Once again, my mind seems to be awash in all things Indian. Maybe I should spend my sabbatical there? I'm supposed to be spending a year split between Budapest and Abu Dhabi, but the thought of spending months in India just sounds wonderfully appealing. I've talked before about my trip to Aurangabad to visit, among other things, the spiritual caves of India, but just spending time in Aurangabad itself was great. Here are a couple pictures of interesting characters I met there. I spent hours one afternoon travelling around in an auto-rickshaw with a very fine gentlemen who took me to several shops. And he was also honest enough to admit that he did get a percentage of the money spent by his customers - it's an age-old system - the taxi driver or the guide says that they actually know of a place that might have some interesting textile, jade, etc. and that maybe he/she could take you there - there's a certain theater involved because they have to act as if it's a spur of the moment decision, when actually they're getting a cut of the proceeds. I asked him if he was getting 20%, which I had read in the guidebook, and he said yes - that's actually a pretty good deal for him, often it's less. We also had a nice talk about his trials and tribulations in finding a husband for his daughter, and his guilt/shame over having the parents of a prospective match over for dinner and drinking too much beer in front of them. The other picture is of a shop-keeper that I ran into in Aurangabad. I left my hotel at night in search of cyber-cafe to check my email and monitor an online class I was teaching at the time - I think I've found a cyber cafe in every city I've ever visited, with the exception of Burlington. While I was walking around the electricity went out across the city, which was happening a lot on that visit, and I ended up in a little shop talking to the shop keeper - he lit a candle and we talked about world events. A lovely time.
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