Talk to Strangers

Abids, a commercial district in Hyderabad, where there's lots and lots of shopping (clothes, shoes, electronics, department stores) is also home to a street book market on Sundays, when most of the shops are closed. I'd read about it somewhere online and we went to check it out. Sure enough, for about 4 blocks down the main street, and on at least two side streets (for another four blocks) there were piles and piles of books for sale. People just set up on the sidewalks, streets, and most impressively, across a pile of gravel. No blankets, no tables, just scads of books from the 70s and 80s. Mostly ancient computer programming books, textbooks, and paperbacks from the early 80s. There were old copies of fashion magazines cheek by jowl with microwave cookbooks (including one that came with a GE electric range/microwave my folks had in 1980). I saw copies of books I read in 7th grade: The Outsiders and some random Sweet Valley High books.

As we browsed, several poeple asked if I read Telegu (usually when I'd pick up something with an interesting cover that suggested lots of pictures). No, I'd tell them. I don't. End of conversation. At one bookstall, a man in his late 50s asked me what language I spoke. I responded English, and Spanish. Ah, he says, habla espanol? You could have knocked me over with a feather. We chatted for a bit in Spanish and then he tells me he's lived in Houston for 20 years; he's in town visiting his brother--who meanwhile has struck up a conversation with Sion. After a bit, we go over to his brother and Sion, and he introduces me: she is from US. To which his (elder) brother counters, apparently in a show of "ha ha I win," gestures to Sion and says "he is from UK!"

Sadly, Sion declined an invitation for coffee--he thought I wouldn't have wanted to go. So now he's got the directive: if we're just mooching around and they're not creepy: hell yeah, lets go talk to strangers. (I think it's because the last time we accepted such an offer we had a hard time extracting ourselves from his wierdo company: but that was Vegas and involved a lot of drinks).

Lost in Translation

The joys of an overpriced dirty Grey Goose Martini. (Add you own accents as appropriate):

me: I'll have a Bombay tonic please
waiter: Sorry Madam; we have no Bombay gin.
me: Ok, then a dirty grey goose martini.
him: ???
me: a martini with grey goose vodka, and add olive juice and olives. You add the olive juice, and that's what makes it dirty.

He comes back with a plain vodka marini.

me: can you ask the bartender for some olive juice please?
him: olives, yes
me: olive juice
him: orange juice?
me: no, no orange juice. Olive, ah, olive liquor, um, the brine?
him: ah, wine.
me. No, no. the liquid from the olives.
him: (looking like I've asked for the blood of a newborn or worse) yes, madam.
He returns with a shot glass of olive brine.
me: (inwardly) Victory!!!
Huzzah! So worth it.

Music Music Music

You really haven't lived until you've heard "Hotel California" belted out by a five piece band of strolling Malaysian musicians. I so regret not buying their CD. They followed it up with Tom Jones's "The Green Green Grass of Home" and Lionel Richie's "Hello" and some Cliff Richards (who's from Lucknow, who knew?) And then they did one Malaysian song. So great.

One of my favorite things here has been the music, or rather, the apparently universal appetite for it. It seems like pretty much every movie has big song and dance numbers in it (even apparently serious dramas). Musicals are on pretty much every channel, and there are several shows at night that just show the musical numbers from movies. Telegu pop music is fairly infectious--perfect pop that gets stuck in your head--and everyone seems to love it. I've heard very little classical music, and pop music seems to be enjoyed by grownups, not just kids. It's played in every store--from the upscale to the local grocery store. Hirin goes around singing constantly, and he puts music on whenever he's got a chance--pretty loud: yes, he's a teenager. Equally, Narasima (who's our age, at least) keeps his pop CDs pretty much blasting in the car whenever he's alone, and often has the music going quite loud even when we're in the car with him. I rode in an auto yesterday that had been kitted out with some major speakers. Yes, that's right, a covered scooter rickshaw, with a really loud sound system.

All better

See? Bitching works. We got our clothes back, and I had a shower and got some clean clothes. All better. I talked with my mom, and with a good friend from home today, so all is well.

I know you were worried.

Rant.

Warning: some serious bitching and moaning to follow.

We have NO CLEAN CLOTHES and haven't for THREE WEEKS. The washing machine in the apartment broke two weeks ago. We hadn't had our clothes washed for the week prior. We tried doing it once before but the water pressure is such that the housekeeper has to do some crazy thing with the hoses; it's a mystery to us, so we are dependent on him. The office is in charge of all these things; they waited a week before they agreed with us that we needed to send our clothes to a laundry; and its been more than a week since our clothes have gone. Not only do we not have any clean clothes, we have no dirty ones to hand wash (which is what we'd done before that). This I'm told, by other Indians, is typical. It's nice to be a little relaxed about time and deadlines, but really not when it concerns my personal hygiene, thanks. So, that's the part of me that wants to come home already.

The part that doesn't want to come home yet is that in two weeks we go to Kolkata (Calcutta) and then the weekend after that, we go to Delhi, and then on to Agra to see the Taj Mahal, and then home. We went to Mumbai two weeks ago, and I loved that. I'm perfectly happy to have the Indian experience of flying by the seat of my pants when we are traveling and feeling like tourists. It's the every day part, where I'm stuck in a suburb, and Sion is working 10 hours a day, that I'd rather have my regular life back.

It's beastly hot and humid. Lightweight cotton or death. Oh there are many things I miss. Clean non-diesely air. Good booze. Meat. My own damn kitchen. Not having a 17 year old boy housekeeper underfoot all the damn time. My own space. I really wish they'd believe us when we say we don't need a housekeeper. He does things like put away oniony knives and stores onions in the fridge, next to the yogurt which isn't sealed properly. My pet peeve is onion food contamination. Especially on fruit and dairy. I know I made fun of Allison for bitching about the kitchen, but she was only here for a week. When we came back from Mumbai, he'd apparently amused himself by smoking cigarettes in our room, and left pee in and on the toilet. That pissed me off and creeped me out. I'm sure he was just pretending to be the boss, but really there are two other empty bedrooms in the apartment that he can hang out in.

I really do miss my own space. This is the thing: there is very much a servant class here, and everyone has "help" and because it's so normalized, they don't mind it. They depend on it. The "servants" arent' really people, so they can't invade your privacy. Plus, well, privacy? What's that? That's loneliness.

All the violent misogyny's really fucking with my head too. So many stories of women brutalized without any consequences in the papers every fucking day. Dowry's are real, even among the middle class. Just yesterday someone in the office was telling me about her family: four sisters, and two had been married. Her dad had to pay 8 lakh for the latest one; that's 2 grand US. That might as well be 20 or 200 grand for working people here. So many elderly widows disowned by their families, forced to beg. There was a story in the paper today of a ten year old girl "dragged by eve teasers": apparently a jeep full of young men were verbally harassing a group of girls, this one got caught somehow (her sari?) in the wheels of the jeep and was dragged some distance, breaking two vertabrae. You know what they're charged with? Disorderly driving.

Thus endeth the rant for today.

Being Recognized

On our way back to the apartment yesterday afternoon, we asked the auto driver to make a couple short stops (to pick up some groceries, then at the wine shop for a bottle of vodka) while Sion was fetching the latter, I waited with our bags of loot in the auto. As we waited, an elderly woman came by asking for money, which of course I gave. She blessed me, I blessed her, it went back and forth a couple times. When she left I had this conversation with the driver:

him: you are nice people, you give money. [I had just given another elderly woman money at the previous stop]
me: oh, um, thanks. Was she a widow?
him: yes. You are nice girl. Are you Hindu?
me: no. Mexican.
him: Ah, Chicana.
me (eyes popping out of my head): YES! Chicana. You know Chicana!
He says nothing, just seems pleased with himself.

Immediately after I said Mexican, I think: Duh: the appropriate answer is Catholic, NOT Mexican (much as they might slide into each other for me). But the hilarious thing is that I heard Hindu in the way Mexicans and Chicanos refer to EVERYONE in India. Growing up, that's what I thought Indians were called, as distinct from American Indians.

And yeah: he knew the right name for me was Chicana. I still can't get over that. People at home don't know Chicano. Much less Chicana.

Comparative Patriarchies

Sounds like a women's studies class, no? But that's on my mind this morning. I woke up feeling sick, shoulder and arm cramping--the physical aftereffects of a hideous nightmare involving my sexual assault by a large group of young men and boys. As I lay there doing a dream post-mortem, it occured to me that everytime I'm in another country: Mexico, the UK, Spain, France, in this case, India--the local articulations of patriarchy strike me as brutal, baldfaced, and somehow harder for me to deal with. I know full well that patriarchy is doing just fine in the US, and that misogyny is chugging along quite nicely. My skin, however, is used to deflecting that particular set of arrows. I suppose it has to do with the with my particular social milieu; as an academic, the circles I generally travel at home are populated with people who are my allies, are indifferent, or know better than to voice their hatred of me outloud. I have made a safe little niche for myself. I suppose that's to some extent how this blog has functioned for me.

The housemates are now gone (for now) but in their company I had the impression that if these (smart, affable) guys are any indication: educated American men (still?) don't regard women as their equals. Not really. Affluence and education aren't guarantees against hatred. I say hatred because that's how it feels to be regarded as less than fully human.

I'm trying to think comparatively here because that's how I like to read: put two or more things together and they'll shed some light on each other.

At home, there's a popular sense that women are equal, and that feminism is redundant: obnoxiously so. People get pissed when this myth is undercut, and that's when the hatred really comes out--often in the form of accusations of hatred. This, I think, is a particularly American cultural habit. It happens with pretty much any other form of oppression: race, class, sexuality, disability. Americans need to think of themselves as fairminded and egalitarian, so any evidence against that is a threat to that sense of self.

Here, cultural politics are harder for me to read. The country's just elected their first woman president, Pratibha Patel. The cultural significance of this is hard to read: on the one hand she's a woman, but then so was Thatcher and Indhira Ghandi. Not much feminist or progressive analysis that I can find online, but one blogger puts it this way (http://feministblogs.org/author/aishwarya/):

India’s presidential elections are a couple of weeks away (on the 18th of this month), and a woman, Pratibha Patel, is contesting. This is, of course far less interesting than the U.S presidential elections and Hilary Clinton, since the Indian president a) isn’t elected by the public and b) has very little power to do anything anyway. Our
current president has spent much of his time writing execrable poetry and motivational texts.
Since they don’t actually have much of a role to play, the choice of president is often an exercise in tokenism. We have had presidents from minority/disempowered castes, religions, etc before, and though they have been quite good ones, one suspects that their real function was to prove what an equal society we are. I have heard people say smugly of India that the fact that we have a Muslim president, a Sikh Prime Minister and Christian power-behind-the-prime minister proves that we are a diverse and egalitarian country (it also gives the Hindu right wing something to feel oppressed about) regardless of what normal Sikhs, Muslims and women may experience in day-to-day, nonpolitical life.*

My anecdotal observations are are small, limited to hanging around one IT company of around 200 people, conversations with a handful of individuals, going out in the city, and reading the local English language media (newspapers, billboards, and TV mostly). Complicating this is the fact of the enormous diversity in this country: ethnicity, religion, language, state. So there is no such thing as the Indian attitude towards this or that. I've heard that Hyderabad is a relatively progressive place for women. I've seen women (not many, but some) driving their own scooters, and there actually are a handful of women working in the testing department at the company--more than in a similar place in the States. I've also seen the dispossessed widows who are forced to beg--disowned by their children at the death of their father. I've seen ads proclaiming: "She is goddess, and we've created a world just for her" pushing some new clothing store for women. I've been harrassed on the street. I've also been told that police are "sympathetic" toward women, so having one with you when you go make a report (on a stolen cell-phone for example) is handy as it will get your case handled sooner.

Some things are familiar, some not. Different articulations of the same assumption. Men are more fully human. The norm.

You know what brought this on? Two things, I bet. 1. My very brief encounters with two elderly widows yesterday, and 2. An old Cary Grant flick: The Awful Truth. 1937 screwball comedy in which both Grant and his wife are apparently cheating on each other: he divorces her--and the focus is on her whether or not she's innocent. In the end, he believes she is, and they reconcile. His apparent infidelity is forgotten. The eponymous truth is, I'm sure, suppossed to be that they love each other. Against the grain, there's some hope here that its a satire of marriage, but I don't think that's why it won academy awards.

Food

The food we can buy for ourselves to prepare in the apartment is pretty much kid food. I had a bowl of corn flakes with (soy)milk and banana for breakfast, an eggsalad sandwich on wheat bread for lunch, and some crackers and peanut butter just now as I wait for Sion to come home. (Our dinner reservation's not until 8:30). I made a salad of grated carrots and cucumbers with lemon juice, (god I miss greens: no lettuce or spinach here, just some very unfamiliar herbs)and we are eating a lot of toast and cheese and cookies and potato chips when we hang around here. Junky kids's food.

We can make pretty good dirty rice (but really that's kid food too) We've tried making grown up food with what we can get, but the successful dishes are ones that I associate with childhood--ie: simple one-note dishes. There's jarred pasta sauce, so we can doctor that up with garlic and onion, but honestly it's still kid food. We made beans: that's fairly standalone, so's the rice. So we can eat rice and beans, plain. I've yet to make a successful salsa. I can make a pretty good vegetable soup that's based on cabbage: but again it's the sort of thing you eat when you're a sick kid. You can buy frozen but not fresh chicken, and those are some stringy fighting birds. If you want fresh you have to go to a separate place where they are walking around and you pick one out. I'll pass on that particular bit of authenticity. It's all about ingredients, and they're lacking for complex Western dishes. Restaurants clearly have avenues not available to me.

So we can have grownup food if we go out, but if we stay in then it's kid food. Except for plain yogurt with honey or mango; most kids I hate yogurt, right?

It's comfort food because not only is it familiar and therefore comforting and comfortable, but in this case: we don't have to rely on someone else to either call for delivery or more importantly, go out when we're tired and/or hungover. Ah well, at least we can buy the stuff to make kid food.

I'm a little bit homesick: can you tell? I miss my life, even as we're having adventures. That they're not contradictory states (having adventures and planning them on the one hand, and being homesick on the other) suprises me.

Worth it.

If you want to see an example of the local hip-hop scene, download divx (its a webplayer)--its better quality than youtube, and has more international participants. Then, watch this:
http://stage6.divx.com/user/itsraji/video/1415813/chal-chal

I'm telling you; it's so worth it. Guess who found it?

I never see this stuff

Sure, some people see transvestites and guys with fire on their heads on the street. I see goats.

Stumbling Into A Story

You know how I have said that there is no cultural programming in this town? I have to take that back. This week, I saw an ad in the paper for Shilparamam, Hyderabad's local crafts village, where folks can sell their work directly to tourists in a central location without getting ripped off (or at least that's the idea). They were hosting a weeklong workshop called "Unity in Diversity" where scholarship students from all over India learned traditional arts (visual, plastic, and performative). The ad also mentioned that each evening there would be "cultural programmes" from 6:30-8 pm. Of course Sion had to work late Monday, so we went on Tuesday, the last scheduled day.

The students of course were kids ages 10-15 or so. For some reason I assumed the students would be adults, apprenticing or something. Nope; schoolkids! We crashed their graduation ceremony.

As we were arriving (around 7ish) an Aussie couple was leaving; the woman was very happy to see us, and was further thrilled to learn that she could have a salwar kameez tailor made (too much bust and booty for Indian sizes) but the dude was clearly annoyed at the whole thing and wanted to go. She wanted to stay and see if there *was* going to be any dancing. There were at least 20 kids dressed up in costumes that suggested there would indeed be dancing. We were warned that we'd be filmed.

At first we stayed on the sidelines (during the handing out of certificates). Apparently, I have a soft spot for graduations. Who knew? Blame my job and my five younger sibs. We were urged by one of the guys that worked there to sit in the front row, so we eventually did. And yes indeed, we got our pictures taken several times, and we got filmed too. I guess we'll be the "international visitors" in the documentation they put together. It was cute and dorky and the kids sang awkwardly, and then there was a comedy skit where two ten year old boys pretended to be drunk. It ended with a girl with a broom beating one of them. The truly funny part was the microphone malfunction; the main drunk kid had a body mic that he had grab by the corner of his shirt for it to work. And yes: drunks do talk to their shirts. So it worked. After this, there was a dance performance with styles representing all the states the kids were from; I think they said 12 or 16 styles were represented. And there were outfits! And the music was quite good because it was performed by the teachers. Cap it all off with a crazy short Keralese shadow puppet show.
Who says there's no culture in Hyderabad?

I heart Mumbai

With only a regular weekend to go, we really didn't get enough time there. We left Friday evening (after a three hour delay!) and arrived at our hotel around midnight. We stayed in the south, which is the old city. The hotel was smack in the middle of Fort, an old colonial area, about a block from what was until a few years ago known as Victoria Terminus, or VT as everyone there calls it. The official name is Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus. It's a huge crazy Victorian Gothic frothy crazy fabulous thing, with local critter-gargoyles: monkeys, alligators, peacocks, bats, rats and a bunch of other things carved into the stone. Inside it looks like an English train station. Lots of Mumbai, especially the old parts, looks like England. I know it's a colonial city, but still I was suprised by the degree to which it did. If you ignored the signs and the humidity, you could easily think you were in Liverpool--especially on the drive from the airport on the flyovers (like freeways)in the middle of the night.

It's a very different city from Hyderabad. It's not under construction for one. We saw zero goats, and less scooters. More cars, and the taxis in the city are not autorickshaws, but black and yellow Soviet era little cars. Clearly Mumbai has tons more money and an infrastructure built by colonial and neocolonial capital. Broad tree-lined avenues, wide sidewalks, the outsides of buildings are finished, not covered in bamboo scaffolding. The streets are not full of pot-holes and construction workers from the country in bare feet, carrying boulders and piles of rubble from one side of the road to another. The foreign capital in Hyderabad really needs to invest in infrastructure; but they won't; they don't need to. Information tech doesn't require it.

Mumbai is a city that is relatively clean, modern, and bustling in a way that feels energizing, rather than chaotic. People are friendly but they don't stare.Foreigners are as common as dirt. Something about the city seems more laid back, less desperate (that might be money, it might be something else too).

It rained on the first morning, and contrary to all advice and reports it was not flooded. We got sunburned, actually. We went on the ferry to Elephanta Island, climbed up 1/4 mile of stairs, and saw 7th C. temples dedicated mostly to Shiva. We were obsessed with the monkeys and the jungle and the dogs there. For us it will be forever known as Monkey Island. There were no elephants there. The ferry ride was rough both ways. About an hour on choppy seas; it's only 12 km away, but it was a very slow boat. Sideways there, and up and down back. We barely talked because we were concentrating on not getting seasick and puking our guts out by keeping our eyes fixed on something not moving (an island, a boat, whatever). By the time we got back to Mumbai, we were hot hot hot, sweaty, and slightly sunsick. We stumbled over to the Hotel Taj Mahal, where I've never been happier to be a rich American. It's from 1903 and gorgeous. We cleaned up and went to the Sea lounge. We just happened to be there at tea time, and were rewarded with a yummy buffet of savory and sweet snacks, both English and Indian. Samosas, all manner of pastry stuffed with spinach and mushrooms and cheese, and little bits of roasted corn on the cob. There were also cakes, and muffins, and scones with cream and raspberry jam, and little chocolate mousse parfaits. A full luxurious and decadent spread. With very very nice tea. And apparently, fancy hotels will bring you paracetemol (like Tylenol) if you ask them for some aspirin. I had a mean sun-headache, so after we popped into the bookstore (for a guidebook) in the shopping arcade in the hotel, we went back to our regular hotel so I could shower, ice my head, and drink gallons of water. Two hours later I was all better, and Sion had a plan.

We dressed and went out to dinner at Khyber, "the best restaurant in Mumbai" according to our travel guide. It didn't disappoint. It's so well-known there's not much of a sign. It does look like a palace inside, and we were seated in a room dominated by two paintings by M.F. Husain, an Indian artist surrounded by controversy for his work; he's in exile now. I found out later who he was; the waiter told us as he noticed my commenting on the portrait of the well-endowed woman with no face, just boobs and lips. Guess what I was saying... The food was very good; rich and buttery and well spiced. Mughlai cuisine is apparently full of meat and butter. What could be better? We feasted again on lamb, paneer kofta, and dal, and of course there was lots of buttery naan and rice. We barely put a dent in the food, which I think frustrated the waiters. They kept wanting to serve us more and we kept stopping them.

We attempted the nightlife; next door to Kyber there is a super hip nightclub with no sign, called The Red Light. Yes, there is a red light outside. Lonely Planet told us about it. The crowd was very young, and even though my receding headache meant I didn't feel like drinking, I was still curious. When we get to pay the cover we expected about $25 for both of us. Covers charges are for couples; singles (known as stags here) have a hard time getting into clubs. They wanted double that, and were going to close within about an hour and half. The music was all techno, and the crowd was really young (under 25). 50 bucks for a techno club: not so much.

The next day we went walking all around: saw VT properly, then Chowpatty beach where I had to touch the Arabian sea. From there we went up to see the dhobi ghat which is next to a suburban train station. A dhobi is a traditional laundryman; and I think ghats are stairs or mountains. The dhobi ghat near Mahalaxmi station is pretty famous; about 200 dhobis and their families work there (its an occupation passed down within families). From there we caught the train (I bought a garland of jasmine from an old lady and her apprentice at the station) and we went up to Batra, a shopping district in the north. After tromping around the streets we had lunch: we stumbled into some kid's birthday party, but they let us sit at the edge. Some delicious chole bhatura, a fried puffy bread served with curried buttery chick peas garnished with slivers of beets and paneer and green onions and a couple of chilies. We mostly ignored the thali (combo plate) I ordered. We also got to have a safe version of classic Indian street food, Pani puri. Little fried puffs of dough that are hollow: you crack the top, fill it with some curried potatoes, and then dip in into two different sauces that are water based: one's tamarind and the other's green and spicy. You pop the whole thing into your mouth and it explodes as you bite down. insanely messy and delicious. We can't eat it on the street because of the high water content of the sauces; but this restaurant makes their with mineral water; the menu said so. From there we went to run around the shoe market, an area where there are tons of shoes. But nothing said take me home. We saw our first elephant! Sion stood in traffic to get pictures for me. So gallant and crazy. Then it was time to head to the airport.

I saw monkeys and an elephant and ancient temples, and markets, and colonial stuff, and ate really well. Why can't the company be in Mumbai? Why? Why?

Monkey Island! and Mumbai and the Arabian Sea and an elephant and dogs, and ancient temples, and markets, and trains, and the dhobi ghat and and and

I'ts called Elephanta Island, but we saw not elephants. Instead: many many monkeys and a few dogs. Dogs and monkeys get along; who knew?

Just when you thought I was going to keep blogging about TV we go have an adventure! many stories, but for now, some pictures.

Mimicry and Mass Media Madness

We've been watching downloaded BBC shows at night--tired of going out to the same places, and just plain tired I think (poor Sion's been sick). Up until last week it was Doctor Who, and then Life on Mars (about a guy who wakes up after an accident and its 1973--and he's a cop) and Spaced, a comedy about two loser chums (boy/girl) who share a flat. There are about 5 channels in English, including HBO that has commercials. There are at least 6 versions of Indian Idol, which Hirin, the housekeeper, watches every chance he gets. He actually takes careful notes, and then he transcribes them. And since I hang out at the house alone often enough during the day, I've been the only one to see him receive phone calls and then apparently report on the results of the shows, reading his notes and chatting. I think since I leave him to it, he's happy enough. He doens't do it when Allison's around. Probably because she does things like spend entire afternoons dismantling the kitchen and speaking loudly and slowly to him about how she likes things cleaned and organized just so. Me? I'm grateful to him for cleaning up after us and doing our laundry.

There are 4 or 5 music video channels, and every other commercial's got a song and dance number. Most movies on TV have musical numbers in them, even the dramas (I'm guessing based on the music and melodramatic chewing of scenery). We bought a copy of Lagaan, (based on Ding's recommendation--that and it had subtitles) and I expected big, ponderous drama. The premise is this: the monsoon's failed for three years, a starving village is forced to pay a double tax, or lagaan. They are offered a chance to play cricket as a bet against the tax. Ok; now that I've written that out, how could it be all serious? I know. It's full of singing and dancing--even in the super-dramatic parts. I started to love the singing and dancing. Duh: there were outfits and choreography. Lucky for me, Sion was there to explain the cricket in the last half hour of the movie; the reactions shots from the crowd, yay or boo, weren't quite enough: what do you mean, the game lasts three days???

I wish the musicals (on at the cinema and on TV and in the stores) had subtitles. I'll still watch bits and pieces of the TV ones, but after a while I lose interest. Too many commercials and it's not that fun when I have no idea what's going on. I suppose we could Mystery Science Theater it (we did a bit while we were watching Dracula the other night).

I've a theory that in terms of mass hybridized culture its the 90s here. Ally McBeal is on TV during prime time: as is Seinfeld and Friends. The bars here love love love nothing more than techno, and the 70's nostalgia that prompted the return of hip-hugging pants and retro nightclubs is all over the trendy fashions you see in the shops, especially in menswear. Sion argues its because they didn't get the 70s the first time around. I blame post-colonial mimicry.

Mumbai Mambo!

Everybody dance! We're going to Mumbai next weekend. Against all other candidates because it's not suppossed to be raining too much next week, it's easy to get a nonstop flight, and its relatively close (around an hour's flight) Plus: Elephanta caves which house temples cut from the rocks there, dating from around 5th century C.E. Now: whether we can actually get there depends on the weather; if its raining or stormy, no. But even still there's lots to do. Markets and bazaars, and temples, and colonial crap, and lots of food, and a fishing village, and the insane lunch delivery system at the train station (people have home-cooked meals delivered to their offices) and beaches, and actual nightlife.

I've come to realize that being in Hyderabad and saying I'm going to see India on the weekends is a bit like being somewhere in Kansas, say Topeka and announcing that I'm going to see the USA on the weekends. Yes, you could do it: by flying around and spending most of your time in the air or otherwise in transit. You could take the train and see the countryside, but then you'd have to turn around and come back the minute you got there because you can only be gone on the weekend. And countryside for it's own sake doesn't really excite me. I want to see cities and places where people are.

We'll go to Delhi and arrange a trip to Agra to see the Taj Mahal at the end of our time here. Trying to figure out how to get to Khajuraho for our anniversary.

Yesterday we went to Ramoji Film City. I took many photos of authentically fake places. This place is living breathing simulacrum. Click here if you want to see the photos of the road there and back, and lots of authentically fake stuff.

It was so much fun. My favorite might have been the Wild West section of the park. And the trash cans.

Noblesse Oblige and other lies

We see more goats than cows. Goats and goats and goats. I like them.

The housemate situation's gotten more interesting/annoying. But it's temporary. It's a three bedroom apartment, with a sitting room (with doors) a tv room that's connected to the dining room, and a kitchen. The housekeeper, Hirin sleeps in the sitting room. There have been three housemates, more or less. Satya, an Indian guy who's originally from Hyderabad but left at 17 (lived all over the West and Singapore since then: he's back some 12 or 13 year later now)--he's easygoing and mellow, and willing to translate and act as a native informant, to a limited degree. Then there's Lance (who sleeps at a hotel, but hangs out at the house) the Chinese American ex-fratboy I wrote about recently, and then there's the intensely bossy blowhard Swede, Bjorn. We've come to an understanding; He tries to organize us and we act like cats. His American wife, Allison has recently joined us. She and Bjorn will leave next week. I'm very glad of that.

It's a shame too, since I was so intensely missing the company of women. I was looking forward to hanging out and going on shopping adventures together. Even if we had nothing in common (which we don't) I can still shop with pretty much anyone (how high maintenance can she be?) or so I thought. This is a woman who makes my shoulders hurt. She really really wants to be the lady of the house. I think she imagines herself as a delicate flower. Has nothing but disdain for India, and complains about pretty much everything. Here's the thing: yes, it's the third world. Deal. We have it really good here. Duh it's hot; it's SUMMER. No kidding there are strong smells from food and people. And noise, and music, and talking you don't understand. And yes, there are poor people. Dude: you live in LOS ANGELES. (But then, I come to find out, not really)

She actually said, when I suggested we go out in an autorickshaw if the driver wasn't available: I'm afraid of smells. She really needs to go home to Redondo Beach where she's going to have airconditioning installed. In their house near the beach. With the travertine floors, installed by a guy they want to recommend to us (dude: do you have any idea how much more money than us you have??)

Confronting one's privilege is hard. I really get that now. I understood that when the last time I went to Ensenada with my family I was freaked out by my relative wealth and resentment at having to give everyone money when I myself was broke in my own eyes. That was about 6 years ago, and I didn't really deal; I just felt guilty at buying hair products that cost 25 bucks). But I really get it now. Noblesse oblige is a big lie. Bjorn (who's been in the states for about 15 years) thinks he's got it, but really its condescension. I think I may well have some more empathy for my students and their freakouts when confronted by their relative privilege. Race and class privilege in particular (though straight privilege is really no joke).

4th of July in India

We'd been told that we should find the nearest consulate and go for a 4th of July party: the admission ticket is your US passport, and inside it's all hotdogs and fireworks. US inside, India outside. Headtripariffic. Sadly, the nearest one is in Delhi, a 2 hour plane trip. So, instead we made due with hanging out with one of the housemates, who's all super-patriotic (he spent an hour drawing a flag and the message "Happy Birthday America" with dryerase markers on a window in the office), and drinking shitty vodka mixed with Minute Maid pulpy orange drink. It's not orange juice, but it's better than Sunny Delite. It's like Orangina without the carbonation. Not too bad, really. And we set off two leftover streamer/confetti poppers leftover from my birthday. Yay. We could've gone to buy what would be really illegal fireworks in the old city, but noone thought about it. This is the youngest housemate, Lance, an easygoing, Chinese-American former frat dude programmer who went to school at UC Davis. He grew up in Chinatown, and during the course of several drunken conversations has revealed his relative comfort levels with Mexicans and Chinese people (high) and Whites and Blacks (ok for middle class folks, really not with poor poeple). Talking about race and class and gender here and at home (ie: who gets stared at, why, how women dress, immigrant parents, school, neighborhoods, food) over many vodkas was an amusing and I think appropriate way to spend Fourth of July abroad. He's close to 10 years younger than we are, and he reminds me of my brothers in some ways I can't quite pin down.

I've been reading the NYT online as well as the BBC. I'm floored (and yet somehow not suprised) at Bush's latest "I AM THE LAW" shenanigans. I found this commentary cheering somehow, and it reminded me of why I wanted to be a good citizen when I was a kid. (Hat tip to Bitch PhD) I loved the idea of patriotism, even if it makes me a little bit squirmy now. Still, I wonder if anyone actually saw this on TV? Or did they air it at 2am?

Roasted Cheese

There are some aspects of the food here I'm not going to miss: the screamingly hot chilies in pretty much everything, the sour suprise veggies, the often sour-hot dahl. But then there's the food from the tandoor restaurant in the Sheraton. Tandoori roasted paneer. Dayam. That's competing with the lamb for the most delicious thing we've had since we got here. And that I'll miss the most when we go home. There's no such thing as tandoori cheese in Redlands, or within 100 miles, or perhaps most tragically, in any Indian and/or Pakistani restaurant in the states.

Please let me be wrong.

Birthday bliss.

This Saturday we we went shopping at a place called Big Bazaar. If Ikea and Kmart had a lovechild crack baby this would be it. 5 stories of mayhem and "interesting offers" filled with families pretty late. I bought more cotton for outfits and some stuff for the kitchen. A pot, some cute silver bowls that may or may not make it home with me. There were at least two guys on every floor with megaphones shouting: Buy One! Get One! Buy One! Get One! and holding something like a plastic bucket, or a pair of rubber sandals.

On my birthday, I was showered with loot. Pearls. YAY pearls. Hyderabad is known for its pearls. Lucky me.

We went out to the Sheraton, drank for many hours and feasted at Peshawari, a sort of psuedorustic fancy tandoor restaurant with copper chargers and cups, regional outfits on the waiters, and for no apparent reason statues of Athena in little alcoves along the walls. We ate and ate and ate delicious roasted yumminess: Tandoori Lobster (insanely delicious); A leg of lamb (the best I've ever ever had); a North Indian version of twice baked potatoes--roasted potato surrounding mashed potatoes with nuts and cheese; roasted paneer--it gets this insanely delicious crust, and of course yogurt and bread and rice. We have leftovers for days. We're eating them tonight.

I've been taking pictures of signage and everyday things. Here are some.

And I got my first two outfits back, finally. These are "plain" according to the salespeople. Plain. Check out the embroidery. And the mirrors on the brown pants.

It's my birthday. Where should we go?

I'm turning 36 on the opposite side of the globe from where I was born. We're planning weekend trips as part of the fun-for-us-while-we're-here-and-it'-my birthday-and-then-next-month-it's-our-12th-anniversary-planning

Here are the options, if we can figure out how to get there.
We'll probably go to Agra to see the Taj Mahal: I know I'll never live it down if we don't. And we'll probably spend at least a day in Delhi. But then there are other weekends. For the same amount we'd spend going to Singapore, we could do two other weekends domestically.

Vote for your favorite:

a. Mumbai: Big city, tons to do, but flooded at the moment (and likely to remain that way for the rest of the monsoon season). Temples nearby. And Elephanta caves.
b. Amritsar: Golden temple, can go see the Indian/Pakistan Border, where they line up their armies and march away from each other at sunset.
c. Khajuraho: Ancient erotic temples. Lots of them.
There are probably monkeys in all three. Don't know about elephants though.

or, of course:
d. your suggestion. Ed's comment reminded me that I should ask. So, tell me.