Boston to Bombay

This weekend, I fell down a mountain, fell down a manhole, was hit by a car, and the condom broke.

Tarek and Sebastian took off this week to go on a hunt for tigers in some jungle this week. Fortunately, we were able to get pictures of us all on our scooters before Chung and Mao leave for Singapore on Tuesday. Wednesday will be quiet, with it just being Bobby, Jan, Shah, the new roommate Aja, and I holding down the fort. Anyway, we totally now have a biker gang. Bad ass.


so bad ass.

On Saturday, a couple roommates, Javad, and I went on a temple tour around Pune. The first stop was Gandhi's house in Pune. We got to see where they laid his ashes. He actually had a pretty kick ass house. Rock on, Gandhi. Okay, it was actually where the British kept Ghandi and various other political prisoners, but it was still pretty sweet. Then we went to the largest temple in Pune. Well, I guess second largest, if you want to count Osho as a temple. Osho is a commune/spiritual resort that I think is some kind of sex cult. I'll have to look in to that. Anyhow, I'm not sure what the name of the temple was, as it doesn't show up on any of my maps, but this place was giant. It climbs up the side of a frickin' mountain/hill. The top of the hill over looks all of Pune, and has a nice park on top. While the rest of the group decided wait around and enjoy the view, Jan and I decided to reach the peak of this hilltain. There really wasn't much as the very peak. Just a communication antenna. On the way down, I decided to play the role of the American Hero, and thought jumping off rocks, camera in hand, was a brilliant idea. I managed to get out of it largely scrape free. Just my arms and legs got a little bloody. This is why one should always carry sanitizer.


so bad ass.

Later that night, we went out to the Hard Rock Cafe (again) to enjoy some over priced beer and celebrate the birthdays of one of the girls who works at the NGOs called Wake Up Pune. The night was fun, and they played a lot of classic rock hits, which caused instant flashbacks of when I rocked the bowl cut and this was all I would listen to. Jr. High. Great times. This was fun for the Americans in the group, and Shah, who for what ever reason, knows every thing about American pop culture of the last forty years. As the night wore down, we decided to go to High Spirits for a change of venue. As we were leaving, all I remember is standing next to Aja, who maybe comes up to my shoulder, and the next moment, coming up to her waist. I some how managed to place my leg down the one open sewer grate that just so happened to be the exact size and shape of my foot. Highlight of the weekend, right there. Then it turns out High Spirits was closed. Even better. Instead, we went to Javad's place to relax while my swamp leg dried off.

Sunday we went to visit the Wake Up Pune NGO. They're an HIV awareness group for Pune, which currently has numbers somewhere between 2 to 12 percent infected with the disease. In the Maharashtra district, sex education is illegal in public schools. That's where Wake Up Pune steps in, and tries to tell people the facts. HIV and AIDS has a pretty strong stigma around it, and even at my work, an urban myth about a kid catching aids from a fruit vendor was sent around. Most people don't want to listen. Today, we inflated condoms. It was one of their general information sessions about HIV/AIDS, about the current situation in India, and about safe sex in general. We inflated the condoms to show why not to use petroleum based lubricants with condoms. We also had a discussion about how risky some activities were/were not. We each got one activity to represent. I got rimming. Google what that is, I dare you. My roommate got water sports, and it wasn't talking about playing Marco Polo in the pool. For what ever reason, we got the two most awkward ones. Go us.

On the ride to dinner, I got hit by a car. I was pulling up next to one of the other inters on my bike when WHAM. Some guy in an SUV side swipes my bike. SUV drivers here are pretty much the same here as they are in the States. Fortunately, my awkward and fragile body absorbed much of the blow. I was actually really lucky, as the blow didn't knock me over, but instead spun me around and dragged me across the side of his car. Son of a bitch had to hit me in less than a week of having my bike back. Luckily, I'm fine, and Bobby (he was riding behind me at the time) was also unharmed during this, and my bike is slightly bent, but other wise fine. At least I scratched the fuck out of his car.

Getting hit by a car really isn't something I had been planning on. I had no idea what to say. After he hit me, he rolls down his window and yells “I honked my horn!”

“You hit me with your car!” I shouted, maybe he was unclear on what happened.

“Didn't you hear my horn?”

“You hit me with your car!” I think this time I was trying to explain to myself what happened.

“Why didn't you move when I honked?”

“You hit me with your car!” I yelled even louder. I couldn't think of what else to say. How could he be missing this one little detail? My mind was wheeling in frustration. He sped through the red light and was gone. For the record, he never honked his horn. Somehow, being hit by a liar made things even worse. Had I been hit by a car full of nuns instead, I think it would have made me slightly less angry.

We then bought Kurtas for “Kurtas and Jeans” day at work on Monday, ate dinner, and smoked a hookah. This was a rough weekend.

P.S.

I lost the lens cap on my camera. BITCH.