Busy Day

Are people who are not my family reading? You're free to leave a comment. There's no sign-in required. I'm just curious.

2 interviews yesterday, at least one scheduled for tomorrow. That's coming along.

Shabbos Candlelighting March 9th: 6:09 PM IST

Today I got up at 6 to hear the Dalai Lama give his only public talk of March because you had to go through security and get a good seat. He spoke for three hours, presumably about Buddhism. If you bring a radio you can hear an English translation on 92.3 fm, and I learned the important lesson of never buying the cheapest possible radio in the shop the day before, because I didn't hear a damn thing until the very end, when I listened in on someone else's by sharing earbuds. He was discussing whether things existed or not (Buddhists agree with Plato, who argued things did not exist independently, and not Aristotle, who said the reverse, to oversimplify the issue), and then there was some Buddhist initiation where people were supposed to imagine tossing flowers at their Buddha family gods and then putting them on their heads or something like that. I'm not making this sound great in post but it was hardcore Tibetan Buddhism. Oh, and I got to say the prayer over seeing a gentile king again, for the third time in my life (all have been over him) so, yay.

Today was also the Hindu festival of Holi, where people spray each other with colored paint, because that's what you want all over your clothes. I actually know nothing else and had no time to learn because I was busy pretty much the whole day with Dalai Lama stuff or eating-after-long-speech stuff. Seriously, his speech went on and I was wondering when he was just going to have the Tibetan Exile President get up and read the weekly announcements and ask for shiva minyan volunteers.

Buddhists do not celebrate Holi to my knowledge, but all of the local Himchalis and a lot of the transit Nepalis are Hindu, so here are some pictures.