Indian Fall

I’ve had some interesting “Indian” experiences the last few weekends. It’s not as packed full of Indian fun like my friend Greg’s weeks are. He was just sent to India by his company. He wasn’t as excited about it as I would have been. He got really sick on the trip home from his last excursion to India. He ended up in the hospital for 3 days when he got back. He thought that would be a good enough excuse to not have to go back. But a few days after he got back from China the CEO of the company thanked him for being willing to go back to India, and so soon too. So, I’m sorry Greg that you missed our safer Indian experiences.

Two weekends ago I had my chance to experience Jaljeera. How exciting after the review it got from my friend Lori. I went to the apartment of a friend, Ratna. She is a co-worker of a friend of mine that likes to play Scrabble. She had a scrabble night and I was invited. My friend, jokingly, demanded that she make Jaljeera. Extra crispy at that! Of course she made it. It reminded me of a drink that I had tried in India. I was given a glass of sugar cane juice in a social situation that I couldn’t refuse it without really insulting the guy. The juice is squeezed from the sugar cane with an old, rusty, oily press with water that was clearly not going to get along well with the bacteria in my stomach. But it was too late to refuse so I just prayed that it wouldn’t kill me (this is a good example of learning to pray without ceasing). I know what those of you that have tried Jaljeera are thinking. A glass of seawater is almost as salty as Jaljeera, wouldn’t sugar cane be sweet? The sugar cane juice was sweet with pockets of extreme saltyness. The same flavor spice as in Jaljeera. I didn’t make it through the glass, of the Jaljeera or the Sugar Cane juice. Paul was able to drink his whole glass. Way to go on that Paul. After that I was so shaken that the best I could do in scrabble was to loose with less than 1/3 the amount of points as Paul whom also lost to Ratna. I did much better during the rounds of Uno. I should mention that the Chai, Gulab Jaman, and the other things that they served were really good and made me think fondly of India.

Then this past weekend I found out that the latest Aishwarya Rai movie Umrao Jaan was playing in a theater in Pittsburgh. Actually I found that out at Ratna’s apartment. So I asked my friend Chansonette if she wanted to go see it, knowing her love of Indian things. So we got a small group together to see it Saturday night. When I was a few blocks from her apartment I got a frantic call from her that she and her friend were looking online and the movie wasn’t showing. Crapski! When I got to her place it had been confirmed. So we rented another Ash movie from an Indian grocery store. On the way there her Indian friend found out about my time in India and asked if I learned Hindi. Then informed me after I started to speak in Hindi to her that she speaks Telagu. Which was just as well because the 2 sentences that I got out were about as much as I remember from 2 years ago. Anyway the movie was Mohabbatein. It was a lot of fun, had Big B, Ash and Arukh Khan. It was much better to watch at home (Jeanette’s home actually) because we talked and commented on and laughed all the way through the Love story. I can’t wait till we can do it again!