Whenever I told someone I was leaving December 11th there was always the inevitable comment of missing Christmas. I didn't quite realize how strange it would be to have Christmas in India, and it hasn't quite ended yet. As we walked to dinner the other night, we see santa and a giant pink bunny dancing to techno in front of the restaurant. Mind you its Decemember 27th and I don't even know how to explain the Easter Bunny being present. Santa's face is panted white behind his beard and the bunny's mask is really quite frightening; the children loved it. The restaurant itself is pretty strange, you walk in and are immediately hit with the smell of pure sugar. Its bright with neon colors and you're surrounded by sweets counters. Its basically an Indian fast food joint combined with sweet shop. Above the sweets is the actual restaurant with an expansive menu. Every time I order it takes a while. You can either play it safe and order something you recognize, there are certain dishes you'll find everywhere. I often choose the adventurous method, take a risk and get a mystery dinner. I am ever so slowly learning different names of indian dishes and whether or not I like them. For instance I really dislike Indian cheese. Its awkwardly sweet and makes me feel ill. I avoid anything that has the word cheese and now paneer, which is some sort of cheese dish. After dinner we selected random sweets from downstairs based purely on how good it looks. I'm very glad I have no allergies, because I never have a clue what's in them. Indian sweets are loaded with sugar and when made of milk are usually very dense and kind of grainy. Its like nothing I've ever tasted, its good and very interesting. As we left a very tired Santa and Easter Bunny were still going at it to the delight of twenty five Indian children. (I walked by tonight and to my delight there was santa, still going 4 days after Christmas) (The pictured nativity scene was taking place on the CEPT campus on Christmas Eve, Santa Claus was also present for this event.)
Dining in India is always an experience, and the other exchange students and I typically go out most nights. Christmas Eve we went to the lavish "Green House" which is outdoors below a beautiful 1920's mansion which has been turned into a luxury hotel. We ordered 21 through 29 on the Gujarati Snacks section. Named for the state we're in, its the traditional food of Ahmedabad. Between the seven of us, we shared an absurd amount of Indian dishes. Each plate loaded with about 8-10 pieces of some sort of snack. Very good. A few nights ago Thilo, Marianne and I decided to take a rickshaw to a random location and find something. We picked the only street with no restaurants. We got a recommendation from a man on the street and walked back and forth before we realize we had already passed it. Its a neon sign in hindi (they really like neon signs here) with the name of a hotel corporation below it. Hotel, I learned, has the same meaning as restaurant in Hindi. Baffling. We cram into a teeny elevator with its operator and it opens into the restaurant.
We sit down in nice restaurant and realize we're about to be served Thali. Before you sits 8 metal bowls on a metal tray and before you know it waiters are sweeping in pouring a different dish into each bowl, loading your plate with 5 different breads and a few sauces. They keep coming back refilling every dish when it gets low, giving you more of the breads. Its unbelievable, and incredibly delicious. At some point they come around with rice and as a final touch a very yellow porridgy substance which they pour oil on. Oil is a very popular topping on indian food. We were served 19 dishes in all with various helpings of each. We finished the meal by making faces with the remaining yellow porridge and used the other dishes as facial features.Christmas day we decided to do a secret santa. And Christmas rolled around and Marianne and I had nothing. We set out to cheer ourselves up and also attempt to find something really special for our secret someone in the heart of old city. By something special I mean something rather cheap, useless and weird, very difficult with the vast selection in india. We get off the autorickshaw and are almost immediately attacked by women with henna stamps. It was terrifying. They grab your arms and start stamping away and before you know it your arms and hands are bleeding with brown designs in a very random and ugly pattern. We bowed our heads in shame as we weaved through stalls of merchandise, knowing we'd been had with the evidence stinging our arms. Everyone was pushy buy this, buy that. We were tired and weary of all of their sales pitches and questions :"Which country? Which Country?" As we wandered deeper it became quiet and calm with people awaiting costumers in there little stores and colorful fruit displayed under sheets of white. The streets in old city are very narrow; the bottom floors of all of the buildings open up into an endless maze of shops with a canopy of strung sheets above them just below a wonderful hodgepodge of architecture. Windows and doors, balconies and staircases, all colors, all sizes, its really quite incredible. We discover a courtyard with a huge tree and a brightly painted hindu temple. India likes to do this. It suffocates me and then let's me breathe. As we wandered on, we were calm and chipper. The henna, which was now rubbing off on our clothes and bags, is almost, almost forgotten.
That is until we run into Thilo and his visiting Finnish friend waiting on the steps to go into the city's main mosque. They quizzically point, we pathetically shrug, they laugh, so does everyone else. We are always being watched. We decide to visit the mosque too, but have to wait for the afternoon prayer to finish, a crowd forms around us. Six boys that were about ten giggle in the background. An old woman persistently sticks out her hand her presumed granddaughter shyly tries as well. A little girl comes and shakes my hand and tells me she likes this, talking to foreigners. An old woman welcomes me to India. Eventually we remove our shoes and leave them in care of a woman at the door (we'll pay her a few rupees when we leave for her services). Our feet on the warm bare stone we enter the courtyard of the mosque. People pray at a fountain in the center and we wander around and watch the kids flying kites on roofs up above. The sun feels good and the city seems to have disappeared. Eventually we take a seat and try to sketch. Another crowd of about ten boys of various ages forms behind us, "which country?" "what's your name" "are you an artist?" "What are you doing here?" "Photo?" With one boy and then another, and then just me, and then they move onto marianne, her and the boys and then just her and then marianne with me in the picture behind her. We are the walking attraction, always a cause for a photo op. In some ways it evens the field, their country is our attraction. Its a much better situation being seen as someone interesting as opposed to intrusive. It becomes a simple exchange of culture and memories.
Animal count: One peacock (see him every morning), a tree full of bats, one elephant, many camels, loads of monkeys, herds of goats and cattle in the streets, bunnies and birds in cages, I've become friends with the numerous stray dogs (and witnessed a new regime come into power over the land of the bungalows) and am still attempting to befriend the campus cat. She's a tough one.