What a crazy first few days it has been in Hyderabad, India. While I have only been here one week, it feels like months already. I have been able to pack in a lot in just a few days while trying to get adjusted to this completely new lifestyle. Every day has been an adventure, to say the least. I will do my best to fill you in on everything while trying to keep it all organized. I apologize in advance for this very long post. I wanted to post this earlier, but every time I sat down to do it something would come up. Sooo here it goes...
Arrival and My New Home
I flew out of New York (JFK Airport) on last Tuesday night and got into Hyderabad 3:30am Thursday morning after a 2-hour layover in Abu Dhabi. Flying Etihad Airways (UAE Airlines) was definitely the way to go - great movie selection and a really comfortable blanket...makes for a relaxing 17-hour plane ride. While in the customs line at Rajiv Ghandi Airport, I started talking to a mother and her daughter. Both are doctors from Chicago and were in Hyderabad for a family member's wedding that weekend. Before I knew it, they were inviting me to come. So not more than 10 minutes in India and I already had plans to go to a Hindu wedding. More on that later...
I was picked up by the coordinator of my program and we took a cab back to my "flat" (my apartment). There was hardly any traffic on the road at 5:00am yet I was already terrified of the driving here. By the time I got into my place and settled in, the sun was already coming up and the neighborhood was wide awake and full of activity.
My flat is in a nice middle-class neighborhood, but still very different from anything you would see in the U.S. - none of the same amenities you would see in an American middle-class home.
I live just south of the Husain Sagar Lake...
We have security guards 24/7, although I'm not sure how well they actually do their jobs. In my complex are several Hindu and Muslim families, including the Minister of Education for Andhra Pradesh next door. Including mine, there are 3 flats with other American students. They all just graduated college as well and are doing a 9-month teaching program in Hyderabad that is run by the same program as my internship. I am going to be living with the two guys from the group, as well as a guy from Kenya who is running our internship program. They only arrived about a week before me, but everyone's been great and also always willing to go exploring. I still have to fix up my flat to make it start feeling like home, but it will eventually get there. We also have 3 maids who don't speak any English and are here every day, all day! We are going to have a group meeting soon to figure out a way to reduce their hours somehow, although they do make a damn good cup of tea in the morning. I had them wash my bed sheets but that didn't go so well, so now I'm in the middle of the "Case of the Missing Tide Detergent Bottle."
First Days In Hyderabad
This week in Hyderabad is a huge youth conference with college-age kids from all over the world - 107 countries - attending through the same program, AIESEC, that I found my internship through. Every 5 years AIESEC puts on this enormous event in one of its member countries, and it happens to be this year in Hyderabad and during the week I arrive...crazy coincidence, I know. So I spent all of Thursday at the conference, which was being held that day at the Indian School of Business. To get there, I had to take my first-ever rickshaw ride...by myself. Here's just a glimpse of what that ride was like; it does not do it justice just how crazy driving is in this country...
First Rickshaw Ride from Ben Brown on Vimeo.
After holding on for dear life for 45 minutes, cheating death 7 or 8 times, and getting lost twice, I was there...only to find out I needed some sort of AIESEC badge to enter. I spent about a half hour in the security guards' office trying to communicate through the very little English they knew, and eventually I was able to convince them to let me in. Althoguh I was severely jet-lagged (9.5 hours difference from EST), I had a great time. I hung out and spoke with kids from all over the world - Sweden, Poland, Brazil, Russia, France, Uganda, Kenya, Finland, Ecuador, India, and more - it was actually a really amazing experience. I was invited to dinner that night at the 5-star Taj Krishna Hotel as part of the conference. I definitely was getting spoiled on my first day, but who the hell cares...I'm in India.
I finally made it back to my flat that night around 2:00am and passed out after being awake for 30 hours. The next day I attended the conference for a bit and then was able to check out the VisionSpring office where I will be working at for the next 6 months. I met my supervisor and the rest of the team; it definitely got me excited for what is to come and the really impactful work I will be a part of. More details on my job to come in my next post after my first week of work...
I made it back to my flat that night via riding on the back of a co-worker's motorcycle. Since I still really had no clue where my flat was located, it turned into an hour-long adventure of driving through side streets and lost phone signals...only to finally arrive and be locked out of my place until my roommate returned.
The following day (Saturday) was the Hindu wedding! After debating with myself if I should attend or not, I finally decided to go. I had no idea where it was, how to get there, what to wear, or what to expect, but I am sticking with my motto, "Why the hell not? I'm in freakin' India!"
After a crazy long rickshaw ride, to my surprise, I had arrived. The wedding was being held at this large event hall with beautiful grounds.
Unfortunately I had arrived late and missed the main part of the ceremony, but I was still able to see just about everything else. It wasn't a very fancy wedding - I was the most dressed up male there with a shirt, tie, and sandals. However, women were dressed in beautiful saaris and the bride and groom were draped in these amazing traditional Hindu wedding garments. They sat underneath an altar filled with colorful flowers, called a mandap, while the Hindu priests chanted sanskript and friends and family came up to say "Mazel Tov!"
Downstairs below the ceremony processions was a huge reception with ALL-YOU-CAN-EAT delicious Indian food. Being the only white person there, there was no question I stood out. The waiters and waitresses felt bad for me, so they kept giving me more and more food...I didn't object. To be perfectly honest, I didn't find the people that had invited me until about an hour-and-a-half after I arrived, so I was never actually certain that I was even at the right wedding...oh well. Once I did though, it was really exciting. They introduced me to the family and friends, as well as the bride and groom. They taught me about the different wedding rituals and the significance of each. I got to watch the Gatabhandhan, which is a ritual where the priest ties a knot using the ends of the clothing worn by the bride and groom. FUN FACT: this is where the phrase "tie the knot" comes from.
After staying much longer than anticipated, and having a great time, I made it back home for a 4-hour nap. That night, the AIESEC conference was having a party at the Taj Krishna. This of course meant more delicious food...and some hilarious entertainment.
Video to come
Inside the hotel was a big dance party that went till about 3:00am. The whole atmosphere was pretty surreal. Here I am, an American in India, partying in a Western-style hotel, dancing with a Kazakstani girl to Euro techno with an Indian remix. The night definitely brought flashes of memories from my many nights at Rick's.
The weekend wrapped up the next day with some more Conference events at the Taj Krishna Hotel, and then going to visit a few Hindu temples around the city. The first was the city's ISCKON Temple. It contained beautiful shrines of Lord Krishna inside. Obviously a group of Americans at a Hindu temple in India is not common, so we got a lot of questions, but people were really excited to teach us about the significance of the temple, the ISCKON movement, and its beliefs. A man there offered to take us to another temple just "down the road", but it ended up being about a 25-minute hike.
Pictures to come
When we arrived, there was a huge night service going on. Men on one side, and women dressed in beautiful saris on the other, facing a golden stage where the priests chanted prayers. However, we were taken upstairs first where the entire congregation was to have dinner. One Sunday evening a month at this temple (we found out later it was a Rajistani temple) they give out a free dinner to the congregation, and it just so happens we came for that night...more free Indian food! Everyone sat on the floor in about rows of 50, while dish after dish was put on our plates. Everyone eats with their hands in India, including rice, so it got pretty messy. After playing with a ton of awesome Indian children for a while, we made our way downstairs to the service. It was very interactive and everyone was clapping and chanting along, it was really an amazing experience to be a part of.
Pictures to come
I began work on Monday, but more on work in the next post. My bad for not updating the blog earlier, the internet is kind of screwy here and it's been a pretty busy (and truly awesome) week.
Next post I'll go into more details about the culture in India and my first reactions from being here. So much to tell, and so much to see! It is going to be an incredible 6 months here, I can already tell. I'm excited to keep sharing it with you.
