Typical... I don't update the blog for a month - then I do it every day. (Please see Diwali post before this one).
I just wanted to get some pictures up now that I finally have "art" on my walls.
This is what I came home to tonight - my dinner table set for me (one) beneath my new carved wood panel... I think it looks very cool.
Now Sibi sets the table with my Mum's handpainted placemat (we switch off, Mum). Sibi has now become flower-arranger-extrodinare too. Last night two guys came to deliver and install my panel and the door (follows). This panel was a last-minute purchase... but I really love it.
With all of the candles lighted - casting their light up on the panel - it looks cool.
The apartment decorating had reached a point of stasis - and I'm glad to be back in the saddle again. Jeez - I'm really going to have to get a big place when I leave this spot. I think I'd to need to make about 15Xs what I make in India to live anywhere else in the world with the same standard of living. I may not love every moment of life in India... but I may never be able to leave. It's pretty nice to see "Mandeep" (my Punjabi trainer) every morning... then come back for breakfast with Sibi.

And... THIS is the door from Rajasthan that I've been "eyeing" for about three or so months now. I really debated buying this huge (7 foot) door... but I like it. Sure... I think anyone coming to my place may debate the merits of hanging a door on its' SIDE over the couch... but as I'm usually here by myself -- I guess it doesn't really matter.
I'm not sure that Sibi gets exactly why I've done this -- but we don't communicate that well. She smiled when she saw it and kind of cocked her head to one side to see the door. You can't really see the green patina that it has... but I really love it. (I did this flower arrangement). Also, this is my *new* couch. The delivered one that was smaller than what I had paid for. It just so happend to have a stain on it... so I was happy to get this new one delivered (plus... the smaller one would really have been too small for the door).
The red flowers (not sure what they're called) are so big that it reminded me of the days I used to buy huge arrangements at the Larchmont farmer's market. I would walk around Larchmont with these big flowers hitting people in the face (I wouldn't realize this until Noelle would point out that she had been apologizing to people left and right). Well... same thing tonight... with these flowers.
Now - this posting is going to take a turn to a morbid note - so feel free to skip the rest of this entry if you wish. But, I've been thinking a lot about what I saw on the road today driving back from a shoot. I was driving along and realized that there was a dead guy lying in front of a bus in the middle of the street. What shocked me was how life just went along around him. There were a few people (evidently passengers in the bus that hit him) that were standing back a bit from him - just looking. But... mostly, life just continued on. The guys I was riding with made a passing comment... and we kept driving. I keep thinking about the plaid shirt that the guy was wearing -- imagining that when he put that shirt on... that it would be the shirt he would die wearing. Death is so strange here. There's a saying in the "news biz" that about 500 people have to die in the Subcontinent for it to be the "equivalent" of one person dying in the West. And... from a news perspective - that seems to be the case. Even here, for someone's passing to make it to the local paper - they really have to die some bizarre death. Lately, it seems, a lot of people have been jumping to their death from the higher-up floors of shopping malls (inside)... that makes it to the newspaper.
The other week when I spoke at my grandfather's funeral, I mentioned the dignity that life - and death - has in the U-S... which just isn't the case here. It's quite sad.
Anyway, sorry to make that turn to a sad note... but it is a piece of life here.
I'll update on happier matters later.
xx -S