In A Tiffin

Happiness is a warm tiffin at 7:30 . . . this is my tiffin, a thermos (minus any cartoon affiliations) loaded with hot vegetarian Indian foodstuffs. Every night the tiffin man comes, wearing shorts (rare here) and a combover (more prevalent, but not so common as the mustache) and looking like he just came off of a golf course in Augusta, bearing about 25 plastic thermoses for the girls living in our hostel. He speaks better English than most of the shopkeepers here, and is unfailingly friendly and attentive. He saw that we weren't eating the home-packaged yogurt (partially because people insist on calling it "curd," which sounds inedible to begin with) and started getting us Dahi brand, a respectable yogurt here. He charges about 75 cents a day for a full meal in stackable metal dishes: each night we get white rice, roti (indian wheat tortillas), lentil soup of some fashion--could be yellow, could be brown--and an entree. There's also a little plastic container of cucumbers and limes which I'm not supposed to eat, but I don't know how long I can really hold out. Entrees range from really spicy green beans to barbeque-spiced kidney beans to spicy cauliflower to spicy potatoes. There seems to be a theme. . . but I think it's all great. We all spend a little too much time relating digestive stories here, but I've been incredibly lucky so far (knock on Redwood). Also, I've been eating tiffins for three weeks and haven't paid a dime yet. He bills at the end of the month. My bill will be $19.50 for a whole month of dinners Monday-Saturday. Below is the typical spread:
Since Mumbai's a large city, many workers don't get to go home for lunch, and others who come from the villages make a trip about once a month. Actually, we've found out that the cafeteria workers at the business school live there, sleeping on the cafeteria floors at night. Just like Horn & Hardart's replicated home-cooked meals in the big cities of the early and mid-twentieth century, Mumbai has establishments with signs outside saying "Lunch Home." It is the same language, they just use it differently. We realized quickly that we weren't really welcome in these places when looking around we were the only women inside and while others were served in 5 minutes, our lunch took over 45, but in general I haven't felt unwelcome often, which is more than I can say for a lot of tourists and immigrants in Philadelphia, I'm sure.

Matunga Central

Here are some scenes from my neighborhood, Matunga, named after the train station down the street. Unfortunately, there are two Matungas in Mumbai. I'm all for giving the other one an alternate name, but others seem to disagree.
My school is a large modern building, just a few blocks away from my dorm, on the main street, "Napoo."







There's a market just a few blocks away where you can get a DVD player, a guava, nailpolish, etc.

This is my favorite picture so far, taken right outside of the market. I'd have zoomed in on the vendor's face, but I wanted to show the atmosphere in the background, too. . .
I'm going to catch an American/Bollywood film, but I'll post more pictures later this weekend.

Namaste!. . . Hello?

Welcome to Mumbai! The picture above is the gate of my hostel out to the street--big, leafy palms and other trees, crumbling slate (?) sidewalks and the occasional car. It's a sleepy pathway, two blocks removed from a bustling market street:


I soon learned that the only word of Hindi that I know, the greeting "namaste," is pretty much obsolete in the big city, especially among the more cosmopolitan crowd. When I asked some of the girls in my dorm (called a hostel) how to say "thank you" in the semi-official Indian language, they all looked at each other for a moment before telling me that I'd seem pretty antiquated if I tried to use it. My best bet is to go with plain old "thank you."

It's taken me a while to share my first posting--I've been here for a whole week now, but some things are slow going around here, like internet hookups. Just like in the US, the IT guys have their own odd corner (their nook is shared at the college with a separate glassed-in room where the server sits in brightly-lit wired isolation like an electric-chair victim), their own secrets, and apparently, their own timetable. There's a fluidity of time best described, I think by the following actual conversation:
Me: "So you said that your servicemen were going to be here at 4:00 pm yesterday and we waited for them for three hours."
IT: "Yes. They will be there today. What time will you be home?"
"What time should we be home?"
"Well, 4:00. They'll be there 4:00, 4:30."
"No problem. We'll be here at 4:00 to let you in."
"Yes, they'll be there 4:30, maybe 5:00."
"Ok. But will they really be there?"
"Yes. 5:00, 5:30 maybe."
This chronological line of bargaining went on for several days. And just like in a modern Indian fairytale, the third time was the charm.
Meanwhile, my roommate's modem blew out temporarily somehow, and we were wondering if they had chug-through tech support stops for Dell customers on autorickshaws.

I have more pictures and many more experiences to post in the next few days, just not more time tonight. "Thank you" for reading. . . did I pronounce it right?

So you're moving to India . . .

This pending move has been difficult for a lot of people to fathom (including myself). My friends are excited, my family's curious, and as for others, well, there have been a spectrum of reactions. Some people have been concerned about my preparations, making sure that I "don't eat too much curry before I go," and that it's occurred to me to get a visa. Others are more interested in my trip itself. While many people have expressed concern about health precautions, some are focusing on cultural exchange and sensitivity to diverse ways of living. I have been warmly cautioned by two people, "don't fall in love with a guru," seeing through my protestations that I'm not going to Mumbai for 5 months just to find a husband. A concerned acquaintance notably asked if I'd have to wear a burqa (?!). Only for powerpoint presentations. Helps with masking public speaking-related facial tics.

My travel medicine provider told me a story about how the day after she moved her son to college for his freshman year, the boy who sat across from him at the dining hall breakfast fell ill and died of meningitis. Thinking of the New Jersey-on-steroids population density stats, I sprang for the vaccine. She also advised me, after I opted out of the $700 rabies shot series, not to pet cows, even if they "look cute." I've often said there's nothing more adorable than a rabid cow, so this might be a particularly difficult hurdle for me, lonely in a foreign country.

Some people did proffer incredibly helpful information: one of my new classmates gave me information for Suma Travels, a midtown Manhattan discount travel agency which caters mostly to Indians in America planning visits home. I'd highly recommend their rates for anyone interested in traveling to India soon (*visiting me*).

In terms of my preparations, I've gotten my shots and Typhoid pills (which need to be refrigerated at 46F max, but I was permitted to carry home from the doctor's in 95-degree heat), bought my tickets and gave my notice at both jobs. I've paid my last month's rent at the trash-moated South Street Castle.

But I'm still approaching malaria limbo (how $high can you go). Pill D costs $.60 per day but causes digestive problems and other lovely issues. Pill M has virtually no side effects, but costs $6 a day. Pill L is affordable taken only once a week, but can cause and intensify depression. None are covered by my insurance. Since my tourist visa will render me inelegible for a call-center job, I'm not looking kindly on taking out a loan to cover preventative malaria costs on Pill M ($900 total), but Pill D's warnings would compound math homework and the expected constant low-grade stomach disturbance. So I'm hoping against hope that Powerball comes through and/or Pill L doesn't shut me down. . . and wondering what others have selected.


P.S. Thanks, Alli, for titling my blog. Genius at work.