...I peed on my pant leg. You'd think by now I'd be good enough at squatting to make sure something like that doesn't happen. Nay. Not only is it extremely hard to see where you're aiming, it's tiresome as hell to squat there. You just tend to get lazy, and then something like this happens. Of course by the time you realize what's happening, it's been going on for a couple seconds and there's more on the way. Disaster. Urination ruination. And this is definitely a weekly occurence. To top it off, I'm completely inflexible. There's a short threshold of time between when the squat begins and the searing pain in the knees starts. I'll put it at three and a half minutes. If you're not done by then, good luck standing up or walking around afterwards.
Yesterday while squatting, a mosquito made a charge for me. Now you must understand my predicament at that very moment. While squatting, I rest one arm on the wall to balance myself (without this brace, the pain threshold I spoke of earlier would surely be reduced to under 2 minutes). Typically, I have one hand free. I swat with it. The mosquito dives under me and I can't locate it. Blind swatting commences. I try to do the one hand smack but I fail. I need both hands to slap together to kill the slow-moving invader. I remove the hand from the wall and start to tilt to the side like a pendulum. I give up. I guess mosquito bites on my ass are a fact of India that I must accept.
Yesterday while squatting, a great idea came to me. I must make a contraption to ease this laborious, twice-daily (at least) activity. This was not a new idea- I'd thought of it before- but this time I was really motivated. I have bungee cords, I thought, and, strung together then looped around a short cylindrical baton-like object, I could make an ad hoc rowing machine handle. And then I imagined it... slightly reclined, both hands on the rower, comfortably angled, all the weight off my knees, a big smile on my face. The threshold would surely be upped to 6+ minutes. Hmm... perhaps I could just cut a hole in a plastic stool.
Yesterday while squatting, I realized that I was at the end of my last roll of TP. It's a terrible feeling. Fortunately, I'd be fine for this trip. But it meant going to the local grocery store the next day to get a new pack. And that entailed people in line asking me what the TP was for. To clean my table I always reply. It earns me a shrug or two. Ah India.
PS: Off to Mumbai and Kerala this Friday, so blog radio silence shall be initiated for a couple weeks. I'll return on April Fools. For now, I leave you with some cute pics of the locals (pic on the right=the original sad puppy face):
50 kilometers north of Saharsa, Bihar, after 2 hours on a rocky, bumpy, 1-way, and mostly unpaved road, I came upon a small village of 250 or so that looked a little like something out of Braveheart. Here's what I saw:
bamboo, stick, and mud huts, some listing far to the left or right, and topped with thatch roofs
lopsided stick fences
big bushels of hay
tied-up cows
goats, sheep, chickens running around
a man on a plow pulled by 2 cows, tilling a field
naked children
It was set on a lush, green backdrop. Fields upon fields of grasses and lettuce, yellow mustard seed and large oak trees. A deep green as far as the eye could see.
I had heard about "the village" in India, but this was my first time. Bihar is the poorest state in India, and I was in the thick of the rural part. I have been telling people that India is completely different from anything I've ever seen. This just reinforced it.
After 2 and a half hours in the village, I learned the following:
1. People seemed to stare less. I discovered this, to my great pleasure. It is the opposite of what I thought logic would dictate -- that the village people, having probably seen less foreigners in their lives, would stare more. But I think, rather, that the village people, caring less about me and more about their daily labors and feeding the 4 or 5 or 6 mouths in their household, are simply not interested.
2. Even with no visible electricity, modern technology, or mass communication system, cricket reigned supreme. It is unstoppable, border-permeating, that crazy game.
3. Just as in America, people like to dress up their animals. At least 75% of the cows wore homemade sweaters. Now, these were no Beverly Hills chihuahuas, but they still wore it well, from basic rags to form-fitting checkered patterns.
4. Although they look cool, climbing bamboo/stick ladders is not for the faint of heart. With every step, the rungs bend under your weight, leading you to believe your next step will be your last. But, the ladders always seem to hold it together. Plus one point to village carpenters.
Interspersed between the mud and stick huts were the big, colorful bamboo and concrete houses that our artisans had helped the villagers build to replace houses destroyed after the Aug '08 floods. They displayed the houses and the contents inside with pride.
Naked babies ran around, and the incessant noises of goats and cows could be heard throughout.
I had discovered that, eight hours outside of the metropolitan capital Patna, this entirely different world of mud huts and bamboo ladders existed, seemingly centuries behind in technology, living content, simple lives in tune with the fertile, yet sometimes unforgiving, land.
Fun time! Below are a few pictures. Are they from Bihar, or... Braveheart? Keep count!
Last Monday, I got a day off work to participate in the annual festival that is Holi. Every March 1st, for some inexplicable reason (there's actually a Hindu story behind it that has to do something with throwing a baby in a fire), people go out in the street and throw colors at each other. Colored powders, colored paints, colored water. Some of it wipes off easily, some of it does not.
It began the night before with a big bonfire fueled by cow dung. That was a sight and smell to remember. Then, starting at 930am the next morning we met in our neighborhood and began the battle. We were a mob of 12 or so, continually confronted by other mobs (mostly young children) tossing water balloons, armed with super soakers, and bent on making their elders (us) pay for our... elderness. Then there were the drive-bys. Roaring by on scooters and motorbikes, they tossed colored powders at us and sped off, effectively cutting off any retaliation. We all hopped in a shared auto rickshaw a few times to get to the other side of town and commence surprise attacks on my bosses. Yes, I attacked my bosses with color.
After four to five hours of this, we settled down for a pizza lunch. 30 minutes of scrubbing in the shower afterward got most of the paint off my body, but I was left with a thick pink halo on my face that would not come off. It remains three days later as I write this post. To top it all off, my landlord, a writer for the English-language newspaper DNA, interviewed us and the article made it in yesterday's Ahmedabad paper. You can view the article here. Be prepared for a typical butchering of names, ages, and quotes by Indian journalists. Most of what is said there we didn't actually say.
My three Indian coworkers, young male architects no more than 23 years of age each, and I walked to the corner shop. Ten minutes later and with both hands filled with bread, milk, and a couple kilos of potatoes, tomatoes, and carrots, I headed back to my flat with my roommate Nikhil, whom I affectionately call "ek number" (number 1) short for "ek number padosi" (number 1 neighbor) . As I broke off from the rest of the group, Pratik, whom I call "najik-na" (close) short for "najik-na padosi" (close neighbor), beckoned for me to go the other way, towards his house. I protested, I had two full hands and I had to drop the stuff off. Just for a few moments, he said, sit here with me on this wall. I relented. The four of us plopped down on the dusty brick wall but a few feet high, on the bridge over the dry riverbed. The river hadn't run there for years. As I set the bags down, Pratik began to speak. I once spent 3 days on this wall, he said.
On January 26, 2001, a devastating 7.9 magnitude earthquake struck the Kutch region of Western Gujarat, with the epicentre 20 km from Bhuj. To get an idea of the extent of the death and destruction, here is an excerpt from the Wikipedia article on the earthquake:
Because of its size and location, the quake was very destructive in terms of lives lost and damage to property. As many as 26,000 people were reported dead, and 167,000 injured. All the deaths occurred in India's western state of Gujarat, near the Pakistan border. Bhuj, situated only 20 kilometres (14 miles) from the epicentre, was the most devastated town. Overall, over a million structures were damaged or destroyed, including many historic buildings and tourist attractions.
The quake destroyed around 90% of the homes in Bhuj, eight schools, and flattened two hospitals. It partly destroyed the historic Swaminarayan temple in the city. Considerable damage also occurred in Bhachau. It also destroyed 4 km of road in Bhuj. In Ahmedabad, Gujarat's commercial capital and a city of 4.6 million population, as many as 50 multi storied buildings collapsed and several hundred people were killed. Total property damage was estimated at $5.5 billion and rising. The quake destroyed 75% of Kutch District, and over 80% of usable food and water supplies. This left Bhuj devastated.
Of all my coworkers and friends in Bhuj, Pratik has lived here the longest, indeed his whole life he has lived in the house just a 2 minute walk from my flat. And on January 26, 2001 at the age of 14, he was living there. His house completely demolished, he told me he spent the 3 days following the quake just sitting on that same wall we were sitting on. Hours and hours, throughout the day, just hanging out on the wall. Occasionally he would walk the hundred feet or so back to his house to help with clean up and to fish out personal objects from the rubble. After three days, his family flew to Mumbai where they moved in with his relatives for the following six months. His father would return periodically to Bhuj to oversee the reconstruction of the house.
I too lived through an earthquake, I impulsively related to him. In 1994, the Northridge quake. I was 9. It was a 6.7. It was a big deal. I think even, maybe, 40 or 50 people died or something, I said. The Wikipedia article for this quake starts like this:
The Northridge earthquake occurred on January 17, 1994 at 4:31 AM Pacific Standard Time in Reseda, a neighborhood in the city of Los Angeles, California, lasting for about 20 seconds.The earthquake had a "strong" moment magnitude of 6.7, but the ground acceleration was one of the highest ever instrumentally recorded in an urban area in North America. Seventy-two deaths were attributed to the earthquake, with over 9,000 injured. In addition, the earthquake caused an estimated $20 billion in damage, making it one of the costliest natural disasters in U.S. history.
The hype I had had from this rare, shared experience was short lived as I realized there were probably some major differences between his quake and mine. If I had known the details from the Wiki articles, perhaps I could have related that we had lived more or less the same distance from the epicenter, or that the quakes took place about one week apart, seven years from each other. But, the rest would have been far off. His death toll was almost 360 times greater than mine, the injuries about 17 times more. Was 80% of LA destroyed? I think not. Were over 1 million structures destroyed in LA? Maybe a few dozen houses, and a building or two. And was I left to stand outside my destroyed home for days after, picking up the pieces? The only image of destruction that comes back to me from that day 15 years ago was our backyard brick wall that had collapsed onto a massive 5-foot tall plant known as the "ball-eating bush". For years prior that bush had gorged itself on tennis balls hit awry, foul-tipped baseballs, and other badminton birdies, footballs, and soccer balls that had taken unfortunate, wrong turns. I was actually happy the bush was dead. But Pratik's quake was no cause for any celebration.
Since then, Bhuj has incredibly rebuilt itself. Tons of money was poured into reconstruction and redevelopment. "New Bhuj" boasts almost track-style housing, and "VIP" sections with paved roads and sturdy looking buildings. Old Bhuj is still around too; it's a a colorful, windy mess of narrow crumbling old brick, packed with stalls selling all kinds of wares, and houses too in the mix, complete with women washing clothes and making puja in every window you pass by. To wander and get lost in that maze and arrive suddenly upon a little shack, overflowing with hand-spun Kutchi shawls, manned by a weathered, leathery-faced Kutchi man with one shiny white tooth, is a wonderful experience to have. I'm fortunate to have experienced it.
My NGO grew out of the Kutch earthquake. It was established 2 years later in order to teach locals about sustainable and innovative building technologies which they might use in eco-friendly, disaster-proof fashions. It teaches them to use the local resources found abundantly - mud and bamboo especially - to build their own structurally sound houses. While building codes in LA existed years before the quake and helped to limit the damage, Bhuj had nothing of the sort. Today, my NGO works to correct this problem. And not just in Bhuj itself, but in the Kutchi desert dozens of kilometers outside. We build huts and bungas made of adobe and mud brick, reinforced with some cement and bamboo skeletons. And these construction practies and techniques are all done in a sustainable way: they are taught to the local artisans, who then in turn build their own houses and villages, maintain them over time, and teach the same to their family members and others in the community.
Of course, with no architectural background, I don't actually do this work. But I support my bosses and coworkers who do. I get to travel to the sites, interact with the people, and watch it get done. From our offices in Bhuj, I manage the budgets and contracts of the projects, help record timesheets, organize surveys on waste management, water usage, household work, and display their results in visually meaningful ways. Just last week, I was fortunate to lead a workshop about our technologies for 80 5th graders on a field trip from Mumbai. As an unpaid volunteer two and a half years out of undergrad, I do what I can with my limited knowledge and ever-emerging skill set.
So, the next time you see another "earthquake in Pakistan" on the 10pm local news, and the countless dead, injured, and displaced, I hope that for my readers it is more than just afterthoughts that accompany the aftershocks.
Over the past 4 months, I have been privy to dialogues which have been both funny and extremely telling. You will find the top ten quotes from some of the best conversations below, organized more or less chronologically.
"Don't drink village water, unless you're really thirsty"
-Ashokbhai, to us during a lecture on keeping healthy in India. Since tap water in India is universally unsafe to drink, this man (who curiously had no professional medical background) came to our orientation to give us this advice. Needless to say, other advice received that day was also extremely questionable at times. This is a great example of Indian medicinal practices, where I have received such advice as, "squeeze a pealed onion between your palms so as to receive the healing energies inside" as a cure for what was obviously food poisoning.
"You may not do that on Tuesdays"
-Rameshbhai, director of the Kochrab Ashram, to Gabe who was caught cutting his toe nails on the wrong day of the week. Very religious Hindus believe that Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays are holy days of the week where one shall not cut toe nails, cut hair, or do other similar acts of body defacement. On one occasion last month I was told by two of my coworkers that I could not get a haircut because it was a Thursday.
"Your nose is leaking"
-Nikhil, my coworker, commenting on my runny nose. A prime example of the difference in Indian English and American English. Some other great examples are: "my grinder is paining" (my jaw hurts), "the bike seat hurts my center point" (crotch), and, in a very straightforward voice, "how are your loose motions today" (are you having diarrhea?).
"It is not as fertile as your Jewish brain"
-Sankalpbhai, a coworker, uttered during a car ride through rural Bihar after I mentioned that the countryside was "very fertile looking". Although many Indians I know have never met a Jew and don't know what Judaism is, the few that do have given me some memorable lines. Others included: (to a group of Indians while I stood by) "Andrew's father works in big business in the US. [Turning to me] That is what all Jews in your country do, I am correct?", and, upon commenting on a lack of economics knowledge, "You are Jew. You don't need to learn finances!"
"You MUST stand"
-unnamed theatre usher, upon my attempt to exit a movie theatre in Ahmedabad while the Indian National Anthem was playing. When the Indian National Anthem is played anywhere, it is a serious affair and all Indians "must" stand and sing along. Even as a foreigner I was scolded for not standing when it was playing. Since most Indians identify themselves almost uniformly along state or ethnic/linguistic lines, this represented a strong dose of rarely seen national patriotism.
"The time for brown bread has finished"
-corner store owner, upon my inquiry as to the availability of the item. Attempts to eat healthily in India are sometimes difficult, and my adventures to find more familiar products (i.e. brown bread) sometimes meet with failure. However, occasional exotic foods appear in the local grocery store and these events are cause for celebration. Last week I found a crumpled box of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese and Oreo Cookies and I definitely shelled out 3 times the normal American price for them.
"You give me America visa"
-unnamed teenage Indian on the street, upon discovering I was American. After a dinner at a roadside Punjabi stand, a group of curious Indian teenagers demanded that I give them an American visa. Unfortunately, I couldn't help them. Many Indians I have met have family or friends in the US. Others yearn to immigrate to other countries for a better life, especially the USA. This behavior is not extremely common however, and is mostly influenced by Hollywood films.
"Have you ever stopped to think that perhaps it is YOU who is in her way"
-Pratik, my Indian coworker, to my friend Jamie after she said she hated cows because "they are always in my way". The cow reigns supreme in India, has the highest degree of right-of-way on the street, and come and go (and poop) wherever and whenever they please. You will be absolutely unable to find any beef anywhere in India. If you hit a cow while driving a scooter/motorcycle/car/etc. you should resign yourself to the fact that your life is basically over.
"Tell your friend that in this country we do not throw socks down the toilet"
-Mr. M, my landlord, to my friend Gabe referring to me and my clogged toilet. Doing laundry is a bitch here, and no washing or drying machines means everything is done by hand in buckets. After washing clothes, the extra dirty, often clouded water gets thrown down the toilet. When my toilet suddenly backed up one day, a plumber found what I translated into a "shoe" in the piping. Completely surprised, we wondered how such an object had ended up in the toilet piping, but after remembering that I was indeed in India, no answer was really necessary. Later on, after the conversation above happened, Gabe confirmed to me that rather it was a "sock" and I quickly realized where the missing twin to my single pair had gone.
"You must not treat your stomach as a dumping ground"
-Mr. M, my landlord, after running into me on the street, and seeing that I had purchased bread. Indians have curious ideas about what is and isn't healthy to eat. To my landlord, the processed bread was polluting my stomach, turning it into a "landfill", because it wasn't hand cooked, fresh chapaati (flat bread). A little bit of Indian hypocrisy for you, I am not sure if he had any idea what the gallons and gallons of oil he consumed every day in his Indian meals did to his body!
As my first 100 days in India pass, I must look back and comment on the milestone. What better way than to compare to Mr. President himself, Barack Obama. Who's first 100 were more productive? You can be the judge of that:
Me and random rickshaw driver, daily conversation:
(in Gujarati) Ah! Gujarati avre che! You know Gujarati!
(in Gujarati) Hun gujarati sicku chu. I am learning Gujarati.
(in Hindi) Aap hindi bolta hai? Do you speak Hindi?
(in Gujarati) Naye, gujarati matra. No, Gujarati only.
(in Hindi) Angrezi bolta hai? Do you speak English?
(in Gujarati) Angrezi ha, Hindi na-thi. English yes, Hindi no.
(in Gujarati) Ah, kutchi sicke cho? You are learning Kutchi?
(in Gujarati) Naye, naye, naye, kutchi na-thi! No, not Kutchi.
(in Gujarati) Kem na-thi? Why not?
(in Gujarati - but the same in Hindi) Bahut basha! Too many languages!
And so the language dance begins.
In Bhuj, a town, the vasy majority of people speak Gujarati, though can understand and usually speak Hindi as well. Go 3 kilometers outside the city and you enter the desert that is Kutch. The residents in the desert speak the local dialect, Kutchi. But, a majority also speak Gujarati, though it's typically their second language. Good luck if you can find a Hindi speaker. Go way out into the desert and you will approach a little village on the edge of the vast expanse known as the Rann of Kutch, 40km shy of Pakistan. There, all our meetings are in Kutchi only; 1 of my coworkers speaks, the other 2 maybe catch broken words here and there, and me, well, I would need 2 interpreters.
At the office in Bhuj, the "design room" staff speak English, Gujarati, and Hindi. The "admin room" staff speak Gujarati, Hindi, and Kutchi. One of my coworkers from West Bengal, speaks Hindi, Bengali, and English. I walk in, blurt out a phrase or two in Gujarati, and get a blank stare from her. Even though she works in Gujarat, she does not speak Gujarati and I must switch over to Hindi. What fun.
In Ahmedabad and Baroda, large cities in Gujarat, fellows in my program have Hindi tutors, not Gujarati. Although the cities are in Gujarat, on the street they are spoken to in Hindi. If you listen in, conversations might might be going either way, Gujarati or Hindi.
In Valsad, a small regional capital at the southern edge of Gujarat, the population speaks Gujarati and probably a little Hindi. Go 30 minutes outside to Dharampur, a town of 20,000 and you will find mostly Gujarati speakers. Another fellow in my program lives yet a few more kilometers outside Dharampur in rural Valsad province. Often she travels to small villages for community health workshops where the tribal groups attending speak only their tribal language, or possibly, Marathi, the local dialect of Maharashtra (the next state to the south). So, translation goes from tribal dialect or Marathi to Gujarati to English (occasionally).
In Bihar, the locals speak a slang of Hindi known as Bihari Hindi (whose roots are not actually in Hindi) though the official languages are Hindi and Urdu (national language of Pakistan and almost identical to spoken Hindi). My very basic Hindi should get me by. I attempt to speak the few words but inevitably Gujarati ones get thrown in the mix. They have no idea what I'm talking about. Fortunately I work with Gujaratis there and am relieved when I get an affirmative answer to my question "thame Gujarati bole cho?" (Do you speak Gujarati?). So between us, it's Gujarati (which, remember, I only understand 25-30% of still), between them and the Biharis its Hindi or Bihari Hindi then back to me in Gujarati (in the towns), and between them and the Biharis (in the villages) it's Hindi to Bihari Hindi through an interpreter, back to them in Hindi then to me in Gujarati (or if I'm lucky, English).
At a recent high-level meeting in Ahmedabad with the heads of some major NGOs in Gujarat, I expected the meeting to be all in Hindi, even though we are in Gujarat. Woe to me for having to take the minutes! But, to my surprise, the entire meeting was in English. At first I felt bad, were all 15 of them speaking English just for me? I quickly realized it wasn't so. At the highest levels of Indian society, English is the unifying language, not Hindi, not Gujarati. THey came from Delhi, Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Bhuj. Half knew Gujarati, most probably knew Hindi, but all spoke English.
When I travel with my friend Gabe in Gujarat, I speak Gujarati, he speaks Hindi. People laugh, smile, are astounded by the sight of these two white people, traveling together, one speaking Gujarati, the other Hindi. And from time to time we ask each other about the other's dialect, curious foreigners we are. Outside of Gujarat, I try to get by on my limited Hindi.
(Depiction of my internal division over language. Drawn with the ever classic MS Paint.)
Back in the guesthouse in rural Bihar, I tell my coworkers "no more Gujarati! I must learn Hindi." I've decided that Hindi is more useful, being spoken by more people across India (the government of India however admits that less than 50% of Indians speak Hindi). Some of my Gujarati coworkers argued with me, saying Gujarati was only needed, while some welcomed my suggestion. Within 2 days of returning to Bhuj, however, of course I had switched my mind. Back to Gujarati, the language of the street, the one that the sabjiwallas and samosawallas shout to me, the one my coworkers converse in, the one I'm getting better at day after day, the one that hurts my head less to think about, and the one, unfortunately, only useful in Gujarat.
In addition to the most well known -- eating (masala, or spice, rules everything), working (6-day, 10am-7pm work weeks), valuing (family comes first, well before work), drinking (thrice daily chai is probably equivalent to your unhealthy coffee obsession), wiping (left hand), and praying (a few thousand Hindu gods = daily religious festivals) -- it's time to tell you the stuff about India you might not know so well. Enjoy:
Thanking. Although there exists a couple words for "thank you", say the words themselves and you might get scolded! Instead, the way you address a fellow Indian -- using the term bhai (brother), ben (sister), or ji after their name -- has a built in connotation of respect. So, don't go blurting thanks to everyone you see, in fact, I have been adamantly questioned why?? for doing so a few times. Too thankful perhaps?
Sharing. Picture: Indian cooks food at house the morning of (Indians do not do leftovers). Indian brings food to office in tiffin (lunchbox). Lunchtime comes. All sit around table. All take out tiffin. All tiffins passed around throughout lunch. No one asks to "pass the tiffin". You just grab, without asking. It is built in, understood, that everything there is everyone's. You may know that your aloo mutter is much better than Vijay's chana, but it doesn't matter. It's all shared. Bringing fruit to snack on at work means buying 3 oranges everyday because by the time I get 1 orange's worth of orange, 3 have been split up between my other coworkers. Orange you glad you knew that?? Ok, lame I know.
Touching. Men and women do not touch in public. Taboo central. This is a big deal. In many institutions there is major separation between men and women too. But, this does not stop men from touching each other! Walk down the street on a normal day and you'll see men with arms around each other, holding hands. This is even more common than women holding hands, but you see that as well. Note: I've heard of secret parks at night that couples can go to... even saw one myself in Baroda! Interesting.
Wondering. I am in my room, reading on my bed. It's a warm, lazy Sunday morning. All my windows are open and the breeze is coming in. Then suddenly I look to my left and there is an Indian face outside my window looking in at me! Ah I scream! This is all too common. Indians are possibly the most curious people in the world. They will stop and stare, and stare, and stare. Have an open window or door to your house? Might as well ask someone to come by and stare at you through it! There is absolutely no privacy in this country. And if you walk down the street get ready for the questioning. "What is your country?" will be asked, without exception, about every 3rd person or so. Occasionally you might get, "what is this country?", "what is country?", and simply, "what is this?". But it's always the same question, always every 3rd person, without exception. Although my country was originally America, it has been known to change to Australia, New Zealand, or UK from time to time. Once I said it was India. That threw them off.
Passing (gas). I won't lie, I saved the best for last. India is a great place. Pick your nose, fart, belch, all at your own leisure, in public, because everyone else does. And these aren't soft, under-the-breath burps too. They're earth-shattering. And I'm not just talking men. The first time I heard the 60-yr old woman who makes chai at the office let one rip, I had to struggle to hold in the laughter. It just didn't seem right. But now, it has been embraced. It's kind of like a paradise of sorts, actually. No shame or embarassment. You just do what you gotta do, it's only normal. I think everyone can appreciate that.
On a recent trip for work, I traveled 48 hours direct on my first train in India, the Kamakhya Express, from Ahmedabad (Gujarat) to Khagaria (Bihar) – see map below. Of the many crazy and ultimately rewarding experiences I had during those 2 full days, I have chosen 4 below. They should give you a good variety of the Indian experience:
Roaches on a Train: As I settled down for night 1 of 2 on my very first Indian train, hour 2 saw three baby roaches emerge from berth #8 (originally 33, I bounced to 49, 4, then 8 in a bout of pre-departure trades). Not to fear, my trusty REI headlamp was crucial in this situation. With both hands free, and a perfectly placed face towel provided by none other than the NorthEastern Railway of India, two were squashed and the third pincered down a hole in the corner, never to return. I slept semi-soundly that night, dreaming, of course, of snakes and Samuel L. Jackson.
A big, drunk Indian in a camo jacket: Hour 12 arrived and I was rudely awakened and ushered back to berth 4 where a burly Bihari awaited me. He gave a 5-minute epilogue in grunts and slurs about 2 feet from my face, and I made out “BSF”, Border Security Forces, at one point. So, he was a big, dumb, drunk soldier. India’s border security entrusted to him. Then he started slapping my knee. No touching! An hour or so later, he shut up and attempted to get into his berth. Now that was entertaining. Watching a full grown, drunk man falling down over and over like a big baby is class-A funny. It took him about 10 minutes, and then there was a beautiful, long drunken slumber complete with snoring and farting. Right above me. The knee slapping ended right then and there.
7 Teachers and a Game of Charades: Ah how nice it was to move from 4 back to my original 33 and a berth full of 7 English speaking teachers from A’bad en route to Varnassi. We stayed together for hours 15-24. Hindi was practiced. Food was fed to me. Charades was played for hours. Of course, all the things one should do on a train were done. I had a new train family. It was a good train life. That night I dreamt of Railroad Tycoon.
The Zipperwalla: on hour 35 or somewhere around there, long after my train family had abandoned me (just as fast as they had adopted), and as I shared a lonely 6-berth compartment with a man to be described only as “kaka,” a fellow dangling hundreds of zippers jingled by us. Hmm. That was a little odd. 15 minutes later he passed again, and kaka shouted for him. I spent the next 5 minutes observing what can only be described as the ingenuity that is India. This man was the zipperwalla. His whole livelihood was based on fixing people’s luggage, jackets, anything with zippers. He expertly detached the broken zipper from kaka's luggage with a razor’s edge, threaded a needle through the side of the zipper, attached a new zipper from his keyring of hundreds, and sewed it all back up again. Flawlessly. No sign that anything was ever broken. And he did it in 5 minutes flat. 2 zippers. The cost? 20 rupees he asked, and kaka bargained down to 15. That’s 30 cents. 5 minutes earlier kaka and I had been sitting back, reading our books, as the train raced ahead, countryside whirring by, stretched out on our own lower berths, and now, I was astounded once more, by the sheer simplicity of the job that this man had, and the skill at which he performed it. By the thought of how a peddler like this would never exist in the states, how I would, without hesitation, discard a jacket with a broken zipper before thinking twice about having it repaired. And I have seen this before. In El Salvador, Guatemala, Morocco, and Ethiopia. Where strong economy may be lacking, where wealth is not so easily obtained, the informal sector flourishes, on the train platform, the street corner, the village dirt road. My 48 hours on the Kamakhya can be summed up by this one zipperwalla and the thought process he kickstarted in my head. Wherever you go in India, on trains, in big cities, in rural villages, you find the zipperwalla, or the shoewalla, keywalla, cyclewalla (to fix your bike – not to be consulted if your bike gets a flat tire though; that would be for the puncturewalla), the metalwalla, leatherwalla, and so on.
I wished I had had a broken zipper at that very moment.
And thus, in one set of clothes, 48 hours was spent, 2002 kilometers covered, 5 states spanned, 8 cups of chai consumed, 40 degrees in temperature lowered from start to finish, and an adventure sown. And in four days, it will all happen again.
He keeled over. Onto the bench. 5 feet to my left. Some Indians next to him helped. Others glanced to the left. Continued walking. Yell from behind stops me. Let's wait a minute and see. Maybe we can help out.
Step 2000 of 10000. I am panting. And sweating. Heart racing. At 24, it is hard for me. 59 years old. And a big pot belly. What was he thinking? His 3 brothers are up ahead. Can word travel that fast? Up the mountain? I don't think so. I am imagining it now. They reach the top. Proud. Pilgrimage complete. Word slowly travels from behind. Rising. 100 steps per minute. Then it arrives. Feelings of helplessness.
He moans. Ooh that's a good sign. He's alive I guess. His tongue is sticking out. They rub his feet. They smack his face a bit. They rub his chest. People are crowding now. A woman pushes to the front. On her knees. Mutters a prayer. She offers her dolly for the man. No one takes it. He wouldn't fit anyway.
I am a silent observer. On the veranda above. My compadre is not so. He moves in. What can he possibly do? Wilderness training, he say. CPR he says. Images of dummies flash into my mind. This has got to be a joke.
His head is rolling to the side. Falling off the bench. No one seems to notice. More foot rubbing, chest rubbing. We must hold up his arm. It's heavy. Keeps rolling back. There's no more breathing now. Fingers to the neck. It's faint. On the wrist, faint. Now, nothing.
And so he starts the rescue effort. Pump pump pump. Breathe breathe breathe. And the chest rises up and up. Indian next to me opens the eyelids. Bad move, buddy. Now I have a new image in my head. The Indians bicker. Discuss what to do. We are in the background. Do their cell phones even work up here? He needs to go downwards. Way down.
20 minutes later and we are finished. It's time to relinquish. We have 8000 more steps ahead of us. We've already sat almost an hour. The sun is up high now. Let them deal with it. Reluctantly, we go. Lifelessness left behind.
6 hours later. We descend to the 2000th step. Approach the shopkeeper. Perched on the cliff side. What happened to the man before? Head tilts to the side. Tongue pokes out. Puru? Puru. We look at each other. Shit.
And so it is. Narrow mountain pass. No helicopter rescue. Hell, no helicopter. No cell. Nothing to ferry him downwards with. Feet rubbing, chest rubbing, prayers. Complete resignation. Nothing Western about it. On the 2000th step I found India, suddenly, once more. Just 1 in 1 billion I suppose.
We got in the rickshaw under the cover of darkness to hide our whiteness in its cramped confines. It was 10:30pm on New Years Eve and we didn't want any more extra attention than we already receive on a daily basis. The driver took us on a short 6 minute ride to the apartment complex. As we exited, we were acutely aware of the alcohol bottles clinking in my friend's backpack.
We were told to look out for the nightwatchman. Sure enough, there he was, sleeping on a makeshift bed right at the entrance to the building; we tiptoed by. As we climbed the steps we looked to our right to see two fat cats resting on the seats of a couple motorcycles. They eyed us suspiciously.
We once more tiptoed up the four flights to the top level and approached the non-descript door in the corner. My friend said she thought this was the place, but wasn't sure. I put my ear to to the door to attempt to make out the sounds coming from inside. We knocked softly and then she answered the door. We made it without incident.
I was told she was a "progressive" Indian. Which meant she drank alcohol, ate meat, and wore jeans. We joined a small group of Americans and Indians for a relaxing kickback. My coworker brought out juicy pieces of chicken she had discreetly acquired earlier that day in the Muslim quarter of the city. The host poured us all glasses of vodka or whiskey, produced from the deep recesses of a kitchen cupboard. We set the glasses down on the floor softly; we were told the neighbors below could hear the clinking. Someone lit up a cigarette. The walls were plastered with artsy landscape and portraits, blown up to large sizes and strung about. Five little turtles swam around in a water basin. Popular Bollywood music played in the background. We enjoyed ourselves. The time passed so easily that no one even noticed when the clock hit 12. We left soon thereafter, but not before our host handed us small wrapped candies. "Mints" she said, "to mask the smell on your breath. Oh, and watch out for police." Tiptoeing past the cats, we hesitated momentarily as the nightwatchman let out a mid-sleep grunt. The streets were eerily deserted for the 15 minute walk home. We listened uneasily to the sounds of ambulance sirens as we pondered this strange place.
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In Bhuj, alcohol sale and consumption is illegal, and most Hindus are also strictly vegetarian (no eggs either). Acquiring meat or eggs is a harrowing process fraught with back alley stores open only at night and black plastic bags to hide recently purchased goods. Letting on to your friends and coworkers that you are "non-veg" is risky itself; invitations to dinner at your place may be turned down, offers of your food for sharing denied. Neighborhoods are segregated by veg/non-veg.
I've taken enough history classes and watched enough films to know what Tehran in the 1970's and East Berlin in the 1980's was like. Our night was a little bit of both. Hiding in the rickshaw, a discreet drive to the party. Entering undetected past the nightwatchman, navigating checkpoints and informants. Procuring the illegal goods. Hiding our Western contraband and music from the neighbors. Erasing all evidence of our activities. Watching out for the gestapo.
The third night in Bhuj, Gabe and I were without fridge or stove and starving. It was midnight and the only place open was the eggwala on the corner. We sat at a small table with no light hidden behind the eggwala's cart and wolfed down 2 omelets as fast as we could, paranoid that someone we may have met in the previous 3 days might spot us. While our attitudes towards meat, eggs, and alcohol have changed completely since that first week, the town and the region have not.
I guess it just makes those rare omelets and cuba libres all the better...
My first vacation time (3 days over Xmas) yielded not only a sweet trip to climb a 10,000 step staircase up the tallest mountain in Gujarat, but also a lesson on traditional work in India, and the influences of money and class on the Indian family structure. This may sound kinda boring and all, but I will make it interesting for you. Read on, loyal blog followers:
The Village: We first stopped in a small town, Morbi, 4.5 hours outside of Bhuj, 3.5 hours short of our final destination, Junagadh. Henish is a co-worker friend of mine who recently left his internship at my NGO to return to his home village to finish architecture school. He is my age and invited us to visit his village (where his family has lived for three generations) on our way to our final destination. A bus leaving at 630am from Bhuj dropped us in Morbi at 11am and Henish picked up Gabe and I in his spotless, new 8-seater Toyota something or other. Nicest car I saw in that town of 150,000 the whole day.
The Family Business: Urgently in need of a chai break after our 5:15am wake up, we arrived at Henish's father's office to a steaming hot teacup. His father along with his two brothers (Henish's uncles) own and operate a local Salt Works industry that was handed down from their grandfather. It has been in production for 42 years since 1967. Having just read a short booklet in Bhuj on the exploitation of local salt workers in Gujarat, Gabe and I had a lot of questions for Henish's father. After 10 minutes of salt yield amounts, export procedures, and company history, we arrived at the salt-making process and were informed that it would be better for us to see the operations ourselves. Sweet.
The Field: I fell asleep for most of the 35km (45min) car ride to the salt pans. But when I awoke, white was everywhere. Henish's father owns a 2km x 2km plot of barren field adjacent to the sea, covered by dozens of 100ft x 100ft pools of salt pans. A powerful generator works a pump that stretches into a creek full of seawater which floods twice daily, pumping the seawater up to the pools. The water then runs through a series of natural chemicals and minerals over a course of 15 days. During that period the water changes colors 7 different times and eventually the salt settles. Workers are then employed to rake the salt from the pans and deposit them in large piles on the service roads running parallel to the salt pools. The 10-ton piles of salt are collected each day and packaged into 20kg bags, stacked ten high on a platform almost a kilometer long, and picked up by a train that comes twice a month, to be dispersed throughout India and abroad. For miles and miles around, all you see are stacks of white, sparkling, salt crystals, naturally gathered, ready for export. It is blinding white. Henish's father says this is the only way in which salt is produced in the world. And, the US is #1 in salt production. I wonder where this happens in the US.
The Workers: we didn't get to see many of them since Friday was their day off. But we saw where they lived: barren, adobe style houses built here and there along the service roads between the salt pools. For 9 months out of a year (Oct-June) they live and work here, 6 days a week. Raking the salt fields. Henish's father employs 200 workers alone. I am told a couple (husband and wife) make about 400 rupees ($8 USD) in one day, depending on how much salt they can pan. In many families, children are held back from school 9 months a year to help in the salt pans since that means more money for the family. They struggle to catch up in school after the 9-month absence, and are without much exception restricted to the same work as their fathers (and mothers). There are major health risks related to working in a heavily saline environment as well: sunstroke, skin disease, festered wounds. These are some of the poorest of the poor in the region, lack adequate medical care, and spend the majority of their lives working -- and dying -- with the salt.
The Choices: Henish's great grandfather owned a grocery store in Nairobi, Kenya in the 1930's (then under the British Commonwealth) before moving to India. His son, Henish's grandfather, started these salt works in the late 60's and worked them for 35 years before retiring. Now his sons work the business and Henish's family is one of the wealthiest in town. They have nice cars, motorcycles, and a brand new house, designed by Henish himself. Henish is the oldest son, but has chosen not to take on the family business, simply because he can. Instead he will become an architect. His two younger brothers however will continue with the salt works. Henish's great uncles (his grandfather's brothers) also chose to do other things. One carried on the grocery store business in the UK, where they now operate 5 stores. The two remaining brothers each moved to the US and now live in Florida, working as lung doctors. Henish's first cousin in Florida is an eye doctor.
The Divide: Henish took us to 1 of only 2 suspension bridges in all of India as part of a tour of Morbi. As we crossed the 100-year old, 500-foot long bridge over a 100-foot drop to the river below, a large group of teenagers on a field trip joined us, and the metal bridge swayed intensely from side to side. The bridge was built over the river gorge by the King of Morbi to connect his palace with the rest of town. I asked Henish about the king of Morbi and was told the last one died in 1991 and only the queen remains, who has long since moved her residence from the palace to an estate nearby. The three daughters of the king and queen were sent off to the UK over 25 years ago to marry and live there. As the gorge divided the town from royalty and the rest, wealthy and poor, so do money and caste delineate work and upward mobility, adherence to the past and opportunities for the future. I asked Henish about his cousins living in the US:
me: are they your age? have you ever met them? Henish: they are my age, and they visited India once when they were young. That's when I met them. me: do they speak Gujarati? Henish: not a single word. Their grandfathers came to the US over 50 years ago, and the language was never taught to them. me: do they have any desire to come back to India? Henish: they want to visit, but they are not Indians. They look like Gabe more than they look like me. me: will you ever visit the US? Henish: I'd like to go to see the culture, I am interested to learn about it. me: would you ever go live there? Henish: no, India is my country. The village life is for me.
The Indian Experience: Henish's experience is not uncommon. Almost every middle-class Indian I have met has at least 1 relative living in either New Jersey, Toronto, or the Bay Area, and the caste system in this country ensures that almost every low-class, poor Indian has little choice in following in the footsteps of their forefathers when it comes to profession and social status. Those who make it out of the cycle of poverty to the US are to a degree envied, but given up for lost culturally. Bollywood movies portray the American stereotype and Indians who have assimilated into it as family-forsaking, money-crazed, alcoholic materialists.
But, as I found out, Henish is building his own suspension bridge. He would rather do something outside of the salt flats, but remain in his native India, helping the poor and marginalized through work at a grassroots NGO.
He is a strong, but rare, exception to the system.
