1. Ravelry link: Ugly socks
2. Pattern Source: My own, with the heel stolen from another pattern
3. Yarn: Jojoland Melody in Y16
4. Needle Size: US 1
5. Gauge: Not sure. But these could definitely stretch to fit someone with bigger feet.
6. Pattern Changes: None, by definition. Basic 2X2 ribbed sock, knit toe up with heel flap.
7. Yarn Review: I will never buy nor knit with this yarn again. While it looks nice in the skein, it is rough and unpleasant to the touch and doesn’t look particularly nice knit up. The only advantage is that it is inexpensive. I had to force myself to finish these because I didn’t want to waste the yarn.
9. How many times did I frog: I frogged a half knit stockinette sock because it was too big out of this yarn. I frogged the cast on a few times.
A. Usability analysis: These will be handy in the winter because they’ll keep me warm and I won’t be worried about keeping them nice. They are likely to become hiking or exercise socks.
B. Final Thoughts: I took these with me to India, thinking they would be my mindless knitting socks and also that I would get them finished fairly quickly before moving on to the nicer yarn and patterns I had brought with me. Unfortunately, I just didn’t seem to find myself motivated to knit on them and I barely got any knitting done in 3 weeks. Lesson learned: Don’t bother knitting with yarn you don’t like.

FYI, I’m in the Shanghai airport, on the way back to the US. Internet access was pretty spotty the last week we were there. More trip info to be posted later.

Last time I posted, we were a little disappointed that we weren’t going to make it to Indore, due to the curfew. However, by pulling a few strings and taking a few risks, M’s family managed to make it possible. First, M’s much older cousin is a bigwig in the Bhopal government and arranged for us to catch a ride to Indore with a government officer. Government officer = no road tolls = freedom of motion. The drive to Indore took about 4 hours and was pretty painless, except for the fact that said government officer wouldn’t speak to me or even shake my hand when I was introduced because he is a sexist “product of his environment” (M’s words) and spent the whole trip conversing with M. If this conversation were in English, I would have felt free to butt into the conversation, but my Hindi isn’t good enough to interrupt a conversation at speed. Bleah. I was silently fuming the whole time. M sympathized but didn’t want to antagonize him because this was the only way we could get to Indore.

Anyway, once we got to M’s father’s side place in Indore, relatives from his mother’s side came over to collect us. The car contained M’s cousin, his uncle and a police officer in uniform carrying a rifle. At this point in time (around 8pm I think), we were officially violating the curfew and the police officer’s presence was necessary to avoid getting stopped. By the time we left it was nearly 11pm. M’s cousin called up another police officer friend and begged him to come to our current location. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to do so, so we had to set out on our own. Despite the mosquitoes, we then had to roll down the windows because they were tinted and we wanted any police officers to be able to look into the car since we were violating curfew. Apparently the officers had orders to shoot on sight during a curfew, and although this is mostly an empty threat, we didn’t want to take any chances. We also had our passports and tickets ready because you were allowed to and from the airport.

We stopped by one police checkpoint and they told the police they were just dropping off their cousins to the airport. The police officers were pretty cool and let us go ahead but warned them that they had to be back in 10 minutes. Finally we got to the second checkpoint, where M’s cousin’s friend was waiting. A bottle of whiskey was passed over to his buddy’s and the police officer friend got into the car with us. At that point we could relax because we knew we were safe getting back to the other family’s house. We were a bit worried about how M’s cousin and uncle would manage the drive back, but in the end they made it.

In the morning, getting to the airport was no issue because we were legitimately going to take a flight and it was just before the time when the curfew was due to be lifted for the 3 hour morning slot. In the end, getting to meet the relatives in Indore was worth the risk we took, but I definitely freaked out a bit when we had to roll down the windows. If someone’s going to shoot me, I’d really rather have a window to absorb some of the impact.

Why was I worried about weather thwarting our travel plans when simple human nature can take care of it far more efficiently?

On July 4th morning, we flew from Delhi to Bhopal, ironically enough via Indore. On the 5th, we were scheduled to travel to Indore via train or bus or air conditioned car, as his relatives deemed appropriate. On the 6th morning, we were to fly from Indore back to Mumbai. Reasonable enough schedule right?

On the 3rd, we heard that an India-wide “bandh” had been called by some political party. During a bandh, all business is supposed to stop. Supporters of the bandh will often attack any business that tries to remain open. On the 4th morning, we heard that riots had broken out in Indore and 4 people had been killed. By the 4th evening, a curfew had been imposed on the city. A curfew means that no one can travel into or out of Indore or within the city. The relatives’ homes are in a very safe part of the city. The Indore airport is also pretty safe. However, there is no good way to travel between them safely. In view of this fact, the Indore trip is canceled and we return to Mumbai on the night of the 5th.

M is pretty sad to be missing out on the Indore part of the trip, since these are relatives to whom he is particularly attached. I’m disappointed too, by transference. I’m trying to look on the bright side, which is that I had originally planned to go to Indore first and Bhopal second. If we had followed that plan, we might have been trapped in Indore without knowing how we would get back to Mumbai in time for our flights back to the U.S.

A “bandh” never hurts the politicians who call them. It only hurts the people who can’t conduct business as usual and the innocent bystanders when there are riots.

In the U.S. interrupting an ongoing conversation to take a phone call is generally considered rude, unless it’s a very important phone call. Moreover, you usually answer just long enough to tell the other person you’ll call them back. You would never get up at the dinner table to answer a phone call. In India, the opposite is true. Not answering a call the moment you receive it (unless you are on another call) is considered very rude. Thus, you see the following interaction between two men who are strangers to each other on the train. The first man engages in a long business related conversation via cellphone. He appears to be connected to the diamond industry. After the call, the first man and the second man start conversing. The first man starts to explain the ins and outs of the diamond industry from mining to cutting to pricing to distribution. It’s a fairly interesting conversation so M and I eavesdrop. I had no idea that most diamond cutting happens in Surat, India, though of course I can’t take his word for it. This fascinating conversation gets cut off when the first man receives another phone call. 1 minute later he resumes the conversation. Five minutes later, the conversation is cut off when he receives a phone call. 1.5 minutes later, he resumes the conversation. Every transaction, whether buying groceries or clothes shopping or eating dinner can be suspended in order to take a quick phone call.

In other trip news, we have successfully navigated our way from Bombay to Surat and Delhi. We’ve successfully met and charmed (in M’s case) representatives from:

In Bombay: 2 aunts (father’s side) and 2 aunts (mother’s side)
In Surat: Grandparents + 2 uncles (father’s side)
In Delhi: 1 aunt (father’s side) and 1 of M’s aunts (mother’s side)

Still left to be met: All of his father’s side and most of both our mother’s sides.

It’s been a pretty lazy relaxed trip, so there aren’t really any touristy photos, just family related photos.

Today I fed a baby for probably the first time in my life. My cousin’s child is about a year and a half year old and just at that age when he can walk but not talk and feels free to interact with strangers. He is endlessly curious about everything you’re doing. I was eating breakfast and he had “asked” to be picked up to investigate. He refused the first bite of food, so I ate it. Once he saw that I’d eaten something good of course he had to try it so he took the second bite of food willingly. After that, he ate whatever I fed him, actually grabbing my hand to guide the food into his mouth. And he could eat big spoonfuls too! I was sort of worried he’d get sick but his mother (cousin’s wife) said what I was feeding him was fine.

We decided to do a mini tour of our respective relatives’ homes during the monsoon season in India. I’m not sure why we decided that city hopping for 6 days straight was a good idea, but we did. It might have had something to do with the fact that this will be our first and last joint trip to India for a few years.

M arrived in India Sunday night and I decided we needed a day (Monday) off before starting the pilgrimage. It had been pretty dry last week but it started pouring down rain Sunday night and early this morning. We cancelled our plans to take the noon train to Surat on the advice of multiple relatives who told us the city was flooding and there was no way we could make it.

At 1pm, my cousin from Surat called and said if we could leave the house in 20 minutes, we might be able to make the 2:30 train. After rousing M from sleep, throwing together our belongs and arranging to borrow a car, a driver and packed lunch from another cousin, we were able to head out at 1:30. A third cousin met us at the train station and bribed an agent to get our train tickets for us. It’s a dual edged sword. It’s a pain to travel in India because it’s twice as difficult to get things arranged, but it’s a pleasure to travel in India because my family takes such good care of us. The current joke is that the white glove treatment is on M’s behalf and I’m just along for the ride.

The first week in India was spent shopping like a maniac and squeezing in meetings with people as and when possible. There are ten million things that need to be bought, and luckily (or unluckily) half of them are clothes and jewelry for the bride. Even after cutting down the list to the bare minimum, that means 4 new outfits and several pieces of jewelry. At the end I just called a halt to it and declared that we’d accomplished enough and anything else I needed could be bought in America. My mom would probably kill me if she found out I’d posted photos of anything online, so I’ll leave you with a photo of the armband since that’s not official jewelry.

The short version of yesterday:

Talked to my grandfather on the phone. I’m pretty sure he gave us his blessings but he speaks really fast in Hindi on the phone, so I’m not 100% sure.

Made and received innumerable phone calls to various relatives. Listened to my mom make the same phone calls. Met and made small talk with a few of them.

Ran around the “town” side of Mumbai looking at clothes in designer boutiques to get an idea of what’s available. I tried on some very beautiful, very elaborate and very heavy clothes, so heavy that I need help lifting them to get them on. I forgot to bring my camera on yesterday’s shopping trip, but I will be bringing it from now on. I tried on 2 heavy red bridal outfits which my mom said made me look like a bride, but they weren’t me. Being dressed up in the ghagra with the scarf over my head reminded me of when I went dress shopping with my best friend Kim and all of a sudden she was wearing the white dress and the veil and she wasn’t Kim anymore, she was The Bride (TM). I also tried on this one gorgeous $2k designer sari but let’s not even go down that route.

A lot of the clothes are really beautiful from far away but up close, the “work” (embroidery and beading) looks garish and tacky (to me). Also, the base fabric is usually not that nice and the thread ends will be showing or the embroidery will be loose or beads will be missing. I’m the world’s worst fabric snob and little detail snob, so I think the route I’m going to end up going is buying good quality fabric and getting something custom made that is a bit more elegant and less ornate.

Right now, it’s early morning and the breeze coming off the balcony from the sea is nice and cool before the day heats up. I’m enjoying having the downtime in the early morning before everyone else wakes up. I considered walking down to the beach but I’m not sure if it’s safe to go there alone in the morning or if the gate is even open.

I was a bit worried about the stress of being in India for 3 weeks. It’s a very different environment from what I’m used to and we’re usually on the go nonstop. So far, the prognosis looks good as far as my being able to carve out the hour of quiet downtime for myself that I need to stay sane. I brought 4 skeins of sock yarn with me too, so that should help as well.

I’m currently on the 8th flight ever for the Jet Airways SFO-PVG-BOM route which started running last weekend. This is the fastest way to get to India from the west coast, with a total SFO-BOM travel time of 23 hours 10 min. The first leg of the flight is about 12 hours, and then you have a 2 hour layover in Shanghai. I’m sitting in the airport during that layover, enjoying the laptop juice and free internet.

So, here’s a quick review of the flight. Props for:

1. The seat width and decline angle. I think this is the most room I’ve ever had when flying coach internationally.
2. Variety of in flight entertainment.
3. Niceness of flight attendants. My golden standard is whether they will move the food cart out of the way to let me get past them.
4. The quick transition in Shanghai and arriving in Mumbai 1.5 hours early.

Points lost for:

1. The dirty water sitting on my tray table when I sat down.
2. The quality of food. I ordered a western vegetarian meal, but the only available options were Indian nonveg, Indian veg and Asian nonveg. The impact: A hungry Sheetal because I can only eat half the meal.
3. Only having those two port headphone jacks, so that I couldn’t use my headphones since I didn’t have the adapter.

I’m sure I’ll think of more later. The unfortunate part about arriving in Mumbai early is that I spent an hour outside waiting to be picked up. I was half tempted to take an airport cab home but I didn’t have any rupees and I knew people were coming to get me. All in all, it was a fairly painless trip over the ocean.

Saturday, 6/14/08:
07:00: Gratefully disembark plane after taking a redeye flight to New York and spend the morning napping.
13:00: Eat delightful lunch of pierogies and fresh fruit. The mango was especially good. Let’s hope mango season in India isn’t over yet:

14:00: Head out to MOMA. View and photograph cool pieces of art. I found Nancy Spero’s Notes in Time exhibit particularly moving. We had a lot of fun with the Olafur Eliasson exhibit.

17:00: We’re just about museumed out and it’s started to rain. We decide to make a quick dash to a coffee shop. Just as we start moving, the rain gets heavier. We wait underneath the entrance to a hotel before heading to the starbucks located inside to dry off and have hot cocoa. I recomb my hair and wash my face in the hotel bathroom.
18:00: The rain has stopped, so we head out to Central park.
18:30: The rain starts again. We hang out under a bridge with a bunch of people.
19:00: It’s drizzling but we have reservations at 8pm and we can’t stay trapped under a bridge forever. Head out, and the rain increases.
19:10: Sitting inside a hotel lobby, hoping we look like paying customers.
19:30: Take subway to restaurant location.
19:50. Exit subway. We are 2 avenues and 4 street blocks away from the restaurant. It is lightly drizzling.
19:55: We are 2 street blocks away from the restaurant. We are standing under a bridge waiting for the rain to slow down.
20:05: We are 2 street blocks away from the restaurant. We are standing underneath a bridge. The rain is pouring down. There is a column of water pouring off the bridge ahead of us. We’ve been waiting 10 minutes and the rain hasn’t slowed down. We decide to make a dash for it.
20:05:10: The front of my shirt is soaked through.
20:07: We are at the restaurant. I am completely wet. Head to bathroom and layer paper towels in between my skin and my clothes. Recomb hair, rewash face, remove paper towels and rejoin others.
20:20: Enjoy birthday dinner at Earth NYC. I liked the ambience and everything I ordered was pretty good, especially the tandoori broccoli.

Sunday: 06/15/08: (actual birthday and day of relaxation)

08:40: Receive phone call from parents in India. After the phone is passed to my dad, he mysteriously stops being able to hear me. Oh well.
13:00: Eat breakfast.
13:30: Get ingredients for lunch.
14:30: Agree on wedding gameplan so as to forestall overexcited parents.
15:30: Eat pani puris for lunch. Yay pani puris!
17:30: Leave for airport.

I just started swatching for the Saddle Shoulder Aran cardigan last night. I’m using the Burrawool naturally brown yarn I won from the KBTH contest. Yes, this is yarn is not dyed and it comes this color off the sheep. M gravitated towards this yarn immediately when I told him to choose yarn for his sweater.