The Art of Being Cultured

It is possible, no matter what age, to find joy in discovering new cultures – the foods, the traditions, and yes, even the music and dance. My newly discovered culture, or rather newly refreshed love, is India. Can we please begin with a brief reflection on the clothing – I love the colour in the material...so very vibrant and full of life! The sarees are so light and comfy – I’m not sure I would do anything but dance all the time in them! And as for the food – “mm” doesn’t even come close to expressing even a tenth of what it’s like for your taste buds to experience Butter Chicken and Naan bread. On top of all the other reasons to love India, my two kids are from there. Wait. What? I have two kids?! Sure do. Adopted (aka sponsored) little Roma (my 5 yr old boy) about 2 years ago, and about a year ago added my little girl, Ritu (about 4 yrs old). I love getting to correspond with them. Despite the fact that most of our communication is through pictures right now, I love the idea that I’ll get to see them grow up (I have a secret plan to set them up when they’re older...I just think they would be so cute together!). I figured since I was going to be a part of their lives (in some aspect) I should at least learn about their culture. I hope to someday visit them, but until then, I’ll try and experience what I can of India while here in North America.

Who better to experience this culture with than my youth girls! We decided for our group night that we wanted to have Indian food and attempt to learn some Indian dance moves – perhaps even going as far as to make a Bollywood music video. Our night began with a delectable selection of Vegetable Pakora, Butter Chicken, rice, Naan bread and Saag. We quickly found ourselves stuffed, packed up our leftovers (at the suggestion of our waiter who claimed “we deserved it”), and embarked on our second adventure – the art of Bollywood music videos. After watching numerous clips online (thank goodness for youtube), we proceeded to recreate, to the best of our ability and with our own creative additions, a video of the Slum Dog song “Jai Ho”. Three observations I made:

1) It’s a lot of work to dance like those in India
2) Little trampolines are very useful for dramatic effect
3) Four white girls attempting to make an Indian music video is beyond hilarious!!!!

I’m happy to say it was a successful evening. We learned lots. We created awesome memories. And we decided we want to further culture ourselves by trying out new ethnic food more often.

“If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door” ~ Milton Berle