Sat. June 2, 2012 "A horrible ending to the first nine days in India...BLAH!"

My friendship with Neel is coming closed to an end. I find that he is too unreliable, arrogant, and uncompromising for me to have any further dealings with him. Unlike the last time I was in Pune where I lived with five other guys, I can rely on most of them to help me navigate this really daunting country. But Neel has not been reliable in any degree, as a matter of fact, I find him unhelpful in my dealings with him. It’s hard to get around the country if you don’t speak the language. Last year, my roommates help me with booking trains, bus, flight tickets when I needed it. While sometimes they were not prompt, in the end they were at least reliable. Not only is he unreliable, he is extremely arrogant in dealing with other people. At first I thought that it was only me who had this feeling and then when I begin to talk to other people, others also share the same feelings that I had. He made Vinaya Dev look bad several times (my Sanskrit teacher) and on a few occasions she had to wait for him for hours. I found out later that many of his yoga students left him because he was very dogmatic and critical in dealing with them.

I told him in the evening when I was about to head to Mumbai for my flight to Vietnam at 7 o’clock in the morning that the biggest joke for me about this trip was that I was really looking forward to hanging out with “guruji” but now I have completely lost faith and trust in him...and maybe even India in general. God, I can’t believe I’m feeling like this at the moment. He made my trip completely miserable and stressful by his uncompromising attitude in the last nine days. I gave him $1200 for my room and yoga fees of which he agrees to refund half if I want to find my own place. This will be the last time I will ever pay someone upfront. I'm still debating whether I want to stay or go back to the old Pune flat that I lived in last year. To me money is not a problem as much as the friendship that could be completely lost if he is arrogant and uncompromising. 

I’m one of Neel’s biggest financial contributor and I have done more than my share to help him with his finances by buying Sanskrit books so that he can give it to the Sanskrit school-teachers.I bought stuff for him from the US and brought it to India for him and I even give him my electronic equipments. We were also both planning to travel together to Mysore and other parts of India and I was willing to contribute more to this part of the trip. Furthermore, I was willing to accommodate him if he plans to come to the US...all of this right now is going down the toilet. And I think Neel is slowly realizing that he’s being really a stubborn idiot. Even Chinmay thinks he is acting weird in the last few days. I think he is probably torn between some crazy principle that he has and whether our friendship is worth overlooking those principles. I’m sure our friendship means a lot to him too since we get along really well the last nine months and I always looked up to him. He knows that too and I am sure that when I told him that I have completely lost all faith in him, it really must have stung him pretty hard. I really regret the fact that there is a lot about him that I could learn from...his past mistakes which he shared with me when he picked me up at the airport (living in a foreign country, not knowing the ways of other people, not willing to compromise and finally depending on the goodness of others and how that experience helped made him more humbled were all relevant information and had a lot to teach me). But unfortunately his dealings with me is neither humbled nor friendly but arrogant and domineering. This will for sure destroy our friendship because I'm just not the kind of person who will take any BS from anyone. And it's not like I come from a culture where you are suppose to put up with domineering and arrogant people.

I was so stressed out today when I could not find anyone who could help me book a cab to the Mumbai airport. Let me tell you that helpless feeling of not being able to find someone or turn to a friend whom one can rely on is a CRAZY and DESPERATE feeling especially when you are in a foreign country.  Neel was completely useless, he wrote me several options that I could take and pretty much let me decide on which course of action that I should take which involved traveling to places that I don’t even know. Nancy was not any help either. Chinmay was there, but she is so inexperienced with traveling in her own country that she doesn’t even know how to help me. Anyways, I was pretty stressed out by now and I had this really worried look about me. There was no denying about it that I would for sure have a hard time reaching Mumbai airport.

I went to my cook Jyoti with this heavy spirit in order to grab my breakfast since it was already 8:45 am and I was 15 minutes late. When I came, her daughter was sitting at the table with Prakash, her husband. She asked me why I came late for breakfast because usually I am always on time. I told her that I was worried and stressed out because of my situation of not being able to find a taxi. And with just a phone call, Prakash immediately solved my problem. I tried renting a cab through KK Travels earlier in the morning but everything was booked, however, Prakash made a phone call and miraculously a taxi will come at 10:30 pm to pick me up and drop me at Mumbai airport. They also confirmed my opinion of Neel’s arrogant attitude and really did their best to cheer me up. My spirit in the last couple of days has been completely in shambles by this loss of faith in Neel. But because of this, I have met a number of people this past week that I am beginning to have a bond for. For example my Sanskrit teacher, Vinaya Dev whom I really admire for her knowledge of Sanskrit but also her friendliness. And today I have been dependent on Jyoti and her family to help me with my situation and I have exchanged facebook contacts with her daughter, Kranti so that now I know that they are trustworthy whenever I needed help.

Prakash reading the newspaper and his daughter, Kraanti.

the maids for the apartment complex.

there's one maid I like in particular at the apartment complex, Rekha. She's goofy and silly...but like all domestic servants works hella hard. She sweeps around the complex very early in the morning, 6 days a week.

Personally, I think she looks beautiful, fit and athletic..which is very unlike most Indian women who are very plump!

Kranti and her sister Vaishnavi. Can you guess which one of them is older? The answer is below.

Having finally settled my taxi, I told them how grateful and relieved I was. Then I went to the university afterwards because this was the last day where all the students will earn their certificate and then go back to their towns and villages. It was an emotional day for everyone and it was hard seeing all these teachers go back to their home. I went home and had lunch at Jyoti’s place and then at 2:30 went for my sanskrit class with Vinaya. Came back at 6:00 to hang out with kaaku (“auntie” in Marathi) and her daughters, had dinner with Chinmay who is attending a wedding in Nagpur where the temperature goes up to 47-50C, and then went back to Auntie’s place for the final wait for my taxi.

a few students gave speeches...not sure what they were saying.

Vinay listening intently as her students praise her.

the librarians at the university.

 The taxi came exactly at 10:30 and we left Auntie’s place at about 11 pm...reached Mumbai way too freaking early at 1:30 am and I had to wait outside the airport for two hours before they let us in. It’s now 6 am and I am in Mumbai airport. My flight is in about an hour and a half, and I can’t wait to fly to Vietnam and see my relatives whom I haven’t seen in 22 years. The food is gonna be hella magnificent and the fruits...ahhh what can i say about the fruits! To be quite honest, I also want to give India a little bit of a breather. It’s been rough the last several days and it’s been taking its toll on me. I still love Sanskrit more than ever and now that I am studying with some of the greatest Sanskrit scholars in the world, my love for this language is EVEN STRONGER! Hopefully I can have classes with Vinaya when I am in Vietnam....but I know one thing is clear when I come back from Vietnam. I will not forget why I want to travel to India in the first place and that is to study a beautiful language that I truly love and there is nothing that will stand in my way, not Neel and certainly not by the silly ways how things are done here in India. My resolution is firm--I want to master this language. (Vaishnavi is 18 and Kranti is 24)

PS: Blog was posted at Bangkok airport which is hella big. The people are so friendly for a change unlike the nasty Indian attitude that you often get at the airport...where it's an endless bureaucratic mess. Ah...and Thai women...well, they're just breathtaking...hahaha!