"Next semester, I will"

I always say that next semester I will do this, and next semester I will do that.
Today is set in stone and I will not be able to change what has become.

Well that's not true.
Today I will be a better person, today I will do my work, today I will update my blog which truth be told, no one knows about but me.

I'm not going to do things with the help of my peers or whatever. I'm going to do things on my own by myself.

Anne of Green Gables said (in the movie, not the book); It's not what the world holds for you, it's what you bring to it.

Well, let me tell you, I'm gonna bring it.

But speaking of next semester and the remainder of this semester.

I'm going to get things done. I'm going to make good on my goal to make noise in the Mills Music Library.

Here is some more information on the Mills Music Library:

Located in the B162 Memorial Library, the Mills Music Library is tucked away from our general field of vision. We walk past it every day and do not know that, in the ground below us, there is a little world of repertoire displaced from its original settings. You can open up a record and be transported to 18th century Austrian countryside or a luau in 1879.
I first went there with a friend for an AP World History project. For two days, we frantically scoured shelves for Eastern European music to illegally compile a tape of while dodging the suspicious looks of librarians, only to find that we had burned CDs full of computer shortcuts instead of songs. Needless to say, I had less than jovial feelings toward the library. But it's always bugged me that I wouldn't like something with the words "music" and "library" in its title. So I decided to go back again to give it a chance.

Upon walking in, I was met again with the deafening silence that accompanies the inner layers of Memorial Library. My friend and I were greeted by a man with a debonair Buddy Holly look, who asked us if we had any questions at all. He was a little surprised when I took up his offer.
His name was Tom Caw, and he was what people would call "adorkable." He deadpanned interesting facts. For example, the Memorial Library is underground for the simple reason that the collection is too massive to be supported by any above ground floor. Its contents have outgrown first the Music Hall, and then the Humanities building. We walked around the Hawaiian music exhibit, which from far away seemed rather simple. As we stepped closer, we were faced with a set of shiny beautiful ukulele derivatives, each from a different style and juxtaposed with sheet music and records of the era. A testament to the care taken by library coordinators, the accompanying web site has a host of audio clips and videos of each instrument in the set.
Tom admitted that he was unnerved by the lack of music in the Music Library. "I think someone actually shushed me once." Occupants of a nearby room even complained that the piano used in the lounge by a composition class nearby created a disturbance. The last library he worked at had been a hub of entertainment, sometimes hosting live music. He said that he wishes that people knew that the Music Library was not intended to be a silent place. So I quickly volunteered to return with friends and make as much noise as would be tolerated by the silence lovers upstairs. I've since made it my life goal to bring sound to the Music Library.

Silhouettes when our bodies finally go

I will spend less time shopping for shirts
and more time wearing them in

i want

not be a people person.
i want to sit alone in my room and be myself and create my own ideas from scratch

i want to begin my own world in my own image
i don't want to be your god. i want to be my own god.

i want to change myself without any interference on anyone else's part
i want to be the change i wish to see in myself

and that's my emo thought for the day

In Defense of Me

Note: This reflection refers to Michael Pollan's book, "In Defense of Food," his lecture at UW-Madison as part of a campus wide program to called "Go Big Read."

I have to admit that I was a little afraid of reading Michael Pollan's book. First of all, I hate reading about food, because it makes me hungry or ill, depending on what state my stomach is in. As a college student, it makes me guilty, because I allow Rheta's to choose what is in my food, providing me only with an ingredient list and calorie count, as opposed to any kind of real notion as to where the food comes from. This is not different from the way I ate at home: I blindly ate what my mom made me because she was a doctor and she knew what was best for me. And apart from this whole inner food battle I've been fighting, I'm also cautious of journalists who marshal facts to say what they need them to say, and apply their own analysis that could be considerably unsound. Needless to say, I was feeling a little defensive about reading In Defense of Food.

I continued to be defensive; I read the book (grudgingly) because I got the book for free—how cool is that?—and because I wanted to have knowledge about the book before the lecture. In spite of the multiple grains of salt that I took while reading the book, I actually found myself enjoying the book and more or less agreeing with Pollan's ideas in his lecture. It startled me that the government could respond to lobbying from companies and fundamentally change the way our food is labeled and thus consumed. It alarmed me that the 100 calorie packs that I thought were a godsend, probably prompted me to eat more instead of less.

During the lecture, I found myself warming up to Pollan's way of addressing the matter. Bill Cronon was right; Michael Pollan was actually funny. I'm not sure what I was expecting; I'm actually really bad at foreseeing what long-coming events are like. I picture them in a different room, with different-looking people, and not in terms of ideas and reality.

Some moments were funny: Michael Pollan addressed the bitter irony of how low-fat food made America fat. Some moments were bursting with relativity: haven't we all scape-goated one food and eaten too much of everything else? Some moments were tender: Pollan felt the need to address our hearts, not just our bodies and our mouths, when he said that we should keep food in the community.

I liked that he spoke to us as Wisconsinites, and not as people of the world or of a broad American background. People surrounded me, filling half the Kohl Center. Maybe it's just me, but watching lectures, and seeing other people watch lectures touches my heart. I feel that for the moment that we are together watching someone else speak, we are one and united. I know that everyone in the room was engaged by what he had to say, and in this way, we all agreed.

As to the choice of book, I feel that this book was chosen because of the universality of the topic. Food is important to everyone; not only the young, not only the old, not just people with certain political affiliations, people who are Chinese, people of any religion and any class. Pollan's feelings about how food should be eaten dictate common sense reasoning about foods, nothing more or nothing less, mixed in with some commentary. In that way, I feel that it's a good idea to follow his food advice. However, whether or not you agree with Pollan's ideals, it is much more difficult to implement such a change, without taking careful steps. This is no reason to stop trying.

Me? Maybe I need to take more personal responsibility for my food intake: I am choosing to make a greater effort toward making my own food, and knowing where the food I eat comes from. This might be a little bit because I'm running out of money in my food account. But it is important to note that I am not making this change because of Michael Pollan, but because I feel I need to make it. (I'm pretty sure dorm food gives you acne and makes you eat more.) Nevertheless, Michael Pollan may have offended me into actually doing something about these worries.

In the interest of keeping my private life private,

I haven't been posting lately. It's kind of depressing because this is my so-called creative blog, as opposed to the others I have that merely express my views and frustrations on a deeply personal level.
So I thought I'd post some of my reflective writing assignments for my seminar class, which are hopefully interesting and better suited for a broader audience.

Updates: I am in college. Yes, this is bizarre since I've had my blog since I was in 7th grade. How far we've actually not come.

Currently I'm listening to Modest Mouse on shuffle, because I haven't been enough exposed to their last release and I'm waiting for my parents to pick me up. My brother has swine flu so we'll all have to wear face masks in the house.

There is a light that never goes out

i suppose i should give the world an update as to my new "college life."
perhaps, more for my own purposes than anyone else's. it's nice to read a diary, internet or otherwise and see yourself in the midst of a flux of dynamic experiences. life is such a strange equilibrium.

i have successfully made some friends i guess; nice people who laugh at my admittedly spur of the moment jokes.

i am slowly discovering myself and it is a nice feeling, though i find that it's very difficult to traverse the highway of hurrying students on my way to the chemistry building, and even more difficult to reason with myself to walk 10 feet to the showers, and awkwardly shut the propped open door that reveals to passersby (1/3 of which are male) that i am in fact coming out of/going into a stall or brushing my teeth with my loud, sputtering sonicare toothbrush.

one thing that is easier than those things is making friends and oh my goodness, getting exercise. i don't think i've walked so much in my life, which is not saying much for me. unfortunately the difference is made by the dorm food and the abundance of free pizza everywhere i go.

being away from home makes me miss my family with such sincerity. i miss them in every step.
when i'm waking up 3 or 7 times in the morning, trying desperately to pull myself from memory foam induced sleep, to when i'm brushing my hair or putting on an underskirt, knowing that my mother would like it that way.

last night when i came home to my dorm, i felt this incredible sense of unwholeness. emily was gone, and no one was there except for me. it was 3 am and i had just taken the 81 back to the union and taken the elevator in lieu of taking the healthier stairs.
my parents had called me five minutes before, which i think is funny. they knew by some parental omniscience that i would be awake.

when my dad picked me up today, he told me not to worry-- he had loaded all the songs from iTunes successfully onto an external hard drive, while calmly warning me to keep track of my things, "A twenty second investment now will save you hours and hours of aggravation."

coming home today filled me with relief. after watching youtube on my dad's latest obsession--the blueray--of indian music gameshows, SaReGaMaPa and Indian Idol, i know i can go to sleep.

don't get me wrong, college is rather amazing.
i love the freedom i have, to go shopping, to join groups, to make friends, to go out on my own and to not have to ever pay for gas. that and the subsidized food and movies.
i love the built in movement and music. i like that there are people around who want to make friends, and to experience life.

i like that our teachers don't baby us and expect us to do things by ourselves, but that help is still there if you ask for it.

Cosmo Doing a techie article?

You say crazy, I say amazing.

http://www.cosmopolitan.com/sex-love/relationship-advice/google-relationship-savers

Google must be sleeping with Cosmo or something.
(But for realz, those are great great amazing features. Gmail is ahead of its time for sure. I want to work at Google. Trouble is, I'm an idea person, not a programmer.)

Isn't it weird that...

all the best bands have the creepiest lyrics?

all the people we think are badass in movies would be considered really mean/unreasonable in real life?

no one really gets together with people they hate like they do in my favorite romantic comedies?

most of the problems in the world can be summed up by people going to an extreme?

we are all the result of some love-making?

everyone goes to the bathroom?

we all have armpits?

our emotions are very chemical, so basically our whole existence could be a big chemical reaction?



I wish I could read your mind.

The Shins are my best friends

They love kids.

Day 33/end

"Ye mehra india, I love my India."
I am currently on the plane back to Umrika. This is probably the weirdest flight I’ve ever been on; only because it has cool TV options, with a touch screen monitor on the back of every seat. As soon as I got here, I began voraciously pressing buttons. The only problem is that the airplane is totally possessive of our attention. Every time an announcement comes on the movie gets interrupted by a boring detailed analysis of how the flight will go or whatever. I mean, it’s actually kind of nice that the pilot talks, but the flight attendant is like really bad at reading out loud. Plus, American voices can be harsh on your ears after 5 weeks in India.
I met two women in the airport named Geeta and June, because I was eavesdropping on them talking about what you do if you are going somewhere after going to Chicago, and what you should do with your luggage. June was Southern, white and wide and had apparently just met Geeta, when I heard her say, “No, I’m here all bah mahself. I’m doing somethang I’ve never done before in mah life. “ Upon hearing this, I promptly turned around. I was so abrupt about it that they noticed and talked to me. The two personalities before me couldn’t have appeared more different. Geeta was tiny and seemed very tired. She was Indian, and has lived in America for over 30 years, still sometimes saying sentences like “What school you are going to.” (I punctuate it with a period, because that is how it is said, it’s a common Indian English mistake.) By watching her speak, I could tell that she was reserved, and took time to phrase what she would say. When talking to her, she would often continue speaking after I thought she was finished. Some part of me felt like she was just being polite to Joan, but she seemed in spite of the reservation, truly interested. June, on the other hand, was loud, eagerly conversational, very large and very happy. And me, somewhere in the middle of these two extremes, and somehow not feeling out of place.
We discussed India, as June flamboyantly detailed her unpleasant encounters with the airline and with the non-toilet paper possessing bathrooms that are so prevalent, especially where she does religious missions. She would’ve been annoying, but she was just so endearing and so friendly that you couldn’t think a bad thought. She told us about how she gets flashes of the future, and how her friend who was her interpreter had a twenty minute conversation with Jesus, while she shrugged and modestly said, “I wish I could do that!” Somehow knowing that we could all sit there and talk about India and June’s cats, made me really hopeful for the human race.
And now I must tell you about my last couple of days; they have been filled with shopping. We bought kurtis and books, and I even got a new Death Cab CD. I am now totally worried that maybe not everything got packed… because I didn’t actually physically pack my own suitcase, Bhua did. I neurotically felt like re-packing it, but Bhua was getting upset. Oh I almost forgot. My hair is straight now. And it will be, for a while, which is hard to think about. I know it’s controversial to say, but I really liked having curly hair, and you know, it was kind of sexy, and I wasn’t the only one who thought so, but it’s also really nice to not have to touch my hair or anything and have myself still look presentable.
I’m watching Shrek the Third right now, so I’ll get back on this in a bit.
Okay I’m back. And it is more than a bit later. I am sitting comfortably in my study. I think it is time for me to tell you about my last day with the kids. My hair was newly straightened, and I was feeling really new, except I wasn’t wearing a belt with my outfit that really required one. Abhinav had developed photos of them to give them, and I woke up ridiculously early after having passed out during a conversation the night before. We didn’t have lesson plan. We didn’t want to try and teach them anything on my last day. It was fun.
Everyone was like, weirdly amazed by me. “Good Morning, ma’am, you are beautiful, ma’am!”
I ran around with the camera, videotaping the babies and children that come into the center and taking masses of pictures of the kids. They were so excited to see their photos, and even one of the women whose child was getting a checkup wanted to keep a picture of me and my grandparents. All the women at the center made a big deal about me, putting a sari on me, putting a bindi on my forehead, putting a chain across my hair. They painted my nails, while trying to set me up with my cousin, which gave us a funny story to tell my Bhua afterwards. With the both the boys and the girls, we had a little party where we gave them weird fruit cake flavored muffins which they loved and played with them. The boys all danced with me and tried to teach me their Bollywood moves. We sang Love Me Do, which I taught to them and is their new favorite song. I took about a million photographs with one of the most charismatic babies in existence and her mother. Throughout the day, I started feeling more like a giant ball of mush.
As the girls started arriving (they come from school in groups of two or so), Anjali handed me a beautifully decorated card that said “I miss you I love you” . On the inside it said, “Thank you teach me English. I will never for get you. You are beautiful.” She shoved a pair of earrings into my hand. I thanked her and I gave her a kiss. I like these kids better than a lot of people, they legitimately cared, and they showed it. When Saima came in, she handed me a letter that was similarly filled with short, meaningful sentences that make me tear up a little when they’re written. We didn’t get to have much of a party with the girls as we did with the boys, because they had to finish their meeting, and I’m only there for the first half of their day. During their meeting, Jyoti performed her duties as president, while putting mehendi on my legs. It kept on accidentally getting smudged by hand gestures and people’s shawls. With five minutes left before Bhua was coming, and Jyoti just starting on my second leg, I started to become frantic that I wouldn’t get to say goodbye properly to the girls. Abhinav handed me the phone and made me talk to a frantic Reenu Bhua who thought the mehendi would get all over the car if it was on my legs, because she still believes I’m seven years old. Meanwhile, a little kid handed me a pair of earrings and a bracelet and said, “it’s from Heena.“ I asked where Heena was, and she said, “Oh, she left.” Abhinav tried to chase her down, but to no avail.
As Jyoti finally finished I told the kids I had to go, and that I loved them, and thank you for all the amazing times, and that I loved being their teacher and that I loved all of them. I don’t know if I actually said all of this, but this is how I felt. This all happened in like one minute though, so I probably didn’t say it all. The little kids at first were like, “Okay, see you tomorrow” and then they realized it was my last day, and they all stood up. I said I would miss them, and they said they’d miss me, and I started leaving the room and they followed me. I went and hugged Anita and the staff, and the kids swelled around us like a symphony. Anita started to say goodbye, and that I should come back, as all the kids were shouting, “Goodbye Ma’am,” “Come back ma’am” and then one child said, “Don’t go, Ma’am.” Then they all started asking me not to go, saying “Please don’t go, ma’am!” Suddenly it was just a burst that happened inside of me, and I just started to weep, because I didn’t want to leave. I loved these kids, even only after two weeks with them. I loved them and their incredible potential, their willingness to learn, their resilience, and their love of life. I loved that they had opened up their world to me, they had talked to me like I was one of them, they had learned and loved “Love Me Do”. They didn’t really know what to do when I started to cry, except Sweeta, the program coordinator, gave me a hug, and Katherine gave me a hug, and Sinku gave me a hug. Then I started gingerly walking to the car with the mehendi still on my legs, wearing just one shoe, as the children followed after me. They came up to the car, blowing me kisses and telling me they loved me. Bhua, unphased by the 25 or so young children bidding me farewell told me not to get anything on the car and scolded me for getting mehendi on my legs, while the children waved and waved until we drove away.
I guess I’d never really felt that way before, as if someone really needed me or wanted me in their life, enough to feel my absence when I’m not around. I mean, of course, my family. The children had enjoyed me, they had found me to be a good role model and a good teacher, and with all my clumsiness, I never thought I could be.
If you want to know, I’m glad I went to India. In fact, I’m infinitely glad I went. It has given me the most perspective I could’ve asked for. Just to see how the life is, how so many centuries of wisdom coexist together, how the culture evolves, yet stays the same, how a value for material things makes service better, how people can solve the world’s problems and still ride around in a three-wheeled vehicle peddled by a man on a bike. It’s surprisingly akin to me. I feel like this big vast multicolored quilt is very close to me. When people would ask me how I like India, and if it was different from home, I’d say, “Yes, it’s different, but it’s still my home.”

डे 31 और डे 32

Because I haven't had a USB camera cord in so long, I thought you deserved some pictures.


Sonu Mami's painting on the veranda


Guitar store in Bengalaru


Malvika on Guitar



Rooftops in a Middle Class Neighborhood in Bengalaru



Nana cutting a mango

My fabulous majestic Nana





A young child I saw on a corner


On my long rickshaw ride to a children's school



Malvika and I in her apartment (taken by Akshay)


Nana got invited to tea with the queen



Nani leads others by example




























Before:




After:



















The End!!

Photos available on Flicker
and they sell prints in good sizes (mummy and papa).

Day 27.28.29

Day 27/28/29
So here is how it all went down. It is Monday and Abhinav and I are getting up and going. W are also exhausted. We get to Asha and find that the boys class is having a meeting. They have a meeting once a week to discuss one public health issue and one social issue. I was very tired and so was Abhinav, so we kind of sat there and watched until I sort of nodded off. I mean, it was all cute and everything and it’s really great that they are educating the children about things like contaminated water and gender roles, but when they just keep saying the same things over and over again in Hindi you start to fall asleep in your chair. Which is what I did. It’s kind of the same reason I don’t go to Hindi movies that often.
Then anyway, Abhinav and I were like, they’ve been having their meeting forever but we’re still here… can we take their class or leave or something? And then Anita (the principal of Balmandal) said, “You can take them now.” So we took them and we taught them prepositions, which they are really damn good at. The boys can be really intelligent to the point that they wow me. Of course there are one or two that don’t understand it as well, or don’t understand anything. Abhinav and I decided to split up their classes. The Asha Health Center is very small and open to the outside, meaning there is no door, but just a part where you walk inside. This means that random civilians can hang out in the schoolyard, usually in small groups of slum children. There are these big windows in our school room with little box shaped bars to shield from the outside, but no windows. Occasionally during class, small children will put their hands on the bars from outside.
In the lag between the boys and the girls, I left the room to play with the cute babies whose mothers take them to the center for free vaccinations. After I was done with the babies, I went to the computer room to play solitaire, at which point Abhinav entered the room and asked, “Where’s your bag?” I thought he was teasing, because he always makes weird jokes like that, so I was like, “I don’t know, where?” and he said, “It’s not with you?”
We went back to the schoolroom and looked all around for my purse which was nowhere to be found. Abhinav asked Anita to look for it, and she was like, “You kept it by the window? Someone must be taking it.” I became really annoyed because everyone was staring at me and saying that I should’ve known not to put it by the window in their broken English. As time passed, everyone was talking about me and my purse in very apparently. The girls were all chatting amongst themselves and the little girl who says rude things about me said more rude things about what I was wearing, even when I told her I could hear her. The kids were in general, really nice and tried to cheer me up by making me ride a bicycle that didn’t have breaks. I kind of refused… not wanting to add injury to insult. Kiran’s husband, Freddy, made a call to the center and said a few things to make me feel better.
So we left and I called Papa and had him cancel my card. And Bhua pulled this horrible prank by telling me that the wallet she gave me was a Louis Vuitton worth 15000 USD. She laughed and laughed at me after I felt all horrible. We went to a restaurant called Kitchen and got comfort food and then went home and I ate some kind of bread pie that Bhua made. After that, Abhinav and I went to Mocha (this really hip coffee joint that looks like a harem and has hookahs and sheesha) with Abhinav’s friend Ishan. That was okay, but the crème brulee they served was not actually crème brulee but peach yogurt with brown sugar on it. It pissed me off beyond belief. Just as much as the cheesecake. It started to rain when we were leaving and my sandals with the cloth soles got soaked.
The next morning I began to feel really upset about this whole thing. We were running late and we got stuck in traffic three times. I was filled with fear that they would hate us for being so late and that Katherine, the girl from Harvard who has just come back, would outshine us since I’m late and I was stupid enough to leave my purse in sight of a window. When we arrived twenty minutes late, I was surprised to see all the children sitting in the room with Anita. When they saw me, they all jumped up and smiled. “Mil gaya!” Anita told me a long involved story about how she had seen my face after my purse was stolen and how upset I was, and that there has never been a robbery at the school before. She said that they went to the schools and took all the boys out and asked them if they knew anything. All the children insisted that they respect me and Abhinav and wouldn’t take my purse, but some thought they had seen a certain kid, who used to go to the school, but was kicked out for being too naughty, on the roof. On the roof, they found my purse, empty and in a water tank, and they tracked down the kid who said he hadn’t done it. After meeting with his parents, the five ladies who were searching retrieved my wallet, cell phone, medicines, and debit card. The only thing missing were a few makeups and all the money in the fake Louis Vuitton wallet (about 1500 rupees). I was so moved by the fact that these people would care enough to do an investigation to find my meager little purse. As Anita and the women handed me my purse, the boys jumped and hooted for me. They asked me if I was happy, and I said, “Bohuth Khushi Hai.“ They locked it up for me and told me to be very careful in future.
After that, everything was good at the school. Katherine came and taught the boys with us and we got to know her a little bit. She is tall and blonde and goes to Harvard. She is also trying very hard to learn the Hindi alphabet and read and write Hindi. She is picking it up very fast for a foreign person and I would know because I myself can’t even read Hindi. (It’s really easy, but if you don’t take the time to memorize the letters you will be screwed.) The language is very straightforward, but there is a letter for each sound, so it’s harder to remember all of them. Even some of my Indian family don’t remember all of them. Katherine is cute. She knows a few Hindi phrases that she mispronounces, but her point gets across and that’s all that really matters to most people. She is very teacher-ly unlike me and Abhinav-- we tend to be more like Didi and Bhai to the kids. We discussed the children and how some of the girls are less advanced than the other girls so it’s hard to know what to teach, and we split them up into two classes. The little girl who insults me actually started to read and I think it made her a little less ill-natured.
After we get back from volunteering and eating a little meal, we come home and we have tea. Mariam gives us these awesome cookies that we dip into our tea that taste really good when the tea hits them and we lounge around on Bhua’s bed and Abhishek comes home and hangs with us too. Abhishek is a neat fellow, I think he’s more reasonable than Abhinav and Bhua sometimes, because they get hooked onto little details and jump to conclusions sometimes, and he tends to take the opposite viewpoint, which can be refreshing. He told them that they shouldn’t take me out for desserts and then tell me that I shouldn’t eat sweets, which I found to be quite an astute observation.
Today I started walking the stairs. This is because I am sick of eating, but sometimes can’t get out of it. I went to visit Nana and Nani today and got stuck in traffic on the way there and back. I started to get a sore throat in the car on the way there and we stopped at one of the ice cream stands. Then I got to their house and they gave me kheer and chaht. I didn’t eat a lot to compensate for eating the ice cream. When I got home an hour later, Abhinav wanted to get an oreo shake because of his birthday tomorrow…. And of course I couldn’t be like, “No I don’t want one” because then he wouldn’t want one anymore and I still have a sore throat, so I said all right. Then we got back and they offered us more food. So I had some raita and rajma and chicken that I could’ve done without and then I felt sick for a little while and started to write this post and fell asleep for a while. But I’m serious, I’m going to stop eating so much because people expect me to. It’s really a problem. I just find it really difficult to say no. Tomorrow is Abhinav’s birthday. Meh, I don’t know where this sore throat is coming from but I get the feeling it’s because of the constant temperature changes and AC.

Day 27/28---Not Yet!

Day 27/28
Soon to come. I’m sorry. I really apologize. But I have to go to bed. Like for real, otherwise Reenu Bhua will murder me with an ax. I know I’m behind. But this is a great story (sort of) and I want to do it justice.

Day 25

Day 25
I know that this is my fault. I was supposed to be going to sleep, but instead I didn’t. I have a headache and I don’t want to post right now. But you want one, so here goes.
Ye List of Day 25 or 25 things about Day 25 (and 24)
1. It is freezing in Delhi. It is so cold everywhere, because it is so overly air-conditioned in every establishment and everyone is used to it and enjoys it. For example, if I sit in my perfectly normal temperature bedroom with no AC and no fan on, people come in and ask me why. When I tell them that I feel fine, and this is the way I like it and that the AC makes me sneeze they walk away with confused looks on their faces.
2. The cheesecake in India is not the same as the cheesecake in the US. It is made out of some weird whipped stuff that people abroad do not like, because it is not actually cheescake. Unfortunately, it looks just like normal cheesecake.
3. Mocha and the Big Chill are examples of how India can be much cooler than America. Nowhere in America can you smoke Apple flavoring. Nowhere in America does a coffee house also sell pasta and crème brulee. Also the Chinese food is better.
4. Indian clubbing is not nearly as cool as American clubbing. Despite the fact that my 19 year old cousin can get underage alcohol, all you do in Indian clubs is lounge around.
5. Kids are great, unless they don’t know you understand Hindi. There’s a little girl who doesn’t understand English who thinks that because I suck at speaking Hindi that I can’t understand it, so she talks about me in front of me, which is annoying but makes me feel oddly powerful. Also, I’m her teacher. So yeah.
6. Weight loss tip: If you don‘t love the food you‘re eating at a restaurant, don‘t finish it. Have it packed. Then give it to beggars.
7. I don’t like having maids. Because they come in and “clean” and then I don’t know where anything is.
8. Don’t do anything incriminating or say anything too cute. It will get repeated to every member of the family.
9. Everyone here thinks I’m totally fat and cute. They continually pinch my cheeks and talk to me in a baby voice.
10. People also have a tendency to assume I don’t like Indian food. Like Miriam, the maid, she was like, What do you want to eat, because I can’t give you daal and roti. And the little kids were like Do you like burgers or hot dogs? They get all surprised when I say I like curry.
11. I am trying to do SAT prep by reading these “SAT Skills Insight” things about what skills you should practice to score in the next band of math. Only I started at the lowest one to make sure I don’t miss any. I told Abhinav to administer an exam for me.
12. Tomorrow Reenu Bhua is taking me for a haircut and straightening. I am scared, because many people I know have expressed deep love for my curly, thick hair, and maybe it will become straight and thin after this cut. I hope it looks okay.
13. Sparkly makeup is unappealing at most times, unless used in very small amounts. This is because sparkles are impossible to get off.
14. When you’re really fat and lose a ton of weight, you don’t lose the skin that housed the weight. So then you need to lift weights or get the skin removed or something.
15. Nobody stops talking about weight over here. It’s like everyone’s favorite topic.
16. I don’t know if you’d know this, but Indian phones are backwards. The off button is where the on button would be and the C button tries to delete things. I think this has something to do with the whole driving on the other side of the street thing.
17. I think Abhishek hates me, because he hangs out with his friends all the time and hasn’t spent more than a half hour in my presence at a time.
18. Abhinav does this thing where he pretends to take a picture of you with his phone and then says, “Nice picture,” and makes like he’s showing you your picture and he shows you a picture of the dog.
19. My new nickname for Reenu Bhua is ReeBhu.
20. I don’t like sweets as much as my family thinks (this is a general statement not applicable to my current habitat). It’s just that Papa and his side of the family think I like sweets like a lot, but I actually hate them in most cases. (The cases involving over-decorated cakes and super sweet cookies, and large portions of ice cream and brownies.)
21. We are “clubbing” with Abhinav’s friend tomorrow.
22. Also, I have to go back to work tomorrow which I am sort of dreading. I doubt my ability to wake up in the morning. Also, the girls are not on the same level with each other, so it’s hard to guess who’s at what level. I am thinking of doing some private classes with people. Also, it’s really awkward sitting around for our lunch break because there is open space for like 2 and a half hours, which would be a great time to sleep, but we don’t get to because we’re in a school and people can see us. Also, I just started the last three sentences with the word also.
23. The dog, Bruno, is very cute and probably a bit cleaner than Ivy. Little did I know, he gets his baths in my bathroom.
24. The car is entrapped by precipitation and condensation sometimes, because it is very cold inside and very warm outside. Arun Fufu spent like twenty minutes trying to get it to stop yesterday night to no avail.
25. I like it here. I know it doesn’t sound like it because I keep talking about being fat. But it is nice to be with family especially Reenu Bhua, because she is big and cuddly. Abhinav would be too, but he’s skinny now.

Day 21 and 23

Day 21
I met Kiran Martin yesterday, who is Papa’s old friend from college, who heads the Asha foundation. She was very kind and jovial. She hadn’t talked to my dad for 25 years, but he called her up for a favor just for me. Nana and Nani came with me to the meeting and sat there all ominously, watching over the goings-on. There were about 10 white people who had come also to volunteer, a fact that Nana/Nani would later admit had impressed them, and we were having a meeting about various activities that Asha has been a part of. Kiran was telling about how the slums in Delhi had been positively affected by Asha’s teachings about finance, how to open a loan, how to pay it back on time, because of the great difficulty and confusion attached to getting a loan and presenting yourself well in the slum community. But with the help of Chidambaram, banks would come to the slums and offer them loans. I think it’s so wonderful (I’m wonderfully lucky) that everyone I know has such great connections with these NGOs.
So I will start working in a school from tomorrow. In the meantime, I have moved to Reenu Bhua’s house, which is far different from living with Nana and Nani. There is a lot of activity, and I’ve already met like 10 people, who are friends of Abhishek and Abhinav, and Vidush and Priyanka came to see me before they left Delhi. To be honest, I don’t have much to say for today.
Leaving Nana and Nani’s house was quite sad though. I realize that their lives get so exciting when they have someone to fuss over, particularly Nani. She is so happy to do things for me and ask me how I am and make sure that I’m taking medicine. She said, “I know you’re happy to leave me, but I will be missing you so much.”
Day 23
I just watched Joker-- I mean Batman: The Dark Knight (sorry Christian Bale)-- and it was incredible. I thought that Abhinav was just, you know, being Abhinav when he said he’d already seen it twice, but he spent his money well. It was just such a mind-trip the whole time, wonderfully gripping and scary enough for me to love. Kind of like a higher tech, less jaded Sweeney Todd for our time. Just when you thought you were over Heath Ledger’s death, it comes and hits you right where it hurts.
But New Delhi with Bhua isn’t all fun and games… except that it sort of is. I’ve started working in this school at Jeevanagar near the slums and I constantly play games with the kids, who are much more disciplined than the Bangalore kids, maybe because we have translation and they all go to school besides this one. Bhua decided that it would be good for Abhinav to volunteer as well, so we are together, teaching a bunch of kids English: boys in the morning and girls in the afternoon, for the most part. When we got to the school yesterday for the first time, the children (who had waited for us for a whole hour to come because we got terribly lost trying to get to Asha and terribly stuck in traffic on the way there) ran up to us and threw flowers and rice in our faces, as a welcome greeting that Abhinav would later recall to be the most embarrassing moment of his life. Abhinav and I, who had just woken up from a sleepy car ride, groggily accepted their happy handshakes and very awake “Good Morning Sir/Madam”s. So we came in and the lady who met us at Asha, Sweeti, introduced us to the kids, telling them I was from America and Abhinav was from Delhi. The children seemed so excited about these facts and jumped up one by one to introduce themselves with the few English sentences they knew. “Hi, my name is__________. I live in _____________. My hobby is _____.” So Abhinav and I taught them adjectives by having them describe themselves. Today we made a big list of adjectives, and then started teaching them about the subject of the sentence. The boys seemed to really like that.
We’ve had only one class with the girls. Unlike the boys, the girls either really know English or really don’t, and there is not a ton of in between, which makes teaching them a little harder. Also, today, we didn’t have anyone in the class because classes cut off early for a school wide seminar on education and its importance, so instead of teaching a lesson, I tried to teach them a song and I have to say, the children need a music class. None of them can stay in the same key, and I don’t think it’s because they don’t have it in them. It’s just that they haven’t listened to enough music or had any instruction. Some people can match, but few can stay in key. So maybe I will teach them some music in the spare moments in lunch and between class.
I must say my body image has sucked lately. Somehow being around very skinny people just gets to me, even if they’re impoverished or Abhinav. Our internet keeps failing, and this is why you haven’t heard from me enough and also why these entries are late. Sorry. We thought it had started working again, but then it stopped again.

Day 19

Day 19
Today is Day 18. I know, I’m ridiculous. Sometimes, in my mind, when I say the word “ridiculous” it comes out “ridicule-us” in a strange British accent. So I am in New Delhi at my Nana & Nani’s house. Complicated reasons for why I had to cut the trip short, but basically there was no more space in Bangalore. It annoyed me at first, but nothing can annoy me more than the cough/stomach trouble I’m having, so I’m quite okay with it.
So far, about Delhi. It’s unbearably hot. Well, no, it’s bearable. It’s just that you don’t much want to bear it. Coming here was refreshing as Nana and Nani are so attentive to my needs. In the last 7 hours they have cooked for me twice, taken me to an internet café, given me medicine, made a bed for me, made me sleep, and bought me medicine. I really love them and all their sincerity and care for my well-being.
Now it is Day 19, I am telling you this because I am consolidating and it would be weird if I told you how tomorrow was. But now that I’m thinking it… nothing ever gets written in future tense. So tomorrow, we will go to Gymkhana Club to eat with Dadi, and I will wake up late and miss the breakfast Nani spent time preparing for me. Nani and Dadi will discuss what I look like in front of me, like they always do, and Dadi will say I’m first class, and Nani will say, yes I’m first class, but I’ll be even more first class if I lose 2 stone. I will smile because this happens every time while Nana sits there and looks mildly uncomfortable or perhaps, can’t hear us.
I will discover that ominously enough, this house has only 2 pictures of me in it on display as compared to the 750, 000 of Meghana and Akshay (including Prom pictures) and the 10 of Ishita. But at least I beat Chet (because there is only one of him , although it is on greater display…). After coming home from the club, I will give Nani her gifts and she will be pleased with the hanging plates and the shirt, but not the pajama tops, because they are not sleeveless and she doesn’t wear anything but sleeveless things to bed in the Delhi heat. I will teach her how to use the cell phone as she is very good at lady things, but does not have great knowledge of early generation Nokia phones. This of course, will change after I teach her. I will talk to my mother and she will tell me about going to Maharaja without me. Chet will call me and tell me about his dream about the president who is not George Bush who runs on a battery that leaks oatmeal causing him to lose his memory, and then Chet has to be a secret agent on the case.
There are beautiful pictures of my mother here and a lot of cute naked baby pictures of my sister and cousin. But mostly beautiful pictures of my mother. She looks like one of those models that pouts, except they don’t wear simple wedding saris. Sometimes I wish I could just skip the next 12 years of my life and be happy and married instead of having to do anything in between (the hard parts). Not that marriage isn’t hard… but whatever.
Music is touching. Number #7 redundancy for the day. (I say more obvious things around my grandparents.) But no, it’s true. And you know how it works? You’re just sitting there and you’re just bopping around to the beat, maybe it’s pleasant, and your head is moving from side to side and then all of a sudden, something happens-- maybe it’s a lyric or just the most pure melody--and it’s so completely true, and it strikes you in the heart with its blatant honesty and for a while you just can’t keep yourself from tearing up or stopping just to take a few deep breaths. Nothing makes you cry like the truth. It’s when something is so sincere, like music, that you just can’t stand it anymore and you have to do something like cry.
I am sneezing suddenly as well. I think I’ll turn off the fan. It must be circulating dust or something. I am becoming annoyed that my tissue is running out of surface area that has not been used. And also that my throat is getting these stabbing pains in it that come only from sneezing too much. I like Devotchka.

Day 17

It is Day 16 and I am writing. Yes, I have broken the law of odds, but you know what, I’m going to pretend I wrote this tomorrow, seeing as it kind of is tomorrow... Just because. The thing is I had to tell you about a predicament I have. I live in a room situated next to our balcony which serves as the place where our clean clothes dry. There is a door that goes directly from my room to the balcony. This is a pretty good setup as I don’t have to walk through Samrat’s room in the middle of the night, if I want to wash and dry my underwear. Although sometimes it rains, the complementary hot, dry climate does much to soak up the water that may impact the underwear. But the problem is that Samrat and Akshay think that a burglar will come onto the balcony because it happened to the people in the flat below. So they have advised me to keep the door firmly locked from the top and from the lock . To further protect themselves, they have kept a motion sensor next to the door so that if anyone tries to enter from the outside, the sensor will sound. But this isn’t just any sensor. It looks exactly like a bird and makes pixel-y bird noises. It is very very sensitive. I have recently developed one of those hacking cough deals. Without fail, every time I cough, the bird makes odd chirpy noises, adding to my discomfort. It has happened about 16 times since I started this post. Wait, no, 17. I’m not even close to it. It is ACROSS the room. It probably goes off when there are burglars on our neighbors’ roof. But it is not saving anyone. I want to break that bird. I want to make it cry. I want it to feel the discomfort that I’ve had to deal with--having to memorize its strange call that sounds enough like a bird to know that it’s supposed to be a chirp, but not enough to actually be one-- being just sensitive enough to pick up my coughs, but not sensitive enough to be loud enough to alert for an actual burglar-- it’s pathetic. The sad thing is that I know that the moment I put it underneath all of my stuff, or put it under Akshay’s pillow… that is when I’ll need her. That is when the burglar will break in and take my semi-valuable laptop and my green card for no reason at all. So I’m cursed to live with this little fiend for another two weeks!
I don’t want to tell you about the rest of my day, not because it wasn’t good or whatever but because I spent most of it feeling grotesquely ill, and do not want to re-live it another time. But on the upside, I met Kauschik today, and he was really nice, quite charismatic, and quite a joker. I began to get the obvious soft-spot that Samrat and Akshay and Sonu Mami all have for him. He told me all about the poor, about how I should think of them, how I shouldn’t pity them, because there is life in poverty, although it seems like we can’t live a day without dinner at night. We may think that they are so sad and depressed, but just because someone is poverty doesn’t equal depression. A poor kid is the same as a rich kid, families that are poor, are still rich with life, perhaps more so. He told me to come back to India every time I can to be with the people who are not blinded by their affluence.
In other news, Samrat said I could write something for the paper which leaves me with the dilemma of, “What?” I am still in the process of solidifying an idea in my mind. I’m not going to let this opportunity go to waste. I bet mummy will be happy about this post. Night all, I’m sleepy and I have to use my inhaler.

Day 15 or the day after Aarushi makes friends her own age

Day 15
I’m feeling kind of bad that I don’t post every day. I think maybe I’ll write every day, and post every other day because sometimes I have emotions that I just can’t do justice too the next day. Yesterday, I was very happy. I went to the school at 10:30 after having woken up ridiculously early about twelve times, and successfully traveled there by myself by rickshaw. I walked into a classroom filled with small children with uniforms and little notebooks, with diagrams on the board of a clock, and watched as a large British fellow became very frustrated asking them what time it was on the board. I noticed a skinny boy sitting to the side, who was watching the classroom activity. I later found out that these people were 18 and going to be my fellow teachers. The large, frustrated one was William, and the skinny, side-sitter was Lorcan. I would later meet Lucy and Saurabh. Lucy is strawberry-blond, cheerful and slim. Saurabh is Iranian, lanky and quiet. It was interesting to meet people who were my own age.
The children, themselves, were very rowdy and had little command of the English language. We get a few classes every day and yesterday we got Classes 3 and 1. The frustrating thing is the fact that some of the children are really intelligent and understand everything, and some don’t get it at all and copy from their friend’s papers. As we check their work, we give them stars, but they forever ask for us to write our name, to draw pictures of an ice cream cone. It’s so endearing that it’s so difficult to tell them to sit down and be quiet.
I decided to stay with the school, because I thought they could use my help. The children were rowdy, and didn’t seem to understand everything. Sometimes I felt like the people teaching would hesitate and not know what they’re doing. I thought that my creativity could help. At lunch time, we went out and I got to know the people in our group. I found that they we shared a lot of musical tastes, in fact more than I share with a random sampling of my peers from school. Because I didn’t have the keys to the apartment, I caught a rickshaw to the office.
To my sleepy dismay, Akshay didn’t have the keys, and sent me away with vague instructions to go to MG Road. So I went and sat in JavaCity, this coffee house, and I got some weird burnt brownie with ice cream. The walls at JavaCity are covered with pictures of Ray Charles and framed comics. I could see a window to the upstairs that displayed some board games sitting on tables. Because I was uncomfortable and just wanted to go to sleep, I went upstairs. I failed to use the bathroom which was disgusting, and then settled on a beanbag and watched as some people played Halo. I heard some vague American accents from across the room, and looked to see a boy and a girl, sitting with a small group. I talked to them and their names were Dayorsha and Arjun. They invited me to join their Halo game, and I said okay. They invited me over to their apartment to eat with their group, and it was really nice. We went to their friend Devak’s house who lived above them and their friend Rajiv played guitar while I sung, and then Arjun rapped to the piano’s beat boxing. They were really knowledgeable about Bangalore because they come once every year, and got me a pre-paid rickshaw back to the office. Unfortunately, when I got there about 30 minutes late, Akshay had left, and gone to look for me at MG Road. I hung out in the office with Tinny who asked to see some of my writing, because I showed Malvika my incomplete college app essay and she was impressed with it and apparently had told people about it, so I emailed her some articles I had written.
When Akshay came, he wasn’t particularly happy, but we went to McDonald’s where for once, he got food and I got nothing, except for a badly packaged coke that was supposed to have been a Fanta. He gave me my own set of keys, though, so that’s good, and I think he’s going to activate my SIM card.
This morning was even worse than yesterday morning; I had fragmented dreams about little girls and rickshaws and little girls driving rickshaws and I kept waking up and coughing and checking my iPod clock and trying to go back to sleep until I couldn’t anymore. I hate that feeling. You’re awake but you don’t want to be, but you can’t stay asleep. You’re too tired to get ready, but too awake to stay asleep. So I’d been told to be there at 10:40, so I got there ten minutes early, and saw Hema, who told me that I should come at 10 o’clock everyday from then onwards. After everyone shuffled in (minus William who had become ill the night before), they had a discussion with us about how to teach the children, and what to teach the children; they told us that we should make a notebook of what the children have learned everyday, and that we should strive to be kind and less disciplinarian. The problem is that we don’t know Tamil, so it’s hard to communicate with them on a basic level, even to tell them what we’re learning. We have to make gestures and use very simple language. Apparently, before I had come, people had complained about the children in the volunteer classes being too loud.
So today, with a renewed energy, we began to plan. We decided numbers for Class 2, and days of the week for Class 3. We decided to divide them into groups in order to get more one-on-one attention to each student. When Lorcan and I went to teach half the class numbers, we had found that Class 2 already knew their numbers. So we started on colors, which they caught onto very fast. That was fun, though, as I think at first they didn’t understand completely, but very quickly caught on as I related one blue thing to another blue thing. The problem was that they understood things quite well and then became bored. When we tried to play a game with them, the boys ran around the schoolyard and wouldn’t listen to us. Other than that, the children seemed to enjoy the games we played, and I asked them their names and told them our names. I think that helped too, because no one has known any of their names before.
The next class we did was days of the week; Lorcan and I were with the boys. Unsurprisingly, the kids already knew their days and months, but didn’t recognize them in English, and didn’t know them out of order. The problem, I think, is that the kids only know them through rote memorization, but don’t understand their importance. So I got out a calendar and tried to get them to associate days of the month, making them say, “First of January”, “Second of January”. Few children understood it, some of them thinking I wanted them to count, but one did, so I pulled him up to the front and had the children listen to him. He seemed to really like that, and the students seemed to want attention too, so they copied what he was doing. Then we progressed to February. Then class was over and the kids became wild again, shaking our hands, and telling us “Good Day, Madam/Sir”, which is pretty much the extent of their English vocabulary, which is much better than I thought. I asked the boy who understood the months what his name was, and he said, “Madam, my name is Rajkumar, madam!” and he became so happy, and thanked me about fifteen times before leaving.
I became depressed at lunchtime because I was sad about the kids, and worried that they wouldn’t learn anything. Saurabh told me that they were learning, just very slowly, and I should give it time and patience. I've also begun to realize the difficulties of working with others, who have somewhat different ideas sometimes about how to go about teaching kids. I became even more depressed when I realized I didn’t have my keys, so I left right away to go home, just in case Samrat or the maid were still at home to let me in. When they weren’t, I went to Indian Express and got them from Akshay. Then I went home and slept for about 8 hours, which was very refreshing, although I don’t know how I’ll wake up tomorrow to leave at 9:30.

Day 13

Day 13
I rode in a rickshaw by myself for the very first time today. It was an experience, and after I found out I could do it, it made me feel so free as I assume I will feel when I am able to drive. I went to visit a lady named Hema today who is the volunteer coordinator in Bangalore of an organization called GapGuru that is an NGO that helps white people come abroad and volunteer. Samrat knew her and I called her and scheduled a meeting (Independence points: +1). I was frightened to call her and was pleased when she was very kind and open to me. So today, I got up at the relatively reasonable hour of noon (because yesterday I got up at 5 in the afternoon), and tomorrow I will have to wake up at 9, with the help of an alarm clock that makes horse sounds (+1). I went in a rickshaw by myself to see her (+1) and got a little lost (-1) because I didn’t know where to stop the rickshaw (I ended up stopping it too late). But I went to Infotech where I knew people could speak English and got directions from them to get directions to the bank that they gave me directions to (+1). The bank didn’t give me very clear directions so I ended up wandering around until a rickshaw driver who was fixing his engine said, “Madam, what do you need help with?” He didn’t know how to help me so I went to a store where a man gave me very detailed instructions in clear English. Ah, the kindness of strangers. I finally came upon Hema’s house, which was big and beautiful, unlike any house I’ve been to in India so far. She had tea with me in the garden and talked to me about what I wanted to do like I was a real person. Everyone in India thinks I am a real person! (+1)
She talked to me about two different schools that I can go to. One that is very nearby but a little bit chaotic and one that is very far away but very structured. She was unsure that I could handle the rickshaw drive everyday to the structured one at Parikrma and I told her that I would try to go there today, and that I wouldn’t know until I went there. (+1) Luckily I found the nicest rickshaw driver in the world who took me to Jayanagar, which is a good 10 kilometers away, and he personally made sure I was in the right place, and waited forty minutes for me, and didn’t chare me for his having to wait. The school was nice and the children were… well, I don’t really have to tell you what it’s like to see happy yet impoverished children. I could, but I’m not feeling like putting my very complex emotion into words right now. But they smiled at me, like I was some really interesting, pretty person.
The combined energy of having gone on a rickshaw by myself and having decided to do something to change the world and having seen a bunch of amazing little kids, I decided to give myself even more freedom and go to Koshy’s and have fun by myself, eating food and listening to my iPod. I felt so good not having to answer to anyone! Then I went to the office and everyone was just delighted to see me and I shared a rickshaw with Malvika on the way home. So yeah, I’d call today a triumph. I know everyone could feel my happy energy (I was smiling, so why not?). I feel so free and unstoppable.

Day 11

Day 11
Yesterday Akshay told me not to go to the office with the intention of making me discover the city. He took me to the apartment he is going to move into where I met his friend Chez. She has a very fun, distinctively thoughtful way of speaking. Akshay did this thing called the “Rickshaw Run” where he traveled all across the country in a rickshaw; this comes up in conversation about twice a day. Chez was one of the members of his group.
Akshay’s new apartment is in a white building with blue lining in a middle class neighborhood. It has a naked staircase, which, truth be told, is quite intimidating to the more neurotic elements of my brain. I was taking photographs. I don’t know what it is about me but whenever a little kid comes by, I must take a photograph. But I’ve never successful, because they are always too far away, or there is not enough light, or they’re zooming past in an auto rickshaw. Which is a shame. Because I firmly believe that Indian babies are some of the cutest babies in existence. Maybe it’s the outfits that they wear, or the fact that they’re on motorcycles with their parents.
Akshay had made a list of places for me to go; numbers I could call if I was lost; and things I should tell the rickshaw driver. So he left me on Church Street and I went into a bookstore called Blossoms. Within 10 minutes, Akshay was back. “I freaked out,” he said, “I’ll take the afternoon off.” We went to the bookstore, where we walked around and Akshay suggested books to me, and shamed my lack of literary prowess. The fact is, I just don’t get to reading all the books that people “should” read. Things like Salman Rushidie and all of these Indian writers I’ve never heard of because I haven’t lived here and no one writes about them in India. I wanted to buy this book called Quirkology but Akshay said “one book at a time” and proceeded to buy me 2 books.
We sat in Koshy’s for a few hours, discussing life and what I want to do with it. I think Akshay gave me the soundest admissions advice of any; that is to know what I want to do and pursue it with sincerity, while ignoring things that don’t matter like GPAs and test scores. If my aim is true, he thinks, I will get where I need to go without the need for over-stressing.
After a few hours of discussion, Divya joined us. We went to the park and sat for a bit, before deciding to go out to meet one of Akshay’s friends, Deepika, at this restaurant no one in our party had been to before called the Ugly Duckling. We discussed our perspectives of the name in the rickshaw.
The Ugly Duckling is on the fifth floor of an office building and was completely empty when we entered it. After walking of 5 flights of wide marble stairs, we were not surprised at its vacancy. It was a swanky restaurant, with a kind of new-age feel, it reminded me of Noodles & Company. Deepika is a journalist with a nose ring. I wouldn’t mind having a nose ring. Over dinner, the music that was playing changed three times. The first music was pathetically disco with remixes of songs that were popular last year. Next, it was pathetically 80s with Video Killed the Radiostar and Madonna and that “Wake me up before you go-go” song and the Bangles. After that it was 90s, with Lou Bega’s “Mambo #5”. While I enjoyed singing to all the songs, the rest of the dinner party gagged and tried desperately to plug their ears. Only when we were eating dessert (Chocolate Mousse), did they play something palatable by most, which was some kind of alt mix featuring Michael Buble (bubble?) and Josh Groban. I felt happy the whole time, because I knew all of the words to most of the songs.
That night I went to bed really late. I started to type up a resume and write an admissions essay, which I’m now done with. I woke up ridiculously late the today, which was interesting but rather uneventful as I went to AirTel twice, and unsuccessfully activated my phone (because I hadn’t paid for it). In the evening, we went to Koshy’s and had dinner with a crew of eight people, which eventually became six. A lot of interesting characters were there, many of whom had never met; Scott, Chez, Chez’s friend Selena, Akshay, Me, Samrat, Samrat’s friend whose name I don’t remember now (I actually do, but I wasn’t clear on it, so I don’t want to make a stupid mistake) , and this guy Abhijit who translates to Kannada for the story for WIRED. At first, the table was ridiculously crowded, and discussion was mildly sparse. After Chez and Selena left, the discussions were shared over the table about numerous topics as Indian politics, American politics, drugs, childhood experiences, fake news stories, freelancing and what is considered fat. It was a diverse group, making way for oddly frank discussions.