December 13th, 2009

Well, we’ve officially been in India for one month today! We arrived just after midnight on November 13^th. Crazy eh? In one way it feels as thought I’ve been here forever, and in another way it feels like the time has just flown by. As much fun as I’m having, there really is no place like home though, and I am starting to look forward to coming home J

Today we went shopping in T. Nagar – one of the main shopping districts in Chennai. We started off around 9am, because we were told that it is best to get there early on in the day to avoid crowds. I was bracing myself for the worst (Anna told me to bring a paper bag in case of hyperventilation) but when we got there it really wasn’t so bad. The streets were quite wide, and there were a lot of stores, but at 10 am, not that many people were out and about. The objectives of the day were mostly wedding shopping for Priyanka – she wanted to look for her wedding Sari (yes, THE wedding sari!) as well as some sari’s for her friends and family. I was also hoping to buy something to wear to Priyanka’s wedding, as well as some souvenirs for people at home.

We started of at KM&R Wedding Silks, but didn’t find anything too special there, so we headed to Nelli – a famous silk/sari store. Sari shopping is a really interesting experience. The big stores are separated by type of Sari (and often more specifically by type of silk). In front of each shelving unit full of saris is a huge, cloth covered table. You tell the man standing behind the table what colour/kind of sari you want, and he starts pulling things out for you to look at. If it strikes your fancy, you can get him to open it up on the table so you can see the Atchel (which is usually the most ornate part).

Nelli is a huge, over air conditioned store – it literally had floors and floors of saris, as well as a floor of fancier Salwars, kids-wear and mens wear. We started looking on the main floor at fancy, embroidered saris for Priyanka. Although she found a few nice ones, there wasn’t one with the “wow” factor. We decided to try looking at a different type of silk on the next floor. When we got upstairs the man behind the table said “oh, we have genuine wedding sari’s here” and pulled out this absolutely gorgeous one. Priyanka’s eyes immediately lit up – I could tell she was excited. I’m going to skip ahead a little bit here – it’s the one she ended up getting after a little bit of comparison at other shops – but I’m not going to describe it because I don’t want to let the cat out of the bag. Lets just say its very beautiful and ornate.

At this point it was nearing 1pm, and we were getting hungry, so we called up Anna, who was supposed to meet us for lunch. We caught an auto and headed to Sanjeevanam (the restaurant we’d previously been to with Priya, only a different location) our meeting spot. We’d goaded Anna into joining us for the full ayeurvedic lunch, which Priya assured us we would enjoy.

The lunch started off with some raw-ish banana with coconut flakes, and five juices. The juices had to be drunk in a specific order – right to left, and consisted of date juice (which was pleasantly sweet), sweetened buttermilk (mmmm), beet root juice (very bitter, but tolerable), a minty-yogurt concoction (ick) and last of all, red rice water (super ick). We couldn’t stop laughing at each others faces when we tried some of the more “exotic” juices. Anna, as it turns out, is a really picky eater, and she only came to Sanjeevanum for us – we were both touched and amused.

After the juices came the raw and semi cooked foods, which were all served on a giant banana leaf. There was a pile of this grain (that I couldn’t identify, but was really tasty), a salad with carrots and cucumbers, something they call “banana stem” which was soaked in yogurt and pickled lime peel. Everything was pretty tasty except for the pickled lime peel, which was quite sour. I think I was the most adventurous of our trio – I really wanted to try and finish everything in the proper order, to maximize the effect. The semi-cooked foods consisted of winter-melon, some unidentifiable white stuff (which was actually quite good), pumpkin and pineapple, and banana flower. The banana flower kind of reminded me of Yves veggie ground round…it was interesting. Not my favourite, but not bad either. After the semi-cooked foods came the cooked foods. The cooked foods consisted of bitter-melon (which was gross – despite my best intentions of finishing everything, I drew the line at this), spinach, mixed veggie curry and tomato chutney. We also got white rice with some assorted dahls to put on top, and there was some red rice (which tasted suspiciously like the red rice water) and a very thin dahl. I think the red rice was technically semi-cooked. In any case, I ate it before the cooked stuff.

Once we’d finished all of that (well, really once I finished all of that – the other two left a lot of stuff on their banana leaf that they didn’t like), we were served a sweet rice pudding for dessert. This made Anna happy because she’s into sweets. In fact, I think during the juice course she said “if this meal doesn’t end with dessert, I might kill someone!”. We also got paan, which is this Indian sweet that you are supposed to chew on for a long time. This was my first time eating paan – I stuck it in my mouth and started to chew. It tasted pretty good, and I didn’t feel the need to chew it for too long, so I swallowed it. Anna was in conversation with Priyanka, but when she looked over at me and saw that I had swallowed mine already she laughed and said “man, that was the fastest paan eating I’ve ever seen”. I guess I didn’t savour it like I was supposed to J The whole meal was followed up by a spoonful of honey to aid digestion. Yum!

All in all it was a pretty fun experience! I’m really glad we went! I don’t think I’ve ever giggled that much at any meal – I’m sure the waiters thought we were ridiculous. I’m sad that we don’t have any photos from the meal – neither of us brought our cameras because we were afraid of losing them in the T. Nagar hustle and bustle.

After we’d taken some time to digest, we all headed back to T. Nagar (including Anna who had some of her own errands to run). Priyanka did end up buying her sari, as well as another one for one of her future sister-in-laws. All of this took surprisingly longer than we thought, and it was soon time to say goodbye to Anna (her Sunday curfew is 6pm!). We were sad to say goodbye, but happy that we were able to see her again before heading back to Canada. I really hope that if she comes to the US or Canada eventually she comes to visit us!

Once Anna left we decided we were all Sari’d out, and started to look for something for me to wear for Priyanka’s wedding. I’d thought that I wanted a fancy salwar, but after looking at a few places, didn’t really find anything I wanted that was in my price range.

At this point T. Nagar was filling up fast. The roads were just overflowing with people. It was slightly overwhelming, but at the same time, it made the roads easier to cross because you could always count on crossing with a crowd, rather than having to wait for a break in the cars.

Eventually I decided that I wanted to get a Sari as well, instead of a salwar. So back to Nelli we went. It took me a long time (and by this time it was nearing closing time, so the employees were getting tired and somewhat impatient), but eventually I found a gorgeous silk blend, royal purple sari, accented with rhinestones and beadwork, and at totally fair price of only 900 INR. Pretty sweet deal! I’m really excited for it! Not only will it be great for Priyanka’s wedding, but it’s a nice souvenir of our time here in India.

After I got my sari we picked up a few more things for Priyanka’s family members, and then decided it was time to call it quits. We’d literally been out and about for almost 12 hours.

We arrived home around 9:30 pm, and after a quick dinner and chatting with family are winding things down for the evening. What a long and crazy (but fun!) day! I’ve officially survived shopping in T. Nagar!