Too much to consider

My favorite Hindi teacher paused our lesson to tell me how much I look like Bollywood actress Karisma Kapoor, except for the hair color. Our country director agreed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karisma_Kapoor

On the way to work, out the side of our open-air auto, I saw a boy flying a red plastic kite next to the squat stone bridge separating a major traffic circle from the sprawling Secunderabad Railway station.

The woman standing behind me on the bus was so tiny that her elbow hit me in the middle of the back as she held on to the strap from the ceiling.

I’m always startled to see the wrists, the bare forearms of women in black burqas, bright saris or salwars peeking out at the hem. Their eyes and toes may be the only pieces of flesh that normally show, but when you’re packed like sardines on a bus, holding on to the railings along the roof is the only way to keep from falling.

When I saw the two white people standing in the entrance to our office I was so surprised that I said ‘oh, white people!’ They looked at me strangely, and told me to travel to Bali and join the Peace Corps.

Fruit-flavored Oral Rehydration Salts (water with salt and sugar / home-made Gatorade) are my new favorite health snacks.

We don’t have pepper in the house. I don’t salt my food. And I sit in the middle (not sure why, but these patterns happen). So my roommates filled both the salt and pepper shaker with salt, so we can have one on each end of the table.

Myla and I giggled by the skincare section of the import grocery store at the giant (by Indian standards) Canadian men wandering around. The Canadians, along with various jerseys from Brazil, Greece, and a handful of Nordic countries were imported for the World Military Games in the middle of October.

I took my first bus to our Nutrition Training at Hotel Megacity in Hyderguda, near the downtown we’ve never seen. They dropped me off in the middle of an intersection. Since then, I’ve improved my on-and-off-the-moving-bus fine motor skills.

Crossing Uppal bus station (a massive traffic roundabout) reminds me of that puzzle game where you try to get the little brightly colored plastic cars out of gridlock. It’s a giant weaving of people, bikes, autos, buses (everything moves for a bus – they’re gargantuan), cars, a few crossing guards, street sweepers, and vendors. The funny thing is, it feels safe to move through the mass because everyone has to move relatively (relatively) slowly as they negotiate some semblance of forward progress.

We started Telugu lessons. Mi peru aameti? (What is your name?) I’ve almost memorized the full form of all the vowels. A, aa, u, uu, i, ii, e, ee, ai, o, oo, au, am, aha = 14 vowels, two more than Hindi.

I was bored listening to Nutrition lectures in Telugu, so I read a few hundred pages of a book about Modern India. And stared at the view off the roof of the hotel. There was a surprisingly large population of other roof-dwellers – a guard with a gun, an emaciated worker looking out at the city from a pile of trash, two men in dirty white tank tops negotiating near a doorway.

We have friends. We have friends. We have friends. Ok, we have acquaintances that may soonish allow us to truthfully make the statement that we have a social life. We have friends!

Couchsurfing is amazing. Not every Couch Surfer is as amazing as couchsurfing, but the first time we met one we hung out over hookah and chocolate brownie with chocolate ice cream until eleven at night. It was glorious.

The lake is glorious. On Sunday night, we ate at a restaurant with a glass wall looking out at the Hussain Sagar, its massive Buddha statue lit up for the evening. The breeze off the water is heavenly. The reflection of the evenly spaced street lights across the far side of the lake reminds me of the reflection of the lights of Queen Anne Hill on Lake Union in Seattle.

Banjara Hills has stores I can’t afford. It has more Levi’s stores than I can count. And malls with more sparkling marble and glass than any I’ve ever seen in the States. The houses are massive, and equally shiny. But in the ones that are still being built, still being propped up by the standard bamboo-like scaffolding, small societies of impoverished construction workers live.

Our New Friend drove us to a lookout over the city. It reminded us intensely of Southern California. The palm trees and the mansions and the fact that we were in ‘Filmnagar’ (where Tollywood actors and directors live) probably helped.

There are these bulbous, big, beautiful, smooth, dirt-brown rocks smattered throughout the city. A coalition called Save the Rocks (not kidding) works to save them from destruction by developers. Apparently they’re a classic part of the Andhra geography, and also, well, very old.

We watched Manchester United play on the screens at an English Pub. It was creepy, but fun.

The tailor across the street fixed the button on my pants for two rupees. I felt guilty when I realized it was his ten-year-old son who had done the sowing... but glad that the kid got to keep the money, and glad to be supporting local business – so local we can check to see if they’re open from our bedroom window.

I’ve found only one source of herbal, non-caffeinated tea in Hyderabad – Fabindia, the uber-commercialized chain clothing store – but when I drink it right before bed, or just after I wake up, with a book and spoonful (or two) of honey, its happiness in a strainer and I forget about being overwhelmed and missing the fall leaves and just look out the window at the thick morning light or the lone streetlamp perched by the trees across the neighbor’s roof and I smile.

[Coming Attractions, aka Way too much to consider: religion in India, body in India.]