Taltalim

While sitting here in my Jerusalem apartment, I am going to tell you about how I learned Hebrew in India. There is an Israeli phenomenon where young people, shortly after their time in the army, leave the country for months at a time to explore and travel exotic places. Their brains are fried after years of service and they need an escape. As I learned from Nurit, my Israeli roommate, the places most commonly visited are South America and India. So many Israelis come through the small, laid-back cities of India like Pushkar and Hampi, that you can find remnants of them all over—signs and menus in Hebrew, a Chabad house, and even Hebrew speaking Indians. Because of the abundance of Israeli travelers in proportion to travelers from other countries, many Indians with poor geography think Israel is a huge place with a huge population. The locals that work in the tourist industry end up learning some of the key phrases to get the travelers to stay at their guest house or shop at their store. As I discovered in Pushkar, an Israeli hotspot in the Northwestern state of Rajasthan, they often stand on their stoops and holler “taltalim,” meaning “curls,” to the passing Israeli women who are known for their voluminous kinky hair.  While walking on these streets I often got the same cat-call, which I always greeted with a smile. Because as I have observed on the streets of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, to be confused with a beautiful Israeli woman is a compliment in my book. 

10 Things Found in Abundance

1. Modes of transportation. The streets are cluttered with cars, busses, mopeds, motorcycles, auto rickshaws, bicycles, horse-driven carts, ox-driven carts, and even camels. I’ve seen it all, which leads me seamlessly to my next point…

2. Traffic. The traffic in Hyderabad is like nothing I have seen before. It is not your typical traffic with cars patiently sitting in line behind one another, waiting for their turn or exit. Imagine space for four lanes (except there aren’t any lanes because there are no painted lines) stuffed with six or seven cars/busses/autos. Not to mention the herds of motorcycles and mopeds snaking between them all.

A glimpse of traffic from an auto. Plus there was five on one motorcycle!

I see the roads here almost like a flowing, tumultuous river. Everyone is moving the same direction but with no real order. When entering a congested road or trying to change lanes, cars kind of have to flow into the mess as soon as they see an inch of space, hoping the person behind them stops.

Now this mixed with no cross walks, stop-lights, or general adherence to traffic rules make driving, crossing, or even walking close to the street feel risky, not to mention unpleasant. This is especially the case considering the incessant beeping that follows traffic everywhere.  I’ve learned a few key lessons about crossing: walk one lane at a time, walk confidently, and when all else fails just put your hand up to the on-coming traffic and scream.

3. Mustaches. They are a sign of masculinity and thus India’s most popular fashion trend. Thick, thin, bushy, or handle-bar style-- men of all ages sport the ‘stache. You will rarely see a Bollywoood or Tollywood star without one.

4. Colors. I never thought I was a dull dresser until I came here. All women, no matter their age or socio-economic status wear the most brilliantly colored, bright clothes. The brighter the better. When women are not wearing their saris they often wear kurtas—longer shirts with slits up the sides— with high-rise leggings and a scarf. Often times the kurtas will come with “matching” leggings or pants that are equally as bright as their tops. For example, I purchased a striking red shirt that came with orange pants and an orange scarf with red stripes. I wear my black pants and gray top to work and feel self-conscious not about showing too much skin, but about looking too drab.

5. Tiny people. Indians are small. Not just short, but petite too. So much so that everywhere I go I feel huge. This “giant-syndrome” becomes particularly obvious when in close quarters like my office elevator. It feels like I take up half of the elevator and cower over everyone. This does come in handy in certain occasions, like taking group photos. When everyone else is a head shorter than you, it makes for easy group picture posing because you don’t have to search for a spot to be seen.

Just to demonstrate "giant syndrome."

6. Men peeing on the street. The concept of public toilets hasn’t fully permeated Indian culture yet so the sight of men peeing on various walls throughout the city is a common sighting.   Women have it rough because you can’t just squat anywhere and the aforementioned lack of public toilets makes travel to unknown places a little bathroom-challenged.

7. Roaming animals on the street. While this may be a stereotypical image of an Indian road, it is absolutely true. On my street alone, I regularly see dogs, pigs, goats, cows, buffalo and chicken. Although this is not the extent of it. I have also seen camels, horses, donkeys, cats, monkeys, and onetime even an elephant (although he was accompanied by a handler). The strangest sight is to see the buffalo and cows meandering around the city, seemingly with no home. While I am still confused about this issue, I think they have places to return to every night. One of my tour guides in Delhi said that they like to stand near the street though because the passing cars help cool them off from flies.

8. Masala.  What would a blogpost be without the mention of food? It’s a mixture of hot spices abundantly found in just about everything. So much so, that when servers see a white face in a restaurant they often times assume we want food “no spicy.” Even after this firm “no spicy” warning, the food somehow always manages to clear out my sinuses, making me sniffle by the end of most meals. I determined that this is the reason Indians tend to not only wash their hands after a meal, but also rinse their faces. After all, they have runny noses.

9. Ads with white people. This may be the strangest phenomenon discovered yet, but ads all over town feature white people. The Shopper’s Stop by my house—a big, high-end department store—has a few huge advertisements hanging on the face of the building featuring little white kids wearing Western clothes. When the models aren’t white they are always very light-skinned Indians. This speaks to the stigma against dark-colored skin here—everyone wants to be lighter than they are and will wear lightening cream or bleach their skin to appear so. A darker coworker of mine, one of the most beautiful woman I have ever seen—wears a sweatshirt outside in 90 degree weather just so her skin won’t get any darker.

10. Non-verbal communication. I have learned how to have a conversation here solely through bodily gestures and grunts. A deep “ughh” sound means “yes.” A popular one is the head wobble. Moving your head from side to side, making discreet figure eight motions when someone is speaking with you means something like “I hear you,” or “Agreed,” or “You understand me?” And my personal favorite, the raised pinkie. Or, “Where is the bathroom?”

I Think I Should Have Been a Farmer

Greeting from the field. Sorry I have been a little MIA the past few weeks but I have been in and out of constant Internet access while spending some time in the more rural parts for work. My first “assignment” was to stay in Narayankhed, a small town five hours North of Hyderabad, and home to SKS’s flagship school. I was sent to spend extended time at the schools there, see how they operate, and maybe help out where I can. I stayed on the school’s campus—a couple of buildings surrounded by woods and hidden from the main road. There is the school as well as a few living quarters built years ago for SKS's first micro-finance work. While there I was reading the autobiography of SKS's executive director, Vikram Akula. At one point I was reading about the exact spot I was sitting-- a little surreal. Anyways, Narayankhed itself is a small city consisting of a few streets packed with dabas (little informal restaurants), stores, and tea stalls. The surrounding area is rural with fields of paddy and the common herd of goats, sheep, or buffalo.

Fields of paddy

All of my coworkers seemed to be so concerned that I, a single female, would be staying there alone. But secretly, I couldn’t have been more thrilled about it. I was looking forward to the quiet time, time to get out of the city, breathe, and relax. The problem about that though, is that a white person in the village doesn’t exactly go unnoticed. After an early morning and a long trip to get to the school I was tired and looking forward to reading or napping. Instead, I was immediately escorted to one of the teacher’s homes for the evening. Her house was modest but certainly not poor as she herself described it. There was a proper bedroom, an empty room used for eating (on the floor of course), a kitchen with both a traditional stove (ie fire) and modern gas stove, and a living room of sorts with a TV.  When I reached her home we were just hanging out, looking at her pictures and her marriage saris when before I knew it the entire village seemed to be in her small home. At one point I tried to count how many people were in the room just looking at me, but lost count at around 30. Since it soon became obvious that I was the entertainment for the evening, I couldn’t think of anything else to do but teach them the Hokey Pokey. And by teach them, it was more like me dancing and the neighborhood watching and laughing. While Rajeshwari, my hostess, was cooking dinner I sat with her neighbors in the front room watching TV. I had one of those “Is this real life?” moments when sitting on the cement block that acted as a bench in Rajeshwari’s living room. They turned on an English station for me, which happened to be playing the new James Bond movie. Looking to strike conversation, I looked at the woman to my left, someone’s grandmother who had more wrinkles then I’ve ever seen on a person and asked “Do you like James Bond?” As soon as the words came out I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. Did I actually just ask that to someone who doesn’t speak a word of English and has no teeth? Yes, yes I did.

Later that night we ate dinner, in which I pretty much had a religious experience with Rajeshwari’s cooking, and then went back to my room and slept like a baby. Being that I was alone and a woman, my coworkers took extra precautions to make sure I was always safe and comfortable. First off, I was either fed or offered food all the time and secondly, there were at least two men on the campus with me (staying in an adjacent building) at all times to make sure I felt safe. At one point when I had to be alone for a few minutes one evening I was made to sit inside my room with the door locked. While this whole in-the-woods-with-two-young -men thing might sound intimidating, as it turns out in India, men don’t even come near you. The guys I stayed with strictly adhered to Indian standards of etiquette between men and women. They never stood too close to me and if there was a moment when we had to be in somewhat close proximity, they were clearly visibly awkward about it.  This point was demonstrated so clearly one evening while eating dinner outside on our respective stoops. Instead of grabbing a chair to sit somewhere between the two stoops (meaning a little closer to me), Sidu and Sudaker preferred to pretty much sit on top of each other on their own stoop. This is also a commentary on the touchy-feely nature of relationships between Indian men. It is common to see men holding hands, leaning on each other, and just being physical with each other. They aren’t gay or anything like that, it is just how they express friendship and mutual adoration for one another. I am convinced though it is a result of the culture’s conservative rules about PDA with people of the opposite sex. 

Anyways, I left Narayankhed desiring only to return with more time. I want to get to know the teachers and spend time on the beautiful school campus. The mornings there were worth it alone. I sat on the stoop of my little brick building surrounded by woods, and grass, and silence. I could read and clear my head and actually breath. That is until exactly 9am when an SUV packed with school children (literally packed, there isn’t the same standard of safety here as there is back home) would come speeding in on the dirt road. 

After one night home, a group of my coworkers and I from the head office headed to Kusimanchi for a two day Teacher Training Workshop. I never thought I would be saying this about a trip that made me work on the weekend, but we had a blast. The workshop took place in a building still under construction—with no second floor and no walls—in the middle of red chili fields. It was a very Indian thing that while we were conducting a professional conference construction work went on like nothing changed, so although we had to deal with the occasional sounds of falling construction materials, the location was beautiful. My coworkers, all city-dwellers, went nuts for the scenery and needed pictures in front of the fields or next to farm materials.

The view from the training in Kusumanchi

That's me!

I'm on a boat.

After the training on the first day we took a motor-boat ride on a lake at sunset and then went out to dinner in a bustling little city, Kammam. While walking to dinner there was not one person on the street who didn’t stare at Nurit and me walk by. I think we made half of the town’s night. So much so, we were in the newspaper the next day! It always makes me feel uncomfortable, but just by the color of my skin, I am often given celebrity status. Like at the end of the training, I was bum rushed by the crowd asking for pictures and autographs. At one point, people had to form a line to take a picture with me on their camera phones and I often caught the teachers taking a picture while I wasn’t looking. 

Regardless of the stares and the mosquitoes, the squat toilets and the little lizard that ran around my room, my time in the field has been refreshing. The rural scenery is breathtaking and strangely enticing. Maybe it is just the unknown that is exciting for me, but whatever it is, maybe in my next life I'll get to be a farmer.

Signs You Work in an Indian Office

A few observations written out of love for my coworkers...


1. Hidden resources. There is a surprising lack of resources for such a large office. Just to remind you, I work in an eight story corporate office complete with elevators, security badges, and a parking garage. There are four or five people at the front gate alone who greet you as you walk in, including one guy who runs a mirror along the undercarriage of your car. There are three elevators, two restaurants, a whole floor designated as the cafeteria, and one fax machine. That’s right, one machine for 350 employees. I learned about this because a couple of weeks ago I had to send a fax. To start, I needed to print a professional letter on letterhead. I wrote the letter but am not connected to a printer, so I recruited a coworker to help me print. Then I had to find the admin.  guy to ask him to get the paper who had to ask another girl for the key to a locked cabinet. He handed me two sheets so that when the printer messed up on the first, I had one chance to get it right. Letter in hand I was told to go to the first floor to talk to the fax operator. She was out to lunch. I returned back only to learn that the fax machine had moved to level three in legal services. I had to walk through rows of unknown cubicles to find the fax machine and wait for the fax operator to return from a meeting. An entire afternoon down and my fax was sent.


2. Motorcycles. My coworkers all drive motorcycles into the office. While that might be the case if I worked at a Harley Davidson shop or something in the states, here driving motorcycles and mopeds is completely normal, even the preferred mode of transportation. When cars are expensive and roadways are so jammed pack that eight modes of transportation are squeezing into four lanes, motorcycles are simply the best option. I was so amused by one of my coworker’s cool black helmet that one day I insisted on putting it on in the middle of the office. I’m pretty sure they all thought I was a little weird after that.


3. The chaiwallah. There is a person in my office whose whole job, as far as I can tell, is to bring us chai- very milky, very sweet tea-- twice a day. Once at 11am once at 3pm, like clockwork. I feel like one of Pavlov’s dogs because everyday exactly around 11 and exactly around 3 I start to feel a little parched. I look around my desk and Ganesh, my chaiwallah, is usually standing there with a tray of little tiny cups filled with the delicious treat. In many offices when the chai comes nobody does anything but stand in groups sipping to themselves, the equivalent of gossip around the water cooler. Most recently though, tragedy struck. My office outlawed the personal delivery of mugs so that I have to leave my desk, go to the little kitchen outside, and pour my own chai. The new rule had rendered Ganesh’s job pretty much obsolete but in this service-oriented society no one seems to care. I find that in most restaurants, hotels, gas stations, salons, and stores there seem to be a whole lot of employees doing absolutely nothing at all.


4. Lateness. Not to be rude or culturally insensitive, but Indians are kind of lazy. The office opens at 9:30am every morning but people don’t usually start trickling in until around 9:45 or so. It is what they call “Indian Standard Time.” Punctuality can be so bad that the education department implemented a daily check-in for our morning and evening meetings to ensure that people actually come on time. You color green if you are on time, yellow if you have an excused absence, and red if you are late. Who new that coloring would actually hold people accountable, but it does!


5. Lunch room etiquette. I know I have spoken about this before but I feel like it deserves another mention. Lunch time is so much fun. For less than a dollar I get a huge tray of two types of rice, naan, three varieties of curry, yoghurt, and a dessert. I sit with my coworkers who sometimes buy, sometimes bring from home. They open their “tiffins” (ie lunch boxes), take out spoons, and begin scooping their food onto each other’s plates. It is a strange experience for me because obviously I would love to share my food. It feels very uncomfortable though to just take from my plate and plop onto another’s without asking them first.  A few rules I learned the hard way: 1) If you are eating food with a spoon do not use that same spoon to scoop food for another person. This should be obvious for hygienic purposes but everybody shares everything (even the same bottle of water) so I didn’t think it would be a big deal. 2) Don’t bring the same leftovers twice in a row. This isn’t a huge no-no but one of my coworkers looked horrified when I told her the coconut curry I had made was the same one I brought in the day before.  A lot of people make (or have their cooks make) a fresh curry and rice every morning for their lunches. 3) Wash your hands before and after. There is a row of about six sinks attached to the cafeteria for this purpose alone.


6. Christmas. I think one out of about 25 people in the education team at my work is Christian. Nonetheless, it was insisted we decorate the meeting room for Christmas. Being the intern, it was naturally my job. The team spotted a potted plant in the lunch room that they intended on repurposing for our Christmas tree. The admin guy ended up doing most of the work- stealing the plant, wrapping it with read and green sparkly streamers, lights, and topping it with a Santa Clause stuffed animal. He hung a star from the ceiling and scattered the floor with balloons. The “tree” was hidden in the conference room so that when everyone came in for our morning meeting it was a pleasant surprise. I couldn’t help but crack up seeing my coworkers excitement about the dinky tree and balloons, which I think they interpreted as my genuine excitement. I spent my afternoon that day building a giant snowman to accompany the tree. Perhaps that excitement was genuine…

An Ode to my Body

I’m going to take this time to give myself a pat on the back. I am constantly amazed with my body’s strength and resiliency that I think it needs some recognition. From day one, I have enjoyed all of the street foods that India has to offer. Samosas, grilled corn, and even those little delicious potato things that come in tin cups. I also adamantly support my personal philosophy that some of the best food comes from the smallest, grubbiest, little restaurants and stores. I cook my own vegetables from the local market and I never pass on local food offered to me by friends or coworkers. I’ve watched roommates make trips to the hospital, surviving on toast for days, while I order delivery from the local hole-in-the-wall. Now let me not brag, I have experienced minor “bumps in the road,” to put it lightly, but for the most part my body constantly consumes and savors these delectable treats without major problems. In fact, my roommate has dubbed me the “iron stomach.”

But as the saying goes, all giants have to fall (is that how the saying goes?).  Anyways, I knew by sheer odds that it was only a matter of time before I came down with something.  So fall, I did. Literally. To spare you all the gory details, I got sick as soon as we arrived in Jaipur. I passed out the next morning and busted my chin open on the marble floor. A visit from the doctor, three stitches, and a couple of bruises later, I’m feeling much better and left with only a little band-aid. I spent my time in Jaipur, the renowned pink city, becoming intimate with hotel room TV and if I see another commercial for Dettol, Kohler, or some watch company again, I might scream. Bummer I had to miss the sights, but at least I have a cool story to tell now, right?

I think I can forgive me body for this one hiccup considering, as previously mentioned, how much I do “challenge it.” If you haven’t gathered already by my mention of food in every blog entry, India for me has been somewhat indulgent food-wise.  I feel like I talk about food in India the way Elizabeth Gilbert talks about food in Italy in her book “Eat, Pray, Love.” It’s a fascination, close to a point of obsession. But beyond enjoying the flavors and tastes, a big part of eating for me is about appreciating the culture it comes from. Food is such a big piece of every society that to truly immerse yourself, to get the full experience, you need to eat and appreciate the food it has to offer. It’s the same reason that I chose to put my vegetarianism aside when I traveled to Kenya. I didn’t want to create another obstacle between me and anyone else, another reason to define me as different or separate.

I was disappointed the other day when while eating at a nice restaurant geared towards tourists, my family was approached by another family from the US. They seemed really excited to hear I was living in Hyderabad and asked if they could ask me one question. Of course I obliged. Of all things, they wanted to know if I could eat the street food here. That’s the one thing they wanted to know? While some of the bacteria might be different, and for some it might be wise to get your stomach adjusted before you dive in, if the people here eat it, why shouldn’t we? I find that approaching a culture with an open-minded and flexible attitude lends to interesting and fulfilling situations later, like drinking chai with local shopkeepers or eating the Indian equivalent of fast food with my coworkers. Food opens doors, it’s an automatic conversation piece, and something to do. I feel like I would be missing out on so much if I lived my life afraid of doing as the locals do. I would miss out on my neighborhood’s local culture if I didn’t have my vegetable stand guy in the market or my weekly trips to the restaurant up the block. I would miss out on lunch with the ladies from work and homemade dinners at friends’ houses. I would miss out on truly experiencing India. Now this is all to say that you don’t have to love the food, just don’t be afraid to try it.

Maybe my good health has been due to an exceptionally strong intestinal track, but I like to think that a little part of my success can be attributed to a go-with-the-flow attitude.  Whatever it may be, thank you body for (mostly) going with the flow.

A Breath of Fresh Air (literally)

Farewell Delhi, you will surely be missed. As my family and I drive out of the city and onto Agra to see the Taj Mahal, I’m going to take a minute to reflect on the capital city of India. While my time here was too short (a mere two nights) I can already tell I really like this place. Being the capital, it is clearly given first access to amenities– things like good roads, grassy areas (you mean there are trees in major Indian cities?), and even a metro! While there was still the abundance of cars, motorcycles, mopeds, auto rickshaws, bicycles, tractors, horse drawn carriages, and the traffic associated with all of them, I could walk around the city and actually breath. There is a lot of history here with old mosques, forts, and markets sprinkled throughout the city. We visited some of the sights like Humuyan’s Tomb and a famous minaret with the oldest iron pole in the world that scientist can’t explain why it hasn’t rusted yet (sad that the pole was my favorite part?). I enjoyed just driving around the city, trying to get a feel for the place. While I had no sense of where we actually were, we drove around New Delhi, and circled the parliament. The government buildings are vast structures with a clear history in the British colonial era and the areas surrounding them were spacious and green.

Humuyan's Tomb, I just like whatever Ben is doing here

The Qutat Minar

We spent Christmas Eve doing what Jews do best, eating Chinese food. We ate at this really nice restaurant in our hotel and were surprised by hotel staff carolers in the middle of our meal. Wearing Santa hats, they serenaded us with classics like Jingle Bells and Dashing Through the Snow, singing with distinct accents and not quite getting all of the words right. It was awesome, especially when I realized that probably no one in the whole restaurant celebrated Christmas (we had some Israelis sitting next to us and everyone else was Indian).

My highlight of the city though was spending the day with Nurit for our work-related meeting. We got up really early to meet our boss at his Delhi home in a surrounding city called Noida. After grabbing coffee and pastries in the empty hotel lobby we took a cab to his place and from there drove to his school in a rural area. The kids were off for break but we toured the building, spoke to the teachers, and huddled together in the office drinking chai. Delhi is freezing by the way. While I kind of always giggle at the South Indians in Hyderabad who start wearing sweaters and jackets when it is anything below 80 degrees, here it is absolutely legit. Manish treated us to some breakfast at an Indian fast food chain where although I don’t know exactly what I was eating, it was definitely tasty. We finished off the meal with one of the more interesting foods I’ve tried here so far- some sort of nutty ice cream topped with squishy yellow noodles. I though it was weird at first and put my spoon down, but who am I kidding, I ate it all. Nurit and I then tried out Delhi’s new metro to meet up with a friend of hers in a touristy market area called Pahar ganj. The metro is really fast and really clean. If it weren’t for some of the women wearing saris or kurtas around us, it felt like I could have been anywhere in Europe of the US. Actually I take that back, the Delhi metro is much nicer than the DC metro. Anyways, we spent the rest of the day checking out some markets, sipping chai with friends, and overeating delicious paneer butter masala and malai kofta for lunch. This whole over eating thing seems to be a reoccurring theme for me on this trip but as Nurit’s friend Johnty explained to me, Hindus believe that food is God and it cannot go to waste. So really, I’m just trying to do my part.

Nurit and I discover the metro

Well I guess to sum it all up, I wish Delhi and I had more time together. I liked her grassy areas and her bustling markets, her tasty food, and her character. Delhi strikes me as a city with immense potential. It a place where the old world and new world meet and a place where the feeling of India’s growth and “emerging world power” attitude feels palpable.

This one goes out to all the vegetarians

I saw a beautiful thing today. I didn’t go on a hike or to some remote village though, I was just eating at TGI Fridays. That’s right, TGI Fridays. I think two parts of that sentence are surprising: 1) the “I” part, as in me, Rachel Kutler, was eating at Fridays and 2) the part where there is a TGI Fridays in Hyderabad, India.  Anyways, we had some LIFE programming in the morning and collectively decided that we were homesick for some simple American food and went there for lunch.

The Fridays looks a lot like the ones you see in the states—random pictures and things on the wall, red and white striped tables, even our server wore the customary suspenders with “flair.” But back to that beautiful thing. I was looking over the menu, noticing some of the same items like potato skins and mini quesadillas, when there on the bottom, a little inconspicuous, beautiful mark appeared: a star to indicate the “non-vegetarian” items. That’s right, non-vegetarian, ie things made with meat. Now since day one in India it has been made abundantly clear that vegetarian food is the norm. It is exactly the opposite of the US so that here, when you go to a restaurant, you’re not sure if they will have meat items. It has been awesome for me, not only is the food already delicious but I can eat it all too! And eat it all I do. Naan, roti, aloo gobi, malai kofta, chana masala, palak panneer, the list goes on. I eat it for as many meals as possible each day, and can’t fathom ever getting sick of it.

So despite eating veg food all the time, seeing those little starred menu items indicating non-vegetarian dishes in a chain restaurant known for its burgers and meat in the US, felt like a little battle won for us herbivores: Vegetarians around the world: 1, Meat eaters: 0!