There is no place like India.

Yesterday, while walking down the street, an old beggar woman tried to hit me in the face with a sack full of something, unprovoked. Nice.

Today, we found ourselves in the company of a rickshaw driver named Vicky (his father got confused by English names when he visited London) whose rickshaw had purple seats and was tricked out with huge speakers. All day, riding around Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan, and seeing the sights – palaces and a beautiful marble crematorium hundreds of years old – we were serenaded by Vicky’s interpretations of various pop songs and we head bopped to “What is Love” with him at stoplights. Incidentally, this is a good way to confuse and fascinate beggars into forgetting to ask you for money.

Then we had a minor rickshaw-cow accident. The cow ran into us, though. (No worries, no one – even the cow – was hurt.) [By the way, cows curl into little balls on the ground, like cats, when they want to sleep. I never would have thought.]

It’s been so long since I’ve written, I’m not sure that there is any way for me to do justice to the experiences that Jillian and I have been having. India is dirty and it smells like rotting animals and vomit and there are people shitting on the street. But it is vibrantly colorful, historical and soulful in a way that catches you off guard. The people we meet everyday on the street are also, by far, my favorite people from the entire trip up to now. Though every second of the day people are trying to get you to buy things and hiking up their prices when they see you, there is a warmth to them that betrays the genuine underlying kindness of the people as a whole. Getting a big smile and a handshake from an Indian schoolchild is like winning the lottery – it gives you this feeling that goodwill does prevail in the world. It’s cheesy to say, but a genuine smile like people hand out here makes me feel like everything’s okay in the world, we’ll all figure out how to work things out together.

These moments I love. I call them a “Traveler’s High”. When you’re running around a strange country, you do a lot of thinking about the state of the world as a whole and it becomes linked to your own personal experiences. If I have a run-in with somebody or the ridiculousness of the unorganization of a place makes me want to punch someone (my friend Alison calls this “Foreigner’s Rage,” – very common, along with severe cases of bitterness over people from home having forgotten you existed and not returning your emails) or a foreign man treats me with less respect than he would a man, I think, ‘We’ll never get it all together!’ and decide that the world community is doomed. It makes me want to just give up and find the nearest mall to whittle the afternoon away in.

There was one day, in Mysore (which has the most beautiful palace, and a maharaja who still lives there), when Jillian and I went to a temple. Outside, there was a man handing out flowers. He insisted we take one each. We refused, knowing he would expect money afterward. But then he REALLY insisted, so we relented, being a bit wet behind the ears. Inside we went, where there was a priest who accepted our flowers and put red powder bindis on our foreheads, and tied red and yellow cloth bracelets on our wrists.

Then he said, “40 rupees.”

“What?” we both cried. “No! Here, have 5 from each of us.”

“40 rrrruuuuuupeeeees!” he insisted.

But we stood our ground, and were met with muttering in the local language and a steely stare, which made us feel ever-so-slightly not welcome and / or not prayerful in the place of worship where we found ourselves.

So we soon left. Outside, we were met by the flower man.

“10 rupees each!” he barked.

“No!” we said, “You didn’t say before we went in.”

“10 rupees each! That is how much. You give. You give 10, and you give 10.” He pointed at each of us for emphasis.

“No,” I said. “Absolutely not.” I checked my wallet for coins, and handed the man 3 rupees.

“Tah!” he grunted angrily, and turned on Jillian. “20 rupees!”

“No, too much! And no have!” she said back (you start talking like this here).

“I give change,” the man said, and put his hand out.

Jillian looked at me, and I shrugged. She reluctantly handed over a 100 (worth $2.50 USD). The mean flower man grabbed it and handed her 40 rupees back.

“More!” Jillian said, and the man gave her 10 more.

“More!” Jillian said, and the man gave her 10 more.

“Keep going!” Jillian said, growing tired of the little game, which was, in fact, very tiring. The man handed over 20 more rupees and then turned away.

“Hey!” we shouted, “More! 20 rupees for flowers too much!”

“Bah!” the flower man shouted, and then began to walk the other way, shouting things we could not understand.

Since we were not going to get into a brawl with a man on the street outside a temple, we walked away. But we were P.O.ed.

“Goddammit!” I said, “In a goddamn place of worship, even!”

“Sooo frustrating!” Jillian said. “It’s like this all over Asia! People shoving each other out of the way to pray! People stealing your money! It’s so disheartening!”

We walked down the stairs back toward our waiting rickshaw. The flower man had, in fact, stolen money from us outside of a temple of all places. We are not made of money! We are not ATMs! We do not have signs on us that say, ‘Kick me and then steal from me!’. The PRINCIPLE upset me and the INJUSTICE of it all made my blood boil. They think we are easy targets, just because of the way we look!

…Then a little monkey with a face like a Baldwin brother ran past.

“Monkey,” I said (I seem to have the need to say it like this – ! – whenever I see one), but reluctantly, with the edge of anger still in my voice.

…Then we passed a baby goat, looking at us out of the corner of his eye while he munched on a poster for a Bollywood movie called Jodha Akbaar. I felt my anger soften, ever-so-slightly. He was just so cute.

…Then 2 Indian teenage girls wearing bright saris passed us going in the other direction. They flashed their teeth in big grins and one waved energetically.

“Hello,” we said, returning their greeting, just barely letting little smiles escape at first. The second girl took up waving also. Before I knew it, I had a full smile going.

‘Well, fuck,’ I thought, watching my anger disappear completely.

And that’s how it happens. India gets to you before you even realize it.

WE ARE FAMOUS NOW

Before we ever got to Mumbai (Bombay), we knew we wanted to be in a Bollywood movie. We’d heard it’s quite easy. They are always looking for “European” people to be extras in the background. Having began regaled with stories of bottomless cups of chai and ‘amazing’ Indian food while you wait around the set and have your hair and makeup done, we were fully prepared to sacrifice a day of sightseeing to take part in the experience.

As such, our first day in Mumbai, our first order of business was to find a phone to contact a casting director. Jillian was saying the words, “We need a phone then,” when a man walked up and handed us his business card, which said, ‘Cute Look Casting,’ on it.

“Hello!” he said. “Bollywood, yes? You know?”

Yes.

“How would you like to be in this production? Is a song scene. We need European people for the background. You get chai while you wait, you done by 8 o’clock. Yes?”

There was some back and forth, but in the end, we agreed to do it and promised to meet the man at McDonald’s at 3 o’clock.

ASIDE: In India, McDonald’s clearly does not serve beef burgers. Instead, they sell veggie burgers, chicken burgers and filet o’ fish. The veggie burger is not bad…

We, along with other “Europeans”, were taken to the set in a taxi, with a PA chaperone. The set was a very large, old, abandoned factory. There were a lot of people walking around wearing sunglasses and we spent some time wondering which ones might possibly be famous.

The Perfectly-Attired Wardrobe Lady came in and looked us all up and down.

“Okay,” she said, “Let’s see your changes of clothes.”

We all stared at her.

“Changes of clothes! You have them, no?”

Negative. We were not told about this.

The wardrobe lady’s eyes grew wide as she re-inspected us.

She whipped around suddenly and shouted in Hindi to two or three assistants, who started making frantic phone calls.

“You can go home, yes? Get something strappy, colorful for top. Get skirts, do your hair, come back? We need you to look attractive.” She waited expectantly for our responses.

“We’re backpackers,” a Slovenian girl said, “They pulled us off the street like this. This is what we have.”

The wardrobe lady looked a bit panicked. “You must have something else. That!” she said, pointing to the Slovenian girl’s shirt, “You would not wear that to a party. What do you wear to parties? Not that. And not a skirt that long [ankle-length].” She turned to Jillian and jumped backward. “No!”

[FLASHBACK to breakfast that very morning, where Jillian looks down at her t-shirt which has printed on it, INDIA! FAMOUS FOR THE TAJ MAHAL, ELEPHANTS, SPIRITUALITY, VARIETY... AND ME! and says, "I can't believe no one has said anything about my t-shirt!"]

“This will not do, no!” the wardrobe lady snaps. In the same instant she turns to me and my “Indian-style” cotton top. “You two,” she said, “need to be sorted out.”

…Time on the set dragged on. We met a nice Israeli couple, drank a lot of chai, started asking for food and watched the other “Europeans” leave, one by one, while the CHEESIEST boy band you have ever seen in your life filmed shots for their music video in the background. There were motorcycles and fake graffiti backgrounds, there were fake gold dollar signs hung around necks, there were pure-white outfits against pure white backgrounds with spray-painted doves, curtains waving in the man-made breeze, and a man throwing terrified live doves straight at The Talent.

In short, there was a lot to make sarcastic comments about. We have some great video for You Tube also, if ever we find an internet cafe that can handle our cameras.

“Well,” we said, “Whoever they are, this must be their first video. It’s soooo cheesy!” And they kept messing up.

As it turns out, they were F4 [star symbol], the winners of last year’s, “Indian Idol.”

And this is not their first video.

We waited around until 10:00 when we were told to wash our faces (we refused, but did apply more makeup) and shake our hair out of our ponytail holders. (So much for hair and makeup.) Our outfits would “have to do,” we were told by the assistant director, and then commanded to stand in line with the 15 Indian teenage girls who were also going to be in the video.

Jillian and I were in separate lines, but both were pulled to the front as the (only) token white girls of the video. The boys came out – the oldest cannot be more than 21 – in their best “cool while being mobbed by girls” outfits and we filmed the same 25 seconds over and over again.

When Jillian and I were told which ones to do what to, we had to ask the girls next to us, “Which one is Abhishek?” “Which one is Suhit?” and The Talent overheard us and everyone got a big laugh out of it.

This may not be their first video, but they are still a bit green. After take one, the little guy handed me back my flowers and said, “Thank you,” half-bowing, and the director shouted, “Suhit! Stop blushing!”

This is how it goes: The boys walk away from a car (whose license plate says F4 [star symbol] on it) through the center of us girls, who are going craaaaazy with excitement. The girl to my right gets an autograph from the cute one. Jillian gets a hug from the one named Abhi. I give the tiny 12-year-old-looking one a bundle of flowers and he bows. They pause at the end and sing while gesturing widely with their hands, with us teenyboppers still going wild in the background.

The video should be out in India in about a month. Hopefully they keep the shots with us in them in, and we can get it onto You Tube so everyone at home can see!

Well, there is much more, but Vicky the Party Rickshaw Conductor is waiting for us. We are going to Pizza Hut for dinner…