Travel 2013: Indian Railway

A sheet on the sleeper car of the train - they all had dates they were made and the black slowly fades to gray over time

5.23, 1 a.m., night train to Goa

At 1 a.m. I learn the magic of the Indian Railway.  Even though the station smells of human urine, with sand bags and garbage lining the tracks, peppered with unshy rats, the station is still full of families travelling with luggage, sitting on the ground in the middle of the hot balmy night.  Every station prints a list of passengers that board there, with old-school printer paper with tabbed edges: here you consult your seat assignment. There were zero other identifiable foreigners and no women travelers unaccompanied by a man.

Travel 2013: Mumbai

5.22 - Mumbai

I’ve been wondering about race.  It’s clear that race is so connected to class in the U.S., and I’m pretty sure it’s not the same here.  I feel myself surprised to see darker Indians passing similarly (as far as I can tell) as the lighter skinned.  I asked about it during breakfast and received a history lesson/lecture on the caste system in India.  We also talked about the green revolution and GMOs, over a breakfast of small bananas (kela), sweet + mango jelly, mango jaggery + cheese sandwich, and my first chai.

Trying to get on the bus, I notice that Licia and I are not good at queues (lines) because everyone else pushes to the front, in any way possible – including using their children.  We have mostly gotten pushed to the back of the line because we’re too reserved to elbow people out of our way.  Also, personal space is smaller, and this is very clearly evidenced in driving.

Women are less prevalent in public spaces.  For example, on our full bus, there were 4 women. 

The feeling of sitting in the car with a kid tapping the window: a single pane(pain) of transparent glass separating and representing two wholly different worlds. Her barefoot in the street running into intersections with stopped cars, her face clearly dirtied and no sign of any parent/guardian, me sitting in A/C on fake leather car seat on my way somewhere with a $500 camera in my lap.

Travel 2013: Mumbai

People living in shacks and cooking over fire, taken out of a room with A/C and a flatscreen TV - click for more photos

5.21 - Mumbai

The first thing I smell in the morning is the faint but definitive thick scent of burning plastic.  The hard bed provided a balance of comfort and support to sleep well and not have an achy back.  We had the luxury of air conditioning for most of the night, but waking up without it means hot, frizzy hair and a grease-shined face.

Colonization here by the British is much different than it was in the U.S.  At least the way I see it, most Indians don’t bear physical resemblance to the British, whereas the majority of U.S. citizens have European descent – at least for now, before “latinos” take over the majority position.

My sister and I are staying at my friend’s parent’s (and grandparent’s) house, who own their own business.  They have a nice, clean, new car (where, by the way back seat belts are not compulsory and therefore do not have a hole to click it in to) and a big apartment – not crowded with stuff or technology. A wooden swing is the living/dining room separator – bars on the windows on the third floor.  Our temporary bedroom looks out to the construction of another neighboring tower. 

Uma asked us first thing in the morning what we’re doing still lounging in bed – “come out and make yourself at home.” She then proceeded to sweep the room and the rest of the house with a  small, short natural fiber broom. Breakfast was idly (kind of a soft rice paddy) and tomato coconut chutney; we talked about how globalization and development is, in the man of the house’s words “eroding the character of India.”

We took a $2 A/C bus with a TV and “tequila” song playing to downtown Mumbai. Building stories are propped up with bamboo and rebar sticking out like candles on the birthday cake for a 200 year old.  Extreme poverty butts up to the roadside: garbage, stray dogs, naked children squatting in the dirt.  The periodic rivers are littered with brightly colored plastic wrappers picked at by tall, leggy white shorebirds.  We mostly receive unabashed staring, kids’ warm, dark, curious eyes included, though not all are as friendly.

Travel 2013: Mumbai

HORN OK PLEASE, written on many trucks as a plea to notify the driver of intent to pass -- click for more pictures

5.20 - Mumbai, first impressions
Slums packed right up to the boundary of the airport, intense eye contact from male passersby, brightly colored traditional women's clothing, tropical plants and air that feels like an oven.  A thick mix of smog and humidity blankets the city.  Big trucks and buses that say HORN OK PLEASE on the back.  Many tuk tuks / autorickshaws buzz past driven by persistent shoeless men.

The smells of development - burning plastic, construction materials, underregulated vehicular exhaust - hint at a country eager to catch up in the global rat race to success and happiness.

Licia at India Gate - click for more photos

5.20
Spicy mango chutney and white processed, individually wrapped cheese on toast, with a juicy alfonso mango, banana cut into museli with warm milk which is somehow, deliciously, more like the consistency of oatmeal, a small cup of coffee with sugar and Tropicana pomegranate juice.  This was my first meal in India, prepared by a friend's mom, Uma, in her house in a northern suburb of Mumbai.  After, she gave us a tour of her shrine, just off the kitchen in their third floor apartment, naming off deities and gurus, "in Hindu households you always find a place for God," she says.

Uma hired a driver who drove us around for an air conditioned view of many sights of southern Mumbai - starting with the India Gate.  Built to commemorate British colonialization, there is no visible or audible hint of any hard feelings. There were lots of people, apparently kids are on school holiday.  Someone with a plastic film camera shot our picture.

We are objects of interest here.  Men stare penetratingly and make me wonder what they're looking for.  Sometimes they break eye contact first if I am able to convey no emotion on my face - a tough exterior which fights my U.S. reflexive smile as a response to two gazes meeting.  Their eyes don't betray anything I can read as desire to connect - no clear compassion, niceness, or willingness to stop for a chat.  I want to see how his expression changes as if I start conversation.

We crossed the street to the Taj hotel, now famous as the survivor of 2008 terrorist attacks.  We took refuge from the intense heat to a restaurant that overlooks the Gate inside the hotel had some traditional chaat (street food/snacks) served gourmet. When Uma insisted on paying, she said the mandate of "treating guests as your God."

Travel 2013: USA via Shanghai and Delhi to Mumbai

Leaving the U.S. - click for more photos

5.18
It's 1am and 4pm at the same time.  I'm about to land in Shanghai after a 13 hour flight backwards (or forward?) in time.  I've never been to Asia before.  I've been realizing lately that smiling/looking nice is something unique to U.S. superficial social interactions - when we make eye contact, we usually smile.  Or when we interact and then say thanks, we smile.  It seems weird to me when (especially women) don't smile back - after making eye contact.

We landed into Shanghai with so much air pollution.  You can smell the air metallic on the plain.  I watched a ping pong game in the airport to pass the 5 hour layover.

From Shanghai, I flew to New Delhi, met my sister at 3 am local time, and then caught another flight to Mumbai.  Now we're staying with my friend's parents in a northern suburb.

Acting in Triplicate?

Seeing triple?


Michael Bluth (aka Jason Bateman)


Malcolm Reynolds (aka Nathan Fillion)


Marty McFly (aka Michael J. Fox)

Also, all of the characters names start with 'M'. Coincidence? I think not.

photo series: costa rican graffiti, part 6

De pie C.R. NO AL TLC

On your feet, CR, no to the TLC

On a statue near La Sabana park in San Jose

Slow.

photo series: costa rican graffiti, part 5

i really like the colors in this picture:
"el gobierno hace a los ricos mas ricos y a los pobres mas pobres."
english: the government makes the rich richer and the poor poorer.
(also all of the 'a's are anarchy symbols)

here's another one. i like the placement, someone rising up and shouting.
in the buffalo winter, i miss all the tropical plants, too.

mentira lo que dice | what's said is a lie
mentira lo que da | what's given is a lie
mentira lo que hace | what's done is a lie
mentira lo que va | what happens is a lie
. . .
todo es mentira en este mundo | everything is this world is a lie

just now i'm listing to manu chao's mentira (song). here are the lyrics. this doesn't include the news-like clips at the end that speak of the US emitting a quarter of the world's greenhouse gasses and not taking any action (like kyoto) to stop it. i don't understand the world we live in, nor the country i was born into.

Gendered TED

'ingenious' - click for bigger version

check out the genders of the people on TEDs 'beautiful' and 'ingenious' tags. a friend and i were looking at the videos tagged 'ingenious' on TED and noticed that they're *all* men, and i jokingly said that 'beautiful' would be all women. unfortunately it was.

'beautiful' - click for bigger version

i'm not trying to place blame on TED or anything, because i'm pretty sure these are user-generated tags, just pointing out (because someone should) that it's a little sexist...

photo series: costa rican graffiti, part 4

i know all 0 of you dedicated readers have been anxiously awaiting my next post, so here it is:

che has become a ubiquitous symbol on this continent. no wonder someone decided to graffiti on a soccer stadium. region brunca is the san isidro de general valley i think, the southern quarter of costa rica.

photo series: costa rican graffiti, part 3

n o   a l   T L C
perez zeledon/san isidro de general
estadio futbol stadium

photo series: costa rican graffiti, part 2

a lot of them refer to the TLC, which translates to tratado de libre comercio, or CAFTA in english. within the past few years, there had been a very close (nearly 50% split) vote on whether costa rica should pass the TLC. a common reason people we talked to said they voted for it was that they were scared of possible loss of trade resulting from not signing.

photo series: costa rican graffiti, part 1

i took a bunch of pictures of graffiti when i was in costa rica this past summer, and i'll be posting them to my blog in the coming few days.

not god or love

Knit Mitten!

I made this! It was my first mitten and first time I used double pointed needles. So I just finished the pair and I'm working on a second one for someone else. Getting ready for winter.

Good icebreaker

Just ran across this browsing random design blogs...an icebreaker where everyone answers "I can teach you..."

Here's the flickr set.

Don't forget!

Fall!

The sugar maple leaves around here are beautiful!