India-Day 44

Last week, I learned that the Fifa World Cup is the biggest scam ever. In many countries, the media is completely monopolized and controlled by one person or one group of people. In Spain, for example, a certain mob boss controls 98% of the nation's media and is able to raise morale within the country. With an unemployment rate of 20% and an economy that is in the hole, Spain made a great contestant to win the world cup. Even on the national level, the amount of influence this mob boss has extends even as far as CNN to where they predicted Spain and the Netherlands to win far before the finals or even the semi-finals were decided. Even in the advertising during the world cup, billions of dollars went to the advertising of Spanish tourism. In international newspapers and television media, there were all sorts of ads selling Spain. And here's the clincher...anyone who watched the World Cup probably saw some pretty atrocious calls by the refs. The games were fixed from the beginning. The winners were decided and refs were paid off in order to ensure that those teams one. Indeed, quite the conspiracy. The important point being: America never had a shot from the beginning. They were doomed to lose.

So, do you believe all that? Personally, I don't, but a crazy Dutch man I met who hates the Holland team does. But he only hates them because they're in on the entire thing. He was a really cool guy. Genius. Pure genius. He spoke like 7 languages, and he is doing a dutch radio show here in India on spirituality. So, we got interviewed by him, being that we are foreigners and have had the wonderful privilege to experience a pilgrimage of sorts while here in India. It was an interesting interview, but pretty fun.

Bangalore is such a beautiful town. I have enjoyed being here far more than any of the other cities I have been in. We took a train in from Nagpur on Wednesday. Napur was a good halfway point between Bangalore and Delhi. And Kartik had to stop so he could give a presentation on renewable energy. The city has recently had some major coal plants wanting to come in. India, in a progressive sense, is attempting, like the rest of the world, to move towards renewable energy in the form of mainly solar and wind. Kartik shared in a media press release the benefits environmentally, as well as economically, of going green. While we were sitting in this press release, they actually had us, "The American visitors" stand up. Then, they had us walk to the front of the room, where they welcomed us by giving us a floral arrangement. It was really random, but nice of them.

Nagpur is a really cool city, but small by Indian standards. Really well known for oranges, or so we were told. I was really upset that we couldn't eat any. Unfortunately, they're not in season right now, so it was quite the bummer. We got to see some of the city. We went to a museum, which was really neat. All sorts of statues and art from anywhere between the 1 century and the 15th century. So rad.

So, we left Nagpur after only a day. We left and went to Bangalore. The trip to Bangalore was really uncomfortable. Although we were in a sleeper car, we arrived so late that everyone else had their luggage already under the seats stored. So, we couldn't really fit our luggage and theirs. This meant that I had to sleep with my luggage, so I basically set it on the bed and then snaked my body around each piece and slept there. It wasn't at all comfortable, but it was a bed, nonetheless. We finally arrived in Bangalore around 9 PM on Wednesday night.

Then came 2 days of Indian wedding madness. Such an extravagant event. It was really cool. Every ritual that they did had really significant meaning. For example, they have a ritual where the groom pretends to leave the bride. He decides that he actually doesn't want to get married. Then, the bride's father and brother try to convince him to not leave the wedding and to push through with the marriage. I don't exactly understand the meaning in all this, but it's really magnificent. The morning of the second day, the groom comes to the marriage with a parade of people. Everyone is dancing and celebrating. Unfortunately, we slept in for that part so we didn't get to see the grand procession. Nevertheless, it was quite the remarkable experience.

So the wedding was for Akeila and Vivek. Akeila is Ashok and Krishna's cousin. In India, basically anyone is invited to the wedding. If you are friends with someone who is going, you probably should go too. Basically, that qualified us. But everyone at the wedding was really nice. They welcomed us with warm hearts and delicious food. THE FOOD WAS AMAZING! Our plates were banana leaves and we ate with only our hands. The craziest wedding food I've ever had! But everything was so delicious. And it was all you can eat. I ate until I could really not put any more food in my mouth. It was awesome. Agh. I can't even describe it. I wish that you could have been there.

Overall impression for an Indian wedding: amazing. Probably too amazing for me. I could not imagine putting on a 3 day extraveganza for everyone. Seems too stressful.

Anyway, things are going well. I have recently fallen in love with butterscotch ice cream and Bangalore. It is such a nice city. Today, we went around to see some sights. We saw the capitol building and a really rad palace that belonged to some king. More like a governor, I suppose. It was really lidgit.

I am leaving on Monday night. That's crazy. It's going to be so bizarre to be in America again. I have become so used to India.