Peaks to Plains

October 6

Varanasi, India

Our two weeks in Mussoorie were like a dream. Actually, they were sort of like those dreams I used to have about being in school and having forgotten to study for a test and sitting at my desk dreading what would be on the paper. So much Hindi! We would spend the entire morning then some of the afternoon in class, then when I should have been doing homework, I would go for long walks exploring the surrounding foothills and hiking up to the store where they made cheddar cheese to buy more for our class snacktimes. I would start my homework at 10, study until 1, then go to bed and get up early and do it all again. The clouds floating past on the streets added to my sleep deprived confusion.
One of my favorite expeditions of our retreat was a Saturday when most of the students, one of our Hindi teachers and our program director decided to go on a picnic. We had found a trail several days before that connected Mussoorie to several villages a ways out on one of the mountain sides. The trail was not big enough or smooth enough for any sort of motorized vehicle, so it was purely foot and hoof traffic. It wound all along the edge of the mountain, past spring-fed streams, and through beautiful and surreal forests. We stopped at a grassy clearing for our picnic of tuna, mayonnaise and cheese sandwiches, accompanied by cheese puffs, bananas and peanut butter, and snickers we had found at the same western-food store. Vimalji our Hindi teacher especially appreciated our painfully and deliciously American fare. We spent the rest of the day making stone sculptures and trying to climb unclimbable trees.
A couple of days before we left Mussoorie, a group of students went with Virendraji to meet one of his old Hindi students from Madison who works at an enormous international boarding school nearby. She gave us a three hour fascinating tour of the place that made us all really consider what we think of boarding schools and cultural attachment. I'm not really sure how I feel about kids growing up in a place so international that it doesn't really have any cultural identity. It was a fascinating place, and I think it would be the perfect place for the children of ambassadors, at least. Anyway, one of her students had recently given her a puppy which she couldn't keep, so Virendraji decided to take it home with us. I was the lucky person who got to take care of the puppy on the train, where we weren't supposed to have a puppy. Virendra thought that having a white girl who could pretend she didn't know any Hindi take care of the whimpery contraband would be better than him. I spent one of the most adorable sleepless nights ever keeping the puppy entertained and trying to prevent her from making noise or escaping my bunk.
We arrived back in our dusty, sweaty, beautiful home of Varanasi last Thursday evening. It felt oddly comforting to get off the train in a familiar train station, walk across a familiar dusty parking lot, through familiar herds of water buffalo to our taxis. Mussoorie was dazzlingly beautiful, with breathtaking views from everywhere, and wonderful places to hike and good restaurants and shopping if that is your cup of tea, but it was so touristy much of it sometimes felt fabricated. Here in Varanasi, everything is real, and despite the fact that it means the smoke and dust sometimes make it hard to breath, and the children follow me around begging for food or money, I think Varanasi is the place for me.
This weekend was a wonderful welcome back to Varanasi, filled with excitement around the current festivals, and overwhelming hospitality. I went to see Ramlila, a reenactment of the stories of the Ramayana, with my friends Denae, Sarah, and Sarah's friend Ash on Saturday night. The reenactment happens over the course of 45 nights every year before Deshehera, the festival that will be celebrated this Wednesday. It takes place in Ramnagar, a place across the river from Varanasi, then a ways down a highway. The action is in a huge field, which fills up with food vendors and pilgrims and elephants and thousands and thousands and thousands of spectators. I understood very little of the actual story that was going on, since my background in the Ramayana is very weak, and my Hindi not all that much better, but it was a fantastic thing to see. Afterwards we went to meet Ash's family, and were completely attacked with hospitality. As I was trying to call my host family to tell them I would be later than expected, I was actually fed khir by Ash's mother. I've never seen anyone so distressed that I wasn't eating at all times. Actually, even when I had food in my mouth they were distressed that I wasn't eating more. We sat and chatted for a while, and after a broken Hindi conversation with Ash's mother she had already declared that she felt like she had adopted three more daughters.
Yesterday I called my friend from Madison Venkatesh's cousin, who I had never met or talked to, but lives in Varanasi. I said who I was, and that I would love to meet him sometime, and he said "sure, how about lunch today. I'll come pick you up!" Within half an hour I was riding side-saddle on the back of his motorcycle to his house, where I sat for three hours talking about Madurai, the city in south India where he and his wife is from. His wife made an amazing south Indian lunch for us, and I looked at their recent wedding pictures. I wasn't able to communicate very well with his wife, since she doesn't speak much Hindi or English, but I learned a few words in Tamil, and she showed me how to make the food that she was preparing. After lunch I went to study with Sarah, walked to Ksheer Sagar, an amazing Indian sweet shop, bought some sweets, then went and ate them at Assi Ghat where we chatted with a bunch of overwhelmingly adorable ghat children, and ran into my weaving ustad. I am so content.
Now it is time for me to begin my research, so I've got a lot of work ahead of me. I'm excited to dive into it. I can't imagin a better place for me to be right now.
I hope that whoever you are reading this, you are enjoying yourself where you are right now. Keep in touch!