Monday, September 10, 2012

Bollyblog, Chapters 7 & 8 - Betel nut, Betel nut, Betel nut


Bollyblog, Day 7, September 7, 2012

The show on Friday was enlightening. Mostly because I realized just how many references I make to liquor, guns and even cigarettes (gasp) in my songwriting. Of course, singing to a theatre full of students (some of them as young as six), faculty and parents, .. well.. really made me take stock of things. In a blushing at first, but inevitably just admitting that debauchery plays a big a role in my imaginary life. Because I don't smoke, even though I own a .22, I tell myself.

 Seriously, I must not be living right. Despite the fact that the audience, on the whole, including the six-year-old contingent of girls dressed in princess garb, found the whole thing hilarious, and I got a curtain call (truly unexpected), I think, for my new happy album, I'll come up with subject matter other than grain alcohol. 


Bollyblog, Day 8, September 8, 2012

Dilly Haat market... the cab driver was a Sihk with a beautiful head scarf.  

The market was a melange of color, music, smells, merchants pushing all manner of silk pasmina, carving, camel-skin wallet, exotic instrument and little statues of Ganesh. It was a beautiful night, the perfect temperature with a light breeze, as the stars came out... and then it wasn't. The rain started, and the tarps were extended, and the humidity rose... so that I was essentially soaked to the skin and beyond... I left with a new wallet, and not much money in it.
                                  
                      
The next evening was a visit to the India Gate war memorial.. 
                                                                                                        
more merchants, with different, lighted wares - LED-lit whirling copters that flew high in the air and down, glow-in-the-dark super balls, neon-colored cotton candy, ice cream vendors everywhere... 


AND an interesting looking treat made of something called Betel Nut.   
You apparently chew the stuff like tobacco, with similar nicotine effect, and it turns your teeth blood red,                                                            and you spit red stuff all over the place, and.. no, I didn't try it in the way that I didn't try stewed silk worms in Seoul. Nope.


 

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