Pushkar: Day 57
First things first: I have no plans to visit Ahmedabad, Surat, or Bangalore. I know the US media didn't do a particularly assiduous job of covering the bombings, but over the past 8 weeks I have come to expect less of my newspapers, so I forgive them and remain a loyal reader. Or rather I plan to resume my readership as soon as I have an internet connection faster than 1kb/s.
The past couple of weeks have been hectic. I remain smitten with McLeod Ganj, but I quickly tired of the hordes of faux-Buddhist backpackers "waiting for the Lama." Also, in a fit of Tibetan history-induced sanctimony, I refused to buy a made-in-China sandstone ring from a jewelry merchant on the street, and he (rightfully?) yelled at me. For how long could I hide from the real world in Lhamo's Croissant, the French-Amdo hybrid cafe? Or drinking tea in prayer-flag draped restaurants? So I took the overnight bus to Shimla, where I discovered my fear of monkeys and affirmed, in person, my love of the Viceregal Lodge.
The next day (the 29th) I took the "toy train" down through the mountains to Kalka. I splurged on a first class ticket and was seated with a couple on the way back from their honeymoon. They had me "click snaps" of them making out, I guess assuming that because I am American and we do that kind of thing in the States, it wouldn't bother me. It did, however, kind of gross me out. In the scheme of things I was probably happier, though, since the folks in second class raised a roller-coaster style scream whenever the train entered a tunnel. There are 102 tunnels on this route (though a plaque at the Shimla station informed me that everyone says there are 103--purely for sentimental reasons). About 3 hours into the ride, the train stopped and everyone got out on the tracks because there was a fight.
Next stop: Jodhpur. The ride from Kalka through the desert was sandy, and I was once again surrounded by middle-aged men who asked me why in God's name my parents were letting me travel alone. Ma and Pa? After a couple of days lounging about in the heat, I took an afternoon bus to Pushkar yesterday. I spent the night at an unremittingly-Pink Floyd themed and overpriced hotel. I am sorry to tell you that the food in Pushkar is really bad so far. Everything tastes like Gorgonzola cheese, but nothing is supposed to. I miss Lhamo and her croissants. I've overdosed on bananas. Also, today the streets of Pushkar flooded waist-high, so I have no desire to actually leave the hotel and see the temples and ghats and find the restaurant that Lonely Planet says serves excellent gnocchi. A day inside might be called for.
Labels: ghats, monsoon, rain, viceroys
Mumbai: Day 26
It's a good thing that I caught up on my daily journaling for days 24-25 this morning because my brain is so fried that I might not remember anything otherwise. I blame this brain condition on a combination of the weather and the sandwich that I ate for lunch yesterday (more on this later). The good news? The team of gastroenterologists living under my bed (they say hi, Mom) tell me I don't have dysentery. Just a headache and flu-like symptoms.
On Tuesday I woke up and it was monsooning again, so I caught a cab to work. As soon as I turned the corner I saw that the door was locked, so I called Pratidnya, who told me that class was cancelled because all the trains were flooded (she lives in the suburbs). Of course, by then my cab was gone. So I hitched a ride on the bus back to Colaba and spent the morning drinking coffee, reading, and making to-do lists. Then I went to see Made of Honour with a friend, which satisfied a craving for silliness.
On Wednesday it was reported that 2 people drowned in the flooding. This city is entirely incapable of dealing with its weather. The combination of hundreds of centimeters of rain with high tide is just nightmarish. I'm no structural engineer, but maybe this is an example of how letting 16 million people live on a tiny spit of reclaimed land below sea level is a bad idea. Just wondering. The afternoon teacher, Kajal, keeps warning me that now's the time to get sick. Every day in the paper there are articles about how to avoid leptospirosis (wear closed-toe shoes--impossible) and how to keep your hair dry in the monsoon (just inane). Everyone warns against eating raw fruits and vegetables. I may well return with rickets.
Which brings me to the above-mentioned sandwich. On my way back from work yesterday morning, I stopped at the Jai Ganesh snack stand and ordered a "veg cheese toast." Veg cheese toast: two slices of white bread spread with green chili, between which are thinly-sliced onion, potato, beet, tomato, pepper, and cucumber, and a generous grating of cheese, are buttered and placed on a grill. After a few minutes the sandwich is pulled off, dabbed with more butter and chili, covered in another grating of cheese, cut into nine squares, and eaten, standing, at the Jai Ganesh counter. All this for a mere 18 rupees (<50 cents).
After my afternoon class, when Kajal told me I looked washed out, I kept thinking: please don't let it be the cheese toast. It's the best snack I've found! At dinner I was told my eyes were glassy, was sent to bed, and slept for 12 hours. This morning I called in sick. When I went out for breakfast and coffee to clear my head, I was sidetracked by two men at the Gateway of India who wanted pictures with me "for their collections." Sure, whatever. Now I have to go back to bed so that I can teach fractions this afternoon. Maybe this is called "under the monsoon"?
Monday's mystery sweet is called a kachori. Hold that thought.
Labels: bread, engineers, monsoon, rain
Mumbai: Day 18
Whoa, have I really been here 18 days? That's crazy.
Last night the monsoon returned as I was on my way home from (you guessed it) the ice cream shop (one scoop of dark chocolate, one scoop of kulfi, which can only be described as sweet cream that's gone a little off; it's delicious). I got completely drenched and walked through a puddle. Unfortunately I was wearing my white choridaar, and puddles really do nothing for white pants. Today I wore black jeans. It was raining so hard this morning that I went without my a.m. walk and took a cab to work instead. Then I was bummed because Akshata arrived late and Pratidnya didi sent her back home. In the morning session we're working on parts of the body. In the afternoon session, it's photosynthesis.
I'm working my way through Siddhartha in German (eine indische Dichtung) and it's not as hard as I expected it to be. Plus today while I was browsing in the bookstore I looked up some key phrases in their German dictionary. Opfer=sacrifice. Purchases? One (1) copy of the Economist: 200 Rs. Serious journalism: Px-less. The bookstore has a cafe inside it, which is great, because it's the only place I've found here that has decent coffee. There is a Starbucks-esque chain called Barista, but it's just not cutting it; they put sweetener in their iced Americanos. No go.
I hear that people like to know about the food here, so before I have to run to dinner: the bananas here are tiny, like half of American bananas (yeah, I know there's no such thing as an American banana); my favorite dessert is warm milk with cardamom (I think) and vermicelli noodles in it, called falooda; my favorite drink is lime juice with soda water and cumin/garam masala, called, what else, masala soda.
In other news, I bought a train ticket to Agra AND made a hotel reservation, so that means I actually will see the Taj Mahal. While on my way into the train station an old man pinched my butt, so I hit him (discreetly, of course) with my umbrella.
Monsoon: 2 HBW: 4 (because yeah, I ruined some pants, but if I hadn't had that umbrella, I would not have been able to retaliate against the pervy old man!)
Labels: kulfi, monsoon, perverts, umbrella
Mumbai: Day 14
Here I am again, at the secret internet cafe down the stinky hallway on a side street. What a haunt. Today I went back to the mega-bazaar that is Crawford (I mean, Mahatma Phule) Market and surroundings. One of the really weird things about this market area is the presence of men who want to "guide" you around, who when you decline, insist they don't want money and then produce the government-issued pewter badges that label them "coolies." I won't pretend to understand, but once you get into the maze of little streets in back of Crawford Market, they disappear.
I went with two of the women I met at the hostel, and one of them pointed out as we entered the fabric market that if they hadn't been with me I would have been "eaten alive." This is true, if ''eaten alive" means "forced to buy umpteen beautiful silk saris, madam, silk saris very cheap, only 250 rupees," etc. I bought about a bajillion metres of cotton fabric. Then we wandered up to Kalbadevi Road, one side of which is lined with aluminum shops, the other with steel. I bought some stainless steel prep bowls. Old habits die hard.
Then we were hungry so we went to a restaurant where they serve unlimited Gujarati thalis. This merits a separate paragraph. They placed steel plates about 16" in diameter in front of us, then six or seven small bowls for dal, vegetables, etc went on the plates. (Etc. is code for ''I don't really know what we were eating.'') There were two men whose jobs it was to keep the bowls full, one man to give us pickles, one man to bring us the big pitcher of hot water to wash our hands, one man to show us desserts, and the roti man. The roti man was our favorite. He was clearly mocking us. He swung by the table approx. every two seconds to give us more bread. This all cost 160 rupees--4 dollars--and was delicious.
To me, the fact that there are 16 million people in this city is most evident when I'm in a place of business that is ludicrously overstaffed.
Then we went to the train station and I was going to try to buy a ticket to Agra but couldn't muster the energy (ticket buying here is really complicated). So we took a cab back and I lay in a stupor on my bed for a while. Then I took some of my fabric to the Smart & Hollywood High Class Ladies & Gents Tailor to get skirts made.
I'm beginning to wish that it would rain again. The paper says that if it doesn't rain soon there will be "water cuts"! Already sometimes when I try to shower in the middle of the day, nothing comes out, though that might be due to the construction on the second floor of the hostel. I don't ask. Today I saw two sparrows in the hallway. Nevertheless the lack of rain is good in that I still haven't figured out a proper rain-footwear situation, so we'll call it a draw.
Monsoon: 2 HBW: 1
Labels: bread, mahatma, monsoon, tailor, ugly shoes
