Visit to India - My home

Marriage celebration

Japanese restaurant (Harima 播磨) and Lord Shiva temple at Mudukuthere

Most of the days in November I spent at my homeland - India, to attend a special celebration - my sis marriage. Thanks to my prof, I could get a fairly long vacation of nearly a month. As expected everybody at home were jubilant, busy in various preparations and eagerly awaiting for the event. I landed home a week before the actual celebration. Though I expected last minute tasks to be handed over to me, thanks to my dad, brother and rest of them that I didn't have to do anything other than taking photos or videos of pre-marital ceremonies, accompanying them to shopping and inviting my friends. As for me, the pre-marital ceremonies were itself hectic with lots of interesting rituals (Shastra ಶಾಸ್ತ್ರ) happening at home. Some of them include dressing the bride each day in a new saree followed by ritual blessings from married women, bangle wear ಶಾಸ್ತ್ರ, coconut leaf-roofed marquee (ಮದುವೆ ಚಪ್ಪರ) in front of home, applying henna (ಗೋರಂಟಿ) on hands and foot and so on. Those are some of the most enjoying and memorable moments as everybody in the family and friends come together and celebrate in unison.

The Indian marriage usually comprises of marriage and reception. The marriage is the actual event in which the pair dress in traditional wear and experience ceremonial rituals like tying the wedding knot (Thaali ತಾಳಿ), exchange of garlands, blessings from the attendees and many others. The customs however differ according to caste, religion, and the location. During reception, the groom dress in suit, the bride in glamarous saree and they greet the guests accompanied by series of photo-sessions. In addition two events are associated with dinner or lunch. The event though appears long and tiring for the marrying individuals, is nevertheless worth to cherish once in a life time.

Apart from marriage ceremony, I could make time to visit some of my relatives near and far. I also happen to go for the first time to a Japanese restaurant in Bangalore along with my siblings and cousins. Overall, the vacation was eventful except that I dearly missed going out with my old friends.

A trip in and around Fukui

A Shinto ritual and Soba

Soba making and Kyudou (Japanese archery)

In the last week of June, I had an opportunity to participate in a 1-day trip in and around Fukui city. The event was organized by Phoenix association of global exchange for japanese and foreign residents of Fukui. I was fortunate to get the chance at last minute as I was in waiting list during registration. The trip began with a visit to the nearby Asuwayama mountain, where there was a special ritual of Shinto tradition. According to the priest, the ceremony is held every 6-months to drive the evil forces and clear oneself from the sins that had accumulated in the past. It was an interesting ritual where in one has to wave a bunch of grass reciting a japanese poem. All the foreigners and locals were allowed to have a slice of shinto ritual practice.
Following that, the next stop was at Miyama Choju Soba making center on the highway to Ono city. This was my third time to make soba, so I had minimal trouble in making one. Nevertheless, the soba guides were of great help too. Though there are several varities of soba, the one we had for our lunch was Oroshi-soba.
The most interesting part of the tour was visiting a Kyudou (Japanese archery) center, in fact the major reason for which I had registered in the tour! Though the demonstrators performed in absolute brilliance (hitting the target of diameter 50 cm, as far as 28m), our group of novice who were given a target of 1m diameter and as close as 10m proved futile as most of our arrows could barely hit it. My six trials yielded only two hits:( Nevertheless, it was the most interesting event of the day.
The final visit was to a tea house in a local park where each one of us could get a chance to savor Japanese tea ceremony.

Weekend dinner

Dinner table and Rotating dish

Fruity dessert and Uiri (Special Nagoya sweet)

This weekend I and my friends were invited for a dinner at jap. family freind's house. The evening's special was a kind of dosa (they call 'crepe') made with rye flour. The unique rotating dish (traditionally used for 'sushi') was filled with various relishing side-servings. Trying out different blends of side-servings to the dosa gave a unique flavor each time. Apart from the fresh vegetables, the delcious ones were corned chicken curry, raw salmon and egg with mayonnaise. A unique two-flavored sweet from Nagoya's popular Tora ya (Tiger shop...doesn't mean actual tiger!!! just the name:)) called 'Uiri' was served for dessert along with fruit cuts..With some entertaining dinner chitchats it turned out to be a fabulous evening.

BIRC farewell party

Assemblage and Tempura

Sushi and Desserts

Our dept. also organized the farewell party to a professor and few master graudates on 15th March. As usual, the traditional japanese food like Sushi, Sashimi and tempura were the major part of the diet. An interesting chat game was conducted where in the audience can pose queer questions to someone on their personal matters. Well, this had a resemblance to many of the humorous japanese talk shows on TV. It was an entertaining stuff.

Matsuoka fest

Its been quite a time since I contributed for the last post. The past two weeks were a mixture of fun outings and hard work at research front. So hardly could make time for posting in the blog. On Feb 18th, the local Matsuoka municipal council (not sure should I call council) in Fukui organized a gathering of localites extending invitations even to foreign residents at our dorm-mates. The event was fun-filled with singing and dancing by local and international groups while having a delicious dinner. Teams were made and a quiz game was held too. Win or Lose, prizes are always distributed to all..no one returned empty handed!!