Dear India

Dear India

I'm off tonight but I just wanted to write you a quick note to say thank you for having me. Thank you for your passion, vibrance and energy. Thank you too for the amazing hospitality, generousity and kindness of your people.

You have inspired me to live in techni-colour.

I'll be back soon.

Yours in Hindianess

Lou

Delhi's Biggest Bash

My birthday was so completely awesome. I was inundated by a multi-media barrage of phone calls, smses and emails from all over the world and I got spoilt rotten with the most awesome prezzies. The spoiling started with a cake special delivery from South Africa, continued to another cake and happy birthday singing knife from work which subsequently got smashed all over my face (apparently this is the Indian tradition) and it didn't stop. By the end of the party the lounge resembled a florist. One of the highlights (other than the 4 pounds of Twizzlers that Chanda brought back from the States for me) was my cake. Knowing my dream of going on the back of a motorbike, side saddle in a sari with no helmet, Elodie and Nic designed a cake with a picture of just that. I was blown away.

By all accounts the party in joint celebration of my birthday and farewell and Nic's house warming was a roaring success. It was the perfect mixture of the right music, right people, right venue, right food and lots of drinks. We organised the kebab guy from Kahn market to come and cook mutton, chicken and paneer romali rolls. Despite thinking we had grossly over ordered they were all finished by the end of the night (5.30am!). Thankfully we had the foresight to organise those big mushroom heaters as it was a very chilly December night - contrary to popular belief, Delhi is pretty frikking freezing here at the moment. Colder than Joburg I would venture to say. There was loads of dancing and Murray and Nic treated us all to an ambitious rendition of Impi. By the time the last stragglers left in the wee hours of the morning the booze had all been drunk, the kebabs were finished, the heaters were running low on gas and there was a general dirty stickiness all over the dancefloor. The sign of a good party.

Indian Aspirations: Progress Update

Yesterday I went to Yamunanagar. Left at 5.30am arrived at 10.30am. We left Yamunanagar at 4.30 and only got back at 10pm. That's 10 1/2 hours in the car in one day! Part of the reason it took so much longer to get back was because of all the marriages (you say marriages not weddings before you correct me). There were 36 000 weddings in Delhi alone last night as it was the most auspicious day of the year to get married. I lost count of the number of scarlet and gold crested bands we saw marching along the road blasting their trumpets and heralding the arrival of their groom.

I unfortunately wasn't invited to any of these weddings which brings me to the progress I have made with my Indian Aspirations (see side bar) I set myself a couple of weeks after my arrival.

1. Ride side saddle on the back of a motorbike in a sari without a helmet
   Status: In progress. I have just got the sari, I have the motorbike and driver and 2 artistic photographers. The one flaw in my cunning plan is that I have no idea how to drape a sari. There is however, a particularly sweet old hindi lady downstairs. She doesn't speak a word of English but I am hoping that if I go there proferring her 6 metres of cloth she will get the picture.
2. Go to an Indian wedding
   Status: Negative ghostrider. Despite my best efforts I didn't crack the nod to an Indian wedding. I have however seen glimpses of what goes on behind the brightly draped pink and purple tents.
3. Get henna done on my hands
   Status: check. The only thing is that the lady that did it didn't speak English very well and when she told me to wash it off after half an hour what she actually meant to say was don't get it wet for 12 hours and rub mustard seed oil in it to make sure it goes nice and dark. As a result my henna was an unimpressive light orange.
4. Learn basic Hindi
   Status: check. That is if very basic Hindi counts. A few weekly lessons is just not enough to pick up this beautiful but completely foreign language.
5. Meet the Dalai Llama
   Status: Negative. I did go to his home town though and was there for the marching and general outrage over the Chinese president's visit to India.
6. Have a kick ass birthday party
   Status: In progress. Watch this space.

Mythbusters

When I came to India everyone assured me that it was the perfect opportunity to save money because everything is so cheap. Let me clarify this for those of you that are planning on coming over for a spot of travelling. Textiles such as bags and clothes are quite cheap. Silver jewellery although not cheap is far more affordable than it would be in SA. Accomodation in small towns is quite cheap. Eating in small towns is quite cheap. Drinking in small towns is quite cheap. Delhi is very expensive.

To be more specific, going out in Delhi is incredibly expensive. Part of the problem is that a large portion of the going out places are in hotels and thus carry hotel prices: a large bottle of beer (750ml) (the Big Mac index for people between the age of 18 and 30) will set you back between 40 and 60 South Africans; a vodka, lime and soda costs about R50, a glass of wine (Indian) will cost you in the region of 60 to 70 bucks and for the budget breaking Mojito you're looking at about R90. More expensive than the Westcliff if my memory serves me correctly. Chanda reckons that it's more expensive than drinking in Washington DC! And that's without the non inclusive 20%VAT on drinks and the almost inevitably compulsory service charge.

The City of Smells

For all India's exotic spices, the pervasive smell of Delhi is of urine. This is especially true at the train stations where the scent of urine persistently pushes its way through the cracks in the windows of the train and invades the nostrils. But it gets worse. Every drain and river in Delhi vociferously exudes the same sickly sweet odour, a combination of excrement, urine, vomit, damp and rotting food. You learn to anticipate it's assault on your senses every time you drive over a bridge or a culvert.

In the beginning it puzzled me. I have travelled quite a bit around sub-saharan Africa and I don't remember ever being constantly assailed by these offensive smells. After 3 months of observation I have come to the following three conculsions:

1. People just piss everywhere. I've lost count of the amount of people I have seen just stop the scooters and relieve themselves on the side of the road. It's got so bad that the government has set up a committee to address the issue in time for the 2010 Commonwealth games in India.
2. The sewage system is inadequate and many roads do not even have drains (apparently the monsoon season is complete carnage). As a result, waste and water oftens stagnates in culverts and canals and does not get washed away.
3. For many residents in Delhi there are little to no facilities. In many of the slums there will be one running tap and no ablution facilities. As a result slum dwellers are forced to use the railway areas (to which the slums are almost inevitably adjacent) as their toilets. Coming into Delhi on an overnight train the surrounding area is almost crowded with people doing their morning ablutions.

Scary but true.

You've got mail

A colleague sent me the email below because he thought I would appreciate it. He was right.

Sent: Friday, December 08, 2006 2:57 PM
Subject: Indians easy 2 identify!

1. Everything you eat is savored in garlic, onion and tomatoes.
2. You try and reuse gift wrappers, gift boxes, and of course aluminum foil.
3. You are Always standing next to the two largest size suitcases at the Airport.
4. You arrive one or two hours late to a party - and think it's normal.
5. You peel the stamps off letters that the Postal Service missed to stamp.
6. You recycle Wedding Gifts , Birthday Gifts and Anniversary Gifts.
7. You name your children in rhythms (example, Sita & Gita, Ram & Shyam, Kamini & Shamini.)
8. All your children have pet names, which sound nowhere close to their real names.
9. You take Indian snacks anywhere it says "No Food Allowed"
10. You talk for an hour at the front door when leaving someone's house.
11. You load up the family car with as many people as possible.
12. You use plastic to cover anything new in your house whether it's the remote control, VCR, carpet or new couch.
13. Your parents tell you not to care what your friends think, but they won't let you do certain things because of what the other "Uncles and Aunties" will think.
14. You buy and display crockery, which is never used , as it is for special occasions, which never happen.
15. You have a vinyl tablecloth on your kitchen table.
16. You use grocery bags to hold garbage.
17. You keep leftover food in your fridge in as many numbers of bowls as possible.
18. Your kitchen shelf is full of jars, varieties of bowls and plastic utensils (got free with purchase of other stuff )
19. You carry a stash of your own food whenever you travel (and travel means any car ride longer than 15 minutes).
20. You own a rice cooker or a pressure cooker.
21. You fight over who pays the dinner bill.
22. You live with your parents and you are 40 years old. ( And they prefer it that way).
23. You don't use measuring cups when cooking.
24. You never learnt how to stand in a queue.
25. You can only travel if there are 5 persons at least to see you off or receive you whether you are traveling by bus, train or plane.
26. If she is NOT your daughter, you always take interest in knowing whose daughter has run with whose son and feel proud to spread it at the velocity of more than the speed of light.
27. You only make long distance calls after 11 p.m.
28. If you don't live at home, when your parents call, they ask if you've eaten, even if it's midnight.
29. You call an older person you never met before, Uncle or Aunty.
30. When your parents meet strangers and talk for a few minutes, you discover you're talking to a distant cousin.
31. Your parents don't realize phone connections to foreign countries have improved in the last two decades, and still scream at the top of their lungs when making foreign calls.
32. You have bed sheets on your sofas so as to keep them from getting dirty.
33. It's embarrassing if your wedding has less than 600 people.
34. All your Tupperware is stained with food color.
35. You have drinking glasses made of steel.
36. You have mastered the art of bargaining in shopping.

Cellular

Indian Cell phone etiquette

1. Never put your phone on silent. Ignore requests to do so in conferences and movie houses. You have the latest tune as your ring so why not let other people enjoy it?
2. Don't use voice mail, noone does. Far more effective is to ring someone incessantly until they answer - they will either have become available in the interim or you will have cracked their resolve by the eighth try and they will answer.
3. Avoid the possibility of the person on the other end of the line missing important information. When you are saying something important take the phone away from your ear and move it in front of your mouth like a walkie talkie. They will be able to hear you much better this way.
4. Talk on speaker phone whenever possible.
5. If the latest caller tune ring tone isn't enough for you why don't you load another caller tune for when people ring you. While they are waiting for you to answer they will be able to tap their feet along to your chosen beats instead of being bored to death by the same old ring ring.

Shall we dance?

The one thing I will say about Indian men is that they can dance. They have both the rhythm (integral) and the undisguised delight in the sport that combine to make a good dancer. Most unlike many of their male South African counterparts who specialise in something more akin to a self concious shuffle. Often at parties there will be a group of just guys dancing together, having a ball and completely unphased by the lack of oestrogen in the group.

I too have been working on mastering the art of dancing to bhangra music. I was fortunate to have a tutor who took me for Bhangra Dancing 101. She made it look so effortless but essentially there are three components:

1. Pat the dog. This is when you put your hands at hip level face down and move them back and forth.


2. Answer the phone. Put your hand in the vague vicinity of you ear with your thumb and pinkie out and shake it.


3. Screw the lightbulb. Hold an imaginary lightbulb above your head and alternately screw and unscrew it.

Interchange the above three movement whilst moving your hips back and forth to the music. Now you're dancing. Sort of.