Off to Southeast Asia!

"SURPRISE! You have 7 days leave that expire at the end of 2010!"

This is what happened to me last week. I had been saving up my leave days for a longer trip in the spring; I assumed leave days could carry over (also, it should be noted that I still think of years in academic terms. September is the new year for me, not January! so it didn't occur to me that this might be a problem). One might ask why HR did not tell me this during orientation. The answer would be that HR never gave me an orientation. So basically I don't know any of the policies of my organization.

Anyway, 7 days leave + 2 Sundays + Christmas holiday = 10 day vacation. And I had exactly one week to figure out where to go. I looked up flights to everywhere warm (hey, it's cold here in the mountains without central heating!) within and near India, and Bangkok was the cheapest flight (cheaper than Goa). So, there ya go. I'm going to Thailand, mostly to some islands for beach time and scuba diving. And Cambodia to see Angkor Wat, because, you know, I'll be in the neighborhood.

I leave tonight on an overnight bus from Shimla to Delhi, and my flight to Bangkok is tomorrow. Weeee vacation!!

Don't let them fool you.

Monkeys. As a young lass in the US, I thought monkeys were cute and playful and pretty much the best land animals ever (but my favorite overall animals were, naturally, whales). At age 6, I had a plush monkey with exaggerated arms and velcro on the hands so that it could hug things (and me) that I bought at the Baltimore Zoo. I loved that toy. I even went through a phase in middle school when I only wore Paul Frank, the monkey-lover's answer to Hello Kitty (it was an awkward time in my life, ok?). Seriously, just ask my mom, Jessie S., and Mayan, and they will tell you: 12-year-old Emily loved monkeys (by the way, Jessie S. and Mayan were totally guilty of going through a monkey phase too! And I was totally jealous of Jessie's Aeropostale monkey pajama pants, even though I had the Paul Frank version. Her monkey design was just cuter).

This was all before I came to India, a place that has shattered my dreams of adorable monkeys playfully swinging through trees and not threatening human life. My earliest evil monkey encounter occurred in Gingee (pronounced Sinjee), Tamil Nadu. A bunch of us in my study abroad program decided to take a fun weekend away from campus to visit the fort in Gingee and the temples in Tiruvannamalai. Fun, we thought. Until we were attacked by monkeys.

Gingee Fort

view from the fort

When we finally reached the uppermost section of the fort, we decided to stop and eat lunch. As we were eating, we slowly realized that more and more monkeys were approaching. Soon, we were surrounded by monkeys on all sides, with nowhere to go. One monkey even snatched Fred's bag of dates right out of his backpack! They clearly intended to steal more food from us. They hissed, bared their teeth, and crouched in about-to-pounce position--very intimidating. So we did the only thing we could: we ran. I remember jumping off the structure because monkeys were blocking the stairs. And I ran all the way down the hill. I then refused to climb up to the second area of the fort, because I had had enough of these monkeys (Zeliha would later tell me how the monkeys at the second section tried to steal her juice box right out of her hands, and I was happy with my decision to stay put).

evil monkeys who stole our food

Unfortunately for me, Shimla is the epicenter of monkey madness. Shimla's monkeys are infamous all over India. If I tell an Indian I'm living in Shimla, one of the first things they ask is "how do you handle the monkeys?" Indians often mention monkeys before the beautiful mountain scenery, the colonial architecture, and the (relatively) pleasant climate. These notorious monkeys steal ice cream out of children's hands at the Mall and glasses off of faces at the Jakhoo Temple.

Jakhoo Temple is appropriately dedicated to Hanuman, the Hindu monkey god. This temple surely must be Hanuman's Lair, as thousands of monkeys--every single one of them evil--populate the area. In fact, these monkeys are particularly evil. A neighbor once told me that she saw a monkey pry a 4-month-old baby out of his mother's arms and then bring the baby up a tree. The monkey only released his hostage after banana negotiations. In my opinion, it was terrible parenting to bring such a young child to Hanuman's Lair. Needless to say, I will NEVER step foot in these glasses- and baby-stealing monkey-infested temple grounds.

monkeys on the Mall plotting their next attack. as you can see, I tried to keep my distance.

The state of Himachal Pradesh has tried numerous measures to control the monkey population, but to no avail. The most recent desperate attempt? The state has declared open hunting season on the monkeys; farmers can shoot to kill these monkeys if they feel their farms are threatened.

The monkeys in my neighborhood are no exception. They are just as menacing. My landlord installed grills on my windows so that monkeys would not break into my apartment (yes, it happens, usually through the kitchen). I hang my newly-washed clothes to dry on the terrace, despite the risks (I have heard stories of monkeys ripping up expensive saris left out to dry), and I have paid the consequences. One time, a monkey unclipped a kurta from the line and threw it over the terrace onto the street below. Luckily, a shopkeeper picked up the now-filthy garment and returned it to me. Another time, I found all my underwear missing; clearly, monkeys stole my underwear. From time to time, monkeys leave me gifts: their feces. I'm afraid to go out onto a my terrace at night, because sometimes I hear monkeys fighting and shrieking out there. Or even if they're not fighting, they are hanging out there and G-d only knows what they'd do to me. Every morning I'm woken up by the monkeys and dogs having an all-out epic battle, and there is no question in my mind that the monkeys win every time.

The monkeys in my neighborhood gave birth recently. There are tiny--and I mean tiny--baby monkeys stumbling around everywhere or clinging to their mothers' undersides. Adorable? One might be fooled into thinking so, but let's not forget that these monkeys' mothers will train them to become monsters. So another generation of devils has been brought into this world, and I am not happy about it.

spawn of Satan

In conclusion, don't let these monkeys fool you: they are not cute, they are evil menaces to be shot by angry farmers.

My new favorite blog

Stuff Expat Aid Workers Like, a variation on the popular Stuff White People Like, could also be called Stuff Expat Development Workers Like, because I can relate to many of the posts.

What stuff do Expat Aid/Development Workers like? Well, according to this blog, Blending In, Pictures of Burqas, and Tropical Diseases and Parasites, among others. Um, yeah, guilty as charged on all counts. (I wear a salwar kameez or at least kurta every day in an attempt to fit in with Indians; I tried to sneak pictures of women in burqas in Hyderabad; I once had dengue fever and yes, have brought it up in conversation.)

I am ashamed. And laughing really hard at this blog--and at myself.

Credit goes to Molly for directing me toward this genius source of entertainment. Thanks!

I am in love. ...with the adorable offspring of goats and sheep.

Just look at how gosh darn CUTE they are!!

baby sheep napping in a bowl
Nako Village, Kinnaur District

Rajesh and me with a baby goat
Chhitkul Village, Kinnaur District

On Migration, Part 1: Things I learned about buffaloes

Two months ago (yup, I'm real late on this one) I went on a field visit that involved me traveling with the migratory Gujjar tribe. They travel with their buffaloes, so I got to know these creatures fairly intimately. These are the things I learned (as told to me by Gujjars or as I witnessed):

• Buffaloes walk damn slowly.
• Buffalo eyes glow in the dark. Or at least they appeared to at times, and it totally creeped me out.
• A group of 27 buffaloes ate approximately 200 kg of grass twice a day = one buffalo eats approximately 15 kg a day.
• A single buffalo can poop up to 10 kg of dung a day.
• This poop can be collected by women's bare hands and turned into dung patties for future use, "just like making chapatis." But the women cannot possibly collect all the poop, as there is just way too much of it.
• Buffalo placenta can come out 9 hours after the newborn baby buffalo (calf?), and I thought it was the most disgusting thing I'd ever seen. Until the mother buffalo ate the placenta. Then that was the most disgusting thing I've ever seen.
• Although newborn baby buffaloes can stand and even wobble/attempt to walk within hours of being born, they cannot walk completely properly until they are 10 days old. So, naturally, someone has to carry it:

Re: The Roads of My Life

Tonight I was telling some neighbors about the Ice Road Truckers: Deadliest Roads TV show and how they featured our beloved NH-22. Their response? "Oh yeah, we saw them filming. Right here. We weren't entirely sure why those trucks had cameras surrounding them and thought it was अजीब/ajib [strange]."

So there you have it. My neighborhood was filmed in IRT. Sweet!

The Roads of My Life (Mom: please do not read this post.)

This is why my mother cannot sleep at night:



(Mom: for the love of G-d and your sanity, do NOT watch this trailer. Or even read the rest of my post. Please.)

I take a short section of that road, National Highway 22, a.k.a. the Hindustan-Tibet Road, to and from my office every day; my office is actually located on this road. And I have taken that road between Chandigarh and Shimla 6 times (so far), and the road past Shimla to some villages for field work several other times. And to Kalpa for a fun mini-vacation weekend with Helene. In fact, I've gone the full length of the NH-22, all 459 km of it, from Ambala (Haryana) to Khab (Kinnaur, Himachal Pradesh), over various trips. So yeah, pretty familiar with the good ol' NH-22, and yes I recognize sections of the road from the trailer. The crumbling piece of road at 0:53, for example, drove within inches of that just 2 days ago (yes it's still there; maintenance on this road is difficult due to the rough terrain).



I think it is unfair to call these Ice Road Truckers "today's toughest truckers." I mean, there are Indian truckers and bus drivers who take these roads EVERY DAY, and I bet they aren't nearly as afraid as these North American truckers. I, perhaps naively, have full confidence in my bus drivers. I'll admit there have been moments in which I've thought "OMG WE ARE SO CLOSE TO THE EDGE OF THE CLIFF OMG THAT TRUCK IS MILLIMETERS AWAY FROM MY BUS OMG WHY DO WE HAVE TO BE THE ONES BACKING UP AROUND A HAIRPIN TURN OMG WE ALMOST HIT THAT HERD OF GOATS OMG THIS BRIDGE HAS HOLES IN IT OMG WE ARE GOING TO DIE OMG" but those moments are not that common. Because you know what? These Indian drivers DO know what they're doing. They have experience. They know the unwritten, unspoken rules of the Himalayan roads. So I trust the bus drivers. I trust them because I have to trust them. If I didn't trust them, I'd probably live my life in fear and never leave my apartment. ...which my mother would probably consider a good thing, because then she'd have much less to worry about. (Mom, I wish you would have as much faith in these drivers as I do! Seriously, it will make your life so much less stressful.)

PS: That trailer, and probably the TV show (I've never seen it), dramatizes how dangerous/scary the Himalayan roads are. I swear, they're not nearly as bad as this trailer makes them out to be.

Contrary to popular belief, I am not English.

I have encountered something in Himachal Pradesh that I have encountered nowhere else in India, even after spending approximately 1.5 years here and traveling all over the country: people calling me "अंग्रेज़"/"angrez," or "English."

I have been called many things in India (usually "गोरी"/"gori," or "white"), but never "English." And I haven't just been called angrez once or twice in Himachal Pradesh. No no no, I've been called angrez more times than I can count, all over the state from the Punjab border to the Tibet border and on a near-daily basis in Shimla. I don't know why Himachalis call all fair-skinned people English, but it drives me पागल (mad). Whenever I hear someone say "angrez"--whether to my face or talking about me right in front of me as if I don't understand a word of Hindi--I automatically get all defensive and yell "मैं अंग्रेज़ नहीं हूँ! मैं अमेरिकन हूँ!!" ("I am not English! I am American!!") Honestly, it has never annoyed me when people call me gori. Because I am gori. But boy do I hate when Himachalis call me English. Why? Well, mostly the following reasons:

• There is a lot of negative colonial baggage associated with angrez people. Because, you know, they ruled over India for a few hundred years, and in a pretty brutal manner. But hey, wait a minute, my people never ruled over you! Don't think of me as one of your former imperial overlords! I don't want the baggage of angrez associated with me.
  
• Indians generally like Americans. Yes, you may think there would be negative baggage associated with some American foreign policy actions, but there really isn't much (though people express curiosity as to why the US supports Pakistan so much). The vast majority of people's reactions to hearing I'm American are very positive and excited. I actually think it's one of the best foreign nationalities you can be in this country.
  
• I'm proud to be American. There, I said it. And don't think I won't start singing the song, because I can. I can and I will.

So, my dear Himachalis, despite what you may deduce from my white skin, I am not, have never been, and never will be English. Please stop calling me अंग्रेज़. If you're not going to recognize my American citizenship (...or my status as an Indian resident, like you'd ever recognize that! HA!), I much prefer being called गोरी or even the semi-derogatory फिरंगी. Thanks!

I'm baaaack! But leaving again soon--help me choose where!

I'm back from the field again, back from the sea of graduate school applications (ok not really, still have 2 left), and back to the blog. First order of business: Where should I spend my next vacation? Turns out I have 4 days leave that will expire Jan 1, 2011, and combined with a day off for Christmas (remember I normally work Saturdays) and a Sunday, that gives me a 6-day vacation! I want to go somewhere warm/hot and preferably with a large body of water like a sea or ocean (basically somewhere that is the opposite of the cold mountains I live in). And I'd like to stay in South Asia. Here's what I'm thinking:

• Mumbai (to see Stanford friend(s) Nandita and/or Nina, depending on timing) and Gujarat (Little Rann, Rann of Kutch, Gir, and/or Diu) (yes I know technically Diu is in a separate Union Territory, but come on that's like saying Pondicherry town is not in Tamil Nadu)
  
• Goa (it's hot, it has beaches and delicious food ...but also has rowdy British holidaymakers)
• Lakshadweep (basically an extension of the Maldives archipelago in India, off the coast of Kerala. read: SCUBA DIVING! but also requires a permit I may or may not be able to get in time. and expensive.)
• Andaman Islands (already been to Havelock, could explore other islands. but expensive to get there)
• Bangalore (to visit friends), Hampi (ruins of an ancient city), and Gokarna (beach)

So, which location(s) you vote for? Or do you have other suggestions? Let me know via comment, email, or gchat! Thanks. :)

PS: Here is a taste of where I did field work:

I'm sorry, did I accidentally cross over into Tibet? Nako Village, Kinnaur.

More to come.

Apologies!

I am sorry about my absence from the blog. I have been insanely busy with getting my apartment together, a trip to Delhi, more getting my apartment together, a field trip to some villages in Rampur Tehsil, and graduate school applications. And then there's the fact that I didn't have Internet at home until today, and I felt guilty using work hours to post in my blog. I know I owe you several blog posts, but honestly right now my priority is grad school apps, so it could be a while before I start posting regularly again... Sorry!!

THIS ARTICLE IS MY LIFE.

This article describes my relationship with India perfectly:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/mad-for-mumbai/story-e6frg8h6-1225934717682

I agree with and have experienced every single thing this woman writes. Well, except I've never actually hit a person (though I have wanted to, and certainly have screamed like a mad woman to the point where I didn't recognize myself), nor have I ever had my drink spiked. And replace seeing someone falling under a train with seeing someone on a motorcycle being hit (and killed) by a bus.

India, despite our at-times rocky relationship, I will always love you.

University of Maryland Elephants?

This is a picture of my landlord's living room (taken on my cell phone, hence the poor quality):

I was, of course, nothing less than shocked to see a University of Maryland rug on his floor. Of all the universities in the world and on sports-themed rugs, he chose the one from my home state! That's just crazy. It turns out he did not know what "Maryland" meant (he thought it was a word, not a place or university) and thought the terrapin was actually an elephant. Yes, he thought a turtle was an elephant. Fear the Pachyderm?

Friendship with Mudit and Shatabdi = Destiny

I'm fairly certain that I was destined to become friends with Mudit and Shatabdi. And here's why:

Last week I was showing Mudit and Shatabdi some pictures on my laptop. Shatabdi had mentioned that she worked in Orissa, so I decided to show them my Orissa pictures. When she saw my pictures of the Adivasi Mela, she exclaimed, "oh my god! I worked on the committee that organized that mela! I can't believe you were there! I organized so much of that!" She had something to say about nearly every picture. When I showed a picture of the entrance, she exclaimed "I designed that gate!" Several pictures evoked a "that was my idea!" But the biggest coincidence of all? I have a picture of the organizing committee's work shack, and ALL of Shatabdi's coworkers are in my picture. Shatabdi pointed to every single person in my photo, telling me their names, what their jobs were, and what she thought of them (whether or not she liked them). At this time, she had been inside the shack figuring out some last-minute logistics (and was the only organizer missing in my photo). She apparently emerged from the shack two minutes after the picture was taken. I was literally two minutes off from taking a picture of her. Insane. Clearly, our friendship was destiny. (Or India is just really small for a country of 1.1 billion people.)

You know how else I know our friendship was destiny? Mudit and Shatabdi first met at a work training session held at the Indian Habitat Centre, where the TERI office is located (they were trained in Delhi before being sent off to their respective field offices--Patna, Bihar for Mudit, Bhubaneshwar, Orissa for Shatabdi). Yup, I was in the same office complex as them when they met each other. Probably just a couple hundred feet away.

I wore a scarf I bought in West Bengal the other day, and Shatabdi, who is from West Bengal, said she had the same one. Again, destiny.

Destiny. (To Nadeen and Ellen: Beauty.)

(As a side note, I really need to make more friends than just one married couple.)

The Impossible Apartment Hunt

The office of my NGO is not actually in Shimla, as the title of this blog suggests. It is actually in a cluster of buildings on a truck bypass road in a place called Shanan (but Shanan is located in Shimla District, so I'm not a total liar). People call Shanan a village, but don't be fooled. It is no village. I'm fairly certain it only exists because this bypass road was built here to accommodate the hundreds of trucks that pick up apples from Shimla (apples = Himachal's biggest source of income). Aside from my NGO's office, a couple of houses, and two tiny shops that carry so few items they don't even have bottled water, there is nothing here. A village has history, has traditions, has people who have been rooted there for decades if not centuries, has a real sense of community (and that's why I love villages). Shanan has none of that; it was probably built 3 years ago when the road was.

The closest market is in Sanjauli, 30 minutes away by bus, and Shimla is another 30 minutes away. But the bus from Shanan actually stops on the opposite end of Sanjauli than the bus to Shimla, so it's a 20 minute walk between buses. So without waiting time, that's 1 hour 20 minutes to get to Shimla. But last week I had to wait quite a bit for each bus, and it took me 2 hours to get to Shimla from Shanan!

So obviously this truck stop isn't a place I want to live. I want to live in Sanjauli, the closest town with a market. A 30 minute commute to work wouldn't be terrible, and a 30 minute bus ride to Shimla isn't bad either.

But alas, there are no vacant apartments in Sanjauli. I have been looking for two weeks, and there is nothing. NOTHING. I'm extremely stressed out because (1) living and working in the same building is driving me stir crazy (I'm staying in a guest room here), (2) I can't even get basic groceries here, and I'm getting sick of the cook's diarrhea-inducing food, (3) I can't open a bank account until I have a signed lease to show for proof of address, (4) I can't start volunteering, taking Hindi lessons, taking cooking classes, etc until I know where I'm living and the commute from Shanan takes too long anyway, (5) there is no way to meet people outside of work in Shanan, and (6) there are no laundry facilities here, if I bucket-wash my clothes they'll never dry because of the monsoon humidity* (usually if you take stuff to a "press" (guy who does ironing), the clothes will be dry), and I'm running out of clean underwear. Basically, my entire life is on hold until I find a place to live.

And I don't know what to do. I've tried everything. I've asked my coworkers for help, bothered shopkeepers, even gone door-to-door. I'm at a complete loss. I feel hopeless. SOMEONE PLEASE FIND ME AN APARTMENT IN SANJAULI SO I CAN BE A REAL PERSON AGAIN. Thanks.

*to clarify: it's not hot at all, and this humidity isn't going to make you sweat. In fact, you don't even feel that it's humid. But there is definitely moisture in the air, because everything I own is slightly damp!

Diarrhea Mystery: Actually Solved.

My wonderful friend Alice read my previous post and replied via email with the following:

"Because I like talking about poop too:

Though your new friends' openness about bathroom practices is admirable, there are a lot of different things that can cause bouts of diarrhea, and various reasons people who grew up in a country where the water is safe have a harder time here.

1. Some foods draw water into the bowels. Undigested lactose (in lactose intolerant people) and fructose (in people who just consumed too much fructose) are examples of this.

2. Some people's bowels are irritated by specific foods. In some cases this may be due to an allergy, though it could also just be due to eating more pungent food than usual. Sometimes undercooked spices have a strong bitter taste, so if there really are a lot of undercooked spices being used, this might irritate both your taste buds and your bowels. This should vary from person to person, and also depend on what kind of food you're used to.

3. A number of medicines can mess with your system enough to cause diarrhea.

4. Of course, the water here is often contaminated with pathogens like E. coli. People who've had more exposure to these pathogens throughout their lifetimes are less likely to get sick from a small dose than a person who's grown up with less exposure. However, it's still quite possible for people who are born in developing countries to get diarrhea, especially as children. About 8% of deaths in India are from diarheal diseases, most of which are treatable. Tests of diarrhea patients in Indian hospitals usually find evidence of intestinal pathogens in about 50% of cases, though tests may miss infections in many of the patients whose results come back negative. So, I think the main cause of diarrhea in people of all nationalities here is infection.

Anyway, this seems likely to be correct--everyone I know here (with whom I'm close enough to talk about these things) gets mild diarrhea once in a while. Yet in America, it's somewhat less common. I don't see any reason to think that Americans are more careful about fully cooking their spices, and in fact Americans probably eat more uncooked food and spices... because the water in India is less safe."

Thank you, Alice, for solving this mystery!

Another Indian Mystery: Solved?

Another great Indian mystery:

Why does Indian food (sometimes) give people diarrhea?

I had always assumed this was a Western-stomach-not-used-to-Indian-food thing. But yesterday Mudit and Shatabdi, Mudit's wife and another coworker and friend, were complaining about how the office food gave them diarrhea. I was shocked. Indians were having diarrhea too!

Shatabdi explained why the office food was giving us diarrhea: the spices were not fully cooked. Apparently, in order to stave off diarrhea, spices are supposed to be cooked (according to Shatabdi, usually fried) before being added to the food. But the cook at work was just throwing in raw spices after the rest of the food had been cooking for a while, and with not enough cooking time left to fully cook the spices.

So the next time Indian food gives you diarrhea, it's likely that the spices were thrown in raw. But I'm a bit skeptical that this is the reason every time. After all, if one throws in the spices at the same time as the rest of the food, shouldn't the spices be fully cooked? I'm sure there are other reasons behind Indian food-induced diarrhea. For me, this mystery is not yet completely solved.

India's Greatest Mystery: Solved.

India is a land of mystery, with many great mysteries that bewilder the foreigner. But one mystery is far more mysterious than the rest:

How the hell do Indians go to the bathroom without toilet paper?!

This mystery has plagued foreigners for centuries, since the arrival of the British, probably. Well, after 3 years, 1 month, 1 week, and 3 days (I first landed in India on July 29, 2007) of searching for answers all over the subcontinent, I have finally discovered the secret.

Indians guard this secret very closely. But one Indian, one of 1.1 billion people, let his guard down. Mudit, a coworker and new friend, told me what Prashanth, Angela, Anand, Pooja, and all the others refused to explain (seriously, I've been asking everyone). He described two methods:

1. The Pour-then-Wipe From the Front

Hold the hand you do not use for eating (so if you're right-handed, your left hand) in front of you, slightly below your crotch. Pour water into this hand, which should be cupped, with your other hand (you will find a small plastic pitcher in most Indian bathrooms). Then, wipe between your legs. Repeat as necessary.

2. The Simultaneous Pour-and-Wipe From Behind

Hold your non-eating hand behind you and slightly below your butt. Using your eating hand, pour water down your intergluteal cleft (a.k.a. your butt crack) from behind. Catch this water with your non-eating hand and wipe upwards. Pour continuously and repeat wiping as necessary (the pouring and wiping actions are simultaneous).

Apparently, the preferred method is #1, The Pour-then-Wipe From the Front. It's easier, more comfortable, and less messy (well, less messy in terms of water, I guess; I assume your wiping hand gets just as messy). Now, if you think like me, you would probably ask this next question:

But doesn't that leave your butt wet? How do you not leave the bathroom without a wet stain on your pants?

According to Mudit, yes, this will leave your butt wet. But the amount of water in your hand is minimal, so it's not enough to soak through your pants. Especially if you're wearing underwear between your butt and your pants, as you should be; the underwear will absorb the water so that your pants do not have any visible traces of your bathroom excursion. I of course asked if this was uncomfortable (I wipe my butt raw if that's what it takes to be dry, thank you very much), but it seems Indians are just used to this feeling.

And my last question, which even the all-knowing Mudit could not answer:

If Indians wipe their butts with their hands, then why didn't my TERI coworkers ever wash their hands after using the toilet?!

Mudit was just as grossed out as I was.

(By the way, he's also a bit grossed out about the idea of wiping with only toilet paper, without water. He feels that the water is absolutely necessary for proper cleaning, and to wipe without water just isn't hygienic. So perhaps it is the Westerners who have strange, less sanitary bathroom habits!)

And yes, this post means I'm back in India and back to blogging. More to come from Shimla soon!

PS: I apologize if this was a bit graphic for some. But you can't say I didn't warn you!

India in Bolivia, Parte Dos

at Austria Pass, 5100 m

I've been back from Bolivia for about a week and a half now. Naturally, India continued to follow me around the country.

During my trek near Condoriri in the Cordillera Real, I quickly discovered that my guide Jose is a fan of "películas hindú." Yes, you read that correctly: my Bolivian trekking guide watches Bollywood movies. He knew Shah Rukh Khan, Kajol (whose name he pronounced as if it were Spanish: Kakhol, where kh is throaty; obviously I found this hilarious and kind of adorable), Aamir Khan, Kareena Kapoor, etc.

Jose, my Bollywood-loving trekking guide

I decided to share my Hindi music with Jose during dinner. Not only did he recognize the songs, but, to my surprise, he also busted the bhangra shoulder move and asked "do you have any of this kind of music?" Of course I burst into laughter--how does a Bolivian know bhangra?!--and played some of my Punjabi favorites. Jose then informed me that his mother, a cholita, dances bhangra.

A cholita. Dancing bhangra. One word: AMAZING.

Some of you probably don't know what a cholita is. Well, you probably do know what it is but didn't know that "cholita" was the term. A cholita is a traditionally-dressed indigenous Andean (Quechua or Aymara) woman, complete with big skirt, double braids, little hat similar to a bowler hat, and sometimes a fringed shawl and/or a multicolored bundle around her shoulders (called an aguayo). Here's a photo of cholitas from Charazani in Cordillera Apolobamba:

Now imagine a cholita dancing bhangra. Just imagine it. And now you understand why I couldn't stop laughing uncontrollably at the image in my head. A clash of cultures so incredible, so unbelievable. SO AMAZING. I want to make a YouTube video of Jose's traditionally-dressed mother dancing bhangra. I'm sure it'd be a viral hit. (Jose, if you're reading this: I hope I'm not offending you. I just love the meeting of these two very different cultures, and I think your mother is fantastic.)

To keep laughing, check out these Bolivia pictures (none related to India, sorry):

Andrew and I enact the name of Lago Titicaca. Titi. Caca. hehe

Andrew and I are old ladies in a shoe on the Salar de Uyuni (the world's largest salt flat)

For more, check out my photo albums here and here.

In other news, I got my employment visa and I leave for India this afternoon!

India in Bolivia

I'm in Bolivia for a few weeks, and I hadn't been planning to blog at all while here because 1. it's just a vacation and 2. this blog is primarily about India. Well, several India-related things have happened, so I felt it appropriate to post.

1. On my first day in Bolivia, within 30 minutes of leaving the airport, I was waiting for a trufi (shared taxi) to fill up with enough passengers to leave from Santa Cruz de la Sierra for Samaipata. There was a TV on in the waiting room. I wasn't paying attention until I heard bhangra music. I turn around to see men in Punjabi outfits (you know, those baggy pants, long tops, and vests) and turbans dancing with sari-clad women. Then the words "India: una historia de amor" pop up on screen. Bhangra music and dancing continue. What exactly was being advertised remains unclear. A restaurant? A new exhibit at a museum? An Indian dating (matrimonial?) website? No idea.

2. On my second day in Bolivia, in Samaipata, I went on a tour of Chanay/Guaraní/Inca (kept being reconquered) ruins called El Fuerte. I requested an English-speaking guide to the site. The English-speaking guide joked that most Americans who visit Bolivia speak Spanish, so why don't I? Certainly I should speak Spanish too. So I told him that I used to speak some Spanish but recently have been studying "an Indian language called Hindi." He looked confused for a second, and then his face lit up: "I speak an Indian language too! My native is Quechua. Bolivia is 70% Indian, and the two biggest languages are Quechua and Aymara, and there are many Amazon Indians." "Oh, no, that´s not what I mean. Hindi is a language spoken in India." "Yes, Indian, like our Quechua." "No, India is a country in Asia." "Asia? Oh, we have those too. People from Japan and China!" "No... I´m talking about a different country. India." "I don't understand. Indians do not live in Asia, they live in Bolivia, Peru, Chile, and Argentina." "Nevermind." ...I guess he didn't see the commercial from the day before.

3. I randomly found and ate at La Paz's only Indian restaurant, which played hit Bollywood songs from 2007 (I know the year because every single song came out when I was studying abroad in Pondy, such as songs from Om Shanti Om). Turns out it's actually British Indian food, which as some of you know, is actually a slightly different cuisine. The Bolivian-British-Indian feature dish? Llama tikka masala. Of course. I opted for saag paneer (though it wasn't actually paneer, it was some Argentine cheese). And in true Indian restaurant fashion, it gave me explosive diarrhea. That's how I knew it was as close to authentic as you can get in Bolivia.

4. Today I was walking around Calle Sagárnaga, the main tourist street in La Paz, when all of a sudden I heard the theme music from Dilwale Dulhania La Jayenge. First thought: omg, I (or someone else) is about to meet my (or her) Raj. Seriously, I thought that. I don't know why. Anyway, I turned around to see a huge sign for a restaurant called "Tailandia" (Thailand??) featuring food from Asia. Then the song switched to another Hindi song.

...Apparently, I cannot escape India; it follows me literally everywhere. I can't believe India followed me to Bolivia, of all places.

To (Try To) Do List

Many of you know that my last year in Delhi was less than ideal. Some of the problems I experienced will no longer exist for me in my second year, simply because of the new location (goodbye pollution and heat!). I'm sure there will be new problems (cold, oh so very cold, and no indoor heating), but I really want to do a better job at making the most out of my time in India the second time around. Therefore, I have devised a list of tasks that will hopefully help me make this year a great one:

1. Make a bigger effort to meet people. This was my biggest struggle in Delhi. I just didn't know how to meet people! I don't think this necessarily has to do with Delhi; I think this is just a problem that many people have when they transition from student to working life or move to a new city. So how am I going to do this? Well, um, I actually still don't know how to meet new people, but I'm going to try the following things:

• Take a hobby class.The YWCA in Shimla offers several classes, including cooking and Bollywood dancing. Because who says I can't spontaneously break out into an extended song-and-dance while cooking up some palak paneer?
  
• Join a club or team. Maybe there is a hiking or book club that I can join. Or, since Shimla has an ice rink in the winter, it could be fun to join a women's ice hockey team. Apparently "ex pats [sic] from the Canadian and Russian consulates in Mumbai and Delhi have been playing the game in Ladakh,"according to the Ice Hockey Association of India, so I don't see why this American expat can't play the game in Shimla! Because who says I can't compete with a bunch of Canadians and Russians who picked up their first hockey stick 30 seconds out of the womb?
  
• Volunteer. I actually need some help coming up with volunteering ideas (I'm admittedly fairly terrible with this), but maybe I could do something with environmental cleanup or helping slum kids or something equally cheesy. Or I could do what I do best: teach geography and basketball to monks at the local Buddhist monastery. Because who says monks can't be taught about the inability to drive between South Asia and North America due to the existence of oceans while acquiring the ability to drive to the hoop?
  
• Or, if all of the above fails: put an ad in the Matrimonials. Because what Indian man doesn't want a "23-year-old girl with fair complexion, American citizenship, and a degree from a prestigious foreign university, caste no bar"?
  

So why didn't I do any of those things in Delhi? Well, honestly, I had tried. I spent hours looking for a hobby class with times that worked, for a club or volunteering opportunity I would be interested in. Unfortunately, everything (clubs, classes, volunteer activities) usually met/occurred during work hours or on weekends--and I was unwilling to make any commitments on weekends so that I could use them to travel. Well, this year I'm working 6-day weeks and having only Sunday off doesn't give me enough time to make weekend trips. Thus this year I have no qualms about making commitments! (Yes, you could say I had the wrong priorities last year. You could say that. But remember how much Delhi's pollution sucks, and then you'll remember why I felt the need to escape.)

2. Actually study Hindi. Sure, I took Hindi lessons. Sure, I even (occasionally) did my homework. But honestly? I was a slacker. And in Delhi, it's fairly easy to rely on English. So this year, I want to make sure I put aside a little bit of time every evening to study Hindi. No, really. I'm serious. I want to be approaching proficient by the end of my year.

3. Take a hike. I am going to be in the mountains, so why not take advantage of this? I'm hoping to do hikes as often as possible (dare I say every Sunday? no, I probably shouldn't dare).

You know what's great about these kinds of lists? They make me feel good about myself--when I make them. But you know what isn't so great about these kinds of lists? They make me feel crappy about myself--when I fail to actually follow through with them. And, of course, that's inevitable. This list is a classic example of productive-things-I-intend-to-do-but-then-never-end-up-doing-because-a-rerun-of-Friends-is-on-TV-or-an-actual-friend-is-on-Gchat. I could try to adopt Sareeta's life point system, but I don't think I really want to keep track of my "points" on a daily basis (plus we all know I'd forget anyway).

So, do you have any ideas for how I can make the most out of my time in Shimla? Let me know in the comments or through email (though I can't promise that Friends won't be playing on Star World or Zee Cafe). Thanks!

In support of my previous post...

...this is the first article that came up when I searched "Shimla" in Google News:

53 diarrhea cases reported in Shimla

Shit: proven.

Renaming the blog: "Shit, Sweat, Bribe"?

Obviously I renamed the blog simply by crossing out "Delhi" and writing "Shimla." But perhaps I should get more creative. What do you think of Shit, Sweat, Bribe: One Woman's Search for... Something?... in India? (This mocks the bestseller book "Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India, and Indonesia.") I promise the leading picture wouldn't be as graphic as the title.

...but I can't promise that my stories won't be too graphic. ;) (Hey, I've actually been pretty good about keeping this blog clean. I didn't even write about my bout of dengue fever!)

emilyinshimla: שנה ב / साल दो / Year 2 in India!

I just accepted a new job in India! A different job than the one alluded to in a previous post. That first job fell through, but luckily I found another one! This means I'm officially embarking on שנה ב / Shana Bet ("Year 2" in Hebrew; what some Jews call an American Jew's second year in Israel, usually between high school and college) (I guess it would be more appropriate if I said Year 2 in Hindi: साल दो / Saal Do).

I will return to India in early September to work in Shimla, the capital of Himachal Pradesh and the former summer capital of British India (so yeah, it's pretty colonial). It's a town of ~160,000 people at ~7,000 feet in the Himalayas. Sure it's not the village I've been dreaming of, but at least it's not 16 million people like Delhi! [Anyone else notice that I always live somewhere with a population of 16 * 10^n? 16 * 10^0 households in Gangzur, 16 * 10^6 people in Delhi, 16 * 10^4 people in Shimla.] [Actually I'm not 100% sure on the numbers in Delhi and Shimla; the populations seem to vary by source.] I'm hoping to do some field work in villages, so hopefully I will get some rural experience.

"A" marks the spot of Shimla - thanks Google Maps!

I might change my blog a bit (new title, new picture, new color scheme), but I will keep the same URL so it's easier for everyone to keep following. So stay tuned to emilyindelhi.blogspot.com!

See you back on the subcontinent in September!

An ominous letter

I had written a reflective/sappy I'm-leaving-Delhi-this-is-all-coming-to-an-end-how-do-I-feel-about-it bullshit post, but I'm actually not going to post it right now. Why? I'm in the middle of packing and cleaning up my apartment, and I randomly came across a letter I wrote during PiA orientation. Anastasia, the director of PiA, had asked every new fellow to write a letter to him/herself that we would receive at some point during the year. When the PiA deputy director (or whatever her title is) came through town back in November, she must have given me the letter. But I apparently never opened it; the envelope was sealed. Of course I took a break from cleaning to tear open the envelope and read the letter. Anyway, I thought it was worth sharing my expectations/concerns from a year ago in my leaving-Delhi post, because many of them were scarily spot-on:

May 18, 2009

Dear Emily,

You're going back to India! Woohoo! (Should I write this in the first or second person? Awkward.) I hate these kind of assignments. I don't know what to write here. I guess what I'm nervous about? I'm most nervous about hating Delhi. I really think it is a possibility. After all, I hated it so much last time I left early! I hope by the time I read this that Delhi will have grown on me. Or, if it hasn't, that I'm able to escape (i.e. leave the city and travel). I'm also nervous about my job. What if I suck at my job? Or worse, what if my job just sucks? What if the bureaucracy drives me crazy, or what if I have an insane boss? Hopefully I'll figure out the system, have a nice boss, and be good at my job.

I can't believe the person in the letter Anastasia read aloud gave up the Fulbright for PiA. Well, at least an alternate got to go in her place! More than anyone can say about this alternate writing this letter. I hope withdrawing from Fulbright wasn't a mistake; I'll be pissed if I somehow find out a Nepal alternate got the grant. I really hope that PiA turns out to be so awesome that I don't remain jealous of Fulbrighters. I hope by the time I read this letter, I no longer even think about the Fulbright.

Speaking of jealousy, when I hear about people going to rural villages, WOW do I get jealous! I just think back to Gangzur and my wonderful Bhutanese family and wish I could experience rural mountain life again. Or any rural life, not even necessarily in the mountains. At this point, I'd much rather be in a rural village of 16 houses than a city of 16 million and all the pollution that comes with it. I hope I am able to find a community that loves and supports me--I think, in some ways, that is easier in a small community like a village. It was easy to find a welcoming community in Bhutan; I didn't even have to look (though I know I was probably lucky and some villages are not so welcoming to outsiders). In Delhi, in a big city, finding my community will be difficult. It is easy to stay anonymous, to be alone, in a city, despite being surrounded by millions of people. Who can I trust? Who will be my friends? I really hope I am able to find my community, and by the time I read this, I hope I have at least started to feel at home.

Ok, I'm done with this bullshit assignment. Good luck in Delhi!

Love,
Emily/myself (?? awkward)

A few points:

1. Concern about hating Delhi - largely realized. And yes I did escape via travel quite often.
2. Concern about job - definitely realized.
3. I did find out that all Nepal alternates ended up getting the Fulbright less than 2 weeks after I withdrew. And yeah, I was pissed about it. I'm still jealous of Fulbrighters, but fortunately I don't really think about it anymore. Plus I've discovered that the South Asia Fulbright programs are full of crap, so that makes me feel better about myself.
4. I would still rather be in a village than a city. If things work out for next year (er, in 6 weeks from now?), I will be! More to come when that's all figured out.
5. I never did find a "community." But I like Alice and Sareeta!
6. Delhi oddly feels like a home of sorts, regardless of my bouts of loneliness.

Alright, back to packing. See you in America!

I should probably be packing right now.

My flight to the US leaves in less than 24 hours. And I haven't started packing (besides what I already dropped off at Sareeta's place over two weeks ago for summer storage).

I spent my last 16 days in Sri Lanka. (Jhanvi, I know you want pictures, but I just don't have time right now, with the whole leaving Delhi thing.) Some highlights:

• playing with freshly-hatched baby sea turtles (aged 1 to 3 days old), including one albino sea turtle in Kosgoda
  
• learning about the traditional medicine shaman-type man at the mask museum in Ambalangoda
  
• spotting crocodiles, monkeys, elephants, and various types of birds in Yala National Park
• hiking through tea plantations up to Little Adam's Peak near Ella
• Vesak perahera (Vesak is the day that Buddha was born, achieved enlightenment, and died, and a perahera is a procession, often and in this case with caparisoned elephants) in Badulla
• seeing the Buddha's tooth relic during Vesak puja at the Dalada Maligawa temple in Kandy
  
• watching the elephants at Pinnewala Elephant Orphanage (though I question the treatment of elephants in this facility), including petting a baby elephant
• um, NOT the "Ancient Cities" -- a bit boring, actually
• scuba diving off Nilaveli
• exploring the wartorn Tamil region around Trincomalee
• eating delicious Sri Lankan curries everywhere

Ok, now to pack...

Good bye Delhi, hello Colombo!

Today was my last day of work. That means it's officially summer! :)

So what's next? Sri Lanka for 16 days. I leave for the airport in 5 hours and am still not packed, in typical Emily style. In less-than-typical Emily style, I still have yet to figure out where I'm going, what I'm doing, and when. Well, I guess I'll just have to wing it!

I return to Delhi for two days after my Lankan adventure. Then I'll be Stateside June 9! So friends in the US of A, get ready for an epic reunion.

I love summer.

PS: I'm taking a break from the blog over the summer. I might post one more time when I return to Delhi, but don't expect anything while I'm in Sri Lanka. The blog will be revived when I return to India for my next job. Details to come when that is finalized. For now, फिर मिलेंगे (phir milenge / see you later, or literally "we will meet soon")!

The Epic Umbrella Off (and lots of elephants)

Warning: this is a long one. Like, really long. Mostly because I was on the train for seven hours with nothing to do. Just skip ahead to the photos and videos (I apologize for the shoddy cinematography; I'm no Jhanvi!) if you don't want to read it all.

Another note: Blogspot has been weird about uploading pictures again lately. Even though I chose pictures for this post, I have not been able to upload them. I've tried for a few days now, but I realized I would never post this if I didn't do it now. So here ya go!

I’m on my way back to Thiruvananthapuram from Thrissur right now. I had brought my laptop with me because the hotel promised WiFi. Well, the WiFi wasn’t working, but at least I can do something productive during these seven hours: write a blog post! [Well, ok, I didn’t finish it, obviously, since I’m posting this several weeks late.]

I went to Thrissur with Manju this weekend [actually who knows how many weekends ago it was? April 23-25] for the Thrissur Pooram. I have to be honest, I still do not know the significance of this festival. No one could explain it to me, so I think perhaps people just like elephants. (I sure do!) Maybe Wikipedia can explain this festival to you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrissur_Pooram

People in Thrissur love to say that the Pooram is not a Hindu festival (seemed pretty Hindu to me… I mean, it took place at a Hindu temple and the elephants were carrying Hindu gods) because Muslims and Christians participate in the preparations for the event (someone told me that Christians make the gold caparisons and Muslims make the silk umbrellas, but I don’t know if this is true or not) and people of all religions come to watch the spectacle unfold.

Yesterday [Saturday April 24] morning we arrived at the Vadakkunnathan Temple to find three caparisoned elephants lined up outside. I went picture-crazy, obviously unaware of the many more elephants to come. We then went inside the temple to find three more elephants, accompanied by a band. Someone told us the real action was on the west side of the temple—and they were right. There was a line of elephants in front of the temple entrance and another line of elephants approaching from the western gate. We didn’t know which line to watch first! We soon discovered that several more lines of elephants, accompanied by great fanfare, would come to the temple. Four lines (if not more that we had already missed??), in fact. We watched these elephant processions and the dancing crowd for a few hours. A video can explain this better than words:

elephant procession (if you have a short attention span, stop watching at 1:10; the video pretty much repeats itself after that)

Later in the afternoon, we decided to go inside the temple to see the famed 300-drummer band. Well, everyone else wanted to go inside too, so the line was ridiculously long. We didn’t particularly want to wait in this line, so we snuck around to the backdoor entrance—to find an “Elephant-Related Emergencies” vehicle, an ambulance, and a bunch of Western tourists taking pictures of these vehicles and generally getting in the way of emergency personnel. As Manju and I quickly backed away from the scene, I said a little too loudly “what the hell is wrong with these tourists that they want to take pictures of emergency vehicles? Don’t they know they’re getting in the way during a serious situation?” and received several Stares of Death from those very tourists. (Since we escaped the situation as fast as we could, we didn’t find out until later what happened. Apparently one “tusker,” as the newspaper called the elephant, collapsed from heat exhaustion, and then the elephants on either side of him got spooked. The three elephants were immediately replaced [several elephants are held in reserve] and no human was injured.)

We decided it was probably a bad idea to enter the temple, because we didn’t know what this “elephant-related emergency” was, and if an elephant freaked out, it could be an ugly situation with so many people in a small enclosed area. We wanted to see a band though, and someone told us there was another big band on the south side of the temple. So we rounded the corner and saw a band—in front of yet another elephant procession (seriously, I lost count). We joined the crowd to watch.

As the crowd became increasingly condensed (as the line of elephants approaches the temple, there becomes less and less space between the temple and the elephants for the crowd to stand), people started getting pretty rowdy. Manju and I wanted to get out of this crowd, and fast. We tried to head toward the west gate via an empty field below the elevated walkway on which the crowd was standing, but someone told us fireworks were being set up. Then we tried to go toward the elephants and around them, to exit via the north gate. There were too many people—a tall person next to us counted the heads in front of him and said the crowd ahead was 16-people deep—and we couldn’t manage to get through. The only other direction was toward the temple, but there was a huge queue to enter and we couldn’t even figure out how to get to the queue from where we stood (er, line. I’ve started using Indian English sometimes). Finally we found a policeman and asked him for help, pulling the “we’re women and need protection” line (actually, it was true that the vast majority of people in this crowd were men, and someone had grabbed my ass). Instead of escorting us or creating a corridor for us to pass through or doing anything else policeman-like, he told us to jump down to the empty field to get to the west gate. “But someone told us they are setting up fireworks there,” I protested. “No, no, fireworks later. Safe now.” So, we fought our way through the crowd and jumped.

…into a field of exploding fireworks.

Mid-air I realized that someone was lighting the fireworks. When my feet hit the ground, three fireworks rockets went off about a meter away from me. I don’t know what scared me more, the deafening BOOM!s or the tails of fire in the rockets’ wakes. We quickly realized that more than just this set of fireworks would be lit, and we were now in this field. As we ran out, fireworks went off right behind our heels—it almost felt like being in a movie or something. [Ok, fine, I’m dramatizing a bit. We were running along the edge of the field and the fireworks were going off about a meter to our left—but milliseconds after we passed them—and this entire episode probably lasted less than 10 seconds.] When we reached the end of the field and entered the watching crowd, I was shaking. And everyone around me was laughing at the stupid foreigner and her Indian friend who ran through [er, actually, next to] the fireworks. I blame the policeman. (They really need to do a better job cordoning off unsafe areas, especially with a crowd like this. Why was there no rope or other barrier? Oh wait... this is India.) (As a side note, we would later find out that these rockets were actually more similar to dynamite than fireworks, and were meant only to create really loud noises. How does this not scare the elephants?)

After barely escaping the crowd and fireworks, we headed to what we didn’t realize was an even bigger crowd. We wanted to get a good position for kudamattam, the main event of Thrissur Pooram, so we decided to head there about an hour and a half early. Apparently a lot of other people had this idea too. Manju then came up with the brilliant idea: head to the “Welcome Foreign Guests to Thrissur Pooram!” section. This foreigners’ section was on an elevated platform pretty close to the temple and, more importantly, above the crazy crowd. Normally I despise special treatment for foreigners, but in this case I was grateful. Unfortunately, the foreigners’ section was on the opposite side of this crowd. We burrowed our way through the crowd like prairie dogs (or some other animal that burrows) and emerged, miraculously unscathed, at the stairwell to the foreigners’ platform. When we walked up, a policeman wanted to see our pass. We didn’t even know we needed a pass! I just pointed at my white skin. We got a laugh out of the policeman but no permission to enter; we should have picked up a pass at a Kerala Tourism office days ago, he explained. (As a side note, the Chief Minister of Kerala and his posse sat in the front row of the foreigners’ section. So I guess it was more like a VIP section?)

We went back down and stood in front of the platform, because that area was roped off and other people weren’t permitted to enter. We had plenty of room and a good view. But alas, the crowd was big, real big, and there was limited space. Soon enough the uncontrollable crowd kept growing and had extended to this area. A policeman who was supposedly ensuring this area remained roped off and free of insane numbers of people got scared and squeezed between the bars holding up the platform to hide underneath the platform. Coward. (And Manju couldn’t stop laughing. She thought this was the most hilarious part of our entire insane day.)

As the crowd got, well, more crowded, we were pressed up against the platform bars. We knew we wouldn’t be able to see anything, besides the fact that it was really sweaty and slightly painful. That’s when we realized the scaredy-cat policeman’s move wasn’t a bad one. I looked back under the platform and saw that we could climb onto the stairwell from underneath. So we squeezed through the bars, stopped for a second underneath the platform to breathe and enjoy not touching any other sweaty bodies, and climbed onto the stairs from behind. No one stopped us from standing in the stairwell, as long as we didn’t enter the platform. The stairs actually gave us an amazing unobstructed view of both the elephants and the crowd! (I found the crowd just as interesting as, if not more interesting than, the elephants. There were even crowd surfers!)

This is what 500,000 people look like.

So what was this crowd so excited to see? Priests on elephants holding umbrellas. Yes, umbrellas. Two lines of caparisoned elephants, each line from a rival temple in Thrissur, faced each other in an epic Umbrella Off (to use Zoolander terminology). Basically, each temple’s priests alternated switching umbrellas. Every time new umbrellas were hoisted on the elephants, the crowd went wild. Putting their hands in the air and yelling at the top of their lungs, people cheered like their favorite cricket player just scored a 6 to win the match in the last over (or to use a more American analogy, like their favorite football player just scored a touchdown when the team was down by 6 with only a few seconds left to win the game). …but for pretty silk umbrellas. I found this hilarious. This “exchanging of umbrellas,” as people called it, went on for almost 2 hours. A bit long for just umbrellas, in my opinion.

Umbrella exchange

The Umbrella Off

That night, or really morning (at 3am), a massive number of fireworks were scheduled to go off. Seats on rooftops were sold out days in advance to witness this spectacle. The other option would be to watch from the street, with another huge crowd. We decided that, since we’d seen fireworks before, it wasn’t worth getting up at a ridiculous hour just to stand in a huge crowd. I don’t know if the fireworks started late or just weren’t that loud yet, but at 4:45am the ridiculously loud fireworks woke me up. And continued until 6am. It sounded like the city was under siege, like hundreds of bombs were going off.

When we woke up for the morning (only about an hour and a half later), we decided to go to the temple to see what it’s like on a quieter day. Well, actually, the pooram was still going on. When we arrived at the temple, we saw a line of elephants approaching again. As awesome as elephant processions are, we had had enough of big crowds. So we entered the temple via the backdoor, and it was surprisingly empty. Afterwards, we headed to the Thrissur Pooram Exhibition. Silly me, I can never throw away my American expectations. I thought “exhibition” would mean an exhibit, perhaps about the history of Thrissur Pooram, how the elephants are trained, how the temple and priests prepare, etc. Well, I was totally off the mark. Instead of learning more about the festival, I found dozens of booths selling everything from clothes to kitchenware to solar water heaters, rides (ferris wheel, swinging pirate ship, spinning tea cups, etc), and random exhibits/propaganda by government agencies such as the space agency and the military. My favorite “ride” was a tiny tank with a small motor boat driving in circles. Manju was quick to point out that we’re in the state of backwaters—don’t a lot of these people ply the waters every day? Aren’t there plentiful opportunities to ride in a boat? Very silly.

When we finished laughing our way through the exhibition, we headed to Paramekkavu Temple, one of the two rival temples. Manju went inside to pray, but I wasn’t allowed to go with her. Instead, I took a picture of this funny sign:

so, what am I allowed to wear? (by the way, the Hindi says the same thing, though I can't speak for the Malayalam and Tamil)

We left the temple to find the elephants returning from the day’s events. It was time, finally, to remove all the ornaments (but not all the chains. sad), take a bath, and eat some food! Here are some pictures of the newly-naked, and probably relieved, elephants:

Er, image upload fail.

After watching the elephants enjoy their relative freedom, we headed for lunch at the Indian Coffee House, a chain that is unfortunately not as good in Kerala as in Madhya Pradesh (Mom and Dad: we went there in Bhopal, the restaurant with the guys in funny white hats, remember?). At the end of our lunch, we heard what sounded like bombs (again). The pooram ends with one last pyrotechnic display, but because it’s during the day, it is more a sound than light show. And boy, did this sound actually show! The windows were rattling like mad with each BOOM. We went outside to see the spectacle (Indian Coffee House is across the street from the temple)—and we could feel the sound waves hitting us. The sound waves almost hurt, actually, especially in my chest. They were quite forceful! This of course totally freaked me out, so we went back inside the restaurant. But the windows were shaking so much I thought they were going to pop out!

After the first round of sound bombs, we ran to a line of autorickshaws to go back to our hotel, as it was almost time for our train. But no one wanted to go because a second round was about to start—unclear if they didn’t think it was safe (the visibility was pretty poor, as the pyrotechnics had turned the air into smoke) or if they wanted to watch the show. So we walked halfway back before finding an auto willing to take us, took showers, and headed to the train station.

And now here I am, sitting on the train, typing away.

One last note on the elephants: I felt really bad for these creatures. It’s already sweat-your-balls-off hot and humid (mid- to high-90s F and 90% humidity), then you throw really heavy gold caparisons and other ornaments on them. Plus the umbrellas are huge and putting a lot of pressure in one small spot where the pole rests on their head. On top of all this, three people are standing and dancing on top of them. Meanwhile, a band with loud drums and horns is playing right in front of them and a crowd of 500,000 people is screaming and cheering. All this noise not scary enough for them yet? Let’s add the physical sound wave-inducing bomb fireworks. It’s a miracle only one elephant collapsed and zero elephants freaked out. Seriously, these elephants are damn well trained. I have a lot of respect for these animals and their mahouts.

The toilet wind claims its first victims.

From today's The Hindu: Dust storms claim 15 lives in U.P.

Cause of death: the Loo.

(Link courtesy of Sam.)

Hello old neighbors, and hello toilet wind! (Or, my return to Delhi)

I'm back. Back in Delhi, that is. Was I sad to leave my beloved South India? No. Was I excited to return to Delhi, where I have a home and (at least a slight semblance of) a social life? No.* When I left Thiruvananthapuram, I felt oddly emotionless. Usually I feel something when I leave a place, even if it's only for a short time. But nope, nothing. Weird.

*This is not to say I wasn't excited to see my friends. Of course I was. I just wasn't feeling particularly excited about the prospect of returning to Delhi in general.

I had a flight at death o'clock in the morning from Thiruvananthapuram (woke up at 3:45am. Most painful moment of my life). When the flight descended into Delhi, I almost vomited at the sight. I swear, it took very bone in my body to not dry heave right there on the plane. Despite Delhi being a humongous city, I could barely see the buildings, only a faint outline. All I saw was gray. Gray pollution. It was like descending into a smoke stack or exhaust pipe. Suddenly my emotionless self was filled with emotions of "uuggghh why is this where I live?!" and dread of landing and actually entering this polluted city.

My feelings quickly changed when I got to my apartment (though not about the pollution). It was great to see Sam again and to be home. Yes, my apartment really feels like home to me, and one of my favorite feelings in the world is arriving home after being gone for a while.

I decided I needed to get some returning-home errands done. I needed a Sri Lanka guidebook (obviously this was an immediate need. I mean, who doesn't need a SL book?), but the only good bookstore I know of is in Khan Market. As some of you know, the US, UK, Canadian, and Australian embassies have issued warnings of an "imminent terrorist attack" in Delhi's major markets--including Khan. Luckily, I have a roommate who researches South Asian terrorism for a living. Sam assured me that the attack would only occur between the hours of 5 and 8pm or on the weekend, because the terrorists want to kill as many people as possible. No point in attacking an empty market at 2pm on a weekday. In other words, if I wanted to go and not die, I had to go right then. So I did, and I'm still alive!

To get to Khan Market, I of course had to take an auto. Now, I had not taken an auto in a city where I can kind of speak the language in a month. In Kerala, the autowallahs only speak Malayalam, so my Hindi was rendered useless and I couldn't even hope to bargain. But here autowallahs speak Hindi! I cannot tell you how happy I was. A humongous goofy grin appeared on my face when I spoke the first Hindi words in a month. I giggled my way through the bargaining. The autowallah was utterly confused about why I was so happy-go-lucky. I think he thought I was high. And I was--high on Hindi! Hah. I got him down to Rs 30--only Rs 5 above the meter (that's the best anyone, including Indians, can hope for in Delhi). Apparently, I haven't lost my mad auto bargaining skillz!

After cheating death in Khan Market, I headed to Bhogal for some shopping and threading. I passed the auto pimp's autostand, and all the autowallahs started yelling at me, "Hello madam! आप कहाँ थी? [Aap kahan thi?/where were you?]" "मैं काम के लिए केरला में थी। [Main kaam ke liye Kerala mein thi./I was in Kerala for work.]" " बहुत अच्छा! हम खुश हैं कि आप वापस आई! [Bahut achchha! Ham khush hain ki aap vaapas aayi!/Very good! We're glad you came back!]" I had pretty much identical conversations with the tailor, the threading ladies at the beauty parlor, the guys at Kadimi's (my favorite samosa place), and the convenience store owner. It was really nice that people remembered me and seemed happy to see me--it makes the neighborhood feel like home. I love Jangpura!

What I did not love, however, was the incredible amount of dust flying into eyes and covering my body this afternoon. Apparently I arrived back in Delhi just as the Loo is descending upon the city. And by "the Loo is descending," I do not mean a giant British toilet is raining shit on Delhi--though I'm not sure that would be much worse. The Loo is a dry westerly wind bringing in extremely high temperatures and mountain-loads of dust from Rajasthan's Thar Desert, and it occurs for a few hours every afternoon from May until the start of the monsoon in June. Some days the Loo will bring in so much dust it will create the illusion of an overcast sky. Oh, you thought the dark sky was clouds? Or at worst pollution? Wrong. It's DUST. And it's going to invade your apartment. Everything in my apartment is covered in a thin film of dust--despite daily dusting efforts--and I've read that we should put wet towels over our windows to reduce the dust when the Loo gets really bad. I've also read that we should not go outdoors during the afternoon Loo hours. It's only beginning and not terrible yet, but at its worst many animals and people die from heat exhaustion/strokes. The Loo is like the opposite of a cool sea breeze; it's the hot breeze of death. You can learn more about India's toilet wind on the all-knowing Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loo_%28wind%29 (yes, I know, I reference Wikipedia way too often on this blog. I fully intend to continue to do so.)

[On a tangent: I would like to summarize Delhi weather for you:

December to February: cold winter (remember, no central heating in buildings) with fog so thick planes are grounded, trains move at a snail's pace, and I can't find my way home at night because I can't see across the street (not to mention the increase in pollution)
late Feb - mid March: a few rare weeks of pleasant weather
mid March - June: ridiculously hot summer, with temperatures reaching 120 degrees F and a daily afternoon hot dry wind carrying copious amounts of dust that can literally darken the sky and cause fatal heat exhaustion
June - September: monsoon season, with sticky humidity and heavy rains that flood the streets (except last summer when the monsoon was weak and Delhi stayed ridiculous dry and hot)
October: still pretty hot
November: the only pleasant month temperature-wise, but the pollution starts to get worse

To summarize the summary: fog/smog, heat the temperature of Hell, dust storms, street floods. In conclusion, Delhi may very well have the worst weather on the planet.]

However, with the Loo comes mango season! Well, actually, the wind doesn't bring suspended or flying mangoes like it does dust particles. But the start of mango season just so happens to coincide. The main street of Bhogal is crawling with vendors selling mangoes and "mango shek" (mango shakes). Rumor has it the mangoes of early May aren't very good (don't ask me why, I don't understand these agricultural matters), but by late May they should be delicious!

Tonight I ate pizza and watched Zoolander with Alice and Pooja (neither of them had seen it!! I know, completely unacceptable. Though Pooja couldn't get into the silly humor). You know that scene where Zoolander is being brainwashed and Mugatu pretends to be a little girl who loves child labor? And he mentions a bunch of countries that employ child labor while map outlines of those countries pop up? When he mentions India, the map outline includes Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Bhutan, despite mentioning Bangladesh separately! It also appears that Mongolia is included in the China map. I can't believe I never noticed this before, and I wonder if it's intentional or a mistake. See for yourself (pause at 1:32):

Anyway, obviously pizza + Zoolander + friends = the best evening I've had in a long time.

So I guess I'm happy to be back in Delhi? Well, I wouldn't go so far as to say happy (did I mention the pollution and toilet wind??), but it's nice to be back.

I should probably post about Thrissur Pooram.

I wrote an entire (very long) post about Thrissur Pooram, Kerala's elephantastic extravaganza. But I haven't posted it yet because it would be unfair to post so much text without pictures. ...but I'm waaaayy too lazy to select the top 10 -15 pictures from 797 (and most of the 797 pictures are the same: elephants. Why do I love these strange long-nosed creatures so?). Fail.

Japanese people or butterflies?

As some of you know, there is an impossible, misbehaved child staying in this guest house/office (the same child as in a previous post). I don't need to get into the details about what a monster this child is, but I think you might find the following story amusing.

I came upstairs to find the communal TV turned on to Ninja Warriors, my favorite Japanese obstacle course game show. I don't know who turned it on or who was watching (there was no one there), but I was excited to find this show exists in India. I sat down to watch and then the devil himself came running up to me.

"What is this?" he pointed at the TV screen.
"Ninja Warriors. A Japanese game show. People race through a playground [I couldn't think of how else to explain 'obstacle course,' especially to a child who doesn't speak much English] to try to become ninjas."
"No."
"Yes."
"No."
"Yes."
"No."
"Yes. It is a Japanese game show."
"No." He walked up to the screen and pointed at a contestant. "He is butterfly."
"No, he is a man trying to become a ninja."
"No. He is butterfly. All is butterflies."
"No, he is a man. Just a man. They are all people."
"People? No. No people. Different looking. Butterfly!"
"No, they are not butterflies. They are people, and they look a little different because they are from Japan. But they are people. And if you think they are flying, that is because they have to jump to race through the playground."
"NNOOO!!! BUTTERFLY!!!"
"People! People from Japan!"
"BUTTERFLY!!!"
"PEOPLE!!!"
"BUTTERFLYYYYYY!!!!" screamed at the top of his lungs. Then he burst into tears, kicked me in the shins as hard as he could, and ran downstairs shrieking and crying to his father.

I have no idea why he kicked me or started crying. ...or why he thought Japanese people were butterflies.