I heart Shahrukh Khan

So I've spent four nights in this Real World World Partners, with six people in a small apartment in a sprawling city...

Some adventures include: the spice market near Chandni Chowk, the Qutub Minar, Chakde! India (yes, we saw a bollywood movie in Hindi!), our first Indian clothes, the Lotus Temple, home-cooked meals, and free internet... (there are photos from some of these adventures added to the original album that I sent out)

We were supposed to be learning Telugu in Hyderabad this week, but I'd say we were pretty productive in our own limbo-world-way. Tomorrow we'll head up to Mussoorie to learn Hindi with the rest of the folks, and perhaps head to Hyderabad in two weeks, when everyone else goes to their placements. Until then, goodbye smog, hello winding roads up into the clouds...

L

p.s. this post brought to you by the best escapism combined with cultural immersion I've yet found: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahrukh_Khan

... and then I woke up in a bad reality tv show

There are three versions of this:

1. I woke up this morning in a small three-room apartment in Delhi, with three other fellows (tonight there are six of us): one boy (lets call him Krishna) and five girls, just Waiting. We were supposed to get on a train to Hyderabad on sunday, but our travels were indeterminately delayed due to two bomb blasts in my future home city. Maybe we'll leave tomorrow. Maybe we'll leave in a few weeks. But today, in between stepping on one another's toes, I had a grand adventure to the spice markets in old Delhi...

2. The official version:
I am writing to inform you of two bomb blasts that occurred this evening in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh at around 8pm India time. First, all fellows are safe and far away from the blasts. The following is key information from AJWS’ end:

· All fellows were in Delhi at the time of the blasts (780 miles North of Hyderabad);

· There were 6 fellows meant to leave for Hyderabad tomorrow to study Telegu language there. They will no longer be going to Hyderabad tomorrow; instead they will be staying up North.

· No fellows will be traveling to Hyderabad until AJWS can assess the safety and security risks associated with doing so.

3. The angsty version:

I was wondering if a day would pass when I wouldn’t hear the sound of a fan rocking in its ceiling socket wondering when the food would be comforting wondering how to think about so many hours in a rambling metal box and I didn’t notice the first phone call or the second just the news later with the looped footage through a hospital window, the tag on the curtain in close-up on national news to spy on the bandages and pink nurses dresses and lines of push-cart beds with the amusement park guests the shoppers the watchers and the CNN anchorwoman reading off the teleprompter bindi still looking up repeating statements of ministers and agencies because its easiest to blame the neighbors first when no one takes the credit for the lives ripped but the billions will watch so we glued ourselves because the bright box pounds a message until maybe when you’ve seen the same slumped body under the bloody bleachers for the fiftieth time you believe that happened in the spot she was supposed to be today, that Freddie the Leaf was right, and that they say these things can happen anywhere because these things can happen anywhere and maybe the city is safer after a terrorist attack because the hackles are up, the bags more thoroughly searched.

So maybe we’ll leave soon to be safe in our city advised not to leave the apartment not for the blasts but for the people and maybe we’ll stay a while in the city with the gritty air, but this morning we woke to a kiss on the cheek, and a see-you-in-January, and we escaped the pink buildings to a small set a real waiting room six voices bouncing on marble floors and mixing with the sound of three fans rocking in their ceiling sockets.

a;lkdsfj ;slkdjf ;aslkdjf ;lsijd

Naamaste!

There was a lot of flying, some incredibly cute cousins, Bollywood on British Airways, a pink hostel in the government district of Delhi, my first cows-in-the-traffic, IndiaFab shirts, crazy cool compatriates, bus up a vertical mountain (I mean foothill), green green post-monsoon-season slopes, endless orientation/ AJWS curriculum, snazy squat toilets, chai three times a day, week in the Himalayas talking/walking, back down the vertical mountains.,.. back in Delhi, in amini concrete cafe.

Be in touch soon.
L