बॉलीवुड in Caracas .. Arre Kya Baat Hai!

I was invited to an Indian party yesterday. My friend Shashi invited me to a singing contest organized by the members of the Indian Association, an NGO that groups all the indian citizens living in Caracas, who are mostly employees of trasnationals like Siemens, P&G, Schlumberger or ChevronTexaco. It was AWESOME, since I love indian culture, I love indian food, I love Hindipop (esp. Alisha Chinai) and Bollywood movies (Saif Ali Khan, Akshay Kumar, Priyanka Chopra, Dimple Kapadia, John Abraham, Dino Morea, Lara Dutta, Aamir Khan, Shilpa Shetty, Abhishek Bachchan, Boman Irani, Kareena Kapoor and of course, megababe Aishwarya Rai are among my favourite indian movie stars). Oh, I forgot to say that my boss is indian, one of my workmates is indian, and there are 9 students from India in school, so...you get the picture. One funny thing -Apart from an american married to an indian lady, I was the only non-indian invited to the place, hehehe :-D

Almost everybody was wearing shalwar kameez, saris, kurtas, kurtis or anything similar whose name I dunno. But still, everybody looked proudly Desi, hehehe. The contest was divided in six groups, each one of them had to guess, mimick and sing some bollywood songs, and that, to be honest, is quite difficult because India produces more than 800 movies a year, and most of them are musicals, with an average of 30 songs per movie, so go figure how many songs the organizers (Shashi, Richa, Priyanka, and some other folks whose names I can't remember ATM) could choose from! The contest itself was quite fun, take a look at the photos.

Then the food came, mostly North Indian food and not Southern Indian food as I am used to (my boss is from Kerala and Shashi is from Karnataka) -but excellent anyway!

At some point, I started to think of the differences and similarities between Indian/Hindustan/Afghan and Middle Eastern (Arabic, Jewish, Georgian, Turkish, Greek, Persian, Armenian, Kurdish, Tajik) culture.. they're very similar in many aspects, perhaps because Indian culture was heavily influenced by the persians during the Mughal Empire and hence the common stuff:

• Passion for music and similar stringed (sitar, oud, bouzouki) wind (duduk, düdük, ney, pungi) and percussion (tabla, tonbak, dounbek, darbouka) instruments
• Passion for food: rice, the bread (naan, porotta, paratha, pide, pita), kabab/kebab/kabob, ambode/falafel, youghurt, and of course, spicy food and pork is forbidden and dirty as s**t
• Passion for life: Among other things I noticed, people is VERY noisy when celebrating and when competing and someone makes a mistake, hehehe
• Passion about their beliefs: being Jewish, Hindu, Coptic Orthodox, Sikh, Sunni Muslim, Assyrian/Chaldean Orthodox, Shiite Muslim, Armenian Apostolic, Eastern Orthodox Christian, Ibadi Muslim, Syrian Christian of Kerala, Bahá'í, Parsi, Jain, Melkite Catholic, Syriac Orthodox, Armenian Catholic or Maronite Catholic, all of us are as attached to our roots as to our beliefs, which are an integral part of it

Definitely we are part not just of a language continuum but a culture continuum, that stretches from the Mediterranean to the Bay of Bengal, and from the Caucasus to the Arabian Sea. One can tell how the language, culture, food, clothes and physical appearance slowly changes from East to West and from North to South, but the essence remains :-)

Look at this video - too bad I forgot to turn the mike on!

and this other video:



Oh, and a photo of the winners, of course! !מזל טוב

Frankenstein's שמאָק

Today I went to see Dr. Seemann so he could check how my new penis was evolving. He was gladly impressed that my wounds are perfectly healed and it is not as swollen as usually expected. He told me "I haven't seen a person heal so quickly in a very long time, and boy, I have been a doctor for a while!". He ordered me to stop wearing the wounds dressing and let the wounds "breathe" naturally since the stitches are absorbable sutures and they will be absorbed by my body slowly and the wounds heal.

Still, I have to take the usual care for a wound, such as washing them with Betadine after I shower, every time I go to the bathroom and before sleeping, and I need to wear loose clothing and boxers until I am fully used to the sensation of having my glans exposed and of course, diazepam if I need to inhibit the morning wood (I definitely need these pills) for perhaps the next couple of weeks to avoid having the wounds reopened and NO SEX IN 60 DAYS. He clearly told me "just touch it to clean it, boy; nothing else for now". Shit!

I was seriously thinking of posting a picture of the stitches so you could see how it looks like, but I don't know if Blogger will ban me then for inappropriate behavior regarding personal photos, hehehe. In the meantime, I am home with no underwear so أبو علي takes some air ;-)

Oh, the name of the post? Well, I have 29 stitches around my penis and it is swollen and with small bruises, so I guess Dr. Frankenstein's creation must have Ein kleiner Freund like mine :-D

!אֲנִי כָּשֵר

I was circumcised last night by Dr. Seemann. I feel okay but it is a nuisance the contact of my glans to the underwear and the stitches feel like a little burning. I'll post more details tomorrow as I am heading to have some dinner (with no liquid to avoid a night erection that might compromise the stitching) and then off to bed again to continue reading Schindler's List. I feel a little weird and walk funny to avoid friction.. but I am kosher now, B"H!

Kosher AFTER Passover

5767's Passover will always be in my mind because is the last jewish holiday I will experiment being uncircumcised. Right after I was born, I fell very sick and I had severe neonatal jaundice, which took me apart from my mom for some weeks, and after that I was still weak so my father, who wanted me to be circumcised like him (yeah, he might hide his jewish blood but he would never let a son of his be like a cabriolet!) forgot about it, but I remember during my childhood he always said he wanted me to undergo circumsicion, to what my grandma and my mom always reacted against. Well, my rabbi strongly suggested me to have it now before I finish my conversion so I can take advantage of the medical insurance paid by ECA. So, I'm going to be operated on a week after Passover and thus ceasing to be a convertible, hehehe

One of the things I have learnt this Passover is that I will never, EVER buy any Couscous for Passover made out of matzo meal. My growing reputation as a couscousier (or whichever the person that cooks coscous is called) was severely affected for my attempt to make couscous with nuts (Almonds, Macadamia Nuts, Peanuts, Walnuts, Cashews, and Nuts) to go with my stew of meat, sausages, potatoes and red beans. Crap!
Another interesting thing about Passover is that we get to do LOTS of shopping, and this time not just for TONS of food but sometimes also for new clothing to use during the holidays as it is a very special occasion -it HAS to be special, we would still be in Egypt as slaves hadn't been for all that happened with the guidance of Moshe Rabenu! My favourite part is buying food, definitely! Anyway, I forgot to shave after the first two nights, so now I am waiting till the end of the holiday to shave -and I should to the same to my private parts as the operation is fast approaching- and bored out to death at home since our dearest president declared a Dry Law prohibiting the sell of alcohol and also since we can't enter most places that sell or are in contact with chametz (areperas, cafés, restaurants, movie theaters that sell tequeños, sushi bars and that kind of stuff) I am screwed doing nothing at home. Fuck...

By the way, don't I look like of the Istanbul Boys? (raising an eyebrow)