"Finding roaches in the pot..."

Ari and I have reached an unspoken agreement regarding our particular roles in the household. Should the world’s largest cockroach enter our kitchen or bathroom (such a thing occurs with some regularity), Ari’s task is to either immediately leave the room or climb on the tallest piece of furniture and survey the scene with great dismay and perhaps a groan or two. My responsibility lies first in the panicking, then in the spraying of the world’s largest cockroach with undue amounts of roach killer, and finally in the disposal of the world’s largest cockroach in the dirt outside (Last evening, Nina took over that final step). While these roles hardly seem equal or fair, they are what they are. Ari is a pansy and I am a cold-blooded murderer. Such is life at Old 21/New 8 10^th Cross Street.

Update: We do in fact get The Hindu every morning. To use Kovitz’s phrase, “I’m the provider!”

A cycling blog (4 pockets!) dated 22 Sept. 2007

Cycling in this city is exhilarating! Weaving between people and motorcycles, adding the ring of my bell to the din on the streets, feeling a rush as I pass by the buzzing shopfronts. I rode my bike to the very outskirts of southern Chennai today. I wanted to find the Shivananda Yoga Center (where they hold intensive classes, meditation retreats, etc). It was about a 30 minute bicycle ride, and what a way to see my neighbourhood!I'vebeen fighting a cold all week that came on full-force last night. But following a great deal of Sudafed and some local remedies, I felt at least somewhat capable of taking a day alone, for myself. After I snuck in to the Theosophical Society and hid out in the “Liberal Catholic Church” grounds to write in my journal, I grabbed a few idlys and headed south.

I took a detour to search for the news shop that sold the previous Tara interns their subscription to The Hindu, India’s equivalent of The New York or London Times. All I had to go on was a receipt that was taped to our refrigerator and used as a note to eulogize a four-legged, two-anused chicken (don’t ask!).

In Chennai, the addresses are literally composed of lines such as “21/81 Behind the Water Tank, Thiruvanmur, Chennai” or “56 76 K.K. Road, next to Mr. A’s house, Besant Nagar, Chennai.” So everyone has to ask for directions. After several attempts at finding the elusive newstand, a very nice young engineer on a motorcycle informed me that his friend and neighbor owned this shop and he would be happy to take me there! He brought me to a narrow back alley – so narrow, in fact, that I had to leave my bike at the entrance in order to fit between the buildings. After a bit of searching, we found the home of the owner of the newstand. Said owner was out delivering papers. However, his wife and four-year-old son informed me that he would bring over our first Hindu tomorrow and that he would call me in the evening to confirm. The amazing thing is that without having randomly asked the particularly kind engineer, I would never have found the home of the man who sells newspapers from a shop of which nobody knows the address. This is every-day Chennai! And it works! Somehow everyone gets their paper every morning and a man can make a living selling subscriptions to one the most widely circulated newspapers in the world out of his backalley apartment.

So with the newspaper subscription tentatively secure, it was southward-ho! Using a city map left to us by our Tara predecessors (honestly, we could not survive without the various resources they passed along!), I made my way down the coast. To my surprise, I passed through neighborhoods and by an Italian Restaurant (Bella Ciao) that I had thought was quite a bit further away. It was reassuring to discover that friends and food were not as distant as I had been told to believe (there is a strange obscuring of distance within the Chennai expat community that I do not yet understand; some places are actually quite far but articulated as “close-by,” while other areas are “so far away” and yet I can cycle to them without complaint).

Along the ride I passed hoards of dragonflies, grazing cows, fishing villages, Ganesh and goddess temples, women with 100lb bags on concrete on their heads, and countless other people, places, and things. As I left the city proper, the environment grew lusher, more resort-like. I found the Sivananda Center and learned about their various yoga programs, took some time to observe a class, and wandered about the surrounding neighborhood.

The ride home was all the more exciting, as I knew where I was and could focus more on the sights and sounds of the trip home. It was around 6pm and the Saturday evening rushhour had begun. I was competing for road space with auto rickshaws, cars large and small, fellow cyclists, pedestrians, buses, and the occasional animal. I wove in and out of traffic, I rang my bell and yelled at those who brushed past too close for comfort. Almost home, I came to one of the few traffic signals in the area. With the other bicycles, I jockeyed and dodged my way between the cars and motorcycles to get to the front of the pack waiting for the green light. The signal changed, and we all charged forward en-mass, horns and bells ringing our forge ahead. It was thrilling and really made me feel as if I was a part of the chaos instead of merely a witness to it.

As I smiled and rode on, an auto rickshaw driver pulled up next to me and told me that at my speed, I could charge 100 rupees (a lot for an auto) “no problem!” We then raced to my house, bike versus auto, and of course he let me win. It was the funniest moment. It was also the first time an auto driver had interacted with me in a way that did not somehow involve a money transaction – again, another moment of feeling more local than foreign, although I no doubt drew the driver’s attention because of my overt foreignness. Ahh well. It was fun nonetheless. And again I end my day madly in love with India.

"In Mumbai, one man's meat is another man's poison"

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/09/21/asia/india.php

Dawn, etc

My mom called me yesterday. She has been in the hospital since the night of Tuesday, August 14^th, and will realistically remain in fulltime care until just before Canadian Thanksgiving (mid-October). She is incredibly strong and upbeat despite her situation – or perhaps, in part, because of her situation. The accident has truly opened my mother’s eyes in a way that is difficult to convey. She now can now witness herself as a vital member of several communities; she is an old friend to many, a fellow business owner, a resident of Muskoka, a mother, a wife, a daughter, a sister, an aunt, and a daughter-in-law. She is a role model for so many of the women that she encounters, and I believe she is beginning to see the deep and meaningful affect she has had in other’s lives. The outpouring of love, support, and aid that my parents continue to receive is overwhelming. Gratitude. Gratitude. Gratitude.

David and I were very fortunate to have a mother who stayed home with us until we left for college. But I believe that it was difficult for my mother to find new routes of meaning and fulfilment once her two children had left the house. So it filled me with a deep joy to hear her on the phone last night talking about writing in a journal for the first time, networking with others in the area, and fighting hard to get well. She has always been our family’s fortitude, and she is now (finally) turning this endurance towards her own needs. My father’s unwavering presence and boundless energy certainly help her to maintain such positivity and progress.

*

In other, completely unrelated news, I ate a “thousand year old egg” today. Evidently in Taiwan (where Ari stopped on his way to India), they bury eggs underground for an extended period of time, only to unearth them and then eat them as some sort of treat or savoury dessert. In the burying/unearthing process, the eggs turn black, the whites harden into what resembles a cheap plastic, and the yolks turn the colour of a smoker’s lungs. Ari brought some of these delicacies into our home and left them on top of our rather dilapidated refrigerator, where they have sat since mid-August. Tonight he half-jokingly suggested that we finally try one. My motto for this year is to try to be open to every experience, even dirty, centuries-old egg experiences, and so I agreed. It was exactly as I expected. Awful. The worst part was that as I put it in my mouth, I could not help but fixate exactly on what I was eating: a black, chewy egg that had been allowed to rot, ferment, and otherwise metamorphosize under the ground.

I’m going to continue to try not to fantasize about Wasabi Bistro in Seattle, WA.

Life as a series of anecdotes:

I've had to abandon certain environmental ideals since I've been here. The reality of street garbage, excess packaging (I'm starting to realize that is an Asia-wide phenomenon), and omnipresent air pollution somewhat curb my zeal. And so I am able to appreciate the wonderful manner in which the local juice stand packages a sweet lime soda to-go.

As you can see below, the soda is presented in the same way one might receive a prize carnival goldfish: securely tied in a plastic bag.

This is India in the minutiae. This is the India I encounter every time I open my rust-iron gate and step into the street. Fresh lime, fresh sugar, imported club soda, and enough plastic to kill the street dogs who will surely munch on my trash when my cleaning lady throws it into the street.

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.

- - - - - -

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.

Night and Day, You are the One...