A Day in the Life of those around me….

As we live in the village and not within the temple ‘walls’ I have the opportunity to watch the local Bengalis, my neighbours going about their day. As mentioned previously, we live on the third floor and I often watch a few of my neighbours. I feel like a bit of a ‘perv’ but I do hope one day I will be able to meet and communicate with them.

I can see into the back of one neighbour’s house where there is the water pump and thus a constant place of activity, creaking away with every downward pump on the handle. On the left side is an outhouse and on the other side is a 2.5 metre waterhole where all the run-off from the water pump goes. It is fairly stagnant and, no doubt, a source of many mosquitoes. But dogs and birds will come by to steal a drink when they can. Behind this is the back yard where all the garbage and food scraps are tossed. Dogs, cows and the occasional goat or even jackal will scavenge through this for a feed.

I have counted an elderly couple who I assume are husband and wife and I’m probably correct. There is a man about 30 years old who I’ve seen, but mostly I see 2 women, about mid-20 to 30 years. They are the most active at the pump.

In fact, there is a regular program around that pump. Around 3.30 every morning the old man comes out for his morning bath. I lie in bed and listen to the creaking of the pump handle as it echoes through the stillness of the early morning. He collects the water into his lotah, or brass bathing pot. He fills it over and over and as he pours the cold water over himself he shouts out, “Nitai Gauranga! Nitai Gauranga!” in his elderly yet strong voice, calling out the names of those transcendental brothers, over and over again until he is finished. No one ever bathes naked in India and he carefully cleans himself with his kumcha, or short ‘sarong’ in place. Then he goes inside and begins his morning puja or worship. Sometimes he plays his harmonium and sings his scales and then chants lovely bhajans. But more often he plays his karatals, brass cymbals, and chants Hare Krsna. I image they have family deities and every morning he worships them with prayers, kirtan (chanting) and puja (offerings). I think this because later his wife will come out with the arotik trays, the trays used for the puja, and wash these under the pump.

By 5.30 the younger ladies of the house come out. First one of them will go up on the roof and sweep it clean because this is where they will hang the laundry. Then they take turns. One will wash their laundry while the other reaches for their toothbrush (no they aren't sharing toothbrushes...) kept in a stainless steel cup that is nailed to the wall. Then one will disappear into the outhouse and the other will take their bath, fully dressed. Without changing she will take her laundry up onto the roof and hang it out while she herself dries off in the cool morning air as it is only just spring and so cool to cold before the sun rises enough to warm the temperature. Then the other one will do the same thing. Eventually the old lady will come out and bath. Sometimes she has some dishes to wash.

Around 2 or 3 pm, one of the ladies brings out 2 children, a boy and a girl, about 7 or 8 years old, which I assume are hers. Earlier I will have seen them come home from school and now the mother will give each one a bath while they try to play and laugh with each other.

Here is the family with their outdoor pump. This is one of the ladies giving her children a mid-day bath...

...while they laugh and tease each other.

A truck loaded with gravel for another building couldn't fit throught the gate here and so dumped his load on the road and blocking through traffic...not that there is much. But nobody complains, no problem. The workers will simply move the gravel from here into place...

They will shovel a load into a basket that you can see the man on the left walking away with on his head...

 ...he hands this to another man along the path and they carefully swap the load over...

He will continue with the load...

...and will swap this with yet another man until the load reaches its final destination.

When a truck load of building material arrives the back is first opened and as usual there will be some material that falls out the back. Then several men will get in the back on top of the load and force down a rod to the bottom of the load. A measurement is taken while other men will carefully watch the procedure. Then the calculations are done and a price agreed upon for the unloading of what is left in the truck. The customer will not pay for what has fallen out the back of the truck naturally but will only pay for what will actually be manually removed. Here you can see there are 2 men on shovels with ropes attached and 2 men outside the truck holding onto those ropes. They will pull on the ropes as the other men are shovelling the gravel out thus having 2 men per shovel.

On the other side of our apartment is yet another building going up. We watched them from our rooftop as they were pouring concrete for the topmost floor they were working on. Well, not pouring exactly! There was a steady queue of workers/wallas who were carrying the cement on their heads from the area where all the materials were dumped and being mixed by hand. I haven't seen a single wheelbarrow in all of India! I took a video of it and I will try to upload it here - but you know the lack of success I am having with up loading certain videos Let's see how we go.

Yes, I know. It's on its side. One day I will find a program that will help me turn these right side up. But till then you get the picture...if it will load up that is! Hope so, cus it is pretty damn fascinating! So quit your complaining!

Oh yes! It worked! Plus I worked out how to fix the previously promised videos so that I can post them. But that will be another day. Time for bed now.

Bhas gets down with the natives

Yes, yes. There have been several complaints that I haven’t updated the blog for some time. Several weeks, I think. But I have been busy and not too well so now I am doing something…so quit ya complaining!

 There have been several doubts how Bhas was going to cope with the locals here. Ok, I had my doubts. But my fears were groundless  as he gets on amazingly well with them and they even LIKE him! Who'd've thunk it? Although, when he accompanies me on business he takes on his 'Kebers' persona and becomes curt and rude while complaining about prices and how they aren't giving us enough of a discount, when on the street or anywhere else he gets quite chummy and they all laugh at his jokes and antics...once they get used to him. Many shopkeepers say they think he is very nice and peaceful and calm. Oooookay....whatevers.

It has been great to be with him traveling around as being a male he can more easily become involved in dialogues more readily than I can as a female. Woman aren't exactly segregated nor 'kept inside' but they are shier by nature, usually in groups around the home which I don't necessarily have ready access to and aren't involved in businesses very much especially in the villages. This is generally the man's domain and so males are usually more accessible. I do have conversations and freindships with the vendors I work with and regularly get invited to their homes for lunch where I will meet their wives, but usually they don't speak English and I suck at learning languages (though I am trying).

But Bhas will regularly and easily strike up a conversation with anyone. Sometimes there may be a group of men sitting around of an evening and if we loiter around long enough we are eventually invited over to join them. Invariably the conversation leads to cricket and as the world cup series has just concluded this is a hot topic indeed. Especially as India just won the cup there is much joy and delight throughout the nation. We were traveling from Delhi to Vrindavan on the day of the match and where ever we stopped people were huddled around a TV watching the game. Bhas would stop and watch and engage in discussions about the game - not that he is a big cricket fan, but he is reading papers and trying to catch-up. We knew that India had won when as we were lying down to go to bed that night and fireworks were going off. "India must have won the cricket" we deduced!

Another day while bathing down at the Ganges, Bhas made friends with many locals who were fascinated with him (I don't get it myself...). Somehow he attracted the attention of a group of young men who were visiting in Mayapura for the day. They stopped Bhas...

bailed him up...

 ... questions were being fired away and explanations given...

"These are JAPA BEADS. We chant on them everyday. We chant HARE KRSNA HARE KRSNA KRSNA KRSNA HARE HARE                      HARE RAMA HARE RAMA RAMA RAMA HARE HARE...

"One mantra for each bead...

 These are counter beads. We go around all the beads 16 times and 

keep track of our rounds with these counter beads."

I don't know what he is saying here...

But now I've been spotted!

 Dad pretends to bowl...

Buddies...

 ...calling over other buddies.

They were very impressed with Bhas and they told me they thought he was a very good man.

A typical day in the life....

So we have been here in Mayapura for 2.5 weeks and in India for a month now. Getting more into the flow of daily life now rather than the day to day festivities that the previous weeks have held. I am not doing as much Krishna.com work while here as all my vendors are in Vrindavan, but I have found a number of new suppliers of various items and have also located another "my man in India" for this area which is really helpful. I use to know this young Bengali, Sujitendriya das, when he was in the gurukula (devotee school) in Mayapura in 1986 when I was here. He speaks perfectly good English having grown in the ashram with so many American and Australian boys that he speaks like a native with a very light accent. But he is still a Bengali so he a great resource for me and will help me with a number of things such as perhaps finding a new apartment, bikes, fabric supplier and tailor and other things. He was also the married to the granddaughter of Srila Prabhupada, but sadly, in 2006 she drowned in the Ganges during the floods along with one of their 2 daughters and brother-in-law. He is such a nice and friendly fellow, but as soon as the humour or talk dies down you can see the heartache in his eyes. He is still struggling to get over his loss. He still has another daughter who is living with him and his sister.

Now that we have settled in more we have a bit of a daily schedule going on. We rise at 3.15 am - 3.30, take our bucket bath and dress for the temple. I actually heat a pot of water on the gas stove while I brush my teeth and hair. The morning program starts at 4.30 and it is about a 15 minute walk from here to there. Mangal arotik (early morning services), Nrishingha arotik (services for Lord Nrishinghadeva) and tulasi arotik (services for Tulasi devi) are all finished by about 5.30 followed by any announcements. Then it is japa meditation time until the next half of the program at 7 am, Greeting of the Deities, one altar at a time then Srila Prabhupada's guru Puja. After this, class begins at about 8 - 8.15 and lasts till about 9am. Before class, however, I will go outside to the mahaprashadam stands and buy some Calzone or pizza to take back with me after class. You can't wait until after class as it will be all gone by then. There are also many kinds of cakes, cookies, traditional Indian milk sweets and more.

It will be about 9.30 - 10.00 by the time I get home, have another bath, because by now we will be hot and bothered by walking home, usually carrying 5 litres of filtered drinking water that the temple sells for rs. 2/lt. - a bargain when the exchange rate is rs 45/$1 and then have breakfast. Check my emails and other such computer stuffs and take a nap unless Sabhita, my new servant (yes, servant as she will do what I ask for the 1-2 hours she is here), has arrived in which case I wait till she leaves. Sabhita is a very petite and sweet young thing, probably in her early 20s but many Indians don't have a clue how old they are never celebrating or even taking note of the day they were born, boys and girls alike. She sweeps, mops, dusts even the windows - remember how dusty I told you it is here. She washes the dishes, cleans the bathroom, washes the clothes and when I bring an iron from Vrindavan, she will iron for me as well. She does less than an hour a day for which I pay her rs 30/day which is a third more than she gets from anyone else. She was very delighted and giggled when I agreed to her price, knowing that it is usually rs 20 an hour. But she will stay for up to 2 hours if I need her to. Maybe if I should ever deign to cook again I might ask her to assist me. Wonder if she is a good cook......... hmmmmm.....

So there's half the day right there. Second half consists of trying not to over heat by staying inside. Our apartment is actually quite hot as it is on the top floor right under the roof which will always collect the most heat. We are trying to make arrangements to either move, as I've said, or put in an air conditioner and refridgerator. Everyday a subji walla, or fruits and veg. man comes to my door and tries, successfully, to sell me some fruit or vegetables. This isn't the best way to shop and I will have to make other arrangements with another 'temple' subji walla who speaks very good English, is on the phone and you just tell him everything you want and he will go to Nabadwip across the Ganga and get it for you, usually at a more reliable price. With this other subji walla you have to barter on the price of everything. Sigh... Actually, I won't use him again as he way over-charged me for some veggies the other day, didn't have change for rs.500 with a rs.190 bill and, needless to say, we haven't seen him since! Told dad not to do it...but to be fair, we have been out during the middle of the day for the last 2 days since we last saw him...but I don't believe he would have come back anyway!

Lunch is served between 1-1.30 and 1.30-2.00. We will usually try to make one of these times if we are hungry, which Bhas almost always is. Lunch is a mini-feast served on plates made of dried round leaves held together with small twigs and are usually 2-3 layers thick and will have a swerving of pickles and salt sitting there. 2 kinds of rice, dahl, 2 subjis one with curd, chappatis, chutney, and followed up with sweet rice and rasgullas are served everyday.

Bhaskara will go over to the office around mid-day, before or after lunch and today I was asked if I could work in one of the offices as a secretary and entering data into a database. I don't know when I'll start or if as I still have a bit of traveling to do before I am more settled here...plus I want to avoid the really hot months of May and June but we'll see.

4pm will see most of the devotees head to the Ganga to take bath and cool down. It is always such a relief and calming whenever we get it together and go. We may go back home or over to the temple if I have business with some one or need to pick up some supplies. There are a bevy of shops, both inside and outside the temple campus, all along the temple wall. There is even a health food store of European origin. There are actually 3 different temples within the temple compound, or campus as they say here and we may attend one of the evening arotiks at this time. If we are hungry, which I'm not usually, but Bhas almost always is! we can either get evening prashad from any of 3 kitchens or go to the Govinda's restaurant here. No shortage of eating places here and virtually never a need to cook. And since writing this post, I have discovered another 4 eating places, including a bakery, also within the campus.

Usually tired at this point and don't feel like walking so either take a rickshaw or a flaat which, like a rickshaw, is driven like a bike, but instead of seats for 2 it has a wooden flat bed that can carry many passengers as well as items. We pay about 10 rs for the pleasure. I tend to prefer the flaats as the seats on the rickshaws are very uncomfortable and for some reason always slope downward maybe hoping you will slide right off.

I brought my camera down to the Ganga this afternoon. Here are some pictures:

He started out cranky...

 ...but after a beautiful bath in Mother Ganga...

...along with others...

...having a good time...

 ...more good times...

...still more good times...

 ...(where did he go?)...

...a beautiful sunset...

...the great views...

...still great sunset...

 ...still many more good times...

 ...

...

 ...and more people having...

... still many many more good times... 

(yes, you need to have seen the famous series of cookbooks from the 'Daughters of Hawaii Civic Center' of a similar title to understand in grammar/humor')

....   ...  worshiping and being grateful for

.... the cooling waters...

...along with  a quick dip...

 ...new friends...

               ...boats in the distance...

...and cricket with the Indian team, Dad was happy once again! Next post I will tell you about how Bhas gets on with the locals...who would have thunk?!

Up On the Roof

हरे क्र्सना हरे क्र्सना क्र्सना क्र्सना हरे हरे

हरे राम हरे राम राम राम हरे हरे

23 March 2011

Today we went up on the roof to hang out the laundry. Did the bedding today so there was too much for the little line on our veranda. We took pictures all around our building. Hope you like them...

Facing toward the main road coming into Mayapura. You can see 2 lines over head from the clothes line. Fascinating isn't this?

 This is facing the south end of the temple complex. You can see one of the several guesthouses, this one named "Vamsi Vadhan" building. Many of the Australians were staying in here this festival.

In the background here you can see a large crane which is part of the new temple construction. You can just make out the new floor for the actual temple room. But it is hard to see...

Again facing direction of temple, south boundary

 Here is in front of our building, for now, and you can just see the Ganges River.

Facing the main road into Mayapura. As you can see, there is a lot of construction going on here to accommodate all the new residents. Very noisy and dusty during the days.

Our new "Fernvale Road"

Dad took this picture of the guys on the bamboo scaffolding .

The neighborhood

More from the neighborhood.

 Another dad shot of the truck. It is interesting to watch them deliver the gravel and sand. Once arrived they hammer down a long steel rod near the front of the truck to the bottom of the gravel and then mark and measure how much gravel there is. I'm thinking they are confirming the depth of gravel to ensure some wasn't dropped off elsewhere on the way! Then the load is shoveled out by hand. No dump trucks here.

Another picture where you can see the large crane and new temple room floor in the background.

So, nothing else really exciting to report today. I have been sick pretty much since we got to Mayapura with a head cold that settled in my chest after arriving here in the Bengal heat and humidity from Vrindavan's cold, dry winter. I saw an ayurvedic doctor the other day and am taking his medicine which seems to be working very well.. This is my second day home without going out, but at least I felt well enough to do the laundry, which is all by hand of course, so I must be getting better.

Last week was Gaura Purnima, Lord Chaitanya's appearance day, which is why there is such a big festival this time of year, here in Mayapura which as I explained previously, is his place of birth. This was a wonderful festival day with at least 50,000 people from all over India and the world coming here. There was a big  hek (bathing of the Deities) in the gardens outside under 3 temporary pandals or stages. I don't as yet have pictures or video but I will look it up on YouTube later and see if anyone posted there. I was very fortunate. Again, they gave special permission for the Prabhupada disciples to go up first and bath the Deities with special ingredients. From here I stayed there and helped with the many other people who purchased tickets to go up there, otherwise it is very very crowded. Afterward, Jayapataka Swami, who has been living and managing Mayapura for 40 years and who is now paralyzed on half his body, invited the Prabhupada disciples up on the roof for a special feast of 32 preparations from India, Italy, US, Argentina, Mexico, Russia, Brazil, Portugal. It was quite amazing and filling after fasting all day.

Our simple bedroom picture taken from the door...

         Another angle from the veranda door. On the right is the bathroom door.

From the bedroom door onto the veranda where we sometimes hang our laundry.

The sitting room

           Another angle of the sitting room with a large bag full of soft toy dolls, some of which I got for the little grandkids.

 The kitchen.

Well, later today I will be checking out another apartment in one of the pictures above, a yellow building with  6 floors. This apartment is on the 5th floor, no elevator, but has a/c, fully furnished with fridge so if we take it we can have milk and left-overs and be able to fall asleep earlier without having to wait for things to cool down! Yeah!