Happy Diwali!
I flew to Mumbai for Diwali with Anshu’s family on Tuesday night after all my classes had ended. I was exhausted and I could feel a cold coming on, but I got my spicy McChicken and an ice cream cone at McDonald’s to calm myself down. Mom usually gets fries and a Diet Coke from McDonald’s before she flies (at least she used to when we flew out of DIA), and it makes me feel better to do that before I get on the plane now. It occurred to me that the next time I fly out of the “Departures” side of the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in Hyderabad, I will be headed for Chicago via Delhi. In three weeks. CRAZY.
In any case, the airport was crazy. Imagine flying out of the fourth largest city in the US on Christmas Eve. Except add in the fact that I’m in India. So any number of small children, seemingly without parents, men with no sense of forming lines, and petulant security guards abounded. Finally, I got through security (don’t even get me started on the guy at the metal detector who inexplicably let several people pass me, and then closed the lane).
I figured I had about 45 minutes before boarding started, so I thought I’d check my email and see if I could do some more research on the Truman Scholarship. There is free internet at the airport, but you have to put in your number, and they text you an access code. I never got the code, so I watched The West Wing instead. Perin was nice enough to figure out how to send some to me so I could start watching again.
The flight was uneventful. I slept most of the way, and only started freaking out a little bit as the plane touched down. So far, I’d been able to experience India mostly on my own terms. Especially food-wise. If I didn’t like something, I could just wait until the next meal, or snack. But when you’re staying with an Indian family for six days, neither of those are viable options. The eating culture here is very different from that in the US, or at least my family’s. The idea here is that the family makes their best, favorite, and most authentic dishes, and you better like them, and you better take seconds and then thirds. This was mildly problematic for me, being that I haven’t found too much Indian food that I like.
Back to the story – I landed, grabbed my bag, repeatedly told pushy taxi drivers that I didn’t need a cab, and found a place to stand and wait. The phone numbers that Anshu had given me were not complete, for whatever reason, so they didn’t work, and there was no sign of anyone waiting for a Zoe Goodman. I walked back and forth up the “Arrivals” walkway, and finally, two women approached me and asked if I was Zoe. Turns out it was Anshu’s teenage cousin Bhuvi, and her older sister Tripta. They drove me back to the building that Anshu’s family inhabits in Bombay, and we went up to the second floor, where Anshu’s masi was waiting for me. They helped me settle in, and after about an hour of chatting, we went to sleep. It was really late, but we planned to get up early because, as they told me when I got there, we’d only be in Mumbai for one day. After that, the other five days would be in Mahableshwar, a hill station about a five-hour drive away. This was news to me, and I was a little disappointed that I wouldn’t be spending my time in the city, but I figured everything would turn out OK, especially if we got a full day in.
Well, I had forgotten that we run on IST (Indian Standard/Stretchable Time) here, and instead of leaving at 9am like we had planned, we left a little after noon. I’d eaten my first breakfast with Anshu’s masi early in the morning and my second breakfast with Anshu’s uncle later in the morning – pancakes (mercifully), and also some Indian pancakes with onions and other veggies in it. These are meant to be dipped in chai, and the chai was really good, but the pancakes were hard for me. So much salt and spice so early in the morning! I was good, and ate everything that I was given.
Bhuvi, Anshu’s masi and I drove the short way to the market that Usha Didi (Anshu’s mom) likes to shop at. The family here has a driver, which is a concept that I am still working on. Many people do, but it was my first time experiencing it myself. In a whirlwind of about an hour, we had been in at least eight different stalls and a shoe store, and I was loaded up with new kurtis and even a new suit. I had just bought three beautiful ones with Mom and Dad in Delhi, and I was so excited to be able to wear them. As it turned out, I couldn’t even wear one of them. Anshu’s family (mostly grandparent’s generation) is pretty traditional, and sleeveless suits are a no-go. I wouldn’t have had time to go to the tailor to add sleeves anyway before leaving, and I tried not to be too disappointed. But I feel like I let Mom and Dad down a little.
Anyway, after the shopping, the three of us headed to the puja (prayer service) at the factory that Anshu’s family owns. I met Vishal, Bhuvi and Tripta’s brother, there, and he led the puja with a religious leader (I don’t know what they are called, but like the equivalent of a Pastor or a Rabbi). We went into the office, and all arranged ourselves on the floor for the hour-long service. I was trying to pay attention to everything, but I couldn’t see all of it. This was another first – being an active participant in a religious activity here.
If you’re not feeling philosophical, skip to the next section 🙂 I was having a lot of trouble during the service, because the whole thing is basically about the goddess Lakshmi (goddess of wealth) and worshipping her, hoping for a prosperous new year. So far, I have been able to reconcile having a Jewish father and a Christian mother very well. That all works out in my head, and I feel like I can do all of the Jewish things, and all of the Christian things, and I think God is OK with that. I feel really lucky to have been able to have both growing up, because they each offer something very different, and I think they complement each other very well. Anyway, I was having trouble because God pretty specifically, well, very specifically, says “Thou shalt have no other gods before me” and also “Thou shalt not worship false idols.” At this point, about halfway through the service, I’m trying to hold myself together. Here I am, on the floor of a factory in India, and I’m worshipping the goddess of wealth. Confirmation classes and church services and Passover seders are flying through my mind. I can practically see the lightning coming down from heaven. And then I remembered Pastor Mark presiding over Grandma Rikki’s funeral, and I remembered calling uncle Ron after being confirmed, scared out of my mind that he was going to be angry that I hadn’t chosen to be a Bat Mitzvah and being so relieved when he said, “Same God.” And then I thought of Anshu (Hindu) and Perin (Jain), and I thought, “Who am I to say that my God, the God of Jews and Christians, can’t be the same God that Anshu and Perin’s families pray to? Isn’t God for everyone?” I relaxed a lot more after that. I think God was just as much in the factory as Vishal washed the coins in milk and honey as he would be at a baptism or a seder.
Anyway, the service was pretty long, and there was incense, and my head cold was reaching its peak of stuffiness, so I’m trying to figure out if I can inconspicuously blow my nose in the back. I decided against it. Too risky. Near the end of the service, you raise a thali (plate) with a candle, and some other ornamental stuff on it, and Anshu’s aunt put a red bindi on my forehead with the vermillion, and you rotate it around, making circles in the air, in front of the goddess. We all took a turn, and I could hardly refuse, so I also took the plate for a minute while the family chanted around me (“Om Jai Lakshmi”) and rang bells. They wafted the smoke from the candle on the thali into the safe to pray for wealth in the new year, and waved it over their heads one at a time. Again, I followed suit, in my head, praying to God that this really was OK to do.
After the puja, the family distributed gifts to all the workers in the factory. Each person came forward from the line, touched Anshu’s masi’s feet, and wished her a Happy Diwali. She smiled, and graciously offered each gift. She’s a tiny woman, but you’d never mistake her for weak after seeing her bargain in the market. Bhuvi and I left from the factory with our Prasad (offering) in our hands, promising to eat it as the day went on. We got back in the car, and drove to Linking Road, and along the ocean on the way to downtown Bombay. I drove past Chowpatty (which I just read about in a book, The Age of Shiva, that I picked up here a couple weeks ago). We stopped for berry frozen yogurt, and then went for lunch. I should have known then that that eating would only get more frequent after that. We went to a deli (Bhuvi wanted a sandwich) and I got the first good Caesar salad that I’ve had in about five months. It’s called the Indigo Deli, and is very upscale. Bhuvi, “forever on her BlackBerry” (her own words), had BBM’ed (instant messaged) her friend Sarosh, and he came to meet us. Apparently he lives around the corner from that place. He was really funny, and it was nice to walk around with him too. He’s Parsi (a Parsi?) and took us to the row of shops nearby, called Colaba. He helped us bargain, and I bought some earrings, and one or two other things.
We drove back around 8pm to get back for the puja with the family. On the way, we passed the Queen’s Necklace, and we stopped to “click” a picture.
We also passed the building of one of the richest men in India – supposedly his electric bill alone is about a kajillion Rupees. We got back and despite having just eaten, were asked to sit down for dinner. I ate what felt like my fifteenth meal that day, and then we changed to get ready. I wore my nicest kurta with sleeves, and we went upstairs around 10pm. Much of the family was there, and I introduced myself as best I could, but the etiquette of meeting people (especially whole families) in India is still a little hard for me to grasp, especially considering that Anshu’s older family members speak little or no English, understandably, and I was sort of petrified to try out my Hindi with them.
We started the service a little while later. We all crammed into a small room where an altar had been set up at knee-level, so sitting on the floor was again the modus operandi. This time, Bhuvi, Anshu’s other cousin, and myself were asked to perform all the rituals for the (much shorter) service. I was glad I’d done one puja already, and glad I’d been paying attention. We washed the coins in milk, water, honey, ghee, sugar, and rinsed and cleaned them all. Then, we put vermillion on each coin, and arranged them over flower petals that we’d separated from their stems. We set up the thali and again chanted and passed the thali around, and wafted the smoke over ourselves. Anshu’s relatives nodded approvingly at my smoke-waving technique, which was a relief. After a little bit of socializing, we headed up to the roof of the building to watch the fireworks go off all over Mumbai. I have rarely seen something so pretty (and so noisy). We couldn’t light our own, because there had been a death in the family earlier in the year. After about a half hour, we went back downstairs to pack and go to sleep.
The next morning, we again had planned to get up early to begin the five-hour drive, but as I had predicted to Vishal the day before, we left at noon on the dot. On the way out, we drove through the largest slum in Asia (what Vishal said, anyway), but the part we were in, at least, didn’t look too different from an average Hyderabadi neighborhood. I forgot to mention an important part of the story. So the family got a cat. And Anshu’s aunt and uncle were going to Amritsar while Vishal, Tripta, Bhuvi, and I went to Mahableshwar. So the cat came with us. His name is Obi (after Obi Wan Kenobi) and he is about four months old. The cat sat in between Tripta and I in the backseat, at first in his carrier. For those of you who never had the pleasure of being in the car with Molly, you will have a harder time understanding the distress that Obi was experiencing. Tripta decided he’d be happier out of his box, to my complete dismay, and removed him. He proceeded to claw holes through my pants (and my legs) in the first twenty minutes. I also had taken Dramamine, so I was starting to feel a little sleepy. But Obi was making sleep very difficult. In her attempts to placate him, Tripta was putting him in his box, and then taking him out again, about every ten minutes. This made it hard for him to adjust to the car, and he didn’t settle down until we’d been in the car for about three hours.
We stopped for lunch with the family, and ate a table full of Indian food. I was not allowed the luxury of not trying everything on the table. I’ve figured out mostly how to tell if I’ll like something by looking at it. I was right – the stuff I thought looked ok was ok, and the stuff I wouldn’t have ordinarily touched was, well, less ok. We hopped back in the car after lunch and drove the rest of the way with a carsick Obi, and a Zoe super happy that she’d remembered her Dramamine. A hill station is, predictably, situated between a few hills. India brought Formula One racing to the country for the first time this week (the first circuit opened in Delhi), and I think Vishal should try out to be one of the drivers. Side note on the Formula One racing: only in India does the track open after years of planning and millions of dollars, only to have the very first practice on the track be interrupted by a stray dog that had managed to get through security to run around on the pavement. The drivers were forced to halt, and the security people drove after the dog in a golf cart to chase it off the track.
Anyway, we finally reached Mahableshwar, and I could see why Anshu’s masi had told me to pack a sweater. For the first time in India, I was legitimately chilly. We ate dinner, and despite the medicine, I was feeling a little carsick, so I wasn’t going for a huge meal. However, I still hadn’t learned, apparently, the “No excuses, play like a champion” rule of dining with Indian families at Diwali. Finally, my patience broke for a second when I was strongly urged for a fourth time to take more food (from Tripta) and I said firmly, “Thank you, but I am full, and still a little carsick.” Still, they kept asking, and I decided that I would obviously be polite, but I refuse to make myself sick. Even if Anshu’s family does complain to her that I didn’t eat enough, I don’t think Anshu will disown me as a friend. We went to the market after dinner to look around, and I saw a couple of things I wanted to come back for in the next couple days. Finally, it was time to go to sleep.
The next day, we again got a late start, barely squeezing into the dining area before it closed at 10:30. We showered after breakfast, and went out to Mapro, the jam and syrup factory about 15 kilometers away. We ate lunch there in the garden. They had amazing pizza, and I happily ate a whole one myself, along with fresh strawberry ice cream. I am glad I did this with Anshu’s family at the end of my stay here, because I am positive that my stomach couldn’t have handled the majority of what I’ve eaten so far if I’d come early in my stay in India.
We left the garden and went back to the hotel for tea (I swear, if there was time we weren’t eating this weekend, it’s because we were in the car or walking to the next place where we’d sit to eat). I sat with doctor Aunty for a long time and talked with her over the delicious snacks I had found (they looked gross, but tasted like nachos). When it was discovered that I had openly admitted to liking it, more was brought out, and I had many, many helpings. Just can’t win. The chocolate came out next, and I had some of that to get the onion taste out of my mouth, and then we headed back down to the market. I bought some really great stuff (bags, shoes, scarves, etc.) and I am so happy with all of it!
There was a puppet show in the hotel that night. I went for the last twenty minutes or so. It basically consisted of a man singing and playing a drum sort of like the tabla while another man made a male and female puppet dance awkwardly together. Apparently it’s not necessarily important that the puppeteer keep his hands out of the show 🙂
Fireworks also happened that night. Mamta (Anshu’s cousin) had brought a couple small boxes of crackers and sparklers up, so we set them off. This was the first time I had ever set them off, and it was so much fun! I was really careful, I promise, and everyone there was very experienced. We lit them in the driveway right in front of the hotel, and I was sort of concerned about the parked cars, but everyone just brushed it off, and it all turned out ok. Every time one of the fireworks didn’t go off as big as it was supposed to, one of Anshu’s uncles kept saying, “Well, they were made in China, what did you expect?” I figured a polite nod was all I needed to do to respond. There are a couple pictures of the fireworks extravaganza here. We had so much fun!!!
I also forgot to mention that we must be close to Gujarat, because this is a Guju hotspot. Signs, food, everything is Gujarati. Turns out the four cousins of Anshu’s that I met all have some kind of prejudice against Gujaratis. Every time there was a car holding up traffic, or people standing in the middle of the road, someone would say, “I bet they’re Gujarati.” After a day of this, one of Anshu’s cousins said, “I hate Gujaratis. They are not nice people. My first boyfriend was Guju.” I couldn’t hold it in any longer when she said that, and I looked up from the reading I’d been doing on the bed, and said “My current boyfriend is Guju.” She smiled sheepishly, and that was the end of that for a while J There were a lot of tour buses from Gujarat, and they were holding up traffic, but still. Also, everywhere we went, there was a section for “Jain Food.” I gotta ask Perin what exactly that means. It’s not like everywhere else advertises for “Hindu Food” or “Muslim Food,” so I was confused.
Anyway, I ended up needing to reschedule my flight back to Hyderabad for Sunday night instead of Monday night, and there is no such thing as cell phone service or internet in Mahableshwar. After several broken conversations with Jess on the phone, and a few of Perin’s unbelievably helpful text messages (I don’t know how he always knows exactly what information I need, even when I don’t ask him for it), I had to enlist the help of one of my program directors. Kalyan booked me a new flight, and I cancelled the old one. Right after getting off the phone in a rare moment of it working, I ran out of money (we pay by the second here for phone service. Literally). So I couldn’t even text Kalyan to say thanks. But I got a flight back on Sunday night. Pshew.
I made a list of things to do when I was in India before I left. It included things like “Go to Mumbai” and “Meet Hrithik Roshan (the Bollywood actor).” It did not include “parasailing” (check) and it also did not include “participating in a magic show conducted entirely in Hindi.” But I can proudly say that I have done that now, as well. After dinner, and before the late-night “second dinner and ice cream run,” Bhuvi told me I should go to the magic show in the hotel. I thought I’d give it a try, and I went and took a seat inconspicuously (or, at least as inconspicuously as the only white person in a hotel full of Gujaratis can) in the back row. After a few minutes, Vishal came to join me, and a few minutes later, Tripta and Bhuvi did as well. Each act was about three times longer than it should have been for the average person’s time span, and during the last act, he pointed at me, and said something in Hindi (with a lisp). I understood enough to answer “America” and then he said something else, and then “New York” and I said, “Nahi, Chicago.” At this, half the room started laughing. Apparently, he’d jus said he’d been to New York – he wasn’t asking if I was from there. Oooops. He then proceeded to give me instructions in Hindi, which Vishal (still laughing) sort of translated for me. We were supposed to put our hands together, and rub them in a circle, and the magician named flowers (Vishal on purpose gave him a hard one, and he shook his head and assigned him a rose instead). I got “orchid.” After a minute, the magician told us to smell our hands, and mine did indeed smell like orchid! Cool!
Since it was the last night, we went out for ice cream at Bagica one more time (Saif Ali Khan has eaten there! His picture is on the wall!) and Mamta, Tripta, Bhuvi, Vishal, and I sat in the cold, eating our ice cream and talking. It was really nice, and I was so happy that they had invited me along!
Something that I noticed all weekend was the workers at the hotel and the other places we visited, and how people addressed them. I was often the only person to say thank you when an order was brought or a bag carried. I know it’s all part of the culture and everything, but it still makes me uncomfortable that the people responsible for making all the little things happen sort of disappear into the background. Additionally, many of the servers in the hotel restaurant and at Mapro were probably eleven, twelve years old. I’m pretty certain school is compulsory in India to a certain age, and I was disappointed to see that a tourist hotspot for wealthier Indian locals could sort of flagrantly be avoiding the law. There was a sign at Mapro saying that many of the cooks were college kids working to get through school (this appeared to be true), but what about the busboys?
The drive back was mostly uneventful. Obi, as per usual, clawed a couple of holes in my pants, but I’d taken a Dramamine again, so I slept for about an hour, and looked out the window for the other four. Mumbai traffic is crazy. That’s about all I have to say about that.
When we got back to the apartment, I repacked my bags (I bought a lot of shoes) and ate a quick, informal dinner with Vishal and Bhuvi. Corn salad (super spicy), onion veg burgers (super tasty), and some strawberry fudge (not so tasty). Then, off to the airport! Tripta was mad at the guy who was supposed to move her car out so she and Bhuvi could take me to the airport, and at first I was tempted to offer to drive. But then I remembered I can’t do that here. We all got a lot happier when “Chamak Challo” came on the radio, and after that, it was gravy. When I got to the airport, Bhuvi helped me get my printout (since Kalyan had bought my ticket for me) and I said my goodbyes! Of course, the security man at the door gave me trouble because the booking name was the name of the travel agent that Kalyan had called, and he sent me back to get a new ticket. Instead, I got into the other security line and had no trouble.
I’m writing this on the plane, so I am hoping that nothing any more exciting happens once I land, and I can post this as is! I may have said this earlier, but I’m having trouble believing as I sit here (I have a whole row to myself! It’s the second to last row of the plane, but still) that this is my last domestic flight where Hyderabad will be my destination.
Last thing about planes here. I am super pumped to be on a flight in the US again, because the security talks (lifejacket, seatbelt, etc.) will all be in only one language and will therefore take significantly less time.
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wildcatinindia 