Charlotte's India Festival

Day 66...

Today we had a unique experience - we went to the Charlotte India Festival in uptown Charlotte. It was nice - many of the sights and sounds of Charlotte but with many Indians.

When we got there, Tara laughed and said, "Let's find an Indian family and ask to have our picture taken with them."
Hilarious!

Some snaps...



^ The corner of Trade and Tryon was the location - smack in the heart of Charlotte.



^ The Blumenthal Performing Arts Center was the location of many exhibits, clothing vendors, etc.



^ Me and the little guys.



^ A nice charity mixed in with the food vendors, etc. Enjoyed talking to them...



^ Liam standing in line for chaat. It took a while.



^ The "Indian queue" phenomenon was reduced, but not absent. This was the line Liam was in, struggling to keep his place.

He eventually got his chaat.



^ A Charlotte girl in Gujarati dress, as part of a dance troop. She leads an otherwise comfortable, American life - this garb is rare. But it is a beauful outfit, no?



^ Trade and Tryon. This was the first Indian Festival (they have been going on for 15 years, we have always attended) where the crowd was large enough to justify blocking off the street. This was a source of pride, I think. Notice the police car in the picture.



^ We don't like mimes, so it was funny that we saw one as we left the Festival.



^ The family went back to the car and drove away.

A good time was had by all.

We saw our friend Ramesh Kaza at the Festival. He was in Hyderabad with us, he is visiting Charlotte on business.

I said to him, "Ramesh, I came here and stood in line for a long time to get a little food for a lot of money. In India, there was no line, alot of food, and it cost very little money. That's the difference!"

We had a good laugh.

Abdul - if you're reading this, my Hindi was excellent during one conversation that I had, aur sab log bahut ascharya ho rahe the!

Work continues to be...

Day 65...



....relentless.

Liking it.

Work

Day 64...

Work has an amazing capacity to change. I left for India in 2007 and for the first few weeks it was pretty quiet. Then it got busier, then it got really busy and stayed that way for a long, long time.

Then, I left India and it got quiet again. Really, really quiet. For about two months.

Now I am in my new role. Within a few days, I started getting on e.mail distributions, plugging into bridgelines, attending staff meetings and generally getting involved in my new role.

Wow! I mean, a mere two weeks ago, many of these people didn't know me, or knew "of" me. Now, I am slammed. I actually had to take a later bus than usual, because I couldn't make the bus I wanted to - just too busy.

It's a nice feeling. I'll admit there was something a bit disconcerting about how quiet it got for a couple of months. Yes, I kept getting paid, but for essentially - repatriating.

Well, I guess that is how that works.

Kitchen

Kitchen mostly painted.

Notice that Liam is doing homework! And he is out all afternoon with kids his age.

Feeling happy about the trend line, may it continue....

"Good to be back?"

We have been asked countless times a single question - "Is it good to be back?" There are variations - Americans often drop part of a sentence in our vernacular - thus, it becomes simply "Good to be back?" Or there is the leading question, "So, it's pretty good to be back?" with a tonal intonation that means, "Tell me how great America is."

Generally, the question is asked a bit like "How are you?" Most people aren't really interested in how you are - it's just an obligatory thing. There's nothing worse than the person of whom you ask, "How are you?" and they reply with a story.

So, if the question is the obligatory kind, it is answered in the same manner.

"It's good."

On the other hand, some ask it in such a way that you know they mean it. Or it is a close friend. So, you share some ideas with some people.

And the honest answer we give to the question is, "It's a mixture of feelings."

If they ask more, I still keep it high level and say, "We had a good life there. We enjoyed it and we were sad to see it end. But you can do alot worse than ending up here." When I say "here" I generally make a gesture with my hands to everything around me, which is, more often than not, very nice. A clean office building, a green and tidy neighborhood, a nice shopping center, a park.

It's all pretty nice.

In reality, we're pretty sad that it's over and we're eager to have an adventure of a similar sort again some day. As I have alluded to in this blog before, I am not sure that life is intended to be a tiring and relentless pursuit of order. But I have said enough on that theme....

Tara and I compared notes recently and found that the same thing was happening to both of us - people were asking questions about India that generally lead us to believe that many people here don't know where or what India is. For example, (and these are otherwise smart people) we have heard the following:

"So, did you have to wear your head covered over there?"

"I bet those people are so scared because of the punishments that they have."

"So, do they have like any equality between men and women?"

"Did you learn to speak Indian?"

"So, you had like a regular house?"

And on and on....

So, that is a bit discouraging..... I truly believe that many of our fellow Americans still live in a bubble that is soon to burst, if it has not been burst already, unbeknownst to us. We truly excel at looking inward, in a cultural sense.

So, there's a bit of insight into some of the questions we have been asked.

Work is cranking up nicely.

The crack

Update..... the crack in the table has been fixed as best it can - by George, the Romanian jack of all trades.

Except, perhaps, the trade of fixing tables...

We keep telling ourselves that the mildly split joint "adds character".

Telugu newspaper

In the garage today I found a strip of Telugu newspaper, perhaps brought here in a package or in luggage.

I think it's the only strip of Telugu newspaper in Montibello.