thursday is sai baba day.

back in Delhi. get off the air china plane (no individual tvs, surly flight attendants) and it smells like India. Walk to the check in, board the escalator and almost immediately get tangled in the melee at the bottom. 2 hours later and we're checked in after much jostling and general disbelief. Ah, India. No matter how many signs proclaiming that this situation is temporary, it's hard not to believe otherwise. Yesterday we wanted to see Om Shanti Om, a real bollywood movie right here in India with SRK, number one hottie. We ask for help and a kind toothless Indian gentleman and a woman whose Indian accent sounded suspiciously like Smita's directed us toward the number 500 bus. "This is in very nice area, you should go there. It should take half hour." We board the bus and toothless man reappears through the window, "this seat is for senior citizens only" he smiles and gestures. Boards the bus and gives us plenty of directions, at one point lightly slaps my cheek, for being a rapscallion, I guess. The story rolls on: throughout the night we manage to miss 3 movies, take 5 rickshaw rides, be in the same mall as Aamir Khan (whose presence causes all movies to be cancelled), get dinner for free from some sai baba fans on the side of the road, have a rickshaw breakdown, switch rickshaws to ride with someone who mysteriously speaks japanese as well as english and hindi and finally make it back to where we started right as the final movie is beginning only to be told that no bags are allowed in the theatre. no lockers, no submitting to a bag check. we collapse into hysterics as our japanese speaking friend ushers us back into the rickshaw for the final ride of the evening, home. No wonder Indian fiction is so damn good.