Reminders of home ...sort of.

To state the obvious, India and the US are different in almost every way. But sometimes I am surprised at how much certain things remind me of home. Here's a partial list of these things:

1. Tiffin roti = shmurah matzah

At TERI, you can order a tiffin for lunch. This food is supposedly "home-cooked" and delivered to TERI in neat lunchboxes called tiffins. It's a pretty good deal, because it's a lot of food for only 35 rupees, or 75 American cents. A tiffin looks like this (image taken from Google Images, not my own):


Each section of the tiffin comes with a different food. TERI's tiffin service gives us four compartments. One has plain white rice, two have subzi (vegetables)--usually one rajma (kidney beans), daal (lentils), or chole (chickpeas) and one mix veg, aloo gobhi (potato and cauliflower), kofta (veg ball), or paneer--and one has a yogurty desert. My favorite subzi combination, of course, is daal and paneer. Yum!

The tiffin also comes with 4 small roti (flat round bread). These roti are less than yum, unfortunately. Today, I finally figured out what this particular roti tastes like: shmurah matzah. For those of you who don't know what shmurah matzah is, it's like super-duper-kosher circular matzah (bread that doesn't rise, looks like a big cracker) that tastes like crunchy burnt cardboard. Delicious? Well, this roti tastes like that, minus the crunchiness. (Note: usually roti is quite good. It is just this tiffin.)

2. Autorickshaws = Mario Kart

My brother Ben pointed this one out to me. We were riding in an auto from CP (Connaught Place) back to Jangpura, and he said, "Riding in an auto is like being inside a Mario Kart game. You try to get ahead of everyone else, dodge and weave in and out of other vehicles, and the background moves at about the same speed. I feel like I should throw a banana peel on the road!" (Don't worry, Mom, he didn't.)

3. Bollywood = Hollywood

You may think Bollywood should remind me more of Broadway due to the extended dance scenes. But I'm not really talking about the movies here, because I think they actually are quite different. Instead, I'm referring to the media's love for Bollywood "heros and heroines." The public is just as obsessed with celebrities here as at home, and the paparazzi is just as insane.

4. Auto pimps = actual pimps

Because both auto pimps and actual pimps control corners. See a previous post about Jangpura.

5. Cricket = Baseball

They both involve a bat, and they're both boring.

6. Will = Josh

I have been trying to figure out for months who Will reminds me of. Friday night I went to see a Bollywood movie with him, and it hit me: he's an Indian version of my cousin Josh! I can't put my finger on why; he's not a Cubs fan (in fact I would be shocked if he's seen even one baseball game--he doesn't even like India's baseball equivalent!), he doesn't want to be a doctor, he doesn't handle the cold well, etc. I think maybe he kind of looks like him. ...but Indian.

7. Diwali = Chanukah

Ok, not really, but both are called "Festival of Lights." That has to count for something.

I might add to this list as I think of more things that remind me of home. Or, more likely, I'll totally forget about it. To any fellow expats reading this, I would love to hear what random things remind you of home!

Delhi *is* cold!

This article describes my current life perfectly:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/15/world/asia/15delhi.html

But you know what? Delhi is cold. Here's why:

• Buildings in Delhi are built to keep out heat and retain cold for the insanely hot summers (120 degrees--not looking forward to that at all!). Marble floors are not exactly ideal for cold weather. This means it is actually colder indoors, and during the day the cold from the previous night does not escape. It is 40 degrees inside my apartment at all times.
  
• There is no indoor central heating. Anywhere. I bought a measly space heater, but it doesn't help much. The heater doesn't even blow air. It just has two orange-red bars and kind of looks like the inside of a toaster oven. It's basically cooking the air immediately surrounding it. I have to sit directly in front of it to feel any heat. (This is why the outer plastic shell of my laptop monitor melted.)
  

So you may think you're tough surviving subfreezing temperatures in the US. But let me ask you this: how much time do you actually spend in those temperatures? The five minutes it takes to walk from a heated building to a heated car? Sounds like you're living in a comfortable 72 to me! Try living 24 hours in 40 degrees, and I think you'll understand why Delhiites are so cold. (Now if you're in the Himalayas and suffering 24 hours in subzero temperatures, you have legitimate reason to think we're all wimps in Delhi.)

Also, that article's description of the pollution is spot-on. All these street bonfires mix with exhaust fumes and the winter fog to create the most disgusting smog I have ever seen in my life. This makes LA's air look clean! Even my pollution mask is powerless against this smog. I literally cannot breathe. Sometimes I wonder how I'm still alive.

I'm planning to escape the cold and pollution by going to Orissa next weekend. I can't wait to relax on the beach! It's been way too long since I saw a large body of water.

Jangpura, Part II: Why I love living here

Jangpura is an awesome neighborhood. Here are a few reasons why I love living here:

Bhogal Market: You can get everything here, and for relatively cheap prices. It's smaller and easier to navigate than Lajpat Nagar Central Market, and it's a lot cheaper than Khan or Defence Colony. Also, Alice and Pooja live here! (Note about Pooja: she is a lawyer who works in an OFFICE located in Bhogal Market. Apparently a previous post made her sound like a street vendor or something.) (While I'm clarifying things, Alice and Pooja do not sleep under subzi (vegetable) carts on the streets of the market; there are apartment buildings in Bhogal.)

Tuesday night flea market: On Tuesday nights, Bhogal holds a flea market. The streets of Bhogal become incredibly crowded, and that makes the atmosphere really fun. I have bought several household items, Indian clothing, Hindi and Punjabi music, and Bollywood movies for super cheap. I may or may not go every Tuesday. May or may not.

Tuesday night flea market, viewed from Alice's terrace

Kadimi's: A chaat place in Bhogal Market that, without question, serves the best samosas in all of India. Even Pooja, an Indian, agrees with me on this one. Not only are their classic aloo (potato) samosas superb, they offer a variety of samosas that I have seen nowhere else: daal (lentils), paneer, mutter (peas), gobhi (cauliflower), and--get this--Chinese noodle samosas!! Kadimi's also has excellent paneer pakora. And I still haven't tried their kachori, but I intend to. This place is SO GOOD. I really cannot stop raving about this place. No trip to the Tuesday night flea market is complete with a stop at Kadimi's. If for some reason you're looking for me but can't find me, I'm probably at this place. Just ask Alice. She's found me there before.

(Yeah, I'm aware that the last two reasons are really part of Bhogal. I love Bhogal.)

Kadimi's

so good

preparing the best samosas in India

Parks: Jangpurans like to claim that our neighborhood is the greenest in Delhi. I don't really know if this is true, but it is true that we have a ton of parks. Even though I have yet to actually take advantage of any of these parks (before the weather was too hot, now the air is too polluted), it is nice to have trees everywhere.

Celebrations: The other day there was a Sikh holiday, and since my neighborhood has a large Sikh population, there was a musical procession through the streets, stalls set up with free food for everyone, and fireworks being lit on the street and in the sky. During wedding season several weeks ago, I could see a fireworks show from my terrace literally every single night. I'm not even exaggerating.

celebration of some sort, viewed from my terrace

History of welcoming outsiders: See previous post about Jangpura's history.

The only downfalls:

The auto pimp: The autostand on Birbal Road is run by an auto pimp. Or at least pimp is the word I use to describe him. He's a humongous bearded, turban-clad, concealed-sword-wielding Punjabi who strikes fear into the hearts of the other autowallahs. They pay him to park their autos there; I've seen some autowallahs slip him rupees. Also, on several occasions he has intervened while I was in the middle of bargaining with an autowallah. Kris and Katrina, who used to live in Jangpura before moving to Dayanand Colony, said he even rode with them once. He made sure their autowallah gave him a portion of the money when they reached their destination. He particularly likes to pick on a fellow Sikh autowallah who is small and quiet (and who is coincidentally named Harvinder Singh, like my dad's partner in his oncology practice). All of this means that the autowallahs at the Birbal stand charge more than they should, because they have to give a cut of their earnings to the pimp for permission to wait there. Since I don't want to support the pimp's abuse (and since I want to pay more reasonable fares), I no longer use this autostand. Instead, I walk to the main road, about 6-8 minutes away, to catch an auto. (On a related note, I think a book on the Secret Lives of Autowallahs would be fascinating. Someone--an Indian male, obviously--should go undercover.)

Eros Cinema: This movie theater is currently under construction. When it finally opens, this multiplex is going to bring a ton of traffic to the neighborhood. Sure, it seems really convenient to have a movie theater literally a 4-minute walk from my home--until you realize that you're going to have a movie theater in your backyard. Luckily construction is super slow in India, so it probably won't open until I move out of Jangpura anyway!

Life in Delhi can be challenging, and I know I complain about it a lot. But at least I live in a neighborhood I love coming home to.

Creepy? Or awesome?

Today I was walking around Janpath, a market area near Connaught Place, with Ben and Joel. A random Indian man came up to me and asked, "do you live in Jangpura/Bhogal?"

At the time I felt creeped out so I ignored him and kept walking like I didn't hear him. But now I wonder how he knows me... maybe I bought something from him in Bhogal market, or maybe he's seen me walking around the neighborhood (and remembers me because my skin color makes me stand out). No idea. But, to use Joel's favorite phrase, "it could be awesome" that neighbors recognize me and some people know I'm a resident.

So it could go either way. Could be creepy, or could be awesome.

Apparently, you can train a tree. Or at least the Khasi can.

My brother Ben and his roommate Joel came to visit me (actually they are still in India but traveling without me), and last week we went to Meghalaya, Assam, Sikkim, and Calcutta. The highlight for me was hiking to living root bridges (yes, these bridges are alive!) in the Khasi Hills of Meghalaya.

Now you know where Meghalaya is.

The people in this region of Meghalaya belong to the Khasi tribe. The ancestors of the Khasi tribe, the war-Khasi, grew bridges; they trained the trees to cross the river! These bridges don't exist anywhere else in the world. I don't understand how the hell someone can train a tree, but check out these websites for more information:
http://rootbridges.blogspot.com/
http://www.cherrapunjee.com/index.php?mid=66&pid=66

To get to these bridges, we hiked through Khasi villages and forest. The hike was about 18 km roundtrip I think, and probably 8 of those kilometers were entirely stairs. We started at 9am and returned at 5pm. So it was quite exhausting, but worth it! The villages, scenery, and bridges were all spectacular. The amazingness can only be expressed in pictures:

view of the Khasi Hills and an escarpment at the beginning of the hike

entering Tyrna village

the trail officially starts behind this church

Ben and Joel enjoy descending several kilometers of stairs

did I mention the stairs?! definitely did some damage to our knees. and yeah, we'll have to ascend those later.

Humongous boulders in the river (which I assume is full during the monsoon)

Ben and Joel couldn't resist taking a break from the hiking to go bouldering

our first root bridge!

at over 100 ft, this is the longest bridge

Ben crosses the bridge. I think it's awesome that the war-Khasis trained the trees to make handrails!

another root bridge

root bridges in series

look at the color of the water. awesome.

mini waterfall and a shadow of the steel rope bridge

The steel rope bridges were less sturdy than the living root bridges.

crazy scenery

the end of the hike (halfway point? we had to walk the entire trail back) was the incredible double decker bridge

Khasi villagers on the lower deck

the upper deck

crossing the upper deck

both decks

Khasi girl crossing the lower deck

we ate lunch on a giant boulder in the middle of the river by the double decker bridge

on our way back, Joel and Ben conquer a big boulder in Nongriat village

I don't understand how this rock is balancing.

in a Khasi village

Ben climbing back up way too many stairs

our hike ended with a nice sunset over the hills. Bangladesh is on the other side of that hill.

Ben and Joel return to Delhi tomorrow, and they will be here for two days. After they leave I'll write about the rest of our trip.

Jangpura, Part I: Some history

Last night I was hanging out with my friends Alice, Pooja, and Anand. Alice and Pooja also live in Jangpura, and Pooja has been working in Bhogal Market (which is in Jangpura) for the past few months. Pooja introduced me to Jangpura's interesting history, so I decided to look it up. Here's what I found out about my neighborhood:

Today's Bhogal Market used to be a village on the (Old) Delhi-Mathura road known as Bhogal. In the early 19th century, as the British expanded the city and established a "New" Delhi, someone named Colonel Charles Young relocated a village called Raisina to a new settlement adjacent to Bhogal village called "Youngpura" (Young Village) in order to make room for the viceroy's palace--now Rashtrapati Bhavan, where the President of India resides--atop Raisina Hill. Youngpura and adjacent Bhogal eventually became what is today known as Jangpura, obviously a distortion of the original name of Youngpura.

In 1947, when British India got its independence and was partitioned into India and Pakistan, Punjabi refugees from the Pakistani side of the border settled in Jangpura. (This explains the disproportionate number of Sikhs in my neighborhood.) Jangpura became a planned colony for the Partition refugees. Plots of land, formerly farmland, were set aside for houses and parks. As more and more people came to Jangpura, the neighborhood had to expand and Jangpura Extension was created.

(NOTE: I got a lot of this information from blogs, so I can't guarantee that this history is 100% true.)

Today, Jangpura/Bhogal continues its tradition of welcoming displaced people; many refugees from Afghanistan have settled here, especially in Bhogal. Pooja told me that many shops in Bhogal Market are owned by Afghanis. I had no idea they weren't Indian! Apparently you can tell someone is Afghani if he is super nice (according to Pooja, all the Afghanis are very sweet) or speaks broken Hindi (I wouldn't even notice).

Stay tuned for Jangpura, Part II: Why I love living here.

Shout-Out to Sareeta's Blog

Sareeta recently updated her blog, so you should all check it out: http://sareeta73.wordpress.com

She recounts our Agra trip in much more detail than I did, so at the very least you should read about that. Plus the blog itself is arguably prettier than mine.