e-paper edition of our beloved Indian Express. vah, kya newspaper hai!
Maahi Ve. This song has pretty much been playing repeat at GDL (thatks to kamal’s obsession with the song). It’s pretty fantastic, i have to agree. And check out that dancing! xo
a.m. and degrees that is. yikes it’s hot. im not ready to sleep yet so i’ll write a quick post.
i’m always up for an adventure, so tonight after cooking dinner kamal and i cycled down the highway to get diesel for the generator. the electricity goes out 4-5 hours a day lately, so running a generator is usually necessary, at least for part of the time. for 10L of diesel it costs 380 rupees. 10L= 2.6 gallons and 380 Rs. = $8.50. so diesel costs around $3.27/ gallon. that is pretty expensive, no? especially by indian standards. however, i am out of the loop for average fuel prices these days, so i could be wrong.
anyway, next we strapped the diesel onto the back of the cycles and headed back to GDL. these are our trusty bicycles:
on the way back we stopped along the road at a local dhaba for cold drinks. dhabas are local shops/restaurants found along highways and they are ubiquitous in india. ‘cold drinks’ refer to soda or pop. it’s just like grabbing a real drink or beer with your friends in america, except here it’s soda. since alcohol is pretty obsolete here (at least in public), cold drinks are a great alternative.
so we sat outside in the thick summer air, sipping our cold thums up and watching the trucks and cars pass along the highway.
this is the amazingly refreshing, infamous thums up (think coca-cola with less sugar and spicy flavor):
side-note: sodas in india are made with real sugar, not high fructose corn syrup. hence, they taste much better here. here is the list ingredients in thums up: carbonated water, sugar, natural flavors. not bad.
ok i’m off to sleep.
here’s on last shot of karthik, vivake, aditi and i making pav bhaji for dinner one night:
ps- the pav bhaji was superb :)
goodnight xx.
In March, GDL staff went to the BITS Pilani campus, a highly regarded engineering university about 20 km from Bagar, to attend a TEDx conference. The campus feel is slightly similiar to CMU in Pittsburgh. There were a lot of interesting speakers at the conference and overall it was a fun field trip. Also, it was refreshing to get out of Bagar and spend some time on a modern college campus. I even splurged on some american black coffee. Mmm i miss that.
here is a video of one of the TED talks we watched, by Raghave KK, an Indian artist:
http://www.ted.com/talks/raghava_kk_five_lives_of_an_artist.html
off to do some work. happy wednesday! xx
tonight we all went to jhunjhunu to celebrate kamal’s 21st birthday. we sat outside in a restaurant garden under the stars and trees. sahil’s dad is visiting so it was fun to hang with him. great naan, great lassi, great company and of course a delicious, (egg-less) chocolate cake.
it’s lovely in the evening. midday it gets to almost 115 degrees but the evenings are great- it reminds me of summer evenings in pgh or nyc. mmm.
last night i slept outside with aditi on the rooftop under the stars. in india everyone is so exposed to the elements- even houses are arranged so that the main room is the central courtyard. and roofs are flat since there is hardly rain here. so it’s easy to sleep outside.
tonight we came home from jhunjhunu and played a khatarnaak game of volleyball. now off to sleep in my mosquito netted bed. yess.
i’ll leave you with a pic me looking indian at ridhi sidhi temple:
ciao ciao! xox
the desert creatures that come out at night in the summer heat are extremely disturbing. i woke up at 3 am to find 2 huge spiders and beetles everywhere in my room. AND not to mention a real scorpion. holy shit.
and i’m a big wimp about these things. if you know me at all, you know this fact very well. all in all it hasn’t been too fun.
my sister always had a ‘decorative’ mosquito net on her bed for years to give her room a more india-like feel. i always thought was a sweet idea— looked very dainty and nice. however, today i finally purchased a real-deal utilitarian mosquito net to protect my face from any falling beetles while i sleep through the hot rajasthani nights.
yay for peaceful sleep once again!
