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.