Two Weeks Left

Exactly two weeks and three days until I'm back to the U.S. and quite frankly, I'm glad. Though, I'm sure the next two weeks will be incredibly short. It's not that I haven't enjoyed working at Sardar Kanya Vidyalaya; I just feel it had it's time limit and it has come. As for the research part, I can get everyone done by the end of this week, which is good. As far as the documentary goes, I need to interview a couple of parents and get to the school bright and early at 5 a.m. one morning to document the beginning of the day. Should be fun.

A few random thoughts:

1. I was literally forced to shop yesterday. The only option was to buy clothes. Who does that? My uncle, that is. No complaints, I suppose. I have enough clothes now to last me for the next two years.

2. There will be a total solar eclipse in the city at approximately 6:20 a.m. in two days. The only one to happen in the country until the 2100s. Something I def. shouldn't miss, but I have no other option. Unless I drive in India, which is a sure fire recipe for disaster. That's not because I'm a bad driver, but because India is full of bad drivers. Imagine something I witnessed today:
It's a narrow two-lane highway that happens to be busy as always, and that too with huge trucks. That worries no one. A car overtakes a motorcycle and my cousin simultaneously overtakes the car overtaking the motorcycle. Two lanes. True story.

3. The new Harry Potter movie disappoints and I can't remember if I have read the book or not. Now I have something to do on the train ride to Mumbai and on the plane back. Plus, need to read the last book.


I completely forgot to write about my trip to Chennai, a city in South India. I went there for three days two weeks ago. I landed at the airport and went to lunch, which was eaten with my hands on a banana leaf. Everything was eaten by hand, including sambhar which has a soup-like consistency. A difficult task, but fun. It was a lot of South Indian food in one sitting though, and I haven't felt like eating it again since I came back.

Other than eating, I saw many ancient temples, one of which was incredibly ancient and situated on the sea-side. It was aptly named the sea-shore temple, though I doubt that's what they called it back in the days. I also went to a South Indian culture preservation site called Dakshinchitra and bought a lot of wall decor. On the last day, I went to the beach. It was 8:30 a.m. and there were already two groups of guys playing cricket on the sand. I'm not quite sure how that works since the ball can't bounce...but it was funny to see that much enthusiasm for the sport that early in the morning. The rest of the beach was..well...polluted. Nothing out of the ordinary after having seen Goa. In fact, on the way to Chennai, the plane went over the ocean for about 10 minutes and I could literally see trash floating on the water. The city itself was quite polluted as well. Much more, it seemed, than Mumbai and definitely much more than anywhere in Gujarat. I suppose it's difficult given that it's huge. I was told that going from East Chennai to West Chennai is a 70 km journey.

It was truly strange being in South India. I would never imagine that the culture would be so different between the two parts of the country. To begin with, despite being one of the major metropolitan areas in India with quite a bit of foreigners residing there, Chennai's people stick to traditional Indian clothing. That's a rare sight in Mumbai. Also, people are much more religious in the south. Temples open at the early hour of 5:00 a.m. and they have visitors. Plus, I often saw women who had put turmeric paste on their feet and/or on their face. I'm not sure what the significance is, but it was a little shocking to see at first. Oh yeah, the worst part...it seemed every other woman had a white flower garland in her hair. Theoretically and visually, perhaps it's all nice and peachy but the smell! They start to smell stronger and stronger every time and then they give you a headache but no, you can't escape them because they're everywhere. Like zombies - the escape part, not the headache. Anyway, the best part of Chennai was the coconut water. Sweet, refreshing, and delicious. And the coconut cream inside was equally as good.