Christmas and New Year with a difference My first attempt in my Guest House in Sarnath something Christmassy to , Was a failure to make full line. I had promised my host family, German cookies to bake and I brought the Internet into a recipe for vanilla. After some searching I could find in the food shops, even walnuts and the mom of the house has specially prepared for me sugar.
But then a fateful mistake: I'll have a reddish-brown-looking meal that uses the Jain family for their chapatis. There is also an oven, unfortunately not, but this cake is cooked on a grill in a kind of grid-quality pan that you cover with a large metal lid. My Crescents are, unfortunately, after an hour of baking not as they should be, but gradually crumble or become as black as the Hindu goddess Kali. All the fun well: "you eat so in Germany,"
the end, I throw all Kekskrüppel in a bowl admit properly add milk and sugar and form it dark brown balls that taste with a little indulgence as an Indian candy is so mean. Creation still eaten.
my parents I first asked her Christmas visit to my vanilla bring to show me what I was doing this Adventstag actually.
Even a little bit sad I'm in the Advent season at times of Christmas market stalls and festive atmosphere. Fourth Advent I was after some travel back to Delhi, a few days later to pick up my parents from the Indira Gandhi International Airport.
propose at a late breakfast on the roof terrace of one of the many backpackers descending Paharganj I The Times of India "on. Since days buried under snow ourselves from Europe, the title page. This is my first winter without snow. Here it is noon time and I can sweater and scarf, which even in India are indispensable in the morning, wipe off again.
In Paharganj, which is also open during the Christmas season by many travelers from the West, some hard tracks can be found. In the shops Christmas hats are sold, the odd cafe has a small Christmas tree and a restaurant has really made an effort and designed his entire terrace with cotton-made snow. Apart from occasional
store decorations to remember in the streets of Christmas but rather little. At Connaught Place, the oversized Kreisvekehr of New Delhi, a few Santas are traveling in other
em, this boy who does not know quite whether to look into the camera or not.
Since 23 December I travel around India with my parents. For my mother was alone worth the visit if only because they saw that I I have not changed too drastically and I'm still not entirely pleased by the meat. Apart from that, this Christmas Eve was probably the oddest Christmas we have ever experienced in family.
Our Christmas dinner besstand not from the traditional raclette, but of Indian breads, vegetables and sauces that are served on large metal plates. After Masala Dosa and Thali, we take a rickshaw to the Sacred Heart Cathedral, a large Catholic church, which is located in a tree-lined streets of the capital.
Before the gate to the church grounds already a long line with a colorful hodgepodge of Indians who were waiting for admission. On the sidewalk for a few days ago a small Christmas market is set up, but not with mulled wine stalls and hot waffles. Sit on the floor traders who sell crucifixes in all sizes, chains Jesus, Jesus pictures, candles, small plastic trees and all sorts of kitschy junk.
Behind us is in line for a group of young Indians, I think only for East Asians. They come from the state of Mizoram, which lies in the extreme eastern tip of India. This region encloses Bangladesh and is considered on a map, a geographical abnormality; alone therefore largely insulated from the rest of subcontinent. What I did not know is that a considerable part of the Christian people of this region is.
But before the Sacred Heart Cathedral, which disappears on Christmas Eve behind colorful lights, have long been not only Christians gathered, but it also came many Sikhs and Hindus. For them, Christmas is just another of the many religious festivals that are celebrated in India and Jesus another holy deity in the Hindu gods universe. Together with candles being lit in front of the chest joined hands to pray, just as usual in a Hindu temple. "You can only find this spirit in India," said a Hindu who comes here every year at Christmas.
At a booth will be issued against 5-rupee coupons tea, coffee and Veg-Burger. The Drive like a bit of a fair. Cliques of young people palaver, families push their way through to a beautifully decorated crib or a Christmas photo shoot - as we face the Sacred Heart Cathedral.
The doors of the churches, however, are closed. Instead it was on the lawn next door built a huge white tent, which can provide thousands of chairs to accommodate the masses (and still are sitting and standing people on the ground).
At 23 clock starts in the tent of the church choir with his program, equipped with distorted microphone, keyboard, and a mixture of English and Hindi carols. Just as "Silent Night" sung is to be, falls from power. The mic is silenced and half of the tent, bathed in darkness.
As the midnight Mass begins, the electricity returned to the happiness and the priest can hold his sermon. Where in our sacred organ sounds would be sound, here are the breaks with loud playback filled melodies that remind me unmistakably to Bollywood films.
The service lasted four hours and the tent is like a giant anthill. People come and go, everything is constantly in motion. At two clock circuit for us, my parents finally sits still jet lag in the bone. My mother has a large tin of Christmas cookies brought about which I am passionate Hermach ...
The last few days we have traveled through Rajasthan and the desert cities have been viewed Jaisalmer and Jodhpur. Of the year (mind you four and a half hours earlier than in good old Germany), I experience quite unspectacular in a train on the way to Varanasi, where I show my parents still for a few days old my short time home.
For me holding the new year but for now again ready new itineraries. In the nearly two months in the projects I have indeed inspiring impressions and contacts collected, but found no activity that might take me longer than this time in one place. My Hindi has been on a stable Treasure of sentences and phrases become stable, while traveling through India I always use.
But if there is one thing India his visitor, sometimes the hard way, teaching, then it is not necessarily peace, yoga and meditation, but simply the fact that most everything is very different than it was planned. And maybe after my cross country trip and the trip just in my mind no longer drive out so easily!
From January I will move me, then head south for the spring and am planning an even a trip to Nepal. But on plans in India, I had already written ...
I wish all my readers a round in 2011, a happy Forging of plans and the satisfaction that one or the other of which is true!
May the obstacles are not too many ...
And if they do, then you friends with them!
