Oh man, I really screwed up....

One morning I was in a big hurry to get to the hospital. A big hurry. Such a big hurry that when I went to open the last padlock (that's the last of 3) on the sliding gate that closes the entrance to my building I used the wrong key. And by used I mean shoved into the keyhole and wrenched around so much so that it got stuck. In the closed position. I know the pictures aren't that clear, or even very interesting, I just wanted to illustrate the range of people who came by to look at the foreigners who had trapped themselves in their own building and were now desperately shouting for help. There's Manik, in the Gandhi Topi hat, who tried to saw off the padlock. There was a whole slew of children who tried various methods of removing the key and of course the compulsory rock bashing method.
Finally Suryam (in the baseball cap) arrived with a sledgehammer, which didn't break the lock, but removed the part of the gate that attached the lock. Miracle of miracles we were able to have the key removed from the lock and the gate happened to have another spot to attach the padlock, so in the end it was kind of hard to tell anything had happened at all. Oh India.

An attempt at an homage to Jan Chipchase

It's been said a million times, but the ingenuity displayed in resource-poor settings is really quite remarkable. Take, for example, the coconut walas who don't have plastic bags for coconut parcels. (Admittedly, most people drink the coconut water AT the coconut stand, but in order to compensate for all of the grossly overpriced coconut water I bought at Whole Foods, I have to take some for later as well.) One coconut wala has a giant metal needle (sharp stick is probably more accurate) which he uses to SEW the coconuts together so I can carry them all home.

Better yet is the wala who doesn't even have a sharp stick, he just uses the machete he has for opening coconuts. Look closely; he basically hacks away at the side of the coconut until a lot of stringy fibers are coming off and he can TIE them together. Are you kidding me? If I had to pick one person to be trapped on a deserted island with, this wala might be the one. So forget you and your outrageously expensive, pasteurized, bottled coconut water, Whole Foods! For Rs. 20 I'll take mine with a smattering of local bacteria and an awesome take away contraption.

*If I'm really, really good in this life I might come back in my next life as some life form who also has Jan Chipchase's job: http://janchipchase.com/.

I found a dead body

A few blocks from the hospital, behind the train station at the auto-rickshaw stand. Who was I going to call? For once Ghostbusters actually seemed like a reasonable option, but unfortunately they weren't available. Neither were the police, ambulances, and hospitals I tried. I stormed around the rickshaw stand shouting angrily on my mobile and shooing away the stray dogs until two police women arrived with their rather impressive guns to guard (?) the body. Who knows what happened after that (I went back to work) but it was gone the next day.

Jackfruit Party Jackfruit

These pictures do not do justice to the drama of opening a jackfruit. Imagine a watermelon covered in a spikey wooden skin and filled with white tar and yellow fibers surrounding the most delicious fruit. Better yet, visit the wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackfruit. We covered the floor of my room with newspapers and coated our hands and knives in vegetable oil. Bahout acha hei!

Sassoon General Hospitals

The Clinical Trials Unit offices are in the pathology museum, which is filled with preserved, diseased organs. The professors at the medical school teach pathology by lecturing on one of these jars while all the med students crowd around. Better or worse than Power Point?

North Face: Never Stop Exploring....or....paying someone else to carry your stuff while you explore.

I landed in Mumbai at 2 AM and spent an hour desperately searching for the “Aroma Hotel” with my adolescent cab driver. Mom, for your sake I’m not going to describe the hotel. Let it suffice to say there were no windows, no sheets, and certainly no cleaning staff, and by 4:45 I was roaming the streets of Mumbai in search of food and clean water. It took a little bit of the Crazy Crazy act, but by 6AM I found myself following this guy down the street to an AC bus to Pune.