There is no why...

We've officially given up on asking any question that starts with the word "why."  There either is no answer, or the only one available just makes your head hurt.  For example, you might find yourself walking down the street on a Sunday afternoon, and notice a little boy about 8 months old, sitting by himself in the middle of the sidewalk, screaming for some sort of attention as everyone walks past him. Being a reasonable person, you might start to say "why is there a baby...." before you remember where you are.

Last weekend I went to the mall that's a little bit up the road from here, so I could watch a movie.  They do things a little different here (obviously). First of all they start off with a rousing group rendition of the Indian national anthem "Jana Gana Mana" (Thout art the ruler of the minds of all people), carried out with the same sort of enthusiasm you get from such compulsory patriotism at home.  The movie also has an intermission about halfway through, which occurs without fanfare or announcement.  One moment you're sitting there watching a chase scene...the camera zooms in on the protagonist, as he steadies his aim to shoot at the bad guys, and then BAM the screen goes black, and the lights come up.  

We saw our first funeral procession this week.  We were driving in bumper to bumper traffic on an 8 lane highway during morning rush hour when we saw a large group of people walking mostly on the shoulder, walking against traffic.  They carried the body out in the open, on a stretcher, being carried on the shoulders of 4 men.  It was covered in all sorts of flowers, save the feet and the face. It was strange more for the location than anything.  It was the last thing I expected to see, but from what my driver told us, it's pretty common. 

I've been slowly getting introduced to other unique things about India as well.  The client company here has daily flights to a city called Jamnagar to the north of here.  The pilots told us that they were known for their peanut plantations up there, so they were kind enough to bring us some.  They were really, really good.  I may try to bring some home at some point, but I worry that the agriculture folks in the USA will confiscate them.  

Delicious!

We also got treated to some extremely fresh cashews from Goa, along the coast to our south.  I'm hoping to take a weekend trip down there at some point in the time that I'm here.  Not only do they grow cashews, but they also have plantations where they grow a large number of the spices that you find in your grocery stores.  That would be fun to go check out.

There does seem to be an abundance of fruit and vegetables available, and it's pretty easy to just find them for sale right out on the street.  We went to a neighborhood near mine to the south called Bandra last weekend, and I got this picture of one of the street vendors:

The drive to/from work almost always affords the ability to get a glimpse of the lives of the people here.  As I've mentioned in a previous post, there really is no water distribution infrastructure here, so they rely on trucks to bring the water from reservoirs that then fill up the holding tanks in people's buildings.  Because so many people live in such terrible poverty here, access to clean water is a major issue.  Often on the way to work the trucks haven't began their rounds yet, and opportunists go crack the taps on the back to gain access to water for drinking, or just to clean up a bit.  The drivers don't lock the taps, so I guess they just have some kind of agreement about it.

I found out that the pool here in my apartment complex, while free, is not too great.  For one thing, there's about a million pigeons splashing around in it on the edges at any given time.  They've hilariously hired some chap to go around and shoo them off, but they just come right back once he's moved a bit away.  Furthermore, the Indian culture is pretty modest, and it's uncommon for them to just hang out at the pool in their swimsuits.  They pretty much get in with clothes on, splash around a bit, and leave.  We got clued into a better place, however, that's more in line with what we have back home.  We went last weekend, and it's really nice.  There were expats there from all over the place, and you can lay out in the sun without any disapproving looks.  It's right on the beach too, so you can listen to the waves instead of the car horns, and feel like a human again.  The beach is filthy, mind you, and the water is not something you'd want to dip your toes into, but the pool is nice at least.

This will be great until the monsoon starts.  The rains are forecast to begin next week, and start sporadically, building eventually to daily periods of rain, then slowly tapering off again in late September.  Last year Mumbai got 5 FEET of rain for that same period of time, which is just insane.  Different events are referred to in relationship to the monsoon, and you'll hear people say things like "by next monsoon."  Evidently during some of the heavier rains the roads just plain become impassable, which should be fun.  The businesses here can be seen preparing for the rain, which for many of them entails putting up a temporary thatched roof, that they make from bamboo:

They make good use of the bamboo here, even making construction scaffolding from it on the outside of buildings.  They do this to insane heights, often over 20 stories tall, and they don't appear to bother with tethering themselves to it as they work.  They must have been at this for some time though, as they go about it without much consternation, and they work really efficiently at it.  

This weekend's goal:  find an umbrella!