Dancing with Sikhs

updates are few and far between. i no longer get wifi in my office, and the ban on personal communication continues. i also have more friends, which means less time spent on the internet in my air-conditioned room. plenty to complain about, obviously.

this past weekend was a bit slower for me. it was flo's last night in delhi, so we spent friday night out on the town and saturday night eating dinner with the cook at the french guesthouse where she worked for 10 months. the cook was incredible but it was really sad to see flo go.

on sunday i had my wedding to go to, which turned out to be completely different from what i thought it was. it was not the wedding ceremony, but rather the pre-wedding music ceremony (these things used to last a week long, now they're a 'short' three days, as an older couple ruefully told me). it was a really rich set of families (senators were in attendance), so they had it in this massive resort which has been raised up like a phoenix out of ill-used farmland so that the rich people can have their weddings out of the city where there is more space, fewer loud eunuchs, standing facilities, and... more parking. the last one is apparently a serious concern. most of the guests from out of town just stay in the resort and get sloshed at the wedding. unfortunately it was bad form to take pictures so i just had to soak it in. they bring everything to you: whiskey and soda, myriad appetizers, and even a gorgeous college student sat down for me to talk to, which was good because my friend didn't know anybody either since he only knew the bride's family through his dad. we did talk to an interesting middle aged couple for a while.

gender roles are so funny here though (and by funny i mean rigid). i asked the wife a question about what she was wearing (it wasn't a sari and i was confused) and her husband answered. men talk to men. my kind of town (not really). anyway it's traditional for the bride's family to do all the music, but--this being the modern age--all we got was a really awesome old song by the bride's mother (who had the stereotypically high-pitched nasal tone of bollywood singers and everything; she was actually pretty good) about the different stages in a girl's life "from mother to mother". other than that, it was mostly a saxophonist who played solos to canned music in the background, including this song. no joke. i freaked out when he started but no one else was excited so i reeled it back in.

finally we ate and then the dj started and i finally got my chance to groove bollywood style. it was literally the best wedding dj i've ever heard. perfect mix of bollywood and western club stuff. the best part (aside from the hot girl whose name i forgot immediately) was that the entire families got up. this old woman with approximately 8 chins was shaking it pretty seductively. all the dads were drunk and one in particular was all about showing me the moves. it was so much fun. eventually my friend wanted to leave early because we had work in the morning. on the way home, though, i got to drive! never mind that it was on the wrong side of the road, and a stick shift (which i've done literally 4 times in my life including that time), and on crowded indian roads with traffic and dogs and pedestrians at 11pm. it was so much fun.

this reminds me. i saw a eunuch on the way to the taj. ze (gender neutral pronouns ftw) came through the aisles and just was obnoxious until you give zim money or were so ice cold that ze gave up. we were obviously the latter. but it was crazy--male features, in a sari, walking through a train clapping incredibly loudly and then demanding money. what a trip. in pakistan they've made them tax collectors because everyone hates getting hounded by them. i'd like to read a history book just about eunuchs. what an odd and very sad historical place in society. although i'm not sure transvestite clubs in berlin represent the height of assimilation.

this is getting long. in brief, my going out with french girls story is that we went to da club where i paid--get this--almost $20 for a double whiskey (my first and last drink of the night while we were out), danced to really awesome club music, and then proceeded to get absolutely harassed by this indonesian playboy douchebag and his indian friends, one of whom went after my friend so relentlessly that we finally fled at like 1am to go finish the party at their place. i saw the sunrise and a downpour and finally passed out at like 6:30. it was great and felt like europe. turns out you can go out like that here, you just have to be wealthy. and i mean wealthy. you know what's awesome though? seeing a skinny sikh dude totally rock out to electronica. that's something i will not soon forget.

i don't have many pictures but i did take some from my life and my rooftop. here they are.

this is how i do laundry now. note that indian food has not been kind to my otherwise-svelte figure.

sign on the subway. anyone who has ever heard a delhi resident having a phone conversation knows that this is asking the impossible. there is no inside voice.

laundry part two: drying takes all of about an hour when it's this sweltering. south delhi skyline in the background.

fancy hotel in the background there.

our impeccably manicured terrace garden, home to crows and mini-squirrels and the odd tiny translucent lizard. pretty amazing how easy keeping this stuff up is when you've got hired help.

You are a Happy Tourist.

"There are three types of tourists who come to India. Happy tourists, hippie tourists and hungry tourists . . . I think you are a happy tourist."

Thus spoke Munna, my auto driver this weekend. I felt hungry and smelled as bad as a hippie, but I'll defer to his experience.

I was in Agra this weekend, home to the Taj Mahal and other delights with my new friend Aude. I've decided to slowly infiltrate the French Delhi caucus. But I digress. She's been here about 5 months and still doesn't feel that the experience of living here is capable of adequate description. I'm inclined to agree, which make me feel less bad about never updating. It also doesn't help that I was sick for over a week and work late.

I have a bad memory, so I write things down in my notebook so I can remember to write about them. Here are some things I've thought or seen or noticed:

Indian English is . . . different. Most people I run with are fluent, like a second mother tongue, but it's still . . . something other than native speakers. For starters, there's a surprising amount of 1930s British diction. Men call other men 'my dear' and speak of 'fellows' and 'fine chaps'. If it were colder and in Russia sometimes I could swear that I woke up in Murder on the Orient Express.

But that's not all. They drop articles (definite, indefinite, don't matter none), ask for your 'good name', and attach 'maximum' to any part of speech to make it a superlative. It's too fluent to be cute in the way that a great Spanish or Italian accent is, but too quaint to be native. I'm into it.

Actually, I'm too tired, so I'm posting pictures instead. An album of the old facebook-max 60 pictures is here.

For the truly lazy, here are the highlights of the highlights:

one of the rare things that's still impressive even after you've seen 1,000,000 pictures of it

symmetry!

oh, you know, just looking at the taj mahal from the harem in the red fort

moar symmetry pls

then we went to a traditional carpet factory, where they use zero automation.

turns out not all of agra is as pretty as the taj. when i asked if this was a market, the driver just said, "No. Muslims." later he told us to be careful because the area had "many Pakistanis" in it. tolerance! yeah!

after agra, we drove about an hour away to fatehpur sikri, home of emperor akbar, grandfather of shah jehan (who had the taj built) and subject of a pretty epic bollywood movie. now also the home of a devious sufi, who swindled me out of $50 at a shrine. we saw this gigantic gate, which is supposedly the tallest in the world. the black things up top are bees nests. brandon, you would not have been pleased.

India 1, Benjamin 0

The past weekend started well and ended in bowel-driven agony. Literally within 24 hours of Flo telling me that I needed to get sick in order to experience the India that moves your insides, well... I did.

BUT!

The weekend was still a resounding success. Some highlights: lunch with Flo and a friend of hers from France (who hates it here), walking around a deer park (like a zoo, but only for deer), getting directions to the metro which ended up being an HOUR AWAY on foot (despite people describing it like it was just around the corner... each time I asked for directions), getting lost and ending up in the slums, eating delicious butter chicken, buying one of those fancy long embroidered shirt-like thingys, and getting a teach yourself hindi book. however, based on a quick perusal of the language, I don't think I'm capable of teaching myself. That was Saturday. I also found out that Delhi can be expensive (ish) if you go to the right places. Apparently modern = cool = Western here, so the shopping area I went to (Connaught Place) was set up pretty similar to a lot of other urban upper-scale storefronts. I went with a guy from work, Abhinav, who is from the Delhi area (a bordering state I think) but is doing his J.D. at GWU. He was a huge help. That evening I watched the India Premier League cricket final because I totally understand the game now, which is my biggest triumph over India to date. By that time I was in the throes of the intestinal version of Bastille Day, so I stayed in, fell asleep, and watched the Barça victory in the morning. Messi is unbelievable.

Sunday was a little slower because my body was determined to bring me down. I probably stayed out longer than I should have, but there's so much to see! I went to a Baha'i service at this place called the Lotus Temple, because it's shaped like, well, a lotus. See below.



As you can see, there are hundreds of people streaming in and out of the thing the entire time it's open. This creates some difficulties for the ol' smelling organ. First of all, Indians bathe less frequently. They just do. Secondly, the temple is a shoes-free zone. What they do is herd you past an underground window, where you exchange your shoes for a tag, like a coat check. However, it's 105 degrees and there are hot stones. Solution? Put a woven mat down on the path and pour water on it from time to time to cool it off. Fine, right? No. Water plus sweat from millions of soles seep into said mat, which means that the last hundred meters are like wading through a sea of foot odor. Unpleasant. The service itself was nice and short, although the visitors (nearly all Indian) weren't the most respectful of any I'd seen, but you get that in European cathedrals too. On the way out a group accosted me, and after some initial misunderstandings I understood that a dude my age wanted his picture taken with me. I obliged, including one where we did a presidential handshake pose. I really, really wish I had that picture.

I had planned on walking more but the heat was unbearable, so I spent the afternoon finishing my book in a cafe and then a hookah bar. After a long walk to India Gate (see below) and watching some cricket in a park, I got horribly lost and eventually ended up at a Catholic service in the evening, which was both surprisingly full of people and excruciatingly boring. We did sing some songs I knew from back in the days of going to chapel, though. Some gems from the 1970s as well as a couple older hymns like Billy Graham played at his revivals.



I've started taking yoga from 6:30-8am in the morning before work, which is really awesome. I'm not the worst person in there either, contrary to my expectations, which is a plus. Oh crap time for work.

Settling in

I'm settling into a routine now, although it's kind of a lonely one.

I was instructed to set up a time to take tea and breakfast in the morning, which means I am forced to be out of bed and reasonably clothed by 7:30. This wouldn't be so bad, except I'm still jetlagging, so I become wide awake just when I need to go to bed.

Bouncing back from my initial disappointment, I've settled on something even better. There's a really nice yoga studio within walking distance of my house, so starting on Monday I'll be taking two weeks of intensive, 90 minute classes, starting at 6:30 (groan). They tell us not to shower afterward because it messes with your chi or something. Again, the not showering thing...

When I say "I settled" on it, it's not really the whole truth. I am getting pampered to the point that it's kind of embarrassing. I've seen a single other white person since I've been here, so maybe that's part of it, but everyone treats me as though I'm about to die from heat stroke or keel over from culture shock. They offered to walk me to the metro and are constantly asking me if the food is too spicy. I try to tell people that I love Indian food, but to no avail. Anyway the point of this is that, despite the fact that they spoke English and it's 100 meters away, Colonel Nayar got his guard to walk me around and do errands with me. It's ok, because he's hilarious, but still.... I don't think I've been taken care of like this since I was a child.

This weekend I'm going to start exploring the city. There are other interns at work who are about my age (including a 1L from GWU), so I've been hanging out with them at the office, but people live all over the place / with their parents, so no post-work options so far. Also, most of them are only here for a couple more weeks, which is lame. One of my supervisors is trying to help me find a bar to watch the Champions League final, and I'm going to (maybe) start playing basketball with guys from work in the mornings before work, so hopefully I'll have a real friend soon. (one exception: my friend Flo, who was July's roommate in Prague, is living here and I'm going to see her this weekend! but... she too is leaving me in a couple weeks. Lame.). In the meantime, there's always the Nayars. We talk about cricket, traveling in Europe, and how crazy Pakistan is (that's a real favorite). Pretty awesome stuff.

Time to go to work. I'm doing work that is *exactly* the same as some of the research I did for my senior thesis, which is pretty awesome.

This explains the portliness

A Gold's Gym membership in New Delhi costs 6500 rupees/month, which comes out to about $155. So much for my summer fitness plans.

First Email Re-Post

No one likes an email spammer. Hence, this blog. I'll be posting from time to time and will put pictures up as well. At least, that's the plan.

Below is an email I sent right when I got back. An addendum: the party to which I refer had the in-laws of Shah Rukh Khan, the most famous actor in India, among its guests. I met his wife's brother, cousin, and parents. They were all really nice. Mom, I gave them duty-free scotch as well as the gift bag, and both the Colonel and his wife really liked it. I start work tomorrow, at which point I'll get to figure out other stuff such as learning Hindi, getting a cell phone, and starting a gym membership and/or yoga classes. Next weekend I'm going to pick up my first-ever tailor-made suit, made by some dude who is allegedly "one of the best in Delhi". At the very least, his business card was fancy and he uses Italian material. Ok, the email:

Just arrived. I was able to sleep a full 7 hours last night without waking up once, which makes the misery of not really sleeping much on a 15 hour flight seem like it might have been worth it. My family is a retired Colonel (Mr. Nayar) and his wife. Last night they had a party because someone (nephew? niece? not sure) recently got married so you have to have the newlyweds over to welcome them into the family. The sister of the dude who got married said they have 4 dinners this week, and the wedding was weeks ago. Reason number 8597 to marry an Indian.

A few pieces of awesome news. I met an old friend of the host family last night who, wait for it, studied in MÜNCHEN and then worked in AUGSBURG from 1953-61. We spoke some German. Brandon, he told me about this place in Augsburg that's the oldest socialist colony in the world. Apparently some weaver owned a bunch of forest land a few centuries ago and bequeathed some low-income housing to the city funded by his property holdings. It costs like 2 euros to stay there, and you just have to say a prayer for him. Purgatory. Ohhhhh yeah. It's called the Fuggerei, after the founder, somethingorother Fugger. Still there. Check it out.

Also, they have satellite, which means I'm watching the Thunder-Mavericks game right now, and can watch the Champions League final next Saturday (it's on at 10:30pm, Dad!). We live about 100 yards from the market, where I can buy about everything. Mom/Dad, I'm going to get an electrical adapter and shampoo today, so set your minds at ease. Colonel Nayar is also taking me to a tailor today so I can pick out fabric and have a suit made. Boo ya. Also, we have servants. I get to order tea and breakfast the night before, and they change my bathroom linens every day, and my bedding 2-3 times a week. We also have a rooftop terrace with flowers and a view of some of the city. I might never leave. I also met a nice Indian girl on the plane who gave me her contact info in case I need anything or some "advices" and asked me what my "good name" was. Getting used to the dialect. Also, there was a dude on the plane across the aisle from me who was literally the rudest man in the world. Like the Dos Equis commercial dude, but for lack of manners. He shouted every time he wanted something, and spent the first 45 minutes of the flight just demanding scotch. I need scotch! It was like Anchorman, but not funny. He treated the stewardesses like subhumans and acted as though he was the only passenger on the flight. And this is in coach. Unbelievable.

Anyway someone is coming to pick me up on Monday, so I don't have to figure out the metro yet, but eventually that's how I'll be doing my commute. I don't get picked up til 9:15 either, which is pretty clutch. I'll try to take some pictures semi-soon once I can charge my camera. The wifi here is pretty fast, so I should be able to be in pretty good contact.

K, gonna go back to being really excited.