Victor Feinman

This weekend was pretty cool. Going into it, I had no idea what to expect. I thought it was going to be yet another uneventful weekend. It turned out to be rather pleasant. On Friday night, I went out to a place called Planet X. It is a restaurant/bar/night club/pool hall/go cart racing/arcade place. It is pretty cool. I went with 7 others; the fun stated when we tried to get a rickshaw to Planet X.

These guys are relentless and sneaky. I mean, they see Americans coming from the campus and they think we are loaded or something because they are charging American taxi rates. It is ridiculous. They are fulfilling a one liner Gunter and I put on someone who we employed once: shifty indy. If it were natives riding, not from campus, it would have been at least one third the price. I feel ripped off. If we had our act together, we could have had a 5 person taxi (taxi’s are a lot faster, safer, and more comfortable) for 100 INR more.
On the way home it seemed as if our driver went nuts. Another auto passed us and screamed out to our driver. Oh no… Not actual words but more like a demented laugh. Whhhoooooo ahhhhhhahahahhahha. Our driver sped up to responded with the same laugh and a weird configuration of fingers. The other driver matched our speed and in turn laughed back. This continued for a while. Jason, the other passenger, and I also participated in this wired laughing spell. The other driver came up with some kind of pipe coming out of his mouth. I swear they both were on crack.

Thankfully we both made it back in one piece. On the way back to our rooms we herd a ruckus going on between two buildings. The curiosity won the best of us and found ourselves in the middle of Birthday celebrations. It was awesome. There were a big crowd of people cakes, soda bottles, and water everywhere. As their tradition went, a crowd of people would surround a person and sing happy birthday in a very broken English. After the song is finished they would each take turns in grabbing a piece of cake with their hands and shoving into the mouth of the honoree. Whatever didn’t make into the mouth would be smeared all over the face and head of the person. After cake is all over this person some nice friends wash him off with a bottle of soda over his head. Once drenched with soda, they push him over and pick him up. One person at each limb and proceed to kick the ass of the birthday boy. I must admit it is pretty hilarious. After that the mandated traditions are over and anything goes. I saw one guy get held up and then bull rushed by someone else (that is running with head down into the chest of someone).

Jason and I were innocent by standards until one of the birthday boys held out the cake for Jason and I. I was very confused because there were no slices. He told us to use our hands. I thought he was being very generous, thanked him, and ate the hand carved piece. He turned away. Jason and I were confused. We thought about it for a second and figured he probably meant for us to feed him. So we asked one of his partygoers if that was what we were supposed to do, he confirmed our doubts and offered us another piece to fulfill the tradition. I was first to take another handful and shove it into this strangers mouth then smear the rest on his check. I felt bad because I had no idea who this kid was. As we finished smearing him, he said thank you. It kind of reminded me of Animal house, “Thank you sir, may I have another.” Later I found out that by eating the cake ourselves was of highest respect for that person. And so, I felt even worse as a respect Indian giver.

The next day was full of sightseeing.

Kesava Temple was the first temple we went to see. It had beautiful landscaping along the walkway to the entrance of the temple. This one was definitely one of the more popular temples in India because there were a lot of people there visiting as well. I was not able to bring in my video camera but was allowed to bring in my digital still camera.

The second temple we went to see, I can’t recall it’s name, but it was a total of 5 temples on one compound. However, because of a great flood, it was covered by sand and had to be dug out. The sand dunes were massive and difficult to climb on. There were a lot of people here too.

After seeing the last temple we were curious to see Cauvery, the river that caused the great flood which covered the temples with sand. We were unfortunantely unable to drive up to the river because – since it is monsoon season – it was flooded and covered the road to the embankment. At this point, there were a lot of people visiting, swimming and playing around. We decided to take a little boat ride. These, of course, were not your typical boats. They were like little pods made of (I think) whicker lined with potato sacks and finally painted over with what looked to be tar. The little boat ride took us 5 minutes and cost 10 rupees each.

This river also happens to be one of the two rivers which intersect each other at a massive waterfall. This waterfall is called Shivanasamudra Falls. This was amazing to see: two huge rivers coming together at one point where they both fall from cliffs. The mist created a really cool rainbow. This is definitely one of the benefits of doing training in India!

Here is a link to the Shivanasamudra Falls, but this video does no justice to it during monsoon season. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3499694646366891075