Thursday, June 21, 2007

First Friday: prayer and food

Friday is our day of prayer. So, after begging and persuading my little cousin (Minna) to come with me to the Masjid for Jummah prayer, we headed out in our rickshaw with Nani. There weren't as many people as I had expected, but I guess this is because another Masjid was just recently established in a different area. I was a bit disappointed with the prayer... there was no khutba (sermon) or anything that I could really understand very clearly. Same problem as usual with the language barrier of the Urdu we speak regularly, the Shakespearean, proper Urdu that the elders speak.

Later that day, my cousin took me around Baroda, and I met some of his friends from college. We talked about a lot of things; we went to his old schools; we went to a bookstore. When I met his friends, I realized that I have definitely started to speak with an Indian accent when I speak English. Yes, a FoB I am.

At Jummah, I met some people from the US that I knew. Later we went to dinner with them at Sasujee, a restaurant that serves Gujarati Thalis (basically a plate with about 10 different vegetarian dishes that you eat with chapati and rice). India is a place where they just keep feeding you and feeding you. I feel like a stuffed turkey. Although, really, I don't know what that would feel like. These waiters just kept forcing food on your plate, even if you told them you didn't want it. That's pretty much how it is with all my relatives here.

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