Martial artist
Among Bombay's many endearing qualities is the laid back nature of people: everyone is friendly and casual. There is no anxiety about an invitation for dinner or just to hang out... somehow Indians have a way of always making one feel welcome. A common request is "make yourself at home," and in the Indian context this seems more genuine than what I'm used to in the US. It's perfectly acceptable, and encouraged, it seems, to lounge on someone's couch or bed, or even to take a nap while visiting someone, as well as to help yourself to food or drinks from your host's kitchen. Indians seem uncomfortable with the kind of indecisive politeness that is typical of American get togethers... "it doesn't matter" as a response to an offer of food or something tends to be met with confusion if not slight offense. Here it's ok to be decisive. If you show up late, that's ok. You can eat as little or as much as you want, whenever you want (dinner runs anytime in between 9 and midnight here), and everyone seems to be concerned only that you are satisfied in your own way.
I continue to enjoy meeting new people and trying new things. Yesterday I met up with a Canadian girl I met last week, who is working with an organization that does work with hawkers. She has a background working at a women's center, and is currently working on a project regarding women's co-ops, so we have a lot in common. It was a journey out to the far-out suburb where she was staying, and then we visited a nearby mall and did some shopping. I bought a kurta: a short-sleeved, long tunic like shirt-dress that is typical here. For the most part, married women wear saris here... the beautifully draped dresses of colorful fabric that one imagines when thinking of India. Younger women wear either western style jeans and shirts or salwar kameez/kurta combinations. These are these long tunic-like shirts over pants and usually with a scarf or dupita draped across their chest and slung over each shoulder. I think the point of this addition is to cover a woman's chest with a swatch of fabric for modesty's sake. Of course, a lot of married women wear western clothes and salwars as well. Jen and I also spent some time in a bookstore, where I bought a Hindi-English dictionary, before crossing the street to a little hotel (for some reason, small restaurants are called hotels here) for a snack. I had Idli, a typical breakfast/snack food here, with a glass of watermelon juice (one of the best things about India! Smooth, cool watermelon juice served with a spoon to get at the chunks of watermelon that they leave to float in it). I'm not sure exactly what Idli is made of... perhaps rice flour, but it's a fluffy white pancake-like disc (though think, not flat, like pancakes) that is eaten with a spoon... each chunk dipped in one or both of two sauces: one is a greyish-white gravy with a grainy texture. I know that doesn't sound appetizing, but it is: it's not too spicy, but I couldn't tell you all the flavors that are in it. The other gravy is a tomatoe-y spicy sauce.
Jen has been in Bombay for just two weeks, staying rent-free at the place of a friend of a friend, or some such random connection. The guy who owns the luxurious 2 bedroom flat lives in Delhi. Still, however, he maintains this flat with a live-in cook and driver. I say live-in, but that may be technically inaccurate. Jen said the driver comes every day at 7am and stays until late in the evening, just in case she needs to go anywhere. The cook also comes early in the morning and only goes out to do shopping. In fact, only the cook has a key to the apartment! Once, Jen told me, the elevator operator wouldn't let her up but had her sit in the lobby and wait for 30 minutes, because the cook wasn't there. So she'd have no way of getting into the flat. Again, the culture of servitude and the served is striking.
At 8 I met up with a friend of Sanjay's I met a couple days ago. Getting around town is always interesting, because the streets are not well organized and you can't rely on a cab driver or rickshaw driver to know how to get where you want to go. In this way, the city is not very accomodating of newcomers, tourists, etc. (Furthermore, I've been on the highway system, which was only recently outfitted with exit signs! Previously, I imagine, one would have had to know which exit to take!) Usually, when going somewhere, I have to get directions that involve several landmarks. Sometimes you luck out and get a good driver, other times it's a long process of stopping to ask people directions before getting to your destination. This time, I was meeting Sachin in an obscure place, so I called his mobile and had him explain to the rickshaw driver where to take me. Then I hung my head out the side of the rickshaw to watch for Sachin jumping up and down on the road's median/divider. Then we went to Capoeira class.
Capoeira is an Afro-Brazilian martial art that incorporates a lot of dance-like fluid movements. It's kind of like karate meets break dancing, and typically, everyone stands in a circle clapping to a beat and singing while two people duel in the middle. There is no contact: just kicks and ducks, falling to the ground and fake-kicking the legs out from under your opponent, who responds by doing a cartwheel, etc. It's beautiful when people know what they're doing. Sachin is in town planning to make a documentary about the class, which I guess he's been going to for a while, although he doesn't live in Bombay. The class itself is really interesting as well. I found it surprisingly easy, very enjoyable, and exhausting... after several rounds of partnered activities (kicking and ducking, kicking and falling, kicking and cartwheeling), and cartwheeling down the room, my triceps and quads are exhausted. The instructor is, I think, from LA: Nina. She is a tiny firecracker with a ripped body who can perform karate-like kicks while standing on her head or in a handstand. The other students are Indians my age and into their 30s... and one American, as well as half a dozen young boys from a nearby slum. They are the real stars of the class, and provide a great service because they are really good, spending so much time there, but are also silly... I learn a lot from watching them... both what not and what to do. The class is 2 1/2 hours, held under insufficient fans in a small cement-floored room. There are a couple of small mirrors on the wall. I was drenched in sweat by the end of it, and even now as I type my triceps are tightening up... the soreness feels great though, and I can't wait to go again on Wednesday.
After class four of us meet up for dinner at a nearby karoake bar. It's packed mostly with foreigners (including my friend Jen!), and when I order my meal it comes un-Indianized: a vegetarian dish, the waiter tells me the chef made it "specially for me," which, I come to find out, means devoid of spice and flavor. (Coming here, I was so afraid of spicy food... but I'm coming to learn that it's a mistake to ask for food with less spice... so far I haven't had anything too spicy, and whenever I ask for less spice, I'm always disappointed. Yet everyone assumes that foreigners shouldn't eat spicy.) Additionally, I'm served only one roti (a rice-flour tortilla like thing from which you tear pieces and scoop up the vegetables) and so have to eat most of the vegetable with a fork, at the encouragement of our waiter (totally not the Indian way). This was while I was sitting with the other American from capoeira. When our other two classmates show up, Indians both, they are served plenty of roti with which to eat using their hands only. I had to laugh at this. Eventually we made our way into the karoake section of the bar to hear bellowings of Bohemian Rhapsody and Sweet Caroline.
In this way, the ex pat culture in Bombay is also really friendly and casual. It seems to be a tight-knit community, and though I tend to have disdain for ex pats due to their tendencies toward ostentation, I have to admit that it's nice to spend time with North Americans, sharing our mutual experiences as foreigners. And ex pats are almost inevitably interesting people - it takes a certain breed, I think, to take up residence in a foreign place. It's also nice to be ostentatious sometimes, even if here that means spending 200 rupees (the equivalent of $4 - and the daily salary of most hawkers) on a meal and a couple of beers in an exclusive bar.
Ps. I've added a few more pictures to my flickr account... not, unfortunately, of my martial arts (non)skills, but of traffic and the like... pictures taken as part of a class group project I'm working on.
I continue to enjoy meeting new people and trying new things. Yesterday I met up with a Canadian girl I met last week, who is working with an organization that does work with hawkers. She has a background working at a women's center, and is currently working on a project regarding women's co-ops, so we have a lot in common. It was a journey out to the far-out suburb where she was staying, and then we visited a nearby mall and did some shopping. I bought a kurta: a short-sleeved, long tunic like shirt-dress that is typical here. For the most part, married women wear saris here... the beautifully draped dresses of colorful fabric that one imagines when thinking of India. Younger women wear either western style jeans and shirts or salwar kameez/kurta combinations. These are these long tunic-like shirts over pants and usually with a scarf or dupita draped across their chest and slung over each shoulder. I think the point of this addition is to cover a woman's chest with a swatch of fabric for modesty's sake. Of course, a lot of married women wear western clothes and salwars as well. Jen and I also spent some time in a bookstore, where I bought a Hindi-English dictionary, before crossing the street to a little hotel (for some reason, small restaurants are called hotels here) for a snack. I had Idli, a typical breakfast/snack food here, with a glass of watermelon juice (one of the best things about India! Smooth, cool watermelon juice served with a spoon to get at the chunks of watermelon that they leave to float in it). I'm not sure exactly what Idli is made of... perhaps rice flour, but it's a fluffy white pancake-like disc (though think, not flat, like pancakes) that is eaten with a spoon... each chunk dipped in one or both of two sauces: one is a greyish-white gravy with a grainy texture. I know that doesn't sound appetizing, but it is: it's not too spicy, but I couldn't tell you all the flavors that are in it. The other gravy is a tomatoe-y spicy sauce.
Jen has been in Bombay for just two weeks, staying rent-free at the place of a friend of a friend, or some such random connection. The guy who owns the luxurious 2 bedroom flat lives in Delhi. Still, however, he maintains this flat with a live-in cook and driver. I say live-in, but that may be technically inaccurate. Jen said the driver comes every day at 7am and stays until late in the evening, just in case she needs to go anywhere. The cook also comes early in the morning and only goes out to do shopping. In fact, only the cook has a key to the apartment! Once, Jen told me, the elevator operator wouldn't let her up but had her sit in the lobby and wait for 30 minutes, because the cook wasn't there. So she'd have no way of getting into the flat. Again, the culture of servitude and the served is striking.
At 8 I met up with a friend of Sanjay's I met a couple days ago. Getting around town is always interesting, because the streets are not well organized and you can't rely on a cab driver or rickshaw driver to know how to get where you want to go. In this way, the city is not very accomodating of newcomers, tourists, etc. (Furthermore, I've been on the highway system, which was only recently outfitted with exit signs! Previously, I imagine, one would have had to know which exit to take!) Usually, when going somewhere, I have to get directions that involve several landmarks. Sometimes you luck out and get a good driver, other times it's a long process of stopping to ask people directions before getting to your destination. This time, I was meeting Sachin in an obscure place, so I called his mobile and had him explain to the rickshaw driver where to take me. Then I hung my head out the side of the rickshaw to watch for Sachin jumping up and down on the road's median/divider. Then we went to Capoeira class.
Capoeira is an Afro-Brazilian martial art that incorporates a lot of dance-like fluid movements. It's kind of like karate meets break dancing, and typically, everyone stands in a circle clapping to a beat and singing while two people duel in the middle. There is no contact: just kicks and ducks, falling to the ground and fake-kicking the legs out from under your opponent, who responds by doing a cartwheel, etc. It's beautiful when people know what they're doing. Sachin is in town planning to make a documentary about the class, which I guess he's been going to for a while, although he doesn't live in Bombay. The class itself is really interesting as well. I found it surprisingly easy, very enjoyable, and exhausting... after several rounds of partnered activities (kicking and ducking, kicking and falling, kicking and cartwheeling), and cartwheeling down the room, my triceps and quads are exhausted. The instructor is, I think, from LA: Nina. She is a tiny firecracker with a ripped body who can perform karate-like kicks while standing on her head or in a handstand. The other students are Indians my age and into their 30s... and one American, as well as half a dozen young boys from a nearby slum. They are the real stars of the class, and provide a great service because they are really good, spending so much time there, but are also silly... I learn a lot from watching them... both what not and what to do. The class is 2 1/2 hours, held under insufficient fans in a small cement-floored room. There are a couple of small mirrors on the wall. I was drenched in sweat by the end of it, and even now as I type my triceps are tightening up... the soreness feels great though, and I can't wait to go again on Wednesday.
After class four of us meet up for dinner at a nearby karoake bar. It's packed mostly with foreigners (including my friend Jen!), and when I order my meal it comes un-Indianized: a vegetarian dish, the waiter tells me the chef made it "specially for me," which, I come to find out, means devoid of spice and flavor. (Coming here, I was so afraid of spicy food... but I'm coming to learn that it's a mistake to ask for food with less spice... so far I haven't had anything too spicy, and whenever I ask for less spice, I'm always disappointed. Yet everyone assumes that foreigners shouldn't eat spicy.) Additionally, I'm served only one roti (a rice-flour tortilla like thing from which you tear pieces and scoop up the vegetables) and so have to eat most of the vegetable with a fork, at the encouragement of our waiter (totally not the Indian way). This was while I was sitting with the other American from capoeira. When our other two classmates show up, Indians both, they are served plenty of roti with which to eat using their hands only. I had to laugh at this. Eventually we made our way into the karoake section of the bar to hear bellowings of Bohemian Rhapsody and Sweet Caroline.
In this way, the ex pat culture in Bombay is also really friendly and casual. It seems to be a tight-knit community, and though I tend to have disdain for ex pats due to their tendencies toward ostentation, I have to admit that it's nice to spend time with North Americans, sharing our mutual experiences as foreigners. And ex pats are almost inevitably interesting people - it takes a certain breed, I think, to take up residence in a foreign place. It's also nice to be ostentatious sometimes, even if here that means spending 200 rupees (the equivalent of $4 - and the daily salary of most hawkers) on a meal and a couple of beers in an exclusive bar.
Ps. I've added a few more pictures to my flickr account... not, unfortunately, of my martial arts (non)skills, but of traffic and the like... pictures taken as part of a class group project I'm working on.