Caste Away

While in Mumbai we visited the ghat where the dhobe -wallahs work and saw India's infamous caste system in action. For hundreds of years children have been born into this ghat, raised there, married other residents, and then set up shop as poorly paid washermen and women, just like their parents before them.

The caste system: Brahmins do the cool shit, Devadasis become hookers, Dhobes do the laundry and Dalits beg for change at intersections and get nominated for oscars.

Bollywood, here I come!

Upon my arrival in Mumbai, I discovered that simply by virtue of being white and speaking fluent English I am a hot commodity in Bollywood. Not that I wasn't already aware of how awesome I am, but it's nice to be appreciated.

I was quickly scouted to do the dubbing for the latest blockbuster, Ra One, a romantic comedy about soccer and robots and cell phone hacking staring two of India's biggest stars, Shahrukh Khan and Kareena Kapoor.

SRK- the handsomest, most totally not gay man in all of India.

My role was 'all of the white women'. I soon learnt that this covered not only white women but also non-Indian asians, black women and robots. I also learnt the reason that dubbed movies are so terrible- they don't give you a script. You would think that the logical thing to do would be for the screen writer to write down what they want the minor characters to say, have in translated to English, and then given to the voice actors. But no. For example, in a scene where I played a glamorous Japanese woman telling SRK how nice his painting was, I just had to look at how her lips were moving, think about the kinds of things people might say in this situation, and go for it.

This is where the magic happens.

Luckily, I have two thirds of an art history degree so I was able to think of some intelligent and insightful comments. I continued on in this vein for about the first three takes until it suddenly occurred to me the guys in charge couldn't understand what I was saying, and then I started saying stuff like "Holy crap, it's like you pissed genius all over the canvas, man!" I really hope they use that take.

In the zone.

And apparently they recycle good white people voices throughout multiple movies. So, next time you're watching a Bollywood film and there's an airport scene, and you hear a New Zealand accent making flight announcements? Totally me. Probably.

slumdog laissez-faire

Monsoon at the fabulously colonialist Gateway of India in Mumbai/Bombay.

Arts and crafts day!!

My afternoon class was doing a totally awesome job with their compound sentences, so I decided to reward them with an arts and crafts day. Yay!

Each of them made a poster with two compound sentences they wrote themselves about something they like and something they don't like; and then filled up the rest of the page with a collage from Bollywood magazines, because collages are awesome. Hit the jump to see the the completed masterpieces.

Burka

Burka, 9, standing in front of the field that separates her slum from the wealthier part of the city. Slum dwellers are not allowed to step foot on the field.

A wild RATTATA appears!

Hundreds of years ago the female prophet Karni Mata fell into the depths of despair when one of her favorite musicians died. She begged and begged the gods to bring him back to life, but to no avail. So she used her own mystic powers to make sure he, and every other member of her family who died from then on would be reincarnated as a rat and she built this temple to offer them all sanctuary.

 I've never had the same natural revulsion for animals like spiders, pigeons and rats that most people seem to have- in fact, I've always thought it was some kind of racism that a person will find doves beautiful and pay to have them released at their wedding but then declare pigeons to be diseased scum. Doves are just white pigeons. RACIST. So after my initial shock, I found it pretty easy to adjust to the teeming hordes of rats swarming in every corner and running over my bare feet. I wouldn't have a problem if it was sweet little bunny rabbits or even pet mice, so why should rats bother me? They're just another kind of rodent.

Pilgrims flock from all over India to pray at the temple and interact with the sacred rats- they feed them fruit and candy; and then eat what they leave behind- the rat-saliva drenched scraps evidently have healing properties. Babies are encouraged to join the rats in drinking milk from the big silver pans scattered throughout the temple; and everyone keeps a lookout for the extra lucky white rats that are said to appear only once a year. 

A Camel With No Name

Laura* and I went to Bikaner, a desert town up by the Pakistani border, to get our camel safari on. Although I was disappointed to discover it wasn't desert as in Aladdin desert, but more like The Hills Have Eyes desert, we still had a bangin' time

We rode out on camels in the afternoon. I figured since I can ride a horse, I'd be able to handle a camel easy- it's just like a slightly higher level mount, right?
Wrong. So wrong.
They are nothing like horse. They're just straight up murder machines. Every time you even try to steer them, like, a tiny big, they rear their heads around and try to rip your face off with their giant yellow teeth. Also, they kick you. While you are on top of them. It's pretty ninja.

We slept out under the stars; and when we woke up their were all these wild dogs curled up in our beds- It can't of been for the heat, so I guess they were just lonely. Aww.

I was going for the Laurence of Arabia look. Nailed it.

* Laura is a beautiful, sweet German girl who works in the same slum as I do. She's so beautiful and sweet, in fact, that I have an ongoing theory she's actually a live Barbie doll, like in that Tyra Banks- Lindsay Lohan movie

Nasty Gals Do It Better

Exactly one month till my 21st birthday.
You know what that means- time to order myself self-birthday gifts from the internet! Yay!
This year, I turned to Nasty Gal- which at the moment is my favorite of my top three online shopping trinity (The other two being ASOS and Urban Outfitters).
It's very surreal sitting in a basement in India flicking through photos of emaciated blogger/models in leopard print short shorts, trying to make decisions about platform heels, desperately ignoring the sporadic power cuts and ants crawling across the screen that are bigger than my thumbnail.

Melissa Brenzinger is the best person in the world.

I got home from work today and there was an exciting mystery package for me.

I opened it up crazy fast and it was a bottle of the most INSANE smelling Vanilla Birthday Cake Shampoo/Shower Gel- it LITERALLY smells like vanilla birthday cake. Not just vanilla; vanilla birthday cake. It smells more like vanilla birthday cake than actual vanilla birthday cake.

I was totally confused for about ten seconds until I found the card, which read:

"I read your blog and it made me sad to see that you fell in the gutter. Smell good soon! Melissa x"

Thank you, SO MUCH Melissa. You are lovely. I don't know how you got my address in India but I promise to think of you when I rub this stuff all over my body.

For, like, the two or three people out there who don't know Melissa yet, here is a series of photos to help you get to know her and how magical she is.

Here she is in my bedroom, defiling my throw pillow

Born this way.

WHICH ONE IS THE REAL LADY GAGA?????

Here we are casually drunkenly clawing at a fish tank.

Intimidating breasts is one of the things we have in common. 

ADORABLE!!

Technical Difficulties

My laptop is currently in pieces and my internet access options are limited*; so this blog is going to be a bit of a ghost town for a while. Hopefully only a few more days though- as soon as I get my precious apple-baby back I have about a million posts ready. So for all my adoring public, hang in there.

The lil' nugget above is my favorite Indian baby. Seriously, best baby ever. She comes to class every morning with her mom Sunita,  who breastfeeds her on demand throughout the class, without even glancing away from the whiteboard when she latches on- It's very impressive. Can't imagine getting away with that at Queen Margaret College.

*The internet cafes in Jaipur aren't cubicle type situations like they are in most places. You go into a private closet with a computer in it, lock the door behind you, and sit down on a plastic covered seat. And there's a box of tissues beside the keyboard. See where I'm going with this? I refuse to use them for fear of getting pregnant by osmosis.