a weekend away, continued...

so, as i said, on friday morning we happily left pondicherry- by we i mean lindsey, anna, and myself- most of the others spent one more night in pondicherry before joining us in mamallapuram- also called mahibilipuram-or for those of us who tend to mix the two into some crazy hybrid like mamallahabilapuram- just plain old m-town. mamalla is 58 km south of chennai and a two(ish) hour bus ride north of pondicherry. it is apparently the stone-carving capital of india and somehow manages to seem
both like a sleepy little fishing village and a small tourist hotspot. i definately saw more non-indians in mamalla than anywhere else i have been- most of them were european backpackers and burnouts- but it still felt like a return to india from disorienting pondicherry. there are only a few streets, all of them lined with shop after colorful shop, their owners outside trying to entice anyone and everyone inside. it is also full of ayurvedic massage places, orphanages, and elevated restaurants-that is, the restaraunts are generally on the second floor with open air thatched roofs. mamalla posseses a certain charm that is apparent the moment you lay eyes on it (and after a few days, as with most charming places, it can lose that charm just as easily).
our first day consisted mostly of making ourselves comfortable in our room at the Tina Blue Lodge and taking advantage of the beach (which, unlike pondicherry, is actually beachy-there is sand and bathing suits are actually acceptable). tina blue is a doll of a little place for the price- less than $7 a night for all three of us combined. our concrete room had a much-needed though slipshod mosquito net and its own bathroom, complete with turkish toilet and bucket shower, so it obviously didn't matter that there was never any power during the day! basically it was my idea of perfect, and by the end of our two days there, i felt as if we had become part of the family that ran the place.
as for the beach...


it is strewn with the incredibly colorful fishing boats (and gossamer fishing nets of equal vibrance) of fisherman who haven't been able to go out for the past few days due to rough waters. it is also ripe with cows, various washed-up and decaying sea creatures, jewelry and sarong hawkers, and lazy sunbathers.



the mamallapuram beach is also home of the shore temple, one of the most photographed monuments in india and the oldest stone-built temple in south india. that is it in the background there.
m-town seems to have endless shore temples or underwater temples or cave temples or temples-with-a-view...


back up for a second, did she say underwater temple? yes she did! this brings me to the aforementioned potential best day of my life- i would say it would certainly rank in the top ten. on saturday we woke just after sunrise around 6:30 and walked the equivalent of about a block down to the beach. with few people awake and the morning light just beginning to weave its way through narrow streets, it really seemed like a fishing village, plain and simple, charming. perhaps i'm just romanticizing like all tourists do, but there were no tourists out yet (and, by the way, we like to call ourselves 'travelers'). anyway, we walked among the beached boats and found a fishing crew to take us out to see an underwater temple we had been told about, a task that was surprisingly easily accomplished. sitting on the wooden motor-powered little vessel, they pushed us out into the breaking waves of the bay of bengal. we crashed through the rough surf- we crashed for a long time, even once we were past the breakers. lindsey was holding onto my hand for dear life and anna almost broke her tailbone, we were all soaked to the bone, and for me life was magnificently crisp, clear, unclouded. out on the choppy water, far from the shore, we could see the shore temple and the shore-stranded fishing boats taking another day of rest, and in the direction of pointing fishermanfingers we could see-nothing? actually, for a split-second we could see a few inches of the top of what the imagination can construct as temple that was flooded long ago by a rising sea. apparently when the water is calm and clear you can look down at it from the boat and see the whole thing, but it doesn't matter to me that i couldn't see some underwater temple, it matters that i went out in a rickety little boat with the rising sun and saw a bit of the seafaring life, it matters that we rode a long wave to shore on the rickety little boat, and it matters that our fishermen friends popped up all over town for the next few days.
here's a picture of them:
ok, so onwards with the day. we stayed on the beach for a while
drying our clothes in the sea breeze, doing sun salutatons and what have you, and still the sun was rising. we were the first for a
lovely breakfast at a lovely restaraunt that served lovely crepes
and lassis and coffee-FILTER coffee! and then we rented mopeds.
all the woman who rented them to us asked was "is this ok in the
staes?" to which we obviously replied "yes" and without signing anything, after paying our four bucks for the day, we onto our next adventure.
after a shaky start in the more populated streets we made it to the open road and let those suckers fly. actually, none of the speedometers worked, and cars were passing us, and... but hey, it was close enough to flying. we were our own badass motorcycle gang, roaring out of town, leaving nothing but a cloud of dust...
we took a road that runs parallel to the coast- it is not shoreside per ser, but close to it. there was an expanse of land-often barren, often occupied by fishing village huts or hutch cell phone recharge stores or lotus ponds- but always palm-tree scattered with a view of the water. shortly after leavng town, we visited the tiger temple and its accompanying beach, and then rode on another 17 km-wind on the face, hair in the wind, along the edge of india- to Crocodile Bank, a huge croc farm that is home to Jaws III, India's largest. i think it was at that point we collectively realized that it was not even noon and already this day was incredible. i guess you had to be there.
and as soon as we realized this, it all went downhill, naturally. my moped had gotten suddenly much louder on the ride there, and when we were leaving i realized the silencer on my bike had detached on one end and was dragging on the ground. ok, fine, pay some guy with a monkey 10 rupees to tie it up with wire. but then the damn thing wouldn't start, not even with the help of about ten moped savvy dudes. arghhh. what the? #%@*!!!!!!!
so finally i hopped on the back of lindsey's scooter and was able to keep my eyes off the road all the way back to the moped stand where a rather messy and long-lasting argument ensued. basically they wanted me to pay for damage i did not do- honestly i didn't do a thing. they were trying to tell me that the bike was brand new when it obviously was anything but- proved by the fact that it just fell apart on me. they blamed us and we blamed them, we said no contract, no money for you. they wanted us to pay the welding fee and the price of gas for the owner to get all the way back out there. it was the principle of the thing that we were really arguing about, not the money. after several return visits throughout the day, several more arguments, we paid the three dollars and made amends because they agreed to pay their own gas fee. not gonna lie, it was pretty silly, but also ridiculous and frustrating.
the poor end of the day balanced out the unreal beginning- both of my traveing companions got food poisoning, which i somehow managed to escape despite having had the same food.
on sunday we met up with some travelers we had met the day before- yatan from israel, misho from holland, and anjelicka from austria- and took the bus back to chennai with them, ate the biggest dosas i have ever seen, said our goodbyes, and hopped on the train back home to hyderabad.
of course there is a lot i didn't mention, like the eight year old kid on the beach who taught me tamil and then tried to make a date with me, the earrings i found with the exact same silverwork pattern as my favorite bracelet from back home, and milos' twenty cousins who were hanging out with me at tina blue...but i think for now the story must end here.


or, i'll end at the quasi-beginning, with a visual of the pondicherry beach on republic day.

on returning from holiday...

in places unseen by me before this weekend, i feel refreshed and, as always, a little wiser to the world. because we understand the world and our position in it in terms of opposition- in terms of what or where or who we are not-travel not only gives one a better understanding of the alien, but also of home. home for me has truly become hyderabad, and so it follows that my little jaunt to the eastern coast of india has given me a better appreciation for this dusty central city.
but on to the good stuff... i may have said that i was going to chennai, but my experience of that city doesn't go any farther than two shortish rickshaw rides and some time in the train station (which, by the way, might be the nicest part of the city- certainly the nicest train station i have seen in india so far; very european in layout, very clean-almost impossibly clean in this litter-strewn country).
everyone on my program save three people came on this trip- it was an independant excursion, not one planned by ciee. on wednesday night we hopped on an overnight bus- it arrived an hour late, but that's not too unreasonable for what they call IST (indian standard time). eventually i fell asleep and was later roused for our one bathroom/snack break. i stepped off the bus into the middle of nowhere- honestly, there was a snack shack where we ate parathas off of plates made of banana leaves and nothing else. the restroom was really just an unlit sideroad- it was unreal to walk along it out of the lights of the food tent and let my eyes adjust to the complete darkness; once adjusted, i could see the most incredible night sky i have seen since i was in new zealand. it's easy to forget just how many stars the firmament contains, and even on rare occasions such as this when you think you can see everything, it's still impossible to comprehend eternity. just those fifteen minutes in the middle of nowhere were worth sleeping sitting up and listening to a too-loud broadcast of a terribly bizarre telugu movie.
we arrived in chennai before nine on wednesday morning, and surprisingly were met by our friend anand who had some business there. he (and his 'driver') shuttled us quickly to a bus depot where we immediately caught a bus- much, much less luxurious than the overnighter- to pondicherry, about three or four hours south of chennai. pondicherry, for those of you who don't know, is a former french colony. it is also the starting point of the book life of pi. it also didn't really do anything extraordinary for me.
i stayed in a very charming little hotel called villa pondicherry- a sort of artsy-quaint feel, more a house than a hotel- in a room with my friends lindsey and anna (the other pronunication).
basically all i did in pondicherry was wander around, eat french and various world cuisine other than indian, drink, and get a good night's sleep. there was a lunch in a courtyard restaurant that not only looked european, but smelled it as well- a very strange, out-of-country experience. the neighborhoods near the beach (where we were staying- a fifteen minute walk to the shore) could have been some small french village somewhere, but not one that can be romanticized easily. i went to the botanical gardens-nothing to report from there- and then to the beach. the reason we were able to leave on wednesday was because thursday was republic day, and the main drag of pondicherry- the coastal road- was crowded with people. the beaches of podicherry are not remarkable in my opinion- just some large rocks that quickly fall into the bay of bengal. however, it was nice to finally see some water, to reach the edge of this subcontinent, to taste salt on my lips and feel sand in my eyes. we sat on the rocks facing the water, draining our bottles of kingfisher as the light drained from the sky, had a delicious dinner, and passed out from the exhaustion of travel- three of us crammed on a double bed.
in the morning we had breakfast in a place that fit anna's imagined "aristocratic india"- under a palm frond hut in the middle of a manicured garden with a prinstine white hotel in the background. then we blew that popcicle stand, got the hell out of dodge, etc.
Mamallapuram, a small fishing village cum tourist/chennai vacation spot, was the real adventure of the weekend...soooo much better than pondicherry, hands down (in my opinion, of course).
One of the best days of my life was had in mamallapuram even before noon.

and this, my friends, is what they call a cliffhanger.

thay say that a picture is worth a thousand words...

and since i don't have much to say at the moment, i'll let the pictures speak for me. here is a random sampling of photos from my adventure thus far:


qutb minar- delhi




golconda fort- hyderabad




on the river- agra (behind the taj)




rickshaw ride at a bird sanctuary- somehwere in rajasthan



so now that i've figured how to put photos up- more to come!

hey look, it's me!

i mean, this will be me in a few months once i have mastered the art of kuchipudi dancing. lessons begin next week.
kuchipudi is the traditional dance of andhra pradesh- the state where hyderabad (and i as well, of course) is located.

yesterday was the first time in a long time that i was up before sunrise...

on a saturday morning. before yoga, i did my routine run around and around the soccer field behind the yoga building as the sun rose, brilliant orange. our yoga teachers had been watching us out the window and were not too pleased- apparently no exercise for at least a half hour before practicing the asanas, and no water either! it makes sense, though, as steady, slow breath is a key part of yoga.
in the afternoon we went out for what i would have called a sterotypical girls' afternoon if it weren't for the presence of ricky, the sole male of our group. it was an afternoon at the spa- or, more correctly, at an ayurvedic healing center that specializes in message therapy. (for those of you who don't know what ayurveda is, it's a kind of holistic medicinal practice that originated in india- big focus on herbs, yoga, etc... ). just waiting for the message was itself a relaxing experience- in the middle of the wood-paneled, incense filled waiting room there was a large round vat of water on top of which a design had been made out of marigold and other flower petals, completely obscuring all sight of the water. it looked like an undulating painting, very psychadelic.
not one but two women gave me a massage, each doing the same motions on each side of my body. it was an aromotheraputic message, and they began by rubbing scented oil into the roots of my hair. i also had a facial (not for me, really) and then they put me in a big box-like thing where i sat with only my head protruding as steam poured in- the most intense steam bath ever but afterwards, i felt completely pure.
after the hour was done, i felt very blissed out, perfectly calm- it was fabulous. a day of pampering never hurt anyone, right? though it wasn't quite as cheap as messages in the baths of budapest, it was well worth it. mmmmmmm...
today is a lazy day, a day for homework in the sun. hopefully my posts will improve after our trip to chennai and pondicherri, but for now life is slow and relaxing- perfect for me but not so conducive to blogging.

a free afternoon is always an adventure...

i spent the afternoon exploring the city. leaving some friends at a cafe, i took a long walk up a less congested sidestreet. eventually i turned onto yet another street- it became suddenly quiter and the trees grew taller and greener. there was still plenty of activity, still street vendors and cars, but something was different- the light was different, and the volume level, and the temperature; another world just minutes away. giving up on trying to find the store i decided to continue the walk because it was so peaceful, and eventually, the store found me. that walk- the peace amid chaos and the comfort of exploring alone- was just what i needed. i then met two other friends at a restaurant called bombay blue for a happy hour cocktail, but the point of the following anecdote is not to elaborate the impossible blue color of my silly drink, but the crazy adventure that ensued.
first, most of the auto-rickshaws here have meters, but rarely are they used. generally, one bargains a price with the driver before getting in. tonight we took a metered auto-no big deal. it was a nice evening, and the breeze coming in the open sides of the rickshaw was a great relief from today's heat (it is january- what will i do in april?). i have gotten pretty used to the driving here, which is unlike any driving i have experienced in my life. the painted lines that pass for lanes in other parts of the world don't really signify anything in india and there is such continual beeping that you can never tell who it is directed at- seemingly defeating the purpose. bicycles, motorcycles (often with entire families on board- tonight i saw two parents and three young kids on board the same bike), auto rickshaws, bike rickshaws, small cars, big cars, buses, trucks, cows, pedestrians, roosters...one is likely to come across all of these on the road on even the shortest trip. i don't think traffic lights exist outside major city centers and i am continually amazed that i haven't seen any bad accidents given how close vehicles come to each other and to people in the streets- i can't tell if these are the worst or the best drivers in the world, but they sure are fun.
anyway, our driver had no clue where he was going because no one has any clue where our school or even gachibowli is. kiana was trying to explain to him in hindi, but he kept pulling over and asking random people who gave him the same answers as she did. we were pulled over one at a security checkpoint and the rickshaw was searched- tomorrow they are having the 82nd plenary at gachibowli stadium and every single important political figure in india will be there- so security has also been tight for that reason. i can't even describe how many huge welcome posters are hung all over gachibowli- literally every few meters there is something: poster, billboard, larger than life cutout photo of congressman x, huge and bright temporary arches over the roads every few minutes...crazy.
again, anyway. finally, he drove us past the gates of our school- they are kind of easy to miss coming from the direction we were coming from. we asked him to let us out in a town just down the road called lingampully and he demanded 400 rupees when the meter clearly said 150- no one in their right mind would pay that much even if there wasn't a meter to prove it. slyly he cleared the meter and continued to demand 400Rs. we continued to say no- we even tried to give him 200, but he still wouldn't accept- he leaned aginst his rickshaw with his arms crossed and a scowl on his face. finally, after trying to convey to him for ten minutes that it was the 200 or nothing, we walked away with our monay and got into another rickshaw to take us back to school. he didn't seem to be following us, but just as we were starting to go he ran up to our driver and apparently told him his version of the story. basically, what happened was that we became surrounded by men- most of them also drivers who were just taking a roadside break- while we tried to work the situation out. i suppose we could have just given him his 400Rs.- it still would have been much cheaper than a ride of that length in the states- but on principle we refused to be cheated. kiana has had a few semesters of hindi so she tried to tell them our story- that the meter clearly said 150, we offered him more, he refused-but we wound up sitting in the richshaw surrounded by about ten guys for twenty minutes arguing about something ridiculous in a language we don't know. we couldn't really tell if the others were on our side or his, but finally he took our offer and left. he was just blatantly trying to scam us- to a point beyond which the scam would have been worth it. it was absurd and a little scary. i don't think my story telling capabilities have done it justice- i guess its one of those things where you had to be there, as they say.
well. a new day a new adventure, but for now i need some sleep.
side note: i apologize for any typos or grammatical errors in this blog- looking back i found one atrocious mistake for which i tend to give others grief, so oops! i guess we're all hypocrites at some point or another, yes?

a sundried wardrobe...

i just finished doing some laundry in a bucket in our bathroom- again we had no water for a little while there, but now it has returned in all its ice cold glory. there is something relaxing about washing clothes by hand and then hanging them to dry in the sun. i like to sit among the laundry lines on the roof at sunset and watch the orange light filtered through white shirts.
oh, india. there is rarely a day that goes by sans power outage or loss of water. the first floor has rats and my floor- the third- has bats, and of course the geckos are everywhere.
my program has told me that the whole security lock down deal has to do with the all india conference which is taking place, so i don't know about the whole bangalore business.
i don't have much to say today, just a lot of time to pass away...

now don't get all worried...

tonight we had plans to go out for jasmine tea, but alas, they were foiled- by terrorists, apparently...
like i said, don't worry. my incomplete understanding of the situation is this: there was a bomb at some tech school in bangalore and plans were uncovered for a similar incident in HITEC city- the next town over from gachibowli where i stay. i'm not sure what kind of terrorist organization is involved or the message they are trying to convey, but there have been random roadblocks on varius roads for the past few days, and now i guess i know why. about a week ago, my rickshaw was stopped and my bag searched by some military guys with rifles- very informally, though- and i don't even think that was related.
basically, all the schools in the area are on lock down. for the next five days no one will be able to enter or exit the campus past 7pm. i can already feel cabin fever setting in...but at least i'll be safe. my friend said there was an article on the international herald tribune website but i couldn't find it and all this info is word of mouth.
fear not, everything will be just swell. we'll all get more school work done, anyway.
speaking of work, hindi is a killer. i'm sure it will all come together for me soon, but for now the inundation of new sounds and character is kind of overwhelming. at least the script is beautiful and very theraputic to write- i finally understand the appeal of caligraphy.
i'm pretty sure my gay indian poetry teacher thinks i worship the ground he walks on- he's already given me his autobiography and a nice copy of one of his collections of poems as gifts. i'm not complaining.
it is incredible how fast we make friends here--everyone has tons of "cousins" and friends and there are new people every day. i suppose because the first friend we made (actually a college friend of one of the girl's on my program) is very wealthy, we have entered into a social circle of the very wealthy. it seems like they are all either engineering majors or preparing to take over the family business. each time they take us out, they pay the price of everything for all of us- and though it is in our nature to feel guilty about the excessive rupees being spent on us, it is in their nature to consider it duty. besides, as i have been reminded, the cash they drop on us for coffee or clubs is just a "drop in the bucket" for them.
last night a bunch of us went out to an english pub, and besides certain strange elements, i felt like i could have been back in the states. these elements included hookah (kind of out of context in an english pub, no?), a lot of 80s hair metal, and a mysterious dj voice coming from nowhere (there wasn't even a dance floor) welcoming us "expats" and playing us led zeppelin's immigrant song. we wound up at the guest house of these brothers shaqr and shiva-their guest house was nicer than most houses i've ever seen of course. actually, it was an apartment, and from the roof of the building we could see the city spread out before us- looking at an abundance of strangely orange lights from up high reminded me of san jose and sitting on the hill behind ginger's house silently watching the city twinkle the night away.
had i gone out a few nights ago (i was writing a paper on t.s. eliot and sultan padamsee instead) i would have been surprised to find myself at this guy anand's STABLE, where his family keep thier TWENTY polo ponies- i would have found myself RIDING these incredibly nice horses in the middle of the night, helped by barn assistents, in borrowed riding boots. oh... i envy those who had that experience.
it must not sound like it from these stories, but for a while i felt very stifled because campus is in the middle of nowhere and i had not been off it in a few days. the heat and constant sunshine is also oppressive- at least for someone like me who craves rain and the comfort of overcast skies. however, i was taking a bike ride yesterday and i finally appreciated the calm of campus- the sight of sarees and salwaar kameezes coloring the dust brown and nearly green landscape of university of hyderabad, the slowing effect the heat has on life, the bikes and motorcycles and dirt roads and the shade of trees, the people drinking chai at any and every hour. i suppose after constantly doing and seeing things in delhi, i was a little unprepared for normal university life, but now i am quite content. i can lie on the roof in the everpresent sun and read for classes, and afterwards the cold water shower is almost nirvana.
we are planning our first trip for next weekend. actually, we will leave by bus on thursday night and drive through the night to chennai (formerly madras). i assume we will also go to pondicherri since it is only a three hour bus ride from chennai- i never thought i'd be able to use my french in india! also, isn't that the place where life of pi started? i'll try not to wind up on a boat with a crazy bengal tiger and no sunblock.

the kites still scatter the sky...
i woke up to people trying to fly kites on the roof, just on the other side of my boarded-up window. the pathway to the door of our guesthouse has been decorated in designs outlined in chalk and filled in with brightly colored talc powder. the sun is bright as well, i can already feel the unbearable summer approaching...i got my first burn in india today, but just a little one.
after lunch i hopped in an auto rickshaw with three friends and we took it into banjara hills, a relatively upscale part of town about 20 minutes from campus. we went to two bookstores, both of which had just as much random crap (toys, shampoo, thingums...) as books, and were then picked up by a friend named Anand. he drove us down to necklace road to see the kites- there is a large manmade lake in the middle of hyderabad (with a huge free standing statue of buddha called hassain sagar on an island in the middle) and necklace road is the road that encircles the lake. again, kites were flying from every rooftop. the kites are small and simple, no more than thin sticks and colorful tissue paper, which makes them quite cheap. we stopped at a huge parking lot type thing where everyone was flying kites, bought some, and almost succeeded at getting them airborne. there were also camel rides, and little kids were flying kites from atop the camel-they were also galloping by crazily on tiny pinto ponies. the kite festival is part of a holiday caled Makar Sankranti- i have heard a bunch of different descriptions of it, including a harvest festival. on that subject, the web says: In Andhra Pradesh, it is celebrated as a three-day harvest festival Pongal. It is a big event for the people of Andhra Pradesh. The Telugus like to call it 'Pedda Panduga' meaning big festival. The whole event lasts for four days, the first day Bhogi, the second day Sankranti, the third day Kanuma and the fourth day, Mukkanuma. it seems that different states have slightly different celebrations, but in general i believe it is a celebration of the sun's ascendance into the northern hemisphere starting on the day when there is equal day and night-- it is the most auspicious day for Hindus, but don't quote me on any of this.it made me think of flying kites on the mall in dc as a little one ("chotu" in hindi), and the drive around necklace lake is almost reminiscent of the potomac.
we sat the afternoon away at a coffee shop where they also have hookah, it was all very peaceful until the mosquitos came out. to give you an example of the law here, one of the guys we met at the coffee shop had hit someone in the street (to be honest, i don't see how it doesn't happen more often, these are the craziest roads i have seen in my entire life) and he was just drinking coffee with us right after. if he were to have gotten out of the car, he would have been attacked by a mob of people, but the police wouldn't have done anything- and if they did, he could have paid them off for about 100Rs. (less than two bucks). be at ease, though, the guy was fine apparently. a little disconcerting, though.the one thing i am having the most trouble with here is feeling like i can't go out and explore on my own like i have done in so many other cities of the world. i mean, i can and i will, but being a woman and a white woman especially-a foreign woman who can be easily haggled, gawked at, etc.-is frustrating, a little confining. i can't say that i didn't expect it, though, as i did come here partially to experience how another part of the world lives, but i just haven't acclimated to it yet. there are many places-especially the "tiffins" or snack shops- which are essentially all men, and to go into those places is a weird and not too pleasant experience. a friend told me that he envied us girls our courage in coming here all alone. it makes me appreciate being a woman in america and i realize i have always taken my freedom to do whatever i want for granted even though i thought i understood the situation of others.however, i don't think it is as prevalent or bad as i have made it sound. i don't know enough yet to comment on the gender situation for women in living in this country, i can only speak for myself, and what i just spoke doesn't do justice to my situation. i've explored a lot, done many things- just always with other girls.
i have yet to ride the elephant.

the city has no water...

i don't know why, but this is true. perhaps because yesterday was friday the thirteenth and there is a full moon, who knows?
i just came back from gop's (pronounced like pope, dope, soap on a rope...), a little outdoor canteen on campus just down the road from the sip guesthouse where we are staying. they have the most amazing chai there- a small cup is 2 rupees and a large is 4 (an american dollar is somewhere between 45-50 Rs. so you do the math). to drink this yummy, warm chai- even on a hot day- from a beautiful little cup, sitting outside on a rock or a bench under a huge baobob (maybe) tree or the full moon (like tonight), surrounded by the buzz of laughter in a new language- this is one of the nicest things to do on campus. often after my poetry class we go for chai and chat with our professor for a while, or before class i will go and sit in the shade and read. i don't think i'll be able to live without tea when i return to the states, i may have to force a regular tea time upon whoever i happen to be with in the late afternoon or an hour after dinner...it's incredible how people cannot live without their tea here (it's not even native, though we tend to think it is-it was introduced by the colonial british) but i guess its just like coffee in the u.s. i think if i have one more cup of instant coffee i will be done with it for good.
i finished my oberlin semester yesterday by emailing my last paper to my professor, and consequently my shoulders felt incredibly light today. ciee made us do a scavenger hunt all over the city which no one was excited about, but it turned out to be quite fun. imagine six american girls crammed in the back of an auto rickshaw (an open sided three wheeler, room for three-comfortably), sitting on top of each other, falling out the sides...i literally felt like the thing was going to fall over a few times when we were on unpaved roads. after a few mishaps with other drivers, including running out of gas at one point, we wound up in a rickshaw with an amazing man who took us all over hitec city, hyderabad central, charminar, mehndipatnam, and so on to collect the items on our crazy list; for example: a used ticket stub to a hindi movie, photographs of various train stations and statues and the clock at charminar at the strike of one, a napkin from a subway (footlongs, jared, you know) a business card from a bangle shop, and so on.
it was the kite ceremony today which is apparently a celebration of the harvest, so there were people flying colorful little square kites from every rooftop- you could see them in every part of the city dipping and diving in through the sky like birdies.
i've finally had all my classes, though barely- this is the week when you "shop" for classes and people are still negotiating the meeting times of classes, etc. i have a core course with ciee on indian religion, beginning hindi, gay indian poetry, and a sociology class on the indian diaspora. i also think some of us are going to start bharatnatyam (dance) classes, and of course there is yoga. i am interested to see what it will be like to learn at a graduate university.
the problem with this city, as i have been told by a new friend, is that it goes to sleep so early. last night, after the club we were at closed at midnight (MIDNIGHT!) he took me and a friend for food at a small little shindig for which he is the landlord. they stayed open extra late just for us and made the most delicious food, packaged it all in shiny silver bags tied with rubber bands, and sent us on our way to a royal feast with the rest of the crew on the steps of this friend of a friend's ridiculously huge, posh, gorgeous house.
everyone here has finally caught up on my pencil neurosis- they say they can tell where i've been by the random pencils left behind. and now it's time for me to go to sleep-hopefully without waking up in the middle of the night to find milos (my cohabitant gray gecko, who has ignored me for the past week until last night) on my face, my FACE! i just don't get it, who hangs out on a face? whatever.

candles, the cure, and strawberry ice cream...

it is way too easy to procrastinate in this country. each time i try to write these papers that i got an extension on i realize i am in india and there is so much else to do...
...and then finally when i sit down, motivated, on a role, to finish the last one--the power goes out.
doesn't it always happen that way?
so, instead of writing, i went up on the roof of our house with everyone. from three stories up we could see the entire dark campus and the lights of the city in the distance. we burned candles and incense and blasted the cure from my portable ipod speakers and watched the bats and talked about other dimensions. ice cream was prepared for us in the dark, and as soon as it was ready the lights came back on. doesn't it always happen that way?
i was told by a professor today that when i get serious my face changes into that of some sophisticated european woman of another century. whuh?
so i guess i should go back to writing about nabokov and future recollections, and maybe learn how to write good blogs.

let us go then, you and i...

it is impossible to wake with the sun in a room without windows, a room of eternal night and artificial light, but yesterday i woke at a comparable hour with a little red plastic alarm clock. good enough.
i will be waking this early every weekday morning to go a my seven o clock yoga class. a bunch of people in my program are doing it- we stumble out of the SIP guesthouse as a pack, collectivwely still waking up, and walk down the dusty road to the yoga center. the room, like all rooms here, is made of concrete. it has tall, tall ceilings and blue walls, it faces east so throughout the hour the windows fill with the different lights of a rising sun, illuminating everyone so beautifully in their poses. i would estimate 20-25 people in the class. there is an interesting dynamic between the two teachers- the woman has a calm, soothing voice, she gently corrects your posture if it is wrong, and the man always breaks the peace by yelling "keep the feet up, do the pose right!!!!" it's pretty great though, and i leave after the hour feeling awake and refreshed. i guess that is the point.
i had my first hindi class, which was basically just scheduling, and i biked around campus for a while. the campus is pretty far from the city and many of the roads are dirt. the greenery could be greener, i think i will come to miss green in this dirt brown land but besides that, campus is quite lovelyand charming.
in the afternoon, my gay indian poetry class met for the first time. our teacher is incredible- one mightsay he is the quintessential gay indian poet. he speaks candidly about his life and his tragic love, everything he has endured. nothing is a secret. nothing is unpassionate.

this morning i certainly did not wake with the sun- no classes because it is a holiday. it was the first time i have slept until noon while in india. last night a bunch of us were taken out by one of my friend's friends to a bar at the taj krishna hotel in banjara hills-one of the nicest hotels i've seen anywhere in my entire life. his house was even nicer, ( i think his family is in IT and they also have someting to do with the hotel) i had a ten pound crytal goblet to drink from. it was nice to go out with the girls, the girls are great, and they make me miss my girls oh so much.

i must admit i don't really know how this whole blog thing works but i've been inspired by friends here to do it. this way i don't have to force information on anyone, if you are reading about my life in india it is because you actually want to know about my life in india. someday i will fill in the blanks of how i got here, from start to end and everything in between-and
there has been a lot in between, but for now i will leave it at this.

or, to come full circle, i will leave it at this...
And indeed ther will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisons,
ANd for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of toast and tea.

(... do i dare disturb the universe?)
-good old t.s.