It rained last night, and everyone here has been so happy about it today. It's kind of amazing, witnessing the joy and relief on people's faces as the hot, muggy Mumbai summer ends and the monsoon arrives. It will bring cooler air and a sense of freshness, but I suspect that in a few weeks everyone will be grumbling (or as they would say, "cribbing") about the buckets and buckets of rain we're getting. I packed my umbrella in my work backpack today, so that I'm prepared in case of any downpours -- last night I was not so prepared, and the cabs were all full when I was trying to catch one to go home from the office. I ended up with one of the more rickety cabs, which had pulled over so the driver could try to figure out why his windshield wiper wasn't working. He didn't figure it out, but he took me anyway, reaching his arm out the window to swipe the blade across the windshield occasionally. I felt badly for the guy. When I got home, it was nice to open the windows and feel cooler air coming in for once!
More words and vocabulary...I get called "madam" here a lot, by people trying to sell me stuff, cab drivers, and restaurant staff. An elevator is a "lift", and the one in the building where I am living (or "staying", as Indians would say) is operated by a person (the housing society I live in employs people to open doors and push buttons, which I find awkward, especially considering how tiny the lift is). Lifts here generally have a sort of criss-cross grated metal gate that is manually pulled open and closed, as well as a corresponding gate at each floor, so you get in, close both gates, push the floor button, then open both gates, step off, and close them again when you get where you're going.
I was talking to a couple of women in the office here (whom I always want to call girls, I feel like unmarried women are so innocent seeming here compared to in the US!) about arranged marriage and horoscopes the other day. And they told me that here, it's not the sun sign but rather the moon sign that gets more attention, and traditional Hindu families really will consult their children's natal charts and compare them to prospective matches to see if there is anything inauspicious. They also choose wedding dates based on auspicious times in the Hindu calendar. Being American, I find it hard to imagine having my future so mapped out for me by the stars or my family or karma (which is really the wiggle room in the predictions made by astrology). But I can't help thinking there probably is some sort of truth to us being the product of our position in the world, where and when we were born and how that sends us off into the world. As they say, there's always karma to change what's fated, so it seems more likely to have some truth to it with that acknowledgement of imprecision/complexity. After talking with them, I went to http://astro.cafeastrology.com/ and got my natal chart -- you have to know the time of your birth as well as the date in order to ascertain your moon sign, but fortunately I know my birth time because my mom is detailed with things like that. It turns out that my sun sign (Scorpio) is the opposite of my moon sign (Taurus), which means I was born during a full moon, when the sun and moon were in opposite directions from the earth. The sun sign is supposed to be about your personality, while the moon sign is more about your emotional life. So with opposite signs, I am supposed to have some confusion: "People born when the sun opposes the moon have an internal struggle between their needs and their wants" (http://www.cafeastrology.com/natal/sunoppositionmoon.html). This rings true for me, but on the positive side, it says full mooners are supposed to be able to see things from different perspectives, which can bring balance rather than extremism. This can come in the form of self awareness but also indecision. Very interesting. I recommend checking out your natal chart if you can get ahold of your birth time...fascinating stuff, or at least I think so!
More words and vocabulary...I get called "madam" here a lot, by people trying to sell me stuff, cab drivers, and restaurant staff. An elevator is a "lift", and the one in the building where I am living (or "staying", as Indians would say) is operated by a person (the housing society I live in employs people to open doors and push buttons, which I find awkward, especially considering how tiny the lift is). Lifts here generally have a sort of criss-cross grated metal gate that is manually pulled open and closed, as well as a corresponding gate at each floor, so you get in, close both gates, push the floor button, then open both gates, step off, and close them again when you get where you're going.
I was talking to a couple of women in the office here (whom I always want to call girls, I feel like unmarried women are so innocent seeming here compared to in the US!) about arranged marriage and horoscopes the other day. And they told me that here, it's not the sun sign but rather the moon sign that gets more attention, and traditional Hindu families really will consult their children's natal charts and compare them to prospective matches to see if there is anything inauspicious. They also choose wedding dates based on auspicious times in the Hindu calendar. Being American, I find it hard to imagine having my future so mapped out for me by the stars or my family or karma (which is really the wiggle room in the predictions made by astrology). But I can't help thinking there probably is some sort of truth to us being the product of our position in the world, where and when we were born and how that sends us off into the world. As they say, there's always karma to change what's fated, so it seems more likely to have some truth to it with that acknowledgement of imprecision/complexity. After talking with them, I went to http://astro.cafeastrology.com/ and got my natal chart -- you have to know the time of your birth as well as the date in order to ascertain your moon sign, but fortunately I know my birth time because my mom is detailed with things like that. It turns out that my sun sign (Scorpio) is the opposite of my moon sign (Taurus), which means I was born during a full moon, when the sun and moon were in opposite directions from the earth. The sun sign is supposed to be about your personality, while the moon sign is more about your emotional life. So with opposite signs, I am supposed to have some confusion: "People born when the sun opposes the moon have an internal struggle between their needs and their wants" (http://www.cafeastrology.com/natal/sunoppositionmoon.html). This rings true for me, but on the positive side, it says full mooners are supposed to be able to see things from different perspectives, which can bring balance rather than extremism. This can come in the form of self awareness but also indecision. Very interesting. I recommend checking out your natal chart if you can get ahold of your birth time...fascinating stuff, or at least I think so!
