Meghana Hits Hyderabad

Meghana! In my room in India!

Its been too long, so I am going to try and fit the excitement of this past week into one not-too-giant posting. Thursday was a Hindu holiday called Ganesh Chaturthi.  Basically, it starts the festival of the elephant-headed "destroyer of obstacles".  For me, the holiday meant delicious food, spontaneous packs of singing men on my street, Ganesh statues around the house and across the city, and most of all, a much-needed 5 day weekend.... Ganesh Chaturthi was extra special for me, because it brought a very welcome visit from none other than Meghana, dearest. 

Since her recent arrival in Manipal, Meghana and I have been relating over the ups and downs of adjusting to life in India. Our "close, yet so far" situation is too strange-- we are a world away from our homes, but in the same country, yet still not actually physically close together. Obviously, it has been really great to have one of my dearest friends understand some of the quirks of my new life and have skype conversations that do not have to accommodate a 10 hour time difference. But at the same time, our lives are each as busy as ever and we are still 12 long hours away from actually being together. With the holiday weekend approaching and our days beginning to drag, we decided that this little tease had gone on long enough.. it was time for our India adventures to intersect! So, after much ambivalence and indecision, Meg bought her ticket and showed up in Hyderabad early Thursday morning. 

Feeding her birthday cake. Cute little Indian tradition.
Couldn't look more awkward. 

Of course, our much-anticipated reunion was delayed by 1.5 hours of trying to find each other on the ridiculously spread out, unlabeled, streets of Hyderabad. But when I did finally hear that familiar voice scream my name from a car across the street, I literally almost leapt into traffic. There are certain times in my life when I think, "Leah, you're never going to forget this." It happened when I stepped onto the bima at my Bat Mitzvah, when I first walked into my freshman dorm at Emory, and this Thursday morning when Meghana and I hugged each other so so so tightly on the side of Mumbai Road. 

We basically spent the whole weekend doing the Indian variation of exactly what we do together in the US.  We went to KFC and ate enough for a family of five. (This one weekend challenged my stomach to process more meat than its faced in the past two months combined. Help!) I bought her a chocolate cake that read "Happy 20th Pegward", because I miss calling her that and today she bids her teen years goodbye!! We sat across from each other in a coffee shop while I read Anthropology and she read some scienc-y things.. that part literally could have been a flash back to Emory except instead of Jazzman's delicious almond coffee blend, we were drinking really tiny glasses of Indian chai. She met my host family, and drank mango juice mixed drinks, and listened to Guster, and lied on my bed, and snapped unflattering photos, and tried to remember the Anna Sun dance we memorized in May. Mostly, we just soaked up each other's presence, which is what I think we both needed the most. It all felt so comfortable and familiar that we had to keep reminding each other that we were in India. Just so surreal!

Yep, self-timer,whaddup

On Thursday, I missed my family's little celebration for Ganesh Day because I was with Meghana at her grandparents. (Of course, they didn't inform me that it would be happening. That would be too orderly and logical for India.) When I heard about all the festivities and saw the pictures, I felt pretty bad about missing it all and added it to the sad list of things that Meg and I had sacrificed to make our reunion possible. But then, after saying goodbye on Saturday night, I heard singing in the streets and went outside to see the neighborhood's Ganesh idol being loaded into a little pick-up-Rickshaw with boys chanting and drumming and dancing all around. Apparently, it was time to emerge the colony Ganesh in the lake and I got swept up in the excitement! I hopped in a van with the adult daughter of my homestay family and we followed the Ganesh through the evening streets of Hyderabad to a smelly little man-made lake reflecting skyscrapers on all sides. It turns out, the "emerging" is more just throwing the idols into the water, which was ridiculous looking, but also really fun. So, community members of all ages threw their own mini deities and helped heave the giant one into the lake. I threw a little clay Ganesha too, and Soumya explained the tradition to me. After the group had all lighten their incense, sang their songs, thrown their little sculptures, and watched the big Ganesh sink down, we all headed back to the neighborhood for a "colony dinner". But its still India, so we ended up waiting for the food until around 10pm. I had a great conversation with Uncle (homestay father) while we waited, so I didn't mind too much. The family time and impromptu ritual observance made me feel better about missing the family "pooja" earlier in the weekend. 

Thats just us in India.

So, all and all it was a great few days. Maybe I'll repay Meghana for her two miserable overnight bus rides by making a venture down to Manipal before the semester ends. I kept bringing up the idea, and I think thats what made this goodbye much less blubbery that the uncertain farewell in May. Truth is, who knows where and when we will next meet. But, no matter what, this weekend will never be forgotten!