Making Friends

Now, this might seem like a really weird thing to write about but it's not something that I thought about before coming to India and it's only really started to dawn on me now that I making friends is something that I am doing here. Having been living at Devnar for over three months now I am friends with the teachers, Aunties, Uncles and especially the children but I guess, when I imagined my year I thought my friendships would be almost exclusively connected to life at the school- especially as I live here. It seems silly to me now that I thought this because I do properly live here now (I have Indian residency) and, with the number of people in Hyderabad, it's not like there is a shortage of people to get to know.

The other week Lottie and I were sat in the food court of a local Mall when a lady came up to us and asked if she could sit at our table as there were no other spaces. Of course we said 'yes' and we ended up talking for far longer than we intended to stay in the food court. Padmini told us all about her family and passion for Yoga as well as her involvement with helping the elderly and in return we told her all about Devnar and the kids. What I mean to say is, we hit it off which was a wonderfully pleasant surprise in and of itself, but then Padmini invited us for a free Yoga session the next morning before she headed back to her home in Delhi. We hadn't gone out with anyone outside of our project while in the city so while saying yes might not seem like a big deal it was a little bit of an adventure for us.

The next morning we borrowed some mats from the school and headed to a lovely park that we had seen from afar in a school trip with the children once and Padmini taught us all about her passion for Shivananda Ashram Yoga. While we did attract some attention, ignoring people and enjoying first ever Yoga session was easier than expected. After that we went for a rather swanky lunch followed by ice creams which was very surreal in the sense that 'hanging out' was both familiar and very new to be doing out here. While Padmini left to go back up North to her home, it is nice to know that we now have a friend that will look out for us on our travels through Delhi next summer and it's mad to think that that came about simply because there was a spare seat out our table in GVK1!

We are also starting to make friends within Hyderabad itself. Two months ago, at the Sight Walk awareness event we met Divya who is a medical student in the city and we got on really well. It wasn't until the beginning of December that we actually got our act together and planned to meet up. Lottie had wanted her nose pierced for some time and I (not being brave enough to go for the nose) wanted some more earring so this became an excuse to get Divya and her local knowledge to take us to the best jewelers. Divya's boyfriend, Dr. Santosh Kiran, ever so kindly picked us up and took us to a big jewelers next to Hyderabad Central where we got our piercings for the equivalent of 2 pounds 50! Divya then took us to her favorite Chaat place to educate us on the best Indian street food. We had Samosa Ragada, Dahi Papdi (I really liked this one because of the yoghurt), Bhel Puri, Pani puri and then we took home a parcel of Pav Bhaji which we ate sat on our little bed while obsessing over how good it was. This little food trip has sparked a love affair with Pav Bhaji and it's now our go-to street food lunch when we go out for the day. We also took an evening stroll around KBR park before Divya kindly invited us back to her home to meet her Mum and be reunited with her sister, Shreya, who we had also met at the Sight Walk event. 

Overall, these were both really good days- neither of which I imagined happening when I was picturing my year here but I am ever so glad that they happened. I hope there are many more like them!



(I will put some more photos up when I can!)