day two: the official day i first broke something. well at least that first has now passed.

friday was rather amusing. long and amusing. i think it was my last day of jet lag, finally. i woke at 630 in the morning and after we finally decided on a plan for the day, chrissy, rhee and i made a most ridiculous attempt at p90x kenpo in the living room. our limbs flailing about awkwardly as the cheesy video instructor sputtered on and on, we looked like such a fail at a united benneton of colors ad. the white girl, the indian and the hawaiian doing p90x in the living room like a bunch of middle-aged housewives. to be fair, it was probably rather adorable but also kind of not so much.

i definitely had my first unexpected "i am not in a first world country anymore" moment. so, you go to india and you expect to be shocked by the levels of poverty, the beauty that is so heavily streaked with tragedy, and the differences that cannot be described to their fullest ever; what you forget is how the simple things will affect you.

ohhh like maybe needing to shower, the driver coming in about thirty minutes, and the water completely turned off. water and power turning off is pretty normal. the water's been turning off every day since i've gotten here but i think a lot of that has to do with five people being in the space showering, cooking, washing, etc.

anyways, i mentioned the p90x, right? yeaaa. i felt sweaty and gross and totally wanted a shower. i think i was in the middle of doing something or other so i told everyone else to shower first. then the water shutoff. ok. well, we had like an hour and a half left before it was time to leave so that was ok. i could wait and work with that. arun called and they said ten minutes so, no big.

then we ate.

then the water was still off. there was an hour left. called and was told ten minutes. there was fortyfive minutes left. called and was told ten minutes. there was a half hour left. called and was told ten minutes. the water, still not on.

the resolution? i had a water bottle, a washcloth, and fifteen minutes in the bathroom to "make it work", as mr. tim gunn would say. really, it was more amusing than anything else. i will not make a comment on the things we take for granted in the states; that fact is overstated and overused. instead, i will say it is really a testament to humanity's resilience and creativity when there are so many things that might seem like rather blatant obstacles to one group of people and are just blips on the radar that need new ways of being worked around.

maybe i see these things in not a harsh light because at many points in my life, i've come from america's version of poor and struggling. it is not the same but the instincts developed and situations presented are very similar.

anyhow, so friday was the day i showered with a water bottle. hottttt.

arun needed to do work so rheea called a driver and he came to drive us around for the day. it's funny how pretentious that sounds [trust me, i thought so too when rheea would say such things to me over the phone while i was still in the states] but, in all reality, it is nothing of the sort. you call a service, a man comes to the house, he drives your car around all day for you for cheaper than one taxi ride, and everything is dandy. the part that i found most interesting is that the concept requires an immense amount of trust, right? like, we'd go somewhere, get out, and rhee would tell our driver that she'd call him when we were finish and she'd suggest somewhere for him to park the car. in america, you'd think, i don't know this dude from adam and he is going to jack my car.

no. this is not the case here. seriously. we were with this driver from like... 3pm-11pm, all day, basically... and that didn't even seem to be an underlying issue. not at all. we easily went to 3-4 different places and he always parked the car after dropping us off, never went for a joyride in between, and always returned with the car when rheea called. it's interesting because over the past few days we've been talking about india's lack of foresight in efficiency planning and slapdash work ethic in addressing needs that could've easily been met with some precursory planning (roads that would be needed with new tech parks being built and traffic thus being exponentially increased, etc etc) BUT while there may at times be a lack of pride and care taken in physical labor jobs there seems to instead be a moral code that is more unquestioningly adhered to. in fact, something happened saturday that made this seem even more true. but i'll get to that later.

anyhow, we went to a shiv mandir. "mandir" means temple and shiva is the hindu god of destruction. before we got there, rheea warned that this particular temple was very commercialized.

she was not kidding. first off, every few feet there is something new to be charged for. the route through the temple is lined off the way a disneyland ride would be, with steel gates to filter through and a kitschy cave filled with sad attempts at replicating different holy locations around india.

the crowd was mostly indian, which surprised chrissy and i, given that the whole thing felt more amusement park-like than spiritual. when we asked rheea about it, she said that most often this place was frequented by the hardcore shiva followers and by foreigners. ethnically indian but still foreigners nonetheless.

tokens of offering

doesn't it look like a disneyland ride? no joke, right?

shiva, hindu god of destruction and war.

the foundation who curates this temple hung cheesy, "spiritual" quotes throughout the entire walk. quotes imploring people to be moral and good... but not in a real, humanity-inspired sort of way. not at all.

on our way out, we passed by this group of girls that must've just gotten out of school- gathered around, laughing and snacking on fruit and corn they had just bought from one of the street vendors. they were so vibrant and joyful and real. beautiful.

on the way to commercial street so nick and chrissy could finish some shopping [they both were leaving bangalore in just two days time], there were these two boys moving red dirt in the street divide, piling it up higher and higher. i was somewhat entranced. everyone else didn't understand what the big deal was. "they're just doing their work, rachel." but i don't know. watching them lift a small woven bowl of red dirt ten feet in the middle of the afternoon in a somewhat languid fashion.... i don't know. something about it made me feel at peace. you know what i mean? like when you watch somebody working so mindlessly and yet consistently... i guess i just felt like they were doing this job in the middle of a hectic road in the middle of a friday afternoon in bangalore but really, in their heads, both of these young men were millions of miles away... worrying about their families, daydreaming about young women, wishing for something, somewhere, somebody.... i don't know. just... something about this for me.

we did some shopping on commercial street. i was a winner and totally broke something. i was looking at this absolutely beautiful bowl that was more like a jar actually. well, until i broke the cover, that is. smashed into bits on the ground. of course, this meant i spent 2000 rupees [around 40 bucks] on a coverless bowl. don't get me wrong. it's beautiful and i had at least two people in mind for it possibly... but not in the price range i would've wanted and missing a quarter of what is supposed to be there is kind of massively lame. but, such is life. correction, such is my life.

nearing the end of our shopping excursion, chrissy also got her nose pierced in this tiny little shop that rheea frequents for her piercings.

pieces of the top, next to the beautiful but damaged bowl. le sigh.

chrissy's nose piercing. she said it was relatively painless and extremely quick.

i noticed that the later it got, the more people there were everywhere.

we ended the night at this bar, B Flat, in indira nagar, listening to this beautiful blues group called Soulmate. seriously, look them up. the woman's voice is gorgeous and her husband can play like nobody's business.

seriously, Soulmate, look them up. very talented. word.