Like this:

I am in Hyderabad right now, completely enjoying myself. As I stepped off the train from Chennai, I saw another woman backpacker, very tan and European looking, perhaps 30 or 35. She caught up to me when I was fending off over-excited auto-rickshaw drivers, asked if I was alone, and offered to share accommodation with me. In a matter of seconds, I had a much craved travel partner. Turns out she was from France, a high school literature teacher who spends each summer traveling the world. We explored a large part of Hyderabad together–Mecca mosque, Chowmahalla Palace, Charminar tower, Golconda Fort, Salar Jung Museum, as well as walking through the fabulous Laad Bazaar, full of bright fabric, gold jewelry, bangles, food stalls, book stalls, knick-knack stalls…everything you could want, with a slight Islamic hint. Yesterday, one of Kiki’s friends from Bangalore joined us (now my friend), and he will accompany me to Hampi tomorrow. So, life is beautiful, my health is splendid (finally) and I’m able to enjoy the chaos of India under the wings of my friends.

Before I left Chennai, I wrote a good-bye post so here it is:

My last post ended in Mumbai, but I’m about to leave Chennai to travel north to Hyderabad, Varanasi, Rishikesh, and Delhi. I’ve been living in Chennai for six weeks, growing used to the street vendors, the constant stream of woman in saris, and the auto-rickshaw drivers who slow when they pass me and shout “haloooh, Madam!”

Some parts of Chennai still frighten me: Ritchie Street, which is computer and mobile bazaar jammed with couriers, vendors, bikers, pedestrians, and the occasional auto-rickshaw parting the torrent like a rusty snowplow; Mount Road/Anna Salai, which is the wide boulevard that runs diagonally down the center of Chennai, bordered by upscale malls and filled with car honks, dust, eternal brown smog, leathery vendors, prostrated beggars (like San Francisco), and sewage stench; and Adyar, the large suburb just north of Thiruvanmiyur, which shouldn’t overwhelm me, but does, probably because of the crumbling sidewalks and the ever-present shadow of the freeway flyover. That said, parts of Chennai begin to feel like home—specifically the neighborhoods around Kiki’s apartment and office: Valmiki Nagar, Thiruvanmiyur and Basent Nagar. In fact, they are in many ways more convenient than any other place I’ve lived. As in any Indian neighborhood, the volume and density of shops have no counterpart in the Western world (except, perhaps, a farmer’s market in the middle of the city where independent vendors sell on the street and the awnings of corporate stores loom in the background). In Valmiki Nagar and Thiruvanmiyur, however, nothing is corporate except for a few names. I dropped into a “Gift Park” that advertised Vodafone so that I could buy an Indian SIM card; not only did they sell phones and recharges, they sold train tickets, bus tickets, lamps and lampshades, figurines and plastic crystals, clocks and watches, pictures frames and photographic paper, among other things.

There are three grocery stores, Reliance Fresh, Prince, and Singapore Shoppee, although they remind me of the American convenience store: everything slightly dusty, packed together with a logic more dictated by the shape of the building that the products being sold. Reliance Fresh cashiers have a register and credit card machine and automatic scale, like Safeway, but Singapore Shoppee has a split system—cashiers that ring up your purchases and hand you a receipt that you take to the money desk, where you pay and receive change. Security guards outside both Reliance Fresh and Singapore Shoppee demand that customers leave their bags and backpacks at the door. Prince is a much smaller store with basic provisions: spices, rice, toast, soda, candy, soap, toothbrushes, etc.; when I shop alone there, I can expect the three to six attendants in the store to immediately stop whatever they are doing ask if they can help Madam, please. I like to shop in privacy, and have considered purchasing a burka on these occasions.

There are also three internet cafes, each charging 15 rupee an hour, which is a very good price (equivalent to 40 cent in USD). I love going to internet cafes, because it’s one of the few private spaces in public. Computers are usually housed in hooded cubicles that look like a thinner cousin of the roll-top desk—the same curved top, except nothing to roll down. The curved and the wings on either side do create an effective cocoon. It’s easy to block out the honks and beeps on the street, the slight smell of must that pervades tropical climates, and the roving glances of men. (When browsing histories haven’t been wiped, they usually contain a few Tamil porn websites—not surprising, since I don’t think guys get much, despite their congenital need to press themselves on independent woman, white or Indian). I can gchat or send e-mail or even read the New York Times, and for an hour, I can realize my dreams of returning home to a weekly garbage trucks and large houses and central air and toilet paper (guilty dreams, I admit; it takes coming to India to realize how much needless energy I consume each day, and how much waste I produce).

Better yet, there are two tailors down the street; they’ve set up shop on their respective corners, and they take care of the neighborhood mending with thimbles on their thumbs and absent smiles and their feet in constant motion as their treadle their ancient sewing machines. There’s most likely a cobbler as well, but I haven’t found him yet (maybe he’s one of the men who seem to be selling secondhand shoes; it’s difficult for me to ask, because these vendors don’t speak English). There is, however, a cheap cobbler in Basent Nagar, who also fixes broken luggage.

And there’s the fruit market—my favorite part of Thiruvanmiyur, even though I’ve never bought anything there. I’m too lazy to bargain, especially with a pack of sari-clad woman who watch me pass with steely indolence; unlike the men, they never call out. I always feel the need to apologize for myself, and if I spoke Tamil, I would. Like the fish ladies, these vendors have banana-thatched stalls on a raised square of dirt, kept in place by a low stone wall. Their produce varies day by day, and Kiki’s mom tells me it’s probably second or third hand produce—carted in the wholesale market on the outskirts of Chennai, where farmers and farming businesses sell it big vendors, who sell it to smaller vendors, and on down the chain until it ends up in the tiny Thiruvanmiyur market, protected by the led-faced women with flowers in their hair. When I arrived in Chennai, they sold Alphonso mango; now they see raw mango, tiny, spherical lemons, pomegranate, beans, roots, and Indian cucumber (light green, wrinkled and curved at the tip). They also sell jasmine and marigolds for worshipers on their way to the temple down the street. In fact, part of the temple is located directly opposite the fruit stand: a large, brown lake with a pagoda like structure in the middle, which houses a god. I’m told the lake is like the Jewish mikvah, to meant to cleanse and purify (even though it looks anything but pure). There is also some sort of ceremony each year, where people send floats across the water to pay homage to the god in the temple, but I’m a little hazy on the details.

At night, city lights reflect off the edge of the lake, but the center remains quiet, still, immune even from the great clouds of dust that layer the rest of the suburb (the roads are only paved in the middle and there are no sidewalks on the main streets). Behind the lake, neon lights blink on the temple tower, spelling out a Tamil word and softly illuminating the sculptures that form tower, stacked atop each other in a narrow, flat-headed pyramid the shape of Maachu Pichu. The sculptures on each level tell a story—brightly painted gods and goddess playing music and resting under trees and morphing from avatar to avatar as they ascend to the top of of the tower. I wish I knew more about Hindu mythology. I could have learned, but instead I’ve been bombing through the books in Kiki’s house: “Murder on the Orient Express” and “Dead Man’s Mirror”; a selection of Tintin comics; “A Room of One’s Own”; Saadat Hasan Manto’s short stories, including “Toba Tek Singh” and the “Dog of Titwal”; John Irving’s “The World According to Garp”; Harry Potter Number Four (yes, Harry Potter—I love Harry Potter).I even read one of Kiki’s childhood relics: Enid Blyton’s horribly quaint and nauseatingly British “The Children of Cherry Tree Farm.” In my defense, I was sick.

Most of all, I will miss this apartment. It is safe and comfortable and clean full of air and light. I will miss Kiki’s brother tramping in a two in the morning to quiz us about football (a.k.a. soccar—which neither of us follow). I will miss the willowy frame of Kiki’s mother reclining in a straight back chair, a glass of wine in one hand, and a wide lipped smile—like a child who knows she’s been good. (Only Kiki’s mother could recline in a straight-back chair, her head resting halfway down the back, chin upturned, her back curving into the seat of the chair, one foot perched on the chair edge, her calf propped against the table, and the other foot delicately resting on the opposite chair seat, long toes and a gold anklet.) Most of all, I will miss Kiki—absorbed in her notebooks, in the neverending debates on sexuality and class that whirl around her head even when she doesn’t speak them aloud. I will miss her  bursts of vanity and humor and self-satisfaction, not just in herself, but in her family, her friend—in me.

I’m scared to leave Chennai. Every time I do, the cities overwhelm me—interesting sights, but I have to explore them with my fists out, pretending that I’m not lost or new to the city or interested in stopping for minute to get my bearings, take a picture, admire or piece together…But I’m hopeful about my trip. One of Kiki’s friends will meet me in Hyderabad and hopefully a friend of friend will meet me in Varanasi. And in Rishikesh, I will stay in an ashram. In two weeks, I’ll arrive in Delhi where I’ll see Kiki once more—and reunite with another college roommate, Nitz, the Wall Street Wonder Girl, whom I haven’t seen since graduation.

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