Kumar Purnima

Back to work on Thursday after a nice long break.  On my way home from work I was passing a nearby house that also doubles up as a bakery when one of the occupants came out and beckoned my inside.  She wanted me to meet her daughters and tiny new grandson, all of 10 days old.  She spoke very little English but Kalyani, the 20 year-old daughter struck up a conversation and translated for us.  They insisted I had a cha with them and gave me  bisuits while they asked me about myself, my family, why I'm here in India etc.  The usual questions, including what salary I get.  They seemed a bit flummoxed when I told them that there is no salary, just a small allowance to buy food although I suspect that the VSO allowance, although far from generous is far more than many people here can earn.  A common question here is whether I cook and do I cook Indian food.  This time I was asked who cooked at home in the UK.  They found it hard to believe that Jon does most of the cooking in our house and I used to go out to work full time while he looked after the house and me round his part-time job.  In this part of rural India it's a concept that they find hard to get their heads round.  I had to stop myself bursting out with a feminist tirade when Kalyani said it is every woman's duty to have babies.  I tried to tell her that many women in Europe and America decide they don't want to have children and prefer to work but I'm not convinced she grasped what I tried to explain.


Friday was the anniversary of Gandhi's birthday, a national holiday in India but my NGO worked Friday and took Saturday holiday instead to celebrate Kumar Purnima festival.  'Kumar' or 'Kartikeya', the handsome son of Shiva was born on this day.  Kumar also became the God of war. Tradition says young girls always wish for a handsome husband and they propitiate Kumar who was most handsome among the Gods.  But there is no ritual for the God, instead the sun and the moon are worshipped.  In the early morning the girls and women make food-offerings to the sun and I could hear singing and chanting going on all round the town.  They observe fasting for the day. In the evening when the moon rises they again make food offerings and take it after the rituals are over.


My offering for the day was to invite Ali and Mike round for supper and a few beers.  The first challenge was to work out what to make for supper.  I walked into town in the morning with Mike to do some shopping but my menu planning being non-existant I didn't work out what I was going to make until later in the day at which point I just had to make do with what was in the house.  Tomatoes are good at the moment, plentiful and cheap at just 10 rupees a kilo so it had to be something with tomatoes and the paneer I bought.  We ended up with a very nice gazpacho made by Margaret followed by a sort of pinto bean and tomato dish with onion, garlic and ginger to perk it up (my version of baked beans) with paneer chilli.  It seemed to go down well with all of us and copious amounts of beer were consumed during the evening while we put the world to rights and talked about some of the things that we have experienced here in India. 



I started the day by opening the door to find a calf lying down in the front yard, having made it's way round the gap in the wall at the side of the house.  When he eventually decided to get up he couldn't work out how to find the gap again so just waitied patiently at the gate until I opened it so that he could go wandering off up the street, leaving a nice offering of his own just inside the gate.  A little later I went out to find 3 dogs curled up on the paved area enjoying the sun.  I love dogs but am very wary of them here in India as the majority of them are feral, some fit and healthy but many in very poor condition with mange, malnutrition, injuries but worst of all, rabies is endemic here.  Even those of us who have had the vaccination would need quick treatment and more jabs to protect us if  we get bitten.  The dogs too left their own offering.  Lovely.


There's a tiny dairy shop in Koraput that sells paneer and dahi (yogurt) very cheaply.  The dahi is kept inside a big stainless steel vat that he dips a ladle into and pours into a flimsy plastic bag and ties up with string that I somehow have to get home without it splitting and spilling all over everything else.  The next trick is to open the bag without dahi spurting out all over the place.  That's something I haven't yet worked out how to achieve. It's a good thing that it's cheap, I always seem to end up with a puddle of it on the worktop or down my front.