ah the famous people

Today was a rather surreal and incredible day. I feel guilty because it was all very upper class and westernized but I suppose that one cannot say it is not the real India, but just one India –on very fascinating India—as Rima said.
We had hindi in the morning as usual. We began to cover tenses and thus, for me, it was a rather dreadful time. And it also began that horrible habit of people starting talk to me in phrases of hindi. I don’t know if I simply freak out or don’t have knowledge capacity, but I generally stare numbly back at them and make an all around ass of myself.
But for the rest of day we went back to the literature fair and had a marvelous time. First we saw Fatima Bhutto speaking with Dalrymple. Basically she told the story of her life, and what a interesting and tragic life it is—not to mention historically informing. She must have seen every disaster personal and world-notable (from the death of Benizar to 9/11) possible. Very well spoken but I didn’t find her brilliant.
Afterwards, Emma, Emily, Teresa and I hung out for a while around the place and then walked to the old city. Here was wandered through crowded sales street after sales street taking it in. Ultimately, we homed in on a store that had the cotton pashmina-like shawls. Emma and I after a bit of haggling which I thought was going well but made 2 errors, 1) didn’t stick to my price that I had set to pay rp. 200 and 2) didn’t walk out of the store to get to that price. We ended up paying 230 each. Whatever. I very much like my new shawl though I fear to wear it because I have already managed one pull in the fabric.
When we came back we got lots of free food and lots of their amazing spiced tea. The whole thing reminded me strongly of events in DC with important people and free food in gorgeous places, feeling out of place but caring the ‘student card’ as I now like to think of it.
We then took big tourist buses to a mall theater where we saw Atonement—a uniquely filmed, wonderfully sound-orchestrated, and tragic movie. Then we got to hear from the author of the book Ian McEwen and the screenwriter of the movie! Nothing too fascinating was said, but it was amazing all the same.
To top it all off, it was warm today!

ah the famous people

Jaipur, India