Day One in Varanasi

 I am in Varanasi and it is morning time. The sound of chinking bells is issuing from a temple tucked into an alley wall nearby. The alleys here remind me somewhat of Venice. It could be an alliterative association, both cities beginning with a 'V.'  I somehow found a beautiful hostel for 250 rupees a night, with breakfast and lunch included! It is 42 degrees C and there is no air-conditioning, but I don't mind sweating. I just hang my sheets up to dry when I go out during the day.

The place is exactly the kind of place I could write a novel. The house is old, but well-kept, with a winding staircase and dark wooden furniture. The lights are yellow and dim. I feel as though I have stepped back in time. The women in the kitchen taught me how to make roti puff up over the flame yesterday and hugged me when I tried to do my dishes, pushing me playfully away from the sink. They call me "didi" which I think is a kind of endearment. They do not speak English, but we smile constantly at each other and mime things.

I arrived yesterday at around noon and vowed to myself that I would wait until it cooled down to take a boat ride to the burning ghats, but of course as soon as I walked down to the river, I was convinced by a boatman to go out for an hour. The heat was intense, but the price was ridiculously cheap because no other customer would be stupid enough to go out midday. What a sight though to see so many burning bodies! To see water buffalo churning around in the green water, to see men diving to the river floor and sifting through handfuls of pebbles for gold, silver, and coins that had been given to the river by devotees, storing their finds in their mouth (I at first wrongly attributed the bulges in their cheeks to swelling). These men were devotees too I suppose, but that didn't stop them from looting the offerings. Some men sat on the stairs and rolled chapati to feed to the river. Others drank directly from it, a kind of ritual wash, drink, wash, drink, spit, wash, drink. My boat-man asked if I wished to 'shower' in it. I declined, but I don't know how long I can last without a swim. I am tempted.

 I started Passage to India last night again. I forgot what a beautiful book it is. Reading it is so much more vivid here. The first page describes a town along the Ganges and, sitting in the rooftop library overlooking the oldest part of the city, I felt like I was reading an exact description of my surroundings. Kites dipped and swayed in the orange sky. I watched monkeys climb along the rooftops with their babies clutching their stomachs. Each time they leaped to the next building, the mother would hold her baby with one arm as a precaution. It reminded me of how mum and dad would automatically reach across to shield us when breaking quickly in the car. Monkeys fascinate me in their likeness to humans, to me. Does that make it an essentially narcissistic fascination?

I can't quite describe how at home I feel here, no restlessness, no need to see anything else really. Maybe it is the heat that is just stupefying me into a sense of unshakeable calm. No, it is much more than that. I wish I could just sit in the library on the roof next to the fan and read and write forever. Hopefully after six days I will be ready to move on. If not, it is always nice to leave a place with tears of love in my eyes. Pune never entranced me so totally; I loved it because it had become familiar, not because of its charm. This feels more like love at first sight, the existence of which I, a lover of magic ever since mum taught me to build fairy huts in the mountains when I was small, am always delighted to find proof.

Tinkers

My shoe fell apart yesterday. It was one of the shoes I had bought in Goa, after the tide carried mine away one night, near a shop where the vendor told Mikael and me that the music he was selling was sure to make us say "Ooh la la!". When it fell off my foot it was two in the afternoon and the heat radiated from the ground, the kind of heat that almost feels enough to move beyond sensation, and becomes somehow visible, too hot to go barefoot. I looked around and spotted a man a few steps away sitting in a rectangular metal box-like structure laden with shoes. Amazingly, there always seems to be someone here who can do exactly what you need, jobs broken down into pieces, leaving an array of experts on very specific things that have mostly ceased to be manually done at home. I stopped to sit on his stool and he took my shoe between his crossed legs and inspected it carefully. Sitting in the lotus position, the entirety of his thighs touched the ground and the soles of his feet were visible, resting on his knees. A picture of Shirdi Sai Baba on the blue metal wall opposite. I inspected his workshop. Impeccably tidy, with plastic bags stuffed in the shelves lining the wall, full of bits of things for fixing. Things we might so often throw away. I think I have praised the sweeping away of clutter as minimalism in the past or maybe I called it being unattached to things. But being so sure about the merits of not hoarding, I overlooked something else. How different it is to save things because you recognize their value! There is a shop I have passed twice now on the other side of the river full of collected things, lightbulbs, twine, oddly shaped metal objects (unrecognisable to me, revealing much about my past, void of any kind of 'fixing' or handiness). A broken shoe might stay broken because I would never think to cut up bits of leather from the last. And even if I did, I would never know where to start. This man was so adept. He could fix things so physically. How wonderful! I felt inspired, the way I feel after I hear someone sing beautifully or play the piano, that kind of yearning determination to change, to learn. This salvaging, this recycling reminds me of that book Tinkers about the clock-repairman all told as a memory. Patching, fixing seems to make newness less brutal because it lets the old in when need be, weaving, supportive, it can all get pretty metaphorical. I felt so full of wonder as I watched this man work carefully, each move deliberate, making my shoe whole again, like magic. His shirt was soft and clean looking his hair recently trimmed and my mind 'moved to distant places.' I wondered if his wife handles these things. I tried to imagine. The bags gradually revealed a portion of their contents, some full of scraps and shoelaces, others metal clips, buckles. A tube of glue replaced to its perch after each use, thread, a stapler, a needle he sharpened and bent when he needed it to act as a hook. After he fixed my shoe, the other suddenly felt flimsy, so he reinforced it as well. He noticed the tear in my backpack and silently took in from me and inspected the seam. He took more bags from the shelf and leafed through the contents, taking his time, fastening the bag. His quiet assurance and steady movements entranced me. He passed me my backpack, perfectly mended. My shoes firmly wrapped around my feet once more. I paid him 40 rupees and continued on my way. 

Chily Peppers When it Rains

Today I whispered my English poetry notes to myself as I walked down Bhandarkar road. The heat was so intense that I wet my scarf before I left the house and draped it over my head. I had been pacing the length of my room, which in this heat can be quite taxing, but it is the only way to memorize the form of a pastoral elegy and not day-dream about the coming trip to Rajasthan or the peanut brittle Raja gave me for my birthday. I also have a few bones to pick with this course, so conservatively confined to English with a capital E, beginning with Wyatt and ending with Robert Frost. The only allusion to India, that I can find in 'Leena Mam's (who people dread, teasing me by calling her my  'namesake') selections, are  the jewels on Belinda's dressing table in The Rape of the Lock. To make matters worse, she has chosen to teach an entire unit on metrics, which seems absurd and unfair to my Indian classmates. We couldn't help but laugh when she asked everyone to emphasize the stresses in the poem. Stresses scattered everywhere in the most lovely and musical way. Her voice rose in desperation over the cacophonous chorus, but to no avail. Everywhere in India rules bend and meld, which, despite the failure of metrics, leaves us in a pretty poetic predicament.

The fruit stands here are all piled high with soft orange mangoes that have to be eaten over the sink. Near the end of my road the stand is especially heavily laden and today I picked the ripest, most delicious looking one I could find, 'for today eating.' The fruit-sellers at this stand always make me feel so happy. As soon as I arrive, the youngest finds a fig and splits it in two, 'half for me, half for you' he says and smiles. I always buy four bananas because I like to say 'char' and get glimpse of what it might be like to know the language. Today the middle brother asked if I needed hot chili peppers and I shook my head. "Too hot, no?" he laughed. I held my palms up to my face to cool it and nodded. I will buy them when the rains start.

Weather aside, I don't know if I will ever again be able make my pre-exam days this enjoyable. When I get back to Kingston, I will have to be inventive.  Last week, I spent for days at Palolem Beach in Goa, reading The Myth of Sisyphus to the sound of the crashing waves. The location made Camus' painful consciousness much more bearable. I realize that the book isn't a great vacation choice, but it had to be read for a course here and I can't complain when I am able to break it up with an evening kayak around a small island and a swim down the half-moon shore. 

All of my study breaks have been pretty incredible (in the unbelievable sense of the word as well). The other day, Mikael and I went to a park across the river from our side of town that wraps around a temple. It was crowded with families of picnickers, young couples, and people selling snacks. It was nice to lie in the grass and look up at the sky. Outside, the gate there was a small fair, a few rides, some ponies, and lots of cotton candy. On a whim we decided to see the Rambo Circus and drove to a huge nearly empty tent, where for a few rupees we could watch a two hour show. Trapeze artists, trained dogs, bendy girls, a man who could drink barrels of coloured water and spew it back up again in separate streams, a clown dwarf, a 'wheel-of-death,' and a sad elephant holding a much-too-heavy lady. All the elements of a circus, just as strange and surreal as ever...no more-so, definitely more-so. 

Mikael wrote much more about the wonders of the 'biggest circus in India'...
http://www.brudfors.se/2013/04/rambo-circus.html

For Viviana

Sometimes I go to stay at Viviana's sunlight filled apartment. We sit on the colourful cushion against the wall and listen to music and read.  When the sun begins to sink, we head up to the roof to do yoga, spreading a blanket on the tiles. A man watches us from the balcony of his apartment building across the road, but we focus on the temple in the distance and he becomes nothing more than a floating orange light, the tip of a cigarette. We take turns leading, under the stars, feeling the warm breeze swirl around us. Later,  by the light of a candle, we talk. Our conversations are like pieces of music, rising and falling, moments of building, of reaching and then staccato thoughts, poetic in their disconnectedness. A stick of incense held by the red earth of a flower pot. The silky smoke curls up and out the window, a gift to those below. She dips an orange cup into a clay urn where the water stays cool and clear all day. In the morning we make arepas with our hands, kneading in the grated paneer. Finely chopped onions and tomatoes and eggs for colourful Viviana. We drink sweet coffee with jaggery, cafe campesino she calls it, and I wish that I could feel this beautiful language inside me, each word a kind of poem.

दिल

Waiting at the school gate today after my exam, I leaned against the red dusty brick of the archway and looked at the trees. I love seeing signs of the wind, cooling us on hot afternoons. Leaves rustling always makes the rest of the world feel still. I looked up, and thought of Yumi, who first taught me the importance of looking up. How often I forget! I hadn't consciously looked at the sky in a while, so it surprised me, arching over us all, so blue and vast and quiet. Eyes! Jake once told me that they were called far-reaching lassos of the water-lamp and I remember shivering at the beauty of the idea.

I wish I could describe the sky without describing it, without reducing it to an object. For that I would need to be a child again, sure that tipping off the edge of a mountain would mean landing in the soft wispy arms of the clouds, which would then dissolve sweetly on the tongue. I let my eyes soften, my vision expand, and feel my mind loosen correspondingly. I cannot remember all that I have been taught. A little boy walks past tossing grapes into his mouth. He misses and the grape rolls past my feet. We smile at each other. Not an ecstatic, crazed sense of unity, but something tender and simple, enough to feel part of things again.

This evening I attended a concert put on by a group of elderly singers in Pune. Gauri's father-in-law came onto the stage barefoot, led by the hand, for he is blind, and sang beautifully, his voice full of emotion. From sight to sound. The music made my eyes fill with tears. Fittingly, the only word I understood was 'dil.'

I feel at home, a calm perhaps partially induced by my licorice tea and the cool air circulating from the wooden fan. The daily rickshaw ride, the sweet tea, the vegetables I chose this evening on the street corner, the garlands of flowers colouring the streets, Varsha's smile, Huzaifa's company, the woman who stroked my cheek tonight, small moments of gratitude.

All I need is for my rose to bloom again. Which reminds me. Some of my classmates have taken to calling me gulabi, which means 'rosy.' In this heat, I don't think I can shake such a nickname. I have even come to like it.

Temples and Tourists

I climbed many steps this weekend to reach beautiful hill-top temples and watch the sun sink over red unearthly looking rocks and bright green fields of rice and sugar cane. The white walls reminded me of a picture I love of mum in Ladakh under the prayer flags. I felt as if she had seen this peaceful place, it is the kind of scene that I have imagined ever since I was little when she told me stories of her travels. I felt strangely reverent and could hardly speak, it was as though I had stepped into all kinds of pasts. I watched the white walls turn pink and I wondered if mum had also trembled at similar sights.

Night fell on our way down from the temple and we wandered in the dark, following what we hoped was a trail until we reached a field surrounded by ruins. Of course we made it back to town, but I half-expected to be spreading my scarf on the ground for us to sleep. 

Hampi has one of the most surreal and beautiful landscapes I have ever seen. We were told that the town is scheduled to be demolished and many of the buildings along the main street already looked more worn than the ruins that surrounded them. How strange it was to see tourists, and to really be one of them. It was so fun to wake up in the mornings and drink real coffee and a heaping fruit salad before the heat of the day set in, to look in the little book store and finger a silk scarf, to lie down for an hour to escape the heat, and eat Thali in rooftop restaurants, resting on cushions. Our first day in Hampi we visited the main temple and Mikael was blessed by an elephant. He jumped away in alarm when the trunk reached to touch his head, but the elephant was patient with him and tried again. I could have sworn the elephant was amused.  

A smiling elephant

We then walked down to the river and saw a woman getting her head shaved, men bathing in the water and a snake charmer. When he asked for money, I said that I would come back later. I do that a lot, avoiding the word 'no' at all costs, something I should work on. Two holy men who we met on the first day never forgot my promise, popping up everywhere with a not-so-holy smile and asking for fifty rupees. I finally paid them because I started to feel superstitious...they are supposed to be able to perform magic after all. I didn't want to take any chances. After I paid them, we laughed, mutually exasperatedly, every time we met on the street. Hampi is very small.

The air in the town was so fresh and the fields surrounding it so green, I had a hard time imagining returning to Pune, where a few days ago a machine outside of my house was churning out black smoke that hung heavily in the air for blocks around.

When we met a young Indian man with long hair camping out in one of the empty temples that overlooks the town I wished I could join him. My awe faded somewhat when he began to speak. He told us that he only ingests organic things, including the tobacco in his beedis, but when we offered him a cookie to go with the tea he had made us over a small fire, he took it eagerly despite our warning that it was replete with artificial flavours. I got the feeling he wasn't very good at rejecting earthly pleasures yet.

Our last day in Hampi, we took a tiny boat across the river and rented a motor-bike and drove to the Hanuman temple we had seen from the first hill-top temple we visited. I draped my scarf over my damp forehead and we walked up the winding white steps. We drove to the lake and disregarding a handwritten sign that said to beware of crocodiles, we went for a swim. I swam in all of my clothes because we had an audience. It felt so good after the heat of climbing the stairs and walking barefoot around the shadeless temple.

                                                 

I am back in Pune and I feel at home here. This evening I lit incense and swept the floors before making dinner with the spices Alice bought for me. How amazing to watch the mustard seeds pop! I think I may have gotten carried away with the novelty of having so many spices at my disposal, but the cinnamon and cloves tasted surprisingly good in the curry. The room smells delicious. I have hung scarves over the chairs and watered the rose. New soft green leaves are sprouting and it seems to be enjoying its spot in Eliza's room where the sun shines in every afternoon. All is well.

Kittens and a Trip to the Zoo

This evening as I was reading about the newspaper revolution in India I heard a strange sound coming from outside. Two tiny kittens were huddled in the corner of a box marked Pune in black marker. They were climbing on top of each other trying to keep warm or maybe in hopes of finding their mother. They must be only few days or a couple of weeks old because their eyes are still shut and their paws look almost translucent. I went to the store and bought milk. They don't seem to know how to drink it. Mikael came to over and suggested I bring them into the apartment for the night as they are so thin and it is cool here at night. The kittens are mewling in the kitchen now and every time I hear their cries my heart aches. I feel so helpless. I remember rescuing a bird when I was small and feeling its heart beat in my hands. We buried it in the garden. Let's hope that this story has a happier ending. Mikael just wrote to give me some advice. I will let them suck watery milk from a towel and warm them in my hands...his cat-expert friend also suggested I have them sleep on my stomach...we'll see.

What to do...(but really, any advice?)

This weekend Viviana and I put coconut oil in our hair and watched the sun rise on her beautiful terrace.
                                           

We ate fruit salad and sweets and I tried to ride with her on the back of a bicycle, but we tipped over, so she carried me instead. I seem to be the passenger a lot lately. In return I sang some of Dido's songs to her, "Stacey would Waltz" and "I'll be Loving You" and "We Three"...all the classics. The house where she lives is beautiful and she took such good care of me. It was lovely and just filled me up.  I spent the next night at Alice and John's, after a movie and a delicious dinner of cheddar cheese, salami, and tuna (none of which I had eaten in months). I guess I am rotating houses after all, to help ease the emptiness of the apartment now that Eliza is gone. Our rose seems to have taken it especially badly and I worry that I won't be able to revive her.

Yesterday was wonderful. Mikael and I went to the zoo! I think John may have said that it is impossible not to smile when you ride on the back of a motorbike and he is right. I even smiled during out minor mishap about five minutes in when a police-man pulled us over at a traffic light. He said that motorbikes weren't allowed to go over the bridge, which I now grudgingly admit might be an actual rule as retrospectively we both agreed that we hadn't seen any other motorbikes on the bridge. At first he told Mikael something about taking away his license, but soon he was on to the money. Six hundred rupees. Mikael said all the right things, apologizing profusely and saying that he was a student. I smiled and told him in what I hoped was a placating voice that we were heading to the zoo (which now that I think about it sounds like the most innocent activity we could possibly be venturing out to do...though a trip to a temple may have softened his heart still more). In the end we paid two hundred rupees and the police officer told me kindly to cover my head because the heat was intense. At all of the stop lights that followed I tried to look inconspicuous because really, we are the perfect targets. They can make up any excuse and we will have to pay. But luck was on our side, or maybe I am just underestimating the honesty of the police force here in Pune. We arrive at the zoo and paid the foreigner fee to enter. The animals were pretty sleepy, but it was so nice to just walk on the shady paths, so peaceful after the traffic and hot sun. The snake park had a funny sign that warned that teasing the snakes could result in a jail sentence of up to a year. The elephants were being given a bath and kind of obscured from view...as soon as we left, we saw an elephant only inches away from us on the road. I guess we don't really need to go to the zoo to see such sights here.

"Keep Watch on the Kids"...

We went for lunch at a mostly empty restaurant. The only other customers were doing some early afternoon drinking, but the food was good. I somehow ordered icecream when I meant to get the bill, but it was straightened out in the end. We went next door to get icecream and they had a chikoo flavour. Maracuya has now been replaced by chikoo as my favourite fruit icecream. I can't take a bit without exclaiming. It was too delicious to hold in, or maybe it was just another delicious day. We then went to Koregaon Park so that I could see some of the huge old houses and look with fascination at the entrance to the Osho Ashram. What goes on in there?! Then we went to see a movie. We ended the day with a nice plate of thali, a cup of butter milk (though I still can't stomach the salty, sour taste), and a mango lassi. What a day!

The kittens are mewling. I had better go tend them. I don't think I am ready to be a parent.

Friendship, Feminism, and Test Results

Today I read a beautiful thing about friendship. In the Rig Veda Sambita, Vak, the goddess of speech, presides over the naming of objects in the universe which is seen as a process of befriending them. If you think about it, this can mean so many things. Friendship is then a sacred relation, an intrinsic imprint, something that epitomizes creativity and embodies affection. I think  that there is something in language and naming that goes even further, I feel like I am on the edge of some sort of koan, but maybe I am just excited that the power of language is so central to this story. Any time a professor or friend begins to speak about the importance of literature or words, I know that I have chosen to study the right thing. Though there is always a twinge of anxiety, given the tenuous relationship I currently hold with both language and thought, I am mostly filled with a kind of rippling warmth, a spilling over.  Tiny details become so important and beautiful and tragic, an emotion can be caught in the most surprising way, we are pulled to identify to empathize, to try to understand two opposing things at once and hold them in our head, turn them over, unclench our minds and just pay attention...and paying attention is really just loving.

We watched Mr. and Mrs. 55 yesterday in our Women's Studies class. It is a film that scorns the Hindu Code Bill and through comedy kind of shows the anxieties surrounding women's new right to divorce their husbands. Even as I winced when ominous music accompanied the entrance of the feminist characters in the film and when the young protagonist Anita spouted a completely misogynistic speech about a woman's duty as a wife and the happiness she will find in chores and children, I found myself secretly hoping that she would marry and swaying along to the love songs. I have to work on that romantic reflex of mine!

Anita and Pritam at the Registrar's Office

Now for some noteworthy events:

A few nights ago Manoj called to remind me that it was temple Tuesday. I felt honoured.

My friend John was in the Marathi paper yesterday! He wrote an article about the process of learning Marathi and it ended up on the front page.

John in the paper

I woke up this morning to a message from Huzaifa. Because he thinks I am very young, he always refers to me as 'baby doll' (he is a good person, so I just let it slide). I thought I should explain the term of endearment before just copying the message down: "Congrats baby doll- you topped Alternative, Rao Sir is terribly impressed." I think I owe my results to  the pomegranate Eliza had brought home for my pre-test breakfast.

In Le Plaisir cafe the other day I heard the luna song again that Viviana told me she loves. I couldn't make out the words very well, but she says that it is about how the moon wishes for a child. It is a song that makes me feel like writing so I have kept it playing as I write this entry.

La luna

Pending exams and a rabbit in the moon

I have my first set of midterms next week, but the warm nights feel too summery for me to feel concerned. How radically different from Queen's where I feel guilty if I take a long walk without a book at my side! Last night, despite the pending assessments, I left my books (or rather my photo-copied pages) behind and walked with Eliza, Viviana, and Mikael to Alice and John's apartment to visit and eat fruit salad, mango ice cream, and an amazing banana caramel Indian dessert.

I learned some salsa steps again and practiced a little bit of swing-dancing, which reminded me of how much I love to be spun around by a partner. Upon returning home, after a late night, pre-bedtime chat with Viviana and our joint desperate wish to have a flying dream, we switched of the light contentedly resting our heavy heads on the pillow. In the morning, we sipped hot lemon water before preparing oatmeal, granola fruit salad, and Eliza's special cinnamon and clove coffee.  I spent the morning sitting by my open window reading and occasionally smiling up at Viviana.

I am studying for an Alternative literature exam. It is fascinating to learn about Queer Theory and see the radical ways in which it can be reflected in Indian literature, Bollywood (reading the mainstream against the grain), 'culture,' and most radically applied to Indian life through lifestyle choices that destabilize normativity. I especially like an story/introduction in a book by Jonathan Dollimore called "The Encounter," if any of you are looking for a really interesting, thought-provoking read. Our professor has told us that most gay men marry and have children in India, and I can imagine the societal pressure to marry would be terribly difficult to resist. It is one's "duty." Thus, it is not so much seen as a 'sin' in India to be homosexual, as it can be in the Christian West which he calls "guilt culture," as it is a choice that if made into a lifestyle 'shames' the family who see it as a shirking of duty. Thus, he believes that homophobia cannot really apply to a place like India where sexuality, as expressed in the Kama Sutra and Khajuraho sculptures, was seen not as fixed or essential, but as plural and uninhibited. But, I am using the blog to study now and losing track of my day...back to the diary format. For lunch we went for a tomato and onion uttapa at Vaishali's with fried coconut sweets for dessert and around seven we took a rickshaw in the orange evening light to a very strange music and light show outside Shaniwarwada fort. The musician had on a kind of robotic-looking contraption that he referred to as a mouse and a group of students behind him swayed and were contributing in some way to the show through handheld devices (none of us could really figure it out). When I tried to feel the colours as they passed across the old fort wall I alternated between entrancement and dizzy confusion as to what in the world was going on. It is fun to go to events and never have any idea of what to expect.

Hmm.

Mikael gave me a ride back to Bhandarkar road on the back of his motorbike. I felt like laughing all the way home. I love how, as a passenger, I can look around and just enjoy, feeling the warm wind, under the nearly full moon, no need to worry about anything at all. The moon will be full tomorrow. John told us a story about one of the Buddha's past lives as a rabbit, in which he sacrificed himself to revive a starving mother lion and her cubs so that they could escape a group of hunters. The moon, seeing this self-less compassion decided to take the rabbits image as her own. Now I can no longer see the man in the moon, because the rabbit ears are too prominent to ignore, an interesting shift in perspective. It is amazing to be able to feel such shifts everyday. Here, I continually feel perceptible changes in my perspective. If I didn't feel so well-supported it might be more disconcerting, but I find that most of my sentences are short bursts of "how nice" and "I love" so I think what I mostly feel is excitement. I hope that things keep shifting, because it makes the world feel ancient and new-born all at once, and I have an infinite amount to learn from both such states.

Perhaps we will meet somewhere over the ocean tonight. No harm in dreaming.

Love,

Lina

For Eliza at Midnight--Happy Birthday!

To my dear Eliza on her birthday:

From my room, I can smell the faint remnants of incense, I can see our beautiful sunset-coloured rose, the spices lined up under the window sill, Ganesh looks quietly, softly out from my door. I think of our evenings sitting across from each other in the kitchen. How right it feels to have you in the next room! Your door open, the sunlight streaming from your window, warming my room as well. You come home with little surprises, sweet figs, mango icecream. You always say, "for you of course" and I am filled with love and gratitude. You give so openly, laugh so easily. You remind me that wherever we are is home. How amazing to know that we can lovingly cultivate its beauty ourselves, it isn't so hard at all! Mint, cloves, chocolate, flowers, music. Special Sunday, Special Monday, Special Tuesday, Special Wednesday, Special Thursday, Special Friday, Special Saturday, Precious Life.

I am so thankful I have been given such a friend.

When you leave, I will be okay because my time with you teaches me: 

All my love,

Lina

A Walk

Passing camels on my walk home

Today as I left school, I decided to walk to the edge of the campus instead of taking the rickshaw that waits near the front steps of the English Department. It was good to be free of the Professor who reads Milton aloud, interpreting, or rather explaining, Paradise Lost line by line. The sun looked so beautiful amongst the leafless branches, strangely wintery. I ended up walking all the way home. It took a while, but a walk always lets me laugh at my thoughts, see the sky, and sometimes even meet the occasional camel. 

Oh travelers of this world

"Happy Valentines Day," the call recedes as the motorbike rushes past. I walk on, but I cannot suppress a smile. I think about what this smile means and about why I felt the need to suppress it. Am I twisting myself up needlessly thinking about these things? The words are friendly. Yet romantic love is there. If only love were just love. I get so mixed up because of this umbrella term that holds within it such contradiction. Having put three scoops of tea leaves in my cup of hot water this morning, my thoughts come quickly. The road is dusty, the morning sun is orange. I think about why I have come here, to this land of spice and heat. Is it the possibility such dislocation presents? To shake me from my comfortable slumber? I look at my dust covered feet and think about the sight I see each day from the rickshaw, only men’s feet are visible as their motorbikes and cycles pass me, cracked toes, peeling sandals. I break thin dry branch from a tree and peel the bark with my fingers. All these roads and I fear I will forever be without a map. Perhaps we are all such travellers, all such blind seekers, stumbling in the dust. 

Later that evening I participate in the Billion Rising March, which is all about breaking the chain of violence against women. We meet at Phule square. The fruit stands glow under yellow light-bulbs in the dusky evening. I tie a pink band around my head with writing I cannot understand. A woman beside me with sparkles on her cheeks and in her hair hands me a sign to carry. I stand in the warm night and watch the crowd grow. There is strength in numbers, in the music, in the dance. What worries me is that I do not yet know how I can break chains on an individual level. So much structural violence is invisible. I perpetuate it by my complicity and perhaps by direct action. Who knows? That is the scariest part. So many things must radiate from the centre, diverging and diverging again, getting so far from the root, I can't even see what bigger larger power I am feeding into. Does rejecting the rays even matter, if they have grown so far from the source? We walk on in the darkness and the thoughts keep coming, abstractions, confused and floating. We reach the Good Luck Cafe after two hours and Eliza and I, hungry from the walk, enter for a treat. I scan the menu needlessly, and of course order the Rumali roti and a paneer curry special. Grounded by the warm meal, my thoughts grow pleasurably slow. I look across at this beautiful friend my travels have given me. On the menu there is a dessert called 'Fruit Funny,' the name makes me laugh. We dip our spoons into the sweet cream. It is so simple; it is enough to be playful and full of love on Valentines Day.

Bollywood Grows on a Person...

Who can resist listening to their name in the chorus of a song? I certainly cannot.

This song has been sung to me multiple times since I arrived, so I finally looked it up. I don't really understand the video, but the part where he walks on her hair is great.

Elephant Sighting

Last night, as the heat of the day faded, Mikael and I walked along FC road. I slid my feet along the smooth tiles. There were many more kids begging on the street than usual, very young, carrying babies. Two boys had fallen asleep in a heap on the side-walk. Traffic of all sorts, pedestrian and otherwise, was heavy. We were trying to move past a boy selling balloons, when Mikael spotted an elephant amongst the cars. It was a sad and beautiful sight. Cars screeched their horns and sped past without slowing. Was it just the two of us that stopped and stared? The man perched on its back rocked back and forth to urge it onward. And the elephant walked slowly forward, its measured pace amplifying the speed of everything around  it. The sound of its footsteps were lost amongst the sounds of the city, which blurred and blared. In this dream, a boy, holding a tiny girl with a red bonnet on her head, tugs on my sleeve and touches the baby's lips.

What have we forgotten, sleeping in this noise?

Wonderful Picture Courtesy of Mikael :) 

A delicious day (and one disturbing night)

Droplets of rain today! At first Eliza and I thought something less pleasant was dripping or splashing onto us, but no, it was rain, wonderful rain. I was hoping for a downpour, but three drops were enough to make me skip. We made a fruit salad with chikoo (my new favourite fruit), pineapple, banana, grapes, pomegranate, and a scoop of mango ice cream, with dried coconut, almonds, and sweet raisins on top. We ate it as we eat all of our joint meals, sitting on the kitchen floor. I closed my eyes. Sometimes I think a day can't get any better and then Eliza lights some incense, throws open the windows and starts to cook. The flat has felt so much warmer since she moved in. It will be hard to see her go.

Beautiful Eliza

My friend Viviana spent the weekend with me. I practised a few lines of Spanish when she called home. Her parents told me that I have three homes now, Canada, California, and Columbia. What kindness! Just like Viviana, spilling over with love. We ate spiced carrot cake and read together at a cafe here on Bhandarkar road called Le Plaisir. Girls dressed in red saris, playing drums came and tapped on the window asking for money. She ran outside, to admire their plated hair. She mimed and smiled and they laughed. 

We went to see an International festival last night. The formalities lasted hours. Viviana and Eliza stepped outside the warm tent for a moment to cool off and decided to explore the tower of an old school building. A security guard let them in after first telling them that it was off-limits. He was perfectly ordinary and helpful. Soon they heard sounds behind them. He had sneaked up the stairs behind them and, in the darkness, had begun to watch porn on his phone. I wonder what he expected them to do. Viviana and I are working on a project for one of our Women's Studies courses about violence and rethinking masculinity in lieu of the Delhi gang-rape. We wish we could interview him because it would be so good to understand what he was thinking.

I realized today that I am becoming less attuned to details. In the rickshaw on the way back from school, everything around me felt so familiar, I almost forgot that seeing three cricket matches, smelling a hundred different smells, nearly colliding with most of the other traffic, being sold boxes of tissue paper and throat lozenges while waiting for the traffic to move, hearing the driver hum a popular Hindi song (one I actually recognize!), and all the while melting in the heat, are not things I would experience on a typical drive at home. 

Having nearly let myself forget to look around, I feared I was losing my sense of wonder. But tonight as I ate my fruit salad and thought about the rain, I felt reassuringly present and joyful. To top off the night, I noticed a bowl of sweets beside Ganesh on the poster Eliza brought me. Following his example, we promptly excused our love of dessert and took another bite of mango ice cream.

Good Food and a Heated Debate

It is night here and I just ate a delicious dinner of masala dosa at Vaishali's on FC road. It is nice to break off pieces of the crusty bread and scoop up some coconut, spiced potato and peas and then dip everything in the curry (in Southern India, the curry is watery, but very flavorful). It is so fun to eat everything with my hands. At school, in the Refractory, for thirty rupees, my tray is loaded with rice, some sort of grain, two sauces and three chapati. For the rice, I pour the yellow dhal on top and blend everything together with my fingers. Eating here is so tactile, like everything here, the experience seems deeper, more layered. The fruit salad here is the most wonderful thing. Sometimes, when the construction across the street wakes me up at four in the morning, I think about this fruit salad, so sweet, so perfect. I suddenly become less tired and I get out of bed, ready to make a breakfast that will assuage my desire for this fruit. I make oatmeal and add bananas, figs, raisins, a drizzle of honey, and the milk that tastes like cream. I think my favourite places to eat are still the Goodluck Cafe with its Rumali Roti which they make on a big convex skillet (it is amazing to watch, kind of like a pizza-crepe) and a restaurant that sells paratha with a spoonful of ghee on top that slowly melts over the hot dough. 

Rumali Roti

                                          

I visited the old library on campus for the first time today. I arrived at 8:30 and the door was locked so I sat on the steps and read for a while…Dostoevsky in India. Tall women with pots filled with squares of grass balanced on their heads and bright saris walked by, a man swept around my feet, another swept the stairs. So many people doing so many specific jobs, sometimes it seems that jobs are invented to create the illusion of employment. Do there really need to be six people working in the English Department Office for example? There are only two desks. There is a man in the building whose duty seems to be to replace the chalk and serve chai. But back to the library steps, at 9:30 two women came with buckets of water to wash the steps and they shooed me away. I wandered down the dusty road and found a tree to sit under for a while. Back to The Underground Man, maybe not a book to be reading in the heat. The library opened an hour later and I had to leave my bag behind the counter. There are no plugs, so there was no need to bring a computer.  There is a room on the right full of wooden tables and chairs, with a kind of balcony around the top. The tables are dusty upstairs, but it is so quiet and cool inside, I find that I never want to leave.

In my alternative literature class today, a man from Iran asked the Professor a question, or rather stated a statement that began a heated discussion that fascinated and alarmed me. We were talking about Butler’s Performativity and he raised his hand and said, “but Sir, it is a fact that men are stronger than women.” I cannot remember how this related to anything in the theory of Performativity, perhaps I cannot see the link because of my rather overly-conventional mind. In fact, I don’t understand the thought processes that guide most of what this student expresses, but anyway, he stated this sentence with a questioning lilt. The Professor stared and then asked if he meant it ironically. “No, sir. History shows us this. And with me for instance. I can pick up two girls, but no girl in this class can pick up two men.” The girls began to talk about childbirth, some told him of women from their village who could carry two children, bundles of wood and buckets of water all at once. The man scoffed, only a few kilos. Our professor still was trying to show us that this student was having trouble expressing what he actually meant, his point must actually be more nuanced, we were all just missing it because of the language barrier. He said, “do you actually believe this or are you just trying to play devil’s advocate?” But no, this man looked at him earnestly and said, “I believe it sir, it is a proven fact, men are stronger than women.” The professor made some statement about how he thought several girls could bash him up, and the student chose another tack. “Not just physically, mentally too!” Now the girls in the class began to shift. I have talked with this student before, he is impeccably polite and soft-spoken, with kind eyes, and he truly wants to understand how the world works. I felt sorry for him as chaos began to break out. “Yes, sir, can I bring in my snake and keep it in my pocket for next class” he asked. I couldn’t contain a burst of laughter, “a snake?” “Yes” he turned to me, “if I have a snake in my pocket you will be scared, but the boys will not.” Again the professor said, “you can convince me if every boy is willing to keep the snake in his pocket.” All the boys began to protest. “But sir, girls are afraid of a butterfly” the man said. “That is not true, all of this is received information from somewhere, handed down to you, you must question it” said our professor. “Women are just as capable, strong, and intelligent as men, differences are social constructs.” “I am not saying that women cannot do things,” the student said, “they walk and talk…” after this I could not catch anything that was said, some of the counterarguments were terrible, some were passionate and convincing…I had never seen anything like it. How exciting to see views debated like this, a person’s perspective openly admitted amongst a group of people he knows will disagree. He really did want to understand, he listened carefully, but in the hall after class he came up to me. “I could lift you up with one arm” he said. 

One Billion Rising March: So Empowering!

Week One-From A Letter Home

Tree in Bloom on Roof

I am sitting on the roof of my building. It is warm and I am feeling sleepy. I don't think I should be up here because there are all of these electrical wires strung around me, but it is nice to feel the fresh air. I have been pretty alone these past few days, but that is okay. School hasn't started yet, so I am just wandering the streets. I like going to a place called the Good Luck Cafe, where Iranian men sit and smoke and drink tea all day. It is on the corner of a very busy street and around midday the exhaust gets really thick, but it looks beautiful in the sunlight.

I bought marigolds and bananas on my first day here and now I buy them all the time. I really don't need more bananas, they will go bad soon and I am not eating them quickly or craving them. I think I buy them because it is something that can be a habit. I know the price now of bananas, and it feels reassuring to buy them. I have to pluck up the courage to search for things I really need like eggs. It is surprisingly cool in the mornings. I have been wearing the down jacket I brought for the plane and now use as a pillow. I wish that there were more women out and about, because I can't really smile at the men. I think that once I have someone to walk with, I can start smiling and laughing more.

Almost all the articles in the paper are concerned with the incident in Delhi and because I have so much time, I have been reading every word of the paper each morning. I am level with the tops of trees and I can see men carrying blocks of cement on their heads to build an apartment building across the road. I have a pretty bad cold which is strange because it wasn't the kind of sickness I was expecting. I think that all of the exhaust is making it worse, but now I can blame my lack of communication on having no voice as opposed to my ignorance of Marathi. I was feeling pretty lonely this morning, but then I thought about writing you and I felt much better. I will write you a letter that flows nicely and is funnier when I feel better. I will send that one from the post office. I love going there even though it makes me feel certain that any letter that passes through will surely never leave. There are dusty stacks of paper everywhere. Yesterday I went to find real coffee and I saw the waiter sip someone's mango lassi from the straw before serving it. It is a funny feeling to laugh inside, just for yourself.

Diveagar

At the beach this past weekend, I found a screw in my curry. We joked that I should call the waiter over and ask the waiter for a screw driver.

We boarded the roof of a wooden motorboat that took us to a fort surrounded by water. We were asked to pay ten extra rupees and when we pretended we didn’t understand, incensed that the fee might be because we are foreign, we were told to come down below because of something about the police. How much we miss by not being able to speak Marathi! Though Prishuk didn’t seem to understand the captain’s reasoning either. Eight boats full of people met us upon our arrival and the sole entrance to the fort was teaming with people.

In what seemed like complete confusion, people were exiting the motorboat and climbing onto a sailboat as the people who had exited the fort and boarded the sailboat climbed simultaneously onto the motorboat from which we streamed.  For what seemed like hours, we floated in the hot sun as the boat waited to near the steps of the fort. Boats cut in front of us, and the man who stood by the mast, seemingly in command, smoked his beady and watched.

When the boats ahead of us had emptied and reloaded, we neared the slippery, watery steps and were essentially thrown from the boat. My feet slipped into the ocean, but hands pulled me up and pushed me forward, up the stairs. My eye, red, swollen and seeping pus since Friday throbbed painfully, feeling grainy each time I blinked. On the boat many people had surreptitiously snapped my photo. I didn’t want my face to be seen, red, swollen, uncomfortable and here I was entering family albums as little boys and men’s wives were thrust beside me for a photograph.

Mikael taught me how to take a picture of the moon. He has the funniest method for picture taking, not looking and just pointing the camera while keeping his arm long by his side. It is all about chance. I like that.

Mikael, me, Prishuk, and Brent

I am surrounded by good people. My intuition is improving I think. 

Messages and Gratitude

Today I woke up thinking about how much messages from home mean to me. I receive so many text messages here from people I have met once, insistent and when I don’t respond, seemingly worried. Many of the messages that fill my inbox are ‘inspirational quotes’ that different new friends send to me. This love of self-help quotes is equally reflected in the books sold on the street. Brent tells me that they reflect the possibility that is emerging in India for someone who knows English to get somewhere, to make something, a kind of Indian ‘american’ dream. I find my inbox overflowing each morning with messages that are meant to inspire, championing hard work and determination, reminding of potential success, telling me to seize opportunities. All of these things could be found in a business leadership handbook. But some messages give emotional advice as well. A moment ago, Sarang sent me a message that said, “it is much easier to smile instead of explaining why you are sad, so smile.” I don’t see the wisdom in this message at all. Maybe it is my mum’s gentle encouragement to feel what I am feeling, to let it all out that invokes a reading of this message as an unhealthy recommendation for repressing emotions. But, who am I to talk? It is easier sometimes to pretend to be fine, to smile. So often here, under surveillance, I smile and nod and think of my happiness as my currency.  Only recently did I learn that saying thank you annoys most of my classmates to no end. So, my attempts to be polite, warm, and express my gratitude, are interpreted as overly formal , a cold mode of distancing. After missing class today and asking for a recapitulation of the lecture, a boy sat down with me for two and a half hours, buying me tea and taking me step by step through what I had missed. He actually sang several Urdu songs in their entirety and translated them into English for me. I was amazed that no one in the canteen turned to look. He exhibited no embarrassment.  I thanked him. “Why do you say thank you? Come on! I am not doing you a special favor, you are my friend, you are a student, you are Lina, I am Huzaifa, you are Catholic or something, I am Muslim, we are human.” I overlook the Catholic thing with a shrug and say, I don’t know what I am. He told me on the walk down the street some of his story, his suffering. He told me that I looked like his little sister, showing me a picture. He bought me another snack and I tried to suppress the thank yous and just smile.

Varsha, the girl with the beautiful smile appeared behind me. We walked together to buy her medicine and then she bought me a coconut that we sipped together. I scooped out the flesh and she took a picture of us together. We entered the biggest temple in Pune, with a long series of stairs and I prayed to Ganesh and gave the offering of flowers and sugar to Shiva. From the top of the stairs, all of Pune was visible below us and the rising incense smoked past our heads. She told me that she wakes up at 4 every morning to study in the library and take notes on day's newspaper, studying for a huge exam in a year’s time that will decide her future. I am not sure what this exam is called, but she has been preparing for it for the past three years. Hearing about her long days and Huzaifa’s life makes me hyper-aware of the extent of my own privileges, all the comforts that will soften any fall.

Struggles with Cooking and the FRO

I am trying my hand at cooking lentils again. Last night was a disaster (at least within the culinary sphere), I must have boiled the lentils for forty five minutes and still they were hard and had a distinctly burnt taste. On top of that, the kitchen flooded and the roti that I had draped over a pot of warm water to soften fell into the water and became a soggy mess. I wouldn't have minded molding the dough into little balls to fry them, but the warm water was from the tap and so it contaminated the bread.

I was on kind of a domestic kick last night because I also chose to do my laundry. Right when I had soaped all the clothes, the power went out and the water shut off. Usually Thursday is the day they cut power, but alas...it is a steep learning curve. I always realize that when I start to write about my time here I get a little bit too detailed, but that is kind of what it feels like. I feel like I am in a place with a million details crammed into every second. 

Yesterday I had an adventure. I went to the Foreigner's Registration Office for the third time, after being rejected twice, travelling to three other police stations for documents, running to a nearby a xerox machine at least ten times, running back and forth on campus for two weeks now pleading with the different faculties for "bonafide certificates"and final, stamped, and signed acceptance letters, printing out and notarizing 'c' forms 'a' forms and bringing a twelve page lease agreement to a lawyer, being told to go to the bank multiple times to deposit minuscule fifty rupee fees, and threatening to cry, and paying a 1,647 rupee 'late fee,’ I finally registered at the Police Commissioners Office. But that wasn't the adventure! No, I met an Afghani boy who was also at the FRO and he took me on a tour of the city on his motorbike. I feared for my life, helmet-less and dodging goats and cows in the old part of town, in fact I don't think I will do that again...it was pretty stupid, but it was so exhilarating. He bought me sunglasses too, all I needed was some Hindi music and we could have been in a bad Bollywood film. 

This morning it is full of the joy of having found cereal and being able to forego curry for breakfast. I feel like my days here revolve around food. My landlady is visiting today, so I have been shaking out the rug, doing my laundry, gathering the dust on the floor with pieces of paper (I don't yet have a broom), and wiping down the kitchen. I will take a break now and enjoy my muesli...

Another Cold Morning

January 23, 2013

Another cold morning. Such a surprise to be shivering in a down jacket. It is very early here. I love to wake up before the sun rises because the city is quiet and I can listen to the crickets as I make coffee and prepare idli sambar (a sort of rice cake that you dip in curry). The other night as I was wandering through the windy streets in the oldest section of the city, I found a place that sells filter coffee. I don't know if I will ever find it again, but it was very exciting! I am sipping it now as I write. I get to school early and sat in the deserted classroom, watching the sun rise. I am warm by the time the girl with the most beautiful smile arrived. I pressed her cold fingers in mine. An hour later, a man in a white uniform comes and passes around steaming hot tea in little plastic cups. The cups bend in the heat and I think of the warnings we hear back home about not leaving plastic water bottles in the sun. If that is risky, this can’t be good. But I sip the sweet, hot liquid thankfully. The sugar stirs me from my morning drowsiness.

I walk home and three young school boys in red and blue plaid shirts and coffee coloured pants walk beside me. They carry metal lunch tins. After five minutes of walking in silence with them beside me smiling and intermittently hitting each other playfully, they ask “what is your name” “are you married” with that beautiful crispness of a careful non-native English speaker. I ask in Marathi, excited to finally find an appropriate moment to use the only sentence I know, tuzha nav kay? They laugh and tell me their names. We talk in English about Canada and snow and one boy asks, “Canada is full of wonderful things?” I tell him that India is equally full of such things. I don’t think he believes me.  “India is a dirty place, nah?...people spit in anyplace and everyplace.” They double over laughing as the smallest boy does an impression of an older man clearing his throat and spitting.  The tallest boy picks up a pebble and throws it at a dog as it approaches us. “Do you have dogs in Canada?” they ask. Yes, I say, “but mostly on leashes.” “Not in the streets,” he nods knowingly, “better,” he says.

I was just talking to some of the girls in my class who had never seen snow. A lot of the Hindi movies depict true love in the Himalayan mountains, so they told me that their parents' wedding videos often had snow-capped mountains in the background. I think that many would judge such a video without this explanation, as tacky, but it is really a kind of aspiration. The rich have, of course, moved on to candid shots with natural backgrounds. The markers of class and caste here in everyday things and little details is fascinating. It is especially apparent in the woman, partly the reason I have decided to take a Woman's Studies class, though of course women's issues are extremely topical here; the incident in Delhi is covered daily in the newspapers and is on everyone's lips. I have so many stories to tell you. Yesterday, an old woman in the street marked my forehead with red paint and blessed me. I walked away and forgot about the bindi. Later I touched my forehead and a group of concerned people gathered around, thinking that I was injured because my hands and head were bright red. Mostly people have been so kind! I have trouble crossing the street here and there is always a kind woman who takes my hand and leads me across. On my road, the women who sell fruit helps me across, dodging the rickshaws and motor-bikes. We laugh together and she always gives me extra mangos.  There is a sweet shop around the corner and I visit is often to buy laddu, amusing the man with kind eyes who works there. People seem delighted by my love of the food, my attempts to gather ingredients and learn to make it at home, the music, the incense, the beautiful colours of their salwar kameezes, and my tragically bad attempts at speaking Marathi.

Most of my classes were meant to have started three weeks ago, but everyone in the English Department so far has been too busy to teach. I have had to get used to this not-knowing, just as I have learned to have candles ready for when the power goes out, to use less soap when hand-washing clothes, to save boiled water in pots for tooth-brushing, to carry ten rupee notes for the rickshaw wallahs, who never have change, to bring my hands to my heart when saying namaskar, to buy the little boy who begs for money on the corner some coconut water instead of handing him rupees and to drink one with him and then ask for the coconut seller to crack them open so that we can scoop out the soft flesh inside, to always expect every act to take all day and enjoy it, to be patient, to, as my Swedish friend Mikael says in a metaphor about how life here is like bike riding through the crazy traffic, ‘go with the flow,’ and, last but not least, I learn to laugh. 

Coconut Water and Continental Breakfasts

A trip for coconut water: I walk part of the way down the street, the traffic is heavy, I stand on tip-toe and waver, suddenly the trip becomes a choice again. I want coconut water, but I don’t feel like crossing this street, or like standing by the cart and drinking it alone while having to avoid people’s eyes. If I relax, I will meet people, lots of people and they will ask me where I am staying (nearby), why I am here (to study), what is my name, what is my number (I have so many names in my phone now I never know who is calling), if I don’t smile and try to delight them, I will feel cold and lonely. So I don’t get coconut water after all, I turn around with purpose, as though I just forgot that I didn’t turn off the stove (why do I put on these performances, these acts, in my head?), and I walk back the way I came.

I cook tonight, first, for an hour I pop peas out of their shells. At the market a woman told me they were in season and put the leafy stocks in my hands.  Gauri tells me that most people buy them pre-shelled, but I don’t mind taking the shells off one by one as I listen to Dzongsar Kyentse Rinpoche tell me about the non-duality of compassion.  Dirt and dead leaves from the plant stick to my red pants and I walk, cupping most of the foliage in my shirt, heading outside barefoot, dusting myself off. I let the small pile of green peas tumble into a pot of water. I take out the gigantic sack of salt and pour some of it into a clean yoghurt container and then take a pinch of it and sprinkle it over the now bubbling pot of water, I will need to learn how to buy smaller amounts.  When the peas taste like I imagine peas should, I drain them with a cloth and pour them into a bowl. I chop garlic, tomatoes, ginger, and onions with a butter knife. The onions are especially hard to cut with such a dull blade; I begin to rip, letting the tears drip.

Happy Makar Sankranti! Today in Pune people are flying kites and offering laddu and little multi-colored sugar sweets to one another. When I offer the little bag I bought for five rupees, friends take a few and then pour half of them back into my hand. I am told that it symbolizes a kind of sweet interchange, a very auspicious kind of 'beginning again.' Each day here has been such an adventure, such a flood of new information, that when night falls I am utterly exhausted. It is exhilarating,  eye-opening, frustrating, and beautiful, I don't think anyone could ever peel away all the layers that make up such a place. It makes me rethink all of my conceptions of culture.  The clouds of exhaust turn the sun a bright, hazy orange in the evenings and I often sit on the roof of the apartment building where the air is fresh smelling, looking out over the city. I have never before felt such an intense need to have moments of quiet. There are people everywhere, under bridges, wheeling vegetables, selling coconuts, carrying bricks on their heads, babies in their arms, cupping chai in their hands. I hear Hindi music floating from kitchen windows and the cellphones of rickshaw wallahs. More and more I see the ways in which 'modernity' problematize any static conception of 'tradition.' The cinema here has an alter draped with marigolds and lit by candles! There are such strange mixtures everywhere I look. In the morning, for 80 rupees, I can watch films in a packed movie theatre. They are so long, they need intermissions and there are never English subtitles, but I like watching the audience, which is much more engaged and expressive than at home.  The beautiful Bollywood actress always seems to transform from a silly carefree girl into a 'proper wife' who covers her arms and cries on her father's shoulder.  This story, and its implications, makes me glad to be taking a course in Women's Studies this term. We will discuss the representation of women in popular culture and the messiness of how we (I might not be contained in the 'we' the professor will be discussing) conceive of modernity in India. It is especially fascinating to hear how my Indian classmates perceive the rape in Delhi and its coverage. English courses have not yet begun, but I have been sitting in on a refresher course for college professors of Literature and have been loving it. This morning a gay, Parsi poet gave a lecture on Pound's influence on Indian writers. It was brilliant! I wish you could have heard him. The professor had a long white beard, and as he spoke I couldn’t help but feel that he was our guru.

Every morning during my first week in Pune, I would make my way across the perilously busy street and sit at a small table facing the road and a little stand that sells paan. I never tried the paan because I could see a little boy preparing the sugar mixture behind the stand pouring suspiciously cloudy water into the orange sweet jelly and stirring it with a stick he would set upon the dusty cement. When he began scraping tiny jars out with his fingers while he crouched, I decided to try paan in a place I do not know so intimately. Each morning I would sit in this little restaurant, protected from the emerging rays of the sun by a blue tarp strung between the trees for breakfast. Ordering, like everything else that is goal oriented in India, was never a straightforward affair.  I challenge you, my fellow foreigners, to try to order the “south Indian breakfast” consisting of two pieces of idli and some sambar from this particular menu and this particular waiter. Try it! Try to point, to mime, to insist as I do every morning. The waiter stares at me and smiles, his eyes look glassy. “Continental?” he says, in a melodic questioning way, nodding his head ingratiatingly, soothingly, placatingly side to side. I smile, “no, no, South Indian please,” I say. “ha, continental” he says, confirming it to himself. This "ha" is yes, but it quickly becomes more like a laugh, a light-hearted yes that is unmoored from any relationship to the question. Either he doesn’t hear me or he is sure he knows what is best. He cannot conceive of me wanting curry for breakfast. He knows foreigners better than I do. He looks at me, such a child, so confused, he smiles and turns, he will take care of me, a poor little plain milk and corn-fed creature, so lost, so out of place in this world of colour and spice. So I eat cornflakes drenched in hot milk and crust-less cucumber, butter sandwiches for breakfast and, warm and strangely comforted, I wonder if this waiter isn't right; I am far from home.