A method to the madness???

Women wear toe rings because it is supposed to bring a healthy baby, so it also acts as a symbol of marriage and trying to have a child. When they do have a child a black power is put on the cheek of the baby to ward off the evil eye and to make the baby look less cute so as to discourage the necessity of passing the coconut shell with candle inside to break the spell. Indian mothers are the most protective and actively involved in their children's life I've seen in any culture.
Whenever a welcoming ceremony was performed in both Nepal and India they would give us garlands of flowers, but I began to notice, and too frequently for it to be a coincidence, that there was hair wrapped within the necklace. When I asked about this they explained that hair is seen as a relic of beauty and that it is given to the gods on many different occasions and that children's heads are shaved when they are very young to ensure thick hair...but just in case the shaved hair of the baby is given as an offering. They said that the hair in the garland was a way of "combining beauties".
Ash, kum kum or sandlewood are worn on the foreheads of the people in the south for two reasons: 1) the ash is a reminder that one day we too will be ash and 2) when put on the place on the forehead, it has an immediate cooling property to it.
India is where modern laws and ancient traditions collide. In a country where love affairs are punishable by death and you must be 25 to drink alcohol, one learns that what is written in the law books and what can be enforced in a population so dense are two different things. In a nation where 24% of GDP goes to national security and defense because of tension with China, Bangladesh and Pakistan. 5 million of India's 1.1 billion citizens are in the military.
I think the most surprising part of Indian culture wasn't the ceremonies, but rather the unexpected conservatism and socially acceptable domestic violence. When traveling to cover up countries you expect the repression of women; it's not only understood by the population it is written into law, but when you arrive in a country so exposed to the western culture and realize how little of it has been adopted it makes you wonder. Women in many parts of the country still ride side saddle on motorbikes and cover their faces in public. Indeed, many of the people especially in the south, are "educated", but I think a distinction needs to be made here when talking about education. Just because you are literate doesn't mean you are educated in the social sense. Infanticide based on gender is still as prevalent in the south as it is in the north and although finding out the sex of your child before birth is illegal it is still done.
Girls are the least desirable of the sexes to the point that one of the greatest insults you can say to someone is "may you have 10 daughters and may they all marry well". (The latter part of the phrase refers to the dowry paid by the family of the bride to the family of the husband.) In spite of this there is a common practice in families full of just sons. In these families one son is chosen, usually the youngest, and is dressed up, made to look like and treated as if he were a girl!! Some of these boys are unable to pull out of the female role and grow up living their lives as cross dressers. One of those occasions where they are allowed into the town is for a ceremony performed once a year for the boys. In this event an idol is built out of wood and tied together to be made to look like a person. The boys are wedded to this figure just before it is set on fire, (a la Burning Man style). The boys cry and scream that their husband is now dead and what are they going to do; this ceremony signifies the justification for their celibacy. These transexuals are exiled by society to the fringes of the towns and the only other time they are allowed to engage with society is when there is going to be a wedding or a child has just been born. In both of these cases a blessing from a transexual is very auspicious.
95% of all marriages are arranged in India and only 5% are what they call "love marriages". In a culture that gives more respect and credibility to men than it does to women it makes being a western woman in the country twice as difficult. Fortunately, I'm aware that my greatest asset in any country is a local and I am quick to meet people. You would be shocked how differently I get treated when I am with an India man than I do in any other circumstance! Something as menial as ordering a meal can take up to 3 hours and then the wrong meal arrives, then you wait another hour for the wrong check, but when I was with an Indian man that never happen.

What I've learned about India:
-Here, they do what is necessary at the moment
-Daybreak, sunset, middle of the night, it doesn't matter- roosters crow when they want.
-Your country is only as educated as the women in it
-Indians are like mirrors- they give you back the same expression you are wearing on your face
-I didn't realize I still had privacy until it was gone in India

What I've learned is international:
-smelly people
-tuk-tuk/matatus
-motorbike/boda/boda
-sucking teeth
-spitting
-cheap filler foods of empty carbs
-chai
-marketplaces
-negotiable EVERYTHING
-helpful people
-men who waste their time and money playing cards and drinking
-traffic lanes as suggestions and not laws
-out running the police as an option
-staff not privy to the services they provide customers with (ie: tech support when they don't have a computer of their own)