Monthly Archives: April 2013

We bought a rug to hang on the wall- it is of the Hindu God Ganesha. Ganesha’s story is below (I got the story from a site explaining Hindu Gods. There are many of them and keeping track of all of them can be daunting,)
The most well-known story is taken from the Shiva Purana. Once, while his mother Parvati wanted to take a bath, there were no attendants around to guard her and stop anyone from accidentally entering the house, so she created an image of a boy out of turmeric paste which she prepared to cleanse her body and infused life into it. Ganesha was born. Parvati ordered Ganesha not to allow anyone to enter the house, so he followed his mother’s orders. After a while Shiva (Parvati’s husband) returned from outside, and as he tried to enter the house, Ganesha stopped him. Shiva was angry at this strange little boy who challenged him. He told Ganesha that he was Parvati’s husband, and demanded that Ganesha let him go in. But Ganesha would not hear of it. Shiva lost his patience and cut off Genesha’s head. When Parvati came out and saw her son dead, she was very angry and sad. She demanded that Shiva restore Ganesha’s life.
Unfortunately, Shiva cut his head off so powerfully that they couldn’t find his head. Parvati was so enraged that she decided to destroy the entire Creation. Lord Brahma, being the Creator, naturally had his issues with this, and pleaded that she reconsider her drastic plan. She said she would, but only if two conditions were met: one, that Ganesha be brought back to life, and two, that he be forever worshipped before all the other gods. She sent Brahma out with orders to bring back the head of the first creature he crosses that is laying with its head facing North. Shiva then sent his celestial armies to find and take the head of whatever creature they happened to find asleep with its head facing north. They found a dying elephant and after its death took its head, attaching the elephant’s head to Ganesha’s body and bringing him back to life. From then on, he was called Ganapathi, head of the celestial armies, and was to be worshipped by everyone before beginning any activity.

You have to hang the rug on the wall because Ganesh is such a sacred image to Hindus. Lennon stepped on it and the guy said, “no, no, no. Ganesh is very special to us.” Lennon looked at him like ‘but it’s a carpet!’

The rug shop employs men and women who get paid by the square foot. Most have a loom at home and can work when they have the time. They do periodic checks to makes sure there are no child labor laws being violated, although that would be hard to enforce. It seems any way a family can make some extra money- they will go for it. Desperate times, call for desperate measures.
The workers come to the store and get a kit with all the yarn they will need and the pattern they must follow.
The kids loved playing in the yarn pit!

Emerson really liked this shop. She got to tie a knot on the loom. If you watch the process, you’re amazed at the amount of skill and length of time it takes to create the rugs. The backs are as beautiful as the fronts. The man showed us how they burn the back to get rid of “hairs and fuzzies” so the rug doesn’t slip on a smooth floor. Since we have three pyromaniacs- they really enjoyed this part of the process.

He was the first mogul Muslim king to acknowledge Christianity and Hinduism as well. He had one wife from each denomination. Jesse went to this fort without us because the kids wanted to hang out at the pool for a bit.
He built this fort- called Agra Fort.

We’ve had a challenging time in India, but very worth it. We were planning on going to Varanasi (the place where they cremate the bodies and put the ashes into the Ganges- this city is a real ‘slap you in the face’ kind of place.) Anyways, before we did that- Jesse found a great hotel with a fun water slide. Crucial to gather some positive energy and have some fun before experiencing a place that brings up lots and lots of questions and different feelings.

This was the man’s area, the woman’s area was off to the side. There are some mosques we’ve visited that do not want women who are menstruating walking around their building. How would they check for something like that?!

The couple was all smiles until Jesse said, “Wow. She is beautiful!” They didn’t seem so happy after that and buttoned up the kids shorts so it didn’t look like a dress.