So the adventure begins. I am going to Bollywood in Mumbai to do an a program funded through the UTS BUiLD (Beyond UTS International Leadership Development) society. It was the most wondrous thing to happen, since returning from New York six months ago I have been a) very broke and b) desperate to travel again and experience new things.
For the past few months I have been talking about going to Bollywood NON-STOP. I think, to the point that people might have wanted to slap me. India has been a kind of light at the end of the ‘normal life’ tunnel, because what is ordinary about Bollywood? Nothing. How can sparkly, dancing lovers singing and dancing to each other be boring? It’s Home and Away on acid.
So it was this morning that I awoke to pack and waited for my taxi to the airport. Since everyone in my family was either working/living elsewhere/in New York, I was confronted by the strange position of having to kind of say goodbye to myself. It’s a kind of weird climax because you’re just like ‘Oh wow!! Here’s my taxi! Ok, oh look at me go! Bye! Going now!’. You kind of have to amp yourself up and you just walk around feeling like a super excited loner. It also makes it very awkward getting the classic ‘going away photo’.
Stocking up on Western food. Salmon, capers and cream cheese. Pure deliciousness.
In the taxi, I had thrown together my last piece of Western food: capers, salmon, cream cheese on toast, pure deliciousness. I had to stock up because I’m not good with spicy food, my body can’t deal with it. It’s not that I don’t like Indian food and all other food that tends to be spicy (I love it) it’s just that it destroys me.
This was a realization that came to me when I was in Mexico last year. We were having our classic ‘Spring Break in Cancun’ moment. We were only exchange students in American once, amerigh? Think burritos on tap, nachos raining from the sky and enough casadias to make a hat out of. I tried, by jove I tried, but the spices took a toll on me. On the last day in Cancun we went on a 70USD all-inclusive food and alcohol yacht day and I couldn’t stomach anything. Bless the Mexican crewmen who swept around the deck offering me tequila sunrises hoping that I’d party like a Girl Gone Wild. I wasn’t going to be a Girl Gone Wild, I could at best muster myself to be a Girl Gone Mildly Enthusiastic (a title that I doubt would fare as well in sales).
So it was with a feeling of justification that I indulged a Gloria Jeans Chiller Shake because, lets be honest, the calories were probably going to lost along the way. I got a new camera. I tried to log on the ‘FREE WIFI!!!’ to no avail and said a solemn final goodbye to myself, told myself to look after my stuff, not to get in cabs with strange men and to never take the starting price.
I didn’t tell myself to not look like a tourist because, come on, I was about to be a Blonde in Bollywood.
Blonde in Bollywood 