South Indian Food

Chapati, a whole wheat tortilla. 

Parotta my favorite! It's somewhat like a tortilla but thicker, flakier and more yummy!

Vada (a savory donut with coriander leaves, mustard seeds and onion)

Idli with Coriander Chutney

Dosa, Sambar (broth with spices and vegetables) and Coriander leaf chutney.

Today is the last day of our finals week! I am done with all of my work. Thanks to my Watkinson education my presentation on Solar Energy went by smoothly as possible. I also had a ten page paper on Solar Energy and a 10 page paper on Sexuality in Indian Advertisements. Funny thing, only after the 8th page did I learn how to properly spell the world advertisement, not a shock if you know me! This week has been exceptionally great. Last Sunday, I believe I mentioned this, but I had a great magical Indian experience wandering through small residential streets downtown. I even made friends with a merchant and talked with him for some time. A few nights this week were good bonding nights for me and my family. My host dad asked me lots of questions about America everything from what I eat on a daily basis to how much the minimum wage is. He runs a shop downtown so he often gets to know foreigners and just wanted to US minimum wage to that of Italy or Germany. My host mother told me the next morning that we had so many laughs and good times that she couldn't sleep well, but it was worth it. For my MCU project I interviewed my family on sexuality in advertisements, a very sensitive subject for a society with such strict rules on sexuality. I learned from this project that sexual advertisements are the result of large corporations in metro (metropolitan) indan cities who are trying to compete in the globalized economy. But such companies and their campaigns do not reach the citizens of Madurai, they still value traditional values and do not wish to change anytime soon. Last night was my host grandfather's 70th birthday. The immediate family and I gathered at the house enjoyed cake (eaten before the dinner) and parotta with gravy (known to you as curry). Everyone was at the house it was a great time for the family and interesting for me to watch the family dynamics. Men and the guest aka me,were served first and waited on by the women. Who ate second and had to serve themselves. As we left at night the women of the house, my host grandmother and her daughter in law were in the kitchen cleaning as everyone else said their goodbyes. There was a little girl, my host cousin who was maybe 1 and was already running around the house and climbing on stairs. I was shocked by how independent this young girl was, I feel that Indian children learn dependence much earlier than American children. Another major difference between American and Indian children is that Indian girls are allowed to dress in elaborate beautiful dresses every day. By American standards they are playing dress up every day! I decided last night that for the hope I one day in my life have a baby girl, I want to buy one of these dresses! Tonight we are going to Nirmala, the host family coordinator and very highly respected Indian woman's grandaughters 1st birthday party! I am excited for it, it will be at JC Residency a very fancy nearby hotel. On Saturday I have set up a meeting for my IS project with the head of an Good Will NGO here in Madurai. Perhaps I will work with the children during my project. And later in the afternoon I have my Batik class. Batik is a traditional Indian art form. We use wax and fabric dye to create an image on our piece of cloth here is a picture: And on Sunday we are off to the state of Karala for our last tour!

Hey I havent posted in a while. Next week is our finals week already! I have a 10 page paper for my media class due, a 10 page paper for my environmental issues class as well as a 15 minute presentation and photo essay. Along with regular homework for anthropology and Tamil. I am close to being done with my environmental issues essay, I just need to revise it and add my own thoughts. But this weekend I am pretty crammed with work (its already 4:20 on Saturday). Meanwhile I need to keep up with my two independent studies back at 'Cuse. But next week we finally get to go on tour, were going to the state of Karala. Karala is a costal state on the West Coast of India. Here are some of the photographs that I turned in for my last photography assignment. For our anthropology class we had to do a assignment on visual anthropology. I choose the topic of food stalls, here are a few shots from that assignment. All of these stalls are on P.T. Rajan road, the road I live on.

Here is a photograph of me and my host family. Along with an image of me in a sari they gave me for my birthday!

We have just come back from a week long tour in the state of Karnataka. We visited Mysore, Hospet/Hampi and Bangalore during the week. It was nice to get outside of the city of Madurai and see some other sights. There were many differences between the state of Tamil Nadu where we are and Karnataka. In particular, Karnataka state has much more water, often we passed by huge lakes and rice patties. The sceneary was much more green. It was a beautiful site to see!

Our frist stop was Mysore where we visited the Mysore palace, where the royal family is still living. At 7pm they also lit up the entire palace and many families/toursits came to enjoy the site. l

Around the hotel we walked around, went to the market and to a few local restaurants where we were able to get more North Indian food like: naan, curry gobi (cauliflower) and paneer dishes (cheese). A 2 hour drive away from Mysore we visited the largest monolithic carving of a man. This carving was on the top of a very tall hill. We climbed 600 steps until we reached the top which had an amazing view.

Next stop was Hospet where we stayed at a very luxurious, almost too luxurious for our taste, hotel. In this hotel we were able to get lots of ice cream and "American" food. But perhaps my favorite thing that I ate on the trip to Mysore was a soup with a fried potato ball. I sat down at a restaurant and quickly was separated from my American friends and surrounded by Indians. I made friends with an old couple and asked them what they were eating, they said it was the special for the hotel (restaurant) and ordered it for me! it was very yummy, a great last meal in Hospet. We stayed in Hospet but the reason we were there was the ancient city of Hampi which is now ruins. This truly was a city in it's time. On the first day we toured a bunch of sites like a hill top temple, the old waterfront to the city, the kings palace, the queens palace, an elephant stable and the marketplace. Below are a few pictures of various ruins around the ancient city along with some high up views from the hilltop temple.

The second day we were in Hospet a few of us decided to climb a bunch of stairs, this time more around 1000, to the top of a mountain where Hanuman the half monkey half human god was born.It was an amazing site, and amazing to see the devotion of those there to the Hindu religion. I was taken back when I saw an elderly woman crawl up 1000 steps just to visit this particular temple when there are several other Hanuman temples in India.