Springtime in Pondi: A Semester in India: February 2013

First, let me say that I have gotten pretty awful about journaling. My bad. I’m going to blame it on being busy, which is a good thing! Classes have been finalized and by now I’m used to life at Pondicherry University. I take classes with masters-level Indian students, and in most of my classes I am the only SIP (Study in India Program) student, or there are one or two others. As I am the only American in my sociology class, I am really getting to know my Indian classmates. People here are incredibly friendly and (most) are easy to talk to. Classes are taught in English, but some people have a harder time conversing in English, or their accents are too strong for me to understand what they are saying – but I repeat myself and ask them to repeat themselves as well. The language barrier is just another challenge about being in a foreign country – I am constantly impressed by how many languages students here can speak (English, Tamil, Hindi, etc.). I know (some) French, so when the French exchange students speak in French I can follow at least half of what they are saying, though I can’t respond most of the time because they talk so fast!

On Thursday, Liz and I went on an epic adventure (note: by now you should know everything in India is an adventure, but this is the first time we planned a trip by ourselves) to Hyderabad to visit two friends from Hendrix, Gilly and Paige (population: 6 million, makes Pondi look like a cute little town). We rode on a semi-sleeper bus, which took 14 hours, and then took an auto-rickshaw to Hyderabad Central University (HCU) where Gilly and a friend met us at the gate. We were SO HAPPY to see them after our long journey! On Friday, Gilly, Liz and I went to a craft fair/market where we experienced the most laidback shopping of our lives (ok, in India at least). It was surprisingly relaxing – you have to brace yourself most of the time before going shopping because you have to haggle well and learn to ignore incessant shopkeepers’ calls. We also explored a sculpture garden nearby, which was really nice. That night, a big group of foreign students went to a nightclub called Liquids, which is in a swanky part of the city, Benjari Hills. They only played bad American pop music, and I found myself missing the Tamil beats and Hindi bollywood songs that I hear when I go to Ocean Spray in Pondi!

Being in the city was fun – it’s fairly more Westernized than Pondi, because it is much bigger and it’s farther north – the farther south, the more conservative/traditional it gets. So I brought what I would wear clubbing (an American shirt and harem pants, with sandals of course) and people – both SIP students in Hyderabad and the Indians at the club – were dressed more Western than me. Oh well! We also went to two malls so I got to fully experience the effects of globalization. We had Quizno’s one night and Papa John’s the next. The malls were huge. HUGE. Familiar stores, both Indian and American/Western, a movie theater…it was pretty overwhelming, even for mall standards! Liz and I (with the help of Gilly and GoogleMaps) decided to conquer the bus system, as it is much larger than the Pondi bus system and bus travel is way cheaper than taking an auto-rickshaw. Since it is hard to get around, and the city is so big that we didn’t always know where we were, we did about half bus travel and half travel by rickshaw – not bad for being in an unfamiliar city!

Saturday, Gilly, Liz and I went to Golcunda Fort, a 16^th century fort built to ward off Mughal invaders in the state of Tellangana, now Andhra Pradesh. We hiked around the bottom of the fort, which seemed to go on forever, before climbing up, where we could see the beautiful city of Hyderabad around us, stretching out into the distance. We wandered around the fort for a while, before heading back to HCU to rest for a bit. That evening, Liz and I went out with Paige and some of her friends. We tried to go to a live music performance but we couldn’t find it, which is how I ended up at my second Indian mall in two days! Sometimes in India you set out to find something, can’t find it, and end up getting pizza. It happens. Liz and I were really tired, so after dinner we took two buses back, arriving at the main gate of HCU right at Paige and her friends arrived by auto-rickshaw, which was pretty funny.

Sunday, Paige, Liz, and I, along with two other Americans from HCU, went to see the Charminar – a four column structure with minorets and a mosque. Surrounding the Charminar are pearl stores, as Hyderabad is the ‘City of Pearls’ as well as your typical Indian bazaar scene – stores and people on the sidewalk selling glittery bangles, colorful saris, perfumes, and antiques, among other things. I also ducked into a small Hindu temple, where a man put a red bindi on my forehead. In the afternoon, Liz and I rested for a bit and had tea with Gilly before we left.

That morning, I had called the bus company to change where Liz and I were boarding the bus from Miyapur to Gachibowli, which is 30 minutes closer to HCU. The man I talked to said he had changed it, but I called back in the afternoon to double-check. Not only did the man I talk to tell me the departure point had not been changed, he told me he couldn’t change it, and gave me another phone number. After calling that number twice with no answer, Liz and I began to freak out. Also, Liz called another number and they began speaking only Hindi. With enough time to get to Gachibowli but maybe not Miyapur, we went to the South Gate of campus to flag down a rickshaw, at this point fairly nervous about getting back to Pondi. We got a rickshaw, but then the guards at the South Gate of HCU wouldn’t let us go through the campus in the rickshaw to the main gate, so we take the long way around, which cost us double but still got us to the Gachibowli bus stop, eventually. We got out of the rickshaw at an intersection near the private bus companies, and asked several people until we finally made it to the right place. After talking to the person at the front desk, who assured us it was “no problem” to board the bus to Gachibowli, we calmed down, and waited for the bus to get there.

As we were waiting, we saw two familiar faces – two German women from our bus ride over to Hyderabad. They have been traveling around India teaching acroyoga, and we talked to them for a while before our bus arrived. Every time something terrible happens here, something equally wonderful shows up to balance it out. I love India and I hate it, sometimes at the same time. There’s no in-between with anything here. Most of the time, though, I love India. The bus ride back to Pondi was pretty uneventful – bus travel is far cleaner than train travel, it’s a bit like being on an airplane (your seat reclines, there is a/c, a terrible movie is playing) mixed with a rollercoaster (remember this is India, driving is different than in the U.S.). We arrived in Pondi around 8:15am, caught a bus to Pondicherry University, hopped onto the boys’ bus on campus around 9:15 (yes, some buses here are segregated by gender) so we could make it to our hostel in time to get breakfast, took an awesome shower, and made it to all of my classes except the first one, which began at 9:30. All in all, a great trip, only one major mishap, which worked out as things eventually do here, and I made it to four classes today. Next weekend we (the five American girls, including myself) are going to Bangalore and Mysore, which will be fun. After that, though, I’m going to take a bit of a break from traveling – it’s exhausting!