Playing at the beach

This is one thing I have come to appreciate about Indians: their childlike-ness.

They will sing a song with motions and enthusiasm.
They will create a short performance for the enjoyment of others.
And they'll play in the sand at the beach with abandon.

The simple enjoyment I witness of some of life's small pleasures has been good inspiration for me.

Take this guy, for instance--he sat enjoying putting mud on his knee and having the waves wash it off for over half an hour.

And this other man took his sandcastle building very seriously. He was working on it all afternoon and into the sunset. People walking by stopped to have their photograph taken with his masterpiece.

Yes, simple enjoyment--it's a good characteristic.

The Last Supper

So this is the image we're all familiar with: DaVinci's famous Last Supper fresco.

He was inspired by those like Fra Angelico, whose work was always very two dimensional, but told the story it needed to tell.

But I have this same question. I know that with everyone sitting on one side of the table it's easier to paint them and give them all equal respect. It was believed to be an important technique for the story telling of the day. And it has become what we expect to see when the Last Supper is mentioned.
I think we can be pretty certain, though, that Jesus and his disciples were not sitting all on one side of a table with halos on anyone's head.

Tintoretto had an interesting take on the usual icon--turn it on an action angle and give it, ya, lots of action. That guy had an imagination.

Harry Anderson was bold enough to paint the back of some of the disciples.

And Nikolai Ge suggests they weren't even at a table.
!

I think it's safe to say none of the artists were actually there and know what it was truly like when Jesus and his closest friends took their last meal together. It was a moment just before the whole world was about to change, never to be same again.
Your perspective does make a pretty big difference.

Shoe repair

Another broken shoe? Really?
Yes, really. I have too many of these stories.

I went out today and my shoe came apart on me.
No time to go back, so I went to my appointment anyway. And on my way home, I stopped at the shoe repair man.

He sits with his assortment of tools on a little stand in the shade next to the taxi stand and the barber.
When I limped up to him, he put aside his other work and reached out for my shoe.

His feet are like his third hand. He used them to hold on to the shoe while he worked on it.
And then he used his toes to hold the thread while he sewed.

He glued it, he pounded it, and then he sewed it.
And shortly thereafter, my shoe was back on my foot.

A non-discriminating fan

The heat has returned to Delhi.
Which means it's time to turn on the fans again--non stop for the next six months.

Watching cricket last week exposed me to a number of commercials.
This is one of them. It's about fans and I find it kind of amusing.

Cricket fever

I have spent a lot of hours this week watching cricket.
How could I not?
India playing in the cricket world cup final against Sri Lanka on home turf--that's just huge!

So yeah, I watched the game. Nothing else happened in the entire country for those eight and a half hours.

And it really was good game, beautifully won at the end with a ball into the stands.
A billion dreams come true for India's cricket-mad citizens.
The streets around India Gate went crazy with celebration.


And I tell you, I'm so relieved that pressure is over. If they'd lost...oh I can only imagine the disappointment.
Instead, the euphoria in the air today is palpable.
As I walked out this morning there was a guy wearing the jersey of one of the cricket players. Everyone he passed stopped to shake his hand.
The Indian girl I talked with this morning had half a dozen videos she'd taken on her phone of the celebrating that she wanted to show me, she was that excited about it--just a couple weeks ago she didn't care about cricket at all (I relate :) ).

Ah cricket.
It can unite this country like nothing else.

Cricket brush up

Are you ready for tomorrow's game?
India vs. Sri Lanka.
If you don't know what I'm talking about, maybe this video can help you...



Seriously, though. I'm still confused about the over. How do you know when it's over?