नया साल मुबारक हो!

Supr Bath,

Lots of things happened over the last month.


Bijli Mahadev temple
Also known as the Lord Shiva temple, this astounding tourist attraction point is elevated fifteen hundred meters above the sea level. So it goes.

This early December me an Anine got ready to conquer the mountain, mainly to compensate for the recent lack of physical exercise. It wouldn’t be regular us hadn’t we hitchhiked all the way up. We started in the Kullu by-pass an son fund ourselves in a regular Hindustani car – Maruti Suzuki. White metal chassis, plated with black plastic and rust. Maruti looks like this:

But before that, we had a regular conflict on the regular red bridge. I think that me and Anine were governed by the same physical laws to which pressure cookers abide by. So letting some steam off before the trip is good!

So, once we reached the mountain whereabouts we thought of taking a bus after all. As a rule of thumb, buses do not obey regular rules, they are sponsored by destiny…

An hour into our trip we got into the bus and the Kullu city shrank in the horizon, until the tiny dwellings were ablated by the adjacent mountain. Now it was time to stop our bus trip, as there were no free seats available.

Meanwhile, another bus was approaching us, thirty students and teachers from the Mandi College sang joyful songs and danced in the vehicle. We got aboard and the students, mainly testosterone governed guys, “hospitalized us”. I often wish I knew how to dance. Not only Hindu dances, but also Classical European or Polish Polka. I don’t and sat all the way up.
Technically, all the roads finish a kilometer short of the mountain top. So we went. “What a beautiful trek!”, I thought, and the nature smiled, sun smiled, and two cute kale kute smiled at us as well (those dogs got an egg from me later on, surprisingly, refusing Anine’s banana) ;D

We talked and we cursed and we sweat. By the time we reached the mountain top which looked like this:

my sweaty t-shirt froze my body and mind. The scenery up there was beautiful. So was the temple and an honorable “temple–man”, who taught us how to pray (puja) for the Lord Shiva. The tuition fee was dropped into the “charity box”.

Then we lost Anine’s phone. Maybe someone sneaked into the bag, or maybe it rested on the mountain slope who knows. I owned Sony Walkman, and know what it means to lose one of those intelligent music phones.

Our frinds from Mandi gave us a ride home, and we walked over the Lal bridge: this time happy, or simply too tired to quarrel =)


Solang Paragliding
I went paragliding, which qualifies me as a superhero, and managed to loose my cell phone during the trip. For the sake of a good anecdote, I could swear I lost it in the air. One way or the other, the phone was lost and I got Nokia 1080. A thousand rupees phone has many features: bichromatic screen, torch, radio, Panchangam, Cricket game, Snake game, Bouncer game and Devanghari keyboard.

One way or the other, I went paragliding, which qualifies me as a superhero. Avian experience.





On December 11, it was time for Anine to leave. Beforehand we had been sharing a new apartement for ten days. New apartment aside, I FEEL LONELY.

Of course, there are people, especially children, in those few remaining institutions, who support me with..their own presence. Kullu inhabitants are benign and sincere. They help me with Hindi, and I tell them stories about my beautiful country.
You see, India being as big as Europe, not many people have left the subcontinent, just as not many Europeans crossed their own borders. Many locals I spoke to express a desire to visit a foreign country. For the first time, someone honestly wonders where I live, and how could they visit Lithuania. Conversely, the Westerners’ still see the country ruled by the clique of USSR cadres and inhabited by corrupt people. Well, at least I have never felt ashamed of it, as time will heal those wounds.

I’m not the only one who’s missing Anine. Even now I hear people wondering what have I done, to make “the beautiful foreigner” leave Kullu. The others still hold a firm belief of our marital union ;D

My position in the blind school has changed significantly without her. Days are getting colder and colder, and we (teachers) and the children encircle the only stove in the classroom. They constructed the stove pretty hastily, and “the smokes spill over” once too often. That’s why we dedicate the first half an hour before Puja for warming up. Samshe is the most eager when it comes to warming up, few days ago he lost a handful of hair, when it caught fire!

Roiht is the one bringing us the wood, I’m not pretty sure where does he get it from though.;D A few pieces inside the “combustive chamber” and I can read them a story. A story about the dreamy milk maid (dut valla) who spilled her milk and lost everything, a boasting oak tree which got toppled over and the bush, etc.

I have finished the conceptual design of the goal ball. Unfortunately, the huge copper bells were totally muted by the excessive amount of printed media inside the ball. This time I’ll try stuffing the plastic bags inside, as they seem to have better sound conductivity.


Trip to Delhi
I have participated in the training programme on counseling skills on children protection in Delhi. For five days we were taught counseling and empathy and active listening and how to make an Asian PPT presentation 

Delhi is big. I’m glad it’s bigger than the NYC or LA or any other polluted agglomerate on the US. One way or the other, if you climb atop of a 5 storey building, the city in front of you looks like a jungle. Especially the new Delhi, whereas some residential areas resemble Santa Barbara or French Riviera.

The city has over a million of street children. We stayed in the Indian social institute, and next to it there was a Sai (yes, Anine, BABA) Memorial, where street residents could get free rice and other food.

Panki, Ankit’s brother, was my guide for those five days. He is a really warm and interesting person. He showed me the biggest Electronics market in Asia. He took me to the biggest hardware market in Asia. And, finally, he told me of the biggest vegetables market in Asia, which we haven’t seen.

Both of us found the conference interesting in one or the other way. I personally enjoyed all the ladies speakers. They were great communicators (private practice in the US does miracles!), and I have to admit, Indian women have beautiful eyes and smile. Once they are activated together, people tend to be lured into listening, subconsciously. The male speakers positioned themselves firmly into the chairs and gave us the “lecture”.

One way or the other, they must have said many important and compelling counseling techniques, but as long as I were the only English speaker, I couldn’t grasp the fruits of knowledge in Hindi. Well, I learned the meanings of matlab, karenge, sakte, Bahut MUSHKIL!, 100% failure hoga, Ankh mein ankh milake. The latter is my favorite, it means what we known as the “eye contact”. I still don’t get the meaning of bilkul.

I made one friend there, actually, his name is V.K. He is a resident of Uttar Pradesh. He asked me not to forget him, and I won’t.