Diseased, But We Keep On Truckin'!

Dearest friends, family, and vague-acquaintance-blog-stalkers,

Indeed, it has been a trying few weeks. What with the unceasing monsoons; the eternal brokerage and leasing wars; and an disasterous attack of conjunctivitis- fever- subconjunctival-hemmorhaging (that is, me looking horrifically bloodshot and zombie-like, but-- DON'T WORRY-- in no real danger, according to mayoclinic.com), I am convinced that Delhi is testing me. CAN I HANDLE IT?

I guess so. Though I have yelled at more rickshaw drivers in the past two days (VIDESHI KA F*CKING PRICE NAHI CHAHYIE-- which roughly translates as 'I don't want your goddamn jacked-up white girl price!') than in the last month altogether. I have also watched a lot of The Office. Coping mechanisms, folks.

The Good News:

1. I have moved into an apartment!:

I am still feeling kind of ambivalent about living with foreigners, since normally I try to go all in for cultural immersion, etc. But since I'm living with a French guy (and thus get to practice my French A LOT), I think it will be a cool complement to my fully-Indian work environment. And I really like the flatmates and the beautiful flat.

As they say here, it's a 'very posh locality'. That basically means, quiet, green streets and lovely balconies-- a nice retreat from the Delhi madness. [For those of who you have been following the Commonwealth Games debacle (that is, those of you who read this article: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/22/world/asia/22india.html) know that Delhi is a massive shitshow (in many respects... see my facebook photo for one example) and is making an international embarrassment of itself by trying to host a sports competition half the world hadn't heard of until they read about the rampant corruption among Games officials and lack of hygiene in the athletes' dorms.]

So, the point is, I'm going expat-style for now. It has been really, really stressful finding a place, but I think it will be worth it now that I'm getting settled.

2. I am so important!:

I am going on a business trip! I find this spectacularly amusing. Luckily, my trusty fictional secretary Buster is on hand to manage the details, since otherwise, I would find it rather hard to stomach that today at 1:45pm it was decided that I would take a 7am flight to Mumbai/Bombay tomorrow for all day meetings Thurs-Fri. I am going to stay in Mumbai through the weekend to see a few sights and meet Jessie/Eliza's family, hopefully.

3. I can speak with an Indian accent fluently!:

This is not Hindi, of course; but helps immensely with my communication. I have also started to bobble my head more than a bobble head doll. (Subliminal messaging: You can only *hear* this Indian accent (which is basically unshakeable) and *see* this head-bobbling if you SKYPE me!) The Hindi is getting there too.

THE BAD NEWS:

1. Conjunctivitis
2. High Fever and Headache
3. Subconjunctival Hemmorhaging

Despite the strong suspicion that Roz Chast has rubber-erased my original subconscious and replaced it with hypochondriacal cartoons, I am actually recovering just fine and am thanking my stars that I don't have Dengue Fever....

YET.

With love!,
Cal

PS Jonas is busy undercover on a top secret mission. I have spoken with Buster and he assures me that she is busy with undisclosed, high-security, confidential operations but will be reporting back soon with news for us pleebs. Post is in transit somewhere or other, but meta-blogging will commence soon, hopefully with a mixed-up meta-top-ten list of her favorite Mixed-Up Files.

PPS The latest installation of pictures!!!: CHANDIGARH.



My favorite tourist site in India was actually this incredible sculpture garden called the Nek Chand Rock Garden. This guy stayed up half the night for 20 years making thousands of small sculptures with found objects and creating an incredible garden with waterfalls, fake concrete trees, and thousands of people made out of broken bracelets, car parts, etc. Chandigarh, Punjab.



Nek Chand Rock Garden. Chandigarh.



Lizard. Nek Chand Rock Garden. Chandigarh.




Jonas (Virginia) at one of her favorite sites-- the major government buildings designed by the famous French architect, Le Corbusier. Chandigarh was actually a totally planned city, designed to replace Lahore when it became part of Pakistan and the Indian part of the Punjab was without a capital city. Though 2 Americans were originally hired to design the uber-modern city, one died in a tragic plane crash and the other resigned, so Le Corbusier took up the job. It's a lot calmer than the cities down 'on the plains' (like Agra and Varanasi), but sort of dull and ugly too, if you ask me... A lot of concrete.



More of Le Corbusier's work. Chandigarh.



In person, I thought these buildings were all pretty ugly, but I think these pictures bring out how unique they actually are. To be clear, Jonas took all of these. Or maybe Buster-- the mad secretarial genius! Chandigarh.



Last architecture picture. Pretty sweet. Excellent work by Buster, as usual.



For Cool-E!

Putting Roots Down in Delhi

Jonas (VA) and I arrived in Delhi about a week and a half ago. I have started work at Pratham and I am having a great time-- I really like my coworkers, and I have the company of another 'new kid', Shayak, at the Pratham apartment. So we've been having a great time, cooking (for realzies! okra and rice and other veggies! legit meals. we're pretty proud ;) ) and hanging out, aaaand I've started going to frisbee! Frisbee here is pretty casual and non-competitive, but it's still frisbee, so I'm simply glad and grateful that it exists-- and it turns out that my old friend Rohan from SPS is only a few minutes away! So in only a week, this unfamiliar city is already starting to feel like a home.

I have found a really nice apartment, and I should be moving in with my 3 flatmates-- 2 Italians (a guy and a girl) and a French guy-- in the next few days, so it will be a very international and multilingual (Spanish, French, Italian, and English!) household, which of course I'm really excited for-- a chance to learn Italian and practice the others! Pictures of that will come after we've settled in and decorated.

For now, more pictures of the Jonas and Cal Adventure!


No pickles allowed on the plane to Varanasi. Domestic Airport in Delhi.


Ganesh graffiti. Spray painting of the Hindu god. Varanasi.


Woman choosing flowers to bring to the temple in Varanasi for the festival-- there were thousands of pilgrims walking barefoot through the streets to visit the holy river Ganga (known in the west as the Ganges).


Women leaving a temple on one of the ghats, or steps, down to the river Ganga. Varanasi.


Hindu worshipers bathing in the Ganga. Varanasi.


A really chill looking pilgrim. Varanasi.


Development in action. Varanasi.


Jonas and Cal at the Taj Mahal! Agra.


The Taj up close. Incredible. Agra.


Token monkey picture! I love monkeys!!! Outside the Jama Masjid Temple. Agra.

Enough for now. I miss you all! And a special shout-out to my darling Jonas, who left me a week ago today! Alas. She is soon to start posting from her new location in the capital of that fine country, the United States of America: Washington, DC! Also coming soon, a meta-blog from Jackie "Post" Thompson. Keep your eyes peeled for the latest!

picture picture pictureeee

Akelapaan Strikes: The Lonely Blogger, First Day Solita

Jonas has left me! After bursting into tears when she got into a rickshaw and disappeared into the smoggy night, I have been non-stop busy looking at apartments all day yesterday, and with my first day of work today, so it wasn't until dinner yesterday that I even got a chance to sit down and reflect on what it will mean to be here sola.

But first, the last two weeks, which we have been remiss in documenting!

We were in Shimla for days, pondering our next move and resting weary bones (and stomachs), but the hard rain kept a-fallin'. The roads up in Himachal Pradesh (the mountains) were pretty dubious seeming with the monsoon hitting hard, and after a few articles describing bus accidents in the region, Tanq and I decided to reroute southward.

The next trial in transit was lack of a guide. You see, in our quest for the smallest backpacks this side of Lonely Planet, we cut up our books, carrying only the paper-clipped sections we'd planned to travel to. And since we had planned to stay in Himachal for the duration of the trip, the Rajasthan chapter was sitting in the bottom of a suitcase in the back of a Pratham office closet in Delhi! But we couldn't let this stop us, of course, so Rajasthan, ho! Off we went.

As luck would have it, we spotted two Chinese college girls just as we stepped off the train in Jaipur, and so we adopted them as our traveling partners for the following 1-2 days. Saw some sites, shopped some shops, the usual.

Next, to Udaipur on an overnight train, in which Jonas got trampled by at least thirty people, climbing past her to get out of the train as it stopped at various stations all through the hot Rajasthani night. We arrived in Udaipur at 6am, so we went straight to the river-side cafe of our hostel, where we met 2 other travelers- Jimmy, a Chinese guy with literally perfect English, and James, a British med school student who had traveled all over the place. We spent the next 2 days hanging with them, being very diligent tourists: the first day, we saw two temples, the City Palace, James Bond Octopussy (which was filmed in Udaipur), AND a culture and dance show! Impressive. We know. The next day, we did some final shopping and took a boat ride around Lake Pichola, then boarded our final overnight train back to Delhi.

The past few days have been filled with apartment shopping and other errands. We had a victory over the scam artists of Delhi's rickshaw system, in which the rickshaw-walla (as usual), claimed that his meter no longer worked. We bargained a price, got into the rickshaw, and figured out that the darn thing worked perfectly fine-- so needless to say, we caused the maximum stir upon arrival at our destination to guilt the rascal into admitting his LIES and TRICKERY and allowing us to pay the proper price!

And now, what you've all been waiting for... PICTURES!!!!