Life in Mysore
First Impressions
Looking down from the kitchen balcony. The big place on the left was some kind of ashram.
Sandra: Bill is in the middle of a cold — the first one he’s had since he got cancer. No sore throat or cough; just a stuffy, runny nose, slight headache, and rough-sounding throat. I’m sure it’s a combination of things, including not enough sleep, stress, jet lag, being coughed upon, not drinking enough water, and plus we got caught in the rain just as we were getting an auto-rickshaw, and it was such a tremendous downpour that we were utterly soaked by the time we got home — I literally wrung out my skirt. So he mostly rested today. He saw a whole flock of green parakeets in a large tree today, too. The bird life here is incredible.
The weather has been cloudy and showery since we came here. No, it’s not the monsoon — that ended in early Oct. — they say that this is highly unusual, and hasn’t happened in the last 10 years, and are blaming it on general climate change and global warming. However, today was the first day that the sun came out a little longer, so hopefully, the rain is passing. The temperature and humidity are roughly about the same as it is in Florida. (I cannot do a THING with my hair here — it looks awful.) The over-abundance of rain is causing various problems; including flooding in some low-lying places, lots of mosquitoes, and it’s affecting the crops. Mala says that she would hire some men to try and harvest honey from this huge beehive, but there’s no point, because the bees are using all the honey for themselves due to all the rain.
Mala and her Apartment Building
Our landlady, Mala, and Bill
Mala is quite the modern, ultra-busy, multi-tasking woman……in addition to running this building, she also owns a farm that she frequents often, and her husband owns something that she calls their “estate.” She’s always busy entertaining visiting relatives, people are constantly knocking on her door when she’s home, and she’s forever jumping into her spiffy little new car and driving to Bangalore, about 3 hours away. She sometimes brings produce in from her farm to sell to people here in the building, and we asked her to please include us. She’s already sold us a dozen papayas for practically nothing (delicious!), and has offered to find us a buyer for our mattress, which we no longer need — we slept on it only one night, at the old house.
The "Chokidar," or Gatekeeper, and his wife. He slept in front of the gate all night long. A few times we got back after he was asleep and we had to rouse him to let us in.
This apartment building is full of Iranian students, a few whom we’ve met. They are incredibly polite, friendly, studious, good-looking, and highly cultured — studying everything from dentistry to English. Their parents send them to India for their education, because it’s so much cheaper than sending them to Europe or even staying in Iran. Most of them are homesick and seem to find India rather “beneath” them. One fellow, Feroz, has already been very helpful to us in making phone calls to arrange for various things and sharing information on how to set up internet, etc.
Mysore
There are almost NO sidewalks in Indian cities anymore — they’re broken up, or cars and motorbikes are parked on them, or they’ve turned to rubble. Everybody walks on the street, dodging traffic and other obstructions. But out here in the suburbs where we live, it’s like a little oasis of peace. Lots of trees, much quieter streets, and lovely homes. This is probably one of the classiest neighborhoods in Mysore; nicer than even Saraswathipurim was.
There is still so much to love about Mysore . . . parks and gardens, exotic flowers, bird life galore, the joy of being able to buy your choice of 3 types of jasmine, strung on a string as long as your arm for only 15 cents — I buy a string of jasmine almost every day, and it just makes the day happier. I sniff it all day long, then hang it over the bed to smell all night. Once in a while, a cow moos from down below our balcony on a side street. The children here are so delightful. You can’t walk past a school playground without all the kids calling out to you and saying hi, asking, “What is your sweet name, please?”
We purchased jasmine from this boy whenever we could. He was delighted with the copy of this piture we gave him.
We got caught in a rain shower at a park, and all the people ran for cover under trees, including us. We were the only ones who had an umbrella (a tiny, portable one that barely covers one person), but before we knew it, we had a mass of children pressing around us, all trying to share our umbrella with us, while at the same time chattering a mile a minute, asking us questions about Canada, and wanting to shake our hands. They look so cute and neat in their little school uniforms, and they know a surprising amount about Canada. The girls wear bows and ribbons in their hair.
Everyone, adults or kids, want to know right off the bat what’s wrong with Bill’s jaw. No one is the least bit shy to ask, and when they’re told it’s cancer, they are sincerely sorry to hear about it, and many often say they will pray for Bill’s healing. Mala, who is Roman Catholic, has been praying ever since she first met us and learned that Bill had cancer. We even talked to a sweet police officer who said he would pray for Bill.
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