Navratri Video

Last night I attended the largest Navratri celebration in Mumbai.  To say it was incredible would be an understatement.  A picture is worth a thousand words, so here goes.  I split this into three posts...there were so many videos and pictures :-)  Also, this is my first foray into video editing so please be kind...

Navratri Continues...

Navratri Photos

Navratri

This week is the Hindu festival of Navratri.  This festival lasts nine nights, nav meaning nine and ratri meaning night.  This festival marks the celebration of the Hindu goddess Shakti, the Hindu mother goddess, in all of her various forms.  This festival is celebrated all over India but is especially popular in the Indian state of Gujarat.  The most well known feature of the festival is the Garba, a couples dance performed with two brightly colored sticks.  Dancers wear amazingly bright clothing typical of the Gujarat region, and some of the best Garba couples train the entire year to prepare for the large dance contests held each Navratri.  All of the streets here in Mumbai are decorated with beautiful lights as each neighborhood here has decorated for their own Navratri celebrations.  We will even be having a Navratri celebration Friday evening at work!  There are a couple of guys from Gujrat in my group so I can't wait to see their moves! :-) I have included a couple of pictures above of the lights in our neighborhood.  I will be taking more Navratri photos this weekend so I hope to have pictures everyday.  Almost done with our first week of work in India!

First Weekend

This weekend we managed to pack in quite a bit.  We went to both Bandra and Colaba on Saturday and Sunday to meet up with some friends.  On Saturday we went to a bar in Bandra called the Hawaiian Shack.  This particular establishment has 5 different floors, each with a different kind of music.  My favorite floors were the Bollywood (you must click this link it is from the HOTTEST Bollywood movie out at the moment) and Bhangra floors respectively :-) ....  Sunday was especially interesting as our hotel driver whom we had booked for the evening decided to kick us out of the cab in the middle of the street at 9PM due to the fact that "his shift had ended."  Luckily we were with an Indian friend who was able to score us an old school Mumbai taxi.  Above are a few pictures from our adventures.  

Also, after a lengthy search we have finally found an apartment in Powai.  Check out the pics above for a view from our living room window!  More pics to follow once we have moved in next week.

Namaskar Mumbai Pictorial

Three views from outside of one of the Hiranandani Apartments we looked at yesterday.

Happy Sacred Cow lounging by the highway!

Views from outside our hotel.  There is a shanty neighborhood directly behind our hotel but you can see a 5 Star Hotel rising in the background.

Namaskar Mumbai!

Namaskar!  We have finally arrived in the City of Dreams!  It is hot....and humid.  The kind of hot that makes you sweat the instant you step outside.  Charleston, South Carolina in August has nothing on Mumbai.  We are staying in the Ramada Powai.  Powai is a northern suburb of Mumbai about 30 minutes from the chic neighborhood of Bandra.  Our office is located in Powai in the Hiranandani business park and housing development.  We are not working this week and have instead been busy trying to sort out our life here.  First step...get a phone, which we finally succeeded in getting yesterday!  Unfortunately, both of our phones are not yet activated...activation being an unnecessarily complicated, multi-step process which requires a working knowledge of Hindi, which sadly neither of us are fluent in yet.  But we continue to hope and look forward to actually being able to use our phones sometime soon.  We have also been looking at apartments near the office and have found a few that we like in Hiranandani.  I would say the strangest part of apartment hunting is that each place includes a tiny maid's room where your live-in maid can stay.  Bear in mind that this room is not much bigger than a guest bathroom in most American homes and generally also houses toilet facilities as well as a washer and dryer.  We have also been eating the most amazing Indian food since we arrived!  I am amazed at the variety of cuisine outside of what you generally see at Indian restaurants in the US.  I am loving the ghee soaked treats especially....but butter always makes everything better!  Our dinner last night was made especially amazing thanks to the addition of a happy free roaming cow outside the restaurant.  I have included a separate pictures post so everyone can get a visual.  Sorry for the delay in posting but we promise to make it a more regular occurrence!  Bye for now :-)