Shilparamam

First, take a minute to look at this link for Shilparamam (I guess you have to click on the title of this blog entry to see the link). We drove past this interesting landmark several times on our way in and out of ISB. Another exchange student, Stephanie, mentioned that she had been to a large craft fair held here last January when she was here for two weeks. She was informed that it had already ended on 31 December. She was sad, but then on my next trip to town, I noticed it was still open! There were signs all over town saying it had been extended to 8 January. So the 3 of us went to check it out. Stephanie said it was smaller than it was last year, but it still had some great bargains. We went on Thursday morning from 10:30 to 12:00 and I didn't get much, except a sun burn! Darn Indian sun. But I went back again with almost half of our exchange group (it's 18 students, and a handful of spouses/fiances/girlfriends are still coming) and I bought some fabric to have clothes made for the wedding we're going to in Bombay at the end of the month. Geo also found something fun to wear to the wedding. You'll get pictures as soon as the clothes are ready!
Anyway, this craft mart is a spectacle. We drove past it again tonight (Sunday, the last evening of it) and it was packed! Early in the morning, it was not so crowded and vendors were begging us to be their first customer of the day, promising good luck and special discounts. Like I said before, we managed to buy 3 outfits (2 for me, 1 for Geo) and a few things that would fall in the category of home decor.
One thing I found interesting was that they charged 10 rupees to get in (about 20 cents) and that got us a ticket that could be scanned at the entry turnstyles. The craft fair has technology that the very modern ISB doesn't even have. For example, each time we go to the dining hall for a meal, there are several ledgers that need to be filled out and autographed, a very time consuming process for hungry kids. Oh well...we can make a suggestion that they look towards the craft fair model.