India: scientific approach to a mystery

I am already at home in Russia, yet there is so much more to write about India. I'll continue posting here, so keep an eye on this blog. I set up my old-and-new blog about Russia HERE - you may also check out that one now and then. Also, slowly but surely I am uploading the pics from the travels on which I haven't posted yet at the upgraded (hurra!) Yahoo.

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Location: Russia

Monday, July 31, 2006

The summer I like

The weekend in Delhi felt like a good summer in Russia. We opened both balconies in our flat and the rooms got filled with the sunlight and tender warmth of the summer air. Fresh breeze was fingering curtains and all of a sudden life has became possible to live without hiding from the heat.

Just as at home the greenery looked freshened up by the recent rains and the pure blue sky was richly seasoned with fluffy clouds (instead of those looking like a dript out white of an egg by chance cracked in the boiling water).

I was walking in Sarojini Nagar, this lovely neighbourhood sodden by the calm of the summer afternoon: my fluttering skirt, carefree dragging of my flip-flops and light-minded swings of the small bag in my hands made me summerish happy.

Thursday, July 27, 2006

Why I love India

The other day Roel and me discussed our trips home. It us from us that folks back home got to hear about India as we know it. Cowds of people who just would not let you be, insane traffic with participants varying from painted tracks to cows, dust, burning sun or pouring rain, bargaining as a daily routine, diet rich in hydrocarbonates and so lacking proteins, sticky men and humble women (for me and Roel respectively). I find it interesting that both Dutch and Russian people reacted similarly, “I do not understand why you are staying there for so long then”…. Well, let me try to explain…

In fact, I love India because only here I can

wear then most colourful clothes with funky colour combinations and know that accessories for my green-and-pink salwar kameez are always available at the market

wear simple sarees and look gorgeous

get a new skirt at the export rejected Sarojini market every week with no harm to my wallet

pick up ten guy in 1 night out and proudly reject them all

eat masala dosa, paneer parantha, lamb cooked by Mr. Jayaraj and byriany by Kanpana-ji, snack with yummiest chats; indulge sweet julab jamun, ladoo and doda; drink butter milk, badam milk, sweet lassi and CHAI!

along with the whole country cry and deliver special prayers for a five-year old Haryana boy who fell in a hole who were trapped in a 60-feet deep tube well pit for nearly 50 hours and then got happily rescued

singing along a fiery song in a language you do not know and dance in a way you never could before

drive on the reverse raw

get fed by my colleagues if the lunch I ordered gets delayed

get a bus ride for 2 Rupees (equals to 0.0427788 USD or 0.0336207 EUR)

be around people even when alone

be considered beautiful just because of the colour of my skin;

jump queues and undertake any other acts of rampant impudence for the same reason

bargain down from any price

go for souvenir shopping every weekend and every time get something new

tell a person “Acha, yaa… we should catch up some time” and not really mean it

be 1 or 2 hours late for any family or friends meet and people would tell you “Not a problem”

cross a busy road at the place where I find it convenient

after a great outing drive a jeep full of nicely drunk people (not excluding the driver), as a crowd get to a dhaba for soft -warm paranthas and feel happy

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Self-cleaning brain

I feel pain not being able to escape from the blockage of the rudiments of my not-more-valid life concepts, when a piling for a yet-to-be-built new life has hardly started either. The latest days in the office were spent in the meaningless for the external observer activities that made perfect sense to me. Surfing web, taking notes, readings, conversations with Kate, mailing friends – all to provide as many inputs to my inflamed mind as possible, to let them mingle, sharpen, refine and boil down to some decent outcome. I could not tolerate this mental process happening absolutely irrespective to my will and participation. And it looked like that night I would be pouring out the tons of my concerns on the one who has patiently carried out a mission of my mental ambulance for long by now.

Yet, before that I had to visit a police station and then a Hutch shop in Anzal Plaza to restore my lost sim-card. Lost sense of time and direction coupled with shopping gravitation made me stay in Anzal Plaza a bit longer. I was assessing how Benetton’s collections here in India are different from those in Europe. I was checking out designers’ wear (both western and ethnic) that costs about 10 times more expensive that that with more humble labels. I found out that I had lost everything that now-on-sale Lee and Levi’s jeans are supposed to accentuate. I was digging in Tatra Tshirt Shop and ended up with two very funky printed t-shirts touching emotions of anyone who stayed in India at least for some time.

Back to Mavia Nagar I stopped by the newly open, but already hopeless I-Way Internet café (as the other one I normally use is closed on Tuesdays). Half of the brand new headphones do not work and my request to install skype makes five of baysabs in the café put their minds together and take up this challenge. I think they just like to do it for me and delete it every time to do it for me next time I come. This time the café is packed anyways. Klaus got lucky – he would not hear my complaints that tend to rock in the amount and complexity the later in the night it gets…

At home cleaning and laundry helped me to let my mind be and I hardly noticed I had any at that time ;o) Simply went to bed… and woke up with no burdening thoughts. In fact, self-cleaning function of my brain exists…

Monday, July 24, 2006

In the epicentre of life

As talented as I can be I dropped my mobile in the toilet on the Aeroflot airplane. I did not even feel like landing not mentioning living this life any longer. What for, if you do not get a chance to receive all those welcome calls and messages from the friends who are so happy to receive you back in India?!

Yet, quite contrary to my thoughts, the life did not become less social. Mail, office phone and Kate around were just helpful in getting in touch with people. Otherwise some have been amazing reaching me in a number of ways that made me cry.

Even more astonishing, the latest weekend gloriously proved that even being out of touch you can still be in the epicentre of life. 4 terrific movies at the Osian’s Festival of Asian Cinema, two yummiest lunches at best joints with Piyali, hanging out in the environment of JNU and then DU, driving around North-West Delhi with a friend, mobile phone shopping, visiting a my first in India hypermarket from the backstage, and a tea with a friend’s family. Uf……. ;o)

Saturday night I dropped home in between of two arrangements. Some minutes of calm and peace were totally devoted to the indulging the quickly chopped fruit salad on my balcony and observing the packed neighbourhood of Malvia Nagar. The sky was full of small moving spots - kits sailed by the boys on the nearby roots. The houses got warm yellow and pink in colour surely anticipating the sunset. The doors and windows were kept open in a very laid-back manner that one can notice only in summer nights. People got on the balconies lazing themselves, chatting with the neighbours and just looking at the people and vehicles passing down on the street. Even when on your own in India you would never feel left out by the flow of life. Quite the opposite is the case, in fact – you feel exactly in its epicentre.

Friday, July 21, 2006

Kolkata: unsystemized impressions

I was beforehand scared by the scale of the city that I would not be able to handle…so huge it would be.. yet, it appeared much more welcoming and smaller than I pictured it…

Haora train station looked very busy with the flow of its daily routines… too busy to bother you… a very rare quality for a train station… I took a 4-Rs ferry crowded with the people starting a new day: during a short journey a one-legged man did his crawl asking for money, a few shoe-polishing men in doti were roaming around with their wooden boxes akin to the huge irons, tapping their wooded brushes against the boxes and searching for a pair of dusty shoes to polish. The ferry brought me to a very nice locality nearby the Stock Exchange. Once done with my tickets I consulted a policeman in a white uniform manually regulating the traffic and took a 4-rupee bus to Sealdah, the train station wherefore I was to catch my night train. The bus was quite short, had wooden seats with little carvings on the backs, the strips of wood on the floors; a conduction with a little leather bag that could be sold for a decent amount of… not rupees, dollars! at an antique auction; and very polite gentlemen who would give you your legitimate lady seat without you having to ask for it and who would not try to squeeze in the gap between you and the next sitting passenger (while the gap may be sufficient for 2 men from the North). Once done with my luggage I took another bus to Park Street, a very pleasant locality. Later on I tried the metro (again for four rupees) that looks like the brand-new one in Delhi would probably look in a decade below the line: not sterile, but still well-maintained ad habitable.

I checked out the New Market that prides itself on an enormous variety of goods from a needle to an elephant… and I got indeed amazed by the density of the shops housed by the famous red building and the diversity of the range they offer… Moreover, the whole area around Esplanade consisting of shops and street stalls and the rush around made a shocking impression on me. I got this picture of Kolkatians pursuing a hobby of obtaining things – going out to the markets, interacting, bargaining and getting things… One episode I observed was rather descriptive of that. At a non-food market a huge jeep was leaving the parking lot. Bizarrely enough, a man with two cauliflowers appeared nearby and started reaching with those to a woman sitting in the car, “Gobi, gobi! Bis ke do!... Ok, pandra, pandra rupea!”… What a spirit!...

I checked out Maidan, “possibly the largest urban park in the world” according to my guidebook. As my companion, the guy I met during my tea dispute (the chai-man wanted to charge me 5 Rs instead of usual 2-3 for a cup of tea and the guy paid both my tea and his on this clearly inflated rate – not very reasonable, but very male – this was how we met)…anyway, as he explained the park was pretty much exploited by the couples. Well, no surprise – this was the main usage of the parks in Delhi too. Yet, when I looked around I realized a critical difference between two metropolises. In Delhi the couples were represented by shameful girls in salwar-kameez and their more Westernized (in terms of clothes) boyfriends who would seat next to each other holding hands at some remote spot of a park. Here in Kolkata the couples would express their emotions more explicitly even when walking together (!) on the streets… So the parks are saved for even tenderer hugging with the full usages of the open areas, bushes, shady places and umbrellas.

Thursday, July 20, 2006

End of summer

Tales about unbearable Indian summer are akin to those about severe Russian winter. Both sound ominously convincing and both prove to be a serious exaggeration. In fact, if you are to survive either you should simply come before it starts. You will obviously suffer the oppressive humidity of monsoon in India, its cold winter nights or burning summer heat with desert streets by day should you come right for that. Otherwise, however much horrified by the anticipation of the hard times you hardly notice when they come.

Hot summer so prematurely started in April seemed never-ending until one day I opened the tap and realized I cannot manage without a boiler any longer – the running water was unpleasantly cold. In principle, you continue sweating in monsoon – for a different reason, though – it is not hot, but very humid. So, you hardly notice how drastically the temperature fell down. And if not cold tap water – I would hardly realise the end of summer.

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Monsoon as a daily challenge

9:30. Not foreseeing any hurdle I left home. Rain started dripping bashfully.
9:45. Got in my first bus. Saw people outside opening their umbrellas
9:57 Walked to my second bus stand. Regretted about the minutes so untalentedly spent on drying my hair after washing this morning.
9:10 Did not notice how I walked my third bus stand as I was deeply in my thoughts about prospective umbrella shopping that night.
9:13 Realized my luck to be in a bus. It started pouring outside.
9:21 Got sweaty on the way, so decided for a second shower. Bravely got off under the pouring rain.
9:24 Realized I would love to run and play under a warm rain indeed. If only I had a chance to change later.
9:26 Reached office soaking wet. Greeting our secretary and gardener totally taken aback by my appearance.
9:28 Went to the toilet, closed it, undressed, washed the clothes to remove drops of mud,
squeezed water out of it, put the clothes on. Realized ironing in the morning was waste of time too. Looked in the mirror and found out I already look less miserable.
9:40 Went to see Piyali who said, “Uuuuuu…Sexy!” instead of “Hi”. Sanghita suggested next time it rains I wear white.
9:47 Switched on a ceiling fan to streamline the drying process and logged in my computer .
11:34 Realized I am totally dry. Why to worry about umbrella anyways?

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Sleep-walker

All of a sudden I freeze. I haven not realized what happened first – the monotonous humming of the ceiling fan was gone or the room got soaked in the darkness. I have got annoyed by the unexpected developments, rather then scary and finish my laundry first. After all, you do not need to see clothes to wash it. Sense of touch worked well. Once done I am groping for my way to the kitchen. My palms are feeling the shelves for a matchbox. It takes some moments of irritation to find one and light a candle carefully kept at hand by those who wisely anticipated the circumstances. The look on the door insensitively trembles when I open it – as if it does not know everyone in the house is asleep. I walk down the winding stairs with caution: the least I want is to blow out the candle with the air streams created by my sharp motions. The candle highlights the walls with peeled off pieces of plaster here and there which I took for lizards the night before when I climbed the steps in the dark. I reach the ground floor and get closer to the central panel where all the electricity switches are located. I open our box just to find out the expected – once again it is off. I put it on. It just goes off whenever the electricity load is too heavy. Yet, how can it be heavy at times and not heavy otherwise?! Very rhetorical question. I’d better wonder how many more times I’ll have to repeat this sleep-walker's feat tonight.

Friday, July 14, 2006

Loving Russia

Summer is most definitely the best time of the year to visit Russia. Come in summer and you will fall in love with the wide avenues and long blocks of flats on both sides.





All those are proudly standing with the background made of endless pure light-blue sky decorated with fluffy as if carefully blenched clouds. This very image evokes the notion of people happily living in socialism in a single country (otdelno vzyatoi strane) as this is how Russian (at that time – Soviet) cities were planned.

Yet, pompous new residential buildings and construction sites of shopping malls


bring you home in realization that the country while carrying its inherited Soviet outfit cannot wait to dress up in a Western style, or, to be more precise, what is understands to be a Western style.



You will fall in love with the nature that comes in the mind-blowing variety. Enjoying the nature does not necessarily bring you outside the cities. At this time of the year fresh greenery invades even urban settlements and truly reins there.



Similarly, you do not need to travel far to find wide gracious rivers,



quiet and humble looking lakes, colorful meadows,



enormous green and golden fields with rows of birch trees along the highways, coniferous forests with bushes of wild raspberry and scarlet drops of wild strawberry.



Early mornings and late nights are best to enjoy the rich aromas and sounds of the fresh air filled in with the smell of mushrooms, berries and blossoming flowers, cries and songs of the forest birds and animals.





You will love Russian people and the way they enjoy summers. In fact, in summer people tend to have more spare time than usually: they sneak out the office a bit earlier to get to a beach, to join a group of friends for a summer ride, to go to their house in the countryside, to treat themselves to a pint of cold beer at an open-air café. Work is removed from the list of priorities for this period of time: everyone accepts the idea that nothing can really get done during summer months so why to bother….You feel a festival in the air!.. In Russia people celebrate summer with the every day of it. People take their cars, load those with food, family members and friends and go to the nature. In every city and town you can easily reach a decent forest and a river’s bank, which get densely packed these days. People swim and sunbath, they play badminton, beach volleyball and cards, they fish and cook the simplest, yet the yummiest I know fish soup on fire, they share huge meals with grilled marinaded meet, drink bear, wine and vodka, they sleep and lazy around.



Around those picnic/BBQ destinations you’ll see masses of bodies in bikinis: irrespective to the physical shape people get undressed wishing to feel closer to nature and get blessed by sun.

For longer outings people go to the countryside where many of Russians have small houses and kitchen gardens,



so to enjoy creamy fresh milk, next-to-orange egg yolks and therefore - excellent gradma's pies,



to relax in the calm and the silence of the village life, to live simple life with basic facilities, to inhale the fresh air where food shared outside tastes better,



wine and volka pour easier, and one gets either restless weeding the beds or lazing around and catching up with the so-hard-to-get-in-the-cities rest in the shades of branchy orchards and again – to undress, to sunbath, to swim!..

No doubt, you will go crazy about Russian girls.



Only those living in the countries with long winters can truly appreciate summer. Dreams of revealing their juicy amenities were cherished by the girls wrapped in fur coats and hats during never-ending cold months. So, now she wears a transparent blouse, or if not a transparent blouse, then a spaghetti top, and if not a spaghetti top, then a deep décolleté. And mini-skirts or tiny shorts, showing the fruits of hard work in a solarium or a first mover advantage of an early beach-goer. Open tops and mini-skirts are combined with high heels, bright make-up and romantic hairstyles, which creates a highly festive atmosphere on the streets. Did not long cold winters filled in with the anticipation buy the right to expose as much of their bodies as they can? At least, this is very appreciated by the sun that does not burn but tenderly petting bare skin and by men who cannot believe their luck these days?!



Come, come, come - Russia in summer is a best tourist package with “all inclusive” by nature!