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Wednesday, August 25
Almost inspiringly stupid.
Thursday, April 1
Friday, March 19
Strategic Chapati Locations
“See I'm a dreamer, man, and when I was a cook I'd always work with people who weren't dreamers. Like, I was cooking at this restaurant and I put a hot dog on the grill and my kitchen manager came over, and he said, "Mitch, put the hot dog up here, in the right hand corner of the grill, so in case you get a whole bunch of orders at once you have all this space available." See that's how I knew he wasn't a dreamer, 'cause the day I give up my dreams is the day I have strategic grill locations. A dreamer has a philosophy: The entire grill is hot.”
-Mitch Hedberg
I come out of the laundry room looking and feeling like I’ve just survived the boardwalk log flume. I’m wet, I’m soapy – the perfect solution? Head to the kitchen to dry off.
“Auntie! Auntie!” Roma comes running. I always feel strange when she calls me auntie. She must be at least seventy, which in India is old enough to be my great grandmother. She’s just under five feet, and skinny skinny skinny. Her eyes – big, sparkly – are enlarged by thick glasses, giving her the almost comic appearance of a cartoon character. She seems to always forget that I know Hindi, making high pitched noises to indicate things until I remind her I can speak. And then she won’t stop talking.
“You know, I am Bengali. Bengali. Yes I am. I moved here in 1972 from Kolkata, which is when I got married, 1972, in Kolkata, which is in Bengal. I am Bengali. Where do you live now? A family? Named what? Agrawal? Hm. Not Bengali. SO many mosquitos this morning. SO many.” And this next part she attempts to say in English, her eyes, if possible, growing even larger, “Moskweetoe! Moskweetoe! Moskweetoe! Moskweetoe! Baap arey baap! 10:45! Chapati time!”
She shows me how to make long snakes out of the dough, break pieces off of these, form them into balls, then roll them out into thin circles. A half hour later, I’m delegated to the grill, with Soni, another girl who works there full time.
I drape the thin, small circles on my palm like pizza dough, then send them through the air to their perfect destination. I master the aerodynamics of the tricky chapati, with each attempt, perfecting my throw: less frisbee, more shotput.
Soni and I work in a harmonic unison. I throw down some chapati, she shifts the browning, bubbling breads over, and I pop some more in their place.
Growing tired, my partner recruits another woman to help in the flipping. This newcomer is a resident of the Mother Teresa house. It’s never easy to say exactly why someone is there – maybe they have leprosy, are mentally challenged, have some sort of deformity. Anyway, this woman has her hair cut very short, goes around doing what she’s told. I’ve never seen her laugh, or even smile. Never heard her speak.
Soni is impatient. “Suneeta, move them quickly! Hey! Hey, Suneeta, you listening to me? Is the grill making you too hot? You need to think about where you’re putting the roti – hey, Suneeta, you listening to me? Why’d you put these chapati here? There’s no room for the next batch.” She pinched Suneeta’s ear.
I laughed to myself, remembering Mitch. Suneeta might be quiet, but she’s definitely a dreamer.
-Mitch Hedberg
I come out of the laundry room looking and feeling like I’ve just survived the boardwalk log flume. I’m wet, I’m soapy – the perfect solution? Head to the kitchen to dry off.
“Auntie! Auntie!” Roma comes running. I always feel strange when she calls me auntie. She must be at least seventy, which in India is old enough to be my great grandmother. She’s just under five feet, and skinny skinny skinny. Her eyes – big, sparkly – are enlarged by thick glasses, giving her the almost comic appearance of a cartoon character. She seems to always forget that I know Hindi, making high pitched noises to indicate things until I remind her I can speak. And then she won’t stop talking.
“You know, I am Bengali. Bengali. Yes I am. I moved here in 1972 from Kolkata, which is when I got married, 1972, in Kolkata, which is in Bengal. I am Bengali. Where do you live now? A family? Named what? Agrawal? Hm. Not Bengali. SO many mosquitos this morning. SO many.” And this next part she attempts to say in English, her eyes, if possible, growing even larger, “Moskweetoe! Moskweetoe! Moskweetoe! Moskweetoe! Baap arey baap! 10:45! Chapati time!”
She shows me how to make long snakes out of the dough, break pieces off of these, form them into balls, then roll them out into thin circles. A half hour later, I’m delegated to the grill, with Soni, another girl who works there full time.
I drape the thin, small circles on my palm like pizza dough, then send them through the air to their perfect destination. I master the aerodynamics of the tricky chapati, with each attempt, perfecting my throw: less frisbee, more shotput.
Soni and I work in a harmonic unison. I throw down some chapati, she shifts the browning, bubbling breads over, and I pop some more in their place.
Growing tired, my partner recruits another woman to help in the flipping. This newcomer is a resident of the Mother Teresa house. It’s never easy to say exactly why someone is there – maybe they have leprosy, are mentally challenged, have some sort of deformity. Anyway, this woman has her hair cut very short, goes around doing what she’s told. I’ve never seen her laugh, or even smile. Never heard her speak.
Soni is impatient. “Suneeta, move them quickly! Hey! Hey, Suneeta, you listening to me? Is the grill making you too hot? You need to think about where you’re putting the roti – hey, Suneeta, you listening to me? Why’d you put these chapati here? There’s no room for the next batch.” She pinched Suneeta’s ear.
I laughed to myself, remembering Mitch. Suneeta might be quiet, but she’s definitely a dreamer.
Tuesday, March 2
Sunday, February 14
Battery Acid and High-Voltage Switchboards or, How We’re Single-Handedly Making Varanasi’s Tourism Industry More Interesting
I’m not sure what they teach in the Tourism classes at BHU. They probably learn about how to manage itineraries, how global issues impact the tourism industry, currency exchange, etc. At some point they’re probably shown a graph of popularly bought items. All your common tourist necessities are on there. Om necklaces. Om earrings. Om shirts. Ganesh shirts. Loose-fitting hippie pants. Toilet paper. All are popular with American stoners and Japanese sitar students. But on this graph of what people like to buy, there are a few outlying points, which I bet they ignore.
Maybe it’s a symptom of seen-it-all-itis (a condition from which one’s eyes swell from having seen one too many signs reading, “Pasmina shals! Ali baba pants! Ganesh and Shiva Batiks!”) but we Bridge Year students seem to be drawn to less conventional souvenirs.
Maybe, living in a city which Mark Twain proclaimed “older than history,” a city in which it seems it has all been done before, we yearn to do something original.
We have requests they’ve never heard before, and most certainly never will again. A marble image of Shiva, yes. A massive 10,000 rupee Bust of Andrew Finkelstein, no.
We like to start out by hitting the second-hand t-shirt piles in Godolia. They’re down the street some ways, far from where any tourists come. Earth-tone baggy pants are replaced with bedazzled jeans, fluorescent, sparkly, plastic, fur vests, and shirts that read “FIYER and ICE Pink WORLD’S LARGEST CHICAGO.” (Yeah, what?) If you dig through these unfortunate fashion choices, you can find some real gems. I bought, for instance, a shirt reading “FRESHNESS,” followed by dictionary definitions 1-8 of freshness, including “8. Rested and ready to engage with the enemy immeediatelt.” To add awesome to injury, it glows in the dark.
When we passed a gated courtyard filled with all varieties of marble sculptures and busts, Andrew started heading in. Minutes later we were standing beside him, laughing as he tried for the fourth time to explain that yes, he actually wanted a marble statue of his own face and how much would that cost him? (The answer, for those interested, is 10,000 rupees. I’m thinking of starting a Facebook group to raise money to put Andrew’s gorgeous features in stone. If he does it, maybe we could all go for a sitting, and leave behind our busts in the program house as one of the creepiest welcomes next year’s Bridge Year students will receive.)
A rusty loudspeaker outside a shop caught the eye of the boys, who immediately recognized its potential for excellence at Princeton football games. After a few test calls of “GO TIGERS” and “Twenty fourTEEN!” into the shopkeeper’s ear, for just 300 rupees, it became Joe’s. Once inside the shop, Andrew also bought a mostly-empty bottle of Battery Acid, which (once thoroughly cleaned and filled with water that he can “accidentally” spill on friends) promises to be a fun party game.
There’s a small convenience store near Assi that sells eggs, instant pasta, biscuits – you know, normal small market fare – and it would be unremarkable were the store not named “MODERN ART GALLERY.” While little modern art is to be found inside, aside from the possible Campbell’s tomato soup can, we have managed to find modern art in some unlikely places.
“Hey Joe, need some old appliances?” laughed Andrew as we passed a store that didn’t appear to sell anything that worked. “Actually,” he reconsidered, “I’m going in.”
We looked around the shop at the frayed wires, wondering if they had any use in our lives, the old remote controls, wondering if we needed anything controlled. And then we saw it. A 1 x 1.5 foot metal board stuck with maybe twenty different types of electricity indicator buttons. They were rectangular, circular, oval, red, green, blue, purple – maybe it’s been a while since we’ve seen good art, but God, it was beautiful.
The store owner was confused. “Sample hai.”
Yeah, we know. Can we buy it?
“Nahi. SAMPLE.”
YES. Samples. We want the samples.
He calculated the cost of all those buttons in his head. 1,200 rupees. Do we want it? Andrew told Joe to test out the buttons, see if they were worth that much. Joe reached for the board, when all three men leaped to stop him. “NO!!” We ended up not buying the board, which had 220 volts of electricity running through it, and would have badly electrocuted Joe.
But think for a moment about the boy in the loudspeaker store. I’m sure he met up with his buddies later, the ones whose families run the baggy-pants stores. “You know, these foreigners… you’ve got it all wrong. They don’t seem to want Ali Baba pants. What they really want is battery acid.”
If we keep this up, Banaras is going to be a pretty weird scene. Added to the touts of “Hello Madam, nice silk scarves, cheap cheap price!” will be little men eagerly advertising their stores’ supplies of indicator lights. “Hello madam, loudspeaker? Battery acid? And good good marble, is looking like you.”
I say they update their stock, imeediatelt.
Monday, January 25
Tuesday, January 19
$1,000,000 toward peace.
I can think of few better ways to spend thirty seconds.
We won $25,000 in the last round. Now we can win one million.
Vote to make a difference.
We won $25,000 in the last round. Now we can win one million.
Vote to make a difference.
Friday, January 15
Wednesday, December 30
Classic
We were sitting in a too-small, overwhelmingly decorated room. Giant Hindu idols adorned the walls, covered in small colorful lights and plastic flowers and sparkles and bright red and orange cloth. The room was too small for the number of people inside; it was hot and cramped, I was sweating, and the fan was going at an unacceptably slow speed. Before us sat arguably the best Indian classical violinist in the world. Banaras is known as the city of music, and this man was poised to be the head of its prestigious Banaras Hindu University’s music department.
I knew I’d never been enthusiastic about Indian classical music. But Krishna had told us that, when played well, you don’t have to try to like it. You don’t have to be used to it. You just know it’s good. So I went to Balaji’s concert with new hope, that maybe this music would be good.
Balaji pulled his bow across the strings, sliding his fingers up and down his instrument. It whined. I cringed. I tried to be open-minded. I tried hard. Genevieve hates it when we’re negative. I hate it too. But this music was just too much.
As I sat, listening to the painful noises of his instrument, I tried to distract myself by thinking about how I would tell Genevieve that I couldn’t deal with any more of these classical music concerts, without getting her angry.
“Genevieve,” I’d say. “Indian Classical music just… isn’t my thing.”
“Come on,” she’d say. “Just try listening to something else. Some sitar music, maybe?”
No, that wouldn’t do. I couldn’t have her dragging me to another concert, violin or sitar or harmonium, or whatever else she could find. I would need to be more firm.
“Genevieve,” I could say. “This is painful to listen to. It sounds like he’s trapped cicadas and donkeys and cats in the body of his violin, and they’re all trying to get out. I want to take his violin away from him, and say, ‘That is not how you use this instrument!’ I can’t do it anymore. No more Indian classical music!”
By this point, I was so caught up in how I’d escape further Indian-classical-music-situations that I didn’t realize that my hand had been subconsciously tapping my knee, beating out the lively rhythm with more and more vigor; my head was moving side to side. It seemed that against my will, my body was – was this even possible? – enjoying the music. I felt like one of the old men sitting around me, shaking their heads, raising their arms in appreciation, shouting, when truly impressed, “Kya baat hai!” What a thing!
The music, I realized, was good. It had taken on a rhythm I hadn’t noticed before. It was loud and passionate, full of rich culture and joy, and reminded me of wedding klezmer or Irish fiddle music.
Banaras is not like New York, or Paris, or London, or any city I’ve ever visited. “City” itself is a misnomer for Varanasi. It’s hard to think of it as a dormant place, just a setting or my current location, because it seems to be much more of a living entity. Of all the characters in my life right now, Banaras is the lead role. Banaras is mischievous, intelligent, all-powerful, fickle, cruel, and loving. Banaras looks deep within you, and manifests your greatest fears and wishes. It (he? she?) figures out what you feel, and then purposely puts you in a situation to completely change your point of view.
First paan, now classical music. What new loves will Banaras bring? Someone make sure I don’t start swimming in the Ganga.
I knew I’d never been enthusiastic about Indian classical music. But Krishna had told us that, when played well, you don’t have to try to like it. You don’t have to be used to it. You just know it’s good. So I went to Balaji’s concert with new hope, that maybe this music would be good.
Balaji pulled his bow across the strings, sliding his fingers up and down his instrument. It whined. I cringed. I tried to be open-minded. I tried hard. Genevieve hates it when we’re negative. I hate it too. But this music was just too much.
As I sat, listening to the painful noises of his instrument, I tried to distract myself by thinking about how I would tell Genevieve that I couldn’t deal with any more of these classical music concerts, without getting her angry.
“Genevieve,” I’d say. “Indian Classical music just… isn’t my thing.”
“Come on,” she’d say. “Just try listening to something else. Some sitar music, maybe?”
No, that wouldn’t do. I couldn’t have her dragging me to another concert, violin or sitar or harmonium, or whatever else she could find. I would need to be more firm.
“Genevieve,” I could say. “This is painful to listen to. It sounds like he’s trapped cicadas and donkeys and cats in the body of his violin, and they’re all trying to get out. I want to take his violin away from him, and say, ‘That is not how you use this instrument!’ I can’t do it anymore. No more Indian classical music!”
By this point, I was so caught up in how I’d escape further Indian-classical-music-situations that I didn’t realize that my hand had been subconsciously tapping my knee, beating out the lively rhythm with more and more vigor; my head was moving side to side. It seemed that against my will, my body was – was this even possible? – enjoying the music. I felt like one of the old men sitting around me, shaking their heads, raising their arms in appreciation, shouting, when truly impressed, “Kya baat hai!” What a thing!
The music, I realized, was good. It had taken on a rhythm I hadn’t noticed before. It was loud and passionate, full of rich culture and joy, and reminded me of wedding klezmer or Irish fiddle music.
Banaras is not like New York, or Paris, or London, or any city I’ve ever visited. “City” itself is a misnomer for Varanasi. It’s hard to think of it as a dormant place, just a setting or my current location, because it seems to be much more of a living entity. Of all the characters in my life right now, Banaras is the lead role. Banaras is mischievous, intelligent, all-powerful, fickle, cruel, and loving. Banaras looks deep within you, and manifests your greatest fears and wishes. It (he? she?) figures out what you feel, and then purposely puts you in a situation to completely change your point of view.
First paan, now classical music. What new loves will Banaras bring? Someone make sure I don’t start swimming in the Ganga.
The scene
There’s a scene in Pirates of the Caribbean. It’s the one in the beginning, when Will Turner sees Elizabeth coming down the majestic spiral staircase of the governor’s mansion. She is dressed in a beautiful new green gown. From the tight laces of her corset to the perfect symmetry of her high cheekbones and pouted lips, everything about her is grace and beauty. But what really makes the scene is Will. His face when he sees her seems completely wiped blank, as if she’s stripped him of all his worries, thoughts of his responsibilities. You can see it in his eyes: all that matters, in that moment, is Elizabeth.
My high school mascot was the pirate, so naturally I loved that movie. I was obsessed with it for a while, and watched it more times than it’s healthy to watch a movie. But then, as such loves go, I knew it so well I became sick of it. I haven’t seen it in years, and only began to think of it again when I got to India.
Imagine that scene happening to you hundreds of times a day. Because for a foreigner girl, that’s how it is in India. When I walk down to the fruit seller to buy pomegranates for breakfast, there he inevitably is: the Indian Will Turner, on his bike, whose head seems to do a full 180° turn to keep watching me (I keep forgetting to ask Virendra-ji how to say “to crash,” as in “If you keep looking at me, you’re going to crash”).
Paan sellers see me passing in a rickshaw and stop rolling their leaves of tobacco to stare. Boys engaged in animated conversation stop, open-mouthed, when they see me. Some hit their friends to make them turn around and see the angrezi.
My home stay sister and I were riding home from the market one day, and she was shocked by all the boys staring. “They act as if they never saw a foreigner before!” she said, scandalized.
One guy made a loud feline noise as we passed him. Another barked. “This city’s like a zoo!” I joked to Priyanka. “There are cats, and dogs…”
“And especially boys,” she said.
In the past three months, I’ve gotten used to my surroundings. I don’t gape at the women carrying large sacks of rice on their heads, or the men selling squares of dried mango on the corner. But I’m slowly coming to terms with the truth: they’ll never get used to me.
Saturday, December 26
Weavers
I'm sorry, I know I've been doing a terrible job of writing - but I uploaded even more pictures from our very hands-on walking tour of the part of Varanasi where the muslim weavers work their magic.
Tuesday, December 22
Monday, December 7
Thursday, November 26
Help Seeds of Peace!
Last night, we were eating our favorite Assi Ghat apple pie when we heard an announcement for a candlelight vigil in honor of the memory of the terrorist attacks in Mumbai last November 26. Chhaya and I went down and lit candles with the crowd. I prayed for the lives that had been lost, and prayed that nothing of its magnitude would ever happen again. I thought about how proud I was to be a member of Seeds of Peace, which has always been an unwavering voice of reason through the most difficult times of terror.
The first week we arrived in India, we wrote down a list of group rules. One of them was "remember your roots." Seeds is where my roots are. Help them grow. Click on the box below.
The first week we arrived in India, we wrote down a list of group rules. One of them was "remember your roots." Seeds is where my roots are. Help them grow. Click on the box below.
Tuesday, November 24
Overheard anthropomorphism
Saumya: Oh Didi, the moon is walking!
Priyanka: Noo, Saumya, the clouds are walking, na?
Priyanka: Noo, Saumya, the clouds are walking, na?
Monday, November 23
I caved
Last night I was at my family's sari shop, and the shopkeeper told me I will not have experienced Banaras without trying paan. I told him at some point I would, just to make him happy, but then he ran out and returned a few minutes later with paan for Genevieve and me. It was actually the prettiest paan I've ever seen, decorated with silver leaf and rose petals. It tasted very bizarre, with sweet exotic spices I can't describe. While I tried to control the gob of leaves stuck in my left cheek, he held the lehenga I'd just bought up to me, and we both looked at my reflection in the mirror.
"You now, Hindustaani," he said.
"You now, Hindustaani," he said.
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