An Indian summer - 6: Rain over me

I went through a string of insanely lame subtitles like rainman, rainmaker, rain rain please do come and so on before settling down on rain over me, a reference to the totally badass The Who song "Love reign o'er me". I was even nice enough to link you to it so you can enjoy it.

As you might have guessed (doesn't take much to make this guess, BTW) this post is all about rain in India and how awesome it is. For the sake of gratuitous plugging, let me link to an older post from last year where I waxed lyrical about how I love the rain.

Ok let's move on then. India is one of those places with a regular, well-defined monsoon season. Traditionally monsoon arrives around mid-June and lasts till late September. In the last few years, however, it has rarely followed that schedule. This year was no exception. I arrived here June 22 (Operation Barbarossa, anyone?) and was sorely disappointed  to find no trace of this bratty rain. While Mumbai and even other parts of Gujarat enjoyed healthy showers over the next 10 days, I waited and waited, desperately ready to settle for even a teeny trickle of rain.

He finally decided to show his face yesterday (I use the pronoun 'he' because rain is often referred to as megha raja lit. cloud king). It began like a [insert your favorite musician/musical group] concert: magnificent streaks of light racing across the dark, overcast sky followed by self-assured rumbling. Soon the light and sound show was complemented by the rhythmic pitter-patter of roundlets of rain gliding across window panes. I was visiting my elementary school teacher with a few friends, and we eagerly opened the main door to let the soothing sound effects in.

Of course there was the question of going back. You see, I hitched a ride on my friend's very capable moped and now we were left facing the prospect of driving about 3 miles in this formidable downpour. I fantasized about this moment many times over the last four years. When I still lived in India, I loved racing my bike across rain-drenched streets, splashing water all over the place by zipping through large puddles. Now I could do it again! The journey was very eventful. Midway through a really large puddle (the size of a modest koi pond), our trusted ride sputtered to a stop. Uh-oh. These scenes are all too common during these rainy spells: hapless riders pushing their vehicles through ankle or knee deep water. Our ride started almost immediately and none of us had to wade through the water. I guess it was a tiny tantrum. By the time I reached my home, my shirt weighed twice as much. My hair leaked water. My sandals were drenched. And I had one of the best nights in this vacation. I can go back to the US a content man.

An Indian summer - 5

I flinched as the moped jolted to a halt barely a foot away from my left leg. My leg hugged the metallic body of the scooter that I was riding on. My friend, the driver of this vehicle, seemed totally unconcerned about the invasion of the crazy moped drivers. Just a minute later, he braked hard to avoid a bicyclist. Meanwhile, an auto-rickshaw was trying to sneak its three wheels into a non-existent turn space. It was chaos all around me - honks, brakes, the rhythmic vroom of supercharged engines - and I was scared to be in this traffic. Those around me weren't, though. They dutifully braked and swerved and zipped past other riders with ease and serenity. Organized chaos.

Some kind soul took a picture of typical traffic in Ahmedabad.

Gridlock 3D

Ahmedabad is notorious for its traffic, but in my absence I had forgotten how bad it could be. Located about 70 km from my hometown, Ahmedabad is the biggest city in the state of Gujarat (total population, including suburbs and associated metro areas, is around 6 5 million)and it has grown in fabulously monstrous proportions over the last few years. Strip malls and massive movie theaters are cropping up in the blink of an eye. Hospitals, luxury condominium complexes and megamansions are rising to keep speed with the new urban development.

As a kid, I cherished visits to Ahmedabad. For us humble small town folk, it was a big deal. Since my parents had done their undergraduate and graduate schooling there, they knew the place very well and had a lot of friends too. And Ahmedabad housed the biggest bookstores in a radius of about 200 km. That was, without a doubt, the highlight of every visit. I always came back laden with enough books to shame a pack mule. These visits played a very crucial role in nurturing my early interest in books and reading. This was the one place that connected me to hittite art, translations of Jules Verne's fantastic adventure stories, and unabridged editions of Charles Dickens' works.

Kiddie book collection (pardon the flash)

This time I was more interested in acquiring Gujarati books, mostly from the pre-independence (i.e. pre-1947) era. These books are very hard to find in the US (even UCLA's well-connected library system has failed to do me any good in this department). I have never been too big of a Gujarati novel fan, but Gujarati non-fiction, specifically essays, is very enjoyable. There is an air of worldliness in these pieces, and it is not uncommon for these essayists to quote Dostoyevsky or Martin Buber to explain some social quirk in India.

You'll be happy to know that I was successful in my quest. Sure I had to dodge hellish traffic while holding on to my dear life. Sure I had to perform Indiana Jones-like acrobatics to get there. But I live to tell the tale.

An Indian summer - 4

Naps are an integral part of the Indian culture. Cricket is perhaps the only thing that can supersede naps in terms of uniting the national spirit. Here in smaller towns and cities, it is not uncommon at all to find shops and stores locked up for the oppressive afternoon as their owners go home for a couple hours of delightful sleep. Some of my fondest childhood memories is watching my dad take his naps. He used to come home around 1:30 and sleep till about 4:30 and go back to work. His naps were pretty legendary around our house. He followed a pretty fixed routine after waking up - after sitting up on his bed groggily for a few minutes he would drink a glass of water, wash his face and get ready to leave.

I never understood the allure of sleeping and wasting a couple hours of your day like that. Whenever I asked dad about his sleeping habits, he spoke wistfully about the redeeming qualities of it, as if it was the elixir of life or something. I used to shake my head in bewilderment, thoroughly not convinced.

Until yesterday.

I am not really a nap person , but there is something intoxicating about the potent combination of the hot afternoon air and the cool oasis underneath the ceiling fan. Before I knew it, I was out. I woke up a good two hours later, and that was when I understood every freakin' word I was told about these naps before.  Although I have taken afternoon siestas in the states quite a few times, this was quite different. Richer, more fulfilling, and certainly more satisfying. Like trading in instant coffee for premium Colombian brew.

An Indian summer - 3: Sights and sounds

A weeks since I arrived here. So I thought I would give a few tidbits about the daily routine here.

Transportation: Scooters (the Vespa kind, not the razor kind) and motorcycles are probably the most popular means of transportation here. The traffic situation is not nearly as bad as it is in bigger metropolises, but it is certainly much worse than when I used to live here. It is a problem of limited space, mostly. The roads are narrow and with construction booming, it is becoming difficult to fit all the vehicles on the road. There certainly are more cars than before. Believe it or not, Chevy is one of the more popular brands, alongside Honda, Nissan and Suzuki. Motorists, scooterists (judging by the red squiggly line underneath, this doesn't seem like a word - oh well) and motorcyclists have to share the road with the obvious - pedestrians and bicyclists - and the not-so-obvious - stray dogs. Still, it was quite a pleasure riding out on my friend's motorcycle. Nothing beats the feeling of semi-hot wind hitting you in the face. (I am serious, BTW - it is pretty enjoyable)

The auto-rickshaw (a three wheeled version of a taxicab) remains an overwhelmingly popular choice of  conveyance. Here's a picture of one:

Tricked out ride [source:fractalenlightenment.com]

Cricket: India is a place of many different languages, customs, traditions and cultures. Despite the dizzying array of differences, cricket (I did two posts explaining the basics here and here) remains the one big, glorious unifying passion. One of the few vestiges of the British colonial rule adopted enthusiastically by the country, the sport has lately been touted as a symbol of the nation's growing economic might. I will let the politicos and economicos worry about the symbolism and deeper meanings and whatnot. For me cricket symbolizes simplicity and harkens back to childhood. Find any clear space around your neighborhood, grab a bat (or two) and a ball and off you go. Even as I am writing this, I can hear kids playing with a plastic ball outside.
So it was with great pleasure that I fished out my old bat from the innards of my old room and played for a solid two hours with my friends a couple days ago. Now my friends may tell you that I suck at this great game, but I think I have gotten better with time. Besides, if sucking were ever to be a crime, the entire post-Lebron Cavaliers lineup would be in jail by now.

Entertainment: I have been spending an unhealthy amount of time playing "Uno" lately. You see, since we used to do the same years and years ago, it made complete sense to us to resume the noble practice. Each round is accompanied by an inordinate number of jeers, insults and hoots and heckles. Skips and draw fours bring out the worst in us, I guess.
Our ancient television set at home has, after many years of faithful service, decided to start phoning it in. The color scheme changes randomly on the screen, and depending on the time of the day, everything either turns red or blue. Doesn't take away from the actual scene on the screen, though, so I am OK with that. Most TV programs can be divided into the following categories: Indian soap operas, 24/7 cable news (English and Hindi), music videos and movies, cricket, and more cricket. Lately they've started airing a bunch of American shows (like Modern Family, White Collar, Family guy etc.) on a few channels. Strangely, there seems to be a lot of  "Las Vegas" on air on these channels. Here's your chance to see pre-Transformers and pre-Fergie Josh Duhamel, folks.

I think that's enough for now. More in the next installment.

An Indian summer - 2

Let's play a game. The name of this game is Where in the world is your favorite blogger?

Thank you for playing. Your favorite blogger is currently in a quaint little town called (read twice to memorize; there will be a quiz later) Vallabh Vidyanagar in the western Indian state of Gujarat. But I am sure that's like me saying that white dwarf WD 1620-26 is located alongside pulsar PSR 1620-26 A in the constellation Scorpius some 13000 light years away. (It's true. Look it up.)

Be happy, then, that I spent some time tinkering with Google Maps and GIMP (a free photo manipulation software, if you must know - sorta like photoshop for the poor) to demystify my location.

First, here is the good state of Gujarat. As you can see, it sits happily on the western edge of India, bordering the Arabian sea on the west and the south and Pakistan to the north.

Here is Vallabh Vidyanagar (if you are too tired of the long name, you can call it - as many locals do - V.V. Nagar), roughly 50 km (did I mention everything here is in kilometers, liters and kilograms?) from the coast.

An Indian summer - 1

A warm (and I mean that literally - it's hovering in the high 90's here) hello to our very loyal readers, followers, feed readers, lurkers et al. from India. I haven't written much on these pages for a long, long time and that's because I had other oh-so-slightly important things to attend. Like finalizing on a medical school. And graduation.

But now that I am on a glorious three-week long vacation in India, I have bucketloads of free time. What better way to spend it than churning out blog posts (some of which will, inevitably, be of dubious quality)?

The Flight: The prospect of flying to India from the states is frightening. Total flying time is routinely around 16-20 hours. Unless you are flying to and from a major airport (e.g. Los Angeles to Mumbai), add a few more hours to that flying time for connecting flights, layovers and road transportation. In my case, I flew Emirates airlines from LAX to Dubai and from Dubai to Ahmedabad, a comfortably sized city in the western state of Gujarat. From there, my destination is about 90 km. Emirates is one of the handful of airlines that treats its economy-class passengers as more than worthless cargo. In-flight service is generous and courteous.

I wasted a good two hours trying to like the Adam Sandler-driven trash vehicle "Just go with it", also starring Jennifer Aniston and, inexplicably, Nicole Kidman, finally settling down to watch reruns of my favorite TV show "Mad Men." Dubai's airport is large enough to house an entire eastern European nation or one of those trendy enclaves like Monaco. There I spend a whole $6 on a tiny cup of Haagen-Dazs ice-cream.

After clearing immigration and customs at Ahmedabad airport, I arrived at my destination (a small town called Vallabh Vidyanagar) at 6 in the morning, local time on Wednesday. I had left LA at 1 pm local time on Monday. In all, I spent about 30 hours in flights, layovers and other miscellany.

As I am writing this, the ceiling fan is groaning at top speed, desperately trying to generate enough cool air to ward the heat away. My friends and grandparents told me it was a lot hotter last week. Should I be glad, then?

That's it for this first installment. In the next part, I will talk a bit more about the place I am at (history, customs, what's life like here and so on), but in the meantime, say hello to my little friend that allows me to communicate with the outside world:

It's a series of tubes!