Like I'm Living an In-dian Dream

Living in India is like living in a post-grad’s daydream.

There's countless interesting and exotic things to see and experience. Like zipping around traffic on the back of a motorbike. 

I get to eat and cook delicious food. I can now identify a few of the common vegetables in Hindi.

I have a feeling of being special here. What person doesn't want that, at least a little? 

I feel like I'm leading an exciting life of adventure. Everything is so new and different.

I get to wear inexpensive, and forgiving yet beautiful and comfortable clothing.

Plus, I cannot tell you how amazing desert air is for wavy, normally frizzy hair. Everyday is a good hair day.

Yet, living in India is also like living in a teenager's nightmare...

Here are the Top 10 Most Common Nightmares (according to health.howstuffworks.com) and How They’re Like Real Life In India (according to me)

10. Feeling Trapped or Lost

This is traffic in Jaipur.

Source: Art.com

Source: mattwitts.blogspot.com

As if I wasn’t already feeling metaphorically lost in this culture…

It tells you something when I legitimately didn’t realize for over a day that they drive on the opposite side of the road.

9. Falling or Drowning

Falling: In my household whenever I trip or fall down I’m told “I’m beautiful.” It’s become so engrained that whenever I trip dodging a cow, or fall in a two foot wide hole that’s randomly now in the street, my mother’s voice pops into my head.

Drowning: This is my shower… therefore to clean myself I have to hold my breath pour that small bucket over my head repeatedly. Enough said.

8. Machine or Phone Malfunction

This is two part. The language barrier is only exacerbated by texting. Even when I figure out what someone has said, I then have to figure out if they mean it to be that creepy or not. I could write a book about “weird things texted and said to me on the phone and internet in India.”

Phone/internet malfunctions are just part of life. The super slow Internet will frequently go off for days at a time…which means I have yet to be able to skype my simply adorable new nephew. However, waiting until my signal is strong enough to download a picture in 20 minutes is made worth it by getting this:

Text messages can also be delayed for long periods of time leading to conversations like this:

Via text message:

Friend: What does “extremely bothered” mean?

Me (delayed for about a day): Very upset.

Via phone call a few days later:

Friend: Are you okay?

Me: Yes.

Friend: Why are you upset?

Me: I’m not upset.

Friend: Are you sure?

Me: Yes

Friend: But you told me you were upset.

Me: No I didn’t.

(It took me 5 minutes before I figured out what happened, and then 3 times as long to try and explain it to my friend.)

7. Being Naked or Inappropriately Dressed in Public

Indian modesty still confuses me. Showing your entire stomach? Fine. Showing your ankles or neck? Hey now.

I went dressed like this to day one of an Indian wedding (more on that later):

I was asked multiple versions of, “Do you not like Indian dress?”
Ma'am this is not my everyday attire back home.

6. Natural or Manmade Disasters

Does an incredible amount of (sometimes feral) stray animals count as a natural disaster?

Does an overwhelming amount of trash piled everywhere count as a manmade disaster?

5. Poor Test Performance

When I manage to get a response from a school, an educator, or someone else I wish to speak with, it’s a dream come true. Unfortunately, a vast majority of these end with me:

1.     never hearing from again “…”

2.     me waiting around for an hour or two before deciding they’re just not going to show up “Buzzy now, 2mrrw wek?”

3.     having it take a creepy turn (Via email) "You're beautiful...are you married?"

Poor response time, poor follow through, incredible amounts of missed appointments and a weird expectation that if I want to talk to you about arts education, I’m also interested in marriage, make me frequently feel like I’m not accomplishing what I wish to do on my Bristol.

4. House or Property Loss or Damage

My house is in a safe neighborhood, has massive locks on all the doors, a gate, and bars on all the windows. We also know all our neighbors.

Last week one of my friends (who does not have these advantages) had a man climb into her second story window. While she was sleeping she had her macbook, phone, charger and money stolen. Another one of my friends recently was sent home by her embassy after police had to rescue her after she was locked inside her house.

3.Car Trouble

Traveling into town can take anywhere from 20 minutes to 1.5 hours. I spent two hours on a bus to go a few blocks (once it took a turn and I got lost on the maze of streets and had to wait until I recognized something again.) My preferred method of transportation is tuktuk. Here are the steps to riding a tuktuk.

1.     Flag one down.

2.     Try to communicate where you’re going. (If they’re really not getting it, call a Hindi speaking friend.)

3.     If step 2 takes too long (~1 minute) you’ll get a crowd of about 3 or up to 10 men who will do their best to sort of help. Emphasis on the “sort of.”

4.     “Kit-na” or “how much.”

5.     Act shocked (whether or not you really are)

6.     Walk away.

7.     (optional) get really angry over their price

8.     (also optional) realize you’re getting incredibly angry over 40 cents

9.     Repeat until one follows you and agrees to a more reasonable price.

2. Suffering an Injury, Illness or Death

I don’t think I need to explain this one-- India’s reputation speaks for itself. For further reading, please refer to my post about my trip to the hospital, “Under Observation.”

1. Being Chased or Attacked

I would be lying if I said this wasn’t a concern. When two dogs chased a motorbike I was on yesterday, in my panic, I accidentally punched the driver in the back (what can I say, I have fantastic instincts.) For safety, I keep my eyes down, don’t smile and cover up as much as I can. I rarely leave the house alone, and always have a companion at night.

You know that dream where you feel like everyone is staring at you? It’s not a dream here, everyone really is—in traffic, on the street, everywhere. Eyes frequently “chase me.” People also frequently try to interact with me. Sometimes this is lovely. Whenever I walk in the neighborhood I’ll get about 10-20 small children calling out a faint, high-pitched “hello!” from the rooftop. This is always followed by uncontrollable giggles. The downside is when someone says hello and acts really friendly I have about 2 seconds to look at them and realize if I’ve met them before or not. If I guess wrong I’m either about to really insult an acquaintance or inadvertently tell a stranger “yes, please follow me because I think we’re soul mates” by smiling.

I’ve been lucky. The worst “attack” I’ve faced is an “attack on my heart.” Having hoards of small and impoverished children occasionally follow me. I will take catcalls and men inappropriately touching me any day over that.

"Under Observation"

Over the past few days my body decided to become strictly hydrophobic and try to rid itself of every drop of liquid it could. Paulette, my housemate, told me we were going to the hospital. One of our friends, Vijay, left work to take me. The first hospital didn’t have a doctor but we quickly found another.

We walked into an empty, dimly lit hallway containing only a podium with the sign “reception.” A man walking past speaking hindi ushered all of us into an adjoining tiny room. It was full of people. I sat on a little stool next to the doctor, two female nurses, three male nursing students, three random middle aged men (I’m guessing the doctor’s friends), Paulette and Vijay. We didn’t actually fit. The doctor asked me (well asked Vijay) what was happening and I announced it to the room. After a quick examination on a small stained table I was taken upstairs to a room of beds with my small parade of random people. I was put in a small “room” made of little barriers in the corner. While everyone watched I got my IV through my hand, and started the process of feeling human again.

Paulette and Vijay stayed for over an hour, and then went to get lunch. While they were gone a male nurse sat about a foot away from my bed…just staring at me. He spoke no English so I couldn’t talk to him. We just sort of looked at each other, and then I’d look at the ceiling then back at him between trips to the bathroom and him checking my IV. Soon, I got two more nurses staring at me to keep him company. They just looked at me. I got annoyed at one of them when I thought he took a picture of me on his phone, but due to the language barrier and me feeling simply awful I wasn’t in full fighting spirits. Camera phones are quickly becoming my least favorite thing.

Occasionally I would have a random additional man or two just stand in the doorway and stare at me. I’m still not used to people continuing to stare once I look at them. By the time I got a shot (luckily given by a female nurse) I wasn’t even phased by the crowd once I learned the location of the injection. My little army of two visitors was trumped by the man behind me who had 9 all sitting on bed.

After six hours of this I just wanted to go home, but was told I needed to stay overnight due to an infection and severe dehydration. The worst part was thinking of a hilarious joke and having no native English speakers to appreciate it (see the title of this post.)

At about 9 pm the nursing staff changed and I got three new men staring at me. These nurses talked in English, yet not good enough English to understand my joke. (I tried.) Things got creepy fast. I was asked if I was married. I told them no, I wasn’t. Then after a while I was asked repeatedly if I thought indian men were beautiful. Over and over again while one of them lay on the other bed next to mine. For the next twenty minutes one of the guys kept rambling that he “wanted an American girl” and would “look after me all night.” Then he’d say something to his friend in Hindi and laugh. There was lots of sort of handholding with my IV...

Paulette and Vijay came back a half hour later and when I told them what had happened they swooped into action. The doctor was called back to the hospital, I told him what had happened and that I wanted to go home. He brought his staff in. Then he took Vijay and his staff away for about 45 minutes to “discuss it” and “discuss me.” Vijay finally came back and told me what was wrong with me (because lord knows I couldn’t be told!) and that the staff would be fired. I honestly doubt they will be. But, in my mind, they are. I’m so incredibly thankful to have had the support of my friends here.

The whole experience cost me $56… and from now on, if anyone asks, I’m married.

Indian Time and Other Confusions

A Baffled And Confused Indian Child

There are many things here that baffle and confuse me, but none more than the different concept of time. I’m a little obsessive about time. In my high school marching band there was a saying, “If you’re 15 minutes early, you’re on time. If you’re on time, you’re late.” This is one of my mottos in life. Basically, I really “found my people” in Taiwan. In fact this post could be titled “things that I’ve found that annoy me and are the opposite of how they do it in Taiwan.”

I’ve noticed here that “15 minutes” generally means “1 hour, maybe 2, or perhaps in a few days or not at all.” Having a very specific plan to do something is the Indian equivalent of “let’s do lunch” or “how are you?” for Americans. You’re not going to actually be meeting for lunch, and you probably don’t really care about how the person truly is feeling. You really don’t have the time for either of those things.

When someone says “when can we do this big thing that will take planning and work on your part?” regardless of the details you just planned, pretend that never happened. There’s a 95% chance that they’ll be working, or at a 15 day funeral or at the 3 day wedding of their “cousin” who they aren’t actually related to and have probably never met. (Cousins are called brothers or sisters so the word “cousin” seems to be a sort of catch-all for anything from close friend to complete stranger.)

When I had 10 Indians over for Thanksgiving, the one person who showed up within an hour of when they were supposed to, went home and came back before 7 other people came… almost two hours late. I’m not really one to lose my temper, but if you want to see me lose it, come to the vegetarian Thanksgiving I cooked (with the help of two delightful girls) with a two burner stovetop and no grocery store then complain that despite making 7 dishes I hadn’t bought enough water.

It also didn’t help that I was seriously hangry from not eating all day for an 8 pm dinner. (My camera took pity on me and deleted all my pictures from this night… probably in hopes that I would just forget about it. I like to think my camera was looking out for me...)

But I did make a cute sign.

Saying Thank You

As far as I can gather if you consider someone a friend, you don’t thank him or her. Either that or I’ve just come across a certain segment of the population who firmly believes this.

Smiling

I smile, quite a bit. Now that I’ve had multiple random girls stop me to warn me to stop it, I’m going to firm my resolve to look miserable every time I leave the house. A fellow American I met recently wrote a delightful post, “Why India Turns Me Into An A**h****.” http://www.thebigfatworld.com/asia/india/india-turns-ah/ It’s exactly how I feel. I just hope it’s reversible.

 Smiling in The Acceptable Space of My Living Room

Light Switches

I live in a house with 2 bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen and a bathroom yet there are over 40 light switches. We also have multiple choices of loud indian women singing as our doorbell.

I wish my internet was strong enough to record them all for you…

Light Switches in My Bedroom

Lying

“Hello, how are you?” “Where you from?” “Are you married?”

This is the normal progression of questions here. First of all, I’m not a great liar. I can get the lie out if I plan it first, but if I’m questioned I break, fast. I never know if there’s a potential friendship or if I’m going to see them in the future. Let’s be frank, how awkward would the subsequent conversation be:

“So, you said your husband is coming next week, right?”

“Oh yeah, about that… I thought you were a creepy man I couldn’t trust. So, I made up a bizarre story about being married. By the way, I’m new to this country and in order to do my work I need to make contacts. I’m now going to ask for your help.”

One of the only times I said I was married was in Kathmandu. I ended up seeing that guy everywhere and he was very friendly. We sat together multiple times. My spur-of-the-moment husband was a weird amalgamation of my guy friends and two days later I couldn’t remember if my imaginary husband lived in Colorado or Connecticut (love you both) but my companion could.

There goes my life as a career criminal.

Interesting, I’ve had multiple cases of the opposite happen… after knowing a guy for weeks (he came to multiple dinner parties at our house) the fact that he was married, with kids, never came up.

Much love to you all and Happy Holidays!

Teacher Turnover, A Vow of Silence & A Wedding

I had an eyeopening talk with a teacher earlier this week. She was telling me how lack of resources is a big problem. For instance in "computer class" not only do they not have computers, but almost none of the students have ever seen one. I asked her if that was the biggest problem. She said, no, the biggest problem was teacher turnover. Only women teach and their parents marry them a year or two after they finish school.  Therefore, teacher turnover is astoundingly high.

Arranged marriages account for a vast majority (90%) of marriages here. Many of the other marriages are partly arranged. I've heard multiple stories of couples "running away" to marry because they weren't of the "right" caste, background, or family. Once a woman marries she is moved to her husband's house and her life is dictated by her in-laws. As my opinion on this subject is very skewed, I've decided to not talk about "women's lives in India" on this blog. I think it's too public, and fear I would end up bordering on being culturally insensitive. Despite being a "woman in India" I am not an "Indian woman." Plus that's not what my project is about. That being said, art in schools is not what India is about. But, I knew that, and that's part of the reason I'm here.
Speaking of marriages... (look at that transition.)
My house is on a "marriage yard" which is basically a large field where women in gorgeous saris and men in jeans eat, and then stand there, before a few of them (about 10 of the few hundred) have a mosh pit to the incredibly loud music playing. The bad news is this means my housemate and I generally have to forgo conversation on nights where there's a wedding (I'd say 2-4 times a week.)
Also, I can now sing this song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XclnbDlKYM0
The good news is that there's free entertainment on our roof. We act like fashion magazine editors: commenting on the outfits while really wishing we could eat all the food.
The wedding I mentioned in a previous post ended in a very interesting display and I got to be right in the thick of it. Just call me the international entertainment.
The procession to the wedding yard on the third day starts from the house of the groom. He rode a horse, which in this case, had splendidly painted pink hooves.

The sweetest moment of the night was when his grandmother was lifted up to say goodbye to him. My housemate captured this beautiful picture:

To the incredibly loud beating of drums the profession went through the neighborhood. The entire way women were dancing and spinning. The large group in attendance was lined by a series of large lanterns carried by hired hands.

I think we were invited to go to the actual wedding but declined... I was about to come down with stomach flu so I'm glad we did!

I wasn't properly up for dancing.