Currently for the last 3 weeks India has been 90+ degrees everyday. Everyday you smell of sweat and dust, of dirt, 'that unwashed academic smell of dirty hair, leftover food, dirty cups, and stale stale air." I am sure you have smelled that smell, and if not I hope you never do. Everyday you sweat through at least two undershirts, you, who in America never sweat. Everyday you are simultaneously baked, broiled, and fried under the intensity of the Gangetic Plain Sun.
That is why I am excited to go to Mussoorie! Mussoorie is in the state of Uttarnachal, in the foot hills of the Himalayas. It was once the playground of the British Raj, who, like us, retreated in the heat of the summer to the hills. Apparently in those days Mussorie was the favorite place for bored colonial sahibs to conduct illicit sexual affairs! Now it is a favorite haunting ground of Indian honeymooners!
We will stay 2 weeks in Mussoorie, where everyday we will work, for 4 hrs, on our Hindi! Apparently by the end of the two weeks we will be very good at Hindi, or at least that is what I hope.
The train ride to Mussoorie will be a twenty- four hour affair, as well as a bus ride from Dhera Dhun, but I will gladly endure that in exchange for sweaters, and mist shrouded hills, and cold nights!!! I have never craved the cold as I do right now!
This is Mussoorie....
And this is Banaras
Also it must be admitted that both are pretty accurate exaggerations
No comments:
Post a Comment