My Brahmin Ceremony!!! The People

Before my big Brahmin Ceremony, we had to get dressed. This is daddy and mommy in their new clothing. Later, during the ceremony, I will switch into traditional Indian clothes.

At the temple, there was a lot of talking as people were gathering. This is Guriya Phua in the blue sari, daddy, mausi in the red and tan sari, and dadima (my grandmother) in the gold and green sari.

This is me laying on mommy before the ceremony.

This is me sitting Buddha style before the ceremony. This is one of the last pictures of me with hair!!!!

Lots of my young relatives came. One of them is Hemu bhaiya, who is holding Kullu, my cousin.

These are the two priests and daddy setting up for the big ceremony

My relatives have to check to see if the cloth fits me, so this is Guddu cha-cha and Muna cha-cha cutting 15 feet of saffron cloth so I can wear it.

Muna cha-cha's wife

This is Mona didi's husband

This is Mona didi (cousin Mona)

This is their son Kochi

This is Shanti Phua, one of my dad's sisters

This is Sonali did, one of Shanti Phua's daughters.

This is Tuk-Tuk, my 9-year old didi (sister)

This is Hemu bhaiya and Ruchi didi.

This is a really great, artistic photo of daddy that I took. I took all of these pictures actually

Pappu cha-cha's wife

This is the garland and supplies for the puja (ritual)

Dadaji (grandpa)

Dadaji and Dadima

This is Jijaji, the husband of my dad's sister, Sheila Phua

This is Professor sahib, father of Sonam and Sonali didi

This is Raja, Lovely chachi's brother

This is Lovely chachi, wife of Santosh cha-cha, my dad's brother

This is Kanti Phua, my dad's other sister, with Babu (aka Ashish - Lovely and Santosh's new baby)

This is Sheila Phua, with Mausi in the background

This is Bhutti cha-cha

This is Santosh cha-cha, my dad's brother

This is Guddu cha-cha with the most silly face ever. He lives in Virginia and he came to see my ceremony.

This is Bhutti cha-cha with Victor mama, who came all the way from Hong Kong to see my ceremony

Getting Ready for my Brahmin Ceremony, Tumeric Ceremony - Part 2

I'm trying on one of the kurtas for my Brahmin Ceremony. I'll wear this after I get my head shaved in a few days!

Santosh cha-cha bought this one for me

This is the preparation for the tumeric ceremony. In this ceremony, the women grind up raw tumeric with a stone and make it into a paste and they give me a massage (aka malish in Hindi) and rub me all over with the tumeric.

This is my aunt in front of the bowl of tumeric

This is the tumeric and the grinding stone

 

These are all of the women's hands holding the stone grinder and smashing the bowl of tumeric while they sing songs about the family. I'll get the tumeric rub done tomorrow.

Later that day, I got three wasp/bee stings. One on my left hand, one on my right wrist, and one on my lip. This is what my lip looked like after the sting.

So many Birthday Parties!

While I'm in India, I've been invited to so many birthday parties. This is my second invitation, but I've since gone to two more, so I've gone to four birthday parties. This is an invitation to a girl named Sajel's birthday party. It's at 5:30, and her flat is 6-A. I got the invitation the night before. Here they don't give you any warning, except for my first invitation which happened a couple of nights earlier, and it was Ayush's birthday party.

This is me holding Sajel's invitation. As you can see, it has Hannah Montana on it, who I completely hate.

This is Krishev, who is Sajel's brother, and his video game controller. he's showing everyone.

This is Sejal, the birthday girl. Too bad I didn't get a better shot of her.

This is the cake. It has pineapples and cherries and flowers and frosting, which I don't really like in India, and somebody is placing a candle in the cake.

Fortunately, they had a tank of 3 turtles, and I thought this would be a good shot. It is Ayush in front of the tank of 3 turtles.

These are the presents that Sajel got, which she didn't open because you don't open your presents when the other children are there. You wait until after, when everyone leaves.

This is Sejal cutting her cake. She's taking a small piece and feeding it to a relative that came to her party, then she gives them a piece of cake to feed to her. That's what they do here.

Here's me at a different birthday party for a little girl named Aditi. I got the invitation for this party about 3 hours before the party.

This is Tanushri in the blue and pink flowered shirt and Prachi in the white dress.

This is the cake with name Aditi on it, an angry bird, and a real plastic barbie with a frosting dress.

This is us dancing with Tanushri, Prachi, and a couple of other little girls.

This is the mug I got from winning a game of musical chairs. Everyone at the party also got a pencil holder.

This is me at St. Francis with my violin, practicing for the Birthday party of the directors. It is called director's day, and we're having a big birthday.

This is the day of the performance, and this is me and my "girlfriend" Shatakshi.

These are a couple of students that are performing, talking with our music teacher, Steve Rao

These are some students dancing in the program wearing traditional classical dance costumes.

These are kids from my class who are performing for the song from "Main Tera Hero." The song is "Sharmi ki Height."

these are girls in the performance.