Emily in India

After Kashmir, I had exactly 3 free weekends before Jeanne came to visit again. 

The first weekend, I spent Saturday at the spa for a massage, facial, and pedicure. Then I went to see a Hindi movie called Shaitaan. I wasn’t sure whether it would have subtitles; it did not. But because it was a movie about a bad man who brainwashed and took control of the family’s daughter, making her do all the terrible things he wanted her to do, torturing her family, I was able to follow along. I don’t know if other movies would be as easy to decipher but it was pretty obvious that this man had taken control of the young woman, was making her do crazy things (from eating a disgusting amount of food, to dancing endlessly until she passed out, to severely hurting herself, to trying to kill her brother), in an effort to terrorize this family. Turns out, this man had a houseful of young woman under his power but the family saved them by recording his voice saying to go back to normal and playing it for the girls.

For the second weekend, I joined some other rotationals at a comedy show in Koramangala (the neighborhood where I live). The comedians were really, funny – the first opener was probably the best. As a group of foreigners in the small, intimate space, we were noticed and heckled by each performer. It was fun!

Holi was the next weekend so after taking it slow on Saturday, I joined some friends at a Holi festival in Bengaluru. We were told that the Holi colors would stain and ruin everything we wore so we got prepared for that, including putting our cell phones in plastic baggies. We arrived at the festival, DJ was playing, and people everywhere were covered in colorful powder. On our way in, the event staff handed each of us 3 bags of colored powered to throw and enjoy. It was hot and sticky and messy but so much fun. We danced and threw powder on each other and strangers.

When one of the rotationals got color in his eye and decided that it was bad enough for him to leave, I revealed that I was also ready to leave and then everyone simultaneously said, “yeah, I’m ready to go to.” Haha! We had had our fun and just wanted to be clean again.