Faridabad, India

WHAT happened to the consistency of this blog?

I’ll tell you what happened.  India happened.

we have so much to catch up on

TWO WEEKS TO GO in my (first annual) four-month Asian invasion, and I picked Northern India as my final stop.  I wanted chaos and culture and cashmere and cricket and CURRY.  Lots of curry.

Everyone always describes India as a ‘delight for the senses’ (or is it a ‘shock to the system’…… I can never remember), and I wanted in.  As soon as I touched down at the Delhi Airport, my first ‘delight’ was seeing police tackle a fat, middle-aged, white man as he tried to steal two rainbow bags and yog through the double exit doors.  (Sir, so many questions.  Why try to outrun the police if you clearly haven’t exercised in 20 years?  And why the rainbow bags?  Why not something a little more inconspicuous like a black Samsonite?  F for thinking this through.  C for chutzpah.)

Anywho, after extensive research, I found the perfect assignment for my time in India: a Women Empowerment Center providing computer, English, and vocational training for Indian women historically pushed into domestic & subordinate lifestyles.  Young women whose opportunities for success have been limited by pre-determined gender roles and a male-dominated society rooted in the caste system.  (As of the 2011 census, only 66.8% of women in Haryana – the area around Delhi – are literate.)

I could not WAIT to pump these ladies so full of confidence and encouragement and LOVE.  To, hopefully, help them find the courage to participate!  To apply themselves!  To show up, stand up, and SPEAK up!  A cause near and dear to my heart, I wanted to Rosie the Riveter the SH*T outta these ladies.  You know, with less munitions factories and more hand-sewn handicrafts.  We can do it!

Aaaaaaaaaaand then I arrived in Faridabad and found out that the program I signed up for did not exist.  Repeat: the program I paid good money for was not, actually, in existence.

After two full days of sulking (and a carefully-crafted email to the UK-based program’s headquarters about how supremely disappointed I was), Vishy (the onsite coordinator and ‘a man who could get things’) and Kranti (his saintly wife) sat me down and talked through solutions.  YES, the local Indian women would like to learn English and lead a more empowered life…… but their immediate need was to make money and feed their families (as their husbands, in the slums, were generally alcoholics, drug addicts or nonexistent).  Valid.  I get it.  OK, so, what now?

First order of business: get my mind straight.  Since I wasn’t getting my money back and I WASN’T leaving, I needed to wipe out any expectations of what this assignment was supposed to be and appreciate it for what it was.  An absolutely beautiful mess.

One hour south of Delhi, sleeping in a house with 30 early-twenty-somethings (I didn’t put 2 and 2 together that ‘Plan My Gap Year’ was planning college-age gap years…… oops), every day was a test of context clues.

At 9am, you’d be shuffled into one of five tuk tuks for a rousing game of ‘where the heck am I going today’ roulette.  Some days, you’d be dropped off at the slum school or the disabled school or the community program, and other days, you’d head straight for a tuk tuk driver’s house, so his wife could teach you how to make chapati!  Or pottery!  Or masala tea after you got super sweaty (in the 100+ degree heat) playing tag with their kids!

Never having all the information or understanding the full picture, going with the flow was mandatory for survival.

And go with the flow, I did.  That’s how I ended up in a small shower stall with five naked 3-year-olds, a bottle of Head & Shoulders, two buckets and a water spout.  I’ve never washed anyone else’s hair before and I loved how humdrum it was!  (The community program was designed to teach the importance of hygiene to 2-7-year-olds in the slum.  Brushing their teeth, washing their bodies, and, judging by the number of KNOTS these kids were brushing out of their hair, failing to get the shampoo out.  Oh, and then we danced and did arithmetic.  Natch.)

One of the WEIRDEST afternoons of my life was at the old folks’ home.  No one spoke English or told us what we should be doing.  After ten minutes and two context clues (a bottle of coconut oil and a very persistent woman pointing to her ailing limbs), we finally got the hint.  Soooooo, we’re giving massages, then?

Never have I ever given a 20-minute coconut oil scalp massage to a 90-year-old Indian woman with a shaved head.  Or given ANYONE a coconut oil calf, hip, thigh, or foot massage!  Now, I can proudly say I’ve given dozens.  OK, maybe not dozens, but there was a continuous STREAM of old people (none of which gave me any feedback, mid-massage, to let me know if I was on the right track).

My favorite non-paying customer was this itty, bitty 96-year-old woman who kept reaching for my hand and pulling me close to her, so that we could sit & stare in the same direction in silence.  When she got tired, she let me pick her up, cradle her like a baby and lie her down on her pillow.  My heart burst; it was so stinkin’ sweet.

dare i say CUTER than Aaron with his hair pushed back.

But for the moooooooost part, I spent my days in the slum school, splitting my time between the kids and their Moms.  Floating through the classrooms, I followed my own, golden rule:

‘If you don’t know what you’re doing, bring positive energy to it.’

I focused on making one kid smile.  Then, two.  Then, six.  During the 30-minute dance calisthenics routine in the morning (aka. wiggling & hip-shaking to Hindi music & the Macarena) …… during the courtyard recess in the afternoon (playing games like ‘cuppa tea’ – an aggressive combination of red rover & tag) …… and during my favorite newly-invented game of ‘follow-the-leader ninja karate chop’ (leading a pack of 6-15 kids, huddled in a group, all copying my crazy arm motions, facial expressions, AND sound effects as I whaaaaaa’ed and heeeeee’ed my way through an imaginary ninja battle).  Have I prepared my whole life for this?  Yes.  Do I need to work on the name before trademarking?  Definitely.

On the other hand, if my energy reserves were depleted, I’d sit with the ladies instead.  Never having TOUCHED a needle and thread (did I mention I have no life skills?), the ladies of the Slum School Sewing Program patiently and painstakingly taught me how to sew.  In three days, I made a gold messenger bag from scratch, while the kindergarten classroom, next to us, screamed the letters of the alphabet AS LOUDLY AS THEY COULD all day long.

A IS FOR APPLE.  B IS FOR BALL.  E IS FOR ELEPHANT.  T IS FOR TIGER.

(My personal favorite was ‘X is for EXTRAAAA!’)

Punam, Pinkie, and Bebita – the three-woman team of angels who built up my needlepoint confidence and showered me with undue praise.  (EXACTLY what I wanted to do for the women of India…… they did for me.  lol)  As my final task of the bag-making process, I was to stitch my name underneath the (excellently-embroidered) camel.  After sewing ‘TAYLO’ in navy blue thread, Pinkie turned to me with a straight face and asked……… ‘P is for Parrot?  Or R is for Rose?’

it was R is for Rose all along…

But, wait!  The fun (and the tuk tuk roulette) didn’t stop there!  One night, we were sent to a ‘friends’ house’ for snacks & a dance party but ran out of time before the hostess could dress us up in her saris, jewelry & makeup.  (She was very distraught.)  Another night, Vishy came into the room I shared with four other girls and said a tuk tuk driver would be picking us up at 9pm and that we’d be ‘staying out until midnight’.  He also said not to ‘take too many plates because they’re charged per plate…… maybe only share 1-3 plates.’  Wait, WHAT?  Where are we going?

An Indian wedding.

onstage at the wedding with the emcees – this is my ‘happy but confused’ face

As the only white, non-Indian guests, all six of us were pressured invited to come up on the banquet hall stage while the whole wedding reception watched us dance to FIVE Bollywood hit singles and Ed Sheeran’s ‘Shape of You’.  (In horror?  In fascination?  I couldn’t get a read on the crowd……… plus, I think I hit a little too hard in my spotlight solo.)

Once we were released from our entertainment duties, we accepted selfie requests from 68% of the reception hall and shared 1-3 plates of the most amazing Indian food I’ve had to date.  Three different kinds of chapati and bowls upon bowls of, ummmm, red stuff.  And green stuff.  And yellow and maroon and orange stuff with peas.  Ohhhhh my goodness, the spicy orange stuff with PEASSS!!  Eaten with the faded-yellowish chapati with brown & orange flecks?!?  Ugh.  I’m salivating.

When we weren’t auditioning for ‘White People Have No Talent’, my UK roomies and I would explore the Faridabad Sector 15 Market scene (don’t miss Uncle Chicken’s chicken shawarma roll) or we’d hop in a 70-minute $5 Uber to Delhi to:

• Shop at the Dilli Haat open-air craft bazaar, Chandni Chowk spice market, or the Khan Market strip mall.
• Sightsee at the Lotus Temple, Humayun’s Tomb, India Gate or Akshardham (the most magnificent Hindu temple in all of Delhi with a 730pm light & water show).
• Binge eat at Nizam’s Kathi Kabab (get the mutton keema egg or super duper combo roll!), Big Chill Cakery (get everything!), or Hauz Khas Social (arguably the coolest rooftop patio with daybeds, small bites, 4 pages ‘a cocktails & a view!).
• Party at CyberHub’s Soi 7 where every night Thursday night is ladies’ night and ladies can drink top-shelf cocktails for F-R-E-E.  All night.  Hello orange mojitos, western music, and multiple 4-packs of female Indian professionals getting d-o-w-n on the dance floor after work.  We got home around 3am just as another group of our roommates was getting home from an Indian wedding.  (How many Indian weddings is our house invited to?!)

India Gate at sunset

Lotus Temple and half my head

a rajasthani thali, a mutton onion egg roll, and the infamous super duper combo roll.  i wasn’t kidding.  it’s a thing (and it’s vegetarian.)

All this and I haven’t even gotten to the WEEKEND yet!  How much time do you have?  Another hour?  Great.

In northern India for the first time, I couldn’t NOT see the Taj Mahal.  Neither could (or is it couldn’t…… double negatives confuse me) my eight fun French friends (all nurses from Dijon, France).  Since Vishy ‘knew a guy’ in both Agra & Jaipur, he booked our entire 4-day vacation through the Golden Triangle trifecta (Delhi, Jaipur & Agra).  Accommodations, trains, tuk tuks, guides – the works.  And in typical Vishy fashion…….. he kept the itinerary a complete surprise for its participants.

WE SAW SO MUCH.  Here are the highlights:

• Jaipur
  • City Palace: we saw a real-life blunderbuss and the traditional velvet dresses from the 1600s.  Who on earth wore VELVET in this heat; are you kiddin’ me?!  I’m melting in lightweight capri pants…
  • Amer Fort: vendors sold everything from wooden elephants to bedazzled pens to maharaja hats to the right to use their scale to weigh ourselves.  Again, who on earth wants to WEIGH THEMSELVES while they’re sightseeing (undoubtedly on vacation)?!  No thank you, sir.  I prefer to weigh myself in my bathroom.  Alone.  With the lights out.
  • Gatore Ki Chhatriyan: gorgeous/empty royal crematorium site where I fed bananas to monkeys.
  • The Mughal Fabric Store (exporter of ONE blue & white quilt to Anthropology!): we watched them make prints by hand; learned that cashmere is wool taken from the chin and throat sections of baby goats; and stayed there so long (BECAUSE FRENCH WOMEN LOVE SCARF SHOPPING) that I drank four free sprites and a chai tea.
  • Honorable Mentions: Hawa Mahal (Wind Palace), Jal Mahal (Water Palace), Panna Meena Ka Kund (rainwater catchment well with these cool symmetrical stairways), and the trademark pink buildings of the Pink City (they’re more brownish-orange, no?)

met these beauties in the parking lot after lunch

before i broke bread bananas with a barrel of monkeys

and watched my eight fun French friends in their natural habitat: scarf shopping

i could watch them, watching scarves, all day long.  (it’s the real life double heart eyes emoji!)

‘but what’s the maximum number we can buy?’

the groomsmen to my future wedding

‘it’s not dangerous’, he said.  ‘it won’t bite’, he said.

PSA: don’t wear an italian beef shirt (in a country that considers cows sacred) on the two days you take all your pictures.  I make these mistakes so you don’t have to.

At the tail end of a 2-day Jaipur sightseeing whirlwind, there was one, final stop.  In the back of a jewelry store, on the edge of town, I met a spiritual guru who knew me better than I knew myself.

I wasn’t planning on seeing a spiritual guru in India; it just happened.  After letting me drive his tuk tuk (because he had a crush on Julie and wanted to smoke cigarettes with her in the backseat), our NUTBALL of a tuk tuk driver (who called speed bumps ‘Indian massages’) casually offered to take us to a ‘guru in the back of a jewelry store’.  Ummm, ok?

Very long (and Dr. Phil-caliber) story short – the guru was amazing.  I did not say a WORD (except for ‘Hi!  My name is Taylor!  Your wedding pictures in Sedona must have been BEAutiful!’) and he knew everything already.  He asked me questions that weren’t really questions (‘You have two sisters?’) and he walked me through all my emotional issues in great detail.  (He was very thorough.)

He explained what I needed to focus on going forward……. what I needed to work on & improve……… and (before I left his office) he channeled my energy and lit’trally gave me a life prophecy (of which I’ll stew over until zero dark thirty when it may or may not come true).  It was all a little too much.  (I mean, he said I should be GLUTEN FREE for Christ’s sake and I’m not ready to hear that sh*t.)

I cried on the way to the train station while Constance (one of my eight fun French friends) held my shoulder.  And I cried on the 4.5-hour unairconditioned train from Jaipur to Agra.

And then……… after an emotional roller coaster ride and two hours of sleep………… I checked off another item on my bucket list.  I saw the Taj Mahal at sunrise……… and it was just as stunning as I hoped it’d be.  Nope.  Even better.

hello gorgeous

we sat at the Mosque and stared at the Taj for a good half hour…… glory be.

What are my takeaways from India?  That Indian people are the most hospitable people on the planet……… and have a fascination with taking selfies with white people.  (I’m in so many family photos I can’t keep track.)  That Indian food IN India tastes just as good as you think it will.  (Why don’t more radio station promotions include lifetime supplies of garlic cheese naan?)  That car accidents don’t count when elephants are holding up traffic; that kids are cute no matter where they’re from; and that the Macarena is still playing every morning, somewhere.

Thanks to Vishy & Kranti for an unforgettable two weeks.  Thanks to my eight fun French friends for being sooooo nice to me & letting me tag along on their vacation.  And thanks for everything, India.  You’re one of my favorites.

some of the kids on my last day

they all gave me handwritten cards that read ‘for that special someone’  hah

(i know i’m not supposed to have favorites but) some of my all-time favorites – rupa, monica, manu, & ajay

my OTHER all-time favorites – you guys are welcome in chicago a-n-y-time

until we meet again.  at a mimosa brunch.  xoxo

here we goat again…