From Brahma to Buddha, Fall 2009

I am following quite a tight schedule at the moment: wake up at 6:30 for a re-energising early morning run, arrive at Shivani's at 8 for internet, Hindi class at 8:30, chai break at 9:30, lecture at 10 then field trip, lunch, ISPs and back home by 6 in time to start cooking dinner and then sleep ready to start all over again tomorrow.

Beyond the mildly hectic nature of such an ambitious schedule which I love and keeps me very much on my toes, I perhaps surprisingly feel no sense of repetitiveness...
Of course part of this is no real surprise given the huge amount of thought that went into designing such an amazing schedule from the Global LAB staff and local coordinators, for example the wide-reaching scope of our lectures (from Jainism to hand block printing techniques)and the related field trips; or the eclectic mix of restaurants where we eat a much-awaited lunch (from a small long-established South Indian coffee house to Pizza Hut).

However I seem to find variety in situations where I would not expect to. It seems that my home stay family enjoys testing me every morning when I go out for my run and so have created a different obstacle course every morning for me to leave and get back into the house. One day the front door is locked and all the windows being barred, I was trapped! Another day I made it out of the house until the front gate which was locked and the key nowhere to be found (I promptly scaled and jumped over the fence), and yet another day having successfully exited the house and gone running, I returned to find all the doors locked. I am somewhat surprised by the extent of concern for security in what appears to be an extremely safe neighborhood by any standards (but then again what do I really know?)
Indian home cooking, unlike restaurant cooking has the potential to be repetitive. But I beg to differ – who knew there were so many different types of dal? And even the ever present component of any Indian meal, some sort of STARCH! offers much potential of variety for the creative cook: beyond rice, there are many different types of chapatti (bread): roti, naan, parantha, puri, poppadums...

I am learning that these little surprises cannot really be planned for so its not worth trying to. Better to accept the unkown and see what happens...not easy for a control freak but definitely much more exciting!