Never Has a Razor Made Me Homesick Before

First, happy Thanksgiving, everyone, but I'll get back to that in a later post. First, a quick story about last weekend.

“Hey, I know you! You’re Matt from Boston.” She said. I had no idea who she was. All I knew was that she was blond, and from her accent, I guessed she was from Germany.

“Oh, yeah, hey. Yeah, how’s it going?” I decide to try to play this cool. I was in this for the free razor. I was trying to figure out who this person was.

“It’s me, so-and-so, you know, from the club, and Utkarsh’s birthday, you remember, right?”

Right. Of course.

We had just finished up playing paintball, I was sweating balls, and was trying to cool off in the mall next to the paintball field. I had been watching the giant tent set up in the center of the mall passively while eating some waffle with ice cream.

It was a promotion for Gillette, a company based out of the great state of Boston. Looks like Gillette had decided to follow Bobby and I over to India. They had a team of women in short skirts, clear aprons, and a black t shirt shaving guys.

The women working at the tent would have gone unnoticed back home in the US, but here in India, it’s something that is only starting to become common, in a country where PDA is strictly not allowed. But there will still be companies or bars that will ask girls to stand around and look pretty, and hand out samples or maybe make small talk with people at the malls. It’s pretty common to see foreign girls working these gigs, since its easy money and the foreign girls are in short supply. Unfortunately, I’ve never received any similar work offers.

Andreas explained to me the promotion. You go up, sit in a chair, get shaved, answer a couple quick questions, and get a free razor. A free Gillette razor. I was interested.

The razor that I’ve been using (since my electric died out on me months ago) is a simple two blade knock off Gillette that I bought for about fifty cents. It had lasted me a while, but also gave me nasty cuts and fierce stubble whenever I shaved. I knew, then, it was time for me to be shaved. Andreas and Florian volunteered to photograph the occasion.

I had no idea that I would end up being recognized by one of the people working there. It would be awkward enough as is, had I remembered who it was:

“Oh hey Matt, how’s it going?”

“Oh hey so-and-so, I see you’re shaving strangers in a mall while being leered at by strange Indian dudes. How’s life?”

Not knowing who this person was made things only awkward-er. But that’s how it is being an expat in Pune. Every expat seems to know everyone else here. Maybe this is why going away parties are so big here.

Much to my relief and disappointment, I was saved by some boss figure from the awkward moment of being shaved by a stranger that kind of knows me but I have no memory of. He sat me down and had one of the other girls perform the ritual.

I’ve never been shaved by another person before. It was a weird experience. Sharp blades on my neck are not normally something I volunteer for. The girl was also completely inept at giving a shave. C’est la vie, at least I got a free American quality razor out of it, and Andreas got lots of pictures of me looking awkward.

While I was at the mall, I made a conclusion about what I would consider India’s top three most popular Americans.

#1 Obama
Not much of a surprise here. Even when the right calls Obama a socialist, that is hardly an insult in a liberal socialist country. He recently treated the Prime Minister to a fancy dinner at the White House. When I was walking in Kerala, a street vendor asked where I was from. When I told him I was from America, he lit up.

“Ahh! Obama people!” He excitedly told me what a great man Obama was, and that all Obama people love to buy his postcards.

#2 Akon
He’s everywhere. People who never learned a word of English before seem to know all the words to Right Now. Seriously, Akon is everywhere.

#3 The cast of Friends
Okay, so this isn’t one person, but whenever I’m surfing the channels on the TV, I can almost guarantee an episode of Friends will be on somewhere. Every bookstore/DVD shop, from the outlets at the mall to the guy on the street corner will have a boxed set of Friends Season Whatever. It’s like a cult around here. A cult of Friends.

Seven Days in Fifteen Minutes.

Long week. Long days at work. Long weekends. A lot to say and only fifteen minutes to say it before I have to meet friends for dinner.

So in a nutshell, we dealt with angry guards, worked a lot, and went to Mumbai this weekend. I’m sure I’m forgetting something.

What is now two weekends ago, Jan and I were giving Kara and Amanda a ride home from our apartment sometime around nine. I was let in fine. Jan, on the other hand, got stopped by the guard at the gate. When I came back to see what was going on, the guard wouldn’t stop yelling in Marathi. Despite clearly recognizing that none of us spoke the language, this didn’t stop him from being pissed and loud. I realized what was happening. He was doing the “they don’t understand, so I’ll just talk louder until they get it” approach of translating. Turns out, this doesn’t work. Jan and I figured the guy just wanted us out of there. We hop on our bikes, go around the corner, wait a few minutes, and then give Amanda and Kara a call. They were being locked out of their apartment.

From what I believe, the guard didn’t like the idea of guys showing up with the two Canadians, and giving them a ride home. Why the guard decided to lock the two Canadians out of their apartment, I have no idea. Eventually the landlord and a neighbor were able to set things right, and let the Canadians back in.

I don’t think this will be much of a problem anymore, as this last weekend, we had our farewell party with the Canadians, who are now traveling up around northern India on some kind of amazing adventure before their classes start again in the spring. Yeah, they have a month and a half off from class. What the hell, right? I can’t really complain, I only have two weeks of work left.

We ended up going to Hotel Vulga, god knows why, much like last time we went to Mumbai over night. Much like last time, there was again issues getting rooms for everyone. Even though they were willing to take my learners permit for ID since I forgot my passport, they were giving Utkarsh crap about not having ID on him, despite actually being an Indian citizen. Not having to bring a passport with me whenever I go out of town will be fantastic when I get home.

After we got enough rooms for everyone, we met up with a couple more people from Pune (making about a dozen people total) for dinner at Leopold’s café. I always have the grand idea that Leopold’s, one of the classic foreigner eateries in Mumbai, would be like it was supposed to be in the 80’s, a drug fueled seedy dive where anything might happen. Now it’s just an over priced restaurant next to the Vulga hotel. Lame, but super convenient.

We were still trying to come up with plans for the evening as we finished dinner. First thing first, we decided drinking at the hotel was a great way to start the evening. We just needed to find some beer. After asking a guy on the street for some directions, I found myself walking down a dark, abandoned alley behind some restaurants, smelling of piss and shit. When I reached the end of it, I made a left. Down this second alley was a hole cut in a wall with some guys crowded around it, reeking of alcohol. I buy a couple beers and get back to the hotel in desperate need of a drink.

Amanda, Kara, Udeitha, and I went to the ATM to grab some money. Some guy on the street stops Kara.

“Apparently I work for a club, and I can get you in for free,” he says with a nervous grin.

“What does it mean to apparently work for a club?” Amanda asks.

“I’m gunna be honest with you, we’ve got like, eight more dudes waiting for us, think you can get us all in?” I ask with a grin.

He laughs a confused and disappointed laugh. He tells us that he’ll see what he can do.

The name of the club is Club Redlight, unofficially known as the hardest god damn club to find after having a couple drinks. After a half hour walk back and forth, we find a stairway, a line, and a red light, and figure we must have found the place.

The night went well, and I’ll leave many things unsaid, but I did get to see my first drunk Indian brawl. That was cool.

The next morning, Udeitha and I left early to catch a bus back to Pune. I had to meet my friend Amy who was visiting Sunday from Kerala, where she had been working for two months. Unfortunately, she came during the days of some of the worst weather we’ve had in weeks.

We had fun, and I taught her to ride a scooter without getting arrested by any kind of military or police officer, which was a great success.

Today at lunch the café we ate at gave me two free veg puffs. Great success. And tomorrow is yet another Indian metal concert, and this weekend we go to the beach. Looks like yet another busy week for me.

Indian Halloween

Happy belated Halloween, everyone. It’s been a long and exhausting weekend. We didn’t travel anywhere this weekend, but this is certainly one of the longest weekends I can remember. We had to parties this weekend at our apartment, and our floor was still covered in a thin layer of alcohol, filth, and coal this morning, despite my best efforts to clean things up before the maid showed up. Four months in India, and I’m still not used to having servants cleaning up after us.

Friday night started off at the Beer Garden for dinner and drinks with some of our friends. Then it was back to our apartment for a small party that turned in to a ‘bigger than expected’ party, that turned in to a ‘Matt sandwiched between some weird Indian dude who showed up after I went to bed, a drunk Russian girl who smells like vomit, and my downstairs neighbor trying to hook up with the drunk Russian girl who smells like vomit (DRGWSLV for short) all on a far too small pull out couch’ kind of party. I ended up getting about 45 minutes of sleep on the couch, and an extra half hour outside in the surprisingly cold balcony. When I got up, I ended up going out to get breakfast with some friends, to be later joined by the DRGWSLV and the weird guy who shows up at 4 in the morning.

It was a long day. I was very tired, but I had something to look forward to: Halloween. Yes, we were hosting our very own Halloween party in India, and it would be a first Halloween party experience for most of the guests attending. Bobby and I were excited. This party was largely Bobby’s brain child, but we both came up with costumes at the last minute. I made a bed sheet in to a toga, and Bobby went as our former roommate, Tarek (complete with sleeveless t shirt, jean shorts, and a terrible Texas accent).

From what I had been told, in Europe, Halloween isn’t really celebrated by anyone over the age of six, and certainly never by any adults. While they may have been skeptical at first, my German roommates really ended up getting in to the spirit of things, and they pulled off some pretty good costumes. Our Iranian friends also were there for their first Halloween party, and really enjoyed themselves.

Around midnight (which is last call for most places around here), more people flooded in. Soon it became a minority of foreigners wearing costumes at an otherwise normal party. Never the less, it was fun. It was also the last time I would see DRGWSLV before she leaves for the Delhi, and then later, her freezing arctic home. Even weird 4AM guy showed up again, this time around 1 in the morning, and even apologized for being so weird. Apology accepted, 4AM guy.