Nouveau Riche Bandra

19 Feb- 22 Feb
Fun night shopping and dinner with Erin and Batya- very indulgent American girls’ night. Batya found this tiny little shop that sells majorly discounted western clothes that were made here and missed the shipment or are slightly imperfect, something like that- so stuff that sells in the US at H+M or Zara for like $40 or way more, here is 350-500 rupees, or about $7.50-$11. Much crazier than Loehmann’s, and you can’t try anything on, but I bought two tunic/kurta shirts. I think both can work with some tailoring. Then we went to ‘Just Around the Corner’- an American style restaurant with pizza (but not tonight, oven wasn’t working), pasta, sandwiches, and a salad bar. Actually pretty good, close to the real thing. When we were leaving Erin said “Oh, this place is so nouveau riche Bandra.”- funny but true, it’s for the higher class Indians who want to emulate Westerners in general and Americans in particular. I’m not complaining, though, it was a nice change.

I’m learning a lot from the two of them- about life here, about the Jewish community.

Thursday night Erin and I successfully saw Happy Feet at the Imax, which was tremendous and really fun. We were the only people in the theatre most of the time, the whole place is pretty empty on weekdays apparently. The place is huge and I felt like I was transported right into an American suburban mall. The pizza calzone I ordered was basically white bread folded over stuffed with some kind of dry tomato sauce and something vaguely resembling cheese, and the nachos were actually warmed Doritos with a little cup of salsa. They also have ice cream dots, like the astronaut stuff they sell at science museums, gelato, baskin robbins, and in addition to popcorn, just regular corn. Boiled corn. Must have been lost in translation.

On the way back the taxi driver got lost, there was a road closed and we took the ‘diversion’ into what I think might have been part of the closed off area in the Eastern waterfront- barbed wire above walls with signs saying “Prohibited Place,” some sort of silos, some oil equipment, big parking lots full of taxis and busses, warehouses full of pipes and various parts, et cetera. Sketchy! Such an adventure would be unheard of back home. Luckily we made it out ok, all’s well that end’s well. Erin’s navigating skills saved the day. I was bewildered at the whole thing, but as I see this happen more often, somehow I manage not to get upset or even feel too anxious, I just roll with it because it seems to be the baseline of normalcy here for random shit to happen like that.

Thursday night I finally met another expat, Kristine, at Zenzi along with a few Dutch expats and their visiting friends. One of the Dutchies will be here for 2 years- wow. Couldn’t imagine that. I can handle it now because I know there is an expiration date (like a relationship that really shouldn’t be, perhaps?), but it would just be so hard to keep up this level of everything for such an extended period. Erin came and then we went to Benji’s to meet him, Manor, and his friend visiting from Australia, Aliza. Erin stayed to watch a movie with Robbie and we went out to Enigma, which was again really fun. These AIESIC kids are everywhere, the group seemed to be a bunch of them. Aliza is great- she made friends with a bunch of Indian Brits in the time it took me to go to the (very fancy) bathroom. I wish she had been around longer so I could learn how to model that open friendliness.