And then there was no part 2

So between my general laziness, travel week, and questionable Internet connection the part 2 about Goa has yet to materialize.  As your all undoubtedly heartbroken I;m going to combine the Goa into a massive traveling in India post that will eventually be made (maybe).  The real reason why this blog post is coming up is that India has advanced to the finals of the world cup on saturday.  And they beat Pakistan to do it.  Pakistan and India have gone to all out war 3 times in the since independence, had several sub-open warfare conflicts, and more recently India has accused the Paki intelligence service ISI of being behind several terror attacks in India, including the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2002 attack of the Indian Parliament.  Therefore this match was probably the most important of the tournament for India, with several Indian commentators calling it more important than the actual finals and likening it to a pseudo-war.  Its estimated that well over half of the Indian white collar workforce either took a half day or didn't work at all, and in Pakistan there was a similar workless situation.  (versus Sri Lanka btw)  It was interesting knowing that there were an estimated Billion people watching or listening to the match.  In the aftermath of this match, the streets which had been mostly empty during the match erupted with people shouting screaming flying down the road on motorcycles and cars etc...  The only thing I can compare it to is when Obama won the presidency in 2008 and DC erupted in similar street celebrations.  The celebrations are still ongoing, but have moved away from the streets after the initial hour or so outburst of noise and craziness.  The only reason why the celebration for a win on saturday might be bigger than this win over Pakistan is because the day after is Saturday and not a week-day.  Right so thats the update for now lets go India crush Sri Lanka.

Creative Title Part 1

So its been a while since I updated the blog, and alot has occurred since the last update.  Therefore, dear random readers you get a two part update.  So anyways this first part will be a general update about the current situation here in manipal and the second part will be about my trip to the ancestral homeland, Goa. 

So to continue with where I last left you, the world cup has been proceeding along.  India has been doing fairly well but recently lost  to South Africa in a game they should have won easily.  Other highlights so far of the tournament include the Irish upsetting the heavily favored English (at one point the English were favored 400 to 1 in the match)  and then Bangladesh also upsetting the English.  Despite these upsets there is still a good chance that England will make the next round and India seems to be in the next round as well.  Unfortunately for India while their offensive batting has been superb for the most part, their fielding and bowling (pitching) has been rather lackluster which does not bode well for them against the better teams.  Also here's a picture of the Irish cricket player who destroyed England's bowlers, Kevin O'Brien.



Yes his hair is dyed pink


Anyways, whenever an interesting match is on, or an India match, the activity among the population of manipal and I'm guessing to a greater extent the rest of the country slows down dramatically for the duration of the match.  These matches last for like 5 or more hours normally.  Also the screams increase dramatically, as the fans watching the match in my hostel scream and clap for just about everything.  For 5 or more hours.

At least they don't have vuvuzelas

Class wise i have had a slight break in actual class time as several of my professors were away at conferences, and the Indian IR masters students had a psuedo spring break.  However, that simply meant that my professors gave extra readings in their absence.  Temperature wise, its now close to or around 100 everyday, and is supposed to remain or get hotter for the remainder of my time here.  The real problem though is that as we approach the monsoons, thankfully I leave before they hit in June, it gets increasingly humid in addition to being hot, so basically similar to summer in DC.  Other big news is that this coming weekend kicks off our psuedo-break/ travel week during which the group is going to travel to Bangalore, Mysore, Ooty and a tribal area, a wildlife preserve, Cochin, and go on a backwater trip in Kerala on a boat.  I'm excited and will certainly give an update about the trip after we get back on the 27th.  So stay tuned for part two of the update, Meeting the Relatives.

Yes I've heard of cricket

So one of the biggest events of my stay here in India is about to begin, when the Indian national cricket team starts the 2011 Cricket World cup in Dhaka, Bangladesh playing and hopefully defeating the Bangladeshis (India is kinda heavily favored to win) on saturday.  To say cricket is important to Indians is like saying that most Egyptians are mildly excited to see Mubarak leave office.



He's actually yawning



Indians go absolutely crazy for cricket and this world cup has dominated the news for the last week.  The Indian national team is under huge pressure to win the cup after the rather disappointing loss in the 2003 world cup finals to Australia.  One of my new Indian friends who happened to be at the finals in 2003, described it as a house of cards collapsing (Australia really embarrassed them in the finals).  Cricket is probably the only thing that the British gave India that is not treated with some disdain.  One of the best examples I can show pre-world cup is the magazine that I accidentally bought the other day.

And Outlook is the Indian version of Time magazine

The tagline for this magazine is Genius. Giant. Gentleman. A 51st Century Legend.  The entire magazine, some 104 pages is dedicated to this one cricket player, Sachin Tendulkar.  The guy is like the Michael Jordan of cricket, but hes had a career that spans roughly 2 decades, his first match was in 89 when he was 16.  The guy is also a class act off the field, and has avoided the massive amounts of corruption that has plagued other top indian cricket players.  Anyways cricket is rather confusing to the untrained eye (aka Americans) but due to the cricket world cup mini-game on my cellphone I have successful learned how to play and the rules. 

Videogames are educational

The terminology is also falling into place as well (things like overs, centuries, and wickets).  I even managed to understand how well India played in their last friendly before the World Cup (they beat NZ) and understood that we couldn't leave the apartment to play soccer until we saw Dhoni (Indian cricket player) hit a century(score over 100 runs).  If you are interested I suggest not reading the wikipedia entry on cricket as its kind confusing, but rather try this website http://www.howtoplaycricket.org/ or watch a video (you'll still be confused).  Anyways when India triumphs in the World cup at the finals on April 2nd, I fully expected a massive celebration in the streets similar to Madrid after the Spanish team won the World Cup this summer.

Please let India win

So will wrap up this ramble about cricket and leave you all with this picture.  A undetermined prize if you can tell me what music video this is from.

My current feelings for cricket

And this is the winter...

So lot been happening since the last attempt at a blog post, but I will start by thanking the Green Bay Packers for beat the Steelers.  I had met a couple of NRIs (Non-Resident Indians) who live on the other side of my hostel and live in the US, (kentucky, houston,  detroit, and maryland) and they invited me over to their room at 4 this morning to watch the superbowl eat pizza and other junk food.  Unfortunately my phone randomly turned off during my nap so I missed the first quarter of the game as I was a little late.  However, the remainder of the game proved to be good, with the packers trying their best in a typical Giants like fashion to blow the lead. 

The classes over here have really started up, which means I have more work than I would have had back at American, which is not how this is supposed to work out with the normal 'study' abroad.  Also my teachers keep forgetting that I'm still doing my undergrad and all expect me to be going for a PhD and academia (unlikely), as that is what most of the Indian masters students plan on doing.  I've already had to write several small papers about various topics and rapidly becoming fully immersed in the major Indian media sources.

On a different note, I can say I am a paid Indian actor, as I was asked by a Indian director to go shoot some scenes in a Indian movie.  He was on campus looking for European looking guys (white) when he ran into some of the girls on the program.  One of them quickly decided that I should be involved and without hesitating gave my number the director and told him to keep calling until I picked up.  On the third call from said unknown number (the director) I answered and was hurriedly informed that I should come quickly and meet them so they could take me to be filmed.  Next thing I know I am in the car with the director and his assistants hurtling down congested Indian roads.  Traffic in India is bad due to the complete lack of any traffic rules or regulations, but I can generally handle the chaos as the Indian drivers do have a signaling system involving honks and beeps that inform each other of when they are going to swerve into oncoming traffic to pass the car in front of them.  We however had a time deadline and since the film location was 65km away from the university our car was really moving.  Even the director was a little uncomfortable when the driver managed to complete an very ill-advised pass of a truck only when the big red truck coming our way (his actual lane) swerved to avoid hitting us.  We made it in record time and only nearly clipping 3 pedestrians and 8 cars/trucks/bikes.  They then quickly dressed me up as a 15th century Portuguese soldier (the role is was playing) which included these awkward;y heeled boots and a rather ridiculous hat.



Myself leading the charge, minus the other soldiers.

The scenes I was involved in show cased my dramatic and courageous swashbuckling skills in the background as other died in the foreground, and then my big shot the death scene.  I was killed not only with my throat being slit from behind (and gratuitous amounts of fake blood pouring from said wound), but also stabbed in the stomach by another armed shirtless Indian man.  I managed the take in just two shots with the first one being a poor take as i kinda forgot to go limp and collapse after suffering such traumatic and fatal wounds.  I then got a brief lunch was paid and began another questionably safe but fast journey back to campus where I rushed to make my 2:30 class, still with visible signs of fake blood on my face and neck.

With my agent failing to line up further shoots (waiting for the big one), I traveled with the study abroad group to Sringeri Mutt, which is one of the more famous mutts (temple/monastery) in India.  Read about here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sringeri_Sharada_Peetham  We met with the head guy (I had to take off my shirt men take off their shirts some weird S. India tradition) and he said a little prayer/blessing and gave us some blessed fruit.  We also saw some very large fish close up (pictured) in the holy water/river. 




These catfish are like 15-25 kilos and in N. India have started killing people no lie google it.

 Finally, the store has run out of the strawberry cereal that is filled with crack and I have been addicted to, which may or may not have something to do with me buying and consuming a large portion of their stock.  They were vague as to when they would receive more (probably uncomfortably looking to cut me off).  In regards to the title its starting to peak at around 98 during the midday lunch time, and is only going to get more hot and humid as India moves from the "cold" winter months into the spring. Here are more photos.

Temple 650ish years old

Wats good

 Hasta la victoria siempre...wrong language.

The stereotyping

So one of my professor gave a decent set of stereotypes of Indians which is interested enough that it gets to go into the blog by itself.  ( ) give the explantion of the stereotype.

It goes along the lines that when God(s) created the Indian people, he started spreading out beauty in the north and worked his way south, (north Indians are normally fairer skinned which is seen as more attractive by Indian standards, sidenote many facial and skin beauty products over here also contain a bleaching agent to actually lighten one's skin which is weird). Then to dish out intelligence God(s), started in the south and went north. (Southern Indians are generally higher educated and more literate than northern Indians, and many northern Indian groups such as Punjabi's are stereotyped as being dumb).   Then starting in the west God(s) began to give out wealth and worked his way east (Western India is where some of the richest Indian states are such as Gujarat and Punjab, and is also where Mumbai/Bombay, the financial capital of India is located.  Additionally the Eastern states are some of the poorest states in India and many have insurgencies i.e. Maoists relating to the widespread poverty).  Finally, when it came to emotions God(s) started in the east and went west (East Indians are stereotyped as being very emotional and many of India's great artistic intellectuals and writers are from the east, with Kolkata/Calcutta generally regarded as the literary capital of India. The west Indians, especially Gujaratis, on the other hand are stereotyped as being interested in money and little else.)

While these are stereotypes and therefore not necessarily true, they are at least partly true like any decent stereotype and provide an interesting way of understanding India which is an extremely diverse country with many different languages and cultures inside the country.  Some other stereotypes that I have been repeatedly told is that people from southern India tend to be more laid back and easy-going, Punjabis are jolly people, and northern Indians are more aggressive.  The good thing about being here in Manipal is that I get to meet people from all over India without actually having to visit every part, which would take a long time.

Procrastination in India

As I sit here feeling uncomfortably full, dinner+ a box full of cereal, I realize that I have no desire to write the reasonable paper for class tomorrow.  Foolish of me to think that I could do this paper before it was due shortly now that I am in India.  Also despite looking like regular corn flakes, I believe the cereal actually has a some drug in it as I cannot stop eating the cereal when I have it or thinking about eating it when I run out of it.


Shakti must mean nicotine

Anyways a bit more about life here, I live in a boys hostel (dorm) as all the hostels are segregated by sex.  The girls have this awkward curfew where they have to be signed into and physically in their hostels by 10:30 at the moment although this is expected to be pushed back soon.  Luckily, Indians only feel that girls need to be back before its too late, so I have no curfew to speak of...I think.  Continuing on the conservative side, girl-boy relationships  here are 'interesting' involving a lot of close talking and awkwardly holding hands and thats about it.  I really should write this paper about Indian newspapers.  Must eat strawberry cereal.  Also wed. was Republic Day, a national holiday which meant no classes, and a very militant flag raising ceremony in which the contingents of students from various departments marched around the greens in formations.  On a side note the opposition BJP political party(hindu nationalist) called a state wide bandh (strike) which led to some regrettable road and business closures and bus stonings.  All that to support their minister who is being prosecuted for corruption and who has the brilliant defense of everyone else was doing it too. 

Time to write, but not really.

Live from the south

So finally getting the chance to update the blog on a pirated Internet connection as the infamous bureaucracy of India has yet to process the forms for my connection.  Anyways classes have started and I met Dean Goodman of SIS repeatedly much more than I've ever seen him in the US.  Even had lunch with him and a British nuclear physicist one day.   I have traveled around to several Jain and Hindu temple sights in the area and have been eating everything that is put in front of me with no problems so far.  I don't know generally what it is I am eating unless it is a type of bread or rice.  Lots of tasty, spicy multi-colored glop really.  The temperature over here is solidly in the 90s with reasonable humidity which wouldn't be terrible if one wasn't wearing pants or jeans, but that's what people wear.  This is the first study abroad program for manipal uni, so they have made a big deal about everything, which has been awkward at times as they give us a lot of attention.  The other American kids in the program, 7 girls, are all in the public health courses, which means that 2 of my classes are simply myself and the professor, and the others are with the Indian geopolitics students.  A little weird but should be manageable.  Additionally, the I seem to be adding a great deal to these classes as the professors and students regularly ask me wide ranging questions about the US such as how American protests are. 

So to conclude this ramble India is chaotic, colorful, hot, inexpensive (seriously like 1/6 the cost of things in the US somethings even cheaper) and extremely contradictory.