This ramble will be a ramble consisting mostly of random observations I have had lately. Now witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational battle station er I mean ramble...
First I like to start by saying random power cuts are a regular occurrence in many developing countries, including India. Here in Manipal I'm not exactly sure what the electric grid hook up is, but the power manages to stay on most of the time, unlike in other parts of India which can regularly go without power for hours. That being said Indians, mainly guys, like to scream very much like little girls or yell or make other noises whenever a power cut happens after dark and the lights go out. If the hostel has already been closed (after midnight) things go even more crazy as air horns get blown in addition to the whistles, and things are occasionally thrown out of the windows, mostly bottles or other garbage not furniture so far at least. I'm not sure why they react this way when the lights go out, but it reminds me of a prison riot scene in any movie or documentary that features prisons, specifically I'm thinking American Me http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPTiPfSLCUI. Well probably not that extreme. I think it has to do with it being guys only hostels but that's just a theory.
This brings me to another observation, the hostels could double as prisons if necessary. You may think I'm joking but i have bars on the windows along with having a bolt on both sides of the door, meaning if i forget to padlock the bar someone could slide the bar over effectively locking me in my room. This was the first thing the hostel office guy warned me about as apparently this happens somewhat regularly. Also the terminology is straight from a correctional facility as well with wardens in charge of the hostel blocks, and apparently the handbook refers to residents as inmates (dont quote me on the last one just what i've heard). Kind of makes me laugh knowing that I'm supposed to refer to dorms at American as residence halls during tours and not dorms because of any negative connotation that might arise with the word dorm haha try negative connotations of prison. On the flip side of things though, there are no communal showers or shankings (that i know of).
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| Or as Admiral Ackbar would say that was a Star Wars reference in the opener if you missed it. |
First I like to start by saying random power cuts are a regular occurrence in many developing countries, including India. Here in Manipal I'm not exactly sure what the electric grid hook up is, but the power manages to stay on most of the time, unlike in other parts of India which can regularly go without power for hours. That being said Indians, mainly guys, like to scream very much like little girls or yell or make other noises whenever a power cut happens after dark and the lights go out. If the hostel has already been closed (after midnight) things go even more crazy as air horns get blown in addition to the whistles, and things are occasionally thrown out of the windows, mostly bottles or other garbage not furniture so far at least. I'm not sure why they react this way when the lights go out, but it reminds me of a prison riot scene in any movie or documentary that features prisons, specifically I'm thinking American Me http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPTiPfSLCUI. Well probably not that extreme. I think it has to do with it being guys only hostels but that's just a theory.
This brings me to another observation, the hostels could double as prisons if necessary. You may think I'm joking but i have bars on the windows along with having a bolt on both sides of the door, meaning if i forget to padlock the bar someone could slide the bar over effectively locking me in my room. This was the first thing the hostel office guy warned me about as apparently this happens somewhat regularly. Also the terminology is straight from a correctional facility as well with wardens in charge of the hostel blocks, and apparently the handbook refers to residents as inmates (dont quote me on the last one just what i've heard). Kind of makes me laugh knowing that I'm supposed to refer to dorms at American as residence halls during tours and not dorms because of any negative connotation that might arise with the word dorm haha try negative connotations of prison. On the flip side of things though, there are no communal showers or shankings (that i know of).
Also last week was utsav or the culture week.
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| Did not see this performance and have no idea what is going on |
All afternoon classes were canceled so most of the girls in the program took off traveling. My afternoon classes were shifted all into the morning though oh yeah! Anyways, the week long utsav consisted of various competitions and showcasing of cultures between the various schools here at manipal. I watched some of the early week Indian cultural events as I ate dinner. The weirdest thing was probably one of single dance routines. It was guy and I could have sworn he was auditioning for a male stripper job with his moves. After that I only went back for the modeling performance on Thursday as I knew some people in it and the fusion western Indian group dances on Friday night. The model show was more of a 12 minute story that needed to be narrated as people walked about in costumes or occasionally nice clothes. The thing was overall rather weird and there seemed to be a common thread that in the fifteen competing groups, at least ten had a narration that was psuedo-feministic or it was something along the lines of save the earth go green.
The fusion dance started out in a similarly questionable way with the first act having difficulties and partly messing up the routine. However the KMCIC the international students in an accelerated medical program, mainly us or Canadian NRIs, put together a fairly impressive dance routine managing to actually sync western hip hop dance with Indian bollywood moves, something the other four groups had struggled with. KMCIC won apparently the first time there school has ever one something so congrats to them.
So that seems like a nonsensical enough ramble for now. I think I'm going to go to sleep now.
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