A Series of Unexpected Events

Apparently my blog is worth mention in a local blog filter meta-site: http://www.blogbharti.com/kuffir/india/32-flavors-and-then-some/.

So maybe the Bollywood thing isn't working out, but at least I can be a blog celebrity. Thanks to Akshay for sending me the link!

In other news: something must be in the air today, because a whole slew of weird/uncanny/inexplicably Indian things happened:

1. I lost an earring, of my favorite pair that somehow I've managed to lose and recover in such disparate places as Prague, Somerville, San Francisco, and Udaipur, Rajasthan. Turns out it was stuck in my hair (which is crazy long, for those of you following along from home).

2. (background note: a few weeks ago I started volunteering with a 2nd NGO, Mobile Creches, which runs childcare centers on construction sites to serve the children of the workers who set up slums on the periphery of the sites. As it turns out, the NGO is run by a fellow Brandeis grad,who also was an ethics and coexistence student fellow. I go to the centers to do basic data collection, but I get to play with the kids and they are fantastic.) So today I went back to the Versova site in Andheri W for nothing short of the 3rd time. For some reason it just takes much longer there to get through each kid's info- but this time the head teacher dispatched sentries into the slum to retrieve the mothers, so we could get more info right from the source. Kinda crazy to meet a bunch of these women who are my age, or younger, with children, and with years of manual labor in the beating sun evident in the look of their skin and shape. As soon as I came in my favorite kiddie, Puja, the most talkative, animated, and tall 2 year old I've ever seen, immediately ran to me and jumped into my lap. I could feel the wetness of her tushy. Later one mother came in with a wee little baby- maybe 5 months- and I got to hold him. No diapers here either, but kohl around the eyes and another dot on the chest, and nail polish on the fingers and toes- for a baby boy. He started falling asleep in my arms, it was excruciatingly adorable. I haven't held a baby that little, I think, since I met my little cousin Julian for the first time at another cousin, Michelle's wedding. I didn't even realize how much I miss it.

3. On the train home, a young woman came into my carriage who is Angelina Jolie's Indian avatar. Looks just like her. I couldn't stop staring.

4. Coming out of Santa Cruz station, there was a family huddled together, and the father was holding a baby girl out at arms' length. First I was struck by her outfit- a bright, hot pink ruffly frilly dress. Lots of little kids seem to wear outfits for day to day activities that I would expect kids in the States only to wear for super fancy occasions. Anyway, then I realized the reason he was holding her at arms' length is that she was peeing. Just suspended there in the air, peeing on the floor of the station overpass (or flyover, as they say). Between this sight, and the kids at the creche today, I was reminded of the Great Sri Lankan Peeing Incident of 2002, in which I was holding my host family's baby niece (to whom I was referred to as White Auntie Jocelyn, as if there was another Auntie Jocelyn and they needed to make a distinction), and she peed all over my legs, right through her cloth diaper. On the upside, at least South Asia's contribution to global warming does not include solid waste in the form of millions of disposable diapers.

5. Finally, on the walk home from the station I saw a cowboy. A white guy, wearing a great big cowboy hat, button down shirt, and tight jeans. Speaking perfect Hindi. I'm still speechless.