Debendra K. Dash and Dipti R. Pattnaik, in an article about translation in colonial Odisha, mention anecdotally "a natural Oriya reverence for anything strange and different." I would never have put it quite like that (I would probably have thought to use neither "natural" nor "reverence"), but upon reading this I said to myself, "Aha! So that is a thing that can be said!" A veteran traveller in India, it surprised me when I first visited Taiwan to learn that one can be phenotypically different without being strange or interesting -- without being different different. Sure, one could argue that Taiwan is more cosmopolitan than a place like Odisha (where I have spent most of my time in India). Taiwan probably does more business with foreigners, though, like most of Odisha, it probably also ranks somewhat low on the world's list of tourist hot-spots. During the time I've spent in Taipei, however, I haven't really seen more obvious foreigners than I typically see in Cuttack or Bhubaneswar. But I surprised myself in Taiwan by being somewhat bothered, even a little offended, that Taiwanese people didn't stare at me because I appeared phenotypically different. I wanted to yell at them: "Hey, look at me, I'm different!"
In Odisha, of course, I have the opposite problem: I am a constant object of fascination. India was the first foreign country I visited where I might be considered visually remarkable, and so I suppose that, for myself, it set the standard for what to expect in other countries with mostly non-European-looking populations -- thus my confusion about Taiwan. The odd thing is that it still annoys me, even offends me that people in Odisha do stare at me. This is not the only possible reaction. I once heard an American composer who had lived in Indonesia speak of his experiences there: About the attention (especially from women) he at first received, he remarked that he thought, "Finally I'm being recognized for what I truly am!" I suppose I do have flashes of that hubris occasionally. But mostly it's a constant, dull irritation as I walk down the street and people physically turn themselves to better follow me with their eyes. I suppose one source of the irritation is that it is often young men who seem to be the most interested; if, improbably, I were to be honest I might admit that I am not quite as bothered when the eyes following me belong to young women.
After I returned to the US from Odisha the first time, I recall being shocked at the whiteness of the town -- Olympia, WA -- to which I had returned. How could they get so many people with such light-colored skin together in one place? And I remember being shocked -- perhaps in a naturally reverential kind of way -- when a rare person of dark-pigmentation would punctuate that white landscape. And I had to resist the urge to physically turn myself as such a person walked past, to better follow him or her with my eyes.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
The Gutbuster Special
Rainy rainy day. Everywhere in India I have been, when it rains the electricity goes out. It doesn't usually go out for very long (though sometimes it does), but nevertheless it goes out. This is not usually very much of an inconvenience (though sometimes it is), but I always wonder about it. I assume it has been raining in India for as long as they have had electricity -- why have the two forces not reconciled?
Anyway, my real interest is, as usual, food. Since coming to Cuttack I have been eating at least one meal per day at the Bombay Hotel, a short walk from my guest house. I think this restaurant was suggested to me mainly because it is the nearest one to have air conditioning, but I'm not sure. The restaurant itself is part of a hotel in the usual English sense (sometimes "hotel" in India just means restaurant), and I've heard that the American who was staying in my room immediately before me lives there now, although surprisingly I've never seen her (she may be gone now, or I've misunderstood the chronology). The restaurant has a regular menu card which the manager showed me once, but I think it is not really in use (or perhaps is only used for room service). The "real" menu is written on a small, backlit board on the wall:
MEAL 70
CURD 8
SWEETDISH 10
This menu has not changed since I've been here, and I can't think of any reason it would change. I always get the meal. You pay first, outside the restaurant, which seems odd to me (and sometimes confuses newcomers), and the cashier hands you a brass (or somesuch metal) token. After you've entered and found a seat you give this token to one of the workers inside who then supplies you with a round metal tray (thali) with three small metal bowls on it. Then one by one a series of waiters come to serve you. By my count there are at least six waiters, each with a different job, or combination of jobs. They are coordinated by a manager, a friendly and polite but somewhat severe older, gravel-voiced fellow who keeps a watchful eye on the food quantities on his customers plates (lest they become too low). One server brings you a metal cup of water -- I never drink this, as they must know (many places filter their water now so it may be fine, but I don't yet feel like taking the chance), yet I cannot convince them to not bring it. Another waiter comes bearing a contraption consisting of four, small metal pots, each containing a different food: a vegetable dish, a potato curry, a lentil curry, and peppers in some sort of powder (not sure yet what this is). Yet another waiter brings a pot of dal. (The two curries and the dal go in your three small bowls.) Someone else will give you a small dollop of chutney, another a spoonful of pickle (achar). One waiter places one or two small chunks of onion on your plate, along with a pepper, a piece of lemon, and a spoonful of salt. Someone else brings a couple of roti. Often, for some reason, you have to request rice, but they'll eventually bring it. The rice guy also brings papad.
If you haven't already, you may now begin to eat. Most of the food is self-explanatory. The lemon, however, is squeezed onto the pile of salt; the pepper is broken into smaller pieces and soaked in this mixture; the onion pieces are then dipped into this and eaten. One may periodically stick one's finger into the pepper power and lick this clean, although I am not yet comfortable being this intimate with my food (or rather with my finger), at least in public.
The servers will, unless you are very firm, continue to refill your plate until you explode or expire. Sometimes I think I have accidentally eaten the equivalent of three meals at one sitting, and sometimes done this twice in one day. (Actually, under this system, I really only need to eat once per day.) In my mind I refer to their "meal" as the Gutbuster Special. The food -- "pure veg," as they say -- is quite delicious. It has also not changed since I have arrived (perhaps the vegetable dish was switched once or twice). I'm curious to see whether I will eat this meal every day for six months.
Anyway, my real interest is, as usual, food. Since coming to Cuttack I have been eating at least one meal per day at the Bombay Hotel, a short walk from my guest house. I think this restaurant was suggested to me mainly because it is the nearest one to have air conditioning, but I'm not sure. The restaurant itself is part of a hotel in the usual English sense (sometimes "hotel" in India just means restaurant), and I've heard that the American who was staying in my room immediately before me lives there now, although surprisingly I've never seen her (she may be gone now, or I've misunderstood the chronology). The restaurant has a regular menu card which the manager showed me once, but I think it is not really in use (or perhaps is only used for room service). The "real" menu is written on a small, backlit board on the wall:
MEAL 70
CURD 8
SWEETDISH 10
This menu has not changed since I've been here, and I can't think of any reason it would change. I always get the meal. You pay first, outside the restaurant, which seems odd to me (and sometimes confuses newcomers), and the cashier hands you a brass (or somesuch metal) token. After you've entered and found a seat you give this token to one of the workers inside who then supplies you with a round metal tray (thali) with three small metal bowls on it. Then one by one a series of waiters come to serve you. By my count there are at least six waiters, each with a different job, or combination of jobs. They are coordinated by a manager, a friendly and polite but somewhat severe older, gravel-voiced fellow who keeps a watchful eye on the food quantities on his customers plates (lest they become too low). One server brings you a metal cup of water -- I never drink this, as they must know (many places filter their water now so it may be fine, but I don't yet feel like taking the chance), yet I cannot convince them to not bring it. Another waiter comes bearing a contraption consisting of four, small metal pots, each containing a different food: a vegetable dish, a potato curry, a lentil curry, and peppers in some sort of powder (not sure yet what this is). Yet another waiter brings a pot of dal. (The two curries and the dal go in your three small bowls.) Someone else will give you a small dollop of chutney, another a spoonful of pickle (achar). One waiter places one or two small chunks of onion on your plate, along with a pepper, a piece of lemon, and a spoonful of salt. Someone else brings a couple of roti. Often, for some reason, you have to request rice, but they'll eventually bring it. The rice guy also brings papad.
If you haven't already, you may now begin to eat. Most of the food is self-explanatory. The lemon, however, is squeezed onto the pile of salt; the pepper is broken into smaller pieces and soaked in this mixture; the onion pieces are then dipped into this and eaten. One may periodically stick one's finger into the pepper power and lick this clean, although I am not yet comfortable being this intimate with my food (or rather with my finger), at least in public.
The servers will, unless you are very firm, continue to refill your plate until you explode or expire. Sometimes I think I have accidentally eaten the equivalent of three meals at one sitting, and sometimes done this twice in one day. (Actually, under this system, I really only need to eat once per day.) In my mind I refer to their "meal" as the Gutbuster Special. The food -- "pure veg," as they say -- is quite delicious. It has also not changed since I have arrived (perhaps the vegetable dish was switched once or twice). I'm curious to see whether I will eat this meal every day for six months.
Saturday, September 17, 2011
New Delhi and on to Cuttack
Arrived yesterday in Cuttack after a week in New Delhi with Chia and three or so weeks in Taipei. New Delhi was, of course, difficult, although it was kind of fun to experience it with Chia, with someone experiencing it for the first time. She dragged me around to a lot of the famous sites that I usually don't bother to see by myself: the Red Fort, Qutub Minar, etc. I liked the Odishan-style Lakshmi Narayan Temple a lot. We took a tour with the government tourist office to see Agra -- the tour itself was a bit lackluster although the Taj Mahal was pretty nice. Still not sure if it was worth the entry fee though. I said I always feel cheated by paying 25-40x more than Indians to get into tourist spots (i.e., the government usually has a native fee of 10-20 Rs. and a foreigner fee of hundreds) -- Chia said it makes her feel superior.
And the shopping, so much shopping. But Chia could write about that better than me. I will say I was proud of her for only lecturing one shopkeeper on business practices.
We also got to experience an overcrowded train -- the New Delhi metro at rush hour. So many people packed into the car we missed our stop. Not sure what it is about transport (trains, buses, traffic) that makes people in India want to do everything all at once -- it's like they must get on this train now at this very instant or the world will come to a complete end. Another time Chia and I, along with a small group of Indian passengers, were ineffectively trying to exit a train as people kept pushing their way onboard and blocking our route -- when a young Indian man in front of us, having become totally frustrated, dove headlong into the oncoming group, tackling and scattering them and allowing us to finally exit.
Chia also got to experience with me the famed Indian bureaucracy. We went to the tourist section of the New Delhi train station so I could buy my ticket to Odisha. I'm not, for official purposes, a tourist, but since I'm a foreigner I thought I'd try them anyway since I've had luck with them in the past. Alas, my research visa, while ultimately not thwarting me, did send us in a counter-clockwise circle around the room talking to various people to get permission. I suppose one problem was that, as in most of India, it was not clear whether there was a line (or queue, as they say), what the line was for if there was one, and whether there was some order to the line. Of course, occasionally a random person would come along to distract the workers, or they'd seemingly stop in the middle of helping one person to work on something else for a while. At one point we waited to talk to one official as he helped a couple of other foreigners. Suddenly the official became involved in a conversation with another Indian gentleman who had just entered, while the foreigners he had been helping began to carry on their own separate conversation with some compatriots who also happened to be in the room. Two parties across the desk from each other, both now distracted by their own third parties. As I waited patiently for my turn, Chia, with growing exasperation, could only say, "What kind of situation is this? I don't understand!"
We did have some interesting eating experiences. I feel like the general rule in India is that more expensive restaurants tend to have worse food. An Indian commentator once wrote, "The dirtier the plate, the tastier the food to the palate." Except that expensive restaurants do not necessarily have clean plates either. I always try to find a happy medium, a restaurant that is nice enough to probably be somewhat sanitary, but cheap enough to have regular Indian clients. In Delhi this means a meal that is 100-200 Rs./person. In Odishan cities maybe 40-100 Rs. If you pay more than 200 Rs./person for a meal it will probably be terrible. On the other hand, in more expensive restaurants you can often get alcohol. We went to Parikrama one night, which is situated in the revolving top floor of a building overlooking Delhi. Pretty good views, considering that little of central Delhi is picturesque. Like most somewhat expensive restaurants its poshness was a bit dingy and frayed at the edges. Chia was sick of Indian food so we ordered Chinese. You can get good Chinese in India and they serve it everywhere, but again it's usually better in cheaper restaurants. It was romantic in setting, but gastronomically rather disappointing, although Chia liked the Kingfisher beer.
The next night Chia was still sick of Indian food, so we tried a random restaurant in Connaught Place we had seen before called simply The Chinese. It is owned, in fact, by a Chinese (who also owns several Indian restaurants in China) and appeared to have a Chinese chef. Another rather expensive and disappointing restaurant, however. Kind of cool interior design, although it had become typically for Delhi dingy and ragged. We got one menu when we sat down, and then when Chia happened to mention that we were vegetarian (true enough in India), the waiter brought another menu. This second menu was not actually purely vegetarian, but it did have lower prices than the first menu -- suspicious. In any case the food was even worse than the night before, though again we liked the Kingfisher beer. (We did finally have what I thought were some very decent Chinese noodles at Haldiram's, a popular chain and snack-maker that falls into the proper price range.)
We did try Indian food too at more expensive restaurants, once or twice -- blech. Must be some kind of law. Plus the higher-cost restaurants pad their bills with so many varieties of taxes and service charges that you spend seemingly twice what you expect to.
So now Chia is on her way back to the US, and I -- after a 24 hour train ride -- am in Cuttack. Was met at the train station by two students, Dipti, and another professor/lecturer. Haven't seen very much of the city yet, but they (i.e., Ravenshaw University) have put me up in very nice accommodations, much better than I expected or could have found on my own. I'm staying in the university guest house with my own cabinet, desks, computer, bathroom, AC. Of course I have to share my room with various bugs, spiders, mosquitoes, lizards, and at least one toad, but that is normal for this region. The lizards I wouldn't mind so much except they poop on everything.
So, now to begin the researching...
And the shopping, so much shopping. But Chia could write about that better than me. I will say I was proud of her for only lecturing one shopkeeper on business practices.
We also got to experience an overcrowded train -- the New Delhi metro at rush hour. So many people packed into the car we missed our stop. Not sure what it is about transport (trains, buses, traffic) that makes people in India want to do everything all at once -- it's like they must get on this train now at this very instant or the world will come to a complete end. Another time Chia and I, along with a small group of Indian passengers, were ineffectively trying to exit a train as people kept pushing their way onboard and blocking our route -- when a young Indian man in front of us, having become totally frustrated, dove headlong into the oncoming group, tackling and scattering them and allowing us to finally exit.
Chia also got to experience with me the famed Indian bureaucracy. We went to the tourist section of the New Delhi train station so I could buy my ticket to Odisha. I'm not, for official purposes, a tourist, but since I'm a foreigner I thought I'd try them anyway since I've had luck with them in the past. Alas, my research visa, while ultimately not thwarting me, did send us in a counter-clockwise circle around the room talking to various people to get permission. I suppose one problem was that, as in most of India, it was not clear whether there was a line (or queue, as they say), what the line was for if there was one, and whether there was some order to the line. Of course, occasionally a random person would come along to distract the workers, or they'd seemingly stop in the middle of helping one person to work on something else for a while. At one point we waited to talk to one official as he helped a couple of other foreigners. Suddenly the official became involved in a conversation with another Indian gentleman who had just entered, while the foreigners he had been helping began to carry on their own separate conversation with some compatriots who also happened to be in the room. Two parties across the desk from each other, both now distracted by their own third parties. As I waited patiently for my turn, Chia, with growing exasperation, could only say, "What kind of situation is this? I don't understand!"
We did have some interesting eating experiences. I feel like the general rule in India is that more expensive restaurants tend to have worse food. An Indian commentator once wrote, "The dirtier the plate, the tastier the food to the palate." Except that expensive restaurants do not necessarily have clean plates either. I always try to find a happy medium, a restaurant that is nice enough to probably be somewhat sanitary, but cheap enough to have regular Indian clients. In Delhi this means a meal that is 100-200 Rs./person. In Odishan cities maybe 40-100 Rs. If you pay more than 200 Rs./person for a meal it will probably be terrible. On the other hand, in more expensive restaurants you can often get alcohol. We went to Parikrama one night, which is situated in the revolving top floor of a building overlooking Delhi. Pretty good views, considering that little of central Delhi is picturesque. Like most somewhat expensive restaurants its poshness was a bit dingy and frayed at the edges. Chia was sick of Indian food so we ordered Chinese. You can get good Chinese in India and they serve it everywhere, but again it's usually better in cheaper restaurants. It was romantic in setting, but gastronomically rather disappointing, although Chia liked the Kingfisher beer.
The next night Chia was still sick of Indian food, so we tried a random restaurant in Connaught Place we had seen before called simply The Chinese. It is owned, in fact, by a Chinese (who also owns several Indian restaurants in China) and appeared to have a Chinese chef. Another rather expensive and disappointing restaurant, however. Kind of cool interior design, although it had become typically for Delhi dingy and ragged. We got one menu when we sat down, and then when Chia happened to mention that we were vegetarian (true enough in India), the waiter brought another menu. This second menu was not actually purely vegetarian, but it did have lower prices than the first menu -- suspicious. In any case the food was even worse than the night before, though again we liked the Kingfisher beer. (We did finally have what I thought were some very decent Chinese noodles at Haldiram's, a popular chain and snack-maker that falls into the proper price range.)
We did try Indian food too at more expensive restaurants, once or twice -- blech. Must be some kind of law. Plus the higher-cost restaurants pad their bills with so many varieties of taxes and service charges that you spend seemingly twice what you expect to.
So now Chia is on her way back to the US, and I -- after a 24 hour train ride -- am in Cuttack. Was met at the train station by two students, Dipti, and another professor/lecturer. Haven't seen very much of the city yet, but they (i.e., Ravenshaw University) have put me up in very nice accommodations, much better than I expected or could have found on my own. I'm staying in the university guest house with my own cabinet, desks, computer, bathroom, AC. Of course I have to share my room with various bugs, spiders, mosquitoes, lizards, and at least one toad, but that is normal for this region. The lizards I wouldn't mind so much except they poop on everything.
So, now to begin the researching...
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