The Inevitable Strikes

9 Feb- 14 Feb

After work on Friday I finally went to the Kenesset Eliyahoo shule for Shabbat services. It’s beautiful and old, with a women’s balcony. The women have oversized dining room table like chairs to sit in, and the men have couches arranged around the center bimah, like in Israeli and Sephardi shules, with the ark in the front- facing west! It was difficult to follow most of the service because of unfamiliar tunes, bad acoustics, too much background noise from the women, siddur a little different- but overall I caught on. Unfortunately there isn’t much representation from the local community on Friday night, so Chabad kind of takes over- there were definitely way more foreigners present than locals, and the Chabad rabbi led maariv. There were a large group of Israelis present who apparently are documenting Jewish communities around the world, and many of them are architects so they were interested in learning about UDRI.

I walked to Chabad with Batya and a friend of hers from Australia who works in Hong Kong or Taiwan or something, and I wasn’t feeling so well but I figured I just needed to drink some water. Upon arriving at Chabad I sat down to cool off and drink, and I started realizing something worse was going on- soon enough I had to run to the bathroom for what was the beginning of a several day nasty nast stomach bug. I was in such bad shape I ended up just sleeping on that same couch at Chabad, right in front of the bookcase of sifrei kodesh and Hebrew tourbooks. Clearly gastroenteritis is an inevitability in India, and I’m glad, ironically, that Chabad would be where mine struck, so I could have some real Jewish TLC. Saturday morning I took a taxi back to Santa Cruz- an hour long trip for only Rs 200, less than $5. Spent the rest of the weekend in bed, barely eating, started a course of Cipro, and didn’t go back to work until Wednesday.

As I was leaving work on Wednesday I got a text from Rahul to hang out, so I met him at Charni Road station and we went to his place in Malabar Hill- a tres swanky part of town right on the water. We had dinner from Moshe’s, a real Israeli place with excellent food. I love that when he called to order, he referred to whoever answered as Moshe. At work they call and say “Hallo Modern” “Hallo Jai Hind”, whatever. And instead of saying ‘this is’ to introduce themselves, they say ‘I am.’ Anyhoo, I was pleased to see that I recognized the way back on Marine Drive from town to Santa Cruz, watching the Queen’s Necklace- beautiful. But then driving over Mahim Creek is the stinkiest single area I’ve experienced here. Yuck. Like you're actually inside of a rotten egg buried in a trash heap coated with vomit.