Hannah BW

Mumbai: Day 23

I was all ready to write "Day 22" and everything. Tempus fliegt.

Here is a rundown of my life since Day 18. I routinely get stopped by men on the street who ask me where I'm from and whether I like India before disappearing into the omnipresent crowd. This happened last week, but instead of disappearing, my inquisitor seized the opportunity to tell me that his friend was accepted at CalTech and Michigan, and which of those are better engineering schools? And they are all engineering students, structural engineering, and did I know what kind of GRE scores were needed for structural engineering programs? And what's the average salary of a structural engineer in the United States? And is there prejudice against Indians in the United States? And is it true that there is still prejudice against women and African-Americans in the United States? Is Barack Obama going to be the first black president? What about Martin Luther King? When I left him at the Sahakari Bhandar (approx. 1 mile from where we first met), we were talking about the two-party system.

OH MY GOD THERE IS A LIZARD IN THE INTERNET CAFE

Friday is snack day in the afternoon session. Kajal-didi brought something called dhotlas (sp?) which are bright yellow sponge-cake type cubes flavored with mustard seed (I think). Weird, but good. And today she brought a mystery snack for the parents' meeting that was a deep-fried dough ball filled with some kind of "ground pulse" (her words). It was totally delicious and spicy. I ate 3. And this weekend was such a good food weekend! On Saturday I returned to the fabric market and ate at the magical unlimited-thali restaurant again. Thanks, Rajdhani, even though there was a cockroach on the table. On Saturday night I had my first Kingfisher Strong. On Sunday I had brunch at Indigo Deli, where I had excellent eggs florentine (and 110 rupee coffee).

After brunch yesterday, I got a pedicure. It was definitely the first time a man has painted my toenails. Then, on the way back, birds shat on me and my friend within a span of five minutes. Then I had an argument with a girl who wanted me to buy her a banana. There was no banana guy around (people sell bananas on the street, but not at noon on Sundays, I guess) so she asked for some chips from the telephone/xerox stand in front of the hostel. But she really wanted the tomato chips, which cost twice as much as the normal chips because they are Spanish-themed. I insisted on buying her normal chips. She was a little peeved. I felt weird about it, still do. When you are offering to buy someone food, do you have to buy them whatever they want? Even if they are seven years old? I went upstairs and watched V for Vendetta on HBO. Does this reflect badly on me? Discuss.

Monsoon: 4 HBW: eva

Labels: chips, eggs, mithai, xerox

posted by HBW @ 7:17 AM