July 23, 2013 - Bangles and Bindis

My co-worker took me shopping after work on Tuesday in the street market by the Sector 18 Metro (a place I have always been a little intimidated by) called Atta Market.

Atta Market is tightly packed, full of tiny shops and even more shoppers. She led me off the main drag to a slightly larger shop to get a “suit”, which for Indian ladies means the dress, pants (tight or loose), and scarf combo. You buy mostly the fabric (with the fancy front and in the right general shape) with the intention of getting it tailored.

This is NOT where I bought my outfit.
(What with the price of, um, Chicken Fabric being so high…)

The attentive man behind the counter kept taking more and more patterned outfits off the shelves to show me. Nonstop pulling off the shelf and unfolding on the table and pulling off the shelf and unfolding on top of the previous outfit until there was a giant colorful pile of chaos on the counter. (Side note: Why are ladies clothing shops always staffed by men here? I mentioned this to an American guy once and he said, “Well, men’s clothing stores in the States always have female clerks.” Did not know that…)

I tried to make a decision faster so he would have less to re-fold later, but he did not seem concerned. Finally, after much considering, debating, and being picky about patterns, I chose two outfits – a blue one and a red one, neither with polka dots. With a little bargaining on her end, I ended up paying about 2,400 rupees total (a bit under $50… actually, $40 since the rupee has weakened). However, the tailor my co-worker knew was closed, so I will have to come back another day.

We stopped at a little accessories booth across the alley. We tried to stay out of the way of the guys carrying furniture behind us and looked at all the sparkly things in the display. My co-worker bought some nail polish and I picked up some bangles to match one of my outfits. And bindis! You could get all sorts of sizes, shapes, and, surprisingly, colors on bindi sticker sheets. Co-worker suggested I get the little, clear ones, too, so I could make a design with multiple bindis if I wanted. I’m accessory-deficient in general, so this was fun. Though I am glad my co-worker mentioned that if I got red-and-white alternating bangles, it meant I was getting married.

Bangles! Comes in groups of six. So you can Walk like an Egyptian.

File this under: Stuff you can’t buy in America
(Can you?)

Afterward, we had a light dinner at the ubiquitous Nathu’s Sweets. (I had actually thought they only had sweets, like their name suggests, but they have a full menu. And air conditioning, thank God, because wow, was it humid.)

I tried several things I had never tried before:

(totally stole this logo)

• Kesar Pista: Thumbs up. This is milk with bits of dried fruit in it. Tastes better than it sounds, but I’m glad I knew ahead of time that it was fruit because I normally would not want chunky bits in my milk. Knowledge in hand, however, I enjoyed the sweet beverage quite a bit.
• Papri Chaat: Thumbs down. It was okay, but it had this certain taste. Most Indian food I like, but there is this one flavor in several foods that I am developing a distaste for. It’s the same ingredient that’s in gol gappe I think. I can’t describe it. It has a tang to me like something went sour or has been sitting in a container too long. I made my co-worker eat it, which was good, because then I stuffed myself full of:
• Pao Bhaji: Thumbs up. This mini meal was basically buttered dinner rolls and tomato veggie curry. Can’t go wrong there. Yum, yum.

I also had one more new food experience: Poha. This gets a thumbs up, too. My co-worker could not believe I had never had this so her cook made extra and she brought it into work one morning for me to try. The texture is somewhere between oatmeal and rice (and, indeed, she said it is a common breakfast food.) According to Google, it is “flattened rice”. I like it because it is not nearly as heavy as rice can be.

So, it finally happened. I was in the elevator when the power went out. (Figured it was only a matter of time…)

It was the elevator in my apartment building. Two men carrying a sheet of glass, one blue-collar-looking worker, and a lady in a yellow sari were all in the elevator with me when the lights flickered, the digital number representing the floor went blank, and we started sort of floating down to the next level. The lights did not stay out, but it took a good minute or so for the elevator to kick back into normality and get itself to the ground floor. The guy had to press the button several times to get the door to open.

It would had been scarier if the lights had stayed out. They must have serious backup in there since the lights in my apartment usually stay out completely for the ten seconds to a minute the power is out before backup kicks in.

I also realized for the first time that there is actually a “fan” button in the elevator. Here I was wondering why sometimes the fan in the elevator was on and sometimes it was off. I had to watch a maid use it to see.