I haven’t
been very into writing since I got back from Darjeeling…interesting stuff is
happening but nothing burning to get on the page.
There
have been a bunch of changes around here lately. Prashant left – he showed up
while I was in Darjeeling - born and raised in West Mumbai but has lived in the
US for the past 16 years, mostly working for Cisco. He was an interesting guy and
he tried to give Uttam some direction. Stuart, the first American I met in
India, left today to go back to Reed after almost four weeks at Parijat. I
actually miss him a little. Three American women showed up a week ago to stay
for one month – Chantal, a newly-married, former community college sociology
prof from Boston, her eighty year old mother Lily from North Carolina but born
in Suriname and raised in Indonesia, and my favorite, Tat, Lily’s spunky, seventy-eight
year old retired kindergarten teacher friend. I’m not thrilled to be around so
many Americans but I gotta make the most of it - they are interesting people
and cab fare is cheaper.
Students
came back to school last week but the only classes were my computer classes and
because of Bihu, there are no classes this week on Monday, Tuesday, or
Wednesday. Uttam was out for a few days with gall stones for which he needs
surgery tomorrow (as he says, gall bladder surgery or appendix also – whatever
the “or” means) so on one day the headmaster and I were the school’s only
supervision when a tiny new student desperately missed Mommy and threw his
shoes at us. Every day last week there was Bihu dance practice for the girls capped
off with a beautiful performance on Saturday in front of parents and 20
students from the University of Delaware, here as part of a month-long winter
session in India. It’s pretty weird to be here and listen to people that say
douche bag and talk about their sororities. Festivities for the Bihu harvest
festival started this weekend with wild dancing and drumming, burning
haystacks, may-gi, rice flower coconut roll-ups, pit-ha, fried
pitha dough and assorted sweets. For the first time in India I’m a little bored
without students for four days.
Yesterday
in the Bihu spirit Uttam, Aimoni, our awesome weaver Ray-boti, Chantal, Lily,
Tat and I piled into a sumo and made trips to see Aimoni’s family, both of
Uttam’s sisters and Aimoni’s Aunt. At each house we had sweet tea, hot water,
pitha, and coconut sweets. We would chit chat, play with the baby, and leave.
It was Stuart’s last night and we were going to play Bananagrams and the only
proper way to play Bananagrams is with beer so we stopped on the way home and
after Stuart, Uttam and I all peed on wall together we walked to the wine shop.
We had
asked for five bottles of beer, 350 rupees in total. As we waited for each
bottle to be wrapped, we were standing Uttam
Shaffer some guy, all facing the gated liquor window I had a 500
Stuart
rupee note in my hand and I saw that Stuart’s hand was resting on the
counter with a 100 rupee note between two fingers, presumably to pay for his
beer. I had the larger note and he needed to pay me anyway so in one motion I
took the money and pocketed it. Well, when I looked up the Indian guy was
looking at me intently with his hand resting on the counter, two fingers still
together and Stuart was not where I thought he was. As calm as can be I had
stolen money from a complete Indian stranger, at a liquor store no less. His
hand was dark-skinned, Stuart was standing RIGHT next to me – I have no explanation
for my actions. In response the only thing I could do was to say
“OOOOOOOOoooooooohhh” and return his money. I apologized in English, Stuart in
Hindi and we quickly left. I have not been so embarrassed since Slippy stuck.
The whole time the man didn’t say a word and didn’t move his hand from the
counter. Uttam described his own thought process during this incident on the
hysterical ride home like this: “At first I am thinking this man was known to
Shaffer and that he was making a funny, suppose by making change from the 100
with 500 rupee note. But then I saw that this man was an unknown stranger.”
Grace,
your package came. Rats chewed two holes in the box and got into both bags of
Tim’s sea salt and vinegar chips and the beef jerky stuff. I was devastated to be so close to my mana and have to feed it to the cows. To the credit of the
Indian postal service, they tied the two bags shut with twine and put them back
in the box, which was also tied together. The Big Ideas magazine has some
damage but should be readable; the book was undamaged and looks great! Thanks a
lot Grace. It is very much the thought that counts J
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