Honeymoon is over…

I have been in Baroda for 1 week now. So far it’s been a very mixed experience. The streets here are so empty, people are friendly and everything is less crowded…of course it’s still about 10x as much as in Switzerland, but compared to Mumbai it’s really calm. So I enjoyed the first experience. Unfortunately I’m still living from my suitcase and I haven’t really settled down. But soon I will, hopefully. This is probably the reason why I have lost my honeymoon attitude towards this country: the starring really gets on my nerves,the noise is sometimes unbearable and the heat is just suffocating at the moment. And this is Indian WINTER, I don’t even want to imagine how I’ll feel in summer. L

An indian family enjoying the beach: usually everybody goes into the water with all their cloths!

At least I got used to the food. After some very, very bad 16 hours during my third week here, I was just fed up with anything just close to spicy. As a consequence, I had pizza about 5 times in7 days. J But now I really like the food, although it’s very heavy and a bit unhealthy. I have never seen a place, which mixes so many carbohydrates in one meal. Yummie, let’s have rice with a potatoes and peas… and eat it with fried bread! Whoever thought Indian food is very healthy and who comes here will loose of weight, is totally wrong. Who slims in India just can’t handle the spiciness or the extreme sweetness and therefore doesn’t eat. I would die for a plate of vegetables or a nice fresh salad (the “salad” I get for lunch in the canteen everyday is a handful of cut onions). I’m really looking forward to moving to a place where I can finally cook again by myself.

Have you ever bought milk in a plastic bag ?

At the moment I live with Anit, an AIESEC member, in a 3 room apartment which doesn’t have a kitchen (basically there’s very little furniture), where the shower is a bucket filled with water (very normal for India though), the toilet what we would call a highway toilet (a flushable whole in the ground) and the whole apartment is a bit… let’s say basic and dusty. In 2 weeks one guy from the TCS Janus program (the induction and fast track program I’m in) will be reallocated to Baroda for 6 months. We decided to look for a furnished flat and share the living costs for this period.

Tushar's family invited us to celebrate with them

This weekend I decided to follow an invitation and go back to Mumbai for the weekend to celebrate Ganesh Chaturthi with some of my Janus friends. From Baroda to Mumbai it takes “only” 6,5 hours… so it was worth to go even for only 1,5 days. The train ride was spectacular. I was scared to get bored, but no way. I’m glad a bought a non-A/C ticket. In those cheaper compartments, people are allowed to sell and beg. So in 6 hours a saw about 15 children: many of them singing, one boy performing amazing Michael Jackson dance moves, some of them cleaning the chips bags, newspapers, bottles, food rests, tea cups, dust,… from the floor and asking for money as many other do: old people, sick people and transvestites. Yes, no kidding. It seems to be very hard for them to find a job in India, so people give money. But not out of altruism or pity, to some extent it’s pure egoism: Indians believe that transvestites can curse you. So you rather give them some coins than to be punished with bad luck. Logic, isn’t it? J Indians find some superstitious explanations in many things of everyday life. Bird droppings on you are very good luck for example. I got hit twice already, lucky me! J

Hanging out of a Bombay local train as locals do.

I’m at a point where I don’t just blindly admire what happens around me any more. The honeymoon period of my experience is over. I start to question Indian reality a bit more and I realize that often I cannot estimate the reaction to statements I say or things I do because I just don’t have any influence on hem. As an example: it has already happened to me about three times that some stranger starts to talks to me about sex. And it has nothing to do with my revealing cloths. You can’t imagine how much I cover myself. I sweat like hell just to be sure not to show any skin on décolleté, shoulders or too much of my legs. It’s actually just the fact of being a westerner that makes those people think that I would be open to talk about sex with whomever. It’s a mindset they have of white women, no matter what you do, say or wear. And that’s also why guys want a picture with me. Just to show off to have posed an open-minded woman. I have to admit that to be seen this way can be quite frustrating at times. I guess I’ll just have to learn to understand this society… or sometimes rather not think so much about everything, as dear people tend to tell me.