half-time

we've had a pretty busy week. monday we went to see a mosque, a hindu temple, and a sikh temple. the mosque is not only the largeset mosque in delhi, it is also one of three in the world to have one of muhammed's beard hairs, which we got to see. they also showed us one of his sandals and a stone with his footprint.





at the hindu temple i learned that the swastika, a symbol of power and perfection, has been a part of hindu culture for thousands of years which explains why india seems to be covered in them. it really freaked me out at first to see a swastika on a car's bumper or a store's sign, for obvious reasons. i mean i'm still not really comfortable with seeing them everywhere, but now at least i understand why they are there.

one of the staff members is a religious sikh, so he explained the religion to those of us who were clueless and told us about some of the rituals and customs as he performed them. there were 10 gurus whose writings were compiled into a book, to be revered as a g-d after the last guru died. each temple has a copy of this book for sikhs to honor and pray to and fragments of it are chanted in each temple all day every day.



tuesday we had a speaker come and talk about the women's empowerment movement and the gender issues pertaining to india. ultimately, at the core of most of india's problems today is the struggle between staying traditional and adapting to modern life.

yesterday we were led through the national museum by one of the museum's first curators and today, some of us are going to see the qutub minar tower. it was built between 1193 and 1369 to symbolize Islamic rule over Delhi. at its foot is india’s oldest mosque and in its corner stands an iron pillar, bearing 4th century sanskrit inscriptions of the period.

our india trip is officially half over. luckily we have another two and a half weeks left!