2 June 2008

Today we visited several of Vibha’s family members. We started taking a bus to her Uncle (Momma) Krishna’s house. This bus was on IST and took an hour to get there, but otherwise wasn’t so bad. We met her (new to the family) Aunt here who she had not met since the marriage. She was a wonderful hostess and had a lovely well kept home. She is a friendly energetic young woman that served us some ice cream. She speaks English very well like most people in Mumbai. Afterwards we went off to another Aunt (Vijaya Pati)’s house. Here we were served food. Lots and lots of food. Lemon rice, rice with sambar and ghee, curd rice, sweet rice, eggplant and chutney. All of it good, and piled high on my plate till I could feel it climbing back up my esophagus. She apologized this was all she had prepared…. I don’t know why people are not massive here. The heavy use of rice might have something to do with it, as rice has a lot of air and water that makes up the bulk of it while still tasting delicious. I noticed I actually ask for curd rice now. It is a taste I took to be polite earlier, but have grown quite fond of, and it can help cool you down (I didn’t buy that at first either, but the more I buy it, the more it works). Try to imagine cottage cheese, rice, leaves (taste a bit like basil), and some fruit (usually pomegranate seeds). We decided to leave before we could no longer move and so went to another Pati and Momma’s house. This was an older couple (as was the Pati we just visited). They were quite friendly and showed some old pictures painted by Vibha’s Pati. Her uncle was really friendly and made an effort to talk to me. Mostly the family just talked about family things in Thamil though. They have three children dispersed to Dubai, Hong Kong, and New Zealand. We left after some tang, tea and cookies. The Uncle took us to the bus stop where we took a bus back to the house. While waiting for busses today I learned the Hindi symbols for 0-9. As we went and came we passed by a Mosque that was built on an island in the Arabian Sea. It was quite beautiful and is a well-known sight in Mumbai. The city is one of the most built up I’ve been around here with lots of skyscrapers and more going up. The city is pretty clean other than the smog that is in every city. For dinner we had pani poori. Pani poori requires construction. You get hollowed out crispy puff shells. Fill them with potatoes and spice. Add some turmeric sauce, and dunk them in a broth. They are pretty good, though I don’t know how I ate more. After this I got the basics of Hinduism from Uncle that will get a section later. The houses here are usually really open with large windows open with no screens though often there are metal bars. It is not strange to have a bird hop in the window from the sill. Even the construction reflects this. Some buildings have a tree growing through one side and out the other, or right through the middle.
I was talking with a friend and pulled a good quote I’m just going to insert here: “It is amazing to see an Eastern Culture face Westernization and a strong drive of Economic Growth while it is in the middle of so much change.”