The World of Sugar

Yesterday we were picked up by 2 girls in mopeds to experience the wonderful world of cane sugar making. At first we were a tad frightened to put our lives in the hands of shy little Indian girls but they proved to navigate the trash, dog, tractor, and water buffalo streets with ease. Once we relaxed we began to enjoy whipping by fields of bright green with the sun beating down and people in loincloths staring open-mouthed at us. We arrived at the location in one piece just in time to learn all about the process that dominates the landscape of Southern India. And I thought I'd impart this handy information to you all...

First the Sugar cane is is cut down by individuals such as these fine young men. The straw-like materials that they are standing on are the leaves which are hacked off and used later to fuel the fires.








The bare sugar cane stalks (which are about 7 or 8 ft) are then taken to a grinder which drains it of its succulent juices. The dry fibers fall into a big pile while the pure sugar water is pooled into a bucket. You can drink this raw form of sugar, which incidentally tastes like warm water with sugar mixed in.







Next they transport the sugar water to a rather large vat where the water is boiled off. Someone is always within approximately 5 inches from the scalding vat continually feeding the fire with the dry leaves, which is quite unbelievable since Naz and I couldn't stand a couple feet from it for more than 2 min at a time.






After about an hour the vat is then transfered to the ground where it is being constantly prodded with an assorted tools, which I was told were instrumental in giving sugar its powdery quality. By this time it looks a lot like mustard cake batter but I assure you it tastes much better than one would imagine.






Once it cools off it is bagged and sent off to far off places like...north India. It is a significantly more lucrative business than making white sugar, since raw brown sugar is more commonly used in this country. Since it goes thru much less refinement than white sugar it isn't saturated with chemicals but it is also in a form that is harder for individuals such as myself, who have gotten used to the crap that dominates American's diets, to process.

Once the fields are cleared they burn the remnants as seen in this picture and then flood it to make way for a new crop of sugar cane. One planted the seeds will re-shoot three times themselves and can grow to full size within 10 months. Fascinating stuff huh?

Vannakum to India

Enjoy...

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Images of a forgotten life

Since we have the ability to upload at the college facilities (with the exception of videos) I thought I'd take advantage. Naz has the most beautiful professional camera I have ever laid my hands so we have plenty of pictures to share. I still plan on posting those on my picassa account but for now here are a few for your enjoyment....



Elliot's Beach in Chennai, which apparently doubles as a fish market in the mornings

The College's main courtyard and fire extinguisher

These are pictures taken during one of the intramural Kabbadi games at the college. It is a very local sport and not only only am I unaware of the correct spelling but the rules as well. As far as Naz and I could tell it has to do with touching, and possibly tackling. Thats about as far as we got.

On our way to Kothigiri, a mountain town where my cousins attend boarding school

These were taken on my family's farm

And this is...well its exactly what it looks like

Fashionova '09

Aptly named, the official description of the event was (and I really do quote), “Fashion is trends of the day, so a Fashionova is a professional showing of a clothing pieces.” And if we thought we had our fill of mediocre dance performances and poorly sewn garments parading down a runway, then we were sadly mistaken.

Exactly 20 colleges within a 2-hour radius came prepared to fight till the death over their artistic skills. The day started off with Mehendhi (Henna), traditional pottery, and face painting competitions. It then moved onto the much-loved dance competition, where every college showcased what we are supposed to stomach as their most rhythmically moved students. The one thing that truly baffled me was their utter confidence in themselves. Their blue steel facial expressions did not match their arbitrarily flailing extremities. We managed to capture some of these moments of magic for your shear enjoyment, but the apparently the internet here doesn’t have the power to upload videos.

As Naz and I were trying to escape unnoticed we were accosted by two faculty members who asked us to judge the main event of the evening; the inter-collegiate fashion show itself. Obligated to say yes we resigned ourselves to what was in store. Thankfully our third judge happened to be a younger gentleman much like ourselves who had grown up in Melbourne and could share in the unintended joy the gaudy assemblage of materials brought us. There was everything from a witch inspired line, to floor length gowns that resembled your childhood dress up clothes, to savages in grass skirts, to hundreds of yards of haphazardly draped fabric parading as dresses, and the list goes on. And on. 20 individual lines later and Naz and I were ready to crown the midget and call it a day.

Now despite what my account may lead you to believe there were a few garments that fit the competition description of “high fashion” but these were few and far between. And when a male “model” inadvertently made the vag-munching symbol (you know what I mean) on stage for the world to see, it almost made it all worthwhile. After we managed to stop laughing 10 minutes later the other judges and I took comfort in the fact that no one else in that entire auditorium was aware of the implications that those two little fingers and tongue had just made. And after a few awkward question and answer sessions the victors were finally decided amongst ourselves.

With the cool breeze settling in we felt relieved of our duties only to find out that the 10,000 rupee prize (over 200 USD, which is quite a lot to them) was awarded to the wrong group. Not only that, but it was awarded to just about the most pathetically attired ensemble to grace the stage. As the ecstatic girls clothed in what can only be described as Halloween costumes purchased at K-Mart claimed their undeserved prize, we were immobilized by the gaping hole that spread throughout our insides. That was 4 hours of my life that I can never get back. We still aren’t quite over the whole experience and if I could press the rewind button I would have screamed in horror and ran up on stage in front of hundreds of people and pried the damn trophy from their incompetent little hands. Alas, we can only take solace in the parting gifts bestowed upon us for our supreme judging skills. What can only be seen as a sign of god, the dolls are corresponding heights and do rather look like Naz and me. There is always beauty in the aftermath.

The Day I Met a Bug the Size of a Small Bird

It’s not an exaggeration. The woman who ran upstairs after I screamed bloody murder can attest to that. He flew in while I was taking a shower (and by shower I mean pouring handfuls of cold water on me from a bucket on the bathroom floor). It was not a terribly pleasant way to start the day.

Soon afterwards we were whisked off to a “Fashion Show” at the college where the costume design students showcased the year’s work. Upon arrival we were told that we were the guests of honor and while at first we were flattered we would soon realize what that entailed. When we found ourselves on stage handing out plastic plaques and candy bars to every single one of the participants and were told not to smile with our mouths open during the numerous pictures, the novelty of the title quickly faded. It was more awkward than one would imagine but luckily the familiar music put us at ease. The sound track for the evening included the likes of 50 Cent screaming “Mothafuckas will shoot ya” into an unsuspecting crowd, a techno remix of the Titanic theme song, and of course plenty of Michael Jackson to go around. I found it hard to keep a straight face when the 7-year-olds sporting the rainbow-themed collection were parading around on stage to Gasolina.

The festivities did not end there. The fashion show was followed by the Microbiology department’s dance performance. Sadly, I am not making that up. I have attempted to suppress the memory so all I can say is that it resembled a middle-school talent show being reenacted by unjustly confident 20-year-olds. The skill level did not seem to perturb the attentive audience in the least, who were packed into the make-shift auditorium as if Amitabh Bhachchan himself had ascended on stage. This phenomenon was later explained by our exposure to Indian television where their version of “So you Think you Can Dance” would make even Svetlana Filipson cringe (for those of you who don’t know she suffers from chronic offtempoitis).

Three painful hours later we found ourselves in a pucker-level 9.2 car ride (I will devote a blog that delves into the horrors of Asian driving at a later date) to the nearest town, where surprisingly the National Woman’s Boxing Tournament was taking place. It must have been rather disappointing for these athletes to be invited to participate in this prestigious event only to find out that they were getting a free trip to a place that can only be described as a moderate assemblage of houses/businesses in rural South India. A damn shame for them, but it made for an enjoyable experience for two American transplants. As the athletes were being housed at my Grandfather’s college we were given VIP seats and were escorted on stage to bless the fighters as well as pose for photo opps. So all in all it was just your average day in a third world country.

Life as a Farm

So I thought I’d take this opportunity to describe our new setting, which just happens to be my grandparent’s farm in rural Tamil Nadu. More commonly referred to as Athotum, it is 21 acres of mainly sugar cane and banana fields with palm trees sprinkled throughout, along with a garden for own consumption. When you look out on our little veranda all you see is bright green as far as you can see. Naz and I can walk thru the fields as long as we’re doused in bug spray (which we tend to be saturated in 24 hours a day regardless) since we’ve opted out of malaria medicine, which tends to do more harm than good when taken for long periods of time. There are various other critters we have to watch out for such as snakes, scorpions, and any brightly colored bug, but fortunately they only make rare appearances.

Although we may crave an authentic experience, unlike millions of Indians we will never feel the insatiable pangs of hunger. We are constantly being asked to come down for meals where people wait attentively at the table to replenish anything on our plates that look remotely low. The average meal consists of a vegetable (like okra or something of the sort), mushy lentils, plain yogurt (which I often mix with everything to ease the burning sensation in my mouth that follows every meal) and some variation of a rice product. We rarely eat meat and snack on fruit from our garden or one of the neighboring farms. Coupled with the absence of alcohol, my other favorite intoxicating product, and cheese this whole trip can be seen as a detox retreat.

The first day we were here Naz and I strolled down to the river near the house and skipped stones till dusk. It was as cliché as it sounds but extremely relaxing. We can’t actually let any of our body parts touch the water since we could contract Hepatitis A, Polio, Hep B, Typhoid, Hep C, or a host of other diseases that no longer exist in the western world. The river is mainly used by the local people as a laundry machine, which is rather alarming considering it is also the community toilet. Despite that it looks quite inviting with brightly colored plants slowly floating by rather than the scraps of feces or body parts that I would have imagined.

Other than that we’ve spent most of our free time reading one of the 28 books we have between us (so forgive me if this blog resembles a book review at times) or entertaining ourselves outside during the more mild periods of day. There is a new dachshund puppy named Rocky on the farm (most of their pet names are limited to outdated American movies) who is quite the biter and tends to pee as soon as your are within spraying distance of him, but he is fulfilling all of my childhood fantasies nonetheless. It helps that he comes with his own poop-scooping team who wash him after he inevitable roles in his own excrements.

It is also worth mentioning that if you have an irrational fear of ants, or even a mild distaste for the little buggers, India is not the place for you. No matter where you are- on your bed, in the kitchen, or even in the bathroom (where normally everyone likes to escape from all the horrors in this world) there is an unyielding stream of tiny little ants marching around you…just waiting for your guard to go down. Well, okay they are about the size of 3 period marks placed together and they don’t really bite and if they did you probably wouldn’t even notice, but they are still there…all the time. In fact as we speak there is one crawling thru the keys of my laptop.

So right now it’s about 3 in the afternoon and I am sitting out on the front porch baking in 90 degree weather with the sounds of mopeds driving by and birds chirping. There is a rather odd mixture of cow manure and the smell of fresh flowers wafting over which is my cue to retreat indoors, but I leave you with some videos we took the other day...

Okay so I gave the computer half an hour to load a video which it obviously had no intention of doing in the first place. Hmmm I promise I'll figure something out soon enough. Till then you will be left to your imagination.

Back to the Motherland

Well we’ve made it here alive. The trip wasn’t quite as unbearable as you’d expect a 20-hour flight to be considering we took advantage of the free booze clause till London and we slept for 8.5/10ths of the last leg. We landed in Chennai where my aunt took us to her house and we slept for about 4 hours before frequenting a rather extravagantly designed mall (apparently their version of malls resemble ancient roman structures) where the department store was blasting Akon (Cham that one is for you) and techno mixes of 80's songs. We came back and spent some time on the roof just taking the city in while revelling in the fact that less than 30 hours ago we were surrounded by heaps of snow. After deciding to take a nap, which turned into us passing out for no less than 15 hours, we packed up and boarded the short flight to Coimbatore where a small clan of 13 extended family members greeted us. And after a 2-hour ride on partially paved roads we arrived at our final destination.

Naz and I share a room at my grandparent's house where we spent our first sleepless night together with the aid of an air conditioner that sounded like someone was taking multiple forks to its insides every 15 minutes. Since then we've developed a habit of waking up at 5:30am to the roosters crowing simply to discuss the fact that we're up at 5:30am once again before falling back asleep. We split our time on the farm and my aunt’s house 10 min away which is a monstrosity in the local landscape. It even has an exercise room which Naz and I have are trying to get into the habit of using on a daily basis. And despite the 3 workwoman who stood unnervingly close while staring at us attempt to run a treadmill in the blistering heat, it was exactly like being at your local gym.

So now we’re just trying to get settled into our new surroundings. Naz seems to be taking it all in stride…despite my family nicknaming her Thena (it’s the closest they can get to Sonaz) and people blatantly staring at her while picking their noses (there are different notions of rudeness here). People also tend to wave incessantly at her when we drive anywhere. She hasn’t imploded from the over stimulation yet, so that’s a good sign.

Well that's it for now…I’m sweating balls in the grain storage closet my family has converted into the “office room.” But now that I officially have steady access to internet I implore you all to send me e-mails! And I hope you’re enjoying all that snow while we bake in the 90 degree weather.