Life's a Wheel of Fortune and Y'all Can't Buy a Vowel

The Hyderabad Airport was a nightmare. In fact, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that getting into the terminal was like having to force my way into hell.

I could not check my baggage all the way through to Oakland from Goa -- so I was lugging everything around. People five rows deep were crowding around the fence that surrounded the walkway I needed to get to to get to my terminal.

I could not see where the opening in the fence was because so many people were shoved up against it. And once I found it -- it was completely blocked by people just standing around -- not even trying to get on a plane. Once I managed to get through the wall of people with my unruly luggage, the guards said I couldn't enter the terminal until 10 pm. It was now 4 pm.

I said, "Really. Really. Are you sure? What am I supposed to do here?"

Mysteriously, the guard then said, "Okay -- go in those doors and wait there until 10."

I went over to the doors and they slid open to reveal -- hell. It was a waiting area for crying babies, screaming children, people with the flu and horrible body odor, and me -- rashy.

People were pushing up against a wall of metal mesh through which they could see loved ones leaving and arriving.

I have little memory of what I did for six hours in that room. Although, I do remember the arrival of three women wearing fragrant garlands of flowers in their hair who sat in front of me. I was thankful for this.

When 10 pm came, I was asleep in hell. Who would have thought I could be so comfortable there? I woke up at midnight and dashed out of the room to the terminal.

If I thought it was a nightmare before, it was 10 times worse now. As I do in many situations in which things are beyond dire, I check out and turn on autopilot.

Before I knew it, I was in the Frankfurt airport paying $6 for a huge salt-topped bretzel.

Yeah!

I got on the plane and sat next to a guy who looked like Val Kilmer and acted just like my dear friend DJ Tanner. And strangely enough, they both work in outbound strategy for high-tech companies. This guy was a good seatmate because he knew how to steal stuff from first class. I'd fall asleep and then wake up to a seat tray full of Milka bars and cups of cold milk.

I love candy. It was awesome.

He was coming from a tradeshow in Hannover, which he said was a town with nothing to do in it. Oddly enough, I've come to learn that Hannover was the first home to Battle of the Year, a huge international breakdancing competition.

Here's a video of some of the members of Last for One crew from Korea, 2005 BOTY champions. To be clear, this means that the best breakdancing crew in the world in 2005 -- was from Korea.



The Koreans manage to breakdance, human beatbox, DJ, and play the kayagum to their hip-hop rendition of Pachebel's Canon in D Major in a video that I keep expecting to be an ad for LG. They also send kim chee into space.

These are just a few of the reasons why I believe the Koreans are going to take over the world.

That is, unless the Indians put together a b-boy crew...

Slapping Kids, Throwing Shoes, and No I'm Not From China

I was thrown by the matter-of-fact delivery Tony used to tell me how his father had been killed by police in his home country of Burma.

Uncharacteristically, I didn't know what question to ask.

I wanted to know the whole story, but Tony stood before me so awkwardly, as if I were forcing him to stand there naked.

So, I talked to him about his life in Goa instead and how it was pretty relaxed and pretty fun. I felt happy for him that despite this awful tragedy, he had made his way to this town in which people seemed to be all about a good time.

As I write this it reminds me of something the night desk clerk said to me after I looked at him as if he were out of his mind after asking if he could come back to my room with me.

He said, "You can learn a lot by getting to know more people. Like about business. And sex."

I was getting a lecture on how I should be more outgoing from a sociopath.

Classic.

So, I saw that it was time to leave Goa as I saw Vinesh heading up the walk toward me. I got into his taxi van with the plastic bald eagle with flappy wings hanging from the rear view mirror.

As we made the drive to the Goa airport, I was pretty speechless as the rash was gaining in intensity and Vinesh was talking about all of the girls who had proposed marriage to him.

I was afraid that by the time it was time to board the plane, I'd look like frickin' Joseph Merrick and they'd put me in quarantine with some rabid monkeys.

Once at the airport, I thanked Vinesh for his excellent driving services and headed into the crowded terminal. I checked in and asked if there was a clinic at the airport. I was seriously starting to believe that I had some tropical disease. The agent told me that there was a doctor on duty right now and point at the little office just 50 feet away. I was thrilled.

I headed over to the office and the doctor and nurse looked up from their desks, stunned that someone was actually in the office. I said, "I have a horrible rash, can you help me?"

The doctor said, "You realize that this office is only for emergency conditions, right?"

I said, "For a person as vain as I am, this is an emergency!" Well, actually, I said, "It doesn't look like you have any emergencies going on right now - can you just take a look at it?"

He glanced at it for a second, with barely one eye, and told me I had a bad sunburn and that he didn't have any medications to treat it.

For the first time in the last two weeks, I felt like I was in the U.S. again!

I was resigned to my fate of sitting on planes and in airports for the next 24 hours with a horrible rash on my face and arms, which was slowly moving to my torso and legs.

I stood outside the doctor's office for a minute, dazed, only to see a little boy accidentally push a luggage cart into the back of his mother's ankles. She whipped her body around and slapped him. Then she looked at me like, "What are you looking at?"

It reminded me of the time I was walking around North Beach with some friends as the strippers were getting off of work and my eyes locked quite randomly with one of them who probably had one bad client too many that night and yelled, "What are you looking at?" and threw her shoe at me.

I was very lucky to be with about 10 Assyrians at the time, so no harm was done.

It also reminds me of the time I was wandering around in TJ Maxx in San Jose and a father and son were wandering around too. The son, who was around 7 years old, started running down an aisle and a worker told him to stop running. So the father went up to the son and slapped him, only to immediately whisper to him -- "It's okay. It's okay."

This was very strange -- but understandable at the same time. The father had to show the worker that he corrected his son's behavior by store standards -- but he also had to tell his son that he didn't really agree with those standards.

As I rode the crowded bus from the terminal to the plane, which would take me back to Hyderabad, I realized that I was standing face-to-face with the mother who had slapped her son. She was now smiling at me. Her whole family was smiling at me. I got paranoid and thought that maybe they were laughing at my rash. But then her daughter said, "You are pretty. Are you from China?"

The Rash and Tony's Tattoo

After my long stint in the WiFi shop, I was not feeling right at all. A lethargic nausea was taking over me.

I was slated to go to Tito's for dinner that night to see Ivor's son play and have Goa's famous fish curry rice. I could not let this momentary setback stop me!

So, I headed over and by the time Haydn stopped playing and the Australian hypnotist took stage, my face felt like an orange peel and my lips were like peeling paint. Not good. Awful, in fact.

Watching the hypnotist try to lull some drunk English girls into submission, I felt like I was in Muriel's Wedding. It was uncanny.

I headed back to the hotel and by the time I reached my room -- it was clear that I had developed illness #3! A full body rash. I took some Claritin, the only tangentially related medication I had on hand and crossed my fingers.

The next morning the rash was not better -- it was actually a weepy rash now. I was scheduled to check out at noon, so I packed up my stuff and decided to go down to the beach one last time, rash and all.

I sat at Swally's Beach Shack, the one I had sat at the first day I was on the beach. The people I had met that first day were working and came over to say hello. No one mentioned the rash, which was heartening.

At the urging of the woman who is in charge of seating people, massage, and mani/pedis -- I decided to get a pedicure, complete with rhinestones and other sparkly things. I was unsure of how she was going to manage to do this considering we were on a windy, sandy beach.

But she did. And it was beautiful! I talked with her a bit more as we waited for it to dry and then I headed back to the hotel to check out and get a ride into town to buy some Benadryl!

The Benadryl just made me sleepy and I did, in fact, fall asleep in my chair as I passed some time in hotel's outdoor restaurant.

I was panicked at this point. Did I have malaria? Did I have Dengue Fever? I had no idea what the symptoms of these diseases are -- but they had entered my hypochrondriac vocabulary somewhere along the way to India.

I took another taxi ride into town to get whatever else the pharmacist could offer. She gave me Allegra and some cream. I slathered on the cream and took the pills!

I was not feeling any better and just sat, moping, in the outdoor restaurant again, waiting for it to be time to go to the airport with Vinesh.

Then I saw Ivor coming up the walk. He came over and we chatted for a bit. He had come to pick up his paycheck from the hotel and also encouraged me to have a meal of curd rice and papadum to help calm my system. Never one to turn down a meal -- I decided this was a good idea.

Earlier in my trip, curd rice turned me off completely -- but it had really grown on me since my bouts with the mutton keema. Now with the rash, it started having the comforting power of okayu, a Japanese rice porridge my mom would make for me when I was little and ill. Okayu is the Japanese version of the more well-known Chinese jook, or congee.

I said goodbye to Ivor, happy to have seen him once again before leaving Goa.

A waiter, Tony, came over to clear away my curd rice plate -- and I noticed a tattoo on his arm that made me go -- "Whut?!"

I was sure that he was just another Goan horn dog -- with not-so erotic translation skills.

I questioned him about it, saying "That's a pretty controversial tattoo..."

He said that he inscribed this tattoo on his arm after his father was murdered by police in his home country of Burma.

My First Elephant

I was furiously writing up blog entries at the WiFi internet shop a short taxi ride from my hotel, trying to catch up after being laid out by the mutton keema and unable to get to easy-access WiFi.

I stepped out to get some snacks for the shop attendant and me and as I examined a rack of Frito-Lay India products and thought about Mr. Washington and his team of market researchers figuring out how to launch Doritos in India -- I glanced up and saw my first elephant in India!


I felt silly in the moment because I was staring at all of the Frito-Lay bags for a good five minutes before I noticed the literal elephant in the room.

Bebinca, Cashews, and an Indian Donut in Panjim

Vinesh took me to Panjim, otherwise known as Panaji, after showing me the churches of Old Goa.

Panjim is the administrative capital of Goa, while Porvorim is the legislative capital. You can see Porvorim from Panjim, across the Mandovi River.

I was desperate to get some food stuffs to take back to the states. My parents are huge foodies who wanted me to bring back tons of Indian snacks. But after looking at air-puffed bags of namkeens, which I love, I realized that they would push the contents of my luggage over the top.

So, I decided on two Goan specialties:

• Bebinca!
• Cashews!

My travel guide book told me that I'd find bebinca in Goa and that it was the perfect souvenir because they are vacuum-packed and ready to travel!

I was immediately curious about Goan bebinca because in Hawaii, we have Filipino bibingka. I was beginning to doubt my memory of the bibingka of my childhood being Filipino in origin -- and started thinking that it is Portuguese. This is because a strong Portuguese presence is what Goa and Hawaii have in common, in addition to the beaches, climate, old hippies, and recreational drug use.

After reading up a bit on the topic, a prevalent conclusion about the origins of bebinca is that it is a Goan recipes that migrated to Portugal! But how did it get to the Philippines to then make its way to Hawaii?

According to a fascinating discussion thread on this very topic, it sounds like the Portuguese and Spanish were often curious about each other's culinary discoveries and everyone stopped in the Philippines during their colonial travels -- so if the Portuguese didn't share the recipe, the Spanish did. This discussion thread also points out, interestingly, that Goan recipes are considered to be Goan or Indo-Portuguese, rather than Indian or Portuguese.

Vinesh pointed me in the direction of a good bebinca shop -- and I was off, while he read the paper in the car in the town square.

I could actually cross the street on my own in Panjim, but I didn't let it go to my head. I had been so conditioned by Hyderabad and Delhi traffic -- that I still flinched as I stepped onto the relatively empty roads.

As I walked to the bebinca shop, I passed by a toy store and spotted an Indian Barbie displayed on a high shelf. I immediately ducked in and asked to see it. It was a terrible knockoff for $50! I was tempted -- but imagined that she was made of lead and toxic plastics, so I was able to resist.

I found the bebinca shop and was pleased to find that they also sold bags of cashews, which my guidebook also told me to pick up in Goa. The roasted cashews were pale and huge and had a very different, yet pleasant, flavor than the cashews I've had in the states.

I regret not seeing any cashews growing in Goa, but this is what they look like according to Google images. The brown nubbin at the bottom of the fruit is the cashew! India is actually the country with the largest land area producing this crop. Cashews are native to Brazil and were introduced to Goa by the Portuguese, who also had a strong foothold in Brazil.

I picked up a few bags and headed back to the car, but was distracted by Cafe Coffee Day, which I had been to in Hyderabad with Srividya and Priya at the end of our sari shopping adventure.

It brought back fond memories, so I headed over to get a sweet lemon tea. Little did I know that I would soon be confronted with one of the most beautiful things I had seen in India yet!

Indian donut!

It was huge and gently warmed. I was in heaven as I listened to a heated discussion amongst some very westernized Goan girls smoking cigarettes and looking anorexic on the patio...

I finished my tea and headed back to Vinesh, who I was very happy to find because it isn't always a guarantee that J-Ha will find her way back to fixed locations immediately.

Oddly enough, I am more likely to be reunited with people and things in unfixed locations over relatively vast periods of time.

One of These Things is Not Like the Other

I was feeling a bit off in the morning, so I ordered a very unassuming toast and jam and porridge for room service breakfast.

When it arrived, I got toast and jam and a poached egg. This was the first time I realized how similar "porridge" and "poached egg" sound. I sent the poached egg back only because looking at it made me queasy.

I went down to the beach to people watch for a bit before going sightseeing with my driver Vinesh. The beach was pretty empty, which seemed to be the norm for morning hours. I sat at a different beach shack and did the incessant hand shaking and name exchanging.

Goa is a different sort of place from the rest of India, I think. Before I went to India, I read etiquette guides and called upon the "Cultural Awareness: India" class I had taken at Oracle and they pretty much said not to initiate handshakes because it isn't really what is done in India. But in Goa, I was getting OCD about all of the hands this person shook all the way down the beach before getting to my hand!

Also, locals and tourists alike, all seemed to be constantly trying to get some in Goa. This is not what I had expected either. Well, maybe I had expected tourists to be...but not the locals. But I think a large percentage of the "locals" are transplants with the sole purpose of trying to get some with the tourists. You know, you get a tourist girl high on ecstacy at a beach rave -- and you don't know what could happen!

For the record, I did not go to any beach raves. In fact, I pretty much made sure to be back in my room by 9 pm, lest anyone get the wrong idea.

So, it was time to meet Vinesh for a day of sightseeing in Goa. We headed for Old Goa. Here are some photos I took on the way:

For those of you who are unaware of this, Goa was Portuguese colony for about 500 years. This may partially account for why Goa seemed to me to operate a little differently than the rest of India. This is also why Vinesh took me to see a lot churches. Churches are all over the place in Goa. Colorful shrines were constantly popping up along roadsides as we drove through winding hills.

Here are some photos from the Basilica Bom Jesus, which is dedicated to the worship of the Baby Jesus and is the home to the tomb of St. Francis Xavier, who is the patron saint of Goa. The church is built primarily of laterite, a locally available red stone.

There was another church across the street, St. Catherine's Cathedral. According to my guidebook, it is the largest church in Old Goa. I had had enough church for the moment, so I didn't go.

I went back to the car and Vinesh said that people usually spend two hours looking at the churches. I had spent 20 minutes.

So then, of course, he took me to another church! This one was way up in the hills and you could not go into the church. It was locked up tight.

People were just milling around trying to peer into these beautiful quirky windows whose panes were made of what looked liked squares of mother of pearl:

The view of Old Goa from the churchyard was gorgeous:
We saw a barge going down the river. Vinesh said that it is taking iron from an iron mine his dad used to work at all the way to Japan:
Here's a pretty Goa blossom in the churchyard:
After discussing his mother's dislike for his ex-girlfriend and her current plans to find him a wife herself, we headed toward Panjim, the capital of Goa.

The "I'm So Done" Moments

For those of you who are interested, my two "I'm so done" moments referred to in "The Anti-Plan" posting were:

• Suffering from the "mutton keema" and having to jump over a sewage canal to get to a hospital to get treatment for it.
  
• Finding myself in the Hyderabad airport having to perform a feminine hygiene task with no toilet paper and no trashcan. Just imagine...

The Anti-Plan

One thing I never thought I'd get used to in India is the idea of a bathroom that is meant to get wet.

Like, wet, ALL OVER.

In the Blue Belle Hotel in Delhi and in Hotel Estrela Do Mar in Goa and in a few other bathrooms I saw along the way -- the showers have no doors, no curtains. When you shower -- the entire bathroom showers with you.
This made me uncomfortable.

I tried to splash around as little as possible, which made for a somewhat repressed shower experience.

But you know what? By the second day of my stay at Estrela Do Mar -- I had changed my mind. I now loved the open shower bathroom! You just need to put the toilet seat down -- and then go nuts. When you're clean -- the entire bathroom is clean.

This post is not really about bathrooms actually. It is about adaptation. It is about seceding to India's ability to change you.

Repeatedly, before I left on this trip, people gave me the advice to just go, let go, take it all in, and then get up the next morning and do it again.

India's modus operandi was so completely different from that of my daily life in the Bay Area, and she was relentless! At no point during my trip did I ever say to myself -- "Oh, this is just like back home!" and you know what, I didn't want it to be.

With the exception of a few "I'm so done with this biotch!" moments along the way -- I realized that India had convinced me to go along with her open and swirling anti-plan without ever asking, and without my ever realizing that I had been convinced.

I love that about her.

Mehendi Dog!

The next morning, I decided to take the correct path to the beach to have the complimentary breakfast buffet and lay out a bit before going to Panjim and Old Goa with my driver, Vinesh.

I saw a lot of pretty flowers on my way:

The early morning beach was still relatively quiet. When I reclined on the beach chair, a pack of dogs arrived and lay down around me, including this one, which one of the beach shack workers told me a mehendi artist painted like a leopard!

The length of the beach is dotted with what are called "beach shacks." Basically, these are restaurants and bars that operate directly on the beach. You can see one off to the left in this photo -- it is literally, a shack:

I was ready for breakfast, so I headed to the Estrela Do Mar beach shack. They had baked beans in the breakfast buffet:

I put them on my plate for a photo op -- but couldn't bring myself to eat them. I had soggy toast instead and got revved up for my day of sightseeing!

The Arabian Sea, Pomfret, and The Victoria's Secret Fashion Show

I landed in Goa and took a pre-paid taxi to my hotel, as recommended by my guidebook and a few people I talked to. It was 1200 rupees, or about $30 for a 45 minute ride. I was a little floored at the cost of the taxi ride, having expected it to be less like being in America.

The owner of the pre-paid taxi service rode along with me as he needed to go to a hotel along the route to my hotel, so I asked him about this and he pretty much confirmed what I had been slowly realizing throughout my time in India so far.

India, contrary to whatever uninformed sentiment made me think it would be, is not cheap.

Many things, like hotels, clothing, books, CDs, jewelry -- what one may consider to be luxury items -- cost nearly the same in India as they do in the US. Other things, such as food in non-hotel restaurants and movies -- are very inexpensive.

My hotel in Hyderabad was $200 a night. My saris cost $100 each. My salwar was $30. My wedding shoes cost $50 and the handbag was also $50. I was told that some condos sprouting up in Hi Tec City run for about $2000 a month. I am not listing these prices for any other reason than to illustrate this point. But, I also want to be clear that I would feel guilty if my gorgeous sari cost me $10 instead.

It is a beautiful thing to see an economy moving toward this kind of health, if that is the word for it. However, it is health from a very selective angle -- in that only a small percentage of the people of India are earning at a level that can participate as consumers of these goods in this economy, and this situation is always ground zero for great discontent that is difficult to resolve. The largest shopping center in Asia is being built in Hyderabad -- providing fabulous stomping grounds for international visitors and local big earners. But, it will also flaunt outrageously priced "haves" to the "have nots."

This situation reminds me of the summer I spent in Asuncion Paraguay staying with a friend whose Brazilian maids ran off with all of my clothes and jewelry the morning after I had spent the night with them on the patio singing and dancing to Marta Sanchez songs. I was distraught. I insisted that I go to the police, which at the time, I was too naive to realize was an exercise in futility.

That night, I sat under the bright, bright stars on the patio of my friend's mansion -- and had a revelation that would last to this day. I could not blame these young women for reacting to the inequities in the world in which we all lived -- inequities that working as maids in a mansion make all too evident and painful and easy to "fix." I don't mean this to sound patronizing at all -- but I had to consider my possessions as a way to give them a miniscule fraction of the comfort that the infrastructure of Brazil had thus far been unable to give them, and leave it at that. And this is how I have always looked at any kind of theft I've experienced since.

After dropping the taxi owner off at a gorgeous resort, we headed further north to my hotel. The driver, who had been silent, then proceeded to beg me to get him a Visa to the US. I told him that I had no idea how I could personally get him a Visa to the US. He was relentless. Frankly, I was a little annoyed at how he felt like I was responsible for getting him a Visa, and at the same time, I felt great guilt.

I have no idea of how the Visa system works -- so I gave him the next best advice I could. I told him to go to school. I told him that whatever path his life takes, education would make it even better. I truly believe this for anyone, including myself. He told me that he failed his courses. So, then...I had nothing to say.

So, are you screwed if you are poor and you fail in school in India? Are there no second chances? In the US, you can always take a few classes on the cheap at a community college and then make your way to better institutions, regardless of whether or not you had failed the 8th grade. Is this unheard of in India? I'll get back to you on this one.

The driver delivered me to Hotel Estrela Do Mar. This place was not what I had imagined based on the photo I saw on Travelocity. Actually, the first room they took me to had not been cleaned yet and as the bellboy opened the door we saw a bunch of used condoms on the floor and he and I looked at eachother like -- HOLY CRAP this is awkward, and not to mention, disgusting.

He ran off to get another room key and took me a clean room, which could never really be clean in my mind after seeing that first room. So, I called the front desk and asked about a refund, thinking that I would be willing to go into debt to be instantly transported to that resort where we dropped off the pre-paid taxi company owner!

Neema, the front desk manager, was very kind and gave me a free upgrade to a larger room, which oddly enough, had cleaner sheets, a healthier vibe overall, and was not located above the hotel garbage bins.

The next morning I headed down to Calangute Beach, on which this hotel was located. I took a wrong turn on the path to the beach and while I still ended up at the beach, the path was strewn with garbage and after hearing some rustling in the bushes, I saw a guy taking a crap just feet away from me.

So far, Goa had not presented me with the ease and relaxation I had been hoping for. By the time I reached the beach, I had the overwhelming sensation of being in my own private Death in Venice, but instead of harboring an obsession for a young boy, I had an obsession with bottled water.

I laid out on the beach for a little bit and then when to Swally's Beach Shack for some breakfast. I ordered some porridge and coconut pancakes. These are coconut pancakes in Goa:

Crepes! Delish!

After breakfast, I walked out into the Arabian Sea -- the water was so warm, and languid. It felt like gently heated honey around my legs!

I lay on a beach chair under an umbrella and attempted to read "The Discovery of India."

Everyone wants to shake hands and exchange names on the beach. The vendors constantly try to sell you things and I was unable to get past page 13.

The tourist season was winding down in Goa -- but there were still lots of people to watch on the beach. Many of the tourists in Goa are European -- namely from Finland and England. Around Calangute, many of them looked like Goldmember, both the men and the women!

For dinner, I asked my driver Vinesh to take me to the best place for pomfret, which Rohit recommended I have while in Goa. The driver consulted his boss and he took me to Kebabs and Curries, at which I had one of the most delicious meals I had had in India so far.

It was a whole tandoori pomfret, served with pineapple raita and plain naan. Incredible!

I went back to my hotel and walked into the open air restaurant/lobby to the sound of these lyrics being sung with a hyper-American English accent: "Tell me quando, quando, quando..."

This is when I met Ivor, the Elvis/Frank Sinatra/Tom Jones of Goa. Here he is in a red cap, next to Neema:
He is a one-man band who has been playing at different restaurants in Goa for at least the last 30 years. He can play any song -- from American lounge classics to classical Indian -- and pretty much did over the course of an hour. Before playing in Goa, he played keyboards for movie soundtracks in Bollywood.

At Ivor's recommendation, I went to Tito's for dinner the next night to have some fish curry rice, which is the official dish of Goa, apparently. Ivor's son, Haydn, was playing there that night. But in addition to playing his dad's more traditional lounge tunes, he also played "Yellow" by Coldplay, to which the crowd went nuts!

So, after the delicious pomfret and a good dose of Tom Jones' Delilah, I headed back to my room and watched one of the strangest shows ever -- The Victoria's Secret Fashion Show. This was to fashion, what Hooter's is to food!

I was warming up to Goa.

Tiffins and Sachin Tendulkar's Uncle

A few years ago when I worked for PeopleSoft, now Oracle, I met a man named Prakash Tendulkar. He is one of Sachin Tendulkar’s uncles. He was a crazy guy who had already retired once, but decided he liked working so much that he took a job working answering help desk calls at PeopleSoft.

I remember him walking down the hall one afternoon – heading out of the office waving his hand in the air with a blissful smile on his face – as his manager called after him to nail him down on a detail of some kind. This was Prakash and Prakash told me that if I ever make it to India – I needed to visit Goa.

So I'm on my way there from Delhi!

To give props to Truong Tran -- here is the triangle sandwich I had on the flight:

The box says "IndiGo Tiffin" on it -- and as with many things Indian -- everything has a story behind it.

The first time I saw the term tiffin, it was on drab storefront in Hyderabad. It was of little consequence to me at that moment -- other than it being an English term that I had never heard of before. But I saw this unfamiliar term over and over again and finally asked about it and got an incredible answer, which is summarized in this wiki article.

The key point of interest for me here is the delivery mechanism: "This system delivers thousands of meals a day and does not use any documents as many Dabbawallas are illiterate. It has been claimed that the tiffin delivery system of Mumbai is so efficient that there is only one mistake for every million deliveries."

The Colonel and Dr. R.K. Mittal, both of whom I asked about tiffins, both cited this incredible delivery system. Per Dr. Mittal, the meals are meant to be affordable by the working class in India and these systems are no longer just delivering meals prepared by wives, but have also expanded to cook and deliver the meals. And the meals are not just being delivered to workplaces, but to homes as well. He said that he had them a few times -- and they weren't very good. =)

I am curious about this documentless delivery system. Being the geek I am, the first thing I thought was -- how are these messages being delivered without documented IDs and sequences? Is there a methodology of brilliant simplicity at work here and what is it?

This other wiki post on Dabbawallas, the tiffin delivery people, tells a more complete story. There aren't written documents per se -- but there are IDs and sequencing systems at work. I wonder if their efficiency rating will go up or down now that they are starting to "embrace modern information technology?"

Hard Kaur Delhi

Still in recovery mode after my second bout of illness, I suggested to Billu that we just take a drive around Delhi in his tuk-tuk and make leisurely stops to pick up a few key souvenirs.

Billu likes Enrique Iglesias – as do a lot of people I talked to about music in India. I can understand this because it seems to me that Enrique has a little Indian spirit and look to him. Frankly, I like me some Enrique "Bailamos" Iglesias every once in a while, too. After all, I had been exposed to the music of his father, Julio, when I was a little girl and my mom was mad about him!

I also heard that Bryan Adams, yes, Bryan “Cuts Like a Knife” Adams, does a huge concert in India every year.

I like it when American hip-hop meets Bollywood. This collaboration happens quite often and I’m so lucky because of it! Wyclef Jean, Timbaland, Rakim, and a score of other really interesting and talented hip hop artists have been tapping into Bollywood music for years. Akon just played a concert here as well. There are tons of music video channels on Indian TV. In Goa, channel 1 is MTV!

My new musical obsession is Hard Kaur, a female Indian rapper, whose music reminds me a little bit of Missy Elliot and whose voice reminds me a bit of Eve. She was recommended to me by Shaddap, one of my row mates on my flight from Delhi to Goa. Thank you, Shaddap!



So, as Billu deftly maneuvered me around Delhi, trying not to give me motion sickness, I peered out of the tuk-tuk taking in the sites and smells of this city, the capital of India. In her unique way of explaining concepts clearly and relevantly, Priya said that Delhi is the capital of India, in the way that Washington DC is the capital of the US. But Mumbai is also an important city in India, in the way that New York City is important in the US.

My first impression of Delhi was that traffic was definitely more controlled than in Hyderabad. I mean, I could probably cross the street in Delhi! My second thought was – why does this box of tissues that this woman is trying to sell me through the tuk-tuk window have Britney Spears face all over it?

Here are some photos I took from the back of Billu's tuk-tuk:

At the end of the excursion, I suggested seeing Jodhaa Akhbar. It is a 4-hour semi-historical film about the Mughal king, Akhbar and his Hindu Rajput queen – Jodhaa, played by, of course, my homegirl, Aishwarya Rai! The music was done by A.R. Rahman, who along with Café Tacuba, Krishna Das, and old school Aretha Franklin, have provided the bulk of the soundtrack for my trip. My favorite song in the movie was Khwaja Mere Khwaja.

There was a heavy security check to be able to get into the theater. On a side note, most of the times I entered a large, enclosed public space in India, I had to go through a security check. It happened at the Prasads IMAX in Hyderabad, which I was told, is a prime potential target of terrorism.

The security at this theater in Delhi told me that I couldn’t take my camera into the theater, so I had to check it into a private locker outside the theater, which was basically handing it to a cigarette and snack vendor on the street, for which I received a handwritten claim ticket. I saw a couple of local girls handing over their backpacks, so I figured it was legit!

Warning: There are spoilers below!

It was an ambitious film – maybe to its detriment. It was in Hindi with no subtitles, but I could pretty much tell what was happening. You know:

You have a reluctant bride forced into marriage by her father for strategic reasons.

They are of differing religions – but, even if she’s behind a translucent curtain he can tell she’s hot, so he accepts the marriage. ;-)

She immerses herself in his culture and she shares her culture through food and her bling!

Some people on the king’s side are suspicious of her – but she proves herself by riding a horse furiously into a battle, but doesn’t actually fight. Okay, so this part about how exactly she proved herself – I missed. But she did it!

He gets wounded in battle – and she prays to Krishna all night to save him, and he lives!

I found my attention wandering whenever Aishwarya was not on screen. Cell phone ringtones and conversations were constantly going on during the film – which was amusing in itself. The woman next to me, who I think was Mughalphile, kept nudging me to see if I was enjoying it, which was endearing. =) She kept tsk-tsking people who were walking out of the theater before it was over, and there were quite a few.

After the film, I walked out and the street was filled with security vehicles. Billu told me that it is because the Chief Minister of Delhi, Sheila Dikshit, was in the theater watching the film with us!

I went up to the cigarette vendor to claim my camera – and he handed it to me with a smile.

Billu and I stopped into the Wimpy’s around the corner to get some takeaway and headed back to the hotel to drop me off for the night. I looked at my box of Vege Nuggets in my room and dialed room service for a serving of what had been my diet for my last four major meals – plain steamed rice and vege noodle soup.

Sounds blah– but as with everything else I had experienced in India – it had an earnest and warm charm that was all its own!