carosamosa: January 2012

Sunday, 29 January 2012

Ginger business

Harvested, selected, rinsed, dried up under the warm Indian sun, and then it lands… in my lemon tea!

Mirth a day keeps the doctor away

Isn’t she lovely?

A sample of the Coonoor Little Sisters of the Poor: Sister Lucy, Sister Selvie, Sister Josephina, Sister Justina... They bring all the goodness in life!!

They abandon themselves to the mere Providence. They offer their days to Jesus through the care of the neglected old people. Extraordinary!!

Give us a kiss!

It brings good luck.

Mmmmh, I’m not Fernandel! Id rather go for my horse shoe or four leaf clovers

P.Y.T (Preety Young Thing)

Even little girls wear golusu , feet bangle. Awwwwwwwwwww

Sri Meenakshi Temple – Madurai

I find Hindus narratives so entertaining:

According to the legend, the beautiful Meenakshi was born with three breasts, and this prophecy: her superfluous breast would melt away when she met her husband. The event came to pass when she met Shiva and took her place as his consort (South India Lonely Planet)

It’s so busy in the temple. You smell incense, hear prayers, and touch holy sculptures. Here a man is encrusting little balls of butter on the goddess statue as an offering; there entire pilgrim families are stooping flat on the floor to receive blessings… Also: non Indians/ non Hindus are not accepted in certain parts of the temple. Which makes them the more thrilling to see! Bouh and Hooh

Friday, 27 January 2012

Happy Birthday Mr. President!

(The lady on the picture is not Marilyn Monroe, but I swear they have the same tone of voice!)

The sisters don’t celebrate the residents’ birthdays for many reasons. Generally since they don’t know when they were born/how old they are!

But each month there’s a bash to commemorate their entrance at the Home. Cake, fun, games (the “walking pace race” hahaha!), plays, songs… The grannies and granpapas get a goodies charming bag with coconut oil, soap, vitamins, tiger balm, talc and sweets! Just like children!!

Be Our Guest

The perfect Indian housewife is only meant to: cook, sponge down, swab, organize, shop, stitch, pray, iron, sweep, adore her husband, have babies, raise the children, look after the chickens, fear God, look pretty, be able to sing well… and has to sketch a Kollam on her doorstep every day, which stands as sign that guests are entering a good address.

Beautiful, stylish and incredibly diversified… Sure! But oh how fastidious to include it to the day after day to-do catalog! Thank God I’m not Indian! And if I end up living in India… I’ll find a DOORMAT!!!

My Guru!!!

Never thought I’d get one, but I found her in India under the shape of Sister Selvie!! 33 years old beautiful, charismatic and amazing sister!! She studied to be a doctor, and listened to her vocation.

Sister Selvie tells how glad she is in serving the elderly. She’s given her life to her king, Jesus, her husband. She loves going to the chapel when no one is there to chat with him. “I tell him everything: all my joys and all my sorrows… I thank him when he’s good but so often I scold him! I call him STUPID!!! Why did you do so and so? I get so mad at him!! ... and then he cools me down…he dwells in my heart… I get out of the chapel in peace, and happy!”

When I give her thanks she says “You do one thing for me: you send it to my bank account in Heaven ok? I want St Peter to greet me nicely when I go there!”

Jan 26th: Indian Republic Day!

The national Lotus day. In Coonoor we celebrated the biggest democracy in the world by raising the flag after mass (cold cold cold), singing the national anthem, throwing flowers…

And then we all sat down to watch the amazing 63^rd Republic Day Delhi parade on TV. If you can get a glimpse of it on YouTube: it’s remarkable! Aladdin like dances, camels, cavalry…

And armed force perfect discipline, tanks, missiles, machine guns, nuclear power parading, helicopters…. Don’t mess with India!!