Phases

When I look back at my blog posts, I realize that I went through a few phases this summer.

The first week or so of posts, I was in what I’d like to call the “honeymoon phase”. Reading those posts, it’s as if India could do no wrong. The dirty streets had character, all of the food was exquisite, and the heat was a welcome change from CoMo’s miserable weather.

After that honeymoon period, though, I went into a “settle-into-routine phase” where I went to work, ate at various hotels, watched movies, and occasionally battled the rogue monkey or bug.

Now, I think I’m in the “FINAL COUNTDOWN phase”. These past couple of weeks, everything I do has turned into a countdown until my flight home.

T-minus 1 workday and 1 weekend until I leave.

Don’t get me wrong – I'm really not homesick. But I think I might be slightly America-sick; I’m ready to get back to the fast internet and steady hot water supply (and readily available processed, hormone-filled dairy products!)

But it’s hard to believe how quickly this summer has gone by.

-July 28th

Eurasia (aka Italy)

Today, we went to Eurasia, a restaurant that serves European food. (For the record, though, when Indians think of European cuisine, they’re actually thinking of Italian cuisine. Sorry shepard’s pie and baguettes and Nutella and ajvar; you’re all not actually European. So this restaurant should have really been called Italy. Or maybe Itasia?)

Anyway, the point is we went to a restaurant that serves food made with tons of cheese and marinara sauce. YES!

When we go to restaurants, the task of ordering food and talking to the waiters falls largely on me – mainly because they don’t really know what the items on the menu are – and my uncle will eat just about anything anyway – but also because my grandmother has mini heart attacks when she sees the price list, and she inevitably spends the rest of the meal telling us how she could make the exact same thing for less than 20 rupees.

Anyway, after much deliberation, we finally ordered a spring onion soup, a pizza with capsicum, corn, tomatoes, and onions, and a plate of vegetable lasagna.

The soup was okay; it was basically a broth with chopped onions. (And the ‘croutons’ were literally slices of fresh bread. I don’t think they quite understand what croutons are, haha.) The lasagna was also pretty good. The pasta was cooked al dente, the sauce was unremarkable but not bad, and the vegetables, while odd – think green beans, carrots, and capsicum – were good.

The pizza was incredible.

The crust was paper thin and flaky, the cheese was melty, the vegetables were fresh, and the pizza sauce had a kick of Indian masala. Hands down the best pizza I’ve eaten in quite some time.

My grandmother, on the other hand, thought they’d just slapped a few vegetables and lots of cheese onto a crispy chapatti. She proceeded to spend the rest of the meal telling us that she would make proper pizza with a thick base, lots of Kissan tomato sauce, heaps of vegetables and barely any cheese – good for health! (I think she’s missed the point of pizza, haha)

Anyway, Eurasia was good. Again, I could definitely make this food ten times better and ten times cheaper (snaps, I’m starting to sound like my grandmother) but the pizza was definitely worth the entire experience.

T-minus 4 days until I can eat real Italian food! (And by real, I mean American.)

-July 27th

Kalanatha, or the Man who Drives the Auto

By the end of this summer, I will have spent over 100 hours sitting in an Autorickshaw. (Wow, that’s a lot of time. That’s like two and a half weeks of work. It’s probably also the pollution-equivalent of smoking ten packs of cigarettes and rolling my hair in the dirt for a solid hour. Gross.)

But after 10 weeks of sitting in an Auto, I am an Auto pro; if the Auto jerks around, I don’t move at all. I know exactly where to sit so I don’t get wet when it rains. My hair doesn’t blow all over the place, and my back doesn’t get too sore after sitting on that seat with the strangely reclined back. (Though after an entire summer of sitting in this Auto, I probably have permanent knots in my back, haha)

And lucky for me, my Auto driver, Kalanatha, is an absolute beast.

First of all, his Auto is green. It stands out and is a bright color, but it’s not like those obnoxious light blue or tan Autos you see every once in a while. What’s more, his green Auto doesn’t make that annoying “rat-a-tat-tat” sound every time he tries to move forward, and it doesn’t spew large clouds of black smoke every where it goes.

To top it all off, Kalanatha has practically pimped out his ride. A few weeks into the summer, he installed a pane of clear plastic on one side of the Auto – so it’s not entirely open anymore. And about a week ago, he bought a large piece of nylon-tarp-stuff that he velcro’s to the entrance of the Auto whenever it rains. His Auto also has its fair share of decals.

In the morning, I share the Auto with Seema, a lady who works near MG Road. Seema’s not actually from Bangalore; she doesn’t speak Kannada. This leads to some very interesting mornings; on more than one occasion, we’ve turned to each other with absolute confusion in our eyes because we have no idea what Kalanatha is laughing about.

But between her Hindi/English and my English/broken-Kannada and Kalanatha’s Kannada-with-a-crazy-accent-because-he-has-a-cleft-palette, I think we’ve managed to get by.

Even though Kalanatha has an accent, he is an absolute chatter-box.

I think I know his entire life story. (Plus the life stories of his ten siblings, two of whom live in the US. And just about everything that his two children have done this summer, from scribbling on the walls to not eating idlis in the morning.) At practically every light, someone leans into our Auto to ask him for directions. And he always has an answer. If there’s no one to give directions to – and he’s not telling me some story about his family – he leans over and strikes a conversation with a fellow Auto driver.

He’s incredibly friendly, and he’s such a hard worker. Come rain or shine, he’s always there, on the dot, to take me to work or pick me up.

Yesterday, Kalanatha was very clearly sick in the morning. I asked him if he’d be able to come pick me up in the afternoon; he said not to worry. Come 3:30, he was sitting there, even though he’d clearly deteriorated. But no worries! He just pulled over to a pharmacy on the way home, popped some pills, and kept driving.

Today, a cow was partially blocking the road as we went home. No worries! Kalanatha just reached out and slapped the cow until it moved out of the way.

We see cows, goats, donkeys, camels, bulls, and all sorts of people on the way home, but absolutely nothing fazes this man. He drives straight through potholes; there’s a stretch of road that is so bumpy and inclined, I feel like I’m sitting sideways. But he just pushes through. At stop lights, he always weaves through the cars and motorbikes to get to the front. He races with cars and motorbikes, and he’s cut off lorries and busses quite a few times.

So even though I’ve spent a rather significant chunk of this summer sitting in an Autorickshaw, it’s been incredibly fun. And I have Kalanatha to thank for that. Because of those 100 hours, he’s spent at least 75% of it pointing out sights around Bangalore or telling me about his family or discussing what he ate for lunch or laughing about how he almost took a wrong turn. (The other 25% is spent blowing his horn. I swear that man loves the sound of his horn. He pushes it every time he crosses an intersection, every time he slows down or speeds up, and every time someone cuts him off – which is when you’re really only supposed to use it, right? And sometimes when there’s absolutely no one around, just for the fun of it, I think, he blows it in different rhythms, like he’s making music.)

But T-minus 6 Auto rides until I come home!

-July 26th

India: 1, Sangita: 0

Indian houses have lots of character.

And by character, I mean cockroaches. (And I happen to be staying in a house that has 40 years of character. Lucky me.)

I’m not a fan of cockroaches. (Let’s be honest, I’m not a fan of creepy-crawlies at all.)And this entire city seems to be full of them. (Creepy-crawlies, not just cockroaches. Unfortunately.)

I really really hate ants – Sidenote: people make fun of me when I tell them I’m most frightened by ants. But come on! They’re like mutant bugs. And you know that if ants were any larger, they would have the strength and the numbers to take over the world. Oh my goodness, imagine if ants were the size of cockroaches. I think I’d just move to a sterilized hospital – but you can’t really escape the ants here. I’ve kinda-sorta gotten used to them. Lizards are also everywhere, but since they eat the mosquitoes, I can tolerate them. Cockroaches, on the other hand, have no purpose besides crawling around and being gross and creepy.

My very first day in India, I battled a cockroach.

I was extremely tired after my flight, so once I finally reached home, I put my bags upstairs and immediately took a nap. I woke up to the sight of a large cockroach creeping across my bright yellow handbag.

I screamed. (And after about ten minutes of sitting there in stalemate, I finally plucked up the courage to grab things around the bed and throw them at my purse until the cockroach went away.)

 I have since become braver.

Or at least smarter.

Now, before I enter a room, I turn the light on and wait for 15 seconds – the perfect amount of time to let all the bugs scuttle away, but not so long as to make people question your sanity. (Although, on more than one occasion, I have been asked why I was waiting in a doorway.)

This tactic has worked rather well, and I went almost four weeks without seeing a cockroach. Until I went to get my shoes this morning and saw a cockroach the size of my fist, sitting there next to the rows of shoes.

My illusion of this being a cockroach-free house has been completely shattered. And now I can’t decide whether or not I would actually prefer to see them. Because at least when I see the cockroach, I know exactly where it is. Otherwise, it could be hiding anywhere!

Indian homes not only have cockroaches. They have their share of water-related catastrophes as well.

I have mastered the three minute shower – because that’s how long you can guarantee there will be hot water – so I thought I was impervious to water mishaps.

But today, as I was lathering up the shampoo in my hair, the water stopped coming from the showerhead altogether. I had to stand there for about thirty minutes, holding a little mug up to the showerhead as icy water trickled down. (Rest assured, I finally got about three mugs of water and was able to at least rinse the soap and shampoo away. So I’m not still a soapy, sudsy mess.)

You win, incredibly old Indian house. You win.

T-minus 6 days until I can take a two-hour long shower without having to worry about the (hot) water supply!

-July 25th

On Packing

I started packing today. And unfortunately, my enthusiasm for packing has not magically multiplied since I last packed up my dorm room.

In a little over three hours, I managed to dump everything out of my suitcase onto the bed. And then I watched about 500 Youtube videos and organized part of my iTunes library.

In my defense, I did eventually pack 4 books, 2 granola bars, 2 shirts, a pair of socks, 3 sets of bangles and a case of earrings and necklaces. I also packed two pairs of leggings, a pair of pajamas, and a box of cereal.

I also found a shirt I never wore, a book I never read, three pieces of chocolate I never ate and a pouch of school supplies I never used.

What a fantastically productive packing session!

-July 24th

Another Happy Birthday

Today is my grandmother’s birthday. (It’s also Daniel Racliffe’s birthday. Clearly, my HP obsession does not seem to be dying down.)

My grandmother turned 66. According to my grandmother, however, this birthday means that she has completed 66 years and is now “67 running.” (I quite like that logic. Because doesn’t that mean I’m technically 21-running? Anyway, between messed up birth certificates and these crazy ways of counting birthdays, I don’t think anyone here knows how old they actually are.)

We decided to go to the Bangalore Club for a celebration buffet-lunch style.

The food was great. But even though it was a buffet lunch, I was served half of the food-items; the service industry here really puts an emphasis on the service. I went up to the buffet line to get a plate of food, and after serving a few curries on my plate, I was told to sit down. A waiter then came and started bringing plates of parathas and rice and other dishes.

I thought the point of a buffet was that you didn’t need waitstaff?

Anyway, the food was delicious. And beetween the chocolate mousse and corn-spinach au gratin, the pudina vegetables and parathas and paneer curry, the different pulavs and curd rice, I am extremely full. But this eating-huge-meals-for-birthday-parties-and-wedding-receptions-every-single-week business, while extremely tasty, is definitely not doing wonders to my health.

-July 23rd

Strike!

There’s a city-wide auto strike today, so I can’t go in to work. So… yeah. Let the lazing around commence, and T-minus 5 work days until I’m back!

-July 22nd