4 September

My posting here seems to get more and more irregular in time. However, I’m trying my best to change that from now on.

I shall start from Tuesday, 28 August. It was a holiday, since there was a festival called rakhi. On that day, sisters tie thread to their brothers’ arms. This is to symbolically ask their protection. It is said that once up on a time, there was an empress who needed protection from her brother and tied a thread to his arm and that is where the festival comes from. The truth is that it used to be a Persian custom and Indians have just taken It over. I am glad to announce that I have a second sister now (although, no-one can replace Mirjam). I say this because on Tuesday morning, Raj came and tied a thread to my hand, and said that this is from Jashan Jot, her sister’s daughter (my so to say- host cousin) wants me to be her elder brother(note that in India, cousins, nieces and other female relatives are also called sisters and all male relatives, brothers). I was very pleased and bought her a nice book in return.

On Wednesday I went to school and gave my computer weekly test (which went really well), but nothing special or exciting happened.

I took Thursday off for myself, since this was the day when Guru Grand Sahib (the Sikh holy scripture) was taken to our house and since this is a cultural exchange, I wanted to be a part of the event. We cleaned out the entire sitting room and dining room and set up a sort of an altar-like thing on which the Guru Grand Sahib was kept. I would have expected the ceremony to be bit longer and more extravagant, but actually it was rather casual. In my previous post I said that the book would be read until Sunday but actually it was read only until Saturday. This meant that for 3 days, our house was turned into a temple. The worst thing about this was that I had to give my room for the priests, who read the scripture in shifts and therefore, needed to have a place to sleep.

Friday was pretty casual and nothing special happened except the tents were set up for Saturday.

Saturday was the culmination of series of events after the funeral. Early in the morning, the cooks came and started preparing for the langar (holy meal). In the afternoon, I took a shower and put on my curta-pajamis (traditional clothing) as this was the time when Guru Grand Sahib was brought from inside of the house to the huge tents outside. The guests started arriving about at the same time. Unfortunately I didn’t see how the scripture was brought out because I went to along with Sukhbir’s brother in law to pick up Yasmine and Mr. Ian Henderson (the YFU India chairman) from the train station. By the time we got back, the tent was already filled with people and there was a band of priests, singing the holy anthems. After some time, the scripture was taken back to the local Gurdwara. Now, the langar started and I helped to serve the food (along with Sukhbir’s friends) until all the guests had eaten. After most of the guests had left (approximately 200 people visited our house) I had my food. Sam, the American also came to the event. Me, him and Yasmine had a nice time, chatting. Although my first impression of Sam wasn’t very good (I found his body language and the way he speaks a bit weird), I realized rather quickly that he is a nice guy, a very honest and straightforward one.
At about 6 o’clock, we went to see Ian and Yasmine off and afterwards had incredibly good coffee at Café coffee day which is something like Indian Starbucks.
When we got back home, I was quite exhausted and was looking forward to sleeping in my own bed again.


When I woke up on Sunday, the house was already normal. The furniture was on its place and most of the relatives had left. In the afternoon we saw off Bobby, Rajbir and Jakbir (with her family). In the evening I went to Model Town to meet Sam. I introduced him to the world of gulfis, goulcappas (I don’t know the spelling), nimbu lemon (lemon juice with soda and spices) and one of my favorites-milk badam (sweet milk with almonds).
We chatteng and discussed our futures and life in India.I got back home rather early and almost immediately went out with Sukhbir to find a host family for the German girl. We didn’t have any luck, since the family we were supposed to meet wasn’t home. Instead, we headed to a restaurant and had chilli chicken with beer (Fosters which is made in Punjab). The chicken was delicious and Sukhbir introduced me to the restaurant manager so that whenever I want to go to the same place, I will have the best service (by the way, Indian service is usually very good anyway).

On Monday I didn’t have any periods because all the teachers and most of the students were preparing for the upcoming teachers’ day. I also participated in the student council meeting (which was so typical to India: totally un-efficient and yet, fun). After the school-day was over and I was in my math extra class, the principal of the school (Zema Ma’am) came to talk to me. She had heard rumors about me, not eating breakfast at home and was concerned. She wanted to arrange me breakfast in school. I had heard rumors about myself before (for instance some girl had heard that I ate a samossa at school and got food poisoning) but was nevertheless surprised to hear that such talks reach even the principal. I told her that I do have breakfast and that there was no need to arrange anything. This is a perfect example of everybody being concerned about my well-being over here. Zema ma’am also asked me how I like the school, how I feel myself and eventually, asked me to write an article about how I feel in DPS. This article will go to the local newspapers as a commercial for the school. I am happy to write it and fortunately they gave me over a month to do that.

Today is the birthday of lord Krishna. This means another holiday for me. Thank god for the Hindus and their endless amount of celebrations, festivals and gods. Tomorrow I’m going to give a speech for the teachers’ day function. The great thing is that I won’t have to wear my annoying uniform since there are no classes. Instead, I will wear my red curta with jeans.
Another long post is finished…I wonder if anybody bothers to read it?