My Block

I have been in India for nine weeks now and spent the bulk of that time in Hyderabad.  I'm not sure why but I have yet to devote a post to everyday life in this apartment or on this block that I spend so much time in and around.  In spite of how normal most things seem at this point in my stay I will do my best to recapture the hyper-observant state of mind I was in some 60 days back.

I stay with my cousins on the 4th floor of an apartment building in an older section of the city.  The harsh conditions of 120+ degree heat in summers, torrential downpours during monsoon season and everything else that an Indian city has in excess (dust, gas fumes and at least five gazillion pigeons) leave this building looking much older than it really is.

The ground floor is a parking area that is meticulously arranged to fit every vehicle without wasting a single square foot of space.  Land in this part of the city is valuable and as they say "they ain't making any more of it."  The garage area is corralled with a 5 foot concrete wall and three gates.  Two security guards split the 24 hour duty of keeping cars in and unwanted guests out.  As far as I can tell they are both very gentle guys that don't have to means or will to say no to anyone.  Nonetheless their presence seems to successfully impede sales people and pan handlers.  They share a small living area in the center of the garage and in spite of everyone's constant discouragement they continue to rise and enthusiastically salute all residents as we enter and exit the premises.

Just outside the gates is a wild road shared by stray dogs, cars, three-wheeled autos running on lawn mower engines, old fashioned bikes, scooters, food stands, bullock carts and people. Next door to our building is a temple that utilizes loudspeakers and bells to infiltrate every inch of our apartment with its religious ceremonies that run for hours every morning and evening.  Across the street are a variety of shops that sell groceries, stationary, hot food and toiletries.

It's a welcome change to have mom and pop stores for everything within walking distance versus the monstrosities we have back home.  Everyone on the block knows Pilo and as a result of me tagging along with him a good amount of people on the block know me too.  I can walk right across the street and get fresh eggs in the morning.  The shop owner doesn't speak much English but the first time I came in by myself he pulled a big packet from under the counter and dropped it in front of me.  It was a scholarly article written by a PhD in Biology and he pointed to one of the authors and said "my son."  Very proud parent.

At the corner of our block is an intersection which among other things is home to a paan shop, an Irani cafe and a man selling bananas fresh off the branch (30 Rupees for a dozen).  A paan shop in India is actually a tiny stand and yes spelled with two a's (nothing to do with kitchenware).  Paan is an after dinner treat that people eat to freshen their breath and help with digestion.  It's composed of a betel leaf wrapped around areca nut, lime paste and what tastes like a smattering of crunchy, minty herbs.  This package is meant to sit in your mouth for about a half an hour and some folks seem to like adding tobacco to it.  These stands also peddle cigarettes.

Irani cafes are all over town and despite their notoriously shabby appearances and dirt cheap prices they make the best chai tea around.  They also sell fist-sized triangles that are breaded and deep fried with potatoes, spices and a select few vegetables stuffed into the center.  These filling snacks are called samosas and sell for about 4 or 5 rupees each (that's about a dime).  I try to avoid buying too many by keeping in mind how fast they must be lining my arteries.  Other such temptations lie down the street with the man making fresh potato chips in a big bucket of grease and a slew of confectioners churning out biscuits that must have a quarter stick of butter in every bite.

I get my hair cut at a spot on the corner also.  The price is right at $1 and as you might expect I never know what I'm going to get.  What I end up with is clearly more dependent on the barber's mood than what I attempt to ask for/mime.

The more time I spend thinking how to close this out the more things I think of so I'm just going to end it here for now.

Bollywood Wedding

During my stay in Bombay I was lucky enough to attend an Indian wedding.  Now I know that weddings in general are pretty much a guaranteed good time, but when it comes to maximizing the fun involved India must take the cake.  Spring break is literally the most comparable event that comes to mind for me.  Of course in this case most people had to work during the day but that didn't seem to phase anyone in my cousin's crew of friends.  I was only here for the 3 day grand finale, but prior to that were four full nights of house parties 'til 4am.  4+3 = a full on, one week party.


The first night I was here, Friday, the wedding party faithfuls took over a local bar/restaurant that seemed to be walking distance from almost everyone's house.  Before this the women spent the afternoon applying mehndi (henna) designs to their hands and feet.  At first I assumed this process was very lengthy and tiring because no women showed up to the bar that night.  That may be half true but in retrospect I realize that this dive bar has absulutely zero appeal to any woman within miles.  I've been there three times so far and the average age is approximately 40 and the average number of women sighted is 0.

Saturday morning those closest to the couple traveled to the local courthouse to legally register Faisal and Kumud as husband and wife.  After finishing the paperwork we moved to a family residence for a brief religious ceremony and food.  Everyone was dressed in their Indian best (even I brought a formal kurta and matching pants for the occassion).  By evening the majority of us were packed onto a chartered bus and taken to a resort in the hills above Mumbai.  Here everyone spent the better part of 36 hours eating, drinking, talking, dancing and singing.  Roughly four hours were reserved for sleeping.

Overall I don't think the bride and groom could have been more charismatic.  They lived up to their role as stars of the show and then some.  They had the DJ going until 3am and had him back on the tables by 9am the next morning.  Even the photographer was partying with us.

By Sunday afternoon I found myself acquainted with nearly all 100 people in attendance and friends with a good half of them.  No one person knew everyone person there and that might be part of what made everyone so welcoming.  As far as I'm concerned this is the only way to do a wedding.

Post-Script:
No pictures because my camera decided to continue its stay at the resort in the hills without me

MUMBAI

After about a month in Hyderabad and a week in Delhi I have found my way to Mumbai; the most exciting city in India.  I'm staying with my cousin Amor, his wife Nell and their new baby Coco.  They just moved into a new flat 2 days before I arrived so apart from a couple of mattresses it's still pretty bare.  We are on the 6th floor of a building with a great view of the ocean in one of the interior suburbs of Mumbai.

As different as Delhi and Hyderabad were, Mumbai is even further removed from both.  Although I was aware that Bollywood was here like Hollywood is in L.A. I didn't anticipate how similar the two cities would be.  Mumbai is Los Angeles in so many ways.  The size, the beaches, the weather, the smog, the long workdays made longer by the traffic, the media and movie industries and the people.  Perhaps most of all the fact that the disparity between rich and poor is as evident as the sun in the sky and simply a part of everyday life, but this is true to an extent in every Indian city.

My first night in town Amor and I went to a nearby restaurant/bar in the early evening.  Outside was of course the street which has cars, auto-rickshaws, small shops, food stands, apartment complexes, security guards, homeless and regular folks.  Funny thing, apart from the auto-rickshaws the scene bore a striking resemblance to a certain Sunset Boulevard 8,000 miles away.  But this truth didn't dawn on me until after we went inside.

The place was very new and aptly called "wtf!"  The music was fresh and trendy as was the decor and the crowd.  I felt like I had walked into a different world, more specifically a bar in West Hollywood.  Amor told me that a lot of media people were around (this I had gathered for myself) but he also told me how to spot them:  They are the loud ones that are looking around the room for people looking at them.  That last sentence is paraphrased because I don't think anyone could put it much better than that.  The environment was a lot of fun but probably very similar to the scene Amor and his friends had been consumed with all week.  After enough friends arrived we shifted to a more hole-in-the-wall spot that was a lot less chic and a lot more relaxed.  Felt like the ideal place to unwind and enjoy the company of friends without the chance of awkwardly running into "that obnoxious guy" from work on your hard earned Friday night.  Most of the people I have met so far are creative, unique, lively and long time subscribers to the work-hard, play-hard philosophy.  I have yet to meet an engineer which is strange considering that I've met them in swarms everywhere else that I've been in India. 

That section of restaurants and clubs is to the south of our place so today I decided to go for a walk in the other direction and found an entirely different city.  Just north of our apartment building along the beach is a fishing village.  After about 100 yards of pavement I ran into narrow cobblestone alleyways that snaked through a labyrinth of storefronts and shacks.  The buildings were all painted in very bright colors and the beach air mixed with a throng of pungent smells.

This area of town couldn't be more different than what is just a few miles south along the same road, which made me again think of L.A.  At Occidental I was walking distance from the largest collection of Armenians outside of Armenia in Glendale, an entirely Latino community with storefronts covered in Spanish along York Blvd. and an artsy/yuppie community in Eagle Rock.

That kind of racial diversity isn't so evident here, but the income differences from one block to the next are greater than perhaps anywhere else in the world.  Ocean-view highrises line the street with many residents driving BMW's, rocking designer jeans and spending 500 Rupees on dinner at Dominos.  Directly below them on the beach are shacks of corrugated metal piled on top of one another where residents likely spend less than 500 Rupees on food in a month.

Delhi and Agra

Traveling in the north of India is a completely different experience than the south; most of all in January.  Hyderabad is unseasonably cool with lows around 60 and highs near 80 while Delhi was in the 50's during the day and just a few degrees above freezing in the coldest time of the night.  Also keep in mind that in India you actually feel the weather all the time (most places don't have heat including my hotel room and tour bus).

Along with the weather Delhi was different from Hyderabad in almost every way.  The food is not spicy like the south, there were many more tourists, locals had fairer complexions, the bazaars were more grand, the roads were larger and more structured and the city itself was noticeably bigger.  On top of all that the demeanor of northern people is a little gruff and less friendly than in the south.  The difference in size and feel between Hyderabad and Delhi is not unlike that of Portland and Philadelphia back in America.  Perfect example is asking for the nearest ATM.  In Hyderabad this simple question usually prompts an answer with a lot of pointing, hand signals and empathetic facial expressions (even if the helpful stranger can't speak English).  In Delhi I had trouble getting much more than a dirty look, a grunt and a vague directional head movement.

Along with the cultural differences I had to be a little more cautious in Delhi.  Everyone I spoke to about my plans was sure to warn me about thieves, pick pockets and overall less-than-friendly behavior in Delhi.  After I saw the heavy metal chains that my hotel used to lock the main door along with a 24/7 security guard the idea of caution began to sink in.  I was also told not to unlock my door inside the hotel in the night for any reason unless I was expecting something specific to be delivered.  Although I had no issues with this I met a 26 year-old Romanian woman on one of my tours who told me her door had been tried 3 times in 3 nights!  Like me she had also been in India for one month but after hearing some of her stories I'm surprised she survived long enough to share them with me.  I thought I had been gullible in my first week.  On her first trip in an auto she paid her driver 1,500 Rupees.  That is roughly the amount an auto driver should earn in 3 full days work (not half an hour).

But anyway, Delhi really wasn't so scary.  I took two guided tours in four days, one of Delhi and one that took me to Agra to see the Taj Mahal.  Everything I saw had some value, but if you threw all of the sights I saw on one side of a scale and the Taj on the other it isn't even close.  The Taj Mahal is about as grand a sight as you could ever hope to see.  Sometimes things that are ultra-famous end up being a let down in person but I assure you this does not fall into that category.  Even the gate that acts as a veil hiding the Taj Mahal from sight is epic enough to be a tourist attraction unto itself.

In addition to my formal touring I was lucky enough to again spend some time with a local.  I got to spend one of my days in Delhi with my mom's childhood best friend Seema.  Although she isn't technically in my family I felt as though she was upon meeting her.  She and my mom lost touch for over 20 years ago when my mom went to the U.S. and they only recently tracked one another down.  They will be seeing each other for the first time in 30 years when my mom visits India this summer.  Pretty wild to think about.  She was more than happy to take me out to eat and to shop in some great spots and of course tell me a few old stories.

Delhi And Agra Slideshow: Alex’s trip to Adyar, Karnataka, India was created by TripAdvisor. See another Adyar slideshow. Take your travel photos and make a slideshow for free.