Diwali

Here in Mussoorie, the streets have been transformed. Lights and sparkly streamers are hanging and Indians cram the streets as they shop for gifts and fireworks. It's the week of Diwali, the most important festival for Hindus, Sikhs, and Jains. It is six days long and, as I have easily found out, is very loud and full of firecrackers. To explain it very basically, it celebrates the triumph of good over evil in everyone. The stores in town have catered to the holiday shoppers. On Sunday, the second day of Diwali, it was the auspicious day to buy metal. So, all of the store owners brought any metal products they had to the front of the shop. It was also amusing to see some shops that were selling only fireworks. At first I thought that I had never seen these shops before, but then I realized that the shopowners had just thrown all of their regular merchandise into some back room (actually probably their bedrooms or somewhere) so they could sell lots and lots of firecrackers. They will do anything to please their customers...

Decorations in front of a shop in the Landour Bazaar.

Shopping for metal on the 2nd day of Diwali. I didn't buy anything, so if I am all of a sudden plagued with bad luck, I guess I will know why!

Shopping in the bazaar. I have noticed that oranges, reds, yellows, and pinks are popular clothing colors. Maybe this is because Diwali is associated with the harvest?


Although Woodstock, unlike nearly all Indian schools, is not taking time off to celebrate, there have been a few events here. On Saturday, there was a Diwali dance for the High School. It started off with a choreographed dance and then turned into a fairly typical high school dance, except with all hindi music. Needless to say, there was a lot of "pulling the rope" and "twisting the lightbulb" bollywood dance moves. Tuesday marked the fourth (and most important) day of Diwali. This is the day for fireworks and lights. Woodstock celebrated with fireworks down at the dorms...about 10 yards from my house, actually. It was a little terrifying. Please don't think that the fourth day is the only day for fireworks. As I've learned, the locals hold no restraint for when and where they should shoot off firecrackers. I've been hearing them pretty constantly for the last week, during the middle of the day and at 3am. They particularly like the ones that you chuck at the ground (preferrably in the middle of the street where people are walking). The firecrackers make a horribly loud gunshot noise and the explosion looks dangerous. I won't be terribly sad when firework season is over.

Rising Celebrity Status

The celebrity status of teachers definitely shot up after the staff talent show last week. There were maybe 10-12 performances with a grand finale at the end. I participated in a small dance number based on youtube's "Evolution of Dance" and then was in the grand finale bollywood dance. The students were SCREAMING. It was unreal. They loved seeing their teachers and dorm parents making fools out of themselves. They particularly liked our evolution of dance (which is a medly of American dances such as the twist, thriller, cotton eye joe, bye bye bye, big butts, etc). A week later, students are still coming up to me saying how good our dance was. And some long-time Woodstockers have even said it was the best thing they've seen in years...no big deal. The bollywood dance was equally entertaining since about half of the staff (including myself) had no previous bollywood skills. Bollywood is an Indian film genre that is sort of like an American musical in the sense that there is a lot of singing and corresponding dancing. If you understand Hindi, it is easy to make it look like you know what you are doing since you basically act out whatever they are singing about. However, if you don't know Hindi, it is really easy to look like a fool!


Evolution of dance (I'm in the middle). This was the brady bunch song :)


My spotlight dance during the bollywood with friends Darab and Mandy. Mandy and I always thought that our song was about wiping your face, but it is really about a "white, white face," or something.

Rishikesh and Rajpur

RISHIKESH:
I spent last weekend in Rishikesh, which is about 2.5 hours south of Mussoorie. With the Ganga (Ganges) River running through, it is a sacred city filled with religious pilgrims (usually dressed in orange), yoga followers, and hippie tourists. In line with other sacred cities, Rishikesh doesn't sell alcohol and is almost 100% vegetarian. While there is a part of Rishikesh that is more or less an average Indian city, the part to go to is set on either side of the Ganga with two suspension bridges connecting the sides. The bridges are only about 5 ft wide and thus are "pedestrian only" (which includes motorbikes, cargo pushcarts, cows plopped in inconvenient places, and monkeys ready to pounce on unsuspecting people with fruit).

Set at a lower altitude than Mussoorie, it was very hot and humid. We spent the weekend perusing the many shops and then sitting in cafes to escape the heat. Many of the cafes and restaurants cater to the unusually large number of young Israeli tourists, so we indulged in great hummus and pita. And I had my fair share of cold coffees, which are sold everywhere. I also tried a delicious drink made with fresh lemon juice and a whole lot of chopped up mint plant (enough to turn the whole drink a solid green color) - very refreshing! On Sunday morning I got up early and headed to the Ganga to sketch and just have some alone time. It was so wonderful to watch the city come alive.
The locals were out running errands in the cool morning weather. Sitting by the river, I also saw many Indians bathing and performing rituals. Overall, I really enjoyed the city. The biggest disappointment was not being able to fit a whitewater rafting trip into the weekend!


RAJPUR: Today I was the lead chaperone (ah! the responsibility!) for a Saturday field trip to Sharp Memorial Blind School in Rajpur (which is very close to Dehradun). Once a month the high school students have a "Closed Bazaar" weekend which means that they can't go into town. They are encouraged to either do a hike/camping trip or a CARE trip (I'm not sure what the acronym means, but it is basically a community outreach program). This is the third CARE trip I've gone one (treeplanting and Tibetan Homes were the others) so apparently that makes me qualified to be the lead chaperone! We took a school bus down and spent a few hours at the school. It is a boarding school that, along with blind children, also takes in a few orphans. We brought some play-dough to share with them. They loved it! It was really cool to see how the Woodstock kids quickly got over their hesitancy and were soon fully interacting with the kids. We only had two Hindi speakers in the group, so not only were we crossing a vision barrier but also a language barrier. Everything basically revolved around communication through touch, which was a valuable experience. Afterwards, we headed to Dehradun for lunch at McDonald's and Nirula's (Indian fast food chain) and then headed back up the hill. I'm very relieved that everyone survived the trip without any major catastrophes!


Sahil (the trouble-maker) creating a pretty amazing person flying a kite...or something.


Woodstock students and Sharp Memorial kids playing with clay.

Teaching!

It seems like I should probably say something about teaching, since that is the reason I am here!

I have been responsible (lesson planning, prep, grading, etc) for three high school art classes for about 5 weeks now. They are the three intro classes: Drawing/Painting, Sculpture/Ceramics, and Design. Overall, things are great. Christina (my host teacher) and I get along really well and the students also are wonderful. We just finished the first quarter and so now are starting new projects in all of the classes. Here are some of the projects we have worked/are working on:

SCULPTURE/CERAMICS: We did a really cool study of abstract sculptors (Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore, Ruth Duckworth) and then studied how to abstract the human figure. This all led to carving plaster sculptures. SO FUN! I was unsure how well the students would do with this, but they really loved it and the sculptures turned out well! We also go to the Clay Center once a week to work on the wheel and do some handbuilding. Now we are starting a new collaborative project to make a public sculpture for Woodstock. I gave them some parameters, but for the most part they are designing it. I'm excited about it!


We did all of our carving out on the balcony of the art room. There is a great view of Mussoorie and the Dehradun valley on clear days.


One student almost done with her sculpture. Can you tell that it is an abstract human?

DRAWING/PAINTING: We spent a good chunk of the quarter doing figure drawing. Then we studied patterns (from 1960s wallpaper!) and did a project combining live model drawings with abstract pattern. Now we are moving onto value studies. Pretty basic.


This was a really fun day. In order to get interesting poses, randomly selected students had to draw a pose out of a hat and then model for 5 min. Some highlights were "a monkey is about to attack!" and "walking on the moon." This one is "sitting in the rain."


A sampling of the pattern/figure compositions (colored pencil).


DESIGN: This class started off kind of boring - just color theory and basic design. An exciting change of pace was studying East Asian signature seals and then doing a linoleum printing project. Now we are moving into a study of advertisements and will be designing positive ads to put up around Woodstock.


Color theory painting. (The display looks weird because one of the paintings has disappeared overnight - eek!)


Signature prints (linoleum).