. And while I keep thinking it's boring - very ground in politics rather than the SF setting, and while the prose has the occasional flash of Le Guin's limpidity of vision, it can be quite (by artifice, I'm sure) workmanlike - and yet I keep picking it up again, and wondering what's going to happen in it in odd moments.
Onwards, as ever.
raven is also at Dreamwidth: there is or are
comment(s). Comment there or here.