Tuesday I went to Sankat Mochan for the last of many almost-weekly visits. It was the same as always, jam-packed full of women in colorful saris with babies gaping out of black-kajal eyes, men in well-ironed button-up shirts, and energetic children drowning in the sparkles and frills of their Indian kids clothing. Monkeys chased each other across the corrugated fiberglass roof where devotees sit to put their shoes back on, the sweet counter was bustling with business selling innumerable kilos of laddu and perda, Hanuman ji’s favorites. None of the surroundings had changed, but this Tuesday there was something different about me. Even though I will be in India, and much of the time in Varanasi, for the next two months, the impending departure of my companions had made the awareness of “last times” weigh heavy in my mind: the last time I walk with Shashank ji from the program house to the temple, the last time I watch baby monkeys fight over hibiscus flowers on the bush in the entrance way, the last time Champa didi offers me hot chai while the sweat from my walk to Kaivalyadham Colony is still glistening on my forehead.
As I walked past the long men’s line waiting to offer their prashad, I felt like I was watching myself through a sound-proof glass window. I held a small box of sweets for Hanuman ji protectively to my chest and allowed myself to be absorbed into the throng of women all straining their necks to catch the glance of Hanuman ji’s enormous benevolent orange face.There was so much noise I heard nothing, and so many people I felt all alone. The hot bodies pushing and shoving on every side were like a bear hug from the universe.I stood a full head above most of the women surrounding me, and in a false sense of blending in I watched from above as one pushed in front of another to get closer to Hanuman ji, the woman behind her protesting and trying to push the intruder back where she came from.Another woman, holding a tiny baby, cradled her child’s head as she tried to burrow through the crowd, tugging her dupatta behind her as it got caught between the bodies which closed on the space she had left like water fills in behind a wader. Relaxed in a way I have only learned to be in the last few months, I let go of any feeling of control over my body that I may have felt outside, and let the flow of the pack push me towards the hand railing where the priest carelessly threw some tulsi leaves in my box, a spoonful of water in my hand, and moved on to the next worshippers shoving me out of the way. Raising the water to my head before drinking it, I asked for some inspiration to myself and the people of this nation to save what precious clean water they have left. Sipping from my palm, I was expelled from the crowd.
Yesterday the first of our College Year clan departed for home.Ed must be in Madison by now.Our conversation before he left was all excitement and fear. Excitement to see family and friends who we have all missed for so long, to feel the cool air of spring, and to walk on the quiet, orderly streets of Madison, and fear to see family and friends in a new light, fear for oppression of contrived orderliness. When we came here we called Varanasi Narnia.Now, the idea of clean, organized streets full of well-off students sipping 16 oz lattes feels more like a movie set than the real world. In the real world there are sounds and smells and tastes in the air, there are rich and there are poor, and not everything is fair.
It’s just like all the cliches go.This year has changed us, and one of the most valuable parts of that change will be seeing what has always been truth through new eyes. The scariest part is not really getting used to all the new, adapting to the heat or the dirt or the culture. The scariest part is seeing truth again, and realizing that it isn’t true anymore.
I just finished my Hindi exam. It took me three hours to fill in the twelve page exam, as well as at least five samosas, a whole bunch of amazingly delicious chutney, and two mango shakes with ice cream. Last week I turned in my fieldwork paper. Tomorrow I'll give a presentation on weaving, and have my Hindi oral exam. Students will start leaving next week. I can't believe this program is almost over.
I'll still be here in India for two more months, hanging out under fans while there is electricity, sweating buckets while there isn't, maybe travelling around a bit waiting for mom, pop, and mausie ji to show up in June. I will eat so many mangos and drink so much thandai. It will be weird to not see these people every day. Weird.
I'll probably have less internet once the program house is closed on May second. I'll still check email once in a while though. Call me if you really want to get in touch with me, and I'll give you a call back. Otherwise, catch you all at the end of June.
Last time I wrote I mentioned that I was going to inquire at the post office about my five lost packages. Unfortunately, at the time, I didn't have any tracking numbers for the packages, so I had little hope of finding anything. I went that Friday with my host dad to talk to the BHU post office post master. He, predictably, said he couldn't answer any of my questions without a number, and showed me all the international packages that had arrived recently at that post office. One was to the same address as mine, for one of my classmates Chris, who always gets packages in the mail, undamaged, and on time. My packages were not there. We asked how to get ahold of the customs office in Delhi, and they said they didn't know the phone number, suggesting that we go to the main Varanasi post office to ask for contact info.
The main post office is near my host dad's sari shop, so he checked for me the next week when he went to work. They said they couldn't help, and they also didn't know the Delhi Customs phone number. I was beginning to think they were just avoiding my complaints. How could it be possible that the Varanasi post office didn't have contact with the Delhi post offices? It couldn't. It is impossible.
A week later I received a delightful email from my grandma saying that she had found her tracking number, and discovered that, no surprise, my package was stuck in Delhi. It had been there for almost a month without any movement. I asked our program director for suggestions as to who to contact, and he called his friend who works for the Indian Postal Service. Since this was the day before Holi, his friend was at home and didn't have any phone numbers with him, but he promised that when he was back in his office he could give us the right numbers. I spent the next four days bathing in the colors of Holi and writing my rough draft. On Monday we tried again. I had Shashank ji do the talking in his native Hindi, and with his big name of "Director of UW Madison College Year in India Program," to intimidate anyone he talked to. The first man who picked up the phone said that he didn't have that information, but we should call this other guy. We called the other guy, and he said the same thing. We called the third guy, and he didn't pick up. We called the second guy back, and he said the third guy was on lunch break, so we should call in two hours. Two hours later we called, and we were told that my package had left Delhi on Saturday. Somehow I suspected that they were preparing to send it as they talked to me. I asked the customs man if he knew of any problem that would cause my four other packages not to reach me. He said that he had no suggestions for me unless I could give him a tracking number. After the phone conversation was over, I came promptly to the computer room to strangle Allison, since I couldn't strangle the Indian Postal Service at the time.
Two days ago I came to the program house in the afternoon, and Panditji told me that my package had come, but I had to sign for it so they had taken it back. He said I should stick around in the afternoon the next day to receive it.
Thursday afternoon, I finally recieved my package. Two postmen had come to deliver it, and they each had me sign a paper. It was a little package, wrapped in twine and sealed with some wierd black gooey stuff, beaten up with the empty plastic envelope where the customs slip used to be flapping off the bottom. The postmen asked me for ten rupees. I asked what for, and Pandit ji said I should just give it to them. "Delivering mail is your job, isn't it?" I asked. "Yes," they replied, "But we had to come two times." Pandit ji told me to just give them the money. I said I didn't have any change, and walked away. Pandit ji yelled after me that I could just give it to them another time, then told the post men I would give them their money later. After such difficulty getting my package, I wasn't ready to tip any postal workers for coming twice on the route they take daily. I sat down at the table to open my long-lost package, sawing at the twine with a dull knife the Didis had given me. I thought I might have to cut some tape, but was wrong, as my package had obviously already been opened. I took a gander inside.
I love care packages, and though this one was small, it didn't disappoint. Grandma jo sent me butterscotch candies and chocolate mint sauce. I think I might have a sundae party. As I looked through the goodies, I remembered back to the things Grandma jo had said were in the package that had been lost...and they weren't all there. A pair of rechargeable batteries had been removed from the package before it got to me. I don't really care about rechargeable batteries, but I did care that the one package that had finally gotten to me had arrived incomplete. I was pissed. Program staff encouraged me to write a really angry complaint letter to the postal service.
I did. I wrote the most stern and angry letter I could imagine, then asked Sanghamitra ji to read it to make sure it was good enough. She said I was giving them a hug, not yelling at them, and helped me modify the letter to say things like:
"I am prepared to go to the police, and to the US Embassy to find out why my packages havn't reached me, and who is responsible for removing my items from my packages."
I brought this letter to the post office, and they said that they would do something.
That was over a month ago. Nothing has been done. Maybe when all my requirements are over I'll keep bothering them for fun. Since then I have received one package from my mom, without having anything taken out of it, and I only had to call the customs office twice to get it to arrive within a month and a half.
The reason I labelled my last post "Aisa hai ki...the thing is that" is because that is what Indians say before they make an excuse. My (lame) excuse for not writing on my blog has been that I am really super busy writing my paper (on which I have not done any work today). Allison, on the other hand, updates her blog all the time. She agreed the other day to write a note on her blog to my parents, and told me to tell them to read hers instead. This came from a conversation when my mom said she was reading the blog of another girl from Stevens Point who is in Rajasthan, India right now. That is when I started thinking I should probably update. Then my dad sent me an email saying that, yes, my blog was getting stale, and I should update it. So, I updated, came and told Allison, and she promptly showed me the note that she had written on her blog to my parents telling them that I was okay. So, for that reason, and the reason that Allison writes funny things on her blog about monkey attacks and bad decisions, you should all read her blog as well. It is:
I spent a good portion of yesterday in front of my computer, hacking away at my rough draft which I have to turn in in only 10 days. It was a change of pace for me, as I almost never spend my days in front of a computer here, so my brain was a little fried by the time the program house closed and mercifully made me pack up my things and go home. It was still light out, (side note, Champa Didi just brought me chai...without asking it always just appears. If you stay at the program house all day it appears at least 4 times. One day, I asked for a big mug of coffee in the afternoon, and now if I am here around 4 o’clock they always bring me a mug of coffee.) so I decided to take a little walk down to Ganga ji to watch the sun set over the river. I talked to my folks along the way, trying to describe everything that was happening around me, and knowing that there was no good way to even explain the sounds they could hear, let alone the things I could see happening around me. I tried, all the same, and kept getting confused and losing my train of thought because I would be telling one story and then want to explain the mob of 30 men on the ghats leaning over each other to see a few playing some betting card game, and then forget where I was in the story, and then see some guys fixing a fishing net and tell dad about that... I don’t generally feel like I am overstimulated here, but when I try to explain things to people who haven’t been here, I am amazed how much is always going on.
It has been a shamefully long time since I last wrote. It has gotten to the point where at the end of the day, often I don't feel like I did or saw or experienced anything particularly noteworthy. Then, I talk to someone at home and describe my day, and once again remember that everything here is noteworthy to someone who isn't here, and though I’m sure there are hundreds of things that I should write about, my mind is in research mode, so I will copy a few pages out of my research journal to explain to you what my life has been about lately:
I met Rukmini the first time I wandered into the little labor colony by the program house, which I have come to fondly call “the hood”. I was sitting on a white metal folding chair which had been offered to me on my arrival, apparently the only chair in the neighborhood. A mob of kids surrounded me, staring wide-eyed, and behind them all the men who were coming home after work joked with each other and semi-tried to talk to me. A few women stood behind everyone observing the situation. I tried to explain in my broken Hindi that I was a student from America, and I was doing research on water The idea seemed to make little sense to them, but Rukmini, a thin, small woman with an angular face and an old but nice ciffon sari said in a strong voice over the bustle, “Water is a very big problem for us,” and I thought, “I want to talk to YOU!” Then she left, bucket in hand, to go get some water for dinner. The next time I came back I looked for her. I was supposed to go to a meeting at the City Water Works, but just as I got up to leave she came home and offered me chai. Staying and having a cup of Rukminis chai trumped meeting with some high up government official, so I sat again. She sent her youngest son, maybe 3 years old, to get 2 rupees (4 cents) of sugar for my chai, appologizing that she couldn’t afford any milk, so the chai would be black. She brought me the steaming cup with some biscuits, then went back to her home, leaving me to keep chatting with Chotelal and his friends. They all offered to bring milk from their houses, one saying they had dried milk, another saying they had real, fresh milk, but I thanked them and so no, at home I always drink my chai black.
When I went back to the hood with Sanghamitra ji, Rukmini again offered us chai just as we were getting ready to go. She invted us into her house this time- one room made of bricks with a low corrugated steel roof. I could see light through the places where the wall met the roof, but still there was very little ventilation. It must be like an ofen in the summer. Inside there was one raised wooden bedstand, and two steel trunks. She sat on the floor next to the door, boiling our chai on a one burner gas stove. Abover her, was a clothesline piled with all of her and her two sons clothes. Rukmini has two sons, and has lived with them in the hood for 2 years. She washes people’s dishes for a living, searching for work from house to house every day. She pays 300 rupees (6 dollars) monthly for rent. Two years ago she came here to be with her husband who was working here and sending money back to the village where her family originally lived, and she found that he was living with another woman. Now he lives nearby with his mistress, and she lives here taking care of her boys by herself.
While we asked her about her life and her family until the chai was finished. She handed it to us in two metal cups, appologising again that there was no milk, and excused herself to go bathe her sons while we were drinking. She never drinks chai with me. She always says she has had some already.
Last time I went to the hood I brought samosas with me for Rukmini and her kids. I had asked her if she would sit with me for awhile and help me with my research. She thought it was weird, but seemed okay with the idea when I said that I had to write a paper, and my guru would be angry if I didn’t have some interviews. When I got there she invited me into her house, pushing her sleeping son to the side of the wooden bed so I could sit down and have some chai. A girl who lives next door came and helped answer my questions, and eventually another neighbor and his wife sat on the ground outside the door to listen in and give their opinions. We sat and talked about water for an hour and a half, and once I had finished asking all my questions most of the neighborhood kids had come home from school or work and were sitting around listening to us talk. One of the girls noticed my recorder, and asked what it was. I told her that it could record sounds and I could listen to them later. She asked me to show her, so I demonstrated, asking her to say something and playing it back to her. Rukmini then asked if she could sing a song. I happily agreed, and then she was shy and said that she wouldn’t...but after a little coaxing she did, and that little bit of recording is one of my favorite soundbites I have collected in all my time here. I wish I could upload it to this blog somehow.
On a completely different note, I was talking to my dili dost (friend of my heart, literally) Claire the other day when our program house monkey showed up to beg for a banana. She comes daily now, because she has found that there are many people here that are sympathetic to begging monkeys. She makes very cute noises, sort of squeaking, sort of just making noise...it is hard to explain. The first time I heard her I thought that there was a gurgling baby (human) in the other room. She comes in the morning when people are eating breakfast,
and sometimes at lunch when she can look in the door (which is covered by a metal grate/door thing) and holds on to the bars, staring at us with imploring eyes. She's pretty picky actually. She really loves bananas, but we found that she is completely uninterested in toast. The other day I gave her a khir ka dam, my favorite Indian sweet, and she picked it up, smelled it, and dropped it on the ground. I was sad. Anyway, I sent Claire a picture of her, along with a
picture of a pile of baby cows I took while walking home one day. I thought those might be nice to include here.
The monkey just came to the window as I was writing this, so I took a video of her so I could introduce you all to her. Enjoy.
Up until now, there have been 5 packages sent to me in the mail that haven't arrived here. I thought there were only 4, but Claire told me about one she sent as a surprise when I was talking to her. I have been discussing going to the post office today to try to find out what is happening. Vimal ji, my Hindi teacher, coached me today on what I should do. "Start in Hindi," he said, "at least to practice. Act really mad, and make a scene. I know you aren't the type to make a scene, but you won't get anything if you don't. Tell them how angry you are and that if something doesn't get done about it soon you will call your embassy. Always mention the embassy. That will really scare them. Nobody wants homeland security involved."
I have a sneaking suspician that there is some postal official somewhere that has eaten a lot of nice American chocolates. I'm going to try to focus on that to make myself really mad so I can actually do something to get my packages. The American Embassy wouldn't want for me to go without chocolates, after all.
This picture is of Vimal ji. He was acting as the head FBI agent trying to lure Osama Bin Laden to Benares so we could catch him. That was an interesting day in class. Don't let this make you think that Vimal ji is not always this stylish and intimidating. He is. Don't mess with him. He'll use some really amazing English vocabulary word that you don't understand, and you'll be so stunned he'll be able to do anything to you. Anything. Watch out.
If any of you ever send me, or anyone else something in India, keep the tracking number...for sure. Everyone but Vimal ji says it will be impossible for me to find anything without a number, and I should just forget about my packages...but they also say that they should really be coming, so I'm gonna go act mad anyway. Wish me luck.
I have never been particularly patriotic. Before November I had definitely never cried because I was so proud of my country. Today I did, again. I watched the inauguration speech and the concert on youtube with some friends here in the computer lab of our program house, and we sang along with Beyonce to America the beautiful, and I cried. It was like the happy ending of a really inspirational movie. It was the sappiest, cheesiest, most patriotic moment of India, and it was so, so good. I recieved this email from my mom two days ago. This one made me cry too. I know I cry a lot, but I never did for anything like this before. God, I love America.
(All acknowledgements go to my mom for being an awesome writer, and an awesome superhero type, and lots of other awesome things. I didn't ask her if I could post this...)
Hey Ariel,
Tomorrow, the big inauguration day is finally here! Everyone across the country seems excited like I have never experienced for an inauguration in my lifetime. I think it is more than Obama's race that has people excited because he doesn't even really acknowledge race as an issue. I think mostly it is that he is an intelligent man who is thoughtful rather than reactionary, who listens and considers options and seeks the best one no matter who's idea it is, who, despite the dreadful economy and two wars that should not be happening continues to be positive and optimistic about our future, a person who is truly inspirational. Today, on Martin Luther King Day, a day of service, more people than ever before showed up to volunteer across the country because they simply feel inspired to be a part of everything again, because Obama makes them feel like they matter and what they have to contribute is important.
I know I won't agree with every decision Obama makes because he is more centrist in his views than I am but I do know I will be able to listen to his ideas without feeling betrayed and enraged. As one bumper sticker notes, "1-20-09, the end of an error", I couldn't agree more. It really feels like the dawn of a new age for our country and for the way we are viewed by the rest of the world.
And while Obama's race (actually races), don't matter to me at all, I am proud of my fellow Americans for being able to see beyond that. It is more than I could have expected from them and I hope that I will feel that people are more color or race-blind as we move forward. I think a lot about the way the country was when I was a kid - parks with separate "white and black" beaches, forced busing to supposedly integrate and equalize education for blacks and whites, race riots in Washington after the assassination of Martin Luther King, seeing and hearing people spout hateful racists remarks, experiencing reverse discrimination in my junior high school locker room... I don't fell like I'm that old. This wasn't all that long ago. I am hopeful that people are changing. I am so excited to see where we are heading as a people and a nation. It feels more "right" than it has ever felt before!
Your dad and I plan to go to the "Inaugural Ball" at the Jensen Center tomorrow night to join in the celebration. It feels like we really have something to celebrate that goes way beyond simply getting rid of Bush. Be sure to take in as much of the news as you can so you can fell the spirit even from so far away!
Happy Day, Love, Mommy
I hope you are all well, and enjoying the glow of our new president. Now it is time to get down to business. Let's change some world!
Since last I wrote there have been several (some particularly photogenic) interesting things going on in my/India’s life. I will divide this entry into parts according to these high/lowlights: Dev Dipavali, Thanksgiving, Terrorism, Wedding in Jaipur, End of Semester. Sadly, I don’t have my pictures with me to upload right now, but when I do, it will be awesome, so stay tuned!
Dev Dipavali Yet another festival in a long line of festivals, Dev Dipavali still stands out amongst the rest. The story of Dev Dipavali goes like this. Thousands of years ago, when the gods used to all hang out in Varanasi, the king of Varanasi got jealous. His subjects were spending all their time worshipping gods, and not paying enough attention to him, so he decided to ban the gods from his kingdom. It was a sad time for everyone involved, but the gods went on their way and left Varanasi behind. The King, seeing how sad his order had made everyone, declared one day of the year that the gods could come back to Varanasi. That day is Dev Dipavali, the day that the gods celebrate the festival of lights, and the people of Varanasi welcome them home. An Indian welcome home is nothing to scoff at, but when Indians are welcoming gods home, they do it with especial style. On this day, the all of the ghats along Ganga ji (aka the Ganges) are decorated with thousands and thousands and most likely millions of tiny clay lamps. Buildings along the banks of the river are covered in lights, and just about everyone in India comes to watch or take part in puja along the river, send lanterns downstream, set off fireworks, go on boat rides, dance and make merry. As for us, our program staff and students went on a boat ride to watch the insanity from (what we thought would be) a safe distance. It turns out traffic jams are not only a thing of dry land. We were constantly hitting other boats with our oars, and almost getting hit by fireworks set off nearby. It was a magical evening all around.
Thanksgiving We decided to celebrate Thanksgiving a week early, seeing as we were going to be in Jaipur, staying in hotels, without access to kitchens on the actual day of Thanksgiving. This decision was made about 24 hours before the day that we chose to be our stand-in Thanksgiving, so it was quite the rush to prepare our meal. I, being the one person who actually really cared that we celebrated, was put in charge of organizing things. I skipped class the day before to shop for lots of things that are either very difficult or impossible to find in India, and gave a list of more easily found things to Pandit ji to get for me. The next morning I took a cycle rickshaw to the program house carrying my host family’s toaster-oven in order to double our oven space. Upon arrival Pandit ji told me that he couldn’t find ripe Kohora, which is like pumpkin, the day before, so he would have it by 8 o’clock, and the cream he bought was sour, so he’d get more by 2, and then I realized that the pie pan-type thing I had didn’t actually fit into the toaster ovens, and I had a sad moment and decided that pumpkin pie would not happen after all. Then the preparations went on, around class. By dinner time our enormous program house dining room table was covered with stuffing, mashed potatoes, salad, potato corn chowder, a delicious middle-eastern hummos salad, and lots of other delicacies. Many of the students families and tutors came, as well as all of the program staff, and we had trouble fitting everyone in around the table. There was way to much food, and it really did feel like Thanksgiving. As we were waiting for a few stragglers to show up, someone asked who was going to say some sort of grace/toast before the meal, and a few people suggested that I do it, since I had organized so much. I replied “I don’t talk, I just cook.” Ed laughed and said, “Wow, Ariel, you’ve been in India too long!” and only then did I realize what I had just said. With so many people there we weren’t able to go around the table and have the traditional “things I’m thankful for” talk with everyone, but as I was cleaning up after all our guests left I thought of many things. I am thankful that I was able to celebrate this, my favorite holiday, with all of the other students of this program, who have become like my family here. I am thankful I got to cook with them, clean with them, and have gotten to experience so much more with them. I am thankful that I have so many people to go to for help or humor or anything else I might need here. I am thankful that I have that and so much more at home in Wisconsin. I am thankful for every email and letter I get (and the ones I don't get, I know they are out there somewhere), and for all of the people who fill my thoughts every day. I am thankful that I have my health, and so many opportunities in my life, and especially that I have been given the opportunity to be here, now, learning to love a new place, a new culture, and so many new people. Mostly, I am just thankful in general.
Terrorism As we were on a train with all nine of the students from our program, heading to Jaipur for our Hindi teacher’s niece’s wedding, we heard by word of mouth that there where terrorist attacks underway in Mumbai. Word of mouth on a train is generally not the best source of information, and even just between us nine students the story just kept getting worse. Sarah heard from her friend that the terrorists were targeting foreigners, checking passports and killing all the British and Americans that they found. The Taj hotel was on fire, and there were hostages there and in the Oberoi. We found out later, when we were able to watch the news and read newspapers, that the terrorists weren’t so much targeting foreigners as they were targeting the extravagance symbolized by those hotels, but none-the-less we were pretty shaken up. It seems every time I get on a train there are terrorist attacks in India. I should stop taking trains. The day of the attacks, for us, was Thanksgiving Day. As we sat at an extravagantly priced Italian restaurant that night, we talked about what we were thankful for, and Allison said that she was thankful that she doesn’t ever feel like she should worry about her friends and family’s safety in the US. Amen to that. I am also very thankful that I rarely have any reason to worry about most of my loved ones’ safety (except for you, Orian, you are always freaking me out. Don’t die in Africa. Karen, Nate and MinWah, that goes for you too.)
Now...I'll have to finish the rest of this post later. My internet time has once more expired. I'm not sure when I'll be back at the computer again, as my vacation has started and I'll soon be setting off to Delhi to pick up my first visitor, Mausi ji. I can't wait. Life is wonderful, despite terrorist attacks. I promise I'll say more about that later...
