India first impressions

As of this moment, September 10th, 2010, I have been in India for one month. I’m living in New Delhi, the capital. This place is awesome!

The first thing you notice is the traffic - it makes midtown New York during rush hour, or the upper east side the first night of rosh hashana (pick your analogy), look like child’s play. The public transportation system in India, until recently, was non-existent (the metro just opened in south delhi last week. It was running in the north for about 6 months). People get around in cars, motorbikes, or rickshaws (a motorcycle turned into a passenger vehicle). There are public buses, but they always seem to be bursting with people. While in traffic, it’s extremely noisy – everyone loves to honk here. It’s actually considered to be a part of how you drive. For example: “oh, I’m making a left turn: honk honk” or “oh, I’m passing this person: honk honk.” At first the fact that everyone’s honking can be very confusing, but then you realize that this does have a basis: car’s here don’t have mirrors. The ones that do have mirrors are often folded inward, or people remove them. The honking makes the streets unbearably loud – earplugs have become my best friend.

The food is delicious, although I do find myself craving a simple turkey sandwich. For lunch I get a home cooked Indian meal called a dhaba (I think?) that comes in 4 containers. It’s pretty cool – I’ll have to post a picture.

I constantly compare this place to Ethiopia (given that Ethiopia has been the other place I lived abroad for an extended period of time). To be 100% honest, much of this place reminds me of Ethiopia. Same extremes of wealth (really poor alongside really ridiculous luxury), same shoddy construction methods (people fixing roads with their hands), and Indians hold their culture with almost the same pride and intensity that Ethiopians did. Some obvious differences is that the wealthy here are much more wealthy than Ethiopia, and that there are many more people here. Ethiopia definitely wins on the public transport though – the private minibus system they had in addia ababa there made the city very easy to get around in.

Some background: I’m here for nine more months as a Fogarty research scholar, doing a research project on spinal tuberculosis. This is a disease that is not as common as pulmonary TB, but given the fact that India has the largest percentage of the world’s TB cases (20%) there are many available cases here for me to study. The researchers I’ve met have been extremely helpful in assisting me with my project. I’m currently preparing to apply for ethics committee approval to perform the study, and data collection should happen starting in December.

I found an apartment pretty quickly – I moved into an area called Defense Colony. It’s considered one of the nicer areas of south Delhi. In my apartment search I met lots of foreigners, and a few Indians, that have become friends. I connected with the Israeli community here as well, which has been really nice, especially on Friday night (if you know anything about me you must know how much I love those Shabbat dinners). The US embassy has a pretty nice gym (complete with a pool, bowling alley, and tennis court) that I joined, and I’ve started taking piano lessons again from a teacher here. I take hindhi 2-3 times per week, but come January I think I’m going to switch to farsi (there’s a class here that I can take at the Persian cultural center) and finally learn that.

Last week I took my first trip outside of Delhi to Amritsar, an area in Punjab (Annie, anyone?). Amritsar is right next to the Pakistan border. We visited the border for a “closing of the border ceremony” – probably the most lively nationalistic pep rally I’ve ever been to in my entire life. Before going, I thought this was a silly tourist thing, something like the British changing of the guard. I couldn’t have been more mistaken – the place was packed with hundreds of Indians in the stands, and across the border were the Pakistanis. There is a whole ceremony where the soldiers of each side try to “out stomp, out high-kick, and out yell” (lonely planet’s words. I confirmed it) meanwhile there is an Indian pep rally leader who tells people when to yell at the Pakistanis. It was pretty hilarious – I’ll attach a video.

Amritsar also has other cool temples that we visited. The Golden Temple is a highlight – they also offer a free meal to anyone at this temple (I do tend to think with my stomach). Check out the pictures – my description of the area won’t really do any justice (actually after looking at the pictures, they don’t do justice either).

For anyone that feels the urge to call me, my number here is +91 886 017 8325. For those of you in the USA, I got a local NY skype number that forwards to my phone here at no charge to you. The number is 646-257-2055.