Week 4: Pearls, Pani Puri, and Plans Gone Wrong
I’ve now lived here for over a month. Four full weeks.
The days don’t feel foreign anymore. The heat, the noise, the smell of lunch at noon, they’ve settled into something familiar. Something that stays with me. This place doesn’t just feel like somewhere I’m visiting, it’s slowly becoming part of me.
This week I finalised the questionnaire. One step closer to the village. One step closer to hearing the voices that have waited too long to be heard.
Every question, every word, has to count. It needs to be simple enough to make sense to someone unfamiliar with forms or formalities. But layered enough to hold truth. The nuance. The reality of living through policies, through shifts, through change.
Being part of something that touches real lives, that could shape real futures, is a responsibility I carry with both pride and care.
Monday
The week began with rain. Monsoon rain. My first one here in Hyderabad.
I was on my way to lunch, texting my aunt, when the sky opened up out of nowhere. The one time I didn’t bring my umbrella. In two minutes, I was soaked. Drenched, there was nothing else to do.
Tuesday
Work.
Wednesday
Later in the week, Laalithya and I took a walk by the lake — her taking a break from training, me from the spiral of research questions. The weather was soft and breezy. But every time a bug got too close, I jumped like it was an emergency. I said it was a test of our reflexes. We passed. But in all honesty, I don’t think I will ever get used to any insects near me.
Thursday
The next day, I had a long meeting with my supervisor, Dr. Ravula. Almost two hours. We mapped out the next steps and dug through an old ICRISAT database. Years of research, old questionnaires, all archived. I stared at it, slightly stunned. I’d just spent a week writing questions from scratch with no guide, no format — just instinct.
Turns out, I wasn’t far off. I took the harder road, but I found my way. And I learned more than I would’ve if someone had just handed me the answers.
In that same meeting, I told her how easy it’s been to feel rooted here. Not as a tourist or outsider, but as someone trying to understand — someone who wants to stay curious. She nodded and smiled, then told me about Pochampally. A village where artisans weave silk into the most intricate sarees, each pattern tied to history, land, memory. A place that may soon become a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Now I can’t stop thinking about it. About the silk, the touch, the movement of thread across time. I need to go. I need to see it. Maybe even carry a piece of it home.
But the week didn’t end with sarees or spreadsheets.
That same afternoon, I came back from lunch to find water leaking from the bathroom ceiling. Panic. Classic Ari panic. I called Laalithya as if either of us knew how to fix a roof. We ended up just sitting in the living room, chatting like everything was fine.
Friday
Then came Friday. Our hangout.
On the way there, downtown Hyderabad surprised me. It weirdly reminded me of Los Angeles in the movies — big roads, constant movement — and then suddenly, parts of it felt like Athens. It’s an odd mix, but somehow so mesmerising.
We started at Krishna Pearls, Hyderabad’s most iconic jewelry store. The moment I walked in, I felt it. The calm, the warmth, the way everything glowed under the lights. Pearls in every shade, luminous behind glass.
Get ariadne pappa’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
I thought of my mom. She would’ve loved it there. No, she would’ve lived in that store. I could picture her standing there, lifting each necklace, comparing chains, debating me out loud. I held one up to my neck and imagined her voice in the background, telling me to turn a little so she could see better. That’s when the real wave of homesickness came.
Luckily, I had Laalithya with me. Helping. Commenting. Judging. Making me doubt all my decisions.
I thought I did well until my mom saw everything on FaceTime and said, “That’s it?” So yeah… I didn’t buy enough. A return trip is inevitable. Miss you lots, μαμά!
Then we headed to Almond House — one of Laalithya’s go-to spots. Part restaurant, part patisserie. She got pani puri and chickpea curry. I’ve had pani puri before. But not like this.
Three waters. Mango, pomegranate, mint and green chili. Bright yellow. Soft purple. Deep green. Each one tasted like something new. A sharpness, a sweetness, a shock. The ice cream? Kesar kulfi. Rosewater, pistachios, saffron. That taste hit something old in me. Something familiar. Possibly the best flavour and ice cream I have ever tried in my life.
And then came the chaos.
7 PM in Hyderabad. Gridlocked traffic, unique in a honking-every-two-seconds, cars-squeezing-into-nonexistent-lanes kind of way. Her phone on 1%. Her laptop, very dead. No chargers anywhere. I think my brain was undergoing a hard reset and was left frozen. My friend suggested we stop by her house to recharge, but I immediately refused — I’d managed to spill half a cone of ice cream down my white shirt and looked like a toddler after a birthday party. Her family kept saying I wouldn’t be intruding, but I already felt like a walking disaster and wasn’t about to waltz in dripping in sweat and sugar. So we power-walked to this fancy coffee shop in her neighbourhood, rumoured to have a charger. To our luck, it didn’t.
Soon after, out of all times, I remembered I had a portable charger. I dug through my bag. It wasn’t there. పాపం. Paapam — what a pity.
My friend stared at me. “What could possibly be more important than a charger?”
I showed her what I packed: wallet, keys, hand sanitizer, tissues… and a $10 fake Amazon camera.
She lost it. I did too. But just as we were about to give up, the barista wordlessly handed her his own phone with some casual lifesaver energy.
We burst out laughing. Nothing else to do, but at least we had a charger.
Any other time, with anyone else, I would’ve called it a full-blown disaster. No plan, no signal, an hour from campus, and my foreign phone basically a shiny brick with no function. It had all the makings of a meltdown. Meanwhile, my friends in Texas were way more stressed than I was, because I kept texting things like “omg you won’t believe what just happened” and then forgetting to follow up. To them, it felt like some chaotic mix of a thriller, soap opera, and comedy. I was the one stuck in it, but somehow they were the ones bracing for impact. And weirdly, that night just felt easy. Like we were exactly where we were supposed to be.
I laughed all the way home.
Friday alone was definitely a mess, but the kind that reminds you you’re alive. That you’re young. That you’re not just doing research or checking boxes. You’re building something. You’re navigating your way through a country that keeps surprising you.
Now, halfway through. And I already know, I’ll carry these days with me long after I’ve left.
