what have i done in india lately

Just saw a commercial where a guy and girl were passing fireworks between them. Then the woman takes a rocket firework and finds a jewelry box on it. She opens it up and the dude takes the ring and puts in on. It did not seem like a dude ring to me. Confused. Another commercial has a girl and guy obviously having some meeting to see if they would be a good match when a dude comes in and apparently is upset at being jilted by the dude. My favorite commercial lately has been the one where the old dude yells at the young dude with headphones to not cut in line and to respect proper queueing. Oh that and the young Hindustan commercials for Pepsi which are so obviously the 20 years later and in India version of the Choice of the Next Generation ads.

There was a great article about India, she hugs, she punches, she hugs again. Before R&R I was definitely being punched. Repeatedly. Now I suppose I’m getting hugged. I have had some difficult but rewarding cases lately in ACS – talking at length with a paranoid schizophrenic, helping with parental abduction cases, visiting hospitals.

For one whereabouts visit, I traveled to Auroville. The 20 kilometer village is an experiment in people from around the world living in harmony. A lovely idea, a beautiful place, delicious food. Some things are a bit over the top and I can see how others have been a bit freaked out by the place, but the goal is impressive and it was nice to see some true hippy crunchy commune living still surviving. The nursing home in Pondicherry was not as nice, looked more like a scene from that movie about when Hemingway was an ambulance driver in WW I. Someday I’ll return to both places and actually see them fully but at least I can check the two off the list. Oh, and the score is now up to three for finding people that have been reported either dead or near death far from that state.

We finally did our dance!!!! I can’t believe how nervous I was but at the end of the day we rocked the house!!!! There were some mistakes but overall it was pretty rad and we got lots of compliments! Later that night we went to Kryptos for dinner to celebrate making it through and also Holly’s birthday. Good day.

Friday night was the pub crawl. I had my handy dandy ghost Halloween headband with blinking lights and it was agreed ahead of time that when I placed it on my head we would head to the next place. I also handed out voting cards so we could be all official with our judging. Starting at Chipstead I met some Irishmen in town on work. Then we headed to 10 Downing Street where we were treated terribly and forced to listen to multiple Abba songs while Bridget paid almost $20 for a vodka tonic. However, Katie was able to argue a partial refund. Classy. Finally we danced our way out of the hellish British pub wannabe and made it over to Bike and Barrel. Awesome music (yeah put a ring on it) and dancing, shots for Holly’s birthday, the goofy costumes (to be fair the waiters at 10 Downing Street also had disturbing costumes involving fake G money gold chains), the guys looking down from above kept up there by the nets – B&B did not disappoint. One of our crew was forced to wear the rent a shoes – Chennai’s version of the loaner jacket! Holly barely avoided a water attack by me. A wine glass was broken.

From B&B we headed over to Dublin. Although getting a drink was super hard, Dublin had some advantages. When we first walked in there was a big Marilyn Monroe with the face cutout to take pictures stop. Yeah. And then there was crazy 80’s music all over the place and a lot of other coworkers dancing it on up. There was just a bunch of silliness. But fun. And then we walked to Havana in the rain. One of our dance class songs was playing when we entered but when it finished music was over and last call happened. So we sat around and drank and then returned to my place. Where Holly handed me her DVD of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. I went to the balcony with Behrang and Mark and upon returning there was a bunch of people doing the Time Warp in my living room. Awesome.

Last night was the murder mystery dinner party. I had never done one of these so I had really looked forward to it. Everyone looked awesome all dressed up 1920’s style. I was Color Pencille, an artist of ambiguous medium. While the evening was a ton of fun, there is something totally creepy about playacting super sleazy dude behavior with married coworkers. I realize this is the basic premise of Halloween but still. A bit creepy. Oh heck yeah, November tomorrow….NANOWRIMO!!!!

sriiiiiiiii lanka

Somehow I get 20 holidays a year - 10 American and 10 Indian - and yet it STILL feels as if I have way too few 3 day weekends. So this past weekend I headed out to Sri Lanka with Behrang and Holly. My first trip to Ceylon was with my mom in January and it was fantastic - we crashed a wedding at Galle Face Hotel replete with gorgeous dress and backhandspringing dudes and drummers, we made a very uncomfortable driver take us to a casino which we hightailed out of after realizing WHY the driver was so uncomfortable, we visited the elephant orphanage and the temple of the tooth and saw lots of Buddhas. It ruled. So I was very excited to head back.

The flight was terrible. The seats' designers must have been trying to impress vlad the impaler. Although the in-flight video describing the safety procedures was top notch, awesome cartoons dudes with fabulous mustaches. When we checked in to our hotel they tried to give us a room with only one queen bed when we had paid for one with two queen beds. Quite a rucus was caused when Holly fought the man and instead of taking a rollaway bed she DEMANDED another queen and got them to actually bring a boxspring and a mattress from another room!!! It rocked. Thankfully that hotel was really only our flophouse for the evening since our flight got in so late and Galle is such a haul.

The next day we took the BEST van ever to Galle. Four hours of luxury. The a/c was not the best, the van was not so new BUT the seats were like big comfy couches and they leaned all the way back. Oh yeah. It ruled. As did our glamorous hotel. The Galle Fort Hotel. Colonial style. Boutique hotel. Gorgeous guy checking us in as I checked him out. Oh Ewen. Heart. A welcome bottle of Lion Lager that was pretty much a 40. We had the library suite. A lovely lunch and then a great stroll along the top of the fort to watch the sunset over the ocean. Perfection. Dinner at some rooftop joint called Mama's; yummy prawn curry with eggplant and pumpkin and lentils and coconutted on up green beans. MMMMMMMMMMMM.

Sunday was beach day. Gorgeous blue and green water, golden sand, lovely waves and swimming. A delicious prawn and beer lunch. A stroll to see a buddhist temple on the hill and a climb down to some rocks to watch the waves crash and the seaspray surprise a couple looking to be all romantic and then some policemen freaking us out. Beautiful.

Monday I had a morning stroll through town and also walked around the top of the fort to enjoy the morning light. Another beautiful breakfast at the hotel, delicious coffee and tea and fruit and buffalo curd hot cakes, so yummy. Wrote some post cards, packed up, had a lunch at another luxurious hotel on the way to airport. Made my way home even though I was convinced I would not leave. Back to reality!

over the r&r hump

Life was pretty rough up until R&R. I got to the point of really hating my job which left me too exhausted to enjoy everything else. To be clear, I hated the job I was doing but still loved my career. Non-immigrant visa interviewing is a horrendous grind and adjudicating over 15,500 visas in 12 months had drained me. Additionally, since the numbers were high and the number of adjudicators low, the overall atmosphere was highly pressurized. A constant feeling of time pressures caused me to treat applicants with a tone and an impatience that I wouldn't have thought myself capable of stooping to. So I hated what I was doing and I hated how I was doing it. Which meant that my R&R was desperately needed. And I was AMAZING at resting and recuperating - visiting so many people, hugging my niece and nephew, aerial fabric lessons, seeing cousins' new houses and babies, camping, kayaking, touring the national mall on a segway, trying to eat my weight in sushi and steak. It ruled.

Returning to India was difficult. It was the first time in my life where I wasn't ready to return to where I was living at the end of a trip home to Philly. While home, I exaggerated in my mind the dirt, noise, confusion, frustration of life here. I've been much happier since returning. Although I do think a lot of that is due to switching jobs. I am now doing American Citizen Services which is what I have always wanted to do of consular work. The pace is a lot more manageable and in general I am able to provide the service people come in for. The non-appointment work is incredibly rewarding as we are helping people out when they are facing some of their strongest difficulties.

Since I've been back I've laid pretty low. However, I did go out one night to a coffee shop many floors above a car dealership that had pool tables and salsa. It was pretty cool and I bought tickets for their big dance-a-rama coming up where they'll have two weekends full of dance classes and I'll finally get to flamenco!!!! And there is a Pirate party. Oh yeah!

I was in Bangalore and Hubli for over a week for work and during the weekend Holly met up with me and we went to Kabini River Lodge. A rustic cabin, set meals and safari rides! There was a giant net hung between multiple trees that I got to climb and chill in as if it was the biggest hammock EVER. During the evening safari we saw elephants in the wild including baby elephants!!! So cute. Lots of beautiful birds and deer and water buffalo. The morning safari brought an exotic lizard and a fox and a saucer boat ride! Yes, saucer boat. Holly and I were the only ones saucer boating, everyone else chose the big motor boat. Wimps. After we got out in the water, the paddler guy tells us that under the water is fish, snakes and crocodiles. Given that Holly had the ACS case where an Amcit was killed by a sea crocodile, she was none too happy to hear that! But the sun had just risen and the morning light was incredible. The river we were on was dry during the summer season and the trunks of trees sticking out of the water looked like beautifully eerie dancers striking soulful poses. Inspiring. Overall we survived and at the end of the drive back to Bangalore there was way too many desserts at Hard Rock Cafe. Pretty darn sweet!