Lentil Goes Haywire Writing. You Have Been Warned

Do you remember when I told y’all (sorry, but “y’all” has become a part of my vocabulary. . . I have no idea how. It just spontaneously took over.) that Auroville was like the Garden of Eden because it smelled so heavenly? Well, let me rephrase that: Auroville is the Garden of Eden. Except without the naked people.

It is, pure and simple, the BEST PLACE ON EARTH. It’s also the happiest place on earth, but due to copyright issues with a certain big evil (but still happy) corporation, I’m not going to state that.

I’ll give you a little sum-up of why this place is befuzzlingly fanpendous, just to show you how jealous you should be.

I’m staying at a youth hostel, just behind the town hall, which has a head-on view of the “Matrimandir”. See that giant gold golf ball on the left? That’s the Matrimandir. That thing is the “physical and spiritual centre” of Auroville, as deigned by “The Mother”. If you couldn’t already tell, Auroville is one whacked out place (because it’s run and populated by hippies). But that’s probably why I love it so much.

Anyhoo, the hostel I’m staying at costs Rs 100 ($2.50) a night, has the most awesome of roofs ever. That is to say, it has stairs going up to it and it offers you a vast panorama of the top of a tropical rainforest and unobstructed view of the sky. Whenever I have spare time (*laughs* I mean nearly all the time) I spend on the roof, reading and writing. I also come up just before I go to bed to stare at the stars for ten minutes or so. This is very peaceful, and, with my new-found desensitizedness to mosquitoes, it’s a great way for me to slow down my brain. Lots of times (since this a youth hostel and this is Auroville. The combination = hippie artists) there’s a guy up there singing folksy/eerie French tunes to his guitar. Very peaceful.

Every morning I wake up and go for a 25 minute bike ride to the pool. Along the way I dodge cows (they’re everywhere!), dodge motor bikes, autorickshaws, cars, trucks, carts being pulled by cows, and everything else on the road that’s trying their best to hit me. Of course, since I’m a bike, I’m at the bottom of the road hierarchy, so if a truck is coming and the road (as it often is) is too narrow, I actually have to get off the road.

The reason I brave the chaos of Indian roads is because there is a pool here (and actual pool. Since advertising laws in India are lenient if not non-existent, when they said there was a pool, I was expecting a pond. So it being an actual pool is rather surprising.) and I go swimming for half an hour every morning.

It’s nice to do so, because I don’t swim in the Indian ocean here because it’s so polluted, and don’t swim in the ponds and rivers because they’re polluted and brimming with parasites and icky things. Also, at the beaches the men eye-rape you in your bathing suits. I haven’t done it before, but judging from the looks I get from just wearing my tank-top, wearing my bikini would be liking walking around with a sign that said “I will sleep with and marry the first person who tells me I’m beautiful.”.

After braving the road once more, and crashing into a coconut tree because a lady walking her cow cut me off, I’ll go to work at 9:30 at the restaurant I volunteer at. In the mornings I make fruit juices and prepare veggies for salads, all the while feasting on as many fruits and veggies as I can eat. This is great because I’ve recently started up my eating healthy plan again, and this makes it really easy. Add to that that all of the staff seem to think I’m starving and if I ever mention in passing “You know, I really like pineapple” there will suddenly be half a pineapple cut up all fancy sitting on a little plate in front of me.

This is all great.

Until I finish lunch and start working behind the till of the sweets counter.

Then it’s a problem.

For you see, then I’m working with brownies, and apple crumble, and French cheesecake, and pain au chocolat. Then if I mention in passing

“You know, French cheesecake makes my tongue orgasm”

they’ll say

“What’s ‘orgasm’”

And I’ll say

“I really like French cheesecake.”

Then there’ll be a huge slab of French cheesecake in front of me. For free!

O Temptation, thy name is French cheesecake!

Then I say “No, no. I don’t want any. I’ve started a New Plan which involves me establishing the habit of eating healthy while I’m young, because those are the ones that stick with you for life. I’m going to eat healthy every day of the year except for special occasions (ie. Christmas, B-day parties, Welcome Back parties [*hints* *nudges* *writes list of all the different types of chips that she’ll accept when she returns to Canada*]).”

To which they tilt their head to one side and push the French cheesecake closer to my face, as if I can’t see its delicious being properly. Thinking it’s a language barrier, I say,

“No, I’m on a diet.”

They tilt their head some more, then reach down to switch the slab with a different one, perhaps one more to my liking. Realizing then that it’s a cultural difference (more on those later), that in India it’s inconceivable to like a food, have the food available for free, and to not eat it, I say,

“I don’t. . . like French cheesecake.”

My face spasms because of the enormity of my lie.

I don’t think they buy my story either. I think the drool gives me away. Nonetheless, they have eventually learned that I’m not going to eat anything with sugar in it, or anything that’s been deep-fried. But that doesn’t stop them from periodically offering me the latest sweet or trying to trick me into believing that cinnamon rolls don’t have sugar in them because eating healthy isn’t hard enough unless you have hoardes of Indians trying to fatten you up.

Aside from the temptation, though, working in the kitchens is one of the best things in the world. In the morning I’m surrounded by as many fruits and veggies as I can eat (and a wide variety of ‘em too) and at lunch I can help myself to all of the gourmet food that they sell. All for free! And all-you-can-eat!

Of course, for the first few weeks I was utterly retarded when it came to preparing veggies. EVERY SINGLE DAY I cut myself in some way (especially with the peelers. I didn’t even know you could cut yourself with a peeler!). Fortunately for my fingers (and for you guys. Last time I was on the Internet I couldn’t update my blog because my fingers were throbbing too much), after taking five days off from cooking because of a horrible cold (in 27C weather!) I’ve now gone for THREE WHOLE DAYS without cutting myself. I think I’m getting a hold of these peeler things. . .

At lunch I either read a book while I eat my incredibly healthy vegan meal (I’m currently reading Unweaving the Rainbow by Richard Dawkins) or chat with Nicole, the French owner of the restaurant, Devia (an Indian girl staying at the same hostel as me. She did an internship in France so she understands my Western insanity.), or Zeb (a Canadian/American staying at my hostel).

After lunch I work behind the till with Hema, a short little woman who’s always laughing and who find me deranged (what else is new?) and Kirupa, a musician guy who works here to make ends meet. The latter is not at all subtle (like the rest of Indian men) in that he thinks I’m attractive. He’s not the only one, of course (there are a good four other guys at work who are obvious about it) but lately he’s been crossing my already stretched comfort zone.

For example, the first day I came to work wearing a tank top he was like

“Oh my god! You’re so beautiful I’ve got to take a picture!”

And then he did. Lots of them.

For those of you who have terrible memories, I’ll remind you that I hate having my picture taken. And he just kept on taking them.

Then there was the other time that I was just standing there at the till, minding my own business, singing (because Indians never seem to mind that other people can hear you, so I don’t either. In fact, since there are so often so little people demanding sweets, I spend half of my day singing behind a sweets counter. I’ve even written some of my own little ditties, including one called From Kashmir to Auroville and the other’s called I Think I’m A Cow Aphrodisiac) and then all of a sudden there is somebody touching my hair.

I repeat: there was somebody touching my hair. Fondling you might say.

I spin around, ready to scream “Sexual predator on the loose!” and see that’s it’s Kirupa, my coworker. I swallow the rather insulting exclamation with difficulty.

“No touchy,” I say instead.

“But it’s so beautiful,” he protests, showing once again that the one English word Indian men always know is “beautiful”.

“No touchy,” I insist.

He shakes his head knowingly, then serves somebody a brownie and a chai.

. . . Gah! The men here are just so. . . and I can’t get mad at them or anything, because then I’d just have to be permanently mad at all of them. And there’s 500 000 000 of them in India. I’d just never be able to keep up.

Plus, that’s just how they treat women. They don’t mean any harm or anything. They honestly thinking they’re being gentlemanly. Damn, the cultural differences are just so big it’s just unbelievable.

I get off at 2:30 and have the rest of the day to do whatever I want. This includes reading and writing on the roof, reading and writing in my room, chatting with my dorm-mates (currently a Norwegian hippie, an American hippies, and a North Indian intern/cinephile) who I get along with really well.

I used to go to the dinners downstairs, where I’d sit on the outskirts of the conversations (I’ve discovered that I’m no good at group discussions. I’m more of a one-on-one or 4 people max sort of girl) involving people from all over the world. It is all-you-can-eat and pretty decent food. However, I just recently found out that the dinners weren’t actually free, but cost Rs 30 ($0.75) so I was all

“Hell no, I’m not paying that much for dinner! What are they serving? Caviar?!”

Which just goes to show how much I’ve acclimatized to the pricings in India. I mean, when I step back and think about it, I’m like

“I’m paying 75 cents for an all-you-can-eat buffet. Really, that’s pretty good.”

But for here that’s fairly pricey and for the quality of the food (decent, but no great) I’m not going for it.

So I’ve just started going shopping for my own food (they have an actual grocery store! None of the crazy markets that they usually have. You can actually go inside. There’s actually a till. Do you know how mind-boggling that is? Do you know how mind-boggling it is to me to realize that a grocery store is mind-boggling to me?) and cooking it.

Yesterday I made my FIRST EVER Indian meal ALL BY MYSELF. I experimented (of course) and made a sweet potato masala. I didn’t add enough spices (I was worried I’d put too much) so all it tasted like was spicy sweet potato.

But still!

I didn’t poison myself! *hugs herself proudly* *dances* *tells all her dorm-mates about her incredible feat* *dorm-mates, who consider her to be a crazy mixture of maturity (traveling alone in India at 17) and immaturity (recounting what she did that day to them like a child telling her mom what she learned at school that day) laugh and tell her that her writing goes off on far to many parentheses and tangents to be legible*

It was afterwards that I poisoned myself. On purpose.

Allow me to explain.

Coconut oil is ubiquitous in India. Not just for cooking, but for skin issues, for your hair, and everything else conceivable. So when I went to the grocery store looking for it, I expected to be able to find it in big tubs for dirt cheap.

All I could find were ridiculously priced bottles of olive and canola oil. I asked a member of the staff and she pointed to some shampoo bottles. I said “No, I want coconut oil.”

It was only when a helpful Australian guy (who, by the bye, told me that Australians like Canadian because they have a similar sense of humour. Good news for me ;P) told me that the stuff in the shampoo bottle was coconut oil, they just put it in a shampoo bottle (that’s the bottle on the right). Figures. They sell milk in square bags at room temperature, they have marijuana growing on the sidewalks, and they keep their coconut oil in shampoo bottles.

India confuses me.

Badly.

Moving on to the poisoning part, I took home two shampoo bottles worth, then started cooking. I eyed the stuff, then decided I taste some of it, because I’d never tasted coconut oil before.

Imagine a combination of smoke, nuts, and silk and you’ll have a smidgen of an idea of the euphoria that is coconut oil.

As can be imagined, I kept on taking little sips of it throughout my whole cooking process. Then more little sips while reading. Then I’d just sit there and sip away. I couldn’t drink that much at a time, because it’s oil and if you drink too much at once you feel sick.

Soon I realized that this was going to become a full-fledged addiction if I didn’t act soon. So what did I do? I swigged half the bottle.

After that I was sick for the entire night, just staring up at the ceiling and thinking: I’m dying. I’m dying. I’m dead.

Now I can’t even think of drinking it without having my stomach doing a pretzel-twist. In any case, I’m applying it to my legs and chest every morning, because apparently it’s great for your skin, and the smell is simply dee-lish.

Hmmm . . . OK, so still have SO MUCH to tell you guys, but I’ve already written SO MUCH and I still have to answer all of your guys’ emails and comments, so

Lurve y’all tons,

Bisous,

Namaste,

Lentil,

The Girl Who's Having A Blast in Paradise. And How Are You?

I'm Alive!!!!!

For those of you who didn't know that I was once again on the move (the majority) I left Kerala a little over a week ago, and arrived in Auroville around 40 hours later. Hence the title. And hence the harrowing tale that follows.

I had originally planned to go to Cochin, a big city close to my art school, and stay there for a night, then go to Chennai, stay there for a night, then go to Pondicherry, stay there for a night then go to Auroville. However, I rediscovered something vital on the trip over there:

I LOATHE Traveling.

Then what are you doing in India? you say? What are you doing spending an entire year traveling?

The answer: I'm not actually traveling most of the time. If you haven't already seen, I've actually spent the majority of my time staying still. I stayed still in Delhi, I stayed still in Kerala, and now I'm going to stay still in Auroville.

Because traveling is hell (Delhi is hell, too. There are just so many hells, it's insaner than a pretzel (and pretzels are pretty darn insane)). To illustrate, here's how my trip went:

Got off at the wrong stop right away (of course) had to walk to the right stop, then got on the train, but couldn't get to the second class carriages in time, so had to stay standing the whole time in the sleeper class while kashmiri soldiers cornered me and hit on me and mocked my "Oooooh, OK" (*grumbles*).

After two hours of this I arrived in Cochin/Ernakulam, took one sniff, nearly died, decided I didn't really like Ernakulam anyway, and hopped on the next train to Chennai.

However, since I'd booked it only an hour in advance, I had to go in the II Class.

The train ride was 12 hours long.

It was 12 hours of hell.

For one, II class is not the same as second class in Western countries. Here the classes go: First class AC, Second class AC, Third class AC, the same without AC, then Sleeper Class, then II Class. II Class is as far down as you can go. Which is OK if you're going during the day and if you're in a Ladies only compartment. It's about a twentieth of the price of First Class AC, and usually it's bearable. However, if it goes during the night and you're squished between 10 smelly, ugly men, it's a whole other story.

The seats are basically wooden benches, the men have no idea what the words "personal bubble" mean, every five minutes a man comes around yelling "Chay-uh! Chay-uh! Chay-uh!" (Chai), they don't turn the lights off the entire time and there's NO PLACE TO SLEEP!!!!

My train ride was from 5PM to 5Am.

Eventually the men pointed out that I could sleep on the luggage wrack, which I did. If you could call it sleep. It really was just a luggage wrack, so it was filled with all of these projecting metal pole things and I had to keep my ginormous luggage under my head as The Most Uncomfortable Pillow in the World. It actually bruised my spine! I can't get a look at it because I don't have a mirror, but my Korean dorm-mates in Auroville had one look at my neck, pointed, and looked at me worriedly.

And it's not over yet! After only getting 4 hours of sleep, I wake up to find a man touching me!

You know, I think that me sleeping is a dangerous thing, because when he woke me up, all I did was give him The Look (meaning the I'm Sleeping, Leave Me Alone Look) and tried to go back to sleep. It's just like when that drunk guy was peeking through my window at my art school and I just turned around and went back to sleep (don't worry, Mum. Everything was O. K. ) I think me sleeping is a dangerous thing because people can do anything to me, and I don't really get worried, because I'm so sleepy.

Well anyhoo, the worst thing that came out of that episode was that I couldn't get back to sleep and it was 3AM. I'd only gotten 4 hours of sleep, and the night before, I'd only gotten 5. And I'd walked a lot the other day (I also walked the hour-bloody-long walk from the bus station to the train station in Kottayam) so I was SO TIRED.

After those twelve hours (which were actually 14 because it's India, and everything is always late) I got off the train in Chennai, took one whiff, nearly died, saw a rat, nearly screamed, decided I really didn't like Chennai anyway, and hopped on the next bus to Pondicherry.

The bus ride was 3 hours long and all the while I had to keep my ginormous pack on my lap because there wasn't enough space for it anywhere else. My butt had shooting pains up it the entire way. That and I hadn't gone to the washroom for the past 24 hours because the pathetic excuses for public squatholes here smell like death.

I got to Pondicherry, took one sniff, decided I didn't really like it anyway, and hopped on the next bus to Auroville.

On the way there I had to stand the whole way, and there was this little girl that kept on kicking her foot between my legs and every time I kept on thinking it was somebody's hand and I was all whipping around to stop the man, but it was only a little girl and. . . god, I was so tired.

Finally I got to Auroville.

I took one whiff and. . .

Nearly died from pleasure.

It smells SOOOOOOOOOOO GOOOOOOOOOOD!!! It's like what I always imagined the Garden of Eden would have smelled like. It smells like a mixture between Gramma's during the summer, a garden of flowers, and a spice shop. Basically, heaven.

The place is more than half covered by flowering trees and bushes, and is simply fanpendous. I've already started my job at the kitchen, where they feed me really healthy lunch for free (or for my 5 hours of work, whatever) . I'm mostly in charge of making juices and salads, because I'm still pretty afraid of boiling liquids and I like to handle meat as little as possible.

I'm staying at a youth hostel where I only have to pay Rs. 80 a day ($2) and that includes free washing machines (a luxury that I never truly appreciated till now) and free breakfast and dinner. I'm in a dorm room with two Korean girls whose eyes positively fell out when I told them I was 17. Everybody here gets around by motorbike and I've been offered to rent one (free as well) and ride around. I think I'll take them up on the offer eventually, if only to try it out, but I prefer getting around by bike. Much healthier and better for the environment. Also, there's no such thing as helmets here and muzzah, for once you've had success in that I'm paranoid enough to think they're all bonkers for doing so.

I'm having the best of times here.

Remember that I expect a respectably-lengthed handwritten letter for Xmas (I'll give you my address next time)

Don't worry,

Lurve y'all bunches,

Bisous,

Namaste,

Lentil,

The Girl Who's Happy To See That The Name Lentil Is Catching On and Nobody Here Knows That It's Not My Actual Name *cackles*

Happy Belated Hallowe'en!!!!!!!

Over here Hallowe'en is considered to be a children's holiday for Americans, so when me and Rosalynn (my 23 year old, Music Major, friend from Alabama) decided to carve jack o' lanterns and hand out candy to everybody (almost all of whom are 25 and over) smiled indulgently and said,

"It's OK, because they're young and American"

To which I said through gritted teeth, "I'm Canadian"

"Same diff."

"Pshtmgr!!!!!" I war-cried (aka - spluttered) and threw my (full) Nalgene bottle with the Canadian flag on it at them. Unfortunatelyy a sentence that turned my indignation into despair was written under our noble maple leaf:

Made in USA

*cries*

Anyhoo on Hallowe'en I dressed up (as usual) as an Indian woman. I simply lurve Indian dress, because don't have the silly notion that bright and sparkly things are tacky. Thus my churidar was bright blue, purple, and gold, with sparkles, little plastic mirrors, and pinstriped clown pants, and it was all considered terribly becoming of me and tasteful.

*squees delightedly*

I lurve India!!!!

For the whole dayI bounced around handing out candy to any who saw with a jack o' lantern sticker on my cheek and a red holiday-dot thing on my forehead. I'm not sure if it was the obvious sugar-high or the sticker that got me the weirdest looks. . .

Or maybe it was trying to explain why I had gone temporarily madder that got me the weirdest (or were they frightened?) looks. Trying to explain to them that Hallowe'en is a holiday where children dress up in "scary" costumes, (ie. a princess, a peanut, etc.) and go door to door threatening pranks and vandalism if they don't get candy took me half the day. Trying to get them to understand that I wasn't crazy and would they leave me alone if I just took their silly pills took the rest of the day.

So while the Westerners watched adultishly, the Indian staff watched with utter bewilderment, and Margosha (the 18 year old from Indiana) watched with abject terror (Lentil + sharp pointy objects + matches = abject terror) me and Rosalynn whipped out our pumpkins. We had invited everyone to join in, but since nearly everyone here is over the age of 25, they believe the myth that adults are forbidden to have any silly fun unless vicariously. Thus me and Rosalynn each had a pumpkin ALL TO OURSELVES!!!!

*claps hands*

*cackles*

*grins at knife speculatively*

*Margosha backs away slowly*

Or we had a pumpkin each until Louis and Leon, the two Belgium kids of 7 and 9 who are staying here with their family, saw. They promptly rushed over and dug their hands into the (marvelously, beautifully, fanpendously gushy) guts of the pumpkins and me and Rosalynn had to surrender our goods.

Of course I was fine, letting the children have their fun. I mean I wasn't all excited about getting my hands all gucky and messy. I'm mature enough to see that they'd enjoy and appreciate it more than I could. . . *sulks*

But it actually turned out OK, because while the boys did hijack my slimy fun, they weren't allowed to play with the sharp pointy objects and matches

*eyes gleam*

*Belgium mother looks worried*

Therefore the kids drew the pumpkins and we carved them. I've never carved a jack o' lantern before (my muzzah never seemed to trust me with any knives except butter ones. . .) so I was really worried I'd mess up Leon's face. His pumpkin's face, not his actual face. But once I plunged my knife into the pumpkin's eye and felt the satisfying resistance then give of its previously smooth surface, everything clicked and I proceeded to skewer and stab peacefully.

*sighs happily/psychotically*

Afterwards I was looking forward to playing with matches but unfortunately one of the Frenchies showed up and, of course (and Ali-the-Fair you can attest to this) like nearly all Frenchies, she had a lighter handy.

*sulks again*

*lights a match anyways*

*cackles pyromaniacally*

Now, you're probably thinking to yourself "Boooooooooring. Lentil's in India, the most foreign of all foreign countries, and all she has to talk about is Hallowe'en?!? C'mon! I want to hear something weird and crazy please!"

Well never fear, for when you hold weird and crazy dear, Lentil is here!

*cackles poetically*

Unwilling to have our jack o' lanterns suffer the indignity of being thrown into the compost, we threw them at an elephant instead.

OK, so maybe we threw them to the elephant rather than at it. . . And maybe we didn't throw them, but an Indian guy did. .. But my story remains!

On November 1rst, me, Rosalynn, and Aji (a staff member of the school) walked the 100 m to the nearest elephant. He was chained to two cement bricks so that he couldn't move a single step and was forced to stand in his own filth. I had only ever seen elephants when they were being taken on their "walks" on the paddy fields, so at first I was horrified to see the elephant swaying back and forth, like a prisoner pacing in his cell, then I was enraged and wanted to free the elephant, then I realized I'd get arrested if I did, then I felt sad, because I don't feel strongly enough to really do anything about this cruelty and my usual course of action in situations like this was unavailable. I mean, I can hardly boycott elephants, can I?

*sighs*. . .

*spots gecko*

*giggles and claps happily*

Anyhoo, despite the elephant's poor treatment, we treated him to our jack o' lanterns. . . and he ate them!! He just looped 'em up with his trunk, plopped 'em in his mouth, and crunched contentedly. (Oh yeah, Rosalynn brought her camera for all of this, which is why you're getting pictures this time)

As the elephant rolled Rosalynn's jack o' lantern around with its trunk, I turned to the elephant keeper and asked him if it was true that elephants killed people. Rosalynn had told me they did, and I had said that it was probably an extremely rare occurrence and just a story to frighten stupid Western tourists. The man looked at me as if I was crazy and said,

"Of course."

Then he pointed at the elephant and said, "Two."

It took a moment for Ajit to explain that by "Two", the keeper meant the elephant had killed two people.

. . .

. . . !!!

I think I"m going to pass up the elephant-washing offer now. . .

That was not all that happened on November 1rst, however. For you see, while India may not celebrate Hallowe'en, Kerala ( a Christian state) celebrates All Saints Day.

In a most typically Indian way.

There are three things I've noticed about Indian spirituality since I arrived: they're big on temples; no religion is complete without a pilgrimage or two (I can't count how many pilgrims I've seen walk by); and they're LOUD.

The Christians of Kerala are no exception, so I was not surprised to see thousands of pilgrims walking down our street behind highly decorated cars with LOUDspeakers strapped to their roofs, blaring Indian-Christian music and heading to the nearest biggest church. What did surprise me (although I should have known better) was that they started this march + LOUD music at

3bloodyAM!!!!!

Why? Why couldn't they just start at dawn, like most Indians? Why. 3. A. M. ???!!! Why, God, why?

*sobs*

Having a brilliant time in India,
Love y'all tons and tons,
Bisous,
Namaste,

Lentil,

The Girl Who Thinks 3AM Should Be Outlawed

PS - for those of you still so naive as to attempt the hopeless task of keeping up to date on my plans, I'm going to volunteer at a restaurant in Auroville starting two weeks from now until at least Christmas.