Disillusionment

(Escher)

Futility.

It's a feeling I've heard about from a lot of people recently--a professor telling me why he gave up on the field of development, a friend who went to India and lived in a village for awhile, a friend who can't find a job after graduation, interview panels questioning me about how much of a difference research really makes at the grassroots level, if researching development in India is really "fighting the fight of the world"...

It's something that I felt very strongly the first summer I worked in a slum. It was hard to be happy or to see anything positive when poverty was so entrenched all around me. People had so many issues. Issues that were overlapping with one another, affecting one another, touching everyone in the community, in the city, in the state, in the country, in the world. Intergenerational, cyclical issues that were just piling on top of one another. People were poor, sick, and uneducated. Their parents were poor, sick, and uneducated, and their parents' parents had been poor, sick, and uneducated, too. Where could anyone, let alone me, possibly start? If this one slum area, with 150,000 residents, was making me feel like this, how in the world could I possibly address the fact that India has the most poor people in the world? According to a recent estimate, the nation has over 421 million in just its 8 poorest states (Multidimensional Poverty Index developed at Oxford, based on Amartya Sen's human capabilities approach). The largest number of poor people in the world.


(Escher)

I came back after that summer unable to spend any money except for the bare essentials for months. I felt guilty and unsure of what I could possibly do in this world so full of inequality and poverty. This was important for me to go through, because I didn't realize it at the time, but it caused my mind to keep trying out new ideas, to keep searching for the beginnings of solutions. I couldn't see any other alternative. I came back to my university and took some classes. I read about the experiments being conducted by the MIT Poverty Action Lab. I went back to India and opened my eyes, focusing not only on the suffering but also on the inspirational people that were all around me--NGO workers, children from the slum who were studying hard so they could bring their families out of a cycle of poverty. Men and women and children who were working to rid their world of injustice.

No one who found any of the amazing solutions to problems in the world ever did so because they gave up. And who am I to give up when there are people out there literally fighting for their lives and for the lives of their families? Who have been fighting for generations to survive and to have a voice? Parents are struggling to put food in front of their children every day, children are struggling to balance surviving with studying, and I'm the one giving up? How does that makes sense?

Speaking specifically about the field of development, perhaps it's one of the easiest fields to get disillusioned with. And don't get me wrong--realizing the magnitude of the problems there are is extremely important. Grasping their complexity is significant, and we must pick out the problems in our respective fields so we can reform them. So we can keep changing the system, making it as dynamic as the world is. These concepts of balancing idealism with pragmatism, targeting researching to the grassroots, merging theory and reality, are ones that I'm struggling with, and they're concepts that I hope I keep struggling with. Because the difference is in the struggle.

Here is the wonderful thing: helping a single child to study could lead to an escape for her (if not her family's) cycle of poverty. And that, in itself, is most definitely "enough." If I do that, I am one human being, and I have made a difference to one entire other human being (and that's discounting any positive externalities). That's not a small success. It's huge. And it's the place that I had a chance to start addressing all of the bad I saw around me.

Little events, ordinary things, smashed and reconstituted. Imbued with new meaning. Suddenly they become the bleached bones of a story.
-The God of Small Things

Keeping on trying is the next step. I owe it to myself and as a person who lives in a world full of other people. Giving up is not going to accomplish anything, but it is going to take away one mind and one heart from the fight that makes the world better. Addressing that fight through whatever corner you choose to address it from, I think is most definitely "fighting the fight of the world." Everything that each one of us does is connected to everyone else. I believe that we are each responsible for realizing this, and this realization alone should stop us from giving up

"Cass Mastern lived for a few years and in that time he learned that the world is all of one piece. He learned that the world is like an enormous spider web and if you touch it, however lightly, at any point, the vibration ripples to the remotest perimeter and the drowsy spider feels the tingle and is drowsy no more but springs out to fling the gossamer coils about you who have touched the web and then inject the black, numbing poison under your hide." -All the King's Men

So, this is my plea. Face and learn from the problems you see everywhere, but don't ever give up. Disillusionment happens, and perhaps everyone faces it at some point in their lives. But I think it's a motivation, not a reason to give up. Allow others to question you, your motivations, your goals, and your work. Let your experiences make you reevaluate what you're doing. Keep changing. But don't let anything make you walk away from the work or the people you love. Have faith in yourself and in those around you. We're the ones that get to make a difference today, tomorrow, and for the rest of our lives--through research, through medicine, through media...pick the avenue you love and go for it. Change paths if you like--once, twice, three times--but don't ever stop. Constant reevaluation, perseverance, connection, and love are how we go about changing an unjust system. I have to remind myself of that at times, but it always ends up coming back. It's my mantra and I plan to stick by it.


(Escher)

"A man goes out on a beach and sees that it is covered with starfish that have washed up in the tide. A little boy is walking along, picking them up and throwing them back into the water. "What are you doing, son?" the man asks. "You see how many starfish there are? You'll never make a difference." The boy paused thoughtfully, and picked up another starfish and threw it into the ocean. "It sure made a difference to that one," he said."
-Hawaiian parable

Diwali 2010

The Intellectual

While reading the Oxford MPhil in Development Studies Handbook, I came across the wonderful excerpt and wanted to share:

"The central fact for me is, I think, that the intellectual is an individual endowed with a faculty for representing, embodying, articulating a message, a view, an attitude, philosophy or opinion to, as well as for, a public. And this role has an edge to it, and cannot be played without a sense of being someone whose place it is publicly to raise embarrassing questions, to confront orthodoxy and dogma (rather than to produce them), to be someone who cannot easily be co-opted by governments and corporations, and whose raison d'etre is to represent all those people and issues that are routinely forgotten or swept under the rug. The intellectual does so on the basis of universal principles: that all human beings are entitled to expect decent standards of behaviour concerning freedom and justice from worldly power or nations, and that deliberate or inadvertent violations of these standards need to be testified and fought against courageously."
Edward Said, Reith Lectures, June 1993

Personally, I think that these are the responsibilities of everyone--whether they fancy themselves intellectuals or not.

On a separate note, I came back from my trip with dad to Ireland and England. Oxford's campus was truly gorgeous and made me want to spend much more time than I had with the beauty, history, and art that surrounded me. Trinity College's campus was not as aesthetically pleasing, but the tour given by an eighth year history student (haha, yes, 8) and his retelling of amusing/slightly horrific stories about the professors, students, (e.g. students threw bricks in the windows of a young and apparently widely unpopular college professor (the professors then stayed in the buildings on the campus, which we were standing in front of when this story was told). In turn, the professor decided to bring out his gun and start shooting at them. So of course, the students returned with their own guns...in the end, the professor was very unfortunately fatally wounded in an area where a man really would not want to be wounded. The judge dismissed the students from all charges {which of course had nothing to do with the fact that their fathers were in high places, said our guide sarcastically). They went on to hold high places in Irish government and academia themselves, apparently.) and architecture of the college made it quite an interesting place to visit.

And then there was the Old Library at Trinity College. I wanted to sit there for weeks just to admire the wood and ladders and leather books. There was an exhibition called "Nabobs, Soldiers and Imperial Service: The Irish in India" which displayed many books written by British and Irish with unique perspectives on their relationships with India.



In London, I was able to meet up with some British friends I had made at Manav Sadhna, and the Irish really are the friendliest people on the planet. The greenery in Ireland was breathtaking, and Galway was probably my favorite city. On our first night in Galway, we went to dinner with my dad's colleagues and hosts--an Austrian professor, a German professor, and a French postdoc. Needless to say, the three-hour dinner quite entertaining, with topics of conversation ranging from information technology to healthcare to slums to Chinese infrastructure to, of course, which country is better--Germany or Austria (a topic discussed more and more animatedly by aforementioned professors as the night wore on!).

A 10 day trip was certainly not nearly long enough but alas, I must start classes for my last year at Ohio State after almost nine months away...

Deepak: An Update

I should have actually written this update when I was still in Ahmedabad, but somehow, time, as always, escaped me.

I ended up spending more and more time with Deepak and his mother, going by his home in the Tekro often with Sunilbhai or Ajaybhai to talk to his mom about taking him to the municipal hospital just to get a checkup. Finally, we agreed on a date. However, on that same day, Sunilbhai had to go somewhere else; I did not want all of the effort of finally convincing Deepak's mother to go to the hospital to go to waste, so I still went by their home and sure enough, they were ready to go. I was determined we would go. With a few phone calls, I got Ramanbhai, another very dedicated Manav Sadhna staff member who has a badge to let us into the municipal hospital, to come and help take Deepak and his mother there. We spent about 6 hours at the municipal hospital, where Deepak had a 2 minute check-up and echocardiogram taken.

The doctor explained to us how there was a hole between the bottom two chambers of Deepak's heart--so, blood that was not completely clean was being pumped through his entire body, thus stunting his growth, causing his shortness of breath, and various other problems. An 8 hour operation that would place a pipe near his heart would help solve this problem. Though his SPO2 level was measured at 70%, which is extremely low, the doctor, after hearing about Deepak's parents' reluctance to have an operation done, told them to just bring him in every 3 months for a checkup and to keep monitoring if his symptoms worsened (dizziness, etc.).

Spending 6 hours in line at the hospital with Ramanbhai, Deepak, and his mother turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I spent much of the time talking to Deepak's mother, getting to know her, finding out what her reservations about Deepak's possible operation were, and building a relationship with her. She told me about how she had seen neighbors in the Tekro slum around her get very sick, go to the hospital, and never come back. She didn't want that to happen to Deepak, and an 8 hour operation sounded very long and scary for her little boy. The only symptom Deepak shows, she kept repeating to me, is a shortness of breath--nothing as extreme as she's seen with other sick people in the slum, so Deepak can't be that bad off, right? I explained to her what the doctor said about Deepak's heart, that shortness of breath at the age of 9 is actually quite a worrisome symptom. Very soon, I saw that a difference was made in her mind not by the content of our conversation but rather by the conversation itself--the fact that I was sitting down and talking to her for hours, telling her about myself and letting her tell me about herself and her son. Soon, she was giving me her phone number and asking me questions about Deepak's condition without any prompting.

Speaking with Kirsten, a neonatal nurse back in the US who was volunteering with me at Manav Sadhna (her and her friend Nattie came to India for the first time for a couple of weeks--only one of which was to be spent at Manav Sadhna-- and ended up not traveling to the other places they were going to go and quitting their jobs, staying for 3 months to volunteer with Manav Sadhna), I learned that she was extremely surprised about the doctor's recommendation that Deepak just come in for regular checkups when his SPO2 level was so low. Doing some research myself, I found out that a normal SPO2 level is well above 90%. Talking to Sunilbhai, who has connections with local cardiologists since he has been a health worker for MS for 8 years, we agreed that Deepak should be taken to a private cardiologist, who may be able to spend more time on Deepak's case. I was apprehensive about Deepak's parents' reaction to another trip to the doctor, especially after it had taken so much convincing to go through with the last one. However, when I showed up at Deepak's home with ice cream, markers, and sketchpads and mentioned that I thought he should go to a private cardiologist (and assured his mother it would not take as long as going to the government hospital), his mother was ready to take him--the very first time I told her!

Once again, I found that building a relationship--the simple small acts of taking the time to talk to her, touch her arm, smile at her, show her I care about her son--accomplished much more than just repeating to her that she was not doing enough for her son. Because Deepak's mother trusted me, she was willing to try a new approach to her son's illness--one that she fears but now understands may be a better path to take than the one she has been treading on.

I've been in touch with Sunilbhai since I have been back in the States and hope to hear more about Deepak soon.

Mera Kam Khatam! (My Work is Over), Part II

My uncle, cousin and I arrived at the Mumbai FRO around 9am. When we got to the front of the line of foreigners and explained my situation, the woman at the front desk mater-of-factually responded that no one had called about my case, and sorry but paperwork was certainly going to take more than one day. The Mumbai FRO office closes at 1pm, which is when they start their paperwork, and they were going to have to communicate with the Jaipur FRO office via fax; the Jaipur FRO office would have to fax back and besides, there was a bunch of other paperwork that would also have to be processed for me to get my Exit Permit.

This time, I was ready. I had bought 100 Rs. (=100 minutes) on my phone (all of which would be used up by the end of the day) so I could call back and forth to Jaipur. As my uncle and cousin waited in the waiting room, I went inside got my paperwork started to be processed--my uncle wrote a note saying I was living with him in Mumbai and I produced whatever papers I could find that showed I had studied with a registered program in Jaipur. I called my professors/director of the study abroad program in Jaipur and told them about how I needed the Jaipur FRO to respond ASAP to the communication that the Mumbai FRO sent via fax, and one of my professors was headed over to the Jaipur FRO with a folder holding papers about me to present my case. That is when the lady I was working with informed me that it was my responsibility to get the phone and fax number of the Jaipur FRO--of course, it's not like all of the government offices in different states actually have a directory of phone numbers for or methods of communication with each other!

As I kept calling Jaipur to check up on the status of my case being made there, I was informed that I was not allowed to use a cell phone in the FRO waiting room (even though somehow, I was supposed to conjure up the number for the Jaipur FRO myself). So, running in and out of the office every few minutes, an hour later, I found out that my professor had reached the FRO in Jaipur and was explaining my case. I asked him to please tell me the fax and phone numbers for the government office he was in...and he informed me that apparently, there was no land-line phone number, nor was there a fax machine...yes, that is correct, the government Foreign Registration Office of this large and well-known city has no phone number.

Many frantic phone calls later, I finally had a random cell phone number and the number of a fax "nearby" which the Jaipur FRO officer relayed through my professor. By this time it was almost 1pm. A fax was sent from Mumbai to Jaipur asking them to confirm that my exiting the country was O.K. I thought my work was almost done and my paperwork would be processed now. But I breathed a sigh of relief too quickly.

The lady who was processing my paperwork informed me I had yet to fill out an exit permit, which could be done on one of the computers, put passport pictures of myself (which I did not have) on it, write a long letter about why I was in the situation I was in, and do a million other pieces of paperwork, each of which she only told me about when I thought I had turned the last piece of paperwork in. Running in and out of the waiting room (which had now emptied of foreigners since it was after 1pm--only my cousin and uncle remained sitting there) one good thing happened-- through our many interactions the lady who was processing my paperwork had softened a bit toward me and told me that though this was a lot more work for her and she had a lot of other people's paperwork to do, she would process mine if the fax from the Jaipur FRO came back in time--it would have to arrive before 3pm or there was no hope of my paperwork being processed.

My cousin and I ran across the street to a small Kodak shop to get passport photos. When the man handed me my pictures, I asked for my 50 Rs. change back (the pictures had been 50 Rs. and I had handed a man 100 Rs.), to which the man giving me my photos said that the man I had initially given my money to had left for namaz and did not tell anyone that I needed change. By this point, I was quite enraged, but there was nothing I could do--50 Rs. is just a little over $1, but I was determined to not be cheated and vowed I would come back (it was the principle of the matter!). But right now, I had to run back with my photos and make sure my paperwork was processed on time.

We ran back across the street when I got the phone call from my professor, still at the Jaipur FRO, that a fax had been sent back to Mumbai! Jumping for joy, I crowded into the lift and ran into the 3rd floor office once more, where I was informed the fax had reached. I filled out paperwork, signed, pasted photographs, and xeroxed forms for the next hour and finally was informed that all I had to do was pay a $30 fine. Pretty peeved since this was clearly the Jaipur FRO officer's fault, I got a yellow receipt from a lady at the front desk (I wanted to see if I could be reimbursed from my program). However, the lady that had processed my paperwork took that receipt for her records so I went back to the lady who had given me a receipt and asked for the white copy. Setting her jaw and not even bothering to look for my copy, she said she had given me a receipt and she didn't have any other copy--"mera kam khatam" (my work is over), she said, crossing her arms and not budging. No matter what I said nicely (the only other people in the room were my uncle, cousin, and the xerox man who agreed with me that she had not given me the correct receipt), she just kept repeating "mera kam khatam". Having been in the FRO for over 6 hours now, I was more than a little angry and each repetition of the phrase riled me up a little more. In slightly broken Hindi, I proclaimed that I was not leaving without my receipt and started rifling through the papers on her desk myself (my cousin and uncle looked on slightly amused--later on, my cousin told me she was going to come help me with the bullish receipt woman but it seemed I was taking care of myself just fine). I broke through the last barrier of the bureaucracy, as my rifling through her papers finally pushed her into action. Kind of sheepishly (though never admitting any mistake), she found my receipt and I left the office triumphant, 7 hours after I had first entered. I had an exit permit dated for June 7--if for some reason I was unable to leave the country today, well...I didn't want to think about that.

I ran back across the street to the photographer's office and demanded my 50 Rs. Back from namaz and apologizing under what I like to think of as my withering glare, he handed over my money and I rode home reveling in my small victory.

At the airport, my uncle's driver unloaded my luggage from the trunk for the third night in a row. Begging me to please catch the plane this time, I tried to reassure him that I would (really hoping I was right this time). When I walked into the airport, all of the Continental greeted me by name--the ones checking passports, managing the lines, and at the check-in counters. As I pushed my trolley and pulled up my now over-sized jeans, I flashed them wide grins. The nice man who had escorted me around the night before asked if I had my registration as he checked my passport again and, a little loudly, I waved the prized piece of paper that had been stamped, signed, and had my picture on it--my exit permit-- in his face."I CAN LEAVE INDIA NOW!!!" (he looked around a little embarrassedly at my volume, but flashed me a quick smile, congratulated me, and walked away). I sailed through Immigration on a cloud.

Of course, monsoon had just started in Mumbai, I went through a million extra security checkpoints after reaching the gate for some reason, and everyone on my plane sat in a room behind the gate for about 3 hours in the muggy humidity before a man yelled up a storm to the poor airport staff for not having AC in the room (they finally brought two jumbo fans down). When I got on the plane, I learned that because of the rains, they needed to reduce the weight of the plane so about half of the passengers were not flying with us anymore; however, their luggage had already been loaded and needed to be unloaded. After another couple of hours of sitting at the gate, the plane finally lifted off and we were informed the in-flight entertainment system was not going to work. At this point, I really didn't care--I stretched out on 3 empty seats and slept for 14 hours straight. I was finally going home.

Bureaucracy at its finest, Part I

I've been back from India for over a month now, but on June 6, 2010 I really wasn't sure if I was going to make it.

I was dropped off at the Mumbai airport 9pm with all of my luggage for the second night in a row (my dad had accidentally switched my flights the night before, so though the driver had dropped me off, when I got to the check-in desk, I found that my itinerary was for the next day). Of course, when I got to the front of the check-in line, one bag weighed too much and I hurriedly started stuffing things from one bag into another. Finally getting both bags to their correct weight limit, I again went through the line, when a Continental staff member examined my passport and asked to see my registration. "What registration? The Jaipur Foreign Registration Office (FRO) said I didn't need to register since my visa was under 6 months..." The nice Continental guy told me he would put my luggage on hold until Immigration cleared me. That's when my panic started. I had just read all about how Indian Immigration had gotten very strict with American citizens in allowing them to enter and re-enter the country; however, I didn't know they would also stop me from LEAVING! Having had many experiences in getting through bureaucracy to get where I needed when I helped take slum children to the municipal (government) hospital with Manav Sadhna, I put on my polite-but-won't-back-down face and went back to immigration.

As predicted, when I got to the immigration officer, he took one look at my student visa and asked for my registration. I repeated what I had said before--that my study abroad program had taken our whole student group to register at the Jaipur FRO, but they told some of us that we did not need to register and sent us back--and all of the other students in my program were allowed to go back to the US. What could I do if the FRO officer didn't give me registration papers? Of course there is no computer system that records these kinds of things--people who have gone to the FRO and registered, people that haven't, people that have gone and were not given registration--why use technology to lessen paperwork? No, just like medical records and tax records, these sorts of things are all recorded on papers that have to be stamped, signed, and photographed multiple times--papers that we all have to carry around if we have any hope of getting anything done.





[Pictures of the AUDA tax office in Usmapura in Ahmedabad.The room goes on for awhile, and all of the shelves, tables, and most of the floorspace is occupied by dusty files containing tax information. One lone desktop computer sits in the corner of the room--located on the left side of the top picture--and only those lucky enough to have a key number have their business taken care of by using a computerized system. For everyone else, tax officers sit and sort through thousands of names in files which are organized by some archaic system that is not alphabetical and which I have a real suspicion that even the government workers in the office do not know how to search through...we almost went through that process when we were there, but luckily, Ajaybhai called and found a number and we were able to look up the file on the COMPUTER!]
{also, the pictures of Hindu gods in a government office may seem surprising for a democracy, but that has to do with India's definition of secularism, which is quite different from the western definition...but I'll leave that discussion for later!}

I was sent back out to look through my packed luggage to see if my registration papers were hidden somewhere. So, I frantically began searching through my check-in baggage in the middle of the airport, stacking all of the papers I had stuffed in my bag (I am supposed to lug home all of the materials I used in my study abroad classes to make sure I get appropriate credit from my university) all around me as the nice Continental guy stood looking down at me sympathetically. I called my professors in Jaipur telling them what was going on, and they confirmed my fears--I could not find my registration papers because the Jaipur FRO did not give me any. As the nice Continental guy started ripping my check-in tags off my baggage, I held back tears, determined not to look more pitiful than I already did--in the middle of the airport pulling up my jeans that were now a million sizes too big because of all the weight I had lost, disheveled hair in a ponytail that was loosening itself by the minute, with about 10 pounds of paper now strewn across the floor. Gathering everything onto a trolley, I went back to the immigration officer to see if I could talk my way onto the plane.

Of course, I wasn't allowed. He walked me and all of the luggage I was heaving around back to the offices of his supervisor and his supervisor's supervisor and his supervisor's supervisor's supervisor--you get the point--each person telling the new person about my case in Hindi, not allowing me to tell it myself, and each new person telling me I needed to go back to Jaipur to get my registration papers. Finally, as we got to the highest ranking supervisor's office, I got tired of having people speak about me for me. I jammed my trolley full of luggage in his doorway, ran inside, and started talking as fast as I could (but also as politely as possible), determined to get my story out before someone told their version of it. First thing this newest supervisor did was ask me to please get my trolley out of the doorway. Politely, I removed my 100 pounds of luggage from his doorway, stepped back in, and continued my story, which thank goodness, he listened to. At the end of my spiel, he told me, sorry, I needed to go back to Jaipur to get the papers. At that point, I decided the pity tears that would not take very long to conjure maybe would do me some good. So, I started the waterworks, telling him how my visa expired in a few days, which thankfully had its desired effect. Telling me to "please sit and calm down, ma'am," the supervisor of the supervisor of the supervisor went to call his supervisor. When he came back into the office, he said that though I would not be able to get on a plane tonight, he had good news--that I could go to the Mumbai FRO and register from there the next day and hopefully fly the next night. Having learned my lesson about government officers who make assurances without giving me appropriate paperwork with their signatures (the golden ticket for anyone wishing to get anything done--a paper stamped, signed, and stuck with photographs is key), I asked Mr. Supervisor^3 if I could have a piece of paper from him saying that I could register at the Mumbai FRO and that the registration needed to be completed in a day. Waving his hand, he told me his supervisor had already called and it would all be fine--I just needed to walk in the next day and get my paperwork processed.

As my uncle's driver picked me up from the airport around midnight for the second time, I called the number the nice Continental man had given me to explain my situation and postpone my flight. Knowing that this registration could well take a few days, I wanted to reschedule for a couple days later. However, the lady told me some bleak news: there was only 1 flight going out in the next few days, and it was going out tomorrow, on June 7. There were no flights on June 8 and 9, and on June 10, my visa was due to expire.

I was definitely going to HAVE to get my registration processed tomorrow if I wanted to leave the country anytime soon.

A cup of fresh-squeezed orange juice

Today, some volunteers and staff members at Seva Cafe got together to talk about the Cafe and how it has been running recently, after the renovation and subsequent reopening. Seva Cafe is not a free restaurant, but rather a home. It's a place where guests are served by a loving set of staff and volunteers, all of whom use and create this space to inspire a sense of service, love, and global community within each other and within our guests. (http://www.sevacafe.org/ahmedabad.html)

Those of us that had worked together there before the renovation have all recently been feeling a cumulative sense of tension and impatience in the air that was not there before. Some things have gotten unnecessarily rigid and others have been ignored, just slipping through the cracks, causing stress, and causing us to not be able to create the environment that we want to create for each other and for our guests every night. We want to be able to communicate with each other, to step into Seva Cafe and feel the relief we feel when we step into our own homes after a long day, and to spread the love that we feel for each other with everyone who enters the space without expecting anything in return. We want tranquility, compassion, and love, mixed in with jokes and lightness of mind and heart. So, we got together, and though our training/discussion session was only supposed to last 2 hours, it lasted 4 and we were all able to talk through everything we were feeling and hoping to do.

In this spirit, we started the session with an assignment: to go outside and perform some small act of kindness for someone else. Stepping out of the elevator, we all soon saw that since it was a Sunday and it was the middle of the day (the hottest part of the day), not many people were out doing any kind of work that we could help them with in 10-15 minutes. When I stepped out, I saw trash, so the first thing I thought of doing was walking around the block and collecting trash and maybe seeing if there was someone else along the way that looked like they needed anything I could give them. Instead, I walked by one of the other Seva Cafe volunteers, Nimesh, who had just gotten into a conversation with a street juice cart-walla. The man immediately saw that I had the same Seva Cafe flower inspirational garland on and trash in my hands and invited me over, immediately offering juice to both Nimesh and I (and anyone who has experienced the Gujarati summer sun will know just how much of a blessing one cup of fresh-squeezed juice can be). Since we had left everything in Seva Cafe, we both said we were very sorry that we couldn't accept because we didn't have any money on us. Not even blinking, he ushered us over to his cart, quickly saying no problem, don't even worry about it, it's free, and to please, drink some juice! He immediately showed me where the nearest dustbin was so I could throw away the trash I had gathered. As we sipped our blissfully cold fresh-squeezed orange juice in the heat of the 1:00pm Ahmedabad sun, we asked Dineshbhai about how long he had been working off of the juice cart there, and he said 28 years. We asked about his family, and he told us about his son, Haresh, who he had named his juice cart after, and his wife; he asked us where we were from, and we told him. We thanked him and went back upstairs with big smiles on our faces. Ever since then, I've been thinking about how meaningful a small interaction like this can be--I had set out to try to do something good for someone else, and instead got to be on the receiving end of another's pure, open heart. One simple cup of juice had the power to brighten my entire day, inspired me to smile at everyone I saw on the street, and gave me a memory I'm sure to think of the next time I get juice from any juice cart-walla.

After our session was over a few hours later, Nimesh and I went across the street and got some ice cream to give to Dineshbhai, who was so surprised and pleased that he grinned from ear to ear, repeating "you shouldn't have!" We told him to make sure he or his son or both come to visit us at Seva Cafe tomorrow night at 7pm, and he promised to do so.

Today was just another day that I saw the true power that those who believe in "love all, serve all" have to change others' lives. What could be stronger than a relationship formed through love and without any expectation of reciprocation? And what could be better, bring me more happiness, than being able to put the same smile that was put on my face by Dineshbhai on someone else's face?

Tomorrow will be the first day that we put into action everything we discussed today about the environment we want Seva Cafe to have. I'm so looking forward to being able to share the kindness and compassion that Dineshbhai shared with me and Nimesh with him and all of the rest of our guests.

Deepak

There are too many heart-wrenching stories like this one to tell. They are hard for me to tell because they are extremely hard for me to understand. Nonetheless, here is one of many stories, some of which I have seen, many of which I have not, and each of which is the most important story in the world because it is about a human life.

I met Deepak briefly when I was in Ahmedabad for Holi and have been learning as much as I can about him since I have been back. When I met him, I was in the library at Manav Sadhna's Community Centre in the Tekro slum. When he came in with Sunilbhai, the Health Project coordinator, I looked down briefly and saw something was on his face--since all the children who come to the Centre or any activities with Manav Sadhna are taught to bathe and be clean every day (and we are supposed to be repeating these lessons about hygiene to them), it is a reflex for me to tell children who are dirty to go clean up. So, when I saw he had something on his face, I thought it was probably remnants of lunch, and patted him on the head and said "hey, what's on your face? Don't you need to wash it off?" That is when I looked closer and saw that it was some sort of a rash, just as Sunilbhai came up behind him and started to tell me Deepak's story.

I listened as Sunilbhai told me that the adorable, dimpled, brightly smiling 9-year-old boy standing in front of me had holes in his heart and various other heart problems. This was the cause of the rash on his face. After he was diagnosed, his parents were told that he needed to be taken to a heart hospital in Bangalore for treatment ASAP. A volunteer from Singapore offered to pay all of the expenses--travel, surgery, post-op, medicine, etc.

It has now been a year and a half since Deepak was diagnosed. His parents have not so much as taken him to the local government hospital to get another round of tests done. While all the other kids his age run around and play, Deepak gets short of breath walking from one end of his small schoolroom to the other. His teacher says he can't hold a pen long enough to write an entire exam paper. His mother gets mad at him because he doesn't bring home great grades. When Sunilbhai and I went to talk to her, she sat in the corner of the room and listened, watching Deepak eat his lunch in the other room, as Sunilbhai told her that frequently going back to the village "bhua" (a village elder that many villagers look to as a supernatural healer, among other things) is not going to treat Deepak, whose condition is getting worse and worse. Sunilbhai even tried explaining that it would be less of a hassle to take him now, rather than at the last minute when he has to be rushed to the hospital without any planning and doctors have to work to try to do what treatment could have done to him before and with much less suffering. She nodded through the conversation, eyes wandering, sometimes listening, sometimes not, and at the end, said she would think about taking him after his exams are over in a few days.

From what I can gather, the main things she is worried about are: Going to a city where they do not know anyone and Deepak missing classes. But most of all, I think she is scared.

Seeing disease and sickness around me is one thing, but seeing disease and sickness that can be treated (having the financial, logistical, etc. resources) going untreated is a very foreign concept to me. It makes me sick to my stomach to see this beautiful boy sitting down with his classmates trying to catch his breath after a short walk. Every time he looks up at me and flashes me a big dimpled smile, I think, how can a mother watch as her son dies, literally before her eyes? How can she go about caring for him, fussing over him, washing his face and hands when he comes home and helping him with his homework, when what he needs is medical help, fast, and she is not getting him it even though she has the means to? What can Sunilbhai say, what can I say, what can anyone say to convince his parents to take him?

I know she is scared. But I hope, I am praying so hard, that her and her husband do decide to take their son to Bangalore next week. I really hope he is not expendable to them (I have heard, too many times, some parents say that they can always have another baby). And I really, really hope it is not too late when he does get to the hospital.

Why I keep coming back

I wrote about my motivations for keeping on coming back to India a few months ago for an application. For one reason or another, this essay didn't make it into the final application submission, but I wanted to share part of it, in case any of my experiences touch you as they have touched me, and make you want to come here and do something.

I waited outside a doctor’s office with a baby dehydrated from constant diarrhea and vomiting. Her parents drink every day—her mother drank throughout her pregnancy. She threw up on me as we waited, but afterward, as I sang to her and made funny faces, she smiled up at me. Her smile is the reason I want go back. Rohan is an 8-year-old, deaf, blind, mute orphan who I obtained a disability certificate for from a government hospital. I sat with him for hours in line for days and shuffled him from department to department, all to obtain two signatures for his certificate. He felt the watch on my wrist and my monsoon-inspired afro and broke into giggles as he recognized me. His giggles are the reason I want go back. Ashvin is a 9th grade slumdweller* who I taught English to. He saves every rupee he earns to help his family. He carefully safeguarded a 1 Rupee coin that I accidentally left lying by him to give back to me the next day he saw me, telling me I should really take better care of my money. His sincerity is the reason I want go back. I walked by Shantamaaji, an 80 year old woman who lives alone beneath a tarp, every day on my way to the community center in the middle of her slum. She greeted me with a “namaste” and big, toothless smile every time I walked by. Her open heart is the reason I want go back.


Rohan.

*I was told by some advisors that the word "slumdweller" may be "offensive" to the committee reading my application. I was surprised and became more and more annoyed by this idea as I thought about it. Why should a committee of influential academics, policymakers, and generally well-off people be offended by this term? In fact, I think it's politically insensitive and incorrect to use euphemisms or broader terms that aren't so specific (not that slumdweller is that specific anyway, but I suppose it is more specific than "the impoverished," which was one of the terms suggested to me as a replacement for the word I was using) for people that are leading entire lives of hardship in slums. The more people try to obscure these "harsher" or more specific words, to make ugly things sound less ugly, to not give a face to specific realities, the more the general public will forget about them or brush them aside. The less people will work toward eliminating the horrible inequalities in societal, political, and economic norms that lead people into lives of devastation. Finally, the UN Global Report on Human Settlements 2003--The Challenge of the Slums uses the word "slumdweller," as do Indian newspapers. It's time we all recognized that slumdwellers, millions of them, exist all over the world and the gross inequalities that lead to their living situations, not the word slumdwellers, should offend us.

HOLI HAI!!

A little late, but it's definitely necessary for me to document my absolutely wonderful Holi (March 1). I took Claire to Ahmedabad for our 4-day-Holi-extravaganza-weekend. (read about her experience living at my grandfather and great-aunt's flat for the weekend: http://claireinindia.tumblr.com/post/424435788/eat-to-live-live-to-eat)

The morning of Holi, Ajaybhai and Sunilbhai texted/called me to let me know that everyone had gathered at Manav Sadhna. As soon as Claire and I arrived, Sunilbhai was waiting behind the gate door, greeting everyone that entered with a face-full of color. We danced around to the dhol beats, celebrating with the NGO kids and staff.



Then, we departed, 2 or 3 to a motorcycle, to go to Virenbhai's house. Virenbhai is one of the founders of Manav Sadhna--he lives for a year in the US, managing Manav Sadhna's Chicago branch, and a year in India. Anyway, as we rode down the street, we shouted "HOLI HAI!!!" to any other well-colored person we saw. The chant was always reciprocated immediately. We stopped by a couple houses, picked up a couple more friends, piled them on the motorcycles, and our gang reached Virenbhai's, slightly wetter and slightly more colored than we had been before.


Sandeepbhai, Sunilbhai, and I, respectively, are on the far side. Ajaybhai and Claire in the middle. Raghubhai, a volunteer I just met, and Anjali closest.

That's when the fun really started. Little did I know that Virenbhai's house is pretty much perfect for masterminded Holi attacks. Shaped in rectangle, the terrace is the perfect place to line up buckets of colored water and target people down below. The corners seem to be made for hiding around, and the little shades popping out of the side of the house are perfect to make a naive first-timer think s/he is safe by standing underneath (really, there is a perfect terrace position for a bucketful of water on anyone's head down below). Right outside of the gate, there is a perfect little ditch where mudwater collects in exactly the right amount to form a mud puddle in which to dunk people. There are ample sources of taps and hoses and buckets and drainwater all around the house, and if those are all taken, don't worry, you can just jump the wall to the neighbor's house and get some water there. Once you have some water, just mix it with anything you can find--I made a lovely concoction of pink color, flower petals, and mud, and the resulting consistency was glorious for coloring others.

'

Some good ole' fashioned mud dunking: Bhaskarbhai and Sandeepbhai

After about 2 hours of coloring and alliance-shifting and drenching each other from head to toe (and the guys forcibly dunking each other in the mud pool), Virenbhai very convincingly said "prathna time!" So, we all gathered around to say an all-religion prayer before, we thought, food was going to be brought out. Of course, however, Sunilbhai was hiding up on the terrace, and a huge bucket of water poured down on the entire circle of people and the Dhuleti continued for another hour. Then, finally, a real prathna was said and big pots of pav-bhaaji were brought out, with M&Ms and Kaju Katri for dessert. We sat basking in the sun, drying off, and sharing big thaalis of food, as we always do at Manav Sadhna. Of course, the eating didn't last long--buckets of colored water started pouring even as there was some food left on the plates, and everyone ducked for cover.


Ajaybhai, Bhaskarbhai, me, and Jigneshbhai.

A few latecomers from the Indicorps team arrived, right after our lunch. They made the mistake of calling beforehand to announce the fact that they were coming, which allowed us to make some great plans for accosting them, allowed us to ready the terrace buckets, etc. All the boys in the group were given the ceremonial mud dunking and I am proud to say I got some lovely color and bucketwater drenchings in as well.

All in all, we played Holi for about 5 hours straight, and then walked to the nearest tea shop where we had little cups of delicious chai. Claire and I went home and took hour-long showers, though some remnants of Holi were sure to remain for the next few days--a green spot on the elbow, pink nails, a little blue behind the ears...

Though celebrating Holi was a wonderful time, what made it amazing were the people I was celebrating with. Manav Sadhna has truly become another home to me. Being at the NGO and with the people who work at it makes me feel like I am in the safest place in the world, with the best people in the world. Sunilbhai, Ajaybhai, Jigneshbhai, Sandeepbhai, Bhaskarbhai, Raghubhai, Anjali, all of the children, and everyone else at MS are no longer my friends or my students, but rather my family. Any new volunteers I meet each time I go just become part of this ever-growing parivar. I can't think of anywhere else I would have rather been for Holi.

*Pictures: courtesy Mira.

WHY IS IT SO DIFFICULT TO MASTER ENGLISH?

A lovely chain email going around here:

We must polish the Polish furniture.
He could lead if he would get the lead out.
The farm was used to produce produce.
The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
The soldier decided to desert in the desert.
This was a good time to present the present.
A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
I did not object to the object.
The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
The bandage was wound around the wound.
There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
They were too close to the door to close it.
The buck does funny things when the does are present.
They sent a sewer down to stitch the tear in the sewer line.
To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
After a number of injections my jaw got number.
Upon seeing the tear in my clothes I shed a tear.
I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
I read it once and will read it agen
I learned much from this learned treatise.
I was content to note the content of the message.
The Blessed Virgin blessed her richly.
It's a bit wicked to over-trim a short wicked candle.
If he will absent himself we will mark him absent.
I incline toward bypassing the incline.

:)

My International Women's Day

All I want to do right now is punch someone in the face. More specifically, I would like to hit and curse at a man wearing a jeans jacket that says "fanaa" in red letters on the back. I'd like to push him right off his motorbike and then slap him. But I know violence is not the answer. So, I guess I'd like to MAKE him listen to a lecture about women's rights and to make him attend these lectures DAILY for years to come. And have him cook food for the women in his family every day and take care of the kids in his household. And I suppose that while I'm playing god, I'd also like to bless him with a uterus and a menstrual cycle.

I was walking down the street of the neighborhood I'm currently living in with my classmate, Samia. It's a nice neighborhood, there are watchmen in front of some of the gates, big houses etc. It's located right off the main road. Anyway, we were walking toward the main road at 4pm, and there were a couple men a little further down the road. I heard a slow-moving scooter idling behind me, but didn't look back in case there was a man on the scooter (normally when you make eye contact with them, the "Eve teasing" happens). Plus, I didn't really think anything of it, since vehicles drive very close to pedestrians in India anyway, and it was broad daylight on a safe neighborhood street and I was walking with a friend and there were other people out in plain sight. Right as I heard the scooter come up behind me, as I was about to look back and glare at the driver for driving so close, a hand reached out, and groped me, as the man the hand belonged to drove right by. By the way, it's International Women's Day today. I was so mad. No, I AM so mad. I yelled as I watched the jeans jacket that said "fanaa" on the back get smaller and smaller as he drove lazily down the street but people didn't realize why I was calling out (there are many yells and loud noises and horns on the streets in India; people barely look up at loud noises). I joined a couple of friends down the street, and was just telling them what had just happened when the man on the scooter in the jeans jacket that said "fanaa" on the back DROVE BY AGAIN. He came close, but not too close because I was standing with 3 others by now and backed away from his scooter, and he looked straight at me as he drove by slowly. I glared. Then, I started telling the watchman and other man on the street what had happened in my broken Hindi and we all watched on helplessly as he grabbed another woman walking up the street. He drove away again. Too angry to think straight enough, I only got the last 4 digits of his license plate, 1222. The watchman told me to just pick up a rock and throw it at the man's head if that happened again, but that's REALLY not the solution I want (plus, he was wearing a helmet). It is SO unfair that this happens to women in India every single day. My friend Amanda, got groped by 3 boys on a bike when she was walking on the side of a busy street--what a great welcome to Jaipur. All of the girls in my group have been whistled at, creepily smiled at, tauntingly sung at, and stared at shamelessly by men of all ages. Tourism books on India all have "Eve teasing" warnings in their introductions. The newspapers have stories of gang rapes by men who just catch girls walking or even riding on their scooters in broad daylight, and violate them right on the side of the street. If you go out past sun down, you will barely see any women on the road. On any given street, the ratio of men to women will literally be 50:2 (the 2 being me and the female friend I'm with are walking down the street) or higher.

What's worse is that sex ratios in India fell according to the last census (the next census will come out next year). The sex ratio is defined as the number of females per 1000 males. In India, in 1991, the sex ratio was 925. In 2001, it became 897. In Rajasthan in 1991, it was 916 and fell to 909 in 2001.

Between 2000 and 20001, the Christian Medical Association of India conducted a case study in which it recorded sex ratios in accordance with the sex of the previous child at 1 public hospital in Delhi, recording 11267 births. These were the results:

-If a couple was having its second child and the first child was a male, the sex ratio at birth for the second child was 959. If the couple was having its second child and the first child was a female, the sex ratio at birth for the second child was 542.
-If a couple was having its third child and they already had 1 male and 1 female child, the sex ratio at birth for the third child was 558. If the couple was having its third child and they already had 2 female children, the sex ratio at birth for the third child was 219.

(An informative Economist article detailing the extent of this missing women phenomenon all over the world (thanks Mariette): http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15636231)

Other blood boiling factors (many not just applicable to India):
-It is so easy in India to find out the gender of your child and abort it if the fetus is female, even though this is illegal.
- On legal medical forms for children in India, only the father's name is asked to be filled, as if the mother has no role in the guardianship of the child.
-Women who wear anything above the knee are often seen as "asking for it."
-Women who are raped are often looked at as impure and made outcasts of society.
-Girls and women that are menstruating are, in many families, not supposed to go to a temple or touch anything or are sent away to a hut for menstruating women located far from their homes because anything they touch during this period of time will be considered "impure".
-The PRINCIPAL OF A SCHOOL, a supposedly well-educated man, had his pregnant wife go to a "baba" to get a pill that will make the baby be born male, and when the baby was a female, abandoned his wife and child. A girl on my program is living with a host-mother who is currently living alone because her husband wanted their baby to be a boy, but it was a girl, so he wanted more children.
-Many girls are looked at as a financial burden--not only do their parents have to save up for dowries, but their daughter grows up (or is married off as a child--60% of girls in Rajasthan are married before the age of 18, leading to extremely high maternal and infant mortality rates, which are correlated with larger family size) and leaves and becomes the daughter of her husband's household. She won't be able to help support her parents in their old age.
-Many believe that last rites are only allowed to be performed by a son--otherwise, apparently, the soul does not go to heaven (bullshit.)
-Men's indiscretions and inappropriate sexual gestures/acts are overlooked because men's "needs" are natural, apparently more natural than women's and men just can't help it, whereas similar actions on a woman's part label her as a woman of "loose morals," and other worse labels.

Another extremely troubling fact is this: "In a national health survey, 51% of Indian men said that wife-beating is justified under certain circumstances; more surprisingly, 54% of women agreed--if, for instance, a wife burns dinner or leaves the house without permission. More than 100,000 young Indian women die in fires every year, many of them 'bride burnings' or other instances of domestic abuse." (Super Freakonomics)

I'm still mad. I am mad that women in India are so disempowered that more than half think that they deserve to be beat, under ANY circumstance, much less burning dinner and leaving the house without permission! I am mad that we are treated as lesser beings--with lesser needs, wants, desires, and goals, and we deserve lesser things, lower seats, lesser power, lesser education. On a lower rung. I'm mad that I feel so vulnerable. That a man can violate me out in broad daylight and have the nerve to come back for round two a couple minutes later. That I took a rickshaw back to my house instead of walking through the neighborhood at 6:30 pm (before sunset) because I did not feel safe. That I keep looking over my shoulder when I heard the sound of an engine anywhere behind me (aka every time I'm on the street), and that that will probably continue for a little while. That some more independence was taken away from me today.

I can't imagine how a woman who has been raped feels. What an utterly unthinkable and horrifying violation! Watch and listen to Sunitha Krishnan, an inspiring woman who was gang raped and has been working against sexual trafficking and harassment (and has been beaten up 14 times and had a co-worker friend who was murdered on rescue missions):
http://www.ted.com/talks/sunitha_krishnan_tedindia.html
http://www.ted.com/speakers/sunitha_krishnan.html

I am enraged. I want to shout and make a ruckus and do something about these gross human rights violations. And you should feel the same way. Don't be sad. Don't say it's too bad this is how society is. Be mad that this is how the society YOU live in is and do something about it. If you are a man, treat women with the same dignity and respect you have come to expect from others. If you are a woman, accept nothing less than the dignity and respect you deserve, and if you don't get it, don't be afraid to shout.

"The sense that thousands and millions of children and young people are being sexually violated and that there’s this huge silence about it around me angers me."
Sunitha Krishnan

By the way, Rajya Sabha voting on the Women's Reservation Bill was deferred today.

The God of Small Things

It was ____. In a heart-wrenching/I-didn't-really-realize-it-was-____-until-a-few-hours-after-I-finished-it sort of a way.
I might have liked it in the same way that I liked All The King's Men. It might even be a little like All the King's Men, except in South India. It's kind of about everything. Corruption, Christianity, caste and untouchability, communism, democracy, Hinduism, the desire to ruin other people, good smells, bad smells, factory conditions, sexual harassment, jealousy, violence, disempowered women, police brutality, flowers, authority, the unfairness of adult decisions, the inability of adults to understand the minds of children, innocence taken away....but more than all of these things, it's about love. Fatherly love, love between twins, motherly love, desire, forbidden love, incest, love between cousins, an uncle's love, inappropriate love. It's about breaking the "Love Laws. That lay down who should be loved. And how. And how much."
And more than about love, it's about the way it's told. The plot twists are kind of sad and horrifying and ugly and throat-lump-y. But the prose is funny in the way where you laugh and then feel bad about the fact that you laughed out loud and are glad that no one knows what you just read and laughed at. Because the parts you laugh at are the ones told from the children's points of view--the painfully honest and hilariously sarcastic or ironic observations that only children can make and describe out loud because taboos and social norms and adulthood keep you from outwardly observing or talking about or laughing at such awkward or hurtful or vulnerable things. The narrator and the children point out, very clearly, both the ugly things and the beautiful things that end up being the most powerful human motivations, which propel the entire series of events of the story. Arundhati Roy did pretty ____ with this novel.

I still haven't quite absorbed or processed the whole thing. Maybe I'll be able to fill in the ____'s sometime.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Little events, ordinary things, smashed and reconstituted. Imbued with new meaning. Suddenly they become the bleached bones of a story."
-The God of Small Things

"And the air was full of Thoughts and Things to Say. But at times like these only the Small Things are ever said. The Big Things lurk unsaid inside."
-The God of Small Things

"If you're happy in a dream, does that count?"
-The God of Small Things

Excursions and Adventures

Bharatpur and Agra was a whirlwind weekend trip. We went to the Keoladeo Bird Sanctuary in Bharatpur, but ended up seeing very few birds. Because of the dry monsoon season last year, the parts of the sanctuary that are generally wet have all fried up. We ended up biking on gravely paths for 6 hours and getting accosted regularly by bands of monkeys. The bike riding was interesting--the "one-size-for-all"bike was so big for me that at the lowest point the pedal goes, my toe barely reached. However, I am proud to say that I learned to mount the bike rapidly, and got pretty good at falling sideways to dismount! At night, staying at the Falcon Guesthouse with an energetic Punjabi hostess, was delightful.



Agra was a fast day. Marty, Claire, and I boarded our train, got to Agra, and went straight to the Taj, where foreigner price is 750 Rs. and Indian price is 20 Rs. They assumed I was Indian and I was very happy to receive the 3750% discount. Instead of waiting in line, we paid a man who has connections with the men that tear tickets at the gate (who does this professionally) and skipped the long queue (cutting in front of everyone else). The Taj Mahal was as majestic as promised, and looks just as stunningly fake in real life as it does in pictures in books, on pamphlets, and on the internet. Though I had braced myself for the worst surrounding environment possible, I found that I was not nearly as harassed as I thought I would be, and got to the Taj with Claire and Marty relatively without a hitch. We took all the necessary tourist pictures and had a good time.


Next, we went to the Agra Fort, from which one gets more views of the Taj from across the river. The Agra Fort itself is gorgeous, with manicured lawns, gorgeous archways, and different types of architecture everywhere.


From there, we boarded a bus back to Jaipur, making it back around 2am.

The next weekend, we went to Haridwar and Rishikesh. We reached Haridwar on the day of Shivratri, one of the holy days of the Kumbh Mela. Our bus ride was surprisingly lovely, but as soon as we stepped out, we were in an entirely different world. All buses coming into Haridwar had been re-routed to stop in the middle of a huge dirt field right outside of the city. We stepped right into a sea of yelling, begging, and general crowded chaos. The entire city had been closed, due to the fact that approximately 5 million pilgrims were walking through it to get to the holy points of the Ganges. "According to Hindu mythology, Haridwar is one of the four places where a drop of the nectar of immortality or 'amrit' fell from the pitcher or 'kumbh' when Garuda, the divine bird of Lord Vishnu, was spiriting it away from the demons after a pitched battle. " (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Thousands-of-devotees-at-Maha-Kumbh-for-Mahashivratri-bath-/articleshow/5563997.cms) THe pilgrims are to start their holy dips in the Ganges after midnight. Anyway, as soon as we got off the bus around noon, we were informed that no buses were really coming in or out of the city anymore, which posed a bit of a problem, since we had hotel reservations for Rishikesh that night. Luckily, as we went around trying to eavesdrop on conversations our fellow passengers were having over the sounds of the loudspeakers repeating "dhakka-mukki bilkul mat kijiye! (Do not push each other at all!)", we heard a couple of people talking to a police man nearby mention Rishikesh. We decided to attach ourselves to them. The very sweet brother and sister (both probably in their 20s) took care of us as if we were family. We alternately took cycle rikshaws (the only form of transportation available then) and walked with them (and with 5 million other pilgrims) in Haridwar for about two hours, and the brother told us that he would not leave us until he had us on an auto to Rishikesh, which is exactly where he got us. We boarded the lovely huge autorickshaw with 5 others and the driver, and made it to Rishikesh in 30 minutes!

We fell in love with Rishikesh as soon as we reached it. Nestled in the foothills of the Himalayas on the banks of the Ganga, surrounded by Ashrams, locals, and new-age hippies just trying to find themselves, we seriously contemplated never leaving. We wandered around the Lakshman Jhula area that night and scouted out the white water rafting place, Red Chili. We woke up early the next morning, and had the best breakfast of our lives at the Flying Tiger Cafe, a new-age restaurant owned by the woman from Chicago who wears lovely plaid-shirt-and-saree or saree-and-blazer combinations and serves the most amazing food. We came back for lunch (papaya lassis, tofu and mushroom burger with avacado and yak cheese and beet cole slaw and chips) and breakfast (thick whole-wheat bread with liberal amounts of butter and apricot jam; pancakes with ginger, cocoa powder, butter, and bananas) the next day.










That day, we white water rafted (with Bheem and jeevan as our guides, +3 men in kayaks as our rescue team) through rapids with names such as "Hugs and Kisses," "Three Blind Mice," "Crossfire," and "Return to Sender." We body surfed some of them, too and were, you know, cleansed of all our sins! Then, we jumped in from some boulders about 20 feet high. The latter part of the day, we explored more of the area, sat on the banks of the Ganges listening to an old man with long hair and beard play beautiful flute pieces, and went to an amazing terrace restaurant with unreal views of the Ganges for dinner. Oh, and then we learned that the bus we booked back to Jaipur was canceled.






So, the next morning, we left early (first to the Flying Tiger Cafe, of course) and found a bus to Delhi, hoping to get back to Jaipur from there. When we got into Delhi, a few rickshaw drivers followed us around as usual, and took us to a travel agency. We booked a bus back to Jaipur, but had to be driven to the boarding place of the bus. We got back into a small rickshaw (Claire, me, Ali, and Katie in the back, Amanda in front with the driver and a man from the travel agency). On the way to the boarding place, our rickshaw...hit a cycle with two men on it. Our rickshaw driver jumped out, and from there, everything happened fast. About 20 men gathered, the ones on the cycle had their belts off and hands around our rickshaw driver's neck before I could even blink! We stayed in the rickshaw, hurriedly discussing whether it would be safer to jump out and run, or to stay inside, but as this was going on, our rickshaw driver jumped back in, only to have a man come on the other side of the rickshaw, where Amanda was sitting, and trying to punch our rickshaw driver by reaching over Amanda (but really, he would have hit Amanda in the face in the process). Protective mother-lion side kicking into gear, Claire pointed very emphatically at the aggressor, shouting NO! Which apparently was enough for him to top and stare confusedly at the rickshaw packed full of foreigners. Shaken up and yelling, our rickshaw-walla drove us to the street where we were to be picked up. This narrow street, we realized, was pretty much in the middle of the Indian version of a ghetto, and the sun had just set. There was no sign of a bus, but thankfully, as we discussed this fact, it drove up, barely fitting in the skinny lane. We boarded the bus, which seemed very nice, and hoped for the best. An hour into the trip, we realized that the goal of the bus driver/travel agency was to pack the bus with as many people as possible, most of whom apparently wanted to keep the windows open all night. In two sweaters and a sweatshirt, I shivered through the night as the man in front of me coughed up a lung every few minutes (and went out for a smoke at every stop). Cold, tired, and back in Jaipur at 5am, we crashed in our beds to catch a few hours of sleep before going to class, after what was perhaps a little-too-eventful of a trip!

I am so never leaving my bedroom door open again.

From the corner of my eye, I saw my bedroom door opening, and something small peeking its head in, and thought it was the boy that stays at my host family's house as a live-in servant, Shiv. About to ask him to come in, I looked up to see a big, hairy monkey. The monkey hopped right in and onto my desk (two feet away from where I was sitting at the edge of my bed), extended his long arm and lightly plucked the bag of chips and snacks right off my desk. Then he stared at me for a second, as I stared back dumbfounded (the news story about the pet monkey that ripped a woman's face off in the States was playing through my head). I slowly stood up, about to make a run past the monkey for the door, but the monkey, who probably thought I was coming for him, was faster. He nimbly hopped out the door, bag of snacks in hand, and disappeared back up the stairs. I ran downstairs to my host mother, shaking slightly from the adrenaline rush, and sputtered that a monkey had just taken snacks from my bedroom. She laughed at the shaken look on my face and called Shiv, asking him to make sure to shut the terrace door next time. Hopefully, the monkey is out of the house now...

Jaisalmer

Date this blogpost was written: 1 February 2010

Jaisalmer was wonderful, though the trip did not go exactly as planned. We wanted to go to Jaisalmer mainly to see the Desert Festival, but after a 10 hour night-long ride bumping to Shakira, Britney, NSYNC remixed with techno beats (the CD our driver had on loop), we made our entry into the city. We awoke to a blood red sunrise in gray skies and a vastly different landscape--small shrubs and lots of sand, with camels and peacocks on the side of the road rather than the usual cows and dogs-- and were welcomed with military men and army tanks, which were coming down the road we were going up at regular intervals (at which point Claire gave the quote of the trip--"if we end up in Pakistan, I'm gonna be pissed!".

We arrived at Fort Rajwada around 9am Saturday morning with strained necks and backaches, eardrums still thumping to "Sandstorm" beats and Shakira tunes. We had been told that was where we were going to stay. As we stepped out of the van ready to step into the hotel, our contact came, told us to get back in the van, and took us to Pithli Haveli--the smaller, less-swanky version of Fort Rajwada across the street. As soon as we reached our new (still nice) destination, we were informed that the state government of Rajasthan had cancelled the last day of the Desert Festival (the day we reached) because a Minister had died the night before. So, we went to the Golden Fort and explored, did some shopping, ate at a nice little restaurant overlooking the Fort called Little Italy, and made our way back to our rooms, where we were decided to watch Lagaan. We passed out about 10 minutes into the movie.

The next day, we relaxed in the morning (I completed some applications) and went into the Fort area to get some sweets to give to our wonderful driver. On our way back, the rickshaw Claire, Marty, and I decided to take broke down, and we took pity and offered the driver 10 Rs. (1/4 of the decided price) for the 1 minute (about 1/15 of the way back) we had spent in it; the driver yelled he would not take a rupee less than 20 Rs. As I yelled back, about 20 other men crowded around us in the busy intersection; this ended up being a good thing, because I told my rickshaw driver I would only give him 20 Rs. if someone was willing to take me and my friends all the way to our hotel for another 20 Rs. (since the agreed price had been 40 Rs.)-- one of the other rickshaw drivers in the group of men crowded around us calmly told me he would take us for the price I wanted, and all ended up fine. Sunday evening, we headed to the Sam dunes for our sunset camel ride, which was just as lovely as promised, minus the man who drunkenly followed us (on a camel, mind you) through the dunes--but no worries, our camel drivers guarded us and chased him away! We then had chai and ate dinner to a Rajasthani dance and music show sitting around a fire under the stars.

Our 21-year-old driver, Vinod Bhaiyya, drove us back Sunday night, getting us back into Jaipur at 7:30 am; I was elected to sit up front with him around 4:30 am to talk to him in my broken Hindi and keep him awake. After just prodding him with a couple of questions, he talked to me freely for two hours straight--about how he cannot understand any Gujarati, his craziest past driving trips, how loved he is in his village (he decided to drive us through his village on the way back), his neighbors, his family--father and two brothers, and about the fact that he's been a driver since he was 18 years old--he had to drop out of school to support his family in 10th grade because of his mother's death. He asked me what driving was like in America, and then about what there was to see in there--Rajasthan has beautiful forts and palaces and temples, he said, so what is there to see in America besides clean roads? (I was not sure how to answer-- all I could think about to see in America was the White House, which Vinod Bhaiyya was not very impressed with. So, I tried to tell him about Obama, who he had never heard about, and all the different types of people one can meet, and about college and education, but he was still unimpressed, so I turned the conversation back to his life. He confidently stated that Jaipur is the most beautiful city in India and in the world.)

I went home, slept for 2 hours, and went to class at 10am.

Over all, certainly a successful, perhaps a little too-eventful trip. Next on the list are Bharatpur/Agra, Haridwar/Rishikesh, and Ahmedabad!

Expect a post about my experiences with Indian attitudes, culture, and educational system sometime soon...

Amrikan in India

As I walked down the street in Jaipur on a study abroad orientation assignment to find Reliance Fresh, I realized this Indian experience would be significantly different from those that I have had over the past two summers. First of all, my Hindi-that-sounds-like-Gujarati is going to give away that I am not from Jaipur, meaning rikshaw drivers are going to try to rip me off right off the bat. Second of all, if that does not give me away, the fact that I am walking down the street with a gaggle of non-Indians will definitely draw stares, often accompanied by shouts of "hello!" "thank you please!" and even a witty rikshaw driver saying "I will give you a ride at no expense!"

As soon as I start speaking in English with an American accent with fellow student travellers, I am no longer just another Indian in India. It will be interesting to see how my new conspicuousness affects the relationships I form and the many interesting interactions I am sure to have in the next few weeks. More significantly, maybe I'll be able to do some self-reflection: What does it mean for me to be an Indian in America? What about an American in India, or more precisely, an Indian American in India?

I love India. I love America. I've been asked many times by people from both countries--which do you like better? Where do you want to live? And I honestly have no answer. I love both--in fact, I AM both, and there really is no splitting them up.

As for where I want to live when I grow up, I suppose I'll need an answer to that some day. But for now, I am completely enjoying my life in both worlds. I think I'll continue it for a bit longer.

**Note: for anyone wanting another perspective of this trip from a fellow student traveler, check out Claire's blog: claireinindia.tumblr.com

Joey's blog: joeygoestoindia.blogspot.com
Scott's blog: againstvanity.blogspot.com