A day in Mumbai

My flight to Chennai from Dhaka was canceled so I got my wish: a day in Mumbai! Even better is that through RZIM Academy, I have a friend who lives there. Priyanka lives with her family by the sea down the street from The Taj hotel, infamous for the site of hostage killings last year. It is a beautiful area and after breakfast in the morning when I met the other guests--apparently their house is always full of visitors, "enriching" described the Canadian Muslim lady who's in India to study yoga--I went to get a pedicure with Emily, an American from Minnesota who is also in India to visit friends and do yoga, only she's interested in Holy Yoga. The pedicure was about 45 minutes and thoroughly cleansing considering my feet have been traveling dusty dirty roads for the past few weeks. I got gold polish. :) And it cost roughly $5USD. I'm going to miss India.

Then we met Priyanka, her sister, and another friend for lunch at Bombay Gym. It's an old club built in the colonial period. Understated charm, airy, casual while still exuding upper class society. Yummy lime juice and chinese food.

Went back to the house with Emily and chatted for a while. Drank tea, admired the view from the terrace and talked with the Canadian visitor about life and suffering and friendships and her daughter. All great opportunities for me to utilize my recent apologist studies.

Then Priyanka came home from work. A bit of household futzing and then we left for a dance lesson for a friend's brother's wedding. Apparently all Indian wedding have dancing, some numbers are rehearsed with close friends and family. This wedding will feature 12 choreographed dances. The one involving the parents was my favorite. The choreographer is a flaming gay man whose jeans were so tight I winced every time he knelt down. Just a bit of randomness to complete my journey in India. The apartment was very posh--like a W Hotel lobby if the bellhops dressed in saris.

So I'm 'home' now at Juanita's in Queens. Will be here a few days before heading to Tucson to visit Olivia. Photos sometime when I can muster the energy to dig out the cable and download them and upload them. Will that chore ever be technologized into quick ease?

Let's see: shout outs to Nomsa, Tiffany, and Darron for reading!

Dhaka Taka Duck

Three days in Dhaka, Bangladesh to visit my friends Mirko and Fabienne who are Swiss and here on UN assignment. I need to look up the weather in NYC, I think I am in for a shock. Yup: from 90s here to 50s there. Well, good thing I have a sweatshirt. The rest of RZIM was amazing and I have lots to say that will probably not make it here if Israel is any precedent. Instead, here are some photos of crazy colorful Dhaka.

Fabienne, my terrific camera-shy hostess with the mostess. Bangla, bargaining, shopping, facializing, driving.

Kitten. Officially named Olivia but called by Fabienne Mamooch. Which I love because its like my monkey. This cat is super cute and biting. She took a nap on my bosom yesterday.

Went to the countryside with Katrina, a Scottish woman who is recently arrived here with her Swiss husband and baby. They were most recently living in Ecuador.

Here are some village boys who said hi to us. 

The night before, Mirko and Fabiennes neighbor Sonya had us over for dinner. It was an amusing night of International English of which I am not fluent. Sonya is Montenegren and also works in the UN and Christina, Mirkos boss who is French, was a guest.

Fabienne and I had a ride in a fancy CNG (like the autos of Chennai only green and apparently run on natural gas).

New market. Fabienne bought big plastic mats for the rooftop party they are hosting tonight. I bought two coconut fiber scrubs. Passed on the live chicken.

Rickshaws are all decked out and have a nice tinkling bell whereas the cars and CNGs all honk discordantly.

My room. They have two guest rooms, well, one is the cats. Sorry Im not using apostrophes. I cant find the key. So this is my advertisement if anyone wants to visit Dhaka.

Puran Dhaka (Old Dhaka) tour with an architect-professor and founder of Urban Study Group. Fascinating. 

A re re re

Hindi equivalent of 'boy oh boy.' Week 2 of my apologetics course is complete, one more to go. The teaching has been really great, only surpassed by the lives of the speakers themselves, my growing Indian family comprised of classmates and staff, and, of course, southern Indian food. They say that I eat just like a real Indian person. :) That would be that I've got the index extension on thumb flick just at the mid-point between third and ring fingers combined with nearly imperceptible slurp.


My other new expressions include kayka (meaning 'sweet') and acha ('oh yeah'). It's Diwali today, the festival of lights. Early celebration included a retinue of fireworks and firecrackers last night and round two beginning at 6AM this morning--my friend tells me it's the kids who wake up early begging their parents to let them ignite the first of many noise makers--it really sounds like a war zone, I'm not being dramatic.

The women of Batch 8 (l-r): Shalini, Avanti, Priyanka, Shiv, me.

Me on what I wanted to say was the Indian Ocean but I was corrected by Shalini that it is the Bay of Bengal.

Suresh, Arnold, Praveen and David.

Batch 8

Hi, I'm repurposing photos from Facebook. Forgive me.

Vanakkam from Chennai

That's greeting in Tamil, the local language in this state of India, of which Chennai is the capitol. I've been here just over a day, my course does not begin until Monday. My luggage has not arrived yet so I find myself in my Montenegran predicament but in a Taiwanese climate. The mothballs, I journaled--hoping to be able to post from my iPod notepad but the IT folks here won't give me the wifi password and instead I'm interneting from one of their machines--remind me of Taipei, the first international destination of my life when I was a wee 6 years old. Anyway, one of the ladies here at the Hindustan Bible Institute where I am spending the weekend said I need to get more aggressive (i.e. Indian) and call up Air India and demand they reimburse me for my desperate situation. I feel my American anti-confrontational lethargy rising up. Must...overcome...cultural...morays...must...acclimate...

Besides that obvious inconvenience, I've loved the food and feel very safe on this campus. My roommate, a Canadian of Indian descent, will arrive tonight at 1AM. I think I'll make her a welcome sign. I've nothing else to do today other than perhaps purchase a scarf to 'cover my chest' and be more appropriately dressed here. HOT!