I have been here more than three months now and I haven't really gotten to the point where I crave food that I can't have. I don't wake up, mouth watering, after a dream about a steak. I don't walk past the Mc'D's in Surat and feel the lure of the arches. I like Indian food for the most part and denying my cravings and succeeding is sort of thrilling in a weird way. But..some days you just need ice-cream. There is a ice cream treat here called faluda and last night, we were craving it. Not knowing where to look for it in our village, we called our helpful friend, Kaushik-bhai. Lyndi called and I could hear the deep disappointment in her voice when he said that you couldn't get it in our town. All 4 of us groaned in unison. Her face perked up though, when he asked her to call back in 5 minutes. Ten minutes later, he is in front of our house with his car and we are piling in. We have no idea where we are going but, we have our wallets just in case (even though, we would never have had to pay for it). Next thing we knew, we were pulling in to their driveway and his wife is pulling out the ingredients to make us homemade faluda! Vermicelli, ice cream, milk, crumbled cookie pieces, large glasses.
How did we go from asking for directions to eating what it was we were looking for in a friend's home?...that's India.