Aai ani Baba

Saturday morning, sitting in the restaurant of the Hotel Raviraj, waiting for my parents to arrive, I did not want to think of every possible bad thing that could happen because everybody else seemed to be doing so. So I read the newspaper instead.

The day before when I met with Anjou, the program coordinator for host families, I waited patiently. With my luck, I was the last person to hear about my family. The Dikshit family (pronounced in the most inappropriate way possible for English speakers) is an older couple who live in a flat in a new apartment complex outside the city. Anjou fills me in on them and at this point, after waiting over three hours to hear about the family, I am quite numb to the news. Since it already is, I can do nothing but accept some disappointing news: no host siblings. Beyond that, I know only the basics, they are a friendly, retired couple. Anjou is friends with them and says they are very happy people. Baba teaches yoga as a hobby and has a bicycle for me to use!

Yes.

My newspaper remains an interesting diversion as the girls around Justine and me increase their adrenaline and express it in different ways. Some are excited, some are nervous, and a few shed cathartic tears. Before they arrive, a question pops into my mind: how much English do they know? Anjou is talking with an unknown man, and I feel bad when she stops the conversation to ask what I want.
"Anjou, how much English do my parents speak?"
"Who are your parents again?"
I try to pronounce their names con acento, hoping I will not have to say profanity all semester. "Deeksheet."
"Ah, yes the Dikshits (phonetically dickshits). They speak beautiful English."

For this occasion, this is good news. While I won't be pushed to learn Marathi as quickly, lunch today will be infinitely less awkward.

Justine is called first to meet his aai and baba. I take his half-dranken Chuha (Marathi for Chai, which is English for tea) and sip it while I focus my attention upon the newspaper. The news: One in five Americans think Obama is a Muslim, Hilary Duff is engaged, Fareed Zakaria is moving to Time Magazine, Indian Al-Qaida members were killed in Somalia trying to assemble a car bomb, the not-very-funny comics. Soon more families arrive. But for now, the news and Chuha.

In a stroke of good luck, the Dikshits arrive fourth. Baba is a tall and thin man with a prominant nose and white teeth and light complexion. You can tell his hair used to be thick and black, but now it is white and thinner, but not yet wispy. He looks like an Indian Mr. Royer, my high school calculus teacher. And his English is strong. Aai is average height and thin and her sari gives her a rather nondistinct frame. She is quieter around me because her English is not as strong. She looks a bit like an Indian Sra. Chamberlain, my Spanish 4 teacher from high school.

Why do my host parents look like former high school teachers? Maybe Freud knows, but I do not.

My first impressions were quite different than what I have come to know of the Dikshits now. Baba floated like a butterfly around the restaurant socializing, he knew many of the host parents. Aai and I sat and chatted, I got to know what she did. She is and almost always has been a housewife, while Baba has had many jobs. My host brother is married and lives with his wife and young son across the street, while my older sister is also married and lives in Sydney, Australia with her husband and her twelve-year-old son. Baba sat down and we talked for a while. We spoke of Justine's host family, and how they are such good friends with them. He offered that I go meet his family across the room and I obliged.
Justine's baba, named Ramesh, is much more jolly in physique, with a round belly, dark complexion, thin glasses, sleek black hair with whitened edges, and a permanent smile. His baba and my baba used to play basketball together, but as he said to Justine, "Now we do not play because I am fat."
Justine has two siblings, a brother who is twenty-something but due to an accident on a balcony a few years back, has mental disabilities. He learned to walk just months ago, but still retains his ability to speak three languages. His sister is named Preeti, whom I will discuss in the night club story.

The apartment building they live in reminded me more of Meemee's condo in Palm Beach than Slumdog Millionaire. Built less than three years ago in the western suburbs of Pune, their flat is mostly occupied by young couples. They had a large bungalow a few blocks away they lived in when their son lived with them, but now that it is just the two of them, they moved and rent out their former bungalow. The flat is cozy and brightly colored with a square balcony that comfortably seats three. Statuettes from all over the world, from the Orient to Maharastra to Holland, sit atop cabinets and shelves. Aai said that her friends used to call her house a museum because of her collection. I do not get that impression.

I love retired life. The first thing we do when we get home is nap. It pretty much set the pace for my time at home so far. After the nap, tea, and after tea, reading and TV, then dinner. Dinner, then the night club, which must be a post on its own.

Baba tells me that the food tastes better when eaten with your hands (just like Oma's raspberries, right Dad?). I eat dhosa, a crispy, buttery crepe, with several chutneys. Overall, the food has been khoop chhan! (very good!). Aai asked me yesterday after I described the recent culinary splendor as khoop chhan what I actually think since I describe everything as such. I do not euphemize my descriptions, trust me it's good.
Aai also asks me frequently whether the food is too spicy, and I think that Indians "misunderestimate" Western tolerance to spice. She probably is not aware of my adoration of Sriracha. So far the spiciest food has been similar to the chicken on Chipotle burrito.
She also is curious about my coffee preference:
"How do you like your coffee?" she asks with care in a thick Maharastran accent. Not all Indian accents are the same, I have learned.
"Do you want creme?"
"Nai nai."
"Sugar?"
"Nai nai"
"So no creme and no sugar?"
"Yes?"
"Not even just a little cube of sugar?"
"No, Aai." I have learned to not use thank you as much, that formality is not necessary in most Indian languages, much less "No thank you".
"Ok so black?"
"Yes."
After Aai makes the coffee, she asks "How do you like your black coffee?" and emphasizes black.
"Khoop chhan," I say as I shake my head in approval. She looks quizzically.

A thing about the head shake: it is synonymous with "yes" or some form of approval in India, and oftentimes is used without the verbal yes (ho in Marathi, which is usually said twice). Imagine how many times people say yes or approve, and you understand why some Westerners think it is a muscle twitch.

Baba shows me basic yoga. He practices traditional yoga, and right now we are focusing on exhaling while sitting in first position. Baby steps.
Baba and Aai were quite nervous when I requested to ride their bike to Laura's every day. Laura is an American staying at a friend of theirs, and we have shared a rickshaw to school this week. They wanted baby steps, to first ride the bike in the parking lot, and maybe in a few days I can ride the fifteen minutes to Laura's.
I insisted I was confident and the ride to Laura's that day felt great. His red mountain bike had rusty breaks but well lubricated shock absorbers. The brakes made the downhill next to their apartment tricky, but the shock absorbers were beautiful over the rocks and ditches on Baner road. Riding on the Indian roads, I got to ring my bell more in those thirty minutes than I ever had on quiet American roads. It really was fine, as long as I remembered left is law.

For now, I sit in my classroom, and I need to go to a temple in my free time.

Next, the story of the night club.