different worlds

Yesterday as I was preparing my speech for the Rotary meeting, I noticed an announcement in The Hindu: "Melanie Dean speaks about 'My Experience in Madurai." I got pretty nervous seeing that, especially because I was in the midst of trying to figure out how to not to garble "pure" Tamil words in my speech. I feared a central Pennsylvania Pongal celebration repeat, in which the audience turned out not to be fifty but something like five hundred people. But there were only about 25 people there last night, and they were all super nice and happy to hear me speaking Tamil.

It was a totally different world I stepped into yesterday evening. The world of "high society" people, as Tamilarasi calls them. It was the first time in three months I've been in an English- medium environment. They were all speaking English, in fact the entire meeting was conducted in English. Then the American girl steps up to the podium to give a speech in Tamil! It was funny, actually. They liked it though, and at the end people had a lot of interesting questions. But I was pretty taken aback by one older gentleman's question, "In America men marry men and women marry women! We are afraid that is going to come here. What do you think about this?" I responded in Tamil, and I was trying to say that I didn't have any comment, but I think what I really said was something like, "I really don't have an opinion one way or the other." I of course do have an opinion, but I think it's an opinion that isn't going to be understood or well-received in such an audience. I think my response could have potentially irritated the audience or could have made them happy. Fortunately other members of the audience started in with other questions, so I dodged. They wanted to know how I was going to go about finding a husband, and they found it comical (but understood) why I would never consent to living with in-laws, as is the custom here. I managed to crack some jokes too, which made me pretty happy. Overall it was a nice experience. But when I was reading the speech, I was pretty darn nervous. It's always intimidating to speak Tamil in an English medium environment.

What really impressed me, after living in Meenambalpuram for the past three months, is how completely separate worlds exist here, with very little contact between them. This meeting was taking place maybe one mile from where I live, but it's a universe away. I guess it is kind of like going from small town South Carolina to some snooty, Ivy League, northeastern U.S. blue blood social function. Except the people at the function last night weren't the least bit snooty or entitled. They just live in a very different world from the folks in Meenambalpuram. And they gave me a pretty awesome gift: a set of six glass tumblers. I am trying not to admire them too much lest they shatter like my late coffee mug.

I'm afraid there's no photographic evidence of the event because my drishti sari was so powerful it broke the camera. Well, not really, but it would have if there had been a camera. In fact, this sari invited so much drishti I am sick YET AGAIN. After the talk I went to the fancy (A/C!) restaurant downstairs for dinner where there was a fan blowing cold air on me. My throat started to hurt immediately. I got scared and asked the waiter to move it, but it was too late. There you have it: evil eye + air conditioning = deadly. This stuff is REAL folks. I really don't understand how it is possible to get sick "again" when I've been sick for two solid weeks, but it's happened. To make matters worse, on the way home I got compliments on my sari, compounding the drishti problem. I came home late so there was no one there to rotate camphor tablets around my head, make me spit on them and then burn them. So I did this myself. I don't think it works to do this evil eye thing on yourself, but I was desperate. I've been hacking my lungs out for two weeks and I cannot handle another round. Then I started gargling with salt water and made lemon and honey tea as a double whammy. Somebody needs to tell the Milan store that this "Drishti collection" can be dangerous to health!