Mood Indigo, the holidays, Vashi, and kiteflying.

First of all, sorry for the sudden lapse in content . . . being without Internet tends to hinder these kinds of things.

We’ll start with the biggest news first: I’ve switched host families again! “Already?” you might be asking. But yes – the Guptas are off to London on a business venture, leaving me orphaned. Luckily, my best friend Almitra and her family in Vashi were more than willing to take me in.

I’ve been here for only a week, and I must say, I feel absolutely at home. More so than I have felt all year. It’s like I have a second family and a second home.

I live with Almitra (my host sister and best friend) and her mother, Vivekita, in Koparkhairne, a section of Vashi. But we spend so much time with Almitra’s Masi’s (Hindi for aunt) house that it’s like having two host families in one. Masi’s family consists of her husband, Yogi, and their two children Tulika and Rushil. They’re both my age so it’s really wonderful.

The best thing is, they’re a very traditional Indian family in that they spend a LOT of time with each other. We’re always enjoying ourselves over at Yogi and Masi’s house, and going out for dinner together as a family. Every night we do something different – like attending plays, dances, movies, and other cultural events. Also, they put a lot of value in frequent communication and conversation. So we’re always talking with one another – and it’s completely natural-feeling and unforced. We never run out of things to talk about, and as a result I’m learning so much from them. I honestly could not imagine a better host family.

Vashi is in New Bombay – which is still technically part of Bombay, but they’re referred to as the suburbs. It’s a completely different experience from living right in town, especially Cuffe Parade (the most elite place of residence in the city). It’s a bit quieter, but you don’t have to deal with uptown snobs, expensive taxis, or people trained in the art of ripping off foreigners. Even the beastly Bombay crows are oddly absent.

Getting around is a bit of a problem, but I don’t mind it much. To get to town I take a 14 rupee share autorickshaw to Vashi station, and from there catch a 10 rupee train to VT. The travel time is about one hour. It’s annoying, but a very small price to pay for having the best host family ever. Plus, I think traveling via public transport so often gives me more street cred as a Bombay local.

Enough about my new host family! Now I’ll fill you all in on what’s been going on:

Mood Indigo

Mood Indigo is the biggest college festival in India. People from all over come to IIT campus in Powai to compete in its many competitions in dance, speaking, music, and many other activities. Bands, artists, and performers from all over the nation and the world come here. Needless to say, it was a pretty good five days.

The first day didn’t do much to convince us of this, though. The rooms they gave us were absolutely horrendous. First of all, they told us that pillows and blankets would be provided . . . . which was just not true. So none of us brought anything from home, which did not make for a very comfortable stay. We ended up switching rooms because they were really just that bad. There was trash everywhere, the floors were dirty, the walls were all spotty with who knows what, the toilets were disgusting, and the mats they gave for sleeping on were covered in stains. Luckily, there was still room in another hostel.

During the first day we attended a very creative fashion show – the theme was signs of the Zodiac, and all of the designers made 12 costumes for their models featuring each sign. Although each day featured at least 50 events, we (the inbounds) didn’t really know our way around campus well enough, so we just spent the rest of the day hanging around. At night we walked through the woods to an abandoned pavilion by Powai lake and built ourselves a campfire. We all had smores, which marked our (Will and I) American contribution to this exchange of cultures. It was a really nice time, involving several dozen mosquito bites per limb and some really funny coal-dancing French people.

The next day we saw an actual hypnotist, who group-hypnotised about 40 participants. We then saw a classical Indian concert and an ebru demonstration. I also made quite a few interesting friends this day.

One was Mon – a Japanese artist who had painted a big mural for Mood Indigo. He showed us all of his artwork and carried around this gigantic awesome bongo drum.

Another was Neptune. He was born in Goa, raised in California, and now he’s back in Goa again with his mother, who’s from France. Yep, this guy is an official citizen of three different countries. He earns his living by traveling to different parts of India and performing on his unicycle while juggling, which is what brought him to Mood Indigo. He’s also a jew harp player, and makes a lot of money buying different varieties of jew harps all over the world and selling them to music stores in America. Literally whenever things got quiet, this guy would whip out his jew harp and start jamming. He spent a few years in Kerala learning Indian painting, and as a result speaks fluent Malayalam and Hindi. And yes, if you couldn’t tell based on the jew harp and the unicycling, he is absolutely insane. He’s also one of the kindest, most fun, open and down to earth person I’ve ever met, and he’s filled with a shitload of crazy stories. I wish I could adopt him as a cool uncle or something like that.

Here is just an example of the crazy fun we had together. So apparently there was this big fruit carving workshop and Mood-I, and there was a lot of carved fruit left over in boxes outside of this classroom, just all ready to go to waste. So Neptune and I did the honor of liberating the watermelon of its cruel fate, and returned to our group with armful after armful of watermelons. We stayed up until about 3 AM that night, just talking and eating watermelons, about 15 of them at least. Then I snuck the stolen watermelons back into our hostel, and that’s what I ate for the rest of the week.

So anyway. On day 3, I met these guys in the morning, and as a result actually attended some events diligently. We watched the street dance competition the Indian way (by balancing on this bamboo pole fence to see over the crowd), saw a few speaking competitions, ate some RIDICULOUSLY good falafels, and saw some pretty bukwas Hindi-Western fusion bands.

Last but not least of our events of day three, we saw Tararam, an Israeli drumming and dance group who had performed at the Olympics. They were absolutely fantastic, and probably the best thing we saw at Mood Indigo. Afterward a few of us snuck backstage and actually MET the performers, which was fantastic. They invited us over to their rooms in the guest house that night, and we had a really nice time just talking and sharing our cultures with one another. This means I got to discuss Etgar Keret with an actual Israeli person, so naturally I was happy as a pig in shit.

The next day was actually Christmas Eve, so we left early, leaving just after seeing a really good French folk band, Moriarty, and watching Michael and Anthea (two German exchange students) compete in the ballroom dancing competition. (They ended up winning!)

All in all, Mood Indigo was a lot better than I had thought it would be, and it was a nice segway into what was probably the loneliest and most depressing Christmas I’ve ever had.

For one thing, I was still living with the Guptas, who never got around to talking to me much, so I didn’t even have a host family to fall back on. I missed my own family a lot – everyone says homesickness gets the worst around the holidays, and that was definitely the truth with me. It didn’t help that my host father had MOVED ALL OF MY SHIT OUT OF MY ROOM IN BOXES WITHOUT EVEN ASKING ME ABOUT IT. Ugh.

We did have a big inbound/rotex Christmas party though, which was nice.

Luckily, I had made plans to spend New Years at Almitra’s house with her family. We had an absolutely wonderful time. On the eve of New Years Eve, Yogi and Almitra and took a walk at night around scenic Vashi, stopping to get delicious pani puri and then sweets at an Indian sweet shop. We came across this big outdoor photography exhibition, and no sooner did we start admiring the photographs than I got swarmed by news crews. In Vashi they’re not very used to seeing foreigners, so I was interviewed twice about the exhibition, and one of the photographers even presented me with flowers! Yogi and Almitra thought the whole situation was pretty funny. Later on, Almitra’s Mom and Mami saw me on the news twice, but unfortunately I never got to see myself.

The next day Almitra and I got ourselves some very dashing 99 rupee haircuts. And don’t let the price (just over two US dollars) fool you – these were damn good haircuts. Back in Cuffe Parade I had received a haircut for 800 rupees from a senior stylist, and even that wasn’t as good as this.

We spent New Years Eve at an enormous party at an NRI complex. Apparently it was the second biggest New Years party in New Bombay. The DJ was excellent and we had a lot of very good food and wine.

The next morning, Yogi decided he wanted to kick off the first day of the new year with a good start, so he took Almitra and I on a long drive through rural Maharashtra to Kelva Beach. We ate the best Indian seafood in the history of all that exists – fish and prawns and prawns curry all spicy perfect and delicious. Then he took us to the dockyards (Yogi’s a maritime engineer so he had to make a stop by for business), and Almitra and I got a tour of the entire shipyard. We didn’t get home until late that night, and we were completely exhausted.

The next week or so leading up to my move to Almitra’s place is kind of a blur, but here’s a brief overview:

A few nights spent working as paid international greeters at Indian weddings, a stolen phone, living it up at the pool, jacuzzi, AND sauna at Viviane’s host family’s apartment complex, enjoying happy hour at Pop Tates with my favorite French and Belgian people, a stolen wallet, far too much shisha than is healthy, seeing Avatar in IMAX 3D, a damn good Rotary meeting (they let me drink now, and nothing is funnier than watching geriatric Indian men getting drunk and boisterous), a beautiful cultural dance performance at the National Performing Arts Centre in Nariman Point, seeing the newest Bollywood craze, 3 Idiots, too much Irish coffee at Mondy’s with Urvi, Ruhi, Hena, Gayatri, Natasha, and Dhruvi, and, last (and certainly least), the dreaded dance practices.

In the case of Bombay, India, being a Rotary Youth Exchange Student means being Rotary’s pets for a year. For the district conference, they’re having us perform three Indian dances. Which would be okay, if it weren’t for the fact that:

A) these dances are incredibly hard
B) the Bollywood/Western fusion songs we dance to are incredibly bad
C) the dance center in Juhu is incredibly far (from Vashi it’s a 1 hr and 45 min commute with 2 crossovers)
D) the practices are three days a week, which is incredibly annoying to all those who have lives

But being in Juhu so often means I’m always a stone’s throw away from one of my best friends here, Archit. One day after practice we got together to meet up with another Reedie, Advait! (For those who don’t know, a Reedie is the term for students of Reed College – Archit is also a Reedie). So here we hosted yet another Reedie convention of India! We went to Phoenix Mill, a crazily nice mall, and sat in a cafe and talked for 3 hours straight. It was really wonderful, and Advait is a junior so he had a lot to tell us. Then I realized it was 9:30 and I had still had a two hour commute before I could reach home.

The next day I headed back into town for an Indian kite flying festival my Rotary Club was hosting at the pier by the Radio Club. I ate some really bad Gujarati food and proceeded to learn the art of kite-flying from the Rotarians. Apparently in India people are really into kite-flying – it’s actually pretty competitive. In some parts of India they’ll treat the kite string with glass powder, so it can cut other kite strings. People have actually died because of this – motorcyclists put metal bars on the front of their bikes before their heads in order to protect themselves from being decapitated from the kite strings.

My kite-flying adventure wasn’t as hardcore, but it was still pretty enjoyable. My first host father was there, and we went through three or four paper kites just trying to get them into the air, failing miserably. They all crashed and burned. But then I FINALLY got one up, so far into the night sky that we couldn’t even see it anymore. It was really windy, and the kite was beaten around so much by the wind that my hands were actually cut by the string running through my fingers. It was shortlived though, as it promptly crashed into the sea.

So that’s that for now! This is an ENORMOUS update, so I’m definitely going to try splitting them up better in the future.