The Wonders of Apartments

Late December, 2009
Pondicherry, India

Most people, when embarking on some form of vacation, relish the idea of staying in hotel where you don’t have to think about cooking or cleaning and generally have most mundane tasks performed for them. However, when we arrived in Pondicherry just before Christmas to find that hotel prices were ridiculously high, we were delighted to find an advert for an apartment for rent. Pondicherry is an old French colony filled with Gallic expats, so it is not unusual for foreigners to need a home for extended stays. However, our main reason for moving in was the fact that even the most basic hotel room at the time was ridiculously overpriced, whereas for significantly less we got a bedroom, dining room, living room with TV, kitchen, shower room and separate toilet. There was also a second bedroom, but as no one else moved in, we had the whole place to ourselves for the week.
Despite the fact that we were in a town renowned for its ability to produce genuine French delicacies for dinner, I was more excited about going to the supermarket than dining out for the hundredth time. Armed with a shopping basket, I set off around the largest foodstore I could find in the vicinity (possibly comparable to a reasonably sized corner shop, but with many, many more mosquitos) to stock up on provisions for the week. However, when your kitchen equipment consists of two gas rings on a counter top, a couple of saucepans, cutlery and a wooden spoon, the usual dishes Paul and I like to prepare are a little harder to achieve. Even the simplest of ingredients proved more of a challenge than I had anticipated; I wanted a little salt to add some flavour, but it was only available in bags of at least 50g. If I wanted to fry anything I needed oil, but I spent a long time searching through hair oil, coconut oil and even oil to burn in lamps before I found a weird plastic bag filled with sunflower oil. We found all kinds of crazy ingredients available; a few culinary experiments definitely didn’t quite work and any attempt at curry didn’t resemble the feasts we like to prepare at home in any way. Still, it was nice to just cook up a simple pasta and eat it in front of the TV for once, rather than have to trek half way across town just to get some appetising sustenance.
I had great fun sallying forth each day to find more bits and pieces necessary for our comfort. We decided purchasing candles was a good idea, as the frequent power cuts meant food preparation was often performed in semi-darkness – not a good idea when using a sharp knife. We also found that the only downside to cooking for yourself is having to clear up afterwards. Again, the facilities in the flat were a little lacking, so I was confronted with the challenge of locating a scrubbing brush or J-cloth in a local Indian store where only one employee spoke broken English. We ended up with some kind of spiky plastic thing which I have a feeling may actually be intended for clothes, but combined with enough soap it seemed to do the job.
By the end of the week, I had come to the conclusion that whilst I may be able to cook reasonably well at home, I would have to remain in India for a long time before I would be a satisfactory Indian housewife.