Fun Facts

Here are a list of fun facts concerning India:

• Mumbai is a linear city; there is a northbound train and a southbound train which, essentially, take you anywhere you would ever need to go in Mumbai.  Most cities expand outwards in all directions, but Mumbai has pretty much expanded in a vertical line.
• Mango season starts in March.  In fact, we just got a bottle of freshly squeezed mango pulp, so the fruit itself should be here soon!  Even though they are grown right here in India, rumor has it that the best ones are exported to other countries.  That doesn't stop many families from buying 10+ mangoes a day though.
• A lot of Indians follow American politics, and most are Republicans.  They do not like when Democrats try to reduce the number of jobs which are outsourced, because it, in turn, leads to job loss in India.
• I went to someone's house for dinner the other day.  9 people in the room.  5 languages being spoken.  Crazy.
• I am too big for India.  I have to duck while riding in taxis.  I have been in multiple buildings where I have to bend over so that my head is not through the ceiling.  It is bad.  The average male height in India is 5' 4", whereas the average female height is 5' 0".
• My internet is obtained through a prepaid USB modem.
• Dogs eat whatever the humans eat, and most Indians in Matunga are vegetarian, so by the transitive property that makes dogs vegetarian.
• More people in India have cell phones than in America.
• The list of people that come to my apartment include:  the trash guy, the maid, the coconut delivery guy, the dabbawala (tiffin carrier), the biscuit man, and the guy who irons my clothes.  We may also start getting milk delivery man so that we can make masala chai (tea) daily.
• The washing machine drains into my bathroom, so every now and then I get surprised by a soapy river of water flooding my floor.
• We do not have a dryer.  We have to hang dry our clothes.
• When I take a bucket shower, the floor gets absolutely soaked.  Completely covered in water.  But it only take 30ish minutes for it to completely dry.
• The maid told Rajiv on us for allowing our bananas to get too brown for her liking, forgetting to take out the trash one day, and throwing away one chipati (tortilla).  One.
• There is a soda here called Thumbs Up.  Kinda like Coke, but it has a picture of a red thumbs up on the bottle.
• Store owners often treat the first customer of the day very well.  How things go with the first customer of the day foreshadow what the rest of the day will be like.
• It took me 38 days to buy some chappals (sandals).
• I got rejected by 7 taxis tonight.  I was trying to go to dinner, asked the drivers to take me to Sion Circle, and they simply said no.  They understood me perfectly, but simply didn't want to drive.
• Although I was extremely hesitant about having cake in India (I would much rather have Indian sweets, right?), one store owner insisted that I try some of his egg-less cake.  It was one of the best cakes I have ever had.
• When I say that he insisted on me trying his cake, I mean that he gave me a piece of cake to eat.  No charge.  He also gave me a bowl of homemade ice cream, some squash halva (a shredded squash sweet), some chocolates, and three other sweets.  No charge for any of them.  "It is my honor and duty to serve you."  He also insists that we come by once or twice a week, just to talk to him.
• Some students the other day took me out to a place called Food Arcade for an afternoon snack.  Food Arcade is a Wawa type store, just Indian style.  One student got a brownie, which I recognized as the same ones sold at the egg-less cake place, Oasis.  One student asked her where Oasis is, and she had trouble explaining.  So I spoke up.  "It is in the market, past Matunga Station, on the left, right across the street from Rashmi Sweets.  You know where Rashmi Sweets is?"  They all stared at me blankly.  They had no idea where this place was lol.  After a few seconds, one student sighed, "Well, this is embarrassing."
• I hear a lot of languages other than English.  Therefore, my brain has stopped working in English, and has resorted to Spanish.  Example- I ordered some ras malai (a spongy type dessert served in a sweet cream) to bring home to Rajiv tonight, and the guy behind the counter wasn't sure if we wanted to eat it there or to go.  So he held up a container and asked "Boxa?" So I responded, "Si, si, gracias."  Not the first time that has happened.
• I was at a restaurant last week and a random five year old girl came up to me and asked, "Are you Sean?"  Yep.  I am that popular.  Lol turns out, she is the daughter of one of Rajiv's friends and had heard about me.  
• I was walking through the market the other day and some kid stopped me in the street and said, "Shave!"
• Last week I was having dinner in the market, eating a veggie toast sandwich, when a fight broke out twenty feet away.  One guy smacked another guy across the head.  That guy tried to hit him back, but someone stopped him.  The dude that attempted to stop the fight got hit.  And then chaos broke out.  One woman was grabbed by her neck and thrown to the floor.  The nearby store owners got scared so they closed up shop.  And literally hundreds of people gathered around to watch.  Meanwhile, the sandwich lady was yelling at us for giving her a tip the last time we ate there.  "If you tip once, fine.  But no more!"
• People love helping each other out.  LOVE it.  And if you ever thank someone for something... "Thank you?  What is this 'thank you'?  No thank you!  That is an insult to our friendship!"
• There is a nearby area called Five Gardens.  One of the main attractions of the area.  There are not many gardens or open space in the vicinity, so everyone goes there to walk, play cricket, or socialize in the morning.  Oh, and when I say "garden", I mean an open dirt lot, about the size of a soccer field.  One or two of them are pretty nice and have grass and benches, but they are not what you would imagine a garden to be.  In one of the gardens, there is a weight bench and some weights.  All of them are chained down so nobody steals them.
• Laughing clubs meet at Five Gardens.  What is a laughing club?  A laughing club is a bunch of people who meet and laugh.  For no reason.  They think it is good for your health, so they meet and laugh.  Don't say anything, no jokes, no nothing.  Just laughing.  All different types of laughing.  "Ha ha ha!  Ho Ho Ho! Huahuahua!"
• We typically boil two or three pots of filtered water a day.  Yes, we boil filtered water.  Not taking any risks here.  Exception: street food.
• People often ask me, "Yo Sean, are you able to handle all the spicy food there?"  Yes.  In fact, it is extremely hard for me to get spicy food here.  When people see a tall white kid with a Jew-fro, they assume that I cannot handle spicy food, so they instantly de-spice-ify it for me.  But I can totally handle it.  The waiters/vendors at my favorite places know that I can handle it now, but it took some time.
• Since I have been here, however, my taste buds have definitely gotten weaker.  Some of the foods I have been having since Day 1 now seem a lot spicier.  I think I burned off my protective layer of taste buds...
• My stomach is constantly in pain in America.  Food just does not agree with me.  However, since I have been here, my stomach has been extremely happy, minus one or two days.  Maybe because I am only eating vegetarian food.  Maybe because I am eating a more balanced diet.  Maybe because Indian food rocks.
• Since I have been here, my body odor has changed.  Probably because of my diet.
• We needed to make a copy of our apartment key so we went to the market to get it done.  There is a dude there who does it by hand.  When I say he does it by hand, I mean that he lines up the key with a blank one, pulls out a saw, and literally saws a new key by hand.  And it only takes him a few minutes.
• There is only one thing I really miss from home- fresh air.
• Mumbai has its own unique smell.  I don't know how to explain it, but every morning, when I open up my windows, my nose does not know how to react for a solid minute.  It is... different.  A lot of pollution.
• When I blow my nose, black soot comes out of my nose.
• I have noticed that despite the crazy traffic, I have stopped looking both ways when crossing the road.  I can just sense if cars are there.  In other words, if there is a car, I will hear it blasting its horn.  If I hear silence, I know that it is okay to cross the road.  Besides, watching where I am stepping is more important than looking for cars.
• It is always good to carry a bag with you.  Plastic bags at stores sometimes cost extra money.
• I asked Rajiv for a white board, and he himself wanted a printer, so he asked his friend where we could get them.  That day, his friend went home from work, took his own printer and white board, packed them in his car, and drove over to our place.  He insisted on giving us his own white board and printer.  And this was 10:30 at night.  He had yet eat dinner; he had only been home for a minute to pick up the printer/white board.  And all we asked was where we could buy them.
• Every time I plug something in, blue sparks fly everywhere.
• One day a man came to our apartment and said "Gas meter, gas meter."  We had no idea what he was talking about, and he didn't know any English, so the language barrier was a problem.  Fortunately, a neighbor was walking by and told him to go up to Rajiv's place because of our "connection".  Minutes later, he was back with Mrs. Gandhi.  Apparently there was a gas leak in our apartment.  The meter for our gas stove should have read like 8 or 9 units, and it was reading 154.  I don't have any idea what that means lol, but that sounds bad to me.  Anyways... He looked at our pipe, and wanted to know exactly where the leak was.  So he lit a match and ran it along the pipe.  Gas leak. Fire.  Sounds like a good idea.  I decided to quietly exit the room, just on the off chance, you know, our apartment blew up.  Fortunately, it did not.

I could go on and on and on about India lol.  But I will leave some for another day.  I think that list should suffice for now. =)