Hyderabad, home of Microsoft and Google in India

Hyderabad is the Silicon Valley of India.

You sense it the second you arrive at the airport. It looks like I landed in Miami.

Landscaped lawns, fountains, palm trees all lined up.

And lots, and lots of traffic. But here the cars are BMWs and the motorcycles are Harleys.

A store in the market for wedding supplies.

Billboards such as this image are all over, below them are women walking in full burka.

(Muslim women can't show their hair, no less so much leg).

I am not able to ask them what they think of all this.

The Charminar, built in 1591 by King Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah of the Qutb Dynasty. According to legend, this is the spot where he first saw his lover, the beautiful Hindu dancer Bhagmati. Another legend says he built it as thanks for the end the plague.

Okay, this may be my first mistake in India. Ida and I saw an old woman with stamps and red dye. We paid her 10 rupees for a stamp on the hand. Within seconds we felt a burning sensation that lasted a few minutes...could this be permanent?

The most impressive school. An honor guard to greet us, morning meditation and a performance by magnificent children. Followed up with a visit with the commissioner.

Ahmedabad

Welcome to Ahmedabad! On the west coast of India, close to the Pakistan border.

Camel power.

It's easy to see how the British Raj lived a "la-dee-da" life on one side of the garden wall.

This is behind our hotel, Le Meridian.

The flower pots in the left side of this photo are against the wall that hides

the slum in the next photo.

At Gandhi's Ashram. This is where he started the Dandi March, and fought peacefully for Indians to retain their salt. "One cannot follow love or truth so long as one is subject to fear". It's from here I found my quote for next year's class poster..."The law of love could be best understood and learned through little children".

We are discovering the regionalism of Indian food.

In southern India, we eat on banana leaves. There was a constant parade of men serving things with ladles onto the leaves that are stitched together to form a large "plate" placemat.

Afterwards, we wandered over to where musicians were performing. Even though it was incredibly hot and humid, we danced up a storm.

Tabla (percussion) music really gets you moving.

Squeezing past cows to get to school in the slums of Ahmedabad.

Many of us bought tops to try and blend in more but as we walked in one little girl burst into tears. She had never seen so many foreign (read blond) women before.

Not every child attends school. It was declared law a few years ago to attend, but there is no way to enforce it. These boys are heckling us and the teacher through the window.

Her supplies are locked into two big metal boxes.

Her "library" was a broken shelf with some papers.

Everyone is struggling to try and make things happen.

A perfect example of why girls don't attend school. She is making the meal of the day.

Or in the next photo, spending ALL DAY collecting enough water at the well for the family to cook and bathe with and to drink. Note the garbage and animal feces surrounding the well.

We were prepared for the smells of the slum but women were

sweeping and cleaning constantly.

It was amazingly odor-free.

Another example of the dichotomy of India.

This young woman from India, was educated abroad and now lives in London. She met this young British man and they married.

They have returned to have another wedding celebration in India for her family.

Right after I took this pic in our hotel, he met his Indian family for the first time.

This is typical wedding attire for men and women.

I'm not passing judgement here, but many who are educated aboard do not return to India.

The government School

Monkeys at Hanuman Temple

8,000 feet up in the Himalayas and starting the steep climb up to the

Monkey Temple for a blessing.

This cheeky monkey just stole the woman's scarf off of her sari.

Ann and me mid-climb still looking happy because my sunglasses aren't stolen...yet

We were warned that they steal things so I rented a big stick for 20 rupees (with a 50 rupee deposit). This comes out to 40 cents. The monkeys could not care less about my big stick, and stole my sunglasses. He jumped on my back and pulled them right off my face. For a split second I was a living metaphor with a "monkey on my back".

Beads and Paper, traditional materials

Dr. Girish Kaul, our program executive director of the Fulbright office in Delhi. I gave him my finished paper bird...

Learning paper craft.

Learning how to make a beaded ankle bracelet.

Pearl's second Dance lesson

My second dance lesson, this time Kathak style with a 3-man band.

Rashmi's school visit

This teacher showed me photos of himself in his heyday as a really amazing looking dancer with full make-up. I got a private lesson in hand gestures, not mudras, but hands to tell a story. He was still very graceful and generous with his time.

Poster art lesson with upper class students. School is based on the English system, so this is a public school, which we call a private school because you pay tuition. They have 5,000 children, all must swim, play sports, dance, learn music, besides the academics.

Sharing ideas with a fellow art teacher.

Rashmi's school teaches all the arts, they learn classical Indian and Western instruments.

Learning Odissi Dance

Gretchen and I in a nice finished pose.

Getting our first Odissi style dance lesson at Rashmi's school.

I would like to point out I am almost exactly like the teacher...

National Art Museum

This really fascinated me. The "gate" and the shape of the structure behind it, are reminiscent of the "cloud gates" at the Temple of Heaven in China. This is in India, a Buddhist stupa and gate. The stupa was for the relics of the monks. As the architecture traveled to China, it became the "pagoda".
The head of the museum was trying to convince me this is a toy. Really? You are (over 1,000 years ago) going to mine tin from one mountain, copper from another mountain, cut down tons of trees to make a fire hot enough to melt the stuff together to make bronze. Meanwhile, you create the original form out of wax, create a mold, then pour it in to make ONE ANIMAL on wheels for your little junior? In mesoamerica it has been determined that wheeled "toys" were symbols of transformation, into death, the ultimate transformation.
The art museum is the old-fashioned kind with dusty glass cases and not much information. Besides the sweat that is dripping from places none of us knew existed... Here is a good example of greco-roman influence. You can tell from the tilt of the head and the pattern of the hair.

Lectures...lots of 'em

Lectures on government, water shortages, women's issues, education, transportation, art, history, economics (sort of) etc. Panel discussions and of course visits to museums and ruins.

AFTER the lectures, we go out to eat...left to right, Gretchen (NYC), Me

gan (W. Va.), Ida (NYC), Me, Viktoria (IL) and some random guys at the hotel.

Setting the pace

I really do like it here in India.