Halva in India

At last, I am blogging again.
In fact at long last, I am blogging again.
Too many things have taken place in the brief 1.5 months that I have been here, but suffice to say these photographs are symbolic of my impressions of this city so far.

Delhi is 1) Imposing and Intimdating 2) Intricate - complex and diverse and 3) There's a picture of me in the white and turqoise walking up to God Knows Where.

I don't know where I am going or what I am going to find, but I am walking up anyway.

It's been so hectic just finding an apartment in a city with the distinction of one of the highest property markets in the world that I have been simply exhausted by it all - now that I have found a tiny, 2-room cosy rooftop terrace apartment with funky bathroom tiles and the view of the street below, I guess am pretty much settled.

My neighbour downstairs is a French-Indian couple who invited me to a dinner party last week, where I met the following people: 2 independent film directors, 2 journalists, 1 editor for Asian spa, 1 restauranteer, 1 water management expert and 2 humanitarian workers fresh from Kabul.

My unhealthy obsession with work is soon apparent given the limits of my social conversation skills, but at least I am able to impress Film Director#1 with my knowledge on the difference between trafficking and smuggling, and convince him that he needs to make a film on refugees.

Somehow it all doesn't make great dinner conversation.

I have since enrolled in a super yoga class http://www.navtejjohar.com/ which starts at 7am - in which I met an art curator flying off to Vienna to attend an exhibition. The other day I was standing in the rain at a vegetable cart when out of impulse I shared my umbrella with a girl standing next to me. She took to the gesture and helped me converse in Hindi with the vendor. I later bump into her at B-Mart, the friendly neighbourhood grocery store, and she hands a card telling me she lives in the neighbourhood and to call her anytime. She's a fashion designer from Bangalore.

All of a sudden, I feel the urgent need to be uber-interesting in order to be socially adequate.

It does NOT help that out of a fit of madness, I made the deranged decision of walking into a random beauty salon (yes it was actually called 'salon' with the dubious name of 'Madonna') to have a haircut.

I walked out looking like a poofy-headed extra for a bad 70's inspired musical. Or an Asian family member of the Hanson brothers.

I had to urgently source a corrective stylist. I was referred to a Frenchman who promised a tres chic repair, but he charges 2000 rupees (around RM200). Desperate to save my ridiculous crown, I manage to find a Bollywood hairdresser charging half the amount who looked incredibly Malaysian with her half-Nepali and half-Chinese parentage. She told me that the top of my head was literally cut in the shape of a block.

A blockheaded Malaysian female who can't stop jabbering about forced migrants is decidedly not attractive.

Thankfully, the story ends well, as the exotic coiffeur manages to save the day and I lose the audition for a glittery role in nostalgic Hindi song-and-dance clips.

This Friday I am scheduled for my first feel-good Bollywood film called 'Bachna Ae Haseeno', and a party for Saturday with Americans, it seems, that I have to attend with a new-found friend who is a lawyer as well as a high-altitude mountain trekker (of course).

Will be furiously watching CNN until then.