Musings of an Idiot

Hyderabad Again

Last couple of days in Vijayawada were uneventful and basically spent lazing around. There was some last minute shopping on Saturday evening for vegetables, snacks and a set of clothes. The highlight of saturday was the trip to the vegetable market. It was an experience - it was dusty, it was crowdy, it was noisy and it was stinky - a complete sensory overload. Probably not the best place to buy vegetables but they are very cheap there and I guess that's the reason everyone goes there. It has been one of my better Vijayawada trips as I didn't fall sick this time around and i'll miss the hospitality and the family time more than anything else.

The train journey back was not enjoyable again even though the condition of the train was heaps better than the last one. This was because they didn't switch on the AC even though it was an AC compartment. It's very annoying and wish there was some kind of customer complaint service to address that problem. But knowing India - even if there was such a system the complaint book would either be ignored or lost or be tampered with and the problem would still remain.

I much prefer the weather in Hyderabad to Vijayawada as it isn't humid and it is actually easier to breath. Since this morning I've had a trip to a local eating joint to get some breakfast and a trip to the barbers to get my hair shortened. Breakfast is cheap - NZ$0.80 for a dosa {as compared to NZ$8 and upwards for a dosa in Auckland} and it just makes me wonder if I should get into food business back in NZ since there seems to be huge profit margins.

My hair seemed to grow faster this time around and I've had to go for a hair cut within a month as opposed to every 6-7 weeks when in NZ. The barber was again cheap with the trip costing me $2.50 for a hair cut and shave while a hair cut alone costs NZ$15 and upwards in NZ. The experience was interesting though- I've got a massive scar at the back of my head from an operation when I was a kid and my regular barber in Auckland usually takes care to cut the hair in such a way that most of the scar is covered up but here the barber just went all out and trimmed the whole lot so now my massive scar is on wholesome display. :-) And the shave - holy crap - it felt like he shaved my whole face. I am afraid I'll now turn into a werewolf or something when the hair regrows.

Most of my shopping is done and only very small things remain, so the rest of this week is going into socialzing and doing important house work.It's hard to believe that the holidays are coming to an end so soon. I'll try and take more photos in Hyderabad, where my photo tally stands at a grand total of 15.

That's me for now.
Amit

Labels: Hyderabad, Travel, Vijayawada

posted by Amit @ 11:58 AM 0 Comments

Temple!!!

Ever since I've been here, mum has been trying to convince me to visit a temple and I've been resisting it. For some reason I just don't feel like visiting temples this time around and I was trying to stay true to my stand where I refused an opportunity to go to a temple as recent as yesterday . But she has been very persistent in her requests so I finally gave in and the plan was to visit a local temple this morning. It was an interesting experience again as the temple we went to was small and not as big {and thus not as commercial} as Kankadurga Temple - the main temple in Vijayawada. Climbing the stairs to the temple was a journey through various kinds of smells ranging from the pungent to the aromatic and everything in between. The best part of the trip was the top down view of Vijayawada and I got some cool shots. If you compare the cityscape of Hong Kong and Vijayawada you can see that Vijayawada's cityscape reflects the chaos within the order while it is the exact opposite for HK.


I might be wrong but there seems to be an increased obsession with religion in India now. It was there to some extent even when I was here till 2003 but it seems to have accelerated so much more in the last couple of years. I don't know the reasons for it but it is pretty weird seeing how deep the influence of religion has become across all social classes. Another random observation is that people in Andhra {it might apply to India as a whole but I can't generalize as most of this trip has been in Andhra Pradesh} don't listen properly. You'll say something, they'll nod their head in agreement and they'll go ahead and do something completely different. When you tell them that's not what was asked for or said, they'll finally come around to doing what you originally wanted after you repeat your instructions a couple more times. And I am saying this not from one incident but from multiple incidents - big and small. It's like people choose to do what they think you want them to do without even listening to what you just said. No wonder getting any kind of work done here is a major hassle.

Trying to watch a Hindi movie on tele is like running a marathon. I was flicking across the channels and found a movie that I had heard good things about and decided to watch it but it was an exhausting experience. As it is Bollywood movies run between 2.5-3 hours and when you have 15 minute commercial breaks after every 20 minutes of the movie, you soon loose track of the story and subsequently the interest in watching the movie dies. I left the movie when it still had another hour or so to go as I was tired from the effort. DVD's or watching it in a cinema theater is the way to go for any Indian movies. The broadcasters here need to learn that the advertisers won't be getting value for their money if the target audience is lost because of too much advertising in a broadcasters eternal quest to maximize their advertising revenues.

The 4.45 AM wake up call because of the temple visit combined with the last couple of nights where I couldn't sleep properly as the mosquitoes were enamored with me, is killing me and I think I'll go and have my late morning nap now.

Till later,
Amit

Labels: Travel, Vijayawada

posted by Amit @ 11:25 AM 0 Comments

TV in Rural India

A couple of days back I went and visited the village that I've visited since childhood because grandma's sister {'amma'} and her husband ['tatha'] have their house their, and it was a very different experience. What was noticeable was the distinct lack of children playing around on the streets and the stillness of the place. From childhood memories as well as from the 2005 trip, I know that in the evenings there is a lot of hustle/bustle on the main village road with kids playing and people doing household chores and socializing. This time around it was quiet - there were only 2 or 3 kids playing and they were curious enough to come looking for me as I was carrying my digital camera around trying to see if I could take any snaps.



Looks like the outreach of satellite TV into rural India has had a huge impact on the village lifestyle. The set-top box and subscription to 100+ channels in rural villages costs about Rs.70 odd a month {from the information I overheard} - that's NZ$2 per month. I guess the reason they can provide it so cheap is that they earn money through advertising revenue generated from reaching a bigger percentage of the population. When we were kids, if there was a major TV event like a cricket match or something, almost the entire village would gather at tatha's house in order to watch it as that was the only television in the village. Now every hut has it's own TV - so no more sense of an event or sense of community. I guess the good thing is that means there is development in rural India and the bad thing is that they are now watching crappy daily soap operas and forming an unrealistic view of what a city life is.


One of the best things about visiting 'thota' [literal translation: farm] is the awesome food the amma cooks up. Her chicken fry dish has been the best chicken dish I've had since coming to India this time. It was unbelievably awesome. A distant second is 'Ulavacharu Chicken Biryani' from DV Manor in Vijayawada. It is always a strange feeling seeing the faces of people you've known since childhood, every passing year. For some reason I always imagine people with the same faces as I remembered them when I was younger and the toll that age takes on the face and the body seems unreal. You don't want to believe your eyes but the reality is that everyone ages and that is a fact of life.



The matrimonial thing isn't going too well for me. Gyanender uncle is of the view that I should find my own life partner because in terms of arranged marriage to someone from India, the relationship most probably won't work out because of the unusual profession I am in and I can totally see his point. Besides that the arranged marriage thing on surface sounds so simple as a concept but it is so incredibly complicated and twister. In that aspect there are several things that work against me: a) hair {or lack of}; b) country {people only want US or UK}; c) profession {only a docotor or an engineer or a IT professional would do}; d) age {under 30 only thank you very much}. So all in all pretty much everything about me is not acceptable to the Indian society at large and I find it highly amusing on one hand and very angry on the other. Who knows what's gonna happen on that front? I don't. Looks like I'll be doing my own finding once I get back to NZ. :-)

I love the home cooked food that Lakshmi aunty is serving up and the pearls of wisdom and company of Gyanender uncle that the stay in Vijayawada has been extended till end of this week. There are no more relatives to meet and no more marriage bureaus to go to, so I'll be spending some quality time with them {even though I skipped going to a temple visit this morning}. I might buy a pair of shorts and t-shirt later this evening and I might even get some much needed exercise over the next few days.

That's me for now.
Later,
Amit

Labels: Travel, Vijayawada

posted by Amit @ 11:35 AM 0 Comments

Hot!!!!

1.5 KG in 20 days - that's my achievement so far. I'm loving home cooked food and I guess I'll just have to hit the gym extra hard as soon as I get back to Auckland. :-)

Vijayawada is hot. It is 35 degrees right now and that's been the consistent temperature ever since I've been here and it is end of October when it is getting cooler. It's hard going out during the day and the best time to check out the city is in the evenings but then it is just traffic and chaos as usual. Traffic is not as bad as Hyderabad because Vijayawada is a smaller city but the driving across the country still remains the same. Being a smaller city also means that things are more affordable - like a pair of jandals costs about NZ$2 instead of NZ$12 and upwards like in Auckland.


Yesterday all of us went to visit the small factory unit that my aunt is setting up and it was a fascinating trip - not just because of the factory unit. There was so much about rural India that I started noticing just now, it is true that when you are within a system you don't notice anything or see anything different since you are living it. But once you are away from something for a while - things start standing out. Like one of the things I noticed was the slabs in front of houses in rural areas - it is an odd design for a house but it serves a very functional purpose - people sit in front of their houses to see the world go by and it becomes their social interaction point. We live privileged lives in cities while the 'real country' lives in villages and that balance has been changing rapidly everywhere - not necessarily for the good. The imbalance is going to hit us all sooner rather than later.


Nothing much going on right now except the marriage thing as usual and it is a fascinating experience just going through it. Lots of fodder for analysis of the Indian society and social systems but that'll be some other time. Oh and I managed to bruise my right thumb pretty bad when I slipped and fell while rushing across a few stairs. It should come right soon.

That's me for now. Time to enjoy some more awesome food.
Amit

Labels: Travel, Vijayawada

posted by Amit @ 4:20 AM 0 Comments

Hello Vijayawada

It is a strange feeling going to social events and noticing people judging you based on how you look. And in my specific case - people looking at you weird because I don't have much hair on my head. You see, in India, everyone is very particular about their hair - it doesn't matter if you are fat,unhealthy, arrogant, stupid or anything like that, as long as you have a full head of hair you are part of the crowd. And if you don't fit in the crowd then you are marked to be judged whenever you step into the public. 7 years back I would've been embarrassed by such social situations but now I can't really give a shit about Indians preoccupation with appearances and superficiality.

A trip to India is incomplete without a journey on Indian railways and that wish was fulfilled earlier this morning when mum and me took an overnight train from Hyderabad to Vijayawada. I must say that it has been an exhausting train ride and I've never felt this tired throughout this current trip - even if you include the 12.5 hour flight from Auckland to Hong Kong. We got berths in 3rd AC car so we could sleep on the overnight journey but the AC in our compartment was switched off for most of the journey in order to save money or something. What that meant was that the compartment was stuffy as hell and hot - which in turn meant that I only got 4 hours sleep in total - which is why I felt so tired after the journey. I've slept for the better part of the day and I am now feeling refreshed.

Vijayawada brings back memories and I have a love-hate relationship with the place. I love everything about it except the weather as I tend to fall sick when I am here and this goes back to when I was a kid - it might have to do something with the combination of the heat and the humidity. My first impressions about Vijayawada at 4.30AM were that the roads were heaps better than Hyderabad but that it was quite hot even for that time of the morning.


The best part about coming to Vijayawada is visiting the family. I love spending time with my uncle and aunt over here and they've always been supporting me ever since I can remember. They took me under their wings for an entire year when I was in 6th Class and got admission into a school in Vijayawada. It was my detoriating health due to the weather in Vijayawada that pushed my parents to take me back to Delhi and go through the tricky process of getting me admitted into a school mid-way through the year in Delhi {because of the different school systems in different parts of the country}. Besides that my uncle is the one who supported my independent film making efforts and I wouldn't be working on my third project without his initial support.


So far it has been a quiet day in Vijayawada - I caught up with my grand dad during the day ; went to a marriage bureau on insistence from one of our relatives after being woken up from an afternoon nap where I had a dream in which I found someone of my own {maybe this marriage thing is playing on my mind - more than I would give it credit for}; visited Vijayawada club to have a look around - courtesy of my uncle; and enjoyed some awesome home cooked food - some of the dishes that I haven't had in ages.


Nothing major planned for rest of the time and will see how the rest of the trip pans out.
Later,
Amit

* Mom's youngest brother, Raja uncle, got this photo of Veni and me taken when we were in Guntur {a city 1 hour drive from Vijayawada} - just before I was put into the boarding school over there -{I am guessing this must be around 1985 or something}. Apparently he got scolded for it because he took us to the studio on an impromptu plan and we never got dressed in 'proper' clothes. :-) I used to love Raja uncle's impromptu outings as it kept things interesting and a real surprise. When I was later in Vijayawada -he was the one who used to take us to heaps of movies and one of the earliest movies I remember seeing with him are Jackie Chan movies like Police Story, Project-A and also movies like Herbie goes to Monte Carlo and heaps more.

Labels: Travel, Vijayawada

posted by Amit @ 10:26 PM 0 Comments