In the Sick Ward

At some point in between the watching of the interminable Mother India at the film archives and the slightly less serious 40-Year-Old Virgin at the guys’ place on Wednesday, I managed to offend my body in such a way that it manifested itself the next morning in what has now been diagnosed as a viral fever.

Now, I don’t get sick. Everyone I know gets sick about once every ten days and makes a big fuss and leaves used tissues everywhere (wimps), but it takes me a good three years to catch something bigger than a headache or a day-long sore throat. But now I’ve mysteriously managed to contract this virus, which makes my head feel like it’s going to fall off if I walk any further than the bakery next door (where I just bought a praline eclair — DON’T JUDGE).

The only things I want to eat are clear vegetable soup (my lunchtime room service order the past three days) and chocolate in any form. I will drink anything, however, with special preferences for hot tea and anything carbonated, so I can numb the back of my throat if I swallow properly. I have been wearing the same clothes for the past three days, despite two hot baths and a shower. My expression, I would imagine, is somewhat dazed. I sound like I have emphysema. But apart from all of this there is not really any pain and no nausea, and I’ve been reasonably productive. For example, I’ve finished almost all of my Power and Contestation reading. And I’ve tried multiple times to watch an episode in the fifth season of Grey’s Anatomy, with minimal results. And I flossed a few times.

I don’t have it as bad as some other people in the program, who are dealing with stomach issues. I will gladly accept fever and sore throat over stomach issues.

But I forgot how bad Sprite tastes. Lemon Mirinda anyday.

yeah, that’s my update.

Tamil bound.

Alright–so apparently I’m better at writing about mundane, everyday American life than I am at writing about entirely different, exhaustively interesting India. Or maybe it’s the fact that my own computer refuses to connect to the wireless here, and that the ‘a’ key mysteriously stopped functioning. Maybe I feel like there’s too much to explain about life here, and not enough time to consolidate it all.

Regardless.

Tonight I’m leaving with Isa and Clara (travelling companions from UChi) for Tamil Nadu, India’s south. The train ride will last about a day, and then we’ll spend the night in Chennai, and spend the rest of the week in Tiruvannamalai and Pondicherry until we come back next weekend. I am anticipating my first experience with India’s oceanfront, and southern food, and possibly having major communication difficulties for the first time in this country. Most people there make a point of refusing to learn Hindi.

Things on my mind:

• Massive anxiety/excitement over the upcoming election in the states
• Greatly looking forward to downtime–reading, cards, and my iPod on the train; lazy beach time with cocktails
• Do I have any money?

The magic of the pomegranate.

Too much has happened since I’ve last written to make a coherent post that covers it all. I have moved into a fancy hotel. I have made travel plans for our break, a week from now. I have met two groups of people, and introduced these people to each other. I have drunk a long island iced tea in a bar beside my TA. I have ridden side-saddle in a skirt on a motorcycle. 

But I feel it’s only possible to begin with one thing at a time, and today I want to talk about the pomegranate.

I had never eaten a pomegranate before I came to India. Whereas most people love fruit, I have a very picky and uncomfortable relationship with it. I hate bananas. I also dislike apples generally, unless they’re in some sort of dessert. Oranges are good, but only sometimes. My disdain for strawberries, I think, is widely known among my friends. I have few exceptions to this hatred of fruit. Pineapple–pineapple is good. This past summer in Jaipur, I became fond of mango. I also discovered lychee… which is glorious and deserving of much verse and praise. 

But by far, my favorite fruit is now the pomegranate. In fact, I have developed a steadily increasing pomegranate addiction. Fruit markets and carts are widely available here and last Friday night I set out for one down a few narrow lanes near the hotel. It looked lovely–all lit up with lights strung through the bazaar, a narrow walkway in between carts on both sides selling every kind of fruit and vegetable, scales on the side of each cart, the smell of incense that someone is always burning. I asked one man about the price of his pomegranates and ended up walking away with a kilo of them–5 or 6–for 100R. (that’s about 50 cents a pomegranate). 

In the summer, our cook at the program would sometimes add pomegranate seeds and something green to the rice. It was delicious, but it wasn’t until a week ago, when my roommate Clare offered me one that I decided I needed to create space for pomegranates in my life. And now, like some kind of addict, I’m buying a kilo at a time and sometimes running out within a day. I usually have one or two in the morning between Hindi and my Religion and Arts class, and one or two later in the night while studying. And then maybe right before I go to bed. And maybe at some other time, too.   

If you’ve never had a pomegranate, they seem very strange–you open the orange-sized rind to find hundreds of bright red seeds, all packed up neatly into separate compartments. Breaking into the little compartments is immensely satisfying, like winning. The pomegranate is the cat of the fruit world; it requires attention and work before it rewards you. (An admittedly weird simile; it’s been two weeks, give me a break.)

Once you get to the seeds though, you find that they taste lovely. They lack all of the aspects that turn me away from other fruit. Bananas have a grossly squishy texture; pomegranates are crisp, with a thin skin and a watery inside. And the taste is clean, tangy and somewhat woodsy and floral. 

Wondering why I’d never had a pomegranate before, I approached Wikipedia and discovered some interesting facts:

1. The pomegranate is native from the Middle East to the Himalayan foothills of India. It is widely used in these areas, as well as Central Asia and Southern Europe and some parts of Southeast Asia. It was introduced into the Americas (think: California) later on and is primarily used there for juice production. India makes wide use of the pomegranate however, which is why it’s available at all the fruit markets, and why it was in my rice (and a dosa, recently, I think.) 

2. Because the pomegranate has been historically native in an area where several major religions developed, it is a frequently mentioned fruit in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Also, there are some people who believe the forbidden fruit that Adam and Eve partook of in the Garden of Eden was a pomegranate instead of an apple.  

3. The pomegranate is high in vitamin C and vitamin B5. It is also high in antioxidants and has been shown as effective in reducing the risk for cardiovascular disease.

Have you experienced a pomegranate? Now’s the time. Embrace life!

One of the guys.

Have you ever wondered what four drunk (well.. three drunk, the fourth on Red Bull) college-aged Indian guys do in the early morning hours in the company of an equal drunk foreign girl?

Dance, as it turns out. Dance. And dance. And dance.

I should have figured this out from Harish, back in the states. The guy loves to dance. I should have noticed that it was strange, and I should have related it back to his subcontinent. But I did not, and as a result, I’m still wonderfully blindsided and charmed by the fact that in this country of nearly two billion, I’ve yet to meet a guy who won’t dance.

And not just won’t–that makes it sound like they need to be prodded first. No. These men are born to dance. They pull you back in when you try to sit down and rest. They spin you. And they move, whether or not you’ll move with them; it almost seems involuntary.

So, how did I find myself dancing with four guys I’d just met at 4 in the morning?

It started with only one of them, who slowed down on his bike the night before, after he saw me walking back to my guesthouse in the dark. Did I need a ride? he asked. I looked suspicious. No, I said, I can walk. Are you an Osho? he asked. No, I said. And so the questions continued until we were in conversation, and then I was being invited for coffee, and then I got on the bike and then I was having coffee with a stranger.

Undeniably, this sounds sketchtastic. It’s just another difference in this country that such behavior does not necessarily presume a creepy person. I have written before about the informality of India; this is partially what I mean. He stopped for obvious reasons but his eyes were innocent, not probing. And I was tired of only meeting people who wanted to talk about my aura.

So we had our coffee, I discovered that he was willing to only talk, and he promised to take me to an event at his college the next day before dropping me off. We hung out some more the next day, and that night I met his friends, and we went to his place, and hookah was smoked, and white wine and beer and a tiny bottle of vodka worked their way around the group, and everyone’s personalities became transparent, and before the night was out I was being declared one of them and given an alcohol-saturated pass into their group of friends.

Akshay–the first one I met–is one of many guys I’ve met in India that neither smoke nor drink. I admire his ability to be happily sober in a group of drunk people, something that’s not always particularly fun. But he’s a pretty straight-laced guy, as it’s become clear. His room was plastered with motivational posters that might be available at a teachers’ supplies outlet, and a hand-written sign was stuck on the wall to remind himself, “If I become a successful businessman, a few people will know me, whereas if I become a successful cricketer, the world will know me.”

They all attend a prestigious business school, but A. is apparently a highly prized cricketer as well. In fact, the U.S. is currently forming a team, and he’s in negotiations to join it; the downside being that his future in Indian cricket would be done for, and that’s really where his heart is.

A.’s two friends Kalyan and Sumit were an interesting contrast to his more reserved and polite personality. K., the oldest of the three, discussed movies and books and music and as the night wore on became more and more of a flirt. S., on the other hand, is the youngest, and had no apparent interest in me but chain-smoked, drank like a fish, and was the most wildly enthusiastic dancer. He could have danced all night. Like Audrey Hepburn.

S.’s friend Chetan–a year younger than him–eventually joined us as well, a very quiet guy who nevertheless partook of the smoking and dancing. It turns out that American preteens have no monopoly on Truth or Dare; in fact, four college-aged Indian guys will very happily play the game. This is what followed the hookah but preceeded the dancing, and there was seduction, talk of virginity and the loss of it, and C.’s forced proposal to me (”I love you… I love you.. I love you because you are a foreign.”)

I went to the bathroom and came out to find the four guys dancing to some Hindi pop song. When I tried to sit down, I was pulled back up, but I felt too awkward to dance to whatever was on so I put on Shakira instead. Even I can’t resist Shakira. And then I found myself shaking my hips and working my way around their circle to dance with each one, enjoying the power of being the only girl. I also noticed for the first time the upward tug at the corners of my mouth that comes with wine drunkenness; involuntary and persistent smiling.

All in all it was a very good night, and not entirely unlike time spent with friends back home. Except, of course, being one of the guys, a curious new place for me… but one I kind of like. It teaches me things. For example, I partially understand cricket now.

Partially.

Adjusting my chakras in Pune

I admit Pune did not endear herself to me immediately. I was a bit dazed coming off the train from Delhi–a train ride that exceeded 24 hours and involved catching up on old podcasts and giving some of the lesser-listened music on my iPod a chance, as well as reading a sizeable chunk of Roald Dahl’s short stories for adults (some of them surprisingly creepy [I can suggest some if you're interested!]).

As is par for the course, in getting off the train one is waylaid by men who want to carry one’s bag for money. I didn’t feel like fighting anyone off, as I have six month’s worth of crap with me. The man carried the bag outside to the rickshaw-wallah and immediately demanded 150R, an exhorbitant amount of money. He had mentioned this amount before scooping up the suitcase and running away with it, so I cut my losses and handed it over. In front of the rickshaw-wallah, unfortunately… who, after I gave the name of the cheapest hotel in the Rough Guide I’ve inherited from Gina, said he’d take me there for 200R. It was an insane price–like, 4 times the amount that considered normal, and I lost my calm.

“NO!” I yelled. “I can’t.” I checked my poor, beleaguered maroon wallet. “That’s SO expensive. BAHUT MAHENGA! Look, I only have 140R. That’s ALL I HAVE. That’s ridiculous! It should be 50R, MAYBE. I’ve been in India! I know prices!”

He remained smiling, and pointed out that I had just handed the guy carrying my luggage 150R. “I shouldn’t have!” I said. “I won’t. No. I can’t give you that much.”

But I had little to no choice. My suitcase was already jammed in the rickshaw and I was hard-pressed to get it out and then into another one, where I would just as likely be asked for some obscenely out-of-proportion amount of money.

After I went to the guesthouse and saw that it was barren and they asked for much more than the book said and far more than it was worth, I refused and told the rickshaw-wallah I needed to go somewhere CHEAP. Cheap like less than 500R. cheap. To make a boring story shorter, he took me to a place finally–the place I am now–and eventually wanted 250 fucking rupees out of me.

To give you an idea of how outrageous and unfair that is, the rickshaw driver in Amritsar asked for a total of 400R. (100R. from each person) to drive us 45 minutes to the border with Pakistan, wait an entire hour or more for the border closing ceremony to complete, and drive us all the way back. The Pune rickshaw-wallah wanted more than half that amount for the 15 minutes he spent driving me around a tiny section of Pune.

I became so outraged that I literally had a meltdown. “NO!” I screamed. I then proceeded to call him four letter words, and scream in Hindi about how it’s only because I’m a foreigner, and I know how much things should cost. It was, admittedly, a little absurdly disproportionate of a reaction.

It’s not that I’m loathe to part with six dollars. It’s much more that I feel incredibly affronted to be treated as a naive foreigner. I’ve been here three months and at this point it’s more like living here, rather than traveling. And damned if I’m going to be treated like I don’t know what’s going on. I’ve powered through a lot of it and fought my way to correct prices and honesty with locals. I make a sincere effort to speak the language, for God’s sake. I stay for the most part in modest lodgings that the Indian middle-class avoids. So when I’m asked, by someone with a straight face, for more than twice what something is worth, it sends me into a crazy tirade much faster than anything else.

Aaherm.

So, like I was saying, Pune and I didn’t get off on the right foot. After I threw the money at the rickshaw-wallah and told him to “Get away from me”, I went up into my room, locked myself inside, and allowed myself to sob quietly for a couple minutes. Then I curled under the blanket and slept.

This wedge the country drives in between you and everyone else–which says “You’ll never belong here”–gets me sensitive sometimes.

I felt a little less insane when I woke up. I decided to take a walk, to take in a little of Pune, gauge the difference between the north and the south.

Here’s one thing: The weather down here? It’s comfortable. Like, comfortable enough that you can walk around outside without feeling absolutely miserable and wanting with all your heart just to be inside. All of the north–with the exception of cool and calm Dharmshala–was, simply put, horrible for living. The sun was so intensive that the day was almost unenjoyable. It beat you into a submissive and yawning slave to the shade, and then it laughed at you when you passed by pools of water that were clogged with garbage and colored a noxious green. Northern India during monsoon season is unkind.

But down here, the weather is lovely. It’s warm but not hot, breezy but not chilly. I can wear jeans and not be soaked with sweat. Big, grey clouds roll in and soften the day. Gentle rain comes down and makes a jacket seem appropriate. My back doesn’t sweat (don’t look grossed out; I told you north India is intense). My feet don’t sweat. NOTHING SWEATS. It’s almost like I’m not in India or something.

Not wanting to die when I’m outside means I’ve no use for rickshaws and I’ve rediscovered walking. And, to further expound on the glories of the south, there are more trees (especially beautiful, expansive banyan trees), less garbage, and less dust.

And then there’s the German Bakery.

I have been here one day and eaten there twice. Last night and this morning. And it was so good that I ate the same thing. A mixed vegetable omelette (small aside: I am not sure why, but for some reason Indians really know how to make omelettes. I think the best omelettes I’ve ever eaten come from here) and two pieces of toast, real toast, like real-bread, whole-wheat home-made toast, not the refined flour white bread equivalent that is the widely available alternative here. And then a pot of tea–hot tea without milk or sugar, the way I like it. Chai has its place, but in the end I’ll be crawling back to the plain old hot water and loose leaves, begging for it to take me back.

It is beautiful, the German Bakery.

I also looked around and came to understand Pune a little better as I sipped my tea and sat awkwardly alone. That’s one clue: awkwardly alone. There are two things that stand out especially about Pune. One: It is a university town. There are many fine universities here, and as a result the population is largely young (even for India) and, well, hip. Like, the guys were smoking, for instance. And wearing Converse shoes. And looking really hip while smoking and wearing Converse shoes and drinking their coffees. Two: Pune was the chosen settling-place of Bhagwan Rajneesh, or Osho, the sometimes respected, sometimes notorious Indian philosopher and semi-cult leader who sort of epitomised the 1960’s eastern spiritual movement, what with his teachings on free love and awakening the unconscious and whatnot. Osho set up an ashram in Pune, less than a kilometer from where I am now, and as a result, many foreigners and Indians who follow Osho have ended up here to meditate or smoke weed, usually a combination.

In other words, I have gone from perhaps the most conservative part of India to possibly the most liberal, a place where hippie spirituality saturates. How about a couple people for a case in point?

This morning at the German Bakery, as I was indulging in a chocolate croissant (forgive me, body) and enjoying some Roald Dahl, an Indian guy slid onto the wooden bench across from me, right in front of the Tulsi Organic Tea sign. “Mind if I sit here?” he asked. He introduced himself as “Ray”.

I continued trying to read, but he lit up a cigarette and struck up a conversation, asking what I was reading and whether I worked in Pune. After returning the question, he said, “I’m a part-time model,” and I tried to swallow back a smile; really, it’s hard to stay straight-faced when a stranger leans forward across the table from you, blows a puff of smoke and says, “I’m a part-time model.” It was then that I really looked at him and noticed his long, silky, wavy hair (a mane that would make Fabio seethe with jealousy), his smooth skin and symmetric features. I also felt a little self-conscious with my black-rimmed glasses and thick book. But I still had the upper hand; I was somehow not attracted to him.

Ray was unusually chatty and somewhat embarrassingly… spiritual. He gave me his short backstory–24 years old, from a village in Kerala–and peppered me with a host of strange questions; “Which came first, darkness or light?” and announced he was in Pune to meditate and “learn why I’m here, where I’m going”.

“You think you’re going to find out?” I asked, amused, but too quietly. “We all need to turn inside,” he explained at some point, and “We’re all energy, made of the same thing, everything is God to me, that tree and you and I, we’re all the same thing.” I nodded. He then began rather frankly to talk about sexuality and explained his conflict between sensuality and spirituality. At this point he had talked me into a walk around the Osho park, and I mentally noted that I was walking under banyan trees with a strikingly attractive person I wasn’t attracted to, having a conversation about sex that I hadn’t particularly wanted to get into. I wondered if he assumed I was somebody that I wasn’t.

The whole conversation was enlightening for me. I have in the past referred to myself at times as a hippie for various reasons–being a indifferent and occasionally clueless or scruffy dresser, caring too much about recycling–but there is one thing I cannot pretend to have in common with most hippies: I am so. not. spiritual. The word itself makes me cringe slightly. I will simply not buy anything you try to sell about “inner light” or my “third eye” or “awakening” my whatever. I think yoga and meditation are good; I think they are physically and mentally productive, that they do good things for the heart rate and breathing and release helpful chemicals. But I won’t go further. And what else, I am so. not. free. love. I view all of these things with a suspicious and skeptical eye. There’s too much to be exploited with these views; people’s money and bodies can be talked into another person’s hands. Just ask how much it costs to enter Osho’s ashram of inner peace and meditation. I can meditate for free.

And when Ray started asking distressingly probing sexual questions like, “Do you have a fantasy?” with that casual and drunken-smile look of a Free Lover (and he laughed at great length, that high-pitched Indian man-giggle, when I said the answers to his questions were “personal”), and invited me some ten minutes later to stop by his place so he could give me some books containing Osho’s wisdom, I had to decline and hightail it down the street.

Because that’s not me, it turns out. That’s so not me. Talk about physics. That I will listen to.

The guesthouse owner likes to bid me adieu by taking one of my hands in between two of his, closing his eyes, letting loose a string of “Om shanti om shanti om shanti om”’s and, apparently, reading my aura. Tonight he diagnosed a problem with my neck chakra. Said it’s blocked; thus, I have trouble communicating.

Hope this is clear enough for you.

train log, Delhi to Pune

So here I am, once more on a bumpy night train to a new and somehow different aspect of India. This time? South India, or my version of it, my final (well..) destination of Pune. I will have ten days before my program (autumn quarter!) begins and I don’t know what I’ll do. I may succumb to the travel bug and check out either the southeast (Chennai, Pondicherry) or the southwest (Kerala), depending on which place I decide not to go on the week off in October or November or whenever it is. I’d like to see both areas.

But I’m not much for solo travel, as it’s harder to buck off the more tenacious individuals alone. Take this train trip (a rousing ~30hrs, oh my!) on which, at some point earlier I’d decided to slip on over to an empty berth with a window view, clutch my blanket, and listen to music. I even had a little curtain to draw! Solitary bliss.

But it was not without a struggle, as a quite-older Punjabi guy who’d seen me earlier ducked into the seat across from me and insisted on a conversation. It was the usual (I’m in India to learn Hindi/civ, I’ve gone herehere and here) except when he asked about a boyfriend I invented one in the states. I was obviously a little agitated and disinterested in conversation, but he just sat there. Finally I put on my headphones and five minutes later he gave up on friendly exchanges and left (although he did insert a strange little palm-stroking thing during the handshake that creeped me out).

I don’t hate and rudely banish all conversation, obviously, but sometimes I’m just not up for it and refuse to carry politeness past the first several minutes. I had looked for my own seat to wrap the solitude around me. My own compartment, which I’ve again escaped from (I’m like the pathologically wandering foreigner), contains three fat women who spread themselves out along the bottom seats such that I really only have the top berth–I can’t sit upright. They talk a lot and burp audibly and frequently, which disgusts me. To think I’ve seen so many things (innumerable people relieving themselves in public places, for example) and what revolts me is the loudly burping women in my train compartment.

I was happy to leave Delhi. I don’t much like Delhi, for whatever reason. After seeing the refreshingly green countryside of Punjab, the glistening Golden Temple, the cool and winding Himachal foothills and the candles lit inside shops during power outages, the simple and peaceful image of Tibetan prayer flags strung above a waterfall, the sand dunes of the expansive Thar desert.. Delhi has little to offer in the way of charm. It does offer Kamal (meaning “lotus flower”), the most adorable budding hospitality professional I have probably ever met, who had some actual conversations with me, and flashed that smile, and wore a twin red thread around his wrist, like the one I got in the Ajmer mosque and have worn almost every day subsequently. Oh, Kamal.

I’m sorry to report that the night of the bombings that seemed to have been meant for me was only strange and surreal and sad for one night. The next morning it felt like a detached fact of the previous day, like my breakfast or an afternoon purchase. This is the fourth major attack of terrorism this year, all within only the past five months, three of which have happened while I’ve been in the country. As horrible as it sounds, it has begun to feel like some kind of norm. There is a routine to it. A few days of media coverage and public discourse, a condemnation from the prime minister, and then a quiet slip into the background. The glass is swept up, people get back into the markets, the police stand around, trying not to look like they don’t know what they’re doing.

This talk about not liking Delhi and terrorism and irritating conversations has me thinking about something Matt (one of my travel companions, and now, friends) and I were talking about. He mentioned that he thought it was unfortunate when people gave a negative impression of the country in which they were traveling (via blogs, information to friends, etc). Given that the country isn’t “ours”, it seems unfair to waltz into it and judge everything according to our biased standards. It just promotes a bad image of the country.

It struck me, the way he was talking about it… he sounded actually concerned. I said I found it even more obnoxious when people traveled and delivered only a glowing and glittery impression of their destination. To mention some of India’s best qualities and turn a blind eye to things like pollution and sexism is, frankly, unrealistic. Still, dwelling on these things without making note of how culturally ingrained and therefore difficult to both understand and conquer they are–that’s also pretty unrealistic.

And the conversation made me wonder if I’m portraying India poorly, with some of the negative things I say. The negative often requires more thought than the positive, which is maybe why it slips much more easily into writing. But if it’s the case, I’d like to establish that my view of India is overwhelmingly complicated but nuanced by so many positive things I have yet to touch on and have trouble explaining.

in delhi

I have been to quite a few places over the last two weeks–the center of Sikhism, the sanctuary of exiled Tibetans, on the back of a camel in desert sand dunes–but I don’t know when I’ll feel up to writing the details. Sleeping on trains and oppressive heat and minimal internet access makes the internet, when available, feel like an opportunity I don’t know how to handle. I check my e-mail, check Google news, and I’m overwhelmed. But now, a short and recent update.

Today we came back to Delhi, via an overnight train from Jaisalmer. We spent the afternoon wandering, picking up a couple things that we needed, eating leisurely. We had some cold coffee to cool down, headed over to Planet M to get Matt’s friend a gift, and then over to the Center Park to rest in the shade of a tree. It was hard to find, this tree, as all those growing were small like bushes, not yet able to provide shade. It can be hard to find shade in this country, and I feel like that can function as a broad metaphor but I’m too drained to actually analyze it much further.

In the tiny patch of shade we found, hiaku were created. Last-Day-of-India haiku, for the three leaving, the three other than myself.

We left Center Park and went to a restaurant, the most expensive we’d all eaten at together, which served “blissful” Chinese food–their description, not mine. We ate well and talked about American television, which seems like such a strangely distant and inaccessible treat to me here. Comfort is a thing far away. The three discussed the merits of Boulder, and it made me miss America. Some days I really do. Miss it, that is. Chicago and lakeshore path and cycling and bitter snow and morning tea and coffee shops with friends and my bed, I miss little bits of my life back home and allow myself sometimes to think about it. By the end of today–by now–my sister and friends would be (are) gone. Gina goes home, the guys are bound for Turkey and then Europe. Every once in a while, on rare days, India feels all wrong and I sigh and deal with it.

Now comes the part, 6:15pm, when we leave the restaurant and wander toward the road to look for a rickshaw. We head up one street and I approach an empty auto and the apparent driver who is sitting nearby, staring dejectedly at the ground in front of him. “Is this your auto?” I ask in Hindi, but he just looks up with heavy eyes and motions us away. Gina mentions that she’s seen a lot of poor people, but she’s never seen someone looking so depressed in India.

Now the part when we mill out to the street and finally do find an auto, I bargain down a price, and we’re all four squeezed in and headed back to the hotel. And we hear a couple of explosions nearby and I tell everyone it’s probably fireworks, Indians are always setting off fireworks for any reason.

And then the part when we get back to the hotel, turn on the television, and see that four bombs have exploded in Delhi, and the number of dead begins to grow, and familiar places a mile away are on the screen, covered in blood, and it’s at Block M, where we bought a couple albums not 3 hours before, and Center Park, where we made up Indian haiku in the shade less than 2 hours before. And those people milling around us all day, getting new shoes or trying to get rupees for missing fingers or meeting friends, whichever of those people chose to follow our path a few hours later than us.. saw broken glass and blood and screaming.

And what I keep thinking about is the man on the curb, staring at the ground. I don’t know why, but I keep thinking about him.

And now, up to date, is the part where I’m at the hotel, and people are clean, and I just feel. Strange.

chai with strangers

All I wanted was to go swimming.

I have done nothing the past two days, and that’s only barely an exaggeration. With everybody gone, I have lacked the motivation to go anywhere or do anything. It seemed like too much work. I thought of calling Aashiq (this being the right English spelling) but kept dancing around the idea, due to the awkward possibilities it could introduce. Then my phone died and I lost the charger, withdrawing the possibility.

So I just wanted to go swimming. I wanted to get out of this house.

Over the summer, some friends had gone to the Ramada Inn nearby and had no problem swimming–they were even given fluffy white towels. I brought my own towel, but met with no luck. After having two doors opened for me to get inside the vast, air-conditioned lobby (far more luxurious than any American Ramada Inn) I explained that I wanted to use the pool. The staff motioned me to a plush beige couch and conferenced. A few moments later I was told only guests could use the pool. “Even if I pay?” I asked. The man gave a graceful bow of the head to indicate apologies. I nodded and retreated back out into the scorching sun.

Returning to the house was disappointing, so less than an hour later I was back out, having decided I would take “A Passage to India” and go to Anokhi, a cafe with comfortable chairs and good food. I would have a sweet lime soda and this tomato-mozzarella pizza-esque thing I’d had in the past. It would be good and I would be spoiled and I would be out for a while.

Anokhi was, embarrassingly, a retreat for a number of foreigners at the time. British accents drifted toward me from different directions. Across from me an American and a British man, both slightly loud and overweight, were engaged in conversation. “Well this is a nice escape,” one pointed out. The American lamented a hair in his food and discussed a similar situation in the U.S. when a hair in the food meant a free meal. These people were irritating me. Their tone of voice was irritating, and suddenly the whole situation was irritating, this Western-modeled, comfortable, organic-food providing, videshi-magnet cafe. I’d had my food and it was good, but now I needed somewhere else. I also needed money. So I went outside and found a napping autowala. I prodded him awake and got him to take me to Citibank on M.I. Road, but he refused to take me to the old city. So I withdrew some money and waited by the side of the very busy street.

A happy-looking cyclewala pulled up beside me and motioned me into the seat. “I need to go to the old city,” I explained. He motioned me in again. “How much?” I asked. “80 rupees,” he said. Several things having annoyed me today, I simply said no and started walking away. He lowered to 50, apparently carefree about the price, and because I still don’t know the layout of this city well enough to know rickshaw prices between many destinations, I gave in. Also because he was so happy. Maybe I would pay extra for some kindness.

After establishing that I could speak Hindi, he decided to become very engrossed in conversation. This happens frequently–because people at the level of rickshawvalas are not usually the highest educated and tend to be very limited in English, and because few Hindi-speaking foreigners ever venture through the city, a foreigner’s speaking Hindi opens up a conversational territory they rarely see. Now he could crane his head around and ask–why was I here? Where was I from? What do I think of India? Do I drink chai?

Answering affirmative on the last question, I suddenly found that we were pulling to a stop alongside the road and I was being ushered out of the rickshaw toward a chai cart and a small congregation of men. One pointed me to a wooden stool and I sat in everyone’s curious gaze. I heard the grinning rickshawvala explain me to the men as well as he could: “She’s a student, she’s 20 years old, she speaks some Hindi.”

People took up stools around me and asked more questions–where was I studying? How is Hindi? A glass of water was offered, but I demured as politely as possible, after having just watched a small child shitting into a gutter. I watched the chaiwala heat the milk and tea in an iron pot and stir with a ladel, and then the chai was distributed, and another man was placing a small glass of the steaming beige drink in my hand. I drank, slightly amused. What if I needed to be somewhere at a certain time? What if someone was in the hospital? Chai waits for no one.

Our drinks consumed and we were back in the rickshaw, him chatty as ever. He pointed out a place where marriages take place. I nodded. He offered free Hindi lessons. I declined. He stopped, turned around, and said that he would take me to the old city, but first he wanted to pick up his children from school. “I have three children! First I’ll pick up my children, then I’ll drop them off, then I’ll take you to the old city. Is this fine?” I suppose I could have said no, but my curiosity was piqued. It’s not like I had anywhere to be, really.

We came near to the old city I’ve been familiar with and he veered in a new direction and stopped. He promptly left the rickshaw without a word. It was a new scene. Men with giant knives were absently slicing at the bodies of chickens. Live chickens, some grotesque and half-plucked, were squeezed into small cages, some with conversational boys sitting on top. Chickens walked in the street. In front of me was a fruit cart and women with covered heads were buying fruit. All around, women had their heads covered and some men wore skullcaps. Political posters–likely not for the BJP–were strung through the alley like Buddhist prayer flags. This was a Muslim neighborhood.

The rickshawvala came back without a word and hopped back on the bike, and then we were on our way toward the school. We went deeper through alleys and turns, vaguely uphill. “This is the oldest part of the old city,” he explained, as the alleys became narrower and I felt like I was going back in time.

Horse- and donkey-drawn carts were sharing the street. A girl was hand-washing a pair of jeans with a cup of water outside her door. Large cast-iron pots sat over fires at the side of the street, preparing food for a restaurant. Carts of bricks and stones passed by. Piles and piles of fabric and shredded old cotton were being examined by groups of women. Two men rode past on a camel. Gnarled old trees rose upward and shaded sections of the street. A man rested on a cot, smoking a cigarette. I wish I could properly describe the architecture–crumbling brick fortifications and plaster-covered walls with old paint in faded blue and yellow and pink hues. Doors were open and inside tiny rooms led into other tiny rooms.

We wound uphill. Slowly a beautiful cream-colored fort came into view on a hilltop nearby and I made the surprising and happy realization that I was in the part of the city that I had viewed with such curiosity only a couple of weeks ago from inside the fort. On the top of that hill, this part of the city–so close–looked like a maze of alleys with the beautiful connected buildings shining in the dusk. It looked like a Middle Eastern desert city, like something from A Thousand and One Nights. It didn’t look much different from the ground.

We came so near to the hill that the we went past some of the fort’s old walls. Finally, the driver stopped and announced it would be “only ten minutes”. He ushered me into a park to enjoy the grass and bushes and trees and there I sat, watching people nap and play and watch me back. When I walked out of the park he came right up with his rickshaw, three tiny people in tiny school uniforms seated inside. He motioned next to the tiniest, a little boy with dangling feet and only one shoelace in one shoe, who stared at the surroundings. He introduced me to the children quickly–I have forgotten all of their names, as I’ve heard a lot of Indian names today–and we went back in the same direction to their house, a little slice in the plaster wall. I managed to get one picture, which of course attracted a great deal of attention. I got the two little boys–the girl was too shy, maybe, and ran inside.

And finally, after maybe half an hour, the rickshawvala dropped me in the old city. I didn’t know where I was, but I wasn’t about to say anymore.. I thought I might end up eating dinner with his family or meeting his parents. Eventually I got to where I wanted to be, a little shop I’d been in once before, down a very narrow alley. The shopkeeper (Devraj, his name I do recall) remembered me and we struck up a rapport–he introduced me to his brother and told me about his family, how long he’d owned the shop, told me his age and about his two sons. A lot of people have one particular thing they’re intrigued about with foreigners, and for Devraj, apparently, it was alcohol. He wanted to know if I drank it, how much I drank, if I drank alone or with friends. I laughed and answered his questions, wondering what he’d heard about Americans. After I bought what I came for, the brothers asked me if I’d like chai. It was about that time. I’ve become just as addicted as the rest of this country, so I stayed on and talked a little more, until a little boy came bearing the glasses and for a second time that day a small hot glass of steaming chai was placed in my hand by someone I barely knew.

Say whatever you want about the Indian people, they do not deny you your chai.

We drank together and across the alley the call the prayer was ending in the mosque upstairs. Down the steep concrete stairs and into the alley flowed a river of men in white kurtas and pants, wearing their skullcaps. Of all the sounds I love in India, possibly my favorite is the eerily beautiful sound of musical prayer drifting from the mosque. I am not religious, but it still sounds sacred to me.

And so I was happy, it was getting cooler and darker, and I caught an auto back to Raja Park, “gurdwara ke pas” as I will only say a few more times. I walked through the park opposite the house and the requisite schoolchildren came to greet me–always all wanting to shake hands, and a particular few going so far as to kiss my hand. It’s a bit silly but not a bad greeting all the same.

And not a few steps from my house I was called back by a few teenage boys who scattered a number of questions over me, the same I’d answered all day, and they answered the same I often asked. (One studies biology and when I asked “To be a doctor?” he answered with a cheerfully blunt, “Oh no, we are poor.”)

The outspoken of the group was 17, a good-looking and outgoing guy, and he introduced himself as “Mohammad Aashiq”.

“Aah, Mohammad,” I said. “We are Muslim,” he pointed out. “Musselman,” I intoned. “Yes!” he said, and asked after my religion. I tried to explain I didn’t have one, but ended up just saying I was Catholic; it was easier, and “I don’t have a religion” doesn’t translate well, culturally speaking. He began to probe at the interesting questions, what do I think of President Bush, how did I feel about 9/11, but the conversation only lasted so long and they had to go for dinner.

The contrast between the coldness of the inside of this house and the warmth I find outside of it is striking. This family has amassed wealth, puts additions on their house, buys the newest cell phones, and displays great resentment in feeding me. Meanwhile, so many that I’ve met–Namak, Ravi, Devraj–have very little money and are still happy to buy me a glass of chai and engage in conversation.

I bet no one in this family knows the name of a single worker creating the precious addition on their roof.

Having my say, or, TAKE THAT, kanjus* family!

The following is my evaluation of my host-family, which I will be sending to the director of the program shortly. I have about one week left in this house. And then… liberation. Abbreviations will be used to protect the kanjus.

—

To Whom It May Concern:

I do not think I have ever written an evaluation as negative (and lengthy) as this will doubtless end up being, but imagining its composition has been my greatest solace through many frustrations over the past several weeks (month?). It will be about my home-stay experience. Just to make reading it more enjoyable for you, I will inform you now that I don’t blame the program itself for these frustrations. So relax, bear with me, and let us begin:

After visiting all of the families and creating a system of placing ourselves, I found myself at the B. house. The family was higher up on my list for a couple of shallow reasons: I liked the bathroom, and the room was non-AC and thus a little cheaper than the air-conditioned alternatives. There was one other room besides my own and it was filled by another student named Rebecca. Mine was on the roof, had a cooler, and was 6500R; hers was in the house, had an air conditioner, and cost 8000R.

Almost as soon as we got to the house, and as I was moving my luggage into my room, the host-mother mentioned that the cooler rarely works “in this season” and suggested I sleep in Rebecca’s room. I tried to sleep in the roof room with the cooler on and did find it too hot, so I wasn’t really sure what to do and Rebecca and I took to sharing a room.

After a couple of weeks, we began to want our own space and Rebecca mentioned that she might move out if they couldn’t provide an alternative. She informed the family of this decision and the mother asked if we’d both stay if she put air conditioning in the roof room. We agreed and she spent a day or two thinking about this, and instead decided to repair the cooler (which apparently was just broken, having nothing to do with the season). It was pretty clear she just wanted us to split one room and pay for two, possibly to keep electricity costs lower.

After I’d moved into the roof room, it apparently became invisible to the family. At night, the gate down into the house (where our shared bathroom was) got locked soon after dinner, and it became a problem as I often hadn’t gotten ready for bed before it was locked and there was not really a way to get a hold of the family (I called my roommate to let me back in the first few times). The room (and my presence) was also mysteriously invisible during several meals, when they just made no effort to get my attention and insisted they thought I had “gone out” when I came down later.

Eventually they decided to raise a wall (and the roof) up so that my room would be a part of the house. “For you,” they said (???). In the middle of doing this, they decided to expand on the project and put another room for paying guests beside mine, moving most of the roof up an entire level. This was not long after I’d moved into the room on the roof (maybe two weeks) but immediately following this decision the roof was crowded every day with laborers, who started working around 9AM and often didn’t finish until around 6PM. Some days there were also women and children–practically a displaced village–on the roof. The concrete in front of my door was torn up, a pipe burst and flooded the area for a few days, and debris (plaster, also sometimes rain water) came through the cracks of one of my windows to cover one side of my bed and the floor. Recently, mold has started to grow on the walls as well.

One weekend when Rebecca was out of town, I slept in her air-conditioned room downstairs. In the morning, the mother approached me at breakfast and asked, “Don’t you get chilly?” “Why?” I said. “Using the air conditioner all day and all night,” she said, “Don’t you get chilly?” I told her I’d only been using it at night–which was true, and also true of Rebecca–and she said that the bill for air conditioning alone had been 2,000R this month and that she might have to start charging more. [A few comments on this: 1) Is their even a charge separate for air conditioning from the regular electricity? On this I am skeptical. 2) They also use air conditioning, to a comparable degree. Rebecca's room is 1,500R extra, presumably for the cost of AC. Why should the family expect us to cover the whole house's AC costs? 3) This was not even my room, generally.] I argued that there was no reason to pay more when 1,500R for AC was already being paid, and she didn’t choose to press the topic.

Needless to say, our relationship with our host-mother was not based on warmth or interest, merely on money. We were an ambulatory pile of money. When we had conversations, which was rare, they were usually invasive questions on her part to try to find out just how much money she could squeeze out of the paying guest situation in the future (if not now). She asked how much other people paid for their host-stays and what was included. When Rebecca mentioned that one family has meters installed to measure electricity as an added cost, she seemed very happy with the information. She asked about how people chose houses and whether hers was popular. It was very uncomfortable. When the host-mother made any attempt to learn anything about me, it was generally connected to money. How much money do I make in the U.S.? How much money do my parents make? Why would I say that $40 (in regards to manicure/pedicure, which, shockingly, I don’t spend scads of money on in the U.S.) is expensive?

I was charged 700R a month for using the internet. As one Indian friend in Mumbai commented, “Jesus! Their bill alone can’t even be that high.” She still seemed irritated when I used the internet, and they unplugged the router routinely even after I’d just plugged it in. She made comments about my electricity use to Rebecca, despite the fact that I rarely came home before 5 or 6PM and rarely used the cooler during the day.

Neither Rebecca nor I felt comfortable within the house. We each spent almost all of our time in our rooms, as these were our relegated places. Frequently the flush in our bathroom would not be working (a problem we gently mentioned several times and which only recently really got fixed), and one night, in the middle of the night, I needed to throw up and didn’t want to do so in a toilet that didn’t flush. I was also downstairs, getting water at the time. So I used their bathroom. The mother seemed scandalized at this after she woke up (upon finding me in her bathroom, throwing up and crying) and asked with some irritation if I wanted to see a doctor.

Our privacy was not respected. On one occasion Rebecca and I told the family we were going out to the market and would be home after 15 minutes. When we did get home, I came onto the roof to find the host-mother in my room, moving my things around, looking agitated. “You should clean your room,” she said. I do tend to accumulate clothing and papers in piles, but I do not think it’s appropriate to invade someone’s personal space because of this issue. She could have asked me politely outside of my room, and I would have tidied it up without a problem.

When the family went out to dinner, which they did pretty frequently (maybe once or twice a week), we were never asked if we wanted to come but were instead fed at home by the maid. We were never asked to do anything with the family. Some nights they ate in their bedroom, with the television, and we were fed in separately. To be honest, we didn’t mind this after some time, simply because their company was so awkward and uncomfortable.

We talked with other students in the program about the B.’s and realized that past experiences have also been bad. When one mentioned their name in passing to their host-mother, she said that in the past, the “B. girls” would always come over to their place to get away because the environment was more home-like, and “it wasn’t about money”. She also said that though they were acquaintances, she stopped talking to her because when she saw her in the market one day and asked about her “American daughters”, Mrs. B. corrected, “Don’t call them that–they’re paying guests”. (If it’s any further indication of our discomfort, we also didn’t know what to call the family members–”Auntieji” etc seemed too personal. We ended up avoiding calling them anything directly.)

I will say that the home was for the most part very comfortable (although we felt too uncomfortable to enjoy that) and the food was very good (the best aspect of staying here). The B.’s are clearly an affluent family, and bought lots of new things (new cell phones, a new refrigerator) in addition to their adding on to the house. We felt like perhaps we were funding it.

I understand that housing is in every way a logistical nightmare, and you can’t exactly control every detail or only find families that treat AIIS students as one would their own child. I sympathize. I also know that the people in AIIS have been interested in feedback and promoting a positive image of India.

This was my first trip to India, and I had a difficult first month in adjusting. If I hadn’t had Rebecca–who had spent a few years in India before–to explain what was and wasn’t acceptable, and to take charge in telling the family when we had a problem, I probably would have felt much worse throughout the summer. I now love the country and have met so many kind and hospitable Indians while outside that I realize inhospitable behavior is not a norm in India and the B. family is a bit of an exception. But I do worry that someone unfamiliar with India and without a roommate who does understand the culture and general kindness of India would feel some resentment for it after staying with this family. I would have been happy to excuse many of the smaller things had it not been for the family’s attitude.

I also want to point out that many other people also had experiences with distant families (although most of these were still pleasant). I would recommend updating the program’s information packet to explain that the host-family situation may be more like a paying-guest situation, as a lot of people felt unprepared for their family’s lack of interest in them. I don’t think this distance is a bad thing (independence is good!) but I think it’s very different from the American idea of a home-stay family and without explanation, it catches people off-guard (and makes them question themselves).

After so much negative, I also want to say that the program staff itself–the teachers, and Kumar ji!–behaved exactly the opposite from my host-family, showing great interest in both our academic and emotional status. Many of them told us to think of them like family and tell them if we had any problems, and offered a great deal of support (which one shouldn’t even expect from teachers). They were very amenable to our requests and interested in us, and were always available for help.

My big complaint is with the home-stay family. I just think that people who so clearly don’t enjoy having guests in their house should be the sort of people who constantly have guests.

Thank you for reading! My apologies for the (excessive) length.

Sincerely,

(Me.)

—

*miserly

Case Study #4: Clubbin’

I have never been to a club in America.

I imagine this is because I would probably hate it. I liked getting drunk in my old apartment with some friends and Ty’s guitar, wearing black leggings and a bleach-stained tank top. I don’t think I’d like getting drunk to blaring music and sparkly shirts and sweaty men suctioning themselves to my hips (this is almost certainly unavoidable for any XX chromosome-bearing individual).

But I’m not in America. I’m in India. And here, we were invited (by Ashik, of course, our mysterious and overly generous host) to experience a night of clubbing in an Indian city of 3 million. This is not necessarily an authentic “Indian” experience, but I suppose it is an authentically affluent Indian experience, at least in recent years. Ashik is nothing if not affluent, and we are nothing if not spoiled, so this was where we were going to end up.

We were picked up a little after 9 and it was once again the familiar trio of American girls (we have bonded this weekend, with everyone away) and Imran and A at the wheel. Imran was wearing possibly the most adorable t-shirt I’ve ever seen (a globe in the middle, surrounded by the words “Boys can help save the Earth!” in a bloated and childlike font) and A was in a sleek white button-up, black pants, and shiny shoes. He doesn’t do casual.

When we arrived at the hotel with the club–which I’d grossly underestimated the grandeur of–we followed A past the desk (where he wheeled around before the last moment to scoop up complimentary pink candies from a dish and drop them into our palms) and toward the club. It was around this time that I realized with some panic that there was a cover charge of 500R. each (I’d brought 100R. from the car, absentmindedly) but before I could explain my lack of funds we’d already been ushered past the guard and were descending into the darkness of a floor below.

Nowhere in the world do parties start at 9:30pm, and still, when I saw the empty dance floor but heard the blaring house music, I felt embarrassed. Doesn’t everyone, at that sight? Still, the guys looked unfazed, knew the territory and how the night worked, and we followed them toward the bar. A menu appeared and I selected something involving gin, always a standby. I felt a little nervous and figured I would need the help of gin to make the dance floor a viable option.

Everyone got a drink but Ashik–he is a Muslim, and refuses alcohol.

It took a while for things to get started, and meanwhile we staked out a few couches in a dark corner and sucked down our poison. I sat next to and spoke to Imran, who, at this point, I had come to recognize as shy and a little awkward. In my view, this is perfect for a dancing partner, so before we’d even gone out on the floor I’d decided to target him for forced dancing. “So how do you know Ashik?” I asked him.

“I worked in one of his stores,” he explained. “He said I should think of him as a friend, not a boss.”

Kari was getting restless. She looked back and forth between all of us, and motioned to the dance floor, where maybe six people were at this point. The music was still bad techno house music, but at some point we were going to have to start dancing; Ashik had been footing an impressive bill, and I didn’t want to sit around on my lame ass, and offer this impression of America (it’s surprising how often I feel like some sort of American ambassador). So the three Americans grabbed Imran and we went to the dance floor.

I am not sure how things escalated from here. Not long after we got on the floor, the music changed to the danceable sort — and actually danceable too. You don’t know danceable until you know Indian pop music. Following the change in music, the floor–and the room–was suddenly full. Full, and dark, and moving, and smiling. And not just young people, either. There were a fair number of middle-aged people, and there was nothing awkward about this. I don’t think I could imagine this not being awkward if I hadn’t experienced it.

And here’s something else. Men dance here. Everyone dances. Nobody cares how they look–they just dance. Imran, who I had pegged as so shy, was maybe the craziest of them all. He barely left the dance floor. And here’s something else. Men are content to dance with you. I had no problem with the suctioning males because they had no desire to suction–I danced with several guys, and they all faced me. It felt like it was more about fun than sex, and it hasn’t been like that since 6th grade.

I also probably haven’t danced like I did last night since the 6th grade. Maybe it was the gin-saturated drinks, or maybe just the realization that allowing myself to be even a little self-conscious would have wasted and disturbed the whole experience. I am on the other side of the world. There is liberation in that.

While most of the dancing veers in all directions–a group facing each other, girls dancing with girls, guys dancing with guys, girls and guys pairing off and then switching, dancing with people you’ve never met–I did end up somehow with one guy in particular, a tallish and muscularish Hindustani with a mop of curly hair–vaguely attractive, if I’d stood still long enough to focus on his face. He told me his name time and time again and I didn’t hear it even one time. He spun me. He tried to teach me to salsa. I struggled to keep up.

Eventually, Ashik, who rarely danced (unless we forced him) and spent most of his time watching over us like a hawk, eventually moved us upstairs to a cooler area to rest for a while–on the overhang we could look over the dance floor. It may have been a helpful move in giving the girls a moment away from some of the more attentive guys, or it may just have been a desire for some cooler air. It was hard to tell. Still, as we went back to the floor, as he stood to the side, sober, watching over us, he began to seem protective in addition to simply mysterious. I spent the last few minutes wondering about him. He hasn’t made a pass at any of us, but he’s been entirely accommodating and friendly. Are there really some people in the world like that? Is there something we don’t know?

We left early, by club standards–around 1AM, to get back to the guys’ apartment (the guys in our program, that is– this is where Kari and I would be sleeping) before the gate closed. We were sweaty and happy in the car, and I thought of something. “What is ‘kiss’ in Hindi? How do you say ‘Kiss me’ in Hindi?”

“Mujhe papi karon,” he translated.

“Mujhe papi karon!” I tried.

“Not right now,” he said.