Hurricane Sunita!

So Holi marks the beginning of summer, which should mean about three months of hot dry weather (oh joy). Yesterday though we started hearing murmurs from people about the rain coming (barish aa rahin hai, aaeygi). I didn't think anything of it. These are the same sort of people that refuse to serve me eggs in the summer because they heat me up. Then all of a sudden early today, the rain just started coming down in sheets. Anika and I had seen hail in Jaipur, so we weren't too shocked. We expected it to just come through and stop. But it hasn't. Luckily our apartment is on the first floor, because the water is already about knee height and has yet to let up at all.

People refuse to accept that the rains are a full three months early (there are global warming deniers here too), so they have names this storm Hurricane Sunita. We should continue to have power, but the phone lines are a little wonky already. I'll keep you posted on our safety etc.

Love,
Violet

Holi Photos, Batman!

So, this is the pretty "look I'm playing Holi picture" that you will see on most people's facebooks. This is when Holi is nice and friendly. You put color on one another and hug, and its sweet.  

This is what Holi really looks like, when you are sweaty, and people throw color in your eyes and dump it on your head. Don't get me wrong it's a ton of fun. But I thought I would properly show you before and after. More pictures tomorrow.

Love,

Violet

Udaipur

I'm still posting from my phone, but taking lots of pictures that I will post when I'm back in Delhi. In the meantime, here is a picture from the roof where Anika and I had coffee this afternoon.

Love,
Violet

Post holi Jaipur

More to follow when I am back in Delhi, but I wanted to give you a taste of holi here. This is a photo of the shirt I wore to play holi, post washing mind you. It was white before... Also it just poured here and then started to hail. In the summer. In Jaipur. Pea sized balls of ice. From the sky. So strange.

Love,
Violet

Holi Hai!

I've been waiting for a long time to play holi. Yesterday I was woken up by loud music and a blaring voice on a speaker system. He told me it was holi. After some confused tired stumbling, I went downstairs to investigate and found the "park ladies association" having their early holi party. I got some jelebi, being made in fresh connecting branches, I guy sitting and wordlessly squirting squiggled creations of sugary dough in the hot oil.

I refused too much more food, only had some curry and two chapatti. Afterwards I was brought to the dj booth and everyone was encouraged to come dance with their "American friend". The park ladies descended on me lending their auntie dance moves to some pretty gangster American tunes. After I was given some color, I went sent on the way.

I spent the rest of the day dodging water balloons coming from roof tops. Eventually my friend and I got our revenge, throwing balloons from his roof top and smearing people with color. What a satisfying sound the balloon makes when it splats on a 13 year old hooligan.

Love,
Violet

Ghooming Around Delhi

So I have been enjoying Delhi a lot the last few days, eating far too much, meeting people, and taking beautiful walks along the lush roads. The highlights have been visiting the Bangla sahib Gurudwara and eating first dinner there (pumpkin curry) and then today, a veg thali at the andrah pradesh cantine followed by a walk to a very beautiful old well that's in the middle of no where surrounded by modern high rises.

More Delhi tomorrow and then Rajasthan for holi!
Love,
Violet

End of Mumbai day, beginning of Delhi days

So as you may remember (see Dhobi Ghat post: http://violetinindia.blogspot.in/2013/03/dhobi-ghat-and-haji-ali.html), I left you getting ready for my night out after the Haji Ali. I headed back by train (rush hour packed ladies car, a lovely sight, with a slightly less lovely smell), ate an paratha (still my favorite), and started to get gussied up. I grabbed a rick to Bandra and met up with my friend. She and I took her car (with a driver, what a luxury), over the Worli sea link. The sight from the bridge at night is really breath taking. It gives you that "alright tonight's the night" feeling that a great song might. From there we went to blue frog, a hip music venue in South Bombay. Thanks to International Women's Day, there was no cover charge (that's feminism, right?). So what was playing tonight? Some sleepy raga? A fusion band? Techno? No! It was a Led Zeppelin tribute band! With a female lead! We rocked out to "led zep" tunes for a while. I knew most of the words to most of the songs, but seemed to be in the minority. There was one major exception though: the encore, Stairway to Heaven. About 30 Indian boys say along in heavily accented voices, while swooning and crying over how good of a song it is. I guess that's universal.

I also saw my first bollywood star! He's an oldy but a goody, because he's in the first Bollywood film I ever saw, that's still my favorite! Isn't that great luck?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azbrgGSZH4M
He's the actor that's not Sharukh Khan in this song.

After the show, I stayed over at my friend's place, so I didn't have to go back alone. After a lovely night's sleep I woke up in Bandra to fresh fruit and hard boiled eggs, hot coffee from an adorable chatty maid followed soon after. All I could think was, I could get used to this. Shucks, guess I'm going to have to get a job.

So that was Bombay. Now Delhi.

I have been meeting people in Delhi, and I have to say it is really growing on me. The first thing that I have neglected to point out is that it is home to one of my top five favorite people of all time, Gandhi! Just kidding, Anika. I look forward to Indian style unibrow chicken fights. Besides that there are a lot of smart people doing interesting things. This really is the hub for good work here. Some more highlights are: good food, I had a brownie the other day (don't judge) that would really put 99 percent of New York brownies to shame. The other thing is the history! You can walk around Delhi and it is modern and green, with lots of trees and flowers, and all of a sudden a ruin of an old Mughal fort just appears next to you, with a moat and everything! These sneaky beautiful places mean that I am going to have to carry my camera around for sure.

More Delhi later, and some pictures!
Love,
Violet

Delhi's Redemption

So, I still am not on my own computer (this means no photos), but I can offer you a few redeeming things about Delhi, and this is within 24 hours of arriving! It is walkable! Yes, the one major issue with Bombay is that there aren't any sidewalks in most of the city. In Delhi it is relatively easy to walk continuously for 15 minutes (see earlier post about Bombay) or even an hour and a half as I did yesterday. Additionally the Metro system is truly the bomb diggity, for lack of a better term.

In other news, I am being incredibly well fed. I met up with a friend of a friend who invited me to her family's house for dinner. Before we left she insisted on buying me a snack (chinese style nodles with a sweet milk drink). When we arrived at her house here was soda and chips. Then her mother brought daal and rice. I thought, perfect, some nice light home cooking... but about an hour later there was roti and potatoes and a different daal and a milk drink. And then yoghurt, and paratha, and the butter, man the butter. An inch cubed, after I insisted just a little. I think she could sense the weakness in my voice as I tried to resist. I would have gotten more too, if I didn't plead foreigner belly. It was delicious. All I kept thinking was, thank god I can walk here. Otherwise, I would have to be rolled from one location to another after not too long.

With that image....
Love,
Violet

Yeh Dilli Hai Mere Yaar

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcNTlyzHVV0&sns=em

Posting from my phone at the moment, so no long post (although I promise to continue my last one soon). I have just landed in Delhi. It hasn't captured my fancy like Mumbai did, but maybe this will be like an arranged marriage instead of a love marriage, I will come to love and depend on it over time. In any case, it's just like an arranged marriage at the moment: I'm stuck with this city for now, might as well try to like it. I'm looking forward to meeting up with friends and letting them convince me that this is a cool place. That being said I'm keeping an open mind, and despite all I've heard, I'm determined to have my own opinion about being here. So far it sort of feels like Delhi is to Mumbai what Chicago is to New York... I'll leave it at that.

Love,

Violet

Dhobi Ghat and the Haji Ali

The other day I was in serious photographer mode (that's what I call the mood I'm in when I'm actually willing to lug my camera plus my bag on to the rush hour trains). So I have lots of photos of the sights that I saw. Truthfully, I have actually been to both the places pictured above before, but I didn't have my fancy shmancy lens, and apparently I never blogged about them (oops, laziness mixed with having too much fun last year). So for all intents and purposes, this is brand new material (woot woot).

Alright down to business, the first five pictures are from Dhobi Ghat. It's a neighborhood in Mumbai where an astounding percentage of the city's laundry goes to get cleaned by hand. People wash the clothes in the basins in the middle, dry them on lines on the roof and live around the periphery. You can see this all happen from a bridge that extends from the Mahalaxmi stop on the train. After nerding out taking pictures with my stalker lens (yes, I have stopped to pause at the ethical implications), I convinced my hostel-mates to trek the 20 minutes to the Haji Ali. Now, I totally framed it in terms of the sight to see (and it is a sight, a mosque in the middle of the water), but I was at at least 60-40 interested in strawberry creme over taking pictures of the mosque.

The walk from Dhobi Ghat to the Haji Ali, was very interesting. I stopped to see the tail end of someone getting a tattoo on the street. The tattoo giver rubbed tumeric paste on it, while I asked how much it hurt. Continuing on, we passed the Mahalaxmi race course (horses!). Every so often along the way I asked directions. This is one habit I have developed in Bombay: continuously asking people which way to go. There are a couple reasons for this. It's a really common thing to do, especially on the road. Often people will just sort of point and make a fanning gesture with your hand. Normally one would think that means straight all the way, or just ahead, but I have learned from experience that it actually means keep going until you are sure you must of missed it and then ask again. Anyhow, one of the benefits, is that you often pick up people to chat to on the way. In this instance, I confirmed with three girls that the mosque was just around the corner. They said yes and that they were going there too, so we chatted along the way. From visiting a NGO, I had learned a lot about there age group, so we talked about their exams, where they were from and their worries about getting good grades. It was great Hindi practice!

Once at the mosque, I got a strawberry creme from the famous fruit stand in front of it (last photo and close up yesterday), and then continued down the long boardwalk to the mosque. We didn't particularly want to go inside so we only made it about half way down. The shops on the left side were interesting to look at but the spectacular variety of injured/sick/mutilated beggars made my strawberry creme do trapeze acts in my stomach. I had to get ready for my night anyhow.

More on that later.
Love,
Violet

Show and Tell

Today, I am all over the place planning my move to Delhi. So instead of telling you about my awesome day yesterday (I promise I'll do that tomorrow). I decided to do a little show and tell about some of the things that I have been talking about and not showing. The first photo I took from inside the train of the bandra stop. I have been completely loving using public transit. It's cheap and often faster, and once you really master it, it's just an incredible feeling of really knowing the city. I slap on my headphones, put on a playlist of Hindi jams and indie favorites, and squeeze myself between colorful sari-d women in the ladies car. 

Bandra has been featured in my blog before because it's one of my favorite neighborhoods. There are cool bars, restaurants and shopping. It's a low key cool place to walk and hang, and where you can find me most of the time.

The second photo is a common sight. Women (and a lot of men too) really like their colored contacts. In the swanky but not super swanky neighborhoods you see a lot of slightly alien looking green and blue eyes on otherwise super beautiful Indian babes. Who knows. Anyhow, this color obviously stood out to me. 

The third photo is kind of cheating because it's part of my day yesterday. Can you guess what it is? Strawberry creme! I was in the neighborhood, so I got another one! Still love it! (alright, it was a 15 minute walk, and I had to drag four people there by insisting it was just around the corner, but hey, if you burn the calories with the walk to and from it's like you didn't eat it at all right?).

So now you know a little more about what I see on a normal day.

Love,

Violet

My entourage

Last night, I was waiting for my friend Tim at a "lounge bar" near my hostel to have a beer. I walk in and I am the only person there (plenty of people in the restaurant portion though). I sit down on a plush couch and order a beer. Two attendants stand by the bar, ready at a moments notice in case I might change my mind and order a four-course meal. I glance at the tv's in front of me and 80s wrestle mania is playing. For a second I get lost in the paunchy bleach blonde men in speedos hug each other in multiple ways. A mosquito snaps me out of my tv zombie-dom and I realize there are now 4 attendants, glancing at each other waiting for me to order something else. They are chatting to each other about whether they should put music on for me or not. I swat at the mosquito and immediately one of the waiters gets what looks like an electric tennis racket in order to hunt the mosquitos. Of course, they were all around me. So for five minutes the waiter is waving the racket around me like it was a security check, I have my hands over my head, and he's being very careful not to electrocute me. Eventually he chases the mosquito to another part of the room. At this point there are between six and seven men waiting around me to help, with another two walking in and out just in case. Finally some other people start to arrive. They put on Rihanna and go back to work. Can't beat the service out here, man.

Love,
Violet

Bandra Overpass

The other day I met up with a friend at the Bandra train station. I had just come from a meeting, so I had a little time to kill. Extending from the train were these long overpasses, that lead to different parts of the neighborhood. I decided to walk from one end to the other of each of the paths. The height is perfect for my voyeuristic tendencies, the tunnel hovers just over the majority of the buildings (most are three story residential apartments. From that height I could inspect the laundry drying outside balconies, and see inside houses, but also over roofs. I wandered over the neighborhood, going all the way to one end and then doubling back until I could go in a different direction. One way, there was a large lake, another theoretically lead to the national library, although the path led to another outcropping of buildings that looked identical to every other group of buildings.

It was a great way to see the city. One day I'll go back with my real camera and stalker lens.

Love,
Violet

Lazy Saturday...

Yesterday, I embarked on the epic task of getting an Indian sim card. I put it off for too long, and have been using my american one far too much (thanks and sorry dad, again, just don't look at the bill, close your eyes and wave your wallet at it). There is a large, air conditioned vodaphone store that is a fifteen minute walk away from the hostel, so three of us went. A fifteen minute walk in India is a different animal than in New York. First of all, that amount of time could easily only get you around the corner, especially if you are timid about crossing the street and if you insist on taking pictures of everything you find cool or weird or funny (photo 2, Dad you should call that number, look at those stunning results), it can take close to an hour to walk the equivalent of three blocks. So yeah, it turns out that on saturday, the road to vodaphone turns into a huge bazaar. People spread out blankets with everything you could imagine, spices, jewelry, fruits, fruits next to rat poison, rat poison... and the vendors are constantly coming in and out pushing carts or loading their wares onto bikes, fighting with the normal traffic for space (photo 1). It made the walk a lot longer, but a lot more fun. It was one of the cooler sights that I have seen, and it was just the walk to the cell store! It made me feel especially accomplished as well.

At the store things were so organized, I actually couldn't navigate it. We got numbers from electric kiosks, and they called the numbers... in order. People waited for their numbers, and when they called the number on the piece of paper, you could talk to one of the tellers. Crazy right? I was about to throw an elbow and make my way to the front. Instead I squatted on the floor and waited.

After getting sim cards, we rewarded ourselves with lunch at a place that we found walking back. It was delicious! A great find. Unfortunately, the sim card isn't working yet, but otherwise I would say it was a pretty accomplished Saturday afternoon.

Love,
Violet

P.S. Another note on the miracle hair treatment, how is it possible that an illustration can't even make the before and after pictures look like the same person?

Poonam -- finally final Goa post

 Over the course of my trip in Goa, it was decided that my current Hindi name was unacceptable (Jamuna) and I should be rebranded Chandni (moonlight). These things happen. I am pretty content to be renamed every time I come to India, because I seem to be a different version of myself each trip anyhow. In most cases I'm just Wyerlet, and I'm just fine with that also. Well, in order to commemorate the experience, I decided to get it tattooed on me (just kidding, it's black henna, although there are plenty of people that do decided to randomly get tattooed here, a girl in the hostel came back from Goa with the batman sign "because batman is cool"). The best part of the experience was chatting with the lovely girl who drew it on me.

Her name is Poonam, she's 18 and Gujarati. It's hard to tell from the photo but she had the most lovely light brown eyes. At first she was shy, speaking in a Russian-ish accent in English (seriously this place is crazy colonized), but when she realized she could speak in Hindi, she loosened up, started joking and showed her true colors as a sort of mischievous, teasing little sister. She reminded me of someone I know at home, in that regard... While the henna was drying we started talking about Mumbai, and she said she was going to visit for the first time in a few weeks. Her excitement was electric, talking about the Bhel Puri she would eat at Juhu (after I confessed my love for it as well), and the shopping that she was going to do. After Mumbai, she had a couple days and then she was going to get married (!). She she showed me pictures of her engagement and her fiance. She seemed to be genuinely pleased to marry him despite the fact that he was sort of fat (her words, he didn't really seem big to me). Pulling up a picture of him on the computer, that she confessed she hated using, she pointed out his nose, saying she always tells him it looks like a samosa.

More people and places tomorrow.
Love,
Violet

Happy st patty's day!

I am having interweb troubles again, so I am writing a short message from my phone. Alas, no pictures until tonight (fingers crossed). I realized this morning that today was st Patrick's day, so I had someone pinch me. Luckily I have corrected my error and am sporting a lovely emerald green scarf. I think I may head to an expat party tonight with a friend, to check out the scene. I'm all suited up for it!

Love,
Violet
PS pinch some people for me

Some things about my Hindi

I will post something longer about the rest of Goa later (I'm back in Mumbai), but I thought in honor of my multi-hour travel extravaganza, I will talk a little bit about my frustrations with Hindi. So, I have been studying this language for a long time, an embarrassingly long time for the way that I talk. Yes, it's a hard language, and yes I understand about 96 percent of what is said, but opening my mouth is sort of a different story, and here's the problem:
- when my well meaning friends tell other people I speak Hindi, they immediately want me to "say something"... when you tell a kid to do that they say "something", what do I say? nothing, I immediately go mute. It's complete radio silence in my brain, no english, no hindi... occasionally one thing will pop into my mind. A whispered "merde" (shit in french)... so no practice ever comes from that.
- when I get flustered, tired, or overheated (read most of the time in India), my brain starts to cram all my thoughts together. It's hard enough to get coherent sentences out of my mouth in English when this happens, but translating into Hindi is like a sword fight between my tongue and my mind.
- my Hindi is too good. It's what they call shud Hindi. So when I finally get my sentences together, and I'm feeling good, people sometimes laugh at me. I'll say, "that's the word for x, isn't it?", and they'll say, "yes if you are in a melodramatic bollywood movie".
- last (for now) but certainly not least, even when my Hindi is working like a well oiled machine, and I am using slang, feeling good. I still largely do not know where I am going. So whether I'm in a cab or in a rickshaw, if they list of a lot of places, I still don't understand. But man, let me tell you, I can say, "I have no idea where the flip you are taking me" in the most shud Hindi ever, Brahmin priests would be proud.

Love,
Violet 

Beached Violet

What can I even write? Don't the pictures say it all? I got to spend yesterday by the beach, on the beach and in the water. The ocean is warm, but not too warm, and very very salty. The waves are perfect for splashing around in, but never scary. It's still a little strange for me to wear a bikini in India, I keep thinking the modesty police is going to come out and scold me, but there are certainly people here wearing much less.

The beach is expansive, in all directions, with shacks set up all along it. Each shack has it's own music (frequently the backstreet boys are competing with the techno next door), lounge chairs, and umbrellas. Children come by selling puffed rice snacks, and both the kids and the snacks are irresistible. It's often difficult to see such young girls and boys working. At night there are eight or nine year olds spitting and spinning fire, and it's sort of disgusting. I know how painful it can be, and to think of it as a compulsion as opposed to an obsessive hobby... it's just not that fun to watch. But the kids with the snacks are so clever, so funny, such savvy business people, it's a marvel to see and talk to them. Equally awe-inspring are the guys working at the beach that seem to know just enough of every language to get people to come sit, eat, drink and laugh with them. We made friends with the guy who was serving us, and he would chat with us in Hindi, until her had to run after some people walking across the beach, crooning to them in Russian to pick his shack over any of the other hundred. Of course, this ability didn't stop them from completely disbelieving my Hindi knowledge. No worries though, that look of surprise when I start to speak, is my favorite thing. Ok, back to the beach!

Love,
Violet

Goa or goan goan gone or some other bad pun

Greetings from Goa, the land of tempting and terrible puns! I'm having a great time here wearing dresses (gasp, I have already caused one accident due to white leg glare). I have yet to actually get on to a beach because it is too fun to roam around the cute town. I took a million pictures, because the little streets and houses could just as easily be the south of France. Besides the architecture, the food has been incredible! There is fresh seafood galore. I split a seafood platter yesterday, which definitely violated the "never eat anything bigger than your head" rule. The highlights? the lobster and the crab, coconut shrimp curry is also delicious here. Let's just say, I understand why people end up staying here.

Anyhow, all of the things I mentioned, I more or less expected along with the beach bars, the late night parties... So what's the most shocking thing? 40 percent of the population here (roughly 90 percent of the tourist population) are old Russian tourists! I'm talking burly square men, and bleach blonde old ladies with leather-y tans! Who knew? Everything here is written in English and Russian. I want to know the history behind this! Any ideas? So unfortunately I don't get to be the most beautiful blonde on the beach, but what the Russians have on me in looks (and killer beach bods), I make up for in dancing. Haven't gotten to show it off yet, but tonights the night. There is definitely some cabbage patching, moonwalking, and a healthy dose of bhangra in my future.

Love you,
Violet

Local Celebrity

So after strawberry cremes, we headed to Bandra. We went to this hilarious place called the hawaiian shack: all the (Indian) waiters were dressed in hawaiian shirts and straw hats (see photo). It's even worse than it looks. There is just something particularly hilarious about disgruntled Indian bartenders in straw hats that are too small for them. At first they were playing terrible 80s music (surprisingly run of the mill here), and there were lot of swaying old guys. Finally they started playing something better, and by that I mean Enrique Iglesias. It's not great but I can get down to that, so I started dancing a bit. 

Then a guy comes up to me and says I'm the lucky "randomly selected" customer who gets to stand on the bar and pour a bottles worth of free shots into customers' mouths. I'm like: why not? Luckily, I was "randomly selected", like they pulled a name out of a hat. I'm like: I'm the only white person, one of 4 girls, and definitely the only one dancing like I'm Selena... "random". Anyhow, I'm game for anything.
So, they announce me (wyerlet from america!!) and I get on the bar, I give some free shots, dance a bit, take one for myself (at this point I realize that its like 90% cranberry juice), give some more-- and by that I mean standing on the bar, over guys with wide open mouths pouring booze in. Then I can't help but decide to be dramatic and pour the last sixth of the bottle in my mouth, again, all cranberry juice (no false advertising rules in India). I get down, but the owner wants me to keep dancing on the bar. At that point people are buying too many drinks so I don't. 

I get off the bar, and decide to go upstairs, because too many people are approaching me. I dance upstairs for a while with my friend (better music up here, indian stuff and house) when I hear my name. I go to the dj booth and they have dedicated a song to me. Then they insist I dance in the booth which is a elevator thing that goes between the two floors. Every time the dj booth goes down the people on the top call to have it go up. Eventually the manager writes his name and number on a napkin, gives it to me, and says that if I ever want a job, I should call him, oh and that he just bought a super fast bike from the actor Salman Khan, I said: oh too bad, I'm a Shahrukh fan. 

Love,
Violet

A Great Day

While I was away from the internet, I had one of the best days of my trip so far (maybe of the year so far). It started out with a coffee date with three people from couchsurfing in Juhu. After I buried my face in a bowl-sized mug of cafe au lait (something I had sorely missed, here all of the coffee and tea comes in shot glass sized cups that are half full of sugar), we headed out in search of lunch. First we went to a cafe called candies (photo 1). It's a restaurant hidden away. Stepping inside is like teleporting to somewhere in the Mediterranean. The place is four stories, winding up with colorful glass and blue and white tile. People sit inside and outside, eating beautiful, carefully crafted confections. It was lovely to walk around in, but super crowded, so we decided to go elsewhere. Ultimately we settled on a kabob restaurant with delicious bread. From there I walked to meet Vik (at the KFC, naturally).

We continued to walk around Bandra, and then jumped into a cab to continue the culinary tour in South Bombay. We took the Worli Sealink (a huge bridge that extends over the sea, funny story about that later*) to Cafe Universal, a very old restaurant with an exposed beam ceiling and wooden benches. After a corona, salad and garlic bread, we headed to Marine Drive to take a walk. Sitting by the water we got a thimble sized coffee from a guy going by on a bike. The man had a large metal container with tea and coffee strapped behind him and was biking down the strip. We continued down Marine Drive to the Chowpatty beach, where I had my fortune told by a machine (picture 2). From there we hopped in a cab to go to the Haji Ali, a mosque built in the middle of the ocean that you have to walk down a long boardwalk to get to.  But we were interested in religion, we wanted a strawberry creme from the famous juice stand near by. I have to pause for a second to tell you how unbelievable good it was. Such fresh strawberries, and the creme: sweet and not quite whipped, but not liquid. I plan on having it at least three more times before I leave, maybe I'll even be tempted to try another flavor (peach, cashew, etc). From there, even though I was tired, we decided that we should go to Bandra for a drink, it was Saturday night after all... we thought the day was almost over, but it was just getting started. To be continued...

Love,
Violet


* Since I'm leaving you hanging I'll tell you about the Worli Sealink. I was in cab with two people from my hostel. We were headed to Crawford market (see earlier post). They had to catch a bus to Goa so were trying to head down quickly. I suggested to the cab driver that we take the bridge, the "Worli Ceiling". After I explained what ceiling meant to my fellow travelers, they asked me why it was called that, I said I had no idea, maybe because the bridge was high, and the only thing there. At that point the driver turned around to me and said, "sea-link, worli sea-link". Turns out I had been saying it wrong all that time. 

Banganga

Yesterday, I walked around an area called Malabar Hill. Luckily I had my camera (and my fancy shamcy, how the hell do you spell that?, lens) because the area was like nothing I have ever seen in Mumbai. It's as if they cut out a section of Varanasi and airlifted it to the heart of the city. In the center of this little village neighborhood is a water tank (photo 1) called Banganga. My friend and budding anthropologist asked around and found out it's called that because Ram came to Mumbai with Sita (you know, probably just doing some shopping, seeing the sites), and Sita was thirsty. Ram struck an arrow (ban) into the ground and a spring came up (that lucky girl, what a catch she has). The ban part is from the arrow and the ganga part is due to the holiness factor -ganga/ganges/holy water, I think you get it, and I think it's particularly appropriate, because the sides of the tank look exactly like the ghats in Varanasi (on the ganges). Go look back at my posts from there to compare. So this little rural looking area remains in the heart of developed Mumbai (literally the real-estate prices of the place around here rival New York), probably do to this fresh water tank that sprung up on a peninsula, on a peninsula surrounded by salt water. Although both tank and the sea view are beautiful (really, the garbage based shoreline has some fantastic color) , I think I am going to stick to my bottled water (sorry Ram).

Love,
Violet

More Mumbai

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I'm back on the interwebs! [insert emoticon of digital relief here] I have been doing a lot of exploring, and seeing and eating. So I promise you will have posts a plenty in the days to come, even if I just decide to sit around for the next few days (pretty close to the truth: my big plans are to buy the new fat Indian Vogue and to get my hair trimmed, although things here have a way of happening when you have no plans). Yesterday, armed with my camera (finally), I set out on a quest for wifi (clearly, I am a very dedicated blogger). I headed to South Bombay (more or less a Manhattan equivalent). I love taking taxi's south because of all the neighborhoods you get to pass through. Most people would be shocked to hear that and while yes, there is traffic that is so bad you can only be flabbergasted, not angry, and it's overwhelmingly hot (they charge extra for AC), it's still magical to zoom by the sights (when there is a green light). Marine drive is especially lovely to drive down (second photo). The air is cool, and the water sparkles. It's transporting. Perhaps not surprisingly, my favorite part about it is seeing all the different people that get to enjoy it: the three girls giggling, the two men drinking some chai, the teens sitting with there legs dangling off the edge passing their cellphones back and forth. It's a real stage for life here. On the land side, you see the apartment buildings morph into the colonial mish mosh that is architecture in the south. Traffic lights are a perfect opportunity for people watching (photo 3). The cab drivers and their passengers are always the most interesting (I'm sure they think that about me too).

Finally I arrived in Colaba (SoHo, these days, is probably a good comparison). After a couple false starts I finally got wifi in the Starbucks attached to the Taj hotel, and what a swanky starbucks it is. I had just enough time to reassure my mother I was alive and vidchat with her so she could verify that I still have all my skin (and no face tattoos or piercings.. yet) before rushing off to a hip spot in Bandra to meet with friends for a lime soda. These are a few of the things that make me love Bombay, that give me that fizzy feeling behind my eyes, that causes me to erupt in ear to ear smiles, and the warm deep and fuzzy sensation in my stomach that makes me feel like I am where I am supposed to be. Speaking of warm fuzzy stomachs, I had a thought yesterday as my body was systematically rejecting my lunch. Being in India, is a lot like food poisoning (bear with me), and I don't mean bad seafood, food poisoning or even Delhi belly, I mean the run of the mill, oops my body doesn't like that thing that happens every so often here. Sometimes India is shit (pun intended), it can make you feel intensely uncomfortable and miserable, but as soon as you get that out of your system, you feel like you can do anything, like it's the best place in the world, and you forget all about the bad (until it happens again of course). It really is the contrast, the fact that you (or really I) have to try to be bored, that makes each experience something specially, blog-worthy, I might say. Much more soon.

Love,
Violet

Technical Difficulties

Will be back tomorrow.... stay tunes

Crawford Market

Alright, so I have a confession to make. I have been in Mumbai for almost a week, and I still haven't charged my camera battery. I had been enjoying the mobility of using my iphone until I got to Crawford market. These pictures don't begin to do justice to one of the coolest places I have been. Those who know me, know that I love a good market: farmers market, flea market, and especially indoor food markets (see the pretzel picture in violetinparis.blogspot.com) and this was a particularly spectacular one. The market building was clearly once a beautiful majestic building, and from far away it seems to be a castle in the middle of a sea of shopping streets. When you get closer you notice how many tiles are missing, and how their seems to be more holes than roof. Stepping inside is another world all together, the stands are tiny, and the whole area is dark. Despite the high ceilings, it is impossible to feel relief walking through the narrow passage ways. You can get anything there, and people do. Women do their shopping with a man with a basket balanced on his head trotting behind them with their groceries. The smells make it obvious what section you are in. The spice section is almost aphrodisiacal. It's like you forgot that you had ever smelled something good in your life. The fruit section is bouncy and joyful smelling, thanks to all the strawberry vendors. Then the stench starts to creep in and you know you are getting closer to the animals. You see the coolest and weirdest thing about the market is the pet section (Picture 3). It's both fascinating and terrible to see ducks, pigeons, puppies, and cats all stacked up in similarly small wire cages. Curious about the prices? I was? We asked about a puppy and they said 3,000 rupees (roughly 60 bucks), meaning actually 1,000.

Thanks to Crawford Market, I officially promise to charge my battery.
Love,
Violet