For Elliot

Finally, a picture of me with a cow!  Or was this a bull?  The horns were a little intimidating, as you can see!

Abbie brought up a good question: why do all the kids have a dot above one eye?  Here in India, they have a strong belief in “the evil eye”.  I had trouble grasping this well enough to write about it, so I took a few excerpts from this article:

“The original belief is that any person can harm your children, livestock, fruit trees or any other evidence of prosperity just by looking at the spoils of all your good will and hard work with envy. Ironically, the curse of the evil eye is thought to be provoked by inappropriate displays of spiritual pride or excessive beauty. ”

….”Almost everywhere that the evil eye belief exists, it is said to be caused accidentally by envy or praise. Thus the phrase “Pride Goeth Before a Fall” In certain Mediterranean and eastern cultures, one is careful not to praise a child too much, lest it invite the subconscious balancing effect of the evil eye. A classic situation would be the barren woman who praises the newborn baby of a new child. Such praise would be considered inappropriate and thought to bring the evil child. ”

So the black coal dots are there to ward off the evil eye, and apparently the kids sometimes wear bracelets or necklaces with blue beads.  When these fall off, the children have strong enough auras to protect themselves from the evil eye.  Sometimes the little ones also have their eyes lined with a pencil instead of the black dot by the eyebrow.

Gopal with dot:      Karan with eyes lined:    Older girl with no dot:

So I hope that helps clear it up a little.. it still confuses me a bit!

I’m getting sad about leaving my kids here.  Simona’s taking Sahil and long haired Shweta in her suitcase and I’m taking short haired Shweta and Namita.  Anne, we’ll have 2 new roommates!

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