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The next day was the football (soccer) semi-finals at Gachibowli stadium. I was unable to go to the match that India was to play in because I had Hindi class and Sitar lessons, both of which ended up cancelled anyway due to heavy monsoon rains. I went to the other game that would decide the other team for the finals though with Satish, Subhash, and Money. The field was so wet and muddy! The players with clean, white uniforms ended up completely brown with mud, everyone was slipping and sliding around; the ball when kicked would hit the ground and come to a dead stop, being partially embedded in mud. Once when the goalie dove for the ball, someone else went to kick it, slipped and kicked the goalie square in the face. He was knocked unconscious. This however was not as significant to the audience as the fights that broke out at the end of the game between the players over referee calls; the whole stadium was cheering the fighting on. It kindof felt like the States. When I wasn’t watching the game, I was reading a Hindi newspaper with Satish’s help, although didn’t know what any of the words actually meant. The victors of the two games that evening were India and Tajikistan (each with only one goal). They will face each other for the football cup for all of Asia in the final match at Gachibowli stadium. It feels so much more important than even a Steelers game, these are entire nations represented, not just cities.

That match may or may not be played on Sunday though, we’ve been have MASSIVE rains here. I have seen monsoon rains, and see also why they call this monsoon season. It’s been wet for at least a week and a half, but last night took the cake. We were on our way to a movie (the new batman one) when a huge storm started. The water would come down in heavy bullets and would blow at you in sheets. There were people already at the theater who called and informed us in the car that the movie had been cancelled due to so much congestion/traffic in the city because of flooding and heavy rains. The next day I was to take a cooking class in Banjara Hills, but couldn’t go also because of this flooding. The rain has continued through the night and it’s still coming down strong. The power went out for some time today (actually once right as I was going to put up this blog); it was a weird feeling because not only was there no light and no way to check email etc., but we really couldn’t leave the campus due to flooding. This catalyzed some good discussions though (I love it when the power goes out for this reason)…

Batia, Rachel, Victoria, and I talked a lot about the current situations in Israel and Judaism in different places. Batia is Jewish and also an Israeli citizen. I had the concept of Israel in my mind as this nationalistic country that was founded on the principles of Judaism which continue to play a major role in the lives of its citizens today. Such a conceptualization was built up in my mind by hearing both about the Zionist movement and by observing how Jewish individuals at Muhlenberg regard Israel. They all seem to love it and be very proud of it, hailing it as a somewhat utopic place. Batia claims that in general this enthusiasm is more unique to Jews living outside Israel than I expected. I was stunned to hear that Israel is now currently a somewhat secular country, maybe analogous to how the US was founded on Puritan principles but has evolved over time into…the US, with all of its component religions, atheists, etc. Batia also spoke about how birthright trips have become commodified into a pseudo tourist industry. It was interesting to hear her talk about how she is conflicted because of how difficult it is for her to have an objective opinion about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. She realizes that she feels a certain obligation to uphold her family values and coincide herself with their perspective, but would rather have a more objective opportunity to assess the nature of the country and its issues etc.

I spent last night in Money and Subhash’s room in the Men’s Hostel A. There are about 6-7? men’s hostels on campus, each with its own mess. Their room was somewhat like mine, all concrete with high ceilings. Their beds were anchored to the walls and had mattresses about half as think as mine is in the international hostel (already about half as think as I’m used to at Muhlenberg, or about a quarter as think as I’m used to at home). They claimed that some rooms have forced quadruples, and that two people have to sleep on the floor. No wonder SFI, the student group affiliated with the communist party, recently had a large protest demanding more student hostels. Money likes sleeping on the floor anyway, he even opts for it when at home in Kerala. That evening we watched a movie in Telugu; even though I couldn’t understand any of the dialogue, the acting was amusing enough. It was so expressive! The facial expressions they’d do sometimes would just crack you up even if you had no idea what was going on; it was borderline obnoxious, picture Disney Channel middle school actors in a dramatic series, except with adults instead of kids (I know about such actors from spending time with Emma, my cousin). Money and Subhash loved having my laptop, they’d listen to my music, look at my pictures, etc. Laptops are pretty uncommon amongst the students here, usually they go to the library to use computers.

This afternoon I went to Banjara Hills with some other students to participate in a cooking class. We learned how to make Biryani (famous Hyderabadi rice dish) and a spicy potato dish; I’ll keep the recipes and make it when I get home to give everyone a taste of the food here…get excited! We took a rickshaw there and back, taking about an hour each way and stuffing it to double the passenger capacity. Not many rickshaws were out, there was still partial flooding etc. and damage from the recent storms; fortunately we never got stuck in a pool of water, but we did go though some massive puddles.

I’d like to take this random opportunity to mention that there is NEVER voicemail on any mobile phone here. Whenever you call someone and he or she doesn’t answer, this obnoxious recorded voice comes on…*the person you are trying to reach is not available, please try again later…BEEP* I guess if you have to leave a message, you can text (I’ve tried texting in Hindi too, it’s quite fun), but usually you just wait and call back later. I guess it’s not a big deal for me because I’m not too on leaving messages anyway in the States, but it is an interesting difference.

For those of you (Mom) who were worried about my potential trampling in a stampede at the final soccer match, you need not be concerned anymore; the match has been relocated to Delhi next weekend due to poor field conditions caused by the recent monsoon rains. I likely won’t be going to Delhi for it, although I was excited to see if India was going to win!