Sunday, October 29 Museums, Memorials, Tourist Shows

I got up early, and devoted the day to Delhi tourism. My first stop was the Indian Railways National Museum. I took the city bus. I actually am starting to really like the city bus. It goes everywhere, the conductors are helpful, it’s dirt cheap, it’s a seat, and they come every minute. The Railway Museum was tucked in a bunch of residential neighborhoods, so I had to ask an old man brushing his teeth where the museum was. The museum was really cool, especially since I am a trains buff. Basically when trains came to India, they were just boxes or tents on wheels. The idea was put into reality by the British East India Company, to create modes of transport and communication from coastal areas to the interior to facilitate the flow of people and goods, and later to govern the subcontinent. It turned out to be one of the best contributions made by the British Raj, and ultimately one of the worst for them. It also facilitated the spread of the Independence movement. The museum had a bunch of fun facts about Indian Railways. For example, Indian Railways is the whole system, broken down into 16 zonal groups. There are 14,534 trains running on 63,122 km of track, with 6,870 stations across the country. It carries 12.5 million passengers and 1.42 million tons of freight daily. It is the second-largest rail network in the world. It also said that since the Delhi Metro was built, it means that every year: 2,634 less buses on the roads, 517,000 less trips made by private vehicles, average speed increases by 4 km/hr, 927 accidents avoided, and 96.3 million litres of fuel saved. The museum also had an outdoor exhibit, with real locomotives, which were interesting to see and play on. Next, I headed over to the National Museum. It costs 1 Rs for a student ticket. I like that. The museum was really interesting. It started out with clay figures, seals, and a real burial from the Indus Valley Civilization 5,000 years ago. Then, there were lots of sculptures made of bronze and stone, depicting various Hindu gods with hands in different positions and jutted hips, and Buddhist statues, from the Mauryan, Chola, and Gupta periods. There was a huge collection of Mughal miniatures, and miniatures from Rajasthan and the Deccan. They were very intricately painted, with gold leaf and flowing calligraphy. Then they had a whole section on just coins, which got old. The instruments collection was interesting, and they had some really intricate sitars, with ivory and semi-precious stones inlaid. Then there was a whole exhibit on tribal peoples of NE India. Why do all “tribal” people, no matter where or when, all look similar? After the museum, I had some lunch and caught a rickshaw, who took me to some random emporium, so I ran away and caught the bus to the National Gallery of Modern Art. It was really interesting, too, because it was all Indian artists in the modern era. They had some really good iPod-style figurines, and collages. Some were weird, but I’m probably just too novice to understand the work. I used to despise modern art, thinking it took no talent, and was really weird. The good thing about Modern Art is that it takes creativity. You can’t do modern art without creativity. After that museum, I ran over to the Indira Gandhi Memorial, which was at her residence in the diplomatic enclave in New Delhi. Tons of Indians were there, looking at pictures of her and her family’s life. The memorial contained exhibits of her well-furnished rooms. It also housed the clothes she and her son Rajiv were wearing during their assassinations. It also had the crystalized path she was on when her Sikh bodyguard murdered her. For someone who massacred Sikhs, forced sterilizations, and led the economy down the tube, I’m surprised that Indians love her so much. Next, I went to the Nehru Library, Museum, and Planetarium. It was housed in a huge building, and had eternal flames for him, his daughter Indira, and his grandson Rajiv. It also had on display pictures and books of his. His rooms were also on display, including the one from which he used to rule the country. It was interesting, but again, I don’t think Nehru did all that good a job, either. His economic policies crippled the country from independence until the 1990s. I had to catch a rickshaw and ask five different people where the Parsi theatre was, because the number was disconnected, and I thought more people would know about these dances, considering it’s a huge tourist attraction. But after seeing the performance, I’m not surprised no one knows about it, since it’s horrible. I was one of about 50 foreign and only foreign tourists. The dance was hilarious. The audience sat in dirty old couches that look like they belong in a fraternity, and the actors were even better. Half were from the Northeast and looked Chinese, so half the dances were Manipuri. Those were actually really good, they did balancing dances with drums and sticks. The other half were just Chinese-looking people doing Indian dances. Picture a Korean woman doing the Rajasthani dance with stacks of buckets on her head; buckets that were empty and were glued together. Then they had to talk to each other on stage to figure out which dance they were doing. And they dropped one of the guys on stilts. For the Bhangra dance, they glued on beards to look like Sikhs. One drummer did the music for all of the acts. The whole time it was like 1) watching a figure-skater and hoping they don’t mess up, and 2) watching a magic show and trying to guess what their secret trick is, because you know it’s fake. I went over to the Red Fort to see the Sound and Light Show (really touristy). Besides the mosquitoes, it was actually really interesting. They had…sounds and…lights, of the Mughal leaders and of the freedom fighters, along with music. Afterwards, I had dinner in Chandni Chowk, and I saw a huge rat. I thought I was over rats, but apparently not. Now whenever I am walking at night, I’m always scared of rats, and trying to avoid little holes and nooks and crannies…which is a hard task, considering the streets here are in severe disrepair…all of them.

Saturday, October 28 Gurgaon, IIT

I got to Delhi early in the morning. I swear over the past two days people have been starting to suit up for winter. Everyone from the First-class passengers to the bicycle rickshaw drivers are wearing shawls and sweaters in the mornings. The weather is actually really pleasant, though, right now, so I’m going to try and explore Delhi as best I can now. I spent the whole day among India’s new money. I took the bus across town to Gurgaon, the really modern and young town in Haryana right outside Delhi. As the center of the IT and outsourcing industry in North India, it has a ton of call centers, new cars, and brand-new enormous consumer shopping malls. However, the road was being built, so the bus dropped me off in Old Gurgaon, a dusty old dirty city with tons of small local shops and bicycle rickshaws. I had to walk and ask around in order to catch the right rickshaws to the worthwhile part of Gurgaon. I was surprised that the bourgeois call center representatives have to deal with these small inefficient modes of travel to get to work. On the road to Sahara Mall (some big shopping mall all the rickshaw drivers knew), the streets started getting wider, the cars started getting nicer, and buildings started getting taller. When I got out, I felt like I was in Los Angeles (I say Los Angeles because it’s dusty and dry, there are nice modern skyscrapers, but right next to them are shacks and dirt roads). Cows, construction workers, and bicycle rickshaws all jostled up against the ultra-sleek glass and steel buildings covered in signs like Ericsson, State Bank of India, Philips, IBM, and Dell. The brand I know the best is Dell, so I walked to the building that was sporting its letters. There was construction, and women in saris and men covered in dirt toiled under the hot sun while call center employees look out from their clean, comfortable offices. I took the elevator, which had an attendant, up to the third floor. I was instantly greeted by a team of security guards in front of a wall with the Dell logo on it. They didn’t speak English, so one of the nerdy employees had to translate. I told him I was an American student at Delhi University (I showed my passport to prove it), doing a project on the economic liberalization, and I have to research the IT industry (it’s actually true), so against BPO policy, he let me in the premises. Apparently Saturday is not a work day (If I’m not mistaken, I thought that people call tech support 24/7), so no one was in the office. I got to see where the employees work, and it’s a big room, with a good towering view of the city, and rows upon rows of long desks with state-of-the-art Dell computers and computerized high-tech phones for each desk. The worker told me to come back during the week to see it in action. I’m definitely going to do it. If I forget the way, if worst comes to worst, I could always just call Dell tech support for America and ask for directions to the actual office in India. I had lunch at Sahara Mall, a huge modern shopping mall comparable to any in the United States (prices are also comparable). I had lunch for $4, which is really expensive. Then I caught the bus back to Delhi, and got out at IIT (Indian Institute of Technology). I took a rickshaw to the front gate, and went inside. The IIT system is a network, like the University of California, with eight campuses all over India. IIT is a public school, set up by Nehru, largely by the United States. It is a world-class institution, and produces many engineers that eventually come to work and study in the United States and make more money than I ever will. This is where the best and the brightest out of a billion people get their education. In terms of the actual facilities, it’s just like any other college campus, with sprawling lawns, nice trees, large halls, dorms, and nice roads. I explored the campus, and went inside one of the buildings. I had to sneak in from the roof because they check IDs at the front door. Sketchy. I walked in the halls, and glanced inside the windows of the rooms. Some were really nice lecture/seminar halls, others were offices, and others were state-of-the-art computer labs with flat-screen Windows machines. One of the classrooms’ signs instead of “Class”, said “Ass”. Even nerds can have fun. People were in each room, doing projects or just taking advantage of the world-class resources. I walked around the main buildings of campus, and talked to an applicant named Inam, who was in line to register for the JEE, a huge entrance examination for MA in engineering. You need a form with a picture and information about yourself and your family. Apparently it’s hard to get into IIT, since there are 400,000 applicants for 5,000 spots. One thing that has plagued the schools is the influx of lower-achieving students that are here because of reservation quotas, like affirmative action. However, since 50% of the Indian population fits this category, the majority speaks in a Democratic society. About the reservation quotas, although they allot a certain number of spots for these students, to attend IIT you have to be at a certain level, and many don’t meet the minimum criteria. I met two other students who epitomize IIT’s student body. One was a wealthy, smooth-talking Delhiite Vinod who looks white and wants to do civil engineering and then come to the US and get an MBA. The other was a nerdy short guy, who just giggled at everything we said, with crumbs and glasses on his face. They are my age, and doing a project they procrastinated on. It was Diwali holiday, but school starts on Monday, so they’re not excited. They spend a lot of time doing homework, and it’s all math and sciences. They only take 4 semester classes of humanities-style classes, because it’s mostly an engineering college. Most classes are lecture-style, with a lab. Material is based on participation and a huge final exam, with two smaller midterms. It’s competitive, because grades are based on rankings, not letter grades. But they said it’s much harder to get in than to graduate. It’s not expensive because it’s a public school; the thought is, if you can get the grades, money isn’t an issue. When you get into IIT, you get to choose which campus to enroll in. IIT New Delhi, Mumbai, Kanpur, and Madras are the most prestigious, and IIT Guwahati the least. However, most students choose the one closest to home, because family is very important to Indians. Vinod wants to go to school for civil engineering or business at UC Berkeley. They have no desire to study in India; everyone here’s goal is to get into a school in the United States (the US even more so than schools in Europe or Asia), whereas Americans go abroad to party. Or to meet over-qualified but underprivileged IIT students who don’t get why the hell I’d choose to study in India when I have US citizenship. Still, I feel severely incompetent and worthless coming from the political science department at Delhi University. I then walked over to the dorms (here, they’re called Hostels thanks to the British). I went inside. One and only one thing comes to mind; prison. The dining hall is all steel and uniform, and the students are required to call each dining hall worker “Butler Sahab”. The rooms have dirty or broken tiny windows facing an open courtyard, with laundry hanging out. There is a big TV room, computer lab, library study, ping-pong table, and drum set. It’s pretty much the dorms. I was looking at the names of the residents, and they were all names I am familiar with: Jain, Maholtra, Kumar, Yadav, Patel, and Gupta, and Singh. Because these are mostly rich Brahmins, who dominate the professional jobs. I feel creepy, like I’m a 40-year old reminiscing about my glory days living in the dorms. It seemed really fun, though, like a normal college in the United States, and not like an IIT. I talked to another student Vivek, who was sitting on the grass. I asked what IIT students do for fun, and he replied, “We have a computer lab and a LAN connection”. However, he said dorm life is really fun because all your friends are around, and everyone stays during the weekends, besides the people who live in Delhi or around. People play cricket and tennis, and then (after a long demanding week) go out and drink because IIT New Delhi is in South Delhi, a posh area. He made it sound like people don’t really study, but to be at IIT, I’m guessing “don’t really study” means “five hours a day”. He laughed when I asked about the girls, and then told me they live way on the other side of campus, are mostly in chemical engineering, and only make up 10% of the student population. I took the city bus back to Connaught Place and caught dinner and watched Lage Raho Munna Bhai, a popular Bollywood film.

Friday, October 27 Jodhpur

My train got into Jodhpur at 6am. I took a rickshaw in the dark to a hotel for a village safari, basically where white tourists go and photograph indigenous peoples of Rajasthan. The tour’s slogan might as well be: “Durag Niwas: Turning People into Objects Since 1882”. I got picked up by a small van, and what’s the first thing that happens? The tire goes flat. So we have to wait a while for the driver to fix it. I talked to the guide, a member of the Bishnoi caste (strictly vegetarian and opposed to killing anything). Some centuries ago, soldiers were cutting down trees in Rajasthan for fuel, and the Bishnois all hugged the trees, sacrificing themselves to save the trees. The 363 that died are the true definition of tree-huggers. The guide was dressed in a huge red turban, gold earrings, and pointy slippers. He invited me to stay in his natal village overnight and tomorrow (100 km outside Jodhpur). Then he mentioned it would cost 2000 Rs. I was expecting a friend, instead I got yet another tout. Our first stop was a small rural house, surrounded by a fence of thorny branches. Kids opened the gate, and showed me around. The floor was dirt, the walls dung, and the ceiling thatch. It’s amazing how resourceful these villagers are; they live in an infertile scrubland with nothing but dust and thorny bushes, and they manage to survive and produce India’s greatest wealth. After the house, we drove through small dusty paths to a weaver’s house. An old man, he wore a white turban and lungi, and chainsmoked bidis. He sat at his loom, weaving camel and sheep wool thread in and out, as the large wooden contraption pressed the thread down. Apparently he’s the last person who knows how to do this work in the village, since the younger generations refuse to do physical labor. Despite the amount of time and skill the weaving took, the carpets were ugly and rough, only suitable as doormats. We shot through the desert, kicking up a huge cloud of dust behind us. We stopped for brunch at a desert resort, recently built with a bunch of huts for tourists who want the rural desert experience. It also, for some reason, had a long row of toilets and sinks, right out in the open desert with no walls or ceiling. They had hookahs and machines to press and draw opium. The drug is used in Rajasthan for celebrations, and before battle. There were also deer horns, ships in a bottle, and turbans. Breakfast was good, but took an hour. After that, I was taken to see a wood-block dye factory, and a potter. Different wood-block prints and colors are used to signify specific things in Rajasthan. Turban colors signify caste, religion, and occasion. Brahmins wear pink, while Rajputs wear saffron, Bishnois white, and the lower castes black or brown. The style and type also determines class and village. Cool colors are worn during the summer and hot colors during the cold winters. Whites, greens, and blues are used at funerals. Reds is a celebratory color. These color codes developed in contrast to and as a direct result of the stark barren landscape of the deserts of Rajasthan. Back to reality, the potter was fascinating. He turns a 100 kg spindle by hand, and shapes clay pots by hand. It was really touristy and not a great tour, but what to do. I went back to Jodhpur and was too impatient to wait for a sightseeing bus, so instead I paid a rickshaw to take me to all the sights independently. Jodhpur was founded in 1459 by the Rajputs, and grew because of trade routes. Today it is the second-largest city in Rajasthan and is a leading city in the jewelry trade. The first stop was on the outskirts of Jodhpur, the Umaid Bhawan Palace and Museum, now partially converted into a Taj Hotel. It was grandiose and very nice, but not much was on display. Then he took me shopping, and of course, a complete waste of everyone’s time; Emporiums that tried to sell me a Rajasthani turban (essentially a 9-meter piece of cotton) for 900 Rs. The next stop was the Jaswant Thada, a white marble mausoleum with a great view of Meherangarh, “Majestic Fort”, which dominates Jodhpur below. Jodhpur is known as the Blue City (compared to Jaisalmer the yellow city, Udaipur the white city, and Jaipur the pink city) because Brahmins used to color their houses blue as a symbol of rank, and because it is an insect repellent. But soon, everyone in Jodhpur followed suit, and now the entire city looks like a beautiful sea of blue cubes. Even the water tanks are blue in Jodhpur. Its really beautiful looking out over the buildings, under the imposing Meherangarh Fort, perched on the rocky hill above. The rickshaw put-put its way up to the yellow fort. For 250 Rs, the foreign entry ticket entitles you to unlimited photos and a free audio tour. I gladly showed my American passport. Despite the negative connotation (audio tours vie with safari vests and bucket hats for the most touristy thing…ever) this was the best audio tour I have ever used. It had music and interviews. It made my visit to the fort. I ended up spending two full hours there. I also thought it was the most interesting fort. Like other forts, it has high winding corridors and walls to deter invaders. There are sati marks of the women who burned themselves in mourning of their husbands, intricate wooden windows where women could look out at the courtyards free from the gaze of men, nice paintings, palanquins, and jeweled rooms. After walking the ramparts and taking some breathtaking photos of the aquiline blue city below, I met the rickshaw, and we sped off out of town to the last stop, Mandore Gardens. Some kid at the fort was calling me ‘videshi’ (foreigner) and just to confuse him, I told him I wasn’t and that I don’t appreciate being called one. So he and his little friends ran off giggling. The gardens were touristy, but only to Indians out for the Friday afternoon. The regular crowd was present; courting couples, groups of guys hanging out, and families with children playing. But what made this park different was the abundance of ugly langur monkeys everywhere. As I walked into the park, I couldn’t tell the monkeys apart from the beggars sitting on the path, I couldn’t tell the monkeys from the gray-haired bearded Sadhu seated on the ledge of the temple, and I couldn’t tell the monkeys from the small children playing. People were feeding the monkeys and chasing them. I was scared; who knows how clean, rabid, or fierce they are. They are so human-like, though. I saw they spitting, picking each others’ hair, swinging to and from trees, running on all fours, eating with their little hands, and I even saw them having sex (which looks really awkward, as if you tried to picture two toddlers trying to go at it). Then the rickshaw driver again tried to take me shopping, which meant taking me back to the shop that charged 900 Rs for a turban. He just doesn’t get it. He finally dropped me off at the train station. Jodhpur, the city itself, is bustling and dirty, just like any other Indian city. Besides the abundance of camels and some blue buildings, it’s exactly the same. I went shopping before my train at 7:30 (the female voice of Indian Railways scared me because she said the train was arriving at 7:30 am, even though she meant 7:30pm). Remember how the Rajasthan government tried to charge me 900 Rs for a turban? Well, shopping on my own, I was able to buy two for 450 total. Then I bought some leopard-print Rajasthani slippers (I have full confidence that every girl will be swept off their feet by the sight of them), fake Polo shirts, and a HIDEOUS acid-wash shirt. I sat down at a busy thali restaurant and got a thali, but I must have ordered the butter thali because it felt like I was eating a bucket of Krisco. The curries were glistening yellow with oil, and drizzled with cheese. Even the yellow dal was saturated in oil. I had to scoop oil off the top, and that oil filled an entire section of the plate. The only bearable part of the meal was the butter naan, which was also covered in butter. The train station was crawling with touts, and a rickshaw driver asked where I wanted to be driven, and I said “Delhi please”. He laughed and stopped harassing me. Now since I consider myself well-accustomed to riding Indian Railways, I think it’s really funny seeing clueless and paranoid white tourists trying to ride the trains. They stick out like a sore thumb because of their huge expensive backpacks or luggage, completely waterproof and mosquito-proof clothes, tennis shoes, and money belts sticking out. They’re usually scared of pickpockets (which I am too, now), so they wear all their packs in front, and their heads turn like sprinklers as they attempt to find their train and platform, and look out for beggars and interested boys, who usually swarm them. Just because I was bored, I went up to this young white couple (who were stereotypically reading the Lonely Planet India guide) and pretended to be a tout, to see what it was like on the other side. I said “Hello friend, which country”. They replied, “Australia”, without making eye contact, and didn’t turn around or continue talking to me, so I just ended it and walked away. It would suck to be a tout, forced to be the annoying hawker that everyone hates, because you have no other means of earning a living. And it also sucks for people who aren’t touts, and are just trying to make friends, because I’ve definitely ignored normal people because I thought they were just greedy touts. I caught the “Super Fast” overnight Mandore Express to Delhi, but it still took an hour longer than expected. What I love about Delhi is that it’s exceptionally well-connected to the rest of India and the world. I just took a daytrip to Jodhpur, two states and 450 km away, for $10 round-trip, and no loss of sleep.

Thursday, October 26 Class, Train Drama

I spent class trying to sneak pictures of my two professors stealthily. A good quote was this: “Terror flows over the rivers of Bangladesh” –Veena Kukreja. Class is so boring and pointless; I go just to show my face. It’s worse that high school. Apparently Puran’s parents are coming to India, and staying from November 4 to December 15. Who is really studying abroad? That’s crazy! I went to Connaught Place and ate at Khana Unlimited, a yummy unlimited Punjabi thali restaurant. Then I came home and did some errands before catching my 6:00 train to Jodhpur in Rajasthan. I’m going to miss the Indian trains; how easy it is to get anywhere in the country, and the eclectic mix of people you can see at every station. I’m going to also miss the smell of sleeper class, of old urine and feces. What is it with people not making seat reservations? I was on the bed/seat in the train, and this random guy comes and pushes my feet out of the way so he can sit down. And then, when I get up to use the bathroom, some lady is sleeping in my seat. I have to wake her up and ask her to move, and she says in Hindi, “Well, next time, don’t leave your seat”. Excuse me, lady, but I believe this is my RESERVED seat. Now since I consider myself well-accustomed to riding Indian Railways, I think it’s really funny seeing clueless and paranoid white tourists trying to ride the trains. They stick out like a sore thumb because of their huge expensive backpacks or luggage, completely waterproof and mosquito-proof clothes, tennis shoes, and money belts sticking out. They’re usually scared of pickpockets (which I am too, now), so they wear all their packs in front, and their heads turn like sprinklers as they attempt to find their train and platform, and look out for beggars and interested boys, who usually swarm them. Just because I was bored, I went up to this young white couple (who were stereotypically reading the Lonely Planet India guide) and pretended to be a tout, to see what it was like on the other side. I said “Hello friend, which country”. They replied, “Australia”, without making eye contact, and didn’t turn around or continue talking to me, so I just ended it and walked away. It would suck to be a tout, forced to be the annoying hawker that everyone hates, because you have no other means of earning a living. And it also sucks for people who aren’t touts, and are just trying to make friends, because I’ve definitely ignored normal people because I thought they were just greedy touts. I caught the “Super Fast” overnight Mandore Express to Delhi, but it still took an hour longer than expected. What I love about Delhi is that it’s exceptionally well-connected to the rest of India and the world. I just took a daytrip to Jodhpur, two states and 450 km away, for $10 round-trip, and no loss of sleep.

Wednesday, October 25 Delhi City Tour, House Drama

Ok, so I did the unthinkable and went on a New Delhi City tour. It would be like me going on a Seattle tour, which I have done and actually if you go with Argosy, is really fun and interesting. That’s beside the point. Anyways, it was good because they take you to all the major sites in five hours, on a nice bus. It was run through the India Tourism Department. We started in Connaught Place and went to Jantar Mantar. It was smaller than its sister observatory in Jaipur. But what makes it interesting is that it is charged a bright red color, and lined with palmtrees. It is smack dab in the middle of downtown New Delhi, right next to the Delhi Municipal building, the Park Hotel, and the building that houses every international firm’s India arm. I was able to purchase an Indian national ticket at Jantar Mantar, but Humayun’s Tomb was more tricky. I did the usual, “Ek ticket”, “Where are you from, sir?”, “India, Assam”. They didn’t believe me, so they asked for my identity card, which I don’t have, so they asked me who the chief minister of Assam was. Caught completely off-guard, the only thing I could think of on the spot was “Gulab Jamun”, an Indian dessert. That would be like you asking a foreigner who claimed to be an American who the president was, and they said, "Apple Pie". Except I wouldn't be surprised in America. So, that obviously didn’t work. No loss, I’ve already seen Humayun’s Tomb. It’s really foggy today, which happens all winter in Delhi while it’s snowing in the Himalayas. The next stop on the circuit was the beautiful Baha’i Temple. It is absolutely stunning; white marble covers the flower-petal-looking façade, made to look like a lotus flower, synonymous to religions of India. It looks like it is floating on pools of turquoise water. My only encounter with the new Baha’i faith is seeing signs on the road where a congregation has adopted the highway. The religion sounded good; its mission is to foster unity and equality among all people, appreciate science, and tolerate other beliefs. The last stop of the circuit was the Qutb Minar in Meherauli, South Delhi. The way Delhi got its name originated at this site. Apparently in a pole is called a ‘Killi’, and someone died near it. So it was deemed inauspicious, and they moved it to a different spot. It was less stable because it was uprooted, so it waved from side to side. Instead of calling it a ‘Killi’, they called it a ‘Dilli’, thereby giving rise to the city’s name. This was the site of the first of the seven cities by Indo-Aryan Hindu rulers. I explored the Meherauli Archaeological Park, built in the early Islamic period. It contained a mix of sandstone rubble and ruins, intricately-carved archways, and pillars. The minaret, called the Qutb Minar, was pretty impressive, a leaning 200-foot tall pillar with ridges and carvings from the Quran. It used to be possible to climb it, but since there was a stampede and dozens of schoolchildren were killed, this is no longer possible. Of course, we stopped at an overpriced emporium on the way back. Then I hurried over to the Study Center for Hindi, and afterwards went home. Nikhil asked if I wanted to go to dinner at another 5-star hotel and when I asked how much it costed, he goes, “Oh, somewhere around like $40”. So I went with Ro and Puran to…drumroll please….Fiesta, for the first time in two months. It was a good old-fashioned taste of the good times. As a house, we had to pay a lot of money for electricity, so we reluctantly split the bill after arguing about how long everyone (meaning Nikhil) was here in October. Nikhil obviously lied about his trips because his story kept on changing, and direct quote: “Of the 15 day break, I was gone 10 days, and not here for 5”. Plus, the Jains and Rajesh saw him here the entire break, which Nikhil denied, with no hard evidence. The Jains share our communal exasperation over Nikhil. We went upstairs and basically had a huge fight. We called Nikhil out for: lying about smoking and stealing Ro’s cigarettes (Nikhil replied that’s because he doesn’t “like talking about smoking”), for lying about how his relative led a coup (when Mariel asked where, he answered, “In a far-off land”), for lying about being a founding father and member of Sig Ep (since he doesn’t know any of the Nationals Information or the secret handshake), for lying about not using the water heater (funny that it’s always left switched on when I walk in the bathroom), for dishonesty the time he stole an ice cream (from a vendor who wasn’t manning the pushcart), for attempting to steal a t-shirt (he gave only 20 Rs when there was a 50 Rs fixed rate), for treating servants and workers like animals, for getting mad about the apartment getting dirty at the party, and for consistently failing to pay his share of rent on time. Wish we could use this, but it would be so childish: So the other day I bought a plastic loofa scrubber for me to use in the shower, and without asking me he used it in the shower…on his naked body. Gross. Needless to say, when we brought up all these things, Nikhil got really defensive, but since he knew we were right, his only defense was to say “Oh my god, this is so cheap. I think you’re really out-of-line. So you’re calling me a liar?” He never admitted lying, and nothing really happened except that everyone has clearly ostracized him. I don’t know if he’ll move out or what will happen, but I doubt I’m that lucky. All I know is it’s going to be extremely awkward sharing a room with him. I’m afraid, since he’s obviously crazy, that he’s going to steal my stuff, mess up my things, or who knows, maybe even use my loofa in the shower. It’s going to be really awkward because Tara, Snehal, Luke, Nikhil, and I are planning on going on a camel safari and to Pushkar next week. This should be interesting.

Tuesday, October 24 Eid-Al-Fitr, Shopping, Mosque

Today is Eid Al-Fitr, which is an Islamic holiday to mark the end of the holy month of Ramadan. During this day, Muslims wake up eat a large feast before the sun has risen. Then they go to mosque to pray to Allah before going about their everyday business. They are not allowed to eat until the sunset, whereupon the fast is broken and there is an enormous, delicious feast eaten in every Muslim home. There are also celebrations including fireworks, games, and dancing in graveyards. It is a holiday according to the lunar calendar, so the Islamic astrologers can tell on which day the celebrations will take place. This was apparent when I tried to visit the National Museum, and someone had posted on the gate an 8½ by 11 sheet of paper scribbled in, “Closed for Eid Al-Fitr”. I went to the study center to use the internet, but it wasn’t working, and because of the holiday, no one was available to fix it. This is because most Muslims are working-class, so they would be the ones who they would call to fix the internet. I went to Connaught Place to eat lunch buffet at Nirulas, which was so greasy I had a three-hour food coma. I went shopping in Chandni Chowk, and ended up buying a few bracelets at the Sikh Temple. Then I walked down the small alleyways, most of whose shops were closed. I looked at some jewelry, Diwali festival regalia, and carvings, until coming to Jami Masjid, the largest mosque in Delhi, and India for that matter. I was expecting to see massive prayers filling the courtyard, but there were none. The extent of the prayers was a line of Muslim men in beards, kofia, and kurta pajama. They prayed on their shins, on their knees, and with their heads touching the ground. The mosque was mostly filled with Hindu visitors, and some foreigners who stuck out like a sore thumb. Now with my dark tan, plus wearing a collared shirt and acid-wash jeans, I look completely Indian, and people come up to me speaking in Hindi asking where things are. Then I shoot them blank looks. The average Delhiite has no idea looking at me from behind that I am not Indian. It’s nice to be anonymous sometimes, because I watched the funniest spectacle at the mosque. Two cute white girls were taking pictures in front of the main gate, and about 200 young males out of the 1,000 people in the courtyard all gathered around in a massive semi-circle around them, watching and giggling. All of a sudden, I see the two girls sprint across the courtyard to the gate. The huge crowd mobs behind them. Then, a security guard, an old guy with a wooden stick, comes running out of the gate waving his stick towards the crowd, which parts like the Red Sea. The guard has to escort them for the rest of the time. See, times like those I’m glad I’m not overly conspicuous. But it also doesn’t get you preferential treatment when people think you’re one of the everyday billion people that live in this country. Going up the minaret was one such time. You have to climb up 250 feet of a tiny spiral staircase, with no light or air. It sucks. Then, once you reach the top, the views over Delhi are superb, but there are 50 people jammed one up against the other looking out at the city below. Indian people love being next to you; they crowd, push, shove, and touch you in every possible place, without even noticing that it might make you uncomfortable. Waiting in line has two possible scenarios; there either is no line, but rather a mob of yelling, crowding people. Or, the person in back will literally be touching your back with their hands and beer belly, and stepping on the backs of your feet the whole time. And when I push them out of the way for some space, they ask, “excuse me, what’s the problem”, like I am so out-of-line (no pun intended). I hate people pushing me, touching me, sweating by me, and breathing on me. I love crowded places and busy cities and streets, but not in India. Here I even avoid crowds, crowded trains, and long lines for that specific purpose. It’s just not worth getting in a bad mood over. And I don’t have the force or patience to fight it. I like most other aspects of India, but not this one. After visiting the mosque, I went shopping in Meena Bazaar and stumbled upon a random carnival for the holidays. It was smoky and dusty, and crowded with fobby Delhiites. There were rides (tiny little rides like teacups and merry-go-rounds, mostly all powered by hand. There were some carnival games, like shoot-the-balloons and cap the bottle. The funniest thing were the picture booths, though. You pay a photographer, and they have different set-ups you can choose as a background. One was a motorcycle that guys can look cool on, one is a stage with flowers on it for couples or groups of guys, and another has life-size, stand-up, paper, hot Bollywood actresses you can stand with to make you look like a pimp. I had to negotiate the streets of Chandni Chowk, and I saw a huge black rat in a dark gutter, and got scared I would see more, so I went shopping at Janpath instead, ate Hotel Sarawana Bhavan, and came back and watched Crash with Snehal and Tara.

Monday, October 23 Errands, Leniency in India

I took care of a bunch of stuff I have needed to get done for a long time. I went to the study center today and worked on the computer for a while. I got an electric mosquito insecticide machine, not wanting to take any chances against mosquitoes. I went to Hindi. During class, Natalya goes, “Is this a compliment, because since I’ve been here I’ve been called ‘Moti Gai’ [Fat Cow] a lot”. Apparently it’s a compliment to be called a cow, but not a fat cow. I didn’t know whether or not to burst out laughing or just try my best not to. What I admire about Indians is their honesty and realization of humanity in everyone. We are social animals, so everyone is expected to be social, and people will talk to you and help you whenever you need. Everyone is supposed have fun and to sing and dance (not just people who can), and everyone is allowed freedoms. Anyone can practice any religion here. As kids, they realize that they should not have rules, but rather it’s their time to play and have fun. Indians love kids, and let them play where they want, go to the bathroom wherever they want, and talk to strangers. Even though it’s a sexually rigid society, they realize that people like sex, and manuals have even been written on it. The culture realizes that humans have basic needs, and these needs are respected rather than suppressed and privatized. Eating, going to the bathroom, bathing, sleeping, walking, smoking, spitting, showing non-sexual affection, throwing trash, picking your nose, and brushing teeth are all completely acceptable to do in public. In America, it seems, everyone is trying to deny the fact that human beings actually do these things. Well, guess what? They do!

Sunday, October 22 Taj Mahal, Parents Leave India

We got up early and went to one of my favorite places in India so far, the one and only Taj Mahal. It was once again, beautiful, but unfortunately it was a lot more crowded with tourists than the time I came for sunrise two months ago. And he said that it gets much more busy in high season, and on days where everyone’s not hung over (not really) from Diwali. We had a guided tour and we took a bunch of pictures, of course. It was still just as impressive, the sheer size, symmetry, inlay work, gardens, and the changing colors of the marble. Afterwards, we had breakfast, packed, and were driven on the really nice National Highway 2 to Delhi. Getting into Delhi, we saw a crowd standing around a lifeless boy’s body in the middle of the road, like he was just hit by a car. I had the driver go through the bustling Chor Bazaar and Chandni Chowk, on his way to my place in Civil Lines. I packed all my stuff, and Mom and Dad took back my souvenirs in my two enormous overstuffed backpacks. Dad rested while we went to the Maiden’s Hotel for dinner. Mom and Dad got all the bags in their taxi, and left for the airport at 7. It was sad, I feel homesick. I’m supposed to fly home on December 31, but I’ve decided I’m going to get too lonely and bored, since everyone else is leaving before the 15th. So I’m going to have Mom change my departure to December 21, which is still a long time, but at least that’ll give me time to travel in the south and still have time at home. I’m not the only one; everyone else is getting homesick and wants to leave soon, too. I cleaned up, took a shower, and watched American Wedding with the girls. Nikhil kept going outside to smoke, and left the door wide open each time. I got five mosquito bites. I was pissed; I do not want to get Dengue Fever, least of all in my own apartment.

Saturday, October 21 Diwali, Train, Fatehpur-Sikri, Agra

Today is Diwali, the festival of lights, and the largest Hindu festival of the year. Everyone puts lights on their houses, flowers on their doors, and decorates their homes inside. The stores stay open until the afternoon, selling god figurines, posters, sweets, fireworks, and flowers. It’s considered good luck to sell a lot today. Every Hindu is expected to go to temple to worship today. In the evening, a big vegetarian meal is eaten, followed by sweets. Everyone turns on all the lights inside and outside their houses and opens all the doors and windows. Then, large celebrations include massive dangerous fireworks displays in the streets. The Jain’s spent $200 on fireworks, trying to outdo everyone in the neighborhood, who spent comparable amounts, as well. The Jains had numerous bombs, a carpet of fire crackers that exploded for five minutes straight down their whole driveway, and tons of other assorted fireworks. The fireworks are so dangerous that all the rich people make their servants light them. It sounds like a lot of fun. Unfortunately, I was still sick all day today, but luckily my fever was mostly gone. I had to catch a different train than my parents at 4:30am to Bharatpur, which wasn’t fun. The train was delayed 30 minutes, and I had a confirmed seat, but since it was such a high-traffic day for Diwali, no one paid attention to tickets. Some guy and his luggage was in my seat because two other guys were sleeping in his seat, but I really didn’t care; I made him move and I slept the whole time. There were easily three people to a seat, and sleeping people covered the floor. It was not fun. I got out at the station, and because the stop didn’t want to invest in an overpass, everyone had to walk across the tracks, which are covered in petroleum, trash, sewage, spit, and rats. I waited a couple minutes for my parents, and we got into the car to Fatehpur-Sikri, the ghost town of Akbar. I’ve already been here, and again saw the palace, where the Mughal king and his three wives lived in extreme luxury. We couldn’t go to the mosque because it’s Ramadan, so people would be harassing us a lot. We drove two hours through rural Uttar Pradesh to Agra, and checked into the huge hotel, the Jaypee Palace. It took forever to check in because I didn’t have my passport. I have never needed my passport for a hotel as long as I know the information. We spent the afternoon lounging by the pool, which was nice. Then we had some dinner. It was not really that good for such a nice hotel. Neither was the business centre (it didn’t have a phone, calendar, or stamps). Then they tried to make us sit in the worse restaurant, and they lied and made us pay even though they said it was included. Horrible service! There’s only one American channel, so we were obligated to watch The Simple Life (those girls are worse than five-year-olds), The Ghost Whisperer (who actually believes in that stuff?), and Criminal Minds (one of about 50 shows about crime scene investigations on American TV). Being sick and tired, I didn’t really feel like searching for a Diwali festival (or getting blown up by a stray firework).

Friday, October 20 Ranthambore Wildlife Safari, Sick

Although I was in a state of misery and pain, I dragged myself out of bed at 5 am for the wildlife safari at Ranthambore Tiger Park in Rajasthan. It was windy and cold, but not unbearable. The park was really dense surprisingly, with thorny and banyan trees. We had to wait at the gate, where hawkers tried selling khaki safari shirts and hats. We drove around in our own small Jeep, and saw a bunch of wildlife, including human-like langur monkeys really close-up, white egrets, colorful kingfishers, sambar deer, and spotted elk. We never ended up seeing no tigers, though. We saw it’s droppings and footprints, though. Apparently spotting a tiger is the exception, rather than the rule. After the first safari, I did nothing but slept and watched TV all day. I had really bad stomach problems, a really high fever, chills, and a splitting headache. Thank goodness we were staying in nice places. It was also nice to have my parents to take care of me while sick. I now doubt that I have Dengue Fever because of the stomach thing, which I’m glad for. I think after eating such clean food with my parents, once I started eating street food again, my immunity was gone. My parents went on an evening safari and saw tons of deer, wild boar, and a tiger. Ugh. Of course. The one time I decide not to go, I miss out completely. We watched TV together, and had some dinner, but everything tasted horrible and it was work to try and force-feed myself. Fun day.

Thursday, October 19 Dengue Fever, Worst Train Ride

It rained last night. I don’t know what’s better for Delhi; cleaning out the pollution or having more stagnant puddles of water. I have gotten a couple of mosquito bites since returning to Delhi. This scares me for a number of reasons, including malaria and more importantly, Dengue Fever. There is an epidemic currently going on in the city. Apparently AIIMS (All-India Medical Center) is the main hospital for treatment. But it’s also the epicenter because it’s located on a college campus, surrounded with an abundance of stagnant water. The college campus that I am referring to is Delhi University, which I attend (well, only one day a week). Moreover, AIIMS hospital is three blocks away from my house, right in Civil Lines. And Rahul Jain got Dengue Fever last year. There are 88 new cases in Delhi reported every day. So for all those in the US complaining about West Nile….shutup. Dengue is no joking matter though, since there’s no prevention or cure. To make it worse, the municipal authorities had known about it, and done nothing about it until it erupted into an epidemic. I guess Mom and Dad have the right idea dressing like beekeepers and bringing liters of mosquito repellent. And speaking of Dengue Fever, I think I got it. Which made the following actions really unenjoyable. I had to go to the station to catch a train from New Delhi Station to Sawai Madhopur in Rajasthan, to meet up with Mom and Dad at Ranthambore Tiger Park. On the platform, dozens of huge dirty brown rats scurried to and fro, which was disgusting. I dropped my malaria pill on the dirty ground. The ride was even worse. Not only did I not have a chance to eat today, I was developing a really high fever and had extreme chills. It was freezing on the train at night. And of course, the train was delayed and took an hour and a half longer than expected. Since Sawai Madhopur is not a huge station I had to stay awake late to make sure I didn’t miss the stop. But the worst part was that I had a waitlisted ticket (of course they don’t tell you that when you’re ordering it online), so my sick self had to sit on the floor of the walkway to the bathroom, which was disgusting and wet, with crickets and ten other people sharing the tiny space. Then the ticket-taker asked for my ticket, and I thought he was going to kick me out, because he told me to follow him. We were in the cabin, and he smacked an old homeless man sitting in, I guess, my seat, with his stick, sending him running down the aisle. I got a seat, at least. Because it was late (11:15pm), I was worried Ranthambore was in the middle of nature, with no lights or rickshaws or anything. Instead, I was accosted by rickshaw drivers competing for the lowest fares. I took one for 10 Rs, and told him to take me to meet my parents in Taj Lodge. He instead took me to some random hotel with Hindi-only signs, and they tried to get me to stay there. I was sick, tired, hungry, and pissed, and yelled for him to take me to Taj Lodge. We got back in and he drove me to some South Indian restaurant. I screamed and swore at him in front of a bunch of random people. I was in absolutely no mood to be taken for a ride by touts at this point. I marched off, and walked down the street. He got back in his rickshaw and followed me, so I had to hide behind a car in front of a random shop. The guys in the shop were laughing at me, and one spoke really good English. After hearing my story, he felt bad and gave me a ride in his car to the Taj Lodge, a huge gated luxury resort a far cry from the tiny motel and South Indian restaurant I was taken to previously. I met up with Mom and Dad, but wanted nothing more to be warm and sleep.

Wednesday, October 18 Fireworks

I caught up on some stuff, ate at the roadside parantha walla and then went to Hindi. I learned today that “Desi” is a Hindi word used by South Asians meaning “Someone of South Asian origin”. I thought it was hilarious to learn that it also means “Of inferior quality”. After Hindi, Erin Eve and I went to dinner at a South Indian restaurant in Kamla Nagar, which was busy with shoppers before Diwali on Saturday. The streets were teeming with fabrics and fireworks. Posters with large bright letters read “Cock Rocket”, which is the name of the popular fireworks brand. The other popular brand is “Nazi”, and probably has swastikas on the fireworks for good luck. Not only are the names hilarious, but the fireworks themselves are sketchy. For example, we bought some fireworks from the vendor down the street. We were lighting them off on our roof, and the fuses were so short that Ro almost got blinded by one. He lit it off, and immediately it ignited, burning his hair and leaving three welts centimeters from his eye. It must have been scary because he poured an entire bucket on himself and didn’t talk the rest of the night. They’re like Mexican fireworks, but sketchier. At Erin’s house, Nick and Alan were lighting off tons of fireworks, and I was standing behind the concrete wall. It’s the kind of thing that I picture black people sitting inside the house going, “Hell no I ain’t lighting a bunch of bombs on fire for fun. Only crazy white people like doing that”. The Nazi Fireworks are essentially bombs; they have no sparkles or pretty colors. Alan and Nick blew up a phonebook, which went flying 20 feet into the sky. The night culminated with the explosion of a 20-gallon water jug, of which the top and bottom blew off into the street. The neighbors were slightly pissed. But even in our house, I’ll be typing or sleeping and all of a sudden it’ll sound like a bomb has just gone off, scaring the daylights out of me.

Tuesday, October 17 Other EAPites, Shopping

I hung out with Ro and Puran, who apparently had a phenomenal time in Goa and Kerala houseboats. Nikhil didn’t go anywhere the entire break, but told everyone he went to Kanpur even though he was seen at home, and then that the train was cancelled. I paid rent to the Jains, and they told me that Nikhil should have paid tonight, and that they are thinking of evicting him. Nick and Alan attempted to ride motorcylces to Kathmandu, Nepal, and they almost died five times. They split up somehow, and Nick came back with a bloody arm, sun blotches, and full beard. Mariel and Kim almost got attacked in Kashmir when some man was demanding to know their religion. I spent today writing my journal and going through the 1200 (2 GB worth of) photos I took over the last two weeks. Then I spent the evening shopping at Palika Bazaar, the underground market. I got a watch since I’m not going to get another phone. I was thinking about it, and I don’t really use my phone enough. This is the typical conversation: “Where are you?” “Connaught Place.” “Ok, I’m on the Metro, I’ll meet you at McDonalds in 15 minutes.” “Ok, bye”. I was going to buy watches, but not one worked. And I was going to buy these really fake-looking Lacoste shirts, but the salesman wouldn’t take them out of the plastic bag so I could check the size, and I told him I couldn’t buy them. He got scared and let me, and then he didn’t have a mirror, so he escorted me to the filthy public bathroom to look. He refused to let me take them each out of the plastic bags (they weren’t even sealed) and so I walked away. He followed me out of the store, but this time not lowering the price and trying to entice me to buy them. A first in India, he yelled at me, demanding I buy them because I had wasted his time showing me all his shirts. I’m sorry but I thought that’s your job, and if you don’t want to show customers what they’re buying, I’ll go to the next guy who is willing to take every shirt out of plastic. I got pissed and yelled really loud so all the customers around could hear. Although I’ve become a good and hard bargainer, I have become such a headache for salespeople. Which doesn’t really bother me because they themselves are pushy and will cheat you if you’re a novice. I ate dinner at Sarawana Bhavan. Shopping here is exhausting. What would take 15 minutes at Target, takes four hours here in Delhi. And it’s not like I was deep in the bazaars of Old Delhi. I’m all for Mom-and-Pop shops too, but there comes a point when enough is enough and you just want a Costco. I came home and Puran, Ro, and I hung out and watched iTunes Visualizations sober for 30 minutes straight. Fully satisfied.

Monday, October 16 Meeting With Shanta Verma, Shopping With Mom

I had to get back today for Hindi and to meet with Professor Shanta Verma, who delayed everyone’s meeting until today when she realized she didn’t have time before the break. When we went up to talk to her, this is her reply: “I completely forgot about our meeting. Can you come back in a few hours? I have some personal things to take care of first. Oh, and I forgot your proposals at home.” I say, “Actually my parents are in from out-of-town and I have to leave in 30 minutes to meet up with them for a tour”. She replies, “You give me no time. Ok can you push back your plans?” What is your problem, lady? You are so inconsiderate. I reply hesitantly, “[basically NO WAY]”. So I made her meet with us in only 30 minutes, but if I had to actually meet up with them I’d be furious. It’s so rude what she’s doing. Not to mention she basically told me that my topic was too broad, and I can’t possibly cover the entire thing in the time I have. What kind of paper does she expect? I honestly can’t see her sitting down and reading a 20 page paper. Moreover, I went to Hindi to realize I got a 68% on the test. Ro, who speaks Hindi fluently, scored an 82%. Seriously, someone needs to stop Professor Geeta-Ji, she’s on a rampage. I met up with Mom and Dad, and I took Mom to the State Emporiums Complex in Connaught Place. She liked it because it was hassle-free, no bargaining, and all types of handicrafts were on display. It was more expensive, but supports the cottage industry workers in the rural areas. She ended up buying a really cool wood carving, marble elephants, perfumes, and more scarves. Then I took her over to Janpath, the best shopping district I’ve found in New Delhi for assorted Indian curios. She bought some shirts and skirts, and we bought Rajasthani fabrics for $3.50 a blanket. We had a ton of good souvenirs, and she was done shopping for this trip. We were exhausted and took a cab back and went up to the lounge for wine. Then we had the Oktoberfest buffet again. I intentionally didn’t eat so that I could eat the seven plates here. I said my goodbyes to Mom and Dad (I’ll meet up with them in three days though).

Sunday, October 15, Flight to Delhi, Delhi With Parents

After spending a week in Mumbai, I couldn’t wait to get back to Delhi. Goa was really nice, though. We caught our early flight. Once again, the incompetent travel agent conveniently omitted the fact that we had to fly to Mumbai before going to Delhi. And we flew Indian Airlines, the really bad national carrier. I was talking to a pilot who flies for them, and apparently they’re owned by the government, so they don’t spend any money upgrading or repairing their planes. The seats were boards. The flight left an hour late, thus continuing the streak that every plane I’ve taken in India has been delayed. The flight attendants were all old ladies in their fifties and sixties. On most Indian airlines they hire only pretty young girls, and a lucky for me a big group was on our flight for training. It’s a good job because the airlines pay for them to travel all over the world and stay in nice hotels. I was ecstatic flying over the dusty Gangetic Plains of North India. I say ‘flying’ because you couldn’t actually see the plains through the film of gray-brown smog. I realize now how North Indian Delhi is. It’s completely flat and in the middle of dusty plains. It’s blistering hot in the summer and freezing cold in the winter. A lot of Muslims live here, a legacy of the invasions. All the women wear salwar-kameez, whereas in Mumbai they wear saris. I am used to seeing bearded a ton of Punjabi Sikhs in turbans, but in Mumbai there are none. Himalayan Asians are a common sight in Delhi, as well. South Indian food is not standard in Delhi like it is in Mumbai, unless I go to a South Indian restaurant. I have missed Delhi, and I’m glad to finally be able to show them the India where I live. We got picked up and driven to Hotel Shangri-La in New Delhi. We sat by the pool for a while, before I took Mom to Chandni Chowk shopping. She was amazed by the sheer number of people out, and the pandemonium of Chandni Chowk. Most of the shops were closed, but of course they’ll take any chance to make money. We went upstairs into a dupatta shop. We spent hours looking for imperfections, checking colors, and waiting for them to stitch the raw ends. We got ripped off, but we didn’t have time to look at more stores and $100 for 20 scarves is cheap to Mom, who hasn’t been living in India for four months. After that we went to the hotel and had an amazing buffet. Because it’s Oktoberfest, they’re having a special buffet every night, with live polka music. Where are Kim Westrick and Diana Everett? The food was incredible. There were probably 75 dishes, so many that even I could not sample each one. I consumed six plates of delicious mashed potatoes, sausage, Indian food, kalamata olives, sauerkraut, fruit, salad, gourment European cheese, steak (as in beef/cow), and desserts. I took a rickshaw back home finally to Civil Lines. The weather is a lot better than when I left. As in, it’s 30 degrees Celcius (90) for a high, rather than 40 (115 F), when we got here, which I’m pretty sure is nearing uninhabitable conditions.

Saturday, October 14 Old Goa, Massage

The driver Elvis and an English-speaking guide took us for a tour of Old Goa. We drove through Panaji and a series of low-lying mangrove settlements on the Mandovi River. Old Goa was built on an island by the Portuguese for fortification from the locals (who probably hated their colonizers considering they killed cows, stole their land and wealth, and executed those who rebelled or wouldn’t convert) and from the other European maritime powers. The gateway had a huge arch with a statue of the explorer Vasco Da Gama who reached Kerala via the Cape of Good Hope. He had on funny poofy pants and tights. The first sight was the Church of St. Cajetan, a large but unused building used to preach Christianity to people in the hinterlands, built in 1655 along the same lines as St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Next we drove to the Churches of Old Goa, a World Heritage Site. The largest is Se Cathedral, a huge brick and plaster living church with wooden pews, gilted gold wooden statues of saints and a bearded Jewish dude on a crucifix. The buildings are very tall and cool inside. Walking across the road is the Basilica of Bom Jesus. Insert any word here: Basilica of: awesome, tight, dope, cool: Jesus; Jesus apparently is bomb. This church is famous around the Catholic world because it houses the remains of St. Francix Xavier, a Jesuit who spread Christianity to far-reaching parts of Asia. ‘Far-reaching’ is the wrong term, since his hand was cut off and sent to Rome. There were a bunch of other convents done in Gothic and classical styles. We were given some time to shop in Panaji, the capital. The city was immaculately clean by Indian standards, and was very quaint and on the waterfront. The palm-fringed blue, yellow and white whitewashed buildings were a welcome change from the slums and dilapidated apartment buildings of Mumbai. Shops were overpriced, as they cater mostly to foreign tourists. At the heart of the city was the whitewashed Church of Our Lady of Immaculate Conception. I really don’t know how the missionaries managed to spread European languages to the rest of the world; If I was converted to Hinduism and I was expected to learn temple names like Babri Ka Agnipariksha Aur Varnashramadharma Mandir I would have no desire to learn Hindi. After visiting town, we came back and hit up the pool again. I love being able to bask in the sun, doing absolutely nothing for once. Actually my day was filled with sightseeing tours and massages. Mom and I went to the spa because they offered dirt-cheap massages. Dad didn’t want one, because it’s what faggots do, but whatever, his loss. The spa was really nicely-decorated with waterfalls, dark lighting, and aromatic flowers. Because it’s India, I had a male masseur and Mom had a female masseuse. Under a bathrobe they give you disposable underwear. The underwear was the smallest garment I’ve ever warn. This thing makes a loincloth look like a ski jacket. Elastic strings were for the sides, and the front and back flaps were probably 4 inches wide. Awkward. First my feet were soaked, and then I got a coconut body scrub, which smelled amazing. Then I was wrapped from head to toe in five layers of towels like a mummy, and couldn’t move at all. Then I took a shower and got a full-body massage. I was fully relaxed and felt really light afterwards. Then I went to dinner with Mom and Dad to a Goan buffet. It had amazing food including mutton vindaloo, fish curry, chourisso, sorpotel, potato periperi, king prawns, xacuti, recheiado, sanna, dodol, bebinca, and coconut ice cream.

Saturday, October 14 Old Goa, Massage

The driver Elvis and an English-speaking guide took us for a tour of Old Goa. We drove through Panaji and a series of low-lying mangrove settlements on the Mandovi River. Old Goa was built on an island by the Portuguese for fortification from the locals (who probably hated their colonizers considering they killed cows, stole their land and wealth, and executed those who rebelled or wouldn’t convert) and from the other European maritime powers. The gateway had a huge arch with a statue of the explorer Vasco Da Gama who reached Kerala via the Cape of Good Hope. He had on funny poofy pants and tights. The first sight was the Church of St. Cajetan, a large but unused building used to preach Christianity to people in the hinterlands, built in 1655 along the same lines as St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Next we drove to the Churches of Old Goa, a World Heritage Site. The largest is Se Cathedral, a huge brick and plaster living church with wooden pews, gilted gold wooden statues of saints and a bearded Jewish dude on a crucifix. The buildings are very tall and cool inside. Walking across the road is the Basilica of Bom Jesus. Insert any word here: Basilica of: awesome, tight, dope, cool: Jesus; Jesus apparently is bomb. This church is famous around the Catholic world because it houses the remains of St. Francix Xavier, a Jesuit who spread Christianity to far-reaching parts of Asia. ‘Far-reaching’ is the wrong term, since his hand was cut off and sent to Rome. There were a bunch of other convents done in Gothic and classical styles. We were given some time to shop in Panaji, the capital. The city was immaculately clean by Indian standards, and was very quaint and on the waterfront. The palm-fringed blue, yellow and white whitewashed buildings were a welcome change from the slums and dilapidated apartment buildings of Mumbai. Shops were overpriced, as they cater mostly to foreign tourists. At the heart of the city was the whitewashed Church of Our Lady of Immaculate Conception. I really don’t know how the missionaries managed to spread European languages to the rest of the world; If I was converted to Hinduism and I was expected to learn temple names like Babri Ka Agnipariksha Aur Varnashramadharma Mandir I would have no desire to learn Hindi. After visiting town, we came back and hit up the pool again. I love being able to bask in the sun, doing absolutely nothing for once. Actually my day was filled with sightseeing tours and massages. Mom and I went to the spa because they offered dirt-cheap massages. Dad didn’t want one, because it’s what faggots do, but whatever, his loss. The spa was really nicely-decorated with waterfalls, dark lighting, and aromatic flowers. Because it’s India, I had a male masseur and Mom had a female masseuse. Under a bathrobe they give you disposable underwear. The underwear was the smallest garment I’ve ever warn. This thing makes a loincloth look like a ski jacket. Elastic strings were for the sides, and the front and back flaps were probably 4 inches wide. Awkward. First my feet were soaked, and then I got a coconut body scrub, which smelled amazing. Then I was wrapped from head to toe in five layers of towels like a mummy, and couldn’t move at all. Then I took a shower and got a full-body massage. I was fully relaxed and felt really light afterwards. Then I went to dinner with Mom and Dad to a Goan buffet. It had amazing food including mutton vindaloo, fish curry, chourisso, sorpotel, potato periperi, king prawns, xacuti, recheiado, sanna, dodol, bebinca, and coconut ice cream.

Friday, October 13 More Goa Pool, Child Labor In India

My mom got like 15 mosquito bites. Apparently there is an epidemic of dengue fever going on in India, and most cases have been reported in Delhi. Unfortunately there is no prevention or cure. The carrier mosquitoes breed in stagnant water, found on the campus of the very hospital that treats patients. My parents are officially obsessed with mosquito protection. First of all, they brought four bottles of repellent ranging from 20-97% DEET, and natural Eucalyptus spray. They also brought special clothing repellent with which to soak their clothes. Moreover, they brought mosquito-screen mittens and hoods so they look like beekeepers. They also were surprised to realize that the hotels don’t have mosquito nets over the beds. I like finally being able to feel like a tourist here. Because everyone’s a tourist and there’s nothing to do except be a tourist. We spent today at the Fort Aguada pool again, but stayed in the shade this time. Red Kingfisher beer signs were everywhere, because the Kingfisher mogul has a gated estate here in Sinquerim. And Kingfisher beers are everywhere; they’re actually cheaper than bottled water. It’s now officially illegal in India to employ children under the age of 14 as domestic servants, in dhabas, restaurants, hotels, tea shops, or recreational centres. An ad says, “Don’t deny them their childhood, don’t deny them their right to study and play”. Interesting that it was written in English, obviously meant for an upper-class audience. Such as, say, the Jains, whose servant Rajesh is only 12 years old. This is a great law in theory; however, I don’t think much will change. Children from destitute families need to earn money because their parents make them, small businesses rely on this source of cheap labor, kids born in villages without legal papers can’t go to school or get good jobs, and the rich people (like the Jains) can afford to just bribe officials to look the other way.

Thursday, October 12 Beach Day In Goa, Sunset Cruise

We walked over to breakfast, which was amazing. Endless amounts of South Indian breakfast, porridge, fresh tropical fruit, breakfast meats, eggs, and milkshakes. The weather was a perfect 80 degrees, with sea humidity, and a nice ocean breeze. We walked along the idyllic palm-fringed, sun-kissed Sinquerim Beach to the sister hotel for the pool. For the first time in three months, I put my feet in the sea. A year ago I swam in the Indian Ocean at Zanzibar, but this is the first time in the Arabian Sea part. Within six months I have touched three of the four oceans of the world. Now I just need to go in the Arctic Ocean. The water was comfortably warm, I think because the coastline is not mountainous and so the trenches are not deep. We got to Fort Aguada Hotel pool, which was picture-perfect minus the junky rusty black tanker anchored in front of the beach obscuring the view. The pool had a ledge that made it look like the water was falling down an endless cliff. The pool faces the picturesque beach and Fort Aguada. The fort consists of a basalt citadel that sticks out into the sea, golden beaches on either side. Tons of comfortable padded lawnchairs were available. There were probably 20 people sitting around the pool all day, and no more than three in the pool at any given time. I don’t want to know what this place is like in the off-season. They probably pay guests to stay here. I don’t think the sunblock I used works. I got really dark and look like I’m Indian. I didn’t even want to get dark. Which is funny because if you met me a year ago, you’d think I was actively trying to get skin cancer and leathery skin. For some reason my Dad didn’t put on sunblock on his stomach, and now his torso looks like a Japanese flag. After a day at the pool, we got a cab to Panaji, the capital and largest city. For India, the roads are open, really well-paved, and wide. But since my parents just got here, they found them congested, bumpy, and narrow. We went on a sunset river cruise, with traditional Indian dancing. That meant that they had Goan dancers. The women wore silk saris and tons of gold. The guys dressed in skirts and waved paddles. The rest of the time, the emcee tried to get people to come dance on-stage. One was for couples, one for men only, one for women only, and one for kids. This one young boy was up there the whole time, and had a crazed look on his face as he played air guitar and gyrated his hips. A lot of people got up to dance, to mostly cover Bollywood tunes that I know. I’m so used to this scenario that it no longer surprises me. My parents were shocked that the sexes were separate, people of all ages got up to dance together (even if they couldn’t dance at all), and no alcohol was involved. It was a fun night. My parents apparently don’t like Indian food because the spices and milks are different than their tastes. They ate at the Thai Restaurant, while I ordered a delicious spicy Goan lobster dinner. It reminded me of lobster dinners in Rosarito, Mexico. This restaurant is meticulously clean, though, unlike the cheap trashy cabanas we go to on our date parties. It also cost $25, whereas in Rosarito it would have cost $2.50. It also reminded me of the surf n’ turf buffet at Chumash Casino, where I ate six full lobsters, three bowls of clams, two steaks, and five desserts and got violently ill afterwards.

Wednesday, October 11 Flight to Goa

You know a city sucks when you don’t want to do anything but stay in the hotel. To tell the truth, I have no desire to do anything more in this city. That’s how I feel about Mumbai. Mumbai is slummy, extravagantly wealthy, crowded, unfriendly, and doesn’t have time for you. I couldn’t wait for the flight to Goa for two reasons; I want to swim in the beach and stay in nice hotels, and I want to get out of this hole. We packed and were driven to the Santa Cruz airport. The airport was filled with rich Indians, but mostly European vacationers going to Goa. We took Jet Airways, which served us candy, drinks, and a meal even though it was a 50-minute flight. It was a nice flight, and Jet is apparently one of the best domestic airlines in the world. That being said, really, who came up with the name? That’s like having a company named Plane Airlines. We got to Goa, and were picked up by a guy named Elvis. We drove over the Mandovi River, and through the coconut groves, paddy fields, and sleepy fishing villages of Goa. For the last 10 years, Goa has drawn many hippies and tourists from the cold parts of Europe, Iran, East Asia, and India. Why? Because there are beautiful beaches, a high per capita income (thanks to tourism, mining, fishing, and farming), and a lax beach attitude not found in other parts of India. It was colonized by the Portuguese in 1510 as their capital, because of the idyllic location, climate, and the abundance of wide rivers and natural harbors. The Portuguese forcibly converted the population to Roman Catholicism and built many cathedrals and whitewashed churches all over the area. Goa actually didn’t end up in Indian hands until 1961, 14 years after independence. I was going to call my housemates, who were also in Goa. However, since I no longer have a cell phone thanks to some pickpocket in Mumbai, I didn’t have their numbers. My parents paid massive bucks to stay at the Taj Holiday Village, the nicest hotel in town. However, it was not high season, meaning that: The pool is closed for renovation, the beach is not suitable for swimming because of the undercurrent, construction was going on next to our room, and the tours we wanted to take were not running. It’s like having a huge nuclear shelter completely filled with canned foods, but forgetting to bring a can opener. Once again, thanks for telling us, incompetent travel agent. Despite this, the room was incredible, at least compared to the $2 hotels I stay in. The room was a bungalow surrounded by coconut trees and with a hammock. The inside was furnished with brand new plumbing, plasma TV, and free bottled water and fruit. One thing that was kind of weird; the bedroom has a huge window looking right into the bathroom, which opens from the bedroom side. And then they wanted to take the duvet cover at night, because we’re only supposed to have it during the day? I get the idea that this place is for honeymooners who want luxury and seclusion….and don’t mind nothing going on. We had dinner at the really nice Beach House restaurant. For the first time in three months I had fish. We were serenaded by some Indians in Portuguese fluffy shirts and top hats. Walking back to our hotel was an adventure. We got lost in the dark, and had to flag down a golf cart.

Tuesday, October 10 Sassoon Docks, Dharavi Slum Tour, Malad

I wanted to see the fish market, which is really close, in Colaba. It’s called Sassoon Docks, and the cab dropped off Dad, Mom, and I at the entrance around 7 am. It smelled horrible, and the fish smell was everywhere. It was really hectic, as women were selling all types of fish; pomfret, crabs, eel, prawns, and other saltwater fish. Fishing boats come in and people rush to bring in the day’s catch. People were shouting, buying, carrying fish on their heads and on carts, and running to get more fish. They are the descendents of the original inhabitants of Mumbai, the Koli fisherfolk. Their problem is that as the city grows and Mumbai grows more affluent, the normal people don’t want the stinky fish around, and so they pay government officials to move the fish markets away, and they are now vanishing. The ground of Sassoon Docks was slimy and smelly. I could hardly breathe, but it was interesting. Mom and Dad hated it. After seeing that they said they’d never eat fish in India. Obviously this is why photography is not allowed in the premises. Not like that stopped me or anything. They went back to catch their Mumbai city tour. I walked through fishermen’s slums in Colaba on the water to use the internet. I had some breakfast and was picked up for a tour to Dharavi, the largest slum in Asia. The tour seemed interesting and different. I have a feeling they don’t get much business, let alone from Americans. Me and Elroy from New Zealand were the only customers. He was a short guy who was hilarious. For example, we passed through Mumbai’s Red Light District on our way north. He says, “Oh, wow, the Red Light District. Yeah, I haven’t been here since my university days. So in Delhi they must have something like this too, right? I’m sure you’ve found it by now”. Apparently the Red Light District is big business; at its height 60,000 sex workers were “employed”. Young girls are taken from rural villages with the promise of good jobs in the city, where they ultimately live out their lives as prostitutes here. They cannot run away or tell the police, for fear of being beaten or sent back. They work at all times, including 9 am, when we drove past. Sure enough, the young women in saris were standing outside the doors of the brothels. Fortunately this trade is declining, and it is common to use condoms. Nevertheless, it’s still really sad. Next we drove through Chor Bazaar, meaning “Thieves’ Market” because the Queen of England came to Mumbai, and the porters stole her things. She came to Chor Bazaar and actually found her favorite violin hanging in one of the shops, thus coining the new name. Chances are my phone and wallet are here right now. Under the stairs of footbridges at train stations, NGOs have set up shelters for boys who would otherwise be sleeping on the streets. Here they are given very crowded beds, kitchens, and shelter from the monThey mostly have come from rural villages and lack any formal papers. So they cannot get a job besides street laborers. We stopped to see Dhobi Ghat, a series of tanks owned by the Mumbai Municipal government. The spots are rented to laundry businesses, which take dirty clothes from patrons all over the city, and wash and dry them here, and return them with stunning accuracy. Thousands of workers were whacking clothes against the rocks, rubbing in soap, and soaking them. In total, 50,000 employees work in Dhobi Ghat. I’m positive this is how my clothes are washed in Delhi. Hence the hole in my shirt and the massive stretching in all my clothes. We came to Dharavi Slum, right outside Mahim Train Station. It smelled horrible, as there was a huge pile of trash that they were burning. We walked past homeless children sifting through trash, and the huge pipelines that service the entire city. We walked into the narrow lane between two buildings made of scrap metal and tarp. Although this is the largest slum in Asia and the residents live in extreme poverty, no one sits idle. It is too hard to scratch out a living here. No one can afford to waste any working time. This is why Dharavi has an annual turnover of $665 million annually, mostly because of small-scale industries. Everyone was working, and hardly seemed to notice us. We saw a plastic recycling plant, where free plastic from garbage is brought here, sorted, and finely chopped up. Then it is put through a heating machine, where it is made into raw sheets to be used for toys and consumer goods. Then next door was a building where they take metal paint and oil cans and hammer them so they eventually look good as new. It is so resourceful. Up to this point I have always thought that India was more wasteful than the United States because there’s no recycling, and trash just accumulates on the streets. However, in India they reuse everything they possibly can. I’m glad, it’s very efficient. And the people in this slum have the chance to earn a living. Next we saw a tanning factory, where raw goat hides are put in large barrels and turned by hand. Then they put the hides in water, and dry them with a machine, before spray painting them (without masks). The workers were all Muslim because I doubt a Hindu would do that job. Then we saw basically a sweatshop where a dozen workers stitched Western clothes. It was hot, with fans, and they all had sewing machines where they worked. There were huge piles of clothes, and people sorting through them. And I pay $40 for this. Then we saw a school, where the kids all stood up and greeted us in English on the demand of the teacher. The school had good facilities, which was surprising in the midst of this shantytown. We then walked more through a main thoroughfare before ducking into more small alleys, water and trash everywhere. Men were making jewelry in dark rooms. Belt buckles were made by pouring red-hot liquid metal into a stone mold, where it was formed into a shape, and then they hammered it into place. In a large clearing, hundreds of papads were drying on large wicker baskets in the sun. Women sat by shaping and rolling them. These are bought by huge food corporations and packaged for sale. Pictures are strictly prohibited because the government would crack down on this…the illegal papad-trafficking trade. Next were the clay pots. Pots were drying in every inch of space. They were shaped by Gujaratis using hand power. They don’t use machines because they can’t afford them. They are good at making pots, and the whole city buys clay pots here. Then they are fired and painted in Dharavi, also. The tour was awesome, and I saw a slum yesterday, but this tour allowed me to see a slum at work, more from the inside rather than the outside. Afterwards, I walked to Crawford Market, a huge covered shopping center selling absolutely everything. In front, they sold wholesale cosmetics, jewelry, and spices. The whole place was teeming with shoppers and annoying salesmen. Outside were stall after stall of fruits and vegetables. Homeless families congregate here. There was also a row of pet shops, selling parrots, rabbits, fish, and cute golden retriever puppies. And under the cages I saw some rats and mice, ironically running free. I wanted nothing more than to get out of there, so I walked to the beautiful Bombay Stock Exchange building and saw all the businessmen taking lunch from street dhabas. After that I got a shave from some guy on the street and walked to the hotel to meet Mom and Dad. I hung out there before riding the train (ugh) uptown to Malad, a rich suburb. I had to ask a million people where the big mall and movie theatre was, and rickshaws wouldn’t take me there. As I found out later, they have rickshaws for one side of the tracks and rickshaws for the other. Segregation? I finally got to the huge, brand-new Western-style mall. Built three years ago, it had four stories, and a food court (with McDonalds, Ruby Tuesday, and Subway), upscale shops like Benetton and Bose, and a new movie theatre. They even had toilet paper in the bathrooms, and filtered drinking water with paper cups. Here bourgeois Mumbaikers enjoyed a luxurious shopping experience. Everyone was young, trendy, and rich, and represent the new-money consumerist, Americanized Indian middle and upper class. Within six hours and only 3 miles apart, I have seen both the largest slums in Asia and a huge consumer shopping mall nicer than any in the US. Welcome to India. I had some dinner and watched a documentary about Mumbai called Seven Islands and a Metro. It was an art film, so it was weird, but it had good views of the city, and told the story of a bunch of Mumbaikers, including a Japanese Buddhist priest speaking Hindi (but of course he couldn’t pronounce “L”s), a Sephardic Jew speaking Hindi with a stereotypical loud raspy voice, angry Kolis who want the migrants to leave, and rich businessmen. It was good in order to get into Mumbai. However, I already hate Mumbai so much that no movie alone could make me like it. I took the train back to the hotel.

Monday, October 9 Mumbai Trains, Slums, Parents Arrival

Today I decided to devote the entire morning to the trains. The Mumbai Municipal Rail is an adventure unto itself. I have already explained what it takes to board and de-board, and exactly what it’s like. I went at rush hour, and purposely got off at Dadar, the wretched station where all three train lines meet. Needless to say, it is a madhouse. It’s like the Tokyo subway system but lacking courtesy and order; in Mumbai people pile in, shove, don’t wait their turn, and it is hot and smells horrible. The platform is a congested sea of commuters, impossible to walk at a normal pace. Outside the train station, there was a street market, which was also crowded, and women were selling fish, vegetables, fruits, and sugarcane water. Commuters and probably low-life pickpockets were everywhere. I took the train further up to Bandra, which contains horrible slums but also some of the most prestigious residential areas in Mumbai. I wanted to see the slums, so I walked through the Muslim district, which was a collection of dilapidated dwellings made of a mix of sheet metal, tarp, tires, and discarded wood, all set up along a city wall. Trash overflowed into the gutters and sidewalks. While walking, I had to watch my step to make sure I wouldn’t step in trash, dirty water, or feces. The rancid smell of the slum was unbearable, and my sandals will probably never recover. Garments hung everywhere and obstructed the paths, which at some points were three feet wide. Women sat beating laundry, while men were off at work. Naked children flew kites and played soccer with garbage scraps. I walked to an open field adjacent to the train tracks, which was no longer a field, but a pile of dirty trash. Goats and pigs picked at trash piles, and men and children squatted in the open, defecating. And it’s not like it was healthy; all of it was liquid and diarrhetic. These people clearly suffer from poor sanitation and malnutrition. No one seemed to notice me, but I couldn’t help but keep watching these poor people walk through trash and have to live in this filth. I don’t really suffer from culture shock, but for once I can say I was thoroughly shocked. I have never seen such a display of grinding poverty. Imagine if that was your life. I can’t. To make it even more ironic, these slums hug the train lines, which are used by loaded businessmen to commute from their luxury condos on the beach to the financial center of India. Thus, the people who inhabit these slums come face-to-face with multi-millionaires of Mumbai every day. As much as I despise Mumbai, I’m glad to be able to see this juxtaposition of economic disparity, it’s more polarized than anywhere else in the world I can think of. And these people don’t give up, and the kids are smiling and laughing, playing soccer and flying kites. Yet they can’t afford clothes. This is the “City of Gold”, to which millions of hopeful migrants have poured from the rural hinterlands in search of economic opportunity and a more hopeful future. After walking back through the narrow alleyways, I took the train downtown and took a cab to Hotel Marine Plaza. My Mom and Dad are flying in to Mumbai today, for their two-week trip in India. I get the feeling they really didn’t want to come, but they just want a luxurious vacation and the chance to see me because I’m not home that much anymore. I’m really excited they’re coming, though, and now they’ll better understand how I’m living for these six months of my life. I had to wait for a while because they got stuck in traffic, which was not a problem. Compared to the Salvation Army and sleeping on trains and buses, any hotel above $3 a night is luxurious. The hotel was very nice; a five-star, with a turbaned man opening the door, completely marble façade, and sweeping view of Marine Drive and Back Bay. I was happy to see them, when they showed up in the lobby. Turns out their Mercer Island travel agent is incompetent; their trip was hugely overpriced. She also neglected to tell them about a full leg of their journey. They had to fly 30 hours to LA, Tokyo, Singapore, and finally to Mumbai. That is probably the most roundabout way to get to India. Whereas I took British Airways to London and then to Delhi. They were tired, but we went out and explored the city anyways. They’re not used to India yet, clearly. They thought it was really filthy, they didn’t want to walk on the dirty paths, they got scared crossing the street, they complained about the smell, they thought it was crowded, and they were surprised people drink water from the tap at temples. Welcome to India. The funniest thing to me is how they feel the need to tip everyone. They gave the bellman 100 Rs. I might have paid 10 Rs, and that’s if I was feeling generous. They were willing to pay $20 for a cab, whereas I would settle for no more than $1. We walked along Marine Drive to Chowpatty Beach, and took a cab back. We went down to dinner buffet, which they told us wasn’t open until 7. Then we went at 7, and they don’t open until 7:30 apparently. Mom and Dad didn’t particularly like the food. I, on the other hand, gorged. I ate seven plates of mouthwatering goodness like ice cream, fruit, mutton, chicken, Indian food, salad, and desert. I never eat like this here, it was amazing. They spend money, I save it here. They said they’re splurging because it’s their one vacation for the year, and also everything’s so cheap here that they can afford to live in this level of luxury. It’s also funny because the Indian Americans who are studying abroad in Delhi complain that their parents give them no money because they know how cheap it is to live here. My parents, on the other hand, give me money like I’m living in the United States, because they think India is unsafe and I’ll get sick or injured. I'm fine with that!

Sunday, October 8 Walk Through Mumbai

I had breakfast with the rest of the hippies at the Salvation Army. Apparently Kim Jong Il has conducted a nuclear test, which, well, sucks. Bush wants sanctions, so Japan closed their ports to North Korea, and South Korea is extremely vulnerable. Also, China is now having to comply with the United States. Still, I doubt even 10% of the United States knows who Kim Jong Il is. I went out for a walk of downtown Mumbai. I started at the Gateway of India, and walked up the streets to Kala Ghoda, the art district. The streets were deserted except for streetdwellers and some stray taxis. Along the waterfront there were some bourgeois middle-aged Indians with Spandex and iPods stretching and out for their Sunday jog. The streets were lined with Gothic colonial buildings like the police station, life insurance building, theatre, and private library. Some teacher came up to me and started speaking English, and said there was a huge fire in Chinatown, so they were having services at the Hindu-Buddhist temple. I walked with him there, and he took me to see the cremations. There was also a graveyard for children, and for the first time ever I saw human skulls, which was eerie. The undertakers, or doms, wanted money for the poor people who couldn’t afford the wood for their cremation. Since touts already harassed me the same way in Varanasi and my wallet and phone were stolen recently, I was not interested at all, and ran away. I continued my walk in peace, up Mahatma Gandhi street, to the busy Churchgate Train Station and Flora Fountain, the center of town. Around the fountain, tons of poor children and their parents were begging. I went down the street to Horniman Circle. I’ll give you a minute to appreciate that name. A Bollywood movie was being shot on-site. A huge crowd had gathered, watching the crew film a marching band. Huge mirrors reflected the light, and the wealthy crew yelled out to fix certain things. The cast, a bunch of old men in suits and well-dressed and made-up young women, sat behind near the trailers and generators chatting. I continued down past the High Court building, university with its high clock tower, and reached Oval Maidan, a huge open grass field, which was filled with cricket games. Mumbai is also the center of cricket in India. I watched some games for a while. Some guys were wearing white hats and suits, while others were dressed in normal acid-wash jeans just scrimmaging. I walked to Victoria Terminus, and underneath is a whole market, like Palika Bazaar in Delhi. I had lunch in the Fort Area, now very quiet because it’s Sunday. I stopped to peer into a Parsi Temple, which looked like a bunch of Amish people praying into a well. The Parsis are Zoroastrians who fled from their homes in Persia to Mumbai following the Muslim invasion. They have become fully integrated into mainstream society, however they keep some of their traditions. This includes the custom of leaving their dead outside for the vultures to eat them. However, the vulture population is in decline in Mumbai. The Parsis have been very successful in the business community of Mumbai. For example, the Tata clan are Parsi. Then I walked west and took a stroll for miles down to Chowpatty Beach along Marine Drive. The walk was nice, the weather comfortable. Mumbaikers were sitting along the boardwalk talking, while cars whizzed by. The views of the city and Back Bay were really good, and appear in every tourist publication of Mumbai. I saw more Mercedes cars on this road than I have the entire time I’ve been in India. At the end is Chowpatty Beach, the reclaimed beach where courting couples, hawkers, tourists, and picnickers go for some fresh air. Because it’s Sunday, the beach was filled. Stands selling foods were busy, and I got a quintessential Mumbai dish called bhelpuri, a mix of dry noodles, tomatoes, and garbanzo sauce. On the beach, kids played, people waded far out to the bay, people were talking or courting, and women were preparing fish and coconut. At the far end, the homeless were panhandling, and formed an ironic foreground against the corporate skyscrapers downtown, symbolizing Mumbai’s extreme economic disparities. I watched the sunset over Malabar Hill, and then took the train back to Churchgate at the southern tip of the island. On the way, a huge rat (probably a foot long and 10 pounds) scurried across my path. Did I mention I hate rats, and I hate this city equally. Luckily the train wasn’t busy, so I didn’t have to push, shove, or get pushed or shoved. I took a nap at the hotel before going out a little later. Apparently there is a sketchy club called Voodoo, which sounded fun. However, I couldn’t find it through the maze of dark alleys. On the way, I ran into a huge dark slum where people were everywhere, playing, talking, and watching me. I thought I was going to get mugged or beaten up. And to make matters worse, a creepy short guy with one eye and a raspy voice kept following me, asking me if I wanted a girl, hash, alcohol, or cocaine. I told him no, and he popped out of a corner and freaked me out. I briskly walked away, and then ran into a group of East Africans, who were yelling and pushing one another. Then I said enough, and walked home. Apparently the freaks come out at night...the freaks come out at night. On the way, I saw another huge rat run into the gutter. I was so relieved when I got into bed. By the way, I don’t think I mentioned it, but I HATE Mumbai.