Scorpion Season...

... is here!

After about a month of anticipation we spotted the first of the season last night. It was HUGE (a little less than a foot long), and trying to walk into our house. Luckily Soni the dog was playing curious defender. Ultimately Vijay had to wack it a few times with his shoe--can't take any risks with venomous arachnids!

The Longest Eyelashes in India!

Today I met the person with the longest eyelashes in India.


He is one of Vijay's friends and part of the police force in Mumbai. He was our friendly helper while purchasing Mann Deshi's gun in Bombay.


I've met him on several different occasions and have always been in awe of his long lashes. Today Vijay informed all of us of his amazing feat. If you go here you can get a look up close and personal: http://www.4to40.com/recordbook/index.asp?id=1848


Cool!

Bombay Revisited

I have again been pretty MIA from blogging recently. I am facing so many frustrations at work that there really isn’t anything fun or exciting to blog about. I’m also worried that if I start writing then I won’t be able to stop venting. But I’ve been away from the office for 1 ½ weeks, and although I was travelling for work I’m feeling a bit refreshed and in the blogging mood. I thought I’d share some of my 2-day Mumbai extravaganza with you.

The journey started with a car trip to Mumbai with Akha (Chetna’s mother-in-law) and a coworker. Akha is one of the most interesting characters to color my daily life, but to get into that would be an entirely new post. When we stopped at a rest stop near Mumbai Akha and I sat at a table waiting for our food. All of a sudden she starts screaming at me and gives me a huge whack! I ask her what the hell she’s doing and realize that she’s pointing behind me. When I turn around I realize that she’s excitedly pointing at a white family and babbling on in Marathi: “Look, it’s other people just like you!” I shook my head and burst out laughing. We white folk may be a rare breed in Mhaswad but it certainly doesn’t excite me when I spot other white people in Mumbai, or anywhere else for that matter.

The following day some colleagues and I went with Chetna’s sister to Dharavi (a slum in Mumbai) to look at some businesses to get ideas for new business school courses in Mhaswad. The day was a total and complete disaster, but getting into that would mean getting into my work frustrations. The highlight of the day was eating crab at one of Mumbai’s best seafood restaurants… a welcome break from the monotony of chapatti, dhal, and vegetables.

On my second day in Mumbai I paid a visit to the US consulate to get more pages put into my passport. That’s right- I have filled it up! My friend Leena and I followed this up with a croissant for breakfast. It wasn’t the best croissant in the world, but it was a CROISSANT. Given the past 8 months, Mumbai is a culinary heaven for me! The rest of the day was filled with walking in and out of bookshops, ducking into AC stores, and treating myself to a delectable lunch and dinner!

The following morning wasn’t as pleasant. I returned to the embassy to pick up my passport only to have the guard tell me that I need a photo ID to get in. We spent 10 minutes arguing about the fact that the embassy has my passport (the ultimate photo ID), the fact that they never told me I would need another photo ID to get in, the fact that they wouldn’t go inside and get my passport to compare me to my photo, and the fact that my passport is the only photo ID that I have in India. They finally let me in, I collected my new and improved passport, and then hopped on a plane to Hubli.

But before I end this post, I need to talk about the two times that the cars I was in were pulled over. The first time was because the car was from out of town and the man driving me was from a lower class which apparently they can tell because of his haircut. The second time was because police officers assume that taxi drivers will overcharge foreigners. They take the driver’s license, and in order to get it back, the driver must pay the police the extra money that he makes off of the foreigner. In what universe is this kind of police corruption okay???? Actually, that’s not even the tip of the police corruption iceberg, but still!!! Not good.

Regardless, I finally got to see why people love Mumbai so much. During my previous trips I had spent hours in traffic going from meeting to meeting in one of the most post polluted cities in the world. This time I finally got to see the city (even if only for two days) on my own terms. It’s busy, exciting, lively, chaotic, polluted, humorous, filled with people to chat with and people to rip you off, unimaginably wealthy, unjustifiably poor, beautiful, ugly, polluted, and overcrowded. It’s like any other city you can think of but more diverse and on an extremely powerful stimulant. It’s almost more of an addiction than India is. Coming from a woodsy lady of the country, that’s saying a lot.