Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with india

Yoga teacher training ashram in India?

hasna — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 13:15:58 -0800

Looking for a reputable, non-commercial Yoga teacher training ashram in India. Any suggestions? Posting for a friend:

I am looking for any suggestion for a good yoga teacher training ashram in India that is more traditional and authentic. I am a 25 year old female, so I would like it to be safe. But anywhere I look online has been commercialized and I want to be away from that.

I would prefer to be up north but somewhere off the beaten path, hidden away but still reputable training. I prefer a yoga training in traditional hatha or even some astranga is OK. I have not been through any training for teaching before but I have been practicing yoga for 4 years of all different lineages. If anyone has any suggestions I would really appreciate the direction.

I would like to go anytime between February to April, so the course can last from a few weeks to 3 months. My price is a little thrifty but $1500 (excluding flight) is the most I can pay. I understand that it might be a stretch to ask if any of these places are certified by Yoga Alliance, maybe even an oxymoron but it would be a bonus since I will be going back to the States eventually.

Thanks in advance, Mefites!

Marriage gifts for coworkers in India

hackwolf — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 07:31:37 -0800

Help me find excellent wedding gifts for my coworkers in India! Both of the guys that I work with in India are getting married next week, and I just found out about it. I live in the US, so obviously I can't attend, but I'd like to get them each something nice for their wedding and as a thank-you for a year of hard work on this project. I'd like to keep it around $100-150 USD per person if possible, but they don't have wedding registries and I'm culturally clueless (even about my own culture).

I've been working with both of them for about 9 months now, but we've only met face-to-face once and I don't really know that much about them other than they're nice enough to chat with in the company canteen, so I don't know of anything really personal that I could get them. I'd be happy to give them cash, but I'm not sure how that would be taken, and if $100 would be seen as too stingy or too generous as a personal gift. We're all employees of HugeComputerCompany that has an employee discount store, so there isn't much in the way of consumer electronics they can't get for themselves cheaply. If it helps, one of the guys is local to Bangalore, the other is from up north (though I can't remember exactly where); one is an arranged marriage and the other is a love marriage. Also, I'm not their manager, but I am the technical lead on the project they're working on.

Help me perform an expatriat culinary miracle.

bookish — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 07:07:18 -0800

How can I best approximate a real Thanksgiving turkey— with chicken, a gas burner, and toaster oven? What other kinds of traditional fare can I make, given the limited ingredients available where I live? Help me have a real Thanksgiving far from home! I'm studying in India for the year, and my fellow American students and I want to put on a Thanksgiving dinner. One girl is making cornbread, using corn meal she brought with her from home. There will be mashed potatoes. There will be mulled wine. But what else, and how?

I really would like something turkey-like, but there is no way I can find turkey meat. Chicken is my best bet. This is a pretty vegetarian city, but there are some butchers, and I could probably find basically any part of the bird I need (or the whole bird, but I don't think that will fit in the toaster oven). I'm not really sure how to go about cooking it though— I've never cooked a turkey and, having been a vegetarian for much of my life, I don't really have experience cooking meat in general. I need major help.

I would also like to fill out the selection of side dishes. Again, there are ingredient constraints. I can get fresh carrots, peas, potatoes, beets, white radishes, cauliflower, okra, green beas, cabbage, tomatoes, onions and garlic. I can get green bell peppers, but not red or yellow. I can get a variety of squashes, but they're all a little different than the varieties I'm used to. There are also yam-like things, but they're not the sweet potatoes of home. I can get corn, but only frozen. No broccoli, mushrooms, cranberries, celery.

No prepared convenience ingredients like chicken broth, cream of mushroom soup, pie crust. Cheese is possible but difficult, expensive, and comes in a very limited range. Flour, butter, eggs are go. Cooking oil, but not olive oil or anything fancy like that. European spices are of very limited availability, with the exception of those used in Indian food (coriander, nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon). I have some dried basil and oregano, and may be able to find rosemary and thyme if I'm lucky.

I don't have any fancy kitchen equipment either— a few assorted pots and pans, a few knives, spatulas, spoons. I have a countertop gas range with two burners and a toaster oven to bake (smallish) things in.

If you have any ideas for Thanksgiving food that I could pull off using what I've got, please tell me. We're all homesick and really looking forward to putting on a delicious, heartwarming feast.

3G SIM Card for 1 Month Trip to India?

Kerim — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 18:06:36 -0800

How to get a 3G SIM card for a 1 month trip to India w/out signing a 1 or 2 year contract? I have an unlocked iPhone, and my experience with internet cafes in India has been spotty. I would really like to have 3G access on my phone for a trip that will take me to at least 4 or 5 states across North and Central India. I have relatives in India who could help - but I'd like to avoid having to sign a year long or multi-year contract.

Prepaid iPhone data plan in Mumbai?

jesseendahl — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:40:15 -0800

Hi, I will be living in Mumbai for 11 weeks next summer. I have an unlocked iPhone 3G. What is my best bet in terms of carrier and plan for the cheapest and most reliable data access? I plan to do local calls over the cell phone voice network and international calls via Skype on the iPhone. Thanks in advance!

One fever is more than enough fevers for us

tmcw — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 18:09:57 -0800

Indian health concerns: typhoid fever and dengue fever. Yes, you are not my doc. So, the short of it is: I am heading to new Delhi late tomorrow. My girlfriend, who I'm visiting, got dengue fever three days ago. She's feeling a bit better, but, obviously, better relative to the f'ing dengue fever.

Problem #2 I took three of the four pills (live vaccine) for typhoid fever, and was going to take the last tomorrow, on the schedule. And realized ten minutes ago, on this cross-coast bus, that I had left that little box in my office.

So:

dengue is spread by 'blood products' while she's still feverish. What does this mean in kissy terms.

Next: how screwed am I with my 75% vaccination against a quite serious illness? And can I grab another dose in a cvs tomorrow? Cost would obviously be thought of relative to hospital stay / death (jk, I'll never die)

Finally, any departing words of advice for a first-time Indian visiting his so abroad?

Book Filter: Name This Book Please.

CollegeNelson — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 21:43:41 -0800

I want to give a book to a young friend but I can't remember the title and the librarian could not find it either. Book teaches about Gandhi in a cool way. I don't know the age of the book but the plot revolves around a white kid who was raised until 13 or 14 in India and after his father dies (at the start of the book), he move to US to live with his aunt. He then teaches the local kids about Gandhi and has a hunger strike to change either a rule or law I forget. It was written for young adults and is fiction but I don't know anything more.

Monitor Cliff Scalers

tellurian — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 06:59:53 -0800

In the book I'm currently reading, City of Djinns, is this intriguing passage:

"Centuries earlier, one class of Marathars had perfected a technique for scaling the cilff faces that had protected the hill forts of Central India: they trained giant monitor lizards – which in the Deccan grow to over five feet long – to climb up sheer rock faces; and so firm and fast was the lizards' grip on the cliff's cracks and crevices, that the Maratha assault troops were able to tie ropes around the reptiles' bodies and clamber up behind them."

I know that the gap between myth and reality in Indian reality/history/mythology is often slim, so I ask, does anyone have some concrete (or similar) instances/or the likelihood of this story being real?

Reasonable Conditions For Overseas 3 Month Placement?

forallmankind — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 15:59:34 -0800

I’m meeting with my boss tomorrow to discuss his request for me to oversee specific departmental operations at our India facility for 3 (three) months. What are reasonable contingencies/ incentives to request in this situation? I’ve been to this facility before for a month, and it was a great – though thoroughly stressful - experience, but that said, a month was long enough.

I *always* grab opportunities such as these, but this time round I find the thought of going there for 3 months – this time alone also – reasonably unpleasant. The location kinda blows too – I don’t want to go into details, but it’s not like Paris or New York where you’d consider being assigned there as an enviable bonus. Furthermore, I can’t help but think that I’ll kinda lose 3 months of my life living in a city I don’t want to live in, not to mention the amount of re-adjustment time it takes when you return.

However, I will hear my boss out, and there’s still a tiny part of me that thinks that the character/ resume-building benefits could possibly make this worthwhile. So; were I to accept, what kind of conditions are reasonable to stipulate?

I’m single, live in LA, no pets etc – ie the ideal person to choose to skip town for a ¼ of year.

Indian English Speakers with Shifting Western Accent

Non Prosequitur — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 10:04:40 -0800

Is it a widespread behavior for multilingual speakers of english to get a more anglicized accent when talking to a native speaker? I don't mean just common code-switching (someone getting a drawl in Kansas, or someone going 'you understand' vs. 'you feel me' in different contexts.) But people going from like, Indian english to completely westernized english (in accents, not necessarily in diction or dialect) without making a conscious decision to do so. This is besides people 'faking' an accent because of class issues related to these things.

Looking for a documentary from the 1970s - "Glass India"

abirae — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 06:33:20 -0800

I keep hearing about a documentary from the 1970s called "Glass India" - about glass blowing in India. Does anyone know where to buy it or download it?

Monsoon fashion drama!

heartofglass — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 05:35:05 -0800

What to wear during the Indian monsoon season? I am going to India (Mumbai and Bangalore) in two weeks' time on a business trip. I am aware this is the monsoon season, so I was looking for tips from the hive mind on what to wear.

I am going to be meeting a series of senior-level people, but I am not sure how formally people dress on that kind of heat, also considering it is raining all the time? This may sounds ridiculous, but shall I bring a pair of wellies?

Kerala in the monsoon

anadem — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 02:32:57 -0800

Recommendations please for Kochi (Cochin, Kerala) and around, next week? I'm hoping to keep the cost low-to-moderate, as we can't afford pricy places, so specific suggestions for places to stay and things to do would be great. (Not general suggestions, though -- there's such a mass of ideas that I'm looking for personal recommendations. Thanks!)

Where can I get a quality Sanskrit audio?

girlgenius — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 16:13:07 -0800

Mantrafilter: Your recommendations for the best audio versions of the Bhagavad Gita or the Ramayana? I want to buy a copy as a gift for someone who's studying Sanskrit, so this needs to be an accurate and comprehensive recording that will assist in improving pronunciation.

Bonus points for one that's available online with fast delivery.

How much India in 1 week?

forallmankind — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 02:39:31 -0800

Travelling in India; I'm in Bangalore for a 2 week business trip, on Friday I have 1 week vacation. Part of me would like to see what I can during that time, but I'm also realizing (a) I've become a lazy traveller used to car rentals & Expedia, (b) getting to places here can take a long time. I'm becoming disenchanted because the do-able-ness of planning travel to multiple locations in such a short time seems hard, and I also have relatively heavy luggage & then there's also heat/ rain issues at this time of the year. Am I overthinking a plate of beans? All the places that look worth a trip seem difficult to plan when time is tight. I can fly to Delhi easy enough, but then what - day trips to Agra & Jaipur? I mean I could be in Delhi Friday, Agra Saturday, and then...? (I should add that metropolises don't rock my boat). And is it too hot for the Taj? What if I want to go to Varanasi or Amritsar or Udaipur Or Jaisalmer or even Darjeeling? I mean, I went to Mysore yesterday and that took 3hrs! I know, I should focus, right? Well, I guess I don't exactly know what I'm focussing on. But any information pertaining to a do-able, plannable(ish) 1 week trip would be awesome.

India. Teaching kids. How to kick ass and have fun?

demagogue — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 12:38:03 -0800

I'm leaving for India this Wednesday, as a volunteer teacher in a school for young street kids. I've read quickly through most of the relevant-looking MeFi "India" threads (I plan to read them more deeply soon). And I would love it if you, my fellow MeFier, could post any thoughts or tips, or even highlights from older threads you might have -- what do I need to know? How can I make it the best time for these kids? What would be fun to see and do in my non-teaching time? How can I be safe? ...A bunch of possibly useful details about me after the jump? - I'm staying in an apartment with other volunteers, it's all paid for by the school. Vegetarian food is provided for us 6 days a week, but of course we're allowed to go off and look for our own food.
- I'm of Chinese descent, and I'm Canadian-born.
- I do not speak Hindi, but I am assured by the school that this is OK.
- I'm male, healthy, just out of undergrad, and the plan is to be in India for 2 months.
- My friend's personal anecdote involved a potential kidnap and her life being saved by whipping out her knife (!) Perhaps this has something to do with her Indian appearance and gender? Do I need to be worried about issues like that?

If you need any other details, just ask. Please, post away!

Beatles Better than Bejewelled Self-Dribbling Basketballs!

phrontist — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 23:59:23 -0800

Who produced this psychedelic video for Within You, Without You by The Beatles? Is it part of some larger project? Where could I find it at higher res (how would I search for a torrent)? Where could I find the interesting mix of the song used in it (which samples a drum break from Tomorrow Never Knows).

How do we make sure our client in India pays their last invoice?

davidfitzy7 — Wed, 27 May 2009 10:35:41 -0800

Our consulting company is doing business in India and we need a way to make sure that our client will not skip out on the last payment in our contract. I don't mean to single any country out, but we have a new project in Mumbai and we got burned several times recently by other clients in India.

We have been told it is common practice not to pay the last invoice for a project. Our submission to the client is a digital / hard copy report. Typically we send our report and request our final payment, but we have no real leverage to make sure they pay we just cross our fingers.

Is there any other strategy we could be considering - is there anything like "escrow" which we could use to make sure the transaction happens smoothly?

Things to do/see/eat/avoid/meet in these countries, on my first RTW trip?

avocade — Sun, 17 May 2009 14:48:47 -0800

Things to do/see/eat/avoid/meet in these countries, on my first RTW trip? Finally heading out on a very unplanned RTW trip with one of those Star Alliance tickets. These are the flight routes I have set at the moment (three weeks before heading out, so still malleable) * Stockholm-San Francisco (June 6th, for Apple's Developer Conference, WWDC, et al.)
* SF-NYC (more work-related stuff...)
* NYC-Auckland, NZ (around July 12th; I'm a bit hesitant on NZ in the middle of winter, though)
* Christchurch, NZ-Tokyo (just staying a short while in NZ if at all)
* Tokyo-Singapore (staying a couple weeks in Tokyo)
** Local airlines within Indonesia, to Jakarta, Bali, Gilli Islands/Lombak, Komodo Island (seemingly very good weather in July/August)
* Bali (Denpasar)-Chennai (seemingly extremely _bad_ weather in July/August, monsoon period)
* Mumbai-Gothenburg (home) around Sept 3d

So, I reach out to the Hive to come up with opinions on both the rough outline of the trip itself, but more importantly, as mentioned in the rubric, what (and who) to do/see/eat/avoid/meet in those locations. As you can see, this trip is heavily compressed, and if I could have put it somewhere else during the year (let's say during our terrible Swedish winter...) things would probably have matched a lot better, and more time would have been available. All in all, probably around 3 months total.

(Astute readers may have noted I completely passed over the "main attraction" of the East, namely China. I've decided it's just too much for this trip, and in any way the weather is awful in Shanghai until October, so I'll do a separate one-month:er sometime this Winter. )

For interest, I will try to stay with couchsurfing.com members wherever I can, both as a measure to lower the cost, but more important to connect with people on the ground, and get a richer experience, as well as hopefully friends for life. Profile here (I know, nice couch):

http://www.couchsurfing.org/people/avocade/

PS. I can change the dates for any flight up to 24 hour before for free, but a route change costs $125 IIRC.

More info, and a nice (and time-eating) RTW planner, here:

http://www.staralliance.com/en/travellers/fare_products/round_the_world_fare_faq.html
http://802.flightlookup.com/rtw/rtw_1.php?region=AP0

Do I have a new Daddy?

thebazilist — Sat, 09 May 2009 13:02:59 -0800

My sister and I suspect that our mother may have recently gotten married. Her boyfriend is Indian and they live in California, but the marriage also could have happened in Canada, or in India. How can I find out? My mother has always been very secretive (issues, etc.). My sister and I are the only relatives in the picture. We are all very close, talking on the phone every few days. She lives in Los Angeles and has a boyfriend who is Indian, whom we've never met but have spoken to, and neither of us has seen any red flags. This is not about there being any danger in the situation; she's old/young enough to take care of herself and has no money to steal or anything like that. I simply want to know whether she's married in case, for example, God forbid something should happen -- I'd like to be aware of something as simple as her marital status. Before you jump to the "just ask her" conclusion, I certainly plan to do that if I can't easily and inexpensively find out on my own, but my mother does not respond well to "prying" or accusations that she's been lying or unduly secretive.

Several months ago, my mother started talking about how the boyfriend is trapped at a company he hates because they're responsible for his visa status (my vague understanding), and wishes he could start his own business but he can't without a green card, and isn't that unfair? The next time I saw her, I noticed her wearing what looked like an engagement ring but I didn't say anything about it. Shortly thereafter, on the phone, she told me that he'd proposed, and she was thinking about it. Later she told me that she'd accepted, so that he could get his green card. This could be true, or she for whatever reason doesn't want to tell us that she wants to marry him because she loves him. I asked if that was the only reason she was marrying him; she avoided giving a straight answer. My sister and I should be happy for her to marry someone that she cares about and who'll make her happy, but maybe my mother doesn't believe this; I don't know.

After this, the marriage/engagement was never mentioned again. My mother then started planning a trip to India to visit her fiance's parents for January. Story from my mother: In December, coming back to LA via Vancouver from overseas, the fiance was stopped by immigration. Usually the type of visa he has doesn't give problems, but they'll flag every however-many people for a more thorough check. He was stuck in Vancouver and couldn't return to the US. He told them that he was planning to return to India in a few weeks and would be able to renew or accomplish whatever necessary paperworks at that time; he had his ticket for proof, etc. They allowed him to return to LA to get his stuff together, then he and my mother went to India. I only got a very superficial account of the trip -- they went here, here, and there and the food gave her heartburn -- and haven't seen any pictures.

My sister and I now think that maybe they got married to expedite his return to the US after his visa difficulties in Vancouver. Or they got married before the Vancouver difficulties, and maybe his recently married status is what caused the problems in Vancouver. In any case, they probably went to India to have a traditional ceremony there for his traditional (I think Muslim) family.

What makes sense, given immigration/visa/green-card laws? Does that make sense about the routine check in Vancouver? Would they have been able to get married with his status in limbo? Would a wedding in Canada have worked for what they want to accomplish?

What's the easiest way to look up marriage-license records in California and/or British Columbia? Or, if the only ceremony was in India, would whatever Indian license they received be enough for US recognition, or would they have needed to then follow-up with something here? I'd probably go for asking her before trying to get marriage info from India (unless you tell me it's easy).

Applying for/picking up India visa

little_c — Mon, 04 May 2009 09:14:18 -0800

Can I mail my visa application, but pick it up in person? Click for more. I am applying for a tourist visa to India. To apply by mail, there is an added $21 fee. I live in Chicago and would like to avoid this fee - however, I cannot apply in person because the drop-off hours are 9:00am - 12:00pm and 2:00pm - 4:00pm CST. But I CAN make the pick-up hours: 4:30pm - 6:00pm CST.

I called the Travisa Outsourcing office, but noone was available to answer my call (of course).

Anyone who has experience with this office/getting an Indian visa this way: could I mail my application to the office, but pick it up in person, thus avoiding (in theory) the $21 shipping fee?

Thanks in advance!

I'm not asking you to do my research for me buuuuut....

The Whelk — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 10:51:40 -0800

Emergency Research Materials Needed: Due to not being an adult about things I now have to write a quick story set during the Indian Rebellion of 1857. And I have to finish it by Sunday. Yes, I've already read Wikipedia. I've got some knowledge of Indian/British politics and daily life of the time period, but I'd like more. Cause of the time limit, I'm leaning more towards shorter or more digestible accounts of the period. What are some good websites focused on the 1850s in India? What articles should I read? Where do I even find them?

Anything about daily life or habits would be greatly appreciated

Bike parts from India

ackptui — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 09:18:34 -0800

It is so tantalizing to be able to see the produce of the the large manufacturers of bicycles in India via their web pages, yet not have any access in quantities less than a fully loaded container. Does anyone know of a local bike shop in India, at least connected to email, who will ship small amounts of bike parts by mail out of the country? It seems to me a local shop would have access through the normal distribution channels to parts from the big companies in small quantities. This stuff is vital to repairing old British bikes, there being virtually no domestic manufacture there anymore. I know that there exists lots out there from bikes that have been parted out, but finding who has it when you need it is difficult.

What was the purple speckled bean I saw in Tamil Nadu, India?

aussicht — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 16:00:22 -0800

When I lived in Chennai, the produce markets had these large fava-sized/shaped beans that were bright purple and white. They were fresh. Sometimes they came in large similarly colored pods, other times there were shelled. They were edible fresh, though we steamed them for sanitation. They were some of the best beans I've ever had, and reminded me more of fresh pea pods than beans, despite their large size. Any clue what they were?

Why does India consider the iPhone a "Dangerous Item" that cannot be shipped to the US?

smersh — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 06:12:59 -0800

How do you ship an electronic item (iPhone) with a non-removable battery out of India? It's labelled as a "dangerous item." It seems like a lot of my questions stem from an inherent frustration of an American living in a Thirld World country. This question is no exception.

India has this policy of not allowing you to ship out products with their battery inside. That is, I can send you a Nokia cell phone from Mumbai to New York, as long as the battery is separate from the phone.

It can be in the same box, just not in the device. If it's in the device, it's labelled as a dangerous item and you need import/export licenses and such to be able to send it.

So, my brother wants my old iPhone from here and I cannot get it to him. I've tried calling Fed Ex, DTDC, the Post Office. Nobody will take it.

Has anybody a clue how I can ship out an item with a non-removable battery from a country that labels the iPhone as a dangerous item?

I don't know what the metafilter readership is like. Hopefully, there's enough people dealing with India for me to get some help.

Also, if I succeed, how much will customs set my brother back when he receives it? What if I send him 2 new iPhone 3Gs valued at $600 each?

Help is appreciated.