Our second week of the Summer Intensive at the Swarnabhoomi Academy of Music (SAM) has finished, and we are getting ready for the weekend. Several students and teachers leave for the weekend, many going into Chennai (India’s fourth largest city). I will probably go to Chennai next weekend, but this weekend I’ll be traveling to Pondicherry on Saturday with my friend Mukund. I look forward to some sight seeing, shopping and eating in a non-Indian restaurant. Although the food is quite well made at the school, I didn’t realize what eating Indian food daily would be like! I am getting used to it, however, and I eat smaller portions than in USA, so that is definitely a plus for me! Monday I had a very busy teaching day, adding 2 more classes than usual, to make up for the ones I would miss on Tuesday. The highlight of this week was on Tuesday, when I took a delightful trip to the city of Kanchipuram with Selva, our financial advisor, and Koti, our chauffer. We went there to register me in the district. Foreign workers must register within 14 days of arrival, so off we went. We left Swarnabhoomi about 8:30 AM, and drove the interesting Coast Road for a good stretch then turned inland. The drive is about two hours, and full of interesting sites like the rice fields and farmers, beautiful white bulls pulling carts, small towns and some lovely small and big temples. Finally we arrived at the district government offices, behind a gate with a large park area in front – home to cows and monkeys, cricket matches, and very old police cars! We went into the police area and headed toward foreign registration. You see in the photo that the system is not quite state of the art! How they keep track of these piles of paper lining the walls is a mystery to me. Most likely the three fellows (heavily mustached) at the long tables know every detail of all the transactions in their heads, and maybe that young girl seated on the floor all day going through the papers, which are then stacked and tied in string! After that pile sat on the bench next to me for a while someone came and took it to a room across and set it down – not in any filing cabinet, I am sure!
I hope they don’t have to find my papers for any reason! Anyway, it was delightful to watch these clerks in action – or what you could call action. The 3 at the table seemed to have been there for decades, and after each bundle of papers was collected, one would take an awl, bore 3-4 holes in the pile, and hand tie the binding, then seal it with colored tape to make a binding, and to categorize that bundle. Amazing! No Kinkos services necessary!
Selva did a great job “collaborating” with the agent, and we were soon out with the registration in order.
Kanchipuram is the center for silk production, so Koti took us to a beautiful shop specializing in silk. There I was shown many samples of beautiful bedspreads and comforters, but decided against buying one. I was interested in the cotton tops, and soon the workers there had virtually every cotton top out for me to choose from. They are not organized in size, however, so they showed me anything in any size. Then I started shopping for gifts, so they really were confused, and REALLY didn’t know which size to choose for me! The colors and patterns were lovely.
The clerk probably showed me every product they had, except saris, which would have been very interesting to see, but I am not quite ready to buy one at this point!I chose some shirts, some silk fabric and some cottons to make shirts for Rocky – which I will have done right here in our living complex by the seamstress – when she comes back form her wedding on June 9! She was glowing when she told me she is now taking 10 days off for her wedding!We tallied up the bill (too big!) and then had a wonderful surprise. One of the shop hands got in the car with us, and guided us to a silk factory, which was in a normal home–size building right in a normal street. Inside (you take your shoes off first), was a dark room filled with four big beautiful old looms. First we passed a woman who was preparing a loom for a new sari. In the far corner a man was weaving a sari, tossing the long bobbin of one color one direction, then a bobbin of gold thread the other direction, pulling on a cord between each toss, then pulling a piece of wood to position the new thread. He sits there all day doing this in the warm room. It takes 10 days to make one sari. The punch cards above each loom create the pattern of the sari, and they can design those cards any way a person wants, even drawing the face of a client into the silk! It was humbling and fascinating to see this production. Afterwards I wish I had purchased some patterned silk to promote this industry. We then went to lunch at a very good restaurant, and ate on banana leaves! It was an experience! My favorite was the chicken tikka! The rest of the meal was very good also, ending with a small cup of a rice custard. Perfect!
On the way home we stopped at a temple, but it was closed so couldn’t go in. There are so many lovely temples, I am sure I will be able to see many in my weeks here. The trip was really fun, and Selva and Koti were good company. The week at school was very busy, with me having to make up the lessons and classes I missed Tuesday. Last night Phil Maturano, the drumming teacher, gave a lecture on “The Right Way to Practice.” He learned this system at the Musician’s Institute in LA, where he went to school and also taught, and it is brilliant! This method may be available on his on his website with a paid membership at http://pmlessons.philmaturano.com, or read some of his free blogs posts at http://philmaturano.com. His lecture was inspiring for the students, encouraging them to hunker down and take advantage of these weeks of training by putting in the practice time in a very efficient way. So it has been another great week on the flats of India, and I look forward to a good weekend ahead!
