A bull charge, searing heat and a marriage match website
My mosquito net feels especially protective tonight.I just returned from eating dinner with friends. On the walk back, we slowed our walking as two cars passed each other, with several cows also taking claim to the road. This didn’t concern me – cows are a common sight here, and they are very docile. I was walking at the back of the group, and I suddenly looked up upon hearing a scream: Siri, a Swedish girl, had run across the road in terror. I saw one of the cows almost jumping towards her, and just assumed that it had become playful with the cars trying to pass them. Then I saw that this cow had horns.
Bulls are not a rarity here, and I often pass them with no worry at all: they are as calm and indifferent as their female friends. After tonight, though, I realised how naïve I had been. Yes, these bulls are frequently surrounded by people and so are not easily agitated. But they are still bulls. Once I realised what had happened, I stood back and refused to walk past the bull. (The majority of our group, Siri and Michelle aside, had already safely passed.) As it was dark though, and we weren’t sure of any other route home, I had to go forward. Still I refused, until Mart, an Estonian trainee, stood in the road with his bicycle between him and the bull for protection. He told us to walk behind him. The bull moved a little towards Mart, who bravely stood firm. I crossed the road to walk behind him, moving quickly – not sure if this would agitate the bull, but knowing that I couldn’t stand to walk any slower. The bull was looking directly at me, which filled me with anxiety. I averted my eyes, praying that it would do the same. I walked swiftly behind Mart, clutching the other girls. Siri was crying. So much for Himanshu’s motorbike being my greatest concern.
I would prefer to move on from what just happened, and so will now write a short account of my weekend. The AIESECers and the trainees had parallel conferences running in Jaipur. To travel to the venue, we had arranged a bus. A quick calculation told me that there were twenty seats available and about twice as many people preparing to go. Feeling smug (if a little mean), I chose to seat myself by a window whilst the others engaged in idle chat outside. Once all had got on, those standing could not move: we were quite honestly packed in like sardines. Himanshu, who had the privilege of travelling by motorbike, simply laughed and agreed that two buses would have been better. This is very reflective of the slap-dash attitude in India.
I was reminded that the journey would take forty minutes or so, and cursed at having packed my book in my main luggage. The smell of sweat was strong and repulsive; I fervently wished to get off the bus. Yet upon arrival, I soon longed to make the return journey. Perhaps it was the conference location, far from the centre and in the middle of nowhere, but the heat last weekend was unbelievable. I have become accustomed to sweating (as revolting as that may sound), but in the places one would expect: face, underarms, etc. However, at the conference, constant tickly sensations in my arms revealed that my forearms were actually dripping. The worst thing too was that this experience was inside and directly under a fan: there was no respite from the heat. The actual temperature was recorded at 37C or so, but the humidity from the monsoon forced it to feel like 42C. And I wasn’t even afforded the luxury of a sweet slumber. Yes, I went to bed late (after getting very drunk – my usual safe quantity had some very strange effects [far worse than your 21st, Chris!]), but after just half an hour or so the electricity cut – for the third time that day – grinding the fans to a halt. I would say that I tossed and turned, but I would like to coin a new phrase and instead declare that I “slipped and slid”: for all I knew, I could have been sleeping in a sweat bath, and achieved no sleep from that moment to the ridiculously joyful shouts of “MORNING PLENARY!” at 8:30am. The silver lining, though, is that I am now blessing the heat in the city, and never again will I moan about British summers. (You can hold me to that.)
I will now recount a conversation I held with one of my colleagues at Pratham. Sitting next to me in the office, she asked if I would like to read her profile on the website she was on. I said of course, and asked what the website was for. She simply said that it was for people to create profiles. I teased her, and asked if it was a dating website. She looked at me in horror, declaring that Indians do not date. I believed her: Indians are very conservative about love and romance. Reading through the website, though, I came across the following slogan: “Find your life partner here!” I wondered why she had not told me the truth; to me, it was clearly a dating website. I probed further, and once again she denied all charges: “it is not for dating”. She continued, though: “– it is for marriage”. Incredulous, I asked her to go on. She said that her profile was an advertisement for marriage, and that she had so far had 97 virtual proposals. She informed me that she wanted to marry soon, and that this website was a good way of meeting new prospects. I told her that in the West, no men that I knew would voluntarily sign up to such a website. She looked at me strangely, asking how that could be so.
Catching up with her again the next day, I asked how her marriage-matching was going. She told me that she had met three men in person, who were all very nice. “Hopeful, then?” I asked her. She shook her head: “They are nice, but their finances … no good.” I laughed – she wasn’t so dissimilar from Western women after all.
posted by ladyinpink @ 12:10 am
2 Comments:
Only worse than my 21st cos you're a lightweight! :-P Plus, being already dehydrated would make it quicker...
Speaking of marriage, have you met any decent prospects out there yet? ;-)
hi sam! glad to read u r having a good time in india =) hope all is well
i'm back home in hong kong now, weather is insanely hot (must be the same in india though), and will later visit bangkok for a few days in august. my brother's orchestra is going there to perform, so my family is going out there with him.
hugz
clarissa x
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