Police Department

Monday, August 23

Today, I experienced the joy that is the Indian Police Department. Let me tell you, three hours in that place gives you all sorts of reasons to never want to disobey Indian law. We had to register with them since we're living here for months, and it involved all sorts of paperwork and hoops to jump through. What was it like there? Imagine an area the size of an average grade-school classroom... maximum capacity around 50 people. Now imagine 200 people packed into that classroom, all with different goals trying to get to different corners to see different people.

I spent about an hour sandwiched between Aisha and Justin with absolutely no room to even breathe. And I was one of the lucky ones: at least I already knew the people I was squished up against. Some people got really comfy really fast with some complete strangers.

And man, did that place reek. So much sweat and manstench was just drenching the air of that little building. The heat was awful, even with all the fans running. And I'm pretty sure that every single employee was texting. A few even took calls while they worked... I'm pretty sure that typing in information is tons more accurate and speedy when both hands are being employed. It was kind of entertaining, though, because while I was waiting in my third line, a higher-up came in for a routine check, and all of a sudden ties were going on, shirts were being buttoned all the way up, and cell phones were all hidden out of sight.

On a completely different note, today I was reminded exactly how much of an epic fail I can be when it comes to boys. When approached with the question of “So Anne... what's your idea of a perfect first date?” and put completely on the spot, the first legitimate response I could come up with was “Well, it should definitely involve turtles.” It was kind of like Rhode Island's Q&A moment in Miss Congeniality. For as good as I am with languages, I really fail at words sometimes.

After police registration, Emily (my ACM neighbor) and I took a walk around our courtyard and explored a bit. Upon further investigation, we realized that not only do we have a pool, we have a jacuzzi, a steam room, and all sorts of showers. And as far as we can tell, no one ever uses them. I'm pretty sure that's gonna be our favorite hangout for the next few months.

The food is getting progressively hotter the longer I'm here. Every night, my aai asks if the food is too spicy, and I always say no. So every night, the food is a little spicier. I kind of like it. Tonight, my host family is doing a religious fast, so I ate alone. Aai made me some dal and some kind of squash dumpling. I don't remember what she called it, but it tasted good. It was kind of like my vegetarian meatloaf packed into balls and put in a masala sauce.

I'm beginning to think I should have brought more books with me (that's kind of the last thing I expected to say while I was packing my suitcase full of books). I started reading Spoon River Anthology again yesterday, and I'm already halfway through it. If you haven't read it, you should. It's a book of poetry by a man from Illinois. He basically went to a couple of graveyards near Peoria, IL and made up poems to describe the life stories of all the people buried there. We read some of the book back in junior English class with Ms. Vogel, and it quickly became one of my favorites. Last year, I drove through the town of Spoon River, and it made the book somehow more personal knowing that I've been the place where these imaginary people were created.

On Thursday, I'm going to be missing classes to go with Gene (the American professor who teaches musical theory at Lawrence) to sit in on a lesson with my new guide just to meet her and see how things are going to work. I'm very excited to get a violin and start learning things. Sucheta (our Marathi teacher who's basically the main person in the program) said she'd set up a couple of opportunities for me to give recitals of what I'm learning while I'm here, so I'm pretty psyched about that, too.