Vijayawada

Nice and Hot.

As you’ll recall, I first came to India about five years ago as an escort for a group of ladies having a womens’ conference. (You don’t recall that? I’m not surprised. I couldn’t tell you what I had for breakfast yesterday.) 

My only responsibility was to prevent mashers from mashing anyone in our group. Although the Indian men I’ve met in my travels have been unfailingly courteous, I was told that mashing had been enough of a problem in prior women’s conferences to warrant masculine accompaniment. 

“Why such atypically rude behaviour?” I asked. What I was told is that some Indian men compare the modest way their wives and sisters are dressed to the y-chromosome stimulating images they see in western movies and advertisements and assume American gals want to be mashed. Seems a bit far-fetched to me.

Hospitality is not taken lightly in India. Could it be that the masher is simply fearful of disappointing their fair guests by not accomodating them? I merely suggest the possibility. You are free to draw your own conclusions. 

In any event, I have now provided my services to three women’s conferences in five years without so much as a pinch. 

Vijayawada is about halfway down the east side of the subcontinent. The name means “Land of Victory” having something to do with a war they won 500 years ago and are still celebrating.

At the conferences, Indian women come to learn American teaching methods. Along with the instruction, there’s food and music. That’s the other place I come in. I play guitar and we sing kids songs in Telegu the main language spoken in Vijayawada. (One of the twenty-two main languages spoken around India.) 

Sometimes women come to us, sometimes we go out to them.

On one trip, we went up into the hills of the Eastern Ghats. In this particular part of the range, most villagers had never seen an American. The kids had never even seen white people before and they weren’t sure what we might do. Play guitar for them. Eat them. They weren’t sure. They put up a nice pavilion for us and hoped for the best.

Our ladies taught, I played kid songs, we ate and a swell time was had by all. Except for this tiny tot.

She never was quite sure about us – especially about the guy with the feather in his hat.

At another village we were invited to, I could have cooked an egg on my face. My guitar kept slipping out of my arms from the non-stop sweat pouring off my body. It was like playing a wet seal. They had a new outdoor thermometer installed so we could all admire just how distressed we were. 39C with 65% humidity made the heat index 139 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s my personal best – a record I am very satisfied with and one I am determined never to beat.

Next week, a cool visit to the Bay of Bengal.