New Year's in a new place

Well, we moved into the new building a few days ago. It was an upgrade in terms of comfort, but since the building was just finished, the internet hasn’t been working yet. It's still not working, but I got desperate and hiked to the library with my friends. As luck would have it, the roommate that they assigned me was my friend Brenda from Occidental, so we’ve been having fun in our new little room. The building is a pretty accommodating dorm, I’d go so far as to say it’s nicer than the Oxy dorm I had freshman year. So far the only issue that we have all had to get used to is the showers. The showers themselves are pretty nice, but cold…The explanation that we were given is that the water is “solar heated.” This does not mean that there is a solar-panel heating system rather, that the water is stored in big black cisterns above the building so the water is only hot if the sun is shining. That means you don’t want to take a shower in the morning…or the evening…

I want to tell you all about the campus but I’ll do it later.

On New Year’s eve the major event of the day was a shopping trip to a swanky store called “FabIndia.” The store is in a neighborhood of Hyderabad called “Banjara Hills” and many of us are wondering if it has any connection to Beverly Hills…the two look about the same. The area is completely secluded from the crowds, the noise, and the poverty seen in the rest of the city, and while in the majority of the city the streets are crowded by “auto rickshaws,” motorcycles and rusty pick-up trucks the streets of Banjara hills are populated by BMW’s. FabIndia is what Pottery Barn would be like if they sold traditional Indian clothing. The study abroad program paid for us to buy two traditional outfits. The women’s outfit is called a “salwar kameez” and consists of three pieces: funny pants which I can’t remember the names of, a long tunic-like shirt called a “kurta” and a giant scarf called a “dupatta.” Everything is made of super thin cotton so they work well in extremely hot weather. It was an elaborate process to get all 28 students outfitted especially since according to the sales women none of us have any concept of what matches.

All dressed up and looking like a very silly group of white kids, we left FabIndia for New Year’s dinner at a nice restaurant. Ever the graceful one, I stumbled past a chair immediately upon entering the restaurant and ripped a very sizable hole in my new kurta. Pity.

Dinner was the first time any of us had eaten “real” Indian food. The cafeteria at school serves really delicious food but they know we are Americans so they make everything about half as spicy as it is supposed to be. This dinner was spicy. At the end of the meal we were given little banana leaves rolled into pods to cleanse our spice-burned palettes. The little pods contained coconut, and some other kind of nut that is apparently a mild stimulant. Traditionally they would also be filled with chewing tobacco, but they were questionable enough even without that ingredient. People gagged on them, but I actually kind of liked mine.

New Year’s day provided endless excitement as well. We departed campus on a cushy, cheesy tour bus for a tour of the city. Our first stop was Chowmohalla Palace, the home to many generations of local rulers or “Nizams”. The palace was built in the 17^th century and has all of the appeal of a European palace with the added bonus of being in India. From the palace we took a little walk around that area of the city. India has three times the population of the USA in one third of the area, meaning that any given space in the country is nine times as crowded as Americans are used to, and after our little stroll through Old-town Hyderabad I believe it.

After an elaborate lunch we ventured to the Qutub Shahi Tombs. The tombs were also built in the 17^th century for a king and his family. Each one is a beautiful mosque, and morbid as the whole tomb thing is, the area is really lovely. To go into a mosque one must remove one’s shoes and unfortunately, one girl in our group removed her shoes never to see them again. Another lesson learned.

From the tombs we moved on to Golconda Fort which a really cool and interesting setting, but we didn’t get to walk around at all. It’s a huge hillside fort from the 15^th (?) century, but instead of roaming and exploring the buildings we attended the “Sound and Lights Show.” At the Golconda Fort Sound and Lights show you find yourself sitting in a plastic lawn chair in front of a large hill with a prerecorded sound system describing the history of the area to you as areas of rocks become illuminated by spot lights. But it’s all even less interesting than it sounds. Not one among us was unhappy about leaving the fort.

The following day was our first opportunity to explore the city on our own and we were happy to take advantage. In the evening Brenda and I, along with two New Yorkers, two Bostonians and a New Jersey-er adventured to dinner to celebrate one girl’s birthday. Brenda’s guidebook had recommended a restaurant in Banjara Hills (the swanky neighborhood from the shopping trip) and we decided to hire some auto-rickshaws to get there. An auto-rickshaw could be compared to a tiny, three-wheeled golf cart or a double-wide Vespa with a roof, so in India that means it is a 4 passenger vehicle. Auto-rickshaws are very inexpensive and surprisingly fast so they are good if you want to get somewhere or if you want to die. Four of us squeezed into the back of one and three into the other, but even with some people sitting on others’ laps I still ended up with one butt-cheek hanging out the side of the rickshaw. Our vehicle was driven by two boys who looked no more than 17 and who apparently had a death-wish. As we dodged in and out of traffic at 50 mph sometimes into oncoming traffic and sometimes with only an inch separating us from the other vehicles I counted several dozen ways in which I could have perished. I guess I shouldn’t have been as terrified as I was considering most Indian women seem to have no inhibitions about riding side-saddle on the back of a motorcycle holding onto nothing but five shopping bags and a baby…no helmet necessary. Eventually (after the driver-boys had yelled to a moving motorcyclist to ask for directions) we made it (alive) to our destination. The ride was a good 45 minutes all the way across town and we paid the equivalent of 4 American dollars, though we did try to haggle for less.

We had a truly rags-to-riches experience as we stepped from our three-wheeled death-trap into Fusion 9 which turned out to be one of the nicest restaurants I’ve ever stepped into. We were a little hesitant that it might be out of our price range, but my mouth-watering meal cost about 6 American dollars. The only meals I can get for that price in the USA generally come on paper plates, and this arrived on a sculptural platter of decadence.

And then for some reason we rode back in a rickshaw.

Today we went to a Bollywood movie and tomorrow classes start, but I'm sure you're tired of reading. Hopefully our dorm will get the internet soon, but I've learned that "any minute now" does not mean the same thing in India.

In answer to Nicole's question, yes I have seen many monkeys...they run wild on campus but I haven't been able to get a picture yet...little tricksters...I've also seen a large assortment of cows, camels, giant bats, strange birds, etc, etc.