Thank goodness I trained for the last six years, watching god-knows-how-many Indian films via Netflix, because I guess it hadn't occurred to me that there. Would. Be. No. Subtitles. I did recognize certain words from all my research: "Lady," "Crazy," "Wedding," and the obvious "yes" and "no" and "okay-fine".
I thought I was done for. Not to mention Janet, who wouldn't be able to grasp the storyline either, and would have to put up with her mom's obsession.
With Akshay Kumar and Irfan Khan (the cop in "Slumdog Millionaire," the dad in "The Namesake," one of my favorite actors), I could just let the movie wash over me. "Thank You" was a fun, frivolous caper about a detective whose clients are wives done wrong by their philandering husbands. The catch is that his trick is to make the husbands sorry and turn over a new leaf by pretending he's romancing the women. Several song-and-dance numbers (featuring an alarming number of bad non-Indian dancers), some fake blood and punches, and a farcical wedding later, all came to an end. Bonus: Most of the outside shots were done in Vancouver! So I knew exactly where they were standing.
The best pre-movie feature, unique to me, was the message across the screen: "Please stand for the Indian National Anthem." We did, and a group of deaf schoolchildren were filmed signing the song, which was later taken over by orchestral swells and a chorus of dramatic hums. Quite patriotically effective. Instead of those subliminal "buycandypopcornjunkfood" flashes we're used to, how about a good old rendition of "Star Spangled Banner"?
Then, there's the inevitable Interval, the halftime of the movie. People stood in line and ordered everything from chicken tikka sandwiches and samosas to popcorn and cakey-looking things, but we did it best: again with the hot steamed corn, buttered and salted, in a tiny paper cup with tiny plastic spoons. Totally satisfying. You could also get it with lime, masala spice, or chili/lime. Since I was sharing with my daughter, I stuck with the basics. But it is certainly going to change my summer corn-eating! Cobs be gone! Hmmm....I wonder if Seattle is ready for its first Corn Club franchise?
I am mad about the tea here. I don't usually drink black tea at home, just the green stuff, to feel virtuous and healthy, but man, I think I might have a new vice when I return. All it takes is a morning cup, more a demitasse than a mug, of sweet, milky, cardamom-infused tea, and the day holds promise. The best tea, however, is the pre-dinner tea, for staving off the food pangs and perking you up in the early evening. I have my cup to the left of me, drained completely, with nothing but the grains left. It doesn't take a lot, mind you, just a few sips until the sugar hits. I don't see how I can possibly go back to sencha after this....
My stomach continues to stand up to the food. We're lucky in that we have plenty of homemade meals, and Deepak and Rashmi have an excellent cook who prepares breakfast and dinner. Theirs is a strict vegetarian household, whose staples are lentils, rice, idlies (the white things, below), vadai (the deep fried lentil-flour doughnuts, below), and sambar (the soupy stuff, perfect for dunking), potatoes, green beans, and some kind of roti, or bread made from whole wheat flour. We eat with our right hands, licking them clean. There are usually turmeric stains my fingers afterwards, my personal badge of honor. My taste buds aren't going to put up with American blandness so much after this, so I had better make sure I remember what I eat.
The monsoon season has officially begun! We got some whopper rainstorms in Sri Lanka, late afternoon rumblings that gave way to electric downpours so strong you couldn't go near an open-air space (see video, below). Today, in the growing heat of late afternoon, we left a downtown Bangalore store around 5pm and found ourselves in almost total darkness. The lightning flashed on either side of us, the thunder made our taxi vibrate, and the rain came down so hard that it was almost impossible to see a few yards in front of the car. Too bad our cab driver took us into the middle of rush-hour traffic (though when is is NOT rush hour here? good thing there's lots to see from one minute to the next), and his defogger wasn't working. We swiped our windows on either side while his malfunctioning windshield wipers barely pushed the water out of the way. I do give serious props to our driver, however, who managed to get us from one end of town to another in the chaos while simultaneously checking messages and carrying on conversations on not one, but TWO cell phones.
Sometimes you just feel lucky to be alive....
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