Family time with the Saxenas in Bhopal
Trip Start
Unknown
1
9
21
Trip End
Ongoing
Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India
Saturday, January 8, 2011
On my first day, Auntie and Uncle Saxena took me to Manav Sangharalaya, an outdoor and indoor exhibition of local livelihoods in India. There are outdoor model villages from cultural groups all over India. Auntie showed me how the local villagers grind grain and we saw a few of the many many model huts and villages, including the conical hut of local buffalo-herding people. We didn't have much time, since I had just arrived in Bhopal on a night train from Jabalpur that morning, and I was a bit tired. But since we arrived at Manav Sangharalaya later in the afternoon, we saw some local folk dancers getting dressed, and found out that there was a free cultural show that evening. Great! So we stayed for the first half of the cultural show and saw some fantastic dances of groups from the local state of Madhya Pradesh, then a fantastic group from Orissa. Auntie really enjoyed the Orissa group because they performed all the yoga assanas (postures) as part of their performance. These assanas involved a lot of backbending and amazing acrobatics! I tried to post some videos, but they are too large to upload. You will just have to take my word for how great they were.
