A long absence and a bundle of confessions…

Obviously we aren’t very good at keeping up with posting – which sort of ruins the point of having a blog. As self-imposed punishment I will admit the REAL reason why we haven’t been writing – in hopes that the embarrassment of this confession will make up for the disappointment you feel every time you go to our site and find nothing new: we have been busy….watching TV online (currently its ‘White Collar’ – what can I say? He is beautiful, even if he is gay!). We are in the denial stage but deep down I know it is a very harmful addiction. There I said it.

So I’m going to ease slowly back into this blog thing (because the other truth is that I….we….have a lot to say about daily life in Delhi…and everywhere else we go.) For now, just a picture:

Another embarrassing confession: I have started a collection of Indian matchboxes. I currently have about 62 different ones – at 1 rupee per box that means I’ve spend 62 rupees and have about 3,100 matchsticks laying around the house (unsafe, I know!). Why matchboxes? Because I like the graphics – like old (and new, see below) Bollywood posters – the graphics on these matchboxes are hilarious, nostalgic, vintage, and inspiring all at the same time.

Now, Don’t Angry Me about our absence – we’ll try to do better.

 

As for me, its back to Season Three….

~ Jessie

Holy moly, Holi! Life Lessons Learned from the Festival of Colors.

Siddharth, our very wise and very dear Indian friend, claims that there are two things that have ruined Holi: the Chinese (due to their cheap, imported plastic water guns that break after 30 mins of use, severely shortening the time you can terrorize your friends and family) and climate change (which prompts another bought of the flu as the weather remains much too cold to be drenched to your core by colored water). Regardless, this was our best Holi to date:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For your reading pleasure, here are some lessons learned during that afternoon of Punjabi dance-offs, excessive drinking, and fairy-tale color-throwing. Apply to yourself at your own risk:

1. Never leave home without protection…that is, a sealable plastic bag. No matter how safe you think you are, make sure all your valuables are waterproof. Better yet, forget any fashion faux pas and go ahead and put your whole purse inside a plastic bag and proceed with caution.

2. Stick to beer. This may be the one time in your life when a ‘bottleneck’ comes in handy….instead of progress being severely impeded, the bottleneck of a beer bottle is the true mark of a progressive mind on Holi – it infinitely reduces the amount of toxic colored powder that finds its way into your drink, preserving your beverage as much as possible. Beware though: this technique is not fool-proof as beer bottles spill just as easily when everyone is drunk.

3. Grease up. First thing…before breakfast…before filling water balloons…before your morning puja…lather yourself in mustard oil, nice and thick. And wait for it to soak in. And then, when the colors start flying, they will stick to your grease and not to you. Leave no space untouched my friend, you never know where the colors might end up.

4. Buy Indian (but not necessarily organic). Apparently for a packet of 100 Chinese water balloons, only 20 will work. With the Indian balloons, on the other hand, you get a solid 40 out of 100 (…still not great odds)! And to target those new-age hi-fi Indians, there is a new line of organic colored powder…but let’s face it – its just an excuse to charge 5x the price!

5.Clean up early (but not too early). The last one colored is the joker of the group…but the first one clean is just asking to be colored again (and again and again).

6. Pink always wins. From the time you start playing Holi to that very last burst of color in your face, you might find yourself attracted by the variety of color combinations possible. Your face and clothes might go through phases depending on what color packets are open at the time, or what dye is in the current batch of water. You might even get jealous of that perfect shade of blue streaked down your friend’s face. But make no mistake – Holi is NOT a fashion statement; EVERYONE ends up pink in the end no matter what you do.

Due to that last one we made a very enlightened (and semi-drunk) conclusion that Holi is the ultimate egalitarian holiday (and obviously should be exported to the rest of the world – from India, not China). There ceases to be brown, black or white skin. No blonde, brown, black or red hair. Instead everyone is simply pink: pink hair, pink skin, pink nails, and in the case of our friend, pink eyes (damn contact lens!)…oh the world wars that could have been avoided if Holi was played around the globe! But then we realized life isn’t that simple. Because if it isn’t color that divides people, its something else (like the proficiency of your Punjabi dance moves, or the size of your beer gut). And while we played the nice version of Holi in a calm, seculded neighborhood, there are plenty of communities where Holi translates to so much inappropriate groping and harassment that women can’t go out of their houses. And while everyone may be pink for a while, once the color fades, old boundaries remain.

(By way of personal observation, the dirtier you are the day after Holi, the lower your income – in fact, one vegetable seller on our street STILL has pink rings around his neck….10 days later! Maybe its because the rich’s showers are better or their soaps are stronger…or their pre-Holi oil is more resistant!…or probably because the cheap colors that others can afford are actual permanent dyes so it wouldn’t matter how much they scrub or shower. But if you are still pink the next day, its hard to hide.)

Nevertheless, while we were all still pink, our Holi ended with a confession by an impressionable young Indian boy: “You white people aren’t nearly as alien as I thought you were!”

~Jessie

‘FAST FOOD’, or the very thin line between Butter and Batter

First of all, definitions:

to FAST: Abstain from all or some kinds of food or drink, esp. as a religious observance

FAST FOOD: Food that can be prepared quickly and easily and is sold in restaurants and snack bars as a quick meal or to be taken out.

Now a picture without caption

Though I reconciled (now for a long time) with the linguistic fact that the word ‘breakfast’, that is my favourite meal of the day, has the word ‘fast’ in it, meaning ‘breaking the fast’ more than ‘rushing out of the break’ (?), I never thought that the fast side of ‘fast food’ would ever be anything but this:

Fast food, that is quick, probably fried and definitely unhealthy, easy and comforting enough to be appealing to most palates (and to the rest only in secret). The opposite of organic, whole, fiber-rich, locally-produced, or even produced with ‘produce’ (aka vegetables in US English) that are still recognisable as such when they reach you on a plate, or wrapped in…’oil paper’ (!!).

In (North) India, fast food looks like this below (this is just a sample, or an ‘impression’ – impossible to have here even a 30th of all shapes, sizes and looks, and all the greasy smiles of oily satisfaction of ‘pakoda wallas’, professional batterers and fryers of any wordly thing). It goes from delicious to really strange-tasting-why-would-you-ever-cook-this-like-that-or-eat-it-after-you-have-cooked-it-like-that kind of snacks (like deep-fried sliced bread in batter, known as bread pakoda – but maybe I simply have something against sliced bread in general, as I do not really understand peanut butter & jelly sandwiches either – at any level)

The point of the matter is that I recently found myself in the middle of this conversation, completely helpless::

Colleague A: We should have ordered some food for this meeting. I am feeling hungry. What do you want to eat?
Colleague B: I cannot eat, I am FASTING today.
Colleague A: So what? You won’t eat anything at all? You can eat some FAST FOOD. (at this point I got lost)

Colleague B: No thanks (and smiles), I don’t think we can find FAST FOOD around the office. You guys go ahead and eat whatever you want.

The conversation went on for ten minutes, during which we went through a long list of all possible fast food which would (literally) also qualify as fast food, but which we could definitely not find, and then all over again through a list of fast food which does not qualify as fast food but which could be within reach. I got a bit hungry…and even more confused.

…so what is all this talk about eating during a religious fast? It’s actually pretty straight-forward: fast food can be simply food which is fast (in name and deed), but also food for fast (in name and deed).

Turns out that I had to come to India to find out that fasting does not exclude eating, in any possible way actually – you can eat anything given it appears on ‘the list’ (which probably is different for every family, which means that at a greater scale it includes literally everything), and which actually sounds (to me) very articulate, comprehensive, and mouth-watering – and which on average involves more butter than…batter!

Actually, it’s ghee, clarified butter.

Alles klar? Also fast food, after all, is a fine art.

-f-

दिल्ली के रंग

Translation: Colors of Delhi (Dilli ke Rang)

Despite the fact that my new (to me) iphone randomly shuts down (normally when I need it the most – like when I’m in the middle of an intense game of Angry Birds), it does come in handy for capturing the little corners of the city I am immersed in everyday. Each detail isn’t much and certainly isn’t extraordinary, but all the details added up amount to the city which is often times overwhelming, seemingly chaotic, and sometimes intense beyond words….but always, always colorful.

Here are a few of my Dilli ke Rang:

~ Jessie

Signs and more

Do I even need to add a caption here? Actually yes, particularly after I worked with my Hindi (and Google translator) to find out that this guy is an HISTORICAL CHARACTER: Bholu Pahalwan (google him, amazing biography!)

The attributes of ultimate manliness (in Shahadra (East Delhi), at least)? Fair ‘complextion’ (ask Bollywood god Shahrukh Khan for details and tips), bodybuilder muscles, oily hair, great speedo, ultra-confident look… Maybe, whatever you are thinking this is the sign for JUST a pharmacy (or clinic?) where you can get any sprain or any other injury fixed, and ‘you will be happy’. They might sent Mr. Bholu’s heirs after you if you don’t agree.

And here you are a few pictures from our Sunday wanderings around Old Delhi.

'Readymade' garnments...not the building though!

Motors anyone?

...brushes...

...layers of signs...

(I leave this completely open to interpretation)

...take it easy for a GLORIUS 2012!

A toast bakery, old style: you bake the low loafs first, you let them cool down (like in the picture), then you slice them and you put them back in the oven. This is how you do toasts. 30 rupies per kg.

South Delhi closes on Monday, while Sunday is the weekly day off for shops in Central and North Delhi. A good time to walk around Old Delhi for people- and building-watching (in other words, the day you can actually see something)

On the East border of Old Delhi though Sunday attracts big crowds: Daryaganj second-hand book market. Any book you can think of, but particularly old schoolbooks and university manuals. For students of any technical subject and magazine fans more than for dreamers and literati.

Now try to do this. (not as your last wish, possibly)

Fishing nets shop in the middle of Delhi?? (1000+ km from the sea, and not close enough to the Himalayas to claim any fresh-water (fish) )

The barber, the place where to hang out.

by francesco

another Indian Christmas

I’ve written before about my many Christmases away from home – and this year was no different.

There was no trip to Catholic Church for midnight mass two hours late….

…but there were still plenty of Santa costumes – including at our neighborhood grocery store.

I also found a place to buy said Santa outfits – for men, women and children alike.

 

And I still celebrated with 500 children who probably will go on thinking today is a day to celebrate Santa’s birth!

 

But whether Delhi, London, Manteo (though we have yet to spend a Christmas there together) or Sardinia (or anywhere in between) Francesco and I have managed our own small Christmas traditions: long dinners with good friends and a skimpy Christmas tree. We even had repurposed Diwali lights to give the house that extra Christmas touch this year.

 

Merry Christmas from India,

Jessie

 

indian english

I’ve been back to Salaam Baalak Trust and seen many of my old friends and colleagues. The young boys who I used to teach, in typical Indian fashion, had several (seemingly personal) comments about my  (re-)appearance…which they shared without hesitation.

 

They all seemed to agree that I had gotten fatter. They meant it as a compliment…but I took it as an insult. (Fat = healthy, rich, well-fed. Thin = sick, poor, under-fed.)

They also vocalized the fact that I was darker. They meant it as an insult….but I took it as a compliment. (Dark = bad. Pale = good.)

Finally they decided my new nickname would be budhi (old lady). They meant it as an insult…and I took it as an insult. At least we agreed on something!

 

I am also starting a collection of Indian spellings of my name. So far the best is….Jushi. Award for most common (mis)spelling: Jassi.

 

More pictures, stories and social observations to come. Until then…a Mumbai Flash Mob:

 

~Jushi