reached for my package of Ritz crackers this morning and found a soggy mess.
Why? Was this a case of overzealous chai dipping? Did I accidentally spill Limca on them in the middle of the night? Was it another episode of my sleepwalking and throwing random kitchen objects into the toilet again?
No. It's monsoon season. The humidity is so thick that it leaves a damp nasty blanket over everything. Everything is just wet and hot including my clothes, my books and my Ritz crackers.
Gross.
I love the monsoon.
I'll be walking outside and making my way through the damp nasty blanket, and all of a sudden a dark cloud will loom for a few minutes and then it will burst leaving everything in its surroundings drenched. The rain will continue for hours and hours and I can always feel everyone's relief in the air. To their mothers' dismay, little kids will run outside in just their underwear and drench themselves, shrieking. As their mothers come to terms with the inevitable, they decide to make the most of it and take out the Dettol soap and give the kids a good scrubbing. Rickshaw drivers will pull up, their pant-legs soaked to the knee, their wiper-less windshield covered with water and will grin and say, 'kaphe accha mausaum aajkal kya?" (great weather these days, right?") People will have muddy feet and umbrellas with holes in them, but this is a place where storm clouds don't mean a frowny face. In a place where so many people are deeply connected to the rural agrarian outskirts, a few months of rain mean a prosperous year of crops and health.
The end of the heat also brings more parties. The wedding fireworks are starting again and Vanya turned one.
Who is Vanya? I'm not 100 percent sure, she is sort of the niece of the woman that I'm renting from.
What matters though, is that she turned one. One year old birthdays are a really big deal here. By a big deal, I mean a really big deal. As my practical practical friend Saurabh put it regarding his own niece's first birthday, "Why don't you just put the kid in a yard and give her a balloon and then put the rest of the money in a mutual fund for her?" But I had fun. We all dressed up. A lot. We drove out to some farmhouse on the Delhi-Jaipur highway. In a several acre amphitheater, both a DJ and a traditional Indian classical music band played and everyone danced. Three big cakes spelling out the word "ONE" were eaten and then we began the several course actual meal. Vanya cried and got eyeliner all over her white dress and fell asleep. We all stayed for several more hours and then left. I don't really remember my first birthday, but I doubt it was like that. Maybe I'll reclaim it as something that was denied to me in my infancy, like some men are reclaiming their foreskins. Doubtful though.
Besides walking in the rain and celebrating birthdays of people who are definitely not clear on the concept of birth or day and only vaguely clear on the concept of people, I feel like I've been killing a lot of time since my mom left (she was here, it was fabulous, ask me if you want more of a play by play). The project is going slower than I expected (for a million reasons that I'm sick of ticking off), but that gave me the opportunity to reread the Namesake.
I once read an interview with Jhumpa Lahiri and she said that the biggest compliment she ever gets is when readers come up to her and tell her, "I really like my story...er I mean your story," because she wants the readers to identify with her work. When I first read this, I thought that she was being just a little obnoxious. However, after reading the Namesake for the first time since coming to India and it really felt like my past seven months but reversed. If you haven't read it, go! That's your library task for the week.
Not to give a book report, but I love it because the Indians in the novel don't come to the U.S. for wealth or for a "better life," but because the guy on the train told him to "pack a blanket and a pillow and go." I love how the inspiration to go and explore was external. I love how what they confronted was met with ambiguity and growth and change that weren't necessarily positive, that weren't necessarily negative. I love how they reforged their old life (kind of) in America by meeting other Bengalis, how observing different traditions weren't part of "observing their culture" but were just natural tendencies. They were comfortable. I love how the mother went through these cycles of being critical of her surroundings and then critical of her own criticalness and then critical again. I love how the parents in the book didn't think of things that they did as uniquely "Bengali" until their kids pointed them out. I realized through reading it again that after this time I can probably point out more things that are uniquely "Midwestern American" than I can point out things that are "Indian."
I recently met a couple of other researchers in India and the question of what is "distinct" to our subjects is one that baffles all of us. My friend was researching dietary practices in Tamil Nadu and she would ask women what they wouldn't eat when they were pregnant and they would say, "Oh, we eat everything," when it was clear that they were avoiding all kinds of foods. Now these women weren't stupid, it's just that they ate everything, but some things. There was such a "naturalness" to what they chose not to eat that it wasn't worth articulation. Similarly, when asked about our diet, most of us wouldn't say that we omit foods we consider dangerous like glass shards or foods that we ate at one point in our lives like breast milk.
I know that when I put it this way it all sounds really obvious, but when I ask someone what their job is and they say, "Nothing," it's totally bewildering. It's still the beginning in a lot of ways, but just as Ashima discovered what was Indian, I am constantly discovering how "American" the premise of my project is. Just like Ashima though, I don't think that that's always a problem.
Anyways, that's all of my babble for now. Write back! I miss you fools!
Love and all of my remaining soggy cracker crumbs,
B
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Saturday, June 21, 2008
First entry
As I struggled to get my mind around this hit song today I remembered why I love it here. One ear glued to a Hindu bajan, the other to Fifty Cent, India comes across as this cacophonous insanity. People have this impulse to separate everything and distinguish aspects as being British or Muslim or whatever, but in the end it just is what it is.
I'm here though. For real. As many of you know, housing has been quite the debacle. I decided to live with a girl that is also ion my Hindi class. She is quite a bit older than I am and is extremely successful and I continuously seem to prove my immaturity and provincialism while around her. A typical Anu/Becky/Gautam (the third guy in my class who invented and marketed this microsensor sponge thing) conversation goes like this:
Anu: While I was working for "X" prestegious organization in X European city
Becky: Wait, where is that
Gautam: (rolls eyes) On the border of Switzerland and Italy
Becky: Oh, like where Genovia would be if it existed.
(Genovia, for those of you who don't know, is where Mia discovers she's the princess of in the Princess Diaries)
Aside from making occasional references to movies for prepubescent girls, I have also been proving my tendency to be insufferably standard-less . "Becky, I am ten years out of college," she says like it's her maha-mantra when I make college-y suggestions like maybe we can just eat cereal and milk or live without hot water for a day. Anyways, because of this, we are living in an estate in Shanti Kunj. I bet you've never heard of it ? Neither has any of New Delhi.
For the past week I was trying to figure out why I couldn't find our colony on the most intricate of maps. I finally asked my
teacher, "What's with Shanti Kunj?" He kept on trying to talk to me and the conversation felt really circular. Then Gautam entered in and was like, "It's illegal no?" Here's the inside scoop: The Government of India has made it illegal to buy out farm land. With such a high percentage of the rural population being so impoverished, it sounds like a good idea to protect them from rich people who want to buy out their land because it's quiet and pretty, right? Well it sounds like a good idea, but luckily for my landlord the Gov't doesn't care that much. He has planted a lovely little cabbage patch ruse to indicate that we are in fact living on farm land. When I showed my disgust for the entire situation, my teacher assured me "Don't worry, you won't be demolished. You are our guest! It is only the property owners who will be fined."
We are cast off far far far. Like close to Lahore. Our neighbors are lots and lots of rich people whom I never see, because their homes are behind nine foot high gates. The only confirmation of my their identity are tiny placards that say things like "High Comissioner to Namibia" (I'm not kidding) or the occasional man in a sweater vest walking a Scottie. Oh, and their dozens of servants that actually do things. The place is nice. Too nice. As much as I have the urge to watch Malayalam soap operas on one of our 150 cable channels at 3 in the morning, I really don't need this and I am trying to get out ASAP. I will let you know what happens.
After housing, the second most important aspect of my life are the ubiquitous lamination machines. This is an institution that I did not take proper advantage of the last time that I was here. Like temples and urinals, lamination machines dot every corner. Like everything worthwhile here, these machines are run by 85 lb. toothless men in tiny little stands with aluminum siding. For less than a quarter, I can take any silly piece of paper and make it into a waterproof creation. Because of my lack of social life or really any life to speak of aside from learning Hindi, my having things laminated is on the verging on becoming a hobby. Since discovering this one guy in Defence Colony (where I go to school) I have taken a new passport copy, driver's license copy or map to him every day. The best part is that now I don't have to buy place mats when I come back to the U.S.
Things are so much easier this time around. Yesterday I needed to go to Jaipur to register with the Foreigner Registration Office there. Two years ago a round trip from Delhi to Jaipur would have felt like an Oregon Trail style journey complete with buffalo hunting and bouts cholera. However, I just went to the bus station and hopped on, got off at my stop and attended to my business at the computer-less non nonsensical Government office and came back (laminating the documents saying that I am a legal resident of India of course). I forgot how much I love Jaipur and it's changed a bunch (there's a mall next to Bapna land!)
I have a cell and I have Internet. To call me you dial 001 92 100 94533. E-mailing and Skype are just the same as before.
I have also realized that a number of you have virtually no idea as to what I am doing here (my own mom didn't really know until Thanksgiving, the week before I left). Basically I am learning/practicing Hindi through a Critical Language fellowship (the only reasonably decent institution Bush has funded during his term) with the American Institute of Indian Studies in Delhi until February/March and then I start my Fulbright project. I have attached my proposal for your perusal (relax, it's only 2 pages) and these will probably be the only academic details that I will bore you with unless further asked (and then I will go on for a very long time).
I miss you all.
Love and plastic coated papers,
I'm here though. For real. As many of you know, housing has been quite the debacle. I decided to live with a girl that is also ion my Hindi class. She is quite a bit older than I am and is extremely successful and I continuously seem to prove my immaturity and provincialism while around her. A typical Anu/Becky/Gautam (the third guy in my class who invented and marketed this microsensor sponge thing) conversation goes like this:
Anu: While I was working for "X" prestegious organization in X European city
Becky: Wait, where is that
Gautam: (rolls eyes) On the border of Switzerland and Italy
Becky: Oh, like where Genovia would be if it existed.
(Genovia, for those of you who don't know, is where Mia discovers she's the princess of in the Princess Diaries)
Aside from making occasional references to movies for prepubescent girls, I have also been proving my tendency to be insufferably standard-less . "Becky, I am ten years out of college," she says like it's her maha-mantra when I make college-y suggestions like maybe we can just eat cereal and milk or live without hot water for a day. Anyways, because of this, we are living in an estate in Shanti Kunj. I bet you've never heard of it ? Neither has any of New Delhi.
For the past week I was trying to figure out why I couldn't find our colony on the most intricate of maps. I finally asked my
teacher, "What's with Shanti Kunj?" He kept on trying to talk to me and the conversation felt really circular. Then Gautam entered in and was like, "It's illegal no?" Here's the inside scoop: The Government of India has made it illegal to buy out farm land. With such a high percentage of the rural population being so impoverished, it sounds like a good idea to protect them from rich people who want to buy out their land because it's quiet and pretty, right? Well it sounds like a good idea, but luckily for my landlord the Gov't doesn't care that much. He has planted a lovely little cabbage patch ruse to indicate that we are in fact living on farm land. When I showed my disgust for the entire situation, my teacher assured me "Don't worry, you won't be demolished. You are our guest! It is only the property owners who will be fined."
We are cast off far far far. Like close to Lahore. Our neighbors are lots and lots of rich people whom I never see, because their homes are behind nine foot high gates. The only confirmation of my their identity are tiny placards that say things like "High Comissioner to Namibia" (I'm not kidding) or the occasional man in a sweater vest walking a Scottie. Oh, and their dozens of servants that actually do things. The place is nice. Too nice. As much as I have the urge to watch Malayalam soap operas on one of our 150 cable channels at 3 in the morning, I really don't need this and I am trying to get out ASAP. I will let you know what happens.
After housing, the second most important aspect of my life are the ubiquitous lamination machines. This is an institution that I did not take proper advantage of the last time that I was here. Like temples and urinals, lamination machines dot every corner. Like everything worthwhile here, these machines are run by 85 lb. toothless men in tiny little stands with aluminum siding. For less than a quarter, I can take any silly piece of paper and make it into a waterproof creation. Because of my lack of social life or really any life to speak of aside from learning Hindi, my having things laminated is on the verging on becoming a hobby. Since discovering this one guy in Defence Colony (where I go to school) I have taken a new passport copy, driver's license copy or map to him every day. The best part is that now I don't have to buy place mats when I come back to the U.S.
Things are so much easier this time around. Yesterday I needed to go to Jaipur to register with the Foreigner Registration Office there. Two years ago a round trip from Delhi to Jaipur would have felt like an Oregon Trail style journey complete with buffalo hunting and bouts cholera. However, I just went to the bus station and hopped on, got off at my stop and attended to my business at the computer-less non nonsensical Government office and came back (laminating the documents saying that I am a legal resident of India of course). I forgot how much I love Jaipur and it's changed a bunch (there's a mall next to Bapna land!)
I have a cell and I have Internet. To call me you dial 001 92 100 94533. E-mailing and Skype are just the same as before.
I have also realized that a number of you have virtually no idea as to what I am doing here (my own mom didn't really know until Thanksgiving, the week before I left). Basically I am learning/practicing Hindi through a Critical Language fellowship (the only reasonably decent institution Bush has funded during his term) with the American Institute of Indian Studies in Delhi until February/March and then I start my Fulbright project. I have attached my proposal for your perusal (relax, it's only 2 pages) and these will probably be the only academic details that I will bore you with unless further asked (and then I will go on for a very long time).
I miss you all.
Love and plastic coated papers,
Hindi Camp
I'm sorry that I haven't written for a while, but I've been busy learning how to sing, dance and act.
I desperately wish I were joking, but I'm not. Our teachers thought it would be cute to display the tangible products of their labor in the form of a Vaudeville like "Hindi Camp" this past weekend in Pushkar.
Most of you know that I am really not a performer, actually quite the opposite. Much of the time, I would much rather burrow into the banks of the Yamuna than do anything on stage. I can appreciate these things when performed by others, but I really prefer a nice seat in the audience. Luckily, I haven't been asked to "perform" anything since seventh grade, but I also haven't been living in India. For some reason, the idea of "stage fright" here is about as foreign as "traffic laws."
In a place where everyone clambers to have their picture taken and where most people in their heart of hearts want to be Bollywood stars, the words, " No, I don't want to sing Tujhe Dekha To Yeh Jana Sanam in front of lots of people that I don't know," doesn't make any sense.
So because of some sort of cultural/language barrier I was locked into singing this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFlEvJdRgao . Our teachers took this all very seriously. We didn't have normal class for 3-4 days because they hired a singing coach to teach us to sing appropriately. "Try to be Kajol," the coach would plead, he might as well have asked me to "Try to be George Washington."
Further, my teacher told me that I had to learn a Kathak dance. Now mind you, Kathak is a very serious, complicated and nuanced art form. Most people start training for it when they are about 4 or 5 and really hit their prime when they are in their early 30s. Therefore, the prospect of me putting together anything resembling something like a Kathak dance in 6 days looked fairly bleak, but I asked my friend to help me and she taught me how to count and move my wrists and kind of how to spin on my heel and then she left for Orissa for a Kathak competition.
So we scratched Kathak off the schedule.
This left my teacher, Sayeed, a little panicky (alright, he's always a little panicky- this left him a lot panicky) and so we had to quickly brainstorm a Kathak replacement. I jokingly said that we could have our own version of this Shah Rukh Khan show where children compete against adults about various trivia questions. My teacher loved the idea. He made up a list of questions that he would ask us about Indian history and culture and was all ready to make Gautum the host. "Ummm where are you going to find a kid?" "Don't worry, don't worry, we'll find one in Pushkar." When we got there, Sayeed went on a mad dash trying to find a willing child somewhere within the city limits....
So we replaced Kathak with chai.
The only promising portion of the whole thing was the little comic skit that Gautum and I concocted. The skit was about a reverse call center. Now in India, most people refer to call centers by the acronym for Business Processing Outsourcing (BPO), so ours was called Odhiyogik (Industrial) Prityam (Processing) Bahar Se Lo (Outside) (OPB). I played a disheveled out of work college student (quite a stretch, but I think I did alright), looking through the classified ads. I find a way to make easy fast money at night and it turns out that its this information hotline for the Indian Government that has been outsourced to the U.S. I am forced to learn Hindi and take on a new name. We embedded all kinds of cultural jokes about Americans in India and what not. For instance, we videotaped a pharmacist asking why there were so many sick people and I answered by saying it was because of the change in the weather (a very common answer for everything). In the play, I became so well loved as an information hotline engineer that I became the first outsourced Prime Minister of India and culminated with me singing Jan Gan Man (the national anthem) over my headset from Wisconsin.
But no one laughed. The place was totally deadpan. No one even sang along with the national anthem. Go figure.
In other news, my roomate just got a job as a flight attendant which quite a prestigious job for a girl my age. However, she's going through training right now and because English is not her native (most native?) language the manuals are very difficult for her to understand. Because of this she'll do things like wake up at 3 in the morning to copy the entire manual by hand and lean over and ask me questions like "what does sterile mean?" "what does surround mean?" recite it and then do a puja and then come back and recite it again. This leaves me a little exhausted and disoriented in the morning, so hopefully her exams will end soon.
Hostel life continues to be enjoyable with 20 girls consistently sharing their contradictory opinions with me. For instance one girl informed me that I had lost weight and that I should "stop going to the gym." 15 minutes later another girl came up to me shook her head and patted my hip, saying "Becky tum itne moti hui," (Becky you have become so fat). So like most things, I take a lot of their advice/editorial comments with a grain of salt (er amchu?)
On a last note, I just found an honest to do list that I made a couple days ago on my way to school. I thought that it summed up my life pretty well.
1. Find contact info for Parliamentarians on Population Policy
2. Practice drinking water without putting lips on bottle
3. Fix camera
4. Figure out how to dial exclamation point on SMS
I love and miss you all and cannot wait for life updates.
I desperately wish I were joking, but I'm not. Our teachers thought it would be cute to display the tangible products of their labor in the form of a Vaudeville like "Hindi Camp" this past weekend in Pushkar.
Most of you know that I am really not a performer, actually quite the opposite. Much of the time, I would much rather burrow into the banks of the Yamuna than do anything on stage. I can appreciate these things when performed by others, but I really prefer a nice seat in the audience. Luckily, I haven't been asked to "perform" anything since seventh grade, but I also haven't been living in India. For some reason, the idea of "stage fright" here is about as foreign as "traffic laws."
In a place where everyone clambers to have their picture taken and where most people in their heart of hearts want to be Bollywood stars, the words, " No, I don't want to sing Tujhe Dekha To Yeh Jana Sanam in front of lots of people that I don't know," doesn't make any sense.
So because of some sort of cultural/language barrier I was locked into singing this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v
Further, my teacher told me that I had to learn a Kathak dance. Now mind you, Kathak is a very serious, complicated and nuanced art form. Most people start training for it when they are about 4 or 5 and really hit their prime when they are in their early 30s. Therefore, the prospect of me putting together anything resembling something like a Kathak dance in 6 days looked fairly bleak, but I asked my friend to help me and she taught me how to count and move my wrists and kind of how to spin on my heel and then she left for Orissa for a Kathak competition.
So we scratched Kathak off the schedule.
This left my teacher, Sayeed, a little panicky (alright, he's always a little panicky- this left him a lot panicky) and so we had to quickly brainstorm a Kathak replacement. I jokingly said that we could have our own version of this Shah Rukh Khan show where children compete against adults about various trivia questions. My teacher loved the idea. He made up a list of questions that he would ask us about Indian history and culture and was all ready to make Gautum the host. "Ummm where are you going to find a kid?" "Don't worry, don't worry, we'll find one in Pushkar." When we got there, Sayeed went on a mad dash trying to find a willing child somewhere within the city limits....
So we replaced Kathak with chai.
The only promising portion of the whole thing was the little comic skit that Gautum and I concocted. The skit was about a reverse call center. Now in India, most people refer to call centers by the acronym for Business Processing Outsourcing (BPO), so ours was called Odhiyogik (Industrial) Prityam (Processing) Bahar Se Lo (Outside) (OPB). I played a disheveled out of work college student (quite a stretch, but I think I did alright), looking through the classified ads. I find a way to make easy fast money at night and it turns out that its this information hotline for the Indian Government that has been outsourced to the U.S. I am forced to learn Hindi and take on a new name. We embedded all kinds of cultural jokes about Americans in India and what not. For instance, we videotaped a pharmacist asking why there were so many sick people and I answered by saying it was because of the change in the weather (a very common answer for everything). In the play, I became so well loved as an information hotline engineer that I became the first outsourced Prime Minister of India and culminated with me singing Jan Gan Man (the national anthem) over my headset from Wisconsin.
But no one laughed. The place was totally deadpan. No one even sang along with the national anthem. Go figure.
In other news, my roomate just got a job as a flight attendant which quite a prestigious job for a girl my age. However, she's going through training right now and because English is not her native (most native?) language the manuals are very difficult for her to understand. Because of this she'll do things like wake up at 3 in the morning to copy the entire manual by hand and lean over and ask me questions like "what does sterile mean?" "what does surround mean?" recite it and then do a puja and then come back and recite it again. This leaves me a little exhausted and disoriented in the morning, so hopefully her exams will end soon.
Hostel life continues to be enjoyable with 20 girls consistently sharing their contradictory opinions with me. For instance one girl informed me that I had lost weight and that I should "stop going to the gym." 15 minutes later another girl came up to me shook her head and patted my hip, saying "Becky tum itne moti hui," (Becky you have become so fat). So like most things, I take a lot of their advice/editorial comments with a grain of salt (er amchu?)
On a last note, I just found an honest to do list that I made a couple days ago on my way to school. I thought that it summed up my life pretty well.
1. Find contact info for Parliamentarians on Population Policy
2. Practice drinking water without putting lips on bottle
3. Fix camera
4. Figure out how to dial exclamation point on SMS
I love and miss you all and cannot wait for life updates.
Piercing
So after some coaxing from my Indian hostel mates, I pierced my nose.
It was a good move. However, I'm a little nervous about infection in a place like Delhi, that is so polluted it always kind of smells like it's on fire. I have terrifying memories of having my ears hacked at at University Health Services in Madison after I woke up one morning and realized that my earlobe had essentially swallowed my earring. As a result, I have been soaking my nose religiously in Epsom salts as per the suggestion of some American friends.
Unfortunately, although I was easily able to obtain the Epsom salts from a local pharmacy, neither my warden, Sudev, nor my roommate (who have some sort of relationship that I SO don't care about except for the fact that that their team makes my life HELL) had seen them before and thought that of course, the American was using drugs.
Sudev pulled me into his "office" (ok, a table in the doorway) with Khushboo and they proceeded to yell at me for a good 40 minutes about everything from how me and my American friends (whom, as they entered my room, were greeted with a contemptuous spray of cheap perfume from Khushboo) were doing lines of cocaine to the fact that I apparently don't wash my sheets enough (once a week? anyone? does that make me a gross girl? why are they paying such close attention, I don't know).
We spent the next few days in passive aggressive silence as I hurriedly searched for a new place, but it's DELHI which has some of the largest housing shortages in the world.
And then, without warning, MOM came.
Mom, unlike her surly and spiteful daughter, is actually quite lovely. She is always complimenting my hair, my Hindi, my complexion, my character- frankly it gets a little exhausting. The whole dynamic reminds me of my baby-sitting days when parents would often be warm and caring and their children would do things like put their little brother in the washing machine or have a" contest" to see how long their fish could survive on the shag carpet.
The thing is, is that mom is absolutely terrified of Delhi. Delhi is kind of a big, bad, confusing place (probably part of the reason why I like it so much) and I completely understand why it might make a middle class woman from Moradabad a little uneasy. However, it has been 5 days and she has yet to leave the hostel without an escort (meaning she's left three times- once to get her daughter's mustache waxed and twice on walks with me in the park that's adjacent to our place). She has spent her days watching Hindu right-wing sanyatsans (religious programming), talking with Mary, our housekeeper about the best ordering of soap and water in the ancient washing machine, rearranging my books so that they are aligned in size order, and folding my sheets and towels with origami-like precision.
So there we are, one big happy family- the three of us in a 9x7 room. Mom does add some good energies, but I'm getting out ASAP. Luckily, my good friend Arvind and his wife have a room which they are eager to rent right next to JNU (although it is far from everything else). They are both labor activists, and so living with them would be a refreshing change to living with 20 girls who came of age during, what I have begun to call, the "shock and awe consumerism period" that occurred during the mid to late nineties in Delhi.
I certainly don't regret living in the hostel. I've met a lot of great girls, learned to play squash, discovered a deep interest in Urdu ghazals, been challenged on the U.S. approaches to racism and the war in Iraq, learned to be a major pain in the butt if something is not working properly (my friend threatened to call the police on the Internet guy), and have gained a colorful vocabulary of Hindi curse words. It wasn't summer camp, but it was certainly a great experience. I'm just ready to move on.
Similarly, I am glad that my Hindi program is wrapping up on the 30th. I also don't regret taking the extension-I think it took an extra two months for me to learn how to take proper advantage of their style and this time has been far more fruitful than the beginning. I'm really looking forward to seriously diving into my project. CLEA funds a few more months of personal tutoring during the grant if I want it, so I might take advantage of that, but my formal Hindi training will be completed in about a week.
I want to wish all of you who are celebrating, a Happy Pesach. Although Delhi does sort of cultivate a kind of religious promiscuity (Quwalli Thursdays, Sai Baba Tuesdays, Laxmi Fridays, Bangla Sahib Sundays), I am going to Delhi ex-pat Seders this Saturday and Sunday with some of my favorite UN folks ;). I will be missing you all a lot though.
That's all for now. I'm hiding in Barista and they're playing "Last Christmas I Gave You My Heart." With the amount that Indians talk about giving and taking each others' hearts, it's no wonder that this place is such a hub for illegal organ trade.
Love and cheap perfume spritzes for all of my favorite smelly Americans,
It was a good move. However, I'm a little nervous about infection in a place like Delhi, that is so polluted it always kind of smells like it's on fire. I have terrifying memories of having my ears hacked at at University Health Services in Madison after I woke up one morning and realized that my earlobe had essentially swallowed my earring. As a result, I have been soaking my nose religiously in Epsom salts as per the suggestion of some American friends.
Unfortunately, although I was easily able to obtain the Epsom salts from a local pharmacy, neither my warden, Sudev, nor my roommate (who have some sort of relationship that I SO don't care about except for the fact that that their team makes my life HELL) had seen them before and thought that of course, the American was using drugs.
Sudev pulled me into his "office" (ok, a table in the doorway) with Khushboo and they proceeded to yell at me for a good 40 minutes about everything from how me and my American friends (whom, as they entered my room, were greeted with a contemptuous spray of cheap perfume from Khushboo) were doing lines of cocaine to the fact that I apparently don't wash my sheets enough (once a week? anyone? does that make me a gross girl? why are they paying such close attention, I don't know).
We spent the next few days in passive aggressive silence as I hurriedly searched for a new place, but it's DELHI which has some of the largest housing shortages in the world.
And then, without warning, MOM came.
Mom, unlike her surly and spiteful daughter, is actually quite lovely. She is always complimenting my hair, my Hindi, my complexion, my character- frankly it gets a little exhausting. The whole dynamic reminds me of my baby-sitting days when parents would often be warm and caring and their children would do things like put their little brother in the washing machine or have a" contest" to see how long their fish could survive on the shag carpet.
The thing is, is that mom is absolutely terrified of Delhi. Delhi is kind of a big, bad, confusing place (probably part of the reason why I like it so much) and I completely understand why it might make a middle class woman from Moradabad a little uneasy. However, it has been 5 days and she has yet to leave the hostel without an escort (meaning she's left three times- once to get her daughter's mustache waxed and twice on walks with me in the park that's adjacent to our place). She has spent her days watching Hindu right-wing sanyatsans (religious programming), talking with Mary, our housekeeper about the best ordering of soap and water in the ancient washing machine, rearranging my books so that they are aligned in size order, and folding my sheets and towels with origami-like precision.
So there we are, one big happy family- the three of us in a 9x7 room. Mom does add some good energies, but I'm getting out ASAP. Luckily, my good friend Arvind and his wife have a room which they are eager to rent right next to JNU (although it is far from everything else). They are both labor activists, and so living with them would be a refreshing change to living with 20 girls who came of age during, what I have begun to call, the "shock and awe consumerism period" that occurred during the mid to late nineties in Delhi.
I certainly don't regret living in the hostel. I've met a lot of great girls, learned to play squash, discovered a deep interest in Urdu ghazals, been challenged on the U.S. approaches to racism and the war in Iraq, learned to be a major pain in the butt if something is not working properly (my friend threatened to call the police on the Internet guy), and have gained a colorful vocabulary of Hindi curse words. It wasn't summer camp, but it was certainly a great experience. I'm just ready to move on.
Similarly, I am glad that my Hindi program is wrapping up on the 30th. I also don't regret taking the extension-I think it took an extra two months for me to learn how to take proper advantage of their style and this time has been far more fruitful than the beginning. I'm really looking forward to seriously diving into my project. CLEA funds a few more months of personal tutoring during the grant if I want it, so I might take advantage of that, but my formal Hindi training will be completed in about a week.
I want to wish all of you who are celebrating, a Happy Pesach. Although Delhi does sort of cultivate a kind of religious promiscuity (Quwalli Thursdays, Sai Baba Tuesdays, Laxmi Fridays, Bangla Sahib Sundays), I am going to Delhi ex-pat Seders this Saturday and Sunday with some of my favorite UN folks ;). I will be missing you all a lot though.
That's all for now. I'm hiding in Barista and they're playing "Last Christmas I Gave You My Heart." With the amount that Indians talk about giving and taking each others' hearts, it's no wonder that this place is such a hub for illegal organ trade.
Love and cheap perfume spritzes for all of my favorite smelly Americans,
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