The World According to Ritvik

I know Mark Twain said that in all sincerity or honesty, but he sure made life difficult for a lot of people like us.

Before you start wondering about the unusual start to a blog, let me just take you through what happened to me over the weekend.

I went into the weekend, filled with both expectations and some curiosity.

For this weekend, I was going to try a very tricky thing. I would be trying to mix the West with the east

Before you get any more confused, let me tell you something ...

I am an Indian, well nothing great about it but I do happen to have a Finnish girlfriend who is currently working in India(Chennai, the erstwhile Madras). We have been together for about two years now, roughly the same time she has been in India.

I will introduce her better over my following blogs.

But, getting back to this weekend, I took her to one of those religious, cultural thingies which are like mine-laden fields.
Mine-laden because it's something which she has absolutely no clue about and as we are both aware of the stark contrast of our cultural differences, we really try hard to avoid any Faux Pas on our side

Well, this cultural thingie is something very Gujrati-Maharashtra specific, it is called Garba, Dandiya or just Navratri Celebrations.

Imagine about 100 or more people dancing around in big circles with well coordinated dance steps, which everyone seeems to learn right from childhood. The music is very drum based with a very fast tempo and beats.
The whole area is well lit and families gather in large gardens to dance well into the night till about 4:00 am in the morning.
The dresses are laden with ethnic jewelleries and the dresses are very rustic and ethnic.

Anyone who knows how conservative Indian cultural festivals can get will balk at the whole scene.

And it can be a daunting scene.

I knew Anna(my gf) had been only exposed to the very staid and conservative dance and cultural festivals of South India so I was a little vary of her reaction to such a loud and in your face celebrations.

But, I think she took it well, probably in expectation that as I am from Rajasthan, celebrations in my family would be on same lines.

I really don't how this experiment went off, but it serves as a good addition to my numerous experiments with mixing the East with the West.

Ok ... This is the part which we all dread.

Yes I mean the customary introduction, but everything told at one go is a box of pandora ... creates a lot of mess when opened but gone away in a moment and spread across the darkest corners of your mind never to be recalled again.

No, lets try to be a little mysterious about it .. well i dont know if i am being contradictory about it.
Talking about being mysterious when i open a public blog with my own name ..... So we all know my name .. yeah my name is Ritvik Bhawan and a i am a 25 Something Indian Male who like millions of around him is tottally confused about the dreams which we all shared when we were 20 Something and sat through the nights sharing our drreams ....

Well, as my blog states i everyday go through a ritual; I called it My Pact with Satan. But the only distinction is that i am not refering to the much maligned gentleman lording over the Underworld.http://my.opera.com/community/smilies/iframe.html#

I refer to the devils lying within us all and the devils which we see and experience every day and make secret covert pacts with ..... somewhere where we know no one is watching us we foraske our morality to enjoy the forbidden fruits ...

This is not going to Religious or the moral outburst of a troubled confession of a sinner ... its the journey of one individual as he will traverse daily through the trappings of the wotld around him ...

And maybe that will make me stronger and more in Sync with who I really am ....

I know that I am not alone in this world nor I am the only traveller along this much travelled path....

I will meet strangers and fellow travellers ... some will learn something from me, the majority of them will be teaching me .....

So here's to a JOurney Well Started ...