I'm finally sick

May 29, 2010
I’m sitting in my apartment in Bangalore watching Slumdog Millionaire. Ironic? First off, I hate this movie, but when my options are Airheads, The Black Cauldron, or a plethora of Bollywood and Tamil movies (all in Hindi or Tamil with no English subtitles) you have to take what you can get. It’s been awhile, and yesterdays post wasn’t too descriptive, so I’ll detail the past 20ish hours for you.
Yesterday, after our whirlwind tour of Bangalore we went to the police station to get our residency permits. Why we need this? I have no idea, but it’s India so vhatever. We got there around 3:30 and waited in a marble shack-type building along with other hopefules – an elder Indian man who stared at us, an old aunty, 2 Europeans from the ‘80s(?). At about 4:30 we were told by Florence – our awesome aunty director - to start lining up. We were shuffled into a small roped off section infront of the building. About 30 people were in this area and the number only increased. Citizens from Thailand, the Maldives, America, and Japan were all anxiously awaiting to be let through the ropes and the receive our various permits and visas. We were supposed to be let in at 4:30, at 5:00 we were all impatiently still waiting. As time creeped on I got a peak inside the office…they were doing a pooja. Are you kidding me? We were supposed to be let in almost 45 minutes ago and you’re doing a pooja?
We were finally let in and filed behind our respective lines. I thought this what it, I’m finally getting my residential permit! But nope, pooja was still going on and now everyone was eating food and laughing while 50+ people anxiously awaited, to what? Sign 2 pieces of paper. We waited 2 and a half hours to sign 2 pieces of paper.
At this point I felt like absolute shit. I was exhausted, tired, hot, and slightly irritated, but I refused to let it get to me! Just let me get home and life will be better. Well, we got home, I grabbed my laptop and we headed to Mocha our new coffee shop hangout. After an excruciating conversation with the sexist employees we finally got some Internet. Blah, blah, blah I went on facebook, checked my e-mail, had no desire to do anything else that night, seriously planned on going home and hopefully passing out.
But of course drinking is more important, and we went on journey to find a bar. We find our little oasis in the form of 70’s rock and 80’s hair metal with a little dose of A7X and audioslave, odd mixture? You bet your ass. We spent around an hour demolishing 2 towers (I think about 2 liters) of Fosters beer. Indian beer. Let me begin to describe this for you. So far in India I have seen mostly two types of beer, Kingfisher and Fosters. For a beer snob like me this place is hell, and when we finally stumbled upon this bar that was supposed to be a “beer bar” I was pretty ecstatic. However, beer bar in India does not mean a wide selection of beers, it means 1 type of beer (Fosters) that is mixed in a myriad of ways. So Fosters we drank! It tasted a little better than Kingfisher – Kingfisher taste like flat miller light – and made do since there were no other alcohol selections of the menu.
When we got back I was dead. My back has been killing me for the past couple of days, but this time it was excruciating. I could barely move without being in a disturbing amount of pain. I popped an Advil and tried to sleep. I probably slept about 2 hours total – factoring in the numerous times I woke up and tried to situate myself of my poor excuse for a mattress. I remember one time in high school I passed out on a cement drive way. That driveway was more comfortable than my bed. I’m seriously considering going outside and making a new bed out of coconut leaves, it would be more comfortable and probably smell better. I woke up at about 6:00 to tell some fellow study abroaders that I couldn’t make the trip to Mysore today. I was pretty upset, but with my back pain and over all discomfort going on a trip for the day would not have been conducive to…living.
Instead, I went back to my plywood bed and tried to get some rest. After an extremely lucid dream, I’ve been having many of those lately, I woke up around 8:00. At this point my body hurt pretty much all over, my chest, my back, my arms, my toes. You know that feeling you feel when you’re about to get sick? Yeah, that’s what I’ve been feeling all morning. I forced myself to make some tea, boiling some water on our old school gas stove. Well, it’s not quite a stove., there’s two burners connected to a ominous gas container. As I was washing a tea press in the sink I noticed a cockroach laying by one of the pots. I’m pretty much numb to cockroaches at this point, but I was startled nonetheless. He wasn’t moving though and I didn’t have the energy or desire to do away with him. I periodically checked up on him, I’m trying to acclimate myself to cockroach’s so maybe at some point I can kill one myself.
Well my friend started moving his antennas at one point. Breeze, yes, must be the wind moving them. Then he started moving his gross ass legs, then I smashed him with a pot.
My flat mates wanted to go to the worlds craft fair to peruse, buy, and spectate, I would have loved to go if my whole body didn’t feel like one big ache. I stayed home with a heated water bottle on my back, and got to see both Mr. Anil our housing director whom communicates mostly by shaking his head, and a maid. The door bell rang earlier and I answered it only to find a 4’ 10” Indian woman with a mop and a bucket. I though she had come to clean the apartment, since maids are supposed to come twice a week, but she just pointed to the bucket and the floor. I had no idea what she meant, and her speaking Tamil and me speaking English did not help the situation at all. I somehow deduced that she needed water in her bucket. Maybe she was going to clean our apartment! Nope, the hallway. We still have a dirty ass apartment.
Well, now Im still painfully sitting in my living room about halfway through Slumdog Millionaire. I’ll probably venture out and find some elusive internet so I can post this, and maybe, just maybe, I’ll eat something. Though I don’t quite know if my stomach is up for that at the moment.

Much catching up to do

So I haven't written in the longest time, mostly because I've been absurdly busy and tired. Right now I'm sitting in a rather cute little coffee shop in Bangalore. The people here are quite racist though...

On to the past couple days, I'll just start with yesterday. We went to this giant bazaar area and walked around for a good 4-5 hours. At one point I stepped into a questionable puddle of something...second time my left foot became engulfed in Indian street muck, but hey these things happen.

We left the bazaar and began looking for an auto rickshaw to drive us back to NGV (our subpar apartments...). We ended up befriending this social rickshaw driver, who in return absolutely loved us. He drove us around Bangalore, told us he'd only charge 10 ruppees, about 15 cents, to drive us back but we had to stop at certain stores. Apparently, the shop owners will pay rickshaw drivers extra to drive naive tourist to their stores. He said we didn't have to buy anything, we just had to look.

We went to these stores and were immediately swamped with attention and "How much you want pay?". It was difficult to decline, but I did. Mostly because I'm already short of money here.

By the end of the trip we found out just about everything about our cab driver. His name is Mohammad, he has 2 children - boy and girl - he's 38, and his wife is 28, he got married to here when she was only 18. We also found out that woman should get married when they are young 18-20. 25-years-old, way to old. No longer marriageable at that age. "By 20 you should have 3 kids"

Today

Today was nothing short of exhausting. It began at 6:30 in the morning when we started our trek to campus. We left around 7:15 and began our fast tour of Bangalore. It is a beautiful city. Up until it began to be ungodly hot, it was great to see the city and experience the various religious temples.

We went to The Krishna temple and it was nothing short of beautiful. After praying to the first two gods we went to the main temple - it house the 3 "main" gods Krishna being one of them. The alters were all made of pure gold, some of the statues had diamond tiaras and jewels. The smells permeating the air from the incense burners was enchanting, it put you in a completely heightened mental state.

From Mumbai to Bangalore

POSTING DELAYED

Monday May 24, 2010

Chhatrapati Shivaji Airport is beautiful. The café area looks like an installation in Ikea, actually I’m pretty sure all of this furniture is from Ikea.

So that past couple of days? Where to begin?

Apparently I’ve been to the two most exclusive clubs in India. Fun.

We’ll start with Thursday. Thursday night I met up with Ankita to go out out. This was my first taxi ride alone, but I felt pretty effing confident for some strange reason. Before I left I checked out where Ankitas Aunties house to estimate how long it would take – and to make sure that my taxi driver wasn’t going to take me on a joy ride through South Mumbai. Though…my ability to actually name ANY of the roads that we drove on is non-existent, so that was futile. It was lovely to see Mumbai at night though, the city is rather beautiful and moderately cooler (by cooler I mean 33 C compared to 40 C, needless to say I’m still sweating profusely) We got to a stop light and I saw a beggar knocking on windows a couple cars ahead. I looked around and saw about 15-20 other homeless and realized that giving this poor man money would induce unwanted company by all the others. Hoepfully the light would change first.

Nope, the light did not change and the beggar did come up and knock on my window. He started scratching at it and showing his sons hands. His son didn’t have a hand, he had a bloody nub. I had to look away, there was nothing I could do.

Eventually we pulled away and I viewed the rest of the slum life in Mumbai. Homeless children running the streets with roughly a million dogs and a million other people. When we rolled up to the apartment the man said “110 ruppees” which surprised me because earlier that day I was paying 300-400 ruppees for a cab! Yes, I was totally ripped off. Shit.

Well, it was silly to dwell on that –even though deep down inside I was unbelievable pissed off. That’s when I officially became cheap in India. I’ll just say. I get it now.

On to the night! Since Thursday is quite the party night in Pittsburgh I figured the same held true over here. Nope, the “happening” days in Mumbai are only Wednesday, Friday, Saturday. I don’t quite get the Wednesday thing, but then again there’s a lot of things I don’t get about Mumbai so I just let it go. We ended up at a pretty awesome hookah bar. The hookah was good, though ironically the music plying in the bar brought back memories of senior homecoming with trendy, early ‘00s music. When I heard soldier boy I nearly choked on my hookah. I found it strange that in hookah bars back home Arabic-eque music capitalizes in hookah bars while hookah bars over here play American music? Strange.

The next night we went out. Driving through the slums – strange strange – and pulling up to the ritzy Hyatt Resort screamed dichotomy. Regardless, like a true Mumbaikar I just drank a lot. Since I didn’t quite plan on going out any other nights, I decided that tonight I would go all out. By that paying the bare minimum and tricking some Mumbaikar to buy me a drink. I eventually got my free drink after much effort and agreeing to eat lunch the next day - I didn’t by the way. Then next think I know Ankita, myself, and our little group made friends with an overly drunk/friendly group of guys. One of them was enjoying the house music way to much, but it was sweet music and if you’re going to enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself. We later found out that he’s from Egypt and that he pretty much came here to party to. Seems like a trend.

We danced and had a great time till about 3:30 when the club closed – by the way Mumbai doesn’t really have a closing time. Clubs, and everything actually, closes anywhere between 9:00 and never. Only in Mumbai.

The next day we met up with Ankitas dad, who by the way is my new idol. He maintains good and loving relationships with his family and friends, while traveling all over the world. He has lived in more places then I can even name, and travels more then most people I have known – all the while remaining a completely down to earth and kind person. Who said you had to settle down in one place forever to have a perfect family? His lifestyle is a great model for what I hope mine to be one day.

We hung out with him during the later portion of the day – doing our girlie things as he said then having dinner and going out. I ate the infamous Chinese/Indian food, and to say that least, the food was amazing! I’ve never eaten such fresh tasting, flavorful, Chinese takeout. I could honestly eat that forever. Instead we went o Presad (sp?)

What is this Presad? I soon found out that this club is arguable to most exclusive and high end club in Mumbai. When the club opened there were only 500 memberships sold at around $60-80,000 per membership and only those people and acquaintances of them are ever allowed in. (I’ll tell you later what arrogance that rule was built off).

Somehow we – I - got in. At the young age of 21, I felt old. Literally, I’m pretty sure the average age at this club was 17. It was surreal, 16-18 year-old children were drinking Belvedere and smoking on top of “lotus – private table overtop a pound in the club – dressed in the clothing circa high school musical. I couldn’t help but laugh uncontrollable. This was ridiculous. Thankfully, the club was somehow shut down at 1:30. After, of course, me and some 15 year old took several shots of Belvederes. Apparently, every club is supposed to close down at 1:00(ish), unless of course you’ve payed off the police. Which apparently they forgot. Oops. The little children were escorted out by their body guards as the Mumbai police came in with guns and battalions. Out into the ungodly humidity we go! We ended up back at Zaffrons, the hookah bar, and ended up finding out about the truth of the Mumbai underworld until about 5:00 in the morning. Fascinating stuff, and far beyond the scope of this blog or my ability to accurately describe it. If you ever want to know the “truth” just ask, it explains why people can still live life in Mumbai even with the intense poverty and conditions in the slums and streets.

To be perfectly honest, I had exceedingly more fun watching bollywood movies and Hindi TV with Ankita then going out at night. It’s those everyday thinks of Mumbai I love…

Reading the Hindustan Times is my new favorite past time, and I will certainly miss their generalization of Americans (they think we’re overly sexed) and unbelievable accuracy in describing the every movements of Lindsey Lohan. They love Lindsey Lohan. Masala tea, what we understand as Chai tea, is the greatest drink ever created and comparitvely cheap here. On the street a cup of chai is about 5 rupeees, and a whole pot of it in a restaurant is 25 ruppees (about 55 cents). The people are fascinating, their clothes, their ability to flow through this insane town. Communicating with cab drivers is a thrill in and of itself, I’ve never learned Hindi so quickly – and utilized it so poorly. I’ve learned that stop lights are just suggestions, as well as every other traffic “law”. Crossing the street is a dream come true for me, it’s like playing a real life version of frogger. The rich are RICH and the poor are pretty poor, but those in the middle are pretty damn cool. Bartering is fun and it works! And when it works you feel pretty accomplished, though if you’re white like me, you probably still got ripped off.

Mumbai isn’t bad, it isn’t scary, it isn’t too crazy – it’s just different. It operates differently then how the west visualizes and understands a city, and just because it doesn’t run that way doesn’t make it inferior. If anything Mumbai is advanced in it’s abilities to operate under such pressure and stress. In essence, Mumbai should have probably collapsed years go from over population and pollution. Somehow it still survives and districts like Colaba, Bandra, and Juhu represent the advancements that Mumbai is making. I honestly love Mumbai because it is so alive. There is so much to discover from the millions of street stalls, clubs, alleys, temples, stores, restaurants old and new, and the great people that do exist there. I can’t wait to go back.

My new friend

Before I venture out for the day I had to mention my new friend. I can't remember his name, and I think I would hurt him too much to ask again, but he basically thinks I'm the greatest thing to ever step foot in this hotel.

I don't know if it's customary to tip the "bell" boys...but I did. Apparently it was the first time he had ever been tipped. Okay, so maybe he's new to this job. Nope, been working in hotels for 12 years. Never been tipped. Could explain the love.

When I got in yesterday around 10:45 I though "I'll sleep till like 2 then wonder around maybe eat? Who knows" I slept until 6:00. I still wondered around - when I received all the stares - then eventually made my way back to the hotel so I could eat. As I was eating a tasty dhal with some roti and chai my friend approached me again. He asked how I was doing and all the like, and responded mostly with compliments about my smile. He pointed out some areas I need to check out always ending with "If you need anything, anything at all let me know. Seriously, anything I help you, you my new friend, you have no family not friends, we be friends." Thanks for making me feel good about the no friends...

Then he struck me with a strange question, "You like Jesus?" I asked him what he said again, wasn't really expecting Jesus. But yes, he said Jesus, he asked if I liked him and if we were friends. I agreed, even though Jesus and I have had our issues I thought it best that my friend think I'm a stereotypical white person. He said Jesus makes him a nice person that helps other people, that is why he is helping me. Well what can I say? It's hard to not take this as some creepy sign that God is watching out for my yadda, yadda, blah, blah but I'm just going to dismiss it as an extremely strange coincidence.

He walked me to my room, made sure I didn't need anything else. Asked if everyone is this tall in America, gave me some toilet paper, then I shut the door and went to bed.
This place is great.

From Delhi to Mumbai

Insanity doesn't correctly described Mumbai but it's as close to an accurate adjective that I can think of right now. There are people everywhere and things...everywhere. There are massive IT buildings next to dilapidated skyscrapers and abandoned apartment buildings. There are children EVERYWHERE and they don't hesitate to stare and point at the tall white girl walking down the street with a camera. At one point, a little girl turned around and gasped when she saw me then ran up to her mother and continued to speak in Hindi and point. I can't complain though, I nearly freaked out when I saw another white person. We really do stick out.

The place I am staying is rather nice. There is marble...everything. Funny how this type of decor would be a luxury in the US but I'm beginning to realize it is a necessity here. Why? Because it is really, really, really, really humid. Pittsburghers should never complain ever again that our city is humid - we are clearly spoiled. Even though I have AC and a fan there is still condensation on most all of my belongings. I wouldn't care much if it didn't render my cell phone basically useless. Touch screens and humidity do not mix. As I'm writing this I googled humidity and blackberries...seems like a common occurrence. Guess I'll have to forgo phone usage for most of the next 6 weeks.

Surprisingly I slept through most of last night. Thankfully I was still recovering from hours of jet lag and not sleeping for 36+ hours, so my body would not have allowed me to miss the opportunity for sleep. Otherwise I have no idea how I would sleep through the background noise. In Mumbai everyone beeps their horn at all times. To turn, to move forward, to move back, to go, to stop, to just say hello, it's incessant! When I got into the taxi at the airport the drive beeped his horn before he even started the car. I've deduced that beeping is just a form of communication here.

14 Hour plane rides and sleeping in airports

I’m sitting in an airport in Delhi. It’s me, a Japanese man, and all Indians. The music is a sitar, hindi, music melody. It’s amazing.

Unfortunately, I realized about 5 hours before my plane landed that I would have to spend the night in Delhi. This is entirely my fault, good news came out of this whole debacle though...I realized I don’t know how to interpret AM and PM. Thankfully I met an American Indian girl whom also is trapped in the Delhi airport till 6:30 AM and together we ventured from the AA terminal to the main terminal to catch our flight. This seemingly simple task actually took us about 45 minutes. The large, gun carrying airport security scrutinized our inability to provide a location for where we stayed Tuesday May 17th. Tuesday May 17th we were mostly in the air. This I tried to describe to the man by motioning my arm in a plane like movement. My newly found friend quickly stopped me and spoke to the man in Hindi while I smiled stupidly.

Eventually a shuttle came to transport us to the main terminal. We were the only two people on the shuttle, and the driver tried to persuade us to just stay in a hotel.
me: "What did he say?"
Jissy: "He's trying to get us to stay in a hotel."
me: "Oh..." and
Jissy: "But that's silly, I told him no."
me: "Yeah, totally silly."
Hotels are for the weak. Give me a plastic, uncomfortable chair any day! I slept approximately 1 hour in the Indira Ghandi airport before I was awoken by the intercom that continued to break the sitar elevator music every 20 minutes.

Now, after trying for 3 hours, I have the internet! I'm mostly delirious - I've only slept about 6 hours in the past 48 - a little sick of trail mix, and I may or may not smell absolutely disgusting. Well, my flight leaves in 2 more hours! Finally, Mumbai and a bed. I'll probably going to sleep all day. Literally. All day.