The day was sunny and I went for a run in the early afternoon and I actually felt HOT just wearing my T-shirt while running, which is a great sign for the improvement of the weather. I do enjoy not being cold.
After my run, I needed vegetables and fruit for my meals, so I went to Sudar (it means president) Bazaar. Below is my absolute favorite subzi walla (vegetable seller), he always smiles, has good quality vegetables, and is extremely friendly. His name is Ustad, which means teacher. An apt name because from him I've learned many new names of vegetables as well as some yummy recipes. I bought my usual staples of tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, garlic, hot peppers, bell peppers, mushrooms, etc. Nothing too exotic today.
I then headed down the road and around the corner to the phal wallay (fruit sellers) area. I usually buy all my fruit from
this guy, but the little boy (below) selling papaya - which I eat every morning with granola, pomegranate and soy milk - was too cute to pass up, so I bought my papaya from him. Living in Lucknow, I've really developed a love of papaya and I am afraid that when I go home, I'll go through withdraw. Here, papaya is cheap and I can buy enough for a week for less than a dollar.
After buying my groceries, I rushed home to drop them off and headed to the coffee shop that is around the corner from my house. I love this coffee shop because they will make me a soy cappuccino if I bring the soy milk and because the men who work there are friendly now that they are used to me and my bad Hindustani. They have a lovely outside seating area and a restaurant too, but I rarely eat at the restaurant because its a tad on the expensive side. They also tend to play American Top 40 music and I sometimes have weird moments when the song on the radio was a song I enjoyed when I was in high school and I reflect that I never thought I would be sitting in a small city in India reading Urdu at a coffee shop when I was 15....
But the reason I was rushing to the coffee shop was because I was meeting my friend Pankaj. I've known him since summer and he is a really great guy. We were meeting so that he could give me an invitation to his wedding. The wedding in on Wednesday and I am so happy for him and excited to attend the wedding. The match was arranged a few months ago (early December) and his fiance, Jyoti, is Pankaj's father's coworker's daughter. Before the engagement, they had never met. Now they speak on the phone, often. She now lives in Varanasi but will move to Lucknow to live with Pankaj and his family after the wedding. After the wedding I'll send a detailed blog about all the happenings. I've put a picture of Pankaj with the wedding invitation below. The invitation is sooo fancy with glitter and pictures. Hooray!
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