Wednesday, March 5th to Friday, March 7th
Last night, we rode a bus for 14 hours to get to my father’s hometown – a small town called Aheri. I suppose I should probably qualify the term “small”; by Indian standards, this town is tiny with a population of only 100,000. A similar town in the US would probably be about 5,000 people, which is basically where I grew up in Eastern Kentucky. Hmmm… maybe that’s why my dad moved us to Eastern Kentucky when I was 3. Nostalgia. Anyway, since the end destination of this bus was our little town of Aheri, you knew going in that this was not about to be the most comfortable bus in the world – Greyhound is exceptional in comparison. This bus was closer to an old yellow grade school bus. Except that it’s painted red and yellow. Or at least I think it was red and yellow; the layers of unwashed dirt and grime can make it hard to distinguish at times. Similar to other developing countries that I’ve traveled in, there is no real limit to the number of passengers that are permitted on the bus. While this one wasn’t overflowing by any means, there were at some points during the journey between 10-15 people standing in the aisle. Imagine riding a bus with standing-room-only for 14 hours. Fortunately, we had seats. Unfortunately, there was no space for our luggage, so our bus conductor was nice enough to convince the bus driver to keep some of our very large suitcases next to him in his compartment, which is separate from the passengers in the back – it’s kind of like the buses that you might see at an airport shuttling people back and forth between terminals, but of course this bus was nowhere near as smooth and comfortable. Needless to say, I didn’t really sleep that night. We stopped every 20-30 minutes at another stop to pick up or drop off passengers. Since we had luggage in the aisle as well (my mom packed lots of foodstuffs for us to bring home from Gulbarga via the rest of the trip), people were stepping over the luggage and bumping into me non-stop. It was really a lot of fun. And we complain about Greyhound… sheesh! Never satisfied. When we reached Aheri, my father asked the conductor to drop us off in front of my uncle’s house. Even though there are 100,000 people in the town, even the passing bus conductors know where the Maddiwars live. My grandfather was one of four brothers who settled in the area and it was only until the recent generation that the family began to scatter. As a result, our family has been a mainstay of the town for the better part of a century. Walking through the town, there are many buildings and edifices of some sort with the Maddiwar name on it somewhere – either because a Maddiwar lives there, owns the business housed there, or donated money to build the place. One of my uncles was telling me that just having the last name “Maddiwar” automatically extends you a line of credit virtually anywhere within the district. That’s just kinda cool. Anyway, by the time we reached the house at 9am, the ceremonies for my cousin’s wedding had already begun. My cousin Pallavi has been living in the US since she was 8 (for the past 20 years), met a guy where she lives in Stamford, CT, fell in love, and they decided to get married at his parents’ hometown in Chennai, India. While it’s a bit unconventional, I thought it was neat because I’d get to see a real Indian wedding for someone that I actually knew really well. My cousin Pallavi and her brother Pawan basically grew up with me – we’re more siblings than cousins. Coincidentally, Pawan just got engaged and is getting married this summer. For me, of course, that’s all the more reason people were wondering why I wasn’t married yet – I could no longer rely on the trusty old “but it’s different in America” defense with two MUCH-younger cousins getting married. Damn them. They ruined everything, and probably just to spite me. Back to our story, by the time we reached the house, we had missed the entire Haldi ceremony – to refresh your memory, the Haldi ceremony is where you get a yellow paste smeared all over you. The yellow paste doesn’t tend to like to come out of white clothing very nicely, so it’s always best to wear something decent that you don’t mind never being able to use again. One of my cousins, Suyog, was absolutely devastated that we were not able to partake in the Haldi, so he took it upon himself to ensure that we were still able to live the experience by promptly smearing a thick Haldi paste on our faces and in our hair (well, not my hair but definitely my scalp). I was picking Haldi out of my ears for the next few days. But I was extremely grateful to Suyog for thinking about our feelings and making sure that we felt included. It was very nice of him. For the next few days, we really just hung out. There were a number of ceremonies taking place, seemingly randomly to an outsider like me. For example, on the first afternoon, we all got into un-air-conditioned vehicles in the midday heat and followed a small band of wedding instrument players to a nearby temple that was all of 5-6 blocks away. Frankly, this would have been far more bearable for the majority of people if they had just walked since sitting in the middle of the car with no direct window access was actually hotter than outside in the sun. At this temple, our mothers and aunts and grandmothers led the group in some prayers and then a chicken was fed. This was new to me – apparently, there is some sort of tradition that you give a chicken some food and if it eats the food, it’s good luck for the wedding. Of course, if the chicken doesn’t eat the food, you just wait there until it does eventually eat it, but still – it’s for good luck. Yes, it sounds funny, but so does waiting for a fat man in a red suit to fly from rooftop to rooftop to give us state-of-the-art toys via the chimney, even if you don’t have a chimney. To each culture their own. One morning, we all got up and went to the river. By “we all”, I mean about 30-40 of us. By “went”, I mean that we sat in the back of an overgrown pick-up truck. By “sat”, I mean that some of us sat and other stood and others hung on for dear life at the tailgate. One of our uncles owns a rice mill, and gave us use of one of their trucks to shuttle us to and from the river. At the river, we frolicked. Some actually bathed (I think it was also for good luck), others swam, others just dipped in for the cool sensation of the water in the hot sun. Regardless, it was really nice to do this as a big family. I can’t recall the last time I’ve seen all of these cousins and uncles and aunts in one place (again, the family has scattered somewhat), and it was just really nice to see everyone at the same time and just hang out and chill. One of the traditions of our family in India when someone gets married is that you feed the town – or more specifically, anyone who wants to be fed. So one afternoon, we headed next door to a local school and they served lunch to anyone who wanted to come by. From a Western point of view, this may seem strange, but I think this is a great idea. A wedding in India is a big deal – there is no such thing as divorce or re-marriage (well, not where my family grew up at least) and it’s really a massive celebration of the real joining of two families – it’s more than mere rhetoric. Inviting the town to join in your celebration is a really nice touch. Unfortunately, in the US it’s just cost prohibitive to do this, unless you went with mac and cheese (grody) or PB&J (minus the J = yummy). Maybe Ramen noodles could work… As I mentioned earlier, my other cousin Pawan also recently got engaged. His fiancée Shreya joined for this trip. Shreya moved to the States when she was fairly young, but somehow manages to have a complete love affair with all things India. She watches far more Indian Bollywood movies than Hollywood movies and stays more current with Indian pop culture than American pop culture, even though she hasn’t been back to India since she moved here. As such, Shreya’s perception of India has been a bit romanticized (she’s no idiot – she knew this going in too), which is understandable since cinema doesn’t reflect real everyday experience. The first leg of their trip was to Ahmedabad, which is a fairly (relatively) modern city in the state of Gujarat. Ahmedabad was somewhat of a culture shock, since she had never seen the dirty streets, the dusty roads, the polluted air, the poverty that smacks you in the face, the lack of a proper sewage system, and all those other common traits of developing countries. Aheri is a good number of notches further on the developing scale than Ahmedabad, so I was borderline scared for Shreya on how she would react. Aheri adds a couple of unique touches that she didn’t see in Ahmedabad:
“I just don't like the idea of pooing in a hole,” Shreya explains in exasperation. “But you poo in a hole at home too,” Pawan attempts to help. “Yeah, but that’s a much nicer hole!” Shreya drives home the point.
Regardless, I was definitely very impressed. Shreya had to deal with all of this plus she had to be on her best behavior since scores of family wanted to meet her and were undoubtedly watching her – out of curiosity, out of concern for Pawan’s well-being, out of whatever – Shreya was to an extent on display and she knew it. And she really handled it all exceptionally. In the evenings, the family gathered in one of the rooms and talked or played games. A favorite of Indian families is “Antaakshari”, which is song-based game. Everyone splits up into two teams, one team picks a random song and sings a few phrases of the chorus and then the next team has to go. But the other team’s song selection has to start with the consonant that the previous team’s song ended on. Since India churns out of ton of Bollywood movies each year, and each movie has an entire album’s worth of songs, this game can go on and on for hours. For the most part, the point is not to win; it’s more for the fun and camaraderie. This game also illustrates how much more central the family unit is in Indian society than in American society – just as it’s perfectly normal for an average Indian family to sit down and sing together for hours on end, it’s equally normal for kids to do mini-performances for their family: either singing or dancing or sometimes both, regardless of ability. I can’t imagine some of my American friends ever doing this with their families when I was growing up, and that was before the onslaught of the personal computer and the video games that has further divided the family unit in our country. By the way, I think you should know that I really really REALLY hate mosquitoes. I’ve been bitten everywhere imaginable during this trip (well, almost) and nothing seems to be working for me. First it was my arms and feet. So then I made sure to sleep with the fan directly above me – this only helped a little, so I went to applying the all-too-popular Odomos anti-mosquito cream to my arms and legs. So then the mosquitoes started biting me on the face. So I put the cream on my face (yecch!), and they moved to my scalp. I applied it to my scalp, and then they bit my lower lip which promptly swelled to Bubba-like proportions. And then they decided to bite me everywhere regardless of where the Odomos was applied. One night, a mosquito bit me on my eyelid, and I couldn’t open my left eye for 3-4 hours in the morning after I woke up. I need to find a mosquito net. Maybe I should buy a portable one and carry it around with me. Or I should just travel in a popemobile or something like that. That would be cool. I want a popemobile. Though I’m not sure I really have space in the driveway for that. Currently, I’m single and I have three cars. Many would say that’s two too many. I like to say that I have options. My sister likes to say that I’ve gone through my mid-life crisis twice now. Who is right? I am. Why? Because I’m the one writing this. And as the historians like to say, the winners get to write the history books. I’m a real winner.
Saturday, March 8th
Today, about 80 of us had tickets for a train to Chennai. Since there isn’t a train station in Aheri, we had to drive to the nearby town of Ballarsha. By “nearby”, I mean 3 hours away. And by “drive”, I mean rent an entire public bus to take us there. We left at about 9am, and pretty quickly I was missing the air-conditioning present in many buses elsewhere in the world. The natural air conditioning coming from the open windows was less refreshing and more just blowing hot dusty air all around us. When we arrived at Ballarsha, we stopped for an hour or two at a schoolhouse run by one of our cousins for lunch. They brought in some cooks to make fresh “pavbhaji” for us. Pav bhaji is a spicy blend of mashed vegetables (mostly potatoes) served on bread that is made on a very wide iron skillet – ugh… that description just doesn’t do it justice. Click on the link I gave you and read up on it instead, okay? The train station was a madhouse. Well, not in total, but for us it was. Imagine trying to get everyone and everyone’s luggage into a crowded train in 3 minutes. And in India, the conductor will not slow down or wait for you if you aren’t done loading or unloading. It’s complete survival-of-the-fittest. So after we got all of our elders on the train and seated (since leaving any of them would be worse than leaving a bag), we had teams of people loading bags through two doors and one emergency exit window. Then we spent the next two hours moving bags around so that everyone’s bag was close to them. Even though very few people needed to actually get into their suitcases, generally-speaking people weren’t okay with assuming that their bag made it. The fact that it was family loading the bag onto the train was irrelevant. My preference was to use simple process of elimination: I verified that my bag was on the platform with everyone else’s bag before the train arrived; I verified that someone in our group was watching the remaining bags that were on the platform as they were being loaded; and I verified that my bag was no longer on the platform as the train was pulling away. Q.E.D: the bag must be on the train. I’m satisfied. But no one else is. Since thievery is relatively common in India, my logic process is dismissed as naivety by most. And perhaps most are correct. 16 hours later, we were in Chennai. Yes, you read that correctly. We rode a train for 16 hours. Pure joy. I had finished the book I brought on the trip to read: Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns. So at the Ballarsha train station, I grabbed whatever book I could find by a recognizable author – I ended up with Paulo Coehlo’s The Zahir. I spent much of the train ride reading my book. My sister spent much of the train ride playing Antaakshari with the rest of the family.
Sunday, March 9th
After we unloaded from the train this morning, we loaded onto a bus. This was no government-issued public bus either – this was a luxury bus with sleeper berths above the seats. The only problem was that there weren’t enough seats, so the young and limber had to climb up and sit in the sleeper berths or stand in the aisle. Apparently, the bus driver also forgot that this was a taller sleeper-bus and promptly ran into the underside of an overpass that we were attempting to squeeze under. If this were the US, we would be there for two hours as we waited for the police to come and block off the street to allow the bus to back up safely and file the necessary paperwork. In India, we simply had a couple of people hope off the bus and direct traffic while the bus backed up. Given the rule shared previously of "Size matters", the bus had the right of way.
We had a quick breakfast on the outdoor patio of a hotel. I'm not exactly sure where this hotel came from or what the significance of this hotel was, since we were not staying at this hotel. So it seemed a bit random. But the food was good and the setting was good, and we were all just really thankful that we were no longer in the train. Some of us were probably thankful that we weren't in the bus either.
When we finally got to the hotel we were staying at, we ran into a bit of a snag. One of my uncles had painstakingly worked on the room assignments assuming four per room. When we arrived at the hotel, it seems that the majority of rooms were set up with a single large bed, which just could not feasibly fit 4 people, and was a stretch for 3 people, not to mention the families with young children as well. Keep in mind that Indians are used to sleeping in close quarters - if these were Americans, all hell would have broken loose! In the end, my cousins and uncles worked it out such that we had 3 per room plus some suites for the families with kids. The rooms were small but comfortable and definitely served the purpose. I was a bit impressed actually - it's a arduous task to take care of 80 people and this potentially sizable blip was handled more than fine.
The wedding reception or engagement was that evening. I honestly have no idea if it was the engagement or the reception or what. What I do know is that we all went to another hotel (yes, another one) and there was a puja and there was food and everyone was there and dressed up. This hotel was really nice - probably the nicest one I've been in in India. My sister was amazed - she kept commenting "It's like we're in the US!" Given the description of where our family is from, I'm sure you can see why this was like walking into a different world for us, and I suppose for some of our family members as well.
Monday, March 10th
Early this morning, my cousins got up and started the wedding ceremony at something like 5am. Why would you do this? I can imagine that this would make no sense to a lot of you. A key for any religious ceremony is not just that you do it, but it's also when you do it. There are good times and bad times to do any particular ceremony, and I believe this one for this particular day for this particular couple had to begin prior to 6am to fit inside the auspicious timing window. Indians can be a bit superstitious, granted, but there is a huge science behind Indian astrology - believe it or not, it's not a something that the priest used a little plastic wheel from a Cracker Jack box to figure out. But let me diverge for a moment - does anyone else think it's hugely funny that we have a treat that's called "Cracker Jack"? I mean, it's got nothing to do with crackers. Which means that the term "cracker" must be an adjective describing this character "Jack". And sure enough, right there on the front of the box is someone I can only assume whose name is Jack. And indeed, he is white.
Back to the wedding, my cousin Pallavi and her new husband Venk got married this morning in the Divya Room; at least I think it was the Divya Room - I forget. What I do know is that the hotel had a room a few doors down called the "Pallavi Room", but unfortunately my cousin or her then-fiancee's family was unable to secure that room in time.
After the wedding, the family split up a bit and everyone went their separate ways in the late afternoon. It was kinda sad, since this was really the last time in memory that we had seen this many of our family members in one place at one time. I make it out to India about once every 5 years, and our family is so large that I cannot possibly remember everyone's names let alone everyone's face. So over half of each trip is consumed with trying to remember names and faces. What further complicates this is that my father's generation had very large families - instead of 2-3 kids, there were 6-8 kids in each group. Since they get married relatively young and start popping out kids a short while afterwards, there's a weird juxtaposition of generations as well. On my dad's side, I have nephews who are my age or older and who have kids. In fact, if you go to the second-cousin level, I think I have nephews and nieces whose kids are getting married now. On my mom's side, I'm one of the oldest and my sister is the only one with kids. And so, it can get very complicated and confusing and just about the time I think I have it down, it's time to leave. And every time I swear that I'm going to write down a family tree so that I can keep it straight for the next time. And no, that hasn't happened yet.
Very late this evening, my sister and I joined my cousin Pawan, his fiancee Shreya and Shreya's mother and boarded a plane to come back to the States. We had lots and lots of bags, so it was nice that the airport queue was relatively empty when we got there. Of course, we did get there about 4 hours in advance, so that may have something to do with it.
Okay everyone. That completes my India trip. And I finished this just in the nick of time… I leave tomorrow on my next adventure – this time to Nicaragua. Where’s Nicaragua you say? What is there to do there? Well, I guess you’ll have to wait until I write that one up. As always, thanks for listening.
Last night, we rode a bus for 14 hours to get to my father’s hometown – a small town called Aheri. I suppose I should probably qualify the term “small”; by Indian standards, this town is tiny with a population of only 100,000. A similar town in the US would probably be about 5,000 people, which is basically where I grew up in Eastern Kentucky. Hmmm… maybe that’s why my dad moved us to Eastern Kentucky when I was 3. Nostalgia. Anyway, since the end destination of this bus was our little town of Aheri, you knew going in that this was not about to be the most comfortable bus in the world – Greyhound is exceptional in comparison. This bus was closer to an old yellow grade school bus. Except that it’s painted red and yellow. Or at least I think it was red and yellow; the layers of unwashed dirt and grime can make it hard to distinguish at times. Similar to other developing countries that I’ve traveled in, there is no real limit to the number of passengers that are permitted on the bus. While this one wasn’t overflowing by any means, there were at some points during the journey between 10-15 people standing in the aisle. Imagine riding a bus with standing-room-only for 14 hours. Fortunately, we had seats. Unfortunately, there was no space for our luggage, so our bus conductor was nice enough to convince the bus driver to keep some of our very large suitcases next to him in his compartment, which is separate from the passengers in the back – it’s kind of like the buses that you might see at an airport shuttling people back and forth between terminals, but of course this bus was nowhere near as smooth and comfortable. Needless to say, I didn’t really sleep that night. We stopped every 20-30 minutes at another stop to pick up or drop off passengers. Since we had luggage in the aisle as well (my mom packed lots of foodstuffs for us to bring home from Gulbarga via the rest of the trip), people were stepping over the luggage and bumping into me non-stop. It was really a lot of fun. And we complain about Greyhound… sheesh! Never satisfied. When we reached Aheri, my father asked the conductor to drop us off in front of my uncle’s house. Even though there are 100,000 people in the town, even the passing bus conductors know where the Maddiwars live. My grandfather was one of four brothers who settled in the area and it was only until the recent generation that the family began to scatter. As a result, our family has been a mainstay of the town for the better part of a century. Walking through the town, there are many buildings and edifices of some sort with the Maddiwar name on it somewhere – either because a Maddiwar lives there, owns the business housed there, or donated money to build the place. One of my uncles was telling me that just having the last name “Maddiwar” automatically extends you a line of credit virtually anywhere within the district. That’s just kinda cool. Anyway, by the time we reached the house at 9am, the ceremonies for my cousin’s wedding had already begun. My cousin Pallavi has been living in the US since she was 8 (for the past 20 years), met a guy where she lives in Stamford, CT, fell in love, and they decided to get married at his parents’ hometown in Chennai, India. While it’s a bit unconventional, I thought it was neat because I’d get to see a real Indian wedding for someone that I actually knew really well. My cousin Pallavi and her brother Pawan basically grew up with me – we’re more siblings than cousins. Coincidentally, Pawan just got engaged and is getting married this summer. For me, of course, that’s all the more reason people were wondering why I wasn’t married yet – I could no longer rely on the trusty old “but it’s different in America” defense with two MUCH-younger cousins getting married. Damn them. They ruined everything, and probably just to spite me. Back to our story, by the time we reached the house, we had missed the entire Haldi ceremony – to refresh your memory, the Haldi ceremony is where you get a yellow paste smeared all over you. The yellow paste doesn’t tend to like to come out of white clothing very nicely, so it’s always best to wear something decent that you don’t mind never being able to use again. One of my cousins, Suyog, was absolutely devastated that we were not able to partake in the Haldi, so he took it upon himself to ensure that we were still able to live the experience by promptly smearing a thick Haldi paste on our faces and in our hair (well, not my hair but definitely my scalp). I was picking Haldi out of my ears for the next few days. But I was extremely grateful to Suyog for thinking about our feelings and making sure that we felt included. It was very nice of him. For the next few days, we really just hung out. There were a number of ceremonies taking place, seemingly randomly to an outsider like me. For example, on the first afternoon, we all got into un-air-conditioned vehicles in the midday heat and followed a small band of wedding instrument players to a nearby temple that was all of 5-6 blocks away. Frankly, this would have been far more bearable for the majority of people if they had just walked since sitting in the middle of the car with no direct window access was actually hotter than outside in the sun. At this temple, our mothers and aunts and grandmothers led the group in some prayers and then a chicken was fed. This was new to me – apparently, there is some sort of tradition that you give a chicken some food and if it eats the food, it’s good luck for the wedding. Of course, if the chicken doesn’t eat the food, you just wait there until it does eventually eat it, but still – it’s for good luck. Yes, it sounds funny, but so does waiting for a fat man in a red suit to fly from rooftop to rooftop to give us state-of-the-art toys via the chimney, even if you don’t have a chimney. To each culture their own. One morning, we all got up and went to the river. By “we all”, I mean about 30-40 of us. By “went”, I mean that we sat in the back of an overgrown pick-up truck. By “sat”, I mean that some of us sat and other stood and others hung on for dear life at the tailgate. One of our uncles owns a rice mill, and gave us use of one of their trucks to shuttle us to and from the river. At the river, we frolicked. Some actually bathed (I think it was also for good luck), others swam, others just dipped in for the cool sensation of the water in the hot sun. Regardless, it was really nice to do this as a big family. I can’t recall the last time I’ve seen all of these cousins and uncles and aunts in one place (again, the family has scattered somewhat), and it was just really nice to see everyone at the same time and just hang out and chill. One of the traditions of our family in India when someone gets married is that you feed the town – or more specifically, anyone who wants to be fed. So one afternoon, we headed next door to a local school and they served lunch to anyone who wanted to come by. From a Western point of view, this may seem strange, but I think this is a great idea. A wedding in India is a big deal – there is no such thing as divorce or re-marriage (well, not where my family grew up at least) and it’s really a massive celebration of the real joining of two families – it’s more than mere rhetoric. Inviting the town to join in your celebration is a really nice touch. Unfortunately, in the US it’s just cost prohibitive to do this, unless you went with mac and cheese (grody) or PB&J (minus the J = yummy). Maybe Ramen noodles could work… As I mentioned earlier, my other cousin Pawan also recently got engaged. His fiancée Shreya joined for this trip. Shreya moved to the States when she was fairly young, but somehow manages to have a complete love affair with all things India. She watches far more Indian Bollywood movies than Hollywood movies and stays more current with Indian pop culture than American pop culture, even though she hasn’t been back to India since she moved here. As such, Shreya’s perception of India has been a bit romanticized (she’s no idiot – she knew this going in too), which is understandable since cinema doesn’t reflect real everyday experience. The first leg of their trip was to Ahmedabad, which is a fairly (relatively) modern city in the state of Gujarat. Ahmedabad was somewhat of a culture shock, since she had never seen the dirty streets, the dusty roads, the polluted air, the poverty that smacks you in the face, the lack of a proper sewage system, and all those other common traits of developing countries. Aheri is a good number of notches further on the developing scale than Ahmedabad, so I was borderline scared for Shreya on how she would react. Aheri adds a couple of unique touches that she didn’t see in Ahmedabad:
- It is perfectly normal for a cow to walk through your complex.
- There is no air conditioning. Anywhere.
- There isn’t an abundance of television programming.
- There is no Internet in the entire village.
- There is no electricity from 6am to noon every day. On purpose.
- There are no Western toilets. You cannot avoid the squatters.
“I just don't like the idea of pooing in a hole,” Shreya explains in exasperation. “But you poo in a hole at home too,” Pawan attempts to help. “Yeah, but that’s a much nicer hole!” Shreya drives home the point.
Regardless, I was definitely very impressed. Shreya had to deal with all of this plus she had to be on her best behavior since scores of family wanted to meet her and were undoubtedly watching her – out of curiosity, out of concern for Pawan’s well-being, out of whatever – Shreya was to an extent on display and she knew it. And she really handled it all exceptionally. In the evenings, the family gathered in one of the rooms and talked or played games. A favorite of Indian families is “Antaakshari”, which is song-based game. Everyone splits up into two teams, one team picks a random song and sings a few phrases of the chorus and then the next team has to go. But the other team’s song selection has to start with the consonant that the previous team’s song ended on. Since India churns out of ton of Bollywood movies each year, and each movie has an entire album’s worth of songs, this game can go on and on for hours. For the most part, the point is not to win; it’s more for the fun and camaraderie. This game also illustrates how much more central the family unit is in Indian society than in American society – just as it’s perfectly normal for an average Indian family to sit down and sing together for hours on end, it’s equally normal for kids to do mini-performances for their family: either singing or dancing or sometimes both, regardless of ability. I can’t imagine some of my American friends ever doing this with their families when I was growing up, and that was before the onslaught of the personal computer and the video games that has further divided the family unit in our country. By the way, I think you should know that I really really REALLY hate mosquitoes. I’ve been bitten everywhere imaginable during this trip (well, almost) and nothing seems to be working for me. First it was my arms and feet. So then I made sure to sleep with the fan directly above me – this only helped a little, so I went to applying the all-too-popular Odomos anti-mosquito cream to my arms and legs. So then the mosquitoes started biting me on the face. So I put the cream on my face (yecch!), and they moved to my scalp. I applied it to my scalp, and then they bit my lower lip which promptly swelled to Bubba-like proportions. And then they decided to bite me everywhere regardless of where the Odomos was applied. One night, a mosquito bit me on my eyelid, and I couldn’t open my left eye for 3-4 hours in the morning after I woke up. I need to find a mosquito net. Maybe I should buy a portable one and carry it around with me. Or I should just travel in a popemobile or something like that. That would be cool. I want a popemobile. Though I’m not sure I really have space in the driveway for that. Currently, I’m single and I have three cars. Many would say that’s two too many. I like to say that I have options. My sister likes to say that I’ve gone through my mid-life crisis twice now. Who is right? I am. Why? Because I’m the one writing this. And as the historians like to say, the winners get to write the history books. I’m a real winner.
Saturday, March 8th
Today, about 80 of us had tickets for a train to Chennai. Since there isn’t a train station in Aheri, we had to drive to the nearby town of Ballarsha. By “nearby”, I mean 3 hours away. And by “drive”, I mean rent an entire public bus to take us there. We left at about 9am, and pretty quickly I was missing the air-conditioning present in many buses elsewhere in the world. The natural air conditioning coming from the open windows was less refreshing and more just blowing hot dusty air all around us. When we arrived at Ballarsha, we stopped for an hour or two at a schoolhouse run by one of our cousins for lunch. They brought in some cooks to make fresh “pavbhaji” for us. Pav bhaji is a spicy blend of mashed vegetables (mostly potatoes) served on bread that is made on a very wide iron skillet – ugh… that description just doesn’t do it justice. Click on the link I gave you and read up on it instead, okay? The train station was a madhouse. Well, not in total, but for us it was. Imagine trying to get everyone and everyone’s luggage into a crowded train in 3 minutes. And in India, the conductor will not slow down or wait for you if you aren’t done loading or unloading. It’s complete survival-of-the-fittest. So after we got all of our elders on the train and seated (since leaving any of them would be worse than leaving a bag), we had teams of people loading bags through two doors and one emergency exit window. Then we spent the next two hours moving bags around so that everyone’s bag was close to them. Even though very few people needed to actually get into their suitcases, generally-speaking people weren’t okay with assuming that their bag made it. The fact that it was family loading the bag onto the train was irrelevant. My preference was to use simple process of elimination: I verified that my bag was on the platform with everyone else’s bag before the train arrived; I verified that someone in our group was watching the remaining bags that were on the platform as they were being loaded; and I verified that my bag was no longer on the platform as the train was pulling away. Q.E.D: the bag must be on the train. I’m satisfied. But no one else is. Since thievery is relatively common in India, my logic process is dismissed as naivety by most. And perhaps most are correct. 16 hours later, we were in Chennai. Yes, you read that correctly. We rode a train for 16 hours. Pure joy. I had finished the book I brought on the trip to read: Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns. So at the Ballarsha train station, I grabbed whatever book I could find by a recognizable author – I ended up with Paulo Coehlo’s The Zahir. I spent much of the train ride reading my book. My sister spent much of the train ride playing Antaakshari with the rest of the family.
Sunday, March 9th
After we unloaded from the train this morning, we loaded onto a bus. This was no government-issued public bus either – this was a luxury bus with sleeper berths above the seats. The only problem was that there weren’t enough seats, so the young and limber had to climb up and sit in the sleeper berths or stand in the aisle. Apparently, the bus driver also forgot that this was a taller sleeper-bus and promptly ran into the underside of an overpass that we were attempting to squeeze under. If this were the US, we would be there for two hours as we waited for the police to come and block off the street to allow the bus to back up safely and file the necessary paperwork. In India, we simply had a couple of people hope off the bus and direct traffic while the bus backed up. Given the rule shared previously of "Size matters", the bus had the right of way.
We had a quick breakfast on the outdoor patio of a hotel. I'm not exactly sure where this hotel came from or what the significance of this hotel was, since we were not staying at this hotel. So it seemed a bit random. But the food was good and the setting was good, and we were all just really thankful that we were no longer in the train. Some of us were probably thankful that we weren't in the bus either.
When we finally got to the hotel we were staying at, we ran into a bit of a snag. One of my uncles had painstakingly worked on the room assignments assuming four per room. When we arrived at the hotel, it seems that the majority of rooms were set up with a single large bed, which just could not feasibly fit 4 people, and was a stretch for 3 people, not to mention the families with young children as well. Keep in mind that Indians are used to sleeping in close quarters - if these were Americans, all hell would have broken loose! In the end, my cousins and uncles worked it out such that we had 3 per room plus some suites for the families with kids. The rooms were small but comfortable and definitely served the purpose. I was a bit impressed actually - it's a arduous task to take care of 80 people and this potentially sizable blip was handled more than fine.
The wedding reception or engagement was that evening. I honestly have no idea if it was the engagement or the reception or what. What I do know is that we all went to another hotel (yes, another one) and there was a puja and there was food and everyone was there and dressed up. This hotel was really nice - probably the nicest one I've been in in India. My sister was amazed - she kept commenting "It's like we're in the US!" Given the description of where our family is from, I'm sure you can see why this was like walking into a different world for us, and I suppose for some of our family members as well.
Monday, March 10th
Early this morning, my cousins got up and started the wedding ceremony at something like 5am. Why would you do this? I can imagine that this would make no sense to a lot of you. A key for any religious ceremony is not just that you do it, but it's also when you do it. There are good times and bad times to do any particular ceremony, and I believe this one for this particular day for this particular couple had to begin prior to 6am to fit inside the auspicious timing window. Indians can be a bit superstitious, granted, but there is a huge science behind Indian astrology - believe it or not, it's not a something that the priest used a little plastic wheel from a Cracker Jack box to figure out. But let me diverge for a moment - does anyone else think it's hugely funny that we have a treat that's called "Cracker Jack"? I mean, it's got nothing to do with crackers. Which means that the term "cracker" must be an adjective describing this character "Jack". And sure enough, right there on the front of the box is someone I can only assume whose name is Jack. And indeed, he is white.
Back to the wedding, my cousin Pallavi and her new husband Venk got married this morning in the Divya Room; at least I think it was the Divya Room - I forget. What I do know is that the hotel had a room a few doors down called the "Pallavi Room", but unfortunately my cousin or her then-fiancee's family was unable to secure that room in time.
After the wedding, the family split up a bit and everyone went their separate ways in the late afternoon. It was kinda sad, since this was really the last time in memory that we had seen this many of our family members in one place at one time. I make it out to India about once every 5 years, and our family is so large that I cannot possibly remember everyone's names let alone everyone's face. So over half of each trip is consumed with trying to remember names and faces. What further complicates this is that my father's generation had very large families - instead of 2-3 kids, there were 6-8 kids in each group. Since they get married relatively young and start popping out kids a short while afterwards, there's a weird juxtaposition of generations as well. On my dad's side, I have nephews who are my age or older and who have kids. In fact, if you go to the second-cousin level, I think I have nephews and nieces whose kids are getting married now. On my mom's side, I'm one of the oldest and my sister is the only one with kids. And so, it can get very complicated and confusing and just about the time I think I have it down, it's time to leave. And every time I swear that I'm going to write down a family tree so that I can keep it straight for the next time. And no, that hasn't happened yet.
Very late this evening, my sister and I joined my cousin Pawan, his fiancee Shreya and Shreya's mother and boarded a plane to come back to the States. We had lots and lots of bags, so it was nice that the airport queue was relatively empty when we got there. Of course, we did get there about 4 hours in advance, so that may have something to do with it.
Okay everyone. That completes my India trip. And I finished this just in the nick of time… I leave tomorrow on my next adventure – this time to Nicaragua. Where’s Nicaragua you say? What is there to do there? Well, I guess you’ll have to wait until I write that one up. As always, thanks for listening.
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