Backseat Bitches

It's rare that we actually have to be somewhere, anywhere, especially at a specific time. But three nights ago, this was the case. We were meeting our friend Julia at our apartment to cook dinner for her last night in Mysore. We ran to More Megastore to pick up groceries to make a vegetable curry, some rice, a salad, dessert, and cocktails (Mysore Manglers--guava juice and Hercules brand rum; more on how ridiculously sketchy and difficult it is to buy alcohol later). After spending the seemingly obligatory fifteen minutes waiting in line behind people getting their things pricechecked over and over again, using coupons, and trying to bargain down the price of biscuits, onions, whatever, we found a rickshaw that would accept what we wanted to pay ("60 rupees? No, no, we only pay 40 from here to Gokulam, and that's twice as far! No, well, ok, we'll find someone else. Oh, you'll take us now? ok!"), we figured we were home free. There's a post office on our street that serves as a solid landmark for drivers. Lakshimpuram post office, in Lakshmipuram. Can't fail, right?

As our more clever readers may have guessed, no, not right. Actually, wrong.

We drive, and drive, and drive, and as a huge park or lawn, some mass of green that stretches for what seems like 2km, passes on our left, I lean over to Melina and say, "where the f*ck are we?" (trying to cut down on my cursing, really). She thinks we're headed in the right direction, but quickly changes her tune when we begin to experience a case of "bizarro neighborhood"--we see things that we have in our neighborhood, but they are different and bizarro. Nilgiri's, our local supermarket--but no, this is not our Nilgiri's. I lean over to the driver and attempt to confirm, "Lakshimpuram post office?" He nods and repeats what I've said.

But no, dude, we are NOT headed to Lakshmipuram. After a bit more driving, I then say, "Near Big Bazaar?" He repeats, "Big Bazaar," and drives a bit longer. During this time I am repeating the name of our neighborhood, and he seems to be repeating it back. He then attempts to drop us off somewhere completely random, a bus station on the corner, or something. I see a restaurant that yogi friends have talked about--Green Leaf. It dawns on me: we are in JAIlakshmipuram, a faraway neighborhood. not Lakshipuram.

This begins a fight. The only one we've had with a driver, and boy, were we pissed. For ONCE, we were ACTUALLY late to something. We pictured Julia sitting on our dark stoop with all her luggage, thinking we stood her up.
driver: "Jailakshipuram, Jailakshipuram!" (intonation says: "you said Jailakshipuram!"
us: "No, not JAIlakshipuram. LAKSHMIpuram!"
repeat this about 5 times.
driver (sighing, exasperated): "Madam, madam! 4 kilometers!" (intonation says: "What the hell, madam! You made me drive 4 kilometers out of my way!"
us: "yeah, 4 kilometers in the wrong direction! We told you lakshmipuram, and now we're late!"
we start yelling at him in english we know he doesn't understand, and I think at one point I even resort to the "talking loud as if someone that doesn't understand english will understand it better if you say it real loud" : "it's a NEIGHBORHOOD!"

we decide that we'll be much better off just getting another driver, as this one is pissed and we're pissed at him. I give him 20 rupees (we agreed on 30, but he took us waaaaaaay the fuck out of the way, though he did use some gas), and we kind of promptly catch another rickshaw going our way.

On the ride back to our hood, I turn to Melina and say, "Everyone always comes back from India so open-hearted and full of love, but we're just going to come back as huge bitches."
Melina says, "Yeah...but I think when we get back I'll have a bigger heart, for like, people. Maybe."