What is the World Coming to?

mysore palace
Originally uploaded by qiubuo.

The Times of India had a headline this morning, "What is the World Coming to?," with pictures of grass growing in Antarctica, snow in the United Arab Emirates, and the tsunamis. California is getting its share of weather phenomena too, it seems. Well, at least there will be a lot of work for Gilles.

If you would like to donate money for tsunami relief, moveon.org has some options. The US is only giving 35 million. India is not accepting foreign government aid, saying they don't need it, but I'm sure Sri Lanka will need a lot, and the Indian Red Cross and other private agencies are accepting donations.

Keep in mind that given the local economy, even $2 makes people light up, so any little bit helps. I'm beginning to feel some expat guilt over this. I tried to take my clothes for ironing and the watchman insisted on doing it for me. He took the clothes to the ironman and brought them to my door, and when I gave him 10 rupees (20 cents) he was all smiles. Gilles gave the maid a 300 rupee bonus ($6) for the holidays and she was very happy. It's just strange to think that we're not making any sacrifice at all in giving them a few bucks, but they treat us like we made their day! We've also had a hard time cooking for ourselves, because our pasta always comes out soggy and the chicken always has weird parts in it, whereas we can call and get a whole meal delivered in 15 minutes for around $3! We have come to appreciate eating at home and not having someone spoon-feed us our food (they always insist on serving us, which means emptying out the dishes onto our plates as quickly as possible, basically as soon as there's some plate showing. If any of you have seen the speed at which Gilles eats, you'll know that I often get only a third of the food that he gets!).

At any rate, Happy New Year!

Our Visit to Mysore

tiger at palace
Originally uploaded by qiubuo.

Luckily we did not go to the coast for the holidays, and so we did not see any of the devastation firsthand. In fact, things are surprisingly normal here in Bangalore, high up and far from the ocean. The death tolls are still mounting, however, and there are reports of entire islands and tribes in the Andamans having disappeared. It will probably take days to know the full extent of the tragedy.

We spent a blissfully calm weekend in Mysore, only 90 miles from here. Mysore was the royal city, and the Maharaja still lives somewhere in the back of the palace. We enjoyed visiting the palace, though it's a bit tacky. Gilles commented that it looked like the inside of La Samaritaine, the famous Parisian department store. He's right.
We hitched a ride to Mysore with Nishaant's family. Nishaant is the Fulbright scholar I met in Paris while we were both waiting for our visas. I am still waiting; he has a friend in the Supreme Court or something. We regretted driving to Mysore when we took the train back for only $1 - the train ride is much smoother and we didn't have the sense that we might crash at any moment. Indian drivers have the strange habit of accelerating until the last possible moment and then slamming down the brakes as violently as possible to avoid hitting the car/cow/child in front of them.

Mysore was very touristy and we were accosted by dozens of salesman, guides and begging children. At the palace Gilles was wearing sunglasses and leaning against a fence, looking very Parisian and Hollywood at the same time. An Indian guy wearing sunglasses came over and stood next to him, and his friend took a picture; it seems Gilles was as much of a tourist attraction as the palace.

god and snake
Originally uploaded by qiubuo.

On Monday we visited a friend of Doctor Desai's, who took us around Mysore in a schoolbus, showing us the various institutes and schools for speech and hearing. We met a very nice Nepalese speech therapist who is leaving India soon to take a job in New York City. Apparently there is a big demand for speech-language pathologists, and India is training them but having difficulty retaining them. The highlight of the tour was a visit to the Mother and Deaf Child Institute in Mysore, a school where mothers are the teachers. One mother teaches another mother's child, and they pass on their skills from mother to mother. The school is orally focused and teaches in English, Telegu and Kannada depending on the child's native language. The head of the school proudly told us that her deaf son had gone on to study engineering and was recently recruited by IBM. I was impressed with their success and the sacrifices the mothers made, often leaving other children behind to spend 3 years teaching their children one-on-one, 7 days a week, 6 hours a day.

We had just a few hours left before the train, so we took a rickshaw up to the Chamundi Temple, built up on the hill above Mysore. My favorite thing about the temple was seeing the monkeys who had taken it over, throwing coconuts down at us and fighting with each other up on the roof.

monkey questions
Originally uploaded by qiubuo.

We arrived home Monday night to find what we thought was a homeless man sleeping in front of our door. In fact it was the day watchman, who seems to be the "night watchman" as well. Our neighbors went to Chennai for the weekend and are possibly stranded there, as the tsunamis seem to have damaged a portion of the railway there. At any rate the watchman was housesitting - not under the best conditions, but he just grunted as we stepped over him.

Santa in Bangalore

104_0460
Originally uploaded by qiubuo.

So, it's not really a white Christmas, but it's a dusty one. The last day of school for the term meant a very entertaining Christmas pageant, in which the younger children danced wildly around the stage, completely out of sync with one another, while the older ones acted out the story of the birth of Jesus. Bangaloreans love Christmas since it means free stuff. For the kids at the school for the deaf, it meant candy from Santa, here played by the school principal. My maid has asked me to give her a cake for her children tomorrow. Don't know if I'll manage to bake one in time! In fact, I sincerely doubt it...

Christmas in Bangalore

The holiday season is approaching, and there is a very odd-looking plastic Christmas tree up at one of the big Catholic churches in town. I have had to give up trying to explain to the kids at school that I'm not Christian. Everyone asks me for my religion, unless (like many adults) they just assume I'm Christian. I tried saying I have no religion, but that doesn't work at all in India!

We did a little Christmas shopping yesterday, and after fifteen minutes I was already tired of the Christmas music. It is even worse in India. There are actually fewer decorations up in town than there were a few weeks ago, since now Diwali, a much bigger Indian holiday, is over.

We had a few parties this weekend. The first was for Andrea, who had a send-off dinner before going back to Switzerland. That was a bit sad, since I would have liked to have gotten to know her better. I met her through my freshman roommate from college, Emily, who met her at a conference in Europe. She was here for a few months and now she's going back to Switzerland to finish her degree. Her friends were all Indian people that knew friends of hers in Europe, and it was fun to meet young Indian professionals. We ate some great Indian food, too.

On Saturday we went to a party at Lauren's place in Koramangala. She lives in a brand-new 4-bedroom apartment in a big complex. Her colleague from Macromedia, Victor, lives next door! She had invited a few people from work, and it was funny to talk to them about Gary. They gave us a lot of information about India and laughed at our stories about riding buses and being ripped off. I impressed them with my renditions of Hindi commercials. One guy told me and Lauren (also half Chinese) that he thought we might be Indian when he first came in. He said we just had to learn Hindi. It was a lot of fun to socialize. We realized that we have been spending most of our time alone or with one friend at a time, so it was a change to be in a group.

We may try to get out of Bangalore for the first time this weekend. Maybe we'll go to Mysore and see the palace. There are a lot of "must-see" places around. And then in January Fulbright is holding a conference in Kerala - not sure if I'll be "cleared" to attend yet, though.

At the Movies

We went to the cinema twice this weekend, first to see "Ocean's 12" and then to see "Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason." For both shows we bought the deluxe balcony seats for 70 rupees (about $1.30) each, which means sitting way up at the top - the view was okay but the sound was pretty terrible. Gilles had trouble understanding Brad Pitt. I can't remember anything he said in the movie anyway - not very memorable for a Soderbergh film. The young men in the audience entertained themselves by telling their own jokes and laughing hysterically, and everyone kept answering their cell phones. When the movie was over we tried to sit while everyone rushed out (from the moment the credits started) so as not to be trampled, but the sweepers kept making rude sounds at us so finally we left and struggled down the stairs with everyone else. The hardest part was trying to cross the road out of the cinema parking lot. People on mopeds like to intimidate pedestrians by revving their engines as you walk in front of them. Cars do it by just trying to run them over. On the way into the movie theater I had "accidentally" swung a bag containing something heavier than I thought towards a car, and did accidentally hit it - nothing broke, but a lot of people turned around! I thought that was a good time to disappear into the movie theater. I figured that even if the driver decided to come after me it would take him 45 minutes to make a u-turn.

The Sunday film at the Plaza was much more relaxed. I guess Bridget Jones isn't as popular as Danny Ocean. The venue was somewhat less formal and didn't have as many ushers shining lights into our eyes to direct latecomers to their seats (they still assign the seats here). We enjoyed all the squinting and squabbling, though Gilles tried to take the opportunity to make fun of my skiing during the intermission. They have an intermission at every movie here, even one that lasts 2 hours. I suppose it's a way to sell popcorn. Going to the cinema also seems to be a social occasion, so it may give the young people a chance to flirt. I had gotten so accustomed to people talking during the film from the night before that I even felt grateful when I heard someone answer their cell phone and say "I'll call you back."

The other big event of the weekend was a meeting with my contact for the "deaf" villages, the subject of my film. Things seem to have gotten complicated there, because the wells he and his club donated a few years ago have dried up, and now the villagers are angry they no longer have fresh water. Gilles explained that there has been a drought for the past few years and a bore well was probably just not reliable. The villagers are also annoyed to have been labeled a "deaf village" because they say now no one from other villages will marry them, thinking their genes are tainted. So there have been accusations flying, and supposedly I will not be very welcome there. I do hope someone comes up with a solution for the wells, because apparently it doesn't rain here until April.

Our terrace

Debra on the terrace
Originally uploaded by qiubuo.

Here is a picture of me wearing a salwar kameez on our terrace. Gilles has been taking good care of the plants, and they are growing quite a lot!


Gilles went back to the electronics market tonight - it looks like a vegetable market except that instead of produce they sell computers. We bought our TV there - it's a sort of homemade brand thst we guess was fashioned from a tube and some harvested parts! It was much cheaper than a Sony.
At any rate, right after Gilles arrived at one of the shops tonight the power went out, so he bought his wifi card by candlelight. That must be a first.

The power goes out intermittently in Bangalore, but our neighborhood seems fairly stable. Last week we had a copy of a key made and the shop had to start a generator. We thought it was for a key-making machine but it was really for the lights.

Gilles watering the plants
Originally uploaded by qiubuo.

Today I went to an art fair and met some deaf artists selling paintings and drawings. Some of the artists were quite talented and I plan to go back and purchase a piece or two for our bare walls. The artists were very happy to meet me and other volunteers from the school for the deaf - the more I meet deaf Indians, the more I realize how rare it is for hearing people to take an interest in them.

It turns out our maid's husband is an autorickshaw driver. They live pretty close to us - he's probably taken advantage of us at least once by now!

More adventures in domesticity

our furnished living room
Originally uploaded by qiubuo.

Last week I inadvertently fired our maid by trying to explain to her why I was paying her early (I was not going to be at the house on Monday, so I paid her on Sunday and told her not to come on Monday, but she never came back). We started looking for a new maid, but then one just showed up at our door. She is very energetic and enthusiastic, and has already asked me to give her our refrigerator when we leave and to take her back to the U.S. and/or France with us! (In which case, I guess, she doesn't get the fridge.)

We tried a few expat evenings out this weekend. On Friday we went to a Flamenco concert at a dance studio called Opus. It was on a small street near a big street, and we missed it the first time we went past. In Bangalore there are many streets with concrete center dividers, which makes u-turning very difficult (but crossing the street slightly easier).
We realized how necessary these dividers were when we noticed how the autorickshaw drivers get in front of other vehicles by driving on the wrong side of the road. They seem to do it on cue - fifteen of them go at once, creating the critical mass necessary to keep the cars going the right way at bay! At any rate, we had to make a few u-turns to finally get to the place, which I'm sure was amusing to the driver. Autorickshaw drivers are notorious for driving in circles to ring up kilometers on the meter, and here we are doing it for them!

The concert venue was a charming open air space with cushions on the ground and low candle-lit tables. They served a buffet of Spanish food and riled up a few Americans by not having anything vegetarian when it had been advertised. The crowd was mostly composed of students from the Canadian International School, one of the main expat schools in Bangalore, and it turned out the performer was their music teacher! Anyway, the concert was fun and lighthearted, and slightly reminiscent of a high school music rehearsal.

On Sunday we had Chinese food at Mainland China, a restaurant in the center of the city, near MG Road. We met Lauren (Gary's colleague from Macromedia) there. We had only brought 1500 rupees, which is enough for several meals in our neighborhood joints, so when we arrived and saw the waiting area and servers in suits we were a bit concerned. However, it is still India, so we had a nice meal of chicken and lamb for several hundred rupees. We got to hear some more expat scoops, including that there's a suburb of Bangalore that looks just like Irvine!

Last night we went to our first Indian party, which was a wedding celebration for the son of one of Gilles' colleagues. It was fun to see all the women in their silk sarees and to chat with the scientists. We spoke with Gilles' advisor's wife, who told us all about the language difficulties in Bangalore. I am learning about them on my own as I try to read the bus maps.

In other news, I have still heard nothing from the Fulbright people about my research clearance, so my film is still on hold. I will probably start my research soon on my own, as that will help me to clarify things. I am realizing that the settling down period is ending here in India, and it's time to get to work. Gilles has already applied for his post-doc for next year! You know, when I was ten or eleven I remember my parents telling me that time would go by much faster when I got older, and I would think to myself, "well, I'm not forty yet. They were saying I was going to wake up one day and be forty, and I'm not!" Instead I woke up 28. And November seems to be getting shorter and shorter every year.

My Indian-ization

I started riding the bus home from the school for the deaf, which takes around an hour but feels much safer than riding in the tiny little autorickshaws. The bus is the brontosaurus of the Bangalore roads: slow but huge. The autos have the advantage of being able to weave in and out of traffic, which some drivers do so much that when we get out of their little box on wheels we are not sure whether to tip them for not killing us or not tip them for almost killing us. Today I took an autorickshaw from one side of Bangalore to the other. Soon after leaving I saw a large ambulance trying to make its way through the heavy traffic. Twenty minutes later I saw the ambulance again, still trying to keep up with my auto!

At any rate, riding the bus comes with the comforting thought that in a rickshaw-bus collision the bus would emerge with a few rickshaw pieces on its fender.

Before I go on ranting about buses, I will add that I bought my first Indian outfits last week. They had to be individually tailored, so I just received them two days ago. Yesterday I wore a salwar kameez, which is a sort of long tunic with pants and a scarf, to school. The transformation I felt was incredible. People did not stare at me at all on the streets, some confused bus passengers asked me for directions in Kannada (I think), and the teachers at the school laughed that I looked like a Punjabi girl. The outfit is a little strange at first, especially since the pants of one of them balloon out like the trousers of a 17th century French nobleman (or something like that). I think I'll get used to them though. One of the little girls at the deaf school even told me the proper way to wear the scarf (over both shoulders, she instructed me).

The only real difficulty with bus-riding is that it is nearly impossible to determine where the buses go without help, and help is hard to find among the people rushing to board the buses, which stop for only a few seconds to let passengers on and off. The front of the bus is reserved for ladies, which is nice, but it is still difficult to find a seat. The Indian women have a very efficient method of hovering in order to procure seats as passengers leave, but foreigners have to act out of character to avail themselves of these sought-after seats. Yesterday as I was riding home with two girls from the deaf school I was signing to them and a woman signed to me, "are you deaf?" I explained that I wasn't, but was volunteering at the school, and she told me that she was very surprised to meet a hearing person who took an interest in sign language. People stare at us for using sign language on the bus, so I suppose many people aren't familiar with it.

I am encountering my own language difficulties at the deaf school. One teacher instructed the children that "a star in the sky" is incorrect, and should be "a star on the sky." (Poetic!) Vegetables like eggplants and bell peppers have different names (brinjal and capsicum), an iron is called an "iron box" and sandals are called "slippers." And, of course, the children drink from "vessels."