India has a lot of festivals. Today was Makar Sankranti. Apparently, it has some sort of astrological significance. Whatever. What I care about is that people all over India fly kites to celebrate!! Knowing that today was some sort of “kite day”, I asked everyone at work what they usually do today, and everyone responded the same way... they don’t do anything. Unacceptable! I told everyone at work that I was going to get kites at lunch, and that we would go fly them on the roof of our building (even though the boss had just yelled at everyone for slacking off!).
I wonder if someone should tell these kids that flying kites near electric wires is not a good idea...NAH!
At lunchtime, me and a co-worker went and got 11 kites (10 cents each, not bad!). Then came the moment of truth, and it turns out I don't know how to fly a kite. I eventually just flew someone else’s kite that was already in the air. A few seconds after I took over, the kite was taking a nose dive into the trees. The “kite expert”, Avanash, had to continually save the kite. After realizing that I had no idea what I was doing (you would think after taking numerous Aerodynamics classes, working at NASA, and paragliding, I would know how to fly a kite!), he taught me how to fly the thing, and I was able to keep it in the air for about a minute. Now I want to go home and fly my nerdy space shuttle kite all the time!
It looks like I’m teaching Avanash how to fly a kite. Don’t be fooled.
But the fun today didn’t stop there. Last week, I got a phone call while I was on a very loud autorickshaw. I couldn’t hear very well, but I thought it was my friend Nimisha’s Mausiji (her Mom’s sister) who lived in Lucknow inviting me over for dinner (Nimisha grew up in Lucknow and now works at JPL). We decided I would come over today for dinner. She called again today to confirm, and she said she would send her son Nikhil to pick me up. I told Nimisha (who is now back in California) that I was going to her Mausiji’s house, and that Nikhil was picking me up. She was excited, but said she had no idea who Nikhil was. Interesting.
When Nikhil came to pick me up, I asked him what his relation to Nimisha was. He said that she was his Dad’s sister’s kid. Ok, so maybe that’s why Nimisha didn’t recognize the name, because I had the relation wrong. But after a little more conversation, we realized we were talking about different Nimishas. No problem, I also know that my cousin Tanvi has two aunts in Lucknow. It had to be one of them since I don’t know anyone else in Lucknow. As a test, I casually threw out some names of cousins that they should know if they were in fact related to Tanvi. They hadn’t a clue as to who I was talking about. Interesting.
At this point, I might have thought I was at a complete stranger’s house, but somehow, they knew everything about me. They knew I worked at NASA and that I was in India for 3 months. They kept asking about my parents and sister. They even busted out a photo album of when they visited my family and me in Texas a while back! Still nothing. My job now was to find out who they were without giving them any idea that I had no clue who they were! Finally, on the way to the dinner table, as I was looking feverishly at all the pictures in the house, I noticed my Mom’s sister-in-law in many of the pictures. “OH YEAH! I forgot that my Mom’s sister-in-law had a sister in Lucknow. Mission accomplished!” I was so relieved that I could now make decent conversation about how so and so is doing instead of the awkward silence.
Thus ended my first Kite Day. I don’t know if any others will be as exciting, but Nimisha and I decided that we’re going to try to get Pasadena to join in on Kite Day next year!
7 comments:
So the two Indian people in my vanpool were talking about kite day today!! That's so cool that you're actually there and there really were a ton of kites flying around!
Great post!
listen, i find it funny that yous aw a movie called "3 idiots" after going swimming in 40 degree weather. And double listen, Judge Ravi, I don't need to wash no sins off, so you watch your dirty mouth. finally, i'm aware these are comments regarding the previous post, but i couldn't come up with a good, "it makes you sound racist when you can't recognize which Indian relatives you're hanging out with" joke.
the end. love your face.
How many aerodynamics classes have you taken and you can't figure out how to fly a kite??? Good thing you don't work on MSL anymore. NASA dodged a bullet with that one ;-)!
Why doesn't it surprise me that you can't fly a kite? ;) There's an annual kite festival in Austin in March. Yet another reason Austin is better than LA (or anywhere else for that matter).
Glad everything is going well over there :)
to allison's post: HAHAHAHAHA
No encouraging Allison!! Actually, Eris, you and her would get along great, but it would come at my expense. So yeah, I'm going to make sure yall's paths never cross ;)
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