Religious rituals - a colleague invites me to his village

Ok, it's been a while...

Some time ago I was invited by a colleague of mine to celebrate a ritual (puja) with his family at his village of Bhora Kalan. Today I went there. Some 80km from Delhi, the drive took me through a mix of crumbling houses, brand-new developments, spotless highways and pot-holed roads.
The village itself was lovely. The people very friendly. The food very Indian!

Fried bread being prepared for our lunch at the community center

So, here is what wikipedia has to say about a puja or pooja, after which some pictures will follow, enjoy!

Pūjā or alternative transliteration Pooja, (Devanagari: पूजा) (Sanskrit: reverence, honour, adoration, or worship) is a religious ritual performed by Hindus as an offering to various deities, distinguished persons, or special guests. It is done on a variety of occasions and settings, from daily puja done in the home, to temple ceremonies and large festivals, or to begin a new venture. Puja is modeled on the idea of giving a gift or offering to a deity or important person and receiving their blessing (Ashirvad). The two main areas where puja is performed is in the home and at public temples. There are many variations in scale, offering, and ceremony. Puja is also performed on special occasions such as Durga Puja and Lakshmi Puja. The puja ritual is performed by Hindus worldwide. Various poojas are performed at various times of the day and on various occasions.

Enjoying lunch with the men!

Old houses in this village

The courtyard of the community center

The roof, where we ate the food

The women gather & gossip

My colleague Sandeep in the light clothes serving food

Entrance to the courtyard

My colleague (l) and our driver (r) walking through the village

View from the roof...

And another view...

And another...

Some flashy wedding!

Yesterday I was taken to one more wedding while in India. I've been to one before, which was fun, but not completely Indian (the couple was French/Indian). This one was and the difference was there as well (although I cannot comment if this was only due to the fact that this couple was Indian/Indian...).

Anyway, to cut a long story short, please see pictures below. It was quite the sight. Out in the open, at a so-called farmhouse, a former or still current house/villa that could have been an actual farm earlier. More on how this works, looks like, and what people can order at their wedding, you can find on this website, which is quite interesting...

So, everything was quite beautifully lit. The cars were taken care off with valet-parking, after which we walked through a palm tree lined entrance towards the big garden. A spectacular column-like roof was built, a professional stage with live bands and performers and of course lots & lots of food and very good drinks. The whisky was great and I tasted the best walnut-pie ever :)

It was not overdone I must say, nothing too "amusement park"-like, quite classy even, although to our Calvinist Dutch standards, it might have been a bit too much.... I had a good time anyhow.

The main area with the stage & video wall at the back

Most women were traditionally dressed in sari's

Nice details

Entrance way to main area

All custom built for the happy couple

The entrance way from the car-park

Lights with yellow roses along the way

Valet parking at the front

Delicious & Delirious Delhi

How do you describe a city? What words should I use to explain the beauty, chaos, filth, the people and what more of this strange yet beautiful city. Delhi. New Delhi. This is about both.

Driving once in a while through Delhi, doing some business, eating out in some restaurants and attending a wedding party was definitely not close enough for me to say that I got to know Delhi. I am afraid of saying it now also, although I came some big steps closer.

Delhi. What a strange strange city. Obviously it is overcrowded, something I noticed while visiting Jama Masjid, a mosque from where an enormous labyrinth of houses and markets (bazars) start. Entering from the Eastern side, we walked through small little streets, inhabited by Muslims mainly, and with quite the amount of goats, since they were preparing for some festival. They (the Muslims, not the goats) were looking at us as if we came from Mars.

It was a bit busy....

All nice little courtyards (and other tourists)

To capture the feeling of these bazars, one has to have visited one. The colours, the smells, the people, the architecture (or the lack of it), it all blends together into one big chaotic (for me), yet somehow efficient big market. Everything is for sale. Everything is a bargain.

Everybody has electricity at least!

 Coming closer to Jama Masjid, the crowd gets denser and we decided to walk inside the mosque-complex, situated on a small hill, just high enough to overlook the surrounding area. An oasis amidst people, shops & animals (we've seen camels, goats, pigs, cows, chickens - and we did not visit a farm or a zoo...).

Jama Masjid

It was time to get out of this chaos and see if we could find that one restaurant we read about somewhere on Chandni Chowk-road. By looking at the map, I had seen this was a broad road with many restaurants and I expected it to be a nice promenade. Ok, I did not come prepared. Chandni Chowk turned out to be one of the oldest and now definitely the busiest street in Delhi. With more markets, more colors, less dirt this time, but overwhelming for sure.

View from Jama Masjid

The police helped us find that nice little restaurant where we were the only guests and were stared upon while we ate our vegetarian dishes. It was good! And no, not too spicy, what the waiters and the owner and the friends of the restaurant kept on asking us...

Chandni Chowk

Next day we would go cycling through Delhi. That turned out to be something even more amazing. About that adventure you'll read in my next post....

An almost Indian wedding....

You who have been following me on twitter and facebook know that I was invited to an Indian/French wedding. Last night was the reception or more formal part of the celebration, the night before it was more informal with the women singing some traditional songs. More on Punjabi wedding traditions here.

Entrance to indoor venue Thursday evening

This wedding, with the girl being French, and a not overly traditional family on the side of the groom, was a more quiet one, as I was told by the people I met. To me though, it was all very interesting, taking a look inside an Indian family, how they dress, behave, what they eat & drink (Indian food, bacardi-coke, Kingfisher beer, Zinzi wine).

Indoor celebration, with traditional Hindi song-singing by the women

The venues where the celebrations were held were really beautiful, especially last night. Out in the open, tables & chairs put on the grass, nice lighting, lots of food and drinks (the alcohol flows only till 22.30/23.00 due to strict laws, but the Indian people like in the rest of the world, keep on serving drinks from under the counter). They could have accomodated hundreds of people there easily.

Entrance to outdoor venue

Friday evening venue, out in the open

Celebrations end also rather early because of this. By midnight most people had left so the party of friends I was introduced to decided to go out. The evening before we actually ended up at some friend's place where the drinking continued. This night the club of choice was Out of the Box. A not too big, just opened and very popular restaurant/bar/nightclub. It was here that the friends and brothers & sisters of the happy couple sat and even I had to say a few words in honor of them. So there I was, a (what seemed to me) semi-invited guest, not knowing any of them, standing amidst their friends wishing them all the best. So that part of the Indian culture as I know it is true, all are very hospitable!

The party I was with, standing on the right my host

Late night/early morning leaving Out of the Box nightclub

So, next step will be a real Punjabi wedding. Can't wait!

A Little Local Flavour

Ok, upon request a small item in English for my non-Dutch reading fans!

Today is a semi-national holiday in India, the end of Ramadan is being celebrated during the so called Eid-festival. It is not a national holiday, so not everybody is off today. If the Indians would grant all religions in their country to have their sacred holidays as a national holiday, no one would ever work (not that they seem to work so much anyway..).

We had a meeting though and after that we went for lunch (at around 17:30). My companion suggested I would try the famous brain-curry. How could I refuse? The place he had picked he had not been to for the past 3 years, so when we entered, even he had to admit it was a little dilapidated, broken mirrors on the wall, dirty floors etc.

The take-away window of the restaurant

But it would be good, he promised. Luckily we also gotten the butter chicken curry, so I would have at least something I would eat. Once served, you cannot see that is is brains on your plate, but the thought of it makes you not want to start, at least I did not. But what the heck. It tasted strong, meaty and was overall not bad.

Curry made out of sheep-brain

In and out this place in about 30 minutes we drove on. Discussing on our earlier meeting, I suddenly see a monkey climbing the electricity poles in the center of Delhi. And then I started wondering what it was that I ate......

The restaurant we ate at in central Delhi: "National"


It was also the first monkey I had ever seen in the wild.
So maybe not a little, but a lot of local flavour today....