3 observations, i hope you don't mind

Tonight while i was doing the washing up after dinner we had a power cut. We get these mostly during the daylight hours and occasionally in the evening. I love them. They are cool for several reasons. One: they totally always interrupt whatever you are doing instantly. Doesn’t matter if you are watching tv, listening to music, eating your dinner, cooking dinner or washing up, you can’t see. So everything is stopped. Don’t ask me WHY i like this, i just do. Two: I love the silence and stillness of no power, no buzz, no electromagnetic current coursing through your body. Three: i love to do things by candlelight and four: when you are in the kitchen and the power goes out, you have to do nothing but stand there in the pitch dark for a moment and someone always comes to rescue you from the darkness with the torch (or flashlight for you north Americans, hee hee) so that you can find candles. I love that feeling, of just standing there in the peaceful darkness, it’s a kind of a thrill. Of course that person who is nearest to the torch when the power goes out KNOWS that there are people in the kitchen in total darkness who need your assistance asap and when you are in the kitchen you know that person knows and is going to assist you in a very short moment. (Thank you Gunnu! My little chess buddy). There is a beautiful simplicity and teamwork to the whole scenario. Then, sometimes if the power is out for a longer period, we all sit together in one room and talk by candlelight. No tv, no electricity, nothing to disturb the peace, just human voices. It’s divine. One time i remember the power went out while we were eating jalebis which is a sweet syrupy curly deep fried delight and we just lit some candles and kept on eating jalebis. So fun. And then the power comes back and electric life resumes after a brief interlude. Nakul says he hates power cuts, but i love them.
As i stay here i see how Indian homemaking is an art and requires a certain talent to perform well. It is another reason why i understand the wisdom of arranged marriages. Running a household here in India requires a special set of skills and knowledge that can only be learned by living here for an extended period of time. I would say that for me to successfully run a middle class household here it would take at LEAST 5 years of living in one and being the assistant before I would feel confident taking over the task. To run only the kitchen perhaps I could be qualified in just 2 years. There are so many tricks and ins and outs, ways to make things more efficient and ways to cut corners, ways to get the most bang for your buck things that are done and things that are just not done, for a multitude of reasons that are not always at first so obvious. There are a million things that are not done the same way we would do them in North America and things that must be done that never even come up in an American household.
A successful household must be run by a person who is both shrewd and kind at the same time. Frugal yet generous, hospitable yet... well, you get my drift.
One of the considerations of parents and matchmakers when making a match is that the couple come from similar financial backgrounds and social status, in order to avoid complications and differences in expectations in living styles. For example: a bride from a family that is quite poor is accustomed and used to making do with not very much. Life is still happy and satisfying, it is just lived with great respect for the use of things. If she were married to a husband who was very rich and came from a very high status family with lots of money and servants, she would not be familiar with the rules of that echelon of society or how to run a household with servants if she never had them in her own household growing up, just as an example. I am sure there are things about a rich household that are fundamentally different from how things are run in a lower class household. The thing is that... to live in India is to live by your wits, regardless of your income. Everyone grows up learning from those around them and then having and using this precise knowledge to live their life more smoothly, building on those who have come before them. Unlike in our culture where it seems everyone is constantly re-inventing the wheel, learning everything from themselves. I know i always had to learn my lessons the hard way, hardly listening to the wisdom of those who came before me.
In India everyone has learned to succeed and thrive by being sharp and en pointe. It is a fine tuned machine that everyone learns how to run when they grow up here. Everyone knows how the machine works. So one must be very savvy in their daily life and not an idiot in their dealings. If a bride from a rich family were to marry a poor man, she might grow discontent with her husband’s inability to earn and provide for her the lifestyle to which she was accustomed to before her marriage.
Either scenario can be a great cause of disharmony for both the couple and their family. But when both in the couple are evenly matched and have similar lifestyles and living expectations, there is a greater chance of matrimonial harmony therefore creating a more stable home for children to grow up in. (We are all well aware of the challenges that a broken home can bring to the children of such a situation).
We see this potential conflict in love matches where two people fall in love and one of them is a spendy Wendy, while the other is more frugally minded. Arguments about money are one of the number one causes of divorce i hear.
But back to the skills it takes to run an Indian household. We have this giant stone. Well its two stones really, one large, one small and they serve the purpose of grinding things up into a paste for when the power is out and we can’t use the food processor or for when you want that special hand-ground taste to your masala. These stones, one big flat one and one smaller hand held one have small divets in them that the spices and chilis and stuff can get caught in so that you can crush them easily when you rub the two stones against eachother. Well today I saw a man come to the gate who re-makes these little divets or indents. Apparently the divets on the stones get worn smooth over time with use and need to be re-established, so it is this man’s job to go door to door and with an iron tool, bang in the divets again, for a small fee. How enterprising. Actually, so many things come door to door for the housewives, so they never even have to leave home if they don’t want to. Everything comes to you, every service, every product. Well, i’m sure not EVERY product, but many. One note about this topic: I hope i haven’t offended anyone, Indian, female or otherwise with my writing. It is just simple observation from my point of view, that’s all. It might be fallible or completely inaccurate, it is only my point of view after all.
My final note this evening is about our friend Gopal.
Nakul has a friend, his name is Gopal and he is a yogi. That means he is very much into yoga and meditation and sometimes teaches. Gopal and Nakul have been friends since their school days and I always enjoy a good gab with the two of them. We get into the most interesting discussions about life, god, culture, ... relationships. We discuss everything. And both Gopal and Nakul ask real thoughtful questions and then we discuss. It is probably the most intellectual, spiritual and fun conversations i have ever had in my life. Besides being very wise, Gopal is also very supportive of mine and Nakul’s relationship. So tonight we were at Gopal’s shop sitting and talking and getting very good relationship advice from him. He is like our marriage counsellor and he is really very helpful. He has some very wise opinions and thoughts. Thanks Gopal. That was a lovely little chat we had today.