Holi....It was a long day

Saying "it was a long day" just doesn't quite do the last few days justice. So last Thursday we had our Hindi midterm, and though I still don't know my exact grade I have been told I did really well. After the test I hung out with Agni before he departed for Varanasi and Nepal. Katherine and I have a home stay-cousin (Amrit, the one from the barbecue) who offered to take us to a club Thursday night. So, feeling like rebellious teenagers, we packed all of our make-up and each of our one western shirts into a bag, and left the house in our kurtas. We went to meet up with friends to have dinner in Khan market and changed into our western outfits in a bathroom. We later realized it was way too early to go to a club, so ended up having to go home and changing back into our kurtas. When we got home we told Mama that Amrit was taking us out, she was very excited for us. We got once again re changed into our western outfits and showed Mama for approval before left (of which she was very pleased). Amrit picked us up from our house and with one of his friends from childhood took us to the country club where mama had taken us. we had a few drinks and danced a bit and then we went to this club that we had heard about. There were a lot of foreigners there, mostly techno music, and these funny Khajuraho life-size carvings on the back wall. Unfortunately the evening took a turn for me when Amrit's friend tired to be too friendly with me. We eventually went home at 2:30 am and I promptly woke up at 5:30 to go back to school with my bags packed for the weekend.

Friday was the day of things going wrong. At every step something little happened that could have irked me, but somehow none of them got to me. I'll spare you the whole story because I'd rather spend time writing you all the wonderful things that happened. After classes I went to my third cooking class and went straight to the train station where I met up with six other classmates to catch our overnight train to Udaipur, city of lakes. After not sleeping the night before, I slept very well on the train and the 12 hour journey went by very quickly.

We arrived in Udaipur at 8 am, and went to our guesthouse which was down a few alleys from the City Palace with a beautiful view of the lake from our windows. This was by far the most modest place I have stayed in thus far, nothing but a room with a bed, window and fan. The outlet had nothing behind it, the bathroom was shared by everyone, but it was absolutely perfect. There was an amazing rooftop with a spectacular view where we spent much of our time. We found a wonderful cheap place to eat, and from there wandered around for a bit. We found a great guy who made pint sized fresh juices without ice or water, i had a pomegranate and pineapple juice for about $0.70. We then met a Sufi who invited us to his gallery to get our nails painted with miniature painting free of charge. We got some beers and came back to our guest house and chatted on the roof for hours. In the evening we went to the city palace and found the most romantic restaurant ever. It was rather expensive, but for the quality it was really cheap in comparison for what would be equal to it in the US. Further more it was on the lake side where we could see the lake lit up at night. I had a Thai curry and rose petal ice cream (which I have been looking for for YEARs and had candied rose petals in it, AMAZING!). Though it was out of my budget, it was really perfect and very healing to pamper myself a bit from Thursday night. We went home and played mafia and had a good night sleep.

Overall I feel like it is really difficult to describe why Udaipur was so amazing. We didn't actually do anything in particular. It was just nice to be in a beautiful place that was relaxed, people weren't pushy to sell us things. There were a lot of tourists there, in the area we were perhaps even more tourists than Indians, but I never felt overwhelmed by tourists. In fact most places we went to, restaurants, stores, sites, we were the only tourists around. It was just so relaxing and wonderful. I didn't even take many pictures because I don't think I could have captured the feeling that i was feeling. To be honest the sites we not that spectacular, but for the time and place, nothing could have been better. We did a bit of shopping, and then boarded our train back to Delhi at 6pm to arrive at 6:30am. The train ride was a nice bonding trip, but at 12:30 we got kicked out of our beds by new boarders, which resulted in them snoring like bears (or louder), and us not getting any sleep. We left for our program center straight from the train station. We were all kind of delirious, me especially since I also got sick (cold sick). That day we happened to also have a long lecture day where we learned about Sufism, went to Nizzamudin and Huymanun's tomb and listed to Qwaali music. We finally got home at 7pm, the first time I had been home since 7 am Friday morning, a long day to say the least.

Yesterday was Holi, a holiday of which I am still a little unclear about the mythological story behind it. Something about defeating a demon in a fire. Anyways, Holi seems to be one of the main holidays here in India, all of the advertisements have been utilizing Holi iconography for weeks, sales have been going on. Our school schedule got significantly rearranged due to SIT planning for Holi to be today and instead the decided date was yesterday instead. So, Holi seems to be April fools day, Halloween, St. Patrick's day, Mardi Gras, and a city wide food fight rolled up into one and simultaneously completely unique. Basically India turns into a country-wide paintball fight with water balloons, colored powder (yellow, orange, red, green, purple, pink, silver, gold), buckets of water, and in some cases, eggs, tar, grease, paint and more. I bought a plain white kurta so I can show everyone what kinds of color I was drenched in. Katherine and I went with Amrit to hang out with his friends (from the barbecue), and were promptly greeted with water guns filled with colored water, and bags of colored powder. As we drove from our house to his in his open jeep, we were easy targets for children from balconies and people crossing the street armed with water balloons and super soakers. Whenever a friend greeted us he or she grabbed a handful of colored powder and smeared it all over our face, always straight for the face. Then of course we reciprocated. Buckets of water (including muddy water) were often dumped on people from behind. When ever we were unexpectedly hit by some kids with water balloon the entire group (of about 12) would congratulate them on the good hit! We drove around for hours in the playful warzone learning tacit rules such as girls are the biggest targets for buckets of water, and not to hit anyone who didn't already have color on them already because that meant they didn't want to play. However if they did, they were fair game. It was quite a crazy and fun experience. I came home to Soha not even recognizing me because I was completely covered in green. The colors surprisingly came out rather well though my scalp and certain patches of skin are still dyed. In the evening after washing up I got to see Meera which just was the perfect touch to a wonderful day.

Right now all of us at the program center are freaking out a little because we have another midterm tomorrow as well as our ISP proposal due tomorrow. Saturday we leave for our workshops, I will be gong to Jaisalmer (in Rajistan again yay!) to study fold music and maybe dance. I am really excited, but it probably means I won't have access to e-mail until I get back next weekend. So until then, much love always.