Mai Hindi sikhrehi hu.

March 9-16

Life is becoming so comfortably routine that it's actually somewhat difficult to recall events for this here blog. I told Benita this week that I really feel like I live in Bombay, not that I'm just a visitor.

Last Friday Benji and I experienced a grocery store during rush hour. Shops here resemble New York bodegas with ceiling-high stocked shelves, multi levels to maximize space, totally crowded aisles. It took us longer to wait in line than it did to pick out the mosambi (sweet lime, looks like an unripe orange, tastes neither like orange nor lime. discuss), grapes, and drinks, including a tropicana peach juice which came with a complimentary 'fancy glass,' which was a pretty standard glass by my standards. Come to think of it, though, people don't use glasses that often. They use metal cups, instead. The only time we use glasses at home is when guests are over.

After rush hour in the grocery store we hit a peak hour train. We managed to get seats on a 2nd class men's compartment, but when we tried to get towards the door at our stop, it was wayyyy to crowded to get off. Now I know what the warnings were about- I got pinched and touched and poked by hands seemingly disembodied from bodies. That was actually the worst part about the groping- the fact that I couldn't tell who was doing it. I just grabbed the hands that I could and squeezed them back, hard. The cacophany of bodies, suitcases, satchels and parcels at all levels and in every direction is something to be seen (although it would have been just fine with me if it had just been seen, and not also felt). Benji eventually led us out through the door on the other side of the 'carriage.' Apparently that amount of crowding was actually unusual. Men sitting on the benches were kind of rooting for us, which was nice, but not at all actually helpful. Yes, I know push. I know, I know, push push. You try it, buddy, instead of just sitting there nice and pretty.

Shabbat dinner was lovely, including a new for me version of Trivial Pursuit in which each category is a different continent (as opposed to sports, history, arts and leisure, etc). We had all sorts of interesting ways of making hints for each other, including referencing my nickname JoBerg for all questions related to South Africa. I wonder if that nickname would fly there... I'll have to go and find out sometime. Definitely at the top of the list for next travel destinations.

Saturday morning, Hindi lesson- hence the title, meaning, I am learning Hindi. My teacher says I look Parsi, and I think that is awesome.

Saturday night we went to Sutra, courtesy of another free guest list from the AIESEC crew. Definitely the best music so far at a Bombay club- mix of Bollywood, Hindi pop, and American hip-hop, including several mash-ups. For a good portion of the night, we were busting a move with a group of the most energetic, fun local kids ever. Somehow we got into a pattern where whenever one person made a movement, everyone else would mimic it, so it looked like we had prepared choreography, much to the amusement of the rest of the dancefloor in proximity. I was exhausted by the end of night- these kids provided quite the work out. But so, so much fun.

The club is in the Intercontinental Hotel by the international airport in Andheri East, so Batya, Benji and I met at Andheri station. Walking to the station in Santa Cruz all dolled up for the night out, I felt more watched than at any point since arriving in Bombay. I imagine that the bewildered looks on the staring faces had something to do with the fact that I look western, I was wearing western clothes, but I dodge rickshaws and hawkers with the ease of a local, and ride the train alone at night. What a combination- American on the outside and Indian in the inside? Maybe that's just self-flattery. Or maybe all the looks were just about the exposed skin. Oh, such scandal. Right.

Sunday I met Benji in Kings Circle (conveniently connected by footbridge to Matunga Road, by Erin and Batya's place) and we had lunch at a place called "The New Yorker," which purports to offer American, Mexican, Italian, Lebanese, and Indian food. A veritable sit-down Sizzler. I ordered a paneer burrito and Benji got a 1/2-1/2 falafel- 1/2 Mexican, 1/2 Lebanese. Both the burrito and the Mexican falafel were distinguished by a tomato-y bbq sauce tasting suspciously like manwich (why the hell is it called manwich, anyway? a man sandwich? what?) , and corn. This obsession with corn is fascinating. The tortilla was closer to a chappati, and definitely made me miss Mission burritos even more. Although, it was tasty all the same. The hummus was entirely passable.

We sat in the park in the center of the circle for a good long while, reading and talking and looking both at home and out of place. Very few other co-ed couples were there, and the idea of sitting quietly and reading in a public place is evidently rare. Next to us arrived an ever-larger group of men having some sort of important meeting involving a ledger, money, and arguing. I wish I had any idea what they were talking about... I'm guessing it was a housing society meeting, but who knows.

Sunday ended up being a foreign food day- I met Erin for dinner at Pot Pourri (not pronounced po-por-ee, but actually pot pourri) and we had Italian sandwiches and a chocolate truffle cake. Not too bad, actually. Eating non-Indian food is one of the ways I feel like I'm really living here, perhaps ironically. If I were just traveling, I would want to really maximize the cultural immersion by eating only Indian food- but as a person living here, I can afford more variety. And especially as an educated, upper middle class person, it's entirely culturally appropriate for me to go to "continental" restaurants.

At the moment my coworker's computer is playing a Hindi song that sounds suspiciously like Heyveinu Shalom Aleichem. Curious... Speaking of which, the guard/caretaker at the Kenesset Eliyahoo shule has started recognizing me and we grin at eachother every day on my way to the office. It's really more than a smile, because it's like we share this secret of being Jewish (that's really not all that secret) so therefore it is upgraded to a grin. Actually I'm not sure that he's Jewish, but he certainly knows that I am.

Monday my coworker Rosalind showed us pictures of her son's first communion. Most of the time in posed photos, Indians don't smile, and they look really dour and serious. The especially harsh ones sometimes remind me of the scene in Baraka of the genocide museum in Cambodia with the pictures of concentration camp prisoners. Anyway, Rosalind went about pointing out who's who in the pictures, with her characteristic way of making statements sound like questions: "this is myseelllfff? He is my husbannndddd? She is my mother-in-lllaawww?" Then a picture of the actual communion: "this is my son receiving Jessuusss?" Hey, any Catholics out there, is that what is actually said in the ceremony?

Tuesday morning I had my first failed attempt to jump on a moving train. I would have made it, but from that part of the platform the step is higher and my flipflop got caught on the underside of the step. For a split second, it was actually kinda scary, but not to worry--I lived. Recovering from this trauma, I saw a woman on the platform I'd kinda met at the Holi party. What I knew about her is that she's from Singapore but speaks with an American accent, and also lives in Santa Cruz. I reintroduced myself and we got to chatting- she works as a documentary film editor and went to the University of Michigan, c/o '04. Thinking it was an absurd long shot, I asked if she knows the awesome and inimitable Ms. Dina Kuperstock, my fellow Nativnik, roommate from DC, Mardi Gras partner in crime, and all-around fabulous friend currently showing Hollywood who's boss. Turns out, yup, Ruchika knows Dina from the U of M. And she saw my Dina and even raised me one Mr. Brian Lobel, of equal awesome and inimitableness. Holy hot damn, it's a small-ass world.

Following the Tuesday night Hindi lesson, Charmaine (host family's relative from London spending 6 weeks here volunteering with an NGO to gain experience for med school) and I met up with the crew at Toto's, a dive-ish bar made to look like a garage in Bandra. It really reminded me of Boston, and is frequented by the young working crowd. Far less scene-y and pretentious than lots of the other places we've been. This is exactly the kind of place where I would meet my friends for drinks after work (if I were that person who meets friends for drinks after work). Much fun. The beer pitcher looks like a pot-bellied iced tea pitcher from a nice restaurant, but with a Kingfisher decal.

Wednesday, in addition to the normal crippled beggar woman who sits in the middle of the stairs at Churchgate, and the dogs passed out in any which place, I saw a teenage boy sleeping on a dog's butt. Well, maybe more hip than butt. Either way, my internal battle about giving to beggars continues. At Santa Cruz station there's a woman with mangled hands always sitting on the stairs, and I finally saw someone put some money in her cup- a Muslim man with his young son. I thought about the importance of parents modeling behavior for their children, and I was glad that the son was learning the value of tzedekah, of charity. And yet, I didn't give. On a more comical note to this difficult topic, remember the singing blind couple I wrote about before from the train? I saw someone push a bill into the woman's hand (as opposed to dropping coins in the little metal bowl the man carries), and she put it inside her sari blouse, way down in there. Quite the image- an old, withered Indian lady shoving cash in her boobs. Ok then.

Another poverty-related observation: poor kids, especially toddlers, are often more likely to be seen in tops than bottoms. I've seen so many little tushies here, it practically makes my biological clock explode. Parents or older kids hold the little ones on their hip or sitting on their arm all the same. So many little tushies, tushies everywhere. I don't know why there are more tops than bottoms. I bet if I searched hard enough I could find an NGO whose entire purpose is to provide bottoms to the toddlers of India- and that would be a noble and worthwhile purpose.

The highlight of the week at work was attending a meeting about the Dharavi rehabilitation plan. Groups of architecture/planning students gave presentations on their suggestions for tenements to house the millions of people currently in slums. Pretty interesting stuff and creative ideas: lifting half of the ground floor on stilts to create open space for industrial activites and commerce; connecting higher floor balconies to preserve the feeling of connected, communal space so prevalent in the slums; off-site parking to prevent additional over-crowding. I'm still pretty unclear of the various players at the table, but there were some bureaucrats taking a lot of heat from the crowd, and activists complaining that they're not being included in the process. I wish I had been able to follow more of what was said. In the midst of all this pretty aggravated debating, the office boy came around with tea and little sandwiches cut into 4 triangles on crustless white bread. Funny bit of British formality in the midst of hard core Indian arguing.

Wednesday night Robbie and Benji belatedly house-warmed their flat with a motley crew get-together. Besides the usual Erin, Batya, them, and me, and Charmaine, we were also graced by Akshay, Matt (the graphic designer who wrote parts of my Let's Go book), Jen (who used to live across the hall), Julz (the Kiwi with dreadlocks I met my first night here), Shawn (Julz's friend from Australia who's lived in India for 2+ years and works for the company that distributes those free postcards that are actually ads for various products), Adil (Matt's friend who is a photographer), Josiah (friend of Akshay's), Dan (friend of Josiah's), Komal (Josiah's lady friend, an NRI from Chicago who lived in Japan last year), and ... crap I forget Komal's brother's name. We enjoyed Robbie's special seafood stew and many partook of a bbq he found in his hood, and had an awesome jam session, augmented by the loss of electricity halfway through. Between our cellphones and some candles, we made do just fine, and it was awesome. A different kind of pinch me moment.

Last night Robbbie and I met at VT aka CST (Victoria Terminus, Chattrapti Shivaji Terminus), the main interstate train station in town to get our tickets for the long weekend at the beach. I had no idea where the foreign ticket office was, and I wandered around trying to figure it out. I asked a station policewoman where it was and she just said "no." Ok... so I went back out to the main section to find someone else to ask, and ran smack into Robbie. Luckily he knew where it was, because that's the sort of thing Robbie knows. We got in line right behind the customer at the counter, and when it was our turn the babu disappeared. Um... so we just waited and finally I said "do you think he even realizes we're here?" at which point he came around and said "yes yes I am coming." Turns out the train is entirely booked. Actually, entirely overbooked- they sell waiting list tickets with apparently no number limit- even above and beyond the foreign quota. For this train, probably one of the most traveled routes in the entire country (Mumbai all the way down the coast to the bottom of Kerala, the Konkan Express), the waiting list has more people on it than there are seats on the train (300+). So, we bought tickets without seats, and will ride "proper backpacker style," as Robbie said. We'll have to wait until the next post to find out what that really means. I'm excited for my first train ride in India!

After that we went to catch a city train to try to get into the last night of the Mumbai International Film Festival. Ruchika said I could use her VIP pass, and Robbie got Akshay's pass and finagled some other way to get some more. I got into a women's car and Robbie was in a men's car - after Friday's groping I was happy to pass up the men's car at peak hours- and when I asked the women next to me how many stops until Wadala Rd, they told me it was the wrong line. Well, crap. . So this presented quite the dilemma, as Robbie's phone is dead and I had no way of letting him know. After wringing my hands about it for several stops, I decided that Robbie is a really smart kid who could figure something out on his own, and I should just get off at the stop the women said was closest and get myself to the theatre on my own. So I 'alighted' at Matunga Road and ran up the platform to the car I thought he was in, trying to find him to tell him to get off- but I couldn't see him and the train left too fast. Then just as I turned around to find the exit, feeling defeated, I ran into him. Again. Amazing. We took a taxi to the right station and magically intercepted Erin on the way, too. And yada, yada, yada, we got into the film festival like the sly foxes we are, and saw the premier of The Namesake, from the Jhumpa Lahiri novel I read last month. Nice, but I liked the movie more.
(Right before we walked into the film, actually, I had my first significant dizzy spell since I've been here, and started having a pounding headache too- luckily I had my migraine medicine with me so I took the pill, had some water, and sat with my eyes closed until the movie started. Remarkably, I felt totally better in a little while. Haha, vertiginous migraines, you will not be the boss of me!)

I found Ruchika there and her crew of friends from couchsurfing- a Danish guy (with THE best Westernized-Indian look I've seen yet- a kurta over wide leg cuffed jeans and converse sneakers, plus a big crazy dreaded fro on top and thick framed glasses), three Americans including a kid from Erin's hometown, and a local chap wearing a teeshirt from Thailand. Robbie and Erin got a ride home with Josiah, who hooked us up with the passes, and I figured I'd go home with Ruchika as we live in the same area. Turns out the couchsurfing crowd wanted to get something to eat, but I really needed to get home as it was around midnight and I still had to pack for this weekend. In the mix of trying to get taxis, Ebsen (the Dane) suggested I should ride with Thoppil (the Indian with the Thai shirt (haha, get it, thaishirt)) on his motorcycle. Um, gulp, motorcycle? Luckily, I felt (just as) safe (as I do in any other kind of vehicle on the roads here), balance wasn't an issue at all, and it was actually really fun. Thoppil is a writer: avengercq.blogspot.com. And yes, Thoppil rhymes with Topol, eponymous star of Fiddler on the Roof. He also says I look Parsi. Maybe it was just the salwar kameez? Either way, awesome. Definitely need to get some more motorcycle action. Don't worry, Mom and P Hull, I wore a helmet.

This morning bought a smaller hiking backpack- bigger than what I need but the next size down was too small or too expensive. Rs 745 - about $16. And it's pretty good quality, too. I feel oh-so-rugged. The stares I received today were not the ones I get most days- I definitely look like a backpacking tourist with my cotton kurti and drawstring capri pants and backpack. Probably couldn't pass for Parsi today if I tried.

So, that's this week's report. I'm off to Vengurla, home of apparently famous cashew and fruit factories. Yum. Shabbat Shalom!