Office Dance Party

I haven't really missed the usual bombardment of holiday-themed parties, but I was still pretty excited to attend a much-needed office dance party on Friday night. In Bangalore, dancing is illegal in public places (seriously, this is some Footloose shit right here), so people are understandably pretty excited to dance when given the opportunity.



Bhindi Masala - aka delicious, spicy okra



Paneer - Rubbery Indian cheese cubes immersed in creamy curry sauce


As always, hanging outside with Stuti <3



Mamta and Viny


Kavery (4-foot 8-inch state Rifle Shooting Champion) loading up on Gulab Jamun and ice cream.



Mamta and me



Srividya looking like a totally different girl in her Western attire



Subhojyothi and Vatsalya



With Sultana and Chandini



Kavery, Somrita, Prathap, Jason, Prathviraj, and Sandeep








Later this weekend - while all of you were bundled up, enjoying your frigid blizzard, I was strolling around sipping on a fresh coconut - when I heard a scary sound!


Luckily, it wasn't a leper.

Ghazals

I haven't had much of a chance to take pictures lately, as work is once again kicking my ass pretty hard. We will be having a holiday party on Friday, so you'll have to wait 'til then for some photos/video. However, I have been listening to a lot of Hindi and Urdu music lately, as a result of instituting a mandatory music in the case room policy to keep my team awake. Everyday, a new person gets to be the "DJ" and share their favorite songs while we work. People mostly play a lot of current Bollywood dance/pop hits, though one team member is an inexplicably huge John Denver fan. (And everyone really seems to like the Backstreet Boys, including their new album, which I am sad to have become very familiar with.) My favorite songs are the old Bollywood Ghazals,Urdu love songs that are full of mournful longing and dramatic orchestration. One of the guys on my team was kind enough to burn me a CD, and I thought that some of you might be interested in listening, too. You can download the album here: http://www.sendspace.com/file/xtn4hz.

Lalbagh and Wretched Rabdi

Here are some photos we took today at Lalbagh Botanical Garden, and at dinner where we ordered the most disgusting dessert yet, "Rabdi." I really don't like most traditional Indian sweets - they are nauseatingly sugary, and the dairy here tastes weird and spoiled and hairy. But it's always fun to order something without having any idea of what is going to be brought out to you, so we went with Rabdi after being told that our first choice, Muzzafar (which turns out to be a sweet spaghetti dessert, blegh) was all out. Rabdi is a white, viscous substance, chock-full of clots and chunks. It tastes EXACTLY like mozzarella cheese floating in vanilla pudding, if you want to approximate the recipe and try it for yourself.

In Honor of World AIDS Day....