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Published: March 16th 2007
Well, March is officially halfway over. Pretty weird. This month is really flying by. I've got a few papers I should be writing right now. Lots of trips coming up--group trip with CIEE to Mysore and Bangalore. The weekend after that Gabriel and I are going to try and squeeze in a trip, and then Good Friday weekend I'm going back to Pondicherry with a group of friends to stay there for a few days. I'm looking forward to getting out of Hyderabad for a few weekends.
The past few weeks have gone well--nothing too out of the ordinary. Been trying out different South Indian restaurants around town, and have found some excellent food. South Indian food is great, but Punjabi food will probably always be my favorite. There's a restaurant called Punjabi Rasoi that's about 10 minutes by bus down the road in Gachibowli, and it is a favorite among students here. It only costs 5 rupees to get there, and the food is reasonably priced too. Yummy.
Everywhere we go we get taken advantage of. Money-wise I mean. Some days it's quite irksome, other days I don't really care so long as I get where I want to go. The auto drivers at Gachibowli crossing are the worst. They gang up on the white people by collectively trying to convince us to pay 170 rupees a person (5 people total) to go to Jubilee Hills (30 min drive). We could have taken a cab for less than that. Not to mention, the price was quickly lowered to 30 rupees per person, which was still a ripoff, but also goes to show that the original offer was completely outrageous.
It's like that all the time. Going anywhere by auto is a guaranteed argument with the driver. Some of my friends like it--I'm not so much for it. I'll argue for about five minutes, just for the principle, and then settle for something that's probably still too high, but in general not very expensive when you convert to dollars. I guess I'm a fan of the fixed price. Then I know that if I'm getting ripped off, everyone else is getting ripped off too, not just me, and not just because I'm white.
The buses are convenient and economical. No such thing as personal space in India though. Lesley and I spent 45 minutes standing on a bus that was completely packed with people. I could have let go of the hand rail and not moved. Just when you think you can't fit another person in, 5 more people climb on board, and everyone just squeezes together even more. And then everyone has to make room for the conductor to come through and collect money from all the new passengers. It's a great experience. I love taking the bus--if you make it to the correct stop and find what you're looking for it's a successful day already.
I bought some Hindi movies on VCD. Two of them I know the plot, and two I have no idea about, and none of them have subtitles. This is an effort to improve my Hindi skills, which are in need of some super-charging. I'm determined to have at least a slight proficiency in this language before I leave this country.
I like the wildlife on campus. During Kathak this past Wednesday a lizard fell from the ceiling right next to Dia and scared her a bit. They're fun to watch, though I'm not so sure I would want one in my room. They just squiggle along on the walls (and sometimes they have problems holding onto the ceiling apparently). My mom will get a kick out of this, I think.
I also finally saw one of the wild boar that live on campus. I kept hearing stories about how big they are, especially the male. I saw a female. They charge across the roads sometimes at night. I would never ever want to be in a boar's path as it's blindly running out of the brush--would not be fun. The female was big--i can only imagine what the male is like.
The peacocks are the best. They're very shy, you can usually only see them in the very early morning. I got very lucky this morning. I was waiting for class on the steps of the folk culture building at about 9 this morning and a peacock came running into the open field on one side, crossed directly in front of me and hurried into the brush on the other side. It was in a hurry--they don't like to be out in the open, they're so skittish. It must have been lost. It was beautiful.
Other wildlife, or perhaps domestic life forms include the invisible mosquitoes that apparently inhabit my room/bed at night. Mosquito bites all over my feet and calves--usually at least one new one each morning. There are a couple on my fingers too. I'm terrible about staying away from the ones on my feet--they are the worst as far as itchiness goes! Therefore, my feet are looking really great right now.
Overall, the status quo is being maintained and everything is going smoothly. There are always the on days and the off days. Some days I can't wait until May--those are usually the days when it seems like everyone is staring at you (more than usual) and it's hot and you just spent three hours trying to get to one place and weren't able to get there so you had to give up, and by the time you get home all you really want to do at that point is take a nap, and then you feel like you wasted even more time. Those days, thankfully, are rare.
Every now and then I can step back and see how integrated I am becoming on campus. I don't think it's a process that could ever end, since we will never completely fit in here. The Indian students in my political science classes are familiar with me and I'm familiar with them. It's nice to be able to smile and say hi to more and more people as you're walking to class. I eat at the canteen for lunch every now and then. (That's another fight as well, getting your lunch during the busy lunch hour. If you wait in line, you will never get your food). It's pretty good food--a little watered down sometimes, but mostly it's pretty tasty. Just being able to get Aunty to take my order, and then the cook to take my food ticket makes me feel like I kind of know what I'm doing around here.
Being in India has made me more assertive. If you're not assertive, you overpay for everything, you don't get your food, you get cut multiple times in lines that don't really exist anyway, you miss every open seat on the bus, and, as a white woman, get much more than a desired amount of attention. So I'm working on being more assertive.
Thus I conclude with my goals for the week/month/semester:
--Learn Hindi
--Be more assertive
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Jugu
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Uh oh, India is wearing on someone. Next time, bring a bag of mangoes and trade 4 mangoes and 10 rupees for the ride. Trust me. it'll work. The only personal space you get in India is in the bathroom and you don't really want to spend too much time in an Indian bathroom I'm sure you have found out already. Just think of it this way, It's better than being completely alone and lonely which is the majority of the western world. And you think 3 hours is long to get to a place? try spending a whole night to getting out of Delhi on a bus only to find that you have only moved 300 feet the whole night in a traffic jam. The only thing you can do is laugh and enjoy the moment and crawl up on the roof of the bus, have your cup of chai, and watch the sun rise as India wakes up to another splendid day. Jugu