Last night I went to the movie theater here in Ahemedabad and saw a movie completely in Hindi.

There was a lot of Hindi, a lot of random dancing and singing, and a lot of great cinematography. Shockingly, I really enjoyed the movie although I could only understand a few words I’ve learned since being here.

Here are 4 things you’ll find different than what a normal movie in America is like.

1. The flag of India is played on the screen while everyone stands and sings the national anthem
2. The seats are numbered and you sit in your assigned seat
3. There is an intermission
4. They serve french fries at the concession stand

I love all of these differences between American and Indian movie theaters.  It was an amazing experience and I highly recommend going to a movie in a country where there is going to be absolutely no English.

Here is a trailer of the movie.

I have to say that the Uttarayan Kite Festival in Ahmedabad was one of my top 5 experiences ever.  We started out today in old Amhedabad and went to three different terraces to fly the kites.  


All ages from children to seniors were out on the rooftops flying kites and the women made different types of snack foods and brought them on the roof tops where we had blankets laid out to sit on and eat.  We ate lots of Tikki, which is basically like a praline with different types of seeds, nuts, grapes and drank chai tea.

Uttarayan Terraces

The Kites and Manja

The kites were made from very thin paper, and all types of bright colors.  The photos of Uttarayan I have taken don’t do justice to how colorful the sky was. The string is called Manja, and is coated by thin glass pieces.  This makes the string a lot tougher for the kite wars during Uttarayan.  I had seen the movie kite runner but this was for real. It’s amazing to see how they use different hand motions to move the kite higher, lower, or left to right.  Needless to say it took some practice for me to even get close to making the thing fly.  Some many kites get cut, or just get tangled in power lines there are literally kites everywhere you look.  Towards the end of the day I took this picture of a tree that had been swarmed by kites.

Manja (String)

American Kite Festival?

I never thought flying kites could be so much fun.  I think the most interesting part to me was that there were so many people on the rooftops.  I’ve never seen anything like this in America.  Maybe it’s just because we don’t have terraces like this and I should compare this to something like a 4^th of July parade but the sight of everyone on top of their roofs for Uttarayan was just something I had never seen before.

Uttarayan Kite Festival

Headed to Mount Girnar

After an amazing day of flying kites for Uttarayan and having the time of my life we are headed off to Mount Girnar.

You can view all of my images from Uttarayan on flickr.  Click here.



So tomorrow I will be heading off to India for 6 weeks.  The feelings of excitement and nervousness are overwhelming.  Tomorrow I fly from Dallas to Chicago to New Delhi, where I will spend one night before heading off to Ahmedabad.  Ahmedabad is about 300km north from Mumbai in the South Western state of Gujurat.  I’ll be living with two friends that I have worked with over the past year and a half.  Kapil and Harry.  I’m just as excited to meet them as I am to be consumed with the vast culture of India.  I look forward to all the colors of clothes, smells of street vendors and traffic I will soon be overwhelmed with.  My plan is to keep this blog up to date while I’m away and continue to post images of the exicting things I’ll experience.

Some places I’ll be traveling:

• New Delhi
• Ahmedabad
• Girnar
• Diu
• Mumbai
• Goa
• Jaipur (The Pink City)
• Agra