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.
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!
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.
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.
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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.
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