having run a slight fever off and on for three days
and not following any pattern of illness that i am familiar with
i retreated to chennai for a dose of doctoring and Olympics

medical care, indian style:

on the advice of a friend, i phoned up lister metropolis
like a genie, the technician magically appeared
at my hotel room just one hour later
it cost two dollars for the house (hotel) call
they take as many samples of as many body fluids as you care to part with
and you can order as many lab tests as you want
(well, up to 400 plus) in whatever flavor you want
this really eliminates the middleman (apologies to any middlemen who might be reading)
i was like a kid in a candy store
but limited myself to just two: malaria and typhoid
i paid the phlebotomist, who was efficient and competent,  
430 rupees (seven dollars for the samples, 2 dollars for the house call)
with the receipt in my hand i went to lister the next morning in a rickshaw
they printed out the report and handed it to me in a sealed envelope

in terms of cost, convenience, and instant gratification, this scheme can’t be beat!
plus the added entertainment of playing doctor
(y’all know how i love to practice my diagnostic skills on family and friends

as well as myself)

oh yeah, i tested negative

Maybe my conversation with P. in Bombay sums it up the best.  P. and M. are Jains.  P. had asked me what religion I was and I said I still hadn’t decided. Then he asked me if I ever asked for help when I was in trouble– praying for help. I said yes, I pray for help whenever I am in trouble. When he asked me how often I prayed, I said, well, I need help EVERY DAY.

welcome to Camp Auroville, a Summer Camp for Adults in India.

the only hitch is that none of the other campers have arrived yet, and all the counselors seem to have gone AWOL. the camp director met me in her housedress on sunday and said don’t bother me unless it is urgent.

i am on spacious rural grounds (i saw a mongoose hanging about) surrounded by gargantuan unfinished concrete buildings with stairways ending in midair, their sole residents, lizards.

Camp Life so far:

picnic lunch on bicycleback
picnic dinner on campus
after dinner i sang “the mongoose went over the culvert”
then i played charades (i won)
then i told scary stories around the candle
then i read with my flashlight under the covers after lights out

longer letter later

I’ve imagined for a while now that eventually they will microchip our brains and we will no longer have need for speech as we will communicate with eachother feed to feed (as imagined by M.T. Anderson in his book Feed). Our vocal cords will atrophy and shrivel up in a similar fashion to the appendix, whose original purpose is now anyone’s guess. India, whose ancient roots impart a subtle layer of sophistication to all she endeavors, has already perfected this form of communication, skipping the microchip step entirely.

To wit: I have a brief conversation with Rama one evening about two shirts of mine which should have arrived back from the laundry. but have gone missing. The next evening when I return from work, Parthi is standing in the courtyard.

We lock eyes.
I raise my eyebrows, tilt my head, and look hopeful.
He wobbles his head.
He goes into the closet and hands me my shirts.
I hand him twenty rupees.

End of conversation.
No microchip.
Just India.

i am glad to hear from people as i have been feeling a bit blue these last couple of days
i am staying in mamallapuram, but i really hate it here
going today to look for digs in real india down the road
i can’t get an indian meal here, and it is overrun with the most obnoxious tourists imaginable
and amazingly they are not americans (whom i thought had cornered the market on ugly)!
yesterday i saw 4 grown men, at least 40 years of age, old enough to know better,
hopping up and down on a beached fishing boat, trying to overturn it end over end
then posing for eachother in “cool” poses
whether they could actually damage the boat or not is immaterial – the disrespect shown for a fisherman’s livelihood was so offensive to me i nearly went over there to tell them to stop
but natural caution and common sense took over and told me to stay out of it

this place is not india

it is some kind of disney theme park

thank god my project starts today

On traffic:
For any of you who have ever spent time in a large Asian city, you know how congested and polluted they are. I hereby nominate Hyderabad for first prize in traffic congestion (my comparison cities are New Delhi, Bombay, Agra, Port-au-prince). Imagine Boston at its very worst rush hour. that is what the NON-RUSH hour times are like. now imagine four rush hours each day (yes, morning, noon, school release, and evening) where the congestion doubles and you cannot breathe from the pollution. that is Hyderabad!

On crossing the street:
Truly the most dangerous endeavor here is crossing a street. no streetlights, no crosswalks, and no right of way of the pedestrian. the pedestrian is forced to wander out in the traffic and dodge and weave until arriving on the other side. I do not have the stomach for this, so the solution I’ve developed is to look for a competent looking Indian human who is preparing to cross. I rush over and sidle right up next to him or her and stick like a burdock until safely across.

In the news lately:
The big flap in the Indian papers just now is that there was a huge confidence/no confidence vote in parliament on monday, the left leaning towards no confidence, spurred on by the looming Indo-American nuclear deal. The right won handily with a vote of confidence, so the pm is victorious amidst howls of rage all around about foul and corruption. many mp’s were bribed to vote against the whip, and a number of these were caught and thrown out of their party. the indians I have spoken with said politics like this are very common, so this is business as usual here, but indians are disgusted with the corruption.

On pan:
I tried pan – ladies’ pan is sweet – I wanted to like it, truly I did, but the jolt of rose perfume was so unexpected it caught me by surprise, and you have to bundle the whole leaf around the whole wad and stuff it all in your mouth at once, and really, all opinions to the contrary notwithstanding, I don’t really have a big enough mouth to accomplish this!

Here is a custom I have really warmed up to: drinking hot tea when it it 90+ degrees outside. The tea is milky and sweet, and curiously refreshing, even when you are standing outside in the sweltering heat.

On Gandhi:
I am reading a biography of Gandhi (actually not badly written, by Louis Fischer in 1951) and thought this an interesting fact:

Gandhi went to South Africa to practice law and said to his wife ‘I am just coming,’ meaning to return to India in one year’s time. after his year was up, he bought his ticket home and the day before he was supposed to leave he read in the newspaper that the South African government was proposing to take away many rights of indians in s.a. gandhi said to his friends, you have to fight against this, and they said, we’re not as forceful as you are, we need you, so Gandhi stayed 20 years. Wonder what his wife thought…

I have had two Indians in the last two days tell me that I am too polite. Indians see it as a weakness and take advantage of it. come to think of it, so have americans, on many occasions.

In the spirit of self-improvement, I have resolved to start being rude every chance I get. It’s very refreshing – y’all who have my same problem should try it out some time. I barked at a bunch of people today, and it was not only miraculously effective, it really cleared my sinuses. I highly recommend it.