Thursday, August 24 Hellish Classes, Opposites of the US, Dinner at Shrikhandes

Professor Veena Kukreja is just too boring, I’m sorry. Today she told us that South Asia faces the “Triple A’s”. A’s she identifies as ‘Awareness’, ‘Aspirations’, and ‘Identities’. I don’t understand, seriously. Ok, but seriously, who did she have to sleep with to get this job? She probably wrote her PHD dissertation on the ‘Triple A’s’. And that’s why she’s still at prestigious Delhi University. The next class was actually interesting, but since it was 85 degrees in the building I was falling asleep. She was talking about refugees who all come to India from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Somalia, etc. You know your country sucks when you are immigrating to India. Student elections are going on right now at Delhi University, so a bunch of students are marching around, waving banners and making noise. I prefer to spend as little time on campus as possible, so I didn’t really see anything. After that I had to wait in a long line for security. Gender trends are the opposite of in the United States; more men go to school than women here, there are more men than women here, men come first here, and in gender-specific lines mens’ lines are longer here. It’s also like the reverse of peacocks; while men wear brown, beige, and white Western clothes, women wear brightly-colored red, blue, pink, yellow, purple, green, gold saris and salwar kameez that look really good. For dinner, I took the Metro to Central Secretariat, and was picked up by Holly Shrikhande in their SUV with a driver. From there, I was taken on a tour of the President’s House and the diplomatic enclave at Chanakyapuri, with all of the embassies. Then we went to her residence, which was a guarded, nice house by Indian and American standards. It seemed like I was in their house on Mercer Island, since all of the furnishings were the same, including Anjali’s bedroom with girly lanterns, pictures, and notes, but which the grandfather now is forced to live in. We talked for a while over some cheese and crackers (heavenly), before eating an excellent dinner (salad, parantha, tandoori chicken, aloo ghobi, and dahi) made by their Maharashtran cook. Anil, Holly, Adria, the grandfather, and Jasper were all there, and it was nice to see them again. I took the Metro home to Civil Lines.