Today: Textiles in the morning, science in the afternoon, and a Gujarati wedding (really just dinner but it felt like a wedding) at night.
The Calico Museum of Textiles is housed in an enormous Mogul-period mansion. The security is very tight. The only thing allowed to be brought into the museum is a small notebook; we left our bags and cameras on the bus. The textile tradition in Gujarat is deeply engrained (woven!) into the culture here. Crafts are still very much alive especially in the Kutch region of Gujarat. You can find hand-made crafts and textiles at many markets. We visited the Law Garden market the other day where I got a few examples of Gujarati embroidery for my classroom.
The Vikram Sarabhai Community Science Center is located in the Gujarati University campus. It’s similar to the Science Museum in Queens because there are loads of things to play with but it serves as a community center more than a museum. The hallways are lined with hands-on exhibits on optical illusions and physics and the science labs each focus on a different subject. The ones we saw are: math (they say "maths"), physics, computers, biology, and chemistry. It was great to meet the science teachers and see their demos. I especially loved the Math Lab, which apparently was invented by an Indian mathematician. The idea is to show math concepts using physical demonstrations (rather than the "chalk and talk" method).
Dinner at Vishalla (http://www.vishalla.com/) was quite a treat. Dinner was preceded by a walk through their museum of Gujarati artifacts and a puppet show. Then, we sat around a long table while waiters paraded up and down the aisle serving us more and more food. This traditional thali is served on plates and bowls made out of leaves and mud. All the food is vegetarian and it kept coming! Finally, when it stopped, we had a dance party to Gujarati music.
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