Not my ideal family stay

• Adomingo4's Profile
• About this blog
• Entry from Dehradun

Trip Start May 18, 2008 Previous
Entry Trip End Jul 20, 2008

  Dehradun, India
Wednesday, July 9, 2008

I woke up and went downstairs to talk to the Dwarkada family that runs the guesthouse. There is just the parents and one daughter in the house, and another family visiting for 10 days (this is the last day). The mom runs the guesthouse business and the dad is a financial planner who works from home and so far has been sitting around all day chain smoking. Mrs. Dwarkada and I had a talk while she cooked a breakfast I wouldn't eat because she charges 125 rs for each meal on top of a ridiculous 500 rs/ night which I'm paying for because at the moment I don't have any other options. She is very blunt and speaks her mind. She's somewhat negative about things and argued that Americans are very backwards in their thought. She argued about money with me, saying that surely I can afford to pay $10 a night, but I've only been paying about $2.50 everywhere else so there's no way I want to waste money on this fancy guesthouse. I actually would pay a little more to stay here, maybe $5/ night if the family was actually nice and welcoming. She gave me a lecture later in the day about how money makes the world go 'round and how I need it to do things I want to do. I told her I didn't like talking about it, and that I was planning on paying her so stop worrying about it. I think I should also tell her that another way of doing good business besides getting as much money as possible from her few guests is to be kind, welcoming, and accommodating so that her guests give recommendations. That approach worked really well for Mr. Sahi in Varanasi as he doesn't charge a lot, creates a great family environment, and has a full house year round. It seems like the people that live in cities and are upper castes are even more stressed out than Americans about education, work, money, and material things. Maybe I'll go out to the country and find a chilled out family that would be more welcoming and appreciative of my company and money.
Arijit picked me up in the late morning to take me to the Doon Society's office and get my schedule planned out for the video project. I told him I was interested in doing some medical volunteering, and on the way to the office, he stopped in a clinic, picked up a doctor, and drove me over to the Tibetan hospital which is just across the street from the guesthouse. The doctor introduced me to the lady who runs the hospital, a sweet Tibetan lady who speaks good English and apparently Hindi and Tibetan as well. She told me I could come in the mornings and help, but I'm not sure if I will. Since there's only one lady in the whole place that speaks English and she has a lot of other responsibilities, I'd probably be more of a hindrance than help. It's also a hospital like any other I've been to, meaning it's sterile and kind of depressing for me to be in all day. I am planning on being a doctor, but I don't think I'll be one that has to be in hospitals all day. Maybe it will be more of a positive experience when I can provide real help as a doctor. At the Doon office, I met a few other staff and had some delicious bread in tamarind sauce. We got our plans set up, and it looks like I will need to extend my stay in India to finish the project. They also got me excited about studying Ayurvedic medicine while in India, and I might go find a class for a few weeks in Haridwar after I finish making the film.
Later on, I had some chow mein on the side of the road by the monastery for 16 rs and bought some water, lemons, ginger, and honey to make some of my favorite tea. I played some net-less badminton with the 10-year-old daughter of the family after the dad got tired of it and showed them some of my art and photos. They also showed me some photos from their trip to Badrinath and the Valley of Flowers, and Mrs. Dwarkada invited me to dinner. The way she asked was kind of hesitant and it seemed like the other ladies in the visiting family pressured her into it. Either that or she felt bad after her rant about money after I said I didn't like to stress about it. The Indian food was good as always. We had a local dish that was jackfruit cooked as a vegetable and some cucumber sauce w/ veggies. After, they tried to put in a movie they bought on the road and it turns out the disk didn't work in the DVD player or was just blank. The whole 20 minutes of trying to figure this out, Mrs. Dwarkada was yelling at her husband to fix it though he tried everything he could. She's 46 and seems like she might be going through menopause. Another clue that life for upper caste city people is super-stressed is her friend's 60 year-old appearance at 40 years old. Anyways, I tried to help out the situation by bringing Darjeeling Limited down from my room, but they seemed disappointed when they realized the main characters were all white. My favorite person in the house, the mother of the visiting family, told Mrs. Dwarkada to either keep talking or watch the movie, then borrowed the DVD to watch on her laptop when everyone went to bed 10 minutes into the film. Mrs. D showed me pictures of her 21 year-old daughter who's doing graphic design in Delhi and said I reminded her of her daughter with my art and age. I kindly made my escape and went to bed.

Share

Previous Entry