Holi Cow! A week home and Holi

SO many exciting things happened this week! It really started to sink in that we don’t have much time left in Delhi, so I’ve been trying to make the most of the remaining time here despite school obligations. If you want the SparkNotes version of this post, scroll down for the Holi part. That’s the best part anyway.

Last weekend after we got home from Chittorgarh, we relaxed most of the day and had our host dad’s family over the in the afternoon. I actually had forgotten to blog about this, but I had met them before a few weeks back when I got to go out to lunch with them and then visit at their house in an area just outside of Delhi called Noida. Avigit’s sister was extremely welcoming and gave both Molly and me journals that have blank pages interspersed with Indian history.

The last week of class, our speakers centered on what I am most interested in in the field of public health: the social and environmental factors and determinants that affect the health of populations. It really helped me think about what I want to work on for my Independent Study Project in a few weeks (I think I may do it on the social determinants of health pertaining to caste, and the activism that is meant to “talk back” on behalf of these marginalized populations – it’s similar to what I want to write my Senior Honors Thesis on at Tufts). Like most of our speakers on this program, some are AWESOME and some are not so god, but in the end we have learned from each one in different ways. We also worked on our Hindi, and learned the past tense, which has increased our language capability immensely. Though obviously no one can become that proficient in a mere seven weeks in India (only 4 of which have had Hindi classes), it is exciting to be able to recognize more and more and exchange simple pleasantries and catch little phrases when our host parents are talking (though mine speak to one another in Bengali, they speak to others in the neighborhood in Hindi).

Speaking of seven weeks down… I’ve now been in India for seven weeks, and away from home for eight. And as of today, I have another eight to go! This is the exact halfway point for my time abroad… time has flown by in some ways and moved so slowly in others. I am really starting to miss home/things about home/people at home, but I’m actually thinking of extending my trip! It would probably be for another 10ish days, and my host family has said that we might be able to work something out so that I could stay for a few days and work out some travel plans. It all depends on what some of my friends intend on doing here. In the May heat (and boy has it started to heat up here...) I will probably be ready to get home, but as it is, I only have two and a half more weeks before I will be out of Delhi and on my ISP in Jaipur!

It's been nice to relax in Delhi. This is me and my host-bro, cooking some poori (probably spelled wrong, but it's fried bread, in this case stuffed with peas and spices):

This week was my host-mom’s birthday! Jayoti’s family came over as well as some of their friends for a party. Molly and I got her some flowers from the neighborhood market.

That night, our host parents ordered fancy Kashmiri food that unfortunately… got me sick. I had to miss a day of school on Thursday, which was really a shame. On the plus side, I was only sick for 24 hrs and caught up on a season of Weeds and got a LOT of sleep. I had a “frustrated with India..” moment when I was sick, missing home, and so frustrated to be missing out on school. This feeling is pretty typical for study abroad kids, I hear, and I am happy to say that I have recovered not only in body (from the food) and the frustrated feelings (from the mild form of culture shock) quickly.

I felt better around dinnertime, and got to play around with Arko, who was convinced that I was a “horsy” until I suggested that it was my turn to ride on his back, and he quickly changed his mind:

In school Friday, I worked on my interviews assignment. Last post I blogged about interviewing a woman in a rural Chittorgarh village. This week I interviewed my host mother, and also one of the cooks at the program center. It was really interesting to compare the answers to questions on health care access from people with such wildly different backgrounds.

Funny story: when I asked the cook (in Hindi) what his name was, I heard “Mera naam Chappal hai.” The word chappal means Sandal. Chappal? Sandals? Sandals-ji? I knew his name couldn’t be Sandals and that I must have heard wrong… I asked Bhavna-ji and she BURST out in one of her signature full-body laughs and immediately (to my horror) told him all about it. His name is actually Champalal, and I am determined to call him by his correct name for the next few weeks as much as humanly possible. We all had a good laugh, and fortunately he allowed me to interview him anyway.

Molly and I are trying to fit in a lot of Delhi sight-seeing. Friday, after school, we saw the Lotus temple, one of few Baha’i temples in the world, and a symbol of Delhi. While it’s great that the Baha’is are trying to unite so much of the world on a basic love of God, I have to say, my initial impression is that they’re pretty weird… they lost me at the mission they have to develop a universal language and dump the rest. But the Lotus was beautiful, and it was nice to relax in the cool marble temple on the inside:

After the temple, we went shopping at Saket mall, this crazy crazy upscale mall (that I may have blogged about before..?) that definitely shows off how swanky Delhi can be. It would be like the luxury wing of Towson Town Mall, but filling the whole thing… it was actually three malls in one, complete with restaurants, movie theatres, and car dealerships. Walking around there, it’s possible to feel like you’ve been teleported to the east coast of the US. We were both craving some American food, so we went to a restaurant called The Big Chill that has an American movie theme, and paid for some overpriced pasta that ended up tasting like an Indian cook used his on spices in Italian food. Sigh. I miss sandwiches and dill pickles So. Much.

Saket Mall Holi prep:

On Saturday, we went back to Saket mall so Molly could get her tattoo! It's a combo of the Ohm symbol and Ganesh's head. Don't worry Mom and Dad - I didn't get one.. But I did take a lot of pictures:

Wildly different from my pictures of rural India, huh?:

Hard Rock Delhi: 

We had grand plans to see the white tigers at the Delhi Zoo, but unfortunately though they close at 6, they stop letting people in at 4, and we got there at 4:30. The Delhi Zoo was right next to a giant old building on a hill, so we walked over and bought tickets to walk around. Turns out it was actually the famous Old Fort (I accidentally just typed Old Fart) and was incredibly beautiful. Thank you Mughals for having built your landmark so conveniently close to other Delhi landmarks… not that the zoo was there yet, but you get my point:

I look like a girl scout in this one: 

And SUNDAY WAS HOLI! Holi is the Hindu festival of colors. I had seen Holi celebrations at Tufts before, but never really understood what was going on! Holi celebrates Spring turning to Summer, and has something to do with the HIndu Gods throwing color at one another. It's up there on my list of favorite holidays. Holi is WILD and fantastic, and the excitement building up to it was a lot like Spring Fling at Tufts. Like Spring Fling, it’s important to not wear anything you’re particularly fond of, to protect your camera, to start celebrating pretty early in the morning.

Even the lead up to Holi was crazy- this week I’ve been hit with water balloons while riding in rickshaws TWICE, and been completely soaked by the time I got to my destinations. While it’s hilarious and one of the most important parts of travel is the ability to laugh at yourself, it does suck to show up at Saket mall soaked to the core, AND it’s pretty dangerous when kids are lobbing water balloons at full speed towards a speeding, open rickshaw. Those things HURT but I’m glad they hit me and not the driver!

Everyone got up and out around 1030am. Our host family invited a bunch of families from the neighborhood and from the kids’ school for a giant potluck lunch and “playing Holi.” I got to see Jasmeet and Krishna and their kids (the family who I went to the drum circle with a few weeks ago), and a lot of other families who we’ve met from Sarvodaya Enclave. Within a few minutes of getting to the park, I was already covered in color. While it took me a few tries to figure out the protocol for Holi (definitely accidentally shook a few hands when they were held out – whoops), which is to take a little bit of powdered color in one hand and put it on the cheek and neck of another person, then say “HAPPY HOLI” and hug them, even if you don’t know them! Of course, there are lots of color and water sneak-attacks as well, and LOTS of water guns and balloons. Everyone carries around a bag of powdered color, and smears it on the face of other people. It’s an amazing holiday where you really see people let it go and have fun… I don’t know if we would really be capable of the same kind of personal freedom in America. Even the adults had no problem grabbing color and covering one another’s face in it! The trick is to much be shy and just go for it. The clothes don’t matter, it’s going to wash out of your skin, and this is one day to just… play, no matter your age and no matter how important you think you are.

I also had the BEST FOOD OF MY LIFE. It’s a deep fried crunchy shell filled with chickpeas and potatoes, then filled with tamarind water and a sweet delicious chutney, and you just pop it in your mouth all at once – it was the cultural equivalent to deviled eggs at American family parties:

my host mom serves lunch:

And my host dad gets it all on camera:

The kids had just had a meltdown, so they weren't really in full support of our family portrait ;) but I like it!:

This is Coco's momma getting in on the celebration!:

This is as good a time as any to say that I think people in India are just happier, in general, than Americans. Indians dress in ridiculously beautiful colors, decorate absolutely everything, show affection for friends without awkwardness, know every Bollywood song by heart, and eat food with all kinds of spices that dance around your palette and prevent you from getting bored at the dinner table. There is never a dull moment here – and why should there be? Why should we settle for boring cement trucks or buses in America? What’s so wrong with decorating everything from our 18 wheelers to our henna covered hands? Life is short. Indians seem to get that and run with it. Indians know how to better “live in the now.”

My goal when I get home is to live a more exciting, colorful life. If I take anything from India, I hope it’s this. I think it would be a better souvenir from this side of the planet than anything else could possibly be.

Right now I’m sitting behind a girl whose skin is still stained BRIGHT NEON pink from Holi. Why not?

With every Holi color you could possibly imagine,

Laura