happy holi!

Holi festival. Festival of colours. today is what is called "small Holi". Tomorrow is "Big" Holi. I suspect that small Holi is a precursor of what's to come tomorrow, probably a result of not being able to wait until the main event tomorrow and wanting to get a jump start on the festivities a day early.
Celebration of colour. Look out! colours literally are flying through the air.
My friend's nephew who is eleven is already died pink on half his face and both his hands. He has scrubbed and scrubbed but it will last a week or more anyways.
Pink, yellow, green, red and blue. No one is safe. Coloured water balloons, coloured water guns and handfuls of bright colour powder. Even though its only small Holi, the streets are already filled with brilliant casualties of the colour war. I was on my way over to the other side of the river to buy my grandma a gift when i ran into the owner of Ramanas orphanage. She was plastered, head to toe, with colour. "Watch out on the other side of the bridge" she warned, "they really got me". "They" being the kids hanging off balconies and streaking through the streets below with colour warfare.
I didn't think i'd have to worry about it until tomorrow. i had been warned but i thought today i'd be safe. i am not dressed for this permanent dye job, nor is my hair or skin sufficiently oiled to withstand the onslaught.
Tomorrow I will plan to wear my old clothes, clothes that i don't mind getting ruined. sesame or apricot oil in my hair and on my skin so that i have a chance of being able to wash off the colours. i know i won't be able to say no to the neice and nephew of my Bengali family. They have been asking me for days if i will play with them on Holi ("play" being a euphamism for "be their target")
I have to admire the Indian people, for their utter ability to revert to children on such occasions. Grown men dance and laugh in the street like kids, ambushing eachother and slathering colour all over eachothers faces and clothes and then collapsing into eachothers' arms in hysterics. I am a little envious of the celebratory and carefree attitude that comes so easily to them.
For a day, they are free. For a day, we are all free.
Happy Holi!

Yesterday i tried to make aloo palak subji for lunch. potato and spinach vegetable dish. it came out ok i guess except waaaay too much salt. eeek! There is a certain knack and art to making Indian food, and somehow, i just can't get it right. There is like... a feeling to it, like something you would just absorb by living here your whole life. you really have to cook the spices well until the flavours fully develop and release, and it never hurts to crisp the bottom of the pan a bit for that extra roasted flavour. i am still working on it. but at least i did it. i cooked Indian for Indians and no one got hurt. Yay!
I have been watching Ritu for weeks. She is the new bride to my friend's brother and has just moved in with the family. She is amazing! i LOVE Ritu. We all do. I have been skulking around her kitchen, watching her kneed chapati dough, sort rice, make dahl and subji (vegetables) and asking dozens of annoying questions. I watch and watch her add the spices, when and how much, but it still baffles me how she decides which ones to add on which day cause its different every time. It always turns out delicious, and when i do it, the spices are grainy and underdeveloped and either there is too much or too little flavour. sigh. back to the drawing board.
She and I have a hoot! She speaks a little English and is teaching me a little Hindi. She is so sweet.
Right now she and Nirmal are in Delhi visiting her family. Her first visit back since they married in November. She was so excited to go, and so beautiful when they left. Decked out in a beautiful sari and glittering slippers, she looked like an Indian Cinderella.
She called yesterday to see how we were and i talked to her. I told her we missed her and to come home soon and then i meant to say to her "hurry hurry" which is "jaldi jaldi" in Hindi, but i forgot and said "haldi, haldi" instead, which means "turmeric, turmeric". So that sent us all into peals of laughter for about 10 minutes. ya, we miss you, please come back soon, turmeric, turmeric!! Everyone keeps bugging me about it every time they see me now. i laugh too, anytime i think of it. so hilarious.

well, its now one week exactly til dharamsala. counting down the days, excited to come home, but know i am going to be so incredibly sad to say goodbye to my family here. i don't even want to think about it now. They have shown me the most unbelievable hospitality, at first as a guest, and now as family. The openness, acceptance, generosity and tolerance they have shown me is unparalleled. i have not experienced anything like it in my whole life. In just a few short weeks they have completely won over my heart. What will i do?

all my love to all at home.
be well, love well
and feel peace.