Shopping in Bandra

My day was a lot more interesting today. The girls at the flat have warmed up to me finally, especially one girl named *Shalini. She's 21 years old and beautiful. It turns out she and her four other siblings are all orphans. She's got a boyfriend, but she doesn't know if he's the one for her, you see, he's already married. His parents had him married when he was just a toddler. I wanted to inquire about his wife and whether he had any children, but thought it best not to pry. I'm guessing the wife's either oblivious or consensual to his affair since he calls up Shalini all the time. I don't really blame the guy for getting tired of a wife he's had since childhood, but I hope he's not taking Shalini for a ride either.

Anyhow, Shalini took me shopping in Bandra. I was desperate for new clothes. My Canadian pieces which I specifically brought for Indian weather were leaving me drenched. I found some cotton shirts and half-pants for about 5$ each (200 rupees). I'm sure we could've bargained the prices down some more but I felt bad for the vendors.

We reached the bazaar by cab, and as usual the driver over-charged us. Drivers aren't supposed to charge more than what's written on the metre, but this is the second time I get over-charged with her. This hasn't happened once yet when I have a guy with me. Shalini's extremely soft-spoken and I think the drivers pick up on that. Plus, I have a difficult time being firm about the price in my broken Hindi, together, we make a great team don't we.

I've decided to tour out west in about a week's time, towards Gujarat and hopefully Rajasthan. I'd like to postpone my job search. Even if I were to find something immediately, I'm not ready to get into a work routine. There's way too much to see and explore here. I've got some friends coming down to visit their extended families. One of them will be meeting with prospective husbands, she said I can help her choose. I don't think that's the best idea as I can be very critical.

We took a bus back home from Bandra for 10 rupees each, it was about an hour-long ride. Mid-way the driver turned off the engine and abandoned all his passengers on the bus, leaving us all wondering what was going on. He came back about 20 minutes later, announcing that there was an engine failure and we had to switch over to another bus. It made me miss my Canadian city, bus drivers can be rude there as well, but at least they keep their passengers informed.

Anyhow, once we got off at our stop, some passerby's nose slime flung on to my arm. I squirmed for a very long 3 seconds as my mind processed what that yellowish-green guck was. Then I calmly pulled out a tissue from my purse and wiped the stuff off. I'm proud of myself, I'm taking everything in stride. In fact, Shalini was more grossed out than I was. I'm not even mad at the gentleman responsible for that slime, I'm sure he was aiming for the ground and my arm just got in the way.

Tomorrow's the last day of Navaratri, I haven't been in the mood for gharba much lately but will try to make it out for the last night.