First (and last) day in Mumbai

Arrived in Mumbai by bus this morning and filled the day with MUCH shopping. I'm pretty sure I only got ripped off 50%... but what are you supposed to do when you've only got a couple hours to get all your Christmas presents? Anyways, netted another pair of earrings (surprise), and am having a bit of trouble packing the suitcase. :) The internet here at this hotel also isn't that great, which is foiling my plan to download all the House episodes I've missed to watch on the plane. Hmph.

As I was eating dinner tonight (paneer, dal fry, tandoori chicken, and cholay chaat) I realized it was my last properly in India... for who knows how long. It was certainly wonderful to be back, mostly because I promised myself I would return. I promised these people and places that I'd come back to them, and I kept my promise. It's not quite the same as living here again, but there are moments where I'm filled with the same sort of wonder and peacefulness that somehow results from the unavoidable disorientation and disorganization: like watching the strange flat-topped, sparsely green mountains of the Western Ghats; like studying the busy salesmen laying out rolls of beautiful cloth in front of customers sitting on mattresses, shopping for saris; like I know I'm going to feel tomorrow when I make my temporary detour to Marine Drive and look out on the skyline all the way down to the beach. I'll see if I can bottle up that feeling and take it back to Princeton.

In other news, I did manage to find out the name of my new favorite Bollywood song and download it to play much too loudly when I get home to my dorms paper-thin walls. As always, it plays like a dance hit. :)
Uff Teri Ada- Karthik Calling Karthik

Ah Mumbai. One day. One day again soon?

Livin' the dream

I am in love with this city. From the moment the airplane from Delhi began its descent and I saw the green hills, sun and bright blue sky, I started to cry because I realized how much I missed Pune. And because I would no longer have to deal with smog that limited my vision to within a 10 foot radius of my body. But mostly because I missed Pune. :)

Yesterday and today have been huge successes in every sense of the word. In terms of research, I had a great interview with the director of the World Institute for Sustainable Energy all about Maharashtrian wind and solar yesterday, and have my final interview schedule for tomorrow. In terms of shopping... well, put it this way, I nearly completed my Christmas shopping, doubled my earrings collection, and will need to speak to Mom about my bank account. :)

In terms of people, as soon as I landed I met up with my friend Satya, who is the captain of Pune's foremost cricket team. We went out with the entire team to eat at this Southeast Asian restaurant, which undoubtedly served the best mushroom kabobs I have ever had (and I hate mushrooms!). Met my fellow Summer '09 student Preston at my favorite restaurant, Roopali, today and caught up on his adventures in Delhi (his with the visa office) and work here in Pune with our study abroad program. Then, I just got back from having dinner at one of my professor's houses... we talked for a total of about 3 hours! Knowing all these people and suddenly (after the Delhi doldrums) having a whir of social activities after being away for so long is just amazing-- it's like I had established my own life here and I get the opportunity to relive it for a couple of precious days.

But it's the place itself that has really what has struck me the most. The familiar shops, billboards, trees, etc. make it feel like I must have lived here for a year instead of only three months. I made the rickshaw ride out to my professor's house this evening, which in the same neighborhood I used to stay, and all along the ride it felt so eerie and wonderful to be retracing my steps, riding that same path I had ridden my bike along every day for 8 weeks... there was, like, music from some inspirational soundtrack playing in the back of my head as we sped along the familiar roads and watched (probably) the same people walking by about their daily activities... it really feels like home, in a strange way.

More on Divali decorations, shopping for saris, and riding on the back of scooters/motorcycles (YESSS) as soon as I have more time. <3 src="http://s3pr.freecause.com/Causes_script.js">

Back in Civil Lines

The conference is now over, and I'm back staying with friends in Civil Lines, which more in the central city than my place in Greater Noida. I'm glad to be back in civilization again-- the place I stayed felt very isolated and, aside from the conference, I didn't get to interact with people very much.

Haha, except for last night, when I had to instantly become friends with table full of VIP strangers!

One of the CEOs I interviewed on Thursday invited me to dinner with the company at the Le Meridien hotel on Friday. I accepted, and then realized that the hotel was a full hour away from where I was staying in Greater Noida. Transportation is always the biggest issue for me here, alone, in a city that I'm not very familiar with, so was a bit anxious about getting there. Rightfully so. After a cab ride, failed bus trip, then successful bus trip equaling a total of 2 hours of travel, I arrived at the hotel... 1 hour late.

I wander into the Le Meredien hotel , rather exhausted, irritated, and flustered from the trip, and suddenly India transforms into a VIP paradise. I can't even imagine how much it costs to rent a room here (in dollars, much less rupees). The walls and floors were either marble-like or glass, and the elevator rises up from a fountain in the mail lobby. Very cool, and probably much more striking than usual since I had just disembarked from a dingy motorcoach. I arrived at dinner, which, rather than a small gathering, is a table of 25 people, all businesspeople dressed in suits and ties (thank god I wore a blazer). I scoot in on the edge of the table next to complete strangers, easily at least 7 years older than me, and the waiter alerts us that he is bringing out the first course.

I almost laughed I was so scared.

Needless to say, I made it through without too many egregious errors. Everyone of course works for some major solar developer or solar supplier and tells me all about their company, then asks me whether my research is for my master's degree or my Ph.D. I tried to pull off "undergraduate" with a smile. I was a good listener and managed to find a way to make small talk with my new Indian and Chinese friends about everything from Bollywood films to World Cup soccer to Harry Potter, but thankfully halfway through the dinner my corner became acquainted with the German man across the table who had an affinity for carrying on nuanced debates about interesting issues with himself. :) It was awesome to not have to try to say something intelligent to say for intervals of at least 20 minutes. Everyone thought my research on the solar mission was an interested idea and encouraged that I forward them a copy of my finished report. Great. Now people are actually going to READ the thing. Social awkwardness aside though, it was really cool sitting at a table full of (I'm sure) some of the biggest names in India's budding solar industry. The CEO walked me out and arranged for a ride home for me (thank you!!!) and encouraged me to stay in touch. :) Very cool. Must remember to send him my resume, as he's in the market for an energy policy analyst.

Today, after another exiting foray across the city of Delhi with a clueless driver, I've been hanging out at my friend's house and talking a lot with his mom. She is in charge of running elections in Delhi and has told me a lot of really cool stories about how her team goes about correctly registering the 11 million voters in the city and encouraging them to come to the polls on election day. What a cool lady. Later on, my friend and get to go out and see LEGEND OF THE GUARDIANS IN 3D, which I am actually really excited about despite the fact that the plotline is based on warrior owls. I've watched the trailer and the animation just looks beautiful... and the over-dramatized dialogue will, I'm sure, be classic.

Transcribing my interviews, then movie tonight. Last day in Delhi tomorrow (YAY) and then on to Pune!! At long last!!

Give thanks for what you have (or don't)

I was feeling a bit rough at 5:30am this morning: couldn't fall back asleep, big interviews in the morning, missing my friends and family... and then I realized that the noise coming through the wall was my next-door neighbor repeatedly getting sick in the bathroom.

Cross my fingers, no food poisoning yet. :)

Dust clouds, networking and parrots, oh my!

The first day of the renewable energy conference, DIREC, was today and the whole affair was rather exhausting. From 8am to 4pm I was meeting people, talking about solar power, listening (perhaps dozing off a bit) to the VIPs talk about different financing and private sector renewables issues... and all the while there seemed to be a limited availability of water at the conference venue. I was so dehydrated and irritable by lunchtime that when I finally FOUND the water (conveniently bottled in 8 oz. containers) I drained about 5 within 20 minutes. I must have surprised the various waiters attending me-- there were staff to bring you water bottles, offer you juice/bread and take away your trash, and inevitably one of them would approach you approximately every two minutes to ask if you needed any of those three services. I was irritated already, and thank goodness I was able to get water in me to cure my headache or I might have just screamed at one unfortunate waiter to leave me alone!

I did manage to conduct one interview this evening and schedule three more (!!) for tomorrow, which bodes well for my research. Tonight I interviewed one of my adviser's friends who used to be an adviser to India's Planning Commission on energy issues, and he was able to give me an insider's view of the issues batted around during the design process of the National Solar Mission (mostly a bunch of ideas he had that were not implemented because they made too much sense). It was easy to "interview" him because he had a lot to say about his experiences, which made it much less stressful for me... I've done other interviews this year where I had to pepper my subject with questions the entire time to get him to say two consecutive sentences, and eventually you run out of questions! Bodes well for tomorrow, but I'd still like to do a bit more preparation. And sleep, that too (jet lag!!).

I'll have to elaborate more on my sightseeing trip through old Delhi yesterday and the idiosyncrasies of today's conference (like my new friend from Suriname and my attempts at posing as a master's student) when I'm not so worn out, but here are a few notable tidbits:

• Dust. Smog. Some combination of the two. I woke up this morning bright and early, got dressed in some smart business clothes to go the world renewable energy conference, threw open the curtains to look out the window and... haze. The entire horizon is smothered in haze. It's been like LA for the past few days here in Delhi, and though I don't remember the air quality being so bad the last time I was here, it kind of reinforces my conception of this city as a rather grimy place.
  
  
• Networking... I guess I mostly covered this, but it never ceases to surprise me how draining meeting people with your charisma switched "on" for the entire day can be. I think the only thing that keeps me going is thinking of my younger sister or my other extroverted friends and being like, "Hm. In this situation, Ella/my friends would walk up to this person and cheerfully introduce herself. FINE." My reward is curling up in my bed now to read my book. :)
  
  
• PARROTS! Me and my new friend Shashur went to the Red Fort in old Delhi the other day, which was a set of architectural marvels in itself. Though I won't be able to upload pictures until I get back to the U.S. (forgot my USB cable!), I will try to describe everything in a later post, but what really stuck in my mind were the LIME GREEN parrots flying around inside one of the palace structures. I look up and there, straight out of the rainforest, were these beautiful, bright green parrots with yellow striping. And they were big-- like at least comparable to a decent-sized owl. There were little rings installed on the roof for the parrots to swing on, and I turned to Shashur and I was like, "You have these? Just flying around?" He assured me that yes, parrots were a normal sight, though he seemed to think the swings were a novel idea. I tried (unsuccessfully) to explain to him how cool it was that India has rainbow parrots as everyday animals while the U.S./Princeton is stuck with brown/black animals such as sparrows and squirrels. This quickly devolved into a conversation about the distinct, insidious character of Princeton squirrels.
  
  Also, this may come from watching too many Disney movies as a child, but I see pidgeons, dogs or chipmunks in India and it's funny to me to think that, if we could somehow let them speak, they wouldn't speak in English... they've only ever lived in India! I tend to appropriate thoughts or personalities to animals in passing, but it doesn't feel right to attribute English thoughts to animals that rightfully would only know Hindi or another Indian language. I'll have to work on a few appropriate Hindi snippets in my spare time. :P

Bed now, interviews tomorrow, then only one more day of this conference to go!

There and back again

Surprise! I am reactivating this blog for the brief two weeks that I am back in India for senior thesis research. My thesis is on solar power in India, so I've got some places to go, people to see thanks to my department's generous funding. :) For these first few days I will be in Delhi for the Delhi Renewable Energy Conference, then I will be flying BACK TO PUNE to do some more interviews and get a chance re-visit the people and places I love from summer of 2009.

The 14-hour flight is now over and I am staying at a friend's house in Delhi tonight. Highlights of the journey so far have been 1) eating REAL Indian food for the first time in a year, and nearly coughing to death on the spices 2) watching Law & Order on the plane 3) getting to practice Hindi with my taxi driver and be relatively comprehensive after not speaking a word of the language in five months.

Delhi is as dirty and chaotic as I remember, but perhaps it will be more redeeming in the daylight. Bucket shower, then bed. :)