Green Juice & Hookahs

You may be asking yourself, I wonder how Marni will get along for so many days without her famous green juice?  Well, after Mr. Gupta Senior told me I was much more beautiful when I weighed more, that I should gain 10 pounds back at least (he always says things without editing, just as he feels), I explained how I lost the weight with green juice and how it changed my health and energy etc.  Siddharth pipes up "oh Marni, it should be no problem, just give me the ingredients and I will have our cook make the juice for you every morning and put it in my car so you shall have it every day"

Really?  Wow great!  I replied.   I gave him this roadmap to juice, thinking with all this it is so clear and easy to understand, it could not go wrong.... but this is India, don't forget.

The first day he brought the juice, it was red, tasted vile.   "Marni our cook did not have all the ingredients so he used what he had available, next time he will get all the correct vegetables for you" I pretended that it was viable and took it home and dumped it (as I did for the next 3 days).

The second time the juice was an awful pink gray color, vile taste, and Siddharth explained "Marni, the cook went to a special vegetable shop that imports veggies from Delhi, since these veggies are not seasonal items that grow here at this time.  But when he got there the shop was on fire, so he could not buy from that place.  Tomorrow he will visit another good store and get the correct items."

The third time the juice looked a beautiful green color and could have been right.  But it was boiling hot, and so disgusting I almost gagged right there.  I forgot to say that it should be ice cold, as cold as possible......Siddharth phoned the cook again.

Today was the magic day-- the juice was ice cold, exactly to recipe and tasted fantastic. 

the perfect daily fresh green juice!

 but you see how DIFFICULT it is to get anything here -- many rounds of problems before you can simply get what you need.

In the office today I presented a huge powerpoint program projected on the screen in the conference room to all the marketing and creative people who would be working on it.  80 pages of images and styles -- I asked the sample makers to start making and gathering samples that could work for the program.  It doesn't even matter what the trend is when you hear this question, just trust me it has nothing to do with anything-- the lights go back on and I say to them okay is it clear?  one of the girls asks excitedly, "You want some hookahs!!??"  She is the newest employee in that department, not even one month, but has the best english so has been assigned to work with me.  I said "Sakshi, really, how could that possibly fit in with what I've just shown you for the last hour?"  "Well, they are very 'in' right now." she says.

Kill me now.

Some Pictures to Set the Scene

Just a little dishwashing in the mud

Any caption needed?  I don't think so.

This is the kind of shot I dream of getting and finally I got one-- look at those eyes

Take your shoes off at the door please, outside dirt should never mix with inside dirt, its bad form

My new hotel is located opposite way from previous, now "at least  you are on the better road" and here it is

Pasteurisation and Homogenisation.  Grade A FDA approved.  Certified Fully Organic.

Hell Night Two at the Ganges View-- Got to get out

Monday Night/Tuesday Sept 13/14. 

After work I asked "Abhiminyu" my driver, if we could stop for some fruit and wine.  (Siddharth told me "Marni, tell Abhiminyu about at least 10 times what time you want to be picked up and dropped off, believe me you need to-- he is very strange.  But he has been with us 12 years and the most loyal hard worker we have.") So Abhi took me to the fruit stand and got out, leaving me in the car, and bought me apples and bananas.  (I did not ask for these--but it was fine!)

The roadside fruit stand- i washed them before eating

The wine store is also a bizarre kind of "secret" store that seems to dispense alcohol very furtively for some reason, don't know why.  He took me in for this buy, and since he speaks a bizarre combo of Hindi and English to me that he thinks I understand...."Hinglish" lets call it, I partly understand and partly answer with a lot of "Hmm"  "Maybe"  "I don't know"  "Oh".  but from what I could get on this buying trip, he has no money to buy things extra like wine or alcohol (which could absolutely be true) so I bought one bottle for him, one for me, about $7 US each.  Not the usual ratio of Indian to US price, so I believe his story, that's expensive here.

I get back to my hotel, and upon entering, the men who work there were lazily sitting around near the office, doing nothing. When I got to my room, it had not been cleaned-- I had lots of food garbage, so I was hoping they would clean so it would not attract....whatever, wet towels in a bucket, flooded indian toilet floor, etc..  I enter my turret patio, and a 4 inch lizard races across the wall.  I freeze, completely horrified and now I imagine that of course there must be lizards and bugs in all my open suitcases, my bed, my closet, etc..

Outdoor private Lizard turret-- it really WAS a terrarium I guess

When I complained about no cleaning and none of my requests being addressed, they brought me my requested "extra hangers" I don't know if you can tell but they are all bent and rusty.  nice.

There is a neighborhood brick stairway outside my corner upstairs room and the air conditioner in the wall has spaces you can see thru to outside and HEAR as well.  For about 3-4 hours that night, a pack of dogs attacked and screamed and ripped and basically gang raped a female that was in heat, right on those stairs outside my room, might as well have been inside my room.  I started crying and was really having a breakdown.

The Assi ghat hotels were not as I remembered them, so interesting, and holy feeling and well-attended by tourists and westerners.  They were now dangerous and disgusting, lots of men together, very few women anywhere, lots of strange goings on in little huts and side alleys that I could not look at I just felt disgust going on and looked away.....I went to work the next day and even though I had begged to stay on the river through many emails and not a cop-out luxury "western" style hotel, I told them what had happened and I said please Im so sorry but I cannot stay there anymore.  First, they called the hotel and screamed at them for not attending to me, which is always nice, then moved me immediately to the Ramada.  Oh, thank you, baby Ganesh and Jesus, and I'm sorry I did not believe Mr. Gupta when he told me in emails MANY TIMES that I would much prefer this over a hotel at the Ghats. 

At lunch he yelled in fun "I KNEW YOU WOULD NOT LIKE IT THERE, ITS DANGEROUS AND DIRTY NOW, ITS NOT FOR YOU"

Okay so now I am with all the other whitey tourists eating eggs at the continental breakfast buffet.  Oh well.

Ramada-- no lizards, western toilet, fridge, coffee maker, upper floor, safe, quiet, view of green landscaped garden grounds....heaven.  and it costs LESS than the Ghat hotels, they can charge huge rates because of their (past) appeal being right on the river....

First Day at the Office

Monday Sept 12-- My driver arrives at my riverside hotel to take me to the office for an 8:30 arrival time.  I have a nice office, they immediately gave me printer, scanner, mobile internet card for out of office, and there is a wireless button that I press and it has my own tone ring, and a guy comes running, to get me whatever I need (or want, ha ha). 

Easy Button

Office, large, good a/c

Every day at 2pm the man comes from the Banaras home with a homemade lunch in stainless steel stacked dishes inside a thermos type container, and I, Ashok and Siddharth eat and chat about traditions, the food, the economy, etc.

There is a Puja (religious ceremony) going on for 15 days right now, where the father of the family that has no parents living, must go each morning to the Ganges or a shrine in his home to pray for 6 generations back of his ancestors, and pray to each one and name them all in order, for good fortune and for them to help us prosper on this earth. 

This includes offering their favorite foods each morning to the little shrine, and eating only their ancestors favorite foods for these 15 days.  (Many men also shave their heads down to a tiny tuft on top-- looking like Hari Krishnas.)  So at lunch Mr. Gupta senior tells how each thing is made and what is in it and how old it is, some dishes are 500 years old, etc. 

Guptas only can eat here-- with me included.  Nice honor.

Each thing tastes so delicious and different

Guptas are "Jain" which means extremely vegetarian and excluding garlic and onion because they "inflame the genitals" is the way it has come from tradition.  Siddharth, the younger generation (he is approx. 30), will eat the onion and garlic dishes at lunch (as will I) and it should include no alcohol but the Guptas ignore this part.