A Last Week of Hindi in the Mountains
It's been a long time since I've written! Fortunately, we do not have amoebic dysentery to blame for this lapse. Over my last week in Mussoorie, the weather highly constrained the amount of time I could spend at the internet cafe near my hotel. Every day, for a period of approximately three hours, there was warm, beautiful, sunshine. During this period I would sit out in the hotel yard with my Hindi book and refuse to leave. Around 2:30pm, the sun would disappear behind the clouds and the weather would turn cold and dark. At this point, I would spend as little time outside as possible, meaning I would run to and from my classes as quickly as I could, with no stops anywhere, except for my daily garm nimbu (hot lemon) at a little cafe on the way.
During my last week in Mussoorie, I also discovered Rani. Rani is a woman who lives in the small bazaar near the language school, and meets with many of the students outside of school so that they can practice their conversation skills with her (for a very low price). I started meeting with her every other day and am now feeling much more confident about my conversational abilities.
One day, Rani took a group of her students for a hike in the hills behind the bazaar. It was an exhausting but beautiful hike-- through woods and rocky fields and over hills, with dramatic views of thickly forested mountains all around us. We passed a small village at the end (about 8 buildings, 25 people, 30 animals), and sat down on a nearby grassy mound for a quick picnic.
The rest of the week was relaxing and rather uneventful. The highlight was probably my discovery of The Bengali Sweetshop in the main bazaar. I am still thinking about those gulab jamuns and barfis and rasmollais. I experienced further culinary delights during a meal one night at The Mussoorie Tavern with other students from my hotel. After weeks of the vegetarian hotel food, we stuffed ourselves with chicken and rotis that night. After out meal, the manager of the restaurant ordered us to dance to the Bollywood songs that were playing, which was an effective, if highly embarassing, method of working off some of that food.
This past Monday I took a train back to Delhi. The peace and quiet of Mussoorie was hard to leave, but I'd decided that I'd learned enough Hindi for the time being and that I should start sorting out my life in Delhi. This includes finding a place to live and figuring out how exactly I will carry out my Fulbright research project. I am staying with Briar and Raj again for now, but tomorrow am visiting three apartments/rooms to rent, so hopefully one of these will be suitable.
In the two days that I've been back in Delhi, however, I've already done two new things: 1) riding a moped and 2) driving into the vicinity of a major riot. The moped ride occurred because my friend Chris, who I met at my hotel in Mussoorie and who lives now with his mother at the American Embassy School, was too lazy to walk the half mile to a nearby ice cream store and insisted that we ride the moped. I still can't believe I did it.
The riots are occurring because of something called the Bandh, ie the Closing. Basically, the government has been closing down hundreds of Delhi stores that are illegally located-- in public buildings, in buildings that have failed safety inspections, in buildings that have been declared commercial free zones. In protest, shop-owners and traders are rioting. Apparently, the only dangerous sites right now are malls and large shopping centers. Yesterday, I had plans to meet my friend Mahima, whom I met in India last summer, at one of these malls, and foolishly did not think to change the location of our rendezvous. About a kilometer away from the mall, I saw that the police had closed off the road ahead and that huge crowds were milling on the sides. I had ridden there in an auto-rickshaw with Chris and his friend Justin. We decided that this mall meeting with Mahima was certainly not happening and told the rickshaw driver to take us back to the American Embassy area, where Chris lives.
According to the papers, the riots continue today but are expected to subside by the end of the week. Until then, I will be staying in safe areas and clearly not doing any shopping!
During my last week in Mussoorie, I also discovered Rani. Rani is a woman who lives in the small bazaar near the language school, and meets with many of the students outside of school so that they can practice their conversation skills with her (for a very low price). I started meeting with her every other day and am now feeling much more confident about my conversational abilities.
One day, Rani took a group of her students for a hike in the hills behind the bazaar. It was an exhausting but beautiful hike-- through woods and rocky fields and over hills, with dramatic views of thickly forested mountains all around us. We passed a small village at the end (about 8 buildings, 25 people, 30 animals), and sat down on a nearby grassy mound for a quick picnic.
The rest of the week was relaxing and rather uneventful. The highlight was probably my discovery of The Bengali Sweetshop in the main bazaar. I am still thinking about those gulab jamuns and barfis and rasmollais. I experienced further culinary delights during a meal one night at The Mussoorie Tavern with other students from my hotel. After weeks of the vegetarian hotel food, we stuffed ourselves with chicken and rotis that night. After out meal, the manager of the restaurant ordered us to dance to the Bollywood songs that were playing, which was an effective, if highly embarassing, method of working off some of that food.
This past Monday I took a train back to Delhi. The peace and quiet of Mussoorie was hard to leave, but I'd decided that I'd learned enough Hindi for the time being and that I should start sorting out my life in Delhi. This includes finding a place to live and figuring out how exactly I will carry out my Fulbright research project. I am staying with Briar and Raj again for now, but tomorrow am visiting three apartments/rooms to rent, so hopefully one of these will be suitable.
In the two days that I've been back in Delhi, however, I've already done two new things: 1) riding a moped and 2) driving into the vicinity of a major riot. The moped ride occurred because my friend Chris, who I met at my hotel in Mussoorie and who lives now with his mother at the American Embassy School, was too lazy to walk the half mile to a nearby ice cream store and insisted that we ride the moped. I still can't believe I did it.
The riots are occurring because of something called the Bandh, ie the Closing. Basically, the government has been closing down hundreds of Delhi stores that are illegally located-- in public buildings, in buildings that have failed safety inspections, in buildings that have been declared commercial free zones. In protest, shop-owners and traders are rioting. Apparently, the only dangerous sites right now are malls and large shopping centers. Yesterday, I had plans to meet my friend Mahima, whom I met in India last summer, at one of these malls, and foolishly did not think to change the location of our rendezvous. About a kilometer away from the mall, I saw that the police had closed off the road ahead and that huge crowds were milling on the sides. I had ridden there in an auto-rickshaw with Chris and his friend Justin. We decided that this mall meeting with Mahima was certainly not happening and told the rickshaw driver to take us back to the American Embassy area, where Chris lives.
According to the papers, the riots continue today but are expected to subside by the end of the week. Until then, I will be staying in safe areas and clearly not doing any shopping!
posted by Molly at 11:16 PM
1 Comments:
Stay safe! Miss you terribly. Any Israel in your near future??
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