Impending purchases that will (most probably) increase my quality of life threefold

3. A scooter (to make it possible/economical/enjoyable to run more than one errand per day)

2. A mixey (blender) for papita shakes (to bring variety to my papaya "habit")

1. A mosquito zapper racket (to protect me from dengue and malaria AND simultaneously improve my tennis game)


...March is looking crazyyy!

People that have restored my faith in humanity despite me spending all day at work reading about poverty, corruption & social development failures

4. The random guy on a Mac. After a rough Wednesday night, I was having trouble concentrating in the unusually quiet and extremely birghtly lit office. I escaped to a coffee shop so I could sit comfortably on a couch to finish reading and indulge in free wifi and delicious coffee (Kleio beats Coffee Central because they have a restroom!). A colleague of mine immediately connected to the wifi (on her PC) and for some reason, I was having too much trouble on my Mac. Disgruntled, hungover and really wanting to check my email, I was uber frustrated at my many failed attempts. Having seeing a random guy on a Mac when I entered the café, I figured it might be worth my while to go and check with him to see if he was able to connect online. He said he was and told me to bring my computer over and motioned for me to have a seat. After a few quick minutes of configuring this and that and opening and closing windows, he quickly fixed the problem and connected me to the Internets.

The random guy on a Mac restored my faith in humanity and introduced me to a whole new world of amazing coffee shops with fast (and free) wifi.

3. The observant European floater.* For Valentine's day, a group of us went to Ideal beach, a small "resort" about an hour south of Chennai. The beach is one of the cleanest beaches I've seen in India and the water is, well, decently clean (or so it seems). We all ran in (after some drinks and apps), excited to be in the ocean on a beautiful day in real swimsuits. After a bit of wave catching and floating, the group headed back to shore (safety) but I decided to stay out a bit longer to increase my chances of getting a good suntan. All of a sudden, I realized I was really far away from shore and the waves were actually pushing me further out instead of back to the sandy beach. Despite my efforts of trying to swim back, I could not. My feet could not touch the ground and I started to panic. My breathing became short and I had flashbacks to an awful kayaking trip in Laos where I thought I was going to drown (we were kayaking in water that was actually better suited for white-water rafting, which we found out mid-trip). I saw a guy floating with a blow up raft about 20 feet away from me and quickly waved my hand. Scared he would think I was just trying to be flirtatious, I was not afraid to hide the look of panic that had taken over me. He immediately started swimming over, passed me the blow up raft and told me to hold onto it. I used it to propel me away from the dangerous abyss and toward safety.

The observant European floater restored my faith in humanity and introduced me to my second chance at life.

2. The kind Tamilian neighbor. My roomie is out of town for the week and generously agreed to let me use his scooter while he was gone (if and only if I promised to wear my helmet). He warned me about the battery as it probably needed to be replaced soon but said it would probably be fine. Out of fear of getting stuck in some random corner of the city, I didn't go near the scooter for days. Last weekend, being slightly overwhelmed by the number of errands I had to run on my Saturday morning (I now realize the value of wfhing) and decided to take the scooter out for a spin. I rolled it out of the gate and tried to start it. Failed. I tried to kickstart it. I didn't know how to do it; failed. I looked over at a neighbor who I had never met before or even seen for that matter. He saw my look of desperation/intense stare at him through my helmet and came over to my scooter immediately after parking his car. Without an exchange of words (only head bobs and smiles), we spent 3 (very silent) minutes of him trying and then successfully jump starting the scooter...he rolled it over to me and I proceeded to explore the streets of Chennai.

The kind Tamilian neighbor restored my faith in humanity and introduced me to a new world of auto-rickshaw free life in Chennai.

1. The three old Tamilian aunties. After work last Friday, I found myself hungry and with some time to kill before movie night at a friend's place. I went to my usual lunch spot, Hotel Ananda, for "snacktime" and ordered a plate of idly. As I was ordering, three old Tamilian aunties sat down at my table (apparently this is a common practice in South India) and proceeded to order something delicious-looking that I had never seen before. After I finished my idly, I was left a bit unsatisfied and looked to the waiter with a look of confusion and sadness on my face. He looked to the three aunties and one motioned to her plate and said "Try it, it's made of speeces (spices with an Indo accent)." I shook my head politely and motioned that I'd pass. "No, no, you should try it. Many speeces (spices) and onions and made of lentils." I reluctantly tore a tiny piece of said dish and was about to try it when she motioned to the bowl of saabji that had accompanied the dish. "Deep (dip) it in that, go ahead, deep (dip) it." I semi-dipped the tiny piece into the saabji and experienced the amazingness of an undiscovered South Indo cuisine...daal dosa. It's amazing. It has no simple carbs and it apparently is only served on special days at special times, so it'll be a trick to track down. Not only did this discovery change my view of South Indo food in a matter of minutes, I also have never felt so welcome by random strangers (who were so vested in my next snacking decision).

The three old Tamilian aunties restored my faith in humanity and introduced me to a new world of complex-carb deliciousness.


Despite my depressing reading on corruption, poverty and social development failures, I have been warmed by kindness and introduced to a whole new world right under my nose.

To the kind people in Chennai, thank you. Just like Professor Morrison said, it's the small things that matter in life...and alas, the whole has become greater than the sum of its parts. I now have a restored faith in humanity!



*btw, I know the observant European floater is not South Indian but he lives in Chennai...so ya know, same same.

Why I will never go to a fortune teller on (Elliot) beach (again)...

fyi...I understand my incredible superstition/belief in bad omens is completely embarrassing and totally ridiculous but, it's well-founded...trust me! I should have learned from my experience in Bhilai, but obviously did not. It has taken 2 months + to come to terms with my fortune teller run-in and now (I think) I'm ready to share it with it you.

This post is dedicated to my roomie and my boss, who both would have not lived with me/hired me if they had known about this "incident" earlier...that I'm sure of...because they told me.

5. The fortune teller and his words (from over two months ago, mind you) come into my head almost once a day...almost.

4. The fortune teller did not speak English or Hindi (or even English with an Indo accent) and unfortunately we do not speak Tamil, so he quickly interrupted an unassuming group of college students and made one (very kind, I might add) guy come sit next to us and agree to translate the entire "reading" before we could change our minds. I now understand, yet another situation, in which the phrase, "don't kill the messenger" actually applies and well, saved this said translator's life.

3. The fortune teller "works" with a parrot who lives in a (very small) cage pulling a card from the stack of cards on command in exchange for a small piece of a (probably old and stale) cracker. The fortune teller's parrot picked a "cobra card" out of the card pile for me. Apparently very bad.

2. The fortune teller told me not to make any important decisions for "some" time (this was during my "job hunting" job trip in December), that I'm the Bhatia family scapegoat for any problems (thanks, guys) and then, upon me picking what I was left to assume was the same "cobra card" from the pile that the parrot had previously picked, that I was under a bad omen for unintentionally hurting someone very deeply. This curse could only be removed by doing a Puja with snakes/meeting a snake charmer/very unclear exactly what would or would not qualify.

(Actually, he told me that I had accidentally knocked over a South Indian widow's special fruit offering to God in mourning of her husband...but after minutes of trying to figure out how I could have done this having been in Chennai for less than 48 hours, I was told to interpret it "figuratively").

The scariest part of the entire situation happened when I offered to pay him to "perform" this said ceremony/Puja/offering and he said he couldn't. I asked him to recommend someone (assuming he would recommend his brother or friend) and he said he didn't know. WTF?

1. The fortune teller was in my mind. I let a few days pass, but still could not shake his words, literally staying awake thinking of what would happen to me if I did not remove this said curse. After being shat on by a bird on my way down to Pondicherry, I realized that was the last straw. I forced myself to make a detour at the Crocodile Park cum Snake Milking Station and see what I could do about this situation I had "unintentionally" found myself in. After visiting (and being fascinated by) the milking station, I asked one of the men working there if I could go to the village and meet the snake catchers (catchers = charmers = bad omen breakers, right? right.) He explained the village was very close. I thought about it, but before I departed for my journey into the village, I decided it was worth my while to explain my story to this guy (mama bhatia flipped out at this part of the story...naturally).

Before the words were even completely out of my mouth, he motioned me to follow him, yelled out to a fellow snake milking station colleague and led me to a small, hidden temple next to the milking station. I covered my head with my shawl, followed his colleague and watched as he lit the diya, mumbled a prayer, placed a tikka on my head and placed the small offering I had given into the temple filled with 11 cobras that identically matched my 2 "cobra cards."

I was saved. This was it (talk about a case where 1+1=11) This was the end of my curse (knock on wood) and I promised myself never to visit a fortune teller on (Elliot) beach (again). I'm never having my fortune read, unless...the fortune teller looks really really convincing/legit and speaks my language, that is.

How To: Do laundry with a semi-automatic (and really complicated) washing machine.

*This is a reverse list...bear with me. Also, the pictures are intentionally small to avoid judgment on dirty brown water...see below.

1. Carefully (or regret later) separate clothes by country in which they were manufactured (specifically referring to India & Thailand, and for the latter, namely Thai fishing pants, which are also on my love/hate list) as to avoid tinting all your clothes light green (for a random example). Even Fab India clothing should be kept far away...until it's faded enough (aka after a few washes) to not pose a big risk.

2. Power "on" and then put clothes into left side of "manual" washing machine. Turn knob to "wash" (seemingly minor point, but many minutes and too much water has been wasted because the the drain was open and I was trying to fill the machine.) Turn on the water from the faucet nearby. Add mysterious blue powder soap, that, according to my new roomie, Kunal, "Gets out stains that I had given up on after more than a dozen washes in the States."

3. Turn off faucet. Add pre-selected clothes. Wash cycle. 15 minutes of freedom until the buzzer (which cannot be silenced goes off) aka don't take freedom too far. Buzzzzzz! Open lid, see dirty brown water. Freak out.

4. Cringe. Quickly turn knob to "drain." Drain. Turn knob to "wash." Add water from faucet for next "rinse" cycle (no soap). Rinse. 9ish minutes. Buzzzzz! Open lid, see dirty brown water. Freak out. Repeat 5x.

5. Disgruntled, decide that this is clean enough and move clothes to the right side of the machine into the centrifuge. Load up the heavy, soaking wet clothes in an even fashion as to avoid the loud sound that comes when the machine is unbalanced.

6. Wait 5 minutes (check out yourself in the nearby mirror or dance around to Desi Girl). Remove the clothes which have become almost completely dry (it's actually amazing). Load into a bucket. Walk upstairs to the roof!

7. Hang clothes on line. Hum a tune (probably Desi Girl which you've just danced to a few minutes earlier during previous step).

8. In the morning, go upstairs and take clothes off the line, experiencing nice smelling and very wrinkly clothing (my favorite step in the process).

7. Walk down the street to the iron wala who charges 4 Rs. per item (1.5 Rs. more than in Delhi, 2.5 Rs. more than in Bhilai) to turn the heap of clothes into a neat, compressed pile of wearable laundry...My friend, I'm now ready to move and shake in Chennai...!

Maybe, instead, a smarter investment is in one of these? It would cut out steps #2-5 and is better for the environment...