Saturday, August 02, 2008
12:02PM
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.
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.
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