Puttin' on the Ritz

I honestly don't know what happened. I've paid the volunteer company $700 a month for food, housing, travel, and well, just about everything. So when I imagined the living arrangements, I thought of bunk-beds. Kind of like camp, but with a family living in the cabin. I can't imagine how this happened.

As the front door opens, I see it: the marble foyer. I'm living in an Indian mansion.

The Terrace

The house is absolutely unbelievable. Marble everywhere, vaulted ceilings, refined furniture. The decor is something between Indian and Western. A landing at the top of the stairs hosts a massive bronze statue of Ganesha, he who removes obstacles, the elephant headed god who is often favored by business men and students. My hostess tells me that there are probably eighteen images of him in her house. As a scholarship baby, a working-class girl, I don't know what to do with myself here. I've never lived in such luxury, always expected I was much more likely to play the role of the servant than the served. I suppose I should thank Ganesha when my hostess shows me her shrine later. Perhaps she'll teach me the correct form of puja in case my thanks need to be translated.

In my jet-lagged stupor I hear that the house has a servant, whom my hostess has had “brought up” from the South. I'm shown into the kitchen to get a glass of water and see the servant, a man in his thirties, sitting on a stool. I'm ashamed and uncomfortable, torn because I feel as though I am insulting my hostess with my shame. He doesn't speak much English and I don't know his name yet, but he calls me Miss whenever he speaks to me. He looks down when I say thank you, and is an amazing cook. I'm kind of hoping that this will be one of those Cinderella situations, but I think that only works for hot chicks, not moustachioed men.

My hostess is an upper-class woman, with both a Masters and Law Degree. Her husband is a higher-up in the government, her daughter a MBA. Her current occupation is mother to her son in university, and hostess to volunteers like me. With much of the family living in other cities for work, she offers up the extra of the half-dozen bedrooms and rents out the third floor. I am living in her daughter's suite, which is significant larger that any apartment I've ever resided in and has a balcony.

A door next to my room leads to a larger terrace balcony, and here I sit in the warm sun on my first full day in India, watching the neighborhood and writing. Every so often, a man passes with a cart full of vegetables, yelling to announce himself. A large stripped house cat slumbers on a chair in the yard below, and across the street a man is burning something that smells warm and wonderful. Children are playing soccer in the street. The stream of people is much lighter than in Delhi, but it is still nice to see so much life.

Jet-lagged, I decide to follow the cat's example.