No price for advice.

An interesting advertisement of a leading telecom company has got me thinking that 'advise to har koi karta hain yaar'.
Most of the time this is useless advice by virtue of it being either unwarranted, or coming too late. It is just not over there.
You have hell to pay when you have to face the person whose advice you did not pay heed to.

A predicament I faced recently had to do with some advice that I received from someone who had a self-conferred authority.
Just the other day, I was stuck in traffic on a narrow yet two way traffic road. All vehicles were making a criss cross on the road as if forming a complicated puzzle and speaking the language of honks, while the drivers uttered abuses. After all, everyone is in a hurry in our country. So while I was waiting behind a car, a rickshaw driver steers his auto on to my right and starts showering me with advice. He was hell bent on making me take a deviation and get moving.
How did he want me to do that? By performing the remarkable feat of climbing up the pedestrian sidewalk and riding my 100cc two wheeler on it.

Why? Simply because he felt like advising me. Neither was I in a hurry, nor was I in any mood for a automobile gymnastic feat. I was not even in front of him,
My treading the platform on my bike along with my pillion rider would in no way hinder or benefit him or anything on the road. Yet, he was determined to get me over the footpath!

It was not one of those edges where the platform boundaries form a slide like at building entrances. This is usually where two wheeler drivers hop onto the sidewalk and start driving on them. The place I was waiting was not one of those places, it was one where the platform was at steep height of a good 15 cm steep height from the road. It is bad enough that some dumb people ride their bikes on it at their own risk, as per their will, but why force someone else to do the same? It is dangerous, unwanted and do not even get me started on the legal aspect. But no, my advisor was determined.

First it started with general a mention that I should go on the foot path, then it became a request. Before I could comprehend the absurdity that he was expecting of me, it had turned into a command and I was ordered to do what his over-ambitions mind was dictating. I did what I do best in these situations- ignore unwarranted detractions. The consequence of that was just round the corner - sour grapes dove in. His comments did not stop at my ignorance. It turned to innuendoes 'Ah forget it, you can't do it, You're not capable of that! Bah'
Sheeesh.
I had half a mind to turn around and ask him what his real problem was? Was he running short on his 'advise strangers' target for the day? Was he a lonely insomniac who drove around advising people? Would he not sleep at night if i do not climb the platform? Or is he just one of those people who fulfill their whims and fancies by asking others to do it....
I'll never know, cos i never asked. But what i do know is that there is no end to free advice.

High heels- the metaphor.
When women got out of the kitchen, they traded the ladle for high heels. it was time to move on and they would not move on to anything less powerful. The ladle symbolises the control that they had over the house. The ladle is not a mere object of utility but one that unites women worldwide in their triumph over maintaining adn sustaining the household for centuries. Once they left the kitchen, they picked high heels as a symbol of independance and a dignified stance. It was meant to say 'despite treading on something that looks dangerous, i am totally in control of my life'. This is the dictum that most powerful women live their lives by.

Traffic- the game
A lot of people speak of the wonderful animation games that they play on different computers. Large conglomerates spend a considerable amount of time and money trying to better the gaming products currently in the market.

BUT, I can cay with utmost certainty that the game that i get to play day after day is among the best games ever created. It is a game with the best 3-D effects ever. The game is created by us, but the almighty gives the effects. This game requires some warranty seals, some papers saying you are willing to play it . A government regulatory body has to certifies that you are capable of playing it. To play the game, you have to abide by its rules and if you break any of them, there might be hell to pay. Start off with wearing your safety equipment from headgear to rear gear. Once you are all strapped up, you are ready to go.

You can go anywhere that you wish to be transported to, You can choose any means of transportation, but rest assured that the ride will be eventful regardless of what means of transportation you choose. Start be hitting the accelerator and use the brakes to stop. use the horn whenever you feel like whether there is a necessity or not. Slow down at trafffic signals once you spot a yellow light, stop on red and start again on green. Take the shortest and fastest distance from one point to another.

Things to watch out for.
*Honking: The horn sounds mean so many different things, all in one sound. It can me - 'give me way', it can mean 'get out of my way', it can even mean 'do not backfire', , it can mean 'move front', it can mean 'move to the side', it can mean 'emergency'- It is a language in itself and it is quite common for a novice to get misled and lost in this language.
*Pedestrians: These are the players who play the game, but without any automobile.They seldom walk on the paths made for them and have the desire to run across the streets as when they like.
*Cows/bulls/Dogs-Lesser said the better because we worship the first one and the last one is man's best friend.

Occasionally the game gets hard when the skies start pouring down water. This release version is called 'traffic in the rain'. This is a real challenge and is not meant for the week hearted. A more advanced version with more difficulty is available and is called 'traffic -after the rain'

Initially it is a bit jittery, You break too hard, sometimes you go too close to other players, but soon enough, it will make you a regular and before you know it, you'll be enjoying this game. After all, we've made it for ourself, haven't we?

relax..
breathe..
I have heard people use this phrase 'relax,breathe' often. I have used it casually, many times too.
Just as a cursory thing, like its essence is in merely saying it. never once , before this week have i ecperienced what the phrase entails. It really means sit, forget everything and i mean everything and only focus on breathing. Yes, that thing we do every living moment of every living day, that.
just doing a deep breathe-in breathe-out makes me realize how complex and elaborate the action is and how deep its consequences are. we just take it for granted in our obnoxious ways and belittle the importance of a breath.

A sense of detachment, a feeling of independence, a breath of fresh air! a secret smile, a sense of pride at having mysteriously conquered your biggest pressures and the yearning for more...
strange as it sounds thats the state of mind and what else it brings with it is something none is preparred for.

Bright sun, broad streets, well laid transportation system, beautiful mountains bordering the city.. these are few of the things that i had gotten so used to for about 3 weeks in the beautiful city hangzhou. Eating at 7,11 and 5, the clickety click of the chopsticks, the extremely fulfilling shopping, the numerous yet each distinct from the other skyscrapers are among the hoards of things i miss most about China.

I stepped into China with lots of stereotypes about the food, the people and most importantly the language barrier. After about 2 days in hangzhou i realised i was being unreasonable and put all those predetermined thoughts behind me. The city is a delight, the people are uninterfering and the atmosphere is ont that'll make you fall in love with it.

The first week was the toughest, but then instead of brooding over the differences, i began basking in acceptance of them. That Made things so much easier.
time for lunch, suspend work and go eat:ok!
not hungry but still have to eat, cos dining halls will close:ok!
time for rest after that:ok!
there's a little meat with most vegetables:ok!
there are green beans in icecream:ok!
roads follow 'keep right' system:ok!
cars are lefthand driven:ok!
have porridge with chopsticks:ok!
work on chinese windows:ok!


I am not complaining about any of these, it was an absolute pleasure and i have no hangups about any of these.

Problem is, i miss all of that now! i miss it so much

Returned to india on 26sep!

With a heavy heart I left the beautiful country that I had gotten so used to.
Eating with chopsticks, finishing supper at 6 30pm, getting accustomed to the chinese transportation system, communicating with keywords that i learnt for survival, living on a budget, shopping with chinese symbols for numbers with one hand.... i could go on and on.....
Beginning my day with ni hao with the generous use of 'xiexie' during the rest of the day.

I am going to miss all of this and much much more....

some memories do not fade,
some faces are hard to forget,
some newly learnt habits refuse to leave,
I am glad that is the way it is, because I wish to keep every ounce of my trip to china in my heart forever.

I set out to china with a few apprehensions, a few stereotypes and a few misconceptions. It turned out that I had no clue about what was in store for me. It has been a life changing trip for me in ways that I find hard to express.
I can say that I am better person having gone through the one month in China.

I express my sincere gratitude to Dr Bill Melton for the wonderful positive change he has brought in so many lives and i count myself among them.
I thank the Proj.Culture granting commitee for making this possible me.
Also extending my heartfelt gratitude to Henry and his wonderful family with whom I stayed during my internship in China.
Thanks to my dear friends in ZU, Jerry(who i couldnt meet), jane, kevin,Rose and Benjamin who were of great assistance during my internship period.

Finally, I thank my parents for all their support and encouragement.

climbing the mountains around the lake with henry's dad

i am not a huge nature freak. As in, the beautiful sky, peaceful waters,wind in my face and the sun on my brow make me fell good and hold a sense of beauty. But, not in a way thast i ll take up espeditions every weekend in the countryside or learn river rafting for the ultimate high in life.

Having established my nature related inclinations, i was not very thrilled with henry knocking on my door one morning asking me to get ready in 5 minutes to proceed to climb the mountains around the west lake. henry's dad , henry and i set out on a scaringly hot morning seemingly, to climb the mountains.

i had prepared myself for a trek kind of climb in the sweltering heat, and i was not wrong!
there were stairs leading to the top, and Henry's dad chose the more adventurous, non staired, non-laid path. WOW! lucky me!
first, all i could do is look at my watch at contemplate how long it would take for us to get over with this ordeal. This went on for a while, after which i was overcome with acute discomfort.. but why? oh wait it was because of my 8 kg backpack! having run out of tissues in the first 15 min, sun-screen all wiped out with the sweat, pain in every possible way i could and just when i was about to give up... i heard some weird chirping sounds. they were really unique and ones i had never heard before. Some were long, some furtive but continual, some piercingly prolonged.....
With minimal effort, i came across a seating area amid the trees. there were some stone carved chairs and about 20-30 elderly men and women sitting around on those seats. All of them with a colorful cage infront of them. The chirpings i heard were from their birds and this was a routine these elderly people carried out almost everyday. Climb the mountain with the pet bird and leave it there with other caged birds for singing practice!
isnt that the cutest thing! it was so cute watching the whole affair.. the oldies chit chatting, birds haveing a secrest musical conversation of their own, the sun rays making its way through the canopy of trees, ah, it was a delight!
Oh wait a minute, arent we forgetting something? a certain Mr pain and his wife Mrs discomfort? voila! they were both gone! just like that. i just needed a diversion(and someone to carry my bag!)
By now i had begun taking in the scenery, the beautiful view of the mountain, the glittery water of the west lake it was all coming together.

There was an army boot camp kind of gathering i chanced upon too. turned out to be a singing practice class for young singers. All screaming their lungs out...

by the time i got up, i was exhausted but the feeling of being up there just engulfs and destroys any fatigue..
It was amazing!
more to follow

family

The city. [contd.]
having moved to Henry's place has given me a bigger picture of the city and its ways. His place is a farther from the university so I have to take 2 buses and this means more time to learn about the city.

I learnt that Hangzhou is the capital city of the Zhejiang province and Henry took me around the provincial government building here. (like the state govt HQ in indian terms eg. vidhan soudha)
It is a nice imposing building with lots of small yellow sweet smelling flowers gardened around it.

Also hangzhou is not as small as I thought it to be. The traffic is considerably high too. Previously when i was staying with div it was a more calmer corner of the city residential kind of place. Henry's place is more on the upmarket busier areas of hangzhou. There is a loooooot of traffic that I come across here.
In Hangzhou, bike means bicycle.Actually that is what it mean here in China. Half the city rides on bicycles. It is especially convenient for students but I have sees even working executives riding them. The centre of the street is meant for 4 wheelers like cars, taxis, buses too and there is partitioned region between the centre of the road and the sidewalk meant for bicycles. pretty cool ha

There is a lot of digging going on in the city. either they are widening the roads or rebuilding the sidewalks or something else that i would not know as all signboards and notices are in chinese.
But there is some turbulence in some area on my home that causes congestion of traffic.

buses: they announce stop names at every stop but in chinese. they also give instructions like 'obey traffic rules' , 'bus is taking a turn' etc but all again in chinese. it took me 2 weeks to figure this out ;) (i had to ask henry! )
They crowded in the rush office hours but they are frequent. so you can take the luxury of not taking a bus if it is too crowded.

shops: there are some really amusing stores i came across
gilian shoe cleaning shop!
and
zhejiang electric power book store!
and
beau grooming store

the first one cleans shoes???
and the second one??? what does one do in the secnd store? wondering!!!
the third one? i dont even want to think ;)

There are loads of beauty salons and dressing botiques. The girls are very style concious so if you are a girl and have a lot of qa-ching(money!) come to china to shop for clothes.

the city does not sleep till late. university and even high school classes go on till 9pm and bus service is on till midnight. There are loads of women bus drivers and i must say they do a darn good job.

Breakfast at a chinese table:

Everyone at Henry's place leaves to work early in the morning and returns after supper time. So, breakfast is the only meal we have together and it is nice how thay all sit together for a meal.
I have noticed that the chinese take their meals very seriously. students at the university, people at counters in offices, servicemen, shop keepers, sales people, traffic cops... everyone.
at 7 am, 11 am and 5 pm you can hear the continuous clicking of chopsticks all restaurants are in their busy hour and it is time for food!
What is also interesting is the one bowl concept.
This way everything goes into one bowl! rice, curry, gravy, meat, veggies and anything else you choose to eat all in one bowl. Saves the mothers so much of cleaning, doesnt it!

Coming to the topic of my blog, henry's family understands that I do not eat meat, not even egg very well. It is so nice how everyday they manage to get me something different without meat.
since everyone leaves home early they get bfast from outside and henry's mom usually cooks only dinner on weekdays.
***'doug-tse'
It is white looks like idly(indian breakfast dish) and tastes like bread. It is D-shaped and is made of wheat flour. It is nice but not if you have to eat it without anything else. But I had to, cos that's the way it is eaten. Apparently it is long and cylindrical peice of bread but is cut with a knife into D shapes and knife is called 'doug' and hence the name. (i am sure i am mispelling it, sorry about that)
***'bao-tse' . This is made of rice floor, stuffed with vegetables and steamed. It is huge and very filling.
****moon cakes
These are special cakes made from a buddhist monastery so it is purely vegetarian.
It is like Indian puffs with sweet stuffing inside. Stuffings are of cut flavored fruits like in cup cakes.
****flat round bread
I am giving it this name because I forgot to ask henry what it was called.
It looked and tasted just like stuffed chapati. To put it in better words, it was like kulcha(indian bread). It had some greens, onlins, spring beans , spring onions and was garnished with white sesame seeds. this could have been eaten as is. But in reality this was supposed to eaten with a bowl of sweetened bean curd(milk made from soya).
****porridge
This is plain boiled rice in a starchy state. I was supposed to eat this with boiled cucumber looking vegetable cooked in vinegar. Vinegar is a vital ingridient in cooking here. They use it for almost everything even boiling veggies.
So the porridge with the vegetable was actually nice. Except for the fact that I had to eat it with chop sticks. Now how am i supposed to eat a semi liquid thing with chopsticks?
It took me so long to eat grain by grain that henry finally said, " pavi i think you might be getting late for your internship, can i get you a spoon?"
:)

Well henry's parents always provide me an easy substitute every morning at breakfast. The easy substitute of bread and jam. But I insist on having some tradional chinese items. I can have bread and jam back home too...

Sometimes it s fun to mix and match.
Like today we were supposed to have the vegetable with porridge and jam with bread but henry said he tried jam with porridge and it was good.

obviously I dint believe him... common jam with rice does not even sound good.
BUT, since I was anyway trying new things, I gave it a shot.
Jam with porridge and eating it with chopsticks!!!
believe me it is not good for me.
may be for others but not for me, no, thank you.
;)

day10: tuesday
day11:wednesday
day 12:thursday
These have been very hectic days with huge doses of monotone. I just got a little busier at my internship and am extending my spectrum of understanding beyond just my project and taking a look at other projects going on here.

Days have not been very exciting, may be because of the work.
I get here by 9 after a unique breakfast at henry's home. lunch by 11 am, supper by 5pm.
lunch and supper are easily manageable at the university dining room.
I usually get some fruits with it that costs me 1.5 yuan!
get back home by 6 30pm. do laundry, read a bit, watch tv and after a little socialising with henry and his family I go to bed by 10.
so there ws nothing much to record on my blog ...
just usual stuff, so I m going to make things interesting by writing about my different breakfast regimes.
watch out...

Meeting an indian in china

This is like manna in the times of draught. Considering this is not my first time outside the country i know what it is like to be with people from a different country. Being in the Melton Foundation has widened this understanding 4 fold, by exposing me to 4 kinds of differences at once. And regardless how similar we are are as humans, we have our cultural differences. The more we are exposed to foreign environments, the understanding of one's own culture only becomes stronger.

Agreed, this is not my first trip outside the country, but this is my first trip on my own and believe me it makes a world of a difference.

The first indian met was of course div as soon as i arrived, so i was not really deprived or lost.
The second indian i met was this guy Jhon Peters. He saw me in the dining room one evening at supper and came running to speak with me. I could say he was really excited. (!)
He turned out to be a Post doctorate guy working in the university for experience. He was from madurai and to make things better for him i told him i speak good tamil despite being a maharashtrian. He was so excited, i thought his head will hit the roof...
Spoke to him through my supper (in tamil) and it was really nice meeting him. he has been here for the past 5 months and is not sure how much longer he has to say. From the looks of it he was waiting to leave to the US.

Today on the bus, Thingy and me met an inviting smiling sari clad indian woman. Rashmi from delhi had been living there for a year and a half now. she was wih her 4 yr old son. Her husband works with TCS and turns out he was posted in hangzhou. she loved the place and said things are very convenient for her except for the kid's education. They cannot afford international school and were planning on relocating to india or their son would have to learn chinese!

It is a nice feeling that you are not the only one there trying to live.
they say there are a lot of indians residing in hangzhou. Also there are many indian students in the university, esp boys.

will be nice to meet them sometime.

day9: Meeting Thingy!
[thingy, is my friend Prathigna. We have been together for the past 9yrs through school, preuniversity, undergrad study and even the Melton foundation]

It was like two kumbh ke mele mein bichade bhai meeting up after ages....
It was so great to finally meet her. we sat adn chit chatted for about 3 hours till supper time. Both of us had unique adventure tales to tell about our experience here in china. It was so great to meet her that i stayed back her in her homestay place till 9 pm. Henry was supposed to finish class at 9 om and said we can get back home together.

we had long hours of catching up on home, bangalore, her older sister's wedding that i just missed, travel to china, my experiences here and all in kannada!

Ah, the sweet joy of speaking in your native language to an indian, after days of looking at only chinese... it was axciting!

Also , i got some amazing sweets from mom throught prathinga....
so thanks so much mom!

day8: sunday

Henry took me out to meet his friend sunny and the three of us went book shopping in the biggest book store in hangzhou. It being a sunday, the city was bustling with activity.

We took a bus to the west Lake and spent some time walking along its banks, taking pictures , feeding pigeons, enjoying the weather amid the weekend leisure crowrds. Sunny was narrating the interesting story about the legend of how the west lake came into being.

Sunny then suggested we should visit a buddhist temple atop the mountains in Hangzhou.
I dint have any climbing or treking to do. A direct bus took us there and we returned on the same bus. It is a beautiful place and although i am not a big nature freak i liked the place and enjoyed the ride to it. It is very calm and the weather was really kind . Cool breeze and clear sky made things beautiful. The Sun probably decided to shower some kindness on me that evening.
The temple i went too was a buddhist monastery cum temple. i do not know if they are always like that. it is called the
'shan tien zhu si'
shan = high or tall
tien zhu = is the place from where those buddhists were
si = temple.
There are actually 4 temples along the same road to the mountain, this was the highest temple. sunny said she preffered to take me there as it was the least crowded.

It was very peaceful. we reached at the time the evening prayer was on and caught a glimpse of the ceremony. There was reciting by a head priest, the gong kept ringing and everyone else stood in attention.
Also, we were given sticks to lite and make a wish. The temple was huge although Henry called the smallest he had seen. It was on four levels, the innermost temple shrine being at the highest level.

It was supper time in chinese terms at 5pm so we had dinner in the temple itself. It was my kind of food place-The 'no meat place' as the buddhists believe in non violence and the no-killing doctrine. They have a policy of no wasting food there so what sunny and me could not finish, being the man, Henry had to finish up!:)

At one of the intermittent levels of the temple was a little pond over which the stairs had been constructed. At the centre of the pond was a statue of Buddha. The pond was almost dry at that time and I was told that thepond was actually the freeing spot of lives caught inadvertantly. So if someone caught a fish or snail or frog by mistake, they would set it free in that pond.
interesting!
By the time we got back home, it was 7pm... i crashed after making an exciting call home!

day7: saturday.

This was the day of marathon shopping.

divya, jane(chinese fellow) and me set out at 9am bright and early after a quick breakfast of an apple each.
Our first pit-stop was this place that reminded me of palika bazaar in Delhi. the place had 50 stores for the same commodity, each with a different price and it was not easy to find the cheapest of that. how to shop in such a place, here is how we went about it.
you look at something and pretend yo dont like it(when u actually are) and ask for its price. Then you ask for one fourth of that, point out to flaws in it and walk away. keep your ears peeled for the shopkeeper will call you back and give it to you at a comprimise.

By the time we did a bit of shopping it was time for lunch, so we picked up a quick 'baotze' and a doughnut to go. baotze: (i am spelling it wrong) was made of rice flour with green leafy vegetables(soppu in kannada) steamed. it was filling and made a really quick lunch.

Our next pitt stop was silk market. It is this long non-motorable road with hoards of silk stores. We can buy silk by the meter. There are some ready made cheepovs, the traditional local wears here available too. Pure silk is very expensive but there are other varieties of mixed silk like silk plus nylon etc that are much cheaper. Then there are silk tops, nightwear thingies, etc for girls
The only thing I found for guys were ties!

Then there are the clothes for kids: really adorable mini-cheepovs! very cute esp for girls.
There is this traditional chinese silk clothing available for one year old kids too but i am not sure we can wear them in india. too bad there are no little kids in my family right now!

We had another pitt stop, the digital market, but the exhaustion was getting to us and we called it a day.
went home, took a nice relaxing nap!

day6: friday.
nothing major. i just finished internship and left home early. I was tired of the busy schedule and my system was getting accustumed to the chinese eating timings. So divya and me retired home early. We did our laundry(!) and caught up on some rest for the marathon shopping div had planned for saturday.

we watch CCTV9 a lot. It is the international news channel and the ONLY one in english here. CCTV is a famous broadcasting network in China and they have 12 channels, only 1 of which is comprehensible to us. This september marks the 60th anniversary of chinese victory over japanese aggresion in the world war 2. so there are loads of programs commemorating that. There are lots of documentaries and war-veterans related programs. We end up watching that most of the time.
It is an interesting chinese history lesson for us.

update:
Divya has just left to shanghai to join her travel group. I have moved back to henry's apartment. His parent have returned and 4 of us eat together at their chinese dinner table!


Why no blog for the past 2 days. Well, I have had no iternet access during the weekend and this weekend was spent shopping and moving so I was a little busy .

The city: as i see it.
Similarity in dissimailarity.

Hangzhou, is a relatively small city in the province of Zhejiang in eastern China. The streets, buildings lining the streets, the vehicles all remind me of india.

The streets are much much wider here. The traffic is a lot lesser here as well as Hangzhou is not a big city. The existing traffic is very organised and well followed.
The bus service is very good. Most people commute by bus. Buses have the same cost to any destination. ordinary buses-1RMB & AC buses-2 RMB
There is a clear mention of stops with bus numbers at each bus stop. Only problem is that it is all in chinese. So if you have a map, you need to keep comparing the chinese characters to find your destination. There are no seats at the bus stop. This is probably because buses are very frequent.

The city is very green. Trees on either side of the roads, carved bushes, sprawling lawns, flowers at regular intervals mark the greenery of hangzhou. The city boasts of the famous west lake of the province. The place looks beautiful by day and even better by night. It is very close to my internship place. As are the beautiful mountains at the back of the campus. The hills form a perfect backdrop for this beautiful campus.

So looks like I am in this very beautiful place of wide roads, lakes, gardens and mountains? Well, yes! But there are also busy shopping streets lined with malls, multiplexes and supermarkets.
The place is relatively clean too although there is some spitting on the roads here and there.

Most sign posts, notices, shop names, bus stop points are all in chinese. Although few shops have englins names too. Also important route markers in the streets are in english.

time for my supper now, i ll finish this blog tomo.
bye

little update from me.

I just finished my presentation a few minutes ago. I had to speak about my country, my university and the Melton Foundation that had gotten me there. It went rather well. There were a lot of questions and some interesting insights. Thankfully, i was not confronted with any stereotypical notions.
A lot of pictures, Some music, a video and a colorful ppt... It was an interesting session.

about my stay. I stayed with henry, my homestay host initially when i arrived. After meeting div i learnt that she is staying in an apartment by herself as the hosts are in the US. So I moved in with div to keep her company. Also, Henry's parents have gone on a 2 week vacation and henry stays at the dormitory in campus so it makes sense for me to stay with divya.
Also, div's place is closer to my internship than Henry's so this works out just right.

Thats how we are 2 indian girls living in a chinese home!
My other batchmate prathigna arrives late tonight. Let's see if we can invite her to move in with us too.

Day5: Indian food day!

Ever cooked indian food by yourself? Yes.
Ever cooked indian food with bare minimal utensils? Yes.
Ever cooked indian food for foreign guests? Yes.
Ever cooked indian food in china? Yes.
Ever done all of the above together?
Well, after last night, i can proudly say--Yes!
(ah, my mom is going to be so proud of me for this!)

Believe it or not, last night divya and me cooked up tradional indian food in china, with all ingredients bought in a chinese supermarket! We did this for 3 of our chinese fellows who we invited for dinner-Kevin,Jina and Jasmine.

The menu: chapati,Dal and puliogre. Fruit salad and icecream for dessert.

The game plan: visit the supermarket and pick up wheat flour for chapati. We had some sunflower oil at home.
problem: How to flatten it?
solution:tap it fith our fingers like we make an indian dish poli(marathi)
Unfortunately we did not find wheat flour and ended up making corn flour chapatis!
Also we found a cylindrical flattening device in polythene contact paper which we used to make chapatis.

Next,
for the dal we thought we could buy the grams and veggetables, boil it, add rasam powder(indian spice mixture) that we had carried!
problem: we dint get the dal we usually make sambhar(lentil soup) with.
Solution: we bought green gram and black gram, also bought chopped veggetables, boiled them all added the spices, some tomoato ketchup to get the tamarind taste and voila... indian dal!

Without the typical indian ingridients of garam masala, without seasoning(tadka-onion, cummin corrander nothing)! and it still tasted good!
Next,
tamarind Rice!(puliogre)
Rice here is very sticky. To add to our woes, we did not have a pressure cooker! so it is more sticky as it is not perfectly cooked. so the puliogre was like a mass of clay!
But a delicious one at that! we loved it and we ate it.

Next,
fruits. Banana,grapes,watermelon and apples!
This was not very difficult...
It was fun carving out the fruits with a swizz army knife.

That was the first proper indian meal I had in 5 days, ah, the joy of eating with my hands!
everything turned out ok....
cornflour chapati, greengram dal with veggies and puliogre!
our chinese friends loved it and what was more fun was teaching them to eat with their hands!
fruits and icecream to rap it up!

Pure joy of having cooked, served to a guest and eaten! the virtues of being an Indian were performed that day.
Indulge in elaborate cooking, call people and feed them and eat till you are stuffed!
It was great.


It was an adventerous evening in the kitchen.