Hannah BW

Mumbai: Day 35

I just finished lunch at a new-to-me restaurant, Bagdadi, which, to my knowledge, is not at all Iraqi. It's a no-frills establishment (who am I, a Time Out Mumbai writer? Oh, the internship possibilities), by which I mean, Formica booths that you share with strangers. My strangers were three French boys eating chicken biryani and whining about the cockroach climbing on the wall. Everyone, even the waiter, looked at me funny when I ordered a nan after having almost completed my veg. biryani. I mean, nan is for mopping up juices, and I didn't have any gravy on my plate. But I couldn't resist. The nan was approx. 16 inches in diameter, just out of the oven, with giant blistery holes, like a grilled pizza crust. The best part was the list of rules like "Do not sit too long at the table" and "Do not argue with restaurant employees" on the wall, with nary a trace of irony. Cost of lunch: 37 rupees.

The past two days have been more than hectic at work. Wednesday afternoon, the co-teacher at the afternoon center called in sick, but didn't leave a lesson plan or any backup activity, so Kajal didi ran back and forth between the classes while I was in charge of our class. Lesson plan: words ending in -tch, adding and subtracting mixed numbers. Then, yesterday morning, Pratidnya didi had to run interviews at the university where she lectures, so she left me in charge of teaching the kids about syllables and the concepts of "fat" and "thin." In the afternoon we brought the kids on a bus to a private school in Fort. Sixty children, one bus, three teachers--you do the math. I almost fell over when the guy made a sharp turn.

Now I have a nasty, snotty cold, but I think a weekend of spicy food and sudafed should clear it up. It's been brought to my attention that the cereal-like smell in my room might not be the 1 kilo jar of sugarfree muesli after all, but the scent of mold. Hm. Good thing I will soon be off to higher and drier climes.

posted by HBW @ 3:42 AM