One of the souvenirs I wanted to bring home was a kurta. That is a traditional male outfit that is a long sleeved shirt that goes down to you knees. We looked at many places and they just don’t make them in my size (big supprize). Do on Tuesday Dhananjay from the office took me to the main part of Pune to their clothing district. This is the oldest part of the city and the roads are narrow and very crowded. Plus with Diwali just around the corner there were extra street vendors selling just about everything. Here is a photo of the fun.
On Thursday they were planning on having “Traditional Day” at the office here. This is when everyone wears their traditional dress to the office for one day. So I wanted my kurta by then so I could wear it on Traditional Day. Luckily we were able to find a tailor who could make it in a single day. We picked out some cloth (pure silk actually) and he took my measurements. The tailors tape just made it around my chest and he acted like he had never seen a 20″ neck before! Anyway it cost me just $27 and I got my kurta on Thursday morning just in time for the activities at the office. The cloth shop was dimmly light and I thought I had chosen a brownish color but when it came it looked more like pure gold. Here I am with Dhananjay from my team (on the right).
The team here has a montly party to celebrate the birthdays and to give out awards and such. It was my birthday in October and so I was included. The tradition here is that frosting from the birthday cake gets smeared on the face of those with birthdays. So you can see I got a healthy dose of frosting smeared on me! It was a fun time.
Also becase Diwali is next week, they also had an activity for that. The women of the office created some beautiful displays that were then judged and a winner was awarded. This is a tradition that has much symbolysm and they decorate their displays with flowers, food, spices, powdered paint, and small lamps of burning oil. Here are a few photos of the displays just to give you a sample.
Here is another photo of the party. I loved to see all the traditional clothes everyone was wearing and it was a great party!
no comment untill now