I think I’ll skip the obligatory apology for not blogging
lately. I have kept myself busy with a
plethora of new experiences and trips, and that is essentially the goal of
being on exchange. However, this does
leave me with the arduous task of recording the past month and a half which is
daunting. Nonetheless, I set this task
for myself at the beginning of my journey and I am dead-set on seeing it
through.
That said I am going to work backwards and start with my
recent trip to Hyderabad. Perhaps one of
the greatest benefits of Rotary’s exchange program is the amazing connections
made, and it is on one of these connections that I relied for this chance to experience
a different piece of India. As you may know,
my family in Northfield hosted Rachael for the first three months of her
exchange. Though I have never met
Rachael in person, we have grown quite close through our shared experiences and
this has extended to her family as well.
I mentioned in an earlier post that I spent a weekend with her parents when
they visited Pune, and they offered to host me for a week if I ever wanted to visit
Hyderabad. New experiences are kind of
the entire objective as an exchange student, so I found a free week and booked
the tickets. I had visited Hyderabad
before on South tour and I have visited the majority of India, but the way you
truly get to understand a place is to spend time there, not just to see the
sights. Obviously a week is not long
enough, but I did get a look into a very different India than what I have
experienced in Pune. Unlike both of my Hindu
host families here, the Dawsons are Christian and in India your religion has a much
more significant influence on company you keep.
Staying with a Christian family also helped distinguish for me some of
the differences between being Hindu and being Indian-which things are universal
to all people living in this subcontinent and which apply to Hindus in India
and around the world. You might think
these are easy distinctions to make, but my exposure to people of other
religions has been limited to say the least due to the religious segregation
that seems to permeate all aspects of people’s lives.
Back to my point.
Apart from the religious differences, Hyderabad is in the state of
Andhra Pradesh whose history and culture are quite different from those of
Maharashtra, primarily a much larger Muslim population. My week was both interesting and extremely
enjoyable. Apart from plate after plate
of mouth-watering meaty dishes, I met so many friendly and outgoing people. Ok, I cannot in good conscious go on without
giving further praise of the food. I ate
dozens of preparations of pork, chicken, sausages and, most importantly,
BEEF! Seriously, I never considered how
great beef tastes until I was weeks into my exchange but it is
magnificent. I had fried bacon and eggs
for breakfast, barbequed sausages into the wee hours of the morning, and had
beef so spicy it could make a jalapeno cry.
Also, I had the famous Hydrabadi biryani (Indian chicken/mutton and rice
mix) which was fantastic. Simply writing
about the heavenly smorgasbord I experienced recalls all the glorious tastes
and makes me really happy. It made up
for all the meat I have been missing for the past eight months and I do believe
it will hold me until my first Chipotle burrito/hamburger and milkshake in the Newark
airport in a short two months.
The Dawsons are an extremely welcoming family and it took a
matter of minutes for me to feel comfortable in my new home and claim Rachael’s
room as my own (a little revenge for the three months she spent in mine). In the first day I met David, Rachael’s older
brother, and his Iranian wife as well as the neighbor in the apartment facing
the kitchen who shares a great-grandmother with Rachael. David took on most of the responsibility of
driving me around, and took me to the Qutub Shai tombs and this enormous tree
outside of Golconda Fort. Though I have
seen taller, I am fairly certain this is the largest tree I have ever
encountered. It came from Madagascar
somehow, and its circumference is 25 meters!
I am a little unclear on how it got there, but there is also a seven by
seven foot room inside the tree. Yep, a
tree with a room in it. There is a gate
around the tree but a nice guard allowed us to climb up and go inside the
hollow space. It was definitely one of
the cooler natural things I have experienced in India. I’ll try to upload a picture later, but my
internet is pretty slow right now.
In between seeing parts of the city and eating I talked a
lot with Jasper, Rachael’s dad. He told
me about the history of his family, talked about his kids and what they are
doing, and explained some important life lessons to keep in mind. We also watched the end of the Mumbai v. Bangalore
cricket match which was the most exciting that I have ever seen. I enjoy watching the occasional bit of
cricket on TV but it does tend to get a little boring after a while so I
generally take a peek every 20 minutes to check the progress. Most matches have a clear winner about
halfway through the second team’s batting time, but this one was anyone’s
game. It literally came down to the last
ball and Mumbai lost by one run. For
perspective, that’s one run out of about 200.
Bottom of the ninth, bases loaded, and the fly ball gets caught at the
fence. It was really fun.
I enjoyed my stay so much I was a little sad to come
back. However, I have a lot of blogging
to catch up on and friends to see and festivals in which to participate, not to
mention other trips on which to go. The
time seems to be running out so quickly that I have to just slow it down
sometimes and take a walk to simply collect my thoughts on where I am and where
I want to be by the time I return. A lot
to think about.
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