First Impressions.... :)

Thursday, August 30, 2007

India. Day 3.

Two days and three nights later, I could leave this place today and it would be worth it. To be honest, the cab ride from the airport to our apartment on Monday night was enough of an experience in and of itself to be worth the 15-hour plane ride. Seriously… I don’t understand why they even have lane delineations on the roads. People drive as if their vehicles are extensions of their legs, weaving in and out of lanes, cars, rickshaws, people, and cows. Yes, cows. And horses. And monkeys. And roosters. And lizards. [This is all I’ve seen so far, but I’m told that there is a lot more where that came from.] It’s an absolute zoo. And if your vehicle is not equipped with a horn… may God have mercy on your soul. Horns are not only used frequently, but they’re absolutely necessary for surivival. Many busses and cars have signs on the back that say “Please honk,” or something to that effect, because if people don’t honk to let them know that they’re there, they will inevitably crash into each other. It gives a whole new meaning to “bumper cars.”

I was sitting in the back of the cab and couldn’t help but notice the stares I was getting from people on the road… the cab driver explained [to Ali, who later translated to me] that a lot of these people were ‘village people’ and had never before seen an American. Yup – I stand out like a sore thumb, regardless of how hard I try not to. I don’t mean to make this sound conceited; I’m dressing in a manner that makes most Utahns look like strippers in comparison, so it’s definitely the fact that I’m obviously American that attracts attention. I have yet to see someone who isn’t Indian, so I guess this makes sense. Maybe I could go tanning for extended periods of time, or something that would make me less obvious… *sigh*

Our apartment is beautiful and fully furnished: two bedrooms/two bathrooms, a living room, dining room, and kitchen. There was someone here waiting for us on Monday night, a guy who works for the people who own Maitri (the company with whom we’re working). He had cooked dinner for us, prepared our rooms, and helped us get immediately acquainted. It was great. We crashed early and I slept like a baby.

***Jetlag, anyone?***

I’m still waiting for the jetlag to set in… I don’t know what’s going on. Ali and I woke up around the same time on Tuesday morning, and because neither of us had clocks and our phones weren’t coordinated with India's time, we didn’t really know what time it was. We somehow came to the (false) conclusion that it was 1:15pm, only to later find out that it was really 9:00am. Up for the day like champs, we powered through Tuesday and got a good night’s sleep Tuesday and Wednesday night. It is now Thursday morning and I don’t understand why an 11-hour time difference hasn’t affected me yet. Let me be clear: I’m not complaining… just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Maybe optimism and psychosomatic realities go hand in hand here; I’ll give it a shot.

Not having to work on Tuesday, we spent the day getting settled and (somewhat) acquainted with the area. Walking up and down the streets was an experience; people and animals were everywhere. Ali made a comment when we returned that during our 5-block stroll, I had basically seen Delhi… “Go somewhere else,” he said. “Same animals, different street.”

Tiny little locally-owned “shops” on the street comprise several different “markets,” mostly consisting of basic goods such as water/drinks, snacks, gum/candy, etc. There are people absolutely everywhere; some are merchants, some seem to just be hanging out, obviously in situations that are a far cry from comfortable. Little kids running around, some of them completely naked, playing games on the sidewalk and in the street; people walking around with animals (again with the monkeys, roosters, cows, horses etc); dogs lying down in obvious distress, hunger, and/or sickness; and humidity combined with heat and a *particular* odor that you just don’t get in the States. There is an astounding amount of poverty everywhere you go… even in the more affluent areas we’ve been (which, granted, have only been a few so far) have poverty sprinkled throughout. And garbage. There is garbage everywhere. I’ve seen people—adults and little kids—going through this garbage, standing on top of it, etc. It’s nuts.

***Bollywood. Really.?***

I feel culturally inept for not being more familiar with Bollywood than I was before coming out here; it seems that many people in the States at least know what it is/that it exists. I definitely did not. If you’re like me and react to the term ‘Bollywood’ as if it is a satirical play of a word on ‘Hollywood’... well, you’re not far off. Apparently Bollywood is the Indian movie industry, and quite a mighty one at that. While they do have original movies, Ali explained to me in depth about the number of rip-offs Bollywood has created from original Hollywood movies. Take the movie Fugitive, for example: the Bollywood version is called Criminal, and many of the scenes are practically duplicates of the Hollywood version of the film. Hitch is another example of a movie that was ripped off; the Bollywood version has been so successful that the producers of Hitch are apparently filing a lawsuit against the makers of the Indian version of the film.

Bollywood. Yup.

[Author’s note: as if this weren’t enough, in Lahor, Pakistan, the movie industry is called Lollywood. No joke. … “Same animals, different street.”]

There is a traditional/old-fashioned Indian movie theater across the street from our living area that is playing one of Bollywood’s newest releases entitled Heyy Babyy. (No, I didn’t misspell that.) Ali informed me that an Indian movie experience was a necessary component of our/my experience here, so Tuesday night we went for the gold and saw Heyy Babyy. There were a number of different aspects of this evening that were new to me as an American moviegoer:

1) Buying movie tickets on the black market. Really.?
2) A) Going through a metal detector to get into the theater, and B) being searched/groped by “security,” which for me was a woman behind a curtain that takes away gum and other threatening and dangerous objects from people.
3) Once inside the building, standing in a crowd outside of one of the entrances to the theater and literally shoving your way through to get inside.
4) Assigned seating, which leads to the inevitable question of why people are so anxious to get in that there is pushing and shoving involved in the process.
5) Hollering/Screaming/Yelling/Whistling when a) the previews started, and especially b) when the movie started. This fanfare continued throughout the movie when there was someone or something that the crowd particularly enjoyed or recognized. Meh, let’s be honest: this fanfare was continual regardless of what was happening on the screen… the excitement was loudly palpable. [I know that phrase doesn’t necessarily work on a grammatical level, but I’m less concerned about that than I am about painting an accurate picture of this scene.]
6) Three-hour long movies, on average, usually with an intermission.
7) Movies-turned-musical. Ali explained to me that the way movies advertise themselves in India is through the songs (which are literally musical-like productions that are interspersed throughout the movie; think of the movie Grease and the number of songs in that movie, and translate that idea into Indian form with all of the above characteristics in mind.) Usually these songs hit the radio before the movies open, so everyone is not only familiar with them—they’re usually big hits. This excites these Indians to an incredible degree, so when the cast breaks out into song and dance sporadically throughout the film, the audience went nuts. Absolutely nuts.
8) I will have to see more movies here to know whether the level of drama evident in this particular movie is normal; at times it almost seemed like it should have been a sketch on Saturday Night Live or something because their reactions were so strong and melodramatic.
9) While the majority of the movie was in Hindi, I would say that about 20% of the language had interspersed English. This helped me better understand what was going on, and when I didn’t understand what was going on or why a character was a sudden basket case, Ali translated. Bless his heart.

Bollywood. Can’t wait for more.

***Language Shmanguage***
So… I feel really lucky for knowing English. Most people are forced to learn it in some capacity, at some point in their lives. Hindi? Not so much.

See, because of my background in French, when I hear Spanish or Italian (Romance languages) it’s fairly easy to decipher things, at least intermittently. For instance, I can tell when someone is wrapping up a conversation based on their voice inflection, maybe a familiar verb or noun here and there, etc. Hindi is absolutely not the same, at least on my ears. When Ali talks on the phone to his family/someone who speaks Hindi/Ordu, it seems as if he just randomly hangs up the phone. Obviously he doesn’t… the usual goodbye sequence is in place, but I just can’t tell. It’s like I’m hearing jibberish, all.the.time.. It’s a bit frustrating, but I combat that by trying to learn as much as I can. I have my numbers (1-10) down (ish), thank you, your welcome, monkey, yes, no, and a few choice lines from some songs that are major hits (again, going back to Bollywood).

***Work…and food…***

Wednesday was our first day of work @ Maitri [Website should be up by next Wednesday… that’s something we’re working on right now], a non-profit that aims to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS in India, as well as providing care and support for those who have been infected/affected. I don’t even know where to start with how amazing the founders/CEO are… check out the website for more info on who they are, if you are interested, but if you’re not, suffice it to say that they are completely responsible for taking excellent care of us while we are here. I’m pretty sure (I’ll confirm this) that they own the apartment we live in, so the machine of people that have been coming around endlessly to help us cook, clean, fix things, etc, all work for them. The reason we had the opportunity to work with them in the first place is actually because Winnie and General Singh (founders) are friends with Ted Wilson and Kathy Wilson (← board member of Maitri), and as we all know Ted Wilson = former director of the Hinckley Institute. Anyway, Gen. Singh, Winnie, and Sonal are of the most accommodating, wonderful, generous, extraordinary people I’ve ever known, and I’ve known them for a total of 2 days at this point. Ali and I join all three of them every day for lunch at their home, which is not far from the office, and is a smorgasbord of food made by native Indians. Can’t beat it.

The food is SO good, I can’t even handle it. Everything…, I mean EVERYTHING is just fabulous. For dessert after lunch yesterday, for instance, they served fresh mangoes and homemade ice cream. The mangoes… I don’t think that what we have in the States qualifies as mangoes, these were so good. Juicy, delicious, just melt-in-your-mouth goodness. Mmmm-mmm. I’m still waiting to get sick, as everyone has assured me I will… Maybe it’s a good thing that I’m a fairly picky eater because so far, so good. It’s also a good thing that a) vegetarian food is rampant in India and b) so is rice/other types of carbs. Ye-yeah. ☺ We’ll see how well I’m doing with this whole food/sick thing a week from now…

Anyway, at Maitri we’re working on some basic proposals to foundations for particular projects Maitri is working on, but because they just moved into a new office I think everyone is still kind of getting settled. We’ve talked a little about the types of work we’ll be doing, and it all sounds fabulous… I’ll talk about it more as it comes up.

I’m still trying to get my camera/picture fiasco managed, so I’ll post pictures as soon as possible.

In the meantime, here is some contact info:

My home address:

F-601 Som Vihar, R.K. Puram
Sector 12
New Delhi, 110066, India

My cell: 99-7184-3227
… The India country code is 91, and the Delhi city code is 11. I honestly don’t know how to do this quite yet, but my guess is to dial 91-11-99-7184-3227.

I think. ☺

I have very few minutes and the way I add more is kind of ghetto (i.e. I pay some random dude outside of a slum) so I’m going to be shameless in my announcement that I get free incoming minutes. Those of you who are going to DMB shows…. This is you. I’ll pay you back. ☺ ☺ ☺

We also have a landline, which I’ll get up as soon as possible.

Again, I plan on posting pictures asap… our most recent shot is of me being terrified of the many lizards that hang out on the walls like flies. You’d think that after spending half my life in Southern Utah chasing lizards that these wouldn’t bother me…. But ewwwww. ☺

Thanks to all for your love! This is just insanely wonderful and I can’t think of a better way I’d like to spend this time in my life.

A bientot!
[I’ve been redeeming my psychological distress of not understanding a single word of Hindi by thinking/speaking French at random intervals… makes me feel like I’m at least somewhat competent. I guess.]

Pre-India...

Monday, August 27

On Tuesday of last week, I stood outside of my car atop Emigration Canyon and simply stared out into the Salt Lake valley, taking a desperate break from the psychological, emotional, and physical stress I was feeling with regard to my upcoming adventure to India. At that point, I still had not received my Visa from the Indian Embassy (which was a fiasco 2 months in the making), had just found out that my computer (which was being held at the SLC Apple Store) would not be fixed before I left—a major problem—nor had I received my scholarship check from the University of Utah, and funds were tight. Suffice it to say that at that moment…I had seen better moods. I made myself stop and take a few deep breaths to help put everything in perspective. Though I was attempting to remain optimistic, I began mentally preparing myself for the potential that my departure date may have to be bumped back until these issues were resolved. This would have been not only financially burdensome to both me and my companion, Ali, but psychologically distressing as we were both highly anticipatory of this trip.

It was the next morning that I opened the front door to find a FedEx [to my progressive friends: I had no choice, I promise] package with my Passport & Visa. Later that morning my computer woes were slowly but clearly resolving, and that afternoon I received my scholarship check. This was when it really hit me: I was going to India for 4 months. Wow.

Flying East from Salt Lake City, the only layover our trip to Delhi included was 8 hours in Chicago. After an early morning departure, we arrived around noon and Jon was kind enough to meet us at the airport, take us to his place, walk around, and grab some food. It was a lovely day in Chicago, which is strange since it is the middle/end of August. As we were confirming our flights back at the airport some hours later, it turned out that because our flight was overbooked they were bumping some people to the same flight the following day (Sunday). Ali and I were two of those people; luckily we got a $500 plane ticket/voucher out of it, and obviously they put us up for the night. I don’t think either of us immediately realized that this setback was in many ways beneficial: I felt much more refreshed and stimulated this afternoon than I did yesterday afternoon.

As I’m writing this, we’re about an hour and a half from landing in Delhi; the passenger windows in the plane are all shut (and have been since nearly the beginning of the flight) so it’s strange that we’re about to watch the sun set again after watching it set as we took off. This fifteen-hour flight could have been worse; luckily Ali and I are apparently quite good at entertaining ourselves/each other with random enterprises, including (but not limited to) movies and music powered by my computer (thank you, American Airlines, for the electricity!).

I have no idea what to expect. I’m an hour away from experiencing something so completely new and foreign to me; there really isn’t much to say. I’m excited in more ways than I ever imagined possible. I know that this experience will change my life in innumerable ways, and the lack of expectation only raises my anticipation to another level.

I’ll be posting as soon and as frequently as possible… My next post will be my first official India post, and I'll include my contact information in that one.

… See you in India.

☺