India is like a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book...without the choice.

A Haiku for my Cleaning Lady

Lovely Nagama,
I hate cleaning pots and pans.
You scrub them for me.

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In case anyone was curious about the world’s worst place to have a hangover, India officially takes the blue ribbon. To begin with, one does not drink as much here as one might back home. Tamil Nadu has particularly strict alcohol laws, and a few beers at the house feels like a party (add a Punjabi Pop mix album to the ambiance and things seem out of control!). So your system isn’t prepared for heavy drinking to begin with. Add a day’s worth of dehydration, salty snack food at the bars, and the most surreal and circus-like clubbing atmosphere you’ve ever encountered, and you’re already headed for a tough morning. But it isn’t until the morning is upon you that India’s reign as the world’s worst hangover hotspot truly becomes apparent. Despite the fact that it is Saturday and the holiday celebrating the god Ganesh’s birthday, the construction workers arrive at your home at 7am. They have made absolutely no visible progress all week; however, today is the day they are hell-bent on finishing their task. Sounds of hammers, chisels, shovels, and shouting bombard you through your windows. An argument breaks out in expressive, exasperated Tamil, only to be drowned out by an auto rickshaw’s sputtering engine. The neighbors begin to blare devotional songs from their home stereos. The landlady scolds one of the workers for moving a pile of dirt to the left of the gate when it should have been relocated to the right. You begin to regret the gin and tonics from the previous evening. You remember those drinks well, double shots glowing neon blue beneath the club’s ambient black lights. Come to think of it, whatever made them glow in the first place is also making your stomach seize now. Stumbling out of your room and into the bathroom, you swat the tropical mosquitoes from the toilet seat and brace yourself against the cold, grainy tile. And then you smile to yourself, softly, because in this moment your hangover is the most familiar element in your whole reality. The pain in your head and the uneasiness in your stomach recall dozens of past hangovers, all ripe with the memories (or lack-thereof) from nights past. You take a deep breath, pour a glass of drinking water, and lie back down on your cot, finding a strange – and slightly nauseating – comfort in your hangover’s universalism. And then you pass out.