I've been in India for over a week now, and things have been busy.
Bangalore, India is a great, but overwhelming city. Creatures of all sorts -- people, dogs, cows, pigs, roosters -- roam the streets together with vehicles of all sorts -- cars, trucks, buses, mopeds, motorcycles, rickshaws. There is very little in the way of rules and regulations, everybody just goes, with the only guiding principle seemingly being don't hit anything. Rickshaws run five across on the bigger streets and tuck themselves into any break in traffic they can find. Motorcycles carrying helmet-less families of four weave their way through the larger vehicles with seemingly reckless abandon. Everybody honks constantly. Pedestrians walk down the middle of the street. It's like an anthill, where some of the ants are metallic and have wheels.
[A popular shopping district in Bangalore. It's hard to capture the insane hustle-and-bustle in a still shot.]
You've probably heard that all foreigners traveling to India get sick at some point during their stay. I wish I could say that thus far I've been an exception to this rule, but I can't. My third night here, I came down with something awful, probably food poisoning.
(Warning the next three paragraphs contain graphic allusions to bodily functions. Skip them if you are not a fan of scatological humor.)
S and I went to the airport to greet S's sister Sw (writing "Sw" reminds of the DJ SW-1). I started feeling weird movements in my belly on the way there, but I tried to ignore them, and convince myself I wasn't getting sick. At the airport my condition worsened, however, and I couldn't stay in denial any longer. I was forced to make a mad dash to the restrooms (thankfully they're fairly clean) where I served up a nice Wendy's-style chocolate frosty into the toilet.
By the time I got back to my hotel (I was staying in a place separate from S and her family, because it would be improper to stay with her before the wedding even though we're already married), the chocolate frosty had turned to Yoo-hoo. I had the runs. I popped a few pills I was prescribed in advance for just this sort of thing and went to sleep.
I awoke around 3 am and started hustling to the bathroom instinctually. Midway there, I realized that this time it was coming out the other end. Not able to make it to the toilet, I started vomiting in the sink, violently. I heaved about six times, so forcefully, that I literally shat my boxers. (I concluded that brown is the national color of India. It's the skin color of the people who live there and the underwear color of the visiting Westerners.) After everything in me had been completely purged, I limped into the shower and hosed downed. I then put on a clear pair of boxers, folded up some toilet paper and put it between my butt cheeks as a make shift panty-liner, and crawled into bed to fall asleep in the fetal position.
(OK, that's the end of the gross part.)
A temple in Bangalore. While I was sick I was praying at a different temple -- a porcelain one. In fact, I thought up a new euphemism for having a BM, "saying a puja", not bad, huh?
The next morning I woke up feeling like I had the worse hangover I've ever had times one thousand. I barely had the strength to move, literally. S and Sw were super sweet and came over periodically to check on me, and hangout with me (i.e., play with the iPad while I laid in bed), and try to get me to eat something (all I could get down was two pieces of plain toast and a Sprite). It was pretty miserable, but thankfully, by the end of the day I started to feel better, and the next morning I woke up feeling almost completely normal.
Able to actually get out of bed and walk down the street, I spent much of the next few days hanging out in the apartment owned by S's parents. It's about an 1800 sq. ft. four-bedroom-er, and it's Indian custom to have all the family stay together, no matter how inconvenient or claustrophobic it might be, so at it's peak I think there were 12 people staying there. (Yes, I was thankful to have my own room elsewhere. I love S's family very much, but that's a little too much love.)
Every time I came over I was treated like a king. Not only is Indian culture very complaisant, especially toward guests, it is also very male-dominant. Woman are taught to be subservient. This mindset might be changing, but it's still very prevalent, particularly among the older generations. So, whenever I came to the apartment I had about five "aunties" waiting on me -- making me coffee, cooking me food, motioning me to sit down, bringing me the newspaper -- and of course, I couldn't say no to any of it, that would be rude. I just had sit there and enjoy it. Poor me.
[A view of Bangalore from S's cousin's balcony. This is a decent microcosm of Bangalore, small primitive buildings next to big modern buildings, a haze of smog overhead.]
Over the next few nights, our friends and family from the States started to trickle in. My parents came in and I moved to a two bedroom apartment with them. My friends J and W arrived (quarreling like a married couple even though they're two straight dudes), as did my friend JW and his wife Y. My brother and sister in-law and sister and brother in-law came in on the same flight as three of our friends from DC. We rented a 12-seat bus to pick everybody up at the airport.
It was surreal to have everybody together halfway across the world, though oddly enough in my high school yearbook in the Where Will You Be in 15 Years section I put, "In Bangalore India, preparing to having a wedding ceremony with all my family and friends... Alice In Chains Rockkkk!" I guess I hit the nail on the head with that one.
There is more to come on India soon.
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