50th High School Reunion- 22-27 August 2012 - Rocky River, Ohio

 

A few of "the girls" got together for lunch on Thursday before the reunion festivities (Cathy, Linda, Sue, Janeen, Pat)

Linda and Sue

Friday evening, we all met at a local pub.  Here's my old friend, Pat, looking at pictures together.

Pat

 

Janeen

Rocky River High School

After the high-school tour, we met at Bearden's, our old burger joint, for lunch.  Here's my brother clowning outside.

 

Gopal and I were using new-to-us phones, which turned out to have very poor cameras unfortunately, so many of our photos didn't turn out.  The pictures outside turned out pretty well, but inside - very bad.

 

We came to Cleveland with my brother, Todd, and his wife, Sharon   Todd was doing the driving and thankfully took us to "the Valley," a lovely river valley that forms an"emerald necklace" around Cleveland.

The final reunion event was dinner at a local country club.  Here, I'm talking to my dear friend, Sue.

We shared our dinner table with Judy and Tim Stevens, who I hope will travel to India and visit us.

Lute and Sue

Steve and Janeen

Sharon and Todd

Sharon and Todd

Cleveland Museum of Art with Sharon and Todd

The building is very beautiful, with layers of granite accenting the great lines

Todd and Sharon were in Cleveland to shop for a condominium and possibly move to Cleveland.  The two brick smock stacks mark the place where they did buy a condo.

The view of Cleveland from Edgewater Park

Walking back from the beach at Edgewater

We had such a great time together.  It was a good week.

Road paving and water-tank repair - July 2012

Here is the house with a hole cut in the roof of the wate tank, with a worker in the tank (above the roof of the house).

Since the condrete water tank is cracked and leaking, we are having these two plastic tanks put up there.

Gopal climbed up there and took this picture.  There is a guy in the tank on the right, probably working on the plumbing.

On the fifth day with no water, they set up this tank and filled it with water.  No water pessure, but it was nice to have some water.

In the meantime, at the mouth of our driveway, the road paving crew set up their tar-brewing fire and drums.

Here, the workers are spreading the asphalt on the road.

This is across the street from our front door, where they are adding the gravel to the tar, creating the asphalt (very noisy).

This guy rolls over the freshly laid asphalt a couple times.

After all this noise and stench, Gopal was at the doctor's with a full-blown miraine.

Women's Cosmetic Ads on Indian Television

Being American, we listen mostly to English-language programs. The ads are either in English or Hindi. A large percentage of them are ads selling lighter skin to the women of India. I find them extremely offensive.


Having lived in India for four years, I have adjusted to many cultural differences, including how women are perceived and therefore live their lives. I am almost 70 years old and Caucasian, born and raised in the United States. My life journey has taken me through the American cultural revolution of the 60’s/70’s, including the women’s movement of that period. These cultural upheavals in the U.S. made all of us look more closely at how we were living and thinking, what assumptions we were making. Everything was up for examination. Feminism and racism were the most challenging for me.

As women, we were all looking at new possibilities and expectations. Why were all jobs not open to women, no matter how competent we were? Even if we were doing some of those jobs, why were we paid less? At the same time, we began to really look at ourselves. Why did we believe we had to enhance our appearance in order to be acceptable? Why were we shaving our legs and underarms? Why were we wearing crippling high heeled shoes?

One of the hardest parts of this journey was learning to accept my body the way it was created, body hair and all. It’s very difficult for most of us to see our own beauty when we think others are finding fault with how we look.

As a teenager and young woman, darker skin was preferable. I was born with very light skin that did not tan. I just burned in the sun. So I was unable to look appropriately ‘healthy.’ My mother, a registered nurse, sent me to get hemoglobin tests every summer because she thought I was anemic. Imagine having blonde eyelashes and eyebrows. What was considered beautiful then were tanned, dark (not too dark!) women whose skin enhanced the colors of their clothing. There was a healthy vibrancy about them I could not match.

Layer in the discriminatory attitudes about people of color, particularly African Americans. We looked deeply within our hearts, trying to be brutally honest with ourselves, and sure enough, the prejudice was there, I believe, in all of us.

When I just wrote ‘in all of us,’ I remembered that African Americans also disliked how they looked, never able to fit in and always being looked down upon.

That brings me to the subject I wanted to talk about. On television here in India, I see ads by Olay, Ponds, Nivea, all of whom are selling skin lightening creams, very happy to capitalize on the insecurities of Indian women and gladly making those insecurities so much worse. Children are watching these ads! I think it’s Ponds who uses the wording ‘removing the impurities’ that, if you remove them, the skin will be whiter. That clearly says being brown is dirty. Last night Nivea’s ad said that Nivea repairs damaged skin so you can have the natural skin you were meant to have. Hello!! Racist! My 9-year-old friend here wants to be lighter!  How could she not?

Indian women to me are beautiful in all their many shades. They certainly must not think so. That saddens me. I remember the wasted years of not appreciating my own beauty.

There is obviously something underneath this prejudice about dark skin which I don’t understand. Maybe none of us really understand it. Whatever it is, let’s send it back where it came from. We don’t need it!

Tamil Nadu with Quilley - 12-13 March 2012 - Thiruchendur to Rameshwaram

After Manappad, we stopped near the Thiruchendur temple at the Valle Caves where we got in line and eventually went down into a very small dark temple carved into the rock below and received a blessing from the pujari there.  The scarves you see hanging from the shrubbery against the wall are all prayers for children.

At the Thiruchendur temple complex

Leaving Thiruchendur, we headed toward Rameshwaram, which eventually meant turning out onto a peninsula that reaches toward Shri Lanka.

A fishing village we could see from a bridge

We decided to see how far we could walk toward Shri Lanka.  This is Davina and Quilley walking and talking.

We saw these ice blocks being broken up and put into fishing boats.

Fish, drying in the sun.

As I recall, we had checked into our hotel to find that a wedding was scheduled there, and oh how noisy it became.  So, we fled the hotel to poke around.  Here we are at Kothandaramar Temple nearby.

Devipatinam

A large number of devotees visit Tamil Nadu's ancient Thilakeshwar Temple, popularly known as Navagraha Temple at Devipattinam, a coastal village located 70 kilometers from Rameshwaram Dhaam.

Legend has it that prince Rama in-exile had prayed to Navagrahas (nine planets) at Devipattinam before embarking on his journey to Lanka (the present day Sri Lanka), the then kingdom of demon King Ravana, who had abducted Rama's wife Sita.

Rama placed nine stones as symbols of Navagrahas or nine planets, at Devipattanam. Those stones can still be watched partly submerged in the water close to the beach near a bathing place (Ghat) of the Thilakeshwar Temple or the Navagraha Temple.

It is said that Rama performed the ritual so that the nine planets would shed their auspicious light on him in his battle with Ravana to rescue Sita.

As per Hindu mythology, the planetary conditions have a major effect on humans' lives and thus by worshipping them their impact can be reduced.

"This has been constructed under the sea by Lord Rama. While Lord Rama was worshipping here, he was disturbed by waves. He prayed to Lord Vishnu. Lord Vishnu stopped the waves so as to help Rama perform his Puja (prayers)," said Renganathan Iyengar, a temple priest.

Since that time Devipattinam drew popularity for being a place to get relief from all kinds of adverse planetary conditions by performing the suggested rituals.  by Jayakumar for BoldSky

* * *

This post should end with the big temple at Rameshwaram.  But, again, we were racially discriminated against and refused entry. 

Tamil Nadu with Quilley - 12 March 2012 - Manappad

Leaving Kanyakumari, we decided to drive up the western coast toward Rameshwaram.  Gopal guided us to Manappad, which was an interesting place.  It was a small, poor town with large cathedral-like churches at each end and interesting, large European houses.  Sort of strange, really.

Manappad History

Traditional stories say that in 1540, a Portuguese trading vessel, while sailing around the Cape of Good Hope on its way to the East, encountered a violent storm splitting its sails and snapping the hind mast, leaving it at risk of foundering. The captain, who was devoted to the veneration of the Holy Cross, implored and entrusted the safety of the vessel and that of the crew to the crucified Christ. He also made a vow that he would construct a cross from a portion of the splintered mast and have it planted on the shore where they alighted in safety. By chance, the vessel, after having drifted for several days, sought haven in the then well known port of Kulesakharapatnam.

A miracle is said to have occurred when the cross was still in the form of a log cut off from the broken mast. When the mast was lying on the shore, an inhabitant of the village who had trampled on filth had cleansed his foot on this log. No sooner had he wiped his leg than he felt a pain and instantaneous swelling. That night the man had a vision in which it was revealed to him that the ailment was due to his defiling the log intended for a sacred purpose. He was asked to wipe the muck off the log, smear the log with oil, and then apply the same oil to his foot to cure it. Early next morning, the patient was carried to the log, and to the amazement of the crowd that had collected there, the man was cured immediately and able to walk back home unaided. This remarkable event made the planting of the Cross by the captain an occasion of great piety and festivity. From then onwards, the name and fame of the captain's cross spread throughout the Coromandel Coast.

St. Francis Xavier

Manapad was mostly inhabited by the Paravars who had embraced Christianity in 1532. However, for want of missionaries, the neophytes remained nominal Christians until the arrival and ministration of St. Francis Xavier in October 1542. Xavier chose a grotto which he preferred to use for a home. The cave was known in the pre-Christian era as "Valli's cave", a counterpart of the one at Tiruchendur. It is now a signal grotto with a carved stone at its entrance carrying the words: "This cave, the dwelling of a saivite sanyasi, has been sanctified by the prayers and penance of St. Francis Xavier".

Xavier used the Captain's Cross which, with its raised platform and an overhead covering, worked as a built-in chapel, enabling him to offer daily services. St. Francis ministered the area until November 1543 when he returned to Goa. The next year, he was again at Manappad in March, June, August and September 1544 and went to Travancore in November.

Xavier was held in high regard by the people of Manapad for his austerity, moral strictness, compassion, and wise counsel. During his stay there, with the help of the pandits of Manapad, he translated the rudiments of the common prayers and trained the first catechists. (from Wikipedia)



Church of the Holy Cross (Turns out we never actually saw the Church of the Holy Cross as it is outside the village, so this picture is from Wikipedia.)

After more miracles, the church of the Holy Cross was built in the year 1581, encasing the Captain's Cross. Contributions towards building of the church were spontaneously given by the inhabitants and Rev. Fr.John de Salanova, the parish priest of the only church in the village (then dedicated to the "Queen of Heaven"), was able to complete construction long before the scheduled time.

Relic of the True Cross

With the erection of the church, Rev.John de Salanova decided it should possess a relic of the True Cross. In 1583 he appealed to Rome through the General of the Jesuits Rev. Fr. Aquaviva for a fragment of the True Cross. Pope Gregory XIII obliged and the relic appears to have arrived at Cochin in the first week of August 1583. Rev. Mathew de Medina of the Order of Christ [disambiguation needed ], the prelate of Cochin, received the relic, after exposing it for three days for the veneration of the faithful, he inaugurated the grand tour of the relic all along the coastal belt with halts in places of Catholic predominance. The procession reached Manapad a few days before the festival of the Exaltation of the True Cross. Many Catholics followed in procession with the relic. In later years, Manapad came to be a traditional place of pilgrimage to those of the Malabar Coast.  (from Wikipedia)

The following pictures are two impressive churches in this small place.  I didn't get the names of them.

This was the first church we came to.





Apparently, the first church had saintly relics at this altar.

There's one little street between the two large churches.

This is one of the interesting, large houses on that little street.

This is the other church at the other end of the street.  I liked this photo because it gives you that sense of desolation I felt when I was there.

Manappad was a strange little place, but apparently it has significant importance to Christians as you can see in the fascinating history.