Hyderabad, India
Anna's entry:Hyderabad visit was very special for us. Rob has an Indian friend from college, Prabhakar, and his family live in Hyderabad. So, we welcomed a great opportunity for a complete culture immersion. Indeed, it turned out a wonderful experience! Prabhakar's family took an excellent care of us, we gained some extra weight from all this wonderful homemade cooking, and we spent numerous hours conversing on various peculiar Indian topics. Family took us to various sightseeings, but the best part was spending time with them and seeing the real life of an Indian family. I must comment on one of the sightseeing outings though... Our first night in Hyderabad we were taken out to a boat cruise, which also turned out to be an entertainment boat. That entertainment included a "dance performance" or an Indian version of hip-hop dance accompanied by various pop Bollywood tunes. Well, if you happen to follow our blog, you probably know that we spent some time in Mumbai, where we got up to speed to an Indian pop-culture, which also included our involvement in Bollywood movie set. In addition, both Rob and I love all these crazy Indian songs and dance, where lots of hips moving and shirts are flying open. Anyway, when the music started on the boat, Rob and I began imitating some "dance moves" we had observed for the past months traveling in India, we did so a couple of times, not thinking much about what we were doing... Well, our moves were apparently noticed by a dance group on the boat, and all of a sudden Rob was asked to the stage. One of the dancers announced in the microphone that "that foreign guy sitting in such and such chair" (that would be Rob) is asked to join on the dance stage. Rob obeyed and went to the stage, he also tried to invite some of the Indian audience join him on the stage, but no one followed (later on we were told by our family that it was not typical of Indians going to dance on the stage in front of complete strangers). Anyway, I wanted to give Rob some support on the stage, so I joined in. So, there we were, standing on the stage, on the boat, in front of complete strangers, with the Bollywood music blaring, and our host family staring at us in disbelieve (this was our first day meeting them). What should we do, we were asked to dance, so we danced! Rob tried to imitate all this hot dancin' he saw on the Indian television - there was crutch grabiibg, butt shaking, macho hip-hopin', on my part hips moving (shy in comparison with Rob's). The audience was taking pictures of us, crazy gringos, and our sweet host family just accepted their destiny to be associated with us on that boat. What can be a better ice breaker to get to know each other, right?
On other outings, our host family took us to the magnificent Golconda Fort and Charminar. I am not going to write about the latter, I think Rob will dedicate a special entry, but I must say it was another outing that may have left some memories for the host family. All I am going to say about it is that Rob made quite an appearance among the local market sellers, he also won the high popularity contest, and gained enough fans and hand shakes to be running for parliament (a mosque man not included who managed to piss Rob off if you can imagine that).
By the end of our homestay, we have become part of the family, and we will cherish our memories about this sweet kind caring family for a long time to come. I am looking forward to a special occasion to put a special sari on, which was created for me by Babita, the hostess, in the memory of our friendship!
posted by Rob and Anna @ 1:02 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home