Dr. Sour Puss

"Vasu-ana, what are you still doing here?" I was sitt ing in Shireesha's uncle's house in the village and was surprised to see that Vasu hadn't left for Chennai yet. The birthday party had been the day before and most people were planning on leaving early to get back to the city in the mor ning. Shireesha and I were going to stay and relax in the village for 2 more days. "You hadn't heard? Your uncle Munreddy died last night. He is your wife's, mother's, mother's cousin. V ery inauspicious for travel. Everyone is staying for the funeral today." "You can come," my uncle Mohan Reddy said with his loud and authoritative, yet broken, English. "Come, see our tradition for preparation of the dead person." "I don't know..." I said reluctantly. As a tall, loping, very Caucasian person in a remote farming village, my appearance at public events usually tended to become the focus of such events. During my first tri...

All over southern India you can find barefoot pilgrims from all walks of life travelling along the roads. Usually they are recognizable by their matching colored lunghis or the markings on their foreheads, sometimes they carry banners or sing songs. The decision to put yo ur job and family life on hold and walk barefooted to a sacred temple is actually fairly commonplace and pilgrims come from all socioeconomic groups. The major destinations in southern India include the Venkateshwara Temple in Tirupati , Andhra Pradesh , the Ayeppa Temple in Kerala , Kanyakumari at the southern tip of India, and this place, the Sri Meenakshi Temple in Madurai . The temple city has existed since antiquity but the current temple was built in the 1600s. There are references to the town and the rituals celebrated there in the writings of ancient Greek historians and many of the rites have been performed essentially unchanged continuously for over a thousand years. The temple has 12 of these tower...

Just a quick stop in Chennai, India's fourth largest city (aka Madras). I was prepared for the worst, but actually with Sankaranthi going on all week here in Tamil Nadu the city was relatively empty. Shireesha's giving a talk here at a hospital that has an affiliation with the University of Washington. We got a tour of the hospital but alas I was not able (or comfortable) to take pictures. The government hospital that takes care of much of the HIV in the state is a 100 year old facility that once functioned as a tuberculosis sanatorium. It was just about as uplifting a place as it sounds. I am constantly amazed at how much smarter the doctors in India are, they don't have CT scanners, they can't get labs drawn every day, and each fellow carries about 50 inpatients on their service, relying almost entirely on their physical diagnosis skills and their brains. Although I did get out to the hospital and to Marina Beach, I spent most of the day in bed with chills and stomach...

I'm sitting in the Hyderabad domestic air terminal and every muscle in my body bears the fatigue that only 4 days in urban India can bring. We came here by overnight train and have been enjoying 4 star hotel service at the Taj, an indulgence we usually grant ourselves midway through an India trip just so we can get a hot shower, some A/C facilitated sleep, and a real cup of coffee, not the sweetened condensed milk stuff that everyone here likes. Since we're in Hyderabad, this hotel is stuffed with American business people toting laptops. I feel smugly amused that staying in this hotel is the most luxurious thing I'll do all year while it's probably the most adventurous thing most of these other guests will ever do. As Indian cities go, Hyderabad is nice. Only 6 million people and many were back in their villages for the festival of Sankaranthi. I'm reading this fantastic book, The Age of Kali by William Dalrymple, a chronicle of the changes brought upon the subconti...

Proddatur I am sitting in a small, dark concrete room full of Shireesha’s uncles who are cracking jokes loudly, almost shouting at each other in between cackles. They are teasing my wife because I had asked how to make Andhra-style chicken. The idea that, on most nights, my wife gets home from work at 8 o clock and we order in, thus precluding me ever seeing anyone cook South Indian food, seems as incomprehensible to them as most of the things I’ve seen since arriving here would seem to my family back home. Making Andhra-style chicken The town we’re in has almost as many people living in it as Seattle, yet it isn’t marked on most maps of Andhra Pradesh, the state we’re in. The 8 hour drive that brought us here is the polar opposite of the bland sameness that characterizes interstate road travel in the U.S. The highway teems with more drama and entertainment that the Las Vegas strip on New Year’s Eve. Even between villages, there are never fewer than 500 people, and several of (what wo...

It's the little things that strike you about this place. I think this speaks volumes. Internet access is a little spotty but will try to post more later from Hyderabad.

I am going to India this Saturday. This will be my third trip with Mrs. Sour Puss. In getting my stuff together, I came across my travel journal from my first trip in 2002 which contains these random observations: "The village is crazy -- I'm the center of attention and it's not always good. Like there's preconceived notions of who I am and I don't exactly know what they are. I guess all I should do is smile and be comfortable." "Charan says we are celebrities in this town. I should dress in Indian clothes...The first temple we went to [in the village] was the Sai Baba -- very new and bright. All eyes on me the whole time. I don't know who Sai Baba is -- some saint "who did good things for the people." I made the left hand mistake with the priest, accepting the offering of coconut oil...I heard a gasp from everyone in the temple." "I keep making these cultural mistakes and I don't know how forgiving people are of them. I was d...

Ok, so I have decided to run a marathon. This is a plan I actually concocted 2 months ago, but since I have managed to stick with the training program, I guess I will make it an official resolution now. Matt and Ben are going to do this with me, you can check our progress here . I got inspired by my sister really, who not only completed the 2007 San Francisco Women's Marathon, but managed to raise a couple thousand dollars for leukemia research in the process. My sister and I both were never really very gifted athletes, both of us grew up slightly chubby in typical American style and both of us realized the benefits of exercise somewhat later in life. So if she can do it, I can do it. I have also received regular encouragement by participating in the Metafilter monthly running challenges . I have always enjoyed running short distances. It's a fairly efficient work out for someone who doesn't have a lot of free time and it allows me to listen to loud punk rock music wi...