7.22.11. 4:37 PM. Day 21. Death and a Salesman.

Today was a very rushed day. We started out by waiting for Sunny to come get us to take us men's clothes shopping. He was supposed to get to the homestay between 9:30 and 10AM. We had a little less than 2 hrs to shop before we had our last clinic rotation with Dr. Gandhi. By 10:30, Mary got fed up and went out on her own. At 10:15 I'd texted Sunny and asked him if he was coming - and soon. He replied "yes" to both. I told Mary, but the Indian Standard Time had been boiling up anger and frustration inside her, so she got ready to leave while I stayed, listening to music until Sunny got there. About three minutes after Mary left, Sunny rang the doorbell. He said he saw her at the corner, I called her but she still went off on her own. When I saw that he came on his bike and began to turn it around, I'm not going to lie - I was hoping that we were going to take it - but no. He brought it into Aunty's driveway. We ended up taking an Auto, and he obviously doesn't bargain because the guy wanted 80 rps to the Clocktower. We all know that it should be no more than 40. I quickly got him down to 60, but didn't have the time to go further - we had shopping to do. I thought we were going to the Clocktower to shop at the Bazaar, but no - apparently Sunny told the driver to go to FabInida instead. From the beginning people had been telling us to go there, and from the beginning we could never find it. We also knew it was ridiculously overpriced. But there I was, at FabIndia, with Sunny, shopping for a kurta for Josh. I figured he was the only one who would probably actually wear it out of the men in my family. I also bought a Kurti for Katherine and I bought a salwar (pants) for my friend Valeria, who requested those - since I requested she bring me a woven hat from her trip to Peru. All in all, I spent way too much, and will never shop there again. Ha ha. It reminded me of a Pier 1 Imports, if you've ever been there. From there I told him that I wanted to go to an ATM. So we combed the street looking around, we found two - the first one decided not to work half way through the transaction. The next one was empty, so we were on our way back to the Clocktower when Sunny got a phone call from Mayank, and he said he would meet us shortly. Little did I know that he'd seen us cross the street from not too far away, so he soon appeared and crossed the street in a very, very bright red shirt. He was followed by another young man, Akki - the 21 year old yoga master working in Patti, who was sporting some very shiny and reflective aviators. They came, Mayank crossed the road again to get some papers from his car, was soon back, and then quickly went back again and brought back his whole car. This was all very amusing to watch as this bright red blop went back and forth across the road to only then finally just drive his car over after all of the hassle of crossing the road. Mayank asked me if I'd like a ride to Dr. Gandhi's hospital and, of course, I accepted. We all got in the car, Sunny was dropped off at the post office for an errand, and Mayank and Akki took me to Dr. Gandhi's. I got there about 15 minutes early and Mary came in after only a few minutes. We exchanged stories as we waited for Dr. G to arrive.

Dr. Gandhi arrived at 12 and we only got done saying hello and saw one or two patients when he was called to go into the ICCU. He signaled with a slight wave of his hand that he wanted us to follow, so we got up quickly and tried to keep up with his surprisingly speedy gate. We went up the ramp and into the ICCU. I had no idea what to expect, but it would never have been what I saw. Most of the people there were old men and women with diabetes related complications like hypertension, angina, vertigo, and other things I haven't heard of before. This time there was a young man in his early 20s who, we were told, had leukemia. He was unconscious and had a racing heart rate and blood pressure of around 208/112...I think. His breathing was irregular and shallow. They were hooking him up to a respirator when we got there. And that's when Dr. Gandhi chose to inform us that he was probably bleeding into his brain. I didn't have to be a doctor to know that that was not a good thing. A lot was happening and I didn't know what to do - I didn't even want to be there, but I couldn't really leave. The patient would twitch every now and then, but other than the assisted breathing he didn't move at all. His heart was beating so fast. Luckily Dr. Gandhi didn't keep us there for long. We went back to his office and continued seeing patients. I asked him what they would do for the patient, he said that there was nothing they could do...20 minutes later he got a very short phone call. "The patient has gone," is all he said to us. He went on looking at patients, but I found myself unable to pay attention. Maybe it's a doctor thing or maybe it's that I haven't been exposed to it that much, but death is one of this things that was always "over there" far away and not seen. But there I was, smack in the middle of it - a reality I'd managed to avoid but now had no choice but to face. I was numb for awhile, just wallowing in the fear I was forced to confront.

The rest of the time was more light hearted and rather amusing. It seemed that 1:30 on Friday afternoons were reserved for pharmaceutical representatives to come try to sell their shiny new products. The would come in one at a time in their over shiny suits, with their big black briefcases, and wormy smiles. It seems that the typical salesman aura is universal because these guys had "cheese ball" written all over them. It got fun after awhile because we could see Dr. Gandhi messing with the hope of a sale for some of them, while we rated the newness of each rep. With one it was quite obvious it was his first day - especially since he said it was his first day. These guys just slimed and weaseled their way in and out of the office, giving their pieces and samples, and flashing their fake smiles.

Sadly, 2:30 came around too quickly and our last day at Dr. Gandhi's clinic came to an end. We had to run an errand before lunch, so we took an A. Rick to the travel guy we ordered our train tickets to Amritsar from. It was a strange experience since just the afternoon before the guy was talkative and sociable with us, and this time he got wide eyed when we approached and seemed nervous to see us. The contrast from the day before was so apparent, but I didn't even bother to think of why. Some people just have up days and low days - I don't know. We also caught him while he was eating so it could have been that too.

It wasn't until later that afternoon that I found out why he was acting so strange. But first, backstory:

On Thursday, after our weekly group meeting, Mayank told those of us who were going to Amritsar to go around the corner from our coffee shop and check the ticket availability for the train. We 5 all went over to this little upperstory shop that was only reachable by climbing up twelve 4 inch or less wide steps. There was so little space in there that it was hard for us all to fit up there comfortably at one time. Still there were 4 chairs, other than the one the guy was in behind the desk, and he insisted that the 3 girls take 3 of them while Sunny took the fourth. Because the other girls, Mary and Mati, took the ones on the outside, I was forced to take the one in the middle - right in front of the guy and his desk. The guy was friendly and spoke English, but still Mati did most of the business talk. I just sat there and watched. Eventually we three began talking about the US and Canada since that is where we are from and where he is going to visit in a few months time. After awhile he asked what we do, and I said I was an Anthropology student. He tried to be sly about it but I could see in the reflection of the glass cabinet behind him that he was looking it up on Wikipedia. He tried to act like he knew what it was but failed to grasp the concept of my general field of study. In the end he settled on complimenting my eyes and telling me other nice things about myself. It was a little strange but by this point, although I am not graceful in anyway, shape, or form about receiving compliments, I am used to getting them - especially from men here, and especially about my eyes. But still, I didn't think much about it and we left with the promise to be back the next day to get our tickets and pay. So there is the background.

After we had gotten the tickets, we made our way over to Dr. Prem Nath's. Matti was there but PA was not. Mary had to go use the restroom, so Mati leaned over to me and asked me if we got our tickets yet. When I said that we did, she asked about how the guy acted. That perked up my interest because he was acting differently and when I told her that, she giggled and said she knew why.

Mati had received a few text messages from the guy the night before. These were not messages that had anything to do with our tickets either. They mostly consisted of compliments such as, "you are a nice girl; you are sweet; I can't stop thinking about your eyes; we should go have coffee." etc. But it was the eyes pne that raised her red flag. She remembered that he had said that to me a few hours before, so she asked him if he's meant to send these to me, and he responded with, "This isn't Arlette?" After Mati assured him that she wasn't me, he proceeded to ask her for my number - to which she truthfully replied that she didn't have it. He then asked her if I have a boyfriend. Uncertain, she cautioned with a 'yes' answer. He replied with, "Oh, okay, I guess I won't ask her out then." Mati then said that when she went to him in the morning for her ticket he asked her not to tell me about their conversation from the previous night.

Of course, I had no idea any of this took place, so I just thought the guy was acting strange but didn't think much else about it. Looking back, now knowing the whole story, a lot of thinks make sense. I was kind of dumbfounded by the whole experience because I was oblivious to the whole situation. I am finding that I have a hard time differentiating when men are being nice or are flirting. Either way, I've been trying to keep a low profile so I don't know why I am getting so much male attention here...

That very night we were to leave for Amritsar via an overnight train. The journey would take around 12 hours in all. Our train would leave at 7:40PM so we decided the night before that we would not go to Dr. Nanda's since Aunty wanted us home at 6 for dinner. Mati came with us from Dr. Prem Nath's and when we were walking down the ally to Aunty's house a few bikes honked and we obligingly moved to the left, not even needing to look back. One car decided to get behind us and honk obnoxiously even though we moved over as far left as we could. Still honking and still behind us, the car for whatever reason refused to pass us by. Finally we all whipped around to confront the nuisance behind the wheel. It was Mayank, and Daniel in the passenger seat. Nice prank.  The 3 of us got in the car and Mayank drove us the rest of the 200 feet to the house. We al came inside and surprised Aunty - she laid out a few more place settings and for the first time we all looked like one big family, talking loudly, laughing, passing around food, and having an all around good time. We basically looked like a commercial for the Olive Garden. I cherished that moment, since big happy family meals seem few and far between nowadays. After dinner we got all of our packs and 6 people miraculously into Mayank's  wee-midget of a car. There is a reason I always call 'shotgun,' 4 of them sandwiched into the back seats. Limbs and heads poking out at odd places. Mayank turns on the music and Biz Markie comes on and I turned up the volume. We all start singing, "Have you ever met a girl that you tried to date..." and then Mayank blasted it even higher. All of us, "OH BABY YOU! you've got what I need, but you say he's just a friend, but you say he's just a friend..." We must have been quite the sight; 5 American 20somethings and an Indian 30something all squished into a tiny little car, blasting an old school American rap song, with body parts coming out of weird places, zooming down the congested streets of Dehradun in the waning sunlight.
We made it to the train station with 15 minutes to spare. I know I said it the week before, but this was the beginning of the best weekend ever.