Shockingly Clean

There’s nothing quite like coming home to an unelectrified plumbing system – because, I don’t care how tough and rugged you are, sometimes you just want to wash away the day’s worries without having to turn the hot water knob using an insulator. Trust me – a bucket bath just doesn’t live up to the hype if you’re in a constant state of careful estimation regarding whether or not there’s an unbroken circuit of water between the sink’s faucet and where the soap sits on the edge of the counter. When you don’t feel like jumping at the most minute twitch of a muscle because you think it’s the first sign that you’re about to be the path of least resistance between the water-covered floor and the capricious voltage source that sometimes manages to coerce the water pipes into collusion. Perhaps the most hilariously frustrating part is when, as you see the bucket below the lower faucet nearly full, you hurriedly grab some cotton shorts and use them to insulate your hand as you turn the lower-faucet on–everything off–shower-on lever to the middle, “everything off” position, but, in your hurry, go a bit too far, crossing over into “shower on” territory, and those handful of drops fall straight down, directly onto your shorts, on your hand, on the metal lever, almost instantaneously turning your shorts from quality insulator to great conductor, and sending that telltale throbbing pulse up your arm and down your leg.

Food for Thought

In India, there are appoximately 700 distinct foodstuffs considered “good for digestion.” In fact, if you are eating Indian food with an Indian, and said Indian begins a sentence with “It is...,” you can be 95% sure that the next words out of said Indian's mouth will be either a.) cooling, b.) good for health, c.) good, na?, or d.) good for digestion. Almost never will you here the more expected “hot as all get out to begin with, and eating this stuff would make you sweat in a meat locker.”

Lunch, Lunch, Lunch, Lunch...

As an objective outside observer, I believe I'm in a position to confidently say that they have a bit of a lunch complex over here. They always want to know, namely, if you've eaten it.
They also have a particular way of expressing it, specifying that it's your lunch they're referring to. You hear it so much, it becomes a cliché:
“Have you had your lunch?”
As if you just might answer:
“No, but I stole Renji's – don't tell the poor bastard, though, or I won't be able to steal it again tomorrow.”

If by "Digestion" You Mean "Constipation"...

In India, there are appoximately 700 distinct foodstuffs considered “good for digestion.” In fact, if you are eating Indian food with an Indian, and said Indian begins a sentence with “It is...,” you can be 95% sure that the next words out of said Indian's mouth will be either a.) cooling, b.) good for health, c.) good, na?, or d.) good for digestion. Almost never will you here the more expected “hot as all get out to begin with, and eating this stuff would make you sweat in a meat locker.”

Offing the Offal

It seems, in Belapur, at least, that Saturday is Trash Day. Not “Take Out the Trash Day” or “Pick Up the Trash Day” really so much as “Burn the Trash Day.” And the scent was not one that brings back the rustic nostalgia of a camp fire. Rather, it brought to mind a raging tire factory inferno. I decided to hold my breath until I passed the fire and was pleasantly surprised as I realized that, with the heat of it still gratuitously warming my back on this hot summer's day, the strong wind yielded one side of the fire completely without scent or noxiousness. However, that same wind soon enough offered up for my olfactory enjoyment the scent of the plastic-and-rubber conflagration located a few hundred feet down the way. Luckily, I only noticed it occurring in one of the three blocks I walked past on my way to work. I just hope it wasn't too early for everyone else to have been goaded by their wives to “Go burn the trash already!”

The Only Conceivable Reason

Sanjiv: Hey, Rajiv!

Rajiv: Yes, Sanjiv?

Sanjiv: Let's sell milk!

Rajiv: ...okay...

Sanjiv: Only...we'll sell it in bags!

Rajiv: But...why?

Sanjiv: Because I hate people!

Rajiv: Brilliant!

Breakfast in the Morning

Breakfast this morning at the hotel buffet was uneventful, in my opinion. But this forum is not for me - it's for you, my ever-interested public, so write about it I shall.

It all started with the batura - everything was fine before the batura. You know how batura can be - that greasy, flexible, thin, almost diaphanous flatbread. Well, it was on offer on the buffet table, and what else was I to use to eat my egg bhurji and chola (chick peas-in-sauce)? So, though fully aware of its proclivities, I decided to add it to my plate. This course of action was going fine until, sensing that I had painstakingly piled just the right amount of both egg bhurji and chola on my fork, I'm sure, the batura got up to its old tricks again. When, for the third time, the batura refused to yield to the pressure from the tines, I knew for sure it was mocking me, and along with that knowledge came the concomitant disdain that accompanies one's realization that one is being mocked by a greasy grain-based foodstuff. I looked around, but the room was empty - it was only the batura and I, locked in a battle of wills.

It was during this cessation in the ongoing battle that is any Indian meal - an acrimonious pas de deux between my stomach's will to nourish me and my tongue's pride in its role as protector of my esophagus from progressive corrosion - that my spicy-ridden maw seized the moment and thought of the mineral water I had been promised several minutes earlier, whose arrival in my glass was being delayed because the night staff had left the cooler locked but taken the keys home with them.

Just then, a tall sikh, moving quickly and, ostensibly, purposefully, passed my table carrying a meat tenderizer. As he began to bang unapologetically upon the intractible (to the would-be intruders' minds) lock, I hastended to inform my waiter, who followed, that I was quite content with just juice.

He eased my concern be informing me that it was not just for me but, rather, for the good of all those would would come after me as well that this alternative had been decided upon.

Therefore, I felt little guilt when the hammering stopped as a large lower panel of the cooler clanked to rest on the floor. Nor did I cringe very much, and, if at all, only with a knowledge that my cringe should be shared by all those future patrons who would desire chilled beverages, when the hammering resumed and the lock was finally compromised through blunt force.