I lived with the Ranawat family for 2 months, and I learned a lot about Indian family life. The Ranawat family lives in Udaipur, which is in the state of Rajasthan in North West India. They are Rajput people from the warrior caste, and they practice the Hindu religion. By living with them, I have learned about life in an Indian extended family: about marriage, about religion, about cooking and chores, about education and work, and about what they do in their free time. In a lot of ways the Ranawat family is different from my family, but in some ways they are similar.

The Ranawat family is an extended family. All seven of them live all together in one home with four bedrooms, two kitchens, two living rooms and the rooftop, where the family spends a lot of time working and playing. Raja is the youngest; he is 6 ¼ years old. Prachi is 16 years old, and she is in 10th grade. Yuvraj is Raja’s dad, and Pinky is Raja’s mom. Lala is Raja and Prachi’s aunt and Yuvraj’s sister. Chandkanwer (Chand) is Prachi and Raja’s grandma and Yuvraj and Lala’s mom. Sawant Singhji is Chand’s husband, and he is the head of the family. He makes all of the important decisions for the family.

From The Big Field Trip – India, January, 2010

Pinky had to leave her mother and father when she was married to go to Yuvraj’s house. Pinky is not allowed to show her face to or to speak to Sawant (only on the phone). Every time Sawant walks by, Pinky puts her veil over her face. In India, the bride always moves to the groom’s house. Lala is an exception. When she was married, she moved to her husband’s house. She had a child, but the child died when she was 1 ½ years old, because she had a hole in her heart. Then Lala’s husband died because he was sick. Her in-laws said you can choose to live with us or to go back home to your parents. Lala lives part of the year with her in-laws and part of the time with her parents.

In India most marriages are arranged. When Sawant was looking for a bride for Yuvraj, he selected Pinky because of her photo, because she had gone to university, because her parents were well respected and have money, because her horoscope was a good match for Yuvraj, and most of all because she came from a good Rajput family, which means that her family follows the same traditions. For the wedding Yuvraj and the other men from his family travelled on a bus for five hours to Pinky’s village. I saw a video of their marriage. The wedding lasted for five days. Pinky’s family paid for the wedding. There was a ceremony where Pinky followed Yuvraj four times around a flame and Yuvraj followed Pinky three times around the flame. They were making seven promises. Yuvraj returned to his home with Pinky. Her family was shrieking and crying because she was leaving. Pinky spends one month with her real mother and father and the other part of the year with Yuvraj’s family.

From The Big Field Trip – India, 2010

The Ranawat family is Hindu. They worship all of the gods, but the main family god is Eklinji (which is Shiva). They have a shrine upstairs, and they have pictures of some of the gods, like Eklinji, Ganesh, and Shrinathji, and a picture of Lala’s husband. In the morning, after Yuvraj takes a shower, he lights incense sticks in front of the shrine and prays to the gods. In the evening Pinky or Chand (Grandma), twists a cotton ball into a wick and puts it into a bowl on a stand. Then they pour ghee, clarified butter, into the bowl and light the cotton wick. It makes a candle that lasts about a half an hour. It is an offering to the gods. Once a year, on the anniversary of Lala’s husband’s death, the family prepares a plate of food and offers it to Lala’s husband’s picture at the shrine. Only Raja can eat it.

Because the Ranawats are Rajput, they can eat meat like chicken and mutton, but if they do so, they can’t touch the shrine or enter a Shiva or Ganesh temple before they bathe. On holidays that honor gods, the Ranawat family does not eat meat, but on holidays that honor goddesses they eat meat. There are many fasting days. On Navratri , Prachi has taken a vow to not eat meat for those nine days (for nine years). Everyone (except Raja) fasts on the holidays Shivratri and Janmastmi. Dewali is the biggest Hindu festival of the year. For Dewali people clean up their houses, decorate and paint their houses, and light firecrackers. A large ghee lamp, called a depak, is lit all night to honor Lakshmi. Lakshmi is the goddess of wealth.

From The Big Field Trip – India, 2010

The Ranawat family does a lot of cooking and chores, and they do most of the chores by hand, without the use of a machine. Pinky, Lala and Chand (grandma) wash most of the laundry by hand. I’ve often seen Chand or Lala scrubbing sudsy clothes against the cement floor of the rooftop patio. They also wash dishes by hand. They don’t buy flour at the store. They buy huge bags of whole wheat grains. The women of the Ranawat family squat on roof tossing the wheat out of a bowl so that the chaff will blow away. They pour the wheat on the ground to take rocks out. When the wheat is clean, they take it to the miller in town to have it ground into whole wheat flour. They make chapatti, circular flat bread like tortillas, with the flour for every meal. Their everyday meal includes chapattis and vegetables or daal, which is lentils or beans. Yuvraj makes a good mutton curry and steamed rice. He took professional cooking classes, but he doesn’t cook at home very often; most men in India don’t.

From The Big Field Trip – India, 2010

Every day the milk farmer comes on his motorcycle to deliver milk to the Ranawat family. When they get the milk they pasteurize it by boiling it. If they want to make yogurt, they put some milk in a bowl with a spoonful of their last batch of yogurt. They leave it covered on the counter, and it is ready the next day. They strain it to make it thick. Sometimes they put sugar in it and sometimes they add the yogurt to curries.

Raja and Prachi go to school at private schools. Prachi is in 10th grade and Raja is in 1st grade. Prachi goes to school on her motorbike and Raja goes to school in a small private bus. They go to school from Monday to Saturday. They only have Sunday off. One evening I went to Raja’s school for a prize distribution. The teachers gave out prizes for sports and academics. I thought it was pretty cool because they did traditional dances from Rajasthan. A little kid was dressed as Ganesh, which is the elephant headed god. Little Ganesh stood on a man’s palms, and the man held him high so that everyone could see him.

From The Big Field Trip – India, 2010

Prachi has to study hard for board exams this year because the tests she takes in 10th grade determine what college she’ll be in and what job she’ll have when she grows up. On normal schooldays Prachi studies only for 2 or 4 hours, but at the time of exams she studies for 7 or 8 hours. She studies all night and sleeps during the day because in the night time it is quiet, and she can study without interruption. Raja and Prachi do schoolwork in both English and Hindi. Raja does his homework for 1 to 2 hours a day. Pinky makes Raja to do his homework, but Prachi doesn’t need to be told to do her studies.

Yuvraj is the only one who earns money for the whole family. He is a tour guide for foreign tourists. He speaks English and Italian, as well as Hindi. He is a good tour guide because he knows a lot about Hinduism and the history of Udaipur. Sawant also gets money from his pension. He has been retired for 11 years. He worked at a hospital. He was the boss of the nursing staff. Pinky and Lala are taking exams so they can be primary school teachers. They may teach school or they may not.

The members of the Ranawat family spend most of their time working, but they have leisure time too. Sawant reads the newspaper, listens to the radio, or watches television. Every day he walks for one hour on the roof for exercise. When Chand has time, she sits on the roof talking to Sawant, or she takes a nap. Yuvraj works most days of the year, but has the summer off because there are fewer tourists due to the heat. When he doesn’t have work, Yuvraj takes naps, goes to his office to chat with his buddies, or does the family errands. Lala and Pinky are mostly working all of the day, but when they have the time they sit on the roof and talk to one another or take naps.

From The Big Field Trip – India, January, 2010

On Saturday evenings or Sundays, Prachi and Raja try to talk Lala or Pinky into bringing them to Sukharia Circle where go on paddle boats, ride camels, and ride on horses. Raja goes on all of the swings, and then they eat at a fast food restaurant. Sometimes Prachi tries to talk Pinky into going to the movies. They go to Bollywood movies. We went to a Bollywood movie called Veer. Every time Veer killed somebody, the crowd cheered. The crowd cheered even when Veer got killed. Bollywood movies are like musical films, because the actors sing and dance. Those songs are played on the radios before the movies even come out, and they become very famous; everyone, all my friends and people on the streets, starts singing them. Prachi goes to internet café to download the songs.

Raja is the skating champion for his age in the state of Rajasthan. He races around the rink with his roller skates. He beat the other kids in his age group (six years) at a completion in Udaipur when we were living with them. When we were living with the Ranawat family, Cruz practiced skating with Raja once a day.

From The Big Field Trip – India, January, 2010

Prachi likes to chat and roam around Udaipur with her girl friends from school. She goes to parties. Her five closest friends are from different religions. One is Jain, two are Muslim, one is Christian, one is a Brahmin (Hindu), and Prachi is Rajput (Hindu). They scoot around town on three scooters, two to a scooter.

I am glad that I lived with the Ranawat family. They were very nice and they embraced me as a member of the family. They took me out with them like I was one of their children: to school events, to meet friends and family, to Sukharia Circle, to Chand’s village, to the movies, and to go shopping. They invited me into their kitchen to eat and cook with them. We played and talked to each other (and Yuvraj teased me). They taught me Hindi and how to eat with my hands. I learned a lot about family life by living with them. When we left, it was very sad. Lala, Pinky, my mom, and I cried at the bus station as we were leaving, but Raja thought we were coming back in a few days, so he didn’t cry. Now he knows we aren’t coming back soon, so he’s crying. I hope that the Ranawat family can come to the USA to live with us for a while. I would teach them about American traditions.

From The Big Field Trip – India, 2010

From The Big Field Trip – India, December, 2009

When I walk down the streets of India, I see a lot of roadside businesses. On the sidewalks next to traffic-filled streets people are pressing sarees with big irons full of charcoal, and others are sewing mattresses. People sell interesting things: papaya and carrots from wooden push-carts, incense that smells like roses, cotton socks, buffalo leather journals with hand-made flower paper, and sparkling, polished jewelry. Old men make and fix shoes; sheets of brown leather and black gooey shoe polish lay in front of them on blankets. A man in a white shirt sits on a chair while the barber cuts his hair with shiny scissors that reflect the sun. Black hair falls to the pavement.

From The Big Field Trip – India, December, 2009

In India, animals share the streets with people. Men in turbans kick smelly dogs, buffalos wander the streets with their calves, women in sarees feed leftover lentils and rice to street dogs, and carrots and chapatti to the holy cows. Elephants with gray, wrinkly skin take their time walking down the streets, camels pull carts full of cow dung, holy cows roam the streets, peddlers whack the holy cows to get away from their fruit stand, and dogs steal food. I’ve only seen 3 pet dogs the entire time I have been in India (2½ months). The rest of the dogs are stray. A toddler throws a stone at a dog. The dog barks and the child runs away.

From The Big Field Trip – India, December, 2009

People in India wear colorful clothes and shiny jewelry, bindis, sarees, anklets, and bangles. Men wear turbans, or Muslim prayer caps. Sarees are decorative cloth that married women wrap around themselves. My mom bought a beautiful rusty-red saree. Last night was the first time she has ever worn it. She hired a tailor to sew a petticoat and blouse to wear under it. Women wear beautiful sarees even when they are shaping cow dung or spreading tar on the streets. Women also put red paint where their hair parts to show they are married. They also wear bindis, a dot of red or pink or a dot of jewelry, on their forehead. In the countryside, many women wear huge nose rings attached to their earring by a golden chain. Some men wear turbans. Turbans are long strips of cloth that men wind around their heads. Some are 9 meters long – that’s about 30 feet! Our driver, Bupinder Sing, wore a brown turban one day, a purple turban the next day, and a pink turban the day after that. When I walk down the streets of India, it reminds me of walking through a butterfly garden with splashes of color all around.

From The Big Field Trip – India, December, 2009

There are lots of dirty and smelly things on the streets of India; you’ve got to watch out where you step. There are a lot of trash-covered streets with dogs, cows, and beggars eating out of the trash or looking for something valuable. People throw their litter on the street. Shop owners are always sweeping in front of their shops with brooms made of dried grass that look like dog tails. The trash sometimes gets picked up, but is often swept into a pile and burned, even the plastic. The smell makes me feel sick. There are also a lot of open sewers full of milky-white water. Once I stepped in the sewer, and I had to take a shower. I had to shower my shoes too. There is cow dung everywhere on the streets. It’s good for many Indian people because they pick it up off the streets, shape it into discs, dry it, and burn it with firewood in a small oven for cooking. It’s bad for me because I step in it so often, even though Indian people say that it is good luck.

From The Big Field Trip – India, January, 2010

Most of the streets are full of traffic. The engines roar and horns beep. Gray smoke comes out of tailpipes. People cover their faces with shirts, sarees, or handkerchiefs. In India there are a lot of auto rickshaws. They are called took-tooks because they make the sound “took-took”. Took-tooks have three wheels. The larger public took-tooks can seat seven passengers comfortably, or twenty-two with people shoved in, sitting on laps, sitting on the floor, and hanging off the sides. On the city busses I have seen people sitting with the luggage on the roof. Took-tooks, busses, cars, and trucks are zooming through the streets, dodging cows. People dodge the vehicles. Watch-out, you may get hit! Vehicles never stop for people – only for cows. If you have to cross a busy street, I suggest that you have an Indian person or a holy cow cross with you.

From The Big Field Trip – India, December, 2009

In India the poorest people are worse off than poor people in the USA, especially the children. Many poor kids have no homes and some are so dirty that they are sick all the time. Poor children don’t grow as tall as healthy children because they don’t eat enough nutritious food. Some also use drugs like alcohol and white-out to make them feel better. This also keeps them from growing tall and healthy. Many kids have to work to earn money for their families. Poor children work in the fields, sweep the streets, look in the garbage for something valuable or food, work in factories, or beg for money. Sometimes the father is drunk so he uses all the money on alcohol. Some poor kids run away from home to escape poverty and make money for themselves.

From The Big Field Trip – India, December, 2009

On the streets of India I see a child with brown dust in his knotty, black hair. He is begging with a short old woman with gray hair, who puts her hand to her toothless mouth repeatedly to show that she needs money for food. A naked girl with wood chips in her hair stands in front of the tent where her family lives. The tent is on the sidewalk of a busy road; it is made of sheets of thick plastic and bamboo sticks. Beside the tent, a man carves a cricket bat to sell to passersby. A cricket field is full of boys playing cricket. A boy hurls a red ball into the dusty ground. The ball bounces. The batter hits the ball with a cricket bat. The boys tell their mothers that they go to school, but they play cricket instead. An old woman prays to an orange god at a shrine on the side of the street. Her hands are together and she is on her knees. She ignores the sounds of the street; her eyes are closed and she doesn’t stir. A small baby at her side sleeps in a torn blanket.

I’ve never been to another place like India. Just walking down any street in India makes my senses feel like they are going to burst. When I walk down the streets of India, I feel like home is half a world away.

Some things in the north and south of India are the same. The main staples in all of India are dal, lentlils, and rice. Indian food has lots of spices. Indian food uses turmeric, cardamom, cumin, ginger, red chili powder, black pepper, coriander, fresh green chilis, cloves, and garlic. Most of Indians are vegetarian, so almost every Indian dish has vegetables. It uses potatoes, cauliflower, chilis, spinach, peas, onions, carrots, squash, tomatoes, eggplant and okra. Pinkie, from our host family, made a really good dish from okra yesterday. It was fried okra seasoned with loads of spices – simple, yet tasty.

From The Big Field Trip – India, December, 2009

In every culture, cuisine is influenced by the traditions of the people and the climate the food is grown in. For example, no Hindus eat beef as cows are sacred. In North India where it is cold and dry, wheat is the main grain. In South India, where it is hot and moist, rice is the main grain. Also, in the South, they use coconut oil to fry their food. In the North, they use mustard oil. When I leave a North Indian restaurant, I feel like I’ll never eat again, because the food is so rich. When I leave a South Indian restaurant, I feel like my mouth is on fire. South Indian food is less rich than in the North, but it’s much more simple. North and South Indian food are very different, even though they are the same country.

From The Big Field Trip – India, December, 2009

I have had a lot more North Indian food than South Indian food because we live in Rajasthan, which is in the north. Gee is very popular in the North. Gee is clarified butter. It is added to Indian food to make it rich. Most Indians in the north eat food with their hands and/or chapatti. Chapati is a simple tortilla like bread, used as a spoon. Some popular North Indians foods are palak paneer (spinach cheese) and aloo gobi (potato cauliflower). Most people in India are vegetarians, but some eat meat. Since Hindus consider cows holy, and there are many Muslims in India, beef and pork is not eaten. Indian meat dishes have either chicken, mutton, or fish in them. My favorite meat dish is tandori chicken, which is baked in a special oven called a tandoor.

Indian food is delicious. From palak paneer to dal, Indian food is rich and spicy. Indian food can differ from north to south, but all of it makes my mouth water. I like Indian food, but I think I’ve had too much. When ever I go to a restaurant, I order fried chicken. I’m tired of rich food.

From The Big Field Trip – India, January, 2010

Chapati recipe (serves 5)

Ingredients:

3 c. Flour

2 t. Salt

2 c. Water

Directions:

1. Mix the flour and the salt in a large flat bottomed mixing bowl.
2. Slowly add the two cups of water to the mix kneading all the time.
3. Break the dough into small balls, about the size of golf balls.
4. With a rolling pin roll the balls one at a time into thin circles about 8 in. in diameter.
5. In a frying brown the chapattis on both sides, then put them over the direct flame until they puff up. Be careful not to burn them.
6. Serve hot with any North Indian dish.

India is crazy. There are stray dogs and holy cows (cows are sacred in the Hindu religion) roaming the streets, open sewers and trash everywhere. India is the country with the 2^nd most people, behind China. India’s population is about 1,198,000,000, so there are people everywhere. There isn’t a lot of privacy in India; people take baths on the street. Some people live in tents made from scavanged tarps and bamboo sticks, while others live in manisons. India is smelly, loud, religious, colorful, beat-up, delicious, crammed, friendly, and dirty; it is the wildest country I’ve been to so far.

From The Big Field Trip – India, December, 2009

We took a two week tour of Rajasthan, a state in Western India. We started in Delhi, the capital of India. My family and I loaded up a huge silver van with our many bags. We climbed into the van and met Mr. Singh, our huge Sikh driver, and his assistant. There were 10 seats in the huge van, so with Cruz, Bella, my mom, my dad, my grandparents, and I there were seats to spare. We also met our travel agent’s mother. We where going to drop her off at Agra, our first destination.

From The Big Field Trip – India, December, 2009

We drove over windy roads, dodging holy cows. Cows are everywhere, from laying in the middle of the road to digging in trash dumps. The cows don’t belong to anyone; it is against the Hindu religion to kill cows, so cows that stop producing milk are abandoned to the street. Stray dogs drink from the open sewers on the street. There where animals everywhere. I saw many animals on the road: donkeys, cows, antelope, monkeys, dogs, a cat, birds, etc. People were also on the roads. Kids played cricket, an English game like baseball, on the cracked roads. Poor people dug through the trash dumps, searching for things they can sell and/or eat. Farmers walked down the streets, selling their colorful produce. Tuk-tuks (auto rickshaws) full of people drove by. We hopped from town to town, seeing sites along the way.

From The Big Field Trip – India, December, 2009

Most of the sites were amazing. We saw many forts; I was forted out by the end of the two week trip. About half-way through the trip I didn’t want to see any more forts – it was to much! The most spectacular fort was in Agra, called Agra Fort. It was built by a Mughal emperor. It had a moat, which was a river that was diverted to go around part of the castle, and two extra-thick walls, so if the enemy got over the moat and breached the first wall, they would be stuck between the two walls were elephants, tigers, wild boars, and other wild animals were kept. The wild animals were kept there to fight, entertaining the royal people. The stone carvings and inlayed stones in the Agra fort were astonishing; they were very intricate and flawless.

The Taj Mahal, also in Agra, was something else. It was huge and the 4 big reflecting pools around it made it seem bigger. The Taj Mahal’s 4 minarets almost touched the sky, and it’s the marble glimmered in the sun. The Taj Mahal was amazing, but the carvings weren’t too great. The baby Taj on the other hand, the carvings and inlays were incredible. The baby Taj was almost exactly like the Taj Mahal, but smaller (babyTaj). The carvings and inlays were a lot better in the Baby Taj than the Taj Mahal.

From The Big Field Trip – India, December, 2009

We ate at many restaurants; the varieties of Indian food was staggering, from aloo gobi (potatoes and cauliflower) to palak paneer (spinach and cheese, also known as saag paneer). North Indian food is very rich and spicy. It is usually eaten with rice or chapati, a tortilla-like food that you use as a spoon. The Indian food was delicious, but now I’m sick of Indian food – it’s a little too rich.

From The Big Field Trip – India, December, 2009

When we were in a small town called Mandawa, I met a kid named Krishna. When I first met Krishna, he gave me string for a kite I had just bought, then he ran off. The next day Krishna was at my Hotel, waiting for me. I went to his house and met his extended family. After I finished saying “Namaste” (hello and goodbye in Hindi – Namaste means “I bow to the god within you”) to all his family members, I went on the roof with Krishna. He had loads of kites, and he taught me how to fly them. All the kids in the neighborhood were out flying their kites, practicing for the big kite festival, that was on January 14th (one month from then). Krishna showed me how “cut” other peoples kites. You made your kite-string rub against the other persons string; the person who broke the other persons string won. Krishna was very nice; I really enjoyed flying kites with him.

We went to a Jain temple, it was fabulous. It was made from marble and was two stories high. It had lots of carvings of Jain stories in the temple. There were also many statues of Jain gods and prophets. We went to many temples, but they were mostly Hindu. We ended our trip in Udaipur, the town we’re in now and we will stay in for 2 months. I really enjoyed our tour of West India, it was fun and educational.