how to use a toilet

Back in Delhi. Today I'm packing and learning how to make the world's best butter chicken from my cousin's chef. Tomorrow night I head off to Uttar Pradesh for my 5 week NOLS course in the Himalayas.

For my fight back to Delhi, I arrived in Bangalore Airport three hours early and the IndiGo check in counter wasn't even open yet.

Bangalore Intl Airport is on par with Munich Intl Airport in the sleek and grandiose departments. 200 foot tall support beams curve and twirl towards the sky to support a bulbous glass and steel ceiling. The elevator near the checkout counter is made of glass, exposing the high tech, silver-hued, tangled mechanical innards that propel the human delivery box up and down. Bangalore has money and an army of eager and over-educated computer programmers who bring home the bacon and crush any doubt that India is rising. I know this because I've been to the Airport.

One thing that Bangalore Intl Airport has that Munich doesn't, however, is villagers. Villagers who don't trust plexiglas human delivery boxes or stairs that climb for you. As I, headphones in and foot popping, waited for the IndiGo counter to open, I noticed two of such aforementioned villagers. One was a elderly man in a Yellow turban and white linen lungi. The other, I assume, was his wife, bright blue sari and white tribal arm bands to boot. They were staring at the escalator, too horrified to step on it and proceed to security. They exchanged a few words, something short, like, "You first," and then continued to stand there, gawking, for another 5 minutes.

An airport worker approached them. After a short conversation, he walked them 20 feet to the elevator and seemed to explain just how it worked. They considered this mode of transportation for a good 10 minutes. The airport worker enlisted the help of a friend to demonstrate just how this glass box worked. After another 5 minutes, the four of them walked away, presumably to a set of stairs in the back.

After checking in I decided to use the bathroom. I was nice, undeserving of the "India toilet frown" but still smelled vaguely like, well, an Indian toilet. After I locked myself in my stall, I discovered why. I began to do my buisness and then herd a hissing sound coming from the stall to the right. I assumed someone was using the bidet hose, but no. A woman, as confused by the toilet as the elderly couple had been with the escalator, had given up and decided to take a piss on the floor. Now, excuse me for being Ms. Ethnocentrism, but how hard is it to use a toilet? Are they really that difficult to figure out?

The stream of piss started making it towards my feet. I panicked, and ran out of the stall as soon as the proper hygienic protocols would let me. When the woman exited the stall, I saw that she was a young bride, probably on her way to make a new life with her husband somewhere where toilets didn't exist. I showed her how to use the sink.

On the shared taxi ride from Jayanagar to the Airport, I had some light conversation with the buisness man next to me. He said that India was like a drunk man crossing the street, it teeters and totters, goes backwards and almost gets you killed a few times before arriving at the other side, unscathed. No one understands how this is done, but it happens everyday in India.

This made total sense to me. Yes, sometimes it takes three days to get medicine for some nuns who are coughing up blood. Yes, you almost get killed every time you step onto the street. Yes, Hindus and Muslims aren't getting along like they should. And yes, you can't seem to comprehend the amount of people that can get squeezed into the bus/temple/garden/street/country. But somehow, magically, it all works out in the end. The transvestites dance, the children beg, the rickshaw drivers hustle, the cricketers play, the elite spend, the actors dance, the market teems.

I love it all, and I don't want to leave.

The Big Chill

http://boxedwaterisbetter.com/hello/

watching cnn about the terrorist attack that happened in pakistan today in my right ear, eavesdropping my uncle talking to the prime minister (?) about it in my left ear.

Today was weird. Woke up in Ambala, a town that is half tuscany and half burkina faso, with endless fields of wheat lined with what could be olive trees (botany isn't my strong suit), turbaned men lounging around mud huts drinking tea, two bicylces for ever scooter, and two scooters for ever car.

I was visiting the last living and oldest of my grandfather's brothers, Inder Mohan, a venerable, deaf, and slightly eccentric 92 year old man who spent yesterday afternoon showing me pictures of my family and letters from American relatives. Met my bed ridden Tayiji who kept forgetting that I don't speak Hindi and wouldn't let me leave until she made sure Inder had given me a felt blanket and the equivalent of 10 bucks. Adorable but awkward.

Today, Inder's grandson and his wife drove me 7 hours to Delhi. I should have taken 5 but we got lost. Badly. I was no help and realized that Rajaji Marg looks like a million other Marges around India Gate. Got into a horrible mood because all I wanted to do was go to Kahn market and eat fettucini alfredo and strawberry ice cream at The Big Chill, which was looking more and more improbable.

Once back at Navy House, I tried to get a car, but all the drivers were at the airport to wait for my uncle, who was returning with my aunt from Goa. I was in no condition to meet anyone and was biting my lip until 5:25, when an extra driver showed up and drove me to Kahn market 5 minutes before my relatives were scheduled to arrive.

Once at Kahn market, I ran around frantically trying to find something that I wanted to do. There were no tables open at The Big Chill, so I took a strawberry milkshake to go and wandered around feeling anxious about nothing. I realized that i just wanted to be back at the monastery, where, although there is no strawberry ice cream, there is no traffic, no waiting, no pretense, and little stress. I realized that I missed the simple life.

So I bought ten dollars of imported cheese, Vogue India, another Austen book, and The Sun Also Rises and felt a little bit better. I went back to Navy House where I grinned through small talk and ate dinner. Leaving for Mysore from Navy House (Delhi) tomorrow at 5 a.m. I'll arrive at the apartment around noon.

It'll be the fifth day in a row where I wake up and go to sleep in a different city.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhwbxEfy7fg

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/

"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!

some pictures from my first week

national museaum where
1) a 9th centuary brother cops a feel 2) A saw a monk pray at the supposed relics of budda

republic day (camera's weren't allowed inside the booth)
very eerie to have a ballistic missle roll by and have everyone around you cheer
p.s. this happened http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/8321117

went to the zoo

today during lunch in the garden, the geese were swimming in the swimming pool. a boy goose kept on trying to mount the girl goose, but the girl goose kept on trying to swim away. finally, the girl goose got to the edge of the pool, started flapping her wings and climbing up the side onto the grass. my aunt, the entire time, was yelling, "run, run away!"

fuck i'm in a mood. i need some haagen dazs, a blanket, planet earth, and someone who can make me laugh. too bad there's no way i'm finding those things at janpath market. except, maybe, the blanket...

jah hin!

I am a bit of a luxury whore. Show me a cardigan in supple cashmere or perfectly treated angora and I’ll shell out way too much money to wear it once or twice a year. I collect Feragamo shoes and spread truffle pate like it was peanut butter. It comes as a great surprise to me, then, that I absolutely detest living in a house full of servants.
I’ve just now begin to realize how much money my family had in India. The Mumbai house that my dad was born in is now owned by the forth richest family in the world; Ravi Shankar used to play for my grandmother’s dinner parties; our family vacationed on the island palace in Octopussy as a guest of the Maharajah. Awesome, but always so removed, like some sort of Atlantis filled with chicken tika masala and elephants. It’s hard to realize that my dad grew up with a staff of 30 while watching him pull down the king sized toilet paper package from Costco.
So visiting my Uncle Sureesh (now head of the Indian military…yeah) has been a bit of a trip. I loved getting picked up by military guards as I stepped off of my airplane and not having to wait in line for customs only to be taken out the side door to where a lieutenant was waiting with a military car to drive me to my uncle’s house. I like getting my room cleaned twice a day and not having to do dishes. It was even kind of fun to be waited on during meals. Say a word and it shows up on your plate within thirty seconds.
What I don’t like is how pathetic these grown men in their navy sweaters and nametags look as they cower while my thirty-two year old, snoopy sweater-clad cousin shouts at them because the table butter is frozen. I don’t like ringing for the box of cookies on the other end of the table instead of getting off of my fat ass and picking up the box myself. I don’t like these twenty and thirty somethings look like they aren’t sure whether words or fire will come out when I open my mouth to ask for a bottle of water.

being colored and shit

i first realized that i wasn't white in chicago. most of my life, i expected that i would look like Belle or the Pink Power Ranger when I grew up. Princess Jasmine was darker than I would ever be and the Yellow Ranger was just so... yellow. I read the Samantha series of American Girl because she had brown hair, like me. What I didn't realize was that only one of my grandparents would have been able to eat with Samantha at a restaurant.

Growing up in racially ambiguous Hawaii made me think that because I wasn't pure Chinese or pure Indian, I was automatically white. It wasn't until July 4th 2007 at Chicago's Sadle Country Club that I realized that I was the only non-white celebrating instead of working. I realized that I wasn't white. When I saw a Chinese woman I felt freakishly connected to her, like we were part of this secret society that everybody else, with their blond highlights and j crew sweaters, didn't even know about.

It's funny, then, that I arrived in Delhi last night after spending an unexpected layover in downtown Chi going to the Contemporary Museaum with my Aunt and Uncle and sipping hot chocolate with Gracie at Giradelli's.

So I left the heart of America for the heart of my unknown ancestors. Corny, yes, but true. While I've matured in western society on an island chain where 5 generations of my mother's family have lived and died, India, the place where my father was born and partially raised, has always remained shrouded in mystery (or was that pollution?).

I've read that it's foolish for anyone to expect to know India. The land is far too expansive and diverse to be understood by any one mind. But maybe, if I'm lucky, I'll come to know something else over the next 5 months, the missing piece of my family puzzle.