After that, we went to a park called 'Kanakakunnu' where they have a palace. We were not able to enter, but during some exhibition period, it is opened to the public.
How old are you（前回のブログ）を観て、とても好きだったと友人に伝えたところ、是非とも見せたい場所があると、ご近所のお宅に連れて行ってくれました。そこは映画同様、家庭菜園をしているおうちでした。屋上ベランダへの階段を登ると、そこには色とりどりの野菜があり、日本でもお馴染みの茄子やオクラの他に、インドならではの野菜も！
When I told my friend that I enjoyed the movie "How old are you (previous post)" very much, she introduced me to a place which is just like in the movie. It was her neighbor owning a garden full of vegetables and fruits. Besides vegetables common in Japan such as, okra, eggplant, I had a chance to see vegetables very Indian like!
Still Malayalam movies are not known in Japan. When it comes to Indian movies, it is mainly Hindi and sometimes Tamil, coming from Rajinikanth's popularity among South India lovers. Today I would like to introduce a motivating film especially for women.
How Old Are You。「あなたは何歳ですか？」というタイトルの映画。主婦が失敗や逆境にもめげず奮闘する様子を描いた非常にエネルギッシュな映画です。私はこの映画を観て本当に驚きました。何故なら日本に比べてインドでの女性に対する社会の目は非常に保守的で、結婚後の女性の行動は制限される印象を受けるからです。25歳までには結婚をして（主にお見合い結婚）、結婚後は家に入り子育てに専念するという習わしが根付いているこの地で、30代半ばの主婦の起業映画が放映、おまけに大ヒットを記録するなんて！！夫婦共働きの家庭も勿論いますが、女性は男性から一歩引く、いわば内助の功が美徳となされているこの土地で、主婦が主役の映画があるとは何と素敵なんだろうと感動しました。
How old are you. From the title itself, you can imagine what the plot will be like. It is about a housewife in her middle thirties struggling with the conflict in herself, who becomes a entrepreneur. This movie is full of energy, passion and ambition but moreover, what makes this movie special is that the protagonist is a middle aged women, considered here to be opposite of active, and this is what made me a fan of this film.
After coming to India, I realized the conservative culture towards women here. Likely in Japan, but further more. Women are normally married until 25 of age mostly by arrange marriage, and have children, then stay in the house taking care of the family. I respect it in a way, but at the same time I feel that some women are trapped despite the talent they have in themselves. Of course, I see women working along with their maternity life, but somehow very less. So I was shocked to see this film which surely is a motivating film to housewives. I was a big hit and had a influence in many ways which I will post in an upcoming post.
The protagonist faces a problem for not being able to go abroad with the family due to her age, which is 36. Her daughter and husband criticizes and blames her for being old. While feeling depression, vegetables plucked from her veranda garden attracts a prominent chef and from that time onwards, her heroic story starts.
From a housewife to a entrepreneur. At the end of the film, a friend of her, who always believed in her talent calls her on her birthday asking, "How old are you?", which her reply is "It doesn't matter." It is really hard to think this way when you feel that you are aging, but I wish I can feel confidently like her when I am at the same age.
I heard that after this film, many women started a garden at their house just like in the film. Considering about the safety of food, it is quite natural to come up with this idea, but placing a housewife as a protagonist is what makes this film amazing.
年齢を重ねても、いつまでも気持ちは若く、夢に溢れていたいものです。
Despite the age, I always want to be full of dreams :)
I guess this movie will be a legendary film in India cinema history. A blockbuster film named Bahubali, which recorded the highest gross in India and the third highest worldwide has been in the theaters for months, which is a very rare phenomenon to witness here. I have watched this film in August, after hearing the enthusiastic recommendation from my friend. Originally, this is a Telugu film and another option was in Tamil. Here in Kerala, Tamil was available, so after studying the overall plot, I headed to the theater with my Japanese friends. Well, it was really tough for us to catch the story since it was an ancient tale with complicated relationships and of course we couldn't understand the language, but still it was worth watching because of the tremendous scale of the computer graffics you can see.
A photo capture of an initial scene of the film, where a lady is carrying a crying baby in her arm in a muddy stream. She was stabbed before this scene and decided to sacrifice herself to save the baby.
Another scene is the protagonist jumps from a precipice to another to approach a woman. He is addicted to climbing the walls of a waterfall, and during his climbing routine, he finds this beautiful woman and instantly falls in love. I hope nobody will try to do the same(I would if I were a child!!), since this is a fantasy.
Responding to this huge hit, I expect it will be available in Japan as well. A sequel is to be released next year. It is a huge scale movie in many ways!
Right after I started my blog...look whats happening...no posts for a while...absurd...
Well, what I was occupied with is the traveling around places in Kerala such as Kanyakumari the southernmost of India, and Palakkad, a land full of tender gold patty fields and another was a suntan in Varkala beach.Recently I started my studies in the language spoken here called Malayalam. Guess I'll post something about that later on.
Among the days that I've been experiencing so far, I'd like to introduce one of the most mesmerizing, a live concert I saw.One of my friends working in the same building is learning a flute and we went to the teachers live concert one day.
The venue was near Trivandrum station. Here you can take lesson of Indian musical instruments and other activities such as dancing and sewing. Sounds fun!
I'm not sure about the violin, but all the other instruments seem to be an original of India.
From the left, mridangum, veena, flute(my friend told me there is no typical name for this), violin, tabla. Mridangum and veena are instruments from the South.
All of the musicians are teachers as well.
Due to the lack of volume in my camera the video is not available but the most exciting part was the improvisation of the two drums, tabla and mridangum. It seems that I have a thing for drums.
Idli which is a favorite of mine, is steamed rice/lentil bun with a fluffy texture.
Accompanying is sambal on the right, a major curry you can have everywhere in South India
and the one on the left is called payasam, a sweet dish.
You can have as many as you can so me as a glutton when it comes to South Indian food had nearly 10 idli's....
This is the way it is served.
First, they will give you the banana leaf and pour water on.
You gently wipe the surface and clean it.
The cup you can see on the upper left is drinking water.
食べ終わった図。バナナリーフを半分に折ります。
You fold the banana leaf into half and that means you finished your meal.
Just after I came to India, I started to have a curry leaf pot which you can take a look in my previous post.
I've been continuously dedicating my huge love to him since then, talking and watering him everyday...and look how he's appearing now!!
In spite of the heavy rain and the sweltering heat, he seems to be growing and even glowing like it has no influence to his growth.
One of my friends kindly placed some egg shells as a manure and maybe because of that, he is having stiff and large leaves than he had before.
Also having company....a couples of yellow girl friends gathering him is one reason for him to be glowing happy.
三か月後にはどのくらい大きくなっているかな？
I wonder how he would look like in another three months ;)
Curry leaves is a must when preparing south indian food. I'm not sure if it's a kind of herb or a spice, but what I can say is that you can see it in most of the dishes.
I had an attempt to have a plant in Japan, bus since the climate is not warm always, it somehow did not grow as I expected. So my aim here in India was to have a nice little curry leaf pot of myself, and now it became true.
