Polo, Dance, & Kites

In the last week we’ve seen some Indian style recreation worth reporting.  First, we were walking through the large central park when we happened on the polo grounds, and saw a game in progress.  It seemed very odd to me to be allowed into the game, as I had the idea that polo games were for the jet setting or high society crowd, which S. and I would never be able to pull off.  But it was free admission so we checked it out, and found it rather interesting.  I tried about 8 times to get a shot of something interesting, a horse, someone hitting the ball with their mallet, but each time I captured only grass. The game moves FAST with those horses afoot.  It was fun to see the players change horses during the game, and see the gorgeous animals on the sideline, albeit from a safe distance.

During the week I was conducting a master training at a local women’s college, and the college was also hosting a youth festival all week.  It was great fun to glimpse at some of the competitions, like the rangoli competition (see photos of both sand and terra cotta paint welcoming symbols), the mendi competition (drawing of designs on the hand with henna, left my camera behind that day but captured some of Abba and I getting our hands prettified), the food competition, and last but not least, a daily dance competition.  My favorite day was “Fusion Dancing”, which means what you think it means, only India fuses Western elements, folk dance, and Bollywood steps to concoct a very lively dance.  My personal favorite was a Rajasthani tribe [forgot the name] that dresses in black with white and mirror accents.  I have a short video of some of their dancing at the following FLICKR link, along with pictures of polo and the kite tutorial.   http://flic.kr/s/aHsjDAWojU

On Saturday we tried to get prepped for the Kite Festival, which happens tomorrow.  Our wonderful driver now wears the additional hat of “official kite advisor.”  He took us to the kite shop, advised us on our purchases (like that we needed to buy more than one kite per person, as we were destined to lose many to other people cutting us off in the air, if we managed to get them up in the air at all), and showed us both how to correctly tie a kite, and some crucial tips on keeping it air borne.  All I know is that he has some serious skills for pulling the string that we all still lack.  However, it was fun to practice, and tomorrow should be a great day to see and fly kites.