Ode to My Little Corner-Store Man

Shopping in this neighborhood routinely involves no fewer than five stores just to meet daily needs.  There is the fruit stand, right across from the vegetable stand, then the sweet stand down the street, and the dairy stand, and finally the corner store for everything else.  After getting dropped off at the end of my workday, I have a pretty set routine for gathering supplies, and the shopkeepers are getting to know me by now.  (How many other blondes come by asking for paneer?)  So, let me tell you about my little corner-store man.

When I first walked into his shop, all I wanted was some bread and some frickin' water.  I use the term "walked into" very loosely, of course, because his shop barely fits himself, a counter full of candy, a cooler for drinks and yogurt, and the five or six various members of his family who always seem to be hanging out with him.  My corner-store man doesn't speak much English, and at the time I knew NO Hindi, so we communicated by gestures and shrugs.  Eventually I plopped my bread, a bottle, and a few more impulse picks onto the counter, looking around to make sure there was nothing I'd missed.

He saw me browsing and immediately launched in.  "Soap?" he suggested.

"Yeah, actually..."  I glanced at where he was pointing.  "Dish soap?"

He got some down.  "Shampoo?" he asked, pointing to something else.

"Well, I don't know if I need that..."

"Candy?"  Pointing to the Cadbury.

"Hmm.... Mayyyybeeeee...."

"Shoes?"  He pulled out a business card, placed it in my hand, then pointed to a picture of himself and another gentleman taped to the counter. The card was for a shoe shop in Paharganj. "My brother."

"Sure, maybe I'll stop by," I promised, thinking, What?


Now, it's a regular routine.  Whenever I come in, he tells a helper to get me bread, dahi, and then suggests at least four or five other things I could buy at that given moment.  Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't.  (Usually I don't--there's only so many times you need to buy dish soap when you don't have a kitchen.)  He gives me Cadbury Eclairs as change instead of Rupee coins.  When I come in without wanting a certain item, like if I already have enough dahi for the week, he always looks sort of confused--even if I had bought the same item from him yesterday.  I love shopping at this guy's store.  It's one of the little things I do to make myself feel at home.

The reason why my little corner-store man gets a special write-up today is because he's sold me something that eclipses everything I've bought from him before. Behold:  corner store-bought laddoo.

Not just ANY laddoo, though.  What's so special about this box?  Take a closer look at the label.

It's laddoo I can eat!

No more worrying about the suspicious 100-degree temperature inside my local sweet store!  No more ignoring the fact that I just watched them preparing laddoo on the street using bare hands!

It's sad that one or two (or twelve) tummy bugs have reduced me to this, but it proves a point: does my corner-store man know me or what?

Two Amazing Discoveries

First, it is possible to buy Peanut M&Ms in India!

Second, they really do melt in your mouth, not in your hand.  Even in 106-degree heat!

The world truly is a wonderful place.

Mending

If someone were to ask me to name the most difficult part about living in India, I would have an easy answer: the illness.

Oddly enough, back home I am generally in perfect condition.  My immune system keeps me on my feet three hundred sixty-five days out of the year.  I once completed a triathlon the day before I discovered I had the swine flu.  Even in India, over the winter, I managed to get used to the dirty air and the new bugs in the environment with a minimum of trouble.

Then the thermometer went up to ninety, ninety-five, one hundred, and the bacteria doubled with every degree.  Now all bets are off.

It's an eye-opening experience to step into a hospital in a developing country.  When I was there, I learned two things: it's possible to be in and out in forty minutes, and it will cost you maybe twenty dollars total (including prescriptions).  To give you some context, a trip to the ER in Boston takes a minimum of four hours (although I once spent twelve just sitting in the waiting room) and you'll need to subsequently pay an arm, a leg, and your first-born child.

Afterwards, though, it's difficult to feel sorry for yourself.  Obviously, many people were there who felt much sicker than me.  Many people were there who, despite the low prices, found medical care payments a burden.  Most of all, I noticed who were not there.  With over 14 million people in Delhi, I wondered how there were so few other patients.  Surely it's not because everyone is so healthy.  One listen to the crowd noises outside my window at night tells you that's not true.  Something tells me that even with these low barriers, providing medical care to so many must be near impossible.  That probably explains the large numbers of "eye camps" or "heart camps" in the Delhi area--essentially, places for the needy to receive a free checkup.  It's like a lot of benefits promised to the poor: a good start, but is it ever going to be enough?

I have one sister who wants to be a nurse and one sister who wants to help sick children cope during hospital visits.  I think it's one of the most important aspects of my job that I create materials to help future doctors and nurses learn.  Witnessing the sick people inside the hospital--and the sick people outside the hospital--I am thankful for people who do truly good work for the benefit of others.  It's hard to ignore, however, how much more work still has to be done.

As for me, I'm concentrating on healing as quickly as possible, and God willing will be back on my feet soon enough.  It just might mean no more eating food that isn't boiling hot.  Sadly, this may mean--gasp!--no more laddoo from Aggarwal Sweets.  That's a tragedy.  Still, if that's the worst I've got, I'm luckier than I think.

Recap from Shimla and Environs, in Pictures

Skrrh skhrrch.  Skrchh skrchh skrchh.

"Mrrffhhmm, what's that?" I murmured, only half awake.

Rustle rustle rustle rustle.  Scrtcch srtccch.

I rolled over and shone my flashlight out the window, just in time to see a pair of paws disappear over the top of the roof.  Was it a monkey or was it some kind of cat?  More importantly, could it claw its way through the thatched roof?

It was the middle of the night in the Himalayan wilderness, and I was staying in a campsite on Summer Hill, just outside of Shimla.  While not in the high peaks region of the mountain range, Shimla is deep enough into the hills to afford a blessed respite from the sweltering heat of the plains.  The British were smart enough to make it their capitol during summer months, when New Delhi became unbearable for delicate Europeans.  Now, many long years after Indian independence, we Yankees made a similar decision and headed North to recharge after a long work week.

"I heard about this great place from my boss," I had announced while booking the trip. "And guess what!  We can even stay in a treehouse!"

What I didn't account for, of course, was that this wasn't just any tree house.  It was a tree house in India.  Which means, among other things, we would have visitors of the animal kind...

... and the insect kind ...

... and midnight visitors like our monkey.

The construction was also a source of some joking between my friends and I.  Sure, it was sturdy enough, but it was made entirely by hand, of wood.  There were limits to its possible structural integrity.  It made me a bit--shall we say, nervous? to climb the stairs and feel the entire building wobble.  Shifting from one side to the other made the whole room sway.  And forget making any sudden movements!

It seemed more funny than dangerous, though, and the general consensus was that the building would hold at least until the end of the weekend.  Besides, they used brand-name building materials...

... Just don't mention that John Deere is spelled with an "e", and they make tractors.  Not wood.

All joking aside, though, the scenery was worth every moment.  We were able to avoid the noise of Shimla--because, yes, in India even remote hilltop cities are crowded--and do some trekking through the wilderness.  We breathed clean air and ate delicious, fresh food.  We saw more monkeys than we could shake a stick at (literally).  We spent an entire afternoon drinking lassi and watching eagles fly over the mountainside.

India is many things, it can be beautiful and frustrating at the same time, but one thing it's not is easily describable.  It's a mass of contradictions.  You could say, it's a little like a log tree house on a remote mountainside... with candle and ashtray complementary.

Thai One On

Have been away from the blog for a few days thanks to the [Publishing Company] India National Sales Meeting in Pattaya, Thailand.  A full update will come soon, but for now let me say this:  There is no better way to bridge the gap than to get culture-shocked by the side of those who have been culture-shocking you.

And now, apropos of nothing, here is a picture of the scariest Ronald McDonald I've ever seen:

Photographic Evidence

Fact:  The awesomeness of any picture involving monkeys is directly proportional to the awesomeness of the expression on the monkey's face.

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

Exhibit C:

My personal favorite.  From far away it looks like we're hanging out in a park with a friendly little monkey. As you'll notice from our posture, we had been sitting calmly until this exact moment. When you zoom in, though, you see we took the picture just as he did THIS...

I Am Here!

A few weeks ago, my taxi service changed drivers on me. JP suddenly failed to arrive one morning in his white Ford Ikon. He was replaced by an unfamiliar gentleman with a thick mustache and dapper white uniform, whose name is spelled "Ram" but which was pronounced with maybe three or four additional syllables when he introduced himself.*

Changing drivers is a slightly stressful occurance, because addresses in India are not necessarily straightforward. Packages are commonly marked with instructions like, "Across from the flyover", or "Next to the bank", because, really, that's the best way to find things. Essentially, those street numbers on my business card are meaningless. Ram spent that first morning performing a version of what I call the cabdriver Google: stopping every other mile to ask for directions.

Over time, though, he got into the swing of things, and Ram now routinely delivers me at work 15 minutes faster than did JP. He tries to chat a bit more, too, even though I have limited Hindi and he has limited English. Overall, he's a very nice guy.

One Saturday, when I didn't need to go to work and Ram had the day off, a few friends and I decided to take a trip to the Delhi zoo. Imagine my surprise, then, when, after waiting in line with chattering families and being warned about stray monkeys, the first person I bumped into after walking through the gate--in a city of 14 million people--was my driver.

His face lit up, and he exclaimed, "Madame!" just at the same time I said, "Ram!" It was such a funny coincidence, and we were both grinning ear-to-ear, but... the language barrier! I struggled to think of something nice in Hindi while he clearly struggled right back for the English. After a moment, I blurted out, "Acha! Acha!", or "Good! Good!" and then, "Sightseeing!"

He head-wobbled vigorously, and, with a big smile on his face, announced, "Yes, Madame! I am here!"

That's just about all the verbal communication we could manage, so we grinned at each other a few more seconds and waved enthusiastic goodbyes. What a world! How fluky to see Ram, in all places, at the Delhi zoo. Sightseeing! Madame! I am here! It's the little moments like this that make a girl feel slightly more at home.

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(Side note: I had an awkward moment a few days ago when JP showed up again in front of my office, chauffeuring--gasp!--another American. What do you do in this situation? Do you introduce your current and former driver? Do they already know each other? What do they say about me after I go inside?)