Bowl of Brains

If I had to choose one activity that I love doing, it would probably be eating. I eat when I’m hungry, I eat when I’m bored, I eat to socialize, and I eat when I’m alone. So naturally, I would eat when I was in India and I would try anything an everything that was handed to me. For the first few days of the trip I was limited to what was provided by the hotel and by the businesses that we visited, which consisted mostly of Indian foods that I had already tried as well as tea and cookies. However, I did get to try Thums Up, which is the Indian version of Coca-Cola. One thing I have to mention before I describe that taste of this product is that once you step out of the airport, you notice something. India has a certain smell and when you try the food you notice that the smell is also a taste. Thums Up is just like Coke except it has that taste, which is why it must be so popular in India. I learned that something called masala is in a lot of the food so I think that might be the taste I am talking about, but I am not sure. 

The next kind of food that we got to try was the street food. I must admit that I was a little nervous about that at first, but I decided that I was not going to let that get in my way. When Professor Gupta brought a group of us to a place near the hotel and asked if anyone would like to try a water ball (paani-puri), which is a ball of dough with water put into the center, I was the first to raise my hand. To tell the truth, I did not like them at all because the water was cold so I was basically eating soggy fried dough. Another thing I noticed was that the water came from a pot on the side of the street and the guy used his bare hands to dip the ball into it, but I got used to such things after the first few days. All the rest of the street food that I tried I loved, especially the dumplings (momos). I will never forget those little balls of heaven and how spicy they were. The chili sauce was one of the best condiments that I have ever tried in my life and I wish that I had an endless supply. After having those you will never want to go to a Chinese restaurant in the US ever again. The day of the first party at Professor Gupta’s house, we got to stop by a market beforehand so that we could see where the locals bought all of their food and that is the moment that I realized I was in India. What I mean is that until then I had not really felt like I had left America, but when I saw the market it rushed over me and I was very excited. I had been waiting for that feeling for a very long time.

Finally there are the restaurants and all I can say is that the spicier the food was, the better, except for that pepper that they put in everything. That pepper was horrible and one time I accidentally dropped it into my Thums Up. After that there was a fume coming from my cup that went through your entire body if you put your face to it so I ended up accidentally spitting soda across my table. Besides the pepper, however, the spiciest thing I can remember is a soup that came in a cup at the South Indian restaurant that we went to. It was delicious even though it pretty much tasted like a savory glass of hot sauce with vegetables in it. Besides that, I really don’t remember much of the different foods that we tried. After a while you just start to get used to eating spicy food and all of the tastes blend together. There was one potato dish that was served with almost every meal that was spicy and delicious. The thickness and amount of liquid differed each time, though, and I definitely have to mention the bread (naan). It was extremely good and always fresh. In fact, the food everywhere was fresh because it is constantly being made. I think that loving to eat may be the most prominent trait that I share with Indian people. Finally, the McDonald’s was ten times better than it is in America. I was actually excited to get it when I was there because it didn’t taste like a big ball of grease, but here that is exactly what it tastes like.

On the trip I was known for being able to eat pretty much anything without disliking it or without it having horrible effects on my body, but there was one food that I absolutely hated and I was tricked into eating it twice. It was called paan and it was pretty much potpourri wrapped in a leaf. I tried it first with Professor Gupta and I told myself that I would never eat it again, but my e-buddies, Kanika, Ankit, and Rahul, told me that it was much better with chocolate. I believed them, but they were completely wrong. It was just as bad, except now it had a weird aftertaste. All I can say is that if you don’t think you would like the taste of cleaning products, then you won’t like paan. I would still encourage everyone to try it though, for the experience. One thing I regret is that I did not get to try brains. I first saw this as an option when we went on the bike tour and it was on the menu at the breakfast place, but we did not have time for me to get it. I am sort of glad, however, because while biking we saw a bowl of brains in the middle of the street and I am fairly certain that the bowl is where I would have gotten my brains from. Overall, I loved the food in India and I know I will never experience anything like it again.

“Can I drive?”…..”Why not?”

Hands down, my most favorite thing about India was the people. Everywhere we went everyone was extremely welcoming and accepting of us, with the exception of the tour guides at the Parliamentary Museum, but I won’t hold it against them. The most noticeable were the children. They were everywhere and they always smiled and waved enthusiastically when they saw us, as long as they weren’t asking us to buy something of theirs. Below is a picture of a group of students that saw us at Humayun’s Tomb. When they first saw us from down below, they began screaming and waving so much that their teachers were trying to stop them from going out of control.                                                                                                                         

Two kids that stuck out in our minds, however, are Jia and the multi-lingual kid. Jia was one of the kids at the orphanage we visited, Vatsalya. She was extremely cute and she had this little smile on from the second we saw her. Justine was so in love with her that she said she wanted to adopt her and take her home, jokingly of course. The multi-lingual kid was the one that we saw at the Taj Mahal. He began trying to sell us stuff when we got off of the camel rides and he followed us all the way to the line into the Taj. While we were talking to him we discovered that he could speak many different languages, although some of them were very limited to vocabulary needed to sell his products. We heard him speak in English, Hindi, Punjabi, Chinese, French, Spanish, Russian, Italian, and German. Strangely enough we had at least one student on the trip who was familiar with one of the languages so we could test him in how fluent he was. He surprised most of us with how well he could speak in each language, especially since he said he had never been to school. He learned everything he knows by conversing with tourists. The children there never failed to surprise me.

There are a couple other examples of when the people made me happy because of how excited they were to see us. Both of them were very surprising, bu the first was when Justin and I were walking back to the hotel after exploring the surrounding area and we saw a crowd of people outside of a building. We went over to see what was going on and it turned out to be a sort of game show that people were participating in. It was called Minute to Win It and the objective was to complete a task that they gave you within 60 seconds. We watched the first girl try to win and unfortunately she didn’t, but then they asked me and Justin if we wanted to try. Of course we said yes so I went first and my task was called Elephant Walk. I was scared at first because that title has a completely different meaning to a college student, but fortunately it wasn’t what I thought it was. Instead, I had to put a pair of stockings on my head with a ball at the end of it. Then they set up 2 rows of 4 water bottles that I had to knock over by swinging my head back and forth. I completed the task in 33 seconds and I won a prize so it was Justin’s turn. They put a cookie on his forehead and he had to maneuver it to his mouth without using his hands. Personally, I think this is impossible and apparently it is. Either way we were both put on Indian television in our first day of being there. The next surprise happened when we went to McDonald’s and we asked to take a picture with the employees. I expected them to say no, but they were very excited and motioned for us to come behind the counter. Eventually the manager came out and instead of being mad, he jumped right into the picture. It is impossible to be unhappy in India because it seems like everyone is no matter what situation they are in.

One final observation I noticed while in India is that a big reason that the country is so beautiful is because of it’s people. The first time I really noticed it was when we were visiting the Amber Fort. We go to about the second level and I noticed a women in blue just admiring the scenery. The landscape is already breathtaking, but when I saw her against it I had to take a picture. I don’t think I will ever take a picture like it again in my life and it was all because I was in the right place at the right time. She actually saw us eventually and jumped into a picture with us and we didn’t know until we went back and looked at the picture. The next time I noticed it was when Marie, Georgia, and I took a motor rickshaw back to the hotel after our shopping day. As soon as we got in I asked the driver if I could drive and he said, “Why not?” If we were in America, the can driver would have looked at me like I was crazy, but here there was no reason that I couldn’t. Obviously he waited until we got to a street that wasn’t very busy and on the way there we had a very nice conversation with him. He talked about how things were changing in India and how people weren’t waiting until marriage to have sex. The surprising thing was that he was completely okay with that, even though he has a daughter, as long as they used a condom. He was a very religious man, being a Sikh, and we were very surprised that he was so open with us and discussing such issues. I will never forget that experience.

Finally, I loved the e-buddies. From the second we met them, I felt like we had been friends for a long time. My e-buddies were Kanika Mehra and Dhananjay Kumar and I could not have asked for better ones. We had an amazing time at Humayun’s Tomb and at the Lotus Temple, but it was very short so I asked Kanika if she would want to go shopping with me the next day. She said that she had class and that she probably couldn’t, but that night at the party, she called Professor Gupta and asked if she would be allowed to. Apparently, her and a bunch of the other e-buddies were so flattered that we asked to spend the day with them that they decided to skip classes for the day and instead hang out with us. Dhananjay couldn’t come, unfortunately, but Kanika brought her two best friends Ankit Saraswat and Rahul Goyal. They even bought me some presents and I felt horrible that I had not gotten them anything, but they would not let me buy them anything at all. Every time I tried they would tell me to put my money away and they would pay. At one point I was just standing there and Ankit came over and put sunglasses on my face. Justine made fun of me because every time I saw her I was wearing something else. Also, anytime I pointed to a street food vendor they would go over and buy it. I could not believe how nice they were and so I am planning to send them all gifts from America. It was also nice having them around because they would make sure that we did not pay too much for the things we bought.

I couldn’t end this post without mentioning the two professors that brought us on this trip, Professor Gupta and Professor Kahai. I truly believe that the trip would not have been as amazing as it was if we did not have them guiding us the entire time. I know that they did everything they could to not only make sure we were safe, but that we were having fun so I would like to put up these pictures as a thank you to them.

“Do you want to stop for the monkey business?”

One of the many things that I found interesting about India was the wildlife. Not the animals exactly because I had seen all of them before whether it be in a house, outside, or in a zoo (except for the bunny-eared goats), but how they coexisted with the people. For example, you see a lot of dogs in the United States, but they are mostly pets with the exception of a few strays. In India, there are just as many dogs, if not more, but they are all on the streets. Everywhere you go, whether it be a temple, marketplace, or the Taj Mahal you can see a dog walking around or sleeping somewhere. One of the strangest encounters we had with dogs was when we saw two dogs mysteriously connected in ways that we didn’t see possible. I have a picture, but I don’t think I should put it up, I’ll just tell you that we name Cows, pigs, cats, and goats are also free to roam the streets without any objection from the natives, but they are much less common. Something I noticed about how that has affected the animals is that they eat garbage including plastic and metal. At one point I actually saw a group of animals eating thrown out plastic bags in a garbage heap that was right next to an open field of green grass. It was hard to believe their seemingly idiotic choice of food, but I realized that this must be what they have become used to eating and I think something needs to be done about it. I am sure that the native Indian people feel the same way because I saw advertisements telling people not to throw out their plastic bags due to the tendency of animals to eat them.

Until we left for Agra and Jaipur, we were limited to the farm and household animals that wandered the streets, but we made a few stops on our extensive bus ride down south. Our first sideshow happened when we heard some kind of instrument being played as the bus was stopped. It was a very familiar sound and the second I looked out the window it clicked; it was a snake charmer. Right next to the bus was a guy playing his instrument while a cobra was standing straight up out of a woven basket that he held. My first thought was to take a picture and immediately after, I realized that I wanted to be in the picture. I was not the only one so we got out of the bus and took turns putting the snake around our necks and tipping the charmer as we saw fit. The next stop happened when we saw something very unusual, an animal on a leash. What made it even stranger was that it was a monkey, many of them in fact. So we went through the whole snake routine again except this time it was with monkeys and I don’t know if that made it less or more scary. When we saw the monkeys Professor Gupta said, “Do you want to stop for the monkey business or do you want to keep going?”, which is where the title of this post came from.

Our third and final kind of interaction with animals was with the ones that we could ride. I’m sure that one of the things most people were looking forward to were riding camels and elephants and that is exactly what we got to do. Our first chance was when we were on our way to the Taj Mahal and we were riding in carts pulled by camels. One by one we were able to climb up and ride on the camel’s back. It was slightly uncomfortable, but it was a camel so I didn’t care too much. The most exciting animal interaction was definitely the elephant ride, however. The entire group had just finished an exercise designed for us to get to know each other and so most of us were feeling very happy and we had also just eaten so that helped as well. Then we were free to roam the festival outside the hotel on our own and that is when we saw it; 30 rupee elephant rides (30 rupees is less than a dollar for those of you who don’t know). Me, Lauren, and Caitlin were the first ones to get on. Throughout the whole trip I felt like I was in Agrabah, which is where Aladdin lives, and when I got on the elephant the feeling grew even stronger so I began to sing “A Whole New World” at the top of my lungs and my fellow riders joined me in the end. An interesting fact about the elephants is that they have unpleasant stubble, just thought you should know. That episode was probably brought on because of the happiness that we were still feeling as well, but it was very fun and definitely one of the best moments in India. The picture of me with the elephant below isn’t when we sang, but this was just a better picture.

On a final note, two animals that we did not see were rats, which I am very happy about, and tigers. There was a tiger warning sign in the bird sanctuary that we visited so I was hoping that we would be lucky enough to see it, but we didn’t. I guess that can make us lucky, depending on which way you look at it. Either way, I learned a lot about the fauna indigenous to India.