touché

touching is a big thing. and i don't mean just from my new indian perspective. you can go as back as to the creation of adam (if you're into art or religion) or to the big bang, as the finishing touch of the beginning. however, my touching up on the subject of touching will be purely from the newly acquired indian perspective.
while i was on the train (not any train, but the mumbai local!!!!) with tabs' mom, in our very own ladies compartment, i found myself saying a lot of stupid things, as i generally do when i'm with adults i'd like to impress. to my surprise, the remark "i have not seen any couples holding hands since i've been here" rushed out of my mouth into her ear to provoke a smirk and a sympathy look that said "bet your bottom dollar that you wont". and i havent. not once. in my 2 and something weeks in india. what i have seen is lots and lots of men holding hands and i thought to myself "wow, never thought gay people would be so open here". and i thought wrong, because apparently holding hands is something men who are good friends or relatives do.
so, whereas boy and girl in love will probably not hold hands in public, boy and boy in friendship will. and to the ordinary folks, like me, who think if you dig long enough you'll reach china, this is truly a reverse taboo.

but the thing that touched me off was the walking from the rickshaw to the jama masjid mosque (the largest mosque in india), through this extremely crowded street market. so crowded that at times you simply couldnt take a step in any direction. the unbearable crowd gave way to people finding it natural and/or easy to put their hands on you. it resembled that thing you do when you're a kid when you say something and then you have to touch red to make it the ultimate truth, but only here they touch white. touch, grab, or whatever comes in hand. ;)

while at the jama masjid mosque, sitting on the ground with 7-8 more interns, we noticed that quickly a group of people began to form around us, all standing and staring. not any kind of staring, not the timid, glimpse kind of staring, but the intense, non-blinking, intimidating staring. so as i got uncomfortable quite quickly i stood up and started walking back and forth, in this silly attempt to not get eyes fixed on me.
then a little girl all smiles, holding her little brother by his shirt comes up to me and asks me, giggling, "can i touch you?". she's waiting for my answer and she shies away, hiding behind her brother whom she pushes and shoves, he's giggling too, all red in the face. they're really funny but then it strikes me: i've heard "can i touch you before?", in sentences flooded with sarcasm, but her words are honest, clear, no double entendre. i am hit by some kind of hippie haze so i tell her "but why? i'm just like you." she gives me a look, a look that makes her eyes even bigger, pulls her brother by the shirt and runs away.

psycho babble or no psycho babble, we're not the same. we're all as different as it gets and i have falsely pretended to have accepted that long back.

well anyway, india 1 - letzu 0
touché, pussycat!

horn ok please

india is an assault to my senses. to everything i have known, learned, thought and felt about the world. yes, i knew it would be different. a priori. now, what i feel is that i have to learn everything anew. how to walk, talk, climb stairs, cross the street etc. with my set of life skills and cultural gps i am as new and naked to this as a newborn. and please, don't confuse this statement with "feeling like i was born again". the difference is huge.

every street corner, every food-stand smell, every thing around me has the sensory power of 100000 pictures, therefore 100000000 words, therefore no blog post i could every write, no coffee chat we could ever have would allow me to express what is going on in my head. i am having a difficult time absorbing all the new things that are coming my way, deciphering them and stopping the feeling of frustration from constantly trying to make sense of all the non-sense, or better called, chaos. it's not as bad as it sounds because i am comforting myself with the thought that i am a strong, independent woman who will eventually get used to it. :) its my very own sisyphean challenge. i know all it takes is accepting it.

traveling by train in india is like a box of assorted chocolates. some good, some bad, some awful and some surprisingly excellent. it's, of course, a matter of taste. my first train ride was a 27 hour ride in an AC compartment. it was clean, nice, we got good food, a bit too cold (!!!!) but enough electricity to play plants and zombies all night long. almost. :)

goa was amazing, rain or no rain, it will have its own blog post one day. mumbai was a short yet intensely lived experience. we arrived there in the evening and had to leave the next morning, but i still had the chance to ride on the mumbai locals. and that's all i can say. really. nothing more to add.

except for the fact that i was awed. AWED. seeing pictures of people riding on trains or clinging to the outside of the train is one thing, but seeing those people with your own eyes, watching them get on the train even before it stops, hearing them scream war shouts as they cram and push each other in the wagons.the platforms were like a big after-concert scenery. swarms of people coming to you or going in the same direction as you, just like driving, except for the honking - no lanes, no rules.

you know that feeling when you're having rice and enjoying it quite a bit, but it's quite dry, you eat it anyway, trying to finish it fast so you take another bite even before finishing what you already have in your mouth and the minute the fork or spoon approaches your open mouth this feeling of panic hits cause rice might fall out while you bring in the second load? i know you dont. this is the feeling india gives me. surprise, enjoyment and a bit of panic.

the greatest part? i'm having 2l + of water a day. and the cheese to my macaroni! ;)

interlude

let me give you the context. i spent 6 years in a youth organization and i enjoyed every minute of it (give or take 2 hours ;) ). it has forever changed me, open secret windows to myself and the outside, taught me stuff, made me be even more curious and excited about the world around me and i will be forever grateful for that. i am now going to start my internship (so basically i am no longer an active volunteer, but merely a beneficiary of the wonderful abroad experience AIESEC offers) in an NGO in New Delhi, India which i am very excited about. but somehow, something shifted my perspective so much that it's difficult to accept the fact that it's the same AIESEC i was part of.

i want to avoid going too much into details about what that something was, especially so soon, but hearing stories of the people who have been here, as interns, for some time and having felt some of it myself are factors that are urging me to let it out.
a hand picked selection of the finest topics in the intern community: not being picked up from the airport, not having a decent place to stay upon arrival, the reverse or hidden meaning of words (simple ones, like "yes", "no", "i dont know"), the possibility of coming here to do a certain job and ending up not doing anything cause the company you're with doesn't have anything for you to do - an AIESEC committee which either doesn't have the capacity or the interest to manage well all the interns they have.

and being the silly idealist that society didnt bring me up to be i am left with wondering how can it all come down to numbers in an organization that stands for such high purposes as AIESEC?! dare i mention that India won the most prestigious global award (for overall excellency) in AIESEC? i have to do my calculations again, cause something doesnt quite add up. as a big fan of the organization i will for sure look into the matter in the time to come. feel free to discard these thoughts that probably dont even scratch the surface.

p.s. haven't started my job yet, i am still excited about it but also scared because i really really love the project i'm supposed to work on. tuesday will be my first day of work and the mix of high and low expectations is driving me crazy, without having a honk ;). stay tuned.

spamked

i've got mail! true story. what would you think if you got an email from a guy called Young Colon? Oh, and the email starts like this: "Your career progress begins now!" I think he's full of shit.

chaos making sense

someone, sometime ago, said this wonderful thing about india and everyone else started saying it and ever since people have lost track of who actually came up with it. but that's not even so important, what's important is the high degree to which this saying - "India is chaos making sense" - is so very true and applicable to so many things.

for example, i've realized one thing, in my short trip from the airport around the city: the most important thing for a vehicle in delhi is its honk. it doesnt matter much if it's a scooter, bike, car or auto-rickshaw, what matters is that it can honk, because honking is the way you drive in delhi. lanes or traffic rules might not apply. and by saying "might" i mean they dont. but it works. it works.

ok, speaking of amazed, couldnt believe the heatwave that struck me right in the face as soon as i exited the airport. mostly because it was 6.30 am. it wasnt hard to accept though, the fact that i wont stop sweating all throughout the day. thats because its usually easier to accept things that are out of your control.

so i was looking forward to the shower. and this is the good thing about india. you always have something to look forward to. for example, after i took the shower, i was really looking forward to my next one.

i thought you couldnt sleep much on planes and such, i never do, reason for which i was even so tired when i got at the home-stay, but then, in my helicopter room, i slept like 10 babies. maybe the shower also helped. the only distraction in my helicopter room was the "propeller" on the ceiling which took the blanket off of me a few times. when the AC is on though, my helicopter room turns into an industrial plant, soundwise only. you really feel its a "happening" environment. a magical world.

truth be told, helicopter rooms are a blessing. you can't be too outdoorsy when you're in india. not because you're not an outdoorsy person or they don't have great outdoors, they do. there are pretty gardens, squirrels on the few sidewalks and parrots flying freely from palm tree to palm tree. but there's also this strange air, a bit suffocating, even when you're in the shade, like an elephant who's sitting on your chest. fine, a baby elephant.

and lucky me, i got to go to a party as well on my first day. this party was special, not that i haven't been to a party with 19 year olds before, just that it's been a while. after this experience i can honestly say that some 19 year olds can open beer bottles with their teeth.

they don't call it incredible india for nothing!

intellectual socialism

in an effort to seem more vulnerable, thus be more agreeable, the little girl said: i know too many things and i'm not afraid to use them against me.

(it's applicable to having too many options, as well)

ass in the gnome hat (<3) and the time monster

if you've ever felt wiser than your usual self when listening to friends' stories, you know the feeling i'm talking about. i'm not saying wise as in smart-ass or superior, noway! it's this weird feeling you get from a certain detachment or objectivity, if you please, when your friends share stories. you identify with them, maybe, they could be yours, maybe, they even were, maybe. but listening to them makes you become more objective and therefore see logic in arguments that never worked for yourself.


that's why i think it's ridiculous to say you're waiting for time to heal or solve things. time doesn't do anything (certain restrictions may apply). falling in love again does the trick. actually, i prefer the term "falling in love anew". even if it's indicative of a feeling, it gives it a fresh tone, rather than a repetitive one. falling in love or, according to own beliefs, whatever you wanna call it.

nailing it down

there's a bunch of things that remind me of my childhood. most of them still fit in my house. some were moved to the garage. but there's one thing which puzzles me to this very day in terms of how come my grandma bought it for me. it's garbage pail kids. its creepy cleverness. its funny bizzarre.

and i loved loved loved garbage pail kids. dont know if i got it entirely but i used to stick stuff everywhere and my grandma carefully removed almost all, except this one sticker with handy andy.
of course, it looks withered, colors have faded under several rounds of obsessive detergent scrubbing. before i get too nostalgic and forget, here's a bunch of them. randomly picked, but with some reasoning. no seasoning.

i hat to say it

i dream and long and dream and long for a hat. when i just dream, the hat's a boater. when i just long, the hat's a flat hat. in all other times, even when dreaming and longing come together, the hat is a mix between a boater, a flat hat and a pork pie hat.

dragostea dureaza 5 ani

nu stiu cum isi iubesc altii ceasurile, dar eu mi-l iubeam pe-al meu bine de tot. si dupa 5 ani de iubire, a disparut in mare. dragostea dureaza 5 ani. prin aproximatie, ca au fost cam 4 jumate.

si iepurii din ceas or sa se transforme in iepuri de mare. ceea ce e un lucru pozitiv, avand in vedere ca ultima oara cand m-am interesat erau pe cale de disparitie, iar iepurii din ceasul meu erau destul de predispusi la inmultire. ;)


poza e din arhiva lui moody rudchil, de cand a facut cercetari subacvatice despre iepurii de mare.