In the meantime, we’ve been busy here – a lot of people flew out of Hyderabad today, and so I spent the morning saying goodbye to everyone. Since we ended up being at home for Thanksgiving, we had a really wonderful little dinner with all our friends; working as team, we were able to cook pesto pasta, gazpacho, fruit salad, and even cookies (without an oven!). I know it’s not traditional Thanksgiving food, but in a country without turkey and working without an oven, I thought it was pretty good. I did take pictures, but unfortunately I won’t have time to put them up before I leave. There were about 25 of us around the table, and if you take into account the fact that I wasn’t with any of my family or friends that I’ve known more than five months, it was one of the nicest holidays I’ve ever spent. My friend Matt, the MVP of the night, even found us a pumpkin pie! It was not recognizable as anything we know as pumpkin pie, but it was still delicious.

The next night, in the spirit of cultural exchange, I tried cooking a (very) makeshift Thanksgiving dinner for my host family.  I was pretty limited in the sense that, in addition to the problems mentioned above, my family is totally vegetariand doesn’t eat even eggs; also, I didn’t have time to head to the faraway import grocery stores that we had used for the night before to get things like cheese and whole wheat bread. I put together something resembling garlic mashed potatoes, steamed carrots, and sauteed cauliflower.  I tried to explain how inadequate a replica of the holiday that is, but they seemed to like it anyways. While we’re talking about my host family, today I went with them to both a housewarming ceremony and a wedding! We didn’t stay at either of them for long, but it was a fun experience in being able to move around the city in a more authentic way – I didn’t have to worry about arguing for a fair price with rickshaw drivers, figuring out where I was going, or having to explain to everyone I met who I was and what I was doing in India. Spending time with locals is eye-opening; sometimes we forget how much our experience of India and Hyderabad is informed by the fact that we’re clearly foreigners. I’m really grateful that my host family gives me the opportunity to get away from that a little bit, and that they are such great people in general. I’ll be glad to go home, but I’ll also really miss them.

I’ll arrive back in Hyderabad on the 4th of December, pretty late at night. My flight home leaves at 9:30 pm from Hyderabad on the 6th. Basically, a week from now, I’ll be home. The weather report today said it was 30 degrees in Boston; I don’t think it’s been below 60 the entire time I’ve been in India. It’ll be pretty crazy to come back to that, but it’s also going to be wonderful. I can’t wait to see you all soon!

You might have heard about the terrorist attacks in Mumbai last night and this morning, specifically targeting transportation and hotels with foreigners, where hostages holding Western passports were taken. I got woken up at 6 am by my host mom, waving  a cell phone and saying “You not go Bombay!” Clearly, I won’t be. I am not sure yet what my plans are now for the rest of my time in India, as Mumbai is a pretty essential gateway to get anywhere north of here, but I wanted you to know I’m safe and I don’t plan on going anywhere near there. Thanks for checking on me!

I’m sorry that’s all I can write! I’ll make sure to let you know when I get back to Hyderabad safely. I miss you all; I’ll see you so soon!

Vijayawada is about six hours from Hyderabad, which sounds convenient, right? It is in fact kind of irritating, in that we caught the train at 11 pm and got in to the city around 5 am. Usually an overnight train ride gives you a pretty solid 8 hours of sleep, but not this time. Also interesting was that even though Vijayawada was the closest I’ve traveled to Hyderabad, there were almost more differences in daily life than in other states I’ve been in. For instance, although we ended up traveling around most of the time by auto-rickshaw, just like we do in Hyderabad, Vijayawada also has plenty of regular, non-auto rickshaws:

These seem to me like you would just spend the entire ride feeling awful about the work you were making the driver do, but I saw plenty of people being pedaled around all weekend. Also, one of our guidebooks made the point that they’re much more environmentally friendly than autos, which don’t comply with any emissions standards anywhere. It’s nice that you have something to feel guilty about either way. Another fun thing was the street food; snacks from roadside vendors, or “chaat”, are popular all over India. It’s an interesting thing to try when you travel, because it’s a little different in every city. Hyderabad has a lot of bhel puri and sev puri; Bangalore and Mysore have excellent pani puri, and in Mumbai we ate delicious pav bhaji. In Vijayawada, we found something we’d never seen before: tomato bhaji, which is a battered and deep-fried tomato.

Vijayawada was also interesting in that since it’s probably the least touristy area we’ve visited so far, it was totally free of vendors, con artists, and fake “guides” to the monuments in the area; on the other hand, though, Batia and I really couldn’t go anywhere without causing a scene, we stuck out so much. For the most part people were friendly, but it was irritating sometimes too; we had to leave one site, the Undavalli Cave Temples, earlier than we would have liked because we couldn’t get away from a group of children begging for a photo with us. At the same time, though, we got to see some cool stuff. The first place we visited was the Gunadala Matha shrine, otherwise known as St. Mary’s Church. This is a Catholic church built for Our Lady of Lourdes; behind the church itself is a small mountain which features an iron cross and a shrine to the Virgin Mary at the top. We got there early in the morning, after our train got in, and climbed all the way up. This isn’t a great picture, but you can kind of see the church at the bottom, and the trail cutting up the side of the mountain behind it:

Later on the same day, we headed to a different religious site: the famous Karnaka Durga Temple, on the holy Krishna River. Also set on top of a mountain, this was much busier; it was later in the day, and people travel from all over South India to visit this place. It’s said that long ago, Vijayawada was threatened by demons, and the goddess Durga came and defended them; this huge temple was built in gratitude to her. It was an interesting experience for us; we were pretty clearly American, and so got ushered through the “VVIP” entrance and encouraged to cut ahead of the long line of actual worshippers. It made us pretty uncomfortable, and we didn’t stay inside the temple long; it feels inappropriate to be there just looking when there are people trying to perform puja right next to you. I didn’t take pictures for the same reason; it felt really disrespectful. But you can see the route we took up the mountain, with the river behind it, as well as the huge thirty-foot Om sign that advertises the temple from afar.

On Sunday, our last day in the city, we took a short trip out of the urban area to see the Undavalli Caves Temples. They’re in an absolutely gorgeous location; it’s amazing in India how quickly you can leave a cramped, polluted, dirty city and be in a rural expanse that stretches for miles, with rice paddies and palm trees and lush green fields. The temples themselves were some of the nicest I’ve seen in India, which is saying a lot; ancient Indians were really into cave temples. Some of the carvings are of Hindu deities, and some glorify Buddha; the four different levels each contain different things, and the view from the top is incredible.

In a few hours I’m leaving for Hampi, a town of ancient ruins that’s also not too far from Hyderabad. We’ll have a relaxing few days there, and not too long after I get back I’m leaving for my final trip; a six-day tour of Mumbai (again), Udaipur, Jaipur, and Agra, home of the Taj Mahal. It will probably be kind of exhausting, but I’ll have a day or so to rest before my flight home on the 6th. It’s unbelievable how little time I have left here – I know it seems like all I’ve been doing is traveling, and I know I don’t have a lot about Hyderabad here or my daily life. It’s just that with only a few weeks left, I really want to see as much of India as I can. Wish me luck! I miss you all, and I can’t wait to see you soon!

Last night, a small group of us from CIEE went to the name ceremony held by one of our program coordinators, Kavitha. A name ceremony is held three or six or nine or any other number of months after the baby’s birth, depending upon where in India you are. It does involve some ritual and some puja, but mostly it’s a way to let the people in your life meet the baby. Also, it was an excuse for us to dress up. I got to wear a sari for the first time since I’ve been in India, and everyone else looked good too!

We got there a little late and missed the actual, you know, name ceremony part of the name ceremony. But we were there for the cradle ceremony, in which we all helped rock the baby in her crib and sang to her, and of course the delicious dinner afterwards. Also, maybe it goes without saying, but Kavitha’s baby is super cute.

All in all, it was a really fun time, and really good to see Kavitha again – she’s been on leave for the last few months, and we all like her a lot.

Also, one last thing – this isn’t really related, but in another recent function (a dinner hosted by CIEE) someone finally took a picture of my host family, or at least my host parents. Here’s me with Amma and Professor Ramanarasimham, as well as my housemate Kaitlyn. (Sorry about the photo quality!)

They aren’t really dour and stiff in real life; it’s not customary to smile for pictures in India, unless you are young and hip and imitating Western ways.

Okay, it’s about a half an hour til my train leaves – I should go. But I’ll write about it when I get back! Only three weeks or so til I come home. I miss you all!

I spent Diwali with my host family in our little township; all night while we were eating dinner, there was the deafening noise of explosions and machine-gun-like crackles from the houses around ours, most of which have small children. After we ate, our host parents gave us some little firecrackers and sparklers to play with – they’re a little too old for things like this, but they thought it might be fun for us. We had a really nice time, and everything looked so beautiful – our house was decorated with electric lights and the more traditional diyas, tiny clay lamps that light with a wick in oil. (There are, as always, more pictures on Flickr.)

Just a few days afterwards, on Halloween, my friends Lindsay and Batia and I hopped on a train to go to Pondicherry. One has to take a train to Chennai first, and then find a bus or some other form of transportation to Pondicherry, which is a little farther down in Tamil Nadu. (Fun fact: all of the buses to the city are labeled with the shortened name “Pondy.” We thought this sounded a little silly.) All in all, it took maybe 16-18 hours of travel, with the train and bus both. We arrived in the “Pondy” bus station around noon or so. First we found a place to stay – we ended up at the Park Guest House, which is associated with the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. I’d really recommend it if you ever find yourself in Pondicherry. We got a beautiful room (sorry I didn’t take pictures) for all three of us for only Rs 200, or about US $4. After we had dropped our bags off, we were ready to take Pondicherry by storm.

The draw of Pondicherry – well, first of all, it’s a beautiful little city by the beach, and good for a relaxing weekend on the seashore. But more interestingly, it was part of the small region of India that was colonized by the French once upon a time, and so it still retains certain aspects of French culture. A lot of it struck us as a little contrived, designed to appeal to Western tourists – for instance, the availability of croissants and pain au chocolat for breakfast, or the sign over our guest house door that said “Bonjour!” (Not that I’m complaining; I can’t tell you how happy I was to find a baguette after four months of roti.) There are also some beautiful churches and cathedrals, though; like Goa, Pondicherry is one of those places in India where the Christian faith of the colonizers has remained long after they’ve gone. There’s also some “French-inspired” architecture; to be honest, none of the buildings here struck me as particularly French, but they definitely didn’t look Indian, either.

To be honest, a lot of our trip was spent on fairly indulgent things – eating and shopping. But in our defense, Pondicherry is a good city for both. After four months of Indian food, I was able to find pizza, baguettes, croissants, cheese, French onion soup, and avocadoes. That’s quite an accomplishment, really. It’s also a great city for antiques, silks, jewelry, and Indian handicrafts – if I had put a little effort in, I could have spent a lot more money than I did. As it is, I came back with some really obscenely beautiful silk scarves; I passed on designer clothes, home furnishings, jewelry, and antique Indian art.

Other things I passed up on: one of the major attractions of Pondicherry is its proximity to Auroville. This place sounds incredibly interesting, but with all the travel time we ended up not having time to go. Other friends of ours who have visited here have a lot of interesting stories – the community functions without money, and relies instead on its members to donate their work and talents. On the other hand, though, you have to pay a fee if you want to visit it. It’s supposed to be an impressive example of socialism working in the real world to the extent no one ever though possible, but at the same time they’ve recently erected a huge monument of solid gold in the middle of town to commemorate its founding. Its residents apparently believe that as a group, they represent a new phase of human evolution that all of us will eventually reach and are leading the way to a new age, which sounds kind of questionable; but the same people have a really clear-cut, pragmatic, and effective system of creating high-quality handicrafts and then selling them to the outside to support themselves. It sounds fascinating, and I’d recommend checking it out if you’re ever in the area. Unfortunately, we just didn’t get the chance.

Upon returning to Hyderabad, we were faced with the impending prospect of the SIP Program Cultural Night. Apparently every semester the foreign students studying on campus are expected to put together a performance for the rest of the university in which we showcase aspects of our home culture, or demonstrate what skills and talents we’ve developed since coming to India. For instance, since I’ve been taking sitar lessons for the past three months, I was expected to perform the little raga we’ve learned along with the rest of our class. Other friends of mine performed Kuchipudi or Kathak dance; other groups played a Bob Dylan song on acoustic guitar or sang Western choral music in a quartet. I was pretty nervous about it as it approached, but it went really well. Since I was busy performing, I didn’t take many pictures, but I have a few from the preparations backstage. My friends Lindsay and Amanda were both part of the Kuchipudi performance, which involves a really epic amount of makeup and costuming. Lindsay was also in our sitar portion, which meant that she ended up playing sitar in full costume.

As I write this, I’m taking a break from the two papers that I also have up on the screen, both of which are due in a few days. I also have two tests coming up, and finals after that. The semester is almost over here; I’m looking forward to being done with school, but it also means that my workload is a little crazy. I need to get a lot done before I go traveling next weekend; I still have trips to Vijayawada, Hampi, and Kerala planned. Only four weeks left to do it all! Wish me luck! I miss all of you, and I can’t wait to see you again.

For instance, falafel:

This turned out to be one of the most delicious things I have ever eaten; possibly it seemed extra good because we had just spent like an hour and a half grinding chickpeas with a mortar and pestle, but still. Even without hummus, really good!

Also pretty good: pancakes.

And buckeyes, which I had never made before but turned out to be almost alarmingly simple:

It was great for us to get to eat some familiar foods, and my host family was excited about the leftovers when they came home from their trip!

In an hour or so we’re leaving to catch a train to Pondicherry, a beautiful coastal town to the south of here. I’ll let you know how it goes! And please, I know I’ve said it already, but make sure you vote this week if you’re in the States. I miss you all!

After getting off the train, we first headed to a local temple in Mysore. It’s a World Heritage Site, but unfortunately I can’t remember what it was called, or anything other than that it’s dedicated to Vishnu. Here are some photos!

Following a nice lunch, we headed to a demonstration of traditional Indian pottery and straw mat-weaving, as well as slightly less traditional clay idol-making. Unfortunately, my camera wasn’t working at that point in the evening, so no photos. After it got dark, we had time to wander around Mysore for a little while before going to bed. It’s a beautiful city, and I wish I could have spent more time in it.

The next morning, we were up bright and early to go visit the Mysore Palace, which is beautiful and totally worth seeing if you’re in the area. Unfortunately, photography isn’t allowed outside, so the only pictures I have are from far away:

We didn’t get to spend a lot of time in Karnataka, but what we did see was beautiful. If I had time, I would definitely go back before I left India.

Speaking of leaving India – that’s happening really soon! I have about six weeks left here; in one sense, that is a long time. Compared to the sixteen or so that I’ve already been here, though, it feels like nothing. I’m really excited about seeing everyone again, but I still have a lot of things I want to do and see before I go home. I should probably get started on those.

I’d really love to get to vote before I go home; we’re all getting antsy watching the polls jump up and down. But since my ballot never made it here, and it’s now too late to use an emergency ballot, I don’t think I’ll be able to. It’s really frustrating for me, as this is my first presidential election where I’m of voting age, and I’m really concerned about the results. I may not get to vote, but there’s no reason you shouldn’t; please make the most of the privilege, and make sure to show up at the polls for whichever candidate you support.

So our group – Anna, Madolyn, Batia and I – left around 9 pm on Tuesday night for what would turn out to be a fifteen-hour train ride, and got into the old Victoria Terminus in Mumbai around 1 in the afternoon on Wednesday. We didn’t have a lot of time in the city, so after grabbing a quick lunch and consulting our map, we headed towards Crawford Market, which sells (among other things) fruits and vegetables from all over the world.

We were able to find mangoes (which I hadn’t eaten so far in India; we came here just at the end of the season) and more exotic fruits, like custard apples and mangosteens. So delicious! It was nice to get something other than the mostly fried food we eat at home.

Afterwards, we split up into two groups: Anna and Madolyn went off into Colaba, the touristy district of the city, and Batia and I headed for the Magen David Synagogue. Wednesday night through Thursday was Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar and the most important holiday of the year; there are no synagogues in Andhra Pradesh, so Batia had to come all the way to Mumbai to celebrate it. We stayed at a really nice hotel, the Sassoon House, which was in the same compound as the synagogue; we went to services Wednesday night, and all of Thursday. I don’t speak any Hebrew, but the people were really welcoming and the synagogue was beautiful, so it was a nice time all around.

There’s one other synagogue in Mumbai, the Keneseth Eliyahoo. We didn’t get to see it, but I’m told it’s the same color blue – they were built by the same family generations ago. The inside is even more beautiful, but I couldn’t take pictures during services.

The next day, we were joyfully reunited with Anna and Madolyn – in our day apart, they had managed to become extras in a Bollywood movie! So jealous! If you want to try to see them, look for “Do Not Disturb.” It comes out in January, and honestly will probably not be a big hit in either India or America. (Sorry, guys.) Friday was our last full day in the city, so we tried to make the most of it, with limited success. We wasted two and a half hours finding a hotel, and afterwards headed to Elefanta Island, one of the most popular tourist sites around Mumbai.

Elefanta is one of the many small islands near Mumbai, a port city; it served as a watchtower for the Portuguese when they colonized the area, and also houses some ancient cave carvings of the Hindu deity Shiva. It’s about an hour’s ferry ride away, and the boat leaves from the Gateway to India, one of the other important monuments in the area:

This arch was built to welcome a British monarch coming to check on his colony; ironically, 24 years later, it was also used as the point of departure when the British left India forever. Now it’s a convenient meeting point on the waterfront, and full of vendors trying to sell you jewelry, photos, postcards, and inexplicably, giant balloons.

The ferry ride was long, but refreshing for a hot day. And when we finally made it to the island, we had a long walk ahead of us.

The thing about Elefanta Island is that it is essentially a large hill poking up out of the water – I mean, I guess that’s true of any island, but my point is that you get off the boat at the lowest point, and in order to get anywhere at all you have to walk up. We spent a good half hour climbing up stairs while vendors attempted to sell us t-shirts, jewelry, figurines, bags, food, postcards, etc. It was worth it, though, for the most part. These weren’t the nicest caves I’ve seen so far in India, but they were beautiful nonetheless:

And if the caves weren’t exciting enough, the island also had the boldest monkey population of anywhere in India I’ve been so far. They were actually pretty mean, at least some of them; but they were also pretty cute.

We were exhausted after a long hot day climbing around, but we still found it within ourselves to go out for a little while that night. It was nice to be able to wander around after dark and find stuff to do; Hyderabad is decidedly a city that sleeps, as opposed to New York – or Mumbai, which comes a little closer to never sleeping. We still turned in pretty early, but we got to see a lot of Colaba first.

The next day was Saturday, and our train left at 12:45 pm. We had just enough time to get breakfast and coffee and then stop by Crawford Market again for some fruit to eat on the train. On the way, we walked by the Oval Maidan, a huge green in the middle of the city where there are several cricket games going on all at once. I wish we could have stopped for longer to watch. As it was, though, we got a fair amount of stuff done in only a few days.

Mumbai overall: a really nice city! It’s more like the major cities of Europe or America than other places I’ve been in India, in a nice way. For instance, there are sidewalks, and fewer beggars who will physically accost you. It’s a little more expensive, but prices are still pretty reasonable, and there are lots of great restaurants and places to visit. I wish we could have stayed longer, honestly. I think it would be a great place to start if you’ve never been to India before. It’s known as a slum-filled and overcrowded city, and there are districts like that, but the areas we stayed in (Byculla and Colaba) are pretty clean, spacious, and well-maintained. I’d love to go back and try being a Bollywood extra one more time!

It’s getting to that point where I don’t actually have that much time left in India; a little under two months remain at this point. I still have a lot of traveling left to do, and it’s going to be hard to get to all the places I want to see (Puducherry, Hampi, Vijayawada) and still get all my schoolwork done – it’s kind of starting to pile up. But this weekend CIEE is taking us on an all-expenses-paid trip to Mysore and Bangalore, so at least I don’t have to worry about planning that. I’ll be sure to tell you all about it when I get back! I miss all of you!