Last Third of PhotoadayMay

I am taking a picture each day in May, for an online photo challenge. Here are the final eleven days of May's contest. For each, I am digging up an old photo for each day's inspiration as well. My first ten days and second ten are available for viewing as well. Finally, a slide show of the entire month's photos.

photoadayMay First Ten Days

I am taking a picture each day in May, for an online photo challenge. Now, I am ten days through the thirty-one. I wanted to share the photos taken so far, and to share a photo from my past for each day's inspiration. Beneath, I shall explain how the photos fit the theme for the day.

kya meri hindi itni kharaab hai

I am slowly (comfortably) learning Hindi. That means, I am not studying, just having fun picking up words and phrases, listening to music and watching Bollywood films. I want to understand the basics, so I have some books, software and MP3 files. The other day, I was asked if I have ever thought about using Rosetta Stone software. Well, I have Rosetta Stone software installed. I am not the biggest fan.

I stopped using Rosetta Stone early on in my learning days. It hates my accent, which is more my problem than its, but was frustrating to work around. I also did not find the exercises engaging. "Writing" in Hindi using the keyboard was a bit painful as well.

But, I was recently asked, so I tried it again. After returning to it after all this time, and knowing more Hindi now than then, I was surprised to learn a lot of the training is simply wrong. Yes, incorrect. Maybe you learn something, enough to build on, but you aren't going to properly learn the language.

Hindi Support For Linux

Ever visited a web site, like the one pictured above, and saw a bunch of (Unicode) blocks instead of the text you expected? Install support for the language you want on your Linux host, just like I did for the above-pictured Punjabi.

King of TT

I never really played table tennis until I moved to India. There, it seems to be a very popular activity. Since I was such a horrible player, I became known as टी टी का माहाराजा or "Ti Ti ka Maharaja - grand king of table tennis". At the DreamWorks Animation office in Glendale, there are several tables and just about any time of the day you can find people playing.

We recently held a tournament, and someone captured a video of the final match. I am posting it here. I don't know what happened to game two, but hopefully YouTube user ceark will post it in the near future. Enjoy!

Visiting Bahubali in Shravanabelagola

Bahubali in Shravanabelagola: The world's largest stone monolith at 57 feet

Shravanabelagola, India

Approximately one hundred fifty kilometers west of Bangalore, in the Hassan District of the Indian state of Karnataka, stands the world's largest stone monolith. The statue is of the Jain teacher, Bahubali, and he sits atop Chandragiri Hill in Shravanabelagola. Carved in the tenth century, this statue received the most votes in the Times of India newspaper's listing of twenty candidate sites to become the Seven Wonders of India. Harmandir Sahib (The Golden Temple) and Taj Mahal came in second and third place, respectively.


You can really get an idea of the size of Bahubali with this picture

Bahubali is revered by Jains because he was the first to attain moksha, or total enlightenment and freedom from death and rebirth. Shravanabelagola is a major Jain pilgrimage, and every twelve years the Mahamastakabhisheka is celebrated, where Bahubali is coated in milk, saffron and powdered sandalwood; and given offerings of food and precious metals. The next celebration will be in 2018, so mark your calendars.

Shravanabelagola roughly translates from Kannada to mean "The beautiful pool in the center of town."

Bahubali ( बाहुबली )

Bahubali, or Gommateshvara, was the second of one hundred brothers. His older brother, Bharat, did not appreciate the fact that the land his younger brother ruled over was more prosperous than his, so he decided to take it by force. Soon into battle, it was decided that war would end in too much suffering for both kingdoms, so Bharat and Bahubali should have a contest of strength to determine the victor. Each would hit the other over the head until one admitted defeat. Since he was older, Bharat delivered the first blow, almost knocking Bahubali unconscious. Bahubali, whose name means "arms of strength", realized in mid-swing that if he landed his fist on his brother's head, Bharat would surely die. Already in an attack position, he could not stop because of the warrior code. If he stayed his hand, he would lose his position of power over his kingdom for breaking the Kshatriya attack protocol. In order to save his brother and to maintain his warrior status, he grabbed his own hair, ripping it from his head and struck the ground. Bahubali then gave over his kingdom to his brother and went off to live an ascetic life.


Statue of Bharat on the hill opposite where Bahubali stands

Bharat approached the meditating Bahubali several times, to return the kingdom, and even later to give over both kingdoms. Bahubali was not interested and remained deep in meditation, until he attained moksha. It is said that the statue of Bahubali is really Bahubali. Others say that Bharat fired his bow at the hilltop and the rock split by his arrow took the shape of the statue. The statue atop Vindyagiri Hill in Shravanabelagola won't tell us the true story, neither will the smaller statue of Bahubali's brother on Chandragiri Hill.

Chandragiri Hill


You can see Bahubali on top of Vindyagiri Hill from Chandragiri Hill

Just opposite Vindyagiri Hill, past the sarovar, is Chandragiri Hill. While it does not have a huge statue of a siddha on it, it does have a dozen or so bastis, or Jain temples. I particularly liked roaming around this hill, as there were very few people around. You could really enjoy the scenery, take your time examining the old writing on the rocks and spend time inside the shrines.


One of the many Jain temples on Chandragiri Hill

A few things to note about this day excursion from Bangalore. First, you cannot wear shoes on either hill, so just leave them in the car for the day. Second, there are a lot of steps; repeat, a lot of steps involved getting to the top of either one of these hills. Third, carry some water with you, as there are no vendors waiting to sell you cold drinks at the top of these hills. Finally, carry more water than what you think you would like to drink, as you should remain hydrated.

Click here for more pictures from our trip to Shravanabelagola.

Anyone Here Know Konkani?

I am in the process of learning how to write my name and my girlfriend's name in as many Indian languages as possible. Well, at least as many different Indic scripts as possible. This all started with a waiter from Kerala.

I visited Bangalore's new Chili's restaurant one afternoon and my waiter asked me where I was from. I then asked him where he was from. When I told him I had visited Kochi, in Kerala, he asked me if I had picked up any of the local language, Malayalam. I pulled a pen from my pocket and wrote "toddy" on my napkin in Malayalam, which simultaneously impressed him and made him laugh. He then showed me how to write my name in Malayalam.

When I got to work, I showed my name to Robin, who is from Kerala, and he fixed some problems with the spelling. Then he showed me how to write "Anjali", and then it occurred to me that I could ask around to find out how to write our names in many languages. I turned to Jitan and asked him how to write our names in Hindi and Oriya. Then, Javed showed me in Urdu.

Here is what I have so far (my name is always on the left, hers on the right):

Assamese

Bengali

Gujarati

Hindi

Kannada

Kashmiri

Malayalam

Manipuri

Nepali

Oriya

Punjabi

Tamil

Telugu

Urdu

Love Aaj Kal

Sunday - What To Do?

Sunday, we were feeling stuck at home. Anjali had a mending broken arm and I had a sunburn. We just wanted to get out for a while. Aha, Gold Class!

Gold Class

I could watch paint dry or grass grow in Gold Class. This is a movie theater experience where you sit with approximately thirty people in reclining leather chairs. A butler brings you food. It is nice to enjoy a movie while nearly falling asleep in an easy chair.

The Movie

Love Aaj Kal was not my first Hindi movie. I had viewed Delhi-6 a few months prior. For that movie, I had just heard the story of Rama and Sita, so I could draw parallels between the movie and what I had learned. Dialog was something which escaped me completely. In fact, I only remember identifying one phrase, "phir melange", which equates to "see you soon."

This movie was a typical chick flick. Two people are in a relationship in England, but the woman is moving to India for school and the man wants to move to California. So, they decide to break up, but never really get over each other. The guy strikes up a conversation with a restaurant owner, who reveals over the course of the movie to this young man his love story in India. Disclaimer: I may get a lot of this wrong, so gimme a break. The older gentleman, Veer, explains how he fell in love with a girl while they lived in Delhi, but she moved to Calcutta. He followed her, but found that she was engaged to another man. Likewise, the young, broken-up couple in the movie had moved on and the woman tells the man she has accepted a marriage proposal. She tells him that she will be getting married as they are flirting with each other via SMS, while both are sitting at dinner with their significant others. Anyway, the chick gets married and the guy lives out his dream of moving to San Francisco. The guy finds himself bored in San Francisco and thinks of the young woman. Perhaps it is just me, but he comes off as a jerk the way he only thinks of his ex-girlfriend when he shouldn't: when he is in a relationship with someone else and when his San Francisco life is not as great as he thought it would be. The young woman leaves her husband during their honeymoon. So, the broken-up couple end up together. Veer, the older man, ends the movie by returning home to his wife, whom you discover to be the woman he went to Calcutta for and was beaten by her fiance (and his friends) for his pursuit.

Understanding the Movie

I was able to keep up with a few things during the film. It was also cool to find out that some of the dialog was Punjabi and a phrase I have been saying for a while was revealed as something which makes sense (thanks Adi). When dialog passed me by, I focused on costuming, menus and other surroundings. I paid attention to locations in the movie which I might visit some day in the future. Who knows, maybe I will visit Calcutta some time soon, although a trip to Delhi is likely in my immediate future.

Rating

We got out of the house, enjoying some comfort snacks while sitting in an air conditioned theater. We watched a movie, a chick flick, and shared an experience. All in all, I would call that a good deal. But, Anjali has apologized a time or two about the fact that I had to sit through a foreign movie. Should I tell her that I have seen many foreign films without subtitles? Perhaps she will feel compelled to treat me to an evening movie with explosions, babes and/or spaceships...