Ugadi

Today is Ugadi, southern India's new year's day based on the Hindu lunar calendar. It's supposedly a very festive day, but I haven't seen much of that yet. I think it's more family dinner festive than make-noise-in-the-streets festive. One thing I have noticed is that the Kolam and Rangoli are in full effect today. Kolam and Rangoli are two forms of Indian art. Kolam is drawn by women in front of their homes every morning using rice powder and looks like this:

Different Kolam patterns have different meanings and blessings they are supposed to bestow on the homes they are in front of. A book of Kolam patterns I found in a local bookstore contained a pattern that was supposed to bring riches in the form of 1000 times the amount of the coin held while drawing the pattern. Considering the largest coin in India is 5 rupees (about ten cents), that means the "riches" can only amount to about $100. This is comparatively weak sauce coming from a religion whose gods include a flying monkey with bulging quadriceps and a four-armed humanoid elephant.

The other art form, Rangoli, is more colorful:

I have nothing funny to say about Rangoli. It's just very pretty.

The "German" who was Wiki-ing T. Rex* that I mentioned a few posts ago is back in action. This time I've figured out that he's not German but rather some breed of Scandinavian. Two nights ago he was on Skype at the same internet cafe as me and I heard him say "Glerpin shlerpin foobdee derple Guns 'n' Roses ger doffle Welcome to the Jungle farple!" and then proceed to shamelessly wail "Welcome to the jungle! Shanananannana kneees! kneees!"



*The dinosaur, not the band.