Books and TV; Breakfast

Several weeks ago, on a yahoo adoption group that Amy is part of, a woman expressed interest in finding Hindu Sunday School material so should could bring up her child as a Hindu. Yesterday I think I saw such material at the airport book store. There were comic books featuring the stories of famous gods and characters of Hindu holy books and the lives of famous gurus.

About TV in India: Many channels feature folks in fancy costumes singing and dancing, whether it be a Bollywood film or pop stars performing dance tunes. We kept flipping the channel and the same music video of a popular current song was playing. There is a very good news channel called 24/7. Also, one thing I noticed comparing CNN in the U.S. with that of Europe or here is that in the U.S. it is so unprofessional and so slanted. Some U.S. anchors were like the amateur hour, like when they leave the college students in charge of the Fargo and Grand Forks news for the weekend. In Europe and India there is much more news on the news. One news show has puppets act out current events, such as leaders of India waiting for a phone call from Barack Obama, since he's called every other world leader already. The news last night played a segment produced in Ireland of a new song "There's No One as Irish as Barack Obama." In Amsterdam, a news magazine declared him the "world's president." (This was on the cover of one of the few Amsterdam magazines not featuring a topless woman. Amsterdam well deserves its reputation of a capital of smut and immorality). A newspaper from Mumbai sees the historic significance of Obama's election in that he is America's "first bi-racial president." The story noted how he and his African American wife visited the White House, which was partially build by slave labor.

There are many soaps on all the time in India. Close ups on peoples facial expression happen every few seconds. It soon looses it dramatic effect. Reality TV shows have taken hold here. There was one like American Gladiators with teams competing in physical obstacle courses. Another was like Last Comic Standing. That show was hard for us to follow since all the jokes were in Hindi, while the judges' comments were in English.

There are American programs here too. HBO here has commercials, as opposed to its commercial free counterpart in the U.S. It also appears to be edited for content, so there's not the gratuitous programming that pervades HBO in the U.S. ESPN was featuring professional wrestling from the U.S. I watched a bit, since one of my childhood heroes is now the champion and another is now the boss of the wrestling league.

It was good to wake up in the same city (country for that matter) that we went to sleep in. Breakfast was very much like what we'd get in a hotel restaurant in the U.S.- eggs, French toast, coffee. The coffee here in Bangalore is excellent. It is like a Latte. We also asked for a bottled water at breakfast, since we were running low and don't want to get dehydrated.

Looking out from the hotel balcony, we again saw people on their way to work and school. One school girl was on the back of her dad's motorcycle. Women in India ride side saddle on the back of their husband's motorbike. There are street sweepers out with simple straw brooms.

We are awaiting a car to take us to Ashraya to meet Sweeti. While it is only a ten minute walk from here (we've heard), we don't know our way around the neighborhood and also have a suitcase full of aid to the orphanage. This includes a few teddy bears and lots of clothes of many sizes.