Piercing

So after some coaxing from my Indian hostel mates, I pierced my nose.

It was a good move. However, I'm a little nervous about infection in a place like Delhi, that is so polluted it always kind of smells like it's on fire. I have terrifying memories of having my ears hacked at at University Health Services in Madison after I woke up one morning and realized that my earlobe had essentially swallowed my earring. As a result, I have been soaking my nose religiously in Epsom salts as per the suggestion of some American friends.

Unfortunately, although I was easily able to obtain the Epsom salts from a local pharmacy, neither my warden, Sudev, nor my roommate (who have some sort of relationship that I SO don't care about except for the fact that that their team makes my life HELL) had seen them before and thought that of course, the American was using drugs.

Sudev pulled me into his "office" (ok, a table in the doorway) with Khushboo and they proceeded to yell at me for a good 40 minutes about everything from how me and my American friends (whom, as they entered my room, were greeted with a contemptuous spray of cheap perfume from Khushboo) were doing lines of cocaine to the fact that I apparently don't wash my sheets enough (once a week? anyone? does that make me a gross girl? why are they paying such close attention, I don't know).

We spent the next few days in passive aggressive silence as I hurriedly searched for a new place, but it's DELHI which has some of the largest housing shortages in the world.

And then, without warning, MOM came.

Mom, unlike her surly and spiteful daughter, is actually quite lovely. She is always complimenting my hair, my Hindi, my complexion, my character- frankly it gets a little exhausting. The whole dynamic reminds me of my baby-sitting days when parents would often be warm and caring and their children would do things like put their little brother in the washing machine or have a" contest" to see how long their fish could survive on the shag carpet.

The thing is, is that mom is absolutely terrified of Delhi. Delhi is kind of a big, bad, confusing place (probably part of the reason why I like it so much) and I completely understand why it might make a middle class woman from Moradabad a little uneasy. However, it has been 5 days and she has yet to leave the hostel without an escort (meaning she's left three times- once to get her daughter's mustache waxed and twice on walks with me in the park that's adjacent to our place). She has spent her days watching Hindu right-wing sanyatsans (religious programming), talking with Mary, our housekeeper about the best ordering of soap and water in the ancient washing machine, rearranging my books so that they are aligned in size order, and folding my sheets and towels with origami-like precision.

So there we are, one big happy family- the three of us in a 9x7 room. Mom does add some good energies, but I'm getting out ASAP. Luckily, my good friend Arvind and his wife have a room which they are eager to rent right next to JNU (although it is far from everything else). They are both labor activists, and so living with them would be a refreshing change to living with 20 girls who came of age during, what I have begun to call, the "shock and awe consumerism period" that occurred during the mid to late nineties in Delhi.

I certainly don't regret living in the hostel. I've met a lot of great girls, learned to play squash, discovered a deep interest in Urdu ghazals, been challenged on the U.S. approaches to racism and the war in Iraq, learned to be a major pain in the butt if something is not working properly (my friend threatened to call the police on the Internet guy), and have gained a colorful vocabulary of Hindi curse words. It wasn't summer camp, but it was certainly a great experience. I'm just ready to move on.

Similarly, I am glad that my Hindi program is wrapping up on the 30th. I also don't regret taking the extension-I think it took an extra two months for me to learn how to take proper advantage of their style and this time has been far more fruitful than the beginning. I'm really looking forward to seriously diving into my project. CLEA funds a few more months of personal tutoring during the grant if I want it, so I might take advantage of that, but my formal Hindi training will be completed in about a week.

I want to wish all of you who are celebrating, a Happy Pesach. Although Delhi does sort of cultivate a kind of religious promiscuity (Quwalli Thursdays, Sai Baba Tuesdays, Laxmi Fridays, Bangla Sahib Sundays), I am going to Delhi ex-pat Seders this Saturday and Sunday with some of my favorite UN folks ;). I will be missing you all a lot though.

That's all for now. I'm hiding in Barista and they're playing "Last Christmas I Gave You My Heart." With the amount that Indians talk about giving and taking each others' hearts, it's no wonder that this place is such a hub for illegal organ trade.

Love and cheap perfume spritzes for all of my favorite smelly Americans,