Procrastiblog

I really don’t understand where this question comes from. I guess it’s a clumsy translation of the local formalities. My answer is always “Christopher” (which inevitably comes back as “Mr. Christopher”), since “Chris” can easily become “Krishna” and “Conway” is just a waste of everybody’s time. People here know the name “Christopher” the same way Americans know… Um… Are there any Indian names that Americans know? “Vijay”? “Ravi”? (Stupid Americans.)

Damn it. Felt on the verge of something all day yesterday and today I’ve woken up with a wicked sore throat.

Funny thing is I’ve been taking Cipro for unrelated stomach problems*, so either this is a viral infection or I’ve been breeding super-bacteria in my throat.

Another funny thing is that I’m realizing Hilleary was kind of lucky to get sick while we were traveling, because we could just call room service and ask for lemon or ginger tea. Whereas I’m about to go to the supermarket to go buy lemons and ginger and assemble a tea myself in the guest house kitchen. I think there’s a knife in there somewhere…

I’m also going to the pharmacist to see if he will sell me anything like the Halls Defense lozenges that H and I swear by at times like these and to replenish my stock of ibuprofen, the only over-the-counter medication that I don’t have a 200 or 300% overstock of**.

* It’s a sign of the times that, after two days of the shits, I am only declaring myself sick now that my throat is sore.

** I have a gross oversupply of diarrhea and gas medicine, which I haven’t taken at all, and Benedryl and loratadine, which I have taken only rarely. I don’t have any cold medicine (e.g., Dayquil, Nyquil), which is now on Hilleary’s “don’t leave home without it” list. I went to the pharmacist in Jodhpur with a list of the active ingredients in Dayquil, which led to some rummaging in the back and the production of two dusty bottles of “expectorant”. When we went to the hospital, H was prescribed 6 different medicines at once, which were (I have the receipt right here): Zifi LBX, Dilosyn, Zyrtec D, Sporlac, Flexon, and Pantop-D. Dayquil, people! It’s good stuff!

Hilleary reports that, after we spent twenty minutes going from the curb to the terminal entrance and parted, it took her another two hours to reach her departure gate. (I’m not sure how bad the queues were inside the terminal or how much line-cutting this figure incorporates, but H can get pretty feisty when she’s stressed out.) World Class Airport!

H left a bunch of good pictures out of her batch yesterday, so I’ve uploaded some more. Here are the new ones all in one place, or you can find them in context in the previously linked sets, below.

Chandra the houseboy has been replaced with a… houseman? (Gilbird, I think. Is that a name?) Inviting friends over to watch our TV has been replaced with scheduling a time to mop the floors and make the bed. He didn’t just leave lunch on the table; he started to set a place for me (before I told him not to bother). Then he made me sign for my lunch. Then he cleaned my room and bathroom and asked me to check it to make sure I was satisfied. Five years of hotel experience, he claims.

This is a little much.

P.S. I assume that Gilbird (??? that can’t be right…) is not responsible for the liter of Jack Daniel’s whiskey that disappeared while we were away, replaced with 50 ml of a 2 parts water/1 part Jack Daniel’s mixture.

Hilleary, departing
Originally uploaded by C+H.

My God, those six weeks went by fast.

H left last night for America via a stunning assortment of other intermediary destinations. The scene at the airport was absurd: a crowd of hundreds of people waiting to get through the front door of the terminal. Note: this was not the line to check in or to get through security. It took us at least twenty minutes—maneuvering through a typically chaotic Indian “queue”—to get from the curb to the terminal entrance, where I had to say goodbye, because (if I recall the sign correctly (meant to get a picture, but I got all discombobulated bidding farewell)), “Visitor entrance prohibited. Inconvenience caused is regretted.”

(BTW, according to our driver, the back-up was totally normal and not the result of, e.g., enhanced security measures. Just a typical evening at the Worst Airport Ever*.)

And so, for me, 12 weeks down, 3 weeks to go. I’m going to miss Hilleary, but after spending 6 weeks apart in May and June, I feel like the next 3 will go by in the blink of an eye. Then again, considering I have no plans whatsoever for the rest of the month except to work until my eyes bleed, I may be unpleasantly surprised.

* It’s not really the airport’s fault, I should note. The airport (and the buses and the roads and the trains, etc) of Bangalore were designed for a city like Palm Springs (the Bangalore of 25 years ago), not for a city like San Jose (the Bangalore of today). The infrastructure of the city is lagging about 10 years behind its economy.

New photo sets:
Shimla and Chandigarh
Haridwar
Delhi, Rajasthan, and Agra

Ha!
Originally uploaded by C+H.

“We take pictures of goats eating garbage. And they take pictures of us.”

A five hundred year old city sitting in the desert with a fort looming overhead. And somebody got the bright idea to paint half the buildings powder blue. And everybody flies kites.