Hurray for one month in Indore!! I’ve figured out that if you combine my two host sisters you get me, the middle child. Muskan is a balanced extravert and introvert as well as beloved gossiper. We also have basically the same diet that revolves around potatoes and chocolate. Ranjana shares my love of fashion and elderly sister duties. My favorite thing she said so far was, “I have big dreams; I want to buy Jimmy Choos on my own!!” That girl understands the importance of financial independence and the power a pair of designer shoes has to make you feel confident.
I just want everyone to know that after one month I have just now figured out bidets!!! This is very exciting and a little gross, but there’s a funny story behind this. I have actively avoided public washrooms and only used my washroom at home, recently redecorated with a fancy new toilet paper holder!! I will keep saying this, but my family is so freaking awesome and it’s little things like toilet paper holders that make me love them and giggle more. Anyway, one day when I was chilling out in the washroom at school I had been looking at a nozzle on the wall and wondering what it did. I assumed it probably dispensed water because there was a cup underneath it. I was extremely early for my dance class and pretty bored, so naturally I decided to figure out what this nozzle did. I was 95% positive that water would fall into the cup but to my extreme surprise when I turned the water tap I was assaulted by a super aggressive water stream. So there we go, that’s how I figured out the hard way how bidets work!
All week it hadn’t really rained it had just been cloudy with an occasional misting, but Tuesday all day it rained then poured then flooded. After 2 hours of hard downpour one of our drains on our terrace got clogged and our apartment began to food. Within a span of 10 minutes there was half and inch of water covering our living room and area by the backdoor leading to the terrace. Muskan and I just happened to be home alone because our parents and Ranjana went to see a movie, so first we freaked out then we came to our senses and opened the front door, found two squeegees, and started sweeping water out of the front door. It was kind of fun slipping and falling all over the place and laughing about the concept of sweeping water. And it continued to be fun until the water kept coming in and we couldn’t figure out why. After a while the rain died down enough for us to get the floors dry until our parents came home. When the rest of the family got back we used our collective common sense to realize the terrace drain was clogged with a plastic bag. When we removed the bag we had our own waterfall off our patio. Muskan and I self declared holiday on Wednesday after a late night of keeping the apartment safe from flooding and water damage and had another holiday declared by the chancellor on Thursday from the continuation of the rain on Wednesday.
I just want everyone to know that after one month I have just now figured out bidets!!! This is very exciting and a little gross, but there’s a funny story behind this. I have actively avoided public washrooms and only used my washroom at home, recently redecorated with a fancy new toilet paper holder!! I will keep saying this, but my family is so freaking awesome and it’s little things like toilet paper holders that make me love them and giggle more. Anyway, one day when I was chilling out in the washroom at school I had been looking at a nozzle on the wall and wondering what it did. I assumed it probably dispensed water because there was a cup underneath it. I was extremely early for my dance class and pretty bored, so naturally I decided to figure out what this nozzle did. I was 95% positive that water would fall into the cup but to my extreme surprise when I turned the water tap I was assaulted by a super aggressive water stream. So there we go, that’s how I figured out the hard way how bidets work!
All week it hadn’t really rained it had just been cloudy with an occasional misting, but Tuesday all day it rained then poured then flooded. After 2 hours of hard downpour one of our drains on our terrace got clogged and our apartment began to food. Within a span of 10 minutes there was half and inch of water covering our living room and area by the backdoor leading to the terrace. Muskan and I just happened to be home alone because our parents and Ranjana went to see a movie, so first we freaked out then we came to our senses and opened the front door, found two squeegees, and started sweeping water out of the front door. It was kind of fun slipping and falling all over the place and laughing about the concept of sweeping water. And it continued to be fun until the water kept coming in and we couldn’t figure out why. After a while the rain died down enough for us to get the floors dry until our parents came home. When the rest of the family got back we used our collective common sense to realize the terrace drain was clogged with a plastic bag. When we removed the bag we had our own waterfall off our patio. Muskan and I self declared holiday on Wednesday after a late night of keeping the apartment safe from flooding and water damage and had another holiday declared by the chancellor on Thursday from the continuation of the rain on Wednesday.
Muskan was, understandably, not happy at all about the declared holiday on Thursday because it was her 16th birthday and she wanted to pass out chocolates to all of her friends at school (it’s an Indian thing). Although school was canceled we still saw all of her friends at her birthday part that night. Her party, like many Indian teens’ parties, was held at a club/disco in the mall. Muskan arrived fashionably late to her own party by a good 20 minutes which is how you do it here. She had a group of 25 school friends come and dance with her, in circle formation, in that insanely unnecessary loud club. This was definitely not the same raunchy image you see when the word club comes to mind. This sweet sixteen was pure innocent fun and everyone just seemed to have fun dancing in their own little spaces. Come on Americans, get your stuff together, we do it classier over here. All in all from what I saw Muskan had a pretty awesome sweet 16th. She made out like a bandit in gifts and was surrounded by all the people who adore her.
As some of you may know I am accompanied by 4 other American students who are going through their own similar adventures with me. We essentially spend all day at school together and we get to decompress and talk about some things in Indian culture that stand out to us. The biggest realization we have had as a group is the discovery and identification of Indian English. We argue that just like there is American English, Australian English, and British English there also exists an Indian English. Everyone I have met here can speak at least some English because a lot of words for modern commodities do not exist in Hindi so English is used. I have always been able to understand the English of my teachers, friends, and family but it definitely takes more thought than normal. In some ways their English is more formal by peppering conversations with words like “shall” and “surely”. Other times what they are saying might be grammatically correct, but the combination and selection of words they use is just really funny and different to us. For example instead of “taking down my hair” they might say “opening my hair”. You still understand what they are saying; you just have to think about it first. This is what my fellow Americans and I have dubbed as Indian English. It can further be defined, by the four of us, as really everyone speaking sub-par really broken English together. There’s often not very many native English speakers here and English is everyone’s second language so a lot of times everyone is speaking in grammatically incorrect English, but everyone can still understand each other perfectly. Correcting someone’s English should not be done lightly here unless they ask you to before hand. From my experience this is because language correction is often viewed as offensive like the person who is correcting you thinks they are inferior to you. I’ve seen this from teachers at Daly College correcting students and even on India’s MTV channel when girls correct each other’s pronunciation as a way to take jabs at them. I think its smart to just let the bad English continue, it’s not hurting anyone (sorry every English teacher I’ve ever had). I’m pretty sure this is the view everyone here has as well. If I can understand what someone else is saying why is it wrong? Isn’t the purpose of language to communicate? Viva Indian English!
Indian culture is similar to Hispanic culture in that they both show love through food amounts and “guest is god”. You are given all the good pieces of meat, you get the first hot parathas, and you are treated like, well…a god. It’s not bad I won’t complain, but because I am now apart of a family this whole “guest is god” thing doesn’t really apply anymore, and I am so grateful that I’m just like my sisters or anyone else in our household. Everywhere I go I am the gringa/white person who everyone looks at and treats differently. Little kids at Daly College call me Mam instead of Didi and let me go to the front of the line for tea break just like their teachers. The first couple of times it’s nice, but after a while you just want to fit in and be vaguely normal. Home is a refuge. I never thought I would be thankful for chores, commands, nap time limits, and food moderation but I so am.
As some of you may know I am accompanied by 4 other American students who are going through their own similar adventures with me. We essentially spend all day at school together and we get to decompress and talk about some things in Indian culture that stand out to us. The biggest realization we have had as a group is the discovery and identification of Indian English. We argue that just like there is American English, Australian English, and British English there also exists an Indian English. Everyone I have met here can speak at least some English because a lot of words for modern commodities do not exist in Hindi so English is used. I have always been able to understand the English of my teachers, friends, and family but it definitely takes more thought than normal. In some ways their English is more formal by peppering conversations with words like “shall” and “surely”. Other times what they are saying might be grammatically correct, but the combination and selection of words they use is just really funny and different to us. For example instead of “taking down my hair” they might say “opening my hair”. You still understand what they are saying; you just have to think about it first. This is what my fellow Americans and I have dubbed as Indian English. It can further be defined, by the four of us, as really everyone speaking sub-par really broken English together. There’s often not very many native English speakers here and English is everyone’s second language so a lot of times everyone is speaking in grammatically incorrect English, but everyone can still understand each other perfectly. Correcting someone’s English should not be done lightly here unless they ask you to before hand. From my experience this is because language correction is often viewed as offensive like the person who is correcting you thinks they are inferior to you. I’ve seen this from teachers at Daly College correcting students and even on India’s MTV channel when girls correct each other’s pronunciation as a way to take jabs at them. I think its smart to just let the bad English continue, it’s not hurting anyone (sorry every English teacher I’ve ever had). I’m pretty sure this is the view everyone here has as well. If I can understand what someone else is saying why is it wrong? Isn’t the purpose of language to communicate? Viva Indian English!
Indian culture is similar to Hispanic culture in that they both show love through food amounts and “guest is god”. You are given all the good pieces of meat, you get the first hot parathas, and you are treated like, well…a god. It’s not bad I won’t complain, but because I am now apart of a family this whole “guest is god” thing doesn’t really apply anymore, and I am so grateful that I’m just like my sisters or anyone else in our household. Everywhere I go I am the gringa/white person who everyone looks at and treats differently. Little kids at Daly College call me Mam instead of Didi and let me go to the front of the line for tea break just like their teachers. The first couple of times it’s nice, but after a while you just want to fit in and be vaguely normal. Home is a refuge. I never thought I would be thankful for chores, commands, nap time limits, and food moderation but I so am.