Chrismas day (the part that didn’t include concerts)

Christmas day was a big day. I went to see 3 concerts, visited an ashram, and went out for dinner. I didn’t include these pic’s in my first post, and my friend Shailesh had asked me to, so here they are. The first two are the rangoli (powder drawings) from Christmas morning. People make these drawings infront of their houses every day, but since i was up and out so early (for the 9am concert) I got some good pic’s (before they got stepped on too many times). The flowers are from the ashram/orphanage. The rest of the pic’s are at dinner. The mask I am wearing is a pollution mask. I don’t wear it much any more, but I had to wear it alot in the first 2 months to avoid getting another sinus infection. Now I only wear it on when I ride a motor bike. It looks pretty scary though!

The following writing  this writing I took from my “music season 2” post to explain the pictures more:

After my teachers concert we met my friend Shankar (my cooking teacher), and visited an ashram across the street. I was attracted to it because it was a wide open green space, and there are few of those in Chennai. Shankar gave us a lesson on local plants including their traditional and medical uses. He seemed to have a wealth of knowledge in this area. There were lots of kids around, some just wandering (and asking for candy), others involved in a cricket game. We asked about the children. Shankar told us that this was also and orphanage. It seemed such an unusual thing in this big noisy unfair city —- a beautiful orphanage where the kids are clean, and fed, and have lots of space to run, and games to play, and quiet if they want it. We wondered were the money came from. We guessed the ashram. India is full of contrasts. This was a very pleasant one.

In the evening we met my friend Shailesh for dinner and what was supposed to be a poetry reading by the beach. The dinner was good. We broke the vegetarian habit, and enjoyed shrimp.