As a follow up to the Holi post:
Most of the recipes came from my go-to cookbook, a simple and small one called "From Mom with Love."
I also relied on Manjula, who has UTube videos for making lots of great food and deserts. Her barfi is the first time I've been able to make it come out correctly!
Monday, March 1, 2010
Books
For today I'm going to go back to talking about the religion as opposed to the culture.
Hinduism does not have a single go-to book. It also does not have a central prophet or creator of the religion. At some point I will have a post about the main branches of Hinduism, but today I wanted to talk about the holy texts.
Hindu tradition is packed with wonderful books and philosophical ponderings that question and examine the purpose of life and the meaning of death. These texts are thousands of years old and yet a person reading them today can still be completely at home with their profound messages.
There are the two great epic stories, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. They are a source of a lot of the mythology in Indian life. The Ramayana is the life story of Rama, who is believed by many to be a god. The most common view of Rama is that he is an avatar, an incarnation of god on earth for a particular purpose (which is the same as the view of Jesus). Rama's life is a template for living a life of perfect devotion to duty and his wife, Sita, is the model for all Hindu wives.
The Mahabharata is about a tremendous war that pulled the world into the last age. As in Greek mythology, there are four ages of the earth. The final one is the Kali Yuga. This is the time that we are now living in according to Hindu mythology.
Part of the Mahabharata is the Bhaghavad Gita. This might be the most famous of the Indian texts. It means "Song of the Lord" and it is the advice that Krishna gives to the warrior Arjuna just before the battle. Krishna, of course, comes into play in many Indian stories and books. He is a side character in this story. He is also an avatar of god. The Gita (as it is known for short) is packed full of profound philosophical meaning. A couple of the key points are that death is an illusion and that action that is performed without desire for the fruits will not have karmic consequence. The purpose of life is to free ones self from the cycle of birth and death and become one with god. It is our karma (actions) that keep us chained to our human lives.
There are also a number of even more ancient books called The Upanishads. One of my favorites of these is the Katha Upanishad, in which a young boy goes to visit the house of Yama, the god of death, and understand why death exists.
All of these texts are written in Sanskrit. (By the way, that "a" is pronounced like the "a" in "father", not like the "a" in "alligator." That second sound does not exist in Sanskrit and it is a great irony that the American way of pronouncing the word includes a sound that is not present in that language. In general, you're pretty safe if you use a long "a" for Indian words).
My community growing up, and I'm sure many people in India, believe that Sanskrit was the first language. Historically speaking there is a lot of evidence that it wasn't, but that doesn't stop anyone from believing it. According to tradition, the laws of the universe can be found in the laws of Sanskrit grammar.
My mother and father have studied Sanskrit for thirty years now. The dining room table is scattered with giant dictionaries and grammar books and snip-its of the Gita and the Upanishads.
It is a very beautiful language. I learned the characters of the alphabet as a child and also several of the Vedic prayers, which are prayers found in the opening pages of most of the Upanishads.
One prayer is the following:
Asato ma sad gamaya
tamaso ma jyotir gamaya
mritur ma amritang gamaya
om shanti, shanti, shanti
It means:
Lead me from the unreal to the real
Lead me from the darkness to the light
Lead me from death to immortality
May peace and peace and peace be everywhere
That last line is the ending to nearly all Vedic prayers and it is a loose translation. Really it is "om", which is the sound which is supposed to have begun the universe, the very first sound from which all others arise. And then the word for "peace" three times. Probably you have heard the word "Shanti" before and that is what it means.
Learning that alphabet as a child has been a big advantage for me in learning Hindi because it is almost identical. The script is called Devanagari, which means "city of the gods." Many Indian languages use this script or a variation of it, although some do not.
This is a taste of some of the great richness that has drawn me to this religion. It is easy to find translations of many of these texts and I highly recommend the translations done by a man named Eknath Easwaran. Give them a try, I think you'll really enjoy them, regardless of your religion.
Hinduism does not have a single go-to book. It also does not have a central prophet or creator of the religion. At some point I will have a post about the main branches of Hinduism, but today I wanted to talk about the holy texts.
Hindu tradition is packed with wonderful books and philosophical ponderings that question and examine the purpose of life and the meaning of death. These texts are thousands of years old and yet a person reading them today can still be completely at home with their profound messages.
There are the two great epic stories, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. They are a source of a lot of the mythology in Indian life. The Ramayana is the life story of Rama, who is believed by many to be a god. The most common view of Rama is that he is an avatar, an incarnation of god on earth for a particular purpose (which is the same as the view of Jesus). Rama's life is a template for living a life of perfect devotion to duty and his wife, Sita, is the model for all Hindu wives.
The Mahabharata is about a tremendous war that pulled the world into the last age. As in Greek mythology, there are four ages of the earth. The final one is the Kali Yuga. This is the time that we are now living in according to Hindu mythology.
Part of the Mahabharata is the Bhaghavad Gita. This might be the most famous of the Indian texts. It means "Song of the Lord" and it is the advice that Krishna gives to the warrior Arjuna just before the battle. Krishna, of course, comes into play in many Indian stories and books. He is a side character in this story. He is also an avatar of god. The Gita (as it is known for short) is packed full of profound philosophical meaning. A couple of the key points are that death is an illusion and that action that is performed without desire for the fruits will not have karmic consequence. The purpose of life is to free ones self from the cycle of birth and death and become one with god. It is our karma (actions) that keep us chained to our human lives.
There are also a number of even more ancient books called The Upanishads. One of my favorites of these is the Katha Upanishad, in which a young boy goes to visit the house of Yama, the god of death, and understand why death exists.
All of these texts are written in Sanskrit. (By the way, that "a" is pronounced like the "a" in "father", not like the "a" in "alligator." That second sound does not exist in Sanskrit and it is a great irony that the American way of pronouncing the word includes a sound that is not present in that language. In general, you're pretty safe if you use a long "a" for Indian words).
My community growing up, and I'm sure many people in India, believe that Sanskrit was the first language. Historically speaking there is a lot of evidence that it wasn't, but that doesn't stop anyone from believing it. According to tradition, the laws of the universe can be found in the laws of Sanskrit grammar.
My mother and father have studied Sanskrit for thirty years now. The dining room table is scattered with giant dictionaries and grammar books and snip-its of the Gita and the Upanishads.
It is a very beautiful language. I learned the characters of the alphabet as a child and also several of the Vedic prayers, which are prayers found in the opening pages of most of the Upanishads.
One prayer is the following:
Asato ma sad gamaya
tamaso ma jyotir gamaya
mritur ma amritang gamaya
om shanti, shanti, shanti
It means:
Lead me from the unreal to the real
Lead me from the darkness to the light
Lead me from death to immortality
May peace and peace and peace be everywhere
That last line is the ending to nearly all Vedic prayers and it is a loose translation. Really it is "om", which is the sound which is supposed to have begun the universe, the very first sound from which all others arise. And then the word for "peace" three times. Probably you have heard the word "Shanti" before and that is what it means.
Learning that alphabet as a child has been a big advantage for me in learning Hindi because it is almost identical. The script is called Devanagari, which means "city of the gods." Many Indian languages use this script or a variation of it, although some do not.
This is a taste of some of the great richness that has drawn me to this religion. It is easy to find translations of many of these texts and I highly recommend the translations done by a man named Eknath Easwaran. Give them a try, I think you'll really enjoy them, regardless of your religion.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Holi and other hoildays
First, let me start by saying that I finally made it to the temple. There was a dance performance there by some students of my dance teacher. She suggested that I go and it made a good excuse to check out the place. I'm possibly more intimidated now. It's a large temple and there must have been a couple hundred people there. I didn't go into the room with the murtis (statues of the gods), I just went to the auditorium.
I think the theme of this blog has been that I have to learn to not worry over what other people are thinking of me. It always comes back to that. The fact is, I can't control other people. Maybe some will be offended by me. Maybe they'll think I'm just some stupid American who thinks "oh, karma is like so cool, man." But that's on them to deal with. It is not my responsibility.
I am reminded of another movie. A campy 80s movie with a lot of heart called The Last Dragon. I don't know if you've seen it. It's a Black kid living in Harlem who loves Chinese things. He studies kung fu and has a Chinese master and he wears Chinese clothes and follows Chinese customs. His family doesn't know what to make of him, but he just does what feels right to him.
I read a book once that talked about the experience of being a minority. I think that is part of what I am feeling. Being white, I'm used to being in the majority and I rarely think about my ethnicity or the color of my skin. It's a completely different experience when there's no other white person in sight. Being surrounded by Indians makes me extremely aware of being different and being a minority.
Back to the point. There wasn't really a Holi in the traditional sense today. I went to my boyfriend's dad's house and his sister and her husband and baby were there.
Knowing that his family doesn't have any experience with Indian things, I thought for Holi that I would make them an Indian dinner and bring a variety of Indian sweets for them to try. It was a lot of fun.
I wore a decorative bindi and they had no problem with it. For some reason I find it easier to wear the decorative ones and not feel self-conscious. It's the plain ones that make me stress. There's a lot of information out there about fashion bindis and they're just good fun for everyone. But when you're wearing just a small, plain bindi, it's clearly for another reason. Anyway, there will be a follow up post on the bindi experience another time.
For dinner I made Malai Kofta, which is not at all spicy, and even people who don't like Indian food would like it. It is balls of mashed potato and cheese deep fried and added to a tomato/cream sauce.
Then I made a traditional "milk shake" that is served at Holi, called Thandai.
Then I made kheer (rice pudding), barfi (Indian "fudge"), sesame gajjak (crunchy candy), and gulab jamun (which is the dessert you get at most Indian restaurants, deep fried flour balls soaked in syrup).
I did a lot of cooking! Totally worth it, though. Everyone said they learned a lot and enjoyed the food.
ABOUT HOLIDAYS
There are a lot of Hindu holidays. Also, in general, Indians like to celebrate and will celebrate any holiday for any religion around.
Interestingly, there is no Hindu holiday around the winter equinox. Probably because of the climate in India, but that's just a guess.
The big one that tends to get compared to Christmas is the Indian new year, Divali, also known as the festival of lights. That is in October usually. It depends because the Indian calender goes on a lunar cycle. There is also some confusion over time zones. India is a full day ahead of us, so there is disagreement over whether Americans should be celebrating at the same time as in India or on the same calendar day.
There is also a holiday where sisters make red thread bracelets for their brothers and the brothers promise to protect their sisters.
There are many surrounding the different events in the epic story, The Ramayana. For example, Rama's birthday and the day that Rama defeated the demon Ravana.
There's the birthday of Ganesha and the birthday of Krishna.
There's "Shiva's great night."
I think what I'll do is discuss each one in more depth as it comes up in the coming year.
Holi does not have a lot of religious significance. There is a story about a brave prince who goes into a fire and is not burned, proving his devotion to God. I look at it like Easter. Yeah, there's some stories about it's significance, but it's really just a chance to have fun and celebrate the spring time. Things in India get extremely messy. You can look up Google images for Holi and see people drenched in color. Another place to see it in action is the movie Outsourced. It's a "cross over" movie, an American movie taking place in India. The American guy gets very surprised by Holi.
My boyfriend's step-mom still wants to do it, she thought it sounded so fun, so she said when the snow melts we'll make a bonfire and throw colored rice powder.
Here's me at Holi last year:
I think the theme of this blog has been that I have to learn to not worry over what other people are thinking of me. It always comes back to that. The fact is, I can't control other people. Maybe some will be offended by me. Maybe they'll think I'm just some stupid American who thinks "oh, karma is like so cool, man." But that's on them to deal with. It is not my responsibility.
I am reminded of another movie. A campy 80s movie with a lot of heart called The Last Dragon. I don't know if you've seen it. It's a Black kid living in Harlem who loves Chinese things. He studies kung fu and has a Chinese master and he wears Chinese clothes and follows Chinese customs. His family doesn't know what to make of him, but he just does what feels right to him.
I read a book once that talked about the experience of being a minority. I think that is part of what I am feeling. Being white, I'm used to being in the majority and I rarely think about my ethnicity or the color of my skin. It's a completely different experience when there's no other white person in sight. Being surrounded by Indians makes me extremely aware of being different and being a minority.
Back to the point. There wasn't really a Holi in the traditional sense today. I went to my boyfriend's dad's house and his sister and her husband and baby were there.
Knowing that his family doesn't have any experience with Indian things, I thought for Holi that I would make them an Indian dinner and bring a variety of Indian sweets for them to try. It was a lot of fun.
I wore a decorative bindi and they had no problem with it. For some reason I find it easier to wear the decorative ones and not feel self-conscious. It's the plain ones that make me stress. There's a lot of information out there about fashion bindis and they're just good fun for everyone. But when you're wearing just a small, plain bindi, it's clearly for another reason. Anyway, there will be a follow up post on the bindi experience another time.
For dinner I made Malai Kofta, which is not at all spicy, and even people who don't like Indian food would like it. It is balls of mashed potato and cheese deep fried and added to a tomato/cream sauce.
Then I made a traditional "milk shake" that is served at Holi, called Thandai.
Then I made kheer (rice pudding), barfi (Indian "fudge"), sesame gajjak (crunchy candy), and gulab jamun (which is the dessert you get at most Indian restaurants, deep fried flour balls soaked in syrup).
I did a lot of cooking! Totally worth it, though. Everyone said they learned a lot and enjoyed the food.
ABOUT HOLIDAYS
There are a lot of Hindu holidays. Also, in general, Indians like to celebrate and will celebrate any holiday for any religion around.
Interestingly, there is no Hindu holiday around the winter equinox. Probably because of the climate in India, but that's just a guess.
The big one that tends to get compared to Christmas is the Indian new year, Divali, also known as the festival of lights. That is in October usually. It depends because the Indian calender goes on a lunar cycle. There is also some confusion over time zones. India is a full day ahead of us, so there is disagreement over whether Americans should be celebrating at the same time as in India or on the same calendar day.
There is also a holiday where sisters make red thread bracelets for their brothers and the brothers promise to protect their sisters.
There are many surrounding the different events in the epic story, The Ramayana. For example, Rama's birthday and the day that Rama defeated the demon Ravana.
There's the birthday of Ganesha and the birthday of Krishna.
There's "Shiva's great night."
I think what I'll do is discuss each one in more depth as it comes up in the coming year.
Holi does not have a lot of religious significance. There is a story about a brave prince who goes into a fire and is not burned, proving his devotion to God. I look at it like Easter. Yeah, there's some stories about it's significance, but it's really just a chance to have fun and celebrate the spring time. Things in India get extremely messy. You can look up Google images for Holi and see people drenched in color. Another place to see it in action is the movie Outsourced. It's a "cross over" movie, an American movie taking place in India. The American guy gets very surprised by Holi.
My boyfriend's step-mom still wants to do it, she thought it sounded so fun, so she said when the snow melts we'll make a bonfire and throw colored rice powder.
Here's me at Holi last year:
Friday, February 26, 2010
Call for Ideas
I have a list of ideas for future blog posts and new experiences continue to inspire me, but I wanted to give my readers a chance to weigh in on what they would like to hear about.
I have planned posts on the following:
-Arranged Marriage
-American-born Indians (ABCD)
-Whether the religion and the culture can be separated
-Branches of Hinduism
-Typical rituals/"day in the life"
-Polytheism
What else would you like to know about? If I don't know the answer to your question, I will find out!
I have planned posts on the following:
-Arranged Marriage
-American-born Indians (ABCD)
-Whether the religion and the culture can be separated
-Branches of Hinduism
-Typical rituals/"day in the life"
-Polytheism
What else would you like to know about? If I don't know the answer to your question, I will find out!
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Hindi
I made it my new year’s resolution to be fluent in Hindi this year. I am one of those people who has a very hard time learning language and I never learned much in school. In high school I studied Latin and in college, Sign Language and Sanskrit, but I have never been able to make much use of any of them.
As I started to try to live my life by following my heart, I knew that I very much wanted to be bilingual. I started looking for a language to devote myself to. The trouble I was having was that I wanted to learn them all and I couldn’t focus!
Finally I realized that learning Hindi would be a great step toward being integrated in the Hindu/Indian community. There are so many hundreds of Indian languages and dialects that picking one is overwhelming, but Hindi is the language of movies and news and many Indians speak it as a second language, if not the first.
I feel as though being fluent in Hindi will somehow prove to people how serious I am about this path. The dedication it will take to get this new language will show my dedication to Hinduism and I will not appear flakey. That’s some of the psychological stuff floating around in my brain, anyway.
I started with Rosetta Stone and I am extremely happy with the results I’ve gotten. I’ve become such a proselytizer of Rosetta Stone products. A few years ago they had a system that was not as good and I had that, but this summer I discovered they revamped everything and addressed all the problems in the old system (things like not learning how to say anything about one’s self, not learning basics like greetings, etc.). I am working on level 3 now (which is currently the highest level of Hindi) and what it has given me is the feel for the language.
I have a lot of vocabulary, I can read the script well, and I also have a sense for what “feels” right or wrong in a sentence. It came into my brain in such a natural way that I hear the rhythms of the language in my dreams and there has been no “work” at memorizing. I am able to have simple conversations now and I'm getting close to understanding more complex ideas. I’ve begun to supplement it with other things now, and I have several children’s books and DVDs in Hindi that I’m learning to read/understand.
It is my great hope that I will be able to raise my children bilingual, so it is my goal to have the language solidly down by the time I become pregnant. My boyfriend, who loves Bollywood movies, has also begun to use my Rosetta Stone, so someday we hope to have it be a language our whole family can use together.
For anyone else interested in learning Hindi, here are the resources I have found the most helpful:
http://www.rosettastone.com/learn-hindi
http://www.chandabooks.com/1844/index.html (great beginner’s books like Aamu the Aam)
www.ispeakhindi.com (audio lessons with a lot of variety and depth going back every day for months)
http://taj.chass.ncsu.edu/ (video lessons with scripts, allows you to hear real native speakers in their home environment. Also has exercises and quizzes, but not everything is working all the time)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/019864339X/ref=oss_product (my favorite dictionary)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0756638577/ref=oss_product (a visual dictionary, which is a great idea. It has a lot of “borrowed” English words, but it is packed full of vocabulary)
http://www.youtube.com/user/dlfcity4#p/u/4/mUFwiN0hWV0 (Sesame Street clips in Hindi)
http://www.amarchitrakatha.com/international/index.php (Comic books and DVDs in Hindi)
http://www.rajshri.com/Video/Nursery-Rhymes-in-Hindi
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hindi/ (Hindi speakers yahoo group. The people here are very advanced and knowledgeable)
http://www.transparent.com/hindi/ (a blog with short grammar lessons)
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?gl=GB&hl=en-GB&p=5835F8A615009A6C (children’s cartoon stories in Hindi)
http://www.hindigym.com/stories.php (more children’s videos)
Intermediate:
http://lang.ojnk.net/hindi/ (a list of useful info put together by the Yahoo group)
Advanced:
http://pustak.org/bs/home.html (website in Hindi, selling Hindi novels and books)
http://www.indiaclub.com/shop/Children.asp (books in Hindi, including translations of The Little Prince, and Harry Potter)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/hindi/ (the BBC news in Hindi)
Hindi: a spoken thesaurus (a podcast of conversations between Robert Snell, a leading expert on Hindi, and an Indian woman about esotaric parts of grammar. I don't understand a word of it, but it's something to aim for)
New Links Added 5/12/2010 (I have not yet tried all of these!)
ISpeakHindi Wiki
Classes in D.C.
Worksheet and videos for kids
Online course materials for college class
http://www.myhinditeacher.com/
A bunch of links
Kid's CD with games
http://www.kidsone.in/hindi/
Language games
http://www.kidsone.in/hindi/
http://www.kidsone.in/hindi/learnhindi/index.jsp
LiveMocha
Mellon project
University of PA
L-lingo
Lila
Syracuse University
New York University
Defense Language Institute
Listening Comprehension
Raj Comics
Hindi bolo blog
Hindi Learners
Learn Hindi from Bollywood Movies
Language Guide
Trip to the Market video
Hindi through Songs
Stories
Hindi literature
more Hindi literature
more Hindi Literature
To help you read it, this cool web reader
youtube Hindi karaoke
More New Links (ongoing updated)
Appu Series -DVDs for kids about body parts, the planet earth, animals, and nursury rhymes in Hindi and a DVD in English that I have about why we go to the temple.
Almost a Frequency List
Auditory Dictionary
And now that I've figured out how to embed videos, something really cute that will get stuck in your head!
Edit: It seems that the video has been removed :( Too bad, it was an adorable nursery rhyme cartoon. Here are a couple of cute kids attempting to sing the same song:
As I started to try to live my life by following my heart, I knew that I very much wanted to be bilingual. I started looking for a language to devote myself to. The trouble I was having was that I wanted to learn them all and I couldn’t focus!
Finally I realized that learning Hindi would be a great step toward being integrated in the Hindu/Indian community. There are so many hundreds of Indian languages and dialects that picking one is overwhelming, but Hindi is the language of movies and news and many Indians speak it as a second language, if not the first.
I feel as though being fluent in Hindi will somehow prove to people how serious I am about this path. The dedication it will take to get this new language will show my dedication to Hinduism and I will not appear flakey. That’s some of the psychological stuff floating around in my brain, anyway.
I started with Rosetta Stone and I am extremely happy with the results I’ve gotten. I’ve become such a proselytizer of Rosetta Stone products. A few years ago they had a system that was not as good and I had that, but this summer I discovered they revamped everything and addressed all the problems in the old system (things like not learning how to say anything about one’s self, not learning basics like greetings, etc.). I am working on level 3 now (which is currently the highest level of Hindi) and what it has given me is the feel for the language.
I have a lot of vocabulary, I can read the script well, and I also have a sense for what “feels” right or wrong in a sentence. It came into my brain in such a natural way that I hear the rhythms of the language in my dreams and there has been no “work” at memorizing. I am able to have simple conversations now and I'm getting close to understanding more complex ideas. I’ve begun to supplement it with other things now, and I have several children’s books and DVDs in Hindi that I’m learning to read/understand.
It is my great hope that I will be able to raise my children bilingual, so it is my goal to have the language solidly down by the time I become pregnant. My boyfriend, who loves Bollywood movies, has also begun to use my Rosetta Stone, so someday we hope to have it be a language our whole family can use together.
For anyone else interested in learning Hindi, here are the resources I have found the most helpful:
http://www.rosettastone.com/learn-hindi
http://www.chandabooks.com/1844/index.html (great beginner’s books like Aamu the Aam)
www.ispeakhindi.com (audio lessons with a lot of variety and depth going back every day for months)
http://taj.chass.ncsu.edu/ (video lessons with scripts, allows you to hear real native speakers in their home environment. Also has exercises and quizzes, but not everything is working all the time)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/019864339X/ref=oss_product (my favorite dictionary)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0756638577/ref=oss_product (a visual dictionary, which is a great idea. It has a lot of “borrowed” English words, but it is packed full of vocabulary)
http://www.youtube.com/user/dlfcity4#p/u/4/mUFwiN0hWV0 (Sesame Street clips in Hindi)
http://www.amarchitrakatha.com/international/index.php (Comic books and DVDs in Hindi)
http://www.rajshri.com/Video/Nursery-Rhymes-in-Hindi
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hindi/ (Hindi speakers yahoo group. The people here are very advanced and knowledgeable)
http://www.transparent.com/hindi/ (a blog with short grammar lessons)
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?gl=GB&hl=en-GB&p=5835F8A615009A6C (children’s cartoon stories in Hindi)
http://www.hindigym.com/stories.php (more children’s videos)
Intermediate:
http://lang.ojnk.net/hindi/ (a list of useful info put together by the Yahoo group)
Advanced:
http://pustak.org/bs/home.html (website in Hindi, selling Hindi novels and books)
http://www.indiaclub.com/shop/Children.asp (books in Hindi, including translations of The Little Prince, and Harry Potter)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/hindi/ (the BBC news in Hindi)
Hindi: a spoken thesaurus (a podcast of conversations between Robert Snell, a leading expert on Hindi, and an Indian woman about esotaric parts of grammar. I don't understand a word of it, but it's something to aim for)
New Links Added 5/12/2010 (I have not yet tried all of these!)
ISpeakHindi Wiki
Classes in D.C.
Worksheet and videos for kids
Online course materials for college class
http://www.myhinditeacher.com/
A bunch of links
Kid's CD with games
http://www.kidsone.in/hindi/
Language games
http://www.kidsone.in/hindi/
http://www.kidsone.in/hindi/learnhindi/index.jsp
LiveMocha
Mellon project
University of PA
L-lingo
Lila
Syracuse University
New York University
Defense Language Institute
Listening Comprehension
Raj Comics
Hindi bolo blog
Hindi Learners
Learn Hindi from Bollywood Movies
Language Guide
Trip to the Market video
Hindi through Songs
Stories
Hindi literature
more Hindi literature
more Hindi Literature
To help you read it, this cool web reader
youtube Hindi karaoke
More New Links (ongoing updated)
Appu Series -DVDs for kids about body parts, the planet earth, animals, and nursury rhymes in Hindi and a DVD in English that I have about why we go to the temple.
Almost a Frequency List
Auditory Dictionary
And now that I've figured out how to embed videos, something really cute that will get stuck in your head!
Edit: It seems that the video has been removed :( Too bad, it was an adorable nursery rhyme cartoon. Here are a couple of cute kids attempting to sing the same song:
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Wearing a bindi
I've been reading with interest some forums about modern head-covering for religious purposes. Most of the women there did not grow up in a religion that covered the head and are now drawn to it. They express concern about feeling self-conscious as they start covering their hair, how to transition into it with friends and family who have not seen them do it before, and what exactly to wear to not offend or tread on the toes of a different religious group. Some of these women are pagans and others are Quakers and others just want to take this spiritual step.
Their concerns sounded familiar to me as I prepare to start wearing a bindi.
I've been dressing in Indian clothes for a number of years now. Not every day, but many days, I wear the pant suit originating in North India and Pakistan. I learned from an old boyfriend how to hold my head up high and be confident while looking different from those around me. I'm very comfortable in these clothes and only occasionally feel uncomfortable if there is an Indian person nearby. I wear them to my dance classes, but there it is expected. When I wear it to the mall I wonder if the Indian people I see are confused by my clothes.
The bindi is a new step. The simple, round bindi that I want to wear is pretty unmistakably Hindu. Since I am not married and there is disagreement between regions and cultures about exactly what a bindi in what color means, I will start with a round, black bindi. Red is a marriage color and many people, Indian and non-Indian alike, associate the round, red bindi as a sign of marriage, although I have seen many young girls and women my age who are not married wearing it.
For me the bindi is a spiritual sign, like the head covering. It is an outward sign of my religion and it is a reminder to myself throughout the day to stay focused on the spiritual.
It is also supposed to focus the third-eye energies. I don't know too much about that.
It's going to take a lot of confidence and a bold spirit to start wearing it daily.
But here's why it's worth it. Have you ever had the experience of being at a class or an airport, or the grocery store, and seeing a woman or girl wearing religious clothing (a head covering or a bindi or some other marking) and thought how beautiful it was. You wished you could be that brave and that sure of your spirituality. You think this girl is lucky because she probably grew up in the culture and has the support of a community when she goes home. But maybe she doesn't. I wanted to stop wishing to be that girl and start living that life. To live my life authentically, drawn by what feels right in my heart.
I don't know if that's a common experience, but I know the women in the head-covering group have felt it and so have I.
I'll be interested to see what kind of reactions I get when I start this. I will probably start slowly, doing it at family things or at class and not at work until later. I'll let you know how it goes.
ON ANOTHER MATTER, Holi is this coming weekend. Sadly, I don't think I'll be able to do any of the events for it. Holi is the most fun of the Hindu holidays and I've participated in events for it for the last two years. It involves running around and throwing colored powder at people. It's very messy. But with the snow still heavy on the ground here, I don't think that will be happening.
I came so close to making it to that temple for the Mahashivratri celebration earlier in the month too, but record snow falls closed everything in the state for a week. The temple will be having another one in mid March, so I'm determined I'll go to that one.
Their concerns sounded familiar to me as I prepare to start wearing a bindi.
I've been dressing in Indian clothes for a number of years now. Not every day, but many days, I wear the pant suit originating in North India and Pakistan. I learned from an old boyfriend how to hold my head up high and be confident while looking different from those around me. I'm very comfortable in these clothes and only occasionally feel uncomfortable if there is an Indian person nearby. I wear them to my dance classes, but there it is expected. When I wear it to the mall I wonder if the Indian people I see are confused by my clothes.
The bindi is a new step. The simple, round bindi that I want to wear is pretty unmistakably Hindu. Since I am not married and there is disagreement between regions and cultures about exactly what a bindi in what color means, I will start with a round, black bindi. Red is a marriage color and many people, Indian and non-Indian alike, associate the round, red bindi as a sign of marriage, although I have seen many young girls and women my age who are not married wearing it.
For me the bindi is a spiritual sign, like the head covering. It is an outward sign of my religion and it is a reminder to myself throughout the day to stay focused on the spiritual.
It is also supposed to focus the third-eye energies. I don't know too much about that.
It's going to take a lot of confidence and a bold spirit to start wearing it daily.
But here's why it's worth it. Have you ever had the experience of being at a class or an airport, or the grocery store, and seeing a woman or girl wearing religious clothing (a head covering or a bindi or some other marking) and thought how beautiful it was. You wished you could be that brave and that sure of your spirituality. You think this girl is lucky because she probably grew up in the culture and has the support of a community when she goes home. But maybe she doesn't. I wanted to stop wishing to be that girl and start living that life. To live my life authentically, drawn by what feels right in my heart.
I don't know if that's a common experience, but I know the women in the head-covering group have felt it and so have I.
I'll be interested to see what kind of reactions I get when I start this. I will probably start slowly, doing it at family things or at class and not at work until later. I'll let you know how it goes.
ON ANOTHER MATTER, Holi is this coming weekend. Sadly, I don't think I'll be able to do any of the events for it. Holi is the most fun of the Hindu holidays and I've participated in events for it for the last two years. It involves running around and throwing colored powder at people. It's very messy. But with the snow still heavy on the ground here, I don't think that will be happening.
I came so close to making it to that temple for the Mahashivratri celebration earlier in the month too, but record snow falls closed everything in the state for a week. The temple will be having another one in mid March, so I'm determined I'll go to that one.
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