Parties of all sorts

After a total of nine hours of Sanskrit testing -- four hours on Thursday evening, and five hours on Friday morning and early afternoon -- I am a free girl again. And it feels great. However, I really got a headstart on my newfound freedom early last week, when I began ayurvedic panchakarma treatments, spent nearly every evening staying up late talking with S., and attended a fantastic birthday party.

Though the week of one's final examination in Sanskrit wouldn't seem like the best time to start a pretty serious ayurvedic treatment regimen, it turned out to be one of the best things I could have done with my final week. There is nothing more relaxing than coming home from school every afternoon and spending a couple of hours at the clinic, getting rubbed with strange-smelling ayurvedic massage oil, sitting in a steam chamber, and practicing my Hindi with the ladies who do the hard labor over there. For a few days I had to drink pure ghee at the end of the treatment: it would make me nauseous and tired for a few hours, but afterwards I would feel incredibly calm and grounded. I guess having a cup of fat swimming around in your body does that to you.

Living with S. has been one of the greatest blessings of this winter. She was the perfect person to guide me through this final week, reassuring me at all hours of the day and night that my final Sanskrit exam was *just a test* -- and a test that didn't matter, at that. She listened to me recite all the verses I had to memorize. She sat with me on our balcony for hours the night before the exam, talking about everything but school.

Wednesday night brought a joint birthday party for two of my classmates, G. and J. It was held on the roof of G's host family here; we were served delicious food (none of which I could eat, of course, because of panchakarma), blew out the candles on two kinds of cake (one "veg", without eggs, and one "non-veg"), and treated to a gorgeous classical Indian music concert given by one of my Sanskrit teachers and one of the Marathi teachers. I sat oh-so-happily on the giant swing on their balcony, gazing at the few visible stars and listening to my teacher's accomplished voice singing traditional Marathi songs, bhajans, and later, even some Sanskrit pieces. At the end of the evening, G. and I joined our teachers on the music rug to sing some of the stotras that we had learned in class this fall.

I attended another great party on Friday night, to celebrate the end of the semester, but I'm afraid that one didn't turn out so well. All of us students and a few added friends went out to this dimly-lit, roadside restaurant, where they served hard liquor and kebabs to crowds of Indian men puffing on cigarettes. We sat outside and shared plate after plate of delicious, heavily spiced meats, paneer, and vegetables, sipping all the while from (in my case) a gin-and-Limca with lots of ice, which is surprisingly good. However, my ayurvedically-purified stomach rebelled pretty quickly, and I found myself heading home early in a rickshaw (I still remember paying the driver Rs.50 for a Rs.15 ride...) and spending the entire night throwing up: the first time that I've really been sick here. Luckily, I got to spend the day afterwards getting some special ayurveda treatment, lying in bed, reading Anna Karenina, and talking with friends and family. I feel much better.

The rest of the weekend brings more R&R, plus all the errands that I have to run before leaving for Delhi on Wednesday afternoon. I'm free!