Sorry for the few days with no posts - I've been out and about, and sleep took precedence over blogging. That being said, I have a lot of updates to share!
On Friday night, my friends and I went out to the Willingdon Club - note that "club" here means something equivalent to a country club rather than a dance club. One of the lasting remnants of the British imperial influence here in India is the presence of these types of clubs. From what I hear, the Willingdon Club is one of the oldest and most prestigious of these establishments around. We received an invite from Aditya, the guy we met at the Russian boondoggle. He seems to be quite a party animal for a 40something year-old man and has been telling us daily about different functions and events he is attending. Friday night was the monthly "bar night" at the Willingdon, and we had decided to attend because at the very least I thought it would be interesting to see the inside of one of these exclusive establishments.
It turns out that Aditya isn't actually a member there, but one of his good friends is, and the friend agreed to be our host as well. Aditya had told us to give his friend's name at the entrance to the club and to tell them that we were on the guest list. It turned out to not be such an easy feat to enter the club - we had to get Faisal to come out and meet us and sign us in so that we could get guest wrist bands. It all worked out fine, though, and Faisal turns out to be another 40something year-old unmarried guy; he was wearing gold chains around his neck and a black silk shirt. He kissed me on the cheeks as we met, and I have to admit - it felt a little bit like we were hanging out with an Indian mobster. He introduces us to a similarly dressed friend with huge muscles and a handshake that was so firm that it hurt, and escorted us past the registration table and inside the club.
The club reminded me of country clubs in the states in terms of its interior, but it was clearly older than the clubs I'm used to, and had a distinct aura of British imperial style. The first room we enter is filled with white wicker sofas and lounges - the type of room where you drink a white wine spritzer and play card games. The next room is a wood panelled bar area that has been converted into a dance floor, complete with a DJ, Bollywood videos projected onto the walls, colored dance floor lights, and even smoke effects. There are groups of attractive young Indians dancing to the Bollywood hits, dressed up in Louis Vuitton, Chanel and other western luxury brand names. We continue through the bar area to what appears to be a dining room, and then out onto a patio where there is a buffet and bar for drinks. There are a lot of people there - several hundred, I'd imagine, and they all seem to know each other. Faisal is shaking hands and kissing cheeks as he leads us through the crowd, and he stops to introduce us to a dozen people, although I didn't catch any of their names.
It's at this point that we start to feel a little awkward. Faisal mistakenly calls Aditya by the name Abhishek, which makes us wonder how good of friends these two are. Faisal tells us that if we ever want to come to the club, we should just contact him directly and not bother going through Aditya. Hm....We talk a little bit about work and what we're doing here in Bombay, but conversation doesn't flow very easily. Kevin, Ami and I make our way to the bar to get drinks and distance ourselves a little bit from our host.
As I mentioned, it seems that everyone else here knows each other, and no one seems particularly interested in talking to us. We then revert to a tried-and-true social strategy - when in doubt, dance! we head back inside to the wood panelled bar area and dance our faces off for a couple hours, not really caring that we don't know anyone around us. The crowd on the dance floor seems to be pretty young - a lot of the guys around us appear to still be going through puberty or have only recently emerged from it. Then there were a bunch of 40something year-old men dancing as well, but very few people I would estimate are within 5 years of my age.
In my time here, I've been commenting a lot on how weird it feels to be stared at for being white. On this dance floor, however, I experienced a new phenomenon as the white person in a brown crowd - invisibility. Apparently I am so white by comparison to these people that I've become transparent because all throughout the night, people kept bumping into me left and right, even though there was plenty of space for them to go around me. I've been joking lately that I'm the ghost that haunts my friends' photos here...now it seems I'm a ghost that haunts the Willingdon Club's dance floor. I didn't think it would be appropriate to start throwing elbows in this type of establishment, so I resigned myself to my role that night as the in-the-way object that no one seems to notice.
Aditya joined our group around 1 am - he had been attending a Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition launch party in Juhu, which is what kept him from meeting up with us earlier. At the Russian event, his quirky brand of assertiveness had been funny and entertaining. Here at the club, however, it was annoying and borderline inappropriate. I caught him giving me the up-and-down with his eyes several times, and politely smiled when he told me how beautiful I looked. He's the type of person that dominates a conversation the point where I can't get a word in edgewise. If he has a point to make, he will make it 5 or 10 times consecutively without stopping to listen to what you may have to say in response. Like I said, frustrating. Now suspecting that his motives for inviting us to all of these events may be less than noble, I want to get out of his company and go home. At the same time, we don't want to be rude, so we just stand around chatting and dancing for a bit before the music stops at 1:30. At this point, I'm ready to go home and go to bed, but it takes a while to find a cab and say goodbye properly. As we're leaving, Faisal comes up to me and tells me that I dance well. I jokingly respond back with something like "oh, not really, I don't know the Bollywood moves like the rest of these girls do" and he says "my dear, never under-value yourself. You move very well." It was a nice thing to say, but I couldn't help but get the creeps from hearing it.
We end up getting home around 2, and are met by our fourth flatmate. Ami and Kevin both run for the hills, but for some reason my instinctive reaction tells me to fight rather than flee. I run into the kitchen and start yelling at the rat to come out and face me. Before all of you think that I was drunk - I had had one drink the entire night, and had stuck with water for the rest of the evening. I just really hate this rat. I start searching for a bowl or container big enough to trap the little bastard, and Kevin comes into the kitchen and drags me out so I don't get bitten and have to go to the hospital for rabies vaccinations. I'm honestly not sure where that reaction came from - I will destroy that rat, though.
In other news, this week I had my first experience eating puri, which is an Indian snack food. And holy cow - puri = amazeballs. Puri is the word for these hollow crispy cracker-like things, about the size of a golf ball, which are filled with various deliciousness. Pani puri is one of the most popular types of puri and is a common type of street food, but I haven't tried it yet because pani means water in hindi, and I'm not brave enough to eat food that involves street water. Anyway, my friend Isha recommended a place near her house that makes their pani puri with bottled water, so we finally made it over there to try it. This type of restaurant is called a "chaat house," which basically means that it serves a bunch of different types of snack foods. We order 3-4 different types of puri - pani puri (of course), puri with yogurt, pani with cripsy noodles, etc. And they're all delicious. The way that it works is that you get the little crispy balls, punch a hole in the top and then fill them with whatever toppings come with it. For pani puri, there are some dried/spiced legumes, which you then cover with the spiced water. It may not sound good the way I'm describing it, but trust me when I tell you that it's delicious. Apparently at Indian weddings they will serve puri with vodka. Vodka! Just one more reason that I want to attend an Indian wedding...
On Friday night, my friends and I went out to the Willingdon Club - note that "club" here means something equivalent to a country club rather than a dance club. One of the lasting remnants of the British imperial influence here in India is the presence of these types of clubs. From what I hear, the Willingdon Club is one of the oldest and most prestigious of these establishments around. We received an invite from Aditya, the guy we met at the Russian boondoggle. He seems to be quite a party animal for a 40something year-old man and has been telling us daily about different functions and events he is attending. Friday night was the monthly "bar night" at the Willingdon, and we had decided to attend because at the very least I thought it would be interesting to see the inside of one of these exclusive establishments.
It turns out that Aditya isn't actually a member there, but one of his good friends is, and the friend agreed to be our host as well. Aditya had told us to give his friend's name at the entrance to the club and to tell them that we were on the guest list. It turned out to not be such an easy feat to enter the club - we had to get Faisal to come out and meet us and sign us in so that we could get guest wrist bands. It all worked out fine, though, and Faisal turns out to be another 40something year-old unmarried guy; he was wearing gold chains around his neck and a black silk shirt. He kissed me on the cheeks as we met, and I have to admit - it felt a little bit like we were hanging out with an Indian mobster. He introduces us to a similarly dressed friend with huge muscles and a handshake that was so firm that it hurt, and escorted us past the registration table and inside the club.
The club reminded me of country clubs in the states in terms of its interior, but it was clearly older than the clubs I'm used to, and had a distinct aura of British imperial style. The first room we enter is filled with white wicker sofas and lounges - the type of room where you drink a white wine spritzer and play card games. The next room is a wood panelled bar area that has been converted into a dance floor, complete with a DJ, Bollywood videos projected onto the walls, colored dance floor lights, and even smoke effects. There are groups of attractive young Indians dancing to the Bollywood hits, dressed up in Louis Vuitton, Chanel and other western luxury brand names. We continue through the bar area to what appears to be a dining room, and then out onto a patio where there is a buffet and bar for drinks. There are a lot of people there - several hundred, I'd imagine, and they all seem to know each other. Faisal is shaking hands and kissing cheeks as he leads us through the crowd, and he stops to introduce us to a dozen people, although I didn't catch any of their names.
It's at this point that we start to feel a little awkward. Faisal mistakenly calls Aditya by the name Abhishek, which makes us wonder how good of friends these two are. Faisal tells us that if we ever want to come to the club, we should just contact him directly and not bother going through Aditya. Hm....We talk a little bit about work and what we're doing here in Bombay, but conversation doesn't flow very easily. Kevin, Ami and I make our way to the bar to get drinks and distance ourselves a little bit from our host.
As I mentioned, it seems that everyone else here knows each other, and no one seems particularly interested in talking to us. We then revert to a tried-and-true social strategy - when in doubt, dance! we head back inside to the wood panelled bar area and dance our faces off for a couple hours, not really caring that we don't know anyone around us. The crowd on the dance floor seems to be pretty young - a lot of the guys around us appear to still be going through puberty or have only recently emerged from it. Then there were a bunch of 40something year-old men dancing as well, but very few people I would estimate are within 5 years of my age.
Joanne and Kevin on the dance floor...
In my time here, I've been commenting a lot on how weird it feels to be stared at for being white. On this dance floor, however, I experienced a new phenomenon as the white person in a brown crowd - invisibility. Apparently I am so white by comparison to these people that I've become transparent because all throughout the night, people kept bumping into me left and right, even though there was plenty of space for them to go around me. I've been joking lately that I'm the ghost that haunts my friends' photos here...now it seems I'm a ghost that haunts the Willingdon Club's dance floor. I didn't think it would be appropriate to start throwing elbows in this type of establishment, so I resigned myself to my role that night as the in-the-way object that no one seems to notice.
Aditya joined our group around 1 am - he had been attending a Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition launch party in Juhu, which is what kept him from meeting up with us earlier. At the Russian event, his quirky brand of assertiveness had been funny and entertaining. Here at the club, however, it was annoying and borderline inappropriate. I caught him giving me the up-and-down with his eyes several times, and politely smiled when he told me how beautiful I looked. He's the type of person that dominates a conversation the point where I can't get a word in edgewise. If he has a point to make, he will make it 5 or 10 times consecutively without stopping to listen to what you may have to say in response. Like I said, frustrating. Now suspecting that his motives for inviting us to all of these events may be less than noble, I want to get out of his company and go home. At the same time, we don't want to be rude, so we just stand around chatting and dancing for a bit before the music stops at 1:30. At this point, I'm ready to go home and go to bed, but it takes a while to find a cab and say goodbye properly. As we're leaving, Faisal comes up to me and tells me that I dance well. I jokingly respond back with something like "oh, not really, I don't know the Bollywood moves like the rest of these girls do" and he says "my dear, never under-value yourself. You move very well." It was a nice thing to say, but I couldn't help but get the creeps from hearing it.
We end up getting home around 2, and are met by our fourth flatmate. Ami and Kevin both run for the hills, but for some reason my instinctive reaction tells me to fight rather than flee. I run into the kitchen and start yelling at the rat to come out and face me. Before all of you think that I was drunk - I had had one drink the entire night, and had stuck with water for the rest of the evening. I just really hate this rat. I start searching for a bowl or container big enough to trap the little bastard, and Kevin comes into the kitchen and drags me out so I don't get bitten and have to go to the hospital for rabies vaccinations. I'm honestly not sure where that reaction came from - I will destroy that rat, though.
In other news, this week I had my first experience eating puri, which is an Indian snack food. And holy cow - puri = amazeballs. Puri is the word for these hollow crispy cracker-like things, about the size of a golf ball, which are filled with various deliciousness. Pani puri is one of the most popular types of puri and is a common type of street food, but I haven't tried it yet because pani means water in hindi, and I'm not brave enough to eat food that involves street water. Anyway, my friend Isha recommended a place near her house that makes their pani puri with bottled water, so we finally made it over there to try it. This type of restaurant is called a "chaat house," which basically means that it serves a bunch of different types of snack foods. We order 3-4 different types of puri - pani puri (of course), puri with yogurt, pani with cripsy noodles, etc. And they're all delicious. The way that it works is that you get the little crispy balls, punch a hole in the top and then fill them with whatever toppings come with it. For pani puri, there are some dried/spiced legumes, which you then cover with the spiced water. It may not sound good the way I'm describing it, but trust me when I tell you that it's delicious. Apparently at Indian weddings they will serve puri with vodka. Vodka! Just one more reason that I want to attend an Indian wedding...
The dish on the top of the photo is puri covered in yogurt and all the fixings...mmmmm...
A street vendor selling pani puri
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