Back to the present, for a mo'

Because every bakery we've tried in Mumbai's been a huge disappointment, we recently bought a breadmaker on-line. Of course, we didn't think about the fact that electricity here differs not only in voltage (for which we have an adaptor) but in cycles (for which we don't), so we have fairly limited functionality -- nothing that relies on the timer -- but, still, decent bread. K usually gets up earlier than I do on weekends, so he made some bagel dough in the machine first thing today, and then, when I got up, I did the rolling, boiling, glazing and baking part of the process.

Sounds like a peaceful domestic Saturday morning, right?

Which is what I was determined to cling to, so when a small cockroach appeared on the rim of the pot of boiling water, I studiously ignored it. The stupid thing kept circling the rim, running faster and faster, not figuring out it should climb or jump down, until it got too hot, fell off, and died. I paused briefly to call K into the kitchen to remove it (I'm in charge of bagels; he's in charge of vermin control), and then went on working the dough. Seconds after he left, a cockroach the size of my fist came dive-bombing straight down -- out of where, I really can't figure out -- missed my head by inches, hit the rim of the pot (not in, thank god) with an audible hiss, and then landed on the stovetop, where it underwent a melodramatic, hairy-leg-flailing death.

Sorta took the steam out of brunch.

I miss Western cockroaches that run away if you turn on the light. Granted, the Indian ones aren't as bad as Thai cockroaches: once I woke up with one on my face, and there was a crew who lived under my washer and would aggressively charge at me when I brought in laundry. But the ones here are still pretty fearless. There's one that sits on top of my desk at work, and just watches me type. If they're not touching me, I'm generally prepared to live and let live -- I was a teenage fan of "Archy and Mehitabel," after all -- but, I gotta say, this attraction to boiling water leaves me questioning their whole "can survive a nuclear war" schtick.