Wednesday, September 13 Sleeptalking, "Move" vs. "Go", Rahul's Party

Apparently last night I was talking in my sleep to Nikhil about the AC not working, and I said (which I don’t remember, and I wasn’t drunk) “Is the AC guy here?” and he replied, “I don’t know when he’s coming”, and then I proceeded to call Tahera of all people to complain to her (unconsciously) about the AC. This could potentially get me into a lot of trouble. But for now, I think it’s hilarious. What isn’t hilarious is the fact that our AC still doesn’t work, so it was really hard to fall asleep last night. We had to open the door because it was cooler outside, so I got five mosquito bites. I went to the dhaba by Sri Ram Road with Ro and Puran, which was filled with butter and fat, but wasn’t good. After an uneventful afternoon of Hindi and being told by the travel agent that they could not book my tickets, I went online for a while. Then I got ready for Rahul Jain, our landlord’s Birthday Party. All of us except Tara all met up in the living room downstairs, and by coincidence all of us wore collared Polo shirts. We mingled with his parents and sister, while the amped Rahul fiddled with the music. The music selection was interesting. Track one was “My Neck, My Back”, followed by “Naughty Girl Remix”, and “Welcome to the Jungle [Euro remix]” We circled around the table, and some of his friends showed up, and so did friends of Palak. Ro and Puran were both going for the one Indian girl there, as usual. Basically everyone was drinking, and the orange juice and pakoras they set out for us were delicious. After some mingling and my consumption of 15 pakoras, everyone sang happy birthday to Rahul, and tradition, his family smearing cake on his face. The cake was also delicious. Then we had a mini dance party in their living room, which had a good sound system, marble floor, and colored lighting like a club. A Bhangra circle was formed, led by the Punjabis, Ro and Puran. We even got Rahul’s fifty-year old but fun parents to get up and dance. What surprised me was the openness between family members; Rahul, Palak, and their friends were all drunkenly dancing to hip-hop in their own living room, while parents smiled and clapped along to the beat. Export the occasion to America, and it would be an awkward, boring, asexual, quiet, and substance-free “party”. After that, we were asked, “Ok, shall we move?” I don’t know for sure why Indians don’t use the word “Go”. I can only speculate that the reason is because “Go” implies you’re going to reach a destination, whereas “Move” just implies that you’re making a motion towards somewhere; the “when” and “if” of reaching your destination is uncertain in India. Our first “Move” was to pile into cars to Connaught Place. I, of course, got stuck sharing a car with a man with no arms, an obnoxious loud Shachi, and a drunk driver. Rahul’s friend Shachi got extremely wasted off three shots and was trying to dance with everyone. The entire ride there he was yelling, hitting people, and just being belligerent, inappropriate, and annoying. I introduced myself, and he thought I said Taylor. He ended up calling me Elizabeth Taylor (but after a while he dropped the ‘Taylor’, so for the rest of the night I was known as ‘Elizabeth’), and because she had eight husbands, he volunteered to be my ninth husband. He taught me how to swear in Hindi, and one of the words he told meant, “One who is born from a vagina”. Being genetically human, I don’t really know how that would be offensive in any way, but apparently it’s an insult here. He kept sitting on me, and kissed me when I remembered the Hindi swear words. WTF. Shachi told me “bush” (pointing at my crotch) was good, but the other “Bush” (the US president) was not good. He adamantly hated Americans, but he said that because I was so different well-adapted to India, I changed his entire opinion about Americans. Too bad he won’t remember that conversation in the morning. I was overjoyed getting out of the car at the club, QBA, a bourgeois bar and lounge. The bar decorations included, by eyeballing it, a 20 gallon bottle of Belvedere. Such a bottle would either be a Santa Barbara student’s 21st birthday wish…or be the tipping point that causes the Santa Barbara student to puke the morning after their 21st birthday. Dimly lit, lots of couches, tables, and Western prices, and Indian hipsters were everywhere. The dinner included pasta, pizza, naan, dal, paneer, and an amazing dessert: brownie that leaked melted chocolate, with coffee ice cream. There was some dancing to random music (no hip-hop, though). The night was really fun, actually.