doing well in India

Dear friends,

Just to drop you a quick and rather belated note - all is well with my
folks and myself in India. We're not anywhere near Mumbia and we were
not affected by the trouble down there - although we did catch some of
the horror on TV. We have friends in the Indian Air Force and many of
my dad's friends are ex-IAF, it's been interesting to hear their
perspectives on recent events .. there has been much talk about the
media holding the politicians accountable - people are hoping for some
change in the positive direction with the govt. India is definitely an
interesting place with much diversity in the issues people care about.
Just today we were visiting a gurudwara and one of the ladies from the
local village started to talk to me as I was wandering around.

lady: Are you from outside (ie from abroad)

me: I'm coming from Delhi most recently but yes settled in the US.
Where are you from?

lady: I'm from here only. My daughter just finished grade 12, she's
very beautiful. Though I only studied till grade 8, I made sure my
daughers finished 12th. We're Ramgarhia (carpenter cast). What cast
are you?

me: sorry, I have no idea. It's great to hear about your daughters though.

lady: huh? You should ask your dad what cast you are .. my daughter
really wants to go abroad, and she keeps rejecting any boys we find
for her (note: this is a little hard to explain in English especially
to those of you who are not familiar with how marriages are arranged
in my culture - also since I didn't grow up in a village, much of it
is unfamiliar for me too. When matchmaking, the questions people ask
and the things people care about are different depending on whether
you're from the village or a cosmopolitan city, depending on your
level of education etc).

me: all the best to your daughter but marriage is not the only way to
go abroad. Is she working, are there decent employment opportunities
for a grade 12 student. (In a lot of punjab that I've been visiting,
the culture is conservative. In this case, she's of course not really
even allowed to work plus I'm not sure what opportunities there are
for her - although things have changed much since the mum only studied
till grade 8. The education is really there to make her more
competitive in finding a better mate. At least that was what I
understood from this story -- of course, competition for a mate
happens in all cultures in equal measure, but I'll have to think a
little more about those similarities and differences another time :-)
.

I've been spending time with mum and dad since I got back from Nepal.
We've spent much time visiting gurudwaras (sikh temples) as mum is
very religious and also visiting friends and family along the way. We
also visited dad's boarding school where he studied from 10yrs of age
to 16yrs. That was fabulous - definitely a highlight for me!

Anyhow, this was meant to be a quick note to say, I'm alive and well
.. :-) .. the last few weeks have been great fun, but the internet is
shotty here and I've been unwilling to spend oodles of time on it. I
hope to move my notes and photos from my laptop to my blog as soon as
I return to my travels in late december!

sat sri akal,
- jasmine