A Moment in Delhi

Only days before leaving for my big trip up north, I resigned to visit the health center on campus, despite my bad habit of ignoring my parents’ good advice.  I had made a decent recovery from that special time in the library, but I wasn’t able to fully shake the mystery sickness.  I tried eating Sunday night Chinese, and relapsed.  Laying awake late at night after finishing a paper, running to the bathroom every 3 minutes, I started feeling short of breath and a bit dizzy.  I hit up the infirmary instead of giving a presentation the next day, was admitted, and laid down next to a student with hideous burns all over his arm.  The health center was quite the contrast to the medical care I’m used to.  I staggered around for a while looking for a receptionist or something, and was eventually pointed into a curtained room where a woman recorded my woes and sent me into the emergency unit.  Picture a nurse in a white saree sticking an IV into you without gloves or handwashing, then being given pretty pills in the hand that you just had to make real use of in the Indian bathroom with no toilet paper or soap with the other hand out the door connected to the IV.  This is all a bit graphic, but trust me when I say I am omitting the worst of it. 

Arriving in Delhi, I hoped it wasn’t a poor life decision to be traveling for 9 days after the whole ordeal.  Luckily I started feeling much better after a day or two.  My friends and I had a real whirlwind tour of the major northern cities, and got a great taste of north Indian culture.  Instead of listing everything we did and saw, I’ll just give a description of a few of the most memorable moments from each place, starting with Delhi.

Delhi

After watching a huge parade travel down the main street, we lost ourselves in an amazing bazaar down an alleyway, which sold everything from beads to saree borders to festival decorations to felt jewelry displays.  There were fabrics upon fabrics, kitchen supplies, spices and perfumes.  Amid the bustle of the narrow alleys, bicycle rickshaws with large loads of goods were constantly yelling at us to get out of their way.  They really sneak up on you compared to the putting, beeping autorickshaws, known as “tuk-tuks” in some places because of these characteristic noises.  In the bazaar we happened upon the most beautiful street of tiny, stacked homes I have ever seen.  Like a solace in the center of a never-ending market of shouting and selling and squeezing past strangers, the street had three people walking down it.  Lined with pink and yellow and turquoise apartments with intricately carved and painted doorways and potted flowers and plants on every doorstep, the street gave us a chance to catch our breath and see the understated beauty that could be hidden anywhere here in India.

I ate at my first Indian McDonalds in Delhi.  It smelled exactly the same.  (Beefless, of course)

A pigeon found its way into the huge, silent Lotus temple, where everybody was meditating in the quiet cool.  The marble temple is shaped like a giant lotus flower, with high ceilings, large windows, and rafters curving down to the floor.  The pigeon had no place to land, and I followed it with my eyes as it flew in circles around and around, confused.  The temple workers were so strict about peacefulness, that they even asked parents with crying children to leave.  Their silence was disrupted, however, with the loud smack of the pigeon on one of the large glass windows.  The thud echoed throughout the airy temple, and I had to stifle a laugh.  The bird was okay, don’t worry.

I also bought a beard in Delhi, which would come in handy in making our Taj Mahal pictures a bit different from everyone else’s.

Our 6-hour bus from Delhi to Agra made a stop in the middle of the countryside at a small collection of food stands.  I needed to use the bathroom, and it took me a while to realize that the pink, roofless, concrete box was the ladies’ lav.  There were two-foot high partitions between the “stalls,” and everything just drained out a hole in the wall at the back, but the floor was basically flat.  An old woman came in with me, and chattered to me in Hindi while I tried to figure out how to not pee on my feet.  After all this time she made me wonder if I’ve been using Indian toilets backwards.  Maybe that’s what she was trying to tell me.  Unfortunately my Hindi’s not THAT good yet.

I’ve digressed again, however- Sorry!   Delhi was a neat old city, more metropolitan and complete than Hyderabad with its half-finished buildings.  

HOLI.

There's so much I'd like to say about Holi.  It's a fantastic Hindu holiday celebrating the coming of spring and referring back to a Religious story about the burning of the demon Holika by a devotee of the god Vishnu.  The holiday celebrates colors, and people used to throw handfuls of crushed-flower powder at their friends in order to protect them from summer sicknesses like chicken pox, but now most of the powders have slightly harmful chemicals in them, which is a bit ironic.  Potential health risks aside, Holi transcends caste, skin color and gender -related social constraints.  The village people were some of the first to attack us Americans, and boys and girls attacked each other brutally.  I got egged.  

I wish I could say more but I just threw up all over the library bathroom.  I put up tons of photos, though, so you should get a great depiction of the holiday. Ugh. Bed.

Life At Your Own Risk, and ... Recycling?

I do my painting in the fine arts studio, next to the talented graduate students perfecting their impressive portfolios.  The building is old, with blue shutters on its barred windows, peeking out from a curtain of vines dangling lazily from the roof.  It is a beautiful place to create, despite the fecal stench of the septic system located next door.  I have discovered a large exposed pipe with a gaping crack next to the entrance to my studio, from which I suspect some of the stink is escaping.  Usually lots of loud shouting in Hindi provides background noise as I paint, probably due to the fact that the Health Inspector’s office is adjacent to the studio.  He must have a lot on his plate. 

The concepts of Health and Safety are certainly very different.  Some regulations exist, but few are enforced.  This definitely has its positives and negatives:  Positives being time and cost efficiency, negatives being the potential for nasty accidents.  The fear of the lawsuit, of course, is barely present.  Seat belts are suggested but rarely seen, helmets are only expected in major cities for motorcyclists.  Autorickshaws quote a 4-person maximum on their yellow sides, but I’ve managed to fit 10.  Today as I rode my bike to the library, it was comical watching one school bus regurgitate about one hundred fifty uniformed children, running excitedly towards the “Save the Tigers” photography exhibition in our campus auditorium.  They were squashed in that bus like peeled, stubby crayons stuffed into a fraying Crayola box, bulging at the edges.  Aside from the precarious yet functional transportation, people aren’t generally kept in or outside barriers.  There aren’t safety railings up the sides of the touristy temple trails on the mountains in Hampi, or guards to yell at you for just hopping across the train tracks at a station to get to the other platform.  Nowhere seems really “off limits,” whether you’re sitting on roofs or exploring sites.  The exceptions are my hostel, which is like a fortress with bodyguards, or major public attractions like shopping malls, or movie theaters where you must walk through metal detectors and get patted down upon entry. 

On the dietary front, I usually find a few hairs in the occasional meal and we eat with our hands.  And that’s the pampered life of the guest house.  Recently my friends had a meal cooked on a fire fed with camel dung out in the Rajasthani desert- and they liked it!  I haven’t seen the preparation of meals in the average Indian restaurant, but I’d say that most would fail American health inspections in a heartbeat.  Nevertheless, the food is fantastic!  Street food, however, is delicious, but often is accompanied by an abdominal attack.  All water we drink should be bottled, but most lower-caste locals drink from the tap.   Warm showers are a luxury, and so are washing machines.  But being sweaty is totally legitimate in this heat, it’s been up to 106° recently.  As for the loo, it seems more sanitary to me, minus the lack of toilet paper.  No sharing a dirty seat!  Even medicines, cheaper equivalents to those in the US, are readily available at numerous pharmacies, but many people would rather use homeopathic remedies.  The other day Tabbu was telling me that she was using a unani medicine for her skin, and at Charminar I passed men sitting on the ground selling homeopathic medicines (involving porcupine quills and other intriguing objects).  We have been discussing this topic in my Sociology of Health, Sickness, and Healing Class- it’s very interesting.  All I mean to say is that there is less anxiety about germs and accidents and life here is very much “at your own risk.”  I find that kind of liberating in a way.  

Despite the fact that there is trash littered about almost everywhere, and no real recycling programs, Indian people will manage to re-use just about anything.  Cars that look like they were made in the 70s will be repaired and repaired until they won’t run any longer, and their parts will go back into circulation for years.  And when those parts no longer work for a car, they’ll be used in some other appliance.  The Mazaa drink (yummy mango juice) sold at any shop comes in a glass bottle, which when you have finished, you give back to the shop and they will ship it back to be refilled.  I watched the refill truck leaving campus last week, empty Mazaa, Thumbs Up, and Almond Milk bottles rattling on the back.  A couple of weeks ago, the sole fell off of my best pair of sandals.  Instead of throwing them away, I took them to the cobbler on campus yesterday and paid the equivalent of 12 cents to have new soles put on.  There’s a cobbler on campus!  And a tailor!  The cobbler is down this alley at “shopcom” (the main shopping center on campus with a bookstore and convenience store with the same meditation mantra playing in the background every day all day and a guy who owns the shop who generally has answer to my every problem) and it is literally a room full of shoes.  It’s GREAT!  I have even seen restaurant bills written on the backs of old receipts, and paper plates made out of old cereal boxes. That’s what I’d call recycling.   People go through trash, too, and take what they will find useful later. The organized response to the litter is quite funny actually.  Everywhere you’ll find these trash cans shaped like big bunnies or penguins that say “Use Me,” over a big hole on the animal’s stomach. 

Overall, things are going well over here at the University of Hyderabad.  If I could vote for the next student body president, I’d probably lean towards the student named Nelson Mandela.  He seems like a good guy.  It’s funny to see his campaign signs all over.  This weekend our program is taking us all to Mysore, which will be interesting with 30 people on the train- we’ll take up a whole car.  I pity the poor people who’ll be stuck listening to our banter.  And then I’ve got a few big trips coming up after that up North and then way down south to Kerala.  I’ll also be performing tabla on Monday for National Women’s day at my school, which should be entertaining after a weekend of no practice.  I hope everyone is surviving the snow back at home, I miss and love you all!  

Slumdog, Hampi and Hippies

After winning a bunch of Oscars and putting the world spotlight on India, I figured I should mention the blockbuster film.  I didn't get a chance to see it yet, so I don't really have an opinion on the movie.  My friend Brenda, however, saw it in the US and in India, and has written a very good article about it for a travel website.  Check it out here.  From what I have seen and heard, it has not been a big hit here in Hyderabad, and nobody seems to really be talking about it.  I do think there is a little pride in its latest awards, however.  

I am beginning to feel an oh so unpleasant feeling in my abdomen, (maybe it was that gulab jamen at lunch) so I will probably keep this short before my Hindi class.  Hampi was a great place to experience, full of beautiful sights and temples and hidden treasures.. and European Hippies.  I have never seen so many dreadlocks!  It just so happens that Goa and Hampi are popular vacation destinations, only a cheap flight over from Europe.  But the tourism was easily surpassed by the overwhelmingly gorgeous scenery.  The mountains surrounding Hampi look like a bunch of giants spent hours piling up massive boulders into hills of crumbling rock.  In between the mountains are lush valleys of palm and banana groves, and rice patty fields, with a clean river flowing through.  There were endless ruins to explore, over 500 years old.  Most were Shiva, Krishna, and monkey temples.  There was also a big Ganesh, and Monolithic Bull statue, among so many other old stone structures.  I can't even imagine an ancient civilization large enough to fill all of those places of worship!  Overall, the views were breathtaking from various mountaintop temples, and Rebecca, Veena and I had lots of adventures climbing and wandering and taking rides in coracle boats. (see the latest photos!!)

It was also funny to realize how modest I have become after a few months here in India.  The European tourists did not consider the kinds of dress expected in India, and wore outfits that shocked and scandalized me-  Shorts! Tank tops! Miniskirts! AHH!  I try to dress very respectfully of the culture, especially in a place of such religious significance.  Hampi has grown to expect the raunchy dress of Western tourists, because it has been such a popular spot for so long.  Had the same people shown up in Hyderabad, it would be a different story.  Hyderabad is much more conservative, and not at all touristy.  Once, a girl I was sitting next to on the 216 bus told me that my friend, whose middrift was showing occasionally, was the talk of the bus for being inappropriately dressed.  Hence, the German girl in the booty-shorts and halter top, wrapping her leg around her boyfriend to pose for a photo next to a temple, was quite a shock.   

So that's a bit of Hampi, and I also wanted to brag and say that you'd all be proud of me for not taking sass from some jerks on the train and in Hampi.  I can be kind of shy, so it took a lot for me to tell a very rude young man that he was not a nice person and that we would rather swim across the river than pay double the price to ride in his coracle.  That was fun actually.  And we did end up finding a nice paddler, for the decent price.  I am now going to be late for Hindi.  

Enjoy the new photos! Miss and love you all!!

Daily Life

For some reason, this website began showing up in Dutch or something, so I hope I can click the right buttons to post correctly. I am at the library, and one never knows what to expect from these old computers.

I figured I'd give a quick description of what daily life is like here. First of all, it's HOT! To be honest, I haven't actually ever seen a thermometer here, but if I had to guess I'd say it was about 70-80 Degrees out most days- and this is only the winter! In the coming months it should get up to over a hundred on an average day. The heat, combined with my hostel's location up a bumpy dirt road two miles from the main campus, makes for a very sweaty lifestyle. And unfortunately, I am cultivating a fantastic farmer's tan.

I start off each day with some morning meditation, which we have been learning about from Dr. Vasudeva Rao. Then I head downstairs for a breakfast of toast, curd (yogurt.. possibly from a water buffalo?), banana, fresh fruit juice, and tea from 8-9am. The mess hall has us on a strict meal schedule, and I find my mouth watering by 1pm for lunch. Lunch is usually some sort of fresh vegis, roti (flat bread), rice, curried potatoes and vegis, and dal (lentils). Dinner is from 7-8pm, and is usually a different version of similar ingredients to lunch. We get very excited for dosa nights, as dosas are delicious wraps similar to crepes with cheese, masala, gobi (cauliflower) and whatever else you want inside them. Lussies are also one of my favorites, and they are like a sweet yogurty milkshake. The kitchen staff is a bunch of characters also, so meals are always interesting.

Mondays and Wednesdays are my easy days, where I spend as much time in the painting studio as I can, and only have one real class from 4-5pm (Hindi). Then I have tabla lessons at 6. The tabla is an instrument similar to the bongos, and it usually accompanies the sitar or kathak dancers. Tuesdays and Thursdays are pretty exhausting, beginning with the race down from breakfast to class at 9, for Sociology of Health, Sickness and Healing. It is a very interesting topic, but a pretty dry class. We have a two hour lecture that could probably be condensed into about 20 minutes. Before that class is over at 11, I have to get up and leave quietly so I can make it to my next class back on my hostel's side of campus which starts at 11 (hmmm?). That is my Cognitive Psychology class, which I arrive to panting and sweating profusely. I have class with younger students, about my brother's age, (UOH is a graduate university, except for this integrated studies program which is a 5 year program for undergraduates, and this major will be the first group of Psychology students to graduate in India) who are often moved by the professor because they talk in class. I enjoy the course, and it is very great to be able to study Psychology here, but the 2 hour classes really do take a toll on my attention span. So Psych goes from 11-1, and I am starving for lunch. Then it's Hindi at 4 again with the lovely Bhavani, then Hindi tutoring with Tabussom (Super awesome Muslim graduate student, studying for her PhD in Deccan Hindi) at 5. If it's Tuesday, Meditation class at 6.

Sometimes my constant bike rides up and down these bumpy roads reminds me of when Helen and I were younger, biking around Quonnie in the summer on Nana's red bike. The temperature is right, the speedbumps are right, and there are rocks protruding from the ground everywhere. People sit on the back racks of the bikes just like we used to. And it still REALLY hurts to go over the bumps if you're on the back. If I close my eyes (quickly!), and listen to a plane going overhead, and notice the hot sun on my face, it's great to feel that sense of a home from my youth.

Evenings are usually spent reading, practicing tabla, hanging out with friends on the balconies of our hostel, planning our next trips, exploring the city, or, every once in a while, studying. As time goes on, and I get to know the students in my classes even better, I hope to hang out more with them too! I have a few good friends in my Psych class, as well as my Painting class. However it is much more difficult here than I had expected to make Indian friends. The concept of arranged marriages in this country adds an interesting dynamic to the situation. The boys make it too easy, as they would LOVE to have an American girl friend. (The other day I found a note on my bicycle that read "Dope iz Kool, <3 S.A."). The day before that, I took a ride on the back of a guy's motorbike, because my tire was flat, and it takes 45 minutes to walk to the other side of campus. After I thanked him, he immediately asked for my phone number. (I declined). I do not really trust these boys' intentions, although I am sure most of them are perfectly harmless and wonderful people. The girls, on the other hand, do not like the attention we receive, and are not as quick to approach us. But I have been working my way through these barriers, and will miss the great Indian students I have met as much as the great American students in my program.

So that's a taste of my routine here. It can be frustrating at times, and amazing at other times. Every day I learn something new about this place. This afternoon, I am off to the state of Karnataka for the weekend, to visit the ruins at Hampii with a couple of friends. I hear there are lots of monkeys. Woo!

Chennai to Mamallapuram to Pondicherry, Addressing the Caste

Here is a modified diary entry from my trip this weekend:  I haven’t really read it over, but it’s lunch time and I don’t know when I’ll be back on the internet.. so here it is!

 

Back on the train, probably for about 14 hours, but hopefully less, traveling from Chennai  back to Hyderabad.  It’s been a great trip, albeit a bit more lavish than I prefer to be in India.  Partially because circumstances prevented certain cost-savings, and also because I was in a small group of two other girls and myself.  We departed from Hyderabad on Thursday, separate from the rest of the group going off the night before, because we had tests and presentations to take care of.  (We are supposedly “studying” here too).  Before we had left, there were some warnings floating around Chennai because of some unrest in Sri Lanka, just next door, causing a “Bundt,” or strike.  Despite the warnings, we decided to go on ahead with our plans, of course with “constant vigilance.”  During our short stay in Chennai, followed by Mamallapuram and Pondicherry, I felt not one bit unsafe.  My time here in India in general has led me to stop allowing the media to induce a fear of foreign people and places. 

 

We arrived in Chennai, and headed to our hotel in the district of Triplicane, a predominantly Muslim neighborhood.  I had made a reservation at a place called “Broadlands,” which was described in Veena’s guidebook as a place to either love or hate.  We certainly loved it (and its cheap prices), with its whitewashed stucco walls, stained glass, green courtyards and funky pink rooms with blue shutters as doors.  It had so much character and history, with bats hanging in the hallways.  It was a bit of a gem, hidden down a side street with a great view from the roof of the mosque next door.  It is amazing what beauty India has concealed behind crumbling exteriors and just steps off of the main road.  These outer appearances are very deceiving, and you never know what you are going to stumble upon.  I find it interesting, in contrast, what they do not hide here- which we in the US go to great lengths to.  I am referring to the trash and litter, the poverty, and faults in their patchy infrastructure.  I sometimes worry that I am becoming just a little too accustomed to seeing children, dirty and alone, begging for money that they will never even be able to use because their parents or the people that they “work for,” will see any benefit of their begging.  People with the worst of disabilities, deformities, and disfigurement wander the trains to get by, as there is no truly functioning system to care for them.  This just illustrates why I am a very hesitant about any sort of extravagance. 

 

The best parts of the trip included our stay in Chennai, seeing the sights, and meeting some fascinating British travelers, who had purchased huge motorcycles and were spending six months driving around India.  We met up with them later in Pondicherry, too, and had a lot of fun exploring together.  The bus rides from city to city were quite the thrill- involving delivering huge sacks of rice and sticks and hay to just about every village between Chennai and Mamallapuram, and trying not to fall out of the open bus door while standing for two and a half hours on the ride from Mamallapuram to Pondicherry.  I also insisted in jumping into the Bay of Bengal, which was great in retrospect, but I did smell like ass for a day or two afterwards.  Also in Mamallapuram, we met some young Yemeni and Iraqi travelers, one who had studied in Roger Williams and at Harvard.  It was very cool to hear their perspective on the Iraq war, and it was nice to hear that they too were excited about President Obama.  Pondicherry, with its French charm and beautiful sights, was a bit more frustrating than I expected.  Hotels would promise us rooms, then turn us away upon arrival.  After the fourth place the rickshaw took us to, we were at our wits end and had to settle for an overpriced business hotel with a silly glass elevator that sang as you went up, and a characterless, sterile feel.  Starving after the long day of travel, we raced around looking for some food as it was already 10PM.  Everything in Pondicherry closes early, because it is monopolized by a very popular Asharam, inflicting strict drinking and bedtime policies… not what I expected from a French enclave!  We found a cute place to grab dinner, with mean waiters who gave us a downright “NO.” when we ordered crepes for desert.  It was nonetheless a lovely place to wander around, with lovely Hindu temples and Christian churches, weddings galore, and a great view of the coast.  We definitely also lucked out with our train back, because it left an hour earlier than our friends’, and theirs was derailed for about 4 hours.

 

I lastly want to add something else that I actually wasn’t here to experience.  While we were off for the weekend, there was a tragic occurrence back here on campus.  The details are a little fuzzy of course, based in rumors only, but from what I can gather, a graduate student on campus committed suicide.  People are claiming that it was caste-related, as he was a lower caste person studying under an upper caste mentor who did not treat him kindly.  So says word of mouth.  My Hindi tutor told me that this boy was the second suicide from his particular department in two months.  It’s hard to tell if it was caste-related or studies-related, or because of an infinite amount of other reasons.  Nonetheless, there have been large protests on campus, and some classes were cancelled Monday as a result.  It is very different to experience the remains of the caste system here.  The gap between the upper and backward caste (Brahmins and Dalits respectively), is so dauntingly vast, and very much more intense than the class divisions in the US.  And unlike our system, it is near impossible for a Dalit to “work their way up” in society.  In India, you are born into a caste, and there you will remain no matter how hard you work or how much acclaim or money or talent you acquire.  The system is perpetuated by child labor, and even arranged marriages by caste hold people in one place, as well as their families.  The Dalit and Backward class people are given some chances for further education, with an Affirmative Action-type program.  This has similar complications and controversies as it does in the US.  However, most lower caste people were raised doing arduous manual labor or servantile work for bare minimum wages, and will continue to do so for the rest of their lives.  As I previously mentioned, anyone with physical disabilities or mental problems is generally found on the streets- old or young, unless they are lucky.  Overall, it is very difficult to reconcile seeing major computer engineering companies with no limit to their corporate spending, next to the slum village with the sewage stream running through it, children bathing in the muck. I will certainly remember what I have learned and seen and experienced here in India. 

Off Again!

Well I've managed to reclaim my computer from this sketchy technology center down an alley near Hyderabad Central in Panjagutta, run by a nice man with a limp and a woman with an extra toe.  Unfortunately, my hostel's internet is out again due to some fire somewhere important.  Anyways, I have just uploaded a TON of photos from my trip to Aurangabad, but I can't write much because I have to go study for my Hindi test and Cognitive Psych Internal before I leave for my next endeavor.  Tomorrow we depart for Chennai, then Pondicherry, where we will stay until Sunday night.  The cities are located on the southeast coast of India, and Chennai is known for its beaches and Pondicherry its French influence.  A few things I've learned lately.. "Maps don't work in India," and "There are no lines in India," are two very true phrases.  When I get back, I will spend some time discussing the caste system, arranged marriages, "man love," and a few things that I will never get accustomed to such as seeing the swastika symbol everywhere (a hindi sign for health and prosperity).  Love you all, hope everyone is well! 

A big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Joey, whom I miss very much!! Have a great one!! :)