Heavy Metal and Dress Shopping

This past Sunday I got to attend the Christmas program for my church (that's Naga Christian Fellowship). We met in an auditorium and there was a choir and Christmas carols.

We also had a visiting pastor who was actually from St. Louis (kind of).

Then we had a chai break and the real party started. By which I mean, We had three hours of college students singing, dancing, and acting their hearts out.

Acts included bollywood style performances, beautiful solos, 

And this heavy metal band which did a cover of Metallica's Sandman.

no, I'm not kidding. Really... it was the third to last act and I really couldn't stop laughing. Not because they were bad-I mean heavy metal isn't my favorite, or anything but they did a decent take on the old classic - but because I had been there since 1:30, it was almost 7:00 and it was just too surreal.

Did I also mention I got roped into singing? So I like Karaoke. If you're my friend, you probably already know that about me. I've always said that I like it because I like singing into a microphone. Let me amend that. I like it because it's singing into a microphone, you get music, you get the words in front of you, and they tell you when to sing said words. It's way harder singing a capella in front of five hundred people with two people singing harmony. Aghh! 

I only screwed it up a little bit at the end. Because I sang the wrong words and laughed (just a little bit). But it was only slightly humiliating.

The REALLY embarrassing part happened a couple of days later.

Yesterday in fact. I was trying to find a dress for a wedding I'm attending here. I went to one of the fancy shops up on Rajpur road because they actually have readymade clothes AND dressing rooms. 

I walked into this particular American style store (I say American because the logos on the t-shirts had logos from lobster fishing places in Mane) and was met with three sales guys*. I took a couple of dresses to the dressing room and tried them on with no problems. Until I got to the last one. And the zipper got stuck.

There was no way I was going to ask one of the guys out front to help me get unstuck and I was seriously considering just buying the dress and wearing it home when I heard the voice of a female outside. What a relief!

So I stuck my head out and identified said woman and asked her for her help. She very nicely obliged and helped me get unstuck. As she was working on the recalcitrant zipper, she says "Did you sing at the Naga Christmas party on Sunday?" 

Yes, yes I did. And now Assu (that's her name) you have seen me in two embarrassing situations. 

It's a good thing the people in my life love me for me and not because I'm so smooth. because I'm not. I'm like the opposite of smooth. And here, I stand out like a sore thumb. So you know how when something embarrassing happened to you in junior high and your mom said "don't worry, no one's going to remember". 

Well, here, they remember. And because I stand out like a sore thumb, they remember it was me and not just some random person. Yesterday I was told by a shopkeeper that they had seen me driving my scooter around town... he remembered me because I am the only white girl who drives a scooter around town. He's not the only one to tell me that.

I sometimes wonder if I'm known as "that gori menace who drives a scooter" here in Dehradun. It's like that guy in college who always wore neon yellow goggles to class. 

*side note - if you work in sales, it is very annoying to the customer if, when they enter your store to look at merchandise, you immediately walk over, stand in front of them and say "yes madam" blocking what that customer is trying to look at. Seriously, every single store I walk into, this happens to me. Move out of the way people!