Ellora Caves

It's been a while since I've added to the blog. We were on a two-week tour of India with our family. I've got enough material now to cover many posts!

Saturday, 13 September 2014

Lon took a day trip to Aurangabad -- it's a short 45 minute flight from Mumbai (but a 7-8 hour drive). I went along to visit the Ellora Caves and Daulatabad Fort. (Ajanta Caves and Lonar meteor crater will have to wait for another trip.)

First stop were the Ellora Caves -- a series of Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain "caves" carved into a basalt cliff.

The 12 Buddhist caves were carved in the 5th through 7th Centuries. They are mostly monastery structures, with one large temple.

Temple cave with Buddha preaching in front of the stupa.

The Hindu caves (6th to 8th Century) are the most impressive. The centerpiece is the large Kailasa Temple carved from a single block of stone.

The modern entrance to the Ellora complex showcases the Kailasa Temple.

Looking down the left-hand side of the temple. The main structures are in the middle, with pavilions carved into the mountain along the sides and back.

Looking back towards the entrance.

A sculpture of Shiva in the Kailasa Temple.

The final set of caves are Jain caves, carved in the 8th through 10th Centuries.. In the typical Jain manner, they are far more subdued than the Hindu caves, yet have very intricate and detailed patterns in their artwork.

Typical Jain-style pillar.

The Jain caves also have some paintings, although most of them have faded to the point of near invisibility.

Family Relations

Relationships (of all sorts) are a big deal in India. Family is even more IMPORTANT (Bold, All-Caps). It's important to keep all those relationships straight. Hindi has a number of "aa-ee" pairs for various family members, where the "aa" is male and the "ee" is female. (However, "mother" is an "aa" noun.)

First some basics:
Mother, Father:  mata, pita  (Parents: mata-pita)
Son, Daughter: beta, beti (also lurka, lurki  -- actually, officially ladhka, ladhki, but it's pronounced closer to what I wrote first. Also bachcha, bachchi for babies and toddlers, or bachche for children more generally.)
Brother, Sister: bhai, behan

Maternal grandfather, grandmother: nana, nani  (Maternal grandparents: nana-nani)
Paternal grandfather, grandmother: dada, dadi  (Paternal grandparents: dada-dadi)
Also, baba/babi/babu can be used as a respectful term for a grandparent or elder.

Now the fun begins -- with the aunts and uncles. You've got to keep all those connections straight:
Father's brother and his wife: chacha, chachi  (kaka, kaki in Gujarati)
Father's sister and her husband: foofi, foofa
Mother's brother and his wife: mama, mami
Mother's sister and her husband: mausi, mausa

So for our children, who have two "Aunt Chris/Kris" and "Uncle Jim" combinations, it would be totally clear: Mausi Chris and Mausa Jim, and Chacha Jim and Chachi Kris. (Got that?)

Cousins can get just as complicated, as in chachere bhai. Literally, uncle (father's brother) brother, meaning brother through uncle (father's brother) and so forth. (Substitute behan for female cousins.)

The in-laws are equally complex. There are separate terms for husband's elder brother (and his wife), husband's younger brother (and his wife), husband's sister (and her husband), wife's sister (and her husband). Nephews and nieces depend upon whether or not they are children of a brother or a sister.

"Auntie" (spoken as in English) is a respectful term for any older family female friend.

Don't forget that you can append "ji" to any name to show respect.

The combinations seem endless!

And when babies start to babble, just about anything they say is a term for a family member! It's so limiting to have only "mama" and "dada" make sense!

What's with the Monsoon?

Monsoon is supposed to start slacking off in September, with full withdrawal in Vapi by the end of the month. So why have the last two weeks had more rain than most of the previous 2 months combined?

Full monsoon is impressive. The rain comes down at a rate of at least 2 inches an hour. These bursts only last perhaps 30 to 60 minutes at a time, but over the course of a day, it's not unheard of to get 4+ inches of rain (100 mm). Here are some videos I took yesterday. The sound track doesn't really do justice to the experience. It's loud enough to make conversation difficult.

The rain pours off our neighbor's roof onto their carport and then directly onto our "driveway". It's also so loud it can wake us up at night.

Our front "garden" turns into one big puddle, but as soon as it stops raining, everything drains within minutes.

This pretty much shows the entire garden. Monsoon brings out the best in weeds! The large brown things are fallen palm fronds.

I'm fascinated by the standing waves created by the potted plants. The middle plant is the one that has leaves stitched into a bird nest. (As discussed in a previous post.)

Ganesha / Ganpati

Today is the last day of Ganpati -- the 10-day festival for Ganesha. It's a particularly important festival in Maharashtra -- especially Mumbai and Pune. Don't even try to move in Mumbai today!

It started on August 29 -- Ganesh Chathurti. Chathurti means that it starts on the 4th day of the lunar month. In Vapi, the first and fifth days of the festival are the most celebrated. There are lots of "pandals" (temporary booths) set up on the street and in apartment blocks. Many people also bring Ganesha into their homes and have special celebrations with family and friends. At the end of the celebration -- whether it's on the second, fifth, or tenth day -- the idol gets immersed in a nearby body of water. In the home, Ganesha is typically 12 to 18 inches high. The larger displays can have a Ganesha that is several feet high and may take a truck to move around.

It's difficult to take a decent picture at night, but this shows a bit of the decorations in the parking area of an apartment block.

This is Sandip's Ganesha before he was fully decorated. It's about 18 inches high. (Photo by Sandip.)

And this is Sandip's Ganesha fully decorated. (Photo by Sandip.)

This is a similar-size Ganesha at Paromitra's house. All the food and flowers are gifts for the god. There's lots of singing and incense during the ceremonies (puja).

Ganesha is an important god in Gujarat -- it's probably the most commonly seen god here, followed by Krishna. In Paro's apartment block, all the doors have this stylized Ganesha on them.

Sunday Walk

We didn't do a whole lot of walking today. I was working on a vegetarian chili recipe. Lots of beans and tomatoes. I do miss the meat, but it tastes good and definitely tastes like chili. Garlic, cumin, and chilies are standard Indian flavors, so it's not too hard to do. I added fresh curry leaves from our curry bush to add a bit of herbal flavor. It's definitely a "scratch" recipe -- there are no canned goods in India, so I had to start with dried beans and make tomato puree.

We had to make our way through this small herd of very muddy buffalo. On our way back, they had only made it about 200 m further down the road -- and tied up traffic pretty thoroughly. The road is NH 8 -- the busiest highway in India -- that connects Mumbai and New Delhi through the major industrial areas of Gujarat.

If you've Skyped or FaceTimed with us, you know the trains are nearby and loud. This is taken near the entrance to our "society" (subdivision in 'burb-speak). Typical Indian road traffic: train, cows, and tuk-tuks, also two-wheelers, truck, and pedestrians.

Teachers and Trees

Yesterday was "Teacher's Day". A day set aside throughout India to honor teachers.

Here we are with our Hindi teacher, Pinky, in a "cabin" (aka "office") where we have class. It's tiny by American standards -- probably about 5 ft square.

To completely change subjects. Today was Parent-Teacher Open House at Modern School. Sometime between the time the faculty and staff arrived and the parents and students arrived, this tree fell across the road.

It's not a very big tree, but it effectively blocked the road.

Not only did it block the road to the school, it also blocked one lane of the major road.

It must have fallen all the way across the road at first, since a pole in the median was also crushed. (Or maybe something big took down both the pole and tree?) As you can see here, even though this is a divided road, you can't count on traffic going in just one direction on either side.

Since I haven't seen a cross-cut saw, much less a chain saw in India, this will be quite a job to remove. When we have seen workers trying to remove a tree, they were using an ax. Quite a job!

Tiny Nest

I was looking over my plants and flowers today. Some are doing well in monsoon, and some have rotted away.

This plant had very fragrant flowers when I bought it. It hasn't bloomed since. But it is doing very well!

On one of my plants (above) I noticed leaves that had white spots. I figured it was insect damage of some sort, and that I should probably pinch off those leaves.

The white fluffy stuff attracted my attention.

As I approached, I realized that the leaves were glued together -- again, I presumed insects. But something fairly large, since these leaves are about 15 cm (6 inches) long. When I peeked inside, this is what I found:

A tiny bird's nest. The nest is 4-5 cm across (about 2 inches), and the cavity is about 2 cm (1 inch) in diameter.

I'll have to keep watching and see if I can find out what kind of bird made this nest -- it's hummingbird size. But as I just found out, hummingbirds are strictly New World.

Update:
Turns out it's most likely a Common Tailorbird nest. After spending about 2 hours going through my huge "A Guide to the Birds of India", I finally googled "nest India leaves small" and after eliminating the references to ants (should have added "bird" to the list), the second link was to a Wikipedia article and the words "Popular for its nest made of leaves "sewn" together and immortalized by … " made it sound like a good match. Ta Da! The nest photo cinched it. Common tailorbird it is. (Other possibilities include grey-breasted prinia and ashy prinia, but the tailorbird seems to match the best. I still haven't actually seen the birds.)

Here's one more picture of the nest showing how the leaf above was attached to provide an "umbrella" to keep the monsoon rains off the nest.