Ordinary Encounter with Ordinary People

11 June 2011, Midnight

In three weeks, I have met a lot of interesting strangers in my journey in India; from the genuine friendly people until those over-friendly people who tried to play ‘old tricks’ with us as tourists. Let me try to recall them one by one.

The first one was a family whom we talked to during the 5-hour journey from Saray Rohalli Station, Delhi, to Jaipur. Initially we did not talk to them, but after I took out my cross-stitch, the lady sitting next to me spontaneously murmured, “cross-stitch”. I smiled and asked her whether she likes cross-stitch too and she said yes. Eventually we were talking to each other, of course not throughout the whole journey because she also took a nap in the middle of the journey. There was one point in the conversation, she told me to stitch according to one cluster of pattern after she observed the way I did my cross-stitch. What I always did was just stiitching the whole lines as long as they are the same colors because I was lazy to cut and sew the new thread with different colour in the one cluster of pattern. She told me that finishing once cluster of pattern will make me finish stitching faster. Other than this problem, I asked her how to do “half-cross-stitch” because there are some half-cross-stitches required for the pattern, but I was not sure how to do it. She gave me free consultation, hehehe, and taught me how to do it.

 The lady also offered us dry chapatti with mango ‘sauce’ and mixed ‘namkeen’ (probably she had a pity on us who only ate biscuits for lunch, hehehe). I love the ‘namkeen’!!! It was a mixture of, hmmm, let me think... dry stuff? Nuts, etc? It’s salty, but it’s not spicy like other Indian food. It’s what I call “the savior of whatever taste of your food”. The family did not only offer us good food, but they also told us about highlights in Jaipur. Her son, a ninth grade student, recommended us places to be visited in Jaipur. He looked at my guide book,an 80-Rupees-book which I had not read, and strongly encouraged me and my friends to visit Hawa Mahal, the Palace of Winds.

The whole family: the lady, her husband, her son, and another lady (probably her sister or sister in law) came from Jodhpur, another 5-hour-train ride from Jaipur. We took picture with the family and my friend promised the lady’s son that she’ll add him on facebook.

The second person was an old man, probably 50-60 years old, who was sitting opposite us on the train back from Jaipur to Delhi. He started the conversation with Jinfu, my friend, but somehow this old man liked to talk and he kept speaking in Hindi, but mixed with English. While my friend kept indicating that he did not understand what the man said, I tried to smile. It was 7 hours journey without Air-conditioner and I reached a point when I did want to continue my cross-stitch when I started paying attention to the old man. I took out my Hindi book, which I brought in my backpack, but I did not realize, and showed him the book. He looked excited and taught me Hindi phrases according to the book. He was a kind of reading every sentences in the book rather than teaching me, but it was always interesting to listen to an older person talking. I could not understand him most of the time, but somehow I felt that it’s always good to SMILE and listen J

The third person was a lady that I met in the wet market in Bahadurgarh, an area where I stay and work for 2 months. My friend was printing photos in a digital studio in that wet market and while I was waiting for her, I saw a fruit-seller. Confidently I asked him, “Kitne?” FYI, I only remember one to ten in Hindi and when the guy answered in Hindi, I was stunt. The next thing I remembered was, “Dhire dhire bolo,” (speak slower, please), then he told me the apples were Rs 150  per kg!! It was expensive!! I bought banana on Monday for Rs 30 and I couldn’t believe that Rs 150 was a reasonable price. So I asked whether he’s okay with Rs 100, but the guy did not understand. The guy asked the lady buying mangoes from him to translate for him. Then, the guy answered again and the lady translated to me, “It’s fixed price.” Knowing that the guy did not understand English well, I asked the lady, “Is Rs 150 normal??” and she said, “Yes, coz it’s real.” I interpreted it as it’s a good quality apples. The lady asked me where I work, what my name is, and where I come from. I also asked her and now I forgot her name L I think it’s Muna. Hmm... I also asked her whether I should make ‘choli’, the blouse top for sari, here or in Delhi because I’ve seen a lot of tailors along the way, but a few days ago when me and my friends approached some tailors, they said that they did not make choli and one tailor anyhow said that one choli costs Rs 140. ONLY FOR ONE CHOLI!! The lady told me that Delhi is better, so I guess I will find it when I go to Delhi. I have already bought a sari in Jaipur, but I did not buy the choli because it was absolutely necessary to buy the choli so I had less bargaining power. HAHAHAHA. Silly reason not to buy one set, huh? :P

The fourth person is..... dog. Hehehe. Okay, not a person, but a dog, hmm.. actually three dogs. Since yesterday, a puppy (growing-up puppy, don’t imagine a super small puppy) kept following us every time we walked out from the office. And it was sooooo cute!! Of course it was dirty, but it just layed down on the ground and moved its legs as in asked us to play with it. (I don’t like to use “it”, but I’m not sure, whether “it” is a ‘she’ or ‘he’). This evening it followed us again and after a few steps, we would meet its siblings: the brown and the lighter brown one. I decided to take video of them playing around us while we were walking down to find auto and I gave them names! Hihihi. The one who followed us at the beginning was named “Totol” because it is white with brown spots. The brown one’s name is “Coco” from ‘chocolate’ and the lighter brown one was “Milky”. So... tomorrow we’ll bring biscuits for them. Hehehe.

It’s 1.15 am now. I am not supposed to sleep this late, but this time I’ve decided to put more effort to my blog post, not just following my rushing ideas. Did you see the difference? I hope I made less grammatical errors in this post. Hehehehe.