a booming good time

I haven’t really been able to sleep through the night this past week, which is very annoying. Maybe the jet lag is making me a light sleeper, but I’ve been woken up in the wee hours by the most random things. Monday and Tuesday, there were mosquitos buzzing around my head. Wednesday, in an effort to keep them away, I had my fan on, and I woke up cold (yes, cold in India). Yesterday the heavyweight championships of dogs was taking place outside of my window, and all of these stray dogs were brawling over the heaps of trash outside my building. This morning takes the cake though – I woke up to a series of explosions. There’s a lot of rocks around Hyderabad so when they do construction they have to blast the rock to clear it and I’m pretty much used to the sound of explosions around the city by now, but it was just strange to wake up to rattling windows.

I think there’s also something living in my air conditioner, as I can hear it burrowing, even though I’m on the third floor. I have to give it a couple of raps every now and then to make it go somewhere else. It could be anything, which is very exciting.

This past week has been crazy stressful – there are tons of classes here that seem interesting but there’s no logical system in place for organizing them. Classes change times without notice, professors may or may not show up but you still have to wait around at least 40 minutes, and they might meet m/t, m/w, t/th, fr/sat, or any other random combination, making it excessively hard to fit them together.

A lot of the classes do actually seem pretty good, so that’s a plus, it will be fun learning about India through them. One that I definitely won’t be taking though am kind of curious about is Gay Indian Literature. I went to the first class to check it out, and the professor might be the gayest and most perverted man I’ve ever met. I think the best way to describe him is that he’s incredibly cheeky. Anyway, at the next class, I didn’t go because I had a conflict, but apparently he asked “where is that little Canadian boy?” and went on to explain to the class of about 15 people how he thought I looked very cute in my pants but wished that they hadn’t told me it’s not appropriate to wear shorts here so that he could check out my legs. According to some people who know more about him, if I took his class, there’s a more than 100% chance that he would invite me to come over and sleep at his house. Gay culture is pretty marginalized in India, hence why straight guys will cruise around holding hands and putting their arms around each other (they do it all the time here), and apparently the university just sort of turns a blind eye to this guy and his big bag of personality.

Having a great time though – last weekend was a winner. On Saturday a couple of us went out to Lingampally to find a Hindu temple we’d seen earlier. It was closed, but around the corner there was an elementary school that was just getting out. First we were waving at them in their courtyard, then suddenly there were 10 of them on our right, then 20 on our left, then 30 on our right, then we were just getting straight up swarmed by these little munchkins who wanted to shake our hands and pose for pictures (they get a huge kick out of seeing their pictures on digital cameras).

That was definitely really exciting, and it’s funny how big of a kick they get out of foreigners here. Random strangers will always ask us to pose for pictures for us and people always want to shake my hand. I’m a freakin VIP over here.

Next day we took a bus tour of the city and saw a couple of cool things briefly – the Qutb Shahi tombs, HEH the Nezam’s palace (quite a construction), some more tombs, and the light and sound show at Golconda Fort – a super sweet place with a super tacky show.

Last night we went out to the F Bar – I think it stands for “Fashion”. Everything there was really cool – three years ago. The music was extra-dated, which was really entertaining. It was actually pretty expensive by Indian standards, so we were cruising with the high rollers last night. We also had our own car and driver for the night, cause we’re classy like that. Chetan talked to him in Telegu and apparently for 1000 rupees ($25) he’d let us drive the car around, and if we got pulled over we’d just have to pay the copper another 1000 rupees. This place is crazy corrupt.

So Tuesday is a big kite flying holiday, which is awesome, but somehow they forgot to mention this to us. I feel like this is probably something that happens every year, yet NOBODY knows if class is canceled for it or not, not even the teachers. The holiday is on Tuesday, but I think classes are canceled on Monday and not Tuesday – we’re all learning very rapidly to just stop worrying and let things work themselves out here.

In honour of this holiday, we’re taking our first trip! We were going to go to these crazy caves but alllllll the trains and buses filled up so we’re going to do a more local circuit and go to see some temples and a wildlife sanctuary and stuff.

it's a dog eat dog world, literally.

Two nights ago, a group of us went out to go see what we could find in terms of nightlife. We went to Banjara Hills – the ritzy area of Hyderabad – and went to a hookah bar for dinner and kickin’ it. Definitely interesting to see, but what made the trip unique was our experience with the auto-rickshaws. Right off the bat, going through a kind of slummy area near campus, we’re pretty sure we saw two dogs eating another dog.

As we kept going, we got stuck in some traffic, which was a prime opportunity for the local children to come swarm our rickshaw and beg for money. Being the only white people in a million mile radius, swarm they did. On both sides, they were touching their hands to their mouths and then to our feet, which is the most degrading thing they can do to themselves in this society. These kids were probably about 6 years old, and they were fighting over the little bit of food that they got from someone on a scooter, right in the middle of a very busy road.

The mornings have been much more uplifting though – I had my first yoga class at the centre on campus yesterday, and it was great. Classes are 6 days a week, and apparently after a week I should be able to actually do some of the poses! There was a girl there who was in lotus position upside down, so we’ll see if I make it that far. I kicked it up a notch today and am going to try and get myself to the 6 am class 6 days a week - they have a three month yoga certification course, and I figure what better place to become a certified yoga instructor than in India? It seems a little ridiculous that someone like me could make that kind of progress in just a few months, but you gotta go big or go home.

Gotta pick classes soon, this is our shopping week, and I have about 15 classes that I want to shop. There are some that look really interesting, like Sociology of Illness and an English class called ‘Reading Dalit, Reading Black’. It will be nice to start up classes and have some kind of purpose in my days here though for sure.

Last night some of us went out for dinner on a rooftop - it came to the equivalent of $25 for 8 of us, and we were in the shadow of an enormous Indian Santa Claus - I get a huge kick out of all the Christmas stuff here.

...and we're off!

It’s New Year’s Day in India, and it was one hell of a year. I made it to 2008 a good 12 hours or so before you all did which is a fun thing to be able to say. If you had asked me a year ago today what I would be getting up to over the next 12 months, ending up in Hyderabad would have not even been a germ in my mind. But here I am, and I couldn’t be happier.

Well maybe that’s a bit of a generalization – I don’t actually know how I feel. Mostly overwhelmed, also terrified, excited, hungry for all the delicious food they feed me, sweaty, jet lagged, who even knows – I haven’t felt this many emotions at once in a long time. My body and mind are just confused, and I have a feeling the posts on this blog are going to get very interesting very quickly. I’m down to do anything here; I’ll sacrifice sleep for adventures in a heartbeat. I’ve got my malaria pills and a ton of Imodium, and am off to see what I can find.

Just took a nice hot shower which is a great way to deal with the chilly Indian winter nights. The days are warm though which is nice – it’s been up around 30 degrees Celsius here during the day. It’s a bit warm for winter apparently (even the Indians are sweating!), but nothing like summer, where I’ll be trekking around in 45 degree heat. A little bit different from the -30 whiteout I was in while skiing a week ago at Sunshine.

I’ve always been a strong believer in food being one of the most important parts of any traveling, and that is certainly proving to be true here. Feeding time is the best time, as we’re getting delicious Indian food every day and it’s an adventure at every meal. As a lefty I have an interesting challenge in front of me, as the left hand is traditionally only used to wipe certain lower parts, and it’s rude (sinister?) to use it for anything else. Including eating. I’m officially off cutlery though, and am tearing bread, mixing dal, and scooping rice entirely with my right hand!

Well there’s lots to come but here’s a quick recap. Flew through Dubai, which I’ve been dreaming about for months. It was just as weird as I expected it to be, and then some. Crazy welcome to this part of the world – huge palm trees, different kinds of people all over, people sleeping on their own personal carpets lined up along the moving sidewalk, etc etc. Got to India and am still trying to figure out where I am – I keep pointing towards the ground trying to point at my house to try and place myself on the globe, but am having a damn good time over here. Have been walking around the campus a lot passing things like water buffalo on the streets and monkeys in the trees. Getting out into the city too, where it turns out people love me – on the bus the other day a guy gave me his business card, another guy took a picture of me with his cell phone, and a third was waving at me and wanted to shake my hand. Our crew here makes up pretty much the only white people I’ve seen which is refreshing but also leads to us getting a lot of surprised looks. Went to a crafts fair where everything was beautiful and still dirt cheap, and am looking forward to going shopping for fabric and getting some rad Indian clothes made up for me by my new tailor.

Look at my pictures! They’ll be posted on my Picasa site – the link is somewhere on this page. Check back here early and often for more news from India!