101 Things to Do With a Dupatta

This list won't actually have 101 things on it.  But the dupatta is pretty darn versatile, so I decided to make a list of all the things you can do with it.  For the unfamiliar, when a girl wears salwaar kameez (pants or leggings with a long kurta, or tunic-style shirt), she wears a dupatta with it.  A dupatta is basically a sheer or cotton scarf that drapes across the front, covering the chest.  It's often pinned at the shoulders so it stays in place.  The dupatta is surprisingly versatile, having a wide variety of uses.  It can double as a:

1. A nuisance (do you know how hard it is to remember to wear it?)
2. Shawl.
3. Turban.
4. Head covering for church.
5. Light blanket/sheet.
6. Hand towel.
7. Dish towel.
8. Full-body towel (if in dire need).
9. Hot pad/potholder.
10. Handkerchief - sneeze guard.
11. Handkerchief - sweat wiper.
12. Mosquito net.
13. Mouth coverer (useful when walking past garbage).
14. Sling (if you would sprain your wrist).
15. Sash.
16. Jump rope for kids.
17. Banner/flag.
18. Tablecloth.
19. Table runner.
20. Dustcloth.
21. Small purse.
22. Gift wrap.
23. Rope (if attacked - this is hypothetical).
24. Dance prop.
25. Pillowcase.
26. Wall hanging (if nicely patterned).
27. Curtain.
28. Belt.
29. Blindfold (for party games, y'all).
30. Shade creator.
31. Miniature tent.
32. Source of mood lighting (if draped over light fixture).
33. Tourniquet (also hypothetical).
34. Modesty preserver.
35. Screen or divider.
36. Filter (if you want to stain it with tea, that is).
37. Seat cushion.
38. Veil.
39. Security blanket for a kiddo.
40. Butterfly or insect catcher.
41. Object in a children's game.
42. Scarf (obviously).

And there you have it!  Some of the many uses of the dupatta.  That's all for now, but I will post again in a few days - same Bat-time, same Bat-channel.  Signing off ---

Food, Glorious Food

A question from someone back home reminded me that I haven't actually talked about food here.  Which is (I'm sure to some of you) criminal, as it's something that India is known for.  So, first and foremost, let me say that Indian food - like Chinese food - is vastly different in the actual country than in restaurants in the U.S.  Big surprise, right?  In my cuisine class, I actually learned that a lot of "Indian" food sold is influenced by Punjabi cuisine and has been stripped of a lot of the regional intricacies that make Indian food so different.  Anyways, moving on:

We provide our own breakfasts here, as well as dinner four times a week (plus any eating out at restaurants that we want to do).  The program gives us a stipend to go grocery shopping, which is fantastic.  We have dinner sent to us from the university in a tiffin three evenings a week.  The contents vary, but we can almost always count on rice!  (More on that later.)  We tend to eat lunch at the university's mess hall, as it is free for us to do so.

Lunch at the mess is almost always the same and it's easy to adapt to its routine.  You enter the mess hall, find a stainless steel plate from the racks, and head out to the other side where you wash the plate and your hands, making sure to clean under the nails, because eating here is done with the hands.  Handwashing, actually, is always done before meals, even in restaurants.  Then, you bring your plate back into the mess hall, go up to the enormous pot of rice, serve yourself some, spoon some sambar over it (along with raita, or a cilantro-chili-curd mixture, to cool the taste if you want), get some kind of vegetable dish from the aunties serving the food as well as a fried, crunchy pappadam, and go sit.

You mix the sambar and rice with your hands, breaking pieces of the pappadam into it, and eat that.  The rice is often very hot so it takes me a little time to do this - not so for my Indian friends!  But it's become easy to eat with my hands.  I tend to eat the veg dish last.  Often, the people who prepare our food will slice fresh cucumbers and carrots for us, and provide us hard-boiled eggs.  But that's only for the ISP students.  When finished eating, you take your plate back out through the back door, dump the small food waste into a large plastic barrel, take a pinch of clay soap, and clean off your plate and your hands.  After stacking the plate on one of the racks to dry, you're done.

The food is very spicy to my poor taste buds, which aren't used to it at all.  They're getting there, I hope.  The dishes are not only hot, a result of the green chili peppers AND the chili powder they add, they are also spicy and flavorful, with a variety of spices mixed in.  In our cuisine class where we made tomato rice pilaf, we added not only chili, onions, and bay leaves, but cardamom and cinnamon as well to create a balance of spices.  That said, while the food is very tasty (even for mess food), it can be hard at times.  I'm just glad we aren't eating some of the Kerala food; one of my Malayalee friends told me that her grandmother's cooking makes her cry, it's so hot - and she's used to it!

South Indian cooking (at least in Tamil Nadu) is centered around rice.  Lots and lots of rice.  Lots.  And lots.  I can't really emphasize how much rice there is.  But, thankfully, it does get mixed up sometimes with chapatti, parotta, and dosa just enough that we don't go crazy from all the rice.  I think it's really that I'm not used to it . . . but I am starting to get used to it.  It's hard to be here and not adapt to eating rice multiple times a day (three times if you have idli for breakfast!) without fail.  But as with everything here, I'm slowly getting used to it, and for the most part, enjoying all of it.  Even the chilies.  

A New Religion: Temple Visits

Now that I have a few temple visits under my belt, I feel like I can describe them a little more accurately.  The program has sent us to two temples so far: Perur Temple, a temple dating back to the Chola period, and the Meenakshi Temple in Madurai, Tamil Nadu’s cultural capital and another old temple.  Some carvings or paintings go back over hundreds of years.  

One of the gates at Meenakshi Temple.

Cities here were built around their temples; the temple was built first, and then the city followed.  As large temples, these two had large, distinctive gates topped by huge towers of brightly painted, life-size statues.  It was impossible to miss the gate.  Meenakshi, larger than Perur, had multiple gates, and several towers within the walls of the temple! 

Inside, too, is a riot of colorful paintings adorning the walls and ceilings.  Some depict scenes from the lives of saints or gods, some are floral designs.  Rock-cut pillars line the halls, figures carved into their bases.  Statues also flank the halls, carved as if leaping out of the stone.  The halls rise to arched ceilings, almost Chinese-looking lions at the top of the arches, baring their large teeth down at the occupants, huge-eyed.  Of course, the figures topping the columns are brightly colored.  


Temples are devoted to a particular god or family of a god.  Perur was a temple for Shiva, and Meenakshi was devoted to Meenakshi, an aspect of Shiva’s wife Parvati, but both temples included shrines and halls to other parts of Lord Shiva’s family (e.g. Ganesh).  Generally, temples start with larger halls, narrowing to the inner sanctum where the statue of the god rests.  In Meenakshi, only Hindus could go into these more holy parts of the temple, but in Perur they let us go forward even into the inner sanctum, through the guardian statues flanking the door and even into the small chamber where the swami performed the puja and blessed those who came.  

Something I do appreciate about Hindu worship is how all the senses are engaged: first, the temples are brightly colored.  During the ritual of asking for the god’s blessing, a flame is circled in front of the statue.  A bell is rung to invite the god’s attention, mixed with the swami’s chanting of a mantra, or holy text.  Incense is waved, thickening the air with its distinctive musk.  And when the supplicants are blessed, it is with the slight grit of ash upon their foreheads as they kneel against the hard, slightly cold stone floor.  

Because worship is linked to all the senses, every time someone passes a temple and hears the bell being rung, or smells the incense, or applies the sandalwood powder to their foreheads at home, the experience of worship will return to them.  For that, I really admire the Hindu form of worship as a very sensory, tangible experience that proves for easy recollection and association.  In short, the temples were large and ornate, full of history and rich architecture.  Seeing people worshiping there added to my understanding of Hinduism and how people lived it.  I was really glad we got to visit these temples as part of our learning experience here.