Jaggery and Basketball: Feb 18-20

After my early arrival back to campus on Saturday morning 2/18, I was delighted to find upon waking that breakfast was my favorite—upma and pineapple sheera. I will continue my investigation of the mess meals throughout the semester; my new hypothesis is that every other Saturday they serve this meal in the morning. I spent most of the day relaxing—it was much too hot to spend time outside between the hours of 10-5. I will have to get used to this before April and May come…

On Sunday morning I went to the farmers’ market on campus and bought some guava and raisins. I was incredibly tempted to buy jaggery, or gud, a sugar product used in many sweets here. One farmer was selling it in large chunks about the size of a small flower pot. I somehow restrained myself, convincing myself that I would not be able to make anything with it until I return to the US and that if it sat in my room for the next two months it might become an ant-attractor. There has so far only been the occasional ant crawling around on the floor in my room, but bringing in a hunk of jaggery (not in air-tight packaging) would have a large potential to attract more. I went on a jog in the evening and multiple times while running broke into a smile thinking about where I am in life and how glad I am to be here at IIT-Bombay. My work is difficult and it is hot here, but I like my work and am grateful that I had the chance to return to India for an extended period of time. I am excited to be here for another 2 months!

In the past few weeks, many European students have moved into my hallway in H13. There are four German guys here for 6 weeks for a project and one guy from Denmark, Jesper, here for a few months to work on his Master’s thesis. I had lunch with Jesper in the mess and we got along well; I am sure I will see him around again soon. Now that I have been here for a couple months, I am enjoying being the only student from Northeastern here at IIT-Bombay. It has forced me to get out and meet other Indian and foreign exchange students more than I otherwise might have had I had a friend from Boston. I was also getting used to being the only white guy in my hallway among the Nepalese and Ethiopian Master’s and PhD students; it feels strange now that I am not. Now that some Europeans have moved in I have more of a chance to make a friend who I can visit someday in the future while traveling in Europe.

I went to play basketball on the indoor court with Akshay and Shahnawaz in the evening. Only gum sole shoes are allowed on the court. I wore my tennis shoes, which is the closest pair I have. They are red and black on the bottom, absolutely not gum sole. When the man at the sign-in desk asked if I had gum sole shoes, I feigned innocence and showed him the bottom, saying “these are tennis shoes,” even though the sign behind the desk clearly stated “no tennis shoes allowed.” Shahnawaz came out to talk to the man at the desk, telling me to wipe off my shoes on the mat and to next time wear sandals and carry my shoes in a bag so that they would not be dirty. He led me into the court (the man at the desk was a little confused so had stopped protesting my entrance for a minute) and said “these shoes are fine, I was just saying those things to help get you in.” Akshay laughed and said “even I am not wearing proper shoes;” he was wearing street shoes that were much farther from gum soles than my tennis shoes were. During my first 20 minutes on the court, I was expecting the man from the desk to peer around the corner and tell me to leave, but he never did. It seemed that once I made it onto the court, I was given immunity from having improper shoes. It is unclear exactly why he let me stay on the court with the wrong shoes, other than that there must not be much of a threat from the gym manager for him to be a stickler on footwear. At Northeastern, they will absolutely not let me on the squash courts without my Stan Smiths—I am guessing there is much more pressure from the gym manager to keep the courts pristine. I missed approximately my first 20 shots, all from my prime range of 8-12 feet. Then I remembered that if I use my legs while shooting the ball would go in; I started making some shots.

Dogs sleeping by the mess entrance on a hot Saturday afternoon

New hire, just moved into the staff apartments (farmer's market in background)