Cold Chandigarh

Where was I? O yeah, I arrived in India, chaos in Delhi, warm welcome by host family, lot of extremes etc. Wednesday, Day 3, I had another great Indian (warm) breakfast, did some chilling in my room and played some football with Jasmeet (of course while wearing my orange jersey). Then I did some shopping with Harmeet at a flea market because I needed some more warm clothes. Have I told you yet they have no central heating system so it’s inside as cold as outside? So most of the times I’m even wearing my jacket and scarf inside the house…crazy! Oh, and there’s no hot water. So taking a shower means boiling a lot of water, put it in a big ass bucket, mix that with cold water and then use this little scoop thingy to poor it on you.

Anyway, in the afternoon we watched a movie and then it was time to say goodbye to my host family and go to the trainee house, where I am supposed to be living for the rest of my stay here with fellow adventurers. I met my roomies: Malick from Senegal, Daniela from Brazil and Maria from New Zealand. Nice combination right? The combination 1) no heating system, 2) just a thin blanket, 3) crappy isolation and 4) officially the coldest day in Chandigarh ever recorded (no kidding!), was not so nice… I was wearing my jacket, scarf and gloves in bed and still had one of the coldest nights in my life and a really hard time falling asleep. I don’t even want to know how all the people in the slums must have felt. There were actually some deaths reported of (probably homeless) people who didn’t make it through the night. And that was Day 3!

The next morning, still frozen, I had my first doubts about the whole India experience. To live in such a cold house is not funny at all. But luckily my new roommates were there and took me with them to lunch somewhere in the city. It was nice to get to know new international people again, like I have been doing for the last 2 years. At one point we entered a dance studio because one my roomies was interested in taking lessons. After watching one of the lessons for a while the dance instructor closed the door and forced us to join them in learning some Indian dance moves. What the hell!? I didn’t sign up for that! But ok, let’s just go with the flow and make a fool out of myself. So I did… Sorry, no video material available. In the evening we sat all together in one room with some simple heaters, getting to know each other, having some food, listening to music and I gathered some more blankets for another cold night to come. The doubts were gone; I’m going to have a good time here.

Friday, Day 5. Everything goes so slowly here that I’m taking over this rhythm and am losing my Dutch productivity. Waking up, having breakfast and actually start doing something takes about 3 hours. Time to change, not too much, but just a bit. So I went to find a gym together with my Brazilian roommate Daniela, jogging. I found a decent one which I’m probably going to join. On our way back we stopped by the liquor store to buy some cheap alcohol. Feeling Dutch again. Later in the afternoon me and Ms. Brazil went to play some football with Indian people, 5 against 5, of course wearing my orange jersey again and showing them how the Dutch play football (no comments please). Back home, physically destroyed, I desperately needed a shower but I had to wait for 20 minutes to boil all the water, kind of annoying…
Friday night was clubbing night! With my roommates and a bunch of foreign and Indian friends they gathered over the past months we went to this rather empty club. Apparently it was too cold for the Indians to leave their house, which was perfectly understandable. We had a great time anyway and it was funny to see people from different countries having completely different ways of dancing. The club closed at 1.45 AM (!) and me, Maria and Daniela had some girl talk until 3. Then I passed out.

“Stop worrying about the potholes in the road and celebrate the journey.” – Fitzhugh Mullan