Lunch at Cozy Corner - Grover cooking!

Best lunch ever - full bun omelet with cheese and masala.  The view was perfect up the hill and of the pushta holding up Monica and Eric's house.

The traffic was interesting and the bun omelet  divine.  I got big smile from Grover as I left.  Ended with dessert of a Kit Kat bar which I ate walking back to the WS gate.  (I'm pretty sure I've read that there are no calories in a Kit Kat if you eat if while walking!)

Auspicious October

On the evening of Patricia's birthday in India (where she was born so her real birthday begins), October 20, Margo and I walked to Doma's for dinner and this was the view below Claremont, on the hill up from Mullingar.  It was a perfect October 20th ... many others celebrating on the same day.

The afternoon was auspicious also as it was the opening of Antonio's exhibit of installation art.

This is the top of the double helix of skin colors at Woodstock in the entrance to the playground in the Quad.  It was a grand occasion with Jonathan Long making an introduction after the playing of a lovely raga by a sitar player. To see the entire album click here.

Another blessing was the kids playing on the teeter-totter that was ours when we were the same age .

The jalabis, samosas and barfi offered for tea in the teacher's tea garden looked delicious! 

Watching the Doon glitter

The wind is buffeting the new, badly made windows in Room 3 at the Quad but through them I see the Doon glittering, clear after a rollicking hail and thunder storm.  It is unbelievable and perfectly right to be here on this October day. A tribe of rhesus monkeys were roaming over the roof of the cells and up the ramp in front of me after the rain, bedraggled, wet and wary after the storm.  The guards at the main gate have sling shots to keep them off the grounds.

I contemplate what it means to be so at home here - a foot in both places, streaming classical music from KSUI in Iowa City, talking with Jack on the phone about car repair, radiator replacements, cat food coming by mail.  Then speaking to Om Prakash the dhobi who brings me a pile of warm, freshly pressed pajamas and underwear.  He wants to know why Jack is not here.  I tell him Jack has work at home, not explaining he has to take the air conditioners in for the winter.  Things don't translate except in small ways.

It was been thrilling to watch an art installation take shape - in a favorite and sort of sacred place, the entrance to the cells, where Mrs. Biswas had her desk for all those many years, as she supervised our music practice.  The building now the business center, complete with an ATM.  But the entrance is transformed by new friend Antonio Puri, artist in residence.   He photographed everyone's eyes at Woodstock for the installation and they form  a circle on the ceiling, lighted all around. 

I don't know that name yet - there will be a formal opening next Thursday.  The figure has all the skin tones of everyone - the tyranny and racism of black and white transformed into glowing, golden, chocolate, tan, umber, pinkish stripes.  With lots of gold embellishments - fanciful and fun.