Could I get a tall, decaf chai frappaccino?

Here's how one would order Chai, accorsing to my Hindi phrase book: Kripya mujhe ek pyala chay jijiye. (I can't begin to place the dashes where they belong, even though my keyboard has a Hindi option, I'm not about to mess around here) it translates to "Please give me a cup of Chai."

Here's how you really do it: "Chai"

It occurred to me today, as I sat around listening to all these folks speak French, including Rich, and I caught like every 50th word, that sometimes language is taught in a way that you're not really set up to communicate very well. My chai example being only one of many.

The great thing here is, even just saying "Dhanyavad" sends everyone into a tizzy and they all respond with "You speak Hindi!?"

"Uhm, no." So then I roll out the little Hindi I do know, saying "Thank you, You're welcome, Please, water, and count from 1 to 5."

Usually, by this point a crowd has gathered. If two foreigners stop to talk, a small crowd gathers. Some of the crowd is trying to sell you something "Hellooo boat? Hellooo Rickshaw? Hellooo scarf? Massage, Food, Clothes, Jewellery..." but sometimes the crowd is just staring intently, listening. Every time the conversation ends with the other travellers, I feel like turning to the crowd and saying "We are available for signing atuographs any time."

Back in Bihar, when the attention was overwhelming, I took to saying the name of our town and acting like a rock star. "Thank you Jaisidh and good night!" or "Thank you Bodhgaya and good night! You guys have been great! Be sure to buy my next album!" In fact, in Bihar, crowds took pictures of us. Some families wanted us to pose with them, so we did, but it would amaze me that I was intent on taking a picture of a giant Buddha statue and the guy next to me is asking us to get in their family album.

When I sat alone with my friend Pawan teaching me Hindi, we kept getting swarmed by groups of teens, boys and girls, asking to get a photo with me. I honestly had to say "This is the last one. Ek photo!" (ek means one.) to a group of 16 kids who kept taking pictures, four kids at a time, two on either side of me. Pawan tells me afterwards, if guys want to take my picture to say no, because once that photo is developped they'll go around pointing to me in the picture and telling everyone "that's my girlfriend." I had to tell him, if that's the case, I'm already seeing about 200 guys from Northern India and my reputation is beyond repair.

And wouldn't you know, even with such a besmirched reputation as a half-hearted-Hindi-speaking harlot, I still got a marriage proposal today while we walked back to our hotel; "Hello Madam liking you for marriage."

The thing is, I think he really liked my citizenship and Visa more, and that made me feel so cheap and used.

Every little walk here involves being followed by a barrage of questions "hello Madam, Hello where going?" "Hello where are you from?" "Hellooo are you marriage?" Rich gets asked repeatedly if he would like to buy any number of items, including a boat ride. No one asks for his hand in marriage.

I've started answering "I don't know, where are you going?" and "I don't know, what's your name?" or "Where are you from?" but I can't say "Are you married?" as much as I would like too. As that would just get stupidly complicated.

This is how things get confused or lost in translation and the next thing you know, a dowry would be sorted out (financing Rich's Thailand trip which he leaves for in mid-February) and then I would be doing my laundry in the Ganges for a very long time.

By the way, I had a dessert called 'Hello to the Queen' today, an awesome blend of bananas, chocolate, biscuit and vanilla ice cream. It was amazing. And here I thought they were super anti-Rule Britannia in India. Nope, not at all.

Helloooooo Queen, where going?