Movies and TV in India

by Audrey Sayer

First I want to tell you about Indian movie theatres. They are basically the same as theatres in the US, except for a few interesting differences! 
You can buy a ticket for $1, $2, and $3 dollars.  If you go to a really fancy theatre it might cost $5! These have really big comfy seats and someone comes by to take your food order.  When you get your ticket you reserve your seat... just like when you are on an airplane. Every ticket has a row letter and a seat number on it! The seating is called "stadium seating" just like at home.
In the middle of a movie there is ALWAYS an intermission. They just stop the movie and turn on the lights. That's when we run to get some snacks or go to the bathroom. We all wish they did this at home.
You can get many kinds of snacks.  You can get Indian snacks and western snacks. They sell popcorn too, but sometimes they don't have butter. Just dry popcorn.
My favorite movie I have seen in Indian is, "Avatar." But we just saw a really funny one. Dad, Evan and I all liked it. (Mom was working) It was called, "Despicable Me." Our favorite Indian movie is "3 Idiots." We think Aamir Khan is funny!

In India TV is different too. Here are some of the reasons. It costs only about $7 a month here and $70 at home in Austin. Our TV is called "TataSky." We like to watch cartoon sometimes. The animation for Indian cartoon shows is sometimes pretty bad.

And the acting on regular shows is awful.  Dad says they act kind of like they do in US "soap operas." Everyone has wide eyes and open mouths when something happens. And they look that way for a
  r e a l l y  long time!

Our favorite Indian cartoon is called, "Chota Bheem." (Chota means, "little" in Hindi). It is about a little boy who is very strong and does good things for people.

Mom and Dad say we always have to read first, but we watch western shows here too sometimes. Evan likes "Kick Buttowski, and the cartoon "Mr Bean." We both watch "Phineas and Ferb" and "Ben 10." I sometimes watch "Aaron Stone," "Hannah Montana"  and the "Wizards of Waverly Place."  Dad downloads "Star Wars: The Clone Wars," from iTunes for us because we all like that! 
I hoped you like my explanations of movies and TV here in India!

Mumbai

We went to Mumbai last weekend for our Dad's birthday on Indigo Air. We got to the hotel in an A/C cab. We checked in and went up the super-duper fast elevator to the eleventh floor where our room was. We had a sea view room and a butler! He was pretty nice. Once all of the luggage was in the room and we had our "welcome drink," we took a boat to Elephanta Island.

That is where we saw the old Temple Caves. These are dedicated to the god, Shiva.
Boom!!! Bang!! Crack!!! A storm was starting. We had to walk up about 1,000 stairs (not really, but it felt like 1000) It was raining when we got to the caves.

We saw statues of Shiva and Ganesha, and thought we saw some bats! On the way back down we bought some "Kukare" - Audrey's favorite Indian snack. The boat was a little rocky on the way back, but nobody got sick.

When we got back to the hotel we had "high tea." This was actually like a big lunch with hot drinks and lots of desserts. Then Mom and Dad called for a baby sitter. The hotel brought Dad a birthday cake and champagne! When our babysitter came, Mom and Dad went to dinner. The sitter turned out to be pretty old, so she fell asleep before we had to go to bed. In the morning we went to the breakfast buffet and ate the yummy food!

After that we took a old non-A/C cab to go sight-seeing. Evan wanted to take one of these because it was an old Indian-Fiat "Premiere." They are pretty cool, old-fashioned taxis that you mostly only find in Mumbai. We saw a Temple and a famous old Mosque that looks like it is floating at high tide. It was a little boring since we have seen so many Temples in India. We went swimming in the Taj's pool in the afternoon.

After tea-time, we took a walk. A man took our picture in front of the Gateway of India. This is a memorial for King George V and Queen Mary. It was next to our hotel! There was a cool police armoured car outside by our hotel too! Then Mom and Dad walked with us to some shops nearby.

After that we took a horse-carriage ride around the city. When we got back to the hotel, our Mom and Dad went out to eat, so they got us a another babysitter. She was younger and watched TV with us. This one didn't fall asleep before she put us to bed.

Our New Apartment

Photos by Evan Sayer.

We thought we'd better show you some photos of our new apartment in Nizamuddin, New Delhi. It is a little bigger and nicer than our apartment in Noida. And the ceilings are a taller. We really like it here.

Here is our kitchen. You can see the new microwave and our new oven. We never had an oven before in India! The kitchen looks small, but it is bigger than our old one.

Our dining room and our living room make up one big place. This is where we spend most of our time when it is really hot because it has a big A/C. There is enough room for two couches, two chairs and our TV. We have a balcony and French doors that look out onto our street.

Our room has its own bathroom and our bunk beds. Dad let us keep our keyboard in here too. We have our own door to the utility balcony. That's where Dad does the laundry.

Mom and Dad's room is the same size as ours. They have their own bathroom and a big window that looks out onto our neighborhood park. Our bedrooms have big closets too!
The last room is made into an office. Mom uses that at night when she is on her calls. It has a desk, our shoe bench and the ironing board in it. Savita, our housekeeper uses that mostly. There's a little bathroom and a little balcony too!

Goa

We went to Goa for a long weekend. We flew there on "Spice Jet."  It was very fun, but it was the rainy season there so we thought it would rain every day. But it did not! We were very lucky.
A cab driver named, "Raj" picked us up at the airport.  He had a Maruti "DZire," it was just like our car in Delhi! Then we went sight-seeing in old Goa for three hours that first day. We saw two very famous churches. They were the Cathedral of St Francis of Assisi (1660) and the Cathedral Bom Jesus (1590). This second church is where St Francis Xavier's body is kept. He is a famous Portuguese Saint.

We also visited a small church that was built in 1510. It is called St Catherine's. It is exactly 500 years old this year!
Then we drove two hours to our hotel in South Goa. It was in the town of Palolem and is called, "Oceanic." Evan was afraid the room might be moldy because of all the rain, but it wasn't. It was very nice. They have 2 cats a dog, a swimming pool and A/C! We had dinner and went to sleep.
The next day we went to the beach. We could walk there from our hotel.

We played in the sand and tried to go swimming, but the life guards would only let us swim when the tide was going out because the water was very rough. We jumped in the waves with Mom and Dad.
We found lots of shells and baby clams in the sand. One day we took a hike down the beach and found some rocks in a cliff that looked like a face. We climbed up them to get a closer look.

Mom found a really cool restaurant called, "Cheeky Chapati." It was our favourite. We ate there almost every day because the food was very good. They made yummy western and Indian food. The restaurant was run by an English family who have lived in Goa for six years!
On Tuesday we left for Delhi in the pouring rain. Raj, our driver from the first day drove us back to the airport. We found out what "Monsoon" really means because it rained a lot that last morning! We flew back to Delhi a different airline called, "IndiGo".

Even though it rained a bit, we still got to swim and play on the beach. Our trip to Goa was a lot of fun!