Kya?

Hi there. I've been thinking for a while that I should write a post. I've wanted to- really, but I've had some speed bumps along the way. I was in the clinic for a couple of days with a little something that we here like to call "Delhi Belly." I'll let you just think about that for a bit. There's a certain camaraderie which springs only from being able to share the experience of, let's call it...extra-regularity. It's easy to talk about here, as we've all had/are having/will have again/woke up screaming because of a nightmare in which the primary terror was, it. So much compassion arises from our shared pain. It's glorious, really.

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So that was a couple of days. What next? I don't even know. I don't know anything for sure. Except that, as first articulated by Kate, there is no such thing as too much butter. Anyway, after the few days recovering at, and then from, a stint at my new favorite place (not), here I am, I suppose. I missed a few days in there, but who knows where they went. Not me, as I said before.

There was one day when my theme song was this (see chorus).

There was another when I laughed at the aforementioned theme song. Also, I got a pedicure. But no nail polish. I know, can you even do that? Apparently you can. And while I felt slightly unfulfilled, looking down at my flesh-toned toes, I feel that I made the right decision. Since you asked.

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Today I find myself in a similar place to that preceding my clinic stay. Delhi Belly dies hard. But it's not so bad this time, and at least now I know that if I do end up at the clinic (which I will most certainly not), they have wi-fi - a significant consolation.

Today was not my day. Started out with a little breakfast, and a little bit of what we affectionately call "vom-ing." Awesome (not the good kind). Came to school, where I was a bit out of sorts, and found that today was my day to get my butt kicked by our Hindi teacher. He has a tendency to pick one student every class and pick them apart, proselytising about how they didn't study enough and how they are not remembering the most basic lesson of the class. Today, that was me. On the up-side, I got to skip cooking class, which brings me here.

I was also most disappointed to find that both of the kurtas which I just had shortened are now too short. In fact, I learned that my outfit today was the Indian equivalent of walking around in the States with a sports-coat and sweat pants. Or like Mr. Weasley or Prof. McGonagall when wearing muggle clothes, i.e. not good.

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Speaking of Harry Potter, I will share with you probably the best part of my day. Here goes:

"In one of the Harry Potter books, the budding bodhisattva, Harry, is put under a curse that creates an extremely strong urge to give in to the kleshas and do harm. The power of Harry's intelligence and kindness, however, is even stronger. He doesn't believe the voices of the kleshas or get seduced by their promises of comfort, and so the curse doesn't work."

- Pema Chodron, "No Time to Lose: A Timely Guide to the Way of the Bodhisattva"

What does this mean, you ask? I've no idea. I think it has something to do with Harry's sacrificing his own happiness (for example, when he tells Ginny that he can't be with her because Voldemort will target her if they stay together) for that of all wizarding- and muggle-kind. That's what the Bodhisattvas do- put off their own attainment of Nirvana and escape from the cycle of reincarnation in order to help others to attain Nirvana. Either that, or it's a recipe for tuna fish salad. I was a little unclear on that.

I suppose that's all for now. Back to studying. I should know how to say that in Hindi. Hmm...

For Graham

These are two of my new Indian friends. My friend Ariel and I have named them Chini (sugar) and Masala (spice). When our teacher adopted them from the animal shelter, they had some demoralizing names like Bubbli and Busi...or something. It doesn't matter. Our names are better. Now we just have to wait for the others to catch on.

(Chini is the grey one, Masala is the orange.)

On the Metaphysical Nature of Driving Lanes and Intravenus Chai

10 days is too long in between posts, Alex.
I know. I wanted to write earlier, but I have been very busy.
Busy doing what? I expect you have something to show for your flagrant disregard of communicatory etiquette.
Well...
Well?
Actually, no. I have nothing.
To the dungeon with you!

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Driving here is not like driving anywhere else I have ever been. I always pitied those poor souls who have to learn to drive in NYC. I had never been to Delhi. Of course, so many people here just buy their drivers licenses that learning isn't really an issue... The fact is that I wouldn't be surprised if 90% of drivers in Delhi bought their drivers licenses. Yesterday. But maybe that's not fair. I certainly couldn't navigate the insanity that is our daily commute in a car or car-like creature. Lanes here are truly an amorphous and undefinable thing. They don't really...mean anything. So it actually takes an intense amount of concentration and dexterity to drive without crashing, not to mention avoiding the unconcerned pedestrians and people walking around cars trying to sell bobble-head dogs and head scratchers (apparently there is a large market for these things here).

Honking too is a different story in Delhi than in the United States. Constant honking. All the time. It's necessary though, for the most part. Because when you and your fellow drivers aren't driving under the collective understanding that you will stay in your lane and the next car will do the same, you have to let other cars know where you are. People don't honk because they're mad. In the states, you look at someone hoking their horn and see the steam pouring out of their ears. Here, you look over at a driver who has just been laying on the horn and see him staring contemplatively out at the writhing sea of cars, people, cows, dogs... There may be a lesson to be learned here, but I'm not quite there yet. I'll let you know when I figure it out.

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Last weekend we went to Amritsar, a city in the state of Punjab and home to the Golden Temple and the Indo-Pakistani border. This post will not be about that trip. It will be about the ensuing week of insanity and sleep deprivation. I like to keep this blog for the most exciting, exotic, and impressive topics. Obvi, as my friend Erika would say.

We got home, after a 6 hour train ride, at 11PM. Exhausted from a weekend of non-stop touristing, I went to bed around 1 AM, and was up at 6:45 to catch a rickshaw to school by 7:30. A combination of a hefty amount of reading, starting the week out tired, and not having down/homework time over the weekend turned the week into something closer to heavy-lidded sleepwalking than living. Tuesday morning we had to get up early to go to our first yoga class. I distinctly remember thinking as I was putting on my clothes, I wish I could have some chai right now. I don't want to drink it though, I need it to be administered intravenously, straight into my veins. Instant gratification, warm trickely feeling all through my body, that would be good. Should I be worried?

NOTE: You'll all be glad (I think...) to know that we got a break on Friday. Hindi (morning) class was canceled, and we didn't have any other homework. I slept for 11 hours. Mmmmmmmm.

Peppers, Bollywood, and Monsoons

Yesterday was the birthday of the niece of my host family. We went downstairs for dinner to celebrate her birthday. In the building where we live, there is a brother and his family living on each of the 3 floors with us on the top floor. Dinner consisted of dal, chapati, onions, water, and gelebi (a sweet somewhat like funnel cake). I took a piece of chapati in my right hand and scooped up some dal. Midway through my first bite, I realized that the vegetable which I had mistook for a green bean was in fact a pepper. These peppers, I found out, are meant to be eaten a tiny bite at a time. Not all in one go, as I unfortunately had done. My eyes widened and started watering and my face flushed. At the end of that first bite, the family started catching on that I was in a state of panic. "Pani! Pani!" Water, Water! I shoved chapati into my mouth in between whole glasses of water in one gulp. I eventually recovered, physically. The family enjoyed this show to no end. Hahaha. We had dal today for lunch and I jumped when I thought I found a pepper on my plate.

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Bollywood is fabulous. I am completely enamored. Silly and irreverent and joyful and vibrating with excitement. What could be better?

I, like many other western travelers, have found the Indian etiquette for interaction between men and women to be alarming and quite severe. Don't make eye contact unnecessarily, don't sit down next to a man on the bus, don't respond if a man talks to you on the street, don't dress provocatively... My understanding of what constitutes as "provocative" has changed considerably. I've found, however, that this formality of interaction between men and women is not reflected in movies and television.

During the party last night, we watched a channel airing one Bollywood music video after another. These videos depicted men and women in intimate situations and making provocative gestures. Not surprising in itself, but given the flirting-ban that seems to be in place, it makes me think. It was hard enough growing up in the States, watching movies and TV shows where the characters' love lives were infinitely more active and eventful than mine. I felt like I should have been doing something that I wasn't, like I wasn't up to speed with the cool and edgy crowd.

This, however, was in America, where dating, kissing, holding hands, are accepted between men and women, even same sex couples (shocker! I know...), for both younger people and unmarried adults. This, as far as I can tell, is not the case in India. What must it be like for them, these teenagers, seeing everything but you-know-what on TV and being disallowed from even talking with strangers of the opposite sex? I know that the rules are not so strict for everybody here in this country-that-is-everything. Still though, I wonder...

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Today it rained. A lot. I don't think it ever rains just a little here in Delhi. It was dumping buckets when we were getting ready to leave, so we decided to take a taxi rather than the usual open-air rickshaw. Everybody else in Delhi decided this too, which meant two things: One, we had to wait quite a while before the cab got to our house. Two, the roads were packed. A better word might be flooded, as it would apply in two senses- in terms of cars, and water. The streets were flooded. Did I say that already? Waves upon waves. The rain kept pouring, and the streets looked like huge, muddy rivers. Our car stalled. Several times. I was all for walking to the school early on in the ride, wanting to get out of the car, move my legs, get wet, have an adventure. Maybe even miss a bit more of Hindi class. As it turns out, I didn't need to get out very early for that.

At some points, the water was so high that it seeped in through the bottoms of the doors (yes, I did just say that) and when a car drove by us on either side, water splashed in through the windows opened just a crack so the windows wouldn't fog. Did I mention that it is hot here? It's hotter when it's not raining, but the effect of rain in September in New Delhi is something like being in a sauna in your clothes...with your teacher asking you the different forms of the adjective "dry". HA!

A couple times when we were stalled, waiting for the driver to work his magic (which he did, every time), a car would drive by us in the flooded street. We would feelhear rublingcracklinggrumbling and feel a shaking, up as the car came up to us and back down again as it passed. We would watch the car in front of us bob in the water as the car passed it. The first few times this happened, we grabbed each other's arms in panic. We saw the driver laughing at the cars in front bobbing up and down, and decided not to worry. If he wasn't worried, then we shouldn't be. Hmmm.

We finally got to the turnoff from which point we could walk. We convinced the taxi driver to let us get out and walk the rest of the way (on the other side of the flirting-embargo, everybody is very protective of young women, very concerned with our safety and happiness). We were going to get soaked anyway, and we feared that his Ambassador taxi would not make it through the flooded street between us and school. So, we rolled up our pants, girded our loins, got our ducks in a row, and cautiously stepped out of the car. We then repeated the aforementioned steps as the water was much higher than our hopeful imaginations had led us to believe.

We braved the high waters (up to our knees at some points), warning each other of coming waves and potential rip currents, trying to imagine that the brown color of the water was only due to the copious amounts of chai which seem to line the shelves of this country, pretending to ignore the bits and pieces getting stuck in our sandals deep down in the murky depths.

We did eventually get to class though. We were only an hour late.

मैं हूँ ना

After a two flights, one nearly 10 hours and one nearly eight, je suis la! It took a long time to get the bags all loaded off the plane, but mine wasn't there. On the plane, I mean. So I registered with the young man at the desk, after which I suggested that he give me his phone number, and I could call him and he could show me the sites of Delhi. As it turns out, I did nothing less than proposition him.

I never called him.

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We, myself and the 11 other girls and 2 boys (!) stayed at an ashram - read hostel-meets-religious-sanctuary - for the first week or so. The photo taken above is of a small marble shrine draped in marigolds. Beauty.

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A member of our group turned 22 the day before yesterday. Isaac's host family had a party and invited us as our family is related to theirs. Dinner is served very late here, 8:30 dinner being on the early side. Tummies grumbling, we foreign students sat patiently, our families grinning at us with an expectancy which indicated that we were expected to respond to something they had just said in Hindi. Ummm...

Dinner was served close to 9:30, and was a battle of balancing politeness and avoiding stomach-explosion incidents. The Indian sense of hospitality involves offering- vehemently- food to wayward and unsuspecting travelers in endless quantities. Finally (finally!) it was cake time. After blowing out the candles (which had to be shielded from the constantly whirring fans) and singing happy birthday we were introduced to a strange, exotic, hilarious/excruciating new birthday tradition. Apparently usually only inflicted on young children (this was obviously an exception), every adult cuts off small pieces of cake and hand feeds them to the birthday-girl or -boy. Not only does each person hand feed the birthday boy (in this case), but they end up feeding him multiple pieces in an attempt to get the “perfect” picture, the feeder’s hands poised just out of reach of his mouth with him unsure of whether to go for the bite, or to sit there, mouth open, half full of half-eaten cake, waiting for the photo-op, and associated torture, to pass. Thank goodness for birthdays and culture shock…

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Today we learned the words for beautiful (sundar) and dirty (ghunda). I proceeded to proclaim to the class that I was a dirty girl.

Love from India...