"Aal izz well"

Last night Amma (my host mom) took me with her to her temple.  She introduced me to all her friends and showed me around the place.  It's kind of like a community center rather than a temple.  It has a worship room, some offices, two small meditation rooms upstairs, a library on the third floor (I think she said) and all of the trees in the covered garden area outside the building are medicine trees and treated as sacred.  Amma walked three times (at least) around one big tree that had been decorated and was protected by a fence.  It was also fun to meet her friends, older women who live in the neighborhood with whom she usually chats with every day for thirty or so minutes.  She also told me that Tuesdays and Thursdays they have prayer so everyone comes those days. This morning I woke up early for a weekend( 8 am) and went to the movie theater with two of the girls from my program.  The movie started at 10:30 am but it was crazy to see how many people were there already when we got there at 9:45 or so.  It seemed as if it was already 4 pm or something!  The tickets were super cheap: US $2 approximately.  You buy tickets outside and then go through a metal detector and a bag search (they just put a metal detector wand in it to make sure you don't have any weapons).  We then were amazed to find that the theater was like a miniature mall!  It had a shoe shop, a bookstore, and excessory shops, along with the normal food booths (although we don't sell samosas in the US theatres).   The theatre seats are reserved, which unfortunately we didn't figure out until after we had bought our tickets individually but once we got in they just let us sit together in the front as we were foreigners, had come in after it already had started and no one was sitting there.  =)  The film was in Hindi with no subtitles but I sat inbetween my friends Jackie and Harvey who both speak Hindi fairly well so when I really didn't understand something I would go back and forth between the two of them for answers.  The great thing is that because Bollywood has so over-the-top acting, and because they mixed English in with it, I understood the gist of it.   The movie is called "3 Idiots" and has the famous actor Aamir Khan in it.  Here is the trailor and the funny music number from it.  And yes, the animation in the first trailor are indeed little sperms speeding towards an egg.  Don't worry, it didn't get any more graffic than that, but from the trailor I'm sure you will be able to see how ridiculous the movie really was.   Trailor: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvszmNXdM4w Song (yes, they are saying "All is well"): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwIApTFkoTM&NR=1 The interesting thing about the movie is that despite it's comedic and ridiculous qualities, it actually addresses a serious issue: university suicides.  Apparently India is one of the countries with the highest number of university students who commit suicide due to the extreme pressure from their studies.  I believe it as just today I read in the paper about three University students who each committed suicide at different stages in their university careers.  So sad.  I have been told that Aamir Khan is known for making movies that are really silly and funny but always have a more serious message.   The rest of the day I spent at home talking with Marie, another girl from my program.  We started planning where we will go for the four-day break we get the 1-4 of April: Udaipur and Jaipur in Rajistan, the region in the north of India.  Should be exciting! Tomorrow Marie and I will try to make spinach and mushroom fetteccine for my hostmom (Rajesh is going to a concert so we'll leave him some leftovers).  Hopefully it will go well.  I don't have that much experience cooking and converting units will be exciting but I already warned Amma that if she doesn't like it she won't have to eat it.  =p Hope you all have a great weekend!  Oh, and this upcoming Thursday and Friday we will take two day trips to visit to different rural villages nearby.  Should be exciting.   And I saw an ox-pulled cart going down the street on my way to school yesterday.  I'm really going to miss that in the US.   ~ Kaia (^_^)