India v2

(the picture is the street right outside of the office I'm using)

In this blog post I’ll just write down some things that I have realized that are different than the US. Everything is very different, but here are some of the things that I’ve noticed/ things that are really cool:

• - India’s hospitality thus far has been amazing. I was staying at Nilay’s, an AISEC’er, house for the first two days and the family did everything they could to make sure that I was comfortable. They made out extra beds, brought me water even if I didn’t ask for it and many other things. Nilay’s mother also would come and ask us what we wanted for breakfast and bring us tea each morning. One thing that I found funny was they kept saying that I should stop saying thank you, because it was almost their duty, therefore they shouldn’t be thanked. On Monday, I went and visited another friend’s cousin’s house. Niyaz, the friend, took me to their house and said that I was the first American that the family had ever seen. After I got there the small daughter ran in the back and got the mother and grandmother who looked at me from the doorway. They were very shy at first, but then were asking for pictures and saying that I looked like Harry Potter. The boy even took a picture with his phone and told me he was sending it to all his friends saying that he made a friend with a white person! They insisted that I have lunch with them and were giving me more food than I could handle. That was a really cool experience for me, and hopefully for them as well.
• Another thing I noticed is the sheer volume of hired help that there is in houses, restaurants, etc. When I go to a place to eat there are literally half a dozen waiters on one table, and every house that I have seen has people that come in to sweep the floors, deliver clean laundry etc. Some of the Indians were telling me that this is due to the massive wealth discrepancies here. The rich people have more money than they know what to do with so they hire people in order to employ some of their friends that may not be as well off.
• Going off of the last one, there have been several times where we have gotten discounts at places because the people working there were friends of who I was with. At one of Nilay’s friend’s restaurants (Zeeshan) we got a 300 rupee discount and at another place, I got a discount on my phone because the person with me, Dominique, knew the owner.
• For me, being a white, non-Guajarati speaking person, describing to a rickshaw driver what I need is nearly impossible. Through miming, pointing and slaughtering the Gujarat language I am able to describe somewhere close to where I need to be going. Then when I say “kitna paisa” or how much, I am always overcharged by around 30 rupees because I’m white. Finally if I can’t talk them down in price I move on to the next one, or if they finally go down to a manageable price it’s off through the deathly traffic to wherever I’m going.
• Time for writing about traffic, because I’ve referenced it a few times. I think that I’ve come to the conclusion that all Indians on mopeds are at least semi-suicidal. Instead of doing a U-turn to get to a store that is on the other side of the road’s median, my driver will instead go the wrong way down the road into oncoming traffic… holding down his horn the whole time. Indians will also stroll out into the road as pedestrians, and the traffic will miraculously part around them, no matter how busy the road is. (I haven’t gotten the hang of this yet, however). Also if some people are on one moped and friends on another, then the two will have conversations while going down the road, weaving in and out of lanes/cows/people/mango carts/ busses/trash etc. etc. (Several times Ive seen people texting, talking to a friend on another moped and driving in this madness) Another funny thing about traffic dynamics here is that cows are literally the ONLY thing that traffic will yield to. I say this from personal experience as I was almost late to my first day of work due to a cow-induced traffic jam. Couple all of this with the sheer volume of traffic and you have a recipe for disaster.
• - Some of the best food that I’ve had so far has been from random little places on the street. My most frequented place is a stand that crushes fresh sugar cane and lemon into a glass which makes a greenish liquid. It’s really sweet and very good. I had pan at a stand, which as I said last time, was only a memorable experience because of how strange/awful it tasted (first and only time I thought I was gonna lose my dinner since being in India). There are good veggie burger stands everywhere also that will give you good burgers for 15-30 rupees (like 30-75 cents).

That’s all I can think of for now, but there will be more anecdotes and stories to follow.