Saturday, August 5 Bus, Dharamsala, Buddhist Temple, Dalai Lama's House

I woke up not knowing that it was daylight. The upper berth of the train didn’t afford good views of the countryside. We stopped a bunch of times, because other trains were crossing our tracks. We finally reached Pathankot, in Punjab, at ten. We walked along the outdoor platform until we got to the main road. A man came up to me, asking if I was a Tibetan, because he wanted to find more Tibetans for some reason. He told us where to catch the bus, and we had to wait a few minutes for the next bus to Dharamsala in Himachal Pradesh. The bus was old and crowded. We luckily got two adjacent seats, at the back. The way the bus works is it’s a local bus that makes a bunch of stops, picking people up and dropping them off whenever. So the turnover is rapid and people from all strata of society are present; the nursing Dalit mother, the white backpacking tourists, the commuting businessmen, and rural families. There is a driver, usually chain-smoking and crazy, and then an assistant who yells “Dharamshala, Dharamshala, Dharamshala”, blows the whistle (acting as the beep) three times whenever we’re backing up, collects money, and tells people to hurry up. Ours happened to look like Snoop Dogg without cornrows. The bus ride cost $1.50 for a 60 km ride. Yet it still lasted three long hours. Why, you may ask? Because the road was mud with humungous potholes filled with water, we stopped for a 30-minute lunch break, we made probably 40 stops, and the paved portion of the road going up to the foothills was windy and uphill. During the lunch break we stopped at a small but busy dhaba and ate some dal, rice, roti, and other curries. It seemed dirty, but the locals liked it. The views driving through Himachal were beautiful. It was rainy and the rivers ran brown, the color of chai. The landscape was painted with every shade of green. Rice and corn fields were everywhere. The plains gave way to slow-rising green mountains and foothills, covered in low clouds. Rural villages dotted the landscape. I slept most of the way because I didn’t want to get carsick. We finally got to Dharamsala, which was the exact replica of Mussoorie (small shops along a winding one-lane mountain road, with green hills and buildings surrounding). From there we took yet another bus up to McLeod Ganj, the actual Tibetan refugee colony. That bus was quicker but really windy. It dropped us off right in the central square, with many shops, restaurants, and hotels. We got out and walked down the road to the main Buddhist temple. It was an interesting mix of people; Indian tourist families, Tibetan monks dressed in red and yellow robes with shaved heads, and Western tourists (mostly from Europe). The road was small and was lined with convenience stores, souvenir shops, and restaurants. On the way we passed a lot of leper beggars. We got to the temple at the end of the road. Demarcated by a large yellow gateway, we entered and walked around the outside, adorned with painted rocks laid out in prayer for a Free Tibet. The temple was a functional modern building filled exclusively with monks and tourists. It also housed the monastery. Hundreds of monks, all bald and wearing red and yellow, congregated and were talking outside in the courtyard. The first room housed a gold statue of the Buddha (Asian-looking) and some other deities also in the Hindu pantheon. Offerings of candles, coins, and…biscuits…sat before him. Paintings and scrolls covered the walls. There was also a picture of “His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet” as Tibetans call him, with offerings as well. Pictures of his picture were forbidden for some reason. Along the outside of the temple were mantra wheels, which you spin to gain mantras and good fortune. Then we walked outside the temple complex to the gate of the Dalai Lama’s house, which was guarded. It’s up a long winding road. He randomly makes appearances and gives speeches and you can meet him. He makes one in a week, so it was just bad timing. After that we walked through the small winding alleys to the Tibet Museum, an interesting display of artifacts and stories recounting the Tibetan experience, before, during, and after the Chinese “liberation” (liberation meaning invasion) in the 1960s. The Chinese were horrible to the Tibetans; they invaded and took over, incarcerating, beating, torturing, or killing whoever spoke out against them. 1.2 million Tibetans died, and it prompted a mass exodus over the harsh Himalayas, many dying or catching frostbite. At the point I was reading that fact, Tibetans were currently fleeing their homeland south to the safety of India. The Chinese rule the Tibetan plateau, and now that the government “encourages” immigration there, so Tibetans are becoming a minority in their own lands. Also, the Chinese use the beautiful land (the highest plateau in the world, with many mountains, forests, steppes, and rivers) as a receptacle for nuclear waste and generate hydroelectric power that benefits urban coastal China. It’s actually a really sad story. All they want is freedom. One Tibetan refugee woman asked if I was Asian, and I said yes, but not Chinese. It’s like during World War II when Chinese would wear buttons that say “I’m Chinese”, so they wouldn’t be mistaken for Japanese. They explained they hate Chinese who raped their people and lands, and all they want is freedom for their own lands. They are not Chinese; they speak different languages, look different, claim a different heritage, wear different clothes, value different things, do not support the government, and are a peaceful and spiritual people. The Dalai Lama has tried endlessly to reason with the Chinese government, who refuses to acknowledge him or his claims. The cause has gained international support, but Tibetans fear that the development of China as a world power will render their people helpless in this cause. It’s a really sad story, now that I am seeing it from the center of the Tibetan government in exile. We found the Kunga Guest House, a small restaurant and hotel. The room was fine; very plain but they tried; they put an apple, orange, and rotting banana on the shelves as decoration. We spent the rest of the afternoon shopping until dinner. They had some cool Tibetan stuff. The shops were owned by Indians or Tibetans. The Indians tried to overcharge tourists. One even quoted me for a Buddhist painting at $105. I said I’d pay him 105 Rs, and he acted offended that I would offer that low a price. I hate tourists sometimes; they probably fall for that, and they probably pay those exorbitant prices. The Tibetan shop owners, on the other hand, did not try and cheat the customer. They sold everything from fake Nikes and Adidas to Tibetan handicrafts. You could buy Buddhist and Hindu statues, embroidered silk wall hangings, beads, incense, music, wool blankets and clothing, purses, t-shirts, postcards, paintings, and “Free Tibet” souvenirs. Tourists and Tibetans clogged the streets. Tibetan women wore heavy wool sweaters with long black dresses and silk embroidered aprons, their hair in buns. The men wore Western clothing, except for the monks, mostly teenage boys. Unfortunately and embarrassingly, weird white people sported shaved heads red Buddhist robes. Actors Richard Gere, Uma Thurman, and Goldie Hawn all patronize this place. We ate at a small but very good Tibetan organic vegetarian restaurant. I had Lamen (square noodles), vegetable momos (gyoza), and dense Tibetan bread. We walked back to the hotel and got some REAL APPLE PIE. It was good, too. Then we walked around and looked at the shops that were still open (even though it was a waste of time because they charged 500 Rs for a wool hat). So we got bored and went to Baskin-Robbins and ate, more dessert. We tried finding the alleged “rave”, but no one knew what we were talking about, so I figured that the travel agent was lying to us and there was actually no rave at all. We came back to our room and talked and fell asleep.

Friday, August 4 Airlines in India, First Train Ride

I was researching the airlines in India. There are apparently a bunch of new domestic airlines that connect many areas in India for cheap. One such airline is Spice Jet. Honestly, what Orientalist Redneck came up with that name? Okay, let’s just go ahead and name our airline Burrito Air, Curry Planes, Fried Rice Airways, or Cheeseburger Airlines. Or can we also please address the fact that there is an airline called Kingfisher Airlines. Kingfisher is the largest beer-brewer and water-bottler in India. Along with the above listed, let’s just go ahead and also have Coors Light Air, Pepsi Jets, Smirnoff Airways, or Budweiser Airlines. I didn’t really do anything after that. Well, that is, I ate at Fiesta for two meals in a row. Then I hopped over to the Study Center for a pointless meeting about Hindi, which has now unfortunately moved to Monday-Wednesday. I don’t think you can do this, but I signed up for three hours on Wednesday. At this point, Hindi takes a back seat in priority to my travels. That means I’m taking Hindi because the UC requires it, and I’m taking it pass/fail and it doesn’t really matter to me whether it’s a P or F. I got all packed and then took the Metro with Alix to Old Delhi Railway Station to catch the 9:30 overnight sleeper train to Pathankot. From there we will end up in Dharamsala, seat of the Tibetan government-in-exile and place of residence of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama. The train station was packed and roasting hot. Passengers, mail, baggage, and vendors all converged on the crowded dirty platforms. We were riding Sleeper class, and we found our assigned seats. The trains were nicer than I thought. The seats were all labeled. The sleeper class trains had three beds on top of one another, with an aisle, and two more beds opposite. It was crowded, but this is India. The beds came without sheets and were large enough to lie down but too small to sit up comfortably. Fans blew hot air into circulation, which was necessary. We luckily rode in the upper berths, so it was extra assurance we would not be robbed. The bathrooms were ok; they had a squat toilet leading to the tracks below, with a sink to wash. It was dirty but not disgusting. We checked out second and first class AC, which were a lot nicer. Second class is not that much nicer except it’s roomier and has AC. Honestly, you really don’t need AC. First class, on the other hand, simply put, is fit for kings. You get your own compartment, with AC, sheets, closets, and a window. The toilet facilities are Western and a lot nicer. It just costs ten times the price as sleeper class (no exaggeration). We finally got going and I found it really easy to use my small bag as a pillow and fall asleep for the night.

Thursday, August 3 Second day of class, medical outsourcing, buying train tickets

I left for school via Metro, and my forty-year old English-illiterate bicycle rickshaw driver was wearing an old shirt that said “I think better when I’m drunk”. Not reassuring, but hilarious. Class started an hour and a half late, and was in a big room, but you can hardly hear the professor Shanta Verma because of the noisy fans. She commented on the fans, “Can you students please vacate the front row? I need the fan more than you because I’m the one giving the lecture”. There are four required texts, and then she wants us to go to the library and research journals. Yeah, that’s definitely not going to happen. Yet I still write them down in my notebook as though I will at some point. One time a student asked a question, IN HINDI. And the instructor answered IN HINDI. This is an English-medium university; what if they spoke Chinese at UCs in Engineering classes? That’s going to get really annoying fast, especially if the instructor is hard to understand as is. The instructor seems good and really passionate about the class, India and the World. In order to get a hold of our other teacher to see at what time class begins, the department gave us her cell phone number and told us to call ourselves. That’s completely not awkward. We’re going to have to call ‘nose-goes’ to see who has to call. We rode back and ate at (you guessed it, Fiesta). In Time (I swear the only articles in magazines like that are about India, China, or Israel/Palestine/Lebanon), I read about health outsourcing to India where a heart bypass surgery costs $10,000 including airfare and everything, compared to in the United States which costs anywhere from $50,000-$80,000. If only I had to get a bypass surgery right now... But the doctors are comparable because they study in the US, the wait is short, the hospitals facilities are excellent, you get your own personal assistant, and they can even add on a trip to the Taj Mahal for cheap. I’m definitely going to outsource my healthcare, you save $40,000-$70,000. I spent the entire afternoon trying to book my trip with Alix to Dharamsala, the home of the Dalai Lama, and the center of the Tibetan government in exile. We rode to Connaught Place to look at Travel Agents down a back alley. I guess we couldn’t put two and two together to realize that ‘back alley’ equals ‘shady’. The first place looked online and told us no train seats were available. Then he quickly whipped out a photo album of Kashmir and told us he could fly us there for $165, and we left. Then the second place the guy kept sending his servant outside, somewhere, to come up with prices for the train, and he said it was not full but we had to travel via the most expensive class. We left. Then we rode over to New Delhi Railway Station, in New Delhi, but it was more congruous to Old Delhi with dilapidated buildings, small dusty streets, and poor people and bicycle rickshaws everywhere. The outside façade of the station was like a busy airport. The eye was overburdened with the sea of black and yellow of taxis, green and yellow of motor rickshaws, and a large drive-up lane with an awning. The area was teeming with thousands of Indians from lower, middle, and upper classes, waiting in lines, walking to catch trains, sitting on the ground waiting, meeting their families, and trying to rip us off. Inside the building was just as busy, people waiting in lines everywhere or just sitting on the ground with their luggage. We had to go to the tourist office, where we waited for them to no avail because we didn’t have our passports. We had to order our tickets four hours beforehand, so we had to hurry home to get our passports and rush back. The Metro is incredibly fast and efficient, considering how bottlenecked traffic is here (this could be because everything from pedestrians to cows to bikes to buses to trucks share the roads, and freeways don’t exist). We walked out of the Metro station at New Delhi, on a bridge past all the platforms. Indians from all walks of life sat waiting on the platforms. The color-coated cars of trains pulled up to the dozen lanes of railway. The class was clearly labeled on each car in English and Hindi. When we attempted this time to buy tickets they told us that student visas could not use the Foreign Tourist Office. So we had to go stand in line like all the Indians at the ticketing office. It was outside the station a ways, and consisted of a crowded but AC (Thank God) room where thousands of people waited in line to purchase tickets. There were probably 50 lines. It was like a baseball game. However, only two served women. The ratio in that room was probably one hundred men to one woman. And every woman was accompanied by a man. We had to wait in line (if you consider a push-and-shove free-for-all a line), which took 45 minutes because the employee decided arbitrarily to take a 15-minute break. Then he told us it wasn’t possible to order tickets because it was less than four hours before departure. We pleaded, but he told us the best he could do was put us on the waiting list. So we agreed, until we discovered the waiting list was 245 PEOPLE LONG. This system is so unintuitive and disorganized. From now on, I’m using a good travel agent who takes a commission; it’s worth it to avoid this nightmare which wasted five hours of my life this afternoon. We returned, again, to the Foreign Tourist Office, and I guess the manager pitied us so much that he let us buy tickets for tomorrow. All trains to Pathankot are overnight sleeper express trains. Classes include the following: First class AC (what the British used to travel), second and third class AC (two and three levels of bunks with AC), sleeper (three bed tiers with no AC), chair class (reserved seats), and unreserved seats (quintessential economy Indian trains with people hanging out and sitting on top). We were able to get sleeper class for tomorrow leaving at 10:30 pm and getting into the station at 6:30 am, and a return on Sunday night. However, because Mariel and Kim chastised Alix for compromising her safety by walking outside alone, we are telling everyone we got tickets for 2AC. But really, we are traveling in sleeper for only 400 Rs round-trip, and are going to have to sleep clutched to all of our belongings to ensure we are not robbed. After that whole fiasco, we ate in a South Indian restaurant in Connaught Place, which I enjoyed. Then we hung out in Subway and I took the Metro back, while the rest of them ended up talking to these really annoying British guys in a hookah lounge for hours.

Wednesday, August 2 Clothes shopping, National Museum, Failed concert

I woke up early, even though there is no class today. I took the Metro at 9 to Chandni Chowk and then walked over to Jami Masjid. They have a really good street market between Chandni Chowk and Jami Masjid, where I got five collared shirts for 50 Rs each, and six Indian pajama pants and shorts for 50 Rs each. I got three ridiculous Christian US t-shirts for 100 Rs. Then I bought a pair of track pants that have “India” embroidered into them. It was easy to bargain with these people. I was their first customer of the day (an auspicious thing), so they gave me fair prices right off the bat. I walked in some back alleys where men had shops selling wholesale clothes (and who looked at me like I was Hitler). I was invited by this 40-year old Muslim man in a kurta to sit and talk over some chai. I’m still terrified of street food, but he made the chai there, and you have to boil the water anyway, so I’m assuming it’s okay. We talked for a while. He owns a kitchen business and is a Muslim, and he said that everyone I could see in this area is Muslim, but it’s hard to tell because they often wear Western dress. I walked up to Meena Bazaar, and on the way an Asian storeowner grabbed my hand and tried to sell me a neon green parrot (living) that talks. Yes, that’s just what I was looking for, a pet bird. I’m just going to bring it on the Metro, no problem, and keep it in my house. When I told him no, he said, “Ok, you take two for good price”. When I rejected that offer, he resorted to trying to sell me these little parakeets, rabbits, geese, pigeons, and rats. Honestly dude, these are pest animals that reside on the street or in most houses. Who wants a rat or a pigeon as a pet? Although it was a hard decision, I’m going to have to say no thanks. Meena Bazaar was amazing. It was all Muslim, and the entire walkway to Jami Masjid was saturated with vendors selling shoes, clothes, underwear, kofia, shoes, fabrics, brassware, clocks, and Muslim books and music. Everything was very cheap except the tobacco and coals for hookah, the only thing I wanted to buy at the moment. I shopped for a little while longer, before carrying my huge round yellow bag to the Metro and the Study Center. It’s so hot, probably 110 degrees and humid. They drove us to the National Museum for an orientation about the art history class there. It sounds amazing; you get to learn all about Indian art through the ages and supplement your study, seeing the actual pieces. However, I’m too lazy for that; I’m not doing any unnecessary class work. Afterwards, we came back and I took a shower and we ordered Fiesta (for the fourth day in a row). We all took the Metro to Connaught Place to go to this hotel really far away where it was iffy if we could even get in, so Puran, Ro, and I went back and ended up sitting in…FIESTA again.

Tuesday, August 1 First Day of Class, Status of servants, India's weather

Today was the first day of class, so I got up at 7:30 and took a shower…oh no, wait…I gave the servants all my underwear to wash on Saturday and they haven’t washed it yet because there’s no soap, meaning that I will have to wait another two days wearing the same pair of underwear. In ascertaining this information, I had to bypass talking to Rahul Jain, dressed in nothing but a pair of tighty-whiteys. So Ro, Puran, and I went out to the Metro and went to the campus and took rickshaws to the Political Science department. We got there before 9 and waited around for a while and found out there was an orientation for the students today. There was a Korean class being held in the room (labeled Room #1 with a piece of paper and Scotch tape), and the other teacher said that it was a Chinese class that didn’t even end until 9:30. My mom called me and said “Okay, I’ll let you go because I know you have to go to class”. On that note, we waited for TWO hours in the classroom for the class to start. We tried to sleep on the stairs and in the desks, but it got so monotonous. We kept hearing through the “grapevine” that the teacher was on her way but stuck in traffic, but our efforts were “fruitless”. I should hang myself for that pun. But instead I just sat there complaining. We ended up leaving before seeing if the teacher had shown up, after hearing that attendance wasn’t going to matter. Not to mention, this is the FIRST day of class of the year! Who does that?! Rahul Jain said that Delhi University was the best college in India. But that actually makes sense, because I found out that tuition here was 100 Rs per month…that’s $2! Apparently all the rich Indian students go abroad for school, leaving reservation tribal students, reservation students from backward castes, and lower or middle class Indians. In addition, if it’s that cheap, it begs the question: What are they doing with the $7,000 we paid for EAP fees? Paying for the Hindi and study center’s electric bill? I actually think that how the system works is that they give the whole $500,000 that we all pay in fees to Vijay, who then goes out and buys whatever we need. I’ll give you a breakdown of our expenditures:

Description	Amount	Totals	Percent
YWCA Hotel	$500	$25,000	10%
YWCA Restaurant	$500	$25,000	10%
Dev Dar Woods	$300	$15,000	6%
Landour School	$500	$25,000	10%
EAP Study Center	$200	$10,000	4%
Reciprocity Student	$0	$0	0%
University of Delhi Tuition	$20	$1,000	0.4%
Side Trips	$100	$5,000	2%
UC Regents	$500	$25,000	10%
Bob Goldman	$200	$10,000	4%
Vijay	$2,180	$109,000	44%
Total	$5,000	$250,000	100

Why do you think Vijay never wears the same Polo shirt, he’s always being chauffeured around, and he’s in such a good mood all the time? Our parents would be ecstatic. Ok, forget the hundreds of thousands of dollars that are being embezzled by the University of California and the resident liaison. Back to school, though. But seriously, with professors not showing up on arbitrary class days, I don’t know how anything gets done. It has to be the most unintuitive system I’ve ever experienced. As mentioned earlier, there are no campus maps in circulation, the building has no name, there are no room numbers for the classes, no one knows where anything is, and professors don’t show up whenever they feel like it. It was incredibly boring. So boring that we’re going to bring things to do while we’re waiting: like Yahtzee, cards, and if worst comes to worst just, alcohol. So our first day of class consisted of us going to school and not actually having class or teachers. So we left and went to Nirula’s and got a bun and a pea-sized chicken patty. We got back and there was nothing to do. I went to the study center to use the internet for two hours, before coming back to the house so I’d be here when the internet guy came. I am unhealthily obsessed. While at the study center we told Vijay things weren’t going well, and he called Rahul on the spot and said “Oh hi, I called to see how things were. Have you given the students everything they need? Ok, so everything will be there in two days? Good, so I’ll come by and see how things are working out.” Vijay = Baller, I love how he will beat them into submission. Speaking of beating people, on campus there is a little square building in which the police sit. The label on the box is “Police Beat Box”. Basically, if they see or suspect you of doing something they don’t like, they’ll throw you into that room and, yes, beat you with their batons. If you confess, good; if not, oh well, they just keep beating you as they please. I’m so glad I’m living in a country that needs police beat boxes. And I’m even gladder that I’m a student of political science, which means I’ll be studying the methodology and practice of laws and policies of governments and institutions that foster this advanced and fair justice system…the Police Beat Box. At home we discussed getting a cook. Ro’s parents are going to find us a cook, who will buy food and prepare dinners for us during the week, and even pack lunches for us if we want. The cons: Tara feels like we should be self-sufficient and able to make food ourselves (aka a guilt trip for being pampered back home, and punishing all of us for it). The pros: The cook costs close to nothing in labor, she knows where to buy ingredients and won’t get ripped off, she has time to properly wash and sanitize everything, her profession is cooking Indian food so she’ll cook us tasty food, cooking for nine people is a huge task, I don’t want the kerosene stove to explode in my face which happens on a regular basis in India, I don’t want to go out every night and eat hardy or greasy food, I don’t want to end up eating Mac & Cheese or Ramen every night, we will treat her as a decent human being and not our subservient slave as do other Indian families, it’s normal for most upper or middle class Indian families to have cooks, and we can still cook whenever we want. I think I have made my point. And then, the boy servant Rajesh, came in to sweep the room. All the girls think it’s immoral for him to be doing this, and told him to go because they should clean up. I agree child labor is wrong, and that you should be able to clean up your own mess. But I also understand that things work differently here. Like with cleaning your own dishes, of course you’d clean up after yourself in the United States. But here there is a tremendous excess of labor. People are willing to serve you, and this is a normal job in India. A whole caste, making up the bulk of the Hindu population, is ascribed to be servants. Unfortunately, nothing I do will change that. The little boy is paid, and is lucky to be living in a nice house, free of desperate poverty like millions of others in India. His parents probably struggled in their lives, and are probably too poor to send him to school, so I respect what they did for him. Why is it not immoral for the maid staff in a hotel to be paid to clean your room? It’s the same thing. So no, I’m not going to feel inhumane because I’m having someone do their paying job cleaning up after me. But I am troubled that he is a child servant. And this is in a very educated, Western, posh household in a large urban area. In rural, backward areas I can’t imagine how they treat servants. Anyways, it is so hot in Delhi that all you want to do is lie in your own sweat. That is one thing that you can’t see from pictures; the fact that the heat is so stifling that even though you always want to be active and see everything in India, you just don’t have the energy. This is why everything takes so long in this country, and why people are always late. I see this trait as a major drawback to development in India. I fear that its climate will retard India’s rise to becoming a world power; it deters labor-intensive activity, it creates a culture of socially-acceptable laziness and tardiness, diseases can flourish all year, crops are more susceptible to failure, it strains resources (notably water), and it is harsh to man-made infrastructure.

Monday, July 31 Lost on campus, housing issues

I woke up early and got ready for the 10:30 orientation in the political science department. I went with Ro and Puran to the Metro. Delhi University apparently doesn’t print or sell campus maps, and the building that houses the Political Science department is new and really nice; except that it doesn’t have a NAME. So this made our experience finding the office hell on earth. We asked a bicycle rickshaw to take us there, and this poor 40-year-old 100-pound Indian man pedaled us three to somewhere not near the college. He even took the long way to make it seem like he earned the FIFTEEN RUPEES that we paid him. There were points where the chain would skip, and then he would have to pull the rickshaw by hand uphill. I felt bad for that guy, who is probably too exhausted to take any more customers now. We tried asking people where the building was. The girls all just giggled and ran away, and the guys led us in thirty different directions. We were all dying of thirst, heat exhaustion, and lack of food in the 100+ Fahrenheit heat. After traversing through dozens of streets, past gated department buildings, and lots of tree-laden quads, we found the building, near Sri Ram College, so that’s what I’m going to tell the rickshaw from now on. We got there and only Shawn, Amber, and Sudev were there. We ended up going and getting a two-hour-long lecture about India’s political history and status today. It was excruciatingly boring, and it didn’t help that Sudev argued with the professor that America is a “salad bowl” while India is a “melting pot”, sending him on a 30-minute tangent. Us three got lunch at a fast-food place on campus, Nirula’s, which was okay. There are a lot of East Asian-looking students, largely because of India’s tumor, the Northeastern states that encircle Bangladesh. These are largely tribal areas, from where many students are able to study at the University of Delhi because of the reservations. So that’s why you see a lot of Chinese-looking students walking around, and it is not uncommon to see people dressed in red, orange, or yellow robes with shaved heads or conical hats like extremely stereotypical Asian monks or peasants. Then we took rickshaws and the Metro home. It is exhausting being outside in this heat, it is draining. You lose motivation to do anything, I especially feel bad for those who have to work outside, like bicycle rickshaw drivers, construction workers, or farmers. The people I was originally slated to live with hate their house and moved out. I am so lucky I moved out of that; what a stroke of luck! I currently live in a palace, when I could be potentially homeless or my address being 8 Sri Ram Road, Cardboard Box #7, Delhi. That was yet another landlord that will be pissed and a house EAP can no longer use. So far, EAP India 2006 has messed up: relations with two regular landlords, our reputation at Dev Dar Woods, and rooms in the YWCA by stealing towels and sheets. So basically, at the present time 11 people are homeless, which sucks royally for Vijay, who is obligated to find them housing. So, after I got back from the University, I chilled out for a while, then went to the study center to use free internet. The internet here is extremely strange; we’re ordering it from the convenience store, and they’re going to install it tomorrow. There are download limits, but for unlimited it is $30 a month. I’d actually be willing to split the bill and pay for unlimited download limit. Otherwise it’s not worth it to have to monitor your use. If worse comes to worst, I’ll use the study center internet. But not having access to internet/facebook/blog/travel bookings is NOT ACCEPTABLE. This is the center of the high-tech world and they don’t have internet access above 256 kbps…What?!

Sunday, July 30 It's a hard knock life (kind of joking, kind of serious)

My life in India is so hard. On a regular basis my chores list is as follows: wash my clothes (The dhobi comes and I give him my dirty clothes), eat (which consists of not cooking and going to a restaurant), drink water (the servants fill up my water bottles with purified water), shower (the bathroom is in my room, with hot water, two showerheads, and a glass and marble tub), sleep (on my silk sheets in the air conditioning), clean my room (done by the live-in servants), and go to school (the Metro stop is five minutes away and goes to the school stop five minutes from class). Get the idea? Anyways, I woke up at 11 am, got my clothes back from the dhobi, which were folded with newspaper to keep the shape, ironed, and in plastic bags. The presentation was so immaculate that if he didn’t even wash the clothes, I wouldn’t know or care. Then I gave my other washing to the boy servant and he washed them. Then I walked to Fiesta with Nikhil and Alix for lunch, which was pretty good. I took a nap and hung out in the afternoon for a while in the air conditioning. Then we all caught auto rickshaws to Kamla Nagar and walked around in the heat. We looked around in some shops. This area undoubtedly caters towards Delhi University students; there are lots of hip boutiques, college bookstores, and college-age kids. After searching forever, we ended up at a Muglai restaurant. It had the best tandoori chicken I’ve ever had. However, this was overshadowed by the fact that we found a shard of glass in my biryani. We got McDonalds ice cream and I got two, but they messed up and gave me three, so tonight’s dining probably took a week off my life if the triple bypass surgery fails. We took rickshaws back and then sat around. I talked to the parentals on the phone, and they’re sending me a care package with endless amounts of energy bars. Mom also wanted to include a silk shroud to put over my head while I sleep for mosquitoes, which, let’s face it, I’d never wear. I took a drink of my water. The bottle that I thought the servants filled with safe water tasted like hose water. Alix said that Rahul drinks from an Alhambra jug water cooler, while the servants were filling our bottles with the tap. Whether or not they have an Aquaguard on their tap water is subject to debate and frankly I don’t really care, because I’m not going to trust them either way. So this prompted us to make a list of things we need, including Aquaguard for ourselves so we don’t have to rely on them. We also added internet to the list. When talking to him on the phone, he said that it comes in 128, 256, or 512 kbps. It apparently goes on the roof of the house to use with Wi-Fi, and you pay according to the bandwidth you want. But he’s of course, going to get the cheapest one, 128 kbps. That’s two times faster than 56k, for NINE people! That’s worse than dial-up…What is this, 1996? The only way I won’t get a hernia in rage is if we assign internet times or pay for the upgrade. I used to be hesitant about how you can order plane tickets over your mobile phone. Now I can see why…because it probably takes a shorter time to download a ticket on my stone-age Nokia than to download it off what they call a broadband (but really ISDN) connection. It takes him so long to do anything; get beds, dressers, crockery, internet, water filters, and desks. Everything in India is a process. I’d almost rather try and fight a rabid dog than try to set up internet. So, for the next week we’re all living on one floor because there aren’t enough beds, and I still don’t feel like I’ve fully moved in yet.

Saturday, July 29 Home and Garden shopping, Creepy landlord

I woke up and spent all day as a mom, buying home furnishings. I took the Metro for the first time. It’s extremely nice. It opened last year, and is not very extensive right now, but at least goes to Connaught Place and to Delhi University. It doesn’t go to the airport, which is not intuitive. But then again, it's India. I got a card that I put 500 Rs on, so that I can just use that whenever I need to take the Metro. In order to get on the platform you have to go through security, and there are Sikh guards with AK's patrolling. Even photography is not allowed in the Metro. They probably fear the terrorism that caused the Mumbai Metro bombings. There are signs saying “Please do not spit or litter inside”. It’s all air conditioned, and there are always workers polishing the marble and glass walls. In the United States, you don’t want to live near the Metro because it attracts the lower class and menaces to society. Here it attracts the upper-class and Westernized businessmen and students. The actual car was an immaculate, brand new, and spacious Mitsubishi. It zipped me over to Chandni Chowk quickly, where I got out and ascended to the street amongst a huge crowd of rich Indians. I had no idea how to get to Chandni Chowk, so I ended up walking past a Vaishnava temple, where Hindus were praying, washing, offering puja, and where lepers and Dalits were begging. I turned right and got lost in a sari bazaar, which was a maze of 4-foot-wide dark alleyways with sari shops selling all types of fabrics for discounted prices. It was black in the alleyways, contrasted against the rays of light from the sky and bright rich colors of the fabrics. There were young dark skinny men carrying boxes and bags on their heads and shoulders, along with men and women shopping. I get the feeling I was the only tourist around there, no one spoke English, plus it was dark with little inlets that only the locals knew. I had a lot of money, too, it was like I had a sign taped on myself saying, “Hi, I’m not from here, feel free to rob me”. I couldn’t find anything else, so I went back to the Metro station and started over. This time I walked straight ahead, and it again was a maze of dark alleyways, but this time it was completely electronics. Everything from batteries to radios to speakers to phones to electrical wiring was here. The dingy dirt streets connected small shops with homemade signs, and a tangle of power lines. Your worst fears would be realized if you were claustrophobic. There were yelling and metal pounding sounds. I knew I was in a non-tourist area because no one paid attention to me (meaning touts hassling me) like they usually do. I finally got to the main street adjacent to Red Fort, which was nice to be in an open space. There was a person selling pirated DVDs and CDs, so I bought 8 DVDs like Indiana Jones, Gladiator, Scary Movie, American Pie, Rush Hour, Krrish, and Lagaan, for 600 Rs. I probably got ripped off, but I don’t care. I walked along the front of Red Fort and then to a series of boutiques selling shoes, shirts, jeans, and fabrics. I looked for sheets, and there were two kinds; cotton and silk. The silk was heavier but really smooth. The cheap cotton ones had heinous pink floral designs on them. The shoes were good, but when I tried them on, they refused to let me without a plastic bag on my foot (a purity thing). Then I walked over to the bazaar by Jami Masjid, which had a lot of blankets and carpets. One such store had shelves upon shelves of bedding, and the guys there were not good salespeople, but I was able to get two matching silk peacock sheets with pillow covers for 500 Rs total. I ran out of money, so I walked back past tons of clothing shops on Chandni Chowk, the street, back to the Metro. I bought a loaf of plain bread, which doubled as my breakfast and lunch. I came back home and then took a short nap before becoming restless. Then I got more money and went out again, this time I took the Metro to Chawri Bazaar. When I got out of the station, there were people everywhere shopping, carrying lots of equipment, and transporting people in bicycle rickshaws. All the shops sold industrial hardware, like lumber, faucets, pipes, steel, and marble. Walking West, I entered the paper district, selling all types of papers from copy reams to textbooks to wedding invitations. Walking towards Jami Masjid, the shops changed to more textiles and then to wood, ivory, and brass carvings. They were really intricate and nice (not to mention illegal and supporting poaching of endangered species). I walked into Chandni Chowk area again. A tout came up to me and normally I would be annoyed, but he showed me exactly where to buy towels, which were ugly and bright orange like shag carpet, but oh well. Then he showed me where to buy a nice foam pillow. I passed a lot of stores selling trendy cotton collared shirts, but I don’t know what looks good, so I’ll have to go shopping with girls so they can tell me what to buy. It took me forever looking for a place to buy clothes hangers, and finally someone told me they had them in Sadar Bazaar, so I got ripped off taking a bicycle rickshaw there. That was nothing like I’ve ever seen. The ride there was awesome. That is what I expected to see in India. Not one inch of space was wasted. The stores were on the bottom floor, filled with salespeople and doubling as their beds. Narrow staircases led up from the street to houses, where people and monkeys live. Porters carried long metal rods on their heads and on one-wheeled carts. Huge white humped cows walked like kings through the crowds. People, mostly small dark men, filled up every vacant space in the dirt, pothole-filled, garbage-laden street and sidewalk. It was extremely congested, and there was hardly space for cars, and potholes abounded. This area was built a long time ago, so everything was tight and compact and brown. Sounds included honking, cars passing by, people yelling at each other, and vendors selling their goods. It smelled like Indian food, incense, dirt, and garbage, all juxtaposed. In the narrow corridors they call streets there were small shops selling all sorts of house wares. I finally found the clothes hanger store. I took a bicycle rickshaw to the nearest Metro station, which was an extremely new facility, built above ground, a huge structure with lots of open space. I rode back, pillow and bags in hand, and got home and slept. Everyone was at dinner, so I ate with Rahul Jain and his sister Palak, downstairs. We had dal, paneer, and mango. He’s really rich, and had the two servants get everything they needed. He’s a Jain and also a Hindu (those two religions are not mutually exclusive), but doesn’t really practice all the crazy stuff they are supposed to do. However, he doesn’t eat any animals (including eggs) because “they didn’t hurt him, so why should he hurt them”. Jains and Sikhs can be Hindus, also, but Muslims cannot be Hindus. Rahul also told me Hindus hate Muslims because they’re dirty and eat meat, they isolate themselves, and because the US identifies them as terrorists, they make it extremely difficult for any Indian to get a US visa. After that we came upstairs and he was up there in the living room for a long time. It got really awkward when he refused to leave. The girls claim he’s being creepy and talks about partying and girls all the time, but I think that’s just him hopelessly trying to act cool and westernized. Plus there is a lot lost in translation, I feel. But I’m also defending him because I’m a guy, so I’m not threatened. And the fact that they want to make the floors co-ed, which I don’t want because my room right now is the best one. We had a little group meeting addressing our creepy landlord. We decided we’d tell Vijay and then not act bad until AFTER he gets us all our amenities he promised. Another thing is, currently, our lease is a verbal contract, which means he could arbitrarily throw us out at any time and we’d be powerless. After that we watched Scary Movie, which was hilarious. I came to the realization that one of the main characters (he plays the over-eager annoying friend in A Night at the Roxbury) is the clone of my future roommate Chris Goodrich. They look exactly the same, talk exactly the same, and act exactly the same. It’s astonishingly creepy, and now I can't see him the same again.

Friday, July 28 Move-in day, unpacking, servants, Hindi, Kamla Nagar

I woke up early to eat breakfast and then I had to pack up all my stuff into my bags, which are literally ripping at the seams. We had to move out at 10 (meaning 11) to take the bus to our apartments, but instead I opted to take a cab that would take us right to our front door because I don’t want to have to carry my bags through mud and dirt roads. Spoiled? Yes. The cab got really lost but we finally got to Home Sweet Home. I unpacked all my stuff into Nikhil’s (my roommate’s) and my room. The room is the best one; it’s on the second floor, it has a huge comfortable bed, a desk with chair, Italian wood armoires, a deck with fans and lights that faces the street, a nice adjoining marble and glass-finish bathroom, a vanity mirror, working air conditioning, excellent ambient lighting, and US AC plugs. There are so many lights that on one panel there are 17 switches...it took forever to get the lighting right...what a potential cockblock! It is so nice, the floor is marble and everything is incredibly luxurious. Everyone showed up and we had to meet the landlord Rahul Jain and give him the rent money, which I collected in a fatty2-inch tall stack (60,000 Rs, most of which was in 500’s) like in the movies. Then we met the dhobi, and like a girl, I had 14 items to wash. Broadband is being worked out, as are the beds for the three girls. The girls made a list of what we needed for the house in terms of furnishings. They all wanted mostly kitchen stuff, like dishwashing racks and coffee makers. I’m sorry but I’m just going to have the servants wash the dishes; that’s their job. The girls are saying (righteously) how they don’t want to buy into that servant-master system, but seriously, the landlord employs them to do that! They would be unemployed or working for another person otherwise. It’s not like we’re making them wipe our butts…I hate when people act like they’re saving the world by, for example, cleaning their own dishes, when at the same time they stay at hotels where maids clean up after you! If anything, that just teaches them that they can cut corners with us. I’m not saying I endorse the system, but I am a pragmatist, and I alone cannot change it by washing my own dishes. Anyways, we ordered some food, but no meat is allowed. I’m going to bet that during our stay we’re going to have an illicit meat trade operating out of our house. And also, we have to pay our own electricity bill, which is extremely expensive, especially with the air conditioning running all the time. Nikhil uses it without even thinking, so I have to be the one to police it. They paid $400 last month in electricity, which is ridiculously expensive. In response, I suggested we don’t take motor rickshaws, use aerosol cans, overeat, or move, so that global warming is delayed and our body temperatures will naturally drop, thus saving money on the electricity bill. Basically what we decided is that we can use the fans at a low speed, and when we hang out it must be only in one common room, where AC is acceptable. We had to go to a meeting about Hindi at the study center on Sri Ram Road, in a nice gated complex. It’s literally a five-minute walk from our pad. Hindi actually really sucks because there’s one teacher (Dinker’s sister), who works so she can only come two days a week, Tuesday and Wednesday. That means we have to take classes for 1½ hours on each day. That sucks because I don’t have class on Wednesday, so I’m going to be wasting all day sitting around waiting for my 1½ hour Hindi class. And she can’t do just one long block, which I would want, and she’s seeing if she can come on Thursday instead of Wednesday. The Hindi requirement of this program really infuriates me; Hindi is compulsory for EAP, but for me it’s worthless units, it’s only offered at the Study Center and at arbitrary times, and the curriculum is Landour, aka horrible. If it’s only offered Tuesday and Wednesday I’m going to take it Pass/Fail and just not come on Wednesdays if I’m busy. Anyways, we took rickshaws (our driver was a character; he turned off the engine while we were moving, and would thrust forward, as if that would propel the rickshaw) to Kamla Nagar to get sheets and towels, and it was nothing but a collection of posh boutiques and chain stores selling designer clothing. We went to a bedding shop, which was really expensive, and we ended up eating at Berco’s Chinese and Thai Restaurant, which was good. From now on, when I eat out, I have to take advantage and eat non-veg food whenever possible. We came back and played a game like charades for a while. Then we hung out on the couch, not addressing the fact that we were three beds short. Plus, Tara’s friend came for the night, so we had another body to accommodate. Rahul’s wonderful idea was to put out another bed…meaning take Tara and Snehal’s bed off their frame and put it downstairs. What that accomplished I have no idea. So three people slept on two couches, while three each people slept in double beds. I slept in my sleeping bag, and somehow got attacked by bedbugs or something, because I had a huge rash on my neck and arms.

Thursday, July 27 Bad Larium trip, Ffad nightclub

I had my first bad experience on Larium (my malarial medication). I was dreaming that there was a Sig Ep rush poster, with a highlighter floating in the air going over the poster, somehow erasing what I wrote, with creepy music to accompany, also. How this is scary I don’t know, but it somehow had such a negative impact on me that I had to use a water bottle because I was too scared to get up and walk five feet to the toilet. I woke up and finished reading The World Is Flat. The author Friedman glorifies technology a lot and is saying that it is leveling the playing field globally. Basically, China, India, and Russia are the next superpowers, if the US doesn’t learn how to adjust to this new global age of outsourcing. I learned that at any one given time, 2% of the world’s GDP is in the custody of UPS. I went to lunch for three hours, and then took a nap for three hours. Then I woke up for the last free supper at YWCA. It was Indian food. It was really good, and I repeat, free, hence my gluttonous consumption of seven plates of food, two khir desserts, two liters of bottled water, and a mango shake. After the meal I couldn’t stand up or lie down…only sit upright, while my pregnant belly sagging. I’m pretty sure I’m going to have stretch marks by tomorrow morning. After that basically everyone went out and we all took rickshaws to Greater Kailash II, to a club that didn’t exist and then to the first other club we saw, called ‘ffad’. How you pronounce that I don’t know. It was a nightmare getting there because the drivers didn’t know where they were going, and they overcharged us, but we had to pay, for fear of getting brutally attacked and robbed. The club was awesome. For 400R, I bought a PITCHER of Long Island Iced Tea! And finished it myself, but it didn’t even get me drunk; probably because I ate seven plates of food for dinner. We basically took over the entire place and danced the night away to techno, Bhangra, and hip-hop. It was really fun, and the last time everyone will be hanging out together maybe ever. That’s not a sad fact, don’t worry.

Wednesday, July 26 Poly Sci Orientation

I woke up and was bussed to the Political Science department in the pouring rain, along with twenty other students. The college is off Mall Road, and students could be seen walking around or taking bicycle rickshaws. The main street on campus is a long two-way road leading in from Mall Road. The political science department shares a building with the history department. We went in a small room, and there were not enough chairs so they had to bring in one for me, which they were literally going to position in the middle of the circle of all of us, it was hilarious. The heads of the department explained how the classes work. Sometimes it was hard to understand their Indian accents, which will suck to have to deal with. It’s like having your barely-comprehendible Indian Engineering TA teach you. Apparently it’s a yearlong curriculum, so instead of the huge year-end exam, we would be writing a 25-page research paper. Fun. We were in the Master’s degree program, so it’s a two-year program with the first year including introductory survey courses, and the second year including electives. I will be taking the electives because they sound more interesting. Plus, we only have to take two classes, plus Hindi which is flexible. So, if I take electives, I can go to class only Tuesday and Thursday from 9 to 1. That leaves me with a perfect Friday-Monday four-day weekend, ideal for travel/slacking off. Apparently they don’t do registration here. We just GO to the classes we want and fill out a form to get credit, later. No online registration or anything. And you can sign up for any class you want. It’s pretty strange but that’s India. What’s also weird about India is the fact that outside the department office were lists posted. There were three lists, one for ‘General Category’, one for ‘Backward Caste Reservation’, and one for ‘Tribals Reservation’. The latter two lists were on a board on the ground, while the ‘General Category’ list was in the glass casing on the wall. What else was interesting about the lists was that it listed all the students’ names in order of how well they ranked with each other; no grades, just an “I’m better than her, who’s better than him” system. Talk about reinforcing hierarchy rather than creating reservations to foster inclusivity. The rest of the day was spent eating, taking three-hour-long naps, eating again, and reading my book. We also determined who would room with who for the next six months. And it’s not just rooming, it’s well….sleeping in the same bed! So we had to find a fair way to go about it. I volunteered to room with Nikhil. So I explained it was because I was a “light sleeper” (even though I could fall asleep in the front row of a Metallica concert, but whatever). Nikhil moved in today, which is weird because we have free food here and I wouldn’t want to stay there all alone the first night.

Tuesday, July 25 Drinking in Gurgaon

I spent the morning reading The World Is Flat, and then I went down to lunch. I’m loving relaxing for now, it’s hot and stormy outside. I came up with the idea of filming an episode of Cribs at our palace house. I’d do the British voice, of course. I took a three-hour nap and read some more before having dinner. I went to Jantar Mantar to go meet up with Ishan, who I met at Mussoorie. I had to be elusive because I didn’t want the others to come, because I wanted to hang out with them first without anyone else to see what they were like. So I waited forever in the 90-degree heat and got a thousand mosquito bites. Then he came late on his motorcycle, and he forgot a helmet for me. So I had to ride 30 minutes to Gurgaon, without a helmet with my contacts in, in the middle of a dust storm on one of the sketchiest roads in the world. It’s actually really fun riding on a motorcycle after you get over the initial panic that at any moment you could run over a pothole, thus ending your life. We drove through New Delhi, with its large avenues and green spaces, five-star hotels, and corporate headquarters, then on the freeway shot Southwest past the orderly lights of the Indira Gandhi International Airport. Gurgaon is an amazing sight; even in the dark it was completely lit. It’s the IT hub of Northern India, so there are dozens of call centers, offices, malls, pubs, discos, and the people that work in and patronize them; a young bourgeois middle class of young, educated, Westernized Indians. This is the New India that I am so interested in. The call centers are all sleek, modern buildings with Ericsson or Nokia signs on the top. They dominated the skyline, and any space that wasn’t a call center or construction on a new call center was occupied with pricey apartment high-rises or posh four-storied apartments. We got to this small outdoor restaurant, and bought some Seagram’s and drank it with him and his Punjabi friend Sebi and Sebi’s brother. It was fun boozing and talking with them. They completely embody the new India. They make $300 a month, which is exorbitant by Indian standards. They refused to let me pay, too. The dust from the ride over kept irritating my eyes, and I had to go flush them out and eventually I just took out my contacts. After three hours or so, we rode back on Ishan’s bike and he dropped me off at Jantar Mantar. I put on his helmet after realizing, after we started going, that he was drunk driving a motorcycle with me on it. As I was walking back, I had to literally step over a slough of homeless people whose beds were the traffic median. There were dozens of homeless Delhites strewn about everywhere, it was really sad. Especially because it’s so hot and the monsoon is so harsh. Also as I was walking back, there were a bunch of idle dogs, who thought it would be fun to scare the living daylights out of me. So all five of them woke up and started barking and snarling at me, following me to my hotel before I had to run to the gate and luckily I dove inside the gate without contracting rabies.

Monday, July 24 Shopping, Pirates II

I woke up early and went for a walk while talking to the family on the phone. Then I went shopping in Janpath, and ended up buying a fake Gucci belt for 100R, so now I can tuck in my dress shirt to my tightly-cinched acid-washed jeans with my Indian haircut and look completely Indian. I bought some more jeans, and it was so hot that on impulse I bought a set of handkerchiefs to wipe gallons of sweat off my body. I came back for lunch and there was a protest of thousands of Haryana farmers in kurta pajamas for rights to clean water. There were a bunch of speakers preaching in Hindi, apparently this happens every day in Delhi. I then went out with Mariel, Kim, and Alix to get some stuff. We went to Connaught Place and walked around in the heat. The only people outside in the heat of the day are beggars and tourists. We went to the alcohol store and bought some of Popov’s Indian cousin, Romanov. It was shady and literally a hole in the wall, but they were extremely busy because let's face it, who doesn’t like alcohol. We looked in the bookstore for a while. The books are cheaper than in the US but still pricy by Indian standards. I bought The World Is Flat by Thomas Friedman, only to realize Kim has it here. We had dinner and then lounged around until 10, when we went by motor rickshaw to the Sabyam movie theatre in South Delhi. It was extremely posh and had colored fluorescent lights and nice new seats. To get in, though, they had security checks, and made sure you didn’t have any cameras (because people would pirate films…it’s obviously pretty effective, considering how many pirated movies there are). We saw (ironically) Pirates of the Caribbean II, which they make weird by all this unnecessary extraterrestrial shit, but it was nice seeing an American movie. We took a rickshaw back, but it got lost so Alix had to give him explicit directions home.

Sunday, July 23 Apartment shopping, orientation that lasted unto eternity

I woke up and had some good food, and then Vijay took six of us to see our future house: the palace, as we like to call it. It’s in Civil Lines, which is adjacent to DU campus, and is a 5-minute walk from campus, 5-minute walk from the subway station, 5-minute walk from the EAP study center. Perfect location. It’s also in a really posh, safe gated community neighborhood. For example, there is an armed guard outside the gate to the neighborhood, then another guard to the street, and then another guard outside the house. If one of us manages to get attacked by an outsider, that’s pretty impressive, aka that’s the person who Bush hires to infiltrate Latin American government buildings to assassinate their leaders. The house is really awesome. It’s separated from the landlord’s half of the house. You walk in and you can wear shoes, and there are marble floors throughout the whole thing. You walk up a common stairway to the second and third floors. The second floor will be the guys’ floor (because it’s a buffer between the girls and the landlord). The rooms are spacious and each have a connected bathroom, which have glass shower curtains, bathtubs, nice western toilets, and nice stainless steel sinks. Then there is a common room on each floor. The second floor one has a TV and couches, and the upstairs one has a kitchen and a dining room table. Then, we went in his oak and marble living room to negotiate. There are balconies attached to each room. And there is a roof terrace, which has a view of Jami Masjid and of the rest of the sprawling city. The place, Rahul Jain the landlord explained, comes with a washerman who comes every day, two live-in servants who will clean our rooms and fill up water bottles of filtered water for us every day (a huge expense avoided). It also includes water and high-speed internet. Vijay took care of all the negotiations. He got him to reduce the rent from 100,000R to 60,000R, and we have to pay starting in August. It’s a really good deal; I only end up paying 7500R ($150) per month. For living in a palace with servants that’s amazing, and probably the only time in my life I can afford to live in an extravagant palatial home with servants. He only has one rule; we can’t bring meat into the house. But he said he doesn’t care if we play loud music, drink, or smoke. It’s like a family, he says, and wants to party with us. He seems really cool and chill; plus, he goes to the US a lot and so he knows what to expect from us. After seeing the house, we all ate and were bussed to the India Habitat Center, a huge upscale exhibition center, for our orientation. We had three chai breaks and dinner. The food was all really good and fresh and not sketchy. The talk took forever, and it was excruciatingly painful to sit through Bob-Ji explaining to us what we had already heard three times before. They basically told us to watch out and be careful (in other words, so EAP doesn’t have to deal with our problems). Women are not supposed to go out at night alone or even in groups. They didn’t really condone men going out alone at night, but that’s honestly just Americans being scared…as usual. The room was like a UN Conference room, with microphones, speakers, and long desks. I couldn’t resist the open mic, so I got up and did a Dinker impression in front of everyone. After that we were bussed out of there, and I went to bed.

Saturday, July 22 Drive back to Delhi from Mussoorie, yuppie lounge

Today was one of the happiest days of my adult life: We went back to Delhi, never to return to Mussoorie again. I managed to pack all my stuff into the two bags I brought somehow. Then I ate some breakfast and got into an Ambassador cab, which took me down the hill to Dehra Dun, where we loaded onto Sikh charter buses. No more Mussoorie/Language School/Oakland/mildew/mold/water shortages when you have diarrhea/horrible boring food, miserly managers who lie to you, etc.! I am so glad to be leaving that place, I hated it to no end, and have been waiting for this moment for four weeks now. I love bus rides because there’s always so much to see. It was really rainy in Dehra Dun, and people were out doing their normal everyday things. We got into Uttar Pradesh, which was flat and rural, with everything cultivated by mostly wheat farms, but some rice and other stuff. It was really rural in Haryana, too, and there were little dwellings made of brick. As usual, everyone was out on the street. It was sunny, which was nice…but which meant it was a fireball outside. Actually, I can’t complain about the heat because it’s cooler in Delhi than it is in most of the United States because they’re having a major heat wave. And they’re having rolling blackouts in California and New York. Watch, Americans start coming to Delhi in the summer monsoon for a pleasant summer away from the heat and power blackouts…haha. But that US heat wave is probably caused by God punishing them for burning half the world’s greenhouse gases but only having 0.5% of the world’s population. But who’s counting? We got into Delhi, and you could tell. There were expressways, people everywhere, buses and motor rickshaws, and rich Westernized people. I love Delhi. There were a lot of tents set up with people watching plays and videos about Shiva. This is because it’s the end of a holy week. Thousands of young men pilgrims (identifiable in orange shirts and short shorts) went to Rishikesh and Haridwar to get water from the Ganga and carry it back in shiny, elaborately-decorated water containers, to their temples, to be used for puja for the next year. There were thousands of pilgrims and water containers everywhere and portable toilets on wheels, it was very colorful. We got into to YWCA on Sansad Marg at 6. It’s actually pretty comfortable weather here. I was the happiest man alive. I even had my own room because Derek had to go to Hyderabad. That dream was shattered when Maia of all people, had to room with me. That sucks. I took a nice shower and did some laundry and unpacked. I’m planning on staying in this palace until they kick me out. The food and water alone is reason enough. I had dinner, which was amazing tandoori and other Indian food (and not sketchy!) Then I went with my future housemates to Greater Kailash, an extremely rich, Westernized, young area. The houses are all multiple-storeyed, gated, and guarded. We went to a hookah lounge and bar named Shalom, which was ridiculously nice. It was dark, and the drinks all cost nine dollars each. The Indians here are extremely wealthy by Indian standards. But I found it extremely boring; I was with the upper, upper echelon of Indian society (it almost didn’t seem like reality because there are beggars right outside the door), and lounges bore me to death. I could be doing the same thing in my hotel room for free. Lounges are for boring hedonists who over-glorify ambient lighting and beautiful rich people. Please, I don't need the “nice ambiance” and American prices, give me a cheap bar where I can just get drunk and be annoying and loud and meet other fun people! We got lost on the rickshaw ride back, so much so that we went the wrong way on a One-way street. I’m still alive, though.