On tongues, trunks, and other muscles.

I'm pretty sure if I'm ever in a fight, I want an Indian tongue to back me up.  I mean, if the tongue really is the strongest muscle of the body, than the Indian tongue has to be the tongue equivalent to Superman.  Not only is the Indian tongue assaulted on a daily basis by some of the deadliest of spices (I still can't get through my daily lunch at Baba's without crying), but Marathi is like tongue gymnastics.  Between all the retro flexing, teeth flicking, and r rolling my mouth is starting to get pretty sore.  We've had a couple Marathi classes already, and while I can introduce myself and give some very angry directions to a rickshaw driver, I've pretty much resigned myself to the fact that I am utterly hopeless at this language.  There are just some sounds that simply don't exist in English.  Which is why, even after literally hours of repeating gargling sounds at our very patient professor, I still can't hear the difference between "ta" and "tHA" in the Marathi alphabet.

It was after one of these particularly frustrating classes (in which I failed miserably at trying to sing a children's nursery rhyme about cheating the rain...duh) I accompanied my host mother (my "Ai," one of the few words I actually can say) to the downtown Laxmi road.  It's a beautiful road, actually. (SEE WHAT I JUST DID?! ACTUALLY). It's really just a long road that is lined with tall beautiful buildings lit up like Christmas trees.  We were on our way to the Sari tailor my Ai knows, and I was staring absolutely dumbfounded at all the lights, when my Ai (pronounced "eye-eee" by the way) grabbed my arm excitedly and pointed across the street.  What else would be walking down this busy, crowded metropolitan street but a beautifully painted elephant?  A real ELEPHANT!  It was surrounded by small children and...well...myself...eagerly trying to get a better.look.  At my Ai's urging, I reached up and touched it on it's gorgeous, hair, leathery trunk...and nearly peed my pants when it wrapped it's trunk around my waist.  A little girl pushed a chicory (honey tasting fruit we don't have in the States) into my hands and I pressed the fruit into the nostril of the trunk.  It seemed rather rude to me, but the elephant let go and shoved the fruit into it's mouth.  A few people even put some rupee coins it, and the elephant would obediently curl it's trunk up and give it to the tiny little man riding him.  It was absolutely magical.  Where else would an elephant be walking down a busy street at night but India?   What's more, this was just moments after seeing two little boys riding CAMELs down the street.  What a world!

Yesterday night was nearly just as interesting.  For those of you who haven't been keeping up with the news in India, a pretty big anti-corruption movement has begun, with a man named Anna as it's figurehead.  The rather huge irony in this is that, because of all the (peaceful) protests happening in Pune, my police registration has been delayed, along with others.  Some have had to (irony alert) bribe the police to even get a registration meeting at all.  Until I finish registering, I don't have a phone, so there's that. 

Last night though, a few of us were going in search of dinner, when we ran straight into a protest march.  It was maybe 200 strong, consisting mostly of students (the bulk of Pune's population) carrying candles, signs, and chanting "We want nation without corruption!" in unison.  It was quite an amazing sight to see.  While some of the students were clearly just along for the ride, you could tell a lot of them were very passionate about their issue.  We walked with them for a bit, just watching, and it was quite an incredible thing to see.  When we reached the front of the massive parade, I saw that one wizened old man was leading the march, flexing his political muscle.  How "mustah" as they might say. Gorgeous.