MMM: Men, monkeys and mosquitoes…

So these three m’s are abundant here. I feel like I have never seen so many men, monkeys and mosquitoes at one time and in one place.

Men… us women, we love them and we hate them, we take care of them and we want them to appreciate us, we would like to be independent and happy without them, but we always find ourselves seeking and falling for them… Some of them hurt us when we get involved too deeply with the ones, who don’t deserve it, but others make us feel so loved and beautiful, that even if the passion is short-lived it justifies the seeking and helps to heal old wounds... At least, it did for me…

Well, men in India are much luckier than many men in the West. Indian women are beautiful, caring, devoted for life and much more submissive than most of us western girls. Whenever a guy is ready to settle and marry, his parents or the agency will easily help him out, and that woman will do her best to keep that man happy to the end of her days. It still amazes me that it works as well as it does here, although, of course it’s not always perfect. And now it’s slowly changing especially among educated and working women. I am realizing that these arranged relationships mostly work due to the strength of marriage institution, very strong family values and housewife mentality. But men rarely show in public love for these women.

Public display of affection (PDA) among men and women is almost inexistent here, which is so different from Brazil J. Indian men who are so cuddly and touchy inside the house will keep distance from their wife/girlfriend in public. On the other hand, PDA between two men is very common, more common than I have ever seen anywhere else (doesn’t help that I’ve mostly lived in very macho cultures). You can frequently see two men with mustache holding hands, fondling each other, sitting in each other lap and being so cozily affectionate with one another that sometimes I feel I am back in Castro district in SF. It also doesn’t help that pink (various shades of it) is a very common and popular shirt color among men here. Homosexuality, of course, “does not exist” in India… Yeh, right… But these men whom I am writing about are usually not gay couples (at least not openly), but just good friends, many of them married or hoping to marry one day. I am saying this with confidence, because many of them are my friends. Enough about men, lets talk about monkeys.

Monkeys… For years I’ve been traveling around Latin America always searching for them, hiking for many miles to be able to spot them in Brazil and traveling to the distant lands to get a glimpse of them in Costa Rica. Guess what, India is just as packed with monkeys, as its streets are abundant with men (women are inside the houses), and cows. But I do love monkeys! They are so entertaining to watch and they remind me of us, humans, very much. Honestly, I have seen more street monkeys here than cats (there are still quite a few dogs roaming around the streets). And they stick close to temples, train stations and roads, knowing that that’s the easiest way to get food. Traveling on a miniature train from Ooty on my way to Kerala, I saw a monkey finishing a cup of tea (that was tossed by one of the passengers on the train stop) and another one looking very sad when it realized that there are no more potato chips in the Lay’s bag handed to it by a passenger.

Although, they are so cute and entertaining when they look for flees on each other, drink tea or beg for food, they are more dangerous than malaria mosquitoes. Each year 30,000 people die in this country from rabies transmitted through monkey bites (stats taken from Lonely Planet). So even though, I would love to pet one of them I am resisting the temptation and limiting my PDA to monkeys with photography. Fine, enough about primates, lets talk about insects.

So mosquitoes… These vicious and annoying bugs are everywhere, India, Ukraine, Brazil, Peru, Costa Rica… I still remember the sleepless night in Brazil after we finished two-day track in Chapada Diamantina, swollen and bloody legs of a Canadian volunteer at Costa de Oro in Costa Rica and my poor x-boyfriend and my mom always fighting with mosquitoes in Ukraine. These creatures have never particularly bothered me, and I would have hardly even noticed them if they didn’t make any noise. But here, in India, I fear them as much as I fear auto-rickshaws and motorcycles hitting me when I am crossing the street. After seeing my roommate in bed for two weeks with dengue and reading all the scary stories about malaria, I cannot just watch them suck my blood and be ok with it. I joined the paranoid mosquito haters and now spend 10 minutes every night killing those damn things before I go to bed, caring repellant with me everywhere I go and even succumbed to taking anti-malaria meds, which, regretfully, contrary to my expectations, did not make me hallucinate.

Well, those three m’s… India has definitely changed my perception on all them…

Madhya Pradesh

Even though, it’s a little overdue I want to dedicate this post to Akhand, my wonderful research assistant, housemate, and dost (friend in Hindi). When Srikumar, CMF administrator, sent me an email with my tickets to Bhopal for July 2nd, I realized that my fun and social life in Chennai is coming to an end. I was going alone to backward Madhya Pradesh to conduct various interviews for my financial inclusion project. Suvojit, project supervisor, kept telling me not to worry because Akhand Tiwari, RA for the project, lives in Jabalpur and will help me out with everything. He was right; my worries were groundless.

I arrived in Bhopal with my entire luggage after 27 - hour train ride from Chennai, which wasn’t very pleasant due to my rude co-travelers. Akhand arranged for his friend Parikshit to pick me up from the train station and show me around Indian Institute of Forest Management (IIFM) campus where I was staying for next few days. The difference between Bhopal and Chennai was drastic. IIFM campus is located on top of the hill in the middle of the beautiful lush forest with great lake views. Fresh air and ability to go for a jog helped me to get over the nostalgia for fun times in polluted Chennai.

Exercising has been very difficult for me in India. In Chennai, although I couldn’t go for a run outside, at least for two weeks I had access to a small gym in my apartment building. Later when I came to Jabalpur and started looking for a yoga studio or a gym, I found out that most of the gyms in the city were for men only (Akhand told me that the gym for ladies does exist but it’s very far from where we lived). The alternative was to get up at 5 am to go for a jog through dirty city streets before the motorcycles, trucks and rickshaws start aiming for my life. I managed to get up that early only once during the whole time in Jabalpur. My exercise life became limited to a jail workout (sit-ups and push-ups in my room). But this was later, after I left Bhopal and realized that not all MP cities are that green and running friendly. Walking to places is also not an option, in Jabalpur it was mostly scary motorcycle rides (with Akhand driving against one-way busy traffic) and in Bhopal I had my private rickshaw driver whose name was Babloo and who always charged me 100rps no matter where I went.

Some of the most memorable moments for me in Bhopal are fun times with local students, who showed interest in hanging out with a foreigner and showed me places around Bhopal. Parikshit took me to Bhopal State museum, Rewasa entertained me with her fear of water and paddle boats on the lake, and Ritwajit played tennis with me, rode double seat bicycle in Van Vihar watching tigers and took me to eat meat (first time in 3 weeks). Speaking of eating meat, I never knew that I could survive for so long being vegetarian. Most of my local friends in MP who are Hindu from higher casts do not eat meat or fish or eggs, but Ritwajit who happens to be from West Bengal (carnivore state) saved me from turning vegetarian. When I returned to Bhopal for the second time for interviews we went to a great restaurant to indulge and savor chicken and mutton. On the other hand, I can’t complain about great vegetarian dishes that Akhand cooked for me in Jabalpur. Fresh made chapattis by his made, chili pepper omelets and pressure-cooked basmati rice with vegetables were my favorite. In those days I also discovered my love for pannier (tofu-like hard cheese), which replaced my protein need for meat. Today some of my favorite dishes are pannier tikka, pannier masala and palack pannier. Later in Chennai, I was even putting it into my egg scrambles. So back to MP…


Back in June when I found out I will be spending most of my India time in MP, I was excited about an opportunity to visit some of the most famous national parks in India for spotting tigers. I had these wild plans to ride elephants and look for tigers… That excitement was a little rushed. There is this thing called monsoon, and every year all the national parks are closed from mid June to mid November. But one weekend Akhand organized a fun day trip to marble rocks, Bandi damn and famous river, which name I can’t neither remember no pronounce. We had a great time getting soaked in the boat, walking through the river and shopping. His friends Phart and Joety who came visit for a weekend were a great company. Even though language barrier was a little problem, Joety and I became great friends and it was a weekend when I learned most of my Hindi vocabulary.

Overall, the month of my field-work in MP was very memorable and fun, mostly thanks to Akhand’s effort and kindness, and other great people that I met during my stay in MP (Ashish and family, Mahesh and his wife, women in villages, professor Biswas, madam from Pradan…)

Do we really need Financial Inclusion?

Do we really need 100% financial inclusion (FI)? This should be a silly question since the whole point of the project I am doing in Madhya Pradesh is to determine what are the obstacles to scaling up financial inclusion in this state, what needs to be done to increase financial inclusion, and why MP is so far behind other “progressive” states?

First of all, we should establish what FI really means. Is it a no-thrill bank account with small or 0 balance, no ATM card and no checkbook (these are being generously opened by Indian banks to improve FI)? Is it a woman, who took out a loan from some financial institution, spent it on her child’s malaria treatment and now is in debt? Does it mean having a smart card (Photo-ID card with fingerprints and bank account number), which allows a villager to receive their pensions and other governmental assistance in a more efficient way? Or does it mean having life insurance to protect your family from misery in case you die in a motorcycle crash? Yes, all these things mean financial inclusion and are gaining a huge importance in India and by some are viewed as a solution for poverty reduction in rural areas.

Unfortunately, the bureaucrats in this country and others only want to see their numbers of achievement. They want to see that financial inclusion has reached 100% by 2012. They even embraced microfinance (MF) as one of the tools for reaching out to unbanked populations in the rural areas. But truly, all they care about is to be able to say that their people are financially included. But are they? And even if they are by definition FI, are they better off? Are we Americans or Europeans with easy access to credit cards (I myself have 14 accounts listed on my credit history with outstanding balance on the 4 of them) happier because now we have color TVs, nice cars, I-pods, laptops? Do we go to sleep carefree or do we think about our next minimum credit card payment due, and mortgage due and car payment due..? No matter how we feel about being in debt, we are financially included and our governments are proud of it.

Today I went to the most remote village I’ve ever been to in Rewa district in MP. First, I had to take a train for 4,5 hrs to come to Rewa from Jabalpur (the last place you can get to by public transportation). Then with generous help of the director of Samhita, first MFI in Rewa area, I traveled for over 1.5 hr to reach the village where Samhita’s furthest branch is located. Praseeda, the brave founder of Samhita, gave me her own car and a driver to get there. From the branch I had to ride the motorcycle for 13 km to get to the village where I met with few women who took their first loans ever. Even if these women walk 13 km (3 hours) to get to the closest bank, they will not be able to get a regular loan (too poor). So Samhita is making credit possible for them and is contributing to FI in the area. Samhita only targets very poor clients (not a typical MFI) and is soon planning on combining their financial services with health education and possibly livelihood programs.

When I asked Samhita’s clients if their livelihoods or standard of living have improved since they took the loans, they said no. They also added that now they feel burdened because they spent the money already and it is very difficult for them to be making weekly payments (agriculture doesn’t give you a steady stream of cash flows). One of the women purchased 5 goats with her loan, and 2 of them already died due to the heavy rains (Samhita is hoping to be able to offer cattle insurance soon, but not yet). Another one spent her loan on her mother’s medical treatment instead of investing it into the business growth as it was meant to be (Samhita may offer emergency loans soon, but not yet). So are these women better off or happier from being financially included?

I asked them what is the priority for them a) access to financial services b) infrastructure (3-hour walk to get basic necessities and to get to school is not that much fun) c) employment opportunities. The answer was infrastructure and easy access to schools for their children, and not financial services. Although, now these women are “financially included” they still don’t have electricity, roads or public transportation for their kids to get to school. But now besides being as miserable as before they are also in debt. And even though Samhita is working really hard to break even trying to get to the poor in the remote areas, these people need more than just a microfinance loan. These people need the government to provide them with the basic necessities, such as schools, roads, public transportation, employment opportunities and health facilities. They are glad to take credit because it is better than nothing and because it gives them hope that if they gamble it right they will end up with more than they started. But they don’t always do, neither do we in the developed countries.

Love and marriage blurb

Our view of ideal relationships in the West is skewed. It would be skewed to the right tail of distribution of human relationships if statistician tried to graph it. You have this idealized view of some amazing “passionate forever” relationship based on the two month exciting fling that once you had traveling around South America. And later in life you torture yourself by comparing every other emotion you feel to your next lover with the feelings that were exaggerated by the adrenalin of traveling in a foreign country and the heat of tropics. If that two-month relationship was the ideal one, why did you let it go? Did you think that the grass is greener on the other side? If it was so perfect why didn’t you compromise? And as time goes by, that two-month fling starts even look better that it was originally. Time often distorts our perception of what really happened. I wish time travel wasn’t just a science fiction...

So this is how I and many others see typical relationships in the world we live in. We meet that awesome someone, we fall in love, we decide this is it and settle. Honey moon phase goes away pretty quickly (basing this on my personal experience 4 months to 2 years), passion and infatuation fade, sex becomes not that exciting and if you are lucky, plain love, comfort and understanding stick around longer and hopefully forever. But being in India I learned some new things about love. I realized that love is an emotion that us, humans, can develop to anyone whom we are at least remotely attracted to as long as we have desire and may be some cultural conviction. Marrying someone and devoting your whole life to that person after seeing his/hers photo and may be meeting once seems insane in the West, but it's an absolutely normal way to meet your lifetime mate in India.

We always look for someone who is perfect, who completes us, who satisfies all our requirements… we date, have sex, learn everything about each other, get married…. And 50% of the times it ends up not working out, we drop it like a hot potato and start the vicious cycle of seeking “the one” all over again. In India more than often young people willingly leave it up to their parents to find them a life mate, accept what they get and actually learn to love them. I couldn’t believe it at first, but met various very happy educated couples that were paired up through arranged marriages. Impressive, isn’t it? Actually, I haven't spoken to anyone so far for whom this type of arrangement didn't work out.

Is this a coincidence? Of course, it’s a part of the culture, it’s being brainwashed… many different things, but truly, to me it seems that it is possible to really love someone and be happy with him/her even though you never even dated that person. Sadly, it's not possible for us with western mentality. But does it mean that us, westerners, are just wasting our time and opportunities when we look for “the one”, for the soul mate, for that one special person that is so hard to find? May be we should just lower our expectations and open up our hearts, and the first person who comes around will become that perfect “one” ? And may be we should learn how to stop thinking "what if there is someone out there better than the one we are with right now"? Do we set our expectations too high? Are we hoping to find something that doesn’t exist? May be we should just ask our parents to find us partners and as long as he/she is decent (a parent will pick someone good for sure) we will be happy? (being sarcastic here).... Who knows, but there is definitely something important to learn from these happy arranged marriage couples in India.

My First Month

The month went by very fast. After spending 4 days in Chennai I was over the idea of sticking around this disgusting city for much longer. I was eager to go to Madhya Pradesh where the main part of my internship was taking place. Since my project wasn’t exactly well organized or structured no one could tell me how much time I will spend in Chennai. My perception of my life in this city changed when we finally moved out of the dorms into our posh apartment with AC and swimming pool. Now I could cook, have friends over, work out and just get into fun routine with cool roommates. Soon I was trying to come up with different ideas on how to prolong my stay in this incredibly polluted city, which started to grow on me. I also wasn’t exactly that excited about going alone into one of the poorest states in Central India with the 3rd largest malaria rate, not speaking Hindi, and where I was going to share apartment with this guy I don’t know (who is my project supervisor) without AC or regular internet access. But I was looking forward to very famous national parks where one can watch tigers while riding an elephant.

In the meantime, my social life in Chennai was only getting better. Smoking hookah at Mocha, doing work at Oxford bookstore while indulging vanilla coffee floats and chicken wraps (I will bitch about vegetarian diet later), clubbing at Pasha, walking
Through Marina Beach and experimenting with Indian public bus system, enjoying Indiana Jones with the biggest Indiana Jones fan in a very cool theater, watching monsoon go wild on the friend’s porch while drinking whiskey… All these fun moments made Chennai a pretty great place to be, so when I found out that my tickets to MP are booked for the 2nd of July I was not a happy camper.

Another thing that added to my apprehension of leaving for MP was my roommate Mary getting Dengue. Dengue is transmitted through mosquito bite while the person is feverish. Poor Mary had fever for over a week and our own previously trusted in-house mosquitoes bit the hell out of me in that same week. So I was a little paranoid leaving the comfort of my nice apartment and city with easy access to big hospitals and decent doctors for a small town in the poor state. But I had no choice. I had to go. After all, I shouldn’t forget that I am in India to do work, and the best part is fieldwork.

Work is great but it doesn’t mean I wont enjoy India when I can. So my last weekend before MP I decided to check out the backwaters of Kerala on the houseboat, which was on the top to do list before you die according to Lonely Planet. Five of us planed the trip and even bought our train tickets 2 days in advance. Unfortunately, most of the people are not as committed to previously made plans as I am, so 3 of the girls bailed on the day of departure. I was left with my best guy friend here, Zach, with whom I got in a major fight the day before, so I actually wasn’t looking forward to spending 4 days with him on the trip, furthermore alone… 15-hour train ride was a little awkward, since Zach and I had a lot of time to express the things we don’t like about each other and make a truce (4 days could be a long time if you can’t stand the person you are traveling with). Since the houseboats are designed for couples, our voyage had a bit of a honeymoon feel to it. To make the things worse, the whole crew was under impression that we are married (I think in India women don’t go on houseboat cruises with someone they are not married to). But Kerala is a gorgeous state with amazing food and nice people, so we both had a way better time than expected.

Traveling around India is so different from any other traveling I’ve ever done before. When we arrived at Allepey I was very glad that I made a houseboat reservation while still in Chennai and even arranged for a pick up. Somehow the vibe of the Indian train station without familiar herd of tourist loving guides and hotel owners doesn’t entice me to venture into the city looking for a place to stay or things to do without making previous arrangements. The houseboat company sent us a rickshaw, which took us directly to our boat. Although the backwater houseboat is the most luxurious and pricey thing I did or will do in India, it was worth it. Floating through the canals past the green rice fields and colorful villages while sipping juice and eating the most amazing Kerala food is relaxing and pleasant getaway from the dusty and crowded streets of Chennai. Only one thing could have made it more special, sharing this romantic retreat with someone I am in love with.

The next day after we were dropped off our heavenly houseboat in the middle of rain in Allepey I faced the reality of true India again. Two-hour crowded bus ride from Allepey to Fort Cochin made me miss my bus adventures in Brazil and Peru, where everyone on the bus always wanted to help out foreigners with advice. Here the ticket guy didn’t even bother to tell us when to get off even though I asked him to. Luckily, my gut feeling told me that this trip is taking longer than anticipated. Before long I found out from some friendlier English-speaking bus companion that we passed our stop a while back. Dammit… taking another shitty bus back in the rain… But I learned something interesting about Indian city buses.

They are segregated; women and men do not sit together. Actually, the way it worked on this bus, about dozen women were standing in the front of the bus holding on for life to whatever is possible, and all the men were sitting. Only about 4 seats (front of course) were taken by women. It took us a while to figure out why the ticket-guy kept pushing Zach away from me towards the back. Segregation is one thing, but men sitting and women standing… is totally different. Well, I guess I am in the country where women often consider themselves inferior to men. I mean, you can’t even get married if your family is too poor for a dowry. For example, 3 weeks ago in Chennai a single mother and her three daughters threw themselves under the train because they didn’t see a possibility of marriage in the future (too poor to have dowry). Sadly, female infanticide is still common in India… On the other hand, the government is trying to improve this situation and protecting women but allowing them to form a separate queue in the ticket office or offer ladies-only cars in the trains. But really, through segregation will Indian women feel more equal to men? Did segregation of blacks in the US was promoting the equality?

The following day Zack ended up free riding on the “separate queue for women” thing. Since we were foreigners they allowed him to board the ferry with me before the rest of the men. Public transportation is so packed in this country, that I am actually very glad that women have some kind of privilege, otherwise I would be afraid to get squished to death (Indian men are not exactly gentlemen-like). Only about 50% of the people usually get seats, so the fittest and the pushiest sit. Obviously demand beats the supply here, so why not put more buses or trains of ferries? Well, they do. There are tons of buses, trains, and ferries, but there are way too many people to keep up. Now Indian railroad came up with a new solution, adding additional bunk in already packed compartments. For example, in other countries where I have traveled with sleeper trains there are maximum 6 people in compartment (that’s the lowest class in Ukraine), 2nd & 3rd class cars usually fit 4, 1st class fits 2… here they fit 8 (in all nice AC classes), and now they are increasing it to 9. The idea of personal space is pretty unfamiliar; I think my friends in China can relate to this.

Fort Cochin was pretty cool and very untypical clean and catered to tourist, lots of hotels and home-stays, cute stores, and rickshaw drivers speaking beginner level English… Our friend Shino (who is placed for her field work about 3 hrs from Fort Kochin) joined us for one day and we got to do a lot of fun sightseeing and shopping. Speaking of shopping, yesterday in MP I saw a chess set that Zack bargained down to 1400 rps and it cost only about a third of it. I hope he will not see this blog. Watch out, foreigners, when shopping in tourist locations. Poor Zack will be living in this country for at least a year, so he may see many more of these chess sets for way cheaper.

One of the funniest moments about the day in Cochin was our mentally retarded driver, who with a sweet smile and a sad story about commission, which he gets paid with a t-shirt, managed to lure us into 3 or 4 fancy souvenir stores. Both Shino and I resisted the pushy sales men for the most part, but Zack got sucked in. I should also mention the best restaurant in town “Dal Roti”. Although, it wasn’t famous Keralan food we ended up going back there every time we had to eat. Chicken kati roll was our favorite. We got so comfy there that Saturday night the owner’s wife even drove us home to prevent us from getting drenched in the rain. By the way, this is monsoon season pretty much everywhere in India now, so rain is becoming a nuisance.

Coming back to Chennai on Monday morning to accomplish few last errands before MP wasn’t that exciting. But it was a good opportunity to say goodbye to all the local friends, catch up on last minute emails and get mentally prepared for a 25 hour train ride to Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, where I will spend a whole month.

My First Week

Although, I was here only for a week, I feel like i've been here for much longer and have met so many cool people. We are about 15 or 18 interns here and most of us after a week or two in Chennai are leaving to different states around India for the projects. I have made few good friends already and feel very comfortable in this huge and polluted city. Some people are staying in Chennai till the end of their internships. I am glad I am not one of them.

My third day in India was an incredible day trip to visit couple livelihood projects of Hand-in-Hand, local NGO. We got to see cool villages, meet local inspired Self-Help-Groups (SHGs) and visited Kanchipuram, famous silk-weaving town in Tamil Nadu. It was a first time I saw monkeys crossing the street in the middle of the busy town, a first time I got to try on a beautiful silk sari, a first time I sang in Russian in front of thirty Indian school children, and a first time I tried to eat rice with my hand. I also made two new friends on that trip, cool x-pat McKay (who actually organized the tour), and his fun friend Laura.

On my fourth day, 15 of us rented two SUVs and went on a day trip to the beach in Puducherry and Mahabalipuram, world heritage site of monolithic stone temples and carvings. Puducherry or Pondicherry is a smaller "french" town with a touristy feel (first time I saw white non-intern people in India). We went to a shrine where Ghandi used to teach, had some non-Indian French food, hung out on the rocky beach fully clothed and visited some incredible temples. Then back to smoggy Chennai.

For a first week all interns lived in the dorms at IFMR (Institute for Financial Management and Research), but then they gave us an apartment. It’s so posh; I have a hard time believing I am in India when I wake up in the morning. First of all, we have AC! So nice not to wake up every morning soaked in sweat and eaten by mosquitoes. Considering that malaria and dengue are pretty common here, it’s a good feeling. Second, we got a kitchen and a huge incredible living room, surrounded by couches. And third, there is a nice pool and a little rusty gym in the building. My third day I almost got hit three times by cars on the way for a jog to a track at the nearby college campus. Not having to risk my life to exercise is well worth it.

Fine, I gotta vent. My least favorite thing about this country (and any other developing overpopulated country) is low value of human life on the road. Pedestrians have no rights, I feel like here they have less rights than cows. For some reason Indians do not believe in cross walks, side walks or stop lights (but no one obeys those even if they do exist). Crossing even three-lane street in Chennai is unbearable task at certain times of the day. One billion population is not a myth. And imagine all these people in a hurry trying to get places riding some kind of vehicle type object, like rickshaws, cars, buses, motorcycles, bicycles who will not stop nor slow down when you attempt to cross the street in front of them. Sometimes it even feels like they try to aim for you. But I am not alone in my irrational fear of crossing streets here.

Few days ago I ventured out during rush hour to a bank. Although I attempted to hire a rickshaw, I ended up walking all the way there. No one was willing to drive me in this crazy traffic in the direction I was going. All the drivers told me that I would get there faster on foot (which wasn’t a point, I was afraid of being run over). At one crazy corner I attached myself to few Indian guys and started weaving through the traffic with them. We got half way, and then there was a break so I went for it, alone. I made it to the other side and looked back. One of my Indian crossing companions was trapped on the divider with cars, motorcycles, buses and rickshaws closing on him. Few blocks down the road I looked back and he was still there. It was relieving to see that even locals are paranoid to jump into this moving chaos of driving objects accompanied by constant honking.

On the other hand, it was a pretty eventful week.

My First Day

First of all, India rocks! No matter what I will say later, this is a fabulous and the most intriguing place I’ve ever been to. As soon as you get off the plain your senses will be overwhelmed by potent smells (good and bad), by colors (bright and vibrant), by sounds (loud and obnoxious), and by multitudes of people. You will immediately step into a chaos but soon learn to tolerate it and even enjoy it.  

My first introduction to India was arrival in Delhi airport. While I was waiting in immigration line (the story of my life), a fat rat slowly strolled in front of the immigration booth. Even Indians around me looked surprised, of course majority of them spent most of their lives abroad and now were just visiting their homeland.

My second unpleasant surprise was finding out the date, 11th of June. I arrived a day later, or at least a day later than I anticipated. I was subtracting 12.5 hours instead of adding. Why was it a problem? Well, considering that I independently purchased my ticket from Delhi to Chennai for the 10th… I was a little screwed. A very nice Indian co-traveler (1st time back in India in 10 years) offered to help me to contact the small domestic airline that I bought my ticket from. I thought he offered his services to help me with Hindi… but then he ended up talking to everyone in English, which actually was useful because no one understands my English here. After 20 min on hold we found out that nothing can be done from the International airport and I have to go to the domestic airport and deal with this problem from there.

I should mention how I was dressed. Only few days later I realized that it was the reason for many inappropriate comments and endless stairs. Coming to a conservative country, I chose to wear conservative clothes: tennis shoes, baggy jeans and a “wife beater”. Only my arms were exposed. Well, little did I know that women  here, first of all, do not expose their shoulders nor collar-bone, unless they have a shawl around their necks, and, second, definitely do not wear “wife beaters”. In the next few days I was frantically shopping for traditional clothing. Today I even feel self-conscious even wearing a baggy t-shirt. Wearing a tank top makes me feel like a slut. I have done it only twice, once going to a nightclub, and once to the beach trip (always having a long sleeve shirt or shawl available to cover my exposed skin if necessary). Incredible how fast dress conservatism rubbed off on me. I hope it wont last after I leave this country.

I managed to get to Chennai the same day, thanks to incredible power of competition. There were 5 different flights the same evening within the same price range. All I had to do is avoid million people shoving their luggage through the endless construction debris everywhere, ignore tons of flies stuck to my face in 90% humidity and 100 degree weather, and push away half a dozen people from the counter (one thing you should know about Indians, they do not believe in “queue”)… Due to my assertiveness and determination, I succeeded in purchasing my flight ticket 30 min before the departure. And all this is in addition to my adventurous and almost impossible mission in SF where I was getting my new Ukrainian passport and applying for Indian visa on the same day of the departure. But all these weren’t omens that India is just not meant to be; they were just plain obstacles, a preparation for a long summer in India, where each new day brings new hurdles and fun adventures.