The oddest is being rich and white here, but brown (light-skinned, but still brown) and from a working-class background (though historically living beyond my means) at home. I'm in a complete bubble of privilege and outsiderness, that try as I may I'm never going to pop. The women at the office who talk to me the most are busy with their own lives and families, of course they are. And there's an impenetrable wall between the guys who work taking care of us (the housekeeper and the driver) and us. Yesterday we had an extra ticket to go to the movies and we offered it to Narasima, the driver. He accepted it, and while he was sitting with us (we had assigned seats) he was just sitting next to us, not really part of the group (which, as the one Indian housemate explained to us, isn't going to change, even if we drag him along with us).
Yesterday we went to the movies for the first time. We sort of cheated and went to see the new Pirates movie. The Hindi and Telegu films don't have subtitles, so I'll have to make sure to pick a musical (shouldn't be hard, right?) We bought our tickets online and got the plush 2 feet of legroom seats smack in the middle of the theater. There was an intermission (yay: because that movie is LONG) and we went down to the food court that's part of the theater and had some corn in a cup. The flavors were: Plain (margerine and salt) Masala (curry powder, lime juice, salt, chili) Mexican (chili, lime, salt, jalapenos, and something else) Chinese (no idea) and Cheese. Sion and I got Masala. Yummy, and HOT. We ate our corn and immediately downed two big bottles of water trying to wash away the burning. I thought Mexicans ate hot food. Oh, no. We got nothing on these folks.
The movie theater is in a huge mall. Rather than go back to the apartment we hung out for a bit: had a coffee, went window shopping, walked around. Then we had dinner. We went to a restarant in the mall called Bombay Blue. A totally middle class place; like eating at an Olive Garden attached to any big mall. We realized that the prices we'd been paying for drinks in the hotel restaurants were beyond insane. A large bottle of Kingfisher beer was 150 at Bombay Blue and 650 at the Taj Krishna. A shot of Smirnoff (domestically produced) was 75 at BB: we just paid 550 for the same shitty vodka in some hipster eatery. Totally American prices. And pricey American prices at that. 550 is about 14 bucks. I had figured that alcohol was prohibitively expensive everywhere. Nope.
Bombay Blue is one of these multicuisine places, which usually means Indian and Chinese food. This had that plus pasta and some Arab dishes (pretty much in name only: the palest pita bread I've ever seen). The Indian food was of course, the yummiest. The Roti was exactly like a Sonora style flour tortilla: thin and huge. I wanted butter with it.
We have had pizza (from Pizza Hut) and it's exactly like the kind at home. Only with local toppings and no pork or beef. Curried chicken, or chicken and pineapple. There are Baskin Robbins everywhere. Last night we had some mango icecream in a waffle cone that tasted like butter cookies. YUM.
Right next to the Baskin Robbins (just outside the mall restaurants) there is a stand that sells dried fruit and bits of cake on sticks, that you then thrust into a fountain of chocolate. The kind you see at weddings. Yes. Fast food chocolate fondue. The fountain is in a plexiglass box, and there's a hole through which you thrust your hand with your bit of fruit/cake on a stick.
Corporate America's here: McDonalds, Subway, Coke, Baskin Robbins, Pizza Hut, Dominos, and while they appear the be the same, they aren't. The flavors are local as are the prices for the most part. It's a wierd familiarity/dislocation combination.
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