I don’t remember ever hearing these cicadas when I was in school. But how on earth could I have missed them?
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India Vlog: Happy Valley Tibetan Colony, Mussoorie
Filmed at the Tibetan Homes Foundation.
Tibetan Buddhism seems to traditionally favor mechanically-aided prayer. Each of these wheels has a core wrapped with paper inscribed thousands of times with om mani padme hum (“the jewel is in the lotus”). Spinning the wheel sends the prayers up to heaven.
India Vlog 2005: July 31
Ross, Sharon and I went to the “buzz” (local bazaar). On the way down Mullingar Hill (photo above), we stopped by the tailor, who told us that the shawl we had bought for Ross’ jacket wasn’t enough material to make a jacket with a hood. We took a snippet of the shawl to try to match it with some plain black wool, but eventually ended up buying another shawl, plain black (no embroidery) but a close match in color and texture.
The “world famous sex specialist” still has his hoarding next door, as he has for over 30 years, though I’ve never actually seen these doors open. Maybe it’s just meant to function as a billboard.
photos by Ross
Mussoorie Monsoon
Most Woodstockers are nostalgic about the monsoon, though we’d probably be a lot less so if we had to live through the entire season again!
I had not been to India during the monsoon season since 1981, and had forgotten how beautiful the hills are when they’re lush and green and wet. Every tree is covered in ferns and moss. And, after a while, so are you. Nothing ever dries thoroughly during the monsoon; bedsheets feel damp when you crawl in at night, and you have to keep a strong lightbulb burning in the closet so your shoes don’t go moldy.
India Vlog: Tenzing’s Monkey Tales
Tenzing Nima, Woodstock alum, actor, and proprietor of Momotours, came over for dinner at Sharon & Steve’s, and regaled us with monkey stories.
There are two types of monkeys in Mussoorie, langurs and rhesus. Langurs are beautiful, graceful, and fairly shy of people. Rhesus are very aggressive and can be dangerous. So langurs are hard to get pictures of, while rhesus may attack if photographed.
These are sometimes called Hanuman langurs, because the monkey god Hanuman is often depicted as having silver or white fur and a black face (although he’s also often portrayed as hairless or human flesh-colored).
