Speeches and Concerts

Writing this I kind of feel like the old days when I used to catch up on my journal weeks behind and try to put in everything that happened and everything that I felt about it. I won't do that, but I'll try to fill in some things between Tuesday the 10th and Monday (the 16th). I'll write about the next week later.

So, Wednesday (the 11th) we went to that concert Kalayani invited us to. We didn't stay to the end because we had to leave before the autorickshaws stopped working. That event was unusual, because we sat in the back, had no pictures taken of us, and barely got looked at. Thursday (the 12th) we went to another event, one that I enjoyed extremely, because it was a folk dance concert. We arrived in the middle of the event and tried to head inconspicuously to the middle where our friend Jaya was sitting with her cousin. We were sliding in when they nabbed us. We were put us on the first row, on the benches reserved for special guests. That gave us a really good view of the dancing and all the photographers freedom to get lots of shots of us enjoying the show from practically every angle. Several times. This was the first dance we were there for all of, and my favorite. That guy in the front on the far right had that vacant expression on the whole time, and the main guy was perfect at acting out his part to the music.


These guys had mustaches drawn on.


They had us get up and give a speech in the middle. I feel like I'm getting better at doing this now, because it always seems to be required. I just get up and simply say that I'm an American, that I'm here as a tourist for a few months, that I love Telugu culture and that I'm looking forward to learning about it during the time I'm here. And I insert something about the event I'm at; in this case, that I love folk dancing and that I'm enjoying all of the performances very much.

Thursday we also attended a speech at the same place Dr. Nuckolls gave his speech (Andhra University), this one by Dr. Nuckolls, or rather, Mrs. Dr. Nuckolls. They didn't give us snacks this time, probably because someone informed them that we don't drink tea and so they cut out the whole deal. Which made me sad. I had to snatch some of the vice chancellor's biscuits after he'd left. And I didn't feel bad about it at all, because he'd been teasing us about marrying Telugu men and telling us that Telugu is difficult to learn but it would be easier for us if we love Telugu food. Obviously that man deserved to have his biscuits eaten. Especially after he'd left the room and wasn't coming back.

Saturday (the 14th) we went to a university function at GITAM university, because Krishnayya's brother is the warden there and he invited all of us. I don't think we were expected in force, but most of us came. These decorations were all over on the floors. They often do these sorts of designs with chalk on floors, but these are flower petals. They're called rangoli in Hindi, and something else in Telugu, I forget the word.


The opening speeches were a bit dull, but the main speech was interesting. It was given by a big-shot economist from Hyderabad, Dr. Sanjaya Banu. They passed out a written version of his talk so we could all follow along with him. I'd never seen that done before, but it's kind of nice. If any of you would like to know what he said, I have the whole thing written out for you. After the speech students gave vocal and dance performances, which got progressively more entertaining. I think wild was the word Dr. Nuckolls used. He had us leave after not many, much to our regret. (And no, Mom, there was nothing sketchy about them. The just were things like people dancing in robot costumes to film music or making patterns with people in spandex suits the colors of the flag to the national anthem.)

We were all given official-looking ribbons to wear, since we were obviously important people or something. Something.