Sept 28th: An India craft

This may have happened while I was ill and didn't want to leave my room

The stole is from Pune Festival, a performance/festival for Gunpati that treated us like VIPs because we were, with some obvious exclusions, white.  I wore my new shirt to school and the Indian ACM workers loved it. They said I should make these weird, rave-esque, gauds for everyone. 

Sept 26th: Sometimes

In a country where unscheduled lectures are frequent and transportation is reliant on rickshaw drivers accepting your pleas for a ride, one channels all of their control-related insecurities into drawing shapes. 

Sept 24th: Sunita

My host mom's maid lives with us so she is kind of like my second host mother. She doesn't speak english, read/write in any language, or let me do my own dishes. She is also hilarious. Some things from my stay so far:

- Every time she calls me to a meal, even if it's 9pm, she screams "CAAARRI! LAAANCH!"
- My host mother offered me apple juice. I went to the kitchen, where Sunita started pouring me a glass. She passed me the glass with a huge grin and said "Whiskey!" Later my host-mother told me that she was trying to trick me into thinking that I was getting whiskey.
- She pointed to my ipod and said "Mobile?"

There also aren't Marathi words for please or thank you, so I have a hard time when she washes and folds all my laundry for me before I get home. 

Sept 21st: Pune Festival

So I'm seriously considering 

Pune Festival 2011

forsaking Americorps and the GRE's and using my immediate post-grad years to see if I can make it as a Pune Festival Gunpati dancer.

I imagine it would be exactly like dancing in the little side shows at Six Flags, except with slightly more pious intentions, and I would probably have to get my nose pierced. 

Sept 20th: you are cordially invited...

To Cori and Inanna's weddings.

Just kidding. We were just attacked with jewelry, lipstick, and flowers by some overzealous maids. 

HAPPY GUNPATI YALL. 

Sept 18th: Tired

Post-Mumbai 

Sept 13th: Items

Items You Cannot Find in India and Should Have Brought More Of:

• shower curtains
• granola bars
• bread 
• intermediary pants (I don't want leggings and I don't want harem pants. Guess I'll go naked) 
• free wifi 
• a rickshaw driver who knows where you live/understands what you're saying 
• pavement
• toilet paper 

Sept 12th: Columns

Another Illustrated List:

Sept 10: Some Little Punk...

Tried To Pickpocket Me. 

Good Thing I Have a Grip of Steel and the Will of a Lionness:

Some Pictures from the Ajanta and Ellora Caves

 Helen, Joe and I at Shivaji Fort (I think. We've been to a million forts)

 The Ajanta Caves (Zoe, me, Martha, Clare, Joe (The names are for my mother))

 The interior of the Ellora Hindu temple

 No big deal, just at the largest man-made monolithic structure in the world. 

We also visited a million mosques. 

To summarize the trip: A million forts, a million mosques, a million bug bites, a million tea-breaks and a million Game of Thrones comparisons. 

Sept 4th: Another list

that I've been making

The houses and buildings here all have really intricate gates. These are a few that I really liked.

Sept 3rd: A lot of photos

By my standards, at least.

At the Hachiko agro-tourism retreat. 

Unrelated cultural advice: Don't feed cows marigolds, otherwise a farmer will yell at you from across the encampment

What is this organic-willy-wonka land? 

Climbing the first of a million stairs to the top of Shiveneri Fort, aka the most beautiful place i've ever seen. 

A MONKEY!!

Oh mah gawd, this is, like, so typical India. 

I found a micro frog

Our room in Hachiko Retreat Center

This was my "Oh my lord, i'm actually in India!" moment 

There are a few people I would like to thank for the creation of this blog post:

- Idea Co. for their invention/creation of the 3G Netsetter

-My parents, for sponsoring the purchase of an Idea 3G Netsetter 

- Zoobooks, for inspiring pure glee at the viewing of emus and leopards (not pictured, but totally seen)

- Sunita, for making me tea and biscuits every morning and mid-afternoon 

- English Colonialism, for while I do not approve of making people do anything they do not want to do, I do appreciate the Royal Southern Racing Club Restaurant, where I was taken out to dinner yesterday

- My jacket, for being rainproof

and finally, 

- The elephant I saw in the street today, for being the elephant I saw in the street today