Soan Papdi!

Ah, a new favorite sweet that I discovered at an American Center function. The American Center works in conjunction with USIEF, Jarrod's "employer" while he's on Fulbright. They have cultural programs and things periodically, and always serve delicious sweets and cha afterword.

Anyway, I was surprised and delighted when I tasted the new sweet that was on my plate. Wikipedia describes its texture as crispy and flaky, but it's more threadlike-crispy. Totally awesome. Here's a picture:



It's a dry sweet, flavored with cardamom and pistachio. After the American Center event, I went out and bought an 8-pack of Haldiram's packaged stuff for Rs 40 at Spencers. We polished it off and then got some more. We polished it off again.

Then we decided that we didn't need the packaged stuff. On the street one day we came across a guy selling it for Rs 2 apiece, so we each got one. It was good, of course. Another day we went into a sweet shop and bought eight pieces for Rs 40 (same price as packaged!). We're still finishing this last round--they're a little weird-tasting, just the way the shop makes them. Whatever :)

Learning Rabindra Sangeet

There is a man you need to know about. His name is Rabindranath Tagore, and he is the pride and joy of West Bengal/Calcutta. Here he is:



Tagore lived around the turn of the 1900's, and was a writer--poetry, short stories, etc. Back in 1913 or so, he won a Nobel Prize in Literature for his book of songs, called the Gitanjali. I guess part of it was the fact that he had not only written the songs in Bengali, but he had created English translations for them as well. The translations are not entirely similar, and other English translations are out there, but that's beside the point.

Anyway, in his lifetime he wrote over 2,000 songs. This guy was prolific. And here's the kicker--everyone around here knows and can sing many of these songs. They're just that ingrained into life around here.

Jarrod and I have been meaning to take voice lessons or something, but last night I just decided that I wanted to learn right then, so I sat down at YouTube to teach myself. Jarrod caught on to what I was doing and came over to learn with me, so, thanks to our efforts, we can now sing about half of this song:



We're very excited. It's like a whole world has opened itself up to us.