Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods

Diwali

 

This week the Indians celebrate Diwali, the Festival of Light.

From my South India Lonely Planet:

On the 15th day of Kartika, Hindus celebrate the 'festival of lights' for five days, giving gifts (usually sweets), lighting fireworks and burning butter and oil lamps to lead Rama home from exile.

Our maiden, Hama (Vinay's wife) dressed up in her sari last night to go downtown to celebrate with family and friends. I took a photo of her in our indoor open courtyard.

Carolyn, Hossy and I spend the nights at home, which is perfectly okay for me, but I have been up on the roof of their house to watch the fireworks.

 

One day last week Carolyn and I went to an exhibition downtown to see old and new diwali-lamps. I bought a few fancy new ones, for gifts and for advent, end enjoyed looking at the old ones.

 

I would love to buy an old lamp, but I have a suitcase with certain limits.....

 

Last Saturday we were invited to friends for lunch, and in their livingroom I found this beautiful lamp.

More from the Bazaar - a Lotus Flower

 

 

 

 

"Do you know what this is?" Vinay stopped outside one of the market stalls. ".......?" I hesitated. "Can it be some kind of a pink artichoke?"

It was not. It was a Lotus Flower!

I have never seen one before. Such beauty!

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I have a new Blog of the Week up. An Indian one of course, one I have enjoyed for years, before I started to plan my trip here. Take a trip over to Rang Decor.

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Don't forget to leave a comment hereif you want to be in the drawing for "three Indian roses". I will draw a winner in a few days now.

The Bazaar

   

 

 

 

 

 

I knew that the market would be great, my guidebooks say thet the bazaar here in Mysore is one of the most colourful and livliset in India. Still I had absolutely no idea.

 

Tomorrow I will show you a photo of a man who made me a flower.

Friends coming for lunch

              Carolyn and Hossy have a wide circle of friends, and they love to give parties. Both Sundays I've been here we've had a house full for lunch.

          Lunch guests mean preparations. Carolyn brings out her old Indian cookbooks, from when she first moved here for more than 50 years ago, and the years that followed.

          I follow her steps, with my camera and my notebooks. Asking questions about everything. What is this? How do you cook that? Is it spicy, or sweet, or.......

                When I come home my kitchen will be influenced by my weeks here, with alot of healthy and colourful South Indian vegetable dishes.

 

To Somnathpur to meet God's blessing

          About 90 minutes to drive on bumpy roads, I and Vinay (the driver, I have misspelled his name earlier) came to the temple of Somnathpur, a Keshava Vishnu temple built in 1268 AD. The place was amazing. I sit here writing this blog with one of my guidebooks in front of me, and half a page is dedicated to this masterpiece. The world is filled with guidebooks, can you imagine all the Lonely Planet books or all the Rough Guides in a pile, and you will know what I am talking about. The world is filled with amazing sites. It would take weeks, or may be months to look at all the stone carvings in this place, and imagine all there is out there..........

          I walk around barefeet, on sunwarmed flagstones, turning my head up and down and around, almost like an owl, wanting to see, to take in all this beauty. My camera is busy, but after a while I put it away and let eyes and mind wander on their own.

            Inside the temple something strange happen to me. I know this is a temple, still I feel like I am inside a church. I feel God's excistense close and comforting, and my heart rises to praise Him, to thank Him, and to pray for the people of India.

         I live in luxury these three weeks, and I enjoy it immensely. I walk through my days with mixed feelings though. What is it God has to show me here in this country, this huge subcontinent, where so many milions of people live in deep and hopeless powerty. Where so many millions of people don't know the God which is more important to me than breathing, than life itself!

          On our way home we drive towards the most beautiful sunset. This is my first night with a sunset at all here in India, it is monsoon time, and all the other nights have been filled with rain and thunder. The huge orange sun gets bigger and bigger, then it waves goodnight and travel west to Trondheim to warm and comform my people there. Over Mysore the horisont, everything, turns brigt pink, and I can's stop myself turning to Vinay, who is an agnostic, saying: "Look, God is blessing us with his holy light tonight".

Faces

 

 

 

 

 

The Silk Factory

         

Mysore is well known for its silk, and having read in my guidebook that it was possible to come inside a silk factory, I made it a priority on my list of places where I wanted to go. Winnie, the driver, took me there.

         

We walked through an exhibition showing the life of a silk worm from the small eggs to the making of the amazing thin threads of silk

         

But what even more caught my interest was the actual factory (where no photographing was allowed), its workers and its products. We walked though huge halls, first to see the spinning of the silk, then the actual weaving, passing on to the dying and the finished products. The weaving hall was my favorite.

Some places we passed huge signs with Visitors Not Allowed, but Winnie kept on, I glued myself to his heels and the worker greeted us smilingly and proudly showed us their work.

         

This last photo is from the silk shop where I have been several times already, and where I am looked upon as one of the regulars by now :-)

(The whole story is told in Travel tale 2 which many of you already have got, send me an email if you want it.)

Holy Cow

 

We all have plates filled with Indian holy cow stories, haven't we? This one was enjoying life outside the silk shop I was visiting yesterday morning.

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Thank you so much for all the lovely comments and emails you are sending me. I read every single one, and though I don't have time to write you all back, you are all in my thoughts. Your comments means alot to me.

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At the silk shop I bought one of the five typical Indian roses. I still don't know where I will send it........

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The second Travel Tale is almost finished, "People and Places". Let me know if you want it by email.

Idlis for breakfast

          We are up early in the mornings. Breakfast is not until 8.30, so we get alot done before that. Carolyn usually starts breakfast and then Hayma comes up at 8 to help her. I enjoy some reading time out on the veranda before breakfast and then I usually spend some inside to read and write some emails. Yesterday morning, when I was at the computer, Carolyn cried from the kitchen; "Britt-Arnhild, come here, there is something I'll show you."

          She was in the kitchen, making idli, the same food as I got the first morning when I had my first taste of Indian food.

          Idli is some kind of rice and legume dumplings. The rice and legumes grounded and soaked over night, then damped the next day.

         We ate it with a green chutney made of some spicy leaves from the garden, and I couldn't resist making a colourful plate and take a photo for you.

  

Thank you Carolyn for all the great, healthy food you are making.

In The House in the Woods we usually have bread and cheese for breakfast, or oatmeal porridge. What do you have?

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There are more, daily photos up in My Year in the World

Custard Apple

         

The food here is in almost every colour imaginable, and we eat loads of fruits and vegetables for every meel. Alot of it is from Carolyn and Hossy's garden, but also alot comes from the market. Carolyn took me to her "vegetable man" the other day, and I couldn't stop taking photos and asking questions. What is this? What is that? Is it a fruit or a vegetable? How does it taste :-)

         

The vegetable man got a broad smile when he realized my interest in his stuff, and people from other boots nearby came to have their photos taken when they saw my camera. I am collecting portraits.

 

My weeks here are a holiday, and I spend hours on Carolyn's porch, reading, writing, painting or listening to stories from Carolyn and Hossy's life.

From their stories and from books and magazines I learn all the time. Custard apple was a word I had never heard before. Then I went to the market and actually got one, and then I came home and read from "A Vision of Eden by Marianne North, a Victorian Englishwoman who travelled the world around 1870 to paint trees and flowers:

Some of the wild fruits are very good, though the English seldom eat them. The custard apple was an especial favorite of mine; it was a green horny heart-shaped thing growing close to the stem of the tree, with a creamy pulp and black seeds, and an acid pineapple flavour.

 

The vegetable man gave me a custard apple as a gift. Now it is laying on the fruit plate waiting to be ripe enough to eat.

Soon I can make Marianne North's words mine.

 

We use alot of fruits and vegetables at home, and I considered myself an expert. But what did I know?

What is your favorite fruit? Is there a fruit you have heard about but never tasted?