i was sitting in the passenger seat of dadaji's small four-door sedan, my father-in-law was driving and p was sitting in the back seat, looking tired and staring out of the window at the passing gujarati countryside.
as we drove through the backroads that weaved a serpentine pattern through lush green farmland, now buried under eight feet of monsoon water, pappa (indians are supposed to call their in-laws pappa and mamma, and ignore the strange, incestuous sound of it all) began to tell me the story of the creation of ganesh. now, to the uninitiated, driving in india seems a difficult enough task on its own. to even consider multi-tasking while weaving through traffic and swerving to narrowly avoid hitting children, cows, overturned buses and potholes that sometimes reach two feet deep is to play dice with your own mortality. but, alas, pappa is an indian, a war-weary veteran of many an overcrowded highway, who not only drives and talks at the same time, but also occasionally opens his door while speeding in order to lean out the side and spit out his red paan.
i close my eyes, force a smile onto my lips, and try to pay attention.
"mutth-you," he begins, scrunching his eyebrows down toward his eyes to underscore the seriousness of the topic. "if you are to be indian, man, then you have to know about indian gods. and the best god is ganesh. do you know ganesh?"
i nod and mumble something about an elephant head while trying not to succumb to the nausea that is slowly overtaking my sense of politeness.
"yes, yes, yes," he says dismissively, slicing through the air with his left hand. "he has elephant's head, man. but do you know how he got it?"
he misinterprets my silence as interest and continues.
"long, long ago, there lived a woman. her name was parvati. and parvati was a hottie."
i'm not kidding. he really talks like this. he apparently thinks that throwing in words and phrases like this will appeal to me as a younger person, as though i was fourteen and couldn't be troubled to be interested in a story that didn't involve a buxom blonde and breasts bouncing hypnotically in the air.
"so parvati sits in the bathtub all day long, prettying up for guests, because she's indian, man, and indian women have to pretty up. and this parvati, she's a goddess, which is what indian women think they are, man, so a goddess doesn't want to talk to anyone when she's in the bath, right? well, her husband is shiva, and shiva is the king of his castle and he says, 'i go where i want.'" (apparently, he thumps his chest for emphasis, for this is what pappa does to demonstrate how one declares lordship over his domain.)
"and shiva, he's an indian man, man, and he won't let his wife tell him what he can't do. so he goes on vacation to meditate because he's a god, man, and that's what gods do for fun."
from the backseat my wife begins to complain, pointing out the liberties that her father is taking with the story. but he is an indian man, and he is on a roll, and nothing, not even the protestations of ganesh himself, could stop him at this point.
"so parvati, she says, 'man. i don't have a servant to protect me when i am in the bath. i need some protection.' so she made a son out of perfume and oils and she said, 'i will name you ganesh.' and oh, she loved her ganesh. and he loved his mama and wouldn't let anyone inside when she was in the bath.
"and one day, after many years, shiva gets horny and says, 'man, i need some nookie.'"
at this point my wife has heard enough and interrupts.
"papa, that wasn't what he said. he didn't want nookie. he's a god, he doesn't need nookie."
really. you haven't truly experienced life until you've heard two indians arguing over the necessity of 'nookie' in ancient mythological india while playing chicken with oncoming traffic.
"p," he countered patiently, unbothered by his daughter's ignorance of the human condition. "everybody needs nookie, even gods, man. why do you think jesus made friends with the loose womens?"
apparently feeling that this point had won him the argument, he continued.
"so shiva says, 'i need some nookie. i must go home, and make the nookie with my wife.' but he doesn't know ganesh, and ganesh doesn't know him, man. and he gets home and parvati is in the bath, but he is sooo horny, man, and he knocks at the door.
"and this handsome young man answers the door and doesn't know him. and shiva says, 'man, i am the god. who the hell are you? move aside, because i want to make nookie with my wife.'
"but ganesh doesn't let him inside, because his job is to protect his mother. so shiva's brain isn't working, man, because you can't think when you're so horny, so he takes an axe and he chops of his son's head. he goes inside and upstairs and says to wife, 'hi honey. i'm home and i'm horny.'
"but his wife is worried about her son and screams when she hears what happened. so he says, 'man, this sucks. i'm so horny, i've travelled back over many years for some nookie and now i can't have it because my wife is pissed, man.'
"but shiva was horny and wanted some nookie so he sent one of his side-ees to collect a head for ganesh."
"a side-ee?" i interrupt, needing the definition.
"a side-ee, man. like his main man who works for him and follows him everywhere."
"now, the side-ee was an indian servant, man, and they're not too bright, you know, and he goes and kills an elephant and brings back the head.
"and shiva looks at head and says, 'what the hell is this, man? this is bullshit, man' but he was so horny and his wife was still bitching so to shut her up he put the head on ganesh and said, 'there. now it is all better.'
"but his wife was even more pissed now and said, 'this is messed up, man. my son didn't have an elephant head.'
"so shiva thought fast - because all indian men think fast, mutth-you - and said, 'yes, but listen, man. i added in a bonus extra for you. every time someone needs good luck, they will honor ganesh, man.
"and he got his nookie and everyone was happy. and shiva gave him a mouse to ride on."
"to ride on?" i ask, choosing this part of the story to allow my skepticism to take over. "how does a man with an elephant's head ride on a mouse?"
"he's a god, man," pappa answers in exasperation. "he rides around on whatever he wants, man."
good answer, i think to myself as we approached dadaji's house.
he rides around on whatever he wants. it's reasonable enough, and he needs some kind of permanent companion after being decapitated because his father the god wanted some nookie.
i can almost picture millions of hindu souls stir uneasily in the air at this story, but, hey - when you're horny, you're horny.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Saturday, June 9, 2007
Learning Gujarati
let me begin by stating for the record that i have quickly developed a consuming hatred of gujarati. it's not so much that the language strikes me as dumb, for native speakers of english shouldn't be allowed under international treaty to label any other language as "dumb" or "illogical." and it's not so much that the sounds are difficult to form and the sentences translate literally into english as a form of remedial pidgin english, though they are and they do. it's not even that nearly every fucking verb includes the word "chhe," which means "is," even though they do and nobody can explain why without shrugging their shoulders and looking at me like i'm a moron for wondering aloud about this.
seriously, if another indian looks at me with that pedantic look and tells me with a nonchalant shrug that "it just is," i'm gonna go join the pakistani army and get some revenge, rambo style.
though i doubt that urdu's any easier.
i've cycled through two different language tutors, the first of whom was my wife and the second of whom later admitted that he couldn't speak gujarati, but was fluent in hindi, as though being close to the language was enough of an accomplishment. that's kind of like going to a spanish language tutor and having them speak french to you and blow their cigarette smoke in your face when you point out this problem.
my wife, bless her soul, is not a native speaker of gujarati, as she was born in new jersey, several miles west of india. thus, she never learned the language from books and has no idea whatsoever as to extravagances like grammar and verb conjugation.
my gujarati, nee hindi, tutor, on the other hand, presented himself, as most indian men do, as so overqualified for the position as to be insulted that i responded to his ad on craigslist.com. having had the mixed blessing of spending several weekends with my father-in-law and my wife's sordid collection of uncles and grandfathers (every male that an indian knows around her father's age becomes an uncle, regardless of irrelevancies like bloodlines and genetics, and the same is done with men the age of a grandfather), i had grown accustomed to looking past the complimentary and generally unmerited light in which indian men look at themselves, so this personality quirk didn't register an alarm inside of me.
when, however, he began teaching me the gujarati alphabet, i noticed that something was amiss. the letters that i was learning were obviously hindi and not gujarati. (to tell the difference, simply look for a line resting snugly on the top of the letters, like a giant blimp nestling in for a long night on top of a dali-esque skyline of unimaginably curvy and precise buildings. if there is a line, the language is hindi. if not, it's gujarati. of course, i'm ignoring the many other indian languages, but this is my blog. if you want to consider all south asian languages, get your own fucking blog.)
when i pointed out this obvious discrepancy to him, he looked at me with the confidence that only an indian man who has just been proven wrong can muster and calmly and condescendingly remarked, "yes, but hindi is so much more useful, no?"
"yes," i thought to myself. "and chinese is even more useful, if that's what you're going after."
"hindi may be more useful in delhi and even in many other parts of the world," i replied, "but my wife and i are moving to gujarat, where they speak gujarati."
"yes," he replied, obviously losing patience with his cheeky white student. "but now you can impress everybody with your perfect hindi." and with that he smiled gently and with such self-satisfaction that i was momentarily convinced of the righteousness of his position.
luckily, i recovered my sanity quickly and reminded myself that gujarati, despite being a rather obscure and, outside of gujarat, useless language, was what i needed to learn if i had any hope of penetrating the thick force field that can surround the inner workings of indian society.
so i left.
in an attempt to console me, my wife purchased several cd-rom courses in gujarati from the internet, and i've been playing around with those, to some limited success, for the past couple of months. i'm beginning to think that the better approach is to just leave the language-learning for when i arrive. my father-in-law has a tutor all lined up and waiting for me in gujarat, so that's a bonus.
assuming that the tutor really does speak gujarati.
seriously, if another indian looks at me with that pedantic look and tells me with a nonchalant shrug that "it just is," i'm gonna go join the pakistani army and get some revenge, rambo style.
though i doubt that urdu's any easier.
i've cycled through two different language tutors, the first of whom was my wife and the second of whom later admitted that he couldn't speak gujarati, but was fluent in hindi, as though being close to the language was enough of an accomplishment. that's kind of like going to a spanish language tutor and having them speak french to you and blow their cigarette smoke in your face when you point out this problem.
my wife, bless her soul, is not a native speaker of gujarati, as she was born in new jersey, several miles west of india. thus, she never learned the language from books and has no idea whatsoever as to extravagances like grammar and verb conjugation.
my gujarati, nee hindi, tutor, on the other hand, presented himself, as most indian men do, as so overqualified for the position as to be insulted that i responded to his ad on craigslist.com. having had the mixed blessing of spending several weekends with my father-in-law and my wife's sordid collection of uncles and grandfathers (every male that an indian knows around her father's age becomes an uncle, regardless of irrelevancies like bloodlines and genetics, and the same is done with men the age of a grandfather), i had grown accustomed to looking past the complimentary and generally unmerited light in which indian men look at themselves, so this personality quirk didn't register an alarm inside of me.
when, however, he began teaching me the gujarati alphabet, i noticed that something was amiss. the letters that i was learning were obviously hindi and not gujarati. (to tell the difference, simply look for a line resting snugly on the top of the letters, like a giant blimp nestling in for a long night on top of a dali-esque skyline of unimaginably curvy and precise buildings. if there is a line, the language is hindi. if not, it's gujarati. of course, i'm ignoring the many other indian languages, but this is my blog. if you want to consider all south asian languages, get your own fucking blog.)
when i pointed out this obvious discrepancy to him, he looked at me with the confidence that only an indian man who has just been proven wrong can muster and calmly and condescendingly remarked, "yes, but hindi is so much more useful, no?"
"yes," i thought to myself. "and chinese is even more useful, if that's what you're going after."
"hindi may be more useful in delhi and even in many other parts of the world," i replied, "but my wife and i are moving to gujarat, where they speak gujarati."
"yes," he replied, obviously losing patience with his cheeky white student. "but now you can impress everybody with your perfect hindi." and with that he smiled gently and with such self-satisfaction that i was momentarily convinced of the righteousness of his position.
luckily, i recovered my sanity quickly and reminded myself that gujarati, despite being a rather obscure and, outside of gujarat, useless language, was what i needed to learn if i had any hope of penetrating the thick force field that can surround the inner workings of indian society.
so i left.
in an attempt to console me, my wife purchased several cd-rom courses in gujarati from the internet, and i've been playing around with those, to some limited success, for the past couple of months. i'm beginning to think that the better approach is to just leave the language-learning for when i arrive. my father-in-law has a tutor all lined up and waiting for me in gujarat, so that's a bonus.
assuming that the tutor really does speak gujarati.
Friday, June 8, 2007
Disclaimer
notice:
all those who find themselves fortunate enough to be mentioned in this blog should not do themselves or the writer the discourtesy of imagining that he feels anything but love and other fluffy things for them. said writer has simply been burdened with a vicious sense of humor and an acerbic tongue. offense is rarely intended, at least not as it concerns people that i'll have to see again.
everything that i write about in this blog has happened. i have not fabricated any facts, places or occurrences. i may take liberties here and there with the specifics of conversations or exaggerate a facial expression, but all stories are true and all criticisms and observations are accurate.
all those who find themselves fortunate enough to be mentioned in this blog should not do themselves or the writer the discourtesy of imagining that he feels anything but love and other fluffy things for them. said writer has simply been burdened with a vicious sense of humor and an acerbic tongue. offense is rarely intended, at least not as it concerns people that i'll have to see again.
everything that i write about in this blog has happened. i have not fabricated any facts, places or occurrences. i may take liberties here and there with the specifics of conversations or exaggerate a facial expression, but all stories are true and all criticisms and observations are accurate.
A Previous Trip
fortunately, my wife and i have been to india as a married couple before. i say "fortunately" because i doubt that i would have suggested the move to india if i hadn't yet experienced the country in all of its glory and decadence. then again, a quick trip to india might be all that most people need to warn them off the country for the rest of their lives.
this life, anyway...
we were married march 4, 2006 in a small, tight ceremony that was performed by my uncle at an italian restaurant. my uncle received his certificate of ministry over the internet at our request and had prepared a really funny and sweet ceremony. we put the entire shebang together over the course of about six weeks, and, by the time the wedding day arrived, we were more relieved than nervous. her parents, siblings and extended family all managed to make it on such short notice, and my family, never having made it out of chicago, had no excuse not to be there. the stark contrast between the two sides of the wedding party could not have been more stark without some surprising coupling between a dog and a cat.
p remarked in amazement that we, as white people, apparently wear the same suits to weddings as we do to funerals. it's astounding, but i had never noticed this very obvious and very simple fact until she pointed it out to me. there was my side, dressed in dull grays and light black suits, with the occasional maverick fashionista deciding to throw everyone a curve ball by daring to sport a red tie.
gasp.
her side, on the other hand, sauntered in at a typically late desi time, dressed to the t in brightly-colored saris and fashionably sharp salwar kameez. there were brilliant reds and oranges, vivid greens and blues, intense yellows and dazzling purples moving effortlessly around the room. after ten minutes in the banquet room, we simple white people were suffering from the kind of sensory overload that is usually reserved for hastily-planned excursions to las vegas. it reminded me of the pictures that you see of hong kong at night, the neon lights ubiquitous and the streets filled with what seems to be one undulating and oozing mass of humanity.
the wedding was a huge success, as people seemed to enjoy themselves and we got married. and that's about all you can ask for from a wedding, right?
in the weeks after the wedding, as we slowly grew accustomed to referring to each other as husband and wife in our conversations with others (and that was, for me at least, the strangest and most difficult part of being married), p also began to plan a trip to india for the two of us. her grandparents were aging and were periodically sick, particularly her maternal grandfather. she wanted me to meet him before he passed away, so we bought tickets to delhi for early august, packed our bags, and departed.
now i've travelled quite a bit, particularly when you consider that i've spent most of my adult life in abject poverty and without any tangible goals in mind. when you have no ambition and no marketable skills combined with a native fluency in english, travelling is the perfect substitute for what your parents call "adult life." i've lived in ecuador twice, the first time when i was nineteen and considering dropping out of school when i stayed for about six months drinking and studying spanish, and then again when i was twenty-four, this time to teach english and practice my spanish a little bit more. and i've also lived in taiwan for a year, a move inspired by a deep and unexpectedly moving experience while watching yi-yi, a wonderful movie set in taipei by edward yang.
living abroad as a young man, one sees and learns things that wouldn't otherwise occur, both inside and outside of oneself. i think that i learned about myself and grew and matured during these trips, and felt that i had encountered different cultures and peoples and new lifestyles and histories and the whole experience was absolutely exhilarating.
but nothing approached the "foreign-ness" that i encountered in india.
the plane ride was atrocious as expected, but the wait in customs wasn't long or disorderly and we were able to walk out into the screaming throngs of people awaiting the arrival of loved ones with the excitement and fervor usually reserved for pre-pubescent groupies of rock-and-roll bands. p's friend karan, n.k.a. chappu, had arranged for us to be picked up by one of his drivers and taken to his sprawling mansion of a house. (how could you not love a country where people have drivers and houses full of servants?)
we arrived at his house, showered, ate and attempted, without much luck, to pass out. the next day - my first full day in india - was spent at her uncle's house in delhi, where we met up with her father, her sister and assorted friends and acquaintances. then it was off to the domestic airport with her father and a short flight to ahmadabad, the largest city in gujarat. we stepped down from the plane on one of those quaint moving staircases, boarded the bus back to the terminal, managed to find our suitcases somewhere on the conveyor belt and got into the van that was waiting to take us to her paternal grandfather's house.
being indian and accustomed to sleeping in uncomfortable positions and strange places, p and her father were soon dead to the rest of the world. i was too tall for the seats and my legs were cramped in with the suitcases and assorted garbage inside of the van, so there was no chance for me to sleep. but as i rode in that silent van, watching the darkness slowly overtake the sun on the horizon, i was able to see india for the first time. i sat with my head leaning against the tinted glass of the back seat, listening to the symphonic snoring from my wife and her father, watching the dirt roads slowly melt into transnational highways and impromptu shanty towns that improbably sprung up over the barren landscape. little naked children strolled through the pothole-marked streets, entirely unconcerned at their own nudity, their mothers sometimes paying attention to the children, sometimes engaged in various other activities. the men strolled down the streets hand in hand, a display of affection and closeness that i had never observed among men and never expected to see in such a darkly homophobic country. the trucks and buses whizzed down the streets, sometimes veering onto the makeshift shoulders of the roads, sometimes simply weaving in and out of traffic, apparently oblivious to the scent of death that hung on all of india's roadways. horns honked, headlights flashed on and off, chewed wads of paan went flying from open windows, children laughed and cried, and the night seemed to go on forever.
i fell in love.
p's grandfather is named chimanbhai. bhai means "brother" and is a common suffix for male's names. to his grandchildren - among whom i could now count myself - he was simply referred to as dadaji, dada meaning "grandfather" and ji a ubiquitous title of respect. his house was more like a compound, a personal gated community in which several members of his family had homes.
the entire seven days in vidyanagar, gujarat went by in a blur of handshakes, food, forced smiles, food, sneaking smiles to servants (you're not supposed to treat the servants like human beings, the wisdom goes, because that's equivalent to spoiling them...) and wonderful indian hospitality.
and food.
i met her maternal grandfather, indubhai, and was lucky enough to have sampled his wife's delicious food. a good thing, too, that i got to meet him, as he passed away this past december. i feel extremely lucky that p had the opportunity to show me off before he passed away, as a married indian woman is considered to have fulfilled one of her two main duties. (i don't think we'll be getting around to her other duty anytime soon, that of bearing children.)
the morning of our return to delhi, the little servant girl that had developed a crush on me worked up the nerve to ask me in her broken english, "when... you... come... next?" i looked at her, delighted in her pride at having spoken these words, and promised her that i would be back in one year.
one year.
that's in less than two months.
this life, anyway...
we were married march 4, 2006 in a small, tight ceremony that was performed by my uncle at an italian restaurant. my uncle received his certificate of ministry over the internet at our request and had prepared a really funny and sweet ceremony. we put the entire shebang together over the course of about six weeks, and, by the time the wedding day arrived, we were more relieved than nervous. her parents, siblings and extended family all managed to make it on such short notice, and my family, never having made it out of chicago, had no excuse not to be there. the stark contrast between the two sides of the wedding party could not have been more stark without some surprising coupling between a dog and a cat.
p remarked in amazement that we, as white people, apparently wear the same suits to weddings as we do to funerals. it's astounding, but i had never noticed this very obvious and very simple fact until she pointed it out to me. there was my side, dressed in dull grays and light black suits, with the occasional maverick fashionista deciding to throw everyone a curve ball by daring to sport a red tie.
gasp.
her side, on the other hand, sauntered in at a typically late desi time, dressed to the t in brightly-colored saris and fashionably sharp salwar kameez. there were brilliant reds and oranges, vivid greens and blues, intense yellows and dazzling purples moving effortlessly around the room. after ten minutes in the banquet room, we simple white people were suffering from the kind of sensory overload that is usually reserved for hastily-planned excursions to las vegas. it reminded me of the pictures that you see of hong kong at night, the neon lights ubiquitous and the streets filled with what seems to be one undulating and oozing mass of humanity.
the wedding was a huge success, as people seemed to enjoy themselves and we got married. and that's about all you can ask for from a wedding, right?
in the weeks after the wedding, as we slowly grew accustomed to referring to each other as husband and wife in our conversations with others (and that was, for me at least, the strangest and most difficult part of being married), p also began to plan a trip to india for the two of us. her grandparents were aging and were periodically sick, particularly her maternal grandfather. she wanted me to meet him before he passed away, so we bought tickets to delhi for early august, packed our bags, and departed.
now i've travelled quite a bit, particularly when you consider that i've spent most of my adult life in abject poverty and without any tangible goals in mind. when you have no ambition and no marketable skills combined with a native fluency in english, travelling is the perfect substitute for what your parents call "adult life." i've lived in ecuador twice, the first time when i was nineteen and considering dropping out of school when i stayed for about six months drinking and studying spanish, and then again when i was twenty-four, this time to teach english and practice my spanish a little bit more. and i've also lived in taiwan for a year, a move inspired by a deep and unexpectedly moving experience while watching yi-yi, a wonderful movie set in taipei by edward yang.
living abroad as a young man, one sees and learns things that wouldn't otherwise occur, both inside and outside of oneself. i think that i learned about myself and grew and matured during these trips, and felt that i had encountered different cultures and peoples and new lifestyles and histories and the whole experience was absolutely exhilarating.
but nothing approached the "foreign-ness" that i encountered in india.
the plane ride was atrocious as expected, but the wait in customs wasn't long or disorderly and we were able to walk out into the screaming throngs of people awaiting the arrival of loved ones with the excitement and fervor usually reserved for pre-pubescent groupies of rock-and-roll bands. p's friend karan, n.k.a. chappu, had arranged for us to be picked up by one of his drivers and taken to his sprawling mansion of a house. (how could you not love a country where people have drivers and houses full of servants?)
we arrived at his house, showered, ate and attempted, without much luck, to pass out. the next day - my first full day in india - was spent at her uncle's house in delhi, where we met up with her father, her sister and assorted friends and acquaintances. then it was off to the domestic airport with her father and a short flight to ahmadabad, the largest city in gujarat. we stepped down from the plane on one of those quaint moving staircases, boarded the bus back to the terminal, managed to find our suitcases somewhere on the conveyor belt and got into the van that was waiting to take us to her paternal grandfather's house.
being indian and accustomed to sleeping in uncomfortable positions and strange places, p and her father were soon dead to the rest of the world. i was too tall for the seats and my legs were cramped in with the suitcases and assorted garbage inside of the van, so there was no chance for me to sleep. but as i rode in that silent van, watching the darkness slowly overtake the sun on the horizon, i was able to see india for the first time. i sat with my head leaning against the tinted glass of the back seat, listening to the symphonic snoring from my wife and her father, watching the dirt roads slowly melt into transnational highways and impromptu shanty towns that improbably sprung up over the barren landscape. little naked children strolled through the pothole-marked streets, entirely unconcerned at their own nudity, their mothers sometimes paying attention to the children, sometimes engaged in various other activities. the men strolled down the streets hand in hand, a display of affection and closeness that i had never observed among men and never expected to see in such a darkly homophobic country. the trucks and buses whizzed down the streets, sometimes veering onto the makeshift shoulders of the roads, sometimes simply weaving in and out of traffic, apparently oblivious to the scent of death that hung on all of india's roadways. horns honked, headlights flashed on and off, chewed wads of paan went flying from open windows, children laughed and cried, and the night seemed to go on forever.
i fell in love.
p's grandfather is named chimanbhai. bhai means "brother" and is a common suffix for male's names. to his grandchildren - among whom i could now count myself - he was simply referred to as dadaji, dada meaning "grandfather" and ji a ubiquitous title of respect. his house was more like a compound, a personal gated community in which several members of his family had homes.
the entire seven days in vidyanagar, gujarat went by in a blur of handshakes, food, forced smiles, food, sneaking smiles to servants (you're not supposed to treat the servants like human beings, the wisdom goes, because that's equivalent to spoiling them...) and wonderful indian hospitality.
and food.
i met her maternal grandfather, indubhai, and was lucky enough to have sampled his wife's delicious food. a good thing, too, that i got to meet him, as he passed away this past december. i feel extremely lucky that p had the opportunity to show me off before he passed away, as a married indian woman is considered to have fulfilled one of her two main duties. (i don't think we'll be getting around to her other duty anytime soon, that of bearing children.)
the morning of our return to delhi, the little servant girl that had developed a crush on me worked up the nerve to ask me in her broken english, "when... you... come... next?" i looked at her, delighted in her pride at having spoken these words, and promised her that i would be back in one year.
one year.
that's in less than two months.
Thursday, June 7, 2007
Packing List
here is our packing list, in no particular order:
2 frisbees
baseball gloves
4 baseballs
dvd collection (including movies and television shows, over 500 discs)
matthew's shoes (1 pair flip-flops, 1 pair sneakers, 1 pair dress shoes)
p's shoes (3 pair flip-flops, 2 pair sneakers, 2 pair heels, etc.)
p's journal
music cd's (not many, as most of our music is digital now)
portable dvd player
play station 2 + 2 controllers
wedding photo (awww - ain't we cute?)
laptop
digital + camera + connecting wires
perfume
pill boxes
extra birth control
glasses
optical focus exercises (cuz our vision sucks)
important documents (diplomas, passports, marriage certificate, etc.)
underwear
socks
matthew's shirts (maybe 7 t-shirts, 4 button-up shirts, sweatshirt, assorted sweaters)
p's shirts (god only knows what she has in her closet)
2 tide pens
aveeno body lotion
tweezers
malaria pills
dental floss
shower clock
matthew's pants (1 pair jeans, 2 pair nice pants, 3 lengo jhuppos)
other p clothes
diabetes glucose meter
sneaker arch support inserts
eyeglass screwdriver
miniature ganesh (p swears it's not religious, but rather a good luck item...)
i know that we've already forgotten several necessary items, but that's why one makes packing lists long before the departure date. august first - that's now officially under two months. it's so soon and i can barely contain my excitement. it's so difficult to focus on such mundane activities like packing and working on the sale of the condo, but completing these things will allow us to leave with no stress and minimal worries.
p and i watched a documentary about india last night, appropriately titled "the soul of india." it was really good, though the production values were a bit cheap. it was done by this guy named rick ray, who apparently was a scuzzy backpacker before turning scuzzy documentarian. he basically spent half a year touring around india and, like any self-respecting backpacker, he made sure to visit every hidden corner of india and apparently double-checked under every rock. the documentary is about ninety minutes long, and in that ninety minutes he actually manages to give a nice overview of the different regions and peoples of india while offering some decent historical context. not surprisingly, the state that we'll be living in, gujarat, was barely mentioned, as the state and the people are generally the most boring people in india.
hooray, gujarat.
there is a direct connection for me between watching movies set in a particular location and visiting said location. after all, the entire reason that i became interested in moving to taiwan six or seven years ago was because i watched and fell in love with the movie yi-yi by edward yang. (i still highly recommend this movie for anyone and everyone - it is, in my humble opinion, the best movie ever made...) i saw the movie with my parents on st. patrick's day, 2001, and by the end of august of that year, i had seen yi-yi four more times and had completed my move to taiwan. i was a cocky and confused twenty-three year old with a misanthropic streak and the wide-eyed excitement of a five-year-old.
i attempted to do the same thing to get myself inspired and excited about my subsequent trip to ecuador, but the only part of ecuador worth wasting film on is the galapagos islands, and those don't really count as part of ecuador, at least not if you want an idea about ecuadorian society. there was one mildly popular movie that i know of that's set in ecuador - i think its called ratas, ratones y el ratonero - but that's set on the pacific coast in the slums of guayaqil and the spanish is impossible to understand if you're not a native speaker. but this documentary is just perfect for psyching myself into the trip - ray shows all of india, from the congested cities to the congested countryside, and, for good measure, also adds short clips of the congested tourist traps.
fortunately, neither p nor i have much interest in those places that get the most tourist foot traffic. most tourists to india are either the dirty post-college, pre-unemployment backpackers who come to india in search of some pseudo-spirituality or the mildly wealthy white couples who find it a fucking riot to be served alcoholic drinks by diminutive indian waiters dressed like carnival freaks in turbans. i guess part of the essential indian experience for most travellers is not having to see the real, frenetic and messy life of india.
i guess we plan on trying to see as many sides of india as possible. we have the time and the energy, if not the money, but that's probably good. the lack of money will force us off the beaten path more than we might otherwise choose to do, and that can on;y enrich the experience.
at least that's what i'm telling myself now.
2 frisbees
baseball gloves
4 baseballs
dvd collection (including movies and television shows, over 500 discs)
matthew's shoes (1 pair flip-flops, 1 pair sneakers, 1 pair dress shoes)
p's shoes (3 pair flip-flops, 2 pair sneakers, 2 pair heels, etc.)
p's journal
music cd's (not many, as most of our music is digital now)
portable dvd player
play station 2 + 2 controllers
wedding photo (awww - ain't we cute?)
laptop
digital + camera + connecting wires
perfume
pill boxes
extra birth control
glasses
optical focus exercises (cuz our vision sucks)
important documents (diplomas, passports, marriage certificate, etc.)
underwear
socks
matthew's shirts (maybe 7 t-shirts, 4 button-up shirts, sweatshirt, assorted sweaters)
p's shirts (god only knows what she has in her closet)
2 tide pens
aveeno body lotion
tweezers
malaria pills
dental floss
shower clock
matthew's pants (1 pair jeans, 2 pair nice pants, 3 lengo jhuppos)
other p clothes
diabetes glucose meter
sneaker arch support inserts
eyeglass screwdriver
miniature ganesh (p swears it's not religious, but rather a good luck item...)
i know that we've already forgotten several necessary items, but that's why one makes packing lists long before the departure date. august first - that's now officially under two months. it's so soon and i can barely contain my excitement. it's so difficult to focus on such mundane activities like packing and working on the sale of the condo, but completing these things will allow us to leave with no stress and minimal worries.
p and i watched a documentary about india last night, appropriately titled "the soul of india." it was really good, though the production values were a bit cheap. it was done by this guy named rick ray, who apparently was a scuzzy backpacker before turning scuzzy documentarian. he basically spent half a year touring around india and, like any self-respecting backpacker, he made sure to visit every hidden corner of india and apparently double-checked under every rock. the documentary is about ninety minutes long, and in that ninety minutes he actually manages to give a nice overview of the different regions and peoples of india while offering some decent historical context. not surprisingly, the state that we'll be living in, gujarat, was barely mentioned, as the state and the people are generally the most boring people in india.
hooray, gujarat.
there is a direct connection for me between watching movies set in a particular location and visiting said location. after all, the entire reason that i became interested in moving to taiwan six or seven years ago was because i watched and fell in love with the movie yi-yi by edward yang. (i still highly recommend this movie for anyone and everyone - it is, in my humble opinion, the best movie ever made...) i saw the movie with my parents on st. patrick's day, 2001, and by the end of august of that year, i had seen yi-yi four more times and had completed my move to taiwan. i was a cocky and confused twenty-three year old with a misanthropic streak and the wide-eyed excitement of a five-year-old.
i attempted to do the same thing to get myself inspired and excited about my subsequent trip to ecuador, but the only part of ecuador worth wasting film on is the galapagos islands, and those don't really count as part of ecuador, at least not if you want an idea about ecuadorian society. there was one mildly popular movie that i know of that's set in ecuador - i think its called ratas, ratones y el ratonero - but that's set on the pacific coast in the slums of guayaqil and the spanish is impossible to understand if you're not a native speaker. but this documentary is just perfect for psyching myself into the trip - ray shows all of india, from the congested cities to the congested countryside, and, for good measure, also adds short clips of the congested tourist traps.
fortunately, neither p nor i have much interest in those places that get the most tourist foot traffic. most tourists to india are either the dirty post-college, pre-unemployment backpackers who come to india in search of some pseudo-spirituality or the mildly wealthy white couples who find it a fucking riot to be served alcoholic drinks by diminutive indian waiters dressed like carnival freaks in turbans. i guess part of the essential indian experience for most travellers is not having to see the real, frenetic and messy life of india.
i guess we plan on trying to see as many sides of india as possible. we have the time and the energy, if not the money, but that's probably good. the lack of money will force us off the beaten path more than we might otherwise choose to do, and that can on;y enrich the experience.
at least that's what i'm telling myself now.
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
The Plan
it all seemed seductively simple: move to india at the end of the summer. of course, everything that seems easy turns out to be excessively difficult and all of my good ideas sour with the light of day.
i guess that my wife and i were kind of bored with our current lives as law students and feared becoming just another annoying yuppie couple in chicago, taking in cubs games during the summer and sipping wine at a dimly-lit watering hole during the colder months. i've certainly never aspired to such a bland, bar-coded existence and, fortunately for my sanity, my wife felt the same way. india seemed a natural choice, as my wife's parents were born there, her grandparents and assorted aunts, uncles and friends still reside there, and she is fluent in gujarati. (gujarati is the language of the western state of gujarat, where we will be living.) and, in the end, it's fucking india. what could two young travellers want that india doesn't offer? (besides privacy, a sewage system, paved roads and racial diversity...)
after worrying about the reactions we would get from our parents - we thought mine would roll their eyes, shrug their shoulders and yell "again?," while we were convinced that her parents would melodramatically construct a funeral pyre and threaten suicide over the shame of raising such an unproductive and ungrateful child.
fortunately, none of this happened.
my wife is now studying for the bar exam, which she will take on the last consecutive tuesday and wednesday in july, leaving her about a week to slouch around the house, pretending to help me finish the packing job that it will have taken me all summer to finish. in addition to packing for the move, i am also in charge of packing up our entire condo, as we hope to have it sold by the time we leave. if this doesn't happen - and it probably won't - then we get into difficult financial times and will have to appeal to the better parts of our parents' natures for help.
and asking for help from parents while attempting such an irresponsible move is not something i am looking forward to.
so here we are. i spend most of time playing tiger woods on the ps2 and trying to look busy. this is more complicated than it seems, for appearing busy while not actually doing anything requires an amount of skill and deftness that normally evades me. but, no worries - i'm a quick learner and am enjoying the finer points of slackerdom.
life is good.
i guess that my wife and i were kind of bored with our current lives as law students and feared becoming just another annoying yuppie couple in chicago, taking in cubs games during the summer and sipping wine at a dimly-lit watering hole during the colder months. i've certainly never aspired to such a bland, bar-coded existence and, fortunately for my sanity, my wife felt the same way. india seemed a natural choice, as my wife's parents were born there, her grandparents and assorted aunts, uncles and friends still reside there, and she is fluent in gujarati. (gujarati is the language of the western state of gujarat, where we will be living.) and, in the end, it's fucking india. what could two young travellers want that india doesn't offer? (besides privacy, a sewage system, paved roads and racial diversity...)
after worrying about the reactions we would get from our parents - we thought mine would roll their eyes, shrug their shoulders and yell "again?," while we were convinced that her parents would melodramatically construct a funeral pyre and threaten suicide over the shame of raising such an unproductive and ungrateful child.
fortunately, none of this happened.
my wife is now studying for the bar exam, which she will take on the last consecutive tuesday and wednesday in july, leaving her about a week to slouch around the house, pretending to help me finish the packing job that it will have taken me all summer to finish. in addition to packing for the move, i am also in charge of packing up our entire condo, as we hope to have it sold by the time we leave. if this doesn't happen - and it probably won't - then we get into difficult financial times and will have to appeal to the better parts of our parents' natures for help.
and asking for help from parents while attempting such an irresponsible move is not something i am looking forward to.
so here we are. i spend most of time playing tiger woods on the ps2 and trying to look busy. this is more complicated than it seems, for appearing busy while not actually doing anything requires an amount of skill and deftness that normally evades me. but, no worries - i'm a quick learner and am enjoying the finer points of slackerdom.
life is good.
Preparing for the Big Move
who knew that there were so many things to do before leaving for india? what's better is that my wife, prerna, is in the midst of studying for the bar exam, so the task of packing is pretty much left up to me. this would not be a dautning job for most people, but for me, this seems like a mission of sisyphus-tic proportions. i have never been what people would call "neat" or "organized" - i was always the kid in grammar school whose desk was being shook out in front of the class because i couldn't find my homework, my textbooks or my more diminutive classmates. now i get to make exhaustive lists of doo-dads and gadgets that we may or may not use, but that my wife finds essential to drag across the world with us.
after all, when one travels to india, one doesn't want to do without two extra pairs of tweezers, lest one join in the indian tradition of overgrown unibrows that dominate the landscape of the lower forehead. one also must bring a plethora of shaving gear, electric and otherwise, for one must always stand guard against the growing of a muuch, the ubiquitous indian mustache. (seriously, men still walk around with handlebar mustaches and are actually quite proud of the look.) we're bringing our portable dvd player and our collection of more than three hundred movies, several hundred discs worth of recycled television shows, assorted books, a laptop, over a dozen pairs of shoes between the two of us (three for me and ten or eleven for her), hand lotion, and now i'm considering packing a rosary in case i lose my mind and turn to god.
okay. duty calls. my wife is in the other room studying, the cats are crying because i haven't cleaned the litter box in a couple of days, and i have to run to target to begin the shopping.
who knew that moving to india would be so much fun?
after all, when one travels to india, one doesn't want to do without two extra pairs of tweezers, lest one join in the indian tradition of overgrown unibrows that dominate the landscape of the lower forehead. one also must bring a plethora of shaving gear, electric and otherwise, for one must always stand guard against the growing of a muuch, the ubiquitous indian mustache. (seriously, men still walk around with handlebar mustaches and are actually quite proud of the look.) we're bringing our portable dvd player and our collection of more than three hundred movies, several hundred discs worth of recycled television shows, assorted books, a laptop, over a dozen pairs of shoes between the two of us (three for me and ten or eleven for her), hand lotion, and now i'm considering packing a rosary in case i lose my mind and turn to god.
okay. duty calls. my wife is in the other room studying, the cats are crying because i haven't cleaned the litter box in a couple of days, and i have to run to target to begin the shopping.
who knew that moving to india would be so much fun?
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