fire starter flower power lalala

[HEY MAKE SURE YOU READ THE TWO ENTRIES I JUST POSTED UNDER THIS ONE BEFORE YOU READ THIS. vvvv]

Wednesday, August 06, 2008
6:26PM

The people here are so nice. I am literally treated like a princess. And they love me. They call me “Kimchi” and “Kimia-ji”. One of the helpers wakes me up every morning. When I get to the eating area my breakfast arrives within a few minutes, and they never hesitate to refill my teacup…once…twice…three times… my abnormal tea consumption has become a joke around the house hahaha. After breakfast I have a simply lovely man drive me to the clinic. Everyday, as I get out of the car (the door is opened for me of course haha), a little woman who has a tiny flower stand near the clinic hands me two yellow roses….just because I smile at her everyday. WHY ARE THESE PEOPLE SO KIND?!?!?!?!?! They don’t know me! I could be a child rapist or like an ARSONIST or something. Who gives pyromaniacs flowers?!

And don’t even get me started on the women at the clinic. The doctors that do my treatment (nine or so, I will count them all tomorrow) are absolutely amazing….Such kindness combined with a desire to help, it leaves me completely in awe. I hope I can subconsciously pick up India’s ways of humanity.

But honestly, I’m just grateful to be surrounded by mood-lifting people all the time. My un-american diet, coupled with the whole treatment process has left me a cranky, irritable mess. When expressing these feelings with my doctors, (leaving out the part about how I rarely eat a full meal due to my distaste for their country’s food haha), they get very giddy and excited. Apparently it goes like this: the first week or so after treatment starts, the herbs and medicine starts eliminating toxins (already!). Due to toxins being moved around and out of your body (purging yikes), everything resurfaces, including memories and emotions and whatnot. So basically it’s not just a physical experience but a frightening mental one too. I’m starting to feel all lonely, like I used to always feel, even though I don’t actually feel any of the emotions or thoughts that GO with loneliness. It’s just my body getting it out of its system.

This is crazy. Okay. So basically I was, for the past three years, the BIGGEST skeptic of ayurveda and natural healing…my excuse: “if it’s so great, then why isn’t EVERYBODY doing it?”. Well. As a stubborn know-it-all who does not want to admit she was wrong, I was wrong. This is working, I can feel it working, I can feel my eyesight changing and my body slimming and my general disposition maturing. I think I am feeling an allover sense of growth.


Speaking of growth….. MY BOOBS HAVE GOTTEN NOTICEABLY BIGGER!!!!!


No, I’m serious. It’s weird and awesome.

Anyway, today I managed to break my ipod charger AND turn off the whole house’s electricity, all at once.


…

My mom came Sunday night because she has some business to attend to in another city with Dr. Naram and co. She brought me some stuff I had left at home, plus a whole lot of fashion magazines to get inspiration for Amit’s teachings. Did I mention I love fashion? Flipping through harper’s and vogue and French vogue (it was like 2AM and I kept forgetting it was in French and I tried to read it and I would be like wtf :( and massive headaches would ensue) makes my heart swell up and I feel like a little puppy getting scratched behind it’s ears. I’m going to be a designer if it means I have to spend the first few years of my adulthood poor and starving. The way I see it, it’s like this: if I have money, I buy clothes. If I have leftover money, I buy food.

Ahhh but I digress…everything in India is pretty much the same. Things have calmed down every since Dr. Naram left, but thankfully he’ll be back Saturday.

One of these days I’m getting my nose pierced..…kinda freaked out. OH SHIT. DID I MENTION MY MOM IS ALLOWING IT?!?!?!? Well Dr. Naram and I were gonna go ahead with it anyway, we had the whole thing planned, but then my mom was like: *big sigh* “…alright. You can do it. Hrmph.”

Hahaha. I acted as though I had been waiting for her permission. She doesn’t realize that I was going to get it done with or without her consent, once she left. Oh well! At least I can avoid that inevitable fight once I come home.

kimia

p.s. I would die without Amit’s company since he is the only one I can speak uninhibited English with, Vinay is my new best friend and Krishna is my little brother.

sitting and waiting

Sunday, August 03, 2008
9:46 AM

Helloooo

I’m sitting in front of the panchkarma room, waiting for my turn. I got here a little late because I had to wait for Krishna to finish harassing his cousin (he was interpreting monkey noises, it was more amusing than it sounds haha).

I have to find a way to get internet here…there was a woman (I forgot who) who told me that if I brought my laptop she would help me connect to the clinic’s wireless connection…hahaha tech support much? I love Indian people.

Actually wait…

I don’t think I’m gonna post these blogs just yet. My dad accidently packed the wrong card reader for me, making it impossible for me to upload all the pictures I have been taking so far. And I want to sprinkle and pepper my entries with relevant photos, but I don’t want to go back and do it.

So I called my mom (who is going to come here tonight at around ten, she has some business to attend to here) and told her to bring me the RIGHT card reader. So don’t worry, I’ll have these blogs up soon enough, I KNOW YOU ARE WORRYING RIGHT NOW ALANNA. Hahaha.

Speaking of alanna, MEJIOSJFLJADIJ I miss my friends. FOR EXAMPLE I haven’t seen jessia since like july 2nd (it’s august 3rd now…:( ) and I am DYING. This is such a tragedy. Hey alanna, if you’re reading this, which I know you are, give this link to our friends, I want them to know I’m still alive (just without internet access/phone access/the will to write letters)

Damn. It’s 10:06 right now and I’m still waiting. I want my massagesssssssss!

I totally adore all the doctors here, they are simply amazing. So sincerely kind and helpful. The thing about Indian people is that everything they do, they do it from the heart. Everything comes from the desire to help others. There is no such thing as “personal gain”…. Because everything you gain here, you obtain with the help of others. So it all evens out. It’s such a change from the “me me me meme memememememe” belief system of New York/America in general. I really feel like India has it figured out. Oh U.S. of A, one day you will see.

Continued
12:47PM

Okay. So my magical plan of obtaining internet on my laptop failed. GRHDJAHDKJF. I did get to use the internet, on the computer downstairs in the dungeon-y basement. But I couldn’t update my blog or anything since the entries are on HERE. Meep. Not to worry. I will try and find that woman who promised me internet. Or I could just mooch off amit…I will find a way!

But now I’m sitting in the peaceful “cafeteria” area. The light comes in through the “windows” (there are no windows, just lack of walls ahaha) in such a nice way and everything is hushed. The only sounds come from small conversation of the people sitting at the tables, the chefs in the back, the cars on the road, and the excessive amount of birds fluttering in the trees.



Sadly, panchkarma (okay, this word is bothering me. I have seen it spelled two ways now- “panchakarma” and “panchkarma”. Which is it?!) food is very lacking in taste, so the food offered to me in the cafeteria (listed in the very back of the menu. Everything else they serve here sounds really good :( ) is not something I tend to order. So here I am, sipping my pomegranate juice, flipping through the first few pages of the menu. I think, at this point, I would give up my firstborn child if it meant I could have paneer and sabzi right now.

I guess, since I have time right now (my driver is MIA), I should give a little back story. I’m in India right now doing panchakarma. Panchkarma, however you want to spell it, is a type of treatment thing. Lots of strange procedures go on and gah I have no idea how to explain this. Basically I sit on a bed and undergo ayurvedic healing stuff. The first thing they do is give me a scalp massage. Did I mention I’m naked? Well I get to keep my underwear on haha. Totally awesome. The first day I was like :( but now I don’t give it a second thought (except the fleeting “I’m coooooold”). After the scalp massage, in which they pretty much get all of this liquefied medicine seeped into my head, they do this freaky deaky thing. basically it consists of my left boob, a long piece of dough connected to make a circle, a sponge, a towel, and some liquid medicine. Yeah. It’s actually really relaxing, but kind of weird for an outsider to comprehend I suppose. It’s going to help my heart and circulation; my circulation right now is :( :( :( . I constantly have purple feet.

After that, they basically give me an allover body massage. But not like a hippie-dippy-korean-spa-your-mom-just-bought-a-massage-table-let’s-take-our-clothes-off-and-pretend-we-know-what-we’re-doing massage. These women are legit doctors (or “vaidyas”, the Hindi word for it). After that, I get more massages with different mediums. One thing is a thick paste that smells like banana ice cream and looks like vomit. No it’s cool, really. There’s a few more things they do but it would be so hard for me to explain it in text, so ask me in real life and I can assure you I will give you a very lengthy and detailed explanation, complete with hand gestures and facial expressions.

So that’s panchakarma in a nutshell (I didn’t even scratch the surface, seriouslyyyy.)

And my driver is still not here. And it’s 1:07PM. Dammit . I didn’t bring Eclipse today because my laptop made my bag heavy enough without the addition of a five hundred page book.

I’m gonna go practice my henna and drink pumpkin juice.


Edit: pumpkin juice is disgusting. Who decided to sell this? Say what you wanna say, students of Hogwarts, but this stuff tastes like spit.

oh hi

Saturday, August 02, 2008
12:02PM

Okay.

So technically I’m cheating.

I don’t have internet access at the Naram residence, so I’m typing this up on Word on my laptop and I will import it to my blog the second I have le internet. Word makes all of my I’s and proper nouns capitalized, which is annoying. I might go back and change that.

So anyway…This is kind of a long overdue blog post, since I’ve been in India (there we go again with the capitalizing! Preposterous. How inartistic) for nearly a week now and HOLY CRAP so much exciting stuff has gone down.

But the problem is now where to start…haha.

Actually before I go on, I realllllly need to take a shower and wash the oil out of my hair. I have to keep it in for at least four hours, but it’s been chilling on my head for like….nine. eechuargh. Brbrbrb loooool.

Ugh. Before I could go anywhere, Premsing, one of the cooks in the house, brings forth evil. In the shape of a drink. Every night I have to drink ghee, a liquefied buttery concoction that makes vomit taste like a high class delicacy. It’s so awful. I was telling Amit, the designer that I am interning with, about the ghee and he was absolutely floored when I told him I had to have about nine teaspoons of it. Basically it…er…”lubricates” my body and is going to make taking virechan on Wednesday and easier task.

So the easiest thing for me to do now is to type up a simple schedule of a normal day for me in Mumbai.

7AM: woken up by one of the housekeepers. She is holding ghee in one hand and a glass of water in the other.
7:01: grumble and pull myself out of bed. Frown at housekeeper. She laughs at me. I laugh too, in spite of myself.
7:03: the ghee is downed. My stomach will never forgive me. The housekeeper leaves and I fall back asleep.
8AM: woken up once more. The thing is, this is different every day for HOW I wake up. Some days I don’t fall asleep after taking the ghee and just sit and read til 8. Some days I am awoken by music from Dr. Smita’s dance class in the dance studio next to my bedroom. Some days my biological clock totally rules and wakes me up right on time. And if it’s like 8:20 and I’m still not up, a concerned/alarmed housekeeper knocks on my door til I make a sound of acknowledgment. Usually a “mrhrbnjfsakfa” or a loud sigh will do.
8:05: get dressed. Root around my suitcases for suitable clothing that won’t get me any more creepy attention than I already receive. The women in india are very conservative, and I tend to stand out. I blame my American upbringing.
8:08: try to detangle my necklaces. Ponder the difference between the words “detangle” and “untangle”.
8:09: become pissed off at my necklaces. “I don’t need you, YOU ARE JUST ACCESSORIES.”
8:15: succeed at untangling necklaces. Feeling of triumph washes over me.
8:16: brush teeth, wash face, put on eyeliner etc. Boring stuff to make sure I look decent.
8:30: walk upstairs (my room is on the lowest floor) to the eating place. Big smiles and “good morning”s are exchanged. Genuinely. I love these people.
8:34: breakfast is served. I eat alone, but I’m not alone. There’s about five or so housekeepers flying around, going about their business. Two or three cooks, two women doing chores (? Not sure what), and some men poking around in the backyard. Sometimes Krishna is eating too and we do origami together…I’m serious. It’s really fun. ahaha.
8:34 and 12 seconds: look down sadly at my breakfast. Panchkarma food. Sigh. I want cocoa puffs, but instead I get rice balls sprinkled with tiny seeds that taste like dead people. I get super happy when they give me this sort of flat pancake item (will post pictures… some day) because I get to eat it with a type of jelly thing. Reminds me of the days where I used to be happy to eat. DAMN YOU PANCHKARMA.
8:44: finish eating (may or may not have actually finished food…eurgh). Sip tea. Tea is good.
8:55: gather bag, put on shoes, wait on sofa for driver.
8:56: get in car with driver (who is like one of the sweetest men ever. Actually I could say that about every one of Dr. Naram’s helpers/assistants/housekeepers/workers. Amazing people. So genuine, so kind.

The times now are estimates, since I’m pretty much without any sort of time telling device (it becomes a hassle to pull my cell phone out of my huge bag so I let it sit on the bottom, allowing it to get gently crushed.)

9:25: arrive at clinic. Try to avoid eye contact with men. Honestly, you’d think I was a princess with the amount of male attention I get. It’s overwhelming.
9:35: get pulled into the panchkarma room; get shown to a cubicle type of thing. Sit on bed, get naked.
9:40: treatment starts.
12:30 (?): treatment ends. I go to take a shower. Am saddened by the fact that I am not allowed to wash my hair. Become self conscious over having to walk around with oily hair. Oily, literally.
12:50: get dressed and walk downstairs to meet with Dr. Mehti. Discus momentarily how treatment is going. Smile a lot at people I don’t know. Find myself being completely happy for reasons I don’t know. Get a fleeting emotion of deep sadness at the thought of returning to New York. Push thought out of mind and walk down to meet my driver.
1:25: meet driver, walk out of clinic to car. Get driven to Amit Singh.
2:35: arrive at A.D Singh. Marvel over store, even though I’ve been there like five times already. Play with Swarovski crystals on dresses. Pretend to be Indian and imagine myself in one of the dresses.
2:40: sit down with Amit, discuss life and stuff. We tend to get off topic realllly easily.
2:45: try to focus on sketching. Amit plays PSP. We listen to Michael Jackson, Justin Timberlake, and U2.
3:15: Amit looks up momentarily from macbook. “have you finished your sketches yet, Kimia?” “uhhhhhhhhhh…sorry I was distracted…by uh….your lovely store?”.
4PM: more talks about life. And fashion. We like to talk about fashion.
4:30: driver comes and picks me up. I go to wherever I am set to go. Every night is different. Tonight I went for a shooting of Dr. Naram’s TV show. Pretty cool. It was really low key and chill and I hung out with Vinay (who I totally adore) for most of the time.

As soon as I get home, the rest of my night is boring. Eat, drink ghee, shower for the second time that day, read/listen to music/watch TV with Krishna/talk with Vinay/etc. Sleep.


Now that I’ve got the daily stuff out of the way and I’ve fleshed out an idea of how everything’s been going, the entries are gonna get more interesting. I promise. Because, really, there is so much to talk about, so many things I’ve never done before. Also, I will go into more detail over what I’m actually doing…questions you might be asking yourself: who is Amit Singh? What is “panchkarma”? What is “virechan”? OMG DOES KIMIA HAVE A DRUG PROBLEM, IS SHE IN REHAB OMGZ?!?! WAIT….Who is Dr. Naram and why is she in India staying with him in the first place???

All in due time!

I’m tired, I still haven’t taken the aforementioned shower, and this is already three pages long according to Word. Goodnight.

P.s. no drug problem, sorry to disappoint.