India is different

Tuesday morning Susan woke up with the dreaded Delhi Belly, which was especially tough for her as she was spending the day talking to different groups about speech therapy. As she said, she "puked her way through Calcutta." I had a much easier day. I decided to spend the day researching jobs, since the close of my trip was coming up and everyone else was off working for the day (and I had a free computer to use all day!). I took some time off to go into town to have lunch and hunt for some fabric. In the fabric store I asked for a beige or tan fabric with some red in it. They showed me beige and tans without any color. Luckily I was wearing a red shirt, so communication was easier. "With some red in it - this color red." So he showed me a maroon print. I clarified that I wanted a brighter red, almost as red as the bright shirt I was wearing. So I got an orange print. Again, I said it was too orange, I wanted red. So he showed me three other orange prints. When the manager realized what was happening, he interceded and I told him also that I was looking for a red like my shirt. So he dug and dug and dug and brought out 10 pieces of orange fabric. So I went to lunch.

Lunch was great - a little cafe that could have been in Vienna. The only snag came when I got the bill. It was 300 rupees and I paid with a 500 note bill. I received two 100 rupee notes in return. Since you're supposed to tip 10% here, I needed to leave 30 rupees or so, but didn't have anything smaller than the 100s he had given me. I wanted to buy a dessert for later from the snack counter, so I headed up there and asked them to give me my change in small notes. They couldn't (or wouldn't) do it, so I wasn't able to leave a tip. As I would later find out, this happened most of the time. Can you imagine a waiter in the US giving you change that made it difficult or impossible to tip him？

That night was another leisurely one around the apartment with some friends of Aileen and Rahul's and a taco spread (they really miss the Mexican food from when they lived in Mexico City a few years ago). Susan slept off the Delhi Belly as much as possible. Rahul's cousin Rupu was in town from London, so we arranged for a big sightseeing day the next day with her.