Hunger Strike

I've struggled for a long time to find something to believe in. Every young adult wants a cause, some slogan that they can shout on the steps of their capital until their voice goes hoarse. Still, the idea of the over-dedicated undergrad who fills his or her weekends with poetry slams, acid trips, and protests against everything from KFC chicken to the word "nigger" has always made me roll my eyes. It just seems too trendy to be authentic.

Now, I am far from being a conservative and do consider myself pretty progressive. I just believe that being an activist for thirty different causes is counter productive. Or maybe I just haven't found a cause for which I'm willing to chain myself to the gate of the White House for.

I'm stuck in Shimla for an extra night due to a misunderstanding of the bus schedule and a broken cell phone (now fixed). Shimla is shockingly beautiful. At two thousand something meters, it is built, cum Quebec, on the face of a mountain and crowned with a large white Anglican church from which a neon green cross shines after sunset. It was developed as a retreat for the British rulers from Delhi's sweltering summers and my Dad used to vacation here as a child. If you stand next to the church, you can see the Himalayas peaking out from behind the densely forested, dark green mountains. The main street steeply zigzags down the face of the mountain and is called, "The Mall." Just as it makes its first descending turn, there is a line of Tibetan refugees camped on the side of the street. They are on hunger strike. I can't even look them in the eye.

I respect these people so much and yet feel so ashamed. The situation in Tibet is wrong. No one cam deny that China should grant these people the right to self-determination and the practice of Tibetan Buddhism or stop violently queling peaceful protests.

Am I guilty? Che (not exactly my hero) said, "knowledge makes us accountable," but how sustainable is that belief? If you chase two rabits, they will both get away. Nobody, from myself to the President of the United States, can turn every wrong they witness into some personal crusade. Nothing would be achieved. So, what do I do? The prospects of choosing between apathy and pointless over-involvement until I find a cause is bleak. What if I never find one? Do I ignore injustice? When you live in such a global society, how do you choose where to throw your heart?

I just wish I knew a way to get this pit out of my stomach.

what i'll do to facebook

i leave tomorrow morning for meeru, kinnaur in himachal pradesh. i am really scared.


probably won't be updating more than once a week for the next month due to the 4 hour commute using the internet will require. but then again, if i were living at the north pole, i'd probably dogsled for 24 hours straight once every fortnight to check facebook.

p.s. whoever you are, call me up +919958612967

i have a feeling that in two weeks time, i'll be stoked to hear from my 6th grade math teacher

Empty Nest Syndrome

The word family means something different in India. Coming from a world where 90% of my friends move out of the house within months of turning 18, the idea of living with your parents when you're thirty is laughable. Here, it's bizzare to live in your own house unless you're married. At first I thanked God to be born in America because the idea of living with my parents until I get married seemed, in a word, horrifying. I've been wanting to move out of the house since as a long as I can remember. In Middle School, I begged to go to bording school. I've always wanted out.

Now, though, I'm beginning to look at the whole situation differently. I leave for Lucknow and Shabri Aunty in about an hour. I won't see my parents for almost four months. Last June, I would probably have celebrated this fact, but right now I'm actually pretty sad. Something weird happened over the past two weeks- we had fun.
Together.
As a "family."
On Vacation.

In India, a person's family is her friends. Aunts and inlaws call more than once a day to see what's up and it's not unusual for a 93 year old grand uncle to drive 4 hours to visit some random niece he's never met. No, I don't laugh as much as when I'm home. No, I don't go out or have horribly engaging converstaions very often. But in an age where entire relationships can be terminated by changing your facebook status, it's nice to be around people whose bond isn't imature humor or shared passing interests, but blood.

And when you grow up here, I can see how living with your parents could be not as horrifying as I thought. I think that people in America just never reach a point where they are both their parents friends and roommates. Ages 12-20 usually aren't prime parent-child bonding years anyway, right?
Not that i plan on living with my parents, or anything/

family vacay

family vacay was... fun? we went shopping and took snapshots in eight different cities in six days. we rode camels and elephants and went on a tiger safari (no luck this time). we made some friends from england and met a sweet but bizzare socialite family from Dubai. In conclusion, the week was like eating a frozen microwave dinner of kobe beef ribeye steak with truffle mashed potatos and brocolini. you know it should/could be amazing and it is good, just prepackaged and ladden with MSG, making the entire thing a bit vapid.

my dad took this...

rajastan express

on a train somewhere in rajastan. back to delhi on wednesday when i can properly update.

i've decided to go. i realize that discretion is not my strong suit and that i will regret it for at least a little while after i go there and feel completely alone. but after alaska, i know i can (if not enjoy) survive anything. balls to the wall. get ready.

"you'll either be bored out of your mind or age twelve years in five weeks"

I got accepted to teach English/Social Studies/ HIV prevention at a monestary in Kinnaur, Himachal Pradesh (http://www.himachalonline.com/kinnaur/ ). I am so torn. On one hand, it's the experience of a lifetime and I feel like I will regret not going. On the other hand, no one in the monestary or village speaks english. At the very least I would be there for four weeks. It's in the middle of a frozen desert (literally) and at least three hours away to any sort of internet (aka contact with anyone I give a shit about). I would have no one to talk to, only work for an hour or two a day doing something I know nothing about, be eating monk's food, and be utterly alone and God knows I don't do well in isolation...
If you have any sort of opinion or whatever, tell meeeee cause I don't know what to do!
kalei.talwar@gmail.com or facebook me or whatever with your opinionin the meantime...
this is what happens when you ask for jalabis for five people. you get a kilo and a half.so the parentals arrived a few days ago for their two week visit. we've gone to a vintage car show, saw some old buildings, and eaten a shitload of the most amazing food you'll ever put in your mouth. here are some pics.an ancient well. my mom is actually there on the left.we went for a rickshaw ride. it was touristy but still awesome.this made me laugh... spices
chewing tobacco mixed with different spices and chewed wrapped in an edible leaf so cute i wanna barf
tomorrow we go on the palace on wheels ( http://www.palaceonwheels.net/new/home.htm ). my parents showed up with two duty free handels for the occasion. we are all cheap alchies. why am i always wearing this shirt?

why i don't give a shit about carnival and confirmation that i'm not a lesbian

PART 1suragkund fair owns punahou carnival.way, way better than malasadas PART 2

Situation 1) A few days ago, my aunt hinted at why she’s been so cold. She was walking out of the room, turned to me and said, “In India, we don’t show our legs.” The sweatpants I was wearing cover my freaking knees when I’m standing up. They’re loose and made out of thick cotton, not spandex.

Situation 2) The clothes washer refuses to wash women’s underwear so I had to wash mine in the sink and hang them on the shower curtain to dry. The cleaners refused to go into my bathroom with them hanging up and I got chewed out by my aunt for displaying them so lasciviously.

Situation 3) I talked with some college seniors last week; they were a group of five or six cute girls who were really nice and pretty cool. Only one had been kissed. They told me that they would have to be a virgin until they were married because sometimes, “they check.”

I don’t understand the relationship between Indians and sex. Scattered across the country are ancient temples covered with sculptures of gods and goddesses doing the dirty in all sorts of crazy ways. I went to a museum today and saw an 18th century tapestry of milkmaids waiting to be “plundered” by Krishna. It’s the land of the goddamned Karma Sutra and yet ninety-nine percent of unmarried women are virgins.

Subsequently, getting an aruvedic massage last week was puzzling.

So I walk into the massage room and the woman closes the door and grunts, “change.” I don’t see a towel or robe anywhere so I point to a room divider and ask if I should go behind it. She obviously knows no English but repeats her monosylabic command. She’s holding up what appears to be some sort of green bandage with ties on each end. I awkwardly hesitate for a few more seconds until she begins to look impatient and then strip in front of her. She affixes the paper bandage like thong and points to the massage table.

I sit. She stands on a bench in front of me, belly button at my eye level. I am horrified and caught between the impulses to run away and to giggle. She says a prayer with the oil and then starts rubbing it into my head. She gets more oil and repeats. I am told to lie down.
She places a cold compress on my eyes and I sit in damp darkness. I can hear her jiggling with a pot of oil over the stove. I lay there for a few more minutes and suddenly feel the drizzle of oil on my forehead. It’s hot. Really hot. It kinda hurts. I grit my naked ass teeth and bear it.
Post oil dripping season she begins the “massage.”

She pours oil all over me and rubs me head to toe in both long sweeping and short repetitive motions as I lay there petrified and slightly ticklish in my green makeshift thong. It was as awkwardly sexual as it sounds. I almost told her to stop, but was afraid that I was going to offend her. I mean, it was technically an ancient healing ritual and all and it probably my fault that I was feeling sexually intruded on. (wait… isn’t that almost the argument slutty rape victims use?)

Finally, it’s over and she directs me towards a shower. I say thank you a few times before I realize that she isn’t going anywhere. I turn on the water and she scrubs perfumed guacamole all over me. She then tells me to sit and pours a packet of flaky white substance that both smells and looks like laundry detergent onto my head. It suds up and I feel as If I’m in some kind of lesbian willy wonka washing machine. I don't think I like it.

I leave feeling odd not having shared a cigarette or at least spooning for a while.

Soytopia

does this make me a dirty hippie? vassar update letter

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dfb3kgxz_3gkfn86cj
i went to an indian wedding

Goose Rage, Hamlet, and Sanitation

Traveling is always 80 percent shit. You show up to the airport either way too early or way too late, wait in security lines where the TSA always opens up your Polaroid film, and then ferment in terminals for exhausting layovers where there’s nothing to do but watch CNN on mute while eating bad Mexican food. Your skin goes to shit and your neck hurts from trying to sleep sitting up to avoid leaning on the balding guy to your left. You get jetlagged, sleep all day and go on facebook all night. No one understands you because of your accent and all your aunt does is glare at you. You don’t know the language or how to get around or what to say to your cousin when she talks about Bollywood movies or the awkwardness of having the women of her family prep her for her wedding night.

Yeah. What do you even say in that conversation? “Yeah, I guess my friends and I are all sluts so if you ever want some pointers I could give them a call and we could all have a video chat.”

I don’t think so.

Then you have those shit Lost in Translation mornings when all you want to do is cry on the phone with your mom about what the hell you’re doing with your life and why the fuck am I in India shouldn’t I be in school studying Law or something and why hasn’t he called me I bet he’s forgotten about me and why is my aunt so mean she seriously hates me for no good reason fuck what am I doing here!!!!!!!!

And then you have lunch in the garden.

Today, during lunch, the male geese started fighting. One held another one’s neck in his beak and pushed the head underwater as the victim flapped and flapped and flapped and beat his wings as hard as he could. A steward finally had to come and save him.

So I went to the toilet museum. An amazingly flaming Indian man, completely enamored with sanitation, gave me the most wonderful tour of vehicles in which to shit from as far as 2500 BC. Ferreal. My favorite was the Victorian toilet shaped like a book with HAMLET written on the spine. I met a guy named Jake from Canada (so many Canadians!!!) and we shared the standard friendly/lonely traveler banter over sweet paneer candy and jalabis.

Somewhere between a mouthful of rosewater and honey, I found myself walking down some unpaved back alley talking about nothing with the Canadian. I could feel the dust sticking to my skin as wide Bollywood bhangra eyes caught my face and followed me as we wandered past barber shops and food stalls manned by women in saris the color of precious stones.

This, I thought, was why I came to India. Not for the garden geese or over attentive servants or five star hotel weddings. I want to see the masses of humanity piled up floor by unfinished floor of cement blocks and drying laundry. I want nooks and crannies filled with dirty kids and shrines to Shiva because being somewhere like that, smelling the hot oil and rosewater and cow shit, and being perfectly happy being perfectly lost makes you forget the other 80 percent of your miserable time.

aloha broha!