Jesse Battilana: Proud Owner of the Best Bike in the Entire Universe

Dear Party in the USA (I'm running out of patriotic songs) and England's mountains green (that's William Blake, England. Seriously, you people need to study up on your blind patriotism),

Operation Ugly Jesse is going swimmingly. I have decided to keep up basic hygiene rituals like bathing and brushing teeth, but the dumpy, unflattering clothing has been wildly successful. Creepy men have been staring at me noticeably less (perhaps because I am no longer walking around in a group of 25 other American girls, since orientation has ended, but I like to think of it as a story of my own hard work, ingenuity and triumph – the Ugly American Dream.) If things continue to go well, I may use some beeswax to black out a few of my teeth. I’m still waiting on a marriage proposal (the girls who have been here a while assure me that this is inevitable). I’ve always dreamed that someone would love me only for my passport and pasty complexion reminiscent of evil oppressive ancestry (I’m really not appreciating the fact that I went from 0 to loose-white-she-devil-temptress in 6 seconds. Not even a Porsche can do that.)

I'm going to get serious with you for a second (India has decided to randomly doublespace again. I hope the uneven format does not detract from my serious moment), my beautiful, traffic law obeying nations of respective Democratic and Parliamentary glory (and slightly lesser glory). I was pretty homesick this week. I’ve been away from my friends and family in America a fairly long time now, and I only just started considering England a second home. Plus, everyone else on this program is fresh from the holidays. But do you know what alleviated 95% of that homesickness today? My brand new hot pink little girl’s bicycle (Because America’s superior consumer culture has rightly taught me that I can replace love and friendship with things!) Campus is miles long and I have been waiting all week for bikes to be available for rental because it takes a good half hour to walk anywhere from my home stay. Imagine my delight when I eagerly queued (oh, how I miss proper queuing, dear England) for my bicycle key early in this morning like a Star Trek fan who pitches his tent a week before the box office opens. Imagine my even greater delight when our house manager, who I have spoken to maybe once, took one look at me and immediately led me over to the tiniest bicycle in the entire lot, a glorious hot pink one complete with basket and extremely loud bell (I’m decking it out with streamers and ribbons… and possibly rims). I was particularly excited about the bell, enthusiastic as I am to assimilate to Indian traffic customs. I immediately sped toward main campus on my liberating new vehicle, ringing the bell continuously for about 20 minutes, assimilating perfectly with the persistent horns of the motorcycles, buses, and rickshaws that regularly pass through campus. I don’t think I’ve explained horns adequately in the past. Yes, I mentioned that the horn is used as a greeting, announcement of one's presence in your blindspot, declaration of one's virile masculinity, and for absolutely no reason other than to make a lot of noise (okay, cool we're back in singlespaceland. Thanks, India). But I did not mention that fact that horns range from your generic beep in any number of different notes, to an arpeggio, to a delightful tune, to the sound of a dying cockatoo (our rickshaw today). You think I’m kidding. The sounds of vehicle horns are as different as snowflakes or Lady Gaga’s outfit choices. I plan to install the National Anthem on my bicycle horn. Until then, I shall be content with ringing my bell obnoxiously and having everyone perceive it as completely normal. Navigating off campus has gotten easier. I still have no clue on the bus system. I asked a few Indians today if there existed a route map or a schedule I could look at, and how they laughed with amusement at my foolishness. Indian bus systems are like Diagon Alley. You have to already know what’s there to find out about it (if I were in England, Harry Potter would show up and help me, but does India have wizards to orient me with the public transportation system?)

I have taken to carrying a roll of toilet paper around in my gigantic mom purse (a convenient accessory in Operation Ugly Jesse) because all the rumors you have heard about Indian squat toilets are true. There is a hole in the ground. And there is no toilet paper, unless you count the small bucket of cholera water conveniently placed at the left (because your left hand is your poop hand. I am poop handed. India, why don’t you love me?) of some toilet/holes (I miss my English NASA shoilet pod). I have mastered the art of the squat toilet. This is a substantial feat considers the fact that squat toilets are not designed to accommodate short legs.

I also saw my first Bollywood film yesterday, and I have no idea what I have been doing with my life up until this point. It is 300 times tackier and more glorious than High School Musical and a Harlequin romance novel combined. On a more disturbing note, every single person in the movie was extremely pale, some very unnaturally so, even though they were all Indian. There was a dance number in which all the female dancer were wearing black Afro wigs, but they were all basically white. I’m not condemning Indian media as any worse than American media, which any person who has ever suffered through my ranting American Studies feminist commentary during movies, shows, commercials, books or basically anything at all knows, but skin lightening freaks the crap out of me. In the United States at least, nonwhite people have basically been conditioned throughout history to believe that they’re ugly, but the Black is Beautiful movement decreased the use of skin lightening creams. Anyway, I just thought they were a thing of the past, but light skin is still a pretty big thing in Indian media. Just in case that wasn’t enough, a commercial for this product called Fair and Lovely, a skin lightening lotion, came on immediately after I noticed this. Anyway, today, I rode my beautiful, hot pink, loud bell possessing bicycle to the shop on campus to buy some sunscreen because I just spent a semester in England where they don’t really have sunlight, and India is full of glorious 70° F sunbeams of ozoney, skin cancerous peril. Anyway, I read the package which said UV protection, keeps skin healthy, keeps skin fair, and noted how interesting it is that marketing in India emphasizes light skin while American sunscreen would probably mention something about tanning skin that’s one of our respective status symbols. I mentioned all of this to my roommate as I started responsibly started rubbing the sunscreen into my face to protect it from the harmful rays of the sun, and she said to me, “Jesse, you want to be careful with lotions here. Some of them contain bleach as a skin lightening agent.” So after flushing out my face with cholera water for five minutes (two and a half hours), scrutinizing the bottle for signs of bleachiness, and thoroughly researching the company online, Hypochondriac Jesse sent an email to the address listed on the back of the lotion bottle saying that she is fatally allergic to bleach (and racist media claims) and could they please send a list of the ingredients in their SPF 15 sunscreen (Don’t worry. The company is legitimate, the bottle says herbal and “keeps skin light rather than “makes skin light” people who have lived in India that I frantically asked said that skin lightening creams are sold separately from sunscreen. However, Hypochrondiac Jesse fails to notice subtleties like this. She sees only rabies puppies and face melting chemicals of racism.)

I will leave you with the far more positive tale of my delightful chocolate bar purchasing experience. To preface, (I am a linguistics nerd) contrary to popular opinion, Indian English is not incorrect or broken English. At has its own unique grammatical patterns, idioms, a connotations for words that are equally complex to British English. (American English is, of course, superior to both of these but that’s besides the point). However, that does not stop it from being hilarious. When I opened my chocolate bar, it was wrapped in a golden ticket (because every Indian chocolate bar wants you to believe that you have won a trip to the Wonka factory), and it contained this message:

At Cadbury, it has been a constant endeavor to make the chocolate experience exceedingly rewarding. Cadbury Dairy Milk Silk is a child of such an endeavour. And we proudly invite you to be a part of the wonderful ‘Silk’ experience. Although Silk comes from the World of Dairy milk, it does display a few notable differences. A cube of Silk is visibly dome shaped in order to fit snugly in your mouth. These contours of the cube ensure that the fine, silken texture and creaminess of Silk never go unnoticed. And when the finest chocolate spreads to every corner of your mouth, caressing your sense along the way, we would have succeeded in enhancing your Cadbury Dairy Milk experience.