India Blog!

One of my favorite phrases heard while we were asking directions in Pondicherry was, "Sorry, I'm a new face here." I loved this way of saying, "Sorry, can't help you, mate" because it summed up much of the way I felt while muddling through as a foreigner, observer, documenter, taste-tester, and ultimate afficionado of this place.

As promised, here's my final blog post for IndiaBlog 2007, courtesy of Ishita. Ishita says this picture brings out my true character (in other words, my most common pose in India). Thanks to everyone who stayed tuned over the last two months - it's been like writing letters home for me, and I've appreciated all your e-mails and shared stories more than you know. This is goodbye for this blog, but for future happenings and fascinations, check out www.pippalehar.com/photoblog. Namaste.

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Touchdown! I'm back to Boston and thankfully there's no snow on the ground. Fingers crossed I've successfully missed the worst of the winter and now there's only blue skies to come. That said, I hear it's supposed to pour for Marathon Monday next week... But I can handle a little rain. Already, India is starting to feel like a happy dream.

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The Bloody Marys (with and without the liquor) got me through my trip home.  I'm sure I got triple my daily required sodium intake, but I think it's the best drink for flying - a little fruity, a little flighty. Perfect!

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Easter has passed, which went completely unnoticed in India, but here in Germany at my layover pit stop, there was a beautiful bowl of dyed hard-boiled eggs in celebration at one of the food counters. After having been fed promptly every three hours on the plane, I wasn't too hungry for eggs, but I took a picture anyway, much to the alarm of other passengers who surely wondered at my fascination.

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I met Himanshu, a graphic designer, on the plane from Chennai back to Delhi who told me about the common tradition of having your fortune told by ladies who can tell you details down to the date you'll get married just by taking your name. If they detect a personal liability for you over the coming years, they'll supply you with a ring like this that serves as a talisman against bad luck, for example. He said he'd been skeptical but had since been won over by the surprising accuracy of those predictions that he'd heard. Here's a picture of his. I thought it was a nice story, and he was kind enough to humor me by posing his ring for the blog.

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On the way to the office in Chennai, I'd pass along the edge of this main beach. The poorer communities live alongside the shoreline, possibly because it's not a very coveted tourist location due to the dirtiness of the beach. The weather, sky, and look of the water was beautiful, though, and a joy just to drive through - even though we were mainly doing it to avoid traffic!

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Dara invited us over to his place for breakfast before we left for Chennai early Monday morning. It was such a treat to have a personal farewell like this, with fresh coffee and a croissant with marmalade no less. It just hit the spot. Dara has been such great company this weekend, and we've chatted with him often, since he's pretty much always working at the hotel.  

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Here's the guy whose job it is to guard the gates to the beach every night. This long path takes you from the village all the way down to the water, which you can see just ahead. The path is adorned with these flowering trees, which Raj keeps under tight surveillance. He charges 100 rupees if anyone picks the flowers off the trees, but they are allowed to take anything that has fallen. Sad to think we are leaving this paradise again after such a short stay.

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You see a lot of these cars in Pondicherry and Chennai, mainly as taxi cabs. In Delhi, they are prevalent too, but are mostly black with a yellow roof. They are called Ambassadors, and look very classic, I think, with cavernous patent leather interiors and tunnel-molded headlights. They seem right in place in the classic French quarter of Pondy.

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Here's a woman standing in a doorway in Pondicherry, watching life go by in the sweltering heat. I waved to see if I could take her picture, and she was quite happy to let me. Women look so tall and statuesque in these beautiful saris, even when standing within enormous doorways like this.

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Well the vacation has faded away now, Kailash miles behind me, and I miss it dearly. I am also homesick for Piya. It's a strange thing to be homesick for someone in a country where you're the foreigner, but it's also a rare thing to meet those people you somehow know are going to be great friends. When I met her, back in February, I remember leaving dinner with her and Nani thinking I couldn't believe how much we had in common and how welcoming they both were to a new face in town. And we had such fun gossiping and larking around Pondicherry, both needing a break from the frantic pace of Delhi and the busy work life. Piya the brave, queen of the lovestory, and believer in the goodness of all people - I'll miss you!

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We went out to the beach near the hotel at sunset and took a walk down along the shore line to check out the fishing boats. This local family wanted to take a few pictures with us, so Piya and I took turns posing with the crowd. After chatting with Raj and Dara back at the hotel, it occurred to me that this land on the south side of the hotel probably belongs to the fishing village families, and we were impressed to see how many languages the young girls knew. They seemed to know Tamil, Hindi, and English all!

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Sugar water for my fresh lime soda. You can order these like a margarita - sweet or salty. I opted for sweet and got this little vial of watery sweetness. Although I am getting used to the bitter lime jice and kind of enjoy it now. I also loved the reflection of the beautiful blue menu at twilight in the liquid.

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There are little temples sprouting out from between buildings all over the city. When you walk inside the narrow, ornate gate and past all the bicycles, you'll see something that looks like this. The picture doesn't do the brightness of the colors justice, but we were quickly shooed away anyway, told the temple wasn't yet open for visitors for the day.

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I've never had coconut juice right from the shell of the coconut. But Piya had bargained for two before I could blink and all of a sudden we were sipping the fruity water out of a straw, like those Tropicana commercials. The taste was much more bitter and salty than I remembered, and I thought it might just be the variety of coconut. However, I found out tonight that these ones are green because they are younger and not as ripe as the drak brown fuzzy variety, and that the ones in Pondy are likely saltier because they are grown in proximity to the ocean. Makes sense!

I also learned (surprise!) about the nutritional value of coconut over dinner. My collague told me that drinking coconut juice immediately after a meal actually speeds up your metabolism and drinking a glass is the equivalent to doing about 30-40 minutes of exercise. I don't know where he gets his optimism, but I want what he's taking.

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I was trying to figure out what was going on here on the ride between Chennai and Pondy. I think it has something to do with dredging natural salt from the landscape, as these enormous white pyramids were piled high as far as the eye could see. I got lucky to catch this lone figure with his rake. The drive was beautiful and really made us feel like we were on holiday.

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Unless it's a beautiful weathered old statue. This stallion stood outside the entrance to a carving stall on the streets of Pondicherry. We passed by it maybe twice as we circled the French quarter, trying to find a restaurant called Rendez-Vous. We got so lost that rickshaw drivers we'd asked for directions re-discovered us on the next block and gave us repeat directions. We must have asked about twelve people and I swear they were all doing the Tweedle-Dum/Tweedle-Dee and pointing in opposite directions. Finally we found it, almost by accident. Maybe we should have asked the horse.

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I am amazed by the doors in Pondicherry. As you drive down from Chennai, there are so many roadside stores selling doors by the dozen - old, majestic, beautiful doors that you'd love to put up in your home but couldn't fathomably transport anywhere easily! There are also a lot of pretty, antique doors and gates on the faces of otherwise very simple houses, particularly in the villages. This one was entirely broken, but still very beautiful, serving as the makeshift opening to a wicker carport in the town area near the beach.

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The Dupleix, where Piya conducted an interview for a story on modern bathrooms, was a much different approach to hotels. This is a modern heritage hotel, which is exactly how it sounds. Teak ceiling moldings from the home of Dupleix, governor general of the French Indian establishments back in the mid-1700s, are here paired with brushed glass walls and highly contemporary fixtures in the small, townhouse space. It's a new definition of luxury from a place like Kailash, and I was happy we were staying where we were - but the owner was very interesting, and I thought his objective of luxury fusion was pretty impressive. My favorite part of the hotel was an enormous mango tree that had not been moved during the building, which now springs up through the courtyard and into the view of all the hotel's interior-facing rooms. Apparently, the walls are so thick that in order to provide Internet connectivity, the wires have to be lashed to the grand tree itself!

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And back to the Kailash I go. This whole trip happened pretty spur of the moment, actually. I found out I needed to go back to Chennai for business and Piya had never seen Pondicherry. It seemed like the logical thing to take Raj up on his offer to show us around town and stay at the most beautiful hotel I've found in India. A stroke of luck too, because it was an opportunity to get to know new friends. Piya fell in love with the place too and even got a few articles out of the trip, I think. I got the couple of connection-free precious relaxation days I've been needing after the non-stop business hours of being abroad! Raj had us over for dinner one night at his airy house in the town, and Dara saw us off in the early morning with a pot of coffee and warm croissants. It was like being home.

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Backtracking a bit, here's a shot from our eventful trip down to Pondy from Chennai! Our tire burst about an hour into the journey, but our driver was very resourceful and had the thing repaired before the A/C had a chance to seep out of the car into the hot atmosphere.

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I have never seen such movie star worship. You see the same three actors advertising all the most popular sodas on TV, plastered all over busses and walls, even hosting spin-off shows like Who Wants to Be a Millionnaire or Indian Idol. The hotel where I'm now staying in Chennai has old movie posters everywhere and modern paintings of the current celebs Andy Warhol-style all over the lobby. It's so modern you can't find the entrance, but you can always know who's hot in Bollywood and the Chennai film industry. I, for one, am relieved.

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Back into the busy throng of Pondicherry! I laugh at how I thought when first coming here that this would be a quaint little beach town. Beach, yes. Little, no! Pondicherry has something like 500,000 people, I think, and it felt like a good chunk of them were hanging out on this street as Piya and I drove through on Saturday. The morning was hot and overwhelming, but from our bicycle rickshaw on the way to the International Coffee House, we caught a brief break. Unlike the biker who had to haul our sorry selves around! He was strangely cheerful though, so we gave him a good tip, despite having so carefully negotiated our fare!

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Here's a stack of ladders. 'Nuff said.

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This naan landed like a UFO at our table the other night at Bukhara. We came out here to get a taste of the "fourteenth best restaurant in the world..." and we got that and an alien experience. The naan was enormous - great fun for the whole family - and the only disadvantage was that it cooled off quickly so you had to eat fast. But that wasn't much of a problem since the food was absolutely delicious. From creamy dal makhani to an incredible spiced lamb dish and chicken kebab with a mint chutney, the overall effect was outstanding. And gulab jamun for dessert... I almost fell off my cushioned footstool. I loved the atmosphere - copper cups and low lighting that made you feel you were in a medieval banquet hall. The posh restaurant definitely took me out of my element and into another dimension. Which is impossible because their promotion line is: "Arguably the finest Indian cuisine on Planet Earth." Check out the website just for the music: www.bukhara.com.

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And now one for the girls. My sari is ready! Very good because I leave Delhi on Thursday! Mona helped me choose it (in Jaipur), Madhu helped me get all the ingredients (the petticoat and fitted blouse), Ishita taught me how to wrap it, and Honey helped stuff me into it; overall a team effort! However, I think I'm on my own figuring out how to wear it! Once I pin it down a bit, I think it'll be easier to walk without the sari slipping off my shoulder. Ishita, the budding photographer, took this shot. And Honey, here, is sporting a shirt that features Chikan embroidery (famously from the Indian city, Lucknow). I have never had so much fabric on the brain in my life!

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Here's one for the boys. The vendor on the left is selling mostly motivational posters, but one reads: WARNING: Due to Industrial Action, this toilet will be closed tomorrow - so do as much as you can Today. To his right, there are some more of those Lehar Pepsi bottles and a stack of paper thin straws that leap right out of the bottle if you let them out of your sight. Vegetables for sale and clothing being pulled, posed, and measured in the background - this is Sarojini Market.

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Here are some of the beautiful fabrics that the girls were deciding between for the new suits they want to have made. Trying to help, I pointed out a few for consideration. Let me just say that I am so grateful to these girls for teaching me some necessary personal lessons. First of all, that I use the expressions, "that's interesting..." and "wow" enough to send them into cascades of giggles every time I open my mouth. The second is a lesson in choosing fabrics at the market. The two fabrics I suggested were immediately blocked by the following comments: 1. "Hah! You'll die in that - that's a synthetic fabric. In the summer, you should only buy cotton." and 2. "No!! That looks like something out of the hippy-dippy sixties." Okay, so these are loosely quoted, but you get the picture. I am fabulously un-cool in India.

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Or, you put the lime in the cabinet, as they do here at this juice stand at Sarojini. Lime juice is very big here in India as I think I remember mentioning in an earlier entry. I've now heard rumors that it's good for weight loss, as a spice antidote, and as a revival aid - all I can say is it's a little salty for my palate! They do have a good alternative, though, which is more like a soda - called Limca. But I'm pretty sure it has no medicinal value to it except being a cure for the sweet tooth.

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Known here as Juttis, these slippers decorate the feet of women all over the city. The variety shown here are highly sequined, but there are many different varieties you can find. Relying on Honey's keen bargaining skills, I picked up a pair myself. She tells me they are a little uncomfortable the first few times you wear them, but the leather softens over time and they become much better. I've heard they're almost as comfortable as walking barefoot, so I'm looking forward to that!

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