On pot!

My new credit course at college is a real treat :) Pair up something I've wanted to do for a long time with a German photographer and voila! Photography credit course!! :) Today was our first pucca field trip-to the Pottery town( actually very small village) close by...thanks to the Solar Eclipse and the pretty crazy myths people here have managed to weave around it, much of the pottery town was closed...at least, we didn't manage to catch any potters in action, as it were.

BUT, that didn't mean local colour disappointed.

Ye Holy Date

Trust my dad to know any Priest within a 5oo mile radius of himself. He told me during a Skype session recently that he'd got in touch a with a priest from Banaglore who was doing some time (ha ha!) in Colombo but would be returning soon.
Obviously the "daughter in India" was spoken about, the number was given etc. And of course I was told to "call him no putha when you have time".

I have to say the reason I called the priest (henceforth knows as Father) as fast as I did was because my good dad had told me he headed a Senior Citizens Home and I needed to get some elders to fill in a couple of questionnaires for a Psycho project.

Anyway, Father sounds very sweet on the phone and all that and we set up our "holy date"-I'll go to his church and from there he'll take me to an Elder's Home he knows(he does not head one, MY father as usual got his well-meaning wires crossed!)

After an amusing Auto ride during which I got semi-lost (I don't/can't do directions/roads)and spoke to my non-Hindi speaking Auto guy in broken Hindi, I reached.

I have a little game I play as I wait to meet someone for the first time. Based on what I know, what they sound like etc I build up a mental image...so that I can see how wonderfully off the mark I almost always am!

And boy oh boy! Father was not late 30's, stocky, close-cut haired or adult-acned!
Here is this tall,highly presentable, earl-30's guy in civvies!
So, Father says we can take off for the Home now...hang on he'll go get the bike.

BIKE?!

Holy Cow!Because,

a. I have never ridden a freaking bike before. and
b. Ride on the back of the bike with a Priest?!!
c. in Civvies?!

Father is now aviatore-d and helemt-ed and on the freaking bike. Oh get on he says, in a kindly pastor way. I explain that I have never done that before but it doesn't seem to bother him overmuch...so I eye the seat behind him and think that may be I should sit side-saddle, this might be more demure right? It's a PRIEST for God's sake!
Then father very helpfully says no I think you should sit astride...OKAY THEN!
i swing my leg over the seat and settle by bottom behind the clergyman's....And oh god I was sure I was going to fall off, and if I do what do I hold on to? I can't exactly wrap my arms around Father's trim waist!

I grope around behind me and find some wire-rack thing to hang onto finally and WHOOSH! we're off! And the mortification,the sheer, unadulterated mortification, the momentum of the take-off makes me semi-grasp Father's shoulder!
I heave a deep, internal sigh.

Poor Father suggests that i can hang on to the wire rack. i die.

So Father and I on our mo-bike speed away across the crowded streets of Bagalore to the Home...I spend the first few minutes cringing...My God what if someone sees?! but Father is a real sweetheart and gets me talking about school and family and all that and soon I'm enjoying my very first bike ride...with none other than the freaking clergy!!

Beat that :D

The Mad guy and the Bournvita

There's apparently a mad guy-the politically correct terms I think would be deranged individual or mentally unstable individual- roaming around "Loafer's Lane", the quintessential road opposite college where everyone basically...loafs.

When K was telling us about it today she added that he slapped our friend S in the face yesterday, in front of the college gates. The concept of unholy mirth overtook me and I snorted only to realize that shit! This wasn't supposed to be funny!
But all throughout the harrowing story, my mouth was twitching....even during the part where she told us S started crying, poor thing. No really, poor thing....S is an extremely sweet person, she comes up to me everyday and gives me a BIG bear hug, and she's all of 4 feet :)

I often have these times when something very serious is being said, and I can't stop laughing...needless to say, no one shares in my humour. It's a bit uncomfortable actually!

Now,I'm torn between going down Loafer's and buying that essential bottle of Bournevita OR taking a bath, blaming it on the mad man and just staying in.

The choices of life I tell you.

Just Because...

Gmail is taking so very long to upload my much-thought-over Selections for the photo comp at College, I now post one of my personal favourites-which I had to leave out of the said comp because it didn't really rhyme with the theme of "Life in College".

Ok may be 2 of my personal favourites :)

Walking the talk

SINCE I've been hankering to do some volunteering work for the past say one year-read hankering as talking about it and not doing anything about it at all-I was glad when an alumnus of our College working for the India Literacy Project in Bangalore barged into Socio class(yeah we were thrilled, especially since the current class was on cultural diversity in India or some other riveting topic) and told us that they were on the look-out for volunteers.

Woo-hoo, was all I could think.

So, two weeks back on Saturday my fellow college-is-so-blah companion Rosh and I went to this supposed library-she had been there before so I had the advantage of rave reviews.



It touched me. And it inspired my world-weary (yeah I love my drama!!) soul to write. Here's something I posted on the ILP Blog.Have a look-see if you feel like it :)



http://ilpindia.blogspot.com/