So as the Hindus were wrapping up their Diwali Festival, one of the local church grounds held its own festival: The Wine Festival (gotta love the Catholics!).
It’s a one-day event each year where local winemakers come and sell their whole lot of stock. Reading about it in the paper, I was stoked to go…not only is wine/alcohol not so popular in India (as many Hindus apparently think of it as a no-no), thus I knew there would be few other wine festivals in this country, but I thought it would be a great way to support the local peeps as well.
Although the for-sale wines were what some might argue (people in the EU right now are) aren’t actually wines…by that I mean, they’re not made of grapes, I was still super excited to try them. The paper announcement said there’d be berry wines, including strawberry ones. Why was that exciting to me? Well, because ever since I heard Deana Carter’s “Strawberry Wine,” I’ve been wanting to try some. However, I doubted anyone else at the festival would make that country-song connection, but…
The festival kicked off at the church around noon. My desk at the time was right by the window, and I could hear it start up…music was blaring away. The strange thing was…I KNEW the songs. Like uncannily well. They were playing Bryan White’s “Someone Else’s Star.” For those who don’t know it, it’s a song from a 90s country album made by an almost-mullet-wearing kid. Then came Credence Clearwater Revival. When I said something to one of the girls in the office, she said that country music was really popular here. Particularly Bonnie Raitt and John Denver. What??? SO not what I expected from India…even the Christian part!
But back to the wine…a few of us went over to peruse the selection. Most of the local wines were made from a blackberry. But there were also ones made of strawberry, ginger, pineapple, banana, pear, and just about any other fruit you’d find in the North East.
They were all these mom-and-pop kind of operations, but it was great fun talking to the vendors as well. When the young woman at the “Mummy’s” stall was asked why their wine was so cheap compared to the other ones on sale, she said, “It’s just homemade stuff. I mean, it comes from the pears in our backyard!”
But backyard or not…I still bought a couple of the small bottles. God bless the Christian festivals.
how cool! i’m seeing a side of India I didn’t know existed. Maybe you do an article on this?
that wine-ish stuff looks delicious!
let us know how the hangover is once you finish the bottle off.
I was going to ask you how you communicate with these people…but I felt that would be an ignorate question so I wikipedia’ed Indian languages and didn’t feel so ignorant when I read that they have thousands of dialects! But I did see that many people speak English so I answered my own question
and fittingly enough I then spelled ignorant wrong when I made my comment to you. I should just keep my mouth shut!
http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/story?id=3844518&page=1
your festival is popular
Articles, articles…freelance work, here I come!
And most of the people here speak English, mainly due to the strong British influence in the city…and because there are so many tribes in the area, they had to have a common language. I’m finding the middle/upper class tends to be tri-lingual: tribal language, Hindi, and English; but if people only speak two languages here, it’s usually the tribal language and English. For those who don’t speak English, they can at least understand it.
Gestures go a long way, too!
(and I didn’t even notice the misspelling the first time around!)
so interesting! always love catching up on what you’ve been doing. wish you were here so we could gab over some mcdonald’s!
I know! I have no Mackers OR Melanie here! I can’t wait to catch up when I get back to the states!