Home for the Holidays

We know that you all miss our postings from India, and to be honest, so do we, so we thought that this year instead of sending everyone a photo saying "Happy Holidays" with a grumpy-looking cat wearing a santa hat on it , we would just make a new blog posting. As you probably know, we are no longer in India, but away for the holidays in Edmonton, perhaps a slightly less exotic destination, but never the less exciting if you, like some of us, grew up in a country that has almost no snow and where the temperatures stay above zero...

Boaz had been promised a plethora of exciting winter sports, from skiing to toboganning, snowshoeing and more. Weather, however, was most certainly NOT permitting as temperatures in the first week were hovering around -28c. A few short excursions outdoors and we quickly came to the conclusion that we would have to do some other exciting wintertime activities (like eating and shopping) until the temperature was more co-operative.

So, what do you do if you want to go out and it's minus 30 outside? Yes, you head out to the West Edmonton Mall, where it would take you 30 seconds to get from a cosy car to the balmy shopping-heaven inside. You can shop 'till you drop, you can take a submarine ride, you can play mini golf, visit the world's largest indoor water park, or, if you are like Kim's parents, just go do your daily fitness walks there - an activity called "mall walking" which seems to be very popular around this time of year. It would take you about two hours to walk the whole mall, a 7km circuit, or if you are jogging, slightly less.

Taking advantage of all the sales, we loaded our arms up with clothing and headed into the fitting rooms, where Boaz quickly found himself between a rock and a hard place when he had to give an honest opinion about some pants Kim was trying on. The basic conclusion, according to Boaz, who demonstrated a very Israeli honesty, was that he didn't like them and the cut made her "bum look big". Several of the ladies waiting around the change room all went "oooooooh" in shock and one of them said "I'm not sure Santa is going to come visit you this year". But what would you do? The pants really DID make her ass look big...(and Santa did come anyways).

Although we were excited by all of the sales on offer (40% discount at the GAP) the best activity for us was to go see Santa - or actually entertain ourselves by watching all the cute little kids that go to see Santa, sit on his knee, tell him what they would like for x-mas, recieve a candy cane, and have their picture taken in their best outfits. We had fun taking pictures of them and fun taking lots of other ones too, so if you like the photos on this post, we put more for you on our picasa album

Another favourite activity for these weather conditions is cooking at home and then stuffing yourself full to the brim on all the tasty things you have made. This year Hannuka is exactly at the same time as Xmas, which means twice as much eating. We had some family and friends over for latkes and jelly doughnuts, and spent the whole afternoon grating, chopping, mixing and, in the holiday's best tradition - deep frying. At home, we have a syringe-like pastry implement for stuffing the jelly into the jelly doughnuts, but here we had to improvise. Fortunately, there was a doctor in the house, and a quick phone call to the hospital and Kim's dad was able to bring home a variety of exciting surgical implements (don't worry, they were still in the sterile packaging). We decided to use the "abdominal irrigator" for the blackberry jam and the large veterinary-style syringe for the dulce de leche. Dad even got to help out, with instructions to inject 10cc of dulce de leche into each doughnut intravenously.

Intead of a present we are giving you a jelly doughnut (or Sufganiyot) recipe that we love - this one was given to us by Boaz's mom's friend Ety Avraham, so thank you Ety!

Happy holidays and best wishes for 2009!

Sufganiyot (makes about 16)

500gr flour

50gr fresh yeast or 8gr (one pack) active dry yeast

1/4 cup sugar

1-1 1/4 cup luke-warm milk

2 egg yolks

50gr melted butter

1 pack vanilla sugar

2 tbsp cognac or rum

greated peel from 1 lemon

for the filling: Jam of your choice or dulce de leche

oil for deep-frying

In a small bowl, melt the yeast with some of the sugar, cover and leave for 10 minutes in a warm place. In a large bowl mix all of the other ingredients and add the yeast and milk mixture. Knead for about 10 minutes until all the ingredients are well mixed and the dough becomes smooth and elastic. Let the dough rise in a warm place until it doubles in volume - about two hours. A nice trick for letting dough rise that we recently learnt is to let it rise in a big sealed tupperware (approximately three times the size of the dough).

Once the dough has risen, knock it back, and divide it into 16. Shape into balls, and let rise on a well-floured surface covered with a light towel. After about an hour you are ready for the big deep-fry. We suggest using a wok, as you need less oil to fill it. You will need about 4-5cm of oil. Fry the sufganiyot in medium-hot oil, about 2-3 minutes on each side. Fish them out of the oil, let cool slightly and inject them with the stuffing of your choice. Serve warm, with powdered sugar strewn on top.

A bit of India in Israel

This post is not being written from a grubby internet cafe, but from the tranquil cleanliness of our own home. Sad but true, we are no longer in India. Our last days passed like a mirror image of the first ones. We spent the last three days frantically running around the city, shopping for all the things we saw on the first three days and planned to come back for. We sacked the kitchenware stores of Crawford market, bought our body weight in CD's and DVD's, purchased half of the stock of Fabindia (some of it, admittedly, as gifts) and made one or two (OK, three) last minute trips to different tailors throughout town.
Finally, satiated from shopping- or, more specifically out of time to shop and space in the suitcases- we decided to spend the last evening in Bombay as we had spent the first. We walked along Marine Drive, watched the sun go down in to the Arabian sea for the last time, and then went to have dinner at one of our all time favourite restaurants, Soam. There was a special "fasting menu" in honour of the several holidays, both Hindu and Jain, that are taking place this week. Now, the concept of a gourmet fasting menu might seem like an oxymoron, but the fasting concept is more about avoiding certain foods rather than not eating. Rice, wheat, and lentils seemed, from what we could ascertain, to be the main foods that were avoided. As you can imagine, this puts severe limitations on the average Indian diet. Fasting food, however, has been raised to an art form in Soam (and likely in many Maharastrian homes, in which we unfortunately were not able to partake). We ordered exclusively from the fasting menu, much to the puzzlement of the waiter, and it was certainly like no Indian food we had had before- no rice, no dhal, no chapattis- tapioca pearls, yam, and pumpkin figured prominently. We suspect that the waiter and manager came to the conclusion that we were restaurant reviewers because once they got over the fact that we weren't interested in the normal menu, they were very friendly and gave us a complimentary jar of chutney when we left...just in case.


After a very short "night"- two and a half hours- we headed out to the airport for our flight to Jordan. In Jordan, we ate in "Al Kuds" - the very same restaurant we ate in on our way to india, and then took the bus home. Crossing the border back wasn't easy or fun: there was having to stand in line at both Jordanian and Israeli sides of the border for about two hours, participating in a new Olympic sport called "the mass luggage- trolley slalom" and what was probably the worst: having to unpack Kim's bag (a one-way operation) because of a highly suspicious Ganesha bronze inside. We know that Ganesha is a "remover of obstacles" and helps you with traveling, but were not so sure after having to excavate him from the overly full knapsack, and then trying to repack the bag while being reminded that the whole bus was waiting for us.

So, we are finally home. We like to think we brought a bit of India with us, not with all the shopping we did, but rather in the way the things that we saw and learned in India have an effect on our life here. The cat was a bit suspicious and showed signs of needing affection on one hand, while being pissed off with us on the other, but after the first night he was more or less back to normal. He loves exploring all of the stuff (especially the bindis) that we brought back from India, with all its exotic smells. We seem to have acquired a whole new Indian kitchen, and are eager to experiment with all of the new recipes we got. Cooking is strange to do after two months away, the first time we made coffee we managed to get it all wrong! Washing dishes is also strange to do again, we certainly didn't miss that the way we missed cooking. We have also been enjoying using our washing machine, no need to wring things out by hand anymore.

Everyone who sees how much we enjoyed India asks us when we will go back. Of course we would love to return to India, but it doesn't look like it will happen in the next year or two. It might take a bit more time, but we are sure we will, we still have to learn the second part of the piece we started with our Mridingam teacher, have a few more states to explore, and after all, there is the matter of the two rupee coins in the Shiva temple in Mahakoota (see our trip to Mahakoota if you don't know what this is all about). We promised to come back when we have children and pay Lord Shiva our respects and thank him, so really, we have no choice. Hopefully the little ones will enjoy India as much as we do. It has been really fun writing our blog, and we want to thank everyone who read and commented and participated, writing it was certainly one of the highlights of our trip, all the more so because it let us feel very connected to our friends and family even though we were on the other side of the world. We still haven't decided what the future might hold for Lime Soda... we might use it to post some recipes after we try them out, or just to keep people updated on our lasted adventures.

Happy Birthday, Lord Krishna!

Everyone needs to have a birthday party, and in India people celebrate the birthdays of their favourite deities with all pomp and due festivity. We were really upset that we will be missing Ganesh Chaturthi - the elephant god's birthday, which will be celebrated by millions in Mumbai next week, about three days after we come back home. Therefore we were very happy to learn that Krishna Janmashtami, the celebration of Krishna's birthday, was taking place this Sunday, on our first day back in Mumbai.

After a long trip up here, including a long cab ride to the Kochi airport, a late-night flight, another long cab ride to downtown Mumbai and a lost wallet (Kim's) at 1 am, the beginning of our Sunday morning did not look very promising. There were all of the annoying phone calls to make after losing your wallet (bank, credit card), all of them long, expensive, international calls that had to be made with a terrible connection on a street corner, plus the added issue of having to worry about our finances on the last leg of our trip, just when we were ready to start shopping in earnest (the rest of the shopping was just a warm-up). The first bright spot of the day presented itself as little spicy wadas, right across from the aforementioned phone booth. Wadas are deep fried little tidbits, normally served with some raw onions and chutney, and after almost a month in Kerala we appreciated the change in taste, and the bright clean flavours of little green chillies hidden inside the wadas were just what we needed in order to get our day going.

But back to Krishna's birthday. In our little alleyway, we saw a bunch of boys stringing up a rope with big clay pots, bananas, apples and other decorations hanging off of it. This was all a part of Dahi Handi, (as the festival is known in Maharashtra) and is one of the most popular activities of this festival, meant to recreate Krishna's childhood pranks of sneaking ghee and milk from the neighbours cupboards. A handi is a clay pot, and it is filled with Krishna's favourite foods: ghee and milk, often tinted a bizarre shade of fuchsia just for the fun of it. Such clay pots are suspended from ropes hanging between buildings and lamp posts all over the city, in some places as high as 20 meters above street level. Groups of boys (and in the last few years girls as well) called "Govinda Pathaks", or Lord Krishna's troops, form human pyramids attempting to reach the pots, break them with their heads and shower everyone under them with ghee, coconut, coins, pink goo and pottery shards. The groups often train beforehand and compete between them as top who can break the most handis, sometimes a 9-tier human pyramid is even attempted.
The group in our neighbourhood was little more modest, and ended up lowering their rope halfway through the exercise, which apparently you are allowed to do after three attempts, but it seemed like they gave up a bit too soon. Egged on by a small group of onlookers and one local policeman, they managed to get a guy up there to the rope, and he shattered the pots, showering everyone around with pink water. Needless to say, the whole structure under him collapsed at that point, leaving him dangling precariously from the rope, until they were kind enough to rebuild it for just long enough for him to jump on to the top, causing the whole thing to fall yet again, much to everyone's joy. Miraculously, there were no injuries.

After a refreshing "unlimited food" meal (see our third post if you don't remember what this entails), made even more "special" and unlimited because of the holiday, we decided to find a more culturally refined way to celebrate Janmashtami. Krishna is well known for his flute playing, and we read in the Time Out Mumbai that the world famous bansuri flutist, Pandit Hariprasad Chaurisia and his students would be playing a concert starting at midnight the night before and continuing for the next 24 hours. What more appropriate way for us, two flutists, to celebrate Krishna's birthday! We had missed seeing Hariprasad live in concert (by about a day) three times already, so we were eager to hear him. Imagine our surprise when the concert turned out to be a fairly small event, taking place in his Gurukul (his private school) where there were around forty people- mostly his students and their families- all seated the floor in a large living room, in front of a small shrine with Krinshna and Radha dressed in silks and decked with flowers.
When we arrived four of the students were playing along with a tabla player. They were taking turns improvising on a Raga, and and occasionally playing together. After about an hour, the Guruji himself appeared, dressed in a suitably yellow silk kurta, and without further ado sat down, was handed a flute and started to play. It was something between a concert and a master class, with him playing a phrase, and some of the students repeating or answering it. Sometimes these were just echos of what the master had played, but sometimes these answers took on a life of their own and developed into small solos. The atmosphere was magical, and we had the feeling that we were a part of a very intimate circle centered around the guruji. He played for around an hour and a half (which seemed to pass in an instant) and eventually just got up and went into the next room, while his students went on improvising elaborations on what he had just played.
Indian music seems to be less formally constructed than Western classical music. The performers are improvising on a Raga, so the length of the piece is entirely up to their discretion. There is also not the clear break that Western music has between when a piece begins and ends. The performers don't stand up or do stage rearrangements, and they usually start the next piece while the audience is still applauding or going in and out of the hall. The Tanpura still holds its endless drone, the tabla player might tune his drums (often in a rhythmical way) and some of the musicians might drink some water, but the music is almost continous, giving a very organic feeling to the whole concert experience. For this concert, which lasted 24 hours, the music really never stopped (or at least it didn't in the 4 hours we were there from around 5- 9 pm). Occasionally a new flute player would change places with someone who had been playing for a while, and even the poor tabla player was finally relieved by a colleague after playing straight for about four hours. At some point a huge pot of food was brought into the next room, and both players and the small audience got to take turns having dinner and paying their respects to the guruji before coming back to play or listen a bit more.

We left the concert tired and happy after having one of the most amazing experiences of our trip, inspired to go home and play our own instruments again, but sad that our trip, which seemed so endless in the beginning, would soon be over.

BARFI: Genevieve wins yet another prize for her answer to last post's barfi. She correctly guessed that the spice those pigeons were eating was fenugreek! Being a fellow flutist, she will hopefully appreciate her new Krishna key chain.

The Last Jews of Cochin

Just like the Arabs, Portuguese, and the English, we too, have ended up in Cochin. They all flocked here to buy spices, as the city is a convenient outlet for Kerala's spice producing regions, up in the western ghats. Old Cochin is filled with long streets of warehouses, or godowns as they are locally called, once all filled with the fragrant riches of the East. Pepper was, and still is, one of Kerala's main exports, as it has been since Roman times, when Phoenician and Egyptian ships came to the Malabar coast for it's "black gold". Today, the warehouses are largely in a state of disrepair, although there is still a lot of spice trading going on behind their ornately carved, usually turquoise, doors. Most "enterprises" specialize in one sort of spice: Chillies, cardamom, pepper, nutmeg, ginger as well as rice, tea and tobacco.


Kerala is also known for its old Jewish community, possibly settled here since the first century CE, with a large influx in population around the 15th century, when Sephardi Jews found a safe haven here from the prosecution of the Catholic Kings and the Inquisition. Yesterday we set out for "Jew Town", as it officially called with no negative connotations intended, and went to see the Pardesi Synagogue, which dates from the 16th century. It was unfortunately closed, which was rather disappointing, and left us at the mercy of the the Kashmiri shopkeepers who run the "antique shops" and "craft emporiums" (read: expensive, new, badly-made crap for tourists). A trip up "Jew Street" led us into the embroidery shop of Sarah Cohen, a sweet old lady that reminded Boaz of his Iraqi grandmother. When we met Sarah she was in her kitchen at the back of her shop, making what she called "Jew Balls" for Friday night dinner. Further enquiries and observation led us to the conclusion that she was actually making Kubbeh, a common and very tasty Jewish-Iraqi dish, which all of Boaz's family will probably recognize as a family favourite. While she flattened the dough in a special press, she told us a the story of Cochin's Jewish community. Most of the Jews in the city emmigrated to Israel in the 50s, and all is left of this once large and prosperous community are just twelve elderly people, five men and seven women. Sarah's own children live in Ra'anana, the very same city where Boaz grew up and Kim spends about 15 hours week teaching, and they occasionally come back to visit her, bringing a special "hard meat" that she couldn't remember the name of. A few minutes (and Kubbeh balls) later she remembered that it was Naknik that they bring her - literally dried sausage (instead of freshly ground meat) that she was using to fill her Kubbeh balls as a special treat. As the community does not have a Jewish butcher any more (her husband used to do it but he died a couple of years back) they have no choice but to be vegetarians, and are mostly dependant on people visiting from Israel for their Naknik and kosher meat supply. One of the men we met later that evening (more about that later) told us how he smuggled three chickens from Israel in a little cooler when he come to visit. Our meeting with Sarah Cohen turned out to be a fortuitious meeting on both of our parts because she told us that there was a service in the Synagogue that evening. We were pleased to have a chance to see the synagogue and she was pleased, because they often miss enough men for a minyan (the requisite 10 Jewish men required for prayer) for Friday nights.

Later that evening we came back to "Jew street" in time for the evening prayer. We were very happy to see the Synagogue open this time, although the Shabbas goy at the entrance did make sure that we really were there for the service before letting us in. Once we passed the little door that led into the courtyard we were especially pleased that we had come, as this was one of the must beautiful synagogues we have ever seen. It is well-known for its tiled floor, lain with over a thousand blue and white tiles, imported from China in the seventeenth century and depicting a love affair between a Mandarin's daughter and a commoner. They are hand-made and each tile is slightly different then the next one. The Jewish community, the synagogue and especially the tiles were immortalized in Salman Rushdie's book The Moor's Last Sigh in which an old lady,(the sweeper of the synagogue) whose son has left the community after a quarrel, is able to see his every action in the changing pictures of the Chinese tiles. We had plenty of time to admire the tiles, the beautiful Belgian glass chandeliers and the old wood-carved ark, as we had to wait for almost an hour for a full Minyan. Eventually when we had three old men from the community, an Israeli businessman and his son, Boaz and two American backpackers, we had only one man missing. Eventually, one of the old men went to fetch an other guy who didn't really want to be there, but looked like he could be guilt-tripped into it.

After the service and before the Kidush we were shown around, and got to see the synagogue's ancient Torah scrolls, and their gold and silver decorations, some of which were presented to the community by the local Maharajah in the 18th century.


Tonight we are flyin back to Mumbai for the last leg of our trip. We have fond memories of the "unlimited food" and have a few more restaurants to check off on Kim's list. We also have some touristic and cultural sights to catch up on from our last visit, when we were too busy eating (or recovering from "unlimited food" meals) or shopping.

BARFI: Yet another contest! What spice ARE these pigeons eating? We spoke to many Indian people, and have also noticed in cookbooks mentions of people WASHING spices, and drying them before use.....we always thought it was strange, but after seeing them set out to dry on a burlap sack in the middle of the road, or with the pigeons nibbling at them we might consider doing this next time!

Other People Are India Culture Too!

Despite having regular internet at our disposal for the first time on our trip, we have been oddly silent over the last week. Why, you might ask, when we know that our loyal readers at home, many of whom are vacationing vicariously through our experiences, are eagerly waiting for the next installment.....it's just that we are too busy. Too busy! How can you be too busy on a vacation! Well, if you "are India culture" (as we have ascertained in prior posts that we are) then you might go to a cultural summer camp, as we have done at the Vijnana Kala Vedi. This cultural centre is dedicated to the fine arts of Kerala, and each "camper" gets to choose a primary (2 hours a day of lessons) and a secondary (1 hour lesson a day) subject. Now, obviously this won't keep you very busy, but if, like us you have chosen two main subjects and have a Mrdingam teacher who is very enthusiastic about teaching you, making you practice more then you do back home, so you might get very busy.

Our main incentive coming to the center was to learn all about the rhythms of Karnatic music - or the classical music of south India. While in Bangalore last year as well as this year we fell in love with this music and with all of the percussion instruments used, mostly to accompany singers or violinists, but also as solo instruments. The instrument we have chosen, Mridingam, is the most important percussion instrument in Karnatic music, and is made of a hollowed-out piece of jackfruit wood, with leather skin covering its two ends. In our first lesson, with Subash, our teacher, we have learned the basic alphabet of Karnatic percussions, called Konnakol. This is almost like a language with different words, used to describe different sounds you can produce: Tha, ti, tom, nam, dim, cha, tham and so on. We started with really simple exercises, in order to learn the basic strokes: Tha tika ti tika tom tika nam tika (repeat many many times), and progressed to learn complete "compositions" that took our teacher three lessons to dictate, starting like this:

nam. dim. dim. nam. tikathaka dim. dim. nam. dim. tikathaka dim. nam. tha.taka tika tatha chatathat kita taka nam. dim. dim. nam....
Below are shown (from left to right: nam, ti, tha, tom)



You'd think learning a percussion instrument would be about rhythm, but this one is much more about memory (we were expected to know these compositions by heart for the next lesson) and hand coordination. We have been practicing about two-three hours a day, but still haven't got some of it right - we'd really need a few months just to be able to accompany a simple song.

When we were still in a cool and level-headed frame of mind back home, and knowing how have a tendency to get rather excited about interesting percussion instruments, we had a discussion in which we agreed that a Mridingam would be a heavy and impractical purchase while we were traveling. Of course, when your teacher asks you after a particularly fun lesson if you plan to continue with Mridingam back home, what can you say but "do you know any good Mridingam makers?" Of course he does, and before you know it he makes an appointment for the next day at 8 am in the next city at a local maker's shop. He was kind enough to weigh it for us, and it is "maximum 8kg" (which in India means 9.5 kg).

The fun thing about this "cultural summer camp" (which actually runs all year long) is that they offer many exciting Keralan/Indian subjects such as Katakali (more on that later), wood carving, mural painting, cooking, ayurveda, yoga, 2 types of south Indian dance, Kalari (Keralan martial art), and Karnatic violin, voice and percussion. For us, however, the most fun was meeting a lot of other people who were "India Culture". Don't get us wrong, we love each others' company, but after a month and a half on the road, we only met two or three other travelers who were interesting to talk to, and we were getting eager for company. Everyone comes to India for their own personal reasons, and most of the people we met elsewhere had other interests in mind... like the two nubile Swedish girls who always wore their bikinis everywhere under their clothing in case an appropriate beach presented itself. And they were complaining that everyone seemed to treat them like porn actresses. Or the American teenager we met whose conclusion was that India was generally a "fun" place except that she hated Indian food and Indian people.

Our summer camp is full of people just as crazy about India as we are. They wear saris out and about, and were all eager to have a look at Kim's sari wrapping book (several asked to photocopy it!), they enjoy discussing the fine points of Indian musical theory and compare ragas they have learned, and it is not uncommon to hear people say "would you be interested in seeing a Bengali movie from the 50's or the latest comedy in Malayalam?". There are only about fifteen students at the center at any given time, and each one follows their own schedule according to the subjects chosen. The lessons are generally private and taught by excellent teachers. For all of you out there who are also "India culture" we can highly recommend a few weeks here.

Last week's big adventure was an all night Katakali performance at a nearby temple. Katakali is a type of Keralan dance/drama, usually based on stories about Rama and Krishna. It involves several actors dancers who act out the drama using a series of "mudras" or hand gestures, dramatic eye movements, and wild facial quivers (lips for sadness, eyebrows for love). It is highly stylized, and accompanied by two singers (who narrate the text, but are required to repeat each line as long as the actor/dancer keeps acting/dancing) and a team of percussionists whose job it is to keep the audience awake for those all night temple performances by playing extremely loud and clanging metal things together. The best thing about it, however, is the over the top costumes and the make-up that takes all together about three hours to put on. It was fun going into the "green room" to watch the actors get dressed and ready for the performance. Although the show lasts until dawn and will include three plays (each about three hours long) we only made it through until two o'clock in the morning (we had to get up for yoga the next morning), but thoroughly enjoyed it none the less.

We had originally planned to stay here for only a week, but after about two days realized that it would not be enough, and if we really wanted to get anywhere with Mridingam we would have to stay here for two months, and practice "many many times" as our teacher keeps repeating. We didn't have an extra month and three weeks, so we have settled for four more days, and sadly, will be leaving the center on Thursday. From here we are off to Cochin, and our Indian vacation is quickly drawing towards its end. We are still hoping to do one or two posts before that, so stay tuned!

Bored With Your Current Job?

Thinking about a career change? Here is the Kim and Boaz list of alternative, yet amazing professions you can pursue. We have been collecting these for a while, and it is time we shared them with you. India is brimming over with an array of occupations that you don't see so often in the west anymore - like the sign painters, tanners, basket makers, weavers and many more. India also has some unique professions, that never existed in the west, like paan wallahs, jasmine flower garland makers and coconut tree climbers - the terrestrial version of pearl divers: apparently a very dangerous job reserved for a "special" (i.e. low) caste.

We have decided to dedicate one post to some of the more amazing craftsmen we have seen on our trip. Whenever we meet anyone making something on the street we are riveted to the spot, asking questions, taking pictures and buying unnecessary, yet fun, souvenirs from them (which might turn up as prizes for bright blog readers later).


The first one we saw on our trip was the woodblock carver. This young guy was sitting outside his shop near Crawford market in Mumbai, carving the most intricate patterns on wood blocks that would later be used for both block printing fabric (mostly cotton) and for applying henna to ladies' hands. The henna application is for lazy or un-coordinated ladies only- or more often a guy on the street who does henna for a few rupees in under a minute (it takes quite a while if you do it "by hand" and is priced accordingly). He started by taking an off cut of plywood...we can write a whole other post about the people who make a living selling leftover bits and pieces of stuff... Then he drew the pattern to be carved, often according to a template that was prepared by another person in the workshop. Then he proceeded to chisel little bits of wood at a time, according to the lines previously drawn, leaving the pattern in relief. His chisels that looked very very sharp, but also were obviously made from scraps of steel: old needle files and broken drill bits, and his "hammer" looked like an old chair. Indians are so good about recycling!

Much as we would have liked to purchase something from the Ganesha maker, we restrained ourselves, knowing that a terracotta statue would simply not travel well. We encountered the Ganesha maker in Badami, he was part of the family (to whom you were introduced in the sari post) whose womenfolk gave Kim the beautiful green bangles. It was only after hanging out on their doorstep for almost 15 minutes that our glances fell upon a small clay leg lying there... there was such a big crowd of people that it was difficult to see what this may be attached to, but then we noticed that there was a statue of Ganesh sitting there, minus a leg. The man would take a piece of clay and, with the help of a small sculpting knife, would fashion individual body parts to put on the statue. The detail was amazing. We were impressed by his sculptures - they were all about 40 cm in height, and he had made several that morning, all of them lined up on a side shelf to dry. Unfortunately, these lovely pieces were later covered by painting them really bright, kitchy colours...


One of our favourite jobs was seen in Chettinad while we were pretending to be rich, and that was the Sari weaver. We met a couple who had a small "factory" composed of 70 looms in total, spread over different houses in town. In house we visited, there were three weavers and one woman winding bobbins on a bicycle wheel. The looms were amazing, very simply made of bamboo poles. The women sat in chairs set into the floor, probably because it is easier to make a hole in the floor than to build a table for the entire loom, the looms were easily 6 meters long- about the length of a sari, come to think of it. One woman is able to weave a sari in 2 days, 4 if it is complicated with checks or patterns. An additional morning or so is also needed to set up the loom with all of the threads. Because the visit was organized through our expensive hotel the saris were unfortunately priced accordingly, and we did not end up getting any, but don't worry, we did end up getting some table cloths - the stuff was simply irresistible.

Boaz fell in love with the bead turner. If you described what this man was doing and we hadn't seen it for ourselves we would have told you that this is impossible. This man, who we saw in Panderpur during the mela, was making beads for rosary-type prayer necklaces. He used really soft wood, apparently with a hollow center. He drilled a hole through a little piece of this wood with a long needle, and then set it between the centers of a very simple little "lathe", basically a small metal frame. With his right hand he used a bow which was wound around the piece of wood, and while it was turning, he was using a chisel with his left to round and shape 5-6 beads at a time. Then he took them off, cut them into individual pieces and strung them. The beads he made were tiny - about 5 mm in diameter, and you needed at least a hundred of them for one of these necklaces.

BARFI: Although there were some pretty good attempts, no one answered last post's quetion correctly. The strange plant in question, of which we have only shown you the flower, has an edible root. It is GINGER... we would have never guessed either if our guide hadn't told us.