weekend update!

this weekend was kind of a random one.

first, we stayed with a couple who were friends with my roommate niranjani's parents when they lived in hyderabad for a short time. they were a really adorable couple. as usual, the wife forced food upon us. for dinner that friday night when we arrived, she got paradise chicken biryani. i'm normally veg, but for paradise biryani (a restaurant NATIONALLY known for its fabulous biryani), i'll break the diet for a day. that saturday, we drove to see the golkonda forts and tombs.

the tombs house the remains of the qutb shahi dynasti (if you recall, muhammad quli qutb shah was the same person who built charminar, so there are a lot of architectural similarities since they were all persian). the tombs were gorgeous. one of the more important ones was built at such an angle that you could hear the call to prayer: the door faced east, so when the singer faced the western wall (mecca) and recited the adhan, the echo would bounce off of the wall and it could be heard a great distance. our little impromptu guide was impressed when i could read the arabic that was written on the shawl that covered the tomb.

this tomb reminds me of the taj mahal...it's that persian architecture

our adorable guide who showed us around a couple of tombs 

the underground tomb of one of the shahs (i think it was muhammad quli qutb?)

we also saw golkonda fort which was built by an ancestor of the qutb shahis. this was to protect the city from invading mughal emperors (you're welcome for the history lesson). as with every historical site, there were tour guides offering their services for a nominal fee (150-300 rupees depending on who asked you). we said no to two of them, and the latter said "without guide, it's just rocks!" in reference to the fort. he was kind of right, honestly. but they were super cool, except for the huge number of bats that lived in the dark, humid corners :(

hahahahah we're in the bottom right corner. it's like the indian version of "where's waldo?"

after that, ON THE SAME DAY, mind you, we went to chowmahalla palace, which was the seat of the asaf jahi empire during that dynasty. the palace was absolutely beautiful, and was created with the same persian influence as the other sites we visited.

us in the reception hall of one of the palaces. check out those chandeliers...

the next day, we went with another family friend of niranjani's to the temple because it was saraswati puja (she was the goddess of arts, education, and music; so i'm hoping she can bring me blessings and luck for the next school year). we drove past MediCiti hospital to get to the temple (it was a little upwards of an HOUR AND A HALF), and it was unbelievably hot. i wanted to cry.

extreme close-up of us at the temple

the goddess, herself

later that day, we went to that auntie's house (we got back to the city after 5:00, mind you). we sat around awhile, and later we met two of her sons, one of which was a weekend salsa instructor. the other told us about a telangana festival (signifying the beginning of planting season). now THAT was a good time. we found some bacchanalian activities after driving around a bit, even at 10 in the evening. there were drunk people, dancing people, observers like us. although i did a bit of dancing with some kids we ran into. it was a lot of fun. indian people know how to get down :)

no words.

i got into that celebratory spirit :)

my new friends :D

writing it all out, this weekend was a bit of a doozy. hopefully, this weekend in delhi will be just as eventful. i know it will be :)

the big dogs (7/19/2011)

dr. p.s. reddy, the chairperson of mediciti hospital, arrived in medical yesterday (or the day before yesterday, i don't remember). it's really amusing to see people scrambling about in anticipation of his arrival. people who literally did nothing in the months he was absent are suddenly forced to play catch-up so they aren't left with egg in their faces when he asks about their progress.

tushar came into the office in a great mood yesterday because in a few hours, dr. reddy seemed to have solved the majority of the problems that have been plaguing the study for some weeks now. today, while i was doing observations of one of the exams, i saw a team of doctors and important looking people with dr. reddy and tushar at the helm: it was a proverbial "who's who" of mediciti hospital staff. tushar was showing them each of the examination rooms, and as promised, he was going to show them the bathroom after my less-than-pleasant experience yesterday.  

side-note for bathroom story: there is no water in the tank about the toilet. so after you use it, you have to fill this little plastic trashbin full of water and then dump the water into the reservoir in order to make it flush. well the floor of the toilet is nasty so it's difficult to carry a bin of water and empty it by the brim. AND, the bin had a big hole in the bottom so the bucket was really on ¾ full by the time i reached the toilet. that whole process is gross, AND THEN it just smells unpleasant. that's why i have to calculate the amount of water i can drink to stave off a dehydration headache, but then just little enough that i don't have to use the bathroom. it's difficult.

anyways, dr. reedy saw the bathroom, and apparently, he was infuriated by it. he commented along the lines of "the whole hospital looks nice and is clean, but there are corners of the building like this one that are just disgusting!" so since he came a couple of hours ago, they've been working on the toilets. and by working on, i'm pretty sure they're reconstructing them because i just saw pieces of porcelain on the floor in the little hallway by the two bathrooms. lieutenant general rao (the principal/dean of the hospital) came as well. with his baritone voice and strong military presence (and he's tall), he just commands authority. so when he was cross and disgusted at the state of the bathroom along with dr. reddy, even i was getting a little scared. i can't even imagine how the cleaning people were feeling.

it's nice to have people in high places in your corner :)

yield

this past weekend, i stayed at the guesthouse (this is the flat of someone who's associated with SHARE India, but allows us to stay there during the weekends it isn't in use). i took one of the MediCiti buses into hyderabad, and on this bus ride, i learned something about indian traffic laws.

in india, vehicles yield for:

• pedestrians (for the most part);
• oncoming traffic that's in the wrong lane (they're overtaking someone in their own lane on a two-lane road);
• cows, goats, dogs, etc.;
• and cobras.

oh, and they'll stop for a five-lane traffic jam on a two-lane road.

niqab

last sunday, i went into the city with an american friend. on the bus from one part of secunderabad to charminar, i sat next to this muslim girl who was wearing a niqab. i smiled at her, and i was surprised that she smiled back. i could tell she was smiling because of the way her ears moved.

it's the small things in life that keep us moving forward.

lemme update'cha

it's been ages (well, actually, only a week) since i've last blogged. it's been a bit slow, meaning, it's been relatively uneventful. i've been working and all that, but it's just been pretty low-key. my roles have changed a little bit and a few amusing things have happened.

so i've switched from working in the SHARE India office to working in the hospital. my boss (who i'll get to momentarily) thought that since i had knowledge about the physical examinations, i could help the study investigators practice and i could give them criticism about their mistakes. it's going well so far. i've been there for about a week. they investigators are very friendly, and they're receptive to suggestions and instruction. one of them is so cute: she's very young, and she has such an adorable little baby face that i can't imagine her being married (even though her husband came to the clinic to pick something up from her). for the rest of the week, i'll be observing three of the participants conducting each exam and helping to correct their mistakes. unfortunately, because of some obstacles we've had to overcome, the actual field work probably won't begin until after i leave india. i'm a bit bummed about that, but since it's a 5-year longitudinal study, that leaves room for me to come back to medchal and work on the study in the future.

about my boss. i had really mixed feelings initially (i'm sure i've mentioned him before). it was especially conflicting because he's so much like my dad in the sense that he's pretty friendly and easy-going outside of work, but he wants business to be conducted in a very particular way. he's pretty demanding, but not unreasonably so. i've been doing minutes for meetings, and it's been a bit of a struggle because of my inability to pay attention to meetings. but i did the minutes for this conference call between the indian investigators and pittsburgh coordinators, and he said it was "very good." i was so happy that i didn't have to go through and edit them again. i'm really enjoying this work :)

all clear(?)

from what i'm gathering from twitter and the news, there seems to be a bit of a tenuous calm for the time being. we'll see how long this lasts since the bandh lasts until the end of the day tomorrow.

news clip

"Two legislators (rebel) of TDP, Nagam Janardhan Reddy and Harishwar Reddy who had submitted their resignations to the Andhra Pradesh Legislature speaker yesterday were arrested, at the NCC gate of Osmania University by the police. This happened when they were entering the campus to visit theTSJAC and OUJAC students sitting on a hunger strike.

This triggered a sudden riot and the students charging towards the administrative building, and the police force using their batons and some in mufti throwing brickbats at the charged up students."

news clip and image from: http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/9583837/content/61034706-the-clashes-erupted-as-thousands-of-people-gathered-at-osmania-university-in-hyderabad

telangana update

so. as of right now, police are reportedly firing tear gas cannisters and rubber bullets at protestors outside of osmania university in hyderabad. there seems to be a bit of a stand-off between pro-telangana supporters and the 13,000 police and paramilitary forces stationed around the city. and as usual, the civilians are the ones who will lose.

and since this morning, more MPs still have turned in their resignation letters. the situation seems to be unraveling at a fair pace. updates to come.

telangana protests

SO. basically, what's going on is that, once again, the telangana people are pissed off...again (well, still, actually).

they were promised a state by the indian government awhile ago, but the government's been wishy-washy in following through, so once again, the movement is picking up pace. congress has been basically shut down; schools and shops all over andhra pradesh are closed; buses and railways are shut down. and what's more, members of parliament are slowly resigning, bringing it to a total of about 86 or so in the past few months. before we came, it was pretty bad: there was a lot of violence and street protests, but it had since cooled off. like i said before, they staged a protest where they prepared food on the roadside, which was a big inconvenience as it made us late for the wedding. but that was just a sign of the movement picking up momentum.

what it is today is a bandh protest. "bandh" is a hindi word which means "closed," and this form of protest involves a political party of community declaring a strike. and this bandh is statewide. i've been reading about it on twitter, and while i was really considering getting rid of it, it's been really interesting to see the tweets of young people in the area reacting to these politics.

i'll definitely be sure to update you all with this stuff. this is too interesting!

respect your elders

it's funny: since i've come here, i've noticed myself becoming so much more deferent than i was in the united states. initially, it was a bit of a struggle for me to not toss out witty retorts to people since i'm so used to being able to say what i feel to my elders. now, i so easily slip into the role of sort of bowing to elders (i did that when i was meeting much older strangers at the wedding i went to a few weeks ago) and i've shed a lot of my argumentativeness. i'm turning into the elder-fearing african child i should've been. hah! kidding. but i'm just immersed in a culture where honoring elders is actually practiced rather than just suggested like it is in the US.

it's interesting the things you pick up when you go abroad...