sweater vests

Delhi has gotten chilly. Well, it isn't chilly come nine AM, but until then it's down-right cold! The rickshaw drivers have begun wearing sweater vests and colorful shawls, currently my favorite fashion statements of India. Right now I'm wearing a sweater over my kurta (Indian shirt that goes to the knees, slits up the sides, supposed to be worn with goofy pants but because I'm in the "young, hip" contingent I can wear it with jeans). I like the cold.

I've had a week of allowing my mind to wander around everywhere that I'm not - to my ISP, to Deer Isle, to Skidmore. I'm thinking about everything except Delhi. But now I've decided to be IN DELHI for the next week and a half. I'll be gone soon and it's actually making me sad. It's a dirty, crazy city, but it's also one-of-a-kind.

Today I'm traveling to JNU (Jawaharlal Nehru University) to see a lecture by this professor that I am desperately seeking to be my ISP advisor. She's got contacts in Kolkata and knows all about Bengali Nationalism (Rabindranath Tagore's jam). I'm going to her lecture equipped with a very formal letter and will beg for her to sign off on my project.

Then it's off to the start of a crazy weekend. I'm going out to some restuarant tonight with Aunty-ji. It's called Haldiram, and I am being taken against my will because I would rather eat at home... but it will be fun. Tomorrow I am being taken against my will to her "club" with the entire family to eat food and listen to music. I get the feeling the "club" is basically a left-over-from-the-Raj-era country club... so that will be fascinating to say the least. Saturday is the Halloween party of SIT. We're trying to be allowed to play beer pong in the program center. I'm dressing up with my friend Megan as Thing One and Thing Two (easy, and not Indian - we were going to be Sita and Ram but needed a break). Sunday I'm going to another family dinner, and then Monday my friends and I are cooking American food for Aunty.

I'm also trying to hit up Old Delhi (it's an atrocity that I haven't been there yet, I guess school took over or something, which is a terrible excuse).

Anyway, it's crazy, but things are falling into place. Mom, the birthday party was great and funny. Julie, I got a computer, put my pictures on it, and then the computer died so I have to trade it in for another one (rented computers)... but I PROMISE I will put an online album up before I leave Delhi. Promise. Sorry, but I'm not lying when I say that technology is the most unreliable thing. Much love to all.