Can't believe I nearly forgot the Indians....
1 Comments Published by Oh Wayward One on 19 February 2010 at 2/19/2010 12:59:00 pm.
Oh Jeez, I just realized in my sick and injured haze (still under the weather, ankle feels like it's gonna kill me, and obviously my pushup regimen... or was it the weights at the gym... has yeilded me a really, really sore muscle in the armpit region... I didn't know there WERE muscles there) that I had completely forgotten to write about the very interesting and "unique" experience we had the night before we left for CT...
So anyway, because of this massive biofuels project that the company is working on right now (The Mr's main project) he is rubbing shoulders with the Indians in town due to their interest in the particular crop and its past success in India and what what what - long story short, one of the guys (Jai) on the consulting team that is working for us was here for the week from Dehli. Thursday he (Jai) got an invite from the BIG MAN IN TOWN (really - as in the richest, biggest house, connected family - guy in town) who is Indian, to bring the whole team over for dinner. At 9pm. On Thursday night. And he SPECIFICALLY insisted that I be there as well. Which meant LJJ had to come as well since there was no time to find someone to pawn her off on. Which is past her bedtime. But I was thinking oh well I'll just throw her in someone's bed at their house and she can sleep while we eat and whatever. That's what we always do when we go to people's houses for dinner or whatever lasts past 8:00. We asked Jai (the indian guy) if we needed to do anything/bring anything/wear anything and he was like "nah, nah, nah, it's just dinner, they're all nice people blah blah blah just bring yourselves & be there at 9".
WELL! Little did I know how this was about to go. So we pull up at this GIANT MANSION, through the DOUBLE security gates (seriously, it was like driving into a game park) and get escorted inside by some butler or something, through the marble foyer, and into this room where a bunch of suit-wearing Indian guys with jewels all over their hands are sitting, sipping scotch or Moet. Introductions are made, The Mr. and I feeling slightly FREAKED THE HELL OUT that we're standing amongst them not only wearing casual clothes, but also holding this chocolate baby in her wee cow jammies, holding her blanky and giving us all the "huh???" eye....
THEN it proceeded to get even more bizarre as the introductions were made (and yes all the gentlemen were very nice except for the leader of the main political party in the country who was kinda an ass but he was the only local guy so there ya go) and then our host says to me, " will show you to the ladies now"... and before I had time to do the WTF Dance, I was whisked away (not before ordering myself a lovely glass of champagne from Waiter, of course) and shown to "the ladies". And there I found myself in another giant room, down a corridor filled with giant marble statues of Ganesh and all his pals.... where huge leather sofas lined the walls and the biggest coffee table I have ever seen in my LIFE filled up the middle of the room. Totally horrible Feng Shui in terms of furniture placement but what can you do. Nice Indian ladies in their nice Indian gear were sitting primly and properly on the edges of the couches staring into the centre of the room and having the odd words of conversation with whomever was sitting right next to them (since obviously you don't want to yell ACROSS THE ROOM). But it was all very mono-syllabic. I gathered from the introductions that most of them were related and already knew each other anyway, so all eyes were on me. And the mysterious jammie-wearing chocolate baby in my hands, of course!
So anyway I'm like.... "shit. This is NOT the type of crowd you go 'hey can I just run off and find your bedroom and throw my kid into the bed so she can go nigh-nights and I can come back in here and drink bubbly with you gals?' " So I took a deep breath and just went along with the whole introduction song & dance (all the while thinking: "when the hell did this 'dinner for the consulting team' turn into some sort of "dignitary and influential people convention"... particularly after it was made clear during my introductions that none of these people had a CLUE about this whole biofuels project I kept mentioning (in defense of 'who I was' and what the hell it had to do with me and the reason I was here) Oh and the fact that not only was the leader of the political party there, but so was the freakin Ambassador of India!!! WTF!?) and eventually I found myself (and LJJ) swallowed up into an empty space on one of the enormous leather couches.... inconveniently placed about 100 meters away from the coffee table BTW, which makes putting your drink down elegantly, a living hell. Turns out the spot I chose to sit was right between the oldest Indian lady there who spoke only a little english - still no idea who she was or who she belonged to - and the ever so posh wife of the Ambassador. Crickets, man, crickets.
Thank GOD at some point Ambassador's wife got up (probably disgusted with me and my gob-smacked-induced lack of ability to make conversation) and swapped places with.... yes, this was SO obviously calculated through a very intricate series of glances and nods, right before my eyes.... a girl who turned out to be her daughter, and somewhat closer to my age. I later found out she was mid-20s. Unbeleeeeivably beautiful and obviously very refined. Anyway, she came over and in classic charm-school cultivated fashion, she began firing me with friendly get-to-know-ya type questions and a wave of politeness that kinda freaked me out but hey I'm not judging - good for her! She was nice and charming.
At this point LJJ is sitting on the floor playing with a Kleenex or something I managed to snag out of my purse (no one else had purses, BTW... wha??) and I'm just praying she doesn't realize it's an hour past her bedtime and start giving me grief about it. Well, luck was on my side because through about 45 minutes of idle conversation (and funnily enough, eventually Michelle one of our consultants finally arrived and obviously got the "whisked away from the guys" treatment - only she had been plopped as far away from me in the room as possible) the baby still hadn't exploded, and it was time that we were all escorted out onto the verandah for dinner. At that time I thought - quick, what am I gonna do with this baby because dinner will take hours I'm sure - so I put her down on the couch to go to sleep after everyone left the room (with the exception of the hovering butler who was probably suspicious of my movements - and why not.... don't they always say "never trust a girl in white capris and a checked shirt?") and tried to leave. But nooooo she wasn't having any of that.... the slippery leather couch was slanted at an angle and she was like, arms and legs flailing out of a crack that she'd already slipped down into between the cushions. So my game was up and I had to pick her back up and take her to dinner. AGHHHH
And to compound this, The Men still weren't out on the verandah yet, so I was not able to share this experience with The Mr., Rex, Robin, Jai, etc., and get some input and HELP. Well as soon as we all served ourselves from the buffet and got plates to the table (GORGEOUS Indian food BTW.... DECADENT) then The Men appeared out of nowhere and my eyes went as big as dinner plates as I shot The Mr. the "WTF have you gotten us into" look and charged at him with LJJ. I thrust her at him and said "your turn" and he was happy to share the burden since obviously he had sympathy for me and the youngling being whisked away and thrown into the "lady" end like that with no perspective. And while The Men (and LJJ) dined at a totally seperate table about 100 metres away from The Ladies, the kid behaved herself and sat on the floor under the table and played with a fork or something, I dont know, but some sort of late-night off-schedule adrenyline must've kicked in inside her, because she didn't have a meltdown or anything. THANK YOU GOD!! I looked over later in the meal and around dessert time, saw her being passed around like a rugby ball, amongst all the gold-wearing men and that made me feel a LITTLE better....
But still! Do you think this was a comfortable experience!??! OMG! We all (consultants) just felt totally out of place and totally freaked out by all the pomp and circumstance and weirdness of it all..... especially since it couldn't have been more clearly a case of "oops, got invited to the WRONG PARTY!!!" And Chatty Cathy was still talk-talk-talking away in my ear, filling me with information about all the exotic places her father's career has taken her in her life, what kind of lawyer she aspires to be, when she plans on getting married, etc etc etc. I just couldn't tune in. I was still weirded out by all of this. And this FOOD, which was like SO FREAKIN GOOD was just going in my mouth, down my throat, and landing in my tummy without so much as a connection with my brain. agh! It was just one of those situations that I would've TOTALLY eaten up if I wasn't just so bamboozled, ambushed, out of costume, and ON THE WRONG PLANET!!
Finally after a couple glasses of wine, I got a chance to chat with Michelle (in her hippy skirt and tank top) and that relaxed me a little (both of us trying to avoid the use of "WTF?!?!?" while being overheard) and seeing that there was no immediate baby meltdown on the horizon also helped. What didn't help was knowing we'd not packed for CT yet and had to wake up butt-early in the morning the next day for our flights. So eventually The Mr. and I were able to get "the signal" up in the air and finally be excused. We politely waited til at least 1/4 of the guests had left already.... surprise, surprise, Politician & Mrs Politician were the first to eat and run.... guess we weren't the only ones feeling out of place. And our excuse about having to get up early to make a flight in the morning didn't hurt either. Nevermind the fact it was nearly 11pm and this 10-month-old was still awake!
Whew! Well anyway, that was the jist of it - but I'll tell you what, we couldn't talk about ANYTHING else for at least the next 24 hours. It was just SO BIZARRE.
And now Chatty Cathy is emailing me wanting to be friends (well, she wants a volunteership with our company before she goes off to Law School in London, actually) so I guess we didn't THOROUGHLY embarass ourselves or anything but damn! That was one weird-ass-night. Imagine if I had brought Billy along, like I have been known to do to various unsuspecting "casual" dinner/braai engagements! HA!
So anyway, because of this massive biofuels project that the company is working on right now (The Mr's main project) he is rubbing shoulders with the Indians in town due to their interest in the particular crop and its past success in India and what what what - long story short, one of the guys (Jai) on the consulting team that is working for us was here for the week from Dehli. Thursday he (Jai) got an invite from the BIG MAN IN TOWN (really - as in the richest, biggest house, connected family - guy in town) who is Indian, to bring the whole team over for dinner. At 9pm. On Thursday night. And he SPECIFICALLY insisted that I be there as well. Which meant LJJ had to come as well since there was no time to find someone to pawn her off on. Which is past her bedtime. But I was thinking oh well I'll just throw her in someone's bed at their house and she can sleep while we eat and whatever. That's what we always do when we go to people's houses for dinner or whatever lasts past 8:00. We asked Jai (the indian guy) if we needed to do anything/bring anything/wear anything and he was like "nah, nah, nah, it's just dinner, they're all nice people blah blah blah just bring yourselves & be there at 9".
WELL! Little did I know how this was about to go. So we pull up at this GIANT MANSION, through the DOUBLE security gates (seriously, it was like driving into a game park) and get escorted inside by some butler or something, through the marble foyer, and into this room where a bunch of suit-wearing Indian guys with jewels all over their hands are sitting, sipping scotch or Moet. Introductions are made, The Mr. and I feeling slightly FREAKED THE HELL OUT that we're standing amongst them not only wearing casual clothes, but also holding this chocolate baby in her wee cow jammies, holding her blanky and giving us all the "huh???" eye....
THEN it proceeded to get even more bizarre as the introductions were made (and yes all the gentlemen were very nice except for the leader of the main political party in the country who was kinda an ass but he was the only local guy so there ya go) and then our host says to me, "
So anyway I'm like.... "shit. This is NOT the type of crowd you go 'hey can I just run off and find your bedroom and throw my kid into the bed so she can go nigh-nights and I can come back in here and drink bubbly with you gals?' " So I took a deep breath and just went along with the whole introduction song & dance (all the while thinking: "when the hell did this 'dinner for the consulting team' turn into some sort of "dignitary and influential people convention"... particularly after it was made clear during my introductions that none of these people had a CLUE about this whole biofuels project I kept mentioning (in defense of 'who I was' and what the hell it had to do with me and the reason I was here) Oh and the fact that not only was the leader of the political party there, but so was the freakin Ambassador of India!!! WTF!?) and eventually I found myself (and LJJ) swallowed up into an empty space on one of the enormous leather couches.... inconveniently placed about 100 meters away from the coffee table BTW, which makes putting your drink down elegantly, a living hell. Turns out the spot I chose to sit was right between the oldest Indian lady there who spoke only a little english - still no idea who she was or who she belonged to - and the ever so posh wife of the Ambassador. Crickets, man, crickets.
Thank GOD at some point Ambassador's wife got up (probably disgusted with me and my gob-smacked-induced lack of ability to make conversation) and swapped places with.... yes, this was SO obviously calculated through a very intricate series of glances and nods, right before my eyes.... a girl who turned out to be her daughter, and somewhat closer to my age. I later found out she was mid-20s. Unbeleeeeivably beautiful and obviously very refined. Anyway, she came over and in classic charm-school cultivated fashion, she began firing me with friendly get-to-know-ya type questions and a wave of politeness that kinda freaked me out but hey I'm not judging - good for her! She was nice and charming.
At this point LJJ is sitting on the floor playing with a Kleenex or something I managed to snag out of my purse (no one else had purses, BTW... wha??) and I'm just praying she doesn't realize it's an hour past her bedtime and start giving me grief about it. Well, luck was on my side because through about 45 minutes of idle conversation (and funnily enough, eventually Michelle one of our consultants finally arrived and obviously got the "whisked away from the guys" treatment - only she had been plopped as far away from me in the room as possible) the baby still hadn't exploded, and it was time that we were all escorted out onto the verandah for dinner. At that time I thought - quick, what am I gonna do with this baby because dinner will take hours I'm sure - so I put her down on the couch to go to sleep after everyone left the room (with the exception of the hovering butler who was probably suspicious of my movements - and why not.... don't they always say "never trust a girl in white capris and a checked shirt?") and tried to leave. But nooooo she wasn't having any of that.... the slippery leather couch was slanted at an angle and she was like, arms and legs flailing out of a crack that she'd already slipped down into between the cushions. So my game was up and I had to pick her back up and take her to dinner. AGHHHH
And to compound this, The Men still weren't out on the verandah yet, so I was not able to share this experience with The Mr., Rex, Robin, Jai, etc., and get some input and HELP. Well as soon as we all served ourselves from the buffet and got plates to the table (GORGEOUS Indian food BTW.... DECADENT) then The Men appeared out of nowhere and my eyes went as big as dinner plates as I shot The Mr. the "WTF have you gotten us into" look and charged at him with LJJ. I thrust her at him and said "your turn" and he was happy to share the burden since obviously he had sympathy for me and the youngling being whisked away and thrown into the "lady" end like that with no perspective. And while The Men (and LJJ) dined at a totally seperate table about 100 metres away from The Ladies, the kid behaved herself and sat on the floor under the table and played with a fork or something, I dont know, but some sort of late-night off-schedule adrenyline must've kicked in inside her, because she didn't have a meltdown or anything. THANK YOU GOD!! I looked over later in the meal and around dessert time, saw her being passed around like a rugby ball, amongst all the gold-wearing men and that made me feel a LITTLE better....
But still! Do you think this was a comfortable experience!??! OMG! We all (consultants) just felt totally out of place and totally freaked out by all the pomp and circumstance and weirdness of it all..... especially since it couldn't have been more clearly a case of "oops, got invited to the WRONG PARTY!!!" And Chatty Cathy was still talk-talk-talking away in my ear, filling me with information about all the exotic places her father's career has taken her in her life, what kind of lawyer she aspires to be, when she plans on getting married, etc etc etc. I just couldn't tune in. I was still weirded out by all of this. And this FOOD, which was like SO FREAKIN GOOD was just going in my mouth, down my throat, and landing in my tummy without so much as a connection with my brain. agh! It was just one of those situations that I would've TOTALLY eaten up if I wasn't just so bamboozled, ambushed, out of costume, and ON THE WRONG PLANET!!
Finally after a couple glasses of wine, I got a chance to chat with Michelle (in her hippy skirt and tank top) and that relaxed me a little (both of us trying to avoid the use of "WTF?!?!?" while being overheard) and seeing that there was no immediate baby meltdown on the horizon also helped. What didn't help was knowing we'd not packed for CT yet and had to wake up butt-early in the morning the next day for our flights. So eventually The Mr. and I were able to get "the signal" up in the air and finally be excused. We politely waited til at least 1/4 of the guests had left already.... surprise, surprise, Politician & Mrs Politician were the first to eat and run.... guess we weren't the only ones feeling out of place. And our excuse about having to get up early to make a flight in the morning didn't hurt either. Nevermind the fact it was nearly 11pm and this 10-month-old was still awake!
Whew! Well anyway, that was the jist of it - but I'll tell you what, we couldn't talk about ANYTHING else for at least the next 24 hours. It was just SO BIZARRE.
And now Chatty Cathy is emailing me wanting to be friends (well, she wants a volunteership with our company before she goes off to Law School in London, actually) so I guess we didn't THOROUGHLY embarass ourselves or anything but damn! That was one weird-ass-night. Imagine if I had brought Billy along, like I have been known to do to various unsuspecting "casual" dinner/braai engagements! HA!
Labels: goin out
Ha! Great story.