Sixteen Travelers

We are very excited to host fourteen people on our Journey to India this year.  Counting us, that makes 16; a larger group than we had anticipated.
We depart on October 11th and there is much to do before we get on the plane.  This Sunday we will host most of our fellow travelers at a meet and greet party at my house. It will be a chance for folks to meet one another before we go, for us to answer questions and reiterate suggestions.  Many in the group have had and continue to have difficulties with new visa requirements and procedures and that will surely be a topic of discussion.  Suggested reading for the event is "A Fine Balance" by Rohinton Mistry.  We keep fine tuning our itinerary and will share it on Sunday.  I expect it will be the highlight of the afternoon except, of course, for the food.  And the company.

Come to the Mela!

Grace and Margaret Cook at the Marigold Garland Booth

  Mela is a Hindi word for festival, usually marking a religious event.  Our mela was a "Mission Extravaganza" at the end of September. The Parish Hall of First Presbyterian Church in Smithtown NY was set up like a fair with booths for each mission the congregation supports.  Of course India was well represented, with saris used for draping and three of the booths related to our India Mission.  One of them was educational and two were just for fun and appealed to people of all ages.  The puppet making booth used paper towel rolls, fabric and a paper head to make Indian ladies.  We had plenty of colorful trims, beads and sequins to make each puppet your very own creation.
Our other fun booth used fresh marigold heads to make garlands to wear around the neck.  In India garlands are used to welcome respected guests to an important event.  It was a challenge to find fkresh marigold heads, but of course there is a supplier in upstate New York who sells everything a Hindu Temple would need in the way of floral decor.
The feedback about the event was great, especially from the woman who said her grandchildren rarely remember something for even two hours, but they were still talking about the Mela several days later.  High praise, indeed!

Food and Friends

On Sunday we hosted 8 people for dinner most of whom had been to India with me at least once.  I used the cookbook "Good Cooking from India" by my friend Shahnaz Mehta.  Our mothers were very good friends and we feel like family to one another.  So you know this was not watered down easy cooking, but the real thing with many steps.  I made dal and plain rice, chicken curry, string beans with ginger, raita, and lamb Biryani.  And of course served with naan and chutneys.  Preparations did take much of Saturday and most of Sunday.  Homemade Indian desserts were brought by guests;  gulab jamins and kheer.  The kheer was made from a recipe I got from a dear co-worker many years ago and shar with friends.  I call it Meher's kheer.

We spent a great deal of time around the table enjoying the meal and stories from our travels.

Today I went to an annual luncheon I enjoy because I get to spend some time with people I've worked with over the years.  Imagine my surprise when I saw Noreen, Meher's daughter, who is working again with the same agency where we all first met. She was happy to hear about Meher's kheer and I know she will tell her Mom.  And so the circle of friendship goes on.

A Visit from India

I had the privilege of meeting a missionary based in India yesterday at First Presbyterian, Northport.  It is hard for those of us in the US to understand, but I have been asked not to post information about her on my website, so as not to jeopardize her safety or that of her family.  Christians are still the target of discrimination and violence in many parts of the world and that includes parts of India as well.  We delighted in finding out we know some of the same people in India and talked about the importance of teaching people about the plight of Dalits in India.  I really liked how she explained the meaning of "Dalit", as India's poorest describe themselves.  Dalit means broken and she had a dish of split peas, which are naturally broken.  The split peas are made into a dish called dal, which is the basic diet of everyone in India and an excellent source of protein when served with rice.  Dal...Dalit

It turns out there are several people in the Northport church who have expressed an interest in a mission trip to India in 2013.  It should be an exciting trip with folks from Smithtown and Northport together.

Asia Society Visit

We did see William Dalrymple speak at the Asia Society. History came alive as he used illustrations from the exhibit, "Painters and Princes in Mughal Delhi (1705-1857")' which took five years to come together. He turned out to be a good speaker as well as writer and art historian. I am now reading his "Nine Lives" which chronicles the stories of faith practitioners of nine faiths of India today.H Hooefully I can find some of the pictures he used in a format that can be part of qqa talk on India I am preparing for local libraries.

A William Dalrymple Day

It's a William Dalrymple day.  William Dalrymple is a Scottish historian who first encountered India when he was 17.  He has been entranced ever since.
 First, I came across an article in the New York Times about a literary conference he is helping to direct in Jaipur.  Salman Rushdie, an invited participant, was notified of threats to his life and advised not to attend.  He did not attend, but some authors present read paragraphs from his work.  This is illegal in India.
Next, the three Dalrymple books I ordered last week arrived.  He is an amazing historian, with excellent narrative skills.  I read "The Last Mughal" which focused on issues surrounding the princely states as India headed toward Independence. Now I have "White Mughals", the true story of a great romance between a British resident of the court of the Nizam of Hyderabad and a direct descendant of Mohammed, a great niece of the Nizam's Prime Minister.  It took place in the late 18th century after two centuries of British rule in India and casts light on the many British colonizers who "went Native."  The other books are "City of Djinns" about the many layers and complexities of Delhi, and "Nine Lives in Search of the Sacred in Modern India".
All this Dalyrmple reading is in preparation to seeing him speak at the Asia Society next month.  I'm not a history buff, but he makes his subjects so fascinating that you can't help but want more. .

Reading and Rice

Time to soak the basmati rice for kheer, a yummy rice dish flavored with cardamom, and spiked with nuts and coconut. Tomorrow night friend Lois and I are presenting "The Space Between Us" by Thrity Umrigar at the book club of the Smithtown Presbyterian Church. It bears many similarities with "The Help" and highlights the difficult relationships between servant and employer in a culture which defines people by their caste. At the meeting we will serve the kheer as well as an Indian carrot dessert that Lois is making.