can't you feel the warmth of my sincerity

For those of you who were too lazy to read my entire post about my weekend (which my mother said amounted to seven pages when she printed it out for my grandmother), a recap: the Naxalites bombed a bus on the road to Srisailam, the temple itself was awesome but difficult to understand, we saw monkeys, and on Sunday my driver rear-ended someone and I vaguely hurt my back. You're now all caught up!

I should be working right now, but it's so tempting to throw in the towel once you reach your eleventh hour of work. I was almost lured into going to Meena Bazaar, but after waiting for the car for a few minutes, my common sense prevailed and I came home instead. I had a nice, long conversation with my parents, and was pleasantly surprised to find that my mother was not overly worried about me despite the picture of the bombed-out bus posted below. The people who went to Meena Bazaar should be back soon, so I'll go up and have a late dinner with them, then do a bit more work before going to bed.

Update on the whiplash: my back was aching all day, which is unfortunate, and all I wanted to do was lie down, but I had too much to do to go home. Sadness. It's not *bad*, it's just not great, and since I refuse to seek medical treatment or succumb to illnesses unless physically incapable of going anywhere, I shall persevere. Unfortunately, this can't be cured by a shot of whisky like my semiannual sore throat, so I'll just have to grin and bear it.

Speaking of cures, however, I had a somewhat-garbled conversation with Ismail today that led me to believe that I can cure my asthma here. He said something about how at the very beginning of the monsoon season (which starts in the next few days), tons of people come to Hyderabad to do some sort of natural asthma cure that involves swallowing a live fish. From what I understood (which could be completely incorrect), these fish appear in the lake at the beginning of the monsoon, and you put some medicine on the mouth of the fish, and then swallow the fish. Or something. I do know that it involves swallowing a live fish, and that you're completely cured of asthma after this treatment. Great, eh? Had I known about this, I wouldn't have brought albuterol inhalers.

Okay, the Meena Bazaar people are back from their excursion, and so it's time to go upstairs. Happily, I'm moving upstairs in the next couple of days, which will be great, since I spend most of my time there anyway. Goodnight, everyone!