Monday (the 16th) we headed to Kakinada for a university function there. The vice chancellor of this university was very nice. I didn't feel the need to steal any biscuits from him. When we arrived we had our picture taken with him and sat and spoke with him for a while. They gave us each a rose, and I was satisfied in the desire I'd had to get a bouquet sometime. This is Becky posing with hers later that night.
Then we went down to the function and sat in the plushy chairs in the front. The speeches were boring but not very long. We were invited because the function was about internationalizing the school, and I guess we kind of represented that. Anyway, we were invited to come up and be introduced by Krishnayya and say a few words. When Krishnayya said that I was there to study Telugu movies and that I loved them, I got tremendous cheers and applause. He said that my favorite hero is Prabhas, and there was more cheering. (As you may remember, this is a terrible falsehood. I love Prabhas, but Mahesh Babu still holds first place. But whatever.) He said that I was "also a big fan of Superstar Krishna's son--what's his name?--Mahesh Babu!" and that got the most cheers yet. Which showed good taste. I was a little nervous to speak to all these cheering people, but I said hi. Libby whispered to me to say some of my favorite movies, so I mentioned Athadu and got lots more applause. It was all a little dizzying.
After all the speech giving was over they presented us each with a huge bouquet.
And a gift bag with a present in it. Those who have opened theirs tell me it's a mug.
And a framed copy of the picture they took when we met the vice chancellor earlier that day.
It was pretty crazy. Did I mention that they passed out water bottles and food to everyone during the speeches? Yup. And not just crackers. It was real food. I should have taken a picture.
After all of this was over it was the students turn to do performances. That was entertaining and fun. As we left all the girls, who were sitting on the other side of the red carpet from the boys, kept calling out my name, waving, and saying bye. "Rosie! Rosie!" "Bye! Bye!" You definitely become popular here when you love Telugu films and Telugu heroes.
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.
Tuesday we went to Vizianagaram. We visited the fort there, which had been functional and had even housed the king until about forty years ago. It's now an elementary school.
We realized when were there that when BYU says "The world is our campus," they're not kidding. Our slogans are everywhere.
After visiting the fort we went to see the current king at the palace where he now lives. This is the king who facilitated our visit to the inner sanctum of the Simhachalam temple. Jain painted this picture to give to him. It is of the relief above the elephant drain I uploaded a picture of earlier. He was very pleased with the painting.
The king and his family served us lunch. He was very gracious, but not as interesting as you might think. His palace is not much more than a much bigger version of our apartment, and he and his wife and daughter were not grandly dressed. They did have many priceless objects, though, including pictures with and notes from Queen Elizabeth, a sword given by the Prince of Wales 130 years ago, a Mogul box, and a 16th century Portugese map of India, among other things. My favorite things in his house, though, were the pictures of his family. These were his grandparents.
After lunch we went to see an old palace that is now a guest house. It was a little more along the lines of what we expected a palace to look like. This was the palace of the king of Bobbili.
Bobbili kings must have really loved hunting, because there were all kinds of animal heads stuck on the wall and whole stuffed ones lining the rooms. This one became functional.
We wandered around there taking pictures of things while some newspaper men wandered around taking pictures of us. This is Becky on the front porch.
We went to another palace when we'd finished there. It is sort of falling into ruin, but it is still functioning as a Bobbili museum and has some offices in it that are used. We met the Prince of Bobbili there. He explained a lot to us about the war a few hundred years ago. He was also very nice. These were from the sort of museum upstairs.
After we were done there we stopped again at the traditional temple of the Bobbili kings. It was a long day, and it sort of felt like I was a little kid again going site-seeing with my parents. This was probably amplified by the fact that the car we were in had no air conditioning, and the trip there and back was more than two hours long each way. I think it was the kind of day that sounds cooler than it actually was, but it was still pretty good.
Monday was Mahesh Babu's birthday, a popular cinema hero here and my favorite actor. Becky and I attended his birthday festivities held by his fan organization in Vizag. K.P., who took us, got us introduced to a character actress and singer who was there named Kalayani. We were taken to sit with her right up next to the stage. She gave us this invitation to her concert on Wednesday. Her picture is on it.
My understanding of what happened up on the stage is pretty limited, since it was in Telugu, but I do know that they were chanting "Long live Mahesh Babu" and that they gave saris to some poor old women. The women pretty much knocked Becky out of her seat thronging the stage.
Before we left a camera crew from a TV channel stuck their microphones in front of us and asked us to say where we were from and wish Mahesh a happy birthday. We did so, although we were a little embarrassed by the attention. As we left we were handed these.
I'm sure Cindy is jealous of our Mahesh Babu masks. We'll see if we can get some Prabhas ones for you on his birthday.
Saturday we left around seven in the morning and drove out of urban Vizag, through rural Vizag, and into India's Eastern Ghats. It was an incredibly beautiful drive, through steep hills covered in lush jungle. My camera needed to be charged that day, so I didn't really take any pictures. I'll borrow a few from Megan, and maybe sometime later I'll get some more from other people. It was a day for pictures. This one must have been taken over some sort of overlook when the vegetation was not on that side. It might give you some kind of idea how gorgeous it was.
We went to the Borra Caves, which has a very impressive entrance. We hiked around through that cave and lots of pictures were taken, but only by a few of us, since we had to pay to take cameras in. Perhaps someday I'll put up some of those if I ever get them and if anyone's interested.
After visiting the cave we drove to a place called NATURE, an agency to promote the well-being of Indian tribals. When I first heard the term "Indian tribals," I wasn't really sure what that meant, but Rammohan, who is getting his PhD on an aspect of these cultures, explained a bit about them to us. They are people who are outside mainstream Hinduism and Indian culture, with their own dialects, traditions, and ways of life. They don't look quite like other Indians, they wear their saris differently, and they just generally are different. They live in small villages and farm. There are fourteen tribes in this general area, (as in, within a few hours drive), and over four hundred tribes in India. The Indian government has set aside land for these people in order to stop encroachment and exploitation from the population at large. I think he said that 28% of India's land is set aside for these people, who are about 8% of the population. Their population does not grow much because of very high mortality rates.
The NATURE people gave us lunch, showed us around their facilities, and explained what they do to us. They sang us a really beautiful song and demonstrated deemsa for us. Deemsa is, I think, the name of the dance the tribal women do. The men beat drums and use tambourines, and the woman in front of the line starts doing a step which the other women copy. When she wants to she changes it, and when the men want to they switch up the rhythm. This song from Nuvvostantate Nenodantana has the heroine doing this dance for a few seconds, about 2:47 to 2:54. The scenery during her part of that song is very like the area we were in later that day.
Most of the workers at NATURE were guys, but they demonstrated it to us anyway. Then they grabbed Kelly and put her in the middle of their line and encouraged the rest of us to join in, too. It was so much fun. I love love love folk dancing, and this kind is a kind I especially like. In the course of that dance I damaged a bangle, broke my sandal, and mostly unattached my big toenail, but it was so worth it.
After that we drove out to a tribal village, or at least as close as we could get by car. We walked the rest of the way, and since my shoe was broken I did it barefoot. It was an incredibly scenic walk.
The people at the village were very shy. Rammohan says they're shy with them, the mainstream Indians, and they had never seen white people before. One of the little girls giggled and hid when I waved at her, and we played peek-a-boo for a while from a distance of twenty yards or so with her giggling all the time. After we'd been there for a bit more people slowly came out to see us.
They also performed deemsa for us, and again we joined in, with less mishaps this time (not that it was the guys' fault before; it wasn't). These are the guys playing the drums for us, and us dancing with the women.
When we left, the little kids followed us for quite a ways waving and yelling at us to turn around and wave back, (at least I assume that's what they were saying). When a couple of the girls tried to go back a little closer to catch a picture of it, they ran, but they came back and continued waving at us almost until we had reached the car.
Thursday Dr. Nuckolls gave a lecture at Andra University on Globalization and Marginalization, which was much longer and more interesting than I'd anticipated. Much of the proceedings were much like lectures I'd attended at BYU. Someone introduced the speaker, mentioning all their accolades, the speaker spoke, people asked some questions that the speaker addressed, and everyone clapped.
There were a few differences, though. For one, they brought us snacks in the middle of it, which I thought was pretty cool.
They gave Dr. Nuckolls a bouquet, a trophy, and a scarf thing, I'm not quite sure what they're called. They also took tons and tons of pictures of the speaker and the audience throughout the entire speech and again afterward. These pictures appeared in four newspapers, including one that mentioned that I was a Mahesh Babu fan, which I assume Dr. Nuckolls must have mentioned to someone there, because I didn't.
Speaking of having my picture taken, I think I'm sure I've already had hundreds taken in the little over a week I've been here. People take them on the sly, people take them without any attempt to be sly, people come up and ask us to pose with them, and people take our pictures at events like this one. We tourists are almost a tourist attraction ourselves.
This is Becky down the three steep steps into our bedroom.
A close-up.
This is the study off of our room.
This is our living area. The closed door on the right is the bathroom, to the left of it is the shower room, and the doorway to the left of that goes into Jain's room, which has a kitchen attached.
Ode to an Indian Dipper. This is me pretending to take a bath in the shower room. I'm not actually taking a bath in that picture.
This is the bathroom. There's another large bucket with a dipper under a spicket which you can't see because it's behind the door.
This is Becky on our terrace.
Here she is on the steps that go the the upper level of the terrace.
