Hi there!
Busy, busy week! Let's start with a little bit about Hinduism. After Srini's effortless attempts to explain me some of the Hindu deities, I came to the conclusion that it is impossible to recognise every symbol and god/ess in just two weeks time... (yes, today's 14 days since I arrived). One thing is for sure, there's not only one deity (like Catholicism ), and there are different asigned roles for each deity, as well as family bonds among them, even aliases for a single deitiy. Srini explained me some of the main Hindu deities by drawing their bonds in a piece of paper which, unfortunately, I don't have right now, so I cannot explain what I learned that day.
So yesterday (29th) was Krishna's birthday. Hindus fast for the whole day (28th) to focus on this festivity until 00:00 on the next day (29th) were all the people gather at the temple and pray for Krishna. It's also the end of their fasting time so they have lots of food and even Hindu music. I could see dozens of people gathering at Venugopal temple (near my house), even with an unexpected downpour above their heads. They queued at the entrance of a small cabin where the statue lays and people offer herbs to it as a worship.
Yesterday we all gathered at the MCES and went to an office to celebrate Krisha's birthday. We stood in front of a small wooden Krishna temple and listened to a man dressed in typcal Hindu outfits chanting some prayers. Then we were given some flowers or small green leaves to be offered to Krishna's statue while a young cute girl sang some words in Hindi or Kannata (I don't know how to distinguish them). After the Pooja (celebration), we had some Indian sweets and went back to work.
And big news! Yesterday I had my first lecture at university. For one hour I spoke about Spanish culture and socio-cultural impact across History. I explained a little bit about Spain's history, from the foundation of Cartago Nova by the Phoenicious until the glorious Spanish empire and its decadence. They were quite amazed by our traditions (San Fermines, Tomatina), our Islamic invasion and its vestiges across the south, and also some of the Spanish inventions that are more popular nowadays: table football, mopping stick, submarine... We ended up watching some videos about Fogueres de Sant Joan, San Fermines and even Paco de Lucía playing "Entre dos aguas". A short journey through our different architectonic currents, artists, golden century, landscapes etc. After explaining all these concepts I though to myself how lucky I am for having the chance of knowing my culture, for understanding our history and for how rich and multicultural we are if compared to other nations. I don't feel patriotic, I don't feel proud. One cannot feel proud of something that happened by chance, we didn't choose to be born in Spain, it's all about luck. So I can only think of fortune when I think about this. Still there are tons of people who ignore our History and our culture, who just live the present without caring about how things evolved up to now. We must acknowledge the importance of knowing our past to understand what's going on at present.
And drawing this post to a close, yesteday evening we went to Udupi! Udupi is the main city near Manipal, just 6 km far from here. Lots of people celebrated Krishna's birthday there. We visited the temple and its amazing pond. There were a lot of things to be learned but, seriously, I just cannot learn everything at first, it will take me some time... We saw a show where some young boys dressed like tigers and danced in circles while music just played by some. We had a nice stroll around Udupi's streets among the crowds, it quite resembled like fairs in small towns from La Mancha: men selling tacky (very tacky) souvenirs, street food, kids playing with balloons, lights... And here I come to the most exciting fact of the day. I finally saw my first elephant!!! Its name is Subhadra (as in the title) and apparently it sleeps at Udupi's temple (meaning that I can go and visit her everyday!!!). The coooooolest thing of it was that people gave money to Subhadra in order to pet her. Then, the elephant would touch your head with the tip of her trunk, and later (how cool), the elephant gives the money to its owner (LOL). Basically, the elephant works as a money-maker machine. Still I've got to love it.
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Quick update: I went to the FRO (foreign registration office) at Udupi to sort out all my paperwork. The VERY KIND policeman (notice my sarcasm) told me to go back to Spain and issue another visa for me because mine was wrong. Apparently, after learning how to read a **** text, he realised I was right so my Employment visa is completely valid for my stay (it was just some strange exception concerning language trainers). Btw, I have 40 pupils so far which will be divided into two batches. Next monday I'll start my Spanish lessons, so I will tell you how it is going. Stay tuned and...
SUBHADRA!
Subhadra taking a walk around Udupi. I'll visit her more often, I promise
Udupi's temple pond. Beautiful, huh?
Busy, busy week! Let's start with a little bit about Hinduism. After Srini's effortless attempts to explain me some of the Hindu deities, I came to the conclusion that it is impossible to recognise every symbol and god/ess in just two weeks time... (yes, today's 14 days since I arrived). One thing is for sure, there's not only one deity (like Catholicism ), and there are different asigned roles for each deity, as well as family bonds among them, even aliases for a single deitiy. Srini explained me some of the main Hindu deities by drawing their bonds in a piece of paper which, unfortunately, I don't have right now, so I cannot explain what I learned that day.
So yesterday (29th) was Krishna's birthday. Hindus fast for the whole day (28th) to focus on this festivity until 00:00 on the next day (29th) were all the people gather at the temple and pray for Krishna. It's also the end of their fasting time so they have lots of food and even Hindu music. I could see dozens of people gathering at Venugopal temple (near my house), even with an unexpected downpour above their heads. They queued at the entrance of a small cabin where the statue lays and people offer herbs to it as a worship.
Yesterday we all gathered at the MCES and went to an office to celebrate Krisha's birthday. We stood in front of a small wooden Krishna temple and listened to a man dressed in typcal Hindu outfits chanting some prayers. Then we were given some flowers or small green leaves to be offered to Krishna's statue while a young cute girl sang some words in Hindi or Kannata (I don't know how to distinguish them). After the Pooja (celebration), we had some Indian sweets and went back to work.
And big news! Yesterday I had my first lecture at university. For one hour I spoke about Spanish culture and socio-cultural impact across History. I explained a little bit about Spain's history, from the foundation of Cartago Nova by the Phoenicious until the glorious Spanish empire and its decadence. They were quite amazed by our traditions (San Fermines, Tomatina), our Islamic invasion and its vestiges across the south, and also some of the Spanish inventions that are more popular nowadays: table football, mopping stick, submarine... We ended up watching some videos about Fogueres de Sant Joan, San Fermines and even Paco de Lucía playing "Entre dos aguas". A short journey through our different architectonic currents, artists, golden century, landscapes etc. After explaining all these concepts I though to myself how lucky I am for having the chance of knowing my culture, for understanding our history and for how rich and multicultural we are if compared to other nations. I don't feel patriotic, I don't feel proud. One cannot feel proud of something that happened by chance, we didn't choose to be born in Spain, it's all about luck. So I can only think of fortune when I think about this. Still there are tons of people who ignore our History and our culture, who just live the present without caring about how things evolved up to now. We must acknowledge the importance of knowing our past to understand what's going on at present.
And drawing this post to a close, yesteday evening we went to Udupi! Udupi is the main city near Manipal, just 6 km far from here. Lots of people celebrated Krishna's birthday there. We visited the temple and its amazing pond. There were a lot of things to be learned but, seriously, I just cannot learn everything at first, it will take me some time... We saw a show where some young boys dressed like tigers and danced in circles while music just played by some. We had a nice stroll around Udupi's streets among the crowds, it quite resembled like fairs in small towns from La Mancha: men selling tacky (very tacky) souvenirs, street food, kids playing with balloons, lights... And here I come to the most exciting fact of the day. I finally saw my first elephant!!! Its name is Subhadra (as in the title) and apparently it sleeps at Udupi's temple (meaning that I can go and visit her everyday!!!). The coooooolest thing of it was that people gave money to Subhadra in order to pet her. Then, the elephant would touch your head with the tip of her trunk, and later (how cool), the elephant gives the money to its owner (LOL). Basically, the elephant works as a money-maker machine. Still I've got to love it.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Quick update: I went to the FRO (foreign registration office) at Udupi to sort out all my paperwork. The VERY KIND policeman (notice my sarcasm) told me to go back to Spain and issue another visa for me because mine was wrong. Apparently, after learning how to read a **** text, he realised I was right so my Employment visa is completely valid for my stay (it was just some strange exception concerning language trainers). Btw, I have 40 pupils so far which will be divided into two batches. Next monday I'll start my Spanish lessons, so I will tell you how it is going. Stay tuned and...
SUBHADRA!
Subhadra taking a walk around Udupi. I'll visit her more often, I promise
Udupi's temple pond. Beautiful, huh?
Este comentario ha sido eliminado por el autor.
ResponderEliminarCreo que ha desaparecido mi comentario anterior, intento escribir otra vez lo mismo. No te sentirás orgulloso de ser español porque crees que no es necesario, pero por aquí hay un puñado de españoles orgullosos de ti, empezando seguro por tus padres, claro. No digo nada tu madre pensando en que enseñes historia. Que envidia me entra cuando leo tus textos, por lo bien que escribes en inglés y por el pedazo de experiencia que estas viviendo, y no ha hecho más que empezar. Un abrazo. Juanra
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