1. Whenever you go to anyone’s house/office/apartment you get chai or coffee or something delicious to eat (or all three)
2. There is nothing better in the whole world than chai. Period.
3. Drinking indian coffee (which is very milky and sugary but delicious) while watching monkeys play on the mango tree outside your house and playing sudoku = best morning routine EVER
4. Taking a walk in India is actually more like taking a hike, or doing some sort of weird urban obstacle course. My route to ESG = point and case. There are only sidewalks for part of the route and when they are there, they are very uneven, broken in places and usually blocked by large piles of dirt. Thus 80% of the time you need to walk on the side of the street, which means avoiding dog poo, cow poo and various forms of unidentified brown stuff, in addition to motorcycles, parked vehicles, other people, buses that I swear actually try to run you over, various animals (i.e. the dogs and cows that make the poo, in addition to goats, cats, small horses and the occasional camel) and large groups of men that make very rude comments if you happen to be walking alone. Thus, getting to work means jumping over thing, dodging people, avoiding cows that try to eat parts of your clothing, trying not to step in anything gross and nearly getting killed every time you try to cross the street. It’s quite fun actually.
5. You eat dinner around 9. I don’t know why but I really like this
6. Indian soap operas. They are very elaborate, usually involve someone about to get married, getting married or recently suffering from amnesia and not realizing that they’re actually married to two different people but one of the women is actually the guy’s dead brother’s wife and is pregnant with some other dude’s kid. And every single moment is overly dramatic and absolutely must consist of a close up on at least 8 different people in order to capture the look of surprise on each and every one of their faces.
7. You can buy roasted corn on nearly every street corner. It’s fresh and delicious and covered in lime and salt and chili powder.
8. Hindi movies. Need I say more?
9. Bollywood songs (and the dances that go with them, especially the dances that you break out spontaneously while watching MTV with your host mom and sister)
10. When you go to any store or small shop there are about 34782368 different types of crackers and biscuits to choose from and somehow they are all good.
11. Everything is colorful and fragrant (in both good and bad ways) and alive and vibrant and real. It’s cliché, but there really is an energy here that you just don’t find in other places.
12. Kingfisher beer. Oh hell yes.
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