5/6 June 2008

I began working at the Institute of Animal Husbandry & Veterinary Biologicials (IAH&VB) in the FMD lab running ELISA tests. I’ll give a procedural rundown of what we do at some point, but mostly we pipette bits of liquid from one tray to another and incubate it, wash it, and repeat. Work went pretty smooth. I show up around 10:30, work at a relaxed pace, and get to sit around while plates incubate, which is a lot of the time. We can have about a 2 hour lunch if we don’t need to take plates out, and we can leave by 5. It’s really a pretty sweet deal if not a little one-tracked and repetitive. The lab breakdown is as follows: Boss- Dr. Hedgre who I met before and our group decided reminded us of Dr. Snyder from home. He’s quite friendly with me but he is a boss for everyone else, so the dynamic is a bit different. I know technically he is my boss but I’m not getting paid and only work one month so there’s no real worry.

4 June 2008

I took a flight back to Bangalore this morning. On the plane I saw a new eye color in a child. Now, this might not seem like much, but I kind of thought I’ve seen plenty of eyes to get more or less all the colors there are. This is the first time to see coal colored eyes though. They were not the dark black that loses the pupil, or brown that commonly surrounds it, but a smoky grey that highlights both the black pupil and white cornea as an intermediate of the two. The flight wasn’t bad, and I’m much more confident traveling now. I took a cab that ripped me off huge for the trip to the college. I learned the area we are staying in is called Ganganager which is a good direction to give people who are driving me. I also found that there is a techno remix of ‘We Will Rock You.’

3 June 2008

I think we just hung out at the apartment this day. Mostly we rested but in the afternoon Uncle gave us a talk on a topic in philosophy he has studied extensively. He grew up on the principles of Veyda that is the philosophy of the way of life through Hinduism as an ancient way. Scientology, apparently is based on the same principles as Veyda and more or less adapted the old principles to a modern lifestyle. In America, other than the legitimate reasons, Scientology catches a lot of flack for talking about non-Christian principles that are actually based in quite ancient philosophy such as the union of a single soul with the source of all souls. It was an interesting presentation that he had apparently been approached by the heads of scientology to prepare and give at a college. I think they were looking for a way to take some of the heat off their criticism, as this is very strong. While I don’t agree with Scientology’s methods of business, and they come off as used car salesmen, it was nice to see they have some deeper roots and are doing some good in communities worldwide. Some people might write it off for this reason too, claiming it just stole another philosophy’s principles, but to put the time and energy to research and revive those principles for modern day society is a notable accomplishment in my eyes still.

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.”

1 June 2008

We were both tired and took the day to rest. For lunch we had the best bean dish ever. I was told it had all three pulses in it, which I took as a good thing. Uncle (I refer to her family members and Auntie and Uncle), is a healer in homeopathy and studies veydic philosophy as well as other things. He sporadically meets with patients at the house, and gave me some throat pills as I had been having some difficulty. Anyone who knows me back home knows my nose runs all year, but people are still trying to fix it here. His homeopathy medicine consists of dilute residues in sugar pills you place under your tongue. In the evening we watched a really exciting Cricket match between Chennai Superkings and the Rajasthan Royals. The entire game came down the last pitch when the Royals pulled out a run to break the tie and win. I learned most of the rule for Cricket in this match and I’ll give a breakdown in a talk later for those interested.

31 May 2008

We went to a bazaar today but I wasn’t feeling it. I have to know what I want really badly before I will go through arguing to the bone about price on something I’m being sold. Chandni Chowk is the name of the bazaar we went too, and it could have been a lot of fun if I was in the mood. Several people got some good items there like shoes. We ate a big lunch before Vibha and I skipped out to the airport for our flight to Mumbai. We found some delays here too, and so played hang-man and sat in the airport. We met her family and had a truly delicious dinner. Afterwards we relaxed watching Indian Idol with some very lenient judges. I did some email and helped Vibha remember our classes from last year as she e-mailed her little sib that had contacted her.