Last Day

Herro, t'has been a while since it's been kinda hard to step aside and journal here....  So I'll try to give you a hodge-podge of stories to cover for everything we've been up to.

A few days ago we had to deal with the case of the missing cigarettes. They're really just those long chocolate stuffed wafers that look a bit like cigars, but their disappearance was scandalous nonetheless. Ammu has a bit of an overactive sweet-tooth, which is a severe understatement. And so when our uncle brought the "cigars" we all had a few and then instructed Sweta to hide them. The fact that Sweta was entrusted with the task alone is pretty sad since normally I'm in charge of hiding chocolate from her. Obviously she hadn't had enough practice cuz after lunch when we thought we'd enjoy a smoke, the entire container was gone. And so the hunt began.

We soon realized that Sweta made a few amateur mistakes while up against a notorious criminal who knows chocolate like it's nobody's business. First she hid the chocolate wafers alongside the strawberry ones rather than splitting the two for better concealment. Next she chose to hide the wafers with ample time for said criminal to grab her loot and high ail i off to school. Perhaps most disappointingly, she lacked the foresight to place the wafers not just out of our little criminal's arm reach but also out of the reach of criminal plus chair. There was nothing left to do but mourn our lost cigars, since apparently a SWAT break-in of an elementary school is frowned upon. That afternoon none of us said a word but I did witness little Ammu sneakin the container out of her bag and onto the counter. A container that miraculously wasn't empty, but when  shaken elicited only the most pitiful rattle.  We survived the traumatic incident but only since she didn't like strawberry wafers and had left them in their place. It's so bad, that girl can get through a whole bag of hershey kisses in a matter of days and the same goes for most sweets/candy.

That afternoon we visited a bunch of family. We also went to one of our land holdings. Our family has a bunch of land scattered around the area. They used to use the space, but now they just let farmers use the land. That way our soil stays fertile instead of just layin around, plus the farmers get a living without having to deal with the absurd land prices. So indirectly we've got farms kinda like your dad :) One of them is actually a rubber tree place now, where they make rubber too. But the one we went to has a few vegetables, coconut trees, banana trees and a ton of tapioca plants. The whole area was cool.. We walked on a thin concrete wall that separated our area from the lower neighboring field which was flooded like a rice paddy. It was hard to tell there was water cuz of the tall grasses growing in the field so the grazing cows looked like they were gloating around since their legs were underwater and only their bodies remained above the grass line. That mighta sounded really confusing, but it just looked really funny.

My grandma wanted to cook some tapioca so I got to yank some outta the ground. We had to cut the stems off cuz they'll regenerate if the farmers stick em back in the ground. If you guys worry about me with a knife then imagine Sanj with a sickle :) I will have you know I removed the stalks at no cost of limbs or life.

Yesterday we did a lot of random crap but the highlight was probably visiting our old friend Komal. When we lived at St. George Towers she was on the floor above us and we (her, Sweta and I) were best friends slash also the gang leaders for all the kids of the flats. Plus my mom and hers were best friends so we just lived in each other's flats. It was nice to see all of them and surprisingly she was still kinda funny and normal. It's always seemed like kids in general sober up into their duller adult versions a lot faster in India. That sounds really bad and is probably a matter of my perspective... but it just feels that way to my sister and me.

After hanging out with Komal, we had a family game night back at my grandparents'. Mafia was interesting. The first round, my grandma was just watching and I don't think she understood the game cuz when discussion time began, she didn;t get why we were confused an djust gave away the mafia :) I also made the mistake of making my dad the cop... every single round he managed to point at a person and put his head back down before I even told him if he was right or wrong. Lol every round.

Today ended up being our shopping day slash seeing the port. Twas fun to run around downtown and in the market, I finally managed to find you a doll and like all its alternatives, it's pretty creepy :-/ But it's a doll :) We also got more sweets and parotha with chicken which is another one of my favorites. We're all about to gather in the front room, perhaps for games plus that about wraps things up for now :)

Ps Ammu was just tallying up her piggy bank. She has 1000 plus 100 for a grand total of 6000 rupees. Obviously that's right :)

-Sanj

Kerala

We got to Kerala yesterday morning and haven't done a ton since then. When I talked to you about how slow paced life here can be, it really holds true here. My dad's been busy visiting friends and family nearby plus there's no crazy wedding anymore so we've slowed down too.

A lot of this time's taken up by my cousin. Ammu kutti's in fifth grade and she's pretty good at coming up with something to do just about every second of the day, it gets pretty exhausting. Plus when we're here I think she makes it her job to make sure we don't have too much free time... I've played a lot of hide-and-seek and uno, watched a couple of movies and followed her many places nearby since yesterday. That and often times, she'll just ask me to lie down so she can tickle attack me. Like I said, tiring but she's a cute little 'un and I usually feel guilty if I don't join along.

Nights/mornings are usually my reprieve and today she's been busy so far and is doing henna with Sweta now. I've gotten to take a look at possible classes for Grinnell and pick a few I might want to take for an adviser letter. I saw aural skills on the list and all I could think of was a class for people who wanted to be aurors. It confused me for the longest time till I looked at the description; it was  a class about hearing like for people who want to pursue careers dealing with hearing impairment. It's prolly bad to say this but I was really disappointed. I could've learned all the attack spells and been a cuhraz$y crime fightin wizard but no...

As for Kerala, there's not a whole lot to say. Like I said we haven't done much and I'm pretty used to the surroundings since we used to live here. My uncle did show us the compost generator they installed. They put in all the crap leftover from meals and dump it in and apparently it's saved them a lot of fuel. Instead of replacing their propane tank every month, they can use it for about 50 days now. Plus their yard is it's own little forest with fruits and banana/coconut trees, and the nasty sludge the composter leaves has been a great fertilizer for their plants. It was cool to see.

We've been eating a lot of bananas, just like Andhra Pradesh grows mangoes, Kerala grows coconuts and bananas. That and they eat an unreasonable amount of fish. You would like all the kinds of bananas here. The best are these small red ones that are really sweet and another small kind called eta param which have an odd sweetness I can't really describe and are somehow denser than usual bananas.

Tonight our uncle who lives in Bombay (my dad has two brothers) is coming to town for until we leave. We may also finally get meat, of which I've been deprived almost two weeks now. Even here there's been a string of food poisoning cases so my grandma hasn't made chicken and she doesn't cook beef. But tonight we're probably going to Kaye's, which should be safe. That's my favorite restaurant in Kerala, they have really good biriyani and parotha. I'd probably just be better off explaining what those are to you later.

I almost forgot to mention, I finally got to run this morning! We went to the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium nearby which has a 1 kilometer road going around it. I did 7 laps so about 4 miles... It was pretty bad. I was so glad to finally be running, but these few weeks of doing nothing in the way of exercise and eating have kinda wrecked my fitness. Plus the air was pretty humid, but I made it and it wasn't too slow. Hopefully I'll get to keep running for the rest of the week. I think that's about it, I hope we get to talk tonight :)

-Sanj

On our way to Kerala

Hey we're on the train now to Kochi. The train kinda rocks side to side and jerks every now and then, its a bit freaky and hopefully my handwriting doesn't look like crap. I feel like I'm a tad more paranoid than the average person about dieing while moving around and derailed train comes second only to a plane crash. Don't worry I'm not overly paranoid just a teensy bit. 

Alritey so yesterday we went around parts of Madras. We started with a boat ride since the city is along the Bay of Bengal and the area's really pretty. Not quite as great as Kerala but still green. We saw a lot of birds, I could've used your help with em :) Mostly pelicans, cranes and some little guys I didn't know. I liked the little ones cuz they flew close to the water surface dragging their feet and their wings made tiny splashes with every beat. So every time our boat neared they'd skim out trails and pepper water everywhere. Otherwise, the ride was just relaxing whenever the boad didn't seem on the verge of tipping over (it was real small with a powerful motor). Then we went to an alligator sanctuary. There were just a ton of alligators lounging around. A lot of them rest with their mouths open which makes them look like they're dead which was a bit creepy. There were also a bunch of turtle and snake species which were cool. They didn't have any King Cobras which I was hoping to see, speaking of which we saw a snake charmer in Delhi. We only watched for about a second; the fact that there's a loose cobra and all the guy's using is a flute isn't all that reassuring. 

After the croc place we drove by the coast for a while. Like I said on fb we didn't walk around mostly cuz we couldn't get in and were pressed for time. After we picked up Madhirika from college she took us to this massive mall. The place was huge, I have some pictures, but it's surprising how many large shopping centers there are. We saw at least 5, of which this was the largest, and though Madras is a big city, considering the median income I don't get how all these malls are sustainable. I got to eat subway for part of dinner and tried on their Indian kinds. it was like a regular grilled chicken but the chicken was made tandoori style (just baked with chilli and some spices) and had some strange sauce on it but it was good. After that we just looked around for a while and checked out the movie theater which was a lot cheaper than at home :-/ As we were heading out we saw a strange spa where you could get your feet cleaned by fish. You stick your feet in tanks with tiny fish that apparently eat away dirt and dead skin. So of course we tried it :) It was the strangest experience, it was similar to the prickly sensation you get from your leg falling asleep except you could see the fish doing it... 

It was late by the time we finished up so we headed home. Today we mostly hung out with the fam but ran some errands too. My mom got a couple of saris and we picked up some dance stuff for Sweta. We also finally got the sweets we're bringing home. You wanna but them as late as possible so they're fresh but Kerala sweets are very different from the kind we like so we saved picking em up for our last day in Madras. Good sweet shops have so many different options, it's kinda like walking into a cheese shop in France... They have a lot of pastries and fresh desserts that you can eat at the bakery. Indian cake and pastry is usually soaked in juice so it's sweeter than US cakes and the frosting is different; I enjoy eating it a few times but only a few. The rest of the shop, about two solid walls, are dedicated to traditional sweets. We had to limit ourselves a bit since we needed stuff that would be good for a few weeks but that still allowed for most of my favorites :) Plus obviously we had to sample everything, even the stuff we weren't considering getting so it was pretty delicious. I'll bring you some when we're back hopefully you like em. That was about it before we hopped on the train. Saying goodbye to everyone especially ammumma and thatha was sad :-/

Trains are always feel germ nasty and seem a bit ominous like I mentioned but I still enjoy them. They remind me of when we used to live here. Anyways I'm off to bed soon so goodnight. I'm guessing it's really lat in japan so sweet dreams :)

-Sanj

It's the thought that counts right :)

There hasn’t been much of a plan for these few days since we were supposed to be in Kerala right now. My uncle and cousin, who have been home for the wedding, now have to go back to work and college. Madhurika’s a freshman too this year but their classes have already started since summer here is around late April to June. She goes to an all girls college which just seems like it’d be really strange. I could not imagine having classes with only guys… Plus there are no dorms, no one really leaves home to go to college. There’re some exceptions like the IITs (Indian Institute of Technology) which people attend from across the country. I think there’re 3 or 4 of them located in Bombay, Calcutta and a couple of other cities. They’re the Ivy Leagues of India except much harder to get into since they take a fe thousand out of a much larger student population and admission is solely test score based. If you don’t get into one of the IITs or a couple of other places like IAM or Delhi University, then you’re probably just going to college near where you live.

That was a long tangent but point is it’s just the four of us and my grandparents for a few days but we’ll figure out something to do :) I have taken thatha on walks almost every day :) Back in Rajahmundry he walks to a hall or park where a bunch of retired guys chat for a while every evening. He misses that whenever he’s away from home so we take him on walks to make up for it.

I have another driving story for ya. My uncle’s driver is this really nice, funny, confused old man. Today while driving by a temple he just took his hands off the steering wheel and prayed for a few seconds. I was so scared, it’s bad enough to do that in the US but considering roads here, it’s asking for an accident. This was the first time I’d noticed but apparently he does that every time they pass a temple. My uncle has tried to reason with him saying if he does his duty God will be with him and has offered to give him time off in the day to quickly go to the temple if he really wants to. We’ll see…

Also it’s about time I wrote you a poem so here’s one:

My nano’s travelled a lot with me

Since its birth off in Hong Kong

And so for every place I’ve been

Are memories of certain songs

For what should accompany this summer

I left the playlist to someone else

To join me in CR as well as across India

And I’d say she’s done marvelous

… I’m sorry that’s by far the worst poem I’ve ever written for you. The Hong Kong part was just speculation since it’s somewhere in China and I needed something to go with songs. And you have to say else and marvelous in a funny way to make them rhyme… Lol again I’m sorry. What I mean to say is I haven’t really mentioned it, but I’ve been really enjoying the CD :) I liked Little Talks too for an MVP so I think Some Nights and Daylight are my favorites off your CD. I have a playlist of all the songs you’ve given me and I’ve been listening to it a lot. That and Chiddy Bang, thanks for introducing me to them. That’s about it for now :)

-Sanj

Everyone's Sick

So we have no idea about what got my mom… By yesterday morning, my dad and I were down too and by around lunch so were two of my cousins, Buji mama, a family friend and Padmatta. You’d think it’d be food poisoning with so many people affected, but considering we all ate the same food and the hundreds of people who were there at every meal and didn’t get sick, we dunno. Plus we’ve had slightly varying symptoms like I had a fever which only my uncle also did, but we’re all drugged up and starting to feel better now. Hence, not a lot has happened other than lots of infected people sleeping for hours. I was doin better by this afternoon but I felt bad for the people who were getting the worst of it today, cuz there hasn’t been power since 9 am until a little bit ago… It’s always hot but normally fans and the two air conditioned rooms help a lot. Without those it was even harder to sleep or just try to relax. Anyways like I said, power’s back now and everyone’s getting better :)

I know even small businesses around here have generators but I wonder how the ones that don’t get by, that was a full 8 hour day of no electricity. I did get a lot of reading done though. I’m finally almost done with Under the Dome and hopefully I’ll get to make some headway on the GWTDT books you lent me.

We were also planning on leaving for Kerala tonight. The plan was to spend a couple of days in Trivandrum to see my dad’s extended family and then come back to Kochi for a week with my grandparents. But my dad still isn’t up for a 12 hour train ride. It’s sad we can’t see all of his family plus Trivandrum is great since the area’s really pretty and it’s all rural so we have the strangest adventures trying to eat and get around. But least now we have two more days with ammuma and thatha :)

-Sanj

Cuhrayz$y Wedding

Most of the wedding is now finally over… it’s been exhausting and I’m just helping out. Buji mama (my uncle, the bride’s dad) is on a couple of hours of sleep and could prolly collapse if he had to do much more. So everything started yesterday morning with a bunch of poojas, welcoming the groom and some other ceremonies. There are a lot of traditions throughout your childhood like one for the first time you eat, or putting a baby in a cradle for the first time that they quickly run through again. I’d tell you more but it’s mostly just technical religious stuff most of which I don’t even know. Just a whole lot of Indian wedding music (which is just drums and nasally sounding clarinets) and chanting, both of which I’m so tired of hearing. The constant smell of jasmine flowers has been nice though, and so has the food. By tradition, during big events mostly weddings, you sit in rows where they set out large banana tree leaves. The servers then walk around with small portions of a million different things. And they keep going around as you eat; it’s kinda annoying cuz you’re always having to watch out and tell them to stop or else every time they walk by, they’ll pile on more food. This trip has been a huge turnaround from my food situation last time I came to India. I’ll show you pictures of all this stuff too :)

Last night was the reception which was weird cuz the wedding was this morning. The first half was just people streaming across talking to and taking pictures with the couple which took forever since there were over a 1000 people. I’m getting sick of seeing people. There’s just so many everywhere, I seriously have to leave the compound to get any quiet. India’s a bit crazy :) And I thought my family was a tad loopy but Murali’s is insane. After the parade, we had karaoke and dancing. I stayed as far away as possible but I saw some people doin random Indian dances who were so old they shouldn’t have been able to stand without a walker. The whole thing kinda reminds me of My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

The marriage was finally this morning. There were a lot of poojas again and rituals symbolic of the bride leaving the family. A lot of it is based on the traditional extended family in which marriage means the girl is leaving her family for the groom’s family home. It actually sorta applied this time since Murali’s family all lives together. I would not be able to imagine life like that. Anyways, then they tied the thalli which is just a necklace version of a wedding ring that’s used in most weddings in India, and then wrapped things up. There’s been other stuff and a lot of crying all afternoon and now some traditional songs. I’m sitting in a room with the fam at the moment since my mom’s been really sick. We think it’s food poisoning but she’s been puking and has a fever. My grampa’s younger brother who was a surgeon and still runs a clinic (I swear that man will never retire), is with her now. He’s always been the family doctor. It’s kinda embarrassing but diarrhea left me really dehydrated and in pretty bad shape when I was little and he saw me through. He’s done that at some point or another for every member of the Tetali family so food poisoning or whatever this is should be fine. Plus last I heard, she’s already starting to feel better :)

Also instead of ending on that note, we noticed that the offices for a Tamil match-making website are across the street from the wedding hall… seemed kinda funny. Also to add to car stories, it’s really uncommon to wear seatbelts here since cars go so slowly that accidents that actually injure people are incredible rare. I still don’t get why they don’t wear them, but yesterday I got in my uncles car and tried to put my seatbelt on but saw there wasn’t a buckle. Apparently they got annoyed of those poking them, so they just shoved em behind the seat into the trunk… Well th singing is over now, we should be relaxing and heading back in a bit :)

-Sanj

Henna and other stuff (part 1)

The pen I’ve been using so far is running out of ink, that’s a good sign right :) So it’s been a couple of days cuz there really isn’t a ton to write about. We’ve mostly been eating, hanging out with family and running errands to prepare for all the wedding traditions. Aside from the wedding there’s a lot of rituals which are finally starting today. I can’t keep any of them straight cuz every region has its own practices and I know some of the Andhra/Telugu customs but this wedding is gonna be a mix of Telugu and Tamil events. Today we’re starting with the “making of the bride”. I dunno what exactly they do except it ends with all the girls putting on mahendi. You and Steph would enjoy that, they get pretty detailed especially with the bride. I dunno what else is on the schedule but Ill letcha know. 

Also I still haven’t gotten to run :-/ Even if I wanted to go outside, there’s no walkways and with the way traffic moves, it’s too dangerous to run on the roads… And the food policy here is to eat until you’re stuffed, and soon as you’re less than bloated you reload. Normally I wouldn’t have a problem with that but coupled with my running situation, it’s put me in a constant state of feeling nasty… Oh well least the food has been good. Anyways they’re starting the bride stuff, talk to ya later :)

-Sanj