Oh man, Internette Followers. I am so very sorry for the horrific delay between this post and my last one. I imagine all two of you that read my blog have been sitting at your computers, dehydrated and sleep-deprived, clicking the refresh button at five minute intervals. Your eyebrows must have grown to the floor by now! Fear not, I have returned, although my computer is baroque-n, and I am required to steal other people's laptops. This means no pictures of Kolkata, for the time being. If you want a visual fix, you can check out Collin's blog.
I have been in Kolkata for a week, and plan on being here until the 29th of July. I am volunteering with a Penn organization called Pratit, which runs medical and educational mobile camps in several slums across Kolkata. Pratit is entirely student run and staffed. There are eight of us here right now, from Penn and the University of Illinois. Our fearless leader is Turja Chakrabarti, who founded the organization, is a Kolkata native, and holds our hands for most of the day. Technically, I am supposed to be on the education team, but because we are understaffed, everyone pitches in everywhere, and I am also working with the medical team. More on this ill-fated pairing soon.
We have hosted one official education camp thus far, with another one planned for tomorrow. School children in Kolkata attend tutoring centers in the afternoon, from 2:30 to 5:00, where there is usually one teacher for twenty to thirty age-varied kids. These children come from neighborhood government schools, which suffer from a multitude of problems. Teacher absentee rate is the most detrimental; because teacher positions are government-jobs, the benefits are limitless, which apparently includes never getting fired, no matter what. These children are not receiving the proper educational support that they deserve, and many of them are well below the math and reading levels that they should be at. Our goal is to provide some after-school education that will give them some science, English and math foundations, that they can then apply to their schoolwork. We also want to stress the importance of innovation and creativity, and want to encourage the children to partake in art and music activities.
Last week was a name-tag making extravaganza that involved too much glitter (that curiously is still all over our bodies, glitter actually never dies) and assessments of the students. Song-i (head of edu. team) and I pulled out students one by one and had them complete English reading passages and questions, as well as math. We have two translators working with us, Turja's cousin Godaih and Chandan. They are awesome. However, we were only able to get through seven of the oldest children. These older girl struggled with English, which is actually quite handy. Our greatest asset right now is our ability to speak and teach English, which other teachers might not be able to do so well. I do not trust myself to teach anyone math, even a thirteen year old, so it was a good thing that they zipped through the math section with much zeal.
Being more of a humanities and social science type person, I assumed that I would enjoy working with education much more than medicine. To be frank, science baffles me. Microscopic cells and atoms and Golgi apparatuses and all that other stuff really confuses me, and I find it easier to chalk it up to magical elves wearing pointy shoes with bells on them. I am also extremely squeamish when it comes to blood or any body abnormality, and I get way too emotionally involved with people's problems to actually help them. In short, I have all the qualities that you wouldn't want in an EMT. My first medical camp was on Monday, in a large slum under a busy highway. Pratit's first medical camp as a team had been the day I arrived, and Collin and Shomik whisked me from the airport to the clinic at the slum, where I was told to sit in a chair and not touch anything.
This time around, I would be touching things. Turja held an info session for those of us who were new to the program. Song-i, Rikka, Moshe, Alex and I were taught how to take vital signs (blood pressure, pulse, temperature, eyes, skin and lungs) as well as patient questioning, which follows the acronym "SAMPLE OPQRST". Do you have any idea how hard it is to take blood pressure? It's frightening. Sadly for Alex, he offered to let me practice on him. After taking his blood pressure five times and messing it up each time, I feared that he might actually faint. It's a complicated dance of pumping and listening to blood drops (gag) and turning the dial juuuuusssstttt so, and it is impossible. Turja had the wrong idea that we all "Got it? Great!", now we could just plunge head first in the lion's dens.
How these medical clinics are set up is pretty hectic. First off, we have a couple of doctors that come in, all through Turja's connections. They are assigned two Pratit members, one who takes vital signs and the other who asks the SAMPLE OPQRST questions through a translator. The doctors prescribe the medication. These doctors are wonderful people for dedicating their time and energy to this task, but most of them want to work in terms of quantity. Our job is to slow them down, and make sure they collect all the necessary information from the patient. Most of them just want to immediately make a diagnosis and prescribe medication, in order to see as many patients as possible, and then leave quicker.
Rikka and I partnered up, and were assigned a doctor. I was handed a stethoscope, a blood pressure cuff, and some sanity, and told to go at it. For three hours straight, patient after patient streamed in, and I took countless blood pressures, listened to creaky lungs, and felt for faint pulses. I think the doctor was misinformed and thought that I had some knowledge of what I was doing, because he asked me to check the patients' stomachs several times. "Um," I replied, "I feel something tough over here....?" Luckily, none of these patients are deathly ill and bleeding profusely, so I don't feel like I am actually endangering life. We mostly got old people. One woman came in who was shaking, clearly mentally unstable. I smiled and said hello, and she smiled back and broke my heart. Even her lips were trembling. The doctor rushed through the medial questions and wanted to prescribe her some vitamins. I have a morbid fascination with mental disorders, and spend inordinate amounts of time on Wikipedia studying depression and panic attacks and so forth. I asked the doctor to ask this woman some social questions about her life. He laughed at me. "No," I insisted, "her respiration are shallow and rapid, she can't stop trembling, and she seems skittish all around. I think she suffers from anxiety and depression." The doctor asked her some questions, and it turned out this woman lived all alone, suffered from depression and panic attacks, and was just generally unstable. We didn't have any sedatives at the clinic pharmacy, but the doctor prescribed therapy and meditation.
These clinics aren't very uplifting. Egotistically, it feels insanely gratifying to be able to "help" someone so personally, but I can't help but feel that my impact is minimal. We have no way of knowing if these patients are actually going to take their medications, if they will get better or worse, or where they can get the money to pay for surgeries. A woman with a baseball-sized malignant tumor on her throat as a result of thyroid swelling kept asking me for money. Besides the fact that I had left my wallet at our dorms, I couldn't pay the money needed for the investigation and subsequent surgery(s). In the end, Pratit gave her some money for the investigation. But we can't give money to some people and not others; this is not a substantial way to help communities in the long-run. This whole experience kind of makes me want to be a doctor, to work with people and improve lives. But then I would have to study chemistry, and that's no fun.
I'll be back soon, promise!
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Monday, July 12, 2010
Bye-Bye, Bagar....
Well, this is sad. On Sunday, Meg, Lindsay, Siler and I piled into a van and drove off into the dusty distance, waving good-bye to GDL and Bagar. I'm really going to miss Bagar. It was an amazing opportunity to work with the GDL staff, and to meet so many people I would never have had a chance to meet otherwise.
So, a big thank you to the University of Pennsylvania and the Center for Advanced Studies of India for sending me there, Bagar for hosting me, Mobile Naukri (Bossman, Pankaj and Deepak) for working with me, and all the interns and IndiCorps fellows for being fun to hang out with, and Kamal-ji for all the delicious food! I'm excited for the next leg of my journey. I will be volunteering in Kolkata with Pratit, a Penn organization that runs medical and educational mobile camps in slums in the city. You can find the link on the sidebar of this blog. Internet is a bit wonky, so I won't be blogging for the next day or two. Stay tuned, though.... things should get kooky in Kolata.
Sorry. Couldn't resist that one.
So, a big thank you to the University of Pennsylvania and the Center for Advanced Studies of India for sending me there, Bagar for hosting me, Mobile Naukri (Bossman, Pankaj and Deepak) for working with me, and all the interns and IndiCorps fellows for being fun to hang out with, and Kamal-ji for all the delicious food! I'm excited for the next leg of my journey. I will be volunteering in Kolkata with Pratit, a Penn organization that runs medical and educational mobile camps in slums in the city. You can find the link on the sidebar of this blog. Internet is a bit wonky, so I won't be blogging for the next day or two. Stay tuned, though.... things should get kooky in Kolata.
Sorry. Couldn't resist that one.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Holy Matrimony
"Are you married?"
This is a question that one doesn't hear too often at the ripe (and beginning to be over-the-hill) age of twenty in the United States, especially not for someone very much still enrolled at a liberal East coast university. In India, particularly in rural India, the exact opposite is true. After the obligatory introduction of name and place of origin, my matrimonial status is questioned by both men and women. "No," I respond. Eyes narrow, lips purse, and thinking caps are put on. "Well, when are you getting married?" they ask, searching my body for signs of sagging skin and graying hair and other physical attributes that would signal my inevitable demise into spinsterhood. I have yet to come up with an eloquent and acceptable answer to this question, so I usually just try to explain that women in the US get married at a later age, sometime in their thirties, and I may or may not get married, and if I do, it will most certainly be a love marriage. Spectacularly disappointed by this answer, most people shake their heads and tell me I must get married in the next five years. Because I am a dairy product, and my expiration date is 2015.
Marriage is of utmost importance in India, especially in rural Rajasthan. When I asked Deepak, who is twenty-one and has been married for nearly four years about his wife, he simply told me that "My wife is my life." Every girl I've had a conversation with talks about her future husband in very certain terms, regardless of the actual existence of said husband. The status quo is to get married at an acceptable age, move into the groom's house, and live in matrimonial bliss for the rest of one's days. The overwhelming majority of weddings in this part of India are "arranged marriages." Having gone to an all-girls school for the majority of my life, and then continuing my education at said-liberal university, I've always been wary of the concept of arranged marriages, because I've only viewed them as stripping women of a say in their life. Sure, India has a significantly lower rate of divorce than America's 50%, and this is largely attributed to arranged marriage, but if a woman has no voice before the marriage, how can she speak out if the arrangement isn't working for her once she has moved in with her husband's family? The assumption that a couple learns to love each other over time is a frightening concept for a young girl who is expected to sleep with her husband on their wedding night, even if they have never even spoken to each other before. Aditi was telling me that marriage rape is problematic in some relationships, but since women don't understand their right to consent, and they don't know who to talk to about this stigmatized subject, most cases go unreported. Also, I'm more of a stickler for romance- the idea of meeting my life partner one day and then having to spend the rest of my life with him is pretty unromantic.
I've learned since coming to Bagar that most women don't have the same Western views of arranged marriage that I do. Indian culture is very family-oriented, as opposed to the more individualistic culture of the US. Families live together, survive together, and depend on each other for important decisions. Few women would dream of choosing a mate entirely on their own, and instead rely on their parents to make an educated decision for them. After all, your parents aren't the ones who are going to screw you over with this sort of life decision, and, as I'm sure we've all learned since we were angsty fourteen year olds, they're usually right about Important Stuff. Marriage culture has changed a lot, and engaged couples spend a year or more courting each other (with a companion, of course!) before actually getting married. Potential suitors can be dismissed by the bride, depending on the family. The whole concept of arranged marriage is that young love and passion can fizzle out quickly, leaving hearts broken and lives shattered. And relationships can be pretty destructive- it seems that most Americans get at least one divorce, which can have a very damaging effect on their children. Arranged marriages understand that relationships take work, and a couple matched up for life is more likely to grapple with the hard stuff than wimp out and cite "irreconcilable differences." Love will come later.
As an outsider, the most important thing about a marriage is the wedding. I was quite excited to come to India so that I could attend a traditional wedding. I envisioned glittering saris, intricate dance routines, and whole legs of lamb every couple of feet. Obviously I was wrong. Most wedding receptions are eat and leave situations where people wear jeans and men and women don't talk to each other. We have been to two weddings thus far; the first was very disappointing and involved walking along a dark highway for an hour, the second was far more enjoyable. Sahil Bossman explained to me GDL's three-pronged system used for assessing the elegance of a wedding. First, the wedding invitation. Wedding #1 had no invitations; at least not for us, someone just came to GDL and invited us to a reception that was about to begin in an hour. We should have taken this as our first sign, but we had no idea what to expect. Wedding #2 had a glossy, hard-paper color brochure that looked not unlike a menu at a cheap Italian restaurant. The invitation had been made in Jaipur, detailed the bride's achievements (Master's in Economics) as well as the groom's (a doctor!) and included full length pictures of the lovebirds. Apparently this is the last word in elegance, and Sahil knew right away that this was going to be the wedding of the year. Second, location. I have no idea where Wedding #1 was, some sort of outdoor wedding hall, I think, but we had to walk for a blister-inducing hour, and all I remember is foot pain. Wedding #2 was a 5 minute walk from GDL- automatic points. It was also in the park in front of the temple, which is very nice and also happens to have a merry-go-round, swing set and a seesaw. Apparently the last wedding that was at this location had servers in tuxedos and appetizers, and is Sahil's favorite wedding. Excitement was mounting.
The third and final measurement is the menu. I'm not even going to talk about the food at Wedding #1 because it's not worth taking up space from Wedding #2. There were rumors that there would be cold drinks, filtered water AND ice cream- really the height of luxury. We got there and were not disappointed. They had an appetizer bar, where there was panne pourri, fruit salad with apples!!!!, and ice cones. There were two types of paneer, three different kinds of sweets, naan instead of roti, fried rice, a dosa station, and grilled vegetables. It was delicious. The odd thing about this reception was that neither the bride nor the groom were in attendance. Indian weddings span several days and have a variety of activities, and this reception hosted by the bride's family wasn't top of the list. So basically they just threw this giant, expensive party for their friends and family and just assummed we would all stuff our face and have a good time. It's kind of strange, but apparently very common. Could you imagine if an American bride, after all the wedding planners and pain-staking hours of bridezilla preparation, didn't show up for her reception? Violent fights would likely ensue.
So, thank you to the bride and groom (who we never met and still have no idea who they actually are) for inviting us to your wedding. May you live in holy matrimony for the rest of your days!
July 2010 Most Eligible Bachelors: Pankaj and Kamal-ji
Filtered water? Don't mind if I do!
Meg and Lindsay, wondering why they weren't asked to be flower girls:
Glitzy lights:
Appetizer tent:
Pondering spinsterhood:
Siler engaged in some masculine conversation:
Unwedded interns at the entrance to the wedding:
This is a question that one doesn't hear too often at the ripe (and beginning to be over-the-hill) age of twenty in the United States, especially not for someone very much still enrolled at a liberal East coast university. In India, particularly in rural India, the exact opposite is true. After the obligatory introduction of name and place of origin, my matrimonial status is questioned by both men and women. "No," I respond. Eyes narrow, lips purse, and thinking caps are put on. "Well, when are you getting married?" they ask, searching my body for signs of sagging skin and graying hair and other physical attributes that would signal my inevitable demise into spinsterhood. I have yet to come up with an eloquent and acceptable answer to this question, so I usually just try to explain that women in the US get married at a later age, sometime in their thirties, and I may or may not get married, and if I do, it will most certainly be a love marriage. Spectacularly disappointed by this answer, most people shake their heads and tell me I must get married in the next five years. Because I am a dairy product, and my expiration date is 2015.
Marriage is of utmost importance in India, especially in rural Rajasthan. When I asked Deepak, who is twenty-one and has been married for nearly four years about his wife, he simply told me that "My wife is my life." Every girl I've had a conversation with talks about her future husband in very certain terms, regardless of the actual existence of said husband. The status quo is to get married at an acceptable age, move into the groom's house, and live in matrimonial bliss for the rest of one's days. The overwhelming majority of weddings in this part of India are "arranged marriages." Having gone to an all-girls school for the majority of my life, and then continuing my education at said-liberal university, I've always been wary of the concept of arranged marriages, because I've only viewed them as stripping women of a say in their life. Sure, India has a significantly lower rate of divorce than America's 50%, and this is largely attributed to arranged marriage, but if a woman has no voice before the marriage, how can she speak out if the arrangement isn't working for her once she has moved in with her husband's family? The assumption that a couple learns to love each other over time is a frightening concept for a young girl who is expected to sleep with her husband on their wedding night, even if they have never even spoken to each other before. Aditi was telling me that marriage rape is problematic in some relationships, but since women don't understand their right to consent, and they don't know who to talk to about this stigmatized subject, most cases go unreported. Also, I'm more of a stickler for romance- the idea of meeting my life partner one day and then having to spend the rest of my life with him is pretty unromantic.
I've learned since coming to Bagar that most women don't have the same Western views of arranged marriage that I do. Indian culture is very family-oriented, as opposed to the more individualistic culture of the US. Families live together, survive together, and depend on each other for important decisions. Few women would dream of choosing a mate entirely on their own, and instead rely on their parents to make an educated decision for them. After all, your parents aren't the ones who are going to screw you over with this sort of life decision, and, as I'm sure we've all learned since we were angsty fourteen year olds, they're usually right about Important Stuff. Marriage culture has changed a lot, and engaged couples spend a year or more courting each other (with a companion, of course!) before actually getting married. Potential suitors can be dismissed by the bride, depending on the family. The whole concept of arranged marriage is that young love and passion can fizzle out quickly, leaving hearts broken and lives shattered. And relationships can be pretty destructive- it seems that most Americans get at least one divorce, which can have a very damaging effect on their children. Arranged marriages understand that relationships take work, and a couple matched up for life is more likely to grapple with the hard stuff than wimp out and cite "irreconcilable differences." Love will come later.
As an outsider, the most important thing about a marriage is the wedding. I was quite excited to come to India so that I could attend a traditional wedding. I envisioned glittering saris, intricate dance routines, and whole legs of lamb every couple of feet. Obviously I was wrong. Most wedding receptions are eat and leave situations where people wear jeans and men and women don't talk to each other. We have been to two weddings thus far; the first was very disappointing and involved walking along a dark highway for an hour, the second was far more enjoyable. Sahil Bossman explained to me GDL's three-pronged system used for assessing the elegance of a wedding. First, the wedding invitation. Wedding #1 had no invitations; at least not for us, someone just came to GDL and invited us to a reception that was about to begin in an hour. We should have taken this as our first sign, but we had no idea what to expect. Wedding #2 had a glossy, hard-paper color brochure that looked not unlike a menu at a cheap Italian restaurant. The invitation had been made in Jaipur, detailed the bride's achievements (Master's in Economics) as well as the groom's (a doctor!) and included full length pictures of the lovebirds. Apparently this is the last word in elegance, and Sahil knew right away that this was going to be the wedding of the year. Second, location. I have no idea where Wedding #1 was, some sort of outdoor wedding hall, I think, but we had to walk for a blister-inducing hour, and all I remember is foot pain. Wedding #2 was a 5 minute walk from GDL- automatic points. It was also in the park in front of the temple, which is very nice and also happens to have a merry-go-round, swing set and a seesaw. Apparently the last wedding that was at this location had servers in tuxedos and appetizers, and is Sahil's favorite wedding. Excitement was mounting.
The third and final measurement is the menu. I'm not even going to talk about the food at Wedding #1 because it's not worth taking up space from Wedding #2. There were rumors that there would be cold drinks, filtered water AND ice cream- really the height of luxury. We got there and were not disappointed. They had an appetizer bar, where there was panne pourri, fruit salad with apples!!!!, and ice cones. There were two types of paneer, three different kinds of sweets, naan instead of roti, fried rice, a dosa station, and grilled vegetables. It was delicious. The odd thing about this reception was that neither the bride nor the groom were in attendance. Indian weddings span several days and have a variety of activities, and this reception hosted by the bride's family wasn't top of the list. So basically they just threw this giant, expensive party for their friends and family and just assummed we would all stuff our face and have a good time. It's kind of strange, but apparently very common. Could you imagine if an American bride, after all the wedding planners and pain-staking hours of bridezilla preparation, didn't show up for her reception? Violent fights would likely ensue.
So, thank you to the bride and groom (who we never met and still have no idea who they actually are) for inviting us to your wedding. May you live in holy matrimony for the rest of your days!
July 2010 Most Eligible Bachelors: Pankaj and Kamal-ji
Filtered water? Don't mind if I do!
Meg and Lindsay, wondering why they weren't asked to be flower girls:
Glitzy lights:
Appetizer tent:
Pondering spinsterhood:
Siler engaged in some masculine conversation:
Unwedded interns at the entrance to the wedding:
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Riding in Cars with Mobile Naukri
On Tuesday, Mobile Naukri tried out a new marketing strategy. We were going to do it bigger, better, and more expensive. It wouldn't involve a helicopter or fire-breathing camels, but it would incorporate a loudspeaker, a microphone and a cherry-red jeep. The Jeep Operation involved Pankaj, Deepak, Meg, Siler, Harsh and myself piling into the car/on the roof and cruising around 18(!) different villages, shouting things into a microphone. I was pretty incredulous as to the success of this campaign; it cost a lot more money than tabling, and the majority of towns we drove through were farming villages that seemed to be entirely inhabited by children. We spent a lot of time throwing business cards and posters out the windows as though we were at a Mardi Gras parade, and then driving away from Husein Bolt-fast kids who demanded more cards.
But, it actually turned out really well. Nearly 30 people registered that were from one of the villages we passed through. Because we were safely locked inside a car, or in some cases, on its roof, we were well out of the reach of creepy men. What we were not out of reach was the torrential monsoon downpour. Maybe I'm just spoiled, but I'm used to cars being water-proof. You know, like where the windows and doors and things close and protect you from the elements. This jeep had those plastic-y zipper windows, that just kept flap-flapping in the wind. Naturally none of the zippers worked, and we showered in this ill-constructed Noah's Ark for the majority of the afternoon. I have very little recollection of what actually happened during this marketing outing; the combination of sweltering humidity, bumpy terrain, cold rain and massive headache brought on by all three of these things clouded my memory. Luckily I took pictures, and new to this blog, a video! That may or may not work- I apologize for any technical difficulties; since GDL has a minimum amount of internet broadband, I can't actually view this video online...
Pankaj Spreading the M.N. Gospel:
Somewhat loud speaker
Collecting fallen cards
Windswept rooftop models
Skeet adjustin' volume skeet
Pankaj, Sahil Bossman and Deepak
Magic Truck
M.N. Team in front of truck
But, it actually turned out really well. Nearly 30 people registered that were from one of the villages we passed through. Because we were safely locked inside a car, or in some cases, on its roof, we were well out of the reach of creepy men. What we were not out of reach was the torrential monsoon downpour. Maybe I'm just spoiled, but I'm used to cars being water-proof. You know, like where the windows and doors and things close and protect you from the elements. This jeep had those plastic-y zipper windows, that just kept flap-flapping in the wind. Naturally none of the zippers worked, and we showered in this ill-constructed Noah's Ark for the majority of the afternoon. I have very little recollection of what actually happened during this marketing outing; the combination of sweltering humidity, bumpy terrain, cold rain and massive headache brought on by all three of these things clouded my memory. Luckily I took pictures, and new to this blog, a video! That may or may not work- I apologize for any technical difficulties; since GDL has a minimum amount of internet broadband, I can't actually view this video online...
Pankaj Spreading the M.N. Gospel:
Somewhat loud speaker
Collecting fallen cards
Windswept rooftop models
Skeet adjustin' volume skeet
Pankaj, Sahil Bossman and Deepak
Magic Truck
M.N. Team in front of truck
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Uh-merica
Celebrating the 4th of July in a foreign country is always a bit strange. The patriotic waves of freedom and democracy that beat at the shores of people's American-ness during John Legend-led parades and fireworks displays aren't exactly present in Bagar. Very few people here know about or care about the 4th of July, even though American and Indian independence are strikingly similar. Well, the whole bit about expelling the British out at least. The Revolutionary War wasn't exactly a non-violent movement, per se. But then again, I doubt that the majority of Americans know that India's independence day is on August 15th, and they celebrate with even bigger parades and (probably) better food.
Bagar 4th of July ended up being an affair of biblical proportions. First, there was a flood. Well, there would have been a flood if we didn't live in the desert, where the parched earth drinks up the rainfall with the same panache Joan Crawford exhibits at an open bar. It rained and rained and rained until mid afternoon. We were bummed! Us Americans had made big plans to go to Jhunjhunu and buy some supplies for a jugar-BBQ. All morning, we tried to stay dry and ate a ton of mangoes, because nothing says rainy day fun like curling up on a plastic chair clutching a mango. Meg and I watched Thank You For Smoking, which is a clever look at that all-American of industries, Big Tobacco.
Once the rain subsided, it was time to cut the BS and get down to some USA!USA!USA! business. We needed to listen to patriotic songs. For some reason, it was decided that my ipod had patriotic music, and Lindsay turned on the two songs I own with a vaguely country-specific theme: Counting Crows' "American Girls" and Green Day's "American Idiot", both of which are horrifically embarrassing holdovers from my middle school years as an alternative music-enthusiast. After listening to Canadian rockers, it was determined that Beyonce was the best bet for the rest of the day, because is there anything more American than Beyonce? No, and if there is, there shouldn't be. Beyonce is Queen.
With the music in check, it was time to make a delicious, all-American meal. A new jugar monster was born in the process of making this dinner. Lindsay, Meg and I toiled in the kitchen for hours, making french-excuse moi, freedom fries and mango salsa (you know, to represent Arizona) and kidney bean burgers that depressingly resembled meat burgers. There were no burger buns or cheese, but there was Indian ketchup and Mountain Dew and it almost, almost! felt like home.
Burgers and fries, burgers and fries!
Posing, all patriotic:
Lindsay flipping burgs:
But then, the plague happened.
The locust invasion, the Black Death, the killing of all first born sons. Whatever you want to call it, it really dampened the festivities. After it rains, all is nice and cool for a couple of hours, but then these demonic giant winged-ant/beetle things invade in droves, swarming towards the light and up my nostrils and into our delicious burger heaven. Really quite rude. Also, I have no idea where they come from or how they grow so quickly. The only nice thing about them is their 10 hour lifespan. So we slept peacefully, like lambs with colic, knowing that in the morning we wouldn't have to have a finger permanently shoved up our nose scraping out these bugs. What we weren't expecting was the open mass grave of all these bug bodies, silver wings crushed to oblivion, bodies twisted from deathly convulsions, resulting in a rather um, creative carpeting. The night before, Kamal-ji had successfully lit fire to a couple thousand of them, and their charred bodies lay in the outside sink, which, incidentally, was my safai's team turn to clean. We also found a hard-shelled, vertebrae insect with giant pinchers that was actually the size of my face. Sahil identified it as a cockroach, and proceeded to throw a giant brick on it to kill it. Come to think of it, our 4th of July invasion and subsequent massacre was not unlike the colonies revolting against the invading British. No taxes without representation! Hear that, bugs??
Battle of Lexington:
Hocus pocus, locust:
Bagar 4th of July ended up being an affair of biblical proportions. First, there was a flood. Well, there would have been a flood if we didn't live in the desert, where the parched earth drinks up the rainfall with the same panache Joan Crawford exhibits at an open bar. It rained and rained and rained until mid afternoon. We were bummed! Us Americans had made big plans to go to Jhunjhunu and buy some supplies for a jugar-BBQ. All morning, we tried to stay dry and ate a ton of mangoes, because nothing says rainy day fun like curling up on a plastic chair clutching a mango. Meg and I watched Thank You For Smoking, which is a clever look at that all-American of industries, Big Tobacco.
Once the rain subsided, it was time to cut the BS and get down to some USA!USA!USA! business. We needed to listen to patriotic songs. For some reason, it was decided that my ipod had patriotic music, and Lindsay turned on the two songs I own with a vaguely country-specific theme: Counting Crows' "American Girls" and Green Day's "American Idiot", both of which are horrifically embarrassing holdovers from my middle school years as an alternative music-enthusiast. After listening to Canadian rockers, it was determined that Beyonce was the best bet for the rest of the day, because is there anything more American than Beyonce? No, and if there is, there shouldn't be. Beyonce is Queen.
With the music in check, it was time to make a delicious, all-American meal. A new jugar monster was born in the process of making this dinner. Lindsay, Meg and I toiled in the kitchen for hours, making french-excuse moi, freedom fries and mango salsa (you know, to represent Arizona) and kidney bean burgers that depressingly resembled meat burgers. There were no burger buns or cheese, but there was Indian ketchup and Mountain Dew and it almost, almost! felt like home.
Burgers and fries, burgers and fries!
Posing, all patriotic:
Lindsay flipping burgs:
But then, the plague happened.
The locust invasion, the Black Death, the killing of all first born sons. Whatever you want to call it, it really dampened the festivities. After it rains, all is nice and cool for a couple of hours, but then these demonic giant winged-ant/beetle things invade in droves, swarming towards the light and up my nostrils and into our delicious burger heaven. Really quite rude. Also, I have no idea where they come from or how they grow so quickly. The only nice thing about them is their 10 hour lifespan. So we slept peacefully, like lambs with colic, knowing that in the morning we wouldn't have to have a finger permanently shoved up our nose scraping out these bugs. What we weren't expecting was the open mass grave of all these bug bodies, silver wings crushed to oblivion, bodies twisted from deathly convulsions, resulting in a rather um, creative carpeting. The night before, Kamal-ji had successfully lit fire to a couple thousand of them, and their charred bodies lay in the outside sink, which, incidentally, was my safai's team turn to clean. We also found a hard-shelled, vertebrae insect with giant pinchers that was actually the size of my face. Sahil identified it as a cockroach, and proceeded to throw a giant brick on it to kill it. Come to think of it, our 4th of July invasion and subsequent massacre was not unlike the colonies revolting against the invading British. No taxes without representation! Hear that, bugs??
Battle of Lexington:
Hocus pocus, locust:
Friday, July 2, 2010
Animal Farm
I've spent a lot of time talking about the people in my Bagar life, because people are important and I like them. But I am completely ignoring the animal kingdom, and this is not correct. So, a remedy.
Ants:
Let's start small. Ants. They made a movie about them once, cutely (and cleverly!) titled ANTZ, and Jerry Seinfeld or someone personified these ants, and after that, we humans were supposed to realize that ants have feelings too, dammit! and we should respect that. I like ants. Correction- I used to like city ants, for whom life is rather bourgeoisie, seeing as there is leftover food everywhere, making for easy pickins. It's also easy to kill city ants when they invade your West Philly apartment, with magic potions and paid exterminators and such. And then I came to Bagar. To be fair, my first introduction to desert ants was a giant anthill that had somehow formed at the foot of my bed, greeting me at 2AM our first night here. From there, the relationship could only, quite literally, go downhill.
I successfully swept away the anthill, sprayed our entire room and my bed with Deet 99%, and assumed the worst was over. I clearly need to stop making assumptions in India, or assume the completely opposite of what I initially want to assume, because I keep getting things wrong. On the ant side of life, things were tame for a while. There was nary an ant in our room; they had all migrated to the kitchen and tripled in size. The kitchen ants look more like mini tarantulas, and since GDL has a strict veg diet, that means we can't kill the ants. That are in our kitchen. Eating our food. I find this counter-productive, because we have each eaten about fifty ants at this point, which is very much not vegetarian, so it would be easier to kill them in the first place. No one else seems to follow my radical branch of logic, so the ants in the kitchen remain.
Where my school of thought is allowed, is in my bedroom, where the ants have returned with a vengeance. See, a while back, Meg's mom sent her this package, stocked with goodies like Pringles and Gummi Bears and Swedish Fish and other delicious preservatives. It's important to remember that all these things were stored in their unopened package, which were in zipped ziploc bags, which were all in a box, tightly closed under a bed. The other day I came into our room and a carpet of ants greeted me, all diligently marching towards Eden. These are not normal ants. These are desert ants, hardened by a lack of food and heat and a very demanding Queen Ant, and possibly a centuries-old rivalry with neighboring ant tribes. Somehow, these ants managed to get inside the sealed Pringles can (which has TWO seals) and were gorging themselves literally to death. Little tiny ants were resting in peace, having eaten more sour cream and onion crisps then their little tiny tummies knew what to do with. It was rather depressing. We were really looking forward to eating those chips.
Dogs:
I've travelled to a couple of developing countries, and the animal that roams in the streets is most often the cat. Surprisingly, I have seen only one or two cats here in India, instead, the streets are filled with dogs. Not Air Bud and Beethoven type of dogs, but mangy, scrawny, dirty dogs that usually look half-alive. A Penn student who had come to Bagar a couple years ago warned me about the dogs.
"Watch out for the dogs," she cautioned. "They chase you a lot. And they're not safe dogs; they're probably rabid."
"Charming," I replied. "Were you ever chased by a dog?"
"Oh yeah," she said nonchalantly. "Once I was walking to the market and a dog started chasing me, growling really loud and stuff."
"What did you do?" I asked, on the edge of my seat.
"I ran to someones house, knocked on the door and explained the situation, and they let me in," she said.
"But I don't know any Hindi!" I said, hysterical at the thought of contracting rabies.
"Oh don't worry," she said. "Just point to the dog and they'll know."
Great. When I went to Student Health to get my vaccines, I was tempted to ask for the five-part installment of the rabies vaccine, but my doctor assured me that if I were to get bit by a dog, I would know, and I would have ample time to get to the hospital. Then I got to Bagar, and realized that most of the dogs are too lazy from the heat to do anything besides flop over on their sides and generally look sad. My favorite dog is one that doesn't have any hair left, but somehow his splotches have darkened parts of his skin. The rest of him is covered in pimply pink skin. I like to call him Proactiv, but I've never actually gotten close enough to him to coo that to him while scratching behind his ears.
Thus far, the saddest thing I've ever seen in India has been dog-related. I was waiting for the bus in some village (I forget the name now) with Deepak. Pankaj and Sahil had gone off to get cold drinks, probably. Across the street, I saw a dog who had his back legs, but could not use them. He was dragging himself across the cement, supported only by his front legs, his hind legs two useless sticks that were chafed and burning in the 120 degree heat. He was moving unbearably slowly, with only the sheer determination of survival. I whimpered and pointed this out to Deepak.
"Yes," he responded. And then, so matter-of-fact: "Handicapped."
I shouldn't have laughed, but I did.
Peacocks:
India's national bird is the peacock! Isn't that cool? We got stuck with the eagle, which, while majestic is often bald, and India gets the peacock. And they can fly- I always thought peacocks were like vain penguins. Yesterday, we went to Hot n' Cold Paradise for some Mountain Dew Mocktails, and up in a tree was a giant peacock, screeching the most terrifying sounds I have ever heard. Beautiful things, but can hardly carry a tune. Not unlike if Ashlee Simpson was stuck in a tree, singing "Invisible" without the help of a computer.
Cows:
Vacca, bovine, vache, kuh. Cows are all over the place in India. They stroll down streets on their way to work, nudge people out of the way at markets to get the best produce, drop the kids off at school, and generally act like they run this place. Which they kind of do. Cows are a very holy animal in Hinduism, which means they get the right of way in every situation. The bus won't slow down for a human crossing the street (you better run!) but if a cow happens to waddle across the road, the bus driver is obliged to fiddle with his stick shift and slow down the car.
I have one funny cow story, but it's not exactly G-rated, so don't stay tuned if you can easily visualize the written word. A couple of weeks ago, I was sitting in the bus with Harsh, coming back from Jhunjhunu. The bus was parked in the marketplace, and the driver was outside smoking consecutive cigarettes, so we weren't about to move anytime soon. Right outside of my window, there was a gathering of doe-eyed young cows, and some muscly, beefy bulls. The girl cows were being all girly and coy in the middle of the marketplace, nuzzling each other and sniffling through the dirt and whatever it is that cows do. The bulls were horny. Off in the distance, they eyed these girl cows.
"Yo man, that Bella has gotten really, really hot. Mmm, that ass," Edward whispered to Jacob.
"No way man, Veronica is so much hotter. And I hear she's really easy. Javier from Sultana hooked up with her last week," Jacob responded.
Meanwhile, the girl cows were hardly paying attention to any of it. They were just doing their cow thing! Having some girl talk! Chatting about this and that and Foucault and ferns. Then the bulls came over. Edward came first, he was more of a pusher. No, that's not true. He's a protector. It's not his fault that he's a glittery vampire bull who LOVES Bella so, so much, but she's a human cow, see, and they just can't possibly be together, at least not in that way, until he turns her into a glittery vampire and oh, my, young love is just so very, very complicated. The events that followed would give Mormon Stephanie Myers a coronary. I felt not unlike a teacher at a high school dance, watching two kids grinding in a devastatingly embarrassing way, but Ms. Krazinsky can only sit and watch in horror, unless it's a Catholic school. I knew I shouldn't look, but I honestly couldn't look away. Luckily, Bella and Edward did this weird scrampy dance thing that shot them straight out of my view, and I could begin some personal therapy lessons. The funniest part about this whole debaucle was that I seemed to be the only person who noticed anything.
Ants:
Let's start small. Ants. They made a movie about them once, cutely (and cleverly!) titled ANTZ, and Jerry Seinfeld or someone personified these ants, and after that, we humans were supposed to realize that ants have feelings too, dammit! and we should respect that. I like ants. Correction- I used to like city ants, for whom life is rather bourgeoisie, seeing as there is leftover food everywhere, making for easy pickins. It's also easy to kill city ants when they invade your West Philly apartment, with magic potions and paid exterminators and such. And then I came to Bagar. To be fair, my first introduction to desert ants was a giant anthill that had somehow formed at the foot of my bed, greeting me at 2AM our first night here. From there, the relationship could only, quite literally, go downhill.
I successfully swept away the anthill, sprayed our entire room and my bed with Deet 99%, and assumed the worst was over. I clearly need to stop making assumptions in India, or assume the completely opposite of what I initially want to assume, because I keep getting things wrong. On the ant side of life, things were tame for a while. There was nary an ant in our room; they had all migrated to the kitchen and tripled in size. The kitchen ants look more like mini tarantulas, and since GDL has a strict veg diet, that means we can't kill the ants. That are in our kitchen. Eating our food. I find this counter-productive, because we have each eaten about fifty ants at this point, which is very much not vegetarian, so it would be easier to kill them in the first place. No one else seems to follow my radical branch of logic, so the ants in the kitchen remain.
Where my school of thought is allowed, is in my bedroom, where the ants have returned with a vengeance. See, a while back, Meg's mom sent her this package, stocked with goodies like Pringles and Gummi Bears and Swedish Fish and other delicious preservatives. It's important to remember that all these things were stored in their unopened package, which were in zipped ziploc bags, which were all in a box, tightly closed under a bed. The other day I came into our room and a carpet of ants greeted me, all diligently marching towards Eden. These are not normal ants. These are desert ants, hardened by a lack of food and heat and a very demanding Queen Ant, and possibly a centuries-old rivalry with neighboring ant tribes. Somehow, these ants managed to get inside the sealed Pringles can (which has TWO seals) and were gorging themselves literally to death. Little tiny ants were resting in peace, having eaten more sour cream and onion crisps then their little tiny tummies knew what to do with. It was rather depressing. We were really looking forward to eating those chips.
Dogs:
I've travelled to a couple of developing countries, and the animal that roams in the streets is most often the cat. Surprisingly, I have seen only one or two cats here in India, instead, the streets are filled with dogs. Not Air Bud and Beethoven type of dogs, but mangy, scrawny, dirty dogs that usually look half-alive. A Penn student who had come to Bagar a couple years ago warned me about the dogs.
"Watch out for the dogs," she cautioned. "They chase you a lot. And they're not safe dogs; they're probably rabid."
"Charming," I replied. "Were you ever chased by a dog?"
"Oh yeah," she said nonchalantly. "Once I was walking to the market and a dog started chasing me, growling really loud and stuff."
"What did you do?" I asked, on the edge of my seat.
"I ran to someones house, knocked on the door and explained the situation, and they let me in," she said.
"But I don't know any Hindi!" I said, hysterical at the thought of contracting rabies.
"Oh don't worry," she said. "Just point to the dog and they'll know."
Great. When I went to Student Health to get my vaccines, I was tempted to ask for the five-part installment of the rabies vaccine, but my doctor assured me that if I were to get bit by a dog, I would know, and I would have ample time to get to the hospital. Then I got to Bagar, and realized that most of the dogs are too lazy from the heat to do anything besides flop over on their sides and generally look sad. My favorite dog is one that doesn't have any hair left, but somehow his splotches have darkened parts of his skin. The rest of him is covered in pimply pink skin. I like to call him Proactiv, but I've never actually gotten close enough to him to coo that to him while scratching behind his ears.
Thus far, the saddest thing I've ever seen in India has been dog-related. I was waiting for the bus in some village (I forget the name now) with Deepak. Pankaj and Sahil had gone off to get cold drinks, probably. Across the street, I saw a dog who had his back legs, but could not use them. He was dragging himself across the cement, supported only by his front legs, his hind legs two useless sticks that were chafed and burning in the 120 degree heat. He was moving unbearably slowly, with only the sheer determination of survival. I whimpered and pointed this out to Deepak.
"Yes," he responded. And then, so matter-of-fact: "Handicapped."
I shouldn't have laughed, but I did.
Peacocks:
India's national bird is the peacock! Isn't that cool? We got stuck with the eagle, which, while majestic is often bald, and India gets the peacock. And they can fly- I always thought peacocks were like vain penguins. Yesterday, we went to Hot n' Cold Paradise for some Mountain Dew Mocktails, and up in a tree was a giant peacock, screeching the most terrifying sounds I have ever heard. Beautiful things, but can hardly carry a tune. Not unlike if Ashlee Simpson was stuck in a tree, singing "Invisible" without the help of a computer.
Cows:
Vacca, bovine, vache, kuh. Cows are all over the place in India. They stroll down streets on their way to work, nudge people out of the way at markets to get the best produce, drop the kids off at school, and generally act like they run this place. Which they kind of do. Cows are a very holy animal in Hinduism, which means they get the right of way in every situation. The bus won't slow down for a human crossing the street (you better run!) but if a cow happens to waddle across the road, the bus driver is obliged to fiddle with his stick shift and slow down the car.
I have one funny cow story, but it's not exactly G-rated, so don't stay tuned if you can easily visualize the written word. A couple of weeks ago, I was sitting in the bus with Harsh, coming back from Jhunjhunu. The bus was parked in the marketplace, and the driver was outside smoking consecutive cigarettes, so we weren't about to move anytime soon. Right outside of my window, there was a gathering of doe-eyed young cows, and some muscly, beefy bulls. The girl cows were being all girly and coy in the middle of the marketplace, nuzzling each other and sniffling through the dirt and whatever it is that cows do. The bulls were horny. Off in the distance, they eyed these girl cows.
"Yo man, that Bella has gotten really, really hot. Mmm, that ass," Edward whispered to Jacob.
"No way man, Veronica is so much hotter. And I hear she's really easy. Javier from Sultana hooked up with her last week," Jacob responded.
Meanwhile, the girl cows were hardly paying attention to any of it. They were just doing their cow thing! Having some girl talk! Chatting about this and that and Foucault and ferns. Then the bulls came over. Edward came first, he was more of a pusher. No, that's not true. He's a protector. It's not his fault that he's a glittery vampire bull who LOVES Bella so, so much, but she's a human cow, see, and they just can't possibly be together, at least not in that way, until he turns her into a glittery vampire and oh, my, young love is just so very, very complicated. The events that followed would give Mormon Stephanie Myers a coronary. I felt not unlike a teacher at a high school dance, watching two kids grinding in a devastatingly embarrassing way, but Ms. Krazinsky can only sit and watch in horror, unless it's a Catholic school. I knew I shouldn't look, but I honestly couldn't look away. Luckily, Bella and Edward did this weird scrampy dance thing that shot them straight out of my view, and I could begin some personal therapy lessons. The funniest part about this whole debaucle was that I seemed to be the only person who noticed anything.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Constant Bureaucracy
As my mother nicely reminded me, a while back I swore on a stack of Bhagavad Gitas that I would write about two constant characters, Indian bureaucracy and our homemade cinemas. Because this isn't a Lifetime original movie entitled "Broken Promises", I'll first talk about bureaucracy (can't give it all to you at once, Mom!):
Indian Bureaucracy:
First, isn't bureaucracy the trickiest word to spell? Maybe it's just me, but I can never figure out how to correctly organize the letters in this word. It doesn't help that I am a poli sci major, and the majority of my professors throw this word around like Ricky Martin throws his shirts off in concert, leaving me scratching "beureaucracy" or "beauracracy" in my notes. Despite its complicated mix of vowels and silent letters, bureaucracy is very important, kids, because it is the organizational structure, procedure and regulations that are used to enact policies and generally control stuff. Bureaucracies are supposed to be uniform and universal, kind of like McDonald's- you should expect to comply to the same rules and regulations at a DMV in Orlando as you would in Oregon. Uniformness is a Good Thing when it comes to doing things that require your passport.
Residing in the subcontinent for nearly four months requires an intricate dance with the bureaucracy of India, one which, unsurprisingly, does not consist of much across-the-board regulation. About a week and a half after we had arrived in India, CASI e-mailed us to tell us that we were to register with the nearest foreign services office. This way, the Indian government would know we were in India. I figured that this was what my visa, registration with the US Embassy, and utter compliance with airport officials at customs was for, but that was foolish thinking. No, I had to register, and I had 14 days once in the country do it, or else pay a hefty fine. Registering meant having to take the bus to Jhunjhunu, which we did that Sunday (exactly on the 14th day) only to realize that things closed on Sunday. So we went back on Monday.
First of all, there is no such thing as a foreign service office in Jhunjhunu, where maybe two foreigners pass by every year. Instead, we had to go to the police station. This made for a nice conversation starter on the bus ride over, when one interested rider wanted to know where we were going. "The police station," we replied. We let that sink in and remained silent despite his persistent pestering of "But why? Why the police station?" Much more fun to have him think we were Western fugitives in trouble with the law, or smugglers of exotic animal skins. Then we got to the police station, and realized that being a fugitive would probably require less paper work than registering in the country. The police station itself was in nice enough shape, minus the line of people who looked like they had been queuing for the last six years. The offices were stacked floor-to-cathedral ceiling with papers. Literally, stacks upon stacks of jumbled papers reached towards the heavens, aching under the weight of unorganization.
Very little is digital in India- the country is making moves towards putting things on computers, but we are at least 5 to 10 years away from that. Until then, it's handwritten paperwork. So we marched into an office, accompanied by Shrot (director of Source for Change) and talked to two dudes. One of them was a youngish guy, who was very nice and who we will call Friend. The other was a tall, old gentleman with a permanent frown and a singular desire to take our money. We will call him Not Friend. We handed over our passports to Friend, who examined them as though they were rare artifacts. At first, Friend told us that since we were a day late, we were going to have to pay a fine, which would be around"20-50 US dollars." Don't you love exact sums? Shrot talked to Friend for a while, and finally agreed to date the document saying we had come three days earlier, so as to waive the fee. This was good news! The bad news was that we needed six passport photos each, and we had to come back the next day.
Literally though, six passport photos. This meant going to the photo shop in a different part of Jhunjhunu. I'm actually really happy we went, because we met the most amazing man there. He couldn't have been more than 4'11, he only spoke in a thrilling lisp, and he was so excited! to be able to take "snaps" of us. It was like being photographed by Terry Richardson; I was convinced that at any moment he would take his shirt off and join the photo shoot. Meg and Lindsay's photos passed by with little excitement. Then I sat down, and crushed his dreams. He snapped my picture, looked at it, than sighed the saddest little sigh I've ever heard and said "Noooo....No, no. Again." I must have looked terrifying in the first picture, I'm not sure.
Next up was Siler. I actually thought this guy was going to lose his shit. Siler flipped his scarf over his shoulder and posed for his life, emotion seeping from his eyes. Terry was loving it. "YEEESSSSSSSS!!!!" he shrieked, in an orgasmic climax of creativity and beauty and childhood dreams to work in fashion, this was life, glorious, perfect, creamy-complexioned life at its best. And then, just like that, it was over. Siler got up and took off his scarf, leaving behind the trembling butterfly of what was, what could have been. Years from now, when Terry is old and gray he will sit in a mahogany chair wrapped in a striped pashmina, smoking a Gauloise (he always had a love for the French) and remember that moment, where for a fleeting instant, the camera lens was the only thing separating him from an internship at Teen Vogue.
Ahem, scuze me. Got a bit carried away there, but you see, the thing is that paperwork is just so boring that I have to come up with these exciting alternate realities to keep myself from crying. We had to return to Jhunjhunu the following day, armed with our passport photos and patience. It was going to be a long afternoon. We stayed there for around two or three hours, during which time Not Friend tried to get us to pay him some money. We took to ignoring him, and instead dealt only with Friend. And this is what Friend did. He took a big book full of pictures of foreigners that had passed through Jhunjhunu and registered at the office. He pasted a picture of each of us in this book, which we then had to sign. "That's your signature?" he asked, after I scrawled my name in admittedly easy to forge handwriting. "No," I replied, "this is the special autograph I use only when dealing with Indian bureaucracy."
The next step was hysterical. Not Friend ripped out a blank piece of paper from a notebook for each of us to fill out. Amongst other things, the information that was to be included was our father's name and occupation (but not our Mother's), our height and our eye color, because apparently is imperative that the Indian government know I have hazel eyes as oppose to blue eyes. We wrote all this information in slanting chicken-scratch, and handed it over. Next, we watched as Friend and Not Friend pasted each of our five remaining pictures onto five identical pieces of paper. Then we had to sign these all. The finale was Friend just staring at our passports for a good ten minutes. Finally, FINALLY we were allowed to leave.
I naively thought that my time in the paper gallows were done, but I was wrong. Aditi informed us that we would also have to "de-register," a process that must be done within a 14-day span prior to leaving the country, and must be completed at the office where you registered. Yes, the exact office where you registered. This is infuriating. I understand that in a country the size of India, it's important to keep tabs of foreigners who come and leave, but isn't that what the computerized system at the airport is for? Also, since everything is the opposite of digital, someone would have to really want to find out my eye color to go all the way to Jhunjhunu and dig through stacks upon stacks of forms. Apparently it is a 50-50 chance when you go to the airport that they will ask for your registration and de-registration form.
Once, there was a rather unlucky GDL-er who was at the airport hours from catching his flight, when he had to come all the way back to Bagar to get some paperwork done. When we were given our personal registration form, Friend told us that we had to show that to the customs official at the airport, he made no mention of a de-registration form. I am leaving Bagar in two weeks, and will be volunteering and travelling in places that are very much not Bagar. While I enjoyed my time here, I don't want to have to take a six hour bus from Delhi specifically to come back to Jhunjhunu to de-register. So, the new plan is to de-register in Jhunjhunu, re-register in Delhi when I get there, and then de-register in Delhi right before I leave. In all, I anticipate needing 18 more passport photos, and wasting 6-8 hours having someone make fun of my signature. I didn't think that bureaucracy would become a constant character, but it looks like it will be.
I would like to point out that the inefficiency of India's bureaucracy system has proved to be rather detrimental to the country's growth. The system is choking on itself, slowing down all sorts of civil issues that should be resolved much more quickly. In 2008, The Economist published an article on India's bureaucracy, which stated:
"Some economists see India's malfunctioning public sector as its biggest obstacle to growth. Lant Pritchett, of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, calls it “one of the world's top ten biggest problems—of the order of AIDS and climate change”....In India's corrupt democracy, the collectors' burden is made much heavier by interfering politicians. The problem is most grievous in north India, where civil servants tend to attach themselves to politicians for enrichment, advancement—or in despair of otherwise getting their jobs done."
Nantina, whatchu think about this? ;)
Indian Bureaucracy:
First, isn't bureaucracy the trickiest word to spell? Maybe it's just me, but I can never figure out how to correctly organize the letters in this word. It doesn't help that I am a poli sci major, and the majority of my professors throw this word around like Ricky Martin throws his shirts off in concert, leaving me scratching "beureaucracy" or "beauracracy" in my notes. Despite its complicated mix of vowels and silent letters, bureaucracy is very important, kids, because it is the organizational structure, procedure and regulations that are used to enact policies and generally control stuff. Bureaucracies are supposed to be uniform and universal, kind of like McDonald's- you should expect to comply to the same rules and regulations at a DMV in Orlando as you would in Oregon. Uniformness is a Good Thing when it comes to doing things that require your passport.
Residing in the subcontinent for nearly four months requires an intricate dance with the bureaucracy of India, one which, unsurprisingly, does not consist of much across-the-board regulation. About a week and a half after we had arrived in India, CASI e-mailed us to tell us that we were to register with the nearest foreign services office. This way, the Indian government would know we were in India. I figured that this was what my visa, registration with the US Embassy, and utter compliance with airport officials at customs was for, but that was foolish thinking. No, I had to register, and I had 14 days once in the country do it, or else pay a hefty fine. Registering meant having to take the bus to Jhunjhunu, which we did that Sunday (exactly on the 14th day) only to realize that things closed on Sunday. So we went back on Monday.
First of all, there is no such thing as a foreign service office in Jhunjhunu, where maybe two foreigners pass by every year. Instead, we had to go to the police station. This made for a nice conversation starter on the bus ride over, when one interested rider wanted to know where we were going. "The police station," we replied. We let that sink in and remained silent despite his persistent pestering of "But why? Why the police station?" Much more fun to have him think we were Western fugitives in trouble with the law, or smugglers of exotic animal skins. Then we got to the police station, and realized that being a fugitive would probably require less paper work than registering in the country. The police station itself was in nice enough shape, minus the line of people who looked like they had been queuing for the last six years. The offices were stacked floor-to-cathedral ceiling with papers. Literally, stacks upon stacks of jumbled papers reached towards the heavens, aching under the weight of unorganization.
Very little is digital in India- the country is making moves towards putting things on computers, but we are at least 5 to 10 years away from that. Until then, it's handwritten paperwork. So we marched into an office, accompanied by Shrot (director of Source for Change) and talked to two dudes. One of them was a youngish guy, who was very nice and who we will call Friend. The other was a tall, old gentleman with a permanent frown and a singular desire to take our money. We will call him Not Friend. We handed over our passports to Friend, who examined them as though they were rare artifacts. At first, Friend told us that since we were a day late, we were going to have to pay a fine, which would be around"20-50 US dollars." Don't you love exact sums? Shrot talked to Friend for a while, and finally agreed to date the document saying we had come three days earlier, so as to waive the fee. This was good news! The bad news was that we needed six passport photos each, and we had to come back the next day.
Literally though, six passport photos. This meant going to the photo shop in a different part of Jhunjhunu. I'm actually really happy we went, because we met the most amazing man there. He couldn't have been more than 4'11, he only spoke in a thrilling lisp, and he was so excited! to be able to take "snaps" of us. It was like being photographed by Terry Richardson; I was convinced that at any moment he would take his shirt off and join the photo shoot. Meg and Lindsay's photos passed by with little excitement. Then I sat down, and crushed his dreams. He snapped my picture, looked at it, than sighed the saddest little sigh I've ever heard and said "Noooo....No, no. Again." I must have looked terrifying in the first picture, I'm not sure.
Next up was Siler. I actually thought this guy was going to lose his shit. Siler flipped his scarf over his shoulder and posed for his life, emotion seeping from his eyes. Terry was loving it. "YEEESSSSSSSS!!!!" he shrieked, in an orgasmic climax of creativity and beauty and childhood dreams to work in fashion, this was life, glorious, perfect, creamy-complexioned life at its best. And then, just like that, it was over. Siler got up and took off his scarf, leaving behind the trembling butterfly of what was, what could have been. Years from now, when Terry is old and gray he will sit in a mahogany chair wrapped in a striped pashmina, smoking a Gauloise (he always had a love for the French) and remember that moment, where for a fleeting instant, the camera lens was the only thing separating him from an internship at Teen Vogue.
Ahem, scuze me. Got a bit carried away there, but you see, the thing is that paperwork is just so boring that I have to come up with these exciting alternate realities to keep myself from crying. We had to return to Jhunjhunu the following day, armed with our passport photos and patience. It was going to be a long afternoon. We stayed there for around two or three hours, during which time Not Friend tried to get us to pay him some money. We took to ignoring him, and instead dealt only with Friend. And this is what Friend did. He took a big book full of pictures of foreigners that had passed through Jhunjhunu and registered at the office. He pasted a picture of each of us in this book, which we then had to sign. "That's your signature?" he asked, after I scrawled my name in admittedly easy to forge handwriting. "No," I replied, "this is the special autograph I use only when dealing with Indian bureaucracy."
The next step was hysterical. Not Friend ripped out a blank piece of paper from a notebook for each of us to fill out. Amongst other things, the information that was to be included was our father's name and occupation (but not our Mother's), our height and our eye color, because apparently is imperative that the Indian government know I have hazel eyes as oppose to blue eyes. We wrote all this information in slanting chicken-scratch, and handed it over. Next, we watched as Friend and Not Friend pasted each of our five remaining pictures onto five identical pieces of paper. Then we had to sign these all. The finale was Friend just staring at our passports for a good ten minutes. Finally, FINALLY we were allowed to leave.
I naively thought that my time in the paper gallows were done, but I was wrong. Aditi informed us that we would also have to "de-register," a process that must be done within a 14-day span prior to leaving the country, and must be completed at the office where you registered. Yes, the exact office where you registered. This is infuriating. I understand that in a country the size of India, it's important to keep tabs of foreigners who come and leave, but isn't that what the computerized system at the airport is for? Also, since everything is the opposite of digital, someone would have to really want to find out my eye color to go all the way to Jhunjhunu and dig through stacks upon stacks of forms. Apparently it is a 50-50 chance when you go to the airport that they will ask for your registration and de-registration form.
Once, there was a rather unlucky GDL-er who was at the airport hours from catching his flight, when he had to come all the way back to Bagar to get some paperwork done. When we were given our personal registration form, Friend told us that we had to show that to the customs official at the airport, he made no mention of a de-registration form. I am leaving Bagar in two weeks, and will be volunteering and travelling in places that are very much not Bagar. While I enjoyed my time here, I don't want to have to take a six hour bus from Delhi specifically to come back to Jhunjhunu to de-register. So, the new plan is to de-register in Jhunjhunu, re-register in Delhi when I get there, and then de-register in Delhi right before I leave. In all, I anticipate needing 18 more passport photos, and wasting 6-8 hours having someone make fun of my signature. I didn't think that bureaucracy would become a constant character, but it looks like it will be.
I would like to point out that the inefficiency of India's bureaucracy system has proved to be rather detrimental to the country's growth. The system is choking on itself, slowing down all sorts of civil issues that should be resolved much more quickly. In 2008, The Economist published an article on India's bureaucracy, which stated:
"Some economists see India's malfunctioning public sector as its biggest obstacle to growth. Lant Pritchett, of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, calls it “one of the world's top ten biggest problems—of the order of AIDS and climate change”....In India's corrupt democracy, the collectors' burden is made much heavier by interfering politicians. The problem is most grievous in north India, where civil servants tend to attach themselves to politicians for enrichment, advancement—or in despair of otherwise getting their jobs done."
Nantina, whatchu think about this? ;)
Friday, June 25, 2010
We are the Celebrities
Twas our last day in Chirawa, and all through the town, not a creeper was stirring, not a punch to be found. It must be the 120 degree weather that makes me fondly remember my childhood Christmases, or the fact that we are finally done marketing in Chirawa, which is the greatest gift anyone has ever given me. While we successfully collected over 2000 names, there is a nagging child grabbing at my frontal lobe and whining "Was it worth it?" Chirawa was incredibly overwhelming, in a way that Bagar or Jhunjhunu or any of the other towns I have visited haven't been. It was the kind of place where a dark cloud of "uh-oh" feeling cast an ominous shadow that radiated from every moustached man, the same atmosphere one would find at any discotheque in Philadelphia. Our final day on Thursday was significantly less bloody than Wednesday, which is always a positive, but it was still tinged with delightful hand grabbing and sexual comments that make the day complete.
The morning started off tame (this has become quite the pattern), as six of us headed off to the American English Learning Institute. It teaches over 200 students, is indoors and away from the Chirawan crowds, and nicely decorated with posters I recognized from my middle school years. "If you think you will fail you will" a cartoon chided, amongst other uplifting messages. Meg and Siler had come to speak to the director the day before, and in exchange for access to 1600 names and mobile numbers of recent college graduates, the three of us would talk to their morning classes and teach them a bit about American culture. I feel like Mobile Naukri has come to run on a scratch my back, I'll scratch your's policy that feels a liiiitttleeee bit like an escort service, but the gains are more important than the means here, so let's plow on.
After a brief pit stop in the director's office, we were escorted into the main classroom, where we were promptly told to sit on stools on a raised platform at the front of the class. 50 students stood up as we entered and sat down when we sat down- polite, right? We spoke to two classes that morning, but the first group was decidedly more interesting and spoke better English, so funnier things happened with them. We weren't there so much to field questions as we were for them to just spit out rapid-fire questions, which the director would try and answer himself. When we did get the chance to answer questions, there was a lot of confusion and misunderstanding with things that were lost in translation. After we introduced ourselves, a girl raised her hand and asked an easy to answer while being culturally sensitive question. "Do you believe in God?" she said. We paused, maybe she was joking. She wasn't, so we all looked at each other, agnostic desperation seeping from our eyes. What was the best way to answer this one? "Yes," Meg answered with an assertive nod of the head, "We love God." This seemed to please the young student, and left the door wide open for students to ask other impersonal questions. In whole the conversation went a little something like this:
Students: Do you have any siblings?
Me: No, only a cat.
Director (joking?): Yes, she has a cat and she beats her cat!
Students: Do you beat your cat?
Me: Um...no.
Students: Where is your cat right now? Is it getting beaten?
Me (speaking very, very slowly): No. we. Do. Not. Beat. Our. Cat. Beating. Animals. Is. Wrong.
Students: Which one of your parents do you like better?
All of us: Both? How can you choose?
Male Student: I like my mother better.
Director (again, jokes?): That is because his father beats him! Ha! Haha! His papa beats him so he likes his mummy better. He gets beaten by his father everyday.
Student: No, no!
Us: [Silent]. Any more questions?
Students: Do you know Venus and Serena Williams?
Us: Yes, Venus is quite lovely, sometimes we go shopping together. Serena can kind of be a beyotch though, you know? Like the fame has gone to her head.
Students: Why does the US like Pakistan?
[Much bickering between students, then...]
Students: Why is Osama Bin Laden doing the things that he is doing?
Siler deftly answered this question about Osama Bin Laden's psyche, and it was actually awesome to see the conversation turn to such a complicated subject. The students seemed to understand what we were saying, and were very engaged in the conversation. For the most part though, they were interested in what we thought about India. Meg said she like cricket, which made the students leap to their feet in boistorous applause. We were applauded several times actually, for the funniest of reasons. Siler pointed out that he had a moustache, just like Bollywood hearthrob Sharu Khan and palms were viciously slapped together. I recited the one sassy phrase I know in Marwari, the local language, and loud shouts of approval reverberated through the room. They liked us, they really liked us! They wanted us to sing, they wanted us to dance, they wanted to take pictures with us. Really though, the students took nearly 100 pictures with us, including a dozen where we shook hands with them, much like those awkward presidential photographs between Obama and Sarkozy. One side is like "Ohmygod!Ohmygod!" and the other person is like "Whaaaaat are you going to do with this picture later, Nick?" And what were these students going to do with these pictures? Frame them? Glue them to their notebook, or their bedroom wall? Or perhaps print them out wallet size and tote them around in their purse or back pocket? I think I take for granted how diverse the United States is, even in smaller towns. We are used to seeing people of different ethnicities and nationalities; I would never ask to take a picture with, say, someone from Bhutan. It was kind of cool though, sort of like being one of those celebrities famous for doing nothing. In a way, Meg, Siler and I are the Paris and Nicky Hilton of Chirawa!
The afternoon was decidedly less fun. More weird men came to hang around the table, including one guy who grabbed my hand when I handed him a business card. It's odd, because I wouldn't be the least bit upset of offended if someone in the US grabbed my hand, but here, you can smell that it's for different reasons. What reasons, I'm not entirely sure- maybe he thought that a soft finger brushing would result in something...? Anyway, Meg and I basically had to sit behind the table for the entire afternoon, flanked by the batillion unit of Pankaj, Deepak and Siler. The next couple of days are going to be spent in the office, doing (blech) data entry, but sometimes it's important for things to simmer down, you know? Next week we are going to do some marketing in Pilani, which Sahil has assured us is decidedly less creepy than Chirawa.
Oh, and good luck to the US for their match against Ghana tonight! It will be playing at midnight here in India, but we have big plans to find a TV and root for our boys.
The morning started off tame (this has become quite the pattern), as six of us headed off to the American English Learning Institute. It teaches over 200 students, is indoors and away from the Chirawan crowds, and nicely decorated with posters I recognized from my middle school years. "If you think you will fail you will" a cartoon chided, amongst other uplifting messages. Meg and Siler had come to speak to the director the day before, and in exchange for access to 1600 names and mobile numbers of recent college graduates, the three of us would talk to their morning classes and teach them a bit about American culture. I feel like Mobile Naukri has come to run on a scratch my back, I'll scratch your's policy that feels a liiiitttleeee bit like an escort service, but the gains are more important than the means here, so let's plow on.
After a brief pit stop in the director's office, we were escorted into the main classroom, where we were promptly told to sit on stools on a raised platform at the front of the class. 50 students stood up as we entered and sat down when we sat down- polite, right? We spoke to two classes that morning, but the first group was decidedly more interesting and spoke better English, so funnier things happened with them. We weren't there so much to field questions as we were for them to just spit out rapid-fire questions, which the director would try and answer himself. When we did get the chance to answer questions, there was a lot of confusion and misunderstanding with things that were lost in translation. After we introduced ourselves, a girl raised her hand and asked an easy to answer while being culturally sensitive question. "Do you believe in God?" she said. We paused, maybe she was joking. She wasn't, so we all looked at each other, agnostic desperation seeping from our eyes. What was the best way to answer this one? "Yes," Meg answered with an assertive nod of the head, "We love God." This seemed to please the young student, and left the door wide open for students to ask other impersonal questions. In whole the conversation went a little something like this:
Students: Do you have any siblings?
Me: No, only a cat.
Director (joking?): Yes, she has a cat and she beats her cat!
Students: Do you beat your cat?
Me: Um...no.
Students: Where is your cat right now? Is it getting beaten?
Me (speaking very, very slowly): No. we. Do. Not. Beat. Our. Cat. Beating. Animals. Is. Wrong.
Students: Which one of your parents do you like better?
All of us: Both? How can you choose?
Male Student: I like my mother better.
Director (again, jokes?): That is because his father beats him! Ha! Haha! His papa beats him so he likes his mummy better. He gets beaten by his father everyday.
Student: No, no!
Us: [Silent]. Any more questions?
Students: Do you know Venus and Serena Williams?
Us: Yes, Venus is quite lovely, sometimes we go shopping together. Serena can kind of be a beyotch though, you know? Like the fame has gone to her head.
Students: Why does the US like Pakistan?
[Much bickering between students, then...]
Students: Why is Osama Bin Laden doing the things that he is doing?
Siler deftly answered this question about Osama Bin Laden's psyche, and it was actually awesome to see the conversation turn to such a complicated subject. The students seemed to understand what we were saying, and were very engaged in the conversation. For the most part though, they were interested in what we thought about India. Meg said she like cricket, which made the students leap to their feet in boistorous applause. We were applauded several times actually, for the funniest of reasons. Siler pointed out that he had a moustache, just like Bollywood hearthrob Sharu Khan and palms were viciously slapped together. I recited the one sassy phrase I know in Marwari, the local language, and loud shouts of approval reverberated through the room. They liked us, they really liked us! They wanted us to sing, they wanted us to dance, they wanted to take pictures with us. Really though, the students took nearly 100 pictures with us, including a dozen where we shook hands with them, much like those awkward presidential photographs between Obama and Sarkozy. One side is like "Ohmygod!Ohmygod!" and the other person is like "Whaaaaat are you going to do with this picture later, Nick?" And what were these students going to do with these pictures? Frame them? Glue them to their notebook, or their bedroom wall? Or perhaps print them out wallet size and tote them around in their purse or back pocket? I think I take for granted how diverse the United States is, even in smaller towns. We are used to seeing people of different ethnicities and nationalities; I would never ask to take a picture with, say, someone from Bhutan. It was kind of cool though, sort of like being one of those celebrities famous for doing nothing. In a way, Meg, Siler and I are the Paris and Nicky Hilton of Chirawa!
The afternoon was decidedly less fun. More weird men came to hang around the table, including one guy who grabbed my hand when I handed him a business card. It's odd, because I wouldn't be the least bit upset of offended if someone in the US grabbed my hand, but here, you can smell that it's for different reasons. What reasons, I'm not entirely sure- maybe he thought that a soft finger brushing would result in something...? Anyway, Meg and I basically had to sit behind the table for the entire afternoon, flanked by the batillion unit of Pankaj, Deepak and Siler. The next couple of days are going to be spent in the office, doing (blech) data entry, but sometimes it's important for things to simmer down, you know? Next week we are going to do some marketing in Pilani, which Sahil has assured us is decidedly less creepy than Chirawa.
Oh, and good luck to the US for their match against Ghana tonight! It will be playing at midnight here in India, but we have big plans to find a TV and root for our boys.
The Intern Honeymoon
No thank you, puppet man.
View of Jaipur from the fort
Fancy palace, looks just like GDL
Amber Fort- all the interns!
Lindsay, Meg and me standing at one of the many entrances to Amber fort
I almost forget to mention-- we took a trip to Jaipur this weekend! It was incredible. Jaipur is the "Pink City," the capital of Rajasthan and filled to the brim with palaces and forts. We spent two days touring some of the forts and bazaars. We met one of Harsh's college friends who took us out for the best kulfi I have ever had. Actually, the majority of the weekend was spent eating: lots of non-veg, lots of kulfi ice cream, and then this cold coffee drink we got that was literally espresso-spiked whipping cream. I made a couple of key purchases, such as some husband-deterrent Aladin pants and a man's kurta pajama suit. I really like how the men dress here: all billowing white fabric and awesome pointy leather shoes. The man in the shop probably thought I was crazy when I tried on the kurta-pajama in the mirror. Cross-dressing hasn't exactly caught on yet in India. What has caught on in India is charging tourists around 10 times more than the local price. For absolutely everything. Entry into the forts was around 150 for foreigners and 10 rupees for Indians. Don't even get me started on the bartering that took place. It was like reliving the Spice Trade, except for that the Westerners now actually have something the locals want.
The whole local-foreigner rate to enter national heritage sites is a pretty interesting debate. At first, I was annoyed. I have had the good fortune to travel around a bit, and I have never encountered differing rates for cultural sites, unless it is a student or senior discount (neither of which Jaipur's attractions offer). I wondered about what kind of up-roar would happen in the US, or in Europe for that matter, if there were vastly different rates for "locals" and "foreigners." Just because there is the assumption that foreigners have more money does not necessarily mean that they have unlimited purchasing power, nor does it mean that international visitors should be financially responsible for the upkeep of these cultural sites. At the same time, one could argue that the Indian government has a responsibility to allow its citizens to visit their country's historical sites at a price they can afford. Compared to the average tourist, Indians have a much lower per capita income, so it evens itself out proportionately. 10 rupees to the average Indian visitor would feel the same in the pocket to 150 rupees for the camera-toting foreigner. It's a pretty interesting debate! Hopefully as I travel more this summer, I will gain some insight on this topic.
View of Jaipur from the fort
Fancy palace, looks just like GDL
Amber Fort- all the interns!
Lindsay, Meg and me standing at one of the many entrances to Amber fort
I almost forget to mention-- we took a trip to Jaipur this weekend! It was incredible. Jaipur is the "Pink City," the capital of Rajasthan and filled to the brim with palaces and forts. We spent two days touring some of the forts and bazaars. We met one of Harsh's college friends who took us out for the best kulfi I have ever had. Actually, the majority of the weekend was spent eating: lots of non-veg, lots of kulfi ice cream, and then this cold coffee drink we got that was literally espresso-spiked whipping cream. I made a couple of key purchases, such as some husband-deterrent Aladin pants and a man's kurta pajama suit. I really like how the men dress here: all billowing white fabric and awesome pointy leather shoes. The man in the shop probably thought I was crazy when I tried on the kurta-pajama in the mirror. Cross-dressing hasn't exactly caught on yet in India. What has caught on in India is charging tourists around 10 times more than the local price. For absolutely everything. Entry into the forts was around 150 for foreigners and 10 rupees for Indians. Don't even get me started on the bartering that took place. It was like reliving the Spice Trade, except for that the Westerners now actually have something the locals want.
The whole local-foreigner rate to enter national heritage sites is a pretty interesting debate. At first, I was annoyed. I have had the good fortune to travel around a bit, and I have never encountered differing rates for cultural sites, unless it is a student or senior discount (neither of which Jaipur's attractions offer). I wondered about what kind of up-roar would happen in the US, or in Europe for that matter, if there were vastly different rates for "locals" and "foreigners." Just because there is the assumption that foreigners have more money does not necessarily mean that they have unlimited purchasing power, nor does it mean that international visitors should be financially responsible for the upkeep of these cultural sites. At the same time, one could argue that the Indian government has a responsibility to allow its citizens to visit their country's historical sites at a price they can afford. Compared to the average tourist, Indians have a much lower per capita income, so it evens itself out proportionately. 10 rupees to the average Indian visitor would feel the same in the pocket to 150 rupees for the camera-toting foreigner. It's a pretty interesting debate! Hopefully as I travel more this summer, I will gain some insight on this topic.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Kill Bill, Vol. India
This week, our marketing has been focused in the village of Chirawa, a town about 30 minutes away from Bagar. We have been extremely successful here- in the past couple of days, we have collected over 300 names, and the registration hotline has been ringing non-stop with job-seekers. Today was our second day in Chirawa, and we set up camp near the market place and bus station, under a nice shady tree. Throughout the entire morning and afternoon, we had crowds of men swarming around us, registering, or asking questions, or simply wanting to see what exactly was up. The morning was fairly uneventful. Harsh, Pankaj, Deepak and I were marketing, and there was the usual ogling and unnecessary remarks about me and my American/girl-ness. Overall though, it was calm at sea, and there was no reason to think the rest of the day would be otherwise.
OR WOULD IT. Sometime around 4, when the sanity gods were on a rest break, and the rest of the world was happily enjoying a couple of Mai Tai cocktails on the beach, all hell broke loose in Chirawa. And by all hell I mean two incidents that left me with an extremely unpleasant taste in my mouth, one of those "What the....?" moments that question your decision to leave the comfy confines of reality television and hamburgers. The afternoon became rather Quinton Tarantino all of a sudden, so let's use that as our theme here, shall we?
Kill Bill Vol. 1:
I was standing behind the table with Harsh, handing out some business cards, when an older gentleman ambled over. By which I mean stumbled over; this 65 year-old was clearly inebriated. He came and stood near the table, asked some questions that I obviously couldn't understand (language barrier+slurring=unlikely deciphering). Harsh was put off by him, and kept telling me to step away and sit down. The thing was though, this man wasn't acting inappropriately. Sure, public drunkeness was definitely being committed, but he wasn't talking louder or asking more questions than the next one, and he hadn't even stared at me! For this I quite liked him. As I was explaining to Harsh that everything was fine, a stretched-out police officer strode over, all puffed up in his tan uniform and matching medals. With one hand twirling his moustache, the other arm reached out and yanked the older man by his collar, pulling him into the street. By this point, a rather large crowd had formed, anticipating some sort of "necessary action". I couldn't really hear anything that was going on, but the old man was in no way resisting arrest (although nothing close to an arrest was being made), nor was he making any effort to come back to the Mobile Naukri table. Clearly none of this mattered to Colonel Mustard, as he began to hit this old man, first slapping him across the face, which knocked his glasses clear off, and then punching his arms.
I felt like the police officer had just punched me in the stomach. I couldn't believe my eyes. Here, in the largest democracy on Earth, in a country that was born out of a non-violence movement, a people that idolize Gandhi-ji, a police officer was blatently assaulting a man who had committed nothing that merited physical violence. I was more shocked by the fact that people were laughing! No one but me seemed the least bit upset at humanity. The sad part is, police brutality is a huge problem in India. While this doesn't constitue a violation of human rights as we might see (the guy obviously wasn't being tortured), it's still a serious problem in the governance of India. When you have police officers who are so puffed up on their own government-given testosterone, how can you expect a society to run without issues of corruption and violence? What kinds of conditions do these police officers in low-income villages work in, that make them think the best way to solve the problem of a public nuisance is to turn them into a punching bag? Human Rights Watch came out with a 118-page report on police brutality in India in 2009, titled "Broken System: Dysfunction, Abuse and Impunity in the Indian Police", and I urge any of my readers interested in this topic to read it. A synopsis is available here.
Kill Bill Vol 2.:
So after that debauchery, I thought things might, you know, not be so freaking crazy. Ha! What fun would that be? Once again, I am back at my stomping grounds (handing out cards behind the table) while Meg is walking through a small gathering of people, also handing out cards. All of a sudden, she comes back to the table in a huff. Some creepy dude grabbed her arm, asked for her number, and insisted several times that she "come with him." For some reason, she declined his oh so charming offer, and came and stood by me. Meg is not the one to mess with, she is full of sass and spice, and I think that had she more amino acids in her body, laser beams might have shot out of her eyes at this man. And what a man he was! A strapping 5 foot nothing, rather pudgy around the middle, ill-fitting (why is this so common here?!) pants and shirt, and that terrible tendancy to always have one hand grabbing his crotch. Yes sir, it's still there, no need to keep checking. I think he took Meg's cold dismissal as an invitation to hang out with the Mobile Naukri interns, because he took a seat near Siler and initiated the most bizarre conversation I have ever had relayed to me. This guy spoke great English and it went a little something like this:
Creeper: "You are very lonely here."
Siler: "What...No?"
Creeper: "No you came all the way from America, you are very lonely. You have no friends."
Siler: "I have friends! Meg and Sarah and Harsh and Pankaj and Deepak...I am not lonely!"
Creeper: "You have cuts on your hands and arms?"
Siler :"Excuse me?"
Creeper: "You should come to my house, no one will cut you there."
Siler: "I'm just gonna....go...now."
Siler came and stood by me and Meg. I could feel the clammy breath of desperation on my back as the creepy dude came closer to me. He called out for my attention. "Nope, not happening," I thought and did some sort of athletic maneuver to remove myself from the situation. What was wrong with this guy? He still wouldn't go away! Pankaj then came over and Meg told him what had happened. It took Pankaj less than thirty seconds to walk over to the guy, utter some harsh Hindi, and banish him from the table. Sort of. The guy ended up walking a bit down the street, only to talk to the police officer from Vol. 1. Don't you love when weird people find each other, it's like when someone realized that goat cheese and beets were a delicious combination. The creepy man continues to stare at us, and proceeds to take out his mobile phone to snap a couple of sniper-esque shots of us handing out Mobile Naukri business cards.
At this point, it was getting really uncomfortable, so we packed up everything and walked it down a couple of blocks to the institute where we are storing our things for the week. Sahil is friends with the director, so we went to his office (up two flights of stairs) and sat down. We were talking to him about our day, when all of a sudden we looked up and THE CREEPY DUDE WAS STANDING IN THE DOORWAY. Nails on a chalkboard, the Jaws theme song, and creaking bicycle wheels all played in my head at once. The end was near. We were all going to die at in this office in Chirawa at the hands of the creepiest man ever to grace this world. Oh, but I forgot, we have Pankaj on our side. In a heartbeat, Pankaj had one hand on the guy's collarbone, one pressure point away from a snapped bone. He yelled at him for a while and then pushed him out of the office and to the stairs. We thought the guy had left, but Pankaj looked over the balcony and he was still standing outside of the building. Pankaj rallied the troops (Deepak) and the two men went downstairs and "taught this guy a lesson." Then they came back up and we drank chai, no big deal.
I felt equally upset about this incident. I think that this man was mentally disturbed; there was no way any sane person wouldn't pick up on those painfully obvious social cues. I was upset that he had touched Meg though, and made all of us feel extremely uncomfortable. All this violence and aggression in the span of a few short hours was a side of India that I had never experienced before, nor gave any thought to. It doesn't change my opinion on India, nor the people that I have met, but it does make India seem like less of a magical, spiritual place. Human nature is not cultural; people are messed up everywhere in the world. It was a terrible way to be reminded of this, though.
OR WOULD IT. Sometime around 4, when the sanity gods were on a rest break, and the rest of the world was happily enjoying a couple of Mai Tai cocktails on the beach, all hell broke loose in Chirawa. And by all hell I mean two incidents that left me with an extremely unpleasant taste in my mouth, one of those "What the....?" moments that question your decision to leave the comfy confines of reality television and hamburgers. The afternoon became rather Quinton Tarantino all of a sudden, so let's use that as our theme here, shall we?
Kill Bill Vol. 1:
I was standing behind the table with Harsh, handing out some business cards, when an older gentleman ambled over. By which I mean stumbled over; this 65 year-old was clearly inebriated. He came and stood near the table, asked some questions that I obviously couldn't understand (language barrier+slurring=unlikely deciphering). Harsh was put off by him, and kept telling me to step away and sit down. The thing was though, this man wasn't acting inappropriately. Sure, public drunkeness was definitely being committed, but he wasn't talking louder or asking more questions than the next one, and he hadn't even stared at me! For this I quite liked him. As I was explaining to Harsh that everything was fine, a stretched-out police officer strode over, all puffed up in his tan uniform and matching medals. With one hand twirling his moustache, the other arm reached out and yanked the older man by his collar, pulling him into the street. By this point, a rather large crowd had formed, anticipating some sort of "necessary action". I couldn't really hear anything that was going on, but the old man was in no way resisting arrest (although nothing close to an arrest was being made), nor was he making any effort to come back to the Mobile Naukri table. Clearly none of this mattered to Colonel Mustard, as he began to hit this old man, first slapping him across the face, which knocked his glasses clear off, and then punching his arms.
I felt like the police officer had just punched me in the stomach. I couldn't believe my eyes. Here, in the largest democracy on Earth, in a country that was born out of a non-violence movement, a people that idolize Gandhi-ji, a police officer was blatently assaulting a man who had committed nothing that merited physical violence. I was more shocked by the fact that people were laughing! No one but me seemed the least bit upset at humanity. The sad part is, police brutality is a huge problem in India. While this doesn't constitue a violation of human rights as we might see (the guy obviously wasn't being tortured), it's still a serious problem in the governance of India. When you have police officers who are so puffed up on their own government-given testosterone, how can you expect a society to run without issues of corruption and violence? What kinds of conditions do these police officers in low-income villages work in, that make them think the best way to solve the problem of a public nuisance is to turn them into a punching bag? Human Rights Watch came out with a 118-page report on police brutality in India in 2009, titled "Broken System: Dysfunction, Abuse and Impunity in the Indian Police", and I urge any of my readers interested in this topic to read it. A synopsis is available here.
Kill Bill Vol 2.:
So after that debauchery, I thought things might, you know, not be so freaking crazy. Ha! What fun would that be? Once again, I am back at my stomping grounds (handing out cards behind the table) while Meg is walking through a small gathering of people, also handing out cards. All of a sudden, she comes back to the table in a huff. Some creepy dude grabbed her arm, asked for her number, and insisted several times that she "come with him." For some reason, she declined his oh so charming offer, and came and stood by me. Meg is not the one to mess with, she is full of sass and spice, and I think that had she more amino acids in her body, laser beams might have shot out of her eyes at this man. And what a man he was! A strapping 5 foot nothing, rather pudgy around the middle, ill-fitting (why is this so common here?!) pants and shirt, and that terrible tendancy to always have one hand grabbing his crotch. Yes sir, it's still there, no need to keep checking. I think he took Meg's cold dismissal as an invitation to hang out with the Mobile Naukri interns, because he took a seat near Siler and initiated the most bizarre conversation I have ever had relayed to me. This guy spoke great English and it went a little something like this:
Creeper: "You are very lonely here."
Siler: "What...No?"
Creeper: "No you came all the way from America, you are very lonely. You have no friends."
Siler: "I have friends! Meg and Sarah and Harsh and Pankaj and Deepak...I am not lonely!"
Creeper: "You have cuts on your hands and arms?"
Siler :"Excuse me?"
Creeper: "You should come to my house, no one will cut you there."
Siler: "I'm just gonna....go...now."
Siler came and stood by me and Meg. I could feel the clammy breath of desperation on my back as the creepy dude came closer to me. He called out for my attention. "Nope, not happening," I thought and did some sort of athletic maneuver to remove myself from the situation. What was wrong with this guy? He still wouldn't go away! Pankaj then came over and Meg told him what had happened. It took Pankaj less than thirty seconds to walk over to the guy, utter some harsh Hindi, and banish him from the table. Sort of. The guy ended up walking a bit down the street, only to talk to the police officer from Vol. 1. Don't you love when weird people find each other, it's like when someone realized that goat cheese and beets were a delicious combination. The creepy man continues to stare at us, and proceeds to take out his mobile phone to snap a couple of sniper-esque shots of us handing out Mobile Naukri business cards.
At this point, it was getting really uncomfortable, so we packed up everything and walked it down a couple of blocks to the institute where we are storing our things for the week. Sahil is friends with the director, so we went to his office (up two flights of stairs) and sat down. We were talking to him about our day, when all of a sudden we looked up and THE CREEPY DUDE WAS STANDING IN THE DOORWAY. Nails on a chalkboard, the Jaws theme song, and creaking bicycle wheels all played in my head at once. The end was near. We were all going to die at in this office in Chirawa at the hands of the creepiest man ever to grace this world. Oh, but I forgot, we have Pankaj on our side. In a heartbeat, Pankaj had one hand on the guy's collarbone, one pressure point away from a snapped bone. He yelled at him for a while and then pushed him out of the office and to the stairs. We thought the guy had left, but Pankaj looked over the balcony and he was still standing outside of the building. Pankaj rallied the troops (Deepak) and the two men went downstairs and "taught this guy a lesson." Then they came back up and we drank chai, no big deal.
I felt equally upset about this incident. I think that this man was mentally disturbed; there was no way any sane person wouldn't pick up on those painfully obvious social cues. I was upset that he had touched Meg though, and made all of us feel extremely uncomfortable. All this violence and aggression in the span of a few short hours was a side of India that I had never experienced before, nor gave any thought to. It doesn't change my opinion on India, nor the people that I have met, but it does make India seem like less of a magical, spiritual place. Human nature is not cultural; people are messed up everywhere in the world. It was a terrible way to be reminded of this, though.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Characters, More of Them
Cold Drink:
There are a lot of ways to make friends in foreign countries. Cups of tea, buckets of beer, shared hookahs, swapped hook-ups, shots, shots, shots, or a common interest in the elegant art of origami. You just have to stick to the cultural norm when making friends with locals, so in Bagar, most of the aforementioned possibilities are prohibited. What is allowed, is a cold drink. You might recognize a cold drink by its more Western name, soda. Cold drinks are called cold drinks here because, well, duh, they are cold and you drink them. Also, nothing else here is sold cold besides cold drink, meaning that cold drinks have a monopoly on temperature! I think that is positively brilliant advertising. Cold drinks are kind of expensive here (around 20-25 rupees, or about 50 cents)so technically you don't get them that often. This is what someone told me the first time I had a sweet drop of processed American sugar. "You won't get this very often." I glugged with saucer eyes, not wanting any detail to pass me by. Who knew the next time I would get to consume 12g of sugar in one sitting?! I can't remember who told me that, but he was clearly lying, because I have had more cold drink in five weeks in India than I have had all year in the US. It seems that everytime we leave GDL, there is a sun-kissed opportunity to sit back, relax, and chug down some bubbly ambrosia.
There are several kinds of readily available cold drink in Bagar: Fanta, Miranda (knock-off Fanta for you traitors), Thums Up (Coca-cola but without a 'b'), Sprite, Limca (tastier Sprite) and Mountain Dew. Everyone has their favorites. Sahil likes orange soda, just like Kel, Pankaj prefers Thums Up, and Deepak lives and dies by Mountain Dew. I myself have never been that big of a soda drinker, but as long as we're sharing, I quite like Diet Coke. The thing is, there is no 'diet' anything in rural India, so I have worked my way through the shmorgesboard of carbonation, to come to a very, very important realization. I am a Mountain Dew kind of girl. I never thought this could happen! I don't think I've ever had Mountain Dew before coming to India (+2 for globalization), and I was appalled when the sickly, alien-colored liquid was poured out in front of me. This conclusion happened naturally, probably the most organic thing to ever happen to Mountain Dew. After Sahil-bossman pranked me, he must have felt a little bad about it, as he offered to buy me a cold drink.
"What kind do you want?" he offered gently, diplomatically listing all the flavors.
I didn't even have to think. "Mountain Dew," I replied, with an assertive nod of the head.
This has brought my relationship with Deepak to soaring new heights, as we now have something very concrete in common. Deepak really loves Mountain Dew. When he assumes his North American personality "Robert," who lives in Can-AH-duh, is married to Angelina Jolie and fathered Barack Obama, he always makes sure to describe, in detail, the amount of Mountain Dew he drinks on a daily basis. It's a lot. I don't have the heart to tell him that if he drank twelve liters of M.Dew every day, his child Obama would be toothless and his beautiful wife Angie would most likely weigh 400 pounds. I am now worried that I might return to the US sans teeth, several hundred pounds heavier, emitting an eerie green glow from my skin.
Really though, my favorite thing about Mountain Dew is the slogan, emblazoned in a hip font in lime-green across the bottom of the bottle. "Darr ke aage, Jeet hai." This roughly translates to something along the lines of "Only after fear is there victory." I keep drinking Mountain Dew in the hopes of deciphering this Foucault-esque message. Does this mean that I am scared of the Mountain Dew, but once I've drank it I will feel victorious? Or is Mountain Dew supposed to help me overcome my fears? And why do you have to be scared of something to experience victory? That sounds like awfully pigeon-holed logic, no? A quick website search led me to the explanation of Mountain Dew "inspiring consumers to look beyond their fear and take up challenges that the brand threw at them." Well. Maybe I'm just old and boring, but I'm fairly certain the only challange Mountain Dew has thrown at anyone is a complete dental rehaul.
Conquering my fear, in the name of victory.
Deepak enjoying the Dew!
Getting Stared At:
This is the most unfortunate of constant characters, infinitely more uncomfortable than the heat or lack of toilet paper. I hate getting stared at, anywhere in the world. It makes me extremely uncomfortable to realize that someone's eyes are scanning my entire face and body. There is no accurate and reliable source for the number of people out there with X-ray vision, after all. I knew coming to India that people would ogle, particularly in rural areas. I'm white, and I'm rather obviously a girl, which leads many people to the question of "What is that white girl doing here?" Evidently, the most logical way to unpack this loaded question is by staring at me until their eyeballs dry up. "Aha! I have no more tears left. She must be interning at the Piramal Foundation, doing social work. Fantastic. Now, I can look away."
This past week has been particularly difficult. Almost all of our time has been spent out in the field, sitting at a table in the middle of a busy street, where practically everyone who passes by happens to be male. And there I am, being pale, sandwiched between three Indian co-workers and handing out business cards. Some people are polite about it- a quick glance through heavy-lidded eyes, and then they move on with their lives. Other people are a little more abrasive. People stick their heads out of bus windows, rickshaw drivers slow down, motorists completely disregard the road, and everyone does not one, not two, but at least a half dozen double-takes, if they aren't already walking past with their head completely revolved at 180 degrees. People come up to the Mobile Naukri table and just stare at me, as though I was some albino crocodile or an exotic bird. I am neither, and I defiantely raise my gaze to match theirs, to say "I am human, just like you. Now look away please." Sometimes this works. Other times, people misinterpret this as an invitation: "Hey, despite your unibrow and ill-fitting pants, I think you're cute, and since I am a white girl, and correlation equals causation, I am a loose woman. Yes, please, come and stand close by me and ogle some more! Here's my number."
I try not to let it bother me. I am in a foreign country, and I knew coming in people were going to look at me. At least I'm not blonde. Harsh though, gets very upset about it. I think he doesn't want us Penn interns to think that all Indians are weird drooling stare-mongers. And I most certainly don't- the majority of people who I have had conversational interactions with have been extremely polite and friendly. I think though, that it would be a totally different experience if I were a boy. Beyonce understands this; she wrote a nice song, "If I Were a Boy." She should add a lyric that goes, "If I were a boy, I could go to semi-rural Indiaaaaaaaaaa, and people wouldn't stare at me like they were at the zooooo-OOOOO-ooo."
There are a lot of ways to make friends in foreign countries. Cups of tea, buckets of beer, shared hookahs, swapped hook-ups, shots, shots, shots, or a common interest in the elegant art of origami. You just have to stick to the cultural norm when making friends with locals, so in Bagar, most of the aforementioned possibilities are prohibited. What is allowed, is a cold drink. You might recognize a cold drink by its more Western name, soda. Cold drinks are called cold drinks here because, well, duh, they are cold and you drink them. Also, nothing else here is sold cold besides cold drink, meaning that cold drinks have a monopoly on temperature! I think that is positively brilliant advertising. Cold drinks are kind of expensive here (around 20-25 rupees, or about 50 cents)so technically you don't get them that often. This is what someone told me the first time I had a sweet drop of processed American sugar. "You won't get this very often." I glugged with saucer eyes, not wanting any detail to pass me by. Who knew the next time I would get to consume 12g of sugar in one sitting?! I can't remember who told me that, but he was clearly lying, because I have had more cold drink in five weeks in India than I have had all year in the US. It seems that everytime we leave GDL, there is a sun-kissed opportunity to sit back, relax, and chug down some bubbly ambrosia.
There are several kinds of readily available cold drink in Bagar: Fanta, Miranda (knock-off Fanta for you traitors), Thums Up (Coca-cola but without a 'b'), Sprite, Limca (tastier Sprite) and Mountain Dew. Everyone has their favorites. Sahil likes orange soda, just like Kel, Pankaj prefers Thums Up, and Deepak lives and dies by Mountain Dew. I myself have never been that big of a soda drinker, but as long as we're sharing, I quite like Diet Coke. The thing is, there is no 'diet' anything in rural India, so I have worked my way through the shmorgesboard of carbonation, to come to a very, very important realization. I am a Mountain Dew kind of girl. I never thought this could happen! I don't think I've ever had Mountain Dew before coming to India (+2 for globalization), and I was appalled when the sickly, alien-colored liquid was poured out in front of me. This conclusion happened naturally, probably the most organic thing to ever happen to Mountain Dew. After Sahil-bossman pranked me, he must have felt a little bad about it, as he offered to buy me a cold drink.
"What kind do you want?" he offered gently, diplomatically listing all the flavors.
I didn't even have to think. "Mountain Dew," I replied, with an assertive nod of the head.
This has brought my relationship with Deepak to soaring new heights, as we now have something very concrete in common. Deepak really loves Mountain Dew. When he assumes his North American personality "Robert," who lives in Can-AH-duh, is married to Angelina Jolie and fathered Barack Obama, he always makes sure to describe, in detail, the amount of Mountain Dew he drinks on a daily basis. It's a lot. I don't have the heart to tell him that if he drank twelve liters of M.Dew every day, his child Obama would be toothless and his beautiful wife Angie would most likely weigh 400 pounds. I am now worried that I might return to the US sans teeth, several hundred pounds heavier, emitting an eerie green glow from my skin.
Really though, my favorite thing about Mountain Dew is the slogan, emblazoned in a hip font in lime-green across the bottom of the bottle. "Darr ke aage, Jeet hai." This roughly translates to something along the lines of "Only after fear is there victory." I keep drinking Mountain Dew in the hopes of deciphering this Foucault-esque message. Does this mean that I am scared of the Mountain Dew, but once I've drank it I will feel victorious? Or is Mountain Dew supposed to help me overcome my fears? And why do you have to be scared of something to experience victory? That sounds like awfully pigeon-holed logic, no? A quick website search led me to the explanation of Mountain Dew "inspiring consumers to look beyond their fear and take up challenges that the brand threw at them." Well. Maybe I'm just old and boring, but I'm fairly certain the only challange Mountain Dew has thrown at anyone is a complete dental rehaul.
Conquering my fear, in the name of victory.
Deepak enjoying the Dew!
Getting Stared At:
This is the most unfortunate of constant characters, infinitely more uncomfortable than the heat or lack of toilet paper. I hate getting stared at, anywhere in the world. It makes me extremely uncomfortable to realize that someone's eyes are scanning my entire face and body. There is no accurate and reliable source for the number of people out there with X-ray vision, after all. I knew coming to India that people would ogle, particularly in rural areas. I'm white, and I'm rather obviously a girl, which leads many people to the question of "What is that white girl doing here?" Evidently, the most logical way to unpack this loaded question is by staring at me until their eyeballs dry up. "Aha! I have no more tears left. She must be interning at the Piramal Foundation, doing social work. Fantastic. Now, I can look away."
This past week has been particularly difficult. Almost all of our time has been spent out in the field, sitting at a table in the middle of a busy street, where practically everyone who passes by happens to be male. And there I am, being pale, sandwiched between three Indian co-workers and handing out business cards. Some people are polite about it- a quick glance through heavy-lidded eyes, and then they move on with their lives. Other people are a little more abrasive. People stick their heads out of bus windows, rickshaw drivers slow down, motorists completely disregard the road, and everyone does not one, not two, but at least a half dozen double-takes, if they aren't already walking past with their head completely revolved at 180 degrees. People come up to the Mobile Naukri table and just stare at me, as though I was some albino crocodile or an exotic bird. I am neither, and I defiantely raise my gaze to match theirs, to say "I am human, just like you. Now look away please." Sometimes this works. Other times, people misinterpret this as an invitation: "Hey, despite your unibrow and ill-fitting pants, I think you're cute, and since I am a white girl, and correlation equals causation, I am a loose woman. Yes, please, come and stand close by me and ogle some more! Here's my number."
I try not to let it bother me. I am in a foreign country, and I knew coming in people were going to look at me. At least I'm not blonde. Harsh though, gets very upset about it. I think he doesn't want us Penn interns to think that all Indians are weird drooling stare-mongers. And I most certainly don't- the majority of people who I have had conversational interactions with have been extremely polite and friendly. I think though, that it would be a totally different experience if I were a boy. Beyonce understands this; she wrote a nice song, "If I Were a Boy." She should add a lyric that goes, "If I were a boy, I could go to semi-rural Indiaaaaaaaaaa, and people wouldn't stare at me like they were at the zooooo-OOOOO-ooo."
Monday, June 14, 2010
Operation Employ
We have a new plan of attack at Mobile Naukri, where our slogan also happens to be "business is war." We realized that to get people interested in The Revolution, we would have to attack. A new plan was born last week, to set up a make-shift "shop" in the middle of Jhunjhunu's busiest street. What followed was Deepak, Harsh and myself lugging around one rather large table, four plastic chairs, and several banners on a bus, a rickshaw, and under a construction zone this morning. And yes, this is sort of like live blogging, since it's the afternoon here! We were wildly successful- handed out nearly 200 cards and attracted lots of interested people. Of course, it's hard to gage their interest level in pure Mobile Naukri; an ample portion of the folks came to ogle my pale skin and ask me for a visa. My personal opinion is that if you don't know how to obtain a visa, you probably aren't ready to go to America. The important thing though, is that I took pictures:
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Jugar This!
There is a word in Hindi, one that whistles through the sand-filled rooms of GDL, pausing to admire our ghee pudding and our bedsheet television. That word, first uttered to us in the early morning of our first day in Bagar, is "jugar." Now hold up, those of you with a basic understanding of high school Spanish. This is not pronounced "hoo-gar," nor does it mean that funnest of fun verbs, "to play." No, jugar (refreshingly pronounced just as it is spelled)can't even be correctly translated from Hindi! Although, ask any Indian person for a translation of most Hindi words, and he or she will assure you that there just isn't a comprehensive English equivalent. Essentially, jugar means to come up with a creative solution for a problem through whatever means necessary, an inn-o-va-tion of des-per-a-tion, if you will. Jugar happens a lot around here in the desert, where one has to rely on wits and muscles for daily survival. For example, I really wanted to eat some pudding. There's not a lot to work with culinarily in Bagar, at least on the pudding front, which meant I had to jugar up some caramal, stir in some buffalo milk, sprinkle in some cornstarch that could only have been bought in 1952, and hope. Because a large part of jugar relies on hope, and dreams, and cotton candy- don't think you can hand staple documents together with one nail? Well, you better pray upon a unicorn that you can! Fine, but we'll never be able to watch that Bollywood biopic "Guru," without a television screen.... Just tack up that sheet with fingers crossed, it has to work!
These are all infantalizing jugars, however, compared to the jugar that was born in my head, an evil monster made out of pure adrenaline and fear. But first, allow me to lay out the scene. On Friday, Sahil, Pankaj, Deepak and I made our way to a village called Khetri, a quick two hours away. Three buses and several bruises later, we pulled up in front of Khetri's Information Technology University. We had come here on a mission to obtain the names and numbers of recent college graduates, so that we could call them and have them apply for Mobile Naukri. The college was situated on a beautiful campus: amazing views of the entire city, buildings that used to belong to the former King of Khetri (indeed the King's palace was right next to the university). We gave our whole presentation, and luckily for us, the headmaster was a very kind man who took to the idea of Mobile Naukri, presented us with some chai and a promise for a list of names and numbers. It's always nice to see someone so motivated by Mobile Naukri, particularly because we are still in the pilot phase of the project. The headmaster also informed us of a neighboring pharmaceutical college, about a ten minute bus ride over, that could also be interested in Mobile Naukri. After a lunch that quickly dissolved into a manical roti-eating competition between Pankaj and I (representin' the ladies, I won, sort of) we jumped back in a bus and ten minutes later found ourselves in another village.
We stopped and asked for directions from a food vendor, and began the two kilometer walk to the pharmaceutical college. I was trailing behind the three boys, entirely focused on the food baby festering in my stomach from lunch. When I looked up, Sahil was staring at me, a look of eerily calm panic sketched on his face. His back pocket was empty.
"Hey... I think I lost my wallet. Yeah, I definitely left my wallet on the bus," he deadpanned.
"I refuse to believe that," I said. I turned to Deepak and Pankaj. "Do you guys have it?"
No one had the wallet.
"Sahil," I said, turning back to my boss, supposedly in charge of my well-being, "you have got to be kidding me. You have your wallet don't you?"
"No!" he replied, still not hysterical enough, in my opinion. "This is really bad. I had a lot of money in there. I don't know how we're going to get back."
"EXCUSE ME," I shrilled. "We are stranded in the middle of Rajasthan, two hours from home, and no one has a single rupee on them?!" I myself, was a bit delusional from twelve too many rotis. Stay calm, I cautioned myself, do not panic.
"Don't panic," Sahil said. He turned to Deepak and Pankaj and said something in Hindi. "Listen, Sarah, you won't have to do this... if you don't want to.... but I think we might have to beg for money."
Appreciate the absurdity of this possible situation. A gaggle of well-dressed advertisers, half of us American (one of very obviously so), walking around a not so wealthy neighborhood in rural India, with outstreched palms asking villagers for 100 rupees. No, I couldn't let that happen.
"I mean, we could get someone to come here and pick us up," Sahil offered.
"Oh, right," I dismissed. "So we will just wait here in 115 degree weather, with no money to even sit in a restaurant and have a cold drink? No one is going to want to come pick us up, remember that bus ride?" (It was a rather terrifying bus ride).
The situation was obviously dire. Sahil and Pankaj and Deepak all had calmly scared looks on their faces, but no one seemed to be doing any serious thinking. Perhaps they are in shock, I thought. I would be if I just lost a wallet on an untraceable bus in rural India. No, this was the kind of snaggle in which one must channel all energy into jugaring an escape plan. How could we get that money? I looked down at what I was wearing. No jewelry of any kind, plastic flip-flops that aren't even worth one rupee, and a scarf that, despite just being washed, smelled like foot. Obviously nothing else could be taken off and sold; I couldn't display my dancing skills; and under no possible circumstance was I going to start an escorting career in India. There must be some loophole, something that we could do, something that I could do, to get us out of this village. Suddenly, like a winged pegasus, the jugarest of jugar ideas flew into my head, descendent from the gods of invention.
"I have an idea," I said, turning to Pankaj. "Let's charge people ten rupees to take a picture with the foreigner. Tax free."
Pankaj errupted in choking laughter. Doubled over and pointing at me, he managed to sputter out, "Wah! Wah! Ten rupees!"
To clarify, while desperate, I thought that I had logically come to this conclusion. There was only so much I could legally offer, and people were always staring at me anyway, so why not encourage them to take a picture with a ghost? As Pankaj ran off to tell Deepak and Sahil, I couldn't help but feel a bit stupid. Maybe ten rupees wasn't enough. Should I have suggested twenty? As I worked through my feelings, I heard Pankaj ask Sahil for ten rupees. I looked up to see Sahil grinning like an evil cat, brandishing his wallet.
"Just kidding!"
I was silent. I had more or less propositioned myself for fear of being stranded in this village for the rest of my life.
"Did you... Why... I'm just really.......OK, did you just prank me to see what was the jugarest idea I could come up with?" I said, rather crestfallen.
"No-o-ooo..." they all said, rather unconvincingly. They conversed in Hindi for a bit, and then Sahil said, "but we do think you are the master of jugar. Way to really take one for the team, Sarah!"
I contemplated what had just happened. I chuckled, because this is what good-natured people are supposed to do in these situations. Inside my head, though, a new plot was being created, an elaborate prank that would require more jugar than I had ever used before. It would have to be crafty and sly, but not mean-spirited, funny but not dangerous, and Sahil was still technically my boss, so it couldn't be too crazy in general. I still haven't come up with anything yet, so I turn to you, reader. Have you any suggestions for the Greatest Jugar Joke Ever Played on the Mobile Naukri Marketing Team Minus Me? Any tidbit would be much appreciated. My jugar title is at stake!
Namaste,
Sarah
These are all infantalizing jugars, however, compared to the jugar that was born in my head, an evil monster made out of pure adrenaline and fear. But first, allow me to lay out the scene. On Friday, Sahil, Pankaj, Deepak and I made our way to a village called Khetri, a quick two hours away. Three buses and several bruises later, we pulled up in front of Khetri's Information Technology University. We had come here on a mission to obtain the names and numbers of recent college graduates, so that we could call them and have them apply for Mobile Naukri. The college was situated on a beautiful campus: amazing views of the entire city, buildings that used to belong to the former King of Khetri (indeed the King's palace was right next to the university). We gave our whole presentation, and luckily for us, the headmaster was a very kind man who took to the idea of Mobile Naukri, presented us with some chai and a promise for a list of names and numbers. It's always nice to see someone so motivated by Mobile Naukri, particularly because we are still in the pilot phase of the project. The headmaster also informed us of a neighboring pharmaceutical college, about a ten minute bus ride over, that could also be interested in Mobile Naukri. After a lunch that quickly dissolved into a manical roti-eating competition between Pankaj and I (representin' the ladies, I won, sort of) we jumped back in a bus and ten minutes later found ourselves in another village.
We stopped and asked for directions from a food vendor, and began the two kilometer walk to the pharmaceutical college. I was trailing behind the three boys, entirely focused on the food baby festering in my stomach from lunch. When I looked up, Sahil was staring at me, a look of eerily calm panic sketched on his face. His back pocket was empty.
"Hey... I think I lost my wallet. Yeah, I definitely left my wallet on the bus," he deadpanned.
"I refuse to believe that," I said. I turned to Deepak and Pankaj. "Do you guys have it?"
No one had the wallet.
"Sahil," I said, turning back to my boss, supposedly in charge of my well-being, "you have got to be kidding me. You have your wallet don't you?"
"No!" he replied, still not hysterical enough, in my opinion. "This is really bad. I had a lot of money in there. I don't know how we're going to get back."
"EXCUSE ME," I shrilled. "We are stranded in the middle of Rajasthan, two hours from home, and no one has a single rupee on them?!" I myself, was a bit delusional from twelve too many rotis. Stay calm, I cautioned myself, do not panic.
"Don't panic," Sahil said. He turned to Deepak and Pankaj and said something in Hindi. "Listen, Sarah, you won't have to do this... if you don't want to.... but I think we might have to beg for money."
Appreciate the absurdity of this possible situation. A gaggle of well-dressed advertisers, half of us American (one of very obviously so), walking around a not so wealthy neighborhood in rural India, with outstreched palms asking villagers for 100 rupees. No, I couldn't let that happen.
"I mean, we could get someone to come here and pick us up," Sahil offered.
"Oh, right," I dismissed. "So we will just wait here in 115 degree weather, with no money to even sit in a restaurant and have a cold drink? No one is going to want to come pick us up, remember that bus ride?" (It was a rather terrifying bus ride).
The situation was obviously dire. Sahil and Pankaj and Deepak all had calmly scared looks on their faces, but no one seemed to be doing any serious thinking. Perhaps they are in shock, I thought. I would be if I just lost a wallet on an untraceable bus in rural India. No, this was the kind of snaggle in which one must channel all energy into jugaring an escape plan. How could we get that money? I looked down at what I was wearing. No jewelry of any kind, plastic flip-flops that aren't even worth one rupee, and a scarf that, despite just being washed, smelled like foot. Obviously nothing else could be taken off and sold; I couldn't display my dancing skills; and under no possible circumstance was I going to start an escorting career in India. There must be some loophole, something that we could do, something that I could do, to get us out of this village. Suddenly, like a winged pegasus, the jugarest of jugar ideas flew into my head, descendent from the gods of invention.
"I have an idea," I said, turning to Pankaj. "Let's charge people ten rupees to take a picture with the foreigner. Tax free."
Pankaj errupted in choking laughter. Doubled over and pointing at me, he managed to sputter out, "Wah! Wah! Ten rupees!"
To clarify, while desperate, I thought that I had logically come to this conclusion. There was only so much I could legally offer, and people were always staring at me anyway, so why not encourage them to take a picture with a ghost? As Pankaj ran off to tell Deepak and Sahil, I couldn't help but feel a bit stupid. Maybe ten rupees wasn't enough. Should I have suggested twenty? As I worked through my feelings, I heard Pankaj ask Sahil for ten rupees. I looked up to see Sahil grinning like an evil cat, brandishing his wallet.
"Just kidding!"
I was silent. I had more or less propositioned myself for fear of being stranded in this village for the rest of my life.
"Did you... Why... I'm just really.......OK, did you just prank me to see what was the jugarest idea I could come up with?" I said, rather crestfallen.
"No-o-ooo..." they all said, rather unconvincingly. They conversed in Hindi for a bit, and then Sahil said, "but we do think you are the master of jugar. Way to really take one for the team, Sarah!"
I contemplated what had just happened. I chuckled, because this is what good-natured people are supposed to do in these situations. Inside my head, though, a new plot was being created, an elaborate prank that would require more jugar than I had ever used before. It would have to be crafty and sly, but not mean-spirited, funny but not dangerous, and Sahil was still technically my boss, so it couldn't be too crazy in general. I still haven't come up with anything yet, so I turn to you, reader. Have you any suggestions for the Greatest Jugar Joke Ever Played on the Mobile Naukri Marketing Team Minus Me? Any tidbit would be much appreciated. My jugar title is at stake!
Namaste,
Sarah
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