Sunday, November 07, 2004

thick skin blues

finally mustered up the courage to try real paan. what an interesting thing. basically take a betal leave and stuff it with 10 ingrediants, including cardemon, cloves, betal nut, and god knows what else. it's quite interesting to watch them make it and it does take some time. supposed to be a digestivo, mouth freshener, and mild narcotic. of course we were accompanied by a paan bystander tour guide who instructed us not to swallow, but spit (i knew this). it's much bigger than i thought and it took me 4 bites to finish it. i did feel queasy, but it passed. lots of folks here are addicted to it and i can see why. you can have it sweet or with tobacco, which i passed on. definitly worth the 4 rupies.

off to the mumbai crawford market. that's when i realized i probably won't last much past diwali in this city. i have never been in that kind of crowd mashing before and the intense heat made me want to jump out of my skin. thousands of beggers grabbing at me, a pile of little girls ripped off my scarf to expose my tattoos, only to flee in terror at the sight. this has happened to me before on my previous trip. in fact if i wanted to be left alone, all i had to do was pull up my sleeves. i think they see it as demonic. i try hard to hide them, but not always possible. had a market tour guide,"no fee to just look-silk row here, spice alley there, fabrics there, fruits here, you can have it all" i almost passed out there were at least a million people on a sunday. i don't know how they do it. i know you can get used to anything, but i just don't know how they do it. all i wanted was a cool place to have a beer, which i found after wandering a couple hours waiting for planet m to open. just when i thought i was passing out, i came across the capital beer bar. yay. amberro, my new fave from aurangabad. and soon planet m was open.

i couldn't control myself there and ended up buying 13 movies, 8 cds and 4 cassettes. i'm actually now considering renting indian dvd's out of my future yoga studio since my library is climbing fast. i only spent 130US for all of that-most dvds going for 4 bucks, same for cds, and 80 cents for cassettes.

the BIG news is that mughal-e-azam, a very very famous epic movie made in 1960 has been colorized and released in the theatres, opening diwali! this was like the indian gone with the wind, or ben hur. and lucky lucky me gets to see it in a massive mumbai theatre. the other BIG news is veer-zaara, the new yosh chopra shah ruh khan/preity zinta romeo and juliet paki\indian love story also opens on diwali. these are the 2 biggest releases of the year.

today i'm taking the train to bandra, the indian beverly hills where all the bollywood stars live, and to film city (bollywood) and try to schmooze my way into the studio. these places are located outside of the city and takes a train to get there.

as much as i like it in mumbai, i don't think my skin is thick enough to last much longer past diwali, which is such a huge holiday i'm sure my energy will be spent from it. they're already firing off explosions in the middle of the night. lots of excitement in the air. probably the biggest holiday in india, kind of like x-mas in the west. they are encouraged to shop till they drop, give out sweets, wear new clothes, and light up the entire city with lanterns. sounds like a blast, but a bit scarey cause of the millions that will be at the festivities. this happens friday. diwali celebrates rama's return after 14 years in exile fighting the demon ravana from the ramayana.

bindifry

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