Friday, July 29, 2005

the big THREE; Bayou relocates to Malcha Marg

last night was a very productive ladies night. there was a cajun theme and we feasted on crabcakes, shrimp gumbo, red beans and rice, cornbread, and bourbon cheesecake washed down with hurricanes.

here were the highlights:
  • hearing how ashlee's mumma's cornbread isn't sweet and is made in an iron skillet
  • learning that crabcakes made from canned crab are just as good almost as fresh crab
  • networking to get santosh an FSN job at the embassy
  • networking to get myself a job with USAID
  • hearing and understanding lots of french, even though i can't speak (comes out like frindi (french+hindi)...
  • hurricanes made with tropicana fruit fusion
  • CORN BREAD
  • eating a fabulous new orleans dinner in a spectacularly decorated flat in Malcha Marg-- i now have many many ideas for whenever guddu and i move into a small, blank space

i am so unmotivated today because:

  1. it is friday
  2. less than 2 weeks left in internship
  3. the report i'm still editing is very long and poorly written
  4. so much networking, so little time left!
  5. trip to Jammu and Kashmir to plan!
  6. today's our anniversary
  7. i'm starting a small book trade for TJPPP students

SO today is our 3rd wedding anniversary for the Hindu temple ceremony. tomorrow is for the court ceremony. for visa/green card purposes, tomorrow is our anniversary, but we all have the tendency to remember today. i am going to the big Hanuman Mandir in connaught place after work to pray and give thanks for how lucky i have been. this is the same mandir into which a news journalist successfully snuck a gun hidden in a plate to be given as an offering.

about the books. i am getting 2 textbooks from India. if you are also interested in purchasing Economic Growth by Weil for Abegaz's class or the Stiglitz book for Baker's class, let me know and i'll try to hook you up.

Lalu Yadav visits site of Shramjeevi Express blast

Thursday, July 28, 2005

nose update

i forgot to mention anything about the hole in my nose! i KNOW you all were wondering what is going on with that. fyi, the actual piercing is fine, but i am having a slight issue:

did i mention before that they shaped the ring too small? it was rubbing against the lip of my nostril (?) and actually formed a blister there. i had to go back to laxmi nagar tuesday night to see what the jeweller could do about it. they couldn't make it bigger bc they had cut the excess. so the nose-piercing-mistri took his pliers and bent the ring so it doesn;t rub against my nose. i am so glad that is taken care of! the ring is a little bent, but not a big deal.

bad PR for Indian men

Here is a part of Ebony's description of her summer internship at the Department of Justice:

I did plenty of statistical analyses for their Internet Crimes Against
Children program. And I got to talk with perverts online who thought I was
a 13 year old girl. A LOT OF THEM WERE FROM INDIA!!!

Vaishno Devi

yesterday was really painful bc we did not have internet at work which meant i had to translate reports all day from Indian english to american english without email breaks. plus i was not feeling good. i only have 2 weeks left of work and the end is in sight!

after work i think pappu, santosh and i are going to go on a pilgrimage to Sri Mata Vaishno Devi Ji. we will take a train to Jammu, then bus to Katra, and from there we begin the 13 km trek to the shrine. Up to 25,000 per day make this trip, but it should be only like 18,000 when we go.

last night karthik, kelley and i went to Mocha's. fyi, be prepared to fight when you need to order off the menu in India. this might only apply to franchises, but there is ZERO managerial/waiter discretion.

i'm really into this panjabi hip-hop bhangra mix stuff these days. it is going to drive guddu crazy. speaking of guddu, tomorrow is our 3rd anniversary (temple) and the day after is the court anniversary.

there are 2 news stories of interest. there was a labor riot in a honda factory in a delhi suburb that is quite sketchy-- on the protestors and police's parts. second, a massive amount of rain has dropped on mumbai. over a foot in 24 hours! did this make the US news?

Tuesday, July 26, 2005

out for lunch

i just got back from a very filling lunch at Andhra Bhawan. The South Indian canteen there is open to the public and is quite a demonstration of quality, cleanliness, economy and efficiency. Us 3 ladies were able to occupy a table with 3 other ladies and finished our meal in probably 15 minutes. it's hard not too eat fast bc there is so much activity-- diners continuously sitting and going and waiters keep whizzing with buckets to slop more food on your plate.

getting back was not so efficient for kelley unfortunuately. she had to go back to the embassy by herself (me and another girl were going towards Connaught Place), and here is her account:

I just got back to the embassy (2:35)! The rickshaw driver and his
little friend had no clue where the embassy was, or where any of the roads i
listed were (Shantipath, panscheel marg, aurangzeb rd, ashoka rd). so he
was asking a few people and i thought he was getting closer but then he
didn't follow their directions and i couldn't see any road signs, so i had
no idea where we were. then we were on pandera rd, which is pretty far i
think from where we were supposed to be and then when i saw the sign for
khan market i just got out. i walked down the road in the direction i
thought i should be going, and it turns out that was aurangzeb road by the
claridges so i went the right way on that for a while until i got to the
next roundabout and could confirm it (also passed jodhpur house). then i
wasn't sure when to turn off, and there were no rickshaws around. i finally
found one, but it didn't seem like he knew where the embassy was either.
then finally i found another one, but he didn't like my 25-30 rupee idea too
much. but i had no other option unless i wanted to walk all the way back and
finally we settled on 38 (how random). but he was actually a nice guy (about
50) and when i said yes in hindi he asked me how i knew hindi and how many
languages i knew, and it turns out he knows some french too...for as
ridiculous an experience as it turned out to be, it was kind of fun to talk
to him. plus i felt pretty good to be able to sort of know my way around
from where i got out of the first rickshaw.

Monday, July 25, 2005

dinner party, anyone?

i can't even remember what i did friday night-- i think i went to GZB after work. i watched desperate housewives and had some chocolate ice cream-- it was like a little party inside the mosquito net. the good thing was i got some much needed sleep.

saturday santosh and i did some long-overdue marketing and i got my nose pierced. it was one of those "close your eyes and soon it will all be over" experiences. we had to go nextdoor to a different jeweller than our regular guy to get it done. the saleswoman called the "mechanic" to come and pierce my nose. Mechanic is kind of a term loosely used in india, but this man actually looked like a fat auto mechanic. but at least it did not hurt-- looked scarier than it pained, so i didn't look in the mirror, which was a bad move bc they ended up shaping the hoop on the small side. i'll get it fixed on friday or saturday. i wanted to just get a plain stud, but they assured me that the gold wire-soon-to-be-hoop was less painful and cleaner. the mechanic just pushed it in with his hands and mae it into a circle using pliers.

saturday night i hosted a small dinner get-together at Anand Niketan. Alp and Ingrid were among the guests, and it felt very nice to see them. ingrid's hair is about the length of mine, but much cuter. santosh was very impressed and jealous of alp's moustache. we ate food and polished it off with Limca, which is like cloudy Sprite.

It has been very muggy here. and sometimes the sun is very bright and there is no breeze. while may heat is harsh, i would describe this muggy heat as "insufferable." so kelley and i hit the swimming pool at the embassy on sunday. i think it has been 2 years since i last went swimming. the ACSA pool is kind of weird bc there are more grown-ups than kids in the pool.

sunday afternoon we rented a qualis with a panjabi driver and some great panjabi tunes. we rode out to GZB and had dinner there. natalie's turkish seating area got a lot of action and we have pictures to prove it. pappu made some astounding chicken that was enjoyed by all. and don't forget the eggplant and cilantro!

work is ok, except everytime i write something and it comes back edited beyond recognition i feel a bit weakened. i need to learn not to take this personally. this afternoon i have to *fix* some graphs in Tufte style.

Tonight kelley and i are going to Dilli Haat. maybe i will buy something?

Friday, July 22, 2005

Policy Lite

China Unpegs Itself. I wonder who pressured them to do that???

Thursday, July 21, 2005

B.O. on the Metro

yesterday after going to the ACSA gym at the embassy, i took a rickshaw to the Central Secretariat metro station. this was my second time on the delhi metro, the first being a few days after it opened back in 2002 when it only went between 3 stations. I took a token (not a card) for Shahdara, which was 12 rupees. i got on the train and put on my headphones (kind of like in DC, right?) and sat on the bench. i had to laugh when i saw the reflection of me and my benchmates-- a guard with a large gun, someone who licked like a rickshaw driver, someone in a lungi, me the white girl, and two guys wearing really loud clubby shirts. near connaught place a swarm of office workers got on and were standing holding on to the upper bar-handle-- the b.o. was awful.

cleanliness is relative in india. the metro is very clean, even if you remove it from the relative scale. the other cool thing is that there are no doors between the bogeys, so you can see down the entire train. the metro is also A/C, and perhaps this is why the evening crowd smelled so bad.

ingrid just called me. they are staying with walt's future in-laws in defence colony. tomorrow night they are coming over for dinner and perhaps we will go to mocha's (my new favorite place) afterwards, time permitting. i don't know what i am doing tonight-- maybe i will go out, maybe i will go to ghaziabad. i've decided to do the nose-piercing. it will be a small stud, easy to remove for interviews etc.

i have a draft of that article due today, must get back to work.

mango acid burn

santosh picked me up outside the visa gate at the embassy yesterday evening, and, after not seeing me for a week and a half, the first words out of his mouth were, "what happened to your face? is it from a mango?" so apparently my blisters are actually burns caused by the acid in the mango i ate the previous evening.

the article for work is coming along nicely. i feel very unproductive though. during school i have to write 3 times as much with much quicker deadlines. but at least i am writing here. i think i just have 3 weeks left of my internship.

ok, so i am having a small get-together in ghaziabad sunday evening. if you can make it, you are invited. karthik, unfortunately, can't come bc he already has dinner plans at the prime minister's house or something like that.

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

rainy season skin infection

i know this is the 3rd post for today, but this story warrants a post.

last night i went to the market and bought some mangoes. i ate one when i got home and aftwards my lip and skin around the corner of my mouth were burning. this morning i had scabs on my lips and what looked like small pimples near my mouth. well, i just looked in the mirror in the bathroom and those pimples have morphed into large (well, not that big but this is on my face) blistery patches.

there is definitely a connection with something on the mango. but what? fyi-- this will not stop me from enjoying mangoes.

delhi love/hate relationship

people either love or hate delhi. or both at the same time.

i love delhi when i am riding by india gate around dusk and the sky is red and the colors of the red sandstone of rashtrpati bhawan contrast with the greenery-- very peaceful feeling, especially when there is a light, cool breeze. i also love delhi when i walk into the market and immediately find what i am looking for or whatever food i feel to eat. i love the mother dairy and how reliable it is. i love sitting outside at night on a porch or balcony and talking and talking. i like having the option to watch hindi movies and music and news. being caught in a sudden downpour is also fun.

here's what i don't like: not being able to find a rickshaw, lack of stores open late, running cows, aggressive vendors, mosquitoes, humidity, power cuts, water shortages, pollution, sewage smells, so many poor people and no way to help them, knowing that everything i enjoy here is only temporary and probably could not be sustained on a permanent basis (if we were to move here).

am i a different person here?

i have barely slept since being here this summer. and all i want to do is socialize/network. do any of y'all remember how i was spring semester the 1st year at UVA-- yeah that's how i am now, just more mature (sort of). i need to keep this up when i am in the US. for some reason in the US i am always tired-- is life there boring? too cold? unstimulating? i feel so. i guess india won't be as fun in 10 years when all of my friends are settled down in the US-- right now everyone is still moving all over the place-- DC london new york singapore tokyo delhi san francisco philly bombay you get the idea.

i am going to attempt to continue the practice of entertaining. although it is somewhat hard to do in richmond bc my friends there are limited. time is also a limitation-- there is school. but guddu and i will have to take more car trips to DC, the 'ville, the 'burg, etc. i think i will be spending a lot of time in DC for interviews and visits-- i have 4 new people i know up there: kelley, shakti, karthik, and demian.

last night i called karthik over for dinner. karthik, shakti, and later kelley, and i enjoyed a typical bihari meal of bhindi bhujia, mattar-soyatein and rice. there was some south indian influence on shakti's part-- yogurt and achar. we've had this bottle of gin the whole summer and tried to finish it last night, but we had no tonic water, so we had it on the rocks. dad-- i don't know how you drink that! the bottle of gin is still quite full and it was another late night.

work is going well (oh yeah that is why i am here). we keep getting these last minute requests for articles on biz opportunities for US firms in india-- very hot topic right now bc of the PM's visit to the US. so i have an article to draft by friday-- it is currently twice as long as it should be. but i can cut it down, brevity is 2nd nature.

Tuesday, July 19, 2005

chocolate avalanche

i'm getting pretty busy at work these days-- i have a big research report to write on the Indian banking reforms and then i am drafting an article for a DoC publication in addition to the smaller tasks that i do here. so i am pretty busy.

last night we continued the theme of staying out to dinner really late. shakti came to connaught place and met me after work. we wandered towards Bangla Sahib Gurudwara so he could buy one of those Sikh bracelets for his friend. then we went to lacoste where he tried on almost every color of polo shirt... karthik met us there and we walked to Parikrama, the revolving restaurant, for dinner. we had some decent food there and then around 10:30 headed to Mocha's-- a coffee/dessert/hookah bar and stayed there until 12:30 or so. conversation: where to go from here (career-wise) and the inbalance between american foreign and domestic policy.

i'll be leaving in one month-- i need to start doing all the things i need to get done bc the time will fly! i think i should go to the dentist for a teeth cleaning at least-- i mean a real dentist, not the guy with pliers on the sidewalk.

i hope to continue this zeal for social gatherings in the US. the only problem is it is difficult in richmond when all of our friends live elsewhere... guddu and i should definitely make it up to DC more often.

about me staying in Ghaziabad for all those concerned-- i'm only thinking of doing it for the last 2 weeks in august. but i might not do it anyways bc i realized the rickshaw to work is only Rs40 or so by meter from the road near our house. and it is only 25 to the embassy. and its not like after kelley and shakti leave that i will have no network anymore-- ingrid, alp, and archana will be stopping in, and then there is ashlee, lydia and julia who are working almost up to the date i am.

speaking of ghaziabad, many of my work clothes are there and i need to go as soon as santosh gets back so i can change out of these clothes that have been in such heavy rotation!

Monday, July 18, 2005

temporary Delhi Socialite

This was the first weekend I did not go to Ghaziabad, so, to stave off boredom, I way overbooked myself. And it was quite fun. The following is a brief synopsis:

Friday night I ran 5 miles after work and kelley and I dropped our plan to go shopping. Her friend Tim came over and we chatted for a while about his recent travels across North India and back. Around 9 or 10pm or so, Shakti and karthik (shakti's friend, non-embassy) came over and we got ready to go to that embassy party at Decibel at Hotel Samrat. But first we had a gin & tonic each and watched Desperate Housewives. It was not too far from the previous evening's Sex & the City and Margeuritas.

Frinding a rickshaw at 11pm was difficult, but after 10 minutes of standing on the road someone picked us up and actually went by the meter. We got to Decebel and on the entry-level floor the only people there were the DCM (#2) and his wife having the times of their lives dancing. We went upstairs and the party was looking pretty slow. but eventually everyone moved to the dancefloor and we left around 2:30am, dropped home by someone's driver.

Saturday Kelley and I went shopping during the day. we went to GK-II and to Fab India. I got some "Indo-western" wear and soy milk. after that we went back to the house and I made dinner plans with 2 groups of people-- julia/lydia/ashlee (UNHCR/trafficking NGO/embassyintern) and with shakti/karthik. i was afraid one group was going to flake on me, so i covered my bases. i met the girls at a restaurant in defence colony, which was convenient bc shakti was in defence colony shopping, and karthik lives there. so after that dinner shakti and i went to karthik's where we decided to go to the Claridges to go to Dhaba, where we ate the BEST BAINGAN BHARTHA EVER. but then i had a paneer overload, which would be topped off the next day by more paneer. basically the staples of my diet over the weekend were sweet lassi (yogurt drink), chickpeas, paneer, chai, and alcohol. next to Dhaba in the hotel was this club that was PACKED> so we checked it out but it was so crowded we stayed for only 30 minutes. but there was a scottish bar tender. we had been invited to a farmhouse/pool party, but i am very glad we didn't go bc i have heard those can be quite sketchy...

sunday was again busy. in the morning a friend of a friend, chris, who is the doctor at the embassy called me for lunch. we went to Panjabi by Nature in Vasant Vihar. Again-- VERY GOOD. but no more panjabi food or paneer for me for a while. chris and her husband jim-- who have such a great attitude about India by the way-- gave me a ride home. when i got home, shakti called telling me to round up karthik to come to "the best party ever." to make a long story short, i ended up going back to vasant vihar around 4pm. this house was CRAZY! art, antiques, hollywood memorabilia, persian rugs everywhere. i mean it rivalled the rajput royalty in jodhpur. and the food was incredible, but i was so sick feeling (from all the paneer) that i only had mini-cinnabons and chocolate chip cookies (made by commissary ingredients, so you know how good they were).

so afterthis, we picked kelley up and the 4 of us went to ISKON, which was also packed. we saw the aarti which is always neat. then we went to sagar in def col for dinner, but i just had lassi (again). this morning my stomach still feels packed (i ate a lot of tollhouse cookies!).

so this weekend was non-stop, alot like the first year of college... i think i might be going shopping this evening, we'll see. despite doing so much this weekend, i didn't spend too much money bc a lot of my food and drinks and transport were free. and i didn't buy too many clothes (oh-- and i got an abida parveen CD).

must work, am trying to get out early today.

Friday, July 15, 2005

should i get my nose pierced?

thursday was a rough day for me. i felt very fatigued and weak in my legs and ended up not going to the gym. i think i need to get back on my hypoglycemic diet. so instead of the gym i went home and made chhole (chickpeas) and had that for dinner. kuch kuch hota hai was on the television-- one of bollywood's classics! kelley and i then went over to this girl's (zayba) house for ladies' night #3. we were there until almost midnight and i was worried how i would feel today. i am still a little tired but not as bad as yesterday.

my friend, ashlee, who is from louisiana, just got her nose pierced, and i was a bit surprised. i have been flirting with the idea of getting mine pierced (then i can really dress up for special occassions!), but have mustered up the guts to do it yet. i think it will heal enough over the next month so that when i start interviewing i can take it out. that is my only real concern-- going for job interviews. anyone have any comments on this? if i do it, it will be with a small gold stud-type i think.

shakti leaves next wednesday and kelley leaves the following week, and then i will be alone in anand niketan (unless someone else moves in). i think once they leave i'll just shift back to ghaziabad. main reason being i won't be able to freeride off of their free motorpool (only for state dept. interns). more than transportation issues, i have learned this summer that i can not be alone.

after work tonight kelley and i are going shopping. then i may or may not go to this new club that is opening. we'll see how i feel. kelley is not going, so i have the option to hang out with her.

oh-- exciting news. india now makes soy milk. i am going to try to find some tonight in the local market. now all they need here is peanut butter and dental floss.

Thursday, July 14, 2005

phone and clothing matters

i've been feeling really blah ever since i got back from the village, so kelley and i left the acsa (embassy) gym after a wimpy workout and headed home last night. i then had to go find an STD booth (where you can make long-distance phone calls within india) to call patna to talk to santosh. pappu had some messages for me to tell santosh, and i also wanted to find out what was going on with people there in patna and when santosh is returning to delhi. it took about 30 minutes of walking, waiting and dialing to complete my 5-minute phone call. part of the problem is santosh is staying with the professor (guddu's cousin's husband) who has no phone. so we call the people across the street who, in good weather, yell up to santosh to come to the phone, or, in bad weather, go fetch santosh themselves. it is a time-taking process.

once that was done i went home and started ironing piles and piles of clothes. this will make it easier in future mornings when i am searching for something to wear. while i was ironing, khalid the kashmiri tailor came to do business with shakti. shakti was very late, so khalid and i chatted about kashmir and how delhi girls have no morals. shakti finally arrived, and until 11pm at night, he tried on clkothes and instructed khalid on how to have them altered.

after khalid left, shakti showed me the phone bill he received bc he thought it was for our house landline phone. can you believe they are charging us for local calls to the embassy and they didn't even tell us? this will hopefully be worked out. i am afraid i am going to get a scary bill from motorpool as well.

tonight is another "girl's night." enchiladas-- i hope there is salad. i haven't had very many non-oily vegetables lately. the problem with the salad is that the americans bleach all their vegetables to sterilize them.

Wednesday, July 13, 2005

impulse shopping

here's one thing i like so much about working in connaught place-- whatever you need is probably within walking distance and very affordable if you have the patience. example-- i left our broken umbrella in the auto rickshaw yesterday and have ever since been meaning to buy another. today i went out to lunch with shakti and his friend karthik, and on the way i saw a boy selling very cute umbrellas for Rs.100. mission accomplished.

for lunch i went to the canteen at the andhra pradeh bhawan. they have unlimited south indian thali for Rs.50. it was very clean for the amount of people they have eating there. unlimited thali is not like unlimited buffet where you get up yourself to get more food. instead, every 10 seconds someone comes to your table to fill up your plate. i have to admit i was sceptical about south indians eating veggies (i thought they only ate idlis dosas and uttapams and rice and fish), but this was very very good food. in the back of the room was a large table of young white boys in suits who turned out to be Mormon missionaries.

i'm not sure about tonight's plan. i have a dinner invite, so i might take that up.

Tuesday, July 12, 2005

Affour/Patna recap

I arrived back in rainy, rainy Delhi alone this morning on the Sampurn Kranti. The train ride was pleasant and I had a side-upper berth (which is my favorite). I slept almost the entire train ride bc I am majorly sleep deprived and feverish. The following is how I got in that state:

So Thursday evening santosh and i left for chhapra, which is a dinky little station (the size of the richmond amtrak station) in bihar. before going i lost my appetite and had nothing for dinner nor for breakfast except chai. this pattern continued throughout the weekend. we got to chhapra, and as usually, were met by guddu's elder brother, munna bhaiya. we took a 30 minute ride in an ambassador (the classiest car ever) to the house in affour. reaching there, we met guriya (guddu's little sister), bhabhi (munna bhaiya's wife), her three children (including the newborn girl), guddu's mom, siroj and ashok-- cousins, and a distantly-related "niece." The newborn girl is so big! i wonder if it is because she was 3 weeks late. she has a rash from the heat, but otherwise is quite healthy. i spent a lot of time holding her, which was good because it freed up the hands of everyone else to do other work or to relax. the baby won't sleep on the bed, so she constantly needs to be held. despite all the holding I did, the baby peed on me only once and pooped only once as well.

carrie-- this is for you, let's put an end to the exoticism: Saturday was super-hot and muggy in the village. i really wanted to take a nap, but it was too hot to sleep and there were so many flies everywhere. plus, the "clean" bedsheet smelled like pee (cleanliness, you quickly learn, is relative). my bag also smells like pee (i think from mice). saturday night was so hot that i barely slept. we were on the roof and the mosquitoes were bad and there was no breeze. to make matters worse, there were scary noises coming from the bamboo trees (rats?). oh, and everynight these ladies sing until 2am on a megaphone. and then there are the jackals whose howling sounds like men gone mad. and it is impossible to sleep past 5 or 6am on the roof.

saturday night was pretty rough, which i think set me up for falling sick. sunday was cloudy and cooler, luckily, and i was able to nap. i ate my breakfast, which tasted funny, and started getting a headache. in the afternoon i started getting very thirsty, so i drank a lot of water, and then felt very ill. that night the smell of eggplant frying almost made me vomit. so i went up to the roof when it got dark and talked to my bhabhi and slept on the cot with my niece and nephew.

monday morning i was still feeling sick so i only had tea. we (me guriya and santosh) left the house at 6:30am to catch a bus to patna. we missed the local bus so we went on motorcycle for 30 minutes to chhapra. there we found a bus to patna, but had to wait 30 minutes for it to fill up (meaning on the inside and with people on the roof). while we waited, we watched Hero No. 1 which is an awful movie with my least-favorite actor Govinda. after 3-hours of bumping and diesel fumes and the yelling of the bus-conductor ("Patna! Patna! Patna!") we got to Patna. i like the bus ride to patna for 3 reasons-- you get to watch a movie, the scene over the bridge near Hazipur of the banana trees, and the special, small bananas that are available. In patna (the capital of bihar), the sun was blazing and no rickshaw was available bc the drivers were on strike. i got very sunburned-- even a "bangle tan"-- a 2-in white ring around my arm from where my bangles had been.

In patna we went to a relative's flat (narad bhaiya's for all who may know-- across from the professor). it was my "nephew" chandan's 22?nd birthday. i showered and then santosh and i set out to do our two works-- we had to visit with 2 people, one being sadhna (chullu's wife). the meetings went well, but at the end i was further sunburned from all the motorcycle-riding and feeling quite ill bc i had only eaten junk from all the visits-- samosas, sweets and chai. geting on the train was a relief, but only temporary bc i quickly felt alone after all the excitement of the weekend.

Thursday, July 07, 2005

pre-departure madness

last night santosh picked me up at the embassy as scheduled. we then went (by scooter) to anand niketan so i could get some bags and clothes and jewelry etc for the village. it started pouring rain while we were there, so we waited it out and were able to make it 66% of the way back without really getting wet. but the rain came down during the last 15 minutes! and it got COLD. but everyone was enjoying-- you can hear people on motorcycles and scooters laughing and enjoying as the rain picks up. while driving, santosh handed me his mobile bc it started ringing. between the rain and santosh yelling not to get his phone wet (like that could be prevented?) i could barely make out who was on the other line-- it turned out to be pappu calling to say it was raining a lot (duh) and he would be late.

we didn't get home until almost 10pm, soaking wet. we felt like eating lithi-- these balls of wheat flour (aataa) filled with roasted chick pea flower (satu) and some onion, garlic etc. we baked them in the oven and it took A LONG TIME. after making those and some okra with soyatein (YUM) it was midnite. i didn't get into bed until 1am and it took a long time to fall asleep bc some type of bug bit me on my toe and it was swollen and itchy and kind of painful.

in the morning i woke up early to pack and everything went wrong-- clothes were not dry, i was super sleepy, clothes were missing, clothes had hug tears in them, clothes needed to be ironed. yes, i should have taken care of this the night before, but we had been engaged in clothes washing and cooking so packing early was not possible. i remember being in Mt. Abu-- feeling very cold and damp all the time. that is how it is here right now. also, the fact that my in-laws live in a different world where time is not really a factor works against me. example-- i was yelling at santosh that i needed a needle (which i had been asking for for a week) to sew up some pants. we had the radio on and i thought he seemed a bit distracted by the film song that was playing (K3G), but i figured he went into the bedroom to go fetch a needle-- but NO! he went in there to dance to the song! all of this was going on while i had 15 minutes to finish packing and getting ready for work and eat breakfast.

i'll be posting again next week...

Wednesday, July 06, 2005

LeT / Rain

so tomorrow we leave for the village. i'm hoping the BJP strike and recent terrorist attack here won't affect my travels-- some trains in Ranchi and Orissa were stopped... today there was a big protest near Jantar Mantar (a common site for protests in delhi) near where i work. but i am hoping that this is just the BJP-VHP making a big fuss and then soon they will realize they need to quiet down.

yesterday santosh picked me up from work so we could go to laxmi nagar for some shopping. i had to buy a nice salwar suit for myself, but i ended up getting two and three pairs of gold earrings. we're also getting filmed developed. on the way to laxmi nagar is started drizzling and then raining, but luckily not too hard. it was a fun kind of rain, not an "i'm cold and miserable" type of rain. santosh suggested i use the umbrella (yes, while on the back of a scooter), but i refused bc in the morning i saw a lady trying to do this and it did not look like she was getting much benefit for all the effort of trying to angle the umbrella so the wind would not destroy it (or sweep her off the bike a la mary poppins).

last night pappu (brother #3) brought me another ice cream on the way home from his shop. this is turning into a bad habit and needs to be stopped. but cornetto cones (the ones from vadilal, not kwality-wallz) are so good!

this evening after work i am running because it has nearly been a week-- i haven't even been able to walk because of all the rain! santosh will pick me up from the embassy and we'll go to anand niketan to do some laundry and pack my things from there.

speaking of the rain-- it has been chilly here! it is so cold that it is uncomfortable to take a bath. again, it is a fun type of cold, not an "i'm frozen and miserable" type of cold. rainy season can be a lot of fun. the downside are the insects. we started using the mosquito net again because the sounds of all the insects scared me. the net is like a safety blanket that ensures they will not crawl on me in the night. and we saw big cockroaches last night-- like the type that i remember we had in orlando.

Tuesday, July 05, 2005

chicken lollipop

i forgot to say what i had for dinner last night-- chicken lollipop. we ordered-in for chinese (indo-chinese, rather), and bhutty bravely requested chicken lollipop without first asking "what is chicken lollipop?" fortunately, chicken lollipop is not a chicken-flavoured lollipop, nor is it chicken processed into lollipop form. It actually is pretty good-- marinated drumsticks (aka lollipops)-- and i highly recommend trying it should it appear on a menu near you.

July 4th came and went

last night we dropped bhutty off at the train station. he left for bangalore to go to college. everyone feels like he is going so far away, like Alaska. santosh and i took a shared autorickshaw for part of the trip home. by "shared" i don't mean a big tempo, but a regular size rickshaw in which they try to squeeze in at least 6-7 people inside and outside (hanging). when santosh and i sat in the rickshaw, this man joined us and started talking to santosh. they sounded quite chummy, and i eventually realized that he lives in our "society." while we were waiting for more passengers, a police sheep pulled up behind us and started blaring its siren, so for about a block we zoomed around to escape it. in the US, this type of scenario would worry me, but not in India.

speaking of rickshaws, santosh is thinking to buy one and renting it out to a driver. "rich dad, poor dad" would be proud bc this way santosh himself doesn't have to spend his time driving, but he still earns money. but here is the really cool part-- i can decorate it (shah rukh khan posters?) and put my name on the back.

we spent yesterday at Palika Bazaar shopping for some clothes for him. I got a really nice looking leather (?) handbag. tonight i am going to laxmi nagar with santosh so i can get myself a decent outfit to wear!

on saturday santosh and i went to shipra (new super fancy mall) to see a movie playing there. we saw Paheli. it was such a beautiful movie-- lots of rajasthani motifs, so jodhpur people should definitely check it out. and rani mukherji was just beautiful. while i was at the mall, i also saw three people, including santosh, at different times, walk into glass doors/partitions bc they could not see them.

Friday, July 01, 2005

ok i am much better now

mood is now back on. lots of attention and an ice cream cone did the trick :)

i was debating whether or not to go to work this morning. one stumbling block was that i had no clean work clothes. so i am wearing a ripped, kinda smelly (but not dirty), super-tight salwar suit. it was either that or a pantsuit which i did not want to get messed up.

by the time i got dressed it was 8:30 and pappu did not return with a rickshaw for me until 9am. i got to work about 10am. pappu "negotiatied" that rickshaw driver to Rs.100, which is a bit ridiculous, especially since the meter read Rs.65. oh, the delhi metro to connaught place opens up sunday, so tuesday i will try taking that to work. we'll see how that goes.