Our weekend
on Jana Gana Mana (India), 04/Apr/2011 09:11, 34 days ago
The weekend...bumper edition!So what did we do this weekend? For the first time in nearly a month we were together in Delhi…..WAADSaturday 2ndApril was World Autism Awareness Day and Action For Autism had been working on plans for a number of events during Friday and Saturday. The events started on Friday with an AFA organised painting competition at the India Habitat Centre which involved schools from across Delhi. Katie attended too with young people from Manovikas.CinemaRather than heading home to the Far East (as the location of our place is known), we popped into a mall to watch a film. We had both wanted to see the King’s Speech and thought we had missed it's run in Delhi, however we were lucky to find it showing and so had our first Indian cinematic experience. The cinema was probably slightly more upmarket than the typical Indian cinema with its plush reclining seats and an at-your-seat waiter service! Oh, and the film was great with Colin's performance well worth that Oscar.                                              The Rose of TraleeOn Friday evening we attended a reception at the VSO office in Delhi to welcome the Rose of Tralee (morehere). The Rose of Tralee festival annually brings 100,000 visitors to the Kerry town for a week-long festival and the highlight is the crowning of 'The Rose'. This year's Rose, Claire, has nominated VSO as one of her charities that she wished to support during her year. She came with a film crew in tow from the Irish broadcaster, RTE, who are following her as she visits a number of projects across India that VSO are working on.With The Rose, Clare KambamettuWorld CupSaturday was dominated by one event, the cricket world cup final. (And some may say too much whisky and curry). We watched the event at our neighbour's flat where they put together a fish curry, and for those of you who know of India's passion for cricket, it was quite an occasion to witness....although I thought the fireworks weren't quite as loud as those after the victory against Pakistan.                                       Nehru and IndiraThere are few political dynasty's in the world as strong as that of the Gandhi's. India's largest and most successful party, Congress, have been led by Nehru….and then his daughter, Indira…….and then her son, Rajiv…….and then his wife, Sonia……and next up will be their son, Rahul. With just a few weekends left in Delhi, on Sunday morning we got up early to visit the homes, and now museums of Indira and Nehru.Indira's museum has been delicately built on to her house. The rooms are laid out as she left them in 1984 as she walked across her garden to a neighbouring house, only to be shot by her bodyguards. The collection of momentoes and newspaper clips made for fascinating reading but I felt the storyline of their lives was missing. Maybe it's intentional as with many powerful leaders she was both hated and loved for what she did.The spot of Indira's assassinationThere's also a section on Rajiv who took over upon her death. He suddenly found himself thrust on to the stage and fought to hold India together in the wake of the troubles after Indira's murder. He too was assassinated in 1991 theLiberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam(LTTE) in a bombing in southern India that killed 15 people.Rajiv's trainers                                                                Just around the corner from Indira's house is the substantially greater home of one of India's founders -Jawaharlal Nehru. Nehru was the first and longest-servingPrime Minister of India, from 1947 until 1964 and one of the leading figures in theIndian independence movement. He was elected by theIndian National Congressto assume office as independent India's first Prime Minister, and re-elected when the Congress Party won India's first general election in 1952. As one of the founders of theNon-Aligned Movement, he was also an important figure in the international politics of thepost-war era. Nehru's stance as an unfailing nationalist led him to also implement policies which stressed commonality among Indians while still appreciating regional diversities. This proved particularly important as post-Independence differences surfaced since British withdrawal from the subcontinent prompted regional leaders to no longer relate to one another as allies against a common adversary. And he created a dynasty which lives on……….