Welcome to India

The big morning of our flight to India arrived on November 12. We hugged farewell to our lovely London hosts Vicky and Tim. Shouldering our big bags, we waddled toward the metro full of internal butterflies. Having never been to India or anywhere like it before, we had an even greater feeling of heading off into the unknown. We didn’t really know what to expect besides peoples’ recurrent variations on: “it’s crazy and overwhelming, but you’ll love it!”

We chose to begin our 8 weeks in India in the city of Chennai because of two tenuous connections. First, Julia’s sister has a flute studio friend whose uncle Shritar and aunt Kavitha live in Chennai. They kindly offered to help us get settled. Second, Julia’s dad has a colleauge from India who has a good friend named Prasanthi living in Chennai. To our excitement, Prasanthi had a friend getting married who invited us to their reception, so that is the wedding we write about. Anyway, when we speak of these names in the blog, you will know who we are talking about. Indeed, we were grateful to arrive in Chennai knowing we were not totally alone amidst more than a billion people we had never met before. As for orientation, Chennai (formerly known as Madras) is a city of about 7 million in the state of Tamil Nadu in South India.

Since each day in our first week made such a great impression on us, we’ve decided to compile an edited version of the nightly emails that we wrote to our families for this blog post. Including all the little details is the truest representation of our experience. It’s long, but hopefully you will enjoy it!

Day 1, 13 Nov. 2017

We have finally arrived and all the travel went remarkably smoothly. We easily made the short 1 hour layover in Abu Dhabi that we had been worried about. Our baggage showed up successfully at the carousel in Chennai. Our e-tourist visas were stamped without problems. Now it was time to venture out into India for the first time! We were funneled out into the busy hubbub of the arrivals area outside the airport. That is where the challenge began.

We had had some fragmented and last-minute communication with our service apartment host, Shobana. Our friend Kavitha had kindly found this place for us to stay near her home and shop. We were expecting Shobana to send someone to pick us up. Despite many passes up and down the lane anxiously looking for our name on a sign, we finally accepted that there was definitely no one there to pick us up. OK, what next? With no internet or phone connection, what can you do? Don’t panic… A couple of taxi drivers hoping for a job latched onto us until we shook them off. Anxiety levels rose. Fortunately Colby was able to hook onto the airport’s spotty free WiFi. Whew!! The WiFi worked just enough to get a few WhatsApp messages back and forth with Kavitha. We learned that we should organize a prepaid taxi to Shobana’s address. So back to the prepaid taxi stand we went. Then we piled into the car and were swept out into the streets. The streets were just as crazy as we had been told! Somehow you don’t fully realize it until you experience it yourself, finding yourself thinking: “Whoa… it really is how everyone told us it would be!” Lane markers carry no meaning whatsoever, and everyone does absolutely whatever they feel like. Traffic weaves and braids in on itself, a small army of careening mopeds along with lots of yellow autorickshaws and cars. Motorbikes often carry whole families, father and mother and kids all piled on precariously. The driver wears a helmet but no one else does. The only rule of the road is: honk almost constantly so everyone knows where you are. Kind of a reverse sort of echolocation. Everyone is always tearing around within inches of each other. Aaaah! How can anyone handle driving here?

After an hour (but only 12 kilometers) the driver finally pulled over and deposited us by an apartment block in a crowded random looking neighborhood with a couple small shops on the ground floor. How did he know it was the right place? There was no Shobana to be found, but we followed the guard standing out front upstairs to what was apparently our room, an empty three bedroom apartment. “I speak Tamil, not much English” he smiled. We were confused. Were we even at the right place? It felt like we were in the middle of a totally random street. We just feeling totally lost, totally helpless and out of our element. Somehow we were thinking it would all be… different. Where was Shobana who said she would be waiting for us? Trying to answer our questions the guard motioned us to another room down the hall where a man was reclining and reading a newspaper. “Shobana will come,” he assured us. Hearing the name Shobana was a relief — at least we were in the right building! “When?” We asked. “Ah, she’ll come.”

Julia had moment when we were first alone in our apartment, looking out the windows at the view of a dusty crumbling building about 6 feet away (we are not sure if it is being built or demolished but either way it is being done so very noisily), listening to the constant roar of traffic honking outside, and paranoidly trying to avoid the handful of mosquitos buzzing around that just might possibly carry dengue or some other nasty illness. She wanted to beam herself home and not ever have to go out on that crazy street again. Or just hole up in this apartment forever more. Why are we here? What have we gotten ourselves into? It is all so chaotic. And this is when everything has been going smoothly for us, imagine if something went wrong!

Sure enough Shobana showed up and things started to look better. It was mid morning now, and although we hadn’t really slept on the plane we were already revved up with adrenaline and decided we might as well get some of our settling in chores done right away. We followed Shobana and her driver Krishnan down to her car. It was so enthralling to watch the street scene from the relative peace of the car. So many people, so much life, moving both quickly (the zooming mopeds) and slowly (the street vendors lounging by their piles of fruits). We enjoyed the beautiful looping Tamil script on the signs, the little deity sculptures on the drivers’ dashboards. The activity on the street was dense, abundant, vibrant, and this abundance spilled over into the crumbling rubble everywhere. We tried to absorb our fleeting glimpses of the dusty streets. There were all sorts of buildings and shop signs and tiny vendor stalls all piled atop each other and cobbled together. The buildings have faded facades, the rubble and debris collecting in piles in the corners like leaf piles blown by the wind in Minnesota. But there was not only the decrepit chaos. There was also the dazzling beauty of the colorful pristine saris and salwar kameez that the ladies were wearing. The beauty of people walking elegantly down the street, calm amidst the deafening roar. Talking on their cell phones. Their children smiling. Everything in motion. So far it feels more like a dream than reality.

First Shobana took us to a hole in the wall shop where they do the best rates for cash exchange, and we got our leftover euros turned into many thousands of rupees. Safe into the money belt they go! Next errand was weaving across town to go to the tourism office and look at guided sightseeing tour possibilities. Most of them were a little more than our budget, and not so much to our style. But Shobana wanted to bring us there so we went along to see if anything might be of interest. Next, Krishnan dropped us off for lunch at a good hotel restaurant where we got a classic Madras Thali platter. Lots of little dishes of South Indian specialties, with a pile of rice in the middle and chapatis on the side. We were still all flustered from the day so perhaps we didn’t fully appreciate the meal. It was a bit anxiety producing to have three people watching over us as we looked over the menu, fret about we were using our hands and utensils correctly and eating the components in the right order. But it was still yummy! And no throwing up or diarrhea yet, thankfully.

After that, our final errand was getting a SIM card at the shop downstairs. In between these errands we swerved all around the labyrinth of streets, letting their scenes mesmerize us. Somehow it all feels even more like another world than we imagined it would! How often do you get to a new location and have it blow you away with how much more exotic and different it is than you even expected? Usually it's the other way around when traveling: you see all the cool things in the guide book and then show up to find Burger Kings and H&M stores and tourists all over. Not here, for better or worse! Chennai feels like the real deal. Hopefully we can rise to the occasion.

It is so nice to have someone shepherd us through this city and take us under their wing. It would be overwhelmingly, distressingly, inscrutably nuts otherwise. Somehow in person the city seems much more daunting to navigate ourselves than we imagined before. India will be an interesting balance, as it does require some “shepherding around” not to be totally helplessly lost. But we are hoping to avoid the beaches and resorts and upscale touristy stuff at the same time. Our situation here seems like a nice balance. We are definitely off the tourist path. After the moment we left the airport parking lot we have not seen a single other identifiable Westerner all day, anywhere. Of course it makes life a little more challenging when not everything is catered to your ease and comfort. But probably much more rewarding as well.

Being so tired and preoccupied with all the logistics, we are looking forward to quieting down a bit and having time to just look. To walk down the street, to watch, to take it all in without wanting to run and hide or be singlemindedly focused on survival. There is so much to see, an overwhelming amount of newness to absorb. But the nice part is, we have time. We don’t have to push ourselves over the edge to cram stuff in. Wow wow wow, we are really here and jumping into this crazy adventure. We’ll see what happens! We have no specific goals except to make it through in one healthy piece, so anything extra is bonus.

After dark we realized we needed some dinner so went tromping down the street in search of the grocery store. It is hard to look around and take anything in when you are constantly intensely focused on not stepping into a hole or tripping on the fantastically uneven and crumbling slabs of concrete, or getting hit by a moped where there is no sidewalk and you have to weave along the edge of the street. We boiled some sweet corn for dinner and tried to get some sleep.

Day 2, 14 Nov. 2017

We were first awakened around 6 am to the sound of loud construction noises on the building next door and a man coughing and hacking in the hall for hours. Sledgehammers. Cats mewing frantically. And some sort of loud rapid fire bird tweet. We were so exhausted that we were able to somewhat sleep over it and didn’t get out of bed until almost noon.

Next we decided to give Kavitha and Shritar a visit at their jewelry shop, which is “just” across the street and a few hundred meters down the road from our apartment. With that said, crossing the street is no small feat. We are definitely not in Switzerland anymore where all cars will stop unfailingly for pedestrians! Instead, here it is a mad free for all of honking autorickshaws, mopeds and cars coming from seemingly all directions at once. The bigger you are the more right of way you have.

Luckily we survived the street crossing and made it to the jewelry shop in one piece to meet the friends who had helped arrange our stay here in Chennai. After all of the endless emails and WhatsApp chats before the trip, it was so lovely to meet them in person! Kavitha and Shritar both worked for Citibank for many years and now have their jewelry shop as a kind of retirement passion project. Kavitha makes a lot of the jewelry she sells. Julia loved all the glitz and gold and beads and glittery shiny elaborateness.

Next we went to lunch at a hotel restaurant a few buildings down from us. As we are still getting adjusted to the new microbes we felt good about the fact that it was bustling. It seemed like more of an upscale crowd. Julia was grateful to be familiar with at least some (particularly North Indian) dishes from back home, so when she ordered “Navruttan Kurma” she had at least an idea of what would arrive on the table. As Indian food is honestly one of her favorite things in life, it is quite heavenly to be here! And it is so cheap too. The Navruttan Kurma was delicious though a little sweeter and more desserty than expected - vegetables in a rich coconut sauce with a healthy dose of cardamom. Colby also funneled the spicy legume masala that came with his vegetable biryani over to Julia. Colby does not handle spicy foods well, so we have been trying to figure out what he can eat to keep his stomach and taste buds happy.

The one thing we don’t enjoy as much about restaurant dining is its awkwardness. There is an even greater feeling of divide between the wait staff and those being waited upon. Perhaps reflecting some of the greater ingrained social division in India. They didn’t just bring our dishes to our table, but after setting them down in front of us also began to spoon them onto our plates for us until we indicated we could do it ourselves. And at the hotel restaurant we visited yesterday, they seated us at our table, handed us the menu and then we literally had three servers/attendants standing at our table watching us, waiting as we tried to scramble to figure out what to order. Then they kept trying to pile more rice onto our plates even when we assured them we were fine. One thing we didn’t refuse was when they came out with a pot of hot melted ghee (clarified butter) which they spooned onto our rice (until we told them to stop of course!). We had the constant feeling of being watched and hovered over – just different expectations of “good service” than we are used to.

The other hard part of eating out is trying to figure out how to do it right. In India, toilet paper is not really a thing and most people wash up with their left hand and a bucket of water. Hence it is taboo to eat with the left hand. How do you get everything into your mouth using only your right hand and, most authentically, using only your hand and no silverware? What is supposed to be put on top of what? Eaten first, last? The restaurant example is just one of the ways the cultural differences are much more exhausting to navigate than Switzerland or the UK, whose cultures were fairly similar to the US. Fortunately, we already had 3 months in the UK to get used to cars coming from the opposite direction than you’d expect (look right, left, right). That was probably a lifesaver multiple times!

Psyching up to cross the street... "Go confidently in the direction of your dreams" -Henry David Thoreau. 

Anyway after lunch we decided to walk over to the Kapaleeswarar Temple in the Mylapore District about a kilometer or two away. Going for a walk is not a relaxing stroll but an all-senses-alive safari. Sidewalks are an obstacle course that comes and goes. There are so many people everywhere, stinky fumes and honking. Lots of street vendors tending to their wares. The occasional waft of sweet fried things emanating from the food shops. Lots of security guards standing around in front of stores and buildings. Lots of calm stray dogs. We passed a couple of tiny Hindu temples (what we would call shrines) where people were worshiping. Fruit and veggie stands, tailor shops, Xerox shops, banks, mini cafes, gold and silver shops, clothing shops, street food stalls. Groups of lovely children getting out of school in their neat uniforms. The schools are recessed from the street, in fenced courtyards of calm oasis.

Most of the buildings and infrastructure are in some state of cobbled-together, mostly-functioningness. Somehow the force of entropy seems to be strong here, but somehow most things usually work nevertheless. The only slight respite from the overstimulating streets was passing through a small park, which reminded me of the hot lush tropical humidity of a botanical conservatory. After that we passed back into the streets of deafeningly loud honking, people selling everything from flower garlands, to SIM cards, shoes, or fruit in little stands along the way. We passed through the narrow side streets of an especially run down residential area where goats nibbled through trash, and the poverty that is everywhere was even more immediately noticeable. Now we also understand the custom of taking off your shoes when you enter someone’s house. Who knows what all you were walking through.

We finally arrived at Kapaleeswarar temple. WOW! It is an active Hindu temple of the god Shiva. It is a walled compound filled with multiple different shrines to the different gods and goddesses, with incredibly elaborate towers of brightly painted figurine carvings atop the shrines and the gates to the temple. We couldn’t imagine the number of hours that went into crafting it. It is a classic example of the Dravidian architecture of South India. We tried reading up online about the stories behind who was being depicted in these carvings, these multi-headed and form-shifting beings. However, this mainly illuminated how complex Hindu mythology is and how little we understand of it. Still, we could easily appreciate how impressively beautiful the place was. Although not specific to the temple, Julia LOVED the saris and could just look at them all day. All the women are so beautifully dressed in such pristinely clean clothes, so many dazzling colors and patterns, not only in the temple but on the streets as well. Julia felt so drab and dusty in her stretched-out grey hiking pants and button up shirt.

Anyway Kapaleeswarar is a living temple and holy place. Almost everyone at the temple was there to visit the shrines, do a pooja (prayer) at each shrine corresponding to different deities, to place an offering or light a candle. Six times a day there are ceremonies. Almost all of the signage for visitors, as well as all of the engravings in the temple walls, were in the beautiful looping Tamil script. So we didn’t entirely understand it all. Inside the temple, we did see the first other Westerners since we left the airport yesterday morning. As a major attraction in a city of 7 million, though, we were impressed that less than a dozen other non-Indian tourists were there. Although we purchased a camera pass from the entrance, it still felt a little awkward photographing it. Being the tourist. And rather intrusive, since we don’t really understand the meaning or religion, and are there as sightseers rather than specifically for its religious value. Oh well, we tried to act respectfully nevertheless. Including the requirement of taking off our shoes, which we were not thrilled about but decided it was worth it to see the temple. We washed our feet well when we got home.

Now we are back under the cool fan in the relatively quiet respite of our apartment, letting it all sink in. Only 2 ¼ hours passed from the time we left the restaurant after lunch to when we got back from the temple and it felt like more than enough stimulation for a whole day. But it was a great day, enlivening and enthralling and exhausting. And we were pleasantly surprised that nobody bothered us at all. Most people didn’t even give us a second glance, except for some schoolkids who enthusiastically greeted us. Nobody chased after us trying to sell us things. Despite the poverty we never felt at all threatened or even hassled. This is a great place to begin our time in India!

Every new glance as you walk down the street is like a painting in an art museum: if it were frozen in time you could find fascination gazing at it for hours. But it is all in motion, endlessly stimulating, fairly overwhelming, and so hard to take it all in at once! But it really makes you feel alive. As we find our rhythm a bit more, hopefully the anxiety will subside and we’ll be able to relax from our constant state of slight shock from overstimulation (oh, the desire to hide in our apartment all day!) into a greater ability to absorb, enjoy, and notice all that this place has to offer. Here’s to day 3!

Day 3, 15 Nov. 2017

Hello again, this time from the cool, relative quiet of our room. We are exhausted again after a day of not much activity in particular. We are now at the YWCA International Guest house in the Egmore district of Chennai, planning on being here for at least the next two nights. We are in a quieter nook tucked back off a busy main street with lots of lush trees and flowers.

We ended up leaving the service apartment a little earlier than expected, after only two nights. The apartment itself was fine but the construction noises on the building next door this morning were even more intense than yesterday morning. There was also a man you could hear coughing and hacking outside for hours during the night. Also because of the non-airtight windows the mosquitos (not too many but more than we’d like) kept finding their way in. They are really fast, unpredictable, and hard to kill! The constant paranoia about mosquito borne disease made it hard to relax when you knew they were lurking around. We did string up the permethrin bed net we bought in London so we didn’t have to worry while we were sleeping. Also with 3 bedrooms, the apartment was more space than we needed for what we were paying. We felt bad about leaving earlier than we had generally indicated, but the whole situation was just kind of getting under Julia’s skin.

It has been kind of hard to adjust to life here and our bodies feel out of whack. Neither of us was remotely tired until 3 in the morning, and then Julia woke up at 5:00 and couldn’t fall back asleep for an hour and a half, and that is about the time the construction started so it wasn’t great sleep. Colby was feeling queasy this morning, probably from not having eaten much for a few days, combined with the heat and exhaustion. He has not been his normal exuberant self and is much more silent than normal since we have been here. Julia feels overwhelmed too and we have both been feeling kind of stunned, prone to retreating into our private comatose head spaces. Neither of us has been very hungry today, maybe from the heat or just being out of whack. It is 5:30 pm and a banana, apple, few bites of grilled cheese and a small cup of chai are all that we’ve eaten between the two of us today. (The chai was really good!! A whole different level from a teabag). We were maybe going to go to a Carnatic singing concert tonight but decided we just couldn’t face going back across town again. So we are vegetating instead, trying to psyche up to go out and find some dinner for a proper meal. Every time you leave your hotel room it is a major energy expenditure.

Anyway this morning we visited Kavitha and Shritar at their shop to drop off the apartment payment for Shobana. Today it was sunny and hot and all the traffic felt extra smoggy. Their daughter was at the shop again and we got to talk with her a bit. She’s just about to start her final semester studying product ad photography, and was sitting on the shop floor working on beading a commissioned piece. Anyway, Julia bought one of the beaded necklaces that Kavitha made, circular blue and grey beads with a blue crystal pendant edged in gold.

Next we got an Ola cab (which is like Uber) over to the YWCA. 30 minutes for the equivalent of $2. And that is in a nice car as opposed to the much more ubiquitous way to get around, the little yellow roaring, rattling, exhaust belching autorickshaws that are absolutely everywhere (along with the armies of mopeds). Some day when we are feeling extra adventurous we may give them a brief try for the experience... but not today.

The city is nuts! Somehow we were imagining that there would be some sections of Chennai that felt more “first world.” It has been interesting so far that although individual stores, hotels, or courtyards might be “upscale,” (such as the restaurants we went to) the minute you leave their oasis you are thrown back into the wild chaos of the streets and reality. How can everyone can look so calm as they go about their daily business, stepping their way across the crumbling pavement and past piles of debris, through the decaying back alleys, weaving on mopeds through the deafening honking and exhaust of the dusty streets? How could someone ever get used to life here? Bust if you live your whole life here, it must just be “normal.”

We found a friend! 

A less tangible thing we have been struggling with is how to connect with people. Our hosts have been lovely in getting us set up with all the logistics of travel, suggesting all sorts of places to see and trying to help us figure out how to get there, helping us in many ways and welcoming us. But we are yearning for something more like our first week in Switzerland with Marianne and Ewald where we really just got to talk with them, experience their daily lives, and learn about life in their country. That is really what we most want from India, rather than seeing all the top sights. Just to connect with people. Besides our hosts, everyone else we interact with has been pretty distant. We usually feel like we are either seen as people to get an exorbitant tip from by acting like whatever we are giving them is too little, or else as people who need to be waited on for everything, like the attendant at the YWCA who led us to our room and pushed the button on the elevator to get us up one floor when we could have just walked up the stairs. Everyone wants a tip for everything. Unfortunately that must be the only way to piece together a living but it is kind of annoying. Especially now that we have run out of small bills.

There is so much to get used to and expectations to reset. In the US our room here at the YWCA would be nothing special, but here it is as good as it gets (unless you go for the super ultra luxury places of course). Also, it is kind of awkward feeling like we are the “upper class” being waited on when we would prefer to just do more things for ourselves. Indeed our style of travel here has been very different than in Europe. Eating at restaurants, staying in hotels (vs camping/WWOOFing), and taking a taxi everywhere (unimaginably expensive in Europe, unimaginably cheap here). It is all taking a lot of getting used to.

Day 4, 16 Nov. 2017

Hello again from the YWCA. We slept well last night and even got a little chilly from the AC. But better than the 30-35ºC and sweat drenching humidity of outside. Colby did NOT enjoy the heat today. It was not his favorite birthday ever as heat turns him into a miserable crabby pants! It is a distinct correlation, he turns completely lethargic and irritably snappy, totally unlike his normal self. Julia doesn’t like being quite this hot but it is not bad compared to the wet chill of Scotland that never leaves your bones!It was a bright hazy sunny day, and sweat pooled in all our crevices as we stepped our way down the dusty streets. They smell mostly like a mixture of petrol fumes and dust. Not to sound like a broken record, but there is SO much honking. Every vehicle tries hard to make as much noise as humanly possible. Thank goodness for ear plugs! They are a lifesaver.

Anyway in the morning we summoned our energy to face the outside world and go out on errands. Every time you leave the hotel you have to give it your 100%. As we walked, all along the sidewalk are things like low hanging wires, sweets shops, chai stands, dumpsters with people sorting through the rubbish, piles of big bunches of tropical plant clippings drying out in the sun, fruit vendors, apartment buildings. And in this part of town, churches galore! There were a ton of evangelical churches all along that street. Autorickshaws with “Jesus loves you” or “Jesus saves” bumper stickers. It was an interesting different feel from the very prominent Hinduism most everywhere else. Eventually we passed out of the chaos of the street (by way of a doorman) into the shiny, airconditioned Vodafone store that looked almost exactly like the ones in the UK. It is funny in India, it feels like there are so many different worlds coexisting right at once in almost exactly the same place.

Anyway after the Vodafone store (and all the extra paperwork and documents needed because we are foreigners) we ventured onwards in search of big jugs of bottled water. We found our way into the Saravana Store, which is a huge department store rising about 10 stories tall. All the floors are very shiny and gleaming except for the basement where the grocery store is. First we circled up and up, each new iteration of floor feeling like deja vu. A great view over Chennai opened up as we ascended. For a city of 7 million, there are few skyscrapers.

There were just hoards of employees working at the store. What could keep them all busy? Lots of young women employees walked by in loose blue uniform shirts over their salwar kameez, and lots of employees stood at the narrow entrance and exit areas of the product floors to prevent stealing. That has been a common thing we noticed here, the great numbers of people employed. Wages must be very low, and with so many people, there is no problem to hire many. Anyway, after a spin through the silks, saris, and dresses floor where Julia oohed and aahed at all the colors and patterns and sparkles, we headed down to the basement in search of water and a cold drink. The feel changed completely. It was super crowded, with people pushing their carts down the narrow aisles. With our chilled “mango beverage” in hand, then came a loooong wait in line.  

After this we headed back to the YWCA guesthouse and cooled off a bit before lunch. They have a lunch and dinner buffet of South Indian food, so we did that for lunch and dinner today since it is so much more chill than having to venture out onto the streets! We also had a complimentary traditional breakfast of idli, sambar, and medu vada (or instead, some very white bread and some very sugary jam if you were feeling less exotic). Lunch and dinner were both the full spread of South Indian delights. We really like eating with our hands and have been trying to adhere to that custom here. We are slowly learning how not to make a total mess of our faces and plates, how to use the rice and the chapatis to scoop and/or soak up the sauce which is then delivered to the mouth in clumps. Julia is really in heaven here with all this Indian food!!! Colby likes Indian food alright but does not share the passion, and has not had much appetite lately so mostly picked at his rice during lunch. He didn’t think it was worth paying for dinner for him so Julia alone signed up this evening. About halfway through the meal in the very quiet dining room, a grand party entered! It looked like they were maybe celebrating a child’s birthday as there were lots of kids dressed up with party hats and balloons and the women were dressed up in special saris. Joined by 40-50 new companions, Julia’s dinner alone became much more vibrant and interesting! She tried asking about the celebration but the women at her table didn’t know much English. Oh well, the sad barriers of communication…

Speaking of languages, we now know that most people here don’t in fact speak Hindi at all (one of the *many* languages of India that is mainly in the North) and the Tamil language that they speak here is even in a different language family than Hindi. Another detail we have clarified is that it is not primarily saris (although there are quite a few), but the more informal and manageable salwar kameez that most women wear, kind of a loose dress over pants, often with a scarf cloth draped around the front. So far we can’t recall seeing any women in conventional United States clothing (or even pants except the ones that go under the salwar kameez) and especially not in shorts. In contrast men pretty much wear “Western” clothing.

It is hard to imagine what it would be like to be a woman here. Of course compared to many parts of the world women here are doing well in terms of freedom, education, health, opportunities, etc, but even in this pretty modern society there are still many ingrained cultural attitudes that must be hard for us to just see in our surface experience of this place.

Day 5, 17 Nov. 2017

Today brought us about up to our eyeballs with the city. We decided to move on from the YWCA over to an Airbnb for our final 2 nights in Chennai. (While not quite as lovely as the YWCA, it is plenty decent here. We have learned to adjust our standards. If it is clean and things like lights and sinks actually work then we are happy). Colby woke up feeling really queasy and crappy, and had feverish symptoms although did not actually have a fever according to the thermometer... Oh no, here comes the sickness... But fortunately, there was a simple fix - taking a Pepto Bismol was actually a silver bullet and soon he felt fine and we went on with our day as planned. Whew! His body just must have been out of whack since he had hardly eaten anything the whole day before (or the day before that, etc, etc). Now we are trying to make a point to make sure he eats solid meals. “I just want plain mashed potatoes” Colby said. That will definitely be hard to find.

As we packed up our bags and checked out, we noticed ourselves filling with the inevitable dread of surfacing into the outside world as happens every time we leave our room. Your blood pressure begins to rise and you subconsciously clench up and get a bit tunnel visioned into survival. We walked out toward the street to call an Ola cab and in the meantime were vigorously approached by an autorickshaw driver who really wanted our business. We ignored him for long enough that he eventually, finally, went away. He wasn’t aggressive, just really persistent, and wouldn’t leave us alone. It was such a relief to see the Ola cab pull up and step into the cool, quiet bubble. Julia felt like tipping him extra just for saving us from the sweaty deafening honking dusty fiasco of standing on the sidewalk. We are also grateful to be able to afford cabs instead of autorickshaws, which are the more common mode of transport alongside the motorcycle/mopeds. Of course being India there are always some shiny BMWs thrown into the mix along with everything else.

Next stop was returning to Kavitha and Shritar’s jewelry shop where Kavitha would take us out shopping for wedding outfits. We love spending time in the shop. Quiet, air conditioned, and full of lots of pretty sparkly gold things. When we first arrived, there were two women customers in the shop just finishing a purchase who struck up a conversation with us. What do you know, one of them lived in Shoreview MN for three years! Now she lives in Seattle but still considers India her original heart-home. She does lots of meditation, and was familiar with Findhorn and Quakerism which are both unusual coincidences! She gave us her blessings for safety and wellbeing. All those random encounters are just the best.

Anyway we sat in the shop for awhile while Kavitha finished stringing some beads for a client. Julia couldn’t refuse another cup of that delectable masala chai from the shop downstairs, and we chatted with Kavitha while she worked. We learned about her own marriage to Shritar, which was an arranged marriage performed on an accelerated timetable (less than a month from start to finish) since her younger sister was getting married soon and the custom is for older siblings to get married first. Although she and Shritar didn’t choose each other, they remain happy with the marriage and feel it has worked out well. Indeed they seem like a very nice couple together. She talked about how important checking the astrological charts of each potential partner is in traditional culture. There are astrologers whose work it is to make sure that the bride and groom are complementary. That is, your astrological chart may indicate certain periods of better or worse luck in terms of things like health, finance, etc., and the goal is to make the match so that always at least one of the pair is in a good phase so they can uphold the other. This reminded us of our own relationship a bit- Julia is happier/higher energy in the mornings while Colby is happier/higher energy in the evenings, etc. Anyway, Kavitha said that with the changing times many more people are choosing their own match, doing less traditional weddings, and not consulting the astrology charts. She plans on their own two daughters taking this modern path.

So time for dress shopping! Julia ended up getting both a dress and a sari, while Colby got a Kurta (a long, loose shirt). It was such a relief to have Kavitha there helping us navigate the endless shelves of colorful folded clothes, provide advice on what to wear to a wedding, and also let us know which components are needed for each outfit. Indian stores do not have a problem with being understaffed - each section had its own attendant sitting next to it so that there were probably about 20 employees around the store just waiting for you to come by. The store was a bit overwhelming, but it was fun to see all the colors and patterns. Back at the shop, Kavitha took us to the tailor shop next door to get the bodice for the sari made to Julia’s measurements.

Next we took a cab to our Airbnb. On foot we crossed the six to eight lanes of traffic (it fluctuates since no one pays attention to lane markers) by taking a deep breath and latching onto a pair of other people trying to cross, dodging through the congested traffic jam. Oh we are not in Switzerland anymore. It is hard to believe that both countries are on the same planet. Julia was looking back at an old photo of herself in Switzerland drinking from the spout of a decorative public water fountain on the street and had this visceral NOOOOO!!!! reaction. But in Switzerland, all water sources like this are drinkable, and if it’s not you are legally required to label it as such. A whole different world.

We got the keys to our room and then had to face going back outside to find dinner. It is a very busy street with lots of people, food stalls, and really rough crumbling pavement and junk piles, and the waft of sewage smell. But at the same time, it’s considered a high class neighborhood with some really ritzy hotels and very fancy clothing stores thrown into the mix, and many well dressed people walking around. We still can’t get over how it all exists in the same place. In the US things are so much more stratified into “good” and “bad” areas. If we worked in one of those fancy buildings we would never want to go home from work. Every time we go into a quiet, AC, spick and span store we want to just hide in there and never go back out. How can people here stand it all! Often we feel like our heads are about to explode.

We escaped from the street into an upscale vegetarian restaurant called Vasanta Bhavan and had a nice dinner there, with very attentive service as usual. Next task was finding bottled water. Bisleri, Aquafina, and Kinley are the best brands and we try to steer clear of the off brands since they are questionable (for instance, some specks of gunk on the inside of the cap of one). You also have to make sure the cap has its original seal. Oh, Minnesota, we miss you where you can just drink right out of the tap. Where life is so easy. Being here is almost like camping, where almost all of your energy is spent attending to the basic daily needs of shelter, water, food, transportation, and bodily health and safety. If all those basic needs are taken care of, then your day was a success! But here, it is all part of the adventure and in a way feels more rewarding and interesting than in the UK for instance, where you shop at stores and ride on roads very similar to those in the US. Here everything is new and “stimulating” at least if not exactly enjoyable.

Day 6, 18 Nov. 2017

While our current Airbnb room does not have any windows, the great boon is that it is really quiet in here. It is also dark and cool during the day, which is a great tempting pull for culture shocked Minnesotans on a bright hot day along a busy thoroughfare. We slept in late, enjoyed snoozing and lounging in our little peaceful bubble, and when lunchtime came around we decided to spring for the nearest restaurant just next door so we could minimize the time we had to spend walking along (or, often, on) the street. The restaurant is an Ayurvedic health food restaurant. Unfortunately that limited our food choice options since much of what they serve is raw or partially cooked. We were both feeling kind of frazzled and it was a bit stressful to negotiate yet another unfamiliar restaurant, figure out what everything meant on the menu, and communicate that we wanted it all to be hot. Restaurants are fun but the communication and social dynamics can be stressful in a different culture. After lunch we scurried as fast as we could to get back into our cave and spent the afternoon squaring away our plans for the next week.

All of a sudden it was 5 pm and time to venture forth into the wider world for our day’s outing: a performance of traditional South Indian dance, accompanied by live music. Tonight was the final night of a 3-day performance series put on by an arts education/cultural organization called Narada Gana Sabha. We took an Ola through some heavy rush hour traffic and were finally deposited where Google had placed the performance hall’s address. Unfortunately India’s streets are too complicated for Google’s brain, with sequences like  214, 143, 320, 402, 245 as you walk down the street. Helpful. We knew we were on the right road by the name but there was definitely no concert hall there. Julia felt so dumb for not calling the organization ahead of time to verify what landmark building the concert hall was by, as that is much more helpful than an address. Next time!! Our blood pressure began to rise as we walked back and forth in the narrow congested streets amidst the deafening roar of honking and vehicles missing mufflers. Julia was kicking herself for planning ahead so poorly, afraid that we’d never be able to find the building and miss the whole point of our exhausting outing. We eventually asked one of the ubiquitous security guards lounging at building entrances where it was, and he pointed us in the right direction. Walking down the streets and crossing them is kind of a high adrenaline Zen practice. You become completely attuned with all that is going on around you. No superfluous thinking, just pure awareness. Don’t get hit, don’t trip, don’t die. It wasn’t a short walk but finally we made it to the concert hall in one piece. What a relief that we actually found it! Fortunately arriving 45 minutes late wasn’t a problem, as it wasn’t an extremely formal performance and people trickled in and out between the dances.

We still got to enjoy a full 2 hours of the traditional dance style of South India.  It was mesmerizingly beautiful, the performers (either single or in a pair) dancing with both the scientific precision of a clock as well as the flowing grace of birds or butterflies. They moved their hands in the most expressive, graceful way, moving and splaying them like the plumage of a bird. The dances narrate specific stories and legends, so it was almost like watching a mime, with facial expressions and hand gestures incorporated into the dance. On the side of the stage played the musicians - drum, violin, high-pitched bell, wooden flute, the tambura making cosmic vibration sounds, as well as a male voice with his hypnotic tremulating song. The sights and sounds of it still echo through our heads when we close our eyes. It was really transportive and sublime, a much needed refreshment to the soul.

After the concert we wandered up the street a ways and found a restaurant of Andhra Pradesh cuisine (the state just north of Tamil Nadu). Since the drive back to our Airbnb would only be about 8 minutes, and the traffic and heat had died down, we decided to try our first autorickshaw ride for fun. It was exciting, and nice to have the night breeze cooling our faces as we buzzed down the street alongside the throngs of motorbikes and cars and other autorickshaws (as well as one cart pulled by a skinny draft animal, piled with some edible root crop with a couple men sitting on the side).

Anyway we had the driver drop us off at the natural food store where Colby got his belated birthday ice cream (more expensive than our whole dinner, ahem...). As we picked up some more bottled water at the other little shop and made our way home, we had a confident moment of feeling like we are getting more familiar with handling life here.

Our First Farewell to Chennai

Our first week in India knocked our socks off. It was more intense, more engaging, and also more stressfully challenging than we imagined. It was also much less touristy than we imagined: apart from Kapaleeswarar Temple and a tour group in the YWCA lobby, we didn’t see any other Westerners our entire time there. We let ourselves be OK with spending many hours holed up in our room letting it all soak in. Although we are not sure if we will ever really get used to the wildness of India, after our first week in Chennai we at least felt like we had begun to find our stride.