today is our independence day

If an alien spaceship showed up at the Novotel in Hyderabad, I'm curious to see if the security guards could get it to stop long enough to sweep under it for bombs. They take this duty v. seriously; I went into the hotel complex Sunday approximately five times with the same driver, and they checked under the car every single time. You would think that it would be clear that a car full of five people wouldn't be a suicide-bomber car; it's not like suicide bombers are so easy to come by that groups send several in the same car. Of course, that would help to increase the death toll from such a bomb, but it wouldn't do much for recruitment.

Anyway, today was India's independence day, and I spent it recovering from a thoroughly-Western night of drinking and general debauchery. Monday was the first day of the conference I'm here for, and by the end of it I was thoroughly exhausted--I took a ten-minute power nap between getting back to the hotel after work and leaving for dinner at Angeethi (home of the delicious murgh makhni and garlic naan about which I waxed so enthusiastically last year), but it wasn't exactly long enough to revive me. Murgh went a long ways toward ensuring my healthy, which I then promptly destroyed by coercing three other people into playing Circle of Death with me. We'd been pretty good up until that point; leisurely chatting, followed by a nice Salim-produced fireworks display. Salim loves to buy the string of 10,000 firecrackers, which lasts a long time; he also bought mortars to set off a bunch of nice aerial fireworks. But, Circle of Death was the beginning of the end. The four of us drank enough to become completely giddy and hysterical, which meant that we had tons of fun last night and all felt v. sick this morning. Salim said it would have been quicker and easier if he had just let us take turns hitting him in the head with a baseball bat, but where would the fun be in that?

So anyway, I spent the night at Regina's, then came back here with her around noon and had a nice lunch at the hotel. I didn't do anything the rest of the day, and now I'm ready for bed.

I only have three days left of this whirlwind trip--crazy! Now, it's time to see whether my jetlag will let me sleep through the night; goodnight, everyone!