A Holiday gift in the form of a life lesson - lucky you!

As some of you (particularly Eastern Market swimmers and anyone who attended Bowdoin’s graduation last year) might know, I managed to turn lap swimming into a contact sport and wound up with a sweet black eye. As it turns out, I can also turn running into a contact sport. Let me preface this story by saying I am totally fine, just sporting a few large scrapes and bruises. Now for story time.

Since the pool is closed for the winter, I have resorted to running laps on the road that circles our apartment complex because a) there is very little traffic and b) by now everyone in the neighborhood knows there are white kids living in 155 and one of them is prone to jogging (or yogging, as some would call it) so they don’t stare at me as I huff and puff and generally struggle along. So yesterday morning I have the ipod on, am totally in my zone strutting along, when it occurs to me that it is almost New Years, and thus I should take some time to reflect on the last year. Just as I’m thinking to myself “what are the major events that have happened over the last year?” BAM! A guy on a motorcycle literally drives straight into my back, sending me flying forward sprawled out face first on the pavement. Even as I was flying through the air all I could think of was the irony. Once I realized nothing hurt too badly, I couldn’t help but burst out laughing as I was sprawled out, and of course the guy who hit me doesn’t speak English so he’s now thinking I’ve hit my head and gone insane. Luckily I was totally fine and he apologized profusely and bent down to kiss my leg where I was bleeding, at which point I hightailed it back home…

I’ve decided that given the completely classic timing of the event it is clearly a sign, and thus I’ve decided my lesson of ’09 is that sometimes life throws an Indian man on a motorcycle at your back and before you know it you’re face first on the asphalt thinking maybe you should just lay there for a while. But, if you can find a way to laugh about it and get some motivation to pick those pebbles out of your forehead, you’re that much stronger for it and you’ve got a story to share with your friends. So there you have it folks…your knowledge bomb of the day.

Sadly, other than taking a national holiday so that they can get the day off of work India does not deck the halls, so this year has been sorely lacking for me in Christmas spirit. Mom and Dad did come through with a sweet box o’ gifts, which I’ve been working my way through while playing Christmas music, so at least that’s something. Plus, to add to our house’s holiday spirit, Jack’s parents send him Hanukah in a box, which managed to arrive the day after Hanukkah. Luckily for Jack, for honorary Jews such as myself, the 9^th night of Hanukkah is really what we do best. Our bosses also got a touch of the holiday spirit and gave us a week off, and it’s a little known fact that when Santa can’t have eggnog he prefers a pina colada, so in his honor I’m heading to Sri Lanka tomorrow for some serious beach time.

Merry Christmas to everyone out there and I'll see you in 2010!

Kolkata, Calcutta, potato, po-ta-to

My two week tour d’India continues, for the last 9 days I have been in Kolkata, once again living out of a hotel room and helping to train surveyors. I feel like I’m living the life of a consultant - traveling alone to places, working non-stop, and ordering food from the hotel room service night after night. Of course somehow I don’t think consultants share their room with a large array of bugs, attempt to navigate public transportation in cities where no one seems to speak English, or have to deal with cold bucket showers. I guess this would be consulting done NGO style. I’ve really enjoyed getting to see Kolkata and the villages surrounding it, but now that I’m sitting in the airport I have to admit I’m really looking forward to getting back to Delhi and having some social interaction beyond thanking the room service guy for his excellent delivery skills.
Unfortunately, Kolkata is a bit of an intense city. Everything is covered in a layer of dirt and grime and it is brutally loud and crowded. I haven’t really had much free time here, and since the city is on the very eastern edge of the country (which, despite its large size is all in one time zone), the sun sets at about 4:30 which left me with little daylight to do any exploring. I did manage to take Sunday off and made an attempt at being a tourist which ended up being a complete Kolkata-fail. I started off fairly successfully and managed to get to the main landmark, which is a palace called the Victoria Memorial.

The Victoria Memorial - my one tourist success!

It was actually quite impressive, with beautiful gardens all around it and a nice museum inside describing how the British f’ed over Calcutta. After, I attempted to walk to another neighborhood that supposedly has cool architecture, but got completely lost in the crowded maze of streets. The problem was I couldn’t take out my map because as soon as I did I was surrounded by about 1,000 people, none of whom I could communicate with of course, who would all offer their 2 cents about which way I should go. I gave up and hailed a cab and attempted to tell him where I wanted to go. Fail number 2. I must have been saying something wrong because we circled around for about a half hour and ended up right back where we started. At this point I was so burned out that this Colonial Architecture the guide book talked about wasn’t sounding nearly as interesting as it had in the morning.
I accepted defeat and headed back to my hotel room. Then, in the ultimate of ironies, I turned on the TV to discover they were showing Outsourced, a movie about a guy who comes to work in India and experiences total culture shock. I embraced the beauty of the moment and spent the afternoon in my room laughing at this guy as he struggled in India. What a loser. Oh wait. Although the movie itself isn’t anything spectacular, it’s pretty hilarious if you’ve been here because it’s so true in so many ways (except for the fact that everyone he deals with magically speaks English). Still, I was impressed with how many little Indiaisms they managed to show – especially the way Indians always say “no problem, no problem” and shake their head back and forth even when there clearly is a problem and they clearly aren’t going to be able to fix it.
I managed to snap a few pictures of the city and the countryside, for all the city’s lack of beauty, the countryside definitely made up for it. It was incredibly lush and green and there was water everywhere. Sorry my pictures don’t do it justice!

I failed to fully capture it, but this was this super rickety wooden bridge that I thought I should take a picture of before our car attempted to use it. I was pretty sure it wouldn't be there any more after it tried to support the weight of our car...

One of my trainees interviewing my favorite doctor. First of all he was super fun and cheery and second of all when we asked him to list new medicines he had heard of he listed "Sooz-75". I don't know what it claims to cure but clearly I would take it in a heart beat.
Saminar primary school

While the people I'm "training" administer surveys to the teachers I distract their students by making faces and generally being pale and white.

Greetings from Pune, a city in Southish India along the west coast. I am here for a week helping one of our field coordinators train the people who are conducting our surveys. I can’t say I’m enormously helpful, seeing as most of the training is in Mahrahti. Fortunately, Mahrati is really similar to Hindi, which I can at least follow somewhat, and most of the guys know some English. We are training a group of 20 guys, all of which look to be between 20 and 25, and seem extremely terrified to talk to me. Good thing I’m not trying to flirt with them or that would surely scare them off! We are working through medical cases that they are going to survey the doctors about. I think it’s safe to say the low point for me was when the trainer didn’t know what constipation was I had to explain it to the group of college-aged guys. Yeah. That went real well.
I don’t really have any time to explore Pune, although I did have the first afternoon I got here free. I attempted to go to the Osho Ashram, which is the main tourist destination here. The Osho Ashram was founded by this guy who proclaimed himself a guru and promoted using sex as a way to find yourself. It still operates now, and there were a ton of people walking around in robes who are in the process of finding themselves…riiiiight. I attempted to take the free visitors tour, but was told they just had to shut it down due to a pending lawsuit. Then I read that in order to set foot in the Ashram you have to take a mandatory HIV test. Now I’m definitely glad I couldn’t take the tour because I have visions of stepping through the gate and immediately getting jumped by some guy all in the name of him finding himself.
Thus far, though, Pune is my favorite place in India. What is so great about it? Amazing vistas? Historic temples? Great culture? No no, none of those. One word: Television. Yes, my hotel room has a TV, and every time I turn it on they are either showing Friends or Desperate Housewives. It’s as if there is a channel out there that is catering specifically to me. I get back to the room at 9pm, Friends is on. I turn it on at 7am when I get up, its DHW. Amazing! Then, in a rare moment of brazenness I navigated away from this channel and found a 2008 gymnastics meet between University of Arkansas and Alabama. Talk about random! I’m sure that D-1 athletes at decent programs across the country have no idea that a few years from now some family in rural India will be gathered around their prized position watching their meet!
I must admit, working with the surveyors and going out to the villages to interview doctors is still slightly cooler than all the Friends reruns. I’m sorry for the lack of pictures, we try to keep a somewhat low profile when we go into the villages, which is obviously completely impossible given that I’m a white female, but me snapping a bunch of pictures definitely wouldn’t help. Being here has also made me appreciate how diverse the US really is. It’s so bizarre to me that I have been in Pune, which is a huge city of 5 million people, for five days, and I have not seen a single non-Indian. There were a few whities at the airport, so I suppose there are some others wandering the streets here somewhere, but I have yet to spot them. The worst part is that if I have a huge stain on my shirt or my hair looks crazy I have no way of knowing it, because everyone is staring at me all the time anyway.

Tandoori Turkey

Sorry for the back to back posts, but I figure you all need extra distractions as you ease back into work after thanksgiving anyway. I am happy to report that we hosted a very successful potluck on Thursday, complete with some thanksgiving classics, some Indian classics, and some random items that make every potluck complete. We had about 15 people at our humble abode, and just as they did at Plymouth Rock all those years ago, we settled down to a meal with the Indians. The menu included naan, paneer, dal, rice, and samosas to give it some Indian flavor. Then there was the pasta and pizza, not totally traditional for thanksgiving, but fairly American none the less. We rounded out our tour of global cuisine with guacamole, salsa, and hummus, just to make sure Mexico and the Middle East felt included. Jack managed to bake a pumpkin pie in the toaster oven, which turned out remarkably well.

And last but not least, there was even turkey. Keep in mind that about 40 percent of Indians are vegetarian, so even finding meat can be a bit of a challenge. In addition, pretty much the only types of meat available are chicken and mutton. Jack and Aakash managed to track down some turkey at a market, and while we debated attempting to chop it in half and squeeze it into our toaster oven we settled on the more stereotypically correct answer and outsourced the cooking to one of our favorite restaurants. They promptly told us no way they had never seen a turkey before let alone cooked one, but with enough coaxing (aka rupees) they agreed. While at the restaurant, Jack called his mom in Illinois to see if she had any suggestions for the novices. She then asked the New York Times, who put it on their food blog (scroll down to just below the picture of the potatoes) The result was a tandoori turkey, which Aakash, Jack and the other non-vegetarians tell me was delicious. Even with all these other vegetarians running around, India does not do Tofu, much less Tofurkey, but let’s be honest that wasn’t really a big loss for me.

All in all it was an extremely successful thanksgiving and we kept the most important tradition - no not getting together with good friends and thinking of all that we are thankful for - having enough leftovers to last through the long weekend!

The roomies (Jack, Monisha, yours truly, and Aakash) with the Tandoorified Butterball

The India. (Shoulder Shrug)

Back in college every time something happened that was totally stereotypical of college my friend and I used to cheer “collllleeeedge!”. Someone does a keg stand and then runs outside to puke: colllleeeeedge! Everyone gets super excited because the dining hall has chicken parm…colllleeeeedge! Here in India I’ve decided the equivalent is the India. (shoulder shrug). The India. (shoulder shrug) can be used to describe most situations one encounters here. For example: my roommates and I all applied for ATM cards when we got here in the summer. Four of us received our cards within a few weeks as is often the case when one applies for an ATM card. It is now four months later and Aakash is still waiting for his and still goes to the bank every week to see if it’s there. Each time they reassure him it will be here within a week. India. (shoulder shrug).

November brought about the start of wedding season here, and apparently the banquet hall at our apartment complex is literally booked seven days a week all month for weddings, which means that at night as I sit in bed working on my grad school apps I hear a marching band go by outside my window followed by fireworks every single night. India. (shoulder shrug). In addition, a white horse is part of the wedding parade. I’m now fairly used to seeing livestock wandering the streets of Delhi, usually horses, goats, and of course cows. Note – for my first few weeks here these were a bizarre enough sight to warrant an India. (shoulder shrug.) But these days it’s just business as usual. The other day, though, I was sitting in an auto rickshaw at an extremely busy intersection between two huge roads, when all of the sudden this guy just goes galloping right through a red light waving a yellow flag like a madman signal all the cars to stop and let him through. India. (shoulder shrug.)

Apparently the breathalyzer also has not yet made it to Delhi. Last night, we were on our way back from a bar when our auto rickshaw was stopped at a police check point. The policeman asked the driver to blow on his hand, then smelled it to see if it reeked of vodka. Luckily for us our driver only blew a .0001 and was deemed safe to drive. Sucks for the cop who gets the guy who ordered extra garlic in his curry. India. (shoulder shrug).

Lastly, it is now officially fall here in Delhi, meaning that the nights are chilly but it still gets up into the low 80s during the day (or the high 20s as we Celsius users like say). The cooler temperatures have been accompanied by a change in Delhi fashion. Apparently men in Delhi are aware that the practicality of the sweater vest (I mean it really is just too warm for those bulky sweater arms) greatly outweighs the general nerdy qualities associated with it. One out of every two guys I pass on the street is wearing a sweater vest, and I’m not talking your basic cable-knit either. The most popular version is this weird shag-carpet style knit that occasionally has some glittery threads thrown in for some added flare. Unfortunately I haven’t seen any women bust out the sweater vest/sari combo, but I’m thinking I may just have to introduce that here. At that point it will be everyone else’s turn to bust out the USA. (shoulder shrug).

Visiting Villages

Finally, after four months of doing computer analysis, I am out in the “field” as we in the development field call it. For 10 days I have been visiting villages in Madhya Pradesh, the state where we are conducting our surveys, to test out our next round of survey instruments. We are staying in a hotel in the district capital, and then each day we drive out to the villages and talk to doctors there and conduct pilot studies of our survey forms. I totally feel Julia Roberts’ pain. Every time I step out of the jeep a huge crowd gathers around and follows me everywhere I go. In some villages the kids tried to be sly about it and would walk back and forth by me as if they were doing some task that required them to continually walk 10 feet, turn around, and walk back. But in others they just went right ahead and sat down next to me and never took their eyes away, even when I was just sitting around for an hour, they just sat tight and kept staring at me. I feel like I should come up with a dance or magic show or something to keep them entertained as they stare.

We’ve gone to both private doctors and public health clinics, and it’s a tough call as to which provides better care. You would think the private doctors would be better, because they charge money whereas the public clinic is free. Because they are private, though, they don’t need to have any qualifications so many of them have never done any medical school or formal training. In the public clinic, the doctors have all been to med school, which is always a good thing, but as we have learned even though they are open from 9 am to 5 pm the doctor only comes from 10am to noon. So people arrive at 10 and get in line, and each one gets 20 seconds from the doctor, in which he asks them what is wrong and writes a prescription, usually for an antibiotic. He never does a physical exam, as that would waste too much time and rarely asks a follow up question. After two hectic hours he closes up shop and heads home.

In some ways, India has a strange way of preserving the status quo. The good news is they avoid things that could be detrimental, the bad news is they don’t improve things. For example, the doctors prescribe antibiotics for everything, which you would thing would be a bad thing. But, since 95% of the medications here are fake anyway, it ends up being ok that they are handing drugs out like candy. We noticed that none of the doctors had sinks which means they aren’t washing their hands between patients. Seems like a bad idea. But, then you realize that none of the doctors ever touch any patients, so once again it manages to work out.

On a totally unrelated note, we are staying in a hotel with a tv, and yesterday I was flipping through channels and came across a local gymnastics meet that was on. I have to say the skills they were doing were not exactly impressive…but I don’t think gymnastics is very big here. Then they randomly started showing the floor final from the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. This Indian guy was narrating the meet as if it was on live, but all the signs in the background clearly said 2000. They showed it for about 10 minutes and then moved on to another show. It was so random! And now every time we watch sports here we aren’t sure if what we’re watching is from this year or some championship from 1999.

Good old (New) Delhi

My dear friend Michelle pointed out that I owe you all a post. Truthfully the last few weeks have not been all that exciting, mostly just work. We did take a trip to go whitewater rafting, which was awesome although kind of similar to whitewater rafting in the US. There were a couple things that made it extra special though. The first is that we were in the Ganges river, which is believed by Hindus to be holy and is a major pilgrimage destination. It was extremely convenient because we were able to multitask by rafting and washing away our sins at the same time. Cliff Jumping!!!

The company’s official method of transportation from the end of the rafting back up to base camp was to stand by the side of the road and hold our thumbs out. A truck finally pulled over and we all climbed in the back and sat on top of their cargo, bouncing along and loving every minute of it. Halfway there the truck stopped and guide hopped out and walked away without a word. Now that we are accustomed to bizarre India-instances such as this, we were unphased by the fact that we were now in a random truck with some guys who didn’t speak English and just sat tight and sure enough they dropped us off at the base camp and asked for 100 rupees.

Squeezed in the back of the truck. As you can see, Little Ditty have really embraced India since we got here. Just kidding! Those are my other two roommates who arrived after us, Aakash and Monisha.

Since I’ve mostly been in Delhi the past few weeks, I thought I would bestow upon you a few random knowledge nuggets about this place I have come to call home. First, it is common for menus in restaurants here to refer to appetizers as “titbits”. Can you honestly tell me you are mature enough to not crack a smile at the word titbit? Yeah I didn’t think so. So without further adieu, here are a few titbits about Delhi:

1. It really is brutally polluted here. The city is covered in a permanent cloud of smog and you can feel (and smell) it every time you breathe in. To make matters worse, the other night we were walking along our street when we heard a loud truck approaching from behind. As it was about to pass us we realized it was dispensing a huge cloud of yellow awful smelling smoke that was then hovering over the street. I had a brief moment of panic where I decided this was chemical weapons terrorism and they hadn’t yet perfected the colorless or odorless part and were using it anyway. Despite my panic, there really was nothing we could do to avoid it and had to just keep on walking down our street through this chemical cloud. We asked someone and apparently it is mosquito poison. So now not only am I breathing in your standard toxins, but poison as well. Awesome. The next morning I read in the paper about a large debate in India about whether or not to allow genetically modified food. So far they have forbidden it because it might be dangerous. As I licked the poison off my lips I couldn’t help but taste the irony.
2. It is socially acceptable for men in India to pee anywhere, and thus the edge of the sidewalk is the most convenient place. Unfortunately there is not really a trash removal system either, so the litter and urine combine in the heat to create quite a smell.
3. On a more positive note, Delhi actually has a ton of trees and parks. Our street is lined with huge trees and we are within walking distances of some pretty nice parks complete with fake lakes and everything.
4. There are about 3 motorcycles for every car in Delhi, and it is not uncommon to see a family of 4 or 5 all squeezed onto one motorcycle (one kid in front of dad, one squeezed in behind him and one in mom’s arms at the back).
5. Lastly, homosexuality is not accepted here, although it was made legal over the summer – and by legal I mean not marriage but rather just being homosexual in your own home. It is, however, socially acceptable and quite common for men to hold hands while they walk or to sit with their arms around each other. It is also socially acceptable for men to order Bacardi Breezers at a bar. So often I’ll go into a bar and see three guys all sitting with their arms around each other enjoying Strawberry Breezers.

So there you have it, I hope these bits o’ tits have enlightened your day!

Sorry I haven’t posted in so long, I’ve been helping my new boy toy Brad Pitt pick out his latest child. Ok fine, I’ve just been doing work but I had to come up with something to top the whole bollywood with Julia experience. One thing I will say is that now that I’m an experienced extra I just can’t watch a movie in the same way. Every time I see someone walk across the screen in the background I just have to analyze their performance. What is their motivation for walking that path? W have they chosen that particular pace? The complexities of the mind of an extra would blow you away. But alas, now you are no longer reading the blog of a h/bollywood movie star, but rather just a tireless NGO worker who packed up her life and traveled halfway around the world to devote herself to the greater cause no matter how challenging that may prove…I know, how incredibly lame!

This past weekend was Diwali, the biggest Hindu holiday of the year. Luckily, since I live in India I get to experience things first hand and don’t have to just read about them to understand them. Diwali, also known as the festival of light, celebrates the return of Ram after 14 years of exile. (www.wikipedia.com) Two weeks ago we celebrated Dasara, which was when Ram won one hell of a battle against Ravana, aka a mean monster slash devil. So now he's back and we are ready to celebrate!

Diwali is pretty sweet in that it combines Christmas and the 4^th of July into one – people decorate their houses with Christmas lights and set off firecrackers (there is also some praying and cleansing of the soul involved but I just saw the lights). By firecrackers I don’t just mean those little sparklers either, everyone sets off their own 4^th of July style fireworks. It actually makes a lot of sense when you think about it: rather than have the city waste its precious money and deal with the logistics of setting up a fireworks show, they just make them legal and let the people set off their own show. Plus, in a city of 12 million, this means that the fireworks are going off literally all night (actually more than just all night seeing as Diwali was Saturday and it is now Monday night and I am still listening to the blasts go off it was cute at first but it is getting a little old). Delhi doesn’t have any skyscrapers, so as long as they were bright enough to shine through the pollution you could see fireworks going off all over the city. We live on the top floor of our apartment, so we were able to climb up on our roof and literally watch fireworks going off in 360 degrees all around us, which was surprisingly cool - until our neighbors set one off that fell about three feet from us and we freaked out and went inside. My other favorite part of Diwali is the traditional gift basket, which for some reason always contains random British and American snacks. They sell them in all the stores and it is literally a basket filled with totally non-Indian items. One of our organizations here bought us one and it contains: one pepsi, one box drink of Tropicana juice, a small bag of Lays, and a few mini Cadbury bars. So random, but much appreciated none the less.

...And it just keeps getting better

Ok, now I’m starting to wonder if some member of the Eat Pray Love crew is reading this blog, because they have managed to make my India-dreams come true. To start at the beginning, yesterday Jack and I were called back to the set for some more of our critically acclaimed (and everyone always says I’m my own hardest critic) work as extras. When we arrived at the set we noticed a definite lack of white faces. It turned out they were filming an Indian wedding scene and thus had about 60 Indian extras and 2 white extras. Who were those two whities? You guessed it, yours truly and Jack. Luckily we’re used to sticking out like sore thumbs at this point, so even though the rest of our posse was gone we quickly adjusted and it was just another day at the office.

The morning was off to a good start, the filming was in Delhi so the commute wasn’t as long and they didn’t try to stuff any extra people into our cab on the way there. It got even better, however, when they busted out a bright pink sari and told me that was my costume for the day. Cristie I hope you’re reading this because I know I was joking about showing up at your wedding in a sari, but now I’m seriously considering going back to the set and stealing that one because not only was it bright pink but it also had a ton of sequins on it and was pretty much amazing. So don’t say I didn’t warn you!

Its tough to say who looks more natural in their costume - me or Jack?

Of course I was also decked out in bangles and fake jewelry that reminded me of the type of things 4 year olds put on when they’re playing dress-up. I was fully prepared for another day of standing in the background when all of the sudden I was whisked away and asked to talk to the choreographer. As I was running behind him trying and keep up with his brisk no-nonsense walk, I learned that he was there with a troupe of Bollywood dancers to do some dance scenes for the wedding reception. I have to insert a side note here so that you all can get a mental image of el choreográpher. He had clearly spent an hour on his hair that morning and used a full container of gel to create some sort of an elvis-meets-McDreamy look. Then he added a bright pink button down shirt tucked into skin tight black jeans and topped it all off with some tiny round sunglasses with purple lenses (very Elton John). He was a kick.

I was so distracted by his looks that I almost missed the part where he tells me that in addition to the Bollywood dancers they want to have some other dancers, including cute kids a white person who is there for the wedding. Yes, you read that right. I spent the next half hour busting out Bollywood dance moves with some professional dancers complete with hip shaking, bangle rattling, and overly-expressive fake smiling. I get the distinct feeling I was out of the shot the entire time and it was actually just the American crew playing a prank on me, but the joke is on them because not only have I now fulfilled my dream of doing a Bollywood dance in a major motion picture, I am also fairly sure that some bigwigs will see the footage and sign me on to more roles immediately.

Later in the afternoon I actually ended up standing next to Julia Roberts in a scene where we tossed flower petals up in the air. I had the distinct privilege of then picking said flower petals out of Julia’s hair. It took all my strength to resist pulling out a chunk to sell on e-bay. This of course led to intense bonding in which we became best friends, agreed to go on a shopping spree, she slipped me a quick thousand bucks just for being me, made me the Godmother of her youngest child, you know, the usual. Actually, to be honest I’m pretty sure if she had seen my dancing earlier in the day she would have been asking for my autograph since it was pretty clear which one of the two of us was cooler and more talented.

Anyway, I think I’m done with my Hollywood experience, the 4am starts are getting a little old and to be honest there is no way I’m going to top yesterday’s experience anyway. So when 2011 rolls around and this movie finally comes out look for the white chick dancing her heart out as Tulsi walks by and you can say with pride that you read her blog back before she was famous.

Forget Bollywood...I'm going straight to Hollywood!

As many of you know my real reason for coming to India was not to save the world, but to become a Bollywood star. While I have made very little progress on that front, I had the unexpected chance to get a taste of Hollywood this week. It goes like this:

I saw a posting on a listserv to be an extra in a film by Brad Pitt’s production company called Eat Pray Love, staring none other than Julia Roberts. I signed up and was told I would be contacted shortly, only to hear nothing back. The whole thing operated in a very “India” way, meaning that I got a call on Sunday asking if I could leave around 4 am the next day to go to the set. As if I have nothing better planed for my Monday. Well, actually that was true so I told them yes of course. They told me they would call back with details. At 8 pm on Sunday I still hadn’t heard anything, so I had to call them to remind them. Sure enough they still did want me, had forgotten to call me back, but yes, a cab would be arriving at 4 am to take me and Jack to the set. Obviously Jack was also involved because we clearly can’t be separated for a full day without having severe separation anxiety.

The cab showed up at 4:45 and was already full – so Jack and I had to squeeze in for the bumpy hour and a half ride out to the Ashram, where the filming is taking place. A bit of background: Eat Pray Love is based on a memoir and includes a part about the main character travelling to India to stay at an Ashram to meditate, do yoga, and find herself.

Apparently while they were filming in New York they forgot to do a wedding scene, which is a flashback scene to a wedding in Connecticut in the early 90s. So the production company rounded up 60 white people from Delhi, had us dress in our nicest western suits and dresses, and shuttled us all out to a hotel near the Ashram to film this scene. The first crazy part was hair and makeup, where I was transformed from a sleepy bedhead to one crazy looking wedding attendee. I forgot that stage make up is not exactly flattering. The shade of pink on my lips has not been seen since the mid 80s and my eyelids rivaled Mimi’s from The Drew Carey Show. After feasting on a fabulous catered breakfast we were off to the set. The second crazy part was seeing a bunch of Western Europeans sitting around in sleeveless dresses and suits and ties. I don’t think I’ve seen more than three other white people together since I’ve been here, so to suddenly be surrounded by them dressed to the nines was quite a trip. Unfortunately, Jack and I were not even chosen to be in the scene. Although we had both seen Julia, it was surprisingly anti-climatic; who would have guessed she kind of just looks like a person in real life? We were definitely bummed to have missed our 15 minutes of fame as we drove the hour and a half back to Delhi.

At 9pm, however, our luck changed as I got a call from the production company asking if we could come at 4am the next day and stay at a hotel near the set to be extras for the next three days. Considering we get paid over twice as much per day as the daily equivalent of our NGO salaries, not to mention the fact that being on a movie set is far more exciting than working from home, we of course said yes. Please note that we are not completely neglecting our jobs, we both brought our laptops and have been doing work at night and in between scenes on the set.

Being an extra has actually been pretty cool. There are about 10 of us who are called “core extras” meaning we show up every day to do the general Ashram scenes. We’ve all bonded since we have plenty of time to hang out and we’re quite the motley crew – some Lithuanians, Russians, and Brits, me and Jack and another guy from the US, and an Aussie – all dressed in authentic Indiawear. There are a few scenes of me walking around in the back, as well as one where I am checking new arrivals into the Ashram. So when the movie comes out do look for me in the back saying goodbye to Richard. It was a very emotional day and we were quite sad to see him go J

I think the coolest part, though, was being chosen to be the stand in for a smaller character named Corella. (Same hair color and height, combined with my obvious talent and good looks and natural ease in front of the camera won me this role). The part is played by Sophie Thompson, who I learned from google is Emma Thompson’s younger sister and was in Sense and Sensibility and Emma. She has been so much fun to work with and is really chatty while we’re not working. As I’ve learned, the role of the stand in is to walk through the actor’s movements and lines so that they can check all the lighting. First we watched Julia and Sophie (aka Team 1) do the scene to see what they do, then they call in Team 2 (me and Charlotte, Julia’s stand in) to recreate it. We then run through it numerous times, pausing throughout etc. It’s a little weird to know that some big shot director is sitting in his folding chair watching your face intently to see how the light falls across it. Then comes the highlight, which involves Julia Roberts coming back to take over and making eye contact and smiling at me. Considering the only “celebrity” I’ve made eye contact with before is good old Ben Bernanke, I thought it was pretty cool. Not to mean any disrespect to Ben, he is after all The Man.

The other cool part about being a stand in is that everyone, the assistant directors, cinematographers, cameramen, etc, are all standing around watching the scene with you so you get to whisper with them and learn about what goes on behind the scenes in movies. They were all really friendly and have worked on a lot of pretty sweet movies. Plus now they all know me by name, so when I’m walking with the other extras and they wave and say “Hi Suzanne” I get major status points.

All in all, its been a jam packed 4 days (we did get to sleep in until 5:40 today which was absolutely luxurious) and I have to say that while trying to save the world is pretty cool, being on a movie set has its perks too. I apologize for the lack of pictures, needless to say cameras are absolutely not allowed on set.

Those promiscuous white kids...

I’m slowly starting to realize that most Indians consider Americans to have loose morals and figure that every white person therefore falls into that category. While this assumption might upset some people, I more just feel bad that I am clearly not living up to their expectations. I had two funny encounters recently that are classic examples.

The first starts with me going for a run, not bringing a key, and coming back to find that all my roommates had left and I was locked out. Since I had just gone for a run I had no phone or anything on me and was absolutely disgusting and covered in sweat, so I just plopped down in front of the door and hoped that someone would come home within the next hour, having visions of sitting out there in the heat until sunset. Then, of course, our neighbors walked by and I felt obligated to explain why I would choose to sit in 98 degree heat on my doorstep sweating bullets, as only a dumbass would do such a thing. My explanation only confirmed that I was in fact a dumbass who went for a run without a key.

Sweethearts that they are they invited me into their apartment even though I smelled like a high school locker room. They then said I could use thier phone to call my roommates, and I had to explain that in fact I did not have any of their phone numbers memorized. Dumbassness further confirmed. (Please note I know have memorized their numbers to prevent such embarrassment in the future). Then they cut right to the chase and asked me why they had seen both men and women going up to our apartment. I explained that we were 3 girls and 2 guys living together. Then they asked if we were married. No. The poor things looked positively scandalized at the thought of what was occurring in the apartment above them. They would be sorely disappointed to learn that rather than a lurid ménage a cinq we spend all our time, day and night, staring intently at our laptops.

I must admit that Jack provided me with this next story, and I have his verbal consent to post it on this blog. First I should point out that since Jack and I work on the same parts of the project, are the only two RAs that have to stay in Delhi instead of going to the field, and are the only two RAs who appreciate the taste of a good beer at happy hour, we spend pretty much all our waking hours together. Our big accomplishment of the past few weeks is that we have a café and neighboring food stall where we are officially “regulars” that all the staff know. Of course at the food stall it only took two visits since I think we are their first and only white customers. In a rare occurrence of separation – which Jack and I currently undergoing therapy to get past – Jack went to the food stall without me the other day. There is one employee there who speaks heavily accented English and likes to chat with us.

Employee: Where is your friend? The lady?

Jack: She’ll be here later

Employee: She is your wife?

Jack. No.

Employee: She is your girlfriend?

Jack. No. Just friend. Coworker.

Employee: I see I see. So you have wife?

Jack. No.

Employee: You have girlfriend?

Jack: No.

Employee: So then who do you have the sex with?

Jack: Um….say that again?

Employee, more slowly this time: The sex. Who do you have the sex with?

Jack: Um no one right now man. Thanks for rubbing it in.

On the off chance our buddy is forward enough to ask me the same question I of course am prepared to just start rattling off a list of men’s names…Oh, you know, Sunil, Rajiv, Ravi, Kumar, Naveen, just to name a few…

I turn 21 again!

So as some of you may know I recently celebrated hitting the big quarter century mark. While in the U.S. this may prompt many people to rush out at midnight and rent a car, reveling in the joy of not paying extra for insurance, I had the privilege of re-turning 21. In Delhi, city of pure and non-chemically induced joys, the drinking age is in fact 25. Note that I have never in all my time here ever been carded nor do I even carry ID on me if they were to ask, but that’s beside the point if you ask me. So I took my first wary steps into a bar and had my first sip of this “beer” I’ve been hearing all those 25 year olds talk about – err...riiiiight. I am proud to say that with the grace and maturity expected of a 25 year old on her birthday my newly found legality did not lead to close encounters with the bar’s toilet. Seriously though, I managed to pull together some new friends I had met in Delhi (all but one of my roommates had abandoned me and were out in the field) and we had a great time and they even managed to get me a pretty awesome chocolate cake.

Since our other 3 roommates had peaced out, Jack and I took a two day trip to Shimla, a small town up north in the mountains. It turns out Shimla was the summer capital back when the British ruled India. You might assume, like I did, that this means all the wealthy politicians had summer homes up there. In fact, every year when it got hot in Delhi said politicians literally put all their filing cabinets, desks, etc. on a bunch of trains and moved their entire offices up to Shimla and worked from there. Not entirely practical but at the same time more productive than spending half the year sitting on a ranch in Texas. We went on a couple hikes which were pretty much as anti-Delhi as it gets, and saw an awesome waterfall that was particularly impressive since it had rained for about a week straight. (Including during our hike as evidenced by the droplets in the picture)

Upon our arrival we also learned that Shimla is a popular honeymoon destination, so I’m pretty sure everyone we interacted with thought Jack and I were newlyweds. Too bad it didn’t inspire them to give us any free stuff or discounts. The tourism map even pointed out a place called “Scandal Point” that is slightly (although frankly not really) secluded and apparently a hot spot for honeymooners. Jack and I avoided Scandal Point.

Pictures!!!

Little Ditty +me: aka three very confused white kids in India

The Golden Temple looking beautiful at sunset

Another shot of the Golden Temple

Diane and I at a mosque in Delhi. They claimed they make you wear the dress to cover scandalous skin. We think its for them to further make fun of western tourists. Luckily we pulled the look off well.

This man asked us to take his picture in front of the temple. I just loved his stance so much I had to put it up here.

RaRaRa-Rajasthan!

Note to self: when considering future career options despite being only one letter off IGO is very different from NGO. While the good people of the NGO world are all heart with little reward, when you turn that non-governmental into an inter-governmental you get a little more money thrown your way and thus employees get sweet perks. While I of course am still at my usual NGOness I did manage to tag along with a friend who works for one such IGO this weekend on a trip to Jaipur, the capital city of the state of Rajasthan. First of all, I should point out that this friend wasn’t even a friend at all until a few weeks ago. She is a fellow Blue Devil (woot woot), Davis High School class of ’99 and despite the fact that she grew up a few blocks away from me in Davis I had never met her until a mutual friend put us in contact with each other a few weeks ago. She is now working in Nepal but comes to Delhi for work occasionally and most importantly brings her per diem with her. Whew, is it the life! We rode in a car, with air conditioning and windows and everything, and even stayed in a place that takes the "s" out of hostel! It had a breakfast buffet! Boy did my little NGO heart ever go crazy at the sight of all that "free" food!

Although the hotel was in itself a sight to see - an old palace converted into a hotel by someone with amazing taste in interior decoration - the city was also really cool. It is known as the pink city because the stone that it is built out of is all a pinkish salmon color. It kind of felt like being in its a small world without the creepy singing children jerking awkwardly back and forth.

I visited a fort/palace in the morning, built circa 1600 for the Maharaja who ruled over Rajasthan. Upon approaching the fort (which my friend had already been to several times and thus left me by my lonsesome to navigate) I noticed the path up to the entrance looked miserably long and steep. Not to worry! This is after all India and thus there was a steady stream of elephants marching people up the hill. Overall assessment of my first use of elephant as a mode of transport: far slower than expected and bumpier than a road full of pot holes and still one sweet ass way to travel. The coolest part about the fort was that I got there before it opened and yet was still let in (questionable) and so I was wandering through all these creepy corridors totally by myself. I’d like to say I was not at all creeped out but to be honest at any moment I expect a group of angry warlords to come around the corner and attack me. I also went to the city palace, which is where all the recent rulers of the state live, including the current royal family – not to worry I didn’t realize each Indian state had a royal family either. The best part, which I attempted to capture in some photos that failed were these four sets of doors called the four seasons, which are each decorated for a different season. I am going to try to put my pictures on here – both of Jaipur and the Golden Temple so those of you with way too much time on your hands should check them out!

Oh so that's the monsoon thing they were talking about

Wow. So the monsoon arrived with a flourish today. I can’t even describe the downpour. Even though this happens every year in Delhi, the drainage is so bad in the city that all the streets had about a foot of standing water. I of course managed to be out shopping when the rain started so I ended up chilling in a shoe shop for about an hour while the heavens let loose. On the plus side I met an Indian woman who has been living in San Francisco for the last few years and even managed to get a ride home from her once the rain ended. Unfortunately Delhi’s already bad traffic situation only got worse once the streets flooded. This was compounded by the fact that the power was out all over the city so none of the lights were working and people decided to try to speed things up by driving on the wrong side of the road. So you would literally have intersections where people were entering from all directions on both sides of the road, cows were wandering across the street, bikers were stuck in foot-deep water, and general chaos reigned. It was interesting to say the least.

Otherwise I’ve gotten pretty settled in here and am mostly focusing on work. Health care in India is definitely different from the U.S. First, there is no insurance and you just pay the doctor in cash. A visit at a nice hospital can be quite expensive, but other doctors cost anywhere from 1 to 2 dollars. Also, people here have no desire to know why they are sick or what is wrong with them. They just go to the doctor to get medicine. They don’t even ask what the pills are the doctor is giving them, they just take them. When we ask people what makes someone a good doctor, they don’t seem to care if he asks them a lot of questions or does an exam, all that matters is that he gives them medication. The most common meds by far are antibiotics, which are distributed for just about every ailment. Unfortunately, each patient is only given one to two pills, so in fact all it does is build more resistant diseases. Sorry for the boring lesson, in more important and life-altering news I found a bar with an awesome happy hour last night…

Delhi's soundtrack

In order to celebrate our first month in India, and more importantly due to suffering insanity at the hands of Stata (if you don’t know what that is pat yourself on the back, you have some hope of not being a huge nerd), Jack and I went out for celebratory drinks at our neighborhood bar last night. First of all it’s called Tonic, which was also the name of the closest bar to the Federal Reserve, so it had a special place in my heart before we even stepped in. Of course then it just got better. First of all it is going for this cool modern lounge vibe with crazy lighting and candles everywhere. But what really made my night was the music. We started with a DJ playing techno remixes of some serious classics – Ace of Base, MJ (of course), Madonna, Bon Jovi – it was like a dance party on steroids. But, later in the night the real show got going…This guy comes out with a huge electronic keyboard and proceeds to sing the most eclectic group of songs and turn Tonic into a scene from The Wedding Singer. He played Disney theme songs, crappy wedding songs, Louis Armstrong’s What a Wonderful World, Hotel California, John Denver, classic oldies, George Strait, it was pretty much amazing. I will definitely be returning to Tonic in the hopes of seeing Keyboard Man again.

I feel that after a month here I really do need to take a moment to describe the joy that is riding in an auto rickshaw in Delhi. As far as I can tell, all driving laws here are optional guidelines that you can follow as long as they don’t slow you down. If there’s traffic on your side of the road, you just go on the other side to speed things up. Red lights that aren’t at a large intersection mean nothing and you don’t even slow down as you blow through them. And, when you make a left hand turn (they drive like the British on the left, btw) you don’t even bother to glance over your shoulder and see if there are any cars you’re about to cut off, you just figure they’ll get out of your way. It really reminds me of those go-carts they have at mini golf courses – you just drive wherever you feel like and try to get ahead of as many people as possible.

The downside to the mayhem is the honking. If they ever make a “sounds of Delhi” CD it will definitely just be constant honking. After a month of careful study and observation I have determined that there is a method to it – and here is a list of situations in which a driver must use the horn:

1. When you’re passing someone
2. When you’re driving next to someone
3. When you drive by a pedestrian
4. When you think the car in front of you is not being aggressive enough
5. When you breathe in
6. When you breathe out

To make matters worse, because everyone is using their horns so much people go out of their way to buy particularly obnoxious sounding ones so that they stand out above the crowd. I am already formulating an ambitious plan – and Justin and P$ if you’re reading this I need your help because you guys are the best at April Fools. Next April Fools day I am going to figure out a way to disengage every horn in Delhi and watch as drivers realize that in fact the world doesn’t stop turning if you aren’t laying on the horn.

And my sanity returns...

Whew, sorry about the dramatics in that last one, I think it was the mini-plague speaking. I am now cured or least for now until I inevitablly consume something else that does me in. I can’t really say that too much of great thrill or excitement has happened – would you believe it that sitting all day at a computer in India is extremely similar to sitting all day at a computer in the U.S? Craaazy. I am definitely looking forward to our visits to the field in August to see some more of India.

I did manage to meet up with another American who has been living in Delhi for a year. We determined that the way we “knew” each other was that she worked with a guy who lived with a guy who lived with a girl who now lives with a girl who I am friends with from college. Oh, and Kevin Bacon is in there somewhere. Regardless of our degrees of separation, I’m sure we will be facebook friends soon which thereby makes us BFF. She was great though because she was able to tell us a ton of places to go in Delhi and things to see, etc.

And finally, drum roll please, the moment you all have been waiting for…I found a pool and went swimming today! It was so great to be back in the water. I came to the sad realization that I hadn’t been swimming in three weeks, which is officially the longest I’ve gone without swimming since the summer of 2003. What do you think that says about the levels of chlorine in my body? Possibly slightly elevated. But this pool is fabulous and even a full 50m long. The water smells a tad weird and my skin itches a wee bit after I get out but those are really irrelevant details. Anyway, I’m sure you all are super excited to hear about this but clearly if you came to this site you were pretty bored anyway…

journeying out of Delhi

Hi Team,

Sorry for the delayed post – I seem to be suffering from a bit of “Delhi belly” which has been good times. I’m still not feeling great but the fact that I can sit up and be at the computer is a vast improvement.

So after working at least 12 days in a row we finally realized last week that we had a potential two days with a limited workload and decided to really go crazy and give ourselves a weekend. In order to celebrate, Little Ditty and I headed up north to Amritsar, in the state of Punjab. To get there we took the overnight train, which was kind of a cool experience in itself. The definite plus side was that we took the sleeper car, so we could actually lie down and sleep. The negative side was that the windows were open so anytime we passed another train it was so loud and the train shook so bad there was no way you could actually sleep for more than an hour at a time. And then there were these Chai-men who walked through the cars at all hours of the night shouting “Chaaaaaaai Chaaaaaaaaaai Chaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaai” like the peanut guys at baseball games. I don’t know why they thought that at 3am if they just shouted a little louder someone would wake up and buy their tea. I think they need a new business plan.

Anyway we arrived in Amritsar and headed to the Golden Temple, which is what the town is most famous for. It’s a Sikh temple that is the largest in all of India and is absolutely breathtaking. The coolest part is that while you are in the temple there is constantly a priest on a microphone chanting these soothing rhythms that are blasted out over the whole complex, which was such a relief from the usual sounds of India (cars and honking horns).

Oddly enough even though Amritsar is a big tourist destination our skin color made us pretty big celebrities there. We are now in pictures on numerous cameras throughout India, which is unlucky for those folks since none of us had showered in a few days and were definitely not pulling off the mandatory head coverings very well. It was also adorable because little kids would come up to us and stick out their hands and give us a handshake and then look mortified and giggle and run back to their parents – so cute!

To top off our day we ate dinner in an Indian restaurant that was going for a sort of 1950s American diner theme and playing all this great throwback 1980s soft rock including but not limited to Celine Dion’s My Hear Will Go On. Yessss.

Anyway, we’re back in Delhi now and my current goal is to be able to stay awake for more than four hours in a row and then who knows? Maybe even be able to keep down solid foods? Well I don’t want to get too ambitious.

First few weeks here in a nutshell

So I guess I’ll start with some details…

I am living in Delhi and currently live with two fellow Research Assistants on the project, Jack and Diane. From now on I will refer to them as “Little Ditty” (wait what is she talking ab...oh wait I get it, like the song, haha). Two other RAs will be joining us shortly. Naturally the only one of us who speaks a word of Hindi gets here last. Unlucky.

When we first got here we were introduced to Sreela, a wonderful woman who works with CPR, our Indian employer. Sreela was unlucky enough to be put in charge of us. I will get a picture of her up here at some point but basically imagine you just got off a plane in India and are thinking that you wish you knew someone in India who could serve as a mother-figure while you are here. Enter Sreela. So far my favorite moment with her was at lunch on our first day when she casually asked us how long we were going to be here. We told her a year or two and you could literally see the fear and terror sweeping across her face. Apparently she thought we were summer interns. It was as though you could see her running the calculations in her head: she had already given us her cell number, would it be easier to get a new number and inform all her friends, realtives, and coworkers or to have to deal with these three clueless Americans for over a year…tough call.

Most of our first few days here have consisted of trying to buy things for our apartment, trying to negotiate with rickshaw drivers, trying to figure out what exactly our jobs are, and sweating. A lot. In case you were curious standing in line for four hours to get your visa registered in India is a lot like standing in line for four hours at the DMV. It really is a small world after all. Little Ditty and I have also decided that so far the only way we’re solving global poverty is by paying way too much for everything and getting ripped off at every turn. The best is when they even point it out and say “for you, special price” as if we need a reminder that we paid four times as much for our rickshaw ride as any local would every pay and they are laughing at us on the inside (and sometimes on the outside too now that I think about it). But for the record we are slowly getting better at this world of bargaining and will probably get the price down to twice what it should be by the time we leave.

Little Ditty and I do pretty much everything together and frankly they have quickly become my security blanket here. Coincidently, Diane also does races involving swimming, biking, and running (or triathlons as some in the business would call them). Sidenote – while she is entirely too modest to admit it I think it’s a very good thing that there aren’t any races here because I get the distinct feeling she would get extremely bored waiting for me at the finish line because she is quite kick-ass and raced for the Cal team. Anyway, being the triathletes that we are we naturally both bring a suit, cap and goggles with us everywhere and thus set out to find a pool in Delhi. As luck would have it, there is a sports complex about two blocks from our apartment! Yes! And, its not even just a vacant lot that one calls a sports complex, but looks fairly legit! (Yes! And, it even has a swimming pool! Not just a pool, but an Olympic sized pool! Yes! And, its closed for approximately one year for renovations.

Oh so close. So very close. We comfort ourselves by pretending we would have gotten rashes from the water.

I am realizing this blog is a lot of Seinfeld and not very Rick Steves and talks less about global poverty than Brad and Angelina. I’ll give you a moment to google all those mad cultural references. I really hope that no one out there thinks I am making light of India’s people, culture, and most importantly poverty. I can honestly say that so far everyone one I have come across here, whether its someone I’ve met and interacted with, asked for directions, or even just seen on the street has treated me with respect and has been extremely friendly. And the poverty is very real. You cannot go one day here without being reminded of it. I really do hope that by working on this project I am doing at least one little thing to make one tiny dent in this huge problem.

That said, I have a feeling the rest of this blog is going to focus more on the lighter, funnier side of things because, well, most of my life I focus on the lighter and funnier of things. And its more fun to write. What can I say folks, even in India the glass is still half full. Assuming it’s a glass of filtered and sterilized bottled water that was adequately sealed and comes from a trusted and reliable source.

First post - wooooooo

So I am sitting here in bed in Delhi and despite being here for a little over a week I still can’t seem to get this whole sleeping normal hours thing down. So I figured now was as good a time as any to start that blog I told everyone back home I was going to write. And yes, I realize that blogging is like so 5 years ago, but don’t worry in a few years I’ll start a Twitter and none of you can follow that either. I should also mention that as many of you know I am extremely technologically unsaavy so I of course am actually writing this in Microsoft Word and will figure out how to actually post it online at some later date. But hey, it’s a start.

So I’m not really sure what this blog is going to be or what it will contain but I can give you a few things not to expect. First, this will not be any sort of me saving the world story a la Mountains Beyond Mountains or Three Cups of Tea. Lets be honest people – you know me and I’m not that good…yet. It will also not be full of deep and profound statements of the life altering nature. I do intend to have such thoughts and feelings here and am hoping for a lot of personal growth and changes in my perspectives but somehow the words “personal” and “world wide web” are not synonymous to me. Go figure.

I guess what I would expect is a lot of random observations, stories, and some good examples of me getting confused, lost, and/or making a general ass out of myself and hopefully some cool explorations of a new country and culture. So hopefully every so often you’ll be sitting at your desk and have reached the end of facebook and read every random news article you care to read for the day and think to yourself I wonder what Sooz has gotten herself into over there. Oh, and I will take some pictures at some point and put them on here, I swear.

A brief bit on what I am doing in India. I’m not totally sure. I am working on a project with six economists from the U.S. as well as a number of Indian organizations that each come with an acronym that is extremely difficult to remember. We will be surveying and mapping health care facilities and households throughout India, trying to understand where people go to receive care and what type of care they get. Eventually we will come up with potential ways to improve this care (hopefully) and then test the effectiveness of these interventions. Or something like that.

Ok well apparently all it took to make me tired enough to sleep was a mere description of the project we are starting so I guess that’s it for today. Until next time…

Oh, and all that stuff about it being hot in Delhi is total BS meant to keep tourists away and its actually 75 degrees out and fabulous. (ok people this was an easy one if the sarcasm in my voice didn’t come through on that the rest of this blog is going to be a challenge for you:)