On Climbing and Saris

A Lovely Wednesday, in two parts.

I. Climbing
We left the apartment early and traversed a cool, damp Delhi--remanence of the magnificent lighting and rain storm that had passed though the night before--to IMF.
On the way up the path to the climbing wall we were passed by Gerard on his green and pink, "Mighty One"-esqu (Motorcycles Diaries reference) motorcycle.

We were able to climb for a good hour, the latter half spent on the roof-sheltered lead wall, due to the sprinkling rain that drifted by every now and then. Peacocks and peahens cried. Toads, slugs, and crickets came out to enjoy the cool wet that permeated everything.
A serene and invigorating way to start the day.
Pavan, our tough climbing instructor, and Gerard.


II. Saris
We've been having a sari dilemma, but today that issue was suddenly and abruptly decided.
So I am sure most of you are familiar with the more traditional outfit for Indian women: the Sari. (Google it if you are not). They are quiet lovely. It seems that for middle class women, saris are something to be worn to fancy or formal occasions, weddings, conferences, etc; whereas I have noticed that most older women of any class, and poor women of any age, except very young girls, tend to wear saris as everyday outfits.
We were unsure of whether or not we should buy one. We were caught up in questions like:
1.Will we ever wear it again?
2.Will they be to expensive?
3.Will we even wear it in India?
4.What formal event do we have to attend?

Today the answers came:
1. Why not? Perhaps one of my Indian friends gets married and Yvette and I will go.
2. No, not when a traveling Bengali sales man stops by the office conveniently selling beautiful saris and your Bengali co-work gets you a rockin' deal.
3. Yes.
4. At the Gender and Human Rights Responses to HIV/AIDS conference at the end of June
(I am so intellectually excited for this conference!)

What we bought was the long, single piece of cloth part of the sari, the short blouse and petticoat we can by at many stores and are quite generic. The cloth we got it pure silk. The salesman put a LIGHTER right on the cloth and NOTHING happened! I wish I was brave enough to re-demonstrate this via video. But I am not. You will just have to believe me. The patterns were lovely and all done in Bengali style (although Yvette and I cannot tell the difference between styles).
That is folded over three times. Yeah. Big.

Sorry for not having a picture of me in it. It is pretty complicated to put on, we'll need help doing it. So I'll have pictures of it on after June 27th.

A HUGE thanks to Anita for helping make this decision easy, the shopping painless and the price so awesome.