Sleepless...

Last night I lay awake in bed flat on my back with all of India on my left and the waves of the Arabian sea just a few blocks away on my right. I shut my eyes and prayed that sleep would come curl up on me like an old dog, finding her spot.

I wrote this instead.
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And to all a goodnight...

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Cafe Paradiso

A few weeks ago, I stumbled into Cafe Paradise, an establishment that has seen better days. I had spent a sweltering afternoon looking for old bronze bowls in seedy, old Chor Bazaar, also known as "Thieves Bazaar"--watch your bag. The general cafe seating area on the ground floor was filled with rickety tables and lots and lots of men, so I headed up the stairs in the direction of the sign that said "Family / A/C Room", where ladies are presumably shielded from the prying eyes of men. But, somehow I took a wrong turn, and at the top of the stairs, I ended up in a room I was not supposed to have entered.

A man leapt from a table by the door upon seeing me and said, "No, no, no. No food here." He flapped his hands at me like I was a stray pigeon he was trying to scare. I raised my eyebrows and turned my head to the right. What was he afraid I would see? Through a cloud of smoke, I spotted a few shady characters in the near corner, manhandling a hookah pipe.

It's not often you stumble into a netherworld such as this. Without thinking, I said, "Hookah, we want hookah," as if that was my sole reason for being there. I had originally hoped for a glass of chai and a chapati. It was 4 PM and I hadn't eaten since breakfast. But, this was a diamond in the rough. I've never seen anything like it--we'd found a new species of whale when all we were looking for was a fish.

The manager didn't know what to do with me. He certainly did not want a lady to break up the boys club vibe he had going on. He looked around, trying to figure out if there was another excuse he could give. The place was small--only about 7 tables, all booths. The ceiling was so low I could barely stand. Rubber sandals and shoes were scattered all over the floor between the tables, where men had chucked them before they sat Indian style on the pillow top booths.

There were plenty of open tables. He couldn't legitimately refuse. So, he reluctantly pointed to the back, where we went to take a seat. It took me a second before I realized that each "booth" was actually a fish tank, covered with thick, glass. I hadn't noticed when we came in because only the back booths had this feature, and a large crowd of Muslim teenage boys was sitting on one of the tanks, covering it up.



I tossed a pillow down on the glass and sat atop the long wide, flat tank, about as big as a full-sized mattress. Orange coi swam cattily underneath the grubby glass looking for food. The manager pulled a table top down from the wall, like a Murphy bed, across our legs.

My companion and I ordered a mint-flavored hookah. While we waited for it to come, my friend listened to the conversation at the table behind us where about 9 boys had scattered themselves over two booths. Muslims aren't allowed to drink, but apparently flavored tobacco doesn't break any rules. These boys were having a great time, talking about women and school as they nursed their Cokes and puffed away.

We did the same, and I ordered an egg curry, which came out unctuous and thick, with two feverish chapattis. It's the kind of meal that is spectacular because of its simplicity, and worthy of future cravings.

The boys eventually left, and another set arrived, this group younger than the previous. A sign on the wall prohibited patrons under 15. The manager gruffly asked the boys for ID. There was some confusion, and shuffling about. And then they were gone.

We left soon after, not wanting to overstay our welcome.

Addendum: My dear Scottish mother has expressed concern that some of my readers may think that a hookah is another term for a crack pipe. I assure you, dear reader, that the hookah is an innocent waterpipe that has nothing to do with crack, crystal meth or any other insidious high-inducing drugs. I have heard it can be used to smoke cannabis, but your dear writer has not done so. I would encourage you to learn more about the hookah by clicking here. You can also contact my brother, who advocates the alternative use of the hookah pipe as modern sculpture--at least that's what he has done with the one I bought him in Dubai (it now sits in the corner of his room collecting dust and inviting suspicious glances from his lawyer friends).

The World is Watching Mumbai

My hometown newspaper, the Austin American Statesman, published an oped of mine in the Sunday paper today. You can read it here, if you're interested:

http://www.statesman.com/insight/content/editorial/stories/insight/12/07/1207mumbai.html

By the way, the image above was taken in September, when a group of us were returning to Mumbai from Devbagh, the "Hamptons of Bombay." The longer building with the rotunda, to the left of the tallest building is the Taj hotel, referred to in the article. One boatload of terrorists would have made this approach on the 26th.

Candlelight Vigil

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Mumbaikers React

The MINT newspaper (the Wall Street Journal's partner in India) has published several perspective pieces from their staff writers and freelance writers. They have included an opinion piece I wrote about the attacks. You can find the online version here:

http://www.livemint.com/2008/11/27172532/Mumbaikars-react-Lindsay-Clin.html

I think Bush would Call this Red

Major landmarks in Mumbai were besieged by terrorists last night between 9 and 10 PM. Gun shots and grenade blasts continued throughout the night killing over 100 and wounding nearly 250.

Fortunately, my friends and I are holed up in a different part of town, away from most of the attack sites, of which there are at least 10. Judging from the sites they've hit, the attackers are targeting the well-to-do and tourists. The Taj Mahal Hotel, the Oberoi Hotel (where our magazine hosted a large event recently), Leopold's cafe (a major tourist haunt), a movie theater, a hospital, etc. have all been bombed or affected.

The targets are a central meeting point and gathering place for Westerners. One friend, Nicole, works in the building next to the Oberoi Hotel. She could see gun men on the roof of the hotel and could feel blasts under her building. Another friend was locked in a nearby restaurant for the whole evening--unable to flee and head uptown to safety.

One of the worst parts of this situation is the fragmented information. Last night, friends in the US knew more than most of us in India. The media have given conflicting reports about numbers of people affected, and the imagery from the attack sites has been limited because many of the areas are cordoned off.

Word that the terrorists are targeting American and British visitors is frightening. I am both. A friend of a friend was in the Oberoi eating when the gunmen came in. Apparently, they asked the hotel managers for a list of foreign guests and their room numbers. They kept the Western guests in the hotel, but released those of Indian origin. If the perpetrators are trying to hurt the economy (the markets are shut today) or frighten Westerners, they have succeeded.

The police look completely flat-footed. Skinny men dressed in flimsy mustard uniforms and black leather belts do not intimidate. They have not been trained for this kind of attack. They are equipped with simple construction helmets and wooden rifles. But, there's not a bullet proof vest in sight. Even their stance, their body language, is cowardly.

A list has been started on FaceBook where people are supposed to enter their names to tell everyone they are safe--it's called MumbaiAttack. But, I feel a bit skittish about putting my name on some trackable list.

Mom wants to know if I plan on coming home. I just got back! I can't leave now.

What is it About Mosquito Nets?

There’s something utterly romantic about mosquito nets. There shouldn’t be; they are scratchy, make for ineffective curtains, and were created to protect us from one of the more annoying creatures around, the malarial skeeter (the Texan term for the more commonly known mosquito, presumably from the Spanish (rhymes with burrito, no?). And, yet, they add charm and elegance to the Kenya Comfort Hotel, where I am staying in Nairobi. We, my two Indian colleagues and I, have just returned from a three day safari, and are holing up here for the night before we return to the good old Indian subcontinent tomorrow.

Wait, let me start from the beginning. I’m working. I’m working, damn you! Or, at least, that’s what landed me in “Keen-ya,” as my mom calls it. I run a microfinance magazine, and our most recent issue focused on microfinance in Africa., so we decided to launch the issue in Africa proper, and Nairobi seemed to be our best bet; two of our interviewees—James Mwangi of Equity Bank and Ingrid Munro of Jamii Bora are here. So, we put together a launch event and panel discussion from afar (I was on vacation in New York last week) and then parachuted in (not literally, mind you) for the event the day before. It went surprisingly well, allowing us to meet many of the microfinance practitioners in Kenya, and leave a good impression of our magazine and our company. Then, we left the next morning to experience some of Kenya’s wilder life.

The Masai Mara is Kenya’s most popular wildlife reserve, and home to Kenya’s most famous tribe, the Maasai. The brilliance of the Masai Mara, unlike other reserves in Africa and elsewhere, lies in the fact that the animals live a completely unfettered existence. Unlike Kruger National Park in South Africa, another popular animal-sighting destination on this continent, the lions, tigers, and bears in the Mara roam freely across the savannah. Granted, you have to search for them—it’s over 1500 square kilometers—but that’s half the fun.

I felt like a true explorer (and bit like a groundhog) as I stood in our van, turtling my head out the roof, surveying the plains for untamed beasts. On day one, spotting an antelope felt like an accomplishment. By day three, antelope and all other deer-like creatures were old news. Rhinos and hippos were on our wish list.

Loosely, from smallest to biggest, here’s what we saw under African skies: birds with plump yellow chests, birds with slim green chests, a grey kitten (not on the plains of the Masai Mara, dear reader, but at a roadside bathroom break, en route), puppies of all shapes and fur; a rooster; wild dogs; bigger birds; goats; sheep; a bird with a giant yellow Koosh on his head; baboons with obscene, swollen pink bottoms; Pumba from The Lion King; a hyena; a cheetah breakfasting on a gazelle; a gazelle being eaten by a cheetah; solemn looking gazelles, after the whole kill or be killed scenario which proved that “be killed” is their only choice; burros; impala (not the car, folks) and several other members of the deer family (I will spare you the list); lions and lionesses in all states including enjoying a buffalo buffet, napping, mating, post-mating cigarette-smoking type of behavior, looking ready to chase something, chasing something; buffalo; wildebeest; shy, psychedelic zebras; a family of giraffes and a pregnant lady giraffe; hippos scrambling to get back into the pool after they’d been spotted; a trotting rhino—very rare (the rhino…not the trotting); and momma elephants with their young’un, including a one month old baby.

I expected nothing. We emerged from the reserve having seen 4 of the “Big 5” (no go on the leopard) and many more of the innumerable Medium and Small.

More to come!

A Shadow of Myself

While reading the New York Times Travel supplement yesterday--the thick glossy magazine that adds a pound to the already bloated Sunday paper--I came across a small blurb that reminded me of "home," meaning the place I will head towards today, not the places I've been visiting the past two weeks. "Indian Vogue" it read. I stopped to skim over the paragraph. Seven splashy new shops have opened in Mumbai featuring Delhi designers. "Find them in Khar West (the West Village of Mumbai) on Khar Danda."

Hold your horses. Where?

Khar West is MY neighborhood. Khar Danda is my STREET. When I land in Mumbai I will tell the taxi driver exactly these words. Khar West. Kaha hai? Khar Danda.

These shops, these posh shops which have nothing to do with anyone who actually lives in the neighborhood, are three blocks from my apartment. They opened just a few weeks ago next to a life-size statue of a man many Hindus consider worth praying to and who has been draped with an orange robe that I'm sure these designers think is heinous.

Until you come to Mumbai and see my little street, with it's open sewers and corn on the cob grillers and udder-bulging cows, you will not comprehend how crazy it is that this septuplet of shops unfolded on my street, and how delightfully incongruous it is for the New York Times to be documenting it--like it's 5th Avenue! It makes me cluck like an old man with a good hand of cards.

Not to mention the comparison: "the West Village of Mumbai." All along I've been thinking I am an alternative hipster for living in the Brooklyn of Mumbai. Au contraire, says the New York Times, putting me in my place. As much as you deny it, you are merely an approximation of your formal self. Yes, you moved across an ocean. Yes, you left all your belongings in 11 boxes in the basement of a Marriot hotel in New Jersey. Yes, you sometimes wear Indian clothing and a bindi on your third eye. But you are the same.

For 5 years before I moved to India I lived in the West Village of Manhattan. And here I am again, living in the West Village of India. If I was looking to escape myself, I've failed. Some things change, but most things stay the same.
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Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch

Nothing like a high school football game to get you back in the groove of Texas life and times. Last weekend was my ten year high school reunion, which not so conveniently coincided with my trip home, so I had no excuse but to go.

My friends in New York sometimes compare my younger days to the TV show Friday Night Lights. I haven't seen it, but I probably don't need to--any show about high school football fever is probably a fair approximation of my former lifestyle at Austin High. After all, every Friday night of football season was spent in a stadium. And we loved it.

It should come as no surprise then that the reunion revolved around a big game: AHS vs. WHS (for those of you that don't speak Texas football, that is code for Austin High (my alma mater) competes against Westlake (the enemy). Drinks were had at a bar near the stadium which was filled with devoted mothers wearing representative school colors. Although our school colors are maroon and white, many mothers, long-legged daughters, and boyish boys from our side were wearing camouflage and face paint--ready for war.

A few words about the enemy. They are bigger, faster and richer than we will ever be. They were 25 years ago, they were 10 years ago, they are now. Ever since I can remember, we've wanted to beat Westlake and beat them bad. It's always been the most anxiously anticipated game of the season.

But, usually, a rivalry connotes some sort of competition. What's funny/sad is that our season-on-season scorecard is something like 2-72, i.e., Westlake has beaten us nearly a million times.

Lo and behold, on Friday night, I found myself under the white glow of fluorescent lights as we watched Austin High get slaughtered by Westlake. What can I say? We weren't that surprised.

The next night was spent watching another loss but on a much larger scale--Texas (the team that should always win) played Texas Tech (the team that should always lose). We watched it on several big screens at a bar downtown. Up and down the street people were hooked to the game inside bars, inside restaurants, outside on the flat screen of the mobile taco truck. It was absurd.

You needn't have watched the game to know the play-by-play; the screams of excitement and woeful groans were indicative. We lost that one too.

In between the two games, I caught up with people I once knew, some of whom I remembered, and some of whom I was thankful had remembered to put on a nametag. Nothing much to report. The 4th grade bully is now an attorney that represents fat cat insurance companies. The sweet high school missionary is still a missionary, but now a mother of two with another on the way. She and her husband are building their own house from scratch on an Indonesian island. The little blond metal mouth is now a slightly taller blond man who speaks German and a smattering of Czech--much easier without braces, I would imagine. There's only one divorce that I know of. And many marriages and small babies (left at home with grandmama). The whole experience was rather bland--I confess, I was hoping for drama.

The only cringe-inducing moment occurred near the end of the night when a certain girl named Amber, cursed with a long, unrequited 14-year crush on a boy named Brandon, got on the microphone and asked him to marry her. He had anticipated as much, and had already left the building.

Start Spreadin' the News

Arrived back in New York last night--my first trip home since I moved to India last December. I spoke to my mom and she sounded positively giddy to learn that I was back on American soil. I have to admit, I felt happy to be back after I went through immigration and the terse officer who stamped my passport allowed herself to say, "Welcome back!"



The ride from Newark (for an OBSCENE price) to Brooklyn was eerily silent. I heard the sound of the tires on the smooth asphalt, and that is all. Zip. Swallow the key. Silence.



First meal off the plane was sushi--no hamburgers or apple pie here--so pleased to have some fresh fish from the restaurant around the corner. Caught up with friends, shared war stories from the economic downturn. And slept.



On the N train to the city now. The guy on my right is reading a paperback copy of Star Wars. He's on the chapter called "The Courtship of Princess Leia." The girl on my left is doing some sort of dot-art picture with a yellow highlighter. To her left is a woman applying mascara. Nothing's changed.





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Premium Quality Curtains

My apartment in Mumbai looks straight into the apartment across the lane. My bedroom is reciprocal to their kitchen and living room, and because of that, I have an amazingly clear conception of the maid's life in my neighbor's house. The maid seems to live in the kitchen, where she cooks, obviously, and where she spends her "alone" time, does her personal grooming, washes her clothes, thinks about her day. She is a girl of about 18, and until a few weeks ago, I had never seen her outside of the kitchen, or outside of the apartment. She gets moving at 7 AM and does a few chores. Around 8:30 AM she finger combs her long thick hair, bringing it around the side of her neck and laying it flat down the front of her thin body. By 9 AM she is on to her face. She's washed it, and now she moisturizes, smoothing the lotion methodically down the sides of her face. She leads a quiet existence steeped in routine. Sometimes she sits at the window and watches the sleepy activity in our lane. We have never once made eye contact, nor have I seen her looking directly at my apartment although we are separated by only 20 feet.

If she does manage to steal glances, I wonder what she thinks about me. Eating cereal on my window seat, watching passersby, doing sun salutations, rushing out for work. Nothing very interesting, to be sure. But, I finally broke down and had curtains made. Not to block her out, but because I realized that if I know this much about her, surely she and the people who employ her must know as much about me.

These aren't just any curtains. It would have been expensive and a bit silly to have fancy curtains custom made for my windows--I don't know how long I'll stay, and you can't really take curtains with you. So, I channeled my inner interior designer, and became inspired. In general stores and corner grocery shops, there are huge sacks of rice and dry beans, similar to the bags of feed my mother buys for her horses and dogs. They are made of rough, brown burlap and stamped with the producer company's logo and design, in fuchsia and turquoise, green and yellow and cherry red. The logos are kitschy without meaning to be. One has an old rotary phone, another is festooned with doves, and my favorite pictures a balding man holding armfuls of money. "Premium quality," it announces in English. Export Quality Sooji. Goldfinch Hygenic Foods. Suyog Traders. Most of the other copy is in Hindi or Marathi.

I convinced a shop to sell me empty sacks for 25 cents a pop, and conceptualized my idea for several tailors who all thought I was out of my mind. I wanted them to cut the sacks in half and sew them into two long narrow Roman curtains. No go. Finally, we found a young boy who agreed to do it. It took two weeks--not sure why--but now, as I write, I have no idea what the maid is doing, and she has no idea I'm writing about her.

Cheers...where everybody knows your name

Writing from the fast train from Malad to Churchgate. Before I climbed on, I walked up to a little newsstand at the station to get something to read on the way downtown. There are at least two newsstands at every station offering magazines and newspapers in multiple languages--Hindi, Marathi and English.



Tonight, I tucked my head underneath the magazines hanging from the front of the stand to look for my favorite time pass, and before I said a word, the proprietor had pulled out the newest issue of Time Out Mumbai. I've only bought the magazine 2, maybe 3, times from this stand, so I was surprised.



Even when you are the only stalk of white asparagus growing on acres of green asparagus fields, it's easy to feel unnoticed. Mumbaikers share a quality with New Yorkers--we are all on a singular mission and unless something physically impedes you, you continue on your path. Other Indian cities cannot boast the same blase attitude. A dish-water blond in Delhi or Calcutta or Hyderabad would very likely feel penetrated by curious eyes.



The point is, I usually feel different from my fellow man, but always unknown.



Tonight I felt known. Recognized. I smiled genuinely. He smiled back and counted out my change.

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The Hamptons of Bombay

I live in the Brooklyn of Bombay. And work in the Bronx of Bombay. And last weekend, I had the chance to go to the Hamptons of Bombay: a peninsula that hangs off the side of Bombay called Alibagh. Truth be told I didn't see much of Alibagh, because we stayed at our friend's house almost the entire time. But, just 25 minutes away by speed boat or 45 minutes by ferry, it is quite an amazing retreat from the city. The rich and famous just 'copter back and forth.


The View of Bombay from Alibagh

Silverfish

A girlfriend got married in Spetses, Greece at the start of last month, and I realized I've written nothing about it. Thought I'd share a few pictures, and say a little prayer of thanks to the women I know that marry Greek men, giving us all an opportunity to celebrate their love...on a Greek island.

Greek Ideals

Victoria Station, Athens

Counter Culture

Day 6 of India Couture Week. A dramatic change from the normal sites and sounds of Bombay.

Spectacular! Spectacular!

India Couture Week, Bombay's version of New York Fashion Week, was two weeks ago. A friend who is a radio DJ received free tickets, and was nice enough to donate them to her needy friends. So, two of us went to see Rohit Bal's designs walk down the runway. Bal, an freckly Indian gentleman, who seems to have a desire to bring back gold lamay and jodhpur pants (in black satin), presented his latest creations on twenty or so beautiful Indian models. But first there were giant floating lotus flowers and dancing men in white gowns and what looked like red toques. Quite the spectacle.

Richard Bona at Blue Frog

At this concert...Afro Jazz with a trumpet player from Brooklyn and a bassist from NYU. Check him out on YouTube.
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Haiku

India is a circus.
I live in India.
Therefore, I live in a circus.


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Permanent Agriculture

Living in India has made me hyper-aware of issues I didn't think about all that much before, namely 1. Consumption. 2. Sanitation. 3. Water. In Bombay, a city with so many millions, and India, a country of one billion, it is overwhelming to try to conceptualize the amount of trash and human waste produced. It's no wonder many foreigners who visit India think it's dirty. Without working infrastructure, all the things that are supposed to be hidden from sight--sewers, household waste, loos--stare you in the face. US cities would suffer a similar downfall if we didn't have urban planners laying pipe under our feet or constructing landfills on the outskirts of our cities.

Without infrastructure, Bombay wears its underwear on the outside. I look out the window of our office building in Malad and see a black river, 25-feet wide, banks built with trash, releasing toxic smells. I've seen children playing in this same river, unaware of what how clean water looks and smells. I ride the train and see women and children using the tracks to relieve themselves. Their small houses don't have running water and their communities don't have a toilet. Their only option is to use the space away from their houses--even if they risk being seen by the 6 million people that go back and forth by train, just a couple of yards away. I walk past a slum just a block from my house some mornings, and see the children squatting on newspaper. There's an open sewer steps away. They, too, have no other option.

I bring all of this up to explain my interest in finding new ways to alleviate these problems. My visit in Bali to a permaculture training center and pilot project was all the more relevant. IDEP Foundation works on two fronts: community sustainability projects and disaster relief. They were and still are heavily involved in the post-tsunami Bandh Aceh rehabilitation effort.

I met with the ED of IDEP to talk about their innovative sustainable farming and community-building techniques, including the use of biogas cook stoves, and Wastewater Gardens. Wastewater Gardens® have proven to be far more effective, affordable & long lasting than conventional (high tech) sewage treatment, particularly in remote areas and tropical zones (from their site). Basically, through a series of holding tanks, a wastewater garden can help turn human waste into clean water by using plants as an extractor and processor that pulls toxins out of the mix.

IDEP has set up a site where they can educate farmers and communities about how to grow their own household garden, how to cultivate hybrid rice varieties, how to compost waste, and how to create a Wastewater garden. The pilot project is an amazing example of permaculture, an approach to the development of agricultural systems that mimic the structure and interrelationship found in natural ecologies. It’s one of the most sustainable practices available for the production of food and the preservation of soil and water.



Above, green, green plants are growing in a tank that filters irrigation water. Bali has an intricate irrigation system, but many villagers also use the streams to wash clothes and go to the bathroom. Wastewater gardens help filter the toxins.

Diaphanous

Kul School

The Green School (www.greenschool.org) in Bali is remarkable--a sustainable, environmentally friendly international school set amidst coconut palms on either side of the rocky Ayung River. All of the buildings on-site are constructed out of bamboo, and the classrooms, or learning villages, are open air. I gave myself a whirlwind tour of the grounds on my way to the airport before leaving Bali. A woman I had met the day before invited me for a visit; intrigued, I went.

The captivating bridge, pictured above, is the centerpiece of the Kul Kul school campus, connecting either side of the river, and bridging the school community with that of the locals--both of whom use it daily. It was built entirely out of bamboo by the 30-something designer Aldo Landwehr.

The school is scheduled to open next month. Here's what they say:

We are an international group of educators, environmentalists, and business professionals who have combined our expertise to create a school that will educate a new generation of children. Our students will be inspired thinkers and creative problem solvers, knowledgeable about all aspects of life, and capable of leading a changing and challenging world. They will know about everything from organic gardening to website design, from running a small business to offsetting carbon emissions. They will be people to be proud of, people we can trust to manage and live well in an increasingly complex world.

I spoke to the Head of Admissions who said that they plan to engage the local farmers in bamboo microfinance. They also have plans to build a chocolate factory. While my elementary school was exemplary, I must admit I feel very disappointed that we did not have one of these.

The school is rather expensive--about $10,000 a year--but intended for high-flying expat children, whose parents either have a conscience or were once hippies who have done something right. The idea for the school was initiated by John Hardy, the hippy-cum-jewelry designer-cum-multi-millionaire who funded the school with $5 million last year after he sold off the company.

The property is gorgeous, and one can't help but wonder what kind of creative, interesting, innovative minds might be cultivated here.

Kecak Dancers

Kecak dancing is a Balinese tradition that brings together groups of a hundred villagers each Sunday and Thursday night (and on holidays) for a reenactment of the Sanskrit epic, the Ramayana. One hundred men sit in a circle chanting--functioning as the background music and the stage--as other male and female characters dance in and around the circle playing out the story. The chanting is nearly trance-inducing.

9 AM in Ubud Market

Great Escape

After three days in a convention center in Nusa Dua, Bali, I was ready for a break. The conference--the 2008 Asia Pacific Microcredit Summit--was great, as these things go, and I mentally praised the organizers at the end of each day for having the foresight to transfer the conference location from Pakistan to Indonesia. Not that I got to see much of Bali during the conference. But on the third day I made the sage decision to extend my stay for one day to allow myself a chance to escape the conference complex and see the country.

I went north to Ubud, a little cultural mecca, home to artists and writers and honeymooners and trekkers, and Aussies--they're quite close to Indonesia.
I felt like I was living a New York Times Travel article: "24 Hours in Ubud." I packed in two field visits (for work), a Kecak dance performance, a 3-hour trek, a visit to a monkey forest, a bit of shopping, a motorcycle ride through town, and some sampling of the local organic cuisine.

My only morning in Ubud, I woke up at 6 and went on a walk with a local guide through rice paddies, past streams and clucking chickens. I haven't experienced nature like that in a long time. I felt like I had been beamed down into one of those spa CDs, with the birds chirping, the brook babbling, the breeze blowing, the cock crowing (admittedly, the rooster was a bit incongruous, but otherwise it was an accurate representation of "Solitudes: Track 3, Quiet Contemplation").

My guide, Alec, told me that my name sounds Chinese: Lin-Xie. I had a nice chuckle as the sun rose over the line of coconut palms, a blue-pink sky reflecting in the standing water of the rice paddies.

We walked past little houses and bigger ones, almost all of which had a temple within its compound. The majority of Balinese are Hindu, but I've found it to be an even more fantastical variety of the faith, with deities sometimes represented with bared teeth, bulging eyes, and claws. There are dragons with long, undulating tongues, ogres, Shrek-like, with bulbous noses, old women with low-hung breasts, like deflated papayas--altogether different from India's brand of Hinduism.

Speaking of low-hanging fruit, on the walk we passed an older woman sitting by the road in the little stream that fed into the paddy fields. She was unclothed and doing her morning ablutions. I was shocked and embarrassed, and craned my neck in the other direction, suddenly absorbed in looking at the forest on the opposite side of the road. I haven't seen a naked woman in I'm-not-sure-how-long, but Indian women are not one to disrobe in public. Ever. When they bathe in rivers and streams they artfully manage to remain draped in one end of their sari the entire time, preserving their modesty. Alec conveyed that nudity is not such an issue here, particularly if you're "of a certain age."

We stopped in Alec's village on the way back to town and he invited me to enter his family's compound. I met his wife, Megie, his shrunken mother, his elder brother, sister-in-law, nephew and dog. The entire bunch live together in the same compound in three different houses. Each family cooks and eats separately, but they all live withing a 15-foot radius. Down the street is their temple which is one of many in their one lane village. Megie served me sweet black coffee and sticky rice wrapped in a green, ribbed banana leaf. The rice had been pounded with green pandan leaf for flavor and in the middle of the rice was a delectable mix of dessicated coconut and brown sugar--conceptually, like a Twinkie, but not. It stuck to my front teeth, and the coffee helped cleanse it away.

Chickens ran around at our feet pecking. His nephew giggled and said Slamat Pagi--Good Morning.

Later we found ourselves in the Ubud morning market, passing huge baskets of brown and blue eggs, steroidal papayas, brown salak, mangosteen, spiky durien--all sorts of wholesome foods you can't find at Whole Foods. Baskets of fish, rolls of banana leaves, spices on my left, steamed rice on my right. It all reminded me of my hunger--which was soon satisfied by sliced avocado on toasted brown bread with fresh coconut juice on the side. Miraculous way to start the day.

Farther East

I stopped in Singapore last week on my way to Bali for a microcredit summit. I was blessed with an eight hour layover--the perfect opportunity to see a city I wouldn't otherwise treat as a destination. Friends told me to stay in the airport--"the shopping is incredible." But, I've found that shopping is less incredible when you make an emerging market salary in a developed country shopping arcade.

I signed up, instead, for the free tour of Singapore for passengers with layovers more than 5 hours. It consisted of a bus ride to a boat ride and then back on the bus--all narrated by a happy guide. There are all sorts of talking points I'm sure I could have incorporated into this entry had I not fallen asleep the minute the wheels started rolling on the way to and from the boat.

Here's what I can tell you: Singapore is clean. We all know this, and true to form, there's no gum in sight. Additionally, there seem to be very few people who venture out of shopping malls--underground passageways connect one mall to another. I saw maybe a total of 5 locals the entire tour (could have been my own fault thought; as I said, my eyes were closed most of the time). Other notes: there are quite a few sky scrapers and more on the way. You will be sentenced to death for drug trafficking. And what else? Oh, this is what I caught from the guide: "Singapore is made up primarily of 4 cultural groups: Indians, Chinese, Malays and Others." I didn't realize that Others was an actual group, but according to the guide, it is group 4. This must be the category reserved for "Anglos of Global Origin."

Before the bus tour, I stumbled upon a coffee shop with a sizeable banana walnut muffin with my name on it. As I was perusing their cold food section, I stumbled across this lost soul: TEX-MEX potato salad. Really? I've never even had that in Texas. According to the "barista," the "chef" (this word is being bandied about with a bit too much creative license, me thinks. It is a coffee shop!) worked in the States for a while.

Other Singapore observations: it's a bit like San Francisco, a beautiful city completely devoid of energy or character. That's not a knock against the mass migrators I know who recently moved to SF. Just my opinion of the city of fog...and now Singapore.

Anyway, I whiled away the hours after the tour in the airport, abused the "testers" in the cosmetics stores, bought some Chinese goji berries, gagged as I passed the dried pork store, and seriously considered purchasing some Ginger and Lily Shanghai Tang perfume for $57. And then I remembered that I don't make dollars.

How is Bombay?

One of the first questions people ask when I meet them here is “How do you like Bombay?” It’s a complicated one to answer because on any given day I could love it and be reveling in the unexpected nature of just walking down my street: horse parked by a tree, lazy cow munching on green grass, my wiry, bearded shirtless, sarong-clad neighbor sweeping his stoop, freshly minted kittens meewwing downstairs, jackfruit bulging on my tree’s trunk, green mango teasingly pulling on a branch outside my window, temple bells ringing, temple devotees singing, milk man with the milk, newspaper boy with the newspaper, smile from the rubbish collector, Morning! from the guy completely devoted to washing his orange hot rod, sleepy nod from the guard—or I could hate it and the hardship that living in this city brings: sweating before the sun has made her imprint on the morning, smell of sewage long before you reach the open sewer, screams of buses, grinding of rickshaws, dust in their wake, hijaras (transsexuals) pinching my cheeks, one armed children tapping on my window.

It seems on so many occasions that, like a petulant girlfriend, India wants to make loving her a trial. She makes trouble just to see how much you like her. And then, and only then, she reveals her beauty.

So, do I like it? My answer depends on small, small moments. If my rickshaw driver has been kind and I’ve gotten a seat on the train and the fruit man hasn’t cheated me and my splotchy Hindi worked on the delivery guy—then I like it. But if just two or three things backfire, I’m knocked out of balance. And suffice it to say, red-faced and ornery, I do not like Bombay.

One of these small moments eliciting Bombay affection happened while leaving the house the other day. I’ve started taking yoga classes in the morning, and I walk out of my lane every morning about 6:45 in order to catch a rickshaw to take me to class. On this morning, I tried to flag down one or two, to no avail, and had nearly made up my mind to just walk to class when a rickshaw I had just waved at pulled to a stop about 20 feet ahead of me. A girl poked her head out and yelled, “Yoga?”

Amazing. (Reminder: there are 18 million people in this city; let me repeat...amazing).

“Yes.” I replied. I didn’t know the girl—didn’t recognize her at all, in fact. But, she figured, where else would I be going in snug black Reebok pants at 6 in the morning? She tucked her head back in and moved over so that I could join her on the rickshaw’s brown bench. In one gesture, there was connection, community, openness, we-are-all-oneness, fighting the elements, united we stand, united we fall.

Today, Bombay is okay.

I Smell a Rat

India is, how to say, um, unpredictable. A small bag of clothes was returned to me yesterday; I’d sent them out for ironing. Upon receiving them, I was told, “There is one small problem Madam. With one dress. Only one dress.”

Pregnant pause.

“With one dress, there is problem inside. But other are fine. But, one small, small rat,” he began, demonstrating with his thumb and pointer finger, “ate one dress.” Pause.

“Hmmm? What did you say?” I lifted my black skirt out of the bag, holding it up in front of me. Tip toeing my fingers across the fabric, I pinched it carefully, while thinking about diseases that can be passed through the saliva of small rats. Lo and behold, breakfast, lunch and dinner had been tatter-torn of the back of my skirt.

“But all other dresses are fine, Madam.” Thank you, I’m relieved. “And no charge for these, Madam. No charge.” Thank you again.

Maurice

Just returned from my first real vacation from India—a week of solitude in lush Mauritius. Although I’ve only ever really heard about the country in the context of exotic honeymoon locales, it turned out to be perfectly suited to those of us mortals who are not yet qualified to go on a honeymoon (much to my mother’s dismay).

Mauritius is an island country, east of Madagascar (a much, much bigger island country), which is east of South Africa. Lonely Planet couples it in a guidebook with the Seychelles and an island you’ve never heard of called Reunion, and it is technically part of Africa, although it’s a bit of a mixed-breed, ethnically speaking. According to my sources (our two Mauritian drivers Akhbar and George), Indians make up about 75-80% of the population, and black Africans, Chinese, and Anglos of unknown origin make up the rest (some of the “Anglos of unknown origin” are there doing business: Mauritius has favorable tax agreements with India, making it a hub for some businesses). Many of the Indians were brought to the island by the British as slaves, but some came as spice traders.

A quick history lesson. Until 1810, Mauritius was a French colony (after being settled by the Portuguese and the Dutch), but the Brits came along and wanted their own island paradise—picture mountains, coconut palms, sugar cane fields, and blue bays—and made it their own. The British held onto Mauritius until 1960, at which point it became free, and it looks it now—in a good way. Its capital, Port Louis, is a city that, unlike New York, sleeps much of the time. It’s a decent little town, sometimes beautiful and from other angles quite shabby, with shops that close at 5 PM every day. When the sun sets on Friday, there’s little chance of getting much of anything done until Monday.

Although the French lost their claim on the country nearly 200 years ago, Francophone culture still has a strong hold. Nearly everyone speaks French,a national language, no matter what race. Most people also speak Creole, a mix of French and an African language, or English, the other national language, and/or Hindi.

Coming from India, it was fascinating to hear people, who for all intents and purposes looked and dressed like people I see on the streets of Bombay, speaking throaty, lispy French. It was even more surprising to walk into a restaurant with a French name to be served Chinese noodles by French-speaking Indian women who sat us at a table by a window covered in Santa decorations—the kind Macy’s sprays on to their shop windows at Christmas. It’s July. Nevertheless, the noodles were superb, and were eaten in the grass just a couple of strides away from the Indian Ocean.

About eight of us, including my roommate, my significant other, and several other friends from Bombay and Dubai, spent a week on Ile de Maurice. Highlights included swimming in a refreshing (read: freezing) waterfall, touring the Rault biscuit factory which ended with a photo with the great-great granddaughter of the founder who is a wrinkled old raisin of a woman with a great smile; touring an 1830s colonial mansion (any tour that begins with a home-brewed shot of rum has to be good); a hike through sugar cane fields (we got lost) which led to the ability to hear birds chirping amidst the quiet rushing of the sugar cane leaves (which is not possible in Bombay for many reasons).

Besides finding numerous ways to enjoy the mild weather and the lush landscape, we also had some fantastic local food:
--croissants, served warm and flakey
--hot, round rotis filled with cabbage and tomato & bread salad at a roadside shack
--whole steamed fish with ginger and spring onions in Chinatown
--Sweet pineapple halves with liquid chili sauce and salt from another roadside shack
--Obscenely red Chinese guavas, like baby pomegranates, covered in dry chili salt
--Smoked marlin embedded with pink peppercorns on soft, sweet buns with mayo and vinegar
--Pearona, a locally made sparkling pear drink
--Phoenix, the locally brewed beer
--Fresh sugar cane juice mixed with lemon and ginger

Low points: inedible“Mexicain” food, the wily escape of a friend’s wedding ring in the cool waters of the ocean, and the "Blue Penny Museum" featuring two special stamps—the story doesn’t warrant telling here—but it was not worth the time or the money.

Back in Bombay now. Back to work and busy. Did I miss my infectious, insane city? No. But, I'm glad to be back.

Sweet Jesus

The ‘soon has sprung. The gods smiled on Bombay yesterday and showered the city with wet, cool drops that refused to slide into drains. Kids in knickers, topless and smiling, danced and played as the rain came down—their little bodies wriggling and slippery. A tubby man in a tank stood under an overpass and let the runoff from above crash onto his head. Men stood in ankle deep pools by the side of the road. Drops came in sideways through the cracked window of my taxi, and I edged my arm out. I rolled the window down and let myself be salted.

It was welcome. A friend from the States who visited a week ago kept saying, “What this city needs is a good wash.” I think she meant the kind where you take a pressure hose and power wash a building. She imagined one big enough to spray down Bombay and its 18 million people. A 40-minute bath was all we could manage. It was, however, well-deserved. Over the last several weeks, the city has had an average temperature of 95 degrees with about 70% humidity. I finally broke down and rented an air conditioner three days ago. It has improved my life tenfold.

Today is sunny and humid again (yes, 70%), but I think we are now officially “in monsoon.” According to me (technically, I am a weather expert because I grew up on a steady diet of Doppler weather radar; Law and Order was, and still is, regularly disrupted by my mother in order to monitor green weather patterns moving across the Texas county map), the seasons here are pre-monsoon, where it is unbearably hot and humid, post-monsoon, where it is unbearably hot and humid, monsoon, where it is sticky and wet, and bearable). Monsoon lasts until August or so, and then we hit post-monsoon. I’m much more excited about the former, although I hear its fun for a hot minute and then it’s just a hot mess. More reports to come.

Locally Grown: It's all Women's Work in this Urban Slum

The streets of Holambi are alive with vigor and flies as dusk, and dust, settles on this urban slum. On “main street,” vegetable sellers are peddling cauliflower and purple onions, small hills of garlic and green chilies. Chickens sit in cages next to their sellers soon to be chopped into piles of head, feet, hearts and bones. As the sun sets, the village gains energy. Workers are returning from a nearby factory. Women have come out to do their shopping.

Holambi is a planned “slum-burb,” built by the government of India as a make-good for residents they booted out of New Delhi’s city center around 2001. Most of the people in this village worked as maids or shopkeepers or in other small jobs before they were moved, and they earned money with relative ease. But, when their homes were destroyed, so went their livelihoods. Now, in a self-contained village on the outskirts of India’s capital city, there is little to do in the way of work if you’re not a shopkeeper or a vegetable procurer. Some girls and women make money by separating plastic bottle tops—the factories make them in one piece, and then need human hands to take them apart. Others put caps onto medicine bottles. But, for many, the only steady stream of employment close by is at a factory. Workers get paid INR 100 (US$2.50) a day for their work there.

Aajeevika, a start-up microfinance NGO based in Holambi with a branch up the road in neighboring slum Bawana, is trying to change this. Both communities are considered urban slums even though they are surrounded by fields of green. Aajeevika started working in Holambi in 2004 by engaging in community building efforts. Along the way, it saw an opportunity to provide microfinance loans to its members, and it has gradually built its client base since then. About 3,300 people are members of Aajeevika’s self-help groups, which have 5-10 members each; about 600 of those members are clients who borrow money on a cyclical basis.

Aodiiti Mehta, a member of the Indian Administration Services (IAS) for 29 years, started Aajeevika (meaning livelihood) to help the women in these communities. “We knew that the women needed something. They had lost everything and had nothing to do,” Mehta told me over coffee one morning. While some men still commute to their old locale to work, and others have found a job at the local factory, the women have very little to occupy themselves. Aajeevika set out to change that. The organization only serves women, and tries to hire women whenever possible.

Besides poor infrastructure, exclusion from public services, and the health costs of living in an unclean environment, lack of access to education tops the list of challenges for young women in Holambi. There are only two schools, but for girls older than 10th standard (around 14 or 15 years old), there is no opportunity for education. As a result, many girls have left their studies, and have very little opportunity.

Aajeevika has changed that equation for some of the women living here. By choosing to hire only women for field staff positions, they are providing a new, much needed source of employment for a chosen few. Renu is a 21-year old mother of two who was recently promoted to branch manager from center manager after working with Aajeevika for a year and a half. Although she is young, Renu carries herself with aplomb as she walks through the village lanes. She works in Aajeevika’s Bawana branch and takes her role seriously. When she is not tracking the money collected at the branch, she is attending center meetings to make sure they run smoothly and that the members are repaying. She has also taken it upon herself to hold awareness camps in the village to bring in more members and potential clients.

All of the field staff at the organization are between 18 and 23 years old and none have any formal working experience. Like many small MFIs, Aajeevika hires its field staff locally, and believes that employing “insiders” strengthens their organization. But, Aajeevika is unusual in that all of its women staffers are from the slum itself. Rashida Bano, 23, another branch manager who is revered by almost everyone who works with her, finds that one of the most important parts of her job is motivating the center managers under her charge. She explains, “I try to reassure them that by doing this work with Aajeevika they are not only improving the financial stability of the women around, but also their own financial stability. They get the chance to progress with their education and career development.”

Aajeevika’s women work a long day. They convene center meetings starting at 6:30 a.m. and sometimes don’t finish until 8:30 p.m. Salaries start at INR 2,000 a month (USD 50) and there is an increase after six months. Although they could work elsewhere, and possibly make a higher salary—there are several nonprofits operating in this urban village—Renu and Rashida stick around. In fact, Renu seems to have hit her stride here. She likes to work in the field, and finds that in her position, she can teach others. Although she doesn’t say it explicitly, Renu is a leader at her branch, and within her community. Mehta, who echoed that sentiment, said, “Employing these women has demolished myths that young women/mothers can’t do this work. These are slum girls who have been given financial and psychological responsibility.”

As unusual as it may sound, the urban environment serves as an incubator for female MFI staff members. Renu might not be allowed to be a field officer if she worked at another MFI in India or elsewhere due to safety or cultural issues. But, the structure and culture of an urban MFI varies markedly from that of an MFI operating primarily in rural areas. A field worker at a rural MFI will spend most of his/her day traveling large distances. The isolated environment is also thought to be unsafe for a woman traveling alone. Culturally, in some areas, it is seen as inappropriate for a woman to be apart from her husband, children, in-laws, or parents. And, carrying large amounts of money is seen as more of a risk for a woman staff member than for a man. These difficulties are avoided in an urban environment. Rashida told us, “Some families are not as supportive as my family. They want their girls to get married and work at home, and not go out and learn English and computer courses. I am fortunate that my family, with my parents and two brothers, supports me. They are proud that I have completed my studies and now contribute to the household income through a job that is close by. Although, when I come home late at night they worry.”

Although there is tension in the slum—at night families can be heard fighting and neighbors squabbling—there is an aura of relative safety. It has the comfort of a small, “one horse town”, where everyone knows who you are and what you do. Most of that can be attributed to the density of the community. A center manager only has to walk a few streets to reach a group meeting, passing people she knows along the way. When she reaches the meeting, it is held outside in the lane, in public, which lends an additional quality of transparency and security. Generally, there are always curious passers-by who stop and observe the meeting. The open nature increases the sense that these women borrowers, and the center managers have nothing to hide. Additionally, Aajeevika has created a system where none of the field workers carry money. They keep track of accounts, and ensure that each group member has the funds to pay her debt each week. But, the money is delivered to the branch office by a center leader (not the center manager) each week, taking the onus off of Aajeevika’s employees.

Yet, the job is not without challenges, even in Holambi. For Renu, most group members are at least twice her age, and she must find a balance between discipline, camaraderie, control, and power in order to ensure that loans are repaid and that groups keep peace. She relays one story about a group, where a woman flat refused to repay her loan, and then ran away to a faraway state, Bihar. The other group members were held accountable for loans in arrears, and they were vocal about their dissatisfaction with this arrangement. For Renu, this was a tough situation. It was her responsibility to ensure that the group would somehow repay the amount loaned, for the sake of the organization and to keep up Aajeevika’s 99 percent repayment rate. In this scenario, the group members ferreted out information that helped them track down the AWOL member, and pressured her to return. She did, and repaid her loan. Fortunately, most dicey situations seem to work themselves out through the application of social pressure.

Aajeevika has its sights on expanding into neighboring communities, and with that expansion with come new hires. Mehta says that they will continue to hire from within slum communities, giving them a new opportunity for steady employment. For Mehta, hiring locally is like meeting another bottom line, and it’s not without its rewards. She explains, “To see a community of women leaders at that level, there…that’s something.”

The Short of It

Took the train home from work today. Dead body on a stretcher on the platform. Just sitting there. Starched white sheet over it. Blood pooling underneath the body. The sheet edges a defiant red. No news cameras. No gawkers. Just people standing around looking unaffected. Who will tell his children?

April Mornings

April mornings are spent being as still as possible. I have two free-wheeling ceiling fans in my room, but no air conditioner, which makes getting ready in the morning a little bit more of a challenge. Bombay is 86 degrees with 58% humidity at 8:30 AM. So, every function is performed with the question, "Will this make me break a sweat?" Hence, I endeavor to move slowly but deliberately, tai chi style.

The train, above ground, non a/c, and open air, was late today. So, one thousand Indians and I stood or squatted on the platform waiting for the bloody thing to arrive. Finally it did, filled to the brim. I rode "first class, ladies," which is usually relatively roomy in the morning, and absolutely cavernous at night. However, today, we were armpit to armpit, hanging on to the ceiling handles for dear life. There is a see-through vertical grate between "first ladies" and "second ladies" and we seemed to be just as bad off as them. (Nevermind the sheer iniquity when, at night, "first ladies" is empty, and all the "second class ladies" (which sometimes includes me) are crammed together and can see all the available space right next door.)

So, for thirty minutes on the slow train to Borivali, I stood listening to Hotel Costes and Voxtrot, trying to keep my cool as sweat snuck down my sternum under my undershirt, and appeared in my hairline like, ahem, dew in the morning grass (just let me imagine it this way, okay?). The absurdity of this situation is exacerbated by my "black skinny jeans," which seemed like a good idea when my ceiling fans were blowing on me--but now that they are plastered to my thighs, it seems like not such a good idea after all. Stay still. Don't move.

It's not that I haven't tried to find some practical Indian-wear. I went to try on thin cotton salwar kameez's the other day (that's pants with a long loose top over them) and it didn't go well. My American born and bred ankles are too big to fit into the pants. Literally, the shopkeeper came into the dressing room and demonstrated on my leg how to pull the pants on--and she was mystified that they wouldn't go over my mountainous, soccer-playing ankles. Meanwhile, the evil boyfriend sat outside the dressing room laughing. Curses be to all the gorgeous Indian women out there with almond shaped, kohl-lined eyes and skinny ankles.

When the train pulled into my stop, we herded ourselves out like violent sheep, and I raced to the rickshaw area to convince a driver to take me to my stop--they are generally ornery men who routinely refuse to take you to your chosen stop because they just don't feel like it (even though it's illegal to refuse a fare). So, I convinced a guy, and inserted myself into the back, and assumed the "position." It's a cross between an emperor in a carriage and John Goodman's couch pose in Roseanne. Feet flat on the floor, legs wide, elbows resting on the back of the couch/seat. It's a utilitarian pose aimed at minimizing skin on skin contact. On the ride, I caught sight of a groom astride a white stallion being ushered down the road to meet his bride's family. I thought to grab my camera and capture the image for you, but then thought better of it. Be still, be still.

The Dinner Game

We went to a dinner party on Friday night. Eight guests, two hosts, one beautiful child in a fireman's hat. A famous cricketer lives downstairs. A famous actress's parent's live upstairs. Conversation is slow to start and never reaches momentum.

It's like every other awkward dinner party we've been to: we sit on the living room furniture in a square. Conversation eventually devolves into an exchange of stories about household help. Nearly every middle class Indian employs a maid--and if you're upper class you probably have a gaggle of maids and drivers and people to do your stuff. It seems to be the one commonality that we all share, and therefore the one conversational set-piece that allows everyone to contribute in some way.

I (proudly) have never had a maid. In New York, I got down on my hands and knees every weekend and scrubbed the floors. Music playing in the background. Light shining through my curtainless windows. Free therapy. But here it's crazy not to have a maid. Dust seems endemic to Mumbai and is wildly invasive. Friends tell me that if I didn't have a maid, the dirt would pile onto itself and form into fuzzy layers on my counters and floors and the leaves of my fern. So, we have a "bhai" that comes six days a week for two hours a day.

We all have our stories. Mine is about the fact that my maid refuses to iron. She will clean the floors, make the bed and wash the clothes, but she will not prepare food, water the fern, or iron. Period. One guy's maid only cooks when she wants. If dinner is requested after 7 PM, the only option is Maggie--Indian for Ramen noodles. Another guy's maid makes amazing fish curry.

People talk about how often their maid comes, how well they cook, how much they are paid, where they sleep...admittedly, it is endlessly fascinating. If only the maids knew how central they are to bourgeois interaction.

Food is served. It's paneer and peas, stuffed mushrooms, biryani rice, and hot, tasty rotis. Deep orange mangos, American-style brownies and ice cream for dessert.

We have to get home. The maid is coming early tomorrow.

Parsi Navjote

A little Wikipedia love: A Parsi is a member of a close-knit Zoroastrian community based primarily in India. Most Parsis outside of India identify India or Pakistan as their home country. Parsis are descended from Persian Zoroastrians who emigrated to the Indian subcontinent over 1,000 years ago. More recent Zoroastrian immigrants are known as Iranis.

The Navjote is the coming of age ceremony for Parsi children—akin to a bar/bat mitzvah or a confirmation. I had the pleasure of being invited to one for two sisters (around 9 and 12) in February. Given that there are estimated to be less than 100,000 Parsis in the world, this was an anthropological privilege. My notes…

The guests look self-conscious as they enter opposite the cameraman's lens. The red carpet shows the way. Black tie. Black Pantene hair is tossed. A photographer captures poses in front of the entry backdrop—like a Parsi movie premier. Rose trees, or rather trees made of red roses. Live band…is that Elvis?

Food for one thousand. Served on a banana leaf. One thousand banana leaves sacrificed. On my leaf: mini chapattis, edamame curry, fried onions mixed with masala spice, soft lentils; thin dill pancakes wrapped in more banana leaves. More naked banana trees.

Only three non-Indians out of the crowd. We’re at the same table, long and facing one direction. A Mexican stand off with the eaters at the table across the way. A full leaf of edamame and onions, and a comment: “Oh, I don’t eat outside our house.” “Oh, you’re like that,” I think.

Sparkling women, sparkling jewelry. Children are handed to maids. But, no one is dancing yet. Old women with flawless, fair skin whisper to each other. They sit to the side. Younger women shine. Emerald earrings as big as a basil leaf.

A collective buzz amongst those who know: Preity Zinta, the actress, has been spotted. Intricate black saris with bird-patterns twittering down the back. The maidens of honor nowhere to be seen. Of course, it’s more about the parents.

White lights dripping from overhanging trees. There they are. Girls under the gazebo toss rose petals over each other as they dance.

Purple Coffin

It’s hot and clear. I’m sweating in a black and yellow taxi, waiting out the heat at a traffic signal. My window is down half-way; that’s as far as it will go. It’s a long, patient light.

There is a shop on the side of the road, just 10-12 feet from my window. A small, wooden coffin sits atop a table. It is purple with gold swirls and flowery carvings. The coffin man bangs decorations into the lid of the tomb. His insolent insistent hammering shifts the lid slightly to the side.

The light turns green and we pull forward. The oblong shape. The small size. The perfect angles. The somber, serious faces of the two men who wait to receive it.

It Sat Silently, Holding Its Breath

(January 25) (Wrote this a while back...just now posting!)

It’s Friday night and I’m returning home from work. My taxi driver is wearing a white skull cap and white togs. He is Muslim. I don’t yet know the way home, and thus have to depend on the kindness of strange taxi drivers. He is trying to find the highway and has already asked three people about its whereabouts, which doesn’t leave me much hope of arriving home without us having to ask at least four more people along the way.

The sun hasn’t yet set, and there are tons of people out and about on the roads, driving, walking, biking. I notice that along the road, here and there, are boys of all ages looking up at the sky. Reading their faces, there’s a mix of curiosity and hope. I roll down my window and turtle my head out to see what’s so interesting. Above me there are three colorful kites—little diamonds of paper bouncing on the air. As we wade through traffic, I spot more tugging strings connected to unseen kites.

Tomorrow is Independence Day—a day to celebrate the day the British got the heck out of India (back in 1947). In Delhi, India’s Washington DC, there will be military parades and drum lines tomorrow. Here, and in other parts of the country, Independence is celebrated through kite running.

I’ve heard that in a few days there will be a kite flying competition. Everyone is practicing, I presume. There are boys flying kites on narrow lanes and at the side of the road. Here and there I see temporary stands selling bulky spools of string. Boys who have spare pocket change buy the string laced with fiberglass to protect their kite from incursions from other kites. The important thing is having a kite to fly. Boys with little money can choose one kite with a good string, or a couple of kites with regular string. The competition is cutthroat.

(A day after the kite flying competition was held, I read in the paper about a number of people who died or were injured. The fiberglass string intersected with a motorcyclist’s throat and nearly slit it. Several people died falling off rooftops; completely focused on their kite, they dropped straight off the edge.)

We finally made it to the highway, and as we were waiting to join the stream of traffic, we passed another “black and yellow.” (The cabs for the common man in Mumbai are black and yellow, have no A/C, were built for people who are less than 5’8’’ tall, and are usually tricked out with mirrors on the ceiling (no pink champagne on ice, though), and imitation velvet cloth. “Cool cabs” are more expensive, have to be formally booked, and as the name indicates, have amazing A/C.) I'm slouching in my black and yellow, because, as usual, I am too tall for this thing. The taxi to my left is carrying 9 people, not including the driver. This taxi, my taxi—the exact same size and model---is carrying one, not including the driver. In an "A/C, non A/C world," (just one of India's dichotomies) iniquities abound, and I feel very much a perpetrator.

Halfway through the ride, as we cruised down the highway past teetering cliff-top slums, it dawned on me that the driver was liberally using the horn even though there weren’t many vehicles around us. I looked up from my blackberry after two minutes of HORN to see the driver hitting his wheel as we tumbled along: the horn had broken into one long continuous wail and he was attempting to bang it back into silence, to no avail. Passing cars took no notice. Amidst the cacophony that is Bombay, one relentless horn made no difference.

We pulled over to look under the hood and disconnect the wiring. It worked. He climbed back in, shut the door, started the engine and we drove. As we reached 40 or 50, the horn began a long low drone again. The driver pulled over once more. Fiddled with the wiring. Climbed in, shut the door, started the engine and we drove. As we reached 40 or 50 the horn whined. I laughed. This was becoming awkwardly funny. The driver obviously had no idea what he was doing under the hood, and seemed legitimately embarrassed. He pulled over once more, more sheepish than before. He did this three times, until finally, even he was laughing at the insanity of the situation. When we resumed our commute the third time the horn gave us a few more hiccups and then sat silently, holding its breath, as we drove on.

The highway came to an end, stopped by the sea, and we took the exit, past necking couples and whispering lovers. This is lover's highway. At the end, the part that looks out over the water, couples come to share moments with each other. It's tempting to call them "quiet" moments or "romantic" moments as I write, but it's hard to see the romance in whizzing rickshaws and black and yellows, noxious bodies of water, and exhaust fumes. However, for young unmarried couples and those with disapproving or conservative parents, this is an escape.

We arrived in Bandra, my suburb for the moment. Three or four more inquiries later and I was home.

Toto, We’re Not in Kansas Anymore

So, work is good. Different—definitely different. And busy, as you can see from the distance between this blog and my last, back in February. But work is good and culturally entertaining at times. When I arrived, my firm seemed to have made the decision to go from 0 to 60 overnight and I have been reaping the rewards—like a retriever sticking his head out of a car window—of the high speed zone.

For example, during my first two days, I marveled at the fact that in the entire office—an office that houses the communications and publishing operation of a consulting firm, a venture capital fund, and an online crafts portal—there was only one land-line phone. When a call came in, the phone answerer would walk the headset and base over to the intended recipient of the call, and then that person had a conversation in front of the entire office. The open conversation format has not changed. However, on my third day, lo and behold, we all received new phones. I asked my cube neighbor if these were new phones to replace the old phones. Perhaps they had phones before I came, and were just in a holding pattern in the past few days, using only one phone? “We never had phones before,” he said.

As for our cubes, you’d be embellishing if you called it a cube. It is a cubby. About 2 ½ feet wide. Home to a computer. And a new black phone. There’s a square foot of white board on my backboard, and that’s it. Done. Here is your cubby. But, the thing I love about the set up is that everyone has a cubby. From Associate Vice President to Senior Associate to Analyst to Accountant. No hierarchy has been established based on how much real estate you have or whether your cube has a door. The message is effective: we are all here to do the work…we are the same…you are no different than I. I happen to like it. Communication is efficient. If I want to brainstorm with my team, everyone is within eight feet. No need to yell down the hall, or walk out of my office. Everyone is right here. Its close quarters like almost everything else in India, so I shouldn’t be surprised. It’s just different.

I work in Malad. It’s what I call “the Bronx of Bombay,” but only because it has a similar geographical location to Bombay as the Bronx does to Manhattan. It takes me an hour to get to work—either in a car or on a train (to those who read my train entry: my door to door travel time has turned out to be not so different by taking the train)—and we work in a medium-sized, 8-floor office building behind a mega electronics store. Our address is Palm Spring, which makes it sound beachy and oh-so-Miami, but the next part of our address is “Beside D Mart,” a reference to the mega store next door (like Walmart's little step-sister) that everyone knows.

The description of what we are next to is typical of an Indian address—there must always be a landmark. Streets are so poorly marked and buildings so rarely numbered, that highly visible temples, stores, and brands serve as guideposts for everyone—which means you can be Hindi-illiterate like me and still survive, or you can speak not so great English, like many rickshaw drivers, and still help customers get to where they need to go.

Inside our building there are wealth advisory firms, small banks, a restaurant, a film production company and a call center or two. In fact, a girl I started talking to on the street the other day asked me if I work at a call center. Anything’s possible. If this doesn’t work out, perhaps I could be the next person you hear when you call about your cell phone bill. “Hello, this is ****. My ID number is 5555555. Are you calling from your T-Mobile cell phone? Can you tell me that number madam?”

There are four young men who hang around the office in tight waisted, wide leg pants who are on hand to brew garam chai—hot, milky sweet tea. These young chaps do other things too—they run to D-Mart if you need some biscuits with your tea. When we send out a mailing, we can enlist their help sliding magazines into envelopes. But mostly, Mahesh and Sandesh and Ganesh make tea. We all receive a small teacup when we arrive, which is anywhere between 10 and 11 (the traffic in Mumbai is so horrendous that you can’t expect to get to work any faster…and India just gets to work later). Around 3 PM, we all get another one. Without even asking. The best part is, when you get to the last sip of the tea in the petite porcelain cup, there is a mound of undissolved sugar, ready and willing to be slurped up. I will miss this when I go.

But, I won’t be leaving anytime soon. The conclusion of this little diatribe is that I’m quite enjoying my work. I’m the editor of a niche magazine in a niche sector. Learning the ins and outs of a new sector keeps me engaged in my work. The work is fast-paced—and I’ve been able to meet some amazing people and go on some eye-opening field visits.

The people I work with are wonderful—endearing, no ego, hard working women and men. I am quite certainly almost the oldest person in an office of super smart 20-somethings. The work is challenging, creative and fast-paced.

And, I’m starting to actually like my commute.

Ladies Only Folks

After putting it off for two weeks, I decided to take the train home from work with a friend. The train is fast and cheap, but most of the people I know in Mumbai shun it—it’s dirty, it’s crowded, it isn’t done. One takes a driver—think civilized—who zips you around in air-conditioned silence. Inside the car you are protected from smells and dust, gratuitous external honking and the heat. But, I didn’t come to India to be shielded from its elements. I came to live here fully and completely. (Note: Check back in with me in a month or two to see how fully and completely I am still living).

That said, I have been splitting a car and driver with four friends to get to and from work because it is, above all things, convenient. And the train is intimidating. From the road, in my metal cocoon, I’ve seen bits and pieces of train cars flashing between the trees and buildings. Crammed to the gills, the train barely stops as it moves through each station. People dangle out the side of each open doorway (and a few choose to sit atop the train) and jump on and off as it pulls through the station. There is an artful dance within the chaos—I just can’t hear the beat.

The driver couldn’t take me home from work today, so tonight when my co-worker, J., asked if I wanted to join her on the train I couldn’t refuse. I was excited to have a reason to brave the crowds and try it out.

We took a rickshaw to the station, and walked a shortcut to the tracks around open sewers and unpaved lanes, through vegetable stands and past stores selling combs and shoe soles, samosas and fried snacks. I had to move quickly to keep up with her, and panicked when I lost her for a moment. I only had 100 rs. ($2.50) with me, which wouldn’t help me much in this spidering, staring crowd.

Other people seemed to be conquering the space I was walking into with each forward stride. I straightened up and took wider steps and pushed my elbows a little distance from my waist. I am woman. I am strong. Right?

A second class one way ticket costs 6 rs. ($.16). First class is 52 rs. ($1.25) No second thoughts. Second class it is. What about first justifies charging more than 8 times than second?

Perhaps there are 8 times less people in first. My friend and I raced down the stairs—as if we were double-timing it for the Manhattan subway—and joined the other women pushing into the car. I would estimate that there were at least 300 women in the second class train car I climbed into.

This was a “Ladies Only” car, the creation of which is a godsend. In Mumbai, as with many places in India, you can choose between the ladies section, or you can stay with the general population. However, India is a country of men, so if you choose to ride with the general crowd, you will likely be one of few women. It’s the same at the airport—there’s a ladies line for security. And on buses—there’s a ladies side. I’m not sure if it’s to preserve women’s modesty or protect them or encourage them to ride/fly, or all of the above, but it is effective. The men pack into the general cars and the women cram into the ladies cars.

Hitting my head on the handles, I concluded that these trains were not built for 6 foot tall ladies. My line of sight was such that I could watch the swinging mustard-colored handles do their synchronous dance the entire way—like rockettes doing perfect kicks.

There isn’t room on these trains for dance troupes to do flips and twirls down the aisles like they do on the A,C,E. But sellers do come aboard peddling plastic hairclips and bindis with which to decorate your third eye. The kids who sell the stuff have round eyes lined with thick black kohl. One little girl with a firm belly had a tenor-deep voice—the kind that reverberates off walls and down halls—the better to sell you with.

We stood near the open door and my dress flirted with the breeze. I watched the tops of buildings go by. Most of the other women wore salwar kameez’s, their diaphanous scarves whipping up around their heads, like plastic bags that get swept up in air currents.

Our stop at Bandra station brought hordes of men and watermelons hanging in pink nets like swollen teats. We made a running dismount and resumed our sharp elbows walk. As we left the station, J. showed me the board with a digital read-out of the arriving trains.

She tells me which one I should take in the morning if I come. I understand her instructions perfectly. But there’s no way I’m ready to do it alone.