Shadi

The day that Hannah and I got back from Jaipur, we had the privilege of attending an Indian wedding.  My fellow ETA, Sean, was invited by Vishu, one of his students, to Vishu's cousin's wedding.  True to his gregarious and generous form, Sean asked if he could bring along four foreign girls, to which Vishu delightedly said yes. In India, to say that weddings are a big deal is a major understatement. In a country where society revolves around celebrations, weddings are THE most important of all celebrations. Especially because of the rising middle class, weddings have become the utmost status symbol. As far as invitations are concerned, the more people in attendance, the better, and foreigners at a wedding are an exciting and precious commodity. I say commodity because, as much as we went to the wedding out of our own selfish desire to experience such an important cultural event, the four of us who went were on display from the second we arrived to the moment we left.

Remembering our last sari debacle, Hannah, Tangi and I started getting ready two hours or so before we had to leave.  We had all gone together to the market the week before to get Tangi a fancy sari for the occasion, as Hannah had bought one already and I had a silk brocade sari my parents had brought me when they went to India. Patricia had gone away for the week, but the three of us trooped upstairs to have our saris wrapped by Reena, our landlord's lovely wife, who kindly wraps our saris when we wear them.  We had bought matching bangles and bindis, not wanting to skip the details that would be noticed by every auntie (slang for older woman) in the room.

Bangles, bangles, bangles!

Varanasi silk sari. Thanks, parents!

Getting on the metro, we were stared at in a way that even now, after three months, was noteworthy. As we descended into the metro, a woman did a double take before literally taking a step back to make sure her eyes were not deceiving her. We met Sean at the metro station, where the staring continued and we photographed ourselves looking as Indian as four goras can get.

Sean's awesome shoes!

    

The groom, flanked by the mini-grooms 

Vishu and his cousins

Wedding party

Vishu met us at the metro, from which we walked to the groom's house.  The groom was still being decorated when we arrived, and a team of drummers and dancers was moving from room to room, getting everyone (especially us) to dance until our breath was gone. While Sean and Tangi took a considerable pressure off me and Hannah (thank goodness), it seemed like every time we tried to rest a moment, the drummers were back and the cousins were yelling delightedly for us to dance. After an hour or so of waiting at the groom's house, we heard loud music and ran to the balcony to see the wedding procession begin.  Just as in Western weddings the most exciting part is when the bride walks in, Indian weddings are all about the groom's entrance. A little (or sometimes big) parade is formed, complete with marching bands, horses (or sometimes elephants), drummers, fireworks, lights, dancing, plenty of flowers and noisenoisenoise.

Wedding procession from above

Wedding procession from the ground

The groom's carriage

 After watching what we came to understand as the first set of fireworks, the whole party walked down the street, banging and clanging and singing and dancing, while the four of us piled into a car with a whiskey-drinking uncle to take us to the reception site near the bride's home.  Traditionally, the whole parade would travel from the groom's home to the bride's home, but the vast expanse of Delhi makes this procedure highly unpractical. As a compromise, the whole parade walks down a few blocks, where everything is dismantled and resumed next to the reception.

The groom's home,
decorated traditionally

The groom in his carriage

We walked into the reception hall, having tempted fate with our boozing driver, to a tent filled with light and color, not to mention at least a dozen tables piled with Indian food of every type.

The golden tent

Food, glorious food!

Plate piled high

Stuffed to the gills, we waited a while longer for the blaring music to start up again, at which point we went back outside to see the groom's procession move down the street for his entrance. 

In the tent

Awaiting the groom

We then witnessed a ceremony in which the pandit (equivalent of a priest or rabbi for Hindus) said mantras while men from the groom's family and men from the bride's family exchanged garlands of marigolds.  I thought this would only take a few minutes--how many relatives could there be?--but after half an hour the men just started recycling the garlands when they ran out so everyone could have a chance at this honor of becoming one another's family.  We went inside and waited for the bride. At one point, I think on Teacher's Day, I mentioned that in India, everyone loves giving speeches but no one likes hearing them. The same may be said about brides--everyone loves a bride but no one likes watching them. As the bride entered the hall, everything remained as usual. No one crowded around her except for the giant crew of photographers and filmers.  Everyone kept eating, talking, doing whatever; the bride's entrance seemed no more exciting than anyone else's. Even the groom's mother was inattentive, asking me to sit down and chat and fussing over gifts while her daughter-in-law was entering.  To be fair, the wedding lasts for several days, with different events on each day, so it's not like this was the only ceremony that bound them in marriage, but still! I suppose it could be the same for the groom's entrance at a Western wedding, but to me it was weird that no one, not even the little girls, found the bride's appearance as exciting as I did. She came in surrounded by her female relatives--mother, sisters, cousins and aunts, under a canopy held in each corner by four male relatives. Her traditional red dress was so completely covered in beads and sequins, she absolutely shimmered as she walked. 

The bride enters 

Wedding paparazzi

Least comfortable wedding garb ever

The time at this point was after midnight. For their first appearance together as a couple, the bride and groom stood on a platform, decorated with lights and flowers, in the middle of the room. There, they exchanged garlands, placing them around each other's necks (several times, so the photographers could get a perfect shot), while the platform they stood upon revolved.

On the platform after the garland exchange

After exchanging garlands, the couple sat on an elaborately decorated sofa on a stage next to the platform, in the middle of the room, and sat for over an hour getting their picture taken with anyone who wanted to come up for a "quick snap," as they said. Everyone wanted their picture taken with the foreigners, so up we went, three or four times; awkward, considering that's when we met the bride and groom for the first time! Throughout the whole ceremony(ies), it was so clear that this occasion had so little to do with the individuals themselves, and so much to do with tradition and everyone else in the family.  The actual people getting married are in some ways inconsequential--the ceremony follows a strictly prescribed order and decorum, planned by and for relatives and the community. In some ways I found this way of handling the wedding a more honest and straightforward approach. Weddings here rarely follow relationships; all the women I work with had arranged marriages, and a marriage symbolizes, more than anything else, the union of two families.  It is therefore appropriate that the celebration should be so focused on the families; the joy of a marriage is shared as much by the communities surrounding the two people as by the people themselves. We left the wedding around 2AM, tired and cranky and squabbling with each other. But the truth is that we had been invited to witness something so basic to Indian culture, something we never would have experienced without this connection to Sean's student, something I will remember and enjoy the memory of for a long time to come.  I love how much people here treasure celebrations.  I love how full of life and color and food the celebrations are here, that a family would be so delighted to share such an important personal experience with a group of complete strangers. Sometimes it feels like this country is here with open arms, inviting me in and welcoming me in a way I've never experienced. I will remember this wedding when I am waiting for an auto in the rain, or watching a mouse scurry across a restaurant, or standing in a line that keeps getting longer because so many people are cutting in front. Thanks, India, you owed me this one.
P.S. To those of you loved ones reading this album and hoping I will find an Indian to marry while I am here just so I can have an Indian wedding that you can come to, you are in for some serious disappointment.  If you think for one second that I will wear a dress that weighs fifty pounds, sit on a couch for two hours of the wedding getting my picture taken with randos, not get to eat the food, not have anyone be excited when I enter the room, and wear a nose ring the size of a bangle, you've entirely overestimated my tolerance for discomfort. Sorry, guys. Not. Going. To. Happen.

To see the rest of my photos of the wedding, click here and enjoy!

The happy couple:)

Jaipur

I've learned in India that getting advanced notice for important events is a rare gift, rather than an expectation. A few weeks ago we discovered that the kids would be taking exams for two weeks, during which we were expected to come to school but would not be proctoring or grading exams.  As the thought of spending two weeks hanging out in the staff room was less than appealing, we asked the people at USIEF to help us get excused from school during that time.  Sure enough, our principals gave us the time off, on the condition that we work on our "research projects." Yay! Hannah has a friend, Caity, who goes to UT Austin that she met while learning Hindi in Jaipur two  years ago.  Caity is spending the semester in Jaipur learning Hindi again and Hannah decided it was time for a visit. Though we had to be back in Delhi Monday night for a wedding we were invited to (more on that later), she urged me to join her, nervous about taking the train both ways in sleeper class by herself.  I was happy to oblige, and on Friday afternoon we met after school for sandwiches before heading to the train station.

Trains in India are such a unique entity, and the experience of riding them is so defining of travel in India.  Everyone in this country rides the train, it seems.  Train stations are such a microcosm of this country, it's incredible. I've been to several train stations so far, all in major cities, and each time I have marveled at the hundreds of people in the station, waiting in line, sleeping on newspapers laid out on the floor, families huddled around tiffins eating curried vegetables with roti, Chai Wallahs caring large tin kettles filled with the steaming sweet, milky tea, men with carts piled high with giant crates or sacks, women in bright chiffon saris balancing giant baskets on their heads. The tracks are filthy, covered in trash and human waste, but that doesn't stop people from jumping off the platform and crossing them on foot, leaping up to safety on the other side.  When the trains stop, men lean out of doors and windows, smoking beedies, drinking chai and staringstaringstaring. As you wait, little kids with matted, dirty hair and people young and old, crippled by polio or missing limbs beg for money and loiter in wait. The platform smells terrible, a putrid mix of urine and sweat and dirty laundry, and the air rings with constant chimes and announcements of incoming and outgoing trains. Sometimes the trains come on platforms other than the one posted, in which case you have to hope for a random good samaritan to let you know of the unannounced change.

Living the good life in Sleeper Class

The trains have several classes: First AC--two people to an air conditioned compartment, Second AC--four people in an air-conditioned compartment with bunk beds, Third AC--six people in an air-conditioned compartment with three-tiered bunk beds, Sleeper and General.  Sleeper is set up with three-tiered bunk beds in each compartment, with room for six people to sleep "comfortably." The cars are not air-conditioned, but the windows open and it's arguably the best way to see the countryside as you travel. The thing about Sleeper is that you can ride it without an assigned seat, so many people just board the train and hope to squeeze in to sit somewhere or just stand where they can.  What does this mean for the average foreigners who choose this transport option? It means that your conceivably "assigned" bench will be taken up by as many people as can possible squeeze onto it, and just when you think no one else can fit, someone practically sits on your lap.  Hannah and I nabbed window seats, a lifesaver in the situation, and refused to close the window, even when the rain came in through the slats and onto our laps. We were the only women in the car, but two nice guys sat next to us from the beginning who helped us fend off the stares a bit. It's not that we feel threatened in these situations, it's just uncomfortable to have so many people looking at you. At one point we just put our dupattas over our heads to just be a little less visible.In a space that would comfortably seat 6-8 people, at least 20 people were crammed, sitting on the bottom bunks, top bunks and side bunks, standing in the isles, leaning on ladders and sitting on laps. For six hours. The benefit of riding in Sleeper, other than "experiencing India" at its fullest? It's cheap as dirt. Our round trip train tickets to Jaipur cost less than 400 rupees (about $8 each). Believe it or not, this is not even the cheapest option.  General Class is just a car with no seats or compartments and they sell as many tickets as people will buy, so you can imagine how luxurious that journey is.

We arrived in Jaipur around 11:30 PM and headed for the restaurant where Caity and her friends were at a party.  We didn't stay long and fell asleep the second our heads hit the pillow.  The next day began with a trip to Anokhi, a lovely cafe attached to a fixed price store selling beautiful, traditionally-made Rajasthani textiles.  We wandered around the store after our beautiful sandwiches and a slice of carrot cake that, while delicious, left my stomach feeling less than happy.  We went to Bapu Bazaar, a main drag in Jaipur with row after row of shops selling the many crafts indigenous to India's largest state. Rajasthan is particularly well-known for its textiles, using many traditional techniques both in weaving fabric and adorning it. Block printing and silkscreening designs by hand, various methods of resist dyeing, such as batik and shiborai, decorating fabric with small mirrors, and the use of hand looms for weaving are examples of the wares on display in the market. 

Fabric heaven!

For a fabric junkie like me, this place was heaven.  I just kept wandering in and out of the shops, touching all the clothes and sheets and hangings, soaking in the sights and colors and patterns in all their forms. I bought some beautiful hand-printed sheets, off-white with a black paisley design and an olive and teal border. Caity's friend, Sabeena, was a bargainer to behold, refusing to pay even 10 or 20 rupees over what she thought was fair. It was great also that Hannah, Caity and Sabeena all speak fluent Hindi; vendors' reactions to their fluency was so funny to watch. They would ask questions like "Do you speak Hindi?", to which Hannah always replies in Hindi, "Am I speaking Hindi?" In the afternoon we headed to the mall, where we bought tickets to see the newest Bollywood film, Barfi. While I had some major issues with the plot, I really enjoyed it and was surprised that I could understand almost everything that was going on, despite the lack of subtitles.  The movie takes place in Darjeeling, and has a lot of the elements of everyday fairy tale inspiration that I liked so much in Amelie. I would definitely recommend it if it's playing near you. We took it easy that night, eating dinner with Caity and Sabeena's host mom and getting to bed early.

Baby gets juicy as mama chows down

The next day, Caity and her classmates went to study and Hannah and I headed off to be tourists. We took an auto to the foot of a hill, on the other side of which lay Galta, known colloquially as the Monkey Temple. We walked up the hill, taking in the landscape and the view of the dense city below.  The path was dotted with a hilarious menagerie of animals--monkeys, goats, cows, chickens, dogs, pigs and pigeons mingled with the temple goers and rummaged through the trash in the gutter in search of food. At the top of the hill we went in a small, white temple dedicated to the Hindu sun god. Some monkeys had perched on a motorcycle parked outside the temple; one was chewing on the fabric of the seat and two were sitting up front, in position to steer the thing. I couldn't have set up the shot if I'd tried. There were so many monkeys that it almost looked like the ground was moving at one point, but, unlike in Shimla, these monkeys were content to leave us alone and did not approach us aggressively.  The exception to this was when Hannah put her bag down for a second to take a picture, and a monkey quickly ran up and grabbed the snacks from her purse before she could stop him. As we began our descent on the other side of the mountain, an auto wallah had brought a bunch of watermelons to feed to the monkeys.  He took the melons, smashed them on the ground and gave the pieces to the monkeys, who greedily gorged themselves on the red juiciness. It's crazy to watch monkeys eat--they look so much like small people (grumpy old men, to be exact). Another sight to behold on the walk was the number of people--men, women and children--who just stopped on the side of the path in full view to relieve themselves. 

As the temple came into view, sand-colored buildings nestled in rich greenery, we felt like we were stumbling upon a treasure.  Walking down the steps into the temple's center, dozens of people were bathing in rectangular pools built into the rock of the cliffs. Monkeys and pigeons nested in the rocks above and watched the scene below of women splashing in their saris and men swimming in their underwear. As we walked towards the lower pool, a bright spectrum of color came into view, as women waded down the steps into the water in magenta, orange, vermilion, puce and turquoise.  The scene was so beautiful, watching the women who looked like jewels in the sun. We walked around the temple, taking pictures while trying to avoid the many topless women of all ages, and got in an auto headed back to the city center.  After eating lunch, we went to the Hava Mahal, the Palace of the Winds, one of Jaipur's most famous landmarks.  It was a Mughal palace built in 1799; the structure resembles that of a beehive from the outside, with windows that look like geometric compartments.  While not in the best condition, the building was very beautiful and we were both glad we had come. We then met up with the other girls, relaxed at a coffee shop for a while, and then headed to dinner at a hotel restaurant adjacent to a fixed price jewelry store--a match made in heaven! We relaxed over beer and biryani, bought some bling and enjoyed the pleasant weather.  

At 4AM, Hannah and I dragged ourselves out of bed and headed for the train station, where we were met once again with so many people on the floor of the main terminal hall that it was hard to step around the sleeping bodies. We boarded the train and I climbed to the top bunk where I got a few hours of restless sleep, before resigning myself to sitting sleepily next to Hannah on the crowded bottom bunk, crammed with other passengers. The last two hours of the journey seemed to take forever, stopping so many times within the Delhi metropolitan area that I thought we'd never make it.  With about an hour left to go, Hannah turned to me with an important question: "On a scale of 1-10," she said, "how open are you to going to the Bagels Cafe before we go home?" Not a week earlier, we had discovered the gem that is the Bagels Cafe, a restaurant near where we live that serves--you guessed it--bagels and cream cheese that are way better than mediocre! Arriving at our station around noon, exhausted and smelly and cramped and starving, we took the metro to our stop, got in an auto and emerged in bagel heaven. It was certainly no H&H, but let me tell you, I think it was the best bagel I've ever had.

To see all of my photos of Jaipur, click here and enjoy!

Storm Before the Calm

Well, faithful readers, start planning your activities for the five extra minutes of free time you'll have this week, as I am leaving Delhi for six days and will probably be off the grid for all or most of that time, and will therefore not be posting.  Hannah and I leave tomorrow for Chandigarh, a city a few hours north of here, which happens to be the capital of two states--Haryana and Punjab.  From there we will head to the hill station of Shimla, where the British Raj used to move their capital to in the summer when Calcutta and then Delhi was too hot.  After a few days there we will go to another hill station called Mussoorie, (not Missouri, though that was confusing to me at first), and depart back to Delhi from Dehra Dun. We have Wednesday off for Indian Independence Day (wahoo!) and Friday and Monday off for Eid al Fitr.  Man, do Indians love celebrating.  The traditional Independence Day activity is flying kites, and random stores all over the cities have been selling simple kites and string for the past few weeks. It's pretty wonderful to see children playing with actual objects like kites and tops and homemade paper boats, rather than the standard recreational diet of video games and virtual reality in the US.  There are video games here too, but kids of all ages and backgrounds seem to love just being outside, playing cricket and flying kites.  The Independence Day tradition, so I'm told, is to try to cut down other people's kites with your own, which seems to me like the easiest, fastest way to make a kid cry.  Hopefully I will be able to see some kite flying in Chandigarh!

School continues to chug along and is starting to go by more and more quickly. Last week I was pretty shaken up when some of the boys in my class were misbehaving and the gym teacher, also in charge of "discipline" entered the room after either hearing the commotion or seeing that I had sent kids outside.  The boys had been fooling around, throwing water on each other and not paying attention, as 13 year old boys are apt to do, but the gym teacher came in, asked the student monitor what happened, and proceeded to slap the shit out of five or six boys.  He pulled each one up by the ear to face him, slapped their faces two or three times and then hit them on the back.  At one point he was about to hit a student who hadn't been involved and the rest of the class cried out "No! Not him!" and so he was spared.  Then the gym teacher (whose name I don't know, can you tell?) smiled at me as he walked out of the room, as if to say "you're welcome." I felt so uncomfortable and shocked, even though I had been warned this would likely happen.  Being made aware of it ahead of time doesn't prepare you to witness a grown man physically assaulting children in front of their peers.  That day in our English Language Teaching seminar with the other Fulbrighters, I totally broke down and cried.  Today I was doing an activity with the kids, having them act out verbs like eating, sitting, standing, running, jumping.  When they got a little loud, a senior teacher who seems to function like a vice principal came into the class and screamed at them, made them move their desks around causing the most earsplitting screeching as the table legs scraped across the hard linoleum.  He slapped a kid across the face who had been helpful to me earlier in translating for kids who didn't understand what I'd said and quieting students.  After the teacher left I apologized to the students for letting them get so loud...I know they are used to being treated like this by adults, but I don't want any part of it, and I am struggling to distance myself from that behavior and institution while maintaining the respect of both the kids and the staff.

I'm definitely getting better at controlling the class, little by little, despite the massive language barrier. It's super hard, though, like when a child misbehaves and I want them to know that I would like them to stay in my class, that I don't want to send them out, that I value their contributions.  Getting used the the CONSTANT ma'am-ing is tough, too.  Even when they raise their hands, they do so while standing up and yelling--yelling--Ma'am!Ma'am!Ma'am! They also get so out of control so quickly; not even Clear View could have prepared me for it.  I tried teaching the Hokey Pokey the other day and the "turn yourself about" part cause such an inordinate amount of chaos, I had to stop the activity. In general, working at Clear View has been super helpful in preparing me for the roller coaster of feeling deeply satisfied with my work and the next moment deeply inadequate.  I miss the support of working with a team and having the time and space to build relationships with students and help them achieve their potential.  It's funny because my experience at Clear View has affected my perspective such that most of my favorite students here are the naughty ones, the boys who I constantly see sent out of other teachers' classes, whose lack of effort in class and humor and bravado mask all the insecurities of adolescent boyhood.  My favorite kid might be Rishabh, an 8th grader who looks about 9, with ears that stick straight out of his head an impish grin, and (I swear!) a twinkle in his eye.  I always see him standing outside his classroom when I walk around the school, having been kicked out for talking or being idle or fighting.  He knows I think he's awesome because I am always so happy to see him, and I know he likes me because he gives me that loopy grin and really tries to speak English to me, despite his very limited level of comprehension and speaking ability.  Today in class he moved on his own to sit towards the front of the class (next to a girl! ew!) because his neighbors at his seat were talking and he couldn't hear me and wanted to participate.  He wrote a paragraph about cricket in the most poorly constructed grammar I may ever see, but I was so proud of him I just kept telling him how great it was, and he even volunteered to read it to the class!  I know I need to correct their work and tell them what they're doing wrong, but it feels like such a privilege to me to be able to have these kids without any strings attached in terms of having to grade or examine them, that I really want to focus on just building up their confidence and making them feel OK about whatever level they're at.  There is so much emphasis here on quantitive success and there are so many children in each class and so few teachers that it seems like the kids that struggle or lack internal motivation are given up on pretty easily, as there are so many who are motivated and perform better that it seems logical to direct the precious resources towards them.  At the end of the day, I would rather them feel comfortable speaking English poorly than say only perfect sentences, but so rarely that they cannot carry even a simple conversation.  As it is, I think it's hard for teachers also to get out of the mind frame of rewarding those who can achieve at the expense of those who can't.  There's less of the sense we have in the US that a kid can Do Anything! Follow Their Dreams! Choose Their Destiny!  Roles are ridiculously specific and well-defined, and I think it's pretty hard for people--kids and adults alike--to think or dream on the periphery of these set options.  Please do not mistake this observation for a judgement but rather as a commentary on why it's difficult to get kids to have confidence in themselves when it comes to doing or trying something not evaluated numerically.

Every day at school brings new adventures, sometimes good and sometimes terrifying and sometimes so unpleasant or sweet or confusing.  I get laughed at a lot, my Hindi is brutally mocked by the kids, and I scared the bejesus out of an 8th grade class today when I recounted the biblical story of my name, tent spike hammered into head and all. If any of you were worried about me getting a big ego over here, just picture me sweating my patooties off, with pit stains the size of dinner plates and chalk all over my salwar kameez (read: genie pants with long tunic shirt), standing in front of a class of 35 14-year-olds, doing the hokey pokey and getting laughed at and aped when I try in vain to say "please be quiet Anubhav/Taranjeet/Nikhil/Gaurav/Abhishek/Rithik/Geetanjali/whatever other name I can't pronounce. Show some respect to me and your classmates."

Wish me luck on my next adventure...and my upcoming trip!:)
Sending much love from Mother India....
xoxox

Gorees in Sarees

Today is Lord Krishna's birthday!  Happy birthday Krishnajee! People all over India are fasting and going to the temple to honor the Hindu god known as the Creator. Last night we were invited to a dinner at the US ambassador's house to meet her and the newly arrived Fulbright research fellows.  Unfortunately, our ambitious attempts at sari wrapping took so long, and in combination with the clusterfuck that is Delhi traffic, we missed the dinner entirely.  Disappointed but still needing to show off our new and awesome matching saris, the girls and I went to Khan Market for the most American dinner possible: hamburgers and fries.  The following is a documentation of our misadventures in sari wrapping and wearing:

After several failed attempts at putting on the sari, we called upstairs and solicited help from Rina, the landlord's wife.  She is a very nice person, who immediately agreed to help us.  I put on the petticoat and blouse and wrapped the 6 yards of chiffon around me, resulting in my looking like what Hannah deemed "a bag of India."

Hannah had come the closest to an acceptable wrap job.  When we got upstairs, she asked Rina in Hindi, "Is mine OK?" Rina shook her head no. "Theek nehin hai." It's not OK. She began by laying the fabric on the bed and pleating the top for the part that goes over the shoulder.

Then it was Patricia's turn.

It was around this time that Rina said to Tangi and Patricia that they can wear cotton saris because they are so skinny.  She turned to me and Hannah.  "You two can wear synthetic or silk because you're not so thin." Thanks, Rinajee.

My turn! Rina again spread the fabric out flat to make and pin even pleats to go over the shoulder.

Her adorable six-year-old daughter stayed in the room the whole time, playing with an assortment of tchotchkes that seemed to come out of nowhere.

In my petticoat and blouse pre-wrapping. The fabric gets tucked into the petticoat so the petticoat has to be tied ridiculously tight, to make sure the sari stays intact. Definitely the least comfortable thing about wearing a sari.  That and the charming display of backfat in between the skirt and blouse.

Tangi's turn!

"You are so skinny," Rina said to Tangi.  "Skinny people always look so beautiful in saris. Not like us fatties [gesturing at me and herself]." Double ouch.

Finished product!

Out on the town!

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: The Masala Girls!

Bev Koof Gora

I am so lucky to be spending this year with really great people who make me laugh.  During the past few weeks I have laughed harder and for longer than I have in a very long time.  Part of it has to do with the ridiculous nature of the situations we have found ourselves in during this period of adjustment, from the hours spent waiting and waiting and waiting for forms, decisions, copies, traffic and each other, to being dropped off on the side of the road at night by a rickshaw driver with engine trouble.  I honestly don't know what I would do if I was not with people who could laugh with me at the absurdities that I constantly encounter in my life here.

BS Collections: The Latest in Bullshit Fashion

As I mentioned in an earlier post, one of the other ETAs came down with a strain of tonsilitis that was not kidding around.  My roommates and I had him come to our apartment, where we forced him to rest, made him tea, and waited to see if he got better or worse.  When he woke up the next day, his throat was almost closed--he couldn't drink water and breathed with difficulty.  I immediately called the doctor overseeing the Fulbrighters in Delhi, whom we had met during orientation, who told us to come see her right away.  I asked her for directions on how to get to her hospital and she responded with: "It's near USIEF, the auto driver will know." Now, USIEF, the Fulbright program center, isn't tremendously far, but it takes a solid 45-60 minutes to get there, and it's faster and cheaper to take the metro there rather than an auto all the way.  Sean and I took an auto to the metro, rode in a car jam packed with what felt like half the male population of Delhi, emerged in Connaught Place (Central Delhi), and flagged down an auto.  The first auto walla asked for two hundred rupees, at which point Sean, even in his miserable state, laughed in the guy's face.  Auto wallas are notorious for overcharging anyone they think they can, especially foreigners. If the original price seems unreasonable, asking a few different drivers will give you a sense of just how unreasonable the offer is.  So when the next few auto wallas came up with similar offers of 150 and 100 rupees, we knew this hospital was not as near to USIEF as we had thought.  When the fourth or fifth auto driver said "Ah, yes, Malviya Nagar," Sean and I had a mutual conniption.  We called the doctor to ask if we, in fact, had just traveled an hour only to go somewhere 10 minutes from where we live.  "Yes," she said, when we asked. "In Malviya Nagar, close to USIEF."  Eighty rupees later, we emerged from our auto literally two kilometers from our house.  The doctor was very apologetic, sorry for the chukkars (circles) she made us do, thinking we were starting at USIEF. At that point all we could do was laugh.  You can't make this stuff up!

Copyright, schmopyright! Hannah rolls with it.

Tonight my roommates and I went to dinner in a lovely (read: gentrified) neighborhood near ours called Hauz Khas.  After walking around for a bit, we decided on a rooftop restaurant overlooking a lake, which served a variety of Western and Indian food.  We ordered drinks, realizing that the "cocktail" list did not include alcoholic drinks (duh?) and looked at the menu.  We had left the house late so it was already around 8:45 when we got to the restaurant, and we were very hungry. Our drinks arrived.  Ten minutes passed.  Twenty minutes passed.  Finally we flagged down a waiter and asked if we could order.  He looked at us like we had three heads, bringing over another waiter to figure out what we were requesting.  "Food!" Tangi said.  "We would like to eat food at this restaurant!"  The waiter took our order and didn't write it down, at which point we somehow knew that Patricia, the first to order, was more than likely to be forgotten.  My biryani made it to the table within about twenty minutes, and was delicious, followed by Tangi's and Hannah's orders about 15 minutes later.  Sure enough, Patricia's food was nowhere to be found. The following conversation then occurred:
Patricia: Do you have my order?  Is my food coming?
Waiter: No. No, it is not.
When he walked away, the four of us died laughing, and fortunately there was plenty of biryani to feed poor Patricia.  

Then there was the time Sean and I went grocery shopping at the supermarket near our house and both realized upon checkout that we didn't have enough money to pay for everything!  We laughed and laughed, doubled over and teary, though I am sure the employees were less amused by the bev koof goras, stupid foreigners.  I am also starting to miss the days when the only phrase I could say in Hindi was Menduk mai mera dil tordiya, or "a frog broke my heart."  Or the time when, instead of saying mat chuo, "don't touch me," I said mat chuha: "Don't, mouse!"  Behold, the joys and trials of foreign exchange.

Everyone deserves a Stripe Tease now and then!

This place is a madhouse sometimes, and you can either get annoyed and be angry, which is of course sometimes unavoidable and appropriate, or you can take it for what it is and laugh like crazy. Welcome to India! Here's hoping I can keep laughing.